Life Is Like A Pizza Quotes

Life is a lot like pizza… But in fact, Hank, the fundamental thing that all critical reading does is reveal to us there are not easy definitions that distinguish us from them. Reading with an eye toward metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about while reading about them. That’s why there are symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the author intended a symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into other people as we see ourselves, and when we do that we can look out at the world and see a giant endless set of beautiful variations of pizzas; the whole world composed of billions of beautiful, delicious pizzas.

Little Life Lesson 51: When selecting a member of a group to put on the Endangered Species List, it’s probably best not to pick the least popular person, because there is always a chance everyone will shrug and be like, "Um, okay. Hey, anyone want pizza?" and leave.

Your life is like a pizza. It could be round, it could be square. But you'll enjoy it most of all When it's something that you share.

Because cooks love the social aspect of food, cooking for one is intrinsically interesting. A good meal is like a present, and it can feel goofy, at best, to give yourself a present. On the other hand, there is something life affirming in taking the trouble to feed yourself well, or even decently. Cooking for yourself allows you to be strange or decadent or both. The chances of liking what you make are high, but if it winds up being disgusting, you can always throw it away and order a pizza; no one else will know. In the end, the experimentation, the impulsiveness, and the invention that such conditions allow for will probably make you a better cook.

In the darkest hour of winter, when the starlings had all flown away, Gretel Samuelson fell in love. It happened the way things are never supposed to happen in real life, like a sledgehammer, like a bolt from out of the blue. One minute she was a seventeen year-old senior in high school waiting for a Sicilian pizza to go; the next one she was someone whose whole world had exploded, leaving her adrift in the Milky Way, so far from earth she was walking on stars.

fMr. Oswald places the telescope on the desk in front of us. "This," he says proudly, "Is a Broadhurst. It was the most powerful telescope for backyard veiwing in its day." Which was when?" Lizzy asks. The nineteen thirties," he replies. "Isn't it a beauty? On a clear night, you could see the whole entire solar system with this one." Unable to stop myself, I blurt out, "My very energetic mother just served us nine pizzas." Lizzy gawks at me like I have two heads. "He's lost it; he's finally lost it. I knew this day would come." Mr. Ozwald chuckles. "Jeremy has just given us a mnemonic device for remembering the order of the planets.

As I lay in bed every night it felt like an invisible hippo was sitting on my chest, and I couldn’t help but think: I am wasting my life.

Life is like a pizza. It is good to eat. You better share your pizza with me. You greedy Piggy slob.

If this were a book written to entertain small children, you would know what would happen next. With the villain's identity and evil plans exposed, the police would arrive on the scene and place him in a jail for the rest of his life, and the plucky youngsters would go out for pizza and live happily ever after. But this book is about the Baudelaire orphans, and you and I know that these three unfortunate children living happily ever after is about as likely as Uncle Monty returning to life.

At one point, I began to think that I had a divine doorman. Lenny was the most unlikely incarnation of God I could imagine, and yet, I kept drifting irresistibly towards this absurd conclusion. Despite my staunchly atheistic inclinations, I couldn't explain Lenny any other way. But eventually I came to my senses and realized that he was just one of those game show freaks with an encyclopedic memory. That didn't make him God, did it? Would God proclaim so regularly how much he likes Patsy's Pizza?

(Lucy:) Why do you think I was such a little fatso? From eating the junk she bought. Snacks, sodas, and pizza that tastes like cardboard. I have fat cells that will scream for the rest of my life because of Mother. I'll never forgive her.

Now, up until this point in my life, I’d shared that old theory that sex was like pizza. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. I now hated pizza. For several reasons. This was the worst kind of sex. This was machine-gun style: fast, fast, fast. This was thirty seconds on the tits, sixty seconds on something that was about an inch above where he should have been, and then in. And out. And in. And out. And in. And out. But at least it was over quick, right? Hell, no. This horribleness went on for months. Well, no. But for almost thirty minutes. Of in. And out. And in. And out. My poor hoohah felt like it had been sandblasted.

The 'swapping' is interesting. This practice one had thought confined to certain earnest Americans in the smaller, more tedious cities, to those wives and husbands who had read sex manuals and radically wanted more of life even if it had to be, like pizza, brought in from around the corner--all of this was accomplished by Bloomsbury in the lightest, most spontaneous and good-natured manner.

Since I am in this pain, the pain of having what is special taken from me, I look inside myself and I don’t like what I see: a man who is broken and alone. I think of all the time Lily and I spent together, just the two of us—the talks about boys, the Monopoly, the movies, the pizza nights—and I wonder how much of it was real. Dogs don’t eat pizza; dogs don’t play Monopoly. I know this on some level, but everything feels so true. How much of it was an elaborate construct to mask my own loneliness? How much of it was built to convince myself the attempts I made at real life—therapy, dating—were not just that: attempts?

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.

How many minutes of my life have I wasted staring at the microwave waiting for my plate to get hot while my food stays refrigerated? To save time, and add potentially years to my life, I've decided that I do like cold pizza. I learned that from my ducks, as they LOVE cold pizza.

I enjoy a torture session on the rowing machine and I also enjoy my mom’s homemade peach cobbler. I enjoy flopping like that dead fish with hips that can’t lie in dance class, and I also enjoy ordering pizza with my kid, renting a movie, and downing popcorn while we share some special time together. I enjoy seeing how much I can lift at the gym and I also enjoy stuffing a fresh chewy chocolate chip cookie into my face when I’m having a hard day.

Sewing on a button, like avoiding eye contact on the subway, is a basic life skill. Along with How to Windex a Mirror and How to Make English Muffin Pizza, sewing on a button was taught in the seventh grade by Miss Almeida in home ec. But home ec isn't on New York school curricula anymore. Home ec has gone the way of health class, where we learned you COULD get it from a doorknob.

Our twenties are glazed in a raging insatiability. No matter how much we do, there is more to be done. More to see, more to experience, more to destruct. These years exude the rawness of life and the imperfection of youth. It’s walking around the kitchen naked with pizza at 3 a.m. It’s drunken life chats in bathroom stalls and falling in love. It’s days that feel like we have it all together and nights when it comes undone. These moments are half forgotten, lost in a blur of fury, of adventure and confusion, of black coffee and red wine. A restless restlessness like nothing we’ve known or will ever know again.

When you eat pizza, you eat pizza as a mother. Every day--hundreds of times a day, every day--you give up what you want and how you want it in so many tiny little ways, that whatever squeezed-out orange-half remains of you, that's who you are now. It's fine, really.

RubyMars: Have you heard anything else about when you’re leaving for good? AHall80: Not yet, but everything seems to be on schedule. Should be about 8 weeks. The longest 8 weeks of my life. RubyMars: I’m sure. AHall80: I want a shitty, greasy, deep dish pizza like you can’t imagine. I can already taste it. AHall80: A hot shower… a real bed… AC everywhere… RubyMars: Clean clothes? AHall80: Clean clothes. Clean socks. No sand. RubyMars: Clean underwear. RubyMars: No sand? I thought you were planning on going to the beach? AHall80: The beach is different. There’s water. It isn’t just desert and more desert. RubyMars: I guess that makes sense. RubyMars: My brother said once that his goal is to never see sand in his life again. AHall80: For real. RubyMars: What I didn’t finish saying was that he said that, but he’s gone to Cancun twice with his boyfriend, LOL. AHall80: It’s different. I’m over this sand shit. AHall80: Never again RubyMars: Does that mean you’re dead set on not re-enlisting? AHall80: … RubyMars: Whatever you want. I’m not judging. We don’t have to talk about it. AHall80: It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it… RubyMars: But you don’t want to talk about it. AHall80: :] Basically. RubyMars: I’ll change the subject then. RubyMars: Have you gone #2 lately? AHall80: Three days ago. RubyMars: Are you joking? AHall80: I wish. RubyMars: AARON AHall80: I know. I KNOW. RubyMars: Does it hurt? AHall80: Uh, when it comes out? RubyMars: Omg RubyMars: Aaron RubyMars: I meant your stomach. RubyMars: Does your stomach hurt? RubyMars: I can’t breathe RubyMars: Or type RubyMars: I didn’t mean your… rectum. RubyMars: Aaron? RubyMars: Aaron? RubyMars: Are you there? RubyMars: AARON? AHall80: You’re not the only one who couldn’t breathe or type. RubyMars: LMAO I’m crying. AHall80: me too AHall80: me too RubyMars: I mean… you can tell me if your butt hurts too, I guess. AHall80: Ruby, stop RubyMars: Seriously. You can tell me. I won’t judge. RubyMars: It happens. RubyMars: I think. AHall80: Stop RubyMars: I can’t breathe AHall80: I don’t know when the last time I laughed so hard was. AHall80: Everyone is looking at me wondering wtf happened. RubyMars: Your rectum happened AHall80: BYE RubyMars: I can’t stop laughing AHall80: You’re never hearing from me again RubyMars: There are tears coming out of my eyes. AHall80: Bye. I’ll write you again when I find my balls. RubyMars: It was nice knowing you. AHall80: BYE

Just like you have taken control of your life you must now take control of your kitchen. It is YOUR kitchen after-all and in MY kitchen, I make the rules. There are no unhealthy ingredients allowed to be brought into my home. If my family and I do feel like we deserve to get some ice cream or enjoy a pizza, we get in the car and make a day of it. My house, just like my body, is my temple.

Imagine that the brain and the genitals are a couple of friends on vacation together, wandering down the street deciding where to have dinner. If they're women, it goes like this: The genitals notice any restaurant they pass, whether it's Thai food or pub grub, fast food or gourmet (while ignoring all the museums and shops),and say, "This is a restaurant. We could eat here." She has no strong opinion, she's just good at spotting restaurants. Meanwhile, the brain is assessing all the contextual factors [...] to decide whether she wants to try a place. "This place isn't delicious smelling enough," or "This place isn't clean enough," or "I'm not in the mood for pizza." The genitals might even notice a pet store and say, "There's pet food in here, I guess..." and the brain rolls her eyes and keeps walking. [...] Now, if the friends are men, it goes like this: The genitals notice only specific restaurants -- diners, say -- and don't notice any restaurants that aren't diners. Once they find a diner, the brain says, "A diner! I love diners," and the genitals agree, "This is a restaurant, we could eat here," unless there's some pretty compelling reason not to, like a bunch of drunks brawling outside.

