Rant To Me Quotes

He scooped me up and suddenly I was pressed against his chest. “Were you worried about me?” "No, I’m ranting for fun, because I’m a disagreeable bitch!

I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?... 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile? I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.

Mylife might be little and boring, but at least it’s mine - not some assembly-line, secondhand, hand-me-down life.

Where you worried about me?" "No, I'm ranting for fun, because I'm a disagreeable bitch!" He smiled. "You're a moron!" I told him. He just looked at me. Happy golden lights danced in his eyes. I'd learned exactly what those sparks meant. Fury fled, replaced by alarm. "Kiss me and I'll kill you," I warned. "It might be worth it," he said softly.

Rant said that view of time was set up so folks won't live forever. It's the planned obsolescence we've all agreed to...'Nothing says you have to swallow this,' Rant told me. 'You can always just die.

Matthew once said to me, after one of my more finely worded rants about stupid people who have the wrong opinions, "Nadia, the thing that sucks is that every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of it." Damn.

I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.

Up until now he’d been ranting about people meddling in his life, yet here he was attacking me with the same kinds of reproaches that were making him suffer. His argument was falling apart I thought. Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attacked other people in the same way.

Why do you rant and brag with such a spate of words, as if you wanted to overwhelm me with a sort of tempest and deluge of oratory-which nevertheless falls with the greater force on your own head, while my ark rides aloft in safety?

You'll meet a lot of stupid guys. You'll probably get your heart broken more than once. You might reach a point where life seems worthless without him. Maybe you've already hit that point. I can't tell you to to stop crying, because sometimes, crying helps. I can't ask you to smile, because sometimes, it's all you can do to just breathe. I can't make you happy, because that's something you have to do yourself. But I can promise you one thing. I will be there for you. I will listen if you need to rant. I will hug you if you're feeling alone. I will drive you away if you need to escape. I will buy you coffee, goddammit, if you need some. I will be there for you, because you've always been there for me.

And Jazz snapped. He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person. Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze. In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father). "Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am.

What are you, my fucking critic or my friend?” “Both most of the time,” he joked. “Well right now I just want a friend. Stop pointing out my flaws and just agree with me while I rant about the situation.

I’m used to the person I’m dating, or sleeping with, or whatever it is, telling me all the things I ought to know instead of getting to know me. It’s how men, or boys, or both, communicate. They quote and they riff and they rant and they explain and they explain and they explain.

There's a part of me that knows that I'll never die. There's a part of me that knows better.

Ahhh-ahh! I'm so sorry! You were right! I am not the box of tomatoes fairies at all! It was all lies, lies, LIES! Please don't shoot me! I'm too young to die, and what if I don't die and but am just mortally wounded and forced to lie there in misery in a pool of my own blood?! Please, I'll do anything--well, I mean within reason-- I don't want to diiiiiiie!" -Italy's "I don't want to die" rant part one

Here's one night when I control the chaos. I participate with the doom I can't control. I'm dancing with the inevitable, and I survive....My regular little dress rehearsal...the day I finally meet Death, the two of us will be old, long-lost friends. Me and Death, separated at birth.

This connection had the potential to be too special to ruin it with the hurt of misfired romantic intentions. And while half of me wanted to tear his shirt off with my teeth, I also wanted him to be in my life for the duration. I didn't want him to be the one I avoided because he'd hurt me. If I was just his friend, then I would still be blessed. If it meant swallowing my pride and being his shoulder when he got hurt, or being the one he ranted at when he was angry, I was prepared to do it with dignity.

I didn't want him to be the one I avoided because he'd hurt me. If I was just his friend, then I would still be blessed. If that meant swallowing my pride and being his shoulder when he got hurt, or being the one he ranted at when he was angry; I was prepared to do it and to do it with dignity.

But after a couple of weeks of listing things I was grateful for, I came to see that the little things were everything. The little things were what I held on to at the end of the day. Single jokes that gave me the giggles. A beautiful flower arrangement, viewed through the window of a café. The fact that my cat came to cuddle me when she saw I was sad. These things gave me hope, pleasure, solace. Together, they added up to a fulfilling life. If a simple flower arrangement could make this world just a little more bearable, then perhaps my own small actions meant more than I was giving them credit for. Maybe when I made dinner, or listened to a friend rant, or complimented a woman on her incredible garden, I was helping make this world survivable for others. Perhaps that evening, when tallying up their own wins and losses for the day, someone would think of something I’d done and smile.

It wouldn't be polite for me to interrupt," Notum said. "Please continue your insane rant.

You all know I’m queer, but I still have to play the cool hijabi[…] The not too religious hijabi, the hijabi who can rock it with the alternative crowd, who won’t judge you, who will be accepting and tolerant, the Good Muslim. I’m in full on silent rant mode now. Unlike those Bad Muslims, the religious ones, the ones who are inconvenient in their practice, the ones you have to pause for as they break their fasts, the ones who have to step out to pray. The marginalized ones you would fight for, organize for, protest for, but would never be friends with, who you would studiously avoid at a brunch. I’m the cool hijabi only because you’re projecting your xenophobic narrow-mindedness, your lack of imagination of Muslims into me. You’re still projecting them. Your prejudices are still in the room.

POCKET-SIZED FEMINISM The only other girl at the party is ranting about feminism. The audience: a sea of rape jokes and snapbacks and styrofoam cups and me. They gawk at her mouth like it is a drain clogged with too many opinions. I shoot her an empathetic glance and say nothing. This house is for wallpaper women. What good is wallpaper that speaks? I want to stand up, but if I do, whose coffee table silence will these boys rest their feet on? I want to stand up, but if I do, what if someone takes my spot? I want to stand up, but if I do, what if everyone notices I’ve been sitting this whole time? I am guilty of keeping my feminism in my pocket until it is convenient not to, like at poetry slams or my women’s studies class. There are days I want people to like me more than I want to change the world. There are days I forget we had to invent nail polish to change color in drugged drinks and apps to virtually walk us home at night and mace disguised as lipstick. Once, I told a boy I was powerful and he told me to mind my own business. Once, a boy accused me of practicing misandry. You think you can take over the world? And I said No, I just want to see it. I just need to know it is there for someone. Once, my dad informed me sexism is dead and reminded me to always carry pepper spray in the same breath. We accept this state of constant fear as just another part of being a girl. We text each other when we get home safe and it does not occur to us that our guy friends do not have to do the same. You could saw a woman in half and it would be called a magic trick. That’s why you invited us here, isn’t it? Because there is no show without a beautiful assistant? We are surrounded by boys who hang up our naked posters and fantasize about choking us and watch movies we get murdered in. We are the daughters of men who warned us about the news and the missing girls on the milk carton and the sharp edge of the world. They begged us to be careful. To be safe. Then told our brothers to go out and play.

