Party Friday Quotes

I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!

The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only… and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes. So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn’t make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I’m the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart – perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man – the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.

I'm gonna party, see how intoxicated I can get and how many rules I can flaunt. That's my motto.

In life, we often have to make decisions that aren't easy. But it doesn't mean they aren't right.

Pain comes to all of us some time or another. Its how we learn to cope with it that determine our future.

Keeping quiet is how I survived.

Boys don’t always make the right decisions. It takes years before they become men and wise up.

The end hurts.

My girl. My fucking jersey.

She had become my lifeline. I wanted to be hers. I wanted her to feel this way about me, too.

Now, could you maybe get some clothes on? That’s uh . . . distracting.” “You do know you came into my room uninvited, right? If I had known you were coming, I’d have been dressed.” He smirked. “I texted you.” “I was in the shower.” “Minor detail.

Did something happen with you and that guy Vlad at that party Friday night?" Dread creeps over my skin. "Why?" "Hmm, okay. I don't really know how to put this, but...well, he was telling everybody today that you guys are dating and that you're his soul mate and that you're going to get married." "What?"

Just my jersey Maggie. No one else's. Ever. I don't want anyone's jersey touching you but mine. Keep this one. Wear it all the damn time you want, but don't ever put Brady's on again. My girl. My fucking jersey.

I had always been told my future was on the field and I could be somebody great. I had wanted that. Until I found somebody who needed me. And I realized the only person I wanted to be great for was her.

In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people, and a lot less good at the stuff going on outside, which means that quite often if you flirt with us we will completely fail to notice, leaving everybody involved slightly uncomfortable and more than slightly unlaid. So I would suggest that any attempted seduction of a writer would probably go a great deal easier for all parties if you sent them a cheerful note saying "YOU ARE INVITED TO A SEDUCTION: Please come to dinner on Friday Night, Wear the kind of clothes you would like to be seduced in." And alcohol may help, too. Or kissing. Many writers figure out that they're being seduced or flirted with if someone is actually kissing them.

Watching her eased my mind. Even from afar she was enough to help me breathe. I was becoming dependent on a girl I hardly knew.

fate steps in and fixes things. You just have to trust it.

Maggie's shoulder shook with silent laughter, and she laid her head on my shoulder as she watched them. And I watched her.

But the most important thing to know about being an introvert is that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken because you’re quiet. It’s okay to stay home on a Friday night instead of going to a party. Being an introvert is a perfectly normal 'thing' to be.

Pain came to all of us at some time or another. It was how we learned to cope with it that determined our future.

Maggie made me feel stronger. She reminded me that I wasn’t alone in this world. That others had gone through this too. That I could be what my momma needed me to be... what my dad needed me to be.

You were at the party on Friday night, weren't you?" I didn't mentioned I'd followed him into the woods. He leaned back in his chair, his legs sprawled out. His boots nudged the bottom ruffle of my skirt. "Aye." Aye? Seriously? Could he be any hotter? Unless he had been looking for his girlfriend at the party. Not hot. "I was supposed to meet my cousin," he elaborated, "but I didn't find her," Hot again.

Remember she’s fragile. Don’t break her.” He didn’t know how wrong he was. Maggie was one of the strongest people I knew

I want to mean to you what you mean to me.” That wasn’t an “i love you,” but it was close enough.

Could it be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On a Friday?” I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Did you do a lot of acid in the sixties? Could be a flashback.” “I was two years old in 1960. I came too late for the party.” He leans down and pecks me on the head. I pull away out of habit. “And I’m not even going to ask how you know about acid flashbacks.” “What’s an acid flashback?” Izzy crows. “Nothing,” my dad and I say at the same time, and he smiles at me.

This wasn’t what I’d intended to happen in the beginning. I had imagined finding a way for me to heal too while I helped him. It was a way for me to find peace. But we had become something more. Something I never imagined. Falling in love with West Ashby had not been part of my plan.

He fucks me. He doesn’t want you. Back off.

But no matter what happens, the earth keeps turning. Monday always comes and eventually, sometimes excruciatingly slowly, that Monday is followed by a Friday. You take tests, hand in papers you wrote at two in the morning the day they were due, and your shoes get worn out, and the pollen in the air increases so that you go through an entire package of tissues during the SATs, and you wander through the crowds at parties looking for Natalie Banks because you came with her, and you watch her take off for the backyard with a senior who seems to be in the backyard with a different girl at every party, and you learn to play chess with your dad, and you eat too much ice cream, and your favorite television drama has its two-hour season finale, and then suddenly the school year ends and you pack your bags for Tennessee.

It ended as suddenly as it had begun. He didn’t say a word when he backed away from me. He didn’t look at me. Instead he’d turned and stalked over to his truck and left. I had no idea who he was. All I knew was that he was beautiful and haunted and he’d given me a first kiss to remember.

But the worst touristification is the life we moderns have to lead in captivity, during our leisure hours: Friday night opera, scheduled parties, scheduled laughs. Again, golden jail. This "goal-driven" attitude hurts deeply inside my existential self.

Xav sprinkled olive oil on his lettuce. 'Lola was very particular that it all had to fit properly.' 'Lola?' squeaked Diamond. I wanted to warn her not to rise to the bait Xav was dangling in front of her but it was too late. Xav added some Parmesan and pepper. 'Suspicious, Diamond? You should be. This is a bachelor party I'm organizing, not a school outing, and it is going to tick all of Trace's boxes. Lola is either a very efficient water sports instructor or an exotic dancing girl; I'll leave it your imagination.' I rolled my eyes at Diamond. 'Myabe she's both. I mean the guys will really go for that, I guess. Don't worry,Di, Luigi and his crew will not disappoint us girls.' Luigi was in fact Contessa Nicoletta's little bespectacled chef with whom I had been consulting about the menu for Friday, but the Benedicts weren't to know that. 'He has promised to provide something suitably spicy for our tastes.

When I was younger, my brother told me that he had the power to shrink me to the size of an ant. In fact, he said, he used to have another sister, but he shrank her down and stepped on her. He also told me that when you became a grown-up, you were admitted into a private party that was full of monsters and horror movie characters. There was Chucky, drinking a cup of coffee. And the mummy on the cover of the Hardy Boys book that used to freak me out, except he was doing the twist while Jason from 'Friday the 13th' played the alto sax. He told me you stayed at the party as long as you had to, making conversation with these creatures, and that was why adults were never afraid of anything. I used to believe everything my brother told me, because he was older and I figured he knew more about the world. But as it turns out, being a grown-up doesn't mean you're fearless. It just means you fear different things.

