Gross Love Quotes

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

Gross well says that children are young because they play, and not vice versa; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research from sheer love of truth.

Dia wrinkled her nose. “Gross. You need a decent girl, one that can straighten you out.” “I don't need to be straightened out,” Carmine said. “Why drown in love when you can have so much fun swimming in lust?

About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about? Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.

There are lots of women who are attracted to tyrannical men. Like moths to a flame. And there are some women who do not need a hero or even a stormy lover but a friend. Just remember that when you grow up. Steer clear of the tryant lovers, and try to locate the ones who are looking for a man as a friend, not because they are feeling empty themselves but because they enjoy making you full too. And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation.

Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another.

The look that passes between Jeffrey and Kimber right then feels like it requires a swell of cheesy music in the background. Aw, I think. Baby brother's in love. I also find this kind of gross.

Fandom is less like being in love than like being in love with love.

I’m gross. Look at me – getting all sloppy in front of my mortal enemy. Unexecutable. Inexhaustible. Un…un…under the sea.

Is love so gross a thing that it must feed upon publication and public notice ? It would seem so.

Whatever it is," I said, "the point is moot because as long as I'm on these pills, I can't make contact to ask." Derek ... snapped, "Then you need to stop taking the pills." Love to. If I could. But after what happened last night, they're giving me urine tests now." Ugh. That's harsh." Simon went quiet, then snapped his fingers. Hey, I've got an idea. It's kinda gross, but what if you take the pills, crush them and mix them with your, you know, urine." Derek stared at him. What?" You did pass chem last year, didn't you?" Simon flipped him the finger. "Okay, genius, what's your idea?" I'll think about it. ..." *** Here," Derek whispered, pressing an empty Mason jar into my hand. He'd pulled me aside after class and we were now standing at the base of the boy's staircase. "Take this up to your room and hide it." It's a ... jar." He grunted, exasperated that I was so dense I failed to see the critical importance of hiding an empty Mason jar in my room. It's for your urine." My what?" He rolled his eyes, a growl-like sound sliding through his teeth as he leaned down, closer to my ear. "Urine. Pee. Whatever. For the testing." I lifted the jar to eye level. "I think they'll give me something smaller." ... You took your meds today, right?" he whispered. I nodded. Then use this jar to save it." Save . . . ?" Your urine. If you give them some of today's tomorrow, it'll seem like you're still taking your meds." You want me to . . . dole it out? Into specimen jars?" Got a better idea?" Um, no, but ..." I lifted the jar and stared into it. Oh, for God's sake. Save your piss. Don't save your piss. It's all the same to me." Simon peeked around the corner, brows lifted. "I was going to ask what you guys were doing, but hearing that, I think I'll pass.

Deep down, instead of princes, I thought maybe every woman wanted gentle monsters. Someone strong—scary enough to keep all the bad things away—and gentle only to those he loved.

Your eyes.” “What? What?” I scrubbed at them violently, horrified at the thought they might have those gross goopy things at the edges. Or were they even more bloodshot? I’d heard of that happening, where the whites ran with blood. “I think . . . the color’s changing.” He paused. “Is that even possible?” “Is that all? Now you’re the one scaring the crap out of me.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

This extensive reading was the beginning of my second transformation. I was an intellectual in the making. At least that is what I believed. Perhaps raising my intellect would numb my animalistic instincts, I was of the view. Perhaps I will stop thinking about love and girls. I would find my true purpose. I would think about something higher. But who is to say what is higher? Who is to say what is gross and what is empyrean? And what the hell is ‘true purpose’ in the first place?

The problem is that those of us who are lucky enough to do work that we love are sometimes cursed with too damn much of it.

We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else's socks. As English grows, it lives its own life, and this is right and healthy. Sometimes English does exactly what we think it should; sometimes it goes places we don't like and thrives there in spite of all our worrying. We can tell it to clean itself up and act more like Latin; we can throw tantrums and start learning French instead. But we will never really be the boss of it. And that's why it flourishes.

Annabeth stumbled and almost slipped on the giant’s severed ear. ‘We need to get out of here.’ ‘I’m working on it,’ Piper said. ‘And, uh, I think this ear is your spoil of war.’ ‘Gross.’ ‘Would make a lovely shield.’ ‘Shut up, Chase.

And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation.

What if you ended up in the wrong kind of love? What if you accidentally ended up in the falling kind with someone it would be so gross to fall in love with that you could never tell anyone in the world about it? The kind you’d have to crush down so deep inside yourself that it almost turned your heart into a black hole? The kind you squashed deeper and deeper down, but no matter how much you hoped it would suffocate, it never did? Instead, it seemed to inflate, to grow gigantic as time went by, filling every little spare space you had until it was you. You were it. Until everything you ever saw or thought led you back to one person. The person you weren’t supposed to love that way.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: and yet, within a month-- Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!-- A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she-- O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not nor it cannot come to good: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

Yvette informs me janitors cannot fly. Vampires, however, can. "Vampires are gross," I determine. "Have you even read Twilight?" "I've read so many things that are not that.

I love you," I murmured. "Only because I give good head," he murmured back. "Gross! Oh my god. Stop." Brenda's voice cried out from the row behind us. "So gross. You're eighty-five years old, for the love of god.

From Jess: FANG. I've commented your blog with my questions for THREE YEARS. You answer other people's STUPID questions but not MINE. YOU REALLY ASKED FOR IT, BUDDY. I'm just gonna comment with this until you answer at least one of my questions. DO YOU HAVE A JAMAICAN ACCENT? No, Mon DO YOU MOLT? Gross. WHAT'S YOUR STAR SIGN? Dont know. "Angel what's my star sign?" She says Scorpio. HAVE YOU TOLD JEB I LOVE HIM YET? No. DOES NOT HAVING A POWER MAKE YOU ANGRY? Well, that's not really true... DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Can you see me doing the Soulja Boy? DOES IGGY KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Gazzy does. DO YOU USE HAIR PRODUCTS? No. Again,no. DO YOU USE PRODUCTS ON YOUR FEATHERS? I don't know that they make bird kid feather products yet. WHAT'S YOU FAVORITE MOVIE? There are a bunch WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SONG? I don't have favorites. They're too polarizing. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SMELL? Max, when she showers. DO THESE QUESTIONS MAKE YOU ANGRY? Not really. IF I CAME UP TO YOU IN A STREET AND HUGGED YOU, WOULD YOU KILL ME? You might get kicked. But I'm used to people wanting me dead, so. DO YOU SECRETLY WANT TO BE HUGGED? Doesn't everybody? ARE YOU GOING EMO 'CAUSE ANGEL IS STEALING EVERYONE'S POWERS (INCLUDING YOURS)? Not the emo thing again. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Anything hot and delicious and brought to me by Iggy. WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? Three eggs, over easy. Bacon. More Bacon. Toast. DID YOU EVEN HAVE BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? See above. DID YOU DIE INSIDE WHEN MAX CHOSE ARI OVER YOU? Dudes don't die inside. DO YOU LIKE MAX? Duh. DO YOU LIKE ME? I think you're funny. DOES IGGY LIKE ME? Sure DO YOU WRITE DEPRESSING POETRY? No. IS IT ABOUT MAX? Ahh. No. IS IT ABOUT ARI? Why do you assume I write depressing poetry? IS IT ABOUT JEB? Ahh. ARE YOU GOING TO BLOCK THIS COMMENT? Clearly, no. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? A Dirty Projectors T-shirt. Jeans. DO YOU WEAR BOXERS OR BRIEFS? No freaking comment. DO YOU FIND THIS COMMENT PERSONAL? Could I not find that comment personal? DO YOU WEAR SUNGLASSES? Yes, cheap ones. DO YOU WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT? That would make it hard to see. DO YOU SMOKE APPLES, LIKE US? Huh? DO YOU PREFER BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE VAMPIRES OR WEREWOLVES? Fanged creatures rock. ARE YOU GAY AND JUST PRETENDING TO BE STRAIGHT BY KISSING LISSA? Uhh... WERE YOU EXPERIMENING WITH YOUR SEXUALITY? Uhh... WOULD YOU TELL US IF YOU WERE GAY? Yes. DO YOU SECRETLY LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE CALL YOU EMO? No. ARE YOU EMO? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE EGGS? Yes. I had them for breakfast. DO YOU LIKE EATING THINGS? I love eating. I list it as a hobby. DO YOU SECRETLY THINK YOU'RE THE SEXIEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD? Do you secretly think I'm the sexiest person in the whole world? DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHTS ABOUT MAX? Eeek! HAS ENGEL EVER READ YOUR MIND WHEN YOU WERE HAVING DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT MAX AND GONE "OMG" AND YOU WERE LIKE "D:"? hahahahahahahahahahah DO YOU LIKE SPONGEBOB? He's okay, I guess. DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT SPONGEBOB? Definitely CAN YOU COOK? Iggy cooks. DO YOU LIKE TO COOK? I like to eat. ARE YOU, LIKE, A HOUSEWIFE? How on earth could I be like a housewife? DO YOU SECRETLY HAVE INNER TURMOIL? Isn't it obvious? DO YOU WANT TO BE UNDA DA SEA? I'm unda da stars. DO YOU THINK IT'S NOT TOO LATE, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE? Sure. WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO PLAY POKER? TV. DO YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Totally. OF COURSE YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE. DOES IGGY HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Yes. CAN HE EVEN PLAY POKER? Iggy beats me sometimes. DO YOU LIKE POKING PEOPLE HARD? Not really. ARE YOU FANGALICIOUS? I could never be as fangalicious as you'd want me to be. Fly on, Fang

