Expressive Baby Quotes

Abby touched her palm to my cheek. "You know what, Mr. Maddox?" "What, baby?" Her expression turned serious. "In another life, I could love you." I watched her for a moment, staring into her glassed over eyes. She was drunk, but just for a moment it didn't seem wrong to pretend that she meant it. "I might love you in this one.

He closed his eyes and let out a jagged breath. "Okay." He settled between my legs holding himself over me. "I've never been with a virgin, Eva. I'm going to try real hard not to hurt you." "Will it hurt you?" I asked, thinking about his pained expression when he'd said I was too tight. He smiled, "It's going to be the closest to heaven I'll ever get, baby.

The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.

No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can end up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality-the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom-almost never-an even proposition.

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.

The baby!’ Nico grinned, which hurt his face muscles. He wasn’t used to making that expression. ‘Mellie and the kid are all right?

Travis tapped my apple with his fork. “You gonna eat that, Pidge?” “No, you can have it, Baby.” Heat consumed my ears when America’s head jerked to look at me. “It just came out,” I said, shaking my head. I peeked up at Travis, whose expression was a mixture of amusement and adoration.

Straight guys only feel three ways about girls . . . First, either they love you, and they show it by writing a song about you, like Gabriel, and asking you out, and everything is nice and fun like it should be. Second, they love you, but they’re scared of their passion for you because it’s so strong, like your boy Christopher, so they stuff it way, way down and ignore you, or do stupid things like make fun of you because they don’t know how to express it any other way, because they’re immature little babies and are too shy to, say, write a song about you. Or third, there’s something wrong with them, and they start out nice and loving and then turn around and do stupid things like sleep with other girls behind your back, like Justin Bay. But we’ll never figure out what went wrong with them, and neither will they, so it’s not worth thinking about. Okay? That’s it. The end.” Lulu Collins

Your father is proud of us for having a baby.” Gabriel nodded, as he continued brushing. “That means he’s proud of us for having sex and you for impregnating me. Do you think they make T-shirts for grandfathers that express those sentiments?

Your life is your artwork and you are to paint life as a beautiful struggle. With your brush, paint the colors of joy in vibrant shades of red. Color the sky a baby blue, a color as free as your heart. With rich, earthy tones shade the valleys that run deep into the ground where heaven meets hell. Life is as chaotic as the color black, a blend of all colors, and this makes life a beautiful struggle. Be grateful for the green that makes up the beautiful canvas, for nature has given you everything that you need to be happy. Most of all, don’t ever feel the need to fill the entire canvas with paint, for the places left blank are the most honest expressions of who you are.

Someone once told me that grief is love you can no longer express.

Sweet baby Jesus, Blue Eyes was… He was gorgeous in all the ways that made girls do stupid things. He was tall, a good head or two taller than me and broad at the shoulders, but tapered at the waist. An athlete’s body—like a swimmer’s. Wavy black hair toppled over his forehead, brushing matching eyebrows. Broad cheekbones and wide, expressive lips completed the package created for girls to drool over. And with those sapphire-colored eyes, holy moley…

Usually Robert looked slightly uneasy whenever Alec expressed affection to Magnus. This time, however, he was staring fixedly at the warlock baby and did not even seem to hear.

[Slitscan's audience] is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.

That's why I had a reduction when I was twenty-one," which is when his expression morphed into one of horror. You'd have thought I told him I made an amazing stew from tiny babies and puppy tongues. "Why on earth would you do that? That's like God giving you a beautiful gift and you kicking him in the nuts." I laughed. "God? I thought you were agnostic, Professor." "I am. But if I could motorboat perfect tits like yours I might be able to find Jesus." I felt my blush warm my cheeks. "Because Jesus totally lives in my cleavage?" "Not anymore he doesn't. Your boobs are now too small for him to be comfortable in there." He shook his head, and I couldn't stop laughing. "So selfish, Ziggs,

As a therapist, she knew a baby’s first sense of self comes through its parents’ gaze. We are born being watched—our parents’ expressions, what we see reflected in the mirror of their eyes, determines how we see ourselves.

We as an English-speaking people can't not eat our dead— our language loves a cannibal. We don't just win at sports, we kill the other team; we demolish them; we devour our opponents. To express a baby's cuteness, we say we could eat her up.

In reality a baby is a field of infinite potential expressing the highest intelligence in Nature.

I wrote poetry from the time I could write. That was the only way I could begin to express who I was but the poems didn't make sense to my teachers. They didn't rhyme. They were about the wind sounds, the planets' motions, never about who I was or how I felt. I didn't think I felt anything. I was this mind more than a body or a heart. My mind photographing the stars, hearing the wind.

An incomplete list: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take pictures of concert states. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one's hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position – but no, this wasn't true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

It must be very tiring for the Consort," Lorelei said next to me. [...] "Perhaps a mount could be brought...?" Lorelei suggested. Out of a corner I saw both Barabas and George freeze. Yes, I know I've been insulted. Settle down. "Thank you for your concern. I can manage." "Please, it's no trouble at all. You could hurt yourself. I know that even something minor like a twisted ankle would present a big problem for a human..." Do not punch the pack princess; do not punch the pack princess... "We wouldn't want you to struggle to keep up." Okay, she went too far. I gave her a nice big smile. Curran's face snapped into a neutral expression. "We just got here, baby. It's too early for you to start killing people.

You’re not really mad that I’m not having children. In fact, I would probably love to one day. You’re mad that I’m expressing autonomy of choice. You’re mad that I’m considering other options. You’re mad that I don’t view that as my ultimate potential. You’re mad that I dare be selfish enough to make choices based on my best interest, something women are not supposed to do. You’re mad that I consider it a choice, and that I, a woman, am exercising choice. You’re not mad that I’m not having babies. You’re mad because I’m acting like a man.

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’être, which is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I’d train it to say, “Wasn’t me!” every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, “Ce n’étais pas moi!” What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboard down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

She resented her body's betrayal. She still couldn't express how insecure it made her, how she lived on a precipice. The most basic parts of her could fail, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

A mask has but one expression, frozen and eternal, yet it is always and ever the essential expression, and to hide one’s telltale flesh behind the external skeleton of the mask is to display the universal identity of the inner being in place of the outer identity that is transitory and corrupt. The freedom of the masked is not the vulgar political freedom of the successful revolutionary, but the magical freedom of the Divine, beyond politics and beyond success. A mask, any mask, whether horned like a beast or feathered like an angel, is the face of immortality. Meet me in Cognito, baby. In Cognito, we’ll have nothing to hide.

When he moved, she could tell that he’d stopped breathing. His fingers spasmed as he started to reach out. He hesitated and then just barely brushed the baby's palm as though he expected his touch to poison or break her. The tiny hand reflexively closed around his finger, gripping it. Draco sat frozen. Hermione watched him and recognized the expression in his eyes as he looked down at the little person who was clinging tenaciously to him. Possessive and adoring.

You, Travis Maddox, are kinda sexy when you’re not being a whore,” she said, a ridiculous, drunken grin twisting her mouth in different directions. Abby touched her palm to my cheek. “You know what, Mr. Maddox?” “What, baby?” Her expression turned serious. “In another life, I could love you.” “I might love you in this one.

It was humanity's ability to heal so quickly, by means of babies, which encouraged so many people to think of explosions as show business, as highly theatrical forms of self-expression, and little more.

Like all who are impassioned, I take blissful delight in losing myself, in fully experiencing the thrill of surrender. And so I often write with no desire to think, in an externalized reverie, letting the words cuddle me like a baby in their arms. They form sentences with no meaning, flowing softly like water I can feel, a forgetful stream whose ripples mingle and undefine, becoming other, still other ripples, and still again other. Thus ideas and images, throbbing with expressiveness, pass through me in resounding processions of pale silks on which imagination shimmers like moonlight, dappled and indefinite.

I'd also believe that all teenage boys go around calling girls baby, because apparently that's the express train to romance.

