Forced Proximity Quotes

I want to tell her that she's luminous, she's so bright in my mind, sometimes I can't focus.

raking a hand through his hair, he forced his attention to the text she'd left on the coffee table, refusing to dwell on the disconcerting fact that a part of him had taken one look at the lass in such proximity to his bed and said simply: Mine

Nothing good can come from this kind of forced proximity.

En pointe she was a force, a tornado: safe to look at from a distance, but in close proximity, you risked being just another piece of her debris. Some days I thought I could only be so lucky.

To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. The trees are alive. The grass, the soil—everything. All around you things are purely living, and you among them, and the aliveness makes you tremble. You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self—your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it. In the midst of evil you want to be a good man. You want decency. You want justice and courtesy and human concord, things you never knew you wanted. There is a kind of largeness to it, a kind of godliness. Though it’s odd, you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead. You recognize what’s valuable. Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what’s best in yourself and in the world, all that might be lost. At the hour of dusk you sit at your foxhole and look out on a wide river turning pinkish red, and at the mountains beyond, and although in the morning you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die, even so, you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not.

I'd still be nice to you if you were ugly." "Okay." A wicked grin slipped over his full lips. He bent his head down and whispered, "I just wouldn't offer you any cookies." I folded my arms and tried to ignore the close proximity of our faces. "I'm starting to think cookies is a code word for something else." "Maybe it is." He tugged on my bag again as he took a confident step back, forcing me down another step. "And just think about it. If cookie was a code word, whatever it symbolizes, it's been in your mouth, sweetheart.

I'm a simple-minded fuck who can't read your mind, and even if I could, I would be so lost in the sheer volume of thoughts and feelings it wouldn't do me any good. I need you NOT to shut me out. To explain yourself. To help me understand you. To be your authentic self with me. But with concise communication.

He’s not my white knight. Pretty sure he’s my soulmate though.

Something, most certainly, happens to a diver’s emotions underwater. It is not merely a side effect of the pleasing, vaguely erotic sensation of water pressure on the body. Nor is it alone the peculiar sense of weightlessness, which permits a diver to hang motionless in open water, observing sea life large as whales around him; not the ability of a diver, descending in that condition, to slowly tumble and rotate in all three spatial planes. It is not the exhilaration from disorientation that comes when one’s point of view starts to lose its “lefts” and “down” and gains instead something else, a unique perception that grows out of the ease of movement in three dimensions. It is not from the diminishment of gravity to a force little more emphatic than a suggestion. It is not solely exposure to an unfamiliar intensity of life. It is not a state of rapture with the bottomless blue world beneath one’s feet…it is some complicated mix of these emotions, together with the constant proximity of real terror.

I hardly think of it as a betrayal. It's a stupid rule. After all, you can't help but fall in love with your guard - forced proximity and all.

I’m not buying you. I don’t need to buy anyone or anything. You keep forgetting who I am. And you? You are mine. You were born mine, always have been mine. Show me you understand that.

Please," Professor Solanka asked. "Just tell me." "That's the worst part," Dubdub said. "There's nothing to tell. No direct or proximate cause. You wake up one day and you aren't a part of your life. You know this. Your life doesn't belong to you. Your body is not, I don't know how to make you this the force of this, yours. there's just life, living itself. You don't have it. You don't have anything to do with it. That's all. It doesn't sound like much, but believe me. It's like when you hypnotize someone and persuade them there's a big pile of mattresses outside their window. They no longer see a reason not to jump.

I remember us saying that we liked small houses, that proximity engendered closeness in a family. That nobody should be raised by a nanny or in day care. I remember us saying that time, not money, was the greatest resource. That everything would be all right. That the universe would provide. That belief was a force more powerful than gravity itself.

The suspicion that a calamity might also be a punishment is further useful in that it allows an infinity of speculation. After New Orleans, which suffered from a lethal combination of being built below sea level and neglected by the Bush administration, I learned from a senior rabbi in Israel that it was revenge for the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, and from the mayor of New Orleans (who had not performed his own job with exceptional prowess) that it was god’s verdict on the invasion of Iraq. You can nominate your own favorite sin here, as did the “reverends” Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell after the immolation of the World Trade Center. In that instance, the proximate cause was to be sought and found in America’s surrender to homosexuality and abortion. (Some ancient Egyptians believed that sodomy was the cause of earthquakes: I expect this interpretation to revive with especial force when the San Andreas Fault next gives a shudder under the Gomorrah of San Francisco.)

Let it be known that this bond is unbreakable, as enduring as the strength of our realm. By my will and the power of our ancient rites, Blake Drakharrow and Medra Pendragon are now bound together in fate and duty, forever unyielding, irrevocably united. As the dragon flies and the blood endures, so shall your destinies be intertwined. Your bond is forged. Through fire and shadows, you shall be one. What is spoken is unbroken. What is bound cannot be unbound.

We must conclude with a troubling caveat, however. The norms sustaining our political system rested, to a considerable degree, on racial exclusion. The stability of the period between the end of Reconstruction and the 1980s was rooted in an original sin: the Compromise of 1877 and its aftermath, which permitted the de-democratization of the South and the consolidation of Jim Crow. Racial exclusion contributed directly to the partisan civility and cooperation that came to characterize twentieth-century American politics. The “solid South” emerged as a powerful conservative force within the Democratic Party, simultaneously vetoing civil rights and serving as a bridge to Republicans. Southern Democrats’ ideological proximity to conservative Republicans reduced polarization and facilitated bipartisanship. But it did so at the great cost of keeping civil rights—and America’s full democratization—off the political agenda.

Brogan was all strong angles and broad shoulders. Normally my reaction to forced proximity with a hot guy in an elevator was that of a) glee b) praying I didn’t have horrible coffee breath, and c) the obvious hope of said hot guy jamming the big red stop button and proceeding to give a mind-blowing elevator romp.

The parks used to be described on maps as the Upper Pleasure Gardens and Lower Pleasure Gardens, but some councillor or other force for good realized the profound and unhealthy implications of placing 'Lower' and 'Pleasure' in such immediate proximity and successfully lobbied to have 'Lower' removed from the title, so now you have the Upper Pleasure Gardens and the mere Pleasure Gardens, and lexical perverts have been banished to the beaches where they must find such gratification as they can by rubbing themselves on the groynes.

I’ve spent more time with these people than anyone. We’re forced to work together in close proximity every day, which really means we’re forced to live together. And it’s the living involved. The sheer humanity of that, which could never be professional, or even normal. We’re all dry flecks of skin turning to dust and breathing each other up. It’s too much.

Sofiya, you idiot! He caught you checking him out!

Damn, I loved a guy who thought he was capable of taking me on, a man who looked as though he was about to start a war. Oh, yeah…let’s fight, hot stuff.

Unable to wait, I lean over, pressing my lips to her warm mouth, and when her lips open for me, I deepen the kiss. "Ugh! You guys!" I hear Jameson yell. "That's wildly inappropriate!

That’s because I hate you,” I spat, keeping my back turned and holding my mama’s hands tightly. “Hmm, I know,” his steps drew nearer until he was just a few meters away. “It turns me on.

