Dumping A Friend Quotes

A best friend is the only one that walks into your life when the world has walked out.

A friend of mine told a story about a date with a guy she was really excited about: He stood her up. He then called her, begging her forgiveness and giving some excuse. She told him to get lost, telling him that he only gets one shot with her, and he blew it.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it: ALL GUYS TALK TO THEIR FRIENDS ABOUT SEX. If a guy tells you he doesn’t? Dump him, because he’s lying to you.

In what twisted universe would a girl who's just been dumped still want to be friends with the boy who dumped her?

You don’t have any friends, your sister dumped you, you’re a freak eater..and you’ve got some weird thing about Simon Snow." "I object to every single thing you just said." Reagan chewed. And frowned. She was wearing dark red lipstick. "I have lots of friends," Cath said. "I never see them." "I just got here. Most of my friends went to other schools. Or they’re online." "Internet friends don’t count." "Why not?" Reagan shrugged disdainfully. "And I don’t have a weird thing with Simon Snow," Cath said. "I’m just really active in the fandom." "What the fuck is ‘the fandom’?

You don't have to be a doctor to know when a relationship is not healthy.

The late hour is such a friend; it has been for so many years. There is not a soul around as I carry Riley downstairs and dump him in my trunk. It is good, for I am not in the mood to kill again, and murder, for me, is very much tied to my mood, like making love. Even when it is necessary.

Shepley walked out of his bedroom pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?” “Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it. “Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.” “You knew she was going to class. Quit being a cry baby.” Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the cry baby? Do you remember last night?” “Shut up.” “That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?” “She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.” “So what are we doing?” “Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.” Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?” “How do you feel about a puppy?” Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.” I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.” “Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?” “I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.” “A what?” “Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.” Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.” “What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.” “It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.” “So does America … minus the crapping.” Shepley wasn’t amused. “I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.” “You can’t keep it from barking.” “Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.” Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?” My brows pulled together. “Quit it.” His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog…” I grinned with victory. “…if you admit you have feelings for Abby.” I frowned in defeat. “C’mon, man!” “Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it. I looked to the floor, and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day. “I like her,” I said through my teeth. Shepley held his hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.” “You’re an asshole! Did you hear that?” Shepley crossed his arms. “Say it.” “I like her, okay?” “Not good enough.” “I have feelings for her. I care about her. A lot. I can’t stand it when she’s not around. Happy?” “For now,” he said, grabbing his backpack off the floor.

Picture this, Olive. Early two thousands. Preppy, ridiculously expensive all-male DC school. Two gay students in grade twelve. Well, two of us that were out, anyway. Richie Muller and I date for the entirety of senior year - and then he dumps me three days before prom for some guy he’d been having a thing with for months.” “He was a prick,” Adam muttered. “I have three choices. Not go to the dance and mope at home. Go alone and mope at school. Or, have my best friend - who was planning on staying home and moping over gamma-aminobutyric acids - come as my date. Guess which?” Olive gasped. “How did you convince him?” “That’s the thing, I didn’t. When I told him about what Richie did, he offered!

My boyfriend dumped me. My best friend won't talk to me. My future is in a garbage can. Everything has turned to crap. Can you please just let me be a sullen teenager. just this once

Where's your car? Miles asks, glancing at him as he slams his door shut and slings his backpack over his shoulder. "And whats up with your hand?" "I got rid of it," Damen says, gaze fixed on mine. Then glancing at Miles and seeing his expression he adds, "The car, not the hand." "Did you trade it in?" I ask, but only because Miles is listening. [...] He shakes his head and walks me to the gate, smiling as he says, "No, I just dropped off on the side of the road, key in the ignition, engine running." "Excuse me?!" Miles yelps. "You mean to tell me that you left your shiny, black, BMW M6 Coupe—by the side of the road?" Damen nods. But thats a hundred-thousand-dollar car!" Miles gasps as his face turns bright red. "A hundreds and ten." Damen laughs. "Don't forget, it was fully customized and loaded with options." Miles stares at him, eyes practically bugging out of his head, unable to comprehend how anyone could do such a thing—why anyone would do such a thing. "Um, okay, so let me get this straight—you just woke up and decided—Hey, what the hell? I think I'll just dump my ridiculously expensive luxury car by the side of the road—WHERE JUST ANYONE CAN TAKE IT?" Damen shrugs. "Pretty much." "Because in case you haven't noticed," Miles says, practically hyperventilating now. "Some of us are a little car deprived. Some of us were born with parents so cruel and unusual they're forced to rely on the kindness of friends for the rest of their lives!" "Sorry." Damen shrugs. "Guess I hadn't thought about that. Though if it makes you feel any better, it was all for a very good cause.

It wasn't until Kiffney-Brown, when I met Jason Talbot, that I really thought I might actually have one of those boyfriend kind of stories to tell the next time I got together with my old friends. Jason was smart, good-looking, and seriously on the rebound after his girlfriend at Jackson dumped him for, in his words, 'a juvenile delinquent welder with a tattoo'.

Having a great narrator is like having a great friend whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud, whose lines you always want to steal. When you have a friend like this, she can say, "Hey, I've got to drive up to the dump in Petaluma--wanna come along?" and you honestly can't think of anything in the world you'd rather do.

That's why people grow weary of listening to Dumpees obsess over their troubles: getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring. They want to stay friends; they feel smothered; it's always them and it's never you; and afterward, you're devastated and their relieved; it's over for them and just starting for you.

your friends “liked” your status in a way that leaves no doubt that you were the one dumped.

One big bonus: e-mail! Just like the days back on Hermes, I get data dumps. Of course, they relay e-mail from friends and family, but NASA also sends along choice messages from the public. I’ve gotten e-mail from rock stars, athletes, actors and actresses, and even the President. One of them was from my alma mater, the University of Chicago. They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially “colonized” it. So technically, I colonized Mars. In your face, Neil Armstrong!

Move along,” Hines said. “Last room down.” I spotted a fish tank halfway down the aisle. Dug into my pocket. “Hi,” I whispered. “Distraction in five. Four. Three...” I broke off as we neared the tank. Hi spun. “Yo, warden. When do we eat around here? I'm hypoglycemic, plus I've got a hernia. And rabies simplex D. Basically, I need a ton of pills or my arms will fall off.” “Boy, you're on my last nerve.” As Hines glared at Hiram, I palmed the flash drive and dumped it into the fish tank. The yellow-and-black rectangle tumbled to the bottom. So long, friend. Let's hope Shelton's email went through. “It's a cultural thing,” Hi was saying. “I think you're being very insensitive.” Hines snorted. “Do you want me to cuff you?” “Kinda.” “Hi.” I nodded.

First of all, you don’t want me to get too hungry. Ever. I’m an ever worse bastard than normal and having starved for centuries, I’m not about to deprive myself again when I don’t have to. Second, let me tell you something about your ‘friends.’ Deimos held me down while I was branded and then took me to the human realm where I was left with nothing. No clothes, no money. Not a damn thing to call my own. Hence the aforementioned starvation. A hundred years later, M’Ordant dumped my inside a Spartan prison camp and told the commander I was a traitor to their people. You don’t really want to know what the Spartans did to people they thought betrayed them. D’Alerian had me put inside a Turkish prison in the fifteenth century where I was impaled after being tortured for three weeks. So you’ll have to excuse me if I have a hard time feeling too sorry for them right now. At least no one’s shoving a sharp spike up their asses. (Jericho)

You can't live with the idea that someone might leave. So instead of being happy for me, like any normal person, you're pissed off because ooh, oh no, Hassan doesn't like me anymore. You're such a sitzpinkler. You're so goddamned scared of the idea that someone might dump you that your whole fugging life is built around not gettting left behind. Well, it doesn't work, kafir. I just - it's not just dumb, it's ineffective. Because then you're not being a good friend or a good boyfriend or whatever, because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you. There's your goddamned Theorem.

So I don’t know why you’re trying to talk yourself out of it now. The hard stuff is over. You dumped the groom, ran out on your wedding reception, and jumped on the back of a Harley in your slip. Then you got drunk and flew to Puerto Rico with your best friend’s older brother, who, incidentally, thinks you look smoking hot. Who’s got more balls than you?

Don’t dump my stash. I hereby bequeath all manner of pleasure machines to you, my pasty, studious little friend.

For years, all we do is feed. We don’t control what our parents feed us for dinner, we don’t control what they read to us (or don’t read to us) or what they let us watch. We are like jars of wet clay, and we are loaded full with every kind of tale—films; books; TV shows; stories from friends, parents, grandparents. And as we dry, we take the shape of what has been dumped inside of us.

