Basement Best Quotes

We can hardly bear to look. The shadow may carry the best of the life we have not lived. Go into the basement, the attic, the refuse bin. Find gold there. Find an animal who has not been fed or watered. It is you!! This neglected, exiled animal, hungry for attention, is a part of your self.

The Standover Man. all my life, I've been scared of men standing over me. I suppose my first standover man was my father, but he vanished before I could remember him. For some reason when I was a boy, I liked to fight. a lot of the time, I lost. Another boy, sometimes with blood falling from his nose, would be standing over me. Many years later, I needed to hide. I tried not to sleep because I as afraid of who might be there when I woke up. But I was lucky. It was always my friend.When I was hiding. I dreamed of a certain man. The hardest was when I traveled to find him. Out of sheer luck and many footsteps, I made it. I slept there for a long time. Three days, they told me...and what did I find when I woke up? Not a man, but someone else standing over me. As time passed by the girl and I realized we had things in common. But there is one strange thing. The girl says I look like something else. Now I live in a basement. Bad dreams still live in my sleep. One night, after my usual nightmare, a shadow stood above me. She said, "Tell me what you dream of." So I did. In return, she explained what her own dreams were made of. Now I think we are friends, this girl and me. It was she who gave me a gift - to me. It makes me understand that the best standover man I've ever known is not a man at all...

Reading, she tells me, is what she does best. She loves it because it uses the whole of her, the right and the left, the hemispheres of reason and imagination. She discovered as a child that a closed book is a darkness anyone can enter, not a cary darkness like a basement or a storm, but a comforting one that wrapped her up neatly inside a world she could control.

He was tall in the bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do—the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, “I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places. This one was sent out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. He lay in my arms and rested. There was an itchy lung for a last cigarette and an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement, for the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there that he hoped to read one day.

A friend was someone you talked to in school, joined a club with, or who went to your church. A stupid fight in a basement could end a normal friendship. But a best friend was someone you could trust with your life, someone who you knew would be there for you. Being best friends was a promise to work through things no matter what.

This is a crucial job of being an organizer. You leave a dark basement and try to explain to people in the sunshine what it's like to live down there. I've learned this is best done by bringing these different groups of people together. Those with extra money discover how much more satisfying it is to see talent and fairness grow then to see objects accumulate. Those without money learn the valuable lesson that money doesn't cure all woes. Instead, it may actually insulate and isolate.

We can hardly bear to look. The shadow may carry the best of the life we have not lived. Go into the basement, the attic, the refuse bin. Find gold there. Find an animal who has not been fed or watered. It is you!! This neglected, exiled animal, hungry for attention, is a part of your self. —Marion Woodman (as quoted by Stephen Cope in The Great Work of Your Life)

why are we going to the basement?” “Because that’s where the library is located.” “Right. And we’re going to the library because…?” Fatma fixed her best blank look. “Because it has all the books.

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don't; it's a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected. True, they're not for the faint of heart. Wild and chaotic, capricious and frustrating, there are certain physical laws that govern secondhand bookstores and like gravity, they're pretty much nonnegotiable. Paperback editions of D. H. Lawrence must constitute no less than 55 percent of all stock in any shop. Natural law also dictates that the remaining 45 percent consist of at least two shelves worth of literary criticism on Paradise Lost and there should always be an entire room in the basement devoted to military history which, by sheer coincidence, will be haunted by a man in his seventies. (Personal studies prove it's the same man. No matter how quickly you move from one bookshop to the next, he's always there. He's forgotten something about the war that no book can contain, but like a figure in Greek mythology, is doomed to spend his days wandering from basement room to basement room, searching through memoirs of the best/worst days of his life.) Modern booksellers can't really compare with these eccentric charms. They keep regular hours, have central heating, and are staffed by freshly scrubbed young people in black T-shirts. They're devoid of both basement rooms and fallen Greek heroes in smelly tweeds. You'll find no dogs or cats curled up next to ancient space heathers like familiars nor the intoxicating smell of mold and mildew that could emanate equally from the unevenly stacked volumes or from the owner himself. People visit Waterstone's and leave. But secondhand bookshops have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

New York always brings out the serial killer in me. It’s a great city to kill in. The best. You've got something like fifteen million people living cheek by jowl, and most of them couldn't give a damn about anyone else. No one wants to get involved. No one cares.

He likes me best, maybe because I feed him the most often. He tolerates Aunt Tabitha. My uncle won’t go into the basement any more, he claims Bob actually hissed at him once. It would have been a belching sort of hiss, I imagine

At three o'clock this afternoon Evelyn Wastneys died. I am Evelyn Wastneys, and I died, standing at the door of an old country home in Ireland...

It seemed like he could never figure out which Trudie he loved the best, the docile church basement lady in the moon boots or the rebellious chick with the sexy lingerie. I imagine that both of those extremes were just poses and that the real Trudie fell somewhere in between. But that’s the thing about this town - there’s no room for in between. You’re in or you’re out. You’re good or you’re bad. Actually, very good or very bad. Or very good at being very bad without being detected.

He's like...'I thought you were just friends.' You are my friend. You're my best friend. Why doesn't he get that? Anyway...I think he wants your dad to rally with him. I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn about the dry rot in the basement." I quirked the corner of my mouth dubiously. Dad rallying with Gabriel was pretty unlikely, considering the lengths he had gone to in proving his approval. Rafael took one look at me, horrified, and I knew we were on the same wavelength. He whispered: "If your dad gives my uncle the safe sex talk...

best Hitchcock films not made by Hitchcock. Here we go: Le Boucher, the early Claude Chabrol that Hitch, according to lore, wished he’d directed. Dark Passage, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—a San Francisco valentine, all velveteen with fog, and antecedent to any movie in which a character goes under the knife to disguise himself. Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe; Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn; Sudden Fear!, starring Joan Crawford’s eyebrows. Wait Until Dark: Hepburn again, a blind woman stranded in her basement apartment. I’d go berserk in a basement apartment.

Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Saboteur, The Big Clock . . . We lived in monochrome those nights. For me, it was a chance to revisit old friends; for Ed, it was an opportunity to make new ones. And we’d make lists. The Thin Man franchise, ranked from best (the original) to worst (Song of the Thin Man). Top movies from the bumper crop of 1944. Joseph Cotten’s finest moments. I can do lists on my own, of course. For instance: best Hitchcock films not made by Hitchcock. Here we go: Le Boucher, the early Claude Chabrol that Hitch, according to lore, wished he’d directed. Dark Passage, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—a San Francisco valentine, all velveteen with fog, and antecedent to any movie in which a character goes under the knife to disguise himself. Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe; Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn; Sudden Fear!, starring Joan Crawford’s eyebrows. Wait Until Dark: Hepburn again, a blind woman stranded in her basement apartment. I’d go berserk in a basement apartment.

