Dub Me Quotes

Can you take me back into town?" I say. "I can't get my voicemails." "Why don't you calm down, D-Dub. I know you're menstruating, but everything's going to be fine. Once we get inside, I'll explain all about maxi pads, personal hygiene and the feel of a man's penis.

First you term me pretty...and then dub me terrifying in the next breath," he said. "I do not know what to make of it." "Make of it that you are...pretty terrifying, Sir Broderick Dougray," Monet said, smiling at the warmth of his breath in her hair.

it's like an old movie-- 35 years old-- that nobody ever saw or understood but me and even though the critics would dub it ordinary i like it very much.

and I’ve been dubbed adorable. I am not okay with this. This is not acceptable. Charlotte is so getting fucked from behind tonight so she knows there’s nothing adorable about me.

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." Benjamin Franklin never said those words, he was falsely attributed on a respected quotation website and it spread from there. The quote comes from the Xunzi. Xun Kuang was a Chinese Confucian philosopher that lived from 312-230 BC. His works were collected into a set of 32 books called the Xunzi, by Liu Xiang in about 818 AD. There are woodblock copies of these books that are almost 1100 years old. Book 8 is titled Ruxiao ("The Teachings of the Ru"). The quotation in question comes from Chapter 11 of that book. In Chinese the quote is: 不闻不若闻之, 闻之不若见之, 见之不若知之, 知之不若行之 It is derived from this paragraph: Not having heard something is not as good as having heard it; having heard it is not as good as having seen it; having seen it is not as good as knowing it; knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice. (From the John Knoblock translation, which is viewable in Google Books) The first English translation of the Xunzi was done by H.H. Dubs, in 1928, one-hundred and thirty-eight years after Benjamin Franklin died.

How's your scratch, Henri?" I asked. He snorted and leaned against the dresser. "You mean the shotgun blast in my side? It's wonderful. I have about eighty pellet-size scars to show for it." "Dude," Dub said, plopping down in one of the chairs, "Who gets shot with their own gun? Embarrassing, if you ask me." Henri gave Dub's chair a hard shove with his foot. Dub laughed, and Henri rolled his eyes.

I'd been to the island on most weekends up until I got shot, and Thomas had often come with me. We'd used some fresh lumber, some material salvaged from the ruined town, and some pontoons made from plastic sheathing and old tractor-tire inner tubes to construct a floating walkway to serve as a dock, anchored to the old pilings that had once supported a much larger structure. Upon completion, I had dubbed it the Whatsup Dock, and Thomas had chucked me twenty feet out into the lake, thus proving his utter lack of appreciation for reference-orientated humour. (And then I'd thrown him forty feet out with magic, once I got dry. Because come on, he's my brother. It was the only thing to do.)

I, Galloran, master of this castle, rightful heir to the throne at Trensicourt, dub thee Lord Jason of Caberton, herby transmitting all rights and priveleges befitting a nobleman of rank and title." Jason arose, moved by the simple ceremony despite the Blind King's ruined castle, raspy voice, and tarnished crown. "What about me?" Rachel asked testily. "You can be my cook," Jason said, unable to resist.

Roxy had once called him the Pussy Whisperer, and it had kind of stuck. For the sake of brevity, though, they simply called him P-Dub.

In other words, paradoxically, loners are the truth philanthropists. Loving nothing is equivalent to loving everything. Damn, it's only a matter of time before they dub me Mother Hikigaya.

As an associate at McKinsey & Company, my first assignment was on a team that consisted of a male senior engagement manager (SEM) and two other male associates, Abe Wu and Derek Holley. When the SEM wanted to talk to Abe or Derek, he would walk over to their desks. When he wanted to talk to me, he would sit at his desk and shout, "Sandberg, get over here!" with the tone one might use to call a child or, even worse, a dog. It made me cringe every time. I never said anything, but one day Abe and Derek started calling each other "Sandberg" in that same loud voice. The self-absorbed SEM never seemed to notice. They kept it up. When having too many Sandbergs got confusing, they decided we needed to differentiate. Abe started calling himself "Asian Sandberg," Derek dubbed himself "good-looking Sandberg," and I became "Sandberg Sandberg." My colleagues turned an awful situation into one where I felt protected. They stood up for me and made me laugh. They were the best mentors I could have had.

In the days to come, when it will seem as if I were entombed, when the very firmament threatens to come crashing down upon my head, I shall be forced to abandon everything except what these spirits implanted in me. I shall be crushed, debased, humiliated. I shall be frustrated in every fiber of my being. I shall even take to howling like a dog. But I shall not be utterly lost! Eventually a day is to dawn when, glancing over my own life as though it were a story or history, I can detect in it a form, a pattern, a meaning. From then on the word defeat becomes meaningless. It will be impossible ever to relapse. For on that day I become and I remain one with my creation. On another day, in a foreign land, there will appear before me a young man who, unaware of the change which has come over me, will dub me "The Happy Rock." That is the moniker I shall tender when the great Cosmocrator demands-" Who art thou?" Yes, beyond a doubt, I shall answer "The Happy Rock!" And, if it be asked-"Didst thou enjoy thy stay on earth?"-I shall reply: "My life was one long rosy crucifixion." As to the meaning of this, if it is not already clear, it shall be elucidated. If I fail then I am but a dog in the manger. Once I thought I had been wounded as no man ever had. Because I felt thus I vowed to write this book. But long before I began the book the wound had healed. Since I had sworn to fulfill my task I reopened the horrible wound. Let me put it another way. Perhaps in opening my own wound, I closed other wounds.. Something dies, something blossoms. To suffer in ignorance is horrible. To suffer deliberately, in order to understand the nature of suffering and abolish it forever, is quite another matter. The Buddha had one fixed thought in mind all his life, as we know it. It was to eliminate human suffering. Suffering is unnecessary. But, one has to suffer before he is able to realize that this is so. It is only then, moreover, that the true significance of human suffering becomes clear. At the last desperate moment-when one can suffer no more!-something happens which is the nature of a miracle. The great wound which was draining the blood of life closes up, the organism blossoms like a rose. One is free at last, and not "with a yearning for Russia," but with a yearning for ever more freedom, ever more bliss. The tree of life is kept alive not by tears but the knowledge that freedom is real and everlasting.

Your frequent claim that we must understand religious belief as a “social construct,” produced by “societal causes,” dependent upon “social and cultural institutions,” admitting of “sociological questions,” and the like, while it will warm the hearts of most anthropologists, is either trivially true or obscurantist. It is part and parcel of the double standard that so worries me—the demolition of which is the explicit aim of The Reason Project. Epidemiology is also a “social construct” with “societal causes,” etc.—but this doesn’t mean that the germ theory of disease isn’t true or that any rival “construct”—like one suggesting that child rape will cure AIDS—isn’t a dangerous, deplorable, and unnecessary eruption of primeval stupidity. We either have good reasons or bad reasons for what we believe; we can be open to evidence and argument, or we can be closed; we can tolerate (and even seek) criticism of our most cherished views, or we can hide behind authority, sanctity, and dogma. The main reason why children are still raised to think that the universe is 6,000 years old is not because religion as a “social institution” hasn’t been appropriately coddled and cajoled, but because polite people (and scientists terrified of losing their funding) haven’t laughed this belief off the face of the earth. We did not lose a decade of progress on stem-cell research in the United States because of religion as a “social construct”; we lost it because of the behavioural and emotional consequences of a specific belief. If there were a line in the book of Genesis that read – “The soul enters the womb on the hundredth day (you idiots)” – we wouldn’t have lost a step on stem-cell research, and there would not be a Christian or Jew anywhere who would worry about souls in Petri dishes suffering the torments of the damned. The beliefs currently rattling around in the heads of human beings are some of the most potent forces on earth; some of the craziest and most divisive of these are “religious,” and so-dubbed they are treated with absurd deference, even in the halls of science; this is a very bad combination—that is my point.

