Jelly Bean Quotes

We’ve been friends from the moment you thought Jelly Bean Jubilee was a dildo

Everyone at school seems to go by a nickname. Kat, Frosty, Bronx, Boo Bear, Jelly Bean, Freckles.

We walked on the beach, fed blue corn ships to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy and all the other free samples my mom brought home from work. I guess I should explain the blue food. See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop.

The decker these ***holes brought with them is top tier, but I'm going to stomp his jelly beans so hard his kids will be born crooked.

There is simply too much to be done for us all to go round 'enjoying ourselves.' When the world is perfect, then we can all sit down and eat jelly beans, but for now the fact that things are going well for you just means that you are in a position to alleviate someone else's suffering for a while.

Another female household-hinter gave me a recipe for a big hearty main dish of elbow macaroni, mint jelly, lima beans, mayonnaise and cheese baked until 'hot and yummy.' Unless my taste buds are paralyzed, this dish could be baked until hell freezes over and it might get hot but never 'yummy.

You know, there are several gay men on the faculty. Professor Montag makes jelly beans look colorless(...)

You are twenty. You are not dead, although you were dead. The girl who died. And was resurrected. Children. Witches. Magic. Symbols. Remember the illogic of the fantasy. The strange tableau in the closet behind the bathroom: the feast, the beast, and the jelly-bean. Recall, remember: please do not die again. Let there be continuity at least - a core of consistency - even if your philosophy must be always a moving dynamic dialectic. The thesis is the easy time, the happy time. The antithesis threatens annihilation. The synthesis is the consummate problem.

What would angel lips taste like? Sunshine? Marshmallows? Or something altogether different? Maybe buttered-popcorn jelly beans.

I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. And I definitely can’t un-feel a feeling.

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin works, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!

I’d been doing everything to please everyone else and some imaginary me.

... I mean, I'm not going to spare your feelings, Dad - I wanted to be his frickin' chocolate bunny today, but, really he popped a couple of jelly beans and said, 'This isn't right' and walked away. I mean, I think he was starving for chocolate bunny - but he walked away. Who does that?

I love you too, jelly bean. With every one of my fuckin' heartbeats.

scrolls, notebooks, tablet computers, daggers, and a large bowl filled with jelly beans,

Jelly-bean" is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular- - I am idling, I have idled, I will idle

Truth: last week I online shopped too much. Then I ate 2 pounds of jelly beans to feel better about that. In fact, while I was trying to read soul-nourishing things all I could think about was shopping and jellybeans. Points to the monkey mind.

You are twenty. You are not dead, although you were dead. The girl who died. And was resurrected. Children. Witches. Magic. Symbols. Remember the illogic of the fantasy. The strange tableau in the closet behind the bathroom: the feast, the beast, and the jelly-bean. Recall, remember: please do not die again.

Mills & Boon and Harlequins are like colourful jelly beans, you can't get enough of...

by parents who tried to pretend their progeny weren’t one jelly bean away from Lord of the Flies.

The next morning we experienced our very first “full English breakfast,” which consisted of tea, orange juice, cookies, oatmeal, granola, berries, bananas, croissants, grapes, pineapples, prunes, yogurt, five kinds of cold cereal, eggs, hash browns, back bacon, sausage, smoked salmon, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, toast, butter, jam, jelly, and honey. I don’t know how the British do it.

LOOK, I’M ONLY IN THIS FOR THE PIZZA. The publisher was like, “Oh, you did such a great job writing about the Greek gods last year! We want you to write another book about the Ancient Greek heroes! It’ll be so cool!” And I was like, “Guys, I’m dyslexic. It’s hard enough for me to read books.” Then they promised me a year’s supply of free pepperoni pizza, plus all the blue jelly beans I could eat. I sold out. I guess it’s cool. If you’re looking to fight monsters yourself, these stories might help you avoid some common mistakes—like staring Medusa in the face, or buying a used mattress from any dude named Crusty. But the best reason to read about the old Greek heroes is to make yourself feel better. No matter how much you think your life sucks, these guys and gals had it worse. They totally got the short end of the Celestial stick. By the way, if you don’t know me, my name is Percy Jackson. I’m a modern-day demigod—the son of Poseidon. I’ve had some bad experiences in my time, but the heroes I’m going to tell you about were the original old-school hard-luck cases. They boldly screwed up where no one had screwed up before. Let’s pick twelve of them. That should be plenty. By the time you finish reading about how miserable their lives were—what with the poisonings, the betrayals, the mutilations, the murders, the psychopathic family members, and the flesh-eating barnyard animals—if that doesn’t make you feel better about your own existence, then I don’t know what will. So get your flaming spear. Put on your lion-skin cape. Polish your shield, and make sure you’ve got arrows in your quiver. We’re going back about four thousand years to decapitate monsters, save some kingdoms, shoot a few gods in the butt, raid the Underworld, and steal loot from evil people. Then, for dessert, we’ll die painful tragic deaths. Ready? Sweet. Let’s do this.

I buy licorice whips, jelly beans, many-layered blackballs with the seed in the middle, packages of fizzy sherbet you suck up through a straw. I dole them out equally, these offerings, these atonements, into the waiting hands of my friends. In the moment just before giving, I am loved.

Milkers don’t spend half as long with their mothers." Eli spread his chore coat over Little Joe. "Not more than a few weeks. Sometimes one day. Maybe not even ... If you were a peeper, it’d be even worse. They don’t even get to see their mamas. They’re still jelly beans when they’re left alone to hatch.

All lies, freckled vows, crying-weeping on your toes Expected jelly beans gusto, got yourself a life imperfecto Too good a gal, too arrogant a gal Too independent, too in need of Chanel Took a careless ride, leaped for a perilous dive Now look who thrived, who gave you a vibe. - Chicken In Chicken Out

What is the line between being vulnerable and prostrating yourself for a system that won't recognise you? The onus is never on the system to adjust its hardness, it's on you to shape-shift and acquiesce. Do I don vulnerability as a weapon against this culture? - If you require me to be hard and harder to fight you, I will rebel by being soft like a jelly-beaned being, but like anything, you need to be softer and softer to have the same impact. Do I weaponise my own pain and cause harm to myself by revelling in that pain, nurturing it, putting myself in danger to encourage it and then working it over by verbalising it for display, to show society, I am a human being and I feel pain just like you.

He smirked and sat up "Simmer down, Jelly Bean.

Everything is the universe is either a jelly bean or not a jelly bean!

Aurum and Argentum have a special talent: they can sense when someone is lying. (Their other special talent is eating jelly beans.)

He also keeps a pot of jelly beans and adds a jelly bean to the pot every time someone dies. He says that just before he dies, he will eat everyone so that his friends will be with him.

All life was weather, a waiting through the hot where events had no significance for the cool that was soft and caressing like a woman's hand on a tired forehead. Down in Georgia there is a feeling—perhaps inarticulate—that this is the greatest wisdom of the South—so after a while the Jelly-bean turned into a poolhall on Jackson Street where he was sure to find a congenial crowd who would make all the old jokes—the ones he knew.