And I was all, "Don't be gross, you crustacious fuck. You pull that thing out and I'll pepper-spray you until you fry." (You have to be stern with weenie waggers--I've been exposed to on the bus over seventeen times, so I know.)

Love is a spirit all compact of fire, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.

For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly.

umm... abit gross it kinda about boyfriend and girlfriend kinda going throw then they break up then they love each other then they make up again and the girl father said u have to come home until 9pm but the girls want more time to be with her boyfriend :)

Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him - thirsting, hungering, seeking! And the great sinners came closer to Him than the proud intellectuals! Pride swells and inflates the ego; gross sinners are depressed, deflated and empty. They, therefore, have room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless 'saint'. Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows will rarely find truth; the man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy and salvation than he knows.

But when people say you've got to love yourself first, they never explain how, exactly, you get past people screaming 'gross bitch', how you get past feeling like your best days are your only best days because you're managing to hide the bad bits, how you feel desirable if no one has ever desired you.

Already, I seemed to feel my intellect deteriorating, my heart petrifying, my soul contracting; and I trembled lest my very moral perceptions should become deadened, my distinctions of right and wrong confounded, and all my better faculties be sunk, at last, beneath the baneful influence of such a mode of life. The gross vapors of earth were gathering around me, and closing in upon my inward heaven; and thus it was that Mr. Weston rose at length upon me, appearing like the morning star in my horizon, to save me from the fear of utter darkness; and I rejoiced that I now had a subject for contemplation that was above me, not beneath.

We all have certain desires and undesired outcomes related to whatever possible course and attitude we take in life, whether it be at the larger macro scale (what shall I do with the rest of my life?) or at the micro level (as in, what route shall I take to work this morning). These include all the myriad choices we make each hour and each day. These choices determine our karma and our destiny. It's no accident, nor any great mystery, how this evolves; although one would have to utterly omniscient to understand all the many gross and subtle interconnections and causative links that determine happenings and outcomes.

Grief is like your favorite pair of old sweats. You get comfortable in them. So comfortable you don’t want to take them off even to shower. They’re worn in and fit just right and you never want to let them go, even when they’re stained and gross and have holes all in them.

But I’m going to need you to love me on the bus, dude. And first thing in the morning. Also, when I’m drunk and refuse to shut up about getting McNuggets from the drive-thru. When I fall asleep in the middle of that movie you paid extra to see in IMAX. When I wear the flowered robe I got at Walmart and the sweatpants I made into sweatshorts to bed. When I am blasting “More and More” by Blood Sweat & Tears at seven on a Sunday morning while cleaning the kitchen and fucking up your mom’s frittata recipe. When I bring a half dozen gross, mangled kittens home to foster for a few nights and they shit everywhere and pee on your side of the bed. When I go “grocery shopping” and come back with only a bag of Fritos and five pounds of pork tenderloin. When I’m sick and stumbling around the crib with half a roll of toilet paper shoved in each nostril. When I beg you fourteen times to read something I’ve written, then get mad when you tell me what you don’t like about it and I call you an uneducated idiot piece of shit. Lovebird city.

But love, first learnèd in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immurèd in the brain, But, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopped: Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails: Love's tongue proves dainty Baccus gross in taste. For valour, is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were tempered with Love's sighs.

If one would praise the Almighty, one must then revel in His works, and take them whole, adore their very grossness, savor the oozing quiddity of that slime of which He seems to be inordinately fond. Love is not nice. God's love assuredly is not; and human love, its copy, must not presume to be so.

Some sample lyrics I think I catch: "My engine races up to seventh gear; wrap your legs around my engine, dear . . . . The tunnel's dark, but the ground is wet; I lubricate it with my dripping sweat!" Or, something vaguely disturbing and gross like that; it's hard to tell with the wailing guitars and the front man screaming through his ravaged vocal chords.

It's that girlfriend feeling again, not that I've ever been anyone's girlfriend. But I imagine it feels like this. Like I'm this tiny precious wanted thing. I can't decide if I feel gross about that, or if I only think I should feel gross about it.

What’s your favorite word?” Startled, I looked up at him, unsure I’d heard him right. “My favorite word?” He nodded, slipping his glasses up his nose with a quick, practiced scrunch of his face that made him look angry and then surprised within a single second. “You have seven boxes of books up here. A wild guess tells me you like words.” I suppose I had never thought about having a favorite word, but now that he asked, I kind of liked the idea. I let my eyes lose focus as I thought. “Ranunculus,” I said after a moment. “What?” “Ranunculus. It’s a kind of flower. It’s such a weird word but the flowers are so pretty, I like how unexpected that is.” They were my Mom’s favorite, I didn’t say. “That’s a pretty girly answer.” “Well, I am a girl.” He kept his eyes on his feet but I knew I wasn’t imagining the gleam of interest I’d seen when I said ranunculus. I bet he had expected me to say unicorn or daisy or vampire. “What about you? What’s your favorite word? I bet it’s tungsten. Or, like, amphibian.” He quirked a smile, answering, “Regurgitate.” Scrunching my nose, I stared at him. “That is a gross word.” This made him smile even wider. “I like the hard consonant sounds in it. It kinda sounds like exactly what it means.” “An onomatopoeia?” I half expected trumpets to blast revelatory music from an invisible speaker in the wall from the way Elliot stared at me, lips parted and glasses slowly sliding down his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not a complete idiot, you know. You don’t have to look so surprised that I know some big words.” “I never thought you were an idiot,” he said quietly, looking toward the box and pulling out another book to hand to me. For a long time after we returned to our slow, inefficient method of unpacking the books, I could feel him looking up and watching me, tiny flashes of stolen glances. I pretended I didn’t notice.