Oh, Jesus,” he said, wheezing with the effort it took to control himself. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “You little innocent. I’m fluent in French, but it isn’t my first language.” It was plain by the mortified expression in those green eyes that she didn’t understand, so he explained. “Baby , if I can still think clearly enough to speak French, then I’m not totally involved in what I’m doing. It may sound pretty , but it doesn’t mean any thing. Men are different from women; the more excited we are, the more like cavemen we sound. I could barely speak English with you, much less French. As I remember, my vocabulary deteriorated to a few short, explicit words, ‘fuck’ being the most prominent.” To his amazement, she blushed, and he smiled at this further evidence of her charming prudery. “Go to sleep,” he said gently. “Lindsey didn’t even rate a replay.

I clicked the gate shut and slipped down the alley. Through one fence after another, I caught glimpses of people in their dining rooms and living rooms, eating and watching TV dramas. Food smells drifted into the alley through kitchen windows and exhaust fans. One teenaged boy was practicing a fast passage on his electric guitar, with the volume turned down. In a second floor window, a tiny girl was studying at her desk, an earnest expression on her face. A married couple in a heated argument sent their voices out to the alley. A baby was screaming. A telephone rang. Reality spilled out into the alley like water from an overfilled bowl - as sound, as smell, as image, as plea, as response.

The suspense is killin’ me, Pigeon!” Travis called. I walked out, fidgeting with my dress while Travis stood in front of me, blank-faced. America elbowed him and he blinked. “Holy shit.” “Are you ready to be freaked out?” America asked. “I’m not freaked out, she looks amazing,” Travis said. I smiled and then slowly turned around to show him the steep dip of the fabric in the back of the dress. “Okay, now I’m freakin’ out,” he said, walking over to me “Okay, now I’m freakin’ out,” he said, walking over to me and turning me around. “You don’t like it?” I asked. “You need a jacket.” He jogged to the rack and then hastily draped my coat over my shoulders. “She can’t wear that all night, Trav,” America chuckled. “You look beautiful, Abby,” Shepley said as an apology for Travis’ behavior. Travis’ expression was pained as he spoke. “You do. You look incredible…but you can’t wear that. Your skirt is…wow, your legs are…your skirt is too short and it’s only half a dress! It doesn’t even have a back on it!” I couldn’t help but smile. “That’s the way it’s made, Travis.” “Do you two live to torture each other?” Shepley frowned. “Do you have a longer dress?” Travis asked. I looked down. “It’s actually pretty modest in the front. It’s just the back that shows off a lot of skin.” “Pigeon,” he winced with his next words, “I don’t want you to be mad, but I can’t take you to my frat house looking like that. I’ll get in a fight the first five minutes we’re there, Baby.

Footsteps approach the kitchen. Garrett wanders in, wiping sweat off his brow. When he notices Sabrina, he brightens. “Oh good. You’re here. Hold on—gotta grab something.” She turns to me as if to say, Is he talking to me? He’s already gone, though, his footsteps thumping up the stairs. At the table, Hannah runs a hand through her hair and gives me a pleading look. “Just remember he’s your best friend, okay?” That doesn’t sound ominous. When Garrett returns, he’s holding a notepad and a ballpoint pen, which he sets on the table as he sits across from Sabrina. “Tuck,” he says. “Sit. This is important.” I’m so baffled right now. Hannah’s resigned expression doesn’t help in lessening the confusion. Once I’m seated next to Sabrina, Garrett flips open the notepad, all business. “Okay. So let’s go over the names.” Sabrina raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug, because I legitimately don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. “I’ve put together a solid list. I really think you’re going to like these.” But when he glances down at the page, his face falls. “Ah crap. We can’t use any of the boy names.” “Wait.” Sabrina holds up a hand, her brow furrowed. “You’re picking names for our baby?” He nods, busy flipping the page. My baby mama gapes at me. I shrug again. “Just out of curiosity, what were the boy names?” Grace hedges, clearly fighting a smile. He cheers up again. “Well, the top contender was Garrett.” I snicker loud enough to rattle Sabrina’s water glass. “Uh-huh,” I say, playing along. “And what was the runner-up?” “Graham.” Hannah sighs. “But it’s okay. I have some kickass girl names too.” He taps his pen on the pad, meets our eyes, and utters two syllables. “Gigi.” My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? I’m not naming my daughter Gigi.” Sabrina is mystified. “Why Gigi?” she asks slowly. Hannah sighs again. The name suddenly clicks in my head. Oh for fuck’s sake. “G.G.,” I mutter to Sabrina. “As in Garrett Graham.” She’s silent for a beat. Then she bursts out laughing, triggering giggles from Grace and eventually Hannah, who keeps shaking her head at her boyfriend. “What?” Garrett says defensively. “The godfather should have a say in the name. It’s in the rule book.” “What rule book?” Hannah bursts out. “You make up the rules as you go along!” “So?

He frowned. She laughed. He brightened. She pouted. He grinned. She flinched. Come on: we don’t do that. Except when we’re pretending. Only babies frown and flinch. The rest of us just fake with our fake faces. He grinned. No He didn’t. If a guy grins at you for real these days, you’d better chop his head off before he chops off yours. Soon the sneeze and the yawn will be mostly for show. Even the twitch. She laughed. No she didn’t. We laugh about twice a year. Most of us have lost our laughs and now make do with false ones. He smiled. Not quite true. All that no good to think, no good to say, no good to write. All that no good to write.

I often took him as one of God's little jokes on me. When I was in desperate trouble, what saved me from a fate worse than death? To what do I owe my life? Was it love, affection, understanding, friends, wisdom? No no no. It was a man who looks like a poor copy of Walt Disney, drives pink Cadillacs, wears baby-blue alligator shoes, and appears to have the emotional depth of a slightly retarded potato.

A crying baby is the purest expression of the inanity of being human.

Last but not least, he hated with all the hatred that was in him the rising generation, the appalling boors who find it necessary to talk and laugh at the top of their voices in restaurants and cafes, who jostle you in the street without a word of apology, and who, without expressing or even indicating regret, drive the wheels of a baby-carriage into your legs.

War is the extreme expression of division between people… but people are beguiled into this catastrophic trap by countless tiny steps of division. It begins way back in the virtuous little dissociations of oneself from the weaknesses that are all too evident in one’s neighbor.

Crying can help, too. People are often afraid to cry because they are told that crying is for babies. Crying does not make you a baby, no matter what anyone says. There are times when people feel so bad that they can't express their feelings in words. At those times, crying helps.

So I take it you and Gansey get along, then?” Maura’s expression was annoyingly knowing. “Mom.” “Orla told me about his muscle car,” Maura continued. Her voice was still angry and artificially bright. The fact that Blue was well aware that she’d earned it made the sting of it even worse. “You aren’t planning on kissing him, are you?” “Mom, that will never happen,” Blue assured her. “You did meet him, didn’t you?” “I wasn’t sure if driving an old, loud Camaro was the male equivalent of shredding your T-shirts and gluing cardboard trees to your bedroom walls.” “Trust me,” Blue said. “Gansey and I are nothing like each other. And they aren’t cardboard. They’re repurposed canvas.” “The environment breathes a sigh of relief.” Maura attempted another sip of her drink; wrinkling her nose, she shot a glare at Persephone. Persephone looked martyred. After a pause, Maura noted, in a slightly softer voice, “I’m not entirely happy about you’re getting in a car without air bags.” “Our car doesn’t have air bags,” Blue pointed out. Maura picked a long strand of Persephone’s hair from the rim of her glass. “Yes, but you always take your bike.” Blue stood up. She suspected that the green fuzz of the sofa was now adhered to the back of her leggings. “Can I go now? Am I in trouble?” “You are in trouble. I told you to stay away from him and you didn’t,” Maura said. “I just haven’t decided what to do about it yet. My feelings are hurt. I’ve consulted with several people who tell me that I’m within my rights to feel hurt. Do teenagers still get grounded? Did that only happen in the eighties?” “I’ll be very angry if you ground me,” Blue said, still wobbly from her mother’s unfamiliar displeasure. “I’ll probably rebel and climb out my window with a bedsheet rope.” Her mother rubbed a hand over her face. Her anger had completely burned itself out. “You’re well into it, aren’t you? That didn’t take long.” “If you don’t tell me not to see them, I don’t have to disobey you,” Blue suggested. “This is what you get, Maura, for using your DNA to make a baby,” Calla said. Maura sighed. “Blue, I know you’re not an idiot. It’s just, sometimes smart people do dumb things.” Calla growled, “Don’t be one of them.” “Persephone?” asked Maura. In her small voice, Persephone said, “I have nothing left to add.” After a moment of consideration, she added, however, “If you are going to punch someone, don’t put your thumb inside your fist. It would be a shame to break it.” “Okay,” Blue said hurriedly. “I’m out.” “You could at least say sorry,” Maura said. “Pretend like I have some power over you.