He dreams of Bam. She’s laughing at him. She’s goading the others to laugh at him as well, and although he fires a machine gun at her, nothing comes out but flower petals and jelly beans and popcorn, and that just makes everyone laugh even more. Then Hayden grabs the machine gun away from him and shoves the muzzle so far up his nose he can feel it in his brain. “That’ll clear your sinuses,” Hayden says, and the laughter all around feels like it can fill a stadium.

I still feel some type of way when people who weren’t forced to sit in stiff ruffles and too-tight patent leather mary janes for four hours every Sunday morning get to just, you know, buy an Easter basket without having done any of the work. Those jelly beans and Cadbury eggs were my annual reward for memorizing the Twenty-third Psalm and not falling asleep during Sunday school, and yet somehow there are kids who get to sleep in every weekend and have never had to identify Bible passages from memory who get the same number of jelly beans I do?!

They have twenty-four one-hour sittings every day with only one table per sitting." Sam groaned as he closed his laptop. "I'd better grab some sandwiches on the way. It sounds like the kind of place you only get two peas and a sliver of asparagus on a piece of butter lettuce that was grown on the highest mountain peak of Nepal and watered with the tears of angels." "Not a fan of haute cuisine?" She followed him down the stairs and out into the bright sunshine. "I like food. Lots of it." He stopped at the nearest café and ordered three Reuben sandwiches, two Cobb salads, and three bottles of water. "Would you like anything?" he asked after he placed his order. Layla looked longingly as the server handed over his feast. "I don't want to ruin my appetite." She pointed to the baked-goods counter. "You forgot dessert." "I don't eat sugar." "Then the meal is wasted." She held open her handbag to reveal her secret stash. "I keep emergency desserts with me at all times- gummy bears, salted caramel chocolate, jelly beans, chocolate-glazed donuts- at least I think that's what they were, and this morning I managed to grab a small container of besan laddu and some gulab jamun.

The girl in the Four Seasons coat check was eating handfuls of colored jelly beans and reading a thin yellow paperback. I’d read in the witness report in Ashley’s police file that the coat-check girl’s name was Nora Halliday and she was nineteen. Every time a party of diners arrived—midwestern tourists, finance dudes, a couple so elderly they moved like they were doing a form of tai chi—she whisked off her black-rimmed eyeglasses, hid the book, and with a cheerful “Good evening!” took their coats. After they moved upstairs to the restaurant, she put her glasses back on, brought out the paperback, and started reading again, hunched over the counter of the stall.

Eleven finally allowed to dye his own eggs, and then only in one color: red. All over the house red eggs gleam in lengthening, solstice rays. Red eggs fill bowls on the dining room table. They hang from string pouches over doorways. They crowd the mantel and are baked into loaves of cruciform tsoureki. But now it is late afternoon; dinner is over. And my brother is smiling. Because now comes the one part of Greek Easter he prefers to egg hunts and jelly beans: the egg-cracking game. Everyone gathers around the dining table. Biting his lip, Chapter Eleven selects an egg from the bowl, studies it, returns it. He selects another. “This looks like a good one,” Milton says, choosing his own egg. “Built like a Brinks truck.” Milton holds his egg up. Chapter Eleven prepares to attack. When suddenly my mother taps my father on the back. “Just a minute, Tessie. We’re cracking eggs here.” She taps him harder. “What?” “My temperature.” She pauses. “It’s up six tenths.” She has been using the thermometer. This is the first my father has heard of it. “Now?” my father whispers. “Jesus, Tessie, are you sure?” “No, I’m not sure. You told me to watch for any rise in my temperature and I’m telling you I’m up six tenths of a degree.” And, lowering her voice, “Plus it’s been thirteen days since my last you know what.” “Come on, Dad,” Chapter Eleven pleads.

Vivi and Heather take them out for bubble tea. There are no actual bubbles. Instead, he is served toothsome balls soaked in a sweet, milky tea. Vivi orders grass jelly, and Heather gets a lavender drink that is the colour of the flowers and just as fragrant. Cardan is fascinated and insists on having a sip of each. Then he eats a bite of the half-dozen types of dumplings they order- mushroom, cabbage and pork, cilantro and beef, hot-oil chicken dumplings that numb his tongue, then creamy custard to cool it, along with sweet red bean that sticks to his teeth. Heather glares at Cardan as though he bit the head off a sprite in the middle of a banquet. 'You can't eat some of a dumpling and put it back,' Oak insists. 'That's revolting.' Cardan considers villainy takes many forms, and he is good at all of them. Jude stabs the remainder of the bean bun with a single chopstick, popping it into her mouth and chewing with obvious satisfaction. 'Gooh,' she gets out when she notices the others looking at her. Vivi laughs and orders more dumplings.

Eleven finally allowed to dye his own eggs, and then only in one color: red. All over the house red eggs gleam in lengthening, solstice rays. Red eggs fill bowls on the dining room table. They hang from string pouches over doorways. They crowd the mantel and are baked into loaves of cruciform tsoureki. But now it is late afternoon; dinner is over. And my brother is smiling. Because now comes the one part of Greek Easter he prefers to egg hunts and jelly beans: the egg-cracking game. Everyone gathers around the dining table. Biting his lip, Chapter Eleven selects an egg from the bowl, studies it, returns it. He selects another. “This looks like a good one,” Milton says, choosing his own egg. “Built like a Brinks truck.” Milton holds his egg up. Chapter Eleven prepares to attack. When suddenly my mother taps my father on the back. “Just a minute, Tessie. We’re cracking eggs here.” She taps him harder. “What?” “My temperature.” She pauses. “It’s up six tenths.” She has been using the thermometer. This is the first my father has heard of it. “Now?” my father whispers. “Jesus, Tessie, are you sure?” “No, I’m not sure. You told me to watch for any rise in my temperature and I’m telling you I’m up six tenths of a degree.” And, lowering her voice, “Plus it’s been thirteen days since my last you know what.” “Come on, Dad,” Chapter Eleven pleads. “Time out,” Milton says. He puts his egg in the ashtray. “That’s my egg. Nobody touch it until I come back.” Upstairs, in the master bedroom, my parents accomplish the act. A child’s natural decorum makes me refrain from imagining the scene in much detail. Only this: when they’re done, as if topping off the tank, my father says, “That should do it.” It turns out he’s right. In May, Tessie learns she’s pregnant, and the waiting begins.

How was it?” Emily asks. I don’t need to answer. They can see it on my face. I look up at Sean, and he smiles down at me. He’s everything I ever wanted. I can’t imagine my life without him. “Earth-shattering,” I admit. He squeezes me, his face glowing. I narrow my gaze and smack my lips. “But for some reason, he tastes like pickles.” “Oh my God,” Emily squeals. “So does Logan!” She shoots them a quizzical glance. Sean flushes scarlet. There’s a story there. I just don’t know what it is. But he’ll tell me. I won’t let him avoid it.

Aw, play it, Mister Benbow!” somebody cried. The earth rolls relentlessly, and the sun blazes for ever on the earth, breeding, breeding. But why do you insist like the earth, music? Rolling and breeding, earth and sun for ever relentlessly. But why do you insist like the sun? Like the lips of women? Like the bodies of men, relentlessly? “Aw, play it, Mister Benbow!” But why do you insist, music? Who understands the earth? Do you, Mingo? Who understands the sun? Do you, Harriett? Does anybody know—among you high yallers, you jelly-beans, you pinks and pretty daddies, among you sealskin browns, smooth blacks, and chocolates-to-the-bone—does anybody know the answer? “Aw, play it, Benbow!” “It’s midnight. De clock is strikin’ twelve, an’ … ” “Aw, play it, Mister Benbow!

