Do It For Dolly Quotes

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.

I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.

People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.

It is futile and knackering to try and make all your tiny choices representative of your moral compass then beat yourself up when this plan inevitably fails. Feminists can get waxed. Priests can swear. Vegetarians can wear leather shoes. Do as much good as you can. The weighty representation of the world cannot rest on every decision you make.

Life is a wonderful, mesmerizing, magical, fun, silly thing. And humans are astounding. We all know we’re going to die, and yet we still live. We shout and curse and care when the full bin bag breaks, yet with every minute that passes we edge closer to the end. We marvel at a nectarine sunset over the M25 or the smell of a baby’s head or the efficiency of flat-pack furniture, even though we know that everyone we love will cease to exist one day. I don’t know how we do it.

You'll never do a whole lot unless you're brave enough to try.

You’re too hard on yourself,’she said. ‘You can do long-term love. You’ve done it better than anyone I know.’ ‘How? My longest relationship was two years and that was over when I was twenty-four.’ ‘I’m talking about you and me, ’she said

I leaned across the table towards the crumb-thrower. "Do that again," I said, loud enough to be heard over the opera singer, Dolly, my mother, and the smell of the breadsticks, "and I will sell your firstborn child to the devil.

God is in everything I do and all my work glorifies Him.

Cause I am strong and I can prove it And I got my dreams to see me through It's just a mountain, I can move it And with faith enough there's nothing I can't do And I can see the light of a clear blue morning And I can see the light of brand new day I can see the light of a clear blue morning And everything's gonna be all right It's gonna be okay [lyrics from "Light of a Clear Blue Morning"]

Life is just a series of peaks and troughs. And you don't know whether you're in a trough until you're climbing out, or on a peak until you're coming down. And that's it you know, you never know what's round the corner. But it's all good. "If you want the rainbow, you've gotta put up with the rain." Do you know which "philosopher" said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she's just a big pair of tits.

Do you think we’d ever be friends if we met now?” “No, I don’t think so.” “Me neither.” “Sort of magic, isn’t it? To know that we could meet the most exciting person in the world, but they’d never be able to recreate the history you and I have. What a unique superpower we have over each other.

No matter how uncertain and unpredictable life gets, some people really do walk next to you for ever.

Life is just a series of peaks and troughs, and you don't whether you're in a trough until you're climbing out, or on a peak until you're coming down. And that's it, you know, you never know what's round the corner. But it's all good. "If you want the rainbow you've got to put up with the rain". Do you know which "philosopher" said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she's just a big pair of tits.

What Do Women Want?" I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what's underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store with all those keys glittering in the window, past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly, hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders. I want to walk like I'm the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me, to show you how little I care about you or anything except what I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment from its hanger like I'm choosing a body to carry me into this world, through the birth-cries and the love-cries too, and I'll wear it like bones, like skin, it'll be the goddamned dress they bury me in.

I know who I am; I know what I can and can't do. I know what I will and won't do. I know what I am capable of and I don't agree to do things that I don't think I can pull off.

Be alone, Jen. You know how to be alone without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how much I wish I could do that? It’s a wonderful thing you’ve got going on there.

It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood. Can we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark saying, "Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we'll make it right." The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. The weeping earth itself knows how desperate is the child's need for exactly that sanctuary. How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia. Grownups can deal with scraped knees, dropped ice-cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrified revulsion. Yet we are small and as terrified as we are terrifying in our ferocious appetites. We need that warm adult stupidity. Even knowing the illusion, we cry and hide in their laps, speaking only of defiled lollipops or lost bears, and getting lollipop or a toy bear'd worth of comfort. We make do with it rather than face alone the cavernous reaches of our skull for which there is no remedy, no safety, no comfort at all. We survive until, by sheer stamina, we escape into the dim innocence of our own adulthood and its forgetfulness.

Be the alligator girl. Be whatever your dreams and your luck will let you be. Wear your green cornflakes with pride. Snarl at the crowds, and do your best to make them flinch. Give them a quarter's worth of wonder.

But I feel more powerful than ever. And more peaceful too. I am living more truthfully than I’ve ever lived. I may not be the exact portrait of womanhood that my teenage self envisaged (sophisticated and slim; wearing black dresses and drinking martinis and meeting men at book launches and exhibition openings). I may not have all the exact things I thought I’d have at thirty. Or all the things I’ve been told I should have. But I feel content; grateful for every morning that I wake up with another day on this earth and another chance to do good and feel good and make others feel good too.

I SEE THE GIRL WRITES IN GREEN CRAYON ON PINK PAPER WITH A MOUSE IN THE CORNER. THE MOUSE IS WEARING A DRESS. 'I ought to point out that she decided to do that so the Hogfather would think she was sweet,' said Susan. 'Including the deliberate bad spelling. But look, why are you ...' SHE SAYS SHE IS FIVE YEARS OLD. 'In years, yes. In cynicism, she's about thirty-five. Why are you doing the...' BUT SHE BELIEVES IN THE HOGFATHER? 'She'd believe in anything if there was a dolly in it for her.

A reminder that no matter what we lose, no matter how uncertain and unpredictable life gets, some people really do walk next to you forever.

A bird & a fish can fall in love, but where do they make a home?

A boy coming up on acid heard repetitive ringing coming from my tent and thought it was Kraftwerk doing a surprise set.

Do as much good as you can. The weighty representation of the world cannot rest on every decision you make.

Do I get a bonus for letting him grab my boob?” “Your boob, like the rest of you, belongs to the NYPSD. Besides, McNab’s going to ride you like a racehorse first chance. That’s your bonus.” “You brought up sex and McNab!” “This once, also your bonus.” “I’ve got this outfit at home Dolly would wear. I’m going to put it on tonight and—” “You didn’t earn that big a bonus.

I once heard a theory about the first relationship that occurs after a big relationship ends. It’s called the 90/10 rule. The theory goes: whatever the crucial 10 per cent is that was missing from your partner who was otherwise totally right for you is the thing you look for in the following person. That missing 10 per cent becomes such a fixation that, when you do find someone who has it, you ignore the fact they don’t have the other 90 per cent that the previous partner had.

And the truth is, I was only ever going out to find someone to stay in with.’ He half laughs at his own sentimentality. ‘I don’t do well without responsibilities. I’ve accepted that I’m quite a boring bloke. I like having people to look after and feed.

