“
I stood under the awning for a moment, but finally I decided that being in a bad mood with your friends beats being in a bad mood without them.
”
”
John Green (Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances)
“
You do that, and I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about you."
He grinned, his mood changing from serious to wicked in an instant. "Why? I'm all those things and more.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (Home for the Holidays (Night Huntress, #6.5))
“
tinseled trees shimmer
in the electric mood spin
of frantic whimsy
”
”
Susie Clevenger (Fragments: Haiku and Verse of Seasons)
“
Everything bad was worse at the holidays, he knew that from the years of his dad’s absence. All around you were people in an extra-happy mood, and it just made your own hurt bigger.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane (Underland Chronicles, #2))
“
The conference is geared to people who enjoy meaningful discussions and sometimes "move a conversation to a deeper level, only to find out we are the only ones there." . . . When it's my turn, I talk about how I've never been in a group environment in which I didn't feel obliged to present an unnaturally rah-rah version of myself. . . .
Scientists can easily report on the behavior of extroverts, who can often be found laughing, talking, or gesticulating. But "if a person is standing in the corner of a room, you can attribute about fifteen motivations to that person. But you don't really know what's going on inside." . . .
So what is the inner behavior of people whose most visible feature is that when you take them to a party they aren't very pleased about it? . . .
The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive . . . . They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions--sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear.
Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments--both physical and emotional--unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss--another person's shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly. . . .
[Inside fMRI machines], the sensitive people were processing the photos at a more elaborate level than their peers . . . . It may also help explain why they're so bored by small talk. "If you're thinking in more complicated ways," she told me, "then talking about the weather or where you went for the holidays is not quite as interesting as talking about values or morality."
The other thing Aron found about sensitive people is that sometimes they're highly empathic. It's as if they have thinner boundaries separating them from other people's emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world. They tend to have unusually strong consciences. They avoid violent movies and TV shows; they're acutely aware of the consequences of a lapse in their own behavior. In social settings they often focus on subjects like personal problems, which others consider "too heavy.
”
”
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
“
This holiday mood of Napoleon’s was almost a madness. He had appeared at dinner two nights ago dressed as the Pontiff and lewdly asked Joséphine how intimate she would like to be with God. I stared into the chicken.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (The Passion)
“
So,Batman,eh?"
Effing St. Clair.
I cross my arms and slouch into one of the plastic seats. I am so not in the mood for this.He takes the chair next to me and drapes a relaxed arm over the back of the empty seat on his other side. The man across from us is engrossed in his laptop,and I pretend to be engrossed in his laptop,too. Well,the back of it.
St. Clair hums under his breath. When I don't respond,he sings quietly. "Jingle bells,Batman smells,Robin flew away..."
"Yes,great,I get it.Ha ha. Stupid me."
"What? It's just a Christmas song." He grins and continues a bit louder. "Batmobile lost a wheel,on the M1 motorway,hey!"
"Wait." I frown. "What?"
"What what?"
"You're singing it wrong."
"No,I'm not." He pauses. "How do you sing it?"
I pat my coat,double-checking for my passport. Phew. Still there. "It's 'Jingle bells, Batman smells,Robin laid an egg'-"
St. Clair snorts. "Laid an egg? Robin didn't lay an egg-"
"'Batmobile lost a wheel,and the Joker got away.'"
He stares at me for a moment,and then says with perfect conviction. "No."
"Yes.I mean,seriously,what's up with the motorway thing?"
"M1 motorway. Connects London to Leeds."
I smirk. "Batman is American. He doesn't take the M1 motorway."
"When he's on holiday he does."
"Who says Batman has time to vacation?"
"Why are we arguing about Batman?" He leans forward. "You're derailing us from the real topic.The fact that you, Anna Oliphant,slept in today."
"Thanks."
"You." He prods my leg with a finger. "Slept in."
I focus on the guy's laptop again. "Yeah.You mentioned that."
He flashes a crooked smile and shrugs, that full-bodied movement that turns him from English to French. "Hey, we made it,didn't we? No harm done."
I yank out a book from my backpack, Your Movie Sucks, a collection of Roger Ebert's favorite reviews of bad movies. A visual cue for him to leave me alone. St. Clair takes the hint. He slumps and taps his feet on the ugly blue carpeting.
