Cool Engagements Quotes

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

I adore the way fan fiction writers engage with and critique source texts, by manipulating them and breaking their rules. Some of it is straight-up homage, but a lot of [fan fiction] is really aggressive towards the source text. One tends to think of it as written by total fanboys and fangirls as a kind of worshipful act, but a lot of times you’ll read these stories and it’ll be like ‘What if Star Trek had an openly gay character on the bridge?’ And of course the point is that they don’t, and they wouldn’t, because they don’t have the balls, or they are beholden to their advertisers, or whatever. There’s a powerful critique, almost punk-like anger, being expressed there—which I find fascinating and interesting and cool.

Sahara knew she should be worried about the fact that she’d been in bed with a man who’d caused that kind of damage with a momentary and, according to him, minor loss of telekinetic control during intimacy, but she felt her lips kick up at the corners. So we literally made the earth move? A slight pause, before Kaleb said, I suggest we don’t engage in sex in populated areas. The cool comment made her burst into laughter.

Do women feel anything more keenly than curiosity? No, they will go to any lengths to find out, to know,to feel, what they have always dreamed of! Once their excited curiosity has been aroused, women will stoop to anything, commit any folly, take any risks. They stop at nothing. I am speaking of women who are real women, who operate on three different levels. Superficially cool and rational, they have three secret compartments: the first is constantly full of womanly fret and anxiety; the second is a sort of innocent guile, like the fearsome sophistry of the self-righteous; and the last is filled with an engaging dishonesty, a charming deviousness, a consummate duplicity, with all those perverse qualities in fact that can drive a foolish, unwary love to suicide, but which by others may be judged quite delightful.

Often, when you’re out in the single world meeting people, you meet someone you like, get their number, and put it right in your phone, transforming them into an ‘option’ that lives in your device. Sometimes you and that option engage in some phone-based interaction and you meet up in person. But sometimes that exchange never happens. That potentially cool, exciting person dies there, buried in your phone.

But artists aren’t the only marginalized folks controlling real estate. Think about the colonizing role that wealthy white gay men have played in communities of color; they’re often the first group to gentrify poor and working-class neighborhoods. Harlem is a good example. Gays have moved in and driven up rents, as have renegade young white students, who want to be cool and hip. This is colonization, post-colonial-style. After all, the people who are “sent back” to recover the territory are always those who don’t mind associating with the colored people! And it’s a double bind, because some of these people could be allies. Some gay white men are proactive about racism, even while being entrepreneurial. But in the end, they take spaces, redo them, sell them for a certain amount of money, while the people who have been there are displaced. And in some cases, the people of color who are there are perceived as enemies by white newcomers.

Oh, misanthropy and sourness. Gary wanted to enjoy being a man of wealth and leisure, but the country was making it none too easy. All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?

Observe and blend in," he stated in his cool, unruffled voice. "Learn how to engage with humans, how to be human. Assimilate into their social structure and make them believe we are one of them.

STEVE CARELL IS NICE BUT IT IS SCARY It has been said many times, but it is true: Steve Carell is a very nice guy. His niceness manifests itself mostly in the fact that he never complains. You could screw up a handful of takes outside in 104-degree smog-choked Panorama City heat, and Steve Carell’s final words before collapsing of heat stroke would be a friendly and hopeful “Hey, you think you have that shot yet?” I’ve always found Steve gentlemanly and private, like a Jane Austen character. The one notable thing about Steve’s niceness is that he is also very smart, and that kind of niceness has always made me nervous. When smart people are nice, it’s always terrifying, because I know they’re taking in everything and thinking all kinds of smart and potentially judgmental things. Steve could never be as funny as he is, or as darkly observational an actor, without having an extremely acute sense of human flaws. As a result, I’m always trying to impress him, in the hope that he’ll go home and tell his wife, Nancy, “Mindy was so funny and cool on set today. She just gets it.” Getting Steve to talk shit was one of the most difficult seven-year challenges, but I was determined to do it. A circle of actors could be in a fun, excoriating conversation about, say, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and you’d shoot Steve an encouraging look that said, “Hey, come over here; we’ve made a space for you! We’re trashing Dominique Strauss-Kahn to build cast rapport!” and the best he might offer is “Wow. If all they say about him is true, that is nuts,” and then politely excuse himself to go to his trailer. That’s it. That’s all you’d get. Can you believe that? He just would not engage. That is some willpower there. I, on the other hand, hear someone briefly mentioning Rainn, and I’ll immediately launch into “Oh my god, Rainn’s so horrible.” But Carell is just one of those infuriating, classy Jane Austen guys. Later I would privately theorize that he never involved himself in gossip because—and I am 99 percent sure of this—he is secretly Perez Hilton.

Do you radiate cold magic when you punch people?" Kail asked. "I do not engage in physical combat," Icy replied, taking a bite from his vegetable plate, "and I possess no elemental magic ability." "Then why Icy Fist?" "It is short for 'Indomitable Courteous Fist,' which is my full name." "That's significantly less cool, Icy.

...M. Danglars, who had listened to all this preamble with imperturbable coolness, but without understanding a word, engaged as he was, like every man burdened with thoughts of the past, in seeking the thread of his own ideas in those of the speaker.

Earlier in this book I noted that one of my favorite sayings is “You get what you tolerate.” This applies in spades to your relationships. Failing to speak up about something carries the implication that you are OK with it—that you are prepared to continue tolerating it. As a companion saying goes, “Silence means consent.” If you tolerate snide or offensive remarks from your boss or colleague, the remarks will continue. If you tolerate your spouse’s lack of consideration for your feelings, it will continue. If you tolerate the disregard of people who regularly turn up late for meetings or social engagements, they will continue to keep you cooling your heels. If you tolerate your child’s lack of respect, you will continue to get no respect. Each time you tolerate a behavior, you are subtly teaching that person that it is OK to treat you that way.

What you have now then is the marketing of racialized identities as tools for consumption. And certain racialized bodies and images are associated with hipness, coolness, edginess. So all kinds of youth all over the world are appropriating that style as a way of, sort of, countering authority, stating their rebelliousness, and wanting to be seen as significant.

Killing an enemy with teeth and bare hands is emotionally far more demanding than pulling a trigger or pressing a button. In inventing tools and weapons, in contriving civilization, we have disinhibited the controls - sometimes thoughtlessly and inadvertently, but sometimes with cool premeditation. If the beasts who are our nearest relatives engaged recklessly in … mass murder they would have rendered themselves extinct. If our non-human ancestors did it, we would not be here.

Cinder." Kai pulled one leg onto the bank, turning his body so they were facing each other. He took her hands between his and her heart began to drum unexpectedly. Not because of his touch, and not even because of his low, serious tone, but because it occurred to Cinder all at once that Kai was nervous. Kai was never nervous. "I asked you once," he said, running his thumbs over her knuckles, "if you thought you would ever be willing to wear a crown again. Not as the queen of Luna, but ... as my empress. And you said that you would consider it, someday." She swallowed a breath of cool night air. "And ... this is that day?" His lips twitched, but didn't quite become a smile. "I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to marry you, and, yes, I want you to be my empress." Cinder gaped at him for a long moment before she whispered, "That's a lot of wanting." "You have no idea." She lowered her lashes. "I might have some idea." Kai released one of her hands and she looked up again to see him reaching into his pocket - the same that had held Wolf's and Scarlet's wedding rings before. His fist was closed when he pulled it out and Kai held it toward her, released a slow breath, and opened his fingers to reveal a stunning ring with a large ruby ringed in diamonds. It didn't take long for her retina scanner to measure the ring, and within seconds it was filling her in on far more information than she needed - inane worlds like carats and clarity scrolled past her vision. But it was the ring's history that snagged her attention. It had been his mother's engagement ring once, and his grandmother's before that. Kai took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger. Metal clinked against metal, and the priceless gem looked as ridiculous against her cyborg plating as the simple gold band had looked on Wolf's enormous, deformed, slightly hairy hand. Cinder pressed her lips together and swallowed, hard, before daring to meet Kai's gaze again. "Cinder," he said, "will you marry me?" Absurd, she thought. The emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth was proposing to her. It was uncanny. It was hysterical. But it was Kai, and somehow, that also made it exactly right. "Yes," she whispered. "I will marry you." Those simple words hung between them for a breath, and then she grinned and kissed him, amazed that her declaration didn't bring the surge of anxiety she would have expected years ago. He drew her into his arms, laughing between kisses, and she suddenly started to laugh too. She felt strangely delirious. They had stood against all adversity to be together, and now they would forge their own path to love. She would be Kai's wife. She would be the Commonwealth's empress. And she had every intention of being blissfully happy for ever, ever after.

We survive on too little sleep, wolf down fast foods on the run, fuel up with coffee and cool down with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with relentless demands at work, we become short-tempered and easily distracted. We return home from long days at work feeling exhausted and often experience our families not as a source of joy and renewal, but as one more demand in an already overburdened life.

~Of course, rather than the choice between what you threaten, and our allowing you to escape, we might engage with you on the instant, to prevent you from carrying out either. ~I never did tell you my whole name, did I? ~You did not. Many have remarked that your name would appear to be part of a longer one, and yet, unusually, even uniquely, nobody has heard the whole of it. ~May I tell you it now? ~Please do. ~My full name is the Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath. Cool, eh? ~Such braggadocio. That smacks of smokescreen, not power. ~Take it as you will, chum. But how many Culture ships do you know of that exaggerate their puissance?

