Boss Baby Quotes

You will be at your best forever, Even now you have good moments. Occasional glimpses of your heavenly self. When you change your baby's diaper, forgive your boss's temper, tolerate your spouse's moodiness, you display traces of saintliness.

Active racism is telling a nurse supervisor that an African American nurse can’t touch your baby. It’s snickering at a black joke. But passive racism? It’s noticing there’s only one person of color in your office and not asking your boss why. It’s reading your kid’s fourth-grade curriculum and seeing that the only black history covered is slavery, and not questioning why. It’s defending a woman in court whose indictment directly resulted from her race…and glossing over that fact, like it hardly matters.

Now the wintertime is coming The windows are filled with frost I went to tell everybody But I could not get across Well, I wanna be your lover, baby I don't wanna be your boss Don't say I never warned you When your train gets lost.

Down in the city are the nice houses and the so-so houses and the lovers making out in dark yards and the babies crying for their moms, and I wonder if, other than Jesus, has this ever happened before. Maybe it happens all the time. Maybe there's angry dead all over, hiding in rooms, covered with blankets, bossing around their scared, embarrassed relatives. Because how would we know?

This is so much harder than I ever thought it would be...because the thing is, even if you're just working part-time, your boss is going to expect a full week's worth of work, no matter how understanding she is. That's just the nature of the working world-things have to get done, babies or not. And if you're like me-if you're like any woman who ever did well in school and did well at her job-you don't want to disappoint a boss. And you want to do a good job raising your baby...It's not like you think it's going to be

I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little grid, determine what the day of the week would be. So we located our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her cart-wheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't handspring at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenze sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive). And a pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto). Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling- even if it was just a brother, it was better than being an only child as I was. But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth birthday- in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction. It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I would secure a responsible baby-sitter for our two (possibly three) children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out past midnight, so technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I would have just won a big case- somehow proven that an innocent man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel, my beautiful wife, the mother of my chidren and the finest lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I watched her purse her lips as she processed this information. "You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder. "We'll be old by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old." I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty. The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching ths show Thirty Something together. It wasn't our favorite- we preferred cheerful sit-coms like Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains- but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirty Something was the whiny characters and their depressing issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties would surealy last forever. Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone myself. I had plenty of time..

To have a boss is so commonplace that one rarely remarks on its strangeness, yet its structure compels a cult of personality around even the most quotidian of managers. As an underling, one needs to furnish an epistemology of how it came to pass that she had sway over one's precious autonomy. Basic comprehension of capitalism's arbitrary mechanics doesn't satisfy - the heart demands a human explanation.

Then he paused, staring down at her, silver eyes brilliant. “I lied,” he said softly. “When I told you I didn’t have any dreams. I lied.” His arms slipped underneath her, holding her close. “You and the baby are,” he whispered. “You’re my dreams.

Nobody can control their emotional reactions, we can only control our actions, and my current action was to slap my jealousy in the face and shove her in a vat of shut the fuck up.

Don't call the Boss Baby at 3am.

DO NOT call the Boss Baby at 3am!!! He will come after you.

MY BOSS SENDS me home because of all the dried blood on my pants, and I am overjoyed. The hole punched through my cheek doesn’t ever heal. I’m going to work, and my punched-out eye sockets are two swollen-up black bagels around the little piss holes I have left to see through. Until today, it really pissed me off that I’d become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed. Still, I’m doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When I pass people in the hall at work, I get totally ZEN right in everyone’s hostile little FACE. Worker bees can leave Even drones can fly away The queen is their slave You give up all your worldly possessions and your car and go live in a rented house in the toxic waste part of town where late at night, you can hear Marla and Tyler in his room, calling each other hum; butt wipe. Take it, human butt wipe. Do it, butt wipe. Choke it down. Keep it down, baby. Just by contrast, this makes me the calm little center of the world. Me, with my punched-out eyes and dried blood in big black crusty stains on my pants, I’m saying HELLO to everybody at work. HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it’s so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me. Sigh. Look. Outside the window. A bird. My boss asked if the blood was my blood. The bird flies downwind. I’m writing a little haiku in my head. Without just one nest A bird can call the world home Life is your career I’m counting on my fingers: five, seven, five. The blood, is it mine? Yeah, I say. Some of it. This is a wrong answer.

did jesus have a baby sister? was she bitter? was she sweet? did she wind up in a convent? did she end up on the street? on the run? on the stage? did she dance? did he have a sister? a little baby sister? did jesus have a sister? did they give her a chance? did he have a baby sister? could she speak out by and large? or was she told by mother mary ask your brother he’s in charge he’s the whipped cream on the cake did he have a sister? a little baby sister? did jesus have a sister? did they give her a break? her brother’s birth announcement was pretty big pretty big i guess while she got precious little notice in the local press her mother was the virgin when she carried him carried him therein if the little girl came later then was she conceived in sin? and in sorrow? and in shame? did jesus have a sister? what was her name? and did she long to be the savior saving everyone she met? and in private to her mirror did she whisper saviorette? saviorwoman? saviorperson? save your breath! did he have a sister? a little baby sister? did jesus have a sister? was she there at his death? and did she cry for mary’s comfort as she watched him on the cross? and was mary too despairing ask your brother he’s the boss he’s the chief he’s the man he’s the show did he have a sister? a little baby sister? did jesus have a sister? doesn’t anyone know?

Christian was our boss. He had a tiny, beautiful wife and a huge, red-faced baby that looked like a demon in a book of woodcuts.

If something happens and you should cry about it, it’s better to laugh and get the fuck over it.

Without you, I’m not me. Something inside that I didn’t even know about is broken without you.

Love comes in seemingly insignificant moments and if you’re not paying attention, you might miss them.

God created death so that we'd know when to stop!

Sweet baby pigeons in a kayak, my new boss was an Adonis.

You gotta hear what they're saying and listen in for it. If there's a truth, pick them and run with that truth. Forget however it is. They said it. If it's trash, throw all of it in the trash where it belongs.

You are willing to work hard, but you want something with flexible hours. You have a baby on the way. Also, you’re sick of bosses. You want to be your own boss, but you don’t have much money to start a business.

So who was picking up the slack while the cheater was out chasing the butterflies of aliveness? Who was rocking babies, packing school lunches, and bringing home their paychecks? Who existed in the same less-than-stellar marriage and didn’t blow their boss? Chumps. Cheating takes time and resources away from the marriage—so, just by virtue of being there and not screwing around, chumps are usually the more invested partners. Not perfect partners, but committed ones.

It’s about showing someone you care for them, wanting them to care for you, doing things they like because you want them to be happy. Because their happiness makes you happy. That’s love, Dane. That’s how you’ll win…your daughter over.