What is art? Art is tar, rearranged. Art is tar on canvas or tar on tarp or tar on a naked body. Art is a bird chirping changed into something visual. Art is an image of a thousand beaks breaking into the office of a quack doctor. I know that doctor, and I've personally spoken to ten of those beaks. Art is rhythm, two hands clapping at a urinal while a third shakes off pee to the beat. Good art stays with you your whole life, especially if that good art is a tattoo. Good art is my name, written backwards, inked on your upper lip in a furry font. Art imitates life, just as life imitates Orafoura. Art can be anything from a Manet to a Monet to a painting of money to a missile. Art can save the world, or devastate it. (We could drop another big bomb on Japan, though I'm not advocating dumping Basquiat paintings on Hiroshima). Art rhymes with a bodily function, and everybody should let their creativity rip everywhere from the privacy of their bathrooms to small heated boxes with four of their closest friends. Art is thinking outside that box, and desperately trying to escape.

getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring. They want to stay friends; they feel smothered; it's always them and it's never you; and afterward you're devastated and they're relieved; it's over for them and just starting for you.

Clint stared down at him. He was wearing what appeared to be a massive, lopsided and jewel-encrusted crown, holding a scepter and surrounded by a floating mass of Roombas. “Welcome to the sovereign nation of Bartonia,” he said, with a straight face. “My subjects, the Roombas, the drones and one random mechanical bird thing that I found, and I welcome you, and ask you what the fuck you think you're doing here, you are seriously a fucking moron.” “I'm here,” Tony gritted out, “to rescue you, and what kind of fucking attitude is that?.” “A little short for a storm trooper, aren't you?” Clint said, arching an eyebrow. He offered Tony a hand. “Are you wearing a crown? Seriously? Where did you get a- Why are you wearing a crown?” Tony asked, taking it and allowing Clint to help lever him back to his feet. “Listen, dude, I have learned something about myself today. Mostly, I have learned that if I end up in some sort of alien rubbish dump surrounded by neurotic robots and without a clue as to if I'm ever going to make it home, if I find a crown, I'm putting that bad boy on. There should never be a time when you do not wear a crown. Find a crown, you wear it and declare sovereignty over the vast mechanical wastes.” Clint waved his scepter around a bit, making the Roombas dodge. “Thus, Bartonia.

Find out his hobbies before dumping him. He may be useful as a friend. Get good at chess; there is nothing more humiliating for a man than to be beaten intellectually by a beautiful woman. You'll be able to cause him physical pain. If he doesn't let you know how he's feeling, call him late. Wake him up. It's hard for him to hide his feelings when he's in love with you and you're speaking softly to him in bed, even if it is only on the phone.

If you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. We can dump heat on the run, but animals can't pant while they gallop.

Perhaps the reader is astonished by the frankness with which I expose and emphasize my mediocrity; let him remember that frankness is the virtue most appropriate to a defunct. In life, the watchful eye of public opinion, the conflict of interests, the struggle of greed against greed oblige a man to hide his old rags, to conceal the rips and patches, to withhold from the world the revelations that he makes to his own conscience; and the greatest reward comes when a man, in so deceiving others, manages at the same time to deceive himself, for in such case he spares himself shame, which is a painful experience, and hypocrisy, which is a hideous vice. But in death, what a difference! what relief! what freedom! How glorious to throw away your cloak, to dump your spangles in a ditch, to unfold yourself, to strip off all your paint and ornaments, to confess plainly what you were and what you failed to be! For, after all, you have no neighbors, no friends, no enemies, no acquaintances, no strangers, no audience at all. The sharp and judicial eye of public opinion loses its power as soon as we enter the territory of death. I do not deny that it sometimes glances this way and examines and judges us, but we dead folk are not concerned about its judgment. You who still live, believe me, there is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference.

The chaplain has a good life, an easy life. He is well educated, modestly well-to-do, and awkwardly handsome. He has faced no particularly compelling struggle, aside from frequently being dumped by women he wished to marry. His friends and family are in good health. And, sometimes, when one is not blessed with crisis, one must manufacture it.

There is no such thing as a relationship without a contract. All relationships are governed by contracts, be they implied or explicit. Relationship contracts are not legal contracts, though sometimes societal expectations of relationships get worked into law (this can come into play in situations like divorce as well as the legal establishment and relinquishment of paternity). The society in which you grew up provided you with a set of template contracts to which you implicitly agree whenever you enter a relationship, even a non-sexual one. For example, a common clause of many societal template contracts among friends involves agreeing to not sleep with a friend's recent ex. While you may never explicitly agree to not sleep with a friend's ex, your friend will absolutely feel violated if they discover that you shacked up with the person who dumped them just a week earlier. Essentially, these social contracts tell an individual when they have “permission” to have specific emotional reactions. While this may not seem that impactful, these default standards can have a significant impact on one’s life. For example, in the above reaction, a friend who just got angry out of the blue at a member of their social group would be ostracized by others within the group while a friend who became angry while citing the “they slept with my ex” contract violation may receive social support from the friend group and internally feel more justified in their retaliatory action. To ferret out the contractual aspects of relationships in which you currently participate, think through something a member of that relationship might do that would have you feeling justifiably violated, even though they never explicitly agreed to never take such action. This societal system of template contracts may have worked in a culturally and technologically homogenous world without frequent travel, but within the modern world, assumed template contracts cause copious problems.

Nothing irks me more than the vocabulary of social responsibility. The very word ‘duty’ is unpleasant to me, like an unwanted guest. But the terms ‘civic duty’, ‘solidarity’, ‘humanitarianism’ and others of the same ilk disgust me like rubbish dumped out of a window right on top of me. I’m offended by the implicit assumption that these expressions pertain to me, that I should find them worthwhile and even meaningful. I recently saw in a toy-shop window some objects that reminded me exactly of what these expressions are: make-believe dishes filled with make-believe tidbits for the miniature table of a doll. For the real, sensual, vain and selfish man, the friend of others because he has the gift of speech and the enemy of others because he has the gift of life, what is there to gain from playing with the dolls of hollow and meaningless words?

A real friend, he'd say, is the one who, when you say you need for them to kill someone for you, asks only, "And where did you want me to dump the body?" I understood that it was hyperbole, but I saw him do barely less more than once, to exhaust himself in research and effort to him his people. Which is how he divided the whole world: his people and everyone else.

Having an honest friend-one before whom you can dump all your heart's pockets and still feel that you are worth something-is a form of wealth that will buy you nothing but will give you everything. And mysteriously and rightly, to find such a friend, we must be such a friend.

I always dreamed of having this room in my house someday with splatters of red paint all over the walls and sheets, so I could dump drunk friends in there who would wake up in the light of day the next morning, shitting their pants at the massacre on the walls. The small delights in life.

There's a kind of quiet angry that can lie down over a house. Maybe there are some houses, like the Daughertys', that have never know it - that house probably hasn't ever had a quiet day. But in The Dump, Angry Quiet was an old friend, and he moved in again. No one talked because we all wanted to scream.

It was a prank you were never really too old for. I always dreamed of having this room in my house someday with splatters of red paint all over the walls and sheets, so I could dump drunk friends in there who would wake up in the light of day the next morning, shitting their pants at the massacre on the walls.

Well,the hell with you." She natched up her purse. "The hell with both of you." "We love you, Margo." That stopped her.She whirled back to glare at Kate. "That's a lousy thing to say.Bitch." When Kate grinned,she tried to grin back.Instead she dropped her purse back behind the counter and burst into tears. "Oh,shit." Shocked,Kate leaped forward to gather her close. "Oh,hell.Oh, shit.Lock the door,Laura.I'm sorry, Margo.I'm sorry.Bad plan.I thought you'd just get mad and go tearing off to fix his butt.What did the bastard do to you,honey?I'll fix his butt for you." "He dumped me." Thoroughly ashamed, she sobbed wretchedly on Kate's shoulder. "He hates me.I wish he were dead.I wish I had slept with Claudio." "Wait.Whoa." Firmly, Kate drew he back,while Laura brought over a cup of tea. "Who's Claudio and when didn't you sleep with him?" "He's a friend,just a friend.And I never slept with him." The tears were so hot it felt as though her eyes were on fire. "Especially not when Josh found us in the bedroom." "Uh-oh." Kate rolled her eyes at Laura. "Is it a French farce or a Greek tragedy?You be the judge." "Shut up,Kate.Come on Margo.Let's sit down.This time you tell us everything.

That’s it, Red, get mad. That’s the girl I know. I don’t know the other girl who walks around like a ghost,” he says angrily, “The girl who has given up everythin’ that was ever important to her just ‘cuz her boyfriend dumped her.” “I’m sorry I haven’t been yer friend. I’m sorry I busted the firewall ya bought me… and I’m sorry yer heart got broken,

RULE #13: Don’t bear the weight alone when you can dump some on a friend.