Despite my lifetime of declining rich desserts, my evenings spent jogging, regardless of all my careful moderation and self-discipline—I’m trapped, wadded inside a shell of steel and aluminum. My body, violated in countless places by fragments of broken glass. My low-cholesterol blood rushes to abandon me in hot, leaping spurts. Despite all my care, the heart-attack victim and I will both be just as dead.

I can see that you go through life athwart it. You see the flow of events, you are able to tell how you could most easily fit yourself into it. But you dare to oppose it. And why? Simply because you look at it and say, 'this fate does not suit me. I will not allow it to befall me.'" Amber shook her head, but her small smile made it an affirmation. "I have always admired people who can do that. So few do. Many, of course, will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and on it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You... you would rather go naked into the storm.

A lot of women are ashamed of their pussies. They think it's not pretty enough. Not the right color. Or the lips are too big or two small. Let me put your fears to rest: There is no such thing as an ugly pussy.

I assume that, as usual, he is asking this question rhetorically, so I say nothing so he'll go on ranting, because as painful as it is for me to admit, there is something kind of wonderful about Tiny's ranting, particularly on a quiet street when I am still half asleep.

It's the Yelp effect. Every halfwit who eats food suddenly thinks he's a food critic. And don't get me started on people “reviewing” books they didn't even read. Who needs information, when you can have an uninformed opinion?

He's such a jerk," I said, wanting to rant. "If I'm going to go gaga for some guy, it'll be because I want to, not because some asshat is helping me along." God how lame was that? Just shut up, Ari. Before you embarrass yourself even more. "Well, just for the record...forcing a girl to go all gaga for me isn't my style." He paused, his tone doing nothing to hide his amusement. "I like the gaga to be natural." I rolled my eyes and took off at a jog before he could see that my face had gone straight past hot to volcanic.

Claiming to be offended is a great way to elevate yourself at the expense of others: “Look at me! I'm a much better person than you! And I judge you! I condemn you! Shame! Shame! SHAME! I shame you for being a bad person. That means I'm a good person! Look at how really really offended I am! That means I'm a really really good person!” According to the bible, Jesus said "let he who is without sin throw the first rock." But a lot of people seem to think he said: "If you throw rocks at someone else, it proves that you're without sin.

Ruben responds with a thumbs-up, which I know is just to annoy me. I’ve ranted to him before about how I think they’re passive-aggressive.

Claiming to be offended is a great way to elevate yourself at the expense of others: “Look at me! I'm a much better person than you! And I judge you! I condemn you! Shame! Shame! SHAME!

Know that...there's plenty of food and of course popcorn on the dining-room table. Just...help yourself. If that runs out just let me know. Don't panic. And there's coffee, both caff and decaf, and soft drinks and juice in the kitchen, and plenty of ice in the freezer so...let me know if you have any questions with that.' And lastly, since I have you all here in one place, I have something to share with you. Along the garden ways just now...I too heard the flowers speak. They told me that our family garden has all but turned to sand. I want you to know I've watered and nurtured this square of earth for nearly twenty years, and waited on my knees each spring for these gentle bulbs to rise, reborn. But want does not bring such breath to life. Only love does. The plain, old-fashioned kind. In our family garden my husband is of the genus Narcissus , which includes daffodils and jonquils and a host of other ornamental flowers. There is, in such a genus of man, a pervasive and well-known pattern of grandiosity and egocentrism that feeds off this very kind of evening, this type of glitzy generosity. People of this ilk are very exciting to be around. I have never met anyone with as many friends as my husband. He made two last night at Carvel. I'm not kidding. Where are you two? Hi. Hi, again. Welcome. My husband is a good man, isn't he? He is. But in keeping with his genus, he is also absurdly preoccupied with his own importance, and in staying loyal to this, he can be boastful and unkind and condescending and has an insatiable hunger to be seen as infallible. Underlying all of the constant campaigning needed to uphold this position is a profound vulnerability that lies at the very core of his psyche. Such is the narcissist who must mask his fears of inadequacy by ensuring that he is perceived to be a unique and brilliant stone. In his offspring he finds the grave limits he cannot admit in himself. And he will stop at nothing to make certain that his child continually tries to correct these flaws. In actuality, the child may be exceedingly intelligent, but has so fully developed feelings of ineptitude that he is incapable of believing in his own possibilities. The child's innate sense of self is in great jeopardy when this level of false labeling is accepted. In the end the narcissist must compensate for this core vulnerability he carries and as a result an overestimation of his own importance arises. So it feeds itself, cyclically. And, when in the course of life they realize that their views are not shared or thier expectations are not met, the most common reaction is to become enraged. The rage covers the fear associated with the vulnerable self, but it is nearly impossible for others to see this, and as a result, the very recognition they so crave is most often out of reach. It's been eighteen years that I've lived in service to this mindset. And it's been devastating for me to realize that my efforts to rise to these standards and demands and preposterous requests for perfection have ultimately done nothing but disappoint my husband. Put a person like this with four developing children and you're gonna need more than love poems and ice sculpture to stay afloat. Trust me. So. So, we're done here.

The mind will say this forever. But I mostly fish rivers these dayas. In so doing, movement becomes stasis, flux is the constant, and everything flows around, through, and beyond me, escaping ungrasped, unnamed, and unscathed. The river's clean escape does not prevent belief in its reality. On the contrary, there is nothing I love more than the feel of a wholeness sliding toward, around, and past me while I stand like an idiot savant in its midst, focusing on tiny, idiot-savantic bits of what is so beautiful to me, and so close, yet so wondrously ungraspable.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of strange little girls screaming through their fingers. My patient sisters, always waiting for me. I scroll through our confessions and rants and prayers, desperation eating us one slow bloody bite at a time.

I knew it was coming. I knew they didn't have the nerve. Three days in and they've got faces like vexed tomatoes, their skins flaking sci-fi style: burnt to fuck. They were an embarrassment; not only to me and the wife and The Fall fans but to their own generation.