Quantum physics findings show that consciousness itself created order - or indeed in some way created the world - this suggested much more capacity in the human being than was currently understood. It also suggested some revolutionary notions about humans in relation to their world and the relation between all living things. What they were asking was how far our bodies extended. Did they end with what we always thought of as our own isolated persona, or ‘extend out’ so that the demarcation between us and our world was less clear-cut? Did living consciousness possess some quantum field like properties, enabling it to extend its influence out into the world? If so, was it possible to do more than simply observe? How strong was our influence? It was only a small step in logic to conclude that in our act of participation as an observer in the quantum world, we might also be an influencer, a creator. Did we not only stop the butterfly at a certain point in its flight, but also influence the path it will take - nudging it in a particular direction? This explains action at a distance, what scientists call non locality. The theory that two subatomic particles once in close proximity seemingly communicate over any distance after they are separated.

We try to rediscover in things, now precious because of it, the glimmer that our soul projected on them; we are disappointed to find that they seem to lack in nature the charm they derived in our thoughts from the proximity of certain ideas; at times we convert all the forces of that soul into cunning, into magnificence, in order to have an effect on people who are outside us, as we are well aware, and whom we will never reach

Awkwardly pressed up against him, the Princess seemed to take no notice of their proximity. In the dampness, though, her body heat was near palpable to Luke and he had to force himself to keep his attention on what he was doing.

If they were searching for books with tropes like enemies to lovers, second chance romance, morally gray heroes, fated mates, vampire royalty, fake relationships, jilted brides, love triangles, forced proximity, or reverse harem… I was the ghostess with the mostest. If they wanted recommendations for books with the most unique male anatomy… I held the world’s only PHD on the subject. And by PHD, I meant I was the Poltergeist of Hung Dudes. Or was it Phantom of Huge Dicks?

You’re lying,” I said. “You’ve never seen him.” “I see him all the time. I’ve killed with him.” My stomach twisted, and it had nothing to do with the Strigoi’s proximity. Don’t think about Dimitri killing people. Don’t think about Dimitri killing people . I said the words over and over in my head, forcing myself to stay calm. “If that’s true,” I hissed back, “then I’ve got a message for you to deliver to him. Tell him Rose Hathaway is looking for him.” “I’m not your errand boy,” he said, glowering. My stake slashed out, drawing blood, and he grimaced in pain. “You’re anything I want you to be. Now go tell Dimitri what I told you. Rose Hathaway. Rose Hathaway is looking for him. Say it.” I pressed the point to his neck. “Say my name so I know you’ll remember.” “I’ll remember it so I can kill you.” The stake pressed harder, spilling blood. “Rose Hathaway,” he said. Mead, Richelle (2009-08-07). Blood Promise: A Vampire Academy Novel (pp. 263-264). Penguin Young Readers Group. Kindle Edition.

THE DATE WAS APRIL 14, 1912, a sinister day in maritime history, but of course the man in suite 63–65, shelter deck C, did not yet know it. What he did know was that his foot hurt badly, more than he had expected. He was sixty-five years old and had become a large man. His hair had turned gray, his mustache nearly white, but his eyes were as blue as ever, bluer at this instant by proximity to the sea. His foot had forced him to delay the voyage, and now it kept him anchored in his suite while the other first-class passengers, his wife among them, did what he would have loved to do, which was to explore the ship’s more exotic precincts. The man loved the opulence of the ship, just as he loved Pullman Palace cars and giant fireplaces, but his foot problem tempered his enjoyment.

You will wish for nothing, butterfly. You will have every comfort you need, including the protection of my court in your precious search for this home you desire. Just be mindful that should you find whatever that might be...” Flurries emerged, his words a cold and overt warning. “You will belong only to me.” - Florian

The space center's proximity to my backyard came to signify an intersection between heaven and hell. Florida was somewhere between the two; it was America's phantom limb, a place where spaceships were catapulted out into the cosmos. Alligators emerged from brackish water. Vultures and hawks circled above. Mosquitoes patrolled the atmosphere at eye level. We shared an ocean with sharks and dolphins. There were no seasons, only variations of humidity. Time slithered, festering in a damp wake of recollections. I believed in the Bermuda Triangle. I thought it would move in over Florida one night. By dusk an unknown force would vaporize us through a tear in the atmosphere. We'd be stuck, wandering in a parallel version of the same place, unaware that we were dead but dreaming. People came here to vanish.

The suspicion that a calamity might also be a punishment is further useful in that it allows an infinity of speculation. After New Orleans, which suffered from a lethal combination of being built below sea level and neglected by the Bush administration, I learned from a senior rabbi in Israel that it was revenge for the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, and from the mayor of New Orleans (who had not performed his own job with exceptional prowess) that it was god’s verdict on the invasion of Iraq. You can nominate your own favorite sin here, as did the “reverends” Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell after the immolation of the World Trade Center. In that instance, the proximate cause was to be sought and found in America’s surrender to homosexuality and abortion. (Some ancient Egyptians believed that sodomy was the cause of earthquakes: I expect this interpretation to revive with especial force when the San Andreas Fault next gives a shudder under the Gomorrah of San Francisco.) When the debris had eventually settled on Ground Zero, it was found that two pieces of mangled girder still stood in the shape of a cross, and much wondering comment resulted. Since all architecture has always involved crossbeams, it would be surprising only if such a feature did not emerge. I admit that I would have been impressed if the wreckage had formed itself into a Star of David or a star and crescent, but there is no record of this ever having occurred anywhere, even in places where local people might be impressed by it. And remember, miracles are supposed to occur at the behest of a being who is omnipotent as well as omniscient and omnipresent. One might hope for more magnificent performances than ever seem to occur.

Older age can be challenging for LGBTQ people when living an independent life becomes more difficult. Having lived in a same-sex relationship for many years there are limited choices about living in a retirement home where some people may feel that they have to supress their sexuality in order to appease others. I hear less these days about this aspect of LGBT life, being forced back into the closet in order to live in close proximity to others, that can cause depression particularly where there may be no close relatives or friends having lived a long life

When [Ivan] Ilyin wrote that the art of politics was “identifying and neutralizing the enemy,” he did not mean that statesmen should ascertain which foreign power actually posed a threat. He meant that politics began with a leader’s decision about which foreign enmity will consolidate a dictatorship. Russia’s real geopolitical problem was China. But precisely because Chinese power was real and proximate, considering Russia’s actual geopolitics might lead to depressing conclusions. The West was chosen as an enemy precisely because it represented no threat to Russia. Unlike China, the EU had no army and no long border with Russia. The United States did have an army, but had withdrawn the vast majority of its troops from the European continent: from about 300,000 in 1991 to about 60,000 in 2012. NATO still existed and had admitted former communist countries of eastern Europe. But President Barack Obama had cancelled an American plan to build a missile defense system in eastern Europe in 2009, and in 2010 Russia was allowing American planes to fly through Russian airspace to supply American forces in Afghanistan. No Russian leader feared a NATO invasion in 2011 or 2012, or even pretended to.

The "space" of all possible programs is so huge that no one can have a sense of what is possible. Each higher-level language is naturally suited for exploring certain regions of "program space"; thus the programmer, by using that language, is channeled into those areas of program space. He is not forced by the language into writing programs of any particular type, but the language makes it easy for him to do certain kinds of things. Proximity to a concept, and a gentle shove, are often all that is needed for a major discovery-and that is the reason for the drive towards languages of ever higher levels.