Have a best friend in life first,so you can cry on his/her Shoulder if she/he dumped you.

if you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. We can dump heat on the run, but animals can’t pant while they gallop.

Shit!" I shouted at him. "Now listen, my friend. The youth have no role. They have no jobs. They have no money. They are not in power and they do not make decisions. If there is going to be a war, they will be dumped into the army. And they will be killed like young men everywhere have been killed - whether or not they believe in the war. Having no role is their role.

If books were men, they would be the player who dated all the Jessicas in the tri-state area, cheated on you with your best friend, and dumped you for your sister through a text message.

Magnus, his silver mask pushed back into his hair, intercepted the New York vampires before they could fully depart. Alec heard Magnus pitch his voice low. Alec felt guilty for listening in, but he couldn’t just turn off his Shadowhunter instincts. “How are you, Raphael?” asked Magnus. “Annoyed,” said Raphael. “As usual.” “I’m familiar with the emotion,” said Magnus. “I experience it whenever we speak. What I meant was, I know that you and Ragnor were often in contact.” There was a beat, in which Magnus studied Raphael with an expression of concern, and Raphael regarded Magnus with obvious scorn. “Oh, you’re asking if I am prostrate with grief over the warlock that the Shadowhunters killed?” Alec opened his mouth to point out the evil Shadowhunter Sebastian Morgenstern had killed the warlock Ragnor Fell in the recent war, as he had killed Alec’s own brother. Then he remembered Raphael sitting alone and texting a number saved as RF, and never getting any texts back. Ragnor Fell. Alec felt a sudden and unexpected pang of sympathy for Raphael, recognizing his loneliness. He was at a party surrounded by hundreds of people, and there he sat texting a dead man over and over, knowing he’d never get a message back. There must have been very few people in Raphael’s life he’d ever counted as friends. “I do not like it,” said Raphael, “when Shadowhunters murder my colleagues, but it’s not as if that hasn’t happened before. It happens all the time. It’s their hobby. Thank you for asking. Of course one wishes to break down on a heart-shaped sofa and weep into one’s lace handkerchief, but I am somehow managing to hold it together. After all, I still have a warlock contact.” Magnus inclined his head with a slight smile. “Tessa Gray,” said Raphael. “Very dignified lady. Very well-read. I think you know her?” Magnus made a face at him. “It’s not being a sass-monkey that I object to. That I like. It’s the joyless attitude. One of the chief pleasures of life is mocking others, so occasionally show some glee about doing it. Have some joie de vivre.” “I’m undead,” said Raphael. “What about joie de unvivre?” Raphael eyed him coldly. Magnus gestured his own question aside, his rings and trails of leftover magic leaving a sweep of sparks in the night air, and sighed. “Tessa,” Magnus said with a long exhale. “She is a harbinger of ill news and I will be annoyed with her for dumping this problem in my lap for weeks. At least.” “What problem? Are you in trouble?” asked Raphael. “Nothing I can’t handle,” said Magnus. “Pity,” said Raphael. “I was planning to point and laugh. Well, time to go. I’d say good luck with your dead-body bad-news thing, but . . . I don’t care.” “Take care of yourself, Raphael,” said Magnus. Raphael waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “I always do.

Jenks walked around the bench, standing where Ashby could see him. “Hi,” he said. Ashby turned his head. “Hi.” Jenks upturned the tub. The bolts clattered to the floor like heavy rain. “These are several hundred bolts. They are all different shapes and sizes, and Kizzy always keeps them in one communal tub. It drives me crazy.” Ashby blinked. “Why are they on the floor?” “Because we are going to sort them. We are going to sort them into nice, neat little piles. And then we’re going to take those piles and put them in smaller tubs, so that when I need a bolt, I don’t have to go digging.” “I see.” Ashby blinked again. “Why are we doing this?” “Because she jackass dumped them all over the floor, and they have to be cleaned up. And if they have to be cleaned up, we might as well sort them while we’re at it.” Jenks sat down, leaning comfortably against a planter. He began to pick through the bolts. “See, my best friend in the whole galaxy is currently on another ship, holed up in a wall, disarming hackjob explosives. … I want to do something, and it’s driving me…crazy that I can’t. I can’t even smoke because there are Aeluons around. So, fine. I’m going to sort bolts.” He swung his eyes up to Ashby. “And I think anybody who has similar feelings should join me.

clumsy fingers, feeling faintly guilty about going through his wife’s purse. It feels private. But this is an emergency. He dumps the contents onto the middle of their neatly made bed. Her wallet is there, her change purse, lipstick, pen, a tissue packet—it’s all there. Not an errand then. Maybe she stepped out to help a friend? An emergency of some kind? Still, she would have taken her purse with her if she was driving the car. And wouldn’t she have called him by now if she could? She could borrow someone else’s phone. It’s not like her to be thoughtless. Tom sits on the edge of the bed, quietly unraveling. His heart is beating too fast. Something is wrong. He thinks that maybe he should call the police. He

She’s nothing more than a crazy chick with a tight ass. Who will get me coffee daily.” “Oh, really?” Her voice cuts through the air … “Well then, I’m happy I could assist you in your day,” she snorts, coming in and dumping the bags on the table in front of us. “I also got something for your friend,” she huffs and then walks away. This time slamming the door on her way out. “Oh fuck, you are in so much fucking trouble. Dude, she is going to fucking string you up by the balls.

SHE’D DUMPED HIM. That’s all. It wasn’t that bad. It shouldn’t have been. It’s not like they were married. It’s not like she abandoned him at the altar, or made off with his best friend and their retirement savings. People get dumped all the time.

The worst possible thing you can do when you’re down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you. First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors’ reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living and doing as much as they can, as well as they can, for as long as they can. They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgment you wallow in, without the decency to come out and just say anything. They bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom.

One day, soon after her disappearance, an attack of abominable nausea forced me to pull up on the ghost of an old mountain road that now accompanied, now traversed a brand new highway, with its population of asters bathing in the detached warmth of a pale-blue afternoon in late summer. After coughing myself inside out I rested a while on a boulder and then thinking the sweet air might do me good, walked a little way toward a low stone parapet on the precipice side of the highway. Small grasshoppers spurted out of the withered roadside weeds. A very light cloud was opening its arms and moving toward a slightly more substantial one belonging to another, more sluggish, heavenlogged system. As I approached the friendly abyss, I grew aware of a melodious unity of sounds rising like vapor from a small mining town that lay at my feet, in a fold of the valley. One could make out the geometry of the streets between blocks of red and gray roofs, and green puffs of trees, and a serpentine stream, and the rich, ore-like glitter of the city dump, and beyond the town, roads crisscrossing the crazy quilt of dark and pale fields, and behind it all, great timbered mountains. But even brighter than those quietly rejoicing colors - for there are colors and shades that seem to enjoy themselves in good company - both brighter and dreamier to the ear than they were to the eye, was that vapory vibration of accumulated sounds that never ceased for a moment, as it rose to the lip of granite where I stood wiping my foul mouth. And soon I realized that all these sounds were of one nature, that no other sounds but these came from the streets of the transparent town, with the women at home and the men away. Reader! What I heard was but the melody of children at play, nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within this vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote and magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic - one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter, or the crack of a bat, or the clatter of a toy wagon, but it was all really too far for the eye to distinguish any movement in the lightly etched streets. I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord.

Martin had a period of relishing the Boston thug-writer George V. Higgins, author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Higgins’s characters had an infectious way of saying ‘inna’ and ‘onna,’ so Martin would say, for example, ‘I think this lunch should be onna Hitch’ or ‘I heard he wasn’t that useful inna sack.’ Simple pleasures you may say, but linguistic sinew is acquired in this fashion and he would not dump a trope until he had chewed all the flesh and pulp of it and was left only with pith and pips. Thus there arrived a day when Park Lane played host to a fancy new American hotel with the no less fancy name of ‘The Inn on The Park’ and he suggested a high-priced cocktail there for no better reason than that he could instruct the cab driver to ‘park inna Inn onna Park.’ This near-palindrome (as I now think of it) gave us much innocent pleasure.

Every now and then I am impressed with the thinking of the non-Indian. I was in Cleveland last year and got to talking with a non-Indian about American history. He said that he was really sorry about what had happened to Indians, but that there was a good reason for it. The continent had to be developed and he felt that Indians had stood in the way, and thus had had to be removed. “After all,” he remarked, “what did you do with the land when you had it?” I didn’t understand him until later when I discovered that the Cuyahoga River running through Cleveland is inflammable. So many combustible pollutants are dumped into the river that the inhabitants have to take special precautions during the summer to avoid setting it on fire. After reviewing the argument of my non-Indian friend I decided that he was probably correct. Whites had made better use of the land. How many Indians could have thought of creating an inflammable river?

