Bottom Birthday Quotes

I bite my bottom lip, feeling naughty. I lean into him, kissing his jaw and stroking him. “Jordan…” he growls through his teeth. I laugh quietly.

She’s right to watch out for you, Jordan,” he says biting my bottom lip. “You’re too young for all the fucking stuff I want to do to you.

When you left the party with that little shit tonight, I was so pissed.” I bite her bottom lip between kisses. “Like I was fucking seventeen again and someone else was taking what was mine.

Dude, what're you waiting for?" Carlos calls. "Plant one on her." I lift my eyes and am shocked to see Brandon is staring at my mouth. He swallows audibly and flicks his gaze to mine. the emotions darkening the soft green color are too confusing to name. Does he want to back out? An exhale of breath leaves Brandon's lips, almost like a laugh, and he scoots closer to me on the blanket. I twist my legs under myself, sitting tall as I face him. He cups my chin and tilts it toward him, drowning me in the now dark-green depths of his eyes, the cologne I gave him for his birthday filling my head. It's woodsy and yummy and I always loved how it smelled on the store testers, but on Brandon, it's even sexier. My eyes flutter closed, and I inhale again, this time slowly. Goose bumps prickle my arms, and my head gets fuzzy. Brandon slides his hand down the column of my neck and brings the other up, threading his fingers through the hair at my nape. His breath fans across my cheek, and everything south of my bellybutton squeezes tight. When his mouth first meets mine, it's hesitant, questioning. But as I move my lips with his, he quickly grows bolder, coaxing them apart. Desire, pure and raw, electrifies my veins as his tongue sweeps my mouth. A whimpering sound springs from my chest, and instinctively, I wrap my arms around his neck, tugging him closer. Needing more. My teeth graze his full bottom lip, and I pull it, sucking on it gently. He moans and knots his fingers in my hair, and a thrill dances down my back. Brandon is an amazing kisser, just as I knew he would be. I have no control over my body's reactions. I lose myself in his lips, his tongue, and his strong arms, forgetting time and space and even my surroundings...

Don hits rock bottom in the series’ finest hour, “The Suitcase,” which is essentially a two-character play about Don and Peggy stuck in the office through a tumultuous night. She wants to leave for a birthday dinner with her boyfriend, while he needs company to avoid placing the phone call that will tell him that Anna Draper — the widow of the real Don, and the one person on Earth with whom this Don feels truly comfortable and safe — has died of cancer. Over the course of the episode, Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss are asked to play every emotion possible: rage and despair, joy and humiliation, companionship and absolute contempt. In the most iconic moment, Peggy complains that Don took all the credit for an award-winning campaign she helped conceive. “It’s your job,” he tells her, his voice dripping with condescension. “I give you money. You give me ideas.” “And you never say, ‘Thank you,’” she complains, fighting back tears. “That’s what the money is for!” he screams.

Timeless Days without rhythm Without bottom or top In the arms of my lover Time seems to stop. Days become months Which flow into years Love’s hourglass measures Just two kinds of tears. The first kind is cheery, It sweetens the cheek; The other burns bleary It’s black and it’s bleak. This Sunday or Friday, I’m not quite sure when, I’m going to turn thirty, Or twenty, or ten? It’ll be my love’s birthday Or was it just mine? I doesn’t much matter There’s plenty of wine. Should she go to heaven, I dread to know when, I’ll count every second Till we meet again.

Genevieve’s “I Love You” Birthday Cake 2 ¾ cups sifted cake flour (unbleached) 4 tsps. baking powder ¾ tsp. salt 4 egg whites (organic) 1 ½ cups white sugar ¾ cup butter (do NOT substitute) 1 cup milk (organic) 1 tsp. PURE vanilla extract 1 tsp. almond extract Measure sifted cake flour, baking powder, and salt; sift together three times. In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add ½ cup of sugar gradually, and continue beating only until meringue will hold up in soft peaks. In a separate bowl, beat butter until smooth. Gradually add remaining 1 cup of sugar, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add sifted ingredients alternately with milk a small amount at a time, beating each addition until smooth. Mix in flavorings. Add meringue, and mix thoroughly into batter. Spread batter in a 15x10x1 inch pan which has been lined on the bottom with parchment paper. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes. Cool cake in pan 10 minutes, then remove from pan and transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. You can also bake this cake in two 9 inch round pans for 30 to 35 minutes, or in three 8 inch round pans for 25 to 30 minutes.

She went around reading everything- the directions on the grits bag, Tate's notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pretended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom: There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters: Master Jeremy Andrew Clark, January 2, 1939. "Jeremy," she said out loud. "Jodie, I sure never thought a' you as Master Jeremy." Miss Amanda Margaret Clark, May 17, 1937. Kya touched the name with her fingers. Repeated it several times. She read on. Master Napier Murphy Clark, April 14, 1936. Kya spoke softly, "Murph, ya name was Napier." At the top, the oldest, Miss Mary Helen Clark, September 19, 1934. She rubbed her fingers over the names again, which brought faces before her eyes. They blurred, but she could see them all squeezed around the table eating stew, passing cornbread, even laughing some. She was ashamed that she had forgotten their names, but now that she'd found them, she would never let them go again. Above the list of children she read: Mister Jackson Henry Clark married Miss Julienne Maria Jacques, June 12, 1933. Not until that moment had she known her parents' proper names. She sat there for a few minutes with the Bible open on the table. Her family before her. Time ensures children never know their parents young. Kya would never see the handsome Jake swagger into an Asheville soda fountain in early 1930, where he spotted Maria Jacques, a beauty with black curls and red lips, visiting from New Orleans.

