Bags Related Quotes

I'm an ugly girl, My face makes you hurl, Sad I have it, I should bag it. Acne everywhere, Unwanted facial hair. I'm a relation to Frankenstein's creation.

Don't show a friend your gift, or your bag of money if you still want to maintain your relationship, but if nay, go on, and all you'll see is hate and jealousy, and you'll fight with him in the street like a dog and all you'll feel is regret.

If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it's useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again—if to do that is human, if that's what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time.... [T]he proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us." —"The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

So help me, if something crawls out of one of these bags, I will castrate you.” “I bet you’d love that.” -Emma and Jackson

Bagged her? What does that even mean?” I asked, already wishing I hadn’t. “Intimate relations. Intercourse. Coitus. Doing the deed. Nookie. Fornicating. Laying pipe. Screwing. Sex. Tapping that ass. Fucking. Need I go on?

The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.

Not everything has to be done with herbs and oils. In fact, when it comes to any kind of business-related magic, I much prefer a consecrated metal talisman or paper seal hidden away, rather than a bulky bag that smells like a hippie is hiding in my pocket.

I guess it’s also not a good thing when you start relating yourself to a late nineteenth century nut bag who shot himself, but hey, you’ve got to relate to something if you ever want to feel relevant.

I am sitting down to write in a state of some confusion; I have been reading a lot of different things that are merging into one another, and if one hopes to find a solution for oneself by this kind of reading, one is mistaken; one comes up against a wall, and cannot proceed. Your life is so very different, dearest. Except in relation to your fellow men, have you ever known uncertainty? Have you ever observed how, within yourself and independent of other people, diverse possibilities open up in several directions, thereby actually creating a ban on your every movement? Have you ever, without giving the slightest thought to anyone else, been in despair simply about yourself? Desperate enough to throw yourself on the ground and remain there beyond the Day of Judgment? How devout are you? You go to the synagogue; but I dare say you have not been recently. And what is it that sustains you, the idea of Judaism or of God? Are you aware, and this is the most important thing, of a continuous relationship between yourself and a reassuringly distant, if possibly infinite height or depth? He who feels this continuously has no need to roam about like a lost dog, mutely gazing around with imploring eyes; he never need yearn to slip into a grave as if it were a warm sleeping bag and life a cold winter night; and when climbing the stairs to his office he never need imagine that he is careering down the well of the staircase, flickering in the uncertain light, twisting from the speed of his fall, shaking his head with impatience. There are times, dearest, when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.

Science Fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story. In it, as in all fiction, there is room enough to keep even Man where he belongs, in his place in the scheme of things, there is time enough to gather plenty of wild oats and sow them, too, and sing to little Oom, and listen to Ool's joke, and watch newts, and still the story isn't over. Still there are seeds to be gathered and room in the bag of stars.

I realized that “being prepared” can sometimes be a euphemism for being scared to let go. How much we carry—whether it is on our bicycle, in our bag, or in our home—is often directly related to how little we trust in life to guide us well, and in others to help us out in a pinch. To this day, I have found that traveling light yields a far richer experience.

I made it three days before the text messages started one afternoon while I was trying to finish warming up before our afternoon session. I had gotten to the LC later than usual and had gone straight to the training room, praising Jesus that I’d decided to change my clothes before leaving the diner once I’d seen what time it was and had remembered lunchtime traffic was a real thing. I was in the middle of stretching my hips when my phone beeped from where I’d left it on top of my bag. I took it out and snickered immediately at the message after taking my time with it. Jojo: WHAT THE FUCK JASMINE I didn’t need to ask what my brother was what-the-fucking over. It had only been a matter of time. It was really hard to keep a secret in my family, and the only reason why my mom and Ben—who was the only person other than her who knew—had kept their mouths closed was because they had both agreed it would be more fun to piss off my siblings by not saying anything and letting them find out the hard way I was going to be competing again. Life was all about the little things. So, I’d slipped my phone back into my bag and kept stretching, not bothering to respond because it would just make him more mad. Twenty minutes later, while I was still busy stretching, I pulled my phone out and wasn’t surprised more messages appeared. Jojo: WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL ME Jojo: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME Jojo: DID THE REST OF YOU KEEP THIS FROM ME Tali: What happened? What did she not tell you? Tali: OH MY GOD, Jasmine, did you get knocked up? Tali: I swear, if you got knocked up, I’m going to beat the hell out of you. We talked about contraception when you hit puberty. Sebastian: Jasmine’s pregnant? Rubes: She’s not pregnant. Rubes: What happened, Jojo? Jojo: MOM DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS Tali: Would you just tell us what you’re talking about? Jojo: JASMINE IS SKATING WITH IVAN LUKOV Jojo: And I found out by going on Picturegram. Someone at the rink posted a picture of them in one of the training rooms. They were doing lifts. Jojo: JASMINE I SWEAR TO GOD YOU BETTER EXPLAIN EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW Tali: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? IS THIS TRUE? Tali: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Jojo: I’m going on Lukov’s website right now to confirm this Rubes: I just called Mom but she isn’t answering the phone Tali: She knew about this. WHO ELSE KNEW? Sebastian: I didn’t. And quit texting Jas’s name over and over again. It’s annoying. She’s skating again. Good job, Jas. Happy for you. Jojo: ^^ You’re such a vibe kill Sebastian: No, I’m just not flipping my shit because she got a new partner. Jojo: SHE DIDN’T TELL US FIRST THO. What is the point of being related if we didn’t get the scoop before everybody else? Jojo: I FOUND OUT ON PICTUREGRAM Sebastian: She doesn’t like you. I wouldn’t tell you either. Tali: I can’t find anything about it online. Jojo: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Jojo: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Tali: Tell us everything or I’m coming over to Mom’s today. Sebastian: You’re annoying. Muting this until I get out of work. Jojo: Party pooper Tali: Party pooper Jojo: Jinx Tali: Jinx Sebastian: Annoying ... I typed out a reply, because knowing them, if I didn’t, the next time I looked at my phone, I’d have an endless column of JASMINE on there until they heard from me. That didn’t mean my response had to be what they wanted. Me: Who is Ivan Lukov?

A stretch of time when I was rewarded with so many mystic moments, a chunk of red chalk, a chestnut, a rusted piece of scrap metal, a nail, a flat stone shaped like an ancient tablet. Although suggesting little of the magnificent work I had seen, these objects helped inspire my newfound contentedness. I placed them with the same care as a police detective into a clean plastic bag. Evidence of an awareness of the relative value of insignificant things.

Most of us will. We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive: love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead: we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed. But what about those who plant such clues, for us to stumble on? Why do they bother? Egotism? Pity? Revenge? A simple claim to existence, like scribbling your initials on a washroom wall? The combination of presence and anonymity--confession without penance, truth without consequences--it has its attractions. Getting the blood off your hands, one way or another. Those who leave such evidence can scarcely complain if strangers come along afterwards and poke their noses into every single thing that would once have been none of their business. And not only strangers: lovers, friends, relations. We're voyeurs, all of us. Why should we assume that anything in the past is ours for the taking, simply because we've found it? We're all grave robbers, once we open the doors locked by others. But only locked. The rooms and their contents have been left intact. If those leaving them had wanted oblivion, there was always fire.

By not talking about death with our loved ones, not being clear through advanced directives, DNR (do not resuscitate) orders, and funeral plans, we are directly contributing to this future ... and a rather bleak present, at that. Rather than engage in larger societal discussions about dignified ways for the terminally ill to end their lives, we accept intolerable cases like that of Angelita, a widow in Oakland who covered her head with a plastic bag because the arthritic pain of her gnarled joints was too much to bear. Or that of Victor in Los Angeles, who hung himself from the rafters of his apartment after his third unsuccessful round of chemotherapy, leaving his son to discover his body. Or the countless bodies with decubitus ulcers, more painful for me to care for them even babies or suicides. When these bodies come into the funeral home, I can only offer my sympathy to their living relatives, and promise to work to ensure that more people are not robbed of a dignified death by a culture of silence.

(Jen gets completely sloshed and it's not her wedding) I was supposed to meet Carol and her family at the aquarium the next morning, and somehow had the presence of mind to leave a voicemail apologizing in advance for not being able to make it. I was please at myself for being so responsible and considerate. After I left the message, I blissfully headed off to bed, wearing a face full of makeup, all my grown up jewelry, and a relatively restrictive girdle. Suffice it to say, yesterday was rough, what with my apartment spinning and all. But today I felt better. That is, until Carol played me the voice mail I left for her at 1:03 AM. Somehow I thought I had been able to hold it together on the phone. Following is a transcript of the message I left: 30 seconds of heavy breathing, giggling, and intermittent hiccups (At first Carol thought it was a 911 call.) Oh, heeheehee, I waassshh wayyyting for a beep. But noooooo beeeeeeep. Why don't you hash a beep on your, your, ummmmmm...celery phone? Noooooo beeeeeeep, hic, heeheeeheee. Um, hiiiiii, itsch JEENNNNNNNN!! It's thirteen o'clock in the peeeeeee eeeemmmmmmm. Heeeeeeeellllllllllloooooooo! I went to my wedding tonight and it wash sooooo niiiiiiiiiice. Hic." More giggling and the sound of a phone being dropped and retrieved Nannyway, I am calling to telllll you noooooooooo fishies tomorry...no fishies for meeee! I hic, heeeee, can't smake it to the quariyummm. Maybeeee you can call me so I can say HIIIIIIIIIIIIIII later hich in the day hee hee hee. Call me at, um, 312, ummmmmmm, 312, uummmmm, hee hee hee I can't member my phone, Hic. Do you know my number? Can you call me and tell me what it isssch? I LIKESH TURKEY SAMMICHES! 10 seconds of chewing, giggling, and what may be gobbling sounds Okay, GGGGGGGGooooooodniiiiiiiiiggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhttttt! No fish! Um, how do I turn this tthing off? Shhhhh, callllls' over. Beeee quiiiiiiietttt, hee hee hee." 15 more seconds of giggles, hiccups, shushing, and a great deal of banging Perhaps this is why most people only have one wedding?

Those faces on Main Street shaded by wide straw hats are surrounded in my child-memory by hardware and ploughs, seed bags and bales of cotton, the smell of guano and mule lots, hot sun on sidewalks and lovely white ladies with sweet childlike voices and smooth childlike faces, and Old gardens of boxwood and camellias, and fields endlessly curving around my small world. I know now that the bitterness, the cruel sensual lips, the quick fears in hard eyes, the sashshaying buttocks of brown girls, the thin childish voices of white women, had a great deal to do with high interest at the bank and low wages in the mills and gullied fields and lynchings and Ku Klux Klan and segregation and sacred womanhood and revivals, and Prohibition. And that no part of this memory can be understood without recalling it all of it.

