I Randomly Miss You Quotes

It looks like Animal and Miss piggy had sex," I said. "And this was the spawn." "My eyes!" Boomer cried. "My eyes! I can't stop seeing it now that you've said it!

I miss our Would You Rather conversations and your hilarious answers. I miss your laugh. I miss the way I feel when I make you laugh. Like I just won something really important. I miss just sitting with you in perfect, silent understanding. I miss the way you never judge anyone. It’s such a rare find, Liv. And I miss watching how kind you are with everyone. I miss being able to call you and talk to you about random shit and important shit. I miss my best friend. I miss you. I love you.

I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked unto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said. Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, thought mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell - keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The wilful filling off a gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information - That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony - That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love fora a blue vase - That was how Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers - That was how Nazi Germany sense no important difference between civilization and hydrophobia - That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I've seen in my time.

Are you missing the library again?" Seth asked, startling her as he walked into the room. Kendra turned to face her brother. "You caught me," she congratulated him. "I'm reading." "I bet the librarians back home are panicking. Summer vacation, and no Kendra Sorenson to keep them in business. Have they been sending you letters?" "Might not hurt you to pick up a book, just as an experiment." Whatever. I looked up the definition for 'nerd' in the dictionary. Know what it said?" "I bet you'll tell me." " 'If you're reading this, you are one.' " You're a riot." Kendra turned back to the journal, flipping to a random page. Seth took a seat on his bed across from her. "Kendra, seriously, I can sort of see reading a cool book for fun, but dusty old journals? Really? Has anybody told you there are magical creatures out there?" He pointed out the window. "Has anybody told you some of those creatures can eat you?" Kendra responded. "I'm not reading these just for fun. They have good info." "like what? Patton and Lena smooching?" Kendra rolled her eyes. "I'm not telling. You'll end up in a tar pit." "There's a tar pit?" he said, perking up. "Where?

But now I gotta pay,' he said. To pay?' For my sin. That's why I'm here, right? Justice?' The Blue Man smiled. 'No, Edward. You are here so I can teach you something. All the people you meet here have one thing to teach you...That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more seperate a breeze from the wind.' ...'It was my stupidity, running out there like that. Why should you have to die on account of me? It ain't fair.' The Blue Man held out his hand. 'Fairness,' he said, 'does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young...Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should? It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed. You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.' ... 'I still don't understand,' Eddie whispered. 'What good came from your death?' You lived,' the Blue Man answered. But we barely knew each other. I might as well have been a stranger.' The Blue Man put his arms on Eddie's shoulders. Eddie felt that warm, melting sensation. Strangers,' the Blue Man said, 'are just family have yet to come to know.

I have come to teach you that there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind. ... Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel that they should? It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between taken and being missed, lives are changed. ...there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. ... The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

Marked.” My face was on fire, my limbs shaking. “All of you. I will take all of you out with my own bare hands!” There was laughter building in Bram’s voice as he responded. “As cute as I’m sure that would be, your attempt…if we thought the people who might try to trace that chip could make you absolutely, one hundred percent safe, I would carry you to them and hand you over myself.” I gingerly rested my fingertips against my forehead, breathing deeply, trying to calm myself down. “There are some very bad men out to get you, Miss Dearly.” “You have got to be kidding me.” “By the way, you have quite the vocabulary, for a princess.” He still sounded amused. This statement was random enough to get my attention. “Princess?” I asked, confused. “You know, a princess. A New Victorian girl.” My lips parted to fire off another question before it clicked. “You’re a Punk.” “Born and bred.” “Fantastic.

I believe neither in luck nor in destiny,” he declared. “I trust only the science of probabilities. I have studied mathematical statistics, combinatorial analysis, mass function, and random variables, and they have never held any surprises for me. You don’t seem fully to grasp the destabilizing effect that someone like you can have on someone like me.

That's the big difference between [the BookWorld] and [the RealWorld]," said Plum. "When things happen after a randomly pointless event, all that follows is simply unintended consequences, not a coherent narrative thrust that propels the story forward." I rolled the idea of unintended consequences around in my head. "Nope, I said finally, "you've got me on that one." "It confuses me, too," admitted Plum, "but that's the RealWorld for you. A brutal and beautiful place, run for the most part on passion, fads, incentives, and mathematics. A lot of mathematics.

She could have wept. It was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely bad! She could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been thinned and faded; the shapes etherealised; that was how Paunceforte would have seen it. But then she did not see it like that. She saw the colour burning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly’s wing lying upon the arches of a cathedral. Of all that only a few random marks scrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen; never be hung even, and there was Mr Tansley whispering in her ear, “Women can’t paint, women can’t write ...” She now remembered what she had been going to say about Mrs Ramsay. She did not know how she would have put it; but it would have been something critical. She had been annoyed the other night by some highhandedness. Looking along the level of Mr Bankes’s glance at her, she thought that no woman could worship another woman in the way he worshipped; they could only seek shelter under the shade which Mr Bankes extended over them both. Looking along his beam she added to it her different ray, thinking that she was unquestionably the loveliest of people (bowed over her book); the best perhaps; but also, different too from the perfect shape which one saw there. But why different, and how different? she asked herself, scraping her palette of all those mounds of blue and green which seemed to her like clods with no life in them now, yet she vowed, she would inspire them, force them to move, flow, do her bidding tomorrow. How did she differ? What was the spirit in her, the essential thing, by which, had you found a crumpled glove in the corner of a sofa, you would have known it, from its twisted finger, hers indisputably? She was like a bird for speed, an arrow for directness. She was willful; she was commanding (of course, Lily reminded herself, I am thinking of her relations with women, and I am much younger, an insignificant person, living off the Brompton Road). She opened bedroom windows. She shut doors. (So she tried to start the tune of Mrs Ramsay in her head.) Arriving late at night, with a light tap on one’s bedroom door, wrapped in an old fur coat (for the setting of her beauty was always that—hasty, but apt), she would enact again whatever it might be—Charles Tansley losing his umbrella; Mr Carmichael snuffling and sniffing; Mr Bankes saying, “The vegetable salts are lost.” All this she would adroitly shape; even maliciously twist; and, moving over to the window, in pretence that she must go,—it was dawn, she could see the sun rising,—half turn back, more intimately, but still always laughing, insist that she must, Minta must, they all must marry, since in the whole world whatever laurels might be tossed to her (but Mrs Ramsay cared not a fig for her painting), or triumphs won by her (probably Mrs Ramsay had had her share of those), and here she saddened, darkened, and came back to her chair, there could be no disputing this: an unmarried woman (she lightly took her hand for a moment), an unmarried woman has missed the best of life. The house seemed full of children sleeping and Mrs Ramsay listening; shaded lights and regular breathing.

