Family Splitting Up Quotes

The saddest thing was actually getting fed up with one another. It's like growing up in a family. When you get to a certain age, you want to go off and get your own girl and your own car, split up a bit.

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams. When my first pen pal, Tomoko, stopped writing me after three letters she was the one who laughed: You think someone's going to lose life writing to you? Of course I cried; I was eight and I had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt me. My mother of course saw clean into the marrow of those dreams, and laughed. I wouldn't write to you either, she said. She was that kind of mother: who makes you doubt yourself, who would wipe you out if you let her. But I'm not going to pretend either. For a long time I let her say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts. I bet they'd be divorced by now if I hadn't been born. I'm sure I was a huge disappointment. I'm not pretty or smart or athletic. I'm just like them- an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can't believe we have to keep playacting till I graduate. It's a shame we just can't admit that we have failed at family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives. Merry Christmas.

It's a shame we can't just admit that we failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives.

Idris had been green and gold and russet in the autumn, when Clary had first been there. It had a stark grandeur in the winter: the mountains rose in the distance, capped white with snow, and the trees along the side of the road that led back to Alicante from the lake were stripped bare, their leafless branches making lace-like patterns against the bright sky. Sometimes Jace would slow the horse to point out the manor houses of the richer Shadowhunter families, hidden from the road when the trees were full but revealed now. She felt his shoulders tense as they passed one that nearly melded with the forest around it: it had clearly been burned and rebuilt. Some of the stones still bore the black marks of smoke and fire. “The Blackthorn manor,” he said. “Which means that around this bend in the road is …” He paused as Wayfarer summited a small hill, and reined him in so they could look down to where the road split in two. One direction led back toward Alicante — Clary could see the demon towers in the distance — while the other curled down toward a large building of mellow golden stone, surrounded by a low wall. “ … the Herondale manor,” Jace finished. The wind picked up; icy, it ruffled Jace’s hair. Clary had her hood up, but he was bare-headed and bare-handed, having said he hated wearing gloves when horseback riding. He liked to feel the reins in his hands. “Did you want to go and look at it?” she asked. His breath came out in a white cloud. “I’m not sure.

What if something were to happen? What if something suddenly started throbbing? Then they would notice it was there and they'd think their hearts were going to burst. Then what good would their dykes, bulwarks, power houses, furnaces and pile drivers be to them? It can happen any time, perhaps right now: the omens are present. For example, the father of a family might go out for a walk, and, across the street, he'll see something like a red rag, blown towards him by the wind. And when the rag has gotten close to him he'll see that it is a side of rotten meat, grimy with dust, dragging itself along by crawling, skipping, a piece of writhing flesh rolling in the gutter, spasmodically shooting out spurts of blood. Or a mother might look at her child's cheek and ask him: "What's that, a pimple?" and see the flesh puff out a little, split, open, and at the bottom of the split an eye, a laughing eye might appear. Or they might feel things gently brushing against their bodies, like the caresses of reeds to swimmers in a river. And they will realize that their clothing has become living things. And someone else might feel something scratching in his mouth. He goes to the mirror, opens his mouth: and his tongue is an enormous, live centipede, rubbing its legs together and scraping his palate. He'd like to spit it out, but the centipede is a part of him and he will have to tear it out with his own hands. And a crowd of things will appear for which people will have to find new names, stone eye, great three cornered arm, toe crutch, spider jaw. And someone might be sleeping in his comfortable bed, in his quiet, warm room, and wake up naked on a bluish earth, in a forest of rustling birch trees, rising red and white towards the sky like the smokestacks of Jouxtebouville, with big bumps half way out of the ground, hairy and bulbous like onions. And birds will fly around these birch trees and pick at them with their beaks and make them bleed. Sperm will flow slowly, gently, from these wounds, sperm mixed with blood, warm and glassy with little bubbles.

So then they’d snuggled up to each other, naked, and started to talk. Ezra told her about the time he was six and sculpted a red squirrel out of clay, only to have his brother squash it. How he used to smoke a lot of pot after his parents got divorced. About the time he had to take the family’s fox terrier to the vet to have her put to sleep. Aria told him about how when she was little, she kept a can of split pea soup named Pee as a pet and cried when her mom tried to cook Pee for dinner.

For the original transgression of this land was not slavery. It was greed, and it could not be contained. More white men would come and begin to covet. And they would drag along the Africans they had enslaved. The white men would sow their misery among those who shook their chains. These white men would whip and work and demean these Africans. They would sell their children and split up families. And these white men brought by Oglethorpe, these men who had been oppressed in their own land by their own king, forgot the misery that they had left behind, the poverty, the uncertainty. And they resurrected this misery and passed it on to the Africans.

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: SAVING YOU I'm teleporting to Atlanta.I'm picking you up,and we'll go someplace where our families can't find us.We'll take Seany. And we'll let him rup laps until he tires,and then you and I will take a long walk. Like Thanksgiving. Remember? And we'll talk about everything BUT our parents...or perhaps we won't talk at all. We'll just walk.And we'll keep walking until the rest of the world ceases to exist. I'm sorry,Anna.What did your father want? Please tell me what I can do. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Sigh.I'd love that. Thank you,but it was okay. Dad wanted to apologize. For a split second,he was almost human.Almost.And then Mom apologized,and now they're washin dishes and pretending like nothing happened.I don't know.I didn't mean to get all drama queen,when your problems are so much worse than mine.I'm sorry. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Are you mad? My day was boring.Your day was a nightmare. Are you all right? To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Re: Are you mad? I'm okay.I'm just glad I have you to talk to. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: So... Does that mean I can call you now?

But when you get down to it, it’s all a lie. You sit here writing and writing, but no one can see it—that’s arrogant, I told you so before. And you aren’t even honest enough to let yourself be what you are—everything’s divided off and split up. So what’s the use of patronising me and saying: You’re in a bad phase. If you’re not in a bad phase, then it’s because you can’t be in a phase, you take care to divide yourself into compartments. If things are a chaos, then that’s what they are. I don’t think there’s a pattern anywhere—you are just making patterns, out of cowardice. I think people aren’t good at all, they are cannibals, and when you get down to it no one cares about anyone else. All the best people can be good to one other person or their families. But that’s egotism, it isn’t being good. We aren’t any better than the animals, we just pretend to be.

I can't believe we have to keep playacting until I graduate. It's a shame we can't just admit that we have failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives.

Funny how things work themselves out. Things happen that split up family and friends, then things happen that bring them back together. Everyone is in your life for a reason. My hope is for all the reasons to be good. Those who love you never lose touch, are always consistent, and unquestionable.

Eating The Bones by Ellen Bass The women in my family strip the succulent flesh from broiled chicken, scrape the drumstick clean; bite off the cartilage chew the gristle, crush the porous swellings at the ends of each slender baton. With strong molars they split the tibia, sucking out the dense marrow. They use up love, they swallow every dark grain, so at the end there's nothing left, a scant pile of splinters on the empty white plate.

Ian stared until she disappeared inside the elevator. Then he glanced back at me. "Don't fret, poppet. I'll get her." "We need to do this discreetly. If I wanted to make a colossal scene, I'd just drag her off kicking and screaming now," I said, not adding, "dumb ass" only because he was family. "She'll come without a fuss," Ian said with confidence. "You can't green-eye her in the elevator, it'll have video surveillance. So will the garage," I retorted. "I don't need these," Ian said, flashing emerald in his turquoise gaze for a split second, "when I have this." With a casual swipe of his hand, he ripped his shirt open, causing buttons to fly everywhere. Another swipe took his sleep mask all the way off. Finally, he finger-combed his shoulder-lenght hair and smiled at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "I am after all, irresistible.

Sometimes I think I’m schizophrenic. Dissociative. Possibly a split personality. It wouldn’t be unheard of. All sorts of disorders show up in ancient family trees—hemophiliacs, insomniacs, lunatics…gingers. Guess I should feel lucky not to be any of those.

Van Uoc felt the stab of a sad truth: she and her mother would never be as close as her mother and grandmother had been. Her mother got up, stretched her tidy, graceful frame and headed for the kitchen. Van Uoc wanted to be able to offer her some comfort, but what could she say? Her mother was right. The two of them represented an irreconcilable cultural split. Distance between them was inevitable.

His warm fingers slid along my cheek, then wrapped into my hair. He leaned down to rest his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “The ribbon. I lied.” “What? We aren't engaged?” I asked, smiling shakily, curling my fingers into his shirt. “I have to show up to family dinners as your weird second cousin?” He opened his eyes and looked into mine. “It doesn't mean family. Not like that. Not to me.” And his emotional connection opened cleanly, without the muddle he usually hid his true feelings within. And it was love, clear and without artifice, shining there. I stared at him, breath caught in my chest. “You—” His emotions were wrapping around me, free and clear and relieved. Like honey and copper—sweet, tangy, and charged—gentle, consuming, warm, passionate, and resolute. “No tricks. No games. No expectations. No lies—not to you, not ever again.” Stunned, I watched him pull away. He looked at peace for the first time in weeks. Months. Then he looked down at our connection threads and I wondered what on earth he’d see. He looked up, and a smile, brilliant and all-consuming split his face. He backed up slowly. “Interesting. See you soon, darling.” He winked, turned, and flipped over the edge of the seal and through the vortex.

When you're and only child in a family with an only parent, you look at other, bigger families with envy. Mary Alice had a family with a station wagon, a split-level house, and a pool. But then I looked up and saw Mary Alice's toes, as she stood at the edged of the diving board. Her second toe lay on top of her big toe on each foot. I had never seen such a thing. I wondered if Mary Alice's toes would ever prevent her from doing the things she wanted to do in life. "Look, y'all!" she said, forming her perfect body into a perfect swan's dive. I decided then that any time I got frustrated with my overall situation in life, mad or jealous of knee socks or a pink canopy bed in a pink room, I'd take a deep breath and think about Mary Alice's toes. At least I didn't have Mary Alice's toes.

It was a mistake to separate us. We should have stayed together. Once a family breaks up and splits, it never comes together again. Not in the old way. If there had been a settled home to which we could have gone, it would have been different. Children need a settled home, a place that smells familiar. A life that goes on, with the same toys, the same walks, the same faces day after day. Where, wet or fine, existence can be a pattern, a routine. We had no pattern. Not after Mama died.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world. Yours, Anne M. Frank ANNE’S DIARY ENDS HERE.