I feel guilty for being so harsh. If it weren't for him,I would've missed the flight. St. Clair's fingers absentmindedly drum his stomach. His dark hair is extra messy this morning. I'm sure he didn't get up that much earlier than me,but,as usual, the bed-head is more attractive on him. With a painful twinge,I recall those other mornings together. Thanksgiving.Which we still haven't talked about.
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
Tyler had bandaged her burns, and she had soothed his bruises. They hadn’t made love, though she knew they’d both wanted to. But sometimes those aches and pains were a little too much to get in the mood.
”
”
Carrie Ann Ryan (Finding Abigail (Holiday, Montana, #3))
“
I'll fix things up with George soon as she gets here," Anthony mumbled. "You may depend upon it."
"Oh,I know you will, but you'll have to hie yourself back to London to do so, since she ain't coming here. Didn't want to inflict her dour mood on the festivities, so decided it ould be best to absent herself."
Anthony looked appalled now and complained, "You didn't say she was that mad."
"Didn't I? Think you're wearing that black eye just because she's a mite annoyed?"
"That will do," Jason said sternly. "This entire situation is intolerable.And frankly, I find it beyond amazing that you have both utterly lost your finesse in dealing ith women since you married."
That,of course, hit quite below the belt where these two ex[rakes were concerned. "Ouch," James muttered, then in his own defense, "American women are an exception to any known rule, and bloody stubbron besides."
"So are Scots,for that matter," Anthony added. "They just don't behave like normal Enlgishwomen,Jason,indeed they don't."
"Regardless.You know my feelings on the entire family gathering here for Christmas.This is not the time for anyone in the family to be harboring any ill will of any sort.You both should have patched this up before the holidays began. See that you do so immediately, if you both have to return to London to do so."
Having said his peace, Jason headed for the door to leave his brothers to mull over their conduct,or rather, misconduct, but added before he left, "You both look like bloody panda bears.D'you have any idea what kind of example that sets for the children?"
"Panda bears indeed," Anthony snorted as soon as the door closed.
James looked up to reply drolly, "Least the roof is still intact.
”
”
Johanna Lindsey (The Holiday Present)
“
Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick: or, the White Whale)
“
Her mother, an unshapely, chubby-cheeked creature from the rural gentry of Styria, permanently lost her hair at the age of forty after being treated for influenza by her husband, and prematurely withdrew from society. She and her husband were able to live in the Gentzgasse thanks to her mother's fortune, which derived from the family estates in Styria and then devolved upon her. She provided for everything, since her husband earned nothing as a doctor. He was a socialite, what is known as a beau, who went to all the big Viennese balls during the carnival season and throughout his life was able to conceal his stupidity behind a pleasingly slim exterior. Throughout her life Auersberger's mother-in-law had a raw deal from her husband, but was content to accept her modest social station, not that of a member of the nobility, but one that was thoroughly petit bourgeois. Her son-in-law, as I suddenly recalled, sitting in the wing chair, made a point of hiding her wig from time to time--whenever the mood took him--both in the Gentzgasse and at the Maria Zaal in Styria, so that the poor woman was unable to leave the house. It used to amuse him, after he had hidden her wig, to drive his mother-in-law up the wall, as they say. Even when he was going on forty he used to hide her wigs--by that time she has provided herself with several--which was a symptom of his sickness and infantility. I often witnessed this game of hide-and-seek at Maria Zaal and in the Gentzgasse, and I honestly have to say that I was amused by it and did not feel in the least bit ashamed of myself. His mother-in-law would be forced to stay at home because her son-in-law had hidden her wigs, and this was especially likely to happen on public holidays. In the end he would throw the wig in her face. He needed his mother-in-law's humiliation, I reflected, sitting in the wing chair and observing him in the background of the music room, just as he needed the triumph that this diabolical behavior brought him.
”
”
Thomas Bernhard (Woodcutters)
“
Serotonin, a brain neurotransmitter, is known to be low in some depressions; studies show that normal sunlight causes the body to release serotonin, which is one reason people living far from the equator feel rejuvenated and in a good mood on sunny holidays. Laser light also releases serotonin, as well as other important brain chemicals, such as endorphins, which lower pain, and acetylcholine, which is essential for learning—and which might help an injured brain relearn mental abilities that have been lost. Kahn, Naeser, and the Harvard group believe that laser light affects the cerebrospinal fluid as well. Kahn believes that the cerebral spinal fluid and the blood vessels carry the photons into the brain, where they influence the brain cells, as they might other cells. The scientific research on this pathway is in its infancy.