In going back and thinking about my friendships and hearing about other women's, I see this: Our friends are not our second choices. They are our dates for Friday nights and for ex-boyfriends' weddings. They are the visitors to our hometowns and hospital rooms. They are the first people we tell about any news, whether it's good, terrible, or mundane. They are our plus ones at office parties. They are the people we're raising children with. They are our advocates, who, no matter what, make us feel like we won't fail. They are the people who will struggle with us and who will stay with us. They are who we text when we get home.

Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.

the answer. Maybe that was why I’d grown attached to her so quickly. Grief changed you. Made you react differently. But I didn’t want to say that I wouldn’t have wanted Maggie had she not spoken to me. But would I have? “You understand probably better than anyone what she’s gone through. If she’s told

Why the long face?” “Is there anyone who isn’t infatuated with you?” I smiled at him, with teeth. “If not, it’s because you haven’t assigned them to me yet. Mata Hari at your service. Would you like to add him to the list?” “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm.” “I don’t appreciate being handed out like a party favor.

It's about five and the party begins at seven, so I have to get the hell out of here. I need to shower, shave, eat, straighten my hair, apply make-up, and try to get a cab on a Friday night. Ugh, girly things. Kill me now.

At one point I was climbing off the bus and I bumped into a woman in a crisp black blazer and pointy, witchy shoes. She had a bulky cell phone pressed against her ear and a black bag with gold Prada lettering hooked around her wrist. I was a long ways off from worshiping at the Céline, Chloé, or Goyard thrones, but I certainly recognized Prada. “Sorry,” I said, and took a step away from her. She nodded at me briskly but never stopped speaking into her phone, “The samples need to be there by Friday.” As her heels snapped away on the pavement, I thought, There is no way that woman can ever get hurt. She had more important things to worry about than whether or not she would have to eat lunch alone. The samples had to arrive by Friday. And as I thought about all the other things that must make up her busy, important life, the cocktail parties and the sessions with the personal trainer and the shopping for crisp, Egyptian cotton sheets, there it started, my concrete and skyscraper wanderlust. I saw how there was a protection in success, and success was defined by threatening the minion on the other end of a cell phone, expensive pumps terrorizing the city, people stepping out of your way simply because you looked like you had more important places to be than they did. Somewhere along the way, a man got tangled up in this definition too. I just had to get to that, I decided, and no one could hurt me again.

There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York--every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb. At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Suddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the FOLLIES. The party has begun.

So,” he says, “Thursdays and Sundays, you party.” “Yep.” “And on Fridays, you sit behind that front desk reading porn.

Stop by my duck farm this Friday night for a birdfest event. Live music will be eaten, food will be heard, and there will be FREE refills on FREEDOM—in bald-eagle format.

But even as a kid you learn pretty quick that church doesn’t start and stop with the hours of service posted on the church sign. No, church dragged on like the last hour of the school day as we waited in the hot car with Dad for Mom to finish socializing in the fellowship hall. Church lingered long into the gold-tinted Sunday afternoons when Amanda and I gamboled around the house, stripped down to our white slips like little brides. Church showed up at the front door with a chicken casserole when the whole family was down with the flu and called after midnight to ask for prayer and to cry. It gossiped in the pickup line at school and babysat us on Friday nights. It teased me and tugged at my pigtails and taught me how to sing. Church threw Dad a big surprise party for his fortieth birthday and let me in on the secret ahead of time. Church came to me far more than I went to it, and I’m glad.

On Friday a statement arrived to say that Hans Hubermann was to be drafted into the German army. A member of the Party would be happy to play a role in the war effort, it concluded. If he wasn’t, there would certainly be consequences

He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet he goes on taking in. It is not what he does, it is what he is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory, as if it were something precious, as if it were itself the loved child tottering homeward on the road. But there is so much of it. So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks; so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin. The world he claims, claims him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down… All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor plays chess with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday, but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does. Early Sunday morning, one of the friends comes back with rags and a jug of water and a box of the grave spices that are supposed to cut down on the smell. She’s braced for the task. But when she comes to the grave she finds that the linen’s been thrown into the corner and the body is gone. Evidently anonymous burial isn’t quite anonymous enough, after all. She sits outside in the sun. The insects have woken up, here at the edge of the desert, and a bee is nosing about in a lily like silk thinly tucked over itself, but much more perishable. It won’t last long. She takes no notice of the feet that appear at the edge of her vision. That’s enough now, she thinks. That’s more than enough. Don’t be afraid, says Yeshua. Far more can be mended than you know. She is weeping. The executee helps her to stand up.

There is a feeling that I had Friday night after the homecoming game that I don't know if I will ever be able to describe except to say that it is warm. Sam and Patrick drove me to the party that night, and I sat in the middle of Sam's pickup truck. Sam loves her pick up truck because I think it reminds her of her dad.The feeling I had happened when Sam told Patrick to find a station on the radio. And kept getting commercials. And commercials. And a really bad song about love that had the word "baby" in it. And then more commercials. And finally he found this really amazing song about this boy, and we all got quiet. Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished I said something. "I feel infinite" And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was the greatest and we all paid attention to it.Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent,and we felt young in a good way. I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it is, but truthfully, it's not the same unless you're driving to your first real part, and you're sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain.

The best costume is a Security Guard outfit, because it's guaranteed to get you into any party—even if you're not on the guest list. And that's always fashionable. After I put my ducks to bed on Friday nights, I go out partying—even though I’ve not been invited.

Here, let me do it,” Peter says, coming up close behind me. I jerk away from him. “No no, I’ll do it,” I say, and he shakes his head and tries to take the measuring cup from me, but I won’t let go, and flour poufs out of the cup and into the air. It dusts us both. Peter starts cracking up and I let out an outraged shriek. “Peter!” He’s laughing too hard to speak. I cross my arms. “I’d better still have enough flour.” “You look like a grandma,” he says, still laughing. “Well, you look like a grandpa,” I counter. I dump the flour in my mixing bowl back into the flour canister. “Actually, you’re really a lot like my granny,” Peter says. “You hate cussing. You like to bake. You stay at home on Friday nights. Wow, I’m dating my granny. Gross.” I start measuring again. One, two. “I don’t stay home every Friday night.” Three. “I’ve never seen you out. You don’t go to parties. We used to hang out back in the day. Why’d you stop hanging out?” Four. “I…I don’t know. Middle school was different.” What does he want me to say? That Genevieve decided I wasn’t cool enough so I got left behind? Why is he so clueless? “I always wondered why you stopped hanging out with us.” Was I on five or six? “Peter! You made me lose my count again!” “I have that effect on women.

