Dress Rehearsal Quotes

I want an avowed atheist in the White House. When time comes to push that button, I want whoever's making the decision to understand that once it's pushed, it's over. Finito. They're not gonna have lunch with Jesus. Won't be deflowering 72 virgins on the great shag carpet of eternity, or reincarnated as a cow. I want someone making that decision who believes life on this Earth isn't just a dress rehearsal for something better -- but the only shot we get.

I just want to leave you with this thought, that it's just been sort of a dress rehearsal, and we're just getting started. So if any of you start resting on your laurels, I mean just forget it, because...we are just getting started.

Life is not a dress rehearsal.

Maybe it’s just getting older. You become so palpably aware this is not a dress rehearsal. There’s a big sign in blazing neon that says You Haven’t Got Long. But I think it takes a beat to learn that. Life has to knock you down in order for you to realise it, because when you’re a kid you think you’re immortal.

Many people live as if life were a dress rehearsal for some later date.

Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.

This is no dress rehearsal.

You have to do what you love to do, not get stuck in that comfort zone of a regular job. Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it.

After the dress rehearsal that afternoon, someone had misplaced the vial of poison, and for lack of better, Romeo would have to commit suicide by eating Tic Tacs.

This is not a dress rehearsal before a better kind of life. Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you.

life will test us. For real, not a dress rehearsal. And on that day we will finally realise that we are all alone, forced to face ourselves, with no lies left to cling to.

Life is not a dress rehearsal—this is probably it. Make it count. Time is extremely limited and goes by fast. Do what makes you happy and fulfilled—few people get remembered hundreds of years after they die anyway. Don’t do stuff that doesn’t make you happy (this happens most often when other people want you to do something). Don’t spend time trying to maintain relationships with people you don’t like, and cut negative people out of your life. Negativity is really bad. Don’t let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do.

We have better things to do. We realize life is not just a dress rehearsal and if you realize it, you don't need a bumper sticker to remind you.

For you she learned to wear a short black slip and red lipstick, how to order a glass of red wine and finish it. She learned to reach out as if to touch your arm and then not touch it, changing the subject. Didn't you think, she'd begin, or Weren't you sorry. . . . To call your best friends by their schoolboy names and give them kisses good-bye, to look away when they say Your wife! So your confidence grows. She doesn't ask what you want because she knows. Isn't that what you think? When actually she was only waiting to be told Take off your dress--- to be stunned, and then do this, never rehearsed, but perfectly obvious: in one motion up, over, and gone, the X of her arms crossing and uncrossing, her face flashing away from you in the fabric so that you couldn't say if she was appearing or disappearing.

Here's one night when I control the chaos. I participate with the doom I can't control. I'm dancing with the inevitable, and I survive....My regular little dress rehearsal...the day I finally meet Death, the two of us will be old, long-lost friends. Me and Death, separated at birth.

Friendship between therapist and patients is a necessary condition in the process of therapy - necessary, but not, however, sufficient. Psychotherapy is not a substitute for life but a dress rehearsal for life, In other words, though psychotherapy requires a close relationship, the relationship is not an end - it is a means to an end.

Why do we insist on dress-rehearsing tragedy in moments of deep joy? Because joy is the most vulnerable emotion we feel. And that’s saying something, given that I study fear and shame. When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability—it’s beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in

And this is what we called our childhoods. Little more than a dress rehearsal for adding our digits to the butcher's bill of war.

This life isn't a dress rehearsal, it's not a practice or a training session, it's the real thing. It's the only one you have.

Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she’d stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who’d stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn’t been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot. When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn’t broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would’ve crossed the street, and the taxi would’ve driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.

Subconsciously we are lured by the expectation that we will reach a stage where we don’t have to fix anything ever again. One day we will reach “happily ever after.” We are convinced of the notion of “resolution.” It’s as if everything that we’ve experienced up until now, our whole lives to this moment, was a dress rehearsal. We believe our grand performance is yet to come, so we do not live for today.

I thought of Natalia: she has escaped – none too soon, perhaps. However often the decision may be delayed, all these people are ultimately doomed. This evening is the dress-rehearsal of a disaster. It is like the last night of an epoch.

The true philosopher lives his life as a dress rehearsal for death.

Life is not a dress rehearsal’. There were no rewrites, no retakes,

But I knew how the play would come out. This was like a dress rehearsal after the show has closed down.

Life is not a dress rehearsal.

When I saw her floating down the aisle toward me, her and her daddy both were giggling like this whole thing was only a dress rehearsal. There I was, serious as four heart attacks and a stroke, but then she looked up at me and puckered her pink-paint lips in a little kiss and I got the joke. She was letting me know that all of this—the little girls holding up the train of her gown, my morning jacket, even the ring in my pocket—was just a show. What was real was the dance of light in her eyes and the quick current of our blood. And then I smiled, too.

To Take Back a Life First, you must learn desire. Hold its fruit in your hands. Unmarry it from the hunger to be held, to be wanted, to be called from the streets like the family dog. You are not a 'good girl.' You are not somebody's otherness. This is not a dress rehearsal before a better kind of life. Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you.

Lighten up. Brighten up - that's my mantra, and it gets me through the rest of the afternoon.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Finding love is all about taking a risk, taking control of your social life, and knowing that you won't waste today because tomorrow is a gift.

Come on, we only get one chance at life. This isn't a dress rehearsal.

I mean, I spend all my life behaving like it's a bloody dress rehearsal, waiting for the real bit to start. And it's such a fucking waste.

Brexit was a dress rehearsal for the US presidential election of 2016. As in Britain, so in the United States, the political establishment took it for granted that the old ways would suffice.

Life isn’t a dress rehearsal; you have to go for it. But it takes hard work and dedication and you might not always get what you think you deserve. It doesn’t matter. Handle yourself with professionalism and remember that in business, your personal brand is your greatest asset. Mind your reputation and the rest will come.

