First Time Caller Quotes

I like that. Thinking that I’m worth paying attention to. Something ordinary made extraordinary by the person you’re sharing it with.

I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want…I want the magic.

When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.

I'm allowed to want soft, special things.

I don’t concern myself with the fragile egos of men.

But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want pas-sion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that.

Long-time listener, first-time caller,” he says over the line. There’s a reluctant grin in his voice. It twists his words up at the edges, just like his smile. “I was hoping you could give me some advice.

It feels like every time I get my hopes up for something good, reality comes out swinging. I don’t know how to be a hopeful person anymore.

For the hopeless romantics. And the reluctant ones too.

I think books are sexy,” she says very seriously. “No one at school has quite lived up to Aragorn yet.

Every day isn’t a fairy tale. We’ve worked hard for our relationship. To build it. To maintain it. I’ve become so many versions of myself and so has he, but we’ve found a way to fall in love with one another over and over again. Every time.

Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.

I want goose bumps. I want to be wanted. All this time and I—I haven’t given up. I guess I’m just waiting for it to find me.

Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference. Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for your convenience, not the callers. Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is. Don't burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river. Don't forget, a person's greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated. Don't major in minor things. Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. Don't spread yourself too thin. Learn to say no politely and quickly. Don't use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved. Don't waste time grieving over past mistakes Learn from them and move on. Every person needs to have their moment in the sun, when they raise their arms in victory, knowing that on this day, at his hour, they were at their very best. Get your priorities straight. No one ever said on his death bed, 'Gee, if I'd only spent more time at the office'. Give people a second chance, but not a third. Judge your success by the degree that you're enjoying peace, health and love. Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly. Leave everything a little better than you found it. Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation. Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life and death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems. Never cut what can be untied. Never overestimate your power to change others. Never underestimate your power to change yourself. Remember that overnight success usually takes about fifteen years. Remember that winners do what losers don't want to do. Seek opportunity, not security. A boat in harbor is safe, but in time its bottom will rot out. Spend less time worrying who's right, more time deciding what's right. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get. The importance of winning is not what we get from it, but what we become because of it. When facing a difficult task, act as though it's impossible to fail.

But there’s magic too. In between the hard work, there are perfect moments where everything lines up exactly right. What else is that, if not the universe telling me I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be? I’m right next to him, holding his hand.

I'm thinking about her, about us, about this. About this tiny café across from her house and all the places we almost met. About the right time, the right place, the right moment. I'm thinking about the way her hand fits in mine, and the way my heart drums out a beat that matches her name. Lu-cie. Lu-cie. Lu-cie.

I love when we do this. When he says my name and then I say his. Fond exasperation and gentle amusement in every syllable. A call and response. The chorus to the song I can’t get out of my head.

But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that.

I'm not trying to fix anything for you, Lucie. I'm just gonna listen,

It feels like every time I get my hopes up for something good, reality comes out swinging. I don’t know how to be a hopeful person anymore. It’s easier not to be.

I don’t want something perfect; I want something honest. Something that can be mine.

I want to keep Lucie on the line. I want something different.

Her eyebrows jump up. She glances at the box in my lap and then back to my face. “You have a pineapple pizza?” I nod, annoyed with myself. “I do.” “You said pineapple on pizza is disgusting.” “It is.” “Then why do you have it?” “Because you said it was your favorite,” I admit. “And I want your favorite to be my favorite.

I don’t want to let her go yet. I want to hold on to this feeling for a little longer.

Aiden looks like a brooding Disney prince in a Carhartt hoodie.

I wish there was a guidebook for this. An instruction manual that could tell me how to take myself apart and put everything back together so I’m good as new. I wish I knew how to make sense of my pieces.

What if this is what you’ve been waiting for? What if it’s all a string of choices and moments and events and decisions that have led you to exactly right here? And what if what happens next—what if what happens next is the good part? The part you’ve been waiting for.

I imagine somewhere in this sprawling city, Lucie is smiling. For one night at least.

Lucie laughs, bold and bright. I want to yank out the headphone jack and fill the studio with it.

My middle schooler doesn’t think the earth is flat, but she does think Taylor Swift invented friendship bracelets.

Ah, Lucie.” Aiden smiles, his fingers fanning out wide against my back. “I’d know you anywhere.

