Bubble Bath Quotes

First bubble baths. Now Disney parks. You're shattering every creep vampire myth I've ever heard.

Bubbles. On a scale of one to ten, a bubble bath has to rank zero as far as things I'd expect an older-than-dirt-badass vampire to indulge in. The only thing that would surprise me more would be if you pulled out a rubber ducky. -Kira to Mencheres

They always gives me bath salts," complained Nobby. "And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?

Did you ever, when you were little, endure your parents’ warnings, then wait for them to leave the room, pry loose protective covers and consider inserting some metal object into an electrical outlet? Did you wonder if for once you might light up the room? When you were big enough to cross the street on your own, did you ever wait for a signal, hear the frenzied approach of a fire truck and feel like stepping out in front of it? Did you wonder just how far that rocket ride might take you? When you were almost grown, did you ever sit in a bubble bath, perspiration pooling, notice a blow dryer plugged in within easy reach, and think about dropping it into the water? Did you wonder if the expected rush might somehow fail you? And now, do you ever dangle your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble, defy the frozen deity to suffer the sun, thaw feather and bone, take wing to fly you home?

When you're a teenager, your friends are your life. When you grow up, friendships seem to get pushed further and further back, until it seems like a luxury, a frivolity, like a bubble bath.

Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I'm bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers. And if this is it, if this is all there is- just me and the trees and the sky and the seas- I know now that that's enough.

He could tell at once that they carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with the water though it wasn't bubble bath as Harry had ever experienced. One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Harry thought it would have supported his weight if he'd cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water. Harry amused himself for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs.

Promise me you’ll marry me. Not now. Someday. Because I need to know.” Claire felt a flutter inside, like a bird trying to fly, and a rush of heat that made her dizzy. And something else, something fragile as a soap bubble, and just as beautiful. Joy, in the middle of all this horror and heartbreak. “Yes,” she whispered back. “I promise.” And she kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, while the sun came up and bathed Morganville in one last, shining day.

He gripped her shoulders determinedly. 'I should’ve told you this earlier, Jordan. Now that I’ve got my chance, you’re going to hear it whether you like it or not. You came into my life and messed the whole thing up and now I’m screwed. Because I’m in love with you. As in balls-out, head-over-heels, watching-Dancing-with-the-Stars-on-Monday-nights, wine-and-bubble-bath kind of love. Hell, I think I’d even wear a scarf indoors for you.

bubble bath

People were so cheap there... they ate beans to save on bubble bath.

A girl never can predict who might wander into her boudoir during a bubble bath.

You ever think about having kids?” “All the time.I´d love to have a houseful. Then one of my nieces or nephews turns Exorsist on me and spews the most discusting things imaginable out both ends — things that make the demon snot feel like a bubble bath. That usually cures me of that stupidity for at least a day or two.” (Sam & Dev)

I'm not going to wear a red dress," she said. "It's the color of sunrise," Helda said. "It's the color of blood," Katsa said. Sighing, Helda carried the dress from the bathing room. "It would look stunning, My Lady," she called, "with your dark hair and your eyes." Katsa yanked at one of the more stubborn knots in her hair. She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. "If there's anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I'll hit him in the face.

A reaper in a bubble bath? What an affront to the dignity of death.

At the Richardson house were overstuffed sofas so deep you could sink into them as if into a bubble bath. Credenzas. Heavy sleigh beds. Once you owned an enormous chair like this, Pearl thought, you would simply have to stay put. You would have to plant roots and make the place that held this chair your home.

If my mother was odd enough to crave a bubble bath at three in the morning, Dorothy was inventive enough to suggest adding broken glass to the tub. If my mother insisted on listening to West Side Story repeatedly, it was Dorothy who said, 'Let's listen to it on forty-five!' And when my mother announced that she wanted a fur wrap like Auntie Mame, Dorothy bought her an unstable Norwegian elkhound from a puppy mill.

Brown-eyed sublime being. She of soft, deep cardigan pockets. Bubble-bath taker. Pool jumper. Cheese provider. Sunset glower. Heaven sent.

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr. Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings.

He swallowed and shifted his weight a little uneasily, and then said, very quietly, his lips almost touching hers, 'Promise me you'll marry me. Not now. Someday. Because I need to know." Claier felt a flutter inside, like a bird trying to fly, and a ruch of heat that made her dizzy. And something else, something fragile as a soap bubble, and just as beautiful. Joy, in the middle of all this horror and heartbreak. 'Yes,' she whispered back. 'I promise.' And she kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, while the sun came up and bathed Morganville in one last, shining day.

There was really nothing pressing for me to do beyond pouring bubble bath in the fountain at City Hall.

Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I'm bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy heard on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers. And if this is it, if this is all there is- just me and the trees and the sky and the seas- I know now that that's enough.

Work just as hard for fun moments, vacation moments, and pee-your-pants-laughing moments as you do for all the other things. I encourage you to take a walk, call a friend, have a glass of wine, enjoy a bubble bath, or take a long lunch. All of that work will be there when you get back, and a little time away can recharge your batteries and give you the energy to battle that ever-growing to-do list.