We called them theochemists,” Marie said. They stuck out in more ways than one. “They were really straitlaced, they didn’t drink—you’d give them a drink and they’d throw it in a potted plant.” In contrast, other Lamonters, by the close of the rowdy Friday afternoon parties, were much more likely to be found facedown in the potted plants. Kulp

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

The third Friday favourite was fried meatballs. This was a meal my parents would make together, my mother preparing the meatball mixture, rolling them, and my father frying them slowly in olive oil. […] The work and school week had ended, and a weekend spent with friends and the inevitable Friday or Saturday night sleepover lay ahead for me and my sisters, while my parents looked forward to dinner parties at home or away.

August 25, 1991 Dear friend, I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn’t try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have. Please don’t try to figure out who she is because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don’t want you to do that. I will call people by different names or generic names because I don’t want you to find me. I didn’t enclose a return address for the same reason. I mean nothing bad by this. Honest. I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist. I think you of all people would understand that because I think you of all people are alive and appreciate what that means. At least I hope you do because other people look to you for strength and friendship and it’s that simple. At least that’s what I’ve heard. So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be. I try to think of my family as a reason for me being this way, especially after my friend Michael stopped going to school one day last spring and we heard Mr. Vaughn’s voice on the loudspeaker. “Boys and girls, I regret to inform you that one of our students has passed on. We will hold a memorial service for Michael Dobson during assembly this Friday.” I don’t know how news travels around school and why it is very often right. Maybe it was in the lunchroom. It’s hard to remember. But Dave with the awkward glasses told us that Michael killed himself. His mom played bridge with one of Michael’s neighbors and they heard the gunshot. I don’t really remember much of what happened after that

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

at precisely four A.M. on Friday, June 28, the Republican Party, by acclamation, chose as its candidate the bigot who had denounced Jews over the airwaves to a national audience as “other peoples” employing their enormous “influence . . . to lead our country to destruction,” rather than truthfully acknowledging us to be a small minority of citizens vastly outnumbered by our Christian countrymen, by and large obstructed by religious prejudice from attaining public power, and surely no less loyal to the principles of American democracy than an admirer of Adolf Hitler.

By eleven-thirty, Sadie was in her pajamas, teeth brushed and flossed, ready to go to bed. She wondered if this was what other twenty-three-year-olds' Friday nights were like. When she was forty, would she lament that she hadn't had sex with more people and partied more? But then, she didn't enjoy many people, and she had never gone to a party that she wasn't eager to leave. She hated being drunk, though she did enjoy smoking a joint every now and then. She liked playing games, seeing a foreign movie, a good meal. She liked going to bed early and waking up early. She liked working.

Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left! Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I left. I left. I left-left-left that wack school and that even more wack ROTC drill team because it was Friday, which to me, and basically every other person on Earth, meant it was time to party. Okay, maybe not everybody on Earth. I’m sure there was a monk somewhere on a mountain who might’ve been thinking of something else. But I wasn’t no monk. Thank God. So for me and my friends, Friday was just another word for party. Monday, Tuesday, Hump Day (because who can resist the word “hump”?), Thursday, and Party.

There's this party tomorrow night. The client with all the ex-husbands is throwing it, and I've got to go. I know it's last minute, and that Fridays are really busy for you. I'm also sure it's going to be boring. Anyway, if you can't go, I completely understand. But if you don't come with me, I'll be forced to meet rich, eligible bachelors who may or may not have all their original teeth and hair." I bit my nail as I waited for his answer, trying to prepare myself for the possibility he couldn't go. "You're not really giving me much of a choice," Jake said. "Not when I know you've got a weakness for bald men with dentures.

It was not until dinner was nearly over that the Viscount noticed that he was being waited on by his valet. Since the party consisted of Lord Wrotham, the Honorable Ferdy Fakenham and Mr. Ringwood, he had no hesitation in demanding the reason for this departure from the normal, freely hazarding the guess that Groombridge was lying incapable on the pantry floor. Bootle, who disapproved of such unceremonious behavior, returned a noncommittal answer; but Jason, who was waiting to deliver the next course into his hands, put his head into the room and announced that both Groombridges having piked on the bean the Missus was cooking the dinner, and in bang-up style.

YOU’RE NO ANGEL, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it’s been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you’re fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main, and the coed circle of bums gathered there spot you a beer, then a jug of tequila starts to rotate and the rain keeps comin’ down with a miserable bluesy beat and there’s two girls millin’ about that probably can be had but they seem to like certain things and crank is one of those certain things, and a fistful of party straws tumble from a woven handbag somebody brung, the crank gets cut into lines, and the next time you notice the time it’s three or four Sunday mornin’ and you ain’t slept since Thursday night and one of the girl voices, the one you want most and ain’t had yet though her teeth are the size of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they’d taste sort of sour, suggests something to do, ’cause with crank you want something, anything, to do, and this cajoling voice suggests we all rob this certain house on this certain street in that rich area where folks can afford to wallow in their vices and likely have a bunch of recreational dope stashed around the mansion and goin’ to waste since an article in The Scroll said the rich people whisked off to France or some such on a noteworthy vacation. That’s how it happens. Can’t none of this be new to you.

But I dealt with it. I handled it the same way I handled every wave of dread. I stayed at work until midnight on Friday and went in at seven a.m. on Sunday. I went to work on Christmas and on New Year’s Day. I sometimes worked with tears running down my cheeks, blurring the computer screen. I downed Diet Coke after Diet Coke and ran down to the Korean deli for kimbap and ate two rolls over the course of a day, and then I worked some more. I checked my email and cut my tape or logged my music, and then I texted everyone I knew asking where the next party was. I told myself that everything was fine, that my life was incredible and I wasn’t sad and I’d just send more emails and swig whiskey in order to fall asleep at two a.m. every night, empty bottles lining the foot of my bed.

By eleven-thirty, Sadie was in her pajamas, teeth brushed and flossed, ready to go to bed. She wondered if this was what other twenty-three-year-olds' Friday nights were like. When she was forty, would she lament that she hadn't had sex with more people and partied more? But then, she didn't enjoy many people, and she had never gone to a party that she wasn't eager to leave. She hated being drunk, though she did enjoy smoking a joint every now and then. She liked playing games, seeing a foreign movie, a good meal. She liked going to bed early and waking up early. She liked working. She liked that she was good at her work, and she felt proud of the fact that she was well paid for it. She felt pleasure in ordinary things—a perfectly efficient section of code, a closet where every item was in its place. She liked solitude and the thoughts of her own interesting and creative mind.