I tell you that my standards are low. The bar has come waaaaay down. At this point I’d settle for a guy simply because he has a penis, more than one towel, and no flags hanging on his walls. I mean, do they actually expect us to have sex with them on a futon in their mom’s basement? Like, actually?” “Yes,” she said flatly. “That is exactly what they expect.” I sat back heavily in my seat. “I’m beginning to think men are not sending us their best people.

Those girls are the best. They tell themselves they’re being sexually liberated when I take them home and chain them in my basement. Owning their sexuality, and all that.” “Maybe they are,” I said, trying not to visualize.

The farmers, who rent out their house so they can stay afloat, and sleep all together in a studio, but spend their days off outside on a picnic blanket, living the lives they want to live. Drew and Melanie, with their two homes and their horses and their love story. And Rene, traveling across the world, painting temporary masterpieces. Even my uncle Pete has something good worked out with Melinda and his day trips and his best friend, my dad, who has a small nice house in San Francisco and a dozen neighborhood vendors who know him by name. All of these different ways of living. Even Sophie, with her baby in that apartment, with her record store job and her record collection. I imagine her twirling with her baby across her red carpet with Diana Ross crooning, the baby laughing, the two of them getting older in that apartment, eating meals on red vinyl chairs. Walt, too, as pathetic as his situation is, seems happy in his basement, providing entertainment to Fort Bragg's inner circle. All of them, in their own ways, manage to make their lives work.

love is like a comic book. it’s fragile and the best we can do is protect it in whatever clumsy ways we can: plastic and cardboard, dark rooms and boxes. in this way, something never meant to last might find its way to another decade, another home, an attic, a basement, intact. love is paper.

How are things going with your brothers?” “The judge set a date to hear me out after graduation. Mrs.Collins has been prepping me.” “That is awesome!” “Yeah.” “What’s wrong?” “Carrie and Joe hired a lawyer and I lost visitation.” Echo placed her delicate hand over mine.“Oh, Noah. I am so sorry." I’d spent countless hours on the couch in the basement, staring at the ceiling wondering what she was doing. Her laughter, her smile, the feel of her body next to mine, and the regret that I let her walk away too easily haunted me. Taking the risk, I entwined my fingers with hers. Odds were I’d never get the chance to be this close again. "No, Mrs. Collins convinced me the best thing to do is to keep my distance and follow the letter of the law." "Wow, Mrs. Collins is a freaking miracle worker. Dangerous Noah Hutchins on the straight and narrow. If you don’t watch out she’ll ruin your rep with the girls." I lowered my voice. "Not that it matters. I only care what one girl thinks about me." She relaxed her fingers into mine and stroked her thumb over my skin. Minutes into being alone together, we fell into each other again, like no time had passed. I could blame her for ending us, but in the end, I agreed with her decision. “How about you, Echo? Did you find your answers?” “No.” If I continued to disregard breakup rules, I might as well go all the way. I pushed her curls behind her shoulder and let my fingers linger longer than needed so I could enjoy the silky feel. “Don’t hide from me, baby. We’ve been through too much for that.” Echo leaned into me, placing her head on my shoulder and letting me wrap an arm around her. “I’ve missed you, too, Noah. I’m tired of ignoring you.” “Then don’t.” Ignoring her hurt like hell. Acknowledging her had to be better. I swallowed, trying to shut out the bittersweet memories of our last night together. “Where’ve you been? It kills me when you’re not at school.” “I went to an art gallery and the curator showed some interest in my work and sold my first piece two days later. Since then, I’ve been traveling around to different galleries, hawking my wares.” “That’s awesome, Echo. Sounds like you’re fitting into your future perfectly. Where did you decide to go to school?” “I don’t know if I’m going to school.” Shock jolted my system and I inched away to make sure I understood. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know? You’ve got colleges falling all over you and you don’t fucking know if you want to go to school?” My damned little siren laughed at me. “I see your language has improved.” Poof—like magic, the anger disappeared. “If you’re not going to school, then what are your plans?” "I’m considering putting college off for a year or two and traveling cross-country, hopping from gallery to gallery.” “I feel like a dick. We made a deal and I left you hanging. I’m not that guy who goes back on his word. What can I do to help you get to the truth?” Echo’s chest rose with her breath then deflated when she exhaled. Sensing our moment ending, I nuzzled her hair, savoring her scent. She patted my knee and broke away. “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.” "I think it’s time that I move on. As soon as I graduate, this part of my life will be over. I’m okay with not knowing what happened.” Her words sounded pretty, but I knew her better. She’d blinked three times in a row.

Yep,” Annabeth said weakly. “He really did it.” The giant belched. He wiped his steaming greasy hands on his robe and grinned at us. “So, if you’re not breakfast, you must be customers. What can I interest you in?” He sounded relaxed and friendly, like he was happy to talk with us. Between that and the red velour housecoat, he almost didn’t seem dangerous. Except of course that he was ten feet tall, blew fire, and ate cows in three bites. I stepped forward. Call me old-fashioned, but I wanted to keep his focus on me and not Annabeth. I think it’s polite for a guy to protect his girlfriend from instant incineration. “Um, yeah,” I said. “We might be customers. What do you sell?” Cacus laughed. “What do I sell? Everything, demigod! At bargain basement prices, and you can’t find a basement lower than this!” He gestured around the cavern. “I’ve got designer handbags, Italian suits, um…some construction equipment, apparently, and if you’re in the market for a Rolex…” He opened his robe. Pinned to the inside was a glittering array of gold and silver watches. Annabeth snapped her fingers. “Fakes! I knew I’d seen that stuff before. You got all this from street merchants, didn’t you? They’re designer knockoffs.” The giant looked offended. “Not just any knockoffs, young lady. I steal only the best! I’m a son of Hephaestus. I know quality fakes when I see them.

