Literally Just A Girl Quotes

I can’t do this, I can’t just be a wife. I don’t understand how anyone does it—there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you. Either that or look around for something to distract you.

For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters. And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls. It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else. I would have done anything to feel real again.

Thump “Oh, God” Thump Thump Unbelievable… I woke up faster this time, because I knew what I was hearing I sat up in bed, glaring behind me. The bed was still pulled safely away from the wall, so I felt no movement. But there sure as hell something moving over there. Then I heard ……hissing? I looked down at Clive, whose tail was at full puff. He arched his back and paced back and forth at the foot of the bed. “Hey, mister. It’s cool. We just got a noisy neighbor, that’s all,” I soothed, stretching my hand out to him. That’s when I heard it. “Meow” I cocked my head sideways, listening more intently. I studied Clive, who looked back at me as if to say “T’weren’t me”. “Meow! Oh, God. Me -Yow!” The girl next door was meowing. What in the world was my neighbor packing to make that happen? Clive, at this point, went utterly bonkers and launched himself at the wall. He was literally climbing it, trying to get where the noise was coming from, and adding his own meows to the chorus. “Oooh yes, just like that, Simon…Mmmm….Meow, meow, Meow!” Sweet Lord, there were out-of-control pussies on both sides of this wall tonight.

I do like him. I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.... .... Listen, don't hate me because I can't remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else." Franny made her voice stop. It sounded to her caviling and bitchy, and she felt a wave of self-hatred that, quite literally, made her forehead begin to perspire again. But her voice picked up again, in spite of herself. "I don't mean there's anything horrible about him or anything like that. It's just that for four solid years I've kept seeing Wally Campbells wherever I go. I know when they're going to be charming, I know when they're going to start telling you some really nasty gossip about some girl that lives in your dorm, I know when they're going to ask me what I did over the summer, I know when they're going to pull up a chair and straddle it backward and start bragging in a terribly, terribly quiet voice--or name-dropping in a terribly quiet, casual voice. There's an unwritten law that people in a certain social or financial bracket can name-drop as much as they like just as long as they say something terribly disparaging about the person as soon as they've dropped his name—that he's a bastard or a nymphomaniac or takes dope all the time, or something horrible." She broke off again. She was quiet for a moment, turning the ashtray in her fingers. Franny quickly tipped her cigarette ash, then brought the ashtray an inch closer to her side of the table. "I'm sorry. I'm awful," she said. "I've just felt so destructive all week. It's awful, I'm horrible.

I have never been a nag. I have always been rather proud of my un-nagginess. So it pisses me off, that Nick is forcing me to nag. I am willing to live with a certain amount of sloppiness, of laziness, of the lackadaisical life. I realize I am more type A than Nick, and I try not to inflict my neat-freaky, to-do-list nature on him. Nick is not the kind of guy who is going to think to vacuum or clean out the fridge. He truly doesn't see that kind of stuff. Fine. Really. But I do like a certain standard of living - I think it's fair to say the garbage shouldn't literally overflow, the plates shouldn't sit in the sink for a week with smears of bean burrito dried on them. That is just being a good grown-up roommate. And Nick's doing anything anymore, so I nag, and it pisses me off: You are turning me into what I never have been and never wanted to be, a nag because you are not living up to your end of a very basic compact. Don't do that, It's not ok to do.

You just want an excuse to stay,’ she whispered. ‘You two, you’re fucking addicted to each other. You are literally going to be a nuclear family, you do know that? You will explode. You will fucking detonate. You really think you can possibly do this for, what, the next eighteen years? You don’t think she’ll kill you ?

We don't have any option. We are dependent on these mullahs to learn the Quran," he said. "But you just use him to learn the literal meaning of the words; don't follow his explanations and interpretation. Only learn what God says. His words are divine messages, which you are free and independent to interpret.

I think you can tell by now that I'm not the type of man to beat around the bush. I'll tell you exactly what I want from you." Maxon took a step closer. My breath caught in my throat. I'd just walked into the very situation I feared. No guards, no cameras, no one to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. Knee-jerk reaction. Literally. I kneed His Majesty in the thigh. Hard. Maxon let out a yell and reached down, clutching himself as I backed away from him. "What was that for?" "If you lay a single finger on me, I'll do worse!" I promised. "What?" "I said, if you-" "No, no, you crazy girl, I heard you the first time." Maxon grimaced. "But just what in the world do you mean by it?" I felt the heat run through my body. I'd jumped to the worst possible conclusion and set myself up to fight something that obviously wasn't coming. The guards ran up, alerted by our little squabble. Maxon waved them away from an awkward, half-bent position. We were quiet for a while, and once Maxon was over the worst of his pain, he faced me. "What did you think I wanted?" he asked. I ducked my head and blushed. "America, what did you think I wanted?" He sounded upset. More than upset. Offended. He had obviously guessed what I'd assumed, and he didn't like that one bit. "In public? You thought...for heaven's sake. I'm a gentleman!" He started to walk away but turned back. "Why did you even offer to help if you think so little of me?" I couldn't even look him in the eye. I didn't know how to explain I had been prepped to expect a dog, that the darkness and privacy made me feel strange, that I'd only ever been alone with one other boy and that was how we behaved.

But I have to do something, and at least this feels like action. All those plans I had—photography courses and cookery classes—when it comes down to it, they feel a bit pointless, as if I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. I need to find something that I must do, something undeniable. I can’t do this, I can’t just be a wife. I don’t understand how anyone does it—there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you. Either that or look around for something to distract you.

He leaned his head against the dark iron gate, and Evangeline would forever remember the way he looked just then. He was still indescribably breathtaking, but it was all the tragic beauty of a sky where every single star was falling. His hair was a storm of broken gold. HIs eyes were a mess of silver and blue. The deadness she'd seen her first night in Valorfell was gone, but now she understood why it had been there, why he seemed so unable to give comfort or kindness. The girl who was supposed to be his one true love had literally stabbed him in the heart.

In fashion, one day you’re in, and the next day you’re out. I was literally in for just the one day, but I realized I’m happier being out, or better yet, at home on my couch wearing sweatpants, watching as a fan.

When I used to say I wanted to be anywhere but Brooklyn, I maybe didn't mean it this literally. And, I suddenly understand, I do want to be Vassa--or technically I want to make Vassa into somebody worth being. The only way to become that somebody is to live in a real, substantial world: a world that doesn't follow orders, that's just as willful and independent as I'm going to be. I can only become a whole girl in a place that offers resistance; a place that makes me fight for what I want.

What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked. She looked nervously down at the papers in her hand even though I knew for a fact she had memorized every word. “When I was eleven I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when the recruiters came to see me. They showed me brochures and told me they were impressed by my test scores and asked if I was ready to be challenged. And I said yes. Because that was what a Gallagher Girl was to me then, a student at the toughest school in the world.” She took a deep breath and talked on. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked again. “When I was thirteen I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when Dr. Fibs allowed me to start doing my own experiments in the lab. I could go anywhere—make anything. Do anything my mind could dream up. Because I was a Gallagher Girl. And, to me, that meant I was the future.” Liz took another deep breath. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” This time, when Liz asked it, her voice cracked. “When I was seventeen I stood on a dark street in Washington, D.C., and watched one Gallagher Girl literally jump in front of a bullet to save the life of another. I saw a group of women gather around a girl whom they had never met, telling the world that if any harm was to come to their sister, it had to go through them first.” Liz straightened. She no longer had to look down at her paper as she said, “What is a Gallagher Girl? I’m eighteen now, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t really know the answer to that question. Maybe she is destined to be our first international graduate and take her rightful place among Her Majesty’s Secret Service with MI6.” I glanced to my right and, call me crazy, but I could have sworn Rebecca Baxter was crying. “Maybe she is someone who chooses to give back, to serve her life protecting others just as someone once protected her.” Macey smirked but didn’t cry. I got the feeling that Macey McHenry might never cry again. “Who knows?” Liz asked. “Maybe she’s an undercover journalist.” I glanced at Tina Walters. “An FBI agent.” Eva Alvarez beamed. “A code breaker.” Kim Lee smiled. “A queen.” I thought of little Amirah and knew somehow that she’d be okay. “Maybe she’s even a college student.” Liz looked right at me. “Or maybe she’s so much more.” Then Liz went quiet for a moment. She too looked up at the place where the mansion used to stand. “You know, there was a time when I thought that the Gallagher Academy was made of stone and wood, Grand Halls and high-tech labs. When I thought it was bulletproof, hack-proof, and…yes…fireproof. And I stand before you today happy for the reminder that none of those things are true. Yes, I really am. Because I know now that a Gallagher Girl is not someone who draws her power from that building. I know now with scientific certainty that it is the other way around.” A hushed awe descended over the already quiet crowd as she said this. Maybe it was the gravity of her words and what they meant, but for me personally, I like to think it was Gilly looking down, smiling at us all. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked one final time. “She’s a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: A Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.” Thunderous, raucous applause filled the student section. Liz smiled and wiped her eyes. She leaned close to the microphone. “And, most of all, she is my sister.

The Amy of today was abrasive enough to want to hurt, sometimes. I speak specifically of the Amy of today, who was only remotely like the woman I fell in love with. It had been an awful fairy-tale reverse transformation. Over just a few years, the old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the east ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and out stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy. My wife was no longer my wife but a razor-wire knot daring me to unloop her, and I was not up to the job with my thick, numb, nervous fingers. Country fingers. Flyover fingers untrained in the intricate, dangerous work of solving Amy. When I'd hold up the bloody stumps, she'd sigh and turn to her secret mental notebook on which she tallied all my deficiencies, forever noting disappointments, frailties, shortcomings. My old Amy, damn, she was fun. She was fun. She made me laugh. I'd forgotten that. And she laughed, From the bottom of her throat, from right behind that small finger-shaped hollow, which is the best place to laugh from. She released her grievances like handfuls of birdseed: They are there, and they are gone.

If we lived in a culture with a higher tolerance for ambiguity, rather than obsession with measurement, fixed identity, and knowability, transition wouldn't be so confounding to people, and the process might be more normal. Epistemologically, we are anal retentive, Not rigorous, just stressed out. We need to know what a trans girl is. What are you, trans people get asked. Where are you from, people of color get asked. White supremacist capitalism wants to make a map of everything and then monetize the ways that things move around on the map. Basically literally, the museum.

One girl raved about a nice voicemail a guy had recently left her. I kindly requested she play it and heard this gem: 'Hey, Lydia. It's Sam. Just calling to say what's up. Gimme a ring when you get a chance.' THAT WAS IT. I pleaded to know what was so great about this. She sweetly recalled that 'he remembered my name, he said hi, and he told me to call him back.' Never mind the fact that what she described was the content of LITERALLY EVERY VOICE MAIL IN HISTORY. Name, hello, please call back. Not really a boatload of charm on display. To fail this test, a guy would have to leave a message that said: 'No greeting. This is man. I don't remember you. End communication.

Don’t you pricks judge me,” Kane snapped and pointed his index finger at them. “You try having sex with your girl when she is close to birthing a child. I’m fucking terrified I’ll bump his head or something... he is so low. He has a secure hold of her pussy now. It’s literally off limits. I just... I can’t touch her like that. That’s my kid’s mom!

I asked why he was so angry all the time. I told him that while I agreed with Alabama blacks who boycotted bus companies and protested against segregation, California blacks were thousands of miles, literally and figuratively, from those Southern plagues. "Girl, don't you believe it. Georgia is Down South. California is Up South. If you're black in this country, you're on a plantation. You have to deal with masters. There might be some argument over whether they are vicious masters, but be assured that they all think they are masters . . . And if they think that, then you'd better believe they think you are the slave. Maybe a smart slave, a pretty slave, a good slave, but a slave just the same.

He had even convinced a girl to splat with him once, just so he could say, “Girls fall for me—literally.

can’t do this, I can’t just be a wife. I don’t understand how anyone does it—there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you.

You just want an excuse to stay,” she whispered. “You two, you’re fucking addicted to each other. You are literally going to be a nuclear family, you do know that? You will explode.

Their other hands flipped up, palm to palm, and Merik’s only consolation as he and the domna slid into the next movement of the dance was that her chest heaved as much as his did. Merik’s right hand gripped the girl’s, and with no small amount of ferocity, he twisted her around to face the same direction as he before wrenching her to his chest. His hand slipped over her stomach, fingers splayed. Her left hand snapped up—and he caught it. Then the real difficulty of the dance began. The skipping of feet in a tide of alternating hops and directions. The writhing of hips countered the movement of their feet like a ship upon stormy seas. The trickling tap of Merik’s fingers down the girl’s arms, her ribs, her waist—like the rain against a ship’s sail. On and on, they moved to the music until they were both sweating. Until they hit the third movement. Merik flipped the girl around to face him once more. Her chest slammed against his—and by the Wells, she was tall. He hadn’t realized just how tall until this precise moment when her eyes stared evenly into his and her panting breaths fought against his own. Then the music swelled once more, her legs twined into his, and he forgot all about who she was or what she was or why he had begun the dance in the first place. Because those eyes of hers were the color of the sky after a storm. Without realizing what he did, his Windwitchery flickered to life. Something in this moment awoke the wilder parts of his power. Each heave of his lungs sent a breeze swirling in. It lifted the girl’s hair. Kicked at her wild skirts. She showed no reaction at all. In fact, she didn’t break her gaze from Merik, and there was a fierceness there—a challenge that sent Merik further beneath the waves of the dance. Of the music. Of those eyes. Each leap backward of her body—a movement like the tidal tug of the sea against the river—led to a violent slam as Merik snatched her back against him. For each leap and slam, the girl added in an extra flourishing beat with her heels. Another challenge that Merik had never seen, yet rose to, rose above. Wind crashed around them like a growing hurricane, and he and this girl were at its eye. And the girl never looked away. Never backed down. Not even when the final measures of the song began—that abrupt shift from the sliding cyclone of strings to the simple plucking bass that follows every storm—did Merik soften how hard he pushed himself against this girl. Figuratively. Literally. Their bodies were flush, their hearts hammering against each other’s rib cages. He walked his fingers down her back, over her shoulders, and out to her hands. The last drops of a harsh rain. The music slowed. She pulled away first, slinking back the required four steps. Merik didn’t look away from her face, and he only distantly noticed that, as she pulled away, his Windwitchery seemed to settle. Her skirts stopped swishing, her hair fluttered back to her shoulders. Then he slid backward four steps and folded his arms over his chest. The music came to a close. And Merik returned to his brain with a sickening certainty that Noden and His Hagfishes laughed at him from the bottom of the sea.