I’ve been flirting with you.” “Since when?” “Since I made a vague innuendo about oral surgery, give or take a couple of hours.

When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that.

Do you think I’ll get my magic?” He takes a long time to answer. So long my eyes drift shut and everything around me turns fuzzy and heavy. Purple and blue dance behind my closed eyes and I imagine we’re floating with the stars, my fingers reaching for their golden, cascading light. Somewhere in the hazy in- between, a hand slips under my hair and gently squeezes the back of my neck. His thumb traces the ridges of my spine, and my whole body gets heavier. “Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.

You seemed happier earlier this week in the booth.” I scratch roughly at the back of my head. “When?” I know exactly when. When a woman got on the line and said she believed in magic and I thought maybe I could believe in it too.

I don’t want to try. All I do is try. All day long, I’m trying and I’m so tired. Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just…happens? I don’t want—I don’t want to think about what I should say or how I should act or…or have talking points in the notes app of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don’t really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want…I want the magic.

Maybe watching you fall in love with somebody will give my cold, dead heart some hope.

You don’t have to be alone to be lonely.

I can be brave enough for the both of us. I can make my own magic. You just have to give me a reason to.

Even in its flaws, this moment is mine.

Not wanting me to go isn’t the same as wanting me to stay.

Something needs to change. I think it's me.

I don’t want to be with someone if they’re not giving me something I don’t already have. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve always wanted for myself.

Nothing in my life has ever panned out the way I planned for it. And that’s okay. But I don’t want a relationship to be something I cross off my checklist, or something I do because I feel like I have to. I don’t want to be with someone if they’re not giving me something I don’t already have. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve always wanted for myself.

I think sometimes I get so caught up in the roles assigned to me—mother, employee, daughter—that it’s easier to shrink down the things that hurt and set them to the side. I never want anyone to worry.

I think I used to be, but that part of me feels fractured. Wobbly. Broken down by a thousand and one callers who have fallen out of love. Who never had it in the first place. Love and romance seem like a fairy tale now, something we tell kids to help them sleep better at night. Something we tell ourselves too.

I listen to the rhythm of his vowels and consonants and the way he says some words fast and others slow and let myself drift to a place where expectations don't exist and my feelings aren't a fragile glass balloon.

How do you do it?” I choke out. “How do you love her when you’re scared?” My dad laughs, a gruff, thick sound. “It was never a choice, Aiden. I was always going to love your mom. And I would never have chosen different, even with everything we’ve endured together. It makes it better, doesn’t it? To know how temporary it all is. To know how special. Love isn’t”—he sighs, a deep, rumbling sound—“love isn’t always sunshine and daisies. Sometimes it’s hospital beds and shaved heads. But I wouldn’t trade any of it. Because all of it is with her.

You have a pineapple pizza?” I nod, annoyed with myself. “I do.” “You said pineapple on pizza is disgusting.” “It is.” “Then why do you have it?” “Because you said it was your favorite,” I admit. “And I want your favorite to be my favorite.

Isn’t that how it goes? The most precious, delicate things wedge themselves between the plans you’ve made for yourself. They wiggle in your arms and wrap their tiny fingers around your thumb after nine months of bone-deep panic. They barge into your kitchen looking for condiments.

I think that’s why I’ve been sitting on my couch. That’s why I’m home all the time. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard at something that comes so easily for everyone else. I stopped dating because it wasn’t working for me and I think I hoped that another option might materialize.

My entire life I've done my best to not feel much of anything. Feeling almost always led to hurting and I didn't want to hurt anymore. So I decided not to. But I think somewhere along the way, that choice became a habit I didn't know how to break. I stopped believing in good things. I stopped believing in anything at all.

I used to love talking to people. Hearing their stories and sharing mine. It made me feel connected. Now, I'm just.. exhausted.

Why are you looking at me like that?” “Because you’ve got a big, squishy heart in there, you grumpy asshole.” “I do not.” “Yes, you do.

Maybe I am lonely.

All I do is try. All day long, I’m trying and I’m so tired. Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just…happens

We hover there, in the uncertain space of more and maybe.

I’m gonna love you so good, Lucie.

What she needs is to see her mom prioritize her own happiness for once. So she can learn to do the same.