So then, what exactly is freedom? Is it the ability to remain unaffected by an other, whether an individual, group, nation, or indeed, an ideology. How can such a Utopian freedom be attained? Thankfully, Newton's theoretical formula comes to our rescue! If we dwell in close proximity to an individual or group with a strong gravitational mass then it's extremely difficult to maintain our individual sense of freedom. Mathematics would suggest that the only way to diminish the imprisoning pull is to distance oneself from the physical proximity of the transmitter in question. Even a little separation will produce a significantly reduced mimetic force, one granting us a much needed taste of freedom.

Philosophy is the theory of multiplicities, each of which is composed of actual and virtual elements. Purely actual objects do not exist. Every actual surrounds itself with a cloud of virtual images. This cloud is composed of a series of more or less extensive coexisting circuits, along which the virtual images are distributed, and around which they run. These virtuals vary in kind as well as in their degree of proximity from the actual particles by which they are both emitted and absorbed. They are called virtual in so far as their emission and absorption, creation and destruction, occur in a period of time shorter than the shortest continuous period imaginable; it is this very brevity that keeps them subject to a principle of uncertainty or indetermination. The virtuals, encircling the actual, perpetually renew themselves by emitting yet others, with which they are in turn surrounded and which go on in turn to react upon the actual: ‘in the heart of the cloud of the virtual there is a virtual of a yet higher order ... every virtual particle surrounds itself with a virtual cosmos and each in its turn does likewise indefinitely.’ It is the dramatic identity of their dynamics that makes a perception resemble a particle: an actual perception surrounds itself with a cloud of virtual images, distributed on increasingly remote, increasingly large, moving circuits, which both make and unmake each other. These are memories of different sorts, but they are still called virtual images in that their speed or brevity subjects them too to a principle of the unconsciousness. It is by virtue of their mutual inextricability that virtual images are able to react upon actual objects. From this perspective, the virtual images delimit a continuum, whether one takes all of the circles together or each individually, a spatium determined in each case by the maximum of time imaginable. The varyingly dense layers of the actual object correspond to these, more or less extensive, circles of virtual images. These layers, whilst themselves virtual, and upon which the actual object becomes itself virtual, constitute the total impetus of the object. The plane of immanence, upon which the dissolution of the actual object itself occurs, is itself constituted when both object and image are virtual. But the process of actualization undergone by the actual is one which has as great an effect on the image as it does on the object. The continuum of virtual images is fragmented and the spatium cut up according to whether the temporal decompositions are regular or irregular. The total impetus of the virtual object splits into forces corresponding to the partial continuum, and the speeds traversing the cut-up spatium. The virtual is never independent of the singularities which cut it up and divide it out on the plane of immanence. As Leibniz has shown, force is as much a virtual in the process of being actualized as the space through which it travels. The plane is therefore divided into a multiplicity of planes according to the cuts in the continuum, and to the divisions of force which mark the actualization of the virtual. But all the planes merge into one following the path which leads to the actual. The plane of immanence includes both the virtual and its actualization simultaneously, without there being any assignable limit between the two. The actual is the complement or the product, the object of actualization, which has nothing but virtual as its subject. Actualization belongs to the virtual. The actualization of the virtual is singularity whereas the actual itself is individuality constituted. The actual falls from the plane like a fruit, whist the actualization relates it back to the plane as if to that which turns the object back into a subject.

We have considered the problem of mental fragmentation and arbitrariness that results when our contact with the world is mediated by representations: representations collapse the basic axis of proximity and distance by which an embodied being orients in the world and draws a horizon of relevance around itself. We noted the prominence of a design philosophy that severs the bonds between action and perception, as in contemporary automobiles that insulate us from the sensorimotor contingencies by which an embodied being normally grasps reality. The case of machine gambling gave us a heightened example of this kind of abstraction, and made clear how such a design philosophy can be turned to especially disturbing purposes in the darker precincts of “affective capitalism,” where our experiences are manufactured for us. We saw that the point of these experiences is often to provide a quasi-autistic escape from the frustrations of life, and that they are especially attractive in a world that lacks a basic intelligibility because it seems to be ordered by “vast impersonal forces” that are difficult to bring within view on a first-person, human scale. I argued that all of this tends to sculpt a certain kind of contemporary self, a fragile one whose freedom and dignity depend on its being insulated from contingency, and who tends to view technology as magic for accomplishing this. For such a self, choosing from a menu of options replaces the kind of adult agency that grapples with things in an unfiltered way.

No direct evidence yet documents Earth’s tidal cycles more than a billion years ago, but we can be confident that 4.5 billion years ago things were a lot wilder. Not only did Earth have five-hour days, but the nearby Moon was much, much faster in its close orbit, as well. The Moon took only eighty-four hours—three and a half modern days—to go around Earth. With Earth spinning so fast and the Moon orbiting so fast, the familiar cycle of new Moon, waxing Moon, full Moon, and waning Moon played out in frenetic fast-forward: every few five-hour days saw a new lunar phase. Lots of consequences follow from this truth, some less benign than others. With such a big lunar obstruction in the sky and such rapid orbital motions, eclipses would have been frequent events. A total solar eclipse would have occurred every eighty-four hours at virtually every new Moon, when the Moon was positioned between Earth and the Sun. For some few minutes, sunlight would have been completely blocked, while the stars and planets suddenly popped out against a black sky, and the Moon’s fiery volcanoes and magma oceans stood out starkly red against the black lunar disk. Total lunar eclipses occurred regularly as well, almost every forty-two hours later, like clockwork. During every full Moon, when Earth lies right between the Sun and the Moon, Earth’s big shadow would have completely obscured the giant face of the bright shining Moon. Once again the stars and planets would have suddenly popped out against a black sky, as the Moon’s volcanoes put on their ruddy show. Monster tides were a far more violent consequence of the Moon’s initial proximity. Had both Earth and the Moon been perfectly rigid solid bodies, they would appear today much as they did 4.5 billion years ago: 15,000 miles apart with rapid rotational and orbital motions and frequent eclipses. But Earth and the Moon are not rigid. Their rocks can flex and bend; especially when molten, they swell and recede with the tides. The young Moon, at a distance of 15,000 miles, exerted tremendous tidal forces on Earth’s rocks, even as Earth exerted an equal and opposite gravitational force on the largely molten lunar landscape. It’s difficult to imagine the immense magma tides that resulted. Every few hours Earth’s largely molten rocky surface may have bulged a mile or more outward toward the Moon, generating tremendous internal friction, adding more heat and thus keeping the surface molten far longer than on an isolated planet. And Earth’s gravity returned the favor, bulging the Earth-facing side of the Moon outward, deforming our satellite out of perfect roundness.