I'm going to tell you like it is, then you can tell me how you heard it.

Kaz said if I proved myself I could join the Dregs when I was ready. And I did. But I didn’t take the tattoo.” Nina’s brows rose. “I didn’t think it was optional.” “Technically it isn’t. I know some people don’t understand, but Kaz told me … he said it was my choice, that he wouldn’t be the one to mark me again.” But he had, in his own way—despite her best intentions. Feeling anything for Kaz Brekker was the worst kind of foolishness. She knew that. But he’d been the one to rescue her, to see her potential. He’d bet on her, and that meant something—even if he’d done it for his own selfish reasons. He’d even dubbed her the Wraith. I don’t like it, she’d said. It makes me sound like a corpse. A phantom, he corrected. Didn’t you say I was to be your spider? Why not stick with that? Because there are plenty of spiders in the Barrel. Besides, you want your enemies to be afraid. Not think they can squash you with the toe of one boot. My enemies? Our enemies.

I should spread you across my lap and teach you what happens when you make Yuri jealous.

I suspect a lot of people would dub me as immoral over naughty with my conflicted love issues, but hey! I was an economics, not an English graduate. What did I care for semantics?

... but how can I find fault with your deeds when without them our paths would never have crossed? If you are mad then I owe my life to a madman, and he is no less dear to me for his actions. Truly evil people do exist, this I know, but I do not count you among them. Instead, I choose to see you as a good person who has done bad things, and who among us cannot be dubbed so?

I felt myself tense up, having long noticed that this was something men (and boys, obviously) did after any breakup. Dub their exes “crazy.” Discredit them, make it seem as if the men were lucky to have gotten out of the relationship. In fact, Julie had once told me it was the most common narrative in the aftermath of a divorce—the justification men used for their own misconduct. A form of misogyny.

I couldn’t see her, obviously, but I knew exactly what she was doing. She’d sunk into the nearest chair, eyes squeezed closed with her thumb and pointer pinched tightly across the bridge of her nose. The Sixes at the cabin had dubbed it her What did Dez do now? expression. Before everything in my world turned upside down, I would have been proud to have an expression named after me. Hell, if Dad had done it, I would have considered life a victory

Each of us thinks we are the most important person, because we are inside ourselves.  Does this make sense?  We see the world from our eyes and hear it with our ears.  I look past the branches and leaves of the trees to the sky and I see the colors I call brown and green and blue.  But think, Brian, are they the same colors that you see?  We may call them by the same name, but they may look different to you. “The taste of an onion, the song of a bird, the strum of the harp, the grit of sand.  I know what they feel like and taste like and sound like to me.  But I can not know what they are to you.  So how can I truly know your thoughts or feel your fears?  “I can listen to you and comfort you, but only you can overcome your fears, only you can bring yourself into balance with ma’at.

I’d internally combust from hormone overdose if I went anywhere near Hotness right now. Like getting too close to the sun, he’d probably burn me with one of his deadly testosterone rays.’ ‘As if he sensed I was blushing over him that very second, Hotness–or as Eva had dubbed him, Mason Lowe–glanced in our direction and made eye contact. With me. I stopped laughing. Stopped smiling. Pretty much stopped breathing. Gawd, but the boy sure knew how to hold a heated stare.

The videos described were of me talking into the camera, seeming to narrate some personal stories-I cry in one- but Ping Xi had dubbed everything over. Instead of my voice, you heard long, angry voice mails Ping Xi’s mother had left him in Cantonese.

jack and jill went up a hill each with a buck and a quarter jack fell down and broke his crown jill came down with two fifty" "rub a dub dub three men in a tub all jumped out when their wives saw 'em now they are gay and there ain't no way that their wives will ever talk to 'em

I have to come clean here: something terrible happens to me when my girls cry, more so now than when they were infants and I was able to remind myself that crying was their only method of communication. I didn’t like it back then, who does?, but, aided by what Edward dubbed a Red Lobster pour of icy cold sauvignon blanc each evening at five, I managed. Now? Crying that indicates existential pain? The possible onslaught of unhappiness? Isolation, despair? That kind of crying is more threatening to me than a lump in my breast. It’s like being skinned alive.

who's this dub?" "Lawyer." Lawyer? I glance to Al for clarification but he's clearly as bewildered as I am. (argument amongst other fishermen) John heads toward the door, then turns, points to me. "You're alright. Only lawyer I ever seen could keep his yap shut longer than thirty seconds.

Nami Emo was also the greatest storybook reader in the world. Like my grandfather before her, she worked as a voice actress, doing voice-overs for documentaries and dubbing anime episodes, which Seong Young and I would watch over and over on VHS. At night, she'd read Korean Sailor Moon books to me and do all the voices. It didn't matter that she couldn't translate the chapters into English---her voice was elastic and could swing seamlessly from the cackle of an evil queen to the catchphrase of the resolute heroine, then quiver words of caution from a useless sidekick and resolve with a dashing prince's gallant coo.

Raised by a narcissist, I yearned for a Prince Charming to rescue me from my metaphorical tower. Ironically, I ended up with a narcissist who dubbed himself Prince Charming. The outcome wasn’t what I envisioned. Despite his attempts to break me, he inadvertently spurred my growth, making me the best version of myself. I am now free from his false life.

Is that something you fantasize about? Being held down and taken against your will until you come? It's in all the books you asked me to buy for you. Every single one.

I spin in the trail to face Kat, who raises her own walking stick to meet mine. ‘A duel to the death?’ Kat says, giggling. I laugh, too, and we spar for a moment playfully until Kat gently presses the tip of her stick into my chest. ‘On your knees and beg for mercy.’ Oh, god. This feels silly and dangerous at the same time. I kneel. I look up at Kat, beautiful and fierce standing there with the setting sun in her hair and her face so stern. Only her eyes are full of mirth. I stare. ‘Close your eyes, prisoner.’ I giggle stupidly, my heart leaping at the point of her stick. ‘Close your eyes. And stop laughing.’ I try to obey, shaking a little. Katy moves her makeshift lance to my neck, pressing gently. ‘Close em.’ I close my eyes, serious at last. There is a long silence, and I feel genuinely vulnerable for a moment, as though Kat really does have a sword to my neck. Then I feel the stick come down gently and touch each of my shoulders. ‘I… dub… thee… mine,’ says Kat softly. ‘Sealed with a kiss.’ The stick falls to the forest floor behind her. She kneels down in front of me and touches my face with both hands. It’s all I can do to stay here, to be here, to hold still.

Violent men unknown to me have occupied my mind all my adult life—long before 2007, when I first learned of the offender I would eventually dub the Golden State Killer. The part of the brain reserved for sports statistics or dessert recipes or Shakespeare quotes is, for me, a gallery of harrowing aftermaths: a boy’s BMX bike, its wheels still spinning, abandoned in a ditch along a country road; a tuft of microscopic green fibers collected from the small of a dead girl’s back.

When I'd first stepped foot into this kitchen five years prior, the entire brigade made fun of my whiter-than-white complexion and teased me, saying they'd expected me to break like a porcelain doll. But I proved to them that I was far from fragile- conquering late nights and early mornings, not to mention all the burns, cuts, and bruises. It wasn't long before they dubbed me Scary Spice, the guys having learned never to drop their pants in front of a woman wielding an oyster knife.

