Fizzy Quotes

The kiss. The kiss. The kiss. It was chocolate cake and fizzy passion and goose bumps. No one had ever kissed me like that.

EATABLE MARSHMALLOW PILLOWS LICKABLE WALLPAPER FOR NURSERIES HOT ICE CREAMS FOR COLD DAYS COWS THAT GIVE CHOCOLATE MILK FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS SQUARE SWEETS THAT LOOK ROUND

The fridge had been emptied of all Dudley’s favorite things — fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate bars and burgers — and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Vernon called “rabbit food.

I gestured at my litre of fizzy red wine. “Want a drop of this?” I asked him. No thanks. I try not to drink at lunchtime.” So do I. But I never quite make it.” I feel like shit all day if I drink at lunchtime.” Me too. But I feel like shit all lunchtime if I don’t.” Yes, well it all comes down to choices, doesn’t it?” he said. “It’s the same in the evenings. Do you want to feel good at night or do you want to feel good in the morning? It’s the same with life. Do you want to feel good young or do you want to feel good old? One or the other, not both.” Isn’t it a tragedy?

I happen to have a certain fondness for existing--soda wouldn't have that lovely fizzy feeling if you were dead. Think of all the things you would miss: Cartoons, music, movies, video games, music, art, fingernail growth, sex...well, perhaps not sex, depending on how weird your mortician is.

in her dreams, blood tasted like fizzy strawberry soda. If you drank it too fast, you got brain freeze. When she was older, after she'd licked a cut on her finger, the taste of that became the taste in her dreams: copper and tears.

My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage.

In much the same way, motherhood has become the essential female experience, valued above all others: giving life is where it's at. "Pro-maternity" propaganda has rarely been so extreme. They must be joking, the modern equivalent of the double constraint: "Have babies, it's wonderful, you'll feel more fulfilled and feminine than ever," but do it in a society in freefall in which waged work is a condition of social survival but guaranteed to no one, and especially not to women. Give birth in cities where accommodation is precarious, schools have surrendered the fight and children are subject to the most vicious mental assault through advertising, TV, internet, fizzy drink manufacturers and so on. Without children you will never be fulfilled as a woman, but bringing up kids in decent conditions is almost impossible.

One the one hand, our economists treat human beings as rational actors making choices to maximize their own economic benefit. On the other hand, the same companies that hire those economists also pay for advertising campaigns that use the raw materials of myth and magic to encourage people to act against their own best interests, whether it's a matter of buying overpriced fizzy sugar water or the much more serious matter of continuing to support the unthinking pursuit of business as usual in the teeth of approaching disaster.

She’s not a girl. She’s been through hurricanes of emotions, she fought the armies of fears, she passed the trickiest life’s trials. She matured like wine through humid darkness, cold and time. She came out fizzy and sweet.

He said that?” Fizzy whispered, wary of the small but excellent ears in the other room. “He actually said the words ‘I want you in my bed’? Just like that?” Jess nodded. “With eye contact?” “Steady, ardent, I’m-going-to-fuck-you-until-you-find-religion eye contact,” Jess confirmed.

When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things.

Is this 37-year-old Fizzy’s kink? Honesty, accountability, and open communication?

She could hear her hair growing. It sounded like something crumbling. A burnt thing crumbling. Coal. Toast. Moths crisped on a light bulb. She remembered reading somewhere that even after people died, their hair and nails kept growing. Like starlight, travelling through the universe long after the stars themselves had died. Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them.

People such as Blur's Alex James make too much of a fuss about champagne, just because it pops and it's fizzy and golden. Big deal. Rice Krispies do exactly the same

Come again?' She asked. Yes tomorrow, under the sodium street lights, under the tick of the clock. Under my obligations, my history, my fears, this now. This fizzy, giddy all consuming now. I will not let time lie to me. I will not listen to dead voices or unborn pain. "What if?" Has no power against 'what if not?' The not of you is unbearable. I must have you....

Sure, QuizBowl wasn't a cool activity to join and, yeah, the idea of answering difficult questions in front of an audience terrified me. But it wasn't anything like the fear that accompanied my drowning nightmare - harrowing and visceral. No, this fear made me feel fizzy. Hopeful. In fact, this fear felt like waking up do discover I am still here.

His in-house intercom greeted him with a cheery 'Welcome home, Bart,' and his server droid - custom-made to replicate Princess Leia, classic 'Star Wars,' slave-girl mode (he was a nerd, but he was still a guy) - strolled out to offer him his favorite orange fizzy with crushed ice.

Hal looked ar her as if she were the most insufferable person he'd ever met. It filled her with an indescribable delight, fizzy and bright, like sunshine marbling the ocean.

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.

Now, she felt that she was being singled out for something for which she was not in any way prepared, and this, despite the fear it carried with it, gave her a feeling, or more a set of feelings, she thought she might experience in the days before her wedding, days in which everyone looked at her in the rush of arrangements with light in their eyes, days in which she herself was fizzy with excitement but careful not to think too precisely about what the next few weeks would be like in case she lost her nerve.

Why the hell didn't we just stay friends? That felt reasonably good. We had fun. I could tell him anything. Of course, he never told me very much about himself, but it didn't matter as much then. Now look at us. Throw some sex into the mix and it's like putting too much yeast in bread. It's all very fizzy and light and wonderful, but then is rises too high and can't support it's own weight and the whole thing falls flat.

The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making and shedding-in short, the fuzzy, fizzy hoopla of life's ramshackle return.

The X had released its first wave of chemical optimism, I could feel it float up inside me like a big test balloon and splatter on the roof of my mouth, spraying good cheer. I could almost taste it, like a fizzy pink jelly.

There will be craft beer, brewed by my flatmate on the balcony of our Penge new-build. The Death of Hackney tastes like a sort of fizzy Marmite and smells like a urinary tract infection and is yours for £13 a bottle. Enjoy.