After Mrs. Ma hurried off, Charlie tested the shaved ice and glanced at the spirits drifting into Hungry Heart Row. They'd been pouring in since dawn, wandering through the stalls that each participating restaurant had set up, clustering around a fragrant Crock-Pot of ash-e-reshte and platters full of pumpkin tamales. Across the street, Lila from the local pastelería was unboxing dozens of conchas and novias, each one more brightly colored than the last. Charlie got to work setting out the fixings. Assembling a bowl of shaved ice was a lot like making an ice cream sundae. Just replace the ice cream with slivers of ice and cover them with toppings that take on a special Asian flair- grass jelly, chunks of mango or sliced strawberries, and Waipo's mung beans in syrup.

The next forty minutes are a festival of soul eating. I know many immigrant families incorporate their traditional dishes into the Thanksgiving feast, but not my folks. Our menu is Norman Rockwell on crack. Turkey with gravy. Homemade cranberry relish and the jellied stuff from the can. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole. Cornbread stuffing and buttery yeast rolls. The only nods to our heritage are mustard-seed pickled carrots and dill-cucumber salad, to have something cool and palate-cleansing on the plate. A crazy layered Jello-O dish, with six different colors in thin stripes, looking like vintage Bakelite. Jeff and the girls show up just in time for desserts... apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan bars, cheesecake brownies, and Maria's flan.

Maria winks at me, takes a mouthful of stuffing, and rolls her eyes in ecstasy. The next forty minutes are a festival of soul eating. I know many immigrant families incorporate their traditional dishes into the Thanksgiving feast, but not my folks. Our menu is Norman Rockwell on crack. Turkey with gravy. Homemade cranberry relish and the jellied stuff from the can. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole. Cornbread stuffing and buttery yeast rolls. The only nods to our heritage are mustard-seed pickled carrots and dill-cucumber salad, to have something cool and palate-cleansing on the plate. A crazy layered Jello-O dish, with six different colors in thin stripes, looking like vintage Bakelite. Jeff and the girls show up just in time for desserts... apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan bars, cheesecake brownies, and Maria's flan.

The pressure is on. They've teased me all week, because I've avoided anything that requires ordering. I've made excuses (I'm allergic to beef," "Nothing tastes better than bread," Ravioli is overrated"), but I can't avoid it forever.Monsieur Boutin is working the counter again. I grab a tray and take a deep breath. "Bonjour, uh...soup? Sopa? S'il vous plait?" "Hello" and "please." I've learned the polite words first, in hopes that the French will forgive me for butchering the remainder of their beautiful language. I point to the vat of orangey-red soup. Butternut squash, I think. The smell is extraordinary, like sage and autumn. It's early September, and the weather is still warm. When does fall come to Paris? "Ah! soupe.I mean,oui. Oui!" My cheeks burn. "And,um, the uh-chicken-salad-green-bean thingy?" Monsieur Boutin laughs. It's a jolly, bowl-full-of-jelly, Santa Claus laugh. "Chicken and haricots verts, oui. You know,you may speek Ingleesh to me. I understand eet vairy well." My blush deepends. Of course he'd speak English in an American school. And I've been living on stupid pears and baquettes for five days. He hands me a bowl of soup and a small plate of chicken salad, and my stomach rumbles at the sight of hot food. "Merci," I say. "De rien.You're welcome. And I 'ope you don't skeep meals to avoid me anymore!" He places his hand on his chest, as if brokenhearted. I smile and shake my head no. I can do this. I can do this. I can- "NOW THAT WASN'T SO TERRIBLE, WAS IT, ANNA?" St. Clair hollers from the other side of the cafeteria. I spin around and give him the finger down low, hoping Monsieur Boutin can't see. St. Clair responds by grinning and giving me the British version, the V-sign with his first two fingers. Monsieur Boutin tuts behind me with good nature. I pay for my meal and take the seat next to St. Clair. "Thanks. I forgot how to flip off the English. I'll use the correct hand gesture next time." "My pleasure. Always happy to educate." He's wearing the same clothing as yesterday, jeans and a ratty T-shirt with Napolean's silhouette on it.When I asked him about it,he said Napolean was his hero. "Not because he was a decent bloke, mind you.He was an arse. But he was a short arse,like meself." I wonder if he slept at Ellie's. That's probably why he hasn't changed his clothes. He rides the metro to her college every night, and they hang out there. Rashmi and Mer have been worked up, like maybe Ellie thinks she's too good for them now. "You know,Anna," Rashmi says, "most Parisians understand English. You don't have to be so shy." Yeah.Thanks for pointing that out now.

At Angelita’s, my favorite food was a plain bean burrito in a flour tortilla. It was simple, but tasty! I loved bean burritos. They were my comfort food. They were my “little friends!” For my first day at school, my aunt made me three of them. She wrapped them up tightly in aluminum foil and then packed them in a brown paper sack. At lunchtime, in the cafeteria, I got ready to greet my little friends. I was nervous, as it was my first day of school, but I knew the burritos would soon warm my stomach and comfort me. I looked around the lunch room and saw other kids with their cafeteria trays and their perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crust neatly trimmed off and their bottle of juices and bags of Fritos and then . . . I pulled out a burrito. “Hey! What’s that?” A gringa girl shouted at me, pointing at my burrito. “Uh . . . nothing! Nada!” I replied as I quickly shoved it back into the sack. I was hungry, but every time I got ready to pull one out, it seemed as if there was another kid ready to stare and point at me. I was embarrassed! I loved my burritos, but in that cafeteria, I was ashamed of them. They suddenly felt very heavy and cold. They suddenly felt very Mexican. I was ashamed of my little friends and so . . . I went hungry.

