Expired Person Quotes

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I am the kid who sticks her finger in the light socket. I am the person who doesn't check the expiration date on the milk. I am the idiot who has never looked before she leaped. I am the girl who is falling apart, right now.
Amy Garvey (Cold Kiss (Cold Kiss, #1))
You put in expired contacts?” He sounded personally offended “Just a little expired.” “What’s ‘a little’?” “I don’t know. A few years?” “What?” His consonants were sharp and precise. Crisp. Pleasant. “Only a couple, I think.” “Just a couple of years?” “It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.” A sharp sound - some kind of snort. “Expiration dates are so I don’t find you weeping in the corner of my bathroom.” Unless this dude was Mr. Stanford himself, he really needed to stop calling it his bathroom.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
W.H. Auden (Another Time)
Death is a long process," Archer says. "Your body is just the first part of you that croaks." Meaning: Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime in learning shit and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire.
Chuck Palahniuk (Damned (Damned, #1))
I felt mocked. "That's what I get for trusting you." He took a step back. "Excuse me! Trust doesn't mean you get the response you want from someone, but that you'll get an honest response, and that the other person will stick by you even when you can't agree." Stick by you for how long, through how much? I wondered. What is the expiration date on trust?
Elizabeth Chandler (The Deep End of Fear (Dark Secrets, #4))
There's no hurry. I'm not a pint of half-and-half about to expire. I can wait until I meet the right person.
Michael Grant (Eve & Adam (Eve & Adam, #1))
It is a common belief that we breathe with our lungs alone, but in point of fact, the work of breathing is done by the whole body. The lungs play a passive role in the respiratory process. Their expansion is produced by an enlargement, mostly downward, of the thoracic cavity and they collapse when that cavity is reduced. Proper breathing involves the muscles of the head, neck, thorax, and abdomen. It can be shown that chronic tension in any part of the body's musculature interferes with the natural respiratory movements. Breathing is a rhythmic activity. Normally a person at rest makes approximately 16 to 17 respiratory incursions a minute. The rate is higher in infants and in states of excitation. It is lower in sleep and in depressed persons. The depth of the respiratory wave is another factor which varies with emotional states. Breathing becomes shallow when we are frightened or anxious. It deepens with relaxation, pleasure and sleep. But above all, it is the quality of the respiratory movements that determines whether breathing is pleasurable or not. With each breath a wave can be seen to ascend and descend through the body. The inspiratory wave begins deep in the abdomen with a backward movement of the pelvis. This allows the belly to expand outward. The wave then moves upward as the rest of the body expands. The head moves very slightly forward to suck in the air while the nostrils dilate or the mouth opens. The expiratory wave begins in the upper part of the body and moves downward: the head drops back, the chest and abdomen collapse, and the pelvis rocks forward. Breathing easily and fully is one of the basic pleasures of being alive. The pleasure is clearly experienced at the end of expiration when the descending wave fills the pelvis with a delicious sensation. In adults this sensation has a sexual quality, though it does not induce any genital feeling. The slight backward and forward movements of the pelvis, similar to the sexual movements, add to the pleasure. Though the rhythm of breathing is pronounced in the pelvic area, it is at the same time experienced by the total body as a feeling of fluidity, softness, lightness and excitement. The importance of breathing need hardly be stressed. It provides the oxygen for the metabolic processes; literally it supports the fires of life. But breath as "pneuma" is also the spirit or soul. We live in an ocean of air like fish in a body of water. By our breathing we are attuned to our atmosphere. If we inhibit our breathing we isolate ourselves from the medium in which we exist. In all Oriental and mystic philosophies, the breath holds the secret to the highest bliss. That is why breathing is the dominant factor in the practice of Yoga.
Alexander Lowen (The Voice of the Body)
To meet the right person, to be with someone I want to see in the morning and naked. To not be afraid to have a bad day around them. To be happy, I guess.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Sometimes choice works like that. One person's choice is another's loss of choice.
William Campbell Powell (Expiration Day)
Of course,” I say. A wink. A smile. I’m watching you, or Everything is going to be all right. Love is a net. It can catch you long after the person is no longer there.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Wish" gives the warmth, the content, the imagination, the child's play, the freshness, and the richness to "will." "Will" gives the self-direction, the maturity, to "wish." Without "wish," "will" loses its life-blood, its viability, and tends to expire in self-contradiction. If you have only "will" and no "wish," you have the dried-up, Victorian, neopuritan man. If you have only "wish" and no "will," you have the driven, unfree, infantile person who, as an adult-remaining-an-infant, may become the robot man.66
Irvin D. Yalom (Existential Psychotherapy)
Psychologically abusive people can only maintain normalcy for short spurts of time. Being an authentically caring, decent person isn’t baseline for them. They must fake the behaviors that would show these positive character qualities. These fraudulent acts of kindness have brief shelf lives before they expire and the abusers return to their normal state of affairs.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
The obituary column in the Times of India, Bombay, regretted the demise of ‘D’Ocracy, DEM beloved husband of T. Ruth, loving father of L I Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope, Justice [who] expired on 26th June’. The obituary became a popular Emergency joke.
Coomi Kapoor (The Emergency: A Personal History)
It’s my contacts. They expired some time ago, and they were never that great to begin with. They messed up my eyes. I’ve taken them off, but . . .” She shrugged. Hopefully in his direction. “It takes a while, before they get better.” “You put in expired contacts?” He sounded personally offended. “Just a little expired.” “What’s ‘a little’?” “I don’t know. A few years?” “What?” His consonants were sharp and precise. Crisp. Pleasant. “Only just a couple, I think.” “Just a couple of years?” “It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
The thing about being born with an expiration date is you learn to appreciate life a little more than the average person. You pack a lot of living into your days. Shit
Erica Alexander (Seventeen Wishes)
wonder if sex might express something else—some level of tenderness. If we might be able to judge not the strength of a person’s feelings but the measure of their care.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Another word I’ve added to “the list” is “conversation,” as in “We need to have a national conversation about_________.” This is employed by the left to mean “You need to listen to me use the word ‘diversity’ for an hour.” The right employs obnoxious terms as well—“libtard,” “snowflake,” etc.—but because they can be applied to me personally it seems babyish to ban them. I’ve outlawed “meds,” “bestie,” “bucket list,” “dysfunctional,” “expat,” “cab-sav,” and the verb “do” when used in a restaurant, as in “I’ll do the snails on cinnamon toast.” “Ugh,” Ronnie agrees. “Do!—that’s the worst.” “My new thing,” I told her, “is to look at the menu and say, ‘I’d like to purchase the veal chop.’” A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. “My bad,” for example, and “I’ve got your back” and “You go, girlfriend.” They’re the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race.
David Sedaris (Calypso)
My Eyes Are Open But I'm Hardly Looking In The Front.... Everything's Passing Me, Some Are Staring But My Eyes Are Blank, I'm Seeing But Not Seeing As My Mind Is Not Sending The Message To My Brains To Produce Images.... I'm Walking Alone Yet Full of People Around Me.... I'm Walking Forward.... There's No Feeling As I'm Numb.... Only Thing I Know, I Have To Finish My Ride Before My Time Expires.... So I'm Walking With Blank Emotion In My Eyes.... (* Excerpt From My Novel "Eastern Promise")
Muhammad Imran Hasan
Death is a long process,” Archer says. “Your body is just the first part of you that croaks.” Meaning: Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime in learning shit and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire. “All people ever see is how the body dies,
Chuck Palahniuk (Damned (Damned #1))
She thinks of how there’s an invisible expiration date stamped on the forehead of every queer person—how most of society, even other queer people, expect you to wither away, to languish in torment and eventually expire from some incurable illness as if it were proper contrition for your perversity.