After I took two pees- 'cause the news of this mandatory dress rehearsal was way too big of a nuclear bomb to just take one- we made plans to meet by the Fountain before the dress rehearsal began to get our act together.

do know this—this right here is just prelude. Dress rehearsal. The intro. One of these days each one of us is going to get called up and given the chance to join our voices in a song we’ve never heard, yet one we’ve known our whole lives.

Jury trials are really nothing more than poorly written stage plays. You’ve got two authors writing opposing narratives and a director who is paid not to care about either outcome. Hired actors sit on either end of the stage, while unwitting audience members strive to remain quiet. No applause should be rendered, no gasps of glory. Witnesses sit agape with fury as they stumble across their rehearsed lines. If only they had practiced just once more. If only they had more time or a dress rehearsal, then they would recite their packaged words with such eloquent delivery that the critics in the jury box would believe only them.

Live... More than your neighbors. Unleash yourself upon the world and go places. Go now. Giggle, no, laugh. No... stay out past dark, And bark at the moon like the wild dog that you are. Understand that this is not a dress rehearsal. This is it... your life. Face your fears and live your dreams. Take it in. Yes, every chance you get... come close. And, by all means, whatever you do... Get it on film.

God’s shoulders are big enough to handle your deepest and darkest fears and frustrations. You don’t have to worry about saying things you might never be able to get back or saying things that might “wound” God. He can’t be wounded. He knows all you are feeling and thinking anyway. By going to God first, you gain an emotional release and the clarity to think and talk things through. This dress rehearsal with him better prepares you to succeed on the stage of life.

Life ends, and that's part of what makes it special. What exists is here, in front of us, what we can see and touch and affect. Our lives are not dress rehearsals in which we plan and are tested in anticipation of the real show to come. This is it, the only performance we're going to get to give, and it is what we make of it.

I'm sorry, Nathan, I really wish I could be the sort of person who thinks things out in advance. Like Mum with her dinner parties, or even Oggy and her schemes, but that's not me. I have to follow myself around and find things out as they happen.

Life is like theatre. Each new day is a new scene with new acts and roles to portray. The sets always change. You come across new dialogue and lines to exchange between others. Scripts are improvised. But the beauty in it is that everyday, you are constantly learning who you are and how others around you are. Express yourself and empathize. It's okay to wear a mask every now and then but remember that you'll eventually meet fellow thespians who will find a way to break down your walls and barriers. Remember another thing: this isn't a dress rehearsal. And God is your ultimate Director. Let Him write your script and call the cuts. Allow Him to provide you with the applause that truly matters. Let Him open up your heart to real self discovery. He is the best playwright that never dies. He lives. And so do you when you learn to let go and step on the stage of life.

Sleep is uncanny, I have always found it so, a nightly dress-rehearsal for being dead.

Life isn’t a dress rehearsal, and you won’t always get a second chance to do your best.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Play it right because you won't get a second chance.

Learning to pray is dress rehearsal for eternal life.

This is not a dress rehearsal for a better life.

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that this is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

She pauses several treads from the bottom, listening, waiting; she is again possessed (it seems to be getting worse) by a dream-like feeling, as if she is standing in the wings, about to go onstage and perform in a play for which she is not appropriately dressed, and for which she has not adequately rehearsed.

I believe joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience. We’re afraid that if we allow ourselves to feel it, we’ll get blindsided by disaster or disappointment. That’s why in moments of real joy, many of us dress-rehearse

Once your life has become a constant communion, you know that all the techniques, formulas, sacraments, and practices were just a dress rehearsal for the real thing—life itself—which can actually become a constant intentional prayer.

I do know this—this right here is just prelude. Dress rehearsal. The intro. One of these days each one of us is going to get called up and given the chance to join our voices in a song we’ve never heard, yet one we’ve known our whole lives.

Life’s not a performance, it’s a dress rehearsal: people on an unfinished stage who don’t quite know what they’re doing, getting their lines wrong and never fully in character. Everyone’s an amateur, an understudy, we just get better at hiding it.

I wonder why we too often live as though the life we are living is a trial run—some sort of dress rehearsal. Do we think that somewhere down the road we will get the chance to do it right? This is it! Today is it. You will not live this day again. Savor it.

Life ends, and that’s part of what makes it special. What exists is here, in front of us, what we can see and touch and affect. Our lives are not dress rehearsals in which we plan and are tested in anticipation of the real show to come. This is it, the only performance we’re going to get to give, and it is what we make of it.

It was a dress rehearsal. Opening night was just three days away. “Why do you come every day?” asked Bill. I had to think. “It’s about seeing something before it’s fully formed. Watching it evolve. I imagine sitting here on opening night and appreciating every scene all the more because I understand what has led to it.” Bill laughed. “What’s so funny?” “Nothing. It’s just that you don’t speak often, but when you do it’s perfect.” I looked down and rubbed my hands together. “And I love that you never talk about hats,” Bill said. “Hats? Why would I talk about hats?” “Women like to talk about hats.” “Do they?” “The fact you don’t know that is what will make me fall in love with you.” Suddenly, every word I ever knew evaporated.

The price of slaves grew so high that a sizable number of white southerners urged the reopening of the African slave trade. In the 1850s, legislatures in several states, including South Carolina, proposed reopening the trade. Adopting this measure would have violated federal law. Some “reopeners” believed that the federal ban on the trade was unconstitutional; others were keen to nullify it, in a dress rehearsal for secession.

Sisters dress up to rehearse for what will really happen to them. But brothers, Elijah realizes, are never rehearsing that way. They rehearse their own illusions, until reality takes a turn and they are asked to rehearse for other things. You go to school. You graduate. You sell snack cakes. You hang up your cape and put on a suit.

