Back Burner Quotes

Some families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner. What can go wrong, goes wrong. And then gets worse.

Let’s not put our lust of life on the back burner of a distant future, but let’s share and walk up to others, listening to the sound of their words, and taking part in the vibrant carrousel of their pursuits. ("Waiting for the smoke signals")

When we crave the touch and the feel of an unfeigned world, we must not waver and put our quest on the back burner, but scratch anxiously the shining shell of a fair-weather world, find out how to discover real values; and foster a candid quality of our desire ("Absence of Desire" )

Yes, well”—he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose delicately—“the burner phone we had accidentally fell out of the car, and someone accidentally backed over it. Because someone was in a rush after she accidentally alerted some skip tracers we were nearby when she accidentally used her abilities to move a light pole out of the road after she had accidentally backed into it.” “Someone better shut their mouth before I accidentally slam my fist into their teeth.” She punched his shoulder, and it was almost...playful. “Shut his mouth, fist into his teeth.” “Really? A grammar lesson?

She’s smokin’ hearts with a burnin’ flame She’s got a wild side without a name And when she’s riled it’s a cryin’ shame Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’ve got it bad Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’m going’ mad Cause in your head you’ve got it right Won’t go to bed without a fight You think you’re wise, you think it shows So show me wise without those clothes Isaac raised an eyebrow at me, but I couldn’t even shrug. I was frozen. My heart had stopped. Everything had stopped. She’s playin’ hardball and it’s nothin’ new Short skirts so enjoy the view She’s a coldblooded tease baby through and through Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’ve got it bad Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’m goin’ mad Cause in your head you’ve got it right Won’t go to bed without a fight You think you’re wise you think it shows So show me wise without those clothes Come on Legs don’t go to waste I could be your only savin’ grace” “Put those morals on the back burner Something tells me you’re a fast fast learner As I listened to the chorus taunt me over and over again until the song came to a climatic end, I somehow remembered to breathe.

If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark dust on your pillow. Your breasts and shoulders would reek you could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you. The blind would stumble certain of whom they approached though you might bathe under rain gutters, monsoon. Here on the upper thigh at this smooth pasture neighbor to your hair or the crease that cuts your back. This ankle. You will be known among strangers as the cinnamon peeler's wife. I could hardly glance at you before marriage never touch you -- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers. I buried my hands in saffron, disguised them over smoking tar, helped the honey gatherers... When we swam once I touched you in water and our bodies remained free, you could hold me and be blind of smell. You climbed the bank and said this is how you touch other women the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter. And you searched your arms for the missing perfume. and knew what good is it to be the lime burner's daughter left with no trace as if not spoken to in an act of love as if wounded without the pleasure of scar. You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler's wife. Smell me.

It's gonna be the scene of a homicide if you don't put bitchy on the back burner

Rhys straightened. "You'd- make me food?" "Heat," I said. "I can't cook." It didn't seem to make a difference. But whatever it was, the act of offering him food... I dumped some cold soup into a pan and lit the burner. "I don't know the rules," I said, my back to him. "So you need to explain them to me." He lingered in the center of the cabin, watching my every move. He said hoarsely, "It's an... important moment when a female offers her mate food. It goes back to whatever beats we were a long, long time ago. But it still matters. The first time matters. Some mated pairs will make an occasion of it- throwing a party just so the female can formally offer mate food... That's usually done amongst the wealthy. But it means that the female... accepts the bond." I stared into the soup. "Tell me the story- tell me everything." He understood my offer: tell me while I cooked, and I'd decide at the end whether or not to offer him that food.

Those 'back burner' thoughts, the ones the brain isn't quite sure about yet, may cook the slowest yet they often manage to be the tastiest when they come out.

Blue must be worn for protection. Moonstones were useful in connecting with the living, topaz to contact the dead. Copper, sacred to Venus, will call a man to you, and black tourmaline will eliminate jealousy. When it came to love, you must always be careful. If you dropped something belonging to the man you loved into a candle flame, then added pine needles and marigold flowers, he would arrive on your doorstep by morning, so you would do well to be certain you wanted him there. The most basic and reliable love potion was made from anise, rosemary, honey, and cloves boiled for nine hours on the back burner of the old stove. It had always cost $9.99 and was therefore called Love Potion Number Nine, which worked best on the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month.

I'll accept your apology on one condition." He folded his arms across his chest. "Anything?" "You trust me." I cocked my head to the side. "I trust you, Cam." "No, you don't." He walked over to my small table and pulled out a chair. "Have a seat." Sitting down, I tugged the hem of his shirt down as he headed back to the stove, putting the tiny skillet over the burner. "If you trusted me, you wouldn't have reacted the way you did," he simply said, cracking an egg. "And that's not me judging you or any of that kind of shit. You got to trust me that I'm not going to be an ass or freak out over that kind of stuff. You have to trust that I care enough about you.

all small towns, scandal is always simmering on the back burner, like your Aunt Cindy’s baked beans.

The most basic and reliable love potion was made from anise, rosemary, honey, and cloves boiled for nine hours on the back burner of the old stove.

families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner. What can go wrong, goes wrong. And then gets worse.

Why can’t a young lady, learn how to cook, clean and wash clothes so she can learn how to take care of herself? It is imperative that a young lady should know how to love and take care of herself first before she feels she can love and take care of anyone else. That is where the mistakes begin. A young lady is brought up to put others first. This is when a woman grows up and plays the fool for others because her self-worth was never built on solid ground. Instead, it was built on being a “people pleaser” and putting her life on the back burner. Consequently, her feelings didn’t matter, and her thoughts didn’t exist because for so long she was taught to put other people before herself. The question that is never asked is, what happens when a woman (who was once a young lady groomed to give every ounce of herself) loses herself to the point where she has to find a way to dig herself out of the deepest hole? This seems impossible. She doesn’t know how because she wasn’t ever taught how to express her feelings, troubles, and/or grieve.

Back Burner Put the stress on the back burner It only burns its way back Put your thoughts on the future and it becomes the past..." excerpt from my poem Back Burner from The Poetic Diary of Love and Change - Volume 1 ©Clarissa O. Clemens

I went back to the office and sat in my swivel chair and tried to catch up on my foot-dangling. There was a gusty wind blowing in at the windows and the soot from the oil burners of the hotel next door was drown-draughted into the room and rolling across the top of the desk like tumbleweed drifting across a vacant lot. I was thinking about going out to lunch and that life was pretty flat and that it would probably be just as flat if I took a drink and that taking a drink all alone at that time of day wouldn't be any fun anyway.

In other words, by taking care of others, I was consciously neglecting to take care of myself. I was ignoring my family. I was putting my studies on the back burner. And I was growing increasingly stressed and unhappy because I wasn’t able to do the things I relished.

The dominant way we deal with death in our culture is religious. And our religious culture deals with death by pretending it isn’t real. Religion deals with death by pretending it isn’t permanent; by pretending that the loss of the ones we love is just like a long vacation apart; by pretending that our dead loved ones are still hanging around somehow, like the dead grandparents in a “Family Circus” cartoon; by pretending that our own death is just a one-way trip to a different place. Our religious culture deals with death by putting it on the back burner, by encouraging people to stick their fingers in their ears and yell, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!

Later, at the sink in our van, Mama rinsed the blue stain and the odd spiders, caterpillars, and stems from the bucket. "Not what we usually start with, but we can go again tomorrow. And this will set up nicely in about six, eight jars." The berries were beginning to simmer in the big pot on the back burner. Mama pushed her dark wooden spoon into the foaming berries and cicrcled the wall of the pot slowly. I leaned my hot arms on the table and said, "Iphy better not go tomorrow. She got tired today." I was smelling the berries and Mamaa's sweat, and watching the flex of the blue veins behind her knees. "Does them good. The twins always loved picking berries, even more than eating them. Though Elly likes her jam." "Elly doesn't like anything anymore." The knees stiffened and I looked up. The spoon was motionless. Mama stared at the pot. "Mama, Elly isn't there anymore. Iphy's changed. Everything's changed. This whole berry business, cooking big meals that nobody comes for, birthday cakes for Arty. It's dumb, Mama. Stop pretending. There isn't any family anymore, Mama." Then she cracked me with the big spoon. It smacked wet and hard across my ear, and the purple-black juice spayed across the table. She started at me, terrified, her mouth and eyes gaping with fear. I stared gaping at her. I broke and ran. I went to the generator truck and climbed up to sit by Grandpa. That's the only time Mama ever hit me and I knew I deserved it. I also knew that Mama was too far gone to understand why I deserved it. She'd swung that spoon in a tigerish reflex at blasphemy. But I believed that Arty had turned his back on us, that the twins were broken, that the Chick was lost, that Papa was weak and scared, that Mama was spinning fog, and that I was an adolescent crone sitting in the ruins, watching the beams crumble, and warming myself in the smoke from the funeral pyre. That was how I felt, and I wanted company. I hated Mama for refusing to see enough to be miserable with me. Maybe, too, enough of my child heart was still with me to think that if she would only open her eyes she could fix it all back up like a busted toy.