It’s just a kiss,” she says softly. “Why are you all torn up about a kiss?” She’s studying me way too closely. “I’m not torn up,” I protest. “You’ve been moping ever since I told you about the fundraiser, Sean,” she says. “What’s your problem? It’s for charity, for God’s sake.” She lays her free hand on her chest. “My kiss is going to feed victims of domestic violence. I’m doing my part for a better community.” I look down at her mouth. God, I could just slide my fingers into her hair, pull her to me, and kiss her right here and now. But I won’t. Because she doesn’t want me. “I can’t believe you’re going kiss some stranger,” I bite out. “Don’t do it.” “I’ve kissed men before, Sean,” she reminds me. I wish she would keep that shit to herself. “What if it’s some big, goofy guy with really bad breath?” I ask. “What if it’s some big, brawny guy who smells like you and kisses like a god?” she asks. She smiles, the corners of her lips tilting up so prettily. Her fingertips touch my forearm lightly, and she traces the tattoos that decorate my arm from wrist to shoulder. Every hair on my body stands up, and I lift my hand from her knee and thread my fingers with hers so she’ll stop. “If I’m lucky, he’ll be all tatted up, too.” She looks off into the distance, her gaze no longer on me. “Honey, if you want to kiss someone who looks like me and smells like me, I think I can accommodate you so you don’t have to kiss some stranger.” Her eyes shift back to meet mine, and she may as well have just punched me in the gut. She looks into my eyes and stares as if she’s looking into my soul. She can look into it anytime. Shit, I’d give it to her, if she wanted it. But it’s not me she wants. She’s made that abundantly clear. “If I ever kissed you, I would never be able to stop,” I say quietly. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged down a gravel road and back, and I fucking hate that she can affect me this way. “Prove it,” she says, and then she licks her cherry-red lips. She doesn’t break eye contact. I move quickly. This is the first time she’s ever made an offer like this, and my gut tells me that she’s going to take it back. I cup her neck with my palm and pull her toward me. My gentle tug brings her flush against my chest, and the weight of her settles against me and feels so right. Her lips are so close to mine that her inhale is my exhale. My hand quivers as it holds her nape, so I work my fingers into the hair at the back of her head. I hold her still and look into her green eyes. “Tell me you want me to kiss you and you got me, honey,” I whisper. She shivers and inches up my chest ever so slightly, her mouth moving closer to mine. So close. Just a little closer. I can almost taste her. “I want you to kiss me,” she whispers. “Please.” Suddenly, the door opens, and Lacey jumps up, separating us in one final, powerful leap. Fuck. I pull the pillow from behind my head and shove it in my lap, sitting up on the side of the bed. Friday,

THIS IS MY ABC BOOK of people God loves. We’ll start with . . .           A: God loves Adorable people. God loves those who are Affable and Affectionate. God loves Ambulance drivers, Artists, Accordion players, Astronauts, Airplane pilots, and Acrobats. God loves African Americans, the Amish, Anglicans, and Animal husbandry workers. God loves Animal-rights Activists, Astrologers, Adulterers, Addicts, Atheists, and Abortionists.           B: God loves Babies. God loves Bible readers. God loves Baptists and Barbershop quartets . . . Boys and Boy Band members . . . Blondes, Brunettes, and old ladies with Blue hair. He loves the Bedraggled, the Beat up, and the Burnt out . . . the Bullied and the Bullies . . . people who are Brave, Busy, Bossy, Bitter, Boastful, Bored, and Boorish. God loves all the Blue men in the Blue Man Group.           C: God loves Crystal meth junkies,           D: Drag queens,           E: and Elvis impersonators.           F: God loves the Faithful and the Faithless, the Fearful and the Fearless. He loves people from Fiji, Finland, and France; people who Fight for Freedom, their Friends, and their right to party; and God loves people who sound like Fat Albert . . . “Hey, hey, hey!”           G: God loves Greedy Guatemalan Gynecologists.           H: God loves Homosexuals, and people who are Homophobic, and all the Homo sapiens in between.           I: God loves IRS auditors.           J: God loves late-night talk-show hosts named Jimmy (Fallon or Kimmel), people who eat Jim sausages (Dean or Slim), people who love Jams (hip-hop or strawberry), singers named Justin (Timberlake or Bieber), and people who aren’t ready for this Jelly (Beyoncé’s or grape).           K: God loves Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye Kardashian. (Please don’t tell him I said that.)           L: God loves people in Laos and people who are feeling Lousy. God loves people who are Ludicrous, and God loves Ludacris. God loves Ladies, and God loves Lady Gaga.           M: God loves Ministers, Missionaries, and Meter maids; people who are Malicious, Meticulous, Mischievous, and Mysterious; people who collect Marbles and people who have lost their Marbles . . . and Miley Cyrus.           N: God loves Ninjas, Nudists, and Nose pickers,           O: Obstetricians, Orthodontists, Optometrists, Ophthalmologists, and Overweight Obituary writers,           P: Pimps, Pornographers, and Pedophiles,           Q: the Queen of England, the members of the band Queen, and Queen Latifah.           R: God loves the people of Rwanda and the Rebels who committed genocide against them.           S: God loves Strippers in Stilettos working on the Strip in Sin City;           T: it’s not unusual that God loves Tom Jones.           U: God loves people from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates; Ukrainians and Uruguayans, the Unemployed and Unemployment inspectors; blind baseball Umpires and shady Used-car salesmen. God loves Ushers, and God loves Usher.           V: God loves Vegetarians in Virginia Beach, Vegans in Vietnam, and people who eat lots of Vanilla bean ice cream in Las Vegas.           W: The great I AM loves will.i.am. He loves Waitresses who work at Waffle Houses, Weirdos who have gotten lots of Wet Willies, and Weight Watchers who hide Whatchamacallits in their Windbreakers.           X: God loves X-ray technicians.           Y: God loves You.           Z: God loves Zoologists who are preparing for the Zombie apocalypse. God . . . is for the rest of us. And we have the responsibility, the honor, of letting the world know that God is for them, and he’s inviting them into a life-changing relationship with him. So let ’em know.

A darkened theater. Final whispers. Black. The projector streams through. The picture surrounds. I fall away. You reach me.

In the garden of my childhood my mother grew corn and asparagus, beans, zucchini, and more, but the thing I remember most is the cherry tomatoes, bushy in their cages, the leaves slightly sticky, funny smelling. My mother wore long-sleeve shirts to weed the tomatoes. I remember her plucking them off the bush, my brother and me opening our mouths like baby birds for her to pop them in. I closed my eyes to experience the exact moment my teeth pierced the smooth skin and the tomato exploded in a burst of acid sweet, the seeds slightly bitter in their jelly pouches. The sensation was so unexpected each time it happened that my eyes flew open. And there was my mother, smiling at me. That is what I remember. My mother did not smile often. We have pictures where she is smiling, me or my brother nestled on her lap. You can tell she loves us. Her body language shows it. But mostly we knew she loved us because of how hard she worked for us. Usually elsewhere. But the garden—the garden was her project. In the little time she had not devoted to work and cleaning and trying to hold her small world together, my mother grew food. My brother and I didn't help in the garden, but we were usually playing nearby. We always wanted to be nearby when she was home. I remember her letting us crawl through the dried cornstalks after the ears had been harvested. I remember running my hands through the asparagus that had been allowed to go to seed. I remember eating plums from the old tree that lived in the corner of the yard. I remember her feeding us tomatoes fresh off the vine and still warm from the sun. When I think of those tomatoes, it is not the flavor that moves me. They were shockingly sweet and tangy, but that is not what I remember the most. It is not what I yearned for. Eating cherry tomatoes meant my mother was home; it meant she was smiling at me.

Bush attended daily briefings in the Oval Office, and there were weekly lunches, usually on Thursdays, featuring Mexican food. (Bush added a lot of hot sauce to his chili; Reagan did not.) “Before lunch every week, there was a vacuuming for new jokes to tell,” recalled Boyden Gray, Bush’s legal counsel. (Bush dropped some jelly beans into his lap by mistake one day while sitting in the Oval Office. “George, I’ve got a question to ask you,” Reagan said. “What else do you feed that thing besides jelly beans?”)

I looked like a rainbow had thrown up on a circus clown that exploded after eating a million jelly beans.

