Aw Couples Quotes

Did ya get in a couple of good swipes?" Emmett asked eagerly. "No! Of course not!" "No, not really? You really didnt attack him?" "Emmett!" I protested. "Aw, what a waste. And here you're probably the one person who could take him- since he can't get into your head to cheat- and you had a perfect excuse too. I've been dying to see how he'd do without that advantage.

When the weather's nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie's grave. I went with them a couple of times, but I cut it out. In the first place, I don't enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery. Surrounded by dead guys and tombstones and all. It wasn't too bad when the sun was out, but twice—twice—we were there when it started to rain. It was awful. It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place. All the visitors that were visiting the cemetery started running like hell over to their cars. That's what nearly drove me crazy. All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner—everybody except Allie. I couldn't stand it. I know it's only his body and all that's in the cemetery, and his soul's in Heaven and all that crap, but I couldn't stand it anyway. I just wished he wasn't there.

Aw, fudge,' floated down to me, as a couple of golden eyes peered over a third-floor window ledge. 'You're a freaking dhampir. Why are you reading Tolkien?' I shrugged, then had to dodge the potted geranium he threw at me. 'After five hundred years, you've read just about everything. Besides, he had hella world-building skills.

David Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have been there longer than we were, and seen different bits, because most of what we saw in the couple of days we were there sorting out our travel arrangements was awful. It was just the tourist area, i.e., that part of Bali which has been made almost exactly the same as everywhere else in the world for the sake of people who have come all this way to see Bali.

It was a little like Into the Sands, with Claude Barron, which she'd seen a couple of weeks ago. In that picture Claude Barron enlists in the Foreign Legion because Rita Carrol marries another guy. The other guy turns out to be a cheater and drinker, and so Rita Carrol leaves him and travels out to the desert where Claude Barron if fighting the Arabs. By the time Rita Carrol gets there he’s in the hospital, wounded, or not a hospital really but just a tent and she tells him she loves him and Claude Barron says, “I went into the desert to forget about you. But the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sky was the color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that wouldn’t be you.” And then he dies. Tessie cried buckets. Her mascara ran, staining the collar of her blouse something awful.

What he wanted was a couple of cool beers, a cold bath and a change of clothing; it probably wouldn't make him feel better, but it would at least make feeling awful more enjoyable.

Another thing that happens in the movies: They all have these dramatic crises where everything looks bleak and you think the couple will never, ever get back together. But then they realize they can't live without each other, and in the end they live happily ever after. It's all a lie. When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he's done something awful-he probably has. You're not going to love him again. He's not going to apologize, or come back to you. He probably doesn't even ever think about you at all, because he's too busy thinking about someone else.

It's awfully good of some people to have asked me to take the job, but I'd rather read about a grand escape than plan one. Besides, I'm terrible at keeping secrets and I hate to scheme against people. It seems rude. I don't deal with guilt well and I'm worried we might hurt some feelings in the process of defending ourselves. Also, I am juggling a couple of books. Being a full-time conspirator would take away from my reading time.

We had managed to drift into that awful arena, so familiar to the long-term married couple, where what was left unspoken was actually more damaging than what was said.

Pickles taste awful, but to broaden my experience I once tried a couple of slices of pickled radish. It‘s a strange thing but once I‘ve tried it, almost anything turns out edible.

she read a couple of passages from the Bible, which I know is the done thing. I’ve been to many funerals now, and an awful lot of people have walked through the valley of the shadow of death.

As my voice died away I became conscious of the voice of another woman two tables away. I couldn't hear what she was saying to her set-faced male companion, but the tone was the same as my own, the exact same plangent composite of need and recrimination. I stared at them. Their faces said it all: his awful detachment, her hideous yearning. And as I looked around the cafe at couple after couple, eaching confronting one another over the marble table tops, I had the beginnings of an intimation. Perhaps all this awful mismatching, this emotional grating, these Mexican stand-offs of trust and commitment, were somehow in the air. It wasn't down to individuals: me and him, Grace and John, those two over there... It was a contagion that was getting to all of us; a germ of insecurity that had lodged in all our breasts and was now fissioning frantically, creating a domino effect as relationship after relationship collapsed in a rubble of mistrust and acrimony.

I had no particular problem about getting divorced. For all intents and purposes we already were divorced. And I had no emotional hang up about signing and sealing the official documents. If that's what she wanted, fine. It was a legal formality, nothing more. But when it came to why, and how, things had turned out this way, the sequence of events was beyond me. I understood, of course, that over time, and as circumstances changed, a couple could grow closer, or move apart. Changes in a person's feelings aren't regulated by custom, logic, or the law. They're fluid, unstable, free to spread their wings and fly away. Like migratory birds have no concept of borders between countries. But these were all just generalizations, and I couldn't easily grasp the individual case here-that this woman, Yuzu, refused to love this man, me, and chose instead to be loved by someone else. It felt terribly absurd, a horribly ugly way to be treated. There wasn't any anger involved (I think). I mean, what was I supposed to be angry with? What I was feeling was a fundamental numbness. The numbness your heart automatically activates to lessen the awful pain when you want some-body desperately and they reject you. A kind of emotional morphine.

They can’t just be in that moment of grief with you. They can’t just say, ‘Yeah, this is some pretty awful stuff.’ They have to try to fix it. They have to solve it for you in a couple of sentences, which is ridiculous, because it never solves anything.

But here’s the thing,” says Paul. “I would bet that if someone did a study and asked, ‘Okay, your kid’s three, rank these aspects of your life in terms of enjoyment,’ and then, five years later, asked, ‘Tell me what your life was like when your kid was three,’ you’d have totally different responses.”   WITH THIS SIMPLE OBSERVATION, Paul has stumbled onto one of the biggest paradoxes in the research on human affect: we enshrine things in memory very differently from how we experience them in real time. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman has coined a couple of terms to make the distinction. He talks about the “experiencing self” versus the “remembering self.” The experiencing self is the self who moves through the world and should therefore, at least in theory, be more likely to control our daily life choices. But that’s not how it works out. Rather, it is the remembering self who plays a far more influential role in our lives, particularly when we make decisions or plan for the future, and this fact is made doubly strange when one considers that the remembering self is far more prone to error: our memories are idiosyncratic, selective, and subject to a rangy host of biases. We tend to believe that how an episode ended was how it felt as a whole (so that, alas, the entire experience of a movie, a vacation, or even a twenty-year marriage can be deformed by a bad ending, forever recalled as an awful experience rather than an enjoyable one until it turned sour). We remember milestones and significant changes more vividly than banal things we do more frequently.

But afterward he had grown to find her cheerful, tender hearted, and, finally, even pretty. He appreciated her cheerfulness particularly. His own sardonic view of life needed the antidote. But Jessie never seemed to mind his long grave face. "Oh, goodness," she said, "what if you do look like an awful lemon? I know you're not really, and I guess if you were always grinning away like clockwork, the way I do, we'd just explode when we got together. You stay the way you are Lije, and keep me from floating." And she kept Lije Baley from sinking down. He applied for a small Couples apartment and got a contingent admission pending marriage. He showed it to her and said, "Will you fix it so I can get out of Bachelor's, Jessie? I don't like it there." Maybe it wasn't the most romantic proposal in the world, but Jessie liked it.

Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeply Must take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.' Thus spake the awful aging couple Whose heart the years had turned to rubble. But the little children, to save any bother, Let it in at one ear and out at the other.

I’ve met a couple real cowboys in my life, and I’ve seen an awful lot of fellas who like to dress the part without any real need. Drugstore cowboys we used to call them. The real ones tend to be a lot less flash and sparkle, and tend to carry themselves with a lot more humility. I suppose the real work that cowboyin’ involves helps a fella grow accustomed to the taste of humble pie.

We had managed to drift into that awful arena, so familiar to the long-term married couple, where what was left unspoken was actually more damaging than what was said. We weren’t married, by the way. Andreas had proposed to me, doing the whole diamond-ring-down-on-one-knee thing, but we had both been too busy to follow through, and anyway, my Greek wasn’t good enough yet to understand the service.

Harry is a black man, and I’m a white man. We obviously come from different backgrounds, but we stand together on this stage as brothers. And as a brother, I must say these race riots are terrible. It’s awful how stores are being looted. The burning, the rioting, the stealing. But if, God forbid, it does happen again—and I pray it doesn’t—all I can say is, ‘Harry, I could use a couch and a couple of end tables.

They drove back to Paris on the assumption that they would be far less obvious among the crowds of the city than in an isolated country inn. A blond-haired man wearing tortoise-shell glasses, and a striking but stern-faced woman, devoid of makeup, and with her hair pulled back like an intense graduate student at the Sorbonne, were not out of place in Montmartre. They took a room at the Terrasse on the rue de Maistre, registering as a married couple from Brussels. In the room, they stood for a moment, no words necessary for what each was seeing and feeling. They came together, touching, holding, closing out the abusive world that refused them peace, that kept them balancing on taut wires next to one another, high above a dark abyss; if either fell, it was the end for both. Bourne could not change his color for the immediate moment. It would be false, and there was no room for artifice. “We need some rest,” he said. “We’ve got to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day.” They made love. Gently, completely, each with the other in the warm, rhythmic comfort of the bed. And there was a moment, a foolish moment, when adjustment of an angle was breathlessly necessary and they laughed. It was a quiet laugh, at first even an embarrassed laugh, but the observation was there, the appraisal of foolishness intrinsic to something very deep between them. They held each other more fiercely when the moment passed, more and more intent on sweeping away the awful sounds and the terrible sights of a dark world that kept them spinning in its winds. They were suddenly breaking out of that world, plunging into a much better one where sunlight and blue water replaced the darkness. They raced toward it feverishly, furiously, and then they burst through and found it. Spent, they fell asleep, their fingers entwined.

Certain of the engineers now entered what West called “the first off-the-wall period.” A few quit. Others went on vacation immediately. Still others spent the next couple of weeks playing a game called Adventure, in which you travel by computer into an underground world, wandering through strange, awful labyrinths, searching for treasure that’s guarded and sometimes snatched away by dragons, dwarfs, trolls and a rapacious pirate who mutters: “Har. Har.

The prize item of the house is Jane’s small round writing table, where all her books were scratched out. A group of Japanese visitors were gathered around it now, discussing it in low, reverential whispers, which is something I find the Japanese do exceptionally well. Nobody gets more out of a few low grunts and a couple of rounded vowel sounds stretched out and spoken as if in surprise or consternation. They can carry on the most complex conversations, covering the full range of human emotions—surprise, enthusiasm, hearty endorsement, bitter disagreement—in a tone that sounds awfully like someone trying to have an orgasm quietly. I followed them from room to room, enthralled by their conversation, until I realized that I was becoming part of it, and that they were casting glances at me with something like unease, so I bowed apologetically and left them to admire an old fireplace with low moans of expressive rapture.

