Adorable Dog Quotes

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

Be prepared. A dog is adorable and noble. A dog is a true and loving friend. A dog is also a hedonist.

Cats are not adoring like dogs. They don’t care. They can never be relied upon to shore up a human ego. They go their way, do their thing, are not subservient and will never apologise. No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would patently be obvious it was not being sincere.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men — friends, coworkers, strangers — giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

Snow's table manners are atrocious - it's like watching a wild dog eat. A wild dog you'd like to slip the tongue.

I had a dog who loved flowers. Briskly she went through the fields, yet paused for the honeysuckle or the rose, her dark head and her wet nose touching the face of every one with its petals of silk with its fragrance rising into the air where the bees, their bodies heavy with pollen hovered - and easily she adored every blossom not in the serious careful way that we choose this blossom or that blossom the way we praise or don't praise - the way we love or don't love - but the way we long to be - that happy in the heaven of earth - that wild, that loving.

Harriet resisted, until Tara pulled out the big move...the combination "lean-against nuzzle, with a slight lick and an adoring glance." In dog-land the move had a degree of difficulty of nine point seven, and as far as I know, there is no known defense against it.

To lose the approbation of my dog is a thing too horrible to contemplate.

I’m a bookworm who would much rather purchase adorable outfits for our family dog than for myself.

He'd missed dogs. Dogs added something that even people didn't, and one of the dogs was sitting by his feet, here in the darkness and the gentle rain. It wasn't bothered much about the rain or what might be out there on the unseen sea, but Mau was a warm body moving about in a sleeping world and might at any moment do something that called for runnung around and barking. Occasionally it looked up at him adoringly and made a slobbery gulping noise which possibly meant "Anything you say, boss!

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

I had a dog who loved flowers. Briskly she went through the fields, yet paused for the honeysuckle or the rose, her dark head and her wet nose touching the face of every one with its petals of silk, with its fragrance rising into the air where the bees, their bodies heavy with pollen, hovered— and easily she adored every blossom, not in the serious, careful way that we choose this blossom or that blossom— the way we praise or don’t praise— the way we love or don’t love— but the way we long to be— that happy in the heaven of earth— that wild, that loving.

When we gaze into the adoring eyes of a canine companion, we're staring at the carefully muted and shaped soul of a wolf.

What kind of vice president would I want—someone like Mike Pence, who looks adoringly at Donald Trump whenever he speaks? (I already have a dog.)

I adore you, Emilia Ward, let me worship you and I will be your dog, your slave… anything you want. Just don’t leave me.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don't they? She's a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot.

Other times I fixate on how endearing people are. We sleep on soft surfaces; we like to be cozy. When I see cats cuddled up on pillows, I find it sweet; we are like that too. We like to eat cookies and smell flowers. We wear mittens and hats. We visit our families even when we’re old. We like to pet dogs. We laugh; we make involuntary sounds when we find things funny. Laughing is adorable, if you really think about it :')

Actually, I believe there are only two kinds of women in this world: Martha people and Oprah people. That doesn’t mean one can’t have an affinity for both of them, but my theory is that every chick is more firmly in one camp than the other. The typical Oprah woman is all self-actualized and best-life-y and Eat, Pray, Love. The Big O seems like the kind of gal who’d insist we all spend the afternoon wearing jammy pants. And how fun would that be?! But Martha? She’s not putting up with that nonsense, and that makes me adore her all the more. She’ll tell you what to eat, where to pray, and who to love, and I appreciate the guidance.

What,” Mick said softly, “is Lad doin’ in me bed?” Hearing his name, Lad opened small, piggish, upside-down eyes, gazing with idiotic adoration as his whip-thin tail thumped the covers. “Ah.” Harry scratched behind one ear. “Well, see, ’e was lookin’ so forlorn, like, out in the courtyard by ’imself. Seemed an awful shame to leave ’im there all alone.” “Off!” Mick roared at the dog. Lad’s transformation was instantaneous. His tiny triangle ears folded back, his eyes narrowed worriedly, and he rolled so that he could crawl toward the edge of the bed on his belly. “Is that mud on his paws?” Mick asked in outrage. Harry glanced at the dog. “I do believe it is,” he said as if making a discovery. “Christ!” Mick watched disgustedly as Lad made the edge of the bed and slithered off, thumping to the floor. The dog seemed to think that his apology was done—or perhaps he’d already forgotten that Mick was mad at him—for he gamboled over as frisky as a lamb. “He’s not even me dog,” Mick muttered. Lad sat, one back leg sprawled out to the side, tongue hanging from his mouth, and grinned up at him. He completely ignored Harry, his supposed master. “The dog ’as a wonderful affection for ye,” Harry said brightly.

Any movement or sound is a profession of faith, as the millstone grinding is explaining how it believes in the river. No metaphor can explain this, but I cannot stop pointing to the beauty. Every moment and place says, Put this design in your carpet. I want to be in such a passionate adoration that my tent gets pitched against the sky. Let the beloved come and sit like a guard dog in front of the tent. When the ocean surges, don't let me just hear it. Let is splash inside my chest.

A BS in any neuroscience without a master's or PhD was a three-legged dog of a degree: pitiable, adorable, and capable of inspiring applause when it did anything for you at all.

I want to increase my barbell lifts by another thirty pounds before spring. And I want to get a dog, an adorable Yorkie.

Later, long after my grandfather was dead, I would regret that I could never be the kind of man that he was. Though I adored him as a child and found myself attracted to the safe protectorate of his soft, uncritical maleness, I never wholly appreciated him. I did not know how to cherish sanctity, and I had no way of honoring, of giving small voice to the praise of such natural innocence, such a generous simplicity. Now I know that a part of me would like to have traveled the world as he traveled it, a jester of burning faith, a fool and a forest prince brimming with the love of God. I would like to walk his southern world, thanking God for oysters and porpoises, praising God for birdsongs and sheet lightning, and seeing God reflected in pools of creekwater and the eyes of stray cats. I would like to have talked to yard dogs and tanagers as if they were my friends and fellow travelers along the sun-tortured highways, intoxicated with a love of God, swollen with charity like a rainbow, in the thoughtless mingling of its hues, connecting two distant fields in its glorious arc. I would like to have seen the world with eyes incapable of anything but wonder, and a tongue fluent only in praise.

Sometimes the world feels cold and lonely, and God's love an ocean away. Then, all of a sudden, we're graced with the sloppy wet kiss of an adorable mutt reminding us how deeply we are loved.

Much of any culture can be linked back to eating and food, food and care, eating and language. To eat one's feelings, to eat dust, words, to eat your own heart out, to eat someone else alive, to eat your cake and have it too, things that are adorable (puppies, babies) that are said to be good enough to eat, to have someone else eat out of the palm of your hand, to be chewed out, a dog-eat-dog world. Chinese isn't any different from English in this way. Chī for "eat," and chī sù, to only eat vegetables, but also, colloquially, to be a pushover. Chī cù, to eat vinegar or be jealous. Chī lì, to eat effort, as for a task that is very strenuous. To eat surprise, to be amazed, chī jī ng. To be completely full or chī bǎo fàn, and thus to have nothing better to do. To eat punishment or get the worst of it, chī kuī. And, most important, to eat hardship, suffering, and pain, chī kǔ, a defining Chinese quality, to be able to bear a great deal without showing a crack.

Seen on her own, the woman was not so remarkable. Tall, angular, aquiline features, with the close-cropped hair which was fashionably called an Eton crop, he seemed to remember, in his mother's day, and about her person the stamp of that particular generation. She would be in her middle sixties, he supposed, the masculine shirt with collar and tie, sports jacket, grey tweed skirt coming to mid-calf. Grey stockings and laced black shoes. He had seen the type on golf courses and at dog shows - invariably showing not sporting breeds but pugs - and if you came across them at a party in somebody's house they were quicker on the draw with a cigarette lighter than he was himself, a mere male, with pocket matches. The general belief that they kept house with a more feminine, fluffy companion was not always true. Frequently they boasted, and adored, a golfing husband. ("Don't Look Now")

Getting a Dog: She won this one easily, as I've already mentioned; I thought my graceful surrender would win me a concession or two down the line. i was wrong. Renee saw the dog not as a personal victory for her, but a huge favor she was doing me by teaching me the joys of being pissed on by an animal. This is just one of the adorable quirks of the dog, best friend God ever gave humanity in this crazy little world.

In choosing, moreover, for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had already lost an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight, whose first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely. What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a little prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's heart: What he played in his mother's heart he knew not yet.

(...) I'm my very best self when I'm with him, but every day, I want him more than I need him. He taught me that love is patient, love is kind, love is calm and quiet. It's not a music video of big hair, big tears and erotic, electrical storms. It's two people pottering about a small flat making each other coffee. It's waking up every morning and feeling quietly delighted as you smell the sleep on his skin and observe the the way his tufty hair is framed by the pillow. It's sly hands sneaking up jumpers to stroke the silky skin underneath and wanting to share all your big news, bad news and pictures of especially adorable dogs. It's knowing that there's nothing that can't be talked over and solved by a walk to the park or a trip to the pub.

Rake,” came the succinct reply. “Oh, all right,” Lillian grumbled. “I suppose he is a rake. But that may not be an impediment to his courtship of Lady Natalie. Some women like rakes. Look at Evie.” Evie continued to snip doggedly through the brocade ribbon, while a smile curved her lips. “I don’t l-like all rakes,” she said, her gaze on her work. “Just one.” Evie, the gentlest and most soft-spoken of them all, had been the one least likely to capture the heart of the notorious Lord St. Vincent, who had been the definitive rake. Although Evie, with her round blue eyes and blazing red hair, possessed a rare and unconventional beauty, she was unbearably shy. And there was the stammer. But Evie also had a reserve of quiet strength and a gallant spirit that seemed to have seduced her husband utterly. “And that former rake obviously adores you beyond reason,” Annabelle said.

Peter hesitates. "Ridiculous" is the least of it. How about offensive, insulting? How about the implication that "someone who's never used" is a sad and small figure, standing on the platform, sensibly dressed, as the bus pulls in? Even now, after all those ad campaigns, after all we've learned about how bad it really and truly gets, there is the glamour of self-destruction, imperishable, gem-hard, like some cursed ancient talisman that cannot be destroyed by any known means. Still, still, the ones who go down can seem as if they're more complicatedly, more dangerously attuned to the sadness and, yes, the impossible grandeur. They're romantic, goddamn them; we just can't get it up in quite the same way for the sober and sensible, the dogged achievers, for all the good they do. We don't adore them with the exquisite disdain we can bring to the addicts and miscreants. It helps, of course - let's not get carried away - if you're a young prince like Mizzy, and you've actually got something of value to destroy in the first place.

In my next life, I wanted to come back as a dog—a very spoiled, adorable house dog whose main concern would be whether to sniff my own butt or take another nap. No more dating, no more having to juggle men and their demands, no more emotional rollercoasters. It would be just me and my treats. Maybe some belly rubbing too.

There was something compelling about him. And it was more than the tall, dark and handsome thing he had going for him, or the adorable dog who followed him around. It was the eyes, she realized. The way they'd fixed on her, given her one hundred percent of his attention. A psychologist's trick, surely, but it had felt personal.

She liked solitude and the thoughts of her own interesting and creative mind. She liked to be comfortable. She liked hotel rooms, thick towels, cashmere sweaters, silk dresses, oxfords, brunch, fine stationery, overpriced conditioner, bouquets of gerbera, hats, postage stamps, art monographs, maranta plants, PBS documentaries, challah, soy candles, and yoga. She liked receiving a canvas tote bag when she gave to a charitable cause. She was an avid reader (of fiction and nonfiction), but she never read the newspaper, other than the arts sections, and she felt guilty about this. Dov often said she was bourgeois. He meant it as an insult, but she knew that she probably was. Her parents were bourgeois, and she adored them, so, of course, she had turned out bourgeois, too. She wished she could get a dog, but Dov’s building didn’t allow them.

He was adored like a pet. Not a dog, but a cat. He went where he liked, and nobody owned him.

It was as if her mind were a theater where bad actors could be run off the stage by a pack of adorable, yelping dogs.

Cynophilist: paradoxical being that often despises man and adores the dog, apparently, mainly because of the unconditional love that the latter has for the first.

ZEUS, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.

A dog’s love is forever. We expect infidelity from one another; we marvel at this one’s ability to hold that one’s interest for fifty, sixty years; perhaps some of us feel a secret contempt for monogamy even as we extol it, wishing parole for its weary participants. But dogs do not receive our sympathy or our suspicion—from dogs we presume an eternal adoration.

Although there was nothing to do there, no one to play with, somehow it did not matter, I was happy, and at peace. Billy would be up in her bedroom writing letters—she had so many friends, she was always writing letters—she had so many friends, she was always writing letters—or she would talk to her pekinese dog Ching, which she adored, and which tried to bite her every time she groomed him.

I am happier when I love than when I am loved. I adore my husband, my son, and my grandchildren, my mother, my dog, and, frankly, I don't know if they even like me. But who cares? Loving them is my joy.

Those,” he said, slipping the knife into the folds of his coat, “are the sorts of questions you can’t ask.” “You don’t have to teach me how to do what you do. Just teach me—” “How I do what I do, but not how to do what I do? What if what I do has to do with my knowledge of what to do, and doing requires only the knowledge of doing? What would you do then?” I blinked. “I believe you hurt my brain.” “It’s a good brain, all things considered. Listen, my adorable bonfire, I cannot teach you much. Our safety requires it. But I suppose a little magic never did a body a great deal of harm. Unless it was the magical art of rearranging bones. Or turning flesh inside out. Or—never mind. Really, I’d forgotten how much I missed being collegial with my own kind. A magician without an apprentice is like a dog without a bark.

This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe. Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons20 on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: ‘My dear child, bless our fetiches, adore them for ever; they will make thee live happily; thou hast the honour of being the slave of our lords, the whites, which is making the fortune of thy father and mother.’ Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; this I know, that they have not made mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetiches, who have converted me, declare every Sunday that we are all of us children of Adam—blacks as well as whites. I am not a genealogist, but if these preachers tell truth, we are all second cousins. Now, you must agree, that it is impossible to treat one’s relations in a more barbarous manner.

Other times I fixate on how endearing people are. We sleep on soft surfaces; we like to be cozy. When I see cats cuddled up on pillows, I find it sweet; we are like that too. We like to eat cookies and smell flowers. We wear mittens and hats. We visit our families even when we’re old. We like to pet dogs. We laugh; we make involuntary sounds when we find things funny. Laughing is adorable, if you really think about it

She communicated all this with a raise of the eyebrows, a tired smile, the faintest eye roll and shake of the head. It was the universal mom sign for Look at this psycho he is breaking my spirit in some small way, every day, yet I still adore him and will go to the ends of the earth for him and also allow him to pretend to be a dog and wear a collar and I will walk him- I WILL WALK HIM- because I am a wonderful mother.

Movie premieres and awards ceremonies mixed with the kids and the white picket fence. And a cat. Not a dog. Which I happen to think is adorable. My big old strong, dominant man loves cuddly little kitties. “We’ll

Being the cool girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they're fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl.

Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Sometimes I fixate on how disgusting humans are. I think about how we do things like litter and invent nuclear bombs. I think about racism, war, rape, child abuse, and climate change. I think about how gross people are. I think about public bathrooms, armpits, and about all of our dirty hands. I think about how infection and diseases are spread. I think about how every human has a butt, and about how disgusting that is. Other times I fixate on how endearing people are. We sleep on soft surfaces; we like to be cozy. When I see cats cuddled up on pillows, I find it sweet; we are like that too. We like to eat cookies and smell flowers. We wear mittens and hats. We visit our families even when we’re old. We like to pet dogs. We laugh; we make involuntary sounds when we find things funny. Laughing is adorable, if you really think about it. We have hospitals. We invented buildings meant to help repair people. Doctors and nurses study for years to work here. They come here every day just to patch other people up. If we discovered some other animal who created infrastructure in the anticipation that their little animal peers might get hurt, we would all be absolutely moved and amazed.

Me: Staying here tonight. Helen: You okay? Code word? Helen and I had code words for everything. It was usually an old pet’s name or a line from one of our favorite movies. Growing up, Helen’s family had Maltipoos. It’s a mix between a Maltese and miniature poodle . . . damned dog people and their overbreeding. Anyway, they had a little black Maltipoo named Major. He would have been adorable if he weren’t an incessant humper. It was just vile; truly, the dog was persistent and fanatical about humping. Witnessing Major molest everything in his path was traumatizing. He was constantly in motion, his little butt pumping in and out. There was clearly something wrong with him. He humped everything from stuffed animals to vacuum cleaners to any leg he came in contact with. Helen and I hated that dog. We called him Major Humperdinck. After high school it became our code for I totally want this guy to hump me. I know, we were disgusting girls. Me: Major. Helen: Major What? Me: Don’t . . . Helen: I’m calling the police. Me: Major Humperdinck Helen: I knew it. Well, have fun . . . slut.

Years of yearning had made her sensitive, the way a starving dog twitches it’s nostrils at the faintest scent of food. She could not mistake it. She recognized it at once: love, one-way deep adoration that bounced off and did not bounce back; careful, quiet love that didn’t care and went on anyway.

Be adored among men, God, three-numberéd form; Wring thy rebel, dogged in den, Man's malice, with wrecking and storm. Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue, Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm; Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung: Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

By what right has the dog come to be regarded as a "noble" animal? The more brutal and cruel and unjust you are to him the more your fawning and adoring slave he becomes; whereas, if you shamefully misuse a cat once she will always maintain a dignified reserve toward you afterward--you will never get her full confidence again.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much—no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version—maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”) I waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy. But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed—she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool

A dog's love is forever. We expect infidelity from one another; we marvel at this one's ability to hold that one's interest for fifty, sixty years; perhaps some of us feel a secret contempt for monogamy even as we extol it, wishing parole for its weary participants. But dogs do not receive our sympathy or our suspicion -- from dogs we presume an eternal adoration.

Would you like to hear a song while I cut your hair? There's one my sister Pandora and I wrote, called Pig in the House." Looking intrigued, Bazzle nodded. Cassandra launched into a sublimely ridiculous song about the antics of two sisters trying to hide their pet pig from the farmer, the butcher, the cook, and a local squire who was especially fond of bacon. While she sang, she moved around Bazzle's head, snipping off long locks and dropping them into a pail Garrett held for her. Bazzle listened as if spellbound, occasionally chortling at the silly lyrics. As soon as the song was finished, he demanded another, and sat while Cassandra continued with My Dog Thinks He's a Chicken, followed by Why Frogs are Slimy and Toads are Dry. Had Tom been capable of falling in love, he would have right there and then, as he watched Lady Cassandra Ravenel serenade a ragamuffin while cutting his hair. She was so capable and clever and adorable, it made his chest ache with a hot pressure that threatened to fracture something. "She has a marvelous way with children," Garrett murmured to him at one point, clearly delighted by the situation. She had a way with everyone. Especially him. He'd never been besotted like this. It was intolerable.

How could such adoration and devotion ever be a bad thing? Because so many dog owners are unworthy of it. We are shamed by our dog’s loyalty, and we know, deep in our hearts, we will never measure up to it. In a fractured, impersonal world like ours, such a precious gift should be treasured, and yet so many of us take it for granted. Worse of all, we turn it against our dogs, repaying loyalty with mistreatment and neglect.

Epic. Primordial. Gritty. Incandescent. These are just a few of the adjectives the fat girl feeds you along with her Banana-Rama bread, her peanut butter and raspberry triangles, her rocky road. She says it’s like you have Leonard Cohen’s touch with lyrics coupled with Daniel Johnston’s sincerity coupled with a Rimbaudian aura of tragedy yet with Nick Cave teeth. She doesn’t tell you not to quit your day job, like Some People. Instead, she counsels never to give up, her gaze wet, dark, and adoring as a dog’s.

I shouldn't have spoken to you as I did earlier. For my family, arguing is a sport- we forget that some people tend to take it personally." One of her fingertips drew an intricate little pattern on his thigh. "But I have redeeming qualities," she continued. "I never mind dog hair, for example. And I can pick up small objects with my toes, which is a surprisingly useful talent." Christopher's numbness started melting like spring ice. And it had nothing to do with the Armagnac. It was all Beatrix. God, he adored her.

I walked into my living room. She was sitting on my couch with Chico’s head in her lap. She was rubbing his ears and making cooing noises at him. She bent over and whispered in his ear, “You love me more than Vanessa, don’t you, buddy?” I had to turn around and walk back into the kitchen and place a kitchen towel in my mouth so she couldn’t hear me laughing. It had become clear to me that Leary was staying at my house to gain favor with my dog and turn his allegiance from Vanessa over to her. Fucking adorable. After

Percy, who had been investigating the tall reeds by the edge of the pond, lifted his head at the sound of her voice and appeared to take it as invitation to run to her and attempt to hurl himself against her legs. Miss Greaves gave the dog a stern look before he’d even reached her, and said simply, “Off.” Percy collapsed at her feet, his tongue hanging out the side of his jaws, ears back as he gazed up at her adoringly. Maximus shot the dog an irritated look as he turned and began walking back around the ornamental pond.

I think the insane one is your boyfriend, who just drove off and left his woman with a man who clearly expressed an interest in her. And, by the way, I wouldn’t give a shit if it was professional or not, I’d be marking my territory.” Layla’s hands went to her hips. “He trusts me. And what are you? A dog? Marking your territory. Do you piss on fire hydrants, too?” “He trusts you? That must be why he didn’t see your lie when you told him we’d never met before.” I took a step closer, right into her personal space. Instead of backing up, she tilted her head to look up at me. I fucking loved that she refused to back down. “There is no reason for him to know about us. You know why? Because there was never an us.” “Tell yourself whatever you need to.” “God, you are so arrogant.” I stroked her hair. “You changed your hair. I like it wavy like this. It’s sexy. But you’re covering up those beautiful freckles on your nose again.” She slapped my hand away. “Are you even listening to me?” “Yes. He trusts you. No us. I’m an arrogant asshole.” She growled at me. It was fucking adorable.

I look at the white woman’s cards and listen to her bold English words—dog, cat, house—and there is all the evidence of what is to come in my life. I am not to go the way of the two people I long for in the thick terror of the night. The first man I love and the first woman I adore, my father and my mother with their Spanish words, are not in these cards. The road before me is English and the next part too awful to ask aloud or even silently: What is so wrong with my parents that I am not to mimic their hands, their needs, not even their words?

The domesticated cat in many homes is a friend, a companion, a family member. It is seen as a symbol of grace and poise both in ancient Egypt and in modern society. Women are oft described as cats as men are described as dogs in metaphor as well. Religious adoration of cats was also in ancient Egypt.1 So in some aspects they have, at least, a religious context. This, though, is not what one should look at primarily for a clear indication of their connection to religion. They are examples of a spectrum of how natural spirituality had developed over time.

Heald did not understand cats. All his life he had been a dog person, naturally averse to cats due to his allergies. Many of the women that he knew in the city had cats. It couldn’t be as simple as men being “dog people” and women being “cat people”; he knew that was too one- dimensional. Maybe something about cats’ apprehensive and complicated nature drew women to adore them, sensing a mirrored personality that had to be appreciated, or at the very least, respected. Dogs, with their fanatical, uncomplicated, and singular devotion, were everything a man could ever ask for.

The conversation swings from the brothers Bush to the war in Iraq to the emerging rights of Muslim women to postfeminism to current cinema—Mexican, American, European (Giorgio goes spasmodically mad over Bu-ñuel), and back to Mexican again—to the relative superiority of shrimp over any other kind of taco to the excellence of Ana’s paella, to Ana’s childhood, then to Jimena’s, to the changing role of motherhood in a postindustrial world, to sculpture, then painting, then poetry, then baseball, then Jimena’s inexplicable (to Pablo) fondness for American football (she’s a Dallas Cowboys fan) over real (to Pablo) fútbol, to his admittedly adolescent passion for the game, to the trials of adolescence itself and revelations over the loss of virginity and why we refer to it as a loss and now Óscar and Tomás, arms over each other’s shoulders, are chanting poetry and then Giorgio picks up a guitar and starts to play and this is the Juárez that Pablo loves, this is the city of his soul—the poetry, the passionate discussions (Ana makes her counterpoints jabbing her cigarette like a foil; Jimena’s words flow like a gentle wave across beach sand, washing away the words before; Giorgio trills a jazz saxophone while Pablo plays bass—they are a jazz combo of argument), the ideas flowing with the wine and beer, the lilting music in a black night, this is the gentle heartbeat of the Mexico that he adores, the laughter, the subtle perfume of desert flowers that grow in alleys alongside garbage, and now everyone is singing— México, está muy contento, Dando gracias a millares… —and this is his life—this is his city, these are his friends, his beloved friends, these people, and if this is all that there is or will be, it is enough for him, his world, his life, his city, his people, his sad beautiful Juárez… —empezaré de Durango, Torreón y Ciudad de

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

She liked receiving a canvas tote bag when she gave to a charitable cause. She was an avid reader (of fiction and nonfiction), but she never read the newspaper, other than the arts sections, and she felt guilty about this. Dov often said she was bourgeois. He meant it as an insult, but she knew that she probably was. Her parents were bourgeois, and she adored them, so, of course, she had turned out bourgeois, too. She wished she could get a dog, but Dov’s building didn’t allow them. But the reason she was bourgeois was so she could make work that wasn’t bourgeois. If she were cautious in her life, she could avoid compromising in her work.

Oh, she's got fire." Bellatrix grinned down at her. "I should smack that look off your face." Mia glared up at the older witch. "I've had worse." "You're lucky it's considered bad taste to spill blood on the morning of a marriage. Especially one so important." Bellatrix leant in close to Mia and whispered, "Maybe another day, little girl. I look forward to it. Dealing with you, my little cousin here, and all of your adorable blood-traitor friends. It's rumoured you even have a pet werewol—" Too far. "You will not touch my family, you bitch!" Sirius put his arms around Mia's waist and tugged her back several feet, shoving himself between her and Bellatrix, his eyes wide. "You dare speak to me that way? Do you have any idea who I am?" Bellatrix shrieked, her hands shaking with rage, and her eyes alight with fury. "You filthy little blood-traitor, I will enjoy watching you die screaming!" She had screamed. Mia had screamed and screamed right there in Malfoy Manor, and yet she did not die. She vividly remembered the sight of the black dog launching on top of the dark witch, jaws clamped around her throat, ripping and tearing as she struggled for air. Mia stood, unafraid as Bellatrix Lestrange looked down threateningly at her. "And I will enjoy watching you die . . . gasping.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Despite the sisters' pretend rivalry and occasional squabbles, they were each other's staunchest ally and closest friend. Few people in Lillian's life had ever loved her except Daisy, who adored the ugliest stray dogs, the most annoying children, and things that needed to be repaired or thrown out altogether. And yet for all their closeness, they were quite different. Daisy was an idealist, a dreamer, a mercurial creature who alternated between childlike whimsy and shrewd intelligence. Lillian knew herself to be a sharp-tongued girl with a fortress of defenses between herself and the rest of the world- a girl with well-maintained cynicism and a biting sense of humor.

God: The creation of a sick fantasy. Inhabitant of senile and impotent brains. Companion and comforter of rancid spirits born to slavery. A pill for constipated minds. Marxism for the faint of heart. Humanity: An abstract word with a negative connotation, long on power, short on truth. An obscene mask painted on the mean face of a shrewd vulgarian for the purpose of dominating the multitude of sentimentalist idiots and imbeciles. Country: Penal servitude for the semi-intelligent, a cowshed of imbecility. A Circe who transforms her adoring fans into dogs and pigs. A prostitute for the master, a pimp of the foreigner. Child-eater, parent-slanderer and scoffer at heroes.

Even in the best of times, when we’re not stressed or needy, many of us enjoy petting our dogs as much as any other aspect of dog ownership. This is not a trivial need. Quiet stroking can significantly change your body’s physiology, lowering your heart rate and blood pressure. It releases endogenous opiates, or internal chemicals that calm and soothe us and play a significant role in good health. Lucky for us, most of our dogs adore being touched. Most normal, well-socialized dogs cherish getting belly rubs and head massages and butt scratches. Many dogs like grooming so much that they’re willing to work for it, pawing or barking whenever needed to remind their human not to stop.

The bold, black masked pup goes to a surgeon in Santa Barara with two young daughters. The surgeon’s wife, Jill, takes one look at the pup’s confident gait and names him “Brag.” He’s a handsome fellow with over-sized paws and a serious disposition. The official name for his coloring is sable, which means he has as much black on him as he does brown. Brag grows deeply attached to his new family, never straying far from the little girls and always with one eye on Jill, whom he adores. Before Brag is a year old, Jill’s husband – an amateur pilot – hops in his plain and flies to Bakersfield for business. On his way home later that night, with two friends seated behind him, he miscalculates his position and flies into a mountain north of Santa Barbara. The plan disintegrates on impact. No one survives

When Mrs. Darling came into the kitchen it was with a tentative step and furtive looks. "How is your little pet?" she eventually asked. "What? Oh, he's absolutely adorable," Wendy said, remembering to toss Snowball a tidbit of mutton. For Nana she reserved the bone. "You can... take him with you, you know. To Ireland. He would be a delightful little travel companion." For a moment, just a moment, Wendy looked at her mother- really looked at her, steadily and clearly. "You would never send the boys away." The statement fell hard and final and full of more meaning than anything that had ever been said in the kitchen before. "But they didn't write the... fantasies...." her mother said quietly. Then Mr. Darling came in, loud and blustery, talking up Irish butter and clean country air. Mother and daughter both ignored him.

Kane crossed the room and hunkered down next to me. He placed his elbow on the arm of the sofa behind me and gently scratched my back which his fingers. “Why don’t you come to bed?” His voice was low and inviting. “Maybe because she has company, i.e. me, you dirty bastard.” Keela flared. “Stop seducin’ her when I’m sittin’ right next to your nasty arse.” I beamed at Keela, and Kane smiled at me. He used his free hand to swipe away the already forgotten tears on my cheeks. “There’s my babydoll.” Keela giggled. “That’s adorable, but you’re still nasty.” I flicked my eyes in her direction and playfully narrowed them. “Do you mind?” “Not at all,” she acknowledged. “You do your thing.” Kane nudged me and gave me a wink. “You shouldn’t have ever fed her, she’ll never leave now.” Keela gasped in mock horror. “I’m not a dog. How dare you!

Paul reached out his hand and introduced himself. And without waiting to be introduced she whipped out her hand and said, “Hi! I’m Jamie Boyd!” And right away she was talking a mile a minute. She was so chipper I couldn’t help but smile. I was like that little dog in Looney Toons who is always following the big bulldog around shouting, “What are we going to do today, Spike?” She was adorable. She started firing off questions, one of which really caught my attention. “So you were in the Army? What was your MOS?” she asked. Now, MOS is a military term most civilians have never heard. It stands for Military Occupational Specialty. It’s basically military code for “job.” So instead of just asking me what my job was in the Army, she knew enough to specifically ask me what my MOS was. I was impressed. “Eleven Bravo. Were you in?” I replied. “Nope! But I’ve thought about it. I still think one day I will join the Army.

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

In Cal the process had been so long and so slow that he felt no strangeness. He had built a wall of self-sufficiency around himself, strong enough to defend him against the world. If his wall had any weak places they may have been on the sides nearest Aron and Lee, and particularly nearest Adam. Perhaps in his father's very unawareness Cal had felt safety. Not being noticed at all was better than being noticed adversely. When he was quite small Cal had discovered a secret. If he moved very quietly to where his father was sitting and if he leaned very lightly against his father's knee, Adam's hand would rise automatically and his fingers would caress Cal's shoulder. It is probable that Adam did not even know he did it, but the caress brought such a raging flood of emotion to the boy that he saved this special joy and used it only when he needed it. It was a magic to be depended on. It was the ceremonial symbol of a dogged adoration. Things do not change with a change of scene. In Salinas, Cal had no more friends than he had in King City. Associates he had, and authority and some admiration, but friends he did not have. He lived alone and walked alone.

In the midst of all this talk about husbands and babies, we mustn’t forget about finding a gentleman for Daisy.” The dark-haired girl sent her an affectionate grin. “You’re a dear, Evie. And I don’t mind having waited for my turn. After all, someone had to be the last wallflower. But I am beginning to wonder if I’ll ever find a suitable man to marry.” “Of course you will,” Annabelle said reasonably. “I don’t foresee any difficulty, Daisy. We’ve all broadened our circle of acquaintances quite a bit, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to find the perfect husband for you.” “Just keep in mind that I don’t want to marry a man like LordWestcliff,” Daisy said. “Too overbearing. And not one like Lord St.Vincent either. Too unpredictable.” “What about one like Mr. Hunt?” Annabelle asked. Daisy shook her head firmly. “Too tall.” “You’re becoming a bit particular, aren’t you?” Annabelle pointed out mildly, her eyes twinkling. “Not in the least! My expectations are quite reasonable. I want a nice man who likes long walks, and books, and is adored by dogs, children—” “And all the superior forms of aquatic and plant life,” Lillian said dryly. “Tell me, dear, where are we to find this paragon?” “Not at any of the balls I’ve been to so far,” came Daisy’s glum reply.

became a blurry swirl of shapes and colors narrowing into a luminous spot of white light at the end of a black anoxic tunnel and dissolving into a rapid series of bright sharp images that I recognized at once from my childhood: long forgotten memories of important moments flashing by faster than anything I’d ever experienced, twenty to thirty frames a second, each one of them original, like perfect photographic slides from the archives of my young life, every scene compressed into a complete story with sights and sounds and smells and feelings from the time. Each image was euphoric, rapturous. The smiling face of my beautiful young mother / a gentle touch from her hand on my face / absorbing her love / playing in the sand at the seashore with my father / waves washing up on the beach / feeling the strength and security of his presence / soothing, kind-hearted praise from a teacher at school / faces and voices of adoring aunts and uncles / steam trains coming in at the local railroad station / hearing myself say “choo-choo” / the excitement of shared discovery with my brother on Christmas morning / running free through a familiar forest with a happy dog / hitting a baseball hard and hearing encouraging cries from my parents behind me in the bleachers / shooting baskets in a backyard court with a buddy from high school / a tender kiss from the soft warm lips of a lovely teenage girl / the encouraging thrust of her stomach and thighs against mine.

Within a month of their taking up their residence in Half Moon Street, it had been borne in upon his lordship that his wife was no more fit to carve her way through life than the kitten he called her. His lordship, who had never known responsibility, or shown the least ability to regulate his own career on respectable lines, found himself sole lord and master of a confiding little creature who placed implicit faith in his judgement, and relied upon him not only to guide her footsteps, but to rescue her from the consequences of her own ignorance. A man with a colder heart than Sherry's would have shrugged and turned a blind eye to his wife's difficulties. But the Viscount's heart was not cold, and just as his protective instinct had one night made him search all night through the woods at Sheringham Place for a favorite dog which had dug deep into a rabbit burrow and had been trapped there, so it compelled him to take such care of his Hero as occurred to him. She had always looked up and adored him, and while he took this for granted he was by no means oblivious to it, and did his best to be kind to her. He was amused, but a little touched, to discover that no deeper felicity was known to her than to go about in his company; she would grow out of that soon enough, he supposed, quite forgetting that when she had shown a willingness to go out with Lord Wrotham the instinct of possessiveness in him had led him to discourage such practices in no uncertain manner.

Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time. This he had never experienced at Judge Miller’s down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With the Judge’s sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judge’s grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse. This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, he was the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he saw further. He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk with them (“gas” he called it) was as much his delight as theirs. He had a way of taking Buck’s head roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon Buck’s, of shaking him back and forth, the while calling him ill names that to Buck were love names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough embrace and the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so great was its ecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, “God! you can all but speak!

I saw her as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. This beautiful woman with a gigantic smile on her face was just about bouncing up and down despite the orthopedic boot she had on her foot as she waved me into a parking space. I felt like I’d been hit in the gut. She took my breath away. She was dressed in workout clothes, her long brown hair softly framing her face, and she just glowed. I composed myself and got out of the car. She was standing with Paul Orr, the radio host I was there to meet. Local press had become fairly routine for me at this point, so I hadn’t really given it much thought when I agreed to be a guest on the afternoon drive-time show for WZZK. But I had no idea I’d meet her. Paul reached out his hand and introduced himself. And without waiting to be introduced she whipped out her hand and said, “Hi! I’m Jamie Boyd!” And right away she was talking a mile a minute. She was so chipper I couldn’t help but smile. I was like that little dog in Looney Toons who is always following the big bulldog around shouting, “What are we going to do today, Spike?” She was adorable. She started firing off questions, one of which really caught my attention. “So you were in the Army? What was your MOS?” she asked. Now, MOS is a military term most civilians have never heard. It stands for Military Occupational Specialty. It’s basically military code for “job.” So instead of just asking me what my job was in the Army, she knew enough to specifically ask me what my MOS was. I was impressed. “Eleven Bravo. Were you in?” I replied. “Nope! But I’ve thought about it. I still think one day I will join the Army.” We followed Paul inside and as he set things up and got ready for his show, Jamie and I talked nonstop. She, too, was really into fitness. She was dressed and ready for the gym and told me she was about to leave to get in a quick workout before her shift on-air. “Yeah, I have the shift after Paul Orr. The seven-to-midnight show. I call it the Jammin’ with Jamie Show. People call in and I’ll ask them if they’re cryin’, laughin’, lovin’, or leavin’.” I couldn’t believe how into this girl I was, and we’d only been talking for twenty minutes. I was also dressed in gym clothes, because I’d been to the gym earlier. She looked down and saw the rubber bracelet around my wrist. “Is that an ‘I Am Second’ bracelet? I have one of those!” she said as she held up her wrist with the band that means, “I am second after Jesus.” “No, this is my own bracelet with my motto, ‘Train like a Machine,’ on it. Just my little self-motivator. I have some in my car. I’d love to give you one.” “Well, actually, I am about to leave. I have to go work out before my shift,” she reminded me. “You can have this one. Take it off my wrist. This one will be worth more someday because I’ve been sweating in it,” I joked. She laughed and took it off my wrist. We kept chatting and she told me she had wanted to do an obstacle course race for a long time. Then Paul interrupted our conversation and gently reminded Jamie he had a show to do. He and I needed to start our interview. She laughed some more and smiled her way out the door.

Ah, this coarse, tear-compelling Calvary was at the opposite pole from those debonair Golgothas adopted by the Church ever since the Renaissance. This lockjaw Christ was not the Christ of the rich, the Adonis of Galilee, the exquisite dandy, the handsome youth with the curly brown tresses, divided beard, and insipid doll-like features, whom the faithful have adored for four centuries. This was the Christ of Justin, Basil, Cyril, Tertullian, the Christ of the apostolic church, the vulgar Christ, ugly with the assumption of the whole burden of our sins and clothed, through humility, in the most abject of forms. It was the Christ of the poor, the Christ incarnate in the image of the most miserable of us He came to save; the Christ of the afflicted, of the beggar, of all those on whose indigence and helplessness the greed of their brother battens; the human Christ, frail of flesh, abandoned by the Father until such time as no further torture was possible; the Christ with no recourse but His Mother, to Whom—then powerless to aid Him—He had, like every man in torment, cried out with an infant's cry. In an unsparing humility, doubtless, He had willed to suffer the Passion with all the suffering permitted to the human senses, and, obeying an incomprehensible ordination, He, in the time of the scourging and of the blows and of the insults spat in His face, had put off divinity, nor had He resumed it when, after these preliminary mockeries, He entered upon the unspeakable torment of the unceasing agony. Thus, dying like a thief, like a dog, basely, vilely, physically, He had sunk himself to the deepest depth of fallen humanity and had not spared Himself the last ignominy of putrefaction.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.

Where is Albert?" "He'll be here momentarily. I asked our housekeeper to fetch him." Christopher blinked. "She's not afraid of him?" "Of Albert? Heavens, no, everyone adores him." The concept of someone, anyone, adoring his belligerent pet was difficult to grasp. Having expected to receive an inventory of all the damage Albert had caused, Christopher gave her a blank look. And then the housekeeper returned with an obedient and well-groomed dog trotting by her side. "Albert?" Christopher said. The dog looked at him, ears twitching. His whiskered face changed, eyes brightening with excitement. Without hesitating, Albert launched forward with a happy yelp. Christopher knelt on the floor, gathering up an armful of joyfully wriggling canine. Albert strained to lick him, and whimpered and dove against him repeatedly. Christopher was overwhelmed by feelings of kinship and relief. Grabbing the warm, compact body close, Christopher murmured his name and petted him roughly, and Albert whined and trembled. "I missed you, Albert. Good boy. There's my boy." Unable to help himself, Christopher pressed his face against the rough fur. He was undone by guilt, humbled by the fact that even though he had abandoned Albert for the summer, the dog showed nothing but eager welcome. "I was away too long," Christopher murmured, looking into the soulful brown eyes. "I won't leave you again." He dragged his gaze up to Beatrix's. "It was a mistake to leave him," he said gruffly. She was smiling at him. "Albert won't hold it against you. To err is human, to forgive, canine." To his disbelief, Christopher felt an answering smile tug at the corners of his lips. He continued to pet the dog, who was fit and sleek. "You've taken good care of him." "He's much better behaved than before," she said. "You can take him anywhere now." Rising to his feet, Christopher looked down at her. "Why did you do it?" he asked softly. "He's very much worth saving. Anyone could see that." The awareness between them became unbearably aware. Christopher's heart worked in hard, uneven beats. How pretty she was in the white dress. She radiated a healthy female physicality that was very different from the fashionable frailty of London women. He wondered what it would be like to bed her, if she would be as direct in her passions as she was in everything else.

A woman paralyzed by her own selfishness and triviality, a woman who knew she should love her life more than she did but couldn’t seem to love her life beyond a few odd inconsequential incidents. It is, in fact, time to start dating again. But Dan has no idea what that means for a gay man well into his thirties who has neither money nor abs. - if you’re delivering a song, there are instances when the veil of the ordinary falls away and you are, fleetingly, a supernatural being, with music rampaging through you and soaring out into a crowd. You connect, you’re giving it, you’re the living sweat-slicked manifestation of music itself, the crowd feels it as piercingly as you do. Always, almost always, you “spot a girl. She doesn’t need to be pretty. She’s the love of somebody’s life (you hope she is), and for those few seconds she’s the love of yours, you’re singing to her and she’s singing back to you, by raising her arms over her head and swinging her hips, adoring you or, rather, adoring some being who is you and the song combined, able to touch her everywhere. It’s the briefest of love affairs. - Isabel is embarrassed about her sadness. She’s embarrassed about being embarrassed about her sadness, she who has love and money. She tries looking discreetly into her bag for a Kleenex, without anything that could be called frantic rummaging. She ponders the prospect that decadent unhappiness might, in its way, be worse than genuine, legitimate despair. Which is, as she knows, a decadent question to pose at all. - members of a biological aristocracy - Dan is taken by a tremor of scorn twisted up with painful affection, as if they were two names for the same emotion - but that’s my narcissism speaking ive been working on the idea that there are other people in the world - Beyond lust there’s a purity, you know? Does it ever get to be too late? If neither of you abuses the dog (should they finally get a dog?) or leaves the children in the car on a hot day. Does it ever become irreparable? If so, when? How do you, how does any“one, know when they cross over from working through this to it’s too late? Is there (she suspects there must be) an interlude during which you’re so bored or disappointed or ambushed by regret that it is, truly, too late? Or, more to the point, do we arrive at it’s too late over and over again, only to return to working through this before it’s too late arrives, yet again? Do you think we ever really survive our childhoods? Most mothers think their children are amazing and singular people. Most mothers are wrong about that. You’re beautiful in your own skin. You brought with you into the world some kind of human amazingness, and you can depend on it, always. Please try not to ever let anybody talk you out of that. She says, “You’re not in love with me.” “Trust me. I’ve had a lot of experience at not being in love with people. I’ve been not in love with pretty much everybody, all my life.” She wonders how many women think more kindly and, all right, more lustfully toward their husbands after they’ve left them. Maybe someone’s done a study. “If you’re determined to be insulted.

I’ll let you off your leash, but you have to show some manners. No humping, no pissing on anything man made, and keep the crotch greetings exclusive to your four-legged fury friends. Got it?” Swarley nods because I’ve made him part human over the past few months and I’m pretty sure I saw him roll his eyes at me too. Guess I’d better start getting used to sassiness and eye rolling … read that on a parenting blog too. Note to self. Find more positive bloggers that paint the picture of parenthood with rainbows, fairies, and pixie dust. “Sydney?” I turn. “Hey, Dane!” He bends down to let his dogs off their leashes. “Gosh, I didn’t think you’d be back. How was Paris?” Which part? The view of the ceiling from the couch or the drain from the top of the toilet? “Great!” Extremely sugarcoated … maybe teetering on an outright lie. “So how long are you staying?” He rests his hands on his hips. Dane is adorable. I’m sure grown men don’t like to be called adorable; hell, I didn’t like it when Lautner said it to me, but Dane is just that. Tall, dark, and admittedly handsome with a boyish grin that makes me want to take him home, bake him cookies, and pour him a tall glass of milk. “I’m not sure. Trevor and Elizabeth just moved to San Diego and I’m staying at their house until it sells or until I find something else.” He cocks his head to the side. “Yet, they left Swarley?” Turning my gaze to look for the wild pooch, I shake my head. “Their condo association doesn’t allow large pets. They’ve been looking for a new home for him, but for now I have him.” “You two have come a long way since the first day you showed up at my office.” Clasping my hands behind my back, I look down and kick at the dirt. “Yeah, you’re right. As of lately, I’ve considered taking him myself. But until I know where I’m going to end up, offering it would be a little premature if not irresponsible.” “Grad school with a dog. You’d have to find some place to live that allows pets.” My faces wrinkles as I peek up at him. “I’m not going to grad school, at least not for a while. Something’s kind of come up.” “Oh?” Dane’s hands shift from his hips to crossing over his chest as he widens his stance. I blow out a long breath, scrubbing my hands over my face. My fingers trace my eyebrows as I meet his eyes again. “I’m … pregnant.” Dane’s eye are going to pop out of his head and the dogs will be chasing them if he opens them any wider. “I’m sorr—or congrat—or—” I smile because his adorableness doubles when he gets all nervous and starts stuttering. “It’s congratulations now … ‘I’m sorry’ was last month.” He nods in slow motion. “So you came back for Lautner?” “No … well, yes, but that backfired on me. He’s … moved on.” “Moved on? Are you serious? From … you?” I shrug, bobbing my head up and down. “Well … he’s a fuc—a freaking idiot.” As much pain as this conversation brings me, I still manage to let a giggle escape with an accompanying smile. “You’re right. He is a fucafreaking idiot.” Dane grins. “Especially because he’s with Claire.” His eyes go wide again. “Dr. Brown?” I nod. “Dr. Fucafreaking Brown.” Dane mouths WOW! “Exactly.

Becoming aware of Albert nosing at his shoulder, Leo turned to pet him. "Is this a dog or a street broom?" "It's Albert," Beatrix replied. The dog promptly collapsed to his side, tail thumping the floor repeatedly. Beatrix smiled. Three months earlier, such a scene would have been unimaginable. Albert would have been so hostile and fearful that she wouldn't have dared to expose him to children. But with patience, love, and discipline- not to mention a great deal of help from Rye- Albert had become a different dog altogether. Gradually he had become accustomed to the constant activity in the household, including the presence of other animals. Now he greeted newness with curiosity rather than fear and aggression. Albert had also gained some much-needed weight, looking sleek and healthy. Beatrix had painstakingly groomed him, stripping and trimming his fur regularly, but leaving the adorable whisks that gave his face a whimsical expression. When Beatrix walked Albert to the village, children gathered around him, and he submitted happily to their petting. He loved to play and fetch. He stole shoes and tried to bury them when no one was looking. He was, in short, a thoroughly normal dog.

He's really so adorable. The dog, I mean. Did you know he's a rescue beagle?" I'd remembered Frank and Sam had used the term the day I'd first encountered Bandit, but I'd just assumed it meant that he'd come from the pound. Rachel had set me straight. "They use them to experiment on. You know, in laboratories. Sam says they use beagles because they're so gentle and sweet-tempered they won't even bite you when you're hurting them. And after a few years when they 'retire' the dogs, some labs give them to rescue groups who try to find them homes. Sam says that Bandit didn't even know what grass was when he got him. It's his second rescue beagle. He had one before, a girl dog, but she ended up with cancer and he had to put her down. So he got Bandit." "Beagles," Sam said now, as he stood squarely on the scaffolding, "don't like to be alone. So she'll be doing me a favor." "What about the doggie day-care place?" "Nah. There's a Labradoodle there that's always picking on him. He'll be better hanging out with Rachel." I was not completely fooled. I knew he'd talked to Rachel for a while, because she'd told me that he had. "He's really nice," she'd said. "He listens." So I knew he knew that Rachel wasn't finding this an easy time, and I suspected Sam just figured she and Bandit were a lot alike in needing some companionship from somebody who understood and didn't push their boundaries. Whatever his true motivations, it was an inspired move.

Roald Dahl adored dogs, birds, and even goats. But he hated cats.

What in Hades were you doing, lady? I almost hit you." Remington rose to confront him, but before he could say a word, Madeline came up like an infuriated wasp. "What was I doing? What were you doing? You almost hit this dog." Her cheeks and the tip of her nose glowed scarlet with fury. Her eyes sparked with brilliant blue. She had a smudge on one cheek and her hat was askew, but that didn't matter, for all the passion she had revealed in the morning's kiss she put into the defense of a mutt she had never before seen. Surly with guilt, the youth said, "It was just a flea-ridden stray." Then her loveliness registered. He jerked to attention, back straight, shoulders back. He stared with avid fascination into her face. "I believe we may have met, although I can't quite remember-" She rampaged on, "Is that the way you were taught? To run over defenseless animals?" Stepping back, Remington folded his arms. This youth didn't stand a chance. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. I recognize you. You're Lord Mauger!" "Yes, I... I am. Viscount Mauger, humbly at your service." Whipping his hat from his head, the youth bowed, eager to make a belated good impression on the beauty before him. "And you are...?" She wasn't impressed or interested. "I know your mother, and she would box your ears for this." Dull red rose in Mauger's cheeks. "You won't tell her." "Not if you promise to be more careful in the future. I won't be around to rescue the next dog, and I remember what a fine lad you were. You love animals, and you'd feel guilty if you killed one." "You're... you're right." Mauger's pleading eyes looked much like the dog's. "I just bought the chestnut, and came into town, and I wanted to show him off, but that's no excuse..." As Mauger dug his toe into the dirt, Remington realized he was observing a master at work. She had taken the young man from fury, to infatuation, to guilt in one smooth journey, and Mauger adored her for it.

She heard the door close as she examined the dog. "You're looking much better," she told the animal. "Good enough that Jean-Marie might be able to take you outside to wash you. Oh, don't get up." This last was said nervously as the dog climbed laboriously to his feet. "Really, you shouldn't." Eve watched wide-eyed as the animal staggered toward her. "Sit back down, 'please,'" she said, arms raised, but the animal either didn't know what an order was or ignored hers. He walked unsteadily right to her as Eve glanced wildly toward the closed door, hoping that Jean-Marie would make a sudden, early reappearance. And then the animal laid his big head on her knees. "Oh," she said, for she had no idea what else to do. The dog was 'looking' at her with huge brown eyes, his forehead wrinkled up as though he was worried. His enormous drooping jowls were spread like a messy black skirt upon her lap, and the animal's triangular ears were back. Actually it was rather adorable. Hesitantly Eve laid her palm very gently on the beast's head. Slowly the dog's tail swayed back and forth, and he gave a great sigh.

Seeing her mama wiggle and swagger like that always reminded Sugar of her own shortcomings in this department. She knew the sort of daughter Etta wished she had- another wiggler and swaggerer- but that flirtatious behavior just didn't come naturally to Sugar. She wasn't a tomboy, exactly. Her mother would have shot her rather than let that happen, but Sugar didn't particularly like parties or shopping trips or lengthy visits to the beauty parlor, all of which her mother adored. She preferred helping her grandfather with his bees on his orchard farther up the Ashley River; she always had. She liked reading books on her own or walking the family dog, Miss Pickles. Worse, she couldn't manage high heels no matter how hard she tried, which was an utter disgrace to her southern roots. The pretty only daughter of a well-known beauty married to one of the city's wealthier sons should by rights follow directly in her mother's footsteps in nothing less than three-inch stilettos, as far as Etta was concerned. But she and Sugar were cut from different cloth.

Once we'd balled up our burrito wrappers and tossed them into the trash, Jake and I walked several blocks from El Farolito to the home of Gus, a rescued shepherd mix that I walked a few afternoons each week. Jake sat on the stoop while I ran upstairs. As usual, Gus was waiting for me at the door of his apartment,; I could hear his tail pounding the floor as I turned the key in the lock. Once I got inside, he hopped around me, nipping delicately at my fingers, nails clackety-clacking at the floor, his tail an ecstatic black blur. I knelt down in front of him, pressed his floppy, expressive ears flat back against his head, and planted a kiss on the side of his long, black schnoz. He whined happily, his whole body shimmying. Gus was one of those dogs who had an entirely different personality at home, where his sense of security gave him the confidence to be joyous and goofy. Out on the street, the shelter pup in him came out and he turned skittish and sorrowful, his tan quotation mark eyebrows pressing together to turn his forehead into a series of of anxious wrinkles. Needless to say, I was gaga for Gus and his layered personality. Downstairs, I could see right away that Jake loved dogs as much as I did. I had to warn him not to try too hard with Gus; too much attention from a stranger would only make Gus more nervous out there in the big loud world. Jake managed to restrain himself for half a block, but soon was cooing down to Gus, running his hand down the length of his silky black-and-tan coat, and passing him a little piece of chorizo from a napkin that he'd somehow slipped into his pocket at El Farolito without me noticing. Gus pressed himself against Jack's leg and looked adoringly up at him as he gobbled the meat, his tail for a moment wagging as freely as it did at home.

Jack felt that people could learn a lot from dogs. Their love was always total and required nothing from their owners. It wasn’t really love, it was adoration and total devotion. They were the creatures that Jack felt God had placed in their care so humans could understand what adoration truly was.

A fleet of restored vintage trolleys ran from the West Village to Downtown. They had adorable names like Rosie, Betty, Petunia, and the Green Dragon. They dinged cheerfully down the green median of a cobblestone path. Griffin took a few shots of Megan and Josh in front of the Green Dragon before we all climbed aboard. As we looped around the neighborhood, I looked out the window and felt the breeze on my face. The West Village was a great cross section of urban Dallas life. Yuppies, families, and empty nesters commingled on the streets. Most days a breeze blew down the corridor, making it bearable, even enjoyable, to sit outside the cafés year-round. A dog-friendly café with an adjoining dog park was down the block, and a parade of pups dripped down the street, tails wagging, sopping wet from doggie pools. A couple on roller skates did tricks for pedestrians before they skated away, hand in hand. It felt vibrant and magical. Homey.

Many years ago when an adored dog died, a great friend, a bishop, said to me, ‘You must always remember that, as far as the Bible is concerned, God only threw the humans out of Paradise’. -Bruce Foyle