But without Emily, Greg would feel—paradoxically for such a social creature—alone. Before they met, most of Greg’s girlfriends were extroverts. He says he enjoyed those relationships, but never got to know his girlfriends well, because they were always “plotting how to be with groups of people.” He speaks of Emily with a kind of awe, as if she has access to a deeper state of being. He also describes her as “the anchor” around which his world revolves. Emily, for her part, treasures Greg’s ebullient nature; he makes her feel happy and alive. She has always been attracted to extroverts, who she says “do all the work of making conversation. For them, it’s not work at all.” The trouble is that for most of the five years they’ve been together, Greg and Emily have been having one version or another of the same fight. Greg, a music promoter with a large circle of friends, wants to host dinner parties every Friday—casual, animated get-togethers with heaping bowls of pasta and flowing bottles of wine. He’s been giving Friday-night dinners since he was a senior in college, and they’ve become a highlight of his week and a treasured piece of his identity. Emily has come to dread these weekly events. A hardworking staff attorney for an art museum and a very private person, the last thing she wants to do when she gets home from work is entertain. Her idea of a perfect start to the weekend is a quiet evening at the movies, just her and Greg. It seems an irreconcilable difference: Greg wants fifty-two dinner parties a year, Emily wants zero. Greg says that Emily should make more of an effort. He accuses her of being antisocial. “I am social,” she says. “I love you, I love my family, I love my close friends. I just don’t love dinner parties. People don’t really relate at those parties—they just socialize. You’re lucky because I devote all my energy to you. You spread yours around to everyone.” But Emily soon backs off, partly because she hates fighting, but also because she doubts herself. Maybe I am antisocial, she

I love the way David put it in Psalm 23, verse 5: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (NKJV). God will not only avenge you and make your wrongs right, but He will also bless you in front of your enemies. He could promote you anywhere, but He’ll promote you in front of those trying to make you look bad. He’ll give you favor, honor, and recognition. One day those who stabbed you in the back will watch you receive the credit you deserve. Knowing that God prepares the table for us in the presence of our enemies keeps me from being discouraged when people talk unfavorably of me. You see, I know God just sent the angels to the grocery store. If somebody lies about you, no big deal. You can see Gabriel setting the table. Your critics can see the meal on God’s table, but they aren’t invited to the party. They’ll have to watch you enjoy what God has prepared for you. They will watch as you are promoted. Be ready. If you’ve done the right thing and overlooked offenses and negative words and blessed your enemies, then know God’s table is set. Your dinner is ready. It’s just a matter of time before you’re seated at the table. Your enemies may try to spoil the party by stealing your joy. They’ll plant doubts, but shake them off. The dinner bell will ring for you at any moment. Those hindering you, trying to bring you down, will see you stepping to a new level. They will see God’s favor and goodness enter your life in a greater way.

Cuba has nine official National Public Holidays January 1st - Liberation Day & New Year’s Liberation Day is also called “Triunfo de la Revolucion.” This day celebrates the removal of dictator Batista from power and the start of Fidel Castro’s power. January 2nd - Victory of the Armed Forces A holiday commemorating its revolution’s history. Good Friday Good Friday became a national holiday following the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. The first Good Friday recognized as a holiday was in 2014, according to Granma, the Official Body Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. May 1st - International Labour Day Called “Dia de los Trabajadores,” Havana-Guide.com noted there are many celebrations this holiday, including “speeches on the ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’ celebrating the work force and the Communist party.” July 25th till 27th - Commemmoration of the Assault to Moncada/National Rebellion Day This three-day long holiday remembers the 1953 capture and exile of Fidel Castro, according to VisitarCuba. This happened near Santiago in the Moncada army barracks. This week is also celebrated with carnivals in Santiago as the saint day of St. James (Santiago). October 19th - Independence Day, “Dia de la Independencia” Independence Day celebrates the early independence of Cuba in 1868, when Carlos Manuel Cespedes freed his slaves and began the War of Independence against Spain, according to Travel Cuba. December 25, 2017 - Christmas, “Natividad” Christmas has only recently been re-established as a holiday due to Pope John Paul’s visit in 1998.

Moscow can be a cold, hard place in winter. But the big old house on Tverskoy Boulevard had always seemed immune to these particular facts, the way that it had seemed immune to many things throughout the years. When breadlines filled the streets during the reign of the czars, the big house had caviar. When the rest of Russia stood shaking in the Siberian winds, that house had fires and gaslight in every room. And when the Second World War was over and places like Leningrad and Berlin were nothing but rubble and crumbling walls, the residents of the big house on Tverskoy Boulevard only had to take up a hammer and drive a single nail—to hang a painting on the landing at the top of the stairs—to mark the end of a long war. The canvas was small, perhaps only eight by ten inches. The brushstrokes were light but meticulous. And the subject, the countryside near Provence, was once a favorite of an artist named Cézanne. No one in the house spoke of how the painting had come to be there. Not a single member of the staff ever asked the man of the house, a high-ranking Soviet official, to talk about the canvas or the war or whatever services he may have performed in battle or beyond to earn such a lavish prize. The house on Tverskoy Boulevard was not one for stories, everybody knew. And besides, the war was over. The Nazis had lost. And to the victors went the spoils. Or, as the case may be, the paintings. Eventually, the wallpaper faded, and soon few people actually remembered the man who had brought the painting home from the newly liberated East Germany. None of the neighbors dared to whisper the letters K-G-B. Of the old Socialists and new socialites who flooded through the open doors for parties, not one ever dared to mention the Russian mob. And still the painting stayed hanging, the music kept playing, and the party itself seemed to last—echoing out onto the street, fading into the frigid air of the night. The party on the first Friday of February was a fund-raiser—though for what cause or foundation, no one really knew. It didn’t matter. The same people were invited. The same chef was preparing the same food. The men stood smoking the same cigars and drinking the same vodka. And, of course, the same painting still hung at the top of the stairs, looking down on the partygoers below. But one of the partygoers was not, actually, the same. When she gave the man at the door a name from the list, her Russian bore a slight accent. When she handed her coat to a maid, no one seemed to notice that it was far too light for someone who had spent too long in Moscow’s winter. She was too short; her black hair framed a face that was in every way too young. The women watched her pass, eyeing the competition. The men hardly noticed her at all as she nibbled and sipped and waited until the hour grew late and the people became tipsy. When that time finally came, not one soul watched as the girl with the soft pale skin climbed the stairs and slipped the small painting from the nail that held it. She walked to the window. And jumped. And neither the house on Tverskoy Boulevard nor any of its occupants ever saw the girl or the painting again.