Ryan was going to hell. He gripped the table in front of him as the door closed and Micah’s footsteps retreated down the stairs. Little Micah Avery—who had practically been Ryan’s shadow since he was a gangly teenager—had grown up. How the fuck did he miss that?

As my mom sees it, her dry, flaky skin is some immigrant’s vocational opportunity. Plus, hurting her offers immigrants a nifty cathartic therapy for venting their rage. Her chapped lips and split ends constitute someone’s rungs up the socioeconomic ladder to escape poverty. Sliding into middle age complete with cellulite and scaly elbows, my mother has become an economic engine, generating millions of dollars which will be wired to feed families and purchase cholera medicine in Ecuador. Should she ever decide to “let herself go,” no doubt tens of thousands would perish.

It had been four years. Four years ago, the return home had been to take care of paperwork related to the family registry when I got married. When I thought back on it, what a pointless trip! I thought it was all paperwork. The problem was that nobody else thought it. It comes down to the different ways in which minds work. What's over for one person isn't over for another. But the path splits in two different directions, and so you end up apart. From that point on there was no hometown for me. Nowhere to return to. What a relief! No one to want me, no one to want anything from me.

Despite all this, they considered themselves fortunate, because they were together. Other families had been split up; first the men had been taken off to what were known as relocation camps, then the women and children sent to another one. In some cases it was two or three years before they were reunited.

The face that Moses had begged to see – was forbidden to see – was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20) The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his brow… “On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on – he grants the warrior’s continued existence. The man swings. As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm – the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless – the nerves perform exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe. But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being – the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father’s eye turns brown with rot. His Father! He must face his Father like this! From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross.Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes. “Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped – murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, over-spent, overeaten – fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held a razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk – you, who moles young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp – buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves – relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath? Of course the Son is innocent He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed. The Father watches as his heart’s treasure, the mirror image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction. “Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!” But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply. The Trinity had planned it. The Son had endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.

Book Excerpt: "What about your family, Abu Huwa? Are you an orphan?” the little girl very innocently asked the Sphinx. “My father and your father are one and the same. However, I do have a brother who has stood as my mirror throughout time on the opposite horizon. It is I who faces east, but it is he who faces west. I am the recorder of yesterday and he holds the records of tomorrow. I am the positive, and he is my negative. I carry the right eye of the sun and he carries the left eye of the moon. He keeps his eye on the underworld and I keep an eye on the world over. Together we have joined the sky and earth, and split fire and water.” Seham stood on all toes to peek over the Sphinx's shoulder for a sign of his brother. “Where is he?” she asked, her eyes still searching the open horizon. “He has yet to be uncovered, but as I stand above the sands of time, he still sleeps below. Before the descent of Adam, we have both stood as loyal Protectors of the Two Halls of Truth.” The girl asked in astonishment, “I've never heard of these halls, Abu Huwa. Where are they?” “At the end of each of our tails is a passage that will reveal to you the secrets of Time. One hall reflects a thousand truths, and the other hall reflects all that is untrue. One will speak to your heart, and the other will speak to your mind. This is why you need to use both your heart and mind to understand which one is real, and which is a distorted illusion created to misguide those that have neglected their conscience. Both passageways connect you to the Great Hall of Records.” “What is the Hall of Records?” “The Great Pyramid, my child. It is as multidimensional in its shape as it is in its purpose. Every layer and every brick marks the coming of a prophet, the ascension of evil, or another cycle of man. It contains the entire history and future of mankind. And, as is above, so is below. Above ground, it serves as the most powerful energy source to harmonize and power the world! The shape of the pyramid above ground is also the same image mirrored beneath it. Underground, it serves as a powerful well and drain. This is really why Egypt is called the Land of Two Lands. There exists a huge world of its own underneath the plateau, a world within worlds. Large amounts of gold, copper and mercury were once housed here, including the secrets of Time, the 100th name of He Who Is All, and a gift from Truth that still awaits to be discovered. It sleeps with Time in the Great Pyramid, hidden away in a lower shaft that leads to the stars.” Dialogue from 'The Little Girl and the Sphinx' by Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (Dar-El Shams, 2010)

We rode through the night. No food offered, no water provided. They raided town after town until we finally reached the shore. There, we were tied to one another and driven like cattle onto a ship. They made sure to split us up. No families were permitted to be together. That would have shown a sense of humanity and these men, these slavers, had none.

I suppose men, even myself, are perpetually boys. The sons of parents who provide the staples of what makes up a life— a home, an example of what it means to be human, however fucked up that may be. We are molded by impressions and an example, single days that stick out, and wounds that split us open and never close. We take on other people’s pain and sometimes make them ours.

I bet they’d be divorced by now if I hadn’t been born. I’m sure I was a huge disappointment. I’m not pretty or smart or athletic. I’m just like them—an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can’t believe we have to keep playacting until I graduate. It’s a shame we can’t just admit that we have failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives.

Growing up in a rigid family system begets children who are often split off as either good or bad. Whether you become the golden child or the black sheep, your life reveals the pathology of a rigid family system. The black sheep of the family may look out of control, but if you listen to what drives his behavior and defiance, you will hear an honesty that rivals the truth-telling capacity of a biblical prophet. He refuses to live in a family that demands unquestioned loyalty to the tyranny of rigidity and, sadly, often squanders much of his life in defiant protest long after he leaves home. The consequences of his actions will certainly need to be engaged, but the recovery process of the black sheep is far easier than the golden child’s journey out of a life of self-righteousness and hiding.

His head kind of imploded. He had always wondered what it would feel like to crush a human head with his foot – and now he knew. He thoroughly enjoyed the deep-sounding crack of his skull splitting open. The noise was a physical thing, jolting up his leg and reverberating through his entire body. God, it was deeply satisfying, even if it was his old friend Harlan. Oh well, never mind. Richard was right, friends and family were a liability.

In the months since I’d split up from Eric, I’d never really missed being half of a couple. But now I yearned for a broad chest to lay my head on, to rub my cheek against the rough wool of a man’s jumper, for some loving arms to wrap me up and tell me that everything was going to be all right. I knew I could call Rosie and she’d be here like a shot. Or I could go up to The Evergreens and pour out my sorrows. But it wasn’t just any company I needed; I wanted to be loved again.

People get rid of plenty when they move—sometimes they’re changing not just places but personalities. Up or down “the economic ladder.” Maybe the bed won’t fit in the new place, or the sofa’s too boxy, or they’re newlyweds and put a new living-room set on their registry. A lot of these white-flight families splitting for the suburbs, Long Island and Westchester, they’re making a whole new start—shaking the city off, and that means getting rid of how they used to see themselves.

I resolved to come right to the point. "Hello," I said as coldly as possible, "we've got to talk." "Yes, Bob," he said quietly, "what's on your mind?" I shut my eyes for a moment, letting the raging frustration well up inside, then stared angrily at the psychiatrist. "Look, I've been religious about this recovery business. I go to AA meetings daily and to your sessions twice a week. I know it's good that I've stopped drinking. But every other aspect of my life feels the same as it did before. No, it's worse. I hate my life. I hate myself." Suddenly I felt a slight warmth in my face, blinked my eyes a bit, and then stared at him. "Bob, I'm afraid our time's up," Smith said in a matter-of-fact style. "Time's up?" I exclaimed. "I just got here." "No." He shook his head, glancing at his clock. "It's been fifty minutes. You don't remember anything?" "I remember everything. I was just telling you that these sessions don't seem to be working for me." Smith paused to choose his words very carefully. "Do you know a very angry boy named 'Tommy'?" "No," I said in bewilderment, "except for my cousin Tommy whom I haven't seen in twenty years..." "No." He stopped me short. "This Tommy's not your cousin. I spent this last fifty minutes talking with another Tommy. He's full of anger. And he's inside of you." "You're kidding?" "No, I'm not. Look. I want to take a little time to think over what happened today. And don't worry about this. I'll set up an emergency session with you tomorrow. We'll deal with it then." Robert This is Robert speaking. Today I'm the only personality who is strongly visible inside and outside. My own term for such an MPD role is dominant personality. Fifteen years ago, I rarely appeared on the outside, though I had considerable influence on the inside; back then, I was what one might call a "recessive personality." My passage from "recessive" to "dominant" is a key part of our story; be patient, you'll learn lots more about me later on. Indeed, since you will meet all eleven personalities who once roamed about, it gets a bit complex in the first half of this book; but don't worry, you don't have to remember them all, and it gets sorted out in the last half of the book. You may be wondering -- if not "Robert," who, then, was the dominant MPD personality back in the 1980s and earlier? His name was "Bob," and his dominance amounted to a long reign, from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Since "Robert B. Oxnam" was born in 1942, you can see that "Bob" was in command from early to middle adulthood. Although he was the dominant MPD personality for thirty years, Bob did not have a clue that he was afflicted by multiple personality disorder until 1990, the very last year of his dominance. That was the fateful moment when Bob first heard that he had an "angry boy named Tommy" inside of him. How, you might ask, can someone have MPD for half a lifetime without knowing it? And even if he didn't know it, didn't others around him spot it? To outsiders, this is one of the most perplexing aspects of MPD. Multiple personality is an extreme disorder, and yet it can go undetected for decades, by the patient, by family and close friends, even by trained therapists. Part of the explanation is the very nature of the disorder itself: MPD thrives on secrecy because the dissociative individual is repressing a terrible inner secret. The MPD individual becomes so skilled in hiding from himself that he becomes a specialist, often unknowingly, in hiding from others. Part of the explanation is rooted in outside observers: MPD often manifests itself in other behaviors, frequently addiction and emotional outbursts, which are wrongly seen as the "real problem." The fact of the matter is that Bob did not see himself as the dominant personality inside Robert B. Oxnam. Instead, he saw himself as a whole person. In his mind, Bob was merely a nickname for Bob Oxnam, Robert Oxnam, Dr. Robert B. Oxnam, PhD.