Sometime in the fifties I remember seeing On the Waterfront in the movies with Mary and thinking that I’m at least as bad as that Marlon Brando character and that some day I’d like to get in union work. The Teamsters gave me good job security at Food Fair. They could only fire you if they caught you stealing. Let me put it another way, they could only fire you if they caught you stealing and they could prove it. • chapter eight • Russell Bufalino In 1957 the mob came out of the closet. It came out unwillingly, but out it came. Before 1957 reasonable men could differ over whether an organized network of gangsters existed in America. For years FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had assured America that no such organization existed, and he deployed the FBI’s greatest resources to investigate suspected Communists. But as a result of the publicity foisted on the mob in 1957, even Hoover came on board. The organization was dubbed “La Cosa Nostra,” meaning “this thing of ours,” a term heard on government wiretaps. Ironically,

All that day and all that night there sat an awful gladness in my heart,—nay, blame me not if I see the world thus darkly through the Veil,—and my soul whispers ever to me saying, “Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free.” No bitter meanness now shall sicken his baby heart till it die a living death, no taunt shall madden his happy boyhood. Fool that I was to think or wish that this little soul should grow choked and deformed within the Veil! I might have known that yonder deep unworldly look that ever and anon floated past his eyes was peering far beyond this narrow Now. In the poise of his little curl-crowned head did there not sit all that wild pride of being which his father had hardly crushed in his own heart? For what, forsooth, shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you.

Eliciting peak performance means going up against something or somebody. Let me give you a simple example. For years the performance of the Intel facilities maintenance group, which is responsible for keeping our buildings clean and neat, was mediocre, and no amount of pressure or inducement seemed to do any good. We then initiated a program in which each building’s upkeep was periodically scored by a resident senior manager, dubbed a “building czar.” The score was then compared with those given the other buildings. The condition of all of them dramatically improved almost immediately. Nothing else was done; people did not get more money or other rewards. What they did get was a racetrack, an arena of competition. If your work is facilities maintenance, having your building receive the top score is a powerful source of motivation. This is key to the manager’s approach and involvement: he has to see the work as it is seen by the people who do that work every day and then create indicators so that his subordinates can watch their “racetrack” take shape.

many ratty Kmart bras I needed to replace with ones that could actually hold my tits up; so many albums with actual liner notes to replace the ones my friends had dubbed for me. Finally, I could read the lyrics to all those Portishead songs I was kind of making up in my head! I wish I could say that I bought some fly shit and a fancy ride, but really I just bought a lot of Gap shirts and name-brand sodas. I’ma assume some broke people are reading this and you know what I mean. I was making it rain dollar bills as I worked my way through the aisles at the Jewel, filling my cart with grape Crush and DiGiorno pizzas and CINNAMON TOAST MOTHERFUCKING CRUNCH.

Mucize Mülteci (Divine Refugee Sonnet) Call me misafir, call me göçmen, This heart of mine is always migrant. Şan ve şöhrete ben muhtaç değilim, Benim derdim dünya, dünya dermanım. Call me gypsy, or call me refugee, This heart of mine is always migrant. I've got no use for silicon or gold, World is my bane, world, my ointment. In Sanskrit I am Abhijit, In English I am Victor. In Arabic I am Ghalib, In History I am Reformer. Call me whatever you like, Befitting your culture. I have no reservations, Above my human nature. So many tongues, as many names - Some call agua, some call pani. Conquer the tongue, spirit is the same - Some dub it divine, I live as humanity.

I’d never set foot on the AT, but I’d heard much about it from the guys at Kennedy Meadows. It was the PCT’s closest kin and yet also its opposite in many ways. About two thousand people set out to thru-hike the AT each summer, and though only a couple hundred of them made it all the way, that was far more than the hundred or so who set out on the PCT each year. Hikers on the AT spent most nights camping in or near group shelters that existed along the trail. On the AT, resupply stops were closer together, and more of them were in real towns, unlike those along the PCT, which often consisted of nothing but a post office and a bar or tiny store. I imagined the Australian honeymooners on the AT now, eating cheeseburgers and guzzling beer in a pub a couple of miles from the trail, sleeping by night under a wooden roof. They’d probably been given trail names by their fellow hikers, another practice that was far more common on the AT than on the PCT, though we had a way of naming people too. Half the time that Greg, Matt, and Albert had talked about Brent they’d referred to him as the Kid, though he was only a few years younger than me. Greg had been occasionally called the Statistician because he knew so many facts and figures about the trail and he worked as an accountant. Matt and Albert were the Eagle Scouts, and Doug and Tom the Preppies. I didn’t think I’d been dubbed anything, but I got the sinking feeling that if I had, I didn’t want to know what it was.

This is the sixty-nine,” I told him, presenting the magazine in front of him. I put my fingers—two of them —on the action, so that he would not overlook it. “Why is it dubbed sixty-nine?” he asked, because he is a person hot on fire with curiosity. “It was invented in 1969. My friend Gregory knows a friend of the nephew of the inventor.” “What did people do before 1969?” “Merely blowjobs and masticating box, but never in chorus.” He will be made a VIP if I have a thing to do with it. This is where the story begins. But first I am burdened to recite my good appearance. I am unequivocally tall. I do not know any women who are taller than me. The women I know who are taller than me are lesbians, for whom 1969 was a very momentous year.

In early 2016, Amazon was given a license by the Federal Maritime Commission to implement ocean freight services as an Ocean Transportation Intermediary. So, Amazon can now ship others’ goods. This new service, dubbed Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), won’t do much directly for individual consumers. But it will allow Amazon’s Chinese partners to more easily and cost-effectively get their products across the Pacific in containers. Want to bet how long it will take Amazon to dominate the oceanic transport business? 67 The market to ship stuff (mostly) across the Pacific is a $ 350 billion business, but a low-margin one. Shippers charge $ 1,300 to ship a forty-foot container holding up to 10,000 units of product (13 cents per unit, or just under $ 10 to deliver a flatscreen TV). It’s a down-and-dirty business, unless you’re Amazon. The biggest component of that cost comes from labor: unloading and loading the ships and the paperwork. Amazon can deploy hardware (robotics) and software to reduce these costs. Combined with the company’s fledgling aircraft fleet, this could prove another huge business for Amazon. 68 Between drones, 757/ 767s, tractor trailers, trans-Pacific shipping, and retired military generals (no joke) who oversaw the world’s most complex logistics operations (try supplying submarines and aircraft carriers that don’t surface or dock more than once every six months), Amazon is building the most robust logistics infrastructure in history. If you’re like me, this can only leave you in awe: I can’t even make sure I have Gatorade in the fridge when I need it.

She reached under the flowerpot for the key, but before putting it in the lock she said, "Dub? I wonder . . . how come we both acted so weird." Dub, who ordinarily had an answer for everything, was silent. If Allie wasn't mistaken, she saw a faint blush color his neck. That gave her the courage to say, "I think I got so jealous because I thought you liked Pam better. Liked her, you know, for a girlfriend." "Are you serious?" asked Dub, looked surprised "She's nice, but no way." Allie went on, feeling—she couldn't believe it—shy in front of Dub. "But why did it bug me so much? It's not like I'm your girlfriend." She paused and added, "Right?" As soon as she had spoken, she wished she could snatch the words back. What if Dub looked at her as if she were crazy and said again, "No way!" She'd feel like a complete idiot. Dub's blush crept from his neck to his face. "Who said you're not?" Allie laughed happily. "Nobody," she said. They stood grinning at each other for a moment.

It’s not me telling you,” she said. “It’s neuroscience that would say that our capacity to multitask is virtually nonexistent. Multitasking is a computer-derived term. We have one processor. We can’t do it.” “I think that when I’m sitting at my desk feverishly doing seventeen things at once that I’m being clever and efficient, but you’re saying I’m actually wasting my time?” “Yes, because when you’re moving from this project to this project, your mind flits back to the original project, and it can’t pick it up where it left off. So it has to take a few steps back and then ramp up again, and that’s where the productivity loss is.” This problem was, of course, exacerbated in the age of what had been dubbed the “info-blitzkrieg,” where it took superhuman strength to ignore the siren call of the latest tweet, or the blinking red light on the BlackBerry. Scientists had even come up with a term for this condition: “continuous partial attention.” It was a syndrome with which I was intimately familiar, even after all my meditating.

