Finally Friday Quotes

Jeff, I have a problem.” “I’m glad you’ve finally realized I’m your answer, Merit.

Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall without getting lost once.

Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Friday is a purple-velvet-sofa day for some poor woman who's finally reclaimed her life. A purple velvet sofa is a gal's symbol of freedom.

But no matter what happens, the earth keeps turning. Monday always comes and eventually, sometimes excruciatingly slowly, that Monday is followed by a Friday. You take tests, hand in papers you wrote at two in the morning the day they were due, and your shoes get worn out, and the pollen in the air increases so that you go through an entire package of tissues during the SATs, and you wander through the crowds at parties looking for Natalie Banks because you came with her, and you watch her take off for the backyard with a senior who seems to be in the backyard with a different girl at every party, and you learn to play chess with your dad, and you eat too much ice cream, and your favorite television drama has its two-hour season finale, and then suddenly the school year ends and you pack your bags for Tennessee.

I came home to find three rocks on my desk and a card with a penguin on the front. Seeing it was from Greg, I did a little happy dance as I bounced into my room, reading his inscription. Dearest Fiona, I’m missing you dreadfully. It’s been an age, I don’t think you’ll recognize me when next we meet. I’ve put on ten stone and lost all my hair. And an eye. I hope you fancy a fat bald man with an eye patch. Come out with me on Friday. Finals will finally be over and it’ll be time to celebrate. I’ll pick you up at four. We’ll do a first date do-over, eat at Manganiello’s again, plus a new, improved surprise. Also, FYI: Gentoo penguins mate for life. Whereas Adélie penguins prostitute themselves for rocks. I’d like to be your Gentoo penguin. -Greg P.S. Unless you’re open to a rock arrangement. If so, please find my first down payment enclosed.

Friday had always considered herself to be equal among her siblings, but by the time the ship finally came to rest in the harbor, she felt she had finally lived up to the Woodcutter name.

As I look across at the camera for the final time, I think back to Poirot’s last words to Hastings on Friday. ‘Cher ami,’ I said softly, as he was leaving Poirot to rest. That phrase meant an enormous amount to me, which is why I repeated it after he had shut the door behind him. But my second ‘cher ami’ in that scene was for someone other than Hastings. It was for my dear, dear friend Poirot. I was saying goodbye to him as well, and I felt it with all my heart.

Finally, FRIDAY! Be easy today! Remember, it's a job. I know it is how we eat and pay bills and provide health care to our family. But keep it in perspective; get there, do the best job you can, earn your check, and leave it at your desk at 5! Your REAL life begins when you end the workday. Save your emotional energy for that!!

You know, there was a time when I was willing to give up most of my life because I didn’t like it very much,” I finally said. “What do you mean?” “I used to sit at work on Monday mornings and wish I could fast forward the clock to quitting time on Friday. I was willing to give up five days of my life each week, just to get to the days I did like.

So what is their crime? Twofold: a) The Shipstone companies are guilty of supplying energy to the human race at prices below those of their competitors; b) They meanly and undemocratically decline to share their industrial secret of the final assembly stage of a Shipstone.

Friday looked up. She bit her lip. She didn’t want to say anything. She didn’t think she could without crying. But she had to say something. “Let’s make a pledge,” she finally blurted, “Four years from now, when we both finish school, we’ll meet right here.” “In the airport terminal?” asked Ian, looking about. It wasn’t a very glamorous location. “To do what?” “I don’t know…” said Friday, “Have an adventure?” “What sort of adventure,” asked Ian, smiling. “A mystery, of course,” said Friday.

Starting again: there's a secret hope that makes you hold on, to dream that you'll get it right someday, that you'll go back and take it up again and it will finally come out right. That this time all the pieces will fit. The mistake is waiting until you feel renewed enough to give it another try. You simply have to pick up the needles and keep at it anyway.

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln rose with great and unaccustomed cheer to greet the final day of his life.

He sighed again, but I couldn't see the fate of his dolphin logo person. I was completely fixated on his eyes. They're a pretty amazing combination of green and bronze. "I don't know what's going on, but it's weird, and it shouldn't be. I'm a decent guy." "Of course you are." I sighed. And caved. Apparently, my Phillite defenses were worthless around this particular specimen, no matter that he couldn't seem to make up his mind whether I was worth noticing or not. Truth: Yes,I am that naive. "Good.So.Friday after school. We can meet down here." I could just see Amanda's face when she caught us on our way into the dark depths of the school. "No." "Fine.Your house." "God,no!" "Do you make everything this complicated?" he asked. "No. Don't answer that. Would you come to my house?" That sounded doable.If we were at his place, I could leave whenever I wanted. "okay." As I watched, he did a slo-mo, surprisingly graceful flop onto the floor. "Finally!" I stepped over him and headed for the stairs.

It was Friday, so the farmers' market was in full autumnal swing, a sea of potted chrysanthemums and bushel after bushel of apples, pears, Fauvist gourds, and pumpkins with erotically fanciful stems. On one table stood galvanized buckets of the year's final roses; on another, skeins of yarn in muted, soulful purples and reds. Walter loved this part of the season- and not just because it was the time of year his restaurant flourished, when people felt the first yearnings to sit by a fire, to eat stew and bread pudding and meatloaf, drink cider and toddies and cocoa. He loved the season's transient intensity, its gaudy colors and tempestuous skies.

Each life lived eventually became a book. How a single letter becomes a word, becomes a sentence, becomes a paragraph, before finally becoming a chapter and on and on and on until cycle of life ends and the book has been written.

There is a feeling that I had Friday night after the homecoming game that I don't know if I will ever be able to describe except to say that it is warm. Sam and Patrick drove me to the party that night, and I sat in the middle of Sam's pickup truck. Sam loves her pick up truck because I think it reminds her of her dad.The feeling I had happened when Sam told Patrick to find a station on the radio. And kept getting commercials. And commercials. And a really bad song about love that had the word "baby" in it. And then more commercials. And finally he found this really amazing song about this boy, and we all got quiet. Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished I said something. "I feel infinite" And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was the greatest and we all paid attention to it.Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent,and we felt young in a good way. I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it is, but truthfully, it's not the same unless you're driving to your first real part, and you're sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain.

It had rained without a break since the middle of the afternoon, when the skies had finally started to clear. Ari Thór didn’t make a habit of going to the theatre, but still understood the excitement behind a good production. Tension in the air could sometimes be palpable, but never as overwhelming as it was that Friday evening in the Siglufjördur theatre. But this time there was no production taking place and the auditorium was empty. What he and Tómas – both of them on duty that night – could not avoid was the body. There was no doubt they were looking at a corpse; but Tómas still checked for a pulse

I’m known for smiling a lot. My brother, Paul, says I was born with my Happiness Meter set on 98. His was set on 10, but he’s working on it. My earliest baby pictures show me smiling. My mother says for the longest time she wondered if I was up to something, but she finally decided it was just my nature!

careful reconstruction of the British war-cabinet meetings between Friday, 24 May and Tuesday, 28 May, five days that could have changed the world. Lukac’s conclusion is inescapable: never was Hitler as close to total control over Western Europe as he was during that last week of May 1940. Britain almost presented him with a peace agreement which he would probably have accepted, and only one man was finally able to stand in the way: Churchill. Besides Churchill, the British war cabinet in those days had four other members, at least two of whom could be counted among the ‘appeasers’: Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. The other two, Clement Atlee and Arthur Greenwood (representing Labour), had no experience in government at that time. On

This was suburban Surrey, the land of the A and B social classes in the terminology of pollsters, where passports lay at the ready and Range Rovers stood in the driveway. Range Rovers? The only time they ever encountered mud was when being driven carelessly over front lawns late on a Friday night or when dropping off their little Johnnies and Emmas at their private schools.

At a quarter to twelve on that Friday, Patty Jefferson died. In the final moments, Jefferson’s sister Martha Carr had to help the grieving husband from his wife’s bedside.13 He was, his daughter recalled, “in a state of insensibility” when Mrs. Carr “with great difficulty, got him into the library, where he fainted”—and not for a brief moment. Jefferson “remained so long insensible that they feared he would never revive.” When he did come to, he was incoherent with grief, and perhaps surrendered to rage. There is a hint that he lost all control in the calamity of Patty’s death. According to his daughter Patsy, “The scene that followed I did not witness”—presumably “the scene” unfolded in the library when he revived—“but the violence of his emotion, when, almost by stealth, I entered his room by night, to this day I dare not describe to myself.”14 (Patsy was writing half a century later.) A

This twinned twinkle was delightful but not completely satisfying; or rather it only sharpened my appetite for other tidbits of light and shade, and I walked on in a state of raw awareness that seemed to transform the whole of my being into one big eyeball rolling in the world's socket. Through peacocked lashes I saw the dazzling diamond reflection of the low sun on the round back of a parked automobile. To all kinds of things a vivid pictorial sense had been restored by the sponge of the thaw. Water in overlapping festoons flowed down one sloping street and turned gracefully into another. With ever so slight a note of meretricious appeal, narrow passages between buildings revealed treasures of brick and purple. I remarked for the first time the humble fluting - last echoes of grooves on the shafts of columns - ornamenting a garbage can, and I also saw the rippling upon its lid - circles diverging from a fantastically ancient center. Erect, dark-headed shapes of dead snow (left by the blades of a bulldozer last Friday) were lined up like rudimentary penguins along the curbs, above the brilliant vibration of live gutters. I walked up, and I walked down, and I walked straight into a delicately dying sky, and finally the sequence of observed and observant things brought me, at my usual eating time, to a street so distant from my usual eating place that I decided to try a restaurant which stood on the fringe of the town. Night had fallen without sound or ceremony when I came out again. ("The Vane Sisters")

The wind was fair, and the small fleet hugged the shore, sailing past the Alvarado and the Banderas rivers, where Grijalva had traded beads for gold, past the Island of Sacrifices, where Grijalva’s men had seen the bloody altars, and finally anchored off the island of San Juan de Ulúa, in the harbor of present-day Veracruz, on Holy Thursday, 1519. On Good Friday, Cortés and his expedition disembarked, built a small camp, and made contact with the local Indians, members of a powerful nation called the Aztecs.

Henri Nouwen wonderfully describes the practices of silence, solitude and fasting. Within a world of words, silence allows us to hear the voice of God and ultimately gives us a liberating word for others. Solitude, as Nouwen says, is “the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.”[5] Solitude is the place where we stand alone, naked before a holy God, and learn to accept his grace and love, which set us free. Finally, fasting allows us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and walk closer with God. As Eddie Gibbs says, “The Church in the West has got to learn to suffer. We love Easter, but we don’t like Good Friday.”[6] Fasting gives a needed break to our digestive organs and sharpens our spiritual senses. As we engage in the three practices of silence, solitude and fasting, we can overcome a noisy, overwhelming, frenzied life and connect with the heart of God. Here we find love and liberation for all, responding to the suffering and captivity in the world.