The way we react to the Indian will always remain this nation’s unique moral headache. It may seem a smaller problem than our Negro one, and less important, but many other sections of the world have had to grapple with slavery and its consequences. There’s no parallel for our treatment of the Indian. In Tasmania the English settlers solved the matter neatly by killing off every single Tasmanian, bagging the last one as late as 1910. Australia had tried to keep its aborigines permanently debased—much crueler than anything we did with our Indians. Brazil, about the same. Only in America did we show total confusion. One day we treated Indians as sovereign nations. Did you know that my relative Lost Eagle and Lincoln were photographed together as two heads of state? The next year we treated him as an uncivilized brute to be exterminated. And this dreadful dichotomy continues.

Anwen uncrossed her arms, adjusted her skirt. She glanced from me to Watson. "If it's not an imposition," she said. "You can come too, Jamie. If you want." At that, I pinched his leg. "No!" he yelped. "No, go on. I, ah. Have a lecture." "Are you sure?" I ask him, sniffling. "I'm sure," he said, and reached out, very gently, to brush away a tear from my face. His dark eyes softened. He really was a better actor than I gave him credit for. "I'll see you later, pumpkin." As I led Anwen out to the street, I texted from my bag: Watson? Yes, pumpkin? New condition: you cease and desist all gourd-related nicknames. Done. But pinch me again, and I'll start calling you pickle. Do that, and I will find and them publish your diaries in a website with a vociferous comments section. Thought I was not a gourd, I was most definitely not a vinegar-soaked phallic object.

Don’t eat my fish.” “I’ll be patient and just snack on you when you come home.” “Don’t eat the cat.” His smirk falls to a mock glare. “Come on, have some faith in me!” “Don’t eat the neighbor.” “The neighbor is like ninety and shriveled up and probably has old blood.” I raise an eyebrow. “And you know what the neighbor looks like because?” River stares at me with wide eyes. “I… like… watching blood bags—people… walk around outside as my mouth waters.” I’m quite terrified of this fact. “Oh my god, you’re going to eat someone!

And now as if the cleaning and the scrubbing and the scything and the mowing had drowned it there rose that half-heard melody, that intermittent music which the ear half catches but lets fall; a bark, a bleat; irregular, intermittent, yet somehow related; the hum of an insect, the tremor of cut grass, dissevered yet somehow belonging; the jar of a dor beetle, the squeak of a wheel, loud, low, but mysteriously related; which the ear strains to bring together and is always on the verge of harmonising but they are never quite heard, never fully harmonised, and at last, in the evening, one after another the sounds die out, and the harmony falters, and silence falls. With the sunset sharpness was lost, and like mist rising, quiet rose, quiet spread, the wind settled; loosely the world shook itself down to sleep, darkly here without a light to it, save what came green suffused through leaves, or pale on the white flowers by the window. [Lily Briscoe had her bag carried up to the house late one evening in September. Mr. Carmichael came by the same train.]

Bosch had left Nigeria with his infamous Butcher Boys—assorted sizes, shapes and colors, but all killers for a price—when his scheme to take over a native village backfired. He had figured on cleaning up by selling the village girls in the Congo but found himself dodging spears, knives and related items of cutlery instead.

the Bhutanese scholar and cancer survivor. “There is no such thing as personal happiness,” he told me. “Happiness is one hundred percent relational.” At the time, I didn’t take him literally. I thought he was exaggerating to make his point: that our relationships with other people are more important than we think. But now I realize Karma meant exactly what he said. Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family and friends and neighbors and the woman you hardly notice who cleans your office. Happiness is not a noun or verb. It’s a conjunction. Connective tissue. Well, are we there yet? Have I found happiness? I still own an obscene number of bags and am prone to debilitating bouts of hypochondria. But I do experience happy moments. I’m learning, as W. H. Auden counseled, to “dance while you can.” He didn’t say dance well, and for that I am grateful. I’m not 100 percent happy. Closer to feevty-feevty, I’d say. All things considered, that’s not so bad. No, not bad at all. Waterford, Virginia, July 2007

Trip Advisor: Travel the World with Haiku [D] Jerusalem, Israel Jews pray motionless and the Western Wall shakes. It's all relative. Capetown, South Africa And the coloured girls say, 'We're not Africaans, we're English.' In a total Africaans accent. Bulls Bay, Jamaica Weed, rum, guava jelly, Reggae, Marley, Red Stripe beer, O Baby, jerk that chicken. Istanbul, Turkey I asked my driver, 'Why do you believe in Allah?' He answers: 'If not, He hit me!' Cairo, Egypt Cairo International Airport, Porter drops my bags six times. Descendents of the Pharaohs, my ass. Santorini Island, Greece Greeks are like the current, They push you over and then Try to suck you in. Christiania, Denmark One thousand drug dealers, Five hundred thousand tourists. Alway$ Chri$tma$ here.*

The scapegoat is the family punching bag. On a daily basis, you are singled out for all of the collective ridicule, made into the butt of every joke, and excluded from family events, holidays, and important legal matters. It doesn't take long for outsiders or other relatives to take note of your role and to be drawn into the destructive dynamics. Family scapegoats are belittled, humiliated, battered, rejected, betrayed, and treated poorly. It's a clear case of psychological abuse, manipulation, and harassment.

Even reading the words ‘snow hotel’ can shoot a shiver up your spine, but spending a night in one of these ethereally beautiful, extravagantly artistic icy buildings is a marvellous, though expensive, experience. There are several to choose from in Lapland, including Lumihotelli in Kemi. Heavy-duty sleeping bags ensure a relatively cosy slumber, and a morning sauna banishes any lingering chills. If you don’t fancy spending the night inside, you can visit the complexes, maybe pausing for a well-chilled vodka cocktail in the bar.

When, shortly afterward, I stopped at the top of the hill and saw the town beneath me, my feeling of happiness was so ecstatic that I didn’t know how I would be able to make it home, sit there and write, eat, or sleep. But the world is constructed in such a way that it meets you halfway in moments precisely like these, your inner joy seeks an outer counterpart and finds it, it always does, even in the bleakest regions of the world, for nothing is as relative as beauty. Had the world been different, in my opinion, without mountains and oceans, plains and seas, deserts and forests, and consisted of something else, inconceivable to us, as we don’t know anything other than this, we would also have found it beautiful. A world with gloes and raies, evanbillits and conulames, for example, or ibitera, proluffs, and lopsits, whatever they might be, we would have sung their praises because that is the way we are, we extol the world and love it although it’s not necessary, the world is the world, it’s all we have. So as I walked down the steps toward the town center on this Wednesday at the end of August I had a place in my heart for everything I beheld. A slab of stone worn smooth in a flight of steps: fantastic. A swaybacked roof side by side with an austere perpendicular brick building: so beautiful. A limp hot-dog wrapper on a drain grille, which the wind lifts a couple of meters and then drops again, this time on the pavement flecked with white stepped-on chewing gum: incredible. A lean old man hobbling along in a shabby suit carrying a bag bulging with bottles in one hand: what a sight. The world extended its hand, and I took it.

Let me see if I understand this," Jaenelle said. [...] "You and Falonar have decided to go your own ways," Jaenelle said with a patience that made Surreal wary. She shrugged. "It was a mutual decision." The bastard. "Uh-huh. So you packed your bags..." "It was his eyrie," Surreal cut in. "I certainly didn't want to live there." And I didn't want to watch him courting Nurian in ways he never thought to court me. "...and left Ebon Rih without telling Lucivar." "Who would have strung Falonar up by the heels"... or by the balls, which might have been interesting to watch... "before having a little chat." "No," Jaenelle said, "he would have waited for Chaosti to show up, and then he would have strung Falonar up by the heels." She paused. "Maybe by the heels." Which just confirmed why Surreal had slipped away from Ebon Rih before Lucivar had time to notice. As the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih dealing with a Warlord Prince who was his second-in-command, Lucivar would have been nasty and explosive. Chaosti, the Warlord Prince of the Dea al Mon and a kinsman on her mother's side, would have approached Falonar with the protective viciousness that made Warlord Princes such a deadly facet of Blood society. Dealing with the male relatives she'd acquired since coming to Kaeleer was so much fun. "And you entered the Hall through one of the side doors to avoid seeing Daemon, who's working in his study and would have met you before you got out of the great hall." Feeling more wary by the minute, Surreal did her best to look indifferent. "No reason for him to get involved in this." Sweet Darkness, please don't let him think this is any business of his. "Besides, I don't need either of them getting all snarly and protective over something that was a mutual decision." "So instead of mentioning this to either of them, you went to the Keep and told Saetan." Surreal winced. "Well, I figured I should tell someone before leaving Ebon Rih." "Uh-huh. So you told the High Lord of Hell, the patriarch of this family, the man from whom Daemon and Lucivar inherited the temper you were trying to avoid." Jaenelle pushed the quilt aside and swung her legs over the side of the couch to sit up straight. "Did I miss something ?

Poor is relative, of course. None of you were rich or had any dreams of being rich or even knew anyone rich. But the widest gulf in the world is the distance between getting by and not quite getting by. Crossing that gap can happen in a hundred ways, almost all by accident. Bad day at work and/or kid has a fever and/or miss the bus and consequently ten minutes late to the audition which equals you don’t get to play the part of Background Oriental with Downtrodden Face. Which equals, stretch the dollar that week, boil chicken bones twice for a watery soup, make the bottom of the bag of rice last another dinner or three.

Let's face it, we all got issues. Most of the time we can deal with our own overstuffed luggage, but every once in a while a few marbles bust out of the bag, go rolling down the aisle, and we got no choice but to chase after them. Chasing after our lost marbles is like an out-of-body experience. For a while it's like we become somebody else—someone we don't recognize. It scares us and gives us new and bigger headaches...They got shrinks to analyze why we do weird crap. Sometimes they tell us it's all because of our parents, which makes us happy, because we all want to blame our parents for everything, right?...No one ever seems to take responsibility themselves—because if we don't blame it on our parents, or the devil, or the government, or the freaking position of Venus in relation to Mars, then we're still left with that big ugly 'why?' Most of the time we know for sure what we did, when we did it, and where it happened. Which means we're not playing Boggle anymore; now it's Clue. But does anyone ask why Colonel Mustard killed Professor Plum with the lead pipe in the ballroom? No. When we look at our own lead pipes and ask ourselves why, the answer never really comes, so we find someone or something to blame, because 'I don't know' is not an acceptable answer.

