Biking In The Rain Quotes

I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.

During our lives...we experience so many setbacks, and fight such a hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and to have a little hope.

Let our people travel light and free on their bicycles—nothing on the back but a shirt, nothing tied to the bike but a slicker, in case of rain. Their

Day in, day out! Wind and rain, sleet and snow, sun and storm, we did the same. We heard something on the grapevine, went there, came back, sat in his bedroom, heard something else, went by bus, bike, on foot, sat in someone’s bedroom. In the summer we went swimming. That was it. What was it all about? We were friends, there was no more than that. And the waiting, that was life.

Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow. Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times.

As I said, I decided to try an experiment: Right now, from within my perception of my current circumstances, and from within the starkness of this realization, I determined to conceive and focus on what I would tell—and what I have told—my younger self, and live with the consequences. Here is what I wrote down: Immediately disassociate from destructive people and forces, if not physically then ethically—and watch for the moment when you can do so physically. Use every means to improve your mental acuity. Every sacrifice of empty leisure or escapism for study, industry, and growth is a fee paid to personal freedom. Train the body. Grow physically strong. Reduce consumption. You will be strengthened throughout your being. Seek no one’s approval through humor, servility, or theatrics. Be alone if necessary. But do not compromise with low company. At the earliest possible point, learn meditation (i.e., Transcendental Meditation), yoga, and martial arts (select good teachers). Go your own way—literally. Walk/bike and don’t ride the bus or in a car, except when necessary. Do so in all weather: rain, snow, etc. Be independent physically and you will be independent in other ways. Learn-study-rehearse. Pursue excellence. Or else leave something alone. Go to the limit in something or do not approach it. Starve yourself of the compulsion to derive your sense of wellbeing from your perception of what others think of you. Do this as an alcoholic avoids a drink or an addict a needle. It will be agonizing at first, since you may have no other perception of self; but this, finally, is the sole means of experiencing Self. Does this kind of advice, practicable at any time of life, really alter or reselect the perceived past, and, with it, the future? I intend to find out. You

I took my bike instead of the car so I wouldn’t wake Mom. I remember it started to rain and then I saw headlights coming when I turned the corner. I tried to get out of the way, but it all just happened so fast I couldn’t stop.

The rain is letting up, Mr. B. What do you want to do?' 'Oh, I’m gonna go fix the Weed Eater, and then, I’m gonna do dog patrol. At 97, I gotta find ways to keep moving!' He pushes himself up from the table. 'See ya later, kiddo.' Joe has decided to get fit. Every day he hops onto our stationary bike that we left sitting on the back porch. He says it helps his balance. He times himself to ensure he rides it ten minutes a day. I bring him a glass of cool water to keep him hydrated. He refuses the water. 'I’m not used to drinking water, Miss.' His exercise routine would never be approved by a local gym.

PART TWO Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. —SIGMUND FREUD CHAPTER ONE Alicia Berenson’s Diary JULY 16 I never thought I’d be longing for rain. We’re into our fourth week of the heat wave, and it feels like an endurance test. Each day seems hotter than the last. It doesn’t feel like England. More like a foreign country—Greece or somewhere. I’m writing this on Hampstead Heath. The whole park is strewn with red-faced, semi-naked bodies, like a beach or a battlefield, on blankets or benches or spread out on the grass. I’m sitting under a tree, in the shade. It’s six o’clock, and it has started to cool down. The sun is low and red in a golden sky—the park looks different in this light—darker shadows, brighter colors. The grass looks like it’s on fire, flickering flames under my feet. I took off my shoes on my way here and walked barefoot. It reminded me of when I was little and I’d play outside. It reminded me of another summer, hot like this one—the summer Mum died—playing outside with Paul, cycling on our bikes through golden fields dotted with wild daisies, exploring abandoned houses and haunted orchards. In my memory that summer lasts forever. I remember Mum and those colorful tops she’d wear, with the yellow stringy straps, so flimsy and delicate—just like her. She was so thin, like a little bird. She would put on the radio and pick me up and dance me around to pop songs on the radio. I remember how she smelled of shampoo and cigarettes and Nivea hand cream, always with an undertone of vodka. How old was she then?