He leaned closer. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Your face is absolutely adorable when you blush.” My ears burned. Oh great, am I the color of a tomato now? “Yeah, well, I can make you blush,” I retorted. “By telling you how hot you are, and that when that little piece of black hair falls into your eyes, it’s so sexy it makes me forget my words, and...” I stopped, suddenly aware of how warm the mausoleum was. “Go on,” Caspian prodded, shaking his head so that his hair covered one green eye. I blushed again, and glanced around me, slowly backing away from him. I just needed some... space to clear my head. He followed me, stalking my every move. My blood felt like pure oxygen racing through my veins, fizzy and bubbling and making me want to float away. A hard wall at my back stopped me, but Caspian kept coming. I thought desperately of some way to change the subject. “I got you Moby-Dick,” I blurted out. He gave me a sly smile. “Mmmm, did you? How... interesting.” “And Treasure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo.” I babbled on. “I thought you might like some boy books.” He stopped an inch away from me. I felt like I was his prisoner. “Let’s go back to the sexy and hot thing,” Caspian said. “Could we add a gorgeous or mysterious in there, too?” I gulped. “Like you don’t already know you’re all of those things. You probably had girls falling all over you before.” Caspian cocked his head to one side. “True. But I always thought it was because I was the quiet new guy. And besides, there’s only one person I was ever really interested in.” “Was?” I squeaked. Then I cleared my throat and tried again. “I mean—” “Am,” Caspian corrected himself. “Technically, I guess it’s both. I was interested the first day I saw her, and I still am interested in her.” His eyes glowed in the soft candlelight around us, and every last ounce of coherent thought left me. “It’s... um... really. It’s...” My head felt like it was thickening and my body was overheating, every word dragged from somewhere in the depths of my fuzzy brain. I waved a hand in front of my face to fan myself, and finally spit out what I was trying to say. “It’s hot in here. Don’t you think? It’s really warm.” “I only feel warmth when I’m standing next to you,” Caspian said. He stepped half an inch closer. “Like right now.

The desire to be famous is infantile, and humanity has never lived in an age when infantilism was more sanctioned and encouraged than now. Infantile foods in the form of crisps, chips, sweet fizzy drinks and pappy burgers or hot dogs smothered in sugary sauce are considered mainstream nutrition for millions of adults. Intoxicating drinks disguised as milkshakes and soda pops exist for those whose taste buds haven't grown up enough to enjoy the taste of alcohol. As in food so in the wider culture. Anything astringent, savoury, sharp, complex, ambiguous or difficult is ignored in favour of the colourful, the sweet, the hollow and the simple.

I buy licorice whips, jelly beans, many-layered blackballs with the seed in the middle, packages of fizzy sherbet you suck up through a straw. I dole them out equally, these offerings, these atonements, into the waiting hands of my friends. In the moment just before giving, I am loved.

Gunner shook his head; he wasn't in the mood. He stared down at his bottle as he spoke. "Yeah, and what if I do go after it and what if I find no one, and I'm alone for the next sixty years? What then? Huh? Friends and family will get married. I'll be stuck buying gifts. Years pass: children, birthday parties. At dinner parties, I'll be odd man out, forcing people to arrange five chairs around a table instead of four or six. Or, okay, let's say maybe twenty years down the line I meet someone nice and I've already given up on ever finding true love. Let's say the girl is a few pounds overweight, has fizzy hair and an annoying laugh, but at this point, I'm also a few pounds overweight and my hair is thinning and my laughter is annoying. Maybe then the two of us get married, and both our groups of friends will say, 'See I told you that you'd find true love. It just took a while.' And we'll smile, but we'll both know it's a lie--

You could drink hard liquor in the middle of a school day without people assuming you were an alcoholic underachiever. Strange how in America in the 1950s, at the height of its industrial and imperial power, men drank double-martinis for lunch. Now, in its decline, they drank fizzy water. Somewhere something had gone terribly wrong.

She was happy, in a bubble, and the only reason to pop it was on the grounds that bubbles were not real life. But bubbles made life tolerable, and the trick was to blow as many as possible. There were new-baby bubbles, and honeymoon bubbles, and success-at-work bubbles, and new-friends bubbles, and great-holiday bubbles, and even tiny TV-series bubbles, dinner bubbles, party bubbles. They all burst without intervention, and then it was a matter of getting through to the next one. Life hadn’t been fizzy for a while. It had been hard.

I slept badly that night, my vivid dreams populated by ghosts. As much as it revived ailing spirits in day light, the fizzy energy of NY seemed to feed on human frailty at night.

They were a power couple, rich in kale and quinoa and fizzy glasses of rosé.

To tell you the truth, I hate audiobooks." But an audiobook is like a fizzy knit cap pulled down over your -

Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them.

Fizzy-drink cans are magical in this way—they can transform parking areas into soccer pitches by their mere existence.

India was talking animatedly with Fizzy Martlesham, a severe-looking woman with her hair scraped back from her large forehead.

I’M HIDING IN the bathroom, crying on the toilet,” she said when Fizzy answered an hour later. Jess’s friend barked out a laugh and an “Aww, I love it when you ignore boundaries. Usually that’s my wheelhouse.

She remembered reading somewhere that even after people died, their hair and nails kept growing. Like starlight, traveling through the universe long after the stars themselves had died. Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them. She thought of the city at night, of cities at night. Discarded constellations of old stars, fallen from the sky, rearranged on earth in patterns and pathways and towers.

I can feel his beating heart - it is wildly alive. There's a burning pit of my stomach and it feels nothing like the black slug chomping away at my happiness. There's a light fizziness where there used to be unbearable heaviness, and I wonder if my potential energy is changing.

And this man, who during three long decades had not once remembered that the world contains lilac bushes - and pansies, sandy garden paths, little carts with containers of fizzy water - this man gave a deep sigh, convinced now that life had gone on in his absence, that life had continued.

I often remember in this false, distorted way, and the memories are often cloaked in the colour of the sun. Sometimes I feel nostalgia for things I knew I hated when they were happening, for days spent at the beach or the swimming pool with my sisters. When I pick my memories apart, I realise my mind has merely played back the objective ingredients, the clichéd apparatus of happiness, the sun, the sound of splashing water, ice-cream on parched lips and cold fizzy drink on a hot tongue, and laugher too. My memory often peddles on the falsehood of past happiness. I should know this.

That’s a good name for both the exercise and the person who came up with it.” By now, Sami has started walking back to his car with the telephone pressed to his ear, so he can’t hear her. No one can. But this doesn’t actually concern Britt-Marie so much. The children run between the soft-drink cans and Britt-Marie stands there beside them with a sort of happy fizziness in her whole body, repeating, “A good name for the exercise and the person who came up with it,” very, very quietly to herself. Over and over again. It’s the first time for as long as she can remember that she has intentionally made a joke.