A good romance novel is like a bubble bath...steamy, relaxing, and over way too soon.

Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath.

Lockwood stepped aside, his boots crunching across the salt, to stand and study the paper beneath the light. No such luck with George; he came in close, his eyes bulging so much behind his spectacles, they almost pressed against the glass. 'I can't *believe* you did that, Lucy. You're crazy! *Purposefully* freeing a ghost!' 'It was an experiment,' I said. 'Why are you complaining? You're always messing about with that stupid jar of yours.' 'There's no comparison. I keep that ghost *in* in the jar. Anyway, it's scientific research. I do it under carefully controlled conditions.' 'Carefully controlled? I found it in the bathtub the other day!' 'That's right. I was testing the ghost's reaction to heat.' 'And to bubble bath? There were bubbles all over the jar. You put some nice soapy fragrance in that water, and...' I stared at him. 'Do you get in the tub with it, George?' His face flushed. 'No, I do not. Not as a rule. I - I was saving time. I was just getting in myself when it occurred to me I could do a useful experiment about the resistance of ectoplasm to warmth. I wanted to see if it would contract...' He waved his hands wildly in the air. 'Wait! Why am I explaining myself to *you*? You just unleashed a ghost in our house!

Occasionally a few bubbles would eructate to the surface like the ghosts of beans on bath night.

1. Set boundaries with others. 2. Change how you talk to yourself. 3. Bring in what matters most to you. 4. This is power—use it for good.

Take now the clockworks... The clockworks, being genuine and not much to look at, don't generate the drama of an Earth-tilt or a flying saucer, nor do they seem to offer any immediate panacea for humanity's fifty-seven varieties of heartburn. But suppose that you're one of those persons who feels trapped, to some degree, trapped matrimonially, occupationally, eductionally or geographically, or trapped in something larger than all those; trapped in a system, or what you might descrbie as an "incresingly deadening technocracy" or a "theater of paranoia and desperation" or something like that. Now, if you are one of those persons... wouldn't the very knowledge that there are clockworks ticking away behind the wallpaper of civilization, unbeknownst to leaders, organizers and managers (the President included), wouldn't that knowledge, suggesting as it does the possibility of unimaginable alternatives, wouldn't that knowledge be a bubble bath for your heart?

The middle part of Maine, all the way from Bar Harbor to Portland, hangs down like stalactites that drip little islands into the Atlantic. It's divided by rivers and harbors with cozy names that sound like brands of bubble bath or places boats sink in folks songs.

What are you doing?" "Exactly what it looks like I'm doing." "You're... yo'retaking a bubble bath?" Brody was sunk down into my tub, his head lolling back againt the title wall.

In this sinful world, there is no such thing as enjoying life; not in a world where everybody is happily having a bubble bath of sin. John 14

Deeply immersed in a constant bubble bath of sin, you cannot communicate with Jesus Christ unless you are ready to get out of the bath. John 1:9

There was an image in my mind—an expectation of what it would be like when I finally gave myself fully to a man. It wasn’t like this. It was always at night with candles flickering lazily, music filling the air with a sexy melody, and maybe a bubble bath. But no. It was infinitely better, and there was no froo froo, stereotypical scene that played out. It was incredible. Brilliant. Amazing. Indescribable, really. Like all the planets in the galaxy aligned for a perfect moment in time. As if this was the beginning of time. From now until the rest of eternity, everything finally had meaning.

They took turns looking deep, deep into the universe: Saturn like a knee that had been dipped in iodine, Neptune like a peach covered in mold, Jupiter like a half sucked jawbreaker, Mercury like a large shooter marble, galaxies like crushed candy, galaxies like the suds from a bubble bath blown off the palm of your hand.

I thought love was supposed to be weak knees and butterflies in your stomach and a terrible longing that could never be quenched." Eeny shook her head, chuckled, came over and embraced me. "No, child", she said gently, patting my back. "That's romance. Romance is build on doubt. Love is solid. Constant. If you're not careful, you might mistake it for bein' boring because it's so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath.

I refilled the wineglass and took it with me for a nice long bubble bath, where I settled in with Ambrose's guide for low-voltage outdoor lighting. It wasn't thrilling bubble-bath reading material, but I was impressed by his imagination. You wouldn't know from the writing that he'd never actually seen a low-voltage lighting system in someone's yard, much less installed one himself. His descriptions were clear, colorful, and written with authority. The inscription wasn't bad either: To Natalie, You're a high-voltage system as far as I am concerned.

I dip my foot into the water. There is a second of brilliant heat that slides straight through me, like steel wire through a block of wet clay. I gasp but do not pause. A second foot, less pain. Hands on the sides of the bathtub, I lower myself down. The water hurts, and it is good. The chemicals in the bubble bath burn, and that is better.

Careful,” Lye said. “I am fragile.” “That’s all right,” said September suddenly, feeling the warm cinnamon courage of her bath bubble up inside her, fresh and bright. “I’m not.

Boundaries are hard not because you can’t identify yours, but because you are worried about the backlash.