Well," he asked, "whaddya expect?" It was so obviously a rhetorical question that of course I answered it. My truth impulse seemed stronger around this boy,my impulse control way under par. "I would expect you to be dancing." His expression was unreadable in the limited light. "Is that an invitation?" "No. An observation." He shrugged. "Okay. I needed a break. It was either keep an eye on Chase while he pukes up a fifth of cheap rum in the guys' bathroom or follow the girls into the ladies' room." I almost smiled and told him about Willing's bathrooms and me. Instead, some truly horrific and irresistible impulse had me announcing, "Amanda looks really pretty tonight." "So do you." Bizarrely, I felt my breath catch in my chest, and for a long, awful second, I thought I might cry. I gripped the top of my pad tightly, concentrated on the spiral metal binding where it dug into my skin. "It's a cool costume," he said. "Water nymph?" "Sea goddess," I answered quietly. "Roman." "Hmm." Alex was staring out toward the garden now,looking so at ease that I went from pretzel to knot. Could it really be that easy for him? To say things like he did without thinking? Without meaning them at all? "Too many mermaids tonight. Not that I have anything against mermaids.Mermaids are hot. I mean,you saw my drawing." I nodded. "You know," he went on, "that day in the hall,you compared my stuff to two Japanese artists-" I nodded again,even though he was looking out into the darkened gardens now and not at me. "Suzuki Harunobu and Utagawa Kuniyoshi. They were eighteenth and nineteeth-century woodblock print masters-" "Ella," he interrupted. "I know who they are." "Oh." "In fact, I have a couple original Kuniyoshi prints." "Oh.Wow.Wow.

IS The Mansion haunted, do you think?" "Naw. There ain't no REAL haunted houses--just in the fuckin movies. But if there ever WAS one, it'd be The Mansion. I heard that a couple of years ago, two kids from Norwood Street went in there to bump uglies and the cops found em with their throats cut and all the blood drained out of their bodies. But there wasn't any blood on em or around em. Get it? The blood was ALL GONE." "You shittin me?" "Nope. But that wasn't the worst thing." "What was?" "Their hair was dead white. Both of em. And their eyes were wide open and staring, like they saw the most gross-awful thing in the world." "Aw, gimme a break.

since we’d both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike—too much. And because we’d both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn’t, and couldn’t, understand, wasn’t it a bit… precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn’t doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn’t it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn’t that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick?

Kindle free days are more difficult to promote now and not as effective in terms of sales afterwards. This isn’t a wholly bad thing for authors though, as many of us felt that too many people were only interested in free books. Lots of Internet Marketers jumped onto the Kindle bandwagon in the last couple of years, seeing it as a quick way to make a buck. They hurt Indie authors because their books were often rushed, unedited, badly formatted, and made from a mishmash of articles and content scraped from the Internet. So, as we said, it isn’t a totally awful thing that Amazon is tightening up its rules. Maybe the Internet Marketers will move onto the next thing and leave the field clear for the lifelong authors.

Kami was too tired to even despair. And from the look of Jared, he was more tired still: bleeding all over the floor could not be good for him. “You need to go to bed,” Kami decided, and hauled him away and out of Lillian’s room. “Come on. Everything will still be ruined in the morning.” It was a brief walk down the narrow hall to Jared’s little room. They did not speak until they were at his door. “Can you believe that we screwed up everything about twice as much in the space of a couple hours?” Kami asked. “I can,” said Jared. “But only because I truly believe in us, the utter depths of our incompetence, and that it must inevitably lead us to our ultimate epic failure.” “Aw, sugar flower,” Kami told him. “You always know just what to say.” “And just how to poison my brother,” said Jared.

Tremont’s voice came out of the hole, sounding hollow and dead. “Something smells awful in here, Warden.” “Never mind that! Keep going.” Tremont’s lower legs disappeared into the hole. A moment later his feet were gone, too. His light flashed dimly back and forth. “Warden, it smells pretty damn bad.” “Never mind, I said!” Norton cried. Dolorously, Tremont’s voice floated back: “Smells like shit. Oh God, that’s what it is, it’s shit, oh my God lemme outta here I’m gonna blow my groceries oh shit it’s shit oh my Gawwwwwd—” And then came the unmistakable sound of Rory Tremont losing his last couple of meals. Well, that was it for me. I couldn’t help myself. The whole day—hell no, the last thirty years—all came up on me at once and I started laughing fit to split, a laugh such as I’d never had since I was a free man, the kind of laugh I never expected to have inside these gray walls. And oh dear God didn’t it feel good!

Just like married couples, companies can fall into the dissonance trap if they think they’re sending employees one message but those employees hear something very different. CEOs who think their firms are great places to work often are stunned when I tell them their staffs find these companies stifling, unrewarding, unfriendly, or just plain awful. This is a bad situation because it’s an open loop: There’s no feedback to correct the dissonance, so it grows worse over time. The CEO typically grows bitter, decides that “these people are underproductive whiners,” and implements punitive changes that make matters worse. The employees, in turn, grow even more annoyed or angry. Left uncorrected, this can lead to the worst-case scenario of a CEO giving people the least possible incentive to keep them working and those people doing the least they can to just hold onto their jobs, a situation that can bring a company to its knees.

knew she wanted to know the reaction of the casting director. She was always so anxious after it was over: “So? How did it go? What’d they say?” Most of the time I didn’t even look at her. Occasionally I threw her a bone and say flatly, “I dunno. They said, ‘Thanks, fine, good.’ ” Sometimes I put on the shy act instead. It was my way of selfishly doing what I wanted and showing my parents I was in charge by not talking—exactly what some married couples do. If I don’t talk, then I win. I’ve got the power! What a jerk! Why did I do that? I think it was partly a way of punishing her for taking me away from my friends. Partly it was a control thing. It was my way of being in charge, of being the boss. I can do what I want, it silently conveyed. What could she do to me? I was so awful to her, yet I don’t remember her ever getting frustrated with me. She tirelessly drove me an hour each way—sometimes longer in traffic—and waited hours for me to finish. I was so unappreciative of all she did.

My feeling then was of forlornness, of the desperate inadequacies of this human linguistic apparatus that we employ to forestall, a little longer, aloneness, and of how futile these fumblings so often are. In the next lurch of solitude I began trying to add to the list of things not to say to someone in your marriage: Don’t ever use a pen while lying on the bed; don’t ever forget to put the cap back on a pen after using the pen; don’t ever use a pen if it’s new; put items in the refrigerator at ninety-degree angles; do not throw things in the bathroom trash if there are already a lot of things in the trash; don’t ever lie on the bed, made or unmade, in your clothes; don’t get into the bed without having showered; don’t put your bag on the bed, don’t put your bag on the chair, don’t put your bag on the counter, don’t put your bag on the table; don’t ever do the laundry; don’t bite your nails; don’t put the toilet paper facing out; don’t put the toilet paper facing in; don’t accelerate quickly; don’t wear those colors together, don’t wear those colors together, don’t wear a stripe and a plaid, don’t wear that shirt, that looks bad on you, that looks bad on you, and that looks bad on you, and that looks bad on you, and that looks bad on you too, are you sure you want to wear that, that looks bad on you; please stay out of the house one night a week, please stay out of the house a couple of nights a week so I can have some privacy; don’t put that there; don’t put that there; that plastic cup was given to me by my grandmother; don’t use my towel; don’t use my bathroom; you don’t understand your own family; you don’t understand your own role in your own family; you don’t understand what people think of you; you don’t understand other people; you don’t understand me, you don’t understand yourself; I need money for clothes, I need money for credit cards, I need money for school; don’t cut your meat on the plate, that sound is awful, cut your meat on the cutting board before putting it on your plate; don’t touch me. And when I was done

Having been through a real marriage, it’s hard for me not to feel like those perfect old dead couples are lying, or in denial, or maybe they just didn’t go deep enough, maybe they were always too scared. The truth is that you simply can’t make it into adulthood unscathed. And if somehow you did, you wouldn’t have the perspective and empathy to properly care for another human being for the rest of both your lives. It’s impossible. Everyone’s going to have their shit... The true work of love isn’t staying together when things are perfect; it’s staying together even when things are awful, weathering catastrophic mistakes (within reason) because, well, you decided to, and because you know the potential is as real as the now. It turns your partnership into something that grows instead of something that atrophies. You’re promising another person not just passion and love but a safety net, some degree of stability and certainty in a fucking terrible world. You’re saying, “I promise I will stay with you even if you suck for a while,” an almost narcotic comfort that we all deserve.

Hermione!” She stirred, then sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her face. “What’s wrong? Harry? Are you all right?” “It’s okay, everything’s fine. More than fine. I’m great. There’s someone here.” “What do you mean? Who--?” She saw Ron, who stood there holding the sword and dripping onto the threadbare carpet. Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron’s rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas. Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker toward Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak, hopeful smile and half raised his arms. Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach. “Ouch--ow--gerroff! What the--? Hermione--OW!” “You--complete--arse--Ronald--Weasley!” She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced. “You--crawl--back--here--after--weeks--and--weeks--oh, where’s my wand?” She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry’s hands and he reacted instinctively. “Protego!” The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione: The force of it knocked her backward onto the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again. “Hermione!” said Harry. “Calm--” “I will not calm down!” she screamed. Never before had he seen her lose control like this; she looked quite demented. “Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!” “Hermione, will you please--” “Don’t you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!” she screeched. “Don’t you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!” She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps. “I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back!” “I know,” Ron said, “Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really--” “Oh, you’re sorry!” She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry merely grimaced his helplessness. “You come back after weeks--weeks--and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?” “Well, what else can I say?” Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back. “Oh, I don’t know!” yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. “Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds--” “Hermione,” interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, “he just saved my--” “I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew--” “I knew you weren’t dead!” bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. “Harry’s all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead, you don’t know what it’s been like--” “What it’s been like for you?” Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity. “I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!” “A gang of what?” asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.