PATRICK HENRY HIGH SCHOOL  Department of Social Studies   SPECIAL NOTICE to all students Course 410    (elective senior seminar) Advanced Survival, instr. Dr. Matson, 1712-A MWF   1. There will be no class Friday the 14th. 2. Twenty-Four Hour Notice is hereby given of final examination in Solo Survival. Students will present themselves for physical check at 0900 Saturday in the dispensary of Templeton Gate and will start passing through the gate at 1000, using three-minute intervals by lot. 3. TEST CONDITIONS: a) ANY planet, ANY climate, ANY terrain; b) NO rules, ALL weapons, ANY equipment; c) TEAMING IS PERMITTED but teams will not be allowed to pass through the gate in company; d) TEST DURATION is not less than forty-eight hours, not more than ten days. 4. Dr. Matson will be available for advice and consultation until 1700 Friday. 5. Test may be postponed only on recommendation of examining physician, but any student may withdraw from the course without administrative penalty up until 1000 Saturday. 6. Good luck and long life to you all!   (s) B. P. Matson, Sc.D.    Approved: J. R. Roerich, for the Board

The first days of January 1942 brought enormous amounts of snow. The reader already knows what snow meant for the clergy. But this time the torture surpassed the bounds of the endurable. At the same time the thermometer hovered between 5 and 15 degrees below zero. From morning till night we scraped, shoveled, and pushed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of snow to the brook. The work detail consisted of more than 1,000 clergymen, forced to keep moving by SS men and Capos who kicked us and beat us with truncheons. We had to make rounds with the wheelbarrows from the assembly square to the brook and back. Not a moment of rest was allowed, and much of the time we were forced to run. At one point I tripped over my barrow and fell, and it took me a while to get up again. An SS man dashed over and ordered me to turn with the full load. He ran beside me, beating me constantly with a leather strap. When I got to the brook I was not allowed to dump out the heavy snow, but had to make a second complete round with it instead. When the guard finally went off and I tried to let go of the wheelbarrow, I found that one of my hands was frozen fast to it. I had to blow on it with warm breath to get it free.

YOU’RE NO ANGEL, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it’s been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you’re fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main, and the coed circle of bums gathered there spot you a beer, then a jug of tequila starts to rotate and the rain keeps comin’ down with a miserable bluesy beat and there’s two girls millin’ about that probably can be had but they seem to like certain things and crank is one of those certain things, and a fistful of party straws tumble from a woven handbag somebody brung, the crank gets cut into lines, and the next time you notice the time it’s three or four Sunday mornin’ and you ain’t slept since Thursday night and one of the girl voices, the one you want most and ain’t had yet though her teeth are the size of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they’d taste sort of sour, suggests something to do, ’cause with crank you want something, anything, to do, and this cajoling voice suggests we all rob this certain house on this certain street in that rich area where folks can afford to wallow in their vices and likely have a bunch of recreational dope stashed around the mansion and goin’ to waste since an article in The Scroll said the rich people whisked off to France or some such on a noteworthy vacation. That’s how it happens. Can’t none of this be new to you.

The solution to the problem of poor performance scores had been a new system of grading that would encourage students to stay in school as well as improve their self-esteem. Beyond these important, admirable goals, it also had a more immediate purpose: it would undoubtedly reduce the school’s notoriously high failure rate, which had become an embarrassment to the school and to the school board. Under the plan, equal weight was given to class participation (which to some teachers meant simply showing up, because how on earth were you supposed to quantify participation?), homework, weekly tests, and a final exam at the end of every six-week period. A student could flunk every weekly test as well as the final exam and still pass a course for that period.

Hero was left with Mr. Stoke, and at once shocked and enchanted him by confiding that she had no notion how many servants she ought to employ, but hoped he would not think it necessary for her to have too many. 'For I dare say I shan't know how to go on at all. At least, just at first I shall not, though I expect I shall soon get into the way of it.' Finally, it was decided that a cook, a butler, two abigails, and a page-boy or footman should, in addition to his lordship's man, her ladyship's personal maid, a coachman, two grooms, and the Tiger, be sufficient to ensure the young couple a moderate degree of comfort. Mr. Stoke engaged himself to interview all menials applying for the various posts, and to hire those he considered the most desirable. He then took his leave of his patrons and went away in an extremely thoughtful mood.

Judd returned during the last hour of my Friday shift. Without seeing him coming as I wiped a table, I knew something was up because two large burly men flinched. Turning, I found Judd moving fast towards me. Before I could speak, his hands cupped my face and his lips were on mine. Murmuring at the deepening kiss, I tossed aside the wash towel and wrapped my arms around his waist. He felt like perfection. Judd pulled away and stated to speak then his gaze focused on the two men watching us and smiling. His dark stare killed their enthusiasm and they returned to eating. “Back less than a minute and you’re already losing me tips,” I teased, causing Judd to smile grudging. “You taste like peppermint.” “I slept for shit and chewing gum keeps me alert.” Caressing his lips, I couldn’t stop grinning. “You’re so fucking beautiful and you’re mine. How did that happen?” Judd finally gave me a great smile. “I laid eyed on you and was done for.

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Memory Finally Memory’s finally found what it was after. My mother has turned up, my father has been spotted. I dreamed up a table and two chairs. They sat. They were mine again, alive again for me. The two lamps of their faces gleamed at dusk as if for Rembrandt. Only now can I begin to tell in how many dreams they’ve wandered, in how many crowds I dragged them out from underneath the wheels, in how many deathbeds they moaned with me at their side. Cut off, they grew back, but never straight. The absurdity drove them to disguises. So what if they felt no pain outside me, they still ached within me. In my dreams, gawking crowds heard me call out Mom to a bouncing, chirping thing up on a branch. They made fun of my father’s hair in pigtails. I woke up ashamed. So, finally. One ordinary Friday night they suddenly came back exactly as I wanted. In a dream, but somehow freed from dreams, obeying just themselves and nothing else. In the picture’s background possibilities grew dim, accidents lacked the necessary shape. Only they shone, beautiful because just like themselves. They appeared to me for a long, long, happy time. I woke up. I opened my eyes. I touched the world, a chiseled picture frame.

Oh my absolute god!” said Vicky or Sophie or Sarah. “You’ve got a girlfriend?” “Ah, how sweet!” added Sophie or Sarah or Vicky. “Oh my god!” Sarah or Vicky or Sophie gushed. “You absolutely have to bring her to the drinks on Friday.” The others squealed their approval at this suggestion. “What’s her name?” Her name. No matter how many times I have to explain it, it doesn’t get any easier. “Her name’s Miranda,” I mumbled into my computer keyboard, “but she calls herself Panda because it rhymes with Miranda and also because she likes pandas.” There was a pause while Vicky/Sophie/Sarah, Sophie/ Sarah/Vicky and Sarah/Vicky/Sophie took this in. I waited for the mocking peals of laughter but they never came. “That is actually awesome,” said Vicky or Sophie or Sarah finally. “I wish my name rhymed with an animal.” “Yeah,” said Sophie or Sarah or Vicky. “It would be so awesome to be called, like, Miraffe or Mirelephant.” “Oh my god, yeah,” agreed Sarah or Vicky or Sophie. “I am totes naming my daughter Miraffe.” “What if you have a boy, though?” Sarah or Vicky or Sophie chewed her pen while she considered this. “Maybe I’ll go for a more masculine animal, like Mirhino or Mirocodile.” “Yeah, Mirocodile’s gorgeous, actually.” “Well, I’ve already got dibs, so you’ll have to take Mirhino.” The conversation continued in this vein until all the peanut M&M’s were finished and it was time for us to go home.

Two things that weren’t even on the agenda survived every upheaval that followed. General Akhtar remained a general until the time he died, and all God’s names were slowly deleted from the national memory as if a wind had swept the land and blown them away. Innocuous, intimate names: Persian Khuda which had always been handy for ghazal poets as it rhymed with most of the operative verbs; Rab, which poor people invoked in their hour of distress; Maula, which Sufis shouted in their hashish sessions. Allah had given Himself ninety-nine names. His people had improvised many more. But all these names slowly started to disappear: from official stationery, from Friday sermons, from newspaper editorials, from mothers’ prayers, from greeting cards, from official memos, from the lips of television quiz-show hosts, from children’s storybooks, from lovers’ songs, from court orders, from telephone operators’ greetings, from habeas corpus applications, from inter-school debating competitions, from road inauguration speeches, from memorial services, from cricket players’ curses; even from beggars’ begging pleas. In the name of God, God was exiled from the land and replaced by the one and only Allah who, General Zia convinced himself, spoke only through him. But today, eleven years later, Allah was sending him signs that all pointed to a place so dark, so final, that General Zia wished he could muster up some doubts about the Book. He knew if you didn’t have Jonah’s optimism, the belly of the whale was your final resting place.

Moscow can be a cold, hard place in winter. But the big old house on Tverskoy Boulevard had always seemed immune to these particular facts, the way that it had seemed immune to many things throughout the years. When breadlines filled the streets during the reign of the czars, the big house had caviar. When the rest of Russia stood shaking in the Siberian winds, that house had fires and gaslight in every room. And when the Second World War was over and places like Leningrad and Berlin were nothing but rubble and crumbling walls, the residents of the big house on Tverskoy Boulevard only had to take up a hammer and drive a single nail—to hang a painting on the landing at the top of the stairs—to mark the end of a long war. The canvas was small, perhaps only eight by ten inches. The brushstrokes were light but meticulous. And the subject, the countryside near Provence, was once a favorite of an artist named Cézanne. No one in the house spoke of how the painting had come to be there. Not a single member of the staff ever asked the man of the house, a high-ranking Soviet official, to talk about the canvas or the war or whatever services he may have performed in battle or beyond to earn such a lavish prize. The house on Tverskoy Boulevard was not one for stories, everybody knew. And besides, the war was over. The Nazis had lost. And to the victors went the spoils. Or, as the case may be, the paintings. Eventually, the wallpaper faded, and soon few people actually remembered the man who had brought the painting home from the newly liberated East Germany. None of the neighbors dared to whisper the letters K-G-B. Of the old Socialists and new socialites who flooded through the open doors for parties, not one ever dared to mention the Russian mob. And still the painting stayed hanging, the music kept playing, and the party itself seemed to last—echoing out onto the street, fading into the frigid air of the night. The party on the first Friday of February was a fund-raiser—though for what cause or foundation, no one really knew. It didn’t matter. The same people were invited. The same chef was preparing the same food. The men stood smoking the same cigars and drinking the same vodka. And, of course, the same painting still hung at the top of the stairs, looking down on the partygoers below. But one of the partygoers was not, actually, the same. When she gave the man at the door a name from the list, her Russian bore a slight accent. When she handed her coat to a maid, no one seemed to notice that it was far too light for someone who had spent too long in Moscow’s winter. She was too short; her black hair framed a face that was in every way too young. The women watched her pass, eyeing the competition. The men hardly noticed her at all as she nibbled and sipped and waited until the hour grew late and the people became tipsy. When that time finally came, not one soul watched as the girl with the soft pale skin climbed the stairs and slipped the small painting from the nail that held it. She walked to the window. And jumped. And neither the house on Tverskoy Boulevard nor any of its occupants ever saw the girl or the painting again.