Eric LaRocca (They Were Here Before Us: A Novella in Pieces)
You put in expired contacts?” He sounded personally offended. “Just a little expired.” “What’s ‘a little’?” “I don’t know. A few years?” “What?” His consonants were sharp and precise. Crisp. Pleasant. “Only just a couple, I think.” “Just a couple of years?” “It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
It’s worth ten times the price to get you out of those things. Besides, I’ve got credits to burn.” He did. They all did. The more they worked, the more credits they got. The more they got, the more they needed to spend them before they expired, which they did after a year. You didn’t need to save them. All the things that Maya’s generation had saved for—a home of one’s own, retirement, the kids’ college education, medical emergencies—all those were now each person’s birthright. When the surplus was totaled each year—for the City inevitably ended up with a net surplus—it was simply a measure that they had produced more than they consumed, given more than they took back.
Starhawk (City of Refuge (The Fifth Sacred Thing Book 3))
By shutting her eyes, by losing consciousness, Albertine had stripped off, one after another, the different human personalities with which we had deceived me ever since the day when I had first made her acquaintance. She was animated now only by the unconscious life of plants, of trees, a life more different from my own, more alien, and yet one that belonged more to me. Her psonality was not constantly escaping, as when we talked, by the outlets of her unacknowledged thoughts and of her eyes. She had called back into herself everything of her that lay outside, had withdrawn, enclosed, reabsorbed herself into her body. In keeping her in front of my eyes, in my hands, I had an impression of possessing her entirely which I never had when she was awake. Her life was submitted to me, exhaled towards me its gentle breath. I listened to this murmuring, mysterious emanation, soft as a sea breeze, magical as a gleam of moonlight, that was her sleep. So long as it lasted, I was free to dream about her and yet at the same time to look at her, and when that sleep grew deeper, to touch, to kiss her. What I felt then was a love as pure, as immaterial, as mysterious, as if I had been in the presence of those inanimate creatures which are the beauties of nature. And indeed, as soon as her sleep became at all deep, she ceased to be merely the plant that she had been; her sleep,on the margin of which I remained musing, with a fresh delight of which I never tired, which I could have gone on enjoying indefinitely, was to me a whole lanscape. Her sleep brought within my reach something as serene, as sensually delicious as those nights of full moon on the bay of Balbec, calm as a lake over which the branches barely stir, where, stretched out upon the stand, one could listen for hours on end to the surf breaking and receding. On entering the room, I would remain standing in the doorway, not venturing to make a sound, and hearing none but that of her breath rising to expire upon her lips at regular intervals, like the reflux of the sea, but drowsier and softer. And at the moment when my ear absorbed that divine sound, I felt that there was condensed in it the whole person, the whole life of the charming captive outstretched there before my eyes. Carriages went rattling past in the street, but her brow remained as smooth and untroubled, her breath as light, reduced to the simple expulsion of the necessary quantity of air. Then, seeing that her sleep would not be disturbed, I would advance cautiously, sit down on the chair that stood by the bedside, then on the bed itself.
Marcel Proust (The Captive / The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5-6))
This is the history of governments, - one man does something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with me, taxes me; looking from afar at me, ordains that a part of my labour shall go to this or that whimsical end, not as I, but as he happens to fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money's worth, except for these. Hence, the less government we have, the better, - the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man, of whom the existing government, is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation. That which all things tend to educe, which freedom, cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver, is character; that is the end of nature, to reach unto this coronation of her king. To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man is the State. He needs no army, fort, or navy, - he loves men too well; no bribe, or feast, or palace, to draw friends to him; no vantage ground, no favourable circumstance. He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is a prophet; no statute book, for he has the lawgiver; no money, for he is value; no road, for he is at home where he is; no experience, for the life of the creator shoots through him, and looks from his eyes. He has no personal friends, for he who has the spell to draw the prayer and piety of all men unto him, needs not husband and educate a few, to share with him a select and poetic life. His relation to men is angelic; his memory is myrrh to them; his presence, frankincense and flowers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The pictures up on that wall in Cupertino illustrated that not just one person but hundreds of thousands could have their lives extinguished, die at the whim of others, and the next day their deaths would be meaningless. But even more telling was that those who had brought about these deaths (the most terror-filled, even if inevitable, tragedy of the human experience) could also degrade the victims and force them to expire in maximum pain and humiliation.
Iris Chang (The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II)
while people go on chatting about a million and one things I mostly sit and observe with ascended understandings as they bring up the topic of death and of a person dying I listen quietly while often accidentally smiling at the absurdity of anybody ever believing in death I don't mean to be insensitive towards a body's last breath a higher Reality laid bare, bodily expiration is of no account with this revelation incalculable life fears we surmount the Sage is notorious for finding strange things funny giggling at horrors and ridiculous events not so sunny sometimes a straight face is merely for show but spy the glint in his eye about a truth you don’t know an unfounded assumption is that we only live once not a Mystic throughout history has avowed this occurrence Christian ones may not have mentioned being reborn again they also didn't deny it—their teaching was kept plain just as the Buddha intentionally avoided the God concept ultimately not essential, under the rug reincarnation is swept
Jarett Sabirsh (Love All-Knowing: An Epic Spiritual Poem)
This is what working in what amounts to a rat’s nest for the past decade has done to us, I think, looking at our reflections in the mirror. Ten years in a piece-of-crap studio in the armpit of Bushwick with full view-and-sound of the JMZ train, giving ourselves humpbacks craning over our drafting tables, Camels drooping from our mouths, passing expired packages of Peeps back and forth in the dark. The work has made me forget how to act like a person. We’re not fit to go out and socialize with the fancy people, all Cheetos-stained hands and dilated pupils.
Kayla Rae Whitaker (The Animators)
Studying the history of our ancestors is instructive. I understand some of my parents’ struggles and sacrifices. I am acquainted with my grandparents and great grandparents’ way of life. The common denominator that runs through their lifeblood is a hardpan of resiliency, courage, and work ethic. They also shared a phenomenal degree of competency essential to make due in an open land where the pioneering spirit meets nature under a big sky full of endless possibilities for triumph and setback. My forebears took care of their family members and tended their ancestral land before the word caretaker was a recognized term for a loving man, woman, or child. Self-reliant people who master the skills essential for survival in a harsh clime also value helping other people who are in a fix. All my predecessors were quick to lend a hand to a neighbor in need. Their ability to see life through the heart was the decisive feature of their pioneering pluck. How we start a day, presages how the day shall unfold. Each day when I awaken, I feel clobbered by the preceding day. At days end, I feel comparable to a chewed on piece of masticated beef. I devote all available personal energy reserves to simply getting by and muss over how I can engender the energy to make it through today’s pulp works. In reality, I go on because akin to every generation that preceded me and every generation that succeeds me, I must continue onward or I will expire. The one fact that keeps me going is the realization that all generations of people struggle. What we share with preceding generations is our heartaches and our willingness to struggle in order to make the world a better place for the next generation.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
When its patent on Prozac expired, Eli Lilly put the same recipe into a pink pill, named it Serafem, and created a new "illness": premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) (Cosgrove, 2010). Many women become irritable when premenstrual, but it is one thing to say "I'm sorry I'm kind of cranky today; my period is due" and another to announce "I have PMDD." It seems to me that the former owns one's behavior, increases the likelihood of warm connection with others, and acknowledges that life is sometimes difficult, while the latter implies that one has a treatable ailment, distances others from one's experience, and supports an infantile belief that everything can be fixed.