Of course, I should have known the kids would pop out in the atmosphere of Roberta's office. That's what they do when Alice is under stress. They see a gap in the space-time continuum and slip through like beams of light through a prism changing form and direction. We had got into the habit in recent weeks of starting our sessions with that marble and stick game called Ker-Plunk, which Billy liked. There were times when I caught myself entering the office with a teddy that Samuel had taken from the toy cupboard outside. Roberta told me that on a couple of occasions I had shot her with the plastic gun and once, as Samuel, I had climbed down from the high-tech chairs, rolled into a ball in the corner and just cried. 'This is embarrassing,' I admitted. 'It doesn't have to be.' 'It doesn't have to be, but it is,' I said. The thing is. I never knew when the 'others' were going to come out. I only discovered that one had been out when I lost time or found myself in the midst of some wacky occupation — finger-painting like a five-year-old, cutting my arms, wandering from shops with unwanted, unpaid-for clutter. In her reserved way, Roberta described the kids as an elaborate defence mechanism. As a child, I had blocked out my memories in order not to dwell on anything painful or uncertain. Even as a teenager, I had allowed the bizarre and terrifying to seem normal because the alternative would have upset the fiction of my loving little nuclear family. I made a mental note to look up defence mechanisms, something we had touched on in psychology.

Mr. Mitchell should stop worrying and put Steph in charge. She will be good at this; she has the party planning gene in her family. I swear, they always have the entire familia over for every occasion. All her tias, tios, cousins, friends, ninas, and ninos go to her house for practically anything. Every day is a holiday at Casa Ayala. Anyway, we’re placed into committees, which totally sucks, because the fab four get split up. Keesha and I get selected for Activities, while Amy and Steph are slated for Rally committee. All the upperclassmen say these are the best committees, and we should feel lucky.

Pretty soon, however, I noticed something familiar. Most books are also about the exceptional. The biggest history bestsellers are invariably about catastrophes and adversity, tyranny and oppression. About war, war, and, to spice things up a little, war. And if, for once, there is no war, then we’re in what historians call the interbellum: between wars. In science, too, the view that humanity is bad has reigned for decades. Look up books on human nature and you’ll find titles like Demonic Males, The Selfish Gene and The Murderer Next Door. Biologists long assumed the gloomiest theory of evolution, where even if an animal appeared to do something kind, it was framed as selfish. Familial affection? Nepotism! Monkey splits a banana? Exploited by a freeloader!31 As one American biologist mocked, ‘What passes for co-operation turns out to be a mixture of opportunism and exploitation. […] Scratch an “altruist” and watch a “hypocrite” bleed.’32 And in economics? Much the same. Economists defined our species as the homo economicus: always intent on personal gain, like selfish, calculating robots. Upon this notion of human nature, economists built a cathedral of theories and models that wound up informing reams of legislation. Yet no one had researched whether homo economicus actually existed. That is, not until economist Joseph Henrich and his team took it up in 2000. Visiting fifteen communities in twelve countries on five continents, they tested farmers, nomads, and hunters and gatherers, all in search of this hominid that has guided economic theory for decades. To no avail. Each and every time, the results showed people were simply too decent. Too kind.

They were all shouting and shoving at each other when Grace turned from the chaos. Daniel caught the wicked gleam in her eye just before she charged him. She ran smack into him with her shoulder and slammed to a stop. Daniel looked down at her, feeling her arms around his waist and seeing her upturned face just inches below his. She weighed just slightly more than the average feather. “You’re a moose,” she pouted. “How am I supposed to knock you into the snow?” Daniel couldn’t help grinning down at her impish exasperation. “Boys, how about a little help?” Grace shouted. In a split second, all five boys pounced. With a shout of protest, Daniel went down in a flurry of arms and legs and snow. They continued the battle until they had nearly turned themselves into a family of snow-people. Finally, Grace plowed a huge armload of snow into Daniel’s face. “Give up, big man. We’ve got you. Admit it.

The irony, of course, is that not long ago, it was Trump’s own ancestors—German American immigrants—who were the demons of the day, as the United States fought two world wars against Germany. The only thing that saved Trump’s people from being rounded up and put in camps during World War II, like Japanese American families—as Trump lauded President Franklin Roosevelt for doing—was that their skin color happened to be white. Those who are so eager to stigmatize Muslims today should keep this in mind—next time around it could be them. That’s the way these American nativist, “know-nothing” uprisings work. One day it’s Catholics who are the reviled aliens, then it’s Jewish people, then it’s Muslims. If you don’t belong to one of these groups, just wait your turn—you could be next in line. We will always be subjected to these us-versus-them hysteria campaigns as long as people in power seek to divide Americans for their own cynical political purposes—whether it’s to whip up war fever, split apart working people, or simply keep the citizenry fearful and easier to manipulate.

The Late Night Traveler It was late and a traveler was looking for a room to spend the night.  He had stopped at every hotel and motel and there were no rooms available. At the far edge of town, he spotted one last motel.  It was his only hope. Unfortunately, the traveler was told by the clerk at this motel they had no rooms available also. “What am I to do?”  the traveler asked.  “Please, please you have to help me.  I have tried all the other places and there are no rooms and you are my last resort.”  ‘Well I do have a double room with only one occupant in it.  He stays here all the time. He probably won’t mind you staying in there and splitting the cost.  But I have to tell you, he snores very loud.  You may not get much sleep.” “Sounds great,” the traveler said and he took the room. The next morning when he was checking out, the clerk asked how he slept. “I slept very well, thank you,” the traveler said. “How were you able to sleep with all the snoring?” the clerk asked. “It wasn’t a problem at all,” the man said.  “When I got to the room I got undressed, walked over, gave him a little kiss on the cheek and said ‘goodnight,’ and he sat up all night watching me.

The programme was due at any moment and I felt a bit self-conscious about barging in on some innocent family at sacred tea time. I need not have feared. A young man of about thirty opened the door to me and I asked, 'Do you watch Doctor Who in this house by any chance?' For a split second the young man looked puzzled and then he smiled, opened the door wide, and simply said 'Come in, Doctor.' And in I went. As he ushered me into the sitting room, I heard the title music and I quietly sat in the chair the man pointed to. As I took my seat, he pointed towards two little boys sitting on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen as I appeared. They watched with terrific intensity as a bit of drama unrolled and then, as someone else took up the plot, they lost interest slightly and glanced up at their dad and then at me. Just as they did so, I reappeared on the screen and they looked at me there. Their amazement was simply amazing! They were utterly gobsmacked as the two images jostled in their heads. They could not grasp how I could be in two paces at once and then, to the delight of their dad, they couldn't believe Doctor Who was in their house. What a wonderful hour or so that was.

As Mollie said to Dailey in the 1890s: "I am told that there are five other Mollie Fanchers, who together, make the whole of the one Mollie Fancher, known to the world; who they are and what they are I cannot tell or explain, I can only conjecture." Dailey described five distinct Mollies, each with a different name, each of whom he met (as did Aunt Susan and a family friend, George Sargent). According to Susan Crosby, the first additional personality appeared some three years after the after the nine-year trance, or around 1878. The dominant Mollie, the one who functioned most of the time and was known to everyone as Mollie Fancher, was designated Sunbeam (the names were devised by Sargent, as he met each of the personalities). The four other personalities came out only at night, after eleven, when Mollie would have her usual spasm and trance. The first to appear was always Idol, who shared Sunbeam's memories of childhood and adolescence but had no memory of the horsecar accident. Idol was very jealous of Sunbeam's accomplishments, and would sometimes unravel her embroidery or hide her work. Idol and Sunbeam wrote with different handwriting, and at times penned letters to each other. The next personality Sargent named Rosebud: "It was the sweetest little child's face," he described, "the voice and accent that of a little child." Rosebud said she was seven years old, and had Mollie's memories of early childhood: her first teacher's name, the streets on which she had lived, children's songs. She wrote with a child's handwriting, upper- and lowercase letters mixed. When Dailey questioned Rosebud about her mother, she answered that she was sick and had gone away, and that she did not know when she would be coming back. As to where she lived, she answered "Fulton Street," where the Fanchers had lived before moving to Gates Avenue. Pearl, the fourth personality, was evidently in her late teens. Sargent described her as very spiritual, sweet in expression, cultured and agreeable: "She remembers Professor West [principal of Brooklyn Heights Seminary], and her school days and friends up to about the sixteenth year in the life of Mollie Fancher. She pronounces her words with an accent peculiar to young ladies of about 1865." Ruby, the last Mollie, was vivacious, humorous, bright, witty. "She does everything with a dash," said Sargent. "What mystifies me about 'Ruby,' and distinguishes her from the others, is that she does not, in her conversations with me, go much into the life of Mollie Fancher. She has the air of knowing a good deal more than she tells.

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. I can't just sit back and watch from a distance anymore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here's where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside. Up until now it hasn't been my word. Not my America. But here we are, at last.

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. I can't just sit back and watch from a distance anymore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here's where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside. Up until now it hasn't been my world. Not my America. But here we are, at last.

You may not recognize the name Steven Schussler, CEO of Schussler Creative Inc., but you are probably familiar with his very popular theme restaurant Rainforest Café. Steve is one of the scrappiest people I know, with countless scrappy stories. He is open and honest about his wins and losses. This story about how he launched Rainforest Café is one of my favorites: Steve first envisioned a tropical-themed family restaurant back in the 1980s, but unfortunately, he couldn’t persuade anyone else to buy into the idea at the time. Not willing to give up easily, he decided to get scrappy and be “all in.” To sell his vision, he transformed his own split-level suburban home into a living, mist-enshrouded rain forest to convince potential investors that the concept was viable. Yes, you read that correctly—he converted his own house into a jungle dwelling complete with rock outcroppings, waterfalls, rivers, and layers of fog and mist that rose from the ground. The jungle included a life-size replica of an elephant near the front door, forty tropical birds in cages, and a live baby baboon named Charlie. Steve shared the following details: Every room, every closet, every hallway of my house was set up as a three-dimensional vignette: an attempt to present my idea of what a rain forest restaurant would look like in actual operation. . . . [I]t took me three years and almost $400,000 to get the house developed to the point where I felt comfortable showing it to potential investors. . . . [S]everal of my neighbors weren’t exactly thrilled to be living near a jungle habitat. . . . On one occasion, Steve received a visit from the Drug Enforcement Administration. They wanted to search the premises for drugs, presuming he may have had an illegal drug lab in his home because of his huge residential electric bill. I imagine they were astonished when they discovered the tropical rain forest filled with jungle creatures. Steve’s plan was beautiful, creative, fun, and scrappy, but the results weren’t coming as quickly as he would have liked. It took all of his resources, and he was running out of time and money to make something happen. (It’s important to note that your scrappy efforts may not generate results immediately.) I asked Steve if he ever thought about quitting, how tight was the money really, and if there was a time factor, and he said, “Yes to all three! Of course I thought about quitting. I was running out of money and time.” Ultimately, Steve’s plan succeeded. After many visits and more than two years later, gaming executive and venture capitalist Lyle Berman bought into the concept and raised the funds necessary to get the Rainforest Café up and running. The Rainforest Café chain became one of the most successful themed restaurants ever created, and continues that way under Landry’s Restaurants and Tilman Fertitta’s leadership. Today, Steve creates restaurant concepts in fantastic warehouses far from his residential neighborhood!