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.

So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn't make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I'm the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart - perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I'm in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn't that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn't that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man - the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you've made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine. And then you run into Nick Dunne on Seventh Avenue as you're buying diced cantaloupe, and pow, you are known, you are recognised, the both of you. You both find the exact same things worth remembering. (Just one olive, though). You have the same rhythm. Click. You just know each other. All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And it's so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine. That fast. You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life. It's finally arrived.

On Friday, August 9, for example, amid a rising tide of urgent war matters, he found time to address a minute to the members of his War Cabinet on a subject dear to him: the length and writing style of the reports that arrived in his black box each day. Headed, appropriately enough, by the succinct title “BREVITY,” the minute began: “To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points.” He set out four ways for his ministers and their staffs to improve their reports. First, he wrote, reports should “set out the main points in a series of short, crisp paragraphs.” If the report involved discussion of complicated matters or statistical analysis, this should be placed in an appendix. Often, he observed, a full report could be dispensed with entirely, in favor of an aide-mémoire “consisting of headings only, which can be expanded orally if needed.” Finally, he attacked the cumbersome prose that so often marked official reports. “Let us have an end to phrases such as these,” he wrote, and quoted two offenders: “It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations…” “Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect…” He wrote: “Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.” The resulting prose, he wrote, “may at first seem rough as compared with the flat surface of officialese jargon. But the saving of time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clear thinking.” That evening, as he had done almost every weekend thus far, he set off for the country.

Hasan, the Begger: Believe it or not, they call this purgatory on earth “holy-suffering”. I am a leper stuck in limbo. Neither the dead nor the living want me among them. Mothers point me out on the streets to scare their misbehaving little ones, and children throw stones at me. Artisans chase me from their storefronts to ward off the bad luck that follows me everywhere, and pregnant women turn their faces away whenever they set eyes on me, fearing that their babies will be born defec-tive. None of these people seem to realize that as keen as they are to avoid me, I am far keener to avoid them and their pitiful stares. Friday is the best day of the week to beg except when it is Ramadan, in which case the whole month is quite lucrative. The last day of Ramadan is by far the best time to make money. That is when even the hopeless penny-pinchers race to give alms, keen to compensate for all their sins, past and present. Once a year, people don't turn away from beggars. To the contrary, they specifically look for one, the more miserable the better. So profound is their need to show off how generous and charitable they are, not only do they race to give us alms, but for that single day they almost love us. I’ve realized that the trees and I had something in common. A tree shedding its leaves in autumn resembled a man shedding his limbs in the final stages of leprosy. I am naked tree. My skin, my organs, my face are falling apart. Every day another part of my body abandons me. And for me, unlike the trees, there would be no spring in which I would blossom. What I lost, I lost forever. When people looks at me, they don’t see who I am but what I am missing. Whenever they places a coin in my bowl, they do so with amazing speed and avoid any eye contacts, as if my gaze is contagious. In their eyes I am worse than a thief or a murderer. As much as they disapproves of such outlaws, they don’t treat them as if they are invisible. When it comes to me, however, all they see is death staring them in the face. That's what scares them--to recognize that death could be this close and this ugly.

There are many things the Chinese do differently from Westerners. There’s the question of extra credit, for example. One time, Lulu came home and told me about a math test she’d just taken. She said she thought it had gone extremely well, which is why she didn’t feel the need to do the extra-credit problems. I was speechless for a second, uncomprehending. “Why not?” I asked. “Why didn’t you do them?” “I didn’t want to miss recess.” A fundamental tenet of being Chinese is that you always do all of the extra credit all of the time. “Why?” asked Lulu, when I explained this to her. For me this was like asking why I should breathe. “None of my friends do it,” Lulu added. “That’s not true,” I said. “I’m 100% sure that Amy and Junno did the extra credit.” Amy and Junno were the Asian kids in Lulu’s class. And I was right about them; Lulu admitted it. “But Rashad and Ian did the extra credit too, and they’re not Asian,” she added. “Aha! So many of your friends did do the extra credit! And I didn’t say only Asians do extra credit. Anyone with good parents knows you have to do the extra credit. I’m in shock, Lulu. What will the teacher think of you? You went to recess instead of doing extra credit?” I was almost in tears. “Extra credit is not extra. It’s just credit. It’s what separates the good students from the bad students." "Aww - recess is so fun," Lulu offered as her final sally. But after that, Lulu, like Sophia. always did the extra credit. Sometimes the girls got more points on extra credit than on the test itself - an absurdity that would never happen in China. Extra credit is one reason that Asian kids get such notoriously good grades in the United States. Rote drilling is another. Once Sophia came in second on a multiplication speed test, which her fifth grade teacher administered every Friday. She lost to a Korean boy named Yoon-seok. Over the next week, I made Sophia do twenty practice tests (of 100 problems each) every night, with me clocking her with a stopwatch. After that, she came in first every time. Poor Yoon-seok. He went back to Korea with his family, but probably not because of the speed test.

Unwashed and undernourished, having spent over four days on five different trains and four military jeeps, Alexander got off at Molotov on Friday, June 19, 1942. He arrived at noon and then sat on a wooden bench near the station. Alexander couldn’t bring himself to walk to Lazarevo. He could not bear the thought of her dying in Kobona, getting out of the collapsed city and then dying so close to salvation. He could not face it. And worse—he knew that he could not face himself if he found out that she did not make it. He could not face returning—returning to what? Alexander actually thought of getting on the next train and going back immediately. The courage to move forward was much more than the courage he needed to stand behind a Katyusha rocket launcher or a Zenith antiaircraft gun on Lake Ladoga and know that any of the Luftwaffe planes flying overhead could instantly bring about his death. He was not afraid of his own death. He was afraid of hers. The specter of her death took away his courage. If Tatiana was dead, it meant God was dead, and Alexander knew he could not survive an instant during war in a universe governed by chaos, not purpose. He would not live any longer than poor, hapless Grinkov, who had been cut down by a stray bullet as he headed back to the rear. War was the ultimate chaos, a pounding, soul-destroying snarl, ending in blown-apart men lying unburied on the cold earth. There was nothing more cosmically chaotic than war. But Tatiana was order. She was finite matter in infinite space. Tatiana was the standard-bearer for the flag of grace and valor that she carried forward with bounty and perfection in herself, the flag Alexander had followed sixteen hundred kilometers east to the Kama River, to the Ural Mountains, to Lazarevo. For two hours Alexander sat on the bench in unpaved, provincial, oak-lined Molotov. To go back was impossible. To go forward was unthinkable. Yet he had nowhere else to go. He crossed himself and stood up, gathering his belongings. When Alexander finally walked in the direction of Lazarevo, not knowing whether Tatiana was alive or dead, he felt he was a man walking to his own execution.

MATHEMATICAL MIRACLE Some years ago, I heard a story which has been making the rounds in Midwest A.A. circles for years. I don’t have any names to back up this story, but I have heard it from many sources, and the circumstances sound believable. A man in a small Wisconsin city had been on the program for about three years and had enjoyed contented sobriety through that period. Then bad luck began to hit him in bunches. The firm for which he had worked for some fifteen years was sold; his particular job was phased out of existence, and the plant moved to another city. For several months, he struggled along at odd jobs while looking for a company that needed his specialized experience. Then another blow hit him. His wife was forced to enter a hospital for major surgery, and his company insurance had expired. At this point he cracked, and decided to go on an all-out binge. He didn’t want to stage this in the small city, where everyone knew his sobriety record. So he went to Chicago, checked in at a North Side hotel, and set forth on his project. It was Friday night, and the bars were filled with a swinging crowd. But he was in no mood for swinging—he just wanted to get quietly, miserably drunk. Finally, he found a basement bar on a quiet side street, practically deserted. He sat down on a bar stool and ordered a double bourbon on the rocks. The bartender said, “Yes, sir,” and reached for a bottle. Then the bartender stopped in his tracks, took a long, hard look at the customer, leaned over the bar, and said in a low tone, “I was in Milwaukee about four months ago, and one night I attended an open meeting. You were on the speaking platform, and you gave one of the finest A.A. talks I ever heard.” The bartender turned and walked to the end of the bar. For a few minutes, the customer sat there—probably in a state of shock. Then he picked his money off the bar with trembling hands and walked out, all desire for a drink drained out of him. It is estimated that there are about 8,000 saloons in Chicago, employing some 25,000 bartenders. This man had entered the one saloon in 8,000 where he would encounter the one man in 25,000 who knew that he was a member of A.A. and didn’t belong there. Chicago, Illinois

Lesson one: Pack light unless you want to hump the eight around the mountains all day and night. By the time we reached Snowdonia National Park on Friday night it was dark, and with one young teacher as our escort, we all headed up into the mist. And in true Welsh fashion, it soon started to rain. When we reached where we were going to camp, by the edge of a small lake halfway up, it was past midnight and raining hard. We were all tired (from dragging the ridiculously overweight packs), and we put up the tents as quickly as we could. They were the old-style A-frame pegged tents, not known for their robustness in a Welsh winter gale, and sure enough by 3:00 A.M. the inevitable happened. Pop. One of the A-frame pegs supporting the apex of my tent broke, and half the tent sagged down onto us. Hmm, I thought. But both Watty and I were just too tired to get out and repair the first break, and instead we blindly hoped it would somehow just sort itself out. Lesson two: Tents don’t repair themselves, however tired you are, however much you wish they just would. Inevitably, the next peg broke, and before we knew it we were lying in a wet puddle of canvas, drenched to the skin, shivering, and truly miserable. The final key lesson learned that night was that when it comes to camping, a stitch in time saves nine; and time spent preparing a good camp is never wasted. The next day, we reached the top of Snowdon, wet, cold but exhilarated. My best memory was of lighting a pipe that I had borrowed off my grandfather, and smoking it with Watty, in a gale, behind the summit cairn, with the teacher joining in as well. It is part of what I learned from a young age to love about the mountains: They are great levelers. For me to be able to smoke a pipe with a teacher was priceless in my book, and was a firm indicator that mountains, and the bonds you create with people in the wild, are great things to seek in life. (Even better was the fact that the tobacco was homemade by Watty, and soaked in apple juice for aroma. This same apple juice was later brewed into cider by us, and it subsequently sent Chipper, one of the guys in our house, blind for twenty-four hours. Oops.) If people ask me today what I love about climbing mountains, the real answer isn’t adrenaline or personal achievement. Mountains are all about experiencing a shared bond that is hard to find in normal life. I love the fact that mountains make everyone’s clothes and hair go messy; I love the fact that they demand that you give of yourself, that they make you fight and struggle. They also induce people to loosen up, to belly laugh at silly things, and to be able to sit and be content staring at a sunset or a log fire. That sort of camaraderie creates wonderful bonds between people, and where there are bonds I have found that there is almost always strength.