Do you want children in your arranged marriage?" Layla frowned, trying to wrap her head around the sudden change of conversation. "That's a very personal question. but, yes. I want to have kids. At least three, so if the first one is a boy and the second is a girl, she won't feel like she's in a competition she can never win because she doesn't have a penis." Sam lowered his window and drew in a breath of air. "Shocked you, didn't I? Was it the word penis or the revelation that I would want children with a man I don't love?" "I'm beginning to realize there is no end to your ability to surprise me." Layla tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "Why did you ask me about kids? Are you worried I might be pregnant after our almost-kiss? Like some kind of immaculate conception?" A laugh escaped him, a short chuckle that disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. "Harman is a professional bodybuilder. That means steroids. Prolonged use of anabolic steroids can have significant effects including reduced sperm count, infertility, genital atrophy, erectile dysfunction, and shrunken testicles." "So you saw my penis and raised me a pair of shrunken testicles? I fold. You win. I dub thee Master of the Game.

I want to end here with the most common and least understood sexual problem. So ordinary is this problem, so likely are you to suffer from it, that it usually goes unnoticed. It doesn't even have a name. The writer Robertson Davies dubs it acedia. “Acedia” used to be reckoned a sin, one of the seven deadly sins, in fact. Medieval theologians translated it as “sloth,” but it is not physical torpor that makes acedia so deadly. It is the torpor of the soul, the indifference that creeps up on us as we age and grow accustomed to those we love, that poisons so much of adult life. As we fight our way out of the problems of adolescence and early adulthood, we often notice that the defeats and setbacks that troubled us in our youth are no longer as agonizing. This comes as welcome relief, but it has a cost. Whatever buffers us from the turmoil and pain of loss also buffers us from feeling joy. It is easy to mistake the indifference that creeps over us with age and experience for the growth of wisdom. Indifference is not wisdom. It is acedia. The symptom of this condition that concerns me is the waning of sexual attraction that so commonly comes between lovers once they settle down with each other. The sad fact is that the passionate attraction that so consumed them when they first courted dies down as they get to know each other well. In time, it becomes an ember; often, an ash. Within a few years, the sexual passion goes out of most marriages, and many partners start to look elsewhere to rekindle this joyous side of life. This is easy to do with a new lover, but acedia will not be denied, and the whole cycle happens again. This is the stuff of much of modern divorce, and this is the sexual disorder you are most likely to experience call it a disorder because it meets the defining criterion of a disorder: like transsexuality or S-M or impotence, it grossly impairs sexual, affectionate relations between two people who used to have them. Researchers and therapists have not seen fit to mount an attack on acedia. You will find it in no one’s nosology, on no foundation's priority list of problems to solve, in no government mental health budget. It is consigned to the innards of women's magazines and to trashy “how to keep your man” paperbacks. Acedia is looked upon with acceptance and indifference by those who might actually discover how it works and how to cure it. It is acedia I wish to single out as the most painful, the most costly, the most mysterious, and the least understood of the sexual disorders. And therefore the most urgent.

How I Got That Name Marilyn Chin an essay on assimilation I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin Oh, how I love the resoluteness of that first person singular followed by that stalwart indicative of “be," without the uncertain i-n-g of “becoming.” Of course, the name had been changed somewhere between Angel Island and the sea, when my father the paperson in the late 1950s obsessed with a bombshell blond transliterated “Mei Ling” to “Marilyn.” And nobody dared question his initial impulse—for we all know lust drove men to greatness, not goodness, not decency. And there I was, a wayward pink baby, named after some tragic white woman swollen with gin and Nembutal. My mother couldn’t pronounce the “r.” She dubbed me “Numba one female offshoot” for brevity: henceforth, she will live and die in sublime ignorance, flanked by loving children and the “kitchen deity.” While my father dithers, a tomcat in Hong Kong trash— a gambler, a petty thug, who bought a chain of chopsuey joints in Piss River, Oregon, with bootlegged Gucci cash. Nobody dared question his integrity given his nice, devout daughters and his bright, industrious sons as if filial piety were the standard by which all earthly men are measured. * Oh, how trustworthy our daughters, how thrifty our sons! How we’ve managed to fool the experts in education, statistic and demography— We’re not very creative but not adverse to rote-learning. Indeed, they can use us. But the “Model Minority” is a tease. We know you are watching now, so we refuse to give you any! Oh, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots! The further west we go, we’ll hit east; the deeper down we dig, we’ll find China. History has turned its stomach on a black polluted beach— where life doesn’t hinge on that red, red wheelbarrow, but whether or not our new lover in the final episode of “Santa Barbara” will lean over a scented candle and call us a “bitch.” Oh God, where have we gone wrong? We have no inner resources! * Then, one redolent spring morning the Great Patriarch Chin peered down from his kiosk in heaven and saw that his descendants were ugly. One had a squarish head and a nose without a bridge Another’s profile—long and knobbed as a gourd. A third, the sad, brutish one may never, never marry. And I, his least favorite— “not quite boiled, not quite cooked," a plump pomfret simmering in my juices— too listless to fight for my people’s destiny. “To kill without resistance is not slaughter” says the proverb. So, I wait for imminent death. The fact that this death is also metaphorical is testament to my lethargy. * So here lies Marilyn Mei Ling Chin, married once, twice to so-and-so, a Lee and a Wong, granddaughter of Jack “the patriarch” and the brooding Suilin Fong, daughter of the virtuous Yuet Kuen Wong and G.G. Chin the infamous, sister of a dozen, cousin of a million, survived by everbody and forgotten by all. She was neither black nor white, neither cherished nor vanquished, just another squatter in her own bamboo grove minding her poetry— when one day heaven was unmerciful, and a chasm opened where she stood. Like the jowls of a mighty white whale, or the jaws of a metaphysical Godzilla, it swallowed her whole. She did not flinch nor writhe, nor fret about the afterlife, but stayed! Solid as wood, happily a little gnawed, tattered, mesmerized by all that was lavished upon her and all that was taken away!

I hold my breath while he hooks his hands under my thighs. When he resumes, it's faster, harder, and a whole new level of euphoria. I press my eyes shut just as they start to roll back. That spot. That elusive spot every man had such a hard time locating is front and center now. I silently dub him the G-spot whisperer. Another deep thrust hits it again. Good thing I'm not trying to speak anymore, because I've lost all my words. All I have to offer are huffs of hot air and whimpering. Lots and lots of whimpering. The edge of Callum's mouth turns up, and I have to swallow to keep from choking at the divine sight. He looks like a god in this moment. His skin is a golden glow, painted in specks of sweat, highlighting every single cut muscle he possesses. And his expression---a cross between concentration and satisfaction. It's hard physical work he's doing, but he relishes it. I can tell by the glimmer in his eyes, the way his hands cradle my legs so I'm comfortably supported. I can tell by the pinch of his jaw, those soft grunts he let loose, that this is blowing his mind too. For the second time in one night, pressure builds inside me. The feeling is almost too much, but all I want is more. These long, deliberate thrusts are the greatest physical sensations my body has ever experienced. I could explode at any moment, but I want this to last. Forever, if possible. Arching my back, I press my head against the pillow. I cry out, sounding like a rabid banshee. A muttered curse falls from his lips. "That's it. Don't hold back." Pressure and heat collide, and I couldn't hold back if I tried. The deep thrusts keep coming like an endless loop of crashing waves. Callum and my G-spot are new best friends, it seems. Over and over, he hits it. Over and over, the sensations build to an overwhelming peak. His pace shifts from impressive to phenomenal. If Callum were a sex doll, I'd buy a dozen. His stamina, his technique, his adoration of me and my body, it's all perfection. When I burst, I'm even louder than before. And just like before, I'm ablaze from the inside out. Ecstasy pulses through every inch of skin and bone. My blood pumps hot, like lava flowing through my veins. Every muscle tightens, then loosens. Panting, I clutch Callum's forearms and watch his face as he hits his own peak.