She’s the reason he will probably become an embittered old fuck before he’s even of legal drinking age, distrusting women and writing rude songs about them, and basically from here into eternity thinking all chicks are lying cheating sluts because one of them broke his heart. He’s the type of guy that makes girls like me frigid. I’m the girl who knows he’s capable of poetry, because, like I said, there are things I just know. I’m the one who could give him that old-fashioned song title of a thing called Devotion and True Love (However Complicated), if he ever gave a girl like me a second glance. I’m the less-than-five-minute girlfriend who for one too-brief kiss fantasized about ditching this joint with him, going all the way punk with him at a fucking jazz club in the Village or something. Maybe I would have treated him to borscht at Veselka at five in the morning, maybe I would have walked along Battery Park with him at sunrise, holding his hand, knowing I would become the one who would believe in him. I would tell him, I heard you play, I’ve read your poetry, not that crap your band just performed, but those love letters and songs you wrote to Tris. I know what you’re capable of and it’s certainly more than being a bassist in an average queercore band—you’re better than that; and dude, having a drummer, it’s like key, you fucking need one. I would be equipment bitch for him every night, no complaints. But, no, he’s the type with a complex for the Tris type: the big tits, the dumb giggle, the blowhard. Literally.

I tried to bend over and touch my toes this morning,” I tell the girls. “I tipped over, hit my head on the desk, and then had to call for Nana to get up. I’m literally the size of an Oompa Loompa.” “You’re the most beautiful Oompa Loompa in the world,” Hope declares. “Because she’s not orange.” “Oompa Loompas were orange?” I try to conjure up a mental picture of them but can only recall their white overalls. Carin purses her lips. “Were they supposed to be candies? Like orange slices? Or maybe candy corn?” “They were squirrels,” Hope informs us. “No way,” we both say at once. “Yes way. I read it on the back of a Laffy Taffy when I was like ten. It was a trivia question and I’d just seen the movie. I was terrified of squirrels for years afterwards.” “Shit. Learn something new every day.” I push my body upright, a task that takes a certain amount of upper body strength these days, and toddle over to inspect the crib. “I don’t believe you,” Carin tells Hope. “The movie is about candy. It’s called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Since when are squirrels candies? I can buy into a bunny because, you know, the chocolate Easter bunnies, but not a squirrel.” “Look it up, Careful. I’m right.” “You’re ruining my childhood.” Carin turns to me. “Don’t do this to your daughter.” “Raise her to believe Oompa Loompas are squirrels?” “Yes

I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look good whatever you did with it." Here's the thing.He looked like he meant it, and like it had been the most natural thing in the world to say. I blinked at him. "Okay," I said. "You want to know something about me that I don't really want to tell you? How about this. I dont get it.This.I hate that I don't. I wish I were the kind of girl who took guys like you as my sovereign right in life. But I don't." "Yeah,I've sorta figured that out,too." He let go of my hair and put his hand on my waist, so his thumb was against my skin. I shivered. "Here's my first reveal for the night. One day, not so long ago, I'm just sitting in the dining room, digesting, minding my own business-literally. Trying to decide whether the second hamburger had been such a good idea and whether to break up with my girlfriend of a year and a half. Then I try to stand up, and suddenly there's this really pretty girl doubled over and looking at my book like it was covered with crap-" "I wasn't." "Yeah.You were. So there you were, with that amazing face and a yard of hair that smelled like flowers, and all this stuff drawn on your jeans. I really liked that." "You liked my jeans." "Among other things.But, jeez, Ella. After that, if you weren't making me feel like I had the IQ of a stone, your friends were looking at me like I'd crawled out from under one. I won't even go into what you obviously think of my friends." "Chase Vere is a reptile.

Literally. I must take my husband out of my dark shadowy thoughts and shine some cheerful golden light on him. I must do better at adoring him like I used to. Nick responds to adoration. I just wish it felt more equal.

I can't do this, I can't just be a wife. I don't understand how anyone does it — there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you. Either that, or look around for something to distract you.

A few months ago on a school morning, as I attempted to etch a straight midline part on the back of my wiggling daughter's soon-to-be-ponytailed blond head, I reminded her that it was chilly outside and she needed to grab a sweater. "No, mama." "Excuse me?" "No, I don't want to wear that sweater, it makes me look fat." "What?!" My comb clattered to the bathroom floor. "Fat?! What do you know about fat? You're 5 years old! You are definitely not fat. God made you just right. Now get your sweater." She scampered off, and I wearily leaned against the counter and let out a long, sad sigh. It has begun. I thought I had a few more years before my twin daughters picked up the modern day f-word. I have admittedly had my own seasons of unwarranted, psychotic Slim-Fasting and have looked erroneously to the scale to give me a measurement of myself. But these departures from my character were in my 20s, before the balancing hand of motherhood met the grounding grip of running. Once I learned what it meant to push myself, I lost all taste for depriving myself. I want to grow into more of a woman, not find ways to whittle myself down to less. The way I see it, the only way to run counter to our toxic image-centric society is to literally run by example. I can't tell my daughters that beauty is an incidental side effect of living your passion rather than an adherence to socially prescribed standards. I can't tell my son how to recognize and appreciate this kind of beauty in a woman. I have to show them, over and over again, mile after mile, until they feel the power of their own legs beneath them and catch the rhythm of their own strides. Which is why my parents wake my kids early on race-day mornings. It matters to me that my children see me out there, slogging through difficult miles. I want my girls to grow up recognizing the beauty of strength, the exuberance of endurance, and the core confidence residing in a well-tended body and spirit. I want them to be more interested in what they are doing than how they look doing it. I want them to enjoy food that is delicious, feed their bodies with wisdom and intent, and give themselves the freedom to indulge. I want them to compete in healthy ways that honor the cultivation of skill, the expenditure of effort, and the courage of the attempt. Grace and Bella, will you have any idea how lovely you are when you try? Recently we ran the Chuy's Hot to Trot Kids K together as a family in Austin, and I ran the 5-K immediately afterward. Post?race, my kids asked me where my medal was. I explained that not everyone gets a medal, so they must have run really well (all kids got a medal, shhh!). As I picked up Grace, she said, "You are so sweaty Mommy, all wet." Luke smiled and said, "Mommy's sweaty 'cause she's fast. And she looks pretty. All clean." My PRs will never garner attention or generate awards. But when I run, I am 100 percent me--my strengths and weaknesses play out like a cracked-open diary, my emotions often as raw as the chafing from my jog bra. In my ultimate moments of vulnerability, I am twice the woman I was when I thought I was meant to look pretty on the sidelines. Sweaty and smiling, breathless and beautiful: Running helps us all shine. A lesson worth passing along.

When Jesus died and rose, He gave you the power to defeat sin. Literally. Like you don't have to give in. Every single time you are tempted to sin, just remember the reality that Jesus defeated it already. You're not a slave. You are free. You just have to believe that and walk in it.

Gregori brought Savannah's hand to the warmth of his mouth,his breath heating the pulse beating in her wrist. The night is especially beautiful, mon petit amour.Your hero saved the girl, walks among humans, and converses with a fool.That alone should bring a smile to your face.Do not weep for what we cannot change.We will make certain that this human with us comes to no harm. Are you my hero,then? There were tears in her voice, in her mind, like an iridescent prism. She needed him, his comfort,his support under her terrible weight of guilt and love and loss. Always,for all eternity, he answered instantly,without hesitation, his eyes hot mercury. He tipped her chin up so that she met the brilliance of his silver gaze.Always, mon amour.His molten gaze trapped her blue one and held her enthralled. Your heart grows lighter.The burden of your sorrow becomes my own. He held her gaze captive for a few moments to ensure that she was free of the heaviness crushing her. Savannah blinked and moved a little away from him, wondering what she had been thinking of.What had they been talking about? "Gary." Gregori drawled the name slowly and sat back in his chair,totally relaxed. He looked like a sprawling tiger,dangerous and untamed. "Tell us about yourself." "I work a lot.I'm not married. I'm really not much of a people person. I'm basically a nerd." Gregori shifted, a subtle movement of muscles suggesting great power. "I am not familiar with this term." "Yeah,well,you wouldn't be," Gary said. "It means I have lots of brains and no brawn.I don't do the athlete thing. I'm into computers and chess and things requiring intellect. Women find me skinny,wimpy,and boring. Not something they would you." There was no bitterness in his voice,just a quiet acceptance of himself,his life. Gregori's white teeth flashed. "There is only one woman who matters to me, Gary, and she finds me difficult to live with.I cannot imagine why,can you?" "Maybe because you're jealous, possessive, concerned with every single detail of her life?" Gary plainly took the question literally, offering up his observations without judgement. "You're probably domineering,too. I can see that. Yeah.It might be tough." Savannah burst out laughing, the sound musical, rivaling the street musicians. People within hearing turned their heads and held their breath, hoping for more. "Very astute, Gary.Very, very astute. I bet you have an anormous IQ." Gregori stirred again, the movement a ripple of power,of danger. He was suddenly leaning into Gary. "You think you are intelligent? Baiting the wild animal is not too smart.

And just like that, with the emptiness on my finger, the literal weight lifted off my hand, I feel that much freer to make my own decisions. I feel less like I owe my daddy my word. Less like I owe Dom my body and more like I belong to me and only me. I feel like I just made room for myself.

Usually when her mom gave her warnings like this, Elena would just give her a thumbs up. Like, No prob, Bob. Because it really wasn’t a problem. Avoid men? Done! This had literally never been an issue for her. When other girls complained about how to deal with unwanted male attention, Elena wouldn’t feel jealous exactly, but she would feel curious—how does one go about attracting such attention? And is it impossible to attract just some of it? Just a small, manageable amount? Or was attention from boys all or nothing, like a tap that, once you’d found it, you could never turn off?

But I do like a certain standard of living—I think it’s fair to say the garbage shouldn’t literally overflow, and the plates shouldn’t sit in the sink for a week with smears of bean burrito dried on them. That’s just being a good grown-up roommate. And Nick’s not doing anything anymore, so I have to nag, and it pisses me off:

The next thing I knew Jamie was in my lap wrapping her arms around my neck as if she planned on keeping me hostage for eternity. If that were the case, bring on the shackles babe, because no way was I going to be the one to end this epic kiss. I felt like I was on fire—like warm energy was spilling out of Jamie, washing over me and causing all my hair to stand on end. I started shaking—just a slight tremor in my hands at first, but it quickly progressed to violent, uncontrollable shivers. The energy was filling my body so full I thought I’d literally burst apart at my seams. Then, when I was ready to combust Jamie finally stilled. She pulled her face back and smiled at me with a cool expression, but I know she was affected as I was. I wasn’t the only one breathing hard and shaking. “You can keep the gum,” she said, trying to mask her feelings with a smirk. She couldn’t quite manage it though. Her eyes were bright and full of disbelief. She was as surprised as I was. She climbed off me and with a wink said, “Have fun at the dance.” And then she was gone. She walked out of the cafeteria as if that hadn’t just happened. As if she hadn’t just completely wrecked me. I had no idea if what I felt meant we were soul mates or something crazy like that, but I knew two things for certain. One: Jamie Baker wasn’t the ice queen she pretended to be. And two: I wanted her more than anything I’d ever wanted in my entire life. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew deep down in my gut it would be worth it. “Game on, Ice Queen,” I muttered as I stumbled back over to Mike to rub my victory in his face. “You’re already mine. You just don’t know it yet.

Are you sure there’s not someone…” “Mom! I literally go to work and come home. Where would I even meet a guy?” She’s laughing with a sly smile as she tries to hide her face from me. “I’m just sayin’. You have the look of a girl who’s been—” “I am begging you not to finish that sentence.” “I’m an ER nurse, Charlie. You think a little sex talk makes me squeamish?

I’m saying this because it’s said breaths are stolen during a passionate kiss. That’s not true, Gavin, because I literally can’t breathe before your lips even touch mine. I try, but I’m unable to. I can’t think when you look at me. You strip my mind bare. You always have, and it’s beautiful and consuming. It’s magical and everything a girl is supposed to feel. It’s said you’re truly in love with someone if your skin tingles from their touch. Mine tingles when I hear your voice; I don’t need you to touch me. I can feel you when you’re not near me. I feel you in my dreams. I felt you when you were a thousand miles away. “You scared me the moment I saw you, and I think it’s because I knew, I just knew, I was going to fall in love you. I didn’t know our worlds were already intertwined, but my heart somehow knew it belonged to you from the start. I didn’t believe a pain so deep existed while we were apart, but I also didn’t believe a love like ours existed. You’ve shown me it does. You’ve shown me good when there was bad. You’ve given me pleasure above all of my pain. You’ve given me life when I thought I was dead.

I was walking on campus when I saw the statistic on the front page of a newspaper: one in four women, one in five? I don’t remember, it was just too many, too many women on campus had been sexually assaulted. But what got me was the graphic, rows of woman symbols, the kind you see on bathroom signs, across the entire page, all gray, with one in five inked red. I saw these red figures breathing, a little hallucination. My whole life had warped below the weight of the assault, and if you took that damage and multiplied it by each red figure, the magnitude was staggering. Where were they? I looked around campus, girls walking with earmuffs, black leggings, teal backpacks. If our bodies were literally painted red, we’d have red bodies all over this quad. I wanted to shake the paper in people’s faces. This was not normal. It was an epidemic, a crisis. How could you see this headline and keep walking? We’d deadened to the severity, too familiar a story. But this story was not old to me yet. A word came to my mind, another. I remember, after learning of the third suicide at school, people shook their heads in resignation, I can’t believe there’s been another. The shock had dimmed. No longer a bang, but an ache. If kids getting killed by trains became normalized, anything could. This was no longer a fight against my rapist, it was a fight to be humanized. I had to hold on to my story, figure out how to make myself heard. If I didn’t break out, I’d become a statistic. Another red figure in a grid.

