Highlight Of My Life Quotes

I wish I could rewrite you out of my life But all your pages are highlighted Dog-eared and thumbed to death I can no longer read you But you are still my favorite poem

I know I shouldn’t introduce my own memoir with this amount of insecurity, but my personal life philosophy is always to assume the worst, then you’re never disappointed. BAM! Highlight that previous sentence, baby!

She heard footsteps thumping from the crew quarters and Jacin appeared in the cargo bay, eyes wide. “What happened? Why is the ship screaming?” “Nothing. Everything’s fine,” Cinder stammered. “No, everything is not fine,” said Iko. “How can they be invited? I’ve never seen a bigger injustice in all my programmed life, and believe me, I have seen some big injustices.” Jacin raised an eyebrow at Cinder. “We just learned that my former guardian received an invitation to the wedding.” She opened the tab beside her stepmother’s name, thinking maybe it was a mistake. But of course not. Linh Adri had been awarded 80,000 univs and an official invitation to the royal wedding as an act of gratitude for her assistance in the ongoing manhunt for her adopted and estranged daughter, Linh Cinder. “Because she sold me out,” she said, sneering. “Figures.” “See? Injustice. Here we are, risking our lives to rescue Kai and this whole planet, and Adri and Pearl get to go to the royal wedding. I’m disgusted. I hope they spill soy sauce on their fancy dresses.” Jacin’s concern turned fast to annoyance. “Your ship has some messed-up priorities, you know that?” “Iko. My name is Iko. If you don’t stop calling me the ‘ship,’ I am going to make sure you never have hot water during your showers again, do you understand me?” “Yeah, hold that thought while I go disable the speaker system.” “What? You can’t mute me. Cinder!

The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years. All business and politics is personal in the Philippines. If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump. They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on. I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged. I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy. You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn. Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race. After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself. It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up. He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather. The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up. You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points] Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse. You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow. In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil. There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country. Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us. The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys. The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time. I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality. The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent. Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins. Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it. Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds. Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising. A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't. Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill. It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most. Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink? She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.

This stuff doesn't matter. What matters is what you do with it." Sara snaps the highlighter cap on. "I try not to think about how boring it is (History). I just keep reminding myself about how I want my life to be and what I have to do to get there. Then it's simple.

Music’s the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There’s always music. If I’m not playing it, I’m listening to it. With my writing…sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something I’m working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood.

I reminded you I studied literature, didn't I? I've had an endless supply of quotations at my disposal, but they had always highlighted the inadequacy of my life rather than providing an uplifting literary score to it.

Fingering those strings and watching ride that speaker like it was a vibrating cock was the highlight of my life.

my personal life philosophy is always to assume the worst, then you’re never disappointed. BAM! Highlight that previous sentence, baby! It’ll be one of many quotable life-nuggets you’ll be able to pull from this thing.

I thought seeing him naked was the highlight of my life. That suit was better than sex.

A kind man once told me that in Japan, broken pottery is pieced back together using gold as the glue, highlighting the cracks, making them beautiful. And maybe that could be my heart—hurt and healed, but filled with gold because I’d known Kyle.

Sometimes I fantasize about getting my hands on my library records. . . my recurring bookworm dream is to peruse my personal library history like it's a historical document. My bookshelves show me the books I've bought or been given. . . But my library books come into my house and go out again, leaving behind only memories and a jotted line in a journal (if I'm lucky). I long for a list that captures these ephemeral reads - all the books I've borrowed in a lifetime of reading, from last week's armful spanning back to when I was a seven-year-old kid with my first library card. I don't need many details - just the titles and dates would be fine - but oh, how I'd love to see them. Those records preserve what my memory has not. I remember the highlights of my grade-school checkouts, but much is lost to time. How I'd love to see the complete list of what I chose to read in second grade, or sixth, or tenth.

My conversational difficulties highlight a problem Aspergians face every day. A person with an obvious disability—for example, someone in a wheelchair—is treated compassionately because his handicap is obvious. No one turns to a guy in a wheelchair and says, “Quick! Let’s run across the street!” And when he can’t run across the street, no one says, “What’s his problem?” They offer to help him across the street. With me, though, there is no external sign that I am conversationally handicapped. So folks hear some conversational misstep and say, “What an arrogant jerk!” I look forward to the day when my handicap will afford me the same respect accorded to a guy in a wheelchair. And if the respect comes with a preferred parking space, I won’t turn it down.

I thought about that while he made his next calls, while I kept on with the newsletters. I thought about it during Sunday service at Word of Life, and during study hours in my room, with the Viking Erin and her squeaky pink highlighter. What it meant to really believe in something—for real. Belief. The big dictionary in the Promise library said it meant something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held conviction or opinion. But even that definition, as short and simple as it was, confused me. True or real: Those were definite words; opinion and conviction just weren't—opinions wavered and changed and fluctuated with the person, the situation. And most troubling of all was the word accepts. Something one accepts. I was much better at excepting everything than accepting anything, at least anything for certain, for definite. That much I knew. That much I believed.

The task before you is Never greater than the Power behind you

Memory is the mother of the muses, prototype Artist. As a rule picks and highlights what is important, omitting what is accidental or trivial. Occasionally, however, is mistaken as all the other artists. Nevertheless it is what I take as a guide page.

Ford, the promise of your full sexual attention is just about the highlight of my life right now, why pretend?

I don’t like splashing details about my life across the Internet. It’s not real, what people post. It’s a carefully cultivated highlight reel. Everyone is marketing their own personal brand whether they know it or not, and I’d rather keep my personal life to myself instead of trying to sell a fake version of it online. And opening up your life to others means people can comment on it,

I sigh contentedly as I close my eyes, allowing his body heat to warm me. Even though I’ve had an amazing time on our date, this is the highlight of my day. I’ve always been more of a simple pleasures kind of girl. Which isn’t me saying I’m ungrateful for everything he did today. Today was magical, and I will remember it for the rest of my life, but I don’t need grand gestures from Kal. I just need him.

It's the same thing that makes all pop music so heartbreaking. Even when Miley Cyrus sings "So I put my hands up, they're playin' my song / The butterflies fly away / I'm noddin' my head like 'Yeah!' / Movin' my hips like 'Yeah!'" in her song "Party in the U.S.A." It's that chirping mirth against a backdrop of despair, that juxtaposition of blithe optimism against all the crushing brutalities and inadequacies of life. The image of an ineffably beautiful butterfly flitting by the shattered windows of a dilapidated, abandoned factory is not so poignant because it highlights the indomitable life force. To the contrary, the butterfly (and the pop song) is like a PowerPoint cursor; it's there to whet our perception of and strengthen our affinity for what's moribund, for what's always dying before our eyes. Loving the moribund is our way of signaling the dead from this shore: "We are your kinsmen...

You came into my life when I was alone, with not another person to call my own. You mended the broken shreds of my heart.

You see, the truth is like a jewel of many facets. I will always choose the facet that highlights the good in a particular situation.

I wish I could rewrite you out of my life But all your pages are highlighted Dog-eared and thumbed to death I can no longer read you But you are still my favorite poem

We walk into the lobby of the hotel and I try not to grin at the man behind the counter. I refrain from screaming, "I'm going to have sex! With this gorgeous woman. She want to have sex. I didn't even have to ask, she just want to have sex. With me! Can you believe it?" I take deep breaths and try to downplay that this moment is the highlight of my life. Air kicks and high-fives probably wouldn't be a cool more right now.

Ten minutes later, I came back out to find Clay propped against my headboard reading one of my motorcycle club romances. “Am I going to have to put these under lock and key?” I plucked the book from his hands, holding it out of reach as he protested. “With dirty scenes like that? Yeah. Probably.” He waggled his brows. “I saw you put a highlighter tab on the soft choking part…” My neck burned hotter than it had in my whole life as my eyes nearly popped out of my skull. Without thinking better of it, I reared that book in my hand back and promptly threw it at Clay, who dodged it only by a hair. “Hey, no shame!” He laughed. “Just info I want to tuck away for later,” he added, tapping his temple.

Tall, way taller than her five foot five frame, his body bulged with muscles covered in tanned skin. He possessed layered down brown hair with gold highlights, vivid turquoise eyes and chiseled features, including a strong straight nose--surprising because with a taunting mouth like his she expected he'd gotten it broken more than once in his life--a square chin, and wickedly full lips that now quirked into a grin. -"Enjoying the view?" he taunted. -"Deciding what part to carve off your body first," she replied."Do you have a name by the way? Or should I just refer to you as 'that asshole'?" -"You can call me Remy, but when I get your thighs around my neck, feel free to call me God. It totally pisses Lucifer's brother off, which means brownie points for me.

Jesus knew that many of his listeners believed the old wineskin (or way of doing things) was good enough. They were comfortable with their beliefs and practices, but Jesus hadn't come to patch up old religious traditions. He was offering a new garment, a new wineskin, a way of life that didn't abolish the old ways, but fulfilled them. The teaching illuminated my own need to remain pliable before God. I realize that I must have a softer housing for my growing faith, one that can flex and change as God is at work inside of me. All too often I find myself clinging to that which is comfortable and familiar, rather than embracing the challenges that emerge with change and growth. Sometimes I shy away from people who have strong views that differ from mine, even though sharing a great conversation... could temper both our viewpoints and deepen our relationship. Why do I run away from strong opinions and potential conflict? Am I too comfortable and unwilling to change? Such a realization highlights the need for the Spirit in my life not just to discern and distinguish, but also to illuminate and invite me to move forward into the fullness of life with him." -Scouting the Divine

There is a Native American story that highlights the dearth of love in our culture. A Western anthropologist living with and studying the Hopi Indians noticed over time that most of the Hopi songs were about water. One day he asked the shaman: How is it that you sing so much about water? In my culture, love is the theme that is most commonly expressed in our songs? Do your people not value love? The shaman of this desert culture replied: In my culture our songs are frequently prayers, and we sing and pray for the precious things in life of which we do not have enough. Love is not one of them.

Early in this book, I said that the feeling I got from buying a Polish stock that went up ten times was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career. But the feeling I had on that balcony in Brussels with Sergei’s widow and son, as we watched the largest lawmaking body in Europe recognize and condemn the injustices suffered by Sergei and his family, felt orders of magnitude better than any financial success I’ve ever had. If finding a ten bagger in the stock market was a highlight of my life before, there is no feeling as satisfying as getting some measure of justice in a highly unjust world.

I hoped with every ounce of my being that he would have the pleasure of knowing love and heartache in the way that I did. It might sound strange me wanting my five-year-old son to experience heartache, but without it I wouldn't have met his mother - a wonderful woman who taught me just how uncomplicated falling in love can be when it is with the right person, as well as highlighting the notion that timing is everything. If I had met her earlier in life I've no doubt that I'd have made a complete mess of the whole thing. I wouldn't have been ready to receive her love or to give the love I'd spent year accumulating.

One of the greatest accusations against us by the cult was that we were “broad brushing” all the IFB churches, but with an estimated eight to ten thousand survivors speaking out on the Internet, telling the same stories from their experiences within IFB churches from all over the country, we finally put that accusation to rest. Dozens of public and private Facebook groups and blogs are now highlighting their abuses. That was precisely what the mob bosses feared: We could prove the entire cult was rife with sexual abuse cover-ups and we had a mountain of evidence to back up our assertions. To my knowledge there is no religious cult anywhere with more people speaking out through social media about their physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual abuse than the former members of the IFB.

The more I stare at it, the more the popcorn ceiling above me resembles an exquisite mosaic. Yellow rings from a leaky roof add pizazz to the imperfect white mounds; the reflection of a parked car outside the hotel room highlights the design in a brilliant, abstract pattern. I try to find a name for this provocative image and decide on “Cottage Cheese, Glorified.” And that’s when it becomes obvious that I’m distracting myself from thinking about the U-turn my life just took. I wonder if Galen is back yet. I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if Rayna is okay, if she has a killer headache like I do, if chloroform affects a full-blooded Syrena the way it affects humans. I bet that now she really will try to shoot my mom with her harpoon, which reminds me again of the past twenty-four hours of craziness.

DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF. I can bring good even out of your mistakes. Your finite mind tends to look backward, longing to undo decisions you have come to regret. This is a waste of time and energy, leading only to frustration. Instead of floundering in the past, release your mistakes to Me. Look to Me in trust, anticipating that My infinite creativity can weave both good choices and bad into a lovely design. Because you are human, you will continue to make mistakes. Thinking that you should live an error-free life is symptomatic of pride. Your failures can be a source of blessing, humbling you and giving you empathy for other people in their weaknesses. Best of all, failure highlights your dependence on Me. I am able to bring beauty out of the morass of your mistakes. Trust Me, and watch to see what I will do.

I felt like I was faking all of this, like I was playing the part of a student. I had the costume and the props, but I didn't really belong here. I'd pinned notes on the stupid corkboard backing of my desk, and I'd highlighted things...But it was all so meaningless. For about an hour, I had an overwheling urge to grab my bag, stuff in a few things, and take the next train to Bristol. I could be back on my parents' couch that night if I got moving. I could admit that I wasn't ready for this, that the semester was a wash. My parents would be thrilled, I was sure. Not about the semester being a wash--but certainly about having me back where they could keep me safe and sound. It would be so easy to do it. The very idea made me warm inside. It was okay to give up. I'd been brave. Everyone would say so. And yet...even as I opened a dresser drawer and figured out which things I would take with me in this hypothetical scenario, i remembered the problem. There would still be ghosts i would still have a future. I would still go back to school eventually. You can't curl up on the sofa and deny life forever. Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was i going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up?

A. I want my readers to remember a book of mine after they’ve turned the last page, partly so they will want to read more from me, but also because I want them to feel that reading it was well worth their time. I guess I want a book that I write to be more than entertainment that is enjoyable for the moment but forgettable as the months go by. I don’t make a conscious effort to craft quotable prose when I write, but I do endeavor to pose questions and suggest insights that speak across the pages into a reader’s life. For me, that translates into a good reason for having read the book. I always remember a book more fully and longer if I’ve been so emotionally tugged that I find myself highlighting phrases I don’t want to forget. And I usually can’t wait for that author’s next book! Khaled Hosseini’s books are always like that for me. Q.

Often I think that writing is a futile effort; so is reading; so is living. Loneliness is the inability to speak with another in one’s private language. That emptiness is filled with public language or romanticized connections. But one must be cautious when assuming meaning. A moment of recognition between two people only highlights the inadequacy of language. What can be spoken does not sustain; what cannot be spoken undermines.

And I was looking for escape routes all the time. Ways to not fully be there, to be distracted by other lives, the lives of people I knew from high school and college that were happening in different states and cities. I would waste hours comparing my life to theirs, sitting the two of them side by side and circling the things that seemed out of place in my own life, like the “What’s Wrong?” pictures in the back of the Highlights magazines. I don’t exactly know what happened that night after

I think that [cynicism] exists because of Jon’s show,” he said. “I think it becomes a feedback loop that’s corrosive. Congressmen do dumb things, then they’re highlighted for doing dumb things, and people watch it and say that congressmen do dumb things, and so then when another congressman does a dumb thing, [Stewart says], ‘Well, my audience wants to watch a congressman do a dumb thing.’ So when the audience laughs at the congressman doing a dumb thing, Jon says, ‘Hey, I got a great scam here, lemme go find another congressman doing a dumb thing.

my roommate, Nev “Catfish” Schulman, wanted me out of our East Village two-bedroom; my parents weren’t talking to me ever since I’d stuck my dad with a thirty-thousand-dollar rehab bill. I took baths every morning because I was too weak to stand in the shower; I wrote rent checks in highlighter; I had three prescribing psychiatrists and zero ob-gyns or dentists; I kept such insane hours that I never knew whether to put on day cream or night cream; and I never, ever called my grandma. I was also a liar. My boss—I was her assistant at the time—had been incredibly supportive and given me six weeks off to go to rehab. I’d been telling Jean that I was clean ever since I got back, even though I wasn’t. And then she promoted me.

I’ve lived on both sides of the abuse. I wear bruises on both sides of my fist. I have wept “what am I doing” and I have cried “why did they do that”. The child of an alcoholic and the alcoholic of a child. It’s strange how broken spirits, broken hearts, and broken homes walk hand-in-hand. How they leave a clear trail of shattered to follow. We are all picking out sins of the father like shrapnel left over from the day we were born. Bang. Welcome to life. Try not to step on a landmine before you get to twenty. Here are your parents. They hate you. Sorry that you won the race. Me? I’ve got a piece of broken mirror lodged dangerously close to my heart. I never know which twist in the story will be the one to open up my insides and help me drown in my own soul. People asked me where I picked up the wisdom. I don’t know that any of this actually is made of wisdom. There’s just too much fluff and well-meaning for my taste. For me, the path was always made of pain. I haven’t found feel better or act right yet... not for myself. I’m not the best one to help anybody else find it... that’s for certain... but I know every road that leads to resentment. I’ve walked them more times than I can count. I can’t tell you how to get where you’re going, but I can give you a roadmap that highlights the places I wish I never went. The first place on the list sits pretty damn close to home. There’s a town called Grief & Regret just north of Salvation, USA. I’m putting do not enter signs on every road that goes there.

The problem, Augustine came to believe, is that if you think you can organize your own salvation you are magnifying the very sin that keeps you from it. To believe that you can be captain of your own life is to suffer the sin of pride. What is pride? These days the word “pride” has positive connotations. It means feeling good about yourself and the things associated with you. When we use it negatively, we think of the arrogant person, someone who is puffed up and egotistical, boasting and strutting about. But that is not really the core of pride. That is just one way the disease of pride presents itself. By another definition, pride is building your happiness around your accomplishments, using your work as the measure of your worth. It is believing that you can arrive at fulfillment on your own, driven by your own individual efforts. Pride can come in bloated form. This is the puffed-up Donald Trump style of pride. This person wants people to see visible proof of his superiority. He wants to be on the VIP list. In conversation, he boasts, he brags. He needs to see his superiority reflected in other people’s eyes. He believes that this feeling of superiority will eventually bring him peace. That version is familiar. But there are other proud people who have low self-esteem. They feel they haven’t lived up to their potential. They feel unworthy. They want to hide and disappear, to fade into the background and nurse their own hurts. We don’t associate them with pride, but they are still, at root, suffering from the same disease. They are still yoking happiness to accomplishment; it’s just that they are giving themselves a D– rather than an A+. They tend to be just as solipsistic, and in their own way as self-centered, only in a self-pitying and isolating way rather than in an assertive and bragging way. One key paradox of pride is that it often combines extreme self-confidence with extreme anxiety. The proud person often appears self-sufficient and egotistical but is really touchy and unstable. The proud person tries to establish self-worth by winning a great reputation, but of course this makes him utterly dependent on the gossipy and unstable crowd for his own identity. The proud person is competitive. But there are always other people who might do better. The most ruthlessly competitive person in the contest sets the standard that all else must meet or get left behind. Everybody else has to be just as monomaniacally driven to success. One can never be secure. As Dante put it, the “ardor to outshine / Burned in my bosom with a kind of rage.” Hungry for exaltation, the proud person has a tendency to make himself ridiculous. Proud people have an amazing tendency to turn themselves into buffoons, with a comb-over that fools nobody, with golden bathroom fixtures that impress nobody, with name-dropping stories that inspire nobody. Every proud man, Augustine writes, “heeds himself, and he who pleases himself seems great to himself. But he who pleases himself pleases a fool, for he himself is a fool when he is pleasing himself.”16 Pride, the minister and writer Tim Keller has observed, is unstable because other people are absentmindedly or intentionally treating the proud man’s ego with less reverence than he thinks it deserves. He continually finds that his feelings are hurt. He is perpetually putting up a front. The self-cultivator spends more energy trying to display the fact that he is happy—posting highlight reel Facebook photos and all the rest—than he does actually being happy. Augustine suddenly came to realize that the solution to his problem would come only after a transformation more fundamental than any he had previously entertained, a renunciation of the very idea that he could be the source of his own solution.

Scripture says there’s great strength in human weakness. Our frailty and inabilities highlight God’s perfect strength. Jesus himself is the ultimate example of finding strength in weakness. He was fully God and fully human, yet he came down to serve others and sacrifice himself for us. What appeared to be a moment of weakness for him was actually the strongest moment in history. He gave his life for us—not because he had to, but because he chose to, because he loves us. When we are at our most vulnerable, that’s when we tend to pray and ask God for help. Why don’t we pray like that when things are going well? It’s because we think we can do it on our own and through our own strength. In reality, however, we are strongest when we are weak, because that’s when we turn to God and put our trust in him. It seems counterintuitive, but I knew that my greatest strength would come not when I thought I had it all together but when I knew how much I needed God—whether things were going well or not. Grasping these foundational biblical concepts and applying them revolutionized my life—and my career.

When I burst into the terminal, my eyes swept around, bouncing from person to person in the crowded, bustling space. My stomach fell a little when I didn’t see him, but I knew he probably couldn’t come this far. He was probably at baggage claim. I looked around for a sign to point me in the right direction and finally saw one labeled Baggage Claim with an arrow pointing off to the left. But I didn’t follow the arrow. My eyes fixed on someone standing beneath the sign. His hands were jammed into the pockets of his well-worn slouchy jeans. The relaxed action pulled the waistband low, highlighting his flat, narrow waist his Henley tee molded to. As usual, he was wearing his varsity jacket and his blond hair was a mess. My gaze locked on his sapphire-blue eyes and didn’t let go. His eyes, ohmigod, his eyes. The blue was so intense it served as an emergency brake on everything in my life. The second I looked at him, everything else came to a screeching halt. I no longer noticed the huge crowd rushing around. The anxiety-causing flight was just a distant memory, and the two weeks I spent longing for his touch became something I would live through ten times over just to be in this moment with him again. His lips pulled into a smile and the charm that oozed from every pore in his body made me almost lightheaded. Romeo pulled his hands out of his pockets and straightened, motioning for me. I rushed across the space separating us, my bag slapping against my side as I, for once, gracefully maneuvered around the people in my path. His chuckle brushed over me when I was just steps away, and I threw myself at him with a little sigh of relief. My legs wrapped around his waist and his arms locked around my back. I burrowed my head into his shoulder and inhaled deep, taking in his distinctive scent. “Rim,” he murmured, his voice low. I pulled back and his lips were on mine instantly. The moment our lips touched, he stilled, his body and mouth pausing against mine. Before I could wonder why, he muttered a garbled curse against my mouth and then his lips began to move. He kissed me softly but fiercely. There was so much possession in the way he kissed me, in the way his arms locked around me that my heart stuttered. I parted my lips so his tongue could sweep inside, and when my tongue met his, desire, hot and heavy, unfurled within me. Someone chuckled as they walked by, and Romeo retreated slightly, still letting his mouth linger on mine before completely pulling away. He rested his forehead against mine and he smiled. “I really fucking missed you.” “Me too,” I whispered. -Romeo & Rimmel

Mr. Townsend quirks a brow at the other man, and when our boss walks away he sticks his tongue out to his back. I push my hair over my shoulder and look this man over a bit closer. His dark hair reaches his shoulders and falls in soft waves around his face. He has a strong jaw lined with stubble and high cheekbones under his impossibly dark eyes. His perfect teeth are framed beautifully with full lips and a dark goatee, which only highlight the voluptuous color of his mouth. He’s wearing a dark blue button up shirt that fits loosely around his arms and chest, but the fitted dark jeans show off the chiseled lines of his thighs. He pushes his chair back slightly and stands, extending his large hand toward me. “I’m Reid. Reid Townsend.” He’s tall, about 6’0”, with a smile right out of a toothpaste commercial, and when I take his hand (surely with a stupid look on my face) it’s rough from heavy use. “Nice to meet you. I’m Danielle Delaney,” I reply. “You can call me Dani… Or anything you’d like except DD, um, in high school some people called me Double D’s because of that name and because I have big boobs—” I cut off abruptly with a slightly choked sound, feeling the blood rush over my chest, face and ears. I’ve never blurted something like that before in my life, and I especially have never blurted anything because I’m standing in front of a beautiful guy—I’m the player, not the played.

For me, the biggest conflict with the surgery date was that it fell on the same day as Cole’s junior/senior formal at school. The formal had been a big night for Reed two years earlier, with the highlight being a special ring ceremony. Juniors receive their senior rings and ask two special people in their lives to turn the ring on their finger. Reed has asked me to be one of those two people for him, which was a special honor for me. If Cole wants me there, I will reschedule Mia’s surgery. “Cole, who are you planning on having turn your ring?” I asked. “I didn’t get a ring, Mom. I really don’t want one,” Cole replied. Seriously? I thought. Boy, are you your father’s son or what? “All I really care about is getting some really good pictures.” I knew Cole was telling me the truth. He is not about fanfare or rituals. But he did want to remember the night. “Absolutely! I’ll make sure we have plenty of pictures of you,” I exclaimed. As it turned out, I think he was the most photographed student that night. Since I could not be there in person, people texted, e-mailed, and tagged me on Facebook with pictures of him. Again, my friends and Cole’s friends’ parents did what they could to help us through this difficult time. Something as simple as taking pictures was priceless to me. Yes, Cole was completely fine with my not being at the formal, but he was also sad that he could not be at the hospital for Mia. I assured him that there’s never a good time for surgery, and he shouldn’t feel guilty about attending his event--all of us wanted him to go and have a great time.

The panel delivery truck drew up before the front of the “Amsterdam Apartments” on 126th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. Words on its sides, barely discernible in the dim street light, read: LUNATIC LYNDON … I DELIVER AND INSTALL TELEVISION SETS ANY TIME OF DAY OR NIGHT ANY PLACE. Two uniformed delivery men alighted and stood on the sidewalk to examine an address book in the light of a torch. Dark faces were highlighted for a moment like masks on display and went out with the light. They looked up and down the street. No one was in sight. Houses were vague geometrical patterns of black against the lighter blackness of the sky. Crosstown streets were always dark. Above them, in the black squares of windows, crescent-shaped whites of eyes and quarter moons of yellow teeth bloomed like Halloween pumpkins. Suddenly voices bubbled in the night. “Lookin’ for somebody?” The driver looked up. “Amsterdam Apartments.” “These is they.” Without replying, the driver and his helper began unloading a wooden box. Stenciled on its side were the words: Acme Television “Satellite” A.406. “What that number?” someone asked. “Fo-o-six,” Sharp-eyes replied. “I’m gonna play it in the night house if I ain’t too late.” “What ya’ll got there, baby?” “Television set,” the driver replied shortly. “Who dat getting a television this time of night?” The delivery man didn’t reply. A man’s voice ventured, “Maybe it’s that bird liver on the third storey got all them mens.” A woman said scornfully, “Bird liver! If she bird liver I’se fish and eggs and I got a daughter old enough to has mens.” “… or not!” a male voice boomed. “What she got ’ill get television sets when you jealous old hags is fighting over mops and pails.” “Listen to the loverboy! When yo’ love come down last?” “Bet loverboy ain’t got none, bird liver or what.” “Ain’t gonna get none either. She don’t burn no coal.” “Not in dis life, next life maybe.” “You people make me sick,” a woman said from a group on the sidewalk that had just arrived. “We looking for the dead man and you talking ’bout tricks.” The two delivery men were silently struggling with the big television box but the new arrivals got in their way. “Will you ladies kindly move your asses and look for dead men sommers else,” the driver said. His voice sounded mean. “ ’Scuse me,” the lady said. “You ain’t got him, is you?” “Does I look like I’m carrying a dead man ’round in my pocket?” “Dead man! What dead man? What you folks playing?” a man called down interestedly. “Skin?” “Georgia skin? Where?” “Ain’t nobody playing no skin,” the lady said with disgust. “He’s one of us.” “Who?” “The dead man, that’s who.” “One of usses? Where he at?” “Where he at? He dead, that’s where he at.” “Let me get some green down on dead man’s row.” “Ain’t you the mother’s gonna play fo-o-six?” “Thass all you niggers thinks about,” the disgusted lady said. “Womens and hits!” “What else is they?” “Where yo’ pride? The white cops done killed one of usses and thass all you can think about.” “Killed ’im where?” “We don’t know where. Why you think we’s looking?” “You sho’ is a one-tracked woman. I help you look, just don’t call me nigger is all.

So now I was a beauty editor. In some ways, I looked the part of Condé Nast hotshot—or at least I tried to. I wore fab Dior slap bracelets and yellow plastic Marni dresses, and I carried a three-thousand-dollar black patent leather Lanvin tote that Jean had plunked down on my desk one afternoon. (“This is . . . too shiny for me,” she’d explained.) My highlights were by Marie Robinson at Sally Hershberger Salon in the Meatpacking District; I had a chic lavender pedicure—Versace Heat Nail Lacquer V2008—and I smelled obscure and expensive, like Susanne Lang Midnight Orchid and Colette Black Musk Oil. But look closer. I was five-four and ninety-seven pounds. The aforementioned Lanvin tote was full of orange plastic bottles from Rite Aid; if you looked at my hands digging for them, you’d see that my fingernails were dirty, and that the knuckle on my right hand was split from scraping against my front teeth. My chin was broken out from the vomiting. My self-tanner was uneven because I always applied it when I was strung out and exhausted—to conceal the exhaustion, you see—and my skin underneath the faux-glow was full-on Corpse Bride. A stylist had snipped out golf-ball-size knots that had formed at the back of my neck when I was blotto on tranquilizers for months and stopped combing my hair. My under-eye bags were big enough to send down the runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week: I hadn’t slept in days. I hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time in months. And I hadn’t slept without pills in years. So even though I wrote articles about how to take care of yourself—your hair, your skin, your nails—I was falling apart.

The liberal notion that more government programs can solve racial problems is simplistic—precisely because it focuses solely on the economic dimension. And the conservative idea that what is needed is a change in the moral behavior of poor black urban dwellers (especially poor black men, who, they say, should stay married, support their children, and stop committing so much crime) highlights immoral actions while ignoring public responsibility for the immoral circumstances that haunt our fellow citizens. The common denominator of these views of race is that each still sees black people as a “problem people,” in the words of Dorothy I. Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, rather than as fellow American citizens with problems. Her words echo the poignant “unasked question” of W. E. B. Du Bois, who, in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), wrote: They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town.… Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. Nearly a century later, we confine discussions about race in America to the “problems” black people pose for whites rather than consider what this way of viewing black people reveals about us as a nation. This paralyzing framework encourages liberals to relieve their guilty consciences by supporting public funds directed at “the problems”; but at the same time, reluctant to exercise principled criticism of black people, liberals deny them the freedom to err. Similarly, conservatives blame the “problems” on black people themselves—and thereby render black social misery invisible or unworthy of public attention. Hence, for liberals, black people are to be “included” and “integrated” into “our” society and culture, while for conservatives they are to be “well behaved” and “worthy of acceptance” by “our” way of life. Both fail to see that the presence and predicaments of black people are neither additions to nor defections from American life, but rather constitutive elements of that life.

Wonder how many others this applies to. I wonder if I'm too young to comprehend if it applies to me? ========== Wild (From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail) (Strayed, Cheryl) - Your Highlight on page 273 | Location 4798-4801 | Added on Wednesday, March 12, 2014 12:16:50 AM “I never got to be in the driver’s seat of my own life,” she’d wept to me once, in the days after she learned she was going to die. “I always did what someone else wanted me to do. I’ve always been someone’s daughter or mother or wife. I’ve never just been me.” “Oh, Mom,” was all I could say as I stroked her hand. I was too young to say anything else. ==========

Come Clean with God It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. —1 TIMOTHY 1:15 NASB     One of the most watched TV series in recent years has been Donald Trump’s The Apprentice. The highlight of the program is when Mr. Trump delights in saying, “You’re fired!” This format has been so well received in America that other networks quickly introduced their versions. While we never want to hear our bosses utter, “You’re fired!” it could happen. But thankfully, we will only hear Jesus say, “You’re hired.” He gives us new life. But in order for us to be hired, we must humble ourselves and come clean with God. The apostle Paul had the same dilemma when he was challenged to deal with God’s grace. Some of these struggles can be found in his writings: • 1 Corinthians 15:9—I am the least of all the apostles. • Ephesians 3:8—I am the least deserving Christian there is. • 1 Timothy 1:15—I am the worst sinner of all. Paul was humbled by his past and wanted to change his direction in life. At one time in my life I had to make a decision. I had to let old things pass away and then turn to eternal values. As I faced decisions about how I lived and what I wanted, I had to ask, How do I come close to God? Examine Paul’s challenge in 1 Timothy 2:1-4: Here are my directions: Pray much for others; plead for God’s mercy upon them; give thanks for all he is going to do for them.   Pray in this way for kings and all others who are in authority over us, or are in places of high responsibility, so that we can live in peace and quietness, spending our time in godly living and thinking much about the Lord. This is good and pleases God our Savior, for he longs for all to be saved (TLB). Paul gives us three very valuable challenges and instructions: (1) pray for your needs, (2) pray for others, and (3) pray for thanksgiving. Notice that we are instructed to go from our internal needs first and then move to prayers for others and then thanksgiving to God. We are a very narcissistic

Naughty King (A Sexy Manhattan Fairytale: Part One) (Valentine, Michelle A.) - Your Highlight on Location 149-151 | Added on Friday, March 20, 2015 4:11:48 PM But know this: I’m going to make your life a living hell while you’re here. I’ll have you dying to fuck my brains out or needing to walk away before you kill me with your own bare hands. Either way—you’re fucked.” ==========

Love is like recognition. It’s the moment when you catch sight of someone and you think There is someone I have business with in this life. There is someone I was born to know. Has that never happened to you?” “It has, but I never took much comfort in it.” - Your Highlight on page 496 | location 7599-7603 | Added on Saturday, 5 July 2014 13:09:06 “Love is like a baby sleeping on its mother’s breast,” Steppan said. “Inchoate and likely to piss itself?” “Ah, you can play at being a cynic, my friend, but I’ve known you too long. You’re a romantic at heart. You’re in love with the world.” “I’d say I’m inchoate and likely to piss myself,” Asa Love is like falling from a window and discovering you can fly.” “Unlikely to happen and dangerous to try.” “Love is like the burst of sweetness when you bite into a strawberry.” “Brief for you and painful for the berry.” “Love,” Asa said, “is like a pigeon shitting over a crowd.” “How so?” “Where it lands hasn’t got much to do with who deserves it.” The priest made a deep sound in his throat, and frowned. “I think you may be confusing love with a different kind of longing,” he said,

Snapchat has a lot less social pressure attached to it compared to every other popular social media network out there. This is what makes it so addicting and liberating. If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it. Snapchat isn't like that at all and really focuses on creating the Story of a day in your life, not some filtered/altered/handpicked highlight. It’s the real you.

The Bible says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another" (Ephesians 4:32). So be a blessing in someone's life today. ur hearts will be found in the vicinity of our treasures." That's so true, isn't it? Over the years, I've asked hundreds of women to tell me the stories of their treasures. I've been treated to some incredible stories, from a loving grandmother to an inherited Bible, from a mysterious, closed-up room to antique furniture. I've learned about collections and great recipes. The stories are all about the special objects or people in our lives that speak to us about love and hope and memories. Listen carefully to these words from Psalm 119:16: "[LORD,] I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word." Now thats a treasure. don't know what I'd do without friends. They cry with me, laugh with me-and, for sure-they're the ones who most often "speak truth" (whether I want to hear it or not). There's nothing that makes life better than friends. My advice? Do everything you can to nurture the special people in your life. It sometimes takes extra thought and definitely precious time, but what joy is yours when you do! Every Saturday morning at seven, my friend Sharon spends a very special hour on the phone with her sister. It's the highlight of the week for both of them. They love and support one another, laugh, and share even the most mundane happenings of the week. Enjoy and treasure your relationships!

•    Be an intentional blessing to someone. Devote yourself to caring for others. Even when your own needs begin to dominate your attention, set aside time daily to tune in to others. Pray for their specific needs and speak blessings to those you encounter each day. Make them glad they met you.     •    Seek joy. Each morning ask yourself, “Where will the joy be today?” and then look for it. Look high and low—in misty sunbeams, your favorite poem, the kind eyes of your caretaker, dew-touched spiderwebs, fluffy white clouds scuttling by, even extra butterflies summoned by heaven just to make you smile.     •    Prepare love notes. When energy permits, write, videotape, or audiotape little messages of encouragement to children, grandchildren, and friends for special occasions in their future. Reminders of your love when you won’t be there to tell them yourself. Enlist the help of a friend or family member to present your messages at the right time, labeled, “For my granddaughter on her wedding day,” “For my beloved friend’s sixty-fifth birthday,” or “For my dear son and daughter-in-law on their golden anniversary.”     •    Pass on your faith. Purchase a supply of Bibles and in the front flap of each one, write a personal dedication to the child or grandchild, friend, or neighbor you intend to give it to. Choose a specific book of the Bible (the Gospels are a great place to start) and read several chapters daily, writing comments in the margin of how this verse impacted your life or what that verse means to you. Include personal notes or prayers for the recipient related to highlighted scriptures. Your words will become a precious keepsake of faith for generations to come. (*Helpful hint: A Bible with this idea in mind might make a thoughtful gift for a loved one standing at the threshold of eternity. Not only will it immerse the person in the comforting balm of scripture, but it will give him or her a very worthwhile project that will long benefit those he or she loves.)     •    Make love your legacy. Emily Dickinson said, “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” Ask yourself, “What will people remember most about me?” Meditate on John 15:12: “Love each other as I have loved you” (NIV). Tape it beside your bed so it’s the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see in the morning.     •    “Remember that God loves you and will see you through it.

IN some ways, the relentless electronic interconnectivity of our lives serves to highlight therapy’s singular virtues. We are more appreciative of the strange, private dialogue that is the heart of therapy. There are precious few times and spaces left in our society in which people quietly speak to one another in a sustained, intimate conversation. The therapist’s office is one of the last safe places. Secrets, reflections, fears or confusion never leave the room. And it is also a refuge. My patients often arrive early just to sit in the waiting room — an unusual interlude of quiet. Then there’s the session itself. In some ways therapy is, more than ever, the ultimate luxury: To be the focus of a thoughtful person who is listening, caring and helping to make sense of life’s chaos is something that the Internet can never provide. Anna Fels is a psychiatrist and faculty member at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Thank you for coming after me,” she said softly, her mind beginning to comprehend the magnitude of what he’d done and the risks he’d taken—even putting his own life in jeopardy—to find her. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help.” “You’re welcome.” A slow smile worked its way up his lips. The flames from the fire reflected on his face, highlighting his pleasure at her words. “After all the times I’ve had to bail you out of trouble, I have to admit, it’s kind of nice to hear you finally admit you needed my help.” “All the times?” “Yes, all the times.” His grinned widened. “Starting from the first night you stepped into the Northern Hotel.” “If I remember right, I didn’t do such a bad job taking care of myself.” A smile twitched her lips. “But I suppose if it makes you feel like a knight in shining armor, I’ll let you take the credit for saving me from doom.” “Oh, come on, admit it.” His voice was low and edged with laughter. “You know for a fact I’m your knight in shining armor.” Her heart swelled. “Since you’re forcing a confession out of me,” she bantered, “then yes, I admit you’re my hero.” Little did he know just how much he was winning her heart. “Well, then that’s settled.

Eventually I began to compile a list of his favorite words and phrases. Here is one version of the list I still have with me: PHRASES Given the fact that toward that end in which you operate the level of both . . . and frankly goes well beyond the way you live your life in this regard (in this regard it’s worth . . .) in many ways none other than this larger (this larger notion/idea) for that reason in large measure as a consequence more than anything in my direction nonetheless (small but nonetheless significant sign) over the weeks and months ahead speaks volumes NOUNS range (a range of) host (a host of, whole host of) admiration (usu. profound admiration) pearls (of wisdom) ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS remarkable incredible (working incredibly hard) inevitably frankly awfully larger disturbingly so, especially so amazingly considerable (very considerable) fabulous dire VERBS present impress (impressed me) admire (admire the fact that) highlight underscore OTHER inasmuch whereby This collection summarizes the governor’s character as well as any biography could, though I reckon only I can see that. Its terms are plain and practical, but they’re boring, and most of them are slightly awkward. Some are lazy: the only reason to say something “speaks volumes”—“The fact that you refused to give up speaks volumes about your character”—is because you want the credit for making a large claim without bothering to find words to make it.

At the same time as suggesting the language game we clearly do not have a change in the name of God as our only way to think in New Testament terms of an earth at peace. There is Jesus! It is very hard to attribute violence to the originator of the gospel, of the good news of God’s forgiveness and love, of divine healing and welcome. Despite the fact that people refer to his action in the temple in the last days of his life as an exceptional yet conclusive ‘proof’ of Jesus’ use of violence no serious bible scholar would look on these actions divorced from his whole ministry. And because of that we have to see them as a conscious and deliberate prophetic sign-action, taking control of the temple for a brief period to show how it stood in contrast to the direct relationship with God which he proclaimed, and to make the point with a definitive emphasis. The whip he plaits in John is used to drive the animals, probably with the sound of the crack alone. No one is attacked. No one gets hurt. And very soon the situation reverts to the status quo: the authorities take back control of the temple and decide on Jesus’ suffering and death in order to control him. Overall the event is to be seen as Jesus placing himself purposely and calculatedly in the cross-hairs for the sake of the truth, much rather than doing harm to anyone else. The consequences of his actions were indeed ‘the cross’, and supremely in the situation of crucifixion Jesus does not invoke retaliation on his enemies, or threaten those who reject redemption; rather he prays for their forgiveness. No, Jesus’ whole life-story makes him unmistakably a figure of transcendent nonviolence. The problem lies elsewhere, with the way the cross is interpreted within the framework of a violent God. It is unfathomably ironic that the icon of human non-retaliation, Jesus’ cross, gets turned in the tradition into a supreme piece of vengeance—God’s ‘just’ punishment of Jesus in our place. My book, Cross Purposes, is about the way this tradition got formed and it represents just one of a constant stream of writing, gathering force at the end of the last century and continuing into this, questioning how this could be the meaning of the central symbol of Christianity.2 I think the vigor of that question can only continue to grow, while the nonviolence of Jesus’ response must at the same time stand out in greater and greater relief, in its own right and for its own sake. And for that same reason the argument at hand, of ‘No-name’ for a nonviolent God, can only be strengthened when we highlight the nonviolence of Jesus against the traditional violent concept of ‘God’. Now

And as the whole thing climbed the conversational stairs into absurd and pointless confrontation I let out my cool and careful breath and felt a new one rush in, hot and tight and full of dim red highlights; this was my alternative to exposure and prison? Squealing, squabbling, screaming, and the sour-milk vomit of endless emotional violence? This was the good side of life? The part that I was supposed to miss when the end came, at any minute now, to trundle me off into the dark forever? It was beyond endurance; just listening to it in the next room made me want to bellow, spit fire, crush heads—but, of course, that kind of honest expression of real emotion would only guarantee my reservation in prison.

I think of my current life and how different and grown-up I’ve become since my time with Henry. Our life together was something I once saw in a movie. I think I liked the movie for the most part, but it’s faded from memory, with only the highlights and lowlights still on the reel. The highs and lows have narrowed in their intensity so much, becoming less and less discernible, moving toward each other until the whole memory will mercifully flatline with the passage of time.

Oh, my,” she breathed. “She’s here?” he asked unnecessarily, refusing to look. Resisting temptation. “I’m assuming it must be her; I pretty much know everyone else in the room.” There was a short silence as she inspected the newcomer thoroughly. “My heavens, I didn’t realize scientists came like this. She’s simply . . . magnificent.” “There’s not one thing that’s simple about Lily Banyon.” Evelyn’s eyes were still focused on the other end of the room. “Hmm, I think I see what you mean.” A smile played over her lips. “How utterly refreshing and fascinating—you’ll have your work cut out for you. Come, Mayor McDermott, duty calls.” “I don’t need to meet her. I already know her. Too well.” Evelyn made a tsking sound. “My, my, don’t we sound like we’ve missed our afternoon nap?” she murmured as she brushed by him, assuming the role of Coral Beach’s welcome wagon, fully equipped with bells, whistles, and highlighters. His secretary had abandoned him for the enemy. How much worse could things get? A clause should be inserted into their contracts prohibiting secretaries from treating their bosses as though they were three-year-olds. Had there been dirt instead of mocha-colored industrial carpeting underfoot, he’d have kicked it. It wasn’t anyone’s business but his if he refused to rush over and blurt, Hey, Lily, long time no see! So, tell me, what’ve you been up to since Rome, when you slammed the door in my face so hard you almost broke my nose for the second time? He was the mayor. He could do as he liked. And what he most wanted, right after making Lily Banyon disappear from his life as suddenly as she’d reappeared, was an armed guard. Then maybe he could confront her and walk away in one piece. Reluctantly, Sean turned and looked. Three seconds was all he permitted himself. Lily Banyon wasn’t going to catch him staring like some hormone-crazed adolescent. Three seconds was more than enough, though. Lily’s image burned, a brilliant flame behind his retinas. She looked good. No, make that great, incredible . . . yes, magnificent. She’d chopped off her hair, about a foot and a half of it. Her wheat-blonde locks fell in a casual, tousled style, framing her face, accentuating those startling, ice-crystal blue eyes. She looked even better than he remembered, a memory hot enough to make him lie awake at night, aching.

Today we know that there are multiple reasons for the changing water levels. One factor is the amount of water coming in from the Volga which is tied to the rainfall of a huge catchment region – all of which in turn relates to the atmospheric conditions of the North Atlantic. Many scientists now believe that these fluctuations reflect climatic changes in the northern hemisphere, making the Caspian Sea an important field of study for climate change investigations. Other theories claim that the water levels are affected by tectonic forces. These are exactly the kinds of global connections that interested Humboldt. To see the Caspian Sea, Humboldt wrote to Wilhelm, was one of the ‘highlights of my life

The emotional roller coaster of rescue work never seemed to end. I named my facility “Cougar Country” to highlight my focus, but I found myself called to help many different animals--in veterinarians’ offices, in the field, in classrooms and courtrooms. Somehow I kept it all together, and ran Westates Flagman, too. My day had forty-eight hours. It helped that I had no social life.

Beauty tip: Put a little lemon juice in your hair at the beginning of spring, and you’ll have natural highlights by the end of summer.

But first Paul explains the strange double life that results for those who—like his own former self—are living “under the law,” delighting in it as God’s law, but finding that it accuses them: We know, you see, that the law is spiritual. I, however, am made of flesh, sold as a slave under Sin’s authority. I don’t understand what I do. I don’t do what I want, you see, but I do what I hate. So if I do what I don’t want to do, I am agreeing that the law is good. But now it is no longer I that do it; it’s Sin, living within me. I know, you see, that no good thing lives in me, that is, in my human flesh. For I can will the good, but I can’t perform it. For I don’t do the good thing I want to do, but I end up doing the evil thing I don’t want to do. So if I do what I don’t want to do, it’s no longer “I” doing it; it’s Sin, living inside me. (7:14–20) Doubtless, this passage has multiple resonances in the experience of anyone who has ever tried to keep any serious moral code. Doubtless too it is framed in such a way as to resonate with the non-Jewish moralistic tradition. But the main purpose of the passage does not lie in either of those areas. Paul is not attempting to describe either the normal Christian life or the normal pre-Christian life. He is not saying of any particular stage of spiritual experience, “This is what it feels like at the time,” true though that might be. He is highlighting the outworking of the divine purpose in the deeply ambiguous nature of Israel under the Torah. Israel rightly embraced the law as the divinely given covenant charter, but found that all the law could do was to show “Sin” up and actually cause it to swell to its full extent. It may at first glance seem astonishing. But Paul is affirming that this was what God had intended all along when giving the law to a people who, as Israel’s own scriptures testified repeatedly, were themselves rebellious, idolatrous, and sinful.

Lauren Finch is pretty. Not just because she has good skin and the right clothes. She has the right everything. She’s universally appealing. Her nose is tiny, her eyebrows are close to her eyes, and everything about her is bright and brilliant, like someone turned up the highlights on her real-life filter. She doesn’t have to wonder if guys will like her because of her race. Nobody will tell her she’s “pretty, for a white girl.” She’s just pretty, period. I don’t stand a chance. Because I will never be bright and brilliant like Lauren. I have pale skin and dark hair, and my eyes are too small. She’s colors and candy; I’m pencils and smudges.

Put a little lemon juice in your hair at the beginning of spring, and you’ll have natural highlights by the end of summer.

Lauren Finch is pretty. Not just because she has good skin and the right clothes. She has the right everything. She's universally appealing. Her nose is tiny, her eyebrows are close to her eyes, and everything about her is bright and brilliant, like someone turned up the highlights on her real-life filter. She doesn't have to wonder if guys like her because of her race. Nobody will tell her she's "pretty, for a white girl." She's just pretty, period. I don't stand a chance. Because I will never be bright and brilliant like Lauren. I have pale skin and dark hair, and my eyes are too small. She's colors and candy; I'm pencils and smudges.

Lauren Finch is pretty. Not just because she has good skin and the right clothes. She has the right everything. She's universally appealing. Her nose is tiny, her eyebrows are close to her eyes, and everything about her is bright and brilliant, like someone turned up the highlights on her real-life filter. She doesn't have to wonder if guys like her because of her race. Nobody will tell her she's "pretty, for a white girl." She's just pretty, period. I don't stand a chance. Because I will never be bright and brilliant like Lauren. I have pale skin and dark hair, and my eyes are too small. She's colors and candy; I'm pencils and smudges.

Octavio : “My name is Octavio Coleman, Esquire and for more than 40 years, I have given my life, my spirit and my vital energy in pursuit of one endeavor to illuminate the oneness which lays hidden in plain sight right before your eyes and under your nose. To highlight the illusion of separateness which permeates our thinking and is responsible for all forms of human strife.

Instead of yearning for a problem-free life, rejoice that trouble can highlight your awareness of My Presence. In the darkness of adversity, you are able to see more clearly the radiance of My Face. Accept the value of problems in this life, considering them pure joy.

I said that our up-high father had made my life better. Once, I said, I used to drink like the Pirahãs. I had many women (exaggerating somewhat here), and I was unhappy. Then the up-high father came into my heart and made me happy and made my life better. I gave no thought to whether all these new concepts, metaphors, and names that I was inventing on the fly were actually intelligible to the Pirahãs. They made sense to me. This night, I decided to tell them something very personal about myself—something that I thought would make them understand how important God can be in our lives. So I told the Pirahãs how my stepmother committed suicide and how this led me to Jesus and how my life got better after I stopped drinking and doing drugs and accepted Jesus. I told this as a very serious story. When I concluded, the Pirahãs burst into laughter. This was unexpected, to put it mildly. I was used to reactions like “Praise God!”with my audience genuinely impressed by the great hardships I had been through and how God had pulled me out of them. “Why are you laughing?” I asked. “She killed herself? Ha ha ha. How stupid. Pirahãs don’t kill themselves,” they answered. They were utterly unimpressed. It was clear to them that the fact that someone I had loved had committed suicide was no reason at all for the Pirahãs to believe in my God. Indeed, it had the opposite effect, highlighting our differences. This was a setback for my missionary objectives. Days went by after this in which I thought long and hard about my purpose among the Pirahãs.

What’s my big beef with capitalism? That it desacralizes everything, robs the world of wonder, and leaves it as nothing more than a vulgar market. The fastest way to cheapen anything—be it a woman, a favor, or a work of art—is to put a price tag on it. And that’s what capitalism is, a busy greengrocer going through his store with a price-sticker machine—ka-CHUNK! ka-CHUNK!—$4.10 for eggs, $5 for coffee at Sightglass, $5,000 per month for a run-down one-bedroom in the Mission. Think I’m exaggerating? Stop and think for a moment what this whole IPO ritual was about. For the first time, Facebook shares would have a public price. For all the pageantry and cheering, this was Mr. Market coming along with his price-sticker machine and—ka-CHUNK!—putting one on Facebook for $38 per share. And everyone was ecstatic about it. It was one of the highlights of the technology industry, and one of the “once in a lifetime” moments of our age. In pre-postmodern times, only a divine ritual of ancient origin, victory in war, or the direct experience of meaningful culture via shared songs, dances, or art would cause anybody such revelry. Now we’re driven to ecstasies of delirium because we have a price tag, and our life’s labors are validated by the fact it does. That’s the smoldering ambition of every entrepreneur: to one day create an organization that society deems worthy of a price tag. These are the only real values we have left in the twilight of history, the tired dead end of liberal democratic capitalism, at least here in the California fringes of Western civilization. Clap at the clever people getting rich, and hope you’re among them. Is it a wonder that the inhabitants of such a world clamor for contrived rituals of artificial significance like Burning Man, given the utter bankruptcy of meaning in their corporatized culture? Should we be surprised that they cling to identities, clusters of consumption patterns, that seem lifted from the ads-targeting system at Facebook: “hipster millennials,” “urban mommies,” “affluent suburbanites”? Ortega y Gasset wrote: “Men play at tragedy because they do not believe in the reality of the tragedy which is actually being staged in the civilized world.” Tragedy plays like the IPO were bound to pale for those who felt the call of real tragedy, the tragedy that poets once captured in verse, and that fathers once passed on to sons. Would the inevitable descendants of that cheering courtyard crowd one day gather with their forebears, perhaps in front of a fireplace, and ask, “Hey, Grandpa, what was it like to be at the Facebook IPO?” the way previous generations asked about Normandy or the settling of the Western frontier? I doubt it. Even as a participant in this false Mass, the temporary thrill giving way quickly to fatigue and a budding hangover, I wondered what would happen to the culture when it couldn’t even produce spectacles like this anymore.

For pretty much my whole life, I thought I was living to better myself, to create the best life possible. About a year ago, that mindset changed. I now believe I’m here to create the best world possible. This shift from me to everyone is what altered my entire understanding of passion, and my purpose. Ben Horowitz is one of my digital mentors (meaning I follow his blog). I find him very insightful. Whenever he says (or writes about) anything, I inevitably start nodding my head until my neck is sore. Here’s an excerpt from the commencement speech he gave at Columbia, his alma mater: “Following your passion is a very me centered view of the world, and as you go through life, what you’ll find is that what you take out of the world over time—be it…money, cars, stuff, accolades—is much less important than what you put into the world. And so my recommendation would be to follow your contribution. Find the thing that you’re great at, put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better. That is the thing to follow." Most of the time, if you follow your contribution, it’s either already a passion, or likely to become one. Doing something you’re good at is intoxicating, as is contributing to the world. Writing and launching The Connection Algorithm was a full year of hard work. It was the result of countless hours of reflection, deeply philosophical thinking, and brutal honesty. Throughout the entire process, I felt driven, passionate, and motivated. At first, I thought this was because I was doing it on my own. But I’ve come to realize it was something else—something far more profound. Shortly after the book was released, I began receiving emails from people who had read the book and been deeply impacted by it. A highschooler in Miami. An entrepreneur in Amsterdam. A small business owner in the midwest. People were also leaving reviews on Amazon—people I didn’t know, saying the book helped them live a better life. And on my Kindle, I could see passages that people were highlighting. People weren’t just reading my book, they were taking notes on useful things to remember. The craft of writing has been unbelievably fulfilling for me. And so I’m continuing the pursuit. My motivation is no longer to make a buck, or “win at life.” Rather, I’m working to improve the world. I think of myself as an inventor, creating a new piece of art for the world to discover. When you make the world better, you get rewarded. So find your craft, and then determine the best contribution you can make with it.

The parameters of the actual world are expansive, and people can view you from any angle (literally and metaphorically), while online you need only fit yourself into a fixed box whose conditions you control and manipulate. The offline version of me is obviously deeply flawed, though it’s easy to start believing otherwise, because I spend so much time immersed in my online self. Online, I can create someone who is not impatient, does not misspeak, is not self-centered, is always standing in the best lighting, and on and on. The highlights of my life are posted in that space, and everyone reacts in predictable ways—that is, the ways I want

I love what Sarah Young wrote in her book, Jesus Calling. She wrote it as if God were speaking: Make Me the focal point of your search for security. In your private thoughts, you are still trying to order your world so that it is predictable and feels safe. Not only is this an impossible goal, but it is also counterproductive to spiritual growth. When your private world feels unsteady and you grip My hand for support, you are living in conscious dependence on Me. Instead of yearning for a problem-free life, rejoice that trouble can highlight your awareness of My presence.4

Some actors come into work and wait to be told what to do. I think of my costar in Barefoot in the Park who needed to be told that she should express affection toward the man with whom she is madly in love. I suppose those actors can do well. But I’m not that kind of actor. I have a finite time on earth. I’m not interested in coasting through it. I want to be invested. An invested actor asks questions that may punch holes in the story or highlight contradictions in a character the writers may not have considered. Asking those questions might mean we have to rethink a beat in the script or redo the blocking. It might mean more work. And that might upset people momentarily. But in the end I’d rather do more work and get it right and give the finished product a richness and resonance that will last.

Yeah, man. I can’t wait to get soaking wet again. Highlight of my life.

White Man, to you my voice is like the unheard call in the wilderness. It is there, though you do not hear it. But, this once, take the time to listen to what I have to say. Your history is highlighted by your wars. Why is it all right for your nations to conquer each other in your attempts at domination? When you sailed to our lands, you came with your advanced weapons. You claimed you were a progressive, civilized people. And today, White Man, you have the ultimate weapons. Warfare which could destroy all men, all creation. And you allow such power to be in the hands of those few who have such little value in true wisdom. White Man, when you first came, most of our tribes began with peace and trust in dealing with you, strange white intruders. We showed you how to survive in our homelands. We were willing to share with you our vast wealth. Instead of repaying us with gratitude, you, White Man, turned on us, your friends. You turned on us with your advanced weapons and your cunning trickery. When we, the Indian people, realized your intentions, we rose to do battle, to defend our nations, our homes, our food, our lives. And for our efforts, we are labelled savages, and our battles are called massacres. And when our primitive weapons could not match those which you had perfected through centuries of wars, we realized that peace could not be won, unless our mass destruction took place. And so we turned to treaties. And this time, we ran into your cunning trickery. And we lost our lands, our freedom, and were confined to reservations. And we are held in contempt. 'As long as the Sun shall rise...' For you, White Man, these are words without meaning. White Man, there is much in the deep, simple wisdom of our forefathers. We were here for centuries. We kept the land, the waters, the air clean and pure, for our children and our children's children. Now that you are here, White Man, the rivers bleed with contamination. The winds moan with the heavy weight of pollution in the air. The land vomits up the poisons which have been fed into it. Our Mother Earth is no longer clean and healthy. She is dying. White Man, in your greedy rush for money and power, you are destroying. Why must you have power over everything? Why can't you live in peace and harmony? Why can't you share the beauty and the wealth which Mother Earth has given us? You do not stop at confining us to small pieces of rock an muskeg. Where are the animals of the wilderness to go when there is no more wilderness? Why are the birds of the skies falling to their extinction? Is there joy for you when you bring down the mighty trees of our forests? No living things seems sacred to you. In the name of progress, everything is cut down. And progress means only profits. White Man, you say that we are a people without dignity. But when we are sick, weak, hungry, poor, when there is nothing for us but death, what are we to do? We cannot accept a life which has been imposed on us. You say that we are drunkards, that we live for drinking. But drinking is a way of dying. Dying without enjoying life. You have given us many diseases. It is true that you have found immunizations for many of these diseases. But this was done more for your own benefit. The worst disease, for which there is no immunity, is the disease of alcoholism. And you condemn us for being its easy victims. And those who do not condemn us weep for us and pity us. So, we the Indian people, we are still dying. The land we lost is dying, too. White Man, you have our land now. Respect it. As we once did. Take care of it. As we once did. Love it. As we once did. White Man, our wisdom is dying. As we are. But take heed, if Indian wisdom dies, you, White Man, will not be far behind. So weep not for us. Weep for yourselves. And for your children. And for their children. Because you are taking everything today. And tomorrow, there will be nothing left for them.

Hold still." Emma squirmed again, her lush lips curving in a smile as she gazed up at me coyly. "But it tickles." My dick pulsed, sheer lust twisting my insides up in knots. But I kept my hands steady. "Almost there." I piped another series of rosettes along the curve of her breast, heading for the pretty little pouting nipple, now deep pink and stiff. Her breath hitched, and I gave her a wicked smile. "Be good, or I won't lick it off." "Liar. You can't wait." She was laid out on my bed, wearing nothing but the lemon-buttercream flowers and swirls I'd decorated her lovely body with. "Guilty as charged." My mouth actually watered with the need to taste her, mix her flavors with my cream. Fuck up into the tight, silky-hot clasp of her body, where it felt both like home and the best pleasure I'd ever had in my life. My hand shook a little as I circled her perky nipple, choosing to highlight rather than cover it. Emma bit her bottom lip, her lids lowering as she subtly arched into the tip of the pastry bag. Heat rippled through me, and I tossed the buttercream aside. "Now, where to start?" I wanted it all at once. Every delectable inch of her. Always. All the time. Impatient and aching, I stroked my shaft, keeping the hold light lest I blow now. Because nothing looked more delicious than Emma Maron spread out before me, smiling in that way that said she was all mine. Happiness warred with lust, making for a heady cocktail in my veins. I had Emma right where I wanted her----with me. Everything else took a back seat to her and the way she watched me palm my dick, all greedy need and anticipation. It fueled my own.

Each of these monumental performances was a highlight of my career, but my anxiety about all of them paled in comparison to how nervous I was for this event [playing with my daughter]. The fact that it was just a gymnasium of parents sipping iced, non-fat lattes while fingering their cell phones made no difference to me. I was there for Violet and it was crucial that this performance go smoothly. So every spare moment I had from that day forward was spent preparing to be her flawless musical accompaniment.... this is the most important gig of my life, I thought.

KIRKUS REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW A retired professor explores the life and writings of Carl Sandburg in this debut book. “During the first half of the twentieth century,” Quinley writes, “Carl Sandburg seemed to be everywhere and do everything.” Though best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning poetry and multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Sandburg had a wide-ranging career as a public intellectual, which included stints in journalism as a columnist and investigative reporter, in musicology as a leading advocate and performer of folk music, and in the nascent movie industry as a consultant and film critic. He also dabbled in political activism, children’s literature, and novels. Not only does Quinley, a retired college administrator and professor, hail Sandburg as a 20th-century icon (“If my grandpa asks you a question,” his grandchildren joke, “the answer is always Carl Sandburg”), but much of his own life has been adjacent to that of the poet as well. Born in Maywood, Illinois, a “few blocks” from Sandburg’s home 30 years prior, Quinley would eventually move to the Appalachian Mountains. He lived just a few miles from Sandburg’s famed residence in Hendersonville, North Carolina. As a docent for the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, the author was often asked for literature about the luminary’s life. And though much has been written about Sandburg, biographies on the iconoclast are either out of print or are tomes with more than 800 pages. Eschewing comprehensiveness for brevity, Quinley seeks to fill this void in the literary world by offering readers a short introduction to Sandburg’s life and writings. At just 122 pages, this accessible book packs a solid punch, providing readers with not just the highlights of Sandburg’s life, but also a sophisticated analysis of his passions, poetry, and influence on American culture. This engaging approach that’s tailored to a general audience is complemented by an ample assortment of historical photographs. And while its hagiographic tone may annoy some readers, this slim volume is backed by more than 260 endnotes and delivers an extensive bibliography for readers interested in learning more about the 20th century’s “voice of America.” A well-written, concise examination of a literary legend Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 2600 Via Fortuna Suite 130 Austin, TX 78746 indie@kirkusreviews.com

Poet Ayoade, the first African immigrant to serve as a nuclear missile operator in the United States Air Force, debuts with an inspirational memoir chronicling his childhood in Nigeria and journey to become a doctor and American citizen. Ayoade, who at the age of seven promised his mother “One day, I will take you far away from here,” details his upbringing with an abusive father and the many family tragedies he endured—along with his dedication to creating a different life: “Underground is my unusual journey from childhood poverty to where I am today. How the impossible became a reality.” Readers will be swept into Ayoade’s vivid recollections of his early years, including his strict education, brushes with death, and a strained relationship with his father. He recounts the family’s passion for American movies that made “America seem like the perfect place,” sparking his desire for a better future, and details his decision to become a veterinarian and eventually pursue a career in the U.S. military to ensure the best life for his family (and future generations). Ayoade’s story is moving, particularly his reconciliation with his father and hard-earned American citizenship, and his message that it’s never too late to chase your dreams resonates. That message will evoke strong emotions for readers as Ayoade highlights the importance of hard work and the benefit of a committed support system, alongside his constant “wishing, praying, and fighting to be free from all the sadness and injustice around me”—a theme that echoes through much of the book, including in his acknowledgement that the fear he experienced as a nuclear missile operator was a “cost of this freedom.” Ayoade’s poetry and personal photographs are sprinkled throughout, illuminating his deep love for family and his ultimate belief in liberty as “The reason for it all./ A foundation for a new generation,/ The best gift to any child.” Takeaway: This stirring memoir documents an immigrant’s fight for the American dream. Great for fans of: Ashley C. Ford’s Somebody's Daughter, Maria Hinojosa’s Once I Was You. Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

I initially capture into my notes. They are like the ground on which my understanding will be built. Layer two is “oil,” as in “I’ve struck oil!,” conveniently represented by black, bolded text. Layer three is “gold,” which is even more valuable, and shines in highlighter yellow in many apps. Layer four is the “gems,” the most rare and illuminating finds that I’ve distilled in my own words as an executive summary.

By illustrating what it took for me to practice transplantation, and by painting a picture, with the stories of my patients, of how the discipline has touched so many, I hope to highlight the incredible gift transplantation is to all involved, from the donors to the recipients to those of us lucky enough to be the stewards of the organs. I also will show the true courage of the pioneers in transplant, those who had the courage to fail but also the courage to succeed.

wish I could rewrite you out of my life But all your pages are highlighted Dog-eared and thumbed to death I can no longer read you But you are still my favorite poem

I liked that he didn't seem to mind taking things slow. Sometimes we'd read books, my head in his lap as he played with my hair or stroked my head. Jonathan had started to alleviate some of the loneliness I faced on a daily basis, and the time I spent with him highlighted how much better it was to experience things with someone who cared about you in a way that was different from your roommate or family. For years, I'd ordered my hamburgers plain and never entertained the possibility of eating them any other way until Janice gave me one with ketchup, and I realized how much better it tasted. "You're like the ketchup in my life," I'd told Jonathan one night on the phone, and he laughed. "I don't know what that means, exactly, but if it makes you happy, I'm honored to be your condiment." That was another thing I really liked about him. He never made me feel stupid about the weird things that came out of my mouth.

I have often wondered why nineteenth-century French novelists were so often obsessed with painters and painting, while in the 1700s Diderot was the only writer of his generation to take an interest in art criticism. What a striking contrast that not one well-known novelist of the 1800s failed to include a painter as a character in his work. This is fair enough for Balzac and Zola, who had ambitions to bring every aspect of society to life, but read Stendhal, Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers, Anatole France, Huysmans, Maupassant, Mirbeau, and of course Proust, and you enter a world in which painting is surprisingly important. What is more, all these novelists explored not only how a painter sees things but also how he looks at them, and this produced a new way of writing. “I would just have liked to see you dismantle the mechanism of my eye. I enhance the image, that much is sure, but I don’t enhance it as Balzac does, any more than Balzac enhances it as Hugo does,” Émile Zola told his protégé Henry Céard, highlighting the visual nature of novels at the time. This was essentially a French phenomenon; it has no real equivalent in England, Germany, or Russia. In the United States, it was not until the end of the century that painting became a literary subject in the work of Henry James. In England, Woolf would be the first to write about the influence painting had on literature. Why the sudden, widespread interest in France? I believe that this new way of seeing and writing was facilitated by the creation of museums in France after the French Revolution. Frequent long visits to the Louvre gave a whole cohort of young writers a genuine knowledge of painting, a shared language with their painter friends, and a desire to enrich their own works with this newly acquired erudition. The visual novel dates from this period.

Minimizing Checklist How will you know when you’ve cleared out enough clutter and excess from your living room and family room or great room? Ask yourself these questions: ☐ Is this space calming? Does it reduce stress? ☐ Does this space encourage conversation? ☐ Is this space inviting to my family? To my friends? ☐ Is this space easy to maintain? ☐ Does this space highlight what is important to our family? ☐ Does this space encourage my family to live life to the fullest? ☐ Does this space promote our family’s values?

Just because I like my romance novels on the spicy side, it doesn’t mean this man isn’t a smug asshole for talking to me like that in real life. Besides, when has a real man ever measured up to the breathless, sexy scenes that fill my Kindle and keep my highlights tool working overtime?

Just because I like my romance novels on the spicy side, it doesn’t mean this man isn’t a smug asshole for talking to me like that in real life. Besides, when has a real man ever measured up to the breathless, sexy scenes that fill my Kindle and keep my highlights tool working overtime? Precisely never.

You are the highlight of my life, Abby. The greatest thing I'll ever do is love and be loved by you.

What is the story I have told myself about this experience? Does it support the highest aspects of the person I am and am becoming? How might I (re)tell my resilience story, so the narrative is empowering and highlights my strengths as a person, in leadership and life?

No matter how authentic I try to be online, I’m still only showing the highlight reel of my life. You don’t see all the stuff dropped on the cutting room floor. So please, please don’t compare your outtakes with everyone else’s highlight reel.

In my past life, there were a number of LGBTQ activists who had criticized the entertainers using their flamboyant sexuality as a selling point on TV. I think their criticism was likely on point. But here’s what else I think: Without going so far as to say it’s the right or wrong thing to do, some people out there can’t live their lives without making light of their problems. Of course these entertainers were contributing to homophobic stereotypes. And of course I’d prefer it if we could eliminate homophobia altogether. But some queer people living in the real world will also, inevitably, act in ways that highlight the prejudices they experience. Maybe they’ll have other reasons for acting the way they do, but I think that need to lampshade their problems is one of them. Some people can’t live with their burdens without cracking wise about them. When you’re queer and you fall in love with someone who can never respond to your feelings in kind, they often still behave more intimately with you than they would with someone of the opposite sex. But after the moment you realize you’re in love with them, that just makes them feel even further away. If you run into this problem again and again, before you realize it, you might become the kind of person who can only helplessly laugh the whole thing off. Not everyone ends up like that, of course. It just so happened that I had.

When I first read about the theory many years ago, my first thought was that life was all about not just biological life but life. No wonder a two-hour movie can capture—or seem to capture—the entire life of Mahatma Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, Muhammad Ali, or Coco Chanel. Moviemakers use punctuated equilibria to eliminate the stasis from the lives of heroes and celebrities, highlighting only the punctuations. History books apply the same technique to chronicle the life of an entire civilization over thousands of years by compressing narratives into a few hundred pages. On my desk lies a copy of Duff McDonald’s book The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business, which compresses almost a century of the consulting firm’s existence into a mere four hundred pages. Now that I have seen the theory, I can no longer unsee it; it seems to apply everywhere I look. But let me not get carried away.

P2 - We are well on the way in a number of areas. Both billionaires and big Pharma are getting increasingly interested and money is starting to pour into research because it is clear we can see the light at the end of the tunnel which to investors equates to return on investment. Numerous factors will drive things forward and interest and awareness is increasing rapidly among both scientists, researchers and the general population as well as wealthy philanthropists. The greatest driving force of all is that the baby boomers are aging and this will place increasing demands on healthcare systems. Keep in mind that the average person costs more in medical expenditure in the last year of their life than all the other years put together. Also, the number of workers is declining in most developed countries which means that we need to keep the existing population working and productive as long as possible. Below are a list which are basically all technologies potentially leading to radical life extension with number 5 highlighted which I assume might well be possible in the second half of the century: 1. Biotechnology - e.g stem cell therapies, enhanced autophagy, pharmaceuticals, immunotherapies, etc 2. Nanotechnology - Methods of repairing the body at a cellular and molecular level such as nanobots. 3. Robotics - This could lead to the replacement of increasing numbers of body parts and tends to go hand in hand with AI and whole brain emulation. It can be argued that this is not life extension and that it is a path toward becoming a Cyborg but I don’t share that view because even today we don’t view a quadriplegic as less human if he has four bionic limbs and this will hold true as our technology progresses. 4. Gene Therapies - These could be classified under the first category but I prefer to look at it separately as it could impact the function of the body in very dramatic ways which would suppress genes that negatively impact us and enhance genes which increase our tendency toward longer and healthier lives. 5. Whole brain emulation and mindscaping - This is in effect mind transfer to a non biological host although it could equally apply to uploading the brain to a new biological brain created via tissue engineering this has the drawback that if the original brain continues to exist the second brain would have a separate existence in other words whilst you are identical at the time of upload increasing divergence over time will be inevitable but it means the consciousness could never die provided it is appropriately backed up. So what is the chance of success with any of these? My answer is that in order for us to fail to achieve radical life extension by the middle of the century requires that all of the above technologies must also fail to progress which simply won't happen and considering the current rate of development which is accelerating exponentially and then factoring in that only one or two of the above are needed to achieve life extension (although the end results would differ greatly) frankly I can’t see how we can fail to make enough progress within 10-20 years to add at least 20 to 30 years to current life expectancy from which point progress will rapidly accelerate due to increased funding turning aging at the very least into a manageable albeit a chronic incurable condition until the turn of the 22nd century. We must also factor in that there is also a possibility that we could find a faster route if a few more technologies like CRISPR were to be developed. Were that to happen things could move forward very rapidly. In the short term I'm confident that we will achieve significant positive results within a year or two in research on mice and that the knowledge acquired will then be transferred to humans within around a decade. According to ADG, a dystopian version of the post-aging world like in the film 'In Time' not plausible in the real world: "If you CAREFULLY watch just the first

but let me tell you this: aside from the birth of my four children, graduating from James Madison is the biggest and greatest highlight of my life. It’s more important than the five Super Bowls, the Hall of Fame, whatever.

Go away! All of you! Just get the hell away from me!” I turned on my heel, the sodden folds of my nightgown clinging to my legs like wet spider webs. “Regina! Don’t be an idiot!” Konner growled, his boots and cane raggedly thumping behind me. I walked faster, lengthening my stride no matter how much my thighs screamed in protest, until a hand latched on my shoulder. “No! You don’t get to say anything!” Using my finger like a sword, I jabbed my finger in the center of his chest. Freya’s jaws snapping closed with a loud pop, barely missing my fingertip by seconds as her long neck stretched out towards my hand. “You could have avoided all this by seeing it! You have that magic, if you wouldn’t be so stupid and use it!” The seeping rain slowed, turning into a fine shower of mist straight from the heavens above, and it dripped off the tightly carved lines of his face pulled sharp with tension. He was silent, still as stone, with nothing but the slight heave of his shoulders even proof that he was alive. His eyes dropped from my face, the uneven shadow of blonde hair hiding them from my sight. Part of his neck bobbed with the effort of a heavy swallow, like he had something stuck, and the tentative flicker of something else across face made me take a step back. A flash of anger, chilled by fear, a few tiny cracks started to appear in his stoic mask. Ones that I’m not sure why, but they made a strange ache start to stab deep in my heart. “Do you love him?” So soft that it was nearly lost in the rolling thunder, I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen his lips move. “Yes. No! I don’t know!” I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t love Ivo, not like that. But I couldn’t lose him either. “He’s my friend! My best friend! Why does it matter?” “I see. It matters more than you know.” Konner drawled slowly, the thick muscles of his shoulders rolling in a shrug that sent rivers of rainwater coursing down his chest. Mixing with the streaks of bloody red and ash grey in a ghoulish highlight to his muscles, the water slowly pooled in the ruined fabric of his shirt, further pulling it down his shoulders. He led out a heavy sigh, then suddenly straightened to the full length of his imposing height. Shoulders back and spine stiff. Then he straightened, drawing himself up to his full imposing height, and clasped his right arm across his chest. With his clenched fist resting right over his heart, he slowly lowered himself down to one knee at my feet, bowing his head over until it nearly touched my thighs. “Then I’ll get him back for you. I swear it on my life!