Tiger chuckled. “Let me guess. Seared meat? Yeah, most humans get grossed out by that. You’ll enjoy pizza. It’s really good. She’ll love it too. I think all humans eat it the way we do meat. It must be a nutritional requirement or something for them.” He shrugged. “Everything on it is cut up into bit-sized slices to help them because of the flat teeth they have.” Valiant followed him. “If we have a baby this must be good to feed them.” “Yeah. They probably just cut the slices smaller for their little mouths.” “I must try this food. Tammy will be pleased I am preparing for fatherhood.” Tiger patted his back. “You’re a good mate, my man.” “I will try to be.” Valiant missed Tammy. He couldn’t wait to return home to marry her and remove her underwear. Not in that order though.

Mark, you don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one." "I'm not sure that seems fair." "The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It's the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren't bankrupted—but rather, vastly enriched.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.—But the age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

If any theme runs through all my work, it is what Adrienne Rich once called "re-vision", i.e., the re-perceiving of experience, not because our experience is complex or subtle or hard to understand (though it is sometimes all three) but because so much of what's presented to us as "the real world" or "the way it is" is so obviously untrue that a great deal of social energy must be mobilized to hide that gross and ghastly fact. has a theatre critic (whose name I'm afraid I've forgotten) once put it," There's less there than meets the eye". Hence, my love for science fiction, which analyses reality by changing it.

I thought it could be something, I mean, eventually." Harrison finally looks at us. "My life I thought-but I mean... it's nothing." "Don't cry" Grace says. "You have a lot of time." "No, I don't." "Yeah, you do." "No.-" "Yeah! Yeah, you do. It's okay. Look-" She does something that is so amazingly selfless and also gross. She tilts Harrison's face up and gives him a sweet kiss on the lips and it lasts long enough for him to taste her back, to move his mouth against hers. Harrison stares at her dumbfounded but he's stopped crying She is so nice.

I loved the way he smelled, too, even though he was sweaty and dirty and un-showered. I could have stuck my nose in his armpit and inhaled happily. It was one of those very human things that was sort of sexy and sort of gross at the same time.

Think Good Thoughts

My sincere thanks to friends and family, especially my mother, father, brother, and Mandy, who continue to love and support me despite my obsessions.

I ordered a hot chocolate and Chandler got a black coffee. He smiled over at me. "Still no love for coffee?" I shook my head. "Nah, why have bitter and gross when I can have sweet and delicious?

The Angels had fun with them. They laid the deceased out on a pool table and took turns pouring beer over him, ritualistically, you know? They stripped this embalmed figure of his wrappings before the ritual. At the end, they took Bobby and Ty—at knifepoint—and forced them to kiss the deceased’s lips and say, ‘I love you, man.’ But the worst was yet to come. Without becoming vulgar and utterly gross, let me just say the Angels gave them a choice: die slowly of knife wounds or fellate the corpse on the table.

Dear Mom and Dad, I know you’re only trying to do what’s best for me, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure what’s best. I love you and don’t want to be a problem, so I’ve decided to go away. I know you’ll say I’m not a problem, but I know I am. If you want to know why I’m doing this, you should ask Dr. Luce, who is a big liar! I am not a girl. I’m a boy. That’s what I found out today. So I’m going where no one knows me. Everyone in Grosse Pointe will talk when they find out. Sorry I took your money, Dad, but I promise to pay you back someday, with interest. Please don’t worry about me. I will be ALL RIGHT! Despite it’s contents, I signed this declaration to my parents: “Callie.” It was the last time I was ever their daughter.

Love is too young to know what conscience is,   Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?   Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,   Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:   For, thou betraying me, I do betray   My nobler part to my gross body's treason;   My soul doth tell my body that he may   Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,   But rising at thy name doth point out thee,   As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,   He is contented thy poor drudge to be,   To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.     No want of conscience hold it that I call     Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.

They have me. Whatever I can be, I’ll be for those two. I love all your pieces, especially the ones that call you mom. I hope one day they’ll come to me instead of just you when they need something because I’ll be here.

People get so caught in how they don’t like one part of themselves; nose, thighs, tummy, whatever. Things like flour and baking powder go into cakes and those things are gross alone, but the cake is pretty damn delicious.

I had never lain in bed next to a man and wanted to feel absorbed into his body, like a kit into the uterine wall of a rabbit - a gross metaphor, but love is rife with body parts, with wet hearts and thudding rib cages and heaving bosoms and salty loins and velvety genitals. You can't have erotic love without the rank grittiness of dirty bodies, and bodies, like desires are disgusting. Such was my love for Alex that I liked his morning breath.

Does it even need to be said that there are times when one must stand up to the community, and use one's voice in support of an unpopular view? Or that complicity is participation? Sometimes the issue at hand may concern a gross injustice, sometimes it may just be about individual boundaries. Sometimes a dissenting view will be heard and accepted, sometimes it will be ignored. None of this changes our obligation to move through the world with honesty and bravery.

The nice people do not come to God, because they think they are good through their own merits or bad through inherited instincts. If they do good, they believe they are to receive the credit for it; if they do evil, they deny that it is their own fault. They are good through their own goodheartedness, they say; but they are bad because they are misfortunate, either in their economic life or through an inheritance of evil genes from their grandparents. The nice people rarely come to God; they take their moral tone from the society in which they live. Like the Pharisee in front of the temple, they believe themselves to be very respectable citizens. Elegance is their test of virtue; to them, the moral is the aesthetic, the evil is the ugly. Every move they make is dictated, not by a love of goodness, but by the influence of their age. Their intellects are cultivated—in knowledge of current events; they read only the bestsellers, but their hearts are undisciplined. They say that they would go to church if the Church were only better—but they never tell you how much better the Church must be before they will join it. They sometimes condemn the gross sins of society, such as murder; they are not tempted to these because they fear the opprobrium which comes to them who commit them. By avoiding the sins which society condemns, they escape reproach, they consider themselves good par excellence.

We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else’s socks. As English grows, it lives its own life, and this is right and healthy. Sometimes English does exactly what we think it should; sometimes it goes places we don’t like and thrives there in spite of all our worrying. We can tell it to clean itself up and act more like Latin; we can throw tantrums and start learning French instead. But we will never really be the boss of it. And that’s why it flourishes.

I want you back. I want you as my lover, my right hand, my devious, lying, counterfeiting, entirely unprincipled fox. My valet. I want you blacking my boots, solving my problems, and sharing my bed. I want you to accept a situation of gross injustice with no safeguard except your trust in me. I want you to be that foolish, vulnerable creature, a servant who warms his master's sheets, and only the two of us will know that I am not the master here. And I swear to you, if you will give me that trust, I will be worthy of it. Whatever may befall between us, no matter whether you change your mind, I will always behave as the man I ought to be. The man you need me to be. I love you, David, Will you be with me?

I do not pretend to know who is right. But I do know this: most old people do not want their lives extended beyond reason. They don’t want their adult children changing their diapers. They don’t want to lose their minds and their memories. Give them the chance to tell you that. Don’t try and jolly them out of it. Imagine yourself in their shoes. Love them enough to let them go.

It's weird how much you have to hold back when you're secretly in love with someone. But then again, the whole point of love is getting close enough that you no longer have to hold back all the...gross parts. I'm pretty sure at some point love makes room for the gross parts.

We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets.

Yes, I am dreadful and I am desolate and I am difficult to digest   No I do not apologise for the things that I am for what makes me today   I am that dark thing that you loved to hate, now the terror that keeps you awake   Call me gross Call me stupid Call me disgusting   None of those names can ever hurt me again I am a thousand treacherous things   I was not made To be lovely for you I was made to eat monsters for ME   I never lied I never claimed not to make mistakes I never said I was a saint   When you bullied me with those names as a child You made a horrible mistake

I am Life Your pure essence, spirit and seed of existence itself, That lies within you, longing to awaken and flourish. I am long before you and after you, never born, never die, timeless, without boundaries. I am pure unconditional love, wholeness,connectedness, freedom, bliss,joy, peace, stillness. I am That beyond the gross and limited, yet you are blinded. You choose the illusion that you have control through grasping and being caught by all that is unreal and comes and goes. You think you are alive but you barely know Life. You choose separation. It is time to wake up! Have strength, courage and trust to let go. Surrender the fear and all that imprisons you. I am beyond mind, thoughts, emotions, ego, conditioning, desires, needs, attachments, memories, dreams, goals, forms, identities, ideas. Beyond all that arises. When all that I am not is released and let go, I AM.... Total, whole, eternal,infinite. And such also is all that arises. No more questions.Home. No more you, I, us. No more words.