Nancy McWilliams (Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process)
But Avril had gotten former M.I.T. #1 Men's Singles Corbett Throp to drive Mario down to V.F. Rickey's Rickey's cerebral Student Union thing, where Thorp used his old student I.D. (thumb over expiration date) to get them past the Security lady at the Rectus Bulbi and down to the YYY studio's freezing pink, where the only person who didn't talk like an angry cartoon character, a severely carbuncular man at the engineer's board, would by way of comment point only at a tripartite onionskin screen that stood folded beneath a handless wall-clock, possibly signifying that no hiatus could be that long if the absent party hadn't taken her trusty screen. Mario hadn't had any idea M.P.'d used a screen, on-air. That's when he'd gotten agitated.
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
Although this custom has been abolished, and the cage is now boarded up, the miserable and destitute condition of these unhappy persons remains the same. We no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and compassion of the passersby; but we still leave unblotted the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of succeeding ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction. Not a week passes over our head, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow-prisoners.
Charles Dickens (The Complete Works of Charles Dickens)
These observations explain how the young woman, with whom David slept, gave him strength; how this same thing has succeeded with other old men to whom it has been advised; and why this weakens the young person who looses it without receiving any thing in exchange, or rather who receives the weak, corrupted and putrid exhalations which are so injurious. A person perspires more during coition than at any other time, because the power of the circulation is quickened. This perspiration is perhaps more active and more volatile than at any other time: it is a real loss, and occurs whenever emissions of semen take place, from whatever cause, since it depends on the agitation attending it. In coition it is reciprocal, and the one inspires, what the other expires.
Samuel-Auguste-David Tissot (Diseases Caused by Masturbation)
Well, I’ll tell you this, Mr. Michael. You’re going to walk in there, people are going to tell you things and they’ll say it’s true, but know this: instincts beat advice. Your instincts beat everyone else’s conviction. Including mine. What anyone ever tells you can absolutely expire the second something new happens. We already know what to do, sweetie. And most advice can be narrowed down to: it’s best you try again. But our instincts are a powerful tool, you ought to listen to them. And you know, Michael, it’s not always worth explaining to people. We are too rational to believe extraordinary things can happen sometimes. But”—she smiled—“the most extraordinary times I remember were when I quieted the other voices beside me and embraced the room. The other person. A look. Their voice. Their body. Timing. You’ll feel it Michael and it’s more important you snatch those moments right when they appear. Chase that. Does that make sense?
Kristian Ventura (The Goodbye Song)
Diddy, not really alive, had a life. Hardly the same. Some people are their lives. Others, like Diddy, merely inhabit their lives. Like insecure tenants, never knowing exactly the extent of their property or when the lease will expire. Like unskilled cartographers, drawing and redrawing erroneous maps of an exotic continent. Eventually, for such a person, everything is bound to run dow. The walls sag. Empty spaces bulge between objects. The surfaces of objects sweat, thin out, buckle. The hysterical fluids of fear deposited at the core of objects ooze out along the seams. Deploying things and navigating through space becomes laborious. Too much effort to amble from kitchen to living room, serving drinks, turning on the hi-fi, pretending to be cheerful . . . Everything running down: suffusing the whole of Diddy's well-tended life. Like a house powered by one large generator in the basement. Diddy has an almost palpable sense of the decline of the generator's energy. Or, of the monstrous malfunctioning of that generator, gone amok. Sending forth a torrent of refuse that climbs up into Diddy's life, cluttering all his floor space and overwhelming his pleasant furnishings, so that he's forced to take refuge. Huddle in a narrow corner. But however small the space Diddy means to keep free for himself, it won't remain safe. If solid material can't invade it, then the offensive discharge of the failing or rebellious generator will liquefy; so that it can travel everywhere, spread like a skin. The generator will spew forth a stream of crude oil, grimy and malodorous, that coats all things and persons and objects, the vulgar as well as the precious, the ugly as well as what little still remains beautiful. Befouling Diddy's world and rendering it unusable. Uninhabitable. This deliquescent running-down of everything becomes coexistent with Diddy's entire span of consciousness, undermines his most minimal acts. Getting out of bed is an agony unpromising as the struggles of a fish cast up on the beach, trying to extract life from the meaningless air. Persons who merely have a life customarily move in a dense fluid. That's how they're able to conduct their lives at all. Their living depends on not seeing. But when this fluid evaporates, an uncensored, fetid, appalling underlife is disclosed. Lost continents are brought to view, bearing the ruins of doomed cities, the sparsely fleshed skeletons of ancient creatures immobilized in their death throes, a landscape of unparalleled savagery.
Susan Sontag (Death Kit)
to look around. At first sight, the apartment was perfectly ordinary. He made a quick circuit of the living room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. The place was tidy enough, but with a few items strewn here and there, the sort of things that might be left lying around by a busy person—a magazine, a half-finished crossword puzzle, a book left open on a night table. Abby had the usual appliances—an old stove and a humming refrigerator, a microwave oven with an unpronounceable brand name, a thirteen-inch TV on a cheap stand, a boom box near a modest collection of CDs. There were clothes in her bedroom closet and silverware, plates, and pots and pans in her kitchen cabinets. He began to wonder if he’d been unduly suspicious. Maybe Abby Hollister was who she said she was, after all. And he’d taken a considerable risk coming here. If he was caught inside her apartment, all his plans for the evening would be scotched. He would end up in a holding cell facing charges that would send him back to prison for parole violation. All because he’d gotten a bug up his ass about some woman he hardly knew, a stranger who didn’t mean anything. He decided he’d better get the hell out. He was retracing his steps through the living room when he glanced at the magazine tossed on the sofa. Something about it seemed wrong. He moved closer and took a better look. It was People, and the cover showed two celebrities whose recent marriage had already ended in divorce. But on the cover the stars were smiling over a caption that read, Love At Last. He picked up the magazine and studied it in the trickle of light through the filmy curtains. The date was September of last year. He put it down and looked at the end tables flanking the sofa. For the first time he noticed a patina of dust on their surfaces. The apartment hadn’t been cleaned in some time. He went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator. It seemed well stocked, but when he opened the carton of milk and sniffed, he discovered water inside—which was just as well, since the milk’s expiration period had ended around the time that the People cover story had been new. Water in the milk carton. Out-of-date magazine on the sofa. Dust everywhere, even coating the kitchen counters. Abby didn’t live here. Nobody did. This apartment was a sham, a shell. It was a dummy address, like the dummy corporations his partner had set up when establishing the overseas bank accounts. It could pass inspection if somebody came to visit, assuming the visitor didn’t look too closely, but it wasn’t meant to be used. Now that he thought about it, the apartment was remarkable for what
Michael Prescott (Dangerous Games (Abby Sinclair and Tess McCallum, #3))
Kyle eased back in his chair, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “This is an interesting situation, Jordo . . . What’s it worth to you to keep this information under wraps? Because I’m going to need some income when I get out of this place, and I hear that wine business of yours is really taking off.” “Get real. You owe me.” Kyle sat up, indignant at that. “For what?” Jordan folded her arms on the table. “Sophomore year. You took Mom’s car out of the garage in the middle of the night—without a license—to drive over to Amanda Carroll’s. Dad thought he heard a noise when you tried to sneak back in, so I distracted him by saying that I’d seen a strange person in the backyard. While he was looking out my bedroom window, you crept by and mouthed, ‘I owe you.’ Well, now I want to collect.” “That was seventeen years ago,” Kyle said. “I’m pretty sure there’s a statute of limitations on IOUs.” “I don’t recall hearing any disclaimers, expirations, or caveats at the time.” “I was a minor. The contract’s not valid.” “If you want to weasel your way out of this, I suppose that’s true.” Jordan waited, knowing she had him. Despite the impression one might get from the orange jumpsuit, her brother was quite honorable. And he always kept his word. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I finally get some dirt on you, Ms. Perfect, for the first time in thirty-three years, and it’s wasted.” He grinned. “Good thing that trip to Amanda Carroll’s was worth it, or I’d be pretty pissed about this.” Jordan made a face. Way too much information. “I’m hardly perfect. I’m just a lot better at not getting caught than you.” She took in their surroundings. “Maybe I should’ve given you a few pointers.” Kyle nodded approvingly. “Nice one.