I've often said I don't lose my temper as much as use it. I don’t do either unless I have to because I love peace and harmony, but when you step in my territory, I will call you on it.

Jesus fucking Christ, don’t have a kid or get married because you’re worried about being alone,’ she said, rubbing my back. I sat upright in my chair and she held me by my shoulders. ‘Be alone, Jen. You know how to be alone without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how much I wish I could do that? It’s a wonderful thing you’ve got going on there.’ Avi came into the kitchen and put the kettle

Yes, it’s unfortunate that we have been conditioned to see an alternative to motherhood as not normal. But you do all realise that some of the most brilliant women in the world don’t have kids, right? Oprah, Gloria Steinem, Helen Mirren, Dolly Parton? Do you think their lives carry an air of tragedy because they never had children? I don’t. I’m sure they all had different reasons for not doing it, some maybe couldn’t, some didn’t want to, but these women’s lives are not empty because of that. I think it’s important we take the lead from our heroes and for everyone to stop valuing women on whether they do, or do not, become mothers. The irony of yours and your listeners’ opinions is that it is you boxing women in to these roles, not men. It’s highly un-feminist of you.’ She

He took off his denim jacket and draped it around my shoulders because I was cold. I could tell he was just as cold as I was, but I didn’t want to stop his big show of masculinity. How could I? I’d bought front-row tickets to it. I wondered how much of his behaviour this evening had been dictated by a pressure to perform his gender in such a demonstrative way. But then again, what was I doing? Why was I wearing a pair of four-inch heels that gave me blisters?

Every heterosexual woman I know is emotionally paralysed in relationships by this fear of “scaring men off”. Then you have your Lucys of this world, these total anomalies, who know what they want and say: “I’m the boss, here are the rules, do as I say.” And so many men seem to love it. Like it’s a relief, or something.

People ask me, “Do you ever run out of patience? Are you ever rude to people?” Sometimes I am. I hate when it happens, but it seems like some people just try to get on your nerves. There are times when I feel like saying something like, “Why don’t you get out of my face, you ugly woman. And take those bratty kids with you!” But at times like that I usually get all flustered. I get confused and say stupid stuff like, “Kiss my ass, that’s what you are. And don’t think I can’t do it!

But of course I know I am merely an aphrodisiac in their game of Domestic Bliss – I know when I leave they’ll rip each other’s clothes off, having got all revved up on an extended joint discourse about their holiday in the Philippines, particularly when they both said the same island when I asked them what their favourite bit was. I am just a reluctant audience member. But I sit and watch all these shows anyway because the alternative – losing my friends – is not an option. And when Farly and Scott weren’t doing Their Bit on me, I discovered, to my utter shock, that Scott and I got on rather well. In fact, I resented that I hadn’t realized this sooner as I would have enjoyed his company when he was round when Farly and I lived together, instead of just grunting at him. He was funny and smart. He read

I’ve watched it time and time again—a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers. She will be the one who spends the most time at his flat, she will be the one who makes friends with all his friends and their girlfriends. She will be the one who sends his mother a bunch of flowers on her birthday. Women don’t like this rigmarole any more than men do, but they’re better at it—they just get on with it. This means that when a woman my age falls in love with a man, the list of priorities goes from this: Family Friends To this: Family Boyfriend Boyfriend’s family Boyfriend’s friends Girlfriends of the boyfriend’s friends Friends Which means, on average, you go from seeing your friend every weekend to once every six weekends. She becomes a baton and you’re the one at the very end of the track. You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again. These gaps in each other’s lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together anymore. You’re living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like. I now understand why our mums cleaned the house before their best friend came round and asked them “What’s the news, then?” in a jolly, stilted way. I get how that happens. So don’t tell me when you move in with your boyfriend that nothing will change. There will be no road trip. The cycle works when it comes to holidays as well—I’ll get my buddy back for every sixth summer, unless she has a baby in which case I’ll get my road trip in eighteen years’ time. It never stops happening. Everything will change.

Was it a game you wanted to complete? You met a woman who had her life together, and you wanted to see if you could pull it apart? You wanted to know that you could get her to fall in love with you, say all the things you wanted her to say, do all the things you wanted her to do, then the game was finished and you could turn it off?

Hell is not a place where we ourselves suffer. Hell is where you watch people you care about suffer and do nothing about it.

From a distance we (literally) do not see people as individuals.

A clue to the right work for you is what you will do for free.

Do the transgressions of the artist undermine the pleasure to be found in the art?

Find out who you are and do it on purpose, with purpose.

Driven to insanity, driven to the edge Driven to the point of almost no return Driven to think awful thoughts, do awful things But at least I’d like to think I’ve learned I’m driven Driven to be smarter Driven to work harder Driven to be better everyday Driven to keep on and on To achieve the things I want I’ll be sorry if I don’t Make the most of livin’ I’m driven

Dolly is obsessed by sexual thoughts for which she finds no outlet, and will tease and martyrise other girls, or even our younger instructors because they do have innocent dates with boys.

There was no specific requirement for being a twenty-something—it’s what I found so disorientating about the experience. I never knew where I was meant to be or what I was meant to be doing

So here I was trying to get married to a man who hadn’t really asked me, with a boss that didn’t want me to and a town that wouldn’t let me do it when I wanted. Yet I knew in my heart it was right.

Eleanor loved to tell me that life is shit. She told me every week. She told me it was going to disappoint me. She reminded me that there was nothing I could do to control it. I relaxed into that inevitability.

My little Johnnie, Because I like you so much, and because you’re so far away that I can’t give you a little kiss, I’m writing this letter to ask if you like me as much as I do you? Answer me immediately. A thousand kisses from your Dollie—

Calvin’s work. Boxed and sealed. “We can use this dolly,” Frask said, wheeling it over. “It’s eight boxes total. But we need to hurry—I have to turn in these keys by five o’clock.” “Is this legal?” Miss Frask reached for the first box. “Do we care?

You know damn well that's not how the wire works, and if you weren't afraid of it, you'd have one yourself. It's the same as the implants, just like the dollie-slots, but it gives me an edge, yeah, because I'm not afraid of it, of what I can do with it.

Okay, Dolly Brooke killed her because she was going to marry a quote nigger unquote, and how do we prove it?' He frowned. 'I have told you not to use that word in my hearing.' 'I was merely quoting. It isn't - ' 'Shut up. I mean the word 'unquote' and you know it.