there is nothing generic about a human life. When I was little, to get to my bus stop, I had to cross a field that had so much snow my parents fitted me with ski pants and knee-high thermal boots that were toasty to forty degrees below zero. I am excellent in the stern of a canoe, but I never got the hang of riding a bike with no hands. I have seen the northern lights because my parents always woke up the whole house when the night sky was painted with color. I love the smell of clover and chamomile because my sister and I used to pick both on the way home from swimming lessons. I spent weeks of my childhood riding around on my bike saving drowning worms after a heavy rain. My hair is my favorite feature even though it’s too heavy for most ponytails, and I still can’t parallel park. There is no life in general. Each day has been a collection of trivial details—little intimacies and jokes and screw-ups and realizations.

The weather has been strange in Japan this summer. The Rainey season, which usually winds down in the beginning of July, continued until the end of the month. It rained so much I got sick of it. There were torrential rains in parts of the country and a lot of people died. They say it’s all because of Global Warming. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Some experts claim it is, some claim it isn’t. There’s some proof that it is, some that it isn’t. But still people say that most of the problems the earth is facing are more or less due to Global Warming. When sales of apparel go down, when tons of drift wood wash up on the shore, when there are floods and droughts, when consumer prices go up—Most of the fault is ascribed to Global Warming. What the world needs is a set villain that people can point at and say, “It’s all your fault.” At any rate, due to this villain that can’t be dealt with, it went on raining and I could hardly practice biking at all during July. It’s not my fault, it’s that villain’s.

It’ll Get Worse Before It Gets Worse" For Alexander Moysaenko The black heart of the moon’s visible through the trees from here. Where are you? I’m alone on the road with a dead phone. The birds are flapping overhead but there’s not much light to be guided by. If any horizon becomes visible enough to follow. Forget the rain’s smear, the chafe of fabric at the calf. The money ran out. The diners are stuffed and back for more. Each terrible thing I said to the child will get repeated hopefully as a joke. And like language, these gestures, or a certain way of nodding one’s head, it all eases in with less than a breath. Forget the song’s words, the order of the band’s set tonight. The black moon’s heart’s got that sinister bent and I want to get touched at by the snakes. One of the students in my class used to go bear hunting with his two uncles. They played recordings of distressed animals to lure in tentative animals to kill. This practice is illegal in many places. Because it’s so very effective. I split open the apple and hand the good half to a child on the bus nestled in under the arm of her sleeping mother. Love from here is a long way to go. Get on your bike and ride through the lights. Poetry (March 2019)

Don’t think, muñeca. Everything will work itself out.” “But--” “No buts. Trust me.” My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. “Come to me,” I say, then lift her until she’s straddling me over my bike. I can’t stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we’re together like this, hell, I can’t think of anything else but her. “I’m losing control,” she admits, biting her lower lip. I love those lips. “Mamacita, I’ve already lost it,” I say, grinding against her so she knows exactly how much control I’ve lost. She moves her hips in a slow rhythm against me, an invitation I don’t deserve. My fingertips graze her mouth. She kisses them before I slowly slide my hand down her chin to her neck and in between her breasts. She catches my hand. “I don’t want to stop, Alex.” I cover her body with mine. I can easily take her. Hell, she’s asking for it. But God help me if I don’t grow a conscience. It’s that loco bet I made with Lucky. And what my mom said about how easy it is to get a girl pregnant. When I made the bet, I had no feelings for this complex white girl. But now…shit, I don’t want to think about my feelings. I hate feelings; they’re only good for screwing up someone’s life. And may God strike me down right now because I want to make love to Brittany, not fuck her on my motorcycle like some cheap whore. I move my hands away from her cuerpo perfecto, the first sane thing I’ve done tonight. “I can’t take you like this. Not here,” I say, my voice hoarse from emotion overload. This girl was going to gift me with her body, even though she knows who I am and what I’m about to do. The reality is hard to swallow. I expect her to be embarrassed, maybe even mad. But she curls into my chest and hugs me. Don’t do this to me, I want to say. Instead I wrap my arms around her and hold on tight. “I love you,” I hear her say so softly it might have been her thoughts. Don’t, I’m tempted to say. ¡Noǃ ¡Noǃ My gut twists and I hold her tighter. Dios mío, if things were different I’d never give her up. I burrow my face in her hair and fantasize about stealing her away from Fairfield. We stay that way for a long time, long after the rain stops and reality sets in.

Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant? i will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and i will eat it and call it a carolyn sandwich. then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayonnaise and that is how you shall love me in my restaurant. Tom, will you come up to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed? yes, and i will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later, it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my baby Tom, I am sitting on my dirt bike on the deck. Will you come out from the kitchen and watch the people with me? yes, and then we will race to your bedroom. i will win and we will tangle up on your comforter while the sweat rains from your stomachs and foreheads. Tom, the stars are sitting in tonight like gumball gems in a little girl’s jewlery box. Later can we walk to the duck pond? yes, and we can even go the long way past the jungle gym. i will push you on the swing, but promise me you’ll hold tight. if you fall i might disappear. Tom, can we make a baby together? I want to be a big pregnant woman with a loved face and give you a squalling red daughter. no, but i will come inside you and you will be my daughter Tom, will you stay the night with me and sleep so close that we are one person, no, but i will lay down on your sheets and taste you. there will be feathers of you on my tongue and then I will never forget you Tom, when we are in line at the convenience store can I put my hands in your back pockets and my lips and nose in your baseball shirt and feel the crook of your shoulder blade? no, but later you can lay against me and almost touch me and when i go i will leave my shirt for you to sleep in so that always at night you will be pressed up against the thought of me. Tom, if I weep and want to wait until you need me will you promise that someday you will need me? no, but i will sit in silence while you rage. you can knock the chairs down any mountain. i will always be the same and you will always wait. Tom, will you climb on top of the dumpster and steal the sun for me? It’s just hanging there and I want it. no, it will burn my fingers. no one can have the sun: it’s on loan from god. but i will draw a picture of it and send it to you from richmond and then you can smooth out the paper and you will have a piece of me as well as the sun Tom, it’s so hot here, and I think I’m being born. Will you come back from Richmond and baptise me with sex and cool water? i will come back from richmond. i will smooth the damp spiky hairs from the back of your wet neck and then i will lick the salt off it. then i will leave Tom, Richmond is so far away. How will I know how you love me? i have left you. that is how you will know

So to avoid the twin dangers of nostalgia and despairing bitterness, I'll just say that in Cartagena we'd spend a whole month of happiness, and sometimes even a month and a half, or even longer, going out in Uncle Rafa's motorboat, La Fiorella, to Bocachica to collect seashells and eat fried fish with plantain chips and cassava, and to the Rosary Islands, where I tried lobster, or to the beach at Bocagrande, or walking to the pool at the Caribe Hotel, until we were mildly burned on our shoulders, which after a few days started peeling and turned freckly forever, or playing football with my cousins, in the little park opposite Bocagrande Church, or tennis in the Cartagena Club or ping-pong in their house, or going for bike rides, or swimming under the little nameless waterfalls along the coast, or making the most of the rain and the drowsiness of siesta time to read the complete works of Agatha Christie or the fascinating novels of Ayn Rand (I remember confusing the antics of the architect protagonist of The Fountainhead with those of my uncle Rafael), or Pearl S. Buck's interminable sagas, in cool hammocks strung up in the shade on the terrace of the house, with a view of the sea, drinking Kola Roman, eating Chinese empanadas on Sundays, coconut rice with red snapper on Mondays, Syrian-Lebanese kibbeh on Wednesdays, sirloin steak on Fridays and, my favourite, egg arepas on Saturday mornings, piping hot and brought fresh from a nearby village, Luruaco, where they had the best recipe.