James"---- Diana tapped her American Express card on the table--- "tell Cassie about the food hall at Harrods." "The architecture is Beaux Arts style, all gold finishes and intricate ironwork. The floors are black-and-white marble, and the most amazing chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The cheese hall has more than three hundred varieties of cheese, and the meat hall serves wild boar and Cornish hens. The candy hall is like Christmas every day with giant jars of jelly beans, caramels, lollipops, and candy corn.

Every night she was shocked by the many uses of peaches. The women knew how to make anything out of them---peach-and-pecan soup, peach salsa, peach-and-onion fritters, peach-and-amaretto jelly. They combined them with the produce of their vegetable garden, which lay behind the men’s dorm. When the men cooked, it was less creative---burgers, sometimes steak. But there was always corn on the cob, cucumber-and-parsley salad with cider vinegar, beans, mild white cheese crumbled on tortillas and cooked over the open fire.

Do you have any jelly beans?

Dad used to make me tea at night during the pregnancy whenever I was feeling sick.” “Really?” I removed her hands from my stomach. “He did that?” “Yup. He even bought me a bunch of different flavors so I wouldn’t get bored with any of them. He’d bring me a steaming cup in bed and tell me to close my eyes, see if I could guess the flavor.” It was hard to picture this. Him putting water in a pot, boiling it, steeping a mug with Earl Grey, English Breakfast, chamomile. I couldn’t even picture him in the checkout lane at the grocery store with anything other than Miller Lite and jelly beans. That man bringing tea to his pregnant wife wasn’t the same as the one who once picked me up from school two hours late, with crushed Miller Lite cans and gum wrappers covering the floor of his car, the front of his gray gym shorts soaked in piss, shouting over and over, “Get in, we’re going to Disneyland.” I thought about telling Mom this memory, reminding her of that other man. “Or is it something else?” she asked. “What can I do?” She would never be able to help me. Her loyalties would always lie with him, this dead man who showed her sides he never showed to me.

Dad used to carry a briefcase, even when he was working jobs like graveyard-shift mall security, office janitor, mover—and there was an odd stint when he had a paper route—he’d put his briefcase into the bike’s front basket as he cruised around the neighborhood tossing the L.A. Times into people’s front yards. The briefcase never had much in it: a sci-fi paperback, a few sheets of paper, pens stolen from dentists’ offices and car dealerships, jelly beans. Dad would put a couple green ones in my hand, my favorite, and say, “You need the briefcase. People don’t take you seriously without the briefcase. How would it look if I was walking around with just a pack of jelly beans in my hand?

She pouted, picking out a licorice bean and tossing it over the side of the house. ‘I would have eaten that,’ Alien Drake told her, staring after it. ‘I know.’ She smiled widely at him.

My writing process tends to involve reading, more reading, writing scraps of thoughts, revising, more revising, a little crying, and a whole lot of jelly beans.

Usually, Shakespeare gives me goose bumps. The guy knows everything. Like some ancient angel quill-ing out blueprints life. Hiding it in fiction. And usually I love the sound of the words, the way they dance on the page. Today, they fall flat. My attention bobbing in the cosmos. All free brain-space is marinating in gap month fizz. I chew my pen, candy-cane style. The million possibilities ahead make it hard to care about right now. I write my answers slowly, each letter carved in stone not ballpoint. I’m going to explore the world, find my passion, try everything! The fizz shoots up my spine and a smile sprouts.

The building is a tumbling house of cards behind me. The bus bitches are paper cutouts.

Some college-age, hormone-ridden asshole will guess the number of jelly beans in her jar, and the lucky bastard will get to kiss her. He’ll get to kiss my girl. Well, she doesn’t know she’s mine, but she has been for as long as I can remember. I can’t recall a time when Lacey wasn’t in my life. And the thought of some dickwad putting his mouth on her has my heart tripping in my chest like it’s going run away without me. Lacey

It’s not fair that she can undo me with a simple kiss at a mirror when she doesn’t even see me as a real, live, flesh-and-blood man. She still sees me as the boy who grew up next door to her. She seems to forget that I’m the one who held her hair back as she threw up her first few shots of tequila. She forgets that I’m the one who carried her luggage up three fucking flights of stairs when I moved her into her dorm room. I’m the one who hugged her when Dusty Forbes dumped her at the homecoming dance. I’m the one who left my own date—who was a sure thing, by the way—standing alone by the wall while I retrieved Lacey from the ladies’ room and stroked her hair until she could breathe. She

I’m glad she’s looking at my face and not at my crotch because she would get the shock of a lifetime if she glanced down right now. But she doesn’t think of me like that. She said so. She said, loudly and clearly, that she wouldn’t go there with me. She didn’t want to lose her best friend if things didn’t work out. She needs me, she says, as more than an ex-boyfriend. She needs me to be her best friend. So I am. But good God, I want her. “What?

And the winner is,” he sings. He waits, opening the folded piece of paper slowly, drawing out the suspense. I can barely hear him over my own heartbeat, which is thumping like crazy. Is it too late to back out? Shit. I don’t want to do this. “The winner is the person who guessed twelve hundred and forty-eight!” The crowd is silent, and all the participants look to one another. But then I hear a thump, thump, thump, thump as someone comes up the stairs onto the platform. I see the baseball cap before I see the rest of him, and I hope to God that’s Sean’s cap. But Sean didn’t even buy a ticket. Not a single one. Yet it’s his brown gaze that meets mine. It’s his baseball cap, and they are his tattoos. They’re his broad shoulders and his long strides that eat up the distance between us. He turns his hat backward and looks down at me. He stops with less than an inch to spare between us. “Congratulations,” I squeak out. “You didn’t even buy a ticket. How did you…?” “I bought one hundred and forty-two tickets, dummy,” he says. My heart trips a beat. “You did?” All he had to buy was one. I put the winning number on the piece of paper I gave him. He nods, and he takes my face in his hands. His thumbs draw little circles on my cheeks as his fingers thread into the hair at my temples. “You didn’t look at the paper I gave you….” My heart is pounding like mad. “What paper?” he asks. His smile is soft and inviting, and I want to fall into him. “The one you put in your pocket.” His brow furrows. “Never mind,” I say, breathless. He spent 142 dollars for a kiss he already owned in more ways than one. If I loved this man any more, it would be dangerous. He looks down into my eyes, not moving. He’s going to kiss me, right? “What’s the plan here?” “I’m going to kiss my girl,” he says, smiling at me. My breath hitches. “But you have to say yes, first.” He hasn’t let me go. He’s holding me tightly, forcing me to meet his eyes. “This isn’t going to be a one-time thing.” I can’t even think, and he wants me to commit? “It’s not,” I breathe. “You promise?” His gaze searches mine like he’s going to find the secrets to the universe there. “I swear on your life,” I say. He chuckles. “My life?” I nod. His eyebrows draw together. “Aren’t you supposed to swear on your own life?” “My life means nothing if you’re not in it.” His hands start to tremble against my face, and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Logan’s brothers start to chant, “Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss…,” and the crowd joins in. “You better kiss me,” I say, “or they’re going to get restless.” A tear rolls down my cheek, and he brushes it back with his thumb, his gaze soft and warm. His eyes open, and he leans closer to me. I step onto my tiptoes to get to him because I can’t wait one more second. He stops a breath away from me, just like he did in the room. He waits. “You have to close the distance,” he says to me. He’s making me choose. I fall into him and press my lips to his. He freezes. But then he starts to kiss me. And all the fireworks at the state fair couldn’t compare to the ones that go off in my head.

