Journalists are reporting on the constant chaos, but they are not featuring the Congresspeople who are speaking up. Here are a few; there are many more.
On this Christmas eve we publish the O. Henry short story, 'The Gift of the Magi,' with illustrations by Adam Gudeon, a story that reminds us of what it means to give the gift of love.
My wife insists that I am never at a loss for something to write. It is how I sustain my idleness. Her belief in my productivity is almost as good as my actually being productive.
So here was this woman I’d never met — I did have the sense that I’d seen her before somewhere or other but still -- storming into my office to argue about what day it was. “If it was Wednesday,” I said, “Haggert would have been here instead of me.”
So, feeling anything but grateful, carrying an overnight case in each hand, Leo lets himself into the motel room while Sara takes the puppy on the stretch leash, the two wandering into the distance like snow ghosts.
... so this sentence, which is the story, which embodies the story, cannot be allowed to, has to be held in abeyance as it acknowledges an implicit mortality wholly alien to the nature of perfection ...
In Roy’s hometown in Vermont, everyone knew about his tragic loss. Here in New York City, his anonymity was almost comforting. He could wear his loss invisibly for a change. This was oddly a relief.
She had a hundred grievances against Jay, she had a litany of grievances — they often came to mind unbidden like the hypnogenic lyric of some ancient detergent commercial.
The tone of her voice plus the substance of her remarks were provoking, but B did what he could to keep his poise. He felt no sympathy for her, though he stirred the ashes of former affection hoping to find an ember.
After he unlocked the door with the key offered him, he warily stepped into a room very much like the bedroom of the house he lived in with his most recent former wife.
“Well, I prolly don't have much time left. That's why I wrote it to her. So I prolly wouldn't be able ta stop waitin on her ta write back before I had the chance ta do anything, before the old bucket kicked me. Guess everybody dies waitin for somethin they ain't gonna get though.”
For the most part he enjoyed the secrecy, as though he were absurdly undermining the conventions insisting upon his loneliness — his lostness, his girlfriend, his future in the world, his security, the shame upon his habit.