Life is not something we put on the back burner hoping to get to live further down the line

Often when things are put on the 'back burner' the gas goes out.

Some families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner

Florence Dodson was murdered the same night that Claire Guthrie shot her husband. For me, the story began with Claire, and I put Mrs. Dodson on the back burner in my mind. That turned out to be a mistake.

So after a bit the channels wear out like veins, and the addict has to find new ones. A vein will come back in time, and by adroit vein rotation a junky can piece out the odds if he don’t become an oil burner. But brain cells don’t come back once they’re gone, and when the addict runs out of brain cells he is in a terrible fucking position.

We know what we need when we get it, Brock Stewart had once said. Elinor understood this to be true whenever she heard Jenny in the hallway, when she looked up from her work in the garden to see a light burning in the kitchen. She knew it when the kettle on the back burner of the stove whistled, when the back door opened and shut, when the house she lived in wasn't empty. She hadn't understood how alone she'd been until she was no longer alone. She had cut herself off...

I was told that I should never lie or cheat or steal, for instance, but my father—a sometimes Jew, he called himself back then—was far more likely to focus on the practical. Never go out in the rain without a hat, he would tell me. Never touch a stove burner, on the off chance it still might be hot. I was warned that I should never count the money in my wallet in public, or buy jewelry from a man on the street,

Do it, I told you, I don’t care—’ A smash, the unlit oil burner hitting the marble and shattering in the dim room, his fingers clumsy. He pressed with his oiled fingers first. It was inelegant, braced over Laurent’s back, guiding himself in with one hand. It wouldn’t, quite. ‘Let

The relationships you have with family and close friends are going to be the most important sources of happiness in your life. But you have to be careful. When it seems like everything at home is going well, you will be lulled into believing that you can put your investments in these relationships onto the back burner. That would be an enormous mistake. By the time serious problems arise in those relationships, it often is too late to repair them. This means, almost paradoxically, that the time when it is most important to invest in building strong families and close friendships is when it appears, at the surface, as if it’s not necessary.

Have you ever heard of people referred to as’Chronics?’ Prone to chronic tragedy. One terrible thing after another. Some families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner. What can go wrong, goes wrong. And then gets worse.

The situation is established not only to provoke defensiveness but to sidetrack the reformer into answering the wrong questions.... In this, the pattern of discourse resembles that of dinnertime conversations about feminism in the early 1970s. Questions of definition often predominate. Whereas feminists were parlaying questions which trivialized feminism such as "Are you one of those bra burners?" vegetarians must define themselves against the trivializations of "Are you one of those health nuts?" or "Are you one of those animal lovers?" While feminists encountered the response that "men need liberation too," vegetarians are greeted by the postulate that "plants have life too." Or to make the issue appear more ridiculous, the position is forwarded this way: "But what of the lettuce and tomato you are eating; they have feelings too!" The attempt to create defensiveness through trivialization is the first conversational gambit which greets threatening reforms. This pre-establishes the perimeters of discourse. One must explain that no bras were burned at the Miss America pageant, or the symbolic nature of the action of that time, or that this question fails to regard with seriousness questions such as equal pay for equal work. Similarly, a vegetarian, thinking that answering these questions will provide enlightenment, may patiently explain that if plants have life, then why not be responsible solely for the plants one eats at the table rather than for the larger quantities of plants consumed by the herbivorous animals before they become meat? In each case a more radical answer could be forwarded: "Men need first to acknowledge how they benefit from male dominance," "Can anyone really argue that the suffering of this lettuce equals that of a sentient cow who must be bled out before being butchered?" But if the feminist or vegetarian responds this way they will be put back on the defensive by the accusation that they are being aggressive. What to a vegetarian or a feminist is of political, personal, existential, and ethical importance, becomes for others only an entertainment during dinnertime.

Can you imagine what God thinks as He watches us put Him on the back burner for the other things we want that we are relying on Him to give us? He probably says to himself, "why that ungrateful piece of..." Ok, maybe He isn't thinking that at all, but you get the point. He needs us to keep our eyes on Him and when we do, He takes care of the rest.

As actor and comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “The road to success is always under construction.” So don’t allow yourself to be detoured from getting to your ONE Thing. Pave your way with the right people and place. BIG IDEAS Start saying “no.” Always remember that when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else. It’s the essence of keeping a commitment. Start turning down other requests outright or saying, “No, for now” to distractions so that nothing detracts you from getting to your top priority. Learning to say no can and will liberate you. It’s how you’ll find the time for your ONE Thing. Accept chaos. Recognize that pursuing your ONE Thing moves other things to the back burner. Loose ends can feel like snares, creating tangles in your path. This kind of chaos is unavoidable. Make peace with it. Learn to deal with it. The success you have accomplishing your ONE Thing will continually prove you made the right decision. Manage your energy. Don’t sacrifice your health by trying to take on too much. Your body is an amazing machine, but it doesn’t come with a warranty, you can’t trade it in, and repairs can be costly. It’s important to manage your energy so you can do what you must do, achieve what you want to achieve, and live the life you want to live. Take ownership of your environment. Make sure that the people around you and your physical surroundings support your goals. The right people in your life and the right physical environment on your daily path will support your efforts to get to your ONE Thing. When both are in alignment with your ONE Thing, they will supply the optimism and physical lift you need to make your ONE Thing happen. Screenwriter Leo Rosten pulled everything together for us when he said, “I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” Live with Purpose, Live by Priority, and Live for Productivity. Follow these three for the same reason you make the three commitments and avoid the four thieves—because you want to leave your mark. You want your life to matter. 18

People who are most strongly attached to a belief in an afterlife are more likely to try to delay death when it’s clearly imminent. That doesn’t make any logical sense. If people believe in a blissful afterlife, then logically, you’d think they’d accept their death gracefully, and would even welcome it. But it makes perfect sense when you think of religion, not as a way of genuinely coping with the fear of death, but as a way of putting it on the back burner.

You were an important part of my life, and I feel an overpowering grief and sadness over your loss. My life is affected in simple and profound ways. I am hurting emotionally, physically, and mentally. I am often distracted and unfocused during my regular workday. My sadness over missing you leaves me numb and unmotivated. What are the things that I miss the most, now that you are gone? What are my thoughts and feelings as I try to perform daily activities? What are the responsibilities and items on my todo list that I can put on the back burner while my attention is diverted by your death?

Evernote still came up with a bunch of clever tricks to get people to see its products while marketing was on their strategic back burner. After hearing customers complain that their bosses were suspicious of employees using their laptops in meetings, the Evernote team produced stickers that said, “I’m not being rude. I’m taking notes in Evernote.” Thus, their most loyal customers were turning into billboards that went from meeting to meeting. Once we stop thinking of the products we market as static—that our job as marketers is to simply work with what we’ve got instead of working on and improving what we’ve got—the whole game changes.

Quincy laughed. "If I were Elizabeth I shouldn't thank either of you for that comforting diagnosis. Would it do any good to open Aunt Sarai's grave and drive a stake through her? If you believe in as much sorcery as that, you must regret the days of witch-burners, Carew." Carew said quietly, "No. Witch-burners were barbarous blunderers. If I wanted to suppress a dangerous letter, could I do it by burning the envelope and leaving the letter loose? The witch would come back unchanged; I should merely have postponed the danger until another time and place. And have further handicapped myself to meet it, by depriving the witch, by violent death, of the years allotted her, or him, for evolution." Joseph said with dry humor, "She might not have used them for that, Carew. At least not for your idea of it." Carew shrugged. "That would be her responsibility, not mine. And, in any case, she would be that many years nearer the time of her inevitable change." This time Joseph did not answer, only smiled.