It’s just a kiss,” she says softly. “Why are you all torn up about a kiss?” She’s studying me way too closely. “I’m not torn up,” I protest. “You’ve been moping ever since I told you about the fundraiser, Sean,” she says. “What’s your problem? It’s for charity, for God’s sake.” She lays her free hand on her chest. “My kiss is going to feed victims of domestic violence. I’m doing my part for a better community.” I look down at her mouth. God, I could just slide my fingers into her hair, pull her to me, and kiss her right here and now. But I won’t. Because she doesn’t want me. “I can’t believe you’re going kiss some stranger,” I bite out. “Don’t do it.” “I’ve kissed men before, Sean,” she reminds me. I wish she would keep that shit to herself. “What if it’s some big, goofy guy with really bad breath?” I ask. “What if it’s some big, brawny guy who smells like you and kisses like a god?” she asks. She smiles, the corners of her lips tilting up so prettily. Her fingertips touch my forearm lightly, and she traces the tattoos that decorate my arm from wrist to shoulder. Every hair on my body stands up, and I lift my hand from her knee and thread my fingers with hers so she’ll stop. “If I’m lucky, he’ll be all tatted up, too.” She looks off into the distance, her gaze no longer on me. “Honey, if you want to kiss someone who looks like me and smells like me, I think I can accommodate you so you don’t have to kiss some stranger.” Her eyes shift back to meet mine, and she may as well have just punched me in the gut. She looks into my eyes and stares as if she’s looking into my soul. She can look into it anytime. Shit, I’d give it to her, if she wanted it. But it’s not me she wants. She’s made that abundantly clear. “If I ever kissed you, I would never be able to stop,” I say quietly. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged down a gravel road and back, and I fucking hate that she can affect me this way. “Prove it,” she says, and then she licks her cherry-red lips. She doesn’t break eye contact. I move quickly. This is the first time she’s ever made an offer like this, and my gut tells me that she’s going to take it back. I cup her neck with my palm and pull her toward me. My gentle tug brings her flush against my chest, and the weight of her settles against me and feels so right. Her lips are so close to mine that her inhale is my exhale. My hand quivers as it holds her nape, so I work my fingers into the hair at the back of her head. I hold her still and look into her green eyes. “Tell me you want me to kiss you and you got me, honey,” I whisper. She shivers and inches up my chest ever so slightly, her mouth moving closer to mine. So close. Just a little closer. I can almost taste her. “I want you to kiss me,” she whispers. “Please.” Suddenly, the door opens, and Lacey jumps up, separating us in one final, powerful leap. Fuck. I pull the pillow from behind my head and shove it in my lap, sitting up on the side of the bed. Friday,

Turkey, which already hosts more than 800,000 Syrian refugees, at first kept the border closed Friday, before finally allow the flood of new refugees to enter.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,’’ Pfeiffer said Obama has no choice but to act on his own because of Congress’s ‘‘failure to fix the immigration system’’ and to provide extra money to deal with Central American children crossing the US-Mexico border. House Republicans on Friday approved a bill to address the problem of unattended children crossing the Mexican border. The measure would allocate $694 million for border security efforts, including $35 million for the National Guard, and also clear the way for eventual deportation of more than 700,000 immigrants brought here illegally as children. The Senate shelved its own bill on emergency border funds, which means no final congressional action will occur until lawmakers return from their five-week summer break.

Clip This Article on Location 1397 | Added on Monday, September 1, 2014 4:10:39 PM REVIEW & OUTLOOK An $8.3 Billion Rebuke to the FDA Roche buys a drug approved in Europe but not in America. 359 words Amid this summer's M&A fever, Roche's agreement Monday to buy the San Francisco biotech InterMune deserves special notice. The tie-up is an $8.3 billion guided missile into the fortified bunker that is the Food and Drug Administration. InterMune has never turned a profit in 16 years of existence and other than its clinical expertise the company holds a single asset: an idea for treating a lethal lung disorder called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with no known cause, cure or approved therapy—at least in the U.S. An InterMune drug called pirfenidone that slows the progression of irreversible lung scarring is on the market in Europe, Japan, Canada and even China. Bloomberg News But the FDA refused to approve pirfenidone in 2010, despite the 40,000 Americans who are killed annually by lung fibrosis and a positive recommendation from its outside scientific advisory committee. The agency brass claimed the evidence was statistically unsatisfactory, when one clinical trial was inconclusive but another showed strong benefits such as improved lung function. The results of the third trial the FDA ordered were reported earlier this year and confirmed that pirfenidone is even more of a treatment advance than it seemed in 2010, and may prolong life. The agency is expected, finally, to approve the medicine in November. Roche is paying a 38% premium over Friday's closing share price, and 63% over trading before the news of InterMune's corporate suitors broke a few weeks ago. The deal is a big vote of confidence in pirfenidone, not least because a rival lung fibrosis drug is awaiting U.S. approval. Then again, maybe that drug's maker, the German pharmaceutical consortium Boehringer Ingelheim, will have the same FDA experience as InterMune. The Roche deal is a tacit reprimand to the FDA's unscientific and uncompassionate—and wrong—2010 defenestration. Amid medical ambiguity about effectiveness, the humane option is to allow a drug to come to patients and follow on with more research, in particular for a drug with few side effects. Pulmonary fibrosis is a protracted death sentence of three to five years. The FDA denied tens of thousands of dying people better and possibly longer lives in the time they had left. ==========

Jeff, I have a problem.” “I’m glad you’ve finally realized I’m your answer, Merit.

The relationship between the planets and the days Sun-day and Moon-day is obvious. As for the rest, the Saxon god Tiw is the same as the Roman war god Mars, hence we call it Tiw’s-day, instead of Mars-day. The Saxon god Woden is the same as Mercury, and so we call it Woden’s-day instead of Mercury-day. Thursday was named for the god Thor, rather than for Jupiter. And finally Friff (the wife of Woden) took the place of Venus for the Saxons, and so we have Friff-day, or Friday.

Chapter 115 Elias– The Final Word   A man will do anything for a wife he adores. Remember that and do not judge him. Do not judge him when you see Vivi, see Nitsa, and notice the way both women stand, the way both women walk. Do not judge him when you see a picture of his own grandmother and see Nitsa all over her face. Peace is expensive, eh? Peace is expensive, but it is good. Remember that.   The End

Friday, January 30 God Has a Plan For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. JEREMIAH 29:11 AMP When Jeremiah wrote this, Israel was already in captivity in Babylon. Things looked pretty bleak, and many held no hope of returning to the land God had given them generations before under Joshua’s leadership. It was because they refused to listen to the prophets, telling them to repent of their sin of consistently turning away from God’s plan and living the way they wanted to, that they were in this predicament. After the majority of the Jews were taken to Babylon, Jeremiah wrote them a letter telling them to accept where they were. Since they were going to be there the full seventy years God had predicted, they were to settle down, build houses, establish communities, plant gardens, marry, die, celebrate their special days—in other words, live life to the fullest while they were there. The sooner they accepted God’s punishment, the sooner they could begin living again. The letter concluded with a reminder that God had not forgotten them. He still had plans for His people. Good plans, not evil. He wanted to give them hope that this punishment wasn’t for forever. God still has a plan for each one of His children. They are still plans for peace and good, hope-filled plans. Father, thank You for the thoughts and plans You have for each of Your children. Help us to live life to the fullest in the hope of those plans.

Yet, we had gone through similar times before and much worse, and had learned how to cope, how to do without. The spirit of unity and pride in achievement of the State compensated for the daily hardships. In those times, hope was our constant companion; old friendships and new kept us going. We were open and helpful and trusting. On Friday nights or on Saturdays or holidays - people got together, drank tea, ate cookies and talked, talked, discussed endlessly. We had finally arrived, we were finally at home, we had finally survived and most were on the point to finally start a family. Interestingly, men and women, who had lost their mates, their children, during the war, in the preceding years in Europe, re-married and created new families.

a temporary solution to the city’s sectarian bloodletting. Now they were a permanent feature of its geography—indeed, their number, length, and scale had actually increased since the signing of the Good Friday accords. On Springfield Road the barricade was a transparent green fence about ten meters in height. But on Cupar Way, a particularly tense part of the Ardoyne, it was a Berlin Wall–like structure topped by razor wire. Residents on both sides had covered it in murals. One likened it to the separation fence between Israel and the West Bank. “Does this look like peace to you?” asked Keller. “No,” answered Gabriel. “It looks like home.” Finally, at half past one, Keller turned into Stratford Gardens. Number 8, like its neighbors, was a two-level redbrick house with a white door and a single window on each floor. Weeds flourished in the forecourt; a green rubbish bin lay toppled by the wind. Keller pulled to the curb and switched off the engine.

Pink's involvement in this intellectually alluring. but spiritually deadening movement, deeply troubled his father. During one week in 1908, Pink was scheduled to speak at an important gathering of the Society. He was to lecture once early in the week, and then again later in the week. The meeting seems to have been in his home town of Nottingham, but we cannot be certain of that. But when Pink returned home from his first teaching assignment at the Theosophy Society meetings, he was faced by his father's quotation of Proverbs 14:12. That verse says, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Evidently this portion of the Word of God shook Pink deeply and sent him into seclusion to his room for the remainder of most of the week. He says he stayed there without food, until he finally came downstairs to go preach the gospel at the Friday meeting of the society. One can hardly imagine the pandemonium his actions brought to the society that day. This action sets forth another of Pink's characteristics—a frankness and boldness to speak his convictions without fear or favor, regardless of the situation.

It was Friday and I wouldn't get to see him again for at least two days. I headed back to my office, probably the only one of the two hundred plus attorneys who worked there who wasn't thrilled that the weekend had finally arrived. I contemplated my plans for the next day. I could rearrange the kitchen cupboards, maybe catch a matinee, slit my wrists. The possibilities were endless.

Somehow Frank got word to the dingo enclosure. “You’d better get to the compound,” came the message. “Graham grabbed Wes.” I felt cold chills go down my arms into my fingers. Graham was a large enough crocodile that he could easily kill prey the size of a man. I struggled through the water toward the compound. This is a nightmare, I thought. It felt like a bad dream, trying desperately to run in the waist-deep water, and yet feeling like I was in slow motion, struggling my way forward. When I got to the compound, I was shocked. Wes was conscious and standing up. I had a look at his wounds. The gaping holes torn out of his bottom and the back of his leg were horrifying. Both wounds were bigger than my fist. He was badly torn up. We discussed whether or not to call an ambulance, and then decided we would take Wes to the hospital ourselves. Wes was fluctuating between feeling euphorically happy to be alive and lashing out in anger. He was going into shock and had lost a lot of blood. Steve drove. A trip that would normally have taken half an hour took less than twenty minutes. The emergency room was having a busy night. By now Wes’s face was somewhere between pale and gray--the pain was well and truly setting in. We explained to a nurse that he needed help immediately, but because we had a blanket over him to keep him warm, the severity of his injuries didn’t really hit home. Finally the nurse peeked under the blanket. She gasped. Wes was so terribly injured, I was worried that he would still bleed out. Steve and I were both very emotional. So many thoughts went through our heads. Why Wes? Why hadn’t Steve been grabbed? What kind of chance was it that Graham had grabbed Wes in probably the only manner that would not have killed him instantly? We realized again how much we loved Wes. The thought that we almost lost him terrified us. It was a horrible, emotional Friday night. Over the course of the weekend we learned that Wes would probably make a full recovery. He would keep his leg and probably regain most movement. There was still some doubt as to whether he was going to need skin grafts. Steve laid his life on the line to defend Wes. And as severely injured as Wes was, he stopped at the top of the fence to turn back and help Steve. That was mateship; that was love. It made me think of the line from scripture: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Steve and Wes were lucky, for they were truly friends.