She remembered reading somewhere that even after people died, their hair and nails kept growing. Like starlight, travelling through the universe long after the stars themselves had died. Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them.

There was nothing you could be sure about, it was all lies, and it was all done to mess with minds because the control and the power trip was so important to them, as well as it being necessary in terms of screwing up anything you might remember from an evidential perspective. They would also build up your hopes, in terms of any tiny thing you did like or were less scared of, so I'd be told that it would be a nice night because Uncle Andrew would be coming, but then it wouldn't be him. There would be someone else There would be someone else who I was told was my Uncle Andrew as he was raping me. Sometimes, this other person would have a mask on but I would know that it wasn't really him. They would be the wrong height or the wrong weight or, sometimes, even obviously a woman. There were occasions when I would be told to call the person Uncle Andrew and then when I did, they would ask me why I was doing that. Sometimes he would be there, too, but that was rare. Was it Satanic? I don't know. Personally I don't believe in God or Satan or any of those things, but abusers use whatever they can to silence children because if you go to the police and say something about Satan, you are so much less likely to be believed. I personally think they were just a group of likeminded people who had no beliefs other than that they wanted to get satisfaction out of abusing children and it's as simple and horrible as that. My uncle certainly doesn't have any satanic beliefs — he just thinks that he loves children and is allowed to get sexual satisfaction from them. Why is there sex involved if it is just about Satan? Why does it always come down to them getting off? No matter what they do that's all it is, whether masturbation or penetration or humiliation, that's what it's about. I encountered people who just liked to humiliate — they wouldn't allow you to go to the bathroom, you would be given drink after drink, fizzy drinks, whatever, so you ended up absolutely desperate and that's where they got off — that's when they started to masturbate themselves, as you stood there peeing yourself. That was just awful, so humiliating. Where is God or Satan in that? (her Uncle was convicted for abusing her and jailed)

You should stop wearing suits.' 'For greater ease of shawarma eating?' Grace chuckled, then took a sip of her fizzy. 'Because they suck the life out of you. It's like cuff links are your Kryptonite.' 'Cuff links keep my sleeves together. Besides, that would make me Superman.' 'Well, then, Superman, you should kiss me.

The cocktails were fizzy and pink toward the top, then became a dark red at the bottom of the glass. "What's in this thing?" murmured MJ. "I call it a First Kiss," Doyle said. "Why?" Doyle's mouth twitched into a saucy grin. "Because it's sweet and simple with the first sip. But each sip after becomes more intense and irresistible.

One of the sound guys approaches with Fizzy’s small mic in his hand. “Ready?” he asks. At her nod, he reaches for the front of her silk shirt and the words shove their way up my throat: “I’ve got it, mate.” He hands it over without any indication that he’s heard the edge in my tone. But Fizzy has. Her smirk is louder than her bursting laugh could ever be.

I left him and went up on deck to look out at the slithering city, its glitter of street lamps fizzy under the rain. There’s something wrong about a ship in dock, something pathetic, like a bird fluttering in a spill of oil. The Nova was tethered to her berth by ropes and chains, caught in a pool of greasy water. I could feel her shifting under my feet, tugging to be free.

Mr. Douglas told us true. He knows why the sky is blue. Why the earth spins round and round, And where the next clue can be found. Ask him, maybe, will he tell you? His radio, those ads will sell you. Peppy song will make you wonder, If the world is going under. Bring him something from the doctor- -Nothing spicy-while he proctors. It may be those fizzy bubbles, Let him help you with your troubles.

I heard the Candor made ice cream,” says Marlene, twisting her head around to see the lunch line. “You know, as a kind of ‘it sucks we got attacked, but at least there are desserts’ thing.” “I feel better already,” says Lynn dryly. “It probably won’t be as good as Dauntless cake,” says Marlene mournfully. She sighs, and a strand of mousy brown hair falls in her eyes. “We had good cake,” I tell Caleb. “We had fizzy drinks,” he says. “Ah, but did you have a ledge overlooking an underground river?” says Marlene, waggling her eyebrows. “Or a room where you faced all your nightmares at once?” “No,” says Caleb, “and to be honest, I’m kind of okay with that.” “Si-ssy,” sings Marlene. “All your nightmares?” says Caleb, his eyes lighting up. “How does that work? I mean, are the nightmares produced by the computer or by your brain?” “Oh God.” Lynn drops her head into her hands. “Here we go.

I was on the horns of a dilemma; there seemed little point in traveling to hospital to see a comatose stranger and drop off some fizzy pop at his bedside. On the other hand, it would be interesting to experience being a hospital visitor, and there was always an outside chance that he might wake up when I was there. He had rather seemed to enjoy my monologue while we were waiting for the ambulance; well, insofar as I could tell, given that he was unconscious.

What on earth?” Lisa stops in front of a bath display table marketing fizzy balls, exfoliating scrubbers and… “A facial massager?” Lisa scoffs. “I don’t know why they don’t just call it like it is. It’s a damn vibrator, Elizabeth. And you’re supposed to use it in the tub while you’re all relaxed and smelling good.” I gasp, and then hate myself for doing so. ”It’s not really for that!” Lisa rolls her eyes. “You think women really need ‘five variant speeds to lift, firm and tone’ your pores? Please.

Aww, that’s a shame…” Valeria pouted. “Then what are you planning, honeybuns?” However, neither she nor the rest of the group were prepared for Boxxy’s answer. “Operation TASTYCOCK.” The entire party ground to a halt. Kora struggled valiantly not to laugh, while Xera’s face split into a malicious grin. Valeria and Fizzy could only stare blankly in stunned surprise. “Uh- Uhm… Th-th-that is,” stammered the lich, “what do you mean by tas… tasty cocks?” “Tasty And Shiny Things Yielded by Chesting Or Cheap Killing.

