Clocks Fall Back Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Clocks Fall Back. Here they are! All 72 of them:

You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it's time you flipped this little scenario in your head. If you'd been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?" demands Haymitch. I fall silent. It isn't. It isn't how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn.
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear dagger proof tunics, and as a dagger proof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguised and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and now matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.
Lemony Snicket
Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney. Personal failures: kishkes. ... When the clocks are turned back and the dark falls before I'm ready, this, for reasons I can't explain, I feel in my wrists. And when I wake up and my fingers are stiff , almost certainly I was dreaming of my childhood. ... Yesterday I saw a man kicking a dog and I felt it behind my eyes. I don't know what to call this, a place before tears. The pain of forgetting: spine. The pain of remembering: spine. All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist: my knees. ... To everything a season, to every time I've woken only to make the mistake of believing for a moment that someone was sleeping beside me: a hemorrhoid. Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all.
Nicole Krauss
On game day, until five o'clock or so, the white desert light held off the essential Sunday gloom—autumn sinking into winter, loneliness of October dusk with school the next day—but there was always a long still moment toward the end of those football afternoons where the mood of the crowd turned and everything grew desolate and uncertain, onscreen and off, the sheet-metal glare off the patio glass fading to gold and then gray, long shadows and night falling into desert stillness, a sadness I couldn't shake off, a sense of silent people filing toward the stadium exits and cold rain falling in college towns back east.
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
If he can't get to the clock, any idea how we deal with this lot?" "With great care," Donegan suggested. "How about we run off shout and they follow?" Said Gracious. "Then, just when they think they've caught us they fall into our trap." "OK," said Tanith. "And that trap would be?" "A big hole we'd dug earlier and covered with branches.' Tanith frowned. "I thought you were meant to be smart." Gracious frowned back at her. "Who told you that?" "Gracious is book smart," said Donegan. "He leaves the real world thinking to people like you and me and small dogs that he meets." "The innocent are often the wisest.
Derek Landy (Last Stand of Dead Men (Skulduggery Pleasant, #8))
I looked up at Lee when we stopped in front of Hector and informed him helpfully, “You might want to take your arm away. Blanca tells me Hector doesn’t like men touching me.” “Blanca told you that?” Lee asked, his smile (and arm) still firmly in place. “Yes. She’s known Hector, like, his whole life so I think she’s in the position to know.” Lee nodded, his smile somehow bigger like he was trying not to laugh then his eyes moved to Hector and he said, “I tried to stop it.” Hector looked at Lee then looked at me then he muttered, “Oh fuck.” “It was Ally’s idea,” Lee told Hector. “What was Ally’s idea?” Hector asked Lee. “It was not Ally’s idea!” I cried. “It wasn’t!” super-power-eared Ally yelled from the open back window of Lee’s Explorer. “It was Sadie’s idea. I just was offering moral support.” “Shut up, Ally!” Indy shouted out the open passenger side window. “I will not shut up! I’m not taking the fall for this one!” Ally shouted back. I turned to the car, dislodging Lee’s arm and lifted both my hands and pressed down. “No one’s going to take a fall. Everyone calm down. It’s all okay. It’s rock ‘n’ roll!” I screamed. “Righteous!” Ally screamed back. “Rock on, sister!” Indy screamed too. “It’s rock ‘n’ roll?” Lee asked, sounding as amused as he looked. “You all wanna quit screamin’ at three o’clock in the mornin’ in my fuckin’ neighborhood?” Hector suggested. Mm, well maybe we were being an eensy bit loud. “Time for beddie by,” I announced (sounding like Ralphie), got up on tiptoe, kissed Lee’s cheek (like Ralphie and Buddy would do to me), turned and gave Indy and Ally a double devil’s horns (like Ava taught me) and shouted, “Rock on!” They shouted back in unison, “Rock on!” “Christ,” Hector muttered.
Kristen Ashley (Rock Chick Regret (Rock Chick, #7))
1. WE'VE LEFT SHORE SOMEHOW BECOME THE FRIENDS OF EARLY THEORY CLOSE ENOUGH TO SPEAK DESIRE AND PAIN OF ABSENCE OF MISTAKES WE'D MAKE GIVEN THE CHANCE. EACH SMILE RETURNED MAKES HARDER AVOIDING DREAMS THAT SEE US LYING IN EARLY EVENING CURTAIN SHADOWS, SKIN SAFE AGAINST SKIN. BLOOM OF COMPASSION RESPECT FOR MOMENTS EYES LOCK TURNS FOREVER INTO ONE MORE VEIL THAT FALLS AWAY. 2. THIS AFTER SEEING YOU LAST NIGHT, FIRST TIME SMELLING YOU WITH PERMISSION: SHOULDERS TO WONDER OPENLY AT AS CAREFULLY KISSED AS THOSE ARMS WAITED IMPOSSIBLY ON. THEY'VE HELD ME NOW AND YOUR BREATH DOWN MY BACK SENT AWAY NIGHT AIR THAT HAD ME SHAKING IN THE UNLIT ANGLICAN DOORWAY. 3. ARE WE RUINED FOR FINDING OUR FACES FIT AND WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MORNING? IS FRIENDSHIP CANCELLED IF WE CAN'T CALL EACH OTHER ANYMORE IN AMNESIA, INVITE OURSELVES TO LAST GLANCES UNDER SUSPICIOUS CLOCKS TELLING US WHEN WE'VE HAD ENOUGH? 4. YOUR STEADY HANDS CRADLING MY GRATEFUL SKULL: WERE YOU TAKING IN MY FACE TO SAVE AN IMAGE YOU'VE RARELY ALLOWED YOURSELF AFTER LEAVING THAT COLD ALCOVE? AM I A PHOTOGRAPH YOU GAZE AT IN MOMENTS OF WEAKNESS? YOU ORDERED ME OFF MY KNEES INTO YOUR ARMS. WASN'T TO BEG THAT I KNELT; ONLY TO SEE YOU ONCE FROM BELOW. TRIED TO SAY SOMETHING THAT FILLED MY MOUTH AND LONGED TO REST IN YOUR EAR. DON'T DARE WRITE IT DOWN FOR FEAR IT'LL BECOME WORDS, JUST WORDS.
Viggo Mortensen (Coincidence of Memory)
The morning was hot, and the exercise of reading left her mind contracting and expanding like the main-spring of a clock, and the small noises of midday, which one can ascribe to no definite cause, in a regular rhythm. It was all very real, very big, very impersonal, and after a moment or two she began to raise her first finger and to let it fall on the arm of her chair so as to bring back to herself some consciousness of her own existence. She was next overcome by the unspeakable queerness of the fact that she should be sitting in an arm-chair, in the morning, in the middle of the world. Who were the people moving in the house--moving things from one place to another? And life, what was that? It was only a light passing over the surface and vanishing, as in time she would vanish, though the furniture in the room would remain. Her dissolution became so complete that she could not raise her finger any more, and sat perfectly still, listening and looking always at the same spot. It became stranger and stranger. She was overcome with awe that things should exist at all. . . She forgot that she had any fingers to raise. . . The things that existed were so immense and so desolate. . . She continued to be conscious of these vast masses of substance for a long stretch of time, the clock still ticking in the midst of the universal silence.
Virginia Woolf (The Voyage Out)
You wind back the clock several decades when you visit a Lonely Place; and when you touch down, you half expect a cabin attendant to announce, "We have now landed in Lonely Place's Down-at-Heels Airport, where the local time is 1943 and the temperature is...frozen.
Pico Iyer (Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World)
Well," he said, quite seriously, "it's this way: you work because you're afraid not to. You work becuase you have to drive yourself to such a fury to begin. That part's just plain hell! It's so hard to get started that once you do you're afraid of slipping back. You'd rather do anything than go through all that agony again--so you keep going--you keep going faster all the time--you keep going till you couldn't stop even if you wanted to. You forget to eat, to shave, to put on a clean shirt when you have one. You almost forget to sleep, and when you do try to you can't--because the avalanche has started, and it keeps going night and day. And people say: 'Why don't you stop sometime? Why don't you forget about it now and then? Why don't you take a few days off?' And you don't do it because you can't--you can't stop yourself--and even if you could you'd be afraid to because there'd be all that hell to go through getting started up again. Then people say you're a glutton for work, but it isn't so. It's laziness--just plain, damned, simple laziness, that's all...Napoleon--and--and Balzac--and Thomas Edison--these fellows who never sleep more than an hour or two at a time, and can keep going night and day--why that's not because they love to work! It's because they're really lazy--and afraid not to work because they know they're lazy! Why, hell yes!..I'll bet you anything you like if you could really find out what's going on in old Edison's mind, you'd find that he wished he could stay in bed every day until two o'clock in the afternoon! And then get up and scratch himself! And then lie around in the sun for awhile! And hang around with the boys down at the village store, talking about politics, and who's going to win the World Series next fall!
Thomas Wolfe (You Can't Go Home Again)
Rapture I can feel she has got out of bed. That means it is seven a.m. I have been lying with eyes shut, thinking, or possibly dreaming, of how she might look if, at breakfast, I spoke about the hidden place in her which, to me, is like a soprano’s tremolo, and right then, over toast and bramble jelly, if such things are possible, she came. I imagine she would show it while trying to conceal it. I imagine her hair would fall about her face and she would become apparently downcast, as she does at a concert when she is moved. The hypnopompic play passes, and I open my eyes and there she is, next to the bed, bending to a low drawer, picking over various small smooth black, white, and pink items of underwear. She bends so low her back runs parallel to the earth, but there is no sway in it, there is little burden, the day has hardly begun. The two mounds of muscles for walking, leaping, lovemaking, lift toward the east—what can I say? Simile is useless; there is nothing like them on earth. Her breasts fall full; the nipples are deep pink in the glare shining up through the iron bars of the gate under the earth where those who could not love press, wanting to be born again. I reach out and take her wrist and she falls back into bed and at once starts unbuttoning my pajamas. Later, when I open my eyes, there she is again, rummaging in the same low drawer. The clock shows eight. Hmmm. With huge, silent effort of great, mounded muscles the earth has been turning. She takes a piece of silken cloth from the drawer and stands up. Under the falls of hair her face has become quiet and downcast, as if she will be, all day among strangers, looking down inside herself at our rapture.