Emotional abuse is the sustained, reptitive, inappropriate, emotional responses to the child's felt emotions and their accompanying expressive behaviour. Emotional abuse impedes emotional development. In babies, it also impedes the onset of speech development. It retards the process through which a child acquires the ability to feel and express different emotions appropriately, and eventually, to regulate and control them. It impacts adversely on (a) the child's eductional, social, and cultural development; (b) psychological development; (c) relationships in adulthood; and (d) career prospects.

You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can wind up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that has really has more to do with personality- the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom- almost never -even proposition. Someone always loves more.

No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

But in finding meaning, Reese would argue--despite the changes wrought by feminism--women still found themselves with only four major options to save themselves, options represented by the story arcs of the four female characters of Sex in the City. Find a partner, and be a Charlotte. Have a career, and be a Samantha. Have a baby, and be a Miranda. Or finally, express oneself in art or writing, and be a Carrie. Every generation of women reinvented this formula over and over, Reese believed, blending it and twisting it, but never quite escaping it.

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility.

Marsh recounts an anecdote about a psychopath who was being tested with a series of pictures and who failed over and over again to recognize fearful expressions, until finally she figured it out: “That’s the look people get right before I stab them.

He stares at me, his eyes focused and brow furrowed as he absorbs what I said, his lips pouting. It’s his Editing Expression, and when it clears, he shakes his head and says, “No.” I laugh, surprised. “What?” He straightens, steps in close. “I said, no.” “Charlie. What’s that even mean?” “It means,” he says, eyes glinting, “you’ll have to do better than that.” I smile despite myself, hope thrashing around in my belly like a very determined baby bird with a broken wing. “I’ll expect notes by Friday,” he says.

Tilting the head to the side is a submission signal because it exposes the throat and neck and makes the person look smaller and less threatening. Its probable origin is in the baby resting its head on its parent's shoulder or chest, and the submissive, nonthreatening meaning it conveys seems to be unconsciously understood by most people, especially women.

Owen doesn't watch when they place Liz in the River, next to all the other babies who would be born that day. Nor does he watch when the launch nurse pushes Liz away from the shore into the current that leads back to Earth. To the untrained observer, it seems as if Liz's departure has no effect on Owen whatsoever. Curtis Jest watches Owen before deciding to go over to him. "Owen," Curtis asks, "do you remember who that was?" Owen looks up from playing with the boat. He appears to find Curtis's question difficult. "Lizzie?" "Yes," says Curtis, "that was Lizzie. She was my friend. She was your...your friend, too." Owen continues playing with the boat. He begins singing Liz's name in the unaffected way children will sometimes sing a name. "Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie," he sings. Owen stops singing abruptly and looks up at Curtis. A horrified expression crosses Owen's face. "Is she...gone?" "Yes," says Curtis. Owen nods. "Gonegonegonegonegone." Owen begins to cry in an undignified manner, although he isn't entirely sure why he is crying. Curtis takes Owen's hand, leading Owen away from the puddle. "You know," says Curtis, "you may see her again someday." "Cool," says Owen, and with that, he stops crying.

Not long after, and while it was still twilight, the grandfather also went to bed, for he was up every morning at sunrise, and the sun came climbing up over the mountains at a very early hour during these summer months. The wind grew so tempestuous during the night, and blew in such gusts against the walls, that the hut trembled and the old beams groaned and creaked. It came howling and wailing down the chimney like voices of those in pain, and it raged with such fury among the old fir trees that here and there a branch was snapped and fell. In the middle of the night the old man got up. "The child will be frightened," he murmured half aloud. He mounted the ladder and went and stood by the child's bed. Outside the moon was struggling with the dark, fast-driving clouds, which at one moment left it clear and shining, and the next swept over it, and all again was dark. Just now the moonlight was falling through the round window straight on to Heidi's bed. She lay under the heavy coverlid, her cheeks rosy with sleep, her head peacefully resting on her little round arm, and with a happy expression on her baby face as if dreaming of something pleasant. The old man stood looking down on the sleeping child until the moon again disappeared behind the clouds and he could see no more, then he went back to bed.

When he was pleased he looked what nature had intended him to be: a placid man with a kindly, easy-going disposition; but when harassed his expression changed to one of peevishness, a frown dragging his brows together, and a pronounced pout giving him very much the look of a thwarted baby.

Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,–never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual.

Ceri,” I said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her vivid green eyes met mine. “I thought you’d be angry,” she said with desperate worry. “Rachel, it’s the only way I can get rid of it.” My lips parted. “You don’t want it?” Ceri’s expression blanked. She stared wonderingly at me for a moment. “What are we talking about?” she asked cautiously. “Your baby!” Her mouth dropped open and she flushed scarlet.

All Spaniards, we discovered, knew two English expressions. One was ‘OK, baby,’ the other was a word used by the Barcelona whores in their dealings with English sailors, and I am afraid the compositors would not print it.

It was you,' I said, my words as new and uncertain as a baby's. I was sixteen and in my bedroom, and I shook my head in an attempt to unscramble my thoughts. 'Not the tongue. The fire.' I shut my eyes, then opened them to make sure I hadn't made this thing up. [...] But Christian hadn't taken his eyes off me, and in his expression I saw a slew of emotions: shame, defiance, fury. Fear, but not for himself. For me. I saw my big brother, who carried me off the ledge at Suicide Rock when I froze up. [...] Who thought I was a fool and had no problem telling me so, but who stuck up for me anyway.

You just asked me to marry you,” he said, still waiting for me to admit some kind of trickery. “I know.” “That was the real deal, you know. I just booked two tickets to Vegas for noon tomorrow. So that means we’re getting married tomorrow night.” “Thank you.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to be Mrs. Maddox when you start classes on Monday.” “Oh,” I said, looking around. Travis raised an eyebrow. “Second thoughts?” “I’m going to have some serious paperwork to change next week.” He nodded slowly, cautiously hopeful. “You’re going to marry me tomorrow?” I smiled. “Uh huh.” “You’re serious?” “Yep.” “I fucking love you!” He grabbed each side of my face, slamming his lips against mine. “I love you so much, Pigeon,” he said, kissing me over and over. “Just remember that in fifty years when I’m still kicking your ass in poker,” I giggled. He smiled, triumphant. “If it means sixty or seventy years with you, Baby…you have my full permission to do your worst.” I raised one eyebrow, “You’re gonna regret that.” “You wanna bet?” I smiled with as much deviance as I could muster. “Are you confident enough to bet that shiny bike outside?” He shook his head, a serious expression replacing the teasing smile he had just seconds before. “I’ll put in everything I have. I don’t regret a single second with you, Pidge, and I never will.

Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. Look out, said Moira to me, over the phone. Here it comes. Here what comes? I said. You wait, she said. They've been building up to this. It's you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an expression of my mother's, but she wasn't intending to be funny.

I feel his lips at the back of my head and he calls out, “Gem.” My eyes go directly to his.  His eyes hold mine through the mirror.  Without letting go of my eyes he gives me a squeeze as he expresses, “I want this.” I feel my brows gather as I ask, “This?” “Us.  But more.” My voice dips and I ask again, “What are you saying?” I didn’t know it was possible, but he looks into my eyes even deeper, deep enough to reach my soul, when he says, “I want it all.  I want you in every way I can have you, Leigh.  I want you in my house, my bed.  I want to give you a dog and a family.  And once you’re officially mine, I want to give you babies, lots of them.  I want to give you a full life, gem.  You’re ready for it, you just need to open your eyes and see it.  It’s right in front of you.  It’s time for you to reach out and grab hold.