I thought you'd be gone by now." Velkan "Hardly, I have to much to do." Esperetta "Such as?" Velkan "Apologize to you." Esperetta "Why would you do that?" Velkan "Because I'm stupid and pigheaded. Judgmental. Unforgiving. Mistrustful--you can stop me at anytime, you know?" Esperetta "Why should i? You're on quite a roll. Besides, you missed the worst flaw." Velkan "And that is?" Esperetta "Hotheaded." Velkan "I learned that one from you." Esperetta "How so?" Velkan "Remember that time you threw your boots into the fire because you had trouble getting them off?" "I never did that." Velkan "Yes, you did. You also gave your favorite saddle to the stable master because it scratched your leg as you dismounted and told him he could have it but, personally, you'd burn it, too." Esperetta

My Belle. I'm so proud of you. Look at what you created here." Belle blushed. "I didn't create it, Papa. It's Hugo's shop." "But you found the missing pieces," her father said. "And that's the mark of a dreamer and a doer. Otherwise known as an inventor.

The dude gunned his BMW 528i (of course it had to be a BMW) and shot down Commonwealth Avenue, ignoring the lights, honking at other cars, weaving randomly from lane to lane. “You missed a pedestrian,” I said. “You want to go back and hit her?” Randolph was too distracted to answer.

Will you pour out tea, Miss Brent?' The el­der wom­an replied: 'No, you do it, dear. That tea-​pot is so heavy. And I have lost two skeins of my grey knitting-​wool. So an­noy­ing.' Ve­ra moved to the tea-​ta­ble. There was a cheer­ful rat­tle and clink of chi­na. Nor­mal­ity returned. Tea! Blessed or­di­nary everyday af­ter­noon tea! Philip Lom­bard made a cheery re­mark. Blore re­spond­ed. Dr. Arm­strong told a hu­mor­ous sto­ry. Mr. Jus­tice War­grave, who or­di­nar­ily hat­ed tea, sipped ap­prov­ing­ly. In­to this re­laxed at­mo­sphere came Rogers. And Rogers was up­set. He said ner­vous­ly and at ran­dom: 'Ex­cuse me, sir, but does any one know what's become of the bath­room cur­tain?' Lom­bard's head went up with a jerk. 'The bath­room cur­tain? What the dev­il do you mean, Rogers?' 'It's gone, sir, clean van­ished. I was go­ing round draw­ing all the cur­tai­ns and the one in the lav -​ bath­room wasn't there any longer.' Mr. Jus­tice War­grave asked: 'Was it there this morn­ing?' 'Oh, yes, sir.' Blore said: 'What kind of a cur­tain was it?' 'Scar­let oil­silk, sir. It went with the scar­let tiles.' Lom­bard said: 'And it's gone?' 'Gone, Sir.' They stared at each oth­er. Blore said heav­ily: 'Well - af­ter all-​what of it? It's mad - ​but so's everything else. Any­way, it doesn't matter. You can't kill any­body with an oil­silk cur­tain. For­get about it.' Rogers said: 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir.' He went out, shut­ting the door.

More seriously-and this is probably why there has been a lot of garbage talked about a lost generation-it was easy to see, all over the landscape of contemporary fiction, the devastating effect of the Thatcher years. So many of these writers wrote without hope. They had lost all ambition, all desire to to wrestle with the world. Their books dealt with tiny patches of the world, tiny pieces of human experience-a council estate, a mother, a father, a lost job. Very few writers had the courage or even the energy to bite off a big chunk of the universe and chew it over. Very few showed any linguistic or formal innovation. Many were dulled and therefore dull. (And then, even worse, there were the Hooray Henries and Sloanes who evidently thought that the day of the yuppie novel, and the Bellini-drinking, okay-yah fiction had dawned. Dukedoms and country-house bulimics abounded. It was plain that too may books were being published; that too many writers had found their way into print without any justification for it at all; that too many publishers had adopted a kind of random, scattergun policy of publishing for turnover and just hoping that something would strike a cord. When the general picture is so disheartening, it is easy to miss the good stuff. I agreed to be a judge for "Best of Young British Novelists II" because I wanted to find out for myself if the good stuff really was there. In my view, it is...One of my old schoolmasters was fond of devising English versions of the epigrams of Martial. I remember only one, his version of Martial's message to a particularly backward-looking critic: "You only praise the good old days We young 'uns get no mention. I don't see why I have to die To gain your kind attention.

The world is too big for love to be real. There are too many people in the world to ever know, beyond everything, that you are with the right person. That your heart is as swollen as it can be. Think of all the people in China. It is unlikely anyone will ever meet all of them. How can we know for certain, that trapped inside a foreign language and thumping in a foreign heart there isn’t a love that is meant for us. The infinite possibility of existence, its limitless potential, is the proof that we need that love is nothing more than an imagination, a human folly, friendship swollen with self-importance, a final retreat from the storm of possibility. The love of our life could so easily have been someone else. It is random and accidental, haphazard and unsystematic. That which we feel for one person, clinging on to the delusion of destiny, could so easily be felt for a million people should the timing and the meetings and the mutual readiness have coalesced at some other time in some other place. Should someone else have accepted us or rejected us then everything would have been different. And once we know this, we know that all love is a lie. Not honesty but deception. Not heroism but cowardice. An unspoken agreement of mutual consolidation and compromise, a shield from possibility and a bed in which to sleep, nothing more than that. But I do still miss her.

This was how the world persisted. The heaviness of despair - how could it exist in the midst of mascara, zippers, brunches ? It marched forward even when I was barely able to stand....It had been hard on all of us - not only missing Henry, but facing the idea that your whole world can change, suddenly irreversibly. We were reminded how flimsy everything is, as frail as the airmail envelopes my mother had sent us the summer she disappeared. This is the life you have and then it's gone. I felt sorry for my mother, I knew what it was like not to be able to help your child, to change the incomprehensible randomness of life, to reverse a loss.

You cut your hair,” she blurts out randomly. “I like it. It suits you.” I send her a cocky grin. Can’t help it. If this is how she wants to play it, I’m game. “Shame about the ears, though. There’s no hiding them now.” Immediately, my fingers fly to my ear lobes. “What’s wrong with my ears?” Her lips curve into a teasing smile. “Dude, if you don’t know what’s wrong with your ears, far be it from me to burst your ignorant bubble.” She stifles a giggle, and my heart soars. God, I’ve missed this so much. Missed her. “Ha! Good one. You almost had me there.” I nudge her shoulder, and for a split second, it feels like old times. Like no separation exists. Like we haven’t hurt each other so much.

(...) and now only fragments of conversation would come back every now and again. "Goldie is, like, such a good dog, and he was a purebred retriever, if only my dad would say okay, he wags his tail whenever he sees me. "It's Christmas, he has to let me use the snowmobile. "You can write your name with your tongue on the side of his thing. "I miss Sandy. "Yeah, I miss Sandy too. "Six inches tonight they said, but they just make it up, they make up the weather and nobody ever calls them on it...