The final thing I learned? I was completely and irrevocably obsessed with dicks. And also pretty damn gay. “Oh sweat balls,” Paul said. “That was… something. Also? I’m confused and I have an erection. As if being fat wasn’t hard enough, now I have to be sweaty and like penises. And I want a pizza. What the hell. How is this my life?” “My dearest Paul,” I said finally. “I think we might be queer.” “Well fuck,” Paul said succinctly.

Maybe we’re feeling left out or defective, ashamed or insecure. The feelings get too big and … for many of us, the fix is to binge on treasure troves of sugar and fat: pizza, ice cream, cookies, cheese, chocolate. For a little while, the chemical relief numbs out the hurt. Hurt? Worry? It’s all shoved deep down beneath layers of chips or donuts. Hidden. Out of sight and out of mind. Until the chemical buzz begins to wear off … and it turns out that the feelings never went away. They’re still here. And worse, now there’s self-loathing and shame to add to the mix. So we punish ourselves … until the hurt gets too big, and the cycle starts again. For those of us who starve ourselves, the story isn’t much different. We’re still trying to escape overwhelming feelings—of being a fraud, not good enough, unworthy, a failure. Instead of indulging in cover-up chaos, undereaters (like I was) discover relief—even a sense of power—in artificial control.

To my complete and utter surprise, the writing on his door is gone. Vanished. “What happened?” I ask. It takes him a second before he realizes what I’m asking. “I washed it off,” he explains. “You what?” “I wasn’t going to, but I didn’t want the super to give me a hard time. Plus, I thought it might freak out some of my neighbors. You have to admit, death threats on doors can be pretty offensive, generally speaking. Not to mention the sheer fact that it made me look like a total asshole—like some old girlfriend was trying to get even.” “Did you take pictures at least?” “Actually, no.” He cringes. “That probably would’ve been a good idea.” “But Tray saw the writing, right?” “Um . . .” He nibbles his lip, clearly reading my angst. “You told me he was with you last night. You said you called him.” “I tried, but he didn’t pick up, and I didn’t want you to worry.” “So, you lied?” I snap. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he repeats. “Please, don’t be upset.” “How can I not be? We’re talking about your life here. You can’t go erasing evidence off your door. And you can’t be lying to me, either. How am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me the truth?” “Why are you helping me?” he asks, taking a step closer. “I mean, I’m grateful and all, and you know I love spending time with you, be it death-threat missions or pizza and a movie. It’s just . . . what do you get out of it? What’s this sudden interest in my life?” My mouth drops open, but I manage a shrug, almost forgetting the fact that he knows nothing about my premonitions.

And I certainly wasn’t complaining when Domino’s Pizza offered me a million bucks to be their ad boy. If I didn’t have something, it was only because I didn’t want it. I was a devout atheist, livin’ large, hanging out with the beautiful people. Years later when people asked about that time in my life, I defined it like this: Imagine a world where whatever you want is given to you as quickly as possible. When you walk into a room, all the adults smile at you, talk nicely and say, “What do you want? Okay, I’ll give that to you.

Could be just the local boys holding a moonlight circle-jerk up on the hill or sitting around on the tombstones smoking grass. Mostly he'd run into them over in Cumberland, on the checkout line at the supermarket, each with two or three little kids and a little underage wife - who already looks as though life has passed her by - with poor coloring and a pregnant belly pushing a cart piled with popcorn, cheese bugles, sausage rolls, dog food, potato chips, baby wipes, and twelve-inch-round pepperoni pizzas stacked up like money in a dream.

Imagine you live on a planet where the dominant species is far more intellectually sophisticated than human beings but often keeps humans as companion animals. They are called the Gorns. They communicate with each other via a complex combination of telepathy, eye movements & high-pitched squeaks, all completely unintelligible & unlearnable by humans, whose brains are prepared for verbal language acquisition only. Humans sometimes learn the meaning of individual sounds by repeated association with things of relevance to them. The Gorns & humans bond strongly but there are many Gorn rules that humans must try to assimilate with limited information & usually high stakes. You are one of the lucky humans who lives with the Gorns in their dwelling. Many other humans are chained to small cabanas in the yard or kept in outdoor pens of varying size. They are so socially starved they cannot control their emotions when a Gorn goes near them. The Gorns agree that they could never be House-Humans. The dwelling you share with your Gorn family is filled with water-filled porcelain bowls.Every time you try to urinate in one,nearby Gorn attack you. You learn to only use the toilet when there are no Gorns present. Sometimes they come home & stuff your head down the toilet for no apparent reason. You hate this & start sucking up to the Gorns when they come home to try & stave this off but they view this as evidence of your guilt. You are also punished for watching videos, reading books, talking to other human beings, eating pizza or cheesecake, & writing letters. These are all considered behavior problems by the Gorns. To avoid going crazy, once again you wait until they are not around to try doing anything you wish to do. While they are around, you sit quietly, staring straight ahead. Because they witness this good behavior you are so obviously capable of, they attribute to “spite” the video watching & other transgressions that occur when you are alone. Obviously you resent being left alone, they figure. You are walked several times a day and left crossword puzzle books to do. You have never used them because you hate crosswords; the Gorns think you’re ignoring them out of revenge. Worst of all, you like them. They are, after all, often nice to you. But when you smile at them, they punish you, likewise for shaking hands. If you apologize they punish you again. You have not seen another human since you were a small child. When you see one you are curious, excited & afraid. You really don’t know how to act. So, the Gorn you live with keeps you away from other humans. Your social skills never develop. Finally, you are brought to “training” school. A large part of the training consists of having your air briefly cut off by a metal chain around your neck. They are sure you understand every squeak & telepathic communication they make because sometimes you get it right. You are guessing & hate the training. You feel pretty stressed out a lot of the time. One day, you see a Gorn approaching with the training collar in hand. You have PMS, a sore neck & you just don’t feel up to the baffling coercion about to ensue. You tell them in your sternest voice to please leave you alone & go away. The Gorns are shocked by this unprovoked aggressive behavior. They thought you had a good temperament. They put you in one of their vehicles & take you for a drive. You watch the attractive planetary landscape going by & wonder where you are going. You are led into a building filled with the smell of human sweat & excrement. Humans are everywhere in small cages. Some are nervous, some depressed, most watch the goings on on from their prisons. Your Gorns, with whom you have lived your entire life, hand you over to strangers who drag you to a small room. You are terrified & yell for your Gorn family to help you. They turn & walk away.You are held down & given a lethal injection. It is, after all, the humane way to do it.

A brick could be used to show you how to live a richer, fuller, more satisfying life. Don’t you want to have fulfillment and meaning saturating your existence? I can show you how you can achieve this and so much more with just a simple brick. For just $99.99—not even an even hundred bucks, I’ll send you my exclusive life philosophy that’s built around a brick. Man’s used bricks to build houses for centuries. Now let one man, me, show you how a brick can be used to build your life up bigger and stronger than you ever imagined. But act now, because supplies are limited. This amazing offer won’t last forever. You don’t want to wake up in ten years to find yourself divorced, homeless, and missing your testicles because you waited even two hours too long to obtain this information. Become a hero today—save your life. Procrastination is only for the painful things in life. We prolong the boring, but why put off for tomorrow the exciting life you could be living today? If you’re not satisfied with the information I’m providing, I’m willing to offer you a no money back guarantee. That’s right, you read that wrong. If you are not 100% dissatisfied with my product, I’ll give you your money back. For $99.99 I’m offering 99.99%, but you’ve got to be willing to penny up that percentage to 100. Why delay? The life you really want is mine, and I’m willing to give it to you—for a price. That price is a one-time fee of $99.99, which of course everyone can afford—even if they can’t afford it. Homeless people can’t afford it, but they’re the people who need my product the most. Buy my product, or face the fact that in all probability you are going to end up homeless and sexless and unloved and filthy and stinky and probably even disabled, if not physically than certainly mentally. I don’t care if your testicles taste like peanut butter—if you don’t buy my product, even a dog won’t lick your balls you miserable cur. I curse you! God damn it, what are you, slow? Pay me my money so I can show you the path to true wealth. Don’t you want to be rich? Everything takes money—your marriage, your mortgage, and even prostitutes. I can show you the path to prostitution—and it starts by ignoring my pleas to help you. I’m not the bad guy here. I just want to help. You have some serious trust issues, my friend. I have the chance to earn your trust, and all it’s going to cost you is a measly $99.99. Would it help you to trust me if I told you that I trust you? Well, I do. Sure, I trust you. I trust you to make the smart decision for your life and order my product today. Don’t sleep on this decision, because you’ll only wake up in eight hours to find yourself living in a miserable future. And the future indeed looks bleak, my friend. War, famine, children forced to pimp out their parents just to feed the dog. Is this the kind of tomorrow you’d like to live in today? I can show you how to provide enough dog food to feed your grandpa for decades. In the future I’m offering you, your wife isn’t a whore that you sell for a knife swipe of peanut butter because you’re so hungry you actually considered eating your children. Become a hero—and save your kids’ lives. Your wife doesn’t want to spread her legs for strangers. Or maybe she does, and that was a bad example. Still, the principle stands. But you won’t be standing—in the future. Remember, you’ll be confined to a wheelchair. Mushrooms are for pizzas, not clouds, but without me, your life will atom bomb into oblivion. Nobody’s dropping a bomb while I’m around. The only thing I’m dropping is the price. Boom! I just lowered the price for you, just to show you that you are a valued customer. As a VIP, your new price on my product is just $99.96. That’s a savings of over two pennies (three, to be precise). And I’ll even throw in a jar of peanut butter for free. That’s a value of over $.99. But wait, there’s more! If you call within the next ten minutes, I’ll even throw in a blanket free of charge. . .

You know how some people think cool equals bored, and they act like they’re alien scientists who drew the short straw and ended up assigned to observe this lowly species, humans, and they just lean against walls all the time, sighing and waiting to be called home to Zigborp-12, where all the fascinating geniuses are? Yeah, well, Mik doesn’t sigh or lean, and his eyes are fully open like something awesome might happen at any time and he doesn’t want to miss it. If he’s an alien, he’s an alien from a gray planet without pizza or music, and he freaking loves it here.