I never leave home without my cayenne pepper. I either stash a bottle of the liquid extract in my pocket book or I stick it in the shopping cart I pull around with me all over Manhattan. When it comes to staying right side up in this world, a black woman needs at least three things. The first is a quiet spot of her own, a place away from the nonsense. The second is a stash of money, like the cash my mother kept hidden in the slit of her mattress. The last is several drops of cayenne pepper, always at the ready. Sprinkle that on your food before you eat it and it’ll kill any lurking bacteria. The powder does the trick as well, but I prefer the liquid because it hits the bloodstream quickly. Particularly when eating out, I won’t touch a morsel to my lips ‘til it’s speckled with with cayenne. That’s just one way I take care of my temple, aside from preparing my daily greens, certain other habits have carried me toward the century mark. First thing I do every morning is drink four glasses of water. People think this water business is a joke. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not. I’ve known two elderly people who died of dehydration, one of whom fell from his bed in the middle of the night and couldn’t stand up because he was so parched. Following my water, I drink 8 ounces of fresh celery blended in my Vita-mix. The juice cleanses the system and reduces inflammation. My biggest meal is my first one: oatmeal. I soak my oats overnight so that when I get up all I have to do is turn on the burner. Sometimes I enjoy them with warm almond milk, other times I add grated almonds and berries, put the mixture in my tumbler and shake it until it’s so smooth I can drink it. In any form, oats do the heart good. Throughout the day I eat sweet potatoes, which are filled with fiber, beets sprinkled with a little olive oil, and vegetables of every variety. I also still enjoy plenty of salad, though I stopped adding so many carrots – too much sugar. But I will do celery, cucumbers, seaweed grass and other greens. God’s fresh bounty doesn’t need a lot of dressing up, which is why I generally eat my salad plain. From time to time I do drizzle it with garlic oil. I love the taste. I also love lychee nuts. I put them in the freezer so that when I bite into them cold juice comes flooding out. As terrific as they are, I buy them only once in awhile. I recently bit into an especially sweet one, and then I stuck it right back in the freezer. “Not today, Suzie,” I said to myself, “full of glucose!” I try never to eat late, and certainly not after nine p.m. Our organs need a chance to rest. And before bed, of course, I have a final glass of water. I don’t mess around with my hydration.

Then he pulled back and looked at her shirt again. “Is this really true?” She nodded. “Every word of it.” “Okay, then. I say you won’t.” “Won’t do what?” He bent his head to whisper into her hair, his breath hot against her ear. “Before lunch, you won’t go to bed with me.” Elle reached around behind her and turned off the burner on the stove.

Kitchen life is getting steamy. Charles looks up from prepping his mise en place for two seconds, blows me a kiss, and then his hand swipes a bowl of salt and the grains scatter on the counter. "I can't take it anymore," he says, lifting me up onto the prep station. My legs wrap around his waist, as his kiss starts off slow and then turns hungry. Vegetables scatter, cherry tomatoes rolling onto the floor. Dishes break. Not one burner is on, but the kitchen gets hotter. Oh, and hotter. Hello, volcano. His hand latches around my ponytail, tilting my head back. His mouth finds my neck, and he covers it with his kisses, slowly making his way down to my exposed shoulder, his fingers running along my clavicle.

One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder

You keep staying on our block we gonna have to show you what the burner do.” “Thank you, it’s great meeting you,” says Phoenix. “What’s a burner?” I whisper. “A gun,” Phoenix whispers back. The man loops and rejoins the others. The streets are deserted. It’s just the dealers and us. But then, miraculously, a taxi passes. I flag it. The superheroes all have bulletproof vests. I have nothing. I have a cardigan.

I took a step toward her, but she turned from me and stomped back to her car. I watched her drive off. After a moment, I walked up the limestone steps and through the phantom oak-and-glass front doors of the house where I grew up. I paced the hall, entered the long rectangle of dining room, rested a hand on the carved cherrywood mantel, then passed into the kitchen. The house was so real around me that I could smell the musty linen in the cedar closet, the gas from the leaky burner on the stove, the sharp tang of geraniums that I had planted in clay pots. I lay down on the exact place where the living room couch had been pushed tight under the leaded-glass windows. I closed my eyes and it was all around me again. The stuffed bookshelves, the paneling, the soft slap of my mother's cards on the table. I could see from the house of my dark mind the alley, from the alley the street leading to the end of town, its farthest boundary the lucid silence of the dead. Between the graves my path, and along that path her back door, her face, her timeless bed, and the lost architecture of her bones. I turned over and made myself comfortable in the crush of wild burdock. A bee or two hummed in the drowsy air. The swarm had left the rubble and built their houses beneath the earth. They were busy in the graveyard right now, filling the skulls with white combs and the coffins with sweet black honey.

Behind the counter, owner-cook Jim Bo Sweeny darted from flipping crab cakes on the griddle to stirring a pot of creamed corn on the burner to poking chicken thighs in the deep fryer, then back again. Putting piled-high plates in front of customers in between. People said he could mix biscuit dough with one hand while filleting a catfish with the other. He offered up his famous specialty- grilled flounder stuffed with shrimp served on pimento-cheese grits- only a few times a year. No advertising needed; word got out.

I avoided his stare, turning for the kitchen. 'You must be hungry, I'll heat something up.' Rhys straightened. 'You'd- make me food?' 'Heat,' I said. 'I can't cook.' It didn't seem to make a difference. But whatever it was, the act of offering him food... I dumped some cold soup into a pan and lit the burner. 'I don't know the rules,' I said, my back to him. 'So you need to explain them to me.' He lingered in the centre of the cabin, watching my every move. He said hoarsely. 'It's an... important moment when a female offers her mate food. It goes back to whatever beasts we were a long, long time ago. But it still matters. The first time matters. Some mated pairs will make an occasion of it- throwing a party just so the female can formally offer her mate food... That's usually done amongst the wealthy. But it means that the female... accepts the bond.' I stared into the soup. 'Tell me the story- tell me everything.' He understood my offer: tell me while I cooked, and I'd decide at the end whether or not to offer him that food.

I can trust you.” “How do you know?” she says again. This is when I kiss her. I cannot give her the haemanthus. That is my heart, and it is of Mars—one of the only things born from the red soil. And it is still Eo’s. But this girl, when they took her … I would have done anything to see her smirking again. Perhaps one day I’ll have two hearts to give. She tastes how she smells. Smoke and hunger. We do not pull apart. My fingers wend through her hair. Hers trace along my jaw, my neck, and scrape along the back of my scalp. There is a bed. There is time. And there’s a hunger different from when I first kissed Eo. But I remember when the Gamma Helldiver, Dago, took a deep pull from his burner, turning it bright but dead in a few quick moments. He said, This is you. I know I am impetuous. Rash. I process that. And I am full of many things—passion, regret, guilt, sorrow, longing, rage. At times they rule me, but not now. Not here. I wound up hanging on a scaffold because of my passion and sorrow. I ended up in the mud because of my guilt. I would have killed Augustus at first sight because of my rage. But now I am here. I know nothing of the Institute’s history. But I know I have taken what no one else has taken. I took it with anger and cunning, with passion and rage. I won’t take Mustang the same way. Love and war are two different battlefields. So despite the hunger, I pull away from Mustang. Without a word, she knows my mind, and that’s how I know it’s in the right. She darts one more kiss into me. It lingers longer than it should, and then we stand together and leave.

Einstein insisted that, on the way back from a coffeehouse, they buy food for dinner so that Frank’s wife need not go shopping. They chose some calf’s liver, which Mrs. Frank proceeded to cook on the Bunsen burner in the office laboratory. Suddenly Einstein jumped up. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Are you boiling the liver in water?” Mrs. Frank allowed that was indeed what she was doing. “The boiling-point of water is too low,” Einstein declared. “You must use a substance with a higher boiling-point such as butter or fat.” From then on, Mrs. Frank referred to the necessity of frying liver as “Einstein’s theory.