I started my car and put Chase out of my mind as I nosed out into the merry brutality of Friday-night traffic in Miami.

I found a stunning number of Outlaw posts. I started reviewing the links that mentioned the Outlaw. -Outlaw help! my kat is missin! please call… -please mr outlaw my exboyfriend keeps showing up and hits me… -outlaw! U a punk!! meet me behind southcentral walmart off alondra friday to get yo ass kick! bring ur girl natalie 2!! fkn racist!!!! -Dear sir, if you would like to be interviewed, and to finally get your story told to a national audience, please contact me. I am willing to provide you with this opportunity. Contact me at… -Hey Outlaw. Lookin for a good time? Cause so am I. I’m going to… -Outlaw, repent! Your sins will find you out! -Yo the outlaw a racist. he should come 2 th projects w the real gangsta!! he b pickin on th small timers, like a little beech! Get yo ass to Compton and find out.. -The time has come. For me to unmask myself. I AM THE OUTLAW!! It’s true. Do not be scared, but I do have super powers! I am not a racist. Please visit this website for further details…

Permian had established itself as perhaps the most successful football dynasty in the country—pro, college, or high school. Few brands of sport were more competitive than Class AAAAA Texas high school football, the division for the biggest schools in the state. Odessa was hardly the only town that nurtured football and cherished it and went crazy over it. But no one came close to matching the performance of Permian. Since 1964 it had won four state championships, been to the state finals a record eight times, and made the playoffs fifteen times. Its worst record in any season over that time span had been seven and two, and its winning percentage overall, .825, was by far the best of any team in the entire state in the modern era of the game dating back to 1951. All this wasn’t accomplished with kids who weighed 250 pounds and were automatic major-college prospects, but with kids who often weighed 160 or 170 or even less. They had no special athletic prowess. They weren’t especially fast or especially strong. But they were fearless and relentlessly coached and from the time they were able to walk they had only one certain goal in their lives in Odessa, Texas. Whatever it took, they would play for Permian.

Directly in front of them, dressed in white jerseys and forming a little protective phalanx, were the Pepettes, a select group of senior girls who made up the school spirit squad. The Pepettes supported all teams, but it was the football team they supported most. The number on the white jersey each girl wore corresponded to that of the player she had been assigned for the football season. With that assignment came various time-honored responsibilities. As part of the tradition, each Pepette brought some type of sweet for her player every week before the game. She didn’t necessarily have to make something from scratch, but there was indirect pressure to because of not-so-private grousing from players who tired quickly of bags of candy and not so discreetly let it be known that they much preferred something fresh-baked. If she had to buy something store-bought, it might as well be beer, and at least one player was able to negotiate such an arrangement with his Pepette during the season. Instead of getting a bag of cookies, he got a six-pack of beer. In addition, each Pepette also had to make a large sign for her player that went in his front yard and stayed there the entire season as a notice to the community that he played football for Permian. Previously the making of these yard signs, which looked like miniature Broadway marquees, had become quite competitive. Some of the Pepettes spent as much as $100 of their own money to make an individual sign, decorating it with twinkling lights and other attention-getting devices. It became a rather serious game of can-you-top-this, and finally a dictum was handed down that all the signs must be made the same way, without any neon.

In that moment, with his final thoughts, his last feelings as a member of the world, Emmanuel felt his Blackness slide and plummet to an absolute nothing point nothing.

I will write this story only once, for me, as a form of catharsis – my final attempt at closure. There will be no rewrites, no editors, and no sales strategy – even if I end up holding the only copy of the book ever printed. This story is the retelling of events that occurred three years ago, exactly as they happened and as best I can communicate them. Police reports and coroner’s inquests are not intended nor equipped to address evil. It is not taught in our schools nor recognised in our counselling – yet I walked with evil as it stalked the halls, the hearts and the classrooms of Hunter High on that Black Friday. Then I wasted three years trying to explain and analyse the evil away. Wasted lives, then wasted years -- but I can no longer allow the truth to remain buried with the dead, and the whole story must, finally, now be told.

So what, in the light of all this, would Paul say had actually happened by six o’clock on the first Good Friday evening? If Romans 3:21–26 was all we had to go on, what might we conclude? First, he would say that the age-old covenant plan of the Creator, to rescue humanity and the world from sin and death, had been accomplished. The new Passover had taken place, in fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham. Second, he would say that this had been accomplished by God himself, in his act of covenant faithfulness (for which the shorthand is “love,” though Paul does not use that word until chapters 5 and 8), drawing together Israel’s vocation and his own deepest purposes in the faithful death of the Messiah. Third, as befits a “Passover” moment, he would say that people of all sorts—Jews and Gentiles alike—were now free, free from past sins, free to come into the single covenant family. They were “freely declared to be in the right,” to be within God’s justified people, able to look ahead to the final day without fear of condemnation (5:9; 8:1; 8:31–39). Fourth, as we have seen in all the other early Christian strands of thought we have studied, Paul saw the new Passover also as the “dealing with sins” through which exile was undone. This is where Passover and the “Day of Atonement” meet and merge. Fifth, and at the heart of it all, Paul saw Israel’s representative Messiah “handed over because of our trespasses,” in the sense intended in Isaiah 53. Dealing with sins robs the “powers” of their power; and this, as we have seen, is the key that unlocks all the other doors.

On one side were the Odessa High fans, dressed in red, ready for this to be the year when the jinx was finally broken, when they joyously shed the yoke of football famine that had caused them so much embarrassment and so many feelings of inferiority. On the other side were the Permian fans, dressed in black, arms folded, looking like highland-mighty music teachers listening to the annual school recital, so used to superlative achievement from their star pupils that only the most flawless performance would break their cold impassivity.

As the New Adam, Jesus confronts the curses laid on Adam that have plagued the human family ever since the Fall. Like Adam, Jesus, on the night before He died, enters a garden-the Garden of Gethsemane-where He is tested (Mt 26:36-46). There, He takes on Adam's sweat as He experiences sweat-like drops of blood falling from His face. On Good Friday, Jesus symbolically takes on the curse of Adam's thorns as He is handed over to the Roman soldiers, who place a crown of thorns on His head (Mt 27:29). Finally, Jesus even takes on the curse of Adam's death as He goes to a tree-the wood of the cross-and dies on Calvary. And, like Adam, Jesus is placed in the cursed ground, where He is buried in a tomb. It is precisely from the darkness of that tomb in the cursed ground that Jesus, the Light of the World, rises victoriously from the dead on Easter Sunday to shine the light of salvation at the dawn of the new creation.

Look, about Friday night,” he says with a laugh. It seems harmless, so I smile back. Maybe this is a joke we’re going to share for a long time. Maybe we can recover from Friday and be friends, or— “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone what happened,” he says, almost urgently. I feel nothing. Everything I thought I felt vanishes, and all my brain leaves me is a stupid look on my face. “What?” Adam runs a hand through his blond waves and grimaces. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just—you know, my parents—and I had too much to drink—” I interrupt him. “What do your parents have to do with anything?” His eyes flit across mine, begging me to let him off the hook. He doesn’t want to say it out loud. “You’re not the kind of girl I usually go out with.” “What does that mean?” I’m shaking. “I don’t usually date Asian girls, that’s all,” he says finally. I blink and my eyes go blurry. “I don’t have anything against girls like you,” he insists, “but my parents, they wouldn’t understand. This is kind of a small town, you know?” WHAT I WANT TO SAY: “So you want me to lie about my first kiss because your parents are racist?” WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY: “You were the one who kissed me.” My throat tightens. My face burns. It’s not that I wanted our kiss to mean anything—I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with it being erased. I’m not comfortable being erased.

Look, about Friday night,” he says with a laugh. It seems harmless, so I smile back. Maybe this is a joke we’re going to share for a long time. Maybe we can recover from Friday and be friends, or— “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone what happened,” he says, almost urgently. I feel nothing. Everything I thought I felt vanishes, and all my brain leaves me is a stupid look on my face. “What?” Adam runs a hand through his blond waves and grimaces. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just—you know, my parents—and I had too much to drink—” I interrupt him. “What do your parents have to do with anything?” His eyes flit across mine, begging me to let him off the hook. He doesn’t want to say it out loud. “You’re not the kind of girl I usually go out with.” “What does that mean?” I’m shaking. “I don’t usually date Asian girls, that’s all,” he says finally. I blink and my eyes go blurry. “I don’t have anything against girls like you,” he insists, “but my parents, they wouldn’t understand. This is kind of a small town, you know?” WHAT I WANT TO SAY: “So you want me to lie about my first kiss because your parents are racist?” WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY: “You were the one who kissed me.” My throat tightens. My face burns. It’s not that I wanted our kiss to mean anything—I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with it being erased. I’m not comfortable being erased.

Oh Jesus, you think I’m letting you come over and pester me all the time because you’re the only available man in my age group!” He lifted one black bushy brow. “But am I?” “That’s so irrelevant! Chasing a good-looking thirty-year-old was never beneath me!” She made him laugh. That was the linchpin—she always made him laugh. “That doesn’t surprise me. Not that there are many of those, either.” “Walt, for God’s sake, I have my own transportation if Virgin River isn’t amusing enough for me.” She stalked over to him, put her arms on his shoulders, got up on her toes and laid a lip-lock on him that shocked his eyebrows up high and his eyes round. But she kept at him until he finally put his big arms around her slim body, pulled her hard against him, let his lips open, opened hers and experienced, for the first time since they met almost three months ago, a wholly passionate, wet, deep kiss. It was fantastic. Delicious. And long. When he finally relaxed his arms a bit, she pulled back and gave him a whack in the chest. “Now stop being a fool or you’re going to mess this up. I’ll come to dinner Friday night. You cook. I’ll bring wine.” “Okay, fine,” he said a little breathlessly. “Dinner. With the family.