He kissed me like I was the empire he was sworn to protect and would die a thousand deaths to keep secure. He kissed me like I was a woman with a deep dark wildness that needed to be fed and he knew just how to do it. He kissed me like he was dying and this was the last kiss he would ever taste. Then his kiss changed and his tongue was velvet and silk as he kissed me like I was fine bone china that needed exacting care and gentleness. Then the storm built in both of us and I ground myself against him, and he was searching with his kiss and his hands sliding down to my ass for the part of me that was a savage animal and so was he and we were going to forget the world and “become two primal, uncomplicated beasts fucking as if the universe depended on our passion to fuel it. And I was pretty sure we could. I felt something building in me, a hunger that was exhilarated to be alive and knew it could come out and play as hard as it wanted, because I could never break this man. Not even with all my superpowers. I could dump every bit of myself on him and never have to worry about giving him a heart attack or breaking a bone or giving him a black eye by accident. He could handle anything. My high temper, my need for adventure and stimulation, my intellect, rages, and rants, my sheer physical strength, even the darkness of my shadow-self. He was a broad-shouldered beast. He was hard and capable and permanent and had an immortal heart. A frenzy of lust exploded inside me and I met the savagery of his kiss with all the savagery in my soul, and there is one fuck of a lot of it.

Oh my god" Meg ranted. "Her water just broke!" Margaret" Eve said, "get a grip - and a towel. I'll be there in five minutes." (After her sister is off to the hospital and Meg comes close to hyperventalating) Shouldn't we have called an ambulance or something?" Meg fretted. Oh for heavens sakes," Eve replied. "You don't need an ambulance!" Not for me, Mother for Sierra.

What do you have to say for yourself, boy?" Cgerise "Sorry, Ma, I'm a sexy demon magnet?" Nick "Cherise!" Bubba "Don't you even take that tone with me, Mr. Triple-Threat-I-don't-have-to-listen-to-anyone-because-I'm-the-size-of-a-tabk. You're in the doghouse, buster. You might as well pack a bag 'cause you're going to be in there so long your name's going to be engraved on the mailbox." Cherise "Ah, what'd I do, cher?" Bubba "You dragged my baby into danger, and you-- Are you one of them?" Cherise "I'm going with whatever answer doesn't get me swatted with that bat." Savitar "Cherise, calm down. What are you doing here?" Bubba "What do you think? I'm protecting my boys. Both of you ... Because Mark values his own life and inparticular his male body parts, he called me after he got off the phone with you to tell me what the two of you were doing. You didn't honestly believe that I've been ignorant of what you and Mark do at night all these years? Did you?" Cherise "Um, yeah." Bubba "Well then you're a fool,Michael Burdette. And I'm not." Cherise

Colton’s not finished though. He takes a step toward me, pointing his finger at his chest. “But I’m alive, Rylee, and he’s not!” His words rip into me. A tear slides down my cheek, and I turn my back to him, hiding from his words, thinking if I can’t see the plea and hurt in his eyes, I won’t have to accept the truth in his statement. “I’m the one here in front of you—flesh and blood and needing—so either you accept that it’s you that I want. No one else,” he rants, his voice echoing off of the concrete surrounding us and coming back to me twice as if to reinforce his words. “You need to accept me for who I am, faults and all...” his voice breaks “...or you need to get the fuck out of my life…because right now—right now—this is all that I can give you! All I can offer.

I enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; I did not feel the treachery or inconstancy of a friend, nor the injuries of a secret or open enemy.  I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.

Welcome to Final Forum. Use this board to communicate with other who are completers. Please note: Participants may not attempt to dissuade or discourage self termination. Disregard for free will informed consent will result in immediate removal from the board. Future access to Through-The-Light will be denied. This board is monitored at all times." That's comforting. I've been to suicide boards before where people get on and say stuff like, "Don't do it. Suicide is not the answer." They don't know the question. Or, "Life's a bitch. Get used to it." Thanks. "Suicide is the easy way out." If it's so easy, why am I still here? And my favorite: "God loves you. Life is the most precious gift from God. You will break God's heart if you throw His gift away." God has a heart? That's news to me. People on boards are very, very shallow. The Final Forum has a long list of topic, including: Random Rants, Bullied, Divorce, Disease, So Tired, Hate This Life, Bleak, Bequests, Attempts. Already I like this board. I start with Random Rants.

The heroin flowing through me, I thought about the last time I saw my father alive. He was drunk and overweight in a restaurant in Beverly Hills, and curling into myself on the bed I thought: What if I had done something that day? I had just sat passively in a restaurant booth as the midday light filled the half-empty dining room, pondering a decision. The decision was: should you disarm him? That was the word I remember: disarm. Should you tell him something that might not be the truth but would get the desired reaction? And what was I going to convince him of, even though it was a lie? Did it matter? Whatever it was, it would constitute a new beginning. The immediate line: You’re my father and I love you. I remember staring at the white tablecloth as I contemplated saying this. Could I actually do it? I didn’t believe it, and it wasn’t true, but I wanted it to be. For one moment, as my father ordered another vodka (it was two in the afternoon; this was his fourth) and started ranting about my mother and the slump in California real estate and how “your sisters” never called him, I realized it could actually happen, and that by saying this I would save him. I suddenly saw a future with my father. But the check came along with the drink and I was knocked out of my reverie by an argument he wanted to start and I simply stood up and walked away from the booth without looking back at him or saying goodbye and then I was standing in sunlight. Loosening my tie as a parking valet pulled up to the curb in the cream-colored 450 SL. I half smiled at the memory, for thinking that I could just let go of the damage that a father can do to a son. I never spoke to him again.

Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played tricks on me enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can;t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a-laying up sin and suffering for the both of us, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart almost breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hooky this evening, and I'll just be obleeged to make him work tomorrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child.

I loved the solar smile he would turn on his friends at times--and on me--nonplussing us when he simply left it on us, full-beam, for such a long, long moment that we'd finally have no choice but to realize this was no social smile, no rote kind of friendliness: this was what it felt like to be completely seen and loved for a moment.