So often have I studied the views of Florence, that I was familiar with the city before I ever set foot within its walls; I found that I could thread my way through the streets without a guide. Turning to the left I passed before a bookseller's shop, where I bought a couple of descriptive surveys of the city (guide). Twice only was I forced to inquire my way of passers by, who answered me with politeness which was wholly French and with a most singular accent; and at last I found myself before the facade of Santa Croce. Within, upon the right of the doorway, rises the tomb of Michelangelo; lo! There stands Canova's effigy of Alfieri; I needed no cicerone to recognise the features of the great Italian writer. Further still, I discovered the tomb of Machiavelli; while facing Michelangelo lies Galileo. What a race of men! And to these already named, Tuscany might further add Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch. What a fantastic gathering! The tide of emotion which overwhelmed me flowed so deep that it scarce was to be distinguished from religious awe. The mystic dimness which filled the church, its plain, timbered roof, its unfinished facade – all these things spoke volumes to my soul. Ah! Could I but forget...! A Friar moved silently towards me; and I, in the place of that sense of revulsion all but bordering on physical horror which usually possesses me in such circumstances, discovered in my heart a feeling which was almost friendship. Was not he likewise a Friar, Fra Bartolomeo di San Marco, that great painter who invented the art of chiaroscuro, and showed it to Raphael, and was the forefather of Correggio? I spoke to my tonsured acquaintance, and found in him an exquisite degree of politeness. Indeed, he was delighted to meet a Frenchman. I begged him to unlock for me the chapel in the north-east corner of the church, where are preserved the frescoes of Volterrano. He introduced me to the place, then left me to my own devices. There, seated upon the step of a folds tool, with my head thrown back to rest upon the desk, so that I might let my gaze dwell on the ceiling, I underwent, through the medium of Volterrano's Sybills, the profoundest experience of ecstasy that, as far as I am aware, I ever encountered through the painter's art. My soul, affected by the very notion of being in Florence, and by proximity of those great men whose tombs I had just beheld, was already in a state of trance. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, I could perceive its very essence close at hand; I could, as it were, feel the stuff of it beneath my fingertips. I had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion. As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitations of the heart (that same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground. I sat down on one of the benches which line the piazza di Santa Croce; in my wallet, I discovered the following lines by Ugo Foscolo, which I re-read now with a great surge of pleasure; I could find no fault with such poetry; I desperately needed to hear the voice of a friend who shared my own emotion (…)

Angling to look out of the window over the sink, Olivia tried to train her face into looking as unfazed by the conversation as possible. “And besides,” she said turning back around. “I—” With a gasp, she found herself pinned between the counter and Wesley’s firm chest. He placed his arms on the counter to either side of her and let a moment of silence pass between them, highlighting her vulnerability as she waited to hear what this was all about. His proximity was threatening. His body a force of nature that boxed her in so tightly that she felt instantly helpless. “It’s just you and me here,” he said in a voice that was deep and menacing. “No one would ever know if I was to take you back into the bedroom, the living room, right here in fact. How could you possibly know how safe you were with a man you only just met?” With his body still pressed to hers, Wesley exuded an animalistic hunger that Olivia was beginning to fear on a very real level. “Please, I—” panic was coursing through her as if it were alive inside of her and she realized that if he meant her harm, she was helpless to stop him.

In a case like this, the thing is (in my own opinion) to draw back upon oneself, and not to strive after any other being, not to relate the suffering, occasioned by both, to the cause of the suffering (which lies so far outside) but to make it fruitful for oneself. If you transfer what goes on in your emotion into solitude and do not bring your vacillating and tremulous feeling into the dangerous proximity of magnetic forces, it will, through its inherent flexibility, assume of its own accord the position that is natural and necessary to it. In any case, it helps to remind oneself very often that over everything that exists there are laws which never fail to operate, which come rushing, rather, to manifest and prove themselves upon every stone and upon every feather we let fall. So all erring consists simply in the failure to recognize the natural laws to which we are subject in the given instance, and every solution begins with our alertness and concentration, which gently draw us into the chain of events and restore to our will its balancing counterweights..." ―from letter to Emanuel von Bodman Westerwede bei Bremen (August 17, 1901)

Even though the Internet provided a tool for virtual and distant collaborations, another lesson of digital-age innovation is that, now as in the past, physical proximity is beneficial. There is something special, as evidenced at Bell Labs, about meetings in the flesh, which cannot be replicated digitally. The founders of Intel created a sprawling, team-oriented open workspace where employees from Noyce on down all rubbed against one another. It was a model that became common in Silicon Valley. Predictions that digital tools would allow workers to telecommute were never fully realized. One of Marissa Mayer’s first acts as CEO of Yahoo! was to discourage the practice of working from home, rightly pointing out that “people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together.” When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple’s new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard. Throughout history the best leadership has come from teams that combined people with complementary styles. That was the case with the founding of the United States. The leaders included an icon of rectitude, George Washington; brilliant thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; men of vision and passion, including Samuel and John Adams; and a sage conciliator, Benjamin Franklin. Likewise, the founders of the ARPANET included visionaries such as Licklider, crisp decision-making engineers such as Larry Roberts, politically adroit people handlers such as Bob Taylor, and collaborative oarsmen such as Steve Crocker and Vint Cerf. Another key to fielding a great team is pairing visionaries, who can generate ideas, with operating managers, who can execute them. Visions without execution are hallucinations.31 Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were both visionaries, which is why it was important that their first hire at Intel was Andy Grove, who knew how to impose crisp management procedures, force people to focus, and get things done. Visionaries who lack such teams around them often go down in history as merely footnotes.

What is the motive for this ‘fugitive’ way of saying “I”? It is motivated by Dasein’s falling; for as falling, it *flees* in the face of itself into the “they.” When the “I” talks in the ‘natural’ manner, this is performed by the they-self. What expresses itself in the ‘I’ is that Self which, proximally and for the most part, I am *not* authentically. When one is absorbed in the everyday multiplicity and the rapid succession [*Sich-jagen] of that with which one is concerned, the Self of the self-forgetful “I am concerned” shows itself as something simple which is constantly selfsame but indefinite and empty. Yet one *is* that with which one concerns oneself. In the ‘natural’ ontical way in which the “I” talks, the phenomenal content of the Dasein which one has in view in the "I" gets overlooked; but this gives *no justification for our joining in this overlooking of it*, or for forcing upon the problematic of the Self an inappropriate ‘categorial’ horizon when we Interpret the “I” ontologically. Of course by thus refusing to follow the everyday way in which the “I” talks, our ontological Interpretation of the ‘I’ has by no means *solved* the problem; but it has indeed *prescribed the direction* for any further inquiries. In the “I,” we have in view that entity which one is in ‘being-in-the-world’. Being-already-in-a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the ‘I’, what we have in view is that entity for which the *issue* is the Being of the entity that it is. With the ‘I’, care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the ‘fugitive’ way in which the “I” talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying “I” most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it *is not authentically* itself, and evades its authentic potentiality-for-Being. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an “I”-substance or to a ‘subject’, but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying “I” must be understood in terms of our *authentic* potentiality-for-Being, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Selfhood is to be discerned existentially only in one’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self—that is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein’s Being *as care*. In terms of care the *constancy of the Self*, as the supposed persistence of the *subjectum*, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being also opens our eyes for the *constancy of the Self*, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the *authentic* counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling. Existentially, “*Self-constancy*” signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self’s Selfhood." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 368-369