Like I said earlier, Jase was the only one of our four sons who stayed the course and never deviated to the right or left. He always looked straight ahead; he never drank, never cursed, and always lived his life the way God wanted him to live. I think one of the reasons Jase and Willie never strayed too far is because they were so involved in the youth group at White’s Ferry Road Church. Willie’s only problem was that he believed he was a ladie’s man until he met Korie. He was always jumping from one girl to the next until he settled down. It really made an impact on both of them. Jase was always looking out for his brothers. Even though Jase and Willie were very competitive growing up, Jase always had Willie’s best interest at heart. One time, Willie and Jase were at a friend’s house in high school. Jase walked into the basement and found Willie playing strip poker with some other kids. “What are you doing?” Jase asked him. “Playing strip poker,” Willie replied. “You’ve stripped enough,” Jase told him. “Let’s go.

To get a sense of what I mean by evangelism as the practice of hospitality, visit your local church. Don’t go upstairs, to the sanctuary, go downstairs to that room in the basement with the linoleum tile and the coffee urn. That’s where the AA and NA meetings are held. At its best, Alcoholics Anonymous embodies evangelism as hospitality. They offer an invitation, not a sales pitch. They offer testimony — personal stories — instead of a marketing scheme. They are, in fact and in practice, a bunch of beggars offering other beggars the good news of where they found bread. At its worst, AA sometimes slips into the evangelism-as-sales model. You may have found yourself at some point having a beer when some newly sober 12-step disciple begins lecturing you that this is evidence that you have a problem. He will try to sell you the idea that you are a beggar so he can sell you some bread. The ensuing conversation is tense, awkward and pointless — the precise qualities of the similar conversation you may have had with an evangelical Christian coworker who was reluctantly but dutifully inflicting on you a sales pitch for evangelical Christianity.

He sat down among the evidence at a barren communal desk in the basement of the station. He looked through the stack of extra fliers that my father had made up. He had memorized my face, but still he looked at them. He had come to believe that the best hope in my case might be the recent rise in development in the area. With all the land churning and changing, perhaps other clues whould be found that would provide the answer he needed. In the bottom of the box was the bag with my jingle-bell hat. When he'd handled it to my mother, she had collasped on the rug. He still couldn't pinpoint the moment he'd fallen in love with her. I knew it was the day he'd sat in our family room while my mother drew stick figures on butcher paper and Buckley and Nate slept toe to toe on the couch. I felt sorry for him. He had tried to solve my murder and he failed. He had tried to love my mother and he had failed. Len looked at the drawing of the cornfield that Lindsey had stolen and forced himself to acknowledge this: in his cautiousness, he had allowed a murderer to get away. He could not shake his guilt. He knew, if no one else did, that by being with my mother in the mall that day he was the one to blame for George Harvey's freedom. He took his wallet out of his back pocket and laid down the photos of all the unsolved cases he had ever worked on. Among them were his wife's. He turned them all face-down. 'Gone,' he wrote on each one of them. He would no longer wait for a date to mark an understanding of who or why or how. He would never understand all the reasons why his wife had killed herself. He would never understand how so many children went missing. He placed these photos in the box with my evidence and turned the lights off in the cold room.

Reading Chip's college orientation materials, Alfred had been struck by the sentence New England winters can be very cold. The curtains he'd bought at Sears were of a plasticized brown-and-pink fabric with a backing of foam rubber. They were heavy and bulky and stiff. "You'll appreciate these on a cold night," he told Chip. "You'll be surprised how much they cut down drafts." But Chip's freshman roommate was a prep-school product named Roan McCorkle who would soon be leaving thumbprints, in what appeared to be Vaseline, on the fifth-grade photo of Denise. Roan laughed at the curtains and Chip laughed, too. He put them back in the box and stowed the box in the basement of the dorm and let it gather mold there for the next four years. He had nothing against the curtains personally. They were simply curtains and they wanted no more than what any curtains wanted - to hang well, to exclude light to the best of their ability, to be neither too small nor too large for the window that it was their task in life to cover; to be pulled this way in the evening and that way in the morning; to stir in the breezes that came before rain on a summer night; to be much used and little noticed. There were numberless hospitals and retirement homes and budget motels, not just in the Midwest but in the East as well, where these particularly brown rubber-backed curtains could have had a long and useful life. It wasn't their fault that they didn't belong in a dorm room. They'd betrayed no urge to rise above their station; their material and patterning contained not a hint of unseemly social ambition. They were what they were. If anything, when he finally dug them out of the eve of graduation, their virginal pinkish folds turned out to be rather less plasticized and homely and Sears-like than he remembered. They were nowhere near as shameful as he'd thought.

I asked her to tell me what the best moment of her life had been Did she? Yes, she told me about a trip the two of you had taken to Europe together right after you graduated from high school. Pascal in Paris, it had been a dream of hers to visit Pascal’s grave. On that trip she finally did. I’d never seen her so excited. That wasn’t it. It wasn’t? No, it was in a hostel in Venice. The two of you had been travelling for a couple of weeks and all of your clothes were filthy. You didn’t mind the dirty clothes very much. Lila said you were able to roll with the punches and for you, everything about the trip, even the dirty laundry, was a great adventure. But Lila liked things a certain way, and she hated being dirty. That day she had gone off in search of a laundry mat but hadn’t been able to find one. You were sleeping in a room with a dozen bunks, women and men together. In the middle of the night Lila woke up and realized you weren’t in your bed. She thought you must have gone to the bathroom, but after a couple minutes when you hadn’t returned she became worried. She climbed down from her bunk and went to the bathroom to find you, you weren’t there. She wondered up and down the hallway softly calling your name. A few of the rooms were private and had the doors closed. As she became increasingly worried she began putting her ear to those doors listening for you. Then she heard banging down below. Alarmed she went down the dark stairwell to the basement. She saw you before you saw her. You were working in the dim light of a single blub standing over an old hand operated washing machine. She asked what you were doing, what does it look like you said smiling. What Lila remembered from that night was that you actually looked happy to be standing there in the cold basement in the middle of the night washing clothes by hand. And she knew you wouldn’t have minded wearing dirty clothes for another week or two, you were doing it for her. She said that. Yes when I asked her what the best moment of her life had been she had told me that story. But it was nothing. To her it was.

Often people come to me and say "As a best-selling author with many published works to your name, and a basement full of awards, most of them in need of a good polish, you must have some words of advice for the world that you wish to share." And I do. It's this. If you have a 25lb long-haired calico cat whose fur is all matted into evil dreadlocks, and who is too fat to properly clean herself, do not put fresh batteries into an ancient beard trimmer and attempt to shave her. You will only cause distress to the cat, and create a mess. There are professionals who will happily do this kind of thing, for a small fee. Leave it to them. (This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Furball the cat, currently believed to be hiding in the attic in a severely traumatized state.)

