Added To My Collection Quotes

Once inside my skull, my doctor added some salt, just to taste.  He also poured some fruit into my skull – an apple, a pear, a few seedless grapes, and a ripe banana.  He then used an electric blender set on its highest speed to create what he had termed ‘a yogurt parfait.’  After he finished blending the ingredients, he beckoned the other doctors and a few of the nurses to sample his new concoction.

In the same way it takes ten thousand hours to master a skill, it takes ten thousand uncomfortable moments to acquire strength. And if you can look at every delay as a chance to practice patience and every breakup as a chance to strengthen your solitude, you start to see the terrible, uncomfortable, unforeseen events of life as moments to be collected and added to your arsenal of wisdom, knowledge, and personal development.

Our mothers taught us that in the old, old days, when they were their grandmothers and their grandmothers were old—for we are our grandmothers, you understand, only with lots of new and different things added

And while she read her cards and muttered to herself, I would leaf through my collection of cookery cards, incanting the names of never-tasted dishes like mantras, like the secret formulae of life. Boeuf en daube. Champignons farcis à la grèque. Escalopes à la Reine. Crème caramel. Schokoladentorte. Tiramisu. In the secret kitchen of my imagination I made them all, tested, tasted them, added to my collection of recipes wherever we went, pasted them into my scrapbook like photographs of old friends. They gave weight to my wanderings, the glossy clippings shining out from between the smeary pages like signposts along our erratic path. I bring them out now like long-lost friends. Soupe de tomates à la gasconne, served with fresh basil and a slice of tartelette méridonale, made on biscuit-thin pâte brisée and lush with the flavors of olive oil and anchovy and the rich local tomatoes, garnished with olives and roasted slowly to produce a concentration of flavors that seems almost impossible.

I added pieces the same way I’d constructed my body, from the inside out: boy-cut panties first (lacy), bra (sheer), stockings (thigh high), knee-length leather skirt (black), lime green midriff-baring shirt (polyester). David leaned against the wall and watched this striptease-in-reverse with fabulously expressive eyebrows slowly climbing toward heaven, I finished it off with a pair of strappy lime green three-inch heels, something from the Manolo Blahnik spring collection that I’d seen two months ago in Vogue. He looked me over, blinked behind the glasses, and asked, “You’re done?” I took offense, “Yeah. You with the fashion police?” “I don’t think I’d pass the entrance exam.” The eyebrows didn’t come down. “I never knew you were so…” “Fashionable?” “Not really the word I was thinking.” I struck a pose and looked at him from under my supernaturally lustrous eyelashes. “Come on, you know it’s sexy.” “And that’s sort of my point.

He looks up. Our eyes lock,and he breaks into a slow smile. My heart beats faster and faster. Almost there.He sets down his book and stands.And then this-the moment he calls my name-is the real moment everything changes. He is no longer St. Clair, everyone's pal, everyone's friend. He is Etienne. Etienne,like the night we met. He is Etienne,he is my friend. He is so much more. Etienne.My feet trip in three syllables. E-ti-enne. E-ti-enne, E-ti-enne. His name coats my tongue like melting chocolate. He is so beautiful, so perfect. My throat catches as he opens his arms and wraps me in a hug.My heart pounds furiously,and I'm embarrassed,because I know he feels it. We break apart, and I stagger backward. He catches me before I fall down the stairs. "Whoa," he says. But I don't think he means me falling. I blush and blame it on clumsiness. "Yeesh,that could've been bad." Phew.A steady voice. He looks dazed. "Are you all right?" I realize his hands are still on my shoulders,and my entire body stiffens underneath his touch. "Yeah.Great. Super!" "Hey,Anna. How was your break?" John.I forget he was here.Etienne lets go of me carefully as I acknowledge Josh,but the whole time we're chatting, I wish he'd return to drawing and leave us alone. After a minute, he glances behind me-to where Etienne is standing-and gets a funny expression on hs face. His speech trails off,and he buries his nose in his sketchbook. I look back, but Etienne's own face has been wiped blank. We sit on the steps together. I haven't been this nervous around him since the first week of school. My mind is tangled, my tongue tied,my stomach in knots. "Well," he says, after an excruciating minute. "Did we use up all our conversation over the holiday?" The pressure inside me eases enough to speak. "Guess I'll go back to the dorm." I pretend to stand, and he laughs. "I have something for you." He pulls me back down by my sleeve. "A late Christmas present." "For me? But I didn't get you anything!" He reaches into a coat pocket and brings out his hand in a fist, closed around something very small. "It's not much,so don't get excited." "Ooo,what is it?" "I saw it when I was out with Mum, and it made me think of you-" "Etienne! Come on!" He blinks at hearing his first name. My face turns red, and I'm filled with the overwhelming sensation that he knows exactly what I'm thinking. His expression turns to amazement as he says, "Close your eyes and hold out your hand." Still blushing,I hold one out. His fingers brush against my palm, and my hand jerks back as if he were electrified. Something goes flying and lands with a faith dink behind us. I open my eyes. He's staring at me, equally stunned. "Whoops," I say. He tilts his head at me. "I think...I think it landed back here." I scramble to my feet, but I don't even know what I'm looking for. I never felt what he placed in my hands. I only felt him. "I don't see anything! Just pebbles and pigeon droppings," I add,trying to act normal. Where is it? What is it? "Here." He plucks something tiny and yellow from the steps above him. I fumble back and hold out my hand again, bracing myself for the contact. Etienne pauses and then drops it from a few inches above my hand.As if he's avoiding me,too. It's a glass bead.A banana. He clears his throat. "I know you said Bridgette was the only one who could call you "Banana," but Mum was feeling better last weekend,so I took her to her favorite bead shop. I saw that and thought of you.I hope you don't mind someone else adding to your collection. Especially since you and Bridgette...you know..." I close my hand around the bead. "Thank you." "Mum wondered why I wanted it." "What did you tell her?" "That it was for you,of course." He says this like, duh. I beam.The bead is so lightweight I hardly feel it, except for the teeny cold patch it leaves in my palm.

I take the long way home and circle the neighborhood. The leaves have started to fall and collect in small heaps under the carefully spaced trees. I kick the piles, enjoying the sounds my feet make as I scatter them along the sidewalk, adding a small bit of extra chaos to the city. Every once and a while, I sniff the sleeves of my sweater. I kind of like that they stink of patchouli.

The rock I'd seen in my life looked dull because in all ignorance I'd never thought to knock it open. People have cracked ordinary New England pegmatite - big, coarse granite - and laid bare clusters of red garnets, or topaz crystals, chrysoberyl, spodumene, emerald. They held in their hands crystals that had hung in a hole in the dark for a billion years unseen. I was all for it. I would lay about me right and left with a hammer, and bash the landscape to bits. I would crack the earth's crust like a piñata and spread to the light the vivid prizes in chunks within. Rock collecting was opening the mountains. It was like diving through my own interior blank blackness to remember the startling pieces of a dream: there was a blue lake, a witch, a lighthouse, a yellow path. It was like poking about in a grimy alley and finding an old, old coin. Nothing was at it seemed. The earth was like a shut eye. Mother's not dead, dear - she's only sleeping. Pry open the thin lid and find a crystalline intelligence inside, a rayed and sidereal beauty. Crystals grew inside rock like arithmetical flowers. They lengthened and spread, adding plane to plane in awed and perfect obedience to an absolute geometry that even the stones - maybe only the stones - understood.

The moral of the story, Son," Pun would say, "is Don't take more on your heart than you can shake off on your heels." Of all lessons, that one I never learned and I hope I never do. My heart daily grows new foliage, always adding people, picking up new heartaches like a wool coat collects cockleburs and beggar's-lice seeds. It gets fuller and fuller as I walk slow as a sloth, carrying all the pain Pun and Frank and so many others tried to walk from. Especially the pain of the lost forest. Sometimes there is no leaving, no looking westward for another promised land. We have to nail our shoes to the kitchen floor and unload the burden of our heart. We have to set to the task of repairing the damage done by and to us.

that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!" "It ought to be good," he replied, "it has been the work of many generations." "And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books." "I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these." "Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley." "I wish it may.

The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!” He added, after a pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.

The truth is, I’ve been angry my entire life. When I was young, I was very sensitive to the world’s cruelty, and it filled me with an unbearable fury. I ignored all the good things in my life and focused solely on the injustice around me. I became bitter, I became depressed, and I became desperate to get rid of my rage. But I didn’t go about taking the proper steps to help myself. I was too embarrassed and prideful to seek the treatment I needed. Instead I pushed all my anger deep within myself, and I hoped if I pushed it deep enough, I’d never be able to find it. Over the years, I added more and more anger to my secret collection, and eventually, I created a monster inside me.

I wonder why he hastened to tell us that George Hearne was buried in the churchyard, and then added that naturally he was!' 'It's the natural place to be buried in,' said I. 'Quite. That's just why it was hardly worth mentioning.' I felt then, just momentarily, just vaguely, as if my mind was regarding stray pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. The fancied ringing of the telephone bell last night was one of them, this burial of George Hearne in the churchyard was another, and, even more inexplicably, the ladder I had seen under the trees was a third. Consciously I made nothing whatever out of them, and did not feel the least inclination to devote any ingenuity to so fortuitous a collection of pieces. Why shouldn't I add, for that matter, our morning's bathe, or the gorse on the hillside? But I had the sensation that, though my conscious brain was presently occupied with piquet, and was rapidly growing sleepy with the day of sun and sea, some sort of mole inside it was digging passages and connecting corridors below the soil. ("Expiation")

It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It’s when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future to Him and to mind the present.

When asked about her involvements, Joni most often refers to her work at JAF Ministries, including Wheels for the World—a program through which used wheelchairs are collected, refurbished, and hand-delivered, along with Bibles, to needy disabled people in developing nations. Chuck Colson has stated, “My friend Joni Eareckson Tada is one of God’s choice servants of today.” Philip Yancey has added, “Through her public example, Joni has done more to straighten out warped views of suffering than all the theologians put together. Her life is a triumph of healing—a healing of the spirit, the most difficult kind.” You can read more about this remarkable woman in the twentieth-anniversary edition of her autobiography, titled Joni, published by Zondervan.

I stayed up late that night peering up at the rafters, thinking on Thena’s words. A beautiful woman, the kindest heart, did not gossip, kept to herself. I added this to the memories of her I’d collected from the people on the Street. Thena could not know how much I needed those small jigsaws of my mother, which together, over the years, I forged into a portrait of the woman who lived in dreams, like Big John, but only as smoke.

And I also believe networking has become shallow,” I say. “Everyone is so concerned with connecting on social media, adding followers, collecting business cards, and shaking as many hands as they can at a cocktail party. But how strong is that network when you really don’t know the people? Sure, coffee is great, but I still think you need to go deeper. That’s why experiences are so important, especially experiences you do with others.

Where's Pip? I want to see Pip. Produce Pip!"—"What's the row, my lord?"—"Shakspeare's an infernal humbug, Pip! What's the good of Shakspeare, Pip? I never read him. What the devil is it all about, Pip? There's a lot of feet in Shakspeare's verse, but there an't any legs worth mentioning in Shakspeare's plays, are there, Pip? Juliet, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and all the rest of 'em, whatever their names are, might as well have no legs at all, for anything the audience know about it, Pip. Why, in that respect they're all Miss Biffins to the audience, Pip. I'll tell you what it is. What the people call dramatic poetry is a collection of sermons. Do I go to the theatre to be lectured? No, Pip. If I wanted that, I'd go to church. What's the legitimate object of the drama, Pip? Human nature. What are legs? Human nature. Then let us have plenty of leg pieces, Pip, and I'll stand by you, my buck!" and I am proud to say,' added Pip, 'that he did stand by me, handsomely.