If anyone attempted to rule the world by the gospel and to abolish all temporal law and sword on the plea that all are baptized and Christian, and that, according to the gospel, there shall be among them no law or sword - or need for either - pray tell me, friend, what would he be doing? He would be loosing the ropes and chains of the savage wild beasts and letting them bite and mangle everyone, meanwhile insisting that they were harmless, tame, and gentle creatures; but I would have the proof in my wounds. Just so would the wicked under the name of Christian abuse evangelical freedom, carry on their rascality, and insist that they were Christians subject neither to law nor sword, as some are already raving and ranting. To such a one we must say: Certainly it is true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject neither to law nor sword, and have need of neither. But take heed and first fill the world with real Christians before you attempt to rule it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be unchristian, even if they are all baptized and Christian in name. Christians are few and far between (as the saying is). Therefore, it is out of the question that there should be a common Christian government over the whole world, or indeed over a single country or any considerable body of people, for the wicked always outnumber the good. Hence, a man who would venture to govern an entire country or the world with the gospel would be like a shepherd who should put together in one fold wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep, and let them mingle freely with one another, saying, “Help yourselves, and be good and peaceful toward one another. The fold is open, there is plenty of food. You need have no fear of dogs and clubs.” The sheep would doubtless keep the peace and allow themselves to be fed and governed peacefully, but they would not live long, nor would one beast survive another. For this reason one must carefully distinguish between these two governments. Both must be permitted to remain; the one to produce righteousness, the other to bring about external peace and prevent evil deeds. Neither one is sufficient in the world without the other. No one can become righteous in the sight of God by means of the temporal government, without Christ's spiritual government. Christ's government does not extend over all men; rather, Christians are always a minority in the midst of non-Christians. Now where temporal government or law alone prevails, there sheer hypocrisy is inevitable, even though the commandments be God's very own. For without the Holy Spirit in the heart no one becomes truly righteous, no matter how fine the works he does. On the other hand, where the spiritual government alone prevails over land and people, there wickedness is given free rein and the door is open for all manner of rascality, for the world as a whole cannot receive or comprehend it.

My arms broke free from my control. My left hand reached for his face, his hair, to wind my fingers in it. My right hand was faster, was not mine. Melanie's fist punched his jaw, knocked his face away from mine with a blunt, low sound. Flesh against flesh, hard and angry. The force of it was not enough to move him far, but he scrambled away from me the instant our lips were no longer connected, gaping with horrorstruck eyes at my horrorstruck expression. I stared down at the still-clenched fist, as repulsed as if I'd found a scorpion growing on the end of my arm. A gasp of revulsion choked its way out of my throat. I grabbed the right wrist with my left hand, desperate to keep Melanie from using my body for violence again. I glanced up at Jared. He was staring at the fist I restrained, too, the horror fading, surprise taking its place. In that second, his expression was entirely defenseless. I could easily read his thoughts as they moved across his unlocked face. This was not what he had expected. And he's had expectations; that was plain to see. This had been a test. A test he'd thought he was prepared to evaluate. But he'd been surprised. Did that mean pass or fail? The pain in my chest was not a surprise. I already knew that a breaking heart was more than an exaggeration. In a flight-or-fight situation, I never had a choice; it would always be flight for me. Because Jared was between me and the darkness of the tunnel exit, I wheeled and threw myself into the box-packed hole. I was sobbing because it had been a test, and, stupid, stupid, stupid, emotional creature that I was, I wanted it to be real. Melanie was writhing in agony inside me, and it was hard to make sense of the double pain. I felt as thought I was dying because it wasn't real; she felt as though she was dying because, to her, it had felt real enough. In all that she'd lost since the end of the world, so long ago, she'd never before felt betrayed. 'No one's betrayed you, stupid,' I railed at her. 'How could he? How?' she ranted, ignoring me. We sobbed beyond control. One word snapped us back from the edge of hysteria. From the mouth of the hole, Jared's low, rough voice - broken and strangely childlike - asked, "Mel?" "Mel?" he asked again, the hope he didn't want to feel colouring his tone. My breath caught in another sob, an aftershock. "You know that was for you, Mel. You know that. Not for h- it. You know I wasn't kissing it." "If you're in there, Mel..." He paused. Melanie hated the "if". A sob burst up through my lungs and I gasped for air. "I love you," Jared said. "Even if you're not there, if you can't hear me, I love you.

Then, with a cheeky quirk of his brows, he leaned forward and murmured, “Would it be improper of me to admit that I am inordinately flattered by your attention to the details of my face?” Anne snorted out a laugh. “Improper and ludicrous.” “It is true that I have never felt quite so colorful,” he said, with a clearly feigned sigh. “You are a veritable rainbow,” she agreed. “I see red and . . . well, no orange and yellow, but certainly green and blue and violet.” “You forgot indigo.” “I did not,” she said, with her very best governess voice. “I have always found it to be a foolish addition to the spectrum. Have you ever actually seen a rainbow?” “Once or twice,” he replied, looking rather amused by her rant.

for him to say something to me when I felt Augustus’s hand on my arm. He pulled me away toward the door, and I followed him while Van Houten ranted to Lidewij about

Every time I visit, he sends me off to the Chicken Ranch to fetch dinner. Deep fried chicken, greasy potatoes, BBQ sauce. I can feel my arteries clogging just thinking about

So here is my profound thought for the day: This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. That may seem trivial but I think it is profound all the same. We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. When my mother offers macaroons from Chez Laduree to Madame de Broglie, she is telling herself her own life story and just nibbling at her own flavor; when Papa drinks his coffee and reads his paper, he is contemplating his own reflection in the mirror, as if practicing the Coue method or something; when Colombe talks about Marian's lectures, she is ranting about her own reflection; and when people walk by the concierge, all they see is a void, because she is not from their world. As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

I'd like to start this week with a request, and this one goes out to the followers of the three Abrahamic religions: the Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It's just a little thing, really, but do you think that when you've finished smashing up the world and blowing each other to bits and demanding special privileges while you do it, do you think that maybe the rest of us could sort of have our planet back? I wouldn't ask, but I'm starting to think that there must be something written in the special books that each of you so enjoy referring to that it's ok to behave like special, petulant, pugnacious, pricks. Forgive the alliteration, but your persistent, power-mad punch-ups are pissing me off. It's mainly the extremists obviously, but not exclusively. It's a lot of 'main-streamers' as well. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Muslims: listen up my bearded and veily friends! Calm down, ok? Stop blowing stuff up. Not everything that said about you is an attack on the prophet Mohammed and Allah that needs to end in the infidel being destroyed. Have a cup of tea, put on a Cat Stevens record, sit down and chill out. I mean seriously, what's wrong with a strongly-worded letter to The Times? Christians: you and your churches don't get to be millionaires while other people have nothing at all. They're your bloody rules; either stick to them or abandon the faith. And stop persecuting and killing people you judge to be immoral. Oh, and stop pretending you're celibate -- it's a cover-up for being a gay or a nonce. Right, that's two ticked off. Jews! I know you're god's 'Chosen People' and the rest of us are just whatever, but when Israel behaves like a violent, psychopathic bully and someone mentions it that doesn't make them antisemitic. And for the record, your troubled history is not a license to act with impunity now.