I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets. I tried the Scarsdale diet and the Stillman water diet (you remember that one, where you run weight off trying to get to the bathroom). I tried Optifast, Juicefast, and Waterfast. I even took those shots that I think were made from cow pee. I endured every form of torture anybody with a white coat and a clipboard could devise for a girl who really liked fried pork chops. One night while I was on some kind of liquid-protein diet made from bone marrow, or something equally appetizing, I was with a group of friends at a Howard Johnson’s and some of them were having fried clams. I’ll never forget sitting there with all of that glorious fried fat filling my nostrils and feeling completely left out. I went home and wrote one of my biggest hits, “Two Doors Down.” I also went off my diet and had some fried clams. There were times when I thought of chucking it all in. “Damn the movie,” I would say. “I’m just gonna eat everything and go ahead and weigh five hundred pounds and have to be buried in a piano case.” Luckily, a few doughnuts later, that thought would pass and I would be back to the goal at hand. I remember something in a book I read called Gentle Eating. The author said you should pretend the angels are eating with you and that you want to save some for them. I loved that idea, because I love angels. I have to admit, though, there were times I would slap those angels out of the way and have their part too. A true hog will do that.

You exorcised the others. You threw away shame and pain and pride…even justice. Everything that interfered with being their obedient little dolly. You kept me locked in whatever they asked, and you never had to pay the price for any of it because you had parts of me to do that for you.

You met a woman who had her life together, and you wanted to see if you could pull it apart? You wanted to know that you could get her to fall in love with you, say all the things you wanted her to say, do all the things you wanted her to do, then the game was finished and you could turn it off?

You know,” I said one day, smiling, “that you’ve given her the name of my doll?” “What doll?” “Tina, you don’t remember?” She touched her forehead as if she had a headache, and said: “It’s true, but I didn’t do it on purpose.” “She was a beautiful doll—I was attached to her.” “My daughter is more beautiful.

Are you going to let that four-armed teenie-bopper play dollies with you til you grow and die?" Sai shuddered, "No, that I will not do. I am praying to The Seven for the courage to find a way out. An honorable man would rather die than submit to such indignities." I squeezed his shoulder, "That's the spirit!

Moving heavy objects allowed me to feel manly in the eyes of other men. With the women it didn't matter, but I enjoyed subtly intimidating the guys with bad backs who thought they were helping out by telling us how to pack the truck. The thinking was that because we were furniture movers, we obviously weren't too bright. In addition to being strong and stupid, we were also thought of as dangerous. It might have been an old story to Patrick and the others, but I got a kick out of being mistaken as volatile. All I had to do was throw down my dolly with a little extra force, and a bossy customer would say, "Let's just all calm down and try to work this out.

Olivia reached for her phone, connected it to his car Bluetooth, and cranked up a Dolly Parton playlist. “Thank God for Dolly,” she said. “See, she was the best part of the night.” They spent the rest of the drive back to her house singing along with Dolly, and they could tell a bunch of the cars around them were doing the same thing.

Ah,” said Dolly, with soothing gravity, “it’s like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest — one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it’s little we can do arter all — the big things come and go wi’ no striving o’ our’n — they do, that they do;

Jane started say­ing ‘Wel­come to be­ing in a re­la­tion­ship’ to me over and over again. I’d tell her about all the com­pro­mises I was mak­ing and how much Andy’s self-ab­sorp­tion could ir­ri­tate me and how I’d no­ticed that he’d stopped find­ing me sexy and started find­ing me sweet – that he used to grab my bum and kiss me, and now he kissed me on the head and pulled the zip­per of my jacket up and down in a cutesy way. ‘Wait till he stops find­ing you sweet,’ she said. ‘That’s a whole other phase.’ I told her about how much time was spent com­fort­ing him and buoy­ing him up and get­ting him out of low moods. How his emo­tions were al­ways more im­por­tant than mine – that when we had arguments, his feel­ings were dis­cussed as facts and mine were in­ter­ro­gated as fab­ri­ca­tions. ‘Jen,’ she said mat­ter-of-factly, ‘do you even want a boyfriend?’ I asked her if this was all stuff she put up with and she nod­ded. ‘Wel­come to be­ing in a re­la­tion­ship,’ she said. And I thought: I don’t want to be wel­come here. I don’t want to get com­fort­able here.

Do you believe that?" It was the question that had haunted Shivani for three years. Was she guilty, or not guilty? Did love have to stay within proscribed boundaries? When the heart transgressed, did it become a crime? On some days, she felt certain she had done nothing wrong. On others, she felt equally certain she was a sinner, and deserved to be punished.

But I’m not a member of that club any more. No one is. It’s been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where do I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I’m no longer in a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?

In her last weeks, she had mo­ments of lu­cid­ity, and I cher­ished them when I was around to talk to her. One of these con­ver­sa­tions hap­pened when it was just me and her in the hos­pi­tal room. ‘I sus­pect you will never have a hus­band,’ she said, look­ing at me in­tently from her bed. ‘Would you be up­set if that hap­pened?’ I asked. ‘Your mother would be,’ she said, then low­ered her voice. ‘But I think you would be wise not to.’ This sur­prised me as I had al­ways thought that she and my grand­fa­ther had been very happy to­gether. ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. Her hand, spot­ted in soft-brown splodges, the rails of her bones pro­trud­ing, flapped gen­tly at me to take it. I cupped it in both of mine. ‘You have a home that is yours,’ she said. ‘And your own money. Don’t you?’ ‘I have a bit of money, yes.’ ‘And you have your ed­u­ca­tion. And you have your ca­reer.’ I nod­ded. ‘Then you have ev­ery­thing,’ she said.

How did these women do it? What was their secret? What unexpected, mystical orifice on their body did they allow these men entry to that in turn made them do whatever unreasonable thing they wanted? Or was it that they simply told them what to do and when to do it, and the imposed restriction of choice made their boyfriends feel safely shepherded rather than ready for slaughter? Had I been treating men too much like adults and not enough like little directionless lambs?

Well, that’s partly true, Master Marner,” said Dolly, sympathetically; “and if you can’t bring your mind to frighten her off touching things, you must do what you can to keep ’em out of her way. That’s what I do wi’ the pups as the lads are allays a-rearing. They will worry and gnaw — worry and gnaw they will, if it was one’s Sunday cap as hung anywhere so as they could drag it. They know no difference, God help ‘em: it’s the pushing o’ the teeth as sets ’em on, that’s what it is.

