My Mood Lately Quotes

The late hour is such a friend; it has been for so many years. There is not a soul around as I carry Riley downstairs and dump him in my trunk. It is good, for I am not in the mood to kill again, and murder, for me, is very much tied to my mood, like making love. Even when it is necessary.

I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now. I suppose life always ends badly for almost everybody. We must have long fingers and catch at whatever we can while it is passing near us.

Now you’re going to get it,” I said, guessing Al was coming when the ones in the back scattered. “You should have been nice.” With a weird cry, the closest surface demon fell back, but it was too late. A flash of red light exploded overhead, smashing the buildings away as if I were at the center of an atomic explosion. The surface demons scattered like brown leaves, the remnants of their clothes and auras fluttering. It was Al, and he burst into existence in a grand mood, an old-fashioned lantern in his hand and a walking cane at his side. “Rachel Mariana Morgan!” he shouted enthusiastically, raising the lantern high, and I painfully rose from my crouch, breaking my bubble with a small thought. “I’ve come to save you, love!

How I used to love the dark, sad evenings of late autumn and winter, how eagerly I imbibed their moods of loneliness and melancholy when wrapped in my cloak I strode for half the night through rain and storm, through the leafless winter landscape, lonely enough then too, but full of deep joy, and full of poetry which later I wrote down by candlelight sitting on the edge of my bed!

Call it dysphoric mania, agitated depression, or a mixed state: nobody will understand anyway. Mania and depression at once mean the will to die and the motivation to make it happen. This is why mixed states are the most dangerous periods of mood disorders. Tearfulness and racing thoughts happen. So do agitation and guilt, fatigue and morbidity and dread. Walking late at night, trying to get murdered, happens. Trying to explain a bipolar mixed state is like trying to explain the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God: you just have to take it on faith when I tell you that the poles bend, cross, never snapping.

So," Nate attempted conversation for the third time. He seemed to be in a better mood lately. "Do you guys maybe want to talk about how every uncomfortable this is?" He smiled tightly, looking first at Tristan, then at Scarlet. "Because I don't know about you, but I feel awkward. Let's hash it out, shall we? Tristan," Nate said brightly. "We'll start with you. How are you feeling?" "Annoyed." "I like your honesty and openness." Nate turned to Scarlet. "What about you? How are you feeling?" "Tired," she said. "Nine in the morning is too early for needles." Tristan said, "Maybe if you hadn't stayed out so late, you wouldn't be so tired." Scarlet said, "Look who's decided to speak again. Suddenly the silent and dark Tristan has an opinion on my life." "Oh, I have many opinions." "See?" Nate said, his smile tighter than before. "Isn't all this openness refreshing?

Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants and mermaids, the figures were all immediately familiar. I had read these stories a hundred, a thousand, times before. They were stories everyone knew. But gradually, as I read, their familiarity fell away from them. They became strange. They became new. These characters were not the colored manikins I remembered from my childhood picture books, mechanically acting out the story one more time. They were people.... The stories were shot through with an unfamiliar mood. Everyone achieved their heart's desire...but only when it was too late did they realize the price they must pay for escaping their destiny. Every Happy Ever After was tainted.

An aphrodisiac will disappear, delusional, like permanence or wealth - a shimmering, as if love were a ghost - and yet my passion for you seethes and sears without an end. Late April leaves can’t crave caress of dew, sunlight’s sweet splash, more than I pine for your embrace, us turned to one; when harsh reversals scar, the thought of you will salve like summer wind in autumn; deep red blood surging along with mine, staid genes worked hot from your electric charms, as all my moods succumb to your sweet fire, and perfect wit. Now you are all I live for - loving you - in fleeting world of lies, you are the truth.

I’ve felt infinity too, late in my twenties, when I discovered a word in English I’d only ever known in Bengali. Or when I spot, with hours still left in the day, the moon’s hazy thumbprint. How the moon enjoys debunking the day.

My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as I had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on a dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of which the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers of clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence of more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.

I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning. And if I knock off from this routine for as long as a day, I’m frantic with boredom and a sense of waste. Sundays I have breakfast late and read the papers with Hope. Then we go for a walk in the hills, and I'm haunted by the loss of all that good time. I wake up Sunday mornings and I'm nearly crazy at the prospect of all those unusable hours. I'm restless, I'm bad-tempered, but she's a human being too, you see, so I go. To avoid trouble she makes me leave my watch at home. The result is that I look at my wrist instead. We're walking, she's talking, then I look at my wrist - and that generally does it, if my foul mood hasn't already. She throws in the sponge and we come home. And at home what is there to distinguish Sunday from Thursday? I sit back down at my little Olivetti and start looking at sentences and turning them around. And I ask myself, Why is there no way but this for me to fill my hours?

As I went to stand up, I felt a tiny point of pressure on my back. "Don't move," Kasey whispered. I stayed bent over. "Drop the knife," she said. "Excuse me, I'm using it," I said. She swallowed hard. "For what?" "Mom and Dad. You." The pressure on my back increased. "Drop it, Alexis." Drop it? Like I was a bad dog running around with a sock in my mouth. "How long will this take?" I asked, setting the knife on the floor. "I'm in the middle of something." Get in the bathroom," she said. The faster I indulged her, the faster it would be over with. So I walked into the bathroom. She followed, kicking the knife toward the end of the hallway and flipping on the bathroom light. "What's this all about, Kasey?" I asked, turning around. At the sight of my face, she gasped, and the point of the fireplace poker she was holding wavered in her hands. I realized a second too late that I'd missed my chance to grab it and smash it into the side of her head. "What's happening to you?" she whispered. I glanced in the mirror. The darkness had begun to spread from my mouth and eyes. It leached out in inky puddles with thin tendrils of black snaking out in delicate feathery patterns. What's happening to me? What was she talking about? "So you have a pointy stick," I said. "Big deal. get out of my way." "What are you going to do?" I sneered. "Poke me?" 'I'll hit you, Lexi." Her face was stony. "As hard as I have to." Whatever. I'm really not in the mood. "Can we talk about this in the morning?" I asked. After I kill you? "No," her eyes hardened. "Get your toothbrush." "What?" "Pick up your toothbrush, and stick it down your throat." "Kasey-" "Do it," she said. "Ugh, fine. You're sick, you know that?" "Get in the tub." "Happy?" I stuck the toothbrush into my throat. Instantly, I gagged and doubled over. "Do it again," she said. "God Kasey," I cried. Stabbing people was one thing. But making them barf- that was just disturbing.

I was so struck by Flow’s negative implications for parents that I decided I wanted to speak to Csikszentmihalyi, just to make sure I wasn’t misreading him. And eventually I did, at a conference in Philadelphia where he was one of the marquee speakers. As we sat down to chat, the first thing I asked was why he talked so little about family life in Flow. He devotes only ten pages to it. “Let me tell you a couple of things that may be relevant to you,” he said. And then he told a personal story. When Csikszentmihalyi first developed the Experience Sampling Method, one of the first people he tried it out on was himself. “And at the end of the week,” he said, “I looked at my responses, and one thing that suddenly was very strange to me was that every time I was with my two sons, my moods were always very, very negative.” His sons weren’t toddlers at that point either. They were older. “And I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense to me, because I’m very proud of them, and we have a good relationship.’ ” But then he started to look at what, specifically, he was doing with his sons that made his feelings so negative. “And what was I doing?” he asked. “I was saying, ‘It’s time to get up, or you will be late for school.’ Or, ‘You haven’t put away your cereal dish from breakfast.’ ” He was nagging, in other words, and nagging is not a flow activity. “I realized,” he said, “that being a parent consists, in large part, of correcting the growth pattern of a person who is not necessarily ready to live in a civilized society.” I asked if, in that same data set, he had any numbers about flow in family life. None were in his book. He said he did. “They were low. Family life is organized in a way that flow is very difficult to achieve, because we assume that family life is supposed to relax us and to make us happy. But instead of being happy, people get bored.” Or enervated, as he’d said before, when talking about disciplining his sons. And because children are constantly changing, the “rules” of handling them change too, which can further confound a family’s ability to flow. “And then we get into these spirals of conflict and so forth,” he continued. “That’s why I’m saying it’s easier to get into flow at work. Work is more structured. It’s structured more like a game. It has clear goals, you get feedback, you know what has to be done, there are limits.” He thought about this. “Partly, the lack of structure in family life, which seems to give people freedom, is actually a kind of an impediment.