I was done. Seriously. Full on. Done. “Oh, go fuck yourself.” “What did you say?” “You know, Pete, it was seven long years ago,” I said. Ranted. Whatever. “I behaved like a dumb kid and I’ve acknowledged that. I’ve apologized many, many times.” He wiped a hand over his wet face. “Did you actually just tell me to go fuck myself?

Shot Dunyun: No bullshit, but I never leave the house without a mix for anything: Falling in love. Witnessing a death. Disappointment. Impatience. Traffic. I carry a mix for any human condition. Anything really good or bad happens to me, and my way not to overreact—like, to distance my emotions—is to locate the exact perfect sound track for that moment. Even the night Rant died, my automatic first thought was: Philip Glass's Violin Concerto II, or Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major?

It is six months before the election, and the Republicans have already done their focus groups. How do I know? I can hear it in their “message,” which they repeat over and over again like a mantra: “Bernie Sanders is ineffective. Bernie Sanders is out of touch. Bernie Sanders is a left-wing extremist. Bernie Sanders rants and raves on the House floor and still no one listens to him. Susan Sweetser, on the other hand, is a sensible moderate who can work with everyone.” They think that’s how they can beat me. Maybe.

Some people never go crazy. Me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch for 3 or 4 days. They'll find me there. It's Cherub, they'll say, and they pour wine down my throat rub my chest sprinkle me with oils. Then, I'll rise with a roar, rant, rage - curse them and the universe as I send them scattering over the lawn. I'll feel much better, sit down to toast and eggs, hum a little tune, Suddenly become as lovable as a pink overfed whale. Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

A part of me liked that I’d caused such a stir. She was toxic Sadie, and I wasn’t proud of her. As a result, I’d smiled and nodded while Cobra ranted at me, but truthfully, I’d zoned out as soon as he’d started speaking. All I was getting was that he was obsessed with me.

I'm with him because when I'm with him, I'm free to be me. I'm with him because he's hot. I'm with him because he lets me blather, since I'm prone to blathering, and he lets me rant when I have a bad day. I'm with him because when I rant, he makes me feel better and he does this effortlessly. I'm with him because I live for the times when I'm on the back of his bike and we're riding together, not even talking, just being free.

I don't understand why everyone loves you and feels this need to protect me against you or warn me against you." It was insulting, to tell the truth. Everyone just assumed she'd roll over... "Everyone just automatically assumes that you're after me and that I'm going to fall for you. It's insulting.

Justin: I am falling so in love with you. Her body electrified. Celeste wiped her eyes and read his text again. The drone of the plane disappeared; the turbulence was no more. There was only Justin and his words. Justin: I lose myself and find myself at the same time with you. Justin: I need you, Celeste. I need you as part of my world, because for the first time, I am connected to someone in a way that has meaning. And truth. Maybe our distance has strengthened what I feel between us since we’re not grounded in habit or daily convenience. We have to fight for what we have. Justin: I don’t know if I can equate what I feel for you with anything else. Except maybe one thing, if this makes any sense. Justin: I go to this spot at Sunset Cliffs sometimes. It’s usually a place crowded with tourists, but certain times of year are quieter. I like it then. And there’s a high spot on the sandstone cliff, surrounded by this gorgeous ice plant, and it overlooks the most beautiful water view you’ve ever seen. I’m on top of the world there, it seems. Justin: And everything fits, you know? Life feels right. As though I could take on anything, do anything. And sometimes, when I’m feeling overcome with gratitude for the view and for what I have, I jump so that I remember to continue to be courageous because not every piece of life will feel so in place. Justin: It’s a twenty-foot drop, the water is only in the high fifties, and it’s a damn scary experience. But it’s a wonderful fear. One that I know I can get through and one that I want. Justin: That’s what it’s like with you. I am scared because you are so beyond anything I could have imagined. I become so much more with you beside me. That’s terrifying, by the way. But I will be brave because my fear only comes from finally having something deeply powerful to lose. That’s my connection with you. It would be a massive loss. Justin: And now I am in the car and about to see you, so don’t reply. I’m too flipping terrified to hear what you think of my rant. It’s hard not to pour my heart out once I start. If you think I’m out of mind, just wave your hands in horror when you spot the lovesick guy at the airport. Ten minutes went by. He had said not to reply, so she hadn’t. Justin: Let’s hope I don’t get pulled over for speeding… but I’m at a stoplight now. Justin: God, I hope you aren’t… aren’t… something bad. Celeste: Hey, Justin? Justin: I TOLD YOU NOT TO REPLY! Justin: I know, I know. But I’m happy you did because I lost it there for a minute. Celeste: HEY, JUSTIN? Justin: Sorry… Hey, Celeste? Celeste: I am, unequivocally and wholly falling in love with you, too. Justin: Now I’m definitely speeding. I will see you soon.

If I start to sound a bit megalomaniacal, forgive me.” Her eyes shone. “You’re the greatest arcane vortex that has ever existed. I understand.” I winced. “Er, perhaps, but I’m really just a fellow who gets paid to translate what other people find. I ordinarily try to save my insane ranting for grant proposals.

When things go badly, it is your fault, not theirs. You are responsible. Analyze how it happened, make the necessary fixes, and move on. No mass punishment or floggings. Fire people if you need to, train harder, insist on a higher level of performance, give halftime rants if that shakes a group up. But never forget that failure is your responsibility.

In the middle of her rant, I walk away. Like she's a dog barking at me instead of a human talking.

She had this habit of letting me go on short rants to make my point, only to reply with a single word

I was slightly irritated to be reminded of Jesus’ message by a new Christian when what I rather would’ve done was rant about the shit that was making me hate people.

We are, in the end, responsible for all our actions and the pain and joy it brings to others. The older I get, the more sense that belief system makes to me.

And though I may react to the trauma emotionally, shed private tears, have a meltdown away from people, or enjoy a complete “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” episode, when I’m finished expressing emotion I keep on keeping on. When I finish my rant, tantrum, or moment of grief, I move into the instinctive survival mode that has empowered humans to endure plights and pleasures of all kinds. Change is often as painful for me to endure as it is for anyone else, but I have learned to take the bitter with the sweet and keep on moving forward.

This is…” She crossed her arms, and I braced myself for a rant of epic proportions. “This personal meeting you’ve been telling me about all weekend was just a ruse for you to ask me to sign an extension? “It was a ruse to ask you to be my girlfriend.” She pretended to look upset, but her cheeks gave her away. “You could’ve asked me that over the weekend.” “You would’ve said no.” “No.” She smiled. “I would’ve said that the only reason you’re asking me to be your girlfriend is because you think we might possibly have more sex that way.” “We’re definitely going to have more sex.

