Hooks That Start With Quotes

Did you… Did you just kiss me?” He sounded puzzled, and maybe a little out of breath. His lips were full and plump and… God. Kissed. There was simply no way Olive could get away with denying what she had just done. Still, it was worth a try. “Nope.” Surprisingly, it seemed to work. “Ah. Okay, then.” Carlsen nodded and turned around, looking vaguely disoriented. He took a couple of steps down the hallway, reached the water fountain - maybe where he’d headed in the first place. Olive was starting to believe that she might actually be off the hook when he halted and turned back with a skeptical expression. “Are you sure?

You just want to keep me on this hook, right? So I'll keep chasing after you and you can feel good about yourself. As soon as I start to get over you, you just reel me back in. You're so screwed up in the head. But I'm telling you, this is it. You don't get to have me anymore. Not as your friend or your admirer or anything. I'm through.

The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict? The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict. The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii)

If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.

And to think, it all started with a little bit of faith. Misplaced trust. Missing pixie dust. And a villain who just needed to steal a little love.

a good writer should draw the reader in by starting in the middle of the story with a hook, then go back and fill in what happened before the hook. Once you have the reader hooked, you can write whatever you want as you slowly reel them in.

I mostly want to remind her of the recipes of healing, and give her my own made-on-the spot remedy for the easing of her pain. I tell her, “Get a pen. Stop crying so you can write this down and start working on it tonight.” My remedy is long. But the last item on the list says: “When you wake up and find yourself living someplace where there is nobody you love and trust, no community, it is time to leave town – to pack up and go (you can even go tonight). And where you need to go is any place where there are arms that can hold you, that will not let you go.

The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it’s a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw in other fish, and they’ll hook onto it. Then you’re on your way. Soon there are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thing emerges. But it starts with desire.

Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig, farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard. Bubbly, thick, stagnant sound. A sound you could smell. This man worked for the carnival,you dig? And to start with it was like a novelty ventriloquist act. After a while, the ass started talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared... and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time. Then it developed sort of teethlike... little raspy incurving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it... but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street... shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. Nobody loved it. And it wanted to be kissed, same as any other mouth. Finally, it talked all the time, day and night. You could hear him for blocks, screaming at it to shut up... beating at it with his fists... and sticking candles up it, but... nothing did any good, and the asshole said to him... "It is you who will shut up in the end, not me... "because we don't need you around here anymore. I can talk and eat and shit." After that, he began waking up in the morning with transparentjelly... like a tadpole's tail all over his mouth. He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands... like burning gasoline jelly and grow there. So, finally, his mouth sealed over... and the whole head... would have amputated spontaneously except for the eyes, you dig? That's the one thing that the asshole couldn't do was see. It needed the eyes. Nerve connections were blocked... and infiltrated and atrophied. So, the brain couldn't give orders anymore. It was trapped inside the skull... sealed off. For a while, you could see... the silent, helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes. And then finally the brain must have died... because the eyes went out... and there was no more feeling in them than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk.

when you’re sitting on a plane 40, 000 feet up in the air, looking out the window, dreaming of your future and how bright it appears to be, or maybe just watching the drops of rain being pushed into different designs from the force of air at 400 mph, well, life feels good. it feels safe, your seat belt is on and your feet are up. then the oxygen masks fall, the plane jumps, snaps and jolts. people start to scream, babies burst out crying, people start praying all in time to the overhead announcement that we’re gonna crash. right then, as your life flashes before your eyes, you hear yourself say, “god, if you get me outta this one, i’ll stop [insert lie here] forever.” right then the nose of the plane pulls up and the captain says, “wow, that was a close one, folks. we’re ok, we’ll be landing in thirty minutes and we’re all safe and sound, sorry for the scare…” that’s how getting hooked on junk is, and when the kick is over you can’t believe you ever got on that plane in the first place. the question is, will you ever fly again?

And when we love, we know love will last. Significantly, we know, having learned through much trial and error, that true love begins with self-love. And that time and time again our search for love brings us back to the place where we started, back to our own heart's mirror, where we can look upon our female selves with love and be renewed.

Julian,” said Jia, in the same gentle voice, “would you do something for us? Would you take up the Mortal Sword?” Clary sat up straight. She had held the Mortal Sword: she had felt the weight of it. The cold, like hooks in your skin, dragging the truth out of you. You couldn’t lie holding the Mortal Sword, but the truth, even a truth you wanted to tell, was agony. “They can’t,” she whispered. “He’s just a kid —” “He’s the oldest of the kids who escaped the Institute,” Jace said under his breath. “They don’t have a choice.” Julian nodded, his thin shoulders straight. “I’ll take it.” Robert Lightwood passed behind the podium then and went to the table. He took up the sword and returned to stand in front of Julian. The contrast between them was almost funny: the big, barrel-chested man and the lanky, wild-haired boy. Julian reached a hand up and took the sword. As his hand closed around the hilt, he shuddered, a ripple of pain that was quickly forced down. Emma, behind him, started forward, and Clary caught a glimpse of the look on her face — pure fury — before Helen caught at her and pulled her back.

Do you know what it was like kissing Holly and looking up to see you?" "What?" "You said to begin anywhere." But I hadn't expected that as a beginning, middle or end. I felt my cheeks getting warm. "I guess it was pretty embarrassing for both of us," I said, and walked ahead of him so he wouldn't see my face. "I know, I just kept staring at you." "What were you thinking?" "I don't remember." "Don't you start using that line," he chided. "Then don't ask me, Nick." Did he suspect how I felt. He caught me and turned me around to face him. I focused on his shirt. "Okay," he said quietly, "I'll tell you what I was thinking. I couldn't believe that I, who was never going to get hooked, had fallen in love with a girl who didn't want to date, and she was watching me kiss somebody else." I glanced up. "Your turn, brave girl. What were you thinking?" "That Holly looked beautiful in your arms and that you didn't pull away from her the way you had pulled away from me when I kissed you." He drew me to him. "I'm not pulling away again," he said holding me close.

Mama,' I said as I set the tray on the bed and sat down beside it, 'can't we do something for Tante Bep? I mean, isn't it sad that she has to spend her last days here where she hates it, instead of where she was happy? The Wallers' or someplace?' 'Corrie, Bep has been just as happy here with us--no more and no less--than she was anywhere else. Do you know when she started praising the Wallers so highly? The day she left them. As long as she was there, she had nothing but complaints. The Wallers couldn't compare with the van Hooks where she'd been before. But at the van Hooks, she'd actually been miserable. Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings, Corrie. It's something we make inside ourselves.

Are you guys seriously messing around with real weapons?" she exclaimed. "It's like you want Darwin Awards!" Tom flushed, and set his gun back on its hook. "It's not like we were going to start a dynastic war or something." "Yeah," Vik said guiltily, returning his own weapon.

Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers).

And don’t get me started on your manwhoring,” Tucker grumbles. “You’ve always been a player, but dude, you’ve hooked up with five chicks this week.” “So?” “So it’s Thursday. Five girls in four days. Do the fucking math, John.” Oh shit. He first-named me. Tucker only calls me John when I’ve really pissed him off. Except now he’s pissed me off, so I first-name him right back. “What’s wrong with that, John?” Yup, we’re both John. I guess we should take a blood oath and form a club or something.

I can't pretend this isn't important. I can't act like it doesn't exist. It's ironic, but true. There are a lot of things I'm really good at keeping secret. But I've learned I'm not too good at that with you. I can't pull it off. I don't want to just hook up. I don't want a secret relationship." "Well, that's a relief," I said, grabbing for both of his hands and holding on for dear life. Doubt started giving way to recognition, but he needed to hear it. "Why's that?" "Because I'm really sick of secrets.

I tramp the perpetual journey My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods, No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair, I have no chair, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself. It is not far, it is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know, Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land. Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth, Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go. If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip, And in due time you shall repay the same service to me, For after we start we never lie by again. This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then? And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond. You are also asking me questions and I hear you, I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself. Sit a while dear son, Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink, But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence. Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

I didn't know how to explain to him that for all that I still looked young, I had been feeling old. The years had passed, so many of them, and they were starting to wear on me. After a while it wasn't fun to always feel like you had to have fun. -Jamie

It surprises me, though it shouldn't, how short the memories of these politicians are. They forget the brutal lengths women have gone to in order to terminate pregnancies when abortion was illegal or when abortion is unaffordable. Women have thrown themselves down stairs and otherwise tried to physically harm themselves to force a miscarriage. Dr. Waldo Fielding noted in the New York Times, "Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion—darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." Women have tried to use soap and bleach, catheters, natural remedies. Women have historically resorted to any means necessary. Women will do this again if we are backed into that terrible corner. This is the responsibility our society has forced on women for hundreds of years.

As soon as a person indicates that they are willing to absorb guilt, a manipulator will stick to that person like glue and feed on their energy. This dynamic can be avoided simply by refusing to take on feelings of guilt. You do not have to justify yourself to anyone and you do not owe anybody anything. If you are to blame for something then you can accept the punishment, as long as you do not get stuck in the position of the guilty party afterwards. You do not owe those close to you anything either; after all, you care about them because you love them not because you have been coerced into doing so. This is a completely different matter. If you have a tendency to justify yourself, start letting go of it; once manipulative individuals realize they no longer have a way of hooking into your energy they will leave you alone. Guilt goes

I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas, please Fold 'em, let 'em hit me, raise it, baby, stay with me (I love it) Love game intuition, play the cards with spades to start And after he's been hooked, I'll play the one that's on his heart

Desire for an idea is like bait. When you're fishing, you have to have patience. You bait your hook, and then you wait.The desire is the bait that pulls those fish in—those ideas. The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it's a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw in other fish, and they'll hook onto it. Then you're on your way. Soon there are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thing emerges. But it starts with desire.

She talks. People talk easily to me. They think a bald albino hunchback can’t hide anything. My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves. They begin out of simple courtesy. Just being visible is my biggest confession, so they try to set me at ease by revealing our equality, by dragging out their apparent deformities. That’s how it starts. But I am like a stranger on the bus and they get hooked on having a listener. They go too far because I am one listener who is in no position to judge or find fault. They stretch out their dampest secrets because a creature like me has no values or morals. If I am “good" (and they assume that I am), it’s obviously for lack of opportunity to be otherwise. And I listen. I listen eagerly, warmly, because I care. They tell me everything eventually.

We keep coming back to the question of representation because identity is always about representation. People forget that when they wanted white women to get into the workforce because of the world war, what did they start doing? They started having a lot of commercials, a lot of movies, a lot of things that were redoing the female image, saying, “Hey, you can work for the war, but you can still be feminine.” So what we see is that the mass media, film, TV, all of these things, are powerful vehicles for maintaining the kinds of systems of domination we live under, imperialism, racism, sexism etc. Often there’s a denial of this and art is presented as politically neutral, as though it is not shaped by a reality of domination.

Away in the distance, a train appeared behind the trees, all its compartments were lit, the windows were sure to be open. One of us started singing a ballad, but we all wanted to sing. We sang far quicker than the speed of the train, we swung our arms because our voices weren't enough, our voices got into a tangle where we felt happy. If you mix your voice with others' voices, you feel as though you're caught on a hook. (trans. Michael Hofmann)

Life was like being dragged through concrete in circles, wet and setting concrete that dried with each rotation of my unwilling body. As a child, I was light. It didn’t matter too much; I slid through it, and maybe it even felt like a game, like I was just playing in mud, like nothing about that slipperiness would ever change, not really. But then I got bigger and it started drying on me and eventually I turned into an uneven block, chipping and sparking on the hard ground, tearing off into painful chunks. I wanted to stay empty, like the eagle in the proverb, left to perch, my bones filled with air pockets, but heaviness found me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t shake it off; I couldn’t transform it, evaporate or melt it. It was distinct from me, but it hooked itself into my body like a parasite. I couldn’t figure out if something was wrong with me or if this was just my life—if this was just how people felt, like concrete was dragging their flesh off their bones.

È impossibile odiarti quando mi fai sentire così vivo,” I start, slipping two fingers past her lips and hooking them over her teeth, bringing her closer. “Ed è esattamente per questo che voglio odiarti. Prima di incontrare te ero un sonnambulo. Cazzo, non ero pronto a svegliarmi.

Plenty of women have met the “male feminist” who can quote bell hooks but will use those quotes to speak over you. Plenty of people of color have met the white antiracist who is all for Dr. King’s dream until people of color start asking white people to make actual sacrifices for racial justice. Ego can undermine even the best of intentions, but often, when things like this happen—when someone we trust as an ally ends up taking advantage of their position and then turning against the principles they once claimed to fight for when that abuse is discovered—we find that the intentions were never that great in the first place.

Never reduce a target. Instead, increase actions. When you start rethinking your targets, making up excuses, and letting yourself off the hook, you are giving up on your dreams!

Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted and lay on the the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that the water was raising, He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he could do no more. As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began pulling her softly into the water. Peter feeling her slip from him, woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to tell her the truth. "We are on the rock, Wendy," he said, "but it is growing smaller. Soon the water will be over it." She did not understand even now. "We must go," she said, almost brightly. "Yes," he answered faintly. "Shall we swim or fly, Peter?" He had to tell her. "Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without my help?" She had to admit she was too tired. He moaned. "What is it?" she asked, anxious about him at once. "I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim." "Do you mean we shall both be downed?" "Look how the water is raising." They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if to say timidly, "Can I be of any us?" It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It had torn itself out of his hand and floated away. "Michael's kite," Peter said without interest, but the next moment he had seized the tail, and was pulling the kite towards him. "It lifted Michael off the ground," he cried; "why should it not carry you?" "Both of us!" "It can't left two; Michael and Curly tried." "Let us draw lots," Wendy said bravely. "And you a lady; never." Already he had tied the tail round her. She clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a "Good-bye, Wendy." he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon. The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.

Once you’ve truly forgiven someone, wipe the slate clean. So often we form judgments about people and then, no matter what they do, we see them through the lens of that judgment. Which means we’re just waiting for them to piss us off again. Which means we’re still in the Forvginess-lite stage; we’re pretending we’re cool but we’re really still holding on to some resentment. Release all expectations, let everyone off the hook, treat people as a blank slate over and over again, expect only the best from them regardless of what they’ve done in the past

They had chains which they fastened about the leg of the nearest hog, and the other end of the chain they hooked into one of the rings upon the wheel. So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked off his feet and borne aloft. At the same instant the ear was assailed by a most terrifying shriek; the visitors started in alarm, the women turned pale and shrank back. The shriek was followed by another, louder and yet more agonizing--for once started upon that journey, the hog never came back; at the top of the wheel he was shunted off upon a trolley and went sailing down the room. And meantime another was swung up, and then another, and another, until there was a double line of them, each dangling by a foot and kicking in frenzy--and squealing. The uproar was appalling, perilous to the ear-drums; one feared there was too much sound for the room to hold--that the walls must give way or the ceiling crack. There were high squeals and low squeals, grunts, and wails of agony; there would come a momentary lull, and then a fresh outburst, louder than ever, surging up to a deafening climax. It was too much for some of the visitors--the men would look at each other, laughing nervously, and the women would stand with hands clenched, and the blood rushing to their faces, and the tears starting in their eyes. Meantime, heedless of all these things, the men upon the floor were going about their work. Neither squeals of hogs nor tears of visitors made any difference to them; one by one they hooked up the hogs, and one by one with a swift stroke they slit their throats. There was a long line of hogs, with squeals and life-blood ebbing away together; until at last each started again, and vanished with a splash into a huge vat of boiling water. It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests--and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretence at apology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering-machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory.

Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being. A good definition marks our starting point and lets us know where we want to end up. As we move toward our desired destination we chart the journey, creating a map. We need a map to guide us on our journey to love--starting with the place where we know what we mean when we speak of love.

Rumors had their own classic epidemiology. Each started with a single germinating event. Information spread from that point, mutating and interbreeding—a conical mass of threads, expanding into the future from the apex of their common birthplace. Eventually, of course, they'd wither and die; the cone would simply dissipate at its wide end, its permutations senescent and exhausted. There were exceptions, of course. Every now and then a single thread persisted, grew thick and gnarled and unkillable: conspiracy theories and urban legends, the hooks embedded in popular songs, the comforting Easter-bunny lies of religious doctrine. These were the memes: viral concepts, infections of conscious thought. Some flared and died like mayflies. Others lasted a thousand years or more, tricked billions into the endless propagation of parasitic half-truths.

Oh, the odious wench. How I wish I were rid of her. I have always loathed women, from clew to earring; hook, line and sinker; root and branch. I always said this would happen, you remember; I was against it from the start. Damn it for a flibbertigibbet, the hussy.

At least I’ve got football . It’s been my life since I was seven, but sometimes Henry says I need to spend less time focusing and start “living life like I’m going to hell tomorrow.” But I feel like a normal teenager. Wel , as normal as I can be. I mean, obviously I think Justin Timberlake is a mega-hunk, but I’m also over six feet tal and can launch a footbal fifty yards. Other ways I’m not normal? A girl who hangs with an entire football team must hook up all the time, right? Nope. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Hell , I’ve never even kissed a guy. The closest I’ve ever come to a kiss happened just this past summer, but it was a joke. At a party, one of those cheerleaders suggested we all play a game of seven minutes in heaven, you know, the game where you go into a closet and kiss? Somehow Henry and I got sent into the closet together, and of course we didn’t kiss, but we ended up in a mad thumb-wrestling match. Which turned into a shoving match. Which turned into everyone thinking we’d hooked up in the closet. Yeah, right. He’s like my brother.

Gee, Vernon, now you're scaring me. Not the union rep." She gave a deliberate shudder. "You won't be so smart when you're hit with a lawsuit, and I start bleeding that rich husband you hooked." "My God, Peabody, a lawsuit. I feel faint." "Don't worry, Lieutenant, I'll catch you.

I didn’t really know the answer to this myself, but saying that wasn’t going to get me off the hook. I started talking without any clear idea of what was going to come out. ‘Because sex causes more unhappiness than it gives pleasure,’ I said. ‘Because men and women want different things, and one of them always ends up being disappointed. Because I don’t get asked much, and I hate asking. Because I’m not very good at it. Because I’m used to being on my own. Because I can’t think of anymore reason.’ I paused for breath. ‘All right,’ said Ronnie. She turned and started walking backwards so she could get a good view of my face. ‘Which of those is the real one?’ ‘B,’ I said, after a bit of thought.

Monday, twelve o’clock, Marcus started looking at Bonbon’s wife. He was riding on the tractor with me, and as we went by the house I saw him looking at her on the gallery. I didn’t think too much of it then because I thought he was still hooked on Pauline. But Louise had seen him looking at her, and when we came back down the quarter I saw how she had shifted that chair so she could face the road better. Marcus looked at her again but he didn’t say anything to me about her. Since I didn’t think he was looking at her on purpose, I didn’t say anything either.

Here is the best true story on giving I know, and it was told by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight. The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl’s IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, “How soon until I start to die?

[excerpt] The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set ‘em up. What’ll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. I say git that in ya. Then a quick one. Then a nightcap. Then throw one back. Then knock one down. Fast & furious I say. Could savage a drink I say. Chug. Chug-a-lug. Gulp. Sauce. Mother’s milk. Everclear. Moonshine. White lightning. Firewater. Hootch. Relief. Now you’re talking I say. Live a little I say. Drain it I say. Kill it I say. Feeling it I say. Wobbly. Breakfast of champions I say. I say candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I say Houston, we have a drinking problem. I say the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. I say god only knows what I’d be without you. I say thirsty. I say parched. I say wet my whistle. Dying of thirst. Lap it up. Hook me up. Watering hole. Knock a few back. Pound a few down. My office. Out with the boys I say. Unwind I say. Nurse one I say. Apply myself I say. Toasted. Glow. A cold one a tall one a frosty I say. One for the road I say. Two-fisted I say. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink I say. Drink any man under the table I say. Then a binge then a spree then a jag then a bout. Coming home on all fours. Could use a drink I say. A shot of confidence I say. Steady my nerves I say. Drown my sorrows. I say kill for a drink. I say keep ‘em comin’. I say a stiff one. Drink deep drink hard hit the bottle. Two sheets to the wind then. Knackered then. Under the influence then. Half in the bag then. Out of my skull I say. Liquored up. Rip-roaring. Slammed. Fucking jacked. The booze talking. The room spinning. Feeling no pain. Buzzed. Giddy. Silly. Impaired. Intoxicated. Stewed. Juiced. Plotzed. Inebriated. Laminated. Swimming. Elated. Exalted. Debauched. Rock on. Drunk on. Bring it on. Pissed. Then bleary. Then bloodshot. Glassy-eyed. Red-nosed. Dizzy then. Groggy. On a bender I say. On a spree. I say off the wagon. I say on a slip. I say the drink. I say the bottle. I say drinkie-poo. A drink a drunk a drunkard. Swill. Swig. Shitfaced. Fucked up. Stupefied. Incapacitated. Raging. Seeing double. Shitty. Take the edge off I say. That’s better I say. Loaded I say. Wasted. Off my ass. Befuddled. Reeling. Tanked. Punch-drunk. Mean drunk. Maintenance drunk. Sloppy drunk happy drunk weepy drunk blind drunk dead drunk. Serious drinker. Hard drinker. Lush. Drink like a fish. Boozer. Booze hound. Alkie. Sponge. Then muddled. Then woozy. Then clouded. What day is it? Do you know me? Have you seen me? When did I start? Did I ever stop? Slurring. Reeling. Staggering. Overserved they say. Drunk as a skunk they say. Falling down drunk. Crawling down drunk. Drunk & disorderly. I say high tolerance. I say high capacity. They say protective custody. Blitzed. Shattered. Zonked. Annihilated. Blotto. Smashed. Soaked. Screwed. Pickled. Bombed. Stiff. Frazzled. Blasted. Plastered. Hammered. Tore up. Ripped up. Destroyed. Whittled. Plowed. Overcome. Overtaken. Comatose. Dead to the world. The old K.O. The horrors I say. The heebie-jeebies I say. The beast I say. The dt’s. B’jesus & pink elephants. A mindbender. Hittin’ it kinda hard they say. Go easy they say. Last call they say. Quitting time they say. They say shut off. They say dry out. Pass out. Lights out. Blackout. The bottom. The walking wounded. Cross-eyed & painless. Gone to the world. Gone. Gonzo. Wrecked. Sleep it off. Wake up on the floor. End up in the gutter. Off the stuff. Dry. Dry heaves. Gag. White knuckle. Lightweight I say. Hair of the dog I say. Eye-opener I say. A drop I say. A slug. A taste. A swallow. Down the hatch I say. I wouldn’t say no I say. I say whatever he’s having. I say next one’s on me. I say bottoms up. Put it on my tab. I say one more. I say same again

I glanced up at Thomas. "We've still got Hook, right?" "He's being held prisoner on a ceramic-lined cookie sheet in the oven," Thomas said. "I figured he couldn't jigger his way out of a bunch of steel, and it would give him something to think about before we start asking questions." "That's an awful thing to do to one of the Little Folk, man," I said. "I'm planning to start making a pie in front of him." "Nice." "Thank you.

not really a quote but here is is The setting is the start.The story hangs from that hook,and the characters move slowly around one another. Each piece has its own shape and size. The characters think they see the wires that connect them. But that isn't possible. Or is it? Who makes the rules?