Now, here is the big one—write her a letter.” I pulled my head back and looked at him with a confused expression. “A letter? What kind of letter?” He smiled a crooked smile. “A letter telling her how you’ve felt—from the moment she told you she was having your child to watching her belly grow, and most of all, to holding your child in your arms for the first time. Write it down while it is fresh in your memory, son. Then, after you get home, when it feels like the right time, you give her that letter. Take the baby and go for a walk, so she has some time alone when she reads it.

You’re afraid to count on me.” “I’m afraid of not being able to count on me.” There is a hint of emotion in his stare before his expression becomes unreadable. He drops his hand from my arm. “I understand,” he states, his voice monotone, his expression impassive. I think I’ve hurt him, and reality slaps me in the face. I’ve let myself think of him as some kind of demon, to avoid the real demons of my past. In two small steps I am in front of him, wrapping my arms around him, and pressing my cheek to his chest. “I don’t think you realize how much I care about you, or how easily and badly you could hurt me.” I lift my head and let him see the truth in my face. “So yes, I’m scared to count on you.” Tension eases from his body, his expression softening. He runs his hand over my hair and there is gentleness in his touch. “Then we’ll be scared together.” “You’re scared?” I ask, surprised by such a confession. “You’re the best adrenaline rush of my life, baby. Far better than the pain you replaced.” For the first time, I think that maybe, just maybe, I am all Chris needs.

Hypercritical, Shaming Parents Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations. -BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison. -BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high. -CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me. -HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul. -DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible. Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary. I acknowledge freely the great power of education and social influences in developing the active powers of the mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of use in developing the muscles of a blacksmith's arm, and no further. Let the blacksmith labour as he will, he will find there are certain feats beyond his power that are well within the strength of a man of herculean make, even although the latter may have led a sedentary life.

In 1998 Gazenko expressed regret for the manner of Laika's death: "Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.

Unaware of Nina, the woman paused at the riverbank and looked out over the scar on the land where the water should run. Her expression sharpened, turned desperate as she reached down to touch the child in her arms. It was a look Nina had seen in woman all over the world, especially in times of war and destruction. A bone-deep fear for her child’s future…Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength… She heard Danny come up beside her. “Hey, you.” She leaned against him, feeling food about her shots. “I just love how they are with their kids, even when the odds are impossible. The only time I cry is when I see their faces with their babies. Why is that, with all we’ve seen?” “So it’s mothers you follow. I thought it was warriors.

Life is as precious to us as it is for an animal. An animal is as loving, caring, and kind to her children as we are. She might not be able to tell us but she can express it through her eyes and expressions. She feels joy and happiness. She is helpless in our cruel hands and vulnerable to our vicious greed. Let us be kind to animals. Let us learn to feel their pain. Can we kill a helpless baby to feed our greed? Then how can we kill helpless animal friends that can’t talk? Often we kill just for fun. How funny would it be if an animal killed a human just for fun? Let us be kind to animals as much as possible. I know we can. It is easier to love an animal than a human being. If you love an animal, it will rarely hurt you. Let us practice kindness and compassion to animals so that we may create a peaceful world.

Studies suggest How may I help you officer? is the single most disarming thing to say and not What’s the problem? Studies suggest it’s best the help reply My pleasure and not No problem. Studies suggest it’s best not to mention problem in front of power even to say there is none. Gloria Steinem says women lose power as they age and yet the loudest voice in my head is my mother. Studies show the mother we have in mind isn’t the mother that exists. Mine says: What the fuck are you crying for? Studies show the baby monkey will pick the fake monkey with fake fur over the furless wire monkey with milk, without contest. Studies show to negate something is to think it anyway. I’m not sad. I’m not sad. Studies recommend regular expressions of gratitude and internal check-ins. Studies define assertiveness as self-respect cut with deference. Enough, the wire mother says. History is a kind of study. History says we forgave the executioner. Before we mopped the blood we asked: Lord Judge, have I executed well? Studies suggest yes. What the fuck are you crying for, officer? the wire mother teaches me to say, while America suggest Solmaz, have you thanked your executioner today?

Many families actively discourage the expression of tough emotions like fear and anger. Happiness and tranquility, meanwhile, make it to the top of the list of “approved” emotions. There is no such thing as a bad emotion. There is no such thing as a good emotion. An emotion is either there—or it is not. These parents seem to know that emotions don’t make people weak and they don’t make people strong. They only make people human. The result is a savvy let-the-children-be-who-they-are attitude. -They do not judge emotions. -They acknowledge the reflexive nature of emotions. -They know that behavior is a choice, even though an emotion is not. -They see a crisis as a teachable moment.

I played basketball freshman year of high school. Does that count?” Cooper laughed. “No, not at all. In fact, that’ll probably just set him off on a lecture about follow-through and commitment. Why’d you stop?” “I got cut. I was terrible.” “Really?” “Yes.” Park tilted his head. “Why do you look so happy about that?” “Do I? No.” Cooper tried to school his expression, but Park squinted at him suspiciously, and eventually a grin broke free again. He snagged the front of Park’s shirt and twisted it in his fingers, suddenly unable to resist touching him. “I guess it’s just nice to know you’re not perfect at everything.” Park seemed to think that over, perhaps looking for hidden digs or sarcasm. Eventually, almost tentatively, he said, “Well, I was really, embarrassingly bad. Can’t dribble for shit.” Cooper tugged Park still closer and slid his free hand around Park’s waist. “Go on.” “When my hands are above my head, I’m all thumbs. Can’t catch a thing.” “Mmm.” Cooper pressed their bodies together and inhaled the curve of Park’s neck to his shoulder. “I never once made a free throw.” “Oh baby, the things you say,” Cooper groaned.

Looking at a human being or even a picture of a human being is different from looking at an object. Newborn babies, only hours old, copy the expressions of adults. They pucker up, try to grin, look surprised, and stick out their tongues. The photographs of imitating infants are both funny and touching. They do not know they are doing it; this response is in them from the beginning. Later, people learn to suppress the imitation mechanism; it would not be good if we went on forever copying every facial expression we saw. Nevertheless, we human beings love to look at faces because we find ourselves there. When you smile at me, I feel a smile form on my own face before I am aware it is happening, and I smile because I am seeing me in your eyes and know that you like what you see.

Everyone in yuppie-land — airports, for example — looks like a nursing baby these days, inseparable from their plastic bottles of water. Here, however, I sweat without replacement or pause, not in individual drops but in continuous sheets of fluid soaking through my polo shirt, pouring down the backs of my legs ... Working my way through the living room(s), I wonder if Mrs. W. will ever have occasion to realize that every single doodad and objet through which she expresses her unique, individual self is, from another vantage point, only an obstacle between some thirsty person and a glass of water.

The universities are an absolute wreck right now, because for decades, any graduate student in the humanities who had independent thinking was driven out. There was no way to survive without memorizing all these stupid bromides with this referential bowing to these over-inflated figures like Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, and so on. Basically, it's been a tyranny in the humanities, because the professors who are now my age – who are the baby boomer professors, who made their careers on the back of Foucault and so on – are determined that that survive. So you have a kind of vampirism going on. So I've been getting letters for 25 years since Sexual Personae was released in 1990, from refugees from the graduate schools. It's been a terrible loss. One of my favorite letters was early on: a woman wrote to me, she was painting houses in St. Louis, she said that she had wanted a career as a literature professor and had gone into the graduate program in comparative literature at Berkeley. And finally, she was forced to drop out because, she said, every time she would express enthusiasm for a work they were studying in the seminar, everyone would look at her as if she had in some way created a terrible error of taste. I thought, 'Oh my God', see that's what's been going on – a pretentious style of superiority to the text. [When asked what can change this]: Rebellion! Rebellion by the grad students. This is what I'm trying to foment. We absolutely need someone to stand up and start criticizing authority figures. But no; this generation of young people have been trained throughout middle school and high school and college to be subservient to authority.

As a matter of fact it required only a tolerable show of virtue for Peter to win encomiums at any time. He would brush his curly mop of hair away from his forehead, lift his eyes, part his lips, showing a row of tiny white teeth; then a dimple would appear in each cheek and a seraphic expression (wholly at variance with the facts) would overspread the baby face, whereupon the beholder...would cry "Angel boy!" and kiss him. He was even kissed now, though he had done nothing at all but exist and be an enchanting personage, which is one of the injustices of a world where a large number of virtuous and well-behaved people go unkissed to their graves!