You said things that resonated with a lot of people. Things that other people are afraid to say,” she continues slowly. “That’s its own sort of magic, isn’t it?

love isn’t always sunshine and daisies. Sometimes it’s hospital beds and shaved heads. But I wouldn’t trade any of it. Because all of it is with her.

Aiden never stopped believing in love. He forgot how to. He built a fortress around his heart to protect himself and lost the key somewhere along the way.

I don’t like sugar in my coffee at all

I like thinking that I'd be worth the trouble of something like that," she confesses quietly. Her shoulder shrugs up to her ear. "I like thinking that it doesn't need to be fancy to be special. Maybe... maybe they'd remember I like fountain soda best or daisies instead of roses. Little things that'd let me know they've been paying attention." Her eyes lift back to mine. That twist in my chest again, sharper this time. "I like that. Thinking that I'm worth paying attention to. Something ordinary made extraordinary by the person you're sharing it with.

All I know is it feels like something different and delicate. Something tremulous. Secrets shared in the middle of the night. Dark pressing in on the windows. A whole city spinning out at our feet.

Like…like all of us in this big, bustling world are just bouncing off one another and I don’t have anyone who wants to grab on. I didn’t feel like myself and I didn’t feel like anyone else was being themselves either.

She told me once she doesn’t want to settle anymore and I think that’s what I’ve been doing. My whole life, I’ve intentionally broken everything down because it’s been easier for me to handle. And it’s been the same with her. I’ve been letting myself have sips of her, afraid of what might happen if I let myself go. But I want— I want to kiss her when other people are around. I want to hold her hand. I want to have pancakes at her house on Sunday mornings and I want to help with Indiana Jones costumes. I want her people to be my people too.

Nas looked at Vik from across the room, and when he felt her eyes on him and lifted his head, she lowered her glance. It wasn’t the first time in the past two weeks that I saw them do this. It also didn’t escape Lev’s notice that Viktor had stopped coming around. They hadn’t spoke in that time. Something had happened between them, and Nas was not opening up, probably because it was still too painful to talk about. All I knew was that Nas was miserable and Vik had developed the temper of a T-Rex with itchy balls. Relationships were collapsing around us, but Lev and I were going stronger than ever.

No, that's not what I mean. I don't want to try. All I do is try. All day long, I'm trying and I'm so tired. Why can't this be the one thing I don't have to try at? Why can't it be a thing that just...happens? I don't want-I don't want to think about what I should say or how I should act or...or have talking points in the notes of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don't really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want...I want the magic.

In almost every thriller, a point is reached when someone, usually calling from a phone booth, telephones with a vital piece of information, which he cannot divulge by phone. By the time the hero arrives at the place where they had arranged to meet, the caller is dead, or too near death to tell. There is never an explanation for the reluctance of the caller to impart his message in the first place. Certainly, the convention existed well before the age of the tape recorder and the wiretap. Not on the phone, in a spy or mystery story, has always been, in and of itself, sufficient to hold up the resolution of the case for a long, long time.

The only people who ever called me were my dad, my brother, assorted Vaders to tell me to come early or late to work (including Sean, but he always sounded grumpy that he had to call me, so it wasn’t as big a thrill as you’d think), Tammy to tell me to come early or late to tennis practice, and Frances. I glanced at the caller ID screen and clicked the phone on. “What’s up, Fanny?” From the time Mom died until I was eleven, Frances the au pair had hung out in the background of my life. Once Sean overheard someone calling her Fanny, whch apparently is a nickname for Frances. We found this shocking. I mean, who has a nickname that’s a synonym for derriere? Who’s named Frances in the first place? So the boys started calling her Fanny the Nanny. Then, Booty the Babysitter. Then, Butt I Don’t Need a Governess. This had everything to do with the nickname Fanny and the fact that she tried not to get upset at being addressed in this undignified manner when she was trying to raise compassionate, responsible children. It had nothing to do with her having an outsized rumpus. Frances had a cute figure, if you could see it under all that hippie-wear.