These partygoers hadn’t been the cool kids growing up. They’d spent their adolescence buried in art books, scrawling poems into steno pads during recess, living full stories in their heads. Distracted by their artistic micro-obsessions, many forgot to learn how to engage with the world. They were too busy studying life, storing up their notes to use later in a novel, a song, a script, a painting. They were observers, not joiners.

Jefferson sensed that, as with lovers and intimate friends, there can often be no middle ground between engagement and estrangement. In the presence of passion, or of former passions, acquaintance is impossible. It is all or nothing, for once affections have cooled it is very difficult to bring them back to a middling temperature. In such cases human nature tends to rekindle the flames to their old force, or consign them to perpetual chill.

Very well,” replied M. Danglars, who had listened to all this preamble with imperturbable coolness, but without understanding a word, engaged as he was, like every man burdened with thoughts of the past, and seeking the thread of his own ideas in those of the speaker.

No one moved. No one spoke. They seemed be riveted by whatever it was they saw in his eyes. “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.” A few gasps erupted. His voice rang out, bold, clear. “It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.” It was safe to say everyone was awake now. He’d startled most of his parishioners and aroused the rest of them. “Evie Duggan …” And all the heads official swiveled to follow the beam of the reverend’s gaze. Then swiveled back to him. Then back to Eve. Whose heart was in her eyes. “ … You are the seal upon my heart. You are the fire and flame that warms me, heals me, burns me. You are the river that cools me and carries me. I love you. And love may be as strong as death, but you … I know now you are my life.” A pin would have echoed like a dropped kettle in the church then. Eve was absolutely riveted. Frozen, her eyes burning into his. “And though I wish I could have protected you and kept you safe from some of the storms of your life, I find cannot regret any part of your past. For it has made you who you are. Loyal, passionate, brave, kind, remarkable. You need repent nothing.” The last word fell like a gavel. Not a single person moved or breathed. “There are those who think good is a pastime, to engage in like embroidery or target shooting. There are those who think beauty is a thing of surface, and forget that it’s really of the soul. But good is something you are, not something you do. And by that definition, I stand before you today and declare that Evie Duggan is one of the best people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

Of course, the cool kids have no idea that what they’re engaging in is really just another biological trick. They actually think they’re being cool, and being rewarded for it, when in fact they’re just mindless fleshy masses attached to a throbbing node, which is making all their dumb decisions for them.

The brilliant rationalist had encountered a central, frustrating tenet of human nature: behavior change is hard. The cleverest engineer or economist or politician or parent may come up with a cheap, simple solution to a problem, but if it requires people to change their behavior, it may not work. Every day, billions of people around the world engage in behaviors they know are bad for them—smoking cigarettes, gambling excessively, riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Why? Because they want to! They derive pleasure from it, or a thrill, or just a break from the daily humdrum. And getting them to change their behavior, even with a fiercely rational argument, isn’t easy.

In matters of affection, the rules of engagement at Empire High were detailed yet unambiguous, an extension of procedures established in junior high, a set of guidelines that couldn't have been clearer if they'd been posted on the schoolhouse door. If you were a girl and your heart inclined toward a particular boy, you had one of your girlfriends make inquiries from one of that boy's friends. Such contact represented the commencement of a series of complex negotiations, the opening rounds of which were handled by friends. Boy's friend A might report to Girl's friend B that the boy in question considered her a fox, or, if he felt particularly strongly, a major fox. Those experienced in these matters knew that it was wise to proceed cautiously, since too much ardor could delay things for weeks. The girl in question might be in negotiations with other parties, and no boy wanted to be on record as considering a girl a major fox only to discover that she considered him merely cool. Friends had to be instructed carefully about how much emotional currency they could spend, since rogue emotions led to inflation, lessening the value of everyone's feelings. Once a level of affection within the comfort zone of both parties was agreed upon, the principals could then meet for the exchange of mementos - rings, jackets, photos, key chains - to seal the deal, always assuming that seconds had properly represented the lovers to begin with.

The bass engaged my imagination so differently than the trumpet. Blowing the trumpet, I dreamed of playing with the jazz greats, being in a majestic symphony orchestra, growing into a respected man, cool and distinct. But as soon as I picked up that bass I was an animal... I fell in love with rock music... I started looking at music in a new way, seeing color and attitude instead of notes and scales.

The coolness of you two rascals is amazing,” began Mr. Pickwick, trying to get up an awful frown, and only succeeding in producing an amiable smile. But the new member was equal to the occasion; and, rising, with a grateful salutation to the Chair, said, in the most engaging manner, “Mr. President and ladies, — I beg pardon, gentlemen, — allow me to introduce myself as Sam Weller, the very humble servant of the club.

SOME People are subject to a certain delicacy of passion,1 which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with misfortunes and adversity. Favours and good offices° easily engage their friendship; while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure; but they are as sensibly touched with contempt.° People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent° sorrows, than men of cool and sedate tempers: But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal: And when a person, that has this sensibility° of temper, meets with any misfortune, his sorrow or resentment takes entire possession of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life; the right enjoyment of which forms the chief part of our happiness. Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains; so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter. Not to mention, that men of such lively passions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and discretion, and to take false steps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable. There

I reach out and squeeze her hand, and remember everything we’ve lived through together. The normal things we endured as we grew from girls to women. The days in school where boys would line us up in order of our fuckability. The parties where it was normal to lie on top of a semi-conscious girl, do things to her, then call her a slut afterwards. A Christmas number-one song about a pregnant woman being stuffed into the boot of a car and driven off a bridge. Laughing when your male friends made rape jokes. Opening a newspaper and seeing the breasts of a girl who had only just turned legal, dressed in school uniform to make her look underage. Of the childhood films we grew up on, and loved, and knew all the words to, where, at the end, a girl would always get chosen for looking the prettiest compared to all the others. Reading magazines that told you to mirror men’s body language, and hum on their dick when you went down on them, that turned into books about how to get them to commit by not being yourself. Of size zero, and Atkins, and Five-Two, and cabbage soup, and juice cleanses and eat clean. Of pole-dancing lessons as a great way to get fit, and actually, if you want to be really cool, come to the actual strip club too. Of being sexually assaulted when you kissed someone on a dance floor and not thinking about it properly until you are twenty-seven and read a book about how maybe it was wrong. Of being jealous of your friend who got assaulted on the dance floor because why didn’t he pick you to assault? Boys not wanting to be with you unless you fuck them quickly. Boys not wanting to be with you because you fucked them too quickly. Being terrified to walk anywhere in the dark in case the worst thing happens to you, and so your male friend walks you home to keep you safe, and then comes into your bedroom and does the worst thing to you, and now, when you look him up online, he’s engaged to a woman who wears a feminist T-shirt and isn’t going to change her name when they get married. Of learning to have no pubic hair, and how liberating it is to pay thirty-five pounds a month to rip this from your body and lurch up in agony. Rings around famous women’s bodies saying ‘look at this cellulite’, oh, by the way, here is a twenty-quid cream so you don’t get

July 14, 1861 Camp Clark, Washington My very dear Sarah: The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days — perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more… I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing — perfectly willing — to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt… Sarah my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me — perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness… But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights … always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again…

1. Close Friend, someone who got yo back, yo "main nigga." 2. Rooted in blackness and the Black experience. From a middle-aged social worker: "That Brotha ain like dem ol e-lights, he real, he a shonuff nigga" 3. Generic, neutral refrence to African Americans. From a 30 something college educated Sista: "The party was live, it was wall to wall niggaz there" 4. A sista's man/lover/partner. from the beauty shop. "Guess we ain gon be seein too much of girlfriend no mo since she got herself a new nigga" From Hip Hop artist Foxy brown, "Ain no nigga like the on I got." 5. Rebellious, fearless unconventional, in-yo-face Black man. From former NBA superstar Charles Barkley, "Nineties niggas... The DailyNews, The Inquirer has been on my back... They want their Black Athletes to be Uncle Tom. I told you white boys you've never heard of a 90s nigga. We do what we want to do" quoted in The Source, December 1992). 6. Vulgar, disrespectful Black Person, antisocial, conforming to negative sterotype of African Americans. From former Hip Hop group Arrested Development, in their best-selling song, "People Everyday" 1992: A black man actin like a nigga... got stomped by an African" 7. A cool, down person, rooted in Hip Hop and black culture, regardless of race, used today by non-blacks to refer to other non-Blacks. 8. Anyone engaged in inappropriate, negative behavior; in this sense, Blacks may even apply the term to White folk. According to African American scholar Clarence Major's From Juba to Jive, Queen Latifah was quoted in Newsweek as criticizing the US government with these words. "Those niggers don't know what the fuck they doing

Our prayer life and rule of prayer will be shaped by the different stages of our spiritual journey as well. Many people who have just come to know Christ find that their words flow easily. Prayer is a joy for them. But, as with romantic relationships, there is a natural movement beyond this honeymoon phase. When feelings of intense connection with God ebb, we have a new opportunity to engage God - not based on cool spiritual vibes but as an expression of our genuine love for God. Times of spiritual dryness are normal for almost everyone, even if we haven't sinned and to the best of our knowledge haven't done anything to wall off our relationship with God. God may allow this dryness so that we can mature in our relationship with him and learn to seek him not for an ecstatic spiritual experience but out of a deeper love and commitment.