What I meant when I said “I don’t have time” is that every minute that passes I’m disappointing someone .

THE STOLEN CHILD Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

She thought, watching him, 'I am in a bath, naked in a bath with no bubbles, and a man is washing me; my reputation is doomed and to hell with it. I've been to hell and all I wanted in it was to be alive for this man. Who carried me out of it.

Trevor, let's go upstairs and take a really hot bath with extra bubbles so that my skin gets all sudsy and slippery so you can run your incredibly gifted naughty hands over me while we see how many times you can make me come before the water gets cold

No matter how sad you feel, plan something special that you want to do each day, even if it's only taking a bubble bath or watching a movie. Set a date to visit a friend, or order a book you want to read from the library. Always have something to look forward to.

[Tuco is in a bubble bath. The One Armed Man enters the room.] One Armed Man: I've been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left. [Tuco kills him with the gun he has hidden in the foam.] Tuco: When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk.

Unless you're playing Who's Hiding the Ecstasy?, I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it. I've got plans." Don't married people know that the last thing a single person wants to do on a Friday night is play a nutty game of Yahtzee? I'd rather take a bubble bath with my father.

I am waiting for you in the living room... the very pink living room. I do hope that when we acquire a home of our own, after this nonsense has passed, you will not insist on bathing the entire space in shades of bubble gum.

I know you’ve alluded to my boundary issues,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the tub. “And this is probably a shining example, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. Passing out in the bathtub or shower is one of the leading causes of death while bathing. And I can’t see anything because of all the bubbles. Actually, that’s a blatant lie because I can pretty much make out your entire left nipple. The suds are a little disparate in that area.

You’ll know you’re practicing real self-care when it feels like your outsides are matching your insides.

The con in this system is the notion that if you keep being a “good mother,” taking care of everyone else, someday, somebody will take care of you.

Feelings are not rational actors. They just are. It’s our job to learn how to feel them, and then we can decide if we want to take action based on them.

I take a bubble bath and do all my rituals: face mask, loofah, brown sugar-lavender scrub.

I expect Alexandra wouldn’t consider an early evening with a book, a bubble bath, and a jumbo glass of wine something nice. But then, my sister likes people. I don’t.

No,” he mocks, “I just like to come in a few times a week to gather petals for my bubble bath.

Even the perfume-free fragrance in your delightful bubble bath you were taking was from one of my first collections, Eau de Water

You got hair like a girl,” Mr. D said. “And you smell like bubble bath. At least I can get a trim.” “I’m wearing Old Spice.” “Next time try something stronger. Like horse manure.” Mr.

Real self-care, as you’ll see, is not a one-stop shop like a fancy spa retreat or a journaling app; it’s an internal process that involves making difficult decisions that will pay off tenfold in the long run as a life built around the relationships and activities that matter most to you.

Faux self-care is a method—in the moment, going for a run might improve your mood, but it does nothing to change the circumstances in your life that led you to feel drained, energy-less, or down. On the other hand, the work of real self-care is about going deeper and identifying the core principles to guide decision-making. When you apply these principles to your life, you don’t just feel relief in the moment, you design a system of living that prevents the problems from coming up in the first place.

My darling, my child, my connoisseur of sesquipedalian words and convoluted ideas and meandering sentences and baroque images, while the sun is asleep and the moon somnambulant, while the stars bathe us in their glow from eons ago and light-years away, while you are comfortably nestled in your blankets and I am hunched over in my chair by your bed, while we are warm and safe and still for the moment in this bubble of incandescent light cast by the pearl held up by the mermaid lamp, you and I, on this planet spinning and hurtling through the frigid darkness of space at dozens of miles per second, let’s read.

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gave me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings. It was in my Vanderbilt genes.

There's a certain feeling that can only be compared to the same feeling one gets when they've been in the cold rain when it's dark at night and suddenly night gives way to dawn and sunlight filters through the clouds as they part. That's how his voice felt as it hit my ears, flowing through me like fresh air hitting my lungs. It felt like I was slowly sinking into a hot bubble bath after having been outside, naked in the cold.

Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I’m bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers. And if this is it, if this is all there is—just me and the trees and the sky and the seas—I know now that that’s enough.

When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. A lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well. The water splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor on which I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples and his hands smelt of death. I tried to push them away and asked, ‘Who are you? Where is the voice?’ His only answer was a sigh.

...while the sun is asleep and the moon somnambulant, while the stars bathe us in their glow from eons ago and light-years away, while you are comfortably nestled in your blankets and I am hunched over in my chair by your bed, while we are warm and safe and still for the moment in this bubble of incandescent light cast by the pearl held up by the mermaid lamp, you and I, on this planet spinning and hurtling through the frigid darkness of space at dozens of miles per second, let's read.

Disembodiment takes many forms—for example, mindlessly scrolling social media, forgetting to eat or drink water, exercising to the point of injury—but ultimately it leads to a lack of ability to make meaningful and productive choices for yourself.