Parton’s musical genius deserves a discussion far beyond and above the matters of gender and class. But the lyrics she wrote are forever tied to the body that sang them, her success forever tied to having patterned her look after the “town trollop” of her native holler. For doing so, she received a fame laced with ridicule; during interviews in the 1970s and 1980s, both Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey asked her to stand up so they could point out, without humor, that she looked like a tramp.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

He’d never played in Wrigley Field—the Cubs had still been out at old West Side Grounds when he came through as a catcher for the Cardinals before the First World War. But seeing the ballpark in ruins brought the reality of this war home to him like a kick in the teeth. Sometimes big things would do that, sometimes little ones; he remembered a doughboy breaking down and sobbing like a baby when he found some French kid’s dolly with its head blown off. Muldoon’s eyes slid over toward Wrigley for a moment. “Gonna be a long time before the Cubs win another pennant,” he said, as good an epitaph as any for the park—and the city.

The philosopher Leon Kass is among the foremost spokesmen for Shweder’s ethic of divinity, and for the Sanctity foundation on which it is based. Writing in 1997, the year after Dolly the sheep became the first cloned mammal, Kass lamented the way that technology often erases moral boundaries and brings people ever closer to the dangerous belief that they can do anything they want to do. In an essay titled “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” Kass argued that our feelings of disgust can sometimes provide us with a valuable warning that we are going too far, even when we are morally dumbfounded and can’t justify those feelings by pointing to victims:

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

Have you ever asked yourself what kind of story the story of your life is? I always thought mine would be a coming-of-age story. A small-town girl making it in the big city, like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl or Dolly Parton in 9 to 5. Sure, I’d struggle for everything I achieved, but in the end my plucky can-do attitude would ensure I’d triumph over whatever obstacles stood in my way. Like Legally Blonde or Pretty Woman or Pride and Prejudice, the story of my life would be an uplifting comedy, in turns fun and moving and aspirational. I’d be strong and spirited and a riot to be around. I’d be beautiful and smart and kids would love me. That’s what I thought. But now—looking down at the gun in my hands, feeling the heft of it, its cold reality in my palm—I’m not so sure I got the genre right. In fact I’m not even sure I’m the main character anymore.

When was it that first I heard of the grass harp? Long before the autumn we lived in the China tree; an earlier autumn, then; and of course it was Dolly who told me, no one else would have known to call it that, a grass harp. . . If on leaving town you take the church road you soon will pass a glaring hill of bonewhite slabs and brown burnt flowers: this is the Baptist cemetery. . . below the hill grows a field of high Indian grass that changes color with the seasons: go to see it in the fall, late September, when it has gone red as sunset, when scarlet shadows light firelight breeze over it and the autumn winds strum on its dry leaves sighing human music, a harp of voices. . . It must have been on one of those September days when we were there in the woods gathering roots that Dolly said: Do you hear? that is the grass harp, always telling a story -- it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all the people who ever lived, and when we are dead it will tell ours, too.

It's weird not being in our subculture of two any more. There was Jen's culture, her little habits and ways of doing things; the collection of stuff she'd already learnt she loved before we met me. Chorizo and Jonathan Franken and long walks and the Eagles (her dad). Seeing the Christmas lights. Taylor Swift, frying pans in the dishwasher, the works absolutely, arsewipe, heaven. Tracy Chapman and prawn jalfrezi and Muriel Spark and HP sauce in bacon sandwiches. And then there was my culture. Steve Martin and Aston Villa and New York and E.T. Chicken bhuna, strange-looking cats and always having squash or cans of soft drinks in the house. The Cure. Pink Floyd. Kanye West, friend eggs, ten hours' sleep, ketchup in bacon sandwiches. Never missing dental check-ups. Sister Sledge (my mum). Watching TV even if the weather is nice. Cadbury's Caramel. John and Paul and George and Ringo. And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. The instinct never goes - look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I've chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other's self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together. Our culture was tea drink from very large mugs. And looking forward to the Glastonbury ticket day and the new season of Game of Thrones and taking the piss out of ourselves for being just like everyone else. Our culture was over-tipping in restaurants because we both used to work in the service industry, salty popcorn at the cinema and afternoon naps. Side-by-side morning sex. Home-made Manhattans. Barmade Manhattans (much better). Otis Redding's "Cigarettes and Coffee" (our song). Discovering a new song we both loved and listening to it over and over again until we couldn't listen to it any more. Period dramas on a Sunday night. That one perfect vibrator that finished her off in seconds when we were in a rush. Gravy. David Hockney. Truffle crisps. Can you believe it? I still can't believe it. A smell indisputably reminiscent of bums. On a crisp. And yet we couldn't get enough of them together - stuffing them in our gobs, her hand on my chest, me trying not to get crumbs in her hair as we watched Sense and Sensibility (1995). But I'm not a member of that club anymore. No one is. It's been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where so I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I'm no longer a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?

As for me, I went inside, walked up to my bedroom, and fell on the floor. What…just happened? Staring at the ceiling, I tried to take it all in. My mind began to race, trying to figure out what it all meant. Do I need to learn how to whittle? Cook fried chicken? Ride a horse? Use a scythe? My face began to feel flushed. And children? Oh, Lord. That means we might have children! What will we name them? Travis and Dolly? Oh my gosh. I have children in my future. I could see it plainly in front of me. They’ll be little redheaded children with green eyes just like mine, and they’ll have lots of freckles, too. I’ll have ten of them, maybe eleven. I’ll have to squat in the garden and give birth while picking my okra. Every stereotype of domestic country life came rushing to the surface. A lot of them involved bearing children. Then my whole body relaxed in a mushy, contended heap as I remembered all the times I’d walked back into that very room after being with Marlboro Man, my cowboy, my savior. I remembered all the times I’d fallen onto my bed in a fizzy state of euphoria, sighing and smelling my shirt to try to get one last whiff. All the times I’d picked up the phone early in the morning and heard his sexy voice on the other end. All the times I’d longed to see him again, two minutes after he’d dropped me off. This was right, this was oh, so right. If I couldn’t go a day without seeing him, I certainly couldn’t go a lifetime…

