Pants Important Quotes

Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and stumbles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement. And just as inferior people prefer the inferior animal which scampers excitedly because someone else wants something, so do superior people respect the superior animal which lives its own life and knows that the puerile stick-throwings of alien bipeds are none of its business and beneath its notice. The dog barks and begs and tumbles to amuse you when you crack the whip. That pleases a meekness-loving peasant who relishes a stimulus to his self importance. The cat, on the other hand, charms you into playing for its benefit when it wishes to be amused; making you rush about the room with a paper on a string when it feels like exercise, but refusing all your attempts to make it play when it is not in the humour. That is personality and individuality and self-respect -- the calm mastery of a being whose life is its own and not yours -- and the superior person recognises and appreciates this because he too is a free soul whose position is assured, and whose only law is his own heritage and aesthetic sense.

It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she’d scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launchtime. He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of a kind who didn’t. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together. She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal. At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. ‘You’re my girl,’ he said. And Lena knew she was.

My Father taught me how to be a man – and not by instilling in me a sense of machismo or an agenda of dominance. He taught me that a real man doesn’t take, he gives; he doesn’t use force, he uses logic; doesn’t play the role of trouble-maker, but rather, trouble-shooter; and most importantly, a real man is defined by what’s in his heart, not his pants.

What with your phone and the Xbox and the taxi TV and that music player you wear on your arm and the headphones that look like donuts on your ears, doesn’t it make life so much smaller? If absolutely everything important is only happening on such a small screen, isn’t that a shame? Especially when the world is so overwhelmingly large and surprising? Are you missing too much? You can’t imagine it now, but you’ll look like me one day, even though you’ll feel just the same as you do now. You’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and think how quickly it’s all gone, and I wonder if all the time you used watching those families whose lives are filmed for the television, and making those cartoons of yourselves with panting dog tongues, and chasing after that terrible Pokémon fellow…well, will it feel like time well spent?

The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out. (Last week in someone's place we saw A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotised by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, They don't climb out the window sill, They never fight or kick or punch, They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink -- But did you ever stop to think, To wonder just exactly what This does to your beloved tot? IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ, AND READ and READ, and then proceed To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books! The nursery shelves held books galore! Books cluttered up the nursery floor! And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read! Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars, And pirates wearing purple pants, And sailing ships and elephants, And cannibals crouching 'round the pot, Stirring away at something hot. (It smells so good, what can it be? Good gracious, it's Penelope.) The younger ones had Beatrix Potter With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter, And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and- Just How The Camel Got His Hump, And How the Monkey Lost His Rump, And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul, There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole- Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago! So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install A lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books, Ignoring all the dirty looks, The screams and yells, the bites and kicks, And children hitting you with sticks- Fear not, because we promise you That, in about a week or two Of having nothing else to do, They'll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read. And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy! You watch the slowly growing joy That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen They'll wonder what they'd ever seen In that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! And later, each and every kid Will love you more for what you did.

Great. Okay. That, uh... was easier than I thought." Jack cocked his head. Wait a second... He couldn't decide if he was pissed or really impressed. He hooked a finger into the waistband of the workout pants she'd changed into and pulled her closer. "Did you fake me out with those tears, Cameron?" She peered up at him, defiantly, seemingly outraged by the suggestion. "Are you kidding? What, after the day I've had, I'm not entitled to a few tears? Sheesh." Jack waited. "This wedding is very important to me--I can't believe you're even doubting me. Honestly, Jack, the tears were real." He waited some more. She would talk eventually. They always did. Cameron shifted under the weight of his stare. "Okay, fine. Some of the tears were real." She looked him over, annoyed. "You are really good at that." He grinned. "I know.

Let's make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color. ... And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we'll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel--alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound.

The most important things in life happen when you’re just hanging out.

Never make an important decision with your pants down.

Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other's presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, "Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place." This is how we survive long after we are dead. This is why it is important who we become, because we pass it on.

Iam a sensitive, introverted woman, which means that I love humanity but actual human beings are tricky for me. I love people but not in person. For example, I would die for you but not, like…meet you for coffee. I became a writer so I could stay at home alone in my pajamas, reading and writing about the importance of human connection and community. It is an almost perfect existence. Except that every so often, while I’m thinking my thoughts, writing my words, living in my favorite spot—which is deep inside my own head—something stunning happens: A sirenlike noise tears through my home. I freeze. It takes me a solid minute to understand: The siren is the doorbell. A person is ringing my doorbell. I run out of my office to find my children also stunned, frozen, and waiting for direction about how to respond to this imminent home invasion. We stare at each other, count bodies, and collectively cycle through the five stages of doorbell grief: Denial: This cannot be happening. ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO BE IN THIS HOUSE ARE ALREADY IN THIS HOUSE. Maybe it was the TV. IS THE TV ON? Anger: WHO DOES THIS? WHAT KIND OF BOUNDARYLESS AGGRESSOR RINGS SOMEONE’S DOORBELL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT? Bargaining: Don’t move, don’t breathe—maybe they’ll go away. Depression: Why? Why us? Why anyone? Why is life so hard? Acceptance: Damnit to hell. You—the little one—we volunteer you. Put on some pants, act normal, and answer the door. It’s dramatic, but the door always gets answered. If the kids aren’t home, I’ll even answer it myself. Is this because I remember that adulting requires door answering? Of course not. I answer the door because of the sliver of hope in my heart that if I open the door, there might be a package waiting for me. A package!

You all talk about family values all the time. I am not sure what the family value is when a pair of pants is more important than wishing your family members well,

She sits and listens with crossed legs under the batik house-wrap she wears, with her heavy three-way-piled hair and cigarette at her mouth and refuses me - for the time being, anyway - the most important things I ask of her. It's really kind of tremendous how it all takes place. You'd never guess how much labor goes into it. Only some time ago it occurred to me how great an amount. She came back from the studio and went to take a bath, and from the bath she called out to me, "Darling, please bring me a towel." I took one of those towel robes that I had bought at the Bon Marche' department store and came along with it. The little bathroom was in twilight. In the auffe-eua machine, the brass box with teeth of gas burning, the green metal dropped crumbs inside from the thousand-candle blaze. Her body with its warm woman's smell was covered with water starting in a calm line over her breasts. The glass of the medicine chest shone (like a deep blue place in the wall, as if a window to the evening sea and not the ashy fog of Paris. I sat down with the robe over my; shoulder and felt very much at peace. For a change the apartment seemed clean and was warm; the abominations were gone into the background, the stoves drew well and they shone. Jacqueline was cooking dinner and it smelled of gravy. I felt settled and easy, my chest free and my fingers comfortable and open. And now here's the thing. It takes a time like this for you to find out how sore your heart has been, and, moreover, all the while you thought you were going around idle terribly hard work was taking place. Hard, hard work, excavation and digging, mining, moiling through tunnels, heaving, pushing, moving rock, working, working, working, working, panting, hauling, hoisting. And none of this work is seen from the outside. It's internally done. It happens because you are powerless and unable to get anywhere, to obtain justice or have requital, and therefore in yourself you labor, you wage and combat, settle scores, remember insults, fight, reply, deny, blab, denounce, triumph, outwit, overcome, vindicate, cry, persist, absolve, die and rise again. All by yourself? Where is everybody? Inside your breast and skin, the entire cast.

What do I believe? I believe that it's easier to sit at home in your yoga pants, with your Lean Cuisine Cafe Classic Fettuccine Alfredo. But it's important not to.

It was important to look calm and confident, it was important to keep your mind clear, it was important not to show how pants-wettingly scared you were….

Sound is so important to creative writing. Think of the sounds you hear that you include and the similes you use to describe what things sound like. 'As she walked up the alley, her polyester workout pants sounded like windshield wipers swishing back and forth.' Cadence, onomatopoeia, the poetry of language are all so important. Learn all that you can about how to bring sound into your work.

The Magi in my life have always surprised me. They have often been people I initially felt I had nothing in common with. Sometimes I didn't even like them. But they came bearing gifts. Of wisdom, or acceptance. One or two came to give me a kick in the pants...and some left as suddenly as they came. They returned to their respective homelands or continued on their own journeys. I miss some of them... But we all have to find our way toward what ever miracle awaits us. And to perform miracles, when it is in our power to do so. Maybe the most important question is: how do I serve the Magi for others? How generously do I give my gifts - and not just to the obvious recipients in my life? How far out of my way do go to recognize and pay homage to miracles? Not very far some days. But on good days, just far enough.

He said he'd teach her the important things, starting with the most important thing of all, the correct way to make tea and rice, so tea wasn't overbrewed and the rice wasn't overcooked. He said: You want to make food forget Indian way. Indian's system is like American system, everything overdone. They have no subtle. He sent her to buy octopus. She brought the tentacles home in a bag of ice and cut them into thin slices, at a sharp angle. She put the sliced octopus in a saucepan with ginger and green onions and added a black bean paste. He told her to touch the octopus to the flame and serve. But she let the dish cook for a good five minutes until the flesh was tough and rubbery. You overdid, he told her. Old Chinese saying, you don't need take off your pant to fart.

Hey!" (Me:panting, smiling brightly, determined.) "Hey." (Him:blank face, eyes shifty, but still frustratingly handsome.) "Are you on your way somewhere? (Me:Still smiling, still determined.) "Yup." (Him:Uninterested, taking out a chapstick.) "Well,I'd love to talk, if you want." (Me:trying to remember global warming, nuclear proliferation, everything else more important and sadder than this moment.) "Sure,yeah. Listen, I'm late." (Him:walking away.) "Well,do you want my number maybe?" (Me:determined. Not to cry.)