I don’t want lots of men watching me. But one man? Like a boyfriend? A man who craves me and who’ll watch me with possessive eyes as I dance for him . . . He’s watching me. I’m in a dark room, a glossy white stage under me, and a soft purple light on me. I move onto all fours, crawling and biting my bottom lip as I lean forward, spreading my thighs, my knees pressing into the floor as I hump the stage. He’s in the back, so far away, but he’s there. He’s the only one there. I’m all for him. He hides in the shadows and leans his shoulder into the wall as he watches me. I roll my hips slowly, taunting and teasing him, and then move back onto my knees, grabbing the headboard to hold on to as I dance and grind.

He wanted his birthday to disappear, dissolve in water and sink to the bottom. A day like all the others. That's how he felt about it, wanting to maneuver that day into silence, and outside of time, time lived and gone for good, so that eventually not even a scratch on his skin would remind him of the day when it occurred, or of that time; that's what gave Singer a great sense of satisfaction. Then he felt that he was once again in sync with himself and could breathe a sigh of relief while, without thinking about it, he endured yet another day in his life without noting that forty-seven years had now passed since his birth. Such is Singer's life, it proceeded without any need to mark its passage, thought Singer, moving with his own unique rhythm, yet not totally without self-awareness, in spite of everything. To be yanked out of the automechanism of life in order to celebrate his birthday as a boisterous reminder was something that broke with what Singer regarded as his essential nature.

inbox. It was from Ogden Morrow. The subject line read “We Can Dance If We Want To.” There was no text in the body of the e-mail. Just a file attachment—an invitation to one of the most exclusive gatherings in the OASIS: Ogden Morrow’s birthday party. In the real world, Morrow almost never made public appearances, and in the OASIS, he came out of hiding only once a year, to host this event. The invitation featured a photo of Morrow’s world-famous avatar, the Great and Powerful Og. The gray-bearded wizard was hunched over an elaborate DJ mixing board, one headphone pressed to his ear, biting his lower lip in auditory ecstasy as his fingers scratched ancient vinyl on a set of silver turntables. His record crate bore a DON’T PANIC sticker and an anti-Sixer logo—a yellow number six with a red circle-and-slash over it. The text at the bottom read Ogden Morrow’s ’80s Dance Party in celebration of his 73rd birthday! Tonight—10pm OST at the Distracted Globe ADMIT ONE I was flabbergasted. Ogden Morrow had actually taken the time to invite me to his birthday party. It felt like the greatest honor I’d ever received. I called Art3mis, and she confirmed that she’d received the same e-mail. She said she couldn’t pass up an invitation from Og himself

GM: What are the foods you recommend that have sufficient calorie density that make you feel full? What are the best foods to make the staples of your diet? PP: Whole grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables. More broadly, I tell people to make the staples of their diet the four food groups, which are whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. We have our own little pyramid that we use here at The Wellness Forum. Beans, rice, corn, and potatoes are at the bottom of the pyramid. Then steamed and raw vegetables and big salads come next, with fruits after that. Whole grains, or premade whole grain foods like cereals and breads, are all right to eat. Everything else is either optional or a condiment. As for high-fat plant foods—nuts, seeds, avocados, olives—use them occasionally or when they’re part of a recipe, but don’t overdo it; these foods are calorie-dense and full of fat. No oils, get rid of the dairy, and then, very importantly, you need to differentiate between food and a treat. I don’t think you can get through to people by telling a twenty-five-year-old that she can’t have another cookie or a piece of cake for the rest of her life. Where you can gain some traction is to say, “Look, birthday parties are a good time for cake, Christmas morning is a good time for cookies, and Valentine’s Day is a good time for chocolate, but you don’t need to be eating that stuff all the time.” People end up in my office because they’re treating themselves several times a day.

less rotted and she nibbles it smiling. “Look,” I show her, “there’s holes in my cake where the chocolates were till just now.” “Like craters,” she says. She puts her fingertop in one. “What’s craters?” “Holes where something happened. Like a volcano or an explosion or something.” I put the green chocolate back in its crater and do ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, boom. It flies up into Outer Space and around into my mouth. My birthday cake is the best thing I ever ate. Ma isn’t hungry for any right now. Skylight’s sucking all the light away, she’s nearly black. “It’s the spring equinox,” says Ma, “I remember it said on TV, the morning you were born. There was still snow that year too.” “What’s equinox?” “It means equal, when there’s the same amount of dark and light.” It’s too late for any TV because of the cake, Watch says 08:33. My yellow hoody nearly rips my head off when Ma’s pulling it. I get into my sleep T-shirt and brush my teeth while Ma ties up the trash bag and puts it beside Door with our list that I wrote, tonight it says Please, Pasta, Lentils, Tuna, Cheese (if not too $), O.J., Thanks. “Can we ask for grapes? They’re good for us.” At the bottom Ma puts Grapes if poss (or any fresh fruit or canned). “Can I have a story?” “Just a quick one. What about… GingerJack?” She does it really fast and funny, Gingerjack jumps out of the stove and runs and rolls and rolls and runs so nobody can catch him, not the old lady or the old man or the threshers or