[Women] complain about many clerks who attribute all sorts of faults to them and who compose works about them in rhyme, prose, and verse, criticizing their conduct in a variety of different ways. They then give these works as elementary textbooks to their young pupils at the beginning of their schooling, to provide them with exempla and received wisdom, so that they will remember this teaching when they come of age ... They accuse [women] of many ... serious vice[s] and are very critical of them, finding no excuse for them whatsoever. This is the way clerks behave day and night, composing their verse now in French, now in Latin. And they base their opinions on goodness only knows which books, which are more mendacious than a drunk. Ovid, in a book he wrote called Cures for Love, says many evil things about women, and I think he was wrong to do this. He accuses them of gross immorality, of filthy, vile, and wicked behaviour. (I disagree with him that they have such vices and promise to champion them in the fight against anyone who would like to throw down the gauntlet ...) Thus, clerks have studied this book since their early childhood as their grammar primer and then teach it to others so that no man will undertake to love a woman.

Beware of first-hand ideas!” exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. “First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine — the French Revolution.Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution. Through the medium of these ten great minds, the blood that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another. Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And in time” — his voice rose — “there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation ‘seraphically free From taint of personality,’ which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine.

But as soon as I walked through the door, my happy feelings evaporated so quickly, I practically heard the pop. “Oh, man,” I said softly. “Why do I keep being surprised when everything turns out gross and depressing?” Jenna was sitting in the middle of her bed. “I thought the window was the worst,” she said quietly. “Or, you know. Evan getting eaten. But now I really feel like crying.” Our room had never been what anyone would call luxurious, but thanks to Jenna’s obsessive love for pink, it had been…okay, I was going to say “comfortable” but “bright” and “maybe a little insane” were probably better descriptions. Still, it had been ours, and I’d never really realized how much Jenna’s lights, scarves, and Electric Raspberry comforter had made that tiny dorm room feel like home.

We have precious few examples of black women who lived as people with depression and joy, with desire and love, as well as contempt and rage. We do not have many stories of individual women who lived for themselves and did not put the race or their children or families first. And we certainly do not have tales about African American women who were very good at being very bad. Enter Hannah Mary Tabbs.

People ask me: Why do you write about food? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do? They ask it accusingly, as if I were somehow gross, unfaithful to the honour of my craft. The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straighly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it...and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied...and it is all one. I tell about myself and how I ate bread on a lasting hillside, or drank red wine in a room now blown to bits, and it happens without my willing it that I am telling too about the people with me then, and their other deeper needs for love and happiness. There is food in the bowl, and more often than not, because of what honesty I have, there is nourishment in the heart, to feed the wilder, more insistent hungers. We must eat. If, in the face of that dread fact, we can find other nourishment, and tolerance and compassion for it, we'll be no less full of human dignity. There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. And that is my answer, when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love?

The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependent people suffer is the direct result of their parents’ failure to fulfill their needs for affection, attention and care during their childhood. It was mentioned in the first section that children who are loved and cared for with relative consistency throughout childhood enter adulthood with a deepseated feeling that they are lovable and valuable and therefore will be loved and cared for as long as they remain true to themselves. Children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security. Rather, they have an inner sense of insecurity, a feeling of “I don’t have enough” and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving, as well as a sense of themselves as being questionably lovable and valuable. It is no wonder, then, that they feel the need to scramble for love, care and attention wherever they can find it, and once having found it, cling to it with a desperation that leads them to unloving, manipulative, Machiavellian behavior that destroys the very relationships they seek to preserve. As also indicated in the previous section, love and discipline go hand in hand, so that unloving, uncaring parents are people lacking in discipline, and when they fail to provide their children with a sense of being loved, they also fail to provide them with the capacity for self-discipline. Thus the excessive dependency of the passive dependent individuals is only the principal manifestation of their personality disorder. Passive dependent people lack self-discipline. They are unwilling or unable to delay gratification of their hunger for attention. In

I don’t remember a time in my life that Jules and her family weren’t in it. You have shared everything that has ever mattered with me, even the birth of my baby. When Jules and Nate got together,” Natalie turns to the audience and smiles. Will takes my hand in his and kisses my knuckles. “I was astonished to watch the change in her. Jules is a kick-ass girl. She’s not big on public displays of affection, which she reminds me of almost daily.” “Seriously, you guys are gross,” Jules rolls her eyes, but I can see the tears threatening to spill over. “But Nate brought out that soft side of her. He makes her better. And I think she does the same for him. I just couldn’t have found anyone more suited to you, my friend, if I tried.” Nat raises her glass and we all follow suit. “So, to my new brother-in-law Nate, and my sister of the heart, his Julianne. May your love continue to grow every day.

Antonio José Bolivar ôta son dentier, le rangea dans son mouchoir et sans cesser de maudire le gringo, responsable de la tragédie, le maire, les chercheurs d'or, tous ceux qui souillaient la virginité de son Amazonie, il coupa une grosse branche d'un coup de machette, s'y appuya, et prit la direction d'El Idilio, de sa cabane et ses romans qui parlaient d'amour avec des mots si beaux que, parfois, ils lui faisaient oublier la barbarie des hommes.

I find that most people serve practical needs. They have an understanding of the difference between meaning and relevance. And at some level my mind is more interested in meaning than in relevance. That is similar to the mind of an artist. The arts are not life. They are not serving life. The arts are the cuckoo child of life. Because the meaning of life is to eat. You know, life is evolution and evolution is about eating. It's pretty gross if you think about it. Evolution is about getting eaten by monsters. Don't go into the desert and perish there, because it's going to be a waste. If you're lucky the monsters that eat you are your own children. And eventually the search for evolution will, if evolution reaches its global optimum, it will be the perfect devourer. The thing that is able to digest anything and turn it into structure to sustain and perpetuate itself, for long as the local puddle of negentropy is available. And in a way we are yeast. Everything we do, all the complexity that we create, all the structures we build, is to erect some surfaces on which to out compete other kinds of yeast. And if you realize this you can try to get behind this and I think the solution to this is fascism. Fascism is a mode of organization of society in which the individual is a cell in the superorganism and the value of the individual is exactly the contribution to the superorganism. And when the contribution is negative then the superorganism kills it in order to be fitter in the competition against other superorganisms. And it's totally brutal. I don't like fascism because it's going to kill a lot of minds I like. And the arts is slightly different. It's a mutation that is arguably not completely adaptive. It's one where people fall in love with the loss function. Where you think that your mental representation is the intrinsically important thing. That you try to capture a conscious state for its own sake, because you think that matters. The true artist in my view is somebody who captures conscious states and that's the only reason why they eat. So you eat to make art. And another person makes art to eat. And these are of course the ends of a spectrum and the truth is often somewhere in the middle, but in a way there is this fundamental distinction. And there are in some sense the true scientists which are trying to figure out something about the universe. They are trying to reflect it. And it's an artistic process in a way. It's an attempt to be a reflection to this universe. You see there is this amazing vast darkness which is the universe. There's all these iterations of patterns, but mostly there is nothing interesting happening in these patterns. It's a giant fractal and most of it is just boring. And at a brief moment in the evolution of the universe there are planetary surfaces and negentropy gradients that allow for the creation of structure and then there are some brief flashes of consciousness in all this vast darkness. And these brief flashes of consciousness can reflect the universe and maybe even figure out what it is. It's the only chance that we have. Right? This is amazing. Why not do this? Life is short. This is the thing we can do.