We’re trying to figure women out,” he explained. “What, in your opinion, would be the best Valentine’s Day present ever?” “We’re easy to please, any small detail will do,” Tate said. The collective male snort was loud. “It’s true,” Christy added coming out in her defence. “Yeah right. Any small detail will do, my ass,” Max began. “Let’s put it this way: what do my poor bros have to do for Valentine’s Day so that their Steak and BJ Day in a month will be memorable and won’t degrade into a handy and a hamburger?

At this point, one of the elevators went ‘ping!’ so I whipped Carol across my lap, making it look as if I had her in a full embrace. The doors opened … and the elevator was packed …. Nobody got out, nobody got in. As the doors closed, they collectively leaned toward the center so they could get a better view. Carol and I simply cracked up. Suddenly another elevator went ‘ping’; I quickly dipped Carol over my knee again. The doors opened and a lone woman stepped out, glanced at us both, and then hurried on down the hall. By now, we were both weeping with laughter. Carol slid off my knee and crawled behind the sofa to hide. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. She couldn’t even reply, she was laughing so hard. With a touch of panic, I noticed that the lady who had just passed us had turned around and was now coming back. Leaning over the sofa, she inquired, ‘Excuse me, are you Carol Burnett?’ In a strangled voice Carol said, ‘Yes,” Then raising a hand above the sofa to point at me, she added, ‘And this is my friend, Mary Poppins!

Leta walked to the door and opened it with a ready smile for Colby Lane. And found herself looking straight into the eye of a man she hadn’t seen face-to-face in thirty-six years. Matt Holden matched her face against his memories of a young, slight, beautiful woman whose eyes loved him every time they looked at him. His heart spun like a cartwheel in his chest. “Cecily said it was Colby,” Leta said unsteadily. “Strange. She phoned me and asked if I was free this evening.” His broad shoulders shrugged and he smiled faintly. “I’m free every evening.” “That doesn’t sound like the life of a playboy widower,” Leta said caustically. “My wife was a vampire,” he said. “She sucked me dry of life and hope. Her drinking wore me down. Her death was a relief for both of us. Do I get to come in?” he added, glancing down the hall. “I’m going to collect dust if I stand out here much longer, and I’m hungry. A sack of McDonald’s hamburgers and fries doesn’t do a lot for me.” “I hear it’s a presidential favorite,” Cecily mused, joining them. “Come in, Senator Holden.” “It was Matt before,” he pointed out. “Or are you trying to butter me up for a bigger donation to the museum?” She shrugged. “Pick a reason.” He looked at Leta, who was uncomfortable. “Well, at least you can’t hang up on me here. You’ll be glad to know that our son isn’t speaking to me. He isn’t speaking to you, either, or so he said,” he added. “I suppose he won’t talk to you?” he added to Cecily. “He said goodbye very finally, after telling me that I was an idiot to think he’d change his mind and want to marry me just because he turned out to have mixed blood,” she said, not relating the shocking intimacy that had prefaced his remarks. “I’ll punch him for that,” Matt said darkly. “Ex-special forces,” Leta spoke up with a faint attempt at humor, nodding toward Matt. “He was in uniform when we went on our first date.” “You wore a white cotton dress with a tiered skirt,” he recalled, “and let your hair down. Hair…” He turned back to Cecily and grimaced. “Good God, what did you do that for?” “Tate likes long hair, that’s what I did it for,” she said, venom in her whole look. “I can’t wait for him to see it, even if I have to settle for sending him a photo!” “I hope you never get mad at me,” Matt said. “Fat chance.

Sometimes people ask me, Why flowers, Ella? The truth is I cannot remember when life, for me, wasn’t about flowers. Right from when I was tiny and I used to collect wild flowers on walks with my gran, mesmerised by the colours and the scents and the way you could make the whole impact and mood change by combining them in different ways. The simple, joyful sunburst of a huge fistful of primroses, then the softening and mellowing effect if you added in just a few bluebells for the surprise, the contrast. The hint of the Mediterranean, with the blue and the yellow together.

How did you even get in here?” I asked him. “Would you believe they leave the door open all night?” Gus asked. “Um, no,” I said. “As well you shouldn’t.” Gus smiled. “Anyway, I know it’s a bit self-aggrandizing.” “Hey, you’re stealing my eulogy,” Isaac said. “My first bit is about how you were a self-aggrandizing bastard.” I laughed. “Okay, okay,” Gus said. “At your leisure.” Isaac cleared his throat. “Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should have gotten more.” “Seventeen,” Gus corrected. “I’m assuming you’ve got some time, you interrupting bastard. “I’m telling you,” Isaac continued, “Augustus Waters talked so much that he’d interrupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness. “But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.” I was kind of crying by then. “And then, having made my rhetorical point, I will put my robot eyes on, because I mean, with robot eyes you can probably see through girls’ shirts and stuff. Augustus, my friend, Godspeed.” Augustus nodded for a while, his lips pursed, and then gave Isaac a thumbs-up. After he’d recovered his composure, he added, “I would cut the bit about seeing through girls’ shirts.” Isaac was still clinging to the lectern. He started to cry. He pressed his forehead down to the podium and I watched his shoulders shake, and then finally, he said, “Goddamn it, Augustus, editing your own eulogy.” “Don’t swear in the Literal Heart of Jesus,” Gus said. “Goddamn it,” Isaac said again. He raised his head and swallowed. “Hazel, can I get a hand here?” I’d forgotten he couldn’t make his own way back to the circle. I got up, placed his hand on my arm, and walked him slowly back to the chair next to Gus where I’d been sitting. Then I walked up to the podium and unfolded the piece of paper on which I’d printed my eulogy. “My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should. I’d hoped that he’d be eulogizing me, because there’s no one I’d rather have…” I started crying. “Okay, how not to cry. How am I—okay. Okay.” I took a few breaths and went back to the page. “I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set.

I did it again, Robert Childan informed himself. Impossible to avoid the topic. Because it's everywhere, in a book I happen to pick up or a record collection, in these bone napkin rings -- loot piled up by the conquerors. Pillage from my people. Face facts. I'm trying to pretend that the Japanese and I are alike. But observe: even when I burst out as to my gratification that they won the war, that my nation is lost -- there's still no common ground. What words mean to me is a sharp contrast vis-à-vis them. Their brains are different. Souls likewise. Witness them drinking from English bone china cups, eating with U.S. silver, listening to Negro style of music. It's all on the surface. Advantage of wealth and power makes this available to them, but it's ersatz as the day is long. Even the I Ching, which they've forced down our throats; it's Chinese. Borrowed from way back when. Whom are they fooling? Themselves? Pilfer customs right and left, wear, eat, talk, walk, as for instance consuming with gusto baked potato served with sour cream and chives, old-fashioned American dish added to their haul. But nobody fooled, I can tell you; me least of all.

The Pretender" I'm going to rent myself a house In the shade of the freeway I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning And go to work each day And when the evening rolls around I'll go on home and lay my body down And when the morning light comes streaming in I'll get up and do it again Amen Say it again Amen I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening I've been aware of the time going by They say in the end it's the wink of an eye And when the morning light comes streaming in You'll get up and do it again Amen Caught between the longing for love And the struggle for the legal tender Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring And the junk man pounds his fender Where the veterans dream of the fight Fast asleep at the traffic light And the children solemnly wait For the ice cream vendor Out into the cool of the evening Strolls the Pretender He knows that all his hopes and dreams Begin and end there Ah the laughter of the lovers As they run through the night Leaving nothing for the others But to choose off and fight And tear at the world with all their might While the ships bearing their dreams Sail out of sight I'm going to find myself a girl Who can show me what laughter means And we'll fill in the missing colors In each other's paint-by-number dreams And then we'll put our dark glasses on And we'll make love until our strength is gone And when the morning light comes streaming in We'll get up and do it again Get it up again I'm going to be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy Though true love could have been a contender Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976)

I know wot it is,’ said Mrs. Kemp, shaking her head; ‘the fact is, you ain’t used ter drinkin’, an’ of course it’s upset yer. Now me, why I’m as fresh as a disy. Tike my word, there ain’t no good in teetotalism; it finds yer aht in the end, an’ it’s found you aht.’ Mrs. Kemp considered it a judgment of Providence. She got up and mixed some whisky and water. ‘‘Ere, drink this,’ she said. ‘When one’s ‘ad a drop too much at night, there’s nothin’ like havin’ a drop more in the mornin’ ter put one right. It just acts like magic.’ ‘Tike it awy,’ said Liza, turning from it in disgust; ‘the smell of it gives me the sick. I’ll never touch spirits again.

This collection of short stories was first published in 1914, two years after Stoker’s death. Now, it is widely believed that Dracula’s Guest is actually the deleted first chapter from the original Dracula manuscript, which the publisher deemed superfluous to the story, although some scholars disagree with this belief.  In the preface of the collection, Stoker’s wife Florence explains, “To his original list of stories in this book, I have added an hitherto unpublished episode from Dracula. It was originally excised owing to the length of the book, and may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered my husband’s most remarkable work.

By the time we had reached the chestnut grove in front of the inn I had said so little that my companion was sure I was one of the most intelligent women he had ever met. I know he thought so, for he turned suddenly to me as we were walking past the Frau Förster’s wash-house and rose-garden up to the chestnuts, and said, ‘How is it that German women are so infinitely more intellectual than English women?’ Intellectual! How nice. And all the result of keeping quiet in the right places. ‘I did not know they were,’ I said modestly; which was true. ‘Oh but they are,’ he assured me with great positiveness; and added, ‘Perhaps you have noticed that I am English?’ Noticed

So, have you been ostracized from your little crowd of devotees?” “No,” I say automatically. Then I add, “Maybe. But they aren’t my devotees.” “Please. They’re like the Cult of Four.” I can’t help but laugh. “Jealous? Wish you had a Cult of Psychopaths to call your very own?” One of his eyebrows twitches up. “If I was a psychopath, I would have killed you in your sleep by now.” “And added my eyeballs to your eyeball collection, no doubt.” Peter laughs too, and I realize that I am exchanging jokes and conversation with the initiate who stabbed Edward in the eye and tried to kill my girlfriend--if she’s still that. But then, he’s also the Dauntless who helped us end the attack simulation and saved Tris from a horrible death. I am not sure which actions should weigh more heavily on my mind. Maybe I should forget them all, let him begin again. “Maybe you should join my little group of hated people,” says Peter. “So far Caleb and I are the only members, but given how easy it is to get on that girl’s bad side, I’m sure our numbers will grow.” I stiffen. “You’re right, it is easy to get on her bad side. All you have to do is try to get her killed.” My stomach clenches. I almost got her killed. If she had been standing closer to the explosion, she might be like Uriah, hooked up to tubes in the hospital, her mind quiet. No wonder she doesn’t know if she wants to stay with me or not.

Here is a little boy,” said Bingo, indicating me to the strange lady, “who wets his bed every night. Do you know what I am going to do if you wet your bed again?” she added, turning to me. “I am going to get the Sixth Form to beat you.” The strange lady put on an air of being inexpressibly shocked, and exclaimed “I-should-think-so!” And here occurred one of those wild, almost lunatic misunderstandings which are part of the daily experience of childhood. The Sixth Form was a group of older boys who were selected as having “character” and were empowered to beat smaller boys. I had not yet learned of their existence, and I mis-heard the phrase “the Sixth Form” as “Mrs. Form.” I took it as referring to the strange lady—I thought, that is, that her name was Mrs. Form. It was an improbable name, but a child has 110 judgement in such matters. I imagined, therefore, that it was she who was to be deputed to beat me. It did Dot strike me as strange that this job should be turned over to a casual visitor in no way connected with the school. I merely assumed that “Mrs. Form” was a stern disciplinarian who enjoyed beating people (somehow her appearance seemed to bear this out) and I had an immediate terrifying vision of her arriving for the occasion in full riding kit and armed with a hunting whip. To this day I can feel myself almost swooning with shame as I stood, a very small, round-faced boy in short corduroy knickers, before the two women. I could not speak. I felt that I should die if “Mrs. Form” were to beat me. But my dominant feeling was not fear or even resentment: it was simply shame because one more person, and that a woman, had been told of my disgusting offence.