But then, as I’m leaving school, I see John parked out front. He’s standing in front of his car; he hasn’t seen me yet. In this bright afternoon light, the sun warms John’s blond head like a halo, and suddenly I’m struck with the visceral memory of loving him from afar, studiously, ardently. I so admired his slender hands, the slope of his cheekbones. Once upon a time I knew his face by heart. I had him memorized. My steps quicken. “Hi!” I say, waving. “How are you here right now? Don’t you have school today?” “I left early,” he says. “You? John Ambrose McClaren cut school?” He laughs. “I brought you something.” John pulls a box out of his coat pocket and thrusts it at me. “Here.” I take it from him, it’s heavy and substantial in my palm. “Should I…should I open it right now?” “If you want.” I can feel his eyes on me as I rip off the paper, open the white box. He’s anxious. I ready a smile on my face so he’ll know I like it, no matter what it is. Just the fact that he thought to buy me a present is so…dear. Nestled in white tissue paper is a snow globe the size of an orange, with a brass bottom. A boy and girl are ice-skating inside. She’s wearing a red sweater; she has on earmuffs. She’s making a figure eight, and he’s admiring her. It’s a moment caught in amber. One perfect moment, preserved under glass. Just like that night it snowed in April. “I love it,” I say, and I do, so much. Only a person who really knew me could give me this gift. To feel so known, so understood. It’s such a wonderful feeling, I could cry. It’s something I’ll keep forever. This moment, and this snow globe. I get on my tiptoes and hug him, and he wraps his arms around me tight and then tighter. “Happy birthday, Lara Jean.

So, what did you want to watch?’ ‘Thought we might play a game instead,’ he said, holding up a familiar dark green box. ‘Found this on the bottom shelf of your DVD cupboard … if you tilt the glass, the champagne won’t froth like that.’ Neve finished pouring champagne into the 50p champagne flutes she’d got from the discount store and waited until Max had drunk a good half of his in two swift swallows. ‘The thing is, you might find it hard to believe but I can be very competitive and I have an astonishing vocabulary from years spent having no life and reading a lot – and well, if you play Scrabble with me, I’ll totally kick your arse.’ Max was about to eat his first bite of molten mug cake but he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘You’re gonna kick my arse?’ ‘Until it’s black and blue and you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’ That sounded very arrogant. ‘Really, Max, Mum stopped me from playing when I was thirteen after I got a score of four hundred and twenty-seven, and when I was at Oxford, I used to play with two Linguistics post-grads and an English don.’ ‘Well, my little pancake girlfriend, I played Scrabble against Carol Vorderman for a Guardian feature and I kicked her arse because Scrabble has got nothing to do with vocabulary; it’s logic and tactics,’ Max informed her loftily, taking a huge bite of the cake. For a second, Neve hoped that it was as foul-tasting as she suspected just to get Max back for that snide little speech, but he just licked the back of the spoon thoughtfully. ‘This is surprisingly more-ish, do you want some?’ ‘I think I’ll pass.’ ‘Well, you’re not getting out of Scrabble that easily.’ Max leaned back against the cushions, the mug cradled to his chest, and propped his feet up on the table so he could poke the Scrabble box nearer to Neve. ‘Come on, set ’em up. Unless you’re too scared.’ ‘Max, I have all the two-letter words memorised, and as for Carol Vorderman – well, she might be good at maths but there was a reason why she wasn’t in Dictionary Corner on Countdown so I’m not surprised you beat her at Scrabble.’ ‘Fighting talk.’ Max rapped his knuckles gently against Neve’s head, which made her furious. ‘I’ll remind you of that little speech once I’m done making you eat every single one of those high-scoring words you seem to think you’re so good at.’ ‘Right, that does it.’ Neve snatched up the box and practically tore off the lid, so she could bang the board down on the coffee table. ‘You can’t be that good at Scrabble if you keep your letters in a crumpled paper bag,’ Max noted, actually daring to nudge her arm with his foot. Neve knew he was only doing it to get a rise out of her, but God, it was working. ‘Game on, Pancake Boy,’ she snarled, throwing a letter rack at Max, which just made him laugh. ‘And don’t think I’m going to let you win just because it’s your birthday.’ It was the most fun Neve had ever had playing Scrabble. It might even have been the most fun she had ever had. For every obscure word she tried to play in the highest scoring place, Max would put down three tiles to make three different words and block off huge sections of the board. Every time she tried to flounce or throw a strop because ‘you’re going against the whole spirit of the game’, Max would pop another Quality Street into her mouth because, as he said, ‘It is Treat Sunday and you only had one roast potato.’ When there were no more Quality Street left and they’d drunk all the champagne, he stopped each one of her snits with a slow, devastating kiss so there were long pauses between each round. It was a point of honour to Neve that she won in the most satisfying way possible; finally getting to use her ‘q’ on a triple word score by turning Max’s ‘hogs’ into ‘quahogs’ and waving the Oxford English Dictionary in his face when he dared to challenge her.