NEVER been nor will I EVER be interested in being a back-burner, rebound, spare-of-the-moment, side-piece, booty-call fly-by-night, drive-thru bang & go, “friends-with-benefits” type of Woman. Yes…..I may be flawed, I may not be the best looker, I have NEVER nor do I EVER think that I am better than anyone or think that I am too good, but I AM Valuable & Worth it. So, I will NEVER beg or compete for a Friendship/Companionship/Relationship from any man nor will I ever be the Woman a man settles for or just another Woman on some guys list. SETTLING BEING THE “OTHER” WOMAN WILL NEVER BE SUITABLE FOR ME---I TO DESERVE TO BE PUT ON A PEDESTAL.....#IPromiseMe

She'd gone and let her hair loose, he thought. Why did she have to do that? It made his hands hurt, actually hurt with wanting to slide into it. "That's good." She stepped in, shut the door. And because it seemed too perfect not to, audibly flipped the lock. Seeing a muscle twitch in his jaw was incredibly satisfying. He was a drowning man, and had just gone under the first time. "Keeley, I've had a long day here.I was just about to-" "Have a nightcap," she finished. She'd spotted the teapot and the bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter. "I wouldn't mind one myself." She breezed past him to flip off the burner under the now sputtering kettle. She'd put on different perfume, he thought viciously. Put it on fresh, too, just to torment him. He was damn sure of it.It snagged his libido like a fish-hook. "I'm not really fixed for company just now." "I don't think I qualify as company." Competently she warmed the pot, measured out the tea and poured the boiling water in. "I certainly won't be after we're lovers." He went under the second time without even the chance to gulp in air. "We're not lovers." "That's about to change." She set the lid on the pot, turned. "How long do you like it to steep?" "I like it strong, so it'll take some time. You should go on home now." "I like it strong, too." Amazing, she thought,she didn't feel nervous at all. "And if it's going to take some time, we can have it afterward." "This isn't the way for this." He said it more to himself than her. "This is backward, or twisted.I can't get my mind around it. no,just stay back over there and let me think a minute." But she was already moving toward him, a siren's smile on her lips. "If you'd rather seduce me, go ahead." "That's exactly what I'm not going to do." Thought the night was cool and his windows were open to it, he felt sweat slither down his back. "If I'd known the way things were, I'd never have started this." That mouth of his, she thought. She really had to have that mouth. "Now we both know the way things are, and I intend to finish it.It's my choice." His blood was already swimming. Hot and fast. "You don't know anything, which is the whole flaming problem." "Are you afraid of innocence?" "Damn right." "It doesn't stop you from wanting me. Put your hands on me,Brian." She took his wrist,pressed his hand to her breast. "I want your hands on me." The boots clattered to the floor as he went under for the third time.

The rain eased. A single drop, here then there, shook a leaf like the flick of a cat’s ear. Kya hopped up, cleaned out the Frigidaire-cupboard, mopped the stained plywood kitchen floor, and scraped off months of caked-on grits from the woodstove burners. Early the next morning, she scrubbed Pa’s sheets, reeking of sweat and whiskey, and draped them over the palmettos. She went through her brothers’ room, not much bigger than a closet, dusting and sweeping. Dirty socks were piled in the back of the closet and yellowed comic books strewn next to the two soiled mattresses on the floor. She tried to see the boys’ faces, the feet that went with the socks, but the details blurred. Even Jodie’s face was fading; she’d see his eyes for an instant, then they’d slip away, closing. The next morning, carrying a gallon can, she walked the sandy tracks to the Piggly and bought matches, backbone, and salt. Saved out two dimes. “Can’t get milk, gotta get gas.

[...]a man and a boy, side by side on a yellow Swedish sofa from the 1950s that the man had bought because it somehow reminded him of a zoot suit, watching the A’s play Baltimore, Rich Harden on the mound working that devious ghost pitch, two pairs of stocking feet, size 11 and size 15, rising from the deck of the coffee table at either end like towers of the Bay Bridge, between the feet the remains in an open pizza box of a bad, cheap, and formerly enormous XL meat lover’s special, sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ground beef, and ham, all of it gone but crumbs and parentheses of crusts left by the boy, brackets for the blankness of his conversation and, for all the man knew, of his thoughts, Titus having said nothing to Archy since Gwen’s departure apart from monosyllables doled out in response to direct yes-or-nos, Do you like baseball? you like pizza? eat meat? pork?, the boy limiting himself whenever possible to a tight little nod, guarding himself at his end of the sofa as if riding on a crowded train with something breakable on his lap, nobody saying anything in the room, the city, or the world except Bill King and Ken Korach calling the plays, the game eventless and yet blessedly slow, player substitutions and deep pitch counts eating up swaths of time during which no one was required to say or to decide anything, to feel what might conceivably be felt, to dread what might be dreaded, the game standing tied at 1 and in theory capable of going on that way forever, or at least until there was not a live arm left in the bullpen, the third-string catcher sent in to pitch the thirty-second inning, batters catnapping slumped against one another on the bench, dead on their feet in the on-deck circle, the stands emptied and echoing, hot dog wrappers rolling like tumbleweeds past the diehards asleep in their seats, inning giving way to inning as the dawn sky glowed blue as the burner on a stove, and busloads of farmhands were brought in under emergency rules to fill out the weary roster, from Sacramento and Stockton and Norfolk, Virginia, entire villages in the Dominican ransacked for the flower of their youth who were loaded into the bellies of C-130s and flown to Oakland to feed the unassuageable appetite of this one game for batsmen and fielders and set-up men, threat after threat giving way to the third out, weak pop flies, called third strikes, inning after inning, week after week, beards growing long, Christmas coming, summer looping back around on itself, wars ending, babies graduating from college, and there’s ball four to load the bases for the 3,211th time, followed by a routine can of corn to left, the commissioner calling in varsity teams and the stars of girls’ softball squads and Little Leaguers, Archy and Titus sustained all that time in their equally infinite silence, nothing between them at all but three feet of sofa;

One further complication in the link between self-sufficiency and simplicity is worth noting. Self-sufficiency may be part of the traditional notion and the Romantic ideal of simple living, but in fairly obvious ways using technology can simplify our lives considerably. Which is simpler, washing all your clothes and sheets by hand, or using a washing machine? Collecting and chopping wood to make a fire to cook over, or turning on the gas burner and pushing the electric ignition button? Walking across town and back to deliver a message, or making a phone call? The point here is that the concept of simple living contains crosscurrents. Reducing our dependence on infrastructure and technology may bring us closer to simple living in one sense—we are more self-sufficient—but takes us away from it in other ways since it makes basic tasks much more difficult, arduous, and time-consuming. And in some ways technology can even help us to be more self-sufficient, as when we use a washing machine to do our own laundry instead of using servants or sending it out.

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES 6 tablespoons chilled butter ( ¾ stick, 3 ounces) 12-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips (two cups—I used Ghirardelli’s) ½ cup firmly packed powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar) 6 egg yolks 1 Tablespoon rum, brandy, flavored brandy, or vanilla extract   Put an inch or so of water in the bottom half of a double boiler and heat it to a gentle boil. Cut the butter in chunks and place them in the top half of the double boiler. Add the chips and then the powdered sugar and set the top half over the bottom half. Put on the cover and let everything melt while you…   Beat the egg yolks in a small bowl with a whisk. Whisk until they’re thoroughly combined, but stop before they get fluffy or lighter in color.   Stir the chocolate until it’s completely melted. It will be thick, almost like fudge. Remove the top half of the double boiler and set it on a cold burner.   Stir several spoonfuls of beaten egg yolk into the chocolate mixture. When that’s incorporated, stir in several more spoonfuls. Keep adding egg yolk in small amounts, stirring constantly, until all the egg yolks have been incorporated and the chocolate mixture is smooth and glossy.   Stir in the rum, brandy, or vanilla. Put the lid back on the top of the double boiler and refrigerate the chocolate mixture for 3 hours. To Decorate Truffles: finely chopped nuts powdered (confectioner’s) sugar chocolate sprinkles shaved chocolate cocoa powder finely shredded coconut   Warning: This next step is fairly messy. If you like, wear disposable plastic food-server gloves. You can also lightly grease your hands, or spray them with Pam or other non-stick cooking spray so the chocolate won’t stick to your fingers.   Form small balls of chilled chocolate with your hands and roll them in bowls of the above ingredients.

The cuisine of Northern Iran, overlooked and underrated, is unlike most Persian food in that it's unfussy and lighthearted as the people from that region. The fertile seaside villages of Mazandaran and Rasht, where Soli grew up before moving to the congested capital, were lush with orchards and rice fields. His father had cultivated citrus trees and the family was raised on the fruits and grains they harvested. Alone in the kitchen, without Zod's supervision, he found himself turning to the wholesome food of his childhood, not only for the comfort the simple compositions offered, but because it was what he knew so well as he set about preparing a homecoming feast for Zod's only son. He pulled two kilos of fava beans from the freezer. Gathered last May, shucked and peeled on a quiet afternoon, they defrosted in a colander for a layered frittata his mother used to make with fistfuls of dill and sprinkled with sea salt. One flat of pale green figs and a bushel of new harvest walnuts were tied to the back of his scooter, along with two crates of pomegranates- half to squeeze for fresh morning juice and the other to split and seed for rice-and-meatball soup. Three fat chickens pecked in the yard, unaware of their destiny as he sharpened his cleaver. Tomorrow they would braise in a rich, tangy stew with sour red plums, their hearts and livers skewered and grilled, then wrapped in sheets of lavash with bouquets of tarragon and mint. Basmati rice soaked in salted water to be steamed with green garlic and mounds of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then served with a whole roasted, eight kilo white fish stuffed with barberries, pistachios, and lime. On the farthest burner, whole bitter oranges bobbed in blossom syrup, to accompany rice pudding, next to a simmering pot of figs studded with cardamom pods for preserves.

