Lost In The Shuffle Quotes

Do you have agendas for your children that are more important than the children themselves? Lost in the shuffle of uniforms, practices, games, recitals, and performances can be the creative and joyful soul of your child. Watch and listen carefully. Do they have time to daydream? From their dreams will emerge the practices and activities that will make self-discipline as natural as breathing.

Look, Aerin, preparation is only half the challenge of winning a debate.” “And the other half?” He had her now. “You have to choose the right side.” “Your side, you mean.” She bristled. “No, the losing side.” “What?” “Always choose the weaker side.” “Why would I do that?” Doubt edged her voice, but now she was sitting erect, her feet flat on the floor. “Because then you have further to go to prove your case.” He eased the feet of his chair down. “In a debate, there are two sides. If both make a good argument, then the less popular side wins because that side had further to go to prove its point. Simple logistics.” “If you don’t care which side wins.” She frowned. “It’s a debate. It doesn’t matter which side wins.” “You mean it doesn’t matter to you.” The tone in her voice unsettled him. Or maybe it was the fact that that her criticism disturbed him at all. “It’s a class,” he said. “The point is to flesh out the different sides of an argument.” “And you don’t care if the truth gets lost in the shuffle. Don’t you believe in anything?!

He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time at avoiding ridicule.

I never worried about the genius: genius takes care of the genius in a man. My concern was always for the nobody, the man who is lost in the shuffle, the man who is so common, so ordinary, that his presence is not even noticed. One genius does not inspire another.

Mogadishu the beautiful - your white-turbaned mosques, baskets of anchovies as bright as mercury, jazz and shuffling feet, bird-boned servant girls with slow smiles, the blind white of your homes against the sapphire blue of the ocean - you are missed, her dreams seem to say.

I know. I know. But he's always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he's lost in some dream." "And?" "I wasn't like that." Baba sounded frustrated, almost angry. Rahim Khan laughed. "Children aren't colouring books. You don't get to fill them with your favourite colours.

But I guess the nice thing about driving a car is that the physical act of driving itself occupies a good chunk of brain cells that otherwise would be giving you trouble overloading your thinking. New scenery continually erases what came before; memory is lost, shuffled, relabeled and forgotten. Gum is chewed; buttons are pushed; windows are lowered and opened. A fast moving car is the only place where you're legally allowed to not deal with your problems. It's enforced meditation and this is good.

I need to move around a bit. To shuffle my surroundings. To wake up in cities I don't know my way around and have conversations in languages I cannot entirely comprehend. There is always this tremendous longing in my heart to be lost, the be someplace else, to be far far away from all of this.

...unquestioning automatons blindly marching to the beat - an eerie crunching sound hoards of shuffling feet... (from silent moments)

I got mixed up with some oddness in my youth, and the long and short of it is that I can't shuffle off this mortal coil until I have read the ten most boring classics.

Joel reached for her hands and held them tight. ‘No offence to Riza, but you are more than just energy. I can feel your hands in mine. Smell the perfume in your hair. You are Emily, and you’re a part of me. I couldn’t love a ball of energy, but I love . . .’ Joel seemed unable to continue. Emily’s heart started to pound. ‘You love . . .’ she gently prodded. He looked down at her hands in his and dropped them abruptly. He shuffled on his feet and wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Nothing . . .’ His voice had lost its softness.

You are Emily, and you’re a part of me. I couldn’t love a ball of energy, but I love . . .’ Joel seemed unable to continue. Emily’s heart started to pound. ‘You love . . .’ she gently prodded. He looked down at her hands in his and dropped them abruptly. He shuffled on his feet and wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Nothing . . .’ His voice had lost its softness.

Waiting for a book to be published is like having a baby. It would be nine months before we heard the patter of tiny pages trotting through the letter box, and the bookcase shuffled it's shelves in boredom and I was a martyr to morning sickness.

If we let ourselves get lost in the shuffle of daily life, as we hurry along we end up knowing more about our shoes from looking down than about the stars—or life’s unseen possibilities—from pausing for a few moments here and there to gaze upward and beyond … and adjust our course accordingly. My

I got out of the car and slammed its door. How matter-of-fact, how square that slam sounded in the void of the sunless day! Woof, commented the dog perfunctorily. I pressed the bell button, it vibrated through my whole system. Personne. Je resonne. Repersonne. From what depth this re-nonsense? Woof, said the dog. A rush and a shuffle, and woosh-woosh went the door. Couple of inches taller. Pink-rimmed glasses. New, heaped-up hairdo, new ears. How simple! The moment, the death that I had kept conjuring up for three years was as simple as a bit of dry wood. She was frankly and hugely pregnant. Her head looked smaller (only two seconds had passed really, but let me give them as much wooden duration as life can stand), and her pale-freckled cheeks were hollowed, and her bare shins and arms had lost all their tan, so that the little hairs showed. She wore a brown, sleeveless felt dress and sloppy felt slippers. 'We-e-ell!' she exhaled after a pause with all the emphasis of wonder and welcome. 'Husband at home?' I croaked, fist in pocket. I could not kill her, of course, as some have thought. You see I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.

There is a need for closeness, yet we can't get too close. The teacher-pupil relationship is a kind of tightrope to be walked. I know how carefully I must choose a word, a gesture. I understand the delicate balance between friendliness and familiarity, dignity and aloofness. I am especially aware of this in trying to reclaim Ferone. I don't know why it's so important to me. Perhaps because he, too, is a rebel. Perhaps because he's been so damaged. He's too bright and too troubled to be lost in the shuffle.

It's very easy to stand L.A., which is why it's almost inevitable that all sorts of ideas get entertained… Logical sequence, however, gets lost in the shuffle.

Downstairs, I could hear the return of a long-lost sound: Amy making breakfast. Banging wooden cupboards (rump-thump!), rattling containers of tin and glass (ding-ring!), shuffling and sorting a collection of metal pots and iron pans (ruzz-shuzz!). A culinary orchestra tuning up, clattering vigorously toward the finale, a cake pan drumrolling along the floor, hitting the wall with a cymballic crash.

So my life has come to this: all I ever make is laundry. Awake or asleep, I'm always shuffling round some shopping mall, raking through knitwear carousels that whirl into infinity, searching, with the fever or teething gums, for the ultimate cardigan. Is it any wonder the wardrobe's bursting, the linen basket overflowing like an archive of disproved hypotheses? The grey bras, the shrinking T-shirts, that embarrassed puddle of lycra, my favourite dress -- now ruined dress -- my lost remembered, perfect dress: all laundry, in the end. More laundry.

I promote the books I love tirelessly, because a book can so easily get lost in the mad shuffle of the world and it needs someone with a loud voice to hold it up and praise it. I am that person.