Lily understood this feeling too; she knew it all too well, it is just one more thing that just keeps things building up and building up, until the end. I never realized at the time how bad the situation would become until I went through it myself. There is no meaning behind it, which is what gets me. Am I the only one or are there more girls in this hellhole like me, which I do not know about, maybe there is? The bullies harass, it is like they smell their victims or maybe they can smell and taste the blood dripping down from the gash, which they have caused from before, and then it is like you are a wounded animal on Serengeti they come in packs. Until you have nothing- nothing left… they lick up what is left of your body time and time over, afterward you have to get up and go on with the day, knowing that you have a decision to make. What decision would you make? I know what decision I will make! Like most people my age, I do not drink and drug my brain cells away. I am not senseless or slutty, ‘I feel that being romantic is not dead, and it does exist. You just need to be with the right people, which can show you what real expressions of love are!’ So, are you like me by believing that nothing will ever destroy hope or dreams? On the other hand, are you someone like the clan? Are you going to be praised in the eyes of the fire, or the eyes of the clouds? Just like fallen angels, the ones that have fear of not standing up for what is righteous. Why, because it is more fashionable to live a life of turpitude. If someone has the light of hope, someone is going to want to dampen the affection. Just like me- when you are single for too long people start thinking, that you are either committed to yourself or that you are a little bit crazy or gay etcetera. I know this… I am not crazy or gay or whatever is said; I just have someone that blocks me out constantly while destroying my reputation. Just think about it. All of you have grown up with the roomers, your parents believed those parents, I do not have parents to fight for me, and the rest is history. So, what she and her clan said becomes known, and that is what was implied to my image. Is it true? Hell no, start thinking for yourself people. Just because someone says, something about someone else does not mean that it is factual. Oh, I have tried to fix it… However, it is out of my control, little do you all know that the tower is what prevents everything from happening. It is not my choice; she knew that I was going to be the empress; instead, she made me out to be the fool. She knew that I was one of the brightest stars in the land, and she had to bring that to an end, that was the beginning of the end of holding anyone's hands anymore within the land. The friends and romances were in the retrograde I was dubbed unreachable, she made me a forbidden selection. I had no choice but to become the hermit in the dwelling of lost and lonely dreams. To look on the bright side, all this has made me a stronger, better, more creative productive person. You cannot stop me now; I will forever shine, and guide others so that they can shine as well. Remember you are the ones listening to slandering voices. My question is why do you listen? Get to know me, and then make your judgments. Yes, it is hard for me to even get things going because the eyes are always watching, and no I am not being paranoid this is part of my true reality. Sure, the opportunity might come knocking down my door, but can you trust them, is it a setup?

Acronyms Seriously Suck: There is a creeping tendency to use made up acronyms at SpaceX. Excessive use of made up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication and keeping communication good as we grow is incredibly important. Individually, a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue to new employees. No one can actually remember all these acronyms and people don’t want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance. This is particularly tough on new employees. That needs to stop immediately or I will take drastic action—I have given enough warnings over the years. Unless an acronym is approved by me, it should not enter the SpaceX glossary. If there is an existing acronym that cannot reasonably be justified, it should be eliminated, as I have requested in the past. For example, there should be no “HTS” [horizontal test stand] or “VTS” [vertical test stand] designations for test stands. Those are particularly dumb, as they contain unnecessary words. A “stand” at our test site is obviously a *test* stand. VTS-3 is four syllables compared with “Tripod,” which is two, so the bloody acronym version actually takes longer to say than the name! The key test for an acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurts communication. An acronym that most engineers outside of SpaceX already know, such as GUI, is fine to use. It is also ok to make up a few acronyms/contractions every now and again, assuming I have approved them, eg MVac and M9 instead of Merlin 1C-Vacuum or Merlin 1C-Sea Level, but those need to be kept to a minimum. This was classic Musk. The e-mail is rough in its tone and yet not really unwarranted for a guy who just wants things done as efficiently as possible. It obsesses over something that other people might find trivial and yet he has a definite point. It’s comical in that Musk wants all acronym approvals to run directly through him, but that’s entirely in keeping with the hands-on management style that has, mainly, worked well at both SpaceX and Tesla. Employees have since dubbed the acronym policy the ASS Rule.

The focus of that week was “learning how to listen to the voice of God” in what was dubbed “My Quiet Time with God.” You have to admire the camp leaders’ intent, but let’s be honest. Most pre-adolescents are clueless about such deeply spiritual goals, let alone the discipline to follow through on a daily basis. Still, good little camperettes that we were, we trekked across the campground after our counselors told us to find our “special place” to meet with God each day. My special place was beneath a big tree. Like the infamous land-run settlers of Oklahoma’s colorful history, I staked out the perfect location. I busily cleared the dirt beneath my tree and lined it with little rocks, fashioned a cross out of two twigs, stuck it in the ground near the tree, and declared that it was good. I wiped my hands on my madras Bermudas, then plopped down, cross-legged on the dirt, ready to meet God. For an hour. One very long hour. Just me and God. God and me. Every single day of camp. Did I mention these quiet times were supposed to last an entire hour? I tried. Really I did. “Now I lay me down to sleep . . . ” No. Wait. That’s a prayer for babies. I can surely do better than that. Ah! I’ve got it! The Lord’s Prayer! Much more grown-up. So I closed my eyes and recited the familiar words. “Our Father, Who art in heaven . . .” Art? I like art. I hope we get to paint this week. Maybe some watercolor . . . “Hallowed by Thy name.” I’ve never liked my name. Diane. It’s just so plain. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have named me Veronica? Or Tabitha? Or Maria—like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Oh my gosh, I love that movie! “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . . ” Be done, be done, be done . . . will this Quiet Time ever BE DONE? I’m sooooo bored! B-O-R-E-D. BORED! BORED! BORED! “On earth as it is in Heaven.” I wonder if Julie Andrews and I will be friends in heaven. I loved her in Mary Poppins. I really liked that bag of hers. All that stuff just kept coming out. “Give us this day, our daily bread . . . ” I’m so hungry, I could puke. I sure hope they don’t have Sloppy Joes today. Those were gross. Maybe we’ll have hot dogs. I’ll take mine with ketchup, no mustard. I hate mustard. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” What the heck is a trespass anyway? And why should I care if someone tresses past me? “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil . . . ” I am so tempted to short-sheet Sally’s bed. That would serve her right for stealing the top bunk. “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” This hour feels like forever. FOR-E-VERRRR. Amen. There. I prayed. Now what?