Julie James (A Lot like Love (FBI/US Attorney, #2))
Everything and Nothing* There was no one inside him; behind his face (which even in the bad paintings of the time resembles no other) and his words (which were multitudinous, and of a fantastical and agitated turn) there was no more than a slight chill, a dream someone had failed to dream. At first he thought that everyone was like him, but the surprise and bewilderment of an acquaintance to whom he began to describe that hollowness showed him his error, and also let him know, forever after, that an individual ought not to differ from its species. He thought at one point that books might hold some remedy for his condition, and so he learned the "little Latin and less Greek" that a contemporary would later mention. Then he reflected that what he was looking for might be found in the performance of an elemental ritual of humanity, and so he allowed himself to be initiated by Anne Hathaway one long evening in June. At twenty-something he went off to London. Instinctively, he had already trained himself to the habit of feigning that he was somebody, so that his "nobodiness" might not be discovered. In London he found the calling he had been predestined to; he became an actor, that person who stands upon a stage and plays at being another person, for an audience of people who play at taking him for that person. The work of a thespian held out a remarkable happiness to him—the first, perhaps, he had ever known; but when the last line was delivered and the last dead man applauded off the stage, the hated taste of unreality would assail him. He would cease being Ferrex or Tamerlane and return to being nobody. Haunted, hounded, he began imagining other heroes, other tragic fables. Thus while his body, in whorehouses and taverns around London, lived its life as body, the soul that lived inside it would be Cassar, who ignores the admonition of the sibyl, and Juliet, who hates the lark, and Macbeth, who speaks on the moor with the witches who are also the Fates, the Three Weird Sisters. No one was as many men as that man—that man whose repertoire, like that of the Egyptian Proteus, was all the appearances of being. From time to time he would leave a confession in one corner or another of the work, certain that it would not be deciphered; Richard says that inside himself, he plays the part of many, and Iago says, with curious words, I am not what I am. The fundamental identity of living, dreaming, and performing inspired him to famous passages. For twenty years he inhabited that guided and directed hallucination, but one morning he was overwhelmed with the surfeit and horror of being so many kings that die by the sword and so many unrequited lovers who come together, separate, and melodiously expire. That very day, he decided to sell his theater. Within a week he had returned to his birthplace, where he recovered the trees and the river of his childhood and did not associate them with those others, fabled with mythological allusion and Latin words, that his muse had celebrated. He had to be somebody; he became a retired businessman who'd made a fortune and had an interest in loans, lawsuits, and petty usury. It was in that role that he dictated the arid last will and testament that we know today, from which he deliberately banished every trace of sentiment or literature. Friends from London would visit his re-treat, and he would once again play the role of poet for them. History adds that before or after he died, he discovered himself standing before God, and said to Him: I , who have been so many men in vain, wish to be one, to be myself. God's voice answered him out of a whirlwind: I, too, am not I; I dreamed the world as you, Shakespeare, dreamed your own work, and among the forms of my dream are you, who like me, are many, yet no one.
Jorge Luis Borges
Dear Net-Mail User [ EweR-635-78-2267-3 aSp]: Your mailbox has just been rifled by EmilyPost, an autonomous courtesy-worm chain program released in October 2036 by an anonymous group of net subscribers in western Alaska. [ ref: sequestered confession 592864-2376298.98634, deposited with Bank Leumi 10/23/36:20:34:21. Expiration-disclosure 10 years.] Under the civil disobedience sections of the Charter of Rio, we accept in advance the fines and penalties that will come due when our confession is released in 2046. However we feel that’s a small price to pay for the message brought to you by EmilyPost. In brief, dear friend, you are not a very polite person. EmilyPost’s syntax analysis subroutines show that a very high fraction of your Net exchanges are heated, vituperative, even obscene. Of course you enjoy free speech. But EmilyPost has been designed by people who are concerned about the recent trend toward excessive nastiness in some parts of the Net. EmilyPost homes in on folks like you and begins by asking them to please consider the advantages of politeness. For one thing, your credibility ratings would rise. (EmilyPost has checked your favorite bulletin boards, and finds your ratings aren’t high at all. Nobody is listening to you, sir!) Moreover, consider that courtesy can foster calm reason, turning shrill antagonism into useful debate and even consensus. We suggest introducing an automatic delay to your mail system. Communications are so fast these days, people seldom stop and think. Some Net users act like mental patients who shout out anything that comes to mind, rather than as functioning citizens with the human gift of tact. If you wish, you may use one of the public-domain delay programs included in this version of EmilyPost, free of charge. Of course, should you insist on continuing as before, disseminating nastiness in all directions, we have equipped EmilyPost with other options you’ll soon find out about…
David Brin (Earth)
After I returned from that morning, our telephone rang incessantly with requests for interviews and photos. By midafternoon I was exhausted. At four o’clock I was reaching to disconnect the telephone when I answered one last call. Thank heavens I did! I heard, “Mrs. Robertson? This is Ian Hamilton from the Lord Chamberlain’s office.” I held my breath and prayed, “Please let this be the palace.” He continued: “We would like to invite you, your husband, and your son to attend the funeral of the Princess of Wales on Saturday in London.” I was speechless. I could feel my heart thumping. I never thought to ask him how our name had been selected. Later, in London, I learned that the Spencer family had given instructions to review Diana’s personal records, including her Christmas-card list, with the help of her closest aides. “Yes, of course, we absolutely want to attend,” I answered without hesitating. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I’ll have to make travel plans on very short notice, so may I call you back to confirm? How late can I reach you?” He replied, “Anytime. We’re working twenty-four hours a day. But I need your reply within an hour.” I jotted down his telephone and fax numbers and set about making travel arrangements. My husband had just walked in the door, so we were able to discuss who would travel and how. Both children’s passports had expired and could not be renewed in less than a day from the suburbs where we live. Caroline, our daughter, was starting at a new school the very next day. Pat felt he needed to stay home with her. “Besides,” he said, “I cried at the wedding. I’d never make it through the funeral.” Though I dreaded the prospect of coping with the heartbreak of the funeral on my own, I felt I had to be there at the end, no matter what. We had been with Diana at the very beginning of the courtship. We had attended her wedding with tremendous joy. We had kept in touch ever since. I had to say good-bye to her in person. I said to Pat, “We were there for the ‘wedding of the century.’ This will be ‘the funeral of the century.’ Yes, I have to go.” Then we just looked at each other. We couldn’t find any words to express the sorrow we both felt.