I took care to replace the Compendium in its correct pamphlet, and in doing so dislodged a slim pamphlet by Grastrom, one of the most eccentric authors in Solarist literature. I had read the pamphlet, which was dictated by the urge to understand what lies beyond the individual, man, and the human species. It was the abstract, acidulous work of an autodidact who had previously made a series of unusual contributions to various marginal and rarefied branches of quantum physics. In this fifteen-page booklet (his magnum opus!), Grastrom set out to demonstrate that the most abstract achievements of science, the most advanced theories and victories of mathematics represented nothing more than a stumbling, one or two-step progression from our rude, prehistoric, anthropomorphic understanding of the universe around us. He pointed out correspondences with the human body-the projections of our sense, the structure of our physical organization, and the physiological limitations of man-in the equations of the theory of relativity, the theorem of magnetic fields and the various unified field theories. Grastrom’s conclusion was that there neither was, nor could be any question of ‘contact’ between mankind and any nonhuman civilization. This broadside against humanity made no specific mention of the living ocean, but its constant presence and scornful, victorious silence could be felt between every line, at any rate such had been my own impression. It was Gibarian who drew it to my attention, and it must have been Giarian who had added it to the Station’s collection, on his own authority, since Grastrom’s pamphlet was regarded more as a curiosity than a true contribution to Solarist literature

What happened?” Dallas asked immediately, his hand reaching out toward Louie. I didn’t miss how Lou took his hand instantly. “She called me a brat,” Louie blurted out, his other little hand coming up to meet with the one already clutching our neighbor’s. I blinked and told myself I was not going to look at Christy until I had the full story. “Why?” Dallas was the one who asked. “He spilled some of his hot chocolate on her purse,” it was Josh who explained. “He said sorry, but she called him a brat. I told her not to talk to my brother like that, and she told me I should have learned to respect my elders.” For the second time around this woman, I went to ten. Straight through ten, past Go, and collected two hundred dollars. “I tried to wipe it up,” Louie offered, those big blue eyes going back and forth between Dallas and me for support. “You should teach these boys to watch where they’re going,” Christy piped up, taking a step back. Be an adult. Be a role model, I tried telling myself. “It was an accident,” I choked out. “He said he was sorry… and your purse is leather and black, and it’ll be fine,” I managed to grind out like this whole thirty-second conversation was jabbing me in the kidneys with sharp knives. “I’d like an apology,” the woman, who had gotten me suspended and made me cry, added quickly. I stared at her long face. “For what?” “From Josh, for being so rude.” My hand started moving around the outside of my purse, trying to find the inner compartment when Louie suddenly yelled, “Mr. Dallas, don’t let her get her pepper spray!” The fuck? Oh my God. I glared at Louie. “I was looking for a baby wipe to offer her one, Lou. I wasn’t getting my pepper spray.” “Nuh-uh,” he argued, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christy take a step back. “I heard you on the phone with Vanny. You said, you said if she made you mad again you were gonna pepper spray her and her mom and her mom’s mom in the—” “Holy sh—oot, Louie!” My face went red, and I opened my mouth to argue that he hadn’t heard me correctly. But… I had said those words. They had been a joke, but I’d said them. I glanced at Dallas, the serious, easygoing man who happened to look in that instant like he was holding back a fart but was hopefully just a laugh, and finally peeked at the woman who I’d like to think brought this upon herself. “Christy, I would never do that—” ... I cleared my throat and popped my lips. “Well, that was awkward.” “I’m not a brat.” Louie was still hung up and outraged. I pointed my finger at him. “You’re a tattletale, that’s what you are. Nosey Rosie. What did I tell you about snitches?” “You love them?

Much of the so-called environmental movement today has transmuted into an aggressively nefarious and primitive faction. In the last fifteen years, many of the tenets of utopian statism have coalesced around something called the “degrowth” movement. Originating in Europe but now taking a firm hold in the United States, the “degrowthers,” as I shall characterize them, include in their ranks none other than President Barack Obama. On January 17, 2008, Obama made clear his hostility toward, of all things, electricity generated from coal and coal-powered plants. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal . . . under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. . . .”3 Obama added, “. . . So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”4 Degrowthers define their agenda as follows: “Sustainable degrowth is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions.”5 It “is an essential economic strategy to pursue in overdeveloped countries like the United States—for the well-being of the planet, of underdeveloped populations, and yes, even of the sick, stressed, and overweight ‘consumer’ populations of overdeveloped countries.”6 For its proponents and adherents, degrowth has quickly developed into a pseudo-religion and public-policy obsession. In fact, the degrowthers insist their ideology reaches far beyond the environment or even its odium for capitalism and is an all-encompassing lifestyle and governing philosophy. Some of its leading advocates argue that “Degrowth is not just an economic concept. We shall show that it is a frame constituted by a large array of concerns, goals, strategies and actions. As a result, degrowth has now become a confluence point where streams of critical ideas and political action converge.”7 Degrowth is “an interpretative frame for a social movement, understood as the mechanism through which actors engage in a collective action.”8 The degrowthers seek to eliminate carbon sources of energy and redistribute wealth according to terms they consider equitable. They reject the traditional economic reality that acknowledges growth as improving living conditions generally but especially for the impoverished. They embrace the notions of “less competition, large scale redistribution, sharing and reduction of excessive incomes and wealth.”9 Degrowthers want to engage in polices that will set “a maximum income, or maximum wealth, to weaken envy as a motor of consumerism, and opening borders (“no-border”) to reduce means to keep inequality between rich and poor countries.”10 And they demand reparations by supporting a “concept of ecological debt, or the demand that the Global North pays for past and present colonial exploitation in the Global South.”11

Thanks for the ride.It was really nice of you." "No worrie. Since I'm down here, maybe I'll swing by Geno's for a cheesesteak." He shook his head. "You saw what was in my fridge." "I did. Alex..." I could ask. It would be so easy. A pizza,some of Nonna's fettuccine... "I had a good time," I told him. Coward, I scolded myself. "I didn't expect to." "Yeah,well,you can't beat a good raptor attack. Next time before we get started, I'll show you my French comic book collection..." He wiggled his eyebrows at me in perv fashion. "Then we'll work." "Okay," I agreed. "Sounds good." I started up the sidewalk. Instead of going home,I'd decided to go over to Marino's. Offer to peel garlic or something.Dad would appreciate it. "Hey,Ella." I turned. "Yeah?" "I'll see you tomorrow." I must have looked blank. "At the dance," he added. "Oh.Yeah.See you tomorrow." I turned back toward the restaurant. "Hey,Ella." "Yeah?" "J'ai passe un tres bon moment, aussi." When I just stared at him again, he snorted. "Work it out." I did,but not before he'd driven away. He'd had a really good time,too.

But Willi had withdrawn himself. For one thing, he did not approve of such bohemianism as collective bedroom breakfasts. “If we were married,” he had complained, “it might be all right.” I laughed at him, and he said: “Yes. Laugh. But there’s sense in the old rules. They kept people out of trouble.” He was annoyed because I laughed, and said that a woman in my position needed extra dignity of behaviour. “What position?”—I was suddenly very angry, because of the trapped feeling women get at such moments. “Yes, Anna, but things are different for men and for women. They always have been and they very likely always will be.” “Always have been?”—inviting him to remember his history. “For as long as it matters.” “Matters to you—not to me.” But we had had this quarrel before; we knew all the phrases either was likely to use—the weakness of women, the property sense of men, women in antiquity, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. We knew it was a clash of temperament so profound that no words could make any difference to either of us—the truth was that we shocked each other in our deepest feelings and instincts all the time. So

Of course, with my parents, my three sisters, and Colston already sharing that one room, adding me to the mix made it just too crowded. So my sister Sara volunteered to sleep in my hospital room. When we were ready to settle in for the night, she headed back over to the hospital and climbed into my hospital bed. She tucked the pillows all around herself, got comfortable, pulled up the blankets, and fell asleep. She wasn’t asleep long, however. She was in a hospital, after all. Throughout the night, in a hospital, doctors and nurses go on rounds. In the middle of the night a group of doctors and nurses on the night shift all shuffled into the room, talking about my case, and startled Sara from her slumber. She poked her head out of the covers. The doctors all collectively gasped and one of them said, “Who are you?” She nervously laughed and said, “Oh! Sorry. I’m Noah’s sister Sara. Noah stayed at the Mologne House tonight with our family.” “Oh, he did?” the doctor replied, sounding very surprised but pleased. “Well, that’s huge!” They were still standing in the room so Sara said, “Yeah, it is. So I am sleeping in here.” She waited for them to get the hint. They started laughing and told her they would let her get back to sleep.

With our desire to have more, we find ourselves spending more and more time and energy to manage and maintain everything we have. We try so hard to do this that the things that were supposed to help us end up ruling us. We eventually get used to the new state where our wishes have been fulfilled. We start taking those things for granted and there comes a time when we start getting tired of what we have. We're desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are. The objects that are supposed to represent our qualities become our qualities themselves. There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom and energy. When people say something is impossible, they have already decided that they don't want to do it. Differentiate between things you want and things you need. Leave your unused space empty. These open areas are incredibly useful. They bring us a sense of freedom and keep our minds open to the more important things in life. Memories are wonderful but you won't have room to develop if your attachment to the past is too strong. It's better to cut some of those ties so you can focus on what's important today. Don't get creative when you are trying to discard things. There's no need to stock up. An item chosen with passion represents perfection to us. Things we just happen to pick up, however, are easy candidates for disposal or replacement. As long as we stick to owning things that we really love, we aren't likely to want more. Our homes aren't museum, they don't need collections. When you aren't sure that you really want to part with something, try stowing it away for a while. Larger furniture items with bold colors will in time trigger visual fatigue and then boredom. Discarding things can be wasteful. But the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste. The real waste is the psychological damage that you accrue from hanging on to things you don't use or need. We find our originality when we own less. When you think about it, it's experience that builds our unique characteristics, not material objects. I've lowered my bar for happiness simply by switching to a tenugui. When even a regular bath towel can make you happy, you'll be able to find happiness almost everywhere. For the minimalist, the objective isn't to reduce, it's to eliminate distractions so they can focus on the things that are truly important. Minimalism is just the beginning. It's a tool. Once you've gone ahead and minimized, it's time to find out what those important things are. Minimalism is built around the idea that there's nothing that you're lacking. You'll spend less time being pushed around by something that you think may be missing. The qualities I look for in the things that I buy are: - the item has a minimalistic kind of shape and is easy to clean - it's color isn't too loud - I'll be able to use it for a long time - it has a simple structure - it's lightweight and compact - it has multiple uses A relaxed moment is not without meaning, it's an important time for reflection. It wasn't the fallen leaves that the lady had been tidying up, it was her own laziness that she had been sweeping away. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. With daily cleaning, the reward may be the sense of accomplishment and calmness we feel afterward. Cleaning your house is like polishing yourself. Simply by living an organized life, you'll be more invigorated, more confident and like yourself better. Having parted with the bulk of my belongings, I feel true contentment with my day-to-day life. The very act of living brings me joy. When you become a minimalist, you free yourself from all the materialist messages that surround us. All the creative marketing and annoying ads no longer have an effect on you.