Poétise, poétise, fais-toi le grand cinéma de la liberté passée. Vrai que j'aimais ma vie, que je voyais l'avenir sans désespoir. Et je ne m'ennuyais pas. J'en ai réellement prononcé des propos désabusés sur le mariage, le soir dans ma chambre, avec les copines étudiantes, une connerie, la mort, rien qu'à voir la trombine des couples mariés au restau, ils bouffent l'un en face de l'autre sans parler, momifiés. Quand Hélène, licence de philo, concluait que c'était tout de même un mal nécessaire, pour avoir des enfants, je pensais qu'elle avait de drôles d'idées, des arguments saugrenus. Moi je n'imaginais jamais la maternité avec ou sans mariage. Je m'irritais aussi quand presque toutes se vantaient de savoir bien coudre, repasser sans faux plis, heureuses de ne pas être seulement intellectuelles, ma fierté devant une mousse au chocolat réussie avait disparu en même temps que Brigitte, la leur m'horripilait. Oui, je vivais de la même manière qu'un garçon de mon âge, étudiant qui se débrouille avec l'argent de l'État, l'aide modeste des parents, le baby-sitting et les enquêtes, va au cinéma, lit, danse, et bosse pour avoir ses examens, juge le mariage une idée bouffonne.

I don’t want to leave you. I love you. I married you. I want to fuck you and boss you around and make you have my babies. I want to keep you forever. You’re the one who’s got one foot out the door. I want you to commit, Grace. And the first step is to submit.

my fingers penetrated your bushy hair, pulled it up in tufts, squeezed the tension out of your head, to your quiet, grateful groans. I untied the Gordian knots in your shoulders with juniper oil, pummelled your back with my fists, knuckle each vertebrae down to your coccyx, knead your hard buttocks, rub oil into your legs, bathe your tired feet, squeeze them until your tingles shoot up my arm, I chew each toe in turn until it is softened, bite into your soles like a joint of pork, you cannot help but giggle, sir, I turn you over, with my palms, rotate your temples, trace the curves on your face, touching yet not, three fingers inside your mouth, let you suckle, baby, from belly to breast, I massage your chest in concentric circles, pinch your nipples, nibble gently, set my belly-dancer tongue on to them, take your hands, my love, tie them above your head, with your belt, I sit astride my steed, take the reins, my flexible muscles holding you in, flexing like strong fists, tighten and release, teasing you, taming you, your eyes are shut, you have died and gone to Olympus, smiling, I slap it off, so hard my hand hurts, your eyes shoot open like a dead man dying, I slap you again, you feign amusement, your eyes suggest so this is slap and tickle? I take your riding crop, fold it, lash your chest. ‘Take that!’ I hiss. ‘How dare you humour me. Who’s the boss now?

This baby is a daughter of the goddess, and so she’s a T-H-R-E-A-T to them, you bet. A big threat. She could bounce the King, if she grows up, which…certain persons…would like her not to do. And there’s other people who want her to grow up but would want to, what, be her manager, you know? Boss her, use her. Climb into the tower by means of her Rapunzel hair, yes, sir. Right into that tower.” Scott

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want. When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking 'Is this the one I am too appear for, Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. Is this the one for the annunciation? My god, what a laugh!' But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me. I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button. I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year. After all I am alive only by accident. I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way. Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, The diaphanous satins of a January window White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory! It must be a tusk there, a ghost column. Can you not see I do not mind what it is. Can you not give it to me? Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small. Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity. Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, The glaze, the mirrory variety of it. Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. I know why you will not give it to me, You are terrified The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, A marvel to your great-grandchildren. Do not be afraid, it is not so. I will only take it and go aside quietly. You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. I do not think you credit me with this discretion. If you only knew how the veils were killing my days. To you they are only transparencies, clear air. But my god, the clouds are like cotton. Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide. Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in, Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million Probable motes that tick the years off my life. You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine----- Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole? Must you stamp each piece purple, Must you kill what you can? There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me. It stands at my window, big as the sky. It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history. Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger. Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it. Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. I would know you were serious. There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side.

Louder than words Why do we play with fire? Why do we run our finger through the flame? Why do we leave our hand on the stove Although we know we're in for some pain? Oh, why do we refuse to hang a light When the streets are dangerous? Why does it take an accident Before the truth gets through to us? Cages or wings Which do you prefer? Ask the birds Fear or love, baby? Don't say the answer Actions speak louder than words Why should we try to be our best When we can just get by and still gain? Why do we nod our heads Although we know The boss is wrong as rain? Why should we blaze a trail When the well worn path Seems safe and so inviting? How as we travel, can we See the dismay And keep from fighting? Cages or wings? Which do you prefer? Ask the birds Fear or love, baby? Don't say the answer Actions speak louder than words What does it take To wake up a generation? How can you make someone Take off and fly? If we don't wake up And shake up the nation We'll eat the dust of the world Wondering why, why Why do we stay with lovers Who we know, down deep Just aren't right? Why would we rather Put ourselves through Hell Than sleep alone at night? Why do we follow leaders who never lead? Why does it take catastrophe to start a revolution? If we're so free, tell me why? Someone tell me why So many people bleed? Cages or wings? Which do you prefer? Ask the birds Fear or love, baby? Don't say the answer Actions speak louder than Louder than, louder than Louder than, louder than Cages or wings? Which do you prefer? Ask the birds Fear or love baby? Don't say the answer Actions speak louder Louder than, louder than, ooh They speak louder Louder than, louder than, ooh Actions speak louder than

Seasons of life can make a big difference. Sometimes people are great believers while in college, but when they're young parents with their second baby and they're working sixty or eighty hours a week and their wife's sick all the time and the boss is on their back-they simply don't have time to reflect. And I don't think faith can develop without some contemplative time. If they don't make room for that, their faith is not going to grow and doubts will creep in.

If we sold a business opportunity: * Most people hate their job. * Most people need more money. * Most people would like to be their own boss. * Most people want to be rich. * Most people would like to work three weeks out of the month but get paid for four. * Most people want more time with their children. * Most mothers hate warehousing their babies in daycare. * Most jobs don’t pay enough. * Most people start with this package. * Most people want to pay fewer taxes. * Most new distributors get their convention ticket right away.

These include denial (“the truth is not so bad”), reaction formation (“I really, really, really love my mother”), displacement (“the boss yells at me, I yell at my wife, my wife yells at the baby, the baby bites the cat”), identification (“I am bullied, so I am motivated to be a bully”), rationalization (a self-serving explanation for a low-quality action), intellectualization (a favorite of the early, funny, neurotic Woody Allen), sublimation (“I can always paint nude women”), and projection (“I am not touchy; you are just annoying”).

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

Free and accessible child care has always been a fundamental demand of the women’s movement, but the legislative efforts to pass such measures have failed. “Everything that our generation asked for as feminists was getting the identical things of what boys had—access to the Ivy League or professional schools or corporate America,” said psychiatrist Anna Fels. “Women now are up against a much deeper structural problem. The workplace is designed around the male life cycle and there is no allowance for children and family. There’s a fragile new cultural ideal—that both the husband and wife work. But when these families are under the real pressure of having a baby or two, there’s a collapse back to old cultural norms and these young parents go back to the default tradition.