As grooms scurried to seize the reins, Dom jumped out and came around to help her down. When he took her gloved hand, her breath caught in her throat. Because the yearning that flashed over his face as she stepped down was so raw and untamed that it made her want to leap into his arms. Drat the man. That wouldn’t do, not at all. She was engaged to another, for pity’s sake! Never again would she put her heart in the care of Dominick Manton. He’d already proved he didn’t want it badly enough to keep it. She resisted the urge to snatch her hand free and thus betray her agitation. Instead she slid it nonchalantly from his grip. “Do we have time to eat something?” She flashed him an airy smile. “I’m positively famished.” He stared at her a long moment, his expression cooling to remoteness once more. “I’m not hungry myself, but you could eat while I question the innkeeper. Then we’ll walk over to Mrs. Patch’s.” “An excellent plan.

We need to rationalize our existences, usually by doing something that feels “important.” Our inner worlds are devalued, because others cannot directly observe them. Many people remain “do-ers.” Doing things to make up for their belief that they themselves are “not enough.” In relationships when your partner is not engaging in a mutual way, and you feel that the only way to keep the relationship afloat and to keep your partner content is to keep doing things—stay fit, look good, clean the house, make his life easy, buy her things— then that becomes your pattern. In addition, you may need to be yet another bringer of admiration into your partner’s life telling him,“you are so attractive/smart/successful/sexy/cool/awesome.” All this stuff you need to bring, day after day after day, can be labeled narcissistic supply. Psychologically healthy human beings nourish themselves from the inside. They do not “need” supply, and other people in their worlds should not be in the role of having to serve them that way. You may get some insight into why this relationship has been so exhausting.

Take the common Buddhist practice of “noting,” for example: practitioners learn to label their worries and feelings with a simple tag like “thinking” or “anger,” taking note of them mindfully without engaging them directly. In a 2007 study, the UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman showed thirty volunteers fear-provoking images and then asked them to note their feelings (“I feel afraid”) as he monitored their brain activity. Upon seeing the unpleasant images, the subjects’ amygdalae lit up at first, but the labeling process soon sparked activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, damping activity in the amygdala. Lieberman believes this mindful noting—the simple act of putting our feelings into words—helps the brain disambiguate our emotions and provide a level of detachment from them. “One of the ways labeling is useful is in talking with other people,” he told me. “If you can get someone to talk about their feelings, it’ll end up being beneficial to them in ways they may not realize.” (Writing about how we feel in a journal serves the same purpose; it helps us sort out emotions, like anxiety, on a deeper subconscious level.)

It is love that believes the resurrection.”16 “Simon, son of John,” says Jesus, “do you love me?” There is a whole world in that question, a world of personal invitation and challenge, of the remaking of a human being after disloyalty and disaster, of the refashioning of epistemology itself, the question of how we know things, to correspond to the new ontology, the question of what reality consists of. The reality that is the resurrection cannot simply be “known” from within the old world of decay and denial, of tyrants and torture, of disobedience and death. But that’s the point. To repeat: the resurrection is not, as it were, a highly peculiar event within the present world (though it is that as well); it is, principally, the defining event of the new creation, the world that is being born with Jesus. If we are even to glimpse this new world, let alone enter it, we will need a different kind of knowing, a knowing that involves us in new ways, an epistemology that draws out from us not just the cool appraisal of detached quasi-scientific research but also that whole-person engagement and involvement for which the best shorthand is “love,” in the full Johannine sense of agapē.

For a moment she simply stood there in the dark corridor, her heart stopped, the duke roaring huskily behind her like some beast out of one of her childhood nightmares. Despair wrapped chilly fingers around her throat. Then she brought her hand before her face and looked at the ruby ring on her little finger. Delicate. Lovely. Eternal. She breathed again. Dyemore was no beast. No Bluebeard. No fairy-tale nightmare. He was a man- a man in pain. And she was going to pull herself together and help him. She was already moving toward the stairs. He hadn't liked the sheets. Something to do with the cedarwood scent had driven him to this crisis. Nicoletta had tried to give her the worn-out sheets- the ones not stored in the cedarwood cabinet. Therefore she needed to go down and find those sheets and return to her husband. No, it was more than that. Dyemore had saved her at great risk to himself, and she'd rewarded him by shooting him. He'd nearly died from that wound- continued to be ill from that wound. She owed the man. And more still. It didn't matter that he was maddeningly autocratic, unsmiling, and abrupt. Or even that she found him to be the tiniest bit frightening. He'd asked her about her childhood. Engaged her in discussion. Was interested in her opinions on Polybius's "Histories"- and even when he didn't agree with those opinions, he'd respected them. His cool gray eyes as he'd watched her face during their debate had been intent and focused, as if she was the only thing he cared about at the moment. She'd had his entire attention. And that? That was worth fighting for.

Making the most of an experience: Living fully is extolled everywhere in popular culture. I have only to turn on the television at random to be assailed with the following messages: “It’s the best a man can get.” “It’s like having an angel by your side.” “Every move is smooth, every word is cool. I never want to lose that feeling.” “You look, they smile. You win, they go home.” What is being sold here? A fantasy of total sensory pleasure, social status, sexual attraction, and the self-image of a winner. As it happens, all these phrases come from the same commercial for razor blades, but living life fully is part of almost any ad campaign. What is left out, however, is the reality of what it actually means to fully experience something. Instead of looking for sensory overload that lasts forever, you’ll find that the experiences need to be engaged at the level of meaning and emotion. Meaning is essential. If this moment truly matters to you, you will experience it fully. Emotion brings in the dimension of bonding or tuning in: An experience that touches your heart makes the meaning that much more personal. Pure physical sensation, social status, sexual attraction, and feeling like a winner are generally superficial, which is why people hunger for them repeatedly. If you spend time with athletes who have won hundreds of games or with sexually active singles who have slept with hundreds of partners, you’ll find out two things very quickly: (1) Numbers don’t count very much. The athlete usually doesn’t feel like a winner deep down; the sexual conqueror doesn’t usually feel deeply attractive or worthy. (2) Each experience brings diminishing returns; the thrill of winning or going to bed becomes less and less exciting and lasts a shorter time. To experience this moment, or any moment, fully means to engage fully. Meeting a stranger can be totally fleeting and meaningless, for example, unless you enter the individual’s world by finding out at least one thing that is meaningful to his or her life and exchange at least one genuine feeling. Tuning in to others is a circular flow: You send yourself out toward people; you receive them as they respond to you. Notice how often you don’t do that. You stand back and insulate yourself, sending out only the most superficial signals and receive little or nothing back. The same circle must be present even when someone else isn’t involved. Consider the way three people might observe the same sunset. The first person is obsessing over a business deal and doesn’t even see the sunset, even though his eyes are registering the photons that fall on their retinas. The second person thinks, “Nice sunset. We haven’t had one in a while.” The third person is an artist who immediately begins a sketch of the scene. The differences among the three are that the first person sent nothing out and received nothing back; the second allowed his awareness to receive the sunset but had no awareness to give back to it—his response was rote; the third person was the only one to complete the circle: He took in the sunset and turned it into a creative response that sent his awareness back out into the world with something to give. If you want to fully experience life, you must close the circle.

Dom stood dumbfounded as Jane disappeared into the street. Then he hurried to catch up to her, to get some answers. She knew. How the blazes did she know? The answer to that was obvious. “So, Nancy told you the truth, did she?” he snapped as he fell into step beside her. Jane didn’t reply, just kept marching toward the inn like a Hussar bent on battle. “When?” he demanded. “How long have you known?” “For nine years, you…you conniving…lying--” “Nine years? You knew all this time, and you didn’t say anything?” “Say anything!” She halted just short of the innyard entrance to glare at him. “How the devil was I to do that? You disappeared into the streets of London as surely as if you were a footpad or a pickpocket.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Oh, I read about your heroic exploits from time to time, but other than that, I neither heard nor saw anything of you until last year, when you showed up at George’s town house. It was only pure chance that I happened to be at dinner with Nancy that day. As you’ll recall, you didn’t stay long. Nor did you behave as if you would welcome any confidences.” Remembering the cool reception he’d given her, he glanced away, unable to bear the accusation in her eyes. “No, I suppose I didn’t.” “Besides,” she said, “it hardly mattered that I knew the truth. I assumed that if you ever changed your mind about making a life with me, you would seek me out. Since you never did, you were clearly determined to remain a bachelor.” His gaze shot back to her. “It was more complicated than that.” She snorted. “It always is with you. Which is precisely why I’m happy I’m engaged to someone else.” That sent jealousy roaring through him. “Yet you let me kiss you.” A pretty blush stained her cheeks. “You…you took me by surprise, that’s all. But it was a mistake. It won’t happen again.” The blazes it wouldn’t. He intended to find out if the past was as firmly in the past as she claimed. But obviously he couldn’t do it here in the street. He glanced up at the gloomy sky. Or right now. She followed the direction of his gaze. “Yes,” she said in a dull voice. “It looks like we’ll have a rainy trip back.” She headed into the innyard. “Perhaps if we hurry, we can reach Winborough before it starts. Besides, we’ve got only three hours until sunset, and it’s not safe to ride in an open phaeton after dark.” She was right, but he didn’t mean to drop this discussion. He needed answers, and once they were on the road, he meant to get them.

