“
OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:
“You are not enough people!”
I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who has six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian)
“
Most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it's a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it's a man.
When a couple has an argument nowadays, they may think it's about money or power or sex or how to raise the kids or whatever. What they're really saying to each other without realizing it, is this: "You are not enough people!"
A husband, wife and some kids is not a family. It's a terribly vulnerable survival unit.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
“
A group of little creatures is coming up the walk. A pirate, a dinosaur, two fairies, and a bride. Why is it that you never see a kid dressed as a groom on Halloween?
”
”
Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
“
She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.
”
”
Sarah Addison Allen (The Peach Keeper)
“
...It’s hardly surprising America’s children, most having been well groomed in sexual immorality over 40 years, have ended up on MySpace or Facebook uploading sexy pictures of ourselves. Where else can a hyper sexualized kid get so much attention?
”
”
Shelley Lubben (Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn: The Greatest Illusion on Earth)
“
The licking and grooming behavior that occurred in the pups’ first ten days of life predicted changes to their stress response that lasted for the entire lifetime. Even more startling, the changes continued into the next generation, because female pups who had high-licker moms became high lickers themselves when they had their own kids.
”
”
Nadine Burke Harris (The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity)
“
It's a blue collar thing... Middle-class kids are groomed to fly away, and they do. The working class likes to keep its young close to home. Tearing a working class person from the network that defines their life is a far heavier lift than insisting that a Harvard grad move to Silicon Valley. The professional elite values change and self-development; working-class families value stability and community. The professional elite associate change with challenge, excitement, opportunity, and innovation. But for families, a few paychecks away form losing their homes and stable middle-class lives, respect for stability reigns supreme.
”
”
Joan C. Williams (White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America)
“
I wonder: why is it noble to help men in the workplace, help orphans, help widows, help your pastor, help the neighbors, or help your parents, but degrading to help your husband—your groom, your lover, and your best friend?
”
”
Courtney Joseph (Women Living Well: Find Your Joy in God, Your Man, Your Kids, and Your Home)
“
Despite his new fame and fortune, he still fancied himself a child of the counterculture. On a visit to a Stanford class, he took off his Wilkes Bashford blazer and his shoes, perched on top of a table, and crossed his legs into a lotus position. The students asked questions, such as when Apple’s stock price would rise, which Jobs brushed off. Instead he spoke of his passion for future products, such as someday making a computer as small as a book. When the business questions tapered off, Jobs turned the tables on the well-groomed students. “How many of you are virgins?” he asked. There were nervous giggles. “How many of you have taken LSD?” More nervous laughter, and only one or two hands went up. Later Jobs would complain about the new generation of kids, who seemed to him more materialistic and careerist than his own. “When I went to school, it was right after the sixties and before this general wave of practical purposefulness had set in,” he said. “Now students aren’t even thinking in idealistic terms, or at least nowhere near as much.” His generation, he said, was different. “The idealistic wind of the sixties is still at our backs, though, and most of the people I know who are my age have that ingrained in them forever.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
You're fixing everything I set down." He nods at my hands, which are readjusting the elephant. "It wasn't polite of me to come in and start touching your things."
"Oh,it's okay," I say quickly, letting go of the figurine. "You can touch anything of mine you want."
He freezes. A funny look runs across his face before I realize what I've said. I didn't mean it like that.
Not that that/i> would be so bad.
But I like Toph,and St. Clair has a girlfriend. And even if the situation were different, Mer still has dibs. I'd never do that to her after how nice she was my first day.And my second. And every other day this week.
Besides,he's just an attractive boy. Nothing to get worked up over. I mean, the streets of Europe are filled with beautiful guys, right? Guys with grooming regimens and proper haircuts and stylish coats.Not that I've seen anyone even remotely as good-looking as Monsieur Etienne St.Clair.But still.
He turns his face away from mine. Is it my imagination or does he look embarrassed? But why would he be embarrassed? I'm the one with the idiotic mouth.
"Is that your boyfriend?" He points to my laptop's wallpaper, a photo of my coworkers and me goofing around. It was taken before the midnight release of the lastest fantasy-novel-to-film adaptation. Most of us were dressed like elves or wizards. "The one with his eyes closed?"