For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross,is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly; you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance

But you cannot know the glimpses I have had, you cannot know there is another, dazzling place, that seems to welcome me! I have been led to it, Helen, by someone marvellous and strange. You won't know this. They will tell you of her, and they will make her seem squalid and ordinary, they will turn my passion into something gross and wrong. You will know, that it is neither of those things. It is only love, Helen - only that. I cannot live, and not be at her side!

Because maybe this is just what relationships are like. Another scent of a thought. Love is not whispering romantic things under Egyptian cotton sheets. Love has nothing to do with how besotted you are in those heady first two years. The hormones die off – argument by argument. In time, you discover every single flaw they have, and they discover yours. Your baggage, your insecurities, your gross habits, your nasty streaks. This happens in every relationship, right? This feeling that there’s more. The fantasies of what your life would be like with an imaginary different person who doesn’t do the annoying shit this real human partner does. It’s called ‘settling down’ for a reason. Because long-term love always means settling. Settling is the key word.

I really liked it.” She covers her mouth in horror. “If I like sex, do you think it means I can’t be a feminist?” “No.” I shake my head. “Because being a feminist -- I think it means being in charge of your sexuality. You decide who you want to have sex with. It means not trading your sexuality for… other things.” “Like marrying some gross guy who you’re not in love with just so you can have a nice house with a picket fence.” “Or marrying a rich old geezer. Or a guy who expects you to cook him dinner every night and take care of the children,” I say, thinking of Samantha. “Or a guy who makes you have sex with him whenever he wants, even if you don’t,” Miranda concludes. We look at each other in triumph, as if we’ve finally solved one of the world’s great problems.

Good discipline requires time. When we have no time to give our children, or no time that we are willing to give, we don’t even observe them closely enough to become aware of when their need for our disciplinary assistance is expressed subtly. If their need for discipline is so gross as to impinge upon our consciousness, we may still ignore the need on the grounds that it’s easier to let them have their own way—“I just don’t have the energy to deal with them today.” Or, finally, if we are impelled into action by their misdeeds and our irritation, we will impose discipline, often brutally, out of anger rather than deliberation, without examining the problem or even taking the time to consider which form of discipline is the most appropriate to that particular problem.

People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, ad about love, the way others do? They ask it accusingly, as if I were somehow gross, unfaithful to the honor of my craft. The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it . . . and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied . . . and it is all one

To think that just when one's happiness is full to overflowing, and one is thoroughly in love with life, there should come upon one a taint of sorrow!" she murmured. Yes; such is the payment exacted for the Promethean fire. You must not only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts and the self-questionings of which you have spoken: for they constitute the excess, the luxury, of life, and show themselves most when happiness is at its zenith, and has alloyed with it no gross desires. Such troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who voluntarily goes to meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge. But one can never get even with them. To almost every one they bring sorrow and indifference. Yes; but that does not last. Later they serve to shed light upon life, for they lead one to the edge of the abyss whence there is no return--then gently force one to turn once more and look upon life. Thus they seem to challenge one's tried faculties in order that the latter may be prevented from sinking wholly into inertia.

The Government set the stage economically by informing everyone that we were in a depression period, with very pointed allusions to the 1930s. The period just prior to our last 'good' war. ... Boiled down, our objective was to make killing and military life seem like adventurous fun, so for our inspiration we went back to the Thirties as well. It was pure serendipity. Inside one of the Scripter offices there was an old copy of Doc Smith's first LENSMAN space opera. It turned out that audiences in the 1970s were more receptive to the sort of things they scoffed at as juvenilia in the 1930s. Our drugs conditioned them to repeat viewings, simultaneously serving the ends of profit and positive reinforcement. The movie we came up with stroked all the correct psychological triggers. The fact that it grossed more money than any film in history at the time proved how on target our approach was.' 'Oh my God... said Jonathan, his mouth stalling the open position. 'Six months afterward we ripped ourselves off and got secondary reinforcement onto television. We pulled a 40 share. The year after that we phased in the video games, experimenting with non-narcotic hypnosis, using electrical pulses, body capacitance, and keying the pleasure centers of the brain with low voltage shocks. Jesus, Jonathan, can you *see* what we've accomplished? In something under half a decade we've programmed an entire generation of warm bodies to go to war for us and love it. They buy what we tell them to buy. Music, movies, whole lifestyles. And they hate who we tell them to. ... It's simple to make our audiences slaver for blood; that past hasn't changed since the days of the Colosseum. We've conditioned a whole population to live on the rim of Apocalypse and love it. They want to kill the enemy, tear his heart out, go to war so their gas bills will go down! They're all primed for just that sort of denouemment, ti satisfy their need for linear storytelling in the fictions that have become their lives! The system perpetuates itself. Our own guinea pigs pay us money to keep the mechanisms grinding away. If you don't believe that, just check out last year's big hit movies... then try to tell me the target demographic audience isn't waiting for marching orders. ("Incident On A Rainy Night In Beverly Hills")

Men who love the Stones are fixated on cock. I’m sorry, but that’s the only word. And a firehose is a symbolic fantasy cock. It’s pathetic. Male Stones fans are frozen at eighteen months old, just discovering the thrill of yanking on the rubber band of their own phallus. Female Stones fans are even worse. Mick Jagger has a weird gross mouth that makes him look like a cod, and this turns them on. They’re sexually aroused by fish-men. They’re deviants.” “So what are Beatles fans fixated on? The glory of pussy?” “Exactly. Strawberry Fields is not just a place in Liverpool, Mr. Rookwood.

Home can never be transferred; never repeated in the experience of an individual. The place consecrated by parental love, by the innocence and sports of childhood, by the first acquaintance with nature; by the linking of the heart to the visible creation, is the only home. There there is a living and breathing spirit infused into nature: every familiar object has a history—the trees have tongues, and the very air is vocal. There the vesture of decay doth not close in and control the noble functions of the soul. It sees and hears and enjoys without the ministry of gross material substance.

For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly: you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance.

Here, let me do it,” Peter says, coming up close behind me. I jerk away from him. “No no, I’ll do it,” I say, and he shakes his head and tries to take the measuring cup from me, but I won’t let go, and flour poufs out of the cup and into the air. It dusts us both. Peter starts cracking up and I let out an outraged shriek. “Peter!” He’s laughing too hard to speak. I cross my arms. “I’d better still have enough flour.” “You look like a grandma,” he says, still laughing. “Well, you look like a grandpa,” I counter. I dump the flour in my mixing bowl back into the flour canister. “Actually, you’re really a lot like my granny,” Peter says. “You hate cussing. You like to bake. You stay at home on Friday nights. Wow, I’m dating my granny. Gross.” I start measuring again. One, two. “I don’t stay home every Friday night.” Three. “I’ve never seen you out. You don’t go to parties. We used to hang out back in the day. Why’d you stop hanging out?” Four. “I…I don’t know. Middle school was different.” What does he want me to say? That Genevieve decided I wasn’t cool enough so I got left behind? Why is he so clueless? “I always wondered why you stopped hanging out with us.” Was I on five or six? “Peter! You made me lose my count again!” “I have that effect on women.

She wanted to tell him everything: that her worst fears had come true, that her husband had managed to place a surveillance device into her mind, the whole story. But she didn't want to seem crazy. This was shitty because the truth was crazy, not her. There had been a tagline of a TV show, 'The truth is out there,' that Hazel had initially misinterpreted and felt comforted by. 'That is for sure!' she'd thought, the truth was the most far-out thing possible. Hazel had always felt this--when she learned about periods and sex, when she learned about death, when she learned about the impossible living conditions of the other planets in the solar system and the manufacturing of processed meats. Almost always, the truth was way more bizarre and gross than she would've imagined. Then one night she commented on this to a friend and was told, 'No, dumbass, the show is saying that the truth will be discovered. Like how aliens are real and the U.S. government knows it.

