Cranky Day Quotes

It’s a responsibility that I take most seriously, so excuse me for banning you from killing them because you have reverse PMS. (Acheron) Reverse PMS? (Artemis) Yeah, unlike a normal woman, you’re cranky twenty-eight days out of the month. (Acheron)

The day we finally hold ourselves accountable, rather than putting the blame on others, and come clean about our responsibilities, we unfetter ourselves from ravaging frustrations and fretting crankiness. ("The unbearable heaviness of being" )

I didn't know whether to trust Alaska, and I'd certainly had enough of her unpredictability - cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next. I preferred the Colonel: At least when he was cranky, he had a reason.

Better cranky and alive than cheerful and dead.

When you’re not around, even for a little while, I feel like I have to go find you. I just feel this pull to be near you. I want to know what you’re thinking, and what you’re up to, and how you feel. I want to take you places and show you things. I want to memorize you—to learn you like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just … found.

You’re cranky because you’re tired,” Amos said. “You got that I-have-to-save-everyone hangup, so I make it that you haven’t slept in about two days. But listening to people bitch? Yeah, that’s sorta your job. It’s why you make the big money.” “We make the same money.” “Then I guess you’re doing it for the fame and glory.” “I hate you,” Holden said.

Alec had been cranky that day, having wrenched his arm almost out of its socket during a fight with a dragon demon.

Abby had a little trick that she used any time Red acted like a cranky old codger. She reminded herself of the day she had fallen in love with him.

I get cranky when I'm low blood sugar. I'm not diabetic or anything, but I've got that condition. What's it called? Oh, right, being human.

Good friendships are like breakfast. You think you’re too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired.

There was only so much cranky little bitch you can handle in a day, even if it was called for.

You owe me this. You made me get rid of my assassin and now I have no control over those creatures that—" That you created," he added, interrupting her angry tirade. "Don't forget the important part here. The Dark-Hunters wouldn't exist at all had someone, and for the sake of your missing intellect let me clarify that, you, not stolen powers from me that could bring back the dead. I didn't need the Dark-Hunters to help me fight against the Daimons and protect the humans. I was doing fine on my own. But you wouldn't have it. You created them and made me responsible for their lives. It's a responsibility that I take most seriously, so excuse me for banning you from killing them because you have reverse PMS." She scowled. "Reverse PMS?" Yeah, unlike a normal woman, you're cranky twenty-eight days out of the month.

Mitch was looking really good these days. Healthier. Stronger. Happier…except at this moment. He looked unusually cranky.

And ultimately, they find out everything: How you chew, how you sip, how you hum, how you dance. How you smell at every point in the day, how you are on the phone with your mother, the fact that many of your friends are shallow, that you always have to sit on the aisle, how you never really listen, how whiny you get when you travel, how you’re not gracious to her friends when they call, how certain game shows make you really really happy, how cranky you get because you’re too stupid to remember to eat, how you manage to get confrontational only when it’s with the absolute wrong person to be yelling at, how you don’t like the way you look in any picture you’ve taken since 1973, how you’re unable to get off the phone when you’re running late because you don’t have the ability to say, “This isn’t a good time; can I call you back?” How you have to lick certain fruits before actually eating them, how you have no ability to save receipts - all these things, and they still want to sign on. They still like you.

Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples. Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary, are bearers of resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, and like my friend Don did at Dylan Klebold's funeral,t hat death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, we still make our song alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

What's the big idea?" Sabrina demanded. "I declared war on you, remember?" Puck said. Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Is this another one of your stupid pranks?" Puck sniffed. "You have contaminated me with your puberty virus and you called my villainy into question." "First of all, puberty isn't a virus," Sabrina said as she fought a tug of was with the Pegasus for her now rather damp pillow."Secondly, I'm sorry if I gave you the itty-bitty baby and boo-boo face. Do you wasnt me to give you a hug?" Puck curled his lip in anger. "Oh, now is the baby cranky. Perhaps we should put him down for a nap?" "We'll see who's laughing soon enough," Puck said. "You see these flying horses?" "Duh!" "These horses have a very special diet," Puck said. "For the last two days they have eaten nothing but chili dogs and prune juice." Sabrina heard a rumble coming from Puck's horse. It was so loud it drowned out the sound of its beating wings. Sabrina couldn't tell if the churn of the sound was worse for the Pegasus but it whined a bit and its eyes bulged nervously. Puck continued. "Now, chili dogs and prune juice are a hard combination on a person's belly. It can keep a human being on the toilet for a week. Imagine what would happen if I fed chili dogs and prune juice to an eight-hundred-and-fifty-pound flying horse. Oh, wait a minute! You don't have to imagine it. I did feed chili dogs and prune juice to an eight-hundred-and-fifty-pound flying horse. In fact, I fed them all the same thing!

She makes me crazy. She makes me happy. I think she's so beautiful that I want to just sit and look at her for hours. One minute I'm perfectly sane, and the next I'm totally losing it. She couldn’t give a shit less about the fact that I'm rich, and I think the woman is blind because I swear she doesn't even notice that I'm scarred. The way she looks at me sometimes makes me feel like I'm ten feet tall. And she's looking at me. Not the billionaire, not the wealthy executive. Just the man. She can be as stubborn as a damn mule, but I even like that because she's determined. Smart. Kind. And she puts up with my cranky ass, accepts me exactly as I am." Breathless from his tirade, Simon sucked in a trembling, uneven gulp of air. He slumped forward, his anger spent. "So, yeah. If these wild lunatic, possessive feelings for her that I have every fucking minute of every day are love...I'm screwed. I'm can't even imagine having to live my life without her.

Fossey, Fossey, you cranky difficult strong-arming self-destructive misanthrope, mediocre scientist, deceiver of earnest college students, probable cause of more deaths of the gorillas than if you had never set foot in Rwanda, Fossey, you pain-in-the-ass saint, I do not believe in prayers or souls, but I will pray for your soul, I will remember you for all of my days, in gratitude for that moment by the graves when all I felt was the pure, cleansing sadness of returning home and finding nothing but ghosts.

Back at home, days later, feel cranky and tired. Sit on the couch and tell him he's stupid. That you bet he doesn't know who Coriolanus is. That since you moved in you've noticed he rarely reads. He will give you a hurt, hungry-to-learn look, with his James Cagney eyes. He will try to kiss you. Turn your head. Feel suffocated. (from "How")

Once a seminary student asked to shadow me for two days to see what my life as a pastor was like. At the end, he said, "Oh my gosh, you're basically a person for a living.

The one big surprise is that as it turns out, God is the sun. It makes sense, if you think about it. Why we didn't see it sooner I cannot say. Every day the sun was right there burning, our and other planets hovering around it, always apologizing and we didn't think it was God. Why would there be a God and also a sun? Of course God is the sun. Everyone in the life before was cranky, I think, because they just wanted to know.

I love that there's no cutoff where we get labeled and sent off to a home for hopeless, cranky, depressives. Every day is a new chance to listen longer and be braver and love more. We get to try again and again and again.

Abby had a little trick that she used any time Red acted like a cranky old codger. She reminded herself of the day she had fallen in love with him. “It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon,” she’d begin, and it would all come back to her—the newness of it, the whole new world magically opening before her at the moment when she first realized that this person that she’d barely noticed all these years was, in fact, a treasure. He was perfect, was how she’d put it to herself. And then that clear-eyed, calm-faced boy would shine forth from Red’s sags and wrinkles, from his crumpled eyelids and hollowed cheeks and the two deep crevices bracketing his mouth and just his general obtuseness, his stubbornness, his infuriating belief that simple cold logic could solve all of life’s problems, and she would feel unspeakably lucky to have ended up with him.

I'm going on a diet.  (Crud, I know) I am going to be cranky.  I am going to be irritable. I am going to be moody and sad and mean.  And, yes, I am going to be hungry.  Please don't feed me, even if I try to bite you.  Please don't tease me, I may hurt you. Please don't try to encourage me, I may growl and snap at you.  Please don't help me, I may blame you for everything aggravating in the known universe.   Please don't be offended by my scowl, I cannot smile.   But most importantly, please keep your distance until this trial is over to prevent any unnecessary casualties.  Thank you for your understanding. 

What is it they say? The days are long but the years are short? Whoever said that was a mom with three kids under the age of three. Tired and cranky on an hourly basis, bursting with joy when you put your head on the pillow. Raising kids is hard work. It was something I was happy to do, though.

When you’re not around, even for a little while, I feel like I have to go find you. I just feel this pull to be near you. I want to know what you’re thinking, and what you’re up to, and how you feel. I want to take you places and show you things. I want to memorize you—to learn you like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just … found.

I carried a bravado about my drinking like I was a hero of debauchery. But on that Christmas Day, I felt like shit. I had a vague realisation that I was just trying to keep up with some version of myself that I had decided was accurate.

