Apartment Funny Quotes

Not dead-dying. Funny how two things could be so similar and yet so far apart

Log Entry: SOL 118 My conversation with NASA about the Water Reclaimer was boring and riddled with technical details. So I'll paraphrase for you: Me: "This is obviously a clog. How about I take it apart and check the internal tubing?" NASA: (After about 5 hours of deliberation) "No. You'll fuck it up and die." So I took it apart.

Though Alec had never seen the occupants of the first floor loft, they seemed to be engaged in a tempestuous romance. Once there had been a bunch of someone's belongings strewn all over the landing with a note attached to a jacket lapel addressed to "A lying liar who lies." Right now there was a bouquet of flowers taped to the door with a card tucked among the blooms that read I'M SORRY. That was the thing about New York: you always knew more about your neighbors' business than you wanted to.

When they’re together, the world could fall apart around them and they’d never notice or care as long as they have each other. About Alex and Brittany.

Touch was funny like that. How one movement could choke you and kill you, but another meant nothing more than a caress and an invitation. How sex and rape were just a few motions apart.

Funny things, aren't they? People. They only believed in what they could see. Appearances were all that mattered, and no one would ever care what she was like on the inside. No one cared that she was breaking apart.

If there's a sexier sound on this planet than the person you're in love with cooing over the crepes you made for him, I don't know what it is.

That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart.

The wider you spread your fingers apart while clapping is equal to the amount of retarded you look while clapping.

His life was a constant war with insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got themselves lost as soon as they entered the sphere of his existence.

Shepley stomped into the apartment and slammed the door behind him. “She’s fucking impossible!” I kissed Travis on the cheek. “That’s my cue.” “Good luck,” Travis said. I slid in beside America, and she huffed. “He’s fucking impossible!

This is the way I want to die. Torn apart by angry fans who want me to play a different song.

Chase had looked at the apartment—online—talked to the real estate agent—online—obtained references—online. Now, standing in the hallway, it was obvious he’d gotten fucked—online.

I had the great idea of using markers to gently color the ants so I could tell them apart, but I learned that this is exactly like somebody trying to gently color on you with a thirty-story building. Without dwelling on the tragedy, I'd just like to say that I'm deeply sorry to Mr. Purple and the surviving Purple family.

Our family was nearly torn apart on several occasions by arguments started when the refrigerator door was open for what my father deemed as ‘too long.

I installed a skylight in my apartment...The people who live above me are furious!

I started getting Mal's texts just before lunch. Mal: Awake Anne: Morning Mal: Going for a run with Jim Anne: Have fun! Mal: Back from run having lunch ... Mal:Your taste in music sucks Anne: Thanks Mal: Seriously, we need to talk it's that bad. Everything apart from Stage Dive needs to go. Anne: Wait. What are you doing? Mal:Fixing it. Anne: Mal, WTH are you doing? Mal: Making you new playlist wih decent shit. Relay Anne: K Thanks Mal: Bored again Mal: Ben's coming over to play Halo Anne: Great! But you don't have to tell me everything you do, Mal Mal: Davie says communication's important Mal: When are you on the rag? Davie said to find out if you want cupcakes or ice cream Anne: I want to not talk about this ever Mal: Bored. Ben's late Mal: Let's get a dog Anne: Apartment has no pets rule Mal: Nice green lace bra Anne: Get out of my drawers, Mal. Mal: Matching panties? Anne: GET OUT NOW. Mal: :) Mal: sext me Mal: Some on it'll be funny Mal: Plz? Mal: High level of unhealthy codependency traits exhibited by both parties relationship possibly bordeing on toxic Anne: WTF? Mal: Did magazine quiz. We need help- Especially you Anne:... Mal: Booking us couples counseling. Tues 4:15 alright? Anne: We are not going to counseling. Mal: What's wrong? Don't you love me anymore? Anne: Turning phone off now.

You could study the connections for years and never work it out-it was all about things coming together,things falling apart,time warp, my mother standing out in front of the museum when time flickered and the light went funny, uncertainties hovering on the edge of a vast brightness. the stray chance that might, or might not, change everything.

Good morning, good morning, good morning," Loki chirped, wheeling in a table covered with silver domes. "What are you doing?" I asked, squinting at him. He'd pulled up the shades. I was tired a hell, and I was not happy. "I thought you two lovebirds would like breakfast," Loki said. "So I had the chef whip you up something fantastic." As he set up the table in the sitting area, he looked over at us. "Although you two are sleeping awfully far apart for newly weds." "Oh my god." I groaned and pulled the covers over my head. "You know, I think you're being a dick," Tove told him as he got out of bed. "But I'm starving. So I'm willing to overlook it. This time." "A dick?" Loki pretended to be offended. "I'm merely worried about your health. If your bodies aren't used to strenous activities, like a long night of love making, you could waste away if you don't get plenty of protein and rehydrate. I'm concerned for you." "Yes we both believe that's why you're here," Tove said sarcastically and took a glass of orange juice that Loki had just poured for him. "What about you princess?" Loki's gaze cut to me as he filled another glass. "I'm not hungry."I sighed and sat up. "Oh really?" Loki arched an eyebrow. "Does that mean that last night-" "It means last night is none of your business," I snapped.

It's funny how "a part" and "apart" are complete opposites, yet only differ by a little space.

Two years ago, I was a twenty-nine year old secretary. Now I am a thirty-one year old writer. I get paid very well to sit around in my pajamas and type on my ridiculously fancy iMac, unless I'd rather take a nap. Feel free to hate me -- I certainly would.

You know the funny thing about Afghanistan?’ Griffin’s voice was very soft. ‘The British aren’t going to invade with English troops. They’re going to invade with troops from Bengal and Bombay. They’re going to have sepoys fight the Afghans, just like they had sepoys fight and die for them at Irrawaddy, because those Indian troops have the same logic you do, which is that it’s better to be a servant of the Empire, brutal coercion and all, than to resist. Because it’s safe. Because it’s stable, because it lets them survive. And that’s how they win, brother. They pit us against each other. They tear us apart.