Working with chocolate always helps me find the calm centre of my life. It has been with me for so long; nothing here can surprise me. This afternoon I am making pralines, and the little pan of chocolate is almost ready on the burner. I like to make these pralines by hand. I use a ceramic container over a shallow copper pan: an unwieldy, old-fashioned method, perhaps, but the beans demand special treatment. They have traveled far, and deserve the whole of my attention. Today I am using couverture made from the Criollo bean: its taste is subtle, deceptive; more complex than the stronger flavors of the Forastero; less unpredictable than the hybrid Trinitario. Most of my customers will not know that I am using this rarest of cacao beans; but I prefer it, even though it may be more expensive. The tree is susceptible to disease: the yield is disappointingly low; but the species dates back to the time of the Aztecs, the Olmecs, the Maya. The hybrid Trinitario has all but wiped it out, and yet there are still some suppliers who deal in the ancient currency. Nowadays I can usually tell where a bean was grown, as well as its species. These come from South America, from a small, organic farm. But for all my skill, I have never seen a flower from the Theobroma cacao tree, which only blooms for a single day, like something in a fairytale. I have seen photographs, of course. In them, the cacao blossom looks something like a passionflower: five-petaled and waxy, but small, like a tomato plant, and without that green and urgent scent. Cacao blossoms are scentless; keeping their spirit inside a pod roughly the shape of a human heart. Today I can feel that heart beating: a quickening inside the copper pan that will soon release a secret. Half a degree more of heat, and the chocolate will be ready. A filter of steam rises palely from the glossy surface. Half a degree, and the chocolate will be at its most tender and pliant.

of the Deep Southern oligarchy has been consistent for over four centuries: to control and maintain a one-party state with a colonial-style economy based on large-scale agriculture and the extraction of primary resources by a compliant, poorly educated, low-wage workforce with as few labor, workplace safety, health care, and environmental regulations as possible. On being compelled by force of arms to give up their slave workforce, Deep Southerners developed caste and sharecropper systems to meet their labor needs, as well as a system of poll taxes and literacy tests to keep former slaves and white rabble out of the political process. When these systems were challenged by African Americans and the federal government, they rallied poor whites in their nation, in Tidewater, and in Appalachia to their cause through fearmongering: The races would mix. Daughters would be defiled. Yankees would take away their guns and Bibles and convert their children to secular humanism, environmentalism, communism, and homosexuality. Their political hirelings discussed criminalizing abortion, protecting the flag from flag burners, stopping illegal immigration, and scaling back government spending when on the campaign trail; once in office, they focused on cutting taxes for the wealthy, funneling massive subsidies to the oligarchs’ agribusinesses and oil companies, eliminating labor and environmental regulations, creating “guest worker” programs to secure cheap farm labor from the developing world, and poaching manufacturing jobs from higher-wage unionized industries in Yankeedom, New Netherland, or the Midlands. It’s a strategy financial analyst Stephen Cummings has likened to “a high-technology version of the plantation economy of the Old South,” with the working and middle classes playing the role of sharecroppers.[1] For the oligarchs the greatest challenge has been getting Greater Appalachia into their coalition and keeping it there. Appalachia has relatively few African

What are you doing?” Leo demanded, wondering if she had lost her wits entirely. “He doesn’t need a lamp, Win.” Ignoring him, Win removed the glass fount and tossed it to the bed. She did the same with the brass wick burner, exposing the oil reservoir. Without hesitation, she poured the lamp oil over the front of the wardrobe. The pungent odor of highly flammable paraffin spread through the room. “Have you lost your mind?” Leo demanded, astonished not only by her actions, but also by her calm demeanor. “I have a matchbox, Julian,” she said. “Tell me what to give Mr. Rohan, or I’ll set the wardrobe on fire.” “You wouldn’t dare,” Harrow cried. “Win,” Leo said, “you’ll burn the entire damned house down, just after it’s been rebuilt. Give me the bloody matchbox.” She shook her head resolutely. “Are we starting a new springtime ritual?” Leo demanded. “The annual burning-of-the-manse? Come to your senses, Win.” Win turned from him and glared at the wardrobe door. “I was told, Julian, that you killed your first wife. Possibly by poison. And now knowing what you have done to my brother-in-law, I believe it. And if you don’t help us, I’m going to roast you like a piece of Welsh rarebit.” She opened the matchbox. Realizing she couldn’t possibly be serious, Leo decided to back her bluff. “I’m begging you, Win,” he said theatrically, “don’t do this. There’s no need to—Christ!” This last as Win struck a match and set the wardrobe on fire. It wasn’t a bluff, Leo thought dazedly. She actually intended to broil the bastard. At the first bright, curling blossom of flame, there was a terrified cry from inside the wardrobe. “All right! Let me out! Let me out! It’s tannic acid. Tannic acid. It’s in my medical case; let me out!” “Very well, Leo,” Win said, a bit breathless. “You may extinguish the fire.” In spite of the panic that raced through his veins, Leo couldn’t suppress a choked laugh. She spoke as if she’d asked him to snuff a candle, not put out a large flaming piece of furniture. Tearing off his coat, he rushed forward and beat wildly at the wardrobe door. “You’re a madwoman,” he told Win as he passed her. “He wouldn’t have told us otherwise,” Win said.

When an ovulating woman offers herself to you, she's the choicest morsel on the planet. Her nipples are already sharp, her labia already swollen, her spine already undulating. Her skin is damp and she pants. If you touch the center of her forehead with your thumb she isn't thinking about her head—she isn't thinking at all, she's imagining, believing, willing your hand to lift and turn and curve, cup the back of her head. She's living in a reality where the hand will have no choice but to slide down that soft, flexing muscle valley of the spine to the flare of strong hips, where the other hand joins the first to hold both hip bones, immobilize them against the side of the counter, so that you can touch the base of her throat gently with your lips and she will whimper and writhe and let the muscles in her legs go, but she won't fall, because you have her. She'll be feeling this as though it's already happening, knowing absolutely that it will, because every cell is alive and crying out, Fill me, love me, cherish me, be tender, but, oh God, be sure. She wants you to want her. And when her pupils expand like that, as though you have dropped black ink into a saucer of cool blue water, and her head tips just a little, as though she's gone blind or has had a terrible shock or maybe just too much to drink, to her she is crying in a great voice, Fuck me, right here, right now against the kitchen counter, because I want you wrist-deep inside me. I hunger, I burn, I need. It doesn't matter if you are tired, or unsure, if your stomach is hard with dread at not being forgiven. If you allow yourself one moment's distraction—a microsecond's break in eye contact, a slight shift in weight—she knows, and that knowledge is a punch in the gut. She will back up a step and search your face, and she'll feel embarrassed—a fool or a whore—at offering so blatantly what you're not interested in, and her fine sense of being queen of the world will shiver and break like a glass shield hit by a mace, and fall around her in dust. Oh, it will still sparkle, because sex is magic, but she will be standing there naked, and you will be a monster, and the next time she feels her womb quiver and clench she'll hesitate, which will confuse you, even on a day when there is no dread, no uncertainty, and that singing sureness between you will dissolve and very slowly begin to sicken and die. The body knows. I listened to the deep message—but carefully, because at some point the deep message also must be a conscious message. Active, not just passive, agreement. I took her hand and guided the wok back down to the gas burner. Yes, her body still said, yes. I turned off the gas, but slowly, and now she reached for me.