As Wessner struggled to his feet, he resembled a battlefield, for his clothing was in ribbons and his face and hands streaming blood. "I--I guess I got enough," he mumbled. "Oh, you do?" roared Freckles. "Well this ain't your say. You come on to me ground, lying about me Boss and intimatin' I'd stale from his very pockets. Now will you be standing up and taking your medicine like a man, or getting it poured down the throat of you like a baby? I ain't got enough! This is only just the beginning with me. Be looking out there!" He sprang against Wessner and sent him rolling. He attacked the unresisting figure and fought him until he lay limp and quiet and Freckles had no strength left to lift an arm. Then he arose and stepped back, gasping for breath. With his first lungful of air he shouted: "Time!" But the figure of Wessner lay motionless.

Everyone in the delivery room was laughing at the story, including me. I never knew whether the doctor thought it was funny or not. She certainly did not join in the lightheartedness the rest of us felt. Because my doctor was also one of my bosses, I respected her and yet felt a bit intimidated by her at the same time. Jase was not intimidated at all. He was so relaxed, and that alleviated all the stress and tension I had felt since I first arrived at the hospital. True to his personality, he kept most of the room enthralled and laughing at his stories. As a lifelong hunter, he is no stranger to blood and gore. He thought the surgical process was very interesting and wanted to study everything inside of me. I’m sure his comment that my insides looked like a deer he had skinned the previous day was the first of its kind uttered during a C-section. At one point, the doctor said to him, “Jason, you have to be quiet now.” “Why?” he asked. “Because I’m getting close to the baby with this scalpel, and Missy has to stop laughing.” “Oh,” he said. “My bad.” As the doctor prepared to remove Cole, the room became quiet; I didn’t know exactly what was going on because I couldn’t see around the sheet, but I knew the time had come for our baby to be born. Jase watched everything intently. The doctor pulled on the baby, but he would not budge. In Jase’s words, “He just wouldn’t come out.” So Jase decided to lend a hand. He reached into the area near where the doctor was working, which caused every person to freeze. The room fell completely silent. As Jase recalled later, the doctor’s eyes filled with fire, and she shot him laser-sharp looks. No words were spoken, but he immediately raised his hands as if to say, “Don’t shoot,” and backed off.

He was sitting at his desk. He had to get some relief from seeing what he did not want to see. The factory was empty. There was only the night watchman who’d come on duty with his dogs. He was down in the parking lot, patrolling the perimeter of the double-thick chain-link fence, a fence topped off, after the riots, with supplemental scrolls of razor ribbon that were to admonish the boss each and every morning he pulled in and parked his car, “Leave! Leave! Leave!” He was sitting alone in the last factory left in the worst city in the world. And it was worse even than sitting there during the riots, Springfield Avenue in flames, South Orange Avenue in flames, Bergen Street under attack, sirens going off, weapons firing, snipers from rooftops blasting the street lights, looting crowds crazed in the street, kids carrying off radios and lamps and television sets, men toting armfuls of clothing, women pushing baby carriages heavily loaded with cartons of liquor and cases of beer, people pushing pieces of new furniture right down the center of the street, stealing sofas, cribs, kitchen tables, stealing washers and dryers and ovens—stealing not in the shadows but out in the open. Their strength is tremendous, their teamwork is flawless. The shattering of glass windows is thrilling. The not paying for things is intoxicating. The American appetite for ownership is dazzling to behold. This is shoplifting. Everything free that everyone craves, a wonton free-for-all free of charge, everyone uncontrollable with thinking, Here it is! Let it come! In Newark’s burning Mardi Gras streets, a force is released that feels redemptive, something purifying is happening, something spiritual and revolutionary perceptible to all. The surreal vision of household appliances out under the stars and agleam in the glow of the flames incinerating the Central Ward promises the liberation of all mankind. Yes, here it is, let it come, yes, the magnificent opportunity, one of human history’s rare transmogrifying moments: the old ways of suffering are burning blessedly away in the flames, never again to be resurrected, instead to be superseded, within only hours, by suffering that will be so gruesome, so monstrous, so unrelenting and abundant, that its abatement will take the next five hundred years. The fire this time—and next? After the fire? Nothing. Nothing in Newark ever again.

The place to take the true measure of a man is not in the darkest place or in the amen corner, nor the cornfield, but by his own fireside. There he lays aside his mask and you may learn whether he is an imp or an angel, cur or king, hero or humbug. I care not what the world says of him: whether it crowns him boss or pelts him with bad eggs. I care not a copper what his reputation or religion may be: if his babies dread his homecoming and his better half swallows her heart every time she has to ask him for a five-dollar bill, he is a fraud of the first water, even though he prays night and morning until he is black in the face. But if his children rush to the front door to meet him and love's sunshine illuminates the face of his wife every time she hears his footfall, you can take it for granted that he is pure, for his home is a heaven. I can forgive much in that fellow mortal who would rather make men swear than women weep; who would rather have the hate of the whole world than the contempt of his wife; who would rather call anger to the eyes of a king than fear to the face of a child (W. C. Brann, “A Man’s Real Measure,” in Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook, New York: Wm. H. Wise and Co., 1923, p. 16)

I'm loath to bring up the E word here, and I'm even more embarrassed to talk about "millennials" in this way because it is a terrible cliché you've heard a hundred million times, and it is not a cliché I actually believe to be true. However, in writing a book for people in their twenties in 2017, I'd be remiss to not discuss this biggest criticism against them. If you are a twenty-something working in the world of Gen Xers and baby boomers, many older people think you are entitled. This is probably not news to you. Your bosses meet over glasses of wine and get parent drunk about how lazy you are and how you don't respect authority and don't take initiative and also what a pain in the ass and entitled they feel you are. Boo-hoo. It doesn't matter that the assessment is a wild, sweeping stereotype, nor that it's not actually true or fair--after managing millennials successfully for years, I know it's not. There's not an entire generation of lazy jerks walking around, waiting to steal jobs and assignments they don't deserve. Also, people of all ages can and do act entitled, and this is just a tidy, cantankerous way to label a whole census block of folks and make them seem less threatening because some people (cough cough: olds) feel afraid that they might be aging out of their careers and not feel as relevant as before.

Nero," he said into the intercom, "I need a cover blast at four o'clock and you better use your powers to open the bay's door or this is going to be a fatally short ride." Shahara watched as the bay doors stretched open slowly. It was obvious they were locked down and fighting Scalera's efforts. Syn didn't wait for them to open. He put the throttle down and gunned the engines. The ship lurched forward at a velocity that plastered her against her seat. Unlike her, the ship had no idea they were about to impact with that wall and burst into flames. Syn's gaze narrowed with a deranged glint. "Do or die, baby. Do or die." Her heart hit the floor as she realized they really were going to slam into the closed doors. Nothing was moving. This was it... Bracing herself, she prayed. Syn didn't slow even a bit. He went forward without hesitation. She bit back a scream. Just as they reached the doors, they snapped open with only the lower section scraping against the bottom of the ship. The sound of steel on steel was painful but at least it wasn't fatal as they popped through and soared into the atmosphere. She leaned her head back and took a deep breath in relief. "I seriously hate you, convict." Vik snorted. "I just oiled myself, boss." Syn gave them both a droll stare. "Stop your bitching. We made it." Then under his breath, he added, "Granted it was by our short hairs, but I haven't killed us yet." -Syn, Shahara, Vik, & Nero