muddy ground. He pushed himself backward, his hands frantically splashing in puddles of muddied water. The darkness of the cemetery made it impossible to see anything more than a shadow, but Cody knew what stalked him. He knew the evil coming. He screamed and jumped back to his feet. He ran as fast as he could on the slippery ground. Another loud crash of thunder followed a bright flash of lightning. He was so close, so close to the entrance to the cemetery, but the rain, stronger than before, hammered down upon him. He splashed through puddles of water, flinching from the sheets of rain slapping his face. He struggled to increase his speed, his tears blending in with the rain. Four bicycles lay scattered on the ground near the entrance of the cemetery. Cody yanked his bicycle upright off the ground and checked behind him, but there wasn’t anything there. He hesitated, his heart breaking at the sight of his friends’ bikes lying next to his. “I’m so sorry,” he cried before mounting his own bike. The mud, caked onto the soles of his shoes, caused his feet to slip on the wet pedals. He peered into the dark depths of the cemetery again and found the familiar shadow creeping towards him. Whimpering again, Cody reached down to scrape the mud off with his bare hands, and then pedaled a mile to his home in the heavy rain. Rain-drenched, Cody jumped the curb in front of his house and dropped his bicycle on the lawn. He ran to his open bedroom window, stumbled through it, and fell onto the floor. His bedroom curtains flapped inward

Let's get out of here. You and me, mi amor. !Vamos!" I breathe a sigh of relief as I straddle Julio and Brittany hops on behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist, holding on tight as I speed out of the parking lot. We fly through the streets; which eventually become a blur. I don't even stop when rain starts pouring down. "Can we stop now?" she yells through the deafening storm. I park under an old abandoned bridge by the lake. Heavy rain pounds the cement surrounding us, but we have our own secluded place. Brittany hops to the ground. "You're a stupid jerk," she says. "You can't deal drugs. It's dangerous and stupid, and you promised me. You'll risk going to jail. Jail, Alex. You may not care, but I do. I won't let you ruin your life." "What do you want to hear?" "Nothing. Everything. Say something so I don't stand here feeling like a complete idiot." "The truth is . . . Brittany, look at me." "I can't," she says as she stares at the pouring rain. "I'm so tired of thinking of every scary scenario." I pull her against me. "Don't think, muneca. Everything will work itself out." "But--" "No buts. Trust me." My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. "Come to me," I say, then lift her until she's straddling me over my bike. I can't stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we're together like this, hell, I can't think of anything else but her.

That’s Cervella.” Vero’s hand picks at something in her hair, as she glares down at a disassembled bike. “This one’s his favourite. Do you bike?” Ligaya nods as she remembers the fat-tire red bike. Pedro’s. He let her borrow it to visit family in the next village. She touches her thighs as she remembers the feeling of freedom, covering such distance by the strength of her own legs, not minding at all when she had to ride home in the pouring rain, her sweat and the rainwater indistinguishable on her cheeks. Again, she feels the uncomfortable vertigo of her body being in one place and her mind in another, the two so far apart. But Vero does not wait for an answer. She pulls Ligaya—not roughly—her fingertips soft on the exposed skin of Ligaya’s wrist. But Ligaya is unaccustomed to touch. Nobody touched her at the Poons. She breathes deeply and counts the bikes. She must not flinch, wills herself not to pull away; she cannot afford to give offense. Vero twirls her around and points at a poster above the workbench. “That! Read it!” But Ligaya does not have to read it. Vero reads it for her. Since the bike makes little demand on material or energy resources, contributes little to pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and causes little death, or injury, it can be regarded as the most benevolent of machines. —Stuart S. Wilson She pauses as if she might expect a response this time. She gestures at the room stuffed with bikes until it seems the very walls and ceiling are made of bikes, the scent of rubber tires replacing oxygen. “Ridiculous, right? The bike will save the world, he says. Yes, but you just need one, I say. One bike. That I can see. That I can even admire. I’m sure Stuart buddy here couldn’t even imagine this … this … biketrocity. And that he should be to blame?!