She leaned over the basket again, taking in the mouthwatering aromas wafting out of it. "Fried chicken? Oh, I'm thinking buttermilk fried chicken?" Dylan was once again amused. "How do you do that?" "I like food." "You don't say." "And I love Southern fried chicken." She tried to open the basket, and he tapped her hand jokingly. "Sit," he said. And she did, crossing her legs and plopping down on the blanket. Opening the basket and playing waiter, Dylan began removing flatware and plates and red-checkered napkins, and then wrapped food. "For lunch today in Chez Orchard de Pomme, we have some lovely cheese, made from the milk of my buddy Mike's goat Shelia." He removed the plastic wrap, which covered a small log of fresh white cheese on a small plate, and handed it to her. Grace put her nose to the cheese. It was heavenly. "Oh, Shelia is my new best friend." "It's good stuff. And we have some fresh chili corn bread. The corn, I think, is from Peter Lindsey's new crop, just cut out from the maze, which is right down this hill." He motioned with his head toward the field, and then he handed her a big loaf of the fresh corn bread wrapped loosely in wax paper. "It's still warm!" Delighted, she held it to her cheek. Then he pulled out a large oval Tupperware container. "And, yes, we have Dolly's buttermilk fried chicken." Grace peeled open the top and smelled. "Fabulous." "It is!" He also pulled out a mason jar of sourwood honey, a sack of pecans, and a couple of very cold bottles of a local mountain-brewed beer.

checked the load, and slipped it under my belt behind my right hip. “Are you supposed to be wearing a bulletproof vest, are you supposed to be carrying a gun?” a guard asked. “Isn’t that against the rules?” “What rules?” I said. He didn’t have an answer for that. I put on my leather coat. The money was still packed in the gym bags, the gym bags strapped to the dolly in the center of my living room. I grabbed the handle and started wheeling it to the back door of my house. I had a remote control hanging from the lock on the window overlooking my unattached garage. I used it to open the garage door. “There’s no reason for you guys to hang around anymore,” I said. The guards followed me out of my back door, across the driveway, and into the garage just the same. They stood by and watched while I loaded the dolly and the gym bags into the trunk of the Audi. “Nice car,” one of them said. If he had offered me ten bucks, I would have sold the Audi and all of its contents to him right then and there. Because he didn’t, I unlocked the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. “Good luck,” the guard said and closed the door for me. He smiled like I was a patient about to be wheeled into surgery; smiled like he felt sorry for me. I put the key in the ignition, started up the car, depressed the clutch, put the transmission in reverse, and—sat there for five seconds, ten, fifteen … Why are you doing this? my inner voice asked. Are you crazy? The guard watched me through the window, an expression of concern mixed with puzzlement on his face. “McKenzie, are you okay?” he asked. “Never better,” I said. I slowly released the clutch and backed the Audi out of my driveway

In the last years of the Republic there were films such as Robert Siodmark's Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, 1930)) and Gerhard Lamprecht's Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives, 1931), which embraced the airy streets, light-dappled forests, and lakes surrounding Berlin. Billie Wilder, a brash young journalist and dance-hall enthusiast, worked on the scripts for both these films. While Kracauer and Eisner saw malevolence in the frequent trope of doubling (one being possessed by another and thus becoming two conflicting psychological presences), Wilder witnessed another form of doubling during the Weimer era: transvestitism, a staple of cabaret. Men dressing as women (as do Reinhold Schünzel in der Himmel auf Erden [Heaven on earth]) and Curti Bois in Der Fürst von Pappenheim [The Masked Mannequin][both 1927]) or women as men (as does Dolly Haas in Liebeskommando [Love's Command, 1931]), in order to either escape detection or get closer to the object of their affection, is an inherently comic situation, especially when much to his or her surprise the cross-dresser begins to enjoy the disguise. Billie left Germany before he directed a film of his own; as Billy he brought to Hollywood a vigorous appreciation of such absurdities of human behavior, along with the dry cynicism that distinguished Berlin humor and an enthusiasm for the syncopations of American jazz, a musical phenomenon welcomed in the German capital. Wilder, informed by his years in Berlin (to which he returned to make A Foreign Affair in 1948 and One, Two, Three in 1961), wrote and directed many dark and sophisticated American films, including The Apartment (1969) and Some Like it Hot (1959), a comedy, set during Prohibition, about the gender confusion on a tonal par with Schünzel's Viktor und Viktoria, released in December 1933, eleven months into the Third Reich and the last musical to reflect the insouciance of the late Republic.

Dear Jon, A real Dear Jon let­ter, how per­fect is that?! Who knew you’d get dumped twice in the same amount of months. See, I’m one para­graph in and I’ve al­ready fucked this. I’m writ­ing this be­cause I can’t say any of this to you face-to-face. I’ve spent the last few months ques­tion­ing a lot of my friend­ships and won­der­ing what their pur­pose is, if not to work through big emo­tional things to­gether. But I now re­al­ize: I don’t want that. And I know you’ve all been there for me in other ways. Maybe not in the lit­eral sense, but I know you all would have done any­thing to fix me other than lis­ten­ing to me talk and al­low­ing me to be sad with­out so­lu­tions. And now I am writ­ing this let­ter rather than pick­ing up the phone and talk­ing to you be­cause, de­spite every thing I know, I just don’t want to, and I don’t think you want me to ei­ther. I lost my mind when Jen broke up with me. I’m pretty sure it’s been the sub­ject of a few of your What­sApp con­ver­sa­tions and more power to you, be­cause I would need to vent about me if I’d been friends with me for the last six months. I don’t want it to have been in vain, and I wanted to tell you what I’ve learnt. If you do a high-fat, high-pro­tein, low-carb diet and join a gym, it will be a good dis­trac­tion for a while and you will lose fat and gain mus­cle, but you will run out of steam and eat nor­mally again and put all the weight back on. So maybe don’t bother. Drunk­en­ness is an­other idea. I was in black­out for most of the first two months and I think that’s fine, it got me through the evenings (and the oc­ca­sional af­ter­noon). You’ll have to do a lot of it on your own, though, be­cause no one is free to meet up any more. I think that’s fine for a bit. It was for me un­til some­one walked past me drink­ing from a whisky minia­ture while I waited for a night bus, put five quid in my hand and told me to keep warm. You’re the only per­son I’ve ever told this story. None of your mates will be ex­cited that you’re sin­gle again. I’m prob­a­bly your only sin­gle mate and even I’m not that ex­cited. Gen­er­ally the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing sin­gle at thirty-five will feel dif­fer­ent to any other time you’ve been sin­gle and that’s no bad thing. When your ex moves on, you might be­come ob­sessed with the bloke in a way that is al­most sex­ual. Don’t worry, you don’t want to fuck him, even though it will feel a bit like you do some­times. If you open up to me or one of the other boys, it will feel good in the mo­ment and then you’ll get an emo­tional hang­over the next day. You’ll wish you could take it all back. You may even feel like we’ve en­joyed see­ing you so low. Or that we feel smug be­cause we’re win­ning at some­thing and you’re los­ing. Re­member that none of us feel that. You may be­come ob­sessed with work­ing out why ex­actly she broke up with you and you are likely to go fully, fully nuts in your bid to find a sat­is­fy­ing an­swer. I can save you a lot of time by let­ting you know that you may well never work it out. And even if you did work it out, what’s the pur­pose of it? Soon enough, some girl is go­ing to be crazy about you for some un­de­fin­able rea­son and you’re not go­ing to be in­ter­ested in her for some un­de­fin­able rea­son. It’s all so ran­dom and un­fair – the peo­ple we want to be with don’t want to be with us and the peo­ple who want to be with us are not the peo­ple we want to be with. Re­ally, the thing that’s go­ing to hurt a lot is the fact that some­one doesn’t want to be with you any more. Feel­ing the ab­sence of some­one’s com­pany and the ab­sence of their love are two dif­fer­ent things. I wish I’d known that ear­lier. I wish I’d known that it isn’t any­body’s job to stay in a re­la­tion­ship they don’t want to be in just so some­one else doesn’t feel bad about them­selves. Any­way. That’s all. You’re go­ing to be okay, mate. Andy