A text comes from Wallace. An actual text too, not a message through the forum app. I gave him my number awhile back, before Halloween, but not because I wanted him to call me or anything. I wrote it on the edge of our conversation paper in homeroom and slid it over to him because sometimes I see something and think, Wallace would laugh at that, I should send him a picture of it, but the messaging app is terrible with pictures and texting is way better. So he texts me now, and it’s a picture. A regular sweet potato pie. Beneath the picture, he says, I really like sweet potato pie. I text back, Yeah, so do I. Then he sends me a picture of his face, frowning, and says, No, you don’t understand. Then another picture, closer, just his eyes. I REALLY like sweet potato pie. A series of pictures comes in several-second intervals. The first is a triangular slice of pie in Wallace’s hand. Then Wallace holding that slice up to his face—it’s soft enough to start collapsing between his fingers. The next one has him stuffing the slice into his mouth, and in the final one it’s all the way in, his cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk’s, and he’s letting his eyes roll back like it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten. I purse my lips to keep my laugh in, but my parents are fine-tuned to the slightest hint of amusement from me, and they both look up. “What’s so funny, Eggs?” Dad says. “Nothing,” I reply. Nothing makes a joke less funny than someone wanting in on it, especially parents. Wow, I say to Wallace. You really like sweet potato pie. He sends one more picture, this one with him embracing the pie pan, gazing lovingly at it. We’re to be married in the spring. An actual laugh escapes me. I really hope Wallace is having a better Thanksgiving than I am. It seems like he is. I take a picture of myself pouting and send it to him, saying, Aw, the cutest of cute couples. ... Another picture from Wallace waits for me. In this one, an empty pie pan littered withcrumbs sits on the floor beside a large knife. Wallace kneels next to it with morecrumbs on his sweater, expression horrified. NOOOO WHAT HAVE I DONE MY LOVE OUR MARRIAGE ’TIS ALL FOR NAUGHT I text back: Oh no!! Not sweet potato bride! Another picture comes: Wallace sprawled on the floor beside the pie pan, one arm thrown over his eyes. Let me only be accused of loving her too much. Wallace is definitely having a better Thanksgiving than me.

Meeting the Prince of Wales I’ve known her [the Queen] since I was tiny so it was no big deal. No interest in Andrew and Edward--never thought about Andrew. I kept thinking, ‘Look at the life they have, how awful’ so I remember him coming to Althorp to stay, my husband, and the first impact was ‘God, what a sad man.’ He came with his Labrador. My sister was all over him like a bad rash and I thought, ‘God, he must really hate that.’ I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, unsmart lady but I made a lot of noise and he liked that and he came up to me after dinner and we had a big dance and he said: ‘Will you show me the gallery?’ and I was just about to show him the gallery and my sister Sarah comes up and tells me to push off and I said ‘At least, let me tell you where the switches are to the gallery because you won’t know where they are,’ and I disappeared. And he was charm himself and when I stood next to him the next day, a 16-year old, for someone like that to show you any attention--I was just so sort of amazed. ‘Why would anyone like him be interested in me?’ and it was interest. That was it for about two years. Saw him off and on with Sarah and Sarah got frightfully excited about the whole thing, then she saw something different happening which I hadn’t twigged on to, i.e. when he had his 30th birthday dance I was asked too. ‘Why is Diana coming as well?’ [my] sister asked. I said: ‘Well, I don’t know but I’d like to come.’ ‘Oh, all right then,’ that sort of thing. Had a very nice time at the dance--fascinating. I wasn’t at all intimidated by the surroundings [Buckingham Palace]. I thought, amazing place. Then I was asked to stay at the de Passes in July 1980 by Philip de Pass who is the son. ‘Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood, you might amuse him.’ So I said ‘OK.’ So I sat next to him and Charles came in. He was all over me again and it was very strange. I thought ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious, I thought this was very odd. The first night we sat down on a bale at the barbecue at this house and he’d just finished with Anna Wallace. I said: ‘You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.’ I said: ‘It was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched. I thought, “It’s wrong, you’re lonely--you should be with somebody to look after you.

What’s insane about this—other than the fact we’ve never talked about it, not even once—is that I’m not nervous in any way. Just excited. We already feel like a married couple, and I say that in the best, non-boring way possible. He is stability and love. Security and confidence. I’m his tide, and he’s my anchor. Or maybe the sand itself. “Edie Van Der Zee, I want to dip my toes in the waves you make every single day for the rest of my miserable life. I want to fuck you—just you, only you, no one else—and a lot. Every. Single. Day. I want to live with you. I want to parade that fucked-up thing we have that keeps people raising eyebrows and thinking I’m a cradle-snatching douchebag, because fuck ’em, they’ll never have what we have. Will you marry me? I don’t ask for a lot. Not for kids, not for dinner, not for anything to be done in the house. I don’t ask you for anything other than what you’re willing to give me.” Luna peeks from the door, smiling. I turn my body to her, smiling. I expect her to sign me something. Something like “aw, gross,” or “Daddy is being silly again”. But she doesn’t. Instead, she arches one eyebrow, opens her lips, and lets the words fall out, awarding her father with the best present he could ever have. “Say yes.

Lew had never seen a dead man before. He just stood there, and looked and looked. Then he went a step closer, and looked some more. 'So that's what it's like!' he murmured inaudibly. Finally Lew reached out slowly and touched him on the face, and cringed as he met the clammy feel of it, pulled his hand back and whipped it down, as though to get something off it. The flesh was still warm and Lew knew suddenly he had no time alibi. He threw something over that face and that got rid of the awful feeling of being watched by something from the other world. After that Lew wasn't afraid to go near him; he just looked like a bundle of old clothes. The dead man was on his side, and Lew fiddled with the knife-hilt, trying to get it out. It was caught fast, so he let it alone after grabbing it with his fingers from a couple of different directions. Next he went through his pockets, thinking he'd be helping to identify him. The man was Luther Kemp, forty-two, and he lived on 79th Street. But none of that was really true any more, Lew thought, mystified; he'd left it all behind. His clothes and his home and his name and his body and the show he'd paid to see were here. But where the hell had he gone to, anyway? Again that weird feeling came over Lew momentarily, but he brushed it aside. It was just that one of the commonest things in life - death - was still strange to him. But after strangeness comes familiarity, after familiarity, contempt. ("Dusk To Dawn")

Mom,” Vaughn said. “I’m sure Sidney doesn’t want to be interrogated about her personal life.” Deep down, Sidney knew that Vaughn—who’d obviously deduced that she’d been burned in the past—was only trying to be polite. But that was the problem, she didn’t want him to be polite, as if she needed to be shielded from such questions. That wasn’t any better than the damn “Poor Sidney” head-tilt. “It’s okay, I don’t mind answering.” She turned to Kathleen. “I was seeing someone in New York, but that relationship ended shortly before I moved to Chicago.” “So now that you’re single again, what kind of man are you looking for? Vaughn?” Kathleen pointed. “Could you pass the creamer?” He did so, then turned to look once again at Sidney. His lips curved at the corners, the barest hint of a smile. He was daring her, she knew, waiting for her to back away from his mother’s questions. She never had been very good at resisting his dares. “Actually, I have a list of things I’m looking for.” Sidney took a sip of her coffee. Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “You have a list?” “Yep.” “Of course you do.” Isabelle looked over, surprised. “You never told me about this.” “What kind of list?” Kathleen asked interestedly. “It’s a test, really,” Sidney said. “A list of characteristics that indicate whether a man is ready for a serious relationship. It helps weed out the commitment-phobic guys, the womanizers, and any other bad apples, so a woman can focus on the candidates with more long-term potential.” Vaughn rolled his eyes. “And now I’ve heard it all.” “Where did you find this list?” Simon asked. “Is this something all women know about?” “Why? Worried you won’t pass muster?” Isabelle winked at him. “I did some research,” Sidney said. “Pulled it together after reading several articles online.” “Lists, tests, research, online dating, speed dating—I can’t keep up with all these things you kids are doing,” Adam said, from the head of the table. “Whatever happened to the days when you’d see a girl at a restaurant or a coffee shop and just walk over and say hello?” Vaughn turned to Sidney, his smile devilish. “Yes, whatever happened to those days, Sidney?” She threw him a look. Don’t be cute. “You know what they say—it’s a jungle out there. Nowadays a woman has to make quick decisions about whether a man is up to par.” She shook her head mock reluctantly. “Sadly, some guys just won’t make the cut.” “But all it takes is one,” Isabelle said, with a loving smile at her fiancé. Simon slid his hand across the table, covering hers affectionately. “The right one.” Until he nails his personal trainer. Sidney took another sip of her coffee, holding back the cynical comment. She didn’t want to spoil Isabelle and Simon’s idyllic all-you-need-is-love glow. Vaughn cocked his head, looking at the happy couple. “Aw, aren’t you two just so . . . cheesy.” Kathleen shushed him. “Don’t tease your brother.” “What? Any moment, I’m expecting birds and little woodland animals to come in here and start singing songs about true love, they’re so adorable.” Sidney laughed out loud. Quickly, she bit her lip to cover.

Harvey wanted to dive into his ugliness; he intentionally reached for those long hours of soul desolation. He waited. He paced, ready to face down whatever was to come. Paulette’s, though, busted loose uninvited, catching her completely off guard when she was already hurting, feeling crumbled, and vulnerable. When all she really wanted was some quiet gentle feelings for a change. A few flowers. Some sunshine. A way out of all that inner torment for even just a moment. Had she had brought only nastiness out of her childhood? Hadn’t there been anything sweet she could remember instead? As she wandered back to her cabin, searching for even a single fond memory, light faded everywhere around her. Aw, c’mon, she thought. Everyone had some happy childhood memories. She had to have at least a couple. How about the coloring? Children enjoy coloring; how about that? She’d spent hours and days on her art. It was as close as she could remember to having her Mamma stand over her with anything even remotely resembling approval. Her books and comics could be tales of Jesus, but coloring books had to be Old Testament because “No child’s impure hand could touch a crayon to the sweet beautiful face of our beloved Lord and savior Christ Jesus.” So the little girl had scrunched down over Daniel in the lion’s den. Samson screaming in rage, pain, and terror as they blinded him with daggers and torches. The redder she made the flowing wounds of a man of God shot full of arrows, the richer the flames around those three men being burned in an iron box, the longer Mamma let her stay out of that closet. - From “The Gardens of Ailana

The turning-point [in Klosters, Switzerland in 1988] [Diana’s sister] Jane’s wonderfully solid. If you ring up with a drama, she says: ‘Golly, gosh, Duch, how horrible, how sad and how awful’ and gets angry. But my sister Sarah swears: ‘Poor Duch, such a shitty thing to happen.’ My father says: ‘Just remember we always love you.’ But that summer [1988] when I made so many cock-ups I sat myself down in the autumn, when I was in Scotland, and I remember saying to myself: ‘Right, Diana, it’s no good, you’ve got to change it right round, this publicity, you’ve got to grow up and be responsible. You’ve got to understand that you can’t do what other 26- and 27-year olds are doing. You’ve been chosen to do a position so you must adapt to the position and stop fighting it.’ I remember my conversation so well, sitting by water. I always sit by water when contemplating. Stephen Twigg [a therapist] who comes to see me said once: ‘Whatever anybody else thinks of you is none of your business.’ That sat with me. Then once someone said to me, when I said I’ve got to go up to Balmoral, and they said: ‘Well, you’ve got to put up with them but they’ve also got to put up with you.’ This myth about me hating Balmoral--I love Scotland but just the atmosphere drains me to nothing. I go up ‘strong Diana.’ I come away depleted of everything because they just suck me dry, because I tune in to all their moods and, boy, are there some undercurrents there! Instead of having a holiday, it’ the most stressful time of the year. I love being out all day. I love the stalking. I’m much happier now. I’m not blissful but much more content than I’ve ever been. I’ve really gone down deep, scraped the bottom a couple times and come up again and it’s very nice meeting people now and talking about tai-chi and people say: ‘Tai-chi--what do you know about tai-chi?’ and I said: ‘An energy flow,’ and all this and they look at me and they say: ‘She’s the girl who’s supposed to like shopping and clothes the whole time. She’s not supposed to know about spiritual things.