Dear Josh, Thank you for giving me the most amazing memories. My life growing up was so full because you were in it. Having your love and loving you was always just right. It made sense. You were my home. When I was with you I knew everything would be okay. You dried my tears for me when I was sad. You held my hand when we buried my mother. You made me laugh when the world seemed like it was falling apart. You were every special memory a girl could have. That first kiss will forever be embedded in my brain. It was as funny as it was sweet. Our life together molded me into the woman I’ve become. I understand what it feels like to be loved and cherished because I had that with you. I never doubted my worth because you taught me I was worthy. When you said that one day I would heal I didn’t believe that was possible. Life couldn’t go one without my best friend. There was no room for another guy in my heart. It turns out you were right. You always were. I found him. He is incredible. He is nothing at all like I would have planned. He doesn’t fit into a perfect package. He managed to wiggle into my heart and take over before I knew what was happening. I found that happiness you told me would come along. I’m going to go live that life. I’m sure it will be a wilder ride than I ever imagined and I can’t wait to live it. He’s my home now. I’ll always love you. I’ll never forget you. But this is my goodbye. I wasn’t ready before to let you go. Now, I can move on. Your memory will live on in my heart always. Love, Your Eva Blue

We think we owe everyone something. We think we need to explain ourselves and we think too much about thinking too much. And it is funny how we think we know it all, but the reality is this: everything we think that brings us together is everything that sets us further apart. And over thinking of how different we all are; is failing to recognize of how connected we all could really be.

Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you--almost apart from their meaning--a thrill like music?

He truly wasn't very funny but: 1. Apart from Kyazike, who is ten times as funny as me, I don't find anyone as funny as me, even in this, the darkest period of my life. 2. Actually, no man is as funny as me or any woman I've ever met.

Woolsey quirked an eyebrow. “You are a funny thing,” he said. “I would say I could see what those boys see in you, but …” He shrugged. His yellow dressing gown had a long, bloody tear in it now. “Women are not something I have ever understood.” “What about them do you find mysterious, sir?” “The point of them, mainly.” “Well, you must have had a mother,” said Tessa. “Someone whelped me, yes,” said Woolsey without much enthusiasm. “I remember her little.” “Perhaps, but you would not exist without a woman, would you? However little use you may find us, we are cleverer and more determined and more patient than men. Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.” “Is that what you are doing? Enduring? Surely an engaged woman should be happier.” His light eyes raked her. “A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart.” “House,” said Tessa. He raised an eyebrow. “What was that?” “A house divided against itself cannot stand. Not a heart. Perhaps you should not attempt quotations if you cannot get them correct.

Mallory dropped her head to the steering wheel. "Look, I'm mad at you, okay? This isn't about me. I know my painful memories are relative. My life is good. I'm lucky. This isn't about how poor little Mallory has had it so hard. I'm not falling apart or anything." He stroked a hand down her back. "Of course you're not. You're just holding the steering wheel up with your head for a minute, that's all.

I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids.

Funny things, aren't they? People, they only believe in what they could see. Appearances were all that mattered, and no one cared that she was breaking apart.

I took a bite of lobster meat with rice. It was quite tasty. 'Arguing the morality of slaughter will send you into a tailspin of self-loathing every time.' 'Unless you're a vegan.' 'Uh-huh. But then you're a vegan and you don't count.

It was as if when he left he'd taken some of the screws that held her together and now all she could do was walk around all wonky and falling apart

How funny you are today New York like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days (I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still accepts me foolish and free all I want is a room up there and you in it and even the traffic halt so thick is a way for people to rub up against each other and when their surgical appliances lock they stay together for the rest of the day (what a day) I go by to check a slide and I say that painting’s not so blue where’s Lana Turner she’s out eating and Garbo’s backstage at the Met everyone’s taking their coat off so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers and the park’s full of dancers with their tights and shoes in little bags who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y why not the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won and in a sense we’re all winning we’re alive the apartment was vacated by a gay couple who moved to the country for fun they moved a day too soon even the stabbings are helping the population explosion though in the wrong country and all those liars have left the UN the Seagram Building’s no longer rivalled in interest not that we need liquor (we just like it) and the little box is out on the sidewalk next to the delicatessen so the old man can sit on it and drink beer and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day while the sun is still shining oh god it’s wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much

I’m fifteen and I feel like girl my age are under a lot of pressure that boys are not under. I know I am smart, I know I am kind and funny, and I know that everyone around me keeps telling me that I can be whatever I want to be. I know all this but I just don’t feel that way. I always feel like if I don’t look a certain way, if boys don’t think I’m ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’ then I’ve failed and it doesn’t even matter if I am a doctor or writer, I’ll still feel like nothing. I hate that I feel like that because it makes me seem shallow, but I know all of my friends feel like that, and even my little sister. I feel like successful women are only considered a success if they are successful AND hot, and I worry constantly that I won’t be. What if my boobs don’t grow, what if I don’t have the perfect body, what if my hips don’t widen and give me a little waist, if none of that happens I feel like what’s the point of doing anything because I’ll just be the ‘fat ugly girl’ regardless of whether I do become a doctor or not. I wish people would think about what pressure they are putting on everyone, not just teenage girls, but even older people – I watch my mum tear herself apart every day because her boobs are sagging and her skin is wrinkling, she feels like she is ugly even though she is amazing, but then I feel like I can’t judge because I do the same to myself. I wish the people who had real power and control the images and messages we get fed all day actually thought about what they did for once. I know the girls on page 3 are probably starving themselves. I know the girls in adverts are airbrushed. I know beauty is on the inside. But I still feel like I’m not good enough.

Grow up with me,Let’s run in fields and through the dark together,Fall off swings and burn special things,And both play outside in bad weather,Let’s eat badly,Let’s watch adults drink wine and laugh at their idiocy,Let’s sit in the back of the car making eye contact with strangers driving past,Making them uncomfortable,Not caring, not swearing, don’t look,Let’s both reclaim our superpowers, The ones we all have and lose with our milk teeth,The ability not to fear social awkwardness,The panic when locked in the cellar, still sure there’s something down there,And while picking through pillows each feather,Let’s both stay away from the edge of the bed,Forcing us closer together,Let’s sit in public, with ice-cream all over both our faces,Sticking our tongues out at passers-by,Let’s cry, let’s swim, let’s everything,Let’s not find it funny, lest someone falls over,Classical music is boring,Poetry baffles us both,There’s nothing that’s said is what’s meant,Plays are long, tiresome, sullen and filled With hours that could be spent rolling down hills and grazing our knees on cement,Let’s hear stories and both lose our innocence,Learn about parents and forgiveness,Death and morality,Kindness and heart,Thus losing both of our innocent hearts,But at least we wont do it apart,Grow up with me.

Viv closed her eyes, sick with regret. "Why do you act like no one ever loved you? I loved you." For a second Regina's fingers were softer, almost caressing, at the nape of Viv's neck. "Hmm. Maybe you did. But it's funny ... how we want love from certain people, and if we don't get it from them, it'll never be enough coming from someone else.

It’s funny how quickly tomorrow becomes yesterday and then last week and then you run out of time.

I don’t begrudge a man a hobby, but if you’re forty and your apartment has a theme, I just don’t see it working out for us.

