“
There are moments in every relationship that define when two people start to fall in love.
A first glance
A first smile
A first kiss
A first fall…
(I remove the Darth Vader house shoes from my satchel and look down at them.)
You were wearing these during one of those moments.
One of the moments I first started to fall in love with you.
The way you gave me butterflies that morning
Had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else,
and everything to do with you.
I was falling in love with you that morning
because of you.
(I take the next item out of the satchel. When I pull it out and look up, she brings her hands to her mouth in shock.)
This ugly little gnome
With his smug little grin…
He's the reason I had an excuse to invite you into my house.
Into my life.
You took a lot of aggression out on him over those next few months.
I would watch from my window as you would kick him over every time you walked by him.
Poor little guy.
You were so tenacious.
That feisty, aggressive, strong-willed side of you….
The side of you that refused to take crap from this concrete gnome?
The side of you that refused to take crap from me?
I fell in love with that side of you
because of you.
(I set the gnome down on the stage and grab the CD)
This is your favorite CD
‘Layken’s shit.’
Although now I know you intended for shit to be possessive, rather than descriptive.
The banjo started playing through the speakers of your car
and I immediately recognized my favorite band.
Then when I realized it was your favorite band, too?
The fact that these same lyrics inspired both of us?
I fell in love with that about you.
That had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else.
I fell in love with that about you
because of you.
(I take a slip of paper out of the satchel and hold it up. When I look at her, I see Eddie slide her a napkin. I can’t tell from up here, but that can only mean she’s crying.)
This is a receipt I kept.
Only because the item I purchased that night was on the verge of ridiculous.
Chocolate milk on the rocks? Who orders that?
You were different, and you didn’t care.
You were being you.
A piece of me fell in love with you at that moment,
because of you.
This? (I hold up another sheet of paper.)
This I didn’t really like so much.
It’s the poem you wrote about me.
The one you titled 'mean?'
I don’t think I ever told you…
but you made a zero.
And then I kept it
to remind myself of all the things I never want to be to you.
(I pull her shirt from my bag. When I hold it into the light, I sigh into the microphone.)
This is that ugly shirt you wear.
It doesn’t really have anything to do with why I fell in love with you.
I just saw it at your house and thought I’d steal it.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Point of Retreat (Slammed, #2))
“
The radio has a CD player and a few CDs, but they’re country-western. “I’m not dying to—” I look at one of the CDs, “Shania Twain. Sorry. I could do Patsy Cline or Johnny Cash, but not Shania.
”
”
Sarah Lyons Fleming (And After (Until the End of the World, #2))
“
His personal belongings were so few that when someone gave him a gift of some CDs he asked a friend to record them to cassettes, as he did not have a CD player.
”
”
Paul Vallely (Pope Francis: Untying the Knots)
“
I'll lend you my confidence boosting CD set," she would say if I alluded to any concern or worry . . .
Every few weeks, she had a whole new paradigm for living, and I had to hear about it. "Get good at knowing when you're tired," she'd advised me once. "Too many women wear themselves thin these days." A lifestyle tip from Get the Most Out of Your Day, Ladies included the suggestion to preplan your outfits for the workweek on Sunday evenings.
"That way you won't be second-guessing yourself in the morning."
I really hated when she talked like that.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
“
I turned myself into a vinyl hawk, scouring record shops for out-of-print LPs, studying them with Talmudic intensity. The music I loved would all be dug out of studio archives and put onto CD within a few years, but then it was still scratchy and moldy and entirely my own.
”
”
Jonathan Lethem (The Fortress of Solitude (Vintage Contemporaries))
“
The whole country PTSDed after the 9-11 tragedy. As you all know, trauma leaves people more easily led. People in the United States have yet to learn about mind control, and therefore could not safeguard themselves from traumatic effects. In the event someone did think to look into mind control, the Freedom of Information Act was immediately revoked and 100,000 documents on MK Ultra reclassified. Of course, Cathy and I had already obtained copies during the few months they were declassified, which we make conveniently available on CD Rom15 everywhere we go in an effort to raise awareness of mind control.
”
”
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
“
While there are certainly informational spillovers as ideas move from person to person, it is hard to see why in most instances they are not priced. Although it is possible to imagine examples such as the wheelbarrow where an idea cannot be used without revealing the secret, relatively few ideas are of this type. For copyrightable creations such as books, music, plays, movies and art, unpriced spillovers obviously play little role. A book, a CD or a work of art must be purchased before it can be used, and the creator is free to make use of his creation in the privacy of his home without revealing the secret to the public at large. Similarly with movies or plays. In all cases, the creation must effectively be purchased before the “secret” is revealed.