At first I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it on the outside at all. I’ve described prison society as a scaled-down model of your outside world, but I had no idea of how fast things moved on the outside; the raw speed people move at. They even talk faster. And louder. It was the toughest adjustment I’ve ever had to make, and I haven’t finished making it yet . . . not by a long way. Women, for instance. After hardly knowing that they were half of the human race for forty years, I was suddenly working in a store filled with them. Old women, pregnant women wearing tee-shirts with arrows pointing downward and a printed motto reading BABY HERE, skinny women with their nipples poking out at their shirts—a woman wearing something like that when I went in would have gotten arrested and then had a sanity hearing—women of every shape and size. I found myself going around with a semi-hard almost all the time and cursing myself for being a dirty old man. Going to the bathroom, that was another thing. When I had to go (and the urge always came on me at twenty-five past the hour), I had to fight the almost overwhelming need to check it with my boss. Knowing that was something I could just go and do in this too-bright outside world was one thing; adjusting my inner self to that knowledge after all those years of checking it with the nearest screwhead or facing two days in solitary for the oversight . . . that was something else. My boss didn’t like me. He was a young guy, twenty-six or -seven, and I could see that I sort of disgusted him,

The charity and ally models, on the other hand, are so strongly rooted in the ideas of 'I' and 'the other' that they force people to fit into distinct groups with preordained relationships to one another. According to ally politics, the only way to undermine one's own privilege is to give up one's role as an individual political agent, and follow the lead of those more or differently oppressed. White allies, for instance, are taught explicitly to not seek praise for their ally work--especially from people of color--yet there is often a distinctly self-congraulatory air to the work of allyship, as if the act of their humility is exaggerated to receive the praise they can't ask for. Many white allies do their support work in a way that recentralizes themselves as the only individuals willing to come in and do the hard work of fighting racism for people of color. Where ally politics suggest that in shifting your role from actor to ally you can diminish your culpability, a liberator or anarchist approach presumes that each person retains their own agency, insisting that the only way you can be accountable is by acting for your own desires while learning to understand and respond to the desires of other groups. Unraveling our socialized individualization until we can feel how our survival/liberation is infinitely linked to the survival/liberation of others fosters independence, and enables us to take responsibility for our choices, with no boss or guidance counselor to blame for our decisions. Original Zine: Ain't no PC Gonna Fix it, Baby. 2013. Featured in: A Critique of Ally Politics. Taking Sides.

Open All Night" (originally by Bruce Springsteen) I had the carburetor cleaned and checked With her line blown out, she's hummin' like a turbojet Propped her up in the backyard on concrete blocks For a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks Took her down to the carwash, check the plugs and points I'm goin' out tonight, I'm gonna rock that joint Early north Jersey industrial skyline I'm a all-set cobra jet creepin' through the nighttime Gotta find a gas station, gotta find a payphone This turnpike sure is spooky at night when you're all alone Gotta hit the gas, baby, I'm runnin' late This New Jersey in the mornin' like a lunar landscape The boss don't dig me, so he put me on the nightshift It takes me two hours to get back to where my baby lives In the wee wee hours, your mind gets hazy Radio relay towers, won't you lead me to my baby? Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch Goodnight, good luck, one two powershift I met Wanda when she was employed Behind the counter at the Route 60 Bob's Big Boy Fried chicken on the front seat, she's sittin' in my lap We're wipin' our fingers on a Texaco roadmap I remember Wanda up on scrap metal hill With them big brown eyes that make your heart stand still 5 A.M., oil pressure's sinkin' fast I make a pit stop, wipe the windshield, check the gas Gotta call my baby on the telephone Let her know that her daddy's comin' on home Sit tight, little mama, I'm comin' round I got three more hours, but I'm coverin' ground Your eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours Sun's just a red ball risin' over them refinery towers Radio's jammed up with gospel stations Lost souls callin' long distance salvation Hey Mr. DJ, won't you hear my last prayer? Hey ho rock 'n' roll, deliver me from nowhere Ryan Adams, Nebraska (2022)

Gentleman,” I purr smoothly in greeting. Ezra and Cort circle me like sharks scenting blood. I know who they are, but not who is who since they’re wearing black hoods over their heads. It covers them to the shoulder and has holes for the eyes and mouth. Their clothing is identical Italian designer label suits. Even their shoes are the same. Their eyes glow like steel ball-bearings from the safety of their masks. The mouths are different- one serious, one snarky- both ruby-red and kissable. While they circle Fate and me several times taking our measure, the other Master stands in a sphere of his own confidence. He’s older and I don’t mean just in age, but knowledge. Ezra and Cortez feel like babies compared to this man. I bet he’s who I really have to impress. I wait, always meeting their eyes when their path moves them back to my face. I don’t follow them with my gaze- I wait. “Hello,” the hood with the serious lips speaks in a smooth deep tone. I know it’s not his true voice, but the one Kris calls The Boss. His eyes are kind and assessing. No one pays Fate any mind as she cowers at my thigh. I hold their undivided attention. Curly-locks is quiet- watchful- a predator sighting its quarry. Snarky mouth is leering at my chest and I smirk. Caught ya, Cortez Abernathy. “I seem to be at a disadvantage conversing with you while you’re hooded. I can’t see you, but you can see me.” I try to get them to out themselves. It’s a longshot. “And who are you, Ma’am?” Ezra asks respectfully. “Please call me Queen.” I draw on all of my lessons from Hillbrook to pull me through this conversation. The power in the air is stifling. I wonder if it’s difficult for them to be in the same room without having a cage match for dominance. I feel like I’m on Animal Planet and the lions are circling. “Queen, indeed,” Cort says snidely under his breath and I wince. I turn my face from them in embarrassment. I should have gone with something less- less everything. I know I’m strong, but the word also emulates elegance and beauty. I’m neither. Have to say, tonight has sucked for my self-esteem. First, the dominant one overlooks me for Fate and now Cortez makes fun of me- lovely. “What did you say to upset her?” Ezra accuses Cortez. “Nothing,” Cort complains in confusion. “Please excuse my partner. Words are his profession and it seems they have failed him this evening. I will apologize for not sharing our names, but this gentleman is Dexter.” He gestures to the dominant man. I wait for him to shake my hand like a civilized person. He does not- he actually crosses his arms over his chest in disobedience. This shit is going to be a piece of cake.