... somewhere in my heart, however, I continued to believe that intense and lasting love was possible only in a climate of somewhat tumultuous passions. This, I felt, consigned me to being with a man whose temperament was largely similar to my own. I was late to understand that chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life. Normal people are not aways boring. On the contrary. It has been with pleasure, and not inconsiderable pain, that I have learned about the possibilities of love - its steadiness and its growth...

What can a photograph mean? It seems to me, now, that it’s not so much the image itself as the fact that it was kept. In my own bedroom closet are three large boxes I labeled—late one night, in a dark mood—PLUTONIUM. They are filled with my own keepsakes and very heavy, decades of living distilled down to a few potent sentiments: tenderness, longing, regret.

He was not, it was clear, going to gaze meaningfully into my eyes over long dinners and fine wines, nor discuss literature and music over late-night coffee and port... Yet not once in the years we have been together have I doubted Richard's love for me, nor mine for him. Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe.

The decades that she devoted to conserving her husband’s legacy made Eliza only more militantly loyal to his memory, and there was one injury she could never forget: the exposure of the Maria Reynolds affair, for which she squarely blamed James Monroe. In the 1820s, after Monroe had completed two terms as president, he called upon Eliza in Washington, D.C., hoping to thaw the frost between them. Eliza was then about seventy and staying at her daughter’s home. She was sitting in the backyard with her fifteen-year-old nephew when a maid emerged and presented the ex-president’s card. Far from being flattered by this distinguished visitor, Eliza was taken aback. “She read the name and stood holding the card, much perturbed,” said her nephew. “Her voice sank and she spoke very low, as she always did when she was angry. ‘What has that man come to see me for?’” The nephew said that Monroe must have stopped by to pay his respects. She wavered. “I will see him,” she finally agreed. So the small woman with the upright carriage and the sturdy, determined step marched stiffly into the house. When she entered the parlor, Monroe rose to greet her. Eliza then did something out of character and socially unthinkable: she stood facing the ex-president but did not invite him to sit down. With a bow, Monroe began what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech, stating “that it was many years since they had met, that the lapse of time brought its softening influences, that they both were nearing the grave, when past differences could be forgiven and forgotten.” Eliza saw that Monroe was trying to draw a moral equation between them and apportion blame equally for the long rupture in their relationship. Even at this late date, thirty years after the fact, she was not in a forgiving mood. “Mr. Monroe,” she told him, “if you have come to tell me that you repent, that you are sorry, very sorry, for the misrepresentations and the slanders and the stories you circulated against my dear husband, if you have come to say this, I understand it. But otherwise, no lapse of time, no nearness to the grave, makes any difference.” Monroe took in this rebuke without comment. Stunned by the fiery words delivered by the elderly little woman in widow’s weeds, the ex-president picked up his hat, bid Eliza good day, and left the house, never to return.

Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are?” Caravaggio, in a belligerent morphine rush, wanted the mood of argument. “This is something that has concerned me most of my sexual life—which began late, I must announce to this select company. In the same way the sexual pleasure of conversation came to me only after I was married. I had never thought words erotic. Sometimes I really do like to talk more than fuck. Sentences. Buckets of this buckets of that and then buckets of this again. The trouble with words is that you can really talk yourself into a corner. Whereas you can’t fuck yourself into a corner.” “That’s a man talking,” muttered Hana. “Well, I haven’t,” Caravaggio continued, “maybe you have, Kip, when you came down to Bombay from the hills, when you came to England for military training. Has anyone, I wonder, fucked themselves into a corner. How old are you, Kip?” “Twenty-six.” “Older than I am.” “Older than Hana. Could you fall in love with her if she wasn’t smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn’t it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now. She can be obsessed by the Englishman because he knows more. We’re in a huge field when we talk to that guy. We don’t even know if he’s English. He’s probably not. You see, I think it is easier to fall in love with him than with you. Why is that? Because we want to know things, how the pieces fit. Talkers seduce, words direct us into corners. We want more than anything to grow and change. Brave new world.

You are wonderful!" he said gravely. "Oh, you appreciate me!" she burst out again. "I wish you didn't. You appreciate us all—see good in all of us. And all the time you are dead—dead—dead. Look, why aren't you angry?" She came up to him, and then her mood suddenly changed, and she took hold of both his hands. "You are so splendid, Mr. Herriton, that I can't bear to see you wasted. I can't bear—she has not been good to you—your mother." "Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I'm one of them; I never did anything at school or at the Bar. I came out to stop Lilia's marriage, and it was too late. I came out intending to get the baby, and I shall return an 'honourable failure.' I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now—I don't suppose I shall ever meet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it—and I'm sure I can't tell you whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die—I don't fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which—thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you—is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before.

When thro' Earth's caverns I a-while have roul'd My waves, I rise, and here again behold The long-lost stars; and, as I late did glide Near Styx, Proserpina there I espy'd. Fear still with grief might in her face be seen; She still her rape laments; yet, made a queen, Beneath those gloomy shades her sceptre sways, And ev'n th' infernal king her will obeys. This heard, the Goddess like a statue stood, Stupid with grief; and in that musing mood Continu'd long; new cares a-while supprest The reigning of her immortal breast. At last to Jove her daughter's sire she flies, And with her chariot cuts the chrystal skies; She comes in clouds, and with dishevel'd hair, Standing before his throne, prefers her pray'r” (Ovid, Metamorphoses (Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al). „ქვესკნელში ვწვეთავ, მივიწყებულ ვარსკვლავთა შევცქერ. მიწისქვეშეთა სტიქსის მორევს როს მივდიოდი, ვიხილე შენი პროზერპინა ჩემი თვალებით. თუმცა იურვის, აქამომდე კრთომა აქვს სახეს, დედოფალია მაინც. დიდი, ბნელი სამეფოს უფლებამორჭმულ ცოლად უზის ქვესკნელის ტირანს. მეხდაცემული იყო დიდხანს, მაგრამ როს ურვამ განდევნა დიდი გონდაბინდვა, ამხედრდა ეტლზე, ეთერს აიჭრა და სახეზე ნისლმობურული იუპიტერის წინ წარმოდგა გაშლილი თმებით“ (პუბლიუს ოვიდიუს ნაზონი, მეტამორფოზები (ლათინურიდან თარგმნეს: ნ. მელაშვილმა, ნ. ტონიამ, ი. გარაყანიძემ), თბ., 1980, 143).

I’m not really in the mood.” “Can we call Ben then?” “No. Ben’s an asshole.” Radar looked at me sideways. “Of course he is. You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it’s going with my girlfriend—but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you. My parents have a shit ton of black Santas, but that’s okay. They’re them. I’m too obsessed with a reference Web site to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That’s okay, too. That’s me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You’re funny, and you’re smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.