If you are not playing your A-game, what game are you playing? Are you waiting for the sun to come out? Do you need an umbrella? This is not a B-Movie for B-listers. Is there anything worse, anything more sickening, than people not giving it their all? Get off your fucking knees, get off your fucking asses, get off your fucking bellies, and fucking do something with your lives. What the fuck are you waiting for? This is not a dress rehearsal. This is fucking it. Right here, right now. Well? Have you forgotten your lines? If you’re not going to show up when it matters, fuck off. Get with the fucking program. If you’re not ready to perform, get off the fucking stage.

We were always being taken to rehearsals when we were little and it is probably because of that that I like rehearsals better than concerts. There is something about listening to a group of people try over and over to get it right and at last do that provides a tension of drama you don't get when they're all dressed up giving a concert.

The beauty of theatre was that it was a moving, changing art form—only those who watch the same performance night in after night out see the real naturalistic drama at work—the small changes, adjustments, changes in articulation or intonation, the addition of a cough or hiccup, a longer pause rife with more (or less) meaning, the character’s movement across the stage a step slower, a step closer to the audience, the change of a word here and there, an overall change in mood and tone, the actors becoming (or not) the characters more fully, blending in with them, losing themselves in the lines, in the characterizations, in a drama that is simultaneously unfolding and becoming more and more verisimilitudinous as time marches on. This is the real narrative—while the character changes on stage in an instant, the play changes slowly, unnoticeably (unnoticeable to those closest to it perhaps), like the face of a man in his thirties, like his beliefs about life, his motives, all slowly as if duplicating itself day by day, filling itself and becoming more and more itself, the rehearsal of Self, the dress rehearsal of Self, the performance of Self, the extended performance of Self, the encore…—it appears to be the same show, played over and over again with the same details to different crowds, and yet something happens. Something changes. It is not the same show.

Visualize a purpose and an outcome. This concept really struck me from reading Frankl, and it’s a lesson all leaders need to master. Think of it as a mental dress rehearsal for what will happen (notice I said will, not could). If you picture a positive result, it trains your brain to look for the resources that will help you achieve it. Seeing what you want stimulates your creativity and strengthens your confidence. This is more than just daydreaming. It’s eliminating the self-doubt and negativity that can deter you, and putting in place a plan that will lead you on your desired path. And once you know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s much easier to face the dark.

He looks at me. "You really think being interested in true crime is like being interested in sports? That's sick." Vin says, "I've read women are into it because it's like a dress rehearsal. They're more fearful of violent crime than us because they're victims of it more often. They're taught not to walk alone at night or trust strangers. They have a reason to pay attention to those stories." "Oh wow. I didn't know that," Maveric says. Vin continues. "I think it also gives people a sense of relief that they aren't the victim." Maveric looks at me. "Is that why you like it? Because you're happy you're not the victim?" "Yeah," I say. "But It's also because I'm happy I'm not the perpetrator." He laughs. He thinks I'm joking.

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

One cool morning—a rainstorm had swept through the night before; now the City of Angels sparkled like Eden itself—he was walking between soundstages in Culver City, carrying a cardboard cup of coffee, nodding to this glorious creature (dressed as a harem girl), then that glorious creature (a cowgirl), then that glorious creature (a secretary?)—they all smiled at him—when he ran into, of all people, an old pal of his from the Major Bowes days, a red-haired pianist who’d bounced around the Midwest in the 1930s, Lyle Henderson (Crosby would soon nickname him Skitch). Henderson was strolling with a creature much more glorious, if possible, than the three Sinatra had just encountered. She was tall, dark haired, with sleepy green eyes, killer cheekbones, and absurdly lush lips, lips he couldn’t stop staring at. Frankie! Henderson said, as they shook hands. His old chum was doing all right these days. Sinatra smiled, not at Henderson. The glorious creature smiled back bashfully, but with a teasing hint of directness in her dark eyes. The pianist—he was doing rehearsal duty at the studio—then got to say the six words that someone had to say, sometime, but that he and he alone got to say for the first time in history on this sparkling morning: Frank Sinatra, this is Ava Gardner.

The next day, I started getting dressed at three for the rehearsal. The beautiful cherry red suit had black stitching, and I had taken the skirt to a seamstress to have it shortened to a sexy upper-midthigh length--an unfortunate habit I’d picked up while watching too much Knots Landing in the late 1980s. I was relatively slender and not the least bit stacked on top, and my bottom was somewhat fit but wildly unremarkable. If I was going to highlight any feature of my anatomy, it would have to be my legs. When I arrived at the rehearsal at the church, my grandmother kissed me, then looked down and said, “Did you forget the other half of your suit?” The seamstress had gotten a little overzealous.