Well, dear heart,’ said he, ‘I wanted to tell you about it yesterday, and I have come to do so today. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. I am in love, my friend!’ Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on the sofa beside Prince Andrei. ‘With Natasha Rostova, yes?’ said he.

When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable...Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking--" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought--I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking..." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it." When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body. I could've stayed that way forever, except a voice behind us growled, "Well, it's about time!" Suddenly the pavilion was filled with torchlight and campers. Clarisse led the way as the eavesdroppers charged and hoisted us both onto their shoulders. "Oh, come on!" I complained. "Is there no privacy?" "The lovebirds need to cool off!" Clarisse said with glee. "The canoe lake!" Connor Stoll shouted. With a huge cheer, they carried us down the hill, but they kept us close enough to hold hands. Annabeth was laughing, and I couldn't help laughing too, even though my face was completely red. We held hands right up to the moment they dumped us in the water. Afterward, I had the last laugh. I made an air bubble at the bottom of the lake. Our friends kept waiting for us to come up, but hey--when you're the son of Poseidon, you don't have to hurry. And it was pretty much the best underwater kiss of all time.

All the way home, I told myself how wonderful and selfless it was that I had decided to stay home full-time with my baby, that I didn't have to dump him in some soulless center or hire a stranger to raise him. Whenever friends or family members or people I met would ask me how I'd come to this decision, I didn't say, "I'd never get a job that would pay me enough to afford decent childcare." And I didn't say, "I have no family nearby who are willing to help with regular childcare." And I didn't say, "I live in a society whose policies reflect the fact that it is still deeply ambivalent about mothers working." Instead, I'd say, "I just know it is the best thing for us.

The man upstairs can take it when we are mad. Swear all you want he can handle it. But do not remember God or whatever almighty force you believe in just when things go wrong. I am sure he would want to know it too when you are happy. The same goes for your friends. Don’t dump on them just bad stuff but also share your happiness with them too.

You can have it all, Luxury and wealth, A lot of friends and a good health, And own everything on earth. However, if you have greed, Jealousy, bitter and want not to see anyone get ahead in life. A dumping site is better than you because not everything found on a dumping site has no value. Plastics can be recycled, And some goods are not too bad to be used again.

It wasn’t only the warning that kept us safe but our ability to keep that warning quiet. Like secret agents operating behind enemy lines, we couldn’t afford to get caught. And yet we risked it anyway. With voices hushed, we reached out to each other to offer our knowledge. We tried. Because we’d always wanted the best for each of our friends. We wanted her to dump that loser. We wanted her to stop worrying about losing five pounds. We wanted to tell her she looked great in that dress and that she should definitely buy it. We wanted her to crush the interview. We wanted her to text us when she got home. We wanted her to see what we saw: someone smart and brave and funny and worthy of love and success and peace. We wanted to kill whoever got in her way.

At first, I was going to come down and pretend I’d had a change of heart. That I still love you, no matter what you’ve done. But even I’m not a spry enough actress for that. The truth is, you pulled Excalibur from its stone. That makes you the king. Meanwhile, my friends are either in prison or on the run. So, I have two choices. Resist, knowing my friends will be hurt for it. Or . . . be as good a queen as I can and keep an open mind. Because I heard you say you want to be a good king. And to be a good king, you’ll need a good queen. So here are the terms. You treat me and my friends well, and I’ll be the queen you and Camelot need. Do we have a deal?” Rhian picked at his teeth. “You’re fond of the sound of your own voice. I can see why Tedros and every other boy dumped you.

With failing bravado, Dexter tried to laugh. "You sound like you're dumping me!" She smiled sadly. "I suppose I am in a way. You're not who you used to be, Dex, I really, really liked the old one. I'd like him back, but in the meantime, I'm sorry, but I don't think you should phone me anymore." She turned and, a little unsteadily, began to walk off down the side alley in the direction of Leicester Square. For a moment, Dexter had a fleeting but perfectly clear memory of himself at his mother's funeral, curled up on the bathroom floor while Emma held onto him and stroked his hair.Yet somehow he had managed to treat this as nothing, to throw it all away for dross. He followed a little way behind her. "Come on, Em, we're still friends aren't we? I know I've been a little weird, it's just..." She stopped for a moment, but didn't turn round, and he knew that she was crying. "Emma?" Then very quickly she turned, walked up to him and pulled his face to hers, her cheek warm and wet against his, speaking quickly and quietly in his ear, and for one bright moment he thought he was to be forgiven. "Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will." Her lips touched his cheek. "I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry." And then she was gone, and he found himself on the street, standing alone in this back alley trying to imagine what he would possibly do next.

There is a tendency for people affected by this epidemic to police each other or prescribe what the most important gestures would be for dealing with this experience of loss. I resent that. At the same time, I worry that friends will slowly become professional pallbearers, waiting for each death of their lovers, friends, and neighbors, and polishing their funeral speeches; perfecting their rituals of death rather than a relatively simple ritual of life such as screaming in the streets. I worry because of the urgency of the situations, because of seeing death coming in from the edges of abstraction where those with the luxury of time have cast it. I imagine what it would be like if friends had a demonstration each time a lover or a friend or a stranger died of AIDS. I imagine what it would be like if, each time a lover, friend or stranger died of this disease, their friends, lovers or neighbors would take the dead body and drive with it in a car a hundred miles an hour to washington d.c. and blast through the gates of the white house and come to a screeching halt before the entrance and dump their lifeless form on the front steps. It would be comforting to see those friends, neighbors, lovers and strangers mark time and place and history in such a public way. But, bottom line, this is my own feelings of urgency and need; bottom line, emotionally, even a tiny charcoal scratching done as a gesture to mark a person's response to this epidemic means whole worlds to me if it is hung in public; bottom line, each and every gesture carries a reverberation that is meaningful in its diversity; bottom line, we have to find our own forms of gesture and communication. You can never depend on the mass media to reflect us or our needs or our states of mind; bottom line, with enough gestures we can deafen the satellites and lift the curtains surrounding the control room.

Gopnik compares baby consciousness to that of an adult dumped into the middle of a foreign city, totally overwhelmed, constantly turning to see new things, struggling to make sense of it all. Things are even worse for a baby, actually, because even the most stressed-out adult can choose to think of something else: we can look forward to getting back to the hotel; imagine how we would describe our trip to friends; fantasize, daydream, or pray. The baby just is, trapped in the here and now.

I assumed if something was going on, you would have told me,” I say. “I tell you everything.” “God, don’t I know it,” she says. “When would there have been room for my problems? For me at all?” Whoa. “James . . . it’s not like that. I tell you everything because you’re my best friend.” “But it’s not like that,” she says. “It’s like I’ve been your therapist. You dump all over me and then you don’t even stick around to reciprocate. At least therapists get paid. I’m just doing all of it for free.

That’s because it is stupid, Maddie. And that’s not even the worst of it. Did you ever consider that maybe you aren’t the center of the world? That maybe, just maybe, I have crap going on, too? Crap that I should be able to talk to my best friend about? But have I been able to talk to you about it? No, because you won’t answer your phone or return my calls. Because apparently, you’ve been off committing social suicide by dumping Eric. I mean, who does junk like that? Only you, Maddie, only you.

James is a nice guy. But he tends to be needy in his relationships and has what we would call a high level of investment with any woman that he meets. Whenever he dates a woman, he will rearrange his entire schedule at her whim. He will buy her gifts and spend most of his paycheck on the nicest dinners for her. He’ll forgo plans with his guy friends and if the woman he dates gets angry, he’ll sit patiently and listen to her vent all of her frustrations to him, agreeing with her constantly in a futile desperation that she may feel better. Even when he feels that she’s being irrational or treating him unfairly, he won’t say anything because he doesn’t want her to be upset with him. As a result, despite caring for him, James’s girlfriends rarely respect him. And sooner or later — usually sooner — they dump him. When James gets dumped, he becomes distraught and depressed. He’s often inconsolable and drinks too much. Usually, he doesn’t feel better again until he meets another woman and the entire cycle repeats itself.

Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are common themes in the American culture today. Folks sometimes mistake my meaning when I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, because they all too often rush to drop everything that is weighing them down. They quit the job, ditch the unhappy marriage, cut out negative friends and family, get out of Dodge, etc. I do not advocate such hastiness; in fact, I believe that rash decision-making leads to more problems further down the road. Another unsatisfying job manifests; another unhappy relationship results. These people want a new environment, yet the same negative energy always seems to occupy it. This is because transformation is all about the internal shift, not the external. Any blame placed on outside sources for our unhappiness will forever perpetuate that unhappiness. Pointing the finger is giving away your power of choice and the ability to create our best life. We choose: “That person is making me unhappy” vs. “I make myself happy.” When you are in unhappy times of lack and feelings of separation – great! Sit there and be with it. Find ways to be content with little. Find ways to be happy with your Self. As we reflect on the lives of mystics past and present, it is not the things they possess or the relationships they share that bring them enlightenment – their light is within. The same light can bring us unwavering happiness (joy). Love, Peace, Joy – these three things all come from within and have an unwavering flame – life source – that is not dependent on the conditions of the outside world. This knowing is the power and wisdom that the mystics teach us that we are all capable of achieving. When I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, I am not referring to external conditions; I am referring to the choice you have to look inward and discover the ability to transform the lead of the soul into gold. Transformation is an inner journey of the soul. Why? Because, as we mentioned above, wherever we go, ourselves go with us. Thus, quitting the job, dumping relationships, etc. will not make us happy because we have forgotten the key factor that makes or breaks our happiness: ourselves. When we find, create, and maintain peace, joy, and love within ourselves, we then gain the ability to embrace the external world with the same emotions, perspective, and vibration. This ability is a form of enlightenment. It is the modern man’s enlightenment that transforms an unsatisfying life into one of fulfillment.

Fourth avenue was a red dog road. Red dog is burned out trash coal. If the coal had too much slate, it was piled in a slag heap and burned. The coal burned up, but the slate didn't The heat turned it every shade of red and orange and lavender you could imagine. When the red on our road got buried under rutted dirt or mud, dump trucks would pour new loads of the sharp-edged rock. My best friend Sissy and I followed along after the truck, looking for fossils. We found ferns and shells and snails, and once I found a perfect imprint of a four-leaf clover.

Gloria Dump looked over at the preacher. He nodded his head at Gloria and cleared his throat and said, “Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.” “Amen,” said Gloria Dump. “Amen,” I whispered. “Gertrude,” croaked Gertrude. “Are we fixing to eat now?” Sweetie Pie asked. “Shhhh,” said Amanda.

I reached for you,” I told her. “In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always.” She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me. “When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone…” I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn’t let loose. “What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?” My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. “In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you.

Fly with those who lift you up and thrust you forward A pilot friend of mine told me there are four main principles to master when flying airplanes: lift, thrust, weight, and drag. You have to take all these into account to make sure the plane will fly. It struck me that these same principles apply to specific types of people. There are some who lift you, brighten your day, cheer you up, and make you feel better about yourself. You meet them and you have a spring in your step. They’re a lift. Then there are people who thrust you. They inspire you, motivate you, challenge you to move forward and pursue your dreams. The third group are weights. They pull you down, dump their problems on you, so that you leave feeling heavier, negative, discouraged, and worse than you did before. Finally, there are those who are a drag. They’ve always got a sad song. The dishwasher broke. The goldfish died. They didn’t get invited to a party. They’re stuck in a pit. They expect you to cheer them up, fix their problems, and carry their loads. We all encounter people from each of these four groups. You have to make sure you’re spending the majority of your time with lifters and thrusters. If you’re only hanging out with weights and drags, it will keep you from becoming everything you were created to be.

I’ve never liked urban myths. I’ve never liked pretending to believe in them; never understood why everyone else doesn’t see straight through them. Why is it they’ve always happened to a friend of a friend - someone you’ve never met? Why does everyone smile and nod and pull the right faces, when they must know they’re not true? Pointless. A waste of breath. So I sneered at the myths about Scaderstone Pit. It was just an old quarry – nothing more. I never believed in the rumours of discarded dynamite. It had decayed, they said. It exploded at the slightest touch, had even blown someone’s hand off. I shrugged off the talk of the toxic waste. It was dumped in the dead of night, they said. The canisters rusting away, leaking deadly poisons that could blind you, burn your lungs. I laughed at the ghost stories. You could hear the moans, they said, of quarrymen buried alive and never found. You could see their nightwalking souls, searching for their poor crushed bodies. I didn’t believe any of it – not one word. Now, after everything that’s happened, I wonder whether I should’ve listened to those stories. Maybe then, these things would’ve happened to someone else, and I could’ve smiled and said they were impossible. But this is not an urban myth. And it did not happen to someone else, but to me. I’ve set it down as best I can remember. Whether you believe it or not, is up to you.

And,” I continued, “I’m probably going to be a bitch most of the time. I guarantee I’ll find a reason to yell at you almost every day, and don’t be surprised if a few drinks get dumped on you from time to time. That’s just me, and you’re going to have to deal with it. Because I’m not changing for you or anyone else. And I-” Wesley slid off his bar stool and pressed his lips against mine before the words could get out. My heart pounded as every thought vacated my mind. One of his arms encircled my waist, pulling me as close to him as possible, and his free hand cupped my face, his thumb tracing my cheekbone. He kissed me so passionately I thought we would catch on fire. It wasn’t until after he pulled away, both of us in need of some air, that I could think straight again. “You jerk!” I yelled, pushing him away from me. “Kissing me to make me shut up? God, you’re so obnoxious. I could just throw something at you right now.” Wesley hopped onto his bar stool with a big grin, and I suddenly remembered him telling me that I was sexy when I was mad at him. Go figure. “Excuse me, Joe,” he called to the bartender. “I think Bianca wants a Cherry Coke.” Despite my best efforts, I smiled. He wasn’t perfect, or even remotely close, for that matter, but, hey, neither was I. We were both pretty fucked up. Somehow, though, that made everything more exciting. Yeah, it was sick and twisted, but that’s reality, right? Escape is impossible, so why not embrace it? Wesley took my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “You look beautiful tonight, Bianca.

I reached for you," I told her. "In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn't fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always." She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me. "When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone..." I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn't let loose. "What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?" My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. "In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you." And she let her brother tell my family that, not only did I not love her, but I passed her around for my friends to abuse like she was nothing. When she was everything.

Over a span of twenty years, Shakespeare churned out an impressively whopping thirty-eight plays, 154 love sonnets, and two epic narrative poems. While most people associate him with his plays, it was his sonnets that likely earned him admiration among his contemporaries. Yes, that’s right: In his lifetime, Shakespeare garnered more acclaim for his sonnets than he did for his plays. In England during the 1590s, writing plays was considered a bit hackish—a way to pay the bills—and not an intellectual pursuit. Writing sonnets was all the rage— and a way to gain literary prestige. These poems weren’t published for the plebeian public, but were written down and shared among the literati—and aristocrats looking for some intellectual cachet by becoming patrons to brilliant but perhaps financially strapped writers. So, while Shakespeare likely wrote nearly all of his love sonnets in the early to mid 1590s, they weren’t officially collected and published until 1609, well after the fad had passed. W. H. Auden said of Shakespeare’s sonnets: “They are the work of someone whose ear is unerring.” In today’s less poetry-friendly world, appreciation of these sonnets tends, sadly, to be relegated to classrooms, Valentine’s Day, and anniversaries. Which is too bad, because—though they do indeed rhyme—they are far superior to the ditties found in ninety-nine-cent greeting cards. In fact, they cover the whole gamut of love—the good, the bad, the erotic, and the ugly, including love triangles, being dumped, and jealousy. There is also speculation as to how autobiographical the sonnets are. The truth is that we know so little about Shakespeare’s private life.