Sam whispers something to Emilio and then Emilio steps back and hitches his hip against the wall. He grins. Something is up. I just don’t know what. “So,” Sam says really loudly. Friday is holding her phone up and she has the video on. What’s going on? I glare at Sam, because apparently I’m the only one who’s not in on the joke. “What?” I ask him. Then he pulls a box from his pocket and drops down on one knee in front of me. I cover my mouth with my hand. He pops the top of the box and I see a great big diamond ring shining back at me. “So, you wanna?” he says. “Do I wanna…?” I repeat. My heart is in my throat. “Marry me, cupcake.” He stares up at me, blinking those beautiful blue eyes. “Now?” We’re about to leave. I jerk my thumb toward the airport. I can’t make any more words. He laughs and shakes his head. “Not right this second, but soon. We can make little cupcakes together. You can be my plus-one. Or it can just be me and you. But you and me is not negotiable. I kind of need you, cupcake. Have ever since I met you.” I look down at him. He adjusts his stance. “How much longer are you going to make me kneel here on my bad knee?” He grins at me. “Oh, God!” I cry. I help him up and then I hold out my hand. “P-put it on me. I w-wanna.” My hand is shaking in the air, and he takes it in his and slides the ring onto my finger. That’s when I realize it’s Emilio’s mother’s ring. I look at him and he shrugs and smiles. Then Sam picks me up and spins me around. I’m dizzy when he finally sets me down and I cling to him. Cameras snap all around us, and I bury my face in Sam’s chest. He laughs and holds me close. “You sure?” he asks me quietly, so only I can hear. “More sure than I have ever been of anything.” And I mean it. I really do. Emilio gives me one last hug. “Did you know about this?” I ask him. He shrugs. “He came to see me yesterday to ask me for permission.” “And?” “And he just asked you, didn’t he?” He chuckles. “He’s a good one.” Emilio brushes a lock of hair back from my forehead. “I wouldn’t let just anyone marry one of my daughters. Particularly not the first one I ever had.” My

I fetched my bag, tucked the folded newspaper inside, and grabbed the house keys. Clay beat me to the door.  I scowled down at him.  He stared back at me.  After a moment, he shook his neck, jangling his tags.  Defeated, I clipped on his leash.  He negotiated well without using a single word. I used my cell to call the number for the first ad.  The man sounded a bit brusque as if my planned visit inconvenienced him.  Shrugging it off, I led Clay to the address.  A rusty car parked on the front lawn with a “for sale” sign affirmed I had the right place.  Clay and I walked toward the car. A man called hello from the open garage and made his way toward us.  As he neared, his demeanor changed, and I inwardly groaned.  He introduced himself as Howard and looked me over with interest.  Clay moved to stand between us, his stoic presence a good deterrent. Howard talked about the car for a bit, going through the laundry list of its deficiencies.  Then he popped the hood so I could look at the engine.  In the middle of Howard’s attempt to impress me with his vast mechanical knowledge, Clay sprang up between us.  Howard yelped at Clay’s sudden move and edged away as Clay placed his paws on the front of the car to get a good look at the engine, too.  I fought not to smile at the man’s stunned expression.  At Clay’s discreet nod, I bought the car, not bothering with the second ad. No matter what errand I wanted to run during the week before classes started, Clay insisted on tagging along.  On Friday, when I drove to the bookstore, Clay rode a very cramped shotgun and waited in the car while I made my purchases.  Later, he sat in the hot car again while I bought some basic school supplies. However, Monday, when I tried leaving for my first class, I put my foot down.  He bristled and growled and tried to follow me. “Your license only wins you so much freedom.  Dogs aren’t allowed on campus and definitely not in the classroom.” Thankfully, Rachel had left first and didn’t hear me scold him. I tried to leave again, but he stubbornly persisted.  Finally, exasperated, I reminded him that he slept on my bed because of my good grace.  He resentfully stepped away from the door. *

With one minute to spare, Madison arrived at the Space Needle. Her rose was hastily clipped into her short dark hair. Her cheeks were red from all of the mad rushing around. But she had made it on time. So had Jeremy. Once again he was waiting by the elevator that rode up to the top of the Space Needle. A somewhat faded blue carnation was pinned to the lapel of his jacket. Madison, who usually overplanned everything, hadn’t taken one second to plan what she would say when she finally met “Blue” face-to-face. A man with a bouquet of balloons passed by, and she ducked out of sight behind them. As she ran alongside the vendor, she hastily tried to collect her thoughts. So much was riding on this meeting, and she didn’t want to blow it. When the balloon man got close to the elevator tower, Madison jumped out from behind the balloons and hid by a corner of the tower. Her mind was still a complete blank. But she couldn’t leave Jeremy standing there for another minute. So she inched her way along the wall until she was safely hidden behind the post he was leaning against. Madison checked the TechnoMarine watch she’d borrowed from Piper. It was nearly five minutes after four. Time was running out! She had to say something. But what? Barely a foot away, she heard Jeremy exhale in frustration, and her heart sank. When he made a move to leave, her hand shot out from behind the pillar and caught hold of his. “Blue?” she whispered. “Please don’t turn around.” Jeremy didn’t move. “Okay,” he said warily. “I’m trying to find the words to tell you what our letters have meant to me,” she whispered. “And how much your friendship means to me.” Jeremy nodded. “It’s been important to me, too.” He started to turn around, but Madison tugged his arm, hard. “Don’t look, yet. Please!” Jeremy quickly turned his head away. “All right, but--” Madison didn’t let him finish. She squeezed her eyes shut and started babbling. “I didn’t know who you were until last Friday--which, incidentally, turned out to be about the most important day of my life. And when I knew it was you, I just didn’t know how to tell you that I was me. You once told me I was cold and heartless, and I just couldn’t bear it if you said it again. Everything has been so perfect, I just don’t want to blow it, and now that we’re standing here holding hands, I don’t want to let go--” “So don’t,” a voice whispered, very close to her cheek.

Jacob!” she calls over my shoulder. “It’s time to go.” Jacob runs over, and he stops at my feet. He looks up at me and smiles. He holds up a purple piece of chalk. “Do you want to keep the purple?” he asks. “It’s my favorite color.” I take it from him and squat down. “Thank you so much,” I say. I desperately want to hug him. But I am afraid to. Suddenly, Jacob launches himself at me and wraps his arms around my neck. I fall back gently onto my butt, and we roll to the ground. I can’t keep from laughing as he hugs me. I wrap my arms around him and bend my head so I can smell his hair. He has that little-boy smell that reminds me of the outdoors and purple shampoo. Finally, he squeaks and starts to squirm, and I realize I’ve held him too long so I let him go. It wasn’t nearly long enough, though. Not even close. He steps back and wraps his arms around Jill’s legs. “Can Friday come over and play with me one day?” he asks. Jill nods. “Call me,” I say. They walk off together hand in hand, and I watch them until they disappear from sight.

Can I ask you something?” I say quietly. I try not to get into his personal business, but I can’t help it. “You can ask. I can’t promise I’ll answer.” “What’s going on with you and Friday?” He groans. “Nothing. Why? What did she tell you?” I try to play it off. “She didn’t tell me anything. There’s just, like, this undercurrent when you’re in a room together. What did you do to her?” “I kissed her,” he blurts out. I choke. “You kissed Friday?” I thump my fist against my chest, trying to restart my heart. “Well, we kind of kissed each other.” I grin. “How was it?” “Amazing,” he breathes. But then he realizes what he said, and he sobers. “I mean, it was okay.” He’s such a bad liar. “You should ask her out,” I say. He shakes his head. “I did. She told me no. She’s been telling me no for years.” “You know she’s not a lesbian, right?” I ask. He raises one brow. “No thanks to you, yes.” I chuckle. “Sorry about that.” “No you’re not.” But he’s grinning. “She’s got some issues,” he finally says. “I would love to know what they are.” “What kind of issues?” I ask. “I don’t know. The I-don’t-have-any-family kind. The girl is completely alone. You know she doesn’t even go home in the summer?” “Well, she didn’t get picked out of a cabbage patch.” I stay quiet for a minute because it looks like he’s thinking. “What happened when you kissed her?” “Sparks,” he says. “Fucking sparks.” He blows out a breath. “What about Kelly?” His gaze jerks up. “What about her?” “I’m guessing that Friday wouldn’t like kissing you when you’re still sleeping with Kelly. Was that the problem?” Getting information out of Paul is like pulling teeth. “I haven’t slept with Kelly since you and I talked about it that morning. Haven’t slept with anybody since I kissed Friday. I can’t get her off my fucking mind.” “So go for it.” He shakes his head. “She said no way. Her exact words were no fucking way, Paul, you stupid son of a bitch. Then she told me to go fuck myself.” That’s Friday for you. You have to love her.

Friday. Club ONE has a strategic advantage over club TWO: ONE is located at the center of the town, while TWO is a few miles away. Thus, if TWO runs the same theme as ONE, nobody will show up to TWO. There are three types of customers. 60 hardcore salsa fans will only go to a club if salsa is being offered. 20 people are hardcore disco fans and will only go to a club if disco is being offered. A final 20 people prefer going

He tips his glass and drinks. So does Matt. And everyone in the crowd. Except me. “What’s wrong?” Matt asks. “Nothing,” I say. I motion my mother forward, and she puts a box in my hands. It’s small, but it’s weighty at the same time. “I have a present for you.” “I thought our honeymoon was our present to each other,” he reminds me with a scowl. We’re leaving for the Carolina coast for a week with the kids tonight. I can’t wait. I motion for him to take my package. “The vacation is our gift. This is just extra.” I blink back the tears that are already forming in my eyes. He makes a face and opens up the box. He looks inside and then gets confused. He pulls the tiny little item out of the box. It’s a onesie that has tattoo designs all over it, and on the back, it has the name Reed. “What’s this?” he asks, confused. Then his eyes grow wide. Friday gasps when she realizes what’s going on, and the rest of the crowd rumbles and fidgets. “Is this…?” he asks. He stops, because he’s choked with emotion. “Yes,” I say. Tears roll down my face, and I don’t care. I lean close to him. “You knocked me up.” He takes me in his arms and pulls me close, and a sob rolls through him. “Are you serious?” “Completely serious, Matt,” I say. “But wait.” I look down and shake the onesie out. A second one falls out, and Matt catches it in the air. “Two?” he asks. I nod, so broken by his reaction that I can’t speak. “Two tiny little heartbeats,” I say as soon as I can. “Holy fuck,” he breathes into my ear. He squeezes me so tightly that I chirp. “I love you so fucking much,” he says to me. He takes a second to breathe me in and compose himself, then he drops to his knees and lays his forehead on my belly. He says something quietly to his unborn children, and I’m not even sure what it was, but I do know it was between him and them. Or him and God. I’m not sure which. Then he stands and looks up at the crowd. Half of them are as teary-eyed as we are. “Do you know what this means?” he asks our friends and family. They rumble, but he can’t hear one voice over another. He points to Logan. “This means my sperm are better swimmers than yours, little brother!” he says. He signs while he talks, and Logan flips him off. But he’s laughing. He wraps his arms around Emily and lays his hands on the small swell of her belly. I slap his shoulder. “What if it’s my eggs that are amazing and not your sperm?” “What if it’s just us?” he asks quietly, and he kisses me. “Us together.” “I told you I believe in miracles, Matt,” I say when I can finally lift my head. “You’re my miracle,” he says. “You. Just you.

Sam comes out of the bedroom and stops, looking from Cody and Garrett to Friday and back. “Hell yeah,” he finally says. He lifts his hands like he’s praying to God and says, “Thank you for small miracles. And for putting Paul out of his misery.” He shoves my shoulder. “Glad they finally told you.” I choke on my beer. “You knew?” I croak out. “Well, yeah,” he says. “If you weren’t looking at them through that red haze of jealousy you got going on, you’d have seen it, too.” I throw a wadded napkin at his head, but he just laughs.