Want to know the coolest thing about the coming? Not that the One who played marbles with the stars gave it up to play marbles with marbles. Or that the One who hung the galaxies gave it up to hang doorjambs to the displeasure of a cranky client who wanted everything yesterday but couldn't pay until tomorrow. Not that he, in an instant, went from needing nothing to needing air, food, a tub of hot water and salts for his tired feet, and, more than anything, needing somebody - anybody - who was more concerned about where he would spend eternity rather than where he would spend Friday's paycheck. Or that he resisted the urge to fry the two=bit, self-appointed hall monitors of holiness who dared suggest that he was doing the work of the devil. Not that he kept his cool while the dozen best friends he ever had felt the heat and got out of the kitchen. Or that he gave no command to the angels who begged, "Just give us the nod, Lord. One word and these demons will be deviled eggs." Not that he refused to defend himself when blamed for every sin of every slut and sailor since Adam. Or that he stood silent as a million guilty verdicts echoed in the tribunal of heaven and the giver of light was left in the chill of a sinner's night. Not even that after three days in a dark hole he stepped into the Easter sunrise with a smile and a swagger and a question for lowly Lucifer - "Is that your best punch?" That was cool, incredibly cool. But want to know the coolest thing about the One who gave up the crown of heaven for a crown of thorns? He did it for you. Just for you.

Jack kept going. “When you’re not around, even for a little while, I feel like I have to go find you. I just feel this pull to be near you. I want to know what you’re thinking, and what you’re up to, and how you feel. I want to take you places and show you things. I want to memorize you—to learn you like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just … found.

You do not see deviantly gendered people walking around with Nalgene bottles, getting our sixty-four recommended ounces as we go through our days. I am sure that somewhere there is an argument to be made that the trans community as a whole is a little cranky because we could all use a nice big glass of water.

There's a pattern in these Commandments of setting things apart so that their holiness will be perceived. Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced. Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father, who usually labor and are heavy laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing. Believe me, I know this can be a hard Commandment to keep. But I believe also that the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object.

The seminar was long and boring and Quinn was seriously cranky. He did not want to go through another two days of sitting through watching some stick-up-his-ass talk about shit he already knew. Margot paid attention for the first half of it, but she started to get bored, also. And when Margot gets bored, she fidgets. Quinn almost strangled her today. He thought about many creative ways to end her fidgeting, many of them involved duct tape. Duct tape was a man’s best friend after all...no wait, that was dogs.

Camila: What is it they say? The days are long but the years are short? Whoever said that was a mom with three kids under the age of three. Tired and cranky on an hourly basis, bursting with joy when you put your head on the pillow. Raising kids is hard work. It was work I was happy to do, though. Everybody is good at something. I was good at motherhood.

So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don’t let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list. Good friendships are like breakfast. You think you’re too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired. In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don’t have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating. But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you’ll realize in a flash that you’re breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren’t much company.

I am tired of sinking down to a lower place to be with men. I am tired of throwing a tarp over some of my personality so that the shape of my identity suits some gross man a little better, for whatever shitty things he needs to do in order to keep his boring identity erect and supreme. I have many grievances and no place to set them down, and I am cranky from having to shoulder this burden of reactions, like I am a fucking Ox that should carry your unsellable wares. I am tired of buying my own flowers. I am tired of having to hold my breath through Valentine's Day the way you do when you drive past a graveyard. I want a valentine from a normal person who is horny. I want a prize for how well I can love. I want to be a prize for love.

Fucked up is the universal condition of man. We were crossing to Oregon behind a cranky team of mules—the very definition, the apotheosis, the pinnacle, of fucked up. I woke in the morning to harness mules, fucked up, obsessed all day on making more miles, fucked up, and collapsed onto my squalid wagon matteess every night, fucked up. I was having a great time, enjoying the best summer of my life, fucked up. Fucked up is good.

From my father I heard only these words: "But you were born for such a day as this." He closed the book and my mother joined him in embracing me. They prayed over me and they gave me a blessing. And some blessings, like the one my conservative Christian parents gave to their soon-to-be-Lutheran pastor daughter who had put them through hell, are the kind of blessings that stay with you for the rest of your life. The kind you can't speak of without crying all over again.

What it meant was learning to find God in the center of everything I did, and to see everything I did as what God wanted of me in that moment. Folding this load of laundry, driving this carpool, feeding this hungry, cranky child. These were the things God asked of me, and I would do them for him. I would give him my YES in each moment, as often as I could remember. In doing so, Jesus could act in me and I could grow in love for him. If I moved about the hours of my day with a trust that whatever I was doing was what God wanted me to be doing, I would have incredible peace.

Give it a go and you’ll be amazed by the spaciousness and support you attract by bringing these questions to the forefront every day! How to Receive: You Are Worthy Once you start opening your eyes to it, you’ll start to see that there’s help available for you all over the darn place. Women who feel unworthy of getting their needs met (or even having needs in the first place) or who are cranky from years of not getting their needs met tend to be blind to the help that’s all around them. They don’t expect help, so they don’t see help. We tend to get what we expect and we tend to get what we think we’re worthy of.

There's a patter in these Commandments of setting things apart so that their holiness will be perceived. Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced. Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father, who usually labor and are heavy laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing. Believe me, I know this can be a hard Commandment to keep. But I believe also that the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object.

Abby had a little trick that she used any time Red acted like a cranky old codger. She reminded herself of the day she had fallen in love with him. “It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon,” she’d begin, and it would all come back to her—the newness of it, the whole new world magically opening before her at the moment when she first realized that this person that she’d barely noticed all these years was, in fact, a treasure. He was perfect, was how she’d put it to herself. And then that clear-eyed, calm-faced boy would shine forth from Red’s sags and wrinkles, from his crumpled eyelids and hollowed cheeks and the two deep crevices bracketing his mouth and just his general obtuseness,

What I’m saying is, the women in your file—those women from my past—they’re the ‘befores.’ And you…” He looked right into my eyes. “You’re the ‘after.’” And just like that, I got it. I got what Jack Stapleton meant by “real.” More than that, I believed him. Jack kept going. “When you’re not around, even for a little while, I feel like I have to go find you. I just feel this pull to be near you. I want to know what you’re thinking, and what you’re up to, and how you feel. I want to take you places and show you things. I want to memorize you—to learn you like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just … found.

There was a big “Sesame Street Live” extravaganza over at Madison Square Garden, so thousands of people decided to make a day of it and go straight from Sesame Street to Santa. We were packed today, absolutely packed, and everyone was cranky. Once the line gets long we break it up into four different lines because anyone in their right mind would leave if they knew it would take over two hours to see Santa. Two hours — you could see a movie in two hours. Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they’re not living in a democratic nation. People stand in line for two hours and they go over the edge. I was sent into the hallway to direct the second phase of the line. The hallway was packed with people, and all of them seemed to stop me with a question: which way to the down escalator, which way to the elevator, the Patio Restaurant, gift wrap, the women’s rest room, Trim-A-Tree. There was a line for Santa and a line for the women’s bathroom, and one woman, after asking me a dozen questions already, asked, “Which is the line for the women’s bathroom?” I shouted that I thought it was the line with all the women in it. She said, “I’m going to have you fired.” I had two people say that to me today, “I’m going to have you fired.” Go ahead, be my guest. I’m wearing a green velvet costume; it doesn’t get any worse than this. Who do these people think they are? “I’m going to have you fired!” and I wanted to lean over and say, “I’m going to have you killed.

Romantic love has highs and lows and lots of rare emotions and dangerous sensations but it bores easily and has no friendship in it, and often when it's over, it is as if a tornado passed. It's a very expensive form of recreation, a theatre play with daydreams, a frolic of your own in which you are the main event. Human love is based in every day, not fantasies or illusions. It acknowledges the other person as a separate person and even loves them for their imperfections, for their vulnerabilities and their incompleteness, and allows them to change and to grow. It seeks to honour, not to use, to empower, not to overpower, and when it fails, it just gets cranky, it does not blow a fuse.

Princess Violet and Caleb are very happy. They laugh all day long. Their children, Ondine and Tootie, are growing up, and Tootie is getting a little fat even though she eats only nuts and fruits. Caleb smiled when I read this to him. He was nicer to me now. He didn’t seem to mind me writing stories about him. Sometimes he even liked them. But writing was hard. Stories wouldn’t come, and I said so to Grandfather. He nodded. “Maybe there’s too much going on, Cassie. Too much in your head, filling it up.” “Mostly Mama and the terrible baby,” I said. “I do not plan to like that baby.” Grandfather sat down next to me. “Remember when I first came here? You didn’t much like me.” I thought Grandfather was mean then. I thought he was hateful and cranky. “You changed,” I said. “You changed, too,” said Grandfather. “You changed more,” I said, making Grandfather laugh.

