Coarsely and Provocatively!

Did you know I quit my job teaching college? This time for reals! Here's the first thing that has made me sad about it: a sentence from THE LOVE OF THE LAST TYCOON. "Immediately she spoke to him coarsely and provocatively and pulled his face down to hers." I would like to tell those kids they can have three adverbs in a sentence if they want. Too late now! I tried to get Elizabeth to read THE SUNDIAL by Shirley Jackson, which is basically the story of her life, but she wouldn't do it because there were too many adverbs on the first page, or so she said! These tragedies must end. Oh well. Not my problem anymore. Next: "he was full of such tender love for her that he held her tight till a stitch tore in her dress." Whoa! All right! That made my heart pop. A few pages later the last tycoon complains, "When I want to know anything I've got to ask some drunken writer." So! I read all this by lantern-light just now during a terrible lightning storm when the power went out. We bought the lantern one night when I thought I might have to scare a fox with a golf club I found in a trash can, so I slept in a tent in the backyard with a bottle of wine, long story.