"WHAT?" He thinks I'd date a guy like Hercules Hercules is an assistant manager. He's ten years older than me and,yes, that's his real name. And even though he's sweet and knows more about Japanese horror films than anyone,he also has a ponytail.
A ponytail.
"Anna,I'm kidding.This one. Sideburns." He points to Toph,the reason I love the picture so much.Our heads are turned into each other, and we're wearing secret smiles,as if sharing a private joke.
"Oh.Uh...no.Not really.I mean, Toph was my almost-boyfriend.I moved away before..." I trail off, uncomfortable. "Before much could happen.
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
Rich dad advised that Mike and I groom ourselves. Many corporations do the same thing. They find a young bright student just out of business school and begin grooming that person to someday take over the company. So these bright young employees do not specialize in one department. They are moved from department to department to learn all the aspects of business systems. The rich often groom their children or the children of others. By doing so, their children gain an overall knowledge of the operations of the business and how the various departments interrelate.
”
”
Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That The Poor And Middle Class Do Not!)
“
hope more white people don’t move here.” My husband isn’t prone to sentimentality of any kind, or to worrying about white people, so I asked him why, and he said, “Because, kids were playing basketball by the school and they had cheerleaders cheering them on, and black men say hello to me on the street, and I love our little fruit market, and I don’t want this place to change.” But this place will probably change, if only because this is not a city where integrated neighborhoods last very long. And we are the people for whom the new coffee shop has opened. And the pet-grooming store. “You know your neighborhood is gentrifying,” my sister observes, “when the pet-grooming store arrives.
”
”
Eula Biss (Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays)
“
Q: Who are your influences?
I was lucky as a kid to get to meet Paul Conrad who lived in my hometown. He is a giant in editorial cartooning, winner of three Pulitzers and even more impressively he won a place on Nixon‘s enemies list. He was a huge influence.
Starting out I also spent a lot of time looking at Ron Cobb, an insane crosshatcher who drew for the alternative press in the ’60’s, as well as David Levine, Ed Sorel, and R. Crumb. I also love Steinberg‘s visual elegance and innately whimsical voice. Red Grooms is another guy who took cartooning wonderful places.
There are also a number of 19th-century cartoonists whose mad drawing skills and ability to create rich visual worlds always impressed me. A.B. Frost, T.S. Sullivant, Joseph Keppler are often overshadowed by Nast, but in many ways they were more adventurous graphically.
I also want to throw in here how great it is to work in D.C. There’s a great circle of cartoonists here and being in their orbit is a daily inspiration. Opening the Post to Toles and Richard Thompson (Richard’s Poor Almanac is the best and most original cartoon in the country and sadly known mostly only to those lucky enough to be in range of the Post;, Cul de Sac is pretty good too). And then there’s Ann Telnaes’ animations that appear in the Post online—-truly inspired and the wave of the future, as well as Beeler, Galifianakis, Bill Brown, and others. It raises one’s game to be around all these folks.
(2010 interview with Washington City Paper)
”
”
Matt Wuerker
“
Suppose there was some group of people who selected beginning chess players for some chess program according to what seemed to be their “innate talent.” They would teach a group of youngsters how to play and then, after three or six months had passed, look to see who were the best. We know what would happen. On average, the kids with higher IQs would have an easier time in the beginning learning the moves and would be selected for further training and grooming; the others would not be offered a spot in the program. The end result would be a collection of chess players with much higher than average IQs. But we know that in the real world there are many grandmasters who don’t score particularly well on IQ tests—so we would have missed the contributions of all of those people who could become great chess players.
”
”
K. Anders Ericsson (Peak: Unleashing Your Inner Champion Through Revolutionary Methods for Skill Acquisition and Performance Enhancement in Work, Sports, and Life)
“
The ultimate goal of Dressage is to create a picture of horse and rider moving as one.
”
”
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
“
Horse Trainer: Shaping Equine Athletes
”
”
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
“
Riding Instructor: Guiding Aspiring Equestrians
”
”
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
“
Equine Artist: Capturing Equine Beauty
”
”
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
“
Equine Event Planner: Creating Unforgettable Experiences
”
”
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
“
Equine Journalism: Storytelling in the Horse World
”
”
Georgia Roberts (The Horse Book for Girls: Everything Kids Need to Know About Breeds, Equestrian Training, Riding, Grooming, Safety and More!)
