Rules, Rules, and More Rules

MJ went hunting yesterday, as he does most Tuesday mornings, and among his scores, besides a really lovely, huge dendrobium orchid plant, was The Rule Book by Stephen M. Kirshner, Barry J. Pavelec, and Jeffrey Feinman. “Thousands of Reasonable, Raucous, Racy, Relevant, Remarkable, and Irresistible Rules to Read and Remember”.

I’ve decided that whenever I want to write, but am blocked, I will randomly quote from The Rule Book, in the theory that, whatever I randomly open to, will have some relevance to the mood, the day, or the circumstance. Sort of like a “Magic 8 Ball”, right?

Now, the “authors” compiled the rules for everything imaginable from sources ranging from the religious to the regulatory and a gazillion sources in between. Unfortunately, the way they arranged the book, all the sources are in one big list in the beginning, and no individual entry is attributed (except to somewhere in the huge list in the beginning.) So, I’m not going to even try. You will just know that when I close my eyes and flip the pages, whatever follows comes from “The Rule Book”. I’m a blogger, not a freaking research assistant.

Here we go…… closing eyes….flipping the pages…..stop….. point finger to……

Winston Churchill’s Rules For What To Do With Your Books (okay, how appropriate is that?)

1. Read them.
2. If you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them.
3. Peer into them.
4. Let them fall open where they will.
5. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye.
6. Then turn to another.
7. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas.
8. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands.
9. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are.
10. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquantances.
11. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.

Ol’ Winston understood a thing or two, eh?