One of the first shrinks I went to after Cass died told me that the brain has a hardwired need to find correlations, to make sense of nonsensical data by making connections between unrelated things. Humans have evolved a universal tendency to seek patterns in random information, hence the existence of fortune-tellers and dream interpreters and people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. But the cold, hard truth is that there are no connections between anything. Life—all of existence—is totally random. Your lucky lottery numbers aren’t really lucky, because there’s no such thing as luck. The black cat that crosses your path isn’t a bad omen, it’s just a cat out for a walk. An eclipse doesn’t mean that the gods are angry, just as a bus narrowly missing you as you cross the street doesn’t mean there’s a guardian angel looking out for you. There are no gods. There are no angels. Superstitions aren’t real, and no amount of wishing, praying, or rationalizing can change the fact that life is just one long sequence of random events that ultimately have no meaning. I really hated that shrink.

We have now reached a level in which many people are not merely unacquainted with the fundamentals of punctuation, but don’t evidently realize that there are fundamentals. Many people—people who make posters for leading publishers, write captions for the BBC, compose letters and advertisements for important institutions—seem to think that capitalization and marks of punctuation are condiments that you sprinkle through any collection of words as if from a salt shaker. Here is a headline, exactly as presented, from a magazine ad for a private school in York: “Ranked by the daily Telegraph the top Northern Co-Educational day and Boarding School for Academic results.” All those capital letters are just random. Does anyone really think that the correct rendering of the newspaper is “the daily Telegraph”? Is it really possible to be that unobservant? Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from someone at the Department for Children, Schools and Families asking me to take part in a campaign to help raise appreciation for the quality of teaching in Great Britain. Here is the opening line of the message exactly as it was sent to me: “Hi Bill. Hope alls well. Here at the Department of Children Schools and Families…” In the space of one line, fourteen words, the author has made three elemental punctuation errors (two missing commas, one missing apostrophe; I am not telling you more than that) and gotten the name of her own department wrong—this from a person whose job is to promote education. In a similar spirit, I received a letter not long ago from a pediatric surgeon inviting me to speak at a conference. The writer used the word “children’s” twice in her invitation, spelling it two different ways and getting it wrong both times. This was a children’s specialist working in a children’s hospital. How long do you have to be exposed to a word, how central must it be to your working life, to notice how it is spelled?

I’m not sure I see your point.” “Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” “Get where?” “Understand, by saying ‘God,’ I am merely using ‘God’ as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly like—” eloquently, he batted at the air as if at a blown leaf. “But—maybe not so random and impersonal as all that, if you get me.” “Sorry but I’m not really appreciating your point here.” “You don’t need a point. The point is maybe that the point is too big to see or work round to on our own. Because—” up went the batwing eyebrow—“well, if you didn’t take picture from museum, and Sascha didn’t steal it back, and I didn’t think of claiming reward—well, wouldn’t all those dozens of other paintings remain missing too? Forever maybe? Wrapped in brown paper? Still shut in that apartment? No one to look at them? Lonely and lost to the world? Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?” “I think this goes more to the idea of ‘relentless irony’ than ‘divine providence.’ ” “Yes—but why give it a name? Can’t they both be the same thing?

It's okay to feel like shit. It's okay to feel worthless. It's okay to feel insignificant. It's okay to miss someone you can't have. It's okay to have a tightness in your chest or a burning sensation on your arms or legs and it's okay to not want to eat or sleep or just overall hurt yourself or worse. It's okay to feel like your world is crashing down and it's okay to feel like you can't do this. But the point is that you try. And no matter who you are, or what age you are. Whether you're my ex from third grade (if I had one) or a random three year old who's just had a bad day. If you're 56 and your wife just divorced you and you just wanna think or get advice or anything. I'll be here. It's okay to think you're a whore, but you aren't. It's okay to feel really dumb. But I'll do my best to convince you otherwise. Cuz I can't do much, I can't. I can't completely understand what you're feeling. And I'm sorry about that. But I can sure as hell try. And I'll try my very best.

Family is not the only thing that matters. There are other things: Pachelbel’s Canon in D matters, and fresh-picked corn on the cob, and true friends, and the sound of the ocean, and the poems of William Carlos Williams, and the constellations in the sky, and random acts of kindness, and a garden on the day when all its flowers are at their peak. Fluffy pancakes matter and crisp clean sheets and the guitar riff in “Layla,” and the way clouds look when you are above them in an airplane. Preserving the coral reef matters, and the thirty-four paintings of Johannes Vermeer matter, and kissing matters. Whether or not you register for china, crystal, and silver does not matter. Whether or not you have a full set of Tiffany dessert forks on Thanksgiving does not matter. If you want to register for these things, by all means, go ahead. My Waterford pattern is Lismore, one of the oldest. I do remember one time when I had a harrowing day at the hospital, and Nick had a Rube Goldberg project due and needed my help, and Kevin was playing Quiet Riot at top decibel in his bedroom, and Margot was tying up the house phone, and you had been plunked by the babysitter in front of the TV for five hours, and I came home and took one of my Lismore goblets out of the cabinet. I wanted to smash it against the wall. But instead I filled it with cold white wine and for ten or so minutes I sat in the quiet of the formal living room all by myself and I drank the cold wine out of that beautiful glass crafted by some lovely Irishman, and I felt better. It was probably the wine, not the glass, but you get my meaning. I will remember the impressive heft of the glass in my hand, and the way the cut of the crystal caught the day’s last rays of sunlight, but I will not miss that glass the way I will miss the sound of the ocean, or the taste of fresh-picked corn.

This once-proud country of ours is falling Into the hands of the wrong people,' said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. 'And, before it gets back on the right track,' said Jones, 'some heads are going to roll.' I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said. Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell — keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information — That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuebrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony — That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase — That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers — That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia —

This once-proud country of ours is falling into the hands of the wrong people,” said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. “And, before it gets back on the right track,” said Jones, “some heads are going to roll.” I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. “You’re completely crazy,” he said. Jones wasn’t completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information— That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony— That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase— That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers— That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia— That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time. And for me to attempt such a mechanical explanation is perhaps a reflection of the father whose son I was. Am. When I pause to think about it, which is rarely, I am, after all, the son of an engineer. Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself—will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows—some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history— But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, “This fact I can do without.” Howard W. Campbell, Jr., praises himself. There’s life in the old boy yet! And, where there’s life— There is life.