Walter was next heard from in September, when he leafleted the neighborhood under cover of night. The Dent and Dolberg houses were standing empty now, their windows darkened like the call-holding lights of emergency-hotline callers who’d finally quietly hung up, but the remaining residents of Canterbridge Estates all awoke one morning to find on their doorsteps a politely worded “Dear Neighbors” letter, rehashing the anticat arguments that Walter had presented twice already, and four attached pages of photographs that were the opposite of polite. Walter had apparently spent the entire summer documenting bird deaths on his property. Each picture (there were more than forty of them) was labeled with a date and a species. The Canterbridge families who didn’t own cats were offended to have been included in the leafleting, and the families who did own them were offended by Walter’s seeming certainty that every bird death on his property was the fault of their pets. Linda Hoffbauer was additionally incensed that a leaflet had been left where one of her children could easily have been exposed to traumatizing images of headless sparrows and bloody entrails. She called the county sheriff, with whom she and her husband were social, to see whether perhaps Walter was guilty of illegal harassment. The sheriff said that Walter wasn’t, but he agreed to stop by his house and have a word of warning with him—a visit that yielded the unexpected news that Walter had a law degree and was versed not only in his First Amendment rights but also in the Canterbridge Estates homeowners covenant, which contained a clause requiring pets to be under the control of their owners at all times; the sheriff advised Linda to shred the leaflet and move on.

The thing I really like about Jase is that he’s as obsessed with ducks as I am. I rarely took my boys hunting with me when they were very young. In fact, I never took them when I was still an outlaw. “Not this time, boys, we might be running from the game warden,” I’d tell them. But after I repented and came to Jesus Christ, I started taking my sons hunting with me, beginning with Alan. Before we moved to where we live now, it was a pretty long haul from town to the Ouachita River bottoms. Alan got carsick nearly every time I took him hunting, but he didn’t think I knew. We stopped at the same gas station every time, and he’d walk around back and lose his breakfast before he climbed back into the truck. I was proud of him for never complaining. I took Jase hunting for the first time when he was five. He was shooting Pa’s heavy Belgium-made Browning twelve-gauge shotgun, which he could barely even hold up. It kicked like a mule! The first time Jase shot the gun, it kicked him to the back of the blind and flipped him over a bench. “Did I get him?” Jase asked. I knew right then that I had another hunter in the family, and Jase is still the most skilled hunter of all my boys. I trained Jase to take over the company by teaching him the nuances of duck calls and fowl hunting, and he is still the person in charge of making sure every duck call sounds like a duck. Not only did Jase design the first gadwall drake call to hit the market, he also invented the first triple-reed duck caller. Jase and I live to hunt ducks. We track ducks during the season through a nationwide network of hunters, asking how many ducks are in their areas and what movements are expected. Then we check conditions of wind and weather fronts that might influence duck movement. We talk it all over during the day and again each morning, before the day’s hunt, as we prepare to leave for the blind. When Kay and I began to ponder becoming less active in the Duck Commander business, we offered its management to Jase, who had been most deeply involved in the company. But he had no desire to get into management. Jase likes building duck calls and doesn’t really enjoy the business aspects of the company, like making sales calls or dealing with clients and sponsors. Like me, Jase is most comfortable when he’s in a duck blind and doesn’t care for the details that come with running a company. Jase only wants to build duck calls, shoot ducks, and spend time with his family (he and his wife, Missy, have three kids).

Showing units can be a pain because 50% of the time, tenants will not show up. To combat this, I use one of two techniques: 1.I give them the address to drive by first and tell them to call me back if they are interested in seeing the inside. This eliminates the people who are disinterested because of the location. 2.I try to “batch” all the showings to one time. I will tell all the callers that I will be at the house from “5:00 to 5:30 on Friday afternoon” and if they want to see it – show up then. Having multiple tenants look at a property at the same time can be a little bit awkward, but it creates a sense of competition and scarcity which allows for