”
”
Norman Doidge (The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity)
“
Then the day came when we stopped playing. We'd gone a couple of months without our usual games, but a few days into the school holidays I got my dolls out and tried to start up again. And it had all gone. The magic didn't work any more. I could barely even remember how we'd done it, but I tried to recapture the mood, the storylines, the way the dolls had moved and thought and spoken. But now it was like reading a meaningless book.
”
”
John Marsden (Tomorrow, When the War Began (Tomorrow, #1))
“
Merry Christmas,Ja-"
To which he immediately cut her off with a very testy, "Bloody hell it is." Though he did halt his progress to offer her a brief smile, adding, "Good to see you,Molly," then in the very same breath, "Where's that worthless brother of mine?"
She was surprised enough to ask, "Ah,which brother would that be?" when she knew very well he would never refer to Edward or Jason, whom the two younger brothers termed the elders, in that way.But then,Jason shared everything with her about his family, so she knew them as well as he did.
So his derogatory answer didn't really add to her surprise. "The infant."
She winced at his tone,though, as well as his expression, which had reverted to deadly menace at mention of the "infant." Big,blond, and handsome, James Malory was,just like his elder brothers, and rarely did anyone actually see him looking angry. When James was annoyed with someone, he usually very calmly ripped the person to shreds with his devilish wit, and by his inscrutable expression, the victim had absolutely no warning such pointed barbs would be headed his or her way.
The infant, or rather, Anthony, had heard James's voice and, unfortunately, stuck his head around the parlor door to determine James's mood, which wasn't hard to misinterpret with the baleful glare that came his way. Which was probably why the parlor door immediately slammed shut.
"Oh,dear," Molly said as James stormed off. Through the years she'd become accustomed to the Malorys' behavior, but a times it still alarmed her. What ensued was a tug of war in the reverse, so to speak, with James shoving his considerable weight against the parlor door, and Anthony on the other side doing his best to keep it from opening. Anthony managed for a bit. He wasn't as hefty as his brother, but he was taller and well muscled. But he must have known he couldn't hold out indefinitely, especially when James started to slam his shoulder against the door,which got it nearly half open before Anthony could manage to slam it shut again.
But what Anthony did to solve his dilemma produced Molly's second "Oh,dear."
When James threw his weight against the door for the third time, it opened ahead of him and he unfortunately couldn't halt his progress into the room. A rather loud crash followed. A few moments later James was up again suting pine needles off his shoulders.
Reggie and Molly,alarmed by the noise, soon followed the men into the room.
Anthony had picked up his daughter Jamie who had been looking at the tree with her nursemaid and was now holding her like a shield in front of him while the tree lay ingloriously on its side. Anthony knew his brother wouldn't risk harming one of the children for any reason, and the ploy worked.
"Infants hiding behind infants, how apropos," James sneered.
"Is,aint it?" Anthony grinned and kissed the top of his daughter's head. "Least it works."
James was not amused, and ordered, barked, actually. "Put my niece down."
"Wouldn't think of it, old man-least not until I find out why you want to murder me."
Anthony's wife, Roslynn, bent over one of the twins, didn't turn about to say, "Excuse me? There will be no murdering in front of the children.
”
”
Johanna Lindsey (The Holiday Present)
“
By October of 1958, most roads leading to the Oriente Province had become impassable. Bridges were cut and dropped by the rebels, making travel to the eastern part of Cuba extremely difficult. The elections in November were seen as an obvious sham and everyone knew that the only way to survive was to keep quiet and wait for changes to take place. Most of Batista’s supporters were still in denial and carried out their atrocities with abandon. Tension among the people in Havana had grown and as Christmas approached, it became obvious that this year things would be different. People that had been harassed, or worse, were in no mood to celebrate the holidays. With the country engaged in a civil war that affected everyone, Christmas was not celebrated in the usual manner during the winter of 1958.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
When Camilla and her husband joined Prince Charles on a holiday in Turkey shortly before his polo accident, she didn’t complain just as she bore, through gritted teeth, Camilla’s regular invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham. When Charles flew to Italy last year on a sketching holiday, Diana’s friends noted that Camilla was staying at another villa a short drive away. On her return Mrs Parker-Bowles made it quite clear that any suggestion of impropriety was absurd. Her protestations of innocence brought a tight smile from the Princess. That changed to scarcely controlled anger during their summer holiday on board a Greek tycoon’s yacht. She quietly simmered as she heard her husband holding forth to dinner-party guests about the virtues of mistresses. Her mood was scarcely helped when, later that evening, she heard him chatting on the telephone to Camilla.