Chelsea was something else. Like an unstoppable force of nature. Similar to a hurricane or a tornado. Or a pit bull. Violet admired that about her. And, in this instance, Chelsea had proven to be nothing less than formidable. So when Jay had mentioned earlier in the week that they might be able to go to the movies over the weekend, Chelsea held him to it. A time and a place were chosen. And word spread. And, somehow, Chelsea managed to unravel it all. She still wanted the Saturday night plans; she just didn’t want the crowd that came with them. She’d decided it should be more of a “double date.” With Mike. Except Mike would never see it coming. By the time the bell rang at the end of lunch on Friday, everyone had agreed to meet up for the seven o’clock showing the next night. But when they split up to go to their classes, Chelsea set her own plan into motion. She began to separate the others from the pack and, one by one, they all fell. She started with Andrew Lauthner. Poor Andrew didn’t know what hit him. “Hey, Andy, did you hear?” From the look on his face, he didn’t hear anything other than that Chelsea-his Chelsea-was talking to him. Out of the blue. Violet needed to get to class, but she was dying to see what Chelsea had up her sleeve, so she stuck it out instead. “What?” His huge frozen grin looked like it had been plastered there and dried overnight. Chelsea’s expression was apologetic, something that may have actually been difficult for her to pull off. “The movie’s been canceled. Plans are off.” She stuck out her lower lip in a disappointed pout. “But I thought…” He seemed confused. So was Violet. “…didn’t we just make the plans at lunch?” he asked. “I know.” Chelsea managed to sound as surprised as he did. “But you know how Jay is, always talking out of his ass. He forgot to mention that he has to work tomorrow night and can’t make it.” She looked at Violet and said, again apologetically, “Sorry you had to hear that, Vi.” Violet just stood there gaping and thinking that she should deny what Chelsea was saying, but she wasn’t even sure where to start. She knew Jules would have done it. Where was Jules when she needed her? “What about everyone else?” Andrew asked, still clinging to hope. Chelsea shrugged and placed a sympathetic hand on Andrew’s arm. “Nope. No one else can make it either. Mike’s got family plans. Jules has a date. Claire has to study. And Violet here is grounded.” She draped an arm around Violet’s shoulder. “Right, Vi?” Violet was saved from having to answer, since Andrew didn’t seem to need one. Apparently, if Chelsea said it, it was the gospel truth. But the pathetic look on his face made Violet want to hug him right then and there. "Oh," he finally said. And then, "Well, maybe next time." "Yeah. Sure. Of course," Chelsea called over her shoulder, already dragging Violet away from the painful scene. "Geez, Chels, break his heart, why don't you? Why didn't you just say you have some rare disease or something?" Violet made a face at her friend. "Not cool." Chelsea scoffed. "He'll be fine. Besides, if I said 'disease,' he would have made me some chicken soup and offered to give me a sponge bath or something." She wrinkled her nose. "Eww." The rest of the afternoon went pretty much the same way, with a few escalations: Family obligations. Big tests to study for. House arrests. Chelsea made excuses to nearly everyone who'd planned on going, including Clair. She was relentless. By Saturday night, it was just the four of them...Violet, Jay, Chelsea, and, of course, Mike. It was everything Chelsea had dreamed of, everything she'd worked for.

The cuisine of Northern Iran, overlooked and underrated, is unlike most Persian food in that it's unfussy and lighthearted as the people from that region. The fertile seaside villages of Mazandaran and Rasht, where Soli grew up before moving to the congested capital, were lush with orchards and rice fields. His father had cultivated citrus trees and the family was raised on the fruits and grains they harvested. Alone in the kitchen, without Zod's supervision, he found himself turning to the wholesome food of his childhood, not only for the comfort the simple compositions offered, but because it was what he knew so well as he set about preparing a homecoming feast for Zod's only son. He pulled two kilos of fava beans from the freezer. Gathered last May, shucked and peeled on a quiet afternoon, they defrosted in a colander for a layered frittata his mother used to make with fistfuls of dill and sprinkled with sea salt. One flat of pale green figs and a bushel of new harvest walnuts were tied to the back of his scooter, along with two crates of pomegranates- half to squeeze for fresh morning juice and the other to split and seed for rice-and-meatball soup. Three fat chickens pecked in the yard, unaware of their destiny as he sharpened his cleaver. Tomorrow they would braise in a rich, tangy stew with sour red plums, their hearts and livers skewered and grilled, then wrapped in sheets of lavash with bouquets of tarragon and mint. Basmati rice soaked in salted water to be steamed with green garlic and mounds of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then served with a whole roasted, eight kilo white fish stuffed with barberries, pistachios, and lime. On the farthest burner, whole bitter oranges bobbed in blossom syrup, to accompany rice pudding, next to a simmering pot of figs studded with cardamom pods for preserves.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world.

Their eyes met. For a split second she caught a glimpse of heat in his eyes. Then Jake banked the flame and broke out of her embrace. Marnie felt a hot blush rise from her toes to her nose. It took a moment for her eyes to focus and her brain to function. Bewildered, she looked up to find him watching her. His heavy-lidded eyes held a strange desperation as he reached back and unhooked the vice of her ankles from around his wiast. Her legs dropped. Her heels thumped against the cabinet. Beneath his hawklike gaze she felt stripped bare and vulnerable. He studied her face, seeming to see more than her features. He seemed to delve into her mind, to touch things deep and frightening—parts of herself Marnie was still exploring. The muscles in his jaw knotted and unknotted. After a moment he stepped back and casually, but with difficulty, adjusted his jeans Heat flooded her cheeks. Legs splayed, nipples peaked to his clinical gaze, she’d never experienced such acute embarrassment in her life. Her breath hitched as she jumped off the counter, tugging her top down and her pants up. At a loss for hers, she half laughed. “I have absolutely no idea what to say.” Which was a reasonable start, she guessed. It was rare for her to be speechless. But then, this was a day of firsts. “I told you you weren’t my type.” The brass button on his jeans closed like the clasp of a miser’s purse. Other than a faint flush on the ridge of his cheekbones and what looked like a painful erection, he seemed totally unaffected by what had just happened. She stared at him. “Not your t—What do you call what just happened?” Marnie was confused. It was out of character for her to be sexually aggressive. But now that she’d done it, she wasn’t sorry. “What part of ‘I don’t want you’ didn’t you understand?” He’d wanted her. He might lie about it, but his body had been honest. He was as hard as petrified wood. “Then what”—she pointed—“is that?” He ignored the bulge in his jeans. “Just because I have it doesn’t mean I intend to use it.” Marnie stepped forward and touched his arm. He jerked away from her as if she’d used a cattle prod. “Was it something I said?” she asked quietly, dropping her hand to her side. “Look, I have a tendency to sort of speak without running the words through my brain first. But I know I didn’t give out mixed signals just now. I wanted to make love with you. It was very good. No, darn it, it was excellent. So if you have some sort of medical condition, let’s talk about i—” He moved backward, almost tripping over Duchess sprawled on the floor. The dog rose to hover anxiously between them. Jake’s eyes turned as he said, “I do not have a medical condition.” Marnie backed up—mentally as well as physically. Her hip bumped the counter. “Good.” He scowled and swore under his breath. “That is good, isn’t it?” she asked tentatively.

A captor will usually me violence or the threat of violence to prevent a victim’s escape. Examples are threats made to battered women by abusive partners that “I'll kill you if you leave me.” Similar threats are made to members of other “hostage” groups as well. The incest victim may be told by her father that he will be sent to jail, that the family will be split up, and/or that she will be blamed if she reports the sexual abuse to others. Cult members are typically told that they will go to hell if they leave, for the outside world is evil. They also may know they will be killed if they leave the cult.

You know, manacles and chains have functions in modern life which their fevered inventors must never have considered in an earlier and simpler age. If I were a suburban developer, I would attach at least one set to the walls of every new yellow brick ranch style and Cape Cod split level. When the suburbanites grew tired of television and Ping-Pong or whatever they do in their little homes, they could chain one another up for a while. Everyone would love it. Wives would say, ‘My husband put me in chains last night. It was wonderful. Has your husband done that to you lately? And children would hurry eagerly home from school to their mothers who would be waiting to chain them. It would help the children to cultivate the imagination denied them by television and would appreciably cut down on the incidence of juvenile delinquency. When father came in from work, the whole family could grab him and chain him for being stupid enough to be working all day long to support them. Troublesome old relatives would be chained in the carport. Their hands would be released only once a month so they could sign over their Social Security checks. Manacles and chains could build a better life for all. I must give this some space in my notes and jottings.

Barack and I took Malia’s and Sasha’s hands and made our way across the still-dewy grass of the South Lawn. The animals were larger than I expected, languid and sinewy, their tails flicking as they monitored our approach. I’d never seen anything like it, four cats in a companionable line. The lion stirred slightly as we drew close. I saw the panther’s eyes tracking us, the tiger’s ears flattening just a little. Then, without warning, the cheetah shot out from the shade with blinding speed, rocketing right at us. I panicked, grabbing Sasha by the arm, sprinting with her back up the lawn toward the house, trusting that Barack and Malia were doing the same. Judging from the noise, I could tell that all the animals had leaped to their feet and were now coming after us. Lloyd stood in the doorway, looking unfazed. “I thought you said they were sedated!” I yelled. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” he called back. “We’ve got a contingency plan for exactly this scenario!” He stepped to one side as Secret Service agents swarmed past him through the door, carrying what looked to be guns loaded with tranquilizer darts. Just then, I felt Sasha slip out of my grasp. I turned back toward the lawn, horrified to see my family being chased by wild animals and the wild animals being chased by agents, who were firing their guns. “This is your plan?” I screamed. “Are you kidding me?” Just then, the cheetah let out a snarl and launched itself at Sasha, its claws extended, its body seeming to fly. An agent took a shot, missing the animal though scaring it enough that it veered off course and retreated back down the hill. I was relieved for a split second, but then I saw it—a white-and-orange tranquilizer dart lodged in Sasha’s right arm. I lurched upward in bed, heart hammering, my body soaked in sweat, only to find my husband curled in comfortable sleep beside me. I’d had a very bad dream.