Men came in and dragged us apart. It took us five minutes to bring Nora to. She sat up holding her cheek and looked around the room until she saw Morelli, nippers on one wrist, standing between two detectives. Morelli's face was a mess: the coppers had worked him over a little just for the fun of it. Nora glared at me. "You damned fool," she said, "you didn't have to knock me cold. I knew you'd take him, but I wanted to see it." One of the coppers laughed. "Jesus," he said admiringly, "there's a woman with hair on her chest.

Cam’s grin was wicked as his hand coasted up my waist to cup my breast. He squeezed it, setting off a weird mixture of painful tenderness and a bolt of lust to my sex. “My eyes!” Cole yelled. Cam and I jerked apart, and I twisted my head to see my brother standing in the doorway in his pyjamas, his hair falling in wet locks across his forehead. His forearm covered his eyes. “I’m fucking blind,” he growled and turned around, bumping into the wall before remembering to drop his arm. After that he stomped out of the flat, the door slamming in his wake. Horrified, I looked up into Cam’s face, my eyes wide. “I think I should let him get away with using the ‘f’ word on this occasion.” Cam snorted, laughter sputtering as he dropped his head to my chest, his whole body shaking with amusement. I felt an irrepressible giggle escape me despite my mortification for myself and Cole. “It’s not funny. We’ve scarred him. I better check on him.” Cam shook his head, his eyes bright with mirth. “You’re the last person he wants to see right now … I’m sure he’s barricaded himself in his room and is doing anything he can to burn the image of me dry-humping his sister out of his mind.

I check every can of Barbasol I buy for dinosaur embryos. I haven't found any yet, as evidenced by the lack of T-Rex screams in my apartment.

[When asked about his thoughts on gods] I think it's like a movie that was way too popular. It's a story that's been told too many times and just doesn't mean anything. Man lived on the planet — [placing his fingers an inch apart], this is 5000 years of semi-recorded history. And God and the Bible, that came in somewhere around the middle, maybe 2000. This is the last 2000, this is what we're about to celebrate [indicating about an 1/8th of an inch with his fingers]. Now, humans, in some shape or form, have been on the earth for three million years [pointing across the room to indicate the distance]. So, all this time, from there [gesturing toward the other side of the room], to here [indicating the 1/8th of an inch], there was no God, there was no story, there was no myth and people lived on this planet and they wandered and they gathered and they did all these things. The planet was never threatened. How did they survive for all this time without this belief in God? I'd like to ask this to someone who knows about Christianity and maybe you do. That just seems funny to me.

If he sees you in this apartment he will seriously murder you and then break up with me.  And I really, really don’t want him to break up with me, Linc.” “But murdering me, that’s all good?

We came here unarmed." Donegan said cheerfully, and Gracious looked at him. "You're unarmed?" he asked, surprised. "Yes," Donegan said. "Aren't you?" "Well I suppose so. Apart from my gun." Donegan glared at him. "What? Why did you bring a gun? I told you to come unarmed." "I thought you were joking." "Why would I be joking?" "I don't know, I thought that's what made it funny.

Today 5:14 p.m. "Mrrrrrowl. Mrrrrrowl." "Ow! Ow, stupid cat! Ahem. You told me, 'stop calling, Isabelle,' but I'm not the one calling you. Church is calling you. Mine are merely the fingers that work the phone. "See, here's something you may not have known before you committed your recent rash acts. Our cat, Church, and your cat, Chairman Meow? They're in love. I've never seen such love before. I never knew such love could exist in the heart of a... cat. Some people say that love between two dude cats is wrong, but I think it's beautiful. Love makes Church happier than I've ever seen him. Nothing makes him happy like Chairman Meow. Not tuna. Not shredding centuries-old tapestries. Nothing. Please don't keep these cats apart. Please don't take the joy of love away from Church. "Look, this is really just a warning for your own good. If you keep Church and Chairman Meow apart, Church will start to get angry. "You wouldn't like Church when he's angry." Beep

I waved my hand like a frantic dust mop fingers spread ludicrously wide apart as if to say “What jolly fun ” What I wanted to do actually was to leap to my feet strike a pose and burst into one of those “Yo-ho for the open road ” songs they always play in the cinema musicals but I stifled the urge and settled for a ghastly grin and an extra twiddle of the fingers.

Love was a funny thing, Peter thought. You grow up thinking you will have some control over it—when you will fall in love, who you will fall in love with. But then life surprises you out of nowhere, and you fall in love when the world is falling apart.

Cole steps forward, his fingers reaching around my shoulders, and kisses me. It is sudden and smooth and soft as air against my lips. The wind whips around us, tugging at the fabric of our clothes, but not pulling us apart. And then it's gone, the cool pressure against my lips, and my eyes are open and looking into two gray eyes like river rocks. "/That's/ what you wanted to show me?" "No," he says, his fingers slipping down my arms as he leads me off the path and out, away from Near. "That was just in case.

My heart broke and my mind opened, tragedy works in a funny way like that ~ what once tore me apart was actually what was setting my truth free.

She must, I see now, have come in here for a break from the Sturm und Drang going on in the apartment. Funny how you realise that only after you become a parent yourself.

The human body is a funny machine. When you want to move something - say, your arm - the brain actually sends two signals at the same time: "More power!" and "Less power!" The operating system that runs the body automatically holds some power back to avoid overexerting and tearing itself apart. Not all machines have that built - in safety feature. You can point a car at a wall, slam the accelerator to the floor, and the car will crush itself against the wall until the engine is destroyed or runs out of gas. Martial arts use every scrap of strength the body has at its disposal. In martial arts training, you punch and shout at the same time. Your "Shout louder!" command helps to override the "Less power!" command. With practice, you can throttle the amount of power your body holds back. In essence, you're learning to channel the body's power to destroy itself.

I said I was sorry, Dani..." Kevin said, as they entered the apartment. "I'm so not talking to you." "I couldn't help it! She was so funny, and you were blushing, and... gawd, Dani, I couldn't help it!" "You just had to get us all soft pretzels, didn't you... just had to make sure we'd walk right by that lingerie store..." "Dani... it, uh, it hadn't even occurred to me-" "I hate you! When I go to therapy about this, I'm going to send you the bill!" "You're beautiful when your angry." "Then I must be fucking gorgeous right now!" "You are." "... Well, I'm still not talking to you.

On summer nights when the windows are open, you can listen in on people's lives—babies crying, kids laughing, radios blaring, mothers yelling, couples fighting. Funny thing is, the sounds are always the same. Even though different people come and go, the sounds stay the same. I like that. It makes me feel a part of something big, something never ending, like the stars.

Life is funny. I'd applied to the wrong graduate program, but that eventually led me to the right grad program. I'd taken what I thought was the wrong undergraduate major, and that was the thing that set me apart and allowed me to find my niche. I don't know if there are any lessons to take from that except to realize that the things you think are mistakes may turn out not to be mistakes. I realized wherever you are, if you make the most of what you've got, you can find a way to keep moving forward.