They meet socially on occasion but, there is no love lost between these two women locked into an eternal triangle of rivalry. Diana calls her rival “the rotweiller” while Camilla refers to the Princess as that “ridiculous creature”. At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other. Diana has developed a technique in public of locating Camilla as quickly as possible and then, depending on her mood, she watches Charles when he looks in her direction or simply evades her gaze. “It is a morbid game,” says a friend. Days before the Salisbury Cathedral spire appeal concert Diana knew that Camilla was going. She vented her frustration in conversations with friends so that on the day of the event the Princess was able to watch the eye contact between her husband and Camilla with quiet amusement.
Last December all those years of pent-up emotion came flooding out at a memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who tragically died of cancer. As Diana left the service, held at St James’s Palace, she was photographed in tears. She was weeping in sorrow but also in anger. Diana was upset that Camilla Parker Bowles who had only known the Romseys for a short time was also present at such an intimate family service. It was a point she made vigorously to her husband as they travelled back to Kensington Palace in their chauffeur-driven limousine. When they arrived at Kensington Palace the Princess felt so distressed that she ignored the staff Christmas party, which was then in full swing, and went to her sitting-room to recover her composure. Diplomatically, Peter Westmacott, the Wales’s deputy private secretary, sent her avuncular detective Ken Wharfe to help calm her.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
To speak of a communication failure implies a breakdown of some sort. Yet this does not accurately portray what occurs. In truth, communication difficulties arise not from breakdown but from the characteristics of the system itself. Despite promising beginnings in our intimate relationships, we tend over time to evolve a system of communication that suppresses rather than reveals information. Life is complicated, and confirming or disconfirming the well-being of a relationship takes effort. Once we are comfortably coupled, the intense, energy-consuming monitoring of courtship days is replaced by a simpler, more efficient method. Unable to witness our partners’ every activity or verify every nuance of meaning, we evolve a communication system based on trust. We gradually cease our attentive probing, relying instead on familiar cues and signals to stand as testament to the strength of the bond: the words “I love you,” holidays with the family, good sex, special times with shared friends, the routine exchange, “How was your day?” We take these signals as representative of the relationship and turn our monitoring energies elsewhere.
...
Not only do the initiator’s negative signals tend to become incorporated into the existing routine, but, paradoxically, the initiator actively contributes to the impression that life goes on as usual. Even as they express their unhappiness, initiators work at emphasizing and maintaining the routine aspects of life with the other person, simultaneously giving signals that all is well. Unwilling to leave the relationship yet, they need to privately explore and evaluate the situation. The initiator thus contrives an appearance of participation,7 creating a protective cover that allows them to “return” if their alternative resources do not work out.
Our ability to do this—to perform a role we are no longer enthusiastically committed to—is one of our acquired talents. In all our encounters, we present ourselves to others in much the same way as actors do, tailoring our performance to the role we are assigned in a particular setting.8 Thus, communication is always distorted. We only give up fragments of what really occurs within us during that specific moment of communication.9 Such fragments are always selected and arranged so that there is seldom a faithful presentation of our inner reality. It is transformed, reduced, redirected, recomposed.10 Once we get the role perfected, we are able to play it whether we are in the mood to go on stage or not, simply by reproducing the signals.
What is true of all our encounters is, of course, true of intimate relationships. The nature of the intimate bond is especially hard to confirm or disconfirm.11 The signals produced by each partner, while acting out the partner role, tend to be interpreted by the other as the relationship.12 Because the costs of constantly checking out what the other person is feeling and doing are high, each partner is in a position to be duped and misled by the other.13 Thus, the initiator is able to keep up appearances that all is well by falsifying, tailoring, and manipulating signals to that effect. The normal routine can be used to attest to the presence of something that is not there. For example, initiators can continue the habit of saying, “I love you,” though the passion is gone. They can say, “I love you” and cover the fact that they feel disappointment or anger, or that they feel nothing at all. Or, they can say, “I love you” and mean, “I like you,” or, “We have been through a lot together,” or even “Today was a good day.