Are his letters to Diana downstairs?" She sighed. "What is it about girls and letters? My husband left me messages in soap on the bathroom mirror. Utterly impermanent.Really wonderful-" She broke off and scowled. I would have thought she looked a little embarrassed, but I didn't think embarrassment was in her repertoire. "Anyway. Most of the correspondence between the Willings is in private collections. He had their letters with him in Paris when he died. In a noble but ultimately misguided act, his attorney sent them to his neice. Who put them all in a ghastly book that she illustrated. Her son sold them to finance the publication of six even more ghastly books of poetry. I trust there is a circle of hell for terrible poets who desecrate art." "I've seen the poetry books in the library," I told her. "The ones with Edward's paintings on the covers. I couldn't bring myself to read them." "Smart girl. I suppose worse things have been done, but not many.Of course, there was that god-awful children's television show that made one of his landscapes move.They put kangaroos in it. Kangaroos. In eastern Pennsylvania." "I've seen that,too," I admitted. I'd hated it. "Hated it.Not quite as much as the still life where Tastykakes replaced one orange with a cupcake, or the portrait of Diana dressed in a Playtex sports bra, but close." "Oh,God. I try to forget about the bra." Dr. Rothaus shuddered. "Well, I suppose they do far worse to the really famous painters.Poor van Gogh. All those hearing-aid ads." "Yeah." We shared a moment of quiet respect for van Gogh's ear.

and Flatheads are wicked people or my enemies. Perhaps they would be good and listen to reason." "Dorothy is right, your Majesty," asserted the Sorceress. "It is true we know nothing of these faraway subjects, except that they intend to fight one another, and have a certain amount of magic power at their command. Such folks do not like to submit to interference and they are more likely to resent your coming among them than to receive you kindly and graciously, as is your due." "If you had an army to take with you," added Dorothy, "it wouldn't be so bad; but there isn't such a thing as an army in all Oz." "I have one soldier," said Ozma. "Yes, the soldier with the green whiskers; but he's dreadful 'fraid of his gun and never loads it. I'm sure he'd run rather than fight. And one soldier, even if he were brave, couldn't do much against two hundred and one Flatheads and Skeezers." "What then, my friends, would you suggest?" inquired Ozma. "I advise you to send the Wizard of Oz to them, and let him inform them that it is against the laws of Oz to fight, and that you command them to settle their differences and become friends," proposed Glinda. "Let the Wizard tell them they will be punished if they refuse to obey the commands of the Princess of all the Land of Oz." Ozma shook her head, to indicate that the advice was not to her satisfaction. "If they refuse, what then?" she asked. "I should be obliged to carry out my threat and punish them, and that would be an unpleasant and difficult thing to do. I am sure it would be better for me to go peacefully, without an army and armed only with my authority as Ruler, and plead with them to obey me. Then, if they prove obstinate I could resort to other means to win their obedience." "It's a ticklish thing, anyhow you look at it," sighed Dorothy.

Sean Penn mourned the death of the fifty-eight-year-old socialist creep. Sean wrote in a statement sent to the Hollywood Reporter: “Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion.” He added: “I lost a friend I was blessed to have.” Penn needs to tell you that he knew the guy. A world leader. That’s cool. I guess playing Jeff Spicoli and marrying Madonna wasn’t enough (one made your career, the other ruined your urinary tract). Yeah, this is the same chap who told Piers Morgan that Ted Cruz should be institutionalized. Talk about the pot calling the kettle batshit crazy. If Penn got any nuttier, he’d be a Snickers bar. Of course it would be uncool to point out to Penn that Chávez was no champion of the poor. Under his rule people became far poorer in Venezuela. And in the midst of an oil boom, Chávez engineered a murder boom. The murder rate in his country tripled during Chávez’s tyrannical tenure, hitting a high of 67 per 100,000 residents in 2011, compared with a murder rate of less than 5 per 100,000 in the United States (and that includes Baltimore). And about 10 or 20 less than the last Penn movie. Penn was joined, per usual, by director Oliver Stone, who said, solemnly, somewhere: “I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place.” He added: “Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chávez will live forever in history. “My friend, rest finally in a peace long earned.” This is from an adult, mind you. And no list of apologists for evil is complete without Michael Moore. This nugget comes from the Michigan Live website, which reports Moore praising Chávez in a feeble collection of Twitter messages, on the night the Venezuelan viper expired. Hugo Chávez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all. That made him dangerous. US

Catherine broke off as she saw something among the drafts of structures and landscapes and the pages of notes. A pencil sketch of a woman … a naked woman reclining on her side, light hair flowing everywhere. One slender thigh rested coyly over the other, partially concealing the delicate shadow of a feminine triangle. And there was an all-too-familiar pair of spectacles balanced on her nose. Catherine picked up the sketch with a trembling hand, while her heart lurched in hard strikes against her ribs. It took several attempts before she could speak, her voice high and airless. “That’s me.” Leo had lowered to the carpeted floor beside her. He nodded, looking rueful. His own color heightened until his eyes were startlingly blue in contrast. “Why?” she whispered. “It wasn’t meant to be demeaning,” he said. “It was for my own eyes, no one else’s.” She forced herself to look at the sketch again, feeling horribly exposed. In fact, she couldn’t have been more embarrassed had he actually been viewing her naked. And yet the rendering was far from crude or debasing. The woman had been drawn with long, graceful lines, the pose artistic. Sensuous. “You … you’ve never seen me like this,” she managed to say, before adding weakly, “Have you?” A self-deprecating smile touched his lips. “No, I haven’t yet descended to voyeurism.” He paused. “Did I get it right? It’s not easy, guessing what you look like beneath all those layers.” A nervous giggle struggled through her mortification. “If you did, I certainly wouldn’t admit it.” She put the sketch onto the pile, facedown. Her hand was shaking. “Do you draw other women this way?” she asked timidly. Leo shook his head. “I started with you, and so far I haven’t moved on.” Her flush deepened. “You’ve done other sketches like this? Of me unclothed?” “One or two.” He tried to look repentant. “Oh, please, please destroy them.” “Certainly. But honesty compels me to tell you that I’ll probably only do more. It’s my favorite hobby, drawing you naked.” Catherine moaned and buried her face in her hands. Her voice slipped out between the tense filter of her fingers. “I wish you would take up collecting something instead.

I think we all collectively have gone a little crazy. We worry about the wrong things. I have an acquaintance, Christy, whose twelve–year–old son managed to get into a very violent PG–13 movie. I don’t know how many machine–gunnings, explosions, and killings this boy wound up witnessing. As I recall, the boy had nightmares for a week afterward. That disturbed his mother—but not as much as if her son had stumbled into a different kind of movie. “At least there wasn’t any sex,” she said with dead–serious concern. “No,” I said, “probably not a single bare breast.” I didn’t add that most societies do not regard the adult female breast as being primarily an object of sexual desire. After all, it’s just a big gland that makes milk in order to feed hungry babies. “You know what I’m talking about,” she snapped. “I mean graphic sex.” We were sitting in a café drinking tea. She cut off the volume of her speech at the end of her sentence, whispering and exaggerating the consonants of S–E–X as if she needed me to read her lips—as if giving voice to this word might disturb our neighbors and brand her as a deviant. “I don’t think children should see that kind of thing,” she added. “What should children see?” I asked her. I am not arguing that we should let our children buy tickets to raunchy movies. I never let my daughters bring home steamy videos or surf the Internet for porn. But something is wrong when sex becomes a dirty word that we don’t even want our children to hear. Why must we regard almost anything sexual as tantamount to obscene? I think many of us are like Christy. We wouldn’t want our children—even our very sexual teenagers—to see certain kinds of movies, even if they happened to be erotic masterpieces, true works of art. It wouldn’t matter if a movie gave us a wonderful scene of a wife and a husband very lovingly making love with the conscious intention of engendering new life. It wouldn’t matter that sex is life, and therefore must be regarded as sacred as anything could possibly be. It wouldn’t even matter that not one of us could have come into the world but for the sexual union of our fathers and our mothers. If a movie portrayed a man and woman in the ecstatic dance of love—actually showed naked bellies and breasts, burning lips and adoring eyes and the glistening, impassioned organs of sex—most people I know would rather their children watch the vile action movie. They would rather their “innocent” sons and daughters behold the images of bloody, blasted bodies, torture, murder, and death.

He stared at it in utter disbelief while his secretary, Peters, who’d only been with him for a fortnight, muttered a silent prayer of gratitude for the break and continued scribbling as fast as he could, trying futilely to catch up with his employer’s dictation. “This,” said Ian curtly, “was sent to me either by mistake or as a joke. In either case, it’s in excruciatingly bad taste.” A memory of Elizabeth Cameron flickered across Ian’s mind-a mercenary, shallow litter flirt with a face and body that had drugged his mind. She’d been betrothed to a viscount when he’d met her. Obviously she hadn’t married her viscount-no doubt she’d jilted him in favor of someone with even better prospects. The English nobility, as he well knew, married only for prestige and money, then looked elsewhere for sexual fulfillment. Evidently Elizabeth Cameron’s relatives were putting her back on the marriage block. If so, they must be damned eager to unload her if they were willing to forsake a title for Ian’s money…That line of conjecture seemed so unlikely that Ian dismissed it. This note was obviously a stupid prank, perpetrated, no doubt, by someone who remembered the gossip that had exploded over that weekend house party-someone who thought he’d find the note amusing. Completely dismissing the prankster and Elizabeth Cameron from his mind, Ian glanced at his harassed secretary who was frantically scribbling away. “No reply is necessary,” he said. As he spoke he flipped the message across his desk toward his secretary, but the white parchment slid across the polished oak and floated to the floor. Peters made an awkward dive to catch it, but as he lurched sideways all the other correspondence that went with his dictation slid off his lap onto the floor. “I-I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered, leaping up and trying to collect the dozens of pieces of paper he’d scattered on the carpet. “Extremely sorry, Mr. Thornton,” he added, frantically snatching up contracts, invitations and letters and shoving them into a disorderly pile. His employer appeared not to hear him. He was already rapping out more instructions and passing the corresponding invitations and letters across the desk. “Decline the first three, accept the fourth, decline the fifth. Send my condolences on this one. On this one, explain that I’m going to be in Scotland, and send an invitation to join me there, along with directions to the cottage.” Clutching the papers to his chest, Peters poked his face up on the opposite side of the desk. “Yes, Mr. Thornton!” he said, trying to sound confident. But it was hard to be confident when one was on one’s knees. Harder still when one wasn’t entirely certain which instructions of the morning went with which invitation or piece of correspondence. Ian Thornton spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with Peters, heaping more dictation on the inundated clerk. He spent the evening with the Earl of Melbourne, his future father-in-law, discussing the earl’s daughter and himself. Peters spent part of his evening trying to learn from the butler which invitations his employer was likely to accept or reject.