“
This is why the idea of having children has been intentionally socially engineered out of people. The natural impulse to produce offspring has been carefully and deliberately severed from sexual desire, all the cultural and social mores governing sex that funneled the young toward family formation have been demolished. This is why a life of perpetual adolescence is glorified. All of our young people have been psyopsed into adopting the fruitless, nihilistic, and consumeristic lifestyle of the homosexual, whether or not their hearts have been groomed into those particular sexual perversions. The intentionally childless, consumerist, permanent adolescent is gay, whether he sexually desires his same sex or not. It is important for us to be aware that this has been programmed into the hearts of the young, so that we can teach our children to hate it. It is simply not enough to keep your kids from watching movies or having access to the internet when they are in your home. No matter what you do, the magical dark liturgy that runs twenty-four seven will still be out there, and the likelihood that your children will have FOMO (fear of missing out) will be high. But teaching your children to hate it is far more important than keeping it hidden away from them. They should learn specifically why they ought to despise everything from Trashworld. In your house they should mature to recognize that the glories of this disgusting world of ugliness are nothing but hideous monstrosities.
”
”
Andrew Isker (The Boniface Option: A Strategy For Christian Counteroffensive in a Post-Christian Nation)
“
The trouble with Donald had started long before he entered school. At home, he tormented his little brother, Robert, a year and a half younger, and seemed to have nothing but disdain for everybody else, including, and perhaps especially, his mother. The kids in the neighborhood alternately despised and feared him; he had a reputation for being a thin-skinned bully who beat up on younger kids but ran home in a fit of rage as soon as somebody stood up to him. Nobody liked Donald when he was growing up, not even his parents. As he got older, those personality traits hardened, the hostile indifference and aggressive disrespect that he’d developed as a toddler to help him withstand the neglect he suffered at his parents’ hands—from his mother because she was seriously ill and psychologically unstable, and from his father because, as a sociopath, he had no interest in his children outside of Freddy, who, at least initially, was being groomed to take over his empire.
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir)
“
Why is it that you never see a kid dressed as a groom on Halloween?
”
”
Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
“
For years she had wished that she was like them—a noble groomed within an ivory tower—but now she wasn’t so sure. While there were plenty of squabbles in the Boulevard, the kids were always on the same side. Even as social groups shifted, they all knew that at the end of the day they were on the same team. Things were different at the Academy. She thought of Violet, the bitch who had already marked Hannah as a rival, and Morgan, who seemed to view her as nothing more than a target. It was all so superficial, so petty compared to trying to scrounge every day for food or medicine. She realized that such silly squabbles were what the life of luxury bred.
”
”
C.M. Raymond (Reawakening (Kurtherian Gambit: The Rise of Magic, #2))
“
After multiple suicide attempts Maria was placed in one of our residential treatment centers. Initially she was mute and withdrawn and became violent when people got too close to her. After other approaches failed to work, she was placed in an equine therapy program where she groomed her horse daily and learned simple dressage. Two years later I spoke with Maria at her high school graduation. She had been accepted by a four-year college. When I asked her what had helped her most, she answered, “The horse I took care of.” She told me that she first started to feel safe with her horse; he was there every day, patiently waiting for her, seemingly glad upon her approach. She started to feel a visceral connection with another creature and began to talk to him like a friend. Gradually she started talking with the other kids in the program and, eventually, with her counselor.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
The bathroom and the laundry room may be humble, utilitarian spaces, but let me point out a simple fact you may have overlooked: they can also be noble places.
If you're cleaning yourself and attending to your own grooming regularly, you're making an effort to present yourself well to the world.
If you're taking the time to relax in a bubble bath periodically, you're recognizing that life is not all about activity and achievement and that there are suitable times to de-stress and meditate.
If you're monitoring your weight on a scale or taking vitamin supplements kept in your bathroom, you're pursuing the value of health.
If you're storing medical supplies that you can grab when a child wakes up sick in the night, you're prepared to bring relief.