His letter arrives on a Tuesday morning. Edward sees it as he bumps down the stairs in his tatty tartan slippers, the ones Tilly bought him three Christmases ago and he’s worn every day since. He walks past the mail on the mat and heads towards the kitchen. As he steps onto the cold stone floor, he pulls his dressing gown cord tighter round his waist. The gown is still too big (he lost a lot of weight three years ago) and too feminine (paisley silk in shades of purple) in his humble opinion, but Greer made it for him the summer she died so he’ll wear it until it falls off, which won’t be long now. Tilly has sewn so many patches on the threadbare gown that it’s virtually become a quilt, but Edward ignores his daughter every time she begs him to throw it out. He also ignores the two flannel dressing gowns sitting in the bottom drawer of his wardrobe – still in their plastic wrap – birthday gifts from Tilly, gentle attempts to help her father heal and move on

We sat down and Cage introduced me to a few of his teammates and their spouses, ones I of course didn’t get around to meeting at Everson’s party. “So how did you two meet?” Brea, one of the wives, asked me as Cage and her husband chatted. She must have thought we were there together. The way she stared at me with her bottom lip protruding out in a you-poor-thing expression told me she also thought I looked less than presentable compared to all the other women there. With my hair back and hat pulled down low on my head to shadow my face, I did look like my next stop might be robbing a convenience store. “It’s a long and really weird story, but it happened by chance several years ago and we hadn’t seen each other since, until we ran into each other at Everson’s birthday party.” She leaned in close to me, looking past the shadows of my hat. “Oh my God, you’re that cat lady!” There it was, that label that would stick forever. “You had that cat that looked like … like … uh …” I let her fumble her words. If she thought I would jump in and admit to being the cat lady, she was so very wrong.

Shoes that tied were the first thing to go. Lucy needed shoes she could put on without using her hands, with a writhing, screaming, occasionally biting child in her arms, shoes she could tip up with her toes and slide her feet into without so much as bending a knee. Flip-flops when at all possible, clogs or Merrells the rest of the time. Then it was earrings. Earrings were so long gone, the holes in her ears had closed up. Next it was eyeliner, then mascara, then returning phone calls, then going to the dentist, then looking in a full-length mirror before she left the house, then lip gloss, unless she found some in the bottom of her purse while she was stopped at a red light. There was more, of course. Pedicures, thank-you notes, RSVPs, Christmas cards, flossing, stretching, remembering birthdays, exfoliation. Basically, Lucy was down to nothing but deodorant, toothpaste, and a ponytail five days out of seven. She

Aza [Raskin] said: 'For instance, Facebook tomorrow could start batching your notifications, so you only get one push notification a day ... They could do that tomorrow.' ....So instead of getting 'this constant drip of behavioural cocaine,' telling you every few minutes that somebody liked your picture, commented on your post, has a birthday tomorrow, and on and on - you would get one daily update, like a newspaper, summarising it all. You'd be pushed to look once a day, instead of being interrupted several times an hour. 'Here's another one,' he said 'Infinite scroll. ...it's catching your impulses before your brain has a chance to really get involved and make a decision.' Facebook and Instagram and the others could simply turn off infinite scroll - so that when you get to the bottom of the screen, you have to make a conscious decision to carry on scrolling. Similarly, these sites could simply switch off the things that have been shown to most polarise people politically, stealing our ability to pay collective attention. Since there's evidence YouTube's recommendation engine is radicalising people, Tristan [Harris] told one interviewer: 'Just turn it off. They can turn it off in a heartbeat.' It's not as if, he points out, the day before recommendations were introduced, people were lost and clamouring for somebody to tell them what to watch next. Once the most obvious forms of mental pollution have been stopped, they said, we can begin to look deeper, at how these sites could be redesigned to make it easier for you to restrain yourself and think about your longer-term goals. ...there could be a button that says 'here are all your friends who are nearby and are indicating they'd like to meet up today.' You click it, you connect, you put down your phone and hang out with them. Instead of being a vacuum sucking up your attention and keeping it away from the outside world, social media would become a trampoline, sending you back into that world as efficiently as possible, matched with the people you want to see. Similarly, when you set up (say) a Facebook account, it could ask you how much time you want to spend per day or per week on the site. ...then the website could help you to achieve your goal. One way could be that when you hit that limit, the website could radically slow down. In tests, Amazon found that even 100 milliseconds of delay in the pace at which a page loads results in a substantial drop-off in people sticking around to buy the product. Aza said: 'It just gives your brain a chance to catch up to your impulse and [ask] - do I really want to be here? No.' In addition, Facebook could ask you at regular intervals - what changes do you want to make to your life? ...then match you up with other people nearby... who say they also want to make that change and have indicated they are looking for the equivalent of gym buddies. ...A battery of scientific evidence shows that if you want to succeed in changing something, you should meet up with groups of people doing the same. At the moment, they said, social media is designed to grab your attention and sell it to the highest bidder, but it could be designed to understand your intentions and to better help you achieve them. Tristan and Aza told me that it's just as easy to design and program this life-affirming Facebook as the life-draining Facebook we currently have. I think that most people, if you stopped them in the street and painted them a vision of these two Facebooks, would say they wanted the one that serves your intentions. So why isn't it happened? It comes back... to the business model.