It’s my turn next, and I realize then that I never turned in the name of my escort--because I hadn’t planned on being here. I glance around wildly for Ryder, but he’s nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by the sea of people in cocktail dresses and suits. Crap. I thought he realized that escorting me on court was part of the deal, once I’d agreed to go. I guess he’d figured it’d be easier on me, what with the whole Patrick thing, if I was alone onstage. But I don’t want to be alone. I want Ryder with me. By my side, supporting me. Always. I finally spot him in the crowd--it’s not too hard, since he’s a head taller than pretty much everyone else--and our eyes meet. My stomach drops to my feet--you know, that feeling you get on a roller coaster right after you crest that first hill and start plummeting toward the ground. Oh my God, this can’t be happening. I’ve fallen in love with Ryder Marsden, the boy I’m supposed to hate. And it has nothing to do with his confession, his declaration that he loves me. Sure, it might have forced me to examine my feelings faster than I would have on my own, but it was there all along, taking root, growing, blossoming. Heck, it’s a full-blown garden at this point. “Our senior maid is Miss Jemma Cafferty!” comes the principal’s voice. “Jemma is a varsity cheerleader, a member of the Wheelettes social sorority, the French Honor Club, the National Honor Society, and the Peer Mentors. She’s escorted tonight by…ahem, sorry. I’m afraid there’s no escort, so we’ll just--” “Ryder Marsden,” I call out as I make my way across the stage. “I’m escorted by Ryder Marsden.” The collective gasp that follows my announcement is like something out of the movies. I swear, it’s just like that scene in Gone with the Wind where Rhett offers one hundred and fifty dollars in gold to dance with Scarlett, and she walks through the scandalized bystanders to take her place beside Rhett for the Virginia reel. Only it’s the reverse. I’m standing here doing the scandalizing, and Ryder’s doing the walking. “Apparently, Jemma’s escort is Ryder Marsden,” the principal ad-libs into the microphone, looking a little frazzled. “Ryder is…um…the starting quarterback for the varsity football team, and, um…in the National Honor Society and…” She trails off helplessly. “A Peer Mentor,” he adds helpfully as he steps up beside me and takes my hand. The smile he flashes in my direction as Mrs. Crawford places the tiara on my head is dazzling--way more so than the tiara itself. My knees go a little weak, and I clutch him tightly as I wobble on my four-inch heels. But here’s the thing: If the crowd is whispering about me, I don’t hear it. I’m aware only of Ryder beside me, my hand resting in the crook of his arm as he leads me to our spot on the stage beside the junior maid and her escort, where we wait for Morgan to be crowned queen. Oh, there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow. I have no idea what we’re going to tell our parents. Right now I don’t even care. Just like Scarlett O’Hara, I’m going to enjoy myself tonight and worry about the rest later. After all, tomorrow is another…Well, you know how the saying goes.

Mark came home late one frozen Sunday carrying a bag of small, silver fish. They were smelts, locally known as icefish. He’d brought them at the store in the next town south, across from which a little village had sprung up on the ice of the lake, a collection of shacks with holes drilled in and around them. I’d seen the men going from the shore to the shacks on snowmobiles, six-packs of beer strapped on behind them like a half dozen miniature passengers. “Sit and rest,” Mark said. “I’m cooking.” He sautéed minced onion in our homemade butter, added a little handful of crushed, dried sage, and when the onion was translucent, he sprinkled n flour to make a roux, which he loosened with beer, in honor of the fishermen. He added cubed carrot, celery root, potato, and some stock, and then the fish, cut into pieces, and when they were all cooked through he poured in a whole morning milking’s worth of Delia’s yellow cream. Icefish chowder, rich and warm, eaten while sitting in Mark’s lap, my feet so close to the woodstove that steam came off my damp socks.

And so we rolled East, I more devastated than braced with the satisfaction of my passion, and she glowing with health, her bi-iliac garland still as brief as a lad’s, although she had added two inches to her stature and eight pounds to her weight. We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the nightevery night, every nightthe moment I feigned sleep.

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect works of art. They had in their collection works ranging from Picasso to Raphael and Rembrandt. When the Vietnam War broke out, the son was drafted and sent to fight in ’Nam. He was very courageous and died in battle. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son. About a month later, a young lad appeared at the door to his house and said, “Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life that fateful day. He was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart. He died instantly. He used to often talk about you and your love for art. Here’s something for you,” he added, holding out a package. “It is something that I drew. I know I am not much of an artist, but I wanted you to have this from me as a small measure of memory and thanks.” It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. It captured the personality of his son. The father’s eyes welled up with tears as he thanked the young man for the painting. He offered to pay for the picture, but the man replied, “Oh! No, sir. I could never repay what your son did for me. It is my gift to you.” The father hung the portrait over his mantel and showed it proudly to all his visitors along with all of the great works of art he possessed. Some time later, the old man died. As decreed in his will, his paintings were all to be auctioned. Many influential and rich people gathered together, excited over the prospect of owning one of the masterpieces. On a platform nearby also sat the painting of his son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. “Let’s start the bidding with the picture of his son. Who will bid for this picture?” There was silence. A voice shouted from the back, “Let’s skip this one. We want the famous masters.” But the auctioneer persisted. “Ten dollars, twenty dollars, what do I hear?” Another voice came back angrily, “We didn’t come here for this. Let’s have the Picassos, the Matisses, the van Goghs.” Still the auctioneer persisted. “The son. Anyone for the son? Who’ll take the son?” Finally a quavering voice came from the back. It was the longtime gardener of the house. “I’ll take the son for ten dollars. I am sorry, but that’s all I have.” “Ten dollars once, ten dollars twice, anybody for twenty dollars? Sold for ten dollars.” “Now let’s get on with the auction,” said a wealthy art aficionado sitting in the front row. The auctioneer laid down his gavel and spoke. “I am sorry, but the auction is over.” “But what about the other paintings? The masters?” “The auction is over,” said the auctioneer. “I was asked to conduct the auction with a stipulation, a secret stipulation that said that only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, paintings and all. The one who took the son gets everything.

You aren't there anymore, Nikki. You're here.' He paused, then added, 'With me.' 'No, I'm not,' she said, lifting her head and wiping her face. 'I'm always there, with her at that lake. I'm always on the dock where I watched my baby sister die.

I’ll go in the rattler with you,” Bran said the next morning, to Nee. Grinning at her, he added, “Probably will rain, and I hate riding horseback in the wet. And we never get enough time together as it is.” I looked out at the heavy clouds and the soft mist, thought of that close coach, and said, “I’ll ride, then. I don’t mind rain--” I looked up, realized who else was riding, and fought a hot tide of embarrassment. “You can go in the coach in my place,” I said to Shevraeth, striving to sound polite. He gave his head a shake. “Never ride in coaches. If you want to know the truth, they make me sick. How about a wager?” “A wager?” I repeated. “Yes,” he said, and gave me a slow smile, his eyes bright with challenge. “Who reaches Jeriab’s Broken Shield in Lumm first.” “Stake?” I asked cautiously. He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define. “A kiss.” My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing they did at Court. And if I win I don’t have to collect. I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the thought of open sky, and speed, and winning. “Done,” I said.

Early in the new millennium it became apparent to anyone with eyes to see that we had entered an informational order unprecedented in the experience of the human race. I can quantify that last statement. Several of us—analysts of events—were transfixed by the magnitude of the new information landscape, and wondered whether anyone had thought to measure it. My friend and colleague, Tony Olcott, came upon (on the web, of course) a study conducted by some very clever researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. In brief, these clever people sought to measure, in data bits, the amount of information produced in 2001 and 2002, and compare the result with the information accumulated from earlier times. Their findings were astonishing. More information was generated in 2001 than in all the previous existence of our species on earth. In fact, 2001 doubled the previous total. And 2002 doubled the amount present in 2001, adding around 23 “exabytes” of new information—roughly the equivalent of 140,000 Library of Congress collections.1 Growth in information had been historically slow and additive. It was now exponential. Poetic minds have tried to conjure a fitting metaphor for this strange transformation. Explosion conveys the violent suddenness of the change. Overload speaks to our dazed mental reaction. Then there are the trivially obvious flood and the most unattractive firehose. But a glimpse at the chart above should suggest to us an apt metaphor. It’s a stupendous wave: a tsunami.

What is proximate for one nation, one organization, or even one person may be far out of reach to another. The obvious reason is differences in skills and accumulated resources. My understanding of this was sharpened during an afternoon discussion about helicopters. A man I know only as PJ lives on the East Cape of Baja California, about thirty miles north of San Jose del Cabo, on the Sea of Cortez. He is now a surfer and fisherman, but PJ was once a helicopter pilot, first in Vietnam, and then in rescue work. The land in Baja California is unspoiled by shopping malls, industry, paved highways, or fences. Sitting on a hilltop in the warm winter we could see the gray whales jump and hear their tails slap on the water. Making conversation, I offered that “helicopters should be safer than airplanes. If the engine fails, you can autorotate to the ground. It’s like having a parachute.” PJ snorted. “If your engine fails you have to pull the collective all the way down, get off the left pedal and hit the right pedal hard to get some torque. You have about one second to do this before you are dropping too fast.” He paused and then added, “You can do it, but you better not have to think about it.” “So, everything has to be automatic?” I asked.

I broke one terrible night when Rufo, Ramon's younger brother, arrived at the house begging me to bring medicine for Ramon and Ester, who were suddenly burning up with fever. Carrying aspirin and a thermometer, I walked up the beach through the waves at high tide, under a billion blazing southern stars, the most furiously beautiful night of my life. But the contrast of that night with the utter squalor of Ramon's house, the sweating bodies, the delirium, their childlike faith that now that I had come everything would be all right, the pathetic collection of objects they had piled in bed around them - a plaster of Paris dog with half the paint peeled off, a rusty flit gun, a jar of watermelon seed, a pail of ground corn for the chickens, a pair of worn-out gringo shoes, all their treasures - so knocked me out that walking back along the beach I began to cry as I hadn't cried since I was six years old. What finally made it funny was that I couldn't stop and h ad to stay on the beach for almost an hour, embarrassed to go wailing through the sleeping streets of Rio Verde, announcing that I was cracking up.

Right from when I was tiny and I used to collect wild flowers on walks with my gran, mesmerised by the colours and the scents and the way you could make the whole impact and mood change by combining them in different ways. The simple, joyful sunburst of a huge fistful of primroses, then the softening and mellowing effect if you added in just a few bluebells for the surprise, the contrast. The hint of the Mediterranean, with the blue and the yellow together.

Honus took out his healing kit, and set a pot of water to boil. “When the water’s ready,” he said, “I’ll tend your wound.”   Yim touched the cut on her chin. “Is it bad?”   Honus peered at it in the firelight. “No, but you’ll have a scar.”   Yim smiled wryly. “I’m catching up with your collection.”   “I’m keeping apace with you,” replied Honus.   For the first time, Yim noticed that Honus’s shirtsleeve was torn and blood-soaked. She gasped. “Honus! Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”   “I didn’t wish to trouble you. Besides, it’s not deep.” He rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a bloody gash on his forearm.   When the water boiled, Honus poured some into a wooden bowl and added powder from a vial in his healing kit. After cleaning the blood from Yim’s face, he wetted a cloth with the solution in the bowl. “This will sting,” he said.   “I remember,” replied Yim. She winced as the solution foamed inside her cut. Glimpsing the concern in Honus’s eyes, she tried to hide her pain. She took a deep breath and said, “I’m glad that’s over.”   Honus cleaned the gash on his arm with the same solution, then asked, “Would you stitch my wound closed? I’d rather not do it left-handed.”   “I’ll try,” said Yim, “but I’ve never done the like before.”   “It’s not hard, and I’m certain your dainty fingers will do finer work than Theodus’s thick ones ever managed.”   “Before you malign his stitching, you should compare it to mine,” said Yim. “As a girl, I was more adept with goats than needlework.”   “Then pretend I’m a goat.”   Honus took out a curved needle and a strand of gut from his kit and dipped them in the cleansin g solution. He declined Yim’s suggestion to prepare a brew for his pain, stating he wanted to stay alert. When Yim nervously sewed his wound, he was absolutely stoic. He guided her stitching calmly, tensing only slightly each time the needle pierced his flesh. The only evidence of his pain was the deep breath he took when Yim was done. Honus gazed at his stitches and smiled. “You underestimate your skill.”   “I’m glad you’re so easily pleased,” Yim replied. “The woman who raised me would’ve made me tear out the seam and restitch it.”   Honus winced. “Let’s talk of food, instead,” he said quickly. “Perhaps this would be a good night to have that cheese we were saving.”   “To celebrate our new scars?’   “To celebrate we’re both alive.