I had meant to take her to my favorite pastry shop after dinner. I'd known happiness there once, or maybe not happiness, but the vision of it. I wanted to see whether the place had changed at all, or whether I had changed, or whether, just by sitting with her I could make up for old loves I'd gotten so close to but had never been bold enough to seize. Always got so very close, and always turned my back when the time came. Manfred and I had dessert here so many times, especially after the movies, and before Manfred, Maud and I, because it was so hot on summer nights that we'd stop to drink fizzy lemonades here, night after night, happy to be together drinking nothing stronger. And Chloe, of course, on those cold afternoons on Rivington Street so many years ago. My life, my real life, had not even happened yet, and all of this was rehearsal still. Tonight, I thought, relishing Joyce's words and feeling exquisitely sorry for myself, the time has come for me to set out on my journey westward. Then I thought of Saint Augustine's words: "Sero te amavi! Late have I loved you!

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

The truth was that Ling didn’t feel what most people seemed to feel. She rarely felt truly aroused beyond the theoretical. The idea of kissing was just that—an idea. Not unwelcome, but it didn’t seem to reach into her depths. At least, it hadn’t yet. Alma was beautiful and sensual and warm. Ling liked her so much. She was attracted to the idea of Alma, to her spirit and wit. She wanted to be around Alma. But she didn’t know if she wanted to pet with Alma, and if she truly didn’t want to make love to Alma—fizzy, alive, gorgeous Alma—then it was the proof to Ling’s hypothesis that she simply didn’t have the sexual drive that most people did.

22 grams cinchona bark 4 grams dried hawthorn berries 8 grams dried sumac berries 2 grams cassia buds 3 cloves 1 small (2-inch) cinnamon stick, preferably Ceylon cinnamon 1 star anise 12 grams dried bitter orange peel 4 grams blackberry leaf 51⁄4 cups spring water 50 grams citric acid 2 teaspoons sea salt 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 1⁄2-inch sections Finely grated zest and juice of 2 limes Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon 1⁄2 cup agave syrup Combine the cinchona bark, hawthorn berries, sumac berries, cassia buds, cloves, cinnamon, and star anise in a spice mill or mortar and pestle and crush into a coarse powder. Add the orange peel and blackberry leaf, divide the mixture among three large tea baskets or tea bags, and put a few pie weights in each. Bring the water to a boil in a large stainless-steel saucepan. Add the tea baskets, citric acid, and salt. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the lemongrass, cover partially, and let simmer 15 minutes longer. Add the lime and lemon zests and juices and let simmer, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced by a little less than half, making about 3 cups. Remove from the heat and remove the tea balls. Pour the agave syrup into a bowl. Set a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl and strain the tonic into the syrup. You will need to work in batches and to dump out the strainer after each pour. If the tonic is cloudy, strain again. Pour into a clean bottle and seal. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.

Chocolate Cola Cupcakes with Fizzy Cola Frosting Makes approx. 12 large cupcakes 200g flour, sifted 250g superfine sugar 1/2 tsp. baking powder pinch salt 1 large free-range egg 125ml buttermilk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 125g unsalted butter 2 tbsp. cocoa powder 175ml Coca-Cola For the frosting 125g unsalted butter, softened 400g confectioners’ sugar 11/2 tbsp. cola syrup (I used Soda Stream) 40ml whole milk Pop Rocks, to taste fizzy cola bottles, candied lemon slices, striped straws or candy canes to decorate Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two 6-cup muffin pans with paper liners. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg, buttermilk and vanilla. Melt the butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola in a saucepan over low heat. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, stir well with a wooden spoon, and then add the buttermilk mixture, beating until the batter is well blended. Pour into your prepared pans and bake for 15 minutes, or until risen and a skewer comes out clean. Set aside to cool. To make the frosting, beat together the butter and confectioners’ sugar until no lumps are left—I use a free-standing mixer with the paddle attachment, but you could use a hand-held mixer instead. Stir the cola syrup and milk together in a pitcher, then pour into the butter and sugar mixture while beating slowly. Once incorporated, increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. Carefully stir in your Pop Rocks to taste. It does lose its pop after a while, so the icing is best done just a few hours before eating. Spoon your icing into a piping bag and pipe over your cooled cupcakes. Decorate with fizzy cola bottles or a slice of candied lemon, a stripy straw or candy cane and an extra sprinkling of popping candy.

When she was finished with the mailbox, Lisey trudged back down the driveway with her buckets in the long evening light. Breakfast had been coffee and oatmeal, lunch little more than a scoop of tuna and mayo on a scrap of lettuce, and dead cat or no dead cat, she was starved. She decided to put off her call to Woodbody until she had some food in her belly. The thought of calling the Sheriff's Office—anyone in a blue uniform, for that matter—hadn't yet returned to her. She washed her hands for three minutes, using very hot water and making sure any speck of blood was gone from under her nails. Then she found the Tupperware dish containing the leftover Cheeseburger Pie, scraped it onto a plate, and blasted it in the microwave. While she waited for the chime, she hunted a Pepsi out of the fridge. She remembered thinking she'd never finish the Hamburger Helper stuff once her initial lust for it had been slaked. You could add that to the bottom of the long, long list of Things in Life Lisey Has Been Wrong About, but so what? Big diddly, as Cantata had been fond of saying in her teenage years. "I never claimed to be the brains of the outfit," Lisey told the empty kitchen, and the microwave bleeped as if to second that. The reheated gloop was almost too hot to eat but Lisey gobbled it anyway, cooling her mouth with fizzy mouthfuls of cold Pepsi. As she was finishing the last bite, she remembered the low whispering sound the cat's fur had made against the tin sleeve of the mailbox, and the weird pulling sensation she'd felt as the body began, reluctantly, to come forward. He must have really crammed it in there, she thought, and Dick Powell once more came to mind, black-and-white Dick Powell, this time saying And have some stuffing! She was up and rushing for the sink so fast she knocked her chair over, sure she was going to vomit everything she'd just eaten, she was going to blow her groceries, toss her cookies, throw her heels, donate her lunch. She hung over the sink, eyes closed, mouth open, midsection locked and straining. After a pregnant five-second pause, she produced one monstrous cola-burp that buzzed like a cicada. She leaned there a moment longer, wanting to make absolutely sure that was all. When she was, she rinsed her mouth, spat, and pulled "Zack McCool"'s letter from her jeans pocket. It was time to call Joseph Woodbody.

SARSAPARILLA SYRUP ENOUGH FOR 1 GALLON BREWED SARSAPARILLA 41⁄2 cups water 5 ounces dried sarsaparilla root, chopped 1 ounce dried sassafras root, chopped 1⁄4 ounce dried wintergreen leaves 4 cups dark brown sugar 2 tablespoon maltodextrin (optional) Combine the water, sarsaparilla, sassafras, and wintergreen in a large saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally; let simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Blend the brown sugar and maltodextrin (if using), and gradually add the mixture to the simmering root infusion, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then remove from the heat, let cool to room temperature, and strain. This syrup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.

As for me, I went inside, walked up to my bedroom, and fell on the floor. What…just happened? Staring at the ceiling, I tried to take it all in. My mind began to race, trying to figure out what it all meant. Do I need to learn how to whittle? Cook fried chicken? Ride a horse? Use a scythe? My face began to feel flushed. And children? Oh, Lord. That means we might have children! What will we name them? Travis and Dolly? Oh my gosh. I have children in my future. I could see it plainly in front of me. They’ll be little redheaded children with green eyes just like mine, and they’ll have lots of freckles, too. I’ll have ten of them, maybe eleven. I’ll have to squat in the garden and give birth while picking my okra. Every stereotype of domestic country life came rushing to the surface. A lot of them involved bearing children. Then my whole body relaxed in a mushy, contended heap as I remembered all the times I’d walked back into that very room after being with Marlboro Man, my cowboy, my savior. I remembered all the times I’d fallen onto my bed in a fizzy state of euphoria, sighing and smelling my shirt to try to get one last whiff. All the times I’d picked up the phone early in the morning and heard his sexy voice on the other end. All the times I’d longed to see him again, two minutes after he’d dropped me off. This was right, this was oh, so right. If I couldn’t go a day without seeing him, I certainly couldn’t go a lifetime…

Minutes later, we were back at the sliding glass door that led inside the house--me, leaning against the glass, Marlboro Man anchoring me there with his strong, convincing lips. I was a goner. My right leg hooked slowly around his calf. And then, the sound--the loud ringing of the rotary phone inside. Marlboro Man ignored it through three rings, but it was late, and curiosity took over. “I’d better get that,” he said, each word dripping with heat. He ran inside to answer the phone, leaving me alone in a sultry, smoky cloud. Saved by the bell, I thought. Damn. I was dizzy, unable to steady myself. Was it the wine? Wait…I hadn’t had any wine that night. I was drunk on his muscles. Wasted on his masculinity. Within seconds, Marlboro Man was running back out the door. “There’s a fire,” he said hurriedly. “A big one--I’ve got to go.” Without pausing, he ran toward the pickup. I stood there, still dazed and fizzy, still unable to feel my knees. And then, just as I was beginning to reflect on the utter irony that a prairie fire may have just saved my eternal soul from burning in hell for carnal sin, Marlboro Man’s pickup flew into reverse and screeched abruptly to a halt at the edge of The Porch--our porch. Rolling down his window, he leaned out and yelled, “You comin’?” “Oh…um…sure!” I replied, running toward the pickup and hopping inside. A prairie fire. A real, live prairie fire, I thought as Marlboro Man’s diesel pickup peeled out of his gravel driveway. Cool! This’ll be so neat! Moments later, as the pickup reached the top of the hill by his house, I could see an ominous orange glow in the distance. I shuddered as I felt a chill go through me.

Birch bark lends a mild wintergreen flavor to brewed sodas. Birch beer, flavored with sassafras and birch, is a classic American brew. Birch bark is usually sold in homebrew stores. Bitter Orange (Bergamot) s highly aromatic, and its dried peel is an essential part of cola flavor. The dried peel and its extract are usually available in spice shops, or any store with a good spice selection. They can be pricey. Burdock root s a traditional ingredient in American root beers. It has a mild sweet flavor similar to that of artichoke. Dried burdock root is available in most Asian groceries and homebrew stores. Cinnamon has several species, but they all fall into two types. Ceylon cinnamon is thin and mild, with a faint fragrance of allspice. Southeast Asian cinnamon, also called cassia, is both stronger and more common. The best grade comes from Vietnam and is sold as Saigon cinnamon. Use it in sticks, rather than ground. The sticks can be found in most grocery stores. Ginger, a common soda ingredient, is very aromatic, at once spicy and cooling. It is widely available fresh in the produce section of grocery stores, and it can be found whole and dried in most spice shops. Lemongrass, a perennial herb from central Asia, contains high levels of citral, the pungent aromatic component of lemon oil. It yields a rich lemon flavor without the acid of lemon juice, which can disrupt the fermentation of yeasted sodas. Lemon zest is similar in flavor and can be substituted. Lemongrass is available in most Asian markets and in the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores. Licorice root provides the well-known strong and sweet flavor of black licorice candy. Dried licorice root is sold in natural food stores and homebrew stores. Anise seed and dried star anise are suitable substitutes. Sarsaparilla s similar in flavor to sassafras, but a little milder. Many plants go by the name sarsaparilla. Southern-clime sarsaparilla (Smilax spp.) is the traditional root-beer flavoring. Most of the supply we get in North America comes from Mexico; it’s commonly sold in homebrew stores. Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia spp.) is more common in North America and is sometimes used as a substitute for true sarsaparilla. Small young sarsaparilla roots, known as “root bark” are less pungent and are usually preferred for soda making, although fully mature roots give fine results. Sassafras s the most common flavoring for root beers of all types. Its root bark is very strong and should be used with caution, especially if combined with other flavors. It is easily overpowering. Dried sassafras is available in homebrew stores. Star anise, the dried fruit of an Asian evergreen, tastes like licorice, with hints of clove and cinnamon. The flavor is strong, so use star anise with caution. It is available dried in the spice section of most grocery stores but can be found much more cheaply at Asian markets.

In the meantime, I tried my best to acclimate to my new life in the middle of nowhere. I had to get used to the fact that I lived twenty miles from the nearest grocery store. That I couldn’t just run next door when I ran out of eggs. That there was no such thing as sushi. Not that it would matter, anyway. No cowboy on the ranch would touch it. That’s bait, they’d say, laughing at any city person who would convince themselves that such a food was tasty. And the trash truck: there wasn’t one. In this strange new land, there was no infrastructure for dealing with trash. There were cows in my yard, and they pooped everywhere--on the porch, in the yard, even on my car if they happened to be walking near it when they dropped a load. There wasn’t a yard crew to clean it up. I wanted to hire people, but there were no people. The reality of my situation grew more crystal clear every day. One morning, after I choked down a bowl of cereal, I looked outside the window and saw a mountain lion siting on the hood of my car, licking his paws--likely, I imagined, after tearing a neighboring rancher’s wife from limb to limb and eating her for breakfast. I darted to the phone and called Marlboro Man, telling him there was a mountain lion sitting on my car. My heart beat inside my chest. I had no idea mountain lions were indigenous to the area. “It’s probably just a bobcat,” Marlboro Man reassured me. I didn’t believe him. “No way--it’s huge,” I cried. “It’s seriously got to be a mountain lion!” “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Cows mooed in the background. I hung up the phone, incredulous at Marlboro Man’s lack of concern, and banged on the window with the palm of my hand, hoping to scare the wild cat away. But it only looked up and stared at me through the window, imagining me on a plate with a side of pureed trout. My courtship with Marlboro Man, filled with fizzy romance, hadn’t prepared me for any of this; not the mice I heard scratching in the wall next to my bed, not the flat tires I got from driving my car up and down the jagged gravel roads. Before I got married, I didn’t know how to use a jack or a crowbar…and I didn’t want to have to learn now. I didn’t want to know that the smell in the laundry room was a dead rodent. I’d never smelled a dead rodent in my life: why, when I was supposed to be a young, euphoric newlywed, was I being forced to smell one now? During the day, I was cranky. At night, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept through the night once since we returned from our honeymoon. Besides the nausea, whose second evil wave typically hit right at bedtime, I was downright spooked. As I lay next to Marlboro Man, who slept like a baby every night, I thought of monsters and serial killers: Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. In the utter silence of the country, every tiny sound was amplified; I was certain if I let myself go to sleep, the murderer outside our window would get me.

Like having a can of Coke after a long and thirsty game of tennis. Tastes better than any other can of Coke you've ever had. Marriage, by contrast, is like starting with a fizzy can of Coke and waiting around while it gets flatter and flatter.

Therefore, if you want your child to eat healthy foods, you must stop giving him “treats”. Limit milk and dairy products to no more than 500 ml (17 oz) or less a day for children older than twelve months, don’t offer anything but water to drink (no more milk, juice, and never any fizzy drinks), and save the treats for special occasions such as holidays or birthdays.

Experimentation also proved serendipitous for Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, when they were putting together the Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California, north of San Diego. It was destined to become one of the most successful brewing startups of the 1990s. In The Craft of Stone Brewing Co. Koch and Wagner confess that the home-brewed ale that became Arrogant Bastard Ale and propelled Stone to fame in the craft brewing world, started with a mistake. Greg Koch recalls that Wagner exclaimed “Aw, hell!” as he brewed an ale on his brand spanking new home-brewing system. “I miscalculated and added the ingredients in the wrong percentages,” he told Koch. “And not just a little. There’s a lot of extra malt and hops in there.” Koch recalls suggesting they dump it, but Wagner decided to let it ferment and see what it tasted like. Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, founders of Stone Brewery. Photograph © Stone Brewing Co. They both loved the resulting hops bomb, but they didn’t know what to do with it. Koch was sure that nobody was “going to be able to handle it. I mean, we both loved it, but it was unlike anything else that was out there. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with it, but we knew we had to do something with it somewhere down the road.”20 Koch said the beer literally introduced itself as Arrogant Bastard Ale. It seemed ironic to me that a beer from southern California, the world of laid back surfers, should produce an ale with a name that many would identify with New York City. But such are the ironies of the craft brewing revolution. Arrogant Bastard was relegated to the closet for the first year of Stone Brewing Co.’s existence. The founders figured their more commercial brew would be Stone Pale Ale, but its first-year sales figures were not strong, and the company’s board of directors decided to release Arrogant Bastard. “They thought it would help us have more of a billboard effect; with more Stone bottles next to each other on a retail shelf, they become that much more visible, and it sends a message that we’re a respected, established brewery with a diverse range of beers,” Wagner writes. Once they decided to release the Arrogant Bastard, they decided to go all out. The copy on the back label of Arrogant Bastard has become famous in the beer world: Arrogant Bastard Ale Ar-ro-gance (ar’ogans) n. The act or quality of being arrogant; haughty; Undue assumption; overbearing conceit. This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory—maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beverage will give you more sex appeal. The label continues along these lines for a couple of hundred words. Some call it a brilliant piece of reverse psychology. But Koch insists he was just listening to the beer that had emerged from a mistake in Wagner’s kitchen. In addition to innovative beers and marketing, Koch and Wagner have also made their San Diego brewery a tourist destination, with the Stone Brewing Bistro & Gardens, with plans to add a hotel to the Stone empire.

The kiss. The kiss. The kiss. It was chocolate cake and fizzy passion and goose bumps. No one had ever kissed me like that before.

But is it enough?” Lucy kept asking herself. “Enough for what?” she answered. The answer always came quickly too, as if she wanted to shut down all doubts. She was happy, in a bubble, and the only reason to pop it was on the grounds that bubbles were not real life. But bubbles made life tolerable, and the trick was to blow as many as possible. There were new-baby bubbles, and honeymoon bubbles, and success-at-work bubbles, and new-friends bubbles, and great-holiday bubbles, and even tiny T.V.-series bubbles, dinner bubbles, party bubbles. They all burst without intervention, and then it was a matter of getting through to the next one. Life hadn’t been fizzy for a while. It had been hard.

I drew out the "Ham," lingered on the "me," and softened the clip of the "rick." I repeated the word, and with every slow joining of its three syllables, the fizzy taste of sweet licorice with a mild chaser of wood smoke flooded my mouth. A phantom swig of Dr. Pepper.

The sun had slipped past noon, and a slice of heat fell through the tree-house window, firing Laurel's inner eyelids cherry cola. She sat up but made no further move to leave her hiding spot. It was a decent threat- Laurel's weakness for her mother's Victoria sponge was legendary- but an idle one. Laurel knew very well that the cake knife lay forgotten on the kitchen table, missed amid the earlier chaos as the family gathered picnic baskets, rugs, fizzy lemonade, swimming towels, and the new transistor, and burst, stream-bound, from the house. She knew well because when she'd doubled back under the guise of hide-and-seek and sneaked inside the cool, dim house to fetch the package, she'd seen the knife sitting by the fruit bowl, red bow tied around its handle. The knife was a tradition- it had cut every birthday cake, every Christmas cake, every Somebody-Needs-Cheering-Up cake in the Nicolson family's history- and their mother was a stickler for tradition.

Bjarne recommended his special technique: come home from a training ride, chug a big bottle of fizzy water, and take two or three sleeping pills. By the time you woke up, it would be dinner, or, if you were lucky, breakfast.

Ortega 12th April, 2014 I am writing this as fast as I can. The doors on the Phaedra don’t lock, and Mom could walk in any moment. I have no privacy. I am the only twelve-year-old girl I know who has to share a room with her mom. I have pointed out how unfair it is, the way the jellyfish equipment takes up the whole front of the boat, but Mom won’t listen. Typical – the jellyfish get their own room and I don’t. I’m not trying to make excuses for my handwriting or anything, but if it is all scrawly that’s because my arm’s so trembly I can hardly hold the pen. I think it’s from gripping on to the tractor for so long. The entire way home I had to cling to the wheel arch, sitting up there behind Annie like a parrot perched on a pirate’s shoulder. The way she drove along those rutted jungle tracks, I was petrified I was going to lose hold and fall beneath the wheels. By the time we reached the bay and I could see the Phaedra, my body had been shaken up like a can of fizzy drink. There was no sign of Mom as the tractor lumbered over the dunes and down the beach towards the sea. I was kind of relieved, to tell the truth. The whole time at Annie’s house I had been desperate to get back to the boat, but now that I was home I felt sick at the thought of facing Mom. She would be furious with me. I had been gone for two whole days…

THE GRIT DOCTOR SAYS: It depresses The Grit Doctor how something as simple as drinking more water is such a barrier for so many people. Really, what’s wrong with you people? In place of water you drink fizzy drinks and endless cups of tea and coffee. Not only are these drinks full of useless calories, but most of them act as a diuretic, so they dehydrate rather than rehydrate, making you thirsty, tired and lacking in energy.

A TERRIFYING new “legal high” has hit our streets. Methylcarbonol, known by the street name “wiz”, is a clear liquid that causes cancers, liver problems, and brain disease, and is more toxic than ecstasy and cocaine. Addiction can occur after just one drink, and addicts will go to any lengths to get their next fix – even letting their kids go hungry or beating up their partners to obtain money. Casual users can go into blind RAGES when they’re high, and police have reported a huge increase in crime where the drug is being used. Worst of all, drinks companies are adding “wiz” to fizzy drinks and advertising them to kids like they’re plain Coca-Cola. Two or three teenagers die from it EVERY WEEK overdosing on a binge, and another TEN from having accidents caused by reckless driving. “Wiz” is a public menace – when will the Home Secretary think of the children and make this dangerous substance Class A?

Deglutition syncope is a rare condition that can be caused by drinking cold, carbonated beverages; the drinker faints after guzzling a soft drink too rapidly. In some way, the cold drink stimulates the esophagus to put out a signal that affects the heart, causing it to beat more slowly. Blood pressure drops, dizziness and confusion set in, and, in extreme cases, the subject faints. Yet soft drinks can sometimes have a beneficial effect on the esophagus. Some unfortunate people suffer from a narrowed esophagus, and their food gets stuck on the way down. Often, a physician has to insert a scope into the patient’s esophagus to clear the blockage. Occasionally, however, the patient can solve the problem by simply drinking a fizzy beverage. The drink penetrates the stuck food, and the escaping carbon dioxide then dislodges it. A good burp, and the food slides right down the pipe.

Moral – mentos mints and fizzy drinks don’t mix. If something has made your child super fizzy, give them time to settle. If time doesn’t reduce the fizz, don’t be a mentos mint – be a raisin instead. Don’t cause an eruption. Dance.

The two movers did not require tea – they seemed to work on a supply of fizzy drinks and vaping. Besides which, they were almost done. She heard

We had good cake,” I tell Caleb. “We had fizzy drinks,” he says. “Ah, but did you have a ledge overlooking an underground river?” says Marlene, waggling her eyebrows. “Or a room where you faced all your nightmares at once?” “No,” says Caleb, “and to be honest, I’m kind of okay with that.

My courtship with Marlboro Man, filled with fizzy romance, hadn’t prepared me for any of this; not the mice I heard scratching in the wall next to my bed, not the flat tires I got from driving my car up and down the jagged gravel roads. Before I got married, I didn’t know how to use a jack or a crowbar…and I didn’t want to have to learn now. I didn’t want to know that the smell in the laundry room was a dead rodent. I’d never smelled a dead rodent in my life: why, when I was supposed to be a young, euphoric newlywed, was I being forced to smell one now? During the day, I was cranky. At night, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept through the night once since we returned from our honeymoon. Besides the nausea, whose second evil wave typically hit right at bedtime, I was downright spooked. As I lay next to Marlboro Man, who slept like a baby every night, I thought of monsters and serial killers: Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. In the utter silence of the country, every tiny sound was amplified; I was certain if I let myself go to sleep, the murderer outside our window would get me.

I haven’t even checked to see if my Heart-2-Heart pal wrote back.” Madison plucked at the fuzzy strands of yarn on her pillow. “You should. I love this program! We can tell each other anything. It’s so great!” “And this guy’s name is Blue?” Piper’s voice sounded doubtful. “I don’t remember any kid at school named Blue. There was that one guy we called Green in our chem lab, remember? But I think we called him that because his last name was Green and we could never remember his first name.” Madison giggled even more. She was feeling like a fizzy soda pop, bubbly all over. “Oh, Piper, his name isn’t really Blue. That’s just his nickname.” “Do you have a nickname?” “Of course,” Madison said. “But I don’t want to tell you what it is. You’ll think it’s ridiculous.” “I can’t believe you won’t tell me,” Piper protested. “I’m your BFF. We share everything!” “I know…”” “Come on, tell me!” Piper pleaded. “Look, I told you about the time I wet my pants in second grade, and that I had a total crush on Mr. Proctor, our fifth-grade teacher. And last year, when I--” “This is different, Piper,” Madison tried to explain. “We can tell our deepest secrets to our Heart-2-Heart pal because they don’t know who we are.” “I just can’t believe this,” Piper continued in a really hurt voice. “Didn’t I tell you about that D I almost got in Algebra I and the secret tutor I had to hire to bring up my grade? God, I even told you about that mole on my butt that I had to have removed. If that’s not a deep secret, I don’t know what is.” “Okay, okay!” Madison sat up. “I’ll tell you. It’s Pinky.” There was a long pause. “Pinky? That’s ridiculous.” “See?” Madison shouted into the phone. “I knew you’d say that.” She got up and crossed to her vanity mirror. She tousled her hair with one hand to make it stand up. “It had to do with dyeing my hair pink.” There was an even longer pause. “You’re not going to do that, are you?” Piper asked quietly. “Because I don’t think it will help the campaign. Oh, it might steal a few votes from Jeremy--but do we really need them? I’m not sure.” “Piper, relax,” Madison said. “I was just joking about doing it.