Well, we can’t have someone pick up the trash. You’ll have tuh wait ’til next week. Typically, as long as everything is bagged up properly, the weight rules are ignored, but you can’t have un-bagged and unboxed materials just lying about. It is dangerous for our workers, Ms. Chambers.” “Yes, Lord knows the dangers and perils to sanitation workers here in Westchester County is high! All over the worldwide news, they interrupt tales of muggings, gang related violence, and grisly murders to break out with stories about a hangnail one of your sanitation engineers received out here on the mean, dangerous streets of Larchmont Manor. It’s merciless mayhem, I tell ya!

One article on reproductive strategies was titled "Sneaky Fuckers." Kya laughed. As is well known, the article began, in nature, usually the males with the most prominent secondary sexual characteristics, such as the biggest antlers, deepest voices, broadest chests, and superior knowledge secure the best territories because they have fended off weaker males. The females choose to mate with these imposing alphas and are thereby inseminated with the best DNA around, which is passed on to the female's offspring- one of the most powerful phenomena in the adaptation and continuance of life. Plus, the females get the best territory for their young. However, some stunted males, not strong, adorned, or smart enough to hold good territories, possess bags of tricks to fool the females. They parade their smaller forms around in pumped-up postures or shout frequently- even if in shrill voices. By relying on pretense and false signals, they manage to grab a copulation here or there. Pint-sized male bullfrogs, the author wrote, hunker down in the grass and hide near an alpha male who is croaking with great gusto to call in mates. When several females are attracted to his strong vocals at the same time, and the alpha is busy copulating with one, the weaker male leaps in and mates one of the others. The imposter males were referred to as "sneaky fuckers." Kya remembered, those many years ago, Ma warning her older sisters about young men who overrevved their rusted-out pickups or drove jalopies around with radios blaring. "Unworthy boys make a lot of noise," Ma had said. She read a consolation for females. Nature is audacious enough to ensure that the males who send out dishonest signals or go from one female to the next almost always end up alone. Another article delved into the wild rivalries between sperm. Across most life-forms, males compete to inseminate females. Male lions occasionally fight to the death; rival bull elephants lock tusks and demolish the ground beneath their feet as they tear at each other's flesh. Though very ritualized, the conflicts can still end in mutilations. To avoid such injuries, inseminators of some species compete in less violent, more creative methods. Insects, the most imaginative. The penis of the male damselfly is equipped with a small scoop, which removes sperm ejected by a previous opponent before he supplies his own. Kya dropped the journal on her lap, her mind drifting with the clouds. Some female insects eat their mates, overstressed mammal mothers abandon their young, many males design risky or shifty ways to outsperm their competitors. Nothing seemed too indecorous as long as the tick and the tock of life carried on. She knew this was not a dark side to Nature, just inventive ways to endure against all odds. Surely for humans there was more.

The sheriff's job was not an easy one, and that county which, out of the grab bag of popular elections, pulled a good sheriff was lucky. It was a complicated position. The obvious duties of the sheriff - enforcing the law and keeping the peace - were far from the most important ones. It was true that the sheriff represented armed force in the county, but in a community seething with individuals a harsh or stupid sheriff did not last long. There were water rights, boundary disputes, astray arguments, domestic relations, paternity matters - All to be settled without force of arms. Only when everything else failed did a good sheriff make an arrest. The best sheriff was not the best fighter but the best diplomat.

But he admired—how could you not?—the collective amount of labor, real labor, that his trainmates had no doubt accomplished that day. And yet instead of feeling ashamed of his relative indolence, he was relieved. The only other person he had ever discussed this sensation with, however elliptically, was Asian Henry Young. They had been riding out to Long Island City—it had been Henry who’d found him space in the studio, actually—when a Chinese man, slight and tendony and carrying a persimmon-red plastic bag that sagged heavily from the crook of the last joint of his right index finger, as if he had no strength or will left to carry it any more declaratively, stepped on and slumped into the seat across from them, crossing his legs and folding his arms around himself and falling asleep at once.

We've taken it away too much, the funeral people take over. No. Let people bury their own." "Do you think it helps people to go through the process and be intimately involved?" "Yes of course, of course!" It's the most emphatic Steve has been about anything. "Keep the body at home, put it on the dining table, let the kids sleep under the table, paint the coffin, decorate it, eat. When my brother died we had fights over the coffin drinking whiskey. I remember one brother pounding Bill's coffin 'Oh you bastard!' It was our lives. We carried the coffin, we filled in the hole. I used to work in the garden as a boy with my father. And I dug the hole to put his plants in and filled in the hole. In the end we put Dad into the ground and I helped my brothers fill in the hole. We need to do it ourselves." "Why do you think it helps to have that involvement?" "It's our responsibility, it's not to help, it's enabling us to grieve, it's enabling us to go through it together. Otherwise it's taken away and whoosh - it's gone. And you can't grieve. You've got to feel, you've got to touch, you've got to be there." Steve is passionate. He reaches into his bag to pull out something to show me. It's an old yellowing newspaper clipping. The caption reads 'Devastation: a woman in despair at the site of the blasts near the Turkey-Syrian border'. The photograph is a woman, she has her arms open to the sky and she is wailing, her head thrown back. "I pray in front of that" Steve tells me as I look at it. "That's a wonderful photo of the pain of our world. I don't know if she's lost relatives or what's blown up. You have a substance to your life if you've felt pain, you've got understanding, that's where compassion is, it makes you a deeper richer human being.

He was fat. He was not very good looking. He didn’t play up to the press. But he tried. Boy did he try. I could still see him stretching from first to third on a single to center and belly-whopping into the bag, invariably safe. I related to Thurman. I had been a catcher in Little League, I was chunky, I played tough, and I too was pretty ugly. I always took Thurm’s side in arguments, and somehow I could feel what he was going through in that Yankee dugout, sensing his fear and dislike for Reggie (Jackson). I understood Thurman Munson’s terribly private ordeal, trying to simply play ball without wanting to be on the cover of a magazine, avoiding the fanfare in a town that breathes glamour and ignores dedication. His death signifies to me how difficult life really is, how hard it is to do what you want, to love and maintain your family and still do your job. The American dream drags onward….

In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie With the plastic eyeballs, spray paint the vegetables Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose Kill the headlights and put it in neutral Stock car flamin' with a loser in the cruise control Baby's in Reno with the Vitamin D Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love seat Someone came in sayin' I'm insane to complain About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt Don't believe everything that you breathe You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve So shave your face with some mace in the dark Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park Yo, cut it Soy un perdedor I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me? (Double barrel buckshot) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? Forces of evil on a bozo nightmare Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber 'Cause one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job The daytime crap of the folksinger slob He hung himself with a guitar string A slab of turkey neck and it's hangin' from a pigeon wing You can't write if you can't relate Trade the cash for the beef, for the body, for the hate And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite That's chokin' on the splinters Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? (Get crazy with the cheese whiz) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? (Drive-by body pierce) Yo, bring it on down I'm a driver, I'm a winner Things are gonna change, I can feel it Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? (I can't believe you) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? (Sprechen sie Deutsche, baby) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me? (Know what I'm sayin'?)

Trauma symptoms themselves can become drivers of cycles of violence. Hyper-vigilance exxagerates survivors' sense of threat-so that a minimal threat can legitimately feel like a substantial and potentially even life-threatening one. How endangered one feels depends in part on the baseline of danger that exists. So for survivors who are hurt in the context of relative safety, their exaggerated sense of danger may result in simple self-protective actions like crossing the street when they get a bad feeling about someone approaching, holding their keys as they approach their apartment, or carrying pepper spray in their bag. For people who live where there is a more widespread, regular threat of violence, where day in and day out, they are making decisions that will affect whether or not they get home safe and alive, perceiving threats as more immediate than they are may mean that the self-protective actions people choose are graver. Not all survivors cope in this way, but many do.

Some addictions are clear. The homeless woman with the fresh track marks over years of scars. The man who loses his home and car to gambling debts and now is hiding from dangerous creditors. Some addictions are softer, easier to engage in and still get up and function every day. Those of us who take out a bag of chips or tray of muffins after a tough day. Or go shoe shopping for our 8th pair of black sandals that we are never going to wear. There are addictions that excuse us from society altogether, those that keep us barely afloat within it, and those that become a barrier between us and the rest of the world. It’s only a matter of degree, in the end. How do we define when we cross over into addiction territory? As a relationally-trained therapist, my answer is a simple one. When our addiction becomes our primary relationship. Maybe not in our hearts and heads. But in our behaviors, definitely. When we don’t have control over our addictions, we are spending time, resources, and energy on the addiction instead of the people we love. And instead of, let’s face it…ourselves.

And then now a very strange argument indeed ensues, me v. the Lebanese porter, because it turns out I am putting this guy, who barely speaks English, in a terrible kind of sedulous-service double-bind, a paradox of pampering: viz. the The-Passenger’s-Always-Right-versus-Never-Let-A-Passenger-Carry-His-Own-Bag paradox. Clueless at the time about what this poor little Lebanese man is going through, I wave off both his high-pitched protests and his agonized expression as mere servile courtesy, and I extract the duffel and lug it up the hall to 1009 and slather the old beak with ZnO and go outside to watch the coast of Florida recede cinematically à la F. Conroy. Only later did I understand what I’d done. Only later did I learn that that little Lebanese Deck 10 porter had his head just about chewed off by the (also Lebanese) Deck 10 Head Porter, who’d had his own head chewed off by the Austrian Chief Steward, who’d received confirmed reports that a Deck 10 passenger had been seen carrying his own luggage up the Port hallway of Deck 10 and now demanded rolling Lebanese heads for this clear indication of porterly dereliction, and had reported (the Austrian Chief Steward did) the incident (as is apparently SOP) to an officer in the Guest Relations Dept., a Greek officer with Revo shades and a walkie-talkie and officerial epaulets so complex I never did figure out what his rank was; and this high-ranking Greek guy actually came around to 1009 after Saturday’s supper to apologize on behalf of practically the entire Chandris shipping line and to assure me that ragged-necked Lebanese heads were even at that moment rolling down various corridors in piacular recompense for my having had to carry my own bag. And even though this Greek officer’s English was in lots of ways better than mine, it took me no less than ten minutes to express my own horror and to claim responsibility and to detail the double-bind I’d put the porter in—brandishing at relevant moments the actual tube of ZnO that had caused the whole snafu—ten or more minutes before I could get enough of a promise from the Greek officer that various chewed-off heads would be reattached and employee records unbesmirched to feel comfortable enough to allow the officer to leave; 42 and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-fraught and filled almost a whole Mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psychoskeletal outline.