They ordered pizza so they could skip making dinner and finish their book. They ate cereal for dinner so they could finish their book. They forgot to eat dinner because they were finishing their book. The last time they finished a great story, the book hangover lasted three days. They were so caught up in their book that they let the kids draw on the walls so they could get to the last page. They locked themselves in the bathroom so they could read undisturbed. They think they might love books too much. Whatever it may be, they’re sure they’re the only one with this issue. Reader, whatever secret you’re keeping, it’s time to spill it. I’ll take your confession, but the absolution is unnecessary. These secrets aren’t sins; they’re just secrets. No need to repent. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Friendship . . . is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” Reader, you’re not the only one. Keep confessing to your fellow readers; tell them what your reading life is really like. They’ll understand. They may even say, “You too?” And when they do, you’ve found a friend. And the beginnings of a great book club.

Pizza Palace?” David asks. It’s just a few doors down. I picture my friends all huddled in a booth in the back. No need to combine David with my real life. “Nah.” “I figured you wouldn’t want to go there. Pizza Pizza Pizza is so much better and has that great two-for-one deal. I just didn’t want to suggest it,” David says. “Why?” “The name. It’s not like they have three times more pizza than other places. Ridiculous.” “How about we not get pizza at all?” “I thought you might say that too, since you had such a hearty, well-balanced lunch.” He pauses. Clears his throat. Stares at the single car making its way down Main Street. “That’s going to be one of those things I said out loud and then will regret later, isn’t it?” I laugh and it feels good. He looks sweet when he realizes he’s said the wrong thing. His eyes go big and wide. To rescue him, I link my arm with his and start us walking down the street. “Just so you know, if asked, I would have no idea how to describe your frequency,” I say. “Honestly, sometimes I think only dogs can hear me,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I can hear you just fine.” “It’s worth a lot,” David says, and I blush, and I’m pretty sure he does too

So began my love affair with books. Years later, as a college student, I remember having a choice between a few slices of pizza that would have held me over for a day or a copy of On the Road. I bought the book. I would have forgotten what the pizza tasted like, but I still remember Kerouac. The world was mine for the reading. I traveled with my books. I was there on a tramp steamer in the North Atlantic with the Hardy Boys, piecing together an unsolvable crime. I rode into the Valley of Death with the six hundred and I stood at the graves of Uncas and Cora and listened to the mournful song of the Lenni Linape. Although I braved a frozen death at Valley Forge and felt the spin of a hundred bullets at Shiloh, I was never afraid. I was there as much as you are where you are, right this second. I smelled the gunsmoke and tasted the frost. And it was good to be there. No one could harm me there. No one could punch me, slap me, call me stupid, or pretend I wasn’t in the room. The other kids raced through books so they could get the completion stamp on their library card. I didn’t care about that stupid completion stamp. I didn’t want to race through books. I wanted books to walk slowly through me, stop, and touch my brain and my memory. If a book couldn’t do that, it probably wasn’t a very good book. Besides, it isn’t how much you read, it’s what you read. What I learned from books, from young Ben Franklin’s anger at his brother to Anne Frank’s longing for the way her life used to be, was that I wasn’t alone in my pain. All that caused me such anguish affected others, too, and that connected me to them and that connected me to my books. I loved everything about books. I loved that odd sensation of turning the final page, realizing the story had ended, and feeling that I was saying a last goodbye to a new friend.

It's only second period, and the whole school knows Emma broke up with him. So far, he's collected eight phone numbers, one kiss on the cheek, and one pinch to the back of his jeans. His attempts to talk to Emma between classes are thwarted by a hurricane of teenage females whose main goal seems to be keeping him and his ex-girlfriend separated. When the third period bell rings, Emma has already chosen a seat where she'll be barricaded from him by other students. Throughout class, she pays attention as if the teacher were giving instructions on how to survive a life-threatening catastrophe in the next twenty-four hours. About midway through class, he receives a text from a number he doesn't recognize. If you let me, I can do things to u to make u forget her. As soon as he clears it, another one pops up from a different number. Hit me back if u want to chat. I'll treat u better than E. How did they get my number? Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he hovers over his notebook protectively, as if it's the only thing left that hasn't been invaded. Then he notices the foreign handwriting scribbled on it by a girl named Shena who encircled her name and phone number with a heart. Not throwing it across the room takes almost as much effort as not kissing Emma. At lunch, Emma once again blocks his access to her by sitting between people at a full picnic table outside. He chooses the table directly across from her, but she seems oblivious, absently soaking up the grease from the pizza on her plate until she's got at least fifteen orange napkins in front of her. She won't acknowledge that he's staring at her, waiting to wave her over as soon as she looks up. Ignoring the text message explosion in his vibrating pocket, he opens the contain of tuna fish Rachel packed for him. Forking it violently, he heaves a mound into his mouth, chewing without savoring it. Mark with the Teeth is telling Emma something she thinks is funny, because she covers her mouth with a napkin and giggles. Galen almost launches from his bench when Mark brushes a strand of hair from her face. Now he knows what Rachel meant when she told him to mark his territory early on. But what can he do if his territory is unmarking herself? News of their breakup has spread like an oil spill, and it seems as though Emma is making a huge effort to help it along. With his thumb and index finger, Galen snaps his plastic fork in half as Emma gently wipes Mark's mouth with her napkin. He rolls his eyes as Mark "accidentally" gets another splotch of JELL-O on the corner of his lips. Emma wipes that clean too, smiling like she's tending to a child. It doesn't help that Galen's table is filling up with more of his admirers-touching him, giggling at him, smiling at him for no reason, and distracting him from his fantasy of breaking Mark's pretty jaw. But that would only give Emma a genuine reason to assist the idiot in managing his JELL-O.

The pretty town of Bolzano is in the mountainous northeastern part of the country, in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, a recent addition to Italy that was chipped away from Austria in 1919 by the Allies as a reward to the Italians for fighting the Germans. Its history is complicated. Its boundaries have been rigged and gerrymandered by whoever happened to have the larger army. Many of its residents consider themselves to be of Germanic stock and certainly look like it. Most speak German first and Italian second, often reluctantly. Other Italians are known to whisper, “Those people aren’t real Italians.” Efforts to Italianize, Germanize, and homogenize the population all failed miserably, but over time a pleasant truce evolved, and life is good. The culture is pure Alpine.

Smokers exist in every kitchen. It kills a tastebud or two but we all die, and no one knows better than those who club the fish, clean the guts from the meat, and serve for your delectation a plate from which all blood has been wiped. We cook despite bad pay and sore backs and inadequate sleeps in apartments we can't afford and we wake up choosing again that most temporary of glories that is made, and then consumed: we know. We all die. Whether it comes after thirty years of hard labor or sixty at a desk, whether we calculate or plan, in the end we have only the choice of what touches the lips before we go: lobster if you like it or cold pizza if you don't, a sip of smoke, a drink, a job, a reckless passion, raw fish, the beguilement of mushrooms, cheese luscious beneath its crown of mold. What sustains in the end are doomed romances, and nicotine, and crappy peanut butter, damn the additives and cholesterol because life is finite and not all nourishment can be measured. When I learned to smoke behind a restaurant, my breath curling toward an inconsolable sky, I learned what it means to live by the tongue, dumb beast, obedient to neither time nor money, past nor future, loyal to a now worth living. I took my cigarette to the filter, and for the first time I appraised my employer back. He claimed to have evolved past fear. He lied. Behind the mask was a damp, scared boy. Fear of toxins, fear of carcinogens, tear of flood and smog and protest and entropy and all that could not be optimized, controlled, bought and held behind glass. Fear fueled a country so intent on perfection that they would give up the world.

It was a weird thing. Before the divorce, my mom had been kind of strict, the triplets constantly wrecking shit as she sternly tried to wrangle them. She had no patience for people who might complicate her life or create more work for her, was always rolling her eyes at how stupid everyone else was. She made checklists that no one else ever checked. She frowned a lot. I was slightly afraid of her, even though I knew that she loved me. And though I knew the divorce had messed her up, it had also seemed to relax her, like the bad thing had finally happened and she didn't have to keep waiting for it. She chilled out. The triplets, if they burned down the Dairy Queen, well, that was someone else's problem. If I invited some strange boy into our house and made out with him, who was she to intervene? We were eating pizza on a weekday. She was the coolest mom in Coalfield.

It was moments like finding coolers full of drinks and snacks left out in the middle of nowhere that made me appreciate the little things in life. Allow me to try and put this into perspective. When I ran into trail magic like this, or when I was in town for the first time in nearly a week and about to have a sweet tea, a slice of pizza, or any one of the small things that we would normally not think twice about in daily life; a special feeling would wash over me. I can only describe that feeling as being exactly like the feelings you would experience as a child on Christmas morning or waking up on your birthday, except stronger. Out here you don’t get that feeling only twice a year. You get it every time someone performs a simple act of kindness, or when you get a dose of something that you otherwise could’ve had at any time back in the “real world.” It’s addicting, humbling, and eye opening. It makes you appreciate what you had before the trail and makes you want to never take such simple things for granted ever again. 

Okay,” I said. “Okay, I’ll watch these kids. I’ll be their . . . what did you call it?” “Governess,” she said, delighted. “Yeah, I’ll be that.” “I promise you that I will never forget this. Never.” “I’d better get home,” I said. “Is Carl gone? Can somebody drive me to the bus station?” “No,” Madison said, shaking her head, standing up. “You aren’t going home tonight. You’re staying here. You’ll spend the night. In fact, you don’t have to go home if you don’t want to. We’re buying you everything you need. All new clothes! The best computer. Whatever you want.” “Okay,” I said, so tired all of a sudden. “What do you want for dinner tonight? Our cook can make anything.” “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe pizza or something like that.” “We have a pizza oven!” she said. “The best pizza you’ve ever had.” We stared at each other. It was three in the afternoon. What did we do until dinner? “Is Timothy still napping?” I asked, trying to break the awkwardness. “Oh, yeah, I’d better go check on him. Do you want a drink or anything?” “Maybe I can take a nap?” I asked. I barely took note of how huge the house was now that I was able to move through it. We went up a spiral staircase, like in some big-budget musical. Madison was telling me some nonsense about how during the Civil War they took horses up these stairs and hid them in the attic from the Union army. It’s possible I imagined this, some kind of fever dream in the aftermath of making a life-altering decision.