Potato Bake or Party Potatoes Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position   This is another recipe from Vera Olsen (“Hot Stuff”) who’s engaged to marry Andrew Westcott (“Silver Fox.”)   1/3 cup flour ½ teaspoon baking powder 2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon pepper ½ teaspoon garlic powder ½ teaspoon onion powder ½ teaspoon paprika 4 eggs 1 large grated onion ½ cup melted butter (1 stick, ¼ pound) 5 cups frozen hash browns or frozen Potatoes O’Brien 2 cups grated cheese (any kind will do)   Spray a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan with Pam or other non-stick spray. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, and seasonings in a large bowl with a fork. Add the eggs and whisk it all up. Stir in the onion, melted butter, grated cheese and potatoes. Dump the mixture into the cake pan, cover it with foil, and bake at 350 degrees F. for one hour. Remove foil, turn the oven up to 400 degrees F., and bake for an additional 15 to 30 minutes, or until the top is crusty and golden brown. If you want to make this into what Vera Olsen calls “Party Potatoes,” take the potatoes out of the oven, let them cool for about ten minutes so that the eggs and cheese hold them together, cut them into serving-size squares, (you can get about 12 from a pan,) transfer the squares to a platter, and top each one with a generous dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of caviar (or crumbled bacon for those who don’t like caviar.)

Imagine what would happen if schools taught with the same approach to curriculum that most churches use. One year, a teacher stumbles onto an engaging curriculum on verbs, with some really cool videos on gerunds. When the kids and teachers get bored with that curriculum, they cut it short, and the teacher runs to the curriculum store, finds a compelling study on algebraic equations (narrated by Rob Bell-Curve), and starts to teach that the next week. When that study is winding down, the teacher decides it’s time to teach on rocks or medieval knights or Christmas around the world.

for several years starting in 2004, Bezos visited iRobot’s offices, participated in strategy sessions held at places like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and became a mentor to iRobot chief executive Colin Angle, who cofounded the company in 1990. “He recognized early on that robots were a very disruptive game-changer,’’ Angle says of Bezos. “His curiosity about our space led to a very cool period of time where I could count upon him for a unique perspective.’’ Bezos is no longer actively advising the company, but his impact on the local tech scene has only grown larger. In 2008, Bezos’ investment firm provided initial funding for Rethink Robotics, a Boston company that makes simple-to-program manufacturing robots. Four years later, Amazon paid $775 million for North Reading-based Kiva, which makes robots that transport merchandise in warehouses. Also in 2012, Amazon opened a research and software development outpost in Cambridge that has done work on consumer electronics products like the Echo, a Wi-Fi-connected speaker that responds to voice commands. Rodney Brooks, an iRobot cofounder who is now chief technology officer of Rethink, says he met Bezos at the annual TED Conference. Bezos was aware of work that Brooks, a professor emeritus at MIT, had done on robot navigation and control strategies. Helen Greiner, the third cofounder of iRobot, says she met Bezos at a different technology conference, in 2004. Shortly after that, she recruited him as an adviser to iRobot. Bezos also made an investment in the company, which was privately held at the time. “He gave me a number of memorable insights,’’ Angle says. “He said, ‘Just because you won a bet doesn’t mean it was a good bet.’ Roomba might have been lucky. He was challenging us to think hard about where we were going and how to leverage our success.’’ On visits to iRobot, Greiner recalls, “he’d shake everyone’s hand and learn their names. He got them engaged.’’ She says one of the key pieces of advice Bezos supplied was about the value of open APIs — the application programming interfaces that allow other software developers to write software that talks to a product like the Roomba, expanding its functionality. The advice was followed. (Amazon also offers a range of APIs that help developers build things for its products.) By spending time with iRobot, Bezos gave employees a sense they were on the right track. “We were all believers that robotics would be huge,’’ says former iRobot exec Tom Ryden. “But when someone like that comes along and pays attention, it’s a big deal.’’ Angle says that Bezos was an adviser “in a very formative, important moment in our history,’’ and while they discussed “ideas about what practical robots could do, and what they could be,’’ Angle doesn’t want to speculate about what, exactly, Bezos gleaned from the affiliation. But Greiner says she believes “there was learning on both sides. We already had a successful consumer product with Roomba, and he had not yet launched the Kindle. He was learning from us about successful consumer products and robotics.’’ (Unfortunately, Bezos and Amazon’s public relations department would not comment.) The relationship trailed off around 2007 as Bezos got busier — right around when Amazon launched the Kindle, Greiner says. Since then, Bezos and Amazon have stayed mum about most of their activity in the state. His Bezos Expeditions investment team is still an investor in Rethink, which earlier this month announced its second product, a $29,000, one-armed robot called Sawyer that can do precise tasks, such as testing circuit boards. The warehouse-focused Kiva Systems group has been on a hiring tear, and now employs more than 500 people, according to LinkedIn. In December, Amazon said that it had 15,000 of the squat orange Kiva robots moving around racks of merchandise in 10 of its 50 distribution centers. Greiner left iRo

When I come home, they’re coming with me, Stephen.” She waited for the response. And waited. Meridith’s fist knotted, clutching her cotton nightshirt. Why wasn’t he responding? She continued, “Their uncle hasn’t contacted them. He obviously won’t be interested in guardianship, and frankly, I don’t think he’s fit anyway. And there isn’t anyone else. They’d go to foster care, probably be separated, and I can’t let that happen.” “But—we’re getting married.” He sounded stunned. “They’re my siblings.” “They were strangers two months ago.” “Well, they’re not now. They’re blood relatives, Stephen, and I care about them.” He gave a deep sigh. “I understand you feel a certain obligation. You’re really caught in a bad spot. But where am I in this decision? It’s our future, not just yours, and this isn’t the kind of decision you make alone, Meridith. Not when you’re engaged.” “I should’ve said something sooner, I know. But you were knee deep in taxes, and I—” “We’re talking about raising three children.” “You’ll love them, I know you will. And the oldest is thirteen— four years, and she’ll be off to college.” “You’re missing the point. Don’t I get a say?” He was right, of course. But what if he decided he couldn’t do it? “I’m sorry, Stephen, I know you’re right. But what do you want me to do? They’re my siblings. I can’t abandon them. I thought you’d understand; you know about my childhood. How can I not offer them the stability of a good home?” “It’s very admirable of you, but—” “You’d be a wonderful father, Stephen.” “I’m not ready for that.” The words, so pointedly spoken, made her reel. He hadn’t gotten upset, wasn’t yelling. He was calm and cool like always, but he wasn’t budging. “What am I supposed to do then, Stephen?” Even after three deep breaths, after closing her eyes and counting backward from ten, she wasn’t ready for his response. “I guess you have a choice to make.

What’s going on?” he said. The wind breathed a cool breath across her skin, making her shiver. “What do you mean?” “Come on, Meridith—that kiss . . .” “It was just a kiss,” she said feebly, but her mind replayed the embrace, refuting her words. “You won’t even look at me.” His voice was strained. “Maybe we need to turn out the lights.” Her face burned. Even the wind couldn’t cool it. The grass at Jake’s feet shimmied and bowed over his scarred tennis shoes. “I don’t know what to say. I—I just can’t do this.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Why?” She searched the ground for answers like she’d find it among the blades of grass, pull it up by the roots, and hand it over. If only it were so easy. When nothing materialized, she chose the only answer that sounded logical. “I just broke my engagement a month ago. You can’t expect—” “This isn’t about him, and you know it.” An ache started behind her eyes. “I don’t know what it is.” “Then there’s nothing to stop us, is there? Unless you don’t feel anything for me . . .” Self-doubt crept into his tone. She let the sentence hang, unable to deny it. She prayed somehow he wouldn’t remember her response to the kiss or at least not remember it the way she did. She took three cleansing breaths. Four. The briny air failed to calm her. “No, it’s there, isn’t it.” It wasn’t even a question. There was no point denying it. “All right, I won’t deny an attraction. But that’s all, that’s all there can be.” “Why?” She threw her hands up. “I’m leaving soon, moving hundreds of miles away, I’ve just inherited three kids, my engagement’s broken, my future’s uncertain . . .” Surely there was more, but her mind ran out of steam. “Those are all things people work around.” He took a step toward her, then another. “There’s something else.” A memory flashed in her mind. Her mother, in manic mode coming toward her, slowly, just like this. She’d been no more than nine years old, had been wrapped in her mom’s arms only an hour earlier, but an hour made all the difference. Now her mom’s face was red and mottled, and she was yelling. Meridith had covered her ears with her hands. Jake’s movement snagged her attention. He was getting close. She stepped back. 974 . . . 948 . . . 922 . . . “Why are you running?” She knew he wasn’t talking about the step. It hadn’t put nearly enough distance between them. He was there, right in front of her. 896 . . . 8 . . . “Meridith.” He took her by the shoulders. The motion drew her eyes to his, and she knew it with certainty: she was too far gone. As far gone as he, maybe more. What had she done? How was she going to escape with her heart intact? There weren’t enough calming breaths to fix this. She could count backward from a million and still be where she was now. Hopelessly in love with the man who made her feel too many things. “You’re afraid.