I be at the strip club, gettin’ me some hot rub, tokin’ on a big dub, hungry for some big grub. Split to the crib, nuttin’ in the fridge, ho was doin’ sack time, woke her up double time. (chorus) Where’s my samitch, bitch? I said! Where’s my samitch, bitch? I said! Where’s my samitch, bitch? I’m hongreee! Where’s my samitch, bitch? “Could

Briette sighed. “I don’t think your intentions were bad, Sir Ansley. And in the end, you warned Calister of what the king planned to do. I simply have a favor to ask.” She smiled. “Which brings me to Calister.” Calister stiffened. “At your service, my lady.” Briette raised her voice so they would all hear. “At the castle, King Jarrod tried to have me arrested. Calister not only fended off the knights, he fought actually King Jarrod himself. A man nearly a foot taller and three times his weight. I have never seen such courage. Noble deeds deserve a noble reward, don’t you think? Calister… come here, please.” Calister crept toward her, uncertain. Briette carefully extracted the long sword she wore at her side. “I must ask you to kneel before me.” “Kneel?” Calister looked confused, then his eyes popped with understanding. “Oh!” He dropped to one knee. Briette lifted the sword and touched the flat of it to his shoulder. “Calister, do swear that you will honor and defend the kingdom of Runa under Princess Maelyn?” “I will,” said Calister. “That you will defend truth and justice, and strive to protect those weaker than yourself?” “I will,” said Calister. “And that you will uphold the noble ideals of chivalry to the benefit of your good name and the greater glory of our land?” “I will,” said Calister. Briette smiled. “Then, by the power invested in me, I now dub you Sir Calister, a knight of Runa Realm. Quite possibly the youngest knight this kingdom has ever known. You may rise.” Calister stood, blinking hard to hold back tears. “Th-thank you, my lady. I – I promise to be a faithful knight, and….” His face crumpled and he fell against Briette and squeezed her tightly. “Thank you, my lady!” “Bree. I am always Bree to you,” she said, returning the hug. She could see the servants over his shoulder. Rupy sobbed openly, Sir Ansley beamed with pride, Old Shivey nodded her head, and Havi wore a crooked smile. The duke, however, remained hard and impassive, his eyes turned away. Calister released her and wiped his eyes. Briette turned back to the group. “I will send for Calister in a few days. We shall make arrangements for him to be transferred to Lumen Fortress where he will continue his training with the knights there. Sir Ansley, I will rely on you to check on him regularly and see that he is progressing in his studies. Can you do this?” “Of course I can! Gladly!” said Sir Ansley. “Thank you. His lost hand is but a minor setback and I intend to have equipment made that will compensate for it. And please continue taking him to visit his mother. I’m sure she will be very proud of him.” Calister smiled, his face red. He rubbed his eyes again and laughed at himself. “I’m sorry, a knight shouldn’t cry.” “The good ones do.” Briette grinned and held out the sword. “Here. Take this as my gift to you. And wear it proudly! I’m sure you will have many adventures, Sir Calister.” Calister clasped the sword and bowed grandly. “I will strive to be worthy of this honor, my lady Bree.” “Oh, he’s adorable!” Miriella cried. Maelyn’s smile was more reserved. Briette hadn’t told her that she would knight a fourteen-year-old

When Allie didn’t answer, he added, “Besides, what did he do to help you, anyway?” “Right before two o’clock, when I was all worried about the interview, he gave me the words to say. That was when he told me to ask about the fire.” “Oh, that was great advice,” said Dub sarcastically. “The interview really went smoothly after you said that.

What you probably do not know, GertrudeStein, is that in Bilignin you and Miss Toklas are the only circus act in town. And me, I am the asiatique, the sideshow freak. The farmers there are childlike in their fascination and in their unadorned cruelty. Because of your short-cropped hair and your, well, masculine demeanor, they call you “Caesar.” Miss Toklas, they dub “Cleopatra” in an ironic tribute to her looks and her companionship role in your life. As for your guests who motor into Bilignin all summer long, they are an added attraction. Last summer, the farmers especially enjoyed the painter who hiked through their fields with clumps of blue paint stuck in his uncombed hair.

The dynamic that we used to have has been so completely destroyed that I am left clinging to texts that switch between being outright cruel and sappy and lovey. Sometimes they come in literally one right after another. I went from trusting and loving this person, from feeling adored and protected, to licking bitter morsels that he is throwing at me off the ground whenever he senses that I am starting to break free. Now I understand why sociopaths are dubbed “human heroin.” I have been shooting pure, unadulterated psychopathic love into my bloodstream for five years. I am coming down from a drug I didn’t even know I was on, and the withdrawal has knocked me on my fucking ass.

I chose you the day I met you. I saw you sitting there in class, and all I could think was, will she look at me with the smile she had when she walked in? Every single day you’ve shared that smile with me has been the best. I choose you now, who you are inside and out. “I promise to laugh with you in good times and in bad. I will endure with you when the road gets hard. I will always respect you as Frankie, my heart, my best friend, my muse. I promise to love you always. And I will always have their backs, my brother boyfriends, as Mom decided to dub them and then the name stuck.

Thank You, O Holy Spirit, for the Sacrament of Confirmation, Which dubs me Your knight And gives strength to my soul at each moment, Protecting me from evil.

Now I understand why sociopaths are dubbed “human heroin.” I have been shooting pure, unadulterated psychopathic love into my bloodstream for five years. I am coming down from a drug I didn’t even know I was on, and the withdrawal has knocked me on my fucking ass.

Some of our Zionist critics even alleged that we were paid actors in a make-believe industry they dubbed “Pallywood.

Tears spring to my eyes, and I bury my face deeper into his chest. This heavy grief wraps us together. “How, Fare? How do we do this?” He pulls back, thumbs wiping away my tears. His own face is wet. “One heartbeat at a time.” I squeeze my eyes shut. One heartbeat at a time. Lub-dub. My love for Kel, held forever at a distance. Lub-dub. My love for Ezryn, echoing off his impenetrable shell. Lub-dub. My love for Dayton, now an evil thing, something to be spurned and buried and forgotten. Lub-dub. My whatever this painful and consuming feeling for Caspian is. Lub-dub. I open my eyes and stare at Farron. My best friend, my first true love. The first man to make me feel like I was someone worth loving.

Live streams cropped up to follow the progress of the comet, which was dubbed Brandon—a nickname that annoyed Joanna to no end.

Among the dismissive was writer Tom Wolfe, who divined the zeitgeist of the era when he dubbed the seventies “The Me Decade” in his famous 1976 essay. Wolfe appropriately defamed the era as a time in which individual emancipation trumped the idea of the civic good, in which decadence looked liked politics, and glitter could be mistaken for substance. If the political revolution could not be realized in post-sixties America, Wolfe argued, the only thing left was the “alchemical dream” of revolutionizing the self. As if to confirm Wolfe’s analysis, the seventies would often be symbolized by a spinning mirrored disco ball reflecting a mosaic of “hundreds of little me’s”—swirling fragments of individualism that made a mockery of the antediluvian dream of solidarity.9

Rub A Dub Dub You're me one and only to soak in a hot tub with You're me one and only, me tart green Granny Smith. I will tie me hands behind me back and a bobbin' I will go 'Til me jaw is slack and weary, 'neath the hot tub's tidal flow. Seems all this bobbin's caused a tsunami, Me hot tub's in a twirl and swirl And as I go me third time under, I dream... Of bitin' the neck of me Geisha girl.

You paid for me? You can’t do that! I’m not for sale!” “You most certainly are—this whole planet is. Now that the lock put on your world by the Ancient Ones is being dissolved, your entire world’s female population is fair game.” “Lock? Ancient Ones?” I shook my head—I was getting more and more lost. “The ones who seeded your planet millennia ago,” Bambi said helpfully. “They traveled across the universe, planting the seeds of life on only the worlds they considered the most deserving. Their DNA lives on in many sectors but only on a few, rare, specially selected worlds has it been preserved in its purest form.” “And the ‘lock’ they put around your planet is what I believe you Earthlings refer to as an ‘ozone layer,’” said the proper butler voice, which seemed to be coming from the golden dragonfly. “Now that much of it has been removed and your planet has begun to heat, outside investors are free to harvest Earth’s females. Females such as yourself, who are most valuable because they have not bred with any of the other peoples of the known universe. This is why we dub you ‘Pure Ones’—because you have only the pure blood of the Ancient Ones running through your veins.” Forget