It seems no one is guaranteed a job anywhere anymore. These are troubled times for workers. The creeping sense that no one’s job is safe, even as the companies they work for are thriving, means the spread of fear, apprehension, and confusion. One sign of this growing unease: An American headhunting firm reported that more than half of callers making inquiries about jobs were still employed—but were so fearful of losing those jobs that they had already started to look for another.5 The day that AT&T began notifying the first of forty thousand workers to be laid off—in a year when its profits were a record $4.7 billion—a poll reported that a third of Americans feared that someone in their household would soon lose a job. Such fears persist at a time when the American economy is creating more jobs than it is losing. The churning of jobs—what economists euphemistically call “labor market flexibility”—is now a troubling fact of work life. And it is part of a global tidal wave sweeping through all the leading economies of the developed world, whether in Europe, Asia, or the Americas. Prosperity is no guarantee of jobs; layoffs continue even amidst a booming economy. This paradox, as Paul Krugman, an MIT economist, puts it, is “the unfortunate price we have to pay for having as dynamic an economy as we do.”6 There is now a palpable bleakness about the new landscape of work. “We work in what amounts to a quiet war zone” is the way one midlevel executive at a multinational firm put it to me. “There’s no way to give your loyalty to a company and expect it to be returned anymore. So each person is becoming their own little shop within the company—you have to be able to be part of a team, but also ready to move on and be self-sufficient.” For many older workers—children of the meritocracy, who were taught that education and technical skills were a permanent ticket to success—this new way of thinking may come as a shock. People are beginning to realize that success takes more than intellectual excellence or technical prowess, and that we need another sort of skill just to survive—and certainly to thrive—in the increasingly turbulent job market of the future. Internal qualities such as resilience, initiative, optimism, and adaptability are taking on a new valuation. A

Choose GEC Cabinet Depot for Small Kitchen Renovation in Minneapolis Want to renovate your small kitchen? If yes, then rush to GEC cabinet depot immediately. Their talented designers and craftsman will help you give your kitchen a new look. So, do not waste any more time and become the first caller to grab the exiting offers at your nearest GEC Cabinet Depot store.

for such nuance, and he knew that being dissociated from schizophrenia merely by degree could be fatal for his credibility. There was nothing he could do, though, so he rose again from the couch, muted the TV, and elected to do the only productive thing he could think of. With a new-found determination, Dan fetched the folder from under his bed and lifted out the unreadable German letter. All of the talk about wartime activity led Dan to think that this letter might be from the 1940s. It would almost explain the stupid writing, he thought. With that in mind he ran each of the letter’s pages through his scanner and looked at the images on his computer, zoomed to a size that helped him identify some of the calligraphic touches as particular letters. The first complete word Dan found — aided initially by the umlaut — was, ominously, Führer. He then successfully identified a few more words from the first page, becoming quite good at spotting instances of “ein” and “eine”. Further progress was hard to come by, though, and Dan soon couldn’t help but feel like he was running through treacle; getting nowhere despite applying himself totally. Dan looked at the time in the top corner of his computer’s screen and did a double take when he saw that more than 90 minutes had passed since he turned it on. He saved his annotated progress and decided to call it a night. The computer chimed as it powered off, which struck Dan as odd, but he shrugged it off. As he walked to turn off the TV — now replaying Billy Kendrick’s tenacious interview from immediately after Richard’s press conference — Dan heard the chime again. Doorbell, he realised. Dan stayed still. In the unlikely event that Mr Byrd had come to check on him this late, he would say so. He usually called through the door. No voice came. After a long gap that left Dan thinking that the caller had gone, he heard three rushed knocks on the window. “Dan McCarthy,” the visitor shouted at the glass. The high-pitched voice sounded vaguely familiar but was heavily muffled by the window. Beginning to realise that the visitor wasn’t going away any time soon, Dan walked towards the door. When he got there he heard footsteps on the other side, and then someone lowering themselves to the ground. “Dan McCarthy!” a chirpy voice called through the gap at the bottom of his door. He recognised it now. After a few seconds, Dan opened the door and saw a smartly dressed young woman crouched to the ground with her head on his doormat. She jumped to her feet, smiling warmly. “Dan McCarthy,” she said, holding out her hand. “Emma Ford. From the phone, remember?

possibly the captain and first officer. One caller reported that a flight attendant had been killed.81 One of the callers from United 93 also reported that he thought the hijackers might possess a gun. But none of the other callers reported the presence of a firearm. One recipient of a call from the aircraft recounted specifically asking her caller whether the hijackers had guns.The passenger replied that he did not see one.No evidence of firearms or of their identifiable remains was found at the aircraft’s crash site, and the cockpit voice recorder gives no indication of a gun being fired or mentioned at any time.We believe that if the hijackers had possessed a gun, they would have used it in the flight’s