He shuffles atoms and jet of light, remotest nebulae, drips of water, prick-points of sensation, slime-oozings and cosmic bulks, all mixed with pearls of faith, love of woman, imagined dignities, frightened surmises, and pompous arrogances, and of the stuff builds himself an immortality to startle the heavens and baffle the immensities. He squirms on his dunghill, and like a child lost in the dark among goblins, calls to the gods that he is their younger brother, a prisoner of the quick that is destined to be as free as they - monuments of egotism reared by the epiphenomena; dreams and the dust of dreams, that vanish when the dreamer vanishes and are no more when he is not.

Is this flesh of yours you? Or is it an extraneous something possessed by you? Your body—what is it? A machine for converting stimuli into reactions. Stimuli and reactions are remembered. They constitute experience. Then you are in your consciousness these experiences. You are at any moment what you are thinking at that moment. Your I is both subject and object; it predicates things of itself and is the things predicated. The thinker is the thought, the knower is what is known, the possessor is the things possessed. "After all, as you know well, man is a flux of states of consciousness, a flow of passing thoughts, each thought of self another self, a myriad thoughts, a myriad selves, a continual becoming but never being, a will-of-the-wisp flitting of ghosts in ghostland. But this, man will not accept of himself. He refuses to accept his own passing. He will not pass. He will live again if he has to die to do it. "He shuffles atoms and jets of light, remotest nebulae, drips of water, prick-points of sensation, slime-oozings and cosmic bulks, all mixed with pearls of faith, love of woman, imagined dignities, frightened surmises, and pompous arrogances, and of the stuff builds himself an immortality to startle the heavens and baffle the immensities. He squirms on his dunghill, and like a child lost in the dark among goblins, calls to the gods that he is their younger brother, a prisoner of the quick that is destined to be as free as they—monuments of egotism reared by the epiphenomena; dreams and the dust of dreams, that vanish when the dreamer vanishes and are no more when he is not.

Aronowitz twirled in his chair and scurried into the workshop in the back, to more grunts. He reminded Carney of a squirrel in the park, darting helter-skelter after lost nuts. Maybe the other squirrels of Radio Row understood this behavior, but it was animal madness to this civilian.

There was genuine regret in his face as he showed her that trifling attention. He was a vagabond and a cheat; he had lived a mean, shuffling, degraded life, but he was human; and she had found her way to the lost sympathies in him which not even the self-profanation of a swindler's existence could wholly destroy. "Damn

Inej kept her eyes averted, shuffling a stack of papers into a pile on the desk as Kaz stripped out of his vest and shirt. She wasn’t sure if she was flattered or insulted that he didn’t seem to give a second thought to her presence. “How long will we be gone?” she asked, darting a glance at him through the open doorway. He was corded muscle, scars, but only two tattoos—the Dregs’ crow and cup on his forearm and, above it, a black R on his bicep. She’d never asked him what it meant. It was his hands that drew her attention as he shucked off his leather gloves and dipped a cloth in the washbasin. He only ever removed them in these chambers, and as far as she knew, only in front of her. Whatever affliction he might be hiding, she could see no sign of it, only slender lockpick’s fingers, and a shiny rope of scar tissue from some long ago street fight. “A few weeks, maybe a month,” he said as he ran the wet cloth under his arms and the hard planes of his chest, water trickling down his torso. For Saints’ sake, Inej thought as her cheeks heated. She’d lost most of her modesty during her time with the Menagerie, but really, there were limits. What would Kaz say if she suddenly stripped down and started washing herself in front of him? He’d probably tell me not to drip on the desk, she thought with a scowl.

Stay on the path and you'll be safe, eat in peace, sleep in peace, breathe in peace; stray and beware. Work together and we can subvert their evil order. It was a map of the black nation inside the white world, part of the bigger thing but its own self, independent, with its own constitution. If we didn't help one another we'd be lost out there.

You have two choices,” Sophie decided, placing her hands on her hips—even though most of her torso was under the mud, so the effect was somewhat muted. “You can wade in now on your own. Or I can have Sandor pick you up and toss you in.” “Everyone votes for option B, right?” Dex asked. The chorus of “yes” was definitely unanimous. “I hate all of you,” Stina informed them as Sandor stalked toward her with a smile that looked downright gleeful. “Fine. I’ll do it on my own—back off!” She moved to the edge of the mud again. And then she just stood there. “Ten seconds,” Sophie warned. “Then it’s Sandor dunk time! Ten… nine… eight…” Biana, Dex, and Wylie joined in the countdown as Stina made a noise that was part growl, part moaning whale. “Four… three…” Stina muttered a string of words that would’ve made Ro proud. Then she shuffled into the mud, trying to move slowly and carefully. But two steps in, she lost her footing and… SPLASH! “For the record,” Dex said as Stina burst back to the surface looking like a sludge beast and screaming like a banshee, “this might be the greatest moment of my life.

On the wall at Elizabeth's office they had a map of the United States and the Caribbean with pins and red marker to indicate the cities and towns and routes that Black Star promoted. Stay on the path and you'll be safe, eat in peace, sleep in peace, breath in peace and beware. Work together and you can subvert their evil order. It was a map if the black nation inside the white world, part of the bigger thing but its own self, independent, with its own constitution. If we did not help one another we'd be lost out there.

Joan Blondell had it all: looks, talent, energy, humor. If she never became a top-flight superstar, the fault lies mostly with Warner Brothers. At MGM, Joan could have easily had Jean Harlow’s career; at Paramount, Claudette Colbert’s or Carole Lombard’s; at Fox, Loretta Young’s; at RKO, Ginger Rogers’. Some of the fault lies, too, with Blondell herself, who later admitted, “The instant they said ‘cut!’ I was whammo out of that studio and into the car . . . In order to be a top star and remain a top star and to get all the fantastic roles that you yearned for, you’ve got to fight for it and you’ve got to devote your twenty-four hours to just that; you’ve got to think of yourself as a star, operate as a star; do all the press that is necessary . . . What meant most to me was getting home, and that’s the truth.” But if Joan Blondell got slightly lost in the shuffle at Warners, she still managed to turn in some delightfully snappy performances and typify the warm-hearted, wisecracking Depression dame. And when she aged, she did so with grace and humor.

Whole NNE cults and stelliform subcults Lenz reports as existing around belief systems about the metaphysics of the Concavity and annular fusion and B.S.-1950s-B-cartridge-type-radiation-affected fauna and overfertilization and verdant forests with periodic oasises of purportaged desert and whatever east of the former Montpelier VT area of where the annulated Shawshine River feeds the Charles and tints it the exact same tint of blue as the blue on boxes of Hefty SteelSaks and the ideas of ravacious herds of feral domesticated housepets and oversized insects not only taking over the abandoned homes of relocated Americans but actually setting up house and keeping them in model repair and impressive equity, allegedly, and the idea of infants the size of prehistoric beasts roaming the overfertilized east Concavity quadrants, leaving enormous scat-piles and keening for the abortive parents who’d left or lost them in the general geopolitical shuffle of mass migration and really fast packing, or, as some of your more Limbaugh-era-type cultists sharingly believe, originating from abortions hastily disposed of in barrels in ditches that got breached and mixed ghastly contents with other barrels that reanimated the abortive feti and brought them to a kind of repelsive oversized B-cartridge life thundering around due north of where yrstruly and Green strolled through the urban grid.