What the fuck happened between you two?” Logan asks as soon as the door closes. I shrug. Logan is famous for his shrugs. He should accept mine. But he doesn’t. Instead, he punches me in the shoulder. Shit, that hurt. “What the fuck?” I ask. “What happened?” he asks. He looks straight into my eyes. “Nothing,” I say. I shake my head. “Not a fucking thing.” “Dude, you had a pillow shoved in your lap, and you were getting off her bed when we walked in. Something happened.” He shoves my shoulder, almost knocking me over. Logan’s a big boy. A little bigger than me, and I’m a big guy. “Not to mention that she looked like she’d just been fucked.” I stop and turn to face him. I lay both lands flat on his chest and shove him as hard as I can. “Don’t ever fucking talk about her like that again,” I warn. Logan takes a few steps back. Then he grins. “It’s about fucking time,” he says. He holds up a hand to high five me. “Fuck you,” I say instead, and I keep walking toward my dorm. I can’t get there fast enough. “Did you kiss her?” he asks. He grins at me again, and I feel a smile tugging at my own lips. But it doesn’t last for more than a minute. His joviality isn’t contagious. “I was about to…. Then you guys busted in,” I admit. “She wants you, man. She’s got it as bad as you do. Trust me.” I shake my head. “She doesn’t.” “She does.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “She told Emily. Emily told me.” He pauses and then says, “You’re welcome.” “What did she say?” I ask. I probably don’t want to know. “She said she wants to have your babies.” He jumps back when I go to punch him, and he laughs. “Shut up,” I say. “This is serious.” “Why’s it so serious all of a sudden?” Logan asks.  “This shit’s been going on between you two for a long time. Why does it suddenly matter so much?” “The contest is today. They’re raffling off a kiss from her.” I heave a sigh. “One lucky winner is going to get to kiss the woman I love. In front of everybody.” “Oh, fuck,” Logan breathes. “That’s shit.” “I asked her not to go,” I confess. “So, go buy all the tickets,” he says with a shrug, as though he just solved world poverty or AIDS. “It doesn’t work like that. You have to guess the number of jelly beans in her jar. If you get the wrong number, you don’t get anything. If you get the right number, you get to kiss her.” “So, we need to figure out how many jelly beans are in her jar,” he says simply. He looks at me. “Did you see the jar?” I nod. “It’s a pickle jar.” I hold out my hands to show him the size. “The big kind.” “So we need a jar that size, and we need to fill it with jelly beans and then count them. At least then you can get close, right?” I scrub a hand down my face. “This is stupid. I’ll never get it. Every guess costs a dollar.” I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. It’s nearly empty. “You’re just going to let somebody else kiss her?” “If I’m not there, I won’t see it.” I shrug my shoulders, trying to hide the fact that I feel as if I’m being gutted. He stares at me. He doesn’t say anything. “If it were Emily, I’d buy every fucking pickle and every damn jelly bean in the state of New York. There’s no way my girl would kiss some asshole.” “You’re right,” I say. “We need to go to the store.” Hope swells inside me. Do I have a chance? I won’t know until I try, I guess. Logan

She pushes up off her propped arm and lays that hand on my chest, her elbow digging into my belly as she looks at me. “Stop trying to impale me.” I grunt and adjust her elbow. But I don’t want her to move. I like having her this close. If this is all I can get, I’ll take it. I set my hand on her naked knee and draw swirls on it with my thumb. She

You look really pretty,” Logan says to Lacey. “Thank you,” she murmurs. She’s fucking gorgeous. Pretty doesn’t begin to describe how wonderful she is. She’s witty and she’s smart and she’s… She’s not mine. “I’m

I thought this kissing thing would make him step up. But I guess he just doesn’t care as much as I thought he did.” “He cares,” Emily says. I shake my head. “He doesn’t.” “He does. He told Logan. Logan told me.” My belly flutters. “Logan must be hearing things.” Emily snorts again. “I mean…” “I know what you meant,” Emily says, smiling. “Logan can be pretty intuitive about some things. And he feels certain that Sean wants you. Bad. And Sean said as much.” Friday bites her lip, then adds, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but…” “What?” I ask. “You know how he got a new tattoo last week?” she asks. I didn’t know so I don’t answer. “What did he get?” I ask instead. She inhales, weighing her decision to tell me. Then she blurts out, “It’s a honeybee.” “Oh shit,” I say. “What?” Emily asks. “What did I miss?” “He calls me honey when he’s being all sweet.” Friday nods. “I blew it when I told him I just want to be friends.” “Logan

Wait,” Lacey calls. I turn back, filled with hope. Does she want me to stay? We could kick everyone out and go back to what we were doing. I could kiss the girl that I want more than anything or anyone. I could make her mine. I could pour my heart out to her. I could tell her that I love her and always will. “What?” I ask quietly. “Are you coming to my booth?” she asks. “For the results of the contest?” And watch another man kiss her? I don’t think so. “I have a lot of laundry to do,” I say. She inhales quickly and blinks even faster. “Are you going to meet us for dinner after?” she asks, her voice quivering. “Where are you going?” If I go, I’ll have to see her with her lipstick sucked off her face, and I really don’t want to. She picks up a sticky pad and writes something down. I take it from her hand, which is shaking ever so slightly. “Are you all right?” She nods, looking everywhere but at me. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she says. I shove the note into my pocket, not even bothering to look at it. I

I hope you like pickles, dude, because we’re going to have to eat this whole jar so we can fill it with jelly beans.” I look at the jar. “I don’t like pickles that much. You?” Logan pops the top while we walk back to the dorm and starts eating. This is what friendship is all about. He crunches each bite over and over until he swallows, and then he reaches for a second one and passes it to me, taking another for himself. He stops a stranger on the street. “You want a pickle?” he asks. The stranger sidesteps him. “What?” he asks. “You act like it’s every day somebody offers you a free pickle.” The man keeps going. “Dude, I think he thought you mean a pickle.” I make air quotes when I say the word pickle. “How could I mean a pickle when I’m standing here holding a jar of pickles?” he asks. I shrug. “You didn’t look like his type anyway.” “I’m too pretty for him, right?” he asks. Logan’s all tatted up, on top of being huge. “That has to be it.” By