You ever been eaten out by a southern boy?” I had to think. There hadn’t been many, but no one from Los Angeles was from Los Angeles. “Southern England.” “Doesn’t count.” He hooked his fingers under my jeans and started peeling them off. “You’re in for a treat, sweetheart. Us southern boys eat pussy like pie. And I like pie.” Yes. Yes and yes. S’il vous plaît and thank you too.

As children, we start off at the center of our own universe, where we interpret everything that happens from an egocentric vantage point. If our parents or grandparents keep telling us we’re the cutest, most delicious thing in the world, we don’t question their judgment—we must be exactly that. And deep down, no matter what else we learn about ourselves, we will carry that sense with us: that we are basically adorable. As a result, if we later hook up with somebody who treats us badly, we will be outraged. It won’t feel right: It’s not familiar; it’s not like home. But if we are abused or ignored in childhood, or grow up in a family where sexuality is treated with disgust, our inner map contains a different message. Our sense of our self is marked by contempt and humiliation, and we are more likely to think “he (or she) has my number” and fail to protest if we are mistreated.

She was just going to pretend nothing had happened, nod at him politely, and tiptoe her way out of here. Yes, solid plan. "Did you . . . Did you just kiss me?" He sounded puzzled, and maybe a little out of breath. His lips were full and plump and . . . God. Kissed. There was simply no way Olive could get away with denying what she had just done. Still, it was worth a try. "Nope." Surprisingly, it seemed to work. "Ah. Okay, then." Carlsen nodded and turned around, looking vaguely disoriented. He took a couple of steps down the hallway, reached the water fountain—maybe where he'd been headed in the first place. Olive was starting to believe that she might actually be off the hook when he halted and turned back with a skeptical expression. "Are you sure?

Let's not kid ourselves, we find mutual love only when we know how to love. And the best place to start practicing the art of love is with the self--that body, mind, heart, and soul that we can most know and change. The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourselves. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin....rather than embracing faulty thinking that encourages us to believe that females are inherently loving, we make the choice to become loving. Choosing love, we affirm our agency, our commitment to personal growth, our emotional openness.

In his book In This Very Life, the Burmese meditation teacher Sayadaw U Pandita, wrote, "In their quest for happiness, people mistake excitement of the mind for real happiness." We get excited when we hear good news, start a new relationship, or ride a roller coaster. Somewhere in human history, we were conditioned to think that the feeling we get when dopamine fires in our brain equals happiness. Don't forget, this was probably set up so that we would remember where food could be found, not to give us the feeling "you are now fulfilled." To be sure, defining happiness is a tricky business, and very subjective. Scientific definitions of happiness continue to be controversial and hotly debated. The emotion doesn't seem to be something that fits into a survival-of-the-fittest learning algorithm. But we can be reasonably sure that the anticipation of a reward isn't happiness.

Shadow had made a face, but he had started to read, and had found himself hooked against his will.

When we first hear [a] word, we start putting these associational hooks into it that make it easier to fish it back out at some later date.

Why is it hooking?” he asks in frustration. “Lack of opportunities, education. Comes from a background of poverty. You know, the common reasons for a chair to start hooking,” I offer helpfully.

People who have been wronged by an emotionally immature person may start to think they’re at fault if they continue to feel hurt by what the person did. Emotionally immature people expect you to take them off the hook immediately. If it feels better to blame you for not forgiving them fast enough, that’s what they’ll do.

Something else emerges from this discussion about us as human individuals: we're not fixed, stable intellects riding along peering at the world through the lenses of our eyes like the pilots of people-shaped spacecraft. We are affected constantly by what's going on around us. Whether our flexibility is based in neuroplasticity or in less dramatic aspects of the brain, we have to start acknowledging that we are mutable, persuadable and vulnerable to clever distortions, and that very often what we want to be is a matter of constant effort rather than attaining a given state and then forgetting about it. Being human isn't like hanging your hat on a hook and leaving it there, it's like walking in a high wind: you have to keep paying attention. You have to be engaged with the world.

I know what you are going to say: sticks, stones, and broken bones, but words can kick you in the gut. They wriggle underneath your skin and start to itch. They set their hooks into you and pull. Words accumulate like a cancer, and then they eat away at you until there is nothing left. And once they are let loose there really is no taking them back.

At one point I was climbing off the bus and I bumped into a woman in a crisp black blazer and pointy, witchy shoes. She had a bulky cell phone pressed against her ear and a black bag with gold Prada lettering hooked around her wrist. I was a long ways off from worshiping at the Céline, Chloé, or Goyard thrones, but I certainly recognized Prada. “Sorry,” I said, and took a step away from her. She nodded at me briskly but never stopped speaking into her phone, “The samples need to be there by Friday.” As her heels snapped away on the pavement, I thought, There is no way that woman can ever get hurt. She had more important things to worry about than whether or not she would have to eat lunch alone. The samples had to arrive by Friday. And as I thought about all the other things that must make up her busy, important life, the cocktail parties and the sessions with the personal trainer and the shopping for crisp, Egyptian cotton sheets, there it started, my concrete and skyscraper wanderlust. I saw how there was a protection in success, and success was defined by threatening the minion on the other end of a cell phone, expensive pumps terrorizing the city, people stepping out of your way simply because you looked like you had more important places to be than they did. Somewhere along the way, a man got tangled up in this definition too. I just had to get to that, I decided, and no one could hurt me again.

Staring at a blank piece of paper, I can't think of anything original. I feel utterly uninspired and unreceptive. It's the familiar malaise of 'artist's block' and in such circumstances there is only one thing to do: just start drawing. The artist Paul Klee refers to this simple act as 'taking a line for a walk', an apt description of my own basic practice: allowing the tip of a pencil to wander through the landscape of a sketchbook, motivated by a vague impulse but hoping to find something much more interesting along the way. Strokes, hooks, squiggles and loops can resolve into hills, faces, animals, machines -even abstract feelings- the meanings of which are often secondary to the simple act of making (something young children know intuitively). Images are not preconceived and then drawn, they are conceived as they are drawn. Indeed, drawing is its own form of thinking, in the same way birdsong is 'thought about' within a bird's throat.

Barret thinks- he thinks, briefly- of turning around and leaving the park; of being, this time, the vanisher, the man who leaves you wondering, who offers no explanation, not even the sour satisfaction of a real fight; who simply drifts away, because (it seems) there's affection and there's sex but there's no urgency, no little hooks clasping little eyes; no binding, no dogged devotions, no prayers for mercy, not when mercy can be so easily self-administered. What would it be like, Barrett wonders, to be the other, the man who's had the modest portion he thinks of as enough, who slips away before the mess sets in, before he's available to accusation and recrimination, before the authorities start demanding of him When, and Why, and With Whom

Somewhere along the way, I’ve started to care. The realization that I no longer wish to use her against her father slams into me, sucking the breath from my lungs and making my tortured heart skip a beat. But if I give her freedom, she’ll run far, far away.

The first thirty seconds of any conversation or presentation are like the last two minutes of a football game. This is when victory or defeat is determined, the period of time when your audience is deciding whether you are interesting enough for them to continue paying attention. Say just the right thing, and the communication game is yours. Your audience gets hooked, and they’re enticed to hear what you will say next. Get it wrong, and your listeners start daydreaming, checking their smartphones, or plotting their conversational exit strategy.

Motivation or Ability — Which Should You Increase First? After uncovering the triggers that prompt user actions and deciding which actions you want to turn into habits, you can increase motivation and ability to spark the likelihood of your users taking a desired behavior. But which should you invest in first, motivation or ability? Where is your time and money better spent? The answer is always to start with ability.

The relationship moved fast, I was swept off my feet. He seemed so perfect, everything I had ever dreamt of. His family lovebombed me and used my son to hook me. From the start the unusual family ways triggered my intuition. My concerns were swept under and distractions filled the cracks.

Nothing is a masterpiece - a real masterpiece - till it's about two hundred years old. A picture is like a tree or a church, you've got to let it grow into a masterpiece. Same with a poem or a new religion. They begin as a lot of funny words. Nobody knows whether they're all nonsense or a gift from heaven. And the only people who think anything of 'em are a lot of cranks or crackpots, or poor devils who don't know enough to know anything. Look at Christianity. Just a lot of floating seeds to start with, all sorts of seeds. It was a long time before one of them grew into a tree big enough to kill the rest and keep the rain off. And it's only when the tree has been cut into planks and built into a house and the house has got pretty old and about fifty generations of ordinary lumpheads who don't know a work of art from a public convenience, have been knocking nails in the kitchen beams to hang hams on, and screwing hooks in the walls for whips and guns and photographs and calendars and measuring the children on the window frames and chopping out a new cupboard under the stairs to keep the cheese and murdering their wives in the back room and burying them under the cellar flags, that it begins even to feel like a religion. And when the whole place is full of dry rot and ghosts and old bones and the shelves are breaking down with old wormy books that no one could read if they tried, and the attic floors are bulging through the servants' ceilings with old trunks and top-boots and gasoliers and dressmaker's dummies and ball frocks and dolls-houses and pony saddles and blunderbusses and parrot cages and uniforms and love letters and jugs without handles and bridal pots decorated with forget-me-nots and a piece out at the bottom, that it grows into a real old faith, a masterpiece which people can really get something out of, each for himself. And then, of course, everybody keeps on saying that it ought to be pulled down at once, because it's an insanitary nuisance.

What are you saying?” “I want to try.” He wanted clarification on that. “You want to try what?” There it was, that deep flush. “You know.” Yes, he knew, but he wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily. She was going to be his. For a brief time, she would belong to him and he would have everything he wanted, and he wanted her to start talking dirty. Yes. He wanted to teach her, to train her to accept pleasure so she would expect it. “No, I don’t know. You’ll have to be plain.” Avery blushed a little. “I want to be intimate with you.” So sweet. So polite. So not happening. “That sounds like you want me to get into my pajamas and exchange secrets with you. I’m not your girlfriend, Avery. Tell me what you want. That’s lesson number one. Communication and honesty are the keys to the relationship I want. I need to hear you say plainly what you want.” She hesitated, but only for a moment. He wasn’t surprised. Deep in her heart, she was a brave girl. She’d faced so much and still was open with her heart. Damn, but he didn’t understand that. “I would like for us to sleep together.” “I’m not very sleepy.” He wasn’t going to let her get away with anything. She groaned a little in obvious frustration. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.” “Yes. I do. So say what you want.” “I want to have sex.” “So clinical. I’ll have to think about that.” “I want to make love.” “Sweet, but not what I’m looking for.” Her face crinkled into the cutest pout. “Damn it, Lee. I want to fuck.” Just like that he was primed and ready. She’d said fuck with such a sweet little heat, her eyebrows forming a V over her face as though the entire incident had offended her polite sensibilities. She would learn there wasn’t room for politeness between them. He growled just a little. “I want to fuck, too, baby. I want to fuck all night long.

He was becoming an effective human being. He had learned from his birth family how to snare rabbits, make stew, paint fingernails, glue wallpaper, conduct ceremonies, start outside fires in a driving rain, sew with a sewing machine, cut quilt squares, play Halo, gather, dry, and boil various medicine teas. He had learned from the old people how to move between worlds seen and unseen. Peter taught him how to use an ax, a chain saw, safely handle a .22, drive a riding lawn mower, drive a tractor, even a car. Nola taught him how to paint walls, keep animals, how to plant and grow things, how to fry meat, how to bake. Maggie taught him how to hide fear, fake pain, how to punch with a knuckle jutting. How to go for the eyes. How to hook your fingers in a person’s nose from behind and threaten to rip the nose off your face. He hadn’t done these things yet, and neither had Maggie, but she was always looking for a chance. When

One day about a month ago, I really hit bottom. You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn't want to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought, what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody really knows that. But then I thought, no, you know, maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing. And I remember very clearly, the clock was ticking, and I was sitting there frozen with the gun to my head, debating whether to shoot. [The gun fires accidentally, shattering a mirror] All of a sudden, the gun went off. I had been so tense my finger had squeezed the trigger inadvertently. But I was perspiring so much the gun had slid off my forehead and missed me. And suddenly neighbors were, were pounding on the door, and, and I don't know, the whole scene was just pandemonium. And, uh, you know, I-I-I ran to the door, I-I didn't know what to say. You know, I was-I was embarrassed and confused and my-my-my mind was r-r-racing a mile a minute. And I-I just knew one thing. I-I-I had to get out of that house, I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly, I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me. And I wandered for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, and-and it must have been hours. You know, my-my feet hurt, my head was-was pounding, and-and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know what was playing or anything. I just, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and, and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective. And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down, and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and-and I always, uh, loved it. And, you know, I'm-I'm watching these people up on the screen and I started getting hooked on the film, you know. And I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself. I mean isn't it so stupid? I mean, l-look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, they're real funny, and-and what if the worst is true. What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it. Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it's-it's not all a drag. And I'm thinkin' to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life - searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.

Never reduce a target. Instead, increase actions. When you start rethinking your targets, making up excuses, and letting yourself off the hook, you are giving up on your dreams! These actions should be an indication that you're getting off track - that you should begin thinking in terms of correcting your initial estimation of effort.

What do you think?” Harding says. McMurphy starts. “She’s got one hell of a set of chabobs,” is all he can think of. “Big as Old Lady Ratched’s.” “I didn’t mean physically, my friend, I mean what do you—” “Hell’s bells, Harding!” McMurphy yells suddenly. “I don’t know what to think! What do you want out of me? A marriage counsellor? All I know is this: nobody’s very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down. I know what you want me to think; you want me to feel sorry for you, to think she’s a real bitch. Well, you didn’t make her feel like any queen either. Well, screw you and ‘what do you think?’ I’ve got worries of my own without getting hooked with yours. So just quit!” He glares around the library at the other patients. “Alla you! Quit bugging me, goddammit!” And

Dear Logan, Someday I'm going to write a book: How Not to Die in Alaska - A Girl's Guide to Fashionable Survival. I bet you don't know that a Kirby grip can make an excellent fishing hook. You may think you can use just any kind of mud for mud masks, but trust me, you CAN'T! In a pinch, nothing starts a fire like nail polish remover. And don't even get me started on the lifesaving properties of a good pair of tights. So I know a lot, in other words. I just don't know why I'm still writing you these letters.

I couldn’t talk about it, about them—not yet. So I breathed “Later” and hooked my feet around his legs, drawing him closer. I placed my hands on his chest, feeling the heart beating beneath. This—I needed this right now. It wouldn’t wash away what I’d done, but … I needed him near, needed to smell and taste him, remind myself that he was real—this was real. “Later,” he echoed, and leaned down to kiss me. It was soft, tentative—nothing like the wild, hard kisses we’d shared in the hall of throne room. He brushed his lips against mine again. I didn’t want apologies, didn’t want sympathy or coddling. I gripped the front of his tunic, tugging him closer as I opened my mouth to him. He let out a low growl, and the sound of it sent a wildfire blazing through me, pooling and burning in my core. I let it burn through that hole in my chest, my soul. Let it raze through the wave of black that was starting to press around me, let it consume the phantom blood I could still feel on my hands. I gave myself to that fire, to him, as his hands roved across me, unbuttoning as he went. I pulled back, breaking the kiss to look into his face. His eyes were bright—hungry—but his hands had stopped their exploring and rested firmly on my hips. With a predator’s stillness, he waited and watched as I traced the contours of his face, as I kissed every place I touched. His ragged breathing was the only sound—and his hands soon began roaming across my back and sides, caressing and teasing and baring me to him. When my traveling fingers reached his mouth, he bit down on one, sucking it into his mouth. It didn’t hurt, but the bite was hard enough for me to meet his eyes again. To realize that he was done waiting—and so was I. He eased me onto the bed, murmuring my name against my neck, the shell of my ear, the tips of my fingers. I urged him—faster, harder. His mouth explored the curve of my breast, the inside of my thigh. A kiss for each day we’d spent apart, a kiss for every wound and terror, a kiss for the ink etched into my flesh, and for all the days we would be together after this. Days, perhaps, that I no longer deserved. But I gave myself again to that fire, threw myself into it, into him, and let myself burn.

Henry hooked his legs on the branch and flipped over gingerly, until he was hanging upside-down, grinning at Vlad. Then Henry's grin slipped. He fell to the ground several feet below with a thump, crying out as his body made impact. Vlad shimmied down the tree as fast as he could. "Henry ! Are you okay?" Henry sat up, clutching his wounded knee. He looked very much like he was going to start crying any second. A small, thin line of blood oozed from the scrape on his knee. Vlad's tiny fangs shot from his gums. Henry's eyes went wide, his injury all but forgotten. "What are those?" Vlad's small shoulders sank. He'd let his dad down. "They're my fangs." "Vlad, are you a vampire or something?" Henry's eyes were big, and Vlad was certain he saw fear in them. Not as much fear as when Henry had been falling from the tree, but close. He took a deep breath, glancing at the house. Then he sat down in front of Henry and said, "Yeah, Henry. I'm a vampire. But it's a secret. A very, very, very big secret and you can't tell anyone ever.

I fuck him slowly, letting him get used to the sensation, but Jamie Canning is a master at adapting. It’s him who wraps his arms around me, who hooks his legs around my ass. It’s him who starts rocking up to meet my every thrust, and him who says, “Faster, Wes” as I desperately try to go slow. “Don’t wanna hurt you,” I mumble. “Wanna come,” he mumbles back.

Jim Lee of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, hooked up all the electrical outlets in his house to a gasoline generator and then electrocuted himself trying to start it up.

February 5 FOX (9:10 AM): It’s raining here. Give me something moody to listen to. HANNAH (9:12 AM): Hmm. The National. Start with “Fake Empire.

And to think, it all started with a little bit of faith. Misplaced trust. Missing pixie dust. And a villain who just needed to steal a little love.

The longer I stare at him, the more I start to question myself on why I decided it was a bad idea to hook-up with him? Oh, because he’s my stepbrother. Right!

I now had a sense of what a movement to reclaim our attention might look like. I would start with three big, bold goals. One: ban surveillance capitalism, because people who are being hacked and deliberately hooked can't focus. Two: introduce a four-day week, because people who are chronically exhausted can't pay attention. Three: rebuild childhood around letting kids play freely--in their neighborhoods and at school--because children who are imprisoned in their homes won't be able to develop a healthy ability to pay attention. If we achieve these goals, the ability of people to pay attention would, over time, dramatically improve. Then we will have a solid core of focus that we could use to take the fight further and deeper.

When users start to automatically cue their next behavior, the new habit becomes part of their everyday routine. Over time, Barbra associates Facebook with her need for social connection.

It’s your fault because you got me into Morag Fraser. I’d never even heard of the Hebridean Harpies series till you dragged me along to her event. And now I am totally hooked. I was reading Vampires on Vatersay till one in the morning. I just had to finish it. And then I started Banshees of Berneray at breakfast and I could hardly drag myself away from it to come and meet you.

When asked why he wrote the book, Freed said: In the 1980s, I joined the small group of anthropologists who were writing about the history of their subject. I believed that I could add some balance to American anthropological history, and that the best place to start was with museums— where the story began. The more I delved into the archives, the more I was fascinated. I was hooked.

Wade sighed. “I’ll never understand why women wear bras to start with. They look uncomfortable as hell.” “They’re not that bad.” “Turn around so I can fasten the damn thing for you.” She refused to let go. Suddenly it seemed important to do this one small task alone. “I can do it, Wade. I need to get used to doing things with this cast.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he watched her struggle. “Is it so hard to ask for help from me, Gracie?” She tried the two small hooks once more, but failed to get them both attached. “No, it’s just that I’m not used to people offering, I guess.” He moved around her and helped fasten the contrary hook. When she turned to tell him thanks, he placed his finger over her lips and murmured, “If you thank me, I’ll spank you. Knowing I haven’t been able to catch your stalker, that he broke into your home and trashed your things and I wasn’t able to stop him makes me feel as fucking useless as tits on a bull. The least I can do is fasten your bra.

This particularly tends to happen with depression and anxiety. With anxiety you tend to get hooked by stories about the future, about things that might go wrong and how badly you’re sure to handle them.

Start your day with and in prayer. Communicate with the Lord and listen for instructions. Hooking up, plugging into, and connecting to the POWER SOURCE each day will keep power outages and disconnections away!

For all his manwhoring, the guy has a strict rule about not doing freshmen. I’m not sure I blame him, considering our little stalker incident at the start of the year. Dean had hooked up with a freshman, who, after one night of exquisite passion, decided they were madly in love. She then proceeded to show up at our house at all hours of the day and night, sometimes wearing clothes, other times not wearing clothes, usually armed with flowers and love letters and—my personal favorite—a framed photo of herself wearing Dean’s hockey jersey. Sometimes when I’m falling asleep, I can still hear her wailing Deeeeeeeeean outside my window.

She talks. People talk easily to me. They think a bald albino hunchback dwarf can’t hide anything. My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves. They begin out of simple courtesy. Just being visible is my biggest confession, so they try to set me at ease by revealing our equality, by dragging out their own less-apparent deformities. That’s how it starts. But I am like a stranger on the bus and they get hooked on having a listener. They go too far because I am one listener who is in no position to judge or find fault. They stretch out their dampest secrets because a creature like me has no virtues or morals. If I am “good” (and they assume that I am), it’s obviously for lack of opportunity to be otherwise. And I listen. I listen eagerly, warmly, because I care. They tell me everything eventually.

The initial flattery and attention will get the narcissist off to a flying start, and when the love-bombing follows, the codependent will be blown away. Somebody loves him, at last. No wonder he will become hooked so quickly. Even when the nonsense starts- the silent treatment etc. - this is behaviour he recognises and is conditioned to. He just has to keep trying that little bit harder, in order to win back the narcissist´s approval.

Every young man starting life ought to know how to cope with an angry swan, so I will briefly relate the proper procedure. You begin by picking up the raincoat which somebody has dropped; and then, judging the distance to a nicety, you simply shove the raincoat over the bird’s head; and, taking the boat-hook which you have prudently brought with you, you insert it underneath the swan and heave. The swan goes into a bush and starts trying to unscramble itself; and you saunter back to your boat, taking with you any friends who may happen at the moment to be sitting on roofs in the vicinity. That was Jeeves’s method, and I cannot see how it could have been improved upon.