She is pissed off all the time,” he mumbled and I remained silent, letting him ramble. “She wants chocolate ice cream, I go in search of chocolate, but the time I get back she’s pissed because she wants strawberry instead. I can’t win.” He looked me straight in the eyes and I swear his expression was one of desperation. “It wasn’t like this before. With Liam she was so sweet. But I swear the damn devil has possessed my wife and she might kill me in my sleep one night.” It was then I laughed. “What the hell is so funny?” he asked. “I sleep with one eye open and one leg hanging off the bed touching the floor at my side. This way if I have to move fast I feel I’m one step closer.” He didn’t smile. There was absolutely no humor in his words. “Weren’t you the one that said you wanted five kids?” I asked. “I changed my mind. After this one, we’re done. I want Trinity back.” Again, complete seriousness. Poor guy looked lost. And it was the best damn thing to witness. Within four months of having Liam, Trinity was pregnant again. And this time she was cranky as hell. Everyone noticed it, but she directed all that aggravation toward the man she said was to blame. And the rest of us loved to witness his hell. “Go home, Chase,” I told him and he looked as if he wanted to argue. “Stop at the store and pick up every flavor of ice cream they got,” I told him. “Tell her she’s beautiful and rub her feet.” “I do that already,” he whined. “I tell her she’s beautiful, and no other woman has ever looked as amazing as her. I tell her I love her and that she is my world, but she is like the exorcist.” “Well it’s your job to take it. Let her growl and complain and just take it,” I told him. “Because at the end of the day you just need to remember one thing.” He looked at me like I was about to give him the best piece of advice. I almost felt bad about the fact that I had nothing reassuring to say. “What?” he asked and I cracked a smile, almost talking myself out of taking the chance at being an asshole. Then I thought about the fact that had the roles been reversed he would have jumped at the chance. “You are to blame for the state she is in.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “And the rest of us guys are loving that it’s you and not us being tortured.” “You’re an asshole,” he mumbled as he turned around and walked off toward his truck. I laughed the entire drive home.

There, in that presumed paradise, the engineers were stranded in the company of an infantile mentality. They created artificial smartness, made a simulacrum of intelligence. But what they talked to all day was little more than a mechanism that read bits off a disk drive. If a comma in the code was out of place, it complained like a kid who won’t tolerate a pea touching the mashed potatoes. And, exhausted though the programmer may be, the machine was like an uncanny child that never got tired. There was Karl and the rest of the team, fitting the general definition of the modern software engineer: a man left alone all day with a cranky, illiterate thing, which he must somehow make grow up. It was an odd and satisfying gender revenge. Is it any surprise that these isolated men need relief, seek company, hook up This is not to say that women are not capable of engineering’s male-like isolation. Until I became a programmer, I didn’t thoroughly understand the usefulness of such isolation: the silence, the reduction of life to thought and form; for example, going off to a dark room to work on a program when relations with people get difficult. I’m perfectly capable of this isolation. I first noticed it during the visit of a particularly tiresome guest. All I could think was: There’s that bug waiting for me, I really should go find that bug.

It’s more an affliction than the expression of any high-minded ideals. I watch Mark Bittman enjoy a perfectly and authentically prepared Spanish paella on TV, after which he demonstrates how his viewers can do it at home—in an aluminum saucepot—and I want to shove my head through the glass of my TV screen and take a giant bite out of his skull, scoop the soft, slurry-like material inside into my paw, and then throw it right back into his smug, fireplug face. The notion that anyone would believe Catherine Zeta-Jones as an obsessively perfectionist chef (particularly given the ridiculously clumsy, 1980s-looking food) in the wretched film No Reservations made me want to vomit blood, hunt down the producers, and kick them slowly to death. (Worse was the fact that the damn thing was a remake of the unusually excellent German chef flick Mostly Martha.) On Hell’s Kitchen, when Gordon Ramsay pretends that the criminally inept, desperately unhealthy gland case in front of him could ever stand a chance in hell of surviving even three minutes as “executive chef of the new Gordon Ramsay restaurant” (the putative grand prize for the finalist), I’m inexplicably actually angry on Gordon’s behalf. And he’s the one making a quarter-million dollars an episode—very contentedly, too, from all reports. The eye-searing “Kwanzaa Cake” clip on YouTube, of Sandra Lee doing things with store-bought angel food cake, canned frosting, and corn nuts, instead of being simply the unintentionally hilarious viral video it should be, makes me mad for all humanity. I. Just. Can’t. Help it. I wish, really, that I was so far up my own ass that I could somehow believe myself to be some kind of standard-bearer for good eating—or ombudsman, or even the deliverer of thoughtful critique. But that wouldn’t be true, would it? I’m just a cranky old fuck with what, I guess, could charitably be called “issues.” And I’m still angry. But eat the fucking fish on Monday already. Okay? I wrote those immortal words about not going for the Monday fish, the ones that’ll haunt me long after I’m crumbs in a can, knowing nothing other than New York City. And times, to be fair, have changed. Okay, I still would advise against the fish special at T.G.I. McSweenigan’s, “A Place for Beer,” on a Monday. Fresh fish, I’d guess, is probably not the main thrust of their business. But things are different now for chefs and cooks. The odds are better than ever that the guy slinging fish and chips back there in the kitchen actually gives a shit about what he’s doing. And even if he doesn’t, these days he has to figure that you might actually know the difference. Back when I wrote the book that changed my life, I was angriest—like a lot of chefs and cooks of my middling abilities—at my customers. They’ve changed. I’ve changed. About them, I’m not angry anymore.

Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who’d been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons. The Crown saw no point in feeding them year after year, and they were far too dangerous to be turned loose on the streets of London—so, rather than overload the public hanging schedule, the King’s Minister of Gaol decided to put this scum to work on the other side of the Atlantic, in The Colonies, where cheap labor was much in demand. Most of these poor bastards wound up in what is now the Deep South because of the wretched climate. No settler with good sense and a few dollars in his pocket would venture south of Richmond. There was plenty of opportunity around Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—and by British standards the climate in places like South Carolina and Georgia was close to Hell on Earth: swamps, alligators, mosquitoes, tropical disease... all this plus a boiling sun all day long and no way to make money unless you had a land grant from the King... So the South was sparsely settled at first, and the shortage of skilled labor was a serious problem to the scattered aristocracy of would-be cotton barons who’d been granted huge tracts of good land that would make them all rich if they could only get people to work it. The slave-trade was one answer, but Africa in 1699 was not a fertile breeding ground for middle-management types... and the planters said it was damn near impossible for one white man to establish any kind of control over a boatload of black primitives. The bastards couldn’t even speak English. How could a man get the crop in, with brutes like that for help? There would have to be managers, keepers, overseers: white men who spoke the language, and had a sense of purpose in life. But where would they come from? There was no middle class in the South: only masters and slaves... and all that rich land lying fallow. The King was quick to grasp the financial implications of the problem: The crops must be planted and harvested, in order to sell them for gold—and if all those lazy bastards needed was a few thousand half-bright English-speaking lackeys in order to bring the crops in... hell, that was easy: Clean out the jails, cut back on the Crown’s grocery bill, jolt the liberals off balance by announcing a new “Progressive Amnesty” program for hardened criminals.... Wonderful. Dispatch royal messengers to spread the good word in every corner of the kingdom; and after that send out professional pollsters to record an amazing 66 percent jump in the King’s popularity... then wait a few weeks before announcing the new 10 percent sales tax on ale. That’s how the South got settled. Not the whole story, perhaps, but it goes a long way toward explaining why George Wallace is the Governor of Alabama. He has the same smile as his great-grandfather—a thrice-convicted pig thief from somewhere near Nottingham, who made a small reputation, they say, as a jailhouse lawyer, before he got shipped out. With a bit of imagination you can almost hear the cranky little bastard haranguing his fellow prisoners in London jail, urging them on to revolt: “Lissen here, you poor fools! There’s not much time! Even now—up there in the tower—they’re cookin up some kind of cruel new punishment for us! How much longer will we stand for it? And now they want to ship us across the ocean to work like slaves in a swamp with a bunch of goddamn Hottentots! “We won’t go! It’s asinine! We’ll tear this place apart before we’ll let that thieving old faggot of a king send us off to work next to Africans! “How much more of this misery can we stand, boys? I know you’re fed right up to here with it. I can see it in your eyes— pure misery! And I’m tellin’ you, we don’t have to stand for it!...