Both of these parenting styles have their advantages, Lareau found (although I should note that she did not look at families that used corporal punishment as severe as in my family after my parents split). The middle-class way was not, as some might expect, superior all around. The working-class children were often happier and better behaved. They were much closer to their extended families and were full of energy. They mostly did as they were told. They knew how to entertain themselves and were rarely bored. They were more adept at relationships. The middle-class youth, however, were much more prepared for school and far better situated to deal with adult authorities. They could speak up for themselves and use well-crafted arguments to come to conclusions more skillfully. This elaborated way of thinking also helped them better make plans that required multiple steps. Essentially, they were more prepared for success in the American mainstream than the working-class children were. And this was true regardless of whether they were black or white. Through this parenting style, middle-class children were being trained to lead, whether intentionally or not. Meanwhile, the poor and working class were being trained for life on the bottom. Middle-class children were constantly being taught explicitly to advocate for themselves with authorities, while the lower classes were taught to submit without question. Or, if they were going to resist, the poor learned by experience to do so covertly, not openly.

family which upset me. I thought they’d split up and it wouldn’t have been so bad if they had, then I saw her the day after in town with her husband, her arm linked through his. He looked so happy and it made me feel sick. Simone told me to forget about it, not to let it bother me, that it wasn’t any of my business and she was right, it wasn’t.’ Morgan felt so sad for Saul; they say the partner is always the last to know. ‘Who was the man she came with, do you know?’ ‘Greg Barker, you’ll know him, he’s the mayor.’ She smiled; she knew him very well. Looking up, she spotted

In today’s world it’s easy to lose track of time & otherwise get caught up in what’s going on. So many families split up, so many loved ones Lose track of who they are. Why they came together. Divorcing a memory they can never truly run away from. In today’s world it’s a blessing to know you. To get facial recognition & assurance with your every smile. Not every moment can be as perfect as we expect it, Yet we are appreciative and try not to take the moment For granted. Just as the saying goes, “Not everyone knows what They have.” It’s those refreshing moments that remind us Of God’s praise. Not at all excusing us for the times we become Absentees when we’re needed most, or simply lose track Of time, there are so many things that factor into who we are,Our upbringing, things we experience, The shapeless void Of a missing father. While that effect is monumental, we respond without responding. Silence sometimes the most powerful form of toxicity In response to communication. In today’s world it’s not that uncommon, placing something else Instead as priority, forgetting the bigger if not biggest issue. For better or worse, the most memorable part of any union. We take it at face value forgetting that we’re all kids at some point Or another. It’s not impossible to revert back as we’re all human At the end of the day. That doesn’t at all excuse us for the times we aren’t present, not just for ourselves. But for our partners, our friends, our families the priority of accepting love as a walking and breathing testimony. Our hands the door of faith, as we journey to the alter our lips Have formed.In today’s world it’s a blessing to know you & to get facial recognition As well as reassurance every time I look at you. No matter how much we mumble or grumble. I am forever grateful to have met the love of my life. Everything I’ll ever need no matter how much time passes. You’re all I’ll ever need

One thing leads to another in this world, Flamen, and we human beings get dragged along like—like dead leaves spinning in the wake of a skimmer. Diablo was saying a while back how you fine down your principles so that a machine can handle them, and pretty soon the person using the machine comes to imagine that this is how it’s always been— there never was a subtler way of thinking. That’s some of where it’s at, but it’s not all by any means. Take the fine expensive home you live in, with its automatic defenses and its mines sown under the lawn like daffodil-bulbs. You shut yourself up behind armor-plate, you shut your mind too. You advertise Guardian traps on your show, don’t you—those steel bands spiked like an Iron Maiden? What’s the mentality of someone who’s prepared to come home from visiting neighbors and find a corpse hung up in the doorway? I say he’s already insane when he commits himself to that course of action, and you don’t have to wait for him to lose his marbles under an overdose of Ladromide before he stops thinking as a responsible mature person ought to! And what’s the reason that’s advanced for acting this way?” He rounded on Reedeth. “You know! You probably have it dinned into you a dozen times a day at your work! ‘Be an individual!’” Conroy contrived to make the slogan sound obscene. “And what’s this been twisted into? The biggest Big Lie in history! It’s no use making your life so private you refuse to learn from other people’s experience—you just get stuck in a groove of mistakes you need never have made. We have more knowledge available at the turn of a switch than ever before, we can bring any part of the world into our own homes, and what do we do with it? Half the time we advertise goods people can’t afford, and anyhow they’ve got the color and hold controls adrift because the pretty patterns are fun to look at when you’ve bolted and barred your mind with drugs. Split! Divide! Separate! Shut your eyes and maybe it’ll go away! “We mine our gardens, we close our frontiers, we barricade our cities with Macnamara lines to shut off black from white, we divide, divide, divide!” A stamp emphasized each repetition of the word. “It gets into our families, goddamn it, it gets into our very love-making! Christ, do you know I had a girl student last year who thought she was having an affair with a boy back home and all they’d ever done was sit in front of the comweb and masturbate at each other? Twenty miles apart! They’d never even kissed! We’re going insane, our whole blasted species—we’re heading for screaming ochlophobia! Another couple of generations and husbands will be afraid to be alone in the same room with their wives, mothers will be afraid of their babies, if there are any babies!

Maria was that spicy Korean dish you knew would make your entire face sweat, but you ate it anyway because it was too delicious to pass up. The woman was sure to make my life difficult in every way, but the tiny taste of sweet submission she handed over was enough to keep me from walking away. There was a split second during the kiss when her spine melted into my hold. I was suddenly a man stranded in the desert, given a teasing taste of life-saving water.

Several great men living in the last of the nineteenth and first of the twentieth century saw the splitting up of personality which was occurring. Henrik Ibsen in literature realized what was happening, Paul Cézanne in art, and Sigmund Freud in the science of human nature. Each of these men proclaimed that we must find a new unity for our lives. Ibsen showed in his play A Doll’s House that if the husband simply goes off to business, keeping his work and his family in different compartments like a good nineteenth-century banker, and treats his wife as a doll, the house will collapse. Cézanne attacked the artificial and sentimental art of the nineteenth century and showed that art must deal with the honest realities of life, and that beauty has more to do with integrity than with prettiness. Freud pointed out that if people repress their emotions and try to act as if sex and anger did not exist, they end up neurotic. And he worked out a new technique for bringing out the deeper, unconscious, “irrational” levels in personality which had been suppressed, thus helping the person to become a thinking-feeling-willing unity.

Money, money, what have you done? You’ve split up a family that lived as one.

We like to go back and interview the people the suspect may have talked to. It doesn’t have to be a woman or a boyfriend or girlfriend; it could be like a good friend of theirs or a family member that they split up with. We get a lot of information by going back to people.

The Time Line is great for getting things into perspective when you feel a bit lost and lacking direction or if you have a big change coming up such as moving to secondary school, your parents splitting up or having a new family arrangement. When you experience grief or loss, whether that is for a person or a part of your life such as leaving your Primary School, you can travel back along the time line, identify which skills you need from your old life, anchor them and bring them into the present as you move forward to Secondary School. Once you’ve done the Time Line a few times it will be in your head and you can conjure up the image and the steps without moving. This can be useful in situations when you can’t actually move physically, in class for instance.

Conforming means “don’t make waves” or “don’t rock the boat.” Be a nice gal or a good ol’ boy. This means we have to pretend a lot. From Bradshaw On: The Family: We are taught to be nice and polite. We are taught that these behaviors (most often lies) are better than telling the truth. Our churches, schools and politics are rampant with teaching dishonesty (saying things we don’t mean and pretending to feel ways we don’t feel). We smile when we feel sad, laugh nervously when dealing with grief, laugh at jokes we don’t think are funny, tell people things to be polite that we surely don’t mean. Playing roles and acting are forms of lying. If people act like they really feel and it rocks the boat, they are ostracized. We promote pretense and lying as a cultural way of life. Living this way causes an inner split. It teaches us to hide and cover up our toxic shame. This sends us deeper into isolation and loneliness.