I was certainly not the best mother. That goes without saying. I didn’t set out to be a bad mother, however. It just happened. As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul. Why did I allow Grace to make Mia cry? Why did I snap at Mia to stop just to silence the noise? Why did I sneak to a quiet place, whenever I could? Why did I rush the days—will them to hurry by—so I could be alone? Other mothers took their children to museums, the gardens, the beach. I kept mine indoors, as much as I could, so we wouldn’t cause a scene. I lie awake at night wondering: what if I never have a chance to make it up to Mia? What if I’m never able to show her the kind of mother I always longed to be? The kind who played endless hours of hide-and-seek, who gossiped side by side on their daughters’ beds about which boys in the junior high were cute. I always envisioned a friendship between my daughters and me. I imagined shopping together and sharing secrets, rather than the formal, obligatory relationship that now exists between myself and Grace and Mia. I list in my head all the things that I would tell Mia if I could. That I chose the name Mia for my great-grandmother, Amelia, vetoing James’s alternative: Abigail. That the Christmas she turned four, James stayed up until 3:00 a.m. assembling the dollhouse of her dreams. That even though her memories of her father are filled with nothing but malaise, there were split seconds of goodness: James teaching her how to swim, James helping her prepare for a fourth-grade spelling test. That I mourn each and every time I turned down an extra book before bed, desperate now for just five more minutes of laughing at Harry the Dirty Dog. That I go to the bookstore and purchase a copy after unsuccessfully ransacking the basement for the one that used to be hers. That I sit on the floor of her old bedroom and read it again and again and again. That I love her. That I’m sorry. Colin

Every Tuesday, Miss Graham sent Beth down after Arithmetic to do the erasers. It was considered a privilege, and Beth was the best student in the class, even though she was the youngest. She did not like the basement. It smelled musty, and she was afraid of Mr. Shaibel. But she wanted to know more about the game he played on that board by himself. One day she went over and stood near him, waiting for him to move a piece. The one he was touching was the one with a horse’s head on a little pedestal. After a second he looked up at her with a frown of irritation. “What do you want, child?” he said. Normally she fled from any human encounter, especially with grownups, but this time she did not back away. “What’s that game called?” she asked. He stared at her. “You should be upstairs with the others.” She looked at him levelly; something about this man and the steadiness with which he played his mysterious game helped her to hold tightly to what she wanted. “I don’t want to be with the others,” she said. “I want to know what game you’re playing.” He looked at her more closely. Then he shrugged. “It’s called chess.

they had to do it anyway. They had to try. They had taken an oath, and they would be faithful to the end. On the bank of surveillance monitors in front of her, she saw a dozen of her best agents—guns drawn—suddenly rush the convention stage, surround the president, grab him by the arms, and literally carry him away, his feet barely touching the ground. Sanchez then bolted out of the command post and met the president’s protective detail backstage and ordered them downstairs, into the makeshift bunker. “Go, go, go,” she yelled as they raced the president down one corridor after another, into a heavily guarded stairwell, and down five flights, eventually bursting into the basement, where all the convention center’s HVAC systems were housed. They turned one corner and then another, ducking pipes and ducts along the way. A moment later, they raced the president into a large storage freezer, slammed the door shut behind them, and worked feverishly to put him in a protective suit, gloves, and mask, pre-positioned there by the army’s nuclear, biological, and chemical fast-reaction team. That done, Sanchez and her agents began to suit up themselves. But just then, Sanchez felt the

My Definite Chief Aim I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return, I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness. My aim is to establish a first Gung Fu Institute that will later spread all over the U.S. (I have set a time limit of 10 to 15 years to complete the whole project). My reason in doing this is not the sole objective of making money. The motives are many and among them are: I like to let the world know about the greatness of this Chinese art; I enjoy teaching and helping people; I like to have a well-to-do home for my family; I like to originate something; and the last but yet one of the most important is because gung fu is part of myself. … Right now, I can project my thoughts into the future. I can see ahead of me. I dream (remember that practical dreamers never quit). I may now own nothing but a little place down in a basement, but once my imagination has got up a full head of steam, I can see painted on a canvas of my mind a picture of a fine, big five or six story Gung Fu Institute with branches all over the States. I am not easily discouraged, readily visualize myself as overcoming obstacles, winning out over setbacks, achieving “impossible” objectives.

Brilliant people sometimes do the most unintelligent thing possible. In the midst of stress, rather than investing, these individuals divested from the greatest predictor of success and happiness: their social support network. Countless studies have found that social relationships are the best guarantee of heightened well-being and lowered stress, both an antidote for depression and a prescription for high performance. But instead, these students had somehow learned that when the going gets tough, the tough get going—to an isolated cubicle in the library basement.

Part One 1. Mr. B.G. (My Testimony) Mr. B.G. Lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, One of my memories is attending the Mill Creek Baptist Church between the age of 8-10. What I remember most about this church is the way they emphasized working with youth. Occasionally heard preaching before Sunday school. Followed by going downstairs to learn an hour-long Bible Lesson. They invested time with us outside regular church hours; Mr. B.G. And his brother would eat pizza at Sunday school teacher's house. Church even planned an all-night sleepover in the basement one time. Never can forget drinking coffee all night, which caused me to have an energy boost. Followed by overwhelming tiredness the whole evening. Played on tennis tables, among many other events. Thinking back, I did enjoy a church that cared about me at such a young age. Only participated a couple of years then stopped going. Thankful for their kindness to teach me from God's Holy word a way to Jesus for the years attended. John Paul Guras and Mr. B.G. both were blessed to have an excellent Sunday school teacher, Mr. Walt Silman. After making this choice, I could have traveled the remainder of my eternally bound life not seeking a real, living God. Many times, Holy Spirit was trying to speak to me, Ignorantly avoided influences like church, praying, reading the Holy Bible. Lost in the jailhouse of sinful darkness, with no care in the world to allow Jesus to direct my decisions. I wanted to lead the helm of my life the way I thought was best. Choosing our selfish way is like shooting an arrow at a target wholly missing the center of the bulls-eye. Doing what pleases me, me, me, leads us astray. Sin leads us to destruction. Jesus alone can change our inward nature to fulfill the center of the Father's will.