The bird life, was, as ever, of great interest to ship’s surgeon McCormick. On seeing hovering over the ship what he believed to be a new species of Lestris, or Arctic Yager, described by Audubon, the great American bird illustrator, as an ‘indefatigable teaser of the smaller gulls’, he took a pot-shot at it. His shot failed to despatch the bird cleanly and, after descending near the deck, it recovered and flew away with one leg broken. McCormick, unusually, felt compelled to justify himself: ‘For notwithstanding that my duties as ornithologist compel me to take the lives of these most beautiful and interesting creatures . . . I never do so without a sharp sting of pain and qualm of conscience, so fond am I of all the feathered race.’ So fond, indeed, that on the same night he recorded that ‘Between midnight and one a.m. I succeeded in adding two more of the elegant white petrel to my collection, one falling dead on the quarter-deck and the other on the gun-room skylight . . . a third I shot . . . fell overboard into the sea.

Whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, I always saw a morbidly obese reflection, while in truth I was achingly underweight. My obsession of looking good corresponded to wanting to look the way skinny models looked in television ads and fashion magazines, the personification of being attractive as described by the world around me.

John Canyon > My Quotes Showing 1-14 of 14 sort by date added Remove this quote from your collection “We live in an age where the Racists are fighting Racism with Race Stereotypes, the Wealthy are Fighting Poverty with Posh Parties, the Radical fights for absolute conformity and subservience to the State, and the Corrupt Politician is sanctified as Altruistic. This is the Age of Deceit. And the only truth teller, will be vilified as the greatest Liar.

The new recruits whispered among themselves, probably about my leg. “If you have any questions, now is the time to ask them,” I said. Immediately, all the hands went up. “But I’ll only be answering questions that don’t concern my leg,” I added. All the hands went down.

Albert, friend to royalty,” Beatrix said later at the Rutledge Hotel, laughing as she sat on the floor of their suite and examined the new collar. “I hope you don’t get above yourself, and put on airs.” “Not around your family, he won’t,” Christopher said, stripping off his coat and waistcoat, and removing his cravat. He lowered himself to the settee, relishing the coolness of the room. Albert went to drink from his bowl of water, lapping noisily. Beatrix went to Christopher, stretched full length atop him, and braced her arms on his chest. “I was so proud of you today,” she said, smiling down at him. “And perhaps a tiny bit smug that with all the women swooning and sighing over you, I’m the one you went home with.” Arching a brow, Christopher asked, “Only a tiny bit smug?” “Oh, very well. Enormously smug.” She began to play with his hair. “Now that all this medal business is done with, I have something to discuss with you.” Closing his eyes, Christopher enjoyed the sensation of her fingers stroking his scalp. “What is it?” “What would you say to adding a new member to the family?” This was not an unusual question. Since they had established a household at Riverton, Beatrix had increased the size of her menagerie, and was constantly occupied with animal-related charities and concerns. She had also compiled a report for the newly established natural history society in London. For some reason it had not been at all difficult to convince the group of elderly entomologists, ornithologists, and other naturalists to include a pretty young woman in their midst. Especially when it became clear that Beatrix could talk for hours about migration patterns, plant cycles, and other matters relating to animal habitats and behavior. There was even discussion of Beatrix’s joining a board to form a new natural history museum, to provide a lady’s perspective on various aspects of the project. Keeping his eyes closed, Christopher smiled lazily. “Fur, feathers, or scales?” he asked in response to her earlier question. “None of those.” “God. Something exotic. Very well, where will this creature come from? Will we have to go to Australia to collect it? Iceland? Brazil?” A tremor of laughter went through her. “It’s already here, actually. But you won’t be able to view it for, say…eight more months.” Christopher’s eyes flew open. Beatrix was smiling down at him, looking shy and eager and more than a little pleased with herself. “Beatrix.” He turned carefully so that she was underneath him. His hand came to cradle the side of her face. “You’re sure?” She nodded. Overwhelmed, Christopher covered her mouth with his, kissing her fiercely. “My love…precious girl…” “It’s what you wanted, then?” she asked between kisses, already knowing the answer. Christopher looked down at her through a bright sheen of joy that made everything blurred and radiant. “More than I ever dreamed. And certainly more than I deserve.” Beatrix’s arms slid around his neck. “I’ll show you what you deserve,” she informed him, and pulled his head down to hers again.

Before either men could commence a deliberation over who knew more of the hotel’s history, Coraline injected, “India was writing the last chapters of its saga of independence when The Imperial opened its doors in the 1930s.” She paused before proceeding, “Pandit Nehru, Mahatama Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Lord Mountbatten met under congenial conditions to discuss the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan on the very ground we stand on. Adding to that, the Nehru family also had a permanent suite within the walls of this ‘Maiden of the East.’” She let out a discreet chuckle that I think only I caught. Both men stared at the female, not knowing how to respond. Before either one of them could opine, she continued, “If only walls could speak. Here indeed is a repository of fascinating anecdotal material for authors of romantic and detective fiction. It was here, at this very site, that one could clink glasses for the Royals to their war efforts, urge Gandhi to quit the India movement, or dance to the strains of Blue Danube, belly dance like a belle from Beirut or be serenaded by an orchestra from London.” The group of us stared at the big sister, wondering how in the world she knew so much about The Imperial. My teacher and Jabril pressed for affirmation. Instead, she vociferated, “Notably, The Imperial has the largest collection on display of land war gallantry awards in India and among its neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Bhutan and China. It also holds a sizeable record of orders and decorations bestowed by the British Royalties to the Emperor of India as an honour to the local Maharajas, Sultans and ruling Princes from the various Indian states.” While Narnia’s chaperone continued her historical spiel, the recruit pulled me aside and whispered amusingly, “Although everything my big sister said is true, she’s having fun with you guys. Her information is from the hotel’s brochure in the guest rooms.” I quipped. “Why didn’t you tell the rest of our group? I thought she was an expert in India’s history!” She gave me a wet kiss and said saucily, “I’m telling you because I like you.” Stunned by her raciness, I was speechless. I couldn’t decide whether to tell her there and then that I was gay – but at that very moment, Andy appeared from around the corner. “Where did you two disappear to?” he inquired. When Narnia was out of earshot, I muttered knowingly to my BB, “I’ll tell you later.”, as we continued the art tour browsing portraitures of India’s Princely Rulers of yore.

Sweet Dreams In the evening I like to “cash out”—something I learned from waiting tables in my youth. Before we could go home, we had to cash out, meaning turn in all our receipts, credit card slips, and cash. Everything had to add up, or there was big trouble! It’s important to cash out your day’s performance. Compared to your plan for the day, how did it go? What do you need to carry over to tomorrow’s plan? What else needs to be added, based on what showed up throughout the day? What’s no longer important and needs to be scratched out? Additionally, I like to log into my journal any new ideas, ah-has or insights I picked up throughout the day—this is how I’ve collected more than forty journals of incredible ideas, insights, and strategies. Finally, I like to read at least ten pages of an inspirational book before going to sleep. I know the mind continues to process the last information consumed before bedtime, so I want to focus my attention on something constructive and helpful in making progress with my goals and ambitions. That’s it. All hell can break loose throughout the day, but because I control the bookends, I know I’m always going to start and finish strong.

Even annoyed, as she was now, she vibrated the kind of barely restrained energy that made every part of him spark to life. Some parts more enthusiastically than others. He shifted his weight and sidestepped slightly in an effort to keep that reality as unnoticeable as possible. He’d become a master of that particular skill during the last few months she’d been on the station. He needn’t have worried. She didn’t so much as glance at him. Her irritation was focused solely on her big brother. “Did you really just perp walk Cooper down the harbor?” Logan’s eyebrows lifted along with his hands, which he held up at his sides, palms out. “Hold up, I didn’t--” “Save it,” Kerry said. She turned to Cooper. “I apologize. He forgets I’m an adult woman who can handle her own affairs.” She glared at her brother during that last part. “She’s right, you know.” This came from a little spitfire brunette who, given Kerry’s descriptions of her family, must be the middle McCrae sister, Fiona. Fists planted on her hips, managing to somehow look down her cute little nose at her much taller and much bigger brother, she added, “We’re trying to plan my wedding and grill her about Mr. Hot and Aussie here. I’d think by now you’d know that we’ve got this covered.” She made a brief gesture to the other women standing alongside her. “If we thought he was a danger to society, we would have called.” Cooper watched the ricocheting dialogue like a spectator at a cricket match, unable to squelch a grin. It was like watching his own sister, all grown up and in triplicate. As Kerry and Fiona closed in on a somehow now hapless-looking lumberjack of a police chief, Cooper stepped forward and stuck out his hand toward the taller, willowy young woman who stood just behind Fiona. Where Kerry was Amazonian and Fiona a little firebrand, their oldest sister was the epitome of cool, calm, and collected. “Hannah Blue, I presume? I’m Cooper Jax. Sorry for the disruption of your sister’s wedding plans. I didn’t know.” This had Fiona turning his way. “And how could you, given Kerry couldn’t be bothered to so much as send you a postcard?” “Hey,” Kerry said, looking at her sister now. “Whose side are you on?” Fiona looked back at her. “The side that keeps this guy here and you looking all pent up and googly-eyed.” “Googly-eyed?” Kerry shot back. Cooper, grinning unrepentantly now, turned his attention back to Hannah and continued, as if her sisters weren’t getting all up in each other’s personal space. “I understand congratulations are in order on your recent nuptials as well.” Hannah gave him a swift, all-encompassing once-over as only a former defense attorney could. Then, in the face of his unrelenting goodwill, she took his hand, her mouth curving up in the barest hint of a smile as she gave it a firm, quick shake. “You’re a charmer, Mr. Jax, I’ll give you that.” “Go with your strength,” he replied.

I don’t know even the Mulligan’s town residence. One night, as he bade us adieu in Oxford Street, — ”I live THERE,” says he, pointing down towards Oxbridge, with the big stick he carries — so his abode is in that direction at any rate. He has his letters addressed to several of his friends’ houses, and his parcels, &c. are left for him at various taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked trousers, in which you see him attired, he did me the favor of ordering from my own tailor, who is quite as anxious as anybody to know the address of the wearer. In like manner my hatter asked me, “Oo was the Hirish gent as ‘ad ordered four ‘ats and a sable boar to be sent to my lodgings?