Galway Kinnell (A New Selected Poems)
Scientists and shamans alike know that all of life is woven into a web of infinite connections, contributing to the larger whole in a system that is complex beyond our imagining. When we sit quietly at the edge of a lake, or hike through a wildflower-strewn meadow, or walk through a cool, dark forest, we quickly become aware of our unity with the natural world. We fall back into natural rhythms--rhythms we are no longer in synch with as a result of living by the clock and spending much of our time in man-made spaces lit by electricity. Nature has a way of recalibrating us and helping us gain a new perspective on our stressors so that they seem less overwhelming.
Carl Greer (Change the Story of Your Health: Using Shamanic and Jungian Techniques for Healing)
We live stitch by stitch, when we’re lucky. If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching. And maybe the stitching is crude, or it is unraveling, but if it were precise, we’d pretend that life was just fine and running like a Swiss watch. This is not helpful if on the inside our understanding is that life is more often a cuckoo clock with rusty gears. In the aftermath of loss, we do what we’ve always done, although we are changed, maybe more afraid. We do what we can, as well as we can. My pastor, Veronica, one Sunday told the story of a sparrow lying in the street with its legs straight up in the air, sweating a little under its feathery arms. A warhorse walks up to the bird and asks, “What on earth are you doing?” The sparrow replies, “I heard the sky was falling, and I wanted to help.” The horse laughs a big, loud, sneering horse laugh, and says, “Do you really think you’re going to hold back the sky, with those scrawny little legs?” And the sparrow says, “One does what one can.
Anne Lamott (Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair)
It's raining. the kind of rain that comes down so heavy it sounds like the shower's running, even when you've turned it off. The kind of rain that makes you think of dams and flash floods, arks. The kind of rain that tells you to crawl back into bed, where the sheets haven't lost your body heat, to pretend that the clock is five minutes earlier than it really is. Ask any kid who's made it past fourth grade and they can tell you: water never stops moving. Rain falls, and runs down a mountain into a river. The river finds it way to the ocean. It evaporates, like a soul, into the clouds. And then, like everything else, it starts all over again.
Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)
Lithium regulates the proteins that control the body’s inner clock. This clock runs, oddly, on DNA, inside special neurons deep in the brain. Special proteins attach to people’s DNA each morning, and after a fixed time they degrade and fall off. Sunlight resets the proteins over and over, so they hold on much longer. In fact, the proteins fall off only after darkness falls—at which point the brain should “notice” the bare DNA and stop producing stimulants. This process goes awry in manic-depressives because the proteins, despite the lack of sunlight, remain bound fast to their DNA. Their brains don’t realize they should stop revving. Lithium helps cleave the proteins from DNA so people can wind down. Notice that sunlight still trumps lithium during the day and resets the proteins; it’s only when the sunlight goes away at night that lithium helps DNA shake free. Far from being sunshine in a pill, then, lithium acts as “anti-sunlight.” Neurologically, it undoes sunlight and thereby compresses the circadian clock back to twenty-four hours—preventing both the mania bubble from forming and the Black Tuesday crash into depression.
Sam Kean (The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements)
Because time is not like space. And when you put something down somewhere, like a protractor or a biscuit, you can have a map in your head to tell you where you have left it, but even if you don't have a map it will still be there because a map is a representation of things that actually exist so you can find the protractor or the biscuit again. And a timetable is a map of time, except that if you don't have a timetable time is not there like the landing and the garden and the route to school. Because time is only the relationship between the way different things change, like the earth going round the sun and atoms vibrating and clocks ticking and day and night and waking up and going to sleep, and it is like west or nor-nor-east, which won't exist when the earth stops existing and falls into the sun because it is only a relationship between the North Pole and the South Pole and everywhere else, like Mogadishu and Sunderland and Canberra. And it isn't a fixed relationship like the relationship between our house and Mrs. Shears's house, or like the relationship between 7 and 865, but it depends on how fast you are going relative to a specific point. And if you go off in a spaceship and you travel near the speed of light, you may come back and find that all your family is dead and you are still young and it will be the future but your clock will say that you have only been away for a few days or months. And because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, this means that we can only know about a fraction of the things that go on in the universe,
Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)
Suppose that an archaeologist who had visited us from outer space were trying to explain human history to his fellow spacelings. The visitor might illustrate the results of his digs by a twenty-four-hour clock on which one hour of clock-time represents 100,000 years of real past time. If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 pm we adopted agriculture. In retrospect, the decision was inevitable, and there is now no question of turning back. But as our second midnight approaches, will the present plight of African peasants gradually spread to engulf all of us? Or, will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture’s glittering facade, and that have so far eluded us except in mixed form?
Jared Diamond (The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee: how our animal heritage affects the way we live)
On game day, until five o’clock or so, the white desert light held off the essential Sunday gloom—autumn sinking into winter, loneliness of October dusk with school the next day—but there was always a long still moment toward the end of those football afternoons where the mood of the crowd turned and everything grew desolate and uncertain, onscreen and off, the sheet-metal glare off the patio glass fading to gold and then gray, long shadows and night falling into desert stillness, a sadness I couldn’t shake off, a sense of silent people filing toward the stadium exits and cold rain falling in college towns back east.
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
Silence falls; silence falls. (...) But now listen; tick, tick; hoot, hoot; the world has hailed us back to it. I heard for one moment the howling winds of darkness as we passed beyond life. Then tick, tick (the clock); then hoot, hoot (the cars). We are landed; we are on shore; we are sitting, six of us, at a table...
Virginia Woolf (The Waves)
Dear New Orleans, What a big, beautiful mess you are. A giant flashing yellow light—proceed with caution, but proceed. Not overly ambitious, you have a strong identity, and don’t look outside yourself for intrigue, evolution, or monikers of progress. Proud of who you are, you know your flavor, it’s your very own, and if people want to come taste it, you welcome them without solicitation. Your hours trickle by, Tuesdays and Saturdays more similar than anywhere else. Your seasons slide into one another. You’re the Big Easy…home of the shortest hangover on the planet, where a libation greets you on a Monday morning with the same smile as it did on Saturday night. Home of the front porch, not the back. This engineering feat provides so much of your sense of community and fellowship as you relax facing the street and your neighbors across it. Rather than retreating into the seclusion of the backyard, you engage with the goings-on of the world around you, on your front porch. Private properties hospitably trespass on each other and lend across borders where a 9:00 A.M. alarm clock is church bells, sirens, and a slow-moving eight-buck-an-hour carpenter nailing a windowpane two doors down. You don’t sweat details or misdemeanors, and since everybody’s getting away with something anyway, the rest just wanna be on the winning side. And if you can swing the swindle, good for you, because you love to gamble and rules are made to be broken, so don’t preach about them, abide. Peddlin worship and litigation, where else do the dead rest eye to eye with the livin? You’re a right-brain city. Don’t show up wearing your morals on your sleeve ’less you wanna get your arm burned. The humidity suppresses most reason so if you’re crossing a one-way street, it’s best to look both ways. Mother Nature rules, the natural law capital “Q” Queen reigns supreme, a science to the animals, an overbearing and inconsiderate bitch to us bipeds. But you forgive her, and quickly, cus you know any disdain with her wrath will reap more: bad luck, voodoo, karma. So you roll with it, meander rather, slowly forward, takin it all in stride, never sweating the details. Your art is in your overgrowth. Mother Nature wears the crown around here, her royalty rules, and unlike in England, she has both influence and power. You don’t use vacuum cleaners, no, you use brooms and rakes to manicure. Where it falls is where it lays, the swerve around the pothole, the duck beneath the branch, the poverty and the murder rate, all of it, just how it is and how it turned out. Like a gumbo, your medley’s in the mix. —June 7, 2013, New Orleans, La.
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
Employment in the Small Bookstore" Twelve Poems, 1975 The dust is almost motionless in this narrowness, this stillness, yet how unlike a coffin it is, sometimes letting a live one in, sometimes out and the air, though paused, impends not a thing, the silence isn't sinister, and in fact not much goes on at the Ariel Book Shop today, no one weeps in the back room full of books, old books, no one is tearing the books to shreds, in fact I am merely sitting here talking to no one, no one being here, and I am blameless, More, I am grateful for the job, I am fond of the books and touch them, I am grateful that King St. goes down to the river, and that the rain is lovely, the afternoon green. If the soft falling away of the afternoon is all there is, it is nearly enough, just let me hear the beautiful clear voice of a woman in song passing toward silence, and then that will be all for me at five o'clock I will walk down to see the untended sailing yachts of the Potomac bobbing hopelessly in another silence, the small silence that gets to be a long one when the past stops talking to you because it is dead, and still you listen, hearing just the tiny agonies of old boats on a cloudy day, in cloudy water. Talk to it. Men are talking to it by Cape Charles, for them it's the same silence with fishing lines in their hands. We are all looking at the river bearing the wreckage so far away. We wonder how the river ever came to be so grey, and think that once there were some very big doings on this river, and now that is all over.