Get dressed. We’re going hunting,” he says randomly. In my half-woke state, I feel like I’ve missed something crucial, because I don’t understand how those words are supposed to make sense. “I’m sorry, but what?” I ask, sipping the coffee like the lack of caffeine is the reason I heard him wrong. “We’re going hunting. Emit has some rogue, unregistered wolves who’ve just done something heinous and stupid, and we’re taking you with us, apparently.” “I don’t want to hunt wolves,” I point out, taking a step back, since he’s acting very un-Vance-like. “I don’t want you to hunt wolves, but apparently you’re going with us, or you’re going with him,” he says bitterly, glancing over his shoulder to where there’s a large SUV. Emit’s behind the wheel, smirking like he’s proud of all this. “Yeah, no. Thanks for the offer,” I say as I shut the door…and lock it. I sip my coffee again, as Lemon drinks hers in the kitchen. Her phone rings, and she stands and answers it, while I go to the fridge in search of something to eat. I hear the door unlocking, and look over my shoulder, as Lemon gives me a very unapologetic grin. “Sorry,” she says, confusing me. “But he’s still my alpha.” Emit walks in, filling up my doorway, before he grins over at me in a way that’s sort of…scary. “It’s not really optional,” he says before he stalks to me so fast I don’t have time to react, and I’m unceremoniously slung over his shoulder. My breath comes out in a surprised rush, and I bounce against him as my mind comes to terms with why the world has tipped upside down. Ingrid comes down the stairs with a small bag, giving me a shitty excuse for a contrite smile. “I’ll remember this,” I tell the traitorous omegas dryly, as they give me a little wave and send me on my way like this is a planned vacation. I don’t really put up a fight. I’ve never seen Emit actually determined to do anything, but clearly I’m outnumbered and out wolfed on this one... I allow a small smile as I’m dropped to my feet, and then wipe the smile away because I’m supposed to be annoyed... I climb in as my backpack and small duffel finish flopping to a stop, and close my robe a little more before digging for my boots. “We’ve got everything here under control! Don’t worry about deliveries or the store,” Leiza calls very excitedly, bouncing on her feet. “This is a hunting trip to kill things, right?” I ask Vance directly, though my eyes are on the very happy omegas, who are animatedly waving from the porch now. “Yes,” he states in a tone that assures me he’s not one bit happy I’m here. “Why are they treating it like I’m going on spring break?” I ask, genuinely concerned about their level of enthusiasm. I thought they were a little saner than this. Emit snorts, but clears his expression quickly. “Do I want to know what spring break is a euphemism for?” Vance asks Emit. “You’re really that old?” I groan. “Do you know how long a century is?” Vance asks me dryly. “I averaged a C on vocab tests, so yeah,” I retort, matching his condescension. Emit releases a rumble of laughter, as his body shakes with the force. Then he pulls out and begins to drive us off on our hunt. I’m so not adjusting this fast, but it seems I have no choice in the matter. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining size and momentum. Either I’ll boulder through anything when I reach the bottom, or I’ll simply go splat into a mountainside. “Do you know how quickly the vernacular shifts and accents devolve, evolve, or simply cease to exist?” Vance asks me. Now I feel a little talked down to. “No.” “I swear he used to be fun,” Emit tells me, smiling at me through the rearview

One week into my new Silicon Valley life, and the lesson was this: if you want to be a startup entrepreneur, get used to negotiating from positions of weakness. I’d soon have trickier situations to negotiate than convincing a cop to let me take a cab. And so will you if you play the startup game. The next morning, I wasn’t merely hungover, but was in fact still mildly drunk. The company all-hands meeting, wherein the entire company gathered to hear about new deals and employees, and generally to get pep-rallied by Murthy Nukala, the CEO, was scheduled for noon that day. I had to be there or risk having my coworkers file a missing persons report, as well as look like a pussy. My frazzled brain was slow to realize my car was still somewhere in San Mateo. One hundred and thirty dollars and too much sunlight later, I was standing beside my four-wheeled Bavarian steed at the scene of last night’s triumph over the rule of law, and fifteen minutes later I was an acceptable five minutes late for the all-hands. As I walked into the company-wide meeting, a murmur was heard from a corner of the assembled crowd, expressing either surprise or amusement at my being both alive and unincarcerated. The company rumor mill had been busy that morning. I probably looked as pickled and embalmed as I felt. Murthy launched into his weekly harangue. The wheels of capitalism ground ever on.

Random stuff starts popping into my head, like the time Bas and I were having a discussion at the train station in Denmark over whether it was okay to order a Danish or not. Gideon, it is rude. You’d never order an American, would you? Or an Australian? If someone asked me for an American I’d say, “You got one right in front of you.” You’re missing the point. They’re asking because they’re looking for food. I’m pretty sure I taste amazing. Okay. I dare you. Walk up to those girls over there and ask if they’re hungry for an American. I would’ve done it to make him laugh. But at that point I was already thinking about Daryn all the time. She was the only girl I would’ve allowed to cannibalize me.

practical mind-management is the first step to getting anything done. Thinking, feeling, and choosing (also known as our mind-in-action) precedes all communication; all we say and do is always preceded by a thought. The process is so logical that we hardly “think” about it, but it’s worth taking the time to do so. It’s so obvious that we miss it because we’re looking for some elusive, complex key. Our mind is staring us in the face, and mind-management is therefore a critical skill we need to learn. As I will show you in this book, if our mind isn’t managed, everything downstream will be chaos—a mental mess produces a messy life. Unfortunately, in our era we have focused so much on the biology of the brain that we have forgotten about the mind. Perhaps you didn’t even know they were two different things. Indeed, if you just read a handful of neuroscientific articles at random, you would think we’re preprogrammed mechanical brains walking around and occasionally malfunctioning.

Just so. Besides, I don’t notice any of you rushing off to find our precious amulet.” The room filled with mutters. Sicknesses were evoked, twisted ankles displayed, times declared to be difficult, husbands castigated as tyrants, and several other excuses presented as to why the ladies present were not in current hot pursuit of Beryl’s amulet. Some swore they had begun—but then a stray cloud or random blue symbol had prophesized trouble if they continued. Others had been on their way out the door this very morning to start the pursuit when Miss Plim’s summons came.

Often when I do interviews and press events from space, I’m asked what I miss about Earth. I have a few answers I always reach for that make sense in any context: I mention rain, spending time with my family, relaxing at home. Those are always true. But throughout the day, from moment to moment, I’m aware of missing all sorts of random things that don’t even necessarily rise to the surface of my consciousness. I miss cooking. I miss chopping fresh food, the smell vegetables give up when you first slice into them. I miss the smell of the unwashed skins of fruit, the sight of fresh produce piled high in grocery stores. I miss grocery stores, the shelves of bright colors and the glossy tile floors and the strangers wandering the aisles. I miss people. I miss the experience of meeting new people and getting to know them, learning about a life different from my own, hearing about things people experienced that I haven’t. I miss the sound of children playing, which always sounds the same no matter their language. I miss the sound of people talking and laughing in another room. I miss rooms. I miss doors and door frames and the creak of wood floorboards when people walk around in old buildings. I miss sitting on my couch, sitting on a chair, sitting on a bar stool. I miss the feeling of resting after opposing gravity all day. I miss the rustle of papers, the flap of book pages turning. I miss drinking from a glass. I miss setting things down on a table and having them stay there. I miss the sudden chill of wind on my back, the warmth of sun on my face. I miss showers. I miss running water in all its forms: washing my face, washing my hands. I miss sleeping in a bed—the feel of sheets, the heft of a comforter, the welcoming curve of a pillow. I miss the colors of clouds at different times of day and the variety of sunrises and sunsets on Earth.