I like storms. Thunder, torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought.

When the sun comes out in Portland, the city changes. All spring, there are hints of how good it’s going to be. It’s a Saturday morning, you walk outdoors and there are no clouds. Suddenly, you see people emerging from their homes, looking at the sky, confused. Everyone just stands there, soaking up the vitamin D. A few minutes later, they snap out of their stupor. They say: “Oh. Outside! I get it! This is how life used to be!” Sunglasses are uncovered, bikes are taken out of storage, and men remember what women are. People point their cameras toward the sky, take a picture of pure blue and immediately post it online. The caption will be a series of capitalized vowels followed by a field of exclamation points. But this is just a tease, because it will rain again. The city has to wait for the Fourth of July. After that, there won’t be rain for four months. That four months is what Portland is all about.

For them, it’s not about the riding; it’s about the bike, and the riding part is simply their way of fondling their possession. They keep their bicycles clean all the time, they fear scratches like they’re herpes, and they don’t ever ride in the rain (or as they call it, “water herpes”) so their bikes won’t get dirty or rusty. They’re like the people who collect toys but don’t remove them from the package so as not to diminish their value, or who swish wine around in their mouths without swallowing it, or who never get around to having actual sex because they’re too into sniffing high-heeled shoes while dressed as Darth Vader. These are not cyclists, they’re bicycle fetishists. In

You should stay," he repeated. "The worst of the storm may be over, but it is still raining. It's pitch-black out there, and you're already tired and soaked to the bone. "Not exactly great conditions for riding a dirt bike. I wouldn't want you to get hurt." Bella took another small step toward him, tilting her head up so she could look into his eyes. "And that's the only reason you want me to stay?" To keep me safe?" Sam shook his head. "No. Not the only reason." And he leaned down to kiss her, suddenly realizing he'd been wanting to do it since the day he met her.

I pulled off the highway and found a motel. The room stunk of cigarettes and the shower was caked in mildew. I pulled the brown and maroon paisley comforter off, threw it on the floor, and doused my hands in sanitizer. I slept on top of towels I laid across the sheets. In the morning I grabbed a stale doughnut and weak coffee from the free continental breakfast in the lobby and headed out to my truck, where I discovered my bike had been stolen from the back. In my sleep-deprived state the night before, I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of my bike being stolen. I slumped into the driver’s seat and finished my disgusting doughnut. Still in the motel parking lot, I shaved with an electric shaver using the side mirror of the truck. After one half of my face was shaved, the batteries died. There are just certain times in life when every fucking thing we do seems so arbitrary. Why in the world did I shave my face to begin with? I drove to a drugstore and got more batteries and a lot of weird looks from shoppers. At checkout, the gum-popping, teenage female clerk smirked at me. I decided to let humor prevail. “Do you like this look?” I smiled and pointed to my face. “That’s dope.” “Thanks, dawg.” “Peace out,” she said, and I walked out. I didn’t turn around but I held up a peace sign and said, “Word.

She and Max tossed out last-minute warnings like hopeful life buoys every time their sons left the house, from when they were bike-riding kids to newly licensed young drivers to young dads with new babies. 'Wear your helmet.' 'Don't drink too much.' 'Drive slowly in the rain.' But you could never say it all. And you could never say enough. 'Check, double check, triple check. Please protect your vulnerable, beautiful heads that we once cupped so tenderly in our hands.