Most of us will. We’ll choose knowledge no matter what, we’ll maim ourselves in the process, we’ll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive: love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We’ll spy relentlessly on the dead: we’ll open their letters, we’ll read their journals, we’ll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us—who’ve left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we’d supposed. But what about those who plant such clues, for us to stumble on? Why do they bother? Egotism? Pity? Revenge? A simple claim to existence, like scribbling your initials on a washroom wall? The combination of presence and anonymity—confession without penance, truth without consequences—it has its attractions. Getting the blood off your hands, one way or another. Those who leave such evidence can scarcely complain if strangers come along afterwards and poke their noses into every single thing that would once have been none of their business. And not only strangers: lovers, friends, relations. We’re voyeurs, all of us. Why should we assume that anything in the past is ours for the taking, simply because we’ve found it? We’re all grave robbers, once we open the doors locked by others. But only locked. The rooms and their contents have been left intact. If those leaving them had wanted oblivion, there was always fire.

Sweet to me your voice, said Caolcrodha Mac Morna, brother to sweet-worded sweet-toothed Goll from Sliabh Riabhach and Brosnacha Bladhma, relate then the attributes that are to Finn's people. [...] I will relate, said Finn. Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn's people through the bogs and the marsh-swamps of Erin with two odorous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted of Finn's people. For five days he must sit on the brow of a cold hill with twelve-pointed stag-antlers hidden in his seat, without food or music or chessmen. If he cry out or eat grass-stalks or desist from the constant recital of sweet poetry and melodious Irish, he is not taken but is wounded. When pursued by a host, he must stick a spear in the world and hide behind it and vanish in its narrow shelter or he is not taken for want of sorcery. Likewise he must hide beneath a twig, or behind a dried leaf, or under a red stone, or vanish at full speed into the seat of his hempen drawers without changing his course or abating his pace or angering the men of Erin. Two young fosterlings he must carry under the armpits to his jacket through the whole of Erin, and six arm-bearing warriors in his seat together. If he be delivered of a warrior or a blue spear, he is not taken. One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men of Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. He must swiftly milk a fat cow and carry milk-pail and cow for twenty years in the seat of his drawers. When pursued in a chariot by the men of Erin he must dismount, place horse and chariot in the slack of his seat and hide behind his spear, the same being stuck upright in Erin. Unless he accomplishes these feats, he is not wanted of Finn. But if he do them all and be skilful, he is of Finn's people.

To the Po'lice In case you are wondering the answer is yes: you have hurt us. Deeply. Just as you intended: you and those who sent you. You do know by now that you do not send yourself? I imagine your Designers sitting back in the shadows laughing as we weep. Though usually devoid of feeling, they are experiencing a sensation they almost enjoy: they get to witness, by twisted enchantment, dozens of strong black mothers weeping. They planned and nurtured your hatred and fear and focused the kill shot. Then watched you try to explain your innocence on TV. It is entertainment for them. They chuckle and drink Watching you squirm. They have tied you up in a bag of confusion from which you will never escape. It’s true you are white, but you are so fucking poor, and dumb, to boot, they say. A consideration that turns them pink with glee. (They have so many uses planned for the poor, white, and dumb: you would be amazed). You and the weeping mothers have more in common than you might think: the mothers know this. They have known you far longer than you have known them. After centuries, even those in the shadows, your masters, offer little mystery. If you could find your true courage you might risk everything to sit within a circle, surrounded by these women. Their eyes red from weeping, their throats raw. (They might strike you too, who could swear they wouldn’t?) Their sons are dead and it was you who did the deed. Scary enough. But within that enclosure Naked to their grief Is where you must center If you are ever To be freed.

I was 18 wen I started driving I was 18 the first time I was pulled over. It was 2 AM on a Saturday The officer spilled his lights all over my rearview mirror, he splashed out of the car with his hand already on his weapon, and looked at me the way a tsunami looks at a beach house. Immediately, I could tell he was the kind of man who brings a gun to a food fight. He called me son and I thought to myself, that's an interesting way of pronouncing "boy," He asks for my license and registration, wants to know what I'm doing in this nieghborhood, if the car is stolen, if I have any drugs and most days, I know how to grab my voice by the handle and swing it like a hammer. But instead, I picked it up like a shard of glass. Scared of what might happen if I didn't hold it carefully because I know that this much melanin and that uniform is a plotline to a film that can easily end with a chalk outline baptism, me trying to make a body bag look stylish for the camera and becoming the newest coat in a closet full of RIP hashtags. Once, a friend of a friend asked me why there aren't more black people in the X Games and I said, "You don't get it." Being black is one of the most extreme sports in America. We don't need to invent new ways of risking our lives because the old ones have been working for decades. Jim Crow may have left the nest, but our streets are still covered with its feathers. Being black in America is knowing there's a thin line between a traffic stop and the cemetery, it's the way my body tenses up when I hear a police siren in a song, it's the quiver in my stomach when a cop car is behind me, it's the sigh of relief when I turn right and he doesn't. I don't need to go volcano surfing. Hell, I have an adrenaline rush every time an officer drives right past without pulling me over and I realize I'm going to make it home safe. This time.

FASCIA: THE TIES THAT BIND Imagine a collagen-rich, stretchy slipcover for every organ, nerve, bone, and muscle in our bodies, and you start to get a sense of how fundamental connective tissue—specifically fascia—is to the entire body. Suspending our organs inside our torso, connecting our head to our back to our feet, fascia protects, supports, and literally binds our body together. Fascia can be gossamer-thin and translucent, like a spider web, or thick and tough like rope. Ounce for ounce, fascia is stronger than steel. Other specialized types of connective tissue include bones, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and fat (adipose) tissue. Even blood, strictly speaking, is considered connective tissue. But to me, the most exciting aspect of the latest research on connective tissue relates to fascia. Fascia is the stretchy tissue that forms an uninterrupted, three-dimensional web within our body. Our body has sheets, bags, and strings of fascia of varying thickness and size, some superficial and some deep. Fascia envelops both individual microscopic muscle filaments as well as whole muscle groups, such as the trapezius, pectorals, and quadriceps. For example, one of the largest fascia configurations in the body is known as the “trousers,” a massive sheet of fascia that crosses over the knees and ends near the waist, giving the appearance of short leggings. This fascia trouser is thicker around the knees and thinner as it continues up the legs and over the hips, thickening again near the waist. When the fascia trouser is healthy, supple, and resilient, it acts like a girdle, giving the body a firm shape. Fascia helps muscles transmit their force so we can convert that force into movement. The system of fascia is bound by tensile links (think of the structure of a geodesic dome, like the one at Epcot in Disney World), with space and fluid between the links that can help absorb external pressure and more evenly distribute force across the fascial structure. This allows our bodies to withstand tremendous force instead of absorbing it in one local area, which would lead to increased pain and injury. Fascia is also a second nervous system in and of itself, with almost 10 times the number of sensory nerve endings as muscle. Helene Langevin, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has done landmark studies on the function and importance of connective tissue and its impact on pain. One of the leading researchers in the field today, Langevin describes fascia as a “living matrix” whose health is essential to our well-being.

No, she couldn’t blame this one on him. This one was entirely hers. She’d sent him running away. Everyone knew it, too, which was nowhere more apparent than in the carriage once they were all settled in and headed off. Lisette was unusually silent. The duke’s wooden expression said that he wished he could be anywhere else but here. And Tristan was studying her with a cold gaze. He did that for a mile or so before he spoke. “You’re a cruel woman, Jane Vernon.” “Tristan!” Lisette chided. “Don’t be rude.” “I’ll be as rude as I please to her,” he told his sister, with a jerk of his head toward Jane. “That man is mad for her, and she just keeps toying with him.” Guilt swamped Jane. And she’d thought that spending half a day trapped with Dom would be bad? She must have been dreaming. “It’s none of our concern,” Lisette murmured. “The hell it isn’t.” Tristan stared hard at Jane. “Is this about Nancy? About the fact that if she has a child, Dom will lose the title and the estate?” “No, of course not!” How dared he! “Tristan, please--” Lisette began. “That’s why you jilted him years ago, isn’t it?” Tristan persisted. “Because he no longer had any money, and you’d lose your fortune if you married him?” “I did not jilt him!” Jane shouted. An unnatural silence fell in the carriage, and she cursed her quick tongue. But really, this was all Dom’s fault for never telling his family the truth. She was tired of being made to look the villainess when she’d done nothing wrong. “What do you mean?” Lisette asked. Jane released an exasperated breath. “I mean, I did jilt him. But only because he tricked me into it.” When that brought a smug smile to Tristan’s face, she narrowed her eyes on him. “You knew.” “Not the details. I just knew something wasn’t right. But since it was clear that neither you nor my idiot brother were going to say anything without being prodded into it, I…er…did a bit of prodding.” He smirked at her. “You do tend to speak your mind when you get angry.” Jane scowled at him. “You’re just like him, manipulative and arrogant and--” “I beg to differ,” Tristan said jovially. “He’s just like me. I taught him everything he knows.” “Yes, indeed,” Lisette said with a snort. “You taught him to be as much an idiot as you.” She glanced from Tristan to Jane. “So, is one of you going to tell me what is going on? About the jilting, I mean?” Tristan cocked an eyebrow at Jane. “Well?” She sighed. The cat was out of the bag now. Might as well reveal the rest. So she related the whole tale, from Dom’s plotting with Nancy at the ball to George’s involvement to how she’d finally discovered the truth. When she finished, Tristan let out a low whistle. “Hell and thunder. My big brother has a better talent for deception than I realized.” “Not as good as you’d think,” Jane muttered. “If I hadn’t been so wounded and angry at the time, I would have noticed how…manufactured the whole thing felt.” Lisette patted her hand. “You were young. We were all more volatile then.” Her voice hardened. “And he hit you just where it hurt, the curst devil. No wonder you want to strangle him half the time. I would have strung him up by his toes if he’d done such a thing to me!