I woke up as the first light began to bring an orange glow to the tops of the whispering pines (and sky) above me at 5:43 but lay still to avoid waking Hope for another half-hour. She had suffered through a tough and mostly sleepless night, and I wanted to give her every second I could as the next week promised to be very stressful for her (and me), and that was if everything went according to plan. At a few minutes after six, she either sensed the growing light or my wakefulness and shifted to give me a wet kiss. We both moved down towards the slit in the bottom of my Hennessy hammock and dropped out and down onto the pine needles to explore the morning. Both of us went a ways into the woods to take care of early morning elimination, and we met back by the hammock to discuss breakfast. I shook out some Tyler kibble (a modified GORP recipe) for me and an equal amount of Hope’s kibble for her. As soon as we had scarfed down the basic snack, we picked our way down the sloping shore to the water’s edge, jumped down into the warm water (relative to the cool morning air at any rate) for a swim as the sun came up, lighting the tips of the tallest pines on the opposite shore. Hope and I were bandit camping (a term that I had learned soon after arriving in this part of the world, and enjoyed the feel of), avoiding the established campsites that ringed Follensby Clear Pond. We found our home for the last seventeen days (riding the cooling August nights from the full moon on the ninth to what would be a new moon tonight) near a sandy swimming spot. From there, we worked our way up (and inland) fifty feet back from the water to a flat spot where some long-ago hunter had built/burned a fire pit. We used the pit to cook some of our meals (despite the illegality of the closeness to the water and the fire pit cooking outside an approved campsite … they call it ‘bandit camping’ for a reason). My canoe was far enough up the shore and into the brush to be invisible even if you knew to look for it, and nobody did/would/had. After we had rung a full measure of enjoyment out of our quiet morning swim, I grabbed the stringer I had anchored to the sandy bottom the previous afternoon after fishing, pulled the two lake trout off, killed them as quickly/painlessly/neatly as I could manage, handed one to Hope, and navigated back up the hill to our campsite. I started one of the burners on my Coleman stove (not wanting to signal our position too much, as the ranger for this area liked morning paddles, and although we had something of an understanding, I didn’t want to put him in an uncomfortable position … we had, after all, been camping far too long in a spot too close to the water). Once I had gutted/buttered/spiced the fish, I put my foil-wrapped trout over the flame (flipping and moving it every minute or so, according to the sound/smell of the cooking fish); Hope ate hers raw, as is her preference. It was a perfect morning … just me and my dog, seemingly alone in the world, doing exactly what we wanted to be doing.

Stop Saying “Yes” To Everyone In his book The Distinguishing Mark of Leadership, author Don Meyer quotes Warren Buffet as saying the following: “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” Buffet’s remark mirrors a comment made by Steve Jobs while giving a presentation at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 1997. He noted: “Focusing is about saying no.” Most people say yes. They acquiesce when a stranger asks for their time. They give in when a coworker asks for help. They surrender when a family member demands immediate attention. On the surface, such a response seems reasonable. After all, a willingness to help others is an admirable quality. The problem is, saying “yes” forces us to put our own tasks and responsibilities on the back burner. Every moment we devote to helping someone is a moment we cannot allocate toward getting our own work done. Constantly saying “yes” has another adverse effect: you gain a reputation for being helpful. Again, that seems admirable. But consider: making yourself available to anyone who asks only encourages people to seek your help in the future. It’s like placing a bowl of milk on your doorstep for stray cats. As long as you continue to provide the milk, the stray cats will come. Guaranteed. Let’s take a closer look at how the habit of saying “yes” diminishes your ability to get things done.

Alone in the kitchen, without Zod's supervision, he found himself turning to the wholesome food of his childhood, not only for the comfort the simple compositions offered, but because it was what he knew so well as he set about preparing a homecoming feast for Zod's only son. He pulled two kilos of java beans from the freezer. Gathered last May, shucked and peeled on a quiet afternoon, they defrosted in a colander for a layered frittata his mother used to make with fistfuls of dill and sprinkled with sea salt. One flat of pale green figs and a bushel of new harvest walnuts were tied to the back of his scooter, along with two crates of pomegranates- half to squeeze for fresh morning juice and the other to split and seed for rice-and-meatball soup. Three fat chickens pecked in the yard, unaware of their destiny as he sharpened his cleaver. Tomorrow they would braise in a rich, tangy stew with sour red plums, their hearts and livers skewered and grilled, then wrapped in sheets of lavash with bouquets of tarragon and mint. Basmati rice soaked in salted water to be steamed with green garlic and mounds of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then served with a whole roasted, eight kilo white fish stuffed with barberries, pistachios, and lime. On the farthest burner, whole bitter oranges bobbed in blossom syrup, to accompany rice pudding, next to a simmering pot of figs studded with cardamom pods for preserves.

The kitchen smelled amazing. Turkey-apple sausage sizzled in a blackened iron skillet on the sturdy old eight-burner gas range. Thick slices of bread toasted in a shiny vintage Toastmaster. Hair tied back, sleeves rolled up on her blouse, apron around her waist, Grace tossed a handful of pecans into the skillet and let them brown with the sausage while she flipped a cheddar-filled omelet in another pan. The heady aroma of freshly ground black dark-roast coffee filled the kitchen.

The most important things in life rarely come with urgency. It may seem counter intuitive, but the most important things in life are easily pushed to the back burner.

The box gave Tharp a way to put projects on hold and revisit them later: “The box makes me feel connected to a project… I feel this even when I’ve back-burnered a project: I may have put the box away on a shelf, but I know it’s there. The project name on the box in bold black lettering is a constant reminder that I had an idea once and may come back to it very soon.

I allowed others to use my time, money, and even my labor toward their interests while my interests were placed on the back burner.

We have a COVENANT with WOTAN and it is the Sacred Grudge-Chore of the SubGenius to SMITE The Conspirators and Their slavish Dupes: the Mediocretins, the stupid Pink Boys, the “Hoi Polloi,” Them, the Normals, the Somnabulacs, the Great Unwashed-In-The-Baptism-Of-The-Pee-Of-“Bob,” the malignant ones who breathe down our necks and abuse their territorial urges without ever dreaming that they’re doing it, Assouls, Cage Men, Infidels, Sames, Anthropophobiacs, Conformers, Timeservers, Mole People, Proleterrorists, Philistines, Pharisees, Witch-burners, the ones who have tried to maim our self-respect down through the centuries by making SLACK and antipredictability TABOO, the Thankers and Wankers, Heilers and Smilers, Sloths and Moths, Cons and Johns, Drivellers and Snivellers, Weepers and Sleepers; CreditHeads, Cliants, Kens and Barbies, Errorists, Yes-Buts, Ordinaryans and Lick Spittles, Corpulators, Signifying Monkeys, UnderAlls, the Slackless Ones…in short, the Remnants of Man: those very False Prophets who have been holding us back and forcing Time Addiction on Themselves…and…others…

Remember, front-burner projects command your best creative energy. Back-burner projects, you can complete with minimal creative energy, thanks to reliable Creative Systems. But simmer projects are cooking almost completely in the background. Yes, once in a while you open the pot and take a peek at a simmer project. Maybe you stir it up, to keep yourself moving.

said to expect such thoughts when I returned home, and that those thoughts would fade with time. I sure hoped she was right. I still had a shock every time I looked in the mirror, a pleasant shock mind you, but nevertheless a shock. Even though my life had immeasurably changed for the better, I was still having trouble coming to terms with the change itself. I had been told time and time again that this was normal, but that didn’t make it any easier to experience. I suppose I had been depressed before the accident. I looked around my cottage, surprised that this had been my taste. The curtains were hideous, and everything was dark. I suppose I had been trying to hide away from the world. Still, my job wouldn’t have helped. I had been the marketing manager for a local small art gallery. The boss had been a screaming banshee, and that was a polite description for her. She had been impossible to deal with and had a regular staff turnover. I had been there years longer than any other employee. Looking back, I wondered how I had taken her verbal abuse and yelling for years, but I suppose I had been used to being bullied since school. I shook myself. That was all behind me now, and my only connection with that was a desire to work in some way to help people who had been bullied. There was altogether way too much bullying in the world. Now I had enough money to buy a nice place, but first things first. I was going to concentrate on starting my business. I would simply buy some bright new cushions to make the place look a little better and make sure all the curtains were open. I’d buy some nice smelling incense and an oil burner, and burn lavender oil. I was craving nice fragrances, after being accustomed to the antiseptic smell of the hospital, a smell I am sure I will never forget.

Vick frowned towards the bonfire, the ragged figures warming their hands, the Burners dragging people from the buildings, the Constables emptying out the cellar that had been a bank. “You want to paint this?” “Future generations might never believe that it happened.” She blew some yellow hair out of her face with a smoky breath and went back to sketching, charcoal hissing on paper. “Then it might happen again.

Fionn sat down and pressed his fists against his eyes. 'But why can't we just be angry? Doesn't that feel much more satisfying?' 'Because gratitude for what we have been gifted is the antidote to the grief we feel when we must give it back.' His grandfather unfurled the burner flame from underneath the workbench and turned it on. 'Don't you think that would make an excellent fridge magnet?