He stared fixedly at the opposite bank where an angler was fishing, his line perfectly still. All of a sudden the man jerked out of the water a little sliver fish which wriggled at the end of his line. Twisting and turning it this way and that he tried to extract his hook, but in vain. Losing patience he started pulling and, as he did so, tore out the entire bloody gullet of the fish with parts of its intestines attached. Paul shuddered, feeling himself equally torn apart. It seemed to him that the hook was like his own love and that if he were to tear it out he too would be gutted by a piece of curved wire hooked deep into his essential self at the end of a line held by Madeleine.

I learnt how to start a fire. I learnt how to put bait on a hook.” “See!” Mo-Maw sounded like she was relieved. “That’s what ah telt our Jodie. That’s what ah wanted you to do this for. Masculine pursuits. It’ll make a man out of ye.

Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: “Have you read a book from start to finish since high school?” or “Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?” If the truthful answer is “no,” then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big bazoo about how books make children crazy. Whenever ideas are squashed in this country, literate lovers of the American experiment write careful and intricate explanations of why all ideas must be allowed to live. It is time for them to realize that they are attempting to explain America at its bravest and most optimistic to orangutans. From now on, I intend to limit my discourse with dimwitted Savonarolas to this advice: "Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!" Well--the American Civil Liberties Union or somebody like that will come to the scene of trouble, as they always do. They will explain what is in the Constitution, and to whom it applies. They will win. And there will be millions who are bewildered and heartbroken by the legal victory, who think some things should never be said--especially about religion. They are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hi ho.

Let's face the reality that if OJ Simpson had been poor or even lower-middle-class there would have been no media attention. Justice was never a central issue. Our nation's tabloid passion to know about the lives of the rich made class a starting point.

Footnote 164: "I finally hooked up with Ashley. I went over to her place yesterday morning. Early. She lives in Venice. Her eyebrows look like flakes of sunlight. Her smile, I'm sure, burnt Rome to the ground. And for the life of me I didn't know who she was or where we met... We sat down and I wanted to talk. I wanted to ask her who she was, where we'd met, been before, but she just smiled and held my hand as we lay down on the hammock and started to swing above all those dead leaves... Before I left she told me our story: where we met - Texas - kissed, but never made love and this had confused and haunted her and she had needed it before she got married which was in four months to a man she loved who made a living manufacturing TNT exclusively for a highway construction firm up in Colorado where he frequently went on business trips and where one night, drunk, angry and disappointed he had invited a hooker back to his motel room and so on and who cared and what was I doing here anyway?... I was still hurting, abandoned, drank three glasses of bourbon and fumed on some weed, then came here, thinking of voices, real and imagined, of ghosts, my ghost, of her, at long last, in this idiotic footnote, when she gently pushed me out her door and I said quietly 'Ashley' causing her to stop pushing me and ask 'yes?' her eyes bright with something she saw that I could never see though what she saw was me, and me not caring now at least knowing the truth and telling her the truth: 'I've never been to Texas.'" - House of Leaves

Eddie Carroll had just come in from outside, and read Noonan's letter standing in the mudroom. He flipped to the beginning of the story. He stood reading for almost five minutes before noticing he was uncomfortably warm. He tossed his jacket at a hook and wandered into the kitchen. He sat for a while on the stairs to the second floor, turning through the pages. Then he was stretched on the couch in his office, head on a pile of books, reading in a slant of late October light, with no memory of how he had got there. He rushed through to the ending, then sat up, in the grip of a strange, bounding exuberance. He thought it was possibly the rudest, most awful thing he had ever read, and in his case that was saying something. He had waded through the rude and awful for most of his professional life, and in those fly-blown and diseased literary swamps had discovered flowers of unspeakable beauty, of which he was sure this was one. It was cruel and perverse and he had to have it. He turned to the beginning and started reading again. ("Best New Horror")

Confession: I miss you." "Ian ..." "Confession: you're my best friend." "Please stop." "Confession: if you gave me the chance, I'd love you until forever." I swallowed hard as I watched him walk toward me. I was standing right in the middle of pig manure, doing the most disgusting job, looking as if I hadn't slept in days, and Ian Parker was telling me how he wanted to love me forever. He continued on. "Confession: you are my sun, my moon, and my stars. Confession: whatever's hurting you, we can fix together. Confession: I'm never going to give up on this." I didn't know how it happened. I didn't know how my hands found his or how our bodies became pressed together. I didn't know how his forehead fell to mine of how my heartbeats increased erratically. I didn't know how his lips fell so close to mine or how his exhalations became my inhalations. But there we were, seconds away from our lips locking together, and me falling into a drunkenness that I'd never be able to recover from. If I started kissing Ian, I knew I'd never be able to stop. He was it for me. He was the hook, the bridge, and the melody.

Mitch had a particular way with women—a formula of giving and withholding that almost always managed to hook them. Getting them to talk about themselves was the first step; remaining enigmatic was the second. There were other steps, but he used only the first two during that encounter.

We must commit to pulling our brothers and sisters out of the river and also commit to going upstream to identify, confront, and hold accountable those who are pushing them in. We help parents bury their babies who were victims of gun violence. And we go upstream to fight the gun manufacturers and politicians who profit from their children’s deaths. We step into the gap to sustain moms who are raising families with imprisoned dads. And we go upstream to dismantle the injustice of mass incarceration. We fund recovery programs for those suffering from opioid addiction. And we go upstream to rail against the system that enables Big Pharma and corrupt doctors to get richer every time another kid gets hooked. We provide shelter and mentoring for LGBTQ homeless kids. And we go upstream to renounce the religious-based bigotry, family rejection, and homophobic policies that make LGBTQ kids more than twice as likely as their straight or cis-gender peers to experience homelessness. We help struggling veterans get the PTSD treatment they need and deserve, and we go upstream to confront the military-industrial complex, which is so zealous to send our soldiers to war and so willing to abandon them when they return.

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, at high speed, her eyes fixed on the road, Abigail asked, a little loudly above the hum, 'Do you think that neurosis is when you lie to yourself so much that other people start to notice?' Christopher, who'd been looking through the blurred bridge railing down to the boats on the bay, turned and responded, 'I think it's when your past is like a floor set on water and it won't right itself, so you're shifting your weight and contorting yourself in ways that only make sense to you because no one else can see how you're trying to balance yourself, how you're trying just to stand.

And by “tell the story right,” I mean be a good storyteller: Open with a hook. Lure the reader from one line to the next. Start in the middle of the action. Create compelling characters. Set the story around a central conflict. If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story (or a hook). And who would read that?

I think that one of the unspoken discomforts surrounding the way a discourse of race and gender, and sexual practice has disrupted the academy is precisely that mind/body split. Once we start talking in the classroom about the body and about how we live in our bodies, we’re automatically challenging the way power has orchestrated itself in that particular institutionalized space.The person who is most powerful has the privilege of denying their body…. I think part of why everyone in the culture, and students in general, have a tendency to see professors as people who don’t work is totally tied to that sense of the immobile body.

Bradley is one of the few basketball players who have ever been appreciatively cheered by a disinterested away-from-home crowd while warming up. This curious event occurred last March, just before Princeton eliminated the Virginia Military Institute, the year's Southern Conference champion, from the NCAA championships. The game was played in Philadelphia and was the last of a tripleheader. The people there were worn out, because most of them were emotionally committed to either Villanova or Temple-two local teams that had just been involved in enervating battles with Providence and Connecticut, respectively, scrambling for a chance at the rest of the country. A group of Princeton players shooting basketballs miscellaneously in preparation for still another game hardly promised to be a high point of the evening, but Bradley, whose routine in the warmup time is a gradual crescendo of activity, is more interesting to watch before a game than most players are in play. In Philadelphia that night, what he did was, for him, anything but unusual. As he does before all games, he began by shooting set shots close to the basket, gradually moving back until he was shooting long sets from 20 feet out, and nearly all of them dropped into the net with an almost mechanical rhythm of accuracy. Then he began a series of expandingly difficult jump shots, and one jumper after another went cleanly through the basket with so few exceptions that the crowd began to murmur. Then he started to perform whirling reverse moves before another cadence of almost steadily accurate jump shots, and the murmur increased. Then he began to sweep hook shots into the air. He moved in a semicircle around the court. First with his right hand, then with his left, he tried seven of these long, graceful shots-the most difficult ones in the orthodoxy of basketball-and ambidextrously made them all. The game had not even begun, but the presumably unimpressible Philadelphians were applauding like an audience at an opera.

Well, a big part of it is how people addicted to crack were treated back in the day.” I sniff and start walking. “People acted like those addicts were soulless zombies, or jokes, or problems to lock away and take their babies from. Now white people get hooked on something, and we’re building fancy new facilities to research how to fix things.

to make the sail set properly you must pull the boom down. That’ll take those cross wrinkles out.” “Is that what those blocks (pulleys) are for hooked to a ring in the kelson close to where the mast is stepped? But they are all muddled up.” “Isn’t there another ring under the boom, close to the mast?” asked Queen Elizabeth. “Got it,” said Captain John. “One block hooks to the ring under the boom, and one to the ring in the bottom of the boat, then it’s as easy as anything to haul the boom down. How’s that?” “The crinkles in the sail go up and down now, and not across,” said Mate Susan. “That’s right,” said Queen Elizabeth. “The wind will flatten them out as soon as we start sailing.

People who have been wronged by an emotionally immature person may start to think they’re at fault if they continue to feel hurt by what the person did. Emotionally immature people expect you to take them off the hook immediately. If it feels better to blame you for not forgiving them fast enough, that’s what they’ll do. After a rift, many people will make what relationship expert John Gottman calls a repair attempt (1999), apologizing, asking for forgiveness, or making amends in a way that shows a desire to patch things up. But emotionally immature people have a completely unrealistic idea of what forgiveness means. To them, forgiveness should make it like the rift never happened, as though a completely fresh start is possible. They have no awareness of the need for emotional processing or the amount of time it may take to rebuild trust after a major betrayal. They just want things to be normal again. Others’ pain is the only fly in the ointment. Everything would be fine if others would just get past their feelings about the situation.

If he thinks he can “STEP IT UP” in games, he needs to start stepping it up in practice.  The athletes that have peak performances on a consistent basis are the athletes that don’t change their intensity and focus from practice to games.  They go all out in practice to make practice more game-like, so that they can make the games more practice-like.

they’re selling is not real sex. It lacks connection, respect, and vulnerability, which is what makes sex sexy. “This kind of porn is sold by people who are like drug dealers. They sell a product that fills people with a rush that feels like joy for a short while but then becomes a killer of real joy. Over time people prefer the rush of drugs to the real joy of life. Many who start watching porn very young will get hooked on the rush. Eventually they will find it hard to enjoy real sex with real human beings. “Trying to learn about sex from porn is like trying to learn about the mountains by sniffing one of those air fresheners they sell at the gas station. When you finally get to the real mountains and breathe in that pure, wild air—you might be confused. You might wish it smelled like that fake, manufactured air-freshener version. “We don’t want you to stay away from porn while you’re young because sex is bad. We want you to stay away from porn because real sex—with humanity and vulnerability and love—is indescribably good. We don’t want fake sex ruining

Do you ever wonder how we all got here? On Earth, I mean. Forget the song and dance about Adam and Eve, which I know is a load of crap. My father likes the myth of the Pawnee Indians, who say that the star deities populated the world: Evening Star and Morning Star hooked up and gave birth to the first female. The first boy came from the Sun and the Moon. Humans rode in on the back of a tornado. Mr. Hume, my science teacher, taught us about this primordial soup full of natural gases and muddy slop and carbon matter that somehow solidified into one-celled organisms called choanoflagellates... which sound a lot more like a sexually transmitted disease than the start of the evolutionary chain, in my opinion. But even once you get there, it's a huge leap from an amoeba to a monkey to a whole thinking person. The really amazing thing about all this is no matter what you believe, it took some doing to get from a point where there was nothing, to a point where all the right neurons fire and pop so that we can make decisions. More amazing is how even though that's become second nature, we all still manage to screw it up.

Catarina hooked her hand around Magnus’s elbow and hauled him away, like a schoolteacher with a misbehaving student. They entered a narrow alcove around the corner, where the music and noise of the party was muffled. She rounded on him. “I recently treated Tessa for wounds she said were inflicted on her by members of a demon-worshipping cult,” Catarina said. “She told me you were, and I quote, ‘handling’ the cult. What’s going on? Explain.” Magnus made a face. “I may have had a hand in founding it.” “How much of a hand?” “Well, both.” Catarina bristled. “I specifically told you not to do that!” “You did?” Magnus said. A bubble of hope grew within him. “You remember what happened?” She gave him a look of distress. “You don’t?” “Someone took all my memories around the subject of this cult,” said Magnus. “I don’t know who, or why.” He sounded more desperate than he would’ve liked, more desperate than he wanted to be. His old friend’s face was full of sympathy. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “I met up with you and Ragnor for a brief vacation. You seemed troubled, but you were trying to laugh it off, the way you always do. You and Ragnor said you had a brilliant idea to start a joke cult. I told you not to do it. That’s it.” He, Catarina, and Ragnor had taken many trips together, over the centuries. One memorable trip had gotten Magnus banished from Peru. He had always enjoyed those adventures more than any others. Being with his friends almost felt like having a home. He did not know if there would ever be another trip. Ragnor was dead, and Magnus might have done something terrible. “Why didn’t you stop me?” he asked. “You usually stop me!” “I had to take an orphan child across an ocean to save his life.” “Right,” said Magnus. “That’s a good reason.” Catarina shook her head. “I took my eyes off you for one second.” She had worked in mundane hospitals in New York for decades. She saved orphans. She healed the sick. She’d always been the voice of reason in the trio that was Ragnor, Catarina, and Magnus. “So I planned with Ragnor to start a joke cult, and I guess I did it. Now the joke cult is a real cult, and they have a new leader. It sounds like they’re mixed up with a Greater Demon.” Even to Catarina, he wouldn’t say the name of his father. “Sounds like the joke has gotten a little out of hand,” Catarina said dryly. “Sounds like I’m the punch line.

In American Beauty Lester suffers alone. His critical investigation of his feelings takes place in his head. And he cannot survive being so utterly vulnerable and isolated. Ultimately, movies send the message to male audiences that men will not be meaningfully empowered if they learn to love. American Beauty finally tells audiences that there is no hope for depressed men who are willing to critically reflect on their lives. It tells us that even when men are willing to change, there is no place for them in patriarchal culture. The opening lines of the film say it all: “My name is Lester Burnham. I am forty-two. In less than a year I’ll be dead. Of course, I don’t know that yet. And anyway, I’m dead already.” Popular culture offers us few or no redemptive images of men who start out emotionally dead.

Then it was horn time. Time for the big solo. Sonny lifted the trumpet - One! Two! - He got it into sight - Three! We all stopped dead. I mean we stopped. That wasn't Sonny's horn. This one was dented-in and beat-up and the tip-end was nicked. It didn't shine, not a bit. Lux leaned over-you could have fit a coffee cup into his mouth. "Jesus God," he said. "Am I seeing right?" I looked close and said: "Man, I hope not." But why kid? We'd seen that trumpet a million times. It was Spoof's. Rose-Ann was trembling. Just like me, she remembered how we'd buried the horn with Spoof. And she remembered how quiet it had been in Sonny's room last night... I started to think real hophead thoughts, like - where did Sonny get hold of a shovel that late? and how could he expect a horn to play that's been under the ground for two years? and - That blast got into our ears like long knives. Spoof's own trademark! Sonny looked caught, like he didn't know what to do at first, like he was hypnotized, scared, almighty scared. But as the sound came out, rolling out, sharp and clean and clear - new-trumpet sound - his expression changed. His eyes changed: they danced a little and opened wide. Then he closed them, and blew that horn. Lord God of the Fishes, how he blew it! How he loved it and caressed it and pushed it up, higher and higher and higher. High C? Bottom of the barrel. He took off, and he walked all over the rules and stamped them flat. The melody got lost, first off. Everything got lost, then, while that horn flew. It wasn't only jazz; it was the heart of jazz, and the insides, pulled out with the roots and held up for everybody to see; it was blues that told the story of all the lonely cats and all the ugly whores who ever lived, blues that spoke up for the loser lamping sunshine out of iron-gray bars and every hop head hooked and gone, for the bindlestiffs and the city slicers, for the country boys in Georgia shacks and the High Yellow hipsters in Chicago slums and the bootblacks on the corners and the fruits in New Orleans, a blues that spoke for all the lonely, sad and anxious downers who could never speak themselves... And then, when it had said all this, it stopped and there was a quiet so quiet that Sonny could have shouted: 'It's okay, Spoof. It's all right now. You get it said, all of it - I'll help you. God, Spoof, you showed me how, you planned it - I'll do my best!' And he laid back his head and fastened the horn and pulled in air and blew some more. Not sad, now, not blues - but not anything else you could call by a name. Except... jazz. It was Jazz. Hate blew out of that horn, then. Hate and fury and mad and fight, like screams and snarls, like little razors shooting at you, millions of them, cutting, cutting deep... And Sonny only stopping to wipe his lip and whisper in the silent room full of people: 'You're saying it, Spoof! You are!' God Almighty Himself must have heard that trumpet, then; slapping and hitting and hurting with notes that don't exist and never existed. Man! Life took a real beating! Life got groined and sliced and belly-punched and the horn, it didn't stop until everything had all spilled out, every bit of the hate and mad that's built up in a man's heart. ("Black Country")

I’ve always wondered how religions get started, but now I have a better handle on it, I think. Take some subjugated group of people and give them something to hook their hope claws into. Something that can, in the retelling, just get better and better. Then by the time it’s climbed high enough, you can’t let go anymore, because the fall’s too scary, so you go all in on that it really happened this way, and only this way.

But they are so charming at first,” she went on, picking up a sparkly diamond necklace Austin had bought me a few months ago for no other reason than he thought I might like it. She draped it around my neck and fixed the clasp. “They compliment you endlessly, fawn all over you, tell you you’re pretty… The manipulation is gradual. First they blame you for something innocuous. Then they start telling you to calm down when you call them on something they did, or they ignore you when they think you’re behaving badly. They pick at you for the very things they once praised you for, right? ‘Why are you wearing so much makeup? Are you trying to entice other men?’ I got that one a lot. Or ‘Why are you so dressed up? You look like a slut.’ He got his hooks into me, bro. In the thick of it, he made me start to question reality. He gaslit the fuck out of me. Excuse my language.

Late afternoon light filters in through his pale curtains, and it casts the room in a dreamy kind of filter. If I were going to name it, I would call it “summer in the suburbs.” Peter looks beautiful in this light. He looks beautiful in any light, but especially this one. I take a picture of him in my mind, just like this. Any annoyance I felt over him forgetting my yearbook melts away when he snuggles closer to me, rests his head on my chest, and says, “I can feel your heart beating.” I start playing with his hair, which I know he likes. It’s so soft for a boy. I love the smell of his detergent, his soap, everything. He looks up at me and traces the bow of my lip. “I like this part the best,” he says. Then he moves up and brushes his lips against mine, teasing me. He bites on my bottom lip playfully. I like all his different kinds of kisses, but maybe this kind best. Then he’s kissing me with urgency, like he is utterly consumed, his hands in my hair, and I think, no, these are the best. Between kisses he asks me, “How come you only ever want to hook up when we’re at my house?” “I--I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it before.” It’s true we only ever make out at Peter’s house. It feels weird to be romantic in the same bed I’ve slept in since I was a little girl. But when I’m in Peter’s bed, or in his car, I forget all about that and I’m just lost in the moment.

So I packed up the rest of the apartment and I did, for two weeks. Kate helped me sublet the studio and then I moved to Brooklyn. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a new borough, a fresh start. And even there I had to avoid Bubby’s, where we went to Kevin and Sara’s wedding, and the Red Hook Lobster Pound, where we went to celebrate July Fourth. You were everywhere. We’d only been together for fourteen months, but it was fourteen months that changed my world

What was critical to my father was that we not "go into government". His father and mother had both worked in the Treasury Department; and to him, "going into government" meant getting "hooked" on the salary and job security, and spending the rest of one's life in predictable, routinized labor that stunted the mind and sapped the spirit. My father would tell us of accountant friends who had passed their C.P.A. exam, then gone to work for the generous starting salaries offered by the I.R.S. While he was struggling in his mid-twenties, they were bragging about the cash they were taking home. Now, he said, he rarely saw them. Now, they had a defeated look; now, they were taking orders from some bureaucrat, and would be taking orders for the rest of their lives. He admired the disposition to roll the dice and risk everything that his Jewish friends and clients, Benny Ouresman, the Chevrolet dealer, and Harry Viner and his son Melvin, who had made a fortune with Sunshine Laundry, had exhibited. "They didn't have a damn dime when they started," Pop would tell us, emphatically. "They went to friends, borrowed money, started a business, went broke, went back to their friends, borrowed again, went broke again. Finally, they made it. They built something of their own. Now they work for themselves, and everybody else works for them. Be your own man!" That was the attitude we should adopt.

Sirens blasted, breaking the silence and spinning me around. The shrill sound was all too familiar, and I snapped into action. Vicious excitement replaced the restlessness, and I knew just how screwed up that was, but right then? Oh yeah, I could use a fight. Yesterday in the quad had been child’s play. Grabbing the Glock loaded with titanium bullets, I hooked it into the holster and fit it around my thigh. I snatched the daggers off the dresser and headed out the door, not even bothering with grabbing a shirt. I came to a complete stop as Josie’s door swung open. What in the holy fuck were Alex and Josie doing together? For just a few seconds, the three of us were literally frozen, staring at each other as the sirens blared overhead. And then Alex broke the silence. “Really?” she said dryly, eyeing me with a smirk. “You’re going to fight with the awesomeness of your six-pack as a weapon?” I arched a brow. “Yeah, you know, I was going to test out the whole abs of steel theory thing. The gun attached to my thigh and the daggers in my hands are just props. Mainly for show. Don’t want to take away from the gloriousness that is my body, though.” Her smirk flipped into a grin. “Whatever.” She started forward. Up ahead, a tall figure stepped out in the hall, and light glinted off the titanium daggers in his hands. Aiden. Of course their room had to be close to mine. Of. Course.

Soundings must be made at all three mounds. We make a start with Tell Mozan. There is a village there, and with Hamoudi as ambassador we try and obtain workmen. The men are doubtful and suspicious. "We do not need money," they say. "It has been a good harvest." For this is a simple, and, I think, consequently a happy part of the world. Food is the only consideration. If the harvest is good, you are rich. For the rest of the year there is leisure and plenty, until the time comes to plough and sow once more. "A little extra money," says Hamoudi, like the serpent of Eden, "is always welcome." They answer simply: "But what can we buy with it? We have enough food until the harvest comes again." And here, alas! the eternal Eve plays her part. Astute Hamoudi baits his hook. They can buy ornaments for their wives. The wives nod their heads. This digging, they say, is a good thing! Reluctantly the men consider the idea. ...