What the fuck do you want?” he asks. “And whose phone are you calling from?” He’s signing while he talks out loud. Logan laughs and pulls me into the frame. “It’s Sean’s.” “What up, Sean?” Paul asks. I wave. “You got any cash?” Logan asks. Paul’s eyes narrow. “Why?” “Sean needs to buy a kiss from his girl.” Paul’s brow rises. “You paying for sex now, dude?” he asks. He holds up his hands when I start to protest. “Not that I think that’s a bad idea or anything. Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.” I laugh. I can’t help it. “I can’t ask you for money, man. Don’t worry about it. Logan shouldn’t have called you.” But Logan rushes on. “So, you got any money?” he asks. Paul heaves a sigh and empties his pockets. I see a few dollars float around. He yells toward the back of his apartment. “Sam! Matt!” Both brothers walk into the room. “You bellowed?” Matt says. “Asswipe there needs some cash so he can buy a hooker.” He points toward me. “She’s not a hooker,” I protest. But Logan’s laughing like hell by now. And Matt and Sam look amused, too. “Cash?” Logan asks. “Some,” Paul says. “Can you bring it?” “Where?” “To school. To the kissing booth. In the quad.” Paul heaves a sigh. “I’ll be there.” The phone goes dead. “Do you think we’ll have enough?” I’m getting anxious now. “You’ll have more than you thought you did.” Logan claps a hand onto my shoulder and squeezes. God,

He reaches into his pocket and pops a handful of jelly beans into his mouth. Logan does the same. Logan points to Sean’s mouth. “Dude,” he says. “That color’s not great on you.” I look at Sean again, and my lipstick is smudged all over his lips. I laugh. I must look a sight if he looks like that. He wipes at the corners of my lips with his thumbs. “Next time, I’ll wear pink,” I whisper. “I don’t care what you wear,” he says. His gaze is hot, and my belly flips. “I’d like to see you wearing nothing.” He looks into my eyes, his expression full of longing. He presses his lips to mine briefly. “I can’t get used to the fact that I can kiss you whenever I want.” “Says who?” I taunt. “That’s what boyfriends do, Lacey,” he says, as if he needs to remind me. My stomach flutters again. I step onto my tiptoes and pull his head down to mine. I kiss him, holding onto the back of his neck, until we’re both breathless, and I’m whimpering. “Yea,” I agree. “That’s what boyfriends do.

Jimmy Fargo’s birthday party. All the other guys got to take home goldfish in little plastic bags. I won him because I guessed there were three hundred and forty-eight jelly beans in Mrs. Fargo’s jar. Really,

Ashburn gestured dramatically. "Look, I can't explain the psychology behind it. All I know is, it's more satisfying to get the jelly beans with an office supply order. They just taste better when they arrive in the same box as four hundred legal pads.

would have to eat nearly a bushel of apples a day or half a bushel of oranges to obtain a liberal factor of safety for providing phosphorus; similarly one would be required to eat nine and one half pounds of carrots or eleven pounds of beets each day to get enough phosphorus for a liberal factor of safety, while this quantity would be provided in one pound of lentils or beans, wheat or oats. I have discussed elsewhere the availability of phosphorus depending upon its chemical form. Since the calories largely determine the satisfying of the appetite and since under ordinary circumstances we stop when we have obtained about two thousand to twenty-five hundred very little of the highly sweetened fruits defeats our nutritional program. We would have to consume daily the contents of thirty-two one pound jars of marmalade, jellies or jams to provide a two gram intake of phosphorus. This quantity would provide 32,500 calories; an amount impossible for the system to take care of. Milk is one of the best foods for providing minerals but it may be inadequate in several vitamins. Of all of the primitive groups studied those using sea foods abundantly appear to obtain an adequate quantity of minerals particularly phosphorus with the greatest ease, in part because the fat-soluble vitamins provided in the sea foods (by which I mean animal life of the sea) are usually high. This enables a more efficient utilization of the minerals, calcium and phosphorus

If you decide what color jelly beans to eat based just on the papers that get published, you’re making the same mistake the army made when they counted the bullet holes on the planes that came back from Germany.

This tiny human on the screen, this little jelly bean, is my baby. I am in love. I thought I knew what love was, what unconditional love was, but I didn’t. Not until now do I feel that the only thing in the world that matters is my baby, the health of my baby, the well-being of my baby, raised in a happy, warm, enriching home.

The jelly beans

Fooood,” said the stranger. “Yes. Cutlet, hash, chop, stew, ragout, fricassee, mince, collops, soufflé, dumpling, blancmange, sorbet, gruel, sausage, not to have a sausage, beans, without a bean, kickshaws, jelly, jam. Giblets.

In the section with edible flowers I stopped short, a bright yellow-and-purple pansy in my hands, hearing my mother's voice from long ago. Pansies are the showgirls of the flower world, but they taste a little grassy, she'd confided to me once as we pulled the weeds in her herb and flower garden. I put a dozen pansies in my cart and moved on to carnations. Carnations are the candy of the flower world, but only the petals. The white base is bitter, she'd instructed, handing me one to try. In my young mind carnations had been in the same category as jelly beans and gumdrops. Treats to enjoy. "Impatiens." I browsed the aisles of Swansons, reading signs aloud. "Marigolds." Marigolds taste a little like citrus, and you can substitute them for saffron. My mother's face swam before my eyes, imparting her kitchen wisdom to little Lolly. It's a poor woman's saffron. Also insects hate them; they're a natural bug deterrent. I placed a dozen yellow-and-orange marigolds into my cart along with a couple different varieties of lavender and some particularly gorgeous begonias I couldn't resist. I had a sudden flash of memory: my mother's hand in her floral gardening glove plucking a tuberous begonia blossom and popping it in her mouth before offering me one. I was four or five years old. It tasted crunchy and sour, a little like a lemon Sour Patch Kid. I liked the flavor and sneaked a begonia flower every time I was in the garden for the rest of the summer.

and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jelly beans cascaded down on the expresstrip.

The defence shall cross-examine Zara Hanson,” he beckons her forward. “Would you tell the court how long we have known each other?” “Well…” taken aback, she ponders how best to answer, “you could say days, but then again you could say several lifetimes. It feels like I’ve known you my whole life.” “And in this time, would you say you trust my judgement?” Unsure where this is going, she gives a terse reply. “I’ve no reason not to.” “I ask that you trust my defence and do not draw any forgone conclusions.” “Okay?” Zara nods, her brow knits together with a look of curiosity. What’s he up to? “Zara Hanson, what is love?” “Well, you won’t find it anywhere near these jelly-beans,” she looks at the Elb. “Please, tell us what love is—not that which it is not.” “What is love?” Zara raises an eyebrow and smiles, “It is something indescribable, to categorise it would do its power a disservice.” “And yet categorise it we must.” Ansebe’s skin changes its tone, pigments diversify a hypnotic effect, influencing her emotions, “Please—what is love?

On our final night in Seoul, Nami and Emo Boo took us to Samwon Garden, a fancy barbecue spot in Apgujeong, a neighborhood my mom once described as the Beverly Hills of Seoul. We entered through the beautiful courtyard garden, its two man-made waterfalls flowing under rustic stone bridges and feeding the koi pond. Inside the dining room were heavy stone-top tables, each equipped with a hardwood charcoal grill. Nami slipped the waitress twenty thousand won, and our table quickly filled with the most exquisite banchan. Sweet pumpkin salad, gelatinous mung-bean jelly topped with sesame seeds and scallions, steamed egg custard, delicate bowls of nabak kimchi, wilted cabbage and radish in salty, rose-colored water. We finished the meal with naengmyeon, cold noodles you could order bibim, mixed with gochujang, or mul, served in a cold beef broth.