In the meantime, I tried my best to acclimate to my new life in the middle of nowhere. I had to get used to the fact that I lived twenty miles from the nearest grocery store. That I couldn’t just run next door when I ran out of eggs. That there was no such thing as sushi. Not that it would matter, anyway. No cowboy on the ranch would touch it. That’s bait, they’d say, laughing at any city person who would convince themselves that such a food was tasty. And the trash truck: there wasn’t one. In this strange new land, there was no infrastructure for dealing with trash. There were cows in my yard, and they pooped everywhere--on the porch, in the yard, even on my car if they happened to be walking near it when they dropped a load. There wasn’t a yard crew to clean it up. I wanted to hire people, but there were no people. The reality of my situation grew more crystal clear every day. One morning, after I choked down a bowl of cereal, I looked outside the window and saw a mountain lion siting on the hood of my car, licking his paws--likely, I imagined, after tearing a neighboring rancher’s wife from limb to limb and eating her for breakfast. I darted to the phone and called Marlboro Man, telling him there was a mountain lion sitting on my car. My heart beat inside my chest. I had no idea mountain lions were indigenous to the area. “It’s probably just a bobcat,” Marlboro Man reassured me. I didn’t believe him. “No way--it’s huge,” I cried. “It’s seriously got to be a mountain lion!” “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Cows mooed in the background. I hung up the phone, incredulous at Marlboro Man’s lack of concern, and banged on the window with the palm of my hand, hoping to scare the wild cat away. But it only looked up and stared at me through the window, imagining me on a plate with a side of pureed trout. My courtship with Marlboro Man, filled with fizzy romance, hadn’t prepared me for any of this; not the mice I heard scratching in the wall next to my bed, not the flat tires I got from driving my car up and down the jagged gravel roads. Before I got married, I didn’t know how to use a jack or a crowbar…and I didn’t want to have to learn now. I didn’t want to know that the smell in the laundry room was a dead rodent. I’d never smelled a dead rodent in my life: why, when I was supposed to be a young, euphoric newlywed, was I being forced to smell one now? During the day, I was cranky. At night, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept through the night once since we returned from our honeymoon. Besides the nausea, whose second evil wave typically hit right at bedtime, I was downright spooked. As I lay next to Marlboro Man, who slept like a baby every night, I thought of monsters and serial killers: Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. In the utter silence of the country, every tiny sound was amplified; I was certain if I let myself go to sleep, the murderer outside our window would get me.

When I swung open the door, there he was: Marlboro Man, wearing Wranglers and a crisp white shirt and boots. And a sweet, heart-melting smile. What are you doing here? I thought. You’re supposed to be in the shower. You’re supposed to be with the sex kitten. “Hey,” he said, wasting no time in stepping through the door and winding his arms around my waist. My arms couldn’t help but drape over his strong shoulders; my lips couldn’t help but find his. He felt soft, warm, safe…and our first kiss turned into a third, and a sixth, and a seventh. It was the same kiss as the night before, when the phone call alerting him to the fire had come. My eyes remained tightly closed as I savored every second, trying to reconcile the present with the horror movie I’d imagined just moments earlier. I had no idea what was going on. At that point, I didn’t even care. “Ummmmm!!! I’m t-t-t-ttellin’!” Mike teased from the top of the stairs, just before running down and embracing Marlboro Man in a bear hug. “Hi, Mike,” Marlboro Man said, politely patting him on the back. “Mike?” I said, smiling and blinking my eyes. “Will you excuse us for a couple of minutes?” Mike obliged, giggling and oooo-ing as he walked toward the kitchen. Marlboro Man picked me up and brought my eyes to the level of his. Smiling, he said, “I’ve been trying to call you this afternoon.” “You have?” I said. I hadn’t even heard the phone ring. “I, um…I sort of took a nine-hour nap.” Marlboro Man chuckled. Oh, that chuckle. I needed it badly that night. He set my feet back down on the floor. “So…,” he teased. “You still cranky?” “Nope,” I finally answered, smiling. So, who is that woman in your house? So…what did you do all day? “Did you ever get any sleep?” So, who is that woman in your house? “Well,” he began. “I had to help Tim with something this morning, then I crashed on the couch for a few hours…it felt pretty good.” Who was the woman? What’s her name? What’s her cup size? He continued. “I would’ve slept all day, but Katie and her family showed up in the middle of my nap,” he said. “I forgot they were staying at my house tonight.” Katie. His cousin Katie. The one with the two young kids, who had probably just gone to bed when I’d called earlier. “Oh…really?” I said, my chest relaxing with a long, quiet exhale. “Yeah…but it’s a little crowded over there,” he said. “I thought I’d come over here and take you to a movie.” I smiled, stroking his back with my hand. “A movie sounds perfect.” The busty, bronze mystery girl slowly faded into oblivion. Mike came barreling out of the kitchen, where he’d been listening to every word. “Hey--if you guys are goin’ to the movie, c-c-c-can you drive me to the mall?” he yelled. “Sure, Mike,” Marlboro Man said. “We’ll drive you to the mall. It’ll cost you ten bucks, though.” And as the three of us made our way outside to Marlboro Man’s diesel pickup, I had to bite my lip to keep myself from articulating the only seven words in the English language that were in my vocabulary at that moment: God help me--I love that man.

I long for the days of chivalry and honour, which I suspect weren’t there in the first place. In my cranky old brain and with my rose-coloured spectacles on, everything old seems better, and I wish it wasn’t so. What I need is for someone to show me I’m wrong.

Once I’m finished writing a song, my job is done and my only input is: please perform it often and loudly and sell many, many copies. If I want to do an artist thing, then I’ll go write a song for myself and go perform it the way I want to. But if you buy it, you can do what you want to and I’ll be happy. I don’t want to be a producer or a performer, I want to be a writer. And letting it go after you’re done writing it is a big part of being a writer. I’ve never had any problems with the way any of my songs have been recorded and I’m not sure I’d tell you even if I did. My mama says, “Don’t shit where you eat.” I’m pretty hopeful and confident about the future. I think I’ll continue to make a good living at this and have lots of fun. Unlike performing, this is a field you can grow old in. The performers have to put up with the youth culture bullshit more and more lately which is one reason MTV looks so good and sounds so bad. But the writers can be old and ugly ’cause no one ever sees them. A lot of writers are in their fifties or sixties. I see myself like that one day. But whether I’m successful or unsuccessful, this is something I have to do. I mean that. If I don’t spend a certain part of most days with the music, I get very unhappy and cranky. I’d do it even if I weren’t getting paid for it. So right now, I am very grateful that I don’t have to have a day job to support my songwriting habit.

Some people smoked when they were upset, some did yoga, or drank, or paced, or picked fights, or counted to one hundred. Georgia cooked. As a small girl growing up in Massachusetts, she'd spent most of her time in her grandmother's kitchen, watching wide-eyed as Grammy kneaded the dough for her famous pumpernickel bread, sliced up parsnips and turnips for her world-class pot roast, or, if she was feeling exotic, butterflied shrimp for her delicious Thai basil seafood. A big-boned woman of solid peasant stock, as she herself used to say, Grammy moved around the cramped kitchen with grace and efficiency, her curly gray hair twisted into a low bun. Humming pop songs from the forties, her cheeks a pleasing pink, she turned out dish after fabulous dish from the cranky Tappan stove she refused to replace. Those times with Grammy were the happiest Georgia could remember. It had been almost a year since she died, and not a day passed that Georgia didn't miss her. She pulled out half a dozen eggs, sliced supermarket Swiss and some bacon from the double-width Sub-Zero. A quick scan of the spice rack yielded a lifetime supply of Old Bay seasoning, three different kinds of peppercorns, and 'sel de mer' from France's Brittany coast. People's pantries were as perplexing as their lives.

In the 1990s, on The Late Show with David Letterman, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld discussed this common human plight: I saw an ad. I love this concept of, “No payments until June.” People are like, “Oh June, it will never be June.” They buy things and say to themselves, “The guy in June, he’ll have money somehow.” And I do that with myself. Like late at night, I think, “Well, it’s night, I’m having a good time, I don’t want to go to sleep. I’m Night Guy. Getting up after five hours’ sleep? That’s Morning Guy’s problem. Let him worry about that. I’m Night Guy, I’ve got to party.” Then you get up after five hours of sleep, you’re cranky, you’re exhausted. Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There’s nothing Morning Guy can do to get back at Night Guy. The only thing Morning Guy could do is try to oversleep so many times that Day Guy loses his job and then Night Guy doesn’t have any more money to go out. Letterman laughed and replied, “You have done an excellent job of crystallizing the dichotomy of modern American life.

How do they feel about being Mr. Duncan’s guinea pigs? “I guess it’s OK,” says Michelle. “Besides getting up early and being all sweaty and gross, I’m more awake during the day. I mean, I was cranky all the time last year.” Beyond improving her mood, it will turn out, Michelle is also doing much better with her reading.

Oh, Loni, I don't have the patience to read anymore. My eyes get so tired." So what the hell will she do all day? Watch game shows? "All right then, I'll read to you." I open one of her poetry books and read a favorite passage. "The work of the world is common as mud---" She interrupts me. "That's um... that's um... Marge Piercy." And then she goes on to recite the next three, transcendent lines. I nod. "You got it, Mom." So she's not completely gone. I just have to stay calm when she's cranky, and read to her. Maybe my dad was right, all those years ago, when he encouraged me to see an invisible reservoir of good in my mother. It's like waiting for those cool pockets of air in the steaming swamp---they're unpredictable, but ever welcome.