Denis Johnson (The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems Collected and New)
It’s not too late. Our heads haloed with gnats & summer too early to leave any marks. Your hand under my shirt as static intensifies on the radio. Your other hand pointing your daddy’s revolver to the sky. Stars falling one by one in the cross hairs. This means I won’t be afraid if we’re already here. Already more than skin can hold. That a body beside a body must make a field full of ticking. That your name is only the sound of clocks being set back another hour & morning finds our clothes on your mother’s front porch, shed like week-old lilies.
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
Victoria sighed deeply as the clock tower bell chimed midnight. Light snowflakes, almost weightless, began drifting down from the sky. Tiny, white butterflies danced in the wind among the bare trees. The two young people turned their eyes up towards the dark sky. "The fairies are weeping," she whispered. "What?" asked Ted, looking back at her. Victoria turned her grey eyes back at him and smiled. "In the lands of the north they say that when snowflakes fall at midnight, they are the tears of fairies falling on the ground. The fairies are weeping.
Carragh Sheridan (The Fairies are weeping)
Tyler pulls his shirt down over his head and I pretend like I’m not sad to see his naked abs go. “I can’t believe you’re kicking me out at three-o’clock in the morning,” he grumbles as he slides his feet into tennis shoes without bothering to tie them. He walks over to the window and slides it open, looking back at me and smirking. “So, same time, same place tomorrow?” Rolling my eyes, I shake my head. “No. Absolutely not. We’re not doing this anymore. Leave and don’t come back.” He’s got one leg swung over the windowsill and his body halfway out before he jerks his head back inside and stares at me in surprise. “What? What do you mean ‘don’t come back? Like, don’t come back tomorrow, or ever?” “Ever. This was a huge mistake.” He actually has the nerve to growl at me thank god he didn’t whinny or I’d be puking right into my lap. “Fine! But You’ll be begging for another piece of Tyler, mark my words!” “Jesus Christ, don’t talk about yourself in third person,” I complain. “They comeback, They always come back to Tyler,” he mutters with another smirk, completely ignoring me. “By ‘they’, I’m assuming you’re talking about the ponies you were dreaming about?” I chuckle. “Fuck your face! Fuck you face right now!” he demands. “Get the hell out of my bedroom and don’t come back, Prancer!” I fire back. Sticking his tongue out at me in one poorly-executed, last ditch effort to put me in my place, he tries to smoothly exit my window but his head smacks against the frame. He Lets go of the sill to grab his wounded head and loses his balance, falling out the window and into the shrubs on the otherside. “Mother fucking dick fuck ass cake piece of shit shrub!
Tara Sivec (Passion and Ponies (Chocoholics, #2))
But I didn’t feel safer. Maybe it had nothing to do with Australia. Maybe it was just because the clock was ticking down on our mission and we were closer to Tuvalu than we’d ever been. Still, I’d noticed that in spite of the stress, I wasn’t ticking as much as usual. Instead of blinking or gulping, I was sparking more. I wondered if it was just because I was becoming more electric or if my Tourette’s was taking a different form. The weather might have had something to do with my anxiety as well. I think I might have a bit of SAD—seasonal affective disorder—which is just an Ostin way of saying I get blue when the skies aren’t blue. And the skies were definitely not blue. I don’t think that I’d ever seen it rain so hard in my life. Not in Idaho, at least. The rain was practically horizontal. It was a challenge getting Zeus off the plane. First, we couldn’t land because the runways were backed up because of lightning striking the tarmac. Then there was no hangar for the plane—so even if we had wanted to make a run for the terminal, Zeus still had to wait for a break in the weather, which, unfortunately, didn’t come until about
Richard Paul Evans (Fall of Hades (Michael Vey, #6))
He died of a breaking heart," Pete said, making a stout log fence of his hands around the glove compartment and leaning forward to peer at the luminous clock, "but he was an old man. He was the king of his Yaquis down there and he couldn't live any more when they took the land away. He couldn't live up in the mountains that way. He hid all the treasures - you understand treasures? - in the mountains down there and he died. Now I'm the king of my Yaquis and someday I'll go down there and dig up the treasures again - maybe soon if they don't catch me too much. Then I buy the land back and we will live in the future like in the past only better." Pete let the fence fall, and sunlight showed the clock to be hours wrong, if not years.
Douglas Woolf (Wall to Wall (American Literature))
It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...
Richard Lederer
We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had returned about six o’clock on a cold, frosty winter’s evening. As Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor. I picked it up and read: CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON, Appledore Towers, Hampstead. Agent. “Who is he?” I asked. “The worst man in London,” Holmes answered, as he sat down and stretched his legs before the fire. “Is anything on the back of the card?” I turned it over. “Will call at 6:30--C.A.M.,” I read. “Hum! He’s about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo, and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow. And yet I can’t get out of doing business with him--indeed, he is here at my invitation.” “But who is he?” “I’ll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?” I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Complete Sherlock Holmes)
On game day, until five o’clock or so, the white desert light held off the essential Sunday gloom—autumn sinking into winter, loneliness of October dusk with school the next day—but there was always a long still moment toward the end of those football afternoons where the mood of the crowd turned and everything grew desolate and uncertain, onscreen and off, the sheet-metal glare off the patio glass fading to gold and then gray, long shadows and night falling into desert stillness, a sadness I couldn’t shake off, a sense of silent people filing toward the stadium exits and cold rain falling in college towns back east. The panic that overtook me then was hard to explain. Those game days broke up with a swiftness, a sense of losing blood almost, that reminded me of watching the apartment in New York being boxed up and carted away: groundlessness and flux, nothing to hang on
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
the source of their confident certainty was simply God alone. God Himself. As long as they were in fellowship with Him, they could forever expect His blessings to just roll downhill and right into their lives. He was their righteousness, He was their innocence, He was their sense of identity, He was their dignity and honor. He was their peace. And He was their prosperity. He was the reason they felt no fear. So even though we’re confined today to a much different time zone than the one Adam and Eve set their clocks to—back before the Fall struck thirteen and threw everything out of whack—the winning response to fear and anxiety remains completely one-dimensional. It’s Him—not the favorable resolution of our problems. It’s Him—not the removal of every worst-case scenario. It’s Him—not an easy, breezy, adversity-free lifestyle. It’s Him. It has always been and will always be Him.
Matt Chandler (Recovering Redemption: A Gospel Saturated Perspective on How to Change)
   "I still can't manage to watch the big hand for more than four minutes," said Valentin, indicating Poucier's clock with a look.    The other, following the movement of Valentin's eyes, remained open-mouthed; but he turned smartly back to Valentin when the latter continued:    "After that time, either it's as if I was falling asleep, I don't know what I'm thinking any more and time passes and escapes my control, or else I'm invaded by images, my attention wanders, and it comes to the same thing; time has run out without my feeling it melt away through my fingers."    Jean-Lockwit nodded understandingly.    "Pra, pra, pra, pra," said he, "pra, pra, pra, pra, pra, pra, pra, pra, pra."    Dreaming, he repeated this phrase once again.    "I watch time," said Valentin, "but sometimes I kill it. That isn't what I want."    The other raised his arms into the air, and let them fall again with lassitude and compassion.
Raymond Queneau (The Sunday of Life)
Hating the Rain She hates the ever-falling winter rain, the gray and endless humidity that bites to the bone and stings even after the hot bath and stiff struggle into bed and under the quilts, but the winter ferns, and the way they wave in a slight breeze as though happy like grandmother’s lace curtains can’t be abandoned or lived without. She hates the endless dripping like a clock ticking away life and the heavy fog that swallows light as though life itself were vanishing, but the tree frogs with their songs and their clinging to matching green like family holding together stitch her thoughts back to July picnics. She hates her complaining voice that discourages her children’s calls and encourages their urgings that she move, maybe to Florida citrus sun, but gray day softness steeps her patience and quiets her fear of loss into something like gratitude clinging like green to summer moss and this she knows: she loves the rain.
Marian Blue (How Many Words for Rain)
The tunnel of winter had settled over our lives, ushered in by that great official Hoodwink, the end of daylight saving time. Personally I would vote for one more hour of light on winter evenings instead of the sudden, extra-early blackout. Whose idea was it to jilt us this way, leaving us in cold November with our unsaved remnants of daylight petering out before the workday ends? In my childhood, as early as that, I remember observing the same despair every autumn: the feeling that sunshine, summertime, and probably life itself had passed me by before I'd even finished a halfway decent tree fort. But mine is not to question those who command the springing forward and the falling back. I only vow each winter to try harder to live like a potato, with its tacit understanding that time is time, no matter what any clock might say. I get through the hibernation months by hovering as close as possible to the woodstove without actual self-immolation, and catching up on my reading, cheered at regular intervals by the excess of holidays that collect in a festive logjam at the outflow end of our calendar.