John Isidore said, “I found a spider.” The three androids glanced up, momentarily moving their attention from the TV screen to him. “Let’s see it,” Pris said. She held out her hand. Roy Baty said, “Don’t talk while Buster is on.” “I’ve never seen a spider,” Pris said. She cupped the medicine bottle in her palms, surveying the creature within. “All those legs. Why’s it need so many legs, J. R.?” “That’s the way spiders are,” Isidore said, his heart pounding; he had difficulty breathing. “Eight legs.” Rising to her feet, Pris said, “You know what I think, J. R.? I think it doesn’t need all those legs.” “Eight?” Irmgard Baty said. “Why couldn’t it get by on four? Cut four off and see.” Impulsively opening her purse, she produced a pair of clean, sharp cuticle scissors, which she passed to Pris. A weird terror struck at J. R. Isidore. Carrying the medicine bottle into the kitchen, Pris seated herself at J. R. Isidore’s breakfast table. She removed the lid from the bottle and dumped the spider out. “It probably won’t be able to run as fast,” she said, “but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It’ll die anyway.” She reached for the scissors. “Please,” Isidore said. Pris glanced up inquiringly. “Is it worth something?” “Don’t mutilate it,” he said wheezingly. Imploringly. With the scissors, Pris snipped off one of the spider’s legs. In the living room Buster Friendly on the TV screen said, “Take a look at this enlargement of a section of background. This is the sky you usually see. Wait, I’ll have Earl Parameter, head of my research staff, explain their virtually world-shaking discovery to you.” Pris clipped off another leg, restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling. “Blowups of the video pictures,” a new voice from the TV said, “when subjected to rigorous laboratory scrutiny, reveal that the gray backdrop of sky and daytime moon against which Mercer moves is not only not Terran—it is artificial.” “You’re missing it!” Irmgard called anxiously to Pris; she rushed to the kitchen door, saw what Pris had begun doing. “Oh, do that afterward,” she said coaxingly. “This is so important, what they’re saying; it proves that everything we believed—” “Be quiet,” Roy Baty said. “—is true,” Irmgard finished. The TV set continued, “The ‘moon’ is painted; in the enlargements, one of which you see now on your screen, brush strokes show. And there is even some evidence that the scraggly weeds and dismal, sterile soil—perhaps even the stones hurled at Mercer by unseen alleged parties—are equally faked. It is quite possible in fact that the ‘stones’ are made of soft plastic, causing no authentic wounds.” “In other words,” Buster Friendly broke in, “Wilbur Mercer is not suffering at all.” The research chief said, “We at last managed, Mr. Friendly, to track down a former Hollywood special-effects man, a Mr. Wade Cortot, who flatly states, from his years of experience, that the figure of ‘Mercer’ could well be merely some bit player marching across a sound stage. Cortot has gone so far as to declare that he recognizes the stage as one used by a now out-of-business minor moviemaker with whom Cortot had various dealings several decades ago.” “So according to Cortot,” Buster Friendly said, “there can be virtually no doubt.” Pris had now cut three legs from the spider, which crept about miserably on the kitchen table, seeking a way out, a path to freedom. It found none.

Lieberman began calculating temperatures, speed, and body weight. Soon, there it was before him: the solution to the Running Man mystery. To run an antelope to death, Lieberman determined, all you have to do is scare it into a gallop on a hot day. “If you keep just close enough for it to see you, it will keep sprinting away. After about ten or fifteen kilometers’ worth of running, it will go into hyperthermia and collapse.” Translation: if you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. We can dump heat on the run, but animals can’t pant while they gallop. “We can run in conditions that no other animal can run in,” Lieberman realized. “And it’s not even hard. If a middle-aged professor can outrun a dog on a hot day, imagine what a pack of motivated hunter-gatherers could do to an overheated antelope.” It

She remembers standing at her locker, hearing the whispers. Whispers about her. And about Luke. She remembers turning and seeing Dani and Lynn with a group of girls they knew from Yearbook. She remembers not understanding right away. And then Dani stared her down, eyes narrowed to slits. When Hallelujah dropped her gaze, she heard Lynn’s peal of laughter. “So anyway,” Lynn went on, “Luke said . . .” She remembers the note, in English class. “You knew I liked him.” Dani’s clean cursive. Hallelujah stared at her friend’s back. Dani didn’t turn around. And she didn’t respond to calls or emails in the weeks that followed. By winter break, Dani was dating Luke. The rumors about Hallelujah had circulated and changed and circulated again. Still, on the first day of the new semester, she mustered up the courage to say something. To warn her former friend about who Luke really was. Dani laughed in her face. Called her jealous. Luke dumped Dani in February. Dani and Lynn still refused to speak to Hallelujah. It was like they’d never been friends at all.

...the letters begin to cross vast spaces in slow sailing ships and everything becomes still more protracted and verbose, and there seems no end to the space and the leisure of those early nineteenth century days, and faiths are lost and the life of Hedley Vicars revives them; aunts catch cold but recover; cousins marry; there is the Irish famine and the Indian Mutiny, and both sisters remain, to their great, but silent grief, for in those days there were things that women hid like pearls in their breasts, without children to come after them. Louisa, dumped down in Ireland with Lord Waterford at the hunt all day, was often very lonely; but she stuck to her post, visited the poor, spoke words of comfort (‘I am sorry indeed to hear of Anthony Thompson's loss of mind, or rather of memory; if, however, he can understand sufficiently to trust solely in our Saviour, he has enough’) and sketched and sketched. Thousands of notebooks were filled with pen and ink drawings of an evening, and then the carpenter stretched sheets for her and she designed frescoes for schoolrooms, had live sheep into her bedroom, draped gamekeepers in blankets, painted Holy Families in abundance, until the great Watts exclaimed that here was Titian's peer and Raphael's master! At that Lady Waterford laughed (she had a generous, benignant sense of humour); and said that she was nothing but a sketcher; had scarcely had a lesson in her life—witness her angel's wings, scandalously unfinished. Moreover, there was her father's house for ever falling into the sea; she must shore it up; must entertain her friends; must fill her days with all sorts of charities, till her Lord came home from hunting, and then, at midnight often, she would sketch him with his knightly face half hidden in a bowl of soup, sitting with her notebook under a lamp beside him. Off he would ride again, stately as a crusader, to hunt the fox, and she would wave to him and think, each time, what if this should be the last? And so it was one morning. His horse stumbled. He was killed. She knew it before they told her, and never could Sir John Leslie forget, when he ran down-stairs the day they buried him, the beauty of the great lady standing by the window to see the hearse depart, nor, when he came back again, how the curtain, heavy, Mid-Victorian, plush perhaps, was all crushed together where she had grasped it in her agony.

It is no surprise that weddings can be a little bittersweet for single people. We’re genuinely happy for our friends as they marry. But there can also be a sense of loss. It is the start of a new era for the couple. But the end of an era for our friendship. A single friend of mine in his late forties, recently said that the marriage of one of his closest friends felt like a bereavement. It feels as though you’ve been demoted. One writer, Carrie English, describes feelings of rejection that come when attending the wedding of friends. Two people announcing publicly that they love each other more than they love you. There is not denying that weddings change friendships forever. Priorities have been declared in public. She’ll be there for him in sickness and in health, till death do they part. She’ll be there for you on your birthday or when he has to work late. Being platonically dumped wouldn’t be so bad if people would acknowledge that you have the right to be platonically heartbroken. But it’s just not part of our vocabulary. However much our society might pay lip service to friendship, the fact remains that the only love it considers important, important enough to make a huge public celebration, is romantic love.

Guy was going to self-terminate for any reason, he’d have finished putting his pajamas on and gotten into bed nice and comfy first. So means are foul. Where’s Sommers?” “I don’t know why they bother to keep me around here.” But he was grinning as he slid the brain into a tray for scan and analysis. “I expect the tox eval will verify both our suspicions shortly. Sommers is done, and in a cold box. Her family and boyfriend came in together this morning. I was able to block them from seeing her, though it wasn’t easy. I had to use official grounds.” “The eyes aren’t public yet, and I don’t want them to be, not even to next of kin. Even family and lovers can leak to the media. More so if they’re grieving or pissed. No access outside of need-to-know to any of the vics in this investigation.” “You want to see her again.” “Yeah.” “Let me clean up a bit. Our gentleman friend will hold.” He went to the sink to scrub blood, matter, and sealant from his hands. “Her body was more traumatized than the others.” “Violence is escalating. I know.” “So is his pace.” Morris dried his hands, then removed his protective gear, dumping it in a hamper. “We’re closer. Every minute, we’re closer.” “I have no doubt. Well.” He stepped over in his pristine blue shirt and red necktie, offered his arm. “Shall we?” She laughed, as only he could make her in the company of the

Dot didn’t answer. The Sheriff bared his teeth at her. “You ugly, disgusting pig.” He raised his hand to strike her— Hester’s demon slammed into him, bashing the Sheriff in the groin with its horns. Before it could gore him again, a scim ripped through the demon’s claw, pinning the demon to the ceiling. The Sheriff crumpled to the floor, wailing high-pitched noises. Hester gasped, buckling against the wall, as if the wind had been crushed out of her, her skin turning white. Overhead, her red-skinned demon bleated in pain. “H-H-Hester, you okay?” Agatha sputtered. But Hester wasn’t listening, her eyes bloodshot and still fixed on the Sheriff. “Too bad for you, your daughter has friends,” she said. “Lots of friends,” Anadil seethed. “And if you ever touch Dot, you ever speak to her like that again, those friends will tear out your throat,” said Hester. “We will kill her own father to protect her and we won’t feel an ounce of guilt. You don’t know us. You don’t know what we’re capable of.” “And you don’t know the truth about your daughter either,” said Anadil, red glare slashing through the Sheriff. “She isn’t an embarrassment or ugly or any of the other lies you dump on her. She’s a miracle. You know why? Because she came from stock like you and is still the best friend anyone could ask for.” Dot’s face flooded with tears, her whole body quivering. The Sheriff sobbed in pain behind the couch.