Mary Robertson (The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Between an American Mother and Her Son's Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales)
The heart of rock will always remain a primal world of action. The music revives itself over and over again in that form, primitive rockabilly, punk, hard soul and early rap. Integrating the world of thought and reflection with the world of primitive action is *not* a necessary skill for making great rock 'n' roll. Many of the music's most glorious moments feel as though they were birthed in an explosion of raw talent and creative instinct (some of them even were!). But ... if you want to burn bright, hard *and* long, you will need to depend on more than your initial instincts. You will need to develop some craft and a creative intelligence that will lead you *farther* when things get dicey. That's what'll help you make crucial sense and powerful music as time passes, giving you the skills that may also keep you alive, creatively and physically. The failure of so many of rock's artists to outlive their expiration date of a few years, make more than a few great albums and avoid treading water, or worse, I felt was due to the misfit nature of those drawn to the profession. These were strong, addictive personalities, fired by compulsion, narcissism, license, passion and an inbred entitlement, all slammed over a world of fear, hunger and insecurity. That's a Molotov cocktail of confusion that can leave you unable to make, or resistant to making, the lead of consciousness a life in the field demands. After first contact knocks you on your ass, you'd better have a plan, for some preparedness and personal development will be required if you expect to hang around any longer than your fifteen minutes. Now, some guys' five minutes are worth other guys' fifty years, and while burning out in one brilliant supernova will send record sales through the roof, leave you living fast, dying young, leaving a beautiful corpse, there *is* something to be said for living. Personally, I like my gods old, grizzled and *here*. I'll take Dylan; the pirate raiding party of the Stones; the hope-I-get-very-old-before-I-die, present live power of the Who; a fat, still-mesmerizing-until-his-death Brando—they all suit me over the alternative. I would've liked to have seen that last Michael Jackson show, a seventy-year-old Elvis reinventing and relishing in his talents, where Jimi Hendrix might've next taken the electric guitar, Keith Moon, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and all the others whose untimely deaths and lost talents stole something from the music I love, living on, enjoying the blessings of their gifts and their audience's regard. Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways. Plus, to those you've received so much from, so much joy, knowledge and inspiration, you wish life, happiness and peace. These aren't easy to come by.
Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
Motif Petrify in fairy tales, as multiple aesthetical, has complex origins and development. Forgotten Transformed ritual foundation motive is revealed in the ritual killing of old people. The cyclical myth dismissal of growth and decline is attributed to old people stopping power of life. In order to preserve the life force Penina points out that it took to destroy the creatures that personified their weakening. Mythological justification for the ritual murder of the demonized old lady is a representative of an old man’s death. In doing so, there is no risk of punishment or retaliation for the killing done, because in the moral and mythological plane victim turns into a bully who needs to catch up with retribution. Deeply rooted in the mythical magical notion of the sacred, ritual killing old people is not completely lost in the genres of oral tradition, but is largely hidden in fairy tales. Another basis Petrify in fairy tales is tied for proofing hero. In this type of Petrify emphasized the dependence of suffering from violations of the ban. Offense prohibiting turning into a demonic time and space, or prohibiting speech that is not necessarily related to the hazards arising from the proximity of the demons in lyrical songs, ballads, and some traditions and psychologically conditioned, but the tales he has not shown in the light of personal motives, since the clash of two sacred place in the framework of fulfilling the task of the hero. The power of the heroes in the face of a hostile beings Petrifying people in fairy tales to finalize a victory over the demon, a demon or a subsequent grace which frees the victim of the killed hero of his unfortunate fate, eventually expires Penina Mezei.
Penina Mezei (Penina Mezei West Bank Fairy Tales)
Loss Aversion Our desire to avoid pain or loss is even stronger than our desire to pursue joy or gain. Some studies show that losses are twice as powerful psychologically as gains. This implies that a person who loses $100 suffers pain that is more intense than the joy the person experiences when he or she gains $100. There are a few ways to use this psychological trigger in your pricing page design: Free trials – The whole world of free trials is built on the basis of loss aversion. Once a person has been using a product for a while and has become dependent on it, paying for it is the next natural step in order to avoid the loss of the product. Messaging – You can focus a visitor’s attention on the loss they may suffer by not becoming a customer rather than on the gains they may achieve by becoming a customer. Timing – A limited time offer with an expiration date on it sets off the loss aversion trigger and converts visitors quicker.
Anonymous
It will sound to be perhaps funny. But of, its the fact.. On 19th January 2015 I suddenly had fallen sick. My nearest and dearest person, our beloved family physician had expired on 18th January, 2015 at 6P.M. Every length and breadth of nostalgic thoughts fogged to my mind. I was becoming too restless.No particular medicine, as such acted upon me.My mother's words were in despair..I heard her to say on me, "What should I do with her now?" On other doctor's prescription, medicines were been continuing but my weakness was all along on my way, severely... 20th January, 7P.M.-On one side my mother's inspiration that I have to be awaken, I need to be shaken up myself again and, on the other hand my own teachings to my students when they repel my words "Life and Death together is temporary. When there is Birth, prepare for Death: When there is Hope, prepare for Despair : When there is Happiness, prepare for Sadness: Laugh and Be Merry..:""Life is not a stagnant water,A man is mortal:" And today is 21st January, Feeling much better ..I am, now again to continue with my work-my Life..
Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri.
Like a firework, a person’s life flashed brightest right before expiration.
Katherine McIntyre (Soul Solution)
He employed a weaponized pathogen, a virus with a short half-life sprayed onto a surface he knew his target would touch, in this case the door handle of his target’s personal vehicle. It was genetic warfare, the next evolution of chemical warfare. Half as messy as a snipper bullet but twice as effective, it left no trace after the virus’s half-life expired.
Vincent Amato (Disclosing the Secret)
The attitude of the average decent person towards the classics of his own tongue is one of distrust... I will take, for an example, Sir Thomas Browne, as to whom the average person has no offensive juvenile memories. He is bound to have read somewhere that the style of Sir Thomas Browne is unsurpassed by anything in English literature. One day he sees the Religio Medici in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, by way of a mild experiment. He does not expect to be enchanted by it; a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne is “not in his line”; and in the result he is even less enchanted than he expected to be. He reads the introduction, and he glances at the first page or two of the work. He sees nothing but words. The work makes no appeal to him whatever. He is surrounded by trees, and cannot perceive the forest. He puts the book away. If Sir Thomas Browne is mentioned, he will say, “Yes, very fine!” with a feeling of pride that he has at any rate bought and inspected Sir Thomas Browne. Deep in his heart is a suspicion that people who get enthusiastic about Sir Thomas Browne are vain and conceited poseurs. After a year or so, when he has recovered from the discouragement caused by Sir Thomas Browne, he may, if he is young and hopeful, repeat the experiment with Congreve or Addison. Same sequel! And so on for perhaps a decade, until his commerce with the classics finally expires! That, magazines and newish fiction apart, is the literary history of the average decent person.