There are two fundamentally different ways for the strong to bend down to the weak, for the rich to help the poor, for the more perfect life to help the “less perfect.” This action can be motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence. All this unites into the clear awareness that one is rich enough to share one’s being and possessions. Love, sacrifice, help, the descent to the small and the weak, here spring from a spontaneous overflow of force, accompanied by bliss and deep inner calm. Compared to this natural readiness for love and sacrifice, all specific “egoism,” the concern for oneself and one’s interest, and even the instinct of “self-preservation” are signs of a blocked and weakened life. Life is essentially expansion, development, growth in plenitude, and not “self-preservation,” as a false doctrine has it. Development, expansion, and growth are not epiphenomena of mere preservative forces and cannot be reduced to the preservation of the “better adapted.” ... There is a form of sacrifice which is a free renunciation of one’s own vital abundance, a beautiful and natural overflow of one’s forces. Every living being has a natural instinct of sympathy for other living beings, which increases with their proximity and similarity to himself. Thus we sacrifice ourselves for beings with whom we feel united and solidary, in contrast to everything “dead.” This sacrificial impulse is by no means a later acquisition of life, derived from originally egoistic urges. It is an original component of life and precedes all those particular “aims” and “goals” which calculation, intelligence, and reflection impose upon it later. We have an urge to sacrifice before we ever know why, for what, and for whom! Jesus’ view of nature and life, which sometimes shines through his speeches and parables in fragments and hidden allusions, shows quite clearly that he understood this fact. When he tells us not to worry about eating and drinking, it is not because he is indifferent to life and its preservation, but because he sees also a vital weakness in all “worrying” about the next day, in all concentration on one’s own physical well-being. ... all voluntary concentration on one’s own bodily wellbeing, all worry and anxiety, hampers rather than furthers the creative force which instinctively and beneficently governs all life. ... This kind of indifference to the external means of life (food, clothing, etc.) is not a sign of indifference to life and its value, but rather of a profound and secret confidence in life’s own vigor and of an inner security from the mechanical accidents which may befall it. A gay, light, bold, knightly indifference to external circumstances, drawn from the depth of life itself—that is the feeling which inspires these words! Egoism and fear of death are signs of a declining, sick, and broken life. ... This attitude is completely different from that of recent modern realism in art and literature, the exposure of social misery, the description of little people, the wallowing in the morbid—a typical ressentiment phenomenon. Those people saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas Francis sees the holiness of “life” even in a bug.

If talking about the bureaucracy takes the place of talking about sports, getting involved with the bureaucracy takes the place of exercise. Every French man and woman is engaged in a constant entanglement with one ministry of another, and I have come to realize that these entanglements are what take the place of going to a gym where people actually work out. Three or four days a week you're given something to do that is time-consuming, takes you out of yourself, is mildly painful, forces you into close proximity with strangers, and ends, usually, with a surprising rush of exhilaration: 'Hey, I did it.' Every French ministry is, like a Nautilus machine, thoughtfully designed to provide maximum possible resistance to your efforts, only to give way just at the moment of total mental failure. Parisians emerge from the government buildings on the île de la Cité feeling just the way New Yorkers do after a good workout: aching and exhausted and on top of the world.

One friend wrote me three weeks after Tracy died. He was very concerned about me because I’m usually so diligent about responding to emails. He knew Tracy had died yet he practically insisted on hearing back from me. So I responded to ease his concern. That’s what close proximity to death and dying does for you— it forces you to become a caretaker of others completely removed from the process.

He forced himself to sound careless, no matter that her proximity stirred his senses so powerfully. The sun flooding through the window lit rich colors in her opulent hair. Flax. Gold. Auburn.

A Phillips serial (in contrast to the jerky, obvious, and corny melodramas of the Hummerts) usually contained just one main scene in each installment, peopled by only two characters. Her scenes were sparse, the settings lean, the people clear without the endless repetition of names that filled a Hummert soap. Phillips was the first serial writer to effectively blend her soaps. Her popular Today’s Children was phased out of its first run in 1938 by having its characters sit around the radio and listen to The Woman in White, which replaced it. When three of her soaps were scheduled consecutively and sponsored by General Mills in 1944, Phillips expanded this idea of integrated storylines. The major characters of the resurrected Today’s Children drifted through The Guiding Light, and mutual visits with The Woman in White were also common. Ed Prentiss, who was then playing Ned Holden of The Guiding Light, was used as a “master of ceremonies” for the hour, a guide through the intricate framework of the three soaps. The fourth quarter-hour was filled with nondenominational religious music, Hymns of All Churches. At one time during this period, Phillips was considering breaking the traditional lengths, running stories of ten to 20 minutes each rather than the precise quarter-hours. After a season of this experimenting, the block was dismantled, and The Guiding Light went into its postwar phase. In the earliest phase, it followed the Ruthledge family. The Rev. John Ruthledge had come to Five Points two decades before, establishing himself and his church as the driving force in the community. This had not been easy. Five Points was a “melting pot of humanity,” as Phillips described it, with Poles, Slavs, Swedes, Germans, Irish, and Jews living in uneasy proximity. As one character described it, it was a neighborhood of “poverty, gossipy neighbors, sordid surroundings,” with “no chance to get ahead.” Ruthledge had run into stiff neighborhood opposition, but now he was accepted and even beloved. His Little Church of Five Points had become popularly known as the Church of the Good Samaritan:

ST-9 This point is a bilateral point that is found on both sides of the neck and is located about 1.5 inches to the outside of the edge of the Adam’s apple of the throat. The fact that the point lays directly over the carotid artery allows strikes to have an immediate reaction to the flow of blood to the brain and head in general. It has a cryptic name in Chinese, Ren Ying,9 which means “Man’s Prognosis” and provides no clues to its location or use from a martial standpoint. Its proximity to the carotid artery allows this point to be one of the weakest points on the human body and regardless of the size and muscular strength of an opponent it is extremely sensitive. The superior thyroid artery, the anterior jugular vein, the internal jugular vein, the carotid artery, the cutaneous cervical nerve, the cervical branch of the facial nerve, the sympathetic trunk, and the ascending branch of the hypoglossal and vagus nerves are all present. Just the structurally aspects of all these sensitive and vital nerves, arteries and veins should place it high on the list of potential targets. I personally consider it as one of the most important Vital Points because of this alone. Additionally, ST-9 is an intersection point for the Stomach Meridian, Gall Bladder Meridian and the Yin Heel Vessel. Strikes to this point can kill due to the overall structural weakness of the area. Strikes should be aimed toward the center of the spine on a 90-degree angle. A variety of empty hand weapons can be employed in striking this point. Forearms, edge of hand strikes, punches, kicks, and elbow strikes are all effective. The same defensive tactics outlined under the SI-16 should be employed against attacks to this extremely vital point. CV-22 This is one of the two most important acupuncture points to the martial arts that is concerned with the hostile actions of life-or-death combatives. It sets in the horseshoe notch located at the extreme upper part of the chest structure and at the centerline of the front of the neck. Resting under it is the trachea, or commonly known as the “windpipe,” and a hard and vicious strike to this point can cause the surrounding tissue to swell, which can shut off the body’s ability to pull oxygen into the lungs. A hard strike to this point can be deadly. Attacking this point should only be done in the most extreme life-or-death situations. Energetically, the Conception Vessel and the Yin Linking Vessel intersect at this point. The implications of that, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, is included in this book. Additionally, the structure of the suprasternal notch is an excellent “touch point” for situations when sight is reduced and you find yourself at extremely close range with your opponent. This allows for utilization of this point in a self-defense situation that is not as extreme as full force strikes, as only a finger or two are inserted and rolled to the backside of the notch causing pain for the opponent.