A naval officer in a crisp blue uniform gave us a speech about the traditions of the sea, and how we were to uphold them throughout our upcoming careers. It all sounded glorious, but to us it seemed to drag on forever. There were others who added to these sentiments, also in glowing terms. In contrast to us, the officers all looked very professional and sharp in their dress uniforms. It made me very aware that I still didn’t even have my working boots, a belt or a white gob hat, but never mind, most of us were still out of uniform. I guess that’s why we were called muggs! Now with my right hand up, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me, which was just about everybody. Flash bulbs went off and suddenly, I was in the Navy! Wow! I was now a Midshipman in the U.S. Naval Reserve and did I ever feel proud. Unfortunately there wasn’t much time to bask in this solitary ray of light. The swearing in ceremony was hardly over and already I was late for lunch. I had to run double time between buildings, squaring all the corners along the way. So, doing my best to observe all of these new rules, I ran as fast as I could to the mess hall. Getting there just before they slammed the windows shut, I got the last two pre-made, soggy sandwiches. The sandwiches were wet and crushed, and I could swear they had greasy fingerprints on them. This sad excuse for food only looked appetizing because of my extreme hunger. With no time to waste, I washed lunch down with a glass of warm “jungle juice” reminiscent of Camp Wawayanda, before scurrying off to my next appointment, which was at the barbershop, also in the basement of Richardson Hall.

Except for the coconut cake (filled with Meyer lemon curd and glazed with brown sugar), most of the desserts she made for Walter were not her best or most original, but they were exemplars of their kind: portly, solid-citizen desserts, puddings of rice, bread, and noodles-sweets that the Pilgrims and other humble immigrants who had scraped together their prototypes would have bartered in a Mayflower minute for Greenie's blood-orange mousse, pear ice cream, or tiny white-chocolate eclairs. Walter had also commissioned a deep-dish apple pie, a strawberry marble cheesecake, and a layer cake he asked her to create exclusively for him. "Everybody expects one of those, you know, death-by-chocolate things on a menu like mine, but what I want is massacre by chocolate, execution by chocolate- firing squad by chocolate!" he told her. So that very night, after tucking George in bed, Greenie had returned to the kitchen where she made her living, in a basement two blocks from her home, and stayed up till morning to birth a four-layer cake so dense and muscular that even Walter, who could have benched a Shetland pony, dared not lift it with a single hand. It was the sort of dessert that appalled Greenie on principle, but it also embodied a kind of uberprosperity, a transgressive joy, flaunting the potential heft of butter, that Protean substance as wondrous and essential to a pastry chef as fire had been to early man. Walter christened the cake Apocalypse Now; Greenie held her tongue. By itself, this creation doubled the amount of cocoa she ordered from her supplier every month. After it was on his menu for a week, Walter bet her a lobster dinner that before the year was out, Gourmet would request the recipe, putting both of them on a wider culinary map.

To anyone who finds this note [it begins], my name is Ellie Mack. I am seventeen. Noelle Donnelly brought me to her house on 26 May 2005 and has kept me captive in her basement for about a year and a half. I have had a baby. I don’t know who the father is and I’m pretty sure I’m still a virgin. Her name is Poppy. She was born in around April 2006. I don’t know where she is now or who is looking after her but please, please find her if you can. Please find her and look after her and tell her that I loved her. Tell her that I looked after her for as long as I could and that she was the best little baby in the world. Also please let my family know that you found this note. My mum is called Laurel Mack and my dad is called Paul and I have a brother called Jake and a sister called Hanna and I want you to tell them all that I’m sorry and I love them more than anything in the world and that none of them must feel bad about what happened to me because I am brave and I am brilliant and I am strong

was the intimate ways I connected with her—us alone in her basement, me silently sneaking skates into her locker, us sitting together at a bookstore—where I saw her fall for me. I came in trying to win her over, and she came in and changed my entire path. The best love I could possibly give

company is making a lot of money. Second, and more important, it would take a lot of the focus off of our company, and considering what we’ll be doing behind the scenes, we don’t need a lot of attention. The fact that Wally has found a hidden basement to put his real R&D lab in means we are less likely to be exposed, but the last thing we need is a lot of reporters trying to learn our secrets, and even worse would be the problem of industrial espionage. If we make it clear that we will license the technology, there’s not really going to be any point in anyone trying to steal it from us.” Allison nodded. “Okay, I see your points. What about patents? All of the stuff is patentable, right?” “It is, and I’ve already worked with one of the best patent attorneys in the world to get them filed on a global basis. It cost almost two million dollars altogether, but our corporation now holds patents on these designs and functions in every country. That was actually a little tricky, because some of the other appliance manufacturers have been working on some similar devices for a while, but we found loopholes that let us claim many of the functions entirely as our own. We did have to refer to some prior art, so there will be a relatively small amount of royalties to pay out each year.” “As long as we are protected,” Allison said. “Now, fill me in on my job here. What am I supposed to be doing?” “As COO, your job is to oversee our business operations, which includes reporting back to Noah on any issues or developments. I’ll actually handle most of that for you, but I want to brief you at least a couple times a week on what’s happening with the business. That way, if you find yourself in a position of having to answer questions, you’ll know what to say.” Allison grinned and looked at Noah. “Sounds like you have it all figured out,” she said. “This is actually a brilliant idea, Noah. Setting up a business like this to cover activities is very smart. It will also give us a way to receive payments for our services.” “Payments?” Noah asked. “I set this up so that we wouldn’t have to worry about getting a budget from the government.” Allison’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t think we’re going to work for free, do you? Every time we handle a mission, there will be a payment of half a million dollars. That’s the deal I worked out with

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This is also a great tactic if negotiations ever stall—revisit the things both parties agree upon and remind the seller of more of those things that may not have been discussed for a while. For example, if things have come to a standstill in the negotiation, you might say: Investor: “I know we haven’t yet agreed on price, but I think we’re pretty close here. Remember, we’re happy to take the house as-is— you don’t have to clean out the basement or the garage. And our title company is happy to come here to your house to sign all the paperwork, just to make everything more convenient. My offer of $90,000 really is my top number, but I want you to be confident you are getting a great deal, so I’ll give up some of my profit and go to $91,500. Can we close on that?