Back then, Japan as a nation aspired to something in which each individual seemed invested. And that "something"wasn't just about economic growth, or transforming the yen into an international currency. It had more to do with accessing information. Information was indispensable, and not only as a means of obtaining necessities like food and clothing and medicine. Within two or three years of World War II's end, starvation had been basically eliminated in Japan, and yet the Japanese had continued slaving away as if their lives depended on it. Why? To create a more abundant life? If so, where was the abundance? Where were the luxurious living spaces? Eyesores dominated the scenery wherever you went, and people still crammed themselves into packed commuter trains each morning, submitting to conditions that would be fatal for any other mammal. Apparently what the Japanese wanted wasn't a better life, but more things. And things, of course, were a form of information. But as things became readily available and information began to flow smoothly, the original aspiration got lost in the shuffle. People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety people turn to extreme sex, violence, and even murder.

He turned him about in the light from the window. What are you wearing? he said. Harrogate shuffled and flapped his arms. Aw, he said. Just some old clothes. Did they rig you out in these at the workhouse? Yeah. They lost my clothes what they give me at the hospital. I dont look funny do I? No. You look crazy. He pulled at Harrogate. What is this? Harrogate held his arms aloft. I dont know, he said. Suttree was turning him around. Good God, he said. The shirt was fashioned from an enormous pair of striped drawers, his neck stuck through the ripped seam of the crotch, his arms hanging from the capacious legholes like sticks. What size do you wear? What size what? Anything. Shirt to start with. I take a small. A small. Yeah. Take that damn thing off.

WHENEVER I WOKE UP, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed. I’d get two large coffees with cream and six sugars each, chug the first one in the elevator on the way back up to my apartment, then sip the second one slowly while I watched movies and ate animal crackers and took trazodone and Ambien and Nembutal until I fell asleep again. I lost track of time in this way. Days passed. Weeks. A few months went by. When I thought of it, I ordered delivery from the Thai restaurant across the street, or a tuna salad platter from the diner on First Avenue. I’d wake up to find voice messages on my cell phone from salons or spas confirming appointments I’d booked in my sleep. I always called back to

Children, now we shall try to write a capital letter L,” I say and go to the blackboard. “Ten lines of L’s, then five lines of Lina, and five lines of Larch.” I write out the words slowly with chalk. A shuffling and rustling begins behind me. I expect to find that they are laughing at me and turn around. But it is only the notebooks being opened and the slates put in readiness. The forty heads are bent obediently over their task. —I am almost surprised. The slate pencils are squeaking, the pens scratching. I pass to and fro between the forms. On the wall hangs a crucifix, a stuffed barn owl and a map of Europe. Outside the windows the clouds drive steadily by, swift and low. The map of Germany is coloured in brown and green. I stop before it. The frontiers are hatched in red, and make a curious zigzag from top to bottom. Cologne—Aachen, there are the thin black lines marking the railways; Herbesthal, Liège, Brussels, Lille—I stand on tiptoe—Roubaix, Arras, Ostend—Where is Mount Kemmel then? It isn’t marked at all; but there is Langemarck, Ypres, Bixschoote, Staden. How small they are on the map—tiny points only, secluded, tiny points—and yet how the heavens thundered and the earth raged there on the 31st of July when the Big Offensive began and before nightfall we had lost every officer. I turn away and survey the fair and dark heads bending zealously over the words, Lina and Larch. Strange—for them those tiny points on the map will be no more than just so much stuff to be learned—a few new place names and a number of dates to be memorized by note in the history lesson—like the Seven Years’ War or some battle against the Romans. A

At the moment, however, she had an ever larger problem: what to do now, when two defenseless women were completely lost in the wilds of Scotland, at night, in the rain and cold. Shuffling footsteps sounded on the gravel path, and both women straightened, both suppressing the hope soaring in their breasts and keeping their faces carefully expressionless. “Well, well, well,” Jake boomed. “Glad I caught up with you and-“ He lost his thought as he beheld the utterly comic sight of two stiff-backed women seated on a trunk together, prim and proper as you please, beneath a black umbrella in the middle of nowhere. “Uh-where are your horses?” “We have no horses,” Lucinda informed him in a disdainful voice that implied such beasts would have been an intrusion on their tete-a-tete. “No? How did you get here?” “A wheeled conveyance carried us to this godforsaken place.” “I see.” He lapsed into daunted silence, and Elizabeth started to say something at least slightly pleasant when Lucinda lost her patience. “You have, I collect, come to urge us to return?” “Ah-yes. Yes, I have.” “Then do so. We haven’t all night.” Lucinda’s words struck Elizabeth as a bald lie. When Jake seemed at a loss as to how to go about it, Lucinda stood up and assisted him. “I gather Mr. Thornton is extremely regretful for his unforgivable and inexcusable behavior?” “Well, yes, I guess that’s the way it is. In a way.” “No doubt he intends to tell us that when we return?” Jake hesitated, weighing his certainty that Ian had no intention of saying anything of the kind against the certainty that if the women didn’t return, he’d be eating his own cooking and sleeping with a bad conscience and a bad stomach. “Why don’t we let him make his own apologies?” he prevaricated.

Lieutenant Thomas R. Gilligan, thirty-seven, was off duty and out of uniform, checking out TVs in an electronics store. He went to investigate the commotion and stopped James Powell, a ninth grader who had joined the mob of angry students. Powell was unarmed, according to witnesses. Gilligan maintained that the boy flashed a knife. He shot him three times. Two days later, Harlem erupted. Pierce told Carney, "You have the people who are angry. Justifably so. And then there's the police force. How are they going to defend this shit? Again! And city hall and the activists. And in the way back of the room, you can barely hear a little voice, and that's the family. They've lost a son. Somebody has to speak for them." "They're going to sue?" "Sue and win. You know they ain't going to fire the bastard." Sermon crept into his voice here. "What kind of message will that send--that their police force is accountable? We'll sue, and it will take years, and the city will pay because millions and millions are still cheaper than putting a true price on killing a black boy.

I've known women!" Æthelwold shouted at the rain, "and they were bad women! Forgive me!" Alfred was furious, but he could not stop a man making a fool of himself before God. Perhaps he thought Æthelwold's remorse was genuine? "I've lost count of the women!" Æthelwold shouted, then beat his fists in the mud. "Oh God, I love tits! God, I love naked women, God, forgive me for that!" The laughter spread, and every man must have remembered that Alfred, before piety caught him in its clammy grip, had been notorious for the women he had pursued. "You must help me, God!" Æthelwold cried as we shuffled a few feet farther. "Send me an angel!" "So you can hump her?" a voice called from the crowd and the laughter became a roar. Ælswith was hurried away, lest she hear something unseemly. The priests whispered together, but Æthelwold's penitence, though extravagant, seemed real enough. He was weeping. I knew he was really laughing, but he howled as though his soul was in agony. "No more tits, God!" he called, "no more tits!" He made a fool of himself, but, as men already thought him a fool, he did not mind. "Keep me from tits, God!