need say was I need some time off. But she couldn’t do it. “The St. James house at half-past seven,” she repeated. “Got it, sir.” He rang off. Barbara hung up. She tried to plumb the depths of her feelings, to put a name to what was slowly washing through her veins. She wanted to call it shame. She knew it was liberation. She went to tell her father that they would need to reschedule his doctor’s appointment for another day. Kevin Whateley had not gone to the Royal Plantagenet, which was the pub next door to his cottage. Rather, he had walked along the embankment, past the triangular green where he and Matthew had once learned to operate their pair of remote-control planes, and had instead entered an older pub that stood on a spit of land reaching like a curled finger into the Thames. He’d chosen the Blue Dove deliberately. In the Royal Plantagenet—despite its proximity to his house—he might have forgotten for five minutes or so. But the Blue Dove would not allow him to do so. He sat at a table that overlooked the water. In spite of the night’s falling temperature, someone was out, night fishing from a boat, and lights bobbed periodically with the river’s movement. Kevin watched this, allowing his memory to fill with the image of Matthew running along that same dock, falling, damaging a knee, righting himself but not crying at all, even when the blood began to seep from the cut, even when the stitches were later put in. He was a brave little bloke, always had been. Kevin forced his eyes from the dock and fastened them on the mahogany table. Beer mats covered it, advertising Watney’s, Guinness, and Smith’s. Carefully, Kevin stacked them, restacked them, spread them out like cards, restacked them again. He felt how shallow his breathing was and knew that he needed to take in more air. But to breathe deeply was to lose his grip for an instant. He wouldn’t do that. For if he lost control, he didn’t know how he would get it back. So he did without air. He waited. He didn’t know if the man he sought would come into the pub this late on a Sunday night, mere minutes before closing. In fact, he didn’t even know if the man came here at all any longer. But years ago he’d been a regular customer, when Patsy worked long hours behind the bar, before she’d got her job in a South Kensington hotel. For Matthew’s sake, she had said when she’d taken on the

Axel Low. Author extraordinaire. Word wunderkind. The page-turning prince.” I barely hear his muttered, “save me,” before he slides a cell from his back pocket. “Are you calling Axel?” “I’m calling my agent and telling her I can’t do this.

I’ve never said anything bad about your books.” She’s eyeing me with blatant confusion, like she can’t figure me out. Join the club. It has many members, and I don’t care. “Doesn’t mean you haven’t ruined other writers’ careers.” A tiny dent appears between her brows. “It’s my job to review books and I’m as objective as I can be. It’s a simple fact that not every book published is good. And I owe it to the New York Press readers to give my honest opinion.” It sounds like a spiel she’s recited many times before. Which means I’m not the first author to bail her up. “I’m in publishing. I know how reviews work.” I stalk to the fire and grab a poker. Her logic merely accentuates how unreasonable I’m being, and I need something to jab at, so I start prodding at the smoldering logs. “But your words hold more sway than most. Books you pump up go gangbusters, books you trash end up languishing. Surely you know that?” For the first time since we met, I glimpse an angry spark in her eyes. She’s obviously trying to impress me, to stay calm, probably with the aim to suck up. But I’ve hit a nerve and her eyes drift to the poker in my hand for a moment, like she’s imagining skewering me with it.

He’s hot. Better than the sexiest book boyfriend. I blame those elusive fictional men on my failure to find a guy who’s good enough. Turns out, real men aren’t alpha with a beta core. If they’re alpha, they’re usually arrogant and self-absorbed. And the beta guys don’t provide me with enough of a challenge, so I’m destined for dating disasters.

GB-3 This vital point is located near the lower aspects of the temple area of skull, along the Zygomatic Arch, and is directly forward of the ear. It is bilateral, meaning it is found on both sides of the head, which is unlike any of the centerline points that only occur once. It is not directly associated with any of the Extraordinary Vessels, but is an Intersection Point for the Gall Bladder Meridian, Triple Warmer Meridian, and the Stomach Meridian. This makes it valuable to martial artists, since Intersection Points provide the ability to disrupt multiple meridians with a single strike. It makes attacking them economic from a time and motion standpoint. In a standard defense of being grabbed at the waist, with your arms free, slapping the ears forcefully will allow activation of this point with the meaty part of your hand. It is one of several points in this region of the skull and other would likely be activated while striking it given their proximity and size of the surface you are striking with. EYES If you asked a non-martial artist what are vital points on the human body, most of them would include the eyes. This is just basic common sense, as the eyes allow us to see our environment and determine any possible threats. If you happen to be struck in the eye it would inhibit your ability to effectively defend yourself. This is as true today as it was at the time that the author(s) were putting together what became the Bubishi. Though the eyes are not pressure point per se, these organs are extremely sensitive to attack. Flicking, poking, or thrusting into the eyes directly will greatly inhibit your opponent’s ability to see you in a combative situation. In fact, many of the old school Western hand-to-hand instructors of the World War II area were adamant in attacking the eyes. Likewise, it is common place in many martial arts systems, especially the ones that are truly combative and not sport oriented. Quick flicks of the wrist, with the fingertips striking the eyes, is a method that most opponents aren’t expecting. Thrusting your fingers into the eyes, either all or singularly, is another effective technique. More extreme is thrusting one finger into the inner corner of the opponent’s eye and then jerking forward and to the outside. This technique will dislodge the eye from its socket and should only be used in extreme circumstances. Defending against eye attacks is built into each of us, as we instinctually know their importance. If you recognize an eye attack from your opponent, dropping, raising and/or turning the head will many times save you from eye injury.

The close proximity of large numbers of domesticated animals to humans led to plagues and pestilence. In fact, the most potent killers of humanity since the dawn of civilization have not been warfare, natural disaster, or starvation; they have been epidemics resulting directly from animal husbandry. The desire for meat, fish, fowl, eggs, and dairy products has been one of humanity's most dangerous desires.

If you ever catch me smiling I suggest you run. The things I enjoy aren’t for the faint of heart.

She inhales, a soft, breathy sound, her chest rising, and I lean in and do what I swore I’d never do in my entire life. I kiss Olivia Drayton, right there in my kitchen. Pressing my mouth to hers, I go in soft and slow, pausing and waiting to see if she kisses me back. "Parker,” she breathes, her mouth hot and ready against my lips. But instead of breaking away, stopping things before they can start between us, she crushes her lips to mine and I know right then I’m in deep fucking trouble. And it tastes so, so good.

Here, if your patience held, you might see every person, not every person on the planet but everyone who mattered to you, past and future, and you might lock eyes or you might pass each other by and never know that chance had brought you once before in such proximity, close enough to touch. Lina loved that sense of possibility. The opening up of humanity, so many faces presented here in states of departing and arriving, each a perfectly contained, self-directed presence and yet vulnerable too to the the greater forces of timetables and weather, accidental looks, brushed hands, stumbles, the lost and found.