My, my,” Chloe murmured, studying the chocolate she held. “I do believe this one’s gone off. It stinks like a cesspit.” Her eyes lifted. “Oh, wait. It’s only the guttersnipe.” “Or perhaps it’s your perfume,” I said cordially. “You always smell like a whore.” “It’s French,” retorted Runny-Nose, before Chloe could speak. “Then she smells like a French whore.” “Aren’t you the eloquent young miss.” Chloe’s gaze cut to Sophia, standing close behind me. “Slumming, little sister? I can’t confess I’m surprised.” “I’m merely here for the show,” Sophia said breezily. “Something tells me it’s going to be good.” I took the brooch from my pocket and let it slide down my index finger, giving it a playful twirl. “A fine try. But, alas, no winner’s prize for you, Chloe. I’m sure you’ve been waiting here for Westcliffe to raise the alarm about her missing ring, ready with some well-rehearsed story about how you saw me sneaking into her office and sneaking out again, and oh, look isn’t that Eleanore’s brooch there on the floor? But I’ve news for you, dearie. You’re sloppy. You’re stupid. And the next time you go into my room and steal from me, I’ll make certain you regret it for the rest of your days.” “How dare you threaten me, you little tart!” “I’m not threatening. You have no idea how easy it would be to, say, pour glue on your hair while you sleep. Cut up all your pretty dresses into ribbons.” Chloe dropped her half-eaten chocolate back into its box, turning to her toadies. “You heard her! You all head her! When Westcliffe finds out about this-“ “I didn’t hear a thing,” piped up Sophia. “In fact, I do believe that Eleanore and I aren’t even here right now. We’re both off in my room, diligently studying.” She sauntered to my side, smiling. “And I’ll swear to that, sister. Without hesitation. I have no misgivings about calling you all liars right to Westcliffe’s face.” “What fun,” I said softly, into the hush. “Shall we give it a go? What d’you say, girls? Up for a bit of blood sport?” Chloe pushed to her feet, kicking the chocolates out of her way. All the toadies cringed. “You,” she sneered, her gaze scouring me. “You with your ridiculous clothing and that preposterous bracelet, acting as if you actually belong here! Really, Eleanore, I wonder that you’ve learned nothing of real use yet. Allow me to explain matters to you. You may have duped Sophia into vouching for you, but your word means nothing. You’re no one. No matter what you do here or who you may somehow manage to impress, you’ll always be no one. How perfectly sad that you’re allowed to pretend otherwise.” “I’m the one he wants,” I said evenly. “No one’s pretending that.” I didn’t have to say who. She stared at me, silent, her color high. I saw with interest that real tears began to well in her eyes. “That’s right.” I gave the barest smile. “Me, not you. Think about that tomorrow, when I’m with him on the yacht. Think about how he watches me. How he listens to me. Another stunt like this”-I held up the circlet-“and you’ll be shocked at what I’m able to convince him about you.” “As if you could,” she scoffed, but there was apprehension behind those tears. “Try me.” I brought my foot down on one of the chocolates, grinding it into a deep, greasy smear along the rug. “Cheerio,” I said to them all, and turned around and left.

Navy Seals Stress Relief Tactics (As printed in O Online Magazine, Sept. 8, 2014) Prep for Battle: Instead of wasting energy by catastrophizing about stressful situations, SEALs spend hours in mental dress rehearsals before springing into action, says Lu Lastra, director of mentorship for Naval Special Warfare and a former SEAL command master chief.  He calls it mental loading and says you can practice it, too.  When your boss calls you into her office, take a few minutes first to run through a handful of likely scenarios and envision yourself navigating each one in the best possible way.  The extra prep can ease anxiety and give you the confidence to react calmly to whatever situation arises. Talk Yourself Up: Positive self-talk is quite possibly the most important skill these warriors learn during their 15-month training, says Lastra.  The most successful SEALs may not have the biggest biceps or the fastest mile, but they know how to turn their negative thoughts around.  Lastra recommends coming up with your own mantra to remind yourself that you’ve got the grit and talent to persevere during tough times. Embrace the Suck: “When the weather is foul and nothing is going right, that’s when I think, now we’re getting someplace!” says Lastra, who encourages recruits to power through the times when they’re freezing, exhausted or discouraged.  Why?  Lastra says, “The, suckiest moments are when most people give up; the resilient ones spot a golden opportunity to surpass their competitors.  It’s one thing to be an excellent athlete when the conditions are perfect,” he says.  “But when the circumstances aren’t so favorable, those who have stronger wills are more likely to rise to victory.” Take a Deep Breath: “Meditation and deep breathing help slow the cognitive process and open us up to our more intuitive thoughts,” says retired SEAL commander Mark Divine, who developed SEALFit, a demanding training program for civilians that incorporates yoga, mindfulness and breathing techniques.  He says some of his fellow SEALs became so tuned-in, they were able to sense the presence of nearby roadside bombs.  Who doesn’t want that kind of Jedi mind power?  A good place to start: Practice what the SEALs call 4 x 4 x 4 breathing.  Inhale deeply for four counts, then exhale for four counts and repeat the cycle for four minutes several times a day.  You’re guaranteed to feel calmer on any battleground. Learn to value yourself, which means to fight for your happiness. ---Ayn Rand

What is a friend? A friend is one of the nicest things you can have – and one of the best things you can be. – Douglas Pagels, from These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give to You (published 1999) Have steppingstones to look forward to, milestones to look back upon, and -- in between -- do everything it takes to have an abundance of connect-the-dot days that lead to happiness. – Douglas Pagels, from 30 Beautiful Things That Are True About You May you remember that though the roads we take can sometimes be difficult, those are often the ones that lead to the most beautiful views. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You Love of family and love of friends is where everything beautiful begins. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You I want you to be reminded from time to time that you are a wonderful gift, and one of the nicest things in this entire world... is your presence in it. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You Do your part for the planet. Do all those things you know you “should” do. Our grandchildren will either have words of praise for our efforts and our foresight, or words that condemn us for forgetting that they will live here long after we are gone. Don’t overlook the obvious: This is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real thing. Our presence has an impact, but our precautions do, too. – Douglas Pagels, from Words That Shine Like Stars The wisest people on earth are those who have a hard time recalling their worries and an easy time remembering their blessings. – Douglas Pagels, from These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give to You Expressing your creativity is done more by the way you are living than by any other gesture. – Douglas Pagels, from These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give to You If your pursuit of wealth causes you to sacrifice any aspect of your health, your priorities are heading you in the wrong direction. Don’t hesitate to make a “you” turn. – Douglas Pagels, from These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give to You The more you’re bothered by something that’s wrong, the more you’re empowered to change things and make them right. The more we follow that philosophy as individuals, the easier it will be to brighten our horizons outward from there, taking in our communities, our cultures, our countries, and the common ground we stand on. The crucible of peace and goodwill is far too empty, and each of us must, in some way, help to fill it. – Douglas Pagels, from These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give to You We can always do more and be more than we think we can. Let’s think less and imagine more. – Douglas Pagels, from These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give to You