Maybe I am a rogue, but I won't be a rogue forever, Rhett. But during these past years -- and even now -- what else could I have done? How else could I have acted? I've felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I've had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn't be bothered about things that didn't matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and -- well, things like that. I've been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I've dumped overboard the things that seemed least important." "Pride and honor and truth and virtue and kindliness," he enumerated silkily. "You are right, Scarlett. They aren't important when a boat is sinking. But look around you at your friends. Either they are bringing their boats ashore safely with cargoes intact or they are content to go down with all flags flying." "They are a passel of fools," she said shortly. "There's a time for all things. When I've got plenty of money, I'll be nice as you please, too. Butter won't melt in my mouth. I can afford to be then." "You can afford to be -- but you won't. It's hard to salvage jettisoned cargo and, if it is retrieved, it's usually irreparably damaged. And I fear that when you can afford to fish up the honor and virtue and kindness you've thrown overboard, you'll find they have suffered a sea change and not, I fear, into something rich and strange. . . .

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.

Sidney, is that what you girls go for these days?” Kathleen asked, pointing toward her oldest son. “All this scruffy whatnot?” Well, nothing like putting her on the spot here. Personally, Sidney thought that the dark hint of scruff along Vaughn’s angular jaw looked fine. Better than fine, actually. She would, however, rather be trapped for the next thirty-six hours in a car with the crazy pregnant lady before admitting that in front of him. “I generally prefer clean-shaven men.” She shrugged—sorry—when Vaughn gave her the side-eye as he began setting the table. “See? If you don’t believe me, at least listen to her,” Kathleen said, while peeling a carrot over a bowl at the island. “If you want to find a woman of quality, you can’t be running around looking like you just rolled out of bed.” “I’ll keep that in mind. But for now, the ‘scruffy whatnot’ stays. I need it for an undercover role,” Vaughn said. Surprised to hear that, Sidney looked over as she dumped the tomatoes into a large salad bowl filled with lettuce. “You’re working undercover now?” “Well, I’m not in the other identity right this second,” Vaughn said. “I’m kind of guessing my mother would be able to ID me.” Thank you, yes, she got that. “I meant, how does that work?” Sidney asked him. “You just walk around like normal, being yourself, when you’re not . . . the other you?” “That’s exactly how it works. At least, when we’re talking about a case that involves only part-time undercover work.” “But what if I were to run into the other you somewhere? Say . . . at a coffee shop.” A little inside reference there. “If I called you ‘Vaughn’ without realizing that you were working, wouldn’t that blow your cover?” “First of all, like all agents who regularly do undercover work, I tell my friends and family not to approach me if they happen to run into me somewhere—for that very reason. Second of all, in this case, the ‘other me’ doesn’t hang out at coffee shops.” “Where does the other you hang out?” Sidney asked. Not to contribute to his already healthy ego, but this was pretty interesting stuff. “In dark, sketchy alleys doing dark, sketchy things,” Vaughn said as he set the table with salad bowls. “So the other you is a bad guy, then.” Sidney paused, realizing something. “Is what you’re doing dangerous?” “The joke around my office is that the agents on the white-collar crime squad never do anything dangerous.” Sidney noticed that wasn’t an actual answer to her question

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

I was going on a motorbike with a friend of mine in my area [Shah Faisal Colony] and suddenly we saw a university students’ union van. At that time, the union was run by the Jama‘at-e-Islami [IJT]. It was very surprising because the jama‘atis never dared to enter our area. Then I saw one badmash [rogue] called Sayyid in the van. So I told my friend: ‘Maybe they are planning to do something to us, to attack us. There must be something wrong, we must follow them.’ So we followed them in the colony and they parked the van in front of a house and Sayyid and another badmash came out of the car and they had two large boris [gunny bags] that looked very heavy. Then they dumped these two bags in that house. […] I decided that we should check on them in the morning. I gathered all our friends, maybe 20, 30, in my house, and in the early morning, we surrounded their house. At eight o’clock, Sayyid came back with the van and they started uploading the bags. When they were about to upload the second one, Tipu [the most well known PSF militant] came and, you know, he had no patience in him. I had told everyone, ‘Let them complete their job and then we’ll do something.’ But after the first batch [was uploaded in the van], Tipu shouted ‘O, Sayyid!’ He was carrying a gun—we only had one gun, with maybe 20 bullets—and he started firing at Sayyid. Sayyid ran away and the other man ran away and we captured all those bags. They were full of pistols, Sten guns, knives… Hundreds of them… That is the day we became rich in Karachi, when we realised that we could conquer all Karachi. Jama‘at was vanished from Karachi University for a month. Not a single of them went outside because they knew that we had guns now. It was the first time that we saw so many guns. Then the thinkers, the political people [like him] realised that something is happening. How come they have that much and are bringing that many revolvers in Karachi University? [Nearly] 500 revolvers and Sten guns? What is happening? Everybody realised that things in Karachi were about to change.32

files are displayed by using the horrid — and I hesitate to mention this subject — hex dump format. If this topic pleases you (or impresses your friends), cool. Otherwise, press Esc and hunt down more readable files.

Kimme and Dan joined us as they returned from their stroll along the beach. “Look what I found,” Kimme announced as she dumped a pile of seashells out on the sand. I smiled at Kimme as she sifted through her treasure. Then I thought about the treasures I had found. My eyes filled with tears as I examined each of my friends in turn.

Cedar Valley It's well offthe beaten path, and that's just how wilderness-lovers like it Nick Nault Photography Island Lake Lodge, about 15 kilometres outside of Fernie, offers in-chalet luxury and pristine mounds of snow as far as the eye can see. Mark Sissons | 878 words They say there are no friends on a powder day. This may be true at most North American ski resorts, where it's every powder hound for himself in the mad morning rush to lay down first tracks after an overnight dump, but not from where I'm standing, perched on a ridgeline overlooking the

Having an honest friend—one before whom you can dump all your heart's pockets and still feel that you are worth something—is a form of wealth that will buy you nothing but will give you everything. And mysteriously and rightly, to find such a friend, we must be such a friend.

Consider the chicken,” he said. “Today we have industrialized animals. A chicken needs to be cheap to be competitive in the marketplace. So the industrial chicken has a life that lasts forty-two days between its hatching and its sacrifice. They flood the chicken with twenty-three hours of light a day so that the chicken constantly feeds, and then they give it one hour of rest. They do this for six weeks, then the chickens are put on a conveyor belt and either gassed or have their heads chopped off and are immediately dumped in scalding water, after which the dead body is sent to market. “On the other hand, the traditional chicken used to take one and a half years from hatching to sacrifice. You would see the chicken every day and speak to her, and you would share with her certain aspects of your own life. The chicken was your friend; she understood you. You loved each other. She knew she was going to have a happy life and tried to give you her best while you gave her yours. She knew her destiny, that eventually she would make a gift of her life to feed your family. But you honored each other. The chicken lived at home with you, and you ate her at home.

Tommy continued to leer at me like he often did through the curtains while promising to make me squeal. I didn’t think he would give up his prize with just one guy standing in his way. Even moving fast, Tommy never stood a chance. Judd effortlessly grabbed the freak and slammed his head against the SUV hood. The first impact shattered Tommy’s nose while the second strike splashed blood across the windshield. Tossing him to the ground, Judd yanked out a gun and used its butt to bash Tommy across the head. When Tommy’s friends moved to help him, Judd pointed the gun at them. “Fuck off.” “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” said one of the guys. “I know enough to be sure if I blew this fucker’s head off, you’d dump him in a ditch somewhere instead of calling the cops. Now, either I’m dropping all four of you or I let you walk away. How loyal are you fucks?” Apparently not very loyal, they backed away quickly. Judd held Tommy by the back of his jacket and hit him again and again until the freak who terrorized me for weeks hung limply. Dropping him on the ground, Judd stomped hard on Tommy’s groin. Finally, he wiped the bloody gun handle on Tommy’s jeans before returning the weapon to his jacket. Walking leisurely around the SUV, Judd joined me inside. He said nothing while using the wipers to remove the blood from the windshield. Despite the violence, Judd looked bored. Hell, he wasn't even winded. As we pulled away from the motel, I couldn’t take my eyes off Judd. He was both my handsome knight in shining armor and the scariest motherfucker I’d ever seen.