The reason that stuff goes bad is because it’s crappy old tech. Internal augs are less failure-prone than your own brain.” “So they’ll work flawlessly when some spambot hacks in and leaves me with an irresistible urge to buy a year’s supply of bubble bath for cats.

Love is solid. Constant. If you’re not careful, you might mistake it for bein’ boring because it’s so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath.

You said it wasn't fair. Over and over again you kept saying that. You said, There are so many kids that want to die. She's probably the one that wanted to live the most. I thought, no, I want to live as much as she did. But only if... and then I realized how much it sucked for me to think that. Think about myself like that, complain. I was here and I could go dancing and sweat all night and eat donuts and go roller-skating and take bubble baths and grow up. I had you. Right there with me. I had you living in my life and I was alive.

real self-care is not only a more authentic and sustainable solution—it’s also self-determined. It involves the internal process of setting boundaries, learning to treat yourself with compassion, making choices that bring you closer to yourself, and living a life aligned with your values.

Why are you studying Italian? So that - just in case Italy ever invades Ethiopia again, and is actually successful this time - you can brag about knowing a language that’s spoken in two whole countries? But I loved it. Every word was a singing sparrow, a magic trick, a truffle for me. I would slosh home through the rain after class, draw a hot bath, and lie there in the bubbles reading the Italian dictionary aloud to myself, taking my mind off my divorce pressures and my heartache. The words made me laugh in delight. I started referring to my cell phone as il mio telefonino (“my teensy little telephone”) I became one of those annoying people who always say Ciao! Only I was extra annoying, since I would always explain where the word ciao comes from.

They took turns looking deep, deep into the universe: Saturn like a knee that had been dipped in iodine, Neptune like a peach covered in mold, Jupiter like a half-sucked jawbreaker, Mercury like a large shooter marble, galaxies like crushed candy, galaxies like the suds from a bubble bath blown off the palm of your hand.

One more second and he would’ve hit you with the gun. And who knows what else. When I think about what could’ve happened . . .” He gripped her shoulders determinedly. “I should’ve told you this earlier, Jordan. Now that I’ve got my chance, you’re going to hear it whether you like it or not. You came into my life and messed the whole thing up and now I’m screwed. Because I’m in love with you. As in balls-out, head-over-heels, watching-Dancing-with-the-Stars -on-Monday-nights, wine-and-bubble-bath kind of love. Hell, I think I’d even wear a scarf indoors for you.” Jordan smiled, her eyes misty, as she touched his cheek. “That’s the best kind of love.

Magnus led her in one of the room on the first floor. A bath with a nice, big corner bathtub bordered on the bedroom. Like all rooms in this house this was also equipped luxuriously. „Clothes are in the cupboard. Towels and bubble bath already lie there. Feel like at home.“ She nodded and looked at him waiting. He smiled again. „Should I join you? I could also need a bath.“ She smiled back and shook the head. „No, thanks Magnus. I need a lot of place.“ „Well, you could sit on my lap.“ She closed the mouth tight her eyes and tried to look indignant, but in the meantime his flirting was a lot of fun for her. She liked the game between them. „Alone.“ He smiled and made a small bow. „As you wish.

Remember my experiments with the RTG and having a hot bath? Same principle, but I came up with an improvement: submerge the RTG. No heat will be wasted that way. I started with a large rigid sample container (or “plastic box” to people who don’t work at NASA). I ran a tube through the open top and down the inside wall. Then I coiled it in the bottom to make a spiral. I glued it in place like that and sealed the end. Using my smallest drill bit, I put dozens of little holes in the coil. The idea is for the freezing return air from the regulator to pass through the water as a bunch of little bubbles. The increased surface area will get the heat into the air better. Then I got a medium flexible sample container (“Ziploc bag”) and tried to seal the RTG in it. But the RTG has an irregular shape, and I couldn’t get all the air out of the bag. I can’t allow any air in there.

If it’s someone else’s answer, it can never be your solution.

…What I really needed was to rest. I realized that I felt more comfortable with productivity because it provided the illusion of control.

Rocío's boots hit the floor. "I love her," she declares. "She's perfect. I want her to be my beautiful California Bride with pink ribbons in her hair. I want to give her bubble baths that smell like cotton candy. I want to buy her fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them." She leans forward, pinning me with her gaze. "I will wear glitter for her, Bee. Black glitter.

The problem with this mentality is that the longer you stick with a relationship, a job, or a situation that isn’t working for you, the higher the emotional cost becomes to eventually set a boundary.

And in my dream, if the fathers and mothers loved their sons and daughters and sang to them in their cradles, they made a good country, and if they didn’t, they made a tyranny, so whether existence is a bloodbath or a bubble bath could hinge on whether a little child got kissed good night with a story and a glass of water or sent to bed without snuggles or a snack or a cohesive philosophy of justice.

there is no shortcut for setting boundaries and knowing your limits. The longer you let the fear of other people’s judgment or reactions dictate your decisions, the more devastating the destruction is in the long run.

My clinical practice is focused on people who identify as women, many of whom have children but not all. In a country without mandatory paid family leave and with astronomical childcare costs, parenthood can be an existential tipping point for women. But it is important to note that it’s not just mothers who suffer from this overburdening—it’s anyone who has been conditioned to put the needs and preferences of others ahead of themselves.