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
Tub full, she stood back to regard the mound of ice. Already the heat of her home fought to melt it. A rap came again at the entrance, more like an impatient pounding, and she cursed. The clock showed her only a few minutes away from her torture. I need whoever it is to go away. She ran to the door and slid open the peek-a-boo slot. Familiar turquoise eyes peered back. “Little witch, little witch, let me come in,” he chanted in a gruff voice. A smile curled her lips. “Not by the wart on my chinny chin chin,” she replied. “And before you try huffing and puffing, Nefertiti herself spelled this door. So forget blowing it down.” “So open it then. I’ve got a lead I think on escapee number three.” A glance at the clock showed one minute left. “Um, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can you come back in like half an hour?” “Why not just let me in and I’ll wait while you do your thing? I promise not to watch, unless you like an audience.” “I can’t. Please. Just go away. I promise I’ll let you in when you come back.” His eyes narrowed. “Open this door, Ysabel.” “No. Now go away. I’ll talk to you in half an hour.” She slammed the slot shut and only allowed herself a moment to lean against the door which shuddered as he hit it with a fist. She didn’t have time to deal with his frustration. The tickle in her toes started and she ran to the bathroom, dropping her robe as she moved. The fire erupted, and standing on the lava tile in her bathroom, she concentrated on breathing against the spiraling pain and flames. I mustn’t scream. Remy might still be there, listening. Why that mattered, she couldn’t have said, but it did help her focus for a short moment. But the punishment would not allow her respite. Flames licked up her frame, demolishing her thin underpants and she couldn’t help but scream as the agony tore through her body. Make it stop. Make it stop. Wishing, praying, pleading didn’t stop the torture. As the inferno consumed her, her ears roared with the snap of the fire and a glance in her mirror horrified her, for there she stood – a living pyre of fire. She closed her eyes against the brilliant heat, but that just seemed to amplify the pain. Her knees buckled, but she didn’t fall. Something clasped her and she moaned as she sensed more than saw Remy’s arms wrap around her waist. It had to be him. Who else was crazy enough to break down her door and interrupt? Forcing open her eyes, eyes that wanted to water but couldn’t as the heat dried up all moisture, she saw the flames, not picky about their choice her own nightmare, she knew enough to try and push him away with hands that glowed inferno bright. He wouldn’t budge, and he didn’t scream – just held her as the curse ran its course. Without being told, once the flames disappeared, he placed her in the ice bath, the shocking cold a welcome relief. Gasping from the pain, she couldn’t speak but remained aware of how he stroked her hair back from her face and how his arm rested around her shoulders, cradling her. “Oh, my poor little witch,” he murmured. “No wonder you’ve been hiding.” Teeth chattering as the cold penetrated her feverish limbs, she tried to reply. “Wh-what c-c-can I say? I’m h-h-hot.” -Remy & Ysabel
Eve Langlais (A Demon and His Witch (Welcome to Hell, #1))
This once-proud country of ours is falling Into the hands of the wrong people,' said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. 'And, before it gets back on the right track,' said Jones, 'some heads are going to roll.' I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said. Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell — keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information — That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuebrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony — That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase — That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers — That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia —
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
This once-proud country of ours is falling into the hands of the wrong people,” said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. “And, before it gets back on the right track,” said Jones, “some heads are going to roll.” I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. “You’re completely crazy,” he said. Jones wasn’t completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information— That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony— That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase— That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers— That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia— That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time. And for me to attempt such a mechanical explanation is perhaps a reflection of the father whose son I was. Am. When I pause to think about it, which is rarely, I am, after all, the son of an engineer. Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself—will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows—some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history— But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, “This fact I can do without.” Howard W. Campbell, Jr., praises himself. There’s life in the old boy yet! And, where there’s life— There is life.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
I, Prayer (A Poem of Magnitudes and Vectors) I, Prayer, know no hour. No season, no day, no month nor year. No boundary, no barrier or limitation–no blockade hinders Me. There is no border or wall I cannot breach. I move inexorably forward; distance holds Me not. I span the cosmos in the twinkling of an eye. I knowest it all. I am the most powerful force in the Universe. Who then is My equal? Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. Surely, I may’st with but a Word. Who then is able to stand before Me? I am the wind, the earth, the metal. I am the very empyrean vault of Heaven Herself. I span the known and the unknown beyond Eternity’s farthest of edges. And whatsoever under Her wings is Mine. I am a gentle stream, a fiery wrath penetrating; wearing down mountains –the hardest and softest of substances. I am a trickling brook to fools of want lost in the deserts of their own desires. I am a Niagara to those who drink in well. I seep through cracks. I inundate. I level forests kindleth unto a single burning bush. My hand moves the Universe by the mind of a child. I withhold treasures solid from the secret stores to they who would wrench at nothing. I do not sleep or eat, feel not fatigue, nor hunger. I do not feel the cold, nor rain or wind. I transcend the heat of the summer’s day. I commune. I petition. I intercede. My time is impeccable, by it worlds and destinies turn. I direct the fates of nations and humankind. My Words are Iron eternaled—rust not they away. No castle keep, nor towers of beaten brass, Nor the dankest of dungeon helks, Nor adamantine links of hand-wrought steel Can contain My Spirit–I shan’t turn back. The race is ne’er to the swift, nor battle to the strong, nor wisdom to the wise or wealth to the rich. For skills and wisdom, I give to the sons of man. I take wisdom and skills from the sons of man for they are ever Mine. Blessed is the one who finds it so, for in humility comes honor, For those who have fallen on the battlefield for My Name’s sake, I reach down to lift them up from On High. I am a rose with the thorn. I am the clawing Lion that pads her children. My kisses wound those whom I Love. My kisses are faithful. No occasion, moment in time, instances, epochs, ages or eras hold Me back. Time–past, present and future is to Me irrelevant. I span the millennia. I am the ever-present Now. My foolishness is wiser than man’s My weakness stronger than man’s. I am subtle to the point of formlessness yet formed. I have no discernible shape, no place into which the enemy may sink their claws. I AM wisdom and in length of days knowledge. Strength is Mine and counsel, and understanding. I break. I build. By Me, kings rise and fall. The weak are given strength; wisdom to those who seek and foolishness to both fooler and fool alike. I lead the crafty through their deceit. I set straight paths for those who will walk them. I am He who gives speech and sight - and confounds and removes them. When I cut, straight and true is my cut. I strike without fault. I am the razored edge of high destiny. I have no enemy, nor friend. My Zeal and Love and Mercy will not relent to track you down until you are spent– even unto the uttermost parts of the earth. I cull the proud and the weak out of the common herd. I hunt them in battles royale until their cries unto Heaven are heard. I break hearts–those whose are harder than granite. Beyond their atomic cores, I strike their atomic clock. Elect motions; not one more or less electron beyond electron’s orbit that has been ordained for you do I give–for His grace is sufficient for thee until He desires enough. Then I, Prayer, move on as a comet, Striking out of the black. I, His sword, kills to give Life. I am Living and Active, the Divider asunder of thoughts and intents. I Am the Light of Eternal Mind. And I, Prayer, AM Prayer Almighty.
Douglas M. Laurent
My typical day began at five o'clock in the morning when I would finish reading scripts by the side of Rebecca's bed until she woke up at seven. It was thrilling to find a script that I loved, something I desperately wanted to make. And when I found one, my day was made by seven A.M. If I didn't have a script to finish, I had notes to make on those I had read. And if I'd finished my notes, I went downstairs to exercise. After mornings with Rebecca, I'd arrive at the office at nine-thirty. The phone calls had started long before I got there. By ten o'clock I was in a staff meeting, and depending on the day of the week, it was either a production, marketing/distribution or business-affairs meeting. By eleven-thirty, I might be in a meeting with an executive about a particular movie or problem. By twelve, I was meeting with a director I was trying to seduce back to the studio. By twelve forty-five, I'd get in my car and drive across town to a lunch meeting with an agent, a producer, a writer or a movie star. While driving, I'd start to return the phone calls that had started before I ever arrived at my office. At two-thirty, I was back in the car, returning more phone calls, the calls from early morning, from mid-morning, plus East Coast and Europe calls that came in during lunch. At two forty-five, I was back in the office. Inevitably, there were people waiting to see me, executives with personal problems, political problems, and/or production problems. In between, I returned and made more phone calls. At three-thirty, there could be a meeting with someone I was trying to bring to the studio. At four-thirty, there was a script meeting with an executive, writer, producer and/or director. At five o'clock, there were selected dailies of the movies we were shooting. And if I hadn't finished watching them by six-thirty, the rest were put on tape for me to watch later at home. At six-thirty, I'd jump into my car and return more phone calls on my drive home. The call sheet numbered one hundred to one hundred and fifty calls a day. And I always felt it was very important to return every call. The lesson here is people remember when you don't call them back. I'd go home to be with Rebecca. If I didn't have a business dinner or a sneak preview of one of our movies, I had to go to a black-tie event. There was at least one of them a week, honoring someone from our industry. I went out of respect for the talent involved and my counterparts at the other studios. So Rebecca would keep me company while I washed off my makeup, put on new makeup, dressed in black tie, kissed her good-bye and shot out the door. That's where men really have it good: they just put on a tux and go. After I got home at ten-thirty, I would sit on the chair next to Rebecca's bed. Watching her sleep dissolved all the stress in my body. Then I would get up, either finish watching the dailies, or read a script, wash my face and fall into bed at eleven-thirty. But the part of my workday that made me the happiest was when I was closest to the actual making of a movie.
Dawn Steel (They Can Kill You..but They Can't Eat You)
To avoid early-morning wakings, do not allow your child to get out of his crib or room until at least 11 hours after his bedtime (you can settle for 10½ hours if your child consistently—after three or more days in a row—seems rested after this much sleep). One of the most difficult times for your child to put himself back to sleep is in the early morning, particularly if he’s been used to getting up or coming into bed with you at that hour. But if you get your child up too early, he’s robbed of enough sleep and will start his day overtired and cranky—and will have a tougher time napping well. For additional information on how to troubleshoot early-morning wakings, please see the section entitled “Bumps in the Road” in Chapter 10, “Special Situations.” For Crib Sleepers If your child wakes in the early-morning hours, continue to do your check-ins just as you did at bedtime and throughout the night. If he hasn’t gone back to sleep, once the clock reaches your designated wake time, go into your child’s room, open the blinds or turn on the light, and say, “You did it! You stayed in your crib the whole night until the sun was nice and bright! We’re so proud of you!” Cuddle and hug him and give him a nice full feed, if he’s ready. Whatever you do, don’t allow your child to fall back asleep—in your arms, in your bed, or in his crib; he’s spent the night practicing how to sleep on his own, and you don’t want to undo your hard work. If your child has woken early but managed to put himself back to sleep—and is still sleeping at the designated wake time—lucky you! Allow him to sleep as long as he likes, up to 12 hours; you’ll want to wake him at this point to preserve his ability to nap well. If your child sleeps later than your scheduled wake time, remember to adjust his nap time later as well (but don’t adjust it any earlier, to avoid a too-early schedule for the day).