Seth turns to Laney and I. "Three months ago, I'm in Detroit protesting a free trade conference, right? Some pig shoves me, I go flying into another, next thing I know I'm on the ground with a Taser in my back. I get thrown in city jail, no money and one phone call. So I call Jake. You know what this fucker did? He dropped everything, drove up and bailed me out, no questions." "Like I could just leave you," Jake says. "You're too pretty. You're a delicate flower. They would've ripped you apart in there.

It’s only sixteen ninety-five," I say with a flutter of my lashes. "You’re serious." I prop my hands on my waist and stick out a hip, striking a pose worthy of a supermodel. "Look at me. Don’t I look serious?" She collapses into the chair outside the dressing room in a fit of giggles so cute they make my insides fizz. "No! You must be stopped," she says. "Why?" I strut down an aisle of yellowed lingerie, swiveling my hips, batting bras with flicks of my fingers. "I will be the king of the disco. I will be—" I spin and strike another pose. "An inspiration." She sniffs and swipes at her eyes. "The real Dylan would die before he’d be seen in public in something like that." "The real Dylan is boring." I brace my hands on the arms of her chair and lean down until our faces are a whisper apart. "And he’s not one fourth the kisser I am." "Is that right?" Her lips quirk. "You know it is." Her smile melts, and her breath comes faster. "Yeah. I do.

And why was I sitting on the curb? I honestly didn’t know, but it was better than being inside my apartment, all alone. And yeah, I was alone out here, but it didn’t feel that way. I was pretty sure there was a squirrel over by the tree, so that counted for something, right?

You can't love me if you don't love you, you can't think of nothing to do with me if you can't think of nothing to do with yourself, stop feeling sorry for yourself and tidy up, clean up the apartment until you get a house, do that job until you build your own company. Look at what you have and think on how to make it better.

I wasn’t afraid of the Germans, not me,” an old bag would whine, “I went straight up to them and said, ‘This house belongs to the mother of a French officer’—and they didn’t say a word.” And another woman would say, “Bullets were flying all around me, but it’s funny, I wasn’t scared, not a bit.” It was understood that everyone would embellish their tales with terrifying scenes. As for Charles, he would simply reply, “That’s odd. Everything seemed quite normal to me. There were a lot of people on the road, but that’s all.” He imagined their surprise and smiled, feeling smug. He needed to feel smug. When he thought about his apartment in Paris, his heart broke.

I unlocked the door and entered the familiar assortment of shadows. It was uncomfortably cool, almost like winter. The carpeting felt damp. It actually smelled like winter. Which was funny, since I hadn’t noticed it outside. Does that mean the smell was inside my apartment? When the temperature and intensity of the sunlight and the quality of night all met certain criteria, did that smell issue from the books and clothes and curtains and the other nooks and crannies all at once? Remembering something.

Pippin?" "Yes, Dash?" "How did we get here?" "Aboard this ship?" she teased. "Nate ordered the sails raised and then --" "Very funny," he said, cutting her off. "You know what I mean. Here. To this place." "Oh, this place," she said, her face growing solemn. "I've wondered that as well, and all I can think of is that we are like our stars." "How so?" "You and I are the two outer stars, and the one between us is everything that keeps us apart." He set his lips together and gazed out at the waves. "Like this ocean," he offered.

It’s funny how people can live with one another but still be so far apart.

According to her the vibes in here are very destructive to my well-being. I’m pretty sure the only thing in my apartment that’s destructive to my well-being is me.

Fear does funny things to people. Shit, Dahmer was cooking and eating people in the middle of an apartment building. Imagine what you can get away with in a no man’s land.

I call the right axe Sorrow," she said. "You know what I call the left one?" "Happiness?" "Sorrow. I can't tell them apart.

When we got together we would start projects: an alarm clock torn apart and distributed over a wall, a stop-motion video of Lego people having sex, a Web site for pictures of toilets.

was serious business. But I couldn’t help it, if you couldn’t look at the world when it fell apart around you and see the funny shit, you would end up hating everyone and everything. Even

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 lost myself immediately in one of the books, only emerging when the phone rang. “Dashiell?” my father intoned. As if someone else with my voice might be answering the phone at my mother’s apartment. “Yes, Father?” “Leeza and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas.” “Thank you, Father. And to you, as well.” [awkward pause] [even more awkward pause] “I hope your mother isn’t giving you any trouble.” Oh, Father, I love it when you play this game. “She told me if I clean all the ashes out of the grate, then I’ll be able to help my sisters get ready for the ball.” “It’s Christmas, Dashiell. Can’t you give that attitude a rest?” “Merry Christmas, Dad. And thanks for the presents.” “What presents?” “I’m sorry—those were all from Mom, weren’t they?” “Dashiell …” “I gotta go. The gingerbread men are on

It’s funny how your life can come apart in an instant. How you can feel safe and satisfied one moment, and the next you’re dangling over an abyss, no warning, no quarter. You’re absolutely about to fall.

Funny things, aren’t they? People. They only believed in what they could see. Appearances were all that mattered, and no one would ever care what she was like on the inside. No one cared that she was breaking apart.

I saw that she was looking right at me. Not dead—dying. Funny how two things could be so similar and yet so far apart. Something about the expression in her liquid black eye made my chest hurt. It was like—patience. Or forgiveness.

Life? was what you worked to catch, the intense happiness of an object slightly set apart from you. Painting? was what you did, alone, and you sat there, and it was your own terrible fight or your own lovely bit, but it was really terribly alone. To take the moment before something had actually happened, and you didn't know if it was going to be terrible or if it might be very funny, something extraordinary actually happening and yet everybody around it not taking any notice.

I'm at your apartment and ready to go through your underwear drawer. She'd written back immediately, You're early. I'll be there in ten. Don't leave drool stains on my lace ones. Or worse. No promises, he'd answered, and she'd replied, Just spare the pink bra, please.

One foot in Austria, the other in Italy, it’s funny how man defines borders. An imaginary line is all that is needed to split continents apart, to separate men and cultures, to spark wars and injustices—a line in pencil, drawn on some agreement or a peace treaty ages ago.

This isn't the first time I've used this, and the test subject showed no signs of impaired cognitive ability." "Who was the test subject?" asked Aurora. "I test everything out on myself before taking it into the field." She stared at him. "You zapped your own brain?" "And it didn't do me any harm apart from the dizziness and the vomiting spells and the weirdly persistent ringing in my ears. Also the blackouts and the mood swings and the creeping paranoia. Apart from that, zero side effects, if you don't count the numb fingertips. Which I don't.