Oedipa spent the next several days in and out of libraries and earnest discussions with Emory Bortz and Genghis Cohen. She feared a little for their security in view of what was happening to everyone else she knew. The day after reading Blobb's Peregrinations she, with Bortz, Grace, and the graduate students, attended Randolph Driblette's burial, listened to a younger brother's helpless, stricken eulogy, watched the mother, spectral in afternoon smog, cry, and came back at night to sit on the grave and drink Napa Valley muscatel, which Driblette in his time had put away barrels of. There was no moon, smog covered the stars, all black as a Tristero rider. Oedipa sat on the earth, ass getting cold, wondering whether, as Driblette had suggested that night from the shower, some version of herself hadn't vanished with him. Perhaps her mind would go on flexing psychic muscles that no longer existed; would be betrayed and mocked by a phantom self as the amputee is by a phantom limb. Someday she might replace whatever of her had gone away by some prosthetic device, a dress of a certain color, a phrase in a ' letter, another lover. She tried to reach out, to whatever coded tenacity of protein might improbably have held on six feet below, still resisting decay-any stubborn quiescence perhaps gathering itself for some last burst, some last scramble up through earth, just-glimmering, holding together with its final strength a transient, winged shape, needing to settle at once in the warm host, or dissipate forever into the dark. If you come to me, prayed Oedipa, bring your memories of the last night. Or if you have to keep down your payload, the last five minutes-that may be enough. But so I'll know if your walk into the sea had anything to do with Tristero. If they got rid of you for the reason they got rid of Hilarius and Mucho and Metzger-maybe because they thought I no longer needed you. They were wrong. I needed you. Only bring me that memory, and you can live with me for whatever time I've got. She remembered his head, floating in the shower, saying, you could fall in love with me. But could she have saved him? She looked over at the girl who'd given her the news of his death. Had they been in love? Did she know why Driblette had put in those two extra lines that night? Had he even known why? No one could begin to trace it. A hundred hangups, permuted, combined-sex, money, illness, despair with the history of his time and place, who knew. Changing the script had no clearer motive than his suicide. There was the same whimsy to both. Perhaps-she felt briefly penetrated, as if the bright winged thing had actually made it to the sanctuary of her heart-perhaps, springing from the same slick labyrinth, adding those two lines had even, in a way never to be explained, served him as a rehearsal for his night's walk away into that vast sink of the primal blood the Pacific. She waited for the winged brightness to announce its safe arrival. But there was silence. Driblette, she called. The signal echoing down twisted miles of brain circuitry. Driblette! But as with Maxwell's Demon, so now. Either she could not communicate, or he did not exist.

Two kinds of development help explain how a readiness built up to kill all Jews, including women and children. One is a series of “dress rehearsals” that served to lower inhibitions and provided trained personnel hardened for anything. First came the euthanasia of incurably ill and insane Germans, begun on the day when World War II began. Nazi eugenics theory had long provided a racial justification for getting rid of “inferior” persons. War provided a broader justification for reducing the drain of “useless mouths” on scarce resources. The “T-4” program killed more than seventy thousand people between September 1939 and 1941, when, in response to protests from the victims’ families and Catholic clergy, the matter was left to local authorities. Some of the experts trained in this program were subsequently transferred to the occupied east, where they applied their mass killing techniques to Jews. This time, there was less opposition. The second “dress rehearsal” was the work of the Einsatzgruppen, the intervention squads specially charged with executing the political and cultural elite of invaded countries. In the Polish campaign of September 1939 they helped wipe out the Polish intelligentsia and high civil service, evoking some opposition within the military command. In the Soviet campaign the Einsatzgruppen received the notorious “Commissar Order” to kill all Communist Party cadres as well as the Jewish leadership (seen as identical in Nazi eyes), along with Gypsies. This time the army raised no objections. The Einsatzgruppen subsequently played a major role, though they were far from alone, in the mass killings of Jewish women and children that began in some occupied areas in fall 1941. A third “dress rehearsal” was the intentional death of millions of Soviet prisoners of war. It was on six hundred of them that the Nazi occupation authorities first tested the mass killing potential of the commercial insecticide Zyklon-B at Auschwitz on September 3, 1941. Most Soviet prisoners of war, however, were simply worked or starved to death. The second category of developments that helped prepare a “willingness to murder” consisted of blockages, emergencies, and crises that made the Jews become a seemingly unbearable burden to the administrators of conquered territories. A major blockage was the failure to capture Moscow that choked off the anticipated expulsion of all the Jews of conquered eastern Europe far into the Soviet interior. A major emergency was shortages of food supplies for the German invasion force. German military planners had chosen to feed the invasion force with the resources of the invaded areas, in full knowledge that this meant starvation for local populations. When local supplies fell below expectations, the search for “useless mouths” began. In the twisted mentality of the Nazi administrators, Jews and Gypsies also posed a security threat to German forces. Another emergency was created by the arrival of trainloads of ethnic Germans awaiting resettlement, for whom space had to be made available. Faced with these accumulating problems, Nazi administrators developed a series of “intermediary solutions.” One was ghettos, but these proved to be incubators for disease (an obsession with the cleanly Nazis), and a drain on the budget. The attempt to make the ghettos work for German war production yielded little except another category of useless mouths: those incapable of work. Another “intermediary solution” was the stillborn plan, already mentioned, to settle European Jews en masse in some remote area such as Madagascar, East Africa, or the Russian hinterland. The failure of all the “intermediary solutions” helped open the way for a “final solution”: extermination.