It was worth it," Faye says after school while she walks me to my car. "It's not fair that you take all the shit for this while the guys get to walk around like nothing happened. They're just as much to blame." "I'm the one who started it," I say, kicking a beer cap across the parking lot with my shoe. "If I hadn't started it, nothing would have happened. "Don't let them off the hook so easily," Faye snaps. "They were coming to you. It takes two to have sex. So don't defend them.

One of my earliest memories was of a maze of pale green walls. The corridors never ended, no matter which way I turned. I was running, my feet bare, my paper-thin gown flapping around skinny foal-like legs, and the demons kept on coming. I’d run the maze before, because I always knew which way to turn to find the little clear plastic box. I’d run, and run. Lungs aching, throat burning, my feet slapping against the smooth floor, and the sound of scrabbling claws chased me down. I made it to the box, every time (I’d learned later, there were others who hadn’t) and once inside, I’d yank the clear door closed. The demons didn’t see the box. They saw only me, the wraith-like little half-blood girl. They would launch themselves—claws extended, jaws wide, eyes ablaze—and slam into my box, sending shudders rattling through my bones. They’d snap and snarl, hook their teeth into the box and gnaw at its edges, desperate to get to the feast huddling a few millimeters away. Flooding, the Institute had called it. At first I was afraid, and I learned how to run. Then I was angry, and I learned how to fight with my fists and my element. Then, I got even. I lured those demons into a corner and ambushed them, killing every last one. After countless visits to the maze, after weeks, years, I’d started liking it, and killing became as natural as breathing. It was what I was good at. What I was made for. What I lived for. © Copyright Pippa DaCosta 2016.

She cracked open a Diet Mountain Dew. We watched the movie in silence. In the middle, I fell back asleep. • • • OCTOBER WAS PLACID. The radiator hissed and sputtered, releasing a sharp vinegary smell that reminded me of my dead parents’ basement, so I rarely turned on the heat. I didn’t mind the cold. My visit to Dr. Tuttle that month was relatively unremarkable. “How is everything at home?” she asked. “Good? Bad? Other?” “Other,” I said. “Do you have a family history of nonbinary paradigms?” When I explained for the third time that both my parents had died, that my mother had killed herself, Dr. Tuttle unscrewed the cap of her value-size bottle of Afrin, twirled around in her chair, tilted her head back so that she was looking at me upside down, and started sniffing. “I’m listening,” she said. “It’s allergies, and now I’m hooked on this nasal spray. Please continue. Your parents are dead, and . . . ?” “And nothing. It’s fine. But I’m still not sleeping well.

And you’re sitting here, waiting on him, looking like a lost puppy.” I shrugged. “It was a good month. I’m hoping for more five-cups-of-coffee moments.” “Five-cups-of-coffee moments?” “You know. That serious high you get after you’ve had five cups of coffee.” “You have to keep feeding love what it needs to keep it feeling like love. Drink a lot of coffee every day, and you’ll need to drink more coffee to get the same effect.” “Caffeine and love. Both are drugs. You become dependent. It starts to own you.” “Your relationship with Chicken and Waffles sounds as miserable as my marriage.” “I’m not hooked. We’re just ships docked at the same port for now, that’s all.” “You’re restless. Aggravated. Your expression says you’re in pain and ready to jump.” I frowned at my phone. “Hurts when he doesn’t call or text me back.” “The guy you’re chasing . . . is Chicken and Waffles the type of man you’d want your son to be?” “I’m not chasing him. I’m not chasing any man.” “Play the game. What you have described to me is an abusive relationship.

As the machine scanned the blood flow in the various regions of their brains, the tasters were informed of the cost of each wine sampled. The sample started with a $5 wine and progressed to a $90 bottle. Interestingly, as the price of the wine increased, so did the participant's enjoyment of the wine. Not only did they say they enjoyed the wine more but their brain corroborated their feelings, showing higher spikes in the regions associated with pleasure. Little did the study participants realize, they were tasting the same wine each time.

The porn kids come across on the internet, is misogynistic poison. We have to explain that to them so they don't think sex is about violence. Sex is a wonderful and exciting thing about being human. It is natural to be curious about sex and when we are curious about things, we turn to the internet for information. But here's the problem with using the internet to learn about sex: you cannot know who is doing the teaching. There are people who have taken sex and sucked all the life out of it to package it and sell it on the internet. What they’re selling is not real sex. It lacks connection, respect, and vulnerability, which is what makes sex sexy. This kind of porn is sold by people who are like drug dealers. They sell a product that fills people with a rush that feels like joy for a short while but then becomes a killer of real joy. Over time people prefer the rush of drugs to the real joy of life. Many who start watching porn very young will get hooked on the rush. Eventually, they will find it hard to enjoy real sex with real human beings. Trying to learn about sex from porn is like trying to learn about the mountains by sniffing one of those air fresheners they sell at the gas station. When you finally get to the real mountains and breathe in that pure, wild air—you might be confused. You might wish it smelled like that fake, manufactured air freshener version. We don’t want you to stay away from porn while you’re young because sex is bad. We want you to stay away from porn because real sex—with humanity and vulnerability and love—is indescribably good. We don’t want fake sex ruining real sex for you.

Are you going to start with the poetry of it?” Ghastron asked softly. “How her hooks are in your soul, so that each sweet breath is naught but wind unless some part of her can feel as you now feel. How every beat of your labouring heart speaks her name, and yet you know it isn’t even her name. That, sans the bounds of contract and the conjurer’s circle, does the thing that fills your life even exist? Or is the one you love solely within your mind, a puppet show played for your own amusement, and in which you strive, ever doubting, to believe?

A lot of her songs were to do with Blake, which did not escape Mark’s attention. She told Mark that writing songs about him was cathartic and that ‘Back to Black’ summed up what had happened when their relationship had ended: Blake had gone back to his ex and Amy to black, or drinking and hard times. It was some of her most inspired writing because, for better or worse, she’d lived it. Mark and Amy inspired each other musically, each bringing out fresh ideas in the other. One day they decided to take a quick stroll around the neighbourhood because Amy wanted to buy Alex Clare a present. On the way back Amy began telling Mark about being with Blake, then not being with Blake and being with Alex instead. She told him about the time at my house after she’d been in hospital when everyone had been going on at her about her drinking. ‘You know they tried to make me go to rehab, and I told them, no, no, no.’ ‘That’s quite gimmicky,’ Mark replied. ‘It sounds hooky. You should go back to the studio and we should turn that into a song.’ Of course, Amy had written that line in one of her books ages ago. She’d told me before she was planning to write a song about what had happened that day, but that was the moment ‘Rehab’ came to life. Amy had also been working on a tune for the ‘hook’, but when she played it to Mark later that day it started out as a slow blues shuffle – it was like a twelve-bar blues progression. Mark suggested that she should think about doing a sixties girl-group sound, as she liked them so much. He also thought it would be fun to put in the Beatles-style E minor and A minor chords, which would give it a jangly feel. Amy was unaccustomed to this style – most of the songs she was writing were based around jazz chords – but it worked and that day she wrote ‘Rehab’ in just three hours. If you had sat Amy down with a pen and paper every day, she wouldn’t have written a song. But every now and then, something or someone turned the light on in her head and she wrote something brilliant. During that time it happened over and over again. The sessions in the studio became very intense and tiring, especially for Mark, who would sometimes work a double shift and then fall asleep. He would wake up with his head in Amy’s lap and she would be stroking his hair, as if he was a four-year-old. Mark was a few years older than Amy, but he told me he found her very motherly and kind.

Sometimes,” she told me, “a girl will give a guy a blow job at the end of the night because she doesn’t want to have sex with him and he expects to be satisfied. So if I want him to leave and I don’t want anything to happen . . .” She trailed off, leaving me to imagine the rest. There was so much to unpack in that short statement: why a young man should expect to be sexually satisfied; why a girl not only isn’t outraged, but considers it her obligation to comply; why she doesn’t think a blow job constitutes “anything happening”; the pressure young women face in any personal relationship to put others’ needs before their own; the potential justification of assault with a chaser of self-blame. “It goes back to girls feeling guilty,” Anna said. “If you go to a guy’s room and are hooking up with him, you feel bad leaving him without pleasing him in some way. But, you know, it’s unfair. I don’t think he feels badly for you.” In their research on high school girls and oral sex, April Burns, a professor of psychology at City University of New York, and her colleagues found that girls thought of fellatio kind of like homework: a chore to get done, a skill to master, one on which they expected to be evaluated, possibly publicly. As with schoolwork, they worried about failing or performing poorly—earning the equivalent of low marks. Although they took satisfaction in a task well done, the pleasure they described was never physical, never located in their own bodies. They were both dispassionate and nonpassionate about oral sex—socialized, the researchers concluded, to see themselves as “learners” in their encounters rather than “yearners.” The concern with pleasing, as opposed to pleasure, was pervasive among the girls I met, especially among high schoolers, who were just starting sexual experimentation.

The Applicant First, are you our sort of a person? Do you wear A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch, A brace or a hook, Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch, Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then How can we give you a thing? Stop crying. Open your hand. Empty? Empty. Here is a hand To fill it and willing To bring teacups and roll away headaches And do whatever you tell it. Will you marry it? It is guaranteed To thumb shut your eyes at the end And dissolve of sorrow. We make new stock from the salt. I notice you are stark naked. How about this suit—— Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. Will you marry it? It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof Against fire and bombs through the roof. Believe me, they'll bury you in it. Now your head, excuse me, is empty. I have the ticket for that. Come here, sweetie, out of the closet. Well, what do you think of that? Naked as paper to start But in twenty-five years she'll be silver, In fifty, gold. A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook, It can talk, talk, talk. It works, there is nothing wrong with it. You have a hole, it's a poultice. You have an eye, it's an image. My boy, it's your last resort. Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

We ate all of this in front of Tack’s huge, flat-screen TV in the living room where I was treated to a marathon of Storage Wars. Seeing as I didn’t watch TV, I’d never heard of this program. But by the second episode I was hooked. I declared that I thought Brandi and Jarrod were “adorable” together, which for some reason he didn’t explain made Rush laugh so hard I thought he would bust a gut. Rush might find that funny but I decided I was going to start dressing like Brandi. She always looked the shit. I also shared that Dave was my favorite “character” to which Tabby told me with grave seriousness, “But, Tyra, he’s the bad guy.

Vaisberg obviously derived a lot of pleasure from his online friendships, so it wasn’t clear to me why experts frowned on online interactions. Hilarie Cash, a clinical psychologist and cofounder of reSTART, explained that “there’s nothing wrong with making friends online, as long as you also make friends in the real world. If we’re good friends, and we’re sitting together, that interaction, that energetic exchange releases a whole bouquet of neurochemicals that keeps us each regulated emotionally and physiologically. And it’s our birthright as social animals to have lots of this sort of safe and caring interaction that keeps us regulated.

I phoned Tom and said we had to air Twin Peaks. By that point, there was already a tremendous buzz in and outside of Hollywood that we were doing this. There was even an article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal about this buttoned-up guy at ABC who was taking huge creative risks. Suddenly I was getting calls from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. I visited Steven on the set of Hook, which he was directing at the time, and George at his Skywalker Ranch. They were both interested in talking about what they might do for ABC. That notion, that directors of that caliber would be interested in making television shows, was unheard of until we started making Twin Peaks.

The Endowed Progress Effect Punch cards are often used by retailers to encourage repeat business. With each purchase, customers get closer to receiving a free product or service. These cards are typically awarded empty and in effect, customers start at zero percent complete. What would happen if retailers handed customers punch cards with punches already given? Would people be more likely to take action if they had already made some progress? An experiment sought to answer this very question.[lxvi] Two groups of customers were given punch cards awarding a free car wash once the cards were fully punched. One group was given a blank punch card with 8 squares and the other given a punch card with 10 squares but with two free punches. Both groups still had to purchase 8 car washes to receive a free wash; however, the second group of customers — those that were given two free punches — had a staggering 82 percent higher completion rate. The study demonstrates the endowed progress effect, a phenomenon that increases motivation as people believe they are nearing a goal. Sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook utilize this heuristic to encourage people to divulge more information about themselves when completing their online profiles. On LinkedIn, every user starts with some semblance of progress (figure 19). The next step is to “Improve Your Profile Strength” by supplying additional information.

I can't remember when I've spent a more...enjoyable Saturday." She sighed, then teased his tongue with hers. "Since I don't intend to move for at least twenty-four hours,we'll see how you like Sunday as well." "I think I'm going to love it." She slid a hand over his shoulder. "I don't like to be pushy, Senator, but when are you going to marry me?" "I thought September in Hyannis Port." "The MacGregor fortess." He saw by her eyes the idea appealed to hre. "But September's two and a half months away." "We'll make it August," he said as he nibbled at her ear. "In the meantime, you and your roommates can move in here, or we can start looking for another place. Would you like to honeymoon in Scotland?" Shelby nestled into his throat. "Yes." She tilted her head back. "In the meantime," she said slowly as her hands wandered down to his waist. "I've been wanting to tell you that there's one of your domestic policies I'm fully in favor or,Senator." "Really?" His mouth lowered to hover just above hers. "You have-" she nipped at his bottom lip "-my full support.I wonder if you could just...run through the prodecure for me one more time." Alan slid a hand down her side. "It's my civic duty to make myself avaiable to all my constituents." Shelby's fingers ran up his chest to stop his jaw just before he captured her lips. "As long as it's only me, Senator." She hooked her arm around his neck. "This is the one-man one-vote system.

It was December 15, 2012, the day after twenty-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children between six and seven years old, as well as six adult staff members, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. I remember thinking, Maybe if all the mothers in the world crawled on their hands and knees toward those parents in Newtown, we could take some of the pain away. We could spread their pain across all of our hearts. I would do it. Can’t we find a way to hold some of it for them? I’ll take my share. Even if it adds sadness to all my days. My friends and I didn’t rush to start a fund that day. We didn’t storm the principal’s office at our kids’ school asking for increased security measures. We didn’t call politicians or post on Facebook. We would do all that in the days to come. But the day right after the shooting, we just sat together with nothing but the sound of occasional weeping cutting through the silence. Leaning in to our shared pain and fear comforted us. Being alone in the midst of a widely reported trauma, watching endless hours of twenty-four-hour news or reading countless articles on the Internet, is the quickest way for anxiety and fear to tiptoe into your heart and plant their roots of secondary trauma. That day after the mass killing, I chose to cry with my friends, then I headed to church to cry with strangers. I couldn’t have known then that in 2017 I would speak at a fund-raiser for the Resiliency Center of Newtown and spend time sitting with a group of parents whose children were killed at Sandy Hook. What I’ve learned through my work and what I heard that night in Newtown makes one thing clear: Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their own isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world. Today there’s a sign that welcomes you to Newtown: WE ARE SANDY HOOK. WE CHOOSE LOVE. That day when I sat in a room with other mothers from my neighborhood and cried, I wasn’t sure what we were doing or why. Today I’m pretty sure we were choosing love in our own small way.

Daya is tied to a chair, tipped over on the side, with her arms trapped uncomfortably beneath her weight. She’s screaming through the tape stuck to her mouth, death radiating in her glare. When she spots me, her eyes widen, and then she starts wriggling fiercely as if she’s trying to make her presence known. Can’t really see her any clearer when she’s right in my face. Noticing Daya’s reaction, Luke turns his head, and his own eyes pop open before he scrambles for his gun. I shoot the back of his knee before he makes it a step, feeling nothing even as he falls to the ground with an agonized shout. “Simmer down, Daya,” I say, walking over to her. “I can see you. Wiggling like a worm on a hook is only going to rub your skin even rawer.

Where did we leave off the last lesson?” Yrene asked a girl in the front. “Eye gouge,” she said with a broad smile. Chaol nearly choked. “Right,” Yrene said, rubbing her hands together. “Someone demonstrate for me.” He watched in silence as hands shot up, and Yrene selected one—a smaller-boned girl. Yrene took up the stance of attacker, grabbing the girl from the front with surprising intensity. But the girl’s slim hands went right to Yrene’s face, thumbs to the corners of her eyes. Chaol started from his chair—or would have, had the girl not pulled back. “And next?” Yrene merely asked. “Hook in my thumbs like this”—the girl made the motion in the air between them for all to see—“and pop.” Aelin would have been beside herself with glee.

In her most recent project, she tested 356 children, ages five to ten, who were brought to Monell to determine their “bliss point” for sugar31. The bliss point is the precise amount of sweetness—no more, no less—that makes food and drink most enjoyable. She was finishing up this project in the fall of 2010 when she agreed to show me some of the methods she had developed. Before we got started, I did a little research on the term bliss point itself. Its origins are murky, having some roots in economic theory. In relation to sugar, however, the term appears to have been coined in the 1970s by a Boston mathematician named Joseph Balintfy, who used computer modeling to predict eating behavior. The concept has obsessed the food industry ever since.

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

PANOTII LOOKS PUT OUT ABOUT BEING LEFT BEHIND AND dogs my steps as I stow his tack under the deep overhang on the south side of the wizard’s hovel. There’s plenty of grass here, water at the lake, and it’s not that cold yet, despite the shift in seasons. If the rains start before we get back, the horses can take shelter under the overhang. I’m not worried about them wandering off. Not one of them has stepped outside of the large makeshift corral of God Bolt pits since we got here. “You can’t come with us,” I tell him. “It’ll be cold and slippery. And big monsters will want to eat you.” He tosses his head, snorting. “Really big monsters. There might be Dragons. And the Hydra. And I can’t vouch for the friendliness of the Ipotane toward regular horses.” I blow gently into his nose. Panotii chuffs back. “You’ll be safe here, and if anyone tries to steal you, Grandpa Zeus will throw down a thunderbolt. Boom! No more horse thief.” “Zeus may have better things to do than babysit our horses,” Flynn says, stowing his own equine gear next to mine. I glance northward toward the Gods’ mountain home and speak loudly. “In that case, I’m announcing right now that I’ll make an Olympian stink if anything happens to my horse.” Flynn looks nervous and moves away from me like he’s expecting a God Bolt to come thundering down. “She’s not kidding.” Sunlight glints off Griffin’s windblown hair. Thick black stubble darkens his jaw. He flashes me a smile that brings out the slight hook in his nose, and something tightens in my belly. I turn back to Panotii and scratch under his jaw. “You’re in charge here.” His enormous ears flick my way. “You keep the others in line.” Panotii nods. I swear to the Gods, my horse nods. Brown Horse raises his head and pins me with a gimlet stare. I roll my eyes. “Fine. You can help. You’re both in charge.” Apparently satisfied, Griffin’s horse goes back to grazing, shearing the grass around him with neat, organized efficiency. Griffin and Brown Horse were made for each other. Panotii shoves his nose into my shoulder, knocking me back a step. Taking a handful of his chestnut mane, I stretch up on my toes to whisper into one of his donkey ears. “Seriously, you’re in charge. I’ll bet you can even rhyme.” Carver and Kato chuckle as they walk past. Griffin bands his arms around my waist from behind, surprising me. “I heard that.

She'd gone and let her hair loose, he thought. Why did she have to do that? It made his hands hurt, actually hurt with wanting to slide into it. "That's good." She stepped in, shut the door. And because it seemed too perfect not to, audibly flipped the lock. Seeing a muscle twitch in his jaw was incredibly satisfying. He was a drowning man, and had just gone under the first time. "Keeley, I've had a long day here.I was just about to-" "Have a nightcap," she finished. She'd spotted the teapot and the bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter. "I wouldn't mind one myself." She breezed past him to flip off the burner under the now sputtering kettle. She'd put on different perfume, he thought viciously. Put it on fresh, too, just to torment him. He was damn sure of it.It snagged his libido like a fish-hook. "I'm not really fixed for company just now." "I don't think I qualify as company." Competently she warmed the pot, measured out the tea and poured the boiling water in. "I certainly won't be after we're lovers." He went under the second time without even the chance to gulp in air. "We're not lovers." "That's about to change." She set the lid on the pot, turned. "How long do you like it to steep?" "I like it strong, so it'll take some time. You should go on home now." "I like it strong, too." Amazing, she thought,she didn't feel nervous at all. "And if it's going to take some time, we can have it afterward." "This isn't the way for this." He said it more to himself than her. "This is backward, or twisted.I can't get my mind around it. no,just stay back over there and let me think a minute." But she was already moving toward him, a siren's smile on her lips. "If you'd rather seduce me, go ahead." "That's exactly what I'm not going to do." Thought the night was cool and his windows were open to it, he felt sweat slither down his back. "If I'd known the way things were, I'd never have started this." That mouth of his, she thought. She really had to have that mouth. "Now we both know the way things are, and I intend to finish it.It's my choice." His blood was already swimming. Hot and fast. "You don't know anything, which is the whole flaming problem." "Are you afraid of innocence?" "Damn right." "It doesn't stop you from wanting me. Put your hands on me,Brian." She took his wrist,pressed his hand to her breast. "I want your hands on me." The boots clattered to the floor as he went under for the third time.

They got to the classroom she and Jay shared this period, but it wasn’t Grady’s class. Instead of walking on, Grady paused. “Violet, can I talk to you for a minute?” His deep voice surprised her again. “Yeah, okay,” Violet agreed, curious about what he might have to say to her. Jay stopped and waited too, but when Grady didn’t say anything, it became clear that he’d meant he wanted to talk to her . . . alone. Jay suddenly seemed uncomfortable and tried to excuse himself as casually as he could. “I’ll see you inside,” he finally said to Violet. She nodded to him as he left. Violet was a little worried that the bell was going to ring and she’d be tardy again, but her curiosity had kicked up a notch when she realized that Grady didn’t want Jay to hear what he had to say, and that far outweighed her concern for late slips. When they were alone, and Grady didn’t start talking right away, Violet prompted him. “What’s going on?” She watched him swallow, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down along the length of his throat. It was strange to see her old guy friends in this new light. He’d always been a good-looking kid, but now he looked like a man . . . even though he still acted like a boy. He shifted back and forth, and if she had taken the time to think about it, she would have realized that he was nervous. But she misread his discomfort altogether. She thought that, like her, he was worried about being late. “Do you want to talk after school? I could meet you in the parking lot.” “No. No. Now’s good.” He ran his hand through his hair in a discouraged gesture. He took a deep breath, but his voice was still shaking when he spoke. “I . . . I was wondering . . .” He looked Violet right in the eye now, and suddenly she felt very nervous about where this might be going. She was desperately wishing she hadn’t let Jay leave her here alone. “I was wondering if you’re planning to go to Homecoming,” Grady finally blurted out. She stood there, looking at him, feeling trapped by the question and not sure what she was going to say. The bell rang, and both of them jumped. Violet was grateful for the excuse, and she clung to it like a life preserver. Her eyes were wide, and she pointed to the door behind her. “I gotta . . . can we . . .” She pointed again, and she knew she looked and sounded like an idiot, incapable of coherent speech. “Can we talk after school?” Grady seemed relieved to have been let off the hook for the moment. “Sure. Yeah. I’ll talk to you after school.” He left without saying good-bye, and Violet, thankful herself, tried to slip into her classroom unnoticed. But she had no such luck. The teacher marked her tardy, and everyone in class watched as she made her way to her seat beside Jay’s. Her face felt flushed and hot. “What was that all about?” Jay asked in a loud whisper. She still felt like her head was reeling. She had no idea what she was going to say to Grady when school was out. “I think Grady just asked me to Homecoming,” she announced to Jay. He looked at her suspiciously. “The game?” Violet cocked her head to the side and gave him a look that told him to be serious. “No, I’m pretty sure he meant the dance,” Violet clarified, exasperated by the obtuse question. Jay frowned at her. “What did you say?” “I didn’t say anything. The bell rang and I told him we’d have to talk later.” The teacher glanced their way, and they pretended not to be talking to each other.