MAKING THE CALL Suppose you had a successful social encounter at a party. Last night went fine. But now you sit by the phone, the person’s phone number in hand, afraid to make that call you know you want to make. Maybe the person doesn’t really want you to call. (Then why did she give you her phone number?) Maybe she’s changed her mind. (There’s only one way to find out!) If you have a problem following up, you need to internalize this self-coaching advice: Dread, then do. If you feel anxious, use relaxation techniques to ready yourself to make the call. Then make it. No matter what, you will feel relieved and even proud of yourself once you’ve done it. Appropriate follow-up is crucial; otherwise, all the groundwork you’ve laid in your initial conversation will go to waste. When you call someone on the phone, remember all the skills you’ve practiced so far. And be sure to call when you say you are going to call. Imagine how you’d feel if someone whose company you’d enjoyed promised to call you on Tuesday and the call didn’t come until Friday, if at all. And finally, remember to ask about things the person told you in previous conversation. This is your chance to broaden your new friendship, so make plans and follow through on them soon. (Remember: friendship first. It’s okay, especially at this stage, for a woman to initiate a social engagement with a man, whether it leads to romance or not). If you would like to follow up with someone in your company or outside it who could become a valuable part of your career network, the procedure is much the same. Stay in touch in whatever ways are appropriate for your workplace. A clipping of a work-related article with a simple note—“Bill: Thought this would interest you,” and your name—lets the person know you appreciated his knowledge and insight. If you like, you could follow up on an outside contact with a brief note saying you enjoyed meeting the person, and then call later, perhaps with an invitation for a business lunch or a lecture. Developing contacts inside your workplace and beyond could help you build job opportunities. And feeling connected to the business community in which you work can be fulfilling too. People may soon want to begin networking with you!

When you wake up on Monday morning, don’t accept those negative thoughts that come knocking on your door, saying, It will be a hard day and a long week. Traffic will be bad. I have so much work to do. I just need to make it through the Monday morning blues. Don’t buy into those thoughts. Instead, say, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve already answered the door and almighty God, the Creator of the universe, has sent me a hand delivery of joy. I know this will be a great day!” Decide that for you, there are no Monday morning blues. Instead, choose the Monday morning dos by saying, “I do have a smile. I do have joy. I do have God’s favor. I do have victory.” Yes, I know some days are more difficult than others. But if you program your mind in a positive way, you won’t have to drag through certain days just hoping to get to Friday so you can finally enjoy life. Faith is always in the present. Your attitude should be: I’m excited to be alive at this moment. I’m excited to be breathing today. I’m excited about my family, my health, and my opportunities. I have plenty of reasons to be happy right now.

Really, anyone can have a good attitude when everything is going well. We can all celebrate and be grateful when we’re on the mountaintop, but where are the people who give God praise even as the bottom falls out? Where are the people who rise up each morning and prepare for victory and increase in spite of all the news reports predicting doom and gloom? Where are the people who say, “God, I still praise You even though the medical report wasn’t good” or “God, I still thank You even though it didn’t turn out my way”? I believe you are one of those people. I believe you are of great faith. Your roots go down deep. You could be complaining. You could be discouraged. You could have a chip on your shoulder, but instead you just keep giving God praise. You’ve got that smile on your face. You’re doing the right thing even though the wrong thing is happening. That’s why I can tell you with confidence that you are coming into greater victories. Enlarge your vision. Take the limits off God. You have not seen your best days. God has victories in your future that will amaze you. He will show up and show out in unusual ways. You may be in a tough time right now, but remember this: The enemy always fights you the hardest when he knows God has something great in store for you. You are closest to your victory when it is the darkest. That is the enemy’s final stand. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t start complaining. Just keep offering up that sacrifice of praise.

Life can be like a padlock refusing to open. One little change in the combination can finally open the door.

Leigh mentioned that you’re a vet in Winnipeg, here to take some courses to update your skills?” “Yes.” Valerie grimaced. “That was the idea, but if they don’t catch this guy in the next day or two, I’ll have to give up the courses until next semester and if that happens, I might as well head home.” “What?” Anders turned on her sharply. Valerie bit her lip, not very happy at the thought herself. She would have liked to get to know him better, but if she couldn’t do the course now, she’d have to do it next term and it wouldn’t be fair to be away from the clinic that long. Sighing at the very thought, she said, “That’s what my academic advisor said when I talked to him today. I’ve missed the first two weeks of class already. He said if I’m not back by Monday, then I might as well give it up and reapply for next term.” Anders frowned, his gaze shooting to Lucian. It was Leigh who said worriedly, “You can’t go home, Valerie. Not with him still out there.” “Actually, it’s probably better if I did,” Valerie said and pointed out, “He can’t know I’m from Winnipeg, so I’d be safe there, and Anders wouldn’t have to waste his time playing babysitter so he could help hunt for him.” Dead silence met this announcement as the others all exchanged glances. “But your courses,” Anders said finally. “You wanted to upgrade.” “And I still do, but I can’t do that if I can’t attend classes,” she pointed out reasonably. Another moment of silence passed with everyone exchanging glances she didn’t understand and then Lucian said abruptly, “Then you’ll have to attend classes.” When Valerie stared at him with surprise, he added, “Anders will accompany you.” “Oh.” She hesitated briefly and then shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll let him attend with me.” “They might,” Dani said slowly. “I’ve heard of people auditing classes. I even knew someone who audited a couple of mine. She had to get permission from the instructor, and the department chair, and I think her program counselor first though.” “Then he’ll get permission,” Lucian said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. When Anders frowned at this news, he added solemnly, “It’s that or we put her and Roxy on a plane home to Winnipeg.” For some reason, those words sounded ominous to Valerie, and certainly Anders reacted as if they were. His mouth tightened grimly, and he nodded once. It was Friday now, but apparently come Monday, she was attending class and Anders was coming with her.

I know that many people including our President insist that it be called the Christmas Season. I’ll be the first in line to say that it works for me however that’s not what it is. We hint at its coming on Halloween when the little tykes take over wandering the neighborhood begging for candy and coins. In this day and age the idea of children wandering the streets threatening people with “Trick or Treat!” just isn’t a good idea. In most cases parents go with them encouraging their offspring’s to politely ask “Anything for Halloween.” An added layer of security occurs when the children are herded into one room to party with friends. It’s all good, safe fun and usually there is enough candy for all of their teeth to rot before they have a chance to grow new ones. Forgotten is the concept that it is a three day observance of those that have passed before us and are considered saints or martyrs. Next we celebrate Thanksgiving, a national holiday (holly day) formally observed in Canada, Liberia, Germany Japan, some countries in the Caribbean and the United States. Most of these countries observe days other than the fourth Thursday of November and think of it as a secular way of celebrating the harvest and abundance of food. Without a hiccup we slide into Black Friday raiding stores for the loot being sold at discounted prices. The same holds true for Cyber Monday when we burn up the internet looking for bargains that will arrive at our doorsteps, brought by the jolly delivery men and women, of FedEx, UPS and USPS. Of course the big days are Chanukah when the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire, regained control of Jerusalem. It is a time to gather the family and talk of history and tell stories. Christmas Eve is a time when my family goes to church, mostly to sing carols and distribute gifts, although this usually continued on Christmas day. This is when the term “Merry Christmas” is justified and correct although it is thought that the actual birthday of Christ is in October. The English squeezed another day out of the season, called Boxing Day, which is when the servants got some scraps from the dinner the day before and received a small gift or a dash of money. I do agree that “Xmas” is inappropriate but that’s just me and I don’t go crazy over it. After all, Christmas is for everyone. On the evening of the last day of the year we celebrate New Year’s Evening followed by New Year’s Day which many people sleep through after New Year’s Eve. The last and final day of the Holiday Season is January 6th which Is Epiphany or Three Kings Day. In Tarpon Springs, the Greek Orthodox Priest starts the celebration with the sanctification of the waters followed by the immersion of the cross. It becomes a scramble when local teenage boys dive for the cross thrown into the Spring Bayou as a remembrance of the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River. This tradition is now over a century old and was first celebrated by the Episcopal Church by early settlers in 1903.

Process-Centric Response to E-mail #3: “Thanks for getting back to me. I’m going to read this draft of the article and send you back an edited version annotated with comments on Friday (the 10th). In this version I send back, I’ll edit what I can do myself, and add comments to draw your attention to places where I think you’re better suited to make the improvement. At that point, you should have what you need to polish and submit the final draft, so I’ll leave you to do that—no need to reply to this message or to follow up with me after I return the edits—unless, of course, there’s an issue.

It’s that Friday at the end of September when a storm blows in on a warm, muggy morning and it rains all day, but the rain clouds part for a crisp, bracing late afternoon and you know summer has finally lost its grasp. That Friday. It’s been one of those improbably perfect days when all the universe’s tumblers click into place. Every joke of yours kills. Everyone’s a little funnier than usual. Everyone’s a little more insightful and quick. One of those days when you feel like you’re going to be young and live forever. One of those days that feels perpetually like being at the top of the arc while you’re swinging on a swing set.

Finally, she snatched the key from the counter, hung it back on its hook, and took another. “You’ll hear the pub, but no one’ll be singing until Friday.” She leaned over the bar. “Allen! Come show the lady to her room.

Trial began on Friday, July 23, 1875... the jury which was finally selected consisted of eight Mormons, three Gentiles, and one Jack Mormon... When finally the case was closed and the case given to the jury, they could not agree upon a verdict, the eight Mormons all being for acquittal and the other four, all for conviction. The court was obliged to begin all over again and try the case before another jury. Even the most cursory examinations of the court records will show that between the first and second trials of Lee, something happened. When court opened again on September 14, 1876, the whole tone was changed... R.N. Baskin and other non-Mormons insisted that the leaders of the Mormon church had entered into an agreement with District Attorney Howard that Lee might be convicted and pay the death penalty, if the charges against all other suspected persons would be withdrawn. This was to be done by a jury composed only of Mormons, who would bring a verdict of "guilty", if names of other participants were left out of the discussion... This time the trial proceeded with dispatch. Men who had participated, and for almost twenty years had sealed their lips, now came forward to testify... On September 20, the case was given to the all-Mormon jury, who deliberated three and one-half hours and brought in a verdict of "guilty." [Lee was] convicted of murder in the first degree...

And anyway, it was Friday. Thank God it was Friday, after the worst week in the history of the Trump presidency—losing the Senate, failing in an Electoral College showdown, the Capitol attack, impeachment on the agenda, again. In fact, it was the worst week in the history of any presidency.