”
”
Diane Vaughan (Uncoupling: Turning Points in Intimate Relationships)
“
The turning-point [in Klosters, Switzerland in 1988]
[Diana’s sister] Jane’s wonderfully solid. If you ring up with a drama, she says: ‘Golly, gosh, Duch, how horrible, how sad and how awful’ and gets angry. But my sister Sarah swears: ‘Poor Duch, such a shitty thing to happen.’ My father says: ‘Just remember we always love you.’
But that summer [1988] when I made so many cock-ups I sat myself down in the autumn, when I was in Scotland, and I remember saying to myself: ‘Right, Diana, it’s no good, you’ve got to change it right round, this publicity, you’ve got to grow up and be responsible. You’ve got to understand that you can’t do what other 26- and 27-year olds are doing. You’ve been chosen to do a position so you must adapt to the position and stop fighting it.’ I remember my conversation so well, sitting by water. I always sit by water when contemplating.
Stephen Twigg [a therapist] who comes to see me said once: ‘Whatever anybody else thinks of you is none of your business.’ That sat with me. Then once someone said to me, when I said I’ve got to go up to Balmoral, and they said: ‘Well, you’ve got to put up with them but they’ve also got to put up with you.’ This myth about me hating Balmoral--I love Scotland but just the atmosphere drains me to nothing. I go up ‘strong Diana.’ I come away depleted of everything because they just suck me dry, because I tune in to all their moods and, boy, are there some undercurrents there! Instead of having a holiday, it’ the most stressful time of the year. I love being out all day. I love the stalking.
I’m much happier now. I’m not blissful but much more content than I’ve ever been. I’ve really gone down deep, scraped the bottom a couple times and come up again and it’s very nice meeting people now and talking about tai-chi and people say: ‘Tai-chi--what do you know about tai-chi?’ and I said: ‘An energy flow,’ and all this and they look at me and they say: ‘She’s the girl who’s supposed to like shopping and clothes the whole time. She’s not supposed to know about spiritual things.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
The first signal of the change in her behavior was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s night club before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can.
This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the girls, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photo-call. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as ninety assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: “Come on, come on!” Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: “I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no-one else will.” It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: “It was good fun within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
I put on a suit, then changed into a jeans and a checked shirt, then thought 'to hell with it!' and got into my shorts and a black T-shirt with an inscription that said: 'My friend was clinically dead, but all he brought me from the next world was this T-shirt!' I might look like a German tourist, but at least I would retain the semblance of a holiday mood in front of Gesar.
”
”
Sergej Lukjanenko (Twilight Watch (Watch, #3))
“
We lose self-control. It’s easy to slip back into some routines without realizing. That could be checking Facebook first thing in the morning, while still in bed. The first thoughts we feed our mind with, though, are crucial to what mood we’ll be in for the day. Ultimately, how we start our days shapes who we become and what our life looks like. If each new day begins by scrolling down a feed just because it’s something you’re used to and do effortlessly, then you end up watching a video or a few without wanting to. You see an old relative inviting you to play a game, someone from college posting details about their life that they could have kept for themselves, another guy you barely know sharing photos from their holiday, and much more. Does it feel right to let these people in your head, overwhelm yourself with that unnecessary information, and even let your brain start comparing your situation with theirs? No. That’s time-wasting and harmful for many reasons.
”
”
Lidiya K. (Quitting Social Media: The Social Media Cleanse Guide)
“
The young man outside. But he is not part of the unreality; he is for good now. Odd…somewhere there was an idea that he, that living with him, was part of the holiday, the strange places. [...] The heat of shame mounted through her legs and body and sounded in her ears like the sound of sand pouring. Pouring, pouring. She sat there, sick. A weariness, a tastelessness, the discovery of a void made her hands slacken their grip, atrophy emptily, as if the hour was not worth their grasp. She was feeling like this again. She had thought it was something to do with singleness, with being alone and belonging too much to oneself.
She sat there not wanting to move or speak, or to look at anything even; so that the mood should be associated with nothing, no object, word, or sight that might recur and so recall the feeling again….Smuts blew in grittily, settled on her hands. Her back remained at exactly the same angle, turned against the young man sitting with his hands drooping between his sprawled legs, and the lion, fallen on its side in the corner.
The train had cast the station like a skin. It called out to the sky, I’m coming, I’m coming; and again, there was no answer.