Today’s your birthday,” sneered Dudley. “How come you haven’t got any cards? Haven’t you even got friends at that freak place?” “Better not let your mum hear you talking about my school,” said Harry coolly. Dudley hitched up his trousers, which were slipping down his fat bottom. “Why’re you staring at the hedge?” he said suspiciously. “I’m trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire,” said Harry. Dudley stumbled backward at once, a look of panic on his fat face. “You c-can’t — Dad told you you’re not to do m-magic — he said he’ll chuck you out of the house — and you haven’t got anywhere

Caramel Celebration Cake Yield: 10–12 servings My mother always made birthdays a big to-do in our family, with balloons hanging from the chandelier and the most gorgeous birthday cakes on crystal cake stands. This caramel cake is certainly celebration worthy! 4 cups cake flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 2-1/4 cups sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 cup butter 1-1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract 3 whole eggs plus 2 egg yolks 2-1/4 cups buttermilk Caramel Icing 1/2 cup butter 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup milk 2 cups sifted powdered sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 pinch salt Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Prepare 3 (8-inch) round cake pans by spraying with nonstick baking spray and lining with parchment paper cut rounds to fit bottom of cake pan. Sift cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl; set aside. With a stand mixer, cream together sugar, vegetable oil, butter, and vanilla. Beat well at medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat the 3 whole eggs in, 1 at a time, then add in the 2 egg yolks. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Do not overmix the batter. Batter will be thick. Evenly divide batter between prepared pans and bake for 30–35 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow cake to cool 10 minutes before turning onto wire racks to cool completely. Caramel Icing Melt butter and brown sugar together in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time. Using a hand-held mixer helps to smooth the icing. Add vanilla and salt. Add more powdered sugar for a thicker icing, if desired. As icing cools, it will set, so work quickly to pour and then spread icing over cake. This icing also works well for a sheet cake. If icing begins to set up, warm slightly in the microwave to make icing more spreadable. Note: This will be a thin layer of icing on the cake. If you want a thick layer, double the icing recipe. For layer cakes, lay sheets of wax paper around the cake as you spread on the icing to catch any overflow. TIP: Caramel icing is long known to be difficult, even for the most accomplished bakers. The key is to work quickly and spread the icing before it sets up.

Sophie could feel Syrena’s sigh; the mermaid’s body beneath her sagged with it. “Can’t even be mad at you,” the mermaid said, her voice little more than a mumble. “You too stupid to even be mad at. You live in world without poetry, without poets. You think poet’s job to tell your mother happy birthday. You are such a fool you don’t even know you are a fool. How can I be mad at such fool? Poet’s job to create the world.

I’m alone,” she wrote, “and I want to share something with somebody.”4 Loneliness. It’s a cry. A moan, a wail. It’s a gasp whose origin is the recesses of our souls. Can you hear it? The abandoned child. The divorcée. The quiet home. The empty mailbox. The long days. The longer nights. A one-night stand. A forgotten birthday. A silent phone. Cries of loneliness. Listen again. Tune out the traffic and turn down the TV. The cry is there. Our cities are full of Judy Bucknells. You can hear their cries. You can hear them in the convalescent home among the sighs and the shuffling feet. You can hear them in the prisons among the moans of shame and the calls for mercy. You can hear them if you walk the manicured streets of suburban America, among the aborted ambitions and aging homecoming queens. Listen for it in the halls of our high schools where peer pressure weeds out the “have-nots” from the “haves.” This moan in a minor key knows all spectrums of society. From the top to the bottom. From the failures to the famous. From the poor to the rich. From the married to the single. Judy Bucknell was not alone.

Gogol flips through the book. A single picture at the front, on smoother paper than the rest of the pages, shows a pencil drawing of the author, sporting a velvet jacket, a billowy white shirt and cravat. The face is foxlike, with small, dark eyes, a thin, neat mustache, an extremely large pointy nose. Dark hair slants steeply across his forehead and is plastered to either side of his head, and there is a disturbing, vaguely supercilious smile set into long, narrow lips. Gogol Ganguli is relieved to see no resemblance. True, his nose is long but not so long, his hair dark but surely not so dark, his skin pale but certainly not so pale. The style of his own hair is altogether different—thick Beatle-like bangs that conceal his brows. Gogol Ganguli wears a Harvard sweatshirt and gray Levi’s corduroys. He has worn a tie once in his life, to attend a friend’s bar mitzvah. No, he concludes confidently, there is no resemblance at all. For by now, he’s come to hate questions pertaining to his name, hates having constantly to explain. He hates having to tell people that it doesn’t mean anything “in Indian.” He hates having to wear a nametag on his sweater at Model United Nations Day at school. He even hates signing his name at the bottom of his drawings in art class. He hates that his name is both absurd and obscure, that it has nothing to do with who he is, that it is neither Indian nor American but of all things Russian. He hates having to live with it, with a pet name turned good name, day after day, second after second. He hates seeing it on the brown paper sleeve of the National Geographic subscription his parents got him for his birthday the year before and perpetually listed in the honor roll printed in the town’s newspaper. At times his name, an entity shapeless and