Jennifer Waldburger (The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5)
Consider the average worker in almost any urban industrialized city. The alarm rings at six forty-five and our workingman or -woman is up and at it. Check the phone. Shower. Dress in the professional uniform—suits for some, coveralls for others, scrubs for the medical professionals, jeans and T-shirts for construction workers. Breakfast, if there’s time. Grab commuter mug and briefcase (or lunch box). Hop in the car for the daily punishment called rush hour or get on a bus or train packed crushingly tight. On the job from nine to five (or longer). Deal with the boss. Deal with the coworker sent by the devil to rub you the wrong way. Deal with suppliers. Deal with clients/customers/patients. E-mails pile up. Act busy. Scroll through social media feeds. Hide mistakes. Smile when handed impossible deadlines. Give a sigh of relief when the ax known as “restructuring” or “downsizing”—or just plain getting laid off—falls on other heads. Shoulder the added workload. Watch the clock. Argue with your conscience but agree with the boss. Smile again. Five o’clock. Back in the car or on the bus or train for the evening commute. Home. Act human with your partner, kids, or roommates. Cook. Post a picture of your dinner online. Eat. Watch an episode of your favorite show. Answer one last e-mail. Bed. Eight hours of blessed oblivion—if we’re lucky.
Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life)
Discipline starts every day when the first alarm clock goes off in the morning. I say “first alarm clock” because I have three, as I was taught by one of the most feared and respected instructors in SEAL training: one electric, one battery powered, one windup. That way, there is no excuse for not getting out of bed, especially with all that rests on that decisive moment. The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
When dawn breaks again, we'll say our farewells Our dreams become distant phantoms The times we were embraced In the light that chased you Relying on the warm winds Heralding spring, The wild plants start to dance Summer in Uji, Such dry, arabesque fields The round autumn moon, Risen in celebration Winter passes, And I again count the days Under my eyelids still resides Vestiges of summer And those too-distant skies (it was warm) Holding hands, as we picked the flowers -- we sang Memories of that evening (I wasn't there) For three months from August The clouds fall under the sway of the moon And I awaken to the fact That you'll never come back I realize I'm alone I'll go on a journey to find you Now my memories within awaken And now I start to walk To wherever you are When dawn breaks again, we'll say our farewells Our dreams become distant phantoms The times we were embraced In the light that chased you Relying on the warm winds Heralding spring, The wild plants start to dance Summer in Uji, Such dry, arabesque fields The round autumn moon, Risen in celebration Winter passes, And I again count the days It's seven o'clock Near you, beneath the cypress trees Your arm on my shoulders With you, a souvenir of the fragrant flowers we saw If the road leading to our reunion were there -- But that doesn't matter, you won't come back again Do you suppose -- Will these tears stop flowing ? The tailwinds scream The silence is broken Fearing nothing, I move on Carrying the golden flowers I'll see you, and I'll again know kindness (Now) The silence is broken Fearing nothing, I move on Carrying the golden flowers I'll see you, and I'll again know kindness Heralding spring, The wild plants start to dance Summer in Uji, Such dry, arabesque fields The round autumn moon, Risen in celebration Winter passes, And I again count the days Heralding spring, We dance and samba Summer in Uji, Such dry, arabesque fields The round autumn moon, Risen in celebration Winter passes, And I again count the days When dawn breaks again, we'll say our farewells Our dreams become distant phantoms The times we were embraced In the light that chased you Relying on the warm winds
Michiko Evwana
She shakes her head and draws her lower lip between her teeth. “You got to stop doing that, princess,” I say. “You’re killing me here.” She tenses up. “Doing what?” I reach out and touch her lower lip with the pad of my thumb. I halfway expect her to jerk back. Or clock me. But she does neither. She smiles and ducks her head, her hair falling in her face. I very slowly brush it back and tuck it behind her ear. She smiles shyly and looks everywhere but at me.
Tammy Falkner (Calmly, Carefully, Completely (The Reed Brothers, #3))
To her surprise, Linc was waiting around the first curve on the road, listening to the radio. She could see his hand tapping a beat on the back of the other seat. Kenzie slowed her car to a stop when their windows lined up. He rolled his down. “Hey. How’d it go?” “No big deal. I handed the papers to his temp assistant. What the hell are you doing here?” Linc studied her face. “I wanted to see if the beacon I put on your car was working.” She should have known. “Is that necessary?” “The readout is on this.” He tapped the face of his watch. “I can’t see. And I don’t believe you.” Kenzie put her car into park, got out, and walked around. He turned his wrist to show her. “Check it out. Your dot merged into my dot.” “Isn’t that sweet.” He grinned. “It’s not a problem to remove the beacon if you don’t like it.” “No. It’s all right. You’re the only person who knows where I am most of the time now.” That didn’t seem to have occurred to him. “Really?” She nodded. “So where are you off to?” Kenzie shot him a mocking look. “You don’t have to ask, do you?” Linc laughed. “The beacon can’t read your mind.” She rolled her eyes. “Thank God for that. If you want to know, I was heading to the drugstore to print out some of the photos for Mrs. Corelli. Where are you going?” “Just running errands,” he said. “Need anything from the electronics store?” “I don’t think so.” “Okay. I’m just picking up a couple of components.” Kenzie gave a little yelp. “Yikes--that reminds me. Yesterday my boss asked me to pick something up for him out in the boondocks. I forgot until you said that. So if my dot falls off your watch, you’ll know why.” He smiled at her warmly as he bent his arm and rested it on the bottom of the window frame. The bicep under the flannel rounded up very nicely as he lifted a hand and chucked her gently under the chin. “Funny.” The friendly touch was unexpectedly intimate. In fact, it triggered a dangerous sensation of giving in. She smiled at him, feeling weak. His brown eyes were dark and warm. She felt herself blush under his steady gaze. Linc was the real deal. Maybe she didn’t have to be so tough all the time. It was okay to be protected. More than okay. Back when she’d had Tex at her side, she’d actually liked the feeling. Like all military working dogs, he’d been trained to maintain an invisible six-foot circle around her, and woe to anyone who crossed into it without her permission. Including guys she was dating. “Kenzie?” She snapped out of it. “Sorry. You knocked on my stupid spot.” “I’ll have to remember that.” She shook her head in mock dismay. “Please don’t. Let’s touch base around four or five o’clock.” He nodded and turned the key in the ignition. “Works for me.” His gaze stayed on her a moment longer. “Call me if you need anything.” “I will. Thanks.” She glanced back at the gray monolith a little distance behind them and her mouth tightened. But when her green gaze met Linc’s brown eyes, she managed a quick smile. He raised his left hand in a quick good-bye wave and eased his car ahead of hers, rolling up the window again. She watched him go, then got back into hers and drove on, turning off on the road to the firing range.
Janet Dailey (Honor (Bannon Brothers, #2))
You’re ready to drive back to school now?” Curtis asked, trying to conceal some of the disappointment in his voice. Genesis tilted Curtis’ head up to look at him. “Yes. I wish I could stay longer but the coach raised enough hell about me missing practice today.” “He bitched because you told him your brother is a cop and was shot at? That’s not considered a family emergency?” “No. He bitched because I told him my boyfriend needed me.” Curtis was so shocked he ended up leaning into Genesis’ broad chest to keep from falling over. Boyfriend. “You came back for me?” “If I came home every time God or Day were shot at, I’d flunk out of school for sure.” Genesis drawled. Curtis looked back down at his feet and Genesis gently lifted his head up again. “I know I said boyfriend. I want you to know, I’m not seeing anyone and I haven’t in a long time. I’m not a player or a tramp or whatever else guys try to be these days. I just want someone to spend time with that actually likes me. I just want to spend some time with you. It’s soon, I know. You don’t have to say boyfriend if you —” “No. B-boyfriend is fine,” Curtis said hurriedly. Genesis smiled and shook his head. “Good, then.” He bent and kissed Curtis lightly on his forehead. “I have to head back. I’ll call you later. And I’ll see you on Friday.” “Eight o’clock sharp,” Curtis whispered. Genesis kissed Curtis’ injured wrist and laid it back at his side. “Be good until I get back, bad boy.” Genesis leaned low until he was at Curtis’ ear. His voice threatening and growly. “I’d hate to have to spank you when I get back.” Curtis shivered hard as Genesis gave him a lingering kiss behind his ear, before backing up with a devious grin. Dear lord. How will I stop myself from behaving like a tramp? “Drive carefully, Gen.” Curtis said before Genesis got to the door. “Six days, beautiful,” Genesis said softly, right before he let the door close.