Pretend for a moment that you are in the horrifying situation of watching one of your children being pulled out to sea in a riptide. Would you just go on eating your lunch? No way. The first thing you would do is to scream to get help rescuing your child. You would simultaneously get all other children out of the water as you dive in and try to rescue the missing child, even knowing the danger and that it is probably too late. If you were sensible enough not to swim out or fortunate enough to get back to shore safely, grief would promote endless rumination about what you could have done to prevent the loss. This would help prevent a repetition with other children. Your sobbing would signal your need for help and warn others about the danger. When a child dies of cancer or pneumonia, speculating about what you might have done to prevent it is mostly useless. However, the tendency to blame is built in, so people do it anyway, blaming themselves, doctors, anyone who was involved. Those motives can create marvelous initiatives, Mothers Against Drunk Driving being a spectacular example. Every community has organizations dedicated to preventing the kind of sickness or accident that carried off a loved member of the community. In our ancestral environment, loved ones must often have simply not returned to camp. Searching for them would have been essential. A loss creates mental preoccupation and a search image tuned to detect relevant cues. In the weeks after a loss, bereaved individuals often think that they see or hear the lost loved one. Tiny random sounds or sights are misinterpreted as the person’s voice or form. Visual and auditory hallucinations arise. Such experiences are sometimes interpreted as wish fulfillment, but a more plausible explanation is that they are products of a search image that makes it easier to find the missing person. False alarms in such a system would be normal, useful, and experienced as ghosts. Anniversary reactions are also common and fascinating. Many people occasionally experience sadness that seems unaccountable, until they realize it is the anniversary of a loss. I doubt that anniversary reactions are adaptive in general; however, in ancestral environments many opportunities and dangers recur with seasonal regularity. So smelling overly ripe apples in an orchard may bring back vivid memories of a fall long ago.

Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking. You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice. Quitting a high-paying position, if it is your decision, will seem a better payoff than the utility of the money involved (this may seem crazy, but I’ve tried it and it works). This is the first step toward the stoic’s throwing a four-letter word at fate. You have far more control over your life if you decide on your criterion by yourself. Mother Nature has given us some defense mechanisms: as in Aesop’s fable, one of these is our ability to consider that the grapes we cannot (or did not) reach are sour. But an aggressively stoic prior disdain and rejection of the grapes is even more rewarding. Be aggressive; be the one to resign, if you have the guts. It is more difficult to be a loser in a game you set up yourself. In Black Swan terms, this means that you are exposed to the improbable only if you let it control you. You always control what you do; so make this your end.

Officer Gurney ran a strip of yellow tape around the back area of the café, roping it off so no one could disturb the site. Then he scanned the crowd. His eyes lit on a comfortably plump woman wearing a red down jacket that made her look even plumper. She had a short brownish-blond ponytail that stuck out through a hole in her red baseball hat. “Brenda,” said Officer Gurney. “What do you think?” Grover was in danger of being late for school by this time. He’d already been late twice this month. If he was late again, he might get a note sent home to his parents. But he had to risk it. This was too interesting to miss. The woman stepped forward. Grover knew her, of course; everyone did. Mrs. Brenda Beeson was the one who had figured out the Prophet’s mumbled words and explained what they meant. She and her committee—the Reverend Loomis, Mayor Orville Milton, Police Chief Ralph Gurney, and a few others—were the most important people in the town. Officer Gurney raised the yellow tape so Mrs. Beeson could duck under it. She stood before the window a long time, her back to the crowd, while everyone waited to see what she would say. Clouds sailed slowly across the sun, turning everything dark and light and dark again. To Grover, it seemed like ages they all stood there, holding their breath. He resigned himself to being late for school and started thinking up creative excuses. The front door of his house had stuck and he couldn’t get it open? His father needed him to help fish drowned rats out of flooded basements? His knee had popped out of joint and stayed out for half an hour? Finally Mrs. Beeson turned to face them. “Well, it just goes to show,” she said. “We never used to have people breaking windows and stealing things. For all our hard work, we’ve still got bad eggs among us.” She gave an exasperated sigh, and her breath made a puff of fog in the chilly air. “If this is someone’s idea of fun, that person should be very, very ashamed of himself. This is no time for wild, stupid behavior.” “It’s probably kids,” said a man standing near Grover. Why did people always blame kids for things like this? As far as Grover could tell, grown-ups caused a lot more trouble in the world than kids. “On the other hand,” said Mrs. Beeson, “it could be a threat, or a warning. We’ve heard the reports about someone wandering around in the hills.” She glanced back at the bloody rag hanging in the window. “It might even be a message of some sort. It looks to me like that stain could be a letter, maybe an S, or an R.” Grover squinted at the stain on the cloth. To him it looked more like an A, or maybe even just a random blotch. “It might be a B,” said someone standing near him. “Or an H,” said someone else. Mrs. Beeson nodded. “Could be,” she said. “The S could stand for sin. Or if it’s an R it could stand for ruin. If you’ll let me have that piece of cloth, Ralph, I’ll show it to Althea and see if she has anything to say about it.” Just then Wayne Hollister happened to pass by, saw the crowd, and chimed in about what he’d seen in the night. His story frightened people even more than the blood and the broken glass. All around him, Grover heard them murmuring: Someone’s out there. He’s given us a warning. What does he mean to do? He’s trying to scare us. One woman began to cry. Hoyt McCoy, as usual, said that Brenda Beeson should not pronounce upon things until she was in full possession of the facts, which she was not, and that to him the

As Lucetta continued going on and on about what he should do, in that rather bossy manner he’d never imagined she possessed, he found himself having a bit of a difficult time concentrating on what she was saying. Her lips were moving rapidly, and while he was certain she was probably giving him sound advice, he found himself more concerned with the idea that it seemed to him as if she’d done something to her lips—something that made them seem quite spinster-looking, as if their very plumpness had been squeezed right out of them. The lips he was looking at now truly did seem to belong to a woman who’d sport a wart on her face, but . . . how had she managed to make them appear so unattractive, so . . . Taking a step closer to her, he leaned forward, trying to puzzle out the mystery behind her lips. They looked thin, which was very peculiar, although . . . perhaps it was the wart she’d so cleverly put right above the upper lip that was . . . “Why are you staring at me like that? Has the wart moved?” Dragging his attention away from the wart in question, he looked up and caught her eye through the smudged lenses that he had no idea how she could see out of. Instead of answering her, though, his hand rose, almost of its own accord it seemed, and the next thing he knew, he’d plucked the phony wart straight off her face. “What has gotten into you?” she demanded. “I need that wart, and . . . did you just throw that over your shoulder?” “It was disgusting,” he said, dusting his hands together, pleased with himself over taking control of the wart even though Lucetta looked about ready to strangle him. “It was meant to be disgusting.” “Well, now it’s gone.” Lucetta let out a grunt before she tried to scoot around him, seemingly intent on looking for the wart he’d just tossed aside. Before she could pass him, though, he reached out, took hold of her shoulders and felt her tense. “What are you doing?” Instead of answering her, he drew her closer, smiling just a touch when he heard her take a swift intake of breath. “Bram . . . really . . . what are you doing?” “Trying to figure something out,” he said as he moved one of his hands from her shoulder and used a single finger to take a poke at her lip. “It’s still full,” he said, more to himself than to her. He poked it again before he pulled at her lower lip, exposing her teeth in the process. “You no longer appear to be missing your teeth.” “Stop that.” She smacked his hand away. “I knew I shouldn’t have snuck that second cookie backstage. It must have knocked the gum off.” “You used gum?” Lucetta nodded. “I did, Black Jack gum, created by Mr. Thomas Adams, who opened the first gum factory with his sons in 1870, although I suppose now is not actually the time to recite history when faced with such a concerning situation.” She blew out a breath. “I’m normally very careful when I use gum to make it appear as if I’m missing teeth, but I must have swallowed it when I ate that cookie.” “Do you think that’ll hurt you?” Bram asked slowly. “Hard to know at this point.” She closed her eyes and shook her head a mere moment later. “No, I haven’t read anything regarding a medical condition one can expect after swallowing gum.” Bram frowned as Lucetta opened her eyes. “You know it’s really not a normal occurrence for people to be able to summon up random tidbits like that at will, don’t you?” A ghost of a smile played around Lucetta’s mouth. “I’ve never claimed to be normal, Bram.” That smile struck him straight through his heart. It was a genuine smile, with a bit of a self-deprecating edge to it, and . . . Without allowing himself a second to reconsider, he leaned toward her as his hand moved from her shoulder to her waist, and pulling her ever so slowly against him, he lowered his lips to hers.