WHENEVER I WOKE UP, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed. I’d get two large coffees with cream and six sugars each, chug the first one in the elevator on the way back up to my apartment, then sip the second one slowly while I watched movies and ate animal crackers and took trazodone and Ambien and Nembutal until I fell asleep again. I lost track of time in this way. Days passed. Weeks. A few months went by. When I thought of it, I ordered delivery from the Thai restaurant across the street, or a tuna salad platter from the diner on First Avenue. I’d wake up to find voice messages on my cell phone from salons or spas confirming appointments I’d booked in my sleep. I always called back to cancel, which I hated doing because I hated talking to people. Early on in this phase, I had my dirty laundry picked up and clean laundry delivered once a week. It was a comfort to me to hear the torn plastic bags rustle in the draft from the living room windows. I liked catching whiffs of the fresh laundry smell while I dozed off on the sofa.

Take the oft-repeated injunction to get “its” and “it’s” straight. Everyone claims it’s remarkably easy to remember that “its” is possessive and “it’s” is a contraction. But logic tells us that in English, ’s attached to a noun signals possession: the dog’s dish, the cat’s toy, the lexicographer’s cry. So if English is logical, and there are simple rules to follow, why doesn’t “it’s” signal possession? We know that ’s also signals a contraction, but we don’t have any problems with differentiating between “the dog’s dish” and “the dog’s sleeping”—why should we suddenly have problems with “it’s dish” and “it’s sleeping”? This type of grammar often completely ignores hundreds (and, in some cases, well over a thousand) years of established use in English. For “it’s,” the rule is certainly easy to memorize, but it also ignores the history of “its” and “it’s.” At one point in time, “it” was its own possessive pronoun: the 1611 King James Bible reads, “That which groweth of it owne accord…thou shalt not reape”; Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “It had it head bit off by it young.” They weren’t the first: the possessive “it” goes back to the fifteenth century. But around the time that Shakespeare was shuffling off this mortal coil, the possessive “it” began appearing as “it’s.” We’re not sure why the change happened, but some commentators guess that it was because “it” didn’t appear to be its own possessive pronoun, like “his” and “her,” but rather a bare pronoun in need of that possessive marker given to nouns: ’s. Sometimes this possessive appeared without punctuation as “its.” But the possessive “it’s” grew in popularity through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until it was the dominant form of the word. It even survived into the nineteenth century: you’ll find it in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Jane Austen and the speechwriting notes of Abraham Lincoln. This would be relatively simple were it not for the fact that “it’s” was also occasionally used as a contraction for “it is” or “it has” (“and it’s come to pass,” Shakespeare wrote in Henry VIII, 1.2.63). Some grammarians noticed and complained—not that the possessive “it’s” and the contractive “it’s” were confusing, but that the contractive “it’s” was a misuse and mistake for the contraction “ ’tis,” which was the more standard contraction of “it is.” This was a war that the pedants lost: “ ’tis” waned while “it’s” waxed.

Unlike any other chromosome, the Y is “unpaired”—i.e., it has no sister chromosome and no duplicate copy, leaving every gene on the chromosome to fend for itself. A mutation in any other chromosome can be repaired by copying the intact gene from the other chromosome. But a Y chromosome gene cannot be fixed, repaired, or recopied from another chromosome; it has no backup or guide (there is, however, a unique internal system to repair genes in the Y chromosome). When the Y chromosome is assailed by mutations, it lacks a mechanism to recover information. The Y is thus pockmarked with the potshots and scars of history. It is the most vulnerable spot in the human genome. As a consequence of this constant genetic bombardment, the human Y chromosome began to jettison information millions of years ago. Genes that were truly valuable for survival were likely shuffled to other parts of the genome where they could be stored securely; genes with limited value were made obsolete, retired, or replaced; only the most essential genes were retained (some of these genes were duplicated in the Y chromosome itself—but even this strategy does not solve the problem completely). As information was lost, the Y chromosome itself shrank—whittled down piece by piece by the mirthless cycle of mutation and gene loss. That the Y chromosome is the smallest of all chromosomes is not a coincidence: it is largely a victim of planned obsolescence (in 2014, scientists discovered that a few extremely important genes may be permanently lodged in the Y). In genetic terms, this suggests a peculiar paradox. Sex, one of the most complex of human traits, is unlikely to be encoded by multiple genes. Rather, a single gene, buried rather precariously in the Y chromosome, must be the master regulator of maleness.I Male readers of that last paragraph should take notice: we barely made it.

it died away, Stu said: “This wasn’t on the agenda, but I wonder if we could start by singing the National Anthem. I guess you folks remember the words and the tune.” There was that ruffling, shuffling sound of people getting to their feet. Another pause as everyone waited for someone else to start. Then a girl’s sweet voice rose in the air, solo for only the first three syllables: “Oh, say can—” It was Frannie’s voice, but for a moment it seemed to Larry to be underlaid by another voice, his own, and the place was not Boulder but upstate Vermont and the day was July 4, the Republic was two hundred and fourteen years old, and Rita lay dead in the tent behind him, her mouth filled with green puke and a bottle of pills in her stiffening hand. A chill of gooseflesh passed over him and suddenly he felt that they were being watched, watched by something that could, in the words of that old song by The Who, see for miles and miles and miles. Something awful and dark and alien. For just a moment he felt an urge to run from this place, just run and never stop. This was no game they were playing here. This was serious business; killing business. Maybe worse. Then other voices joined in. “—can you see, by the dawn’s early light,” and Lucy was singing, holding his hand, crying again, and others were crying, most of them were crying, crying for what was lost and bitter, the runaway American dream, chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected, and stepping out over the line, and suddenly his memory was not of Rita, dead in the tent, but of he and his mother at Yankee Stadium—it was September 29, the Yankees were only a game and a half behind the Red Sox, and all things were still possible. There were fifty-five thousand people in the Stadium, all standing, the players in the field with their caps over their hearts, Guidry on the mound, Rickey Henderson was standing in deep left field (“—by the twilight’s last gleaming—”), and the light-standards were on in the purple gloaming, moths and night-fliers banging softly against them, and New York was around them, teeming, city of night and light. Larry joined the singing too, and when it was done and the applause rolled out once more, he was crying a bit himself. Rita was gone. Alice Underwood was gone. New York was gone. America was gone. Even if they could defeat Randall Flagg, whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams.

And that’s not all the bad news. Another powerful component of our Imago is that we also seek the qualities missing in ourselves—both good and bad—that got lost in the shuffle of socialization.

Individual assignments treat people like interchangeable parts, widgets or screws to be shuffled from drawer to drawer. In combat under this system, new guys showed up one at a time, and often got shot all too quickly.

The fact that these measures are objective is reassuring to everyone. Objective and quantitative measure is highly respected by both programmers and businesspeople. The fact that these measures are usually ineffective in producing successful products tends to get lost in the shuffle.