My throat raw with emotion, I said, “I thought love was supposed to be weak knees and butterflies in your stomach and a terrible longing that could never be quenched.” Eeny shook her head, chuckled, came over and embraced me. “No, child,” she said gently, patting my back. “That’s romance. Romance is built on doubt. Love is solid. Constant. If you’re not careful, you might mistake it for bein’ boring because it’s so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath. “But it’s also fierce and strong and demands all the best parts of you, the parts that are giving and honest and true. Love makes you a better person. It makes you want to be a better person. You know it’s love when you feel comfortable just as you are, when you feel seen and understood, when you know you could tell all your darkest truths and they’d be accepted without judgement.” Eeny pulled away and gently smoothed a hand over my hair. “Love isn’t butterflies, boo. It isn’t weak knees. It’s a pride of lions. It’s a pack of wolves. It’s ‘I’ve got your back even if it costs me my own life,’ because unlike romance that fizzles at the first sign of trouble, love will fight to the death. When it’s love, you’ll go to war to avenge even the slightest offense. And you’ll be justified. “Because of all the marvelous and terrible things we can experience in this life, love is the only one that will last beyond it.

Love is how the other person likes their coffee on a morning. How long they put their toast in the toaster for. How they like their throw pillows on the sofa to be arranged. How hot they have their shower water. How many bubbles in the bath. How they always leave empty glasses on the bar in the kitchen, and how they know exactly how you take your coffee. How they know how many candles to light around a bathtub before you get in, and how chilled your wine has to be before it’s an acceptable drinking temperature. We still have so much to learn about each other, and while I know there’s no rush, I want to know these things. I want to know if he prefers butter or jelly on his toast on a morning and if really he prefers tea over coffee, which I suspect he does. I want to know if he changes the temperature of the shower water to my preference of red hot instead of a normal hot. I want to know every little thing I don’t. Because at the end of the day, when it gets hard and you’re in the middle of the room shouting at each other over something trivial, you won’t remember the huge declarations of love. When you’re sitting against your bedroom door crying because you hate fighting, you’ll remember the way he smiles at you over breakfast and the way he trails his thumb down your spine to make you shiver. You’ll remember all the crazy little things that remind you that, no matter what, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem, there’s no one else in this world more perfect for you than he is.

His lips fell back against mine and in the blink of an eye, our bathing suits were shed. He fisted my hair and tilted my head off to the side, nibbling down my neck as he sucked marks against my skin. I felt my pussy heating for him. I felt my toes curling as he kissed down the valley of my breasts. He cupped them forcefully, massaging and tweaking my puckered peaks as I moaned and squealed and whimpered. “Teo,” I whispered. He growled. “Already so wet for me.” He slid two fingers inside of my body and my back arched dangerously. He crooked them against that pebbled spot as his thumb slid against my clit, and already I felt my ending approaching. I fisted the bed sheets as he pumped his dexterous fingers, tickling that sweet spot that made my eyes widen and my jaw unhinge with silent pleasure. An unearthly drone bubbled up the back of my throat as my orgasm crashed over me. But, nothing felt even remotely wonderful compared to the feeling of his cock sliding between my legs. “Holy fuck,” he growled. He pinned my wrists above my head and pounded against my body. My tits jumped for his viewing pleasure as he planted his knees into the mattress. My legs locked around him as I opened myself up for his assault. His thick dick, sliding against my walls as they clamped around him. My body, puckering at every movement and every sound he graced me with. All I knew was pleasure. All I understood was his presence. And the only name that came to mind as my second orgasm approached was his name. “Teo! Holy shit!” I exclaimed. He grunted. “Come for me. Squeeze that tight little pussy ar—ound—oh, shit.” He slowed his movements long enough to work me through an ecstasy that crashed so hard against my body that my vision tunneled. My body shook and tensed. Contracted and released. Then finally, my back collapsed to the bed. I felt physically spent until Teo’s dick slid from between my legs. And automatically, I missed him.

Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.” A woman who was in a relationship with Prince years ago told me that when he gave women baths he took total control. “He ran the bath, he put the bubbles in, he took your clothes off, he washed you, he washed your hair, it was a whole procedure and process. He put lotion on you after. He’d give you a robe. I don’t know if it was worshipful or if it was sweet and sensitive.

My throat raw with emotion, I said, “I thought love was supposed to be weak knees and butterflies in your stomach and a terrible longing that could never be quenched.” Eeny shook her head, chuckled, came over and embraced me. “No, child,” she said gently, patting my back. “That’s romance. Romance is built on doubt. Love is solid. Constant. If you’re not careful, you might mistake it for bein’ boring because it’s so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath. “But it’s also fierce and strong and demands all the best parts of you, the parts that are giving and honest and true. Love makes you a better person. It makes you want to be a better person. You know it’s love when you feel comfortable just as you are, when you feel seen and understood, when you know you could tell all your darkest truths and they’d be accepted without judgement.” Eeny pulled away and gently smoothed a hand over my hair. “Love isn’t butterflies, boo. It isn’t weak knees. It’s a pride of lions. It’s a pack of wolves. It’s ‘I’ve got your back even if it costs me my own life,’ because unlike romance that fizzles at the first sign of trouble, love will fight to the death. When it’s love, you’ll go to war to avenge even the slightest offense. And you’ll be justified. “Because of all the marvelous and terrible things we can experience in this life, love is the only one that will last beyond it.