replacing each one in its case. Gloria quite obviously knew what she was doing and Julia couldn’t help but be a little impressed. ‘Can you use these?’ ‘Course I can. I belong to one of the top gun clubs in the country. You got to know what you’re sellin’ or buyin’.’ She picked up a .45, showing Julia the

She likes a quote by Dolly Parton: “Decide who you are, and then do it on purpose.

beating her up. That morning, before Michel went to work, he pulled all the curtains closed and locked the doors so no one would see what he had done to Mom. Two weeks after the beating, the Indian agent came to visit the village and in his rounds went to see Mom. Even after two weeks, he still wanted to take Mom to the hospital. Beatings from Michel were regular, and Mom knew to have a spare pair of clothes and shoes hidden outside the door on Saturday night so that when he came home from drinking in Williams Lake, she could escape to her aunt Annie’s house across the village. Michel must have been a good father because my sister Jean only has good memories of him, as do my other older brothers and sister Dolly.

I support Dolly Sisters, sir. Always have done." "And are they any good?" "Having a poor patch at the moment, sir." "Ah, then I expect you will want to support our team, which will be very good indeed!" "Can't do that, sir. You've got to support your team, sir." "but you just said that they weren't doing well." "That's when you support your team, sir. Otherwise you're a numper." "A numper being...?" said Ridcully. "He's someone who's all cheering when things are going well, and then runs off to another team when there's a losing streak. They always shouts the loudest.

Reprogramming is what John Gurdon demonstrated in his ground-breaking work when he transferred the nuclei from adult toads into toad eggs. It’s what happened when Keith Campbell and Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly the Sheep by putting the nucleus from a mammary gland cell into an egg. It’s what Yamanaka achieved when he treated somatic cells with four key genes, all of which code for proteins highly expressed naturally during this reprogramming phase. The egg is a wonderful thing, honed through hundreds of millions of years of evolution to be extraordinarily effective at generating vast quantities of epigenetic change, across billions of base-pairs. None of the artificial means of reprogramming cells comes close to the natural process in terms of speed or efficiency. But the egg probably doesn’t quite do everything unaided. At the very least, the pattern of epigenetic modifications in sperm is one that allows the male pronucleus to be reprogrammed relatively easily. The sperm epigenome is primed to be reprogrammed6. Unfortunately, these priming chromatin modifications (and many other features of the sperm nucleus), are missing if an adult nucleus is reprogrammed by transferring it into a fertilised egg. That’s also true when an adult nucleus is reprogrammed by treating it with the four Yamanaka factors to create iPS cells. In both these circumstances, it’s a real challenge to completely reset the epigenome of the adult nucleus. It’s just too big a task. This is probably why so many cloned animals have abnormalities and shortened lifespans. The defects that are seen in these cloned animals are another demonstration that if early epigenetic modifications go wrong, they may stay wrong for life. The abnormal epigenetic modification patterns result in permanently inappropriate gene expression, and long-term ill-health.

I don’t want them,” said Vira; “not if I can have the picture. I like pictures most, and I’ve wanted one always. I don’t care for dolls; they ain’t no account. They can’t talk to you, nor look at you, only stare; they can’t even cry. I would rather have a real live baby. Miz’ Perkins, she lives in Swamp Lane right next to our house, and she has got a real live baby, just as pretty as it can be. It can laugh, and cry, and do lots of things. It is enough sight better than a dollie; and dollies get broke, besides. I had one once, and I loved it. Pa., he broke it one time when he was drunk—broke it all to pieces. I never wanted no more dollies, and I’m not going to love them anymore; but I would like a picture first-rate.

Didn’t your sister explain what happens to a man’s body when he’s aroused?” he asked. “Yes, but she didn’t tell me it could happen in the parlor, of all places.” His lips curved. “I’m afraid it can happen anywhere. The parlor, the drawing room, a carriage . . . or a summer house.” Looking scandalized, Pandora asked, “Then you think this is what Dolly and Mr. Hayhurst were doing in the summer house?” “There’s no doubt.” He began to unfasten the top buttons of her nightgown, and kissed the newly revealed skin of her throat. Pandora, however, hadn’t yet finished with the subject of the summer house rendezvous. “But Mr. Hayhurst wouldn’t have returned to the ballroom with a . . . a protrusion like that. How do you deflate it?” “I usually distract myself by thinking about the latest analysis of foreign securities on the stock exchange. That usually takes care of the problem right away. If that fails, I picture the Queen.” “Really? I wonder what Prince Albert used to think about? It couldn’t have been the Queen—they had nine children together.” As Pandora continued to chatter, Gabriel spread the sides of the nightgown open and kissed the tender valley between her breasts. Her fingers fidgeted at the back of his neck. “Do you suppose it was something like educational reform? Or Parliamentary procedure, or—” “Shhh.” 