I knew the instant I saw you that you were not her.” “But you didn’t say anything!” He smirks. “To be honest, I was intrigued. I intended to question you in private, so as not to alarm my mother or Emily. But then I saw the change in my cousin. She had been quite despondent over her impending marriage--until your arrival. I admit I had no intention of interfering in her engagement, yet I could hardly take away what happiness you brought. Perhaps it was a way of alleviating my guilt for not helping her. And aside from that, you seemed to be doing no harm.” He grins at that last statement, as it’s obvious I was up to far more mischief than he realized. “You mean all this time I’ve been freaking out over you hating me and you knew?” He smiles sheepishly. It’s the closest thing to embarrassment I’ve ever seen on his face. “Yes.” I groan. “I guess I deserve that.” I turn back to the sky, and for the first time, an odd sense of peace washes over me. I want to stay here. I know now, without a shadow of a doubt, I want to stay here. Those mixed feelings have been replaced by something else: fear. Fear that it’s not really my choice to make. His thumb picks up its soft circling on my hand. “What will you do now?” “I don’t…I don’t know. I mean, I’m so lost I can’t find my way home. And maybe that sounds weird, but it’s true.” “You may stay here. As long as you need to.” I squeeze his hand. “Thank you. I’m not sure if I should, though. I belong somewhere else, and there may come a day when I need to go. When I…have to go. And I don’t want you to…I don’t want you to put anything on hold because of me.” I can’t believe I just said that. I can’t believe I implied he’d be so stuck on me that he wouldn’t pay attention to the other girls and his supposed duty to find a wife. A Duchess for Harksbury. “I would not wish you to leave if it is not your desire.” I nod and swallow the boulder-sized lump forming in my throat. I don’t know if he feels quite as strongly for me as I do for him, but he does care about me. And it feels good. “Thank you.” We turn back to the sky again, and I edge closer to him. I feel strange, dressed in my jeans and T-shirt, while he is still dressed as he always is. It makes it so painfully obvious that we’re from different worlds. Worlds that will never see one another. Worlds much too far apart. I turn toward him, so my cheek is resting on the cool grass. When he looks back at me, his eyes nearly blend with the blades until all I see is a sea of intense green. And then I do it. I edge closer to him, close my eyes, and kiss him. His lips are as soft and full as before, but I enjoy it this time, because my mind isn’t reeling like it was. I lose myself to the moment as he presses back against me. It is perfect. It is everything I want it to be and more. And then we both retreat, and I open my eyes. He moves his arm so that it wraps around my shoulders, and I have somewhere to rest my head, and then I snuggle up against him and close my eyes again, as the heavy draw of sleep lulls me under.

While we waited, Patrick and I chatted quietly with Ambassador and Lady Wight, who were dignified but very natural and gracious at the same time. The three grown-ups engaged in polite small talk about the royal visit, the weather, Diana, and our connection with her. Patrick appeared as cool as a little cucumber, answered the Wights’ questions politely, and patted their large friendly yellow Labradors. He was so calm and collected that the Wights commented enthusiastically on his poise and manners. I was so proud of him I could have burst! No wonder he was calm. He was eager to see the person he knew only as his former nanny.

Matt didn’t tell me what code to write. He didn’t know what kind of app he wanted. He didn’t write lengthy specs. He would just say, Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do X? Or, Dude, is there some way we could do Y? He didn’t know anything about software, a fact that ended up being a boon because when he asked me to solve a problem, I became more engaged.

Megan was over at the Morgan brothers’ house, having a casual dinner with Drew and his brother, Alan. It was casual in the sense that there were only three courses and no ice sculpture. When Alan left the room to get dessert, Megan said, “If you don’t give me whatever’s in your pocket, I’m going to reach in there and grab it myself.” He got a devilish grin and threw his hands in the air. “Help yourself!” She reached in and found a ring. Not an engagement ring but a ring with a large stone in the middle. A cheap-looking stone. Megan frowned. “Is this plastic?” “It’s a mood ring,” he said. “I bought it at a carnival when I was a kid. I wore it to school once because I thought it was cool. I got my first black eye that day.” “You got bullied?” “Not exactly. The guy who punched me once got two right back.” She handed the ring back. “You can wear it now, if you want. You’re an adult. Nobody’s going to beat you up.” She made a fist and punched her palm. “Not if they don’t want me to tag in and finish the match.” He put the ring back in his pocket. “Never mind,” he said. She put her hand in his pocket and grabbed the ring back. “Don’t tell me to never mind. Why do you have this? Were you going to give it to me?” “I thought it would be funny,” he said. “You’re reading all those books Feather recommended, and you’re doing that thing where you name your emotions. I thought it would be funny if you had a mood ring to help you with that.” She tried on the ring. The only finger it fit was her ring finger, so she left it there. “I like it,” she said. “It’s not very funny, though. It’s actually kind of…” She was at a loss for words. It had been happening a lot lately. Coming up with words to describe feelings was much harder than being crass or sarcastic. “Romantic,” Drew said. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s romantic.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Plus, now I know your ring size,” he said. They both looked down at her hand. She looked away. “For the future,” he said. “Relax. I don’t mean right now.” She looked at the ring again. It was changing colors. “It’s working,” she said. “It’s a heat-sensitive compound,” he said. “It doesn’t really tell you someone’s mood, just how warm their fingers are.” “But finger temperature means a lot,” she said. “I’ve been reading about the nervous system, and how everything works together in all these different feedback loops. When someone’s stressed, their hands get cold. Or when their hands get cold for some other reason, they might feel stressed and make up a story about why they feel that way. People make up a lot of stories to explain how they feel because it’s so confusing to not know, and sometimes we’d rather think it’s because of something bad than not know at all.” He looked down at the ring, which was still changing colors. “I had no idea.” “I’ll have to come into your clinic and give you some tips for putting your patients more at ease.” “You can’t do that,” he said. “It would really cut down on the screaming, which I have grown to love.” He gave her his mad scientist cackle. “You are so weird.” She kissed him again.

San Jose. Heart of Silicon Valley. Ryan could picture Camilla there, working at some high- tech company. He wondered again about Dennis Hutchins, about how he'd fooled this obviously intelligent woman into letting him have access to her computer—and to her. He felt his own jaw clench in imitation of Camilla's, and wondered if he could control it as well as she did. He hated the thought of her with that con man. Her ex- fiancé she had called him, sounding disgusted. He had given her a ring—probably bought with her own money. They had been engaged. Ryan wasn't naive enough to think they had waited for marriage to get together. How could she have allowed a con man to touch her? Whoa. There he went again. It was totally irrelevant to the case how much physical contact she'd had with the jerk. Dennis was out of her life.

April 1984. What can you do with such a brilliant spring? What action could counter balance this streaming of light and vital heat? Nothing is up to the task, not even erotic ecstasy (for eroticism, alas, is not natural and we no longer go in for rutting, the animal irruption of seasonal moods). Make love, go cycling, write? All these things are derisory when set against the explosion of spring. Only one thing could fit the bill: a total sacrifice, death, a yielding up of body and soul. Not the swoons of summer, but the offering of the first fruits, the heroism of a deflowering of life which will never again have its equivalent in the further unfolding of ages and seasons. But what if the spring were only a mask? What if all this light, this indolence, this unaccustomed heat were merely a mask? Then the only answer would be to go forth masked towards that masked nature, to cover our faces with animal finery, to respond with chastity and modesty to the sexual ecstasy of nature, to maintain some irony towards this suspect splendour and therefore some autonomy in our domain - for in fact we shall never equal the miracle of the light and anticipated heat of summer in these few spring days. Nothing in man's nature can induce him into that irrational, excessive act of taking power or of making war except the mask, the figure of the mask, in whose shade he can take up the challenge of a world the truth of which we shall never know, and which is therefore fundamentally a thing of artifice. It is the mask which makes sacrifice possible, which allows us to make war, the mask alone which enables us to engage in politics.

He also engaged in some youthful boasting. “I can with truth assure you, I heard bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.” 18 Instead of being traumatized by battle, he wanted to illustrate his coolness under fire. When King George II encountered Washington’s blithe comments about the “charming” sound of bullets in a London periodical, he detected a false note of swagger. “He would not say so if he had been used to hear many,” the king said acerbically.

Koreans are good at engaging in crisis,” he said, pointing to all the times the country had been invaded—by Britain, Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. “Only two countries are still alive after hundreds of invasions: Scotland and Korea.” Thus,

Saffron, how are you?" Logan asks and he sounds genuinely interested. How am I? Small talk, right. I rest my hip on the table and give my back to Logan as I look down at his date. "Would you think it odd for a man to come to a small town and proceed to not speak to you for six months?" Her perfect lips form a grin. "Everyone or just me specifically?" "You, specifically." Her eyes light with humor. "Yes, that is odd." "Odder still for that man to then take you to bed and blow your mind with sex for almost twenty-four hours before ditching you and then staying off the radar for a week?" The humor has left her gaze now, but she answers anyway. "Indeed." "So what would you think when that same man shows up at your place of employment with a beautiful woman and attempts to engage you in small talk?" Her eyes leave mine for Logan's, but I don't miss the emotion in her gaze. She's mad. "Exactly." I turn and give Logan my full attention. "So how am I, Logan?" I pull out the chair next to him and sit down. "I could pretend to be a cool, sophisticated woman and lie to you and say I'm fabulous, but that just isn't me. What I am is hurt and more than a little pissed, so the idea of making small talk with you is repugnant to me, unless that talk is centered on what I'd like to do to you. For example, I'd love to reach for that dull butter knife and stick it in your eye, giving it a hard turn just for good measure. The idea of strapping you to a man-sized lobster trap and throwing you into the ocean holds a great deal of appeal, as does the thought of running your ass over with my car, repeatedly. I could sit here all day making small talk about that, or you could just shut up and order some goddamn lunch.