TITLES BY MARK GREANEY THE GRAY MAN ON TARGET BALLISTIC DEAD EYE BACK BLAST GUNMETAL GRAY AGENT IN PLACE MISSION CRITICAL ONE MINUTE OUT RELENTLESS SIERRA SIX BURNER

From here on out, I would be the me I was meant to be before I learned to live life on the back burner.

The status of domestic dependent nation that would be granted Native Hawaiians through a process of federal recognition does not recognize the kingdom's history of sovereign existence or take into account the unjust occupation or overthrow of the monarch inflicted by the U.S. government. At the same time, relying on presently existing international law regarding Indigenous Peoples also has the limitation that in tis present state such law still gives priority to existing nation-states and puts the preexisting rights of Indigenous People as nations on a back burner.

God understands the importance of looking inward. The Bible teaches us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). Loving others is contingent on the ability to love yourself. The ironic thing is that many singles are ready to get out there and love someone else, but they haven’t taken the time to love themselves. Loving yourself requires that you know, value, and respect the person you are while moving toward the person God has made you to be. But somehow this important truth gets moved to the back burner. We tend to focus so much on the first part of this verse that calls us to love others that we neglect to love ourselves.

The orrery in the far back of the space drew Ruhn’s eye: a working model of their seven planets, moons, and sun. Made from solid gold. Ruhn had been mesmerized by it as a boy, back when he’d been stupid enough to believe his father actually gave a shit about him, spending hours in here watching the male make whatever observations and calculations he jotted down in his black leather notebooks. He’d asked only once about what his father was looking for, exactly. Patterns was all his father said. The Autumn King sat at one of the four massive worktables, each littered with books and an array of glass and metal devices. Experiments for whatever the fuck his father did with those patterns. Ruhn passed one of the tables, where iridescent liquid bubbled within a glass orb set over a burner—the flame likely of his father’s making—puffs of violet smoke curling from it.

It wasn’t that her curves were news to him—far from it. But she was such a dynamic force, always moving or hissing or being outrageous, that ogling her generally took a back burner to adapting to her chaos.

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut taxes and we want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.” So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world,” E. B. White once wrote. “This makes it difficult to plan the day.” The Declaration of Independence promises Americans the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the quest for happiness, many of us choose to enjoy the world as it is. Originals embrace the uphill battle, striving to make the world what it could be. By struggling to improve life and liberty, they may temporarily give up some pleasure, putting their own happiness on the back burner. In the long run, though, they have the chance to create a better world. And that—to borrow a turn of phrase from psychologist Brian Little—brings a different kind of satisfaction. Becoming original is not the easiest path in the pursuit of happiness, but it leaves us perfectly poised for the happiness of pursuit.

The Way Forward If we’re to live frugally, if we’re to learn how to be more content with less, it seems to me that we have to first tackle these innermost fears and anxieties that compel us to indulge in reckless spending. One of the very first decisions we must each take in our journey to financial independence is to look at ourselves and say, ‘I’m okay.’ Saying it is not hard, but meaning it is. First of all, we must reject the financial script that the world insists on pushing on us. There is nothing noble or normal about working for forty years of your healthy life so that you can live independently in your final twenty. We must all believe that it is possible for us to retire early and enjoy more of life. Financial Independence, if you achieve it, will allow you to do so. Second, redefine success for yourself. Money and fame is the society’s definition of the word. What’s yours? A more loving relationship with your spouse? Bringing up your kids to be independent? Conquering your anger? Learning to dance? We all have passions that we have put on the back burner because of our careers, which we tell ourselves we will pursue ‘when we have time’. Write them down, and pursue them. Make time for them, the same way you make time for your work. Let’s face it; otherwise they just don’t get done. Third, accept that the world is inherently unequal and unfair. Your life is your own, and the only person you can – and should – compete with is yourself. Once we accept this, I think, we will find that envy touches us a lot less. We will welcome failure with good grace and success with humility. Most important of all, we will not run through life as though we’re in a race, and we will not feel the need, perhaps, to buy things in order to show people how successful we are.

but somewhere on the back burners, something started stewing. Something difficult, bold, and utterly callous.

When Iran exported its jihad to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in several regions around the world, these all indirectly threatened the United States. These terrorists threatened our greatest ally in the region, Israel, while destabilizing countries we depend on to help bring security to that area. These terrorists harm our allies with violence while sowing hatred for our values, thus hurting our national interests abroad. Until 2001, these organizations had not historically attempted to carry out terrorist attacks on the American homeland. With the Sunni-Shiite divide once again put on the back burner to tackle a bigger enemy, the relationship between al-Qaeda, another Sunni terrorist organization, and the Shiite regime in Iran is all about destroying the United States of America. Their relationship began a long time before the United States even knew about al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden as public enemy number one.1 Today, ISIS is perhaps public enemy number one. Yet the most interesting trait common to ISIS, al-Qaeda, Iran, and every other Islamic terrorist group is this: they are all motivated by the same anti-Western, jihadist ideology.

I wander back out, and find Patrick doing the unthinkable. He is cooking. There are two placemats on the island, napkins and forks. He has found a dish of leftover pasta I made last night, linguine with chickpeas, pancetta, and toasted breadcrumbs, with torn basil leaves and lemon zest. He's put together a frittata, which he has cooked on one side, and is deftly flipping it over to cook the other side. On another burner, some of my marinara that I put up last summer simmers in a small saucepan. A pile of shaved Parmesan is on the cutting board, two plates sit at his elbow.

As the church get older and older it becomes harder to keep evangelism on the front burner because of all the competing issues that keeps pushing it back.

back burner, with intervals of détente, reversals of alliance, and many changes in fortune. After the failure of the Armada in 1588, Spain could not attack England at home. English forces were never strong enough to wage sustained warfare on the Spanish mainland. Instead, the intermittent conflict moved indecisively through what we would now call the third world—the scattered colonial dependencies of the two powers and over the trade routes and oceans of the world. English hawks, often Puritans and merchants, wanted an aggressive anti-Spanish policy that would take on the pope while opening markets; moderates (often country squires uninterested in costly foreign ventures) promoted détente.

she had to place her emotions on the back burner and her money on the front.

Wherever I looked, I saw waste. Yet people thought nothing of throwing out food that could feed thousands upon thousands. They took me to see dog races, which are the most nonsensical type of sports. When the mechanical dog fell over, every racing dog stopped and went its own way. That visit to Florida was a lovely change and a pleasant time, away from books, the subway and the real problems, which did not go away; they were just disregarded for a little while, put on the back burner. Although I had no real clashes with Eli, yet little incidents, of trivial importance, soured our relationship.

Gia turned on the burner and reached for a saucepan. She lightly crushed two cloves of garlic with the side of a knife, then minced and sautéed them in olive oil and a knob of butter. She whisked in a little flour, toasting it in the oil, added a pinch of salt, then raised the heat and whisked it in a cup of homemade chicken broth from the fridge until the soup began to thicken. She beat two eggs together in a bowl with some grated Parmesan and added them gently to the soup, where they poached into gold and white strands of savory-soft egg and cheese. Gia selected a big earthenware bowl, ladled in her soup, ground in some fresh black pepper, and placed it in front of Angelina with a napkin and a spoon. "Stracciatella. For you." Angelina leaned over the bowl with her eyes closed and let the delicious wisps of steam rise up to her face. She picked up the spoon and sulkily nicked off a piece of egg. Gia returned to her cup of coffee, with an experienced parent's complete indifference as to whether the meal she'd prepared was eaten or not. Angelina stole a glance from her and dipped into the bowl, seduced by the aroma of toast laced with sweet and savory garlic, mingled with the soothing sustenance of good chicken broth. She sipped and felt warm comfort spread into her belly, across the bridge of her nose and the back of her neck.

Even now, after all this time, I remember the heavy scent of smoke and mead in the air. I remember the glints from the hundreds of golden shields on the walls and the ceiling. I remember the look of pride in my father’s eyes looking across the einherjar. I remember the rush of voices when Thor came once in a while and walked through the hall, Mjolnir hanging from his belt and his wealth of red hair lighting up the gloom like another coal burner. And this is my story. I, who have lived across time and space. I, who have jumped worlds and turned back on my choices. I, who gave up one identity for another. I understand now why I chose as I did. It wasn’t a random act or even an unknowing one. I had it all figured out all along. I knew where I was going and I chose every step of the way. The most common mistake is asking: “Why? Why did this happen to me? Why is it this way? Why can’t it be otherwise?” The problem isn’t the why. The problem is that it is turned outwards. Instead, ask: Why did I choose this? The answer will always be: Because this is how I get my thrills. Always. It all comes down to how you want your story to be.