You had a right to vent. I was behaving like a mother hen." "A very sweet mother hen with too many chicks." "I promise to back off." He offered her another bite of pizza. "But I can't promise not to worry." "Fair enough." She kept her hand on his. "It's natural to worry.But you have to trust,too." "You know what I've decided?" He plumped up a pillow and stretched out beside her. "You're even more of a rebel than I am." "You think so?" "Yeah." "Next you'll be loaning me your Harley." "I could be persuaded." He linked his fingers with hers. She stared at their joined hands and sighed. "This is nice." "Yeah.I was just thinking the same thing." He leaned his head back and began chuckling. "What's so funny?" "I've been a bear for the past week. I'd have happily snapped off anybody's head who dared to cross me." "I know what you mean.Fortunately, there was nobody around for me to snap at. I had to content myself with yelling at the talking heads on TV." She paused. "How're you feeling now?" He looked over at her. "What a difference a week makes. The thunderstorm's gone. The cloudy skies. The nasty rain. I'm all sunshine and blue skies and sweet-smelling flowers, thanks to you." "Me,too." She set her wine on the nightstand and leaned over to brush a kiss over his mouth. "I'm so glad you're here,Wyatt.This has been the longest week of my life." His arms came around her,gathering her close.Against her lips he whispered, "Speaking of which, you make me weak." "And you make me..." His kiss cut off her words. As they rolled together, one word played over and over in her mind. Content. Wyatt McCord made her feel content. And safe.And absolutely, completely, thoroughly loved.

As we round the corner for our third lap, I catch Peter Kavinsky looking at me. I thought I was imagining it at first, him staring in my direction, but this is the third time. He’s playing ultimate Frisbee with some of the guys. When we pass them, Peter jogs over to us and says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Chris and I look at each other. “Her or me?” she asks. “Lara Jean.” Chris puts her arm around my shoulder protectively. “Go ahead. We’re listening.” Peter rolls his eyes. “I want to talk to her in private.” “Fine,” she snaps, and she flounces away. Over her shoulder she looks back at me with wide eyes, like What? I shrug back, like I have no idea! In a low, quiet voice, Peter says, “Just so you know, I don’t have any STDs.” What in the world? I stare at him, my mouth open. “I never said you had an STD!” His voice is still low but actually furious. “I also don’t always take the last piece of pizza.” “What are you talking about?” “That’s what you said. In your letter. How I’m an egotistical guy who goes around giving girls STDs. Remember?” “What letter? I never wrote you any letter!” Wait. Yes I did. I did write him a letter, about a million years ago. But that’s not the letter he’s talking about. It couldn’t be. “Yes. You. Did. It was addressed to me, from you.” Oh, God. No. No. This isn’t happening. This isn’t reality. I’m dreaming. I’m in my room and I’m dreaming and Peter Kavinsky is in my dream, glaring at me. I close my eyes. Am I dreaming? Is this real? “Lara Jean?” I open my eyes. I’m not dreaming, and this is real. This is a nightmare. Peter Kavinsky is holding my letter in his hand. It’s my handwriting, my envelope, my everything. “How--how did you get that?” “It came in the mail yesterday.” Peter sighs. Gruffly he says, “Listen, it’s no big deal; I just hope you’re not going around telling people--” “It came in the mail? To your house?” “Yeah.” I feel faint. I actually feel faint. Please let me faint right now, because if I faint I will no longer be here, in this moment. It will be like in movies when a girl passes out from the horror of it all and the fighting happens while she is asleep and she wakes up in a hospital bed with a bruise or two, but she’s missed all the bad stuff. I wish that was my life instead of this.

The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta. Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a role model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: * music * movies * microcode (software) * high-speed pizza delivery The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills." So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes.

As Japan recovered from the post-war depression, okonomiyaki became the cornerstone of Hiroshima's nascent restaurant culture. And with new variables- noodles, protein, fishy powders- added to the equation, it became an increasingly fungible concept. Half a century later it still defies easy description. Okonomi means "whatever you like," yaki means "grill," but smashed together they do little to paint a clear picture. Invariably, writers, cooks, and oko officials revert to analogies: some call it a cabbage crepe; others a savory pancake or an omelet. Guidebooks, unhelpfully, refer to it as Japanese pizza, though okonomiyaki looks and tastes nothing like pizza. Otafuku, for its part, does little to clarify the situation, comparing okonomiyaki in turn to Turkish pide, Indian chapati, and Mexican tacos. There are two overarching categories of okonomiyaki Hiroshima style, with a layer of noodles and a heavy cabbage presence, and Osaka or Kansai style, made with a base of eggs, flour, dashi, and grated nagaimo, sticky mountain yam. More than the ingredients themselves, the difference lies in the structure: whereas okonomiyaki in Hiroshima is carefully layered, a savory circle with five or six distinct layers, the ingredients in Osaka-style okonomiyaki are mixed together before cooking. The latter is so simple to cook that many restaurants let you do it yourself on table side teppans. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, on the other hand, is complicated enough that even the cooks who dedicate their lives to its construction still don't get it right most of the time. (Some people consider monjayaki, a runny mass of meat and vegetables popularized in Tokyo's Tsukishima district, to be part of the okonomiyaki family, but if so, it's no more than a distant cousin.) Otafuku entered the picture in 1938 as a rice vinegar manufacturer. Their original factory near Yokogawa Station burned down in the nuclear attack, but in 1946 they started making vinegar again. In 1950 Otafuku began production of Worcestershire sauce, but local cooks complained that it was too spicy and too thin, that it didn't cling to okonomiyaki, which was becoming the nutritional staple of Hiroshima life. So Otafuku used fruit- originally orange and peach, later Middle Eastern dates- to thicken and sweeten the sauce, and added the now-iconic Otafuku label with the six virtues that the chubby-cheeked lady of Otafuku, a traditional character from Japanese folklore, is supposed to represent, including a little nose for modesty, big ears for good listening, and a large forehead for wisdom.

So, uh, where should I…?” I told up the pizza boxes as I trail off. “Oh, right. Kitchen table’s fine.” “I’ll show you!” Madison announces, as if I don’t know where it is, but I let her lead me there anyway. Kennedy shuts the door and follows behind us. I set the boxes on the table, and Madison doesn’t hesitate, popping the top one open. She makes a face, looking horrified. “Gross!” “What in the world are you—?” Kennedy laughs as she glances at the pizza. “Ham and pineapple.” “Why is that fruit on the pizza?” Madison asks. “Because it’s good,” Kennedy says, snatching the top box away before opening the other one. “There, that one’s for you.” Madison shrugs it off, grabbing a slice of cheese pizza, eating straight from the box. I’m gathering this is normal, since Kennedy sits down beside her to do the same. “You remembered,” she says plucking a piece of pineapple off a slice of pizza and popping it in her mouth. “Of course,” I say, grabbing a slice of cheese from the box Madison is hoarding. “Pretty sure I’m scarred for life because of it. Not something I can forget.” She laughs, the sound soft, as she gives me one of the most genuine smiles I’ve seen in a while. It fades as she averts her gaze, but goddamn it, it happened. “You shoulda gots the breads,” Madison says, standing on her chair as she leans closer, vying for my attention like she’s afraid I might not see her. “And the chickens!” “Ah, didn’t know you liked those,” I tell her, “or I would’ve gotten them.” “Next time,” she says, just like that, no question about it. “Next time,” I say. “And soda, too,” she says. “No soda,” Kennedy chimes in. Madison glances at her mother before leaning even closer, damn near right up on me, whisper-shouting, “Soda.” “I’m not so sure your mom will like that,” I say. “It’s okay,” Madison says. “She tells Grandpa no soda, too, but he lets me have it.” “That’s because you emotionally blackmail him,” Kennedy says. “Nuh-uh!” Madison says, looking at her mother. “I don’t blackmail him!” Kennedy scoffs. “How do you know? You don’t even know what that means.” “So?” Madison says. “I don’t mail him nothing!” ... “You give him those sad puppy-dog eyes,” Kennedy says, grabbing Madison by the chin, squeezing her chubby cheeks. “And you tell him you’ll love him ‘the mostest’ if he gives you some Coca-Cola to drink.” “ ‘Cuz I will,” Madison says. “That’s emotional blackmail.” “Oh.” Madison makes a face, turning to me when her mother lets go of her. “How ‘bout root beer?” “I’m afraid not,” I tell her. “Sorry.” Madison scowls, hopping down from the table to grab a juice box from the refrigerator.

Wyatt." She tore it open and stood there, drinking him in.Just the sight of him had her heart doing a happy dance in her chest. "Don't throw me out." He lifted a hand. "I come in peace.With food." When she didn't say a word he added, "Pizza.With all your favorite toppings.Sausage, mushrooms, green..." "Well,then." To hide the unexpected tears that sprang to her eyes,she turned away quickly. "Since you went to so much trouble,you may as well come in." "It was no trouble.I just rode a hundred miles on my Harley,fought my way through the smoke screen at the Fortune Saloon,had to fend off Daffy's attempts to have her way with me, and discovered that I'd left my wallet back at the ranch,which meant I had to sign away my life before Vi would turn over this pizza,wine,and dessert. But hey, no trouble at all.It's the sort of thing I do nearly every day." He followed her to the kitchen, where he set down the pizza box and a brown bag. He glanced over at the stove. "Are you going to lift that kettle, or did I interrupt you making a recording of you whistling along with it in harmony?" Despite her tears,she found herself laughing hysterically at his silly banter. Oh,how she'd missed it. He set the kettle aside.The sudden silence was shocking. Because she had her back to him, he fought the urge to touch her.Instead he studied the way her shoulders were shaking. Troubled,he realized he'd made her cry. "Sorry." Deflated,his tone lowered. "I guess this was a bad idea." "Wyatt." He paused. "It was a good idea.A very good idea." She turned,and he saw the tears coursing down her cheeks. "Oh,God,Marilee,I'm sorry.I didn't mean to make you..." "I'm not crying." She brushed furiously at the tears. "I mean I was,but then you made me laugh and..." "This is how you laugh?" He caught her by the shoulders and held her a little away. "Woman,I didn't realize just how weird you are. Wait a minute.Do you think being weird might be contagious? Maybe I ought to get out of here before I turn weird,too." The more she laughed,the harder the tears fell. Through a torrent of tears she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on, burying her face in his neck. "You can't leave.I won't let you." He tipped up her face,wiping her tears with his thumbs. "You mean that? You really don't want me to go?" "I don't.I really want you to stay, Wyatt." "For dinner?" "And more." "Dessert?" "And more." His smile was quick and dangerous. "I'm beginning to like the 'and more.'" She smiled through her tears. "Me,too." "Maybe we could have the 'and more' as an appetizer, before the pizza." Her laughter bubbled up and over, wrapping itself around his heart. "Oh, how I've missed your silly sense of humor." "You have?" "I have.I've missed everything about you." "Everything?" He leaned close to nibble her ear,sending a series of delicious shivers along her spine. "Everything." Catching his hand,she led him to the bedroom. "I worked very hard today making up the bed with fresh linens. Want to be the first to mess it up?" He looked from the bed to her and then back again. "Oh,yeah." He drew her close and brushed her mouth with his. Just a soft,butterfly kiss, but she felt it all the way to her toes. "I mean I want to really, really mess it up." "Me,t..." And then there was no need for words.