What’s the matter, Rea?” he said, still sounding half asleep. “What makes you think . . .?” “You wouldn’t have called this late unless you need to talk. Give me a minute to pull my jeans on and I’ll go out in the hallway so I won’t wake the other guys.” Reagen heard several men moan or swear in the background. When times were good, Noah had a room to himself, but when times were bad in the road game he’d sometimes bunk on the floor in someone else’s room. “I’m listening,” he said after a minute. She wanted to hear his voice more than talk, but that would sound strange, so she told him about her dream and how frightened she’d been. “I wish I were there to hug you, Rea. We could cuddle up. You could tell me everything while I slept.” “I wish you were too.” Neither one said anything for a few breaths, and then she whispered, “I miss you so much sometimes. They’d probably never be as close as they’d been in high school. He was a different man and she’d changed as well, but she still missed the Noah who was half kid, half man. “What are you wearing?” he whispered, and for a moment she swore she could hear him smiling. “Shut up.” He laughed. “Just asking. Who knows, one night I might get lucky and you’d be just out of th shower.” “You never give up trying to make me blush.” Her bad mood had vanished. “Come on, Rea, give me a break. I’ve been wondering what you like naked for years. If I ever get too old to wonder, I hope you just shoot me.” “Go to bed, Noah.” “Good night, Rea. Maybe when you go back to dreaming, you’ll dream of me.” “Not likely.” She closed the phone, thinking how he always had enough magic in his pocket to change her mood even if he didn’t have enough to change his dreams.

Why don't they read him more? I have him in eight volumes; none of your little books of selections, which somehow take away all his true flavour, but every bit of him from beginning to end. Nobody ever made so many couplets that fit in to so many occasions of one's life. I believe I could describe my daily life with Mrs. Barnes and Dolly entirely in couplets from Crabbe. It is the odd fate of his writings to have turned by the action of time from serious to droll. He decomposes, as it were, hilariously. I lay for hours this afternoon enjoying his neat couplets. He enchants me. I forget time when I am with him. It was Crabbe who made me late for supper. But he is the last person one takes out for a walk with one if one isn't happy. Crabbe is a barometer of serenity. You have to be in a cloudless mood to enjoy him. I was in that mood to-day. I had escaped.

What the fuck was that about?” Vaughn said, standing over me. “I pissed him off.” Dark blue eyes flicking to the restroom, Vaughn reached back and scratched at his shoulder. “All I know is when Judd came back from Texas, he was all hollowed out. Like a ghost, I guess. This morning before his bitch fit, he looked alive again. Whatever you said or did, can’t be that big a deal compared to the shit mood he’s been in lately.” Glancing at the restroom, I wanted to go back to before I said the words. My honesty ruined our happy morning. “You can’t take it personally,” Vaughn added when I just stared at the restroom. “You know how moody Judd is. Always crying and bitching about something. A freaking drama queen.” Grinning, I looked up at him. “Thank you.” “Men like us aren’t used to pretty girls looking at them like you look at Judd. He’s not sure what to do with you and you’re just gonna have to be patient while he figures shit out.” “Okay,” I said, studied him. Whereas Judd hid a deep sorrow and iced heart behind his walls, I sensed Vaughn concealed a barely contained rage. He smiled easily enough, but it was a ruse. Just like Judd who acted like the world didn’t touch him, Vaughn faked his exterior to avoid showing anything to the world. “Why do they call you Outlaw?” I asked. Vaughn sighed. “Because it’s better than calling me dead man walking.” “I don’t understand.” “You don’t need to, darlin. The drama queen returns.” When Judd appeared next to me, his expression was unreadable while kissing me softly. When he pulled away, his gaze flickered to Vaughn. “Thanks.” “You are so premenstrual sometimes.” Grinning, Judd sat down across from me then glanced at Vaughn. “Fuck off.” Vaughn leaned his hip against the side of the booth and sized me up. “What is it about the Smith sisters that makes otherwise strong men lose their balls?” “I have no idea and I’m out of sisters, so I guess you’re out of luck.” “Thank the Lord too. I like my balls attached.

Are you sure you won’t be too bored here, waiting for us to come back? We don’t know how long our time with the Pythia will last; I hope you’ll find something to do.” “Of course I will,” I told him. “I’ll be exploring Delphi.” “No you won’t,” my brothers responded in perfect unison. Then they took turns telling me exactly why I couldn’t do what I wanted. “You wouldn’t be safe,” Castor said. “You’d get lost if you went wandering around the city on your own,” Polydeuces added. “It’s too big.” “Too noisy.” “Too confusing.” “Too busy.” “You could run into the wrong sort of people.” “Dangerous types.” “But sneaky enough so you couldn’t tell they’re dangerous until it’s too late.” “We’re responsible for your safety.” “We have to know where you are at all times.” “It’s not that we don’t trust you, Helen.” “It’s them.” “It’s for your own good.” I flopped down on my bed. “Fine. Go. I’ll stay here,” I told the ceiling. Castor and Polydeuces each grabbed one of my wrists and pulled me back to my feet. “I don’t think so,” Castor said, chuckling. “You’d stay here, all right. You’d stay here just until you saw us go into Apollo’s temple, and then you’d be a little cloud of dust sailing out through the gates.” “You don’t have to come with us,” Polydeuces said. “But if you want to tour this city, you’ll have to do it on our terms.” With that, he left me in Castor’s company. “Where’s he going?” I asked. “Probably to see if the priests of Apollo have an oil jar big enough to stuff you inside for safekeeping.” He winked at me. No matter how much I loved my brothers, I wasn’t in the mood for more teasing. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll insult the Pythia if you don’t go to see her right now? You were summoned. She could foretell terrible fates for the two of you if you keep her waiting.” Castor didn’t seem worried. “If she’s truly blessed with the gift of prophecy, she already knows we’re going to be delayed. And if she can’t foretell that, she’s as much of an oracle as I am, so why should I care what she predicts?” He laughed out loud, then added, “But don’t tell Polydeuces I said that. He’s the devout one.

Grom greets him with a smile full of nausea. "I'm not ready for this, little brother," he confesses. "Sure you are," Galen laughs, slapping his brother's back. Grom shakes his head. "It feels like...like I'm betraying her. Nalia." Galen stiffens. Oh. He doesn't feel qualified to talk Grom out of this kind of mood. "I'm sure she would understand," he offers. Grom studies him thoughtfully. "I'd like to think she would. But you didn't know Nalia. She had an amazing temper." He chuckles. "I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting to see her ready to bludgeon me with something for mating with someone else." Galen frowns, unsure of what to say. Grom chuckles. "I'm joking, of course." Then he shrugs. "Well, half joking, anyway. I swear I've been sensing her lately, Galen. It feels so real. It takes all I've got not to follow the pulse. Do you think I'm losing my mind?" Galen shakes his head out of obligation. Secretly though, he thinks he might be. "I'm sure you're just feeling guilty. Er...not that you have a reason to feel guilty. Uh, it's just natural that you feel that way before your mating ceremony. Nerves and all." Galen runs a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this sort of thing." "What sort of thing? Being mature?" Grom smirks. "Funny." "Maybe you should spend some more time on land, then come back and talk to me. Being on land ages you, you know. Might do you some good." Galen snorts. Now you tell me. "I heard." Out of nowhere, Grom grabs Galen's face and wrestles him into a hold. Galen hates it when he does this. "Let me see that cute little face of yours, minnow. Yep, just like I thought. Your eyes are turning blue. How much time have you been spending on land? Please tell me you're not head over fin for a human?" Then he laughs and releases him just as suddenly. Galen stares at him. "What do you mean?" "I was just teasing, minnow. Giving you a hard time." "I know but...why did you say my eyes are turning blue? What does that have to go with the humans?" Grom waves a dismissive hand at him. "Forget it. I think you might be more uptight than me right now. I said I was just kidding.