”
”
Michele Boldrin (Against Intellectual Monopoly)
“
Walking back from Somerville, we kept passing curbside piles of discarded household items. I pulled out a doormat that said I AM NOT YOUR DOORMAT. “It’s like it’s capable of self-deception!” I enthused. Joanne asked in a kind voice if I wanted to take it home and have it be our doormat. I imagined seeing it every day, this protesting resentful doormat: we would crush its conception of itself, again and again, with our feet. I replaced the mat where I had found it, between a CD tower and part of a disassembled futon. A few blocks later, Riley found another doormat that had seven cats on it spelling WELCOME with their tails. It was clearly the correct doormat.
”
”
Elif Batuman (Either/Or)
“
We drove through a few more neighborhoods after that, searching for the lost truck, listening to a CD of old Khmer songs, the same CD that had been stuck in the stereo since the Honda had belonged to mom. I barely understood the lyrics, aside from a few phrases in the choruses, but I knew the melodies, the voices, the weird mix of mournful, psychedelic tones. When I tried articulating my feelings about home, my mind inevitably returned to these songs, the way the incomprehensible intertwined with what made me feel so comfortable. I’d lived with misunderstanding for so long, I’d stopped even viewing it as bad. It was just there, embedded in everything I loved.
”
”
Anthony Veasna So (Afterparties)
“
Natasha started to take notice. My sleepiness was good for rudeness to visitors to the gallery, but not for signing for packages or noticing if someone had come in with a dog and tracked paw prints all over the floor, which happened a few times. There were a few spilled lattes. MFA students touching paintings, once even rearranging an installation of shattered CD jewel cases in a Jarrod Harvey installation to spell out the word “HACK.” When I noticed it, I just shuffled the shards of plastic around, no one the wiser. But when a homeless woman set herself up in the back room one afternoon, Natasha found out. I’d had no idea how long the woman had been there. Maybe people thought she was part of the artwork. I ended up paying her fifty bucks out of petty cash to leave. Natasha couldn’t hide her irritation.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
“
—What are you doing now?— —I’m under my covers— —Alone?— —y— —A crime— I smiled, and the feeling of levity cracked the brittle shell of sorrow, if only for a second, and tears streamed down my face. —Don’t make me laugh, fuckhead— —May I join you under those lucky covers?— When I read the message, I didn’t feel his request in my loins, but on my skin. I wanted him to touch me. Kiss me. Breathe on me. Talk to me. Hold me for hours. The desire wasn’t just between my legs, but in my rib cage, my marrow, my fingertips. Could I give up the consuming protection of loneliness and indulge in a few hours with Jonathan? Was I worthy of a little comfort? Probably not. And I hadn’t forgotten the submissive thing. No. He was going to drag me into a pit of defilement and humiliation. Seeing him would only draw him closer to me than he should be, ever. I texted: —I need you— I hit send. I shouldn’t have.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
Was it as scary for you as it is for me? Falling for Sawyer?”
“Not really, no.” She shakes her head. “I’m sure I had some of the same worries, everyone does. But I’m a leaper. You’re a thinker. We process things differently.”
“You didn’t have a panic attack and run away?” I ask sarcastically.
“No,” she muses. “Not even that time he refused to have sex with me.”
“That was your first date, Everly. And you did have sex,” I remind her. I know, because I heard about it for a week.
“Whew.” She blows out a breath. “It was a tough few hours though. How is Boyd’s POD by the way? Can we talk about that?” She leans forward on the couch, looking at me expectantly.
“Um, no. I don’t think so.”
She shrugs good-naturedly then changes the subject back to me. “Chloe, why didn’t you tell me you were struggling with your anxiety? You know I’m never too busy for you, no matter how many husbands or children I have.”
“You have one husband, babe,” Sawyer says, walking into the room at that moment.
“You’re still the one, baby.”
“We’ve been married for three months, Everly. I sure as hell better still be the one.”
“Sawyer,” she sighs. “I was trying to have a moment, okay? Work with me.”
“Next time, try waiting more than a day after downloading Shania Twain’s greatest hits to your iPod. You do realize the receipts come to my email, don’t you?”
“Um.” Everly looks away and scrunches her nose. “No?”
“You’ve been on quite the 90’s love ballads kick this week. Which is weird, because you’re not old enough to have owned the CD’s those songs were originally released on.” He looks at her with amused interest.