I went straight upstairs to my bedroom after Marlboro Man and I said good night. I had to finish packing…and I had to tend to my face, which was causing me more discomfort by the minute. I looked in the bathroom mirror; my face was sunburn red. Irritated. Inflamed. Oh no. What had Prison Matron Cindy done to me? What should I do? I washed my face with cool water and a gentle cleaner and looked in the mirror. It was worse. I looked like a freako lobster face. It would be a great match for the cherry red suit I planned to wear to the rehearsal dinner the next night. But my white dress for Saturday? That was another story. I slept like a log and woke up early the next morning, opening my eyes and forgetting for a blissful four seconds about the facial trauma I’d endured the day before. I quickly brought my hands to my face; it felt tight and rough. I leaped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, flipping on the light and looking in the mirror to survey the state of my face. The redness had subsided; I noticed that immediately. This was a good development. Encouraging. But upon closer examination, I could see the beginning stages of pruney lines around my chin and nose. My stomach lurched; it was the day of the rehearsal. It was the day I’d see not just my friends and family who, I was certain, would love me no matter what grotesque skin condition I’d contracted since the last time we saw one another, but also many, many people I’d never met before--ranching neighbors, cousins, business associates, and college friends of Marlboro Man’s. I wasn’t thrilled at the possibility that their first impression of me might be something that involved scales. I wanted to be fresh. Dewy. Resplendent. Not rough and dry and irritated. Not now. Not this weekend. I examined the damage in the mirror and deduced that the plutonium Cindy the Prison Matron had swabbed on my face the day before had actually been some kind of acid peel. The burn came first. Logic would follow that what my face would want to do next would be to, well, peel. This could be bad. This could be real, real bad. What if I could speed along that process? Maybe if I could feed the beast’s desire to slough, it would leave me alone--at least for the next forty-eight hours. All I wanted was forty-eight hours. I didn’t think it was too much to ask.

Mrs Vane glanced at her [daughter], and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment the door opened, and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room… Mrs Vane fixed her eyes on him, and intensified the smile. She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure that the tableau was interesting. ‘You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,’ said the lad, with a good-natured grumble… James Vane looked into his sister’s face with tenderness. ‘I want you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don’t suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I don’t want to.’ ‘My son, don’t say such dreadful things,’ murmured Mrs Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation… ‘Come, Sibyl,’ said her brother, impatiently. He hated his mother’s affectations… He was conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother’s nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl’s happiness. Children being by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them… After some time, he thrust away his plate, and put his head in his hands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told to him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother watched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, he got up, and went to the door. Then he turned back, and looked at her. Their eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged him. ‘Mother, I have something to ask you,’ he said. Her eyes wandered vaguely about the room. She made no answer. ‘Tell me the truth. I have a right to know. Were you married to my father?’ She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment, the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded, had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed in some measure it was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question called for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.

The first signal of the change in her behavior was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s night club before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can. This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the girls, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photo-call. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as ninety assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: “Come on, come on!” Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: “I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no-one else will.” It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: “It was good fun within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.

Man goes forth to his work and to his labour until the evening; then night comes, and with a kindly smile bids us put away all the toys we poor mortals make such a fuss over; shuts our books for us, hides our distractions from us, draws a great black coverlet over our lives ... As the darkness closes round us, we go through a dress-rehearsal of death; soul and body say good night to one another ... And then morning comes, and with morning, a re-birth.[515]

The experiences of SARS and Ebola—the two major “dress rehearsals” of the new century—serve as sobering reminders that our public health and biomedicine defenses are porous. Prominent features of modernity—population growth, climate change, rapid means of transportation, the proliferation of megacities with inadequate urban infrastructures, warfare, persistent poverty, and widening social inequalities—maintain the risk. Unfortunately, not one of these factors seems likely to abate in the near future. A final important theme of Epidemics and Society is that epidemic diseases are not random events that afflict societies capriciously and without warning. On the contrary, every society produces its own specific vulnerabilities.

For some reason, religious people tend to confuse the means with the actual goal. In the beginning, you tend to think that God really cares about your exact posture, the exact day of the week for public prayer, the authorship and wordings of your prayers, and other such things. Once your life has become a constant communion, you know that all the techniques, formulas, sacraments, and practices were just a dress rehearsal for the real thing—life itself—which can actually become a constant intentional prayer. Your conscious and loving existence gives glory to God.

Life is not a dress rehearsal.

Enid Nemy, The New York Times writer, sat through the entire dress rehearsal; she witnessed Halston’s wretched behavior as well as his close attention to his public image. “He said to me, ‘If you report that, I’ll never invite you to another show.’ And I said, ‘Halston, you never invite me to your show as it is.

But, on another level, there's a lot to be said for repetition, and I think I might actually understand what's going on around me for the first time in my entire life. It's not an entirely unpleasant sensation. Maybe this is how other people feel all the time; some of us just need a dress rehearsal first.

But this is it. This day, this life, is not a dress rehearsal for another. There’s just the one show, and it’s the most spectacular one we will ever get. So do the thing you want in spite of it all, and bring your heart to it, even if it’s for a limited time only.

honest reaction to lust. Instead, it had to be written in the stars, an embracing of fate, a headlong rush into what seemed so extraordinary that it obliterated any memory of having been at this place once or twice or three times before. This was truly a case of I’ve-never-felt-like-this-before. Everything preceding it in one’s life had been mere dress rehearsal for This Big Moment. It was incontestably real. Because of that, one could not bear to eliminate a single item that, looked upon, fired up the senses once again, reassuring oneself that, yes, it was decidedly real this time, and one was finally alive in ways that all previous finally alives were rendered meaningless.

There is a story about Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. One day his older brother died, and a newspaper got the story wrong and printed Alfred’s obituary instead. Alfred opened the paper that morning and had the unusual experience of reading his obituary while he was still alive. “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday,” the obituary began. Alfred threw down the paper. That’s not how I want to be remembered, he said. That’s not what’s important to me, he said, and right then and there he decided to throw his entire fortune into rewarding people for bettering this world and bringing it closer to peace. Yom Kippur is the day we all get to read our own obituary. It’s a dress rehearsal for our death. That’s why we wear a kittel, a shroudlike garment, on this day; why we refrain from life-affirming activities such as eating, drinking, and procreating. We are rehearsing the day of our death, because death, like Yom Kippur, atones.

you must learn desire. Hold its fruit in your hands. Unmarry it from the hunger to be held, to be wanted, to be called from the streets like the family dog. You are not a good girl. You are not somebody’s otherness. This is not a dress rehearsal before a better kind of life. Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you.