Try flying any plane with a baby if you want a sense of what it must have been like to be a leper in the fourteenth century, but try the shuttle for the ultimate in shunning. All those men in suits, looking at you as if your baby is going to throw up over their speech drafts; all those men in suits who used to look at me with respect when I pulled out my American Express gold card, now barely able to conceal their contempt for me and my portable Wet Ones.

Do you want this marriage to work or not?’ she said. ‘My spreadsheet identified –’ I interpreted Sonia’s expression as I don’t want to hear about your fucking spreadsheet. Do you, emotionally, as a whole mature person, want to live the rest of your life with Rosie and the Baby Under Development or are you going to let a computer make that decision for you, you pathetic geek? ‘Work. But I don’t think –’ ‘You think too much. Take her out to dinner and talk it over.

That's why I had a reduction when I was twenty-one," which is when his expression morphed into one of horror. You'd have thought I told him I made an amazing stew from tiny babies and puppy tongues. "Why on earth would you do that? That's like God giving you a beautiful gift and you kicking him in the nuts." I laughed. "God? I thought you were agnostic, Professor." "I am. But if I could motorboat perfect tits like yours I might be able to find Jesus." I felt my blush warm my cheeks. "Because Jesus totally lives in my cleavage?" "Not anymore he doesn't. Your boobs are now too small for him to be comfortable in there." He shook his head, and I couldn't stop laughing. "So selfish, Ziggs,” ― Christina Lauren, Beautiful Player

Tragedies, I was coming to realize through my daily studies in humanities both in and out of the classroom, were a luxury. They were constructions of an affluent society, full of sorrow and truth but without moral function. Stories of the vanquishing of the spirit expressed and underscored a certain societal spirit to spare. The weakening of the soul, the story of the downfall and the failed overcoming - trains missed, letters not received, pride flaring, the demolition of one's own offspring, who were then served up in stews - this was awe-inspiring, wounding entertainment told uselessly and in comfort at tables full of love and money. Where life was meagerer, where the tables were only half full, the comic triumph of the poor was the useful demi-lie. Jokes were needed. And then the baby feel down the stairs. This could be funny! Especially in a place and time where worse things happened. It wasn't that suffering was a sweepstakes, but it certainly was relative. For understanding and for perspective, suffering required a butcher's weighing. And to ease the suffering of the listener, things had better be funny. Though they weren't always. And this is how, sometimes, stories failed us: Not that funny. Or worse, not funny in the least.

The front door banged open at that moment to admit a disheveled James Fairchild. He was like a vision from Bedlam: his blond hair stood on end, and his neckcloth was missing. He looked wildly at Anna. “Rebecca?” At that moment, as if in answer from on high, there came the wavering wail of a newborn baby. James Fairchild’s expression changed from frantic to dumbstruck. Without waiting for Anna’s answer, he bounded up the stairs, taking the risers three at a time. Anna noticed as he passed out of sight that he was wearing only one stocking on his feet.

First, they illustrate clearly that what we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. Before marriage, we are carried along by the force of the in-love obsession. After marriage, we revert to being the people we were before we “fell in love.” Our actions are influenced by the model of our parents; our own personality; our perceptions of love; our emotions, needs, and desires. Only one thing is certain about our behavior: It will not be the same behavior we exhibited when we were caught up in being “in love.” That leads me to the second truth: Love is a choice and cannot be coerced. Dave and Mary were criticizing each other’s behavior and getting nowhere. Once they decided to make requests of each other rather than demands, their marriage began to turn around. Criticism and demands tend to drive wedges. With enough criticism, you may get acquiescence from your spouse. He may do what you want, but probably it will not be an expression of love. You can give guidance to love by making requests: “I wish you would wash the car, change the baby’s diaper, mow the grass,” but you cannot create the will to love. Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally. There is a third truth, which only the mature lover will be able to hear. My spouse’s criticisms about my behavior provide me with the clearest clue to her primary love language. People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need. Their criticism is an ineffective way of pleading for love. If we understand that, it may help us process their criticism in a more productive manner.

One night, around the campfire after a dinner of bully-beef stew, someone opened an extra bottle of rum. ‘As it grew darker, the men began to sing, at first slightly self-conscious and shy, but picking up confidence as the song spread.’ Their songs were not the martial chants of warriors, but the schmaltzy romantic popular tunes of the time: ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’, ‘My Melancholy Baby’, ‘I’m Dancing with Tears in My Eyes’. The bigger and burlier the singer, Pleydell noted, the more passionate and heartfelt the singing. Now the French contingent struck up, with a warbling rendition of ‘Madeleine’, the bittersweet song of a man whose lilacs for his lover have been left to wilt in the rain. Then it was the turn of the German prisoners who, after some debate, belted out ‘Lili Marleen’, the unofficial anthem of the Afrika Korps, complete with harmonies: ‘Vor der Kaserne / Vor dem grossen Tor / Stand eine Laterne / Und steht sie noch davor …’ (Usually rendered in English as: Underneath the lantern, by the barrack gate, darling I remember, how you used to wait.) As the last verse died away, the audience broke into loud whistles and applause. To his own astonishment, Pleydell was profoundly moved. ‘There was something special about that night,’ he wrote years later. ‘We had formed a small solitary island of voices; voices which faded and were caught up in the wilderness. A little cluster of men singing in the desert. An expression of feeling that defied the vastness of its surroundings … a strange body of men thrown together for a few days by the fortunes of war.’ The doctor from Lewisham had come in search of authenticity, and he had found it deep in the desert, among hard soldiers singing sentimental songs to imaginary sweethearts in three languages.

Nicholas looked down at his battered shoes and said nothing. He did indeed wish to be contrary—at the moment it was his most earnest wish of all—but somehow he found the presence of mind not to express this feeling. Mr. Collum was right about one thing, anyway. Adoption, in his case, was unlikely. Had he not been in orphanages all his life? He had not been a beautiful baby; he was not a beautiful boy. At the last orphanage, adoptions of any child had been rare, but Nicholas had paid close attention to the process. He had figured out the right things to say, the right way to act, when prospective parents visited. And one time he had actually come close—the young couple liked him; they even spoke about him with Mr. Cuckieu.

The hospital is as busy as it was yesterday. We go in through the main entrance, and people walk in every direction. The people in scrubs and white coats all walk a little bit faster. There’s a guy sleeping on one of the waiting room sofas, and a hugely pregnant woman leaning against the wall by the elevator. She’s swirling a drink in a plastic cup. That baby is giving her T-shirt a run for its money. A toddler is throwing a tantrum somewhere down the hallway. The shrieking echoes. We move to the bank of elevators, too, and Melonhead isn’t one of those guys who insists on pressing a button that’s already lit. He smiles and says “Good afternoon” to the pregnant woman, but I can’t look away from her swollen belly. My mother is going to look like that. My mother is going to have a baby. My brain still can’t process this. Suddenly, the woman’s abdomen twitches and shifts. It’s startling, and my eyes flick up to find her face. She laughs at my expression. “He’s trying to get comfortable.” The elevator dings, and we all get on. Her stomach keeps moving. I realize I’m being a freak, but it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop staring. She laughs again, softly, then comes closer. “Here. You can feel it.” “It’s okay,” I say quickly. Melonhead chuckles, and I scowl. “Not too many people get to touch a baby before it’s born,” she says, her voice still teasing. “You don’t want to be one of the chosen few?” “I’m not used to random women asking me to touch them,” I say. “This is number five,” she says. “I’m completely over random people touching me. Here.” She takes my wrist and puts my hand right over the twitching. Her belly is firmer than I expect, and we’re close enough that I can look right down her shirt. I’m torn between wanting to pull my hand back and not wanting to be rude. Then the baby moves under my hand, something firm pushing right against my fingers. I gasp without meaning to. “He says hi,” the woman says. I can’t stop thinking of my mother. I try to imagine her looking like this, and I fail. I try to imagine her encouraging me to touch the baby, and I fail. Four months. The elevator dings. “Come on, Murph,” says Melonhead. I look at the pregnant lady. I have no idea what to say. Thanks? “Be good,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink. The elevator closes and she’s gone

The history of New England, and especially of Massachusetts, is full of the horrors that have turned life into gloom, joy into despair, naturalness into disease, honesty and truth into hideous lies and hypocrisies. The ducking-stool and whipping post, as well as numerous other devices of torture, were the favorite English methods for American purification. Boston, the city of culture, has gone down in the annals of Puritanism as the “Bloody Town.” It rivaled Salem, even, in her cruel persecution of unauthorized religious opinions. On the now famous Common a half-naked woman, with a baby in her arms, was publicly whipped for the crime of free speech; and on the same spot Mary Dyer, another Quaker woman, was hanged in 1659. In fact, Boston has been the scene of more than one wanton crime committed by Puritanism. Salem, in the summer of 1692, killed eighteen people for witchcraft. Nor was Massachusetts alone in driving out the devil by fire and brimstone. As Canning justly said: “The Pilgrim fathers infested the New World to redress the balance of the Old.” The horrors of that period have found their most supreme expression in the American classic, THE SCARLET LETTER.