Is this 12B? This is going to be fun!” The British accent cut through the air like a wire cutter through clay. It sliced into me and my peaceful serenity that I had created. “No, no, no, no,” I said, a little too emphatically.  “No, this isn’t 12B or no, this isn't going to be fun?” “You’ve got to be kidding me!

The first Superfortress reached Tokyo just after midnight, dropping flares to mark the target area. Then came the onslaught. Hundreds of planes—massive winged mechanical beasts roaring over Tokyo, flying so low that the entire city pulsed with the booming of their engines. The US military’s worries about the city’s air defenses proved groundless: the Japanese were completely unprepared for an attacking force coming in at five thousand feet. The full attack lasted almost three hours; 1,665 tons of napalm were dropped. LeMay’s planners had worked out in advance that this many firebombs, dropped in such tight proximity, would create a firestorm—a conflagration of such intensity that it would create and sustain its own wind system. They were correct. Everything burned for sixteen square miles. Buildings burst into flame before the fire ever reached them. Mothers ran from the fire with their babies strapped to their backs only to discover—when they stopped to rest—that their babies were on fire. People jumped into the canals off the Sumida River, only to drown when the tide came in or when hundreds of others jumped on top of them. People tried to hang on to steel bridges until the metal grew too hot to the touch, and then they fell to their deaths. After the war, the US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded: “Probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man.” As many as 100,000 people died that night. The aircrews who flew that mission came back shaken. [According to historian] Conrad Crane: “They’re about five thousand feet, they are pretty low... They are low enough that the smell of burning flesh permeates the aircraft...They actually have to fumigate the aircraft when they land back in the Marianas, because the smell of burning flesh remains within the aircraft. (...) The historian Conrad Crane told me: I actually gave a presentation in Tokyo about the incendiary bombing of Tokyo to a Japanese audience, and at the end of the presentation, one of the senior Japanese historians there stood up and said, “In the end, we must thank you, Americans, for the firebombing and the atomic bombs.” That kind of took me aback. And then he explained: “We would have surrendered eventually anyway, but the impact of the massive firebombing campaign and the atomic bombs was that we surrendered in August.” In other words, this Japanese historian believed: no firebombs and no atomic bombs, and the Japanese don’t surrender. And if they don’t surrender, the Soviets invade, and then the Americans invade, and Japan gets carved up, just as Germany and the Korean peninsula eventually were. Crane added, The other thing that would have happened is that there would have been millions of Japanese who would have starved to death in the winter. Because what happens is that by surrendering in August, that givesMacArthur time to come in with his occupation forces and actually feedJapan...I mean, that’s one of MacArthur’s great successes: bringing in a massive amount of food to avoid starvation in the winter of 1945.He is referring to General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander for the Allied powers in the Pacific. He was the one who accepted theJapanese emperor’s surrender.Curtis LeMay’s approach brought everyone—Americans and Japanese—back to peace and prosperity as quickly as possible. In 1964, the Japanese government awarded LeMay the highest award their country could give a foreigner, the First-Class Order of Merit of the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun, in appreciation for his help in rebuilding the Japanese Air Force. “Bygones are bygones,” the premier of Japan said at the time.

Yesterday, when she bared herself before me, I didn't allow myself to look. Didn't want to indulge in such sins of the flesh before she was officially mine. But now, she is. Mine And I'm free to do with my wife as I fucking please.

Victoria Green is the ocean, wide and vast and deep, so much of her will never be known, but I’ll never stop searching. When I’m with her I have no sense of direction, and I’m not certain whether she’s the one holding my head above water or the anchor tied to my feet.

When evangelicals focus on bringing people together, they often leave out any analysis of the systemic and institutional forces that led to the separation in the first place. Occasional racial proximity is too low a goal for reconciliation.

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

As I walked away from the cheeky blonde, her sass about the airlines and crew still irritated the hell out of me. She was a damn firecracker; that much was clear. Sure, she had the air of someone who’d never worked a hard day in her life—probably spoiled rotten by her parents. But there was something else about her, the way she challenged me, as though she were a wild mustang daring me to try and break her. Her fiery spirit and sharp tongue contrasted with her delicate features and petite frame, but it had stirred something reckless in me. I’d been compelled to confront her. People always have a way of chasing what’s bad for them, and I wasn’t immune. Maybe it was that instinct, that primal pull to run straight at what could take you down, that appealed to me. Hell, that was how men like me ended up heading off to war.

Noelle was an open book—most of the time. She didn’t bother hiding who she was, and I respected that. But the topic of her parents? That was a door she kept bolted shut. It stirred up an instinct I didn’t usually have for strangers—to defend her from whatever hurt lay behind that door. It wasn’t the same as looking out for my brother and sisters, or even the guys in my unit. This was different. More visceral. I wanted to shield her from whatever caused her pain and make it right.

Did he ever second-guess himself? Did he ever lie awake at night, doubting his decisions like I always seemed to? Probably not. He wasn’t the type to get stuck in his own head, chewing over every little thing. He acted, he moved forward, and that was that. Simple. Direct. No looking back.

Her half-hearted apology had come off as an invitation, as if she was letting me win this skirmish but wanted to take me on as a challenge she couldn’t resist—like she was testing me, curious to see if I could handle her. The way she’d been mouthing off about the flight cancellation had indeed made me want to either shut her up with a hard kiss or throttle her—maybe both. As I headed back toward my bags, I thought about how good those pouty lips would look wrapped around my cock, her deep blue eyes gazing up at me as she knelt in front of me. Too bad she was such a smartass and full of herself, but damn if she wasn’t gorgeous.

One day, fate reached over and shook my personal snow globe, flipping my life upside down.” I shrugged. “I went from a career that was on track, a boyfriend who I thought was total husband material, and a past that was neatly tucked away where it belonged...to this.” I glanced around the room, laughing bitterly. “Jobless, single, hitching rides with strangers. And a past that is now the only future I have.” I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Sometimes fate is a little bitch.

What is this, a rom-com? Do you think that after countless hours of forced proximity I’ll come to realize that my anger was really just covering up my burgeoning desire for you? Will we ride off into the sunset at the end, hand in hand?

Why was it so impossible to find anyone to love me? Was that really so difficult? Guys today sucked. Really, they did; it couldn’t be me, right? That was what I kept trying to convince myself of. But deep down, I knew better. Of course, it was me. Me. I was the problem.

I pressed my lips together, fighting the sting in my eyes. I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t lie; I didn’t cheat—I didn’t hurt people on purpose. But I was…a lot. I was loud, emotional, and undoubtedly a bit of a drama queen when I’d had a glass or three of wine, like now. Mr. Captain over there probably thought I was a total bitch after that little display on the phone with Amanda. I didn’t blame him. I wore my heart on my sleeve, especially when I was pissed off. It was beyond my control. I’d never learned to play it cool or keep my mouth shut.

I’d been compelled to confront her. People always have a way of chasing what’s bad for them, and I wasn’t immune. Maybe it was that instinct, that primeval pull to run straight at what could take you down, that appealed to me. Hell, that was how men like me ended up heading off to war.

Being cooped up with someone in a snowstorm brought out the truth faster than any candlelit dinner. It was a great way to learn what a woman was really like, outside the pretentiousness of the dating scene.