...a vibrant, passionate story about engaging characters is more important than cool magic systems or epic action sequences. Characters and emotion are the true magic

It is one thing to capitalize on the coolness of a Black artist to sell (overpriced) products and quite another to engage the cultural specificity of Black people enough to enhance the underlying design of a widely used technology. This is why the notion that tech bias is “unintentional” or “unconscious” obscures the reality – that there is no way to create something without some intention and intended user in mind

It is such a shame that being evil , It Is fashion these days. Unfortunately that doesn't change the fact that whatever you sow. You shall reap. Either you are using fake or real account to spew hate and being vile. Creating fake narratives that doesn't exist or lying about something or someone. Spreading rumors. Speaking bad about others. Sharing their personal Information, downfall, secrets and struggles. It is either you are expressing yourself or you are doing this for clout, because you want to Increase your fanbase or number of followers or you want attention. You want engagement. You want to look cool to others. You want to trend. Whatever reason it maybe . Remember you shall reap, whatever you are sow. Galatians 6:3 - 7

the result of this engagement plainly indicates that a cool-headed commander who gets into the fight first and proceeds to business has the best of the battle from the start.

Phyl Newton was visiting Sandy that evening, but the girls displayed a marked coolness toward Tom and Bud. Instead of engaging in conversation, they retired to Sandy's room upstairs to play records, while Mrs. Swift served the boys a warmed-up but tasty meal of roast beef and mince pie. "What's wrong? Are we repulsive or something?" Bud asked as they ate. Tom shrugged, concentrating on a mouthful of roast beef. "Search me. We sure don't seem very popular with the girls tonight." Mrs. Swift, overhearing their remarks in the kitchen, smiled but maintained a diplomatic silence. Suddenly Bud slapped his forehead. "Good night! No wonder!" Tom looked up with a grin of interest. "Well, what have we done?" "It's what we haven't done, pal!" Bud retorted. "We had a date this afternoon, remember? That beach party and dance put on by Sandy and Phyl's school sorority!" Tom gulped. "Oops! Boy, we really did pull a boner this time! I completely forgot!" As they finished supper, the boys discussed various ways to make amends. Boxes of chocolates? Flowers? None of their ideas seemed to have the proper spark. "We'll have to come up with something super," Bud said. "Right!" Tom agreed. "Let's sleep on it and see if we can't dream up something by tomorrow morning that'll really wow them." The next morning Tom had a flash of inspiration as he drove to the plant in his sports car. He hailed Bud at the first opportunity. "I

Here was where this Nought truly lived. Quath had sensed its raw, sticky pull in a jolting instant of profound surprise. The mind’s upper layers were mild and obliging, like cool, smooth corridors beneath the linear engagements of the conscious—while far below, in chambers walled and ramified with bony purpose, lurked a complex, ropy labyrinth of strange power. Or minds. Quath was not even sure the Nought was a single intelligence. Its highest echelons had seemed to be more like a passive stage than a directing entity. There, on a broad, level area above the syrupy seethe, factions of the undermind warred. An abyss yawned. Instincts spoke quietly, effectively, never falling silent. Emotions flared prickly hot—heckling, yearning, always calling the higher intelligence away from its deliberations. Zesty hormones surged—not to carry wedges of information or holistic images, as in Quath, but to flood the bloodstream with urgent demands. Organs far from the brain answered these chemical heralds, pumping other hormones into the thumping flow, adding alkaline voices to the babble. Ideas rose like crystalline towers from this swamp, glimmering coolly—but soon were spattered with the aromatic chemical murk, blood on glass. These elements merged and wrestled, struggling armies rushing together in flurries, fermenting, spinning away into wild skirmishes. Lurid splashes festooned the brittle ramparts of analytical thought. A churning mire lapped hungrily at the stern bulwarks of reason, eroding worn salients even as fresh ones were built. Yet somehow this interior battle did not yield mere confusion and scattered indecision. Somehow a single coherent view emerged, holding the vital, fervent factions in check. Its actions sampled of all the myriad influences, letting none dominate for long. Quath marveled at the sheer energy behind the incessant clashings, and at the same time felt a mixture of recognition laced by repulsion. This Nought’s inner landscape was far more complex than it should be. No wonder it had not attained the technological sophistication of the podia!—it labored forward in a howling storm, its every sharp perception blunted by fraying winds of passion.

Although complete removal is not possible, neutralization (abhibhava) is possible. Just as watery liquidity can be neutralized by mixing [water] with earth, or fiery heat by means of mani, mantra, and so on, just so all the fluctations (vritti) of the mind can be neutralized by means of the practice of Yoga. In describing the condition of the jīvan-mukta, the embodied liberated being, Vidyāranya quotes profusely from the Yoga-Vāsishtha. This extensive Kashmiri work, which is presented as a dialogue between the Sage Vasishtha and Prince Rāma, states (5.90–98): He is a jīvan-mukta for whom, even though he is busy with ordinary life, all this ceases to exist and [only] the space [of ultimate Consciousness] remains. He is a true jivan-mukta whose face neither flushes nor pales in pleasure or pain and who subsists on whatever comes his way. He is a true jivan-mukta who is awake when sleeping, who knows no waking, and whose knowledge is entirely free from any vāsanā. He is a true jīvan-mukta who, though responsive to feelings such as attachment, hatred, fear, and other feelings, stands wholly pure within, like space. He is a true jīvan-mukta whose real nature is not influenced by egotism and whose mind is not subjected to attachment, whether he remains active or is inactive. He is a true jīvan-mukta whom the world does not fear and who does not fear the world, and who is free from joy, jealousy, and fear. He is a true jīvan-mukta who is at peace with the ways of the world; who, though full of all learning and arts, is yet without any; and who, though endowed with mind, is without it. He is a true jīvan-mukta who, though deeply immersed in all things, keeps his head cool, just as anyone would, when engaged in attending to other’s affairs; and whose Self is whole. After leaving the condition of living liberation, he enters into liberation after death, on the disintegration of the body by lapse of tenure, even as the wind comes to a standstill. Depending on their operative karma—the so-called prārabdha-karman—the sages look and behave differently. Some, like the famous King Janaka, are very active; others prefer silence and the solitude of forests or mountains. Some let the body drop as it will; others undertake the gargantuan discipline of transmuting the body into light, as is the objective in some Tantric teachings. These external distinctions tell us nothing about the spiritual realization of those sages. All of them, however, can be expected to emanate a palpable peace that, in the words of Saint Paul, “passeth all understanding.

In addition to the breathing meditation, here are some clearing techniques that are very effective. Find a few that work for you and do them with diligence. Wash your hands after your Reiki session and imagine that whatever you picked up is washing down the drain. Imagine you’re soaking your hands in a bucket of cool water. (This is very good right after a Reiki session if you can’t get the heat out of your hands.) Imagine that you’re breathing healthy, healing energy up from the ground and blowing the stale energy out through the top of your head or out of your mouth on the exhale. Imagine that a golden hoop goes over your head and down to your toes. Visualize that everywhere it touches, it takes negative energy out and replaces it with light. When it touches the ground, let the ground reabsorb it. (You can also go from the ground up to the sky.) Take a bath with sea salt or Epsom salts. Lavender and rosemary are good herbs to clear energy. You can add them right to your bathwater. Take a shower and imagine that the water is also clearing any negative energy with it. Smudge yourself by burning sage or incense. Clear your Reiki space often using this method. You can also use sage spray. I use sage spray on each client, the room, and myself at the end of a Reiki session. Kneel on the ground and then slowly lower your forehead to the ground in “child’s pose” from yoga. (This is great for emptying out the heart and clearing the third eye.) Spend time in nature. Fresh air and sunlight are highly beneficial. It’s best if you can get into the woods. Exercise—any kind is good. Breathing and sweating are great ways to clear yourself. Sit in a sauna or steam room. Meditate and engage in other spiritual practices. Give or receive some Reiki!