But you have fought and you have scraped and you have committed in a way that very few can. No one in any company has come as far as you have this year. No one. There’s a princess in you, Evie, and a cracking good one. You’ve simply got to allow yourself the chance to be great.” He began to pack away sewing supplies into wooden tubs. “Surviving the Academy only becomes more difficult next year. If you’re planning to be here through the end, there is one thing you must absolutely understand. No victim has ever graduated from this Academy.” She studied his bulbous back as he shuffled to the storeroom, letting his words linger. “You are not a victim in this world unless you choose to be. And if that’s your choice, then you’ll never be more than a frightened girl lost in the woods.” He paused in the doorway, rubbing his back with the heel of his hand. “But the nature of choices is that there is always another.” And a great, mischievous smile crawled across his face.

thing is built, and it's up to us to explore the system and discover the timeless truths contained within it, if we want to know them. Thus it feels like those truths exist and that we are discovering them, but this is because it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we made the whole system by choosing the axioms and logic. Also often lost in the shuffle, the axioms and logic are abstract things that do not “exist” in reality. They are abstract statements (hence their timelessness, incidentally—and yes, do draw the relevant analogy to an “eternal” God here) made in and shared by the minds of thinking beings who created them.

Once we've chosen the axioms and the logic, the whole thing is built, and it's up to us to explore the system and discover the timeless truths contained within it, if we want to know them. Thus it feels like those truths exist and that we are discovering them, but this is because it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we made the whole system by choosing the axioms and logic. Also often lost in the shuffle, the axioms and logic are abstract things that do not “exist” in reality. They are abstract statements (hence their timelessness, incidentally—and yes, do draw the relevant analogy to an “eternal” God here) made in and shared by the minds of thinking beings who created them.

I’m sorry. About earlier.” I took another bite. Another sip. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for.” Yet I wondered what he meant. Three quick bites and my pie disappeared, my fork clattering into the empty pan. “It’s not any of my business what you do with your life.” “No, it isn’t.” I wrapped one hand around my warm cup and lifted it to my lips. “But do you mind if I ask what you intend to do with it?” Uncertainty colored his voice. Was he afraid to hear my answer or afraid he couldn’t restrain comment on it? I cleared my throat, uncomfortable now, even with the cover of night over our faces. Yet something in me needed to talk. And Frank might understand. He’d lost his love, even if part of his dream remained intact. “I’m not sure, exactly. I thought God had made it very plain. Now I don’t know.” Quiet filled the room. Then his chair creaked. I took a deep breath. “I’ve lived on a farm my whole life. But I’ve always wanted to live somewhere else. Somewhere big, with lots going on. My brother, Will, he got to see the world, to do something important. Like you did. I want the same opportunity.” More silence. “The world is changing so fast. I don’t want to miss it.” His boots shuffled against the floor. “I can see how you’d feel that way. But I guess it depends on how you define ‘important.’ ” I shrugged. “Same as everyone, I guess. Something big. Something lasting.” His shadow leaned against the Wilson cabinet now. “I think tending my farm and raising my children are the most worthwhile things I can do. So did Clara. That’s why we agreed I should go to France. To make the world a safer place for them.” My insides jiggled. Perhaps a late-night snack hadn’t been such a good idea. I pushed back my chair. “I’d better get some sleep. The children will be up early.” “I’ll be praying for you, Rebekah.” His voice rumbled from nearby. I could feel the heat from his body, smell the scent of fresh hay on his clothes. He took the dishes from my hand. “I’ll clean up.” I nodded, even though I doubted he could see my response.

Only 20 percent of churches in the US are growing, and only 1 percent are growing by reaching lost people.2 So 95 percent of the church growth we celebrate merely shuffles existing Christians around.

Tessa rose too. "Your faith is strong." "Not always." "I'm afraid I've lost mine." "Can't lose something, if you know where you laid it last." Feet planted wide, Ouida steadied herself for a moment before shuffling toward the back room.

I’m sure I could crack open my skull and scoop out enough of my brain to put myself out of my misery. It would be a gruesome way to die, but wouldn’t it be better than shuffling around as a lost, tormented soul for the rest of my wretched years?

He sat in the reading room by himself, the diffuse morning light rendering him soft and dusty. He had removed one of the tarot decks from its bag and lined all of the cards faceup in three long rows. Now he leaned on the table and studied the image on each, one at at time, shuffling on his elbows to the next when he was through. He looked nothing like the Adam who'd lost his temper and everything like the Adam she had first met. That was what was frightening, though⁠—there'd been no warning.

Mary had been the object of a war between ordinary solid American values and Hollywood, where even money is lost in the shuffle among the hard floors and 5:00 a.m. wardrobe calls of an invisible city named for a plant that never existed, named by a clan that waits for the next movie to sail away on.

I often said I wouldn't have pursued programming as a career if I still did drugs. This is probably true, since weed was always immensely crippling for me. I would have weed hangovers for days, and while stoned, was unable to read or do much of anything besides clean and play video games. Whether or not this would have turned out to be true is academic, but it's definitely true that I wouldn't have become a programmer if I hadn't lost my mind, because the recovery process taught me my most valuable skill as a programmer: how to not think. Programming requires the acceptance that you are entering meaningless symbols into a machine that's going to spit out other meaningless symbols, and this can be hard to accept. It requires abandoning all hope for an answer for the existential "why?" in favour of shuffling boolean values ad infinitum. By no interpretation of the concept of understanding does a computer understand what you're telling it or what it's telling you. On top of that, programming as an act is more often hindered than helped by thinking. Despite zero years of training in computer science, I've found I have an edge in debugging because I never look or ask for an explanation. Ninety percent of the computer bugs in a program are tiny, one-line errors, and you just have to find that error. Holding the entire logical structure of a million lines of code in your mind in futile. The task is to find the references and connections and track them back until you hit the problem. If I get an error message, I copy it into Google, because someone somewhere has encountered and solved the problem, probably by tracking down the people who originally wrote the program. In seven years of programming, I've solved exactly two undocumented bugs via pure deductive reasoning.

there was no going back. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he muttered sheepishly. Then: ‘Look, Maddy, I’d better go and collect the car, eh?’ And looking utterly wretched, he turned and shuffled from the room. Maddy had more spirit in her little finger

Cat woke him for dinner. When he shuffled out, grungy and out of sorts without the arm brace on, she gave him a dirty look but didn’t say anything. She offered to cut up his oven-baked chicken, but he waved her away. “I can do it, damn it.” Hands up in entreaty, she left him alone to struggle through the meal. “That

You will tell me of this anger that burns within you, eh?” “As if you don’t know!” He propped his elbows on his bent knees. Women. He’d never understand them. If she was still angry because he had mentioned taking other wives, why didn’t she say the words to him? It wasn’t as if he planned on marrying someone else today. “Blue Eyes, you are my woman, eh? This Comanche wishes for your heart to be filled with sunshine.” She threw him a contemptuous glare. “I may be your woman, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it! Besides, why worry about me? With so many wives, I’ll be lost in the shuffle. You won’t know if I’m happy or not. And you certainly won’t care.” Two bright spots of color dotted her cheeks. “And that suits me just fine.” Silence fell over them for a moment. “When will you take Amy home?” she asked suddenly. “Her father hides behind his wooden walls and lets Comancheros steal her. She stays with this Comanche.” “You can’t possibly mean to keep her here! Her mother will be worried sick.” “That is a sad thing, yes?” “You promised!” “I made the promise to bring her to you. I have.” “She isn’t a horse, Hunter! You can’t keep her here!” He lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, yes? Who will take her from me?” “You are an insufferable, arrogant, bullheaded--” Hunter gave a snort and rose to his feet. His lodge suddenly seemed too small for the both of them. He would go to visit his father, where women showed proper respect.