”
”
Nadine Gordimer (The Train from Rhodesia)
“
When on holiday, the INTP wants to experience above all the ambience of each location. Since people encountered on a holiday usually count as details, unless more personal contact develops, the INTP tends to be drawn more to lonely, isolated places where atmosphere is less disturbed. Nevertheless, the presence of people does add its own ambience which can also be appreciated considerably. The net result of this concern for past experiences and of mood/atmosphere is that INTPs belong centrally to those types referred to as melancholic.
”
”
INTP Central [https://intpcentral.com/index_page_id_7.html]
“
Happy New Year, Dane,” David greeted him with a grin.
“And a Merry Christmas to you.” Dane did not seem to be in a holiday mood just now. “Margaret, I think Daniel needs your attention.”
“Diaper?” said Margaret knowingly, and accepted the baby with a wrinkled nose. “Oh, my! You certainly do need help!
”
”
Sarah Beth Brazytis (Home Fires (The Westovers of Harmony Street, #3))
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Think of a positive sexual experience from your past. Describe it here, with as many relevant details as you can recall: Now consider what aspects of that experience made it positive: Category Description Mental and physical wellbeing Physical health Body image Mood Anxiety Distractibility Worry about sexual functioning Other Partner characteristics Physical appearance Physical health Smell Mental state Other Relationship characteristics Trust Power dynamic Emotional connection Feeling desired Frequency of sex Setting Private/public (at home, work, vacation, etc.) Distance sex (phone, chat, etc.) See partner do something positive, like interact with family or do work Other life circumstances Work-related stress Family-related stress Holiday, anniversary, “occasion” Ludic factors/play Self-guided fantasy Partner-guided fantasy (“talking dirty”) Body parts that were touched or not Oral sex on you/on partner
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Emily Nagoski (Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life)
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I’m a little embarrassed it took some city-boy preacher to get a project like this going in our own town,” Jack said. “We should’ve been on this. We start for Christmas right away. And then we get going on holiday baskets for next year in July. And, Hope, don’t be throwing any of your old weenies in the basket.” “You never know who’s in the mood for a weenie,” she said with a sparkle in her eye. “I would give anything to see the inside of that mausoleum you live in,” Jack muttered. “It’s filled to the ceiling with little cans of cocktail weenies,” she said. The
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Robyn Carr (Angel's Peak (Virgin River #10))
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magical holiday. She skimmed the article, her mouth turning down as she read about how scented candles created a mood, and she should buy wrapping paper during the sales after the holidays and save it for the next year. How to make sauce from fresh cranberries, and how mashed potatoes with skimmed milk and olive oil spread were delicious and low calorie. A well-decorated table, using fresh evergreen and holly, could, apparently, make all the difference. Claire didn’t read past the first ten tips to a perfect Christmas. She’d read enough, and
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Kate Hewitt (A Yorkshire Christmas (Christmas Around the World Series, #2))
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She laughed. “I’ve never understood how the holiday of love ended up being in the middle of the ugliest month. Why not in the spring? When people want to hold hands and stroll?” Hadewych slipped his hands in his pockets. “Maybe the man who invented it was single and in a bad mood.
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Richard Gleaves (Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones (Jason Crane, #2))
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The holidays certainly put Cade in a slutty mood, and I have to say I’m catching a case of holiday whore too.
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Willow Prescott (Breakaway (Stolen Away Series Book 2))
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You may have heard people say that they feel “manic” on days when they have high energy or are in a particularly cheerful mood, perhaps even experiencing some of the manic symptoms listed in table 1.1, but this is not necessarily mania. For example, over the holidays, people may report feeling very happy and excited, have increased energy, sleep less than usual, and talk more than usual. If these “symptoms” last more than seven days, are these people actually experiencing mania? Certainly not! So, what is the difference between periods of good mood, or high energy, and mania? The difference is that when you are experiencing mania, your symptoms make it difficult for you to fulfill your responsibilities with regard to work, to friends and family, or to yourself (self-care). In other words, the symptoms associated with a manic episode interfere with your ability to function (e.g., to work, to pay bills, to take care of children, to see your friends, to accomplish daily tasks), which causes problems for you (e.g., you show up late for work, you’re not able to pay bills, your relationships with friends and family suffer, you can’t accomplish daily tasks).