My darling son: depression at your age is more common than you might think. I remember it very strongly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when I was about twenty-six and felt like killing myself. I think the winter, the cold, the lack of sunshine, for us tropical creatures, is a trigger. And to tell you the truth, the idea that you might soon unpack your bags here, having chucked in all your European plans, makes your mother and me as happy as could be. You have more than earned the equivalent of any university 'degree' and you have used your time so well to educate yourself culturally and personally that if university bores you, it is only natural. Whatever you do from here on in, whether you write or don't write, whether you get a degree or not, whether you work for your mother, or at El Mundo, or at La Ines, or teaching at a high school, or giving lectures like Estanislao Zuleta, or as a psychoanalyst to your parents, sisters and relatives, or simply being Hector Abad Faciolince, will be fine. What matters is that you don't stop being what you have been up till now, a person, who simply by virtue of being the way you are, not for what you write or don't write, or for being brilliant or prominent, but just for being the way you are, has earned the affection, the respect, the acceptance, the trust, the love, of the vast majority of those who know you. So we want to keep seeing you in this way, not as a future great author, or journalist or communicator or professor or poet, but as the son, brother, relative, friend, humanist, who understands others and does not aspire to be understood. It does not matter what people think of you, and gaudy decoration doesn't matter, for those of us who know you are. For goodness' sake, dear Quinquin, how can you think 'we support you (...) because 'that boy could go far'? You have already gone very far, further than all our dreams, better than everything we imagined for any of our children. You should know very well that your mother's and my ambitions are not for glory, or for money, or even for happiness, that word that sounds so pretty but is attained so infrequently and for such short intervals (and maybe for that very reason is so valued), for all our children, but that they might at least achieve well-being, that more solid, more durable, more possible, more attainable word. We have often talked of the anguish of Carlos Castro Saavedra, Manuel Meija Vallejo, Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, and so many quasi-geniuses we know. Or Sabato or Rulfo, or even Garcia Marquez. That does not matter. Remember Goethe: 'All theory (I would add, and all art), dear friend, is grey, but only the golden tree of life springs ever green.' What we want for you is to 'live'. And living means many better things than being famous, gaining qualifications or winning prizes. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. Only now, when all that has passed, have I felt really happy. And part of that happiness is Cecilia, you, and all my children and grandchildren. Only the memory of Marta Cecilia tarnishes it. I believe things are that simple, after having gone round and round in circles, complicating them so much. We should do away with this love for things as ethereal as fame, glory, success... Well, my Quinquin, now you know what I think of you and your future. There's no need for you to worry. You are doing just fine and you'll do better, and when you get to my age or your grandfather's age and you can enjoy the scenery around La Ines that I intend to leave to all of you, with the sunshine, heat and lush greenery, and you'll see I was right. Don't stay there longer than you feel you can. If you want to come back I'll welcome you with open arms. And if you regret it and want to go back again, we can buy you another return flight. A kiss from your father.

Crow?” I leaned against the counter. He took a deep breath. “Yes, but not River or Mountain Band. He is something else.” I pointed toward the moccasins. “The bead pattern is one I’ve never seen; it’s geometric, but not the Crow that I know.” He knelt by the bars and examined the medicine bag and moccasins, though I noticed he touched neither, and nodded. “Kicked-in-the-Belly.” I waited a moment. “You mind telling a heathen devil white man what that is?” He pivoted and sat on the floor with his back to the cell, which Dog took as an invitation and joined him. “Eelalapi’io, a shunned band, one of thirteen exogamous maternal clans; fourth clan, grouped with ackya’pkawi’a, or Bad War Honors. ” I watched as he thought about it, first categorizing the information and then translating it so that it would be relatable to me linguistically and culturally. “Seventeen-twenty-seven, or thereabouts, there was a Crow war party led by Young White Buffalo that raided the Fat River country and came back with a very strange animal. This animal was as large as the elk but with rounded hooves, a long tail, and mane; it had no antlers, and the tribe was very interested in this new thing. A brave got too close to the

Well, for a century, our takeover of your kingdom has been inevitable. You should have acclimated yourselves to the idea by now.” “You’re right. This is our fault, really. We’ve never been superb at preparation here in Hytanica.” Saadi shrugged, and I thought for one stunned moment that he had taken my statements to be sincere. Then his expression changed, and he looked at me with what appeared to be sympathy, perhaps even regret. “I do understand it, Shaselle. Being second tier, overrun, overlooked. Not having influence.” It disturbed me that he not only remembered my relation to Cannan and Steldor, but also my name. Yet I did not flee. “You have to take what you’re handed and make what you can of it,” he finished. “That’s the sorry truth.” “I plan to make them pay,” I snarled, hating his words and how similar they were to the message Queen Alera had been trying to send for weeks. “Them? What about me?” “Stop it!” I stamped my foot, not even sure what was upsetting me. “You killed my father!” “And you want revenge. Naturally. Just like the butcher in there. But the problem is, Shaselle, revenge isn’t a very satisfying goal. It eats away at you, destroys you from the inside out. You end up bitter and empty just like that butcher. And that’s not a pretty sight.” “What is wrong with you? You think you know everything about me! You don’t. Stay out of my way and out of my business.” I spun on my heel and began to stride away, but he called me back. “Don’t you want this?” I turned to see that he was still holding my canvas bag filled with fruit. I breathed in and out heavily, my stomach complaining, my pride aching just as much. “So far, it’s been you who’s getting in my way.” He chuckled. “If you don’t like it, let that uncle of yours catch up with you.” I warily returned to him to reclaim my bag, but he held it away from me for a moment longer. “There is the matter of the damages for the door,” he said, and my heart sank, for lack of money was what had gotten me into this mess in the first place. But before I could speak, he added, “I’ll cover the cost for now. But you’ll owe me.” Annoyed that I would be in his debt, I snatched my bag from his hand, then sprinted in the other direction, his laughter nipping at my heels.

After that they had the presents. Those from the guests to the hosts were chiefly a disguised dole: tins or pots of more or less luxurious food, bottles of hard liquor, wide-spectrum gift tokens. Hosts showered guests with diversely unwearable articles of clothing: to Keith from Adela, a striped necktie useful for garroting underbred rivals in his trade; to Tracy from George, a liberation-front lesbian's plastic apron. Under a largely unspoken kind of non-aggression pact, the guests gave one another things like small boxes of chocolates or very large boxes of matches with (say) aerial panoramas of Manhattan on their outsides and containing actual matches each long enough, once struck, to kindle the cigarettes of (say) the entire crew of a fair-sized merchant vessel, given the assembly of that crew in some relatively confined space. Intramural gifts included a bathroom sponge, a set of saucepans, a cushion in a lop-sided cover, a photograph-frame wrought by some vanished hand and with no photographs in it, an embroidered knitting bag. Keith watched carefully what Bernard gave, half expecting a chestnut-coloured wig destined for Adela, or a lavishly-illustrated book on karate for George, but was disappointed, although he savored Bernard's impersonation of a man going all out to hide his despondency as he took the wrappings off present after useless, insultingly cheap, no doubt intended to be facetious, present.

History shows that lots of shit happens to Polish boys when they are in seventh grade. I do not know why, but that is not my job. My job is saying what. The shit that happens to us Polish boys is casually related to the bags under our eyes.

I walked to the Tube station and got on the train. I was meeting a man for dinner, someone I barely knew. He had got my number from a mutual friend. When I arrived at the restaurant he was already there, waiting. He was reading a book, which he relaxed in his bag before I could see the title. He asked me how I was and I found myself saying that I was very tired, to the extent that I might not have all that much to say for myself. He looked a little disappointed at this news, and asked if I wanted to hang up my coat. I said I would keep it on: I felt cold. There were builders in my house, I added. The doors and windows were constantly open and the heating had been turned off. The house had become like a tomb, a place of dust and chill. It was impossible to eat or sleep or work – there wasn’t even anywhere to sit down. Everywhere I looked I saw skeletons, the skeletons of walls and floors, so that the house felt unshielded, permeable, as though all the things those walls and floors ought normally to keep out were free to enter. I had to go into debt to finance the work – a debt I had no immediate prospect of being able to repay – and so even when it was done I wasn’t sure I would feel entirely comfortable there. My children, I added, were away. I told him the story of the Saluki dogs following the hawk: my current awareness of my children, I said, was similarly acute and gruelling, except that I was trying to keep sight of them on my own. On top of that, I said, there was something in the basement, something that took the form of two people, though I would hesitate to give their names to it. It was more of a force, a power of elemental negativity that seemed somehow related to the power to create. Their hatred of me was so pure, I said, that it almost passed back into love again.

Get Relational 15 MIN 1. While holding hands or cuddling, spend several minutes telling each other the qualities you enjoy about your partner. Be sure to look into your lover’s eyes and try to include moments you observed these qualities in action. 5 MIN EXAMPLE: I really like how generous and thoughtful you are. Just today you surprised me with my favorite bag of coffee beans that you know I love! 2. Notice how you feel when giving and receiving appreciation. Talk about what you notice as you practiced the previous step. 3 MIN 3. Take some time kissing like you did when you were first married. 2 MIN HINT: You may want to brush your teeth first if you had onions or garlic for lunch. 4. Close with several minutes of quiet cuddling and resting together. 5 MIN

There was a bite in the breeze as Raven climbed from the carriage and hefted his bags down to the pavement. Late autumn in Edinburgh. He permitted himself a wry smile at its chilly embrace, like a welcome home from a relative with a grudge.

-How many stories do you have to tell? - Stories? What do you mean? -How many amusing or exciting anecdotes have you lived that you'd be able to relate during an evening with friends? - I dunno. Maybe five or six. Less than ten, anyway. Why? -It's been eating at me. Claire wanted to do so much... Travel, experience news things. All I wanted was to stay home and watch tv. She told me she was bored and i'm sure she was. My life isn't exactly a thrill a minute. - In others words, what you're saying is, whoever dies with the most anecdotes, wins? Is that it? -Well, no, but if you've got a bagful of stories it means you've led a rich life, and I'm way behind on that count. - okay, but consider Hemingway. He expierenced life to the hilt, he traveled and lived all over the world, but he blew his brains out. How do you account for that? -I dunno. I guess I can't. I was just, y'know, ruminating about life and stuff.