Do I feel empathy for Trump voters? That’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot. It’s complicated. It’s relatively easy to empathize with hardworking, warmhearted people who decided they couldn’t in good conscience vote for me after reading that letter from Jim Comey . . . or who don’t think any party should control the White House for more than eight years at a time . . . or who have a deeply held belief in limited government, or an overriding moral objection to abortion. I also feel sympathy for people who believed Trump’s promises and are now terrified that he’s trying to take away their health care, not make it better, and cut taxes for the superrich, not invest in infrastructure. I get it. But I have no tolerance for intolerance. None. Bullying disgusts me. I look at the people at Trump’s rallies, cheering for his hateful rants, and I wonder: Where’s their empathy and understanding? Why are they allowed to close their hearts to the striving immigrant father and the grieving black mother, or the LGBT teenager who’s bullied at school and thinking of suicide? Why doesn’t the press write think pieces about Trump voters trying to understand why most Americans rejected their candidate? Why is the burden of opening our hearts only on half the country? And yet I’ve come to believe that for me personally and for our country generally, we have no choice but to try. In the spring of 2017, Pope Francis gave a TED Talk. Yes, a TED Talk. It was amazing. This is the same pope whom Donald Trump attacked on Twitter during the campaign. He called for a “revolution of tenderness.” What a phrase! He said, “We all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent ‘I,’ separated from the other, and we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone.” He said that tenderness “means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, those who are afraid of the future.

I start to walk up the stairs and he rants about what an asshole I am and what his father’s gonna do to me and then he’s begging, “Gimme a copy of the David Foster Wallace! I’ll read it! I’ll read it and then you can make a test I swear! Joe! Joe!” The basement is insulated. Mr. Mooney put his money into making this place a private place. Benji can scream all he wants and nobody’s gonna hear him,

Whenever I find myself somehow fooled into doing one of these talks, it’s on the grounds that some confused soul thinks that I will talk about the digital world and the future. What always happens is that I rant for an unspecified length of time about obscure history and fringe beliefs. So you need to understand that you are now trapped in this room with me and I’ve already been paid. This is my cunning plan.

Malum had forbidden me from lifting and gone on a five-minute rant about how I needed to take care of myself, and blah blah blah. Truthfully, I’d stopped listening as soon as I’d realized he was the one speaking

Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves—and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting Lincoln-Douglas debates with their alter egos. Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players—and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer’s opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They’re inches away. In tennis you’re on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self-talk, and for me the self-talk starts here in the afternoon shower. This is when I begin to say things to myself, crazy things, over and over, until I believe them. For instance, that a quasi-cripple can compete at the U.S. Open. That a thirty-six-year-old man can beat an opponent just entering his prime. I’ve won 869 matches in my career, fifth on the all-time list, and many were won during the afternoon shower.

He began testing me immediately by issuing a string of obscene and racially repellent references that morphed into paranoiac conspiracy rants. - Look, you're wasting your time, I said. I can be just as repellent as you, only about different subjects.

It’s a common misconception that humans are carnivores. It’s one of the first things people say to me when they want to argue with my food advice (after the obligatory protein rant). Are we carnivores? Feel your teeth. Look at your hands. Can you chase down an animal and rip its hide off with your bare hands and teeth? Do you look anything like a lion? We are omnivores; our intelligence and anatomical adaptation has allowed us to survive harsh situations by being able to eat anything, but that does not mean what we eat is the best thing for us!

I remember a scared, young girl hiding in the guise of arrogance and rebellion. I remember feeling lost in a world where everyone else seemed to have it all figured out. I remember the tears of pain, the rants of anger and the hell that seemed to have swallowed me whole. Although I remember these things, it is now, over a decade later, more like a story that I find hard to believe. Did it all really happen? Even as I write this, my eyes begin to swell. It really did happen. I was that girl. And I’m sorry she had to suffer so. But, that is over now...

Vladimir Nabokov and George Orwell had quite different gifts, and their self-images were quite different. But, I shall argue, their accomplishment was pretty much the same. Both of them warn the liberal ironist intellectual against temptations to be cruel. Both of them dramatise the tension between private irony and liberal hope. In the following passage, Nabokov helped blur the distinctions which I want to draw: ...'Lolita' has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only in so far as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. There are not many such books. All the rest is either topical trash or what some call the Literature of Ideas, which very often is topical trash coming in huge blocks of plaster that are carefully transmitted from age to age until somebody comes along with a hammer and takes a good crack at Balzac, at Gorki, at Mann. Orwell blurred the same distinctions when, in one of his rare descents into rant, "The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda," he wrote exactly the sort of thing Nabokov loathed: You cannot take a purely aesthetic interest in a disease you are dying from; you cannot feel dispassionately about a man who is about to cut your throat. In a world in which Fascism and Socialism were fighting one another, any thinking person had to take sides... This period of ten years or so in which literature, even poetry was mixed up with pamphleteering, did a great service to literary criticism, because it destroyed the illusion of pure aestheticism... It debunked art for art's sake.

When I get back to my dorm room, there it is, staring at me from above my bed. The Vladimir Putin calendar. Ha! I guess Katerina got a copy of it for me after my drunken rant at the secret supper club about how I had to ironically have one. This is a girl after my own heart. You have to see this calendar. July: Vladimir Putin fly-fishing topless. March: Vladimir Putin smelling a flower. November: Vladimir Putin holding a puppy. I'm not kidding. Holding a puppy! I laugh to myself. Katerina sure has my number. Maybe she will be my BFF even after I go back to the States.

editor in New York and my mom and dad on the phone. My body is weak and bloated. I’m slowly poisoning myself to death. And it’s not like I haven’t seen what this shit does to people. The most fucked-up detoxes I’ve ever seen are the people coming off alcohol. It’s worse than heroin, worse than benzos, worse than anything. Alcohol can pickle your brain—leaving you helpless, like a child—infantilized—shitting in your pants—ranting madness—disoriented—angry—terrified. But that’s not gonna be me, I mean, it can’t be. I may hate myself. I may fantasize about suicide. But I’m way too vain to let myself die an alcoholic death. There’s nothing glamorous about alcoholism. You don’t go out like Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, with a gorgeous woman riding you till your heart stops. Alcoholism takes you down slow, robbing you of every last bit of dignity on your way

...(T)here was something in the timbre and inflection of his words that seemed to rummage through a clutter of ancestral fragments to remind me of the person I may have been born to be but had not become. If I didn't take his daily rants against America seriously, it was because it was never really America he was inveighing against, nor was his the voice of a bewildered Middle East trying to fend off a decaying and implacable West. What I heard instead was the raspy, wheezing, threatened voice of an older order of mankind, older ways of being human, raging, raging against the tide of something new that had the semblance and behavior of humanity but really wasn't. It was not a clash of civilizations or of values or of cultures; it was a question of which organ, which chamber of the heart, which one of its clear five senses would humanity cut off to join modernity.