If you're bathing an infant, or perhaps a disabled spouse or elderly parent, you're giving comfort while serving a basic human need.
If you're teaching and modeling a simple approach to health and beauty for your kids, you're helping to start them out well in life.
If you're going through the routine of washing your family's clothes week in and week out, they may not thank you but they owe you.
Let me say it: thank you for caring and thank you for making the most of these spaces in your house by keeping them tidy and uncluttered.
”
”
Joshua Becker (The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life)
“
Tolerable stress, which occurs for relatively brief periods, can also build resilience. Critically, there must be supportive adults present, and kids must have time to cope and recover. Let’s say a child witnesses her parents arguing a lot as they’re going through a divorce. But the parents are talking to her, and they’re not having blowouts every night. She has time to recover. This is tolerable stress. Another example of tolerable stress might be an episode of being bullied, so long as it doesn’t last too long, it isn’t repeated too often, and the child is supported by caring adults. A tolerable stress might even be a death in the family. In an influential study, graduate students took baby rats away from their mothers and handled them for fifteen minutes per day (which was stressful to the rats) and then returned them to their mothers, who licked and groomed them. The graduate students repeated this for the first two weeks of the rats’ lives. The baby rats who were removed and handled for a brief period showed much more resilience as adults than the pups who stayed in the cage with their mother.11 The researchers referred to them as “California laid-back rats,” as they were difficult to stress as adults. This is probably because in situations like these the brain becomes conditioned to cope, and this conditioning lays the foundation for resilience.
”
”
William Stixrud (The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives)
“
Many cult members end up emotionally groomed into thinking they cannot live without the cult.
”
”
Logan Lancing (The Queering of the American Child: How a New School Religious Cult Poisons the Minds and Bodies of Normal Kids)
“
What the judge was saying, in essence, was: We all agree that you were poor and scared when you did this violent, hurtful thing, and if you had been allowed to go on working five days a week at Old Country Buffet, refilling soup pots and mopping up frozen yogurt spills, none of us would be here right now. You might have been able to save enough to move to an apartment that was de-leaded and clean in a neighborhood without drug dealers and with safe schools. With time, you may have been able to get Bo-Bo the medical treatment he needs for his seizures, and maybe you could have even started taking night classes to become a nurse, like you always wanted. And, who knows, maybe you could have actually become a nurse, a real nurse with a uniform and everything. Then you could really give your kids a childhood that would look nothing like the one Shortcake gave you. If you did that, you would walk around this cold city with your head held high, and maybe you would eventually come to feel that you were worth something and deserving of a man who could support you other than by lending you his pistol for a stickup or at least one who didn’t break down your door and beat you in front of your children. Maybe you would meet someone with a steady job and get married in a small church with Kendal standing proudly up front by the groom and Tembi as the poofy-dressed flower girl and Bo-Bo as the grinning, toddling ring bearer, just like you always dreamed it, and from that day on your groom would introduce you as “my wife.” But that’s not what happened. What happened was that your hours were cut, and your electricity was about to be shut off, and you and your children were about to be thrown out of your home, and you snatched someone’s purse as your friend pointed a gun at her face. And if it was poverty that caused this crime, who’s to say you won’t do it again? Because you were poor then and you are poor now. We all see the underlying cause, we see it every day in this court, but the justice system is no charity, no jobs program, no Housing Authority. If we cannot pull the weed up from the roots, then at least we can cut it low at the stem.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City)
“
He was grooming Mike and me. That
”
”
Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!)
“
Mike is now grooming his son to take his place, as his dad had groomed us.
”
”
Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!)
“
In both episodes of American Philippine history, white men were written as victims, saviors, and literal comeback kids, either succumbing to, saving, or defeating a nation in the 'Far East'-one dangerous, another helpless.
”
”
Matt Ortile (The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I've Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance)
“
Kittens have rough tongues that remove dead fur and distribute oils throughout their own coats. Even though they give themselves these licking baths, they can still use your help with grooming brushes. Grooming your kitten regularly will help reduce fur balls and avoid tangles and matted down fur in long-haired breeds. When your kitten is sitting on your lap, use the brush along the sides of its body. Be gentle and careful. Offer them the brush to sniff. Some kittens will rub their faces on the brush because the scent is appealing.