-How many stories do you have to tell? - Stories? What do you mean? -How many amusing or exciting anecdotes have you lived that you'd be able to relate during an evening with friends? - I dunno. Maybe five or six. Less than ten, anyway. Why? -It's been eating at me. Claire wanted to do so much... Travel, experience news things. All I wanted was to stay home and watch tv. She told me she was bored and i'm sure she was. My life isn't exactly a thrill a minute. - In others words, what you're saying is, whoever dies with the most anecdotes, wins? Is that it? -Well, no, but if you've got a bagful of stories it means you've led a rich life, and I'm way behind on that count. - Okay, but consider Hemingway. He expierenced life to the hilt, he traveled and lived all over the world, but he blew his brains out. How do you account for that? -I dunno. I guess I can't. I was just, y'know, ruminating about life and stuff.

As we’ve seen, Math is a grab bag of number-related utility functions, such as Math.max (maximum), Math.min (minimum), and Math.sqrt (square root).

Samantha strolled into the garden and followed the little winding pathway that led through a small orchid garden to a beach shaded by tall palms. Delighted to find the beach relatively empty, Samantha carefully chose a lounge chair with a bright turquoise cushion under a palm tree whose leaves fluttered softly in the breeze. Settling in, she pulled her books and notepad from her bag and set them with her water bottle on the table next to the chair.

Please let me clear this up once and for all: 'Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get' is a quotation of the highest nonsense. Every box of chocolates comes with a handy and clear pictogram relating the shape of the chocolate to its flavour. Also a box of chocolates is always welcome and delicious. Life is in fact like a bag of Revels. You never know what you're going to get, and half of it you won't like.

Autophagy is essential to life. If it shuts down completely, the organism dies. Imagine if you stopped taking out the garbage (or the recycling); your house would soon become uninhabitable. Except instead of trash bags, this cellular cleanup is carried out by specialized organelles called lysosomes, which package up the old proteins and other detritus, including pathogens, and grind them down (via enzymes) for reuse. In addition, the lysosomes also break up and destroy things called aggregates, which are clumps of damaged proteins that accumulate over time. Protein aggregates have been implicated in diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, so getting rid of them is good; impaired autophagy has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease–related pathology and also to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Despite the differences in their ages, I still thought of them as adventurous girls. It never occurred to me that they might be related, that is until I heard Connie refer to Rita as “Mom”?? Now at least I knew their names, but the relationship confused me.… They acted more like friends and equals, than mother and daughter. Didn’t I detect flirtation in Connie’s comments, and didn’t Rita give me the eye? As we walked through this typical small town market, they picked up many more items, “just in case we get snowed in.” I expressed my regret for not being able to help in defraying the ever-increasing cost of the groceries, but it didn’t seem to bother them. “We picked you up and it’s our treat,” Rita explained. “Come on, let’s get going before we get stuck here,” Connie said, with a sound of urgency, to her mother who was still looking around. Picking up two economy-sized bags of potato chips along with some pretzels didn’t impress me as being staples, but to be fair, she did also pick up bacon, eggs, English muffins and a container of milk. Getting back into the car, we turned north again, past where they first picked me up, and then left onto Mountain Street. I knew from the many times that I had come through Camden that Mount Battie was back up here somewhere, but after a short distance of about a mile or so, we turned left again and pulled into the driveway of a big old farmhouse connected to a barn, which looked very much like many other houses in Maine. By this time the snow was coming down in big wet flakes, accumulating fast. It wouldn’t take long before the roads would become totally impassable. I knew that this could become a worse mess than I had anticipated, especially on the back roads. The coastal towns in Maine don’t usually get as cold as the towns in the interior, thus allowing the air to hold more moisture. In turn, they are apt to get more big wet snowflakes that accumulate faster. However, the salt air also melts the snow more rapidly. I seldom had to worry about the weather, but this time I was lucky to have been picked up by these “Oh So Fine Ladies” and was glad that I decided to accept their offer to stay with them.

The second thing is closely related to it: spokespersons for Christ are those who have knowledge that no one else has. That’s why they are the most important people in society. That is because they bring knowledge of what time and eternity are about. They bring knowledge on which people can base their lives. They bring knowledge that can be communicated to others on the basis of experience and reason and Scripture and grace and work and everything else you want to put in the bag.

Staffers entered through the Old Executive Office Building (the Eisenhower Building), and it was a magnet for various and sundry weirdos. A polite, well-dressed, and impeccably groomed guy got in line. No problem. Secret Service checked his bag. A-okay. He chitchatted with the officers. All was normal. Yet the staffer was sockless on one foot. For some reason, he handed an officer the missing sock. “Oh, and I guess I give you this,” he said, shrugging and smiling as if he was hot shit, as if nothing were wrong. “Sure, do,” the officer said, taking the sock. The other officer instinctively drew his sidearm and issued orders: “Keep your hands where I can see them! Hands up!” Next I heard over the radio: “Officers have just apprehended a staffer trying to enter with a pistol!” That sock had a Glock pistol in it. The District of Columbia ranks among the nation’s most anti-gun locations in the country, and this new staffer was blatantly committing dozens of gun-related felonies just by possessing a handgun. He was fired, arrested, and prosecuted. He basically told UD that the rules didn’t apply to him. Idiot! But it takes one to hire one, I was learning. The incident was especially incredible knowing the Clintons’ anti–Second Amendment sentiment. “Beware the Glock in a sock,” we’d say to remind each other to keep an eye on staffers as much as anyone else.

sounded like another language entirely. I felt relieved, momentarily, to be a relatively worldly Lubavitcher, even if I didn’t entirely fit in with the Crown Heights crowd. — Much to my disappointment, Miri was rarely to be seen. Most days she left the apartment around ten in a giddy rush and returned in the early evening with armloads of shopping bags, only to leave again for dinner with her friends. But one morning, when Leah was otherwise engaged, I was finally recruited for shomeres service. We were going to Ratfolvi’s, in Flatbush, to pick up the sheitel that Miri would be required to wear as a married woman. Pulling up to a residential building, we let ourselves into Mrs. Ratfolvi’s wig shop/apartment and sat down in the reception area, where four or five women were chatting away on a damask sofa and chairs. While we waited our turn, I examined the rows of wigs on display: there were various shades of brunette, blonde, and ginger; short, teased bouffants and glamorous, shoulder-length falls; wigs encased in rollers and wigs that were fully styled, needing nothing more than a final shpritz of hair spray. They were set upon Styrofoam heads complete with turned-up noses, high cheekbones, and luscious lips that looked like they could come alive at any moment. I longed to get my hands on a brush and a pair of scissors so that I could create my own visions of tonsorial loveliness. I did this from time to time to my dolls, to my mother’s great irritation, and here was a whole wall of victims. When Miri’s name was called, she plunked herself into the salon chair and pulled the silk scarf off her ponytail. I stood as close as I could without getting in the way. From conversations that I’d overheard between my mother and her sisters, I knew that Mrs. Ratfolvi was considered “the best,” and I was eager to watch her at work. The “rat” in her name had led me to expect someone old and unattractive, but she was actually a nicely put-together middle-aged woman. The receptionist brought over a plastic case about the size of a chubby toddler. In one expert motion, Mrs. Ratfolvi clicked it open, withdrew the fully styled wig on its Styrofoam head

Staffers entered through the Old Executive Office Building (the Eisenhower Building), and it was a magnet for various and sundry weirdos. A polite, well-dressed, and impeccably groomed guy got in line. No problem. Secret Service checked his bag. A-okay. He chitchatted with the officers. All was normal. Yet the staffer was sockless on one foot. For some reason, he handed an officer the missing sock. “Oh, and I guess I give you this,” he said, shrugging and smiling as if he was hot shit, as if nothing were wrong. “Sure, do,” the officer said, taking the sock. The other officer instinctively drew his sidearm and issued orders: “Keep your hands where I can see them! Hands up!” Next I heard over the radio: “Officers have just apprehended a staffer trying to enter with a pistol!” That sock had a Glock pistol in it. The District of Columbia ranks among the nation’s most anti-gun locations in the country, and this new staffer was blatantly committing dozens of gun-related felonies just by possessing a handgun. He was fired, arrested, and prosecuted. He basically told UD that the rules didn’t apply to him. Idiot! But it takes one to hire one, I was learning. The incident was especially incredible knowing the Clintons’ anti–Second Amendment sentiment.

Get all the helpful information related to camping in sand, and enjoy your camping fearlessly. Have a Happy Camping!!

Once irrigation has been accomplished, eyewear is typically not necessary, but the rescuer should still be wearing protective gloves. Remember to wash your hands before and after donning the gloves. Soap, water, and gloves are a tough trio on germs. In the absence of protective gloves, the rescuer may improvise with clean plastic bags over her or his hands. With relatively minor wounds, to prevent sharing germs, the patient may be directed in the management of his or her own wound (including control of blood loss). Contusion Bruises seldom require emergency care, but large bruises benefit from cold, compression, and/or elevation. Substantial bruises should cause you to assess the patient for damage to underlying structures, such as bones and organs. Large bruises should be protected from freezing in extremes of cold because a bruised area will freeze sooner than normal skin. Abrasions Abrasions are the exception to the rule of wound cleaning: You need to scrub within the wound to achieve adequate cleaning. A sterile gauze pad is adequate for scrubbing. Scrubbing may be enhanced by using any soap, but all soap should be carefully rinsed and then irrigated from the wound after scrubbing. Green Soap Sponges are packaged with soap and water already in the sponge, making them useful additions to first-aid kits. It is important to remove all embedded debris not only to reduce the risk of infection but also to prevent subsequent “tattooing” (scarring) of the skin. With a deep abrasion, self-scrubbing is seldom successful due to the high level of pain associated with the exposed nerves. After cleansing, abrasions can be kept moist to avoid desiccation and speed healing with microthin film dressings that can be left in place until healing occurs. Without microthin film dressings, a topical agent, such as an antibiotic ointment, can be applied, followed by a dressing of a sterile gauze pad or a roll of sterile gauze to keep the ointment in place. Tape, an elastic wrap, or some other holder may be used to hold a sterile gauze pad in place. Ideally, gauze dressings should be changed twice a day, or at least once a day, as well as any time the gauze gets wet.

He felt to be two tea bags away from making some progress on the entire situation, and that was a precise calculation. Any caffeine drinker excels in this area of mathematics.