On the weekend I made up some cool sounding superhero names. Just in case I ever need one. I have to say, it was quite difficult because, you know, it’s important to get just the right tone. Here they are: Farty McFart Pants Stinky McFarter Captain Fart-a-lot The Fartinator

All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms. Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food. The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory. If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender and in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian man then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture. If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so white that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers. When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gasps at the endless beauty of her brown skin. She should be compared to nature: brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water. If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret. Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed. Yet Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm. Indian men, of course, are storms. The should destroy the lives of any white women who choose to love them. All white women love Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him. White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures. Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey. When the Indian man unbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil. There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted rape. Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds. Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visions if they are in love with Indians. If a white person loves an Indian then the white person is Indian by proximity. White people must carry an Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half-breed and obviously from horse cultures. If the interior Indian is male then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man. If the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is inside a white woman. Sometimes there are complications. An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman can be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances, everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse culture. There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven. For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gender not important, should express deep affection in a childlike way. In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.

With no universal measure for meaning to compare with the seemingly solid accounting for income, we fall into the data trap. Our larger culture, and our pesky parents, push us toward decisions that seem to score well but are blind to the most important elements of healthy careers and meaningful lives.

I doubt your Argonaut kin would approve of that,” she managed. “They didn’t much like me being in your realm.” “They’ll just have to get used to it. Some things in life are more important than duty and honor.” Gods, how she wished that were true. “Nothing in life is more important than duty and honor, Titus.” He cradled her face in his hands again. “You are.” That was it. All she could take. A desperate need to be close to him one last time overwhelmed every thought and action. She pressed her mouth to his. Kissed him hard. Gasped when his arms closed around her waist with the strength of a vise. Lost herself in the sweet taste of his tongue stroking urgently across hers. “I want you,” she whispered against his lips. Desperation clawed at her soul. She pressed her lips to his again, opened, licked into his mouth. Warmth, wetness, hunger caressed her tongue in an erotic dance. She trailed one hand down his bare chest, over the waistband of his pants.

I also learned a valuable lesson of the importance to operate pants zipper only in a calm and controlled fashion, else it might cause considerable and rather painful damage.

I had to keep my hands clenched at my sides to avoid wiping my sweaty palms on the skirts of my gown as I reached the dining room, and immediately contemplated bolting upstairs and changing into a tunic and pants. But I knew they’d already heard me, or smelled me, or used whatever heightened senses they had to detect my presence, and since fleeing would only make it worse, I found it in myself to push open the double doors. Whatever discussion Tamlin and Lucien had been having stopped, and I tried not to look at their wide eyes as I strode to my usual place at the end of the table. “Well, I’m late for something incredibly important,” Lucien said, and before I could call him on his outright lie or beg him to stay, the fox-masked faerie vanished.

Tofu wore special flame-proof pants – that was well known. “They call them fibbers’ trousers,” she said knowledgeably. “They’re more expensive, but they stop your pants going on fire when you lie.

There was no denying she could get him all hot and bothered, but she could also soothe him with a look, make him laugh when he felt like crying, and more importantly, he knew she would be there when he needed her to.

Strikingly, only once does Jesus speak about judgment, and when he does, it’s about how we treat the poor: And they too will reply, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?” Then the King will answer, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.” And yet for some reason even now people of faith think that what’s going on in their—or other people’s—pants is more important to God than, say, what’s happening to the homeless. The lives of the poorest people are at the heart of Christianity, but sometimes religion seems to be what happens when Jesus, like Elvis, has left the building. It becomes a bless me club for the Holy Rollers and navel gazers.

I have to say, it was quite difficult because, you know, it’s important to get just the right tone. Here they are: Farty McFart Pants Stinky McFarter Captain Fart-a-lot The Fartinator The Vominator The Snotinator (he has a gun called the Booger Blaster) Captain Poop-a-lot Captain Booger Butt

Chust a little farther.   Keep your shoes on.” Peter whispered to me.   “Where does he get this stuff, anyway?   Isn’t it pants?   Aren’t we supposed to keep our pants on?” “Maybe for Bodo shoes are more important.   Maybe it’s a German thing.” “You know, Chermans can hear very good.   You are talking about me not very nice, I know it.” “We were just talking about your creative colloquialisms,” said Peter. I had no idea what that word meant, but it was fun to mess with Bodo, which is exactly what Peter was trying to do.   “Is dat like a fucktart?” “What?” asked Peter, half choking. “Fucktart.   Dat’s a new word I learned today.   Isn’t it a good one?” “I told you before, Bodo,” I said, “it’s not fucktart.   It’s fucktard.   And you were right before.   It’s not a nice word, so stop saying it.” “I didn’t say fucktart.   Dat was you.   You are the lady saying all the fucktart words today.   Or moron.   She likes dat one, too.   I think it means boy I luff.” “Wow.   You guys have one of the most messed up relationships I have ever seen,” said Peter, shaking his head.   “Seriously.   You fight to lighten the mood.   You call each other names …” “And we take showers togedder sometimes. Don’t forget dat.” “Shut up, Bodo!” “You do?   Ew.   That’s a public shower, you know.” “We do not take showers together.” “Yesss weeee doooo … ” “One time!   Okay?   One time.   And it’ll never happen again, I can promise you that.” “I can promise you different!” said Bodo in a singsong voice.

If you’re a girl, you’ve been programmed to make sure you keep social harmony. This is a matter of life and death to the brain, even if it’s not so important in the twenty-first century. We could see this in the behavior of three-and-a-half-year-old twin girls. Every morning the sisters climbed on each other’s dressers to get to the clothes hanging in their closets. One girl had a pink two-piece outfit, and the other had a green two-piece outfit. Their mother giggled every time she’d see them switch the tops—pink pants with a green top and green pants with a pink top. The twins did it without a fight. “Can I borrow your pink top? I’ll give it back later, and you can have my green top” was how the dialogue went. This would not be a likely scenario if one of the twins were a boy. A brother would have grabbed the shirt he wanted, and the sister would have tried to reason with him, though she would have ended up in tears because his language skills simply wouldn’t have been as advanced as hers.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

National defense: the truth about sailors. Are sailors' pants tight to begin with or do the sailors have them altered to increase their allure? The Navy it seems has always realized the importance of well-fitting trousers. Plus most of the guys also get them tailored, especially overseas, where the tailor know how to emphasize male sexuality.

The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds. Going there risked expulsion, destroyed the studying I was going to do for an important test the next morning, blasted the reasonable amount of order I wanted to maintain in my life, and it also involved the kind of long, labored bicycle ride I hated. “All right,” I said. We got our bikes and slipped away from Devon along a back road. Having invited me Finny now felt he had to keep me entertained. He told long, wild stories about his childhood; as I pumped panting up steep hills he glided along beside me, joking steadily. He analyzed my character, and he insisted on knowing what I disliked most about him (“You’re too conventional,” I said).

But they had been down on all fours naked, not touching except their lips right down there on the floor where the tie is pointing to, on all fours like (uh huh, go on, say it) like dogs. Nibbling at each other, not even touching, not even looking at each other, just their lips, and when I opened the door they didn't even look for a minute and I thought the reason they are not looking up is because they are not doing that. So it's all right. I am just standing here. They are not doing that. I am just standing here and seeing it, but they are not really doing it. But then they did look up. Or you did. You did, Jude. ... And I did not know how to move my feet or fix my eyes or what. I just stood there seeing it and smiling, because maybe there was some explanation, something important that I did not know about that would have made it all right. I waited for Sula to look up at me any minute and say one of those lovely college words like aesthetic or rapport, which I never understood but which I loved because they sounded so comfortable and firm. And finally you just got up and started putting clothes on and your privates were hanging down, so soft, and you buckled your pants but forgot to button the fly and she was sitting on the bed not even bothering to put on her clothes because actually she didn't need to because somehow she didn't look naked to me, only you did. Her chin was in her hand and she sat like a visitor from out of town waiting for the hosts to get some quarreling done and over with so the card game could continue and me wanting her to leave so I could tell you privately that you had forgotten to button your fly because I didn't want to say it in front of her, Jude. And even when you began to talk, I couldn't hear because I was worried about you not knowing that your fly was open ... Remember how big that bedroom was, Jude? How when we moved here we said, Well, at least we got us a real big bedroom, but it was small then, Jude, and so shambly and maybe it was that way all along but it would have been better if I had gotten all the dust out from under the bed because I was ashamed of it in that small room. And you walked past me saying, "I'll be back for my things." And you did but you left your tie.

Every morning they show off their funny T-shirts, awesome sneakers, and fad accessories. Me? I wear the same dorky thing every day. White shirt. Blue pants. Penny loafers. And a plaid tie. Plaid: for when it's more important to hide stains than to look good. At least there is one good thing to come from wearing a tie. It proves I’m a boy. Obviously, eggs don’t wear ties. My

. . . I bet I'm beginning to make some parents nervous - here I am, bragging of being a dropout, and unemployable, and about to make a pitch for you to follow your creative dreams, when what parents want is for their children to do well in their field, to make them look good, and maybe also to assemble a tasteful fortune . . . But that is not your problem. Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to live it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are . . . I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, or whether you start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn't what you do, it's . . . well, again, I don't actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher; I should've stuck around. But I know that you feel best when you're not doing much - when you're in nature, when you're very quiet or, paradoxically, listening to music . . . We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of the needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. In fact, that's often when we see Spirit most brightly . . . In my twenties I devised a school of relaxation that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in the ensuing years - it was called Prone Yoga. You just lay around as much as possible. You could read, listen to music, you could space out or sleep. But you had to be lying down. Maintaining the prone. You've graduated. You have nothing left to prove, and besides, it's a fool's game. If you agree to play, you've already lost. It's Charlie Brown and Lucy, with the football. If you keep getting back on the field, they win. There are so many great things to do right now. Write. Sing. Rest. Eat cherries. Register voters. And - oh my God - I nearly forgot the most important thing: refuse to wear uncomfortable pants, even if they make you look really thin. Promise me you'll never wear pants that bind or tug or hurt, pants that have an opinion about how much you've just eaten. The pants may be lying! There is way too much lying and scolding going on politically right now without having your pants get in on the act, too. So bless you. You've done an amazing thing. And you are loved; you're capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It's what you are made of. And it's what you're here for. Take care of yourselves; take care of one another. And give thanks, like this: Thank you.