Who you going to call when it looks like you’re really going to have to survive the zombie apocalypse? I knew exactly who to call. ‘Ted, you know how you complained that I had a zombie apocalypse and didn’t invite you?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Consider yourself invited.’ He gave a small chuckle, the way some men will do when you say something sexy. ‘You’re excited. After what we saw in the hospital and the basement you’re excited about this,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I am.’ ‘There’s something wrong with you, you do know that, right?’ I said, and laughed. ‘Yeah, I do know.’ ‘And, Ted?’ ‘Yes, Anita.’ ‘Bring your flamethrower.’ He gave that excited sex chuckle again. ‘For real, you’re not just teasing this time?’ ‘Zombie reports from all over the area and it’s still daylight. It’s just going to get worse after dark.’ He gave that low, deep laugh again. ‘You say the best things.’ ‘Conversations like this is one of the reasons people think we’re doing each other.’ ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Someone on your end of the phone said something you didn’t like about us, or me, and you’re rubbing their face in it.’ ‘Would I do that?’ The words were innocent; the tone was not. Someone must have done something that truly pissed him off for him to play into it like this, because he knew it hurt my reputation worse than his. ‘Get here as soon as you can, and let me know which of the guys with you pissed you off and I’ll help you play with him, between killing zombies.’ ‘You sweet-talking thing, you,’ he said. That made me laugh. We hung up with both of us laughing. There were so many reasons that Edward and I were friends.

I need actual X-Ultra vests, not schematics and spec sheets.” “More than one?” “A statistically significant sample would be best. Like a hundred.” “Why so many?” “Target practice.” Her eyes widened. “Let me make sure I have this straight. You want to blow holes in one hundred bulletproof army vests.” “That’s correct.” “Where do you plan to do that?” He looked at her. “I’ll ask Norm,” Kenzie said. “If it’s not too much trouble. What if he tells you no?” Kenzie shook her head. “He’s ex-army.” “Should have known. He never shaved again,” Linc said. “Shut up. He’s a ZZ Top fan. Be glad he won’t mind. He might ask you not to be too conspicuous about it. There’s a smaller range off to the side. You haven’t seen it.” “If he has the right targets, I can pay him,” Linc offered. “You should see what’s in the basement. Everything from paper thugs to wooden dummies. I’ll borrow a gun from Norm. I want to get this done and over with.” Kenzie was military all the way, but he hadn’t noticed her having much interest in hardware. “Mind telling me why you’re so gung-ho?” “Because sooner or later I’m going to be the one to tell Christine that Frank Branigan died. And I don’t want her to think I had a chance to help find out why and did zip.” “Okay. I understand. But I’m the one who has to get the vests. You can’t do that. They know who you are.” She conceded the point with a nod. “How are you going to get in?” she wanted to know. “Right through the front gate.” Kenzie shot him a curious look. “Let me guess. You aren’t going to explain how you’re going to do that because you would have to reveal your secret identity.” He chuckled at her reply. “You’re not that far off.” “Thought so,” she said with satisfaction. “And,” he went on, sobering, “there is one more thing I have to do.” “Let’s hear it.” “Mike Warren and I noticed that a lot of lines are starting to converge on SKC. While I’m inside, I want to take video.” “Of what?” “More like who. As in everyone I can get on microcam.” “How micro is it?” “About as big as a button.” He rose and stretched, rubbing his back. “Which is good. I may not be able to carry anything ever again.” “Tough workout?” she teased. “Let’s just say I had more fun watching yours.

She traced the dragon’s body on his biceps where it transitioned into rope. “I just thought it would be more difficult. After all this time, the heartache, the waiting, the despairing and giving up, the pure pissed-offness of dealing with near misses…" She blew out a breath. “And there it is. With you, easy as breathing. ‘I’m in love with you.’ You said it and meant it. It changes the universe, but the way throwing a stone in a pond does. All those ripples. It's…amazing.” She frowned and cocked her head. “There should at least be dramatic music.” "I can retract it if you want. Brood for a while, play commitment paranoia games, alienate you so we break up, sort of, and then I chase you down before you make some monumental decision, like moving back to New York, or signing up for a three year stint in the merchant marines. Then we can have a big makeup scene.“ She pursed her lips. "Complete with dramatic music.” "Absolutely. If I could afford it, I’d hire John Williams to come up with the score.“ "You’d do all that for me?” "Hell, no.” He snorted, puffing a short, playful breath against her. “I’d tie you up and keep you in my basement until you contracted Stockholm syndrome and couldn’t breathe without me.“ She tipped her head back, sobering. "Sometimes, it feels like I can’t. Crazy, right?” He put his mouth on hers and took her air in the best kind of way, all while giving it back to her. at her, boyishly appealing, but then sobered. "We’re normal, extraordinary people,” he said. “It took us a while, but we always knew what it would look like when it happened. The simplicity of it is what makes it extraordinary. A tadpole gets legs and walks on land, and evolution begins. All in a simple blink, the whole world changes.

His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do—the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, “I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places. This one was sent out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. He lay in my arms and rested. There was an itchy lung for a last cigarette and an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement, for the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there that he hoped to read one day.

It was a dense, moldering night, smelling of damp old basements and times best left unstirred.

Once the interlude was over and I was released, I fled the room and, taking the stairs two at a time, found refuge in a dank corner of the basement filled with potatoes and mice. I stayed there until dinner, doing my best to stop crying by staring at the glowing face of my father’s wristwatch.

A few people in a basement room take the best of that service and repackage it, freeze-drying it for print. Print becomes a promotional vehicle for the brand’s online services and a supplier of cash flow to subsidize research and development. That

Benny’s not doing great. And my divorce is final in two weeks.” “Good,” she said dryly. “Free at last.” I rolled my eyes. “Free to do what? Date? Have loads of sex with hot singles? Have you seen it out there?” I leaned forward. “And believe me when I tell you that my standards are low. The bar has come waaaaay down. At this point I’d settle for a guy simply because he has a penis, more than one towel, and no flags hanging on his walls. I mean, do they actually expect us to have sex with them on a futon in their mom’s basement? Like, actually?” “Yes,” she said flatly. “That is exactly what they expect.” I sat back heavily in my seat. “I’m beginning to think men are not sending us their best people.” She scoffed, which was Jessica’s version of laughing. “All they do is lie and throw off your PH balance. They are a constant reminder that we don’t choose our sexuality, because who in their right mind would choose to be attracted to men. They are completely worthless as partners. Did you know that when a wife becomes seriously ill, she is six times more likely to be abandoned by her spouse than a husband is?