Nowadays there are jeans in the most varied styles and cuts. What really matters is what kind of look you want and what will suit your frame best. The shape and cut of jeans is called a fit and there are many different fits. There are four main names to note and, luckily, the various fit names are pretty self-explanatory: A snug fit that's snug against the leg and tapers at the ankle. A little stretch is often added to jeans for comfort. Works best with a slim frame. Still tight but not too tight, this cut wraps around the thighs, knees and calves and is less constricting around the ankle. This is a tight cut that is great for a slender to normal figure. Sometimes referred to as Regular, this is a traditional style of denim that is cut straight from the waist to the hem. Some variations can be narrow at the ankle. Fits normal to athletic physique. Nothing better than good jeans for women, right? It is such a versatile fabric that it only improves with age and wear. We owe the French jeans. Denim is a strong and durable material for all women in their old age. Denim made from 100% cotton. Traditionally, so true denim fabrics have different colors on both sides (for true fabric fanatics, if your denim is the same color on both sides , it's actually denim, not denim! ) We recently started stocking denim, you can see our collection here and we stock a wide range of weights and colors. We also have stretch jeans, which are great for clothing brands. When I look at my jeans options in my closet, I see a lot of dark skinny jeans. While I still think this style of denim always has a place in my closet, I really enjoy seeing the more relaxed, lighter washes for spring. I found a great pair of Target straight leg jeans that I wore a few times. You get the right amount of stress without looking overly casual. I like to wear a chic top with pointy heels to balance the casual character with jeans. But they are also a great “weekend”, a pair of blankets that match a shirt and sneakers. Here are some of my favorite straight leg women's jeans, from chic dark ankle-length jeans to more casual washes in lighter colors with a worn look. Mouse over the image and click on the product to buy the items. I wore my jeans many times this spring. I love the wash and texture of the jeans, and they have good stretch too! Navy makes a really nice straight leg jeans and comes in a classic dark wash. The jeans I'm wearing in the photos above are Universal Thread High-Rise Distressed Straight Cropped Jeans. I would never have bought these based on the image on the internet, but personally they are a great cropped option. I have curves and am wearing a size 7. cut my leg in half. These were just the right length and the skyscraper is also a nice addition. They are comfortable and casual, but I would like them to be a little tighter as they are lighter.

It's my belief that we are just an ever-changing collection of memories that, when added up, create the illusion of self.

But before I could contemplate it too much, my eyes landed on his face. Wowza. He was smokin' hot. As in H-O-T-T hott. I'd never understood until that moment why girls insisted on adding an extra T. This guy was extra-T worthy

It happened in science lab on the very first day of their junior year. The chemistry teacher had handed her a beaker of some mysterious liquid and told her to carry it to her lab table. She had almost reached her seat when Jerome Hollis caught her eye and smiled. She blushed and tripped over her own feet. He plucked the beaker from her hands as she fell, then helped her stand up. “Thanks,” she said breathlessly. “For what?” He handed the flask back and her heart gave a little flip. He had straight black hair, hazel eyes, and black-framed glasses. He looked cute, in a nerdy-but-hip kind of way. She tried to collect herself. “For saving me from a horrible, disfiguring scar, of course,” she said. “After all, if I had been splashed with this, um—” She gingerly held the flask aloft. “Saline solution,” he said. “Otherwise known as salt water. You would have been fine.” “Oh.” She put the flask down and looked away. “Although,” he added thoughtfully, “if you had dropped the beaker, the gravitational force and speed of descent would have meant that it would have, in all probability, shattered.” Kate glanced back at him. “The force could have sent a shard of glass into my eye, blinding me,” she suggested. “Or cut a vein, causing a massive loss of blood. When you take all the disastrous possibilities into account—” “You should be given a medal for heroism,” Kate finished. “I can’t believe they’re not pinning it on my shirt right now.” He smiled, and she was lost.

shall have a twofold recompense.” The word recompense means “reward,” or “payment for past hurts.” Recompense reminds me of the word compensation. When I think of workman’s compensation, I think of payment made to a person who has been injured on a job. Likewise, if we get hurt while working for God, He takes care of us. If someone comes against us, hurts us, rejects us, or wounds us, we need to keep serving God and doing right, and He will make sure we get due compensation in the end. Realizing that I did not have to collect from people who hurt me was life-changing for me. The truth is, they couldn’t pay me. They could not give me back what they took from me, but God can always give you more than people take from you. We find another promise of reward in Joel: “And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten… And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you. And My people shall never be put to shame” (Joel 2:25–26, emphasis added). Note the words you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied. This part of the promise means so much to me because I spent many years dissatisfied and discontent. No matter what I had, I wasn’t satisfied. No matter what anybody did for me, I wasn’t satisfied. No matter what I accomplished, I was not satisfied. Why? Because I was looking for people to satisfy me, but only God can satisfy. Whatever you have lost in your life, He will restore. That’s a promise. As you trust Him, He will make sure you “shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.

He spoke with bitterness, and, having said thus, relapsed for some minutes into silence. Presently he raised his head from his hands, and added, with an altered voice and manner, “I, sir, paused, investigated, believed, and was not ashamed to state my convictions to the world. I, too, was branded as a visionary, held up to ridicule by my contemporaries, and hooted from that field of science in which I had laboured with honour during all the best years of my life. These things happened just three-and-twenty years ago. Since then, I have lived as you see me living now, and the world has forgotten me, as I have forgotten the world. You have my history.” “It is a very sad one,” I murmured, scarcely knowing what to answer. “It is a very common one,” he replied. “I have only suffered for the truth, as many a better and wiser man has suffered before me.

Come with me,” I tell him, adding more words to my actions, aware that’s what Mum taught me, because you never know when it might be your last chance to tell someone that them being around matters to you. “I’d like that.

If only you knew the power of the dark side,” Vader said, reaching out to clutch the air with his black-gloved fist. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” “He told me enough!” Luke said as he wrapped his arms around the sensor array and lowered his feet to a metal ring. Wincing, he added, “He told me you killed him.” “No,” Vader said, his fist still clenched. “I am your father.” Luke’s eyes went wide. My father? But Ben told me… “No,” Luke whimpered. “No. That’s not true! That’s impossible!” “Search your feelings,” Vader said. “You know it to be true.” “No!” Luke shouted. “No!

The next pair is inspired by my hometown of San Francisco, where I often searched for rare spices and teas in Chinatown. My Chinese tea collection begins with a dark chocolate truffle infused with Lapsang Souchong tea. Cultivated in the Wuyi mountain region in China, the tea leaves are dried over pinewood fires, which give the leaves a smoky, aromatic flavor." Finding Lauro in the crowd, Celina echoed his description. With a smile tugging at her lips, she added, "You might find it reminiscent of the rich earth around Vesuvius, moist with morning dew." Bringing his hand to his lips, Lauro sent her a happy kiss across the crowd. "Also from the Wuyi Mountains of northern Fujian comes oolong tea, which can be fruity, green, or sweet. This oolong is a sweet, roasted woody version.

If you have any questions, now is the time to ask them,” I said. Immediately, all the hands went up. “But I’ll only be answering questions that don’t concern my leg,” I added. All the hands went down.

shit. I’ve just got back from the funeral of my best friend.  He died after being hit on the head with a tennis ball.  It was a lovely service. Death is nature’s way of saying ‘Slow down’. I intend to live forever……or die trying. What happens when you get scared half to death twice? A man has died after falling into a vat of coffee.  It was instant. A Chinese man faked his death but his family were suspicious.  They didn’t bereave him. I saw an ad for burial plots.  I thought to myself ‘That’s the last thing I need’. I met a Dutch girl with inflatable shoes last week and phoned her up to arrange a date.  Unfortunately, she’d popped her clogs. My grandad gave me some sound advice on his deathbed.  He said that it’s worth shelling out on good speakers. A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train.  When it happened, he was chuffed to bits. The man who invented Velcro has died. RIP. A Mexican stuntman died while making a film.  At his funeral, his mother approached the director and said ‘Jesus died for your scenes’. The Grim Reaper came for me last night and I beat him

Come on, before I pave more stones on my road to hell." "I think at this point we're just adding signs and tasteful shrubs along the side,

Thank you for the memories Of your smile, Of your laugh, Of breaking my heart, Playing games, showing care, Withdrawing out of nowhere, Promising me forever, Changing feelings like the weather, Showering me with love, Turning pennies into diamonds, Gold into steel, Speaking words without meaning, Having me believing, Kissing in the rain, Trading love in for fame, Playing me like a violin, Breaking all my strings, Calming me with your voice, Saying you’d made your choice, Giving no explanation, Adding to my frustration, Saying our last goodbyes, Watching me cry, Coming back to say hello, Not letting me go, Claiming you’d always love me, Throwing away the only key To my heart. - Thank you

When the men finished their game of whist and downed the last of the brandy, they decided the evening was at last over. “That’s enough for me.” Godric turned towards the ladies. “Come along, Em. Time to depart.” Emily didn’t spare her husband a glance. She had one hand on Horatia’s shoulder and another on Audrey’s while she spoke to the pair of them in a huddle. None of the men really bothered trying to figure out what women whispered about. Lucien guessed it would always remain one of life’s mysteries, like why a woman needed countless bonnets when they were such ugly and useless things. It was a damned nuisance trying to untie yards of unnecessary ribbons in order to touch a woman’s hair while he was kissing her. “That’s an unholy alliance if I ever saw one,” Cedric noted. The Sheridan sisters were trouble enough, but adding Emily was like a lit match near a very large powder keg. “I’d best collect my wife before she causes trouble,” Godric replied. Lucien didn’t miss Godric’s pleased tone as he had said ‘wife.’ Godric stood, then walked quietly over and plucked her away from the group, scooping her up into his arms. “Godric!” Emily kicked her feet in outrage. “Put me down at once!” “I don’t think so, my dear. It’s time I put you to bed.” Godric bent his head low so his face was inches from hers. “Oh if you must.” She tried to sound reluctant, but there was a breathless quality to her voice that fooled no one. For a moment, Lucien was struck with a sharp sense of envy. If Horatia weren’t related to his friend, he would have been carrying her out the door in the same fashion, to find the nearest bed. “Good night, everyone!” Godric called over his shoulder as he and Emily left the drawing room. Cedric shook his head, but his eyes glinted with merriment. “By the way they act I swear you’d never know they were married.” “They are indeed fortunate,” Ashton said. “To be so in love that marriage is a blessing rather than a burden.

Vanity metrics wreak havoc because they prey on a weakness of the human mind. In my experience, when the numbers go up, people think the improvement was caused by their actions, by whatever they were working on at the time. That is why it’s so common to have a meeting in which marketing thinks the numbers went up because of a new PR or marketing effort and engineering thinks the better numbers are the result of the new features it added. Finding out what is actually going on is extremely costly, and so most managers simply move on, doing the best they can to form their own judgment on the basis of their experience and the collective intelligence in the room. Unfortunately, when the numbers go down, it results in a very different reaction: now it’s somebody else’s fault. Thus, most team members or departments live in a world where their department is constantly making things better, only to have their hard work sabotaged by other departments that just don’t get it. Is it any wonder these departments develop their own distinct language, jargon, culture, and defense mechanisms against the bozos working down the hall? Actionable metrics are the antidote to this problem. When cause and effect is clearly understood, people are better able to learn from their actions. Human beings are innately talented learners when given a clear and objective assessment.

If you want my opinion . . .” Brooke said, lifting a decanter of whiskey. “I don’t.” Brooke, of course, was undeterred. To the contrary, a keen anticipation lit his eyes. The man possessed a cutting wit, and used it to draw blood. Some gentlemen angled trout while on holiday; others shot game. Arthur Brooke made it a sport to disenchant— as though it were his personal mission to drive fancy and naiveté to extinction. He said smugly, “My dear Mrs. Yardley, you have assembled a lovely collection of words.” Portia eyed him with skepticism. “I don’t suppose that’s a compliment.” “No, it isn’t,” he answered. “Pretty words, all, but there are too many of them. With so many extravagant ornaments, one cannot make out the story beneath.” “I can make out the story quite clearly,” Cecily protested. “It’s nighttime, and there is a terrific storm.” “There you have it,” Denny said. “It was a dark and stormy night.” He made a generous motion toward Portia. “Feel free to use that. I won’t mind.” With a groan, Portia rose from her chair and swept to the window. “The difficulty is, this is not a dark and stormy night. It is clear, and well-lit by the moon, and unseasonably warm for autumn. Terrible. I was promised a gothic holiday to inspire my literary imagination, and Swinford Manor is hopeless. Mr. Denton, your house is entirely too cheerful and maintained.” “So sorry to disappoint,” Denny said. “Shall I instruct the housekeeper to neglect the cobwebs in your chambers?” “That wouldn’t be nearly enough. There’s still that sprightly toile wallpaper to contend with— all those gamboling lambs and frolicking dairymaids. Can you imagine, this morning I found myself humming! I expected this house to be decrepit, lugubrious . . .” “Lugubrious.” Brooke drawled the word into his whiskey. “Another pretty word, lugubrious. More than pretty. Positively voluptuous with vowels, lugubrious. And spoken with such . . . mellifluence.” Portia flicked him a bemused glance. He added, “One pretty word deserves another, don’t you think?

there were plenty of physical brawls, too. It wasn’t the usual child getting beaten by the parent, but rather the child and adult going at it in ludicrous acts of rage. Surely, nothing could be more dysfunctional than an environment where this was permitted right under the nose of one’s mother. I was a skinny fifteen year old girl when it was acceptable for me to be the one between my mother and father. It added to the craziness and was just one more big secret to add to our family’s private collection of shame. What wasn’t there, over all, was a calm, loving home in which to grow up normally.