If one more person tells me that “all gender is performance,” I think I am going to strangle them. Perhaps most annoying about that sound-bite is the somewhat snooty “I-took-a-gender-studies-class-and-youdidn’t” sort of way in which it is most often recited, a magnificent irony given the way that phrase dumbs down gender. It is a crass oversimplification, as ridiculous as saying all gender is genitals, all gender is chromosomes, or all gender is socialization. In reality, gender is all of these things and more. In fact, if there’s one thing that all of us should be able to agree on, it’s that gender is a confusing and complicated mess. It’s like a junior high school mixer, where our bodies and our internal desires awkwardly dance with one another, and with all the external expectations that other people place on us. Sure, I can perform gender: I can curtsy, or throw like a girl, or bat my eyelashes. But performance doesn’t explain why certain behaviors and ways of being come to me more naturally than others. It offers no insight into the countless restless nights I spent as a pre-teen wrestling with the inexplicable feeling that I should be female. It doesn’t capture the very real physical and emotional changes that I experienced when I hormonally transitioned from testosterone to estrogen. Performance doesn’t even begin to address the fact that, during my transition, I acted the same, wore the same T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers that I always had, yet once other people started reading me as female, they began treating me very differently. When we talk about my gender as though it were a performance, we let the audience—with all their expectations, prejudices, and presumptions—completely off the hook.

Put your glasses on mate ….. Come down from there, you’re gonna kill yourself …. Well, what does your Method Statement say? …. Right, let’s get you re-inducted. You need a reminder of site rules ….. Where are your outriggers, mate? ….. Put your glasses on ….. Put your glasses on …. Put your glasses on …. Oh, they steam up, do they? I’ve never heard that one before …. Where’s your mask? If you breathe this shit in you’re going to kill yourself. Silicosis is incurable ….. Right STOP! Do not reverse another inch without a banksman ….. Don’t put your glasses on just because you see me walk around the corner. They won’t protect MY eyes …. Hook yourself on, what’s the matter with you? Are all you scaffolders superhuman or something? ….. Put your glasses on ….. Oi! What stops me walking right in there? Where’s your barriers and signage? ….. Oi! I’m getting showered in fucking sparks here. And so is that can of petrol ….. Put your glasses on …. Where’s the flashback arrestor on this bottle of propane? ….. Hey, pal, stop welding until you’ve sheeted up ….. What are you doing climbing up there? Where’s your supervisor? What did he say about access in this morning’s Safe Start briefing? Nothing? Right, he can sit through another induction tomorrow ….. Where are the retaining pins to the joint clamps in this concrete pump line? SEAMUS! Fucking deal with this, will you? ….Put your glasses on …. Hey! Hey! Come here! Why have you got a nail instead of an ‘R’ clip to the quick-hitch system on your excavator bucket? NO! IT WON’T DO! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? If that bucket falls on someone they’re not going to get up again. And you trust a fucking nail to hold it in position! Take this machine out of service immediately until you’ve got the proper ‘R’ clip! ….. Put your glasses on …. Where’s the edge protection. Who removed the edge protection? Right, let me phone for a scaffolder ….. Put your glasses on ….. Oi! Get out from under there! Never, ever stand underneath a suspended load. Even if all the equipment’s been inspected, which it obviously has, you can never trust the crane driver. He can be taken ill suddenly ….. Come here, mate, let’s have a little chat. Why are you working on Fall Arrest? You’re supposed to be working on Fall Restraint (FR ‘restrains’ you going near the perimeter edge of the building, FA ‘arrests’ your fall if, well, if you fall. If you’re hanging off a building we’ve got less than ten minutes to reach you before you start going into toxic shock brought on by suspension trauma. In other words, we need a Rescue Plan, which is why we’d prefer people work on Fall Restraint)

He hooks his finger into the soft cup of my bra and lowers it. His forehead presses against mine and he looks down, to the hard point of my nipple. “Jesus,” he mutters. “I can take it off—” “No.” He groans softly and thumbs the pebble back and forth. Pinches it just this side of too much, making me gasp. “I’m not going to fuck you, but God, I could.” His entire palm rubs against my breast, and my whimper is humiliating. This is going to feel good. Really, really good. It’s already much better than . . . than anything. Pulling embarrassing, unfortunate noises out of me. “What do I do?” he asks, fitting his fingers in the dips of my ribs. I look up at him, glossy-eyed, already a little dazed. “What?” “What do you like?” He’s looking down at my body like it’s a beautiful space oddity, something belonging to a minor goddess, to be investigated in filthy, methodical, obscene ways. His hand traces my flat stomach. Skims the place where my thigh highs transition into tender skin. Brushes reverently against the pod right above my panties, like this little thing my life depends on is as much a part of me as my navel. J.J. asked me to take it off, said he found it off-putting. Made bionic woman jokes. And then there’s Jack. Licking his lips and asking, “Where do I start?” I have no clue. “Um . . .” He kisses me again, this time slow and gentle, pulling back from that initial brink. He uncovers my other breast, and his fingers are back, playing with my nipple like it’s an instrument. Liquid warmth hooks low in my belly. “Trial and error, then.” “What do you do with other girls?” “Other girls?” “Normal girls.” He laughs into my collarbone, then starts sucking on it. “Elsie.” “I just want to know. If I . . . if I weren’t me, what would you do?” “No.

Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard. This ass talk had sort of a gut frequency. It hit you right down there like you gotta go. You know when the old colon gives you the elbow and it feels sorta cold inside, and you know all you have to do is turn loose? Well this talking hit you right down there, a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell. This man worked for a carnival you dig, and to start with it was like a novelty ventriliquist act. Real funny, too, at first. He had a number he called “The Better ‘Ole” that was a scream, I tell you. I forget most of it but it was clever. Like, “Oh I say, are you still down there, old thing?” “Nah I had to go relieve myself.” After a while the ass start talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time. Then it developed sort of teeth-like little raspy in-curving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it, but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags nobody loved it and it wanted to be kissed same as any other mouth. Finally it talked all the time day and night, you could hear him for blocks screaming at it to shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles up it, but nothing did any good and the asshole said to him: “It’s you who will shut up in the end. Not me. Because we dont need you around here any more. I can talk and eat and shit.” After that he began waking up in the morning with a transparent jelly like a tadpole’s tail all over his mouth. This jelly was what the scientists call un-D.T., Undifferentiated Tissue, which can grow into any kind of flesh on the human body. He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands like burning gasoline jelly and grow there, grow anywhere on him a glob of it fell. So finally his mouth sealed over, and the whole head would have have amputated spontaneous — (did you know there is a condition occurs in parts of Africa and only among Negroes where the little toe amputates spontaneously?) — except for the eyes you dig. Thats one thing the asshole couldn’t do was see. It needed the eyes. But nerve connections were blocked and infiltrated and atrophied so the brain couldn’t give orders any more. It was trapped in the skull, sealed off. For a while you could see the silent, helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes, then finally the brain must have died, because the eyes went out, and there was no more feeling in them than a crab’s eyes on the end of a stalk.

Come on,” I hooked my arm through Aphrodite’s and started to pull her to the Street Cats tent. “You haven’t been good enough to watch.” Before Aphrodite could argue, we were at the Street Cats booth, facing a beaming Sister Mary Angela. “Oh, good, Zoey and Aphrodite. I need the both of you.” The nun made a gracious gesture to the young family standing beside one of the kitten cages. “This is the Cronley family. They have decided to adopt both of the calico kittens. It’s so lovely that the two of them have found their forever homes together—they are unusually close, even for littermates.” “That’s great,” I said. “I’ll start on their paperwork.” “I’ll help you. Two cats—two sets of paperwork,” Aphrodite said. “We came with a note from our veterinarian,” the mom said. “I just knew we’d find our kitten tonight.” “Even though we didn’t expect to find two of them,” her husband added. He squeezed his wife’s shoulder and smiled down at her with obvious affection. “Well, we didn’t expect the twins, either,” his wife said, glancing over at the two girls who were still looking in the kitten cage and giggling at the fluffy calicos that would be joining their family. “That surprise turned out great, which is why I think the two kittens will be perfect as well,” said the dad. Like seeing Lenobia and Travis together—this family made my heart feel good. I had started to move to the makeshift desk with Aphrodite when one of the little girls asked, “Hey mommy, what are those black things?” Something in the child’s voice had me pausing, changing direction, and heading to the kitten cage. When I got there I instantly knew why. Within the cage the two calico kittens were hissing and batting at several large, black spiders. “Oh, yuck!” the mom said. “Looks like your school might have a spider problem.” “I know a good exterminator if you need a recommendation,” the dad said. “We’re gonna need a shit ton more than a good exterminator,” Aphrodite whispered as we stared into the kitten cage. “Yeah, uh, well, we don’t usually have bug issues here,” I babbled as disgust shivered up my back. “Eesh, Daddy! There are lots more of them.” The little blond girl was pointing at the back of the cage. It was so completely covered with spiders that it seemed to be alive with their seething movements. “Oh, my goodness!” Sister Mary Angela looked pale as she stared at the spiders that appeared to be multiplying. “Those things weren’t there moments ago.” “Sister, why don’t you take this nice family into the tent and get their paperwork started,” I said quickly, meeting the nun’s sharp gaze with my own steady one. “And send Damien out here to me. I can use his help to take care of this silly spider problem.” “Yes, yes, of course.” The nun didn’t hesitate. “Get Shaunee, Shaylin, and Stevie Rae,” I told Aphrodite, keeping my voice low. “You’re going to cast a circle in front of all of these

After a few sips, he picked up his sax and started jamming with the storm. Most days, Rivers meditated twice, when he awoke and again in the evening before writing or reading. But he still found a special relaxation and renewal in solitary playing. Contemplation through music was different from other reflective experiences, in part, because his visual associations were set free to mutate, morph, and meander; while the other senses were occupied in fierce concentraction on breathing, blowing, fingering, and listening. Within the flow of this activity, his awareness would land in different states of consciousness, different phases of time, and easily moved between revisualization of experience and its creation. The playing dislodged hidden feelings, primed him for recognizing the habitually denied, sheathed the sword of lnaguage, and loosened the shield and armor of his character. His contemplative playing purged him of worrisome realities, smelted off from his center the dross of eperience, and on those rare and cherished days, left only the refinement of flickering fire. Although he was more aware of his emotions, the music and dance of thought kept them at arm’s length, Wordsworth’s “emotion recollected in tranquility.” . . . As he played, his mind’s eye became the fisher’s bobber, guided by a line of sound around the driftwood of thought, the residue of his life, which materialized from nowhere and sank back into nothingness without his weaving them into any insistent pattern of order and understanding. He was momentarily freed of logical sequencing, the press of premises, the psycho-logic of primary process, the throb of Thought pulsing in and through him, and in billions of mind/bodies, now and throughout time, belonging each to each, to none, to no one, to Everyone, rocking back and forward in an ebb and flow of wishes, fears, and goals. He fished free of desire, illusion, or multiplicity; distant from the hook, the fisher, the fish; but tethered still on the long line of music, until it snagged on an immovable object, some unquestioned assumption, or perhaps a stray consummation, a catch in the flow of creation and wonder.

The key to letting go of negativity lies in our willingness to change our perspective and be proactive. It’s with this mindset that we’re able to persevere through difficult times and help others to do the same. Positivity is contagious, but it has to start with you. NO MORE EXCUSES…SERIOUSLY We make excuses all the time for a variety of reasons, mostly as a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from humiliation and criticism. Nobody wants to be cast in a negative light, so if there’s an opportunity to shift the blame without consequence, the decision seems obvious. Again, this all comes back to letting ourselves off the hook and deflecting accountability. It might be convenient, but it won’t get you very far in life. The same can be said for procrastination. Consider all the reasons why you put something off. You’re tired and would rather do the work another day. You’re afraid of what others might think if you don’t succeed. You don’t have all the answers, and that scares you. But this isn’t what we tell ourselves. Instead, we rationalize that it isn’t the right time to proceed with our plans.

BAZILE. Slander, peculiar? You don’t know what the word means if you can dismiss it so easily! I have seen the most decent, honest men brought virtually to their knees by it. Believe me, there’s no downright lie, no tissue of horrors, no tittle-tattle so absurd that you can’t get the crass, nosy population of any city to swallow if you set about it the right way, and here in Seville we have experts! It starts as a faint whisper, skimming the ground like a swallow before the storm, pianissimo. It whirrs and scatters, and as it spreads it shoots out poisoned barbs. A mouth catches one and, piano, piano, hooks it deftly into a convenient ear. The damage is done. It breeds, creeps, multiplies and, rinforzando, it hops like some fiend from mouth to mouth. Then suddenly, don’t ask me how, you see Slander rear up, hissing, bulging, swelling as you watch. It takes flight, spreads its wings, swoops, swirls, enfolds, claws, seizes, erupts, and explodes and turns, God only knows how, into a general clamour, a public crescendo, a universal chorus of hate and condemnation. Is there a man alive who can survive it?

It’s not for the weak or faint of heart. It will take a toll on you. Your body will hurt. Your soul will ache. Your family life will suffer. No one will understand what you do or why you do it, but you do it. You will work nights. You will work weekends. Holidays. You will bathe the elderly, the weak. You will clean their body, their bodily fluids. You will have to know every medication, what it does, when to stop it, when to give it, and how to get it into people. You will have to know how to interpret blood tests, when the doctor must know. You will have thirty seconds to start an IV, how to hook up an EKG machine. You will need to know how to interpret tracing or when you should give or take away oxygen. You will experience joy, grief, and sorrow in a day, sometimes within the same hour. You are the glue between the patient, the family, the doctor. It’s you who will keep everyone happy, as comfortable as possible. Code blue. Trauma evaluation. Labor. Delivery. Surgery. Babies. Postpartum. Psychology. These and more will all need to be learned. And when you think you know everything, you don’t. You’re just starting. I was asked to write this essay on why

I got that part. I’m thinking.” But how could I free the cow serpent when she (I decided it was probably a “she”) panicked at the sight of a blade? It was like she’d seen swords before and knew how dangerous they were. “All right,” I told the hippocampi. “I need all of you to push exactly the way I tell you.” First we started with the boat. It wasn’t easy, but with the strength of three horsepower, we managed to shift the wreckage so it was no longer threatening to collapse on the baby cow serpent. Then I went to work on the net, untangling it section by section, getting lead weights and fishing hooks straightened out, yanking out knots around the cow serpent’s hooves. It took forever—I mean, it was worse than the time I’d had to untangle all my video game controller wires. The whole time, I kept talking to the cow fish, telling her everything was okay while she mooed and moaned. “It’s okay, Bessie,” I said. Don’t ask me why I started calling her that. It just seemed like a good cow name. “Good cow. Nice cow.” Finally, the net came off and the cow serpent zipped through the water and did a happy somersault. The hippocampi whinnied with joy. Thank you, lord!

That which is unnamed was first,” it said. “But I am named, flesh queen. Remember.” Its pupils thinned. “The cold one on the ship. She was your kin.” Glorian looked at the other skull. “She fell to my flame. So will this land. We will finish the scouring, for we are the teeth that harrow and turn. The mountain is the forge and smith, and we, its iron offspring—come to avenge the first, the forebear, he who sleeps beneath.” Every warrior should know fear, Glorian Brightcry. Without it, courage is an empty boast. “You confess,” Glorian said, “that you slew the blood of the Saint.” Her voice kept breaking. “Do you then declare war on Inys?” Fyredel—the wyrm—let out a rattle. A score of complex scales and muscles shifted in its face. “When your days grow long and hot,” he said, “when the sun in the North never sets, we shall come.” On both sides of the Strondway, those who had not fled were rooted to the spot, fixated on Glorian. She realized what they must be thinking. If she died childless, the eternal vine was at its end. What she did next could define how they saw the House of Berethnet for centuries to come. Start forging your armour, Glorian. You will need it. She looked down once more at her parents’ remains, the bones the wyrms had dumped here like a spoil of war. In her memory, her father laughed and drew her close. He would never laugh again. Never smile. Her mother would never tell her she loved her, or how to calm her dreams. And where there had been fear, there was anger. “If you—If you dare to turn your fire on Inys,” Glorian bit out, “then I will do as my ancestor did to the Nameless One.” She forced herself to lift her chin in defiance. “I will drive you back with sword and spear, with bow and lance!” Shaking, she heaved for air. “I am the voice, the body of Inys. My stomach is its strength—my heart, its shield— and if you think I will submit to you because I am small and young, you are wrong.” Sweat was running down her back. She had never been so afraid in her life. “I am not afraid,” she said. At this, the wyrm unfurled its wings to their full breadth. From tip to hooked tip, they were as wide as two longships facing each other. People scrambled out of their shadow. “So be it, Shieldheart.” It steeped the word in mockery. “Treasure your darkness, for the fire comes. Until then, a taste of our flame, to light your city through the winter. Heed my words.

The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her. I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere. I was crying. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. But it wasn't working. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again. I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. She asked the question quietly. I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’—a question I didn’t want to have to answer—she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad. “I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tonted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. But something about this girl felt safe. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either. The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I was lonely a lot. Unless I was with my Gigi. The girl, she asked me if it was making me feel better, spinning the stories. And I shook my head. Before I could say what I was thinking—a line from Hamlet about sorrow coming in battalions that would have surely killed any potential I had of making friends with her. The girl tossed her wavy black hair over her shoulder and grinned. She closed her eyes and said 'Music helps me. And I love this song.' When she started singing, her voice was so unexpected—so bright and clear—that I stopped crying and stared at her. She told me her name and hooked her arm through mine like we’d known each other forever, and when the next song started, she pulled me up and we spun in a slow circle together until we were both dizzy and giggling.

Put anything you want,” said Sophia impatiently. “Just so they’ll understand. Now don’t interrupt. It goes on like this: The worm probably knows that if it comes apart, both halves will start growing separately. Space. But we don’t know how much it hurts. And we don’t know, either, if the worm is afraid it’s going to hurt. But anyway, it does have a feeling that something sharp is getting closer and closer all the time. This is instinct. And I can tell you this much, it’s no fair to say it’s too little, or it only has a digestive canal, and so that’s why it doesn’t hurt. I am sure it does hurt, but maybe only for a second. Now take the smart worm that made itself long and came apart in the middle, that may have been like pulling a tooth, for example, except it didn’t hurt. When it had calmed its nerves, it could tell right away it was shorter, and then it saw the other half right beside it. Let me make this a little easier to understand by putting it this way: Both halves fell down to the ground, and the person with the hook went away. They couldn’t grow back together, because they were terribly upset, and then, of course, they didn’t stop to think, either. And they knew that by and by they’d grow out again, both of them. I think they looked at each other, and thought they looked awful, and then crawled away from each other as fast as they could. Then they started to think. They realised that from now on life would be quite different, but they didn’t know how, that is, in what way.

The aim is to get the students actively involved in seeking this evidence: their role is not simply to do tasks as decided by teachers, but to actively manage and understand their learning gains. This includes evaluating their own progress, being more responsible for their learning, and being involved with peers in learning together about gains in learning. If students are to become active evaluators of their own progress, teachers must provide the students with appropriate feedback so that they can engage in this task. Van den Bergh, Ros, and Beijaard (2010: 3) describe the task thus: Fostering active learning seems a very challenging and demanding task for teachers, requiring knowledge of students’ learning processes, skills in providing guidance and feedback and classroom management. The need is to engage students in this same challenging and demanding task. The suggestion in this chapter is to start lessons with helping students to understand the intention of the lesson and showing them what success might look like at the end. Many times, teachers look for the interesting beginning to a lesson – for the hook, and the motivating question. Dan Willingham (2009) has provided an excellent argument for not thinking in this way. He advocates starting with what the student is likely to think about. Interesting hooks, demonstrations, fascinating facts, and likewise may seem to be captivating (and often are), but he suggests that there are likely to be other parts of the lesson that are more suitable for the attention-grabber. The place for the attention-grabber is more likely to be at the end of the lesson, because this will help to consolidate what has been learnt. Most importantly,Willingham asks teachers to think long and hard about how to make the connection between the attention-grabber and the point that it is designed to make; preferably, that point will be the main idea from the lesson. Having too many open-ended activities (discovery learning, searching the Internet, preparing PowerPoint presentations) can make it difficult to direct students’ attention to that which matters – because they often love to explore the details, the irrelevancies, and the unimportant while doing these activities. One of Willingham's principles is that any teaching method is most useful when there is plenty of prompt feedback about whether the student is thinking about a problem in the right way. Similarly, he promotes the notion that assignments should be primarily about what the teacher wants the students to think about (not about demonstrating ‘what they know’). Students are very good at ignoring what you say (‘I value connections, deep ideas, your thoughts’) and seeing what you value (corrections to the grammar, comments on referencing, correctness or absence of facts). Thus teachers must develop a scoring rubric for any assignment before they complete the question or prompts, and show the rubric to the students so that they know what the teacher values. Such formative feedback can reinforce the ‘big ideas’ and the important understandings, and help to make the investment of

And so, when I tell stories today about digital transformation and organizational agility and customer centricity, I use a vocabulary that is very consistent and very refined. It is one of the tools I have available to tell my story effectively. I talk about assumptions. I talk about hypotheses. I talk about outcomes as a measure of customer success. I talk about outcomes as a measurable change in customer behavior. I talk about outcomes over outputs, experimentation, continuous learning, and ship, sense, and respond. The more you tell your story, the more you can refine your language into your trademark or brand—what you’re most known for. For example, baseball great Yogi Berra was famous for his Yogi-isms—sayings like “You can observe a lot by watching” and “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s not just a hook or catchphrase, it helps tell the story as well. For Lean Startup, a best-selling book on corporate innovation written by Eric Ries, the words were “build,” “measure,” “learn.” Jeff Patton, a colleague of mine, uses the phrase “the differences that make a difference.” And he talks about bets as a way of testing confidence levels. He’ll ask, “What will you bet me that your idea is good? Will you bet me lunch? A day’s pay? Your 401(k)?” These words are not only their vocabulary. They are their brand. That’s one of the benefits of storytelling and telling those stories continuously. As you refine your language, the people who are beginning to pay attention to you start adopting that language, and then that becomes your thing.