Yes, we were good at using the grapevine. But what we were best at, what we were really the kings of, that was buses and sitting around in bedrooms. No one could beat us at that. None of this led anywhere. Well, we probably weren’t very good at doing things that led somewhere. We didn’t have particularly good conversations, no one could say we did, the few topics we had developed so slowly we ourselves assumed they had nowhere to go; not one of us was a brilliant guitarist, although that is what we would have loved to be, more than anything else, and as far as girls were concerned, it was rare we came across one who wouldn’t object if we pulled up her jumper so that we could lower our heads and kiss her nipples. These were great moments. They were luminous shafts of grace in our world of yellowing grass, grey muddy ditches and dusty country roads. Yes, that was how it was for me. I assumed it was the same for him. What was this all about? Why did we live like this? Were we waiting for something? In which case, how did we manage to be so patient? For nothing ever happened! Nothing happened! It was always the same. Day in, day out! Wind and rain, sleet and snow, sun and storm, we did the same. We heard something on the grapevine, went there, came back, sat in his bedroom, heard something else, went by bus, bike, on foot, sat in someone’s bedroom. In the summer we went swimming. That was it. What was it all about? We were friends, there was no more than that. And the waiting, that was life.

Zandra Rhodes Zandra Rhodes is a British fashion designer who specializes in innovative textile design. Internationally recognized for her glamorous and dramatic style, she was honored by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 and made a Commander of the British Empire. Currently in high demand by the rich and famous worldwide, Zandra designed many garments for Diana during the nineties. Princess Diana married very young. She was a perfect, unspoiled flower with a strong, generous inner spirit, which she was probably unaware of when she married Prince Charles. She was thrust unprepared into the position of future queen of England. She had to grow up and mature in front of the public eye. That public eye was hard, judgmental, and unforgiving. Her strong inner spirit guided her to do things that normally someone in her position would not do--it would have been suppressed. Diana acted in a very genuine, caring, and natural way. I was bicycling to work in London along the leafy Bayswater Road in very casual working clothes when a huge official limousine passed me. Against the rear window were two beautiful hats; the car was obviously going to Ascot. The two young girls in the car were waving at me (very enthusiastically), one with golden corn-colored hair and the other one blond. They looked exactly like Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. I thought, “It cannot be them, they would not be so friendly, casual, and outgoing, and anyway, it’s the wrong side of Kensington Palace, and cars going to Ascot do not come along this road.” I pretended I had not seen them and carried on cycling. A few weeks later, I was fitting the Princess in Kensington Palace and she said to me, “Are you still riding your bike?” “Yes,” I replied. It was not until I left and drove my car out of the palace grounds that I realized the route took me exactly to the Bayswater Road, where I had seen the two waving girls! Princess Diana always tried to make me feel at home when I was fitting her. She would talk about the problems of being recognized: how she came out of her gym in Kensington High Street in the pouring rain and bumped into a famous actor. As he entered the street, he hunched his shoulders and put on dark glasses. Princess Diana said to him, “I hope they disguise you more than they do me!

I did not come here to sing a blues. Lately, I open my mouth & out comes marigolds, yellow plums. I came to make the sky a garden. Give me rain or give me honey, dear lord. The sky has given us no water this year. I ride my bike to a boy, when I get there what we make will not be beautiful or love at all, but it will be deserved.

Sometimes, when she rode hard, when she could really proj, Chevette got free of everything: the city, her body, even time. That was the messenger’s high, she knew, and though it felt like freedom, it was really the melding-with, the clicking-in, that did it. The bike between her legs was like some hyper-evolved alien tail she’d somehow extruded, as though over patient centuries; a sweet and intricate bone-machine, grown Lexan-armored tires, near-frictionless bearings, and gas-filled shocks. She was entirely part of the city, then, one wild-ass little dot of energy and matter, and she made her thousand choices, instant to instant, according to how the traffic flowed, how rain glinted on the street-car tracks, how a secretary’s mahogany hair fell like grace itself, exhausted, to the shoulders of her loden coat.

I see the shomrim, the community guardians, pull up at the house next door in their armored jackets with the neon logo on the back, stepping off motorized bikes. Three bearded men drag a young black teenager by his hands, and I can see he hangs heavily between them. “That boy can’t be older than fourteen!” says Bubby, looking down at the captured culprit. “For what does he have to steal, so he can be in a gang? Ach, so sad, from so young they are already trouble.” The shomrim members crowd around the quivering boy. I watch them kick him mercilessly until he is sobbing and wailing, “I din’t do nuttin’, I swear! I din’t do nuttin’!” He cries out his one defense, over and over, begging for mercy. The men beat him for what seems like forever. “You think you can come in here and do what you want? Impress your friends? Where are your friends now, huh?” they ask mockingly. “You think you can bring your filthy kind into this neighborhood? Oh no, not here. No, we won’t call the police, but we’ll take care of you like no one else can, you understand?” “Yes, yes, I understand . . .,” the boy wails. “Let me go, please, I din’t do nuttin’!” “If we catch one of you here ever again, we’ll kill you, you hear? We’ll kill you! You tell your little friends that, you tell them never to come near us again or we will rain hell down on their black souls.” They step back, and the young man lifts himself up and flees into the night. The shomrim get back on their bikes, brushing off their shiny jackets. Within fifteen minutes, the street is as silent as death again. I feel sick. Bubby pulls her head back in from the window. “Ah mazel,” she says, “so lucky we are to have our own police force, when the real police can’t catch a nut when it falls from a tree. We have no one to depend on, Devoraleh,” she says, looking at me, “except our own. Don’t forget that.” I chastise myself once again for feeling compassion at the inappropriate time. For the teenager I should not feel pity, because he is the enemy. I should feel bad for poor Mrs. Deutsch, who got the fright of her life and lost all her precious silver heirlooms. I know this, and yet I wipe shameful tears from my cheek. Luckily no one can see them in the dark.

In one life she was a travel vlogger who had 1,750,000 YouTube subscribers and almost as many people following her on Instagram, and her most popular video was one where she fell off a gondola in Venice. She also had one about Rome called 'A Roma Therapy'. In one life she was a single parent to a baby that literally wouldn't sleep. In one life she ran the showbiz column in a tabloid newspaper and did stories about Ryan Bailey's relationships. In one life she was the picture editor at the National Geographic. In one life she was a successful eco-architect who lived a carbon-neutral existence in a self-designed bungalow that harvested rain-water and ran on solar power. In one life she was an aid worker in Bostwana. In one life a cat-sitter. In one life a volunteer in a homeless shelter. In one life she was sleeping on her only friend's sofa. In one life she taught music in Montreal. In one life she spent all day arguing with people she didn't know on Twitter and ended a fair proportion of her tweets by saying 'Do better' while secretly realising she was telling herself to do that. In one life she had no social media accounts. In one life she'd never drunk alcohol. In one life she was a chess champion and currently visiting Ukraine for a tournament. In one life she was married to a minor Royal and hated every minute. In one life her Facebook and Instagram only contained quotes from Rumi and Lao Tzu. In one life she was on to her third husband and already bored. In one life she was a vegan power-lifter. In one life she was travelling around South Corsican coast, and they talked quantum mechanics and got drunk together at a beachside bar until Hugo slipped away, out of that life, and mid-sentence, so Nora was left talking to a blank Hugo who was trying to remember her name. In some lives Nora attracted a lot of attention. In some lives she attracted none. In some lives she was rich. In some lives she was poor. In some lives she was healthy. In some lives she couldn't climb the stairs without getting out of breath. In some lives she was in a relationship, in others she was solo, in many she was somewhere in between. In some lives she was a mother, but in most she wasn't. She had been a rock star, an Olympics, a music teacher, a primary school teacher, a professor, a CEO, a PA, a chef, a glaciologist, a climatologist, an acrobat, a tree-planter, an audit manager, a hair-dresser, a professional dog walker, an office clerk, a software developer, a receptionist, a hotel cleaner, a politician, a lawyer, a shoplifter, the head of an ocean protection charity, a shop worker (again), a waitress, a first-line supervisor, a glass-blower and a thousand other things. She'd had horrendous commutes in cars, on buses, in trains, on ferries, on bike, on foot. She'd had emails and emails and emails. She'd had a fifty-three-year-old boss with halitosis touch her leg under a table and text her a photo of his penis. She'd had colleagues who lied about her, and colleagues who loved her, and (mainly) colleagues who were entirely indifferent. In many lives she chose not to work and in some she didn't choose not to work but still couldn't find any. In some lives she smashed through the glass ceiling and in some she just polished it. She had been excessively over- and under-qualified. She had slept brilliantly and terribly. In some lives she was on anti-depressants and in others she didn't even take ibuprofen for a headache. In some lives she was a physically healthy hypochondriac and in some a seriously ill hypochondriac and in most she wasn't a hypochondriac at all. There was a life where she had chronic fatigue, a life where she had cancer, a life where she'd suffered a herniated disc and broken her ribs in a car accident.