So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn't make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I'm the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart - perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I'm in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn't that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn't that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man - the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you've made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine. And then you run into Nick Dunne on Seventh Avenue as you're buying diced cantaloupe, and pow, you are known, you are recognised, the both of you. You both find the exact same things worth remembering. (Just one olive, though). You have the same rhythm. Click. You just know each other. All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And it's so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine. That fast. You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life. It's finally arrived.

Sylphid was beginning to play professionally, and she was subbing as second harpist in the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall. She was called pretty regularly, once or twice a week, and she’d also got a job playing at a fancy restaurant in the East Sixties on Friday night. Ira would drive her from the Village up to the restaurant with her harp and then go and pick her and the harp up when she finished. He had the station wagon, and he’d pull up in front of the house and go inside and have to carry it down the stairs. The harp is in its felt cover, and Ira puts one hand on the column and one hand in the sound hole at the back and he lifts it up, lays the harp on a mattress they keep in the station wagon, and drives Sylphid and the harp uptown to the restaurant. At the restaurant he takes the harp out of the car and, big radio star that he is, he carries it inside. At ten-thirty, when the restaurant is finished serving dinner and Sylphid’s ready to come back to the Village, he goes around to pick her up and the whole operation is repeated. Every Friday. He hated the physical imposition that it was—those things weigh about eighty pounds—but he did it. I remember that in the hospital, when he had cracked up, he said to me, ‘She married me to carry her daughter’s harp! That’s why the woman married me! To haul that fucking harp!’ “On those Friday night trips, Ira found he could talk to Sylphid in ways he couldn’t when Eve was around. He’d ask her about being a movie star’s child. He’d say to her, ‘When you were a little girl, when did it dawn on you that something was up, that this wasn’t the way everyone grew up?’ She told him it was when the tour buses went up and down their street in Beverly Hills. She said she never saw her parents’ movies until she was a teenager. Her parents were trying to keep her normal and so they downplayed those movies around the house. Even the rich kid’s life in Beverly Hills with the other movie stars’ kids seemed normal enough until the tour buses stopped in front of her house and she could hear the tour guide saying, ‘This is Carlton Pennington’s house, where he lives with his wife, Eve Frame.’ “She told him about the production that birthday parties were for the movie stars’ kids—clowns, magicians, ponies, puppet shows, and every child attended by a nanny in a white nurse’s uniform. At the dining table, behind every child would be a nanny. The Penningtons had their own screening room and they ran movies. Kids would come over. Fifteen, twenty kids.

Jerry Irwin sat in his dark office, the only light the glow of his computer monitor. He tapped out a quick message: Demo completed successfully, as we are sure you’ve heard. Second display to occur on Friday. Interested parties to submit confidential bids by midnight Friday. Irwin read it over

Jerry Irwin sat in his dark office, the only light the glow of his computer monitor. He tapped out a quick message: Demo completed successfully, as we are sure you’ve heard. Second display to occur on Friday. Interested parties to submit confidential bids by midnight Friday.

scale. This was a welcome departure from what Zuckerberg maligned as the “top-down way” that Google organized the internet, which made the user feel like a casual reader alone in the Library of Congress. Facebook, by contrast, felt like a Friday night house party. The top-down way was also how editors molded news at the New York Times and the Washington Post.

They party all night Friday night, straight through Saturday and Saturday night, and then they sleep enough on Sunday to go to work on Monday. That's what people do when they don't have a direction or passion in their life. And then sooner or later they fuck up, get a chick pregnant, and then they try to grow up and deal with that. That's what the forgotten children of the world do. Your average suburbanite who isn't born rich or supersmart [sic]. A guy who will maybe learn a trade, but he won't like his job. He'll be angry about it. He'll get wasted to block it out, make bad decisions. And with a little bad luck, maybe even go to jail. Or you've been doing OxyContins every weekend, and so someone gives you some heroin, and at that moment it doesn't seem like that bad of an idea, so you stick a needle in your arm. One thing leads to another, and you die. It's that easy.

I heard all these birds singing and singing so loud and so cheerful. Little birds were chirping and chirping. Big birds were making a melody. It was like they were having a big party. I wanted to say to them, “Hey, birds. Have you read the newspapers lately? Did you see the stock market last year? You’re not supposed to be singing, enjoying life. What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like everything will be all right.” What was it with those birds? They know a secret. They know their heavenly Father is in control. They know God has promised to take care of them, so they go through the day singing and enjoying life, regardless of the circumstances. That’s how to start off each day. Get up in the morning and have a song of praise in your heart. Put a smile on your face. Go out into the day and be determined to enjoy it. The apostle Paul wrote: “Be happy [in your faith] and rejoice and be glad-hearted continually (always)” (1 Thessalonians 5:16 AMP). How long are we supposed to be glad-hearted? How long are we supposed to have a smile on our faces? As long as people treat us right? As long as we feel okay? As long as the economy is up? No, the Scripture says, “Be glad-hearted continually (always).” That means in the good times and in the tough times, when it’s sunny and when it’s raining. When dark clouds are over your head and you feel like life is depressing and gloomy, always remember that right above those dark clouds the sun is shining. You may not be able to see the sun in your life right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s not up there. It’s just blocked by the dark clouds. The good news is, the clouds are temporary. The clouds will not last forever. The sun will shine in your life once again. In the meantime, keep your joy. Be glad-hearted continually. Don’t let a few clouds darken your life. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. That means we all face disappointments, unfair situations, tests, trials, and temptation. But know this: Right past the test is promotion. On the other side of every difficulty is increase. If you go through adversity with a smile on your face and a song in your heart, on the other side there will be a reward.

her ledger. All I could see was the top of her graying head. “Can you spot me ten?” “Do you mean I give you ten dollars?” She put a finger on a page and punched numbers into the calculator. “Yes, Mom, ten dollars.” “Ten dollars?” I rolled my eyes. Where’s a translator when you need one? “Yes, ten dollars!” “Baby, don’t yell. I right here. What you need ten dollars for?” “A birthday present,” I said. “A friend invited me to a slumber party Friday.” Mom kept her gaze on her work. “Party? Who this friend?