When my father died and was buried in a chapel overlooking Portsmouth—the same chapel in which General Eisenhower had prayed for success the night before D-Day in 1944—I gave the address from the pulpit and selected as my text a verse from the epistle of Saul of Tarsus, later to be claimed as “Saint Paul,” to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 8): Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. I chose this because of its haunting and elusive character, which will be with me at the last hour, and for its essentially secular injunction, and because it shone out from the wasteland of rant and complaint and nonsense and bullying which surrounds it.

Could you people stop trying to come up with novel ways to kill me for just ONE HOUR? Or maybe the rest of the night? I would SO like that. Just the rest of the night. Just sit down. Just stop doing anything. Sit down and wait sensibly. Earth, water, air, fire - you're running out of elements here!

I feel like I haven’t been through enough to complain about, but still too much to let go of…if that makes sense? Honestly, I feel like every other black woman in the world, Mavi. Like somebody, somewhere is always saying, ‘Stay strong.’ Or, ‘people have been through worse.’ Like being a black woman is supposed to make me impenetrable and emotionless and if I complain or if I cry or if I ask for help, like God forbid if I ask for child support, or welfare, or I go on a rant, then I’m angry, and I’m lazy, and I’m a bum bitch, and I’m bitter. Like on one hand, I’m supposed to be so strong, but not too proud, and not have a voice because then I’m the angry black woman, so I should internalize my feelings, but also hold the world up on my shoulders. I mean, I just feel like black women have the most labels and many of them ain’t positive. And I just feel like… Like somebody along the way forgot that I was a woman, just a woman…And

Up until now, he's been ranting about people meddling in his life, yet here he was attacking me with the same kind of reproaches that were making him suffer. His argument was falling apart I thought. Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attacked other people in the same way.

For all their weirdness, I LOVE the penis people. I don't understand them. I can't imagine I'll ever learn their language of grunting and scratching, but I'm going to try. If I have to devote my life to learning, I will do it. I can't explain the compulsion that is me thinking about Stephen now. Or just watching a boy walk by and wondering what is going on inside his head. To have him want to play with my hair and take me exciting places. To touch his amazingly fabulous butt and not be arrested for assault. Don't they have a distinct smell? When do they start producing that spicy, manly, different-from-me scent? I don't mean the sweaty, take-a-shower odor, but the yummy soap and a hint of cologne. The kind of scent that makes me want to inhale in their general vicinity just because I can. I get fluttery and gooey and cease to function at higher levels. Like I shut down except for feeling things; like the hot rays of Stephen's manliness and the solid rock of femur and muscle under his denim cargo pants.

step up their game, my goods are off the market. But one bottle of chardonnay later, and my drunken rant has gone viral. I’m the most famous person NOT having sex since the Jonas Brothers put on their purity rings. A men’s magazine has even put a bounty on my (ahem) maidenhead: fifty Gs to whoever makes me break the drought.  Be careful what

Despite this bad day, my Jesus is not at all surprised by my self-pitying rant. He isn’t disgusted by my inability to form complete prayer sentences. I don’t think he’s even disappointed that I didn’t open my Bible today, for to be disappointed means you must first have expectations, and my Jesus has no expectations of me. Standards—yes. Expectations—no.

I ranted about the fussiness of Japanese grammar over lunch with Koyama-san, the Jakarta-based Japanese mother of a friend of my older son. ‘Not sure how I’m ever going to manage to learn all those conjugations,’ I groaned. Koyama-san looked at me unblinkingly and replied, ‘I think Pallavi, for you the bigger problem is going to be to learn how to talk softly.

What? Am I to be a listener only all my days? Am I never to get my word in—I that have been so often bored by the Theseid of the ranting Cordus? Shall this one have spouted to me his comedies, and that one his love ditties, and I be unavenged? Shall I have no revenge on one who has taken up the whole day with an interminable Telephus or with an Orestes which, after filling the margin at the top of the roll and the back as well, hasn't even yet come to an end? No one knows his own house so well as I know the groves of Mars, and the cave of Vulcan near the cliffs of Aeolus. What the winds are brewing; whose souls Aeacus has on the rack; from what country another worthy is carrying off that stolen golden fleece; how big are the ash trees which Monychus hurls as missiles: these are the themes with which Fronto's plane trees and marble halls are for ever ringing until the pillars quiver and quake under the continual recitations; such is the kind of stuff you may look for from every poet, greatest or least. Well, I too have slipped my hand from under the cane; I too have counselled Sulla to retire from public life and take a deep sleep; it is a foolish clemency when you jostle against poets at every corner, to spare paper that will be wasted anyhow. But if you can give me time, and will listen quietly to reason, I will tell you why I prefer to run in the same course over which Lucilius, the great nursling of Aurunca drove his horses.

Not all of us are born with fingers that move like fucking Ferraris, homie,” he rants in good humour. ​“Some of us are just fuck-ups who look normal and wear shitty clothes because we can’t afford good ones, and we’re angry and we just wanna take out our angst and shit with a guitar. I’m not inspired by how good you are, it’s almost like the opposite. I wanna feel you. "...the kids that I went to school with fucking hated me, and I’d worn the same clothes for five days, and I was tall, skinny and didn’t fit in. I was a basement; where the fuck was I going to learn how to play like Steve Vai? I couldn’t! I was broke. No-one gave a fuck about me. Give me three chords, though, and tell me to show you how I feel, and I bet you I will.