The creators took each of us out for lunch, too, to get to know us, so they could incorporate some aspects of our real personalities into the show. At my lunch I said two things: one, that even though I considered myself not unattractive, I had terrible luck with women and that my relationships tended toward the disastrous; and two, that I was not comfortable in any silence at all—I have to break any such moment with a joke. And this became a built-in excuse for Chandler Bing to be funny—perfect for a sitcom—and Chandler wasn’t much good with women, either (as he shouts at Janice as she leaves his apartment, “I’ve scared ya; I’ve said too much; I’m awkward and hopeless and desperate for love!”). But think of a better character for a sitcom: someone who is uncomfortable in silence and has to break the silence with a joke.

I had a dream, and I needed to go back and find out for sure if something—someone—was there.” When she glanced up, Violet saw the muscles in his jaw flex. “So?” he asked though clenched teeth. “Did you? Find something, I mean?” Violet’s cheek was getting sore from where her teeth were ripping it apart. “N-no,” she stammered. “I mean, kind of.” “Well, shit, Violet, what’s that’s supposed to mean?” “It means there’s someone locked inside one of those gigantic shipping containers down on the docks. But I couldn’t get inside, so I still don’t know for sure. I mean, not in any way I can prove.” Jay jumped up from his chair. It was more than he could take. “Are you telling me you went down to the shipyards before it was even light out? In the middle of the night? All by yourself?” Violet smiled then. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself; she felt the corners of her mouth twitching upward before she could stop them. She was never going to get used to this, his worrying about her. “Yeah,” she challenged, taking a step toward him. “Something like that.” She walked to where he was standing, barely containing his frustration. She didn’t try to hide her grin. She put her palms against his chest and could feel his heart beating wildly. “You think you’re gonna be okay? Do you need to sit down? Do you want me to get you a cup of tea or something?” “Hell, Violet, it’s not funny.

Dave and Serge...played the Fiddler's Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs adn lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk ditting next to the drum kit...who put his fingers firmly in his ears during Serge's extended harmonica solo. It was utterly bizarre and very moving: most musicians wouldn't have bothered turning up, let alone almost killing themselves. And I was reminded...how rarely one feels included in a live show. Usually you watch, and listen, and drift off, and the band plays well or doesn't and it doesn't matter much either way. It can actually be a very lonely experience. But I felt a part of the music, and a part of the people I'd gone with, and, to cut this short before the encores, I didn't want to read for about a fortnight afterward. I wanted to write, but I didn't want to read no book. I was too itchy, too energized, and if young people feel like that every night of the week, then, yes, literature 's dead as a dodo. (Nick's thoughts after seeing Marah at a little pub called Fiddler's Elbow.)

I shut my eyes and concentrated on the sun, and on feeling it warm my skin. On pleasure. Hedon. The Greek god. Or idol, as he should probably be called seeing as I was on hallowed ground. It's pretty arrogant, calling all other gods, apart from the one you've come up with, idols. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Every dictator's command to his subjects, of course. The funny thing was that Christians couldn't see it themselves. They didn't see the mechanism, the regenerative, self-fulfilling, self-aggrandising aspect which meant that a superstition like this could survive for two thousand years, and in which the key--salvation--was restricted to those who were fortunate enough to have been born in a space of time which was a merest blink of the eye in human history, and who also happened to live on the only little bit of the planet that ever got to hear the commandment and were able to formulate an opinion about the concise sales pitch ("Paradise?").

There’s a pretty good old rowboat. I’ll take you out for a row after supper.” “No, I will,” said Jesse. “Let me. I found her first, didn’t I, Winnie Foster? Listen, I’ll show you where the frogs are, and…” “Hush,” Tuck interrupted. “Everyone hush. I’ll take Winnie rowing on the pond. There’s a good deal to be said and I think we better hurry up and say it. I got a feeling there ain’t a whole lot of time.” Jesse laughed at this, and ran a hand roughly through his curls. “That’s funny, Pa. Seems to me like time’s the only thing we got a lot of.” But Mae frowned. “You worried, Tuck? What’s got you? No one saw us on the way up. Well, now, wait a bit--yes, they did, come to think of it. There was a man on the road, just outside Treegap. But he didn’t say nothing.” “He knows me, though,” said Winnie. She had forgotten, too, about the man in the yellow suit, and now, thinking of him, she felt a surge of relief. “He’ll tell my father he saw me.” “He knows you?” said Mae, her frown deepening. “But you didn’t call out to him, child. Why not?” “I was too scared to do anything ,” said Winnie honestly. Tuck shook his head. “I never thought we’d come to the place where we’d be scaring children,” he said. “I guess there’s no way to make it up to you, Winnie, but I’m sure most awful sorry it had to happen like that. Who was this man you saw?” “I don’t know his name,” said Winnie. “But he’s a pretty nice man, I guess.” In fact, he seemed supremely nice to her now, a kind of savior. And then she added, “He came to our house last night, but he didn’t go inside.” “Well, that don’t sound too serious, Pa,” said Miles. “Just some stranger passing by.” “Just the same, we got to get you home again, Winnie,” said Tuck, standing up decisively. “We got to get you home just as fast as we can. I got a feeling this whole thing is going to come apart like wet bread. But first we got to talk, and the pond’s the best place. The pond’s got answers. Come along, child. Let’s go out on the water.

I’ve looked over what I wrote yesterday and I see it wasn’t as clear as it should be. It’s perfectly clear for any of us, I mean. But who knows? Maybe you unknown people who’ll get my notes when the INTEGRAL brings them—maybe you’ve read the great book of civilization only up to the page our ancestors reached about 900 years ago. Maybe you don’t even know the basics—like the Table of Hours, Personal Hours, Maternal Norm, Green Wall, Benefactor. It feels funny to me, and at the same time it’s very hard to talk about all this. It’s just as if a writer of the twentieth century, for instance, had to explain in his novel what he meant by “jacket” or “apartment” or “wife.” Still, if his novel was translated for savages, there’s no way he could write “jacket” without putting in a note. ... But what of that? After man’s tail fell off, it was probably some little while before he learned to shoo away the flies without a tail. I don’t doubt that during that first time he probably missed his tail. But now—can you even imagine yourself with a tail? Or: Can you imagine yourself walking down the street naked—without your “jacket”? (Maybe you still run around in “jackets.”) Well, it’s the same here: I can’t imagine a city that isn’t girdled about with a Green Wall. I can’t imagine a life that isn’t clad in the numerical robes of the Table.