Magic: Belief conjures the Will, becomes the courage, taking its own moral or physical colour. Desire seeks all essential affixes—the only necessity is sincerity. Importance lies in things 'as now'. Flesh exists to be exploited. It is in all things and all things will be through it. All emanations are through the flesh and nothing has reality for us without it. The Soul is ever unknowable because we can only realize by finite form in Time-Space. So, whatever you attribute to the inconceivable is your Ego, as conceived. The mind and its great thought-stream determines everything and permits all things conceivable as possible. This thought-stream refracts illations both from the Soul and from ourselves into our time-sense—images and symbols which inspire us from the inter-relatabilities, and our reactions form our future destiny of good and evil with thought the nexus to all things past and becoming. Whether the gods created us or we created them is of no import except as an expedient. Magic is now a quasi-charlatanism seeking victims: magicians have become coprophagists having the most corrupt collection of gleanings and remnants ever given that name. Too long ago its principles were lost, scattered or vulgarized, the symbols losing parallelism and truth. The doctrine lost pageantry, and the rituals became haphazard—the thing itself without inner meaning. As now, Magic adopts an erotic egocentricism as secret meaning, hence there are no Magicians with any simple thesis of the great inner Truth—only a rag-bag remains of this 'wonder' cult. But, one cannot dismiss modern magicians so easily. Yes and no, there is something in most things and little enough in much, if any. Ability to enact is the denominator of our Truth. All parasitical longing seeks flesh to feed on... whether by magic or otherwise.

It doesn't matter if the compensation scheme is denominated in hundreds of thousands of pounds per week or in bags of potato crisps. It's all a matter of relative worth, because a lot of people either feel, or want to feel that they are more valuable than anyone else.

And George H. W. Bush did it. He delivered the message to Senator Glenn Beall, who then relayed that pressure to his brother George. George Beall donated his papers to Frostburg State University in Maryland. In those records is an official “memo to file” from July 1973, acknowledging the attempted intervention. “With respect to conversations with my brother Glenn,” Beall writes, “the discussions were most superficial and very guarded. He occasionally mentioned to me the names of persons who had been to see him or who had called him with respect to the Baltimore County investigation. Names of persons that I remember him telling me about included Vice President Agnew, [the engineer] Allen Greene [sic] and George Bush….The only specific information that he passed along to me that I can recall related to a complaint that he had heard from Bush to the effect that attorneys in this office were said to be harassing persons who had been questioned by us in the Baltimore County investigation.

Pomona's Feast by Stewart Stafford Home from aggressive begging on November Eve, A horror movie that won't be finished in the background, The pirate's booty or robber's swag is examined. Face in the bag, a cornucopia of scents in the nostrils: Oranges, nuts, burnt popcorn, chocolate, Toffee apples, crisps, Liquorice Allsorts, and Rice Krispie cakes. A smörgåsbord Pomona's feast begins, As a maternal voice advises frugality, To no avail. Noses in the trough, Nothing eaten bears any relation to the thing eaten before or after, Aching gums, jaws, and bellies swiftly ensue. To bed to sleep it off, The next morning, it's déjà vu, The maternal voice again advises eating breakfast first, to no avail. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

Alaska Airlines Reservations Phone Number-+1-855-653-0624 Alaska Airlines Reservations Phone Number Alaska Airlines is considered as a major airline company in the North America region. Headquartered at Seattle, Washington, Alaska is the fifth largest airline in the United States in terms of fleet size and passengers served. Millions of people travel by Alaska Airlines to major cities in the world. The airline company has an extensive circuit of flight network that connects to most of the important cities in the world. If you’re planning to travel by Alaska Airlines, then you would probably need Alaska Airlines reservations phone number to clear off all your doubts and queries related to Alaska Airlines flight booking. Alaska Airlines reservation is one among the highly searched terms in the airline industry. People who intend to travel on a domestic circuit which is within the United States would prefer Alaska Airlines. There are several reasons why you can benefit on air ticket booking with Alaska Airlines. The airline is supposedly offer low cost air tickets to passengers around the world. That is why sometimes it is great to avail the short-haul flights with Alaska Airlines. You will require Alaska Airlines customer care number to book your flight tickets, check for the limitations on checked and carry-on baggage and also to explore the services provided by the airline.Alaska Airlines permits passengers to carry along with 1 carry-on bag plus 1 personal item. For checked baggage, Alaska Airlines charges each one for $25 specifically for the first and second bag and then $75 for each additional bag.

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I'm working on a screenplay, one where God appears with a bag of golf clubs in the apartment of a successful New York public relations executive and says that he wants to kill himself because He's always been a lousy god and He thinks everybody will be better off without Him.

One-Eye scowled at Goblin. “Keep it up, Barf Bag. You’ll be grocery shopping with the turtles.” What the hell did that mean? Some kind of obscure shop talk? But Goblin was as croggled as the rest of us. Grinning, One-Eye resumed gabbling with his relatives.

Don’t worry, no one lives here.” “There aren’t any . . . animals?” Eliza took teeny steps forward, but stood straight as if she didn’t want her apprehension obvious. The attempt was endearing. Thomas couldn’t hide the mirth in his voice when he answered Eliza’s sweet and innocent question, as he reached for the satchel she’d been carrying. “You mean, bears?” “Bears?” Eliza jerked back, her hands at her neck. He winked and stepped closer, removing the bag from her grasp. “Well, there is a family of bears that live here, but not to worry. They are visiting relatives in Providence and won’t be back for another week.” Kitty smiled and giggled from her place along the wall as she took off her cloak, but Eliza still appeared nervous. He

Here’s who it’s okay to share a bed with: Your sister if you’re a girl, your brother if you’re a boy, your mom if you’re a girl, and your dad if you’re under twelve or he’s over ninety. Your best friend. A carpenter you picked up at the key-lime-pie stand in Red Hook. A bellhop you met in the business center of a hotel in Colorado. A Spanish model, a puppy, a kitten, one of those domesticated minigoats. A heating pad. An empty bag of pita chips. The love of your life. Here’s who it’s not okay to share a bed with: Anyone who makes you feel like you’re invading their space. Anyone who tells you that they “just can’t be alone right now.” Anyone who doesn’t make you feel like sharing a bed is the coziest and most sensual activity they could possibly be undertaking (unless, of course, it is one of the aforementioned relatives; in that case, they should act lovingly but also reserved/slightly annoyed). Now, look over at the person beside you. Do they meet these criteria? If not, remove them or remove yourself. You’re better off alone.

But with the Victorian era came a principle which conceived men not as comparatively, but as positively, mean and commonplace. A man of any station was represented as being by nature a dingy and trivial person--a person born, as it were, in a black hat. It began to be thought that it was ridiculous for a man to wear beautiful garments, instead of it being--as, of course, it is--ridiculous for him to deliberately wear ugly ones. It was considered affected for a man to speak bold and heroic words, whereas, of course, it is emotional speech which is natural, and ordinary civil speech which is affected. The whole relations of beauty and ugliness, of dignity and ignominy were turned upside down. Beauty became an extravagance, as if top-hats and umbrellas were not the real extravagance--a landscape from the land of the goblins. Dignity became a form of foolery and shamelessness, as if the very essence of a fool were not a lack of dignity. And the consequence is that it is practically most difficult to propose any decoration or public dignity for modern men without making them laugh. They laugh at the idea of carrying crests and coats-of-arms instead of laughing at their own boots and neckties. We are forbidden to say that tradesmen should have a poetry of their own, although there is nothing so poetical as trade. A grocer should have a coat-of-arms worthy of his strange merchandise gathered from distant and fantastic lands; a postman should have a coat-of-arms capable of expressing the strange honour and responsibility of the man who carries men's souls in a bag; the chemist should have a coat-of-arms symbolizing something of the mysteries of the house of healing, the cavern of a merciful witchcraft. There

12What is considered aggressive is culturally and generationally relative. German shepherds were on the top of the list after World War II; in the 1990s Rottweilers and Dobermans were scorned; the American Staffordshire terrier (also known as the pit bull) is the current bête noire. Their classification has more to do with recent events and public perception than with their intrinsic nature. Recent research found that of all breeds, dachshunds were the most aggressive to both their own owners and to strangers. Perhaps this is underreported because a snarling dachshund can be picked up and stashed away in a tote bag. 13

Later, before we hugged good-bye, I asked my mother if she would mind if I wrote about her. She didn't hesitate a moment. "I don't give a shit. I'm old! I'm tired! I work too much!" The first of these claims is relative, the second hard to believe. In her late sixties, my mother has more energy than most college students I've met. She has more energy than most squirrels I've met. My brother Scott and I have a nickname for her: "Hurricane Marilyn." We use the nickname when we catch sight of her climbing out of her Prius just before a visit to one of our homes. We watch her cross the street, arms flailing, keys and receipts and gifts for the grandchildren spilling from multiple bags, a fast-moving storm front of narration and complaint and anecdote and fervent family affection--a Jewish mother of the first order-- and we shout, "Batten the hatches, everyone! Hurricane Marilyn's about to make landfall!

By April 23, 2014, thirty-four cases and six deaths from Ebola in Liberia were recorded. By mid-June, 16 more people died. At the time it was thought to be malaria but when seven more people died the following month tests showed that was the Ebola virus. The primary reason for the spreading of the Ebola virus was the direct contact from one person to the next and the ingesting of bush meat. Soon doctors and nurses also became infected. On July 2, 2014, the head surgeon of Redemption Hospital was treated at the JFK Medical Center in Monrovia, where he died from the disease. His death was followed by four nurses at Phebe Hospital in Bong County. At about the same time two U.S. health care workers, Dr. Kent Brantly and a nurse were also infected with the disease. However, they were medically evacuated from Liberia to the United States for treatment where they made a full recovery. Another doctor from Uganda was not so lucky and died from the disease. Arik Air suspended all flights between Nigeria and Liberia and checkpoints were set up at all the ports and border crossings. In August of 2014, the impoverished slum area of West Point was cordoned off. Riots ensued as protesters turned violent. The looting of a clinic of its supplies, including blood-stained bed sheets and mattresses caused the military to shoot into the crowds. Still more patients became infected, causing a shortage of staff and logistics. By September there had been a total of 3,458 cases of which there were 1,830 deaths according to the World Health Organization. Hospitals and clinics could no longer handle this crisis and patients who were treated outside died before they could get help. There were cases where the bodies were just dumped into the Mesurado River. The Ivory Coast out of compassion, opened carefully restricted humanitarian routes and resumed the previously suspended flights to Liberia. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf the president of Libera sent a letter to President Barack Obama concerning the outbreak of Ebola that was on the verge of overrunning her country. The message was desperate, “I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us.” Having been a former finance minister and World Bank official, Johnson Sirleaf was not one for histrionics however she recognized the pandemic as extremely dangerous. The United States responded to her request and American troops came in and opened a new 60-bed clinic in the Sierra Leone town of Kenema, but by then the outbreak was described as being out of control. Still not understanding the dangerous contagious aspects of this epidemic at least eight Liberian soldiers died after contracting the disease from a single female camp follower. In spite of being a relatively poor country, Cuba is one of the most committed in deploying doctors to crisis zones. It sent more than 460 Cuban doctors and nurses to West Africa. In October Germany sent medical supplies and later that month a hundred additional U.S. troops arrived in Liberia, bringing the total to 565 to assist in the fight against the deadly disease. To understand the severity of the disease, a supply order was placed on October 15th for a 6 month supply of 80,000 body bags and 1 million protective suits. At that time it was reported that 223 health care workers had been infected with Ebola, and 103 of them had died in Liberia. Fear of the disease also slowed down the functioning of the Liberian government. President Sirleaf, had in an emergency announcement informed absent government ministers and civil service leaders to return to their duties. She fired 10 government officials, including deputy ministers in the central government who failed to return to work.