My 1979 Top 40 In no particular order, this is the forty-track rotation I listened to when I was researching, prepping and writing 1979. They were all released in the late 1970s, though not all in 1979 itself. But then, like Allie, we all listen to tunes from our past . . . I hope it gets you in the mood for reading! ‘Picture This’ – Blondie ‘Lovely Day’ – Bill Withers ‘Automatic Lover’ – Dee D. Jackson ‘Brass in Pocket’ – The Pretenders ‘It’s a Heartache’ – Bonnie Tyler ‘Wild West Hero’ – Electric Light Orchestra ‘Because the Night’ – Patti Smith ‘Into the Valley’ – The Skids ‘YMCA’ – Village People ‘Like Clockwork’ – Boomtown Rats ‘Stayin’ Alive’ – Bee Gees ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ – Althea & Donna ‘No More Heroes’ – The Stranglers ‘Take a Chance on Me’ – Abba ‘Werewolves of London’ – Warren Zevon ‘Psycho Killer’ – Talking Heads ‘Kiss You All Over’ – Exile ‘Top of the Pops’ – Rezillos ‘Heroes’ – David Bowie ‘Don’t Hang Up’ – 10cc ‘English Civil War’ – The Clash ‘2-4-6-8-Motorway’ – Tom Robinson Band ‘Rebel Rebel’ – David Bowie ‘Glad to be Gay’ – Tom Robinson Band

Lester.” Reyna sighed. “What in Tartarus are you saying? I’m not in the mood for riddles.” “That maybe I’m the answer,” I blurted. “To healing your heart. I could…you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like…yeah.” I was absolutely certain that up on Mount Olympus, the other Olympians all had their phones out and were filming me to post on Euterpe-Tube. Reyna stared at me long enough for the marching band in my circulatory system to play a complete stanza of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” Her eyes were dark and dangerous. Her expression was unreadable, like the outer surface of an explosive device. She was going to murder me. No. She would order her dogs to murder me. By the time Meg rushed to my aid, it would be too late. Or worse—Meg would help Reyna bury my remains, and no one would be the wiser. When they returned to camp, the Romans would ask What happened to Apollo? Who? Reyna would say. Oh, that guy? Dunno, we lost him. Oh, well! the Romans would reply, and that would be that. Reyna’s mouth tightened into a grimace. She bent over, gripping her knees. Her body began to shake. Oh, gods, what had I done? Perhaps I should comfort her, hold her in my arms. Perhaps I should run for my life. Why was I so bad at romance? Reyna made a squeaking sound, then a sort of sustained whimper. I really had hurt her! Then she straightened, tears streaming down her face, and burst into laughter. The sound reminded me of water rushing over a creek bed that had been dry for ages. Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. She doubled over, stood upright again, leaned against a tree, and looked at her dogs as if to share the joke. “Oh…my…gods,” she wheezed. She managed to restrain her mirth long enough to blink at me through the tears, as if to make sure I was really there and she’d heard me correctly. “You. Me? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.

I continued my explorations in a cobbled yard overlooked by broken doors and cracked windows. Pushing open a swollen door into a storeroom, I found a stream running across paving stones and a carpet of slippery green moss. My explorations took me beneath a gateway surmounted by a clock face, standing with hands fixed permanently at eleven o'clock. Beyond stood derelict stables; then the park opened up in an undulating vista, reaching all the way to a swathe of deep forest on the horizon. In the distance was the twinkle of the river that I realized must border my own land at Whitelow. The grass was knee-high and speckled with late buttercups, but I was transported by that first sight of the Delafosse estate. In its situation alone, the Croxons had chosen our new home well. I dreamed for a moment of myself and Michael making a great fortune, and no longer renting Delafosse Hall but owning every inch of it, my inheritance spinning gold from cotton. Turning back to view the Hall I took a sharp breath; it was as massive and ancient as a child's dream of a castle, the bulk of its walls carpeted in greenery, the diamond-leaded windows sparkling in picturesque stone mullions. True, the barley-twist chimneys leaned askew, and the roofs sagged beneath the weight of years, but the shell of it was magnificent. It cast a strange possessive mood upon me. I remembered Michael's irritation at the house the previous night, and his eagerness to leave. Somehow I had to entice Michael into this shared dream of a happy life here, beside me. Determined to explore the park, I followed the nearest path. After walking through a deep wood for a good while I emerged into the sunlight by a round hill surmounted by a two-story tower. A hunting lodge, Mrs. Croxon had called it, but I thought it more a folly. It had a fantastical quality, with four miniature turrets, each topped with a verdigris-tarnished dome. Above the doorway stood a sundial drawn upon a disc representing a blazing sun. It was embellished with a script I thought might be Latin: FERREA VIRGA EST, UMBRATILIS MOTUS. I wondered whether Michael might know the meaning, or Anne's husband perhaps. As for the sundial's accuracy, the morning light was too weak to cast a line of shadow.

her that when he had first raised the idea, I hadn’t known he was sick. Almost nobody knew, she said. He had called me right before he was going to be operated on for cancer, and he was still keeping it a secret, she explained. I decided then to write this book. Jobs surprised me by readily acknowledging that he would have no control over it or even the right to see it in advance. “It’s your book,” he said. “I won’t even read it.” But later that fall he seemed to have second thoughts about cooperating and, though I didn’t know it, was hit by another round of cancer complications. He stopped returning my calls, and I put the project aside for a while. Then, unexpectedly, he phoned me late on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2009. He was at home in Palo Alto with only his sister, the writer Mona Simpson. His wife and their three children had taken a quick trip to go skiing, but he was not healthy enough to join them. He was in a reflective mood, and we talked for more than an hour. He began by recalling that he had wanted to build a frequency counter when he was twelve, and he was able to look up Bill Hewlett, the founder of HP, in the phone book and call him to get parts. Jobs said that the past twelve years of his life, since his return to Apple, had been his most productive in terms of creating new products. But his more important goal, he said, was to do what Hewlett and his friend David Packard had done, which was create a company that was so imbued with innovative creativity that it would outlive them. “I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid). The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century. I asked Jobs why he wanted me to be the one to write his biography. “I think you’re good at getting people to talk,” he replied. That was an unexpected answer. I knew that I would have to interview scores of people he had fired, abused, abandoned, or otherwise infuriated, and I feared he would not be comfortable with my getting them to talk. And indeed he did turn out to be skittish when word trickled back to him of people that I was interviewing. But after a couple of months,

The shimmering tarmac of the deserted basketball court, a line of industrial-sized garbage cans, and beyond the electrified perimeter fence a vista that twangs a country and western chord of self-pity in me. For a brief moment, when I first arrived, I thought of putting a photo of Alex - Laughing Alpha Male at Roulette Wheel - next to my computer, alongside my family collection: Late Mother Squinting Into Sun on Pebbled Beach, Brother Pierre with Postpartum Wife and Male Twins, and Compos Mentis Father Fighting Daily Telegraph Crossword. But I stopped myself. Why give myself a daily reminder of what I have in every other way laid to rest? Besides, there would be curiosity from colleagues, and my responses to their questions would seem either morbid or tasteless or brutal depending on the pitch and role of my mood. Memories of my past existence, and the future that came with it, can start as benign, Vaselined nostalgia vignettes. But they’ll quickly ghost train into Malevolent noir shorts backlit by that great worst enemy of all victims of circumstance, hindsight. So for the sake of my own sanity, I apologize silently to Alex before burying him in the desk alongside my emergency bottle of Lauphroaig and a little homemade flower press given to me by a former patient who hanged himself with a clothesline. The happy drawer.