Chip and I were both exhausted when we finally pulled up in front of that house, but we were still riding the glow of our honeymoon, and I was so excited as he carried me over the threshold--until the smell nearly knocked us over. “Oh my word,” I said, pinching my nose and trying to hold my breath so I wouldn’t gag. “What is that?” Chip flicked the light switch, and the light didn’t come on. He flicked it up and down a few times, then felt his way forward in the darkness and tried another switch. “The electricity’s off,” he said. “The girls must’ve had it shut off when they moved out.” “Didn’t you transfer it back into your name?” I asked. “I guess not. I’m sorry, babe,” Chip said. “Chip, what is that smell?” It was the middle of June in Waco, Texas. The temperature had been up over a hundred degrees for days on end, and the humidity was stifling, amplifying whatever that rotten smell was coming from the kitchen. Chip always carries a knife and a flashlight, and it sure came in handy that night. Chip made his way back there and found that the fridge still had a bunch of food left in it, including a bunch of ground beef that had just sat there rotting since whenever the electricity went out. The food was literally just smoldering in this hundred-degree house. So we went from living in a swanky hotel room on Park Avenue in New York City to this disgusting, humid stink of a place that felt more like the site of a crime scene than a home at this point. Honestly, I hadn’t thought it through very well. But it was late, and we were tired, and I just focused on making the most of this awful situation. So we opened some windows and brought our bags in, and I told Jo we’d just tough it out and sleep on the floor and clean it all up in the morning. That’s when she started crying. I lay down on the floor thinking, Is his what my life is going to look like now that I married Chip? Is this my new normal? That’s when another smell hit me. It was in the carpet. “Chip, did those girls have a dog here?” I asked. “They had a couple of dogs,” he answered. “Why?” You could smell it. In the carpet. It was nasty. I was just lying there with my head next to some old dog urine stain that had been heated by the Texas summer heat. It was like microwaved dog pee. It was. It was awful. It was three in the morning. And I finally said, “Chip, I’m not sleeping in this house.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was admired by all, but no one dared to ask for her hand in marriage. In despair, the king consulted the god Apollo. He told him that Psyche should be dressed in mourning and left alone on top of a mountain. Before daybreak, a serpent would come to meet and marry her. The king obeyed, and all night the princess waited for her husband to appear, deathly afraid and freezing cold. Finally, she slept. When she awoke, she found herself crowned a queen in a beautiful palace. Every night her husband came to her and they made love, but he had imposed one condition: Psyche could have all she desired, but she had to trust him completely and could never see his face.” How awful, I think, but I don’t dare interrupt him. “The young woman lived happily for a long time. She had comfort, affection, joy, and she was in love with the man who visited her every night. However, occasionally she was afraid that she was married to a hideous serpent. Early one morning, while her husband slept, she lit a lantern and saw Eros, a man of incredible beauty, lying by her side. The light woke him, and seeing that the woman he loved was unable to fulfill his one request, Eros vanished. Desperate to get her lover back, Psyche submitted to a series of tasks given to her by Aphrodite, Eros’s mother. Needless to say, her mother-in-law was incredibly jealous of Psyche’s beauty and she did everything she could to thwart the couple’s reconciliation. In one of the tasks, Psyche opened a box that makes her fall into a deep sleep.” I grow anxious to find out how the story will end. “Eros was also in love and regretted not having been more lenient toward his wife. He managed to enter the castle and wake her with the tip of his arrow. ‘You nearly died because of your curiosity,’ he told her. ‘You sought security in knowledge and destroyed our relationship.’ But in love, nothing is destroyed forever. Imbued with this conviction, they go to Zeus, the god of gods, and beg that their union never be undone. Zeus passionately pleaded the cause of the lovers with strong arguments and threats until he gained Aphrodite’s support. From that day on, Psyche (our unconscious, but logical, side) and Eros (love) were together forever.” I pour another glass of wine. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Those who cannot accept this, and who always try to find an explanation for magical and mysterious human relationships, will miss the best part of life.

Did you just take something off?” I ask the darkness. “Sam,” she scolds. I roll onto my side to face her. “What was it?” I whisper. “Nothing,” she hisses back. But I can hear laughter in her voice and I love it. “You took your shorts off, didn’t you?” I say quietly. “Maybe.” “You did.” I wait a beat. Just long enough for silence to settle around the room. “Do you know what that means?” “It means you should shut up and go to sleep.” She giggles. God, that’s a pretty sound. She’s quiet for a second. “What does it mean?” she suddenly asks. “It means your naked thighs are pressed against my sheets.” I groan. I’m turning myself on. Or she’s turning me on. “Sam,” she warns. But she’s laughing, too. She’s so far away from me that I imagine she’s going to roll right off the bed. “You’re awfully far away.” “There’s a reason for that,” she whispers. “What is it?” I whisper back. “Because I have this awful feeling that you’re going to break my heart,” she says. No stutter, so she must have found something to tap on. But I kind of would prefer to think she didn’t. “I don’t plan to hurt you.” God, she might as well have stabbed me in the gut. “No one plans to hurt anyone else. It just happens. Even to good people. So I’m trying not to let myself like you.” “You like me?” “I like you a lot. Too much.” “You like me,” I sing-song in a playful voice. “Sam,” she says on a heavy breath. “What?” “Don’t hurt me, okay?” I can hear the quiver in her voice and tension radiates off of her even from across the bed. It’s like a wire pulled taut. I reach out a hand and feel for her stomach. When I find it, I lift the edge of her shirt and lay my palm on her hip. She squeals when I roll her over and pull her to me. “Sam!” she cries. I adjust her until her bottom is cradled by my thighs. The scent of her hair tickles my nose, so I brush it out of my face, pushing it down between us. It’s silky smooth and she smells so damn good. “Um, Sam…” I nuzzle my face into the nape of her neck and press a kiss to her shoulder. “What?” “You promised to stay on your side of the bed.” “I am on my side of the bed.” She chuckles. “Go to sleep.” She wiggles her bottom in my lap, and I have to pull back a little and adjust my junk. “Um…” “That’s just my dick. I told you he likes you. He’ll give up in a minute. Go to sleep.” My head is lying on my bicep and I feel her turn her head ever so slightly and press a kiss against the tender skin of my inner arm. Damn, that feels good. My hand creeps up a little. This is the first time I’ve touched her naked stomach, and my fingertips are a little greedy. Her hand covers mine and holds it flat against her belly. “Sorry,” I whisper. She doesn’t say anything. She just holds my hand there against her skin, wrapped in hers. After a couple of minutes, she goes soft in my arms. I realize in that moment that I am in serious trouble. Like the awful, terrible, no good, very bad kind. Because I think I’m in love with her. No. I don’t think it. I know it. What I don’t know is whether or not she’s capable of loving me back.

Every couple of months or so, some boundary breaking article comes out in a nationally published magazine. The article makes a big thesis statement about relationships. Like say how, women don’t need men anymore, or how if you’re a woman over thirty-five, you should just settle with whatever guy is half-way nice to you, or how monogamy is not feasible, or plausible, or enjoyable, for any human. And we should all be swingers, or a study is released that say’s, you don’t have to love your kids anymore or something. They’re the kind of articles that are e-mailed everywhere and I get them forwarded to me about eight times. I will read one of these articles and immediately afterward I’m so swept up in it, I can’t help but think Yes, Yes, that is one-hundred percent right. Finally! Someone has confirmed that little voice in the back of my mind that has always not loved my kids, or I’m so happy I’m that much closer to my swinging lifestyle I’ve always secretly been craving. I’m normal and now it’s a national discussion and others agree and I can feel normal now. But then, a week later I’m thinking, I hate this. I feel awful. This wretched little magazine article has helped convinced more open minded liberal arts graduates that, the nuclear family doesn’t exist without some hideous twist, like the dad is allowed to go to an S & M dungeon once a week or something. It makes me cry because it means that fewer and fewer people are believing it’s cool to want what I want, which is to be married and have kids and love each other in a monogamous, long-lasting relationship.

Actually...” Maddox looked over Ben, question in his eyes. Ben nodded. “Not entirely accurate.” “What? You didn’t make up?” Apollo blinked, awfully slow for a guy who commanded troops with ease. “No, idiot.” Dylan gave him a light thwack on the shoulder. “Not not-a-couple.” “Oh.” Apollo’s eyes darted between them. “Well. About damn time.” That

What he wanted was a couple of cool beers, a cold bath and a change of clothing; it probably wouldn’t make him feel better, but it would at least make feeling awful more enjoyable.

A couple of hours later, I said to myself, “I think we could change a few things. Let’s adjust this, and let’s adjust that.” I refused to criticize myself in any way. If I had come off the podium and begun berating myself with, “Oh, you were so awful. You made this mistake, and you made that mistake,” then I would have dreaded my second lecture. As it was, the second one was better than the first, and by the sixth one, I was feeling like a pro.

I have trouble with people like that. Like that woman who was just here. They come up to you in a time of grief, and they can’t seem to accept that it’s grief. They can’t just be in that moment of grief with you. They can’t just say, ‘Yeah, this is some pretty awful stuff.’ They have to try to fix it. They have to solve it for you in a couple of sentences, which is ridiculous, because it never solves anything. But they suggest something to get you out of what you’re feeling, or they find some reason why it’s all for the best. I don’t understand why people can’t just join you in your grief for a moment.

In 2016, pop icon and actor Selena Gomez posted a photo on Instagram of herself in a dressing room watching The Big Bang Theory on her computer with the caption that read “The one thing that gets me going before anything… Sheldon Cooper—Big Bang Theory.” Molaro saw the post, which sparked an idea. Steve Molaro: After I had heard she liked the show, we approached Selena’s team a couple of times to have her on, but it never worked out due to scheduling reasons, etc. I’m a fan of hers and would have loved to have had her on. I never even got to pitch it to them, but I had kicked around an idea that Amy had been complaining about her awful stepsister and what a bitch she was. Which would be news because we didn’t even know she had one. This, of course, was before we established Amy’s dad and mom were still together. When we meet this stepsister, played by Selena, she’s beautiful and great and everyone loves her and Amy was just being jealous. It never got further than that. It would have been fun if it could have worked

Thus, being dysregulated is not the same as being upset. You can be upset and still be quite able to make effective decisions, hold your tongue, or otherwise “control” yourself—manage to act in ways that help you achieve a better relationship, a better life, rather than simply escaping an unpleasant (or even awful) situation by doing something that hurts the other person, escalates the conflict, or, in general, makes things worse in the long run.