Peter is still amazed at the degree to which a certain widening gyre of accolades can change an artist's work, literally change it, not just the new stuff but the old as well, the pieces that have been around for a while, that have seemed "interesting" or "promising" but minor, until (not often, just once in a while) an artist is by some obscure consensus declared to have been neglected, misrepresented, ahead of his time. What's astonishing to Peter is the way the work itself seems to change, more or less in the way of a reasonably pretty girl who is suddenly treated as a beauty. Peculiar, clever Victoria Hwang is going to be in Artforum next month, and probably in the collections of the Whitney and the Guggenheim; Renee Zellweger - moonfaced, squinty-eyed, a character actress if ever there was one - was just on the cover of Vogue, looking ravishing in a silver gown. It is, of course, a trick of perception - the understanding that that funny little artist or that quirky-looking girl must be taken with new seriousness - but Peter suspects there's a deeper change at work. Being the focus of that much attention (and, yes, of that much money) seems to differently excite the molecules of the art or the actress or the politician. It's not just a phenomenon of altered expectations, it's a genuine transubstantiation, brought about by altered expectations. Renée Zellweger becomes a beauty, and would look like a beauty to someone who had never heard of her. Victoria Hwang's videos and sculptures are about, it seems, to become not just intriguing and amusing but significant.

I don’t even know if we have a broom closet, Mrs. Levin,” said Tasha. “Tasha, honestly! In this world, to be overly literal is a profound weakness. It doesn’t have to be a broom closet. Just put her somewhere out of the way until I get there. It could be a basement. It could be the roof. It could be a neglected cubicle. The location of your motherfucking choosing!” Embeth hung up the phone. This girl was hopeless.

Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade. "She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts." Fejzić, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Goražde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers. "On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzić in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk he came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Goražde for Serbia." The Soraks eventually left and took over a house that once belonged to a Muslim family in the Serbian-held town of Kopaci. Two miles to the east. They could no longer communicate with Fejzić. The couple said they grieved daily for their sons. They missed their home. They said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Sebs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzić and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone, in his act lay an ocean of hope.

Mother thinks that Mrs. van D. is too stupid for words, Margot that she's too unimportant, Pim that she's too ugly (literally and figuratively!), and after long observation (I'm never prejudiced at the beginning), I've come to the conclusion that she's all three of the above, and lots more besides. She has so many bad traits, why should I single out just one of them? PS. Will the reader please take into consideration that this story was written before the writter's fury had cooled?

I didn’t want to be not dating someone just because I was used to not dating anyone. But, on the other hand, one of the nice things about being single all the time is that there’s no built-up generalized desire for romantic companionship to factor into the decision. I have no impulse to date just to date. When people say, “Ugh, I have a date tonight. I am not looking forward to it,” I am incapable of understanding that as a statement. And when I say I’m pretty sure I don’t like someone enough to date him, but I admit, when pressed, that I don’t know how to be sure, and then the people around me take that as incontrovertible evidence that I should proceed anyway—I don’t understand that, either. Everyone means so well, but how weird is it that so many girls spend so much time convincing each other to date people we aren’t sure we want to date? What are we pushing each other toward? Look, I’m literally as little of an expert as you can be at something when it comes to dating. I just don’t get any of this. Still,

I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or a TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.

But I have to do something, and at least this feels like action. All those plans I had—photography courses and cookery classes—when it comes down to it, they feel a bit pointless, as if I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. I need to find something that I must do, something undeniable. I can’t do this, I can’t just be a wife. I don’t understand how anyone does it—there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you. Either that or look around for something to distract you

Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work." A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok. People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact. Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety. So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars. And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality. And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent. The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.

I grin lightly at her, loving that she can just pull herself out of her pain with ease, then look over at Hawke. He’s gazing at her with such adoration. One look, and I can tell they’re on the same wavelength. He knew what this day does to her, whether she’s willing to open up about it or not. Cole’s a strong girl. She internalizes a lot, but Hawke draws it out of her the way she needs. As weak as this makes me sound, I literally love the two of them together. They have such mutual respect and deep-rooted love for one another that seems to transcend. Fucking soulmates if I ever saw ‘em.

Then, late in the morning of February 24, I answered the telephone in my bedroom and heard the voice of a friend in London . . . “Mary, it’s Dena. Your girl made it!” I knew she meant that Diana’s engagement to Prince Charles had just been announced. I gave a big shout and literally jumped for joy, banging my head on the low dormer ceiling. I couldn’t have been prouder of Diana if I’d been her mother. I was so happy for her I could have burst! I knew how desperately she had wished for this outcome. The past fall, she had told me that she would “simply die” if the romance didn’t work out. How wonderful that her dream had come true.

Christ, I’m tired. I need sleep. I need peace. I need for my balls to not be so blue they’re practically purple. As purple as Sarah Von Titebottum’s— My mind comes to a screeching halt with the unexpected thought. And the image that accompanies it—the odd, blushing lass with her glasses and her books and very tight bottom. Sarah’s not a contestant on the show, so I’m willing to bet both my indigo balls that there’s not a camera in her room. And, I can’t believe I’m fucking thinking this, but, even better—none of the other girls will know where to find me—including Elizabeth. I let the cameras noisily track me to the lavatory, but then, like an elite operative of the Secret Intelligence Service, I plaster myself to the wall beneath their range and slide my way out the door. Less than five minutes later, I’m in my sleeping pants and a white T-shirt, barefoot with my guitar in hand, knocking on Sarah’s bedroom door. I checked the map Vanessa gave me earlier. Her room is on the third floor, in the corner of the east wing, removed from the main part of the castle. The door opens just a crack and dark brown eyes peer out. “Sanctuary,” I plead. Her brow crinkles and the door opens just a bit wider. “I beg your pardon?” “I haven’t slept in almost forty-eight hours. My best friend’s girlfriend is trying to praying-mantis me and the sound of the cameras following me around my room is literally driving me mad. I’m asking you to take me in.” And she blushes. Great. “You want to sleep in here? With me?” I scoff. “No, not with you—just in your room, love.” I don’t think about how callous the words sound—insulting—until they’re out of my mouth. Could I be any more of a dick? Thankfully, Sarah doesn’t look offended. “Why here?” she asks. “Back in the day, the religious orders used to give sanctuary to anyone who asked. And since you dress like a nun, it seemed like the logical choice.” I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Somebody just fucking shoot me and be done with it. Sarah’s lips tighten, her head tilts, and her eyes take on a dangerous glint. I think Scooby-Doo put it best when he said, Ruh-roh. “Let me make sure I’ve got this right—you need my help?” “Correct.” “You need shelter, protection, sanctuary that only I can give?” “Yes.” “And you think teasing me about my clothes is a wise strategy?” I hold up my palms. “I never said I was wise. Exhausted, defenseless, and desperate.” I pout . . . but in a manly kind of way. “Pity me.” A smile tugs at her lips. And that’s when I know she’s done for. With a sigh, she opens the door wide. “Well, it is your castle. Come in.” Huh. She’s right—it is my castle. I really need to start remembering that

One girl raved about a nice voice mail a guy had recently left her. I kindly requested she play it and heard this gem: “Hey, Lydia. It’s Sam. Just calling to say what’s up. Gimme a ring when you get a chance.” THAT WAS IT. I pleaded to know what was so great about this. She sweetly recalled that “he remembered my name, he said hi, and he told me to call him back.” Never mind the fact that what she described was the content of LITERALLY EVERY VOICE MAIL IN HISTORY. Name, hello, please call back. Not really a boatload of charm on display. To fail this test, a guy would have to leave a message that said: “No greeting. This is a man. I don’t remember you. End communication.” When

Athletes, by and large, are people who are happy to let their actions speak for them, happy to be what they do. As a result, when you talk to an athlete, as I do all the time in locker rooms, in hotel coffee shops and hallways, standing beside expensive automobiles—even if he’s paying no attention to you at all, which is very often the case—he’s never likely to feel the least bit divided, or alienated, or one ounce of existential dread. He may be thinking about a case of beer, or a barbecue, or some man-made lake in Oklahoma he wishes he was waterskiing on, or some girl or a new Chevy shortbed, or a discothèque he owns as a tax shelter, or just simply himself. But you can bet he isn’t worried one bit about you and what you’re thinking. His is a rare selfishness that means he isn’t looking around the sides of his emotions to wonder about alternatives for what he’s saying or thinking about. In fact, athletes at the height of their powers make literalness into a mystery all its own simply by becoming absorbed in what they’re doing. Years of athletic training teach this; the necessity of relinquishing doubt and ambiguity and self-inquiry in favor of a pleasant, self-championing one-dimensionality which has instant rewards in sports. You can even ruin everything with athletes simply by speaking to them in your own everyday voice, a voice possibly full of contingency and speculation. It will scare them to death by demonstrating that the world—where they often don’t do too well and sometimes fall into depressions and financial imbroglios and worse once their careers are over—is complexer than what their training has prepared them for. As a result, they much prefer their own voices and questions or the jabber of their teammates (even if it’s in Spanish). And if you are a sportswriter you have to tailor yourself to their voices and answers: “How are you going to beat this team, Stu?” Truth, of course, can still be the result—“We’re just going out and play our kind of game, Frank, since that’s what’s got us this far”—but it will be their simpler truth, not your complex one—unless, of course, you agree with them, which I often do. (Athletes, of course, are not always the dummies they’re sometimes portrayed as being, and will often talk intelligently about whatever interests them until your ears turn to cement.)

She makes you look too little and you make her look too big. You’re from two different planets and you’re not meant to be standing together. She claps as if she’s meeting a five-year-old and I don’t like it when girls are taller than me. “Hello, Joseph,” she says, overenunciating. “I am Peach and this is my home.” “Nice to meet you,” I say and she looks me up and down. Cunt. “I love you already for not being pretentious,” she says. “And thank you for not bringing any wine or anything. This girl is family to me. No gifts allowed.” You are, of course, aghast. “Omigod, Peach, I completely flaked.” She looks down on you literally. “Sweetie, I just said I love it. And besides, the last thing we need is more cheap wine.” You are acting like you committed a felony and she looks at me like I’m the delivery guy waiting for a tip. “I’m stealing our girl for two minutes, Joseph.” You allow her to steal you and I really must look like the fucking delivery guy as I stand here, not knowing anyone, not being known. No girls are coming on to me and maybe I don’t look good in here. The only certainty is that I hate this Peach as much as I knew I would, and she hates me right back. She knows how to work you, Beck. You are apologizing for no wine, for not bringing Lynn and Chana, for not taking better care of your purse. And she is forgiving, stroking your back, telling you not to worry. I’m invisible to you in her presence, just like everyone else. Peach Is . . . in the way. I look around but nobody wants to say hi to me. It’s like they can smell the public school on me.

Eh? How 'bout that?" Bill nudged her. "Did I promise to show you love or did I promise to show you love?" "Sure,they seem like they're in love." Luce shrugged. "But-" "But what?Do you have any idea how painful that is? Look at that guy. He makes getting inked look like being caressed by a soft breeze." Luce squirmed on the branch. "Is that the lesson here? Pain equals love?" "You tell me," Bill said. "It may surprise you to hear this,but the ladies aren't exactly banging down Bill's door." "I mean,if I tattooed Daniel's same on my body would that mean I loved him more than I already do?" "It's a symbol,Luce." Bill let out a raspy sigh. "You're being too literal. Think about it this way: Daniel is the first good-looking boy LuLu has ever seen. Until he washed ashore a few months ago, this girl's whole world was her father and a few fat natives." "She's Miranda," Luce said, remembering the love story from The Tempest, which she'd read in her tenth-grade Shakespeare seminar. "How very civilized of you!" Bill pursed his lips with approval. "They are liek Ferdinand and Miranda: The handsome foreigner shipwrecks on her shores-" "So,of course it was love at first sight for LuLu," Luce murmured. This was what she was afraid of: the same thoughtless,automatic love that had bothered her in Helston. "Right," Bill said. "She didn't have a choice but to fall for him.But what's interesting here is Daniel. You see, he didn't have to teach her to craft a woven sail, or gain her father's trust by producing a season's worth of fish to cure,or exhibit C"-Bill pointed at the lovers on the beach-"agree to tattoo his whole body according to her local custom.It would have been enough if Daniel had just shown up.LuLu would have loved him anyway." "He's doing it because-" Luce thought aloud. "Because he wants to earn her love.Because otherwise,he would just be taking advantage of their curse. Because no matter what kind of cycle they're bound to,his love for her is...true.

My vision and lungs were clearing, yet my head and my heart still suffered, ’cause I knew I was running out of time to reach my girl. Urgency clawed at me, till I thought I’d go mad. Did she remember that it’d always be Evie and Jack? That even death—or Death—couldn’t keep us apart? Would she remember how perfect it’d been between us? With her, I’d known true peace for the first time in my life. Hadn’t she? As coo-yôn and I covered miles, I’d craved that cellphone—with its pictures of Evie—and her taped recording. When I’d been separated from her before, I’d used her voice like a drug. Now I was a junkie needing a fix, but my pack had been stolen early on. Gone forever. Matthew had sourced another one for me—up was down—but it was empty. Fitting. ’Cause I was starting over with nothing. From behind the wheel, coo-yôn said, “You need her.” “Tell me something I doan know.” He frowned, taking me literally. “You don’t know the future. I see far. I see an unbroken line that stretches through eternity—and back on itself.” “Uh-huh.” Just hold on, peekôn, I’m coming.

We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. (…) I’ve literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. (…) If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters. And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don’t have genuine souls. It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I’m not a real person and neither is anyone else.

