Desk Setup Quotes

Pixie was still looking a little shell-shocked when they walked over to the desk. “This is Pixie, our studio manager. She’ll take your details when you’re ready.” “Hey, Pixie, pleased to meet you.” Trent had never seen Pixie so inanimate. She didn’t move to take the hand Dred had offered. “Pix?” Trent smirked as she quickly collected herself with a shake of her head, reaching her hand out. “Sorry. Miles away. Welcome to Second Circle.” “Nice tattoo you got there, Pixie. What are those?” “Flowers,” she mumbled. What the hell was up with Pixie? They’d had famous people in the studio before. Dred laughed. “I can see that. I was curious what kind.” The phone rang and Pixie jumped all over it, effectively cutting Dred off. “Sorry,” Trent apologized. “Fortunately, we’re generally pretty busy here. Want to take a seat and we can figure out what you’re looking for?” Trent started to walk to one of the beds toward the back of the studio. “We have a setup in the room back here if you want a bit more privacy.” Realizing Dred was no longer with him, he turned to see him still staring at Pixie’s back. “Hey dude,” he whispered, “we charge extra for checking out the staff’s asses.” “What? Oh … right, yeah. How much? I’d definitely pay extra for a closer view.

AESTHETIC SIMPLICITY For some people simplicity is an aesthetic value, so one further sense that might be attached to the notion of simple living is a preference for an uncomplicated, uncluttered living environment. Imagine, for instance, an apartment with white walls, white trim, bare wood floors, simple wooden furniture, plain white kitchenware, white towels in the bathroom, and white blankets on the simple wooden beds. Or a house where the brick walls and overhead beams are left exposed, the furniture is rustic, and any artwork on display is clearly local and amateurish. Or a study containing nothing but a desk and a chair. All these are interiors that people deliberately create for themselves. Simplicity of this sort is not necessarily frugal. The uncluttered apartment could be in the center of Paris; the plain wooden furniture might be custom-made. Wittgenstein designed a house in Vienna for his sister Margaret characterized by austere, almost minimalist aesthetic lines, yet built with no concern for cost. But although such setups may not be cheap, they make no exhibition of expense. And the styles have symbolic significance. They bespeak sympathy with the plain, the unpretentious, the unostentatious. They connote honesty, purity, and a mind focused on essentials. In the case of country retreats, closeness to nature may also be sought and expressed.

Going to the office wasn't as pleasant lately, Sam thought, as he made his way through the back entry to the detectives' division. There weren't so many people there that day, and it seemed like a lot of them were avoiding the place, just staying away as much as they could. He could understand that. After almost ten years as a Denver cop, Sam was sick of seeing what humanity was really capable of. He had grown up reading cop stories, always seeing how the cops would save the day, watching them rescue the innocent and punish the guilty every week on TV, until he finally knew that he had to be one himself. After a short stint in the Army that never even got him out of the country, he'd come home and applied for the academy. He'd been accepted, and that was the start of an illustrious career. Now, it was all he could do to drag himself out of bed in the mornings, make himself come in and see what new horrors he'd have to deal with. The past four months he'd been on loan to the DEA, and they'd made some big drug busts, shut down some of the most evil purveyors of sin and death that ever lived, but they were like the mythical hydra—as soon as you cut off one of its heads, three more grew back to take its place. Sam wanted to stop cutting off heads and find the creature's heart, but there was almost no evidence as to where that heart might be. They knew there was something big behind the drug operations in the city, but it was so well organized and so carefully designed that no one seemed to have any idea where or how to find it. His cell rang as he sat down at his desk, and he saw his partner's number. Dan Jacobs was already out on his station, watching one of the dealers they'd identified the day before. “Yo,” Sam answered. “Sam, it's Dan. I been thinkin', and it seems to me that we might be lookin' in the wrong direction, y'know?” Sam blinked a couple of times. “Danny, I've been awake for about fifteen minutes, and haven't even opened my Starbuck's yet. What the heck are you talkin' about?” “I'm sayin', maybe we're goin' about this all the wrong way, tryin' to find dealers and trail 'em, follow the tracks up the ladder. There's something about this whole setup that smacks of serious organization, something big enough to hide in plain sight, know what I mean? If it's that well laid out, we can follow minions all day long, we're never gonna find the top guy, because they don’t ever see the top guys.” Sam nodded. “Yeah, you're probably right,” he said, “but unless you got a crystal ball lead on where else to go, I don’t know what good it's doin' us. Where else we gonna find any leads at all? Got a clue, there?” “Maybe,” Dan said. “We've been tailing a lot of these clowns the past few weeks, right? Have you noticed one thing they all do the same?” Sam thought about it, but nothing jumped out at him. He looked at it from a couple of different angles, then shook his head. Into the phone, he said, “Nope. So, what is it?” “Facebook. No matter what else they're doin', these bastards never miss checking in on Facebook every day, several times a day. They go on, look at what people are sayin' on their pages, sometimes they answer and sometimes they don't, and then they go back to their drug dealin' ways.” Sam rubbed his temple. “Dan, everyone does that. Everyone on freakin' earth is on Facebook, and always checkin' it out. That's just part