me knitting. Any reference to the child I was carrying was sufficient to put him in an awkward mood, and Richard’s moods were worse than Father’s – though of late there had been little to choose between them. Leaving Mother listening to music on the wireless, I went out into the hall. I was in time to see my Father standing halfway up the stairs, bent almost double with what was obviously severe pain. ‘Father!’ I cried. ‘You’re ill. Let me help you.’ ‘No, no,

Good twin calling evil twin. The weasel crows at midnight. How copy?" "Oh, for mercy's sake... I'm busy! Stop sending me silly messages in code! If you have something to say, just say it; otherwise, radio silence, remember?" "You're no fun anymore. You used to be fun, but lately, I've noticed a change in you. Is it menopause, May?" Cyrene 's question took me aback so strongly, I stopped creeping down the darkened hallway and blinked in dumbfounded surprise at the mirror that hung on the wall opposite. No reflected figure blinked back at me. "Are you still having your period? Do you experience hot flashes at night? Are you now growing, or have you at any time in the recent past grown, a mustache?" "Goddess help me," I murmured to no one in particular, and tried my best to ignore the perky little voice that chirped so happily in my ear as I continued to make my way down to the dark and deserted room. I thought for a moment of just turning off the miniature radio that allowed Cyrene to contact me, but knowledge born of long experience with my twin reminded me of the folly of such an idea. "Boy, you really are in a grumpy mood if you won't rise to the bait of menopause," she said in a mildly disgruntled voice

I’d like to be friends again--truly I would.” “Then it will be so.” He nuzzled her ear. “But Hunter, don’t you see? We’re married.” “Ah, yes, married.” Hunter’s mind circled the word, trying to imagine what images it conjured for her. “And good friends, yes? Trust. This last time. My hand upon you has brought pain?” “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I have beaten you?” “No.” She pressed closer to him and encircled his neck with her arms. “Oh, Hunter, what must you think of me?” “I think there is big fear inside you.” “Without cause. You’ve never been cruel to me, never, and yet…” A shiver coursed through her. In a rush, she told him of the many times she had heard her aunt Rachel whimpering late at night. “I keep telling myself it won’t be like that with you, that Henry’s mean as sin and that’s why she cries, but--” She broke off and swallowed. “What if that isn’t it? What if it’s as horrible as it sounds?” Seeing through her eyes, Hunter found himself smiling again. He considered telling her that many women whimpered when their men loved them, but he decided it would be unwise. He ran his hand up her slender back, aching to touch her soft skin instead of leather. He controlled the urge, reluctant to shatter the mood by startling her. “No more fear, eh? If I grow angry, I will bring you my mother’s spoon.” She sniffed and laughed. “A lot of good a spoon would be.

What's your favorite spice?" "Hmm... It changes all the time." I dug around in my box. "I found a blend the other day I really liked. Feast has no cultural root, but even so, I never cook Indian, so I don't come across this every day." I pulled out a pouch and opened it for him. "I like that." He sniffed again. "I think it reflects my mood lately. It's a regional blend called Garam Masala, so you can find endless permutations, but they're all earthy, subdued, almost sad---a mixture of peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, black-and-white cumin seeds, and black, brown, and green cardamom pods. This is the brightest iteration I've found. It pushes the green cardamom more and has a fresh kick at the end. Maybe that's what I want to happen in me." "I like the fresh kick.

Rolling my eyes, I took Dylan’s hand and followed Harlow inside. Jace sat in the front of the TV. I knew he was grumpy based on the way he didn’t look at me. When I flopped next to him on the couch, he did smile. “You smell like a strip club,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “How would you know?” “I’m not telling you my secrets.” Shaking my head, I sighed loudly. “Why do you make me do this to you? It’s like you want to suffer.” Jace knew what was coming, but his escape came too late. I pinned him on the couch and tickled him. Despite his efforts to seem unfazed, he couldn’t withstand armpit tickling. While I tormented my laughing brother, Dad and Mom walked out from the kitchen. “He missed you,” Mom said as I finally let Jace up. Catching his breath, my brother leaned next to me on the couch. “I miss beating you at videogames.” “I miss you beating me too,” I said, kissing his head. Harlow flopped on the couch next to us and I smiled at the familiar comfort of my family. Dylan watched us with a slight grin. When he caught Tad and Toni’s gazes, his smile grew. Suspicious now, I glanced at Harlow who was busy gluing herself to me. “Are they up to something?” I whispered. “Am I going to be embarrassed?” “I don’t know. If you feel embarrassed, I’ll punch Dylan in the crotch and distract everyone.” Rolling my eyes at her threat, I studied Dylan who grinned at me. “What?” I asked, nervous now. “She’s on to you,” Dad said. “Better ask now before she gets squirrely.” “Squirrely,” Jace snorted. “She gets batty too.” Harlow laughed. “Winnie can do so many animal impressions.” Ignoring them, I stood up and walked to a still smiling Dylan. “What?” “What happened to patience?” Without thinking, I reached to pinch my hand. Dylan took both hands then knelt on one knee. “Don’t,” Harlow blurted, grabbing for me. Everyone frowned at her. A moment passed where she stared at me in horror. Suddenly, she shrugged. “I meant don’t stop. Go ahead, Dylan.” The mood in the room shifted back to anticipation. Our gaze focused on Dylan who smiled up at me. “I know it’s been a few weeks. I don’t care. I love you and you love me, right?” “I love you so much.” “I’m not stupid. I know we’ll have problems. We run into issues. When we do, we’ll work them out. We’ll figure them out because we belong together. You believe that, don’t you?” “Yes,” I whispered, staring into his beautiful dark eyes. “Winona Todds, you are perfection and I refuse to live without you. Will you marry me?” My legs turning to jelly, I knelt down too. “Yes,” I whispered, afraid he was about to change his mind. Maybe it was a trick. All these awful things rushed through my mind. I wasn’t good enough for Dylan. He was going to leave me one day. I didn’t deserve to be happy when I was so weak. “You love me,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against mine. “You want me to be happy.” “Yes,” I said, tears rolling down my cheeks. “You’re what I need to survive.” “I’m not really strong yet.” “I love you now. I don’t want to wait. Do you want to wait for me?” Shaking my head, I looked at my smiling parents then back at Dylan. “We’re in love and planning to live together. We need to make our relationship official, so your daddy won’t kick my ass.” Even laughing, I asked, “You want this?” “I can give up everything else in my life, but never you. Married or not, you belong with me.” I exhaled uneasily then smiled. “Yes, I will marry you.

Sometimes I feared I'd grown too comfortable with my independence to relearn the give-and-take that intimacy demands. I liked being in control of my life; of where I went and what I did, of going to bed late and getting up early, of eating meals that suited me when it suited me....And while I knew that the care and feeding of children was behind me, my fear was I'd grown too selfish--when I was in a better mood I thought of it as having become "set in my ways"--to sustain a life with even one other adult.

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.