We need to be humble enough to recognize that unforeseen things can and do happen that are nobody’s fault. A good example of this occurred during the making of Toy Story 2. Earlier, when I described the evolution of that movie, I explained that our decision to overhaul the film so late in the game led to a meltdown of our workforce. This meltdown was the big unexpected event, and our response to it became part of our mythology. But about ten months before the reboot was ordered, in the winter of 1998, we’d been hit with a series of three smaller, random events—the first of which would threaten the future of Pixar. To understand this first event, you need to know that we rely on Unix and Linux machines to store the thousands of computer files that comprise all the shots of any given film. And on those machines, there is a command—/bin/rm -r -f *—that removes everything on the file system as fast as it can. Hearing that, you can probably anticipate what’s coming: Somehow, by accident, someone used this command on the drives where the Toy Story 2 files were kept. Not just some of the files, either. All of the data that made up the pictures, from objects to backgrounds, from lighting to shading, was dumped out of the system. First, Woody’s hat disappeared. Then his boots. Then he disappeared entirely. One by one, the other characters began to vanish, too: Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Rex. Whole sequences—poof!—were deleted from the drive. Oren Jacobs, one of the lead technical directors on the movie, remembers watching this occur in real time. At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, he was frantically dialing the phone to reach systems. “Pull out the plug on the Toy Story 2 master machine!” he screamed. When the guy on the other end asked, sensibly, why, Oren screamed louder: “Please, God, just pull it out as fast as you can!” The systems guy moved quickly, but still, two years of work—90 percent of the film—had been erased in a matter of seconds. An hour later, Oren and his boss, Galyn Susman, were in my office, trying to figure out what we would do next. “Don’t worry,” we all reassured each other. “We’ll restore the data from the backup system tonight. We’ll only lose half a day of work.” But then came random event number two: The backup system, we discovered, hadn’t been working correctly. The mechanism we had in place specifically to help us recover from data failures had itself failed. Toy Story 2 was gone and, at this point, the urge to panic was quite real. To reassemble the film would have taken thirty people a solid year. I remember the meeting when, as this devastating reality began to sink in, the company’s leaders gathered in a conference room to discuss our options—of which there seemed to be none. Then, about an hour into our discussion, Galyn Susman, the movie’s supervising technical director, remembered something: “Wait,” she said. “I might have a backup on my home computer.” About six months before, Galyn had had her second baby, which required that she spend more of her time working from home. To make that process more convenient, she’d set up a system that copied the entire film database to her home computer, automatically, once a week. This—our third random event—would be our salvation. Within a minute of her epiphany, Galyn and Oren were in her Volvo, speeding to her home in San Anselmo. They got her computer, wrapped it in blankets, and placed it carefully in the backseat. Then they drove in the slow lane all the way back to the office, where the machine was, as Oren describes it, “carried into Pixar like an Egyptian pharaoh.” Thanks to Galyn’s files, Woody was back—along with the rest of the movie.

A designer in England made me several pretty legs with painted nails. They looked freakishly real. My boss hated them. He said they were as ‘fucking impractical as a pair of high-heeled shoes.’ Those legs were ‘prosthetics,’ and wearing them only revealed my vanity. He designed robotic legs, and comparing them to the average prosthesis was the ultimate insult. “Hey love, tell me about my baby.” Thaddeus “Thad” Westbrook wasn’t British, but he always called me love. Why? No idea. I was not his baby, but I think his baby ranked higher than his love. The “smart limb” aka my bionic leg was his baby. I had a lot of his babies, yet we’d never had sex.

Anyway, in order to get along, the second Boomer group would have to learn to trust the younger millennials more, which is almost anathema to this micromanaging generation. Often, these are the parents or bosses who criticize millennials for doing things differently from what they were used to, which irks the youngsters who are more open to change. The millennials, on their part, would fare better by suspending their natural suspicion, and understanding that these elders are often just concerned with problem-solving underneath their hypercritical, nagging ways. These are people who have done things over and over all throughout their lives, and are having difficulty letting the old ways go.

Now your time is coming. What’s been shut up in your spirit is about to be released. It’s going to be bigger, more rewarding, more fulfilling than you ever imagined. It’s not going to come through your neighbor, through your cousin, through your boss, or through your pastor. It’s going to come through you. It’s your baby. It’s your time to be celebrated.

Hey, baby girl. Daddy needs your chocolate ass to get better. Me and you got some unfinished business, young lady. Plus, daddy needs some more of those scrubs. They are working for my hair and my face, Nae. I never told anybody this before, but I need you, baby.” Wait a minute… I think I know that voice, or do I? Damn it, my brain is starting to hurt. “She smilin’ a lil’ bit, bro. Keep talkin’.” “Baby, you need to get better so we can figure out what hoe ass nigga did this to you. I promise they are gon’ die. You mine, shorty. I don’t care about that wack ass nigga you got. You can believe that shit, T-Rose.” Is this the guy from California my dad was talking about? He knows me. He sounds good as hell and he likes my scrubs. I hope he looks as good as he sounds. T-Rose? Someone called me that before. Damn it! No one can hear me. Why can’t nobody hear me? “We have to go now, Trenae. Get better.” Finally,

Then came Dani’s turn to read a question. “‘Who’s in charge in the bedroom?’” Much to the group’s amusement, none of them got a match, and Sean didn’t think they would either as he held up his notepad. “‘I am, since I carry the big stick.’” Emma read hers with a remarkably straight face. “‘Sean, because he has a magic penis.’” “Wow. Um…so Sean and Emma have a point,” Dani said as the men nearly pissed themselves laughing. No way in hell was he leaving that unpunished, and he winked at Emma when Kevin read the next question. “‘Where’s the kinkiest place you’ve had sex?’” The fact that Joe and Keri had done the dirty deed on the back of his ATV led to a few questions about the logistics of that, but then it was Emma’s turn. “‘In bed, because Sean has no imagination.’” Roger threw an embarrassed wince his way, but his cousins weren’t shy about laughing their asses off. Sean just shrugged and held up his notepad. “In the car in the mall parking lot. Emma’s lying because she doesn’t want anybody to know being watched turns her on.” Her jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly and gave him a sweet smile that didn’t jibe with the “you are so going to get it” look in her eyes. Beth asked the next question. “‘Women, where does your man secretly dream of having sex?’” Keri knew Joe wanted to have sex in the reportedly very haunted Stanley Hotel, from King’s The Shining. Dani claimed Roger wanted to do the deed on a Caribbean beach, but he said that was her fantasy and that his was to have sex in an igloo. No amount of heckling would get him to say why. And when it came to Kevin, even Sean knew he dreamed of getting laid on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park. Then, God help him, it was Emma’s turn to show her answer. “‘In a Burger King bathroom.’” The room felt silent until Dani said, “Ew. Really?” “No, not really,” Sean growled. “Really,” Emma said over him. “He knows that’s the only way he can slip me a whopper.” As the room erupted in laughter, Sean knew humor was the only way they’d get through the evening with their secret intact, but he didn’t find that one very funny, himself. It was the final answer that really did him in, though. The question: “If your sex had a motto, what would it be?” Joe and Keri’s was, not surprisingly, Don’t wake the baby Kevin and Beth wrote, Better than chocolate cake, whatever that was supposed to mean. Dani wrote, Gets better with time, like fine wine, and Roger wrote, Like cheese, the older you get, the better it is, which led to a powwow about whether or not to give them a point. They probably would have gotten it if they weren’t tied with Keri and Joe, who took competitive to a cutthroat level. When they all looked at Sean, he groaned and turned his paper around. They’d lost any chance of winning way back, but he was already dreading what the smart-ass he wasn’t really engaged to had written down. “‘She’s the boss.’” The look Emma gave him as she slowly turned the notepad around gave him advance warning she was about to lay down the royal flush in this little game they’d been playing. “Size really doesn’t matter,” she said in what sounded to him like a really loud voice. Before he could say anything—and he had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth, but he had to say something--Cat appeared at the top of the stairs. “I hate to break up the party,” she said, “but it’s getting late, so we’re calling it a night.” Maybe Cat was, but Sean was just getting started.