Jimmy looked back at the counter, but Dolly wasn't there anymore. He supposed she was fetching her coat and fixing her lipstick, or one of the other things girls thought they had to do to be beautiful. He wished she wouldn't; she didn't need makeup and fancy clothing. They were like veneers, Jimmy sometimes thought, concealing the essence of a person, the very things that made her vulnerable and real and therefore most beautiful to him. Dolly's complexities and imperfections were part of what he loved about her.

Dolly was a survivor; Vivien said so, and Vivien ought to know- just look at the way she'd recovered from her own early hardships to create a new life for herself. And if Vivien could do it, so would Dolly. She'd suffered so much, but she still had things to live for- she'd find things to live for. This was the time to be brave, to be better than she'd ever been before. Dolly had done things that made her ashamed to remember them; her grand ideas had been nothing but a young girl's silly dreams, they'd all turned to ash in her fingers; but everybody deserved a second chance, everybody was worthy of forgiveness, even her- Vivien said so.

Who cares? Who cares what it says about you? Who cares if he’s the kind of guy your parents would pick for you? Who cares if you like staid and steady and even-keeled?” Dolly leaned forward. “What do you want, Pinky? Forget what everyone else would think or what it might say about your identity. What does your heart say? What does your soul say about Samir?

What a benison water is, I thought, watching a wagtail enjoying the spray. Whether we drink it, wash in it, swim in it or simply stand and stare at it, as we were doing now, it has the power to refresh, to soothe, and to exhilarate. It has much the same properties as sleep, I thought.... Certainly, gazing downward with the waters of the Dove below, and listening to the rustle of the Dovedale foliage above me, I could feel the pain of Dolly's absence, and the many petty domestic and school frustrations and worries ebbing away from me.

Loving America is the most American of things to do. Why does loving America preclude an honest understanding of our history and its influence in our lives?

Don’t you wish to marry?” At Pandora’s lack of response, she pressed impatiently, “Well?” Pandora glanced at Kathleen for guidance. “Should I say the conventional thing or the honest thing?” Lady Berwick replied before Kathleen was able. “Answer honestly, child.” “In that case,” Pandora said, “No, I don’t wish to marry, ever. I like men quite well—at least the ones I’ve been acquainted with—but I shouldn’t like to have to obey a husband and serve his needs. It wouldn’t make me at all happy to have a dozen children, and stay at home knitting while he goes out romping with his friends. I would rather be independent.” The room was silent. Lady Berwick’s expression did not change, nor did she blink even once as she stared at Pandora. It seemed as if a wordless battle were being waged between the authoritative older woman and the rebellious girl. Finally Lady Berwick said, “You must have read Tolstoy.” Pandora blinked, clearly caught off guard by the unexpected statement. “I have,” she admitted, looking mystified. “How did you know?” “No young woman wants to marry after reading Tolstoy. That is why I never allowed either of my daughters to read Russian novels.” “How are Dolly and Bettina?” Kathleen burst in, trying to change the subject by asking after the countess’s daughters. Neither Lady Berwick nor Pandora would be sidetracked. “Tolstoy isn’t the only reason I don’t wish to marry,” Pandora said. “Whatever your reasons, they are unsound. I will explain to you later why you do wish to marry. Furthermore, you are an unconventional girl, and you must learn to conceal it. There is no happiness for any individual, man or woman, who does not dwell within the broad zone of average.” Pandora regarded her with baffled interest. “Yes, ma’am.” Privately Helen suspected that the two women were looking forward to a ripping argument.

I reflected how easy it is for a man to reduce women of a certain age to imbecility. All he has to do is give an impersonation of desire, or better still, of secret knowledge, for a woman to feel herself a source of power.

Another thing we loved to do was to catch June bugs and tie them to a string. I'm sure it was more fun for us than the poor weighted-down June bugs, but we had a ball flying what we called our “’lectric kites." You tried to get a real good fat June bug with a lot of lifting power. Sometimes you could just fantasize about him being able to lift you right off the ground to where you could soar up among the clouds and look down at the trees and the fields. That kind of blissful thought would sometimes come to a sudden halt when your June bug would sacrifice his leg in the name of freedom and buzz off across the pasture. In the blink of an eye you could go from being a kind of daring Smoky Mountain astronaut to being just a kid with a bug leg hanging from a piece of thread. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all of those five-legged June bugs for those dreams, fleeting though they may have been.

Young boys were dragged to church the same way I was. But since they were destined to become men, they were given more leeway. I suppose when they started growing pubic hair they were allowed to wander out of church before the service was over to take their places outside, as if training to be men. Much of their training apparently involved staring back into the church at us girls. It was the custom after church for the boys and girls to do some limited socializing, flirting, and so on, while the women gossiped and the men smoked and spit. This flirtation, however, was limited by the distance the boy could get the girl to walk into the woods, and the girl’s own boundaries. So there I sat, trying to be holy, praying for forgiveness for sins I couldn’t put my finger on, repenting for things I had put my finger on, and all the while being aware of the boys looking at me, the woods behind the church, and the possible combinations of all of these things. The devil and I certainly had one thing in common: We were both horny.

People have often asked me how we girls managed any privacy in a house with so many boys and no private rooms. It was difficult. We used to bathe with a washcloth from a pan of water. We would first start with our necks and faces and wash down as far as possible. Then we would wash the road dust from our feet and wash up as far as possible. Later, when the boys were out of the room, we would wash “possible.” It was these circumstances that led to a very embarrassing mishap that I have told very few people and would not relate here if it were not so funny. We had an outdoor bathroom, and there were times in the middle of the night when it was very inconvenient to dress and go out into the cold just to take a leak. For these times there was a little room, actually a closet, that had in it what was called a “slop jar” or “slop bucket.” It was actually an enameled pot with flared sides that was made to accommodate a woman squatting over it to do her business. The closet had no door as such, just a sort of curtain hung on a tight piece of wire. After dark when the fire had died down, it could afford some kind of privacy at least. One night when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I had been out on a date and got home fairly late. Everybody was already in bed, and I didn’t want to wake them and alert Mama and Daddy to the hour of my homecoming. I was absolutely bustin’ to pee, so I fumbled my way through the dark until I found the curtain to the closet and stepped inside. I dropped my panties and hiked up my skirt and assumed the position over the slop jar. I was feeling relieved in a physical sense and quite grown-up and somewhat smug that I “pulled it off,” so to speak. But suddenly, here in the middle of my little triumph, or more accurately here in the middle of my rump, came the cold nose of an unexpected intruder. A raccoon had gotten into the house, and unbeknownst to me, we were sharing the closet as well as a very intimate moment. When I felt that cold nose on my butt, I screamed bloody murder and literally peed all over myself. Of course I woke the whole house with my unscheduled concert. Daddy grabbed the poker to fend off an intruder. Mama started praying. The little kids cried, and the big kids just ran around confused. When everybody found out what had happened, they all had a good laugh at my expense. Except, of course, the raccoon. Once the lights were turned on, he acted like any man caught in a compromising position with a lady and bolted for the door. I often think of that moment at times when I’m feeling “too big for my britches,” and it tends to have a humbling effect.