Most recently, I worked for this advertising agency that specializes in perceptual marketing. They ensure that whatever ads you see in your everyday life are geared to your specific taste, style, demographic, purchasing history, and countless other interwoven criteria. If you walk by a billboard, it shows you something you actually want or an upgrade to something you already have. They use real-time rolling data feeds, so you might see a different ad depending on your mood before versus after lunch, if you were running late or had time to linger, whether you had sex that night or argued with your spouse that morning. Following a negative experience with some company’s wares, they’d give a competitor a shot at shifting your brand loyalty. My big idea was that clients could pay a monthly fee to see no ads at all. Instead of individualized niche marketing, you could experience a world blissfully emptied of promotional clutter. It was a total failure. Because it turns out people like ads. Especially when they’re targeted to warp the visual environment around you to emphasize your needs above all others, as if you’re the indispensable center of the global economy. Nobody wanted to pay for the privilege of being irrelevant to commercial interests. Except me. I essentially got my employer to launch an expensive new product solely for my use. An industry of one.

RACH, DO YOU REALLY NEED THIS MANY SHOES?” I watched as she unpacked the third box in our closet just inside the bathroom and wondered how any person could ever have a need for that many pairs of shoes. Her hand stopped midway to the shelf with another pair, and her bright blue glare turned on me. I took a step back. “Are you actually asking me that right now?” “Say no,” my dad whispered from behind me. “Course he wasn’t, Rachel. He’s just mad that he won’t have anywhere to put his sparkly hooker heels.” Rachel laughed and went back to putting her dozens of shoes away. “No worries about that one, Rich. I put them up already, they even have their own little place away from everything so they don’t get ruined.” My mom pushed through Dad and me to get into the closet with an armful of clothes to hang up. “Really, Logan. Give the girl a break. I have more shoes than this.” “Oh, Marcy! I forgot to tell you—” “Is this gonna be a long story?” Dad drawled, cutting Rachel off. “Actually, it is,” she snapped right back with a playful smirk. “So get comfy!” As soon as she launched into her story about whatever the hell those two always talked excitedly about, my dad turned and gave me a shove into the large bathroom. “Have I taught you nothing when it comes to women?” he asked softly. “What? That’s a shit ton of shoes!” I hissed and looked back to see her pull more out. I swear to Christ this last box was like Mary Poppins’s purse. It was a never-ending pit of shoes. “Okay, we’re gonna do this quick and easy. One, your woman can never have too many shoes, clothes, purses, or jewelry. Two, it doesn’t matter if you know you’re right—because God knows your mother is wrong about . . . well . . . just about everything—but it doesn’t matter. They are always right. Just say a simple ‘Yes, sweetheart, I’m sorry I’m a dumbass’ and you’ll be fine. Three, them asking if they look okay is a trick question. Because, let’s face it, even if we think it’s the ugliest shirt we’ve ever seen, it’s probably in style and we wouldn’t know either way. So they always look amazing, remember that word.” I laughed. Rachel could wear a sack and I would think she looked amazing. Or she could wear nothing . . . I preferred her in nothing. I cleared my throat and had to look away from Rachel when I started picturing her naked. “Four, and probably the most important if you want to keep your manhood, do not ever ask if she is PMS-ing. No matter what. Might as well dig your own grave if you do that.” Too late. I was always asking Rach if that was why she was in a bad mood. And if I was right, there was no way in hell I was going to tell her I was in the wrong. She could bitch about it if she wanted, but I wasn’t going to go easy on her for the sake of getting out of an argument. Arguing with her was one of my favorite things. Nodding, I slapped my dad’s shoulder and smiled. “Thanks, Dad, I’ll remember all that.

closet serial-killer.” “No way! He’s a total sweetheart. You’re going to love him. In addition to being Grayson’s best man, he’s also so sexy...” “No,” I say firmly. “Carmen, do you hear me? I swear to God. If you set me up with someone, I’m not coming. I am not in the mood for this garbage.” “But... Helen. You have to come. I told Daddy that you were coming, and he already bought your favorite red velvet cupcakes.” Carmen sighs. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but Dad hasn’t been doing so well lately. He had a minor heart attack...” “A heart attack?” I repeat dumbly. Remembering my mother’s death, my entire body is seized by a panic. “Is he... is he okay?” “Sure. He’s fine, but he’ll be better if you get your cute butt down here!” I shove my forehead into the upholstery of the backseat. “Carm, are you lying to manipulate me?” “No way, honey. I’m just reminding you of your responsibility to your family,” Carmen says innocently. “And part of that responsibility is to date Brad!” I gnash my teeth together angrily. An idea suddenly strikes me. It’s horrible, but it just might work. I glance toward the front seats where the two doctors are sitting, and I bite my lip as a smile begins to transform my features. “No,” Liam whispers. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it!” I have to ignore him for the sake of self-preservation.

Mel walked right into his open arms. “You’re late,” she said, looking up at him. He lowered his lips to softly kiss her forehead. “Sorry. I was held up. Goddamn truck left without me.” He smiled down at her. “Do you have any idea what you look like in jeans? Melinda, you just do it to me in jeans.” “Everyone thought you were dead and you’re talking about my butt again.” He grimaced. “They’re going to wish I was dead. I’ve been walking for twenty-four hours and I’m in a real mood.” He brushed the hair back from her brow. “Were you scared, baby?” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew you were coming.” “You did?” She touched her chest. “Your heart beats in here. If it had stopped, I would have known. It did beat a little fast sometimes. Was it close, Jack?” He chuckled, tightening his arms around her. “It was so close, I have blisters on my ass.” “I spent all night remembering every time you touched me. Every one.” “You don’t have to make do on memories. I’m going to touch you for many more years.” “I knew you’d never leave me.” “Baby, I’d walk out of hell to get back to you.” “I

I guess there’s nothing else to say.” “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, crooking a finger. “Come here.” Her throat went dry, and her heart gave a thud. On instinct, she shook her head. His expression turned ruthlessly intent. “Maddie, I’ve been thinking about that mouth of yours for almost twenty-four hours straight. You don’t think I’m going to let you go without touching you, do you?” Had it only been one day? How was that even possible? It seemed as though a lifetime had passed since she’d run out on her wedding. “Um . . .” She swallowed hard and squeaked out, “Yes?” A long pause filled with sexual awareness so thick it practically coated the air. How did he do it, flip the mood? Only moments ago, she’d felt bereft, but with one wicked glance she’d forgotten everything dogging her. “I’ll tell you what.” He smiled, and it was so filled with cunning that the fine hairs on her neck rose in anticipation. “Tell me you won’t regret it and we can end things right here with a friendly pat on the back.” “I-I d-don’t know what you mean,” she lied, loving and hating the direction the conversation had taken. “Do I need to spell it out?” “No?” The word was a question instead of the statement she’d intended. “You want to take care of yourself, right?” She nodded, sensing a trap but unable to stop playing into his hands. He leaned close, placing his elbow on the console, taking up every spare inch of breathing room. “You’re ready to ditch the good Catholic girl and start doing what you want?” The strange mixture of lust and irritation he evoked pulled in her stomach. “Well, when you put it that way.” The curve of his lips held a distinct sexual tilt. “If you get out of this car untouched, tell me you won’t lie in bed late at night and regret it. Tell me you won’t wonder and wish you’d done things differently.” Her pulse hammered and her throat dried up, leaving her unable to breathe, let alone speak. He stroked a path over the line of her jaw, and Maddie forced her eyes to stay open instead of fluttering closed from sheer desire. Why did it feel like an eternity since he’d touched her? Even more troubling, why did his hands feel so right? The slightly rough pads of his fingers trailed down the curve of her neck, leaving an explosion of tingles coursing through her. “And remember, Princess,” he said, in a deep rumble of a voice that vibrated through her as though he were her own personal tuning fork. “Lying is a sin.” She gasped, sucking in the last available bit of air left in the car. “That’s a low blow.” He gave a seductive laugh, filled with heat and promise and the kind of raw passion she’d always dreamed about. “I’m not above playing dirty.” A sly smirk as he rubbed a lazy circle over skin she hadn’t known was sensitive. “In fact, I think you prefer it that way.” “I do not!” Her heart beating far too fast, she clutched at the credit card hard enough to snap it in two. “Liar.” He slipped under the collar of her T-shirt to wrap a possessive hand around the nape of her neck. “I’m waiting.” She gritted her teeth to keep from moaning. How did one man feel so good? Hot and sinful. Irresistible. She whispered, “For what?” “My answer,” he said, inching closer. Their mouths mere inches away. She swallowed hard. The truth sat on the tip of her tongue, and for once in her life, she decided to speak it instead of stuffing it back down. “I’d regret it.” “Exactly,” he said, the word a soft breath against her skin. The pad of his thumb brushed over her bottom lip, sliding over the dampness until it felt swollen. Needy. “I can’t live with myself unless I’ve tasted this mouth.” This