may surprise you,’ he urged. Lily’s eyes no longer smiled. Now their licorice darkness reflected only bitterness. ‘It’s not a matter of me finding the courage, Jack. I know my parents. They won’t surprise me. They’re very predictable. They’re also traditional and as far as they’re concerned, I’m as good as engaged … no, married! And they approve of Jimmy.’ Her expression turned glum. ‘All that’s missing are the rings and the party.’ ‘Lily, risk their anger or whatever it is you’re not prepared to provoke but don’t do this.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘Forget me. I’m not important. I’m talking about the rest of your life, here. From what I can see of my friends and colleagues, marriage is hard enough without the kiss of death of not loving your partner.’ ‘It’s not his fault, Jack. You don’t understand. It’s complicated. And in his way, Jimmy is very charismatic.’ Jack didn’t know Professor James Chan, eminent physician and cranio-facial surgeon based at Whitechapel’s Royal London Hospital, but he already knew he didn’t much like him. Jack might be sleeping with Lily and loving every moment he could share with her, but James Chan had a claim on her and that pissed Jack off. Privately, he wanted to confront the doctor. Instead, he propped himself on one elbow and tried once more to reason with Lily. ‘It’s not complicated, actually. This isn’t medieval China or even medieval Britain. This is London 2005. And the fact is you’re happily seeing me … and you’re nearly thirty, Lily.’ He kept his voice light even though he felt like shaking her and cursing. ‘Are you asking me to make a choice?’ He shook his head. ‘No. I’m far more subtle. I’ve had my guys rig up a camera here. I think I should show your parents exactly what you’re doing when they think you’re comforting poor Sally. I’m particularly interested in hearing their thoughts on that rather curious thing you did to me on Tuesday.’ She gave a squeal and punched him, looking up to the ceiling, suddenly unsure. Jack laughed but grew serious again almost immediately. ‘Would it help if I —?’ Lily placed her fingertips on his mouth to hush him. She kissed him long and passionately before replying. ‘I know I shouldn’t be so answerable at my age but Mum and Dad are so traditional. I don’t choose to rub it in their face that I’m not a virgin. Nothing will help, my beautiful Jack. I will marry Jimmy Chan but we have a couple more weeks before I must accept his proposal. Let’s not waste it arguing and let’s not waste it on talk of love or longing. I know you loved the woman you knew as Sophie, Jack. I know you’ve been hiding from her memory ever since and, as much as I could love you, I am not permitted to because I’m spoken for and you aren’t ready to be in love again. This is not a happy-ever-after situation for us. I know you enjoy me and perhaps could love me but this is not the right moment for us to speak of anything but enjoying the time we have, because neither of us is available for anything beyond that.’ ‘You’re wrong, Lily.’ She smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘I have to go.’ Jack sighed. ‘I’ll drop you back.’ ‘No need,’ Lily said, moving from beneath the quilt, shivering as the cool air hit her naked body. ‘I have to pick up Alys from school. She’s very sharp and I don’t need her spotting you – especially as she’s had a crush on you since you first came into the flower shop.’ Suddenly she grinned. ‘If you hurry up, at least we can shower together!’ Jack leaped from the bed and dashed to the bathroom to turn on the taps. He could hear her laughing behind him but he felt sad. Two more weeks. It wasn’t fair – and then, as if the gods had decided to punish him further, his mobile rang, the ominous theme of Darth Vader telling him this was not a call he could ignore. He gave a groan. ‘Carry on without me,’ he called to Lily, reaching for the phone. ‘Hello, sir,’ he said, waiting for the inevitable apology

No nation has ever produced a military history of such verbal nobility as the British. Retreat or advance, win or lose, blunder or bravery, murderous folly or unyielding resolution, all emerge alike clothed in dignity and touched with glory. Every engagement is gallant, every battle a decisive action. There is no shrinking from superlatives: every campaign produces a general or generalship hailed as the most brilliant of the war. Everyone is splendid: soldiers are staunch, commanders cool, the fighting magnificent. Whatever the fiasco, aplomb is unbroken. Mistakes, failures, stupidities or other causes of disaster mysteriously vanish. Disasters are recorded with care and pride and become transmuted into things of beauty. Official histories record every move in monumental and infinite detail but the details serve to obscure. Why Singapore fell or how the Sittang happened remains shrouded. Other nations attempt but never quite achieve the same self-esteem. It was not by might but by the power of her self-image that Britain in her century dominated the world. That this was irrecoverable (and that no successor would inherit it) was not yet clear in 1944.

As an outsider looking in, an x-ray of the Michaels family would look something like this: Cassidy Michaels-Harrington: Oldest child, snob, interior designer, mother of two hellions I loved dearly, and married to an attorney who, if possible, was an even bigger snob. Tyson Michaels: The baby, snob, finishing the last year of his plastic surgery residency and apparently re-engaged to an orthopedic surgeon who was not a snob, but in a lot of ways, he was by association because he put up with, and often encouraged, my brother’s behavior. And then there was me, Bowen Michaels: blissfully normal accountant, stuck in the middle, wondering how in the hell my cool-ass parents had given birth to me and the co-mayors of Snobville.

Isn’t it remarkable to think that by picking up a cool rock and bringing it to a friend, you’re engaging in the most ancient form of art? Isn’t it remarkable to think that making art can be as simple as recognizing beauty and choosing to share that beauty with others?

32. The Dark Side of the Internet There is a whole layer of the World Wide Web right under your fingertips, which you can never access through “conventional” means – it is not listed in search engines, the social media and the social bookmarking sites almost never mention it, and you are highly unlikely to stumble upon them just by surfing the Web. The terms Dark Web, Deep Web, Invisible Web, etc. have been in use ever since the Web was around. Although Deep Web and Dark Web are not the same thing, most people mistakenly identify them for one and the same. The Invisible Web is a benevolent part of it, where website owners merely wish to avoid being indexed around. On the other hand, the Dark Web is a terrifyingly “evil” part of the Internet where people can engage in a widest variety of illegal activities – from purchasing illegal drugs and watching videos of other people performing violent crimes, all the way to hiring professional assassins. And no, we are not going to tell you how to get there – you are better off without it. 33.

When I stepped out from the heat of the bathroom into the apartment, cool air engaged in a conversation with my warm skin in the language of goose bumps.

All of our natural intuitions tell us that Jesus is with us, on our side, present and helping, when life is going well. This text says the opposite. It is in "our weaknesses" that Jesus sympathizes with us. The word for "sympathize" here is a compound word formed from the prefix meaning "with" joined with the verb to suffer. "Sympathize" here is not cool and detached pity. It is a depth of felt solidarity such as is echoed in our own lives most closely only as parents to children. Indeed, it is deeper even than that. In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering, he feels the suffering as his own even though it isn't--not that his invincible divinity is threatened, but in the sense that his heart is feelingly drawn into our distress. His human nature engages our troubles comprehensively. His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain.

Inside his own head, a continuous counterpoint ran in little popping bubbles, Look! I’m engaged! Isn’t she pretty? She asked me. She’s smart, too. She’s going to marry me. Mine, mine, all mine. I’m engaged! To be married! To this woman! an effervescence that emerged, he trusted, only as a cool, suave smile.

Often, when you’re out in the single world meeting people, you meet someone you like, get their number, and put it right in your phone, transforming them into an “option” that lives in your device. Sometimes you and that option engage in some phone-based interaction and you meet up in person. But sometimes that exchange never happens. That potentially cool, exciting person dies there, buried in your phone.

There is something about playing with dice—the cool anticipation as they roll around in your hand and the fearful hope as you watch your fate tumble across the table.

Why is it that people who are absorbed by something are seen as sad? I can't explain it, but for me it reverses the true state of affairs. To be engaged is to be a part, to be absorbed and fulfilled. To be cool, to be detached from things and to have no passionate feelings is the real sadness. At the heart of depression, that quintessentially modern malaise, is a deep sense of separation from the rest of life.

Pete Kilner, of West Point’s Center for the Advancement of Leader Development and Organizational Learning, recalls a company commander in Iraq telling him why he’d stayed very strict about the rules of engagement in the war’s very worst days. “The guys hate me now,” Kilner recounts him saying, “but they’re going to thank me for the rest of their lives. I saw what happened in 2003. The guys who were out there being the mad killers everyone thought were so cool, they came back, they drank and beat their wives. They divorced and killed themselves. I’m not going to let my guys do that.

The Beasties’ TV interlocutor tried to engage them on the subject of flag-burning, to which Adam Horovitz responded deadpan, while staring into the sky, “Nice flag! Flags are cool. I like flags.

Several of her students were engrossed in their work, but when she asked one of them, a PhD student named David Merrill, to give me a quick demo of his project, he readily agreed. Merrill walked us over to a three-foot-wide mockup of a supermarket shelf stocked with cartons of butter, Egg Beaters, and cereal, and he happily slipped on a Bluetooth-enabled ring he had been tinkering with when we interrupted him. He pointed directly at a box of cereal, and a light on the shelf directly below it glowed red. This meant, he told us, that the food didn’t fit the nutritional profile that he had programmed into the device. Perhaps it contained nuts or not enough fiber. He told me that there were a lot of “really cool technologies” making this happen—an infrared transmitter/receiver mounted on the ring, a transponder on the shelf with which it communicated, and a Bluetooth connection to a smart phone that could access the wearer’s profile in real time, to name a few. It was easy to see how this “augmented reality interface,” as Merrill called it, could change the experience of in-store shopping in truly a profound way. But what really impressed me during this visit was the close working relationship he clearly enjoyed with Maes. He called her “Pattie,” and my impression was that they engaged in give-and-take like true collaborators and colleagues.