October 6 Dear Cora, I’ve decided to write you a letter like the one I asked each person in the Friday class to write to explain why they got an A this year. Here it is: May 18 Dear Cora, I got my A because I finally broke the cycle of lashing out at people when they didn’t do exactly what I wanted them to do. I came to see that when I got angry with people or became sarcastic, it was like wiping them out, and our relationship never fully recovered. It was hard for me to “get” that what I wanted was not necessarily what they wanted. For example, if we were preparing an important and difficult concert and players didn’t come to a rehearsal or came late, I would be disappointed and angry because I thought that they should care as much about the project as I did and let nothing stand in the way of being there. Now I see that in a volunteer orchestra whose players have many other commitments, I cannot assume that everyone’s priorities are exactly the same as mine. I have come to realize that people will do what they want to do—which means that sometimes they will come to rehearsals and sometimes they won’t—and I must respect their decisions. And if in my view they fail to adequately inform me of their intentions, I now ask them politely, to please, in the future, leave a message on the voice-mail, or inform the personnel manager directly, so that we can have some idea in advance of what to expect.

November 30th What do you know? For once I favourably surprise myself. After I'd read Howard's exemplary "White Ship" on Friday night and spent yesterday idling about in Providence - woolgathering, I suppose - I've finally made up my mind to sit down and attempt to lick this novel into some kind of functional shape. The central character I'm thinking, is a young man in his early thirties. He's well educated, but if forced by economic circumstance to leave his home in somewhere like Milwaukee (on the principle of writing about somewhere that you know) to seek employment further east. I feel I should give him a name. I know that details of this sort could wait until much later in the process, but I don't feel able to flesh out his character sufficiently until I've at least worked out what he's called. There's been a twenty minute pause between the end of the foregoing sentence and the start of this one, but I think his first name should be Jonathan. Jonathan Randall is the name that comes to me, perhaps by way of Randall Carver. Yes, I think I like the sound of that. So, young Jonathan Randall realises that his yearnings for a literary life have to be put aside to spare his parents dwindling resources, and that he must make his own way in the world, through manual labour if needs be, in order to become the self-sufficient grownup he aspires to be. During an early scene, perhaps in a recounting of Jonathan's childhood, there should be some striking incident which foreshadows the supernatural or psychological weirdness that will dominate the later chapters. Thinking about this, it seems to me that this would be the ideal place to introduce the bridge motif I've toyed with earlier in these pages: since I'm quite fond of the opening paragraphs that I've already written, with that long description of America as a repository for all the world's religious or else occult visionaries, I think what I'll do is largely leave that as it is, to function as a kind of prologue and establish the requisite mood, and then open the novel proper with Jonathan and a school friend playing truant on a summer's afternoon at some remote and overgrown ravine or other, where there's a precarious and creaking bridge with fraying ropes and missing boards that joins the chasm's two sides. I could probably set up the story's major themes and ideas in the two companions' dialogue, albeit simply expressed in keeping with their age and limited experience. Perhaps they're talking in excited schoolboy tones about some local legend, ghost story or piece of folklore that's connected with the bridge or the ravine. This would provide a motive - the eternal boyish fascination with the ghoulish - for them having come to this ill-omened spot while playing hooky, and would also help establish Jonathan's obsession with folkloric subjects as explored in the remainder of the novel.

November 30th What do you know? For once I favourably surprise myself. After I'd read Howard's exemplary "White Ship" on Friday night and spent yesterday idling about in Providence - woolgathering, I suppose - I've finally made up my mind to sit down and attempt to lick this novel into some kind of functional shape. The central character I'm thinking, is a young man in his early thirties. He's well educated, but is forced by economic circumstance to leave his home in somewhere like Milwaukee (on the principle of writing about somewhere that you know) to seek employment further east. I feel I should give him a name. I know that details of this sort could wait until much later in the process, but I don't feel able to flesh out his character sufficiently until I've at least worked out what he's called. There's been a twenty minute pause between the end of the foregoing sentence and the start of this one, but I think his first name should be Jonathan. Jonathan Randall is the name that comes to me, perhaps by way of Randall Carver. Yes, I think I like the sound of that. So, young Jonathan Randall realises that his yearnings for a literary life have to be put aside to spare his parents' dwindling resources, and that he must make his own way in the world, through manual labour if needs be, in order to become the self-sufficient grownup he aspires to be. During an early scene, perhaps in a recounting of Jonathan's childhood, there should be some striking incident which foreshadows the supernatural or psychological weirdness that will dominate the later chapters. Thinking about this, it seems to me that this would be the ideal place to introduce the bridge motif I've toyed with earlier in these pages: since I'm quite fond of the opening paragraphs that I've already written, with that long description of America as a repository for all the world's religious or else occult visionaries, I think what I'll do is largely leave that as it is, to function as a kind of prologue and establish the requisite mood, and then open the novel proper with Jonathan and a school friend playing truant on a summer's afternoon at some remote and overgrown ravine or other, where there's a precarious and creaking bridge with fraying ropes and missing boards that joins the chasm's two sides. I could probably set up the story's major themes and ideas in the two companions' dialogue, albeit simply expressed in keeping with their age and limited experience. Perhaps they're talking in excited schoolboy tones about some local legend, ghost story or piece of folklore that's connected with the bridge or the ravine. This would provide a motive - the eternal boyish fascination with the ghoulish - for them having come to this ill-omened spot while playing hooky, and would also help establish Jonathan's obsession with folkloric subjects as explored in the remainder of the novel.

I believe you should never blow off a good story just because it’s challenging. I believe that falling off the path is the path. I believe that two things can be true. I believe in Love after Love. I believe in Barbra and Barry and that maybe the best is for last. I believe in saving your napkins. I believe you have no idea how much this means to you. I believe if you count all your Fridays, one of the good ones will turn out to be the best Friday ever. Because even if you can’t imagine it, cuz it’s never happened, when it happens and it’s finally here, you’ll know because you’d imagined it all the time. And anyway—what do you have to lose?

Until Donald Trump upped the ante with the threat of tariffs, Mexico had no respect for Washington, DC. After all the empty threats during the Bush, Obama, and previous administrations, it’s no wonder they believed Donald Trump was bluffing. But on the Friday before Trump’s deadline, with the first 5 percent tariff just three days away and the president leaving for England for a state visit with the royal family, it finally dawned on Mexico that Trump wasn’t bluffing.

FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! I don’t know about you, but I enter all those darned magazine company sweepstakes. I go for the Reader’s Digest sweepstakes and I buy my weekly lottery tickets—after all, as a character in the movie Let It Ride said, “You could be walking around lucky and not know it.” In a lot of years, though, I have gone winless. The guys with the balloons and the giant-sized check have not shown up at my door. So the headline FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! got me. I read that letter. And if you send a letter to every one of your customers with that headline on it, every one of them will read it. What should the letter say? Here’s an example, courtesy of the late, great copywriter, my friend Gary Halbert: Dear Valued Customer:    I am writing to tell you that your name was entered into a drawing here at my store and you have won a valuable prize.    As you know, my store, ABC Jewelry, specializes in low-cost, top-quality diamond rings and diamond earrings. Well, guess what? The other day we got in a small shipment of fake diamonds that are made with a new process that makes them look so real they almost fooled me!    Anyway, I don’t want to sell these fakes because they could cause a lot of trouble for the pawnbrokers around town. So I’ve decided to give them away to some of my good customers whose names were selected at random by having my wife, Janet, put all the names in a jar and pull out the winners.    So, you’re one of the winners—and all you’ve got to do is drop in sometime before 5:00 P.M. Friday and you’ll have a 1-karat “diamond” that looks so good it’ll knock your eyes out! Sincerely, John Jones P.S.: After 5:00 P.M. Friday, I reserve the right to give your prize to someone else. Thank you.

The seventies were crazy everywhere, but crazier in Los Angeles. It was the era of freewheeling drugs and sex, the rag end of the sixties. I refer to sprees, to strange couplings and triplings, to nights that started with beer and wine and ended with cocaine and capsules, to debaucheries too various to chronicle. In a sense, we were all Robert Mitchum, smoking rope in bed with two girls while the sun was still noon high. We thought it was normal. You would walk into a house for a pool party, and there, on the cocktail table in the center of the living room, as if it were nuts or cooked shrimp, would be a platter of cocaine. We did it because we were stupid, because we did not know the danger. When I talk about my drug years, I am talking about twenty-four months in the middle of the seventies. I was in the rock and roll world, which meant I was around the stuff all the time. Of course, it was more than mere proximity. I was fun when I was high, talkative and all-encompassing. I could go forever, never be done talking. To some extent, I was really self-medicating, using the drugs to skate over issues in my own life. The fact is, money and success had come so fast, while I was away doing something else, not paying attention, that, when I finally realized where I was and just what I had, I could not understand it. There was this voice in my head, saying, Who do you think you are? What do you think you did? You are a fraud! You don’t deserve any of this! I tortured myself, and let the anxiety well up, then beat back the anxiety with the drugs, on and on, until one day, I stood up and said, “Screw it. That’s over. I’m done.” No rehab, no counseling, nothing like that. Just a moment of clarity, in which I saw myself from the outside, the mess I was making, the waste. I was slipping, not working as hard as I used to. I started leaving the office early on Fridays, then skipping Fridays altogether. Then I started leaving early on Thursdays, then arriving late on Mondays. I was letting myself go. Then one day, I just decided, It has to stop. I threw away the pills and bottles, took a cold shower, had a barbershop shave, and stepped into the cool of Sunset Boulevard, and began fresh. Maybe it had to do with my family situation. I was a father again.

There was a car in the back of the lot, under a fruitful tree. Feet on the steering wheel was a beautiful woman who sought and received harmony. She didn’t measure time by hours or minutes. She measured it by phrases like, “After this glass of red.” She never stopped the car until “the right final song plays.” She didn’t count her days Monday–Friday, but existence to her was checkpointed by the names of people she met last. She didn’t listen to rules about when it was okay to fuck—the first date or third—because when the moments asked for love, she had it. She didn’t sleep when it was dark, she slept when she was fully exhausted, and so worked until drainage, trusting her body was smart enough to solve itself during sleep. She was sleeping right now—aged with the kind of thin wrinkles that told you resveratrol gave a good fight. This was a woman embracing the wild, various interests of the heart. You may have thought freedom was attained by irresponsibility, by the immature seeking the easy, but it took great discipline to be free. You could call her homeless or you could call her earthbound, indecisive or multi-talented, unemployed or honest, spacey or intelligent. What good were words to describe a kind of radiant harmony best explained by her accomplished snoring?

The realization that you’re no longer a young man and instead are a fully grown adult with a child usually hits you on a Friday night. At that moment, you have no plans to leave. There’s no place to be with friends, dressed to kill with money to burn. No, instead, it’s nine o’clock at night. You look at your watch and think, thank fuck. The kid is finally in bed, and I can be alone—exciting stuff, alone time.

But as if her mind protested to her thoughts, she sighted the sky, the enormity reminding her of Allah’s magnificence. She had prayed for such a man at Tahajjud, in the last hour of Friday, at the time of rain and when they’d been for Umrah all those years back. She’d prayed for him with utmost sincerity without letting the wait tire her, especially in those special times when it was recommended to make dua. So how could she doubt Allah when He was finally granting her what she asked for from the past half a decade, or more?

How was rehab?” “Like a party, except no one wants to be there.” “Sounds like a typical Friday for me.” Declan’s lips twitch. Iris’s eyes roll.