The neon orange orb sat low in the sky, slowly breaking free of the horizon like the waking memory of a dream. The salty air smelled faintly of fish, and was thick with humidity and hung like a cloak over my body. The lavender sky at the horizon faded into cerulean above and behind me. The soft breeze whispered past my face, teasing my hair on its way to tickle the sawgrass that swayed in gratitude as if laughing like a child.
 I sat on the top plank of the boardwalk rail, the wood heavy with atmosphere and was damp and cool under my left palm. The surprising warmth of the winter air and the cool of the wood reminded me that yes, I am alive! Yes, I am grateful for this morning! And yes, I am glad to be here!
 The paper in my notebook as I wrote this began to feel sticky and moist within a few minutes. The ink from my pen seemed to grip the paper faster and firmer as if to say, I’m here, I’m happy, and I don’t want to lose this moment. Like my ink, I too wanted to cling to this morning.
 The sky started turning a peachy orange at the bottom and the ocean was sea foam green. The waves were breaking quietly, as if to give my thoughts amplitude so I could record and rejoice in the sea’s majesty. 
 The sand was gray and silky like a freshly pressed pair of slacks. The smooth beach seemed paved with sunlight. A jogger ran by, his knees probably grateful for the even stride the flat surface provided. 
 Chunks of sea foam lay strewn on the beach like remnants of Poseidon’s nightly bubble bath. A seagull circled low in the air, gliding in the sky with its streamlined body as the sun lit its white wings up like an angel’s halo.

He lowered his head and shook it from side to side, giving her a rueful smile. “I find it so ironic that someone I think of as sometimes so brave to the point of stupidity could be so terrified of her own happiness,” Bree felt the shot hit home, and she couldn’t look at him. She ran her finger along the marble topped of the island. “That’s ridiculous. Who in their right mind is afraid of being happy?” “Someone who has lost too much,” he moved slowly towards her in gentle careful strides as if he was afraid of startling her. Fair enough, she did tend to attack him when he tried to corner her, but for some reason, Bree just couldn’t tonight. The much too relaxing bubble bath must be making her sluggish. “Someone who is so used to being told she caused too much pain to others to ever be worthy of happiness herself,” Bree closed her eyes. “Shut up. Please, Alessandro.

I’m not going to wear a red dress,” she said. “It’s the color of sunrise,” Helda said. “It’s the color of blood,” Katsa said. Sighing, Helda carried the dress from the bathing room. “It would look stunning, My Lady,” she called, “with your dark hair and your eyes.” Katsa yanked at one of the more stubborn knots in her hair. She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. “If there’s anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I’ll hit him in the face.

In the quantum theory, you start with a symmetry, and then you break it with the Higgs boson to get the universe that we see all around us. Similarly, Guth then theorized that maybe there was a new type of Higgs boson (called the inflaton) that made inflation possible. As with the original Higgs boson, the universe started out in the false vacuum that gave us the era of rapid inflation. But then quantum bubbles occurred within the inflaton field. Inside the bubble, the true vacuum emerged, where the inflation had stopped. Our universe emerged as one of these bubbles. The universe slowed down within the bubble, giving us the present-day expansion. So far, inflation seems to fit the astronomical data. It is currently the leading theory. But it has unexpected consequences. If we invoke the quantum theory, it means that the Big Bang can happen again and again. New universes may be being born out of our universe all the time. This means that our universe is actually a single bubble in a bubble bath of universes. This creates a multiverse of parallel universes.

don’t need to run away from discomfort and into a male eyeline. That’s not where I come alive. Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I’m bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers.

He's got a cat tied to the seat of the toilet and a bubble bath all set for someone to jump in. I excused myself for a second and went over to the kitchenette and popped a couple of Valiums. I was already loaded on junk but I could see this was going to be strictly from fruit. When I got back in the john he was already naked and in the tub frosted in bubbles . . . the poor cat was still chained to the john seat, yelping away. The guy laid his plan on me. He wants me to whip the cat dead after I first piss on him in his bubble bath, then when the cat has had it I'm to jerk off into his mouth while he's still in the tub. Out from under the bubbles he hands me a whip, a tiny cat size whip with leather fringes laced with broken ends of razors. ... I untied the cat, he tried to get up and stop me, I punched his chump face, he landed back on his ass in the tub and I gave him the whip across the chest . . . a nasty wound. . . . I grabbed his hair, opened his mouth and pissed in it . . . he spit it out, the piss mixing with the blood oozing from his lip from the punch and he let out a slow motion yell at the sting of urine dripping into the cuts on his chest. He sank under water to cool the burn, I rifled his wallet for sixty bucks, picked up the kitty and split.