Superficiality,” said Richard Foster, “is the curse of our age.” The desperate need of the soul is not for intelligence, nor talent, nor yet excitement; just depth. This is the cry of one of the great soul songs of the Psalms: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you. . . . Why, my soul, are you downcast? . . . Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls.

I, like many of you artists out there, constantly shift between two states. The first (and far more preferable of the two) is white-hot, ‘in the zone’ seat-of-the-pants, firing on all cylinders creative mode. This is when you lay your pen down and the ideas pour out like wine from a royal chalice! This happens about 3% of the time. The other 97% of the time I am in the frustrated, struggling, office-corner-full-of-crumpled-up-paper mode. The important thing is to slog diligently through this quagmire of discouragement and despair. Put on some audio commentary and listen to the stories of professionals who have been making films for decades going through the same slings and arrows of outrageous production problems. In a word: PERSIST. PERSIST on telling your story. PERSIST on reaching your audience. PERSIST on staying true to your vision ….

As he watched her sleeping, under wretched and insufficient blankets, in the cold nights which swooped down after the panting sun-drenched days, his dry heart blossomed in tenderness. . . . To think that he had once esteemed people because they understood Goossens's music or James Joyce's fiction, because they wore sleek clothes and were clever at the use of forks, because they could set up wooden words as a barricade against roaring life!

I do not think it is a fair picture of human life. I do not think so because, by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only evil, then he is a clockwork orange--meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is all about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we find evil rather attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create. We like to have the pants scared off us by visions of cosmic destruction. To sit down in a dull room and compose the Missa Solemnis or The Anatomy of Melancholy does not make headlines or news flashes.

What does this F. — I.W. mean?” “Initial-slang,” informed Baines. “Made correct by common usage. It has become a worldwide motto. You’ll see it all over the place if you haven’t noticed it already.” “I have seen it here and there but attached no importance to it and thought nothing more about it. I remember now that it was inscribed in several places including Seth’s and the fire depot.” “It was on the sides of that bus we couldn’t empty,” put in Gleed. “It didn’t mean anything to me.” “It means plenty,” said Jeff. “Freedom — I Won’t!” “That kills me,” Gleed responded. “I’m stone dead already. I’ve dropped in my tracks.” He watched Harrison thoughtfully pocketing the plaque. “A piece of abracadabra. What a weapon!” “Ignorance is bliss,” asserted Baines, strangely sure of himself. “Especially when you don’t know that what you’re playing with is the safety catch of something that goes bang.” “All right,” challenged Gleed, taking him up on that. “Tell us how it works.” “I won’t.” Baines’ grin reappeared. He seemed to be highly satisfied about something. “That’s a fat lot of help.” Gleed felt let down, especially over that momentary hoped-for reward. “You brag and boast about a one-way weapon, toss across a slip of stuff with three letters on it and then go dumb. Any folly will do for braggarts and any braggart can talk through the seat of his pants. How about backing up your talk?” “I won’t,” repeated Baines, his grin broader than ever. He gave the onlooking Harrison a fat, significant wink. It made something spark vividly within Harrison’s mind. His jaw dropped, he dragged the plaque from his pocket and stared at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Give it back to me,” requested Baines, watching him. Replacing it in his pocket, Harrison said very firmly, “I won’t.” Baines chuckled. “Some people catch on quicker than others.

I water my plants when the soil looks dry, and I haven’t forgotten my nephew’s birthday once ever. In fact, I started to think about my nephew and all the time he uses that phone, always checking for likes on that Instacart. It’s good to be bored in the car, I always tell him. Spend some time with just yourself and your thoughts and nothing to do. How else will you learn who you are? I’m worried about your posture, dear. I’m concerned that it comes from all the looking down. What with your phone and the Xbox and the taxi TV and that music player you wear on your arm and the headphones that look like donuts on your ears, doesn’t it make life so much smaller? If absolutely everything important is only happening on such a small screen, isn’t that a shame? Especially when the world is so overwhelmingly large and surprising? Are you missing too much? You can’t imagine it now, but you’ll look like me one day, even though you’ll feel just the same as you do now. You’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and think how quickly it’s all gone, and I wonder if all the time you used watching those families whose lives are filmed for the television, and making those cartoons of yourselves with panting dog tongues, and chasing after that terrible Pokémon fellow…well, will it feel like time well spent?

You have no clue how to treat her. So you can be happy she’s not mine all you want, but I would never tweet her that I’d be spending a weekend with my ex-girlfriend. Because if she was mine? Nothing would ever be more important than her. Nothing. You take this ring that tortured Dove yesterday and stuff it up your ass. And baby girl?” Now he looked into her eyes. “You remember that he may have all those good looks, but I’m hung like a horse and everything you do is okay with me. Even when you crap your pants.” Out of nowhere, Duke put his hands on either side of her face and gave her a full lip-to-lip kiss. And it turned out that Johnson was still holding her ass cheek.

In the New Testament, God's steadfast love and faithfulness are seen, not in an act of deliverance from foreign enemies, but in sending the Son and raising Him from the dead to enact a global rescue mission (Romans 8:3.) Jesus is God's supreme, grand, climactic act of faithfulness. Not only that, but "faithful" also describes Jesus. Paul writes, "We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but in faith in Jesus Christ" (Galations 2:16...). A better reading is "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" -- which is found in footnotes of many Bibles -- and the two readings couldn't be more different... Paul isn't saying, "You are not justified by your efforts but by your faith." The contrast he's making isn't between two options we have; the contrast is between your efforts and Jesus' faithfulness to you, shown in His obedient death on a Roman cross. Paul is interested in telling readers what Jesus did, Jesus' faithfulness, not what we do. God's grand act of faithfulness is giving His son for our sake. God is all in. Jesus' grand act of faithfulness is going through with it for our sake. Jesus is all in. Now it's our move, which really is the point of all this. Like God the Father and God the Son, we are also called to be faithful. On one level, we are faithful to God when we trust God, but faith (pistis) doesn't stop there. It extends, as we've seen, in faithfulness toward each other, in humility and self-sacrificial love. And here is the real kick in the pants: When we are faithful to each other like this, we are more than simply being nice and kind -- though there's that. Far more important, when we are faithful to each other, we are, at that moment, acting like the faithful God and the faithful Son. Being like God. That's the goal. And we are most like God, not when we are certain we are right about God, or when we tell others how right we are, but when we are acting toward one another like the faithful Father and Son. Humility, love, and kindness are our grand acts of faithfulness and how we show that we are all in.

Okay, raise your hand if you’ve ever (1) dropped food or ice cream or a drink in front of (or on) someone; (2) realized you had a big stain on your clothes and it has apparently been there all day and people must have seen it but no one said anything (extra points if it’s related to a female cyclic event); (3) realized after an important dinner with someone that you had a big crumb on your lip and that’s what they kept trying to subtly signal you about but you didn’t pick up on it; (4) mispronounced an obvious word in front of a bunch of people. I could go on. The point is, those kinds of things happen to everyone. I bet you’re still upset or embarrassed about it, right? Well, you can freaking get over your lame-ass, sissy-pants, drama-queen self. When

5236 rue St. Urbain The baby girl was a quick learner, having synthesized a full range of traits of both of her parents, the charming and the devious. Of all the toddlers in the neighbourhood, she was the first to learn to read and also the first to tear out the pages. Within months she mastered the grilling of the steaks and soon thereafter presented reasons to not grill the steaks. She was the first to promote a new visceral style of physical comedy as a means of reinvigorate the social potential of satire, and the first to declare the movement over. She appreciated the qualities of movement and speed, but also understood the necessity of slowness and leisure. She quickly learned the importance of ladders. She invented games with numerous chess-boards, matches and glasses of unfinished wine. Her parents, being both responsible and duplicitous people, came up with a plan to protect themselves, their apartment and belongings, while also providing an environment to encourage the open development of their daughter's obvious talents. They scheduled time off work, put on their pajamas and let the routines of the apartment go. They put their most cherished books right at her eye-level and gave her a chrome lighter. They blended the contents of the fridge and poured it into bowls they left on the floor. They took to napping in the living room, waking only to wipe their noses on the picture books and look blankly at the costumed characters on the TV shows. They made a fuss for their daughter's attention and cried when she wandered off; they bit or punched each other when she out of the room, and accused the other when she came in, looking frustrated. They made a mess of their pants when she drank too much, and let her figure out the fire extinguisher when their cigarettes set the blankets smoldering. They made her laugh with cute songs and then put clothes pins on the cat's tail. Eventually things found their rhythm. More than once the three of them found their faces waxened with tears, unable to decide if they had been crying, laughing, or if it had all been a reflex, like drooling. They took turns in the bath. Parents and children--it is odd when you trigger instinctive behaviour in either of them--like survival, like nurture. It's alright to test their capabilities, but they can hurt themselves if they go too far. It can be helpful to imagine them all gorging on their favourite food until their bellies ache. Fall came and the family went to school together.