I adjust the mirror so I can see reflections or reflections, miles and miles of me and my new jeans. I hook my hair behind my ears. I should have washed it. My face is dirty. I lean into the mirror. Eyes after eyes after eyes stare back at me. Am I in there somewhere? A thousand eyes blink. No makeup. Dark circles. I pull the side flaps of the mirror in closer, folding myself into the looking glass and blocking out the rest of the store. My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into dissecting cubes. I saw a movie once where a woman was burned over eighty percent of her body and they had to wash all the dead skin off. They wrapped her in bandages, kept her drugged, and waited for skin grafts. They actually sewed her into a new skin. I push my ragged mouth against the mirror. A thousand bleeding, crusted lips push back. What does it feel like to walk in a new skin? Was she completely sensitive like a baby, or numb, without any nerve endings, just walking in a skin bag? I exhale and my mouth disappears in a fog. I feel like my skin has been burned off. I stumble from thornbush to thornbush - my mother and father who hate each other, Rachel who hates me, a school that gags on my like I'm a hairball. And Heather. I just need to hang on long enough for my new skin to graft. Mr. Freeman thinks I need to find my feelings. How can I not find them? They are chewing me alive like an infestation of thoughts, shame, mistakes. I squeeze my eyes shut. Jeans that fit, that's a good start. I have to stay away from the closet, go to all my classes. I will make myself normal. Forget the rest of it.

I’m so sorry,” he said between kisses. “For what I said that night. For leaving you earlier. I never meant-“ “I know,” she whispered, wrapping a leg over his lip and shinnying up his body. Her lips grazed his ear. “I know. Just don’t leave me again.” “Never.” The word burst out like an oath or a prayer, and God help him, he meant it. “Never,” he repeated, looking straight into her glimmering eyes. Then he sealed the vow with a kiss, deep and desperate and true. “Oh God,” he groaned when their lips finally parted. She kissed him again, working her warm, slender fingers under the collar of his shirt to stroke the chilled flesh of his shoulders and back. He buries his face in her neck, inhaling the beautiful scent of her. He’d forgotten how roses smell sweetest after a rain. Trailing light kisses down to her collarbone, he began carrying her toward the bed. “Make love to me, Gray.” She didn’t need to ask. They both knew what was going to happen. But Gray felt the significance of her words. He might have bedded ladies and whores the world over, but for the first time in his life, he was going to make love to a woman. And not just a woman. His woman. And this idea that should have been so unthinkable, so frightening-to his surprise, Gray found it wildly arousing. They tumbled together onto the narrow bed, and she began pulling his shirt free of his trousers. He rose up on his knees and impatiently yanked it over his head. He peered at her frock in the darkness. Bloody hell. Stripes. Gray started to roll her over, looking for laces or hooks or some other ridiculous device contrived by the devil to thwart men.

Did you already forget how to promise?” I worm my pinkie around his and squeeze. He squeezes back and lowers our joined hands to the bed. My heartbeat is strong in my ears. Do I pull away first? Do I wait for him to? What if he doesn’t? What if we fall asleep like this? “I promise I don’t write mushy, girly stuff,” he says. “I just like to keep track of what’s going on, you know? The places I go, the things I find. The people I meet.” I could be imagining it, but the hold on my hand seems to be tighter. “I know one day I’ll want to look back,” he continues, “and I don’t trust my memory alone to remember everything. What’s important to me right now might not be later, but that doesn’t mean I want to forget it.” He yawns and his eyes get watery, tired. I fight the temptation to yawn myself. “I think you’ve just made an excellent case for diaries. Maybe I’ll start keeping one.” He yawns again and his grip on my pinkie loosens, but we’re still mostly hooked together. “It looked like you already were,” he says in a fading whisper. His eyes drift closed. I stare at his relaxed face, pale in the dim light. Nearly asleep, he looks vulnerable. Like I could tell him anything I wanted and he wouldn’t remember it in the morning. When I first met him, I thought he was attractive but not in an omg-he’s-the-most-gorgeous-thing-I’ve-ever-seen way. But somehow, now that I know him, how his light brown eyes can sear right through me, how the corner of his mouth turns up when he laughs, how he blushes when he’s caught wearing a headband, I can see that he really is beautiful. His hand twitches and his breathing slows, deep and heavy. In an instant he’s fallen asleep, and I’ve fallen even harder for him.

Can a reasonable man ever truly question the nobility of the heat engine he calls his body? What option does he have but to heap praise on his form, to self-adore, to admire, and to hold it up as the greatest statement of beauty in a beautiful garden? What, though, is to be admired in such a frighteningly fragile machine; a perilously needy contraption laced with kilometres of liquid and electrical conduits prone to leaks, rot, clogs, and short-circuits? What is there to be proud of in a machine that has an eight hour battery life and is predetermined to spend half its existence in a defenceless, catatonic coma? What is to be revered in a mechanism let loose in a sealed off room where almost everything—including its single source of light and warmth—makes it sick, but whose immune system functions by late entry crisis-response imitation? Where is the awe in a contrivance that freezes and dies if placed a little over here, or overheats and dies if placed a little over there? Where is the wonder in an instrument that is crushed to a pulp if dropped a little down there, or boiled away to nothing if lifted a little up there? Where is the marvel in an appliance where three-quarters of the planet’s surface will drown it, and three-quarters of the atmosphere will asphyxiate it? What is there to be cherished in a machine born innately greedy and so utterly useless that it has to wait three years for its neural networks to hook-up and come online before it even begins to get a hint of who or even what it is, and only then can it start to relearn absolutely everything its forebears had already bothered to learn? Where is the artistry in a thinking engine whose sweetest fuel can only be embezzled from other thinking engines?

This is an enormous claim, but there is a certain logic to it. One of the most recent people to note this logic is Bono, the lead singer of U2, in a conversation with Michka Assayas: Assayas: Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that far-fetched? Bono: No, it’s not far-fetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: ‘I’m the Messiah.’ I’m saying: ‘I am God incarnate.’ And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the ‘M’ word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no, I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is either Christ was who He said He was – the Messiah – or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. . . . I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilisation for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that’s far-fetched . . . Bono is describing how Jesus’ statements about himself force us all into an all-or-nothing choice.

to say that I saw ways to connect with Americans that Barack and his West Wing advisers didn’t fully recognize, at least initially. Rather than doing interviews with big newspapers or cable news outlets, I began sitting down with influential “mommy bloggers” who reached an enormous and dialed-in audience of women. Watching my young staffers interact with their phones, seeing Malia and Sasha start to take in news and chat with their high school friends via social media, I realized there was opportunity to be tapped there as well. I crafted my first tweet in the fall of 2011 to promote Joining Forces and then watched it zing through the strange, boundless ether where people increasingly spent their time. It was a revelation. All of it was a revelation. With my soft power, I was finding I could be strong. If reporters and television cameras wanted to follow me, then I was going to take them places. They could come watch me and Jill Biden paint a wall, for example, at a nondescript row house in the Northwest part of Washington. There was nothing inherently interesting about two ladies with paint rollers, but it baited a certain hook. It brought everyone to the doorstep of Sergeant Johnny Agbi, who’d been twenty-five years old and a medic in Afghanistan when his transport helicopter was attacked, shattering his spine, injuring his brain, and requiring a long rehabilitation at Walter Reed. His first floor was now being retrofitted to accommodate his wheelchair—its doorways widened, its kitchen sink lowered—part of a joint effort between a nonprofit called Rebuilding Together and the company that owned Sears and Kmart. This was the thousandth such home they’d renovated on behalf of veterans in need. The cameras caught all of it—the soldier, his house, the goodwill and energy being poured in.

He rested on his back, loosening his hold on me, and I turned over so I was lying on my side, facing him. I rested a hand on his chest, and his eyes watched mine until his hand found my own. I murmured, “I don’t regret that.” He hooked his finger around mine. “Really?” I nodded. I couldn’t, not anymore. Not after we made out in my closet, then my bed, and after I was practically begging him for it at the bar. I croaked, “I touched your bulge.” He started laughing, curving more into me. “You did.” “It was the most momentous and memorable part of the night.” I was grinning. He lifted his head. “Really?” He wasn’t. I nodded. “For sure. I became the definition of a wanton hussy.” He started laughing again. I kept going, “I can imagine all the stories that start with, ‘The day she touched my bulge’, or ‘The day I touched his bulge,’ ‘The moment my hand felt his jeans, and his dick swelled underneath’, or even . . .” I was laughing now, “‘I laid my hands on him, right over his jeans, and he rose up. He answered my call. I called out, Come forth, hard penis, and answer milady’s beckoning. My hips call upon your touch. You must heed and give forth plentiful of your pleasure.’” He continued laughing, wrapping his arms around me, and somehow he had curled his entire body around mine again. I was lying on my back once more, and he stopped, lifting his head from my neck. He gazed down at me, shifting to rise up on his elbow. He caught some hairs and tucked them behind my ear, letting his hand linger there, holding me gently. He grew serious. “I want to keep doing this.” I rested my hand over his on my face. “Fucking me from behind?” He grinned and then sobered. “No. This, whatever it is. We don’t need to put words to it, if you don’t want to.” I groaned. “Please, don’t. I tend to get bitchy when words are applied to situations

One of the issues that animated the Tea Party in South Carolina and nationally during my campaign for governor was bailouts. The debate started with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed by Congress in 2008 and signed by President Bush. The TARP bailout was a perfect example of government not understanding the value of a dollar. It was a quick fix to get everyone to calm down. But what did it actually do? The banks that received the money didn’t expand lending to businesses. They used the cash to help their own books, and the taxpayers were put on the hook as loan guarantors. No one—not the politicians who encouraged the recklessness, not the quasi-governmental entities like Fannie Mae that got rich off it, and certainly not the Wall Street firms that got bailed out—was ever held accountable. And the American people ended up worse off than they were before. As a small businessperson, I found the message government was sending incredibly offensive. In my version of capitalism, if a company succeeds, you don’t punish it by raising its taxes; and if a company fails, you don’t reward it by having the taxpayers bail it out. TARP opened the floodgates for a wave of unaccountable spending that flowed out of Washington. Soon afterward, President Obama bailed out the auto industry to rescue big labor. His allies in Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill, most of them without having read it. And he forced through a trillion-dollar health-care takeover. With each bailout, more and more of us felt we were getting further and further from what America was meant to be: a free and striving people with a limited and accountable government. Instead, Washington was revealing itself to be an inside game, with the rules fixed to benefit the establishment. The rules favor the well connected, while the rest of us in flyover country pay the bills.

He nodded against my neck and his hands came around to cup my breasts, grinding into me again from behind. I ground back. He moaned, slipping a hand down the front of my panties. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered against my ear, moving against me. Oh my fucking God… What didn’t I like? It had been so long and I was so deprived I was afraid he was going to finish me right there. My body began to tremble at the build. I couldn’t take it anymore. He seemed to sense it because he pulled his fingers back right before I disintegrated in his hand, and he laid me down on the bed, sliding over me. He hovered on his forearms and ran a thick, muscular thigh up between my legs until it hit my core and I sucked in air against his lips. Oh my God, he was so good at this… And he fucking knew it. He smiled and kissed me, his tongue darting in my mouth, his rough hands canvassing my skin like he wanted to feel every inch of me. I did the same. It felt so good to touch him. My eyes had spent so much time learning his body, and my hands wanted to map him. I ran fingers along his chest, over the curve of his broad freckled shoulders, down the muscles of his back, along the valley of his spine. I breathed in his scent as I grabbed his firm ass and pulled him into me and he groaned, rubbing hard against my leg. I couldn’t believe this was real, that I got to touch him, that he was kissing me, that there was nothing between us but my thin G-string. His bare skin pressing into mine was the most exquisite feeling of my life, a million nerve endings connecting with his, little electrical shocks that merged into one huge surge. He sat up and kneeled between my legs, picking up my foot and putting it on his shoulder. The view was fucking spectacular. The definition of his chest continued down with a line of hair into a V muscle that pointed at his divine penis like an arrow. I reached out and took him in my hand and his breathing went ragged. My gaze came back up to his hooded eyes. He kissed my ankle and I watched him do it, biting my lip, stroking him, my need unraveling into something so starved I wanted to beg him to have mercy on me and just fuck me already. I thought of the way he’d touched me in the car, his strong hands massaging my calf, and I couldn’t help but feel like he was continuing something he started earlier. He ran his palms from my ankle, behind my knee, up my thigh, and he hooked my panties in his thumbs and pulled them down and off. Then he balled them in his hand, shut his eyes, and put them to his nose, breathing in. When his eyes opened again, they’d gone primal. He came at me like a wild animal. He lowered onto me, his jaw clenched tight, every muscle of his body tense, and I lifted my hips. He held my gaze as he eased himself in, slow and deliberate, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, feral with need, frantically urging him deeper. One… Two… I wasn’t going to last a minute and it was all overload, his naked body pressed to mine, the feel of him inside me, rhythmically thrusting against my core, deeper and deeper, his quivering breath over my collarbone, his hips grinding between my legs, his scent, his sounds, the heat of his skin, the rocking of the bed, the moaning in my throat—my back arched and I fell apart at the same time he did, clutching at everything, pulling him into me, pulsing with his release. He collapsed on top of me and I was decimated. I lay there like a rag doll, twitching with aftershocks. He gasped for breath, his face by my ear. “Holy…fucking…shit,” he panted. I just nodded. I couldn’t even speak. I’d never had sex that good. Never in my life—and I’d had my share of good sex. It was like we’d been foreplaying for weeks and I’d been sexually malnourished, starving, waiting for him to feed me.

Dance with me,” Merripen surprised her by murmuring. Win shook her head with a little laugh, watching the couples twirl and move sinuously around each other. Women used their hands in shimmering motions around their bodies, while men stomped with their heels and clapped their hands, and all the while they circled each other while holding each other’s gaze as long as possible. “I don’t know how,” Win said. Merripen stood behind her and crossed his arm around her front, drawing her back against him. Another surprise. She had never known him to touch her so openly. But amid the goings-on, it seemed no one noticed or cared. His voice was hot and soft in her ear. “Watch for a moment. You see how little space is needed? How they circle each other? When Roma dance they lift their hands to the sky, but they stomp their feet to express connection to the earth. And to earthly passions.” He smiled against her cheek and gently turned her to face him. “Come,” he murmured, and hooked his hand around her waist to urge her forward. Win followed him shyly, fascinated by a side of him she hadn’t seen before. She wouldn’t have expected him to be this self-assured, drawing her into the dance with animal grace, watching her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. He coaxed her to raise her arms upward, to snap her fingers, even to swish her skirts at him as he moved around her. She couldn’t seem to stop giggling. They were dancing, and he was so good at it, turning it into a cat-and-mouse game. She twirled in a circle, and he caught her around the waist, pulling her close for one scalding moment. The scent of his skin, the movement of his chest against hers, filled her with intense desire. Leaning his forehead against hers, Merripen stared at her until she was drowning in the depths of his eyes, as dark and bright as hellfire. “Kiss me,” she whispered unevenly, not caring where they were or who might see them. A smile touched his lips. “If I start now, I won’t be able to stop.

Suggestions to Develop Self-Help Skills Self-help skills improve along with sensory processing. The following suggestions may make your child’s life easier—and yours, too! DRESSING • Buy or make a “dressing board” with a variety of snaps, zippers, buttons and buttonholes, hooks and eyes, buckles and shoelaces. • Provide things that are not her own clothes for the child to zip, button, and fasten, such as sleeping bags, backpacks, handbags, coin purses, lunch boxes, doll clothes, suitcases, and cosmetic cases. • Provide alluring dress-up clothes with zippers, buttons, buckles, and snaps. Oversized clothes are easiest to put on and take off. • Eliminate unnecessary choices in your child’s bureau and closet. Clothes that are inappropriate for the season and that jam the drawers are sources of frustration. • Put large hooks inside closet doors at the child’s eye level so he can hang up his own coat and pajamas. (Attach loops to coats and pajamas on the outside so they won’t irritate the skin.) • Supply cellophane bags for the child to slip her feet into before pulling on boots. The cellophane prevents shoes from getting stuck and makes the job much easier. • Let your child choose what to wear. If she gets overheated easily, let her go outdoors wearing several loose layers rather than a coat. If he complains that new clothes are stiff or scratchy, let him wear soft, worn clothes, even if they’re unfashionable. • Comfort is what matters. • Set out tomorrow’s clothes the night before. Encourage the child to dress himself. Allow for extra time, and be available to help. If necessary, help him into clothes but let him do the finishing touch: Start the coat zipper but let him zip it up, or button all but one of his buttons. Keep a stool handy so the child can see herself in the bathroom mirror. On the sink, keep a kid-sized hairbrush and toothbrush within arm’s reach. Even if she resists brushing teeth and hair, be firm. Some things in life are nonnegotiable.

When the bullhorn signaled that he'd met the qualifying time,he struggled to gather his wits,waiting until Devil was right alongside the gate before he freed his hand,cutting himself loose. He flew through the air and over the corral fence,landing in the dirt at Marilee Trainor's feet. "My God! Don't move." She was beside him in the blink of an eye,kneeling in the dirt,probing for broken bones. Wyatt lay perfectly still,enjoying the feel of those clever, practiced hands moving over him.When she moved from his legs to his torso and arms,he opened his eyes to narrow slits and watched her from beneath lowered lids. She was the perfect combination of beauty and brains.He could see the wheels turning as she did a thorough exam.Even her brow,furrowed in concentration,couldn't mar that flawless complexion. Her eyes, the color of the palest milk chocolate, were narrowed in thought.Strands of red hair dipped over one cheek, giving her a sultry look. Satisfied that nothing was broken, she sat back on her heels,feeling a moment of giddy relief. That was when she realized that he was staring. She waved a hand before his eyes. "How many fingers can you see?" "Four fingers and a thumb. Or should I say four beautiful,long,slender fingers and one perfect thumb,connected to one perfect arm of one perfectly gorgeous female? And,I'm happy to add,there's no ring on the third finger of that hand." She caught the smug little grin on his lips. Her tone hardened. "I get it. A showboat.I should have known.I don't have time to waste on some silver-tongued actor." "Why,thank you.I had no idea you'd examined my tongue.Mind if I examine yours?" She started to stand,but his hand shot out,catching her by the wrist. "Sorry.That was really cheesy, but I couldn't resist teasing you." His tone altered,deepened,just enough to have her glancing over to see if he was still teasing. He met her look. "Are you always this serious?" Despite his apology,she wasn't about to let him off the hook,or change her mind about him.

There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s not just that lobsters get boiled alive, it’s that you do it yourself—or at least it’s done specifically for you, on-site. 14 As mentioned, the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, which is highlighted as an attraction in the festival’s program, is right out there on the MLF’s north grounds for everyone to see. Try to imagine a Nebraska Beef Festival 15 at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there on the World’s Largest Killing Floor or something—there’s no way. The intimacy of the whole thing is maximized at home, which of course is where most lobster gets prepared and eaten (although note already the semiconscious euphemism “prepared,” which in the case of lobsters really means killing them right there in our kitchens). The basic scenario is that we come in from the store and make our little preparations like getting the kettle filled and boiling, and then we lift the lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in … whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous a lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming 16 ). A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven-timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over.

As Sam came to a panting stop, a jet of orange flame burst from a high window. Several dozen kids were standing, watching. A crowd that struck Sam as very strange, until he realized why it was strange: there were no adults, just kids. “Is anyone in there?” Astrid called out. No one answered. “It could spread,” Sam said. “There’s no 911,” someone pointed out. “If it spreads, it could burn down half the town.” “You see a fireman anywhere?” A helpless shrug. The day care shared a wall with the hardware store, and both were only a narrow alley away from the burning building. Sam figured they had time to get the kids out of the day care if they acted fast, but the hardware store was something they could not afford to lose. There had to be forty kids just standing there gawking. No one seemed about to start doing anything. “Great,” Sam said. He grabbed two kids he sort of knew. “You guys, go to the day care. Tell them to get the littles out of there.” The kids stared at him without moving. “Now. Go. Do it!” he said, and they took off running. Sam pointed at two other kids. “You and you. Go into the hardware store, get the longest hose you can find. Get a spray nozzle, too. I think there’s a spigot in that alley. Start spraying water on the side of the hardware store and up on the roof.” These two also stared blankly. “Dudes: Not tomorrow. Now. Now. Go! Quinn? You better go with them. We want to wet down the hardware—that’s where the wind will take the fire next.” Quinn hesitated. People were not getting this. How could they not see that they had to do something, not just stand around? Sam pushed to the front of the crowd and in a loud voice said, “Hey, listen up, this isn’t the Disney Channel. We can’t just watch this happen. There are no adults. There’s no fire department. We are the fire department.” Edilio was there. He said, “Sam’s right. What do you need, Sam? I’m with you.” “Okay. Quinn? The hoses from the hardware store. Edilio? Let’s get the big hoses from the fire station, hook ’em up to the hydrant.” “They’ll be heavy. I’ll need some strong guys.” “You, you, you, you.” Sam grabbed each person’s shoulder, shaking each one, pushing them into motion. “Come on. You. You. Let’s go!