I learned that even if things went really south, you could turn yourself around one year later and be back on top again. You have to be constantly reinventing yourself. Failure is just a dress rehearsal for success.

Life on earth is just the dress rehearsal before the real production. You will spend far more time on the other side of death — in eternity — than you will here. Earth is the staging area, the preschool, the tryout for your life in eternity. It is the practice workout before the actual game; the warm-up lap before the race begins. This life is preparation for the next.

How did you learn to ballroom dance? That’s quite an accomplishment for a boy your age.” “My mom taught me.” He glanced at her. The anger had faded from his eyes. “I’m pretty good.” “I’m not surprised.” She liked the way he’d perked up. It was good to see his confidence emerging. Too bad he couldn’t showcase his talent for tomorrow’s audience. She was certain it would be beneficial. “Is there anything else you could do for the show? What other talents do you have?” Max shrugged. “Nothing, really.” His feet shuffled under the table. “’Cept being a goalie and building boat models, but I can’t do those for a talent show.” “Is there some other kind of dance you could do?” “It’s too late to come up with a new dance. The show’s tomorrow. Besides, it’s for a parent and their child.” His eyes pulled down at the corners, and he ducked his head. “I wish I could help, but I don’t know how to ballroom dance. I guess it wouldn’t be the same without your mom anyway.” His head lifted. Hope sparkled in his eyes. “You could learn.” “Oh, I—I think it would take longer than a day, Max.” Meridith laughed uneasily. “Especially for me.” His head and shoulders seemed to sink. “I guess you’re right. I only know how to lead, and I don’t know how to teach it.” “I know how.” Jake appeared in the doorway, filling it with his broad shoulders and tall frame. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” “He could teach you!” Max’s eyes widened. He looked back and forth between Jake and Meridith. “Oh,” Meridith said, “We couldn’t ask—” “I’m offering,” Jake said. “I can be here bright and early tomorrow morning.” Max’s dimple hollowed his cheek. “No, I—you don’t understand, the show’s tomorrow night, and I’m a bad dancer.” Jake leaned against the doorframe, crossed his arms. “You said you wanted to help.” “Well, I do, but I don’t see how—you know how to ballroom dance?” The notion suddenly struck her as unlikely. “I can do more than swing a hammer.” “I didn’t mean—” “So you’ll do it?” Max bounced on the chair. She hadn’t seen him this excited since she’d arrived. She looked at Jake. At his wide shoulders, thick arms, sturdy calloused hands. She remembered the look in his eyes just minutes ago and imagined herself trapped in the confines of his embrace for as long as it took her to learn the dance. Which would be about, oh, a few years. “And why would you do this?” It wasn’t as if he owed her anything. Unless he was punching the time clock on the lessons. “Let’s just say I was picked on a time or two myself.” Max rubbed his hands together. “Toby and Travis, eat your heart out!” “Now, hold on. We already missed dress rehearsals. I don’t know if Mrs. Wilcox will let us slip in last minute.” “Call her,” Jake said. He had all the answers, didn’t he? She spared him a scowl as she slid past on her way to the phone. “Hi, Mrs. Wilcox? This is Meridith Ward again.” She looked over her shoulder. Max waited, Jake standing behind him, thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, looking all smug. “I was wondering. If Max can get a replacement for the dance, could he still participate?” Please say no. “I know he’s missing dress rehearsals and—” “That would be no problem whatsoever.” Mrs. Wilcox sounded delighted. “We’d fit him in and be glad to have him. Have you found him another partner?” “Uh, looks like we have.” She thanked Mrs. Wilcox and hung up, then turned to face a hopeful Max. “What did she say?” he asked. Meridith swallowed hard. “She said they could work you back into the schedule.” She cast Jake a plea. “But I don’t know if I can do this. I wasn’t kidding, I have no rhythm whatsoever.” “Look at the kid. You can’t say no to that.” Max was grinning from ear to ear. It was Meridith’s shoulders that slunk now. Heaven help her. She winced and forced the words. “All right. I’ll do it.” Max let out a whoop and threw his arms around her.

Deanna was up and out of her chair like it was spring-loaded.Thankfully, Lucky had excellent reflexes. It also didn’t hurt that he’d already been anticipating her quick departure, so he was right behind her. As soon as they made it outside, her phone buzzed in her purse. She pulled it out and said, “Shit!” “Everything okay?” he asked. Apparently, she hadn’t realized he was hot on her tail, because she screamed and threw her arms up in the air, sending her phone flying. Thanks to his aforementioned great reflexes, he caught it in midair. Gripping her chest, she asked, wild-eyed, “What are you doing?” “I want to talk to you.” “I don’t want to talk to you,” her response was so fast, it felt like it’d been rehearsed. Maybe it had. Maybe she’d planned on saying that if he ever showed interest in having a conversation with her. Handing her phone back, he ignored her protest and repeated, “Everything okay?” Looking flustered, Deanna replied, “I just… I forgot that Eli is my ride.” “I’ll take you home,” Lucky offered. Pulling her head back, she scoffed. “What? No. Thanks, but no. I’ll walk.” Then she turned on her heel and started hightailing out of the parking lot. In two strides, he was beside her. “What are you doing?” Deanna asked, which was becoming a running theme in their relationship. Lucky smiled. “Walking you home.” “Thanks, but I’m fine. This is Hope Falls.” She dramatically stretched her arms out. “Seriously, I can take care of myself.” “Really?” He continued walking beside her. “Yes, really.” Her feet moved faster. “Like you did back there when you screamed and threw your phone in the air?” Stopping, she spun towards him and crossed her arms. She was mad—or, at the very least, irritated—so he tried not to let the fact that she looked cuter than anything he’d ever seen in his life show on his face. “I didn’t know you were there,” she said in a defiant explanation. He knew that he might just piss her off more, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Oh, right. And I guess most attackers announce their presence. Give you plenty of time to prepare your retaliation.” Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm down. Or stay mad. He couldn’t really tell, but he was enjoying the show. Between her arms pushing her breasts up so they were spilling over her revealing neckline, and the motion of her chest rising and falling, he could’ve stood there and watched her breathe all night and not get bored. “Look, this is a safe town. I’ve studied self-defense, and I was just distracted.” “Okay,” he agreed. She narrowed her gaze as if she didn’t accept his easy answer. “Okay?” Shrugging casually, he repeated, “Okay.” Nodding, she smoothed her hands over her dress and started walking again. So, naturally, he followed. “You said okay!” she exclaimed indignantly as she once again stopped. “Yes, I did. Just because I agreed with the points you made doesn’t mean I’m going to let you walk home alone.” He grinned, trying to disguise the fact that she was so damn adorable when flustered from irritation.