Carl finally came home and would come to see me almost every night, usually staying to the wee hours. He was working with his father in his asphalt-paving business in South Nashville and I was living in Madison, Tennessee. Between that and the time he spent with me, he wasn’t getting any sleep at all. Finally, one day he said, quite matter-of-factly, “You’re either gonna have to move to the other side of town or we’re gonna have to get married.” That, to Carl, was a proposal. People always want to know how he asked me to marry him, and I always have to say, “He didn’t exactly ask.” Part of me was thrilled that he wanted to marry me, but another part was a little taken aback. That must have been the strongest part because that was the one that answered. “You never have even said you loved me.” “Hell, you know I love you,” was Carl’s answer. I attribute this to that same kind of unspoken communication that I explained when describing life with my daddy. It is one of the Parton/Dean rules of conduct I have become a one-woman committee to abolish. Always at holidays or other family gatherings, people would hug and say good-bye, but they would never say “I love you.” Sure, I know that the love is there, but dammit, I want to hear it! I was the first one in my family, that I know of, to ever tell other family members that I loved them. One day, after I had been living away from home for many years, I was saying good-bye to Daddy when I told him, “I love you.” He responded in the usual nonverbal, look-at-the-ground Parton way, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I took his head between my hands and made him look me right in the eye. “You tell me you love me,” I demanded. With no small amount of embarrassment he said, “Aww, you know I love you’uns” (a mountain word meaning more than one). “Not you’uns!” I kept on. “This has got nothing to do with Cassie or Bobby or anybody else. I want to know if you”—I emphasized the word by poking my finger into his chest—“love me,” I said with an emphatic point toward myself. He tried to look to one side, but I held his face firmly. He blushed and sputtered and finally said haltingly, “I love you.” That must have been the crack in the dam. Once the top man had fallen, it was easier to teach the rest of the Partons to say “I love you.” Now it is something we all do freely. It is still not something Carl does on a regular basis. But now and then, in a kind of sidewinding way, he will say it.

I asked Carl to go to the event with me, and he agreed. We rented him a tuxedo, and he looked very handsome in it, if a little uncomfortable. The tuxedo was only the beginning of a miserable evening for Carl. Everywhere we went there were crowds of people, including photographers, and everybody made a big fuss over us. Carl sat through the ceremony and patiently waited afterward while I shook hands and accepted congratulations from a throng of music-industry people. I thought he was really handsome in his tux, but you could tell by the look on his face it suited him like a sock on a rooster. He didn’t say much all evening long, but on the way home, he took off his tuxedo jacket and tie and then even his shirt. I’ll never forget the way he looked sitting there in the car with his suspenders across his bare chest. Finally, he turned to me and said calmly, “Honey, I love you and I will support you in your career any way that I can. I know it’s a big part of you and you wouldn’t be the same person if you didn’t do it. But the limelight’s just not for me. I’ll be there at home waiting for you, but I am not going to any more of these wingdings.” He has been a wingdingless man of his word ever since.

The storm turned out to be much worse even than our captain had imagined. Winds that must have been near hurricane force whipped the seas into a frenzy. The couple busied themselves with trying to handle the boat and keep it afloat, and I’m glad they did. But that left Sandy and me to fend for ourselves. Of the two of us, Sandy is the bigger sissy (he’s always more afraid he’s going to break a nail than I am). He had no idea what to do. Soon it became clear to both of us what to do: hold on for dear life! Waves began washing over the rear deck, and I started to get really scared. It takes a lot for me to take my shoes off, but this is one time I decided I could forgo the five-inch heels. I took them off, and it wasn’t long before “my little slings,” as I always called them, got slung. They went overboard with a wave, and all I could do was watch them go. The next wave almost got me. A wall of water came crashing over the boat, slapping it around like a toy. I slid across the deck, completely out of control. I felt a rush of cold water surround me as the sea swept me in. I managed to grab a railing and stay with the boat, but my whole body was dangling overboard. I could think of nothing but the shark stories the captain had told us earlier. Just as I began to lose my grip, I became aware of Sandy making his way across the pitching deck, reaching his hand out for me He somehow got a hold of me and dragged me back onto the boat and into the little cabin. It felt good to be out of the water, but by all appearances, the sharks’ dinner had only been delayed. There seemed to be no way our little boat could ride out this storm. You never know how you’re going to respond to a situation like that until you’re actually in it. The way Sandy and I chose to deal with it is still a source of wonder to me. We held a brief high-level discussion and unanimously decided that we were doomed. Sandy’s gutsy “They can kill us, but they won’t eat us” didn’t apply to sharks. Then we simply and calmly lay down on the little bunk, held hands, and waited to die. I thought to myself, “If this don’t beat all.” Here I am, a country girl from East Tennessee, about to die somewhere off the coast of Australia, side by side with a gay man from New York.

She was walking toward the beauty shop when Shay came out the door moving fast. The first thing Jill noticed was Shay’s hair and how it appeared really big. As Shay drew closer, Jill realized she looked like she was wearing a mask with big blue streaks over the eyes and giant red pouty lips. “What happened to you?” Jill asked in shock. “I’m not sure,” Shay said, looking just as stunned. “One minute, I was reading a magazine, and the next, two women that looked like Dolly Parton descended on me like vultures. They started putting stuff on my face, then they did all kinds of things to my hair.” Anne walked out of the shop next; her Napoleon hat ’do rode higher than ever. Ella followed with her little red hair ball reinflated. “Doesn’t Shay just look beautiful?” Ella chirped. She looked like a hooker who’d just survived a wind tunnel, but Jill nodded and tried to smile.