And do you remember the thaw that leaf-bare?” Crowfur interrupted Fireheart’s thoughts, his eyes unfocused as he lost himself to his memories. “The river in the gorge rose nearly as far as the badger sets.” Patchpelt shivered. “I remember it well. ThunderClan couldn’t cross the stream to come here for the Gathering.” “Cats were drowned,” the RiverClan queen remembered sadly. “Prey too,” Crowfur added. “The cats who survived nearly starved.” “May StarClan grant it’s not so bad this season!” Patchpelt mewed fervently. Crowfur spat, “These young cats would never cope. We were tougher in those days.” Fireheart could not help protesting. “We have strong warriors now—” “Who asked your opinion?” growled the cranky old tom. “You’re hardly more than a kit!

Rylan bent low over his horse, coming as fast as he could on the rocky ground that rose to this bluff along the river. Was he trying to kill her? If so, he was doing a poor job of it. The bullets were missing, going way over her head. But even on her worst day, she’d never done anything to make the man killing mad. And Maizy knew, even though Rylan seemed like a mighty cranky man, that he wasn’t the type to shoot a young woman, especially not for just being annoying.

I’ve always said I didn’t want an ordinary life. Nothing average or mundane for me. But as I stared at the rather ample naked derriere wiggling two inches from my face today, I realized I should have been more specific with my goals. Definitely not ordinary, but not exactly what I had in mind. The Texas-flag tattoo emblazoned across the left cheek waved at me as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. The flag was distorted and stretched, as was the large yellow rose on the right cheek, both tattoos dotted with dimples and pock marks. An uneven script scrawled out “The Yellow Rose of Texas” across the top of her rump. Her entire bridal party—her closest friends and relatives, mind you—had left her high and dry. They’d stormed off the elevator as I tried to enter it, a flurry of daffodil-yellow silk, spouting and sputtering about their dear loved one, Tonya the bride. “That’s it! We’re done!” They sounded off in a chorus of clucking hens. “We ain’t goin’ back in there. She can get ready on her own!” “Yeah, she can get ready on her own!” “Known her since third grade and she’s gonna talk to me like that?” “Third grade? She’s my first cousin. I’ve known her since the day she was born. She’s always been that way. I don’t know why y’all acting all surprised.” I felt more than a little uneasy about what all this meant for our schedule. The ceremony was supposed to start in fifteen minutes. The bride should have already been downstairs and loaded in the carriage to make her way to the hotel’s beach. My unease grew to panic when I knocked on Tonya’s door and she opened it clad only in a skimpy little satin robe. “Honey, you’re supposed to be dressed and downstairs already.” I tried to say it as sweetly as possible, but I’m sure my panic came through. My Southern accent kicked in thick, which usually only happens when I’m panicked or frustrated. Or pissed. Or drunk. “Do you think I don’t know that?” she asked, arching a perfectly drawn-on eyebrow. “Do you think somehow when I booked this wedding and had invitations printed and planned the entire damned event, I somehow didn’t realize what time the ceremony started? And just who the hell are you anyway?” Well, alrighty then. Obviously this was going to be a fun day. “Um, I’m Tyler Warren. I’m assisting Lillian with your wedding today.” “Fine. Those bitches left me with my nails wet.” She held up both hands to show me the glossy, fresh manicure. “How the hell am I supposed to get dressed with wet nails?” she asked, arching both eyebrows now and glaring at me like I was somehow responsible for this. “Oh.” My mind spun with the limited time frame I had available, the amount of clothing she still needed to put on, and the amount of time it would take to get her in the carriage and to the ceremony. “Give me just a second to let Lillian know we’ll be down shortly.” I smiled what I hoped was my sweetest smile and stepped backward into the hallway. She slammed the door as I frantically dialed Lillian’s cell. “You’d better be calling to tell me she is in the carriage and on her way,” Lillian said. “It is hotter than Hades out here. I have several people looking like they’re about to faint, and I may possibly dunk a cranky, tuxedoed five-year-old

He's fine. He's fine,' he kept saying as the baby became ever more cranky and bewildered; screaming in terror if she tried to put him down. 'Why should he be unhappy?' she wanted to say. 'He has had so few days in this world. Why should the unhappiness start here?

Thoughts collided in his head. This could not be. Was Jonathan lying about his meeting with Samuel? He had never lied to David before. Was this some kind of political maneuver? He had never showed any signs of ambition all the days David had known him. But David was plagued by his own duplicitous motives and failures of faith. It was difficult for him to conceive of a life with such true devotion and purity of heart as Jonathan. Yet he had proved himself over and over to David. He was not a man of fraudulence or ambition. He was a man of integrity and honor and above all, trust in the Living God. The kind of trust that David had learned from and had even sought to emulate. But now this? The ultimate sacrifice of giving up his inheritance as the next king of Israel to David, his younger and inexperienced inferior? Giving up royalty to a nobody because a cranky Seer had told him Yahweh chose differently? Who would do such a thing? No one David had ever known. This was either the supreme example of true faith or the biggest swindle of his life. “Let us cut a covenant,” said Jonathan. “I will pledge my fealty to you and will protect you against your enemies.

To avoid early-morning wakings, do not allow your child to get out of his crib or room until at least 11 hours after his bedtime (you can settle for 10½ hours if your child consistently—after three or more days in a row—seems rested after this much sleep). One of the most difficult times for your child to put himself back to sleep is in the early morning, particularly if he’s been used to getting up or coming into bed with you at that hour. But if you get your child up too early, he’s robbed of enough sleep and will start his day overtired and cranky—and will have a tougher time napping well. For additional information on how to troubleshoot early-morning wakings, please see the section entitled “Bumps in the Road” in Chapter 10, “Special Situations.” For Crib Sleepers If your child wakes in the early-morning hours, continue to do your check-ins just as you did at bedtime and throughout the night. If he hasn’t gone back to sleep, once the clock reaches your designated wake time, go into your child’s room, open the blinds or turn on the light, and say, “You did it! You stayed in your crib the whole night until the sun was nice and bright! We’re so proud of you!” Cuddle and hug him and give him a nice full feed, if he’s ready. Whatever you do, don’t allow your child to fall back asleep—in your arms, in your bed, or in his crib; he’s spent the night practicing how to sleep on his own, and you don’t want to undo your hard work. If your child has woken early but managed to put himself back to sleep—and is still sleeping at the designated wake time—lucky you! Allow him to sleep as long as he likes, up to 12 hours; you’ll want to wake him at this point to preserve his ability to nap well. If your child sleeps later than your scheduled wake time, remember to adjust his nap time later as well (but don’t adjust it any earlier, to avoid a too-early schedule for the day).

My father and my brothers came to me and said, “We missed it, we were working. Take time to savor every moment because if you blink twice you’ll be walking her down the aisle.” Strangers would come up to us in grocery store after a particularly grueling night – I’m sure our weary expressions said it all - and they would tell us, “Enjoy these moments, even the difficult ones.” It sunk in. So I knew that it all happens fast. It doesn’t seem like it when you’re up at 3am feeding a cranky kid who won’t go back to sleep. But we made that our time. We found ways to make it fun and special, and to realize that one day she’d be off to college and I’d wish I could have another moment with her like this, just me and her, at 3am playing a game of peek a boo. On that day, I’d wish I had this day back.

Another time, the souls of a husband and wife came through to validate their presence to their daughter with a very specific shtick. The dad had me yell, “Bingo!” at which point Mom’s soul said, “They don’t have bingo on TV. It’s The Price Is Right!” The daughter laughed so hard and said that game show was her parents’ favorite. She used to call them when they were alive, and they’d say, “We need to call you back. The Big Deal is on right now!” When the daughter’s son was born, he came into the world right before the Big Deal aired, and the family joked that the baby was the Big Deal of the day. The mom’s soul also had me add that she likes Bob Barker better than Drew Carey as a host. Hey, that certainly wasn’t me talking! I think they’re both great. And though there’s a lot to be happy about in Heaven, people who were crabby or bossy here don’t seem to become unusually chipper. I’ll never forget when I channeled a woman’s parents, and I got a grumpy vibe from them. I asked the daughter, “Were your parents cranky?” And at the same time that the woman said, “No, my parents were wonderful,” her husband mouthed, “Hell yeah, they were cranky!” Grief can cause us to romanticize the deceased, so I took the husband’s word on this one.