“What’s a CD?” She blinks at Sawyer dramatically.
“Cute. Keep it up.”
“Nineties music is all the rage with the millennials,” she tells him with a shrug. “I saw a blog post about it.”
“Don’t worry, sweets. We’ll beat the odds together.” He winks and she scowls. “You’re still the only one I dream of,” he calls as he walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water.
“See! I don’t even care that you lifted that from a song. It still gave me all the feels!
”
”
Jana Aston (Trust (Cafe, #3))
“
Because a lake is conceived as having only two primary dimensions, you can't swim inside the lake, though that would seem to make geometric sense. Lederer asks why we say that something can be underwater or underground even though it's surrounded by, not beneath, the water or the ground. It's because water and ground are conceived as 2-D surfaces, not 3-D volumes, geologically improbable though that is. The dimensionality of an object is also the aspect of its geometry that modifiers "see" when they combine with it in a phrase. A big CD, for example, has to have an above-average diameter, not an above-standard thickness (that could only be a thick CD), and a big lake has to be one with an unusually large area, regardless of its depth; it can't be a few yards wide and a mile deep.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature)
“
Of course, the first song is “Come Together.” It starts with that great weird “shoomp” and the bass part. And when John started singing “Here come old flattop…,” what happened, but Mom knew every single word of the song! Not just every word, but every cadence. She knew every “all right!” and “aww!” and “yeaaaah.” And it kept going, song after song. When “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” started, Mom said, “Yuck, I always thought this was totally sophomoric.” Still, what did she do? She sang every single word of that, too. I hit the pause button. “How do you even know this?” I demanded. “Abbey Road?” Mom shrugged. “I don’t know, you just know it.” She unpaused the CD. When “Here Comes the Sun” started, what happened? No, the sun didn’t come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds. You know how in the first few notes of that song, there’s something about George’s guitar that’s just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo. When the song was over, she paused it. “Oh, Bee,” she said. “This song reminds me of you.” She had tears in her eyes. “Mom!” This is why I didn’t want her to come to the first-grade elephant dance. Because the most random things get her way too full of love.
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
which she played like the crazy prodigy she was, then she blanked out again. Her depression was ameliorated by music and brought on by just about anything, even if she was taking her meds. She’d attempted suicide two years before after a few weeks of corner-staring and complaining of not being able to feel anything about anything. I’d been the one to find her in the kitchen, bleeding into the
”
”
C.D. Reiss (The Alphas: Four First Loves)
“
When Derek Sivers first built his business CDbaby.com, he set up a standard confirmation email to let customers know their order had been shipped. After a few months, Derek felt that this email wasn’t aligned with his mission—to make people smile. So he sat down and wrote a better one. Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed on a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 6th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! —Derek Sivers, Anything You Want The result wasn’t just delighted customers. That one email brought thousands of new customers to CD Baby. The people who got it couldn’t help sharing it with their friends. Try Googling “private CD Baby jet”; you’ll find over 900,000 search results to date. Derek’s email has been cited by business blogs the world over as an example of how to authentically put your words to work for your business.
”
”
Bernadette Jiwa (The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys to a Great Brand Story and Why Your Business Needs One)
“
Another scenario is possible, and that is the e-book will succeed and that books will be downloaded from the Internet. But at the same time, it may be the case that the digital network and the terminals that tap into it will become saturated as limits to growth of computer memory and speed of operation are reached at the same time that electronic traffic becomes gridlocked with e-mail and World Wide Web use. If that were to happen, there would likely be pressure to keep older books in print form, and perhaps even continue to issue newer books that way, rather than clutter the Internet with more and more information. Under such a scenario, older books might not be allowed to circulate because so few copies of each title will have survived the great CD digital dispersal, leaving printed editions that will be as rare as manuscript codices are today.
In spite of potential problems, the electronic book, which promises to be all books to all people, is seen by some visionaries as central to any scenario of the future. But what if some electromagnetic catastrophe or a mad computer hacker were to destroy the total electronic memory of central libraries? Curious old printed editions of dead books would have to be disinterred from book cemeteries and re-scanned. But in scanning rare works into electronic form, surviving books might have to be used in a library's stacks, the entrance to which might have to be as closely guarded as that to Fort Knox. The continuing evolution of the bookshelf would have to involve the wiring of bookstacks for computer terminal use. Since volumes might be electronically chained to their section in the stacks, it is also likely that libraries would have to install desks on the front of all cases so that portable computers and portable scanners could be used to transcribe books within a telephone wire's or computer cable's reach of where they were permanently kept. The aisles in a bookstack would most likely have to be altered also to provide seating before the desks, and in time at least some of the infrastructure associated with the information superhighway might begin again to resemble that of a medieval library located in the tower of a monastery at the top of a narrow mountain road.