And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly. I just stood there and stared at it, blood draining from my face. A call to a tollbooth? It must, it must be a wrong number, somebody wanted the Information Booth or-! It must have been audible outside, with all I had the slide partly closed. One of the redcaps passing by turned, looked over, then started coming across toward where I was. To get rid of him I picked up the receiver, put it to my ear. 'You'd better come out now, time's up,' a flat, deadly voice said. 'They're calling your train, but you're not getting on that one - or any other.' 'Wh-where are talking from?' 'The next booth to yours,' the voice jeered. 'You forgot the glass inserts only reach halfway down.' The connection broke and a man's looming figure was shadowing the glass in front of my eyes, before I could even get the receiver back on the hook. I dropped it full-length, tensed my right arm to pound it through his face as soon as I shoved the glass aside. He had a revolver-bore for a top vest-button, trained on me. Two more had shown up behind him, from which direction I hadn't noticed. It was very dark in the booth now, their collective silhouettes shut out all the daylight. The station and all its friendly bustle was blotted out, had receded into the far background, a thousand miles away for all the help it could give me. I slapped the glass wearily aside, came slowly out. One of them flashed a badge - maybe Crow had loaned him his for the occasion. 'You're being arrested for putting slugs in that phone. It won't do any good to raise your voice and shriek for help, try to tell people different. But suit yourself.' I knew that as well as he; heads turned to stare after us by the dozens as they started with me in their midst through the station's main-level. But not one in all that crowd would have dared interfere with what they mistook for a legitimate arrest in the line of duty. The one with the badge kept it conspicuously tilted in his upturned palm, at sight of which the frozen onlookers slowly parted, made way for us through their midst. I was being led to my doom in full view of scores of people. ("Graves For The Living")

As the year went on, I felt I was handling my grief and depression better, but the pressures kept piling up. You don’t really ever feel “comfortable” being a widow. You endure, maybe get through it, but you don’t ever truly own it. And still, a part of me didn’t want to get beyond it. My pain was proof of my love. One night I went over to a friend’s house and just started bawling. I had been going through photos of Chris when he was in his twenties and thirties. I’m going to be an old woman somewhere, and he’s going to be young. So many other emotions ran through me every day. People suggested that I might find someone else. “No,” I’d tell them. “No one will ever take his place.” School forms would ask about the kids’ family situation. Were their parents married, divorced? I’m not a single mother. I’m raising the kids with my husband! Even if he’s not here. I always think about what he would want to do. One night, alone in my bedroom, I picked up the laundry basket off the treadmill. I suddenly felt as if Chris was there with me, somehow hovering two feet off the ground. He grinned. “I’m working on something for you,” he said. And I knew he meant he was trying to hook me up with a man. I jerked back. Had I really heard that? Was he really there? The room was empty, but I had the strongest feeling that he was there. I could feel his grin. I became furious. “How dare you!” I screamed in my head. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you! What’s wrong with you?” I walked out of the room. I blocked him out for a while, partly because of that incident, partly because of how overwhelming the emotions were. Finally I realized I didn’t want to do that. And one night toward the end of the year, I said aloud, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to block you out.” The room was empty, but I sensed he might be with me. “I am so sorry!” I repeated. Then I started bawling. I felt as if he came over and put his arm around my waist. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. His voice, in a whisper, but one I felt rather than heard: I didn’t want to hurt you. I cried and cried. I felt a million things--sorry, crazy, insane. I finally glanced up and looked in the mirror. I was alone. “I’m not losing it,” I told myself. “What little I have left, I’m not losing it.” I slumped off to bed, exhausted.

I hold my breath while he hooks his hands under my thighs. When he resumes, it's faster, harder, and a whole new level of euphoria. I press my eyes shut just as they start to roll back. That spot. That elusive spot every man had such a hard time locating is front and center now. I silently dub him the G-spot whisperer. Another deep thrust hits it again. Good thing I'm not trying to speak anymore, because I've lost all my words. All I have to offer are huffs of hot air and whimpering. Lots and lots of whimpering. The edge of Callum's mouth turns up, and I have to swallow to keep from choking at the divine sight. He looks like a god in this moment. His skin is a golden glow, painted in specks of sweat, highlighting every single cut muscle he possesses. And his expression---a cross between concentration and satisfaction. It's hard physical work he's doing, but he relishes it. I can tell by the glimmer in his eyes, the way his hands cradle my legs so I'm comfortably supported. I can tell by the pinch of his jaw, those soft grunts he let loose, that this is blowing his mind too. For the second time in one night, pressure builds inside me. The feeling is almost too much, but all I want is more. These long, deliberate thrusts are the greatest physical sensations my body has ever experienced. I could explode at any moment, but I want this to last. Forever, if possible. Arching my back, I press my head against the pillow. I cry out, sounding like a rabid banshee. A muttered curse falls from his lips. "That's it. Don't hold back." Pressure and heat collide, and I couldn't hold back if I tried. The deep thrusts keep coming like an endless loop of crashing waves. Callum and my G-spot are new best friends, it seems. Over and over, he hits it. Over and over, the sensations build to an overwhelming peak. His pace shifts from impressive to phenomenal. If Callum were a sex doll, I'd buy a dozen. His stamina, his technique, his adoration of me and my body, it's all perfection. When I burst, I'm even louder than before. And just like before, I'm ablaze from the inside out. Ecstasy pulses through every inch of skin and bone. My blood pumps hot, like lava flowing through my veins. Every muscle tightens, then loosens. Panting, I clutch Callum's forearms and watch his face as he hits his own peak.

What the hell are you doing here?” Brad glared meanly. “Nice to see you, too, Jack,” he said. “You don’t belong here,” Jack said too loudly. “You left her. You’re done with her.” “Hey,” he said, bristling. “I never stopped caring about Brie. Never will. I’m going to see her.” “I don’t think so,” Jack said. “She’s in no shape to have to deal with you right now.” “You’re not in charge of the guest list, Jack. That’s up to Brie.” “Come on,” Mike said sternly. “Let’s not do this here.” “Ask him if he wants to take it outside,” Jack snapped back. “Yeah, I’ll—” “Whoa,” Mike said yet again, widening the space between the two men. “This isn’t happening here!” Brad moved closer, pushing up against Mike, but lowered his voice cautiously. “I know you’re angry, Jack. In general and at me. I don’t blame you. But if you get tough with me, it’s going to be worse for Brie. And this officer is just going to hook you up.” Jack ground his teeth, pushing up against the other side of Mike. Mike was having some trouble holding them apart. “I really want to hit someone,” Jack said through clenched teeth. “Right now, you’d do as well as anyone. You walked out on your marriage. You left her while she was building a case against that son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what you did to her?” Oh, boy, Mike thought. It was going to happen between these two any second, right in the hospital hallway. Mike was a good six feet and pretty strong, but Brad and Jack were both taller, broader, angrier and not a shoulder injury between them. Mike was going to get hammered when they lost it and started pummeling each other. “Yeah,” Brad said. “Yeah, I do! And I want her to know that I still care about what happens to her. We’re divorced, but we have history. A lot of it good history. If I can do anything now…” “Hey!” Mike said to the cop. “Hey! Come on!” The police officer finally got in it, putting himself between Brad and Jack along with Mike. “All right, gentlemen,” the cop said. “I have my orders. No scuffling outside Ms. Sheridan’s door. If you want to talk this over calmly, I’d like you to move down the hall.” Oh, that was not a good suggestion, Mike thought. If they moved down the hall, they wouldn’t be talking. Mike cautiously backed Jack up a few steps. “Take a breath,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to do this.” Jack glowered at Mike. “You sure about that?” “Back

Leo was at her side in an instant, crouching on the floor as he sorted through the hissing tangle of limbs and skirts. “Are you hurt? I feel certain there’s a woman in here somewhere. … Ah, there you are. Easy, now. Let me—” “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, batting at him with her fists. “I’m not touching you. That is, I’m only touching you with the—ow, damn it—with the intention of helping.” Her hat, a little scrap of wool felt with cheap corded trim, had fallen over her face. Leo managed to push it back to the top of her head, narrowly missing a sharp blow to his jaw. “Christ. Would you stop flailing for a moment?” Struggling to a sitting position, she glared at him. Leo crawled to retrieve the spectacles and returned to hand them to her. She snatched them from him without a word of thanks. She was a lean, anxious-looking woman. A young woman with narrowed eyes, from which bad temper flashed out. Her light brown hair was pulled back with a gallows-rope tightness that made Leo wince just to see it. One would have hoped for some compensating feature—a soft pair of lips, perhaps, or a pretty bosom. But no, there was only a stern mouth, a flat chest, and gaunt cheeks. If Leo were compelled to spend any time with her—which, thankfully, he wasn’t—he would have started by feeding her. “If you want to help,” she said coldly, hooking the spectacles around her ears, “retrieve that blasted ferret for me. Perhaps I’ve tired him enough that you may be able to run him to ground.” Still crouching on the floor, Leo glanced at the ferret, which had paused ten yards away and was watching them both with bright, beady eyes. “What is his name?” “Dodger.” Leo gave a low whistle and a few clicks of his tongue. “Come here, Dodger. You’ve caused enough trouble for the morning. Though I can’t fault your taste in … ladies’ garters? Is that what you’re holding?” The woman watched, stupefied, as the ferret’s long, slender body wriggled toward Leo. Chattering busily, Dodger crawled onto Leo’s thigh. “Good fellow,” Leo said, stroking the sleek fur. “How did you do that?” the woman asked in annoyance. “I have a way with animals. They tend to acknowledge me as one of their own.” Leo gently pried a frilly bit of lace and ribbon from the long front teeth. It was definitely a garter, deliciously feminine and impractical. He gave the woman a mocking smile as he handed it to her. “No doubt this is yours.

It has to be said: there are too many great men in the world. There are too many legislators, organizers, founders of society, leaders of peoples, fathers of nations, etc., etc. Too many people put themselves above humanity in order to rule it and too many people think their job is to become involved with it. People will say to me: you yourself are becoming involved, you who talk about it. That is true. But they will agree that it is for a very different reason and from a very different point of view, and while I am taking on those who wish to reform, it is solely to make them abandon their effort. I am becoming involved with it not like Vaucanson with his automaton but like a physiologist with the human organism, in order to examine it and admire it. I am becoming involved with it in the same spirit as that of a famous traveler. He arrived among a savage tribe. A child had just been born and a host of fortune-tellers, warlocks, and quacks were crowding around it, armed with rings, hooks, and ties. One said, “This child will never smell the aroma of a pipe if I do not lengthen his nostrils.” Another said, “He will be deprived of the sense of hearing if I do not make his ears reach down to his shoulders.” A third said, “He will never see the light of the sun unless I make his eyes slant obliquely.” A fourth said, “He will never stand upright if I do not make his legs curve.” A fifth said, “He will never be able to think if I do not squeeze his brain.” “Away with you,” said the traveler. “God does His work well. Do not claim to know more than He does and, since He has given organs to this frail creature, leave those organs to develop and grow strong through exercise, experimentation, experience, and freedom.” [print edition page 146] God has also provided humanity with all that is necessary for it to accomplish its destiny. There is a providential social physiology just as there is a providential human physiology. The social organs are also constituted so as to develop harmoniously in the fresh air of freedom. Away with you, therefore, you quacks and organizers! Away with your rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with your artificial means! Away with your social workshop, your phalanstery, your governmentalism, your centralization, your tariffs, your universities, your state religion, your free credit or monopolistic banks, your constraints, your restrictions, your moralizing, or your equalizing through taxes! And since the social body has had inflicted on it so many theoretical systems to no avail, let us finish where we should have started; let us reject these and at last put freedom to the test, freedom, which is an act of faith in God and in His work.

Fuck you.” “Oh, now you want me too.” Syn barked a laugh. “I thought you were straight.” “Syn,” Furi snapped. “Knock it off.” Syn took Furi’s backpack off his shoulder and slid it on to his own. He intertwined their fingers and Furi couldn’t ignore how much he liked that gesture from his tough Sergeant. Doug still stood very close to Furi, watching them both through narrowed eyes. “Stop looking like that,” Furi whispered. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Doug whispered back. Furi turned and looked behind him at Syn’s ruggedly gorgeous face then down at their joined hands. He turned back to Doug’s concerned eyes. “Yes, I do.” Furi leaned in and chastely kissed Doug on the lips and watched him turn and leave. When Furi turned back, Syn was wearing a large frown and his chest was frozen like he was holding his breath. Furi got as close to Syn as he could. “What’s the matter?” “Don’t do that again.” Syn’s voice was rough and low. “Do what?” Furi frowned in confusion. Syn brought his free hand up and wiped the pad of his thumb across Furi’s full lips. “Don’t put your lips on him again.” Syn shook his head when Furi opened his mouth to argue. “I know it was friendly, and it didn’t mean anything, but humor me, okay? Don’t put your mouth on his. Syn leaned in and pulled Furi’s bottom lip into his mouth and gently sucked on it, right there in the IHOP parking lot. “Only I get to taste these pretty lips,” Syn moaned inside Furi’s mouth. Furi put his arms around Syn’s shoulders. “Okay,” he whispered back, kissing Syn’s cheek. “Let’s go.” Syn carried Furi’s backpack to the large Suburban he’d parked beside the building and placed it in the back seat. “Whose truck is this?” Furi asked. “I borrowed it from work. It belongs to the team. We can use them if needed.” Syn started the powerful engine. Furi hooked his seat belt and turned to look at Syn, realizing he was just sitting there, staring straight ahead. Furi unhooked his belt. “Babe. What’s the matter?” Syn took his glasses back off and turned his body so he was facing Furi. “Furi. What you did today ... don’t do that again. I can respect your privacy. Really, I can. But in light of recent events, please don’t cut yourself off like that. I was ... I thought ..." “Fuck, Syn. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I wanted to call you so many times today.” Syn’s eyes widened. “Just to hear your voice. Not because I was in trouble. But, I didn’t want to seem all clingy and shit. We fucked once and already I’m acting sprung. Can’t stop thinking of you.” Furi knew his embarrassment was making him blush. But Syn was trying to find the words to say he was scared today, so Furi wasn’t holding back on his feelings. They closed the distance over the large console and let their kiss be their words.

His voice was cool and steady. “You’ve proved my point, Lillian. If a man you don’t even like can bring you to this state, then how much easier would it be for St. Vincent?” She started as if he had slapped her, and her eyes widened. The transition from warm desire to a feeling of utter foolishness was not a pleasant one. The devastating intimacy between them had been nothing but a lesson to demonstrate her inexperience. He had used it as an opportunity to put her in her place. Apparently she wasn’t good enough to wed or to bed. Lillian wanted to die. Humiliated, she scrambled upward, clutching at her unfastened garments, and shot him a glare of hatred. “That remains to be seen,” she choked out. “I’ll just have to compare the two of you. And then if you ask nicely, perhaps I’ll tell you if he—” Westcliff pounced on her with startling swiftness, shoving her back to the lawn and bracketing her tossing head between his muscular forearms. “Stay away from him,” he snapped. “He can’t have you.” “Why not?” she demanded, struggling as he settled more heavily between her flailing legs. “Am I not good enough for him either? Inferior breed that I am—” “You’re too good for him. And he would be the first to admit it.” “I like him all the better for not suiting your high standards!” “Lillian— hold still, damn it— Lillian, look at me!” Westcliff waited until she had stilled beneath him. “I don’t want to see you hurt.” “Has it ever occurred to you, you arrogant idiot, that the person most likely to hurt me might be you?” Now it was his turn to recoil as if struck. He stared at her blankly, though she could practically hear the whirring of his agile brain as he sorted through the potential implications of her rash statement. “Get off me,” Lillian said sullenly. He moved upward, straddling her slender hips, his fingers grasping the inner edges of her corset. “Let me fasten you. You can’t run back to the manor half dressed.” “By all means,” she replied with helpless scorn, “let’s observe the proprieties.” Closing her eyes, she felt him tugging her clothes into place, tying her chemise and re-hooking her corset efficiently. When he finally released her, she sprang from the ground like a startled doe and rushed to the entrance of the hidden garden. To her eternal humiliation, she couldn’t find the door, which was concealed by the lavish spills of ivy coming over the wall. Blindly she thrust her hands into the trailing greenery, breaking two nails as she scrabbled for the doorjamb. Coming up behind her, Westcliff settled his hands at her waist, easily dodging her attempts to throw him off. He pulled her hips back firmly against his and spoke against her ear. “Are you angry because I started making love to you, or because I didn’t finish?” Lillian licked her dry lips. “I’m angry, you bloody big hypocrite, because you can’t make up your mind about what to do with me.” She punctuated the comment with the hard jab of one elbow back against his ribs.

Evie shook her head in confusion, staring from her husband’s wrathful countenance to Gully’s carefully blank one. “I don’t understand—” “Call it a rite of passage,” Sebastian snapped, and left her with long strides that quickly broke into a run. Picking up her skirts, Evie hurried after him. Rite of passage? What did he mean? And why wasn’t Cam willing to do something about the brawl? Unable to match Sebastian’s reckless pace, she trailed behind, taking care not to trip over her skirts as she descended the flight of stairs. The noise grew louder as she approached a small crowd that had congregated around the coffee room, shouts and exclamations renting the air. She saw Sebastian strip off his coat and thrust it at someone, and then he was shouldering his way into the melee. In a small clearing, three milling figures swung their fists and clumsily attempted to push and shove one another while the onlookers roared with excitement. Sebastian strategically attacked the man who seemed the most unsteady on his feet, spinning him around, jabbing and hooking with a few deft blows until the dazed fellow tottered forward and collapsed to the carpeted floor. The remaining pair turned in tandem and rushed at Sebastian, one of them attempting to pin his arms while the other came at him with churning fists. Evie let out a cry of alarm, which somehow reached Sebastian’s ears through the thunder of the crowd. Distracted, he glanced in her direction, and he was instantly seized in a mauling clinch, with his neck caught in the vise of his opponent’s arm while his head was battered with heavy blows. “No,” Evie gasped, and started forward, only to be hauled back by a steely arm that clamped around her waist. “Wait,” came a familiar voice in her ear. “Give him a chance.” “Cam!” She twisted around wildly, her panicked gaze finding his exotic but familiar face with its elevated cheekbones and thick-lashed golden eyes. “They’ll hurt him,” she said, clutching at the lapels of his coat. “Go help him— Cam, you have to—” “He’s already broken free,” Cam observed mildly, turning her around with inexorable hands. “Watch— he’s not doing badly.” One of Sebastian’s opponents let loose with a mighty swing of his arm. Sebastian ducked and came back with a swift jab. “Cam, why the d-devil aren’t you doing anything to help him?” “I can’t.” “Yes, you can! You’re used to fighting, far more than he—” “He has to,” Cam said, his voice quiet and firm in her ear. “He’ll have no authority here otherwise. The men who work at the club have a notion of leadership that requires action as well as words. St. Vincent can’t ask them to do anything that he wouldn’t be willing to do himself. And he knows that. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this right now.” Evie covered her eyes as one opponent endeavored to close in on her husband from behind while the other engaged him with a flurry of blows. “They’ll be loyal to him only if he is w-willing to use his fists in a pointless display of brute force?” “Basically, yes.

As it turned out, Mary Jo White and other attorneys for the Sacklers and Purdue had been quietly negotiating with the Trump administration for months. Inside the DOJ, the line prosecutors who had assembled both the civil and the criminal cases started to experience tremendous pressure from the political leadership to wrap up their investigations of Purdue and the Sacklers prior to the 2020 presidential election in November. A decision had been made at high levels of the Trump administration that this matter would be resolved quickly and with a soft touch. Some of the career attorneys at Justice were deeply unhappy with this move, so much so that they wrote confidential memos registering their objections, to preserve a record of what they believed to be a miscarriage of justice. One morning two weeks before the election, Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general for the Trump administration, convened a press conference in which he announced a “global resolution” of the federal investigations into Purdue and the Sacklers. The company was pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and to violate the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as well as to two counts of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-kickback Statute, Rosen announced. No executives would face individual charges. In fact, no individual executives were mentioned at all: it was as if the corporation had acted autonomously, like a driverless car. (In depositions related to Purdue’s bankruptcy which were held after the DOJ settlement, two former CEOs, John Stewart and Mark Timney, both declined to answer questions, invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.) Rosen touted the total value of the federal penalties against Purdue as “more than $8 billion.” And, in keeping with what had by now become a standard pattern, the press obligingly repeated that number in the headlines. Of course, anyone who was paying attention knew that the total value of Purdue’s cash and assets was only around $1 billion, and nobody was suggesting that the Sacklers would be on the hook to pay Purdue’s fines. So the $8 billion figure was misleading, much as the $10–$12 billion estimate of the value of the Sacklers’ settlement proposal had been misleading—an artificial number without any real practical meaning, designed chiefly to be reproduced in headlines. As for the Sacklers, Rosen announced that they had agreed to pay $225 million to resolve a separate civil charge that they had violated the False Claims Act. According to the investigation, Richard, David, Jonathan, Kathe, and Mortimer had “knowingly caused the submission of false and fraudulent claims to federal health care benefit programs” for opioids that “were prescribed for uses that were unsafe, ineffective, and medically unnecessary.” But there would be no criminal charges. In fact, according to a deposition of David Sackler, the Department of Justice concluded its investigation without so much as interviewing any member of the family. The authorities were so deferential toward the Sacklers that nobody had even bothered to question them.