Why do you want to marry me, Benjamin? The real reason.” “Honor is a real reason.” It was not the real reason. He wasn’t quite sure he could admit the real reason, even to himself, even in the darkness, but if he said he wanted to keep her safe and make her troubles go away, she’d likely be on a packet to France by morning. “Why don’t you want to marry me?” “I don’t want to marry anybody.” “We’re back to your glorious independence?” She remained silent, which was a good tactic. It made him feel petty and a trifle bullying, though no less determined. “Is it so hard to believe a man could esteem you greatly enough to want to share his fortune, his title, and his life with you?” She withdrew her hand and rose, shifting to stand at the railing so she looked out over the garden—and could keep her expression from Ben’s gaze, no doubt. “I believe a man could want to share his body with me.” Oh-ho. Except her words were anything but an invitation. “You are cranky, my love. Let me tuck you in. Finding a ring worthy of gracing your elegant hand might take us all day tomorrow, and that would be fatiguing indeed.” “We’re not going to take an entire day wasting coin…” He came up behind her and wrapped both arms around her middle. “Guns down, Maggie. Even the Corsican didn’t expect to make war all winter—and see what his march to Moscow cost him when he made the attempt.” She sighed softly, her shoulders dropping. “You should not be here.” “Now there you are wrong. There is no place I would rather be. You, however, should not be alone, night after night, year after year, when any man with eyes and a brain can see what a treasure you are.” “Flattery ill becomes you, Benjamin. You should be blushing to speak such arrant flummery aloud. I hired you to find my reticule, and you end up with a scandal on your hands.

Brrr,” Nic complained, her voice drifting across the darkness. “It’s so cold. Do you have a spare bearskin over there?” An image of naked limbs on a bear skin rug flashed through his mind. He cleared his throat. “I thought you were asleep.” “I dozed for a bit. My boots were killing me, so I took them off. Now my feet are cold, and that makes me uncomfortable and cranky.” Gabe hesitated a moment before saying, “Well, we can’t have cranky. Scoot them over here. I’ll rub your feet for you.” “God bless you, Gabe Callahan.” She whipped her legs out from beneath her covers and set them in his lap. She wore thin trouser socks, and when he took her right foot between his hands, he sucked in a breath. “You have ice cubes for feet.” “I told you so.” He tugged off her sock and began rubbing her bare, freezing foot. While he tried to keep his touch clinical and his thoughts impersonal, he couldn’t help noticing her foot’s slender width, the graceful arch of her instep, the softness of her skin. It was the most personal touch he’d shared with a woman in months, and damn his soul, he enjoyed it. While he massaged her right foot, her left foot crept up and rested on his thigh, inches from his torso. Inches from his erection. He should put her ice cubes right on his crotch, but he settled for the next best thing. He tugged his shirttail from his jeans and yanked her sock off her left foot. “Look, don’t take this personally. Consider it payback for doctoring my scratches that day.” He took both her feet and tucked them against his belly, sucking in an audible breath. It truly was like putting ice on his stomach. “Whoa. Have you no circulation in your feet whatsoever?” “Oh, you feel good, Callahan,” she purred. “How can you be so warm? Are you hiding a heater or something?” A heater? Was that a come-on? Or was she just clueless? He wished he could see her expression to help him judge. Wryly he replied, “Or something.” Gabe

She’d been lingering in his thoughts for days. Weeks, even. Okay, months. The friendship strategy had worked out well so far. They managed well together. The awkwardness between them rarely appeared anymore. He enjoyed her company. Her injury had effectively doused the sexual tension that had smoldered between them, allowing them to focus on getting to know each other. The more time he spent with her, the better he liked her. She was funny, witty, cranky in the morning, and soft and sweet in the evenings when she fell asleep on the sofa while watching TV. Watching

Paige, I want you to know something. I know it’s too soon for you to think about a whole lifetime, but I’m not fooling around here. I don’t have any expectations, I swear. I just want you to know that. I’m in all the way. Committed. I don’t want you to ever worry that I’m just passing the time.” She ran her fingertips through the short hair at his temple. “Aren’t you a little afraid you could get tired of me, John?” He shook his head. “I’m not that kind of guy. I take it slow—too slow, sometimes. I give things a lot of time—being sure is a good thing. But I don’t change my mind. I know in some things that can be bad. I like things to stay the same.” “I won’t hold you to anything,” she said. “I’m just so happy to be here, like this, right now....” “There’s something else I want to say about that, about us. I’m not the kind of guy who doesn’t want you to talk back or have your opinions or expects you to never have a bad day when you’re all cranky and annoyed. I want all of that—I want you to speak up, make demands, insist on the most exceptional treatment and get pissed off if you don’t get it. I want you to feel safe to yell at me just because you’re in a mood. If I’m not what you want for the long haul, I can live with that. What I could never live with is you being afraid of how I’ll act when you’re just being yourself.” It was impossible to keep tears from gathering in her eyes. “John... No one’s ever loved me like that....” “Well, baby, I do. In fact, that’s the only way I love you. Every part of you—strong and bossy, scared and needy—it doesn’t matter. If I’m gonna have you, it has to be all of you, not some little part that feels safe.” She kissed him, quick, on the lips. He brushed a tear off her cheek. “I know that baby you lost wasn’t planned, and it still hurt you pretty bad that it didn’t make it. Maybe someday, when you’re ready, you’ll talk to me about adding to our family. Giving Chris a little brother or sister.” “You’d like children?” she asked. “I never thought I would. But with you, it comes to mind.” He laughed. “It comes to mind pretty hard. It’ll keep, Paige. It’s just an idea....” She gently touched his face. “You do understand that if there’s a baby between us, you might have to cut back a little?” “How much?” he asked, that frown that she had come to adore drawing his brows together. And she laughed at him. “You’re teasing me,” he said. “Okay, you asked for it,” he said, starting on her eyelids. She grabbed his face in her hands and stopped him. “John,” she said. “I want it, too. Everything. All of you. I’ve never been this happy.” He smiled. “More where that came from,” he said. “Forever, if you want.” *

You’re teaching nursing?” he asked, surprised. She nodded. “I’ve been doing that for the past year or so. Turns out I like it.” “My new sister-in-law, Shelby—she’s a student there, in nursing. Cutest thing you’ll ever see. Best thing that ever happened to Luke. Any chance you know her?” “What year is she in?” Franci asked. “First year. She got married in her first semester because Paddy and Colin were done with their deployments—she waited for all the Riordans to be available. She’s way younger than Luke and is just starting college.” Franci tilted her head and smiled, thinking how sweet it was that cranky, womanizing old Luke ended up with a sweet young girl who was determined to get an education. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t met Luke’s wife. Most of the freshmen are stuck in liberal-arts courses the first year. I teach one medical-surgical course and one that boils down to charting ER patients. I’m just one of many instructors. Mostly, I teach juniors and seniors. I share an office on campus with another nursing instructor and I only teach a couple of days a week. Except for meetings, of which there are too many.” “You never did go for the meetings,” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to tell Shelby to introduce herself. You’ll love her. You’ll—” “One thing at a time, all right?” Franci asked patiently.

He slipped off the bench and took her right hand in both of his as he went down on one knee before her. “I love you,” he said, holding her gaze. “I love you, I cannot foresee the rest of my life without you, and I hope you feel similarly. For only if you do feel similarly will I accept your proposal of marriage or allow you to accept mine.” “You love me?” “For God’s sake.” He was off his knee in an instant, dusting briskly at his breeches. “Why else would I have tried to keep my bloody paws off you when you were just eight and twenty feet down the hall? Why else would I have gone to my father—Meddling Moreland himself?—to ask for help and advice? Why else would I have let you go, for pity’s sake, if I didn’t love you until I’m blind and silly and… Jesus, yes, I love you.” “Westhaven.” Anna reached out and stroked a hand through his hair. “You are shouting, and you mean this.” “I am not in the habit of lying to the woman whom I hope to make my duchess.” That, he saw, got through to her. Since the day she’d bashed him with her poker, he’d been honest with her. Cranky, gruff, demanding, what have you, but he’d been honest. So he was honest again. “I love you, Anna.” His voice shook with the truth of it. “I love you. I want you for my wife, my duchess, and the mother of all of my children.” She cradled her hand along his jaw, and in her eyes, he saw his own joy mirrored, his incredulity that life could offer him a gift as stunningly perfect as the love they shared, and his bottomless determination to grab that gift with both hands and never let go. She leaned into him, as if the weight of his honesty were too much. “Oh, you are the most awful man. Of course I will marry you, of course I love you, of course I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But you have made me cry, and I have need of your handkerchief.” “You have need of my arms,” he said, laughing and scooping her up against his chest. He pressed his forehead to hers and jostled her a little in his embrace. “Say it, Anna. In the King’s English, or no handkerchief for you.” He was smiling at her, grinning like a truant schoolboy on a beautiful day. “I love you,” Anna said. Then more loudly and with a fierce smile, “I love you, I love you, I love you, Gayle Windham, and I would be honored to be your duchess.” “And my wife?” He spun them in a circle, the better to hold her tightly to his chest. “You’ll be my wife, and my duchess, and the mother of my children?” “With greatest joy, I’ll be your wife, your duchess, and the mother of all your children. Now please, please, put me down and kiss me silly. I have missed you so.