A.E. Via (Here Comes Trouble (Nothing Special #3))
You good?” “Yeah. Okay. Good.” “Now, I’m going to be right here to tell you what to do, and I’ll help you steer if you start running us off the road.” I revved the gas pedal and then placed her foot on it and let her do the same. I could tell she was trying not to bail off of my lap—her body was practically vibrating with nerves—but she didn’t. She stayed, listening intently. I gave her basic instructions, and then I helped her ease onto the road, going about five miles per hour. She didn’t move her hands from two and ten o’clock, and I had to tug at the wheel slightly to straighten us out. And then we picked up speed, just a bit. “How does that feel?” “Like falling,” she whispered, her body rigid, her arms locked on the wheel. “Relax. Falling is easier if you don’t fight it.” “And driving?” “That too. Everything is easier if you don’t fight it.” “What if someone sees us?” “Then I’ll tell you when to wave." She giggled and relaxed slightly against me. I kissed her temple where it rested against my cheek, and she was immediately stiff as a board once more. Shit. I hadn’t thought. I’d just reacted. “I would have patted you on the back, but your forehead was closer,” I drawled. “You’re doin’ it. You’re drivin’.” “How fast are we going?” she said breathlessly. I hoped it was fear and not that kiss. “Oh you’re flyin’, baby. Eight miles an hour. At this rate, we will reach Salt Lake in two days, my legs will be numb, and Henry will want a turn. Give it a little gas. Let’s see if we can push it up to ten.” She pressed her foot down suddenly and we shot forward with a lurch. “Whoa!” I cried, my arms shooting up to brace hers on the wheel. I saw Henry stir from the corner of my eye. “Danika Patrick is the first female NASCAR driver to ever win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole,” he said woodenly, before slumping back down in his seat. I spared him a quick glance, only to see his eyes were closed once more. Millie obviously heard him and she hooted and pressed the gas pedal down a little harder. “Henry just compared you to Danika Patrick. And he obviously isn’t alarmed that you’re driving because he’s already asleep again.” “That’s because Henry knows I’m badass.” “Oh yeah. Badass, Silly Millie. ‘Goin’ ninety miles an hour down a dead-end street,’” I sang a little Bob Dylan, enjoying myself thoroughly.
Amy Harmon (The Song of David (The Law of Moses, #2))
He's back to eating cat food around the clock. And no abdominal workouts for that one. Every day of the year is fat cat day in his book.
Lauren Mechling (The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber)
When they’d filled the peppers and they were laid out in nice, neat, bacon-wrapped lines, she slid them into the oven. Then they went into the sitting room. David sat down next to Leah on the settee. “Now, we can’t fall asleep, waiting for them to finish cooking,” he said. Famous. Last. Words. They chatted for a moment about how melted cheese was probably the best invention on the planet, but it descended into quiet as their lids dropped and she wondered why she couldn’t think of anything more insightful to say. It had felt like only seconds that she rested her eyes, but Leah and David jumped to a start, the fire alarm beeping in the kitchen. The both looked at each other, their eyes big with surprise. “Oh no!” he laughed. They ran into the kitchen, David throwing on one of Nan’s oven mitts and yanking the smoking, sizzling peppers out of the oven. Leah opened the windows and the back door, but it seemed to let more cold air in than smoke out. She fanned the air, while David took the peppers outside and set them on the brick walkway. As they both stood in the freezing kitchen, the smoke billowing around the ceiling, they broke into laughter. “Maybe we should’ve just had the marshmallows,” he said. Leah rolled under the duvet to view the time, the gray morning barely giving her enough light to focus. It was still early—six o’clock. She closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow, the feel of the linens so familiar and comfortable that, at first, she’d almost forgotten about her troubles. This was the bed she’d slept in when she needed the security of family, and a retreat to ease her mind.
Jenny Hale (All I Want for Christmas)
Big Clock" When the big clock at the train station stopped, the leaves kept falling, the trains kept running, my mother’s hair kept growing longer and blacker, and my father’s body kept filling up with time. I can’t see the year on the station’s calendar. We slept under the stopped hands of the clock until morning, when a man entered carrying a ladder. He climbed up to the clock’s face and opened it with a key. No one but he knew what he saw. Below him, the mortal faces went on passing toward all compass points. People went on crossing borders, buying tickets in one time zone and setting foot in another. Crossing thresholds: sleep to waking and back, waiting room to moving train and back, war zone to safe zone and back. Crossing between gain and loss: learning new words for the world and the things in it. Forgetting old words for the heart and the things in it. And collecting words in a different language for those three primary colors: staying, leaving, and returning. And only the man at the top of the ladder understood what he saw behind the face which was neither smiling nor frowning. And my father’s body went on filling up with death until it reached the highest etched mark of his eyes and spilled into mine. And my mother’s hair goes on never reaching the earth.
Li-Young Lee
Tanith looked at the Monster Hunters. “If he can’t get to the clock, any idea how we deal with this lot?” “With great care,” Donegan suggested. “How about we run off shouting and they follow?” said Gracious. “Then, just when they think they’ve caught us, they fall into our trap.” “OK,” said Tanith. “And the trap would be?” “A big hole that we’d dug earlier and covered with branches.” Tanith frowned. “I thought you were meant to be smart.” Gracious frowned back at her. “Who told you that?” “Gracious is book-smart,” said Donegan. “He leaves the real-world thinking to people like you and me and small dogs that he meets.
Derek Landy (Last Stand of Dead Men (Skulduggery Pleasant, #8))
With tinny drumbeats, the rain pounds the roof My teary eyes compete They can't keep up Breathe Let it go Breathe The vice on my chest tightens its razoring grip I gasp No relief If only tears could soothe the pain Then, I would look upon the tidal waves against these walls without fear Crush and roll me, I'd plead, Mold my body anew But with these tears come no healing, Just death, slow and determined This old girl, this old woman, this old soul lives here inside A tortoise outgrowing this hare's body This youthful skin encasing a crumbling frame I smooth the matted web of curls off my sweaty neck And roll my eyes at the clock How slowly the time squeaks by here in this room, In this comfortless bed I abandon the warmth from under my blanket tower and shiver The draft rattles my spine One by one, striking my vertebrae Like a spoon chiming empty wine glasses, Hitting the same fragile note till my neck shakes the chill away I swipe along the naked floor with a toe for the slippers beneath the bed Plush fabric caresses my feet Stand! Get up With both hands, Gravity jerks me back down Ugh! This cursed bed! No more, I want no more of it I try again My legs quiver in search of my former strength Come on, old girl, Come on, old woman, Come on, old soul, Don't quit now The floor shakes beneath me, Hoping I trip and fall To the living room window, I trudge My joints grind like gravel under tires More pain no amount of tears can soothe away Pinching the embroidered curtain between my knuckles, I find solace in the gloom The wind humming against the window, Makes the house creak and groan Years ago, the cold numbed my pain But can it numb me again, This wretched body and fractured soul? Outside I venture with chants fluttering my lips, Desperate solemn pleas For comfort, For mercy For ease, For health I open the plush throw spiraled around my shoulders And tiptoe around the porch's rain-soaked boards The chilly air moves through me like Death on a mission, My body, an empty gorge with no barriers to stop him, No flesh or bone My highest and lowest extremities grow numb But my feeble knees and crippling bones turn half-stone, half-bone Half-alive, half-dead No better, just worse The merciless wind freezes my tears My chin tumbles in despair I cover myself and sniffle Earth’s scent funnels up my nose: Decay with traces of life in its perfume The treetops and their slender branches sway, Defying the bitter gusts As I turn to seek shelter, the last browned leaf breaks away It drifts, it floats At the weary tree’s feet, it makes its bed alongside the others Like a pile of corpses, they lie Furled and crinkled with age No one mourns their death Or hurries to honor the fallen with thoughtful burials No rage-filled cries echo their protests at the paws trampling their fragile bodies, Or at the desecration by the animals seeking morning relief And new boundaries to mark Soon, the stark canopy stretching over the pitiful sight Will replace them with vibrant buds and leaves Until the wasting season again returns For now, more misery will barricade my bones as winter creeps in Unless Death meets me first to end it
Jalynn Gray-Wells (Broken Hearts of Queens (Lost in Love Book 1))
What American Healthcare Can Learn from Italy: Three Lessons It’s easy. First, learn to live like Italians. Eat their famous Mediterranean diet, drink alcohol regularly but in moderation, use feet instead of cars, stop packing pistols and dropping drugs. Second, flatten out the class structure. Shrink the gap between high and low incomes, raise pensions and minimum wages to subsistence level, fix the tax structure to favor the ninety-nine percent. And why not redistribute lifestyle too? Give working stiffs the same freedom to have kids (maternity leave), convalesce (sick leave), and relax (proper vacations) as the rich. Finally, give everybody access to health care. Not just insurance, but actual doctors, medications, and hospitals. As I write, the future of the Affordable Care Act is uncertain, but surely the country will not fall into the abyss that came before. Once they’ve had a taste of what it’s like not to be one heart attack away from bankruptcy, Americans won’t turn back the clock. Even what is lately being called Medicare for All, considered to be on the fringe left a decade ago and slammed as “socialized medicine,” is now supported by a majority of Americans, according to some polls. In practice, there’s little hope for Italian lessons one and two—the United States is making only baby steps toward improving its lifestyle, and its income inequality is worse every year. But the third lesson is more feasible. Like Italy, we can provide universal access to treatment and medications with minimal point-of-service payments and with prices kept down by government negotiation. Financial arrangements could be single-payer like Medicare or use private insurance companies as intermediaries like Switzerland, without copying the full Italian model of doctors on government salaries. Despite the death by a thousand cuts currently being inflicted on the Affordable Care Act, I am convinced that Americans will no longer stand for leaving vast numbers of the population uninsured, or denying medical coverage to people whose only sin is to be sick. The health care genie can’t be put back in the bottle.
Susan Levenstein (Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome)
I can chop, sauté, dice, whisk, knead. Massage. And rub. Among other things." I bite my lip. This feels like some sort of indecent kitchen pillow talk. My eyes skim the shiny metal surface of the nearby prep table. If only there weren't a handful of servers due back in the kitchen at any minute, I'd demand he bend me over the shiny cold surface and show me for the millionth time just how good he is with his hands. That's a decidedly friends-with-benefits thought. I shake my head and glance at the clock. Only four minutes of ogling time left. "You look like you've got something on your mind." It's as if he can read the naughty thoughts crowding my head. My eyes fall to the floor. It's time to rein in the pornographic kitchen euphemisms and focus back on the task at hand.