Well, good,” he told her. “Because I think you're a spoiled little brat with delusions of being some kind of suburban princess,” he bit out. “And I think you need to realize there's more to life than pink frilly outfits and the perfect shade of lip gloss. If you didn't look like you do, you'd have no friends at all.”               She was still on her knees, head down, determined not to cry. She didn't have friends. His words cut like a knife, but they were all true. It was bad enough her mom wasn't here to watch her movie with her. She didn't need Dylan to make her feel like nothing. After finally getting all of the ruined popcorn back into the bowl, she stood and turned around quickly, avoiding his gaze. She dumped the contents of the bowl in the garbage and marched straight past him and into the living room. Over her shoulder she mustered the ability to shout without a hint of a crack in her voice. “Yeah, well I think you're a pretentious prick who thinks he's too good for everyone since he went to that dumb-ass college!”               Katie flopped down onto the couch, bundled herself up in blankets, and flipped through her DVR to find Legally Blonde. It could at least make her feel better even if her mother wasn't around. A single, solitary tear rolled down her right cheek as she heard Dylan walk behind her, headed for the stairs. She tried as hard as she could to block out the cry-fest she knew was coming until he got to his room where he couldn't hear her, but just when she heard his foot hit the first creaky step, she let out a sniffle and wiped a tear from her face. Katie heard Dylan stop. There were no more creaks on the stairs. Shit, she thought to herself. He heard her.                              

Having a good feel up there, Gareth? Sure are taking a damned long time about it!" "Can't blame him. Tisn't every day that a man gets to grope a stone horse!" "Wish I was hung half so well!" "You mean you aren't, Chilcot?" "Lord Gareth is!" cried Tess. "Why, 'e's built foiner than any stallion Oi've ever seen, stone or not!" Drunken laughter rang out, both male and female, and yet another bottle of Irish whiskey made its way among the shadowy figures who stood, or rather swayed, beneath poor Henry on his about-to-be-disgraced charger. "Hey Gareth!  Didn't know yer pref'rences ran to — hic! — bestiality!  What else haven't you tol' us about yershelf, eh?" "Shut up down there, you bacon-brains," Gareth said. "D'you want to wake up the whole damned village?"  But he was as foxed as the rest of them, and no one took him seriously. "Hic! — c'mon, Gareth, it can't take you more than five minutes to — hic! — paint its bollocks blue!" "This is not blue, it's purple. Royal purple. As befits its royal rider." Chilcot gave a credible imitation of a neighing stallion. Cokeham snorted, horselike, and clutched his stomach as he tried to contain his laughter. But the Irish whiskey was too much for him, and, losing his balance, he fell face‑first into the damp grass, still guffawing and holding his side. "Oh!  Oh, I fear I shall cast up my accounts if this keeps up ... oh, dear God...." Without missing a beat, Gareth dipped his brush in the paint and flicked it over the bewigged and powdered heads of his friends below. Howls pierced the night as he calmly went back to his task. "A plague on you, Gareth! — hic — you've jesht ruined my best wig!" "To hell with your damned wig, Hugh, look what he just did to my coat!" Chilcot gave another equine whicker, tucked his chin, and with his beautifully turned out leg began pawing the ground. "Shhhh‑h‑h‑h‑h‑h‑h!" "Oh ... oh, I do feel sick...." "Keep it up, you pillocks, and I shall dump the entire bucket on your heads," Gareth called down from above.

Rumor had it he’d been seeing the woman for quite a while before he broke their engagement. Too bad the friends who had been so quick to share that information after he dumped her hadn’t been more forthcoming

Ignoring all the whispering couples around him, Vaughn taught me to bowl while I faked like I cared. We were both on the outs and I suspected he wanted to find a new buddy now that Judd was attached to his angel. Every time Tawny laughed, Vaughn’s frown darkened. “You should be happy for them,” I said as he guided me towards the alley. “I am. Fucking overwhelmed with happiness. Now, pay attention.” When I flinched at his tone, Vaughn sighed. “It gets boring when your best friend is busy mating like a rabbit.” “My best friend ditched me too, so I found new friends. Maybe you should too.” “Crap no. Sounds like too much effort.” I grinned. “You could play with Bailey. Here, she comes.” Vaughn didn’t even glance at the arriving blonde who threw her hands in the air. “I got dumped again! Men suck! I hate them all!” she cried, enjoying a hug from Tawny. “Who wants to set me up now?” “I thought you hated men,” Tucker mumbled with his mouth full of a hot dog. “I do, but one of them has got to work, right? Everyone in the world gets someone good, but I get shit. It’s not fair. I’m nicer than anyone ever.” This comment elicited laughter from the crew including Vaughn who took my bowling ball and rolled it for me. “Look,” he said,” you got a strike. I’m an excellent teacher.” “Best ever.

Why does Voldemort use Twitter only? He prefers followers, not friends. How does HP dump a rash? By quit-itch. How can one identify a pureblood? They will tell you, so don’t worry about it.

sexual partners, she was either lying, or she’d had it for over a year. But Oliver’s chart didn’t show any symptoms and he hadn’t been prescribed.  Jamie mulled it over in her head then acted on a hunch, pulling open the top right-hand drawer. Inside was a wholesale box of condoms. She stared at it for a second. At least they were using protection. She wondered how many Mary gave out a week. Maybe there had been a third person in their relationship. A scorned ex-boyfriend who didn’t like Oliver? He obviously didn’t know about the rash — or hadn’t noticed. Grace was keeping it from him. Had he found out, confronted Grace’s other boyfriend? Or maybe the other way around. Surprised by the guy? Taken? Tied up and threatened? She had a feeling that the person hadn’t meant to kill him. If you’re going to kill someone, you don’t take their shoes and then dump them in a river. He’d either fallen in accidentally, or he’d jumped. Either way, if there wasn’t an ex — or not ex boyfriend — he was going to be someone Jamie wanted to speak to.  She held Grace’s picture up, looking past the matted hair and sunken eyes. She was young, pretty. She’d have a lot of attention out there on the streets.  Jamie closed the drawer and looked at the file again, searching for a name. She wanted to speak to the doctor. The signature just looked like a wavy line. She’d ask Mary. The chair squeaked as she pushed back from the desk and stood up, keeping the files in hand. Her watch told her it was nearly nine-thirty. Her stomach told her it was time for breakfast. Back in the main room, some of the people had cleared out, venturing back into the city. Looking for some way to get by.  Roper was still talking to Mary, who appeared to be in the middle of a speech about how these people needed more help than anyone was prepared to give, and that Oliver wouldn’t been the last. Jamie stepped around her, piqued. ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘Oh,’ she said, seeing Jamie. ‘Because people don’t want to help them and they let them hurt themselves and each other without paying them any mind.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Each other? Did someone have a problem with Oliver?’ ‘What?’ Mary looked sheepish all of a sudden, as if she’d dropped someone in something. ‘No, no — nothing like that. Not as far as I know, anyway,’ she added quickly. ‘Look, I just want you to find who did this — but for you to know that things are different with them. They don’t act the same — don’t believe in the same things, you know?’ She kept her voice low now. Jamie nodded. She’d worked the streets long enough to know what Mary meant. She’d seen more than she could have ever imagined. Seen people do crazy things. Things that people with something to lose would never think to do.  ‘Mrs Cartwright,’ she said after a second. ‘Grace Melver. She was friends with Oliver?’ ‘Grace?’ Mary’s eyes lit up a little and then tilted down in sadness. ‘What a sweet girl. She’ll be devastated. She’s been back every day to check whether Oliver has turned up. She’s been going out of her mind. Poor girl.’ ‘What was the nature of their relationship?’ Roper held his phone a little higher so the microphone could pick them up more easily. Mary thought for a second, aware of the recording. She chose her words carefully. ‘They were together, I suppose. As much as two people in their situation could be. They looked out for each other. Loved each other.’ ‘Did Grace have any other boyfriends?’ ‘No, no. She was sweet. She loved Oliver.’ ‘She was a heroin user, right?’ Mary looked like her face was about to droop and slip right off her head. ‘Horrible stuff. Though they

First of all, Mr. Cheating Bastard, this is no time to be insulting my car-care abilities, and secondly, she doesn't want to talk to you." He hung his head. "It is true, I have been a bad husband, a stupid man, and a careless friend, but I love my wife and I must talk to her." He really looked dreadful, which was satisfying. I shook my head. "Did you just arrive?" He nodded. "Then you haven't unpacked yet, which will save you some time. Go back to Italy, Berto, back to your little girlfriend." "She is gone. It is over." I switched over to disgusted frown. "Well. Maggie is not a consolation prize, shithead. She's the trophy, the Pulitzer, the Nobel. The fact that your girlfriend dumped you means nothing. Go home.

For a more radical form of precommitment, you could skip the party altogether and seek out gatherings with lower-calorie offerings—and thinner people. We’re not suggesting you dump your chubby friends, but there does seem to be a connection between what you weigh and whom you socialize with. Researchers who have analyzed social networks find that obese people tend to cluster together, as do thin people. Social distance seems to matter more than physical distance: