Flop Mother Quotes

You grew up too fast, baby." Didn't always feel that way, especially this morning when I couldn't find my other flip-flop and I'd been, like, two seconds from kicking a fit.

Don’t tell thin women to eat a cheeseburger. Don’t tell fat women to put down the fork. Don’t tell underweight men to bulk up. Don’t tell women with facial hair to wax, don’t tell uncircumcised men they’re gross, don’t tell muscular women to go easy on the dead-lift, don’t tell dark-skinned women to bleach their vagina, don’t tell black women to relax their hair, don’t tell flat-chested women to get breast implants, don’t tell “apple-shaped” women what’s “flattering,” don’t tell mothers to hide their stretch marks, and don’t tell people whose toes you don’t approve of not to wear flip-flops. And so on, etc, etc, in every iteration until the mountains crumble to the sea. Basically, just go ahead and CEASE telling other human beings what they “should” and “shouldn't” do with their bodies unless a) you are their doctor, or b) SOMEBODY GODDAMN ASKED YOU.

If our mothers are rolling over every time we do something on their list of things a lady shouldn’t do, they’ve been flopping like flounder since they were buried.

EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up—through distance, differences, divorce, or death.

Hell, it took only your first day in a Montana flop or standing over your mother's unmarked grave to know that equal was the one thing all men were not. A few lived like kings, and the rest hugged the dirt until it cracked open and took them home.

I had a lot of disasters in the kitchen, even during the long period when I was cooking under my mother's supervision and with the benefit of her experience. I still fail all the time, in particular when I turn to baking. After hundreds of attempts, following dozens of different formulas, I don't think I have ever made what I would consider to be a completely successful pie crust. Disaster is somehow part of the appeal of cooking for me. If that first Velvet Crumb Cake had turned out to be a flop, I don't know if I would have pursued my interest in cooking. But cooking entails stubbornness and a tolerance--maybe even a taste--for last-minute collapse. You have to be able to enjoy the repeated and deliberate following of a more of less lengthy, more or less complicated series of steps whose product is very likely--after all that work, with no warning, right at the end--to curdle, sink, scorch, dry up, congeal, burn, or simply taste bad.

He flushed with sadness, as if every moment of his life were occurring all at once—his sister dying in childbirth, his mother squirming in that one-room flop, poor Danny sliding between wet logs, Gig in jail, and Jules dead—and how many more? All people, except this rich cream, living and scraping and fighting and dying, and for what, nothing, the cold millions with no chance in this world.

you are an exit wound the extra shot of tequila the tangled knot of hair that has to be cut out you are the cell phone ringing in a hushed theatre pebble wedged in the sole of a boot the bloody hangnail you are, just this once you are flip flops in a thunderstorm the boy’s lost erection a pen gone dry you are my father’s nightmare my mother’s mirage you are a manic high which is to say: you are a bad idea you are herpes despite the condom you are, I know better you are pieces of cork floating in the wine glass you are the morning after whose name I can’t remember still in my bed the hole in my rain boots vibrator with no batteries you are, shut up and kiss me you are naked wearing socks mascara bleeding down laughing cheeks you are the wrong guy buying me a drink you are the typo in an otherwise brilliant novel sweetalk into unprotected sex the married coworker my stubbed toe you are not new or uncommon not brilliant or beautiful you are a bad idea rock star in the back seat of a taxi burned popcorn top shelf, at half price you are everything I want you are a poem I cannot write a word I cannot translate you are an exit wound a name I cannot bring myself to say aloud

A blast of heat hit his face. He flopped onto his cot, closed his eyes, and fell into an instant sleep. In the evening he went to the mess tent. He passed through the line and saw that dinner was the same as lunch—a tin of Italian beef his comrades called “Mussolini’s Ass.” Back home Franz had been picky and would tell his mother, “I’ll pass on anything that flies or swims.” Little did he know how he would come to regret those words.

I want to proudly acknowledge all the women we love: married mothers, single mothers, new mothers, "act brand new" mothers, patient mothers, "lose it in a hot second" mothers, older mothers, the "Yeahh, I still got it" mothers, working mothers, stay at home mothers, "wish I could stay at home" mothers, afro chic mothers, relaxed hair mothers, "new weave every 3 months" mothers, "make a weave last 6 months" mothers, the "all the neighborhood kids stay at my house" mother, the "go play in your own dam house" mother, cook every night mothers, "you better learn how to cook" mothers, old navy flip flop mothers, stiletto mothers, the "money is tight" mothers, "I'm tight with my money" mothers, throw-back mothers, throwed off mothers, the "Life Is Not Complicated, You Are" and "The Other 99 TYMES" loving mothers, and definitely all the "Girl, we bout to go hard at the next Sol-Caritas" show mothers!! We love you all! Happy Mother’s Day

Suddenly a ragged man wearing a hairnet and flip-flops walks toward us, holding a stack of pamphlets. Sophie, scared, hides behind her mother’s chair. “My brother,” the vagrant asks me, “have you found the Lord Jesus Christ?” “I didn’t know he was looking for me.” “Is He your personal savior?” “You know,” I say, “I’m still kind of hoping to rescue myself.” “The man shakes his head, dreadlocks like snakes. “None of us are strong enough for that,” he replies, and moves on.

For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die.

Good night, Grandma!” I called as I was skipping out of the kitchen with Adria on my heels. Grandma, who was at the sink rinsing dishes to stack in the dishwasher, stopped and looked at us. She had a funny expression on her face, which made Adria and me pause in the doorway and look back at her, waiting. Grandma wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said, “Simone, Adria, come here.” There was something different in her tone. I didn’t know what to expect “You know, girls,” she said as we stood in front of her, “we adopted you both today. So I’m your mother now, and he”—she pointed at my grandpa, who was wiping the table mats—“he’s your father.” Grandpa paused what he was doing, stood up straight, and smiled. I just glanced from one to the other, my eyes big and round. What had happened in court that day suddenly became clear. “Does that mean I can call you Mom and Dad?” I asked. “It’s up to you,” my grandma said, one hand cupping my cheek, the other one smoothing Adria’s hair. “Call us whatever you want to. Now go to bed.” The two of us scampered upstairs without another word. But when Adria went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, I stood in the middle of our bedroom, my hands pressed against my temples. I was hopping from one foot to the other and jumping up and down, so much excitement was flowing through me. Mom. Dad. Mom. Dad. I kept whispering the words, getting used to the sound of them. Finally, feeling as if I would burst, I ran back downstairs to the kitchen. “Mom?” I said, standing in the doorway. She looked across at me, her lips twitching like she was trying not to smile. “Yes, Simone?” I turned to where Grandpa was putting away the table mats. “Dad?” “What is it, Simone?” “Nothing!” I said, squealing and bouncing up and down gleefully. I had done it—I’d called them Mom and Dad! I turned without another word and raced back up the stairs. In my room, I flopped backward onto my bed and let out a happy sigh. Adria and I were finally and forever home.

He was halfway to the house, thinking to set the cabbage inside the kitchen door,when a brown blur thundered past him. Joanna Robbins tore out of the barn astride a magnificent chestnut quarter horse. She leaned forward in the saddle,hat flopping against her back, hair streaming out behind her in a wild curly mass as she urged her mount to a full-out gallop. Unable to do anything but stare, Crockett stood dumbstruck as she raced past. She was the most amazing horsewoman he'd ever seen. Joanna Robbins. The shy creature who claimed painting and reading were her favorite pastimes had just bolted across the yard like a seasoned jockey atop Thoroughbred. She might have inherited her mother's grace and manners, but the woman rode like her outlaw father.Maybe better.

We're all so happy you're feeling better, Miss McIntosh. Looks like you still have a good bump on your noggin, though," she says in her childlike voice. Since there is no bump on my noggin, I take a little offense but decide to drop it. "Thanks, Mrs. Poindexter. It looks worse than it feels. Just a little tender." "Yeah, I'd say the door got the worst of it," he says beside me. Galen signs himself in on the unexcused tardy sheet below my name. When his arm brushes against mine, it feels like my blood's turned into boiling water. I turn to face him. My dreams really do not do him justice. Long black lashes, flawless olive skin, cut jaw like an Italian model, lips like-for the love of God, have some dignity, nitwit. He just made fun of you. I cross my arms and lift my chin. "You would know," I say. He grins, yanks my backpack from me, and walks out. Trying to ignore the waft of his scent as the door shuts, I look to Mrs. Poindexter, who giggles, shrugs, and pretends to sort some papers. The message is clear: He's your problem, but what a great problem to have. Has he charmed he sense out of the staff here, too? If he started stealing kids' lunch money, would they also giggle at that? I growl through clenched teeth and stomp out of the office. Galen is waiting for me right outside the door, and I almost barrel into him. He chuckles and catches my arm. "This is becoming a habit for you, I think." After I'm steady-after Galen steadies me, that is-I poke my finger into his chest and back him against the wall, which only makes him grin wider. "You...are...irritating...me," I tell him. "I noticed. I'll work on it." "You can start by giving me my backpack." "Nope." "Nope?" "Right-nope. I'm carrying it for you. It's the least I can do." "Well, can't argue with that, can I?" I reach around for it, but he moves to block me. "Galen, I don't want you to carry it. Now knock it off. I'm late for class." "I'm late for it too, remember?" Oh, that's right. I've let him distract me from my agenda. "Actually, I need to go back to the office." "No problem. I'll wait for you here, then I'll walk you to class." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "That's the thing. I'm changing my schedule. I won't be in your class anymore, so you really should just go. You're seriously violating Rule Numero Uno." He crosses his arms. "Why are you changing your schedule? Is it because of me?" "No." "Liar." "Sort of." "Emma-" "Look, I don't want you to take this personally. It's just that...well, something bad happens every time I'm around you." He raises a brow. "Are you sure it's me? I mean, from where I stood, it looked like your flip-flops-" "What were we arguing about anyway? We were arguing, right?" "You...you don't remember?" I shake my head. "Dr. Morton said I might have some short-term memory loss. I do remember being mad at you, though." He looks at me like I'm a criminal. "You're saying you don't remember anything I said. Anything you said." The way I cross my arms reminds me of my mother. "That's what I'm saying, yes." "You swear?" "If you're not going to tell me, then give me my backpack. I have a concussion, not broken arms. I'm not helpless." His smile could land him a cover shoot for any magazine in the country. "We were arguing about which beach you wanted me to take you to. We were going swimming after school." "Liar." With a capital L. Swimming-drowning-falls on my to-do list somewhere below giving birth to porcupines. "Oh, wait. You're right. We were arguing about when the Titanic actually sank. We had already agreed to go to my house to swim.

That’s it!” “Anton,” her mother gasped. “You startled me.” “Sorry, my love.” Papa patted her hand as she returned to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. “But I’ve just had the most astounding idea.” “What is it?” The question rang simultaneously from both Nicole and her mother. Her papa smiled. A scheming, devilish, piratical smile that one would expect to see right before a blade ran him through. Nicole flopped onto the divan. “Nicki’s going to take a little trip to New Orleans.” “But why?” Maman asked. “She just got home.” Papa rubbed his palms against his thighs in anticipation. “Don’t you see? It will solve everything. It will keep Nicki away from Jenkins and secure the future of Renard Shipping at the same time.” “How?” Nicole ventured, somehow certain she’d not like the answer. Her papa’s grin confirmed it. “By giving me the next best thing to a son.” “And that is . . . ?” her mother prompted. “A son-in-law.

Sunday evening, when Mr. Klum left me at the foot of our driveway, I felt serene, sun-tinged, and happy. Mother’s first words were “Beverly! You’ve ruined your complexion!” I flopped into the nearest chair. “Mother,” I said, pleading and without anger, “it does seem as if no matter what I do, you make me feel guilty.” “Why, that’s ridiculous,” she said. Somehow I found the courage to contradict. “No, it isn’t ridiculous. You do make me feel guilty,” I insisted, still without anger. I wanted so much to talk honestly with Mother, to tell her my feelings, to become her friend. Mother stiffened, her mouth a straight line. “Well, excuse me for living,” she said. For the first time, I understood that I was afraid of Mother for the guilt she made me bear, and that I could never have an honest conversation with her. The woman I wanted for a friend would always be right; I would always be wrong. I have never understood why, for Mother was genuinely kind to others and could be kind to me when I did exactly as she wished.

Nobody ever talked about what a struggle this all was. I could see why women used to die in childbirth. They didn't catch some kind of microbe, or even hemorrhage. They just gave up. They knew that if they didn't die, they'd be going through it again the next year, and the next. I couldn't understand how a woman might just stop trying, like a tired swimmer, let her head go under, the water fill her lungs. I slowly massaged Yvonne's neck, her shoulders, I wouldn't let her go under. She sucked ice through threadbare white terry. If my mother were here, she'd have made Melinda meek cough up the drugs, sure enough. "Mamacita, ay," Yvonne wailed. I didn't know why she would call her mother. She hated her mother. She hadn't seen her in six years, since the day she locked Yvonne and her brother and sisters in their apartment in Burbank to go out and party, and never came back. Yvonne said she let her boyfriends run a train on her when she was eleven. I didn't even know what that meant. Gang bang, she said. And still she called out, Mama. It wasn't just Yvonne. All down the ward, they called for their mothers. ... I held onto Yvonne's hands, and I imagined my mother, seventeen years ago, giving birth to me. Did she call for her mother?...I thought of her mother, the one picture I had, the little I knew. Karin Thorvald, who may or may not have been a distant relation of King Olaf of Norway, classical actress and drunk, who could recite Shakespeare by heart while feeding the chickens and who drowned in the cow pond when my mother was thirteen. I couldn't imagine her calling out for anyone. But then I realized, they didn't mean their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood, women who let their boyfriends run a train on them. Bingers and purgers, women smiling into mirrors, women in girdles, women in barstools. Not those women with their complaints and their magazines, controlling women, women who asked, what's in it for me? Not the women who watched TV while they made dinner, women who dyed their hair blond behind closed doors trying to look twenty-three. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying loneliness is the human condition, get used to it. They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for is when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us. Yvonne was sitting up, holding her breath, eyes bulging out. It was the thing she should not do. "Breathe," I said in her ear. "Please, Yvonne, try." She tried to breathe, a couple of shallow inhalations, but it hurt too much. She flopped back on the narrow bed, too tired to go on. All she could do was grip my hand and cry. And I thought of the way the baby was linked to her, as she was linked to her mother, and her mother, all the way back, insider and inside, knit into a chain of disaster that brought her to this bed, this day. And not only her. I wondered what my own inheritance was going to be. "I wish I was dead," Yvonne said into the pillowcase with the flowers I'd brought from home. The baby came four hours later. A girl, born 5:32 PM.

What’s the name of that great-great-great-great-grandfather of yours again?” I asked. “The one that mucked about here during one of the Risings? I can’t remember if it was Willy or Walter.” “Actually, it was Jonathan.” Frank took my complete disinterest in family history placidly, but remained always on guard, ready to seize the slightest expression of inquisitiveness as an excuse for telling me all facts known to date about the early Randalls and their connections. His eyes assumed the fervid gleam of the fanatic lecturer as he buttoned his shirt. “Jonathan Wolverton Randall—Wolverton for his mother’s uncle, a minor knight from Sussex. He was, however, known by the rather dashing nickname of ‘Black Jack,’ something he acquired in the army, probably during the time he was stationed here.” I flopped facedown on the bed and affected to snore. Ignoring me, Frank went on with his scholarly exegesis. “He bought his commission in the mid-thirties—1730s, that is—and served as a captain of dragoons. According to those old letters Cousin May sent me, he did quite well in the army. Good choice for a second son, you know; his younger brother followed tradition as well by becoming a curate, but I haven’t found out much about him yet. Anyway, Jack Randall was highly commended by the Duke of Sandringham for his activities before and during the ’45—the second—Jacobite Rising, you know,” he amplified for the benefit of the ignorant amongst his audience, namely me. “You know, Bonnie Prince Charlie and that lot?

The other thing preferable about the weekday services is that no one is there against his will. That’s another distraction on Sundays. Who hasn’t suffered the experience of having an entire family seated in the pew in front of you, the children at war with each other and sandwiched between the mother and father who are forcing them to go to church? An aura of stale arguments almost visibly clings to the hasty clothing of the children. “This is the one morning I can sleep in!” the daughter’s linty sweater says. “I get so bored!” says the upturned collar of the son’s suit jacket. Indeed, the children imprisoned between their parents move constantly and restlessly in the pew; they are so crazy with self-pity, they seem ready to scream. The stern-looking father who occupies the aisle seat has his attention interrupted by fits of vacancy—an expression so perfectly empty accompanies his sternness and his concentration that I think I glimpse an underlying truth to the man’s churchgoing: that he is doing it only for the children, in the manner that some men with much vacancy of expression are committed to a marriage. When the children are old enough to decide about church for themselves, this man will stay home on Sundays. The frazzled mother, who is the lesser piece of bread to this family sandwich—and who is holding down that part of the pew from which the most unflattering view of the preacher in the pulpit is possible (directly under the preacher’s jowls)—is trying to keep her hand off her daughter’s lap. If she smooths out her daughter’s skirt only one more time, both of them know that the daughter will start to cry. The son takes from his suit jacket pocket a tiny, purple truck; the father snatches this away—with considerable bending and crushing of the boy’s fingers in the process. “Just one more obnoxious bit of behavior from you,” the father whispers harshly, “and you will be grounded—for the rest of the day.” “The whole rest of the day?” the boy says, incredulous. The apparent impossibility of sustaining unobnoxious behavior for even part of the day weighs heavily on the lad, and overwhelms him with a claustrophobia as impenetrable as the claustrophobia of church itself. The daughter has begun to cry. “Why is she crying?” the boy asks his father, who doesn’t answer. “Are you having your period?” the boy asks his sister, and the mother leans across the daughter’s lap and pinches the son’s thigh—a prolonged, twisting sort of pinch. Now he is crying, too. Time to pray! The kneeling pads flop down, the family flops forward. The son manages the old hymnal trick; he slides a hymnal along the pew, placing it where his sister will sit when she’s through praying. “Just one more thing,” the father mutters in his prayers. But how can you pray, thinking about the daughter’s period? She looks old enough to be having her period, and young enough for it to be the first time. Should you move the hymnal before she’s through praying and sits on it? Should you pick up the hymnal and bash the boy with it? But the father is the one you’d like to hit; and you’d like to pinch the mother’s thigh, exactly as she pinched her son. How can you pray?

emotionally immature people are more like an amalgam of various borrowed parts, many of which don’t go together well. Because they had to shut down important parts of themselves out of fear of their parents’ reactions, their personalities formed in isolated clumps, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together. This explains their inconsistent reactions, which make them so difficult to understand. Because they probably weren’t allowed to express and integrate their emotional experiences in childhood, these people grow up to be emotionally inconsistent adults. Their personalities are weakly structured, and they often express contradictory emotions and behaviors. They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. When they become parents, these traits create emotional bafflement in their children. One woman described her mother’s behavior as chaotic, “flip-flopping in ways that made no sense.” This inconsistency means that, as parents, emotionally immature people may be either loving or detached, depending on their mood. Their children feel fleeting moments of connection with them but don’t know when or under what conditions their parent might be emotionally available again. This sets up what behavioral psychologists call an intermittent reward situation, meaning that getting a reward for your efforts is possible but completely unpredictable. This creates a tenacious resolve to keep trying to get the reward, because once in a while these efforts do pay off. In this way, parental inconsistency can be the quality that binds children most closely to their parent, as they keep hoping to get that infrequent and elusive positive response.

We both know Dad was my parental trash can, the fatherly receptacle on whom I dumped my emotions. Does she think because she offered me a blanket and chocolate-covered whatever that I'll just hand over the keys to my inner diary? Uh, no. "I know you're eighteen now," she huffs. "I get it, okay? But you don't know everything. And you know what? I don't like secrets." My head spins. The first day of the Rest of My Normal Life is not turning out as planned. I shake my head. "I guess I still don't understand what you're asking me." She stomps her foot. "How long have you been dating him, Emma? How long have you and Galen been an item?" Ohmysweetgoodness. "I'm not dating Galen," I whisper. "Why would you even think that?" "Why would I think that? Maybe you should ask Mrs. Strickland. She's the one who told me how intimate you looked standing there in the hall. And she said Galen was beside himself when you wouldn't wake up. That he kept squeezing your hand." Intimate? I let my backpack slide off my shoulder and onto the floor before I plot to the table and sit down. The room feels like a giant merry-go-round. I am...embarrassed? No. Embarrassed is when you spill ketchup on your crotch and it leaves a red stain in a suspicious area. Mortified? No. Mortified is when you experiment with tanning lotion and forget to put some on your feet, so it looks like you're wearing socks with your flip-flops and sundress. Bewildered? Yep. That's it. Bewildered that after I screamed at him-oh yes, now I remember I screamed at him-he picked up my limp body, carried me all the way to the office, and stayed with me until help arrived. Oh, and he held my hand and sat beside me, too. I cradle my face in my hands, imagining how close I came to going to school without knowing this. How close I came to walking up to Galen, telling him to take his tingles and shove them where every girl's thoughts have been since he got there. I groan into my laced fingers. "I can never face him again," I say to no one in particular. Unfortunately, Mom thinks I'm talking to her. "Why? Did he break up with you?" She sits down next to me and pulls my hands from my face. "Is it because you wouldn't sleep with him?" "Mom!" I screech. "No!" She snatches her hand away. "You mean you did sleep with him?" Her lips quiver. This can't be happening. "Mom, I told you, we're not dating!" Shouting is a dumb idea. My heartbeat ripples through my temples. "You're not even dating him and you slept with him?" She's wringing her hands. Tears puddle in her eyes. One Mississippi...two Mississippi...Is she freaking serious?...Three Mississippi...four Mississippi...Because I swear I'm about to move out... Five Mississippi...six Mississippi...I might as well sleep with him if I'm going to be accused of it anyway... Seven Mississippi...eight Mississippi...Ohmysweetgoodness, did I really just think that?...Nine Mississippi...ten Mississippi...Talk to your mother-now. I keep my voice polite when I say, "Mom, I haven't slept with Galen, unless you count laying on the nurse's bed unconscious beside him. And we are not dating. We have never dated. Which is why he wouldn't need to break up with me. Have I missed anything?" "What were you arguing about in the hall, then?" "I actually don't remember. All I remember is being mad at him. Trust me, I'll find out. But right now, I'm late for school." I ease out of the chair and over to my backpack on the floor. Bending over is even stupider than shouting. I wish my head would just go ahead and fall off already.

I thought I could wait to tell you until everything was figured out,” she says. “I didn’t think you’d have any contact with actual animals until you were twenty-one, when you were in the labs. The philax was an accident and then the damned internships.” She flops her hands to her sides, the hands that look like mine. “And the dead animals?” I demand, my anger still large and bright. “What about that? They’re eating animals in there!” My throat convulses at the thought of eating something dead, a body that was once alive and walking around, stripped and lifeless and cooked like zarum. “It’s wrong,” my mother says, her jaw setting. “It was never supposed to happen. But it was commonplace before Faloiv—a custom passed down from the Origin Planet—and many of the elders of N’Terra resisted the Faloii’s order when we landed.

I drove to the bar Theodosha had called from and parked on the street. The bar was a gray, dismal place, ensconced like a broken matchbox under a dying oak tree, its only indication of gaiety a neon beer sign that flickered in one window. She was at a table in back, the glow of the jukebox lighting her face and the deep blackness of her hair. She tipped a collins glass to her mouth, her eyes locked on mine. “Let me take you home,” I said. “No, thanks,” she replied. “Getting swacked?” “Merchie and I had another fight. He says he can’t take my pretensions anymore. I love the word ‘pretensions.’” “That doesn’t mean you have to get drunk,” I said. “You’re right. I can get drunk for any reason I choose,” she replied, and took another hit from the glass. Then she added incongruously, “You once asked Merchie what he was doing in Afghanistan. The answer is he wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in one of those other God-forsaken Stone Age countries to the north, helping build American airbases to protect American oil interests. Merchie says they’re going to make a fortune. All for the red, white, and blue.” “Who is they?” But her eyes were empty now, her concentration and anger temporarily spent. I glanced at the surroundings, the dour men sitting at the bar, a black woman sleeping with her head on a table, a parolee putting moves on a twenty-year-old junkie and mother of two children who was waiting for her connection. These were the people we cycled in and out of the system for decades, without beneficial influence or purpose of any kind that was detectable. “Let’s clear up one thing. Your old man came looking for trouble at the club today. I didn’t start it,” I said. “Go to a meeting, Dave. You’re a drag,” she said. “Give your guff to Merchie,” I said, and got up to leave. “I would. Except he’s probably banging his newest flop in the hay. And the saddest thing is I can’t blame him.” “I think I’m going to ease on out of this. Take care of yourself, kiddo,” I said. “Fuck that ‘kiddo’ stuff. I loved you and you were too stupid to know it.” I walked back outside into a misting rain and the clean smell of the night. I walked past a house where people were fighting behind the shades. I heard doors slamming, the sound of either a car backfiring or gunshots on another street, a siren wailing in the distance. On the corner I saw an expensive automobile pull to the curb and a black kid emerge from the darkness, wearing a skintight bandanna on his head. The driver of the car, a white man, exchanged money for something in the black kid’s hand. Welcome to the twenty-first century, I thought. I opened my truck door, then noticed the sag on the frame and glanced at the right rear tire. It was totally flat, the steel rim buried deep in the folds of collapsed rubber. I dropped the tailgate, pulled the jack and lug wrench out of the toolbox that was arc-welded to the bed of the truck, and fitted the jack under the frame. Just as I had pumped the flat tire clear of the puddle it rested in, I heard footsteps crunch on the gravel behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short, thick billy club whip through the air. Just before it exploded across the side of my head, my eyes seemed to close like a camera lens on a haystack that smelled of damp-rot and unwashed hair and old shoes. I was sure as I slipped into unconsciousness that I was inside an ephemeral dream from which I would soon awake.

What was Hugo like? Physically, you mean? During the Jennie years he was a lean, bony man. His hair was black and unfashionably long. He had dark eye sockets in which lived two restless black eyes. My, that sounds good. Maybe I should be writing this book. He looked like a British schoolboy, with his hair flopping down over his forehead. He had shifty eyes, not out of guilt, but out of curiosity. His mind was always clicking away while his eyes darted about. His posture was bad; his mother never taught him to stand up straight. That’s one advantage of a Jewish upbringing, you know, having good posture.

At the age of only 14, I was my mother’s employer. She worked for me, in a twisted order of hierarchy. Professionally, I told her what I wanted and didn’t want. I expected her to handle my appearances, schedule my auditions and manage my money. I know that to most, having some kind of authority over one’s parents sounds like a dream come true. “Here’s how it’s gonna go down, Ma.” But it wasn’t at all. I wasn’t comfortable being my mom’s boss or with the daily flip-flop of authority. I was supposed to be her employer on the set and her kid once I walked through the front door of our house. The power shifts were freaky and hurt my brain a little.

Excuse me,” I call to his retreating back. I sound like I swallowed Kermit, so I clear my throat. “Excuse me,” I call again. I run to catch up with him and tug on his backpack. He looks back over his shoulder, but then he keeps right on walking. “Wait!” I say, trying to keep up. “Damn it, would you stop?” He stops very quickly and I slam into his back. He rocks forward and I grab onto his pack to stay upright, feeling like I have two left feet. I am usually more graceful than this. My mother would kill me if she saw me right now, making a public spectacle of myself in the quad. He turns, grabs me by the shoulders and steadies me, then he bends down to look into my eyes. His are bright blue and full of questions. “Are you all right?” he asks, his voice gruff. I’ve never heard him do more than grunt in class, so hearing him make a full sentence, albeit a short one, is startling. “I’m fine,” I gasp, a little winded from chasing him. “You’re really fast.” He grins. “Sweetheart, you haven’t seen fast.” My heart skips a beat. I am in such big trouble. I don’t know why I thought I could approach a man like this, but I did, and now I don’t know how to ask for what I want. “Cat got your tongue?” he asks. A grin tips one corner of his lips. He’s pretty enough to take my breath away. His blond hair flops across his forehead and he shakes his head to swing it back from his eyes. I open my mouth to speak, but only a squeak comes out. He looks around the quad, looking behind me like he’s trying to figure out where the hell I came from. When he sees that no one is chasing me, he takes my shoulders in his hands and gives me a gentle squeeze, bending so he can stare into my eyes. “Hey,” he says softly, like I’m a stray dog he’s trying to trap. “Are you okay?” I thrust out my hand. “Madison Wentworth,” I say. “I just wanted to introduce myself.” His eyes narrow and he stares at me, but he doesn’t stick his hand out to shake mine. I let mine hang there in the air between us until it becomes so heavy with disappointment that I have to tuck it into the pocket of my jeans. “Guess not.” I sigh. “I’m very sorry for taking up your time.” “Which one of those fuckers put you up to this?” he asks. He grinds his teeth as he waits for my response. “What?” “Those frat boys you hang out with, the ones with more money than sense. Which one put you up to this?” He glares at me. “No one put me up to this,” I say. “Listen, sweetheart,” he says, his face very close to mine. I can smell the cigarette he just smoked and the coffee he must have had before it. “You don’t want to mess with a man like me.” “Okay,” I whisper. I clear my throat. “Fine. Have a nice day.

Rich, what are you doing here?" I asked, my gaze going over toward Brant, finding him watching and feeling almost guilty. Which was ridiculous because I hadn't invited Rich. "Didn't have much of a choice after you blocked my calls and texts, Mads," he said, shaking his head. "Didn't you maybe consider that was because I didn't want to talk to you?" I asked, lifting my chin slightly. "The only possible explanation for that," he said, his charming boyish smile in place, "is because you have somehow forgotten how awesome I am. You can give me five minutes, can't you?" "Because five years wasn't enough of my time to waste?" I asked, not caring how snippy that came off. "I know I hurt you," he said, looking apologetic. "Let's not romanticize it," I cut him off. "You proposed to me and then dumped me because your parents were going to stop paying your bills." His head jerked back, likely not having expected that. "I fucked up," he admitted, shrugging. "I made the wrong choice." "Yes, you did," I agreed, having no plans on sparing his feelings. He hadn't spared mine. "Maddy, come on," he said, shaking his head. "Give me a chance here." "A chance to what? Somehow try to make me think that dumping me and telling me to get my things out before you came home from work was not possibly the worst possible thing you could have done after I gave you five years of my life?" "I was..." "Insensitive and cold-hearted and money-hungry and a complete and utter asshole," I filled in for him. "Maddy, I didn't even think..." "That sentence was complete right there," I cut him off. "You didn't even think. Period. You didn't think about how much it would hurt me that you valued your money more than the life we had built together. You didn't think of the fact that I had nowhere to go but back to live with my mother. You didn't think that loving me and me loving you would be enough. You didn't think. And now what? You've finally given it some thought." "I talked to my..." He talked to his parents. Ugh. I had thought maybe he had grown a set and told them to take their money and shove it. Not that it would change anything, but it would have restored my faith in him being the decent person I had always thought he was. "And what, Rich? Tried to convince them that I was good enough for them? I don't need their approval. And I don't want to be with a man who values their approval of the person you've chosen to be with so much that it changes your feelings for them." "It never changed my feelings about you," Rich said, voice sad. And I did believe him. He had loved me. There was no way he had been faking that. Again, the bitter truth was- he never loved me enough. Now that I knew that, there was no forgetting it. And the fact of the matter was, I deserved to be loved enough. "I don't want to be a decision, Rich. I want to be someone you love and are with because you can't not love and and you can't not be with me. Who you love isn't something you can flip-flop on. And I am thankful I found this out before I married you. Before we started a family. Before it could have begun to mean more than it already did.'' "What? You moved on already?" he asked, tone heavy with skepticism. "Yes." And I had. Not just to another man who had the potential to really mean something to me. But to a version of myself that I had forgotten existed. To live somewhere that everyone cared for me. To be near my mother who I missed dearly. To do a job because I loved it, not because I was looking for adulation. He couldn't factor into any of that. And it was right about then that the door to the bakery opened and out walked Brant, holding his jacket and moving to slip it over my shoulders. "Figured you were cold," he offered, but his eyes also said: and maybe needed an escape. He was right on both.

I stare at him, feeling as if I’m caught in a surreal scene. The son of the Black Witch, as wildly intimidating in appearance as his mother, with soaking wet tendrils of black hair spiked and flopping unevenly all over his head, using his overwhelming Level Five demon-slaying powers...to make me tea. It’s so...bizarrely domestic.

I remember listening to James Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio broadcast occasionally with my mother as we rode somewhere in the car together. My ears would perk up when the subject of homosexuality came up, which it did often, since this was the mid-1990s, and the “gay rights” movement was gaining steam. Dobson talked a lot about the “causes” of homosexuality—childhood sexual abuse, an emotionally distant father, the absence of affectionate male role models. I remember scrutinizing my past and present experiences. Did I fit these categories? I had never been sexually abused by anyone, let alone my parents. Was I close enough to my dad? I could think of one time I tried to initiate a weekly time for just the two of us to be together, but it flopped. Plus, I never learned to play golf with him, nor did I want to take up deer hunting, as he seemed to hope I would. Did that mean I was suffering from a lack of paternal intimacy? I racked my brain for answers, testing every possible explanatory avenue to understand how I came to have the homoerotic feelings that blazed like a fire in my head every day.

Well, good,” he told her. “Because I think you're a spoiled little brat with delusions of being some kind of suburban princess,” he bit out. “And I think you need to realize there's more to life than pink frilly outfits and the perfect shade of lip gloss. If you didn't look like you do, you'd have no friends at all.”               She was still on her knees, head down, determined not to cry. She didn't have friends. His words cut like a knife, but they were all true. It was bad enough her mom wasn't here to watch her movie with her. She didn't need Dylan to make her feel like nothing. After finally getting all of the ruined popcorn back into the bowl, she stood and turned around quickly, avoiding his gaze. She dumped the contents of the bowl in the garbage and marched straight past him and into the living room. Over her shoulder she mustered the ability to shout without a hint of a crack in her voice. “Yeah, well I think you're a pretentious prick who thinks he's too good for everyone since he went to that dumb-ass college!”               Katie flopped down onto the couch, bundled herself up in blankets, and flipped through her DVR to find Legally Blonde. It could at least make her feel better even if her mother wasn't around. A single, solitary tear rolled down her right cheek as she heard Dylan walk behind her, headed for the stairs. She tried as hard as she could to block out the cry-fest she knew was coming until he got to his room where he couldn't hear her, but just when she heard his foot hit the first creaky step, she let out a sniffle and wiped a tear from her face. Katie heard Dylan stop. There were no more creaks on the stairs. Shit, she thought to herself. He heard her.                              

She understood that becoming a nun was a lifetime commitment. Testing her daughter’s resolve was wise. The Koehler family together, 1923 First Homes As an adult, I visited Rosie’s first home at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, to get a sense of her early life and that of her famous family. The compact Victorian residence stands three stories tall on a small lot in the Boston suburb. It was easy to picture the young Kennedy children playing in the back yard. Rose Kennedy wrote in Times to Remember, her 1974 autobiography: “It was a nice old wooden-frame house with clapboard siding; seven rooms, plus two small ones in the converted attic, all on a small lot with a few bushes and trees . . . about twenty-five minutes from the center of the city by trolley.” 5 The family home on Beals Street is now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service. From the deep browns and reds of the rugs on the hardwood floors to the homey couch and chairs, the home felt warm and comfortable to me. I suppressed a desire to kick off my sandals and flop on the sofa. The Kennedys’ house on Beals Street, Rosie’s first home But my perspective as a child would have triggered a different impression. I would have whispered to my mother, “They’re rich!” (I’ve since discovered that money isn’t the only measure of wealth. There’s wealth in memories, too.) A lovely grand piano occupies one corner of the Kennedys’ old living room. It was a wedding gift to Rose Kennedy from her uncles, and she delighted in playing her favorite song, “Sweet Adeline,” on it. Although her children took piano lessons, Mrs. Kennedy lamented that her own passion never ignited a similar spark in any of her daughters. She did often ask Rosemary to perform, however. I see an image of Rosemary declaring she couldn’t, her hands stretching awkwardly across the keys. But her mother encouraged Rosie to practice, confident she’d

Shit Can Happen" Bitch Yeah... [1] - Shit can happen [8X] [Kon Artis] Yo, yo, huh, yo, yo, yo That's right motherfuckers we back Same slanging, orangatangin, wilding out on hoodrats They say I act like I'm too famous to say hi And tell 'em what my name is but really I'm still nameless... You niggas don't get it yet do you Dealing out platinum or flop I still put it through you Wit a luger that'll spit fire And hit higher than a pitch by a bitch like Mariah You think for one second since we got a deal That we won't deal wit you in front of St Andrew's still? You gay rappers better learn that I won't stop until I see 'em turn back If you don't slow that roll you got You gonna see these Runyan Ave. niggas that really need some Prozac For' sure' that, ask the others But gator lay you down next to your mother's mother's grandmother [Kuniva] You know I'm feeling real rowdy tonight Ready to fight and half the niggas I give dap to I don't even like The same cat who never gave a damn about your name I gives a fuck about it like the next selling Clippers' game I kill you in ways you couldn't even fathom You and your madame, it's really unexplainable how I have 'em Who call theyself screaming about a challenge Nigga we got a gift while you barely making it off mere talent My skills are deeply embedded even your hoe said it She was knock kneed I fucked her now she's bow legged In the middle of rappin I drop the mic And have a stare down and jump in the crowd and start scrappin Kuniva and Kon Artis my nigga we get it cracking While the paramedics pick you up we on the side laughing [HOOK: 1- in background] [Kon Artis] Now this aint funny so don't you dare laugh Shit can happen in him and yo' ass You can be touched don't think you can't Cause niggas aint fucking around no more man [repeat] [Swifty McVay]

Narian was once more making preparations for a journey to Cokyri; as official liaison, he frequently traveled between the mother empire and the province. Knowing that the trip was long and arduous I didn’t expect him to come to me that night, and I didn’t bother to light a lantern when I adjourned to my bedroom. Instead, I relied on memory and moonlight to guide me to my dressing table. I unpinned my dark brown hair--it was not yet long enough to tie back, but letting it merely hang was impractical--and reached behind to tug at the laces of my dress. They were difficult to loosen without the aid of my personal maid, Sahdienne, who had been among those servants rehired for the sake of the economy. I sighed in frustration and stood, about to send for her when I felt warm hands rest on my waist from behind. My irritation dispersed as I closed my eyes and tilted my head back against a sturdy chest, breathing in his presence. Narian had come. He swept my hair off my neck, his fingers giving me pleasant chills, then took over what I had been attempting. My dress rustled to the floor, leaving me standing in my chemise, and he sweetly and tenderly kissed my neck and shoulders. He pushed my shift down my arms, his mouth following, and I leaned against him, my legs weak, keenly attuned to every brush of his lips against my flushed skin. My heart beat faster, and I twisted to face him, kissing him deeply, hardly aware that he had begun to walk backward, leading me toward the bed. We fell together upon the mattress, not entirely gracefully, but neither of us thinking about form. He rolled on top of me, his breath quickening along with mine, and it was only when he took hold of my bunched up chemise that my brain snapped into action. I placed my hands on his shoulders and shook my head, and he flopped flat on his back beside me with a groan. After a moment to regain his composure, he propped himself up on his elbow to look down at me, desire still lurking in his mesmerizing eyes. “Alera? Are you…all right?” “Narian, we can’t do this.” I was more than a little shocked at the both of us. His brow furrowed, and he ran a hand through his disheveled hair. He took a breath and opened his mouth, then stopped, apparently unable to decide exactly what he wanted to say. “Why not?” “Because,” I said, pushing myself upright. “We’re not married!

Most immigrants agree that at some point, we become permanent foreigners, belonging neither here nor there. Many tomes have been written trying to describe this feeling of floating between worlds but never fully landing. Artists, using every known medium from words to film to Popsicle sticks, have attempted to encapsulate the struggle of trying to hang on to the solid ground of our mother culture and realizing that we are merely in a pond balancing on a lily pad with a big kid about to belly-flop right in. If and when we fall into this pond, will we be singularly American or will we hyphenate? Can we hold on to anything or does our past just end up at the bottom of the pond, waiting to be discovered by future generations?

New York was nothing like LA . . . nothing! Flip-flops and shorts ruled on the West Coast. In New York, few in the professional world would be caught in flipping shoes and shorts, which were reserved for weekends and days at the Shore. If there was one rule Dakota’s mother taught her in life it was if you don’t know what you’re doing or have no idea how you managed to get where you are . . . fake it. Dakota lived by that on her first trip to The Big Apple . . . and now she had it down.

Practically all girls are capable of pulling off the Lady Love stunt before marriage but alas, only too many of them think a wedding ring gives them the right to flop down on the do-nothing stool, get fat and eat onions... When a man see his beauteous pride slouching around the house in a soiled house- coat with cold cream on her face, he feels he got cheated at the altar. Too often after the first baby, [women] cease being wives and are only mothers... giving all their tenderness to Junior and letting poor husband go heart-hungry.

One of Patsy Broderick's choicer comments was to describe my writing as 'limp as a penis.

Sometimes half the problem with sex is people take it way too seriously, when it’s really just bodies flopping around like seals and making noises your mother would tell you aren’t polite at the dinner table.

Do you think we could get away with something this intimate?” Louisa says to me as I flop down beside her on the blanket she’s spread for us. “Only if you consider upward of five hundred guests intimate.” She wrinkles her nose. “We’re still six months away, and I already want to scream at anyone who asks me my feelings about lilies.” I kiss her on the nose, and she rests her head on my shoulder. Her hair is wrapped around her head in two soft plaits, and in her plain cotton dress and crowned in the golden light of the evening, she looks like a painting of a summer deity. Persephone in her mother’s garden, with the sun on her shoulders. I place my hand upon my knee, palm up, and she weaves our fingers together.

Things I'll Neva Forget I'll never Forget my mother The one who loves me most her pretty,priceless smile will forever be kept my life "so called" file her motherly touch had no comparison nor equal it could never be replaced,stopped or re-enacted into a sequel i felt as if her life was all but drawn up without perfection it was done wrong Now she's gone But I'll never Forget my MOTHER I'll never forget father The one who changed my life thanks to him I'll know how to treat my own wife the ultimate villein on my hoodlum chart he's at the top......Wonder Y?........ my daddy es a Flop thus he did lie,cheat & steal in my heart I denounce I'll never forget my FATHER I'll never forget my Family 'My People" The Mohasoa Pride & that 2% Bopape Tribe Our individual ups & downs made it one hell of a roller coaster ride jokes aside "we miss you" the one who died like my mom she was our escutcheon against the dark what a tragic lose of our artery of traffic see throw mi eyes "divided we'll fall....together we shall rise" I'll never forget my FAMILY I'll never forget You Guys "My Friends" Mmmm aaargh "writers block" over-loading there's just too many of y'all BUT I never forget " My Friends" I'll never forget......Who I Am Me the man of my dreams "Lebogang Bopape" The boy who never knew his abilities till he was 7 fucked up everything by the time he turned 11 my 1st day at school "quite funny" didn't talk to anyone for like a week or so till I fell cried so hard I accidentally ran into my very own Jezebel so wrong was I thinking she's the one my feelings weren't intact I had none Uncle said "you'll get them when you turn into a man SON" What happened next an emotional recession the leading cause factor 4 this deception............LIES! call them what y'all want black or white they'er still LIES! all you'll get trouble Shit I'm seeing double losing sight of what is right got my life blue,black,cherry.......Bleary Time will tell I am a bit blind but look behind you Deep in the back of your mind you are who you are I'll never forget ME! Lebogang Yep thats Me Baby!

Before I could say anything the other gagged my mouth with a stone ball. I wanted to say what fools they were, but not the first fool in Dolingo. How could I confess anything with my mouth gagged? And the boy’s smell came to my nose again, so strong, almost as if he was right outside this cell, but now moving away. The one-eyed scientist pulled a knot at his neck and removed his hood. Bad Ibeji. I heard of one found at the foot of the Hills of Enchantment, which the Sangoma burned, even though it was already dead. Even in death it shook the unshakable woman, for it was the one mingi she would kill on sight. Bad Ibeji was never to be born but is not the unborn Douada, who roams the spirit world, wiggling on air like a tadpole and sometimes slipping into this world through a newborn. Bad Ibeji was the twin that the womb squeezed and crushed, tried to melt, but could not melt away. Bad Ibeji grows on its malcontent like that devil of the body’s own flesh, that bursts through the breasts of woman, killing her by poisoning her blood and bone. Bad Ibeji knows it will never be the favored one, so it attacks the other twin in the womb. Bad Ibeji sometimes dies at birth when the mind did not grow. When the mind did grow, all it knows to do is survive. It burrows into the twin’s skin, sucking food and water from his flesh. It leaves the womb with the twin, and sticks so tight to his skin that the mother thinks this too is the baby’s flesh, unformed, ugly like a burn and not handsome, and sometimes throws away them both to the open lands to die. It is wrinkled and puffy flesh, and skin and hair, and one eye big and a mouth that drools without stop, and one hand with claws and another stuck on the belly as if sewn, and useless legs that flap like fins, a thin penis, stiff like a finger, and hole that bursts shit like lava. It hates the twin for it will never be the twin, but it needs the twin for it cannot eat food, or drink water as it has no throat, and teeth grow anywhere, even above the eye. Parasite. Fat, and lumpy, like cow entrails tied together, and leaving slime where it crawls. The Bad Ibeji’s one hand splayed itself on the one-eyed scientist’s neck and chest. He unhooked each claw and a little blood ran out of each hole. The second hand unwrapped itself from the scientist’s waist, leaving a welt. I shook and screamed into the gag and kicked against the shackles but the only thing free was my nose to huff. The Bad Ibeji pulled his head off the twin’s shoulder and one eye popped open. The head, a lump upon a lump, upon a lump, with warts, and veins, and huge swellings on the right cheek with a little thing flapping like a finger. His mouth, squeezed at the corners, flopped open, and his body jerked and sagged like kneaded flour being slapped. From the mouth came a gurgle like from a baby. The Bad Ibeji left the scientist’s shoulder and slithered on my belly and up to my chest, smelling of arm funk and shit of the sick. The other scientist grabbed my head with both sides and held it stiff. I struggled and struggled, shaking, trying to nod, trying to kick, trying to scream, but all I could do was blink and breathe.