Maynard, what have you been doing with yourself?" Odegar Taumber asked as the slow moving librarian shuffled from the stairwell to the main floor. Casselle caught sight of Temos and Raabel and motioned for Jaksen to deposit the books on a nearby and conveniently clean table. He did so and the squadmates reunited, just out of earshot of the Captain. "I see you two found him," Raabel said. "We've been back for some time. I guess he's as slow as he looks?" "Casselle found him," Jaksen replied. "And he's both slow and rude. I'm sure he's important enough, but seems like he was in no real danger to begin with." "I took a look out of the windows while we were searching for him," Temos said. "It doesn't look like it's calmed down much out there. I'd hate to think of trying to move him through an angry crowd. He doesn't look nimble enough to sneak by, either." "If we weren't in this damned armor, I'd just carry him," Raabel said. Coming from someone else, it might have been considered a boast, but Raabel usually didn't say things he wasn't sure he was capable of doing. Casselle pictured the old man wailing in protest, thrown over Raabel's shoulder and being forced to bounce along like a sack of potatoes. Raabel was right about the armor, though: it was clumsy and ill-fitting. It was obvious that it had not been altered for them, and none more obvious than on Casselle. Her broad shoulders were a boon, but even bound, her breasts had proved problematic to find a properly sized chestplate from a stockpile that had been made exclusively for men. They had settled on a piece that was just slightly too large, having previously been worn by a heavyset Templar from a time before. In thinking of it, she pondered Maynard's earlier words. "He called me a boy," she said. "A fat young boy." Her squadmates took a step back, shocked. "And you did not correct him?" Raabel asked. "Or worse?" Jaksen asked. "To be fair," Temos said after a moment, "he is very old. It is entirely possible he has lost his will to live.

It’s easiest to disguise what you’re doing when you’re shuffling or dealing,” Emery explained, “or when your opponent is distracted by something that’s cooking in the kitchen.” Ceony opened her mouth to protest, but instead closed it and shot him a disapproving look. He had won the game last Tuesday when Ceony had cinnamon rolls in the oven. She had been worried they would burn. Perhaps that’s why Emery never kept the money she lost, regardless of the amount. The cheater.

He had walked away, head down, feet shuffling, looking very much like a young man who had lost everything of value in his life.

It was Rogers who hurried to the carpenter shop beneath the forecastle and reappeared triumphantly, holding a hacksaw. He insisted on taking the first turn at cutting through the forged steel link. Soon, he tired of the task and handed the saw to a seaman. Then he wandered off, whistling to himself. Psychiatrists who later examined Rogers or studied his own account of these events have been struck by the marked disturbance of his thinking. A disturbed or psychotic personality suffering from this “thought disorder” has tremendous difficulty separating the relevant from the irrelevant, recalls and remembers everything, describes events in almost incredible detail. Rogers’ description of what happened to him when he left the bridge clearly displays this condition: “There had been a canary down in the hold of the ship. It belonged to the boatswain. I had seen the canary there. I was looking for a pair of shoes. I had lost mine overboard. “I got the canary and put a towel around the bird and came up. He was the only living thing down there. I got halfway up and the heat was terrific. I went all the way with the flashlight and I noticed there was a space of about four feet on the bulkhead that was beginning to glow, turning red.” Clutching the canary, he shuffled back to the deck and delivered the “news that the place was glowing hot down there and it’s a shame to use a five-and-ten-cent method to saw through the chain.” Suddenly the steel link snapped. In all, five hours had passed since the Tampa first offered help.

It benefited a child, she thought, to be forgotten once in a while. Lost in the shuffle (she would have said), benignly neglected.

little miffed about it. But you only need two out of three votes. Just do the best you can.” The Council didn’t know about her? Then why did Fitz say they’d been looking for her for twelve years? Before she could ask, they arrived at another clearing, and all coherent thoughts vanished. Dozens of squat, earth-toned creatures with huge gray eyes and bright green thumbs and teeth tended a garden that belonged in a fairy tale. Lush plants grew up and down and sideways and slantways. One of the females shuffled by in a dress woven from grass, carrying a basket filled with twinkling purple fruit. “What?” It was the only word Sophie could come up with.

All at once, I feel like the little boy who so badly wants attention, who wished his mom was there to see him do something impressive. The trouble-making shit disturber who didn’t care about getting a scolding because it was still attention. It meant someone cared about me, and as one of four kids with a single dad breaking his back to run a ranch, I sometimes got lost in the shuffle.

You're efficient when you do something with minimum waste. & you're effective when you're doing the right something." "...the degree of freedom required to effect change. Slack is the natural enemy of efficiency & vise versa." "...slack represents operational capacity sacrificed in the interest of long term health." "Imagine one of those puzzle games consisting of 8 numbered tiles in a box, with one empty space, so you can slide them around one at a time. The objective is to shuffle the tiles into numerical order. That empty space is the equivalent of slack. If you remove it, the game is technically more efficient, but something is lost. Without the open space, there is no further possibility of moving tiles at all. The layout is optimal as it is, but if time proves otherwise, there is no way to change it." "Having a little bit of wiggle room allows us to respond to changing circumstances, to experiment, & to do things that might not work." → time, money, people on job, or even expectations → Not having slack is taxing. Scarcity weighs on our minds and uses up energy that could go toward doing the task at hand better. It amplifies the impact of failures & unintended consequences. → Slack allows us to handle the inevitable shocks & surprise of life. → Slack is the time when reinvention happens. It is time when you are not 100% busy doing the operational business of your firm. Slack is the time when you are 0% busy. Slack at all levels is necessary to make the organization work effectively & to grow. It is the lubricant of change. Good companies excel in creative use of slack. & bad ones only obsess about removing it. → Only when we are 0% busy can we step back & look at the bigger picture of what we're doing. Slack allows room for that...to think ahead. → We are more productive when we don't try to be productive all the time. → Being comfortable with sometimes being 0% busy means we think about whether we're doing the right thing → Effectiveness → "The secret to top performance is to always be a little underemployed; you waste years by not being able to waste hours. Those seemingly wasted hours are necessary to figure out if you're headed in the right direction.