Really? I mean, she’s known them, what, a little over an hour? And already, she’s saying good-bye with a hug? I shook my head. Toni’s about a thousand times better with people than I am. Could be it’s a gender thing. I didn’t used to pay any attention, but now I’m starting to notice that with guys, we tend to talk, ask questions, process information, and then move on. Not much in the way of subtleties, not much nuance—usually not much emotion unless we get pissed off for some reason. For us, things are pretty much black and white, thank you very much. Since I’ve been with Toni, I’ve learned that with women, it’s way different. They look for—and often seem to find—hidden layers of meanings, feelings, and whatnot—the kind of stuff guys like me never even see—the crap that goes right past us. Women find messages inside of messages. “What do you think she meant by that?” Toni would say after we’d leave a conversation with someone. I’d look at her, confused, and then I’d shrug. “I don’t know. Probably meant just what she said.” She’d give me a look that basically said I was completely hopeless. Fifty shades of gray? Yeah, I’d say . . . at least. In early 2007 I was still in the army stationed at Fort Lewis. I was taking classes part-time at the University of Washington, working on my bachelor’s in law, societies, and justice—the U-Dub’s version of a criminal justice degree. I was

We’ll meet you at Ringrose’s Inn tomorrow for a late breakfast. Say, around ten A.M.?” Tristan barked a laugh. “What?” Jane asked. “Is that too late?” Now Dom laughed, too, and Tristan laughed even harder. “What’s so funny?” Jane snapped. “It’s not about you,” Lisette said dryly. “They’re laughing at me. My brothers think me incapable of rising early. Or getting off in a timely fashion.” “That’s because, dear girl, we have yet to see you rise before eleven or leave by noon for a trip,” Dom teased. Tristan grinned at Jane. “Better schedule that meeting in York for a bit later, Freckles.” Freckles. Tristan had dubbed her with the nickname during Dom’s courtship of her, and that reminder of her past with Dom and his family roused an ache in her chest. She avoided Dom’s gaze. “How about midafternoon then?” “Nonsense.” Lisette rolled her eyes. “I can rise early, no matter what my idiot brothers think. We’ll be there midmorning for breakfast if I have to dunk my head in ice water to accomplish it. Max wanted to get an early start, anyway.” Dom chuckled. “Max always wants to get an early start. But he’d have to have a different wife in order to manage that.” The two men nudged each other with smug looks. “Yes, he would,” Lisette said in a voice of pure sweetness, “one he wasn’t quite so enamored of. But since sampling my particular charms always takes him so very long in the morning, I admit that we do end up lying abed late more times than not.” Jane knew she ought to be shocked by such frankness, but she was having too much fun watching the men’s mouths fall open, and a red flush creep up their faces. Lisette flashed them a coy look. “But I shall endeavor to prevent my husband from enjoying his usual pleasures tomorrow morning. That should resolve the matter.” She threaded her arm through Jane’s. “Now come, my dear, let’s join the others for dinner. I’d love a glass of wine, wouldn’t you?” The two women had barely made it out into the hall before they burst into laughter. “That’ll teach…them,” Lisette gasped. “Did you see…Tristan’s face?” “And Dom’s,” Jane choked out. “Oh, Lord, you are so wicked!” “Why, of course.” Lisette’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “What’s the point of being a duchess if you can’t shock people from time to time?

We human pioneers of the “great camping trip,” as George Attla would dub it, will remain incorporated, as it were, in the fabric that weaves our history. But what of the four hundred pioneer dogs? Those wonders of God’s creation, who weathered Arctic gales, slept in snowbanks, suffered exhaustion, sore, raw feet, and, to some degree, human ignorance, and neglect. What of them? Leaders Genghis, Kiana, and Sonny. Others, who strained in wheel, team, and swing positions, and at times, in lead as well, were Kuchik, Koyuk, Snippy, Eska, Shiak, Flame, Bandit, Casper, and Crazy. Names listed on a sheet of paper seem such a hollow tribute to twelve of a person’s most loyal, tested friends. And hollow that tribute would be, if all twelve of them were not imprinted indelibly in my heart. Those twelve devoted, steadfast trail companions bestowed upon me the one true adventure of my life. In so doing, they became the pathfinders for all ensuing generations of endurance race dogs. Genghis, Kiana, Sonny, Kuchik, Koyuk, Snippy, Eska, Shiak, Flame, Bandit, Casper, and Crazy—a renewed and heartfelt salute.

I had taken to dubbing them “man-boys,” which was not nice, I know, but it was true for these people who felt half-formed and opaque to me with no discernible edge or interesting bits. Worst of all, they were different in ways that made no difference. They’d insist that they wanted to “change the world” and “it was all about the journey” and “money was not the goal.” Those were all lies, of course, made more problematic by the fact that these men were lying to themselves most of all.

Instead, I dubbed her as ‘Blondie’ in my mind and fantasized about her way more than a man should fantasize about a woman he’s never even said hello to.

Let me tell you about my favorite day of the month, properly dubbed my A.D.I.B. (stands for All Day In Bed). On that designated day, I will buy candy, chocolates and order any fast food meal of my choosing. I will then spend the rest of my A.D.I.B. in my pajamas on the couch, watching a movie marathon. I’ll watch the corniest chick flicks, the most romantic of dramas, and the cheesiest comedies. I will also pour myself a relaxing hot bubble bath with aromatherapy beads while reading a magazine. That entire day, I am off the grid and completely unplugged!

Whatever it may be that comes to us from elsewhere, even the worst exploitation, the very fact that it comes from somewhere else is positive. This is why alienation has its advantages, even though it is so often denounced as the dispossession of the self, with the other treated in consequence as an age-old enemy holding the alienated part of us captive. The inverse theory, that of disalienation, is equally simplistic, holding as it does that the subject merely has to reappropriate his alienated will and his alienated desire. From this perspective everything that befalls the subject as a result of his own efforts is good, because it is authentic; while everything that comes from outside the subject is dubbed inauthentic, merely because it does not fall within the sphere of his freedom. Exactly the opposite position is the one that has to be stressed, while at the same time broadening the paradox. For just as it is better to be controlled by someone else rather than by oneself, it is likewise always better to be made happy, or unhappy, by someone else rather than by oneself. It is always better to depend in life on something that does not depend on us. In this way I can avoid any kind of servitude. I am not obliged to submit to something that does not depend on me - including my own existence. I am free of my birth - and in the same sense I can be free of my death. There has never been any true freedom apart from this one. The source of all interplay, of everything that is in play, of all passion, of all seduction, is that which is completely foreign to us, yet has power over us. That which is Other, that which we have to seduce.

What frightens many of the virologists I spoke to—especially after COVID—is what they dub “Disease X.” This is a theoretical disease pathogen capable of spreading rapidly, an organism that modern science has no preventative or cure against. How close was COVID to being that frightening Disease X? Let me just say that researching this novel during the time of COVID was not good for one’s nerves. We mostly escaped what could have been far worse. Still, we need as many Franks out there as possible, so we’re better prepared next time. And trust me, there will be a next time.

By bringing Nikkie to power, Yeroen had carved out an influential role for himself. With Luit’s death, however, his leverage evaporated. All of a sudden, Nikkie didn’t need the old male anymore. Finally he could be boss on his own, or so he must have thought. Soon after I had left for America, however, Yeroen began to cultivate a tie with Dandy, a younger male. This took several years, but eventually led to Dandy challenging Nikkie as leader. The ensuing tensions drove Nikkie to a desperate escape attempt. He actually drowned trying to make it across the moat around the island. The local newspaper dubbed it a suicide, but to me it seemed more likely a panic attack with a fatal outcome. Since this was the second death on Yeroen’s hands, I must admit that I’ve always had trouble looking at this scheming male without seeing a murderer. A year after this tragic incident, my successor decided to show the chimps a movie. The Family of Chimps was a documentary filmed at the zoo when Nikkie was still alive. With the apes ensconced in their winter hall, the movie was projected onto a white wall. Would they recognize their deceased leader? As soon as a life-sized Nikkie appeared on the wall, Dandy ran screaming to Yeroen, literally jumping into the old male’s lap! Yeroen had a nervous grin on his face. Nikkie’s miraculous “resurrection” had temporarily restored their old pact.