What you describe is parasitism, not love. When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual. There is no choice, no freedom involved in your relationship. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other. We all-each and every one of us-even if we try to pretend to others and to ourselves that we don't have dependency needs and feelings, all of us have desires to be babied, to be nurtured without effort on our parts, to be cared for by persons stronger than us who have our interests truly at heart. No matter how strong we are, no matter how caring and responsible and adult, if we look clearly into ourselves we will find the wish to be taken care of for a change. Each one of us, no matter how old and mature, looks for and would like to have in his or her life a satisfying mother figure and father figure. But for most of us these desires or feelings do not rule our lives; they are not the predominant theme of our existence. When they do rule our lives and dictate the quality of our existence, then we have something more than just dependency needs or feelings; we are dependent. Specifically, one whose life is ruled and dictated by dependency needs suffers from a psychiatric disorder to which we ascribe the diagnostic name "passive dependent personality disorder." It is perhaps the most common of all psychiatric disorders. People with this disorder, passive dependent people, are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love…..This rapid changeability is characteristic of passive dependent individuals. It is as if it does not matter whom they are dependent upon as long as there is just someone. It does not matter what their identity is as long as there is someone to give it to them. Consequently their relationships, although seemingly dramatic in their intensity, are actually extremely shallow. Because of the strength of their sense of inner emptiness and the hunger to fill it, passive dependent people will brook no delay in gratifying their need for others. If being loved is your goal, you will fail to achieve it. The only way to be assured of being loved is to be a person worthy of love, and you cannot be a person worthy of love when your primary goal in life is to passively be loved. Passive dependency has its genesis in lack of love. The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependent people suffer is the direct result of their parents' failure to fulfill their needs for affection, attention and care during their childhood. It was mentioned in the first section that children who are loved and cared for with relative consistency throughout childhood enter adulthood with a deep seated feeling that they are lovable and valuable and therefore will be loved and cared for as long as they remain true to themselves. Children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security. Rather, they have an inner sense of insecurity, a feeling of "I don't have enough" and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving, as well as a sense of themselves as being questionably lovable and valuable. It is no wonder, then, that they feel the need to scramble for love, care and attention wherever they can find it, and once having found it, cling to it with a desperation that leads them to unloving, manipulative, Machiavellian behavior that destroys the very relationships they seek to preserve. In summary, dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality it is not love; it is a form of antilove. Ultimately it destroys rather than builds relationships, and it destroys rather than builds people.

I am tired of sinking down to a lower place to be with men. I am tired of throwing a tarp over some of my personality so that the shape of my identity suits some gross man a little better, for whatever shitty things he needs to do in order to keep his boring identity erect and supreme. I have many grievances and no place to set them down, and I am cranky from having to shoulder this burden of reactions, like I am a fucking Ox that should carry your unsellable wares. I am tired of buying my own flowers. I am tired of having to hold my breath through Valentine's Day the way you do when you drive past a graveyard. I want a valentine from a normal person who is horny. I want a prize for how well I can love. I want to be a prize for love.

Alex, please.” He balls his fists. “Stop saying my name. You don’t know me anymore.” “I do know you.” I’m still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat, struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even as he tries to pull away. “It’s me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember 37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard—” “Don’t,” he says. His voice breaks on the word. “And I always beat you in Scrabble,” I say. I have to keep talking, and keep him here, and make him remember. “Because you always let me win. And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you said to mix them—” “Don’t.” “And we did, and it wasn’t bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me.” I’m gasping, feeling as though I am about to drown; I’m reaching for him blindly, grabbing at his collar. “Stop.” He grabs my shoulders. His face is an inch from mine but unrecognizable: a gross, contorted mask. “Just stop. No more. It’s done, okay? That’s all done now.” “Alex, please—” “Stop!” His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. “Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that—what we felt, what it meant—that’s done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.” “Alex!” He has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. “I don’t love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.” The air goes. Everything goes. “I don’t believe you.” I’m crying so hard, I can hardly speak. He takes one step toward me. And now I don’t recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. “It was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.” “Please.” I don’t know how I stay on my feet, why I don’t shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when I want it so badly to stop. “Please don’t do this, Alex.” “Stop saying my name.

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardor in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardor of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly: you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance.

Don’t you remember how I was always all over you, wanting cuddles and hugs and your hands on me? I loved being close to you, loved your scent, even when you came from the gym and claimed that you smelled gross. I loved being your babe, your love, and your sweetheart. I “always loved touching you,” Harry said softly, licking his lips. He moved his hands from Adam’s shoulders and slipped them under Adam’s unbuttoned shirt. “Even when I was incapable of feeling arousal, I was still attracted to you so badly I felt the attraction even despite the bond, but I couldn’t quite understand what I felt until the bond broke completely.” Harry looked Adam in the eye, his face open and earnest. “I was ridiculously smitten with you. You were my sun and my moon and my stars. I wanted to make you happy. I “wanted to impress you. I wanted you to smile at me and call me love. I wanted you to say I was special to you, your only babe. I fell in love with you long before I was even capable of feeling lust.” Harry took Adam’s hand and brought it to his lips. “I love you,” he murmured. “I always have. The fact that I need you physically doesn’t negate the fact that I love you so very much. Because I do.” He nuzzled into Adam’s hand like a kitten. “I love you. I love you more than you can imagine. I don’t care what people back home will think of me because of our relationship. I want to be yours. I am yours. Your Harry.

You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the savage, and the religion of civilized Europe appear to you to conspire to prove a first cause. I maintain that it is from the evidence of revelation alone that this belief derives the slightest countenance. That credulity should be gross in proportion to the ignorance of the mind that it enslaves, is in strict consistency with the principles of human nature. The idiot, the child and the savage, agree in attributing their own passions and propensities to the inanimate substances by which they are either benefited or injured. The former become Gods and the latter Demons; hence prayers and sacrifices, by the means of which the rude Theologian imagines that he may confirm the benevolence of the one, or mitigate the malignity of the other. He has averted the wrath of a powerful enemy by supplications and submission; he has secured the assistance of his neighbour by offerings; he has felt his own anger subside before the entreaties of a vanquished foe, and has cherished gratitude for the kindness of another. Therefore does he believe that the elements will listen to his vows. He is capable of love and hatred towards his fellow beings, and is variously impelled by those principles to benefit or injure them. The source of his error is sufficiently obvious. When the winds, the waves and the atmosphere act in such a manner as to thwart or forward his designs, he attributes to them the same propensities of whose existence within himself he is conscious when he is instigated by benefits to kindness, or by injuries to revenge. The bigot of the woods can form no conception of beings possessed of properties differing from his own: it requires, indeed, a mind considerably tinctured with science, and enlarged by cultivation to contemplate itself, not as the centre and model of the Universe, but as one of the infinitely various multitude of beings of which it is actually composed.

few years later, Demeter took a vacation to the beach. She was walking along, enjoying the solitude and the fresh sea air, when Poseidon happened to spot her. Being a sea god, he tended to notice pretty ladies walking along the beach. He appeared out of the waves in his best green robes, with his trident in his hand and a crown of seashells on his head. (He was sure that the crown made him look irresistible.) “Hey, girl,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “You must be the riptide, ’cause you sweep me off my feet.” He’d been practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got to use it. Demeter was not impressed. “Go away, Poseidon.” “Sometimes the sea goes away,” Poseidon agreed, “but it always comes back. What do you say you and me have a romantic dinner at my undersea palace?” Demeter made a mental note not to park her chariot so far away. She really could’ve used her two dragons for backup. She decided to change form and get away, but she knew better than to turn into a snake this time. I need something faster, she thought. Then she glanced down the beach and saw a herd of wild horses galloping through the surf. That’s perfect! Demeter thought. A horse! Instantly she became a white mare and raced down the beach. She joined the herd and blended in with the other horses. Her plan had serious flaws. First, Poseidon could also turn into a horse, and he did—a strong white stallion. He raced after her. Second, Poseidon had created horses. He knew all about them and could control them. Why would a sea god create a land animal like the horse? We’ll get to that later. Anyway, Poseidon reached the herd and started pushing his way through, looking for Demeter—or rather sniffing for her sweet, distinctive perfume. She was easy to find. Demeter’s seemingly perfect camouflage in the herd turned out to be a perfect trap. The other horses made way for Poseidon, but they hemmed in Demeter and wouldn’t let her move. She got so panicky, afraid of getting trampled, that she couldn’t even change shape into something else. Poseidon sidled up to her and whinnied something like Hey, beautiful. Galloping my way? Much to Demeter’s horror, Poseidon got a lot cuddlier than she wanted. These days, Poseidon would be arrested for that kind of behavior. I mean…assuming he wasn’t in horse form. I don’t think you can arrest a horse. Anyway, back in those days, the world was a rougher, ruder place. Demeter couldn’t exactly report Poseidon to King Zeus, because Zeus was just as bad. Months later, a very embarrassed and angry Demeter gave birth to twins. The weirdest thing? One of the babies was a goddess; the other one was a stallion. I’m not going to even try to figure that out. The baby girl was named Despoine, but you don’t hear much about her in the myths. When she grew up, her job was looking after Demeter’s temple, like the high priestess of corn magic or something. Her baby brother, the stallion, was named Arion. He grew up to be a super-fast immortal steed who helped out Hercules and some other heroes, too. He was a pretty awesome horse, though I’m not sure that Demeter was real proud of having a son who needed new horseshoes every few months and was constantly nuzzling her for apples. At this point, you’d think Demeter would have sworn off those gross, disgusting men forever and joined Hestia in the Permanently Single Club. Strangely, a couple of months later, she fell in love with a human prince named Iasion (pronounced EYE-son, I think). Just shows you how far humans had come since Prometheus gave them fire. Now they could speak and write. They could brush their teeth and comb their hair. They wore clothes and occasionally took baths. Some of them were even handsome enough to flirt with goddesses.

Yeah, Jules!" Chelsea said in a voice thick with envy. "Go away, you're making the rest of us look bad." She winked at Jule's date wickedly. "I bet you just want to eat her up, don't ya?" He stared at Chelsea with bewilderment and glanced back at Jules for help. "Just ignore her," Jules explained over the noise from the sound system. "She doesn't get out much." Chelsea tried to look hurt by Jule's words, but she couldn't quite pull it off. "I'm just sayin', Jules, he'd better watch his back tonight, or I might be trying to take you away from him." Chelsea loved to play the potentially bi-curious card, even though everyone knew she liked boys far too much to go to bat for the other team. "Gross!" cried Claire, who wasn't pretending at all. Claire hated it when the conversation deviated too far off her straight and narrow path. The operative word being straight. "Don't worry, Claire-bear," Chelsea soothed condescendingly. "I'm not going to hook up with Jules." She wrapped her arm around Claire's waist and then said suggestively in he ear, "I'm much more likely to make a move on you." "Eww!" Claire shrieked, shoving Chelsea away. "Get away from me!" "Leave her alone, Chels," Jules interrupted. "Or you're gonna make her start her 'It's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' speech. And sorry, Claire, but none of us really want to hear that." Jay pulled Violet close to him as they listened to the familiar, playful bantering. He slid his arm around her waist from behind, and let his lips gently tease her earlobe while no one was paying attention to the two of them. Violet wanted to turn around right there, in his arms, and forget this whole dance thing altogether. "Hey!" Chelsea's voice interrupted them, and Violet jumped a little, realizing that everyone was staring at them. "Did you hear me?" Violet leaned forward on her crutches and away from Jay, still feeling bemused by the close and intimate contact. "What?" she asked, trying to focus on what had been said. "I said, 'I gotta pee.' Let's go to the bathroom," Chelsea repeated as if Violet were some sort of imbecile, incapable of understanding normal human speech. "Keep it up, Chels, and none of us is gonna want to hook up with you tonight," Violet promised jokingly. Chelsea grinned at Violet. "I like the way you think, Violet Ambrose. Maybe you'll be the lucky girl I choose.' And then she turned to Jay. "Don't worry, I've got her from here," Chelsea announced. Jules and Claire followed. Violet laughed and glanced back at him. "I'll only be a few." Jay gave her a skeptical look that no one else would have even noticed, as he assessed the three girls who would be escorting Violet. And then he finally nodded. "Okay, I'm gonna show these guys my car." He was beaming again. "I'll be right outside, but I won't be long." Violet did her best to keep up with the trio ahead of her, but it was hard on one high heel and two crutches. Finally she yelled at them exasperatedly, "If you guys don't wait, I'm not going!" They all three stopped and turned around. Chelsea tapped her lovely silver shoe impatiently. "Hurry up, Violet, or I swear I'll take you off my list.

Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely. I left my body, I left the room, I left the planet, I stepped through time and I entered the void. I was inside the void, but I also was the void and I was looking at the void, all at the same time. The void was a place of limitless peace and wisdom, The void was conscious and intelligent. The void was God, which means that I was inside God. But not in a gross, physical way - not like I was Liz Gilbert stuck inside a chunk of God's thigh muscle. I just was part of God. In addition to being God. I was both a tiny piece of the universe and exactly the same size as the universe. ("All know that the drop merges into ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop," wrote the sage Kabir - and I can personally attest now that this is true.) It wasn't hallucinogenic, what I was feeling. It was the most basic of events. It was heaven, yes. It was the deepest love I'd ever experienced, beyond anything I could previously imagined, but it wasn't euphoric. It wasn't exciting. There wasn't enough ego or passion left in me to create euphoria and excitement. It was just obvious. Like when you've been looking at an optical illusion for a long time, straining your eyes to decode the trick, and suddenly your cognizance shifts and there - now you can clearly see it! - the two vases are actually two faces. And once you've seen through the optical illusion, you can never not see it again. "So this is God," I thought. "Congratulations to meet you." -

Nope.' He grabs my hand and places it over his heart. 'I already know the truth. We’re dating.' His eyebrows waggle. 'Exclusively.' 'Gross.' 'Do you want to wear my letterman’s jacket?' 'I’m going to vomit.' '“Should I buy you a corsage?' 'Seriously. Gagging.' 'Okay, no corsage.' He laughs. 'Just the matching tattoos, then?' 'Seriously.' I fight the urge to stomp my foot. 'Let it go, Parker. Let it go.' 'Hey, Elsa, don’t quote Frozen to me unless you’re prepared to listen to the entire soundtrack in my car on the way to Seaport.' I stare up at him. 'I’m not sure whether I should be disturbed or turned on by the fact that you know all the words to Let It Go.' He grins. 'Definitely turned on.' 'Downloaded in your iTunes library, no doubt.' I shake my head. 'This is nearly as disturbing as the time I learned the song A Whole New World from Aladdin is a metaphor for mind-blowing sex.' 'I’m sorry, what?' 'I can open your eyes? Lead you wonder by wonder? Over, sideways, and under?' I snort. 'Come on. That’s basically soft-core porn.' 'Thank you, Zoe, for ruining a beloved Disney classic for me.' 'Anytime.' 'For the record…' He trails off. I wince, anticipating the worst. 'What?' 'I’ll take you on my magic carpet ride any time you want, snookums.' 'Pass.' 'So, that’s a no on rubbing my lamp then?' 'You know, I think I’ll just find my own way to Nate’s…' I turn and start walking to the elevator. 'Oh, come on.' Parker twines his fingers with mine and pushes the call button, humming under his breath. 'I’m a genie in a bottle, baby, gotta rub—' 'AH!' I stare at him in horror as the elevator arrives. 'So help me god if you start singing vintage Christina Aguilera lyrics right now, I will murder you with my bare hands.

She wraps her legs around my waist, and I walk us slowly down the hall. "Mmm, wait," she whines against my mouth. "I haven't showered. I'm so gross, and I don't..." She trails off as I turn into my bathroom, then set her down. She shuffles her bare feet against the gray stone tile, an inquisitive look on her face as she looks around the narrow space bathed in neutral hues. I push open the glass door and turn on the shower. Water cascades from the waterfall showered. "Oh," she says as she grins and bites her bottom lip. By the time we've helped each other out of our clothes, the water's warm. I help her in first, then step in. And then, under the hot stream of water, we resume our dirty kissing and grabbing. "Wait, wait." She presses a hand against my chest, then reaches for the shampoo bottle on the ledge. "I do need to get clean first." I laugh and follow her lead by shampooing my own hair and doing a quick rinse with body wash. She holds her hand out for the loofah, but I shake my head. "Let me?" A devilish smirk tugs at her perfect mouth. When she nods and licks her lips, I have to take a second. God, this woman. The way she's sweet and filthy all at once is enough to make me lose it right here. But I refuse. Not before she gets what I'm dying to give her. I work up a lather and run the loofah all over her body. I take my time, paying attention to every part of her. These beautifully curved hips, the fullness of her thighs, the gentle curve of her waist, her arms, her hands, the swell of her boobs. And then I lather up my hands and slowly work between her legs. She clutches both hands around my biceps, and her toes curl against the earthen-hued river rock that lines the shower floor. Her eyes go wide and pleading as she looks up at me. I lean down to kiss her. "Tell me what you want." "You. Just you. Please." With her breathy request, I'm ready to burst. Not yet, though. She reaches down to palm me, but I gently push her hand away. I want this to be one hundred percent about her. When she presses her mouth against my shoulder and her sounds go louder and more frantic, I work my hand faster. She's panting, pleading, shouting. When I feel the sting of her teeth against my skin, I grin. Fuck yeah, my girl is rough when she loses it and I love it. I love her. She explodes against my palm, the weight of her body shuddering against me. I've got her, though. I've always, always got you. When she starts to ease back down, she lets out a breathy laugh. "Oh my god." I nod down at her, which only makes her laugh harder. Then she glances down at what I'm sporting between my legs and flashes a naughty smirk. "Let's do something about that." Soon it's me at the mercy of her hands. My head spins at the pleasure she delivers so confidently, like she knows every single one of my buttons to push. When I lose it, I'm shuddering and grunting. For a few seconds, my vision's blurry. She's that incredible.

Sadhana The higher possibilities of life are housed in the human body. The physical body is a platform for all possibilities from the gross to the sacred. You can perform simple acts of eating, sleeping, and sex as acts of grossness, or you can bring a certain dimension of sanctity to all these aspects. This sanctity can be achieved by bringing subtler thought, emotion, and intention into these acts. Above all, remember that the grossness and sanctity of something is largely decided by your unwillingness and unconsciousness, or your willingness and consciousness. Every breath, every step, every simple act, thought, and emotion can acquire the stance of the sacred if conducted recognizing the sanctity of the other involved—whether a person or a foodstuff or an object that you use. Of all the loving acts that two human beings are capable of, the simple act of holding hands can often become the most intimate. Why is this so? Basically, because the nature of the hands and feet is such that the energy system finds expression in these two parts of the body in a very singular way. Two palms coming together have far more intimacy than the contact between any other parts of the body. You can try this with yourself. You don’t even need a partner. When you put your hands together, the two energy dimensions within you (right-left, masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, yin-yang, etc.) are linked in a certain way, and you begin to experience a sense of unity within yourself. This is the logic of the traditional Indian namaskar. It is a means of harmonizing the system. So, the simplest way to experience a state of union is to try this simple namaskar yoga. Put your hands together, and pay loving attention to any object you use or consume, or any form of life that you encounter. When you bring this sense of awareness into every simple act, your experience of life will never be the same again. There is even a possibility that if you put your hands together, you could unite the world!

Maybe that’s his game, though,” I said. “The hunt for one soul, again and again.” “Then why are you still here?” “The other women lived with him for a long time too. Maybe he wants to wait until my defenses are down, and then-“ “Wow, Clea, you are so jaded. You found your soulmate. People wait their whole lives for this. It’s the most amazing thing in the world, and it’s happened to you. Can’t you just accept it and be happy?” What she said made sense, but… I flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Without looking at Rayna, I said, “He doesn’t act like he’s my soulmate. Sometimes I think maybe he liked the other women more. I think maybe he wishes I was one of them.” Rayna was silent. This was something I’d never heard. “This is seriously, deep,” she finally said. “You’re feeling insecure because you’re jealous…of yourself.” “I didn’t say I was jealous…” “You’d rather think he’s a serial killer than risk being with him and finding out he doesn’t like you as much as he liked…you?” She scrunched her brow and thought, then tried again. “Yous? Anyway, you know what I mean-the other yous.” “Forget the jealousy thing, okay? There are other reasons to doubt him too. Ben doesn’t trust him at all. He thinks Sage is some kind of demon. He said there’s a spirit called an incubus that comes to women in their sleep, and-“ “Of course Ben said that.” Rayna shrugged. “He’s jealous.” “Of what?” “Ben’s crazy in love with you, Clea. I’ve been saying that forever!” “And I’ve been ignoring you forever, because it’s not true. You just want it to be true because it’s romantic.” “Did you not see the pictures of you from Rio?” I narrowed my eyes. “What are you talking about?” Rayna pulled out her phone. “Honestly, I don’t know how you survive without Google Alerts on yourself. The paparazzi were out in full force for Carnival.” She played with the phone for a minute, then handed it to me. It showed a close-up of Ben and me at the Sambadrome that could only have been taken with a serious zoom. I felt violated. “I hate this,” I muttered. “Why? You look cute!” “I hate that people are sneaking around taking pictures of me!” “I know you do. Ignore that for the moment. Just scroll through.” There were five pictures of Ben and me. Four of them were moments I vividly remembered, pictures of the two of us facing each other, laughing as we did our best to imitate the dancers shimmying and strutting down the parade route. The fifth one I didn’t remember. I wouldn’t have; in it I had my camera up to my face and was concentrating on lining up the perfect shot. Ben stood behind me, but he wasn’t wearing the goofy smile he’d had in the other pictures. He was staring right at me with those big puppydog eyes, and his smile wasn’t goofy at all, but… “Uh-huh,” Rayna said triumphantly. She had climbed into my bed was looking at the picture over my shoulder. “Knew that one would stop you. There is only one word for the look on that boy’s face, Clea: love-struck. Which is probably why a bunch of websites are reporting he’s about to propose.” “What?” “Messenger. Don’t kill the messenger.” I looked back at the picture. Ben did look love-struck. Very love-struck. “It could just be the picture,” I said. “They caught him at a weird moment.” “Yeah, a weird moment when he thought no one was looking so he showed how he really felt.” I gave Rayna back the phone and shook my head. “Ben and I are like brother and sister. That’s gross.” “Hey, I read Flowers in the Attic. It was kind of hot.” “Shut up!” I laughed. “I’m just saying, think about it. Really think about it. Is it that hard to believe that Ben’s in love with you?

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth. Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie. Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.” Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin. Because I’m worth it.