But Violet Antrim, who had also been staying with the Peacocks, had arrived home full of importance. She walked in on Stephen one afternoon to announce her engagement to young Alec Peacock. She was so much engaged and so haughty about it that Stephen, whose nerves were already on edge, was very soon literally itching to slap her. Violet was now able to look down on Stephen from the height of her newly gained knowledge of men—knowing Alec she felt that she knew the whole species. 'It's a terrible pity you dress as you do, my dear,' she remarked, with the manner of sixty, 'a young girl's so much more attractive when she's soft—don't you think you could soften your clothes just a little? I mean you do want to get married, don't you! No woman's complete until she is married. After all, no woman can really stand alone, she always needs a man to protect her.' Stephen said: 'I'm all right—getting on nicely, thank you!' 'Oh, no, but you can't be!' Violet insisted. 'I was talking to Alec and Roger about you, and Roger was saying it's an awful mistake for women to get false ideas into their heads. He thinks you've got rather a bee in your bonnet; he told Alec that you'd be quite a womanly woman if you'd only stop trying to ape what you're not.

Alice's Cutie Code TM Version 2.1 - Colour Expansion Pack (aka Because this stuff won’t stop being confusing and my friends are mean edition) From Red to Green, with all the colours in between (wait, okay, that rhymes, but green to red makes more sense. Dang.) From Green to Red, with all the colours in between Friend Sampling Group: Fennie, Casey, Logan, Aisha and Jocelyn Green  Friends’ Reaction: Induces a minimum amount of warm and fuzzies. If you don’t say “aw”, you’re “dead inside”  My Reaction: Sort of agree with friends minus the “dead inside” but because that’s a really awful thing to say. Puppies are a good example. So is Walter Bishop. Green-Yellow  Friends’ Reaction: A noticeable step up from Green warm and fuzzies. Transitioning from cute to slightly attractive. Acceptable crush material. “Kissing.”  My Reaction: A good dance song. Inspirational nature photos. Stuff that makes me laugh. Pairing: Madison and Allen from splash Yellow  Friends’ Reaction: Something that makes you super happy but you don’t know why. “Really pretty, but not too pretty.” Acceptable dating material. People you’d want to “bang on sight.”  My Reaction: Love songs for sure! Cookies for some reason or a really good meal. Makes me feel like it’s possible to hold sunshine, I think. Character: Maxon from the selection series. Music: Carly Rae Jepsen Yellow-Orange  Friends’ Reaction: (When asked for non-sexual examples, no one had an answer. From an objective perspective, *pushes up glasses* this is the breaking point. Answers definitely skew toward romantic or sexual after this.)  My Reaction: Something that really gets me in my feels. Also art – oil paintings of landscapes in particular. (What is with me and scenery? Maybe I should take an art class) Character: Dean Winchester. Model: Liu Wren. Orange  Friends’ Reaction: “So pretty it makes you jealous. Or gay.”  “Definitely agree about the gay part. No homo, though. There’s just some really hot dudes out there.”(Feenie’s side-eye was so intense while the others were answering this part LOLOLOLOLOL.) A really good first date with someone you’d want to see again.  My Reaction: People I would consider very beautiful. A near-perfect season finale. I’ve also cried at this level, which was interesting. o Possible tie-in to romantic feels? Not sure yet. Orange-Red  Friends’ Reaction: “When lust and love collide.” “That Japanese saying ‘koi no yokan.’ It’s kind of like love at first sight but not really. You meet someone and you know you two have a future, like someday you’ll fall in love. Just not right now.” (<-- I like this answer best, yes.) “If I really, really like a girl and I’m interested in her as a person, guess. I’d be cool if she liked the same games as me so we could play together.”  My Reaction: Something that gives me chills or has that time-stopping factor. Lots of staring. An extremely well-decorated room. Singers who have really good voices and can hit and hold superb high notes, like Whitney Houston. Model: Jasmine Tooke. Paring: Abbie and Ichabod from Sleepy Hollow o Romantic thoughts? Someday my prince (or princess, because who am I kidding?) will come? Red (aka the most controversial code)  Friends’ Reaction: “Panty-dropping levels” (<-- wtf Casey???).  “Naked girls.” ”Ryan. And ripped dudes who like to cook topless.”  “K-pop and anime girls.” (<-- Dear. God. The whole table went silent after he said that. Jocelyn was SO UNCOMFORTABLE but tried to hide it OMG it was bad. Fennie literally tried to slap some sense into him.)  My Reaction: Uncontrollable staring. Urge to touch is strong, which I must fight because not everyone is cool with that. There may even be slack-jawed drooling involved. I think that’s what would happen. I’ve never seen or experienced anything that I would give Red to.

Lady Georgina of the Summer Court," Heather added. I turned in my seat to see two fae in the parking lot through the glass front door. The girl was on fire. Like, literally on fire. Her clothes had burned off, but you couldn't see much of her. You know, through the fucking fire. "What is going on?" I asked. "She's having some hot flashes." Thea came to stand near our table and crossed her arms with a sigh. "Alan is there trying to cool her off. The pregnancy has been rough on her." I looked at the flaming fae again, and sure enough a big ginger dude with a wild beard was waving his hands in the direction of his mate, spraying her with a mist of water. He might have been trying to put out the fire or just trying to simmer it down. "I've heard about this," Jerod said, standing up and tapping his chin. "You've had a little baby boom over here, haven't you?" "Something like that." Thea met Devin's gaze, pressing her lips in an attempt not to smile, and went over to the door to greet them. "The faerie gate is," Heather paused, "overcorrecting for a previous problem we'd had. Let's leave it at that." I looked up at Ryker, who was watching the flaming fae. He looked down at me with a shrug. "Fae. I'm still not entirely sure how they work and I've been around a while.

Dear Jon, A real Dear Jon let­ter, how per­fect is that?! Who knew you’d get dumped twice in the same amount of months. See, I’m one para­graph in and I’ve al­ready fucked this. I’m writ­ing this be­cause I can’t say any of this to you face-to-face. I’ve spent the last few months ques­tion­ing a lot of my friend­ships and won­der­ing what their pur­pose is, if not to work through big emo­tional things to­gether. But I now re­al­ize: I don’t want that. And I know you’ve all been there for me in other ways. Maybe not in the lit­eral sense, but I know you all would have done any­thing to fix me other than lis­ten­ing to me talk and al­low­ing me to be sad with­out so­lu­tions. And now I am writ­ing this let­ter rather than pick­ing up the phone and talk­ing to you be­cause, de­spite every thing I know, I just don’t want to, and I don’t think you want me to ei­ther. I lost my mind when Jen broke up with me. I’m pretty sure it’s been the sub­ject of a few of your What­sApp con­ver­sa­tions and more power to you, be­cause I would need to vent about me if I’d been friends with me for the last six months. I don’t want it to have been in vain, and I wanted to tell you what I’ve learnt. If you do a high-fat, high-pro­tein, low-carb diet and join a gym, it will be a good dis­trac­tion for a while and you will lose fat and gain mus­cle, but you will run out of steam and eat nor­mally again and put all the weight back on. So maybe don’t bother. Drunk­en­ness is an­other idea. I was in black­out for most of the first two months and I think that’s fine, it got me through the evenings (and the oc­ca­sional af­ter­noon). You’ll have to do a lot of it on your own, though, be­cause no one is free to meet up any more. I think that’s fine for a bit. It was for me un­til some­one walked past me drink­ing from a whisky minia­ture while I waited for a night bus, put five quid in my hand and told me to keep warm. You’re the only per­son I’ve ever told this story. None of your mates will be ex­cited that you’re sin­gle again. I’m prob­a­bly your only sin­gle mate and even I’m not that ex­cited. Gen­er­ally the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing sin­gle at thirty-five will feel dif­fer­ent to any other time you’ve been sin­gle and that’s no bad thing. When your ex moves on, you might be­come ob­sessed with the bloke in a way that is al­most sex­ual. Don’t worry, you don’t want to fuck him, even though it will feel a bit like you do some­times. If you open up to me or one of the other boys, it will feel good in the mo­ment and then you’ll get an emo­tional hang­over the next day. You’ll wish you could take it all back. You may even feel like we’ve en­joyed see­ing you so low. Or that we feel smug be­cause we’re win­ning at some­thing and you’re los­ing. Re­member that none of us feel that. You may be­come ob­sessed with work­ing out why ex­actly she broke up with you and you are likely to go fully, fully nuts in your bid to find a sat­is­fy­ing an­swer. I can save you a lot of time by let­ting you know that you may well never work it out. And even if you did work it out, what’s the pur­pose of it? Soon enough, some girl is go­ing to be crazy about you for some un­de­fin­able rea­son and you’re not go­ing to be in­ter­ested in her for some un­de­fin­able rea­son. It’s all so ran­dom and un­fair – the peo­ple we want to be with don’t want to be with us and the peo­ple who want to be with us are not the peo­ple we want to be with. Re­ally, the thing that’s go­ing to hurt a lot is the fact that some­one doesn’t want to be with you any more. Feel­ing the ab­sence of some­one’s com­pany and the ab­sence of their love are two dif­fer­ent things. I wish I’d known that ear­lier. I wish I’d known that it isn’t any­body’s job to stay in a re­la­tion­ship they don’t want to be in just so some­one else doesn’t feel bad about them­selves. Any­way. That’s all. You’re go­ing to be okay, mate. Andy

We kept our fingers crossed and eagerly scanned the newspapers and magazines for news of an engagement between Diana and Charles. Then, late in the morning of February 24, I answered the telephone in my bedroom and heard the voice of a friend in London… “Mary, it’s Dena. Your girl made it!” I knew she meant that Diana’s engagement to Prince Charles had just been announced. I gave a big shout and literally jumped for joy, banging my head on the low dormer ceiling. I couldn’t have been prouder of Diana if I’d been her mother. I was so happy for her I could have burst! I knew how desperately she had wished for this outcome. The past fall, she had told me that she would “simply die” if the romance didn’t work out. How wonderful that her dream had come true. Almost immediately, a mischievous picture popped into my mind of the future and royal Diana, scheduled for an official day of handshaking, ribbon cutting, or tree planting and wishing she could have a friend call to cancel those tedious engagements. As Princess of Wales, she would not be able to cancel on short notice, if at all, as she had when she was baby-sitting for me. I wondered how the lively, spontaneous, and very young Diana would adjust to her official duties. I felt a bit sorry for her as I dimly realized how rigid and structured her new life might be.

My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?' (Psalm 42:2) But the Psalmist also says, 'In death there is no one that is mindful of thee.' So it made me happy that I could be with my mother the last few weeks of her life, and for the last ten days at her bedside daily and hourly. Sometimes I thought to myself that it was like being present at a birth to sit by a dying person and see their intentness on what is happening to them. It almost seems that one is absorbed in a struggle, a fearful, grim, physical struggle, to breathe, to swallow, to live. And so, I kept thinking to myself, how necessary it is for one of their loved ones to be beside them, to pray for them, to offer up prayers for them unceasingly, as well as to do all those little offices one can. When my daughter was a little tiny girl, she said to me once, 'When I get to be a great big woman and you are a little tiny girl, I'll take care of you,' and I thought of that when I had to feed my mother by the spoonful and urge her to eat her custard. How good God was to me, to let me be there. I had prayed so constantly that I would be beside her when she died; for years I had offered up that prayer. And God granted it quite literally. I was there, holding her hand, and she just turned her head and sighed.

Knocking on a massive carved door minutes later, the sigils on it shouting to those literate enough to ‘Stay away or else!’ he received a nice surprise when the door swung open. Well, hello there. Reaching only his shoulder, with a wild mop of black hair, bright brown eyes and a rounded body made for worship – by his tongue – Remy wondered if he could convince the servant girl to come around the corner with him for a quickie before he met with this Ysabel person. Then she opened her luscious mouth. “If you’re done gawking, you might want to step back before I smash your nose with the door when I shut it.” Someone got up without sex today. He could fix that. “Hello beautiful, I actually have business with the occupant of this suite. I’m here to meet with Ysabel, the witch.” “Really.” Her tone said what she thought of his claim and her brown gaze looked him up and down, then dismissed him. “I don’t think so.” The door slammed shut in his face. What. The. Fuck. Remy pounded on the door. It immediately opened. The ebony haired vixen, her arms crossed under her bountiful tits, smirked. “Back already. What’s wrong? Did I hurt your feelings?” “Listen woman, I don’t know what crawled up your ass and turned you into an uptight bitch, but I’m here to see Ysabel, so get the fuck out of my way before I put you over my knee and –” “And what? Spank me?” Her eyes actually sparked with challenge, the minx. “I’d like to see you try. But, before you do, just so you know, my name is Ysabel. The witch.” Aaaaah, shit. Never one to admit defeat, he let a slow simmering smile spread across his face. It worked on demonesses, damned souls, human women, and even gay men, but apparently, it had no effect on scowling witches. Too bad. “It’s your lucky day. Lucifer has informed me that you’re my next assignment.” “Not by choice. And what are you supposed to do exactly? I need a tracker, not a gigolo. What happened? Did your gig as a pole dancer not work out? Equipment too small?” She dropped her gaze to his groin and sneered. A sudden, irrational urge possessed him to drop his pants, flip her over and show her there was nothing wrong with the size of his cock. He abstained, but couldn’t prevent himself from taunting her, eyeing her up and down in the same dismissive manner. “Anytime you want to measure my dick, you let me know. Naked.” “Pig.” “No, demon. Really, get your terminology straight, would you? After Lucifer’s warning, I expected someone older and badder.” To his credit he didn’t drop to the ground, but the pain in his balls did require he bend over to cup them gently which in turn meant he got the door in the face. Again. -Ysabel & Remy

Echad is first mentioned in the garden. It says a man and a woman, when they join together, become echad, or “one.” But that word echad is more explosive with meaning than just one flesh. It can literally mean to fuse together at the deepest part of our beings. Two becoming one, completely glued together, completely meshing. I still remember one of the hardest conversations I have had with Alyssa. We were just starting to date again, and were sitting in the car after a wonderful date night. We knew marriage was a possibility on the horizon, and I felt like I finally had to share things in my past that would affect her if we got married. I was incredibly nervous, as well as terrified of rejection or hurt, but I realized that if intimacy were to grow, I had to get vulnerable. For marriage to be what it truly is—two people becoming one in mind, body, soul, and spirit—I had to be honest. I remember sharing with her many things, but specifically some details of my sexual past. My teenage years were littered with me almost worshiping sexual fulfillment in pornography, partying, and girls. And I say worship, because that was where I got my worth, value, and purpose as well as what I most lived for (which is what the definition of worship is). I had to apologize and ask forgiveness from Alyssa for things I had done before I even knew her because of echad—one form of complete and utter intimacy. Because of that beauty, mystery, and power, God created it to function best in a man and a woman coming together for life and constantly echading or fusing together. I needed forgiveness because I had betrayed echad. I had betrayed oneness. I had betrayed intimacy. And if I wasn’t honest about it, it’d be a little part of my life or heart that Alyssa didn’t know—thus blocking echad. But something really peculiar happened in that moment. With the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, Alyssa forgave me. She heard all that I was and am, and still wanted to walk this journey with me. I still remember the tenderness in her voice as she spoke truth and forgiveness over me. In that moment I was exposed and known, and yet because of Alyssa’s grace, I was at the same time loved. And that is where intimacy is found—to be fully loved and to be fully known. To be fully loved, but not fully known will always allow us to buy the lie that “if they only knew the real me, they wouldn’t want me anymore.” And to be fully known but not fully loved feels sharp, painful, at a level of rejection that hurts so bad. But to be fully known and at the same time fully loved, now that is intimacy. I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Intimacy is certainly romantic in some aspects, but at its deepest level, it’s much more than that. It can be experienced with friends and family, not just spouses and loved ones.