If absolutely everything important is only happening on such a small screen, isn’t that a shame? Especially when the world is so overwhelmingly large and surprising? Are you missing too much? You can’t imagine it now, but you’ll look like me one day, even though you’ll feel just the same as you do now. You’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and think how quickly it’s all gone, and I wonder if all the time you used watching those families whose lives are filmed for the television, and making those cartoons of yourselves with panting dog tongues, and chasing after that terrible Pokémon fellow…well, will it feel like time well spent? “Here lies Ms. Jackson, she took more steps than the other old biddies on her road”—is that the best I can leave behind? Is it all just designed to keep us looking down, or to give us the illusion that we have some sort of control over our chaotic lives? Will you do me a small favor, dears, and look up? Especially you New Yorkers and Londoners and other city dwellers who cross all those busy streets. How else will you take in the majesty of the buildings that have stood there for hundreds of years? How else will you run into an acquaintance on the street who might turn into a friend or a lover or even just recommend a good restaurant that no one has complained about on that app yet? If you never look out the window of the subway car, how will you see the boats gliding by on the East River, or have an idea that only you could have? Just look up for no reason, just for a moment here and there, or maybe for an entire day once in a while. Let the likes go unchecked and the quality of sleep go unnoticed. Que sera sera, my dears—whatever will be will be, whether we’re tracking it on our GPS devices or not.

To Whom it May Inspire,” Austin wrote. “I, like many of you artists out there, constantly shift between two states. The first (and far more preferable of the two) is white-hot, ‘in the zone’ seat-of-the-pants, firing on all cylinders creative mode. This is when you lay your pen down and the ideas pour out like wine from a royal chalice! This happens about 3% of the time. The other 97% of the time I am in the frustrated, struggling, office-corner-full-of-crumpled-up-paper mode. The important thing is to slog diligently through this quagmire of discouragement and despair. Put on some audio commentary and listen to the stories of professionals who have been making films for decades going through the same slings and arrows of outrageous production problems. In a word: PERSIST. PERSIST on telling your story. PERSIST on reaching your audience. PERSIST on staying true to your vision.…

That said, many people who are transgender choose not to undergo surgery, even if they can afford it. There could be a number of reasons: pain, risk, fear, uncertain results, lack of support, or just being happy with their body the way it is and not feeling the need. Which brings me to an important point: You should never ask someone who is transgender if they have had or plan to have surgery. First, it’s none of your business. Second, it’s offensive because by asking that question you are implying that the person is not the gender they feel they are unless they alter their genitals. The fact is gender identity is not defined by what’s inside your pants; it’s defined by what’s inside your brain. It’s also something nobody questions or even thinks about unless it doesn’t match the body they were born with. This is why people who are not transgender have so much trouble understanding what it’s like to be in our shoes, and often why they are compelled to ask so many questions. While

This might baffle you, but despite not being a physician, I do have some pride. Although most certainly not enough to withstand the kind of beating you're capable of dealing it. The kind of beating you've repeatedly dealt it from the first time we've met. You're right, I value honesty, so I'll tell you that I make it a practice not to find women who insult me at every opportunity attractive." Color flooded her cheeks and traveled down her neck. Finally, she stepped away from him, too, and found the back of a chair to clutch. She looked entirely devastated. Had no one ever denied her anything? He hated the hurt in her eyes. But it was done now. "How is telling you I'm attracted to you an insult?" He pressed the back of his hand into his forehead. It made him feel like a drama queen in some sort of musical farce. Which this had to be. "Telling me how unworthy I am of your attraction, that's the insulting part. And, no, that's not all it is. Even if you hadn't told me at every opportunity how inferior to you I am... all I do is cook... every assumption you've made about me is insulting. Culinary school is definitely college. And Le Cordon Bleu is one of the most competitive institutions in the world. The fact that that's so wholly incomprehensible to you... that's the insulting part. And it wasn't thrown in my overly privileged lap either. I had to work my bottom off to make it in." Ammaji had sold her dowry jewels to pay for his application, something her family would have thrown her out on the street for had they found out. Trisha squared her shoulders, the devastation draining fast from her face, leaving behind the self-possession he was so much more used to. And the speed with which she gathered herself shook something inside him. "I might not do what you see as important work, but I work hard at being a decent human being, and I would need anyone I'm with to be that first and foremost. Even if I didn't find snobbery in general incredibly unattractive, I would never go anywhere near a person as self-absorbed and arrogant as you, Dr. Raje. I would have to be insane to subject myself to your view of me and the world." "Wow." She was panting, or maybe it was him. He couldn't be sure. "You wanted honesty. I'm sorry if I hurt you." She cleared her throat. "I'm surprised you think someone as... as... self-absorbed and arrogant as me is even capable of being hurt.

Harry!” he panted, massaging his immense chest beneath his emerald-green silk pajamas. “My dear boy…what a surprise…Minerva, do please explain…Severus…what…?” “Our headmaster is taking a short break,” said Professor McGonagall, pointing at the Snape-shaped hole in the window. “Professor!” Harry shouted, his hands at his forehead. He could see the Inferi-filled lake sliding beneath him, and he felt the ghostly green boat bump into the underground shore, and Voldemort leapt from it with murder in his heart-- “Professor, we’ve got to barricade the school, he’s coming now!” “Very well. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming,” she told the other teachers. Sprout and Flitwick gasped; Slughorn let out a low groan. “Potter has work to do in the castle on Dumbledore’s orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are capable while Potter does what he needs to do.” “You realize, of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely?” squeaked Flitwick. “But we can hold him up,” said Professor Sprout. “Thank you, Pomona,” said Professor McGonagall, and between the two witches there passed a look of grim understanding. “I suggest we establish basic protection around the place, then gather our students and meet in the Great Hall. Most must be evacuated, though if any of those who are over age wish to stay and fight, I think they ought to be given the chance.” “Agreed,” said Professor Sprout, already hurrying toward the door. “I shall meet you in the Great Hall in twenty minutes with my House.” And as she jogged out of sight, they could hear her muttering, “Tentacula. Devil’s Snare. And Snargaluff pods…yes, I’d like to see the Death Eaters fighting those.” “I can act from here,” said Flitwick, and although he could barely see out of it, he pointed his wand through the smashed window and started muttering incantations of great complexity. Harry heard a weird rushing noise, as though Flitwick had unleashed the power of the wind into the grounds. “Professor,” Harry said, approaching the little Charms master, “Professor, I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Have you got any idea where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?” “--Protego Horribilis--the diadem of Ravenclaw?” squeaked Flitwick. “A little extra wisdom never goes amiss, Potter, but I hardly think it would be much use in this situation!” “I only meant--do you know where it is? Have you ever seen it?” “Seen it? Nobody has seen it in living memory! Long since lost, boy!” Harry felt a mixture of desperate disappointment and panic. What, then, was the Horcrux?

So I was just sitting in the dining room feeling sorry for myself. “What am I going to do?” Almost as soon as I asked that question, the answer came. “End it all.” Oh, I don’t know what possessed me. I really don’t have any idea at all. But I got up and walked over to a window. Well, that window was painted shut, so I went to another window. That one led out to a gangway, a stairwell, where I figured no one would find me until my body started to smell. No, that wouldn’t do. I looked at the front windows. One was a picture window that didn’t open, but then I couldn’t jump from those windows on the sides, either. Children played out front and that would be so traumatic for them. Besides, after I thought about it a little more, I realized something else that was very important: I wasn’t wearing pants. I didn’t wear pants back then. I was wearing a dress that Mama had made for me. Oh, I remember that dress. It was sleeveless, real tight in the waist with a long flared skirt. It was a white dress, white with a floral pattern, some kind of design in it, and that design was pink. That was one of my favorite dresses. I couldn’t stand the thought of jumping in that dress. More important, I couldn’t stand the thought that my skirt might fly up. Just then, as I was thinking about all that, the phone rang. It was a reporter. He was thinking about doing a follow-up story on me and he wanted to know what I was planning to do. Well, I couldn’t tell him I was planning to jump out the window. So I said I wanted to go back to school and become a teacher. I turned around as if to ask, “Who said that?” Now, I don’t know to this day where it came from, but he said he would take me to register for classes. I mean, he was just going to carry me down to the college and walk me through it. That was fine with me, because I didn’t even know where to go. I hadn’t exactly given this a whole lot of thought. As it turns out, the place to go was Chicago Teachers College. He took me there and, unfortunately, we were told that registration for classes had just closed. Before I even got a chance to start thinking about those windows back home again, he somehow convinced them to admit just one more student, and that’s how it all started. That’s how I was able to start over. I was going to go to college. I was going to become a teacher. I would be able to work with children, to teach them, to help shape them, to introduce them to a whole world of possibilities. In the process, a whole world of possibilities was opening up to me. Throughout my life I have heard a great many stories about how people received the call to their life’s mission. I have to smile when I recall how I received mine. For me, the call came by phone, from a reporter.