They reminded me of the cartoon I’d seen where one earthworm says to the other at a party, “Don’t look now but Harry’s been flirting with the wrong end of Sylvia for the last fifteen minutes.

the Communist Party of China (CCP) began its biggest-ever crackdown of its domestic gaming industry. Among several new policies was a prohibition on minors playing video games Monday through Thursday that also limited their play from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights (in other words, it was impossible for a minor to play a video game for more than three hours per week). In addition, companies such as Tencent would use their facial recognition software and a player’s national ID to periodically ensure that these rules were not being skirted by a gamer borrowing an older user’s device.

One family described their core value of hospitality, lived out as they cleaned the house together each Friday for the express purpose of welcoming people over the weekend. They wanted to be able to spontaneously invite others over, knowing their space was ready to receive them. All this was explained to their kids by connecting the dots between the practice of keeping house and the immense welcome of God. They talked about their apartment as a gift and a refuge, and how important it was for it to feel inviting. Hosting people was not about living some Magnolia life; it was how they loved their neighbors. Thus, Friday night cleanup was a faith practice. One family used the tradition of a summer road trip to visit relatives as a means to support being who God uniquely made each of them to be. Each family member got to design the itinerary for one day of the trip. On that day, everyone else went along with that person’s choices for restaurants and an activity. They talked about the wonder of God’s image in each person and how this was a fun way to see each member of the family just as God made them to be. Thus, a family trip was a faith ritual. What about your family? What unique characteristics need to be accounted for as you craft a vision for faith? • Who makes up your family? List the members. You may share a living space with them or not, live in the same town or not, be relationally close or not. • Next to each person on the list, jot down a few distinguishing key traits of that person. What are they like? What are they interested in? • What are some of your family’s strengths and loves as a group? Do you love a good party? Cheer for a certain team? Love a particular place or meal? • What are some of your family’s unique challenges right now? Do you have a child who doesn’t “fit the mold,” for whatever reason? Are finances tight? Have any of the relationships been strained or broken? • List anything else that feels important to you about who your family is and what they are like. What other traits make you, you?

i wouldn't let my heart keep me from being what he needed

Then watching the way he stared at his wife like he adored her had broken my heart.

. The Itinerary Friday 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.: Arrivals 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Cocktail hour/hors d’oeuvres 7:00 p.m.: Dinner on the deck Saturday 8:00 a.m.: Yoga by the pool/continental breakfast 10:00 a.m. to noon: Shopping in town Noon to 5:00 p.m.: Beach, lunch, pool 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Get ready for dinner; cocktails and snacks 7:30 p.m.: Dinner at Nautilus (suggested colors: black and/or white) 10:00 p.m.: Maxxtone at the Chicken Box! Sunday Free morning, continental breakfast Noon: Lunch at Galley Beach (suggested colors: hot pink or orange) 2:00 p.m.: Sail aboard Endeavor 7:00 p.m.: Pizza party 8:30 p.m.: Ice cream truck and fireworks on the beach Monday Departures

They were a mile from Grant’s place at eight-fifteen. The day before, they’d spotted a diner with a strong and reliable Wi-Fi and no protection, with parking on the side and in back, out of sight from the street. Kidd signed on from a laptop and dialed up another laptop, which was hooked into his cell phone, back at the condo. His phone made a call to a friend who, at that moment, was playing a violin in a chamber quartet at the birthday party for a St. Paul surgeon’s wife. Kidd let the call ring through to the answering service, left a message that suggested handball on Friday. “Done,” he said, when he’d hung up. An alibi. Both of their desktop computers would be roaming websites all through the evening, and they’d send out a couple of e-mails.

When Derek Sivers first built his business CDbaby.com, he set up a standard confirmation email to let customers know their order had been shipped. After a few months, Derek felt that this email wasn’t aligned with his mission—to make people smile. So he sat down and wrote a better one. Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed on a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 6th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! —Derek Sivers, Anything You Want The result wasn’t just delighted customers. That one email brought thousands of new customers to CD Baby. The people who got it couldn’t help sharing it with their friends. Try Googling “private CD Baby jet”; you’ll find over 900,000 search results to date. Derek’s email has been cited by business blogs the world over as an example of how to authentically put your words to work for your business.

home only to pine over an ex-girlfriend, so he stopped. He apologized, saying a few more things that Catherine once again just nodded her head to, smiling, and before she knew it, she had plans to go see a movie with Dickie the following Friday. It was a date, the first of many. It went like this for two months: Friday night dates. Rides home from school while other girls looked on in jealousy. Long nights parked up at The Point, the low rumble of his car idling away while they made out with the heat blowing on her legs. Him sliding his hands up her skirt. Under her shirt. Her moaning. Her face flushing red. Her toes curling. The Rolling Stones on the radio. Why did he taste so good? Never sex, though. Even when he begged for it, she would refuse. She knew what their relationship really was. It was great and fun and wild and exciting, but she knew it wouldn’t last; he was off to college soon, and she remembered how he felt about being tethered to something familiar. That conversation never left her mind for the duration of their relationship, always reminding her to be ready to lose him. At the time, she was still a virgin, and as much as she loved Dickie she did not wish to give herself fully to someone who would more than likely forget about her within months, if not weeks, of leaving. Catherine was young, but never stupid or naive. She knew how the world worked… even Dickie’s world. What she felt and experienced with him may have been real by her definition, but she understood that that did not make the relationship everlasting or meant-to-be. Their time together had been great and fun and had changed her in ways she would never be able to put into words. She would forever cherish their moments together. Or at least, that’s what she’d thought at the time, before these cherished memories soured. Everything changed the night of the dance. The night he changed. The night she changed, too. It was Dickie’s senior prom. He invited her to go and she happily accepted. She even bought a new dress with the money she’d saved working shifts down at Woolworth’s. The dance was fine and good. They had a blast. They’d even kissed in the middle of the gymnasium during the last slow dance. It had been so romantic. But afterward was a different sort of time. Dickie and some of his friends rented a few rooms at the Heartsridge Motel for a place to hang out after the dance. But it was more than just a place to hang out. It was a place to party, a place to drink alcohol purchased illegally, a place for some of the looser girls to sleep with their dates. She had been to parties with Dickie before, parties with drinking and drugs and where there were rooms dedicated to fooling around. She wasn’t a square. But this was different. This place made her skin crawl. There was a raw energy in the air. She remembered feeling it on her skin. And the fact that it was a motel made the whole scene seem depraved. It just felt off, and she wanted to beg him to go somewhere else. But instead she held her tongue and went along with Dickie. He was leaving soon, after all. Why not appease him? He seemed excited about going. A few of them—all friends of Dickie’s—ended up together in one room, drinking Schnapps, smoking cigarettes, having

He was surprised at how many people put absolutely every piece of information about their lives on their pages. Phone numbers, addresses, where they partied every Friday night, who they had sex with and the when and where of it.