For boys, sex is a part of life, a rite of passage. Boys look at porn when they’re twelve, thirteen! Boys get to have sex just as it is, just sex. Girls are taught fairy tales, they’re taught happily ever after , they’re taught sex as a consequence of marriage. Imagine seeing the world that way, as if sex isn’t a right but a rung on a ladder. We have to withhold it, can you imagine that? Because it’s so brainless and simple that if men get it too easily, they’ll just leave. Because really, how the fuck is my vagina different from any other woman’s? No, the thing that makes me different is somewhere else, literally anywhere else, but I can’t enjoy sex without some archaic sociological risk. And if you think about that it’s even worse, because look at the vagina, Aldo. It can have infinite orgasms. It doesn’t require any recovery time. It can come and come and come and what, maybe it gets dry? Lube it up again, easy. If any sexual organ is omnipotent it’s the fucking cunt but no, penises are the ones who get to decide whether a woman has value. Who let that happen? Really, Aldo, who? Maybe this is why men rule the world, because they were clever enough to convince women that virginity is precious, that sex itself should be secret, that being penetrated was sacrosanct. It’s idiotic, it’s even dumber than it is cruel and that’s the worst part. The idea that I should want sex less than you, why does that exist?

We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing is, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters. And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls. It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else.

Well, Gordon assigned me to write a major piece of software for the Apple Macintosh. Financial spreadsheet, accounting, that sort of thing, powerful, easy to use, lots of graphics. I asked him exactly what he wanted in it, and he just said, ‘Everything. I want the top piece of all-singing, all-dancing business software for that machine.’ And being of a slightly whimsical turn of mind I took him literally. “You see, a pattern of numbers can represent anything you like, can be used to map any surface, or modulate any dynamic process—and so on. And any set of company accounts are, in the end, just a pattern of numbers. So I sat down and wrote a program that’ll take those numbers and do what you like with them. If you just want a bar graph it’ll do them as a bar graph, if you want them as a pie chart or scatter graph it’ll do them as a pie chart or scatter graph. If you want dancing girls jumping out of the pie chart in order to distract attention from the figures the pie chart actually represents, then the program will do that as well. Or you can turn your figures into, for instance, a flock of seagulls, and the formation they fly in and the way in which the wings of each gull beat will be determined by the performance of each division of your company. Great for producing animated corporate logos that actually mean something. “But the silliest feature of all was that if you wanted your company accounts represented as a piece of music, it could do that as well. Well, I thought it was silly. The corporate world went bananas over it.

among the young, a portent of the world’s future. Hate crimes, violence against women, and the victimization of children are all in long-term decline, as is the exploitation of children for their labor. As people are getting healthier, richer, safer, and freer, they are also becoming more literate, knowledgeable, and smarter. Early in the 19th century, 12 percent of the world could read and write; today 83 percent can. Literacy and the education it enables will soon be universal, for girls as well as boys. The schooling, together with health and wealth, are literally making us smarter—by thirty IQ points, or two standard deviations above our ancestors. People are putting their longer, healthier, safer, freer, richer, and wiser lives to good use. Americans work 22 fewer hours a week than they used to, have three weeks of paid vacation, lose 43 fewer hours to housework, and spend just a third of their paycheck on necessities rather than five-eighths. They are using their leisure and disposable income to travel, spend time with their children, connect with loved ones, and sample the world’s cuisine, knowledge, and culture. As a result of these gifts, people worldwide have become happier. Even Americans, who take their good fortune for granted, are “pretty happy” or happier, and the younger generations are becoming less unhappy, lonely, depressed, drug-addicted, and suicidal. As societies have become healthier, wealthier, freer, happier, and better educated, they have set their sights on the most pressing global challenges. They have emitted fewer pollutants, cleared fewer forests, spilled less oil,

Is Joanna Gaines here? We have a warrant here for her arrest,” the officer said. It was the tickets. I knew it. And I panicked. I picked up my son and I hid in the closet. I literally didn’t know what to do. I’d never even had a speeding ticket, and all of a sudden I’m thinking, I’m about to go to prison, and my child won’t be able to eat. What is this kid gonna do? I heard Chip say, “She’s not here.” Thankfully, Drake didn’t make a peep, and the officer believed him. He said, “Well, just let her know we’re looking for her,” and they left. Jo’s the most conservative girl in the world. She had never even been late for school. I mean, this girl was straitlaced. So now we realize there’s a citywide warrant out for her arrest, and we’re like, “Oh, crap.” In her defense, Jo had wanted to pay those tickets off all along, and I was the one saying, “No way. I’m not paying these tickets.” So we decided to try to make it right. We called the judge, and the court clerk told us, “Okay, you have an appointment at three in the afternoon to discuss the tickets. See you then.” We wanted to ask the judge if he could remove a few of them for us. “The fines for our dogs “running at large” on our front porch just seemed a bit excessive. We arrived at the courthouse, and Chip was carrying Drake in his car seat. I couldn’t carry it because I was still recovering from Drake’s delivery. We got inside and spoke to a clerk. They looked at the circumstances and decided to switch all the tickets into Chip’s name. Those dogs were basically mine, and it didn’t make sense to have the tickets in her name. But as soon as they did that, this police officer walked over and said, “Hey, do you mind emptying out all of your pockets?” I got up and cooperated. “Absolutely. Yep,” I said. I figured it was just procedure before we went in to see the judge. Then he said, “Yeah, you mind taking off your belt?” I thought, That’s a little weird. Then he said, “Do you mind turning around and putting your hands behind your back?” They weren’t going to let us talk to the judge at all. The whole thing was just a sting to get us to come down there and be arrested. They arrested Chip on the spot. And I’m sitting there saying, “I can’t carry this baby in his car seat. What am I supposed to do?” I started bawling. “You can’t take him!” I cried. But they did. They took him right outside and put him in the back of a police car. Now I feel like the biggest loser in the world. I’m in the back of a police car as my crying wife comes out holding our week-old baby. I’m walking out, limping, and waving to him as they drive away. And I can’t even wave because my hands are cuffed behind my back. So here I am awkwardly trying to make a waving motion with my shoulder and squinching my face just to try to make Jo feel better. It was just the most comical thing, honestly. A total joke. To take a man to jail because his dogs liked to walk around a neighborhood, half of which he owns? But it sure wasn’t funny at the time. I was flooded with hormones and just could not stop crying. They told me they were taking my husband to the county jail. Luckily we had a buddy who was an attorney, so I called him. I was clueless. “I’ve never dated a guy that’s been in trouble, and now I’ve got a husband that’s in jail.

I love this song, can you turn it up?” I reached and turned the dial up on the Vance Joy song “Red Eye.” Adam bobbed his head to the music. At the stoplight I looked over at him. He was wearing the black beanie my brother had given him, his black Wayfarers, and the hospital gown. I laughed. He turned to me and smiled. “What?” he said. “You’re cute.” “Oh yeah? Wanna fool around?” He grinned. I was glad that Adam couldn’t see my eyes welling up behind my sunglasses. The car behind us honked. I hit the gas and my car lurched forward from the intersection. “How much time do we have?” I asked. “What? Are you serious?” “Yes, Adam, I am serious.” He was having a good day. He reached for my phone. “We have like an hour and a half before Leah freaks out.” I knew I was taking a big chance, but how could I say no to him? There was so much joy in him that day just because he got to go to the drive-thru at In-N-Out. “Okay.” I glanced over at him and flattened my lips. “You better not have a seizure on me.” “I can’t think of a better place to have a seizure. Although I can see how that wouldn’t be much fun for you.” I laughed hysterically. “Oh man, I didn’t mean literally on me; I meant on my watch.” “Well, Charlotte, I don’t have much control over that, but I’ll try. You know what helps?” “What?” “Alcohol.” “Really?” As we passed the Four Seasons he said, “Pull in here.” “This is too expensive, Adam.” “What? Are you crazy?” The energy in the car was tangible. “This may be the last time I ever go to a hotel with a girl. I’m paying. I have a ton of money. Come on, Charlotte, please?” His mood was instantly lighter than it had been in several days. “Okay.” I did a U-turn and pulled into the driveway of the hotel.

For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters. And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls. It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else. I would have done anything to feel real again.

On the third day, I asked if she would like to climb Ben Loyal with me--with anyone else who fancied coming along. None of the guys wanted to join me and I ended up with a group of four girls, including Shara. We spent two hours crossing the marshy moon grass to reach the foot of the mountain before starting up the steep slope toward the summit ridge. It was fairly sheer, but essentially we were still going the “easy” way. Within two hundred feet, half of the girls were looking pretty beat. I figured that having slogged across the marsh for so long, we should definitely do some of the climb. After all, that was the fun bit. They all agreed and we continued up steadily. Before the slope eases at the top, though, there is a section where the heather becomes quite exposed. It is only a short, few hundred feet, and I wrongly figured the girls would enjoy a safe, steep scramble that didn’t require any ropes. Plus the views were amazing out to sea. But things didn’t quite go to plan. The first panicked whimper seemed to set off a cacophony of cheeps, as, one by one, the girls began to voice their fears. It is funny how quickly everyone can go from being totally fine to totally not-fine, very fast, once one person starts to panic. Then the tears started. Nightmare. I ended up literally having to shadow the three girls who were worst struck by this fear, one by one down the slope. I had to stand behind them, hands on top of their hands, and help them move one step at a time, planting their feet exactly where I did, to shield them from the drop. The point of this story is that the only girl who was supercool through the whole mission was Shara, who steadily plodded up, and then just as steadily plodded down beside me, as I tried to help the others. Now I was really smitten. A cool head under pressure is truly irresistible to me, and if I hadn’t been totally besotted before, then our mountain experience together tipped the balance. I had a sneaking feeling that I had met the girl of my dreams.

He was the son of a very wealthy industrialist who was to play a rather important part in the organizing of the next International Exhibition. I was struck by how knowledgeable this young man and the other few male friends of the girls were in things like clothes, ways of wearing them, cigars, English drinks, horses—a form of erudition that in him was highly developed, which he wore with a proud infallibility, reminiscent of the scholar’s modest reticence—an expertise that was quite selfsufficient, without the slightest need for any accompanying intellectual cultivation. He could not be faulted on the appropriate occasions for wearing dinner jacket or pajamas, but he had no idea of how to use certain words, or even of the most elementary rules of good grammar. That disparity between two cultures must have been shared by his father, who, in his capacity as president of the Association of Property Owners of Balbec, had written an open letter to his constituents, now to be seen as a placard on all the walls, in which he said, “I was desirous of talking to the Mayor about this matter, however, he was of a mind to not hear me out on my just demands.” At the Casino, Octave won prizes in all the dancing competitions—the Boston dip, the tango, and so on—a qualification, if he should ever need one, for a good marriage, among seaside society, a milieu in which a young girl quite literally ends up married to her “partner.” He lit a cigar and said to Albertine, “If you don’t mind,” as one excuses oneself for going on with an urgent piece of work in the presence of someone. For he always “had to be doing something,” though in fact he never did anything. Just as a total lack of activity can eventually have the same effects as overwork, whether in the emotional domain or in the domain of the body and its muscles, the constant intellectual vacuum that resided behind the pensive forehead of Octave had had the result, despite his undisturbed air, of giving him ineffectual urges to think, which kept him awake at night, as though he were a metaphysician with too much on his mind.

She drops the singsong thing. “I do go to school, Krissy. I didn’t quit.” Ow. “You know what I think? I think you’re under a lot of pressure, with a baby coming and making your first record. Maybe it makes you want to go back to a time before you had all these stresses in your life.” She is blowing me off. “So you’re a psychology major after all.” She doesn’t laugh. “I’m going to give you some advice now.” No shit. “Don’t ever run away from your commitments. You’ll have more options open to you if you don’t run away. Does that make sense?” I say nothing. I shouldn’t have said that I ran away. I should have put it differently. ‘I’ve come to a decision’ or something dramatical like that. Then she’d be on my side, welcoming me back, not lecturing me. “We all have a snake,” Betty continues, and right now you need to -“ “What?” It’s like she slapped me. “I said we all have a snake and yours is -“ “We all have a what?” My head’s pounding along with my heart. “I don’t mean it literally. I’m just trying to say that if you don’t face -“ “Did you say we all have snakes? Why did you say that?” She sighs. “Krissy, if you’d let me finish, I could tell you.” I sit, stunned. I never told her about the snake. “I have a snake and you have a snake. We all have to face our demons some day, sweetheart, and that day’ll be the scariest you ever lived. Then you’ll wake up the next morning and realise your snake is still there, that you have to face your demons again. But it won’t be so scary this time. Once you see your shadow, you’ll realise that the rest of your life will be spent staring it down, but you know what?” “What?” “You can do it.” “Yeah. Thanks, Betty.” Christ. “Krissy, you have a calling, so make this record. If you hate it, you never have to make another record again.” She doesn’t understand. I slide to the floor. The [university student campaign] issue girls turn around to stare at me, their clipboards at their sides. “Promise?” I ask. “I promise,” says Betty. “If this record’s as bad as you think it is,” she says cheerfully, “you won’t be allowed to make another one!