Unbeknownst to all, I learned to read. When the teacher was still droning away with the letters of the alphabet to my classmates, I had already been long acquainted with the solidarity that weaves written signs together, the infinite combinations and marvelous sounds that had dubbed me a dame in this place, on that first day, when she had said my name. No one knew. I read as if deranged, at first in hiding and then, once it seemed to me that the normal amount of time to learn one’s letters had elapsed, out in the open for all to see, but I was careful to conceal the pleasure and interest that reading afforded me. The feeble child had become a hungry soul.

But guess what happened. Once salaries became public information, the media regularly ran special stories ranking CEOs by pay. Rather than suppressing the executive perks, the publicity had CEOs in America comparing their pay with that of everyone else. In response, executives’ salaries skyrocketed. The trend was further “helped” by compensation consulting firms (scathingly dubbed “Ratchet, Ratchet, and Bingo” by the investor Warren Buffett) that advised their CEO clients to demand outrageous raises. The result? Now the average CEO makes about 369 times as much as the average worker—about three times the salary before executive compensation went public. Keeping that in mind, I had a few questions for the executive I met with. “What would happen,” I ventured, “if the information in your salary database became known throughout the company?” The executive looked at me with alarm. “We could get over a lot of things here—insider trading, financial scandals, and the like—but if everyone knew everyone else’s salary, it would be a true catastrophe. All but the highest-paid individual would feel underpaid—and I wouldn’t be surprised if they went out and looked for another job.” Isn’t this odd? It has been shown repeatedly that the link between amount of salary and happiness is not as strong as one would expect it to be

For me, the whole thing felt like a dubbed TV rerun of the debates we’d had back home in the aftermath of the Wall Street crisis. And while I was crystal clear about what European leaders like Merkel and Sarkozy needed to do, I had sympathy for the political bind they were in. After all, I’d had a hell of a time trying to convince American voters that it made sense to spend billions of taxpayer dollars bailing out banks and helping strangers avoid foreclosure or job loss inside our own country. Merkel and Sarkozy, on the other hand, were being asked to persuade their voters that it made sense to bail out a bunch of foreigners

Cronkite was a lovely guy, like a father to us. You could see why he’d become the most trusted man in America. He loved science and had covered most of America’s space launches. He’d also gone down in Alvin with me to see hydrothermal vents. He and Spike were as enthusiastic about my quest for Titanic as John was. Early on, we’d dubbed our little group—far too cavalierly—the “Top- Secret Committee to Re-Arrange the Deck Chairs on the Titanic.” I’d promised to give them progress reports.

Losing connection with our loved one jeopardizes our sense of security. The alarm goes off in the brain’s amygdala, or Fear Central, as neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux of the Center for Neural Science at New York University has dubbed it. This almond-shaped area in the midbrain triggers an automatic response. We don’t think; we feel, we act.

Rhys, I—” “What the fuck was that?” Anger powers Rhyson’s words across the distance, and I feel it like he’s standing right here, scowling at me. “Um, well . . .” “Don’t ‘um well’ me, Pep. What’s happening on the road? I will crush him. You know that, right? If he touches you, I’ll have his Irish ass on a boat back home before he knows what hit him. I didn’t believe the rumors about Dub because I know you wouldn’t do that to me, but if you’ve let that motherfucker touch you—

I know what you did to Lucy,” Allie went on, unable to stop herself. “You’d better not sell the glen, or you’ll be sorry!” Quickly, she hung up, then stared at the phone in horror. What if it rang? Could Gag-Me trace the call? What if he had Caller ID? What in the world had she done? She lifted the receiver again and dialed Dub’s number. When he answered, she told him all about the diary and about the call she had made to Raymond Gagney. “You did what?” Dub shouted in her ear. “You called a murderer and said, ‘I know what you did’? Why didn’t you just say, ‘Please come kill me, too’? Are you crazy?” “Geez, Dub,” said Allie, “take it easy.” “Did you actually say, ‘You’ll be sorry’? Oooh, I bet that scared him, Al.” “I never thought he’d answer the phone!” Allie wailed. “So I was sort of—unprepared.” “I’ll say,” said Dub darkly. “You didn’t happen to say, ‘By the way, my name is Allie Nichols and I live at 67 Cumberland Road,’ did you?” “Give me a break,” said Allie. “I’m not that stupid.” There was a silence. “Dub, you’re scaring me,” she said in a small voice. “Well, I’m sorry, but I wish you’d called me before you got the brilliant idea of calling to threaten a known murderer.

saw a “blond guy”—as he was so vividly described—if it’s him. But how hard can he be to spot, right? He’s her twin, he’ll look like her. “I can’t wait to go on this vacation! Me, Mom, my aunt, my mall-loving cousins and Miami Beach!” She chattered endlessly, which is why she’s dubbed Chatterbox Lilly. And, as often happens, I phased out. I wish Mom took me on a three week “educational” vacation and kept me out of school! But I barely see my mom. She’s a cultural anthropologist—she travels all the time. So I’m stuck home with Dad, a novelist. He spends all day in his office and gives me the be-home-by-ten-each-night lecture every morning. Speaking of which, I figured I really should go. Her brother’s plane was even later than we were, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I sighed uncomfortably, just as she laughed. “What?” I asked. “You know, I don’t even know what to say to him! We’re not even that close! It’s weird.” “Recap. Why is he moving in with you all of the sudden?” And why was I not informed he exists before he had to? She popped a bubble noisily. “He said he needs a change of scenery! Personally, my idea of change of scenery is someplace where I can’t freeze to death getting from the front door to the car!

All that day and all that night there sat an awful gladness in my heart,--nay, blame me not if I see the world thus darkly through the Veil,--and my soul whispers ever to me saying, "Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free." No bitter meanness now shall sicken his baby heart till it die a living death, no taunt shall madden his happy boyhood. Fool that I was to think or wish that this little soul should grow choked and deformed within the Veil! I might have known that yonder deep unworldly look that ever and anon floated past his eyes was peering far beyond this narrow Now. In the poise of his little curl-crowned head did there not sit all that wild pride of being which his father had hardly crushed in his own heart? For what, forsooth, shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you.

The extraterrestrials who are dubbed “aliens” are actually other aspects of ourselves. They are not “alien” at all. They are part of us.

You’re kidding, right?” Dub asked wide-eyed. “We’ve got to at least try them.” Dub sniffed the bone a few times. “I promise you, Allie, if this thing kills me, my ghost will definitely come back to haunt you.” “Except I’ll be dead, too. So there,” said Allie.

There is not a man in the army, officer or private that does not have from a Battalion to a Brigade of Body lice on him,” wrote one Reb in 1863; and others dubbed the pests with such military names as “graybacks,” “Zouaves,” “tigers,” and “Bragg’s body-guard.” Killing lice was referred to as fighting under the black flag; throwing away an infested shirt was called giving the vermin a parole; and evading them by turning a garment wrong side out became “the execution of a flank movement.” One sardonic Reb when about to go to bed was seen to assume a prayerful pose and to recite: Now I lay me down to sleep, While gray-backs o’er my body creep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord their jaws to break.

He feeds me a hearty dinner, and together we watch dubbed movies late into the night. And there’s Panadería La Union, about which I hear stories months before I actually arrive. Its location is triple-ringed excitedly on my dog-eared map, and a note scrawled to the side: ‘Bakery. Delicious empanadas and cakes. Hosts cyclists for free.

Saint didn't find his new nickname nearly as awesome as I did. For the following days after I dubbed him Sir Frosty of the Saintly Realm, he glared daggers at me and snarled every time I addressed him by his - not to be conceited, but - amazing title.

Being a black woman is challenging, but why would I be anything else? Being a black woman doing the work I’ve been chosen to do requires that I be the “ultimate” Latreese, which means I have to be me: focused, outspoken, fearless, able and willing to fight for those who are dubbed the “least of them.