8 Things Other Than Your Productivity to Base Your Worth On: -Hair shininess -Easily calculating a 20 percent tip -Compliments from others about your productivity -Attention span (ability to watch seven-plus hours of television without drinking water) -That time you made salmon -The innate sanctity of being a living being (lol kidding) -All those times you didn't make the salmon (saving the salmon) -Your ability to look at a big jar full of jelly beans and accurately guess how many jelly beans are in there

Like we’re all just baked beans in a pot, or maybe bright multicolored jelly beans, each a different flavor. I’d be licorice. The black ones that get left at the bottom of the bag. The ones no one can stand the taste of.

When survival is a reflex: Frying eggs with Vaseline petroleum jelly Mixing porridge with a gun Cooking soup in a Koo Baked Beans can Putting fake coins inside the cup of a homeless beggar in the corner There is war in my mind Jo’burg stinks of pain, money, sex and drugs. I am flesh to this city of bones But yet my soul wants to be consumed by the spirits of the midnight dust

Quinn pauses his sit-ups on his punching bag. “What…like her…?” He gestures to his crotch. I roll my eyes and unravel my black hand-wraps. Donnelly tosses his towel over his shoulder. “Her clit? It’s not a big bad word.” Oscar butts in, “Everyone lay off Quinn—alright, my little bro is young, impressionable, and still has his innocence and virtue; whereas the rest of us have lost our ever-loving minds.” Quinn chucks his green boxing glove at his older brother, ten years apart in age. “Bro, I can say clit every day easily. Clit, clit, clit, clit—” “We get it,” I say, dropping my hand-wraps on the mats. Quinn scratches his unshaven jaw, sweat built on his golden-brown skin, and a tiny scar sits beneath his eye. Likewise, his nose is a little crooked from a short stint and bad blow in a pro-boxing circuit. Oscar has similar lasting marks. Security jokes that no matter how many punches Oscar and Quinn have taken as pro-boxers in the past, they’ll always be handsome motherfuckers. “I purposefully censored myself,” Quinn clarifies. “I wasn’t about to mention a teenage girl’s…you know.” “Clit,” Donnelly says. “Jelly bean,” Oscar adds. “Magic button.” Donnelly smirks. Quinn shakes his head like we’re all the fucked-up ones. My brows spike. “You’re the one who assumed ‘clitoris piercing’ at the word ‘unmentionable’.” I tilt my head at him. “And weren’t you like a teenager like one year ago?” Oscar and Donnelly laugh loudly, and Quinn gives me a faint death-glare. He needs to work on his “intimidation” a bit—he’s very green: brand new to security detail, and at twenty, he’s the youngest bodyguard in the whole team. If he screws up, that

Winter comes, and our cupboard shelves in the snug stone cellar are an art gallery of crimson and green and brown and white jars. We have canned raspberries, blueberries, peas, beans, a few beets, some apple sauce from windfalls, grape jelly, fifty quarts of canned yellow corn, many quarts of beef stew and beef soup stock, also pork. A five-gallon keg of cider sits in the corner. In a wooden bin are twelve bushels of Green Mountain potatoes, and we have bought three barrels of apples. Our rutabagas, most of our beets and carrots are stored in layers of sand. There are bushels of onions and a hundred Danish Ball Head cabbages laid out on rough shelves.

Kimmy, who spent most of the time making lame excuses for Jason’s behavior, apparently worried that I might blab to the press that the president’s son was a jerk—or worse, that I’d seen the first daughter’s panties. “Jason has been under a lot of pressure lately,” Kimmy explained weakly. “It’s tough to be a kid when the public is watching you all the time.” “Know what else is tough?” I asked. “Getting falsely accused of being a pervert in front of the Secret Service.” “Er . . . yes,” Kimmy conceded. “I suppose it would be. Would a souvenir White House key chain make you feel better?” “A little,” I admitted. By the time Cyrus arrived fifteen minutes later, I had scored an additional four White House key chains, three White House reusable water bottles, a model of Air Force One, a set of fancy pens with the presidential seal on them, and three dozen packets of official White House jelly beans.

When the world is perfect, then we can all sit down and eat jelly beans, but for now the fact that things are going well for you just means that you are in a position to alleviate someone else’s suffering for a while.

Madame Escoffier," he said. In his white apron, he was again the man she loved. The gentle man who only spoke in whispers. "I am sorry," she said. "I am not." He leaned over and kissed her. His lips tasted of tomatoes, sharp and floral. The moment, filled with the heat of a reckless summer, brought her back to the gardens they had grown together in Paris in a private courtyard behind Le Petit Moulin Rouge. Sweet Roma tomatoes, grassy licorice tarragon, thin purple eggplants and small crisp beans thrived in a series of old wine barrels that sat in the tiny square. There were also violets and roses that the 'confiseur' would make into jellies or sugar to grace the top of the 'petit-fours glacés,' which were baked every evening while the coal of the brick ovens cooled down for the night. "No one grows vegetables in the city of Paris," she said, laughing, when Escoffier first showed her his hidden garden, "except for Escoffier." He picked a ripe tomato, bit into it and then held it to her lips. "Pomme d'amour, perhaps this was fruit of Eden." The tomato was so ripe and lush, so filled with heat it brought tears to her eyes and he kissed her. "You are becoming very good at being a chef's wife." "I love you," she said and finally meant it. 'Pommes d'amour.' The kitchen was now overflowing with them.

LOOK, I’M ONLY IN THIS FOR THE PIZZA. The publisher was like, “Oh, you did such a great job writing about the Greek gods last year! We want you to write another book about the Ancient Greek heroes! It’ll be so cool!” And I was like, “Guys, I’m dyslexic. It’s hard enough for me to read books.” Then they promised me a year’s supply of free pepperoni pizza, plus all the blue jelly beans I could eat. I sold out.

She only has it in for me because I once swapped her black jelly beans with rabbit poo.

They roast a pig, four chickens, half a dozen guinea pigs (cuy, Ecuadorian specialty!), set out soups and tamales and empanadas and llapingachos, four pots of beans and rice. Mami has even baked a belated birthday cake for Essy, decorated with jelly beans and Jell-O and mini-marshmallows. And when they sing, feliz cumpleaños, it’s like a full-on chorus

Jelly Bean Toes Preparation and Instructions: This is a wonderful game to play while taking off children’s shoes and socks. Sit with the child comfortably in front of you or in a chair. The Game: Grasp one of the child’s feet and begin to feel around inside the shoe. As you come to the toes, say, “I think there are jelly beans in here. I love jelly beans. Yum, Yum!” Proceed to take off the child’s shoes while you continue to talk about jelly beans and how you can’t wait to see them, taste them, and so on. After you get the shoes off, continue the same process with the socks. You may say, “Now I know they are jelly beans. But wait, they are moving. Maybe they are jumping beans instead of jelly beans.” Be sure your facial expressions are exaggerated. Pull off the socks and say with surprise and delight, “Well, they are toes! Wonderful, beautiful, perfect toes!” Pretend to nibble the “jelly beans.” Many children have sand or dirt in their shoes. You may use this time to brush and clean the feet. Yes and No Game Preparation and Instructions: This is a wonderful game to play with a child who is a bit grumpy.

Did You Know Certain foods make you more likely to fart? The top six culprits are cauliflower, beans, bell peppers, corn, milk, and cabbage.