My original agenda for requesting your company this afternoon was not to talk your ear off about King William.” She took a bench behind a privet hedge and patted the place beside her. “Your agenda was rescuing me from Mr. Trit-Trot, though I fear you’re too late. He has that blindly determined look in his eye.” “Trit-Trot?” While he took the place beside her, Eve took off her bonnet and set it aside, then smoothed her hand over her hair. When that little delaying tactic was at an end, she grimaced. “Louisa finds these appellations and applies them indiscriminately to the poor gentlemen who come to call. She’s gotten worse since she married. Tridelphius Trottenham, ergo Trit-Trot, and it suits him.” “Dear Trit-Trot has a gambling problem.” One did not share such a thing with the ladies, generally, but if the idiot was thinking to offer for a Windham daughter, somebody needed to sound a warning. And as to that, the idea of Trit-Trot—the man was now doomed to wear the unfortunate moniker forevermore in Deene’s mind—kissing any of Moreland’s young ladies, much less kissing Eve, made Deene’s sanguine mood… sink a trifle. “He also clicks his heels in the most aggravating manner,” Eve said, her gaze fixed on a bed of cheery yellow tulips. “And he doesn’t hold a conversation, he chirps. He licks his fingers when he’s eaten tea cakes, though he’s a passable dancer and has a kind heart.” Bright

Saving Lives and Protecting Rights in Translation It is said that life and death are under the power of language. —Hélène Cixous, French author and philosopher Lifeline The phone rings, jolting me to attention. It’s almost midnight on a Friday night. I didn’t want to work the late shift, but the need for my work never sleeps. Most of the calls I get at this late hour are from emergency dispatchers for police, fire, and ambulance. They often consist of misdials, hang-ups, and other nonemergencies. I’ve been working since early this morning, and I’m just not in the mood tonight to hear someone complain about a neighbor’s television being turned up too loud. But someone has got to take the call. I pick up before it rings a second time. “Interpreter three nine four zero speaking, how may I help you?” The dispatcher wastes no time with pleasantries. “Find out what’s wrong,” he barks in English. He didn’t ask me to confirm the address, so I assume he must already have police officers headed to the scene. I ask the Spanish speaker how we can help. I wait for a response. Silence. I ask the question again. No answer, but I can hear that there’s someone on the line. We wait, but we don’t hear any response. It’s probably just another child playing with the phone, accidentally dialing 911. I imagine the little guy looking curiously at the phone and pressing the buttons, then staring at it as a voice comes out of the other end. This happens all the time. I turn up the volume on my headset, just in case it might help me pick up the scolding words of a parent in the background. Then suddenly, I hear a timid female voice speaking so quietly that I can barely make out the words. “Me va a matar,” she whispers.

Saving Lives and Protecting Rights in Translation It is said that life and death are under the power of language. —Hélène Cixous, French author and philosopher Lifeline The phone rings, jolting me to attention. It’s almost midnight on a Friday night. I didn’t want to work the late shift, but the need for my work never sleeps. Most of the calls I get at this late hour are from emergency dispatchers for police, fire, and ambulance. They often consist of misdials, hang-ups, and other nonemergencies. I’ve been working since early this morning, and I’m just not in the mood tonight to hear someone complain about a neighbor’s television being turned up too loud. But someone has got to take the call. I pick up before it rings a second time. “Interpreter three nine four zero speaking, how may I help you?” The dispatcher wastes no time with pleasantries. “Find out what’s wrong,” he barks in English. He didn’t ask me to confirm the address, so I assume he must already have police officers headed to the scene. I ask the Spanish speaker how we can help. I wait for a response. Silence. I ask the question again. No answer, but I can hear that there’s someone on the line. We wait, but we don’t hear any response. It’s probably just another child playing with the phone, accidentally dialing 911. I imagine the little guy looking curiously at the phone and pressing the buttons, then staring at it as a voice comes out of the other end. This happens all the time. I turn up the volume on my headset, just in case it might help me pick up the scolding words of a parent in the background. Then suddenly, I hear a timid female voice speaking so quietly that I can barely make out the words. “Me va a matar,” she whispers. The tiny hairs on my arm stand up on end. I swiftly render her words into English: “He’s going to kill me.” Not missing a beat, the dispatcher asks, “Where is he now?” “Outside. I saw him through the window,” I state, after listening to the Spanish version. I’m trying to stay calm and focused, but the fear in the caller’s voice is not only contagious, but essential to the meaning I have to convey. For what seems like an eternity (but is probably just a few seconds), I hear only the beeps of the recorded line and the dispatcher clicking away at his keyboard. I feel impatient. He’s most likely looking to see how far the nearest police officer is from the scene. “Interpreter, find out where she is.

Well,” I said pleasantly, “if you know a way to make a database hurry up, I’m sure we’d all love to hear it.” “Goddamn it, you’re not even trying!” she said. I will freely admit that nine times out of ten, I would have had a little more patience with Deborah’s patently impossible request and rotten attitude. But with things as they were lately, I really didn’t want to knuckle my forehead and leap into worshipful compliance. I took a deep breath instead and spoke with audible patience and steely control. “Deborah. I am doing my job the best I can. If you think you can do it better, then please feel free to try.” She ground her teeth even harder, and for a moment I thought the canines might splinter and burst through her cheeks. But happily for her dental bill, they did not. She just glared at me instead, and then nodded her head twice, very hard. “All right,” she said. And then she turned around and walked rapidly away without even looking back at me to snarl one last time. I sighed. Perhaps I should have stayed home in bed, or at least checked my horoscope. Nothing seemed to be going right. The whole world was slightly off-kilter, leaning just a bit out of its normal axis. It had a strange and mean tint to it, too, as if it had sniffed out my fragile mood and was probing for further weakness. Ah,

Well, Melinda, you little devil,” John said, grinning. She rested the back of her hand over her eyes while John and Jack studied the ultrasound, examining that little heartbeat in a barely moving mass. John pointed out small buds where arms and legs would be growing. “When was your last period?” John asked her. She took the hand off her eyes and glared at her husband. “Um, she hasn’t exactly ever had one.” “Huh?” John said. “That I know of,” Jack said with a shrug. “A year and a half ago, all right?” she said crisply. “Approximately. I’ve been nursing. I’ve been pregnant. I’ve been cast into hell and will live out my days with sore boobs and fat ankles.” “Whew. Going right for the mood swings, huh? Okay, looks like about eight weeks to me. That’s an educated guess. I’m thinking mid to late May. How does that sound?” “Oh, duckie,” she answered. “You’ll have to excuse my wife,” Jack said. “She was counting on still being infertile. This might cause her to finally give up that illusion.” “I told you if you made one joke—” “Melinda,” Jack said, his expression stern, “I was not joking.” “I would just like to know how this is possible!” she ranted. “David is like a miracle pregnancy, and before I even get him off the breast, I’ve got another one cooking.” “Ever hear the saying, pregnancy cures infertility?” John asked her. “Yes!” she said, disgusted. “You know what I’m talking about—probably better than me. I guess you didn’t think it would apply to you, huh?” “What are you talking about?” Jack asked John. “A lot of conditions that cause infertility are made better by pregnancy—endometriosis being one. Often when you finally score that first miraculous conception, the rest follow more easily. And when you change partners, you change chemistry. You’re going to want to keep these things in mind,” he said. And he grinned.