It wasn’t that I was a fan of Stalin; I didn’t like his eyes, which were beady and shifty in the news photographs; and his hands looked too small for his body. More important, I knew that there were no freedoms in the Soviet Union (or Russia, as we all called it), and I was sure that if I lived there I’d have to be against the government, and that meant I’d end up in Siberia. But I thought there was something amazingly stupid about the Cold War; Stalin was now the devil incarnate, only four years after he had served on the side of the angels, namely us. Either we’d made a mistake during the war, or we were making a mistake now. And there was a larger problem, of which Stalin was part: Why were so many Americans so scared, all the time? We were the strongest country in the world. We won the war. We had the atom bomb. In May, Truman finally broke the Russian blockade of Berlin with a giant airlift. So why were these people shitting in their pants when they thought about communists? The communists won in China, but that didn’t mean they were about to land in Los Angeles. And why did so many people think that the communists might be behind anything that made sense: unions, health care, free education? Even in 1949, there were people saying that we shouldn’t have stopped in Berlin in 1945, we should’ve kept going all the way to Moscow. George Patton, he knew how to deal wit’ dese bastids. Oney thing they respect is force.

When you were dying, Edward quickly discovered, people would let you do pretty much whatever you wanted. So he made some new unofficial decrees: 1. The king was allowed to sleep in as long as he wished. 2. The king no longer had to wear seven layers of elaborate, jewel-encrusted clothing. Or silly hats with feathers. Or pants that resembled pumpkins. Or tights. From now on, unless it was a special occasion, he was fine in just a simple shirt and trousers. 3. Dessert was to be served first. Blackberry pie, preferably. With whipped cream. 4. The king would no longer be taking part in any more dreary studies. His fine tutors had filled his head with enough history, politics and philosophy to last him two lifetimes, and as he was unlikely to get even half of one lifetime, there was no need for study. No more lessons, he decided. No more books. No more tutors' dirty looks. 5. The king was now going to reside in the top of the southeast turret, where he could sit in the window ledge and gaze out at the river for as long as he liked. 6. No one at court would be allowed to say the following words or phrases: affliction, illness, malady, sickness, disease, disorder, ailment, infirmity, convalescence, indisposition, malaise, plight, plague, poor health, failing health, what's going around, or your condition. Most of all, no one was allowed to say the word dying. And finally (and perhaps most importantly, for the sake of our story) 7. Dogs would now be allowed inside the palace. More specifically, his dog.

But what should he wear? I thought about having him laid to rest in his uniform. But the truth is he hated wearing it. He really needed to be dressed in something he was comfortable in. And that wasn’t going to be in a suit, either: he hated being in a jacket and tie even more than in a uniform. Tie? Ha! I got a pair of his best pressed jeans. They had a nice crease in the pants leg, just like he liked. I found one of his plaid button-down shirts, another favorite. Kryptek, which produces tactical gear and apparel and was one of Chris’s favorite companies, had presented him with a big silver belt buckle that he loved. It was very cowboy, and in that way very much who Chris was. “You think I can pull this off?” he’d asked, showing me how it looked right after he got it. “Hell, yeah,” I told him. I made sure that was with him as well. But if there was any item of clothing that really touched deep into Chris’s soul, it was his cowboy boots. They were a reminder of who he was when he was young, and they were part of who he’d been since getting out of the military. He had a really nice pair of new boots that had been custom made. He hadn’t had a chance to wear them much, and I couldn’t decide whether to bury him in those or another pair that were well worn and very comfortable. I asked the funeral director for his opinion. “We usually don’t do shoes,” he said. It can be very difficult to get them onto the body. “But if it’s important to you, we can do it.” I thought about it. Was the idea of burying them with Chris irrational? The symbolism seemed important. But that could work the other way, too--they would surely be important to Bubba someday. Maybe I should save them for him. In the end, I decided to set them near Chris’s casket when his body was on view, then collect them later for our son. But Chris had the last word. Through a miscommunication--or maybe something else--they were put in the casket when he was laid to rest. So obviously that was the way it should have been.

Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th in New York City. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa. Thomas hangs out with five friends from the Anderson School. They are “the smart kids.” Thomas is one of them, and he likes belonging. Since Thomas could walk, he has constantly heard that he’s smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top 1 percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top 1 percent. He scored in the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ ” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t. For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade. He was supposed to learn cursive penmanship, but he wouldn’t even try for weeks. By then, his teacher was demanding homework be completed in cursive. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused outright. Thomas’s father tried to reason with him. “Look, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out some effort.” (Eventually, Thomas mastered cursive, but not without a lot of cajoling from his father.) Why does this child, who is measurably at the very top of the charts, lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges? Thomas is not alone. For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

Let’s imagine that you are buying a pair of pants. Your goal would be: purchase a pair (or more, if that is your goal) of pants. Once you are in the store, you have many choices. You can choose from different styles, different materials, and different colors or patterns. Look through what is available and see what attracts you. Priorities refer to your main concerns in purchasing this piece of clothing. Are you shopping for pants to wear to a social event, for everyday wear, or to wear when you are doing chores? Is it important to buy something that is washable or is it OK to buy a dry-clean-only garment? Do you have a preference about color, style, or fit? What is your price range? All of these must be taken into consideration.

You might also be specific as to the entire context behind the goal, which would include: Who is involved, if not only yourself. When you want to accomplish this goal by. Where this goal will occur, if applicable. Why you want to accomplish this goal. The last point is the most important because it solidifies a clear benefit and desire from for reaching this goal. It gives you the long-term view of how your life will change, and can keep you focused when you are stuck or feeling despair. A clear “why” will power you and provide an energy boost because you aren’t just starving yourself or eating broccoli, you are doing it for self-esteem, to fit into your pants, and to attract the opposite sex better. This is something you should articulate at the very beginning, because it shapes everything else.

Every morning they show off their funny T-shirts, awesome sneakers, and fad accessories. Me? I wear the same dorky thing every day. White shirt. Blue pants. Penny loafers. And a plaid tie. Plaid: for when it's more important to hide stains than to look good. At least there is one good thing to come from wearing a tie. It proves I’m a boy. Obviously, eggs don’t wear ties.

* He also had every Masters of the Universe action figure including Rattlor and Two Bad and Zoar the fighting falcon, however—and this is very important—he did not have Castle Grayskull. So one time he and his friends told me I couldn’t play with them because I was a girl and Masters of the Universe were for boys and I went home crying and told my parents, and even though money was tight, even though they weren’t fans of Barbie-type plastic toys, even though they believed in solving problems with logic and discussion (“Use your head,” they’d say, “your words”), we went straight to Kmart and bought Teela and Evil-Lyn and the Sorceress. (Where are their pants? I wondered. Aren’t they cold?) And—the icing on my six-year-old fuck you cake—that ginormous plastic castle. I was hot shit on the block, I tell you what. Know what else? I shared.

The city had beat the pants off me. Whatever is required to get ahead, I didn't have it. I didn't leave the city in disgust- I left it with the respect plain, unadulterated fear gives. New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it- once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theater, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy.

One of the most important adaptations for human running is our unique ability to cool by sweating instead of panting, thanks to millions of sweat glands combined with a lack of fur. Most mammals have sweat glands on just their palms, but apes and Old World monkeys have some sweat glands elsewhere on their bodies, and at some point in human evolution we exuberantly augmented the number of the glands to between 5 and 10 million.

PERSONAL PROFILE FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION Consider the following list of twelve characteristics that are central to communicating both in an interview and on the job. If you feel you are lacking in a particular category, you can use the explanations and suggestions given to enhance your interactive ability in the workplace. 1. Activation of PMA. Use positive thinking techniques such as internal coaching. 2. Physical appearance. Make sure to dress appropriately for the event. In most interviews, business attire (a suit or sport coat and tie for men; a suit, dress, or tailored pants for women) is recommended. What you wear to the interview communicates not only how important the event is to you but your ability to assess a situation and how you should behave in it. Appropriate grooming is essential, both in an interview and on the job. 3. Posture. Carry yourself with confidence. Let your posture communicate that you are a winner. Keep your face on a vertical plane, spine straight, shoulders comfortably back. By simply straightening up and using the diaphragmatic breathing you learned in Chapter 6 (which proper posture encourages), you will feel much better about yourself. Others will perceive you in a more positive light as well. 4. Rate of speech. Your rate of speech ought to be appropriate for the specific situation and person or persons it is intended for. Too fast is annoying, and too slow is boring. A good way to pace your speech is to speak at close to the rate of the person who is talking to you. 5. Eye contact. Absolutely essential for successful communication. Occasionally, you should avert your gaze briefly in order to avoid staring. But try not to look down at your lap or let your eyes wander all around the room as you speak. This suggests a lack of confidence and an inability to stay on track. 6. Facial expressions. You gain more credibility when you are open and expressive. The warmer personality will seem stronger and more confident. And perhaps most important, remember to smile in conversation. If you seem interested and enthusiastic, it will enhance the chemistry between you and the interviewer or your supervisor. You can develop the ability to use facial expressions to your advantage through a kind of biofeedback that makes use of the mirror and continuously experimenting in real life. Look at your reflection for several minutes. Practice being relaxed and create the expressions that are appropriate. Do you look interested? Alert? Motivated? Practice responding to an interviewer. Impress the “muscle memory” of these expressions into your mind.

Plot is certainly a part of constructing a story. It’s a factor in outlining. But believe it or not, it’s the least important factor. If you focus your efforts on the Three Legs—character arc, pacing, and theme—you can change the specifics of the plot a hundred different times, and you’ll still have essentially the same story.