But I always found that a bit awful of God. To withhold evidence, if the Cosmic Egg is so important. That’s how Hildegard von Bingen puts it—the Cosmic Egg. But yeah, it’s suspiciously stingy to give us nothing but a couple of self-professed messiahs every three thousand years. Prophets whose stories don’t align. Mary on toast. Somebody’s cured muscular dystrophy. It’s a lot to ask of us without collateral, don’t you think? Especially when there are so many competing stories, and the stakes are so high. Inferno or paradise. Forever.

there’s a tidal wave coming towards San Francisco. It looks massive,” “We copy, Flight 80. They’ve been hit with a 9.5 earthquake, the epicenter being just offshore. However, we’re unusually quiet here and don’t seem to be affected by it, but we can see the city falling apart from our vantage point. What can you see from up there?” “I’m seeing buildings fall like they were made of cards, fires seemed to have started in a couple of neighborhoods, and…. Oh. My. God!” “What is it Captain? What’s wrong?” asked the Tower. “The…. the…. the ground is opening up, swallowing whole sections of the city. The wave from the ocean has reached the city, and from the looks of it, it looks like it’s at least one hundred feet high. The water is pounding into the city now, and it looks like it’s pushing the remains of the city into the sinkhole or whatever you want to call it. I don’t think anything is going to remain of San Francisco after this. This is awful,

I am halfway through Hillary Clinton's latest called "Living History"...pretty lighthearted on the scale...unlike David Hick's autobiography...I had to skip a couple of hundred pages in the middle of that one because it was too distressing for me to read. Undoubtedly yours will be the same...I will read the beginning, skip all the awful bit in the middle and read your happy ever after bit at the end.

He was in his late thirties maybe, tall and slim with pale blond hair, ruddy cheeks, and the kind of translucent Scandinavian skin that would burn instantly in the sun. His face was all interesting angles and cleft chin, creating the overall impression that he should be modeling parkas in an L.L.Bean catalog. The suit was neither particularly nice nor particularly shabby, but I recognized a familiar lump near his armpit—a shoulder holster. I was immediately wary. “Good evening, Miss Luther,” the man said, pleasantly enough. “I’m Detective Quinn with Boulder PD.” His hazel eyes pierced mine as he held out his hand, very close to mine so I wouldn’t have to work hard to reach it. His handshake was extremely gentle—not weak, exactly, but more like he feared my fingers might crumple to dust. “I’d like to speak to you about the incident at your work.” “Now?” I asked, a little incredulous. I had expected the cops to turn up with questions, particularly since Mom had warned me, but it seemed awfully late. Visiting hours had been over for a while. Quinn nodded. “As you might imagine, we’re very anxious to pursue the couple who kidnapped your niece.

Jeremy, wait!” she called, bending over to catch her breath. When Jeremy saw her, he picked up his pace and hurried toward the crosswalk. Madison threw her head back and moaned, “I can’t keep up! Please stop.” At the intersection, he had to stop to wait for the traffic light, and she stumbled off the curb and stood in front of him, clutching her side. “Please listen for one minute,” she gasped. “I know that the Homecoming disaster wasn’t your fault. I know you didn’t put up those awful photos. And I am so ashamed for jumping to conclusions about you, and not ever giving you a chance to explain.” Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, and she help up her palm. “Just a minute. I’m not finished.” She bent over once more and took a couple of deep breaths. “I know you’ll never accept my apology because you think I’m heartless and self-centered. But just to prove to you that I’m sincere, I’m withdrawing from the race and throwing all my support behind you.” Madison waited for Jeremy to respond. As she looked into his eyes, he continued to say nothing. She felt her throat tighten painfully. Tears pooled in her eyes. Madison turned to leave before she embarrassed herself any further. But as she stepped into the crosswalk, Jeremy caught her by the arm. “Now hold it a minute, will you?” he said, gently pulling her back onto the curb. “You just dropped an awful lot of information in my lap. The least you can do is give me a moment to process it.” Madison put a hand over her mouth, trying to hold herself together. Then she looked up into his pale blue eyes. They were no longer ice cold but filled with compassion. “I guess I’ll begin by accepting your apology,” Jeremy said slowly. “And offer my own apology in return.” Madison laughed. “You apologize to me? Whatever for?” “Excuse me,” a man interrupted from behind them. He and a woman were walking with their tenspeeds. “This is a crosswalk. If you want to talk, there are plenty of places to do it over there.” He pointed back to the park, by the lake. They shared an embarrassed laugh.

I haven’t seen you in a couple of days. Are you avoiding me again?” “I should, but I haven’t been. I’ve had stuff going on. Does the general know you’re doing this?” he asked. “Of course. They’re his horses.” “Aw, Shelby,” he said, sounding a little miserable. He took off the tool belt and buttoned up his shirt. “What did he say?” “He said, ‘You be careful of that Black Hawk pilot. They have a reputation for abusing women.’” He shoved his shirt into his pants. “God,” he moaned. “Why don’t you go away and leave me alone before you get me shot.” She laughed. “He didn’t say that. He said, ‘Be sure to tell Luke that Plenty nips and bolts.’ So—Plenty, short for Plenty of Trouble, nips and bolts. You’ll have to pay attention.” “Bolts?” he asked a little nervously. “Not usually with a rider. But if you get off, keep the reins. She can be a handful when she acts up, but she’s a pretty good ride.” “Aw, man. I have a feeling this is going to be humiliating. Where are we going?” “How about upriver a ways to check out the turning leaves?” she asked. “Think you can handle that?” “I’ll give it a go,” he said.

I might need an escort to the loo. I’m a little drunk.” It broke through his sadness, changing his mood yet again. “You think?” he asked, smiling. “Well, I don’t exactly have your height and girth. And I’m a small drinker—couple of beers or wines or fruity things. Truth is, I’m worried about standing up….” He laughed at her. “No one held you down and poured it down your neck.” “It’s awful reading letters you’ve written. All the bad sentences, terrible spelling, stupid remarks… I bet when you go to hell, they just read every letter you ever wrote out loud.

Marcie felt something on her hair and woke to look into Ian’s rich brown eyes. Dawn was barely lighting the cabin and he was running his big hand over her curls. “Morning,” she said sleepily. He didn’t say anything. He just lowered his lips to hers and touched them gently, sweetly. She felt the brush of his beard, the soft flesh of his lips and let her eyes drop closed. He moved over her mouth for a moment. She moaned and slipped an arm around his neck, holding him there. He pulled back just a little and whispered, “We’re snowed in, honey.” “Good.” “I was jealous of Bobby, you know,” Ian said, petting her hair back along her temple, moving it over her ear. “Be careful, Ian—you’re talking about ‘it.’” “I’m ready to tell you anything you want to know. We were all a little jealous of Bobby. He had something real special with you. You sent him panties.” Her cheeks warmed in spite of herself. Her eyes got very round. “He showed you?” Ian chuckled. “He showed everyone. Very skimpy panties. I think they were lime-green with black lace or something.” “I cannot believe he showed you!” “He was proud of them. He kept them tucked in his inside pocket like a good-luck charm.” “They were perfectly clean, I’ll have you know.” “Aw, that almost comes as a disappointment,” Ian said, chuckling. “They should have had your scent on them.” “They had Tide and Downy on them!” “And you sent him that picture—on the motorcycle.” She put her hands over her face. In muffled tones she muttered, “I’m mortified.” He pulled her hands away and lightly kissed her again. “So the night I almost froze to death was actually the second time you’ve seen me in my underwear.” “Technically, I’ve seen your underwear a ton of times. I came home a couple of times to see your cute little rump sticking out of the covers, not to mention all that underwear on my tub, drying out,” he said. “And I’d trade my life to see you in your underwear again.” Her eyes got round for a minute, but then she smiled slightly and a little laugh escaped her. “I’ve heard some interesting come-ons in my limited experience, but that’s a new one. Tell me, do I have to shoot you after you peek?” “What if I told you, you might have to shoot me to stop me? Would that scare you?” “You don’t scare me, Ian. I know you’d protect me from anything. Even yourself.” He

By afternoon Jack found her down on her hands and knees scouring the bathroom floor around the toilet and tub. “For the love of God,” he said. “What?” “What the hell are you doing? If you want the bathroom cleaned, why don’t you just tell me? I know how to clean a goddamn bathroom.” “It wasn’t all that dirty, but since I’m in the cleaning mood, I thought I’d whip it into shape.” “David is ready for his nap. Why don’t you join him.” “I don’t feel like a nap. I’m going to vacuum the area rugs.” “No, you’re not,” he said. “I’ll do that if it has to be done right now.” “Okay,” Mel said, smiling. “I’ve been tricked.” “Only by yourself, darling,” she said, whirling away to get the Pledge and Windex. After that was done—and there was a lot of wood and glass and stainless steel to occupy her—she was sweeping off the porch and back steps. Not long after that, she was caught dragging the cradle into the master bedroom. “Melinda!” he shouted, startling her and making her jump. “Jack! Don’t do that!” “Let go of that thing!” He brushed her out of the way and grabbed the cradle. “Where do you want it?” “Right there,” she said. He put it beside the bed. “No,” she said. “Over there, kind of out of the way.” He put it there. “No,” she said. “Against that wall—we’ll put it where we need it when she comes.” He moved it again. “Thank you,” she said. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he said. He picked up a pencil and put it in her face. “If you lift anything heavier than this, I’m going to beat you.” Then he turned and left the room. He has cabin fever, she thought. Spending too much time at home with me, making sure I don’t pick up anything heavier than a pencil. He should get out more, and out of my hair. When Jack was done with the phone, she was on her knees in front of the hearth, brushing out the barely used fireplace. “Aw, Jesus Christ,” he said in frustration. “Can that not wait until at least frickin’ winter?” She sat back on her heels. “You are really getting on my last nerve. Don’t you have somewhere you can go?” “No, but we do. Go shower and get beautiful. Paul and Vanessa are back and after they view the prom couple, they’re going to the bar for dinner. We’ll all meet there, look at some pictures.” “Great,” she said. “I’m in the mood for a beer.” “Whatever you want, Melinda,” he said tiredly. “Just stop this frickin’ cleaning.” “You know I’m not going to be able to do much of this after the baby comes, so it’s good to have it all done. And the way I like it.” “You’ve always been good at cleaning. Why couldn’t you just cook?” he asked. “You don’t cook anything.” “You cook.” She smiled. “How many cooks does one house need?” “Just go shower. You have fireplace ash on your nose.” “Pain in the ass,” she said to him, getting clumsily to her feet. “Ditto,” he said. An

I thought I explained this,” Luke said, sounding annoyed. “She’s a beautiful young girl. She might be a chronological twenty-five, but subtract a few years of her being tied to an invalid. She would be carded in most bars. I was almost her first flirt! She should do things! Experience things! She’s been patient and dedicated a long time—she has to get out there and…” “And not take a chance on you and then realize in a couple years that she was hasty,” Aiden supplied. “Aw, what the hell,” Luke said, standing up and running a hand across the back of his neck. “She’s not ready to make that kind of choice. She might think she is, but she’s not!” “Because you weren’t?” “She’s too young!” “Because you were?” Luke didn’t respond. He turned his back on his brother. Aiden stood up and approached Luke’s back. He put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You weren’t too young when you married Felicia. You weren’t too naive or inexperienced when you were twenty-five. You had it all—you were sharp and loyal and you knew how you felt. You had enough passion and commitment to never change your mind. You got screwed up by someone who wasn’t your match. I’m sorry, buddy, but it wasn’t your fault. Jesus, will you ever let yourself off the hook for that? You didn’t cheat on her! She went out on you!” “She wasn’t enough,” he said. Then he laughed ruefully and shook his head. “That’s what she said to me….” “Felicia?” Luke turned around. “Shelby. She said she knew she wasn’t enough….” “Oh, Christ,” Aiden said in a breath.

first Horseman is criticism. If partners regularly use criticism to voice their complaints where one partner blames a problem on the other partner’s character flaws, the relationship will slowly sink. Words like “You never wash the dishes!” or “You’re so selfish” only inspire resentment, not cooperation or care. The second Horseman is contempt. This one leads couples to gallop over a cliff. Partners who are contemptuous act superior and punctuate their criticisms with a sneer, a left lip corner raise, or an eye roll that signifies their superiority and disgust. They may also mock their partner or use sarcasm, like, “Aw, your pinkie hurts? Poor baby. Guess that gets you out of doing the dishes … again.