While Nigel helped her rearrange the contents of the basket, the door to the drawing room opened and Lord Broadmore came charging out. “Amelia, I must insist that you remain with me in the drawing room. You’re making a cake of yourself and I don’t like it one blasted bit.” Nigel’s eyes narrowed in warning as he took a step forward. Amelia shot out a hand to stop him. “I do not appreciate your tone of voice, my lord, nor your ungenerous implication,” she said. “I have my aunt’s approval. I certainly do not need yours.” Broadmore drew himself up to his full, outraged height. For once, Amelia didn’t care if she offended him. She was tired of his rudeness and resented his assumption that they were already engaged. “Amelia,” Broadmore said through clenched teeth, “I will not countenance this sort of behavior from the woman I expect to marry. Everyone will think you prefer Dash’s company to mine, which is bloody ridiculous. Even you can’t be that much of a birdwit.” Amelia sucked in a harsh breath, dumbfounded by the vile insult. She darted a quick glance at Nigel, expecting to find a seething male. Nigel’s blue eyes had gone so cold and flinty it made her shiver, but instead of ripping up at Broadmore he seemed to be waiting for her to respond. His eyebrows arched in polite inquiry as if to say to her, well, what are you going to do about that? It took Amelia a few moments to realize Nigel was deferring to her judgment instead of simply assuming the right to defend her regardless of her feelings. Good for you, dear Mr. Dash. She handed Nigel the sweets basket, then faced Broadmore. “My lord, I have had quite enough of your outrageously rude behavior. Rest assured that I will be escorting Mr. Dash upstairs to see my sister, and you are not to say another word about it.” Then, giving into an impulse that had been building within her for a long time, she jabbed Broadmore sharply in the chest with her index finger. “Please go back into the drawing room and do not dare to pass judgment on my behavior to anyone. In fact, if you say another word about this I will never speak to you again.” Then she whirled around, her anger propelling her like a cannonball up the staircase. Nigel caught up to her outside the nursery. “Well done, Miss Easton.” It sounded like he was choking back laughter. “You routed the enemy with commendable aplomb.” Amelia let her forehead thunk against the thick oak panel of the door. Now that her anger was cooling, her display of temper mortified her. “You must think me completely mad, Mr. Dash. I apologize for acting so disgracefully.” When he leaned in to whisper in her ear, she shivered at the exhalation of his breath on her neck. “Actually, I thought you quite splendid, Miss Easton. I was hard-pressed not to give a resounding cheer.” She tilted her head sideways to look at him. His eyes, tender and amused, smiled back at her. “Shall we?” he asked. Reaching around her, he opened the door. Amelia

Pierson glanced up at the steps, seeing not the Marquess of Ilford, but the lady standing silhouetted in the doorway. Melliscent. She looked down at him with something akin to feral pleasure. A dangerous admiration that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The look in her eyes was an offer and a promise. In that moment, he realized how little he knew her. Had known her. The woman he once thought to marry. The woman he'd been mad to possess. Then he glanced over at Louisa and he was struck by the contrast of the two- Melliscent, a cool, cold goddess, demanding of admiration and conquest. And Louisa, her quiet beauty asking for nothing, but giving everything in return. Which left him considering how little he knew of Louisa. How well could any man know the mysteries inside a woman? But one thing he couldn't shake was the sense that Louisa, unlike the woman on the steps, wouldn't have left him broken and tormented. She'd have persevered out of loyalty. And love. For she would never agree to wed unless her heart was engaged. Deeply and thoroughly.

He recognized that they were likely to have far more personal reasons for anxiety than he had himself. Mallinson, for instance, was engaged to a girl in England; Barnard might be married; Miss Brinklow had her work, vocation, or however she might regard it. Mallinson, incidentally, was by far the least composed; as the hours passed he showed himself increasingly excitable—apt, also, to resent to Conway’s face the very coolness which he had praised behind his back. Once, above the roar of the engine, a sharp storm of argument arose. “Look here,” Mallinson shouted angrily, “are we bound to sit here twiddling our thumbs while this maniac does everything he damn well wants? What’s to prevent us from smashing that panel and having it out with him?

His cool fingers were under her chin, tilting her face up to his. "You dance very well," he said, but instead of the usual mockery, there was a faintly husky note in his voice, and his eyes were intent on her. "You have the gift of grace." She stared up at him, caught in his gaze. And then, almost without volition, she turned her face, pressing her cheek against his hand. His fingers cupped her long, cool fingers and his thumb feathered her lips, lightly. She opened them beneath the faint pressure, and she knew she was trembling, captured in a moment of magic and wonder, with his hand on her mouth, their eyes caught, and she waited, breathless, knowing that the world was about to change. He bent down, blotting out the light, and she closed her eyes the moment before his mouth touched hers, his lips warm, damp, open against hers, and the shock of it sent her senses reeling, and she was falling into a hot velvet mass of glorious confusion. She was falling toward the hard parquet floor. His mouth left hers, almost before the brief kiss had begun, and his hand wrapped around her wrist, hauling her to her feet before she could collapse entirely. "A word to the wise, dear Emma," he said in a voice as cool and unmoved as the frozen ground outside. "When you engage in a dalliance on the dance floor, remember to keep your balance. It's better not to let your partner kiss you while you're still in a curtsy." "I wasn't expecting to be kissed," she said swiftly, hating him. "Weren't you? Another lesson, my dear. Always expect to be kissed. You have the mouth for it.

What is it, Cass?” Falco asked. “What just happened?” Cass realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled slowly. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said. Falco twisted her around to face him. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You can tell me anything, Cassandra.” “I’m, I have, when I was young, my parents--” She couldn’t figure out how to tell him the truth: that she was Luca’s, even though she didn’t want to be, that she and Falco could never be together the way they wanted. “I’m engaged,” she finally blurted out, feeling simultaneously terrified and relieved. “My fiancé is away, studying in France.” Falco nodded. “Of course you are. You’re a beautiful woman from a noble family. I’d be shocked to find out that your aunt hadn’t secured your future.” He looked at her expectantly as if he were waiting to hear more. “So you aren’t angry with me?” Cass buried her shaking hands in the folds of her skirts. How could he not be furious? She had lied to him. Well, practically. She had let him kiss her, even though she couldn’t be his bride. She had even kissed him back. Falco smiled at her through the dark. “Is that what’s been worrying you? No, starling. I’m not angry.” He pulled her body close to his again, burying his face in her hair. “You smell amazing,” he said. “Like roses and butterflies and cool spring mornings.” He held her hand up to his mouth, his fingers untying one of her lacy cuffs. Cass’s relief started to fade as Falco’s lips found the bare skin of her wrist. “Wait a minute.” She pulled away. “Why aren’t you angry with me? You and I, we kissed, we might have--” Cass couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Exactly how far would she have let things go if she hadn’t been ripped from her moment of fantasy by the stranger on the bridge? When he had loosened her bodice and reached beneath her chemise to stroke the skin of her upper back, all she had wanted was for him to loosen the rest of the laces. She definitely hadn’t been thinking about telling him to stop. Falco’s eyes gleamed in the night. “Go on. We might have what?

There’s a dead girl in there who’s not supposed to be, and another girl murdered, and you don’t care. You don’t care about them, or me.” She turned and walked away from him, blinking back tears. “I refuse to be lied to any longer.” What an idiot she was. “Cassandra, wait.” Falco ran after her, grabbing her arm just before she reached the edge of Agnese’s garden. “I do care. Give me two days. That’s all I need. And then I will tell you everything you want to know.” He stared at her. “Please. I’m asking you to trust me.” “Why should I?” Cass asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The breeze rustled through the ivy. Cass watched one leaf whip back and forth. “Last night you told me not to trust you, and tonight you tell me I should. What’s changed?” “What’s changed is that I…” Falco reached for her face, his fingertips caressing her cheekbones. “I’m falling in love with you,” he said, brushing a strand of hair back from her eyes. “For the longest time I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. So impossible. But I can’t deny my feelings any longer. You’re more than a muse, Cass. I want you to be more. I want you to be mine.” “But you know--” Cass could barely stutter out a sentence; Falco’s words were so unexpected, she could hardly breathe. “But I’m engaged…” “Forget the engagement. Forget what you’re supposed to do. What do you want to do, Cass? What do you need?” Cass felt her resolve melting away. His fingertips were ten individual spots of heat on her cool skin. She was tired of being cold. All she had to do was lean in and let the warmth engulf her. She thought of their bodies pressed together in the old batèla, her hands caressing his bare skin as their mouths met over and over. She realized she was crying. Falco kissed away her tears one at a time. Each time his lips touched her skin, she felt a brightness, like he was making flowers bloom inside of her. “I want to believe you, but it’s not that simple. I--” “It is that simple.” Falco tilted her face upward and pressed his mouth to hers, gently, then harder. Cass didn’t even try to resist. The wind whipped his hair around, and hers, tickling her skin as Falco pressed her against the framework of the trellis that lined the back of her aunt’s garden. Falco leaned into her and Cass could feel their hearts beating against each other. This was what a kiss should feel like. This was real.

Coworker Recognition Over the years, I have found that coworker recognition is a great way to fill the potential gaps that exist in the first two levels of recognition. What processes do you have in place to help all coworkers recognize when they see the good deeds of others? TINYpulse, an employee feedback, recognition, and performance management software company, created Cheers for Peers, a coworker recognition module. Ketti Salemme, the company’s former senior communications manager, told me that they “realized that managers don’t see all the things employees do. When other employees send recognition, it goes miles. The cool thing is that managers can see what others are seeing and can mention it so that their work does not go unnoticed.

They'll want to see my reactions to their abundance: polite restraint, concealed outrage, and a base, desirous hunger beneath. I must play this part with a veneer of new-millennial-money coolness; serving up savage witticisms alongside the hors d'œuvres. It's a fictionalization of who I am, but my engagement transforms the fiction into truth. My thoughts, my ideas - even my identity - can only exist as a response to the partygoers' words and actions. Articulated along the perimeter of their form. Reinforcing both their self-hood, and its centrality to mine. How else can they be certain of who they are, and what they aren't? Delineation requires a sharp, black outline.