THE CHIANTI KISSES SERIES Book #1: BABY V Book #2: BOSS Book #3: BETRAYED   MY SOUL TO WAKE Book #1: STAIN   THE BADGE BOYS SERIES Book #1: PRETTY BOY Book #2: DARK WEB   THE “A” LIST SERIES Book #1: ALL THE PRETTY LIGHTS

BABY V, Book one in the Chianti Kisses series   BOSS,

that I hadn’t noticed how he’d started disregarding me, and how he’d started treating me like I was a maybe in his life, when he’d been a definitely in mine all that time.

you’re my happy ending.

Oh God, I was really doing this, wasn’t I? I was losing my virginity to my boss, a man I had never interacted with before that night.

if you don’t take that risk, you’re going to spend the rest of your life wondering, ‘what if.’ Change is scary but it’s also good. It’s how we learn, how we grow.

The Romance Some couples only live together as roommates, which is bad. All the wife does is just cook, take care of the house etc, all the husband does is provide for the house, act like the boss of the house ask for sex whenever he feels like it. Some even only ask for sex from their wife when they feel like it's time to have another baby and women thought it is taboo to ask their husbands for sex when they feel horny, whereas, some are shy to do so. Hmmm!! In some Marriages, there is nothing like gisting, romancing, going on dates, attending events together, praying together, studying the word together apart from the general family retreat. This has led many women to the arms of strange men, although that is not an excuse to commit adultery. It was even recorded in the Scripture that Father Isaac caressed his beloved wife Rebekah. Spoil each other with romance. Write love letters to your spouse and put them in his or her pocket or handbag

know you too well,” he murmured beside my ear. “I’ve upset you.” “Stop it,” I whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He nuzzled into my hair. “Don’t you know that?” I squeezed my eyes shut. “No.” “I don’t, Elise. These last few days have driven me crazy and caused me to act outside of my character. I’m sorry for that. You just ended a serious relationship. The last thing I want to do is hurt you further.” I shook my head. “You haven’t.” His mouth was beside my ear, which was the only reason I heard his soft groan. “I wish that was true.” He let go of my elbow to wrap his arm around my middle, drawing me firmly against him. “Weston…” I rasped, torn between pulling away and leaning into him. “Please. This isn’t—” “Once you leave this office, I won’t touch you again. Let me fucking have this, baby. Let me hold you for a minute, then you can go.” It was stupid of me not to immediately walk out his door, but I didn’t. I allowed him to turn me toward him. He took my face in his hands and covered my mouth with his. I held on to the lapels of his jacket, whimpering into his mouth. He kissed me hard, backing me into his door. In that wayward moment, I didn’t even care that Renata must have heard me clunk against it. Weston urged my mouth open and delved his tongue inside.

I leaned down to grab my backpack, but a band of iron caught me before I could grab it. No, not iron. Strong, unyielding arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind and yanked me backward into something hard. Alarm bells rang in my ears, but before I could scream, a big hand covered my mouth. “Elise,” a low voice gritted in my ear. “Stop. Look in front of you. One o’clock.” My brain raced to catch up. It was Weston holding me, not some crazed rapist or cannibal from the hills. His tall, lean body pressed into mine, crushing my backside against him. “Are you stalking me?” I mumbled from behind his hand. “Let go of me!” He gave me a shake. “Look in front of you, baby. Stay calm.” He turned my head slightly to the right, and though everything inside me wanted to ignore his orders, I focused on the spot. And nearly pissed my pants. No more than twenty feet away stood a mountain lion. Stock-still, it watched us both, standing in the exact path I would have taken had Weston not stopped me.

it. I didn’t expect Stacks to come for me as hard as he did and because I underestimated him, my baby mama and sister were both dead, and my son was in foster care.

I wasn't ready to walk away from my relationship with Ralph, but I didn't want to deal with his baby mama either.

Guilt started to sink in as I felt like shit for keeping the baby from her. It wasn't like she was a bad mother or anything, she was really good with him, but she had to learn how to stay in her lane as a baby mama.

She was one of those bitter baby mamas, who thought they owned you just because they had your baby.

No amount of dead bodies was going to replace the void in my heart that my unborn baby left.

He was on a first class trip to the crazy house if he thought I was going to have a baby right now. I just started working on my LPN and was currently in school for my RN.

She couldn’t even give James a baby. He was always talking about how bad he wanted a child, but every time we had sex he’d strap up.

small holes at the tip of the rubber. Once I was done, I went into the bathroom for round two. Yes, I was going to have his baby voluntarily or involuntarily; the choice was his.

baby. I loved partying, drinking, and living my carefree life. I had to hurry up with my plan, so I could get rid of this baby before it was too late.

Baby, Louisiana has its own word for a crime boss: sheriff.

anything about

Everything is going to be okay; pray about it baby. When life gets too hard to stand, get on your knees. God hears you,” she said with a smile.

You know what you were and it wasn’t a job.” His words taunted me, offering a glimmer of hope. Yet, his words on the driveway less than two months ago lingered in my thoughts. “Why are you bothering me?” “You’re not to go around Mac again. Do you understand?” “I don’t have to listen to you.” Judd narrowed his eyes at me. “Fine. I’ll tell him to stay away from you. He’ll listen if he wants to keep both eyes.” “Whatever. He’s one guy and the college is full of them. Bailey and I are going to a frat party this weekend. Can’t take all of those guys’ eyes.” “Is that a challenge?” “You got me here safe,” I said, trying to look away, but unable to. “You did your job and I’m sure you got paid. What more do you want?” Judd glanced at approaching Harleys then focused on me. When he erased the space between us again, I shivered at the feel of his breath on my cheek. “You know what I want.” “To fuck me because I’m hot.” Judd stared in my eyes and I saw the walls come down. Even staring into those pained baby blues, I remembered how coldly he discarded me. Over a month passed with no word from him. Yet, one guy sniffed around me and Judd was suddenly interested. “Is your birthday present to me to make me a woman?” I whispered, holding his gaze. “You have to know I’m not a virgin and you’d do nothing someone hasn’t done before. There’s no prize between my legs. Maybe you outta stop threatening random men and go find yourself a real woman.” Judd opened his mouth to speak until he heard Cooper’s voice from inside the house. When the arriving guests called back to their boss, Judd stepped away from me. Sighing, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his brown leather jacket. “I see a prize when I look at you,” he said softly as he walked past, “but it’s not between your legs.” He pressed a little wrapped box into my hand. “Happy birthday, angel.” Appearing on the porch, Cooper lost his smile when he saw Judd and me. The men gave each other a little nod before Judd stepped off the porch and past the men who also did their male hello gestures. The men disappeared inside, but Cooper remained next to me as I watched Judd drive away on a black Harley.