Sweetheart, you’re crying? Why?” “I can’t Brandon … I can’t.” I choked on a sob and put my fist to my mouth to muffle it, Liam had started dozing off again. “Harper what is wrong? Please tell me.” I was trying, I just couldn’t speak yet so I held up a finger, silently asking him to give me a second to calm down a little, “I can’t leave him. I’m terrified of what might happen if I do. Chase and your dad were gone just like that. I don’t want to lose him and I don’t want him to lose one or both of us. We know what it’s like to be without a parent, I can’t do that to him.” “Aw hell, sweetheart that won’t happen. I know why you’re scared, but we can’t live like that. We can’t let what’s happened in our pasts, rule our lives now and in the future. That’s not fair to us, and it’s not fair to Liam. Nothing is going to happen, you need to allow yourself to enjoy our lives, as well as his. I don’t want to be away from him either, but I will admit, I want alone time with you. We need to have time where it’s just us. Even if it’s just a couple hours, once a week.” “I’m sorry.

So you had a little hissy and said, ‘Fine, just go, then.’ Is that it? Kind of like, ‘My way or the highway,’ huh?” “Aw, come on, Shelby,” Sean said pleadingly. “You know I’m not a guy with a temper! I’m a sweetheart. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. And I don’t have any problem seeing myself with one woman. You know? It’s just the whole marriage thing—it was not for me. Marriage scared the hell out of me. A couple of my brothers tried it and it screwed them up bad. And kids?” He shook his head. “Maybe when I’m old and worn out like Luke I’ll change my mind, but at the moment I don’t feel like being tied down like that.” “Ah,” she said. “I see. So you’d like to have a nice chat with Franci and explain all this to her?” “Something like that,” he said, making perfect sense to himself. “It’s no crime to have a fight, but we never should’ve given up what we had. We were good together.” Shelby

How’d she take it.” Sean thought for a second. “Truthfully? She wasn’t that impressed. She knew her daddy had a plane and she wants a ride. She took it right in stride, like she’d been expecting me to show up any second.” “And you?” Aiden asked. “You take it in stride?” “Aw, hell, it wore me out so bad I fell asleep on her little bed. Slept until the sun was down. After spending about three hours with her—eating her imaginary chicken and broccoli, reading books, picking up toys, talking about bikes and dogs and playmates at school—I was shot. She has these high heels she wears. She took some to school so her friend Jason could wear them, too.” He grumbled. “While I was asleep, she painted my face with magic markers…” Aiden whooped with laughter. “Yeah, you laugh. I’ll turn her loose on you.” “I’d love that,” Aiden said. “When can I meet her?” “Gimme some time, Aiden. I’m way behind the power curve here. I don’t know anything about kids, and there is so much to know. You have no idea.” “She’s just a kid, Sean. Don’t overthink it. Enjoy her.” “Did you know that when a little kid poops, you have to check their little butt to make sure they wiped it clean? Did you know that?” Aiden chuckled. “Yes, Sean, I knew that.” “Where the hell do you learn something like that?” “I dated a woman with a couple of little kids. Haven’t you? Ever dated a single young mother?” Sean was quiet for a moment. “Not really.” “How can you not really date a young mother?” “I’ve gone out with women with kids before, yeah. But I’ve never been around the kids. I have friends with kids, but I never paid attention to that stuff. I’m in way over my head.” “Franci will help you with all that. How is Franci?” “Cautious. I told her I thought we should get married and she told me to slow down—she wants to be sure it’s the right move.” “Bullshit. She wants to be sure you’re in love with her. That you can be a lover and a family man. Don’t you know anything about women?” “Not as much as I thought I did,” Sean admitted. “My little brother the playboy,” Aiden said. “Time to take life a little more seriously, huh? I want to meet her. Rosie. Let me know the minute I can. And I’d love to see Franci again.” “You know, just because Rosie took me in stride doesn’t mean the entire Riordan clan won’t be a little overwhelming for her,” Sean said. “Let’s not throw her in the deep end of the pool, huh?” “Red hair and green eyes, I hear,” Aiden said. “Like Mom and Paddy and half our cousins. That must have been a shock.” “The second I saw her, I knew. Plus, it couldn’t be anyone else’s kid—Franci and I were tight.” He paused. “Till we weren’t.” “Well,

I was just about to tell you when she came bounding in the front door. Rosie doesn’t walk anywhere.” “You were just about to tell me? A few years after the fact?” “I told you I needed a commitment, that I wanted a child…children. You were adamant—you were not interested in the same things I was.” “You might’ve left out a couple of things—like you were pregnant. That red hair and those green eyes—they’ve been in my family for generations.” “Did you really think I would tell you? After the way you acted about the whole idea?” “I didn’t have the facts,” he said, anger seeping into his tone. “Do you even remember how it was? Do you remember that I cried and said it was the most important thing to me and you said I’d have to come up with other important things because you weren’t getting into all that? Do you remember telling me not to let the door hit me in the ass? Do you remember saying, ‘Fat chance! Not in this lifetime’?” “And do you remember telling me I was a child, an irresponsible fuck-around who would never grow up? That if I couldn’t settle down and have a wife and children, you weren’t interested in wasting any more time on me? Remember, Franci? But you didn’t tell me you were pregnant!” “I couldn’t! I was afraid to!” “Aw, Jesus, Mary and Joseph—afraid? You’ve never had any reason to be afraid of me!” “I was afraid you’d marry me!” “That was what you wanted!” “I didn’t want you to marry me because I was pregnant! I wanted you to marry me because you loved me!” “I did love you! I just didn’t want to be married!” “Or have children!” she shouted back. She pinched her eyes closed and took a steadying breath. She spoke quietly. “I didn’t want you to be stuck with us. More to the point, I didn’t want us to be stuck with you, regretting our accident every day of our marriage. I wanted my child. I wanted to raise her knowing she was wanted. Loved. You will never understand this, Sean, and I don’t expect you to—but when my period was five minutes late, I started to love her. Passionately. And it grew by the day. If I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that you’d love her just as much, I wasn’t willing to take a chance on you.” “Were you never going to tell me?” he asked. “If I hadn’t bumped into you, were you—” “Yes, I was going to tell you. I was going to have to—Rosie has just started asking questions. I was dreading it, but I was going to tell you.” “Dreading it? Because you knew how pissed I’d be?” She gave a huff of laughter. Sometimes he was so dense. “No, Sean,” she said patiently. “I don’t care if you get mad at me. I was afraid you’d hurt Rosie. Reject her. Ignore her. Break her heart.” Sean

Experimentation also proved serendipitous for Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, when they were putting together the Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California, north of San Diego. It was destined to become one of the most successful brewing startups of the 1990s. In The Craft of Stone Brewing Co. Koch and Wagner confess that the home-brewed ale that became Arrogant Bastard Ale and propelled Stone to fame in the craft brewing world, started with a mistake. Greg Koch recalls that Wagner exclaimed “Aw, hell!” as he brewed an ale on his brand spanking new home-brewing system. “I miscalculated and added the ingredients in the wrong percentages,” he told Koch. “And not just a little. There’s a lot of extra malt and hops in there.” Koch recalls suggesting they dump it, but Wagner decided to let it ferment and see what it tasted like. Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, founders of Stone Brewery. Photograph © Stone Brewing Co. They both loved the resulting hops bomb, but they didn’t know what to do with it. Koch was sure that nobody was “going to be able to handle it. I mean, we both loved it, but it was unlike anything else that was out there. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with it, but we knew we had to do something with it somewhere down the road.”20 Koch said the beer literally introduced itself as Arrogant Bastard Ale. It seemed ironic to me that a beer from southern California, the world of laid back surfers, should produce an ale with a name that many would identify with New York City. But such are the ironies of the craft brewing revolution. Arrogant Bastard was relegated to the closet for the first year of Stone Brewing Co.’s existence. The founders figured their more commercial brew would be Stone Pale Ale, but its first-year sales figures were not strong, and the company’s board of directors decided to release Arrogant Bastard. “They thought it would help us have more of a billboard effect; with more Stone bottles next to each other on a retail shelf, they become that much more visible, and it sends a message that we’re a respected, established brewery with a diverse range of beers,” Wagner writes. Once they decided to release the Arrogant Bastard, they decided to go all out. The copy on the back label of Arrogant Bastard has become famous in the beer world: Arrogant Bastard Ale Ar-ro-gance (ar’ogans) n. The act or quality of being arrogant; haughty; Undue assumption; overbearing conceit. This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory—maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beverage will give you more sex appeal. The label continues along these lines for a couple of hundred words. Some call it a brilliant piece of reverse psychology. But Koch insists he was just listening to the beer that had emerged from a mistake in Wagner’s kitchen. In addition to innovative beers and marketing, Koch and Wagner have also made their San Diego brewery a tourist destination, with the Stone Brewing Bistro & Gardens, with plans to add a hotel to the Stone empire.