The sound of a chainsaw going off inside the building had me meeting Amari’s gaze, and he shot me a funny expression. “You scared?” He tilted his head to the side. “Why? If I say yes, will you hold my hand?” Well, I hadn’t been asking to flirt. I’d just been joking. But…. “No,” I replied. “I’m going to be too busy holding Zac’s hand. I don’t want him having nightmares tonight.” He chuckled just as I felt a hand land on the back of my neck again, molding itself around it. Tilting my head back, I found those familiar baby blues on me. I whispered, “But for real, I don’t think I’ll get scared, but if I do, I’m using you as a human shield. You’ve lived a much fuller life than I have. Technically, Amari’s bigger but—” My old friend scoffed. “We’re the same size. You know people still call me ‘Big Texas,’ don’t you?” “Yeah, I know, but I started calling you that back when you were the biggest guy I knew. You’re not even that big.” “Excuse me?” It was too much fun to pick on him. “You’re big, but you’re not that big.” Zac’s head reared back. “Aren’t you five feet tall?” “Five foot two.” Zac blinked. I blinked. He narrowed his eyes. “Swear to God, I’m tellin’ Mama on you.

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

Why, all our art treasures of to-day are only the dug-up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago. I wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes. The “old blue” that we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every-day household utensils of a few centuries ago; and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over, and pretend they understand, were the unvalued mantel-ornaments that the mother of the eighteenth century would have given the baby to suck when he cried. Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of my furnished lodgings. It is a white dog. Its eyes blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with spots. Its head is painfully erect, its expression is amiability carried to verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art, I may say it irritates me. Thoughtless friends jeer at it, and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it, and excuses its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her. But in 200 years’ time it is more than probable that that dog will be dug up from somewhere or other, minus its legs, and with its tail broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet. And people will pass it round, and admire it. They will be struck by the wonderful depth of the colour on the nose, and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was. We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar with it. It is like the sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that china dog. In 2288 people will gush over it. The making of such dogs will have become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder how we did it, and say how clever we were. We shall be referred to lovingly as “those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century, and produced those china dogs.” The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.

It all suddenly made me nervous, and a little, tiny, baby bit worried. Pulling one of the stools at the island back, I plopped into it and simply stared at that discolored, harsh face in unease. “I just want to know whether I need to steal a bat or make a phone call.” His mouth had been open and poised to argue with me… until he heard the last thing I said. “What?” “I need to know—” “What do you need to steal a bat for?” “Well, no one I know owns one, and I can’t go buy one at the store and have it caught on videotape.” “Videotape?” Did he know nothing? “Aiden, come on, if you beat the shit out of someone with a bat, they’re going to look for suspects. Once they have suspects, they’ll look through their things or their purchases. They’ll see I bought one recently and know it was premeditated. Why are you looking at me like that?” His mauve-colored eyelids went heavy over the bright whites of his eyes, and the expression on his face was filled such a vast range of emotions, one after another after another, that I wasn’t sure which one I was supposed to hold on to. He switched the icepack to the other side of his bruised jaw and shook his head. “The amount you know about committing crimes is terrifying, Van.” His mouth twitched under the rainbow of whatever he was thinking. “It scares the hell out of me, and I don’t get scared easily.” I snorted, pretty pleased with myself. “Calm down. I went through this phase when I was into watching a lot of crime TV shows. I’ve never even stolen a pen in my life.” Aiden’s careful expression didn’t go anywhere. “I’m not trying to kill anyone… unless we had to,” I joked weakly. His nostrils flared so slightly I almost missed it. But what I didn’t miss was the way the corners of his mouth tipped up into a tiny smile. I smiled at him as innocently as possible. “So do you want to tell me who’s going to get the fists of fury?” I hoped I sounded as harmless as I intended, even though I felt the exact opposite as every second passed. “Fists of fury?” “Yep.” I held up my hands just a little so he could see them. He had no idea the number of fights I’d gotten into with my sisters over the years. I didn’t always win—I rarely won if I was going to be honest—but I never gave up. The sigh that came out of him was so long and drawn out, I kind of prepped myself for the half-assed answer that was going to come out of his mouth. “It’s nothing.” There it was

What did we talk about? I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, growing up on the veldt, wrote on book, married happily, and ever wrote another. Kate Chopin wrote a scandalous book and never wrote another. (Jean has written nothing.). There was M-ry Sh-ll-y who wrote you know what and Ch-rl-tt- P-rk-ns G-lm-an, who wrote one superb horror study and lots of sludge (was it sludge?) and Ph-ll-s Wh--tl-y who was black and wrote eighteenth century odes (but it was the eighteenth century) and Mrs. -nn R-dcl-ff- S-thw-rth and Mrs. G--rg- Sh-ld-n and (Miss?) G--rg-tt- H-y-r and B-rb-r- C-rtl-nd and the legion of those, who writing, write not, like the dead Miss B--l-y of the poem who was seduced into bad practices (fudging her endings) and hanged herself in her garter. The sun was going down. I was blind and stiff. It's at this point that the computer (which has run amok and eaten Los Angeles) is defeated by some scientifically transcendent version of pulling the plug; the furniture stood around unknowing (though we had just pulled out the plug) and Lady, who got restless when people talked at suck length because she couldn't understand it, stuck her head out from under the couch, looking for things to herd. We had talked for six hours, from one in the afternoon until seven; I had at that moment an impression of our act of creation so strong, so sharp, so extraordinarily vivid, that I could not believe all our talking hadn't led to something more tangible--mightn't you expect at least a little blue pyramid sitting in the middle of the floor?

New flames built inside her. He swiped a tongue down her sensitive folds once, twice before returning to her clit. Jada cried out, her throat arching. Aching. He didn’t stop. Not when she pleaded. Not when she begged. Thank God. She panted for more. Implored him to release her from this torture. To keep going. He took his cues from her, alternating between slowing and quickening the pace of his fingers and tongue as she responded. “Yes. Like that. Please. Donovan.” She looked down as he looked up. The expression on his face dazzled her. Determined. Intense. Focused on her. Making sure she was taken care of. Turned on. Wild. “Anything you want, baby.” He lowered his head and continued to feast on her like she was a banquet. Strong glides of his tongue were followed by slower swirls. Right when she was about to explode, he gentled his touch. The torture continued until she couldn’t take it anymore. “Donovan,” she pleaded. “I…can’t…” “I got you, baby.” A gentle squeeze of her clit with his teeth and she soared over the edge, tumbling straight down into the abyss.