Sarah Smith (Simmer Down)
I swallow two pills with the last of my wine, then fall back against the spread. A clock is ticking somewhere, distant and oddly muffled. I pull the box close. It’s just us again. My box of memories and me. I close my eyes, welcoming the darkness, where everything is quiet and the memories can’t find me. I have always grieved the ends of things.
Barbara Davis (The Keeper of Happy Endings)
Can I freeze this moment?" he rasps, letting his mouth fall back on my neck. "I want to live this exact moment in time forever. Will you please make the clock stand still?" he begs.
Margaret Rose (Sink or Sell)
Imagine you and I were eternal— A Goddess and a God capable of miracles, Standing as one at the beginning of time. Every time you kiss me, a world is created. Every time I kiss you, a world vanishes. When we kiss, time stops again. Between two kisses, time continues to flow. You kiss me first, for your breath ruptures with creativity. One kiss, and a universe is brought to life— A perfect world full of beauty and pain. Wait, I whisper—another universe would be one too many. I kiss you back, and the world vanishes. Once again we are all alone, just you and me. It took one cosmic unit of time for you to kiss me And just half of that time, for me to kiss you back. And a half of that half for you to kiss me again. We take infinitely many turns: Who can tell if this game is one of lust or a brawl? Each kiss betides twice faster than the last. When the clock strikes the second cosmic unit of time Who’ll be the winner between the two of us? If you kiss me last, I promise we’ll be dancing through a multiverse If I kiss you last, then everything will fall into oblivion— even this eternal love.
Lidija Stankovikj (Alexander's Infinity)
Imagine you and I were eternal— A Goddess and a God capable of miracles, Standing as one at the beginning of time. Every time you kiss me, a world is created. Every time I kiss you, a world vanishes. When we kiss, time stops again. Between two kisses, time continues to flow. You kiss me first, for your breath ruptures with creativity. One kiss, and a universe is brought to life— A perfect world full of beauty and pain. Wait, I whisper—another universe would be one too many. I kiss you back, and the world vanishes. Once again we are all alone, just you and me. It took one cosmic unit of time for you to kiss me And just half of that time, for me to kiss you back. And a half of that half for you to kiss me again. We take infinitely many turns: Who can tell if this game is one of lust or a brawl? Each kiss betides twice faster than the last. When the clock strikes the second cosmic unit of time Who’ll be the winner between the two of us? If you kiss me last, I promise we’ll be dancing through a multiverse If I kiss you last, then everything will fall into oblivion— even this eternal love.
Lidija Stankovikj (Alexander's Infinity)
In The End It starts with one One thing I don't know why It doesn't even matter how hard you try Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme To explain in due time All I know All I know time is a valuable thing Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings Watch it count down to the end of the day The clock ticks life away It's so unreal It's so unreal, didn't look out below Watch the time go right out the window Trying to hold on, did-didn't even know I wasted it all just to watch you go Watch you go I kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I tried so hard I tried so hard And got so far But in the end It doesn't even matter I had to fall To lose it all But in the end It doesn't even matter One thing, I don't know why It doesn't even matter how hard you try Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme To remind myself how I tried so hard I tried so hard In spite of the way you were mocking me Acting like I was part of your property Remembering all the times you fought with me I'm surprised it got so far Things aren't the way they were before You wouldn't even recognize me anymore Not that you knew me back then But it all comes back to me in the end In the end You kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I tried so hard I tried so hard And got so far But in the end It doesn't even matter I had to fall To lose it all But in the end It doesn't even matter I've put my trust in you Pushed as far as I can go For all this There's only one thing you should know I've put my trust in you Pushed as far as I can go For all this There's only one thing you should know I tried so hard And got so far But in the end It doesn't even matter I had to fall To lose it all But in the end It doesn't even matter
Linkin Park (LINKIN PARK'S LYRICS BOOK)
PACKING CHECKLIST Light, khaki, or neutral-color clothes are universally worn on safari and were first used in Africa as camouflage by the South African Boers, and then by the British Army that fought them during the South African War. Light colors also help to deflect the harsh sun and are less likely than dark colors to attract mosquitoes. Don’t wear camouflage gear. Do wear layers of clothing that you can strip off as the sun gets hotter and put back on as the sun goes down. Smartphone or tablet to check emails, send texts, and store photos (also handy as an alarm clock and flashlight), plus an adapter. If electricity will be limited, you may wish to bring a portable charger. Three cotton T-shirts Two long-sleeve cotton shirts preferably with collars Two pairs of shorts or two skirts in summer Two pairs of long pants (three pairs in winter)—trousers that zip off at the knees are worth considering Optional: sweatshirt and sweatpants, which can double as sleepwear One smart-casual dinner outfit Underwear and socks Walking shoes or sneakers Sandals/flip-flops Bathing suit and sarong to use as a cover-up Warm padded jacket and sweater/fleece in winter Windbreaker or rain poncho Camera equipment, extra batteries or charger, and memory cards; a photographer’s vest and cargo pants are great for storage Eyeglasses and/or contact lenses, plus extras Binoculars Small flashlight Personal toiletries Malaria tablets and prescription medication Sunscreen and lip balm with SPF 30 or higher Basic medication like antihistamine cream, eye drops, headache tablets, indigestion remedies, etc. Insect repellent that is at least 20% DEET and is sweat-resistant Tissues and/or premoistened wipes/hand sanitizer Warm hat, scarf, and gloves in winter Sun hat and sunglasses (Polaroid and UV-protected ones) Documents and money (cash, credit cards, etc.). A notebook/journal and pens Travel and field guide books A couple of large white plastic garbage bags Ziplock bags to keep documents dry and protect electronics from dust
Fodor's Travel Guides (Fodor's The Complete Guide to African Safaris: with South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Victoria Falls (Full-color Travel Guide))
Life serves us all wake-up calls at different times. Through experiences, events, conversations. You can surely turn off the alarm clock and go back to sleep, which is you can ignore the call, but you can’t deny that it is time you woke up. What is interesting is that if you don’t heed the wake-up call the first time, Life will come back and knock you on your head again and again. It is your choice to process that stimuli or not that makes all the difference.
AVIS Viswanathan
When You Go Away" When you go away the wind clicks around to the north The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls Showing the black walls The clock goes back to striking the same hour That has no place in the years And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes In one breath I wake It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth I remember that I am falling That I am the reason And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
W.S. Merwin (The Second Four Books of Poems: The Moving Target / The Lice / The Carrier of Ladders / Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment)
For such a small town, it was always busy. He checked his watch. The grand opening of Brooke’s store had started half an hour ago. On the flight to New York City, he’d rearranged his week, pushing a few appointments into the evening so that he could be back home for Friday afternoon. His agent hadn’t been impressed, but after everything that had happened over the last few weeks, Eric was ready to cut him a break. A knock on the driver’s window scared the living daylights out of him. Caleb’s grinning face didn’t make it any better. He opened the door, scowling at his friend. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” “It’s called living dangerously. Welcome home.” Gabe had done his fair share of living dangerously and he wasn’t going back there in a hurry. “I thought your flight wasn’t arriving until ten o’clock tonight.” “I moved my appointments around. I wanted to be here for the opening of Brooke’s store.” “I’m heading there, too. Does Natalie know you’re here?” Gabe shook his head. “It’s a surprise.” So were the two bottles of champagne sitting on his back seat. He grabbed one of them before locking the truck. “Did you get your project finished?” Caleb’s smile disappeared. “Not yet. Something’s not working and I can’t figure out what’s wrong. Instead of staring at a blank computer screen, I thought I’d get out of the house and support Brooke. How was the Big Apple?” “Busy, noisy, and productive. My book’s scheduled to be released in early December.” “You’ll be hitting the Christmas market. Well done. Did they give you a pay raise?” Gabe rubbed his leg. Caleb’s grin took the sting out of the cramp making him limp. “You’ve been talking to Natalie’s mom.” “I saw them on Wednesday. Kathleen couldn’t stop raving about your book. But don’t worry, she didn’t give anything away.” “It doesn’t matter. It will be in the stores soon enough.” They turned the corner. Gabe stared at the number of people standing on the street. “All these people can’t be waiting to go into Brooke’s store.” “You wanna bet? The local paper ran an article about the store on Monday. Since then, social media has been going crazy. Mabel has been adding Facebook updates all week. She even snapped a picture of Natalie and her mom helping to wrap candy. I’m telling you, Brooke’s onto something.” Gabe wasn’t surprised. Her candy already sold well. The store
Leeanna Morgan (Falling for You (Sapphire Bay #1))
This once-proud country of ours is falling into the hands of the wrong people,” said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. “And, before it gets back on the right track,” said Jones, “some heads are going to roll.” I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
So should we turn back the clock and return to the simplicity of the “distraction-free” predigital age? No—​​​there may have been a predigital age, but there has never existed a life without distractions. Whether you have a smartphone, a dumb phone, or no phone, you cannot escape a life that divides your attention. However, the Bible makes clear that those distractions fall on a spectrum. We face sanctified distractions and unsanctified distractions. We face soul-filling distractions and soul-deadening distractions. We face necessary interruptions and worldly interruptions. We face unavoidable distractions of godly marriage and avoidable distractions of consumer culture. From the outset of this study, we must die to the idea that a distraction-free life is possible—​​​it is not, and it never has been. The holy life is piously complex, meaning we must learn how to apply distraction management in every situation.