Florrie studies him. From her lower viewpoint, she sees his pores and wrinkles, and a thumbprint on one of his lenses. There is, too, a nick of a razor near his bottom lip- and it reminds her once more that this elderly gent is still a boy, in some ways, as she is still a girl, fashioning a trumpet out of a rolled-up newspaper or chasing Bobs down the garden. She’s still blowing out ten birthday candles. We don’t leave the children we were. We simply grow around them like a tree will, in the end, grow around a bicycle that’s been left against them.

As the next page loaded with another set of 25 emails, his eyes were drawn to the bottom of the screen, where for the first time previously-read messages stood out beneath the bold-type unread ones.  There was something powerfully sentimental, almost tangible, about the realization that his dad had sat before a computer somewhere ten years earlier and had clicked on these same messages.  The most recent one, received just hours before his parents’ death, was from his mom with the subject line, “re: Li’l Ryan’s Bday”. With a lump developing in his throat, he clicked on the message.  His mom had written: “That’s something dads should talk to their sons about ;)”  Hmm.  Didn’t make sense without context. Below the end of the message he found the option to “show quoted text,”  which he clicked on to reveal the entire exchange in reverse chronological order.  She had been responding to his dad’s message: “I’m sure he’ll get it.  I like the idea, but you better be prepared to have a discussion about the birds and bees.  You know how his mind works.  He’ll want to know how that baby got in there.” Ryan’s palms grew sweaty as he began to infer what was coming next.  Not entirely sure he wanted to continue, but certain he couldn’t stop, he scrolled to the end. The thread had started with his mother’s message, “I’m already showing big-time.  Sweaters only get so baggy, and it’s going to be warming up soon.  I think tonight would be the perfect time to tell Ryan.  I wrapped up a T-shirt for him in one of his presents that says ‘Big Brother’ on it.  A birthday surprise!  You think he’ll get it?” Having trouble taking in a deep breath, he rose to a stand and slowly backed away from his computer.  It wasn’t his nature to ask fate “Why?” or to dwell on whether or not something was “fair.”  But this was utterly overwhelming – a knife wound on top of an old scar that had never sufficiently healed. ~~~ Corbett Hermanson peered around the edge of Bradford’s half-open door and knocked gently on the frame.  Bradford was sitting at his desk, leafing through a thick binder.  He had to have heard the knock, Corbett thought, peeking in, but his attention to the material in the binder remained unbroken. Now regretting his timid first knock, Corbett anxiously debated whether he should knock again, which could be perceived as rude, or try something else to get Bradford’s attention.  Ultimately he decided to clear his throat loudly, while standing more prominently in the doorway. Still, Bradford kept his nose buried in the files in front of him. Finally, Corbett knocked more confidently on the door itself. “What!” Bradford demanded.  “If you’ve got something to say, just say it!” “Sorry, sir.  Wasn’t sure you heard me,” Corbett said, with a nervous chuckle. “Do you think I’m deaf and blind?” Bradford sneered.  “Just get on with it already.” “Well sir, I’m sure you recall our conversation a few days back about the potential unauthorized user in our system?  It turns out...” “Close the door!” Bradford whispered emphatically, waving his arms wildly for Corbett to stop talking and come all the way into his office. “Sorry, sir,” Corbett said, his cheeks glowing an orange-red hue to match his hair.  After self-consciously closing the door behind him, he picked up where he’d left off.  “It turns out, he’s quite good at keeping himself hidden.  I was right about his not being in Indiana, but behind that location, his IP address bounces

Mum always said that both Christmas and birthday gifts should create neither an imbalance nor a debt in a relationship, they should reflect both the giver and the giftee, and they must always be free of conditions and hidden motivation. Dad’s advice was simply to remember that the gift isn’t for you but should elicit a smile of joy, pleasure, or laughter from the other person. He said it should be memorable enough that they never forget the occasion where they received it. Bottom line is they should reflect your relationship.

He grinned at me over the giant tiered cake in his arms- over the twenty-one sparkling candles lighting up his face. Cassian clapped me on the shoulder. 'You thought you could sneak it past us, didn't you?' I groaned. 'You're all insufferable.' Elain floated to my side. 'Happy birthday, Feyre.' My friends- my family- echoed the words as Rhys set the cake on the low-lying table before the fire. I glanced toward my sister. 'Did you...?' A nod from Elain. 'Nuala did the decorating, though.' It was then that I realised what the three different tiers had been painted to look like. On the top: flowers. In the middle: flames. And on the bottom, widest layer... stars. The same design of the chest of drawers I'd once painted in that dilapidated cottage. One for each of us- each sister. Those stars and moons sent to me, my mind, by my mate, long before we'd ever met. 'I asked Nuala to do it in that order,' Elain said as the others gathered round. 'Because you're the foundation, the one who lifts us. You always have been.' My throat tightened unbearably, and I squeezed her hand in answer. Mor, Cauldron bless her, shouted, 'Make a wish and let us get to the presents!