In referring to abuse, I am not referring to a few choice words from a cranky spouse who had a bad day, but someone whose behaviors betray a routine pattern of intentionally hurtful behaviors, neglect, or domination; someone for whom a good day might be an anomaly. This is not the gentleman who loses his temper once in a while, but someone who is a fight waiting to happen. His lifestyle is characterized by narcissism (extreme self-centeredness) evidenced by various overt or covert forms of domination, intimidation and hostility. Do you feel as though you must walk on eggshells? Are you always striving to keep the peace? Do you keep your mouth shut most of the time, while in your heart and mind there is a growing burden of stress and fear? Do you try to convince yourself – or does he – that perhaps you are being excessively critical, overly sensitive or paranoid? Is your life a combination of confusion, hurt and anger that you work to keep under wraps as you try to maintain a modicum of normalcy in your home? It may be past time to take a closer look at how it all began and, if necessary, determine whether or how to get out and go on.

Here is a report by a parent who usually had good timing, so most drowsy cues were absent: Drowsy in this context doesn’t mean about to fall asleep (half closed eyes, barely able to keep open). When my son was a baby he would become very still about 10 minutes before he fell asleep—he is a wiggle worm, so it was noticeable. He would also gaze for long periods of time at something. This was the window when he needed to be put down for his nap. If I waited until it passed and he was really tired, he would fight sleep. So when “the stare” appeared, I would check his diaper, swaddle him, and put him down. He would gaze at his mobile for a while and then fall asleep. The baby should be awake when you put her down for her nap. You aren’t trying to ease her down and then sneak out—you want her to be able to fall asleep on her own, without rocking, patting, and so on. Try to catch her in that drowsy pre-sleep period—for many babies it is right around one to two hours after waking for the day. Start watching for signs at around thirty to ninety minutes, and I bet you will soon be able to tell when she is ready to go down. Good luck! DROWSY SIGNS Drowsy Cues or Sleepy Signs as He Becomes Drowsy: Moving into the Sleep Zone Decreased activity, less animated, becomes quieter Eyes less focused on surroundings, appears glazed over Eyelids drooping Pulling ears Slower motions, less social, less vocal Less interested in toys or people Sucking is weaker or slower Yawning Past Drowsy: Short on Sleep (SOS) Distress Signs Begin to Appear Fatigue Signs: Entering Overtired Zone. Becoming Overtired Mild fussiness, irritability, cranky Crying upon awakening Rubbing eyes Think of these symptoms of overtiredness as signaling the distress of being short on sleep (SOS): “Help me, I need sleep!

I am the only one of my siblings with red hair. When I asked my da where I got it, he joked that there must’ve been rust in the pipes. His own hair was dark—“cured,” he said, through years of toil—but when he was young it was more like auburn. Nothing like yours, he said. Your hair is as vivid as a Kinvara sunset, autumn leaves, the Koi goldfish in the window of that hotel in Galway. Mr. Grote doesn’t want to shave my head. He says it would be a crime. Instead he winds my hair around his fist and slices straight through it at the nape of my neck. A heap of coils slide to the floor, and he cuts the rest of the hair on my head about two inches long. I spend the next four days in that miserable house, burning logs and boiling water, the children cranky and underfoot as they always are, Mrs. Grote back on damp sheets on the mildewing mattress with her lice-infested hair, and there’s nothing I can do about any of it, nothing at all.

But I have to run. I know that if I don’t run in the morning, I’ll have only limited opportunity in the afternoon or evening. If I don’t run, I will perseverate about it all day, thinking and talking about it constantly. My son will notice a change in my demeanor: “Mom, did you run (or work out) this morning? Because you’re, like, really cranky.

She hoped her words rang true about her lost daughter Sarai as well, whom she hadn’t seen in over eighteen years, though she still thought about her every day and still prayed for a kind word from her. Or even a cranky one.

I awoke to a warm embrace, a frowning countenance, and Keir’s voice in my ear. “You are not to leave this bed today.” The day deteriorated from there. Marcus was cranky from lack of sleep. Keir was wound tighter then he had been the night before, if that were possible. I was upset because my arm ached, Marcus was cranky, and Keir was impossible. He ordered me to stay in bed. I refused. He ordered me to stay in the tent. I refused. He ordered me to accept an escort of my guards, Rafe and ten more men to the tents, have my assistants check my arm, and return to his tent. I refused. I asked to go into the city with him to see Warren. He refused. During our discussion, we bathed, dressed, and ate. And discussed the matter at the top of our lungs. Finally, Marcus emerged from his area and roared “Enough!” We both stopped talking, and turned to glare at him. Marcus glared right back. “You.” He said, pointing at Keir. “Go to the city with some men and find out what Warren has learned.” He turned and pointed at me. “You. Go to the tents with your guards.” He glared at both of us. “Damned fools.” He stomped off. “And don’t come back ‘til after my nap!” he yelled from the back. Keir grabbed up his cloak and sword, and stomped out. I glared at the tent wall as I finished my kavage, then grabbed up my cloak and stomped out. Epor and Isdra were waiting outside, and they eyed me with trepidation as I walked past them. They fell into step behind me, and were smart enough to stay quiet as we walked.

My courtship with Marlboro Man, filled with fizzy romance, hadn’t prepared me for any of this; not the mice I heard scratching in the wall next to my bed, not the flat tires I got from driving my car up and down the jagged gravel roads. Before I got married, I didn’t know how to use a jack or a crowbar…and I didn’t want to have to learn now. I didn’t want to know that the smell in the laundry room was a dead rodent. I’d never smelled a dead rodent in my life: why, when I was supposed to be a young, euphoric newlywed, was I being forced to smell one now? During the day, I was cranky. At night, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept through the night once since we returned from our honeymoon. Besides the nausea, whose second evil wave typically hit right at bedtime, I was downright spooked. As I lay next to Marlboro Man, who slept like a baby every night, I thought of monsters and serial killers: Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. In the utter silence of the country, every tiny sound was amplified; I was certain if I let myself go to sleep, the murderer outside our window would get me.

like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just … found.

When you’re not around, even for a little while, I feel like I have to go find you. I just feel this pull to be near you. I want to know what you’re thinking, and what you’re up to, and how you feel. I want to take you places and show you things. I want to memorize you—to learn you like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just… found.

We expect our politicians and public figures to be just like us; that is, until they admit to being tired, run-down or - the very worst - bored. Perhaps it's a reflection of our nation's tall poppy syndrome, or maybe we simply want those who represent us to represent only the very best of us, not our day-to-day selves who also get tired or sick or cranky. None of us is perfect, but our representatives must be perfection personified: of unwavering good judgement and with a superhuman body and mind. They must also be capable of perfect restorative sleep, except when we demand them to work for us around the clock.

So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don’t let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list. Good friendships are like breakfast. You think you’re too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired. In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don’t have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating. But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you’ll realize in a flash that you’re breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren’t much company. Get up, make a phone call, buy a cheap ticket, open your front door. Because there really is nothing like good friends, like the sounds of their laughter and the tones of their voices and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments.

The avalanche of expert advice—and nonexpert advice on nonetheless very enticing Web sites—undermines our belief that we are equipped with enough common sense to deal with most child-rearing issues. That battered confidence, in turn, leads us to look ever more desperately to the experts wherever we find them. At the library. In parenting magazines. On TV. Online. But a lot of those experts give advice so daunting and detailed and frankly nondoable (does anyone really want to spend the day retelling potty stories with the aid of a spoon puppet?) that we feel like failures. Then when—surprise—our kids turn out not to be perfect, we know who’s to blame. We are! If only we’d made one more pretend forest out of broccoli spears, our kid would be a veggie fiend. If only we’d put aside that deep-fried Oreo in our second trimester, she’d be in the gifted program at school. And if our child is cranky? Uncommunicative? Headed for five to ten years’ hard labor? That just might be because we told her, “Look, sweetie, a broken cracker is not the end of the world!” instead of saying, “Oooh, your cracker broke. Sad sad sad sad sad!” and respectfully relating.

there were days during the process of automating this routine that I was cranky, days when my head pounded like a jackhammer and mornings when I just wanted to keep sleeping. But once I locked and loaded getting up at 5 AM regularly, my days grew consistently—and vastly—better than anything I’ve ever experienced.