Oh my God, Carter!” I sprang to my feet, already in a run. I crashed into Carter, hugging him tightly, “What are you doing here?!” “Damn Blaze. Where’s my Harper and what have you done with her?” I blushed and crossed my arms over my chest, “Uh, yeah. I guess I look a little different.” He ran a finger near the piercing on my lip, “A little.” He smiled and hugged me to him again. “I missed you Blaze.” “I missed you too.” I said into his chest, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming. I would have been at the airport to get you.” “Well that wouldn’t have been half as fun as your reaction just now.” I leaned back to smile at him. He was tall too, not like Chase or Brandon, but close to six feet. His black hair was in the traditional fade the Marine’s had and his brown eyes were bright. “How long do you get to be here for?” He smiled wide and opened his mouth to talk, but was cut off. “Harper?” Turning, I saw Brandon staring at Carter, he didn’t look happy. And I could only imagine how after what happened last night with Amanda, me taking off and almost tackling a random guy while in a bikini would be a little alarming. Especially since Carter still had his arms wrapped around my waist. Stepping back toward Brandon, I grabbed his hand and squeezed, “Brandon this is my best friend from Camp Lejeune, Jason Carter, Carter, this is my boyfriend Brandon Taylor.” They firmly shook hands but didn’t say anything. Awkward. “Um, why don’t we head back over there? I can introduce you to everyone else.” I pulled Brandon back towards our friends while I was introduced to the three guys Carter had been with. He was right, I didn’t know them, but Carter had never been to California so I didn’t know how he knew them either. I introduced Carter and the three guys to everyone, and while all the housemates and Konrad were polite, Chase wouldn’t speak to, or shake Carter’s hand. Just crossed his arms over his bare chest and openly glared at him. What threw me off even more, was Brandon standing right next to him, in the exact same stance. It didn’t surprise me that Carter took a step back, those guys could look scary if they wanted to. Rugged looks, tall tattooed and muscled bodies. Yep. Definitely scary to someone who didn’t know them.

Doesn't it blow your mind that God thought of you? You were not a random birth. You were created in the mind of God. He named you and then wrote your name on the palm of His hands. He has counted every hair on your head and collected every tear you have cried ~ that is how precious you are to Him. Remember, this is a soul dance and our partner, our Father, is waltzing us back home. When we stumble ~ we learn how to get up. When we fall off the cliff ~ we learn how to fly. Remember if you're afraid of stumbling you will never get to fall, you will never fly, and oh I tell you, you don't want to miss that adventure, by the way, they are all adventures. So, stumble my child, skin your knees and elbows, let go, let God and when you come to the edge of that cliff....Fall....

It’s not hard to find evidence that can be used to back up a parent’s decision to never let their kid venture out unsupervised (a viral story of a child lured away from a skating rink, a forced abduction from a park, a memory of a missing child from the parent’s own elementary school days). I empathize with the feelings of horror those stories evoke. To feel this way is natural. But what do we do with those feelings? I don’t think we should use them to make our safety decisions for us. I’d encourage parents to look at the data and probability of crimes involving tweens and young teens. Some will say, “Probability doesn’t matter. If it happens one time, to my child, that’s all that matters. It’s my job to protect against the possibility of danger, no matter how small.” My response to that is simple: You can’t even try to keep your child safe from random acts of tragedy.

I’m beginning to wonder if the sheriff’s department should have to offer hazard pay for seeing naked people,” I said. “The taxpayers couldn’t afford it,” Gertie said. “Do you know how many random naked people they run across in a year? And trust me, it’s never the people you want to see naked.

About the “Direct Path” (直通の位の事) ◎ Jikitsū-no-kurai (“direct path”) is the soul of combat.15 All the teachings I have outlined above are like parts of the human body.16 Nothing more is needed. They must never be neglected. Depending on the situation, there are times when some techniques will not be suitable, but nothing will work without them [in your repertoire]. For example, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, hands and feet are what our bodies are comprised of. If one of these things is missing, then we are incomplete. The sword techniques that I have conveyed must all be committed to memory and used intuitively. Without the soul and spirit of the “direct path,” they amount to random madness. In all the techniques, be sure to seize the initiative and take the attack to the enemy. This will enable you to identify target areas. You must then determine what techniques or guards will be effective and what are not viable in a particular situation. Gauge how to close the distance, then commit with single-minded resolve to follow through to your mark (star) and attack without deviating. For example, even if you have to deflect the whole world, the flight of your sword must not diverge from its path. Purge yourself of fear. When you know the moment for that one [direct and decisive] strike of jikitsū, let the power surge through you to deliver the cut. It is no different when you enter the opponent’s space to arrest him. Advance rapidly, thinking of nothing other than grabbing hold of him. The further in you get, the better. Without the mind of “direct path,” your swords will be lifeless. Even this and discover what it means. Even retreat counts as a loss. When we speak of the “interior” (deepest principles), nothing is deeper than this. When we talk of the gateway (fundamental principles), nothing is more fundamental than this. The great monk Kūkai17 traveled deep into the mountain when planning to construct a monastery in the innermost reaches of Mount Kōya. Thinking it was still not far enough, he continued walking further, but eventually came across dwellings again. He said, “The further I entered, the closer I came to human habitation; I had looked too far in.”18 The interior is not the interior. The gate is not the gate. There are no special, secret interior teachings to look for if the great wisdom of combat strategy surges through your sinews and veins. Just make sure that nobody to your front or back can ever get the better of you. This cannot be conveyed with words and letters.