Part One 1. Mr. B.G. (My Testimony) Mr. B.G. Lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, One of my memories is attending the Mill Creek Baptist Church between the age of 8-10. What I remember most about this church is the way they emphasized working with youth. Occasionally heard preaching before Sunday school. Followed by going downstairs to learn an hour-long Bible Lesson. They invested time with us outside regular church hours; Mr. B.G. And his brother would eat pizza at Sunday school teacher's house. Church even planned an all-night sleepover in the basement one time. Never can forget drinking coffee all night, which caused me to have an energy boost. Followed by overwhelming tiredness the whole evening. Played on tennis tables, among many other events. Thinking back, I did enjoy a church that cared about me at such a young age. Only participated a couple of years then stopped going. Thankful for their kindness to teach me from God's Holy word a way to Jesus for the years attended. John Paul Guras and Mr. B.G. both were blessed to have an excellent Sunday school teacher, Mr. Walt Silman. After making this choice, I could have traveled the remainder of my eternally bound life not seeking a real, living God. Many times, Holy Spirit was trying to speak to me, Ignorantly avoided influences like church, praying, reading the Holy Bible. Lost in the jailhouse of sinful darkness, with no care in the world to allow Jesus to direct my decisions. I wanted to lead the helm of my life the way I thought was best. Choosing our selfish way is like shooting an arrow at a target wholly missing the center of the bulls-eye. Doing what pleases me, me, me, leads us astray. Sin leads us to destruction. Jesus alone can change our inward nature to fulfill the center of the Father's will.

tip. I always try to catch a moment when I just stand back and quietly watch my family and friends enjoying themselves and each other. Let that moment wash over you so you can store it up for the times when life gets stressful. Those moments are like precious treasures we can pause to look at again and again. You might even keep a hospitality journal—a book to record the memories of your time together. Or, like we have, a guest book by the front door for our friends to sign so we remember our time together. Entries can be short and sweet, just enough to jog your memory: ice cream sandwiches on the patio with family and friends, game night with the grandparents, pizza party with the neighbors. You might write down what was on the menu, who attended, any details that you cherished—twinkly lights on the porch, the smell of homemade brownies baking, or jokes you laughed at, stories you shared. There

I thought how nice it would be to pick up the phone like a grown up and order a different life as if it was a pizza or something

Life aboard ship was like living in paradise for my agile friend and he could have continued this way forever if he hadn't discovered a splendid new game. When the stevedores were loading or discharging the ship, Peanut would hop onto the edge of the hatch and urinate down on them. Oh what great fun he had, never thinking that they would object to what he was doing. At first they would try to catch him but he was far too agile for them. Not that I understood what they were saying but I knew enough to know that the stevedores were shouting Bassa swearwords at him. Frustrated they would flip him the bird as they climbed down into the hold, foiled again. What a wonderful time Peanut had! His safest refuge was on top of the Wheel House, where the stevedores couldn’t go. Sometimes as a place of last resort he would dive through the open porthole into my state room. He didn’t like the Engine Room, as an alternate route to safety, since it was too hot and noisy. Besides the engineers didn’t much like a monkey messing with their things and who knows what trouble he could get into down there? Peanut, was wonderful entertainment when visitors came aboard. The Pan American flight attendants, they were called stewardesses back then, thought him adorable. I always had roasted peanuts for them to feed him, which he would pick and chew apart, littering the deck. The stewardess’s that came for my famous pizza parties always tried to pick him up and cuddle with him. Monkeys are unpredictable so I cautioned them to be careful but being such a cute little guy they seldom were. Ear rings were a favorite piece of jewelry to tug on, causing the ladies to scream. Most often he would let go but the wings above their pockets was another matter. Peanut would yank and pull on the insignia until it was his. I knew where he usually hid his loot and so could return their stuff but some of the stewardesses flew home without their wings.

Okay, Chace,” she whispered immediately. “Good,” he kept growling, “we got that down. Now we’ll get this straight and not mixed. You know my shit’s f**ked up. I’m workin’ on that. You popped up with bad timing once and surprised me another time. I didn’t handle either of those well. The shit I’m workin’ through, I cannot promise I’ll do any better. What I can promise is I like the way you dress. I like the sound of your voice. I like the way you smell. I like that your hair feels the way it looks, like silk. I like the way you taste. I like that you got a backbone. I like it when you get scared of me. I like it when you stand up to me. I like it that you care as much as you do for a kid you don’t know jack about. I like it that you have no clue how to kiss but still, the two kisses I’ve shared with you are the best I’ve ever had. By far. I like all of that more than is healthy for me but especially for you. But I like it so much, I’m gonna ignore that and hope like f**k this doesn’t get jacked like everything else in my life has a tendency to do. I like it so much I’m willin’ to take that risk. I like it so much that I’ve decided you’re gonna take that risk with me. And I’ll make that straight too. I’m not asking you to take that risk, I’m tellin’ you you’re doin’ it. That means I’ll be at your place at seven with pizza, beer, a sleeping bag and food for our kid.

here was a particular kind of energy in those early days, something I've only really found in startups. The regulars - the boring 9-to-5 people - haven’t invaded the world yet. All around you are people who practically buzz with mental adrenaline - the kind of people who sneer at words like policy and dress code and fill the office at nights with pizza and bad jokes and the relentless tip-tack-clack of keyboards. They push boundaries, turn small ideas into game-changers and small arguments into fistfights. No company can last forever this way: it’s a bit like being in a cage. Eventually the strange ones move out and give way to order and conformity and all the things that make for a smoothly operating machine. But that brief chaos is what really gives a company its soul.

Glorious Food Italians are known the world over for their food. Each region of Italy enjoys its own kind of cooing. For example, in Naples, pasta is served with a tomato-based sauce, while in the north, it is more often served with a white cheese sauce. The people of Genoa often put pesto, a flavorful mixture of basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and grated cheese, on their pasta. The grated cheese called Parmesan originated in the area around Parma. Italians also invented many other cheeses, including Gorgonzola, mozzarella, provolone, and ricotta. No one knows when pizza was invented, but the people of Naples made it popular. At first, pizza was a simple flatbread topped with tomato and garlic. Since then, it has evolved into countless variations, served all over Italy and the world. Italians tend to eat a light breakfast of coffee and perhaps a small bun. Lunch is often the main meal, while dinner tends to be lighter. Italian meals may include antipasti, an array of vegetables, cold cuts, and seafood; a pasta dish; a main course of meat or fish; a salad; and cheese and fruit. Bread is served with every meal. Italy is justly famous for its ice cream, which is called gelato. Fresh gelato is made regularly at ice cream shops called gelaterias. Italians are just as likely to gather, discussing sports and the world, in a gelateria as in a coffee shop. Many Italians drink a strong, dark coffee called espresso, which is served in tiny cups. Another type of Italian coffee, cappuccino, is espresso mixed with hot, frothed milk. Both espresso and cappuccino have become popular in North America. Meanwhile, many Italians are becoming increasingly fond of American-style fast food, a trend that bothers some Italians. In general, dinner is served later at night in southern Italy than in northern Italy. This is because many people in the south, as in most Mediterranean regions, traditionally took naps in the afternoon during the hottest part of the day. These naps are rapidly disappearing as a regular part of life, although many businesses still shut down for several hours in the early afternoon.

Andrew..makes a shit-eating grin at no one; at a pizza box. He is embarrassed for the pizza box. He folds it. ‘Shit-eating grin.’ He needs to stop. He needs to use his face to convey emotions to other humans in order to move sincerely through life—laughing in groups of three or four; expressing gratitude, concern, or disapproval about people, the weather, or food; and manipulating members of either sex to get them to love him, like him, or respect him. That is what a face is for.

My philosophy, if I had one, would be pretty simple. The taste of a pizza with a Coke, the sight of a well-made body, the feel of a mouth where it does the most good, the hearing of a piece of music I like, the smell of oil and leather and armpits.

Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity. You never worry about what to eat; whatever you wish for, you can have at your table. You are very generous with your food; you give your food unconditionally to others, not because you want something in return from them. Then one day someone knocks at your door, and it’s a person with a pizza. You open the door, and the person looks at you and says, “Hey, do you see this pizza? I’ll give you this pizza if you let me control your life, if you just do whatever I want you to do. You are never going to starve because I can bring pizza every day. You just have to be good to me.” Can you imagine your reaction? In your kitchen, you can have the same pizza — even better. Yet this person comes to you and offers you food if you just do whatever he wants you to do. You are going to laugh and say, “No, thank you! I don’t need your food; I have plenty of food. You can come into my house and eat whatever you want, and you don’t have to do anything. Don’t believe I’m going to do whatever you want me to do. No one will manipulate me with food.” Now imagine exactly the opposite. Several weeks have gone by, and you haven’t eaten. You are starving, and you have no money in your pocket to buy food. The person comes with the pizza and says, “Hey, there’s food here. You can have this food if you just do what I want you to do.” You can smell the food, and you are starving. You decide to accept the food and do whatever that person asks of you. You eat some food, and he says, “If you want more, you can have more, but you have to keep doing what I want you to do.” You have food today, but tomorrow you may not have food, so you agree to do whatever you can for food. You can become a slave because of food, because you need food, because you don’t have it. Then after a certain time you have doubts. You say, “What am I going to do without my pizza? I cannot live without my pizza. What if my partner decides to give the pizza to someone else — my pizza?” Your heart is like that magical kitchen. If you open your heart, you already have all the love you need. There’s no need to go around the world begging for love: “Please, someone love me. I’m so lonely, I’m not good enough for love; I need someone to love me, to prove that I’m worthy of love.” We have love right here inside us, but we don’t see this love. What makes you happy is love coming out of you. And if you are generous with your love, everyone is going to love you. You are never going to be alone if you are generous. If you are selfish, you are always going to be alone, and there is no one to blame but you. Your generosity will open all the doors, not your selfishness. Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant. We become selfish when we believe that maybe tomorrow we won’t have any pizza. But when we know that our heart is a magical kitchen, we are always generous, and our love is completely unconditional.