”
”
Petroski, Henry
“
Would you care to share with the rest of the class what is so funny?”
Madison gulped. Ms. Healy was staring hard at Madison’s PalmPilot, which was absolutely forbidden in class, along with cell phones, CD players, and any other distracting electrical equipment.
Madison instantly started vamping. “Well, Ms. Healy, I was just musing on how ridiculous a scarlet would be today, and who would have to wear one--senators, actors, teachers, even a few of our presidents. In fact, there would probably be more people wearing the scarlet letter than not wearing it.”
Ms. Healy’s cold blue eyes looked huge through her extra-magnified glasses. “This is funny?”
Madison swallowed hard. “I guess it’s really more ironic, wouldn’t you say?”
Ms. Healy, who knew Madison as a straight-A, straight-shooter kind of student, softened a little. “‘Ironic’ is indeed the perfect word for it,” she said with a brisk nod. “Now put the personal digital assistance away and pay attention, Ms. McKay.”
As Ms. Healy walked back to the front of the room, Henry Cooney, Madison’s partner in chem lab, mouthed the words, “Nice save.”
Madison wiped some imaginary sweat off her forehead with her hand and tried to focus once again on the lecture. She forced herself to keep her eyes glued to Ms. Healy and soon found herself wondering what had turned the teacher into such an old grump. She was clearly smart and sometimes very funny, in a droll sort of way. Take away those awful glasses, let her hair out of that tight metal barrette at her neck, and Ms. Healy could almost be considered attractive. Maybe she’d had some brush with failed love that had made her go sour. Or worse yet--what if she had never had any brush with love at all, and this dried-up old prune was what Ms. Healy had become?
”
”
Jahnna N. Malcolm (Perfect Strangers (Love Letters, #1))
“
Let’s get this over with,” Walt blustered to Noah. “They’re setting up some mighty fine-looking food back at the house and those Riordans are circling like starving dogs. I’d like to get back there while they’re still sober enough to make the toasts.” Noah looked at his watch yet again. “Let’s give Ellie another minute—she’s helping with the music tonight. Tomorrow is a no-brainer, she can just start the CD and—” “You sure she’s coming, Noah?” Walt asked. “I saw her wrangling a couple of big suitcases down the stairs…” “You saw her what?” “When we were driving into town, past the Fitch house. She was on the stairs with a big suitcase—one still on top, one already sitting behind her car. I thought maybe she was…” “Oh, God, no,” Noah said. “George, handle this for a few minutes. Lucy, stay!” And then he bolted out the side door and ran down the street like the seat of his pants was on fire. Or like he might be losing the love of his life. When
”
”
Robyn Carr (Forbidden Falls)
“
GPS—whose voice I had decided sounded unnervingly like Chris Teasley’s, Westerfield’s assistant—took me to a storefront off Connecticut Avenue. It was a used-CD store, manned by a few slow-moving clerks. The customers were mostly in their twenties, along with a few smudged, bearded music lovers about my age. I walked up to one young man behind the register, flashed my ID along with a security picture of the Asian man who’d collected the gold coins in New Jersey, a perp in the Graham forgery case. He claimed he knew nothing. I asked four or five other people. Nobody seemed to know anything about funny checks or the Asian. Finally,
”
”
Jeffery Deaver (Edge)
“
If a geographic place rapidly changes in a way that demeans its natural integrity, then children’s early attachment to land is at risk. If children do not attach to the land, they will not reap the psychological and spiritual benefits they can glean from nature, nor will they feel a long-term commitment to the environment, to the place. This lack of attachment will exacerbate the very conditions that created the sense of disengagement in the first place—fueling a tragic spiral, in which our children and the natural world are increasingly detached. I am not suggesting the situation is hopeless. Far from it. Conservation and environmental groups and, in some cases, the traditional Scouting organizations are beginning to awaken to the threat to nature posed by nature-deficit disorder. A few of these organizations, as we will see, are helping to lead the way toward a nature-child reunion. They recognize that while knowledge about nature is vital, passion is the long-distance fuel for the struggle to save what is left of our natural heritage and—through an emerging green urbanism—to reconstitute lost land and water. Passion does not arrive on videotape or on a CD; passion is personal. Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.