Sky's The Limit" [Intro] Good evening ladies and gentlemen How's everybody doing tonight I'd like to welcome to the stage, the lyrically acclaimed I like this young man because when he came out He came out with the phrase, he went from ashy to classy I like that So everybody in the house, give a warm round of applause For the Notorious B.I.G The Notorious B.I.G., ladies and gentlemen give it up for him y'all [Verse 1] A nigga never been as broke as me - I like that When I was young I had two pair of Lees, besides that The pin stripes and the gray The one I wore on Mondays and Wednesdays While niggas flirt I'm sewing tigers on my shirts, and alligators You want to see the inside, I see you later Here comes the drama, oh, that's that nigga with the fake, blaow Why you punch me in my face, stay in your place Play your position, here come my intuition Go in this nigga pocket, rob him while his friends watching And hoes clocking, here comes respect His crew's your crew or they might be next Look at they man eye, big man, they never try So we rolled with them, stole with them I mean loyalty, niggas bought me milks at lunch The milks was chocolate, the cookies, butter crunch 88 Oshkosh and blue and white dunks, pass the blunts [Hook: 112] Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on Just keep on pressing on Sky is the limit and you know that you can have What you want, be what you want Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on Just keep on pressing on Sky is the limit and you know that you can have What you want, be what you want, have what you want, be what you want [Verse 2] I was a shame, my crew was lame I had enough heart for most of them Long as I got stuff from most of them It's on, even when I was wrong I got my point across They depicted me the boss, of course My orange box-cutter make the world go round Plus I'm fucking bitches ain't my homegirls now Start stacking, dabbled in crack, gun packing Nickname Medina make the seniors tote my Niñas From gym class, to English pass off a global The only nigga with a mobile can't you see like Total Getting larger in waists and tastes Ain't no telling where this felon is heading, just in case Keep a shell at the tip of your melon, clear the space Your brain was a terrible thing to waste 88 on gates, snatch initial name plates Smoking spliffs with niggas, real-life beginner killers Praying God forgive us for being sinners, help us out [Hook] [Verse 3] After realizing, to master enterprising I ain't have to be in school by ten, I then Began to encounter with my counterparts On how to burn the block apart, break it down into sections Drugs by the selections Some use pipes, others use injections Syringe sold separately Frank the Deputy Quick to grab my Smith & Wesson like my dick was missing To protect my position, my corner, my lair While we out here, say the Hustlers Prayer If the game shakes me or breaks me I hope it makes me a better man Take a better stand Put money in my mom's hand Get my daughter this college grant so she don't need no man Stay far from timid Only make moves when your heart's in it And live the phrase sky's the limit Motherfuckers See you chumps on top [Hook]

Sadly not. I can only feel the depth of your power, the strength of it. And you’re strong. Once you learn to harness it, I have the feeling that I won’t be able to take an ounce of it from you without permission.” My mouth slipped into a smile and her gaze dropped to trace the movement, making my dick get all kinds of hopeful ideas. “Can you just get this over with? I have a lot of studying to do.” She tilted her chin in the angriest offering I'd ever seen but that wasn't going to cut it today.What would it even take for her to want me to bite her? I'd have given a whole lot to hear her beg me for it that was for sure. “Don’t you want to hear my proposition, Tory?” I asked in a seductive tone as I shifted closer to her, wanting to feel the heat of her body against mine. “I can’t imagine anything that you could offer me to make me a willing participant in your dinner schedule,” she deadpanned. “There may be one thing,” I said, teasing her, tempting her. Her eyes lit angrily and I could tell she was about to start cursing me or something equally aggressive, so I took a final step forward, caught her chin between my fingers and pressed my mouth to hers. Tory sucked in a breath of surprise and I slid my tongue between the opening in her lips, kissing her roughly and dominating her mouth in a demand for her to give in to me. She raised her hands to my chest, palms flat against my pecs and for a moment I was sure she was going to shove me back with either her strength or her magic. But then the moment passed and instead of fighting, she surrendered, her hands caressing instead of pushing me away, tongue moving with mine and lips devouring. And she tasted so fucking sweet. I groaned deep in the back of my throat as I dropped my hands to her waist and walked her backwards until her ass hit the desk there. I lifted her up easily, parting her thighs as I stepped between them and my cock throbbed as I drove it against her panties, stealing a little friction and loving the way she arched into the movement like she was aching for more of me. Her hands banded around my neck and she pulled me closer, kissing me hard and heatedly as her hips flexed and she ground herself against my solid cock I moved my hand to her knee, tracing a line along the top of her long socks with my thumb before shifting it up her silken skin. Tory kissed me harder, her fingers pushing through my hair as she moaned between brushes of our tongues as I kept moving my hand higher, half expecting her to stop me while my heart thundered harder for every second where she didn't. I pushed my fingers beneath her skirt and she moaned again, her other leg hooking around my ass and dragging me nearer in a demand I was more than willing to give in to. I grinned against her lips, loving how quickly she'd fallen to my desire, but the moment I did, she sucked my bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard to remind me of exactly what kind of animal she was. I jerked back before she could spill my blood, laughing at the fire in her and pausing with my hand almost grazing her panties and the temptation of what lay beneath them. “Why?” she asked breathlessly, suspicion colouring her green eyes and making me want to offer her the truth. “You can just take what you want from me. So why kiss me?” (Caleb pov)

Any prize off this bottom row,” the guy tells us, walking away to a waiting customer. “You did it!” I jump down off the counter and wrap my arms around his neck. “You won me a prize!” “Thank fuck.” His arms wrap around me. “I was starting to worry for a moment there. Felt like I was losing my man card.” I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss his lips. “Never. And thank you.” I tip my head back to look into his face. His hands slide down my back to my ass, and he gives it a squeeze. “Go pick your prize, Boston.” Leaving Liam, I head back to the counter and lean over, looking at the bottom row of prizes. I see all kinds of crap here, including really cheap-looking stuffed animals and dolls. I definitely do not want a doll. They freak me out. Then, I spy this sad-looking odd toy. Reaching over, I grab it. Liam comes up behind me as I right myself. His chest is pressed to my back. “Is that a…fucking knitted jellyfish?” I turn my head to look up at him. He’s squinting at the toy I’ve picked up. I look back down at it in my hands, and I think he’s right. It is a knitted jellyfish toy. “I think so.” It’s white and pink and looks like a little princess jellyfish. And the more I look at it, the cuter it becomes…in a weird knitted jellyfish way. “She looks like a jellyfish princess,” I say. “It looks like a piece of shit.” “Hey! You’ll hurt her feelings.” I jab him in the arm. Then, I hug her. “I shall call her Squishy, and she shall be mine.” I laugh, meeting Liam’s blank expression. “Finding Nemo? No?” I say. Liam slowly shakes his head, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Okay, makes sense. You were probably too old to watch it when it first came out—you know, when I was still in diapers and you were out serenading teenage girls with the Backstreet Boys—hey!” I squeal when he digs me in the ribs with his fingers. “We’ll watch Nemo later, and then you’ll get the reference.” I turn to the guy. “I’ll take Squishy,” I tell him, holding the stuffed animal up. “Okay, what’s next?” I hook my arm through Liam’s, holding Squishy to my chest. “Hook a Duck.” “Hook a what?” I give him a confused look. “Duck.” “And what’s Hook a Duck?” “You don’t know what Hook a Duck is?” Liam looks appalled. “No…but I feel like I should.” “You should.” “What’s so special about it?” “Well, nothing special per se, but it’s like a rite of passage. Every kid plays Hook a Duck when they come to the fair.” “Hate to break it to you, Hunter, but we’re not kids.” “Maybe not. But it’s your first time at a fair in England, and you have to play.” Liam grabs my hand and sets off, I assume, in search of this Hook a Duck game. We find one a few minutes later, and it’s closed. All shut up with the tarpaulin covering the booth. “It’s closed. Never mind,” I say to him. I start to walk away, but Liam tugs me back by the hand he’s holding. “Like a little thing like it being closed is going to stop us from playing.” He gives me a grin and drops my hand. I watch as he unhooks the tarpaulin at the bottom and lifts it just enough so that he can sneak in underneath it. “Hunter, what are you doing?” I hiss. He ducks his head back out. “Come on,” he whispers, holding the material up for me to go under. “I’m not going in there.” “Yes you are. Now hurry the fuck up, or you’ll get me arrested for breaking into a Hook a Duck tent,” he whispers. “Ugh,” I complain.

Clary held her hands up. 'I do get it. I know you don’t like me, Isabelle. Because I’m a mundane to you.' 'You think that’s why—' Isabelle broke off, her eyes bright; not just with anger, Clary saw with surprise, but with tears. “God, you don’t understand anything, do you? You’ve known Jace what, a month? I’ve known him for seven years. And all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him fall in love, never seen him even like anyone. He’d hook up with girls, sure. Girls always fell in love with him, but he never cared. I think that’s why Alec thought—” Isabelle stopped for a moment, holding herself very still. She’s trying not to cry, Clary thought in wonder—Isabelle, who seemed like she never cried. “It always worried me, and my mom, too—I mean, what kind of teenage boy never even gets a crush on anyone? It was like he was always half-awake where other people were concerned. I thought maybe what had happened with his father had done some sort of permanent damage to him, like maybe he never really could love anyone. If I’d only known what had really happened with his father—but then I probably would have thought the same thing, wouldn’t I? I mean, who wouldn’t have been damaged by that?' 'And then we met you, and it was like he woke up. You couldn’t see it, because you’d never known him any different. But I saw it. Hodge saw it. Alec saw it—why do you think he hated you so much? It was like that from the second we met you. You thought it was amazing that you could see us, and it was, but what was amazing to me was that Jace could see you, too. He kept talking about you all the way back to the Institute; he made Hodge send him out to get you; and once he brought you back, he didn’t want you to leave again. Wherever you were in the room, he watched you…. He was even jealous of Simon. I’m not sure he realized it himself, but he was. I could tell. Jealous of a mundane. And then after what happened to Simon at the party, he was willing to go with you to the Dumort, to break Clave Law, just to save a mundane he didn’t even like. He did it for you. Because if anything had happened to Simon, you would have been hurt. You were the first person outside our family whose happiness I’d ever seen him take into consideration. Because he loved you.' Clary made a noise in the back of her throat. 'But that was before—' 'Before he found out you were his sister. I know. And I don’t blame you for that. You couldn’t have known. And I guess you couldn’t have helped that you just went right on ahead and dated Simon afterward like you didn’t even care. I thought once Jace knew you were his sister, he’d give up and get over it, but he didn’t, and he couldn’t. I don’t know what Valentine did to him when he was a child. I don’t know if that’s why he is the way he is, or if it’s just the way he’s made, but he won’t get over you, Clary. He can’t. I started to hate seeing you. I hated for Jace to see you. It’s like an injury you get from demon poison—you have to leave it alone and let it heal. Every time you rip the bandages off, you just open the wound up again. Every time he sees you, it’s like tearing off the bandages.' 'I know,' Clary whispered. “How do you think it is for me?” 'I don’t know. I can’t tell what you’re feeling. You’re not my sister. I don’t hate you, Clary. I even like you. If it were possible, there isn’t anyone I’d rather Jace be with. But I hope you can understand when I say that if by some miracle we all get through this, I hope my family moves itself somewhere so far away that we never see you again.

All the many successes and extraordinary accomplishments of the Gemini still left NASA’s leadership in a quandary. The question voiced in various expressions cut to the heart of the problem: “How can we send men to the moon, no matter how well they fly their ships, if they’re pretty helpless when they get there? We’ve racked up rendezvous, docking, double-teaming the spacecraft, starting, stopping, and restarting engines; we’ve done all that. But these guys simply cannot work outside their ships without exhausting themselves and risking both their lives and their mission. We’ve got to come up with a solution, and quick!” One manned Gemini mission remained on the flight schedule. Veteran Jim Lovell would command the Gemini 12, and his space-walking pilot would be Buzz Aldrin, who built on the experience of the others to address all problems with incredible depth and finesse. He took along with him on his mission special devices like a wrist tether and a tether constructed in the same fashion as one that window washers use to keep from falling off ledges. The ruby slippers of Dorothy of Oz couldn’t compare with the “golden slippers” Aldrin wore in space—foot restraints, resembling wooden Dutch shoes, that he could bolt to a work station in the Gemini equipment bay. One of his neatest tricks was to bring along portable handholds he could slap onto either the Gemini or the Agena to keep his body under control. A variety of space tools went into his pressure suit to go along with him once he exited the cabin. On November 11, 1966, the Gemini 12, the last of its breed, left earth and captured its Agena quarry. Then Buzz Aldrin, once and for all, banished the gremlins of spacewalking. He proved so much a master at it that he seemed more to be taking a leisurely stroll through space than attacking the problems that had frustrated, endangered, and maddened three previous astronauts and brought grave doubts to NASA leadership about the possible success of the manned lunar program. Aldrin moved down the nose of the Gemini to the Agena like a weightless swimmer, working his way almost effortlessly along a six-foot rail he had locked into place once he was outside. Next came looping the end of a hundred-foot line from the Agena to the Gemini for a later experiment, the job that had left Dick Gordon in a sweatbox of exhaustion. Aldrin didn’t show even a hint of heavy breathing, perspiration, or an increased heartbeat. When he spoke, his voice was crisp, sharp, clear. What he did seemed incredibly easy, but it was the direct result of his incisive study of the problems and the equipment he’d brought from earth. He also made sure to move in carefully timed periods, resting between major tasks, and keeping his physical exertion to a minimum. When he reached the workstation in the rear of the Gemini, he mounted his feet and secured his body to the ship with the waist tether. He hooked different equipment to the ship, dismounted other equipment, shifted them about, and reattached them. He used a unique “space wrench” to loosen and tighten bolts with effortless skill. He snipped wires, reconnected wires, and connected a series of tubes. Mission Control hung on every word exchanged between the two astronauts high above earth. “Buzz, how do those slippers work?” Aldrin’s enthusiastic voice came back like music. “They’re great. Great! I don’t have any trouble positioning my body at all.” And so it went, a monumental achievement right at the end of the Gemini program. Project planners had reached all the way to the last inch with one crucial problem still unsolved, and the man named Aldrin had whipped it in spectacular fashion on the final flight. Project Gemini was

One man who estimated that he had hooked up with thirty or forty women over the past year through dating apps admitted, “I sort of play that I could be a boyfriend kind of guy,” in order to win them over, “but then they start wanting me to care more . . . and I just don’t.

The sound of the wind blowing whistled around us and I gasped when I finally looked down, stopping mid-stride. I turned in a circle, my eyes going wide. The night sky was reflecting on the ice in crisp shades and colors, bright strings of stars swirling out around each other and a huge, round, speckled moon staring up at me. It hung above its reflection, like the sky was folded in on itself. We were standing on it. Like the world was upside down. I touched my lips with my fingertips, my eyes flitting over the surface. Fiske stopped, one thumb hooked into the strap across his chest, watching me. The light bouncing off the ice lit up the side of his face. He looked up at the moon. “It only does this for a week or two. The ice starts to cloud as it thins.

Ekan starts to drag the heavy-looking chair over to me, but it keeps catching on the stuff he spilled off of it, and on the lone rug in the room. Finally, he drops it and moves to look at the legs. “Why is it hooking?” he asks in frustration. “Lack of opportunities, education. Comes from a background of poverty. You know, the common reasons for a chair to start hooking,” I offer helpfully. He stares at me. I shrug helplessly.

My head started thumping, a silent voice screaming inside. I was useless, encapsulated by a swarm of notions—notions jostling for precedence; notions forming a mental blockade...

I loved being one of thousands, not one of a hundred. Because I could start fresh, be myself without being told that being myself wasn’t good enough.

REMEMBER & SHARE The investment phase is the fourth step in the Hooked Model. Unlike the action phase, which delivers immediate gratification, the investment phase concerns the anticipation of rewards in the future. Investments in a product create preferences because of our tendency to overvalue our work, be consistent with past behaviors, and avoid cognitive dissonance. Investment comes after the variable reward phase, when users are primed to reciprocate. Investments increase the likelihood of users returning by improving the service the more it is used. They enable the accrual of stored value in the form of content, data, followers, reputation, or skill. Investments increase the likelihood of users passing through the Hook again by loading the next trigger to start the cycle all over again.

In 1951, when I was four years old, my grandfather gave me an official Arthur Godfrey ukulele, complete with an authentic chord-maker attachment so I could sing and play along with my records. The attachment was hooked to the fret board, and by pressing one button or another I could make a particular chord. Eventually my curiosity got the best of me and I started peeking under the chord maker to see how the strings were being manipulated. As soon as I realized how the chords were made, I got rid of the attachment and made my own chords. It was my first big career move. The radio, my ukulele, record player, and record collection were my cohorts and confidants. Music was already the center of my life. Later that year, my mother enrolled me for piano lessons at the local conservatory.

Do you want to know a secret?” she breathed, her voice lowering seductively. “What?” I asked, wanting to hear anything and everything she might ever want to tell me. She leaned a little closer and her long hair tickled my skin. “I think,” she breathed slowly. “That I’m going to puke.” She leapt off of me so quickly that the bed bounced beneath me as she darted to the en-suite. My dick was straining so hard against my fly that I thought it might actually burst and I had to rearrange myself before I could follow her. By the time I got there she’d already emptied her stomach contents into the toilet and she flushed it before stumbling towards the basin where she washed her mouth out. She proceeded to steal my toothbrush like a goddamn animal and I leaned against the doorframe as I watched her, trying not to look at her ass too much as she bent forward over the basin but I was clearly failing at that. I should have been pissed at her for intruding on my space like this but somehow I didn’t mind at all. When she’d finished, she sauntered back towards me, pushing a hand into her hair as she fought to walk in a straight line. She failed. I caught her as she almost face planted into the tiles and hooked her into my arms before returning her to the bed again. She tugged me down too and I was past the point of protesting. The moment her head hit the pillow her eyes fell shut but she turned towards me, draping an arm across my waist. I flicked the lights off and the room was only illuminated by the fire which was burning low in the grate. “You’re unbelievable, you know that,” she mumbled. “In what way?” I asked, wondering if she just might be about to admit that she felt this heat between us too. She shifted nearer to me and I pulled her close as she laid her head on my chest. My heart was hammering wildly and I couldn’t quite believe the strange turn of events that had led us here. For the longest moment she didn’t speak and I began to wonder if she’d fallen asleep but then she carried on. “You have the biggest goddamn jacuzzi I’ve ever seen in your bathroom,” she said and I couldn’t help but laugh at the way that conversation had gone. “Do you like it?” I asked. “No. It’s just unbelievable. Like you. You’re just... such... a dick.” Her breathing grew heavier and I was sure she’d passed out again. A smile pulled at my lips in response to her comment. It might have been nice for my ego if she’d started declaring how attractive she found me, but in all honesty she just wouldn’t have been herself without her smart mouth. And I was beginning to realise that I might like that, and a few other things about her, just a bit too much. (Darius POV)

In the six months that she'd been gone, he'd noticed the sunrise more. He'd started paying attention to strangers, their actions. Listening to music. Even his job seemed to have more gravity to it. Hannah did that somehow. Made him look around and consider.

I tugged her body against mine, tits pressing to me and damn near making me groan with longing before she slid her hands up my chest as we began to dance with one another. My body fell into a rhythm with hers so naturally that I swear even my heart was pounding to the tune. Her chest brushed mine, fingers skimming up my neck as my hand fell to the round curve of her ass and I tugged her closer. My gaze was on her mouth as the heat between us built in time with the movements of our bodies and our breaths mingled in the small space left dividing us. But just as I was starting to give serious consideration to an absolutely terrible idea, she turned in my arms, her ass pushing back into my crotch as she hooked one arm around the back of my neck. A real growl escaped me then as she ground herself against me, making my cock swell and my thoughts scatter as I lost all sense of everything other than this fucking girl in my arms as we danced together. I was vaguely aware of Seth dancing with Gwen beside us, but I couldn't tear my eyes from this perfect temptation in my arms. It was hotter than any sex I could ever remember having and neither of us had removed so much as a single item of clothing. Roxy kept dancing with her hand clasped around the back of my neck, the arch of her spine giving me a view down her shirt which I was having a damn hard time tearing my attention from. The fabric shifted and slipped across her skin, offering me the barest glimpse of her hardened nipples with every thump of the music and I licked my lips with the desire to suck on them. My dick was definitely letting itself be known as she continued to grind herself against me and as much as I was enjoying that friction, I really needed to make some effort to control myself. I grasped her hip and turned her around, the beast in me purring as she instantly looped her arms around my neck to draw me closer. I didn't even know how many songs had played while we'd been dancing and I didn't care because I knew it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. My gaze met hers and the fire in her was enough to set me alight too as she tilted her chin up and bit down on that full bottom lip. My attention was instantly hooked on her mouth, our bodies still moving together in this hot, endless friction which was begging for some relief. My resolve was snapping, all the reasons I had to pull away falling from my mind like flakes of snow trying to land on an inferno and I found myself leaning in, devouring the distance that parted us like I wanted to devour this beautiful creature in my arms. I tightened my grip on her waist, letting her feel the throbbing press of my dick driving into her and making it more than clear what I wanted to spend the rest of the night doing to her. I didn't care if she was a Vega, a princess, the architect of my fall from power, none of that mattered. Because all there was in that moment was her and me and the press of the heavens above us driving us together like we might burn up in the fire which blazed between us if we didn't just dive into it now. (Darius POV)

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Sitting in your favorite position and closing your eyes, you tiptoe over the threshold of experience and into the mystery. You drop into the heart of the universe. You’re there. The cascade of SONDANoBe floods your brain. You’re hooked, drawn up into the light. When you emerge from meditation, you’re more compassionate, emotionally balanced, mentally coherent, effective, kind, creative, healthy, and productive. The effects ripple through the whole community around you. At the center of that circle is a great-feeling you. The Gregs of this world go for heroin, weed, or alcohol to make themselves feel good. That’s simply because they don’t realize that a far better drug is available. SONDANoBe is what addicts are really craving. They want to feel good, but they’re looking for exogenous chemicals to meet their needs. They don’t understand that what they’re searching for is right inside their own brains. The only reason those drugs feel good to the Gregs of this world is that they’re facsimiles of the substances that their own brains produce. Bliss Brain is a formula, just like the World’s Best Cocktail. It’s the World’s Best High, and it’s just as addictive. The brain that experiences SONDANoBe once can never go back to its old state. By remodeling neural tissue, SONDANoBe consolidates learning and hardwires bliss. While street drugs shrink and damage vital brain regions, SONDANoBe does the opposite. It grows your brain. It expands the brain regions that regulate your emotions, synthesize great ideas, stimulate your creativity, acquire new skills, heal your body, extend your longevity, improve your memory, and boost your happiness. The next chapter shows how a brain bathed in the chemicals of ecstasy starts to change its fundamental structure, as the software of mind becomes the hardware of brain.

I tell Sasha about the boy I've now given two blow jobs to, only I don't phrase it like that, I say, hooked up with, and how I can barely find anything special about him to like, except that now he's not calling me I feel like I'm not special and want his attention. And I start thinking, well, he does have a really cute smile and he plays the guitar, which is cool, and he talks so little that he's probably secretly super smart.

Defense against Gunpoint from the Front with the Barrel Pushed into the Forehead From this position, you should hope your opponent will tell you to raise your hands up, since it takes longer to bring them from your waist to the opponent’s wrist. Do not complain if you are not asked to raise your hands up. Start your motion by violently tilting your neck away from the barrel. Never move both hands toward the barrel at once, since you are making your intentions obvious to your attacker, slowing down your motion and your ability to move your body away. 1. The attacker points a pistol at the defender’s forehead. 2. The defender violently tilts his neck towards his left shoulder. 3.     The defender raises his left hand and taps the attacker’s wrist. At the same time, the defender’s head leans to the left, followed by his body moving forward. (This is preferable and more comfortable than grabbing the barrel and having to lean backwards). 4.     The defender slides his left hand along the attacker’s wrist and forearm, moving his head with it. This will also ensure a less loud noise if a shot is dispensed. The defender is hooking the weapon with his right arm, by tapping the attacker's shoulder and then sliding his hand on the attacker's arm, until his wrist gets hooked to the defender's chest. Executing a simultaneous strike to the opponent’s groin is a matter of judgment in this scenario. You want to buy time and ensure he would not attack you with his free hand, but at the same time you want to immediately hook the weapon. 5. The defender executes a counterattack with his left hand. 6.     The defender’s left arm, fingers pointed down, hand turned clockwise reaches for the weapon’s barrel. The defender extracts the weapon by breaking the barrel down. 7.     The defender proceeds to strike the opponent’s temple with the barrel of the pistol.

But his attention had shifted to my breasts, and when his tongue started toying with my hardened nipple, flicking it with his piercing, then sucking and biting... yeah, fuck chatting. We could discuss it after orgasms. Clearly, he thought the same thing, shuffling back down the bed and hooking his fingers into the waistband of my shorts. He dragged them down my legs, then cocked that pierced brow at me. "No underwear, Hellcat?" I smirked. "You're a bad influence on me, Max Steele.