Then let me be the one to introduce you to the best thing you'll ever eat in your life. I’ll get a supreme, maybe a Hawaiian if you’re the type to like pineapple on your pizza—huge debate in the world, by the way—and of course, a plain cheese and a pepperoni just in case.

Do what lights up your soul like a disco ball in a dark room. Chase after joy like it’s the last slice of pizza at a party. Life’s too short for anything less than belly laughs, spontaneous adventures, and dancing like nobody’s watching. So, crank up the music, grab your sparkly shoes, and strut through life with a twinkle in your eye and a skip in your step. After all, the best moments happen when you follow the rhythm of your own happiness.

Tree was lonesome, and the adjustment to campus life was not proving to be an easy one for her. She missed the intimacy of her neighborhood back in Columbia, where she knew everyone she passed on the street. She had the typical freshman sensation of being overwhelmed. The lectures were hard to follow, a lot of the terms and subjects were new to her, and she struggled to take notes at the collegiate pace. She tried to keep up as best she could, but it seemed like she was always behind. She studied for two weeks for her first biology test. She was afraid of failing. Semeka Randall, in the next bed, heard Tree weeping. Semeka slid out of bed and padded back to Tamika and Ace’s room—she was about to cry herself. She said, “Tree’s crying and it’s her birthday. We have to do something.” The three of them spent all afternoon planning a surprise. They bought a vanilla cake with white icing; they blew up eighteen balloons and decorated the back bedroom with them; they strung crepe paper, and ordered pizzas. Word got back to me that Tree was having a hard day. In the afternoon, I called the freshmen suite. I sang “Happy Birthday” to Tree, in my voice that was hoarse from yelling at her. That cheered her up some. That evening, Ace, Semeka, and Tamika acted like it was just another night in their dorm room. They talked about going out, and decided against it. Semeka said, “Let’s just eat pizzas.” Tree thought, “There goes my birthday.” When the pizza arrived, Tamika told Tree to stay in the front room. After a minute, they called Tree into the back. She walked into a room darkened except for a flaming birthday cake. It was the final icebreaker. Tree beamed. The three freshmen circled Tree, and began to sing. Semeka started first. But she didn’t sing “Happy Birthday.” She sang their favorite song from the film Waiting to Exhale. As Semeka sang a verse, the others joined in. “Count on Me,” they sang. Tree, touched, started crying again.

Shaking my head, I grudgingly smiled. “Will the pizza be here soon?” “Yes,” he murmured, suddenly next to me. “You smell good.” Before I could speak, his lips were on mine for a brief touch. I froze for the seconds our lips met and remained a little frozen when he pulled away. As he leaned back, his lips curved into a gentle grin. “Those lips of yours are fucking gorgeous.” Covering my mouth, I sighed. All of my life, I heard about my fat lips. As a kid, people would tease me about how my lips were big enough to eat my whole head. My grandma especially liked that one. When I got older, the comments were always sexual. I hated when people talked about my lips. “You don’t like them,” he said as his fingers drifted along my calf. “Why?” “I like them fine.” “Do guys want to do something with those lips?” Resting my head back on the couch, I sighed. “I’m tired and you’re making me feel dirty.” Cooper’s hand stopped caressing my leg. When I looked at him, he stared back with an edgy expression. “You take things too personally,” he said, holding my gaze. “When guys talk about using my mouth for stuff as if it’s all I’m good for, why wouldn’t I take that personally?” “Not all you’re good for, but you have sexy lips. Like when I threw the bottle, you did this thing with your lips and made a perfect little ‘O’ shape. It was frigging hot and I almost forgot I wanted to beat the shit out of those guys.

I’m glad you needed a ride tonight,” he said, his gaze on the TV. “I’m glad I was around when you needed that ride. It worked out, but you look tired.” “I am.” Cooper ran his index finger along my face and under my chin. “I’m messing with you, but that’s all it is. I’m just teasing. I know you’re tired and nothing’s going to happen tonight. You can rest your eyes until the pizza comes and I won’t take advantage of that. I want you to want it too. Not to be an unwilling victim like with those assholes at the party. I don’t take shit from girls. They offer it enthusiastically and I know you will too eventually, but you need to make me work for it first. I appreciate you keeping my seduction skills sharp.” Grinning, I rolled my eyes. “Life must be great with your giant brain and even bigger ego.” “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.

See that?" Audrey says, pointing her floppy pizza slice at the screen. "She doesn't look any different without her glasses and yet he acts life it's this huge transformation. She was already sexy. She didn't need to take them off." "Well," I say, stretching my legs out and sinking into Audrey's pillows beside her, "it wasn't sexy to be smart, independent, and own your own bookshop back then. You had to take your glasses off and let your hair down to get noticed by a dreamboat like Bogart." Audrey makes an ugly sound in her throat. "I like to think guys have evolved since then," Jensen says, chewing. "I admire your faith in the make species," I say. "Hey, I love it when you talk nerdy to me," he says, lifting a brow. "So, clearly, there's been some evolving going on." "Audrey grabs another slice and takes a huge bite. "You're just one of the rare good ones, Jensen. An anomaly.

I don’t think that life—especially motherhood—should be about martyring yourself out. No one is keeping score but you,” said Laura. “Who is keeping score? Who knows if you order pizza one night or feel like, ‘I am having a bad day, I need to go get my nails done.’ Maybe your husband knows because you have to leave him to go do that, but that’s it.”4

When I was in my early twenties, I was head over heels for this woman. She was gorgeous. Just a real beauty. And full of life,” he said between bites of a garlic roll. Most of us like to assume, or wish, that our parents only had sex with each other, and only the necessary number of times it took to produce us and our siblings, so it was strange to hear my dad talk so highly about a woman other than my mother. He never had before, and I was intrigued. “So me and her, we dated for a while. A long while. Then, one day, we got to talking, and I told her how much I loved her, and she looked at me and told me, ‘I don’t love you. I never will,’” he continued. “I’ll have a sausage-and-pepperoni pizza with the salad,” he said, turning to the waitress, who had been awkwardly standing next to our table waiting for my dad to finish his story so she could take our order. I placed my order, and the waitress left. “So what’d you do?” I asked. “I told her I thought that I could change that. Maybe she didn’t love me right now, but she would eventually.” “What’d she say?” “She said okay. And we stayed together. And we fought. We fought a lot. And then I realized I had made a big mistake. She had given me her youth, and it was gone, and I didn’t know how to get out of it. And then she got sick. And she was dying,” he said, taking a deep breath, thinking for a moment, as if he were replaying something in his mind he hadn’t thought of in a long time. “So I made good with her, and I stuck by her. And then she died. And I felt horrible. Because I felt like here was this woman who didn’t want to be with me, she told me that, and I ignored it. And she was spending the end of her life with someone she didn’t love. And now she was gone. And part of me felt relieved that I was freed out of this relationship, and that made me feel so terrible, I couldn’t deal with it.

The wolf is regarded by many North-American scientists like Coppinger (2003) or Peterson (1995) as an "indicator species" for intact wilderness. In Europe however, where no landscape is left that is not manipulated by humans, the wolf is at most able to life as an essentially adapted being within a cultural landscape; evidence for an individual adaptability that totally surprises US-researchers.

Pizzerias in big cities benefit from Italian natives or descendants thereof, people who understand that real pizza comes from Naples where the crusts are thin and the toppings simple. Samantha’s favorite was Lazio’s, a hole-in-the-wall in Tribeca where the cooks yelled in Italian as they baked the crusts in brick ovens. Like most things in her life these days, Lazio’s was far away. So was the pizza. The only place in Brady to get one to go was a sub shop in a cheap strip mall. Pizza Hut, along with most other national chains, had not penetrated deep into the small towns of Appalachia.

The Deliverator does not know for sure what happens to the driver in such cases, but he has heard some rumors. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours, which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. And how would you feel if you bad to interrupt dinner with your family in order to call some obstreperous dork in a Burbclave and grovel for a late fucking pizza? Uncle Enzo has not put in fifty years serving his family and his country so that, at the age when most are playing golf and bobbling their granddaughters, he can get out of the bathtub dripping wet and lie down and kiss the feet of some sixteenyear- old skate punk whose pepperoni was thirty-one minutes in coming. Oh, God. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. But he wouldn't drive for CosaNostra Pizza any other way. You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line. It's like being a kamikaze pilot. Your mind is clear. Other people -- store clerks, burger flippers, software engineers, the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. Better flip your burgers or debug your subroutines faster and better than your high school classmate two blocks down the strip is flipping or debugging, because we're in competition with those guys, and people notice these things. What a fucking rat race that is. CosaNostra Pizza doesn't have any competition. Competition goes against the Mafia ethic. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. You work harder because everything is on the line. Your name, your honor, your family, your life. Those burger flippers might have a better life expectancy -- but what kind of life is it anyway, you have to ask yourself. That's why nobody, not even the Nipponese, can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform, proud to drive the car, proud to march up the front walks of innumerable Burbclave homes, a grim vision in ninja black, a pizza on his shoulder, red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43.

I'm a frightful example of what happens to those who step out of line...When people talk about spongers, they forget the contribution we make to the upholding of the status quo. I am a walking, staggering cattle prod, frightening the Reeboked animals into manageable herds, so that the ordered life of Western society may continue undisrupted. I am, if you will, a sort of policeman. As a responsible citizen I spend my meagre Giro benefit on high-duty items like cigarettes and spirits so most of the money the government allows me is ploughed straight back into its coffers. The remainder I spread like a thin fertilizer over the parched hard pressed land of small businesses - corner shops, pizza parlours and low-grade supermarkets. Even, God help them, those 'worse off than myself' get a look in since what few clothes I own are provided by jumble sales and charity shops. Furthermore, when I die, I shall leave no burgeoning bank account. Whatever may pass through the hands of a waster remains permanently in circulation since he has neither the means nor the pre-disposition to save - in effect, a congenital waster is as lean, fit and economically viable as the most stringently run software corporation.