Chip and I were both exhausted when we finally pulled up in front of that house, but we were still riding the glow of our honeymoon, and I was so excited as he carried me over the threshold--until the smell nearly knocked us over. “Oh my word,” I said, pinching my nose and trying to hold my breath so I wouldn’t gag. “What is that?” Chip flicked the light switch, and the light didn’t come on. He flicked it up and down a few times, then felt his way forward in the darkness and tried another switch. “The electricity’s off,” he said. “The girls must’ve had it shut off when they moved out.” “Didn’t you transfer it back into your name?” I asked. “I guess not. I’m sorry, babe,” Chip said. “Chip, what is that smell?” It was the middle of June in Waco, Texas. The temperature had been up over a hundred degrees for days on end, and the humidity was stifling, amplifying whatever that rotten smell was coming from the kitchen. Chip always carries a knife and a flashlight, and it sure came in handy that night. Chip made his way back there and found that the fridge still had a bunch of food left in it, including a bunch of ground beef that had just sat there rotting since whenever the electricity went out. The food was literally just smoldering in this hundred-degree house. So we went from living in a swanky hotel room on Park Avenue in New York City to this disgusting, humid stink of a place that felt more like the site of a crime scene than a home at this point. Honestly, I hadn’t thought it through very well. But it was late, and we were tired, and I just focused on making the most of this awful situation. So we opened some windows and brought our bags in, and I told Jo we’d just tough it out and sleep on the floor and clean it all up in the morning. That’s when she started crying. I lay down on the floor thinking, Is his what my life is going to look like now that I married Chip? Is this my new normal? That’s when another smell hit me. It was in the carpet. “Chip, did those girls have a dog here?” I asked. “They had a couple of dogs,” he answered. “Why?” You could smell it. In the carpet. It was nasty. I was just lying there with my head next to some old dog urine stain that had been heated by the Texas summer heat. It was like microwaved dog pee. It was. It was awful. It was three in the morning. And I finally said, “Chip, I’m not sleeping in this house.

You want to kiss her, right?” “What?” I have lost track of our conversation. I was thinking about how if Kit called me her friend, then I would have multiplied my number of them by a factor of two. And then I considered the word flirting, how it sounds like fluttering, which is what butterflies do. Which of course looped me back to chaos theory and my realization that I’d like to have more information to provide Kit on the topic. “Do. You. Want. To. Kiss. Her?” Miney asks again. “Yes, of course I do. Who wouldn’t want to kiss Kit?” “I don’t want to kiss Kit,” Miney says, doing that thing where she imitates me and how I answer rhetorical questions. Though her intention is to mock rather than to educate, it’s actually been a rather informative technique to demonstrate my tendency toward taking people too literally. “Mom doesn’t want to kiss Kit. I don’t know about Dad, but I doubt it.” My father doesn’t look up. His face is buried in a book about the mating patterns of migratory birds. It’s too bad our scholarly interests have never overlapped. Breakfast would be so much more interesting if we could discuss our work. “So if you want to kiss Kit, that means you want her to see you like a real guy,” Miney says, and points at me with her cup of coffee. She’s drinking it black. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with Miney. Maybe she’s just tired. “I am a real guy.” How come even my own sister sees me as something not quite human? Something other. “I have a penis.” “And just when I think we’ve made progress you go and mention your penis.” “What? Fact: I have a penis. That makes me a guy. Though technically there are some trans people who have penises but self-identify as girls.” “Please stop saying that word.” “What word? Penis?” “Yes.” “Do you prefer member? Shlong? Wang? Johnson?” I ask. “Dongle, perhaps?” “I would prefer we not discuss your man parts at all.” “Wait, should I text Kit immediately and clarify that I do in fact have man parts?” I pick up my phone and start typing. “Dear Kit. Just to be clear. I have a penis.” “Oh my God. Do not text her. Seriously, stop.” Miney puts her coffee down hard. She’ll climb over the table and tackle me if she has to. “Ha! Totally got you!” I smile, as proud as I was the other day for my that’s what she said joke. “Who are you?” Miney asks, but she’s grinning too. I’ll admit it takes a second—something about the disconnect between her confused tone and her happy face—and I almost, almost say out loud: Duh, I’m Little D. Instead I let her rhetorical question hang, just like I’m supposed to

Spaghetti alla puttanesca is typically made with tomatoes, olives, anchovies, capers, and garlic. It means, literally, "spaghetti in the style of a prostitute." It is a sloppy dish, the tomatoes and oil making the spaghetti lubricated and slippery. It is the sort of sauce that demands you slurp the noodles Goodfellas style, staining your cheeks with flecks of orange and red. It is very salty and very tangy and altogether very strong; after a small plate, you feel like you've had a visceral and significant experience. There are varying accounts as to when and how the dish originated- but the most likely explanation is that it became popular in the mid-twentieth century. The first documented mention of it is in Raffaele La Capria's 1961 novel, Ferito a Morte. According to the Italian Pasta Makers Union, spaghetti alla puttanesca was a very popular dish throughout the sixties, but its exact genesis is not quite known. Sandro Petti, a famous Napoli chef and co-owner of Ischian restaurant Rangio Fellone, claims to be its creator. Near closing time one evening, a group of customers sat at one of his tables and demanded to be served a meal. Running low on ingredients, Petti told them he didn't have enough to make anything, but they insisted. They were tired, and they were hungry, and they wanted pasta. "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi!" they cried. "Make any kind of garbage!" The late-night eater is not usually the most discerning. Petti raided the kitchen, finding four tomatoes, two olives, and a jar of capers, the base of the now-famous spaghetti dish; he included it on his menu the next day under the name spaghetti alla puttanesca. Others have their own origin myths. But the most common theory is that it was a quick, satisfying dish that the working girls of Naples could knock up with just a few key ingredients found at the back of the fridge- after a long and unforgiving night. As with all dishes containing tomatoes, there are lots of variations in technique. Some use a combination of tinned and fresh tomatoes, while others opt for a squirt of puree. Some require specifically cherry or plum tomatoes, while others go for a smooth, premade pasta. Many suggest that a teaspoon of sugar will "open up the flavor," though that has never really worked for me. I prefer fresh, chopped, and very ripe, cooked for a really long time. Tomatoes always take longer to cook than you think they will- I rarely go for anything less than an hour. This will make the sauce stronger, thicker, and less watery. Most recipes include onions, but I prefer to infuse the oil with onions, frying them until brown, then chucking them out. I like a little kick in most things, but especially in pasta, so I usually go for a generous dousing of chili flakes. I crush three or four cloves of garlic into the oil, then add any extras. The classic is olives, anchovies, and capers, though sometimes I add a handful of fresh spinach, which nicely soaks up any excess water- and the strange, metallic taste of cooked spinach adds an interesting extra dimension. The sauce is naturally quite salty, but I like to add a pinch of sea or Himalayan salt, too, which gives it a slightly more buttery taste, as opposed to the sharp, acrid salt of olives and anchovies. I once made this for a vegetarian friend, substituting braised tofu for anchovies. Usually a solid fish replacement, braised tofu is more like tuna than anchovy, so it was a mistake for puttanesca. It gave the dish an unpleasant solidity and heft. You want a fish that slips and melts into the pasta, not one that dominates it. In terms of garnishing, I go for dried oregano or fresh basil (never fresh oregano or dried basil) and a modest sprinkle of cheese. Oh, and I always use spaghetti. Not fettuccine. Not penne. Not farfalle. Not rigatoni. Not even linguine. Always spaghetti.

It’s Fae on Fae, man, what are you thinking?” he asked with a frown and I could only glower as I looked back to the fight, forcing myself to remain still. It might have made me ache to hold back but he was right, I couldn’t get involved in a fight between two Fae. And if it had been anyone else, I never would have considered it. But Roxy always made me want to break the rules. “You jumped up, crown touting, cock sucking, whore!” Mildred slammed her fist into Roxy’s face again, not even bothering to use magic as she screamed insults in her face which included way too many references to me being her beloved. “What’s the matter, Mildred?” Roxy snarled. “Is it just that you can’t suck cock properly with that mis-matched jaw of yours or is it that you know Darius is only marrying you because his father is forcing him to?” “When I take my beloved to the bedroom he will be screaming so loudly that he won’t even remember the name Vega!” Mildred howled as she punched Roxy again. “Yeah, screaming in horror,” Roxy spat and I almost fucking laughed aside from the fact that she was about to get her face smashed in by that beast of a girl. “We’ll see if he’s so tempted by you when I’m done pulverising that pretty face of yours and I cut your perky tits off for good measure!” Mildred howled. “Not the tits!” Tyler Corbin gasped from the other side of the crowd as he filmed the whole thing. My heart pounded. Roxy might have been tough, but Mildred was four times the size of her. She needed to fight back with magic if she was going to stand a chance, but as she swung her head forward and cracked the bridge of Mildred’s nose with a savage headbutt, I got the feeling she wasn’t going to use it. Roxy swung a fist into Mildred’s throat to follow it before driving her knee up between her legs as hard as she could. “Ooo right in the vag!” Tyler called and a laugh caught in my throat. “Yes, Tor!” Darcy screamed as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd. “Show her how we fight where we come from!” As Mildred reared back, Roxy lunged forward, rolling them over so that she was on top before swinging her fists down into Mildred’s ugly face with a brutality that made my heart race. She was wild and vicious, blood pissing down her face from her own injuries as she used my stolen rings to batter Mildred again and again. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t end up with Dragons imprinted all over her face from her own injuries as she used my stolen rings to batter Mildred again and again. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t end up with Dragons imprinted all over her face from the shape of the jewellery. Mildred gave as good as she got, punching Roxy in the sides, the chest, even trying to bite her fist as she punched her. “Holy shit,” Seth breathed as he nuzzled against my arm. “This would be so hot if it wasn’t, you know, Mildred. But if I imagine her being literally any other girl then I’d be so turned on right now.” I swallowed a lump in my throat as I refused to agree out loud, but he was right. There was something about Roxy as she fought like that, her lip curled back with determination and absolutely no mercy in her. They might have been fighting like mortals having a bar brawl, but with a crown on her head and blood painting her flesh, I didn’t think she’d ever looked more like the Savage King’s daughter before. She really was a Fae Princess. And I liked it. Mildred cursed and screamed, throwing fists like sledgehammers so hard that I was pretty sure I heard ribs cracking, but Roxy wasn’t going to give in. She swung her arm back one final time and with a scream of rage, she hit Mildred so hard in her pug face that she blacked out. A laugh tumbled from my lips before I could stop it and Roxy looked up at me with a wild determination in her eyes as she grinned like a damn warrior. (Darius POV)

I was walking on campus when I saw the statistic on the front page of a newspaper: one in four women, one in five? I don’t remember, it was just too many, too many women on campus had been sexually assaulted. But what got me was the graphic, rows of woman symbols, the kind you see on bathroom signs, across the entire page, all gray, with one in five inked red. I saw these red figures breathing, a little hallucination. My whole life had warped below the weight of the assault, and if you took that damage and multiplied it by each red figure, the magnitude was staggering. Where were they? I looked around campus, girls walking with earmuffs, black leggings, teal backpacks. If our bodies were literally painted red, we’d have red bodies all over this quad. I wanted to shake the paper in people’s faces. This was not normal. It was an epidemic, a crisis. How could you see this headline and keep walking? We’d deadened to the severity, too familiar a story. But this story was not old to me yet.

Much of it they support with verses from the Koran and medieval Islamic laws, which ISIS uses selectively and expects its followers to take literally. It is a horrible, stunning document. But ISIS is not as original as its members think it is. Rape has been used throughout history as a weapon of war. I never thought I would have something in common with women in Rwanda—before all this, I didn’t know that a country called Rwanda existed—and now I am linked to them in the worst possible way, as a victim of a war crime that is so hard to talk about that no one in the world was prosecuted for committing it until just sixteen years before ISIS came to Sinjar.

Denise was there when I got to Rachel's room, and we didn't really have anything to say to each other, so we both awkwardly sat there for a while. I felt like I should leave, but I knew that would make me feel even worse. Rachel wasn't awake. She had pneumonia, apparently. I really wanted Rachel to wake up. In retrospect, this was stupid and pointless, because I had nothing to say to her, but I just wanted to talk to her again. I sat there staring at her for like an hour. Her frizzy hair was gone, and her mouth was closed, so I couldn't see her sort of big teeth. And her eyes were closed, so I couldn't see them, either. So you'd think the person lying there wouldn't have looked like Rachel at all, but somehow she did. Actually I was crying the whole time, because for some reason it had never really sunk in with me that she was dying, and now I was literally watching her die, and it was somehow different. There was just something about her drying that I had understood but not really understood, if you know what I mean. I mean, you can know someone is dying on an intellectual level, but emotionally it hasn't really hit you, and then when it does, that's when you feel like shit. So like an idiot, I hadn't understood until I was sitting there actually watching her physically die, when it was too late to say or do anything. I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to understand it even a little bit. This was a human being, dying. This was the only time there was going to be someone with those eyes and those ears and that way of breathing through her mouth and that way of building up right before a monster laugh with her eyebrows all raised and her nostrils flaring a little bit, this was the only time there was ever going to be that person, living in this world, and now that was almost over, and I couldn't deal with it.

I know a girl who literally thought that we are an angel but she was wrong. We’re monsters and that girl was literally like a sister to me… died in front of me and I was just looking at her, even though I wanted to heal her but can’t. So no, we’re everything but an angel." ― Maira Imran, Topaz

I know a girl who literally thought that we are an angel but she was wrong. We’re monsters and that girl was literally like a sister to me… died in front of me and I was just looking at her, even though I wanted to heal her but can’t. So no, we’re everything but an angel.

you’ll get it, but this one’s going to have to be short. It’s just… I’m standing in front of the girl of my literal dreams right now, and I’m about to shoot my shot, but the longer I stand here, the more confidence I lose, because she’s lookin’ a little… terrified, and I should probably figure out why, so… I love you and I’ll speak to you later.