One night, having spent a few days in peaceful solitude with my thoughts, I walked under the stars and along the cobbled streets and an idea crept all over me like arresting, vibrant blooms of wisteria. I don’t need a dazzlingly charismatic musician to write a line about me in a song. I don’t need a guru to tell me things about myself I think I don’t know. I don’t need to cut all my hair off because a boy told me it would suit me. I don’t need to change my shape to make myself worthy of someone’s love. I don’t need any words or looks or comments from a man to believe I’m visible; to believe I’m here. I don’t need to run away from discomfort and into a male eyeline. That’s not where I come alive. Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I’m bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event and the backing singers. And if this is it, if this is all there is – just me and the trees and the sky and the seas – I know now that that’s enough. I am enough. I am enough.

Sal and Henry return with a gust of warm garden air and I settle down to create miniature roses from sugarpaste using tiny ivory spatulas and crimpers. I will have no antique tester bed crowning my cake, only a posy of flowers: symbols of beauty and growth, each year new-blossoming. I let Henry paint the broken pieces with spinach juice, while I tint my flowers with cochineal and yellow gum. As a pretty device I paint a ladybird on a rose, and think it finer than Sèvres porcelain. At ten o'clock tomorrow, I will marry John Francis at St. Mark's Church, across the square. As Sal and I rehearse our plans for the day, pleasurable anticipation bubbles inside me like fizzing wine. We will return from church for this bride cake in the parlor, then take a simple wedding breakfast of hot buttered rolls, ham, cold chicken, and fruit, on the silver in the dining room. Nan has sent me a Yorkshire Game Pie, so crusted with wedding figures of wheatsheafs and blossoms it truly looks too good to eat. We have invited few guests, for I want no great show, and instead will have bread and beef sent to feed the poor. And at two o'clock, we will leave with Henry for a much anticipated holiday by the sea, at Sandhills, on the southern coast. John Francis has promised Henry he might try sea-bathing, while I have bought stocks of cerulean blue and burnt umber to attempt to catch the sea and sky in watercolor.

When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. A lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well. The water splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor on which I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples and his hands smelt of death. I tried to push them away and asked, ‘Who are you? Where is the voice?’ His only answer was a sigh. Suddenly, a hot breath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside the man’s black shape, in the darkness. The black shape lifted me on to the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I murmured, ‘Cesar!’ The animal quivered. Raoul, I was lying half back on a saddle and I had recognized the white horse out of the PROFETA, which I had so often fed with sugar and sweets. I remembered that, one evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse had disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost. I believed in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost. Now, however, I began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost’s prisoner. I called upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined that the voice and the ghost were one. You have heard about the Opera ghost, have you not, Raoul?” “Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of the Profeta?” “I made no movement and let myself go. The black shape held me up, and I made no effort to escape. A curious feeling of peacefulness came over me and I thought that I must be under the influence of some cordial. I had the full command of my senses; and my eyes became used to the darkness, which was lit, here and there, by fitful gleams. I calculated that we were in a narrow circular gallery, probably running all round the Opera, which is immense, underground. I had once been down into those cellars, but had stopped at the third floor, though there were two lower still, large enough to hold a town. But the figures of which I caught sight had made me run away. There are demons down there, quite black, standing in front of boilers, and they wield shovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up flames and, if you come too near them, they frighten you by suddenly opening the red mouths of their furnaces … Well, while Cesar was quietly carrying me on his back, I saw those black demons in the distance, looking quite small, in front of the red fires of their furnaces: they came into sight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we went on our winding way. At last, they disappeared altogether. The shape was still holding me up and Cesar walked on, unled and sure-footed. I could not tell you, even approximately, how long this ride lasted; I only know that we seemed to turn and turn and often went down a spiral stair into the very heart of the earth. Even then, it may be that my head was turning, but I don’t think so: no, my mind was quite clear. At last, Cesar raised his nostrils, sniffed the air and quickened his pace a little. I felt a moistness in the air and Cesar stopped. The darkness had lifted. A sort of bluey light surrounded us. We were on the edge of a lake, whose leaden waters stretched into the distance, into the darkness; but the blue light lit up the bank and I saw a little boat fastened to an iron ring on the wharf!” - Chapter 12: Apollo’s Lyre

No, no, we can't know his name, otherwise the Devil will have a story, a beginning and an end just like you or me, and Hell has no threat when it is staffed by commoners. But the Devil also likes to flirt with his own destruction - just like those he recruits to his cause - so he makes it a point to torment the weakest and greediest and guiltiest of the lot in their worst moments of need and make them guess his name. Guess right and live. Fail and burn forever. All of them fail, of course. But it's in good fun! Give the damned a chance. Wink, wink. There are a lot of sinning fools to choose from, and today, as he hunches over his river Styx, a churning, bubbling bath, each of the bubbles shows him a soul ready to be plucked from their time on earth and whisked down to eternal suffering. He can hear the screams of his choir now, millions strong, broiling in the dungeons beneath his river. Who will join his little chickies? He sings a song, because the Devil is an artist: Fiddle dee dum, Fiddle dee dee, Look at my bubbles, one two thee. Who will play my game? Who will guess my name? Who will be the next to burn in flames?