DYING IS NOT HOT By Celia the Dark Cool is no longer cool because cool is now hot, and school isn't school if you are skipping. Then the neighborhood is school and John, the creepy dropout guy is teaching. And it isn't cool because the cool kids stay in school, where the other cool kids tell them them how hot they are and they wouldn't want to miss a dance for cutting. Kids who skip school were never cool or hot but already dumped into the trashcan with leftover lunch pizza, bruised into a locker, asking their parents for extra lunch money so they can smoke and act like they never cared anyway. And skipping school's not cool but it is school because that's where they learn what the uncool learn about life and dying.

Gabs, can we talk a second?” He clears his throat. Nothing good ever follows that statement. I brace myself for what’s sure to be an awkward conversation. “I just want to apologize for our… misunderstanding freshman year.” I’m silent for a moment, but the rush of anger that spikes my pulse has me responding before I think better of it. “You’d call it a misunderstanding, huh?” I roll my eyes. “Funny, I didn’t think I misunderstood anything, but if you want to mansplain it to me now, go for it.” Why make this easy for him? It’s always been difficult for me to make friends, but for some reason, Rider slipped through my defenses. I was assigned to tutor him in English. I remember meeting him in the library, and the shy smile he gave me. He was embarrassed to need help. It was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen, and I swear when he leveled me with those big gray eyes, the ground fell out beneath me. I’m a practical girl, but foster care made me cynical, and ending up with my aunt did nothing to help my outlook on life. But Rider was funny and sweet, not to mention ridiculously good-looking, and I went over faster than a felled log in a forest. This was before he was the golden boy of the football team. When he was just this guy Rider from some speck-of-dust small Texas town like me. Even though he rode the bench, I went to all of his games, and we’d grab pizza afterward and talk until late in the night. Although he didn’t outright say it, I knew he had a rough home life. He mentioned that his father was an ass. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and make it better. And I thought I meant something to him. That what we had was special. Until he became the starting quarterback.

It might only be a Domino's pizza, but the act of choosing toppings feels so frivolous. It's like a statement that life goes on. You're not ready for that statement.

This day was made to be lived, even if I didn’t feel like it.

He howls when the Bee Gees play on the radio, like he always has, though she’ll never know if this is a complete coincidence or if Gibb falsetto is the only frequency her deaf dog can discern. But that’s Auggie’s only real mystery, other than where he came from. Minnie knows her best friend. She knows his excited bark from his anxious bark, his I’m-hungry whine from his I-have-to-go-out whine. When he rolls on his back, he wants to be rubbed not on his belly but on the top of his head, and she shares his belief that the pizza delivery guy simply must be given a hero’s frenzied welcome every time. She’s given him food and shelter, walks and tossed Frisbees; he’s given her courage and strength by first giving her unconditional love. She never had to ask for it. It came into her life. All she had to do was trust it. Which is so much harder than it sounds.

The antithesis of giving thanks is grumbling. The grumblers live in a state of self-induced stress. Like the crew of vineyard workers who had labored from dawn to dusk and felt cheated when latecomers received the same wage (Matt. 20:1–16), they bellyache about the unfairness of life, the paucity of their gifts, the insensitivity of their spouse and employer, the liberals who are destroying the church and the conservatives who have deserted their post, the hot weather and the cold pizza, the greedy rich and the shiftless poor, and their victimization at the hands of the IRS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the manufacturers of Viagra. (Small wonder that the stressed-out grumblers are two and a half times more susceptible to colds than grateful people, according to Ohio State virologist Ronald Glaser.) In his Rule for monasteries, St. Benedict considered grumbling a serious offense against community life. He wrote, “If a disciple grumbles, not only aloud but in his heart … his action will not be accepted with favor by God, who sees that he is grumbling in his heart.” Indicating his fierce opposition to this behavior, he added, “First and foremost, there must be

Life is like a pizza. You have everything in its right place, the dough and the toppings. But it doesn't taste like a pizza until you bake it. Similarly, life isn't enjoyable unless you go through some pain.

Life is like a slice of pizza. It looks delicious in an advertisement, but when we actually have it, it is not as good as we imagined. If you envy someone’s life, remember the pizza in the ad. It always looks better than it is.

I have discussed how the goal of feeling happy is unusual; its not like other goals such as learning to bake a pizza, for which the desire to achieve is half the battle and steady application is the rest. Pressing harder on unfulfilled and unrealistic goals for happiness can paradoxically deepen depression.

i do not want to wait for another life to not care what people think of me. i want to run free in the wildflowers. say hi to strangers i do not know. i want to invite people over for dinner and not care if they do not show. i want to wear no makeup and not feel like i have to explain my lack of being put together. i want to eat burgers and pizza and not say that was the first thing i ate all day. i do not want to wait for another life to not care about the ideas people have of me. i want to be in the here and now feeling free.

The extreme consolidation in the corporate world over the past three decades has produced a playing field so rigged against consumers that pursuing the basics of life can feel like navigating a never-ending series of scams. It’s as if everyone is trying to trick us in the fine print of pages and pages of terms of service agreements they know we will never read. The black box is not just the algorithms running our communication networks—almost everything is a black box, an opaque system hiding something else. The housing market isn’t about homes; it’s about hedge funds and speculators. Universities aren’t about education; they’re about turning young people into lifelong debtors. Long-term care facilities aren’t about care; they’re about draining our elders in the last years of life and real estate plays. Many news sites aren’t about news; they’re about tricking us into clicking on autoplaying ads and advertorials that eat up the bottom half of nearly every site. Nothing is as it seems. This kind of predatory, extractive capitalism necessarily breeds mistrust and paranoia. In this context, it’s not surprising that QAnon, a conspiracy theory that tells of elites harvesting the young for their lifeblood (adrenochrome), has gone viral. Elites are sucking us dry—our money, our labor, our time, our data. So dry that large parts of our planet are beginning to spontaneously combust. The Davos elite aren’t eating our children, but they are eating our children’s futures, and that is plenty bad. QAnon believers imagine secret tunnels underneath pizza parlors and Central Park, the better to traffic children. This is fantasy, but there are tunnels—literal Shadow Lands—under some major cities, and they do house and hide the poor, the sick, the drug-dependent, the discarded. Under the flashing lights of Las Vegas, hundreds or even thousands of people really do live in a sprawling network of storm tunnels.

Moments of doubt are unavoidable when we take on any strenuous task. I've used the One-Second Decision to regain my composure and win hundreds of small battles during ultra races, on the pull-up bar, and in stressful work situations. And the first step is to mentally take a knee. The best person in any combat scenario is the one who is composed enough to take a knee when the bullets are flying at them. They know they need to evaluate the situation and the landscape to find a way forward and that it's impossible to make a conscious decision if they or their team is running around like fire ants. Taking a knee in battle is not as easy as it sounds, but it's the only way to give yourself time to breathe through the panic and rein in your spinning mind so you are able to operate. The battle hasn't stopped. Gunfire is still lighting up the night, and you dont have any time to waste. In that one second, you must take a breath and decide to bring the fight. When you are in the grip of life and in danger of losing your shit, just think, It's time to take a knee. Get a couple of breaths and flash to your future. If you fold, what will happen next? What's your plan B? This is not some deep contemplation. There is no time to order a pizza and hash it out with your people. This must happen in seconds! p90

I like that my closet is filled (to the brim) with my clothes and shoes and that I don’t have to save half the space for anyone else’s clothes and shoes. (I especially like this.) I like that I can eat cold pizza for breakfast and cereal for dinner if I choose to. I like that I can flip the two meals without concern that someone won’t like my random tastes. I really like that I can use my kitchen cabinets for storage space rather than for dishes or canned foods. I like that I don’t own a garlic press, nor do I know how to use one. I like that I have no need to know that right now. I like that I choose my own bedtime, my own alarm clock setting, my own home décor, my own vacation spots, my own TV channels, my own meals, my own life. I like that I’m only thinking and planning for one. I like that I have multiple remote controls and no clue what they go to, but I’m afraid to toss them out because they could be connected to a device that I might someday want to use again . . . and I control them all. I like that I can sit on my balcony on a cool autumn night with a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa and talk to God for hours, because I don’t have anywhere else to be or anyone else to be with. I like that my heart belongs to Him and is safe with Him. I like that He is the only entity I feel the need to consult with before making big life decisions . . . and I like that I have the luxury of a deeply intimate walk with Him, because He has my undivided attention and undistracted devotion. I’m pretty sure God really likes that too. So, after giving it all very careful consideration . . . I don’t think I’m merely settling for my life. I think I’ve chosen it.

On my early journey, I feel like I tried all the jobs. I picked blueberries by the bucket and manned the salad bar at the local pizza joint. I answered the phones and dialed for dollars, configured the technology system, designed training classes, and taught them. At one point, I ran the diskette duplication machine and packaged and sealed packs of diskettes (yes, that used to be a thing). I managed a restaurant and ran promotions to get more customers in on the weekends. I grew up with a firm belief that anything I wanted to do, I could learn. And so I did.

There is no old age like anxiety,” said one of the monks I met in India. “And there is no freedom from old age like the freedom from anxiety.” In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place. Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Without seeing Sicily one cannot get a clear idea of what Italy is. “No town can live peacefully, whatever its laws,” Plato wrote, “when its citizens…do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love.” In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real. The idea that the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one’s humanity. You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. They break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life. The Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water. Your treasure—your perfection—is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. Balinese families are always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to God—the gesture—while man takes what belongs to man—the food itself.) To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. The word paradise, by the way, which comes to us from the Persian, means literally “a walled garden.” The four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. Once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

Out of nowhere, our problem was solved. We had a stringer in New York whose life was spent collecting awful things for us off the cable channels: biker astrologists, transvestite psychics, body-building sexologists, stuff like that. He lived in a cold-water flat somewhere on the Upper West Side dodging cockroaches the size of rats while he survived on pizza. One night he was watching a cable channel unbelievably called Channel 69. Exercising their rights under the First Amendment, anyone at all could pay ten dollars and go on Channel 69 to do a number, because in America everyone is entitled to self-expression: it’s in the Constitution. Our stringer was halfway though a five-cheese pizza with extra cheese when he was suddenly face to face with an Hispanic woman in a green feather boa singing the Lionel Ritchie hit ‘Hello’ while she pounded away at a Yamaha portable piano. He had never seen anything like her in his life and for a while he thought there might be something wrong with the pizza, but when he recovered his mind he sent me a video by courier. The video had the artist’s name handwritten on the label. It was Margarita Pracatan.