You know what the worst customer service in the world is? I’ll tell you. It’s the weed guys. You just cannot depend on these people. They’ll give you a time, right? And you’re looking forward to it all week and get off work on Friday at five. Of course I personally wouldn’t know, but I’ve heard of people with jobs. And the weed guy never shows up, and he doesn’t answer his phone, and you drive by his house and his car’s gone, and then you’re totally un-stoned at midnight and accidentally bump into the guy at a party and go, ‘Dude, what’s the deal? We had a time,’ and he says, ‘I was doin’ stuff,’ and I say, ‘Like what?’ and he says, ‘Listenin’ to music’ . . .” “Coleman—

I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.1 —Saul Alinsky

Right inside the front door in what must be the living room, who should be standing at a circular saw cutting planks but George Davenport. She let out a breath. Well, avoiding him wasn’t going to work. She’d tried to give him a wide berth at the wedding party on Friday night, but he’d singled her out, complimented her, made small talk and even kissed the back of her hand! There seemed to be only two options to deal with the man. Face him head-on or leave town. And there he stood, his white hair, which was not terribly thick, askew and spiking, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, covered with sawdust. His face was tan—but hadn’t he said he’d come from Seattle? Cloudy, dreary Seattle? Despite herself, she noticed his shoulders were broad, his butt was solid and his legs were long. What was a man his age doing with broad shoulders and a solid butt? She wondered what he’d look like without a shirt and was immediately appalled that she would even think that! The

Jesus doesn’t approve of my hedonistic lifestyle. We’re incompatible. You may look at me and see a well-dressed nerd. But behind the tweed jacket and bowtie and Harry Potter glasses is a man full of ugly vices,” Ross confessed. “That makes you a perfect candidate to be friends with Jesus. When he walked on earth he often hung out with rich men and prostitutes, as well as misfits, outcasts, lepers and the destitute. And he tended to shy away from people who thought they were faultless.” “You make Jesus sound like a party animal,” Ross said. Rafter grinned. “He sort of was. He caused a stir wherever he went. Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding feast when he turned water into wine. And then he really shook things up when he caused the sun to stop shining and the earth to quake on the first Good Friday.

2   Bethesda, Maryland   Jerry Irwin sat in his dark office, the only light the glow of his computer monitor. He tapped out a quick message:  Demo completed successfully, as we are sure you’ve heard. Second display to occur on Friday. Interested parties to submit confidential bids by midnight Friday. Irwin read it over twice to make sure it struck the right tone: succinct and confident, but not brash or boastful. Satisfied, he ran the concealment program and sent it out to a select list. He powered off the computer and rose from his ergonomic desk chair, whistling tunelessly. It wouldn’t be

Brandon’s birthday party is on Friday, January 31, and I can hardly wait!

She threw back her head and laughed, and Char laughed, too, as he placed his hand on her lower back. I felt the warmth and weight of his hand as strongly as if I were the one in the booth right now, not Pippa. How many times had Char touched me in exactly that same way? And it always made me relax, because it was the most certain reassurance you will be coming home with me tonight. Pippa would be going home with Char tonight. I could see it as clearly as either of them up there could. Maybe even more so, because I knew how to read a crowd. And I could read them both perfectly. I felt my stomach flip, but it wasn’t because of Char. Not really. It was because I could pinpoint exactly how I had lost him. I knew because it was the same way I lost everyone. Pete had offered me my own Friday night party, and I had accepted. I had been too precocious. Again. Again and again and again. I had always thought that if I just did something extraordinary enough, then people would like me. But that wasn’t true. You will drive away everyone by being extraordinary. You will drive away your classmates and your friends, and tonight you will drive away Char. But you, you never learn your lesson. The world embraces ordinary. The world will never embrace you. Of course Char wanted Pippa. It was so clear to me now: why he ended things with me, why he would keep Pippa around and around, no matter how much he didn’t care about her. He wanted a girl he could mold just the way he wanted. And me? No one can mold me. I know because I’ve tried. So I turned and ran. I left them all behind, and I ran the whole way home.

No dinner parties. Unless you count me fighting off Fafhrd and Gray if I make a tuna sandwich, and then it´s less dinner party and more Battle of Helm´s Deep.

Fourth, I paid attention to every detail I could while working on my cases. I found that one of the most ironic facets of the law is that the correct answer to a problem often rests on small legal nuances and factual details. The presence or absence of a particular fact can frequently make or break the case. The senior attorney I worked for, Brad, was extremely adept at assimilating large amounts of information quickly, paying close attention to details, and using his mastery of them to weave brilliant defenses. His ability to identify the most critical of details while constructing solid defenses always impressed me, and I tried to emulate that particular skill. Fifth, I was conscientious about creating good first impressions. As I later learned, lawyers who work with new summer and permanent associates virtually always form quick conclusions about them, and give “hallway evaluations” to other lawyers in the firm. I often heard about or participated in these hallway evaluations, and know that even one negative impression can have a devastating impact. In general, young attorneys who get a reputation for sloppy work – earned or unearned – have a very steep climb up the law firm ladder. Sixth, I was vigilant about meeting deadlines, every time. This meant I had to carefully plan ahead, since partners, colleagues, clients, courts, and other parties often rely on assignments and legal services to be performed by a certain time. With the workload I had, and the interruptions I faced, of course this wasn’t always possible, and in those situations I found the best route wasn’t just to tough it out, but rather let the supervising attorney know as early as possible if I couldn’t meet a deadline. I learned this lesson the hard way. My first assignment as a summer associate was to research whether we could squeeze one of our clients into an exception to a well-settled legal doctrine. The senior attorney who gave me the assignment asked me to research the issue and then get back to him by Friday afternoon. I just didn’t feel comfortable with my research when Friday afternoon came around, and decided to buy some additional time by letting him contact me. He didn’t try to reach me Friday afternoon, so I took advantage of that and submitted the assignment on Monday. The incident later came back to haunt me, though, because in his evaluation of my work for my midsummer review, he mentioned that I didn’t report to him by the established deadline.