It was very hard for him to admit it to himself, but having her around had brought him a strange comfort, and he had no idea why. Looking out for her made him feel better somehow. Making sure she was fed and protected against danger—that seemed to work for him, too. It was a lot of trouble, actually. If she hadn’t been around, he wouldn’t go to as much bother with meals. Three out of four nights he’d just open a can of something, but because she’d been sick and needed a hot meal he’d put his best foot forward. Plus, she needed to put on another few pounds. He had spent a lot of time wondering if searching for him, sleeping in her car and probably skipping meals had made her thin and weak. Knowing she was going to be there when he got home, pestering and bothering him, made him hurry a little bit through his work, his chores. He couldn’t figure out why—he was damn sure not going to go over all that old business about the war, about Bobby. Just thinking about that stuff put a boulder in his gut and made his head ache. And yet, he had a ridiculous fear that this phone call to her sister would result in her saying, “I have to go home now.” But there was no use worrying about it—she’s going to leave soon no matter what the sister says. It’s not as though she’d camp out in his cabin through the holidays—she had people at home. Never mind her grousing about her sister, at least she had a sister who loved her, cared about her. And what had she said when she asked for a ride to town? Just a little while longer… It was the first relationship he’d had in about four years. Old Raleigh didn’t count—that had been pure servitude. If the man hadn’t left him part of a mountain, Ian would never have suspected Raleigh was even slightly grateful for the caretaking in the last months. Ian saw people regularly—he worked for the moving company when the weather was good, had his firewood route, went places like the library, had a meal out now and then. People were nice to him, and he was cordial in return. But he never got close; there had been no relationships. No one poked at him like she did, making him smile in spite of himself. That business with the puma—her opening the outhouse door and yelling at him like that—he knew what that was about. She was afraid he’d get hurt by the cat and risked her own skin to warn him. Been a long damn time since he felt anyone really cared about him at all. Maybe that was it, he thought. Marcie thinks she cares, and it’s because I was important to Bobby. If we’d just met somehow, it wouldn’t be like this. But that didn’t matter to him right now. He liked the feeling, alien though it was. He’d be back for her in two and a half hours and while he was delivering a half a cord to some dentist in Fortuna he’d watch the time so he wouldn’t be late getting back to pick her up. And with every split log he stacked, he’d be hoping her family wouldn’t find a way to get her home right away. *

Although "What's the meaning of life?" can be interpreted in many different ways, some of which may be too vague to have a well-defined answer, one interpretation is very practical and down-to-Earth: "Why should I want to go on living?" The people I know who feel that their lives are meaningful usually feel happy to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day ahead. When I think about these people, it strikes me that they split into two broad groups based on where they find their happiness and meaning. In other words, the problem of meaning seems to have two separate solutions, each of which works quite well for at least some people. I think of these solutions as "top-down" and "bottom-up." In the top-down approach, the fulfillment comes from the top, from the big picture. Although life here and now may be unfulfilling, it has meaning by virtue of being part of something greater and more meaningful. Many religions embody such a message, as do families, organizations and societies where individuals are made to feel part of something grander and more meaningful that transcends individuality. In the bottom-up approach, the fulfillment comes from the little things here and now. If we seize the moment and get the fulfillment we need from the beauty of those little flowers by the roadside, from helping a friend or from meeting the gaze of a newborn child, then we can feel grateful to be alive even if the big picture involves less-cheerful elements such as Earth getting vaporized by our dying Sun and our Universe ultimately getting destroyed. For me personally, the bottom-up approach provides more than enough of a raison d'etre, and the top-down elements I'm about to argue for simply feel like an additional bonus. For starters, I find it utterly remarkable that it's possible for a bunch of particles to be self-aware, and that this particular bunch that's Max Tegmark has had the fortune to get the food, shelter and leisure time to marvel at the surrounding universe leaves me grateful beyond words.

Mother Mary wants to draft two more kids,” Astrid told Sam. “Okay. Approved.” “Dahra says we’re running low on kids’ Tylenol and kids’ Advil, she wants to make sure it’s okay to start giving them split adult pills.” Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “What?” “We’re running low on kid pills, Dahra wants to split adult pills.” Sam rocked back in the leather chair designed for a grown man. “Okay. Whatever. Approved.” He took a sip of water from a bottle. The wrapper on the bottle said “Dasani” but it was tap water. The dishes from dinner—horrible homemade split-pea soup that smelled burned, and a quarter cabbage each—had been pushed aside onto the sideboard where in the old days the mayor of Perdido Beach had kept framed pictures of his family. It was one of the better meals Sam had had lately. The fresh cabbage tasted surprisingly good. There was little more than smears on the plates: the era of kids not eating everything was over. Astrid puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Kids are asking why Lana isn’t around when they need her.” “I can only ask Lana to heal big things. I can’t demand she be around 24/7 to handle every boo-boo.” Astrid looked at the list she had compiled on her laptop. “Actually, I think this involved a stubbed toe that ‘hurted.’” “How much more is on the list?” Sam asked. “Three hundred and five items,” Astrid said. When Sam’s face went pale, she relented. “Okay, it’s actually just thirty-two. Now, don’t you feel relieved it’s not really three hundred?” “This is crazy,” Sam said. “Next up: the Judsons and the McHanrahans are fighting because they share a dog, so both families are feeding her—they still have a big bag of dry dog food—but the Judsons are calling her Sweetie and the McHanrahans are calling her BooBoo.” “You’re kidding.” “I’m not kidding,” Astrid said. “What is that noise?” Sam demanded. Astrid shrugged. “I guess someone has their stereo cranked up.” “This is not going to work, Astrid.” “The music?” “This. This thing where every day I have a hundred stupid questions I have to decide. Like I’m everyone’s parent now. I’m sitting here listening to how little kids are complaining because their older sisters make them take a bath, and stepping into fights over who owns which Build-A-Bear outfit, and now over dog names. Dog names?” “They’re all still just little kids,” Astrid said. “Some of these kids are developing powers that scare me,” Sam grumbled. “But they can’t decide who gets to have which special towel? Or whether to watch The Little Mermaid or Shrek Three?” “No,” Astrid said. “They can’t. They need a parent. That’s you.

By 1971, a quarter of the white students were in private schools, the white families paying tuition many could scarcely afford. Mothers went back to work to help cover tuition, “spent all their savings and forfeited luxuries and necessities in life,” some splitting their children up and enduring the “expense and inconvenience of transporting the children long distances to and from school,” according to the Mississippi-born scholar Mark Lowry, to avoid having their children sit in the same classroom with black children. In

Our little friend, dat’s who. Now, we gonna split up. Half gonna go one way, half another. Fifty-fifty which boat dat t’ing comes after. Guns or not, my money’s on dat t’ing at this point. Dennis, you no safer in one boat den da other. In da end, you gotta make a choice; you gotta make da right choice. You know what I’m telling you, LeFleur?" Dennis remained silent. He could see what the man was getting at, but didn’t like it all the same. "You do what’s right for Frank," Nick said. "What’s right for Kirk. Mostly, you do what’s right for you. True, you go back, you just might make it. Might. But then what? You have to live with your decision every day after that. You remember that family back at Bayou Noir? Think about why they didn’t go up in that attic. Fear. Fear and shame. Think about why that thing was up there in the first place. Fear and shame. You get back home, maybe you’ll no longer be afraid, but the shame will cling to you forever. You want that, LeFleur? You think you can live like that? The choice is yours." "Cap’n, put down that shotgun. Joseph, you, too. It’s time for the man to make his own decision, like a man should. It’s time we all respected that decision, like men should. It’s time we stopped acting like a bunch of whining children and got back to the business at hand. Y’all be quick about it, or Kirk’s a goner. Same for the rest of us." Silence

America was embarking on a decade-long crisis of faith, principles, and identity. Long-cherished notions of what was right and what was wrong were being challenged. Ideas about family, race, patriotism, even God—all were up for reconsideration. Not surprisingly, Marlon was in the midst of it. Just as he had personified the cultural moment of the 1950s, when views of masculinity, gender, power, and sexuality were in flux, now he was at the forefront of a movement asking Americans to reconsider their moral priorities. The country was split. Although polls showed a slim majority opposing capital punishment, the minority opinion was loud and emphatic, and it let Marlon know how it felt.

1973 was the year when the United Kingdom entered the European Economic Union, the year when Watergate helped us with a name for all future scandals, Carly Simon began the year at number one with ‘You’re So Vain’, John Tavener premiered his Variations on ‘Three Blind Mice’ for orchestra, the year when The Godfather won Best Picture Oscar, when the Bond film was Live and Let Die, when Perry Henzell’s film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff, opened, when Sofia Gubaidulina’s Roses for piano and soprano premiered in Moscow, when David Bowie was Aladdin Sane, Lou Reed walked on the wild side and made up a ‘Berlin’, Slade were feeling the noize, Dobie Gray was drifting away, Bruce Springsteen was ‘Blinded by the Light’, Tom Waits was calling ‘Closing Time’, Bob Dylan was ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, Sly and the Family Stone were ‘Fresh’, Queen recorded their first radio session for John Peel, when Marvin Gaye sang ‘What’s Going On’ and Ann Peebles’s ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’, when Morton Feldman’s Voices and Instruments II for three female voices, flute, two cellos and bass, Alfred Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style for violin and piano and Iannis Xenakis’s Eridanos for brass and strings premiered, when Ian Carr’s Nucleus released two albums refining their tangy English survey of the current jazz-rock mind of Miles Davis, when Ornette Coleman started recording again after a five-year pause, making a field recording in Morocco with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, when Stevie Wonder reached No. 1 with ‘Superstition’ and ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’, when Free, Family and the Byrds played their last show, 10cc played their first, the Everly Brothers split up, Gram Parsons died, and DJ Kool Herc DJed his first block party for his sister’s birthday in the Bronx, New York, where he mixed instrumental sections of two copies of the same record using two turntables.

There is a pause. I shuffle from foot to foot and then I hear the chain unlatch and the door open and I put my foot right there, in the gap and I leave it there and I look up and there is Phin looking down at me and I see it, the split second that he goes from thinking I am Jeff from upstairs to knowing that I am Henry from his nightmares, but it is too late, because I am in his apartment and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

He was pro-abortion; he told me that Planned Parenthood was the way poor people paid for contraception. He didn’t care about religion. Homosexuals, divorce, the break-up of the nuclear family—he’d say whatever they wanted to hear, and they’d hear what they wanted to hear. This was the moment, for me: the split second when I knew Trump would be president one day.

Freud can help here. He reminds us that what the psyche cannot handle, the mind represses. In a world where one does not exist, being ignored and, at the same time, being the subject of daily acts of violence, is difficult if not impossible. The mind, or rather the psyche, represses the reality of what is happening in order to survive. Furthermore, one’s psyche may also repress the truth that one is working-class in order to survive. The working-class artist who trades in her past, her history, family, community, and self for a sleeker, more palatable version of herself, who tries to pass as middle-class (or upper-middle class in Anthony’s case), is only doing what culture and society tells her to do. Neoliberalism assures us that we are all born equal, each of us with the same access to material, cultural, and social capital — and that there are no social classes. To insist otherwise is to appear ungrateful, negative, depressing, and often mentally ill. Indeed, to blame one’s inability to “succeed” in neoliberal society (to blame systemic forces rather than one’s own personal failure) is to set one’s self outside the all-pervasive neoliberal system. Pointing out the unfairness of the system, is, in a sense, a form of giving up and dropping out of the game. The “boot-straps” trope is just that — a trope, a lie. And yet it’s what most people still believe. This splitting of the self speaks to the contradictory nature of this book and its subject.