”
”
Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder)
“
You know what?” I stood up. I’d had enough and he hadn’t even started. “Six foster kids a few months ago doesn’t make you an expert. Not by a sight. It makes you crazier than a shithouse rat.” “Maybe, but—” “No. No but.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Bombshell (Hollywood A-List, #1))
“
In the May 3, 2007, issue of Gay Chicago Magazine, the regularly featured “Calendar of Events” isolates a few events on each night of the week, drawing readers’ attention to a handful of attractions: a CD giveaway at the bar Roscoe’s on Thursday, May 3, and a benefit for the Women’s Treatment Center at a downtown hotel that same night; or the Barbra Streisand party at Sidetrack against attractions at competing businesses on Monday, May 7. Listings
”
”
F. Hollis Griffin (Feeling Normal: Sexuality and Media Criticism in the Digital Age)
“
Janina, clearly a woman under some stress, comes up to ask me if I might turn the music down, as she needs to get an early night. Leaving, she asks: 'Don't you get bored with it? Always the same music every day.'
I point out that it is not always the same music. More than five hundred sonatas here,' I tell her, whacking the CD
box.
‘Yes, but they all sound the same,' says Janina. She turns to Ellen. 'Do you like it? I don't know how you can bear it'
Ellen answers that she hardly hears it any more. We moved house when I was six or seven,' she says, 'and I thought I'd never get used to the noise of the traffic. But after a few months I didn't notice it. It's like that.’
'But do you find it interesting?' Janina asks her.
‘Sometimes,’ says Ellen. 'But I can't say it moves me at all.'
I have to intervene. ‘Nor me,' I tell them. 'That's not the point. It's not meant to move you. That's why I like it. It's just music. It doesn't mean something else. It doesn't mean anything.’
My guardians look at me, united in scepticism. ‘That doesn't make sense,' says Ellen.
‘Consider the blackbird singing in the garden,’ I suggest. ‘What does that mean? It means nothing but it's beautiful. It gives pleasure.’
‘It means something to the blackbird, presumably,’ says Ellen. If I could, I'd kiss her.
”
”
Jonathan Buckley (Telescope)
“
-“Dammit! Don’t do that!” I hissed.
-“Would you prefer I not be myself around you?” he breathed, his warm, marble arms entangling their way around my waist. “After all the lying we both did to each other the past few weeks, wouldn’t you prefer some honesty now?”
-“Yeah. Just give me some warning.
”
”
C.D. Basso (The Prophet's Laurel (The Prophet's Laurel, #1))
“
After a few minutes, though, I started to take in what all the attendees were looking at: hundreds and hundreds of historical documents, self-published books, CD-ROMs with lists of lists of names, databases chock-full of people who had once lived and whom no living person now remembered. Everyone in this hall was looking for someone who was gone forever.
”
”
Christine Kenneally (The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures)
“
I loved my parents, but every time I spent a few hours with them, I came away with a desperate need for a few Advil and a Yanni CD.
”
”
Sarah Pekkanen (The Opposite of Me)
“
As I stood there gaping at the closed door, a vision rose before my eyes, featuring me and an inspector of police, the latter having in his supporting cast an unusually nasty-looking sergeant.
‘Are you coming quietly, Wooster?’ the inspector was saying.
‘Who, me?’ I said, quaking in every limb. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Ha, ha,’ laughed the inspector. ‘That’s good. Eh, Fotheringay?’
‘Very rich, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Makes me chuckle, that does.’
‘Too late to try anything of that sort, my man,’ went on the inspector, becoming grave again. ‘The game is up. We have evidence to prove that you went to this safe and from it abstracted a valuable pearl necklace, the property of Mrs. L.G. Trotter. If that doesn’t mean five years in the jug for you, I miss my bet.’
‘But, honestly, I thought it was Aunt Dahlia’s.’
‘Ha, ha,’ laughed the inspector.
‘Ha, ha,’ chirped the sergeant.
‘A pretty story,’ said the inspector. ‘Tell that to the jury and see what they think of it. Fotheringay, the handcuffs!’
Such was the v. that rose before my e. as I gaped at that c.d., and I wilted like a salted snail. Outside in the garden birds were singing their evensong, and it seemed to me that each individual bird was saying ‘Well, boys, Wooster is for it. We shan’t see much of Wooster for the next few years. Too bad, too bad. A nice chap till he took to crime.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (Jeeves, #11))