You can stop laughing at any moment, Bailey! This shit isn’t funny!” I chastise her. “You wanted it! You demanded it! Oh my fucking god, I’m going to pee myself!” she spouts in between bouts of laughter while she’s rolling around on her side of the bed. “You could have been more insistent with your warnings, you know!” I pout at her. “Oh god! I need to video this shit! Where’s my phone?” “You make one move towards your phone, I’m taking you out!” I holler at her. This shit definitely does not need to be filmed! Fucking Bailey is laughing too hard to respond. Insensitive witch! “Just get this shit done! Now, woman!” “Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay, okay. Calm down. Okay, let’s finish,” she finally quits laughing long enough to answer me. She gets to her feet and ambles to my side of the bed before she starts roaring again. After another moment of her laughing at me, she calms enough to stand up straight again. I scowl at her but it doesn’t erase the tears of laughter that are still coating her cheeks. “Okay, Ax. Only a few more strips to pull and then we’re done. Are you ready?” “Fuck no, I’m not ready! Who the fuck is ever actually ready to have their asshole pulled off with strips of cloth coated in wax? Huh? Who? Tell me now, Bailey! Do you actually know anyone who has ever answered that question with, “Why, yes, I am ready for excruciating pain, bring it on, girlfriend?”[...] “Thank every fucking god I know that Bailey refused to wax my ball sack like I first asked. Holy mother of all that is holy, if she had applied wax to them, I would have left it there until I died. No way is anyone pulling wax off of the twins. I am already pretty sure I’ll never get another erection just thinking about that kind of pain. I have a whole new respect for drag queens. They are tougher than I will ever be and I have no problem admitting that fact. “Holy fuck! What the ever loving fuck was that for? Oh my fucking god!” “Owwwwww! Make it stop!” I scream at Bailey when she rips a strip of wax and hair from my ass crack without warning me first. The evil witch is laughing too hard to stand so she’s now leaning her forearms across my back while I twitch my ass right and left trying to get the burning to stop. I can feel her tears landing on my back. Holy shit, I’m never sitting down again! “Holy mother of god! Fucking hell! Owwwwww! Woman, I hate you! Owwwwww! It burns like the fires of hell!” I shout as the last, thank god, strip is torn from my body. My colon may have just been removed also. I flop myself down on the bed and yes, I hide my face and allow a tiny tear or two to drop onto my pillow. Don’t judge me until you’ve been in this predicament!

PAPA", it's not only a name but an identity with our name. "PAPA" is not only our strength but a deep motivation from a very honest and hard-worker person, who used to struggle every single minute for our successful life. "PAPA" is a shop, where we can buy all the materials without any cost related to our needs and desires. "PAPA" is the name of a Prophet, who has been sent for us. "PAPA" is the only reason for our existence. It's only "PAPA" and his divine personality, who sacrificed his whole life, his youth, his time, his desires and his ambitions only for us. It's request from a very bewildered son for a good deal of mankind that don't even try to snatch the smile of that divine face, don't make them too muffled, don't let them to face those flopped and rumble attitudes. If you're too groggy for their happiness, then let them with their own sorrows and temptations.

When Holden was nine, Rufus the family Labrador died. He’d already been an adult dog when Holden was born, so Holden had only ever known Rufus as a big black slobbering bundle of love. He’d taken some of his first steps clutching the dog’s fur in one stubby fist. He’d run around their Montana farm not much bigger than a toddler with Rufus as his only babysitter. Holden had loved the dog with the simple intensity only children and dogs share. But when he was nine, Rufus was fifteen, and old for such a big dog. He slowed down. He stopped running with Holden, barely managing a trot to catch up, then gradually only a slow walk. He stopped eating. And one night he flopped onto his side next to a heater vent and started panting. Mother Elise had told him that Rufus probably wouldn’t last the night, and even if he did they’d have to call the vet in the morning. Holden had tearfully sworn to stay by the dog’s side. For the first couple of hours, he held Rufus’ head on his lap and cried, as Rufus struggled to breathe and occasionally gave one halfhearted thump of his tail. By the third, against his will and every good thought he’d had about himself, Holden was bored. It was a lesson he’d never forgotten. That humans only have so much emotional energy. No matter how intense the situation, or how powerful the feelings, it was impossible to maintain a heightened emotional state forever. Eventually you’d just get tired and want it to end.

My mother came over to give the new dog a good sniff. Daisy held still and then did the same back. She wasn’t shy with Rocky or me, either. When we came over, Daisy stuck her nose down to be sniffed, and even flopped down so we could wrestle with her. I liked Daisy, I decided. Wrestling was even more fun than chasing. But when Jennifer came outside with bowls of food and water, Daisy waited until Jennifer was far away before she bolted over to the food and devoured it in three gulps.

Because it should have been me. I would have been perfect for the prophecy. I would be brilliant at saving the world. I would also have been brilliant at leading the other dragonets, proving that NightWings are the best tribe, and making sure things happened exactly as we wanted them to. Just one problem: I didn’t hatch on the brightest night. I hatched two years too early. STUPID SNIVELING MOONS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME. And so you know who got to be the all-special chosen NightWing instead? My little brother. HOW UNFAIR IS THAT? I was even there when his magical destiny landed on him. I was standing right next to his annoying egg in our hatchery, talking to our mother. Her black scales gleamed in the firelight as she curled around it, brushing the eggshell lightly with her claws. “Take me hunting,” I wheedled. I don’t wheedle anymore, just for the record. “Please? I need help. I keep losing my prey after I bite it, and I think other dragons are eating it before I find it again.” So we’re clear, I didn’t really need help. I mean, I was as hungry as everyone, but I can take care of myself. What I wanted was for Mother to stop being drippy and boring and for her to leave that egg alone for even half a second. “I can’t, little one.” Mother sighed one of her long, scale-rippling sighs that made her tail flop over. “What if something happens to my egg while I’m gone? It’s so close to hatching now.

Mibs says: I wanted to say something while you weren’t around to make me too shy to say it. Mibs says: I love you. I know you know that, but I don’t think you really realize just how much I really do love you. How’s that for a lot of real-ity? Mibs says: So, I want to tell you while I know you can’t get on and make me self-conscious. I love you. I love how you think of my children as yours. I love how you put us before you even when it is uncomfortable for you or a financial blow. Mibs says: Sigh. This is hard. I love how you smile at me. The way those smiles make my stomach flop is the most wonderful feeling. Mibs says: The way you reach for me and then hesitate, making sure you are being honorable in your actions. Mibs says: I love the tone of your voice when you say you love me. Mibs says: I love knowing that you mean it when you say it. Mibs says: And how you protect me, even from my children and from myself. Mibs says: I love your delight in your sisters, your nieces, and your nephews. I love how you cherish your mother and how that spills over into cherishing me. I’ve never doubted how you’d treat me. It shows every day in how you treat them. Mibs says: And I love how you call me “Mibs.” I love the way you say it, the tone of your voice, the little smirk around your lips…. Mibs says: Whew. This is killing me. I love that you find me attractive. You don’t say much, but I see it in how you respond to me. It amazes how much I see that you desire only me. Mibs says: But most of all, I think I love the way you love the Lord even more than you love me. I couldn’t ask for anything more. Mibs says: I love that I get to be the one you call wife. Mibs says: Goodnight.

Well, boys, your mother and I⁠—” “I need to sit down,” Beckett announced and flopped down on the ottoman in the living room. Jackson went to the fridge and pulled out a container of roast beef.