”
”
Holly Lloyd (Kittens Care Secrets: Kid Pet Guide to a Happy Kitten (Kids Pet Care & Guides Book 2))
“
A day before the November 2015 Paris attacks, President Obama was feeling a little more hopeful about the war against the Islamic State. Noting that the caliphate hadn’t made any significant territorial gains in some time, Obama said it had been “contained.”23 As we know now, this contention was obscenely countered the very next day. Terrorism has also come of age with the millennial generation. The Islamic State of today is miles from the Al Qaeda it grew out of. Its supporters aren’t coming from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan anymore. They’re living in Belgium, France, Britain, and, as we saw with the attacks in San Benardino and Orlando, even the United States. They’re not refugees or illegal immigrants. They’re legal, passport-carrying, Western-born or naturalized citizens of our countries. So what does bombing them do now? The more you bomb over there, the more the appeal grows over here. And there’s proof of that from the last three wars: the Islamic State itself is the visible result. ISIS isn’t just a geographical entity. There are kids sitting across Western countries, right here in our cities and neighborhoods, being inspired and groomed by the group’s wide-ranging social media expertise and slickly produced propaganda videos as we speak. These kids are not coming here from Syria. They’ve always been here.
”
”
Ali A. Rizvi (The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason)
“
Do you believe that there is a wedding tradition in China's Yugur culture for the groom to shoot his future bride with a bow and an arrow?
”
”
Dr. Shh (Illustrated Would You Rather? (Silly Kids and Family Scenarios 1))
“
There are so many things to remember, and I guess what ultimately stresses me out is the idea that other moms—at school or out there in the wild world—are somehow way better at keeping track of this than I am. I am one of the most organized people I have ever met, and even with all of my planning, I still am constantly forgetting things—or remembering them at midnight the night before they’re due. And no matter what I do or create or volunteer for, some mythical “other mom” at school has done it better. “Yes, Mommy, you can buy the T-shirt we need for make-your-own-T-shirt day, but Liam’s mom grew organic cotton plants. Then she hand-separated the seed from the fiber before spinning it into thread and fabric for the shirt she sewed him herself.” I can’t even begin to keep up, and the stress of trying to do so can make me crazy. So this year I made a big decision. I’m over it. I am utterly over the idea of crushing back-to-school time—or any other part of school for that matter! I do some parts of it well. Our morning routine might be choreographed chaos, but we are never late to school. My kids (with the exception of the four-year-old) are well groomed and well mannered, and they get good grades. Beyond that, they are good people—the kind of kids who befriend the outcasts and the loners. Sure, they attack each other at home and are dramatic enough about their lack of access to technology to earn themselves Oscars, but whatever. We are doing pretty good—and pretty good is way better than trying to fake perfection any day of the week.
”
”
Rachel Hollis (Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be (Girl, Wash Your Face Series))
“
His dark eyes suddenly appear a little boyish. "Can you, ah, put bubbles in?"
I grin wide. "You want a bubble bath?"
"Hey. The bubbles help keep in the heat, and they smell nice."
The man is a good ten inches taller than me, with shoulders twice as wide. The world knows him as a barbarian warlord king-killer on their favorite show. But he is adorable just now.
"You don't have to convince me," I say lightly. "I love a good bubble bath."
"Do you now?" he murmurs under his breath but then gives me an innocent look when I glance back.
He wasn't kidding about his love of bubbles. Multiple bath gels and a nice wide loofah wait on a rack by the tub. I eye it, and he shifts his weight as if being caught out. Not hiding my smile, I pour some gel into the water rushing from the faucet. The scents of bergamot and warm vanilla fill the humid air. It's a subtle fragrance but delicious, like sticking your nose into the warm crook of a well-groomed man's neck.
”
”
Kristen Callihan (Dear Enemy)
“
The girl was probably blonde and pretty, like most of the local rich kids. She'd have the meticulous good grooming that passed for beauty: straight teeth, steam-cleaned skin, shiny hair.
”
”
Elaine Viets (Ice Blonde (Angela Richman, Death Investigator #3))