Her boys were growing up, too. William would start nursery school in January of 1987 at four and a half. The most exciting part for William was the uniform, “which he is thrilled to bits about, especially as Harry is very envious of his big brother!” The next year would find Diana and Charles in Portugal, Spain, and Germany. “It never stops and it’s certainly no holiday package tour!” How true. I’d seen that for myself in Washington. I had been thrilled to catch a television documentary on the royal couple and had said so in my letter. Diana wrote, “An awful lot of money was raised for very worthy causes so that made the intrusion much more worthwhile!” This comment exemplified the conflict Diana faced between her desire for privacy and her desire to do good.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? There was a period when I was drinking at every show, and I was DJing a lot, maybe four nights a week, playing local shows in Los Angeles. I had a couple of Dim Mak parties, and we were on top of the world! We had cornered the market with our sound and culture, and I was just getting booked left and right. I was the ambassador of this new culture that was burgeoning in electronic music called “electro,” and my ego was flexing a bit. I was drinking and having fun. It was a great feeling, but then you forget about the most important things in life because you’re in that fog of self-indulgence. My mom was coming to visit me, and she never flies in. This was one of the few times she had. I was supposed to pick her up in the morning. I had a big night the night before—we had a party, I drank, and I stayed out super late. The next morning my mom landed around 7 A.M., and I slept through it. I woke up at 10 A.M., or something awful like three hours later. I saw a text message from my mom—she barely even knew how to text! I don’t know why, but she waited at the airport for three hours, sitting outside on a bench. My poor mom. Once I got to the airport an hour later—making it four hours she had been there—she was just innocently sitting on this bench, and I broke down. She was still so sweet about it. It was at that moment that I felt like this whole life of partying and drinking was all bullshit, especially if you can’t maintain your priorities of valuing and taking care of your family. That was one fail I will never forget. After that, I stopped being caught up in that Hollywood bubble where everyone parties and drinks every single night. You can live in that bubble and forget about the realities of your family and relationships outside the bubble. But those relationships are vital to who you are and are important in your life. Eventually, I quit drinking, which I am happy about, partly because of this major fail.

She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps. “I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back!” “I know,” Ron said, “Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really—” “Oh, you’re sorry!” She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry merely grimaced his helplessness. “You come back after weeks—weeks—and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?” “Well, what else can I say?” Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back. “Oh, I don’t know!” yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. “Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds—” “Hermione,” interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, “he just saved my—” “I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew—” “I knew you weren’t dead!” bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. “Harry’s all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead, you don’t know what it’s been like—” “What it’s been like for you?” Her voice was so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity. “I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!” “A gang of what?” asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.

I’m here to make it up to you, Sarah. Run away with me, and we’ll get married, and I’ll introduce you to th’ boys. We’ll have a fine life—you’ll see. A couple of ’em are married, too, or they have lady friends here ’n’ there that ride along with us from time to time.” She couldn’t believe her ears. “You think I’d even consider leaving with you to live an outlaw’s life, always on the run?” “Aw, Sarah, we have a grand time, livin’ high off the hog. We’re free to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We eat the best food, drink the best wine—our ladies are drippin’ in jewelry and fancy clothes. But I’m willin’ to leave it all if you insist.” “‘Leave it all’?” “Sure. That’s how much I love you, sweetheart. If you don’t want to live free as a bird, I’ll come back and have that ranch with you. We’ll let Milly stay there, too, of course, but it ain’t fittin’ for no lady to be runnin’ a ranch anyway.” “I told you, Milly’s married now,” she managed to say, in the midst of the temper that was threatening to boil over into angry words. “I think her husband might take exception to that idea.” “We’ll buy him out, then,” he said grandly. “They can go find some other ranch. I know you always set great store by that old place.” She was conscious of the handful of other diners in the restaurant, and remembered again that her mother said ladies did not make a scene in public. She folded her hands in her lap and looked away. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I loved you, and I prayed every night during the war for your return, but now—” He straightened. “Loved me? You don’t love me any more? There’s someone else, isn’t there?” he demanded, his narrowed eyes twin smoldering fires. She looked away from his glare. She didn’t want to tell him about Nolan, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that his former fiancée was in love with one of the very Yankees he hated so much, especially since she and Nolan hadn’t even had the chance to explore their new feelings for one another yet. But she wouldn’t lie, not about the relationship that had come to mean so much to her. She just wouldn’t say any more than she had to. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m sorry, there is. I wish you well, Jesse. And now I’d best be getting home.

Cole looks dark and brooding, like the hero of a romance novel. How is that possible? That he can look good even in an id picture. I bet the jerk looks good in his driver’s license photo. Kenneth tilts his head, laughing. “Except Cole. He’s a mutant.” I shove the offending thing at Cole as he comes back with a couple of safety vests. “How is that fair?” “What did I do?” “You look hot in your badge pic.” “What?” His brow is crinkled in puzzlement. “You think I’m hot?” “Nobody should look this good in an id photo.” He shrugs. “Can’t help it, Coffee Girl. Comes naturally. Yours can’t be that bad. Let me see.” I jerk it back when he tries to grab it. “It’s awful. Trust me. You don’t need to see that.

couples have always gone through these kinds of “pressure cooker” times. Times when things, for whatever reason, get especially hard. When every little thing seems to spark a fight. When the fights feel awful. When you say things you regret. When you wish you could have a do-over.

That's so--- God, I hate it for you." He pauses, giving me a hesitant look. "Was that... I mean, have you dated anyone since him?" I shake my head and Benny sighs. "'Good' doesn't feel like the right thing for me to say exactly, because I hate that he's your only relationship experience. But good that no one else has hurt you like that. Guys are so full of shit." I look at him with watery eyes. "You're not shitty, though." A smile starts at the edges of his lips. "Aw, Reese's Cup. That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me." I laugh then, letting a couple of tears spill onto my cheeks. Benny's face gets serious again as he brings his free hand up to wipe the tears away, then leaves it resting against my jaw. "Seriously, Reese. I'm so sorry that happened and that you continue to deal with it. I wish I could take it all away and make the world an easier place for you by the sheer force of how pissed off I am at everyone who hurt you.

SUZY BYRNE: I remember being at Lesbian Lives in the early 2000s where people were criticising the way in which the debate was taking place, who was leading it, that it was very male, and that it didn’t look at the diversity of relationships within the community. There was a narrative of what I would have identified as ‘the Good Gay’ … gay and lesbian couples that are monogamous, buy houses and fit in with everybody else. It became very conservative. I’m firmly in favour of marriage equality, but I want to see other forms of relationships recognised. But there’s an awful lot of conservatism and tut-tutting – not just in Ireland, it’s happening internationally, where everybody now sees marriage equality as the thing to go for because it fits into a model of the family. And I very naively maybe thought we would have a range of relationship formations recognised. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties produced a document that Fiona de Londras, Marie Mulholland and people in the ICCL worked on, which had a range of relationship recognition options in it. We don’t talk about those things anymore.

I have trouble with people like that. Like that woman who was just here. They come up to you in a time of grief, and they can’t seem to accept that it’s grief. They can’t just be in that moment of grief with you. They can’t just say, ‘Yeah, this is some pretty awful stuff.’ They have to try to fix it. They have to solve it for you in a couple of sentences, which is ridiculous,

The cruelty of unrequited love isn’t really that we haven’t been loved back, rather that our hopes have been aroused by someone who can never disappoint us, someone whom we will have to keep believing in because we lack the knowledge that would set us free. In a position of longing for a new person when we are constrained within an existing relationship, we must beware too of the ‘incumbent problem’: the vast but often overlooked and unfair advantage that all new people, and also cities and jobs, have over existing – or, as we put it, incumbent – ones. The beautiful person glimpsed briefly in the street, the city visited for a few days, the job we read about in a couple of tantalizing paragraphs in a magazine all tend to seem immediately and definitively superior to our current partner, our long-established home and our committed workplace and can inspire us to sudden and (in retrospect sometimes) regrettable divorces, relocations and resignations. When we spot apparent perfection, we tend to blame our spectacular bad luck for the mediocrity of our lives, without realizing that we are mistaking an asymmetry of knowledge for an asymmetry of quality: we are failing to see that our partner, home and job are not especially awful, but rather that we know them especially well. The corrective to insufficient knowledge is experience. We need to mine the secret reality of other people and places and so learn that, beneath their charms, they will almost invariably be essentially ‘normal’ in nature: that is, no worse yet no better than the incumbents we already understand.

A couple of large leaf rakes were on the porch. “I have an idea,” Nancy said. By pushing the rakes in front of them up and down the yard, the girls would spot the hidden trap before either of them fell into it. Unfortunately, the yard was pretty big. They hadn’t covered much ground when they heard a car. It was pulling into the twins’ driveway! Bree and Nancy dropped the rakes and scrammed. They ran through the lilac bushes in between the twins’ house and Mrs. DeVine’s. They dashed across Mrs. DeVine’s yard, wiggled through the hedge that separated her yard from Nancy’s, and hid inside Headquarters. Whew! That was a close call. But they were safe! They collapsed into the beanbag chairs. “You really think there’s a booby trap?” Bree asked. She sounded doubtful now. “More and more, I’m sure of it. We need to search that whole yard. But let’s sneak back under cover of darkness.” That meant at night but sounded way more dangerous. They’d have to use flashlights. There’d be spooky night noises. Nancy could picture it all! “We’re not allowed out after dark,” Bree pointed out. Nancy knew that. She just didn’t want to be reminded of it. Not right now. It was more fun picturing the two of them sneaking around in the dark. Nancy sighed. It was awfully difficult to be a glamorous detective when your bedtime was eight thirty.

AMANDA: We're being so bad, so terribly bad, we'll suffer for this, I know we shall. ELYOT: Can't be helped. AMANDA: Starting all those awful rows all over again. ELYOT: No, no, we're older and wiser now. AMANDA: What difference does that make? The first moment either of us gets a bit nervy, off we'll go again. ELYOT: Stop shilly-shallying, Amanda. AMANDA: I'm trying to be sensible. ELYOT: You're only succeeding in being completely idiotic. AMANDA: Idiotic indeed! What about you? ELYOT: Now look here Amanda AMANDA[stricken]: Oh my God! ELYOT [rushing to her and kissing her]: Darling, darling, I didn't mean it. AMANDA: I won't move from here unless we have a compact, a sacred, sacred compact never to quarrel again. ELYOT: Easy to make but difficult to keep. AMANDA: No, no, it's the bickering that always starts it. The moment we notice we're bickering, either of us, we must promise on our honor to stop dead. We'll invent some phrase or catchword, which when either of us says it, automatically cuts off all conversation for at least five minutes. ELYOT: Two minutes dear, with an option of renewal. AMANDA: Very well, what shall it be? ELYOT [hurriedly]: Solomon Isaacs. AMANDA: All right, that'll do. ELYOT: Come on, come on. AMANDA: What shall we do if we meet either of them on the way downstairs? ELYOT: Run like stags. AMANDA: What about clothes? ELYOT: I've got a couple of bags I haven't unpacked yet. AMANDA: I've got a small trunk. ELYOT: Send the porter up for it. AMANDA: Oh this is terrible - terrible - ELYOT: Come on, come on, don't waste time. AMANDA: Oughtn't we to leave notes or something? ELYOT: No, no, no, we'll telegraph from somewhere on the road. AMANDA: Darling, I daren't, it's too wicked of us, I simply daren't. ELYOT [seizing her in his arms and kissing her violently]: Now will you behave? AMANDA: Yes, but Elyot darling - ELYOT: Solomon Isaacs!