The living room had some glare, but not nearly as bad as in the other room. Reese and James both asked if they could turn the basement into a playroom instead of using the room upstairs again. Hudson agreed that it would be a better use of the large space, too. Given everything her children had gone through, Bethany agreed to transform the rooms. When they were ready to go, Bethany felt it was necessary to stop and thank Peter again. While things still didn’t make complete sense to her, she was beyond thankful for his generosity. She stopped to see Carol to give her the unused ingredients from the cottage. They were thrilled to take the leftover ingredients since they lived at the shore year-round. When it was time to say goodbye, Bethany and Carol hugged as tears started to form in both of their eyes. They got into the car, shut the doors, and started the car. “Are you ready for the new school year?” She looked behind her as she reversed out of the driveway. It would be late when they arrived home, but they still had a few days before school started. “I suppose so,” Hudson frowned. “What are we going to do without Dad? Who will come in for Careers with Dad day?” Bethany sunk into her seat as she turned the air conditioner on; it was hot today. “Sweetie, we can worry about that when the day comes. We will figure it out, I promise.” “You’re the best, mom,” Hudson

But it isn’t just nostalgia or retrospectives that keep emo alive; it’s that confusing, made-up thing we talked about called “identity.” An identity is something you create. It’s a portrait you paint that you feel represents your soul most accurately. We define ourselves by the books we read, the photos we take, and the music that we listen to. Emo is very much alive within my identity; I consider it a part of who I am. But it’s not just a hobby or an interest. It is as much a core fiber of my being as are my heart and my thoughts. For some, it is as much a part of their identity as their gender or sexual orientation. Within these songs are my best and worst memories and my best and worst self. Within me is a desire to keep reminding the world how important emo was and is. Because no, it wasn’t just a phase or a passing fad. It wasn’t that music you listened to when you were thirteen and then gave up on when you became a “real adult.” Emo is credible. It is valuable. It is irreplaceable, and my friends and I—everyone in this book—want the world to recognize that.

which means you’ll sit around for a year on couches in basements, watching his band get stoned. He will know two chords, then three. He will know nothing about laundry, nor birth control. All his songs will be about the girl before you, who’ll wear leather pants and also turn

Hadia looked confused. “Then why are we going to the basement?” “Because that’s where the library is located.” “Right. And we’re going to the library because…?” Fatma fixed her best blank look. “Because it has all the books.

Over the next weeks and months, my daughters had to learn to live without their father, and me without my husband. In addition to the overwhelming, everyday tasks like buying groceries, making meals, and getting the girls to their activities, I suddenly had to navigate the legal system and file for divorce. I had to figure out the nearly impossible feat of owning a small business and solo parenting two active, preteen girls. I learned the hard way that you have to remove the leaves from the gutter if you don’t want your basement to flood. I had to muster the courage to pull the hair out of the shower drain. I had to somehow find the time and energy to decontaminate the entire house when the dreaded scourge that is lice made its unwanted appearance. And I had to do it all with the added anger, sadness, and sheer frustration that these were all things John used to take care of. As tempting as it was to collapse, I had two girls who needed me now more than ever. I needed my business to survive. I had a mountain of legal bills—tens of thousands of dollars and increasing daily. As a business owner, if I didn’t work, I didn’t get paid. Stepping away to take care of my mental and emotional state was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I had to balance what was best for my business in the long term with what the girls and I needed in the short term. I had to get through each day and keep moving forward. This meant I toggled back and forth between dealing with this trauma and running a business. I lived in a constant state of holding it all together, while simultaneously watching it all fall apart.

The corner She sat there crouched in a corner, Her will was broken and nothing in her looked stronger, There were no signs of smiles or moments of joy, Around her an army of misfortunes time did deploy, So she lay there tied to her weariness, And her eyes revealed a deep emptiness, She had a benighted existence, And in her, sadness sought its own permanence, Many passed by her side, But all were busy dealing with their life’s own tide, A few turned and noticed her wretched state, But nobody wanted to uplift her spirits and mend her fate, She resided in a place that is neither hell nor paradise, Because in her state even soul refuses to rise, So she hangs between nowhere and nothing, Between everything and something, Between the Hell that is there and yet it is not anywhere, Between the Paradise that is there but actually nowhere, And her grief deepened every moment, And with every passing day she got cast into hopelessness’s basement, Now she lies there trapped and feelingless, Dealing with the life that is lifeless, Today when I saw her and her stock of misfortunes, I could hear her heart’s sad tunes, I stood there frozen in the moment, As she slipped deeper into despondency’s basement, And by the time I reached out my hand, There was the corner, an endless pile of misfortunes, and my empty hand, The basement had consumed her and everything related to her, It was an empty corner with nothing to offer and nothing to incur, But a realisation that how often we all fail, To sympathise with someone needy and frail, I too extended my hand but it was too late, And now for a lifetime I am caught in a debate, Where the guilt shall push all heedless passers by in the same basement, To clash with their own conscience and the girl’s every sentiment!

basement

Tap out a message to my idiot best friends as I walk back to my office: What time can you meet at The Basement? Phillip:Yeah

the basement. “What do you want to do?” she said. “Whatever you want to do.” “I want to do whatever’s best for you.” “What’s best for me is to please you,” I said. “I want to make you happy, Jack.” “I’m happy when I’m pleasing you.” “I just want to do what you want to do.

The Mortuary Committee would be burdened with many unenviable tasks, but the first was straightforward: instead of storing the corpses at a half dozen locations around town, which made it more difficult for soldiers to transport the bodies and record-keepers and families to find them, they needed to select a single building to house an official, temporary morgue. They quickly settled on the Chebucto Road School, which, despite its broken windows, had a lot to recommend it: it was large, it could be quickly cleared out and converted to its new purpose, and it was close to Pier 6, minimizing the transport of corpses and travel for their relatives. The committee also needed a place that could keep bodies for as long as possible, giving them the best chance of being identified. They designated the upper floors for offices and the wide-open, cooler basement for the bodies, which they planned to lay in rows and cover with sheets. The Royal Engineers quickly fixed up the damaged school, covered its windows, and cleaned the space. As soon as people learned of the location, bodies began to pile up outside the building, stacked two and three high until morgue workers could retrieve them. The Relief Committee also dispatched crews of volunteers to put out fires and turn off water mains, faucets, and spigots, and to pick up the dead—tagging their names, when they knew them, to the victims’ wrists, or simply attaching a number when they didn’t—loading them onto rudimentary flat wagons dozens at a time. They soon learned to conduct this dispiriting job late at night so as not to offend the friends and relatives of the deceased. But because everyone could hear the horses’ hooves each night, the rolling midnight morgue was a poorly kept secret, one that woke many Haligonians whose homes still lacked windows.