You know what amazes me the most about some people? They value their idiotic ideals over actual human lives. Esty—” her hand, holding a cloth on which she had just generously poured antiseptic, gestured toward her patient, “would have died, and that self-important Hungarian broad, who calls herself a physician, wouldn’t give a brass tack. All she cares about is the idea of the unborn child. The mother, who is a living and breathing human being and whose life is at stake, is irrelevant to her. She would refuse to abort a child that didn’t have the slightest chance in the first place and kill the mother with her inaction as long as her religious principles aren’t compromised. Isn’t that something amazing?” “I’m Jewish.” Mala shrugged. “In my religion, we value a mother’s life over an unborn child’s. Even when it’s a difficult birth and there’s a choice between a mother’s life and the child’s, we always save the mother. She’s already here on earth. She has her life, family, friends, her work and her interests. She’ll go on and have more children. The child hasn’t begun its life yet, so the choice is obvious. That’s the logic behind all this, at least.” “Precisely,” Stasia agreed. “I worked as a gynecologist, back home, in Poland. I was performing abortions—illegally, of course—for all those poor souls who had been turned away from state hospitals. I had thirteen-year-old girls who were raped by their uncles and who sat there with empty eyes and explained to me very calmly that it was the choice between me helping them or them drowning themselves in the river. I had wives who wore veils over their faces to cover up their bruises, begging me to help them so that another poor soul wouldn’t be born into a household where the husband did two things: got drunk, and beat up her and the children on a daily basis. My private clinic was a safe refuge for them. But in the eyes of the self-righteous public, I was this vicious child-murderer with no morals or ethics. And you know what? If helping a woman in crisis is immoral and unethical, I think I’ll remain immoral and unethical rather than condemning her to a life of abuse, poverty, or literal death as in Esty’s case.

Babe realized she was no longer covering her half-naked torso with her hands; her skin no longer felt cold, raw, unsheathed. She was completely relaxed. Comfortable, for the first time since she was a little girl, in just her own skin. Literally. Because of Truman.

Based on the parts of this... this scene that are not covered in refuse, and the drawings you have done for me, I know you are an artist with talent. Maybe I have old-fashioned views, but I simply don't understand why you would spend your time creating something like this." He shrugged his shoulders. "The sort of art I am used to seeing is more..." I raised an eyebrow. "More what?" He bit his lip, as though searching for the right words. "Pleasant to look at, I suppose." He shrugged again. "Scenes from nature. Little girls wearing filly white dresses and playing beside riverbanks. Bowls of fruit." "This piece shows a beach and a lake," I pointed out. "It's a scene from nature." "But it's covered in refuse." I nodded. "My art combines objects I find with images I paint. Sometimes what I find and incorporate is literal trash. But I also feel that my art is more than just trash. It's meaningful. These pieces aren't just flat, lifeless images on canvas. They say something." "Oh." He came even closer to the landscapes, kneeling so he could peer at them up close. "And what does your art... say?" His nose was just a few inches from an old McDonald's Quarter Pounder wrapper I'd laminated to the canvas so it looked like it was rising out of Lake Michigan. I'd meant for it to represent capitalism's crushing stranglehold on the natural world. Also, it just sort of looked cool. But I decided to give him a broader explanation. "I want to create something memorable with my art. Something lasting. I want to give people who see my works an experience that won't fade away. Something that will stay with them long after they see it." He frowned skeptically. "And you accomplish that by displaying ephemera others throw away?" I was about to counter by telling him that even the prettiest painting in the fanciest museum faded from memory once the patrons went home. That by using things other people throw away, I took the ephemeral and make it permanent in a way no pretty watercolor ever could.

People have often asked me how we girls managed any privacy in a house with so many boys and no private rooms. It was difficult. We used to bathe with a washcloth from a pan of water. We would first start with our necks and faces and wash down as far as possible. Then we would wash the road dust from our feet and wash up as far as possible. Later, when the boys were out of the room, we would wash “possible.” It was these circumstances that led to a very embarrassing mishap that I have told very few people and would not relate here if it were not so funny. We had an outdoor bathroom, and there were times in the middle of the night when it was very inconvenient to dress and go out into the cold just to take a leak. For these times there was a little room, actually a closet, that had in it what was called a “slop jar” or “slop bucket.” It was actually an enameled pot with flared sides that was made to accommodate a woman squatting over it to do her business. The closet had no door as such, just a sort of curtain hung on a tight piece of wire. After dark when the fire had died down, it could afford some kind of privacy at least. One night when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I had been out on a date and got home fairly late. Everybody was already in bed, and I didn’t want to wake them and alert Mama and Daddy to the hour of my homecoming. I was absolutely bustin’ to pee, so I fumbled my way through the dark until I found the curtain to the closet and stepped inside. I dropped my panties and hiked up my skirt and assumed the position over the slop jar. I was feeling relieved in a physical sense and quite grown-up and somewhat smug that I “pulled it off,” so to speak. But suddenly, here in the middle of my little triumph, or more accurately here in the middle of my rump, came the cold nose of an unexpected intruder. A raccoon had gotten into the house, and unbeknownst to me, we were sharing the closet as well as a very intimate moment. When I felt that cold nose on my butt, I screamed bloody murder and literally peed all over myself. Of course I woke the whole house with my unscheduled concert. Daddy grabbed the poker to fend off an intruder. Mama started praying. The little kids cried, and the big kids just ran around confused. When everybody found out what had happened, they all had a good laugh at my expense. Except, of course, the raccoon. Once the lights were turned on, he acted like any man caught in a compromising position with a lady and bolted for the door. I often think of that moment at times when I’m feeling “too big for my britches,” and it tends to have a humbling effect.

Close at Kudzo In the South, we have a saying to describe how we feel about those around us: “close as kudzu,” which means we’re all connected at the roots. Of course, the first reply of some Yankee is: “What’s kudzu?” If you’re going to be a Grits, sugah, you absolutely have to know the answer to this question. Kudzu is a beautiful green leafy vine. If you’ve ever driven through the Deep South, you’ve seen it growing along the side of the road--and right over everything in its path, from trees and bushes to cars, homes, and utility poles. If you stand still long enough in the South, kudzu will grow right over you. The vines grow as much as a foot a day, and in some places one plant can literally stretch for miles. That’s why we say we’re close as kudzu down here--we’re all part of one culture, and we’re all connected in some way. The thing about kudzu is, it’s not even native. It was brought over from Japan for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In the 1930s, the government planted it across the South as a means of erosion control. Like many before and sine, kudzu fell in love with the South, and just decided to stay. And who can really blame it, now?

I remember when Elvis died. I wrote my sentiments with words of a little girl in my dear diary, "Many people wanted to see his body. They literally wanted to dig his bones out just to make sure that he was being buried. And I could not understand why. Why people could not leave him alone and let his soul rest in peace." I couldn't get it. I didn't grasp it at that time. In a head of a little girl it was hard to believe that there were mysteries to be solved. That there ruled a conspiracy theory that people thought it was odd that he was buried and the casket was never opened. They didn't believe he was dead! Oh yes. Elvis Lives! And as the world needs his songs, his words, his thoughts, his love, his light more than ever before.

Amy was mentally packing for a midnight flight to the mail coach to Dover (plan C), when Jane’s gentle voice cut through the listing of ovine pedigrees. "Such a pity about the tapestries," was all she said. Her voice was pitched low but somehow it carried over both the shouting men. Amy glanced sharply at Jane, and was rewarded by a swift kick to the ankle. Had that been a ‘say something now!’ kick, or a ‘be quiet and sit still’ kick? Amy kicked back in inquiry. Jane put her foot down hard over Amy’s. Amy decided that could be interpreted as either ‘be quiet and sit still’ or ‘please stop kicking me now!' Aunt Prudence had snapped out of her reverie with what was nearly an audible click. "Tapestries?" she inquired eagerly. "Why, yes, Mama," Jane replied demurely. "I had hoped that while Amy and I were in France we might be granted access to the tapestries at the Tuilleries." Jane’s quiet words sent the table into a state of electric expectancy. Forks hovered over plates in mid-air; wineglasses tilted halfway to open mouths; little Ned paused in the act of slipping a pea down the back of Agnes’s dress. Even Miss Gwen stopped glaring long enough to eye Jane with what looked more like speculation than rancour. "Not the Gobelins series of Daphne and Apollo!" cried Aunt Prudence. "But, of course, Aunt Prudence," Amy plunged in. Amy just barely restrained herself from turning and flinging her arms around her cousin. Aunt Prudence had spent long hours lamenting that she had never taken the time before the war to copy the pattern of the tapestries that hung in the Tuilleries Palace. "Jane and I had hoped to sketch them for you, hadn’t we, Jane?" "We had," Jane affirmed, her graceful neck dipping in assent. "Yet if Papa feels that France remains unsafe, we shall bow to his greater wisdom." At the other end of the table, Aunt Prudence was wavering. Literally. Torn between her trust in her husband and her burning desire for needlepoint patterns, she swayed a bit in her chair, the feather in her small silk turban quivering with her agitation. "It surely can’t be as unsafe as that, can it, Bertrand?" She leant across the table to peer at her husband through eyes gone nearsighted from long hours over her embroidery frame. "After all, if dear Edouard is willing to take responsibility for the girls…" "Edouard will take very good care of us, I’m sure, Aunt Prudence! If you’ll just read his letter, you’ll see – ouch!" Jane had kicked her again.

So you'd let me do whatever I wanted?" I shrugged. "Like, literally anything? You'd let me pee on you?" "You wouldn't, but no." "You'd let me parade you around downtown naked? Force-feed you into Type II Diabetes? Give you a bit gag and a pony-tail plug and make you pull me around in a rickshaw?" "No. No. None of those things." I shook my head. "Your brain is a weird place." "Real people do that stuff, Talia. Just because their kinks aren't your kinks doesn't mean they're weird or gross or wrong.

Excuse me, Cinderella?” a deep voice called next to my ear. Cinderella? I removed my hand from my face to look at the guy who belonged to that voice, then quickly pushed myself up onto my elbows when I took in his face, so close to mine. My cheeks burned with embarrassed heat, but I didn’t know how to look away from him. Despite a large red mark on his forehead, his face was flawless and masculine, with a strong brow and nose, a smirk I knew would’ve made my knees weak had I been standing, and a lethal stare from green eyes so clear it was as if I could see through the iris. My gaze had become so fixated on the way his lips moved that it took a few seconds too long to realize he’d said something. “I’m sorry, what?” The smirk broadened for a brief moment, giving me a glimpse of straight, white teeth. He leaned over me until his lips were at my ear, and if I’d had the capability to breathe around him, I would’ve stopped then. “I said I think you lost this,” he drawled, and I swooned. Literally . . . swooned. As in: all the air left my body in one hard rush, I was unable to keep myself up on my elbows any longer, my head felt light and dizzy, the room spun, and I was pretty sure I’d just entered a romance novel. It really didn’t matter that it was from the lingering effects of nearly choking to death, and then unknowingly holding my breath for too long. “Whoa.” He quickly put a hand under my head before it could smack on the hardwood floor. “I’m fine,” I said breathlessly, and internally berated myself for doing everything imaginable to look like an idiot tonight. I tried to sit up, but the guy was still hovering over me, making it impossible to go farther than I’d been. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “Yes,” I promised, and blew out a steadying breath when he sat back. “Good. I can’t have you passing out on me, Cinderella.” “Cin—” My head shook firmly as I corrected him. “No, my name is Rorie.” With another slow smirk, he gestured to the red mark on his forehead for barely a second, then reached behind him and produced my stiletto. My embarrassment from earlier couldn’t compare to the level it was at then as I put it all together. My shoe had flown into his face. “Oh my God,” I whispered so low, the words drifted away with the bass of the music. “I’m so sorry.” He laughed easily, as if he hadn’t just taken a five-inch stiletto to the face, and glanced from my shoe to me. “My name is Declan,” he provided. “I already know this shoe belongs to you. What I want to know now, Cinderella, is if I give this back to you, are you going to run away from me?” Despite my humiliation, my lips spread into a smile as the name finally made sense. I reached for the shoe, but Declan held it away from me. His expression showed he was still waiting for an answer. With a raised eyebrow, I said, “I lost both shoes. I don’t care what Disney said, a girl can’t run away very easily with only one shoe.” His smirk stretched to match my smile, and he dipped his head close. “Then I’m keeping the other one that hit the back of my head.