Late on March 17, 1959, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama changed out of his customary maroon robes into khaki pants and a long black coat. Knowing he could carry little, he hastily rolled up a favorite thangka of the Second Dalai Lama and slid it into a small bag. With this in hand, he slipped out the main gates of the Norbulinka Palace under the cover of darkness. Several trusted officials whisked him through the crowds, which had gathered there in an attempt to protect their revered leader, and down to the banks of the Kyichu River where several small coracles awaited to row him and his small group across the river. Early the next morning, having reached the 16,000-foot Che-la Pass overlooking the Lhasa valley, he paused, turned, and cast a long last glance over the Tibetan capital. Implored to hurry by his small guard unit, he quickly began the descent and his march south to the Indian border.1 It would be the last time he would see his city.

In spite of being a relatively poor country, Cuba is one of the most committed in deploying doctors to crisis zones. It sent more than 460 Cuban doctors and nurses to West Africa. In October, Germany sent medical supplies, and later that month a hundred additional U.S. troops arrived in Liberia, bringing the total to 565 to assist in the fight against the deadly disease. To understand the severity of the disease, a supply order was placed on October 15th for a 6-month supply of 80,000 body bags and 1 million protective suits. At that time it was reported that 223 health care workers had been infected with Ebola, and 103 of them had died in Liberia.

Nate was sitting in the relative dark of the room, doors open, the long gauzy sheers floating in the wind. He peripherally registered movement on the lawn. It was Dominika, holding a small case in her hand. She had somehow gotten through the gate and come around the side of the house. Two hours early. Nate dis not move, watching her through the French doors. She faced the water, dropped her bag, shook out her hair in the breeze, and looked at a freighter thrumming down the channel. She lifted one foot, then the other, slipping sandals off her feet. Her dark-blue summer dress billowed in the breeze, right out of Wuthering Heights. Nate walked to the open door and leaned against the frame. “I’m sorry, but the property is not for sale,” he said. Dominika did not turn, but continued to look at the water. “Are you the owner?” said Dominika over her shoulder. “I represent the owners,” said Nate, stepping down to the grass and walking up behind her. “Are you sure they will not consider selling?” she said. She turned around and brushed wind-blown hair off her face. She took a step toward him. They were inches apart. “How much are you willing to offer?” said Nate. “For a view like this, price is no object,” said Dominika. She put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Nate lightly held her waist. They stood like that for a long minute, then Dominika stepped back and wiped her wet cheek. “Kak ty?” she wispered, in Russian, how are you? “Privet,” said Nate, Hi. “I missed you.

Kapuscinski does explain that some of the SAVAK’s torture techniques were ancient and home-grown. As he relates, “technological progress could not displace medieval methods in this nightmare world. In Isfahan, people were thrown into huge bags full of cats crazed and hungry, or among poisonous snakes. Accounts of such horrors, sometimes, of course, propagated by Savak itself, circulated among the population for years. They were so threatening, and the definition of an enemy of the state was so loose and arbitrary, that everyone could imagine ending up in such a torture chamber.”14

In the small, neat back bedroom Ari Nikolev watched as his daughter packed her suitcase with the dreariest, drabbest clothes in her closet. At his suggestion. ‘I know men,’ he’d said, when she’d protested. ‘But men won’t find me attractive in these.’ She’d jabbed her finger at the pile of clothes. ‘I thought you said you wanted Gamache to like me.’ ‘Not to date. Believe me, he’ll like you in those.’ As she turned to find her toiletry bag he slipped a couple of butterscotch candies into the suitcase, where she’d find them that night. And think of him. And with any luck never realize he had his own little secret. There was no Uncle Saul. No slaughter at the hands of the communists. No noble and valiant flight across the frontier. He’d made all that up years ago to shut up his wife’s relatives camped in their home. It was his lifeboat, made of words, which had kept him afloat on their sea of misery and suffering. Genuine suffering. Even he could admit that. But he’d needed his own stories of heroics and survival. And so, after helping to conceive little Angelina and then Yvette, he’d conceived Uncle Saul. Whose job it was to save the family, and who had failed. Saul’s spectacular fall from grace had cost Ari his entire fictional family. He knew he should tell Yvette. Knew that what had started as his own life raft had become an anchor for his little girl. But she worshipped him, and Ari Nikolev craved that

Another Mystery That time I tagged along with my dad to the dry cleaners — What’d I know then about Death? Dad comes out carrying a black suit in a plastic bag. Hangs it up behind the back seat of the old coupe and says, “This is the suit your grandpa is going to leave the world in.” What on earth could he be talking about? I wondered. I touched the plastic, the slippery lapel of that coat that was going away, along with my grandpa. Those days it was just another mystery. Then there was a long interval, a time in which relatives departed this way and that, left and right. Then it was my dad’s turn. I sat and watched him rise up in his own smoke. He didn’t own a suit. So they dressed him gruesomely in a cheap sports coat and tie, for the occasion. Wired his lips into a smile as if he wanted to reassure us, Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks. But we knew better. He was dead, wasn’t he? What else could go wrong? (His eyelids were sewn closed, too, so he wouldn’t have to witness the frightful exhibit.) I touched his hand. Cold. The cheek where a little stubble had broken through along the jaw. Cold. Today I reeled this clutter up from the depths. Just an hour or so ago when I picked up my own suit from the dry cleaners and hung it carefully behind the back seat. I drove it home, opened the car door and lifted it out into sunlight. I stood there a minute in the road, my fingers crimped on the wire hanger. Then tore a hole through the plastic to the other side. Took one of the empty sleeves between my fingers and held it — the rough, palpable fabric. I reached through to the other side.

We have seen quite a few cats being let out of the bag- the mathematical mind, which is supposed to have such a dry, logical, rational texture. As a last example in this chapter I shall quote the dramatic case of Friedrich August von Kekule', Professor of Chemistry in Ghent, who, one afternoon in 1865, fell asleep and dreamt what was probably the most important dream in history since Joseph's seven fat and seven lean cows: I turned my chair to the fire and dozed, he relates. Again the atoms were gambolling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of this kind, could now distinguish larger structures, of manifold conformation; long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting in snakelike motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke...Let us learn to dream, gentlemen. The serpent biting its own tail gave Kekule' the clue to a discovery which has been called 'the most brilliant piece of prediction to be found in the whole range of organic chemistry' and which, in fact, is one of the cornerstones of modern science. Put in a somewhat simplified manner, it consisted in the revolutionary proposal that the molecules of certain important organic compounds are not open structures but closed chains or 'rings'-like the snake swallowing its tail.

I peered over at Morty, whom I'd clearly never seen before. This round old man in his empty store, for whom I'd never felt anything but pity, had just told me off in ways he could not imagine. He put it all together: Brian's networks, the bank vice president's universe of transactions, the software I write, the systems I install, the sexy bouts of software writing—all that was suddenly and clearly related to the world's financial center now all emptied of people. It's the modems: computing as a kind of neutron bomb, making all the people disappear, leaving the buildings.    In my world, it would be so easy to forget the empty downtowns. The whole profession encouraged us: stay here, alone, home by this nifty color monitor. Just click. Everything you want—it's just a click away. Everything in my world made me want to forget how—as landlord, as programmer, as landlord/programmer helping to unpeople buildings like my very own—I was implicated in the fate of Morty and the bag shop.

Sergeant Dix told me that at Fort Bragg they found that two to three days of constant tension was what it took to figure out if a soldier was going to break. Most who made it to the Special Forces Qualification Course could take anything the Army cared to throw at them for forty-eight hours. But by day three, with reserves depleted and nothing but misery on the horizon, a soldier’s core became exposed. His baseline ability. His essence. Superficially, this was evidenced by the decision to quit or continue, a temptation the drill sergeants dangled every time they spoke.  The real game, of course, was mental. Beating the Q boiled down to a soldier’s ability to disassociate his body from his mind, his being from his circumstance. This was relatively easy during the mindless procedures — the hikes, runs, and repetitive drills that form the backbone of military training. Disassociation became much tougher, however, when the physical activity was paired with judgment calls and problem solving. If a soldier could engage his higher-order thinking while simultaneously ignoring the pain and willing his body to continue beyond fatigue, then he had a chance at making it to the end. If he couldn’t, then the strength of his back, heart, and lungs didn’t matter.  Dix had concluded that the Q-Course was as much about self-discovery as a prestigious shoulder patch.  Katya was in that discovery phase now.  The big question was what we’d do if she decided to quit. She broke the silence after a few miles. “Do you ever get used to it?” “The killing?” “Yes.” “We’re all used to killing — just not people. We kill when we spray for bugs, or squash a spider, or buy a leather bag, or order a hamburger. I don’t think of the individuals I’ve killed as people any more than you thought of the last steak you ate as Bessie.

She’d hoped Jessica would forget they were there, but they weren’t being their best selves. Thong had already drooled all over the leather seats, and Couch had shed hair everywhere except for the blankets Norah had brought for him to sit on. Converse, who was resting his head on the center console, had been relatively quiet, but that was only because he’d discovered the bag of bougie dog treats in Jessica’s bag and devoured the lot, meaning he would soon have terrible gas.

When I was seventeen, I saw Prince Edward County for the first time as I accompanied my father to drop my grandmother off for the August church homecoming. Homecoming was traditionally a season where black migrants to the cities and the North returned to catch up with family and friends. It was also the time when children like my father, who were sent South for the summer, usually got to return home to the cities from whence they came. Held during the laying-by period when the crops needed little tending, the week of church and visiting relatives lasted from Saturday to Saturday and usually ended with the migrants returning home with extra bags of gifted produce