What is it you want of me?” “Direct as always. I admire that. So different from the demon realm, with its endless scheming and intrigue.” “There’s plenty of that here too. I can’t stand it. So what do you want?” My tone was more sour than I’d intended, but he just smiled again and turned away. He stepped to the cold and unlit fireplace. I sure as hell wasn’t going to light a fire in the middle of summer in south Louisiana. He trailed a hand over the back of the armchair, then looked back at me. “I wish you to be mine,” he said. I stared at him, skin tingling as the memory of the last time he’d been in the basement rushed through me. Best sex ever—no doubt. And he wants me to be his …? He wants me? I tried to remain rational. He wanted me, but as what? Wife? Girlfriend? What the hell kind of relationship did one have with a demonic lord? And was that something I wanted? I took another couple of seconds to work some moisture back into my mouth. “Yours? Like, how? Marriage? Adoption? Lease with option to buy?

The best solution is to put a dog bed in your living space, a comfy spot to rest that’s all her own. During the initial house-training phase, though, she should spend the night in a crate in your bedroom. There’s a mind-boggling selection of doggy beds on the market, so take your time choosing the one that’s right for you and your pooch. As in the case of real estate, location counts most when it comes to a dog bed. If your pup’s sleeping accommodation is on carpet or hardwood, you won’t need a lot of padding in the bed, but if it’s on concrete, linoleum or tile, you’ll need an adequate barrier against cold and moisture between the floor and the bottom of the bed. If your pooch sleeps in the basement or some other area where the temperature will be dipping below 60°F (about 16°C), consider a slightly elevated or well-insulated bed. Look for low-maintenance beds that are large enough to allow for a six-inch (fifteen-centimetre) buffer around your pup. And feel free to buy a bed large enough for your pup once he’s full grown. Look for materials that can be washed regularly.

booth and called her best friend from F.I.T., Kit Callendar. “She said she wanted to start me off small, but she took eighteen pieces!” Victory exclaimed. The order seemed enormous to both of them, and at that moment, she couldn’t have ever imagined that someday she’d get orders for ten thousand… Three more weeks of sewing late into the night completed her first order, and she showed up at Myrna’s office with the pieces in three supermarket shopping bags. “What are you doing here?” Myrna demanded. “I have your things,” Victory said proudly. “Don’t you have a shipper?” Myrna asked, aghast. “What am I supposed to do with these bags?” Victory smiled at the memory. She’d known nothing about the technical aspects of being a designer back then; had no idea that there were cutting and sewing rooms where real designers had their clothing made. But ambition and burning desire (the kind of desire, she imagined, most women had for men) carried her forward. And then she got a check in the mail for five hundred dollars. All the pieces had sold. She was eighteen years old, and she was in business. All through her twenties, she just kept going. She and Kit moved into a tiny two-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, on a street that was filled with Indian restaurants and basement “candy stores” where drugs were sold. They would cut and sew until they couldn’t see anymore, and then they

With so many choices, it’s no surprise that we are always thinking about the greener grass on the other side of the fence. We are always pondering what could be better or what might be nicer about something or someone new. “Decide” comes from the Latin word decidere, meaning “to cut off,” which explains why decisions are so hard these days. We can’t stand the thought of cutting off any of our options. If we choose A, we feel the sting of not having B and C and D. As a result, every choice feels worse than no choice at all. And when we do make an important choice, we end up with buyer’s remorse, wondering if we are settling for second best. Or, worse yet, we end up living in our parents’ basement indefinitely as we try to find ourselves and hear God’s voice. Our freedom to do anything and go anywhere ends up feeling like bondage more than liberty, because decision making feels like pain, not pleasure.

Dog Farts:Dogs may be man’s best friends but dog farts remain among the most rancid and foul smelling things ever to enter a human nostril. In fact the rectal stench of K9 back blasters have been plaguing human populations for tens of thousands of years. There a lot of different reasons we put up with our Fido’s stinky dog butt, but the main reason is so we can have someone to blame our own stinkoid bottom cheek claps on. Best of all, as Fido can’t speak he can’t deny it! 8. Vegetarian Humans: Ok, while not eating meat may be great for the animals, and help reduce your carbon footprint, it will turn you into a human rectal stink burger. There can be no question; all those soybeans come at a cost to your domestic air quality. As anyone who has ever had a macrobiotic hippie come to stay, vegetarians are champions when it comes to opening the basement window. 9.  Non Vegetarian Humans: Ok, well maybe it is not just the vegetarians. Meat eating humans can pretty ripe in the trouser department too.  In fact there really isn’t all that much in it, so if you are planning to chow down on a cow to keep your rump mist under control then you might be disappointed.

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it's true, as papa says,—that when we were brought up there was one extreme—we were kept in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now it's just the other way—the parents are in the wash house, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children.

This morning Ava snuck into my office with an announcement: “I only have a few minutes here, because I have to go to work.” “Oh, all right,” I replied. Ava’s “office” is the closet in our basement. I often see her tucked away in there with her pink toy laptop typing away for several minutes at a time. Curious, I thought I’d probe a bit. “Ava, what do you do when you work?” She thought about it for a few seconds, eyes turned upward. “Well, I . . . I do things, and . . .” She paused again. “Well . . . I don’t know. They haven’t told me yet.

You thought your best bet was to find a fan and date her? What if I’d been psychotic?” “Then I wouldn’t still be here.” “Oh, you would be. Tied up in my basement.” He laughed and pressed a kiss against my eyelid that made my stomach go all fluttery. “But my therapist warned me to go slowly and to date like it was 1955.” I opened my eyes to give him a pointed, teasing look. “You’ve totally failed. We haven’t been to a single sock hop or drive-in, and we haven’t shared even one milk shake.

> First, move out of that big Manhattan loft and head upstate. You'll find a little place you can afford and start a new life. Maybe get a job teaching at a community college. Maybe meet a girl at Best Buy, start dating. She'll put up with your crazy habits. You'll put up with her musical tastes. > I don't understand. What's going on here? > Time will pass. You'll make it official. You'll settle down, get a starter house. Two boys. Yellow Lab. Minivan. > That. . . That isn't me. > Why not? It could be. You'll make art in the basement for yourself for a while. The boys'll get married. Have kids of their own. Maybe y'get divorced. Meet someone new. And yeah, you'll wonder what could have been. But less, as the years go by. "Just wasn't meant to be," you'll say. And there'll be good times along the way. Sweet memories. Until it starts to wind down. Until your body fails. Until you don't recognize the world around you. Until it's time to go. > That. . . isn't me. It can't be. > Why not? It's a decent life. Food, sex, running water, a roof. Not to mention love and family. Those aren't small things. > But it's not enough. > You kids, you're so spoiled! Y'know billions would kill for a life like that. So what if the art thing didn't work out? Is it really that important? > It's all I have.

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