Wall Street: I’d start carrying guns if I were you.      Your annual reports are worse fiction than the screenplay for Dude, Where’s My Car?, which you further inflate by downsizing and laying off the very people whose life savings you’re pillaging. How long do you think you can do that to people? There are consequences. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But inevitably. Just ask the Romanovs. They had a nice little setup, too, until that knock at the door.      Second, Congress: We’re on to your act.      In the middle of the meltdown, CSPAN showed you pacing the Capitol floor yapping about “under God” staying in the Pledge of Allegiance and attacking the producers of Sesame Street for introducing an HIV-positive Muppet. Then you passed some mealy-mouthed reforms and crowded to get inside the crop marks at the photo op like a frat-house phone-booth stunt.      News flash: We out here in the Heartland care infinitely more about God-and-Country issues because we have internal moral-guidance systems that make you guys look like a squadron of gooney birds landing facedown on an icecap and tumbling ass over kettle. But unlike you, we have to earn a living and can’t just chuck our job responsibilities to march around the office ranting all day that the less-righteous offend us. Jeez, you’re like autistic schoolchildren who keep getting up from your desks and wandering to the window to see if there’s a new demagoguery jungle gym out on the playground. So sit back down, face forward and pay attention!      In summary, what’s the answer?      The reforms laws were so toothless they were like me saying that I passed some laws, and the president and vice president have forgotten more about insider trading than Martha Stewart will ever know.      Yet the powers that be say they’re doing everything they can. But they’re conveniently forgetting a little constitutional sitcom from the nineties that showed us what the government can really do when it wants to go Starr Chamber. That’s with two rs.      Does it make any sense to pursue Wall Street miscreants any less vigorously than Ken Starr sniffed down Clinton’s sex life? And remember, a sitting president actually got impeached over that—something incredibly icky but in the end free of charge to taxpayers, except for the $40 million the independent posse spent dragging citizens into motel rooms and staring at jism through magnifying glasses. But where’s that kind of government excess now? Where’s a coffee-cranked little prosecutor when you really need him?      I say, bring back the independent counsel. And when we finally nail you stock-market cheats, it’s off to a real prison, not the rich guys’ jail. Then, in a few years, when the first of you start walking back out the gates with that new look in your eyes, the rest of the herd will get the message pretty fast.

I forget where I am, why I’m in a twin bed instead of my California king. Where is the musty smell of old wood beams? The sound of surf crashing? And that acrid scent that Dad emitted as he grew sicker and sicker? You can still sometimes smell it in parts of our house when it’s humid. Instead I’m in a cramped rectangular room, swimming in sweat, my legs slick, my armpits, face, and scalp—hair twisted and matted. The A/C unit is rattling, but no cool air is coming out. I shut it off and reset it. I feel around until my eyes adjust, until I realize there is a moon, big and yellow. It is not actually that dark. I can make out the daisies in their turquoise vase, the dresser, the writing desk with my laptop setup. It is bright enough to see the far wall, to make out the photograph Hannah has taken and Paul has framed. The Ponte Sisto at night, buzzing silver and gold.

Remmy bit on her lip and tried not to cry. She loved her mom and she wanted her to be happy and she could see that Marcus made her the happiest she’d been in years. She knew that they weren’t going back to Sweet Lips. Her new life was here, and it was down to her to make it work. *** Remmy excitedly skipped her way into the kitchen. Her mom walked straight over to the kettle and began to boil it and it made her think of the old days when it was just the two of them. Back then; her mom could easily go through a dozen cups of tea a day...some things never change. ‘Mom, can I set-up my FB account now?’ ‘Fine,’ she sighed. ‘Go and get your laptop.’ ‘Thanks, mom.' Remmy rushed up the stairs to her room and grabbed her laptop off her desk. She hugged her laptop as she hurried up the corridor, (walking