For me, radio was a space for reflection. On the air, I submerged myself in music and literature. I listened along with my audience; I read to myself and to them, I discussed all kinds of ideas with total strangers. It was the perfect medium: intense, warm, interactive, and highly volatile. From my very first session in the broadcast studio, I felt like I was in a time capsule, a sensory-deprivation chamber. It was a protective bubble where nothing and no one could touch me. The semidarkness, the illuminated panel, and the on-air light combined to create a cozy, womblike environment, a sort of cosmic solitude. I had the sensation of floating in space, completely isolated from the real world. My only human contact was with the disembodied voices of callers. Everything seemed dusted with an ethereal—yes, I'll say it—ghostly quality. I could touch and hear the whole world, while no one could be sure of my existence; I was just one more voice in the teeming concert of hertzian waves. It was a land of the blind, where we were guided by sounds and voices, and space took the shape our words gave it. We transformed it with every description, comment, insult, or digression. It was almost like death, floating aimlessly at night, listening to spectral voices that in turn spoke about specters, indifferent to their own condition.

review some fundamentals: 1. We must continue doing our best to control expenses. Every dollar we save on expenses goes directly to the bottom line. That is what all of us should be concerned about, or you are at the wrong firm. Expenses should be watched at all times, but especially when business is good. 2. We must continue to be alert for scams and con artists. We must watch for unusual behavior by the people we work with. What is unusual behavior? Something subtle like somebody who drives a Rolls-Royce on a salary that can barely support roller skates. 3. Do the people you work with answer phone calls in a courteous manner? Are all phone calls returned? I couldn’t care less what a person does in his own home, but I am a nut about returning phone calls that are made to our personnel during the workday. I do not care if the caller is selling malaria. Calls must be returned! 4. Are the receptionists and telephone operators in all of our offices warm and courteous, and if they are, are they thanked appropriately? Remember that in most cases the first contact a client has with us is through a telephone operator or receptionist. 5. Do you and your associates leave word where you are at all times so that finding you is not like hunting for the Andrea Doria? 6.

and delivered a front kick to Mr. J’s abdomen so powerful, it lifted him off the ground and sent him stumbling back at least six or seven feet. As Mr. J crashed on to the messy front lawn, he heard the front door slam shut. ‘Motherfu . . .’ He coughed frantically, trying to breathe in. The kick had knocked the air out of Mr. J’s lungs. He tried to get up, but pain forced him to sit back down for a couple more seconds. He brought his right hand to his stomach and squeezed his eyes tight. Finally. He was able to breathe life back into his limbs. ‘You sonofabitch.’ He got back on to his feet and ran towards the door. Locked. ‘Arghhhh . . .’ Mr. J let out a full-of-frustration cry. He stepped back and, using all the power he had in his muscles, threw his whole body, shoulder first, against the door. It rattled but that was about it. ‘Shit!’ He stepped back again and this time used his right leg to deliver a kick into the door handle. The door shook again, but it still didn’t open. He tried again. Nothing. One more time. Almost. Again, and this time Mr. J gave it everything he had. If this failed, he would use his gun. SLAM! The door finally flew open, cracking the doorframe and throwing splinters up in the air. As he cautiously stepped into the house, Mr. J pulled out a Sig Sauer P226 Legion from his lower-back holster. The pistol was equipped with a silencer. The front door took him straight into a sparsely furnished living room. Empty. Mr. J looked left, then right. Nothing. ‘Jeffery?’ Mr. J called in a loud and angry voice, while taking in the room. No reply. ‘Jeffery? C’mon, let’s talk.’ Silence. Across the room from him there was a shut door. ‘The kitchen,’ he thought. To his right, a corridor would take him deeper into the house. There was no one there either. Mr. J decided to go for the kitchen door. If he went for the corridor that would mean that he would have his back to the shut door. Never a good idea. He crossed the room and threw his back against the wall to the side of the door. He was about to try its handle