Appearance Like it or not, appearance counts, especially in the workplace. Dressing appropriately and professionally is a minimum requirement when applying for a job. Do whatever you can do to make a favorable impression. Dressing appropriately is a way to say that you care about the interview, that it is important to you, and that you take it seriously. It also says you will make an effort to behave professionally once you are with the company. Keep in mind that you are owed nothing when you go on an interview. But behaving professionally by following appropriate business etiquette will nearly always gain you the courtesy of professional treatment in return. The following ideas will help you be prepared to make the best impression possible. In previous exercises, you have examined your self-image. Now, look at yourself and get feedback from others on your overall appearance. Not only must you look neat and well groomed for a job interview, but your overall image should be appropriate to the job, the company, and the industry you are hoping to enter. You can determine the appropriate image by observing the appearance and attitude of those currently in the area you are looking into. But even where casual attire is appropriate for those already in the workplace, clean, pressed clothes and a neat appearance will be appreciated. One young photographer I know of inquired about the style of dress at the newspaper he was interviewing with; informed that most people wore casual clothes, he chose to do the same. At the interview, the editor gently teased him about wearing jeans (she herself was in khaki pants and a sports shirt). “I guess your suit is at the cleaners,” she said, chuckling. But her point was made. Making the effort shows that you take the interview seriously. Second, you should carry yourself as though you are confident and self-assured. Use self-help techniques such as internal coaching to tell yourself you can do it. Focus on your past successes, and hold your body as if you were unstoppable. Breathe deeply, with an abundance of self-confidence. Your goal is to convey an image of being comfortable with yourself in order to make the other person feel comfortable with you.

Sundays when they could come, my mother would bring a piece of cake and some cookies from the bakery. Of course, the cookies and the cake were past their prime, but that was just the way I liked them. I really don’t know how happy my parents were to see me since most of the time they were there; they would talk to my teachers in conference, and then tell me all the things I had supposedly done wrong. Sadly, I would always wind up with a lecture on how bad I had been and what was expected of me. It was something I had grown to expect, but more importantly, I was grateful for the cake and pastries. I have no idea why, but they also brought me cans of condensed milk. I can only guess that they believed that the thick syrupy milk, super saturated with sweet, sweet, sugar, would give me the energy I needed to think better. After one such visit, I made the mistake of leaving my cake unattended. It didn’t take long before it grew legs and ran off. I couldn’t believe that one of my schoolmates would steal my cake, not at a Naval Honor School! Nevertheless, not being able to determine who the villains were, I hatched a plan to catch the culprits the next time around. Some months later when my parents returned to check on my progress, my mother brought me a beautiful double-layer chocolate cake. This time I was ready, having bought all the Ex-Lax the pharmacy in Toms River had on hand. Using a hot plate, I heated the Ex-Lax until it liquefied, and then poured the sticky brown substance all over the cake in a most decorative way. With that, I placed the cake on my desk and invitingly left the door open to my dorm room. I wasn’t away long before this cake also grew legs, and, lo and behold, it also disappeared. The expected happened, and somewhat later I found the culprits in the boys’ bathroom, having a miserable time of it. Laughingly, I identified them as the culprits, but didn’t turn them in. It was enough that I caught them with their pants down!

So Avalos—who had unzipped his pants and was now attending to some important personal business by squatting on top of an empty box of .50-caliber machine-gun ammo while continuing to work his radio—turned to a weapons system that was quite a bit more complicated than a single 120-mm mortar tube, but potentially far more devastating.

I do show jumping—fancy white pants and horses imported from Europe—so while I know horses, cowboys are still a new ball game for me. But goddamn. What a ballgame it is.

IT SOUNDS SIMPLE, BUT you have to like each other. Be friends, try to get past the initial heaving and panting and make sure there’s a real friendship underneath that. I don’t think you have to have identical interests, but you’ve got to have shared values. That is quite important. That was critical. Yeah, I think values are probably the most important thing.

By framing the problem around my simple scenario, we had a way to evaluate the merit of specific feature ideas: Will this feature get more people further along in the scenario? Will this get them more rewards when they publish? We decided feature ideas that address these goals were more important than all others.

When the club’s face looks to the right of the direction in which the head is traveling, the ball spins around an equator tilted from left to right and thus curves to the right during flight. I’ll do you a favor and not tell you about every stroke. Or any stroke at all. Though I got off some very nice drives. True, they didn’t land on the correct fairway, but that was due to wind. And I will stand mute on the subject of technique except to say I learned that many chip shots are best played with a sharp kick from the toe of a golf shoe. And if you cut a hole in your pants pocket you can drop a ball down your trouser leg and “discover” that your shot landed remarkably close to the green. And putting, for a person of my socioeconomic background, is best done by envisioning the cup as being behind a little windmill or inside the mouth of a cement whale. I also found out that all the important lessons of life are contained in the three rules for achieving a perfect golf swing: 1. Keep your head down. 2. Follow through. 3. Be born with money. There’s a fine camaraderie on a golf course—lumbering around with your fellow Republicans, encompassed by a massive waste of space and cash, bearing witness to prolific use of lawn chemicals, and countenancing an exploitative wage scale for the maintenance employees. Golf is the

He shook his head wondering why reality stars getting new tattoos and politicians getting caught with their pants down was more important than an article about thousands feared dead in Cairo.

The truth is, my discomfort with my period didn’t have anything to do with the thing itself (though, to any teenage girls reading this: yes, it is gross; yes, it hurts; no, it’s not the end of the world; yes, sometimes it gets on your pants; no, nobody will remember)—it was just part of the lifelong, pervasive alienation from my body that every woman absorbs to some extent. Your body is never yours. Your body is your enemy. Your body is gross. Your body is wrong. Your body is broken. Your body isn’t what men like. Your body is less important than a fetus. Your body should be “perfect” or it should be hidden.

I do show jumping—fancy white pants and horses imported from Europe—so while I know horses, cowboys are still a new ball game for me. But goddamn. What a ballgame it is. Cade sits on a dark horse, speckled with gray—a beautiful blue roan color with black mane and tail—which perfectly matches his black cowboy hat, signature bicep-hugging black T-shirt, and black leather chaps over worn jeans. He’s seated comfortably in the saddle. Leather-gloved hands on the horn of his saddle, hip popped comfortably, with a toothpick hanging out the side of his mouth and an amused smirk on his lips. He’s so fucking hot.

Deep Breathing First show children how to produce anxiety in themselves. Ask them to take many shallow breaths so that they are panting. They will have some of the same feeling that they have with anxiety. Then, show them how to fill up their bellies (diaphragms) with air. Have them blow out the scared feeling first, being careful to blow all of the air out. Next have them breathe in and hold the air. Then blow all of the way out again, and breathe in again. It is important that they are really filling their lungs, and slowing down their breathing. Children like being capable of stopping an anxious response. They also begin to recognize when their shoulders are up, and they are taking shallow little breaths. With non-verbal cues from parents, who gently push shoulders down, rub their backs, and take deep breaths with them, children can correct their breathing and take control of their anxiety. In time, they can do this for themselves. Many children are so anxious, that when asked to take a deep breath, they cannot get a deep breath in unless they blow out first. I work with children until they can get a “jelly belly” (a soft, relaxed tummy). It works well for some older children to have a timer on their watches which is set to go off on the hour. The timer reminds them to do diaphragmatic breathing throughout the day. This helps anxious children feel much better. With hyper-arousal reduced, they melt down less frequently.

And, more important, for all those years that I was sure that boys could tell when I had a loaf-of-bread-size maxi pad going up the back of my pants, they actually had no idea.

Mid-June 2012 …Do you remember the arrogant male model who came to the Bahriji School to give a grooming course to us students when we were there? An evening after my return to London, while staying at Uncle James’ home, I visited one of the London sex clubs. Uncle James was in Hong Kong and I had his town house to myself before I moved to my own lodgings in Ladbroke Grove, recommended by the Nottinghill Methodist Church housing project. I was terribly lonely and needed company desperately. I ventured to “Heavens” located Under the Arches on Villiers Street, Charing Cross, a little before midnight. In 1972, this establishment was located in a large warehouse. For the uninitiated, the entrance was nondescript. It was dimly lit from the outside, and when a patron wished to gain entry, he pressed an obscure doorbell by the side of a huge aluminum sliding door. A pair of eyes would look through a peephole, checking to make sure that it was neither a police raid nor an underage client. If the patron was handsome and dressed like a macho gay man, he’d be asked for identification. Once approved, the green door would slide open to allow entry. Inside “Heavens” was a different world. Throngs of leather and denim-clad patrons checked their belongings in the tiny cloakroom next to the cashier’s booth. A small safety deposit box was then allocated upon request for each visitor to deposit his wallet or important documents for safekeeping. The safety deposit box key, attached to an elastic band together with the clothing claim tag, would then be handed to the patron to wear around his wrist or ankle. Most patrons were shirtless except for their jeans and leather pants. The uninhibited would strip down to their jock straps or sports undergarments. Their naked buttocks were ready to be in service for a night of unbridled debauchery.