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Stephanie McMurrich Roberts (The Bipolar II Disorder Workbook: Managing Recurring Depression, Hypomania, and Anxiety (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook))
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Maybe when it feels right for us? Not just when the rest of the world says we have to. See, there’s so much guilt. And the holidays are a great time to travel. People are in a good mood, off work...
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Julie Lipson
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a holiday—as a party line, as a policy, as a declaration. That would mean giving in to capitalist enterprise, philistinism, tending to the denial of Bolshevism, this would be the triumph of Trotskyism and a surrender of positions. To counteract these moods we must re-examine our practice, our methods and get rid of whatever might feed such moods. This means that we (the GPU) have perhaps to be a bit quieter, more modest, resort to searches and arrests more cautiously, with better evidence. . . .
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Donald Rayfield (Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him)
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man is sometimes a strange creature, very strange. And saints above! He sometimes really gets carried away by the things he talks about! And what comes of that, what follows from it? Absolutely nothing follows from it, and what comes of it is such rubbish that the Lord preserve us from it! I am not angry, little mother;it is simply that it is very annoying to remember it all, annoying to think that I wrote such fanciful, stupid things to you. And I went to the office today such a strutting dandy, too; there was such a radiance in my heart. For no good reason I felt in a holiday mood; I felt cheerful! I set to work on my papers with zeal – but what came of that? When I looked around me a bit later, everything was just the same as before –grey and dingy. The same blotches of ink, the same desks and papers,and I, too, the same; as I had been, so exactly had I remained – so what had been the point of my flight on Pegasus? And what had been the cause of it all? The glimmer of sunshine and the bit of blue sky there had been? Was that it? And what kind of scents could there have been, when goodness only knows what may be lurking beneath our windows! All that was evidently the product of my foolish imaginings. After all, it does sometimes happen that a person goes astray in his feelings and writes down nonsense. It is caused by nothing other than excessive, stupid warmth of heart.
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Poor Folk and Other Stories (Penguin Classics))
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The doll hit the pile of Christmas decorations that the staff had been hanging, knocking a few bells to the floor. I didn’t pick them up because I was in a shitty mood and all the festive decorations going up around the house only served as a reminder that my father never spent the holidays with me. Not even before my mom had died.
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Tate James (Liar (Madison Kate, #2))
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Our conversation was deep, so he lightened the mood in a second, finding an easy distraction in front of us – taking the call to join in with the cheering, and I followed. A Mexican wave got too big to ignore, pulling us to our feet, popping us out of our bubble, reminding us that we were not alone. But back down in our seats, our Gemini souls found more words, our minds unable to stop.
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Dana Da Silva (The Shift: A Memoir)
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Office Fun: If your office celebrates the holidays, birthdays, or just has a great time together, post about it! If users know that your office is a lighthearted place, it can help ease tension and fears about scheduling their first appointment. It can also help familiarize them with what the office looks like, who the staff are, and what the general mood of the office is.
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Danny Basu (Digital Doctor: Integrated Online Marketing Guide for Medical and Dental Practices)
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I said, why were you in Porthpella back then?’ He starts the engine back up again. Eyes her sideways. ‘My wife’s missing,’ he says. ‘You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not in the mood for reminiscing about holidays gone by.’ And he swings back out into the traffic.
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Emylia Hall (The Shell House Detectives (Shell House Detectives #1))
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The fundamental purpose of most people at Facebook working on data is to influence and alter people’s moods and behaviour. They are doing it all the time to make you like stories more, to click on more ads, to spend more time on the site.
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Ryan Holiday (Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator)
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attributes—will tug the reader’s emotions. Unlike character development, don’t be afraid to start writing your story with minimal details on your world. For any contemporary genre, you can work out many of the details once you start writing. First, setting is crucial to all genres. When and where does your story take place? Does it take place today in London or two hundred years from now on Mars? Depending on the location you select, you may have a specific landmark, holiday, or natural disaster that you can incorporate into your story. Once you know the location and time period, what is the emotion or mood you want to convey through the setting?
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Rachel Aukes (The Tidy Guide to Writing a Novel: The clutter-free, 30-minute guide for writing a book right the first time (Tidy Guides 1))
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Your home should stay sleek and organized all year round and you shouldn’t need decorations to change your mood or start the holiday spirit. Personalized
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Brian Night (Adopting The Minimalist Mindset: How To Live With Less, Downsize, And Get More Fulfillment From Life)