In a private room down the hall, a tired but delighted Cecily was watching her husband with his brand-new son. Cecily had thought that the expression on Tate’s face at their wedding would never be duplicated. But when they placed the tiny little boy in his father’s gowned arms in the delivery room, and he saw his child for the first time, the look on his face was indescribable. Tears welled in his eyes. He’d taken the tiny little fist in his big, dark hand and smoothed over the perfect little fingers and then the tiny little face, seeking resemblances. “Generations of our families,” he said softly, “all there, in that face.” He’d looked down at his wife with unashamedly wet eyes. “In our son’s face.” She wiped her own tears away with a corner of the sheet and coaxed Tate’s head down so that she could do the same for him where they were, temporarily, by themselves. Now she was cleaned up, like their baby, and drowsy as she lay on clean white sheets and watched her husband get acquainted with his firstborn. “Isn’t he beautiful?” he murmured, still awed by the child. “Next time, we have to have a little girl,” he said with a tender smile, “so that she can look like you.” Her heart felt near to bursting as she stared up at that beloved face, above the equally beloved face of their firstborn. “My heart is happy when I see you,” she whispered in Lakota. He chuckled, having momentarily forgotten that he’d taught her how to say it. “Mine is equally happy when I see you,” he replied in English. She reached out and clasped his big hand with her small one. On the table beside her was a bouquet of roses, red and crisp with a delightful soft perfume. Her eyes traced them, and she remembered the first rose he’d ever given her, when she was seventeen: a beautiful red paper rose that he’d brought her from Japan. Now the roses were real, not imitation. Just as her love for him, and his for her, had become real enough to touch. He frowned slightly at her expression. “What is it?” he asked softly. “I was remembering the paper rose you brought me from Japan, just after I went to live with Leta.” She shrugged and smiled self-consciously. He smiled back. “And now you’re covered in real ones,” he discerned. She nodded, delighted to see that he understood exactly what she was talking about. But, then, they always had seemed to read each others’ thoughts-never more than now, with the baby who was a living, breathing manifestation of their love. “Yes,” she said contentedly. “The roses are real, now.” Outside the window, rain was coming down in torrents, silver droplets shattering on the bright green leaves of the bushes. In the room, no one noticed. The baby was sleeping and his parents were watching him, their eyes full of warm, soft dreams.

THE TEN MOST COMMON PROBLEMS Here are the ten most common problems in communications. Read the list. If any of them apply to you, the principles in this book will help you solve them. 1. Lack of initial rapport with listeners 2. Stiffness or woodenness in use of body 3. Presentation of material is intellectually oriented; speaker forgets to involve the audience emotionally 4. Speaker seems uncomfortable because of fear of failure 5. Poor use of eye contact and facial expression 6. Lack of humor 7. Speech direction and intent unclear due to improper  preparation 8. Inability to use silence for impact 9. Lack of energy, causing inappropriate pitch pattern, speech  rate, and volume 10. Use of boring language and lack of interesting material Various polls show that the ability to communicate well is ranked the number-one key to success by leaders in business, politics, and the professions. If you don’t communicate effectively, you may not die, like some POWs or neglected babies we mentioned earlier, but you also won’t live as fully as you should, nor will you achieve personal goals. This was a lesson drummed into me at a very early age.

I just care about you so much … but I’ve always got this fear that … one day you’ll leave. Or Pip and Jason will leave, or … I don’t know.’ Fresh tears fell from my cheeks. ‘I’m never going to fall in love, so … my friendships are all I have, so … I just … can’t bear the idea of losing any of my friends. Because I’m never going to have that one special person.’ ‘Can you let me be that person?’ Rooney said quietly. I sniffed loudly. ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘I mean I want to be your special person.’ [...] ‘But you know what I realised on my walk?’ she said. ‘I realise that I love you, Georgia.’ My mouth dropped open. ‘Obviously I’m not romantically in love with you. But I realised that whatever these feelings are for you, I …’ She grinned wildly. ‘I feel like I am in love. Me and you – this is a fucking love story! I feel like I’ve found something most people just don’t get. I feel at home around you in a way I have never felt in my fucking life. And maybe most people would look at us and think that we’re just friends, or whatever, but I know that it’s just … so much MORE than that.’ She gestured dramatically at me with both hands. ‘You changed me. You … you fucking saved me, I swear to God. I know I still do a lot of dumb stuff and I say the wrong things and I still have days where I just feel like shit but … I’ve felt happier over the past few weeks than I have in years.’ I couldn’t speak. I was frozen. Rooney dropped to her knees. ‘Georgia, I am never going to stop being your friend. And I don’t mean that in the boring average meaning of ‘friend’ where we stop talking regularly when we’re twenty-five because we’ve both met nice young men and gone off to have babies, and only get to meet up twice a year. I mean I’m going to pester you to buy a house next door to me when we’re forty-five and have finally saved up enough for our deposits. I mean I’m going to be crashing round yours every night for dinner because you know I can’t fucking cook to save my life, and if I’ve got kids and a spouse, they’ll probably come round with me, because otherwise they’ll be living on chicken nuggets and chips. I mean I’m going to be the one bringing you soup when you text me that you’re sick and can’t get out of bed and ferrying you to the doctor’s even when you don’t want to go because you feel guilty about using the NHS when you just have a stomach bug. I mean we’re gonna knock down the fence between our gardens so we have one big garden, and we can both get a dog and take turns looking after it. I mean I’m going to be here, annoying you, until we’re old ladies, sitting in the same care home, talking about putting on a Shakespeare because we’re all old and bored as shit.’ She grabbed the bunch of flowers and practically threw them at me. ‘And I bought these for you because I honestly didn’t know how else to express any of that to you.’ I was crying. I just started crying again. Rooney wiped the tears off my cheeks.

AN INCOMPLETE LIST: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take photographs of concert stages. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position—but no, this wasn’t true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

A 1997 study of the consumer product design firm IDEO found that most of the company’s biggest successes originated as “combinations of existing knowledge from disparate industries.” IDEO’s designers created a top-selling water bottle, for example, by mixing a standard water carafe with the leak-proof nozzle of a shampoo container. The power of combining old ideas in new ways also extends to finance, where the prices of stock derivatives are calculated by mixing formulas originally developed to describe the motion of dust particles with gambling techniques. Modern bike helmets exist because a designer wondered if he could take a boat’s hull, which can withstand nearly any collision, and design it in the shape of a hat. It even reaches to parenting, where one of the most popular baby books—Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, first published in 1946—combined Freudian psychotherapy with traditional child-rearing techniques. “A lot of the people we think of as exceptionally creative are essentially intellectual middlemen,” said Uzzi. “They’ve learned how to transfer knowledge between different industries or groups. They’ve seen a lot of different people attack the same problems in different settings, and so they know which kinds of ideas are more likely to work.” Within sociology, these middlemen are often referred to as idea or innovation brokers. In one study published in 2004, a sociologist named Ronald Burt studied 673 managers at a large electronics company and found that ideas that were most consistently ranked as “creative” came from people who were particularly talented at taking concepts from one division of the company and explaining them to employees in other departments. “People connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving,” Burt wrote. “The between-group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable.” They were more credible when they made suggestions, Burt said, because they could say which ideas had already succeeded somewhere else.

In attunement, it is the infant who leads and the mother who follows. “Where their roles differ is in the timing of their responses,” writes John Bowlby, one of the century’s great psychiatric researchers. The infant initiates the interaction or withdraws from it according to his own rhythms, Bowlby found, while the “mother regulates her behaviour so that it meshes with his... Thus she lets him call the tune and by a skillful interweaving of her own responses with his creates a dialogue.” The tense or depressed mothering adult will not be able to accompany the infant into relaxed, happy spaces. He may also not fully pick up signs of the infant’s emotional distress, or may not be able to respond to them as effectively as he would wish. The ADD child’s difficulty reading social cues likely originates from her relationship cues not being read by the nurturing adult, who was distracted by stress. In the attunement interaction, not only does the mother follow the child, but she also permits the child to temporarily interrupt contact. When the interaction reaches a certain stage of intensity for the infant, he will look away to avoid an uncomfortably high level of arousal. Another interaction will then begin. A mother who is anxious may react with alarm when the infant breaks off contact, may try to stimulate him, to draw him back into the interaction. Then the infant’s nervous system is not allowed to “cool down,” and the attunement relationship is hampered. Infants whose caregivers were too stressed, for whatever reason, to give them the necessary attunement contact will grow up with a chronic tendency to feel alone with their emotions, to have a sense — rightly or wrongly — that no one can share how they feel, that no one can “understand.” Attunement is the quintessential component of a larger process, called attachment. Attachment is simply our need to be close to somebody. It represents the absolute need of the utterly and helplessly vulnerable human infant for secure closeness with at least one nourishing, protective and constantly available parenting figure. Essential for survival, the drive for attachment is part of the very nature of warm-blooded animals in infancy, especially. of mammals. In human beings, attachment is a driving force of behavior for longer than in any other animal. For most of us it is present throughout our lives, although we may transfer our attachment need from one person — our parent — to another — say, a spouse or even a child. We may also attempt to satisfy the lack of the human contact we crave by various other means, such as addictions, for example, or perhaps fanatical religiosity or the virtual reality of the Internet. Much of popular culture, from novels to movies to rock or country music, expresses nothing but the joys or the sorrows flowing from satisfactions or disappointments in our attachment relationships. Most parents extend to their children some mixture of loving and hurtful behavior, of wise parenting and unskillful, clumsy parenting. The proportions vary from family to family, from parent to parent. Those ADD children whose needs for warm parental contact are most frustrated grow up to be adults with the most severe cases of ADD. Already at only a few months of age, an infant will register by facial expression his dejection at the mother’s unconscious emotional withdrawal, despite the mother’s continued physical presence. “(The infant) takes delight in Mommy’s attention,” writes Stanley Greenspan, “and knows when that source of delight is missing. If Mom becomes preoccupied or distracted while playing with the baby, sadness or dismay settles in on the little face.