I weave through LA's famous Farmers Market, which is really more of an outdoor food court, and now I'm a few minutes late. And the place is packed and there's still the uncertainty about where to meet when I look down and realize I'm wearing yellow pants. Yellow pants. Really? Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking. They're rolled at the cuff and paired with a navy polo and it looks like maybe I just yacht my yacht, and I'm certain to come off as an asshole. I thin about canceling, or at least delaying so I can go home and change, but the effort that would require is unappealing, and this date is mostly for distraction. And when I round the last stall--someone selling enormous eggplants, more round than oblong, I see him, casually leaning against a wall, and something inside my body says there you are. 'There you are.' I don't understand them, these words, because they seem too deep and too soulful to attach to the Farmers Market, this Starbucks or that, a frozen yogurt place, or confusion over where to meet a stranger. They're straining to define a feeling of stunning comfort that drips over me, as if a water balloon burst over my head on the hottest of summer days. My knees don't buckle, my heart doesn't skip, but I'm awash in the warmth of a valium-like hug. Except I haven't taken a Valium. Not since the night of Lily's death. Yet here is this warm hug that makes me feel safe with this person, this Byron the maybe-poet, and I want it to stop. This--whatever this feeling is--can't be a real feeling, this can't be a tangible connection. This is just a man leaning against a stall that sells giant eggplants. But I no longer have time to worry about what this feeling is, whether I should or shouldn't be her, or should or should't be wearing yellow pants, because there are only maybe three perfect seconds where I see him and he has yet to spot me. Three perfect seconds to enjoy the calm that has so long eluded me. 'There you are.' And then he casually lifts his head and turns my way and uses one foot to push himself off the wall he is leaning agains. We lock eyes and he smiles with recognition and there's a disarming kindness to his face and suddenly I'm standing in front of him. 'There you are.' It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it and it's all I can do to steer the words in a more playfully casual direction so he isn't saddled with the importance I've placed on them. I think it comes off okay, but, as I know from my time at sea, sometimes big ships turn slowly. Byron chuckles and gives a little pump of his fist. 'YES! IT'S! ALL! HAPPENING! FOR! US!' I want to stop in my tracks, but I'm already leaning in for a hug, and he comes the rest of the way, and the warm embrace of seeing him standing there is now an actual embrace, and it is no less sincere. He must feel me gripping him tightly, because he asks, 'Is everything okay?' No. 'Yes, everything is great, it's just...' I play it back in my head what he said, the way in which he said it, and the enthusiasm which only a month had gone silent. 'You reminded me of someone is all.' 'Hopefully in a good way.' I smile but it takes just a minute to speak. 'In the best possible way.' I don't break the hug first, but maybe at the same time, this is a step. jenny will be proud. I look in his eyes, which I expect to be brown like Lily's but instead are deep blue like the waters lapping calmly against the outboard sides of 'Fishful Thinking.' 'Is frozen yogurt okay?' 'Frozen yogurt is perfect.

You are such a stick-in-the-mud sometimes, you know that?" My annoyance faded. Elliott, poor man, truly believe what he was saying. He thought life was better when it was organized and structured until all the fun had been squeezed out of it. "Look, one of the things I've learned from life is that you have to grab what you can take, because you never know if it'll be there later. I'm here right now. So are you. And I just bet you if I stick my hands down your pants, you'll be ready for a little fun in no time." His nostrils flared, and his voice took on that haughty lord-of-the-manor tone that made me want to giggle. "I assure you, madam, that I am in full control of my libido. If I did not wish to become aroused by you, I wouldn't." I put my hand on his fly. Just that, no caressing, no stroking, just my palm on his zipper. I could feel him getting hard within seconds. I cocked an eyebrow at him. "As it happens, I want to be aroused," he said with an attempt at dignity. "I have decided that I will, just this once, bend my inviolable rule about not stopping until I am done with my daily quota of writing.

Well,there's not much more to see," Bill said. "Just the usual routine of a building catching fire-smoke, walls of flame,people screaming and stampeding toward the exits,trampling the less fortunate underfoot-you get the picture.The Globe burned to the ground." "What?" she asked, feeling sick. "I started the fire at the Globe?" Surely burning down the most famous theater in English history would have repercussions across time. "Oh,don't get all self-important. It was going to happen anyway. If you hadn't burst into flames, the cannon onstage would have misfired and taken the whole place out." "This is so much bigger than me and Daniel. All those people-" "Look, Mother Teresa, no one died that night...besides you.No one else even got hurt. Remember that drunk leering at you from the third row? His pants catch on fire.That's the worst of it. Feel better?" "Not really.Not at all." "How about this: You're not here to add to your mountain of guilt. Or to change the past.There's a script,and you have your entrances and your exits." "I wasn't ready for my exit." "Why not? Henry the Eighth sucks, anyway." "I wanted to give Daniel hope. I wanted him to know that I would always choose him,always love him.But Lucinda died before I could be sure he understood." She closed her eyes. "His half of our curse is so much worse than mine." "That's good,Luce!" "What do you mean? That's horrible!" "I mean that little gem-that 'Wah, Daniel's agony is infinitely more horrible than mine'-that's what you learned here.The more you understand, the closer you'll get to knowing the root of the curse,and the more liekly it is that you'll eventually find your way out of it.Right?" "I-I don't know." "I do. Now come on, you've got bigger roles to play.

The most important lesson to learn about devil’s advocacy isn’t the need for a formal contrarian position; it’s the need to interpret criticism as a noble function. An effective promotor fidei is not a token argumentative smarty-pants; it’s someone who deeply respects the Catholic Church and is trying to defend the faith by surfacing contrary arguments in situations where skepticism is unlikely to surface naturally.

Age: 11 Height: 5’3 Favourite animal: Tawny owl   Sometimes considered a smarty-pants by her friends and enemies, Beatrix has always adored studying hard. Being in school reminds her how many interesting things she could learn about the world, everything from how volcanoes are made to the languages of people in hundreds of countries, to the way the planets and stars occupy deep space all across the universe. She has a brain that is geared towards asking important questions and then trying to answer them, which makes her perfect for the Cluefinders Club.   Beatrix loves to read, especially the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote about the great detective Sherlock Holmes, and the romantic fiction of Charlotte Bronte. Although she is a very pretty girl, she does not listen to any compliments. She likes to think that beauty is only skin-deep, and that people would be better to compliment her intelligence or determination. So far, only her best friends and her teacher, Mister Faraday, have thought to do this. Her favourite animal is the owl, especially the tawny owl, which is often portrayed as being a wise and knowledgeable bird.

There’s something else too and it’s really important. What do you know about something called a mating scent?” “Mating scent?” Sophie could almost see her sister shrug. “Uh, I may have heard the term. I know the Kindred place a lot of importance on smells.” “That’s because they use them to seduce their brides. When a Kindred warrior claims a woman as his own, his body immediately begins making a pheromone that’s specifically tailored to her DNA,” Sophie said rapidly, quoting as well as she could remember from what Sylvan had told her. “Well, Baird does smell really good. But…so?” “So? So, it’s irresistible. I mean, it makes him irresistible to you. Remember how we were wondering why nobody ever turned the Kindred down and came back to Earth? This is why, Liv—they can’t help themselves. His mating scent is like a drug and you’re being subjected to it every minute you’re with him!” Sophie was panting she was so upset but on the other end of whatever strange connection they had there was a lengthy silence. It went on for so long that she began to wonder if her twin had hung up on her. “Liv?” she asked at last, looking up in the air as though she could see her floating there. “Liv, are you still there?” “I’m here.” Liv’s voice was flat. “Are you sure about this? I mean, how did you get this information?” “Sylvan told me. You know, Baird’s brother?” “Yes, I know.” There was another lengthy silence and then Liv muttered, “Son of a bitch.” “Liv, are you okay?” “Yeah, I’m okay. You’re absolutely certain this is right?” “Positive. He didn’t try to hide it or anything. He said that even if you knew, you wouldn’t be able to fight it—it’s that strong. Your body will react to his mating scent—” “Whether I want it to or not,” Liv said, finishing her sentence in the familiar way they had. “Exactly.” Sophie sighed. “Didn’t Baird tell you any of this?” “He talked about smells being important and said I would find that I wanted him more and more but no. He never told me he was using biological warfare on me.” Now Liv sounded really upset and Sophie felt her heart twist. “Look, Liv, I’m sorry, really I am. I feel horrible now—were you beginning to like him?” “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been fighting what I felt so hard but I didn’t even know what I was fighting—just that I couldn’t, uh, help myself when I was close to him. And all this time he was lying to me. God…it’s Mitch all over again.” “Oh honey, no.” Sophie wished that her sister was there in person so she could give her a hug. “It’s not like you caught him with another woman.” “No—it’s worse. At least Mitch didn’t drug me to force me to stay with him.

Because he was a real captain, and very important in the general scheme of things, Matthews had a secretary, although she liked to be called an executive assistant. Her name was Gwen, and she had three virtues far above anyone else I had ever known: She was astonishingly efficient, unbearably serious, and uncompromisingly plain. It was a delightful combination and I always found it irresistible. So as I hurried up to her desk, wiping the residue of the doughnut off my hands and onto my pants where it belonged, I could not help attempting a very small bon mot. “Fair Gwendolyn,” I said. “The face that launched a thousand patrol vehicles!” She

Sorry I cockblocked you,” he says. That hits me in the gut. “Don’t talk about your aunt that way,” I snap. Seth’s brow furrows. “I didn’t say anything bad.” “Don’t talk about her like I’m hanging out trying to get in her pants. It’s not like that.” He nods his head slowly. “If you say so.” “Seth,” I warn. “What?” he bites out. I can’t think of what I should tell him, so I have to go for the truth. “I love her, Seth. I love her a lot. And yeah, I want to get in her pants. But I also want to marry her, and I want to get to love her forever. I want to live with her and share all her ups and downs.” I drum my thumbs on the table, trying to figure out what else to say to make him understand. He’s a walking hormone, which is what he should be at his age. He’s not thinking long-term. But I am. “So, when you talk about cockblocking me, it makes me worry that you might think that’s all I’m after. It’s not. I respect her. And I want to be sure you know that.” Seth does that slow nod again, like he’s thinking it over. “Would it bother you if I asked her to marry me?” I blurt out. No idea where that came from, but there it is. Seth’s brow rises. “You really want to marry Aunt Sky?” I nod. I do. I so do. He looks around, and a little muscle tics in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. “What happens to us if you get married?” he asks. Huh? “What do you mean?” “I mean if you and Aunt Sky get married, she’s going to be your wife. We were just getting used to her being our mother.” Oh, I get it. Shit. “Can’t she do both?” He shrugs. “Can she?” “The only difference I see is that you’d have two parents at home instead of one.” Seth’s eyes narrow. “Two parents.” I nod. “Seth, I know I’m not your father, and I never will be. But I want to be part of your life. In whatever way you’ll let me.” It’ll probably be in some ways he doesn’t appreciate, too, but that’s what dads do. It’s not always Father’s Day and Little League fun. “I don’t want to take Sky away from you. I promise.” It’s important for him to get that last part. He needs to feel safe with her and know that she’ll always be there, no matter what. Hell, in two years, he’ll be going off to college. I won’t have long with him at all, not like Joey and Mellie.