In the vast majority of cases (83 percent), landlords who received a nuisance citation for domestic violence responded by either evicting the tenants or by threatening to evict them for future police calls. Sometimes, this meant evicting a couple, but most of the time landlords evicted women abused by men who did not live with them. ... [A landlord] wrote: “First, we are evicting Sheila M, the caller for help from police. She has been beaten by her ‘man’ who kicks in doors and goes to jail for 1 or 2 days. We suggested she obtain a gun and kill him in self defense, but evidently she hasn’t. Therefore, we are evicting her.” Each of these landlords received the same form letter from the Milwaukee PD: “This notice “serves to inform you that your written course of action is accepted.” The year the police called Sherrena, Wisconsin saw more than one victim per week murdered by a current or former romantic partner or relative. After the numbers were released, Milwaukee’s chief of police appeared on the local news and puzzled over the fact that many victims had never contacted the police for help. A nightly news reporter summed up the chief’s views: “He believes that if police were contacted more often, that victims would have the tools to prevent fatal situations from occurring in the future.” What the chief failed to realize, or failed to reveal, was that his department’s own rules presented battered women with a devil’s bargain: keep quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction.

What if this is what you've been waiting for? What if it's all a string of choices and moments and events and decisions that have led you to exactly right here? And what happens next is the good part? The part you've been waiting for.

I’m so used to reducing myself to feeling things halfway that it’s become second nature.

Because I knew I wasn’t the love story Grayson deserved. Gray and I have spent our entire lives together, but we were never in love.

It makes it better, doesn’t it? To know how temporary it all is. To know how special. Love isn’t”—he sighs, a deep, rumbling sound—“love isn’t always sunshine and daisies. Sometimes it’s hospital beds and shaved heads. But I wouldn’t trade any of it. Because all of it is with her.

I know what falling in love feels like because I've been falling in love with you

I should have known as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant. He was blond, for god’s sake.

They also want to complain about their husband not loading the dishwasher correctly for twenty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds.

So I stopped trying to date. I have so much love in my life, I’m not sure I need any more. I don’t want—I don’t want to settle for something just to say I have it.

It’s Dan’s turn to pick the music today, and he almost always chooses Celine Dion. He says he appreciates Canadian performers, but I have never once heard him appreciate Drake.

When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that. And I think I’ve just figured out—I think that’s why I’ve been sitting on my couch. That’s why I’m home all the time. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard at something that comes so easily for everyone else.

I want your favourite to be my favourite.

The impact of second-class treatment on black people’s bodies is devastating. It is manifested not only in the black–white death gap but also in the drastic measures required when chronic disease is left unmanaged. Black patients are less likely than whites to be referred to kidney and liver transplant wait lists and are more likely to die while waiting for a transplant.68 If they are lucky enough to get a donated kidney or liver, blacks are sicker than whites at the time of transplantation and less likely to survive afterward. “Take a look at all the black amputees,” said a caller to a radio show I was speaking on, identifying the remarkable numbers of people with amputated legs you see in poor black communities as a sign of health inequities. According to a 2008 nationwide study of Medicare claims, whites in Louisiana and Mississippi have a higher rate of leg amputation than in other states, but the rate for blacks is five times higher than for whites.69 An earlier study of Medicare services found that physicians were less likely to treat their black patients with aggressive, curative therapies such as hospitalization for heart disease, coronary artery bypass surgery, coronary angioplasty, and hip-fracture repair.70 But there were two surgeries that blacks were far more likely to undergo than whites: amputation of a lower limb and removal of the testicles to treat prostate cancer. Blacks are less likely to get desirable medical interventions and more likely to get undesirable interventions that good medical care would avoid.

I can honestly say by the time I was standing on U.S. Bank Field, I had no doubts that we would win. I had watched a lot of tape, including the previous year’s Super Bowl when the Patriots came back against the Falcons. In fact, I reviewed a lot of games where the Patriots were losing and came back, focusing on their ability to pull it off. What did I learn? It wasn’t about the Patriots as much as it was about the teams they were playing. Their opponents weren’t playing for sixty minutes. They weren’t finishing. They weren’t executing their offense. Play callers became more conservative and stopped being aggressive. A great example was the AFC Championship Game. When the Jacksonville Jaguars had a four-point lead on New England and had the ball with fifty-five seconds left in the first half, they took a knee and ran the clock out. I was watching the game from our locker room at Lincoln Financial Field as we were getting ready to play Minnesota. I sat there thinking, “You have got to be kidding me right now.” They had two time-outs and close to a minute left. They could have at least tried for a field goal. They took it out of their quarterback’s hands, and they didn’t give it to their big back, Leonard Fournette. I thought, “If they lose this game, this is why.” Sure enough, they would go on to lose the game. It made me mad because Jacksonville had New England right where they wanted them. I was screaming at the television in my office. When they knelt right before halftime, inside I was like, “I’ll never do that.” It fueled me. Against the Vikings later that day, we had twenty-nine seconds left in the first half and three time-outs. Instead of taking a knee, I called for a screen pass to Jay Ajayi to the sideline, a pass to Zach Ertz up the sideline, another pass to Ajayi, and then we kicked a field goal to grab three points. All in twenty-nine seconds. That’s how I wanted to play the last minute of a half—with an aggressive mentality.