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm joining your little gang of baby heroes on the quest to find Superdad." Simon and Derek exchanged a look. "No," Derek said. "No? Excuse me, it was Rae who betrayed you guys. Not me. I helped Chloe." "And was it Rae who tormented her at Lyle House?" "Tormented?" A derisive snort. "I didn't—" "You did everything you could to get Chloe kicked out," Simon said. "And when that didn't work, you tried to kill her." "Kill her?" Tori's mouth hardened. "I'm not my mother. Don't you dare accuse—" "You lured her into the crawl space," Derek said. "Hit her over the head with a brick, bound and gagged her, and locked her in. Did you even check to make sure she was okay? That you hadn't cracked her skull?" Tori sputtered a protest, but from the horror in her eyes, I knew the possibility hadn't occurred to her. "Derek," I said, "I don't think—" "No she didn't think. She could have killed you with the brick, suffocated you with the gag, given you a heart attack from fright, not to mention what would have happened if you hadn't gotten out of your bindings. It only takes a couple of days to die from dehydration." "I would never have left Chloe to die. You can't accuse me of that." "No," Derek said. "Just of wanting hr locked up in a mental hospital. And why? Because you didn't like her. Because she talked to a guy you did like. Maybe you're not your mother, Tori. But what you are..." He fixed her with an icy look. "I don't want around." The expression on her face...I felt for her, whether she'd welcome my sympathy or not. "We don't trust you," Simon said, his tone softer than his brother's. "We can't have someone along that we don't trust." "What if I'm okay with it," I cut in. "If i feel safe with her..." "You don't," Derek said. "You won't kick her to the curb, though, because it's not the kind of person you are." He met Tori's gaze. "But it's the kind of person I am. Chloe won't force you to leave because she'd feel horrible if anything happened to you. Me? I don't care. You brought it on yourself."

She keeps her fingers on Faye’s face. Faye closes her eyes against tears. When she opens them Julie is still looking at her. She’s smiling a wonderful smile. Way past twenty. She takes Faye’s hands.“‘Then tell them to look closely at men’s faces. Tell them to stand perfectly still, for time, and to look into the face of a man. A man’s face has nothing on it. Look closely. Tell them to look. And not at what the faces do–men’s faces never stop moving–they’re like antennae. But all the faces do is move through different configurations of blankness.’ Faye looks for Julie’s eyes in the mirror. Julie says, ‘Tell them there are no holes for your fingers in the masks of men. Tell them how could you ever even hope to have what you can’t grab onto.’ Julie turns her makeup chair and looks up at Faye. ‘That’s when I love you, if I love you,’ she whispers, running a finger down her white powdered cheek, reaching to trace an angled line of white onto Faye’s own face. 'Is when your face moves into expression. Try to look out from yourself, different, all the time. Tell people that you know your face is at least pretty at rest.’ 'You asked me once how poems informed me,’ she says. Almost a whisper–her microphone voice. 'And you asked whether we, us, depended on the game, to even be. Baby?’–lifting Faye’s face with one finger under the chin–'Remember? Remember the ocean? Our dawn ocean, that we loved? We loved it because it was like us, Faye. That whole ocean was obvious. We were looking at something obvious, the whole time.’ She pinches a nipple, too softly for Faye even to feel. 'Oceans are only oceans when they move,’ Julie whispers. 'Waves are what keep oceans from just being very big puddles. Oceans are just their waves. And every wave in the ocean is finally going to meet what it moves toward, and break. The whole thing we looked at, the whole time you asked, was obvious. It was obvious and a poem because it was us. See things like that, Faye. Your own face, moving into expression. A wave, breaking on a rock, giving up its shape in a gesture that expresses that shape. See?’ It wasn’t at the beach that Faye had asked about the future. It was in Los Angeles. And what about the anomalous wave that came out of nowhere and broke on itself? Julie is looking at Faye. 'See?’ Faye’s eyes are open. They get wide. 'You don’t like my face at rest?

The teachings of impermanence and lack of independent existence are not difficult to understand intellectually; when you hear these teachings you may think that they are quite true. On a deeper level, however, you probably still identify yourself as “me” and identify others as “them” or “you.” On some level you likely say to yourself, “I will always be me; I have an identity that is important.” I, for example, say to myself, “I am a Buddhist priest; not a Christian or Islamic one. I am a Japanese person, not an American or a Chinese one.” If we did not assume that we have this something within us that does not change, it would be very difficult for us to live responsibly in society. This is why people who are unfamiliar with Buddhism often ask, “If there were no unchanging essential existence, doesn’t that mean I would not be responsible for my past actions, since I would be a different person than in the past?” But of course that is not what the Buddha meant when he said we have no unchanging atman or essential existence. To help us understand this point, we can consider how our life resembles a river. Each moment the water of a river is flowing and different, so it is constantly changing, but there is still a certain continuity of the river as a whole. The Mississippi River, for example, was the river we know a million years ago. And yet, the water flowing in the Mississippi is always different, always new, so there is actually no fixed thing that we can say is the one and only Mississippi River. We can see this clearly when we compare the source of the Mississippi in northern Minnesota, a small stream one can jump over, to the river’s New Orleans estuary, which seems as wide as an ocean. We cannot say which of these is the true Mississippi: it is just a matter of conditions that lets us call one or the other of these the Mississippi. In reality, a river is just a collection of masses of flowing water contained within certain shapes in the land. “Mississippi River” is simply a name given to various conditions and changing elements. Since our lives are also just a collection of conditions, we cannot say that we each have one true identity that does not change, just as we cannot say there is one true Mississippi River. What we call the “self ” is just a set of conditions existing within a collection of different elements. So I cannot say that there is an unchanging self that exists throughout my life as a baby, as a teenager, and as it is today. Things that I thought were important and interesting when I was an elementary or high school student, for example, are not at all interesting to me now; my feelings, emotions, and values are always changing. This is the meaning of the teaching that everything is impermanent and without independent existence. But we still must recognize that there is a certain continuity in our lives, that there is causality, and that we need to be responsible for what we did yesterday. In this way, self-identity is important. Even though in actuality there is no unchanging identity, I still must use expressions like “when I was a baby ..., when I was a boy ..., when I was a teenager. ...” To speak about changes in our lives and communicate in a meaningful way, we must speak as if we assumed that there is an unchanging “I” that has been experiencing the changes; otherwise, the word “change” has no meaning. But according to Buddhist philosophy, self-identity, the “I,” is a creation of the mind; we create self-identity because it’s convenient and useful in certain ways. We must use self-identity to live responsibly in society, but we should realize that it is merely a tool, a symbol, a sign, or a concept. Because it enables us to think and discriminate, self-identity allows us to live and function. Although it is not the only reality of our lives, self-identity is a reality for us, a tool we must use to live with others in society.