Anything Bunny wrote was bound to be alarmingly original, since he began with such odd working materials and managed to alter them further by his befuddled scrutiny, but the John Donne paper must have been the worst of all the bad papers he ever wrote (ironic, given that it was the only thing he ever wrote that saw print. After he disappeared, a journalist asked for an excerpt from the missing young scholar's work and Marion gave him a copy of it, a laboriously edited paragraph of which eventually found its way into People magazine). Somewhere, Bunny had heard that John Donne had been acquainted with Izaak Walton, and in some dim corridor of his mind this friendship grew larger and larger, until in his mind the two men were practically interchangeable. We never understood how this fatal connection had established itself: Henry blamed it on Men of Thought and Deed, but no one knew for sure. A week or two before the paper was due, he had started showing up in my room about two or three in the morning, looking as if he had just narrowly escaped some natural disaster, his tie askew and his eyes wild and rolling. 'Hello, hello,' he would say, stepping in, running both hands through his disordered hair. 'Hope I didn't wake you, don't mind if I cut on the lights, do you, ah, here we go, yes, yes…' He would turn on the lights and then pace back and forth for a while without taking off his coat, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head. Finally he would stop dead in his tracks and say, with a desperate look in his eye: 'Metahemeralism. Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism.' 'I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.' 'I don't either,' Bunny would say brokenly. 'Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see.' He would resume pacing. 'Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it.' 'Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word.' 'Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe.' 'Is it in the dictionary?' 'Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean' – he made a picture frame with his hands – 'the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?' And so it would go, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended. He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in. 'This is a nice paper, Bun -,' Charles said cautiously. 'Thanks, thanks.' 'But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?' 'Oh, Donne,' Bunny had said scoffingly. 'I don't want to drag him into this.' Henry refused to read it. 'I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really,' he said, glancing over the first page. 'Say, what's wrong with this type?' 'Triple-spaced it,' said Bunny proudly. 'These lines are about an inch apart.' 'Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?' Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose. 'Looks kind of like a menu,' he said. All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence 'And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.' We wondered if he would fail.

Addiction has ruined so much of my life it’s not funny. It’s ruined relationships. It’s ruined the day-to-day process of being me. I have a friend who doesn’t have any money, lives in a rent-controlled apartment. Never made it as an actor, has diabetes, is constantly worried about money, doesn’t work. And I would trade places with him in a second. In fact, I would give up all the money, all the fame, all the stuff, to live in a rent-controlled apartment—I’d trade being worried about money all the time to not have this disease, this addiction. And not only do I have the disease, but I also have it bad. I have it as bad as you can have it, in fact. It’s backs-to-the-wall time all the time. It’s going to kill me (I guess something has to). Robert Downey Jr., talking about his own addiction, once said, “It’s like I have a gun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the metal.” I got it; I understand that.

Why, Dain Aetos,' I grin and walk toward him, then grasp the door handle at his side. 'You've seen me in swimwear, tunics, and even ballgowns. Are you telling me it's the leather that does it for you?' He scoffs, but there's a slight flush to his cheeks as his hands covers mine to open the door. 'Glad to see our year apart hasn't dulled your tongue, Vi.' 'Oh,' I toss over my shoulder as we walk into the hallway, 'I can do quite a few things with my tongue. You'd be impressed.

She wasn't sure why she hated it so much. Maybe she hated the apartments they lived in. Or the way the laugh track would always sound after they said something that usually wasn't funny or real at all. She wondered how all the patients could watch the Friends without feeling completely betrayed and deeply sad and even more alone than they must already feel, as psych patients. If she took enough Ativan or Klonopin or Thorazine she could probably also watch Friends and tell herself that she liked it.

New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word "France." Like just calling something French is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully conceived and brilliantly executed war in Iraq?" And yet an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement: "France has a better health-care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him--he looked French. Yeah, as a opposed to the other guy, who just looked stupid. Last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent turned out. You couldn't get eighty-five percent of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between tits and bigger tits and they were giving out free samples. Maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research, or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with. Nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Madame Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal," he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something. Royal's opponent is married, but they live apart and lead separate lives. And the people are okay with that, for the same reason they're okay with nude beaches: because they're not a nation of six-year-olds who scream and giggle if they see pee-pee parts. They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, even mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, "I'm no good at multitasking." Like any country, France has its faults, like all that ridiculous accordion music--but their health care is the best in the industrialized world, as is their poverty rate. And they're completely independent of Mid-East oil. And they're the greenest country. And they're not fat. They have public intellectuals in France. We have Dr. Phil. They invented sex during the day, lingerie, and the tongue. Can't we admit we could learn something from them?

If, on the way back from the Passage des Patriarches to my apartment near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I had thought of examining myself like a transparent foreign body, I should have discovered one of the laws which governs the behavior of "featherless bipeds unequipped to conceive the number pi"—Father Sogol's definition of the species to which he, you, and I belong. This law might be termed: inner resonance to influences nearest at hand. The guides on Mount Analogue, who explained it to me later, called it simply the chameleon law. Father Sogol had really convinced me, and while he was talking to me, I was prepared to follow him in his crazy expedition. But as I neared home, where I could again find all my old habits, I imagined my colleagues at the office, the writers I knew, and my best friends listening to an account of the conversation I had just had. I could imagine their sarcasm, their skepticism, and their pity. I began to suspect myself of naiveté and credulity, so much so that when I tried to tell my wife about meeting Father Sogol, I caught myself using expressions like "a funny old fellow," "an unfrocked monk," "a slightly daffy inventor," "a crazy idea.

Iwalk at a leisurely pace back to my apartment. It’s funny how when you’re feeling the impact of stress, it’s hard to appreciate the small, inspiring things around you—the birds chirping their last lullabies before puffing up for a night’s sleep, the cotton-candy sky as the sun sets, the fact that you’re on your way home and unlike every other day for the last several months, when you open your front door, there will be a friend there waiting for you. It may be the first time since Gran’s death that I feel such a sense of hope. Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

If the thought of Jackson dating someone caused a funny little pang in her stomach, Mollie ignored it. It was just that for a moment there, when the two of them had stood face-to-face in his apartment, she could have sworn there was a little sizzle of something between them. Nothing inappropriate. Not even interest. Just…awareness. She’d always been aware of Jackson Burke. She’d accepted that as one of the facts of her life. But this was the first time she’d sensed that maybe he’d been aware of her. Thank you, little red dress. Mollie mentally slapped herself. No. That was not what this was about.

Over the past six years, living and working in this city had turned the funny, charismatic girl I´d loved with every cell of my body into a jaded, hard-edged loner I still couldn´t look at without catching my breath. I´d never felt more alive, watching Liv to prepare to charm-or maybe force- her way into some stranger´s apartment. Olivia was a wire wound too tight, always about to snap, but she lived on excitement and thrived under pressure. Being with her was like holding a bomb in both hands, watching the numbers tick back toward zero. I knew she´d eventually explode, and this time it might kill me. But it was hard to care about the potential for collateral damage when just being near her again felt so good.