Tony Reinke (12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You)
Red wine and Hennessy She fell out of her bottle when she fell into love, cup running over, overflowing emotions in glass- red stained palet, on a pallet on the grass, to a quilt on the floor -affixed between lips and red lipstick on a shirt that he wore. A familiar place, she know she's been here before Reminiscent of the evening On his shirt that she tore ............ Drop by drop, puddle in glass getting lower- impressions in her gut, rim of her glass, hour glass figure moves counter clockwise - while absorbing the contents of merlot. Hard liquor and fine wine ............. Red Wine and Hennessy A wicked twist on some champagne tips French nails, manicures over grapes Whoever said wine and liquor don't mix? Last night I had six Bottle caps, corks, bedazzled juice Merlot was her name - slim waist - good taste slinger neck, red lace. Long stem, pedestal - hands embraced her face ............. room temperature, her body temperature ... personality of two, she's mellow and chill... aged to perfection- pop the seal- watch the erection ... splatters on the floor- covers the rug, Residue of red lipstick- Merlot stained lips match the kiss on his neck ............ Chasing fantasy through the Red Sea While chasing that with a white BC How much will she pour- how much will she drink How much more before her ship sinks ........... A full body lush, blackberry crush Medium sized Bordeaux Intense velvety plum I asked her where she's from She said she's international She's longer thinking rational .......... Sips in sync with blinking eyes She sips too much to realize Every time you pour into me, my bottle gets more empty- Glass falling to the floor She staggers to the door Glass shatters her feet She stumbles to her seat She's still asking for more But she falls to the floor Red lipstick in the mud She covers up the blood ............ She lays in her wine She forgot about the time Clock on the wall Footsteps in the hall Pounding in her head She rushes to the bed ......... She lays motionless ... but her head is racing Her heart is pacing Her lungs are gasping - air, she needs air Rolls to her side, brings her self to sit up She gags and gags until She throws it all up- ........... Wakes up the next morning Dazed and confused She's laying in a bed That she's not used to She moves slowly, where did everyone go? She checks the time- it's a quarter pass 4 sounds on the other side of the door Are Muffled by the sound of a knock at the door ........... Looks around for her little red dress Notices a blotch - a red stain on her breast Lipstick smeared an accessory to her mess She reached for her clothes and saw a note on the desk. .......... Dearly beloved, I want to see you again I'd love to have to back I think we make a great blend I tried to wake you Because I had to go And Oh by the way, my name is merlot "Little Black Bird
Niedria Dionne Kenny (Love, Lust and Regrets: While the lights were off)
Yo momma's so tall when I tell her to bend over she's still taller than me. Yo momma's so tall, she did a push-up and burned her back on the sun. Yo momma's so tall she went to Leeds and her legs were still at home. Yo momma's so tall she called the Ocean a kitty pool. Yo momma's so tall, she can see her house from anywhere. Yo momma's so tall when she jump in the sky it hit jesus' balls. Yo momma's so tall she could "69" big foot. Yo momma's so tall she has to take a bath in Niagra falls. Yo Momma's so Stupid   Yo momma's so stupid, she told me everything she knows during a commercial break. Yo momma's so stupid, that if I need a brain transplant I'll take hers, because it's barely been used. Yo momma's so stupid she sent me a fax with a stamp on it. Yo momma's so stupid. She went to the eye doctor to buy an iPad. Yo momma's so stupid she threw the clock out the window to see time fly! Yo momma's so stupid she took a spoon to the superbowl. Yo momma's so stupid, if her brain was chocolate it wouldn't fill a M&M. Yo momma's so stupid if you stand close enough to her you can hear the ocean. Yo momma's so stupid, the smartest thing to come out of her mouth was a penis. Yo momma's so stupid, the government banned her from homeschooling her kids. Yo momma's so stupid, she's the reason women only make 75 cents on the dollar. Yo momma's so stupid, she filled her car with water so she can drive in the Car Pool lane. Yo momma's so stupid, I would ask her how old she is, but I know she can't count that high. Yo momma's so stupid she called Dan Quayle for a spell check. Yo momma's so stupid she put cheese on my dad because he's a cracker. Yo momma's so stupid she stepped on a crack and broke her own back. Yo momma's so stupid she makes Beavis and Butt-Head look like Nobel Prize winners. Yo momma's so stupid she got locked in a grocery store and starved to death. Yo momma's so stupid she tripped over a cordless phone. Yo momma's so Stupid when i said One mans trash is another mans Treasure she jump in a trash bin. Yo momma's so stupid she spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice box because it said "concentrate". Yo momma's so stupid she thought she needed a token to get on Soul Train.
Tony Glare (Yo Mama Jokes: 201+ Best Yo Momma jokes! (Comedy, Jokes And Riddles, Humour, Jokes For Kids, Yo Mama Jokes))
West Coast" For a second there I thought you disappeared It rains a lot this time of year And we both go together if one falls down I talk out loud like you're still around No, no And I miss you I'm goin' back home to the West Coast I wish you would've put yourself in my suitcase I love you Standin' all alone in a black coat I miss you I'm goin' back home to the West Coast And if you shake her hard enough she will appear Tonight I think I'll be stayin' here And you never did like this town I talk out loud like you're still around No, no And I miss you I'm goin' back home to the West Coast I wish you would've put yourself in my suitcase I love you Standin' all alone in a black coat I miss you I'm goin' back home to the West Coast Come on, everybody La la la la, la la la la-la La la la la, la la la la-la So pack up the bags to beat back the clock Do I let her sleep or should I wake her up? You said We both go together if one falls down Yeah, right, heh I talk out loud like you're still around Oh, no, no And I miss you I'm goin' back home to the West Coast I wish you would've put yourself in my suitcase I love you Standin' all alone in a black coat I miss you I'm goin' back home to the West Coast Goin' back home to the West Coast Goin' back home to the West Coast
Coconut Records
Health in Breathing Deep Breathing. Many cases of lung trouble and of other afflictions are due to improper breathing, or rather to persons allowing themselves to fall into bad habits of breathing. Nature intends that a certain amount of oxygen must come from the air we breathe. In a natural, joyous life, nature will cause anyone to breathe in an abundance of this oxygen. But artificial habits of life, and especially despondency and work that requires much stooping or bending over, are apt to produce an apathy of the nerves and muscles that control breathing, and hence an insufficient supply of the health-giving oxygen. The remedy in such cases is easy and in everyone's hands. Moreover, it costs nothing but a slight effort, continued long enough until a correct habit is formed. How to Breathe. The most important item in breathing is that it shall be deep and rhythmic, that is, that inspiration and expiration shall be of equal length. Watch a person asleep and note his breathing: it is as regular and rhythmic as the swish of the waves on the shore, as regular as the ticking of the clock. That is the natural way; when consciousness stops controlling it, the breathing becomes natural. If, then, you are seeking health and vigor, imitate the natural. Breathing Exercise. Of marvelous value is the deep breathing exercise, which should be taken just as regular as the morning ablution. The best place is somewhere where one can get fresh air, preferably air that the sun has shone on. Then bending back the shoulders, throwing forward the chest and upward the chin, inhale slowly just as much air as the lungs will hold. Hold in this air while you count ten. Exhale it slowly Repeat this four or five times. Then, after a moment’s rest, empty the lungs to the utmost, then draw in all the air possible, and when the lungs seem full, draw in just a little more, pack the lungs, as it were, and hold the breath while you count twenty slowly. Then exhale. You will find this a wonderfully invigorating and health preserving exercise.
E. Ruddock (Vitalogy)
The English have a better idea of right and wrong. They still believe in hell, I think, and perhaps that keeps them from brutality. Germany has ceased to believe in hell. And so they create hell for innocent men and have no fear that they themselves will ever face condemnation. I tell you, Jacob,” the professor whispered to Theo, “Germany has sold its soul, and the fire it brings to the world will come back to itself. Hitler is Satan. Mein Kampf is his book of black magic. Germany is Faust. And the hour will come when . . .” His voice trailed off. “When what, Professor?” Theo asked, hoping the old man was not falling to sleep. “Like the Faust of Marlowe, Germany will watch the clock run out. And there will be no salvation.
Bodie Thoene (Vienna Prelude (Zion Covenant, #1))
THE ROOM IS WARM, AND FULL. Most of them are young, about his own age, their chatter filling up the peeling high arches that sweep across the ceiling above them. There are lights, and laughter, and glasses that touch each other musically; an unfamiliar feeling of excess and even decadence that forms a welcome illusion for certain moments during this evening. For certain moments, from certain angles, with his eyes half shut, he can see that the long, narrow room in this apartment belonging to Misha’s friends has suddenly regained some of the elegance and life that perhaps filled it so often in another, pre-revolutionary lifetime. There is a small window at his back, and when he feels a cold draught touch his jacket, he turns, and the preternatural glow of the snow lighting the gloom outside attracts him and makes him look. On the street below he sees a small boy and an old lady. Both are carrying large bundles on their backs. Both look small and frail under their loads and he watches them for a long minute until they move around the corner of the building and are lost to sight. Probably they are carrying home wood to try and warm their rooms. Or room. He looks at his watch. It is ten o’clock. It is becoming hot at the party, and Alexander runs a finger along his slender neck, under his collar and tie. “You look like a government man,” Misha had told him, with no small measure of sarcasm, when he picked him up. “Don’t you have any casual clothes? This is not one of your state department cocktail parties, you know.
Shamim Sarif (Despite the Falling Snow)
Helen Fielding recalls Marie inviting her to take the boat downriver to Parliament one Monday night. “We could grab a buoy and start a barbecue, and clock how long it takes for MI5 to send a speedboat.” They did exactly that, cooking sausages onboard outside the House of Commons and waiting for the security service, which never showed up, before steering unsteadily back, mooring the boat, and teetering ashore across the mud left by the falling tide, handbags akimbo.
Lindsey Hilsum (In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin)
To stumble and fall when you are a college student is not the same as when you are in primary or secondary school. Childhood is a time for experiments, when we learn how to get back up quickly after a fall. As we get older, we learn that we are never supposed to stumble. Thus, with the passage of time, we lose the freedom even to trip.
Shahad Al Rawi (ساعة بغداد)