Ogden Nash – Nov 18, Iyengar II & I

Picked up Nash, a longtime New Yorker stalwart, after seeing Wes Anderson’s Paris Dispatch. For all my Type-A practitioners, take time to do nothing…harder than it sounds for some of us.

A STITCH TOO LATE IS MY FATE

There are some people of whom I would certainly like to be one,

Who are the people who get things done.

They balance their checkbooks every month and their figures always agree with the bank’s,

And they are prompt in writing letters of condolence or thanks.

They never leave anything to chance,

But always make reservations in advance.

When they get out of bed they never neglect to don slippers so they never pick up athlete's foot or a cold or a splinter,

And they hang their clothes up on hangers every night and put their winter clothes away every summer and their summer clothes away every winter.

Before spending any money they insist on getting an estimate or a sample,

And if they lose anything from a shoelace to a diamond ring it is covered by insurance more than ample.

They have budgets and what is more they live inside of them,

Even though it means eating things made by recipes clipped from the Sunday paper that you'd think they would have died of them.

They serve on committees

And improve their cities.

They are modern knight errants

Who remember their godchildren's birthdays and the anniversaries of their godchildren's parents,

And in cold weather they remember the birds and supply them with sunflower seed and suet,

And whatever they decide to do, whether it's to save twenty-five percent of their salary or learn Italian or write a musical comedy or touch their

toes a hundred times every morning before breakfast, why they go ahead and do it.

People who get things done lead contented lives, or at least I guess so,

And I certainly wish that either I were more like them or they were less so.