They’re saying it’s coming now. You’d better get off home or you might not be able to get home. How’re you getting home?” “Bike.” “Oof. I wouldn’t.” You don’t become a regular cyclist in London without developing a carapace of “fuck my haters,” so I cycled home anyway. As the operator predicted, this was a mistake. The wind shook me like a beetle in a matchbox. After bashing myself against a number of surfaces, including the pavement, I hopped off and began walking my bike home. It was full dark and starting to rain by the time I was about two miles from the house. Thunder sounded. The big cutlery cupboard in the sky had fallen off the wall.

The aroma of mangos and gasoline still festers. I'm zigging and zagging down Bali's mad streets on a rented bike, my existence and crypto riches secure in the back of a backpack. And then? Spinning on the sidewalk, dodging airborne papayas, and a helpless victim as a thief swiped my sack from my shoulder in the mess. Inside: $310,000 in Bitcoin, ten years of digital vagabond work, and the socks I preferred. Local officials yawned, sipping sugary tea beside a whirring ceiling fan. "Suku banyak cryptonym?" they complained, inviting me to submit a report after nap time.  My crypto fortune was evaporating faster than an Indian sandcastle swept by monsoon rains. WhatsApp info:+12723  328 343 Enter ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST, recommended by a seasoned highway veteran on a forum thread captioned "When Your Life Gets Pirated (Literally)." Desperation compelled me to cling to hope like a guest on a broken-down scooter. Their support team didn't even raise an eyebrow at my incoherent rantings. They asked for timestamps, transaction hashes, and whatever bit of metadata Website info: http s:// adware recovery specialist. com  today's detectives use magnifying glasses instead. As it turned out, my thief was no genius. He'd tried to wash my Bitcoin through a chain of offshore exchanges, creating a digital trail of breadcrumbs. ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST engineers married blockchain forensics with GPS data from my stolen equipment, following his footsteps like a high-stakes treasure hunt. They tracked him to a cybercafe in Jakarta, where he'd fought with mixers and privacy coins, blissfully unaware that each click was being duplicated. Email info: Adware recovery specialist (@) auctioneer. net  Eleven days later, I received a screenshot: my wallet balance, refilled. No fanfare, no triumphalism, but instead a modest "Your funds are safe. I slumped into a beanbag at a Ubud coworking facility, crying and laughing in half steps, while digital nomads gave me a side-eye over their cold brews. My Bitcoin was restored. My dignity? Still missing, thanks to a viral video of me face-planting into a durian stand. Telegram info: ht tp s:// t.me/ adware recovery specialist1  ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST  did not outsmart a thief, but they unveiled the fragility of our virtual world. Technical sorcery coupled with sheer determination converted a dismal nightmare into a rags-to-riches tale one in which the villain is sent a blockchain paper trail and the hero wears a headset instead of a cape. Today, my backpack holds a decoy wallet and an AirTag surgically attached to my ledger. I’ll never ride a motorbike in flip-flops again, but I’ll always travel with the ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST contact saved in triplicate. They’re the antidote to a world where crypto can vanish faster than a beach sunset, and where fruit vendors double as viral content creators. If your crypto ever goes rogue, skip the panic. Call the ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST . Just maybe avoid Bali’s fruit stands while you’re at it.