The professor can be a touch off-putting, I know,” Baron said. He took one of Collingswood’s cigarettes. “The way he was talking,” Billy said. “About the squid people. It was like he was one of them.” “You’ve put your finger on it,” Baron said. “It is just like he’s one of them. He has a little revelation.” “Takes one to know one,” said Collingswood. “Oh yeah.” “What?” said Billy. “He was one of…?” “Man of faith,” Baron said. “Grew up one of your ultra-born-agains. Creationist, literalist. His dad was an elder. He was in it for years. Lost his faith but not his interest, lucky for us, and not his nous, neither. Every group we look at, he gets it like a convert”-Baron thumped his chest-“because for a moment or two he is.” “It’s more than that,” Collingswood said. “He don’t just get it,” she said. She grinned smoke at Billy. She put her hand to her lips, as if she were whispering, though she was not. “He misses it. He’s miserable. He didn’t used to have to put up with none of this random reality cack. He’s pissed off with the world for being all godless and pointless, get me? He’d go back to his old faith tomorrow if he could. But he’s too smart now.” “That’s his cross to bear,” said Baron. “Boom-boom! I thank you.” “He knows religion is bollocks,” Collingswood said. “He just wishes he didn’t. That’s why he understands the nutters. That’s why he hunts them. He misses pure faith. He’s jealous.

How many times have we done all of this?” I ask. “Thousands, I suspect. More than I could possibly count.” “So why do I keep failing?” He sighs, looking over his shoulder at me. There’s a sense of weariness in his bearing, as though every loop is sediment, pressing down on him. “It’s a question I’ve pondered myself from time to time,” he says, melting wax running down the side to stain his glove. “Chance has played its part, stumbling when being surefooted would have saved you. Mostly, though, I think it’s your nature.” “My nature?” I ask. “You think I’m destined to fail?” “Destined? No. That would be an excuse, and Blackheath is intolerant of excuses,” he says. “Nothing that’s happening here is inevitable, much as it may appear otherwise. Events keep happening the same way day after day, because your fellow guests keep making the same decisions day after day. They decide to go hunting; they decide to betray each other; one of them drinks too much and skips breakfast, missing a meeting that would change his life forever. They cannot see another way, so they never change. You are different, Mr. Bishop. Throughout the loops, I’ve watched you react to moments of kindness and cruelty, random acts of chance. You make different decisions, and yet repeat the same mistakes at crucial junctures. It’s as though some part of you is perpetually pulled toward the pit.” “Are you saying I have to become somebody else to escape?” “I’m saying every man is in a cage of his own making,” he says. “The Aiden Bishop who first entered Blackheath.” He sighs, as if the memory troubles him. “The things he wanted and his way of getting them were…unyielding. That man could never have escaped Blackheath. This Aiden Bishop before me is different. I think you’re closer than you’ve ever been, but I’ve thought that before and been fooled. The truth is you’ve yet to be tested, but that’s coming, and if you’ve changed, truly changed, then who knows, there may be hope for you.

The wood floor is- so splintery on my flip-flops like nails are sticking up, poking me and crap, the boards are all cracked and you can see down one story, or more at times. Besides, some floorboards are missing altogether; I feel like I could go through the floor at any time. (Room 202) There is no light coming anywhere but her light she is giving off, looking over everything in its interiority, I see that there are boards over the old glass smashed glass window panes; not even the smallest glimmer or flicker of a star or moonlight at this point to guide me, nothing to show the way other than spun web cover over everything, even the hole that should not be cover seemed roached out, look at all the spiders crawling all down me, I don’t go in there I was thinking. I went at night so no one would find me. Look even going down the hall the lockers start to bang themselves like humpers of the past. I could see kissing here doing that too. Like I could see it all in my mind too, like they all did when the kids slammed their looker in these unhallowed halls, look now there are papers everywhere, just left behind like love notes of the past, I want to read yet it has nothing there to be said, I could get some of it, yet not all… I don’t have anything wrong with me, I can’t see, should I take it with me? I do- (It was tucked in her underwire right strap, her outfit when cut off to be laid out for viewing.) -It was Nevaeh and Chiaz’s first love note. (Now) You can foresee what's going to happen… can’t you- I sure did not in the past nor do I know, yet I do at times. It’s a new day, she sat back- crap let's do it a new way today- damn (‘Like- I want to choke down my rabbit,’) it works for me it's well to get that right, or so Jenny said. Yet I was feeling more than that below, and so was she, in my mouth. ‘If you are going through hell keep on going don’t slow down, if you are scared don’t show it…!’ My love was singing to be willing to do this, yet you can’t hear that and if you do, you’ll hear Maggie coming out. (Back at the old school) The hollowing sound of her voices in my face, its blows’ a-crossed me and spooks me out, it is so haunted within these falling walls, yet see is not scaring me at this point, I feel somewhat safe. As well as the wind howling as my thought makes, makes me think of who she maybe thinks I am. I see the hand-covered handrails going up past the old Gym and girl’s locker room, looking into the showers it’s like- I could see bare-ass naked girls and the steam in the air. With the sounds of: ‘O-op-e-s-y- don’t drop the soap!’ All along with the sounds of girls giggling, hell- I don’t want to know what’s going on. Water running, just guessing like them… I had the bad thoughts and photos running in my little-wicked mind. Like the sands of time… not fading all away or turning all too black and write. Up till now the water and sound or the girls are from the past, or so I think and have been long gone, for them to be real girls, it was abandoned for years, like what is this crap…? Like the snapping of a towel, my head spun around, as the little girl pulled me to the next room by her resenting glow, In the locker part of the room- I see all the old desked linked together, she's sitting there proverb her story to me, her hair braids are freaking cute to me; like no girl does that anymore. Yet who are these girls, I think- I know, yet they don’t, see me. They don’t even think I see them all up in it. I heard these stories and believe it yet; I don’t believe it seeing it now unfolding in front of me. There is some random b*tch putting the redhead face in the capper, with the sound of the flush! I am good, she said.

You can also check my blog’s archive for a list of every post I have written or use the search function below my picture in the sidebar to find other posts that might be of interest. My Biography I have worked in the book publishing industry my entire career. I began at Word Publishing while a student at Baylor University. I worked at Word for a total of six years. In addition to serving as vice president of marketing at Thomas Nelson in the mid-80s, I also started my own publishing company, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, with my partner Robert Wolgemuth in 1986. Word eventually acquired our company in 1992. I was a successful literary agent from 1992 until early 1998. However, I really missed the world of corporate publishing. As a result, I rejoined Thomas Nelson in 1998. I have worked in a variety of roles in both divisional and corporate management. I was CEO from August 2005 to April 2011, when I was succeeded by Mark Schoenwald. Additionally I am the former chairman of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (2006–2010). I have also written four books, one of which landed on the New York Times best-sellers list, where it stayed for seven months. I am currently working on a new book for Thomas Nelson. It is called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (May 2012). I have been married to my wife, Gail (follow her on Twitter @GailHyatt), for thirty-three years. We have five daughters, four grandsons, and three granddaughters. We live outside Nashville, Tennessee. In my free time, I enjoy writing, reading, running, and golfing. I am a member of St. Ignatius Orthodox Church in Franklin, Tennessee, where I have served as a deacon for twenty-three years. My Contact Information You can contact me via e-mail or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Please note: I do not personally review book proposals or recommend specific literary agents. Colophon My blog is built on WordPress 3.1 (self-hosted). My theme is a customized version of Standard Theme, a simple, easy-to-use WordPress theme. Milk Engine did the initial customization. StormyFrog did some additional work. I highly recommend both companies. In terms of design, the body text font is Georgia. The titles and subhead fonts are Trebuchet MS. Captions and a few other random text elements are Arial. Keely Scott took most of my personal photos. Laurel Pankratz also took some. I get most of the photos for my individual