For no apparent reason, Mai found herself thinking of a pretty girl rotting at the bottom of a well.

…statistics experts later proved that the first [1969 nationally televised Vietnam Draft] lottery had a bias in favor of January and February birthdays, whose pellets had been put in the drum first and ended up at the bottom.

Honesty—Lolo should not have hidden the refrigerator in the storage room when the tax officials came, even if everyone else, including the tax officials, expected such things. Fairness—the parents of wealthier students should not give television sets to the teachers during Ramadan, and their children could take no pride in the higher marks they might have received. Straight talk—if you didn’t like the shirt I bought you for your birthday, you should have just said so instead of keeping it wadded up at the bottom of your closet. Independent judgment—just because the other children tease the poor boy about his haircut doesn’t mean you have to do it too.

You think you know me me, my daughter-in-law, but you don't. For instance, I bet you don't know I'm a space traveler. But I am. And I do. In my mind, I travel through time and space in ways you cannot even dream of - from Ohio to Bombay to Ohio again; from the land of the living to the land of the dead, where my Rustom resides; from my wallpapered bedroom in this house, to my painted bedroom in Bombay, of which I know every inch - where the embroidered handkerchiefs are kept in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, what books are on the bedside table; the color of the frame that holds the painted picture of Lord Zoroaster that Rustom got me for my fiftieth birthday. Yes, I may be older than you, Susan, and my knees my creak when I got up in the morning, but I can run faster and fly higher than you will ever know.

Like most of us, I often assume that I am perfect. I tell myself I am the greatest friend in the world, that I have never done anything wrong, and that any person who interacts with me is blessed and lucky and being smiled down upon by whatever higher power they believe in. And then, after a few moments of beautiful delusion, I convince myself that my friends will all soon realize that I'm not as great as they thought I was, and my next birthday party will consist of them telling me why we'll never speak again. (this is why I'll never have a birthday party.) Which isn't a totally unfounded fear. While I know even the best and longest friendships have peaks and valleys, I have lived that valley life hard. My long journeys to the bottom would justify "accidentally" deleting this chapter in lieu of trying to put a positive spin on all the friendship lessons I've learned, bless us, every one.

When you die, your privacy dies with you. Eventually, someone will rifle through your purse, your bathroom cabinet, your pockets. Someone will discover your journal and your secret feelings, all of your angriest and silliest and most lustful thoughts on paper. Someone will notice the stains in the underarms of your t-shirts, the hole in your worn-out underwear, the stash of candy in your bottom dresser drawer, the birthday gift that you shoved to the very back of your closet in the box marked "Yard Sale." Eventually, all your secrets are told, all of you discovered and exposed. Perhaps this is the scariest part about dying. The living go on to know you better than you might have wanted. When you die, their discoveries will lift you on a pedestal or diminish your legacy.

He dragged his hands down his face and balled his fists over his eyes. He stood there, his breath coming out in gasps, and I wanted to run to him and dive into his arms. But I didn’t budge. “We’re in love,” he said, blinking at me through tears. “We are. Why are you doing this?” My bottom lip trembled. “Fine. So we’re in love. What do you want from me, Josh?” He let out a shaky breath, and the relief transformed every inch of his body. His eyes softened into hope. He closed the space between us and gathered my face in his hands. “I want what we had today, all the time. I want to be with you. I want to hold your hand on a walk and kiss you in a damn booth. I want you to answer my fucking calls and let me hug you. I want to make plans with you on New Year’s and my birthday and tell people you’re my girlfriend.” His eyes begged me. “Please, Kristen. Just…stop.

Even though I'm trying hard not to let it show, I want to swim past the breakers, and sink to the bottom and stay there with my eyes closed and the water covering my ears. And yes, I know that's an overreaction. When you read this you'll think "Mom, please. Really?" You'll roll your eyes in that carefree way of yours and shrug those rebellious bangs off your forehead. You'll offer the one-sided smirk that says "you and I are the weird ones in the family - the two that always get each other's hidden meanings". Only this time, you don't get it. You can't. You won't for another 25 or 30 years - until you lie on the sand, or sit in a stadium seat somewhere or stand at your kitchen stove and catch a glimpse of your first born, your baby, suddenly inhabiting the body of an adult. Someone you barely recognize. In that instant, you'll think "how did this happen? When did this happen? Have I taught enough? Have I listened enough? Have I coached and planned and laughed and worried enough? Can I let go enough?" I'm afraid I won't be able to do it gracefully when the moment comes. I'm not ready. It's too soon. Instead of compiling pictures for a tasteful collage to make your dorm room homey, I want to climb inside the photos and live them again. Every bedtime story, lost tooth, birthday cake, backyard campout, ballgame, wildflower bouquet, rainy day and homemade Mothers Day card. All the golden moments and all the quiet, ordinary ones. I'd treasure them even more the second time around. If only life came with a rewind button, with do overs.