Are you Mr. Bronson? We've come to teach you your manners.” Zachary flashed a grin at Holly. “I didn't realize when we struck our bargain that I was getting two of you.” Cautiously Rose reached up for her mother's gloved hand. “Is this where we're going to live, Mama? Is there a room for me?” Zachary sat on his haunches and stared into the little girl's face with a smile. “I believe a room right next to your mother's has been prepared for you,” he told her. His gaze fell to the mass of sparkling objects in Rose's hands. “What is that, Miss Rose?” “My button string.” The child let some of the length fall to the ground, displaying a line of carefully strung buttons… picture buttons etched with flowers, fruit or butterflies, ones made of molded black glass and a few of painted enamel and paper. “This one is my perfume button,” Rose said proudly, fingering a large one with velvet backing. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply. “Mama puts her perfume on it for me, to make it smell nice.” As Rose extended it toward him, Zachary ducked his head and detected a faint flowery fragrance that he recognized instantly. “Yes,” he said softly, glancing up at Lady Holly's blushing face. “That smells just like your mama.” “Rose,” Holly said, clearly perturbed, “come with me—ladies do not remain talking on the drive-” “I don't have any buttons like that,” Rose told Zachary, ignoring her mother's words as she stared at one of the large solid gold buttons that adorned his coat. Gazing in the direction of the child's dainty finger, Zachary saw that a miniature hunting landscape was engraved on the surface of his top button. He had never looked closely enough to notice before. “Allow me the honor of adding to your collection, Miss Rose,” he said, reaching inside his coat to extract a small silver folding knife. Deftly he cut the threads holding the button to his coat and handed the object to the excited little girl. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Bronson,” Rose exclaimed. “Thank you!

In my study, next to my desk, is a locked bookcase that contains a collection of volumes I value more than any of the hundreds of other books that fill a multitude of shelves in our home. Of these precious publications, the most prized and well-guarded is a slim first edition of 104 pages, simply titled Jungle Stories by Jim Corbett. The cover is of plain brown paper, with no illustrations or colouring. This thin little book was privately printed by Corbett, for family and friends, at the London Press in Nainital in 1935. Only a hundred copies were produced, of which very few remain. My copy came to me through my parents. They were given it by friends, who had once been Corbett’s neighbours in Nainital. By the time I received it, the book had been covered with a protective sleeve of clear plastic. The title page is signed by Jim Corbett, in a neat, fastidious hand. Several years after Jungle Stories was published, Lord Linlithgow, Viceroy of India from 1936-43, requested a copy. He had met Corbett, who assisted in organizing viceregal shoots in the terai and was already regarded as a legendary shikari and raconteur. After reading the book, Linlithgow recommended that it be published by the Oxford University Press in Bombay. Jungle Stories is, essentially, the first draft of Man-eaters of Kumaon. Several of the chapters are identical, including stories of ‘The Pipal Pani Tiger’ and ‘The Chowgarh Tigers’, as well as an angling interlude, ‘The Fish of My Dreams.’ Corbett expanded this book into its present form by adding six more tales, including an account of the first man-eater he killed in 1907, near Champawat. This tigress was responsible for the deaths of 436 victims and her destruction helped cement Corbett’s reputation as a hunter. In recognition of his success, Sir J. P. Hewett, Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces, presented him with a .275 Rigby-Mauser rifle. An engraved citation on a silver plaque was fixed to the stock. Corbett later bequeathed this weapon to the Oxford University Press, who sent it to their head offices in England. Eventually, the gun was confiscated by the police in Oxford because the publishers didn’t have a licence. For a number of years, John Rigby & Co., gunsmiths, displayed the rifle at their showroom in London, along with a copy of Jungle Stories. In February 2016, Corbett’s rifle was purchased at auction by an American hunter for $250,000. Following this, the rifle was brought to India for a week and briefly displayed at Corbett Tiger Reserve, as part of a promotional event. The editor at OUP, who shepherded Man-eaters of Kumaon to publication, was R. E. ‘Hawk’ Hawkins, himself a legend, who contributed greatly to India’s canon of nature writing. In his introduction to a collection of Corbett’s stories, Hawkins describes how this book came into his hands:

Over the last half of my life, I’ve read hundreds of poetry books. Whenever I read a poem that I loved or felt a deep connection to, I added it to a collection I titled “200 Antidepressant Poems.” Now, whenever I feel overwhelmed or feel I did something wrong, I go to the meditation room, randomly open my manuscript, then read a poem loudly. Usually two poems are enough to make me feel better and restore love in my heart. Here are my 11 favorite poems to read when I am feeling depressed (11 is the master power number): “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop “Leaving One” by Ralph Angel “A Cat in an Empty Apartment” by Wisława Szymborska “Apples” by Deborah Digges “Michiko Nogami (1946–1982)” by Jack Gilbert “Eating Alone” by Li-Young Lee “The Potter” by Peter Levitt “Black Dog, Red Dog” by Stephen Dobyns “The Word” by Mark Cox “Death” by Maurycy Szymel “This” by Czeslaw Milosz

She refuses to count her losses / She is counting that which was gathered / ripe with years / that which still wants to grow / within the limitations / that were written for her. / Growing with what is / the joy of rich skies / between the trees / with an abundance of warmth and relaxation / She looks at the window of her house / which faces the garden / celebrating that which remains / that which was gathered / that which was collected and added / over the years.

Every word, every gesture must be analyzed, ad nauseam, in search of hidden rejection. Surges of noxious anxiety emanate from what I call brain farts and travel like sewer gas to my stomach.

We’re overconfident. “People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold.” Our frame is too narrow. “This is the tendency to define our choices too narrowly, to see them in binary terms. We ask, ‘Should I break up with my partner or not?’ instead of ‘What are the ways I could make this relationship better?’” We rely on short-term emotion. “When we’ve got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn. We replay the same arguments in our head. We agonize about our circumstances. We change our minds from day to day. If our decision was represented on a spreadsheet, none of the numbers would be changing—there’s no new information being added—but it doesn’t feel that way in our heads.” We have confirmation bias. “When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.” We pretend we want the truth, yet all we really want is reassurance. So what are your barriers to making good decisions?

review, these villains are: We’re overconfident. “People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold.” Our frame is too narrow. “This is the tendency to define our choices too narrowly, to see them in binary terms. We ask, ‘Should I break up with my partner or not?’ instead of ‘What are the ways I could make this relationship better?’” We rely on short-term emotion. “When we’ve got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn. We replay the same arguments in our head. We agonize about our circumstances. We change our minds from day to day. If our decision was represented on a spreadsheet, none of the numbers would be changing—there’s no new information being added—but it doesn’t feel that way in our heads.” We have confirmation bias. “When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.” We pretend we want the truth, yet all we really want is reassurance.

Master Yoda, I gave Qui-Gon my word. I will train Anakin.” “Ohh!” Yoda grunted, then turned and resumed pacing. “Without the approval of the Council, if I must.” Facing away from Obi-Wan, Yoda said, “Qui-Gon’s defiance I sense in you. Need that you do not.” He paused, then added, “Agree with you, the Council does.” Turning to face Obi-Wan again, he said, “Your apprentice, Skywalker will be.

Just like a city, parts of the Archives teemed with activity. The Scriptorium held rows of desks where scrivs toiled over translations or copied faded texts into new books with fresh, dark ink. The Sorting Hall buzzed with activity as scrivs sifted and reshelved books. The Buggery was not at all what I expected, thank goodness. Instead, it proved to be the place where new books were decontaminated before being added to the collection. Apparently all manner of creatures love books, some devouring parchment and leather, others with a taste for paper or glue. Bookworms were the least of them, and after listening to a few of Wilem’s stories I wanted nothing more than to wash my hands. Cataloger’s Mew, the Bindery, Bolts, Palimpsest, all of them were busy as beehives, full of quiet, industrious scrivs. But other parts of the Archives were quite the opposite of busy. The acquisitions office, for example, was tiny and perpetually dark. Through the window I could see that one entire wall of the office was nothing but a huge map with cities and roads marked in such detail that it looked like a snarled loom. The map was covered in a layer of clear alchemical lacquer, and there were notes written at various points in red grease pencil, detailing rumors of desirable books and the last known positions of the various acquisition teams. Tomes was like a great public garden. Any student was free to come and read the books shelved there. Or they could submit a request to the scrivs, who would grudgingly head off into the Stacks to find if not the exact book you wanted, then at least something closely related. But the Stacks comprised the vast majority of the Archives. That was where the books actually lived. And just like in any city, there were good neighborhoods and bad. In the good neighborhoods everything was properly organized and cataloged. In these places a ledger-entry would lead you to a book as simply as a pointing finger. Then there were the bad neighborhoods. Sections of the Archives that were forgotten, or neglected, or simply too troublesome to deal with at the moment. These were places where books were organized under old catalogs, or under no catalog at all. There were walls of shelves like mouths with missing teeth, where longgone scrivs had cannibalized an old catalog to bring books into whatever system was fashionable at the time. Thirty years ago two entire floors had gone from good neighborhood to bad when the Larkin ledger-books were burned by a rival faction of scrivs. And, of course, there was the four-plate door. The secret at the heart of the city. It was nice to go strolling in the good neighborhoods. It was pleasant to go looking for a book and find it exactly where it should be. It was easy. Comforting. Quick. But the bad neighborhoods were fascinating. The books there were dusty and disused. When you opened one, you might read words no eyes had touched for hundreds of years. There was treasure there, among the dross. It was in those places I searched for the Chandrian.

Finally, Christians can use more-advanced strategies like geofencing. Geofencing is a powerful marketing strategy my marketing company uses for commercial clients. It targets prospects and gathers their mobile IDs based on their physical location. You can target your prospect by time and/or location — for example, anyone who went to a selected church in the last week, in the last month, or in the last six months. You can also select anyone who went just one time, two times in one month, four times in two months, and so on. It’s a great way to get very specific contact lists that meet pretty much any criteria you can think of. If a pastor simply won’t talk about the election, geofencing their church is a good way to get directly to the church attendees. For one campaign, my company “fenced” 74 different evangelical churches in a candidate's district and gathered 94,000 mobile IDs, thereby building a large database in a short amount of time. In the end, we collected the contact information of 10,000 highly motivated voters who were also considered “low propensity” voters for the clients’ database. We also generated potential voters by getting: • 100,000+ landing page visitors. • 942,000 ad impressions. • 288,000 video views. All these views and ad impressions led to increased voter awareness and turnout for our client.

Hold on, isn’t the situation only getting worse? Wasn’t I just saying I wanted to stop adding to my collection of monster companions?! …I guess I should’ve known that’s impossible for me!