Rachel . . .” He ran a nervous hand through his hair and paused for a second, as if trying to figure out what to say. “The school year is about to end and you’ll be going back to Cali over the summer. I feel like I’m about to miss any chance with you I may have. And I don’t want to. I know you liked me when we were growing up. But, Rach, you were way too young back then.” “I’m still five years younger; that hasn’t changed.” He smirked. “You and I both know a relationship between a thirteen-year-old and eighteen-year-old, and a twenty-one- and twenty-six-year-old are completely different.” So? That doesn’t help my argument right now. “Well, you and I have both changed over the last eight years. Feelings change—” “Yes.” He cut me off and his blue eyes darkened as he gave me a once-over. “They do.” I hated that my body was responding to his look. But honestly, I think it’d have been impossible for anyone not to respond to him. Like I said. Adonis. “Uh, Blake. Up here.” He smiled wryly, and dear Lord, that smile was way too perfect. “Look, honestly? I have an issue with the fact that you’re constantly surrounded by very eager and willing females. It’s not like I’d put some claim on you if we went on a couple dates, but you ask me out while these girls are touching you and drooling all over you. It’s insulting that you would ask me out while your next lay is already practically stripping for you.” His expression darkened and he tilted his head to the side. “You think I’m fucking them like everyone else?” Ah, frick. Um, yes? “If you are, then that’s your business. I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. But whether you are or not, you don’t even attempt to push them away. Since you moved here, I’ve never seen you with less than two women touching you. You don’t find that weird?” Was I really the only person who found this odd? Suddenly pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against, he took the two steps toward me and I tried to mold myself to the door. A heart-stopping smile and bright blue eyes now replaced his darkened features as he completely invaded my personal space. If he weren’t so damn beautiful I’d have karate-chopped him and reminded him of personal bubbles. Or gone all Stuart from MADtv on him and told him he was a stranger and to stay away from my danger. Instead, I tried to control my breathing and swallow through the dryness in my mouth. “No, Rachel. What I find weird is that you don’t seem to realize that I don’t even notice those other women or what they’re doing because all I see is you. I look forward to seeing you every day. I don’t think you realize you are the best part of my weekdays. I moved here for this job before I even knew you and Candice were going to school here, and seeing you again for the first time in years—God, Rachel, you were so beautiful and I had no idea that it was you. You literally stopped me in my tracks and I couldn’t do anything but watch you. “And you have this way about you that draws people to you . . . always have. It has nothing to do with how devastatingly beautiful you are—though that doesn’t hurt . . .” He smirked and searched my face. “But you have this personality that is rare. And it bursts from you. You’re sweet and caring, you’re genuinely happy, and it makes people around you happy. And you have a smile and laugh that is contagious.” Only men like Blake West could get away with saying things like that and still have my heart racing instead of making me laugh in their faces. “You’re not like other women. Even though these are the years for it, you don’t seem like the type of girl to just have flings, and I can assure you, that’s not what I’m into, nor what I’m looking for with you. So I don’t see those other women; all I’m seeing is you. Do you understand that now?” Holy shit. He was serious? “Rachel?” I nodded and he smiled. “So, will you please let me take you out this weekend?” For

PICTURE A CREAM-COLORED couch. Now visualize one brooding dark-haired sex machine (I’m assuming, but I have a strong feeling about this) sitting on one end and one golden being of near perfection on the other. Then there’s me, in the middle, literally squished between two yummy smelling men, and…I just want to escape. The pizzas have been demolished (I ate half of one myself) and now an awkward silence has descended. It doesn't help that I keep thinking of pornos and threesomes. I am honestly waiting for corny seventies music to start. I was here first. I don’t feel like I should have to be the one to move. But I’m awfully uncomfortable. There are other places to sit in the room; a recliner even. Ya know, super comfy, so comfy you can recline. So one of them could move to that. I almost think they’re enjoying this. Like, they’re having fun at my expense because they know I think they’re hot. Why did I blurt that out? “So, what’s with the name Kennedy?” Blake wonders in his deep timbre that doesn’t really sound like Graham’s, but reminds me of him all the same. I turn my head to the right, careful not to move any other body part, and meet his challenging gray eyes. He’s, like, two inches away. So close I can see green flecks in his eyes. I think he’s a little too amused by my predicament, if the upward curve of his mouth is anything to go by. One inky black eyebrow lifts as he waits. “It’s my name.” I raise a single eyebrow back. I can do that too, the look says. His smile deepens. “Yeah, but, what were your parents thinking? Kennedy? For a girl? And technically it’s a last name.” My eyes narrow. Oh, so it’s to be like that, is it? “So is Blake,” I retort and give myself an imaginary pat on the back. “And Graham,” I add triumphantly. “Leave me out of this,” Graham states from my left... “Did your parents have a thing for the Kennedys?” Two eyebrows go up this time. I get my mental pistols ready—it’s obvious there’s going to be a showdown. I straighten my spine. “What do you mean by a thing?” My, totally in this moment one hundred and forty-nine percent resented, roommate groans. He shrugs one broad shoulder. “You know. An infatuation. An unhealthy obsession. Fanaticism. A thing.” “You really shouldn’t have started this,” Graham intercedes, leaning around me to give his brother a look. My face is on fire and my hands are in tight fists in my lap. I stare at the television, which is on and no one’s paying attention to, and say very softly, “I’ll have you know, the Kennedys were, and are, an iconic family. I feel it an honor to be named after them.” Blake grunts. “Do you deny it?” I ask the TV. “Nope. I just wondered about your family.” I jerk my head around and give him a look full of venom. “We will not discuss my family.” He holds his hands up in surrender, but there's a gleam in his eyes. What is wrong with this guy? “Easy there, Ken.” I growl. Graham sighs beside me. “Don’t call me that,” I state through gritted teeth. He looks over the top of my head. “Touchy, isn’t she?” Graham’s head slumps against the back of the couch. “So, Blake,” I begin in a sweet voice, “what’s up with you and red?” I go still, holding my breath. Did I really just say that? That was so not nice. I wait with anticipation and dread. Graham stops moving on the other side of the couch. Blake stares at me, his lips parted. Then he looks at his brother. “What’s she talking about?” My about to be annihilated roomie makes a sound of dismay. I twist around to glare at him. He looks like a young boy who just had his hand caught in the cookie jar; guilty and disappointed that his fun has been halted. “Don’t say the word red, huh?” I jump to my feet and back away until both men are within my line of vision. “You know what?” They both look at me, obviously not knowing what. “This means war!

I’m in public, in a club in Florence, snogging a boy who I met only a couple of hours ago, so madly that I’m weak at the knees…in full view, if they looked over, of his friends and two girls I barely know… My eyes snap open, and I drag my mouth away from Luca’s, gasping for breath. I find my feet under me, pull back from him, and promptly grab the edge of the table to steady myself. My hair’s fallen down again; I can feel it tumbling down my back. My lips are wet. I raise a hand to wipe them dry, aware that my eyes are stretched wide with shock. I literally cannot believe what just happened. I feel like someone just gave me a violent electric shock. Luca looks equally disheveled. His hair’s tumbling forward in straight black lines, his blue eyes wide, his lips redder from kissing me so hard. He looks as amazed as I am. “Ammazzati,” he mutters. I’m still too close to him. I can feel the force field between us. I take another step back, still gripping the table’s edge, because I see his expression change unexpectedly. His blue eyes darken, and his mouth twists cynically. “So,” he says, his tone sarcastic, almost bitter, “you are a success in Italy, Violetta. Congratulazioni. You spend only one day here and already you are kissed by a boy! Your friends will be envious.

Women take everything literally, Griffin. Never assume girls know what you want. Always tell them. We’re silly creatures and sometimes you have to just spell it out for us.

Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade. "She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts." Fejzić, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Goražde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers. "On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzić in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk he came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Goražde for Serbia." The Soraks eventually left and took over a house that once belonged to a Muslim family in the Serbian-held town of Kopaci. Two miles to the east. They could no longer communicate with Fejzić. The couple said they grieved daily for their sons. They missed their home. They said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Sebs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzić and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone. In his act lay an ocean of hope.

The night of the theatrical, Jane and Mr. Nobley secreted themselves behind the house for the final brush-up. The mood of late had let a bit of Bohemia into Regency England, the usual strict social observances bending, the rehearsals allowing the couples to slip away alone and enjoy the exhilarating intimacy of the unobserved. Mr. Nobley sat on the gravel path, leaning back on his elbow in a reluctant recline. “Oh, to die here, alone and unloved…” “That was pretty good,” Jane said. “You genuinely sounded in pain as you said it, but I think you could add a groan or two.” Mr. Nobley groaned, though perhaps not as part of the theatrical. “Perfect!” said Jane. Mr. Nobley rested his head on his knee and laughed. “I cannot believe I let you railroad me into this. I have always avoided doing a theatrical.” “Oh, you don’t seem that sorry. I mean, you certainly are sorry, just not regretful…” “Just do your part, please, Miss Erstwhile.” “Oh, yes, of course, forgive me. I can’t imagine why I’m taking so long, it’s just that there’s something so appealing about you there on the ground, at my feet--” He tackled her. He actually leaped up, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her to the ground. She screeched as she thudded down on top of him. His hands stiffened. “Whoops,” he said. “You did not just do that.” He looked around for witnesses. “You are right, I did not just do that. But if I had, I was driven to it; no jury in the world would convict me. We had better keep rehearsing, someone might come by.” “I would, but you’re still holding me.” His hands were on her waist. They were gorgeous, thick-fingered, large. She liked them there. “So they are,” he said. Then he looked at her. He breathed in. His forehead tensed as if he were trying to think of words for his thoughts, as if he were engaged in some gorgeous inner battle that was provoked by how perfectly beautiful she was. (That last part was purely Jane’s romantic speculation and can’t be taken as literal.) Nevertheless, they were on the ground, touching, frozen, staring at each other, and even the trees were holding their breath. “I--” Jane started to say, but Mr. Nobley shook his head. He apologized and helped her to her feet, then plopped back onto the ground, as his character was still in the throes of death. “Shall we resume?” “Right, okay,” she said, shaking gravel from her skirt, “we were near the end…Oh, Antonio!” She knelt carefully beside him to keep her skirt from wrinkling and patted his chest. “You are gravely wounded. And groaning so impressively! Let me hold you and you can die in my arms, because traditionally, death and unrequited love are a romantic pairing.” “Those aren’t the lines,” he said through his teeth, as though an actual audience might overhear their practice. “They’re better than. It’s hardly Shakespeare.” “Right. So, your love revives my soul, my wounds heal…etcetera, etcetera, and I stand up and we exclaim our love dramatically. I cherish you more than farms love rain, than night loves the moon, and so on…” He pulled her upright and they stood facing each other, her hands in his. Again with the held breaths, the locked gazes. Twice in a row. It was almost too much! And Jane wanted to stay in that moment with him so much, her belly ached with the desire. “Your hands are cold,” he said, looking at her fingers. She waited. They had never practiced this part and the flimsy play gave no directions, such as, Kiss the girl, you fool. She leaned in a tiny bit. He warmed her hands. “So…” she said. “I suppose we know our scene, more or less,” he said. Was he going to kiss her? No, it seemed nobody ever kissed in Regency England. So what was happening? And what did it mean to fall in love in Austenland anyway? Jane stepped back, the weird anxiety of his nearness suddenly making her heart beat so hard it hurt.

So I took another look at Genesis …” “You know Genesis?” “And Nehemiah, Ezra, Proverbs, Lamentations—one of my favorites, hilarious subtext, but I can’t read it on airplanes, where people get upset with laughing fits. The whole book’s a classic.” “You read the whole Bible?” “Couple times. And you know how in Genesis, Lot’s the only good guy in the twin cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. These two male angels come to stay with him. Apparently they’re lookers. Think Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Dogma. And these people from his street bang on Lot’s door, wanting him to let the houseguests out so they can have gay sex. Now Lot’s always been an accommodating neighbor, but this ain’t no potluck dinner. They argue back and forth, going nowhere. So, finally, in an attempt to show that sex with girls is much more fun and convert them to heterosexuality, Lot offers to turn over his two underage, virgin daughters for gang rape.” “It doesn’t say that!” “Let me see your Bible.” Serge executed a perfect sword drill, finding chapter nineteen in seconds. He turned the book around, slid it back across the table and tapped verse eight. Three youths crowded over the page. “It does say that. But how can it be?” “Because God blessed us with curiosity. Read it with an open mind and you realize it’s actually a brilliant satire on homophobia. Think as an individual: The Lord doesn’t want a train pulled on little kids. It’s like reading Swift’s Modest Proposal and thinking he really wants to eat babies. What the Bible’s trying to say is we’re all his children. But if you take Lot’s story literally, well, nice family values, eh? But that’s just my interpretation, which I’m now questioning. I could be way off.” The youths got up and went over to their pastor. “I think we’ve been wrong about gay people …” “… They’re fellow children of God.

Bindi, meanwhile, was blossoming. At just six weeks old, she held her head up and reached for objects. She even tried to scoot around a bit. She pushed with her little legs and worked her way across the bed. When Steve came home from Sumatra, it was obvious how much he had missed his little girl. I had to smile when Steve sat down on the couch with Bindi, telling her of his adventures moment by moment, while she stared intently at him, trying desperately to puzzle out his words. “She really did miss you,” I said. “No, she didn’t,” Steve scoffed. Then he added, his face brightening hopefully, “How could you tell?” I knew the truth. Even as a newborn, Bindi behaved differently when Steve was around. When she saw Steve come home after one of his trips, she got excited and happy and would literally quiver with joy. Steve shared everything with her. He took her around the zoo and introduced her to the wildlife. One day he took her into the enclosure with Agro, one of our biggest crocodiles. A school group had come to the zoo, and they assembled in their neatly pressed uniforms around the enclosure. Bindi squealed with delight and looked intently at Agro. That afternoon Steve did the crocodile demonstration with his daughter cradled in his arms. The school-group visitors looked impressed and perhaps a bit jealous. After the croc show, I noticed Bindi was as alert as I had ever seen her. She was so thrilled. Joining her daddy for the croc demo became something she looked forward to. Sometimes Bindi and I would sit in the enclosure to watch Steve with the crocodiles, and she would cry until he picked her up so she could be part of the action. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I thought.

Liked Following Message More Contact Us .. Status Photo / VideoOffer, Event + . Write something... . 1 Draft Created Saturday, November 5 at 4:05pm. See draft. . The Year of “Alphabetization In the Cuban post revolution era it was at “Che” Guevara who promoted educational and health reforms. 1961 became the “Year of Cuban Literacy” or the “Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización en Cuba,” meaning the “Year of Alphabetization in Cuba.” The illiteracy rate had increased throughout Cuba after the revolution. Fidel Castro in a speech told prospective literacy teachers, “You will teach, and you will learn,” meaning that this educational program would become a two-way street. Both public and private schools were closed two months earlier, for the summer than usual, so that both teachers and students could voluntarily participate in this special ambitious endeavor. A newly uniformed army of young teachers went out into the countryside, to help educate those in need of literacy education. It was the first time that a sexually commingled group would spend the summer together, raising the anxiety of many that had only known a more Victorian lifestyle. For the first time boys and girls, just coming of age, would be sharing living conditions together. This tended to make young people more self-sufficient and thought to give them a better understanding of the Revolution. It is estimated that a million Cubans took part in this educational program. Aside from the primary purpose of decreasing illiteracy, it gave the young people from urban areas an opportunity to see firsthand what conditions were like in the rural parts of Cuba. Since it was the government that provided books and supplies, as well as blankets, hammocks and uniforms, it is no surprise that the educational curriculum included the history of the Cuban Revolution, however it made Cuba the most literate countries in the world with a UNESCO literacy rate in 2015, of 99.7%. By Captain Hank Bracker, author of the award winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba,” Follow Captain Hank Bracker on Facebook, Goodreads, his Website account and Twitter.