Arnold Bennett (Literary Taste)
... explained to him how nature is not criminal. How common it was for certain African men on expedition to engage in what might be called "reciprocal sex." How it was common for these men to declare more love for their boy wives than their girl wives. And then why wouldn't Sir Richard Oslet, the hunter said, allow himself, as such to no longer feel pain. And that was the moment, Oslet explained, when hge realized he loved Sowning, that what he had always felt for Downing was love, and Oslet begged Downing's forgiveness. But how could he possibly have know any sooner when there was no language to describe how he felt, no currency, and to even attempt to speak of it would have smacked of revolt, but hopeless revolt, one toward a freedom that Oslet knew did not exist. For Britian, didn't Downing know was perfectly to content to ignore them, so long as there was ambiguity. And hadn't Downing grown up reading, as Oslet had, for decades about the thousands of souls who tried to love one another unambiguously, or those who got caught and were tried allover England at the Courts of Assize, the quarter sessions, and hung? Was Downing so think as to be unaware of the Offenses Against the Person Act, asnd risk the bopth of them landing locked up for years as men were in Redding Jail... Nature, Oslet said the hunter had said, ... unlike man does nothing in vain. God is Nature, and because God is Nature, he created nothing in vain. Therefore, the soul can never expire. It is immortal and in perpetual transit.
Jessica Anthony (Enter the Aardvark)
When she finally got there, Mom hugged Belle and told her, “I owe you,” like I was some repulsive burden instead of the person who had very helpfully unpacked three boxes of green bananas and scoured the refrigerated section for expired dairy items.
Rebecca Stead (When You Reach Me)
A Republican seizure of power based not on the strength of the party's ideas but on massive disfranchisement denies citizens not only their rights, but also the "talisman" of humanity that voting represents. The lie of voter fraud breaks a World War II veteran down into a simple, horrifying statement: "I wasn't a citizen no more." It forces a man, a retired engineer who was instrumental in building this nation, into facing a bitter truth: "I am not wanted in this state." It eviscerates the key sense of self-worthy in a disabled man who has to pen the painful words "My constitutional rights have been stripped from me." It maligns thousands of African Americans who resiliently weathered the Missouri cold and hours of bureaucratic runarounds as nothing but criminals and frauds. It leaves a woman suffering from lung cancer absolutely "distraught" and convinced that "they prevented us from voting," because none of her IDs could penetrate Wisconsin's law. It shatters the dying wish of a woman who, in her last moments on earth, wanted to cast a vote for possibly the first woman president of the United States. But an expired driver's license meant none of that was to be.
Carol Anderson (One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy)
I guess pencil crayons are like life; we hope to gain wisdom through our experiences, and sadly many of us learn important lessons later in life - however all that colour we scratched and pressed into our canvases create stories for our children, and grandchildren - things to laugh at as we look back, and hopefully things others can use as examples of lessons of caution, and tales of overcoming negative situations despite the overwhelming odds stacked up against us. Tales of past likes and loves, lessons learned, and the stories about how you met the right person and how you ended up with them - often a winding tale until there's an 'AH-HA' moment of enlightenment, lol. Tales of raw adversity...because rawness is beautiful, and learned wisdom which proves showing weakness is actual bravery. That not everyone you lose is a loss, and that in life, a situation will keep repeating itself until one learns their lesson. As sad as it is to see these pencils being shortened, and the way one tries to preserve what's left as they get shorter and shorter... the new box of crayons which will eventually be bought will continue the storytelling of the old, and add new stories until they themselves expire.
Cheyanne Ratnam
Sometimes, using the experience doesn’t go smoothly. Maybe the TAPP rider has forgotten to update their credit card expiration date, or maybe a bus has been unexpectedly rerouted for an emergency. The organization can use alerts and error messages to inform the person and help them get to their goals (Figure 1-
Torrey Podmajersky (Strategic Writing for UX: Drive Engagement, Conversion, and Retention with Every Word)
Rhys brushed a hand down my arm. 'You are, as always, free to go wherever and whenever you wish. But what I think Mor is saying is... try to leave a note the next time.' The words were casual, but that was panic in his eyes. Not- not the controlling fear Tamlin had once succumbed to, but... genuine terror of not knowing where I was, if I needed help. Just as I would want to know where he was, if he needed help, if he vanished when our enemies surrounded us. 'I'm sorry,' I said. To him, to the others. Mor didn't so much as look at me. 'You have nothing to be sorry for,' Rhys replied, hand sliding to cup my cheek. 'You decided to take things into your own hands, and got us valuable information in the process. But... ' His thumb stroked over my cheekbone. 'We have been lucky,' he breathed. 'Keeping a step ahead- keeping out of Hybern's claws. Even if today... today wasn't so fortunate on the battlefield. But the cynic in me wonders if our luck is about to expire. And I would rather it not end with you.' They all had to think me young and reckless. No, Rhys said through the bond, and I realised I'd left my shields open. Believe me, if you knew half of the shit Cassian and Mor have pulled you'd get why we don't. I just... Leave a note. Or tell me the next time. Would you have let me go if I had? I do not let you do anything. He tilted my face up, Mor and Azriel looking away. You are your own person, you make your own choices. But we are mates- I am yours, and you are mine. We do not let each other do things, as if we dictate the movements of each other. But... I might have insisted I go with you. More for my own mental well-being, just to know you were safe. You were occupied. A slash of a smile. If you were hell-bent on going into the Middle, I would have unoccupied myself from battle.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
Just because you released yourself from those who first abandoned you doesn't mean you are completely free just yet. Fear of abandonment runs deep and continues to show up in many different scenarios. From sabotaging relationships, so you can control the outcome of when a person walks out on you this time. To holding to a toxic relationship, way past its expiration date, because you don't want to be alone. The only way towards true freedom from this fear, or any fear for that matter, is to never ever abandon yourself.
Christine E. Szymanski
Just because you released yourself from those who first abandoned you doesn't mean you are completely free just yet. Fear of abandonment runs deep and continues to show up in many different scenarios. From sabotaging relationships, so you can control the outcome of when a person walks out on you this time. To holding onto a toxic relationship, way past its expiration date, because you don't want to be alone. The only way towards true freedom from this fear, or any fear for that matter, is to never ever abandon yourself.
Christine E. Szymanski
DOROTHY THOMPSON, crusading commentator whose radio work supplemented her widely read “On the Record” newspaper column to make her one of the most controversial news personalities of two decades. She became an international celebrity in 1934 after a series of magazine articles got her thrown out of Germany by Hitler. Her tirades against Hitler grew so heated that her sponsor, Pall Mall Cigarettes, was uncomfortable, and her NBC contract was not renewed when it expired in May 1938.