Your flaws don't define you

Yeah sure, have a few sweets or a fizzy drink, but don't buy a bucket of pick and mix, an extra large sundae, and a vessel of chemically enhanced liquid, and then complain that we're not only making you fat, but we're robbing you blind as well!

Today’s lagers are not like they were 500 years ago. The need for efficiency, volume and speed has turned a process that took seven months into one of as little as seven days. It’s made dark beers light, flat beers fizzy, sweet beers dry, cloudy beers clear, and those developments allowed lager to become the most loved of drinks, and yet also one of the most misunderstood.

In the West Fourth Street station, Vera was nowhere in sight, and I had an anxious, fizzy feeling in my stomach while I waited for the train. But I could feel the energy of the city in the vibrations coming off the tracks, and the diversity of the faces I saw around me made me feel so alive, so much a part of something kinetic, I swore I could taste it like metallic electricity on my tongue.

You have such a crush on Americano," Fizzy said. "Do you realize you watch him whenever he comes in here?" "Maybe I find his demeanor fascinating." Fizzy let her eyes fro to his ass, currently hidden by a navy coat. "We're calling it his 'demeanor' now?" She bent, writing something in the Idea Notebook she kept near her laptop.

fizzy orange Fanta,

You know the school science project where you dipped a penny in fizzy drink and it came out shining and new? That's how you've made me feel. Thank you for being the off-brand cola to my coin.

Why are you making that face?” she asked. “What face?” Juno ran a finger across her forehead. “The one Auntie Fizzy can’t make anymore because of the Botox.

The air feels fizzy and electrical.

The State’s witnesses consist mostly of Maggie’s three best friends. First there is Sammy, with her salon hair and big eyes and expansive, fizzy gestures. Sammy talks about the time when she was Aaron Knodel’s service learner. She says, “When your best friend stays behind in the classroom when you go to get coffee for the two of you, it’s a Big. Red. Flag.” She holds her palms up in the air, to demonstrate how large the red flag is. “That was inappropriate, I thought.

The fizzy sip tastes of roasted grain, tidy fields waving in wind. By the second or third sip, I remember the slosh of lake water against a boat Daddy had rented, how I sipped from a metal can of Lone Star while he picked through lures alongside me. Thus starts—for healing purposes, of course—my daily beer or two. Within weeks, I stop breastfeeding, partly because I know three or four or five beers could affect Dev’s milk supply. Warren’s at school, so he must miss these escalating beer guzzles. And that’s how—in some cosmic accounting of our family’s rampant dipsomania—Mother’s recovery dovetailed with the start of my own years’ long binge, for from that day forward, I drank in increasing amounts, as if our gene pool owed the universe at least one worthless drunk at a time.

You could drink hard liquor in the middle of a school day without people assuming you were an alcoholic underachiever. Strange how in America in the 1950s, at the height of its industrial and imperial power, men drank double-martinis for lunch. Now, in its decline, they drank fizzy water. Somewhere something had gone terribly wrong.

Adults didn't like maraschino cherries; nobody ate them but me. "Never give Charlotte just one cherry in her Shirley Temple," everybody said. "Make it at least five or six." But I tired of cherries, just cherries. So after a time, lemon, lime, and orange twists snaked around the brims. Dollops of Chantilly cream floated like water lilies on top of mint leaves in the fizzy pink water. The bartenders dipped sugar swizzles in grenadine overnight so they would look like pink rhinestones, capped cocktail straws with berries they had rolled in honey, and looped lemon peels around the stems of martini glasses. Everyone on the staff called those ones "Bondage Shirley Temples," and then they would wink at one another.

I can hear my pulse in my ears. Is this thirty-seven-year-old Fizzy’s kink? Honesty, accountability, and open communication?

What was that about the family investment project?” she asks. “Just that without your cooperation your family will likely go the way of the bird,” her mother cuts in before Sirhan can muster a reply. “Not that I expect you to care.” Boris butts in. “Core worlds are teeming with corporates. Is bad business for us, good business for them. If you are seeing what we are seen—” “Don’t remember you being there,” Pierre says grumpily. “In any event,” Sirhan says smoothly, “the core isn’t healthy for us one-time fleshbodies anymore. There are still lots of people there, but the ones who uploaded expecting a boom economy were sadly disappointed. Originality is at a premium, and the human neural architecture isn’t optimized for it—we are, by disposition, a conservative species, because in a static ecosystem that provides the best return on sunk reproductive investment costs. Yes, we change over time—we’re more flexible than almost any other animal species to arise on Earth—but we’re like granite statues compared to organisms adapted to life under Economics 2.0.” “You tell ’em, boy,” Pamela chirps, almost mockingly. “It wasn’t that bloodless when I lived through it.” Amber casts her a cool stare. “Where was I?” Sirhan snaps his fingers, and a glass of fizzy grape juice appears between them. “Early upload entrepreneurs forked repeatedly, discovered they could scale linearly to occupy processor capacity proportional to the mass of computronium available, and that computationally trivial tasks became tractable. They could also run faster, or slower, than real time. But they were still human, and unable to operate effectively outside human constraints. Take

A friendly librarian,” Fizzy said sarcastically, narrowing her eyes. “The worst kind.

It’s effervescent. Like life is a fizzy drink.

At weekends we went to Jewish parties, where Jewish teenagers shuffled past Jewish bouncers and drank Jewish fizzy drinks and danced to drum ’n’ bass, waiting for the drop like accountants waiting for April.