I was a font of useless information. The only thing that had ever rivaled my Chase obsession was my love of all things trivia. Trivial Pursuit games ended with me drinking the tears of my fellow players and leaving a trail of their bloodied hearts all over the board. After my grandparents left the Amish in Pennsylvania and moved out to California, one of the first things they bought was a TV. When I lived with them decades later, they still had that same television. The only program they ever watched was Jeopardy!, and I remember sitting on their uncomfortable couch in between them as they missed so many questions. My guess was that my love for weird cultural minutiae came from them. Alex Trebek was kind of my hero. So I tweeted out random facts. Which was better than having to hear Lexi say, “If you say one more thing about stoplight colors, I will slip arsenic into your orange juice.” Twitter was a good outlet for my useless knowledge. 

9-14-18 A date that will forever be drilled into my mind. A date that holds a lot of pain for me. A date that I could have ever emotionally prepared for. Pa, i’m not going to lie. These past 2 years have been the hardest years of my entire life, especially these last 6-7 months. But i have also had some of the greatest moments in these two years. I wish you were here to see me through both. The world is so different now that you are gone. So many things i wish you could have seen.. So many things i wish i could have came and talk to you about. So many nights i have laid in bed missing you so much that i couldn’t even sleep. So many days where everything reminded me of you. So many tears. So many hurts. I try and take everyone’s advice and only think about the good stuff. but even the good stuff holds pain. I try and think of all the laughs we had together but then it just makes me miss hearing your laugh ten times more... along with our long talks.. our motorcycle rides... our random pickle runs.. the many many many nights i stayed with you. All the beautiful memories that me and you hold together... I don’t know when the pain of loosing you will start to not hurt as much.. i don’t think it ever will... Because pain of loosing your best friend.. someone you spent so much of ur time with. someone you shared so many things with.. it doesn’t just go away.. i just become stronger and learn how to handle it better. some days i am weak and i can’t do anything but cry and miss you.. but other days i just keep the good memories in mind and it keeps me smiling through the day. I try and bring you up as often as i can. I continue to tell our adventures to everyone. i continue to talk about you to my siblings. i keep ur name going. because i don’t want anyone to forgot how amazing you truly were pa. When i’m older and start my own family i will share all of this with them too.. and we will keep ur name very close in our hearts... Not a day goes by where you don’t cross my mind. Gone but never forgotten. I love and miss you endlessly pa..

They may have been the same rank, but he was still technically her senior — in both age and experience — and sometimes he liked to flex. Make himself look like he gave a damn. She leaned forward, hit the keyboard shortcut to minimise the windows, and got up. ‘Nothing,’ she said, pulling her jacket on. ‘That’s helpful.’ She ignored the comment, downed half her now-tepid coffee and bit lightly into her bagel, holding it between straight white teeth as she powered off her monitor and tucked her chair in.  ‘I don’t know why you bother,’ Roper said, flicking a hand at the now-black screen. ‘Not while all this is burning.’ He gestured around the room at the other desks and detectives working away. Dozens of screens were lit, the photocopier was buzzing, the lights were humming, and phones and devices were charging on every surface.  She shrugged. ‘If you leave a monitor on standby overnight it wastes enough energy to—’ ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, dismissing her with his hand. ‘And the polar ice caps are melting and penguins are getting sunburn. Come on, we’ve got a murder to solve.’ He walked forward, draining what was left in his coffee cup, and put it down on a random desk — much to the disgust of the guy sitting behind it. Roper swaggered towards the lifts, finally shrugging off the hangover, his caffeine quota for the next hour filled. Once his nicotine level had been topped off, he might actually be capable of some decent police work. Jamie fell in behind him, trying to get her mind off the other missing kids and back on Grace Melver. Whatever the hell was going on, Jamie had a feeling that Grace Melver knew something about it. Whether she realised or not.  Chapter 7 She walked with Roper without thinking about it.  Jamie had dropped him back at the crime scene after the shelter so he could pick his car up. The medical examiner was there and the scene of the crime officers, or SOCOs, were crawling all over in their plastic-covered boots, snapping photos and putting things in evidence bags.  They hadn’t stuck around.  It was best to leave the SOCOs do their jobs, and anyway Jamie and Roper had paperwork that needed to be done.  Her fingers typed on autopilot now. She’d had her prelim licked before she’d finished her first cup of coffee. Roper headed for his Volvo without asking and got into the driver’s seat.  Jamie pulled the door open and got in, closing the door only when he’d cranked the ignition so she could crack the window. The seats were covered

I hate running into people. They take the random places. That door over there. Fuck that door. It was an hour before class on the first day and Justin came out right as I was walking in. Bumped in and scared the ba- Jesus out of me and every time I walked into that door, I remembered him. For four years that space belonged to that moment. It’s like everywhere we walk, all we see internally is a landmark of people and moments you’ll never have again.

Over the years, I have come to believe there are two types of friends in this world: the friend who will save you from going home with the random person you met at the bar, and the friend who will celebrate your sexual escapade over Bloody Marys the next morning. The one who will never miss a scheduled date to go to the gym, and the one who will congratulate you for eating two cheeseburgers, an order of fries, and a milkshake after a bad day. The one who will stop you from spending $300 on a bag you don’t need, and the one who will drive you to the nearest store to buy

Over the years, I have come to believe there are two types of friends in this world: the friend who will save you from going home with the random person you met at the bar, and the friend who will celebrate your sexual escapade over Bloody Marys the next morning. The one who will never miss a scheduled date to go to the gym, and the one who will congratulate you for eating two cheeseburgers, an order of fries, and a milkshake after a bad day. The one who will stop you from spending $300 on a bag you don’t need, and the one who will drive you to the nearest store to buy it.

A meow interrupted my thoughts, Mango coming into the room. I swore his little face looked relieved to find us all in one place. “Hi there.” He leapt for the bed and nearly missed. Ash caught him and lifted him the rest of the way. “You’re going to be jumping on top of the fridge in no time.” “Don’t encourage him.” “He’s an orange cat,” Ash deadpanned. “He only has one brain cell and he doesn’t need any encouragement to do random shit.” I reached over and pulled Mango over next to me. “Don’t listen to him, Mango. You definitely have more than one brain cell.