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
once confided to him late at night after a game of billiards and rather a lot of excellent port that his wife hated it so much that she’d only let him do it when she wanted a baby. She was a damned attractive woman, too, and a wonderful wife, as Martyn had said. In other ways. They had five children, and Martyn didn’t think she was going to wear a sixth. Rotten for him. When Edward had suggested that he find consolation elsewhere, Martyn had simply gazed at him with mournful brown eyes and said, ‘But I’m in love with her, old boy, always have been. Never looked at anyone else. You know how it is.’ And Edward, who didn’t, said of course he did. That conversation had warned him off Marcia Slocombe-Jones anyhow. It didn’t matter, because although he could have gone for her there were so many other girls to go for. How lucky he was! To have come back from France not only alive, but relatively unscathed! In winter, his chest played him up a bit due to living in trenches where the gas had hung about for weeks, but otherwise . . . Since then he’d come back, gone straight into the family firm, met Villy at a party, married her as soon as her contract with the ballet company she was with expired and as soon as she’d agreed to the Old Man’s dictate that her career should stop from then on. ‘Can’t marry a gal whose head’s full of something else. If marriage isn’t the woman’s career, it won’t be a good marriage.’ His attitude was thoroughly Victorian, of course, but all the same, there was quite a lot to be said for it. Whenever Edward looked at his own mother, which he did infrequently but with great affection, he saw her as the perfect reflection of his father’s attitude: a woman who had serenely fulfilled all her family responsibilities and at the same time retained her youthful enthusiasms – for her garden that she adored and for music. At over seventy, she was quite capable of playing double concertos with professionals. Unable to discriminate between the darker, more intricate veins of temperament that distinguish one person from another, he could not really see why Villy should not be as happy and fulfilled as the Duchy. (His mother’s Victorian reputation for plain living – nothing rich in food and no frills or pretensions about her own appearance or her household’s had long ago earned her the nickname of Duchess – shortened by her own children to
Elizabeth Jane Howard (The Light Years (Cazalet Chronicles, #1))
Health in Breathing Deep Breathing. Many cases of lung trouble and of other afflictions are due to improper breathing, or rather to persons allowing themselves to fall into bad habits of breathing. Nature intends that a certain amount of oxygen must come from the air we breathe. In a natural, joyous life, nature will cause anyone to breathe in an abundance of this oxygen. But artificial habits of life, and especially despondency and work that requires much stooping or bending over, are apt to produce an apathy of the nerves and muscles that control breathing, and hence an insufficient supply of the health-giving oxygen. The remedy in such cases is easy and in everyone's hands. Moreover, it costs nothing but a slight effort, continued long enough until a correct habit is formed. How to Breathe. The most important item in breathing is that it shall be deep and rhythmic, that is, that inspiration and expiration shall be of equal length. Watch a person asleep and note his breathing: it is as regular and rhythmic as the swish of the waves on the shore, as regular as the ticking of the clock. That is the natural way; when consciousness stops controlling it, the breathing becomes natural. If, then, you are seeking health and vigor, imitate the natural. Breathing Exercise. Of marvelous value is the deep breathing exercise, which should be taken just as regular as the morning ablution. The best place is somewhere where one can get fresh air, preferably air that the sun has shone on. Then bending back the shoulders, throwing forward the chest and upward the chin, inhale slowly just as much air as the lungs will hold. Hold in this air while you count ten. Exhale it slowly Repeat this four or five times. Then, after a moment’s rest, empty the lungs to the utmost, then draw in all the air possible, and when the lungs seem full, draw in just a little more, pack the lungs, as it were, and hold the breath while you count twenty slowly. Then exhale. You will find this a wonderfully invigorating and health preserving exercise.
E. Ruddock (Vitalogy)
For the past three months I've been lodged in the staring-out-the-window-and burning-toast stage of grief. According to Dr. Rupert, I had a depressive breakdown brought on by grief...as though showing up at the office in your bathrobe is perfectly understandable. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of everyone else dying and leaving me behind. You don't feel as though you're having a conversation, ore as though you're listening to a book on tape, the title "Steve the Sales Guy Goes on a Dinner Date". Isn't there some way around having to start this new life without my husband? I can't return Crystal as though she's an appliance that broke before the warranty expired. I'm significant otherless. By the time he calls, maybe I'll be a ndw person with self-confidence and cute comebacks. Straight hair, a better job, a smaller waistline. How could I have managed to lose my husband, my job, my house, and my ass all in one year? I'm so eager for intimacy, I would date a tree. It's a myth that people experience grief for a certain amount of time and then they're over it. Nine of the fifteen pounds I want to lose cling to me like an overprotective mother who doesn't want me to take my pants off until I'm married again. Good-riddance list. It's a list of all the stuff you don't like about a guy. You're supposed to make it when you break up with someone. It's funny how you don't have to be related to someone to love them like family. Dangerous rebound guy. My grief is diminished, but it feels permanent, like a scar. Another grief gold star. Marion & Crystal moved in with me. How can I live happily ever after without loving someone again?
Lolly Winston
General Guidelines for Wilderness Medical Kits 1. Accept the fact that there is no such thing as the perfect wilderness medical kit. Many factors should determine your choices of specific contents. No matter how much you plan and prepare, someday you will want something that is not there and/or discover you’ve carried an item for years and never used it. When considering the contents of a kit, take into account (1) the environmental extremes you will face (altitude, cold, heat, endemic diseases), (2) the number of people that may require care; (3) the number of days the kit will be in use; (4) the distance from definitive medical care; (5) the availability of rescue services; (6) your medical expertise and/or the expertise of other group members; and (7) preexisting problems of group members, such as individuals with diabetes. 2. Evaluate and repack your wilderness medical kit before every trip. Renew medications that have reached expiration dates. Replace items that have been damaged by heat, cold, or moisture. Remove items that are unnecessary for the proposed trip, such as insect repellent on winter trips, and add items that may be useful on the upcoming adventure. 3. Do not fill your kit with items you do not know how to use. Maintain a high level of familiarity with the proper uses of all the items in your wilderness medical kit. 4. Choose specific items for the wilderness medical kit, whenever possible, that are versatile rather than particular. For example, a wide variety of sizes and shapes of Band-Aids is nice, but wound coverings can be created from pads of gauze and strips of tape. Triangular bandages are useful, but safety pins and T-shirts can be used to make slings. Medical adhesive tape has limited usefulness compared with duct tape. 5. Encourage each group member to pack and carry a personal first-aid kit to reduce the size and weight of the general wilderness medical kit.
Buck Tilton (Wilderness First Responder: How to Recognize, Treat, and Prevent Emergencies in the Backcountry)
I seek to ascertain a way to breathe life back into my sunken chamber. I need to discover an incarnate means to replicate the meditative shadow that appears on the wall of my inner cave. I must eliminate the distorted manner that I look at the world through the falsifying mirrors of illusion and delusion. My innermost fear is that I wasted precious time, squandered opportunities, and the clock will expire before I create any worthy testament to the pristine beauty of nature or innate goodness of humankind. I shudder in the creeping shadows of the evening struck by the thought that I lack the discipline, talent, and fortitude as well as the crucial gift of evaluation and analysis demanded to add to the collective good. I fear that selfishly ensconced in a cosseted life I ignored the shaft of light that openly beckons each of us to unbolt. I am clueless of how to release the glorious expression of beauty that our nature seeks to burnish in our fleeting ambulation across the plains of time. Do I dare pull back the curtain and unmask the timid man that stands hidden behind the sheltering layers of untruth that conceal the demesne of his mangled personal thoughts, feelings, emotions, wants, and needs? Inside this crusted urn, is there a shard of anything that can be cultivated for goodness, if only I possessed the strength of mind and insight to will it into fruition? Does one know how to share their modest notions with other people who might yearn to hear that they too are not alone?
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
Part of me has always thought that if the world found out what I really was, it would reject me. The people in my life could not be ready for what I saw within myself. I was tempted, for the longest time, to walk away from the human world and remain on my own until I expired. Having already acquired the independence I would need to survive, both physically and spiritually, I had grown comfortable with my existence and did not fear isolation. I saw no way for the person I was becoming to coexist with the world as I perceived it. Similar sentiments have echoed endlessly in the past as individuals have grown aware of themselves. In my recent past, my ambition changed. Maybe I got stronger. Maybe I became more aware of what the problem was and realized what I could do about it. I reached the conclusion that I had a place somewhere. I would still be something of an outsider – living on the fringe and doing things the way I wanted– but I would not completely abandon the trappings of society. Everything I have seen so far gives me a vantage place from which to plot my involvement in the world. I see better now what people need, and I understand what I am equipped to provide.