Toys were at the bottom of my parents’ priority list, and “Money doesn’t grow on trees” was the mantra most frequently heard around the house. Most of the toys Bill and I had were hand-me-downs or gifts we received for Christmas, or on our birthday. I can pretty much remember every toy I ever got, but that’s just the way it was. I do not believe that the lack of toys indicated a lack of love, but rather indicated where my parents were financially. However, having said that, North Germans such as my parents tended to be cold by nature, which was in sharp contrast to the South Germans, who loved to sing, make love and dance. The North Germans tended to look down on the South Germans, considering them frivolous and lazy. It seemed to me that most of the people from North Germany were very clandestine and anyone outside of our circle was suspect, and considered to be Schmeir Hammel, a slimy, castrated ram. My brother and I were frequently reminded to keep to ourselves and not make friends. Above all, we were told that ein Vogel beschmutzt sein eigenes nest nicht, meaning that a bird does not dirty its own nest. What it really meant was that you don’t talk to others about what happens within the family!” !

Three of my walls are glass. One of them is cracked, and a small piece, about the size of my hand, is missing from its bottom corner. I made the hole with a baseball bat Mack gave me for my sixth birthday. After that he took the bat away, but he let me keep the baseball that came with it.

It took me a couple of years after I woke up in that cold sweat to figure out what flag I was going to plant, and then how to do something with it. Using the process in Step 1, I found the things that I wanted to be known for and the work that I was passionate about. And then I started telling my story all the time to anyone who would actually listen. For me, this story was around Lean UX because of who I was at the time. I created a pitch based on design for designers, by designers, to change the way that they were working. And I honed that voice and that tone and that dialogue by telling the story over and over and over again using blog posts and articles and eventually in-person talks. The first talk I ever gave as a part of my new professional trajectory was on August 12, 2010. I told the story about how we solved the problem of integrating UX into Agile at TheLadders. And then the timeline started to accelerate from there. A month later, on September 24, I gave my first talk about Lean UX and it was in Paris. I was communicating about this topic publicly, and people were saying, “Hey, come give us a talk about it.” And I was writing about the topic in any publication that would actually listen to this kind of thing. I kept speaking and writing and making presentations, and as I got my ideas out into the world and put them into play in any way I could, on March 7, 2011, I finally hit the jackpot. This was three years after I had my 35th-birthday epiphany and the pressure was on—I knew I had just two years left before I was going to become obsolete, an also-ran. I hit the jackpot when I managed to get an article published in Smashing magazine. At the time, Smashing had a million readers online, and so the scale of my conversation was growing and growing because I was becoming known as the guy who had some answers to this question. That was a massive break for me because the article provided me with a global audience for the first time. Obviously, anything you publish on the internet is global and distributed, but the bottom line is that, if the platform you choose or that chooses you has a built-in audience, you stand a much bigger chance. Smashing magazine had an audience. The article, titled “Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business” became very successful, and that’s where I planted my flag—providing solutions to the Agile and design problem with a real-world tested solution nicely packaged and labeled as Lean UX.

said, ‘I don’t know what she expects to find out — we haven’t seen him in ten months.’ The word haven’t stuck out to her. As if they would again. It was always difficult to wrap your head around news like that. He’d sounded calm on the phone, as though he’d come to terms with this eventuality already, even before the news came in. Though when the reality of it all hit home the emotion couldn’t be denied.  She knew from personal experience. She’d felt indifferent when her mum told her that her dad was dead. It was only three days later that the realisation set in, when she came downstairs and the birthday decorations were still up. Her mother was slumped on the sofa, an empty bottle of red wine lying on its side next to her, the contents soaked into the fabric.  She remembered pausing at the bottom of the stairs and looking at her mother, passed out drunk. She’d always hated her father for looking like that.

In last month’s photo, a front tooth dangled over her bottom lip and Iris laughed out loud, wanting to reach into the picture and yank the loose tooth from her daughter’s mouth. She wondered about the conversations she missed with the child—the fights they must have had over Melody’s need to keep that tooth a day, a week, a month, longer. Why hadn’t Aubrey snuck into her room in the middle of the night and yanked it the way her own father had done—Iris waking in the morning with that new space in her mouth and a crisp dollar bill beneath her pillow. But now the tooth was gone. Had Melody gotten a dollar for it too? Iris studied the space—the pink half circle of gum beside a tiny front tooth that hung at a slight angle as though it too was loose now. Iris shivered. Ran her tongue along her own straight teeth. She had missed the child’s birthday but had called, only to have Melody say, It’s my birthday and it’s party day. Bye! Daddy got me a bicycle. Bye again. And when she reminded the child that the bicycle was from both of them, Melody said, But Daddy put it together. And Daddy’s gonna teach me to ride. Always the phone calls were Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, and TV shows she’d watched. When she tried to ask Melody what she was reading, the child laughed. Everything, she said. I read everything. Now, staring at the picture of her daughter, she remembered again how her own mother had said more than once that there was nothing at all maternal about Iris and wondered if the maternal gene kicked in later. Iris wondered if it would happen in her twenties or thirties. And if it did, would she want more children?