Do you have an affinity for any character in particular?” MARTI: “Willow is probably closest to who I really was. I was an egghead, and I didn’t date until college. I was totally antisocial, and I was very, very, very shy. I couldn’t talk to boys. So I was much more Willow, although Willow is way cooler than I was. You know, there’s no one as geeky as me on this show. There’s nobody as awkward and introverted, and creepy as I was. I scared my friends. I was just a big drama nerd—I was too gregarious, too silly, then I would withdraw, and then I was too quiet. A couple of other girls and I were the biggest nerds in the universe. We were pizza-faced and just completely couldn’t talk. There was a hall that wasn’t actually a classroom, like an in-between place, called Room 6—it didn’t lead anywhere, it was just a dead end. We would stay in Room 6 because no one ever walked through there. That’s where we would hide so we wouldn’t have to talk to people. “It wasn’t the hardest time in my life, because I had a support system. I had what Buffy has. I had my Xander and my Willow and we had each other and we got through it. Man, thank God those weren’t my glory days. I hope my glory days are still ahead.” Marti Noxon

Because for all my massive appetite, I cannot cook to save my life. When Grant came to my old house for the first time, he became almost apoplectic at the contents of my fridge and cupboards. I ate like a deranged college frat boy midfinals. My fridge was full of packages of bologna and Budding luncheon meats, plastic-wrapped processed cheese slices, and little tubs of pudding. My cabinets held such bounty as cases of chicken-flavored instant ramen noodles, ten kinds of sugary cereals, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and cheap canned tuna. My freezer was well stocked with frozen dinners, heavy on the Stouffer's lasagna and bags of chicken tenders. My garbage can was a wasteland of take-out containers and pizza boxes. In my defense, there was also always really good beer and a couple of bottles of decent wine. My eating habits have done a pretty solid turnaround since we moved in together three years ago. Grant always leaved me something set up for breakfast: a parfait of Greek yogurt and homemade granola with fresh berries, oatmeal that just needs a quick reheat and a drizzle of cinnamon honey butter, baked French toast lingering in a warm oven. He almost always brings me leftovers from the restaurant's family meal for me to take for lunch the next day. I still indulge in greasy takeout when I'm on a job site, as much for the camaraderie with the guys as the food itself; doesn't look good to be noshing on slow-roasted pork shoulder and caramelized root vegetables when everyone else is elbow-deep in a two-pound brick of Ricobene's breaded steak sandwich dripping marinara.

there’s a long list of things I still give a fuck about (being on time, getting eight hours of sleep, artisanal pizza), and near the top of that list is being polite. Honest, but polite.

So when Bill showed up with a pizza, as he did periodically, Ovitz said, “We’d let him in, he’d actually have a pizza, we’d eat it, and then he’d disappear again. It was like that for years.

I’m sweaty. I’m tired. And I stink in places I really shouldn’t be stinking.” I whine and shoot a glare to Dean, who’s sitting in the passenger seat looking sheepish. “What?” he exclaims with his hands raised. “I didn’t know we’d have fucking car trouble. Your car isn’t even a year old.” “I know!” I snap, hitting my hand on the wheel and growling in frustration. “Stupid old lady car!” I exclaim and push my head closer to the window for a breeze. “The frickin’ air conditioning isn’t even working anymore. Me and this car are officially in a fight.” “I think we all just need to remain calm,” Lynsey chirps from the back seat, leaning forward so her head comes between Dean’s and mine. “Because, as horrible as this trip was, after everything that’s happened between the three of us the past couple of years, I think this was really healing.” I close my eyes and shake my head, ruing the moment I agreed that a road trip to the Rocky Mountains to pick up this four-thousand-dollar carburetor from some hick who apparently didn’t know how to ‘mail things so they don’t get lost.’” Honestly! How are people who don’t use the mail a thing? Though, admittedly, when we got to the man’s mountain home, I realized that he was probably more familiar with the Pony Express. And I couldn’t be sure his wife wasn’t his cousin. But that’s me being judgmental. Still, though, it’s no wonder he wouldn’t let me PayPal him the money. I had to get an actual cashier’s check from a real bank. Then on our way back down the mountain, I got a flat tire. Dean, Lynsey, and I set about changing it together, thinking three heads could figure out how to put a spare tire on better than one. One minute, I’m snapping at Dean to hand me the tire iron, and the next minute, he’s asking me if I’m being a bitch because he told me he had feelings for me. Then Lynsey chimes in, hurt and dismayed that neither of us told her about our conversation at the bakery, and it was a mess. On top of all of that, my car wouldn’t start back up! It was a disaster. The three of us fighting with each other on the side of the road looked like a bad episode of Sister Wives: Colorado Edition. I should probably make more friends. “God, I hope this thing is legit,” Dean states, turning the carburetor over in his hands. “Put it down. You’re making me nervous,” I snap, eyeing him cautiously. We’re only five miles from Tire Depot, and they close in ten, so my nerves are freaking fried. “I just want to drop this thing off and forget this whole trip ever happened.” “No!” Lynsey exclaims. “Stick to the plan. This is your grand gesture! Your get out of jail free card.” “I don’t want a get out of jail free card,” I cry back. “The longer we spent on that hot highway trying to figure out what was wrong with my car, the more ridiculous this plan became in my head. I don’t want to buy Miles’s affection back. I want him to want me for me. Flaws and all.” “So what are you going to do?” Dean asks, and I feel his concerned eyes on mine. “I’m going to drop this expensive hunk of metal at the counter and leave. I’m not giving it to him naked or holding the thing above my head like John Cusack in Say Anything. I’ll drop it off at the front counter, and then we’ll go. End of story.” Lynsey’s voice pipes up from behind. “That sounds like the worst ending to a book I’ve ever heard.” “This isn’t a book!” I shriek. “This is my life, and it’s no wonder this plan has turned into such a mess. It has desperation stamped all over it. I just want to go home, eat some pizza, and cry a little, okay?” The car is dead silent as we enter Boulder until Dean’s voice pipes up. “Hey Kate, I know you’re a little emongry right now, but I really don’t think you should drive on this spare tire anymore. They’re only manufactured to drive for so many miles, you know.” I turn and glower over at him. He shrinks down into his seat a little bit.

For the last couple of years, Friday night has been “pizza night” in our home, and I’ve grown to dread it. I never get a chance to crave or even want pizza anymore. It’s sad for me to see the shift in my attitude toward pizza. I’ve loved it all my life. It was a treat in my childhood, a staple in college, and a terrific late-night snack after shows, but now that’s all gone. Pizza has become that old buddy who was really fun to hang out with, but now he shows up at your house all the time uninvited, trying to make you fat, and you are like, “Dude, I know we used to party together, but you really need to get a life.” Like sleep and silence, my love for pizza has become another casualty of parenting.

his niece. I replay the day in my head. She looked out the door at me. Maybe she saw him. It’s the only explanation for her mysterious sudden illness. I knew it didn’t add up. Her interest in baseball. In him. And then her unwillingness to see him. But not everything makes sense. “Why was she hiding from her brother?” I muse aloud. Ethan shrugs. “If she wanted to hide the baby from Grant, it may have been her only choice. Alexa’s father is out of the picture and her mother is deceased, so Caden is probably the first person Grant would have gone to in order to find her. Abused women often have to cut off ties with their entire family in order to protect themselves and their children.” I run my hands through my hair. Shit. My instinct is to find her. Protect her. But I already tried protecting her once and she didn’t let me. Things are different now. Six months ago, if I’d found her, I think I would have thrown her over my shoulder and dragged her to my apartment, baby stroller and all. But now—I’ve had time to think about things. And even with knowing her identity and more details of her past, it’s obvious my feelings were not reciprocated. She was nice to me. She even kissed me when I kissed her. But I was her doctor. And patients sometimes mistakenly see their doctors as saviors. Not men they can build a life with. The fact is, she didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. She didn’t love me enough to trust me. She stole my heart and then she tore it to shreds. Even if she didn’t mean to. I gaze through the window of Ethan’s office. I can’t keep doing this. I have to move on. I have moved on. I’ve gone back to basics. My job. That is what I’m living for. I never should have lost focus. I’ve vowed never to allow myself to get close to a patient again. Get close to a woman again. At least until I’ve accomplished my goals. “Caden should know,” I say, gathering up all the paperwork and putting it into a folder. “I need to contact him and tell him everything. But then I’m done.” ~ ~ ~ I pick up my third beer of the night and crack it open, waiting for my pepperoni pizza to arrive. I’m spent. Exhausted from my meeting with Caden. When he was here earlier, we put all the pieces together. Caden never liked Grant. He didn’t think he was right for his sister. He and Alexa would get into arguments about him from time to time.

Have you guys ever heard of Wilma Pebbles?” “Is she a model? She sounds hot in a Flintstones kinda way.” “She’s an author.” “Oh. Does she model on the side?” “You’re an idiot. I never should’ve unblocked you.” “Your life would be so boring without me and you know it. It’d be like cardboard without glitter. Ice cream without sugar. Pizza without olives.” “WTF are you talking about?” “Guys, FOCUS And no, Wilma does NOT model on the side. But she wrote a book that sounds kinda interesting It’s called Triceratops and Threesomes.” “Like the dinosaur?” “Yeah. Apparently dinosaur erotica is a thing.” “What the hell have you been doing in London? Also, do you think triceratops fuck with their horns?” Noah Wilson left the conversation.

Is life only a recurring dream or nightmare dredged up from the strata and layers of your subconscious? A fable or fairy tale you absorbed sitting on the lap of your monkey uncle or your ancestral ant? All the lies we had to tell just to survive, and all those who died, Who has any humanity left? What reason do we have to go on like this, depending on the little holidays and celebrations, birthdays, weddings and graduations, anniversaries, communions, baptisms, deaths, assassinations, all these events to mark our passage through space, crawling over the face of this earth with such determination and purpose? Is it only our fear of death that's kept us going so long? You cease, and then what? Will things change so much? You disintergrate into that churning flurry, our siblings of the earth, beetles and larvae, microbes and bacteria, tilling the soil with their mandibles and pincers, their claws, jaws and specialized proboscises, infusing and secreting acids and enzymes and detergents, they'll have us tilled up in no time, turned into compost, humus, ready for the spring planting. And that age-old problem of the thing called I? No more. Subsumed by we, they, the writhing mass of existence. For lack of a better word call it God, call it eternity. Better still, call down to the deli, order us all a pizza. We'll need our strength for the struggle ahead. To the ramparts, boys and girls. Carpe diem.