Gnocchi So, the recipe for gnocchi: A little over 1 pound of potatoes suitable for mashing; red potatoes are an option as well. Don’t peel them, so no excess moisture infiltrates the potatoes. Cook them in water with salt until they’re soft but not too soft. Halve and mash with a potato masher. Remove the peel from the masher after each potato. Add flour to the mashed potatoes. This can’t be quantified; add as much as goes in—it depends on the potato, on the degree to which it was cooked, on the moisture in the potato, and on the flour itself. In any case, the mashed potatoes must be warm. Stir until a warm, pleasant dough forms. Coat your hands with flour and form snakes with a diameter of about 1 centimeter (or nearly ½ an inch)—different from the semolina gnocchi rolls. Cut every roll into little pieces, almost 1 inch long—usually each piece should be closer to ½ an inch, but Aviram was afraid that would be too much work for me. Place the gnocchi on a floured tray, leaving some space around each one. Here, too, he spared me some work; I didn’t transfer each gnocco with a fork in order to create slits that would enhance cooking and soaking in the sauce. Drop the gnocchi in several batches, depending on quantity, into a large pot (I didn’t buy one; Michal loaned me a pot on the day of the dress rehearsal) full of water with salt, as when preparing pasta; use 1 tablespoon of salt per 4 cups of water or so, over a large flame. Once the gnocchi float, remove them with a skimmer into a serving bowl, pour the sauce that has been prepared in advance over them, and sprinkle parmesan. You can also prepare them slightly in advance and warm them in the oven.   ***

Scaife’s extraordinary self-financed and largely tax-deductible vendetta against Clinton demonstrated the impact that a single wealthy extremist could have on national affairs, and served as something of a dress rehearsal for the Kochs’ later war against Obama.

Behavior Rehearsal So far, we have used imagery to place ourselves in ideal relaxed settings. But mental imagery is also a valuable component in behavior rehearsal—picturing yourself succeeding at a stressful task. For example, a basketball player can imagine shooting the ball into the basket as a way of improving his or her performance. A golfer envisions putting the ball right into the hole as a means of practice. Both are relying on imagery to improve their games. When should you use imagery? In gearing up for public speaking class, Alan used imagery quite effectively—putting himself in front of a group, giving his speech successfully—just after doing the relaxation exercise we just went through, because the mind and body are more receptive to imagery in a relaxed state. I myself use imagery in preparing to give a speech—I find it useful to picture myself giving the speech, and to imagine the reaction of the audience. Again, practice makes perfect, and mental imagery offers an opportunity for a mental dress rehearsal of the situation you wish to confront. To add behavior rehearsal into your daily relaxation ritual, try the following: When you get close to the end of the relaxation exercise, when you know you are relaxed—right when you close your eyes—picture yourself in a group situation that so far has not been a success for you. Choose a scenario in which you would like to have success that does seem possible in the long term, such as a date, a work or school assignment, and so on. Walk into the room. Envision yourself as relaxed as you are now. You are in control. Your muscles are soft and loose, your face is relaxed, maybe even smiling. Your hands are warm and dry. Your breathing is even. If you get nervous as the scenario continues, pause to refocus your breathing and put your muscles at ease, pulling them back into a relaxed state. Experiment with behavior rehearsal as often as you like—this is a new skill, and there is no substitute for practice.

with the illusions of someday cast in a golden light - No dress rehearsal, this is our life.

Beginning in the early 1960's, history began to rhyme once again when the Department of Energy and the military began setting off nuclear weapons in the desert. Mushroom clouds lit the skies, and fallout fell like snow. The explosions were called tests, but were nonetheless full-fledged dress rehearsals for Armageddon, perhaps more. Among the desert's longtime residents, the difference between "nuclear testing" and "nuclear war" was far from self-evident.

When death is imminent remember - this is not a dress rehearsal, the time is now, share your love!

way that you see me? Broken heart that won’t lay down Is this the way you would be free? To take your life without a sound Is this the way that it should be? It’s not the same without you around…oh no-o-o…   It gave me frigging goose bumps. Seriously, I thought I might start crying like I had in college, so I pinched my arm hard enough to leave a bruise. Hearing two extremely talented people—world class musicians—perform my creation to such perfection with such inspired passion… well, frankly, it made me much more grateful to be alive. Not to mention it crushed any remaining doubts I had as far as holding our own against the very best talent the non-country music industry has to offer. Our rehearsal was one of the best we’ve ever had. High energy and inspired play… I thought we better have a frigging shower in our dressing rooms at our upcoming gig if we performed anywhere near this level. We were sweating like pigs, man, but someone told me once that pigs don’t sweat. At least not like us.

life’s not a dress rehearsal.

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost completely expurgated of idiots.

about things like that, especially just for a rehearsal. But having Sara in our midst, looking so perfect, really made me think twice about the way I was dressed.

No one knows it yet, but Cape Breton is a dress rehearsal for the Great Depression.

rest of the court, to watch the Golden Plays?” “I can’t. Tomorrow is dress rehearsal for the Treaty Eve concert.