Gregory V. Diehl (Travel as Transformation: Conquer the Limits of Culture to Discover Your Own Identity)
So Medtronic adjusted not only its marketing efforts, but also the services it provided to directly target potential patients. For example, in conjunction with local cardiologists, Medtronic organized heart-health screening clinics across the country—providing prospective patients with free, direct access to specialists and high-tech equipment without having to go through an overwhelmed GP first. The question of paying for a pacemaker and the attendant medical services was no small concern. So Medtronic created a loan program to help patients pay for the pacemaker procedure. The company initially assumed that patients might be drawn to loans that actually expired upon the patient’s death, so that they were not saddling the family with the burden of debt—the emotional and social component of their Job to Be Done. And, as the Medtronic team learned from patients themselves, that was what they often wanted. But friends and family wanted something different: they tended to rally around a patient to find the money necessary. In those cases, the patient was more likely simply to need a bridge loan until those funds could be gathered. Medtronic made sure that the loan process was not daunting for the family: a loan is typically approved within two days, requiring minimum paperwork and entailing no asset mortgage. The experience of navigating the complex web of health care in India could be overwhelming for both patients and their families. So the company began to work with local hospitals to create a patient counselor role, initially calling them “Sherpas,” that helped patients navigate the often mind-boggling bureaucracy of a hospital, keeping their procedure and aftercare as top priorities. The patient counselor role became so popular that hospitals asked if the company would allow patients obtaining pacemakers through traditional routes to seek assistance from a counselor, too. Seeing an opportunity to further identify Jobs to Be Done from within the hospital system, Medtronic jumped at the chance. “At the end of the day, we realized the role was such an important position, we adjusted the role. And we were OK with it,” Monson recalls. “It ingrained the value of that person into the entire hospital system, and thus our business model. And it made us the partner of choice. To me that was a clear example of hitting a Job to Be Done.” The first Medtronic pacemaker distributed through the Healthy Heart for All (HHFA) program in India was implanted in late 2010. Medtronic currently has partnerships with more than one hundred hospitals in thirty cities. India is considered to be one of the most high-potential growth markets for the company.
Clayton M. Christensen (Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice)
We must engage our sense of self to sensibly deal with environmental stresses in the ever-changing world. Without a strong sense of self and an equally robust ego, I might have expired long ago. Because I possess a brain that is capable of self-recognition and self-regulation, I reserve the opportunity to edit personal behavior. If I can exercise the necessary self-discipline, I can reposition an individualistic and egotistical sense of self-identity. A sense of self can lock us into self-destructive behavioral patterns. If we exhibit an inflexible sense of self, we are predisposed to act in a rigidly prescribed manner. Some of our personal decisions might not support our long-term best interest. The Neanderthals failed to adapt to environmental changes and paid the ultimate price with extermination of their species. I too face the challenge of either adapting to environmental stresses or expiring. My prior characterization of self-identity did not serve me well since it brought me to the brink of self-immolation. Accordingly, I must revise whom I think I am in order to adapt to the challenges of a rapidly changing environment by assessing who I was, determining who I want to become, and developing a disciplined approach to make the transition from what I was to who I seek to become.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
How to Bulletproof Your Association’s Biggest Asset: The Money The 35-Point Financial Procedures Manual If you are elected treasurer of your community association and accept the challenge, there are many policies and procedures you will need to learn before you start planning budgets, collecting assessments, and signing checks. Board members and officers of all community associations in America should read the following 35-point list of financial procedures and consider it a survival manual. It is divided into four segments: •​Inheriting Old Books •​Guarding and Vigilance •​Cyberbanking Procedures •​Efficiency Maximization and Return The Takeover: Inheriting Old Books 1.​Incoming treasurers or accounting managers should never accept the recording of financial books or accounts of a previous money manager. In order to be sure there is a clear line between the actions of the prior money manager and the current, a new bank account should be opened and the funds transferred to the new account. The new account helps to draw the line of accountability. Liability is also reduced by the new account, since any old checks that may be lying around will then be invalid. 2.​Immediately notify the bank when officers change. Bank signature cards must always be brought current immediately following the annual election. All officers should go to the bank together to provide identification and verify signatures. 3.​For incoming treasurers or accounting managers, a “transition document” stating all association account balances—including a statement as to the purpose of the reserve account, all contracts (including the vendors’ names and the expiration dates), and any outstanding payments due for services rendered or received—should be provided to the new money manager. 4.​Destroy all old checks and deposit slips. Use a cross shredder or a document destruction company. 5.​Keep new checks under lock and guard the keys. 6.​If a board treasurer or management company refuses to give up the bank accounts (it has happened), send the person or company a certified letter demanding the rightful return
Sara E. Benson (Escaping Condo Jail)
1689: King William of Orange guarantees his subjects (except Catholics) the right to bear arms for self-defense in a new Bill of Rights. 1819: In response to civil unrest, a temporary Seizure of Arms Act is passed; it allows constables to search for, and confiscate, arms from people who are “dangerous to the public peace.” This expired after two years. 1870: A license is needed only if you want to carry a firearm outside of your home. 1903: The Pistols Act is introduced and seems to be full of common sense. No guns for drunks or the mentally insane, and licenses are required for handgun purchases. 1920: The Firearms Act ushers in the first registration system and gives police the power to deny a license to anyone “unfitted to be trusted with a firearm.” According to historian Clayton Cramer, this is the first true pivot point for the United Kingdom, as “the ownership of firearms ceased to be a right of Englishmen, and instead became a privilege.” 1937: An update to the Firearm Act is passed that raises the minimum age to buy a gun, gives police more power to regulate licenses, and bans most fully automatic weapons. The home secretary also rules that self-defense is no longer a valid reason to be granted a gun certificate. 1967: The Criminal Justice Act expands licensing to shotguns. 1968: Existing gun laws are placed into a single statute. Applicants have to show good reason for carrying ammunition and guns. The Home Office is also given the power to set fees for shotgun licenses. 1988: After the Hungerford Massacre, in which a crazy person uses two semi-automatic rifles to kill fifteen people, an amendment to the Firearms Act is passed. According to the BBC, this amendment “banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles; weapons which fire explosive ammunition; short shotguns with magazines; and elevated pump-action and self-loading rifles. Registration was also made mandatory for shotguns, which were required to be kept in secure storage.” 1997: After the Dunblane massacre results in the deaths of sixteen children and a teacher (the killer uses two pistols and two revolvers), another Firearms Act amendment is passed, this one essentially banning all handguns. 2006: After a series of gun-related homicides get national attention, the Violent Crime Reduction Act is passed, making it a crime to make or sell imitation guns and further restricting the use of “air weapons.
Glenn Beck (Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns)
It’s hard to have a falling-out when one person isn’t outraged.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Here's the truth: I do want love. In some ways, I've been looking for forever. Real love, the kind that makes you want to grow old together, makes you not just unafraid of all that time with one person but electrified by it. I assumed at some point, maybe the papers would stop. But I wasn't looking forward to that day, at least not exactly. There was something in me that wanted to keep moving. If you never stop long enough to sink into something, then it can't destroy you. It's easier to climb out of a pool that a well, is the thing.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Joel and I don’t work because he’s my person, we work because I feel like I can be every bad and impossible version of myself with him. I can change. And it’s not even that I know he’ll still love me, it’s that it’s not even a question, he has.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)