It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...

I didn't want to push her. But I wanted to see her progress. Not for me. Not because I wanted to bring her with me everywhere I went or that I wouldn't be content with seeing her at my place when I came home.  But for her. Because she deserved to have a life that didn't make her feel like she was constantly trapped, like she was surrounded by wolves that would consume her if she tried to step even a foot outside of her comfort zone. See, the funny thing about comfort zones was, sometimes it was a gun. Sometimes it was a keepsake. Sometimes it was an entire apartment. But sometimes, oh sometimes, it could be a person. And I was going to try like hell to prove to her that I could be that for her, that I would always be a safe place to land, that I could take her hand and lead her out and show her that those mother fucking wolves cowered down before me and they could never hurt her again.

Dear Kenny, It’s the last day of camp and possibly the last time I will ever see you because we live so far apart. Remember on the second day, I was scared to do archery and you made a joke about minnows and it was so funny I nearly peed my pants? I stop reading. A joke about minnows? How funny could it have been? I was really homesick but you made me feel better. I think I might’ve left camp early if it hadn’t been for you, Kenny. So, thank you. Also you’re a really amazing swimmer and I like your laugh. I wish it had been me you kissed at the bonfire last night and not Blaire H. Take care, Kenny. Have a really good rest of the summer and a really good life. Love, Lara Jean I clutch the letter to my chest. This is the first love letter I ever wrote. I’m glad it came back to me. Though, I suppose it wouldn’t have been so bad if Kenny Donati got to know that he helped two people at camp that summer--the kid who almost drowned in the lake and twelve-year-old Lara Jean Song Covey.

Metahemeralism. Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism." "I'm sorry. I don't know what that is." "I don't either," Bunny would say brokenly. "Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see." He would resume pacing. "Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it." "Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word." "Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe." "Is it in the dictionary?" "Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean" — he made a picture frame with his hands — "the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?" And so it would go on, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended. He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in. "This is a nice paper, Bun — ," Charles said cautiously. "Thanks, thanks." "But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?" "Oh, Donne," Bunny had said scoffingly. "I don't want to drag him into this." Henry had refused to read it. "I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really," he said, glancing over the first page. "Say, what's wrong with this type?" "Tripled spaced it," said Bunny proudly. "These lines are about an inch apart." "Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?" Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose. "Looks kind of like a menu," he said. All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence "And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.

But what we did do is get interstitials with different colors and movement that reflected the scene that just happened or previewed the one to come. I started to match what my comedic take on the end of a scene was with what the interstitial was doing. I gave them names. One was called “Up Yours,” so if somebody slams somebody [or has a comeback to what they say], the atom would swoop up like an arm coming up at you. If it was a goofy ending, I had one that would swirl through called “Oogle Google.” If the scene was a hard-hitting, funny moment, it would come straight at the camera, which I called “Coming at Ya.” And then if the scene was with Penny, Amy, and Bernadette, I had one with three atoms called “Triple Threat.” If the four guys were in the scene, it would be atoms from the four corners that would come straight at you. I also started to match the colors to the scene. I would use the aquamarine color if we were coming out of or going to Penny’s apartment because it matched her couch or what they were wearing. My assistant and I knew, and that was it. I never told anybody.

When it begins it is like a light in a tunnel, a rush of steel and steam across a torn up life. It is a low rumble, an earthquake in the back of the mind. My spine is a track with cold black steel racing on it, a trail of steam and dust following behind, ghost like. It feels like my whole life is holding its breath. By the time she leaves the room I am surprised that she can’t see the train. It has jumped the track of my spine and landed in my mothers’ living room. A cold dark thing, black steel and redwood paneling. It is the old type, from the western movies I loved as a kid. He throws open the doors to the outside world, to the dark ocean. I feel a breeze tugging at me, a slender finger of wind that catches at my shirt. Pulling. Grabbing. I can feel the panic build in me, the need to scream or cry rising in my throat. And then I am out the door, running, tumbling down the steps falling out into the darkened world, falling out into the lifeless ocean. Out into the blackness. Out among the stars and shadows. And underneath my skin, in the back of my head and down the back of my spine I can feel the desperation and I can feel the noise. I can feel the deep and ancient ache of loudness that litters across my bones. It’s like an old lover, comfortable and well known, but unwelcome and inappropriate with her stories of our frolicking. And then she’s gone and the Conductor is closing the door. The darkness swells around us, enveloping us in a cocoon, pressing flat against the train like a storm. I wonder, what is this place? Those had been heady days, full and intense. It’s funny. I remember the problems, the confusions and the fears of life we all dealt with. But, that all seems to fade. It all seems to be replaced by images of the days when it was all just okay. We all had plans back then, patterns in which we expected the world to fit, how it was to be deciphered. Eventually you just can’t carry yourself any longer, can’t keep your eyelids open, and can’t focus on anything but the flickering light of the stars. Hours pass, at first slowly like a river and then all in a rush, a climax and I am home in the dorm, waking up to the ringing of the telephone. When she is gone the apartment is silent, empty, almost like a person sleeping, waiting to wake up. When she is gone, and I am alone, I curl up on the bed, wait for the house to eject me from its dying corpse. Crazy thoughts cross through my head, like slants of light in an attic. The Boston 395 rocks a bit, a creaking noise spilling in from the undercarriage. I have decided that whatever this place is, all these noises, sensations - all the train-ness of this place - is a fabrication. It lulls you into a sense of security, allows you to feel as if it’s a familiar place. But whatever it is, it’s not a train, or at least not just a train. The air, heightened, tense against the glass. I can hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum, I can hear the soft rattle of a dying man’s breathing. Men in white uniforms, sharp pressed lines, run past, rolling gurneys down florescent hallways.