All right, I’ll play. What are some of the symptoms of OSS?” “Oh, there are plenty. Especially when a parental figure is missing from the equation.” “Enlighten me.” She swirled the bat back and forth between the palms of her hands. “Well, for starters, you are extremely reliable and find yourself responsible for your siblings. Almost as if they are your own kids, seeing how you helped raise them.” I narrowed my brows. “Go on.” “You are overly protective over your family and go out of your way to make sure everyone’s okay. You’re a workaholic. You put your own wants and needs on the back burner in order to make sure everyone else is good. You let your dreams sit on the sidelines if it makes sure others are happier.” My mouth twitched a little. She was hitting a little too close to home. I took the bat from her and grabbed a ball from the bag. I tossed it up and swung, hitting the ball into the distance. “Go on,” I said. She took the bat from me and stepped onto the plate. “You suffer from a hyper-independence, which seems like a good thing, but it’s not.” She tossed a ball up and knocked it out. “It’s actually a trauma response because you feel like you can’t rely on others, seeing how it was always your job to be the reliable source.” “Too loud, Coach.” She handed the bat back to me. We switched positions. “You also worry about messing up and letting people down. Which is why you are so achievement-oriented,” she explained. I hit the next ball. She whistled low. “Nice hit.” “Thanks.” I flicked my thumb against the bridge of my nose. “So with this OSS, what’s the treatment plan?” She shrugged. “Don’t know. Still trying to figure that out myself. Because as someone suffering with OSS, I know that we hate all eyes on us, and we hate the thought of people worrying about us because it shows that we aren’t as strong as we should be, and we should always be strong.” She took the bat from me and performed another hit. “But I think it helps to struggle in numbers. Makes it a little easier to breathe.” “Are you suggesting we start an OSS club?

So you’ve got the green light, Flip Wilson! Roger ball… Kick the fires… Hit the burner… Pull g’s… Do all that pilot stuff and do it well. We’re fine. We miss you tons, but lead those JOs to victory and bring everyone back soon! Love, Mary

In the proverbial kitchen of many ministries, we are keeping leadership development on the back burner. At some point, we've got to move it to the front of the stove.

While it was a remarkable moment to see my son pursuing his dream, it was also a rude awakening. I was doing my children a disservice by setting the example that it’s okay to put yourself last… to put your own desires on the back burner while you take care of everyone else.

And, please keep in mind that these ten principles are simply guidelines and not new rules that can be turned into a new diet. Any desire for weight loss must be put on the back burner, or it will sabotage your process of healing your relationship with food, your mind, and your body.

I see that.” He nodded and gazed down the long garden. “This is all edible?” “You can ingest it all, yes.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned at me. “What’s that mean?” I laughed and poked his hard chest. “It means, if you want to steal from my garden, you best know your plants. You might end up eating something you shouldn’t.” “Eisley.” His expression darkened. “Are you hoarding…” “It’s fine. It’s a comfort thing. It keeps the dark thoughts away.” “The idea of poisoning someone keeps the dark thoughts away?” He followed me back inside. I put the tea kettle on the stove and turned the burner on. I turned back to him and grinned. “Exactly.

The scale of what Taiwan had accomplished, in just six post-war decades and under extremely straitened circumstances, was astonishing. In 1952, 42 per cent of Taiwanese were illiterate. Fifty years later, nearly 60 per cent of Taiwanese went to university. (Tellingly, the illustration on Taiwan’s 1000-dollar note was four schoolchildren studying a globe, though it wasn’t apparent whether they were learning their foreign capitals or plotting Chinese missile trajectories.) Taiwan’s 23 million diligent, dogged and courteous people had built the seventeenth-biggest economy in the world, and accrued the third-largest foreign reserves. Their tiny island boasted six domestic airlines, trains you could set your watch by and, in the shape of Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building. And they’d made their transition from military dictatorship to pluralist democracy without getting any blood on the carpet. For a country that didn’t formally exist in the eyes of most of the world, this was decent going. Having visited many broken-down, violent dumps where everybody insisted that The Struggle superseded all other considerations, like picking up the rubbish and teaching kids to read, and invariably blamed someone else for all their problems, I fell hopelessly in love with the place. Were I a George Soros-style billionaire eccentric, I’d establish a program under which the world’s nationalist crazies, idiot warlords and dingbat terrorists would be sent to Taiwan, to see what can be accomplished when people stick the grievance schtick on the back-burner, put in a day’s work and behave in a civilised manner. Taiwan

Visual access to kitchen: There is nothing quite like being able to look into a restaurant’s kitchen and watch your food being prepared. The open burners, or the glow emanating from a wood-fired pizza oven, harken back to ancient times and offer a sense of hearth and home. There is also something both reassuring and entertaining about watching a busy kitchen as you await your food. Personally I find kitchens with no visual access disconcerting. Consider whether some visual access to the kitchen from your dining room might further your concept.

But the foremost concerns of the Democrats’ most reliable voting bloc—affordable housing, clean water, police brutality, the racial wealth gap, and reparations for state-sanctioned discrimination (as has been accorded other groups discriminated against in the United States)—have remained on the back burner, or have even been considered radioactive issues for the party that African-Americans help to sustain. To those who say that this would be impractical, it would be the duty of the party representing and dependent on the subordinate caste to open the eyes of their fellow Americans and make the case for a more egalitarian country.

The order, for completists, is WHISKEY SOUR, BLOODY MARY, RUSTY NAIL, DIRTY MARTINI, FUZZY NAVEL, CHERRY BOMB, SHAKEN, and STIRRED. She’s been the subject of many shorts (JACK DANIELS STORIES, BURNERS, FLOATERS) and has appeared as a supporting character in many of my other novels (SHOT OF TEQUILLA, THE LIST, SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT, BANANA HAMMOCK, FLEE, SPREE, THREE, TIMECASTER SUPERSYMMETRY). Due to popular demand, she’ll be back again in another novel, LAST CALL, being co-written with Blake Crouch.

You are at your desk, you have set the book among your business papers as if by chance; at a certain moment you shift the file and you find the book before your eyes, you open it absently, you rest your elbows on the desk, you rest your temples against your hands, curled into fists, you seem to be concentrating on an examination of the papers and instead you are exploring the first pages of the novel. Gradually you settle back in the chair, you raise the book to the level of your nose, you tilt your chair, poised on its rear legs, you pull out a side drawer of the desk to prop your feet on it: the position of the feet during reading is of maximum importance, you stretch your legs out on the top of the desk, on the files to be expedited. But doesn’t this seem to show a lack of respect? Of respect that is, not for your job (nobody claims to pass judgment on your professional capacities: we assume that your duties are a normal element n the system of unproductive activities that occupies such a large part of the national and international economy), but for the book. Worse still if you belong—willingly or unwillingly—to the number of those for whom working means really working, performing, whether deliberately or without premeditation, something necessary or at least not useless for others as well as for oneself; then the book you have brought with you to your place of employment like a kind of amulet or talisman exposes you to intermittent temptations, a few seconds at a time subtracted from the principal object of your attention, whether it is the perforations of electronic cards, the burners of a kitchen stove, the controls of a bulldozer, a patient stretched out on the operating table with his guts exposed. In other words, it’s better for you to restrain your impatience and wait to open the book at home.

You are at your desk, you have set the book among your business papers as if by chance; at a certain moment you shift the file and you find the book before your eyes, you open it absently, you rest your elbows on the desk, you rest your temples against your hands, curled into fists, you seem to be concentrating on an examination of the papers and instead you are exploring the first pages of the novel. Gradually you settle back in the chair, you raise the book to the level of your nose, you tilt your chair, poised on its rear legs, you pull out a side drawer of the desk to prop your feet on it: the position of the feet during reading is of maximum importance, you stretch your legs out on the top of the desk, on the files to be expedited. But doesn’t this seem to show a lack of respect? Of respect that is, not for your job (nobody claims to pass judgment on your professional capacities: we assume that your duties are a normal element in the system of unproductive activities that occupies such a large part of the national and international economy), but for the book. Worse still if you belong—willingly or unwillingly—to the number of those for whom working means really working, performing, whether deliberately or without premeditation, something necessary or at least not useless for others as well as for oneself; then the book you have brought with you to your place of employment like a kind of amulet or talisman exposes you to intermittent temptations, a few seconds at a time subtracted from the principal object of your attention, whether it is the perforations of electronic cards, the burners of a kitchen stove, the controls of a bulldozer, a patient stretched out on the operating table with his guts exposed. In other words, it’s better for you to restrain your impatience and wait to open the book at home.