There was only dust and the brown hen busily cracking open the death mask. The spell works. It worked for a thousand years. My descendants are strong and they have endured. I will not allow you to break it. “You are dead,” said the dust-wife coldly. “Your time to control your family is done.” The demon hen cackled as chips flew from the broken mask. “They cannot live in your shadow any longer.” The king gathered himself. It felt as if the tomb were breathing in. The painted warriors lifted their swords and the archers let fly their arrows, aiming at the dust-wife. They were trapped in the wall and it should not have been possible for them to reach her, and yet for a moment it seemed as if she would be drawn into the wall, as if the arrows must reach her. Moonlight flashed as she held up her staff and the painted arrows fell apart into scattered pigment across the floor. I will not bend! hisses the dead king, rising from his throne. “Then you will break,” said the dust-wife, and slammed her staff against the painted wall. It sounded like a thunderclap in that small room. The moonlight went out. Something metallic hit the floor. For a second time, Marra stood in complete and utter darkness. She heard Bonedog’s ghostly whimper and then Fenris fumbling with his tinderbox. “Candle…” he muttered next to her. “Candle, candle. Where is—Aha!” Light flared. The dust-wife was lying half-sprawled across the sarcophagus, her hair wild around her shoulders. She pushed herself up, looking annoyed. The brown hen stood on the death mask, which had split in two, looking serene as only a chicken can look. As Marra watched, the hen lifted her tail, voided her bowels on the king’s broken face, and then strolled to the dust-wife’s shoulder with a satisfied cluck.

As the child grows up, he realizes that everyone around him suffers from flaws, and he is often greatly disappointed (there’s that word again) by the discovery. If he never matures further, he goes through life feeling frustrated and let down that friends, family, and public figures do not live up to who and what he believes they should be to him. If he does mature, he comes to realize that other people’s flaws are often inextricably connected to virtues — that each represents different sides of the very same coin. The same energy that causes someone to be flaky, flighty, moody, or demanding, may also be what respectively makes them creative, adventurous, empathetic, or high-achieving. The mature come to realize that you can’t pick up one end of the stick of a person’s personality, without picking up the other — that what you most dislike about someone is frequently tied to what you most love. One can even come to exercise patience with those flaws in another which aren’t even connected to his or her virtues. As C.S. Lewis writes, the mature come to realize that it’s possible to love someone who’s damaged, since that’s exactly how you love yourself: “I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions but not hate the bad man . . . I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life — namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it.

Bruce started shaking. He looked scared for a split second before his eyes crossed and he yowled as he let out the loudest fart ever. A green cloud shot out over a patch of chorus plants, and they all exploded, tumbling down to the ground. Bruce turned around, startled by the sound of his own gas, and got a face full of it. His eyes crossed again, and he fainted, all four legs straight up in the air.

That proved to be a good idea, because Bruce started shaking. He looked scared for a split second before his eyes crossed and he yowled as he let out the loudest fart ever. A green cloud shot out over a patch of chorus plants, and they all exploded, tumbling down to the ground. Bruce turned around, startled by the sound of his own gas, and got a face full of it. His eyes crossed again, and he fainted, all four legs straight up in the air.

The last decade has filled so many of us with a growing sense of unreality. We seem trapped in a grind of constant change without ever getting the chance to integrate it. Those rolling news cycles, the chatter on social media, the way that our families have split along partisan lines: it feels as though we've undergone a halving, then a quartering, and now we are some kind of social rubble. If there were a spirit of this age, it would look a lot like fear. For years now we've been running like rabbits. We glimpse a flas hof white tail, read the danger signal, and run, flashing our own white tail behind us. It's a chain reaction, a river of terror surging incoherently onwards, gathering up other wild, alert bodies who in turn signal their own danger. There is no one predator from which to escape; there are many. We are in the business of running now. It is all so urgent. Every year, it seems we must run harder. There is no other solution. We can only run, and panic, and chatter out our fears to others, who will mirror them back to us.

The history of Ba Ga Mohlala in Schoonoord, most of it, is violent and written in blood. Many people were killed, and assassinated by their own people and also in tribal wars.   Ba Ga Mohlala in Schoonoord have not known peace, both internal, and external for centuries. Today they are split and divided than ever before and there are more hostilities between families. Most of this is because of their stubborn nature and the fact that they were warriors who affectionately loved war and spent most part of their lives as warriors. Segodi Sekgekge and his son Hlong Dinake spent their entire lives up to their old ages as warriors. Dispite all the infighting and killings, no outside enemy can infiltrate Ba Ga Mohlala in in Schoonoord. They always had, still have unity of purpose. If one of them is attacked by an outside person or enemy, or they want to achieve something, they always, and will always put their differences apart and fight the enemy or execute a project together, united.

along with the whole Royal Family Tribe of Judah theme, guess what the name of the new split kingdom of Judah was called? Time’s up: The United Kingdom! That’s right, they called it the UK! You just can’t make this stuff up.

All the imaginaries of breakup are fading. Children finding it impossible to leave their families. It's the same with couples. They no longer split up. Why bother? Things are just the same everywhere else. You just negotiate your mutual indifference. It's the same with the political situation. Whatever the government, no one's keen to change it, since every alternative illusion is dead. Thus the politi cal relationship has got itself into the same conjugal neurosis as the couple or the rising generation. The price to be paid is that of a low intensity, a scaled-down demand, an air-conditioned intelligence which allows us never to cross the threshold of breakup.

I mean, am I right, people?” their father said. “It’s awful, isn’t it?” A woman in the front of the crowd turned around and hissed, “Be quiet! Just be quiet.” At this moment, from the opposite direction, they heard their mother say, “He’s right. These kids are terrible. Boo! Learn to play your instruments. Boo!” Annie began to cry and Buster was frowning with such force that his entire face hurt. Though they had been expecting their parents to do this, it was the whole point of the performance, after all, it was not difficult for them to pretend to be hurt and embarrassed. “Would you shut the hell up?” someone yelled out, though it wasn’t clear if this was directed at the hecklers or the kids. “Keep playing, children,” someone else said. “Don’t quit your day jobs,” a voice called out, one that was not their parents’, and this caused another shout of encouragement from the audience. By the time Annie and Buster had finished the song, the crowd was almost equally split into two factions, those who wanted to save Mr. Cornelius and those who were complete and total assholes. Mr. and Mrs. Fang had warned the children that this would happen. “Even awful people can be polite for a few minutes,” their father told them. “Any longer than that and they revert to the bastards they really are.” With the crowd still arguing and no more songs left to play on the set list, Annie and Buster simply began to scream as loudly as they could, attacking their instruments with such violence that two strings on Annie’s guitar snapped and Buster had toppled the cymbal and was now kicking it with his left foot. Money was being tossed in their direction, scattering at their feet, but it was unclear if this was from people who were being nice or people who hated them. Finally, their father shouted, “I hope your dog dies,

Human labour power is a unique commodity in that it produces surplus value – the amount of value that goes to the capitalist after the worker has been ‘paid’ for the part of the day that equates to the amount they and their family need to live on. The working day is split into two parts: necessary labour time and surplus labour time. Necessary labour time is the time it takes the worker (on average) to produce enough value to buy the commodities they need to reproduce themselves, ie to stay what is socially considered healthy enough to continue working. Surplus labour time is the time the worker works beyond necessary labour time. Since the going rate for labour power is necessary labour time, surplus labour time is surplus value that goes to the capitalist, realised through the sale of the commodities workers produce. For example: a worker in a toy factory is paid £10 a day to work 10 hours; she produces 10 toys a day, and a toy is worth £10 each. The capitalist is only paying the worker for her ability to work one hour each day to produce enough value to reproduce herself (one toy = one hour’s labour = £10). Her necessary labour time is one hour, and her surplus labour time that goes to the capitalist is nine hours. If the worker needs £10 a day to reproduce herself, then that £10 is the value of her labour power. If the capitalist cuts the daily wage below £10, he has pushed the wage below the value of labour power. (Indeed, struggles for better wages are usually struggles to push them back up to the proper value of labour power.) The price of labour power is determined like the price of any other commodity – on average, the cost of its production, ie necessary labour time. But if commodities are sold for the cost of their production then how does the capitalist make any profit? The capitalist purchases the worker’s human labour power  – the ability to work –  but, uniquely, always ends up with more than the amount it cost to purchase the commodity. The wage obscures the fact that the capitalist has only paid for necessary labour time. (Marx calls the social relations that are concealed by economic relations commodity fetishism.) Profit then is essentially unpaid labour. Wage labour is – especially for the poorest workers whose daily subsistence depends exclusively on the sale of their labour-power – wage-slavery. Marx’s investigations led him to realise that his analysis of capitalism must start with the commodity, since capitalism “presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities”.[66] What all commodities have in common is that they are all exchangeable  –  they all possess exchange-value. And as they are all products of labour, what they all have in common which gives them this exchange-value is general human labour in the abstract. Therefore, the total value of all commodities is determined by total socially necessary labour time – how long they took to produce. (The socially necessary labour time of each finished product includes that of each component that goes into it.)

If two white parents had a child and the government decided that child was too dark, even if both parents produced documentation proving they were white, the child could be classified as colored, and the family had to make a decision. Do they give up their white status to go and live as colored people in a colored area? Or would they split up, the mother taking the colored child to live in the ghetto while the father stayed white to make a living to support them?

No. I wouldn’t see what Mary saw until I’d been witness to the untimely decline of a generation of colleagues exhausted by the demands of jobs that never paid them enough, drowning in debt to care for children riddled with disorders that couldn’t be cured; and the cousins—and the best friend from high school—who ended up in shelters or on the street, tossed out of houses they could no longer afford; and until the near-dozen suicides and overdoses of fortysomething childhood classmates in a mere space of three years; and the friends and family medicated for despair, anxiety, lack of affect, insomnia, sexual dysfunction; and the premature cancers brought on by the chemical shortcuts for everything from the food moving through our irritable bowels to the lotions applied to our sun-poisoned skins. I wouldn’t see it until our private lives had consumed the public space, then been codified, foreclosed, and put up for auction; until the devices that enslave our minds had filled us with the toxic flotsam of a culture no longer worthy of the name; until the bright pliancy of human sentience—attention itself—had become the world’s most prized commodity, the very movements of our minds transformed into streams of unceasing revenue for someone, somewhere. I wouldn’t see it clearly until the American Self had fully mastered the plunder, idealized and legislated the splitting of the spoils, and brought to near completion the wholesale pillage not only of the so-called colony—how provincial a locution that seems now!—but also of the very world itself. In short, I wouldn’t see what she saw back then until I’d failed at trying to see it otherwise, until I’d ceased believing in the lie of my own redemption, until the suffering of others aroused in me a starker, clearer cry than any anthem to my own longing.