She and her late husband, Leander Cross, a prominent surgeon of the darker nation, were, in my childhood, perhaps the leading host of the Gold Coast party circuit, a circuit my parents traveled often, because it was, in those days, what one did: glittering dinner at one house on the Friday, champagne brunch at another on the Sunday, caterers, cooks, even temporary butlers at the ready as the best of black Washington charged about in mad imitation of white people's foolishness.

Then came that Friday, when WikiLeaks dumped twenty thousand Democratic Party emails in a move deliberately timed to disrupt our convention. The WikiLeaks emails—written by a wide range of DNC staff from the top leadership all the way down to the lowest employees—were carefully chosen to reveal senior members of the DNC staff speaking disrespectfully of Bernie and his supporters;

I know that many people including our President insist that it be called the Christmas Season. I’ll be the first in line to say that it works for me however that’s not what it is. We hint at its coming on Halloween when the little tykes take over wandering the neighborhood begging for candy and coins. In this day and age the idea of children wandering the streets threatening people with “Trick or Treat!” just isn’t a good idea. In most cases parents go with them encouraging their offspring’s to politely ask “Anything for Halloween.” An added layer of security occurs when the children are herded into one room to party with friends. It’s all good, safe fun and usually there is enough candy for all of their teeth to rot before they have a chance to grow new ones. Forgotten is the concept that it is a three day observance of those that have passed before us and are considered saints or martyrs. Next we celebrate Thanksgiving, a national holiday (holly day) formally observed in Canada, Liberia, Germany Japan, some countries in the Caribbean and the United States. Most of these countries observe days other than the fourth Thursday of November and think of it as a secular way of celebrating the harvest and abundance of food. Without a hiccup we slide into Black Friday raiding stores for the loot being sold at discounted prices. The same holds true for Cyber Monday when we burn up the internet looking for bargains that will arrive at our doorsteps, brought by the jolly delivery men and women, of FedEx, UPS and USPS. Of course the big days are Chanukah when the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire, regained control of Jerusalem. It is a time to gather the family and talk of history and tell stories. Christmas Eve is a time when my family goes to church, mostly to sing carols and distribute gifts, although this usually continued on Christmas day. This is when the term “Merry Christmas” is justified and correct although it is thought that the actual birthday of Christ is in October. The English squeezed another day out of the season, called Boxing Day, which is when the servants got some scraps from the dinner the day before and received a small gift or a dash of money. I do agree that “Xmas” is inappropriate but that’s just me and I don’t go crazy over it. After all, Christmas is for everyone. On the evening of the last day of the year we celebrate New Year’s Evening followed by New Year’s Day which many people sleep through after New Year’s Eve. The last and final day of the Holiday Season is January 6th which Is Epiphany or Three Kings Day. In Tarpon Springs, the Greek Orthodox Priest starts the celebration with the sanctification of the waters followed by the immersion of the cross. It becomes a scramble when local teenage boys dive for the cross thrown into the Spring Bayou as a remembrance of the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River. This tradition is now over a century old and was first celebrated by the Episcopal Church by early settlers in 1903.

MAKING THE CALL Suppose you had a successful social encounter at a party. Last night went fine. But now you sit by the phone, the person’s phone number in hand, afraid to make that call you know you want to make. Maybe the person doesn’t really want you to call. (Then why did she give you her phone number?) Maybe she’s changed her mind. (There’s only one way to find out!) If you have a problem following up, you need to internalize this self-coaching advice: Dread, then do. If you feel anxious, use relaxation techniques to ready yourself to make the call. Then make it. No matter what, you will feel relieved and even proud of yourself once you’ve done it. Appropriate follow-up is crucial; otherwise, all the groundwork you’ve laid in your initial conversation will go to waste. When you call someone on the phone, remember all the skills you’ve practiced so far. And be sure to call when you say you are going to call. Imagine how you’d feel if someone whose company you’d enjoyed promised to call you on Tuesday and the call didn’t come until Friday, if at all. And finally, remember to ask about things the person told you in previous conversation. This is your chance to broaden your new friendship, so make plans and follow through on them soon. (Remember: friendship first. It’s okay, especially at this stage, for a woman to initiate a social engagement with a man, whether it leads to romance or not). If you would like to follow up with someone in your company or outside it who could become a valuable part of your career network, the procedure is much the same. Stay in touch in whatever ways are appropriate for your workplace. A clipping of a work-related article with a simple note—“Bill: Thought this would interest you,” and your name—lets the person know you appreciated his knowledge and insight. If you like, you could follow up on an outside contact with a brief note saying you enjoyed meeting the person, and then call later, perhaps with an invitation for a business lunch or a lecture. Developing contacts inside your workplace and beyond could help you build job opportunities. And feeling connected to the business community in which you work can be fulfilling too. People may soon want to begin networking with you!

Our people have been tested while you have become soft and flabby. Even if this coronavirus takes root here in America, let’s be realistic. Sacrifice never comes to American shores. In a global pandemic, you will continue to enjoy life in restaurants and taverns and crowd the beaches while swapping breaths filled with bat fluids. Could you have taken high casualties as we did during World War II, our cities surrounded by enemy troops during a cold winter at Leningrad, where we stood fast for over eight hundred days? No, for you Americans, nothing should interfere with your right to party. To observe one of your sacred Capitalist holidays like Black Friday, a perfect image for your society, where, if you are not fast or greedy enough, you get trampled. You Americans don’t know hardship. You’ve become bloated. The airlines have had to create bigger seats to accommodate your fat asses, yet you’re always telling pollsters the country is moving in the wrong direction. Slothful. Pampered. Life has never been a spring break for us Russians. Life was not a social for Marina, yet she produced four-to-six liners that were like little jewels. Her Palm Sunday poem, “1920” for example.’ Reciting the poem, he closed his eyes like Andrei Voznesensky when reciting a poem. He had Voznesensky’s tight, intense face.

​Mom turned to Bailey. “So I hear you want to go to a party this Friday?” ​I looked up. “I thought you said you had a date? Aren't you going out with that boy this Friday?” ​Oh, if looks could kill. I guess I missed the memo about sisters keeping secrets.

The car pulls into busy Brighton. Its Friday night and 11pm is considered early. We see people enjoying life, on the way from their prinks to a club or even the one or other couple snogging in a dark corner between the houses. Life goes on. It is as almost nothing has changed although for us everything has changed.

She was holding on to him, as if she could keep him here that way.

How was rehab?” “Like a party, except no one wants to be there.” “Sounds like a typical Friday for me.” Declan’s lips twitch. Iris’s eyes roll.