Before reaching it, we would meet the smell of his lilacs, coming out to greet the strangers. From among the fresh green little hearts of their leaves, the flowers would curiously lift above the gate of the park their tufts of mauve or white feathers, glazed, even in the shade, by the sun in which they had bathed. A few, half hidden by the little tiled lodge called the Archers’ House, where the caretaker lived, overtopped its Gothic gable with their pink minarets. The Nymphs of Spring would have seemed vulgar compared to these young houris, which preserved within this French garden the pure and vivid tones of Persian miniatures. Despite my desire to entwine their supple waists and draw down to me the starry curls of their fragrant heads, we would pass by without stopping because my parents had ceased to visit Tansonville since Swann’s marriage… We stopped for a moment in front of the gate. Lilac time was nearly over; a few, still, poured forth in tall mauve chandeliers the delicate bubbles of their flowers, but in many places among the leaves where only a week before they had still been breaking in waves of fragrant foam, a hollow scum now withered, shrunken and dark, dry and odorless.

One possibility is that many of these universes are unstable and decay to our familiar universe. We recall that the vacuum, instead of being a boring, featureless thing, is actually teeming with bubble universes popping in and out of existence, like in a bubble bath. Hawking called this the space-time foam. Most of these tiny bubble universes are unstable, jumping out of the vacuum and then jumping back in. In the same way, once the final formulation of the theory is found, one might be able to show that most of these alternate universes are unstable and decay down to our universe. For example, the natural time scale for these bubble universes is the Planck time, which is 10−43 seconds, an incredibly short amount of time. Most universes only live for this brief instant. Yet the age of our universe, by comparison, is 13.8 billion years, which is astronomically longer than the lifespan of most universes in this formulation. In other words, perhaps our universe is special among the infinity of universes in the landscape. Ours has outlasted them all, and that is why we are here today to discuss this question. But what do we do if the final equation turns out to be so complex that it cannot be solved by hand? Then it seems impossible to show that our universe is special among the universes in the landscape. At that point I think we should put it in a computer. This is the path taken for the quark theory. We recall that the Yang-Mills particle acts like a glue to bind quarks into a proton. But after fifty years, no one has been able to rigorously prove this mathematically. In fact, many physicists have pretty much given up hope of ever accomplishing it. Instead, the Yang-Mills equations are solved on a computer. This is done by approximating space-time as a series of lattice points. Normally, we think of space-time being a smooth surface, with an infinite number of points. When objects move, they pass through this infinite sequence. But we can approximate this smooth surface with a grid or lattice, like a mesh. As we let the spacing between lattice points get smaller and smaller, it becomes ordinary space-time, and the final theory begins to emerge. Similarly, once we have the final equation for M-theory, we can put it on a lattice and do the computation on a computer. In this scenario, our universe emerges from the output of a supercomputer. (However, I am reminded of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when a gigantic supercomputer is built to find the meaning of life. After eons doing the calculation, the computer finally concluded that the meaning of the universe was “forty-two.”)

Finally, he allowed me to turn the key in the lock and the front door, with its porthole-shaped window, swung open. I don’t know what I’d expected. I’d tried not to conjure up fantasies of any kind, but what I saw left me inarticulate. The entire apartment had the feel of a ship’s interior. The walls were highly polished teak and oak, with shelves and cubbyholes on every side. The kitchenette was still located to the right where the old one had been, a galley-style arrangement with a pint-size stove and refrigerator. A microwave oven and trash compactor had been added. Tucked in beside the kitchen was a stacking washer-dryer, and next to that was a tiny bathroom. In the living area, a sofa had been built into a window bay, with two royal blue canvas director’s chairs arranged to form a “conversational grouping.” Henry did a quick demonstration of how the sofa could be extended into sleeping accommodations for company, a trundle bed in effect. The dimensions of the main room were still roughly fifteen feet on a side, but now there was a sleeping loft above, accessible by way of a tiny spiral staircase where my former storage space had been. In the old place, I’d usually slept naked on the couch in an envelope of folded quilt. Now, I was going to have an actual bedroom of my own. I wound my way up, staring in amazement at the double-size platform bed with drawers underneath. In the ceiling above the bed, there was a round shaft extending through the roof, capped by a clear Plexiglas skylight that seemed to fling light down on the blue-and-white patchwork coverlet. Loft windows looked out to the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. Along the back wall, there was an expanse of cedar-lined closet space with a rod for hanging clothes, pegs for miscellaneous items, shoe racks, and floor-to-ceiling drawers. Just off the loft, there was a small bathroom. The tub was sunken with a built-in shower and a window right at tub level, the wooden sill lined with plants. I could bathe among the treetops, looking out at the ocean where the clouds were piling up like bubbles. The towels were the same royal blue as the cotton shag carpeting. Even the eggs of milled soap were blue, arranged in a white china dish on the edge of the round brass sink.