We Called Him Monsieur R. Dovid Aaron Neuman currently lives with his family in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He was interviewed in November, 2013, and shared the following remarkable story which happened during the war. “...In the midst of all this chaos and upheaval, my family was forced to split up.... I was sent to an orphanage in Marseilles. The orphanage housed some forty or maybe fifty children, many of them as young as three and four years old. Some of them knew that their parents had been killed; others didn’t know what became of them. Often, you would hear children crying, calling out for their parents who were not there to answer. As the days wore on, the situation grew more and more desperate, and food became more and more scarce. Many a day we went hungry. “And then, in the beginning of the summer of 1941, a man came to the rescue. We did not know his name; we just called him “Monsieur,” which is French for “Mister.” Every day, Monsieur would arrive with bags of bread—the long French baguettes—and tuna or sardines, sometimes potatoes as well. He would stay until every child had eaten. Some of the kids were so despondent that they didn’t want to eat. He used to put those children on his lap, tell them a story, sing to them, and feed them by hand. He made sure everyone was fed. With some of the kids, he’d sit next to them on the floor and cajole them to eat, even feeding them with a spoon, if need be. He was like a father to these sad little children. He knew every child by name, even though we didn’t know his. We loved him and looked forward to his coming. Monsieur came back day after day for several weeks. And I would say that many of the children who lived in the orphanage at that time owe their lives to him. If not for him, I, for one, wouldn’t be here. Eventually the war ended, and I was reunited with my family. We left Europe and began our lives anew. In 1957, I came to live in New York, and that’s when my uncle suggested that I meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Of course I agreed and scheduled a time for an audience with the Rebbe’s secretary. At the appointed date, I came to the Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway and sat down to wait. I read some Psalms and watched the parade of men and women from all walks of life who had come to see the Rebbe. Finally, I was told it was my turn, and I walked into the Rebbe’s office. He was smiling, and immediately greeted me: “Dos iz Dovidele!—It’s Dovidele!” I thought, “How does he know my name?” And then I nearly fainted. I was looking at Monsieur. The Rebbe was Monsieur! And he had recognized me before I had recognized him.

Muawiyah broke from the traditions of the Rashidun by declaring that not only was he Caliph but that the position would be passed down within his family. In this way, the last egalitarian elements of the government were abolished and a new dynasty - the Umayyads - was established.  The Umayyads would rule for roughly 90 years, and much of their state policy was conditioned by the Fitna, which included requiring all mosques to ritually "Curse" the name of Ali during Friday prayers for 60 years[17].  As a result, the Shia became a persecuted group with hidden followers scattered across the Islamic world, but they were mostly concentrated in Ali's old heartland of Iraq.  The tomb of Ali in the Iraqi city of Najaf would become a center for pilgrimage, and the legend of Ali as a true Islamic ruler who was noble, just and forgiving would be taken up by Sunni and Shia alike.  The weekly Cursing in the end only reinforced the pettiness and weakness of the Umayyads.

A critical time in Dahmer’s life often mentioned by family, high school acquaintances, and others who studied his upbringing was when his parents split up and divorced. Kennedy explained that when Dahmer was eighteen and living at the house in Bath, his father had moved out and already lived with his girlfriend, who later became his wife and Dahmer’s stepmother. His mother decided to leave Ohio and took Dahmer’s younger brother David with her. Because relations between Dahmer’s parents were strained, it seemed that each came and went without notifying the other of their plans. Dahmer was still completing his final year of high school, so he remained in Ohio. Dahmer was left in the family home alone for an extended period of time, and during this time, he committed his first murder. Much has been made of this period of so-called abandonment when Dahmer was on his own, but Kennedy said he never really bought it. “He was eighteen years old, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t like he was a little kid unable to fend for himself.

I have a complicated spiritual history. Here's the short version: I was born into a Mass-going Roman Catholic family, but my parents left the church when I was in the fifth grade and joined a Southern Baptist church—yes, in Connecticut. I am an alumnus of Wheaton College—Billy Graham's alma mater in Illinois, not the Seven Sisters school in Massachusetts—and the summer between my junior and senior year of (Christian) high school, I spent a couple of months on a missions trip performing in whiteface as a mime-for-the-Lord on the streets of London's West End. Once I left home for Wheaton, I ended up worshiping variously (and when I could haul my lazy tuckus out of bed) at the nondenominational Bible church next to the college, a Christian hippie commune in inner-city Chicago left over from the Jesus Freak movement of the 1960s, and an artsy-fartsy suburban Episcopal parish that ended up splitting over same-sex issues. My husband of more than a decade likes to describe himself as a “collapsed Catholic,” and for more than twenty-five years, I have been a born-again Christian. Groan, I know. But there's really no better term in the current popular lexicon to describe my seminal spiritual experience. It happened in the summer of 1980 when I was about to turn ten years old. My parents had both had born-again experiences themselves about six months earlier, shortly before our family left the Catholic church—much to the shock and dismay of the rest of our extended Irish and/or Italian Catholic family—and started worshiping in a rented public grade school gymnasium with the Southern Baptists. My mother had told me all about what she'd experienced with God and how I needed to give my heart to Jesus so I could spend eternity with him in heaven and not frying in hell. I was an intellectually stubborn and precocious child, so I didn't just kneel down with her and pray the first time she told me about what was going on with her and Daddy and Jesus. If something similar was going to happen to me, it was going to happen in my own sweet time. A few months into our family's new spiritual adventure, after hearing many lectures from Mom and sitting through any number of sermons at the Baptist church—each ending with an altar call and an invitation to make Jesus the Lord of my life—I got up from bed late one Sunday night and went downstairs to the den where my mother was watching television. I couldn't sleep, which was unusual for me as a child. I was a champion snoozer. In hindsight I realize something must have been troubling my spirit. Mom went into the kitchen for a cup of tea and left me alone with the television, which she had tuned to a church service. I don't remember exactly what the preacher said in his impassioned, sweaty sermon, but I do recall three things crystal clearly: The preacher was Jimmy Swaggart; he gave an altar call, inviting the folks in the congregation in front of him and at home in TV land to pray a simple prayer asking Jesus to come into their hearts; and that I prayed that prayer then and there, alone in the den in front of the idiot box. Seriously. That is precisely how I got “saved.” Alone. Watching Jimmy Swaggart on late-night TV. I also spent a painful vacation with my family one summer at Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Heritage USA Christian theme park in South Carolina. But that's a whole other book…

I’ve been thinking about the fact that families split apart over one thing, but the thing that keeps them apart is something else entirely. Toss in guilt and shame and then the years stack up like bricks in a wall you can’t climb over.

What about your parents? Where are they? Dead or something?” “Yeah.” “Oh my god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” I hold up a hand to stop her apology. “It’s okay. My mom died of ovarian cancer when I was a baby. I don’t remember her. And I never knew my dad. He didn’t stick around.” Uncle Paul says my dad split 2 seconds after the pregnancy test came back positive, and that it was a good decision for all of us—especially me. Windy’s eyebrows lift high on her face, and her lips turn down. “Lucy, I’m so sorry. You’re like an orphan.” I laugh. “Stop. Please. I’m not an orphan.” I’ve thought of myself as a genius, a savant, and a freak, but never an orphan. Nana has always been there, and Uncle Paul, too. “I’m fine. I don’t need you to collect canned goods for me or give me a coat for winter. I have a family.

eighty feet away. But the assailants keep coming up. Not in a rush, as on a battle plain of old, but almost casually. Now thumping on a barrel drum slung on someone’s hip, to drive the warriors forward, to terrify the foreigners further. Severin and Snapper wave their arms behind them, signaling to Melena, Nanny, Boozy, to anyone else in the party, that they should fall back, escape into the undergrowth. Even if the missionaries aren’t totally defenseless. Frex harbors a gun. But it’s locked in his minister’s chest along with other tools of the trade, the unguents, blessed stones, water, and sacred texts. Frex has the key. Frex has the key to everything. Frex is not here. Something, then, something like this: —What for, what can you want, these strange strangers that I guide are already breaking up camp, they’re moving. (This is Severin, his voice more high-pitched than usual, while trying to project sobriety and calm.) —Clear off, we take what we need, save yourself. (The boss of the avengers, answering Severin.) —You don’t touch them, you leave them alone. —It’s that woman’s family who murdered Turtle Heart, our ambassador. Yes, that woman. The hysteric. Can you get her to shut up? We’d rather not kill her entirely but mercy, the noise. —Maybe her family did it but she didn’t. She had nothing to do with whatever happened to your Turtle Heart. —These people are the advance edge, the chisel point that splits the stone. It’s all too clear. This is our answer to the entrepreneurs: we will not yield. The overlords are coming for rubies, they are coming to rule. They will overset the waterlands. I’m not talking to you, you toady. Out, men, spread out, up to the bulrushes there and the water wheat over there, left and right. [no ornament] The men run, separating themselves one from the other like players on a field, a pinching strategy. Melena whirls, for once without worrying whether she is spinning attractively or awkwardly. “The baby! And Elphie!” she cries. “Nanny, get Nessa!

If no black boys were murdered we would have voices that speak in song and the music we’d make would birth storms We all can walk on water as long as we never said no anti-black shit If we lit a candle for every pain hurled towards the trans community whole planets would be up in smoke If we planted a tree for every word against women the ground would lose sight of the sun A dead child’s name at the top of your lungs like an earth-splitting lightning rod has the power to remember them back One in three black girls learn to swim by being chased away from the shallow end of a brown community pool Two out of five black families know death as that play cousin who sleeps over under comforters on the living room floor

That’s my girl,” Brio said, making my head shoot up to find him standing in the doorway with several men behind him, his face split into a giant grin at what he was seeing. Well, of course he would like seeing me being a psycho. Being one himself. And it was right that moment, dripping with another man’s blood, that I was sure I loved his crazy ass.

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