I know the broad strokes. The parts that shine the brightest through the armor he wraps himself in.

I need to fix me.

she does think Taylor Swift invented friendship bracelets.

Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just…happens?

When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that. And I think I’ve just figured out—I think that’s why I’ve been sitting on my couch.

to mine. That twist in my chest again, sharper this time. “I like that. Thinking that I’m worth paying attention to. Something ordinary made extraordinary by the person you’re sharing it with.

get so caught up in the roles assigned to me—mother, employee, daughter—that it’s easier to shrink down the things that hurt and set them to the side. I never want anyone to worry.

The house settles as I move up the stairs. Sleepy sounds that move like a symphony. A song I know every word to. Floorboards creak beneath my feet

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Is there a malevolent spirit who is pissed about my inability to fold a fitted sheet? If this house is haunted, I’ll burn the whole place to the ground.

I like thinking that I’d be worth the trouble of something like that.

He wanted to work for the National Weather Service but had to drop out of his college program to take on full custody of his little sisters when his mom decided to join a traveling harmonica band.

Lucie sighs. “You can ignore me.” “It’s impossible to ignore you,” I murmur. “What was that?” I shake my head. “Nothing.

The whole world spins on, and I sit in my bed and wait for a text message.

Pressure nestles behind my eyes and across the bridge of my nose. I don’t think I realized that because I was choosing to be brave, other people might decide to be brave too.

I’m allowed to want soft, special things.

Love waits for no one.

I don’t want to listen to Piano Concerto in F, I want to listen to Aiden flirt with Lucie.

I wish there was a guidebook for this. An instruction manual that could tell me how to take myself apart and put everything back together so I'm good as new. I wish I knew how to make sense of my pieces.

I need wine, cookies, and my best friend. In that order.

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I think we’re all a little lonely.

I told Aiden that I'm tired of wasting time on things that don't feel like everything I've ever wanted for myself, but I'm not sure that's true. I don't know what I want for myself. It's all twisted up in the things I think I deserve, then squashed under the things I'm brave enough to reach for. I don't think I've ever thought about any of it long enough to know what I want.

I've been here before. I know this feeling. The sinking realization that my feelings don't match up. That I've felt too much too fast and made assumptions. Misread the situation and projected my own hopes on another person.

My name is Aiden Valentine and you’re live with Heartstrings, Baltimore’s romance hotline.

I wish there was a guidebook for this.

Like a costume for a character I never agree to play.

It's like his thoughts are coming too fast to form words, like his bravery might run out before he can say whatever it is he wants to say.

think books are sexy,” she says very seriously. “No one at school has quite lived up to Aragorn yet.

He says he appreciates Canadian performers, but I have never once heard him appreciate Drake.

All for a shitty guy in cropped chinos and boat shoes without socks. I should have known as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant. He was blond, for god’s sake.

I sit on the bench and swing my legs back and forth,

Sometimes I think I hear her voice twisting through my dreams. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I feel like she should be in the space next to me, her laugh ringing in my ears.

This whole place is Team Lucie.” “Even you?” “Especially me.

I know what falling in love feels like because I've been falling in love with you.

Accustomed as we've become to communicating textually, I can tell you there are times when hearing someone's voice—as anxiety-inducing and time-consuming as that can be for the caller—would make a big difference.

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I imagine we’re floating with the stars, my fingers reaching for their golden cascading light. Somewhere in the hazy in-between, a hand slips under my hair and gently squeezes the back of my neck. His thumb traces the ridges of my spine, and my whole body gets heavier. “Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.

She took her hand back about an hour ago, before the aforementioned beers, and I’ve been silently scheming on the other end of the table for ways to get it back.