Take the famous slogan on the atheist bus in London … “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” … The word that offends against realism here is “enjoy.” I’m sorry—enjoy your life? Enjoy your life? I’m not making some kind of neo-puritan objection to enjoyment. Enjoyment is lovely. Enjoyment is great. The more enjoyment the better. But enjoyment is one emotion … Only sometimes, when you’re being lucky, will you stand in a relationship to what’s happening to you where you’ll gaze at it with warm, approving satisfaction. The rest of the time, you’ll be busy feeling hope, boredom, curiosity, anxiety, irritation, fear, joy, bewilderment, hate, tenderness, despair, relief, exhaustion … This really is a bizarre category error. But not necessarily an innocent one … The implication of the bus slogan is that enjoyment would be your natural state if you weren’t being “worried” by us believer … Take away the malignant threat of God-talk, and you would revert to continuous pleasure, under cloudless skies. What’s so wrong with this, apart from it being total bollocks? … Suppose, as the atheist bus goes by, that you are the fifty-something woman with the Tesco bags, trudging home to find out whether your dementing lover has smeared the walls of the flat with her own shit again. Yesterday when she did it, you hit her, and she mewled till her face was a mess of tears and mucus which you also had to clean up. The only thing that would ease the weight on your heart would be to tell the funniest, sharpest-tongued person you know about it: but that person no longer inhabits the creature who will meet you when you unlock the door. Respite care would help, but nothing will restore your sweetheart, your true love, your darling, your joy. Or suppose you’re that boy in the wheelchair, the one with the spasming corkscrew limbs and the funny-looking head. You’ve never been able to talk, but one of your hands has been enough under your control to tap out messages. Now the electrical storm in your nervous system is spreading there too, and your fingers tap more errors than readable words. Soon your narrow channel to the world will close altogether, and you’ll be left all alone in the hulk of your body. Research into the genetics of your disease may abolish it altogether in later generations, but it won’t rescue you. Or suppose you’re that skanky-looking woman in the doorway, the one with the rat’s nest of dreadlocks. Two days ago you skedaddled from rehab. The first couple of hits were great: your tolerance had gone right down, over two weeks of abstinence and square meals, and the rush of bliss was the way it used to be when you began. But now you’re back in the grind, and the news is trickling through you that you’ve fucked up big time. Always before you’ve had this story you tell yourself about getting clean, but now you see it isn’t true, now you know you haven’t the strength. Social services will be keeping your little boy. And in about half an hour you’ll be giving someone a blowjob for a fiver behind the bus station. Better drugs policy might help, but it won’t ease the need, and the shame over the need, and the need to wipe away the shame. So when the atheist bus comes by, and tells you that there’s probably no God so you should stop worrying and enjoy your life, the slogan is not just bitterly inappropriate in mood. What it means, if it’s true, is that anyone who isn’t enjoying themselves is entirely on their own. The three of you are, for instance; you’re all three locked in your unshareable situations, banged up for good in cells no other human being can enter. What the atheist bus says is: there’s no help coming … But let’s be clear about the emotional logic of the bus’s message. It amounts to a denial of hope or consolation, on any but the most chirpy, squeaky, bubble-gummy reading of the human situation. St Augustine called this kind of thing “cruel optimism” fifteen hundred years ago, and it’s still cruel.

knew that she was picturing the lonely dogs at the shelter. She felt her own eyes fill up. Lizzie could remember so many times when she had left the shelter at the end of the day feeling so, so sorry for all the dogs she could not take home with her. But then Aunt Amanda shook her head. “Still, I just can’t let Pugsley drive all the other dogs crazy. Did you see him stealing everybody’s toys last time you were here? He kept stashing them over behind the slide. There must have been ten toys over there by the end of the day!” Lizzie nodded. “I saw,” she said. She had also seen Max and another dog, Ruby, sniffing all over, looking for their toys. Mr. Pest was a troublemaker, no doubt about it. But still. Pugsley was just a puppy. And he didn’t know any better because nobody had ever taught him the right way to behave. Maybe she, Lizzie, could help Pugsley become a dog that somebody would be happy to own. “What if I tried to train him a little bit, during the days when I’m here?” she asked Aunt Amanda. Aunt Amanda shook her head. “I think Ken is serious about giving him up,” she said. “Pugsley won’t be coming here anymore.” She put her hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “I know you care,” she said. “So do I. But there’s really nothing we can do. Let’s go see what everybody’s up to. I think it’s time for some outdoor play.” Lizzie tried to smile. She loved taking the dogs outside to the fenced play yard out in back. “Can Pugsley come?” she asked. “Of course!” Aunt Amanda smiled back. “What fun would it be without Mr. Pest?” Then her smile faded. Lizzie knew what Aunt Amanda was thinking. And she agreed. Bowser’s Backyard just would not be the same without Pugsley around. Yes, it would be calmer. But it would not be as much fun. Aunt Amanda was right. “She’s right, isn’t she, Mr. Pest?” Lizzie said, when she found the pug in the nap room. He was quiet for once, curled up with Hoss on the bottom bunk. They looked so cute together! Lizzie sat down for a moment to pat the tiny pug and the gigantic Great Dane. They made such a funny pair! Aunt Amanda had told Lizzie that when she first opened Bowser’s Backyard she thought it would be a good idea to separate the big dogs from the little ones. But the dogs wanted to be together! They whined at the gates that kept them apart until Aunt Amanda gave up and let them all mingle. From then on, big dogs and little dogs wrestled, played, and napped together

The key point is that these patterns, while mostly stable, are not permanent: certain environmental experiences can add or subtract methyls and acetyls, changing those patterns. In effect this etches a memory of what the organism was doing or experiencing into its cells—a crucial first step for any Lamarck-like inheritance. Unfortunately, bad experiences can be etched into cells as easily as good experiences. Intense emotional pain can sometimes flood the mammal brain with neurochemicals that tack methyl groups where they shouldn’t be. Mice that are (however contradictory this sounds) bullied by other mice when they’re pups often have these funny methyl patterns in their brains. As do baby mice (both foster and biological) raised by neglectful mothers, mothers who refuse to lick and cuddle and nurse. These neglected mice fall apart in stressful situations as adults, and their meltdowns can’t be the result of poor genes, since biological and foster children end up equally histrionic. Instead the aberrant methyl patterns were imprinted early on, and as neurons kept dividing and the brain kept growing, these patterns perpetuated themselves. The events of September 11, 2001, might have scarred the brains of unborn humans in similar ways. Some pregnant women in Manhattan developed post-traumatic stress disorder, which can epigenetically activate and deactivate at least a dozen genes, including brain genes. These women, especially the ones affected during the third trimester, ended up having children who felt more anxiety and acute distress than other children when confronted with strange stimuli. Notice that these DNA changes aren’t genetic, because the A-C-G-T string remains the same throughout. But epigenetic changes are de facto mutations; genes might as well not function. And just like mutations, epigenetic changes live on in cells and their descendants. Indeed, each of us accumulates more and more unique epigenetic changes as we age. This explains why the personalities and even physiognomies of identical twins, despite identical DNA, grow more distinct each year. It also means that that detective-story trope of one twin committing a murder and both getting away with it—because DNA tests can’t tell them apart—might not hold up forever. Their epigenomes could condemn them. Of course, all this evidence proves only that body cells can record environmental cues and pass them on to other body cells, a limited form of inheritance. Normally when sperm and egg unite, embryos erase this epigenetic information—allowing you to become you, unencumbered by what your parents did. But other evidence suggests that some epigenetic changes, through mistakes or subterfuge, sometimes get smuggled along to new generations of pups, cubs, chicks, or children—close enough to bona fide Lamarckism to make Cuvier and Darwin grind their molars.