20 October 1911 ... it is an incomparable blessing and joy to know that I have eased my husband's burden and that in the darkest moments of these last ten years he has turned to me and he has found comfort. If it were possible I would say I love him more now even than I did at the beginning. It is as though my heart and soul grow and expand to make room for his love. Or as though as I perceive each new aspect of him - or as he changes, my love grows to encircle and hold what I see. And yet I do not know what to make of his recent mood for I have , of late, seen some intimations that lead me to fear that he may be losing heart. He continues to defend cases vigorously, but he no longer seized o opportunities to place his cause, the cause of Egypt, before the public. He has said, on two occasions, that he would like to spend more time in Tawasi, or perhaps travel abroad. But I own I cannot imagine him leading the life of a private gentleman. For all his happiness that I would have in private times with him, there would be the sadness of knowing that he has relinquished the one essential purpose of his life -

shook my head and sighed, knowing he was right. If we were late, Kaden would be pissed, regardless of the information we’d secured. Unfortunately, the unnatural silence of the island was not a good indicator of his mood.

When I lifted my head, I realised that Rome and Yael were both still standing at the end of the bed, staring down at me. They seemed uneasy, and the strangeness of our grouping finally hit me in that moment. Rome and Yael were the least likely to break the girl-brother pact, at least when they were paired together. Yael was too competitive to share, and Rome was the easiest to rile into an argument. Especially an argument about me. The others had somehow chosen this grouping with my discomfort firmly in mind, and that annoyed the hell out of me. “Are you both going to sleep standing up?” I grumbled, propping myself up on my elbows. “Is this some kind of weird, true-god sleeping position? Does it keep your heads upright so that you can easily look down on everyone?” “What got into her just now?” Rome asked Yael, turning his head to the side to talk to his brother, while his eyes stayed fixed on me. His posture was wary. “No idea.” Yael’s voice was low, as though I might not hear him if he tricked me into thinking that the conversation was a private one. “It was very sudden. But mortal women are supposed to have mood swings. Did she not eat enough? Should I put some bread in her mouth before it gets worse?” “Is that why you all have such good posture?” I pressed on, my voice getting louder—possibly to drown out Yael before he said anything else about what mortal women were like. “Because you sleep standing up like you might wrinkle your powerful reputation by laying down?” “Too late.” Rome’s eyebrows shot up a little. “It got worse.

the late morning sun warm and pleasant on my skin, the weather in complete contradiction to my mood. God mother-nature can be a sarcastic bitch.

The mood of the sea is catching... ...its colour became the colour of my eyes and the salt made me cry oceans - Once I had a day mother Now I have a night mother Mourners no longer murmuring in the late afternoon ...

Megan was over at the Morgan brothers’ house, having a casual dinner with Drew and his brother, Alan. It was casual in the sense that there were only three courses and no ice sculpture. When Alan left the room to get dessert, Megan said, “If you don’t give me whatever’s in your pocket, I’m going to reach in there and grab it myself.” He got a devilish grin and threw his hands in the air. “Help yourself!” She reached in and found a ring. Not an engagement ring but a ring with a large stone in the middle. A cheap-looking stone. Megan frowned. “Is this plastic?” “It’s a mood ring,” he said. “I bought it at a carnival when I was a kid. I wore it to school once because I thought it was cool. I got my first black eye that day.” “You got bullied?” “Not exactly. The guy who punched me once got two right back.” She handed the ring back. “You can wear it now, if you want. You’re an adult. Nobody’s going to beat you up.” She made a fist and punched her palm. “Not if they don’t want me to tag in and finish the match.” He put the ring back in his pocket. “Never mind,” he said. She put her hand in his pocket and grabbed the ring back. “Don’t tell me to never mind. Why do you have this? Were you going to give it to me?” “I thought it would be funny,” he said. “You’re reading all those books Feather recommended, and you’re doing that thing where you name your emotions. I thought it would be funny if you had a mood ring to help you with that.” She tried on the ring. The only finger it fit was her ring finger, so she left it there. “I like it,” she said. “It’s not very funny, though. It’s actually kind of…” She was at a loss for words. It had been happening a lot lately. Coming up with words to describe feelings was much harder than being crass or sarcastic. “Romantic,” Drew said. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s romantic.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Plus, now I know your ring size,” he said. They both looked down at her hand. She looked away. “For the future,” he said. “Relax. I don’t mean right now.” She looked at the ring again. It was changing colors. “It’s working,” she said. “It’s a heat-sensitive compound,” he said. “It doesn’t really tell you someone’s mood, just how warm their fingers are.” “But finger temperature means a lot,” she said. “I’ve been reading about the nervous system, and how everything works together in all these different feedback loops. When someone’s stressed, their hands get cold. Or when their hands get cold for some other reason, they might feel stressed and make up a story about why they feel that way. People make up a lot of stories to explain how they feel because it’s so confusing to not know, and sometimes we’d rather think it’s because of something bad than not know at all.” He looked down at the ring, which was still changing colors. “I had no idea.” “I’ll have to come into your clinic and give you some tips for putting your patients more at ease.” “You can’t do that,” he said. “It would really cut down on the screaming, which I have grown to love.” He gave her his mad scientist cackle. “You are so weird.” She kissed him again.

He knew how often I needed to travel to be sane, what my favorite places were, which seat I would choose in a restaurant, which songs I listened to depending on my mood, how I looked when I was hungry, how much sugar I would like in my coffee, what hurt me and what would fix it, when I craved a hug and how tight should that be, how to make out my mood from my voice and how fast my heart would beat if I was asked to address a gathering of five hundred people.

The only thing wrong with the place was that it appeared to be haunted, for as I alighted from the car I distinctly saw the phantasm or wraith of Major Plank. It was coming out of the local inn, the Goose and Grasshopper, and as I gazed at it with bulging eyes it vanished round a corner, leaving me, I need scarcely say, in something of a twitter. I am not, as I mentioned earlier, a fussy man, but nobody likes to have spectres horsing around, and for a while my jocund mood became a bit blue about the edges. I speedily pulled myself together. 'Twas but a momentary illusion, I said to myself. I reasoned the thing out. If Plank had come to a sticky end since I had seen him last and had started on a haunting career, I said to myself, why should he be haunting Maiden Eggesford when the whole of equatorial Africa was open to him? He would be much happier scaring the daylights out of natives whom he had cause to dislike – the widows and surviving relatives of the late chief of the 'Mgombis, for instance.