The silver lining is that people have stopped busting my chops. I confronted Dad about the phone calls, and I check in every day, and he says they’ve stopped. I have no idea if he’s blowing smoke up my ass or not, but he seems more chill. Then there’s the added bonus that having Cash around drives Toby nuts. The downside is that Toby’s decided to turn up the PDA with his new girl, Samantha, to twelve. And I don’t care. I really, really don’t. I don’t want him back. I don’t miss feeling the way I felt with him—at all. But I know he’s doing it to mess with me, even though he’d never admit it, probably not even to himself. I have to act like it’s fine. I’m chill. And that’s too much like how it was being in a relationship with him. Playing it cool reminds me of how long I had shit in my mouth and didn’t say a word. So I’m constantly flustered, clumsy, hot, and cranky. I can’t possibly seem like a woman with a new boyfriend, but people buy it ‘cause Cash Wall says it’s so. And of course, if he showed the slightest bit of interest in me—out of guilt or pity or whatever—I’d fall over myself saying yes, please, sign me up. And that’s exactly what it looks like I did. It sucks, and tonight, Cash wants to take it to the next level. It’s Friday, and he’s taking me out on our first fake date. We’re going to Birdy’s Bar. Everyone under thirty goes to Birdy’s on Friday night. I’ve never been. I’m getting ready. On the one hand, I don’t want Cash to think I’m putting forth an effort. On the other, I don’t want everyone in town to gawk at me all night, thinking I really need to put forth more effort. So, I’m wearing a teal, silk cami and my best-fitting jeans. I swapped my nose ring out for a diamond stud and curled my hair in big, beachy waves. I’m going the whole nine yards with primer and foundation and concealer and bronzer and blush and highlighter and powder and setting spray. Toby would hate it. Goes against his oft-stated “natural beauty” preference. It’s been so long since I’ve done my face in

I miss you. We’re too busy. And tired. And cranky. But hot! We’re still hot as fuck.

But while it’s tempting to project onto dolphins all the superpowers we wish we had ourselves, I knew (on an intellectual level, anyway), that these were creatures who have it in them to be cranky and withdrawn and have their own version of a bad day.

As the afternoon slips into evening, the guests drift away from the beach. They spend the hours before dinner recovering from the day - the sun, the heat, the booze, beauty so vivid their eyes crave a rest from it. They shower. They check in with the office. (Their expertise is needed to resolve some particularly thorny issue, and they provide the solution with relief; or they are told to enjoy their vacation, things are chugging along just fine without them, and for the rest of the evening they are cranky and short-tempered.)

And two, because there was another thing I was mad at Martha for, it had been simmering for the last few days of perhaps for the last few months, and in the same moment, there in the library, I understood exactly what this murky resentment toward her was, and I understood that I would never be able to express it. I resented her for having said, back in October, that she didn't think Cross would be my boyfriend. She had made it true! If she'd said she could picture it, it didn't mean it would have happened. But by saying she couldn't, she'd pretty much sealed that it wouldn't. Had she not understood how literally I took her, how much I trusted her advice? She had discouraged me from being hopeful, and how can you ever forgive a person for that? And how could I ever tell her any of this? It would be too ugly. For me to have messed up, to have done a thing that required her forgiveness, was not atypical. For her to be the one at fault would unbalance our friendship. I would not try to explain anything, and who knew if I could have explained it anyway? The mistake I had made was so public and obvious, and the one she'd made was private and subjective; I was its only witness. NO, I would not tell her anything; I would be good old incompetent Lee, lovably flawed Lee, a golden retriever who just can't stay out of the creek and keeps returning to the house with wet, smelly fur. "So you think I betrayed the wchool?" I said, and I could tell I sounded cranky, but cranky was ( Martha would never know this) something we could recover from--cranky was a car cry from what I actually felt.

And two, because there was another thing I was mad at Martha for, it had been simmering for the last few days or perhaps for the last few months, and in the same moment, there in the library, I understood exactly what this murky resentment toward her was, and I understood that I would never be able to express it. I resented her for having said, back in October, that she didn't think Cross would be my boyfriend. She had made it true! If she'd said she could picture it, it didn't mean it would have happened. But by saying she couldn't, she'd pretty much sealed that it wouldn't. Had she not understood how literally I took her, how much I trusted her advice? She had discouraged me from being hopeful, and how can you ever forgive a person for that? And how could I ever tell her any of this? It would be too ugly. For me to have messed up, to have done a thing that required her forgiveness, was not atypical. For her to be the one at fault would unbalance our friendship. I would not try to explain anything, and who knew if I could have explained it anyway? The mistake I had made was so public and obvious, and the one she'd made was private and subjective; I was its only witness. No, I would not tell her anything; I would be good old incompetent Lee, lovably flawed Lee, a golden retriever who just can't stay out of the creek and keeps returning to the house with wet, smelly fur. "So you think I betrayed the school?" I said, and I could tell I sounded cranky, but cranky was (Martha would never know this) something we could recover from--cranky was a far cry from what I actually felt.

Damned hellhole,” he muttered. “Oh, sure, there’ll be cell service. Right. The only thing this island has is mosquitoes.” Our mosquitoes weren’t bad at all--I only had a bite or two after a day in the woods. He was just being cranky. It sounded like the man who’d hit the deer, and obviously, his mood hadn’t improved.

What happens in the Kingdom of God parable I was given is that a landowner goes out and hires laborers in the morning and agrees to pay them the daily wage. But then every few hours he goes and finds more workers and brings them in. In the afternoon he goes again to the marketplace and sees folks standing around and is like, “Why aren’t you working?” and they say, “because no one would hire us,” and he sends them into his vineyard to work the last two hours of the day. When the work is done he pays everyone the same thing, which pisses off the upstanding early risers who worked all day in the scorching heat because he has made the slept-till-noon new hires equal to them. The landowner is like, “Seriously? You’re angry because I am generous?” and then the final line of the parable is, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” This is exactly, when it comes down to it, why most people do not believe in grace. It is fucking offensive.

Tashday, the first day of classes. I hadn’t been murdered in the middle of the night. Success! I didn’t feel that successful, though. I felt exhausted, cranky, and a little bit numb.

resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, and like my friend Don did at Dylan Klebold’s funeral, that death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, still we make our song alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

shower in five days. “Are you serious?” His smile grew wider, literally ear to ear, making his face look like one big blob of silly putty. “Feeling a little cranky?” “You cannot be for real, you fucking asshole.” He shook his head at her as if she were five. “You haven’t read the pamphlets I left for you, have you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “If you don’t eat at least five small well-balanced meals with plenty of protein and healthy fats, your hormones will get out of whack, and one of the symptoms is crankiness.” “Fuck you.” He went to the kitchen. She could hear cupboards being opened and closed. She could already smell Lysol. The man was cleaning the kitchen. She couldn’t believe he expected her to pay him fifteen thousand dollars to be restrained, deprived, and tortured. Unlike others who might think this a grand plan, she had come to terms with her weight long ago. All she wanted to do was lose a few pounds. She had put down five thousand dollars as a deposit, promising to pay the rest upon reaching her goal weight. She had only spent the money in hopes of finding Diane. Sure, it was a lot of money, but she knew that Diane would have done the same for her had the situation been reversed. She slid off the bed and went to stand just outside the kitchen. He was on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor just like her mother used to do. “I want out,” she said. “I will sign anything you want me to, declaring to all of your lawyers and the world that the decision was mine. I don’t want a refund. I don’t want anything from you. I just want you to unlock me and let me go.” He kept scrubbing, didn’t even bother to look at her when he answered. “Sorry. Can’t do.” “Why not?” “What you’re experiencing right now is just part of the process. Everybody goes through it. You just happened to get to stage three faster than most. In fact, you skipped stages one and two altogether.” Vivian didn’t care about stage one or two, or even three. She only cared about getting out of here. “You’ve done your job. I’ve lost over sixty pounds. I want to go home.” That got his attention and he looked at her, his eyes narrowing as he scanned her body from head to toes. She hated him—hated him more than she’d ever hated anyone in her life. “I’m impressed.” “Great. So can you unlock this cuff around my ankle?” “No. Sorry.” “Why not?” He stood, put the rag and bottle of cleanser under the sink, and then walked past her. In the top drawer of her bedside table, he pulled out a ledger

Without a nap break, the homeostatic pressure continues building until the end of the day, growing in intensity, so that a child becomes overtired, wired, and unable to stop the explosion. The result is an intense bedtime battle with a cranky, overtired child who won't fall asleep no matter how tired he is.

I want to bring back the days when a developer could actually create value for someone who cares, easily and quickly,” Cranky Dave says. “I want to build and maintain something for the long haul, instead of shipping the ‘feature of the day’ and dragging all this technical debt around.

and the breeze off the ocean, without a care in the world, I am fully relaxed. Alcohol can’t improve that feeling. I was recently on the beach in Hawaii enjoying this very sensation, and I considered having a drink. I had always had a Mai Tai (or eight) while on the beach. When I thought about it, I realized a drink would make me tired and cranky. And since one would make me thirsty and awake my alcohol craving, I doubted I would stop at just one. Then instead of spending the next day sunning myself on the beach, I would spend it in bed, hung over. When I thought about it, I realized I didn’t want a drink. Mental peace is having no distress. It is a feeling you can never