Married men are neutered. You can see it in the way they walk. That ‘I’ve-surrendered-my-free-will’ slouchy, shuffling walk. They’ve lost the desire to live. Your Mr. Black walks like a peacock. Like a lion. Very unneutered. Very unmarried. His balls are very much intact.

I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it. No little fucking bitch of a slut is going to make me sick picking up her goddamned crusty Kleenexes.” The coffee table is all that’s between us. He is clutching the life out of the Kleenex, getting the germs all over him, his adrenaline-soaked palm mixing with its deadly hosts. Mom has told him I drop them so he will have to pick them up; a premeditated attempt to sicken my father with clever trickery. He takes the Kleenex, and as his voice gains momentum, my mother’s trails off. Like a relay race in which she just puffed through the first leg, he is stepping in and now she can let go. My eyes are frozen wide, this can’t be happening. I tell him that the Kleenex is Mr. Beck’s; that he loses them when he’s shuffling to the bathroom, that he can’t help it because he’s slow from the drugs. My mother rolls her eyes: That’s the most insane excuse she’s ever heard spew out my mouth. He responds to her cue that I am lying, and he is prompted by the promise of the reward: Let her give him peace, please God, give him peace, just let him be, let him go back into his shell. Oh, now I’m calling him a liar, I’m challenging his view. No little shit is going to call him a liar. He takes my head down, down, smash my skull goes into the piercing corner of the coffee table. Pain splinters my face, my new nose, and ricochets, vibrating to all points over my scalp, like the crack of lightning

They come to our wards and branches feeling as though they are strangers. "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19). We read in the scriptures about seeds and about the sower of seeds (Matt.13). We are taught that a seed can grow, become a tree, and bear fruit. But we have to have good soil to accept the good seed, and that is one of our roles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--that we provide the soil which nurtures the seed so it can grow and bear fruit and that the fruit remains (John 15:16). Many are strong enough to endure to the end. Without receiving a warm hand of fellowship, some become discouraged and unfortunately may lose that spirit that brought them to the waters of baptism. What was once a centerpiece in their existence is pushed aside for what they may perceive to be an offense, more pressing matters of the day, or it is simply lost in the shuffle of living. (Ensign 4/84)

Once a child enters adolescence, it may become increasingly difficult to raise these issues. Because adolescence is a time of rebellion—of self-definition, of distinguishing oneself from parents and peers—there may be less communication than ever. It is also a time of great emotional and physical change—and therefore a time of intense confusion within. If the adolescent child’s self-image gets lost in the shuffle, there may be years of hell to pay.

was crisp, yet the archivists at NASA knew only a few of the women’s names and weren’t sure what had become of them. It seemed their stories had been lost in the shuffle of history. While we tend to think of the role women played during the early years at NASA as secretarial, these women were the antithesis of that assumption. These young female engineers shaped much of our history and the technology we have

Coach spun toward us with a nimble step he should have lost years ago. “Sprint ladders, ladies! I want Grandma Taps in increments of ten and then do that shit backward until you hit fifty!” Noah groaned and Watkins smile sharpened into something that confirmed my suspicions. He was made of evil. “And now you all can thank Trindale for making this Ladder Day! Right and left Twizzlers, front, back, and sideways! Hopsquats, Jack Dogs, Skip to My Lous, and…Twinkies.” “Dear God,” Adam whispered. “Not the Twinkies.” Dylan squirmed in his pads. “Sir, these names are— Well, half of us can’t remember how to do them. Why can’t we call them Ickey and Heisman shuffles, like, other coaches do?” There was a sound in the back of Watkins’ throat that suggested he was making way in his gut for a piece of Dylan. “Because you shit stains haven’t earned the right to utter the names of those gods!

She didn’t know what to do. Should she run? Climb a tree? Feign death and hope it lost interest and went away? She’d become separated from the others some ways back—stupid, stupid. Would they even hear her, if she called? “Denny?” she ventured. The animal cocked its head, and Cecily cleared her throat to try again. “Portia? Mr. Brooke?” The beast shuffled toward her, great slabs of muscle flexing beneath its hoary coat. “Not you,” she told it, taking a quick step back. “Shoo. Go home.” It bristled and snarled, revealing a narrow row of jagged teeth. Moonlight pooled like liquid around its massive jaw. Good Lord, the thing was drooling. Truly panicked now, she drew a deep breath and called as loud as she could. “Denny! Help!” No answer. Oh, Lord. She was going to be slaughtered, right here in the forest. Miss Cecily Hale, a lady of perfectly good breeding and respectable fortune, not to mention oft-complimented eyes, would die unmarried and childless because she’d wasted her youth pining for a man who didn’t love her. She would perish here in Swinford Woods, alone and heartbroken, having received only two kisses in the entirety of her three-and-twenty years.

She didn’t know what to do. Should she run? Climb a tree? Feign death and hope it lost interest and went away? She’d become separated from the others some ways back—stupid, stupid. Would they even hear her, if she called? “Denny?” she ventured. The animal cocked its head, and Cecily cleared her throat to try again. “Portia? Mr. Brooke?” The beast shuffled toward her, great slabs of muscle flexing beneath its hoary coat. “Not you,” she told it, taking a quick step back. “Shoo. Go home.” It bristled and snarled, revealing a narrow row of jagged teeth. Moonlight pooled like liquid around its massive jaw. Good Lord, the thing was drooling. Truly panicked now, she drew a deep breath and called as loud as she could. “Denny! Help!” No answer. Oh, Lord. She was going to be slaughtered, right here in the forest. Miss Cecily Hale, a lady of perfectly good breeding and respectable fortune, not to mention oft-complimented eyes, would die unmarried and childless because she’d wasted her youth pining for a man who didn’t love her. She would perish here in Swinford Woods, alone and heartbroken, having received only two kisses in the entirety of her three-and-twenty years. The second of which she could still taste on her lips, if she pressed them together tightly enough. It tasted bitter. Luke, you unforgivable cad. This is all your fault. If only you hadn’t— A savage grunt snapped her back into the present. Cecily looked on in horror as the vile creature lowered its head, stamped the ground— And began to charge. God, she truly was going to die. Whose brilliant idea had it been, to go hunting a legendary beast in a cursed forest, by the light of a few meager torches and a three-quarters moon? Oh, yes. Hers. Three

Fine," Tommie mumbled, and poured himself a bowl of cereal. All he could think about was poor Bruce and where Mr. Cooper might be sending him this morning. He lost his appetite after two bites of Frosted Cinnamon Bites. "You need to eat more than that," said Mrs. Mills. "We are going on a little trip this morning." Tommie knew that his parents were trying to take his mind off Bruce. He appreciated what they were trying to do, but he didn't feel like going to a water park or a baseball game or the zoo, he just wanted to go back to bed. But he didn't want to be rude, so he forced himself to eat a few more mouthfuls of cereal and then shuffled

Watching the defendants shuffle to the front of the room to stand before the bench, I realized that I had never before seen so many men and women in shackles, that I had never laid eyes on a group of people so diminished. I had apprehended and processed countless men and women for deportation, many of whom I sent without thinking to pass through this very room—but there was something dreadfully altered in their presence here between towering and cavernous walls, lorded over by foreign men in colored suits and black robes, men with little notion of the dark desert nights or the hard glare of the sun, with little sense for the sweeping expanses of stone and shale, the foot-packed earthen trails, the bodies laid bare before the elements, the bones trembling from heat, from cold, from want of water. It dawned on me that in my countless encounters with migrants at the hard end of their road through the desert, there was always the closeness of the failed journey, the fading but still-hot spark from the last flame of the crossing. But here, in the stale and swirling air of the courthouse, it was clear that something vital had gone missing in the days since apprehension, some final essence of the spirit had been stamped out or lost in the slow crush of confinement.