Aw, this is fucking great,” Carlton mutters. “All these gross couples now. I liked it better when you fuckers were single and emotionally stunted.

incautious couples can fall into habits that are not always conducive to happiness, and yet are not so awful as to require divorce.

Dating exposes us to a far wider range of people than we generally encounter when we exist within the protection of a couple. It throws us into the wide sea of humanity and our encounters may lead us to a large and sobering conclusion: that human beings can be really very strange. Characters who might be plausible as mere acquaintances or office colleagues can reveal peculiarities normally concealed in ordinary social life. We’re not only unlucky if our dates initiate us like this. We should accept that there are simply many fascinating things that can go wrong with the human spirit. If we’re going to keep on dating, we have to take on board with a degree of good humour and open-hearted curiosity the fact that we will often be conducting incidental psychological experiments in the distortions that can occur to the psyche. Rather than complain about how awful most of our dates turn out to be, we should get interested in understanding – and even sympathising with – the varieties of human brokenness.

The paper was in my left hand coat pocket. I reached into my right, felt Bonnie’s gun. I didn’t have time to aim it or even to arrange it. I just twisted enough to swing it in his direction and let it shoot in the general direction of his stomach. As I squeezed off I sidestepped, moved in close beside him and kicked at the soldering iron in his left hand. I’d hit him all right, but not in the right place to knock him down. He swore at me and twisted to bring his gun around. I stepped inside it and hit him with my fist where I guessed the bullet had hit him. It must have been the spot because he staggered and dropped the gun. But he was tough and he came after me swinging both hands. I put my foot in his stomach and pushed and he sat down on the floor. When he tried to get up, he found it difficult. He sat there long enough for me to pick up his gun and to kick the soldering iron across the floor out of reach. He started to get up again and I laid the gun barrel across the top of his head. He sat down again, then keeled over sideways and lay with his head under the stove. I pulled off his crushed hat. He had red hair. I’d been awfully lucky so far today and I just stood there for a couple of minutes, breathing hard and thanking my guardian angel. Then I paid some more attention to the man on the floor. I didn’t want him to pass out just yet. I pulled him out from under the stove and turned him on his back. His eyes were closed but his mouth moved. I went to the sink, got a milk bottle half full of cold water and poured it on his face. He opened his eyes. “Where’s Singer Batts?” I asked. “Who?” he said weakly. I nudged him on the sore side of his stomach and said, “Singer Batts. The guy you took out of a cab this morning.” “I don’t know.” “Where is he?” I kicked him in the wound again. I didn’t like doing it, but I remembered the hot soldering iron and I remembered Singer Batts.

Rose thought about the fair while she ate. It was a light-hearted festival in the daytime, with children running about, awful food, ridiculous games, overpriced stalls full of things no one needed but everyone bought, and music. As evening progressed, it became more and more raucous. Those who wanted to choose a mate spent time milling about, flirting in a way that would be outrageous any other time of the year. There was a matchmaking service run by the hatchery to raise funds, and a raffle to bid for particularly attractive mates. By midnight it was guaranteed to devolve into an animalistic spectacle. Inhibitions fell so low that couples would mate in full view, drawing crowds of voyeurs. “I’m leaving for my trip tomorrow,” Rose said. “I’ll have the sky to myself.” “Everyone else will be fucking,” Blossom said agreeably

couple on the other side of us seemed to be doing a booming business cooking and selling cupcakes. Except replace “cupcakes” with “meth.” “Cupcakes” sounds nicer, though. Unless you’re really into meth. Then I think you kind of lose a taste for cupcakes. Unless they’re meth cupcakes. Which honestly sounds awful, but would probably sell like hotcakes. Which would actually be a great name for meth cupcakes if they existed. Oh my God, this business plan writes itself. Someone find me a venture capitalist.

Holy hells,” said Jean. “how’d I geddhere?” “Never mind that. You see any oars?” “Uh, I thing I bead the crap out of the guy that had them.” Jean reached up and gingerly prodded his face. “Aw, gods, I thing I broge my node again!” “You used it to break your fall when you hit the boat.” “Is thad whad hit me?” “Yeah, scared me shitless.” “You saved me!” “It’s my turn every couple of years,” said Locke with a thin smile. “Thang you.” “All I did was save my own ass four or five times down the line.

There was a time, though. For a few years after coming to the city, I would drink so much that I’d black out and puke everything up. On the way home alone, I’d buy myself the cheapest stuff I could find—even though it tasted god awful. After that I’d have to stay in bed a couple of days, not eating, just me and my darkest thoughts. The days went on forever, like I was just stacking up these stupid blocks—all of them the same color, the same shape.

It’s just . . . I have trouble with people like that. Like that woman who was just here. They come up to you in a time of grief, and they can’t seem to accept that it’s grief. They can’t just be in that moment of grief with you. They can’t just say, ‘Yeah, this is some pretty awful stuff.’ They have to try to fix it. They have to solve it for you in a couple of sentences, which is ridiculous, because it never solves anything. But they suggest something to get you out of what you’re feeling, or they find some reason why it’s all for the best. I don’t understand why people can’t just join you in your grief for a moment.

Trevor Horn: Punk was awful. I mean, I didn’t get it at all at first. I understood the liberating aspect of it, but the actual music I detested, although I have to say I thought a couple of the Sex Pistols’ tunes were quite clever, especially ‘Pretty Vacant’: ‘Pretty va-cunt!’ But it didn’t appeal to me much at the time. It wasn’t the route for me, as I was more interested in the techno/dance route. I was also more interested in working with keyboards rather than guitars. Keyboards were new, guitars were old.

Then she performs the sacrament, swiping the card through its electromagnetic slot with a carefully modulated sweep of the arm, as though tearing back a veil, handing over the slip, mumbling that she needs a signature and daytime phone number. She might as well have been speaking Latin, but that’s okay, since this customer is familiar with the liturgy and signs and numbers it before the words are fully spoken. Then it just remains for the Word from On High. But computers and communications are awfully good these days, and it usually doesn’t take longer than a couple of seconds to perform a charge-card verification. The little machine beeps out its approval code, heavenly tunes sing out from tinny speakers, and a wide pair of pearlescent doors in the back of the room swing majestically open.

When I plan a menu I consider color, texture, taste, and balance: Color: A red vegetable next to a yellow one looks unappetizing. Two white ones, like celery and cauliflower, look awful. Texture: Creamed chicken with mashed potatoes makes too much mush. Always serve something crisp with something soft. Taste: Never team two sours, two sweets, or two bitters. Candied yams and cranberry sauce are both delectable, but served together they break two of these rules, color and taste contrast. Balance: Courses shouldn't be uniformly rich nor light. A too rich menu might consist of a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy whippedcreamtopped dessert. If the main course is substantial, the first should be light, crisp and appetizing, and the dessert an airy sherbet or a compote of fresh fruit. I decide first on the main course. For a buffet for twelve there should be two warm dishes. If you're going to be a relaxed hostess choose two that can be made the day before. Most of them improve with reheating. Some of the possibilities are beef bourguignon, boned and skinned breasts of chicken in a delicate cream sauce, a shrimp-lobster-and-scallop Newburg, lamb curry with all its interesting accompaniments. With any of these, serve a large, icy bowl of crisp salad with a choice of two or three dressings in little bowls alongside. Hot dishes must be kept hot in chafing dishes or on a hot tray so that they’re just as good for the second helping. Plates should be brought warm to the buffet table just before the guests serve themselves. I like to have a complete service at each end of the table so that people won’t have to stand in line forever, and there should be an attractive centerpiece, though it can be very simple. A bowl of flowers, carefully arranged by the hostess in the afternoon, and candles—always candlelight. The first course for a buffet supper should be an eye-catching array of canapés served in the living room with the drinks. I think there should be one interesting hot thing, one at room temperature, and a bouquet of crisp raw vegetables. The raw vegetables might include slim carrot sticks, green pepper slices, scallions, little love tomatoes, zucchini wedges, radishes, cauliflowerettes, olives, and young turnips. Arrange them colorfully in a large bowl over crushed ice and offer a couple of dips for non-dieters. [...] It’s best to serve hot hors d’oevres in two batches, the second ones heating under the broiler while the first round of drinks is served. [...] After people have had their second helpings the maid clears the buffet and puts out the dessert. Some people like an elaborate ice-cream concoction — so many men like gooey, sweet things. Pander to them, and let them worry about their waistlines. Some people like to end dinner with cheese and fruit. Other two kinds — one bland and one forthright, and just ripe. French bread and crackers on the side. For diet watchers gave a pretty bowl of fresh fruits, dewy and very cold. Serve good, strong coffee in pretty demitasses and let the relaxed conversation take over.

have trouble with people like that. Like that woman who was just here. They come up to you in a time of grief, and they can’t seem to accept that it’s grief. They can’t just be in that moment of grief with you. They can’t just say, ‘Yeah, this is some pretty awful stuff.’ They have to try to fix it. They have to solve it for you in a couple of sentences, which is ridiculous, because it never solves anything. But they suggest something to get you out of what you’re feeling, or they find some reason why it’s all for the best. I don’t understand why people can’t just join you in your grief for a moment.” “People don’t like to hold still with grief,” the woman said. “Their own or anybody else’s. If they can’t sit in their own grief, they’re not likely to spend any time in yours.

When you love everything and everyone, you fall in love so fast that it takes an awful lot of excruciating thinking to discern what is right for you and not just innate generosity. People like that must produce the difficult currency of thought. Bennett always needed to assess a situation further in order to determine what was good for him. No path was ever a waste, he thought, but if only there was one path that suited him above all. He hated this kind of thinking. It was tempting to distract oneself and go fall in love with something new down the street, so he usually had to find a place to confine himself. Bennett used to get himself arrested every couple of nights for this reason. Jail cells were quiet enough for him to think in peace. Plus, handcuffs restrained him from performing his next act. And sometimes he’d shiver, not out of the coldness of the bleak underground, but from the complication of untying the chains of the tangled human veritas.

Aren’t you going to eat?” At the moment Katie would gladly skip a meal to get a moment to herself. “Aye, after I’ve brought in the wash and a couple other things.” He shook his head. “Sit down and eat, Katie.” “In here?” She’d never in all her life eaten with the families she served. “Would that be so awful?” Mr. Archer seemed surprised at her insistence. “Not awful, simply . . . odd.” “I think you would adjust.” He motioned to an empty seat on the other side of Ivy. “Join us.” “Truly, I’ll have a bite later in the kitchen when I’ve a moment.” The man looked entirely unmoved. “Sit. And eat.

Every couple of pages, there was a line like Abashed the devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is that I felt should have held us up another twelve weeks.