Breeds of Misery: Decision, indecision, orphany, psychoanalysis
Best/Worst Verse:"Jenny made her mind up when she was three - she herself was going to trim the Christmas tree. Christmas Eve she lit the candles, tossed the taper away. Little Jenny was an orphan on Christmas Day.
"Poor Jenny! Bright as a penny! Her equal would be hard to find. She lost one dad and mother, a sister and a brother, but she would make up her mind."
So begins the saga of Jenny, an orphan prodigy whose life is filled with adventure and indecision - learning 27 languages, mistressing with 30 or more husbands in different states, mediating between the Roosevelt administration and Latin America, writing her tell-all memoirs at 51, deciding at 75 to become the oldest woman alive, and dying at 76. Is this story of the travails of a Christmas orphan the saddest ever told, or the happiest? I just can't decide!
(If this isn't enough yuletide misery for you, check out last year in my Annotated Playlists.)