I’d been there, taken by surprise in ways that shattered everything I thought I understood about the world. “It knocks you down when you least expect it, hits you right where you’re most vulnerable. But that’s when you find out what you’re really made of. You have to keep pushing forward, even when it feels as if everything’s been taken from you. You don’t stop. You keep going, even when the pieces of your life don’t fit the way they used to.

The sudden closeness between us made me pause. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I had the insane urge to close the gap, to taste that sass on her lips. My heart rate kicked up a notch, but I pulled away and straightened, taking a deep breath.

thambos, “that reverential terror and awe aroused by the proximity of any supernatural force or being which one discerns,

The United States Marines were in Nicaragua in force again. When the United States became a world power after the Spanish-American War it began to concern itself with territorial prerogatives in policy toward Latin America. They point was to keep European powers out of the area. While the ostensible reason for American intervention was to protect American lives and property and the rights of United States creditors, the main concern was maintaining security in the Caribbean and Central America. That mean keeping in power governments that were favorable to United States interests. Each time the United States intervened in Latin America the invaded country's strategic proximity to the Panama Canal was cited. Also publicized, virtually to the point of preaching missionary work, was the fact that the country's finances would be reorganized and a responsible armed force created to ensure democracy and constitutional order. The United States Marine Corps became pistol packing zealots carrying the faith to the infidels. Ironically, the Marines' actual legacy to Nicaragua was one of the most long-lived repressive regimes in Latin American history.

The first, which I discussed in chapter 9, is that our models of the world so distort what we perceive that they can make it hard to see what is right in front of us. (I’m using model somewhat generally here to mean the preconceptions we have built up over time that we use to evaluate what we see and hear as well as to reason and anticipate.) The second is that we don’t typically see the boundary between new information coming in from the outside and our old, established mental models—we perceive both together, as a unified experience. The third is that when we unknowingly get caught up in our own interpretations, we become inflexible, less able to deal with the problems at hand. And the fourth idea is that people who work or live together—people like Dick and Anne, for example—have, by virtue of proximity and shared history, models of the world that are deeply (sometimes hopelessly) intertwined with one another.

Against the velvet of the night sky, the boom operator seated in the tail of the U.S Air Force Lockheed Tristar K. Mk.1 tanker could not to see the Blackbird as it slowly approached. The recon aircraft’s matt fuselage and wings merged with the dark sky, the still secret matt black titanium, and carbon-fibre skin of the hypersonic SR71 designed to absorb most light and all radar waves. However, the hypersonic spy plane’s proximity radarscope clearly revealed the tanker.

Yet when she had discounted ever seeing him again and then being thrust in proximity to him, a small part of her wondered if it was a sign. That perhaps Fate was trying to force them together—like When Harry Met Sally, or even better, a John Hughes movie. Ginny should have realized three things: 1) She was no Molly Ringwald. 2) Fate was a bitch. And . . . 3) Wes’ whole not even remembering her was a Romantic Comedy Don’t.

You have completely changed me. Altered the physical, logical, and chemical makeup of who I am." "So, tell me Demi, does that sound crazy enough for you?

Open wide for me, love. I need to be buried inside you.

He kissed her deeply then, pouring all his heart into their interweaving lips and souls. This kiss held love, not lust; promise, not hope; relief, not fear.

Oh, Ames, you are so screwed.” Confused, I asked, “Why?” “He bought you a building? There’s no way this stays a ‘fake’ marriage. You’ll be repaying him in sex before too long.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Stop it. It’s Liam. Neither one of us is interested in sex.” “Come on, Amy. This is a classic story—pretending to be married, forced into close proximity, and then falling for each other. Before you know it, it’ll be a real marriage.” Pointing at Natalie, she added, “Just like this one protested that she wouldn't end up with Jaxon after he knocked her up. The writing was on the wall. All you have to do is read it like I am now.” “Listen, we have our separate spaces. I don’t even like Liam most days. I’m not going to want to sleep with him. Ever.” Hannah’s lips quirked up smugly. “Famous last words. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The man may be a grouch, but he is one hell of a male specimen. And marriage to him makes you a princess.

I would unravel the stars from the sky if it would make you mine forever.

Christine is my soulmate. And it took an arranged marriage to her mother, the passing of my wife, and three more years of forced proximity to realize it.

This family was a walking list of romance tropes! You had royalty, sports, accidental pregnancy, marriage of convenience, grumpy sunshine, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, brother’s best friend, secret baby, and forbidden romance. I could easily write five or six from inspiration gathered in the last fifteen minutes. That begged the question. What trope would Braxton and I be? Obviously, sports, but it had to be more than that. Virgin, you dummy.

When?” I demand. I thought Mom and I were closer than this, but apparently not if she couldn’t tell me. I can’t stop the hurt that it causes. Mom clears her throat. “A few weeks ago.” Gage snickers under his breath. “This is how every romance novel starts.” “Forced proximity,” Les agrees, laughing again.

I tried to come across cold. Anger showed passion and passion showed that you cared.

Asa really wanted her close by his own side, like she always was, giving him the strength to do what he needed to do ... what he was about to do.

That’s because I hate you,” I spat, keeping my back turned and holding my mama’s hands tightly. “Hmm, I know,” his steps drew nearer until he was just a few meters away. “It turns me on.

No.” She could scarcely believe him. “No?” He was close enough that she could smell the sweet scent of port on his breath. At this proximity, he stole all the breath from her lungs. “Just as I said. No.” She forced herself to inhale. To speak. “Do you intend to play lady’s maid for me?” she demanded, the idea causing her equal amounts of outrage and titillation. The consummation of their union loomed. She had never been entirely nude in the presence of a man before. Surely her fear of what was to come was the reason why her heart beat so madly now. Why her mouth had gone dry. “I intend for you to tell me why you were crying when I entered,” he said easily. “And then yes, I intend to assist you myself.” She had not anticipated such a response. So personal, so intimate, both of those answers. “It is none of your affair,” she snapped. “And I do not require your assistance. My lady’s maid is more than capable of aiding me.” “Everything about you is my affair,” he told her calmly, his stare never wavering. “You are my wife.” She could not look away from him, no matter how much she wanted to. He commanded all her attention. “You married me for my dowry. Why should you care?” “Tell me.

The second his hand slipped trying to cut off the top of the wax, Dominic grumbled, “I can do that.” “No, I couldn’t let you,” the waiter said, terrified. Dominic took the bottle out of his hand anyway. “Not a fan of other people serving my wife.

It was a careful balance of magic. Stay too long and your life source would start to fade, take a step an inch too far from the city limits and your soul would never leave.

My heart rate was starting to slow now that I was sure Rose wasn’t dead. I couldn’t make her life hell if she died.

This isn’t going to be slow and sweet, Rose,” Dominic rasped against the shell of my ear and sending a lightning bolt down my spine. “That’s not what we are. What we do.

I gasped, offended. “I would never abandon Maria like that.” “Not even for me?” Dominic asked, mocking my reaction. “Not even for you, baby,” I said, trailing a finger down his jaw, relishing in the feel of his stubble. He didn’t squirm like I wanted him to, just threw his hand across his chest, grabbing his heart. “It’s like you’re trying to hurt me.

I would be insane if I was asking you to marry me because I claimed I loved you. This is an arrangement.