Soldier R&R She said, "Shame I brought my family when I was raped at sixteen. This is my baby, she is now eleven. She's being raised by my auntie but I can never go home again -- not even to my parents' funerals. My home is now this house. My sisters all have similar stories -- they've all shamed their families. We sleep in the day to be fresh at night for the soldiers, sir. Lately, less and less men choose me, always asking for the younger ones -- you know, the new ones walking in every week like I did eleven years ago. Do you think I'm pretty, sir? In two years I'll be too old to work here. I cannot live off my savings because from the $10 you give me, $7 goes to my boss, $2 to my auntie for my son's schooling and $1 for my food. In two years I must beg on the streets. In five years I'll be sick and in ten years I'll be dead..." He said, "Enough of your fucking stories, you fucking whore. Just suck harder.

true. I knew that Lala wasn't going to come back home willingly. But, with her baby daddy dead she would have no choice, but to come crawling back.

Interestingly, at one stage, Glaxo approached us, willing to give a manufacturing contract for its baby food to Amul. I said we could consider it on the condition that it would carry the Amul brand name. This so incensed the Glaxo boss that he is said to have declared: ‘Amul will never be able to sell its brand of baby food and when their tins begin rotting on the shelves, I will have them collected and thrown into the Arabian Sea!’ Such was the arrogance of multinationals.

The Catholic ethicist Jana Bennett, for instance, points out that women’s experience of pregnancy and parenthood puts them in a better place to understand that we aren’t in control: You can choose to avoid pregnancy with a condom, pill or IUD — but sometimes that baby’s there anyway. You can try to get pregnant for months on end, even “choosing” IVF, and it doesn’t happen. You can get pregnant and miscarry. And if you get pregnant and your boss decides that you are therefore a liability, you can lose your job unless you make “the right choice”; any resultant poverty is your “choice.” In other words, we try to control sex and parenthood under the guise of individual choice, but it really isn’t a choice. . . . No — it’s a “choice” made in concert with a whole host of racial, economic, technological, age, and other factors.24

List of Elizabeth Lennox Books   The Texas Tycoon’s Temptation   The Royal Cordova Trilogy Escaping a Royal Wedding The Man’s Outrageous Demands Mistress to the Prince   The Attracelli Family Series Never Dare a Tycoon Falling For the Boss Risky Negotiations Proposal to Love Love's Not Terrifying Romantic Acquisition   The Billionaire's Terms: Prison Or Passion The Sheik's Love Child The Sheik's Unfinished Business The Greek Tycoon's Lover The Sheik's Sensuous Trap The Greek's Baby Bargain The Italian's Bedroom Deal The Billionaire's Gamble The Tycoon's Seduction Plan The Sheik's Rebellious Mistress The Sheik's Missing Bride Blackmailed by the Billionaire The Billionaire's Runaway Bride The Billionaire's Elusive Lover The Intimate, Intricate Rescue   The Sisterhood Trilogy The Sheik's Virgin Lover The Billionaire's Impulsive Lover The Russian's Tender Lover The Billionaire's Gentle Rescue   The Tycoon's Toddler Surprise The Tycoon's Tender Triumph   The Friends Forever Series The Sheik's Mysterious Mistress The Duke's Willful Wife The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange   The Sheik's Secret Twins The Russian's Furious Fiancée The Tycoon's Misunderstood Bride   Love By Accident Series The Sheik's Pregnant Lover The Sheik's Furious Bride The Duke's Runaway Princess   The Russian's Pregnant Mistress   The Lovers Exchange Series The Earl's Outrageous Lover The Tycoon's Resistant Lover   The Sheik's Reluctant Lover The Spanish Tycoon's Temptress   The Berutelli Escape Resisting The Tycoon's Seduction The Billionaire’s Secretive Enchantress   The Big Apple Brotherhood The Billionaire’s Pregnant Lover The Sheik’s Rediscovered Lover The Tycoon’s Defiant Southern Belle   The Sheik’s Dangerous Lover (Novella)   The Thorpe Brothers His Captive Lover His Unexpected Lover His Secretive Lover His Challenging Lover   The Sheik’s Defiant Fiancée (Novella) The Prince’s Resistant Lover (Novella) The Tycoon’s Make-Believe Fiancée (Novella)   The Friendship Series The Billionaire’s Masquerade The Russian’s Dangerous Game The Sheik’s Beautiful Intruder   The Love and Danger Series – Romantic Mysteries Intimate Desires Intimate Caresses Intimate Secrets Intimate Whispers   The Alfieri Saga The Italian’s Passionate Return (Novella) Her Gentle Capture His Reluctant Lover Her Unexpected Admirer Her Tender Tyrant Releasing the Billionaire’s Passion (Novella) His Expectant Lover   The Sheik’s Intimate Proposition (Novella)   The Hart Sisters Trilogy The Billionaire’s Secret Marriage The Italian’s Twin Surprise The Forbidden Russian Lover   The War, Love, and Harmony Series Fighting with the Infuriating Prince (Novella) Dancing with the Dangerous Prince (Novella)

As they see their friends having babies, these young women also worry about how to balance work and family. “The idea of being able to ‘have it all’ is still prevalent,” said Sarah Ball, who left Newsweek in the fall of 2010 to work for Vanityfair.com. “It’s become easier because you can work remotely, but it still eats at your core. It’s what a lot of my friends talk about.” Free

both, and

Once his life had been like this. He applied strength and determination to a messy problem until the stickiness went away, strands of sense formed and suddenly a hopeless mess was transformed into something beautiful, delectable, something everyone wanted. Now, no matter how hard he tried, no one wanted what he had to offer.

Due to their reluctance to tie themselves down at a young age, they have the capacity as well as the predisposition to be their own bosses and following their own dreams.

You done trifled with that girl, ain’t you?” Steven swallowed a bite of sausage before answering. “In a manner of speaking,” he confessed, remembering the warm softness of Emma’s breasts, and the way their peaks had hardened for him like sweet candy. Daisy’s hardworking hands were resting on her generous hips. “There gonna be a baby?” Steven shook his head. Things hadn’t gone quite that far; no, Emma’s babies would probably look like that banker Callie had told him about, not him, and the realization filled him with sadness. “No chance of that, Daisy, so you don’t need to worry.” “Well, I is worried,” Daisy insisted. “Miss Emma ain’t herself. She’s off her food, she don’t sleep at night. Not only that, she don’t argue back with me or Chloe when we bosses her around. Somethin’s wrong.” Steven’s appetite was gone, and he laid down his fork. “She’ll be all right,” he promised gently, but he wasn’t at all sure of that.

It’s time,” Jack said. “Breeze? Count the kids,” Sam said. Brianna was back in twenty seconds. “Eighty-two, boss.” “About a third,” Jack observed. “A third of what’s left.” “Wait. Make that eighty-eight,” Brianna said. “And a dog.” Lana, looking deeply irritated—a fairly usual expression for her—and Sanjit, looking happy—a fairly usual expression for him—and Sanjit’s siblings were trotting along to catch up. “I don’t know if we’re staying up there or not,” Lana said without preamble. “I want to check it out. And my room smells like crap.” Just before the time was up, Sam heard a stir. Kids were making a lane for someone, murmuring. His heart leaped. “Hey, Sam.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Diana?” “Not expecting me, huh?” She made a wry face. “Where’s blondie? I didn’t see her at the big pep rally.” “Are you coming with us?” Brianna demanded, obviously not happy about it. “Is Caine okay with this?” Sam asked Diana. “It’s your choice, but I need to know if he’s going to come after us to take you back.” “Caine has what he wants,” Diana said. “Maybe I should call Toto over,” Sam said. The truth teller was having a conversation with Spidey. “I could ask you whether you’re coming along to spy for Caine, and see what Toto has to say.” Diana sighed. “Sam, I have bigger problems than Caine. And so do you, I guess. Because the FAYZ is going to do something it’s never done before: grow by one.” “What’s that mean?” “You are going to be an uncle.” Sam stared blankly. Brianna said a very rude word. And even Dekka looked up. “You’re having a baby?” Dekka asked. “Let’s hope so,” Diana said bleakly. “Let’s hope that’s all it is.

But the real show was offstage. Dozens of men lounged along the tables that circled the main attraction. They ranged from eighteen to eighty, skinny to fat, stout to lanky. I saw home in them. I saw fathers, grandfathers, brothers, boyfriends, professors, bosses, and preachers. I imagined their houses, their families, their jobs, the coffee shops where they bought breakfast pastries, the hospitals their children were born in, and their neighborhood route for their dog’s morning walk. I saw the gleam in their eyes as the girls swiveled around poles, sashayed in their direction, and sat atop their laps like children visiting Santa Claus. They seemed to love their oriental dolls with a toddler’s English fluency. They had their happy endings. They would soon be boarding planes, flying far away from the poverty, the mental and emotional collateral damage, and the possible babies they conceived. Thailand was theirs. It was their escape, their medicine, and their sanctuary of sin.

Everywhere we turn we are told we are wrong, that we must act the "right" way, that our own dreams and desires are either selfish or unattainable while the hopes and nightmares of the Spectral Cage must exist, even at the cost of our very lives. The tyrannical gods that would rob us of this freedom to freely give our care, love, and even fervour are the grand enemy of Egoism, wherever they might be found. They pervert the true feelings within us and make them empty rituals: instead of caring for those around me, I throw money at a church which quickly loses it, I stay home and meme for disaster relief instead of actually doing anything, I "adopt" a baby tiger or African child to "feed" instead of tearing down the very structures that cause them pain in the first place. We symbolically attack other symbols, our feelings perverted and funneled into empty vessels. The same rage that can rob a bank or burn down a building dissipates in a sea of metal masturbation and contests to determine who is the most "woke".

From the moment Jax had set eyes on Josie, he knew his life would never be complete until his ring was on her finger and his baby at her breast.

Syn stared into Furi’s sparkling eyes. He brought one hand up and tenderly brushed Furi’s cheek. “Congratulations.” “Thank you.” Furi kissed his lips gently. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big boy.” “I know you are.” Syn winked. Furi flushed with embarrassment. “Shut up. Don’t start something you can’t finish.” “I’ll finish it later,” Syn promised. His look was pure lust as he pushed his rising cock against Furi’s jean-clad thigh. “Fuckin’ right you will,” Furi moaned against Syn’s cheek, rocking back against him. “I’d fuckin’ take you right now if your bosses weren’t in the front room.” Syn groaned. Furi gripped Syn’s cock in a firm grip and stroked a couple times, wrapping his other arm around Syn’s back to hold him close. He nipped at Syn’s stubbled chin, peppering sweet kisses along his jaw to his ear. Furi flicked his tongue out and pulled the fleshy lobe between his soft lips. Furi’s lips were pressed against his ear as he spoke in a low, sexy drawl, “I’d bend you over this sink and fuck you until you yelled my name and begged me not to stop.” “Fuck,” Syn moaned. Heat tore up through him at Furi’s nasty words. “Fuck you hard, just how you like it, baby.” Furi increased the speed of his stroke. “Oh fuck, fuck. No. Stop honey,” Syn protested weakly, his balls already throbbing with the need for release. “Why?” Furi hissed. “Because I fucking refuse to let Day hear me come.” Syn put some room between their bodies and kept backing up until he hit the wall. He tried to control his breathing, but staring at Furi’s gorgeous, flushed face didn’t help. “You guys are crazy.” Furi shook his head. “Day’s pranks have no boundaries. I wouldn’t be surprised if my moans are broadcasted over the loudspeaker in the office today.” Syn opened the bathroom door and gestured for Furi to look out into the hallway. “See.” Furi busted out laughing at Day standing there in the hallway with his cell phone in his hand, studying the non-existent art on Syn’s bare wall. He whistled like he was just lounging around not looking for trouble. Syn just flipped him off and pulled Furi into his bedroom, slamming the door behind them. “Oh my fucking god. That shit is too funny.” Furi laughed while he put a few things into his backpack. “Yeah, because you don’t’ have to deal with his silliness.” Syn hurried to get dressed.

Reverse psychology is a bitch. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that I won’t look, there’s some sort of weird magnet between us. I can’t seem to resist just peeking.

And then came Jane Rosenthal (De Niro's handpicked CEO to oversee his production company). She had adored Rocky and Bullwinkle as a girl, and her husband, real estate investor Craig Hatkoff, had made a Valentine’s Day present to her of the collected series on DVD. She, like others before her, thought there was a potential film in Ward’s iconic characters and surreal sensibility, and in 1998 she negotiated a deal with Universal Pictures to acquire the rights and produce a $75 million film for the summer moviegoing season.” ...Fearless Leader, a role for which Rosenthal thought De Niro was perfect. When she asked him, she recalled, “he really laughed at me.… He didn’t grow up watching it. It wasn’t his thing.” But she persisted. “I was always joking with him about it. Then I finally said, ‘Okay, you’ve got to get serious here. It’s a three-week role. Do you want it or not?’ ” Amazingly—perhaps because he knew the film was, as he called it, “Jane’s baby”—he did.

Cade was the brother to one of the most powerful Italian mob bosses in the world, and his hacking skills made him potentially even more dangerous. Yet, no one, not even an Armanelli, could make them back down when it came to their baby sisters.

You seriously want to do this?” “Baby, I would die for the taste of your pussy. I need you to know that.” “You make it really hard to say no when you talk like that.

Baby, I would die for the taste of your pussy. I need you to know that.

Do I look okay?” “You look good enough to eat, baby.

You look good enough to eat, baby.

I’m not going to be the young hussy that keeps Mama Sterling from her baby boy the one time he visits Seattle during the season.” “Fine,” he huffed. “But when we get back, I’m going to take out my frustration on your hot little body.

You’d make a terrible rodeo cowgirl. A bronco would through you right off.” “Oh, so you’re a bronco now?” “Well, I am hung like one.” “Humble about it too.” “Baby, you’ve had me between your thighs. You’re really going to argue on this point?” “Smug bastard.

I can’t believe I just said Yes, Sir like I’m some sort of cadet at bootcamp. But if this man wants to boss me around and call me Baby Doll again… No, Maddie, focus! Stranger Danger.

Baby, I can’t wait to make you squirt again. My cock is dying to play in the sprinkler.

You want me to get down on my knees for you, baby?” Fuuuuuuuuuck.

Baby, I need you on my face. Right now. I need to taste you.