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok you would never see him doing such a thing, tossing the dry snow over the mountain of his bare, round shoulder, his hair tied in a knot, a model of concentration. Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word for what he does, or does not do. Even the season is wrong for him. In all his manifestations, is it not warm and slightly humid? Is this not implied by his serene expression, that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe? But here we are, working our way down the driveway. one shovelful at a time. We toss the light powder into the clean air. We feel the cold most on our faces. And with every heave we disappear and become lost to each other in these sudden clouds of our own making, these fountain-bursts of snow. This is so much better than a sermon in church, I say out loud, bud Buddha keeps on shoveling. This is the true religion, the religion of snow, and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky, I say, but he is too busy to hear me He has thrown himself into shoveling snow as if it were the purpose of existence, as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway you could back the car down easily and drive off into the vanities of the world with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio. All morning long we work side by side, me with my commentary and he is inside the generous pocket of his silence, until the house is nearly noon and the snow is piled high all around us; then, I hear him speak. After this, he asks, can we go inside and play cards? Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk and bring cups of hot chlorate to the table while you shuffle the deck, and our boots stand dripping by the door. Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes and leaning for a moment on his shovel before he drives the fun blade again deep into the glittering white snow.

Despite the trappings of living a gilded life, a final reckoning awaits each of us, a fateful conclusion that no conscientious human can put off admitting to until their final heartbeat. Until that compressed moment of elucidation arrives, many people including me mesmerize ourselves by raking in guilt-lined pleasures as fast as we can. Lost in the erratic shuffle of daily forging is the modest precept that it is how we live that defines us.

But how will you know when you’re in love? By your own admission, what you expect to feel is something imagined during moments of fancy.” He shuffled forward until their knees touched. “What if passion is a stepping stone to love? What if the joining of our bodies is the gateway to something far more profound?” Heavens, this man could induce the Lord to sin.

On All Dogs Go to Heaven: Lastly, the heaven illustrated in the movie didn't seam much like the one being advertised during Big Church services. I mean, three was a whippet dog playing the role of Saint Peter, which is super dubious because I think if dogs uniformly had to elect a particular breed as the representative sample of goodness greeting them as the shuffled off their mortal coils (leashes?) and entered into eternity, it would probably go: 1) Golden Retriever: Might be more angelic than Saint Peter IMO 2) Labrador Retriever: The All-American, apple pie-sniffing dog next door. 3) Siberian Huskies: Those eyes tho. 4) Beagle: Scrappy, overachieving everydogs 5) German Shepherd: Would be higher but lost a ton of points thanks the unfortunate connection to the Big Bads of WW2. 6) Whippets: They look like they are either embarking upon or just recovering from an intense drug habit. LAST PLACE: CORGIS: These dogs are probably the gatekeepers to hell*. White cute, this dog is more useless than a urinal cake-flavored Popsicle. My parents have had two of these dogs and all they were good at was being emotional terrorists. Zero starts, would not recommend. *I know Greek myth says it's Cerberus, a giant, three-headed dog, and it makes no mention of dog breed, but I can guarantee you that Cerberus must have had three large and stupid Corgi heads.

On All Dogs Go to Heaven: Lastly, the heaven illustrated in the movie didn't seam much like the one being advertised during Big Church services. I mean, three was a whippet dog playing the role of Saint Peter, which is super dubious because I think if dogs uniformly had to elect a particular breed as the representative sample of goodness greeting them as the shuffled off their mortal coils (leashes?) and entered into eternity, it would probably go: 1) Golden Retriever: Might be more angelic than Saint Peter IMO 2) Labrador Retriever: The All-American, apple pie-sniffing dog next door. 3) Siberian Huskies: Those eyes tho. 4) Beagle: Scrappy, overachieving everydogs 5) German Shepherd: Would be higher but lost a ton of points thanks the unfortunate connection to the Big Bads of WW2. 6) Whippets: They look like they are either embarking upon or just recovering from an intense drug habit. LAST PLACE: CORGIS: These dogs are probably the gatekeepers to hell*. While cute, this dog is more useless than a urinal cake-flavored Popsicle. My parents have had two of these dogs and all they were good at was being emotional terrorists. Zero starts, would not recommend. *I know Greek myth says it's Cerberus, a giant, three-headed dog, and it makes no mention of dog breed, but I can guarantee you that Cerberus must have had three large and stupid Corgi heads.

On All Dogs Go to Heaven: Lastly, the heaven illustrated in the movie didn't seam much like the one being advertised during Big Church services. I mean, three was a whippet dog playing the role of Saint Peter, which is super dubious because I think if dogs uniformly had to elect a particular breed as the representative sample of goodness greeting them as the shuffled off their mortal coils (leashes?) and entered into eternity, it would probably go: 1) Golden Retriever: Might be more angelic than Saint Peter IMO 2) Labrador Retriever: The All-American, apple pie-sniffing dog next door. 3) Siberian Huskies: Those eyes tho. 4) Beagle: Scrappy, overachieving everydogs 5) German Shepherd: Would be higher but lost a ton of points thanks the unfortunate connection to the Big Bads of WW2. 6) Whippets: They look like they are either embarking upon or just recovering from an intense drug habit. LAST PLACE: CORGIS: These dogs are probably the gatekeepers to hell*. While cute, this dog is more useless than a urinal cake-flavored Popsicle. My parents have had two of these dogs and all they were good at was being emotional terrorists. Zero stars, would not recommend. *I know Greek myth says it's Cerberus, a giant, three-headed dog, and it makes no mention of dog breed, but I can guarantee you that Cerberus must have had three large and stupid Corgi heads.

One of the girls let out an oomph and lost her grip on his shoulder. The world plunged— Strong, unfaltering hands caught him, his nose barely half a foot from the pale gravel as the other girls shuffled and grunted, trying to heft him up again. He’d come free of the horse, but his legs were now sprawled beneath him, as distant from him as the very top of the Torre, high above. Roaring filled his head.

I tried as hard as I could to stay in that moment when I had felt my father’s spirit shining, when I could see both my parents for the scared, confused, incorruptible souls they truly were. But by the time we said good-bye and my parents left, I could barely see them through the clanking and shuffling of their fear-shells, all the tin cans and aluminum foil.