else. She did stand you up.” He tilted my chin with his fingertips so that I was looking directly into his eyes. “I’m not going to give up. She is. And I don’t want to pursue anyone else.” We stood gazing into each other’s eyes and I realized that I needed to get him out of my house and get back to my bubble bath. I should use him for inspiration... “Look, I was in the middle of something very important before you came over, so if you could leave right now so I can get back to it, that would be great. Maybe we can talk about what happened over the weekend at work tomorrow? For the record, I really am sorry I stood you up. I had every intention of being there but—” He silenced me with a kiss and I kissed him back with a passion I’d never felt before. He reached down and untied my robe, pushing it off my shoulders and onto the floor. Smiling, he assaulted my mouth with his tongue again, using his hands to tug at the drawstring on my pants. All of sudden, I felt a vibrating sound going off in my pocket. Before I could reach down and shut it off, he reached into my pants and pulled out my favorite purple friend. He examined it for a few seconds, blinking. Then he held it front of my face and smirked. “Is this what I was interrupting?” It’s been four years....Four. Long. Years... “Claire?” He cupped my chin and held my face so I wouldn’t be able to turn away. “Is this what you were doing?” “I...” I swallowed. Then I went for it. “What if it was?” A slow, sexy smile spread across his lips. “Then I think I should finish what you started.” He sealed his mouth over mine again and pressed me against the island, making it hard for me to breathe. I’d never been kissed like he was kissing me; it felt like I was having sex—with my mouth. He was controlling my tongue with his, molding his perfectly full lips to mine, and biting down on my

Most importantly, it had been nine years since we’d gotten married. Nine years and three months from the moment he had said, panting and red-faced, out on the ice at the end of our long program while the crowd went fucking nuts, “I think you should marry me, Meatball.” I’d only made him ask three times.

The question of whether or not it is sinful for a woman to wear pants is such a point of confusion, division, and animosity among Catholics today that it should be addressed here. The issue needs to be settled once and for all. The question of wearing pants is the last thing Catholics should be outwardly attacking each other for.

This leads us to wonder if letting little boys dress up in little girl clothing is OK. After all, if girls dress up as boys, what is the difference? And then, if girls dress in pants, why shouldn’t boys dress in skirts and dresses?

Thank goodness General Draxx taught me the importance of pants.

American girls grow up knowing the intrinsic importance of having female friends; our girlfriends are our bosom buddies, a term that links the girlishly erotic with the emotionally intimate. There is no Emma Woodhouse without Harriet Smith; there is no Beatrice without Hero; there is no Anne Shirley without Diana Barry. Sex and the City, The Group, Gossip Girl, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Thelma & Louise—American popular culture is positively lousy with BFFs (not even death can separate that final pair). Men may come and men may go, but in American culture, at least, a girl’s bosom buddy will always be another woman.

Doing this does not mean flying by the seat of your pants—nor without instrumentation. Both flexibility and methodical iteration are the keys to finding entrepreneurial nirvana. Dashboards will record the results of the tests of your hypotheses as they occur. But mere record-keeping isn’t why dashboards are so important. More crucially, they will signal the mid-course corrections necessary to reach a viable Plan B. And they have some other tricks, too, as we’ll see.

Superhero Names On the weekend I made up some cool sounding superhero names. Just in case I ever need one. I have to say, it was quite difficult because, you know, it’s important to get just the right tone. Here they are: Farty McFart Pants Stinky McFarter Captain Fart-a-lot The Fartinator The Vominator The Snotinator (he has a gun called the Booger Blaster) Captain Poop-a-lot Captain Booger Butt

When complex plans are developed for combating global warming, it’s ironically like Gulliver’s little friends if they were to declare that there was too much food in the world. Tax the farmers for growing crops so they’ll eventually have to stop. Sew the mouths of consumers shut so they will no longer demand food. And belts make it obvious when people are hungry, because those people have to tighten them to keep up their pants. So, outlaw belts, too. See? Wrong focus. Wrong set of importances. Wrong problem! Food is not the problem and neither is warming.

On the weekend I made up some cool sounding superhero names. Just in case I ever need one. I have to say, it was quite difficult because, you know, it’s important to get just the right tone. Here they are: Farty McFart Pants Stinky McFarter Captain Fart-a-lot The Fartinator The Vominator The Snotinator (he has a gun called the Booger Blaster) Captain Poop-a-lot Captain Booger Butt

My parents had to work on most weekends, and thus were infrequent visitors to Admiral Farragut Academy. However, on those Sundays when they could come, my mother would bring a cake and some cookies from the bakery. Of course, the cookies and the cake were past their prime, but that was just the way I liked them. I really don’t know how happy my parents were to see me since most of the time they were there; they would talk to my teachers in conference, and then tell me all the things I had supposedly done wrong. Sadly, I would always wind up with a lecture on how bad I had been and what was expected of me. It was something I had grown to expect, but more importantly, I was grateful for the cake and pastries. I have no idea why, but they also brought me cans of condensed milk. I can only guess that they believed that the thick syrupy milk, super saturated with sweet, sweet, sugar, would give me the energy I needed to think better. After one such visit, I made the mistake of leaving my cake unattended. It didn’t take long before it grew legs and ran off. I couldn’t believe that one of my schoolmates would steal my cake, not at a Naval Honor School! Nevertheless, not being able to determine who the villains were, I hatched a plan to catch the culprits the next time around. Some months later when my parents returned to check on my progress, my mother brought me a beautiful double-layer chocolate cake. This time I was ready, having bought all the Ex-Lax the pharmacy in Toms River had on hand. Using a hot plate, I heated the Ex-Lax until it liquefied, and then poured the sticky brown substance all over the cake in a most decorative way. With that, I placed the cake on my desk and invitingly left the door open to my dorm room. I wasn’t away long before this cake also grew legs, and, lo and behold, it also disappeared. The expected happened, and somewhat later I found the culprits in the boys’ bathroom, having a miserable time of it. Laughingly, I identified them as the culprits, but didn’t turn them in. It was enough that I caught them with their pants down!

To work at a remote company demanded great communication skills, and everyone had them. It was one of the great initial delights. Every corporation has the same platitudes for the importance of clear communication yet utterly fails to practice it. There was little jargon at Automattic. No “deprioritized action items” or “catalyzing of cross functional objectives.” People wrote plainly, without pretense and with great charm.

grown to love since he’d been introduced to it. Her tongue slid over his and caused his dick to harden more. He wanted to toss her on the bed, flip her over, and yank her ass into the air just to be inside her welcoming body but kissing was important to her. He began to see the draw as he licked her back, his excitement growing when he mimicked what he’d like to do to her by delving deeper to take what she offered. He tore at her shirt. The material ripped but Alli didn’t pull away. He just wanted to feel her skin, all of it, every inch. He hated anything that barred him access to any part of her body. A snarl tore from him, muffled between their mouths, when one of his palms cupped her breast. It was soft and pliable, the nipple instantly pebbling when his fingertips brushed it. Alli wiggled on his lap. She broke the kiss he was enjoying. He was afraid she’d tell him to stop but instead of just getting off his lap, she lifted up and turned to plant her knees on each side of his hips when she straddled his lap. Her hands cupped his cheeks and she kissed him again. He didn’t need instructions anymore. He dominated her with his tongue, enjoying the taste of her and the way their panted breaths mingled. Obsidian needed her. He released her breast to grip her waist. The thin pants she wore gave easily when he dug his fingertips under the band of them and pulled. Material tore to reveal skin. Alli stopped kissing him back and gasped but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He ripped the things more, shredding them enough to reach between her thighs. She was as wet and welcoming as he imagined she’d be when his fingers traced the line of her sex. With her legs spread wide apart he had no difficulty sliding one finger inside the tight confines of her pussy. She threw her head back, breaking the connection of their mouths. He saw the line of her neck exposed. Instinct and need struck him hard. He homed

To be sure, the minister was well matched to the millionaires in his pews. Fifield insisted that he and his wife always thought of themselves as simple “small-town folks,” but they acclimated easily to their new life of wealth and privilege. Within a year of their arrival, they bought a mansion in an exclusive development on Wilshire Boulevard. “It had been built in the Twenties by a rich oil man for around a million dollars—using imported tile, special wood paneling, Tiffany stained glass windows, silk hand-woven ‘wall paper’ and many such luxuries,” Fifield remembered. “The extensive lawn, colonnade archways, swimming pool and large main rooms on the first of three floors enabled us to entertain visiting speakers, dignitaries and important people from all over the world who could and did assist the church.” The Fifields soon employed a butler, a chauffeur, and a cook, insisting that the household staff was vital in maintaining their “gracious accommodations” during the depths of the Depression. “The traditional image of a clergyman in those days [was] a man who has a hole in the seat of his pants and shoes run over at the heel,” Fifield acknowledged. “It was quite a shock to a lot of people to see a minister driving around in a good car with a chauffeur at the wheel