These social media shamings bear an uncanny resemblance to medieval witch hunts.” If you were accused of being a witch back then, you were shit out of luck. Being accused was all it took. Forget “innocent until proven guilty.” Nobody bothered to prove your guilt. Nobody dared to speak up on your behalf, for fear of being called a witch sympathizer. Because if you were seen as the friend of a witch, you were the next one to be accused of being a witch. As soon as a woman was accused of being a witch, she was a pariah without any friends. Nobody wanted to be seen in public with her. The whole village ganged up on her. Everyone was trying to outdo everyone else in their antiwitch fervor: “Look at me! I'm throwing rocks at the witch! Look at how much I hate witches! I am definitely NOT a witch myself!” Whenever I see a social media mob ganging up on a celebrity for supposedly saying something “offensive” it reminds me of the Salem witch hysteria: “That's racist! And me calling you a racist proves that I'm definitely not a racist myself! That's sexist! I shame you! And that means I'm definitely not sexist myself! I shame you for being a bad person. That means I'm a good person! Look at how really really offended I am! That means I'm a really really good person!” According to the bible, Jesus said "let he who is without sin throw the first rock." But a lot of people seem to think he said: "If you throw rocks at someone else, it proves that you're without sin.

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.

You telephoned me every evening. I was very grateful to you. Sometimes we would talk for five or ten minutes, and sometimes for three-quarters of an hour. I liked to be in bed before you rant at ten o’clock, and I always asked if everything was all right. Of course things were not, and never will be all right, but you were all right with me. That is what matters throughout the whole of the world. “You are all right with me.

TheRealCinderella: Hi, I’m Ella Reyes! Nice to meet you all. My name is Daniela, but no one calls me that. I do know Rey from last year’s math class, and she’s really cool, by the way. I have two stepsisters, Courtney and Lindsay. Maybe you know them. Anyway, feel free to introduce yourself too. TheRealCinderella: And whatever we say here, stays here. Say whatever you want. Rant. Laugh. Cry. Say what’s on your mind. My lips are sealed :)

As I released my anger more often and more consciously, the cycle of depression ended. I began to express the anger when my friend Betty and I got together and talked (she is good about letting me rant without interrupting). I pounded pillows. I poured the anger into my journals. I let it come. Yet anger needs not only to be recognized and allowed; like the grief, it eventually needs to be transformed into an energy that serves compassion. Maybe one reason I had avoided my anger was that like a lot of people I had thought there were only two responses to anger: to deny it or to strike out thoughtlessly. But other responses are possible. We can allow anger’s enormous energy to lead us to acts of resistance against patriarchy. Anger can fuel our ability to challenge, to defy injustice. It can lead to creative projects, constructive behavior, acts that work toward inclusion. In such ways anger becomes a dynamism of love.

It’s gonna burn me just that way, finally telling about all this, about the hospital, and her, and the guys—and about McMurphy. I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.

chardonnay later, and my drunken rant has gone viral. I’m the most famous person NOT having sex since the Jonas Brothers put on their purity rings. A men’s magazine has even put a bounty on my (ahem) maidenhead: fifty Gs to whoever makes me break the drought. Be careful what you wish for... Now my office looks like an explosion in a Hallmark factory, I’ve got guys lining up to sweep me off my feet-and the one man I want is most definitely off-limits. Jake Weston is a player through and

What does the radicalism of radical writers nowadays amount to? Most of it is hand-me-down bohemianism, sentimental populism, D. H. Lawrence-and-water, or imitation Sartre. For American writers radicalism is a question of honor. They must be radicals for the sake of their dignity. They see it as their function, and a noble function, to say Nay, and to bite not only the hand that feeds them (and feeds them with comic abundance, I might add) but almost any other hand held out to them. Their radicalism, however, is contentless. A genuine radicalism, which truly challenges authority, we need desperately. But a radicalism of posture is easy and banal. Radical criticism requires knowledge, not posture, not slogans, not rant. People who maintain their dignity as artists, in a small way, by being mischievous on television, simply delight the networks and the public. True radicalism requires homework—thought. Of the cleans, on the other hand, there isn't much to say. They seem faded.

When Trump declared his candidacy for real in 2015, I thought it was another joke, like a lot of people did. By then, he’d remade himself from tabloid scoundrel into right-wing crank, with his long, offensive, quixotic obsession with President Obama’s birth certificate. He’d flirted with politics for decades, but it was hard to take him seriously. He reminded me of one of those old men ranting on about how the country was going to hell in a handbasket unless people started listening to him.

Hitler was ranting and perhaps even panting by now. When he finished, Deputy Prosecutor Ehard said: “I simply wanted to ask Mr. Hitler a calm and sober question.” “I didn’t mean to offend you,” said Hitler. EHARD: Excuse me—I don’t even think of being offended. I just mean that it might not have been necessary to reply in such a polemical way. HITLER: Nothing of the sort. But my temperament is somewhat different from that of a state’s attorney. EHARD: Probably a good thing in this case.5 Not

It shows that the most obscene figures are not the ignorant ranting racists, but the legal minds who front for them, who “invent” for them the legislative proposals and the propaganda bulletins. They deliberately choose to foster distortions, always under the guise of patriotism, upon a people who have no means of checking the facts. Their appeals are of regional interest, showing complete contempt for privacy of conscience, and a willingness to destroy and subvert values that have traditionally been held supreme in this land.

People celebrate you once a year and then they forget about you. It’s like you’re a story in a book and once the story has been read, the words disappear with the closing of the book until another year jogs their memory and they remember you existed. I only existed when people noticed me at Christmas, especially the kids. You’d think that was the only reason I existed. It’s like I had no other purpose. They didn’t even know my name. Who gets to decide my fate for me? I do have a free will you know,” said Ahimsa continuing his rant.

Did you know,” North said, as he hung a feathery blue jay, “that real trees are better for the environment than fake ones? A lot of people think the fake ones are better, because you have to throw out the real ones every year, but real trees produce oxygen and provide wildlife habitats while they grow, and then, when they’re done, they can be ground into mulch to fertilize the earth. While the plastic ones just… rot in landfills. They can take hundreds of years to decompose.” Marigold waited until he was done with his rant. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.

If there is something intangible about mental illness generally, depression is all the harder to define because it tends to creep in rather than announce itself, manifesting itself as an absence - of appetite, energy, sociability - rather than as a presence. There is little you can point to: no obscene rantings, no sudden flips into unrecognizable, hyper-energize behavior, no magical belief systems involving lottery numbers or fortune cookies. It seems to me that we are suspicious of depression’s claim to legitimacy in party because it doesn’t look crazy.

I’m supposed to believe you sold your emeralds out of some freakish start-out of a frivolous desire to go off with a man you claim was your brother?” “Goodness, I don’t know what you are supposed to believe. I only know I did it.” “Madam!” he snapped. “You were on the verge of tears, according to the jeweler to whom you sold them. If you were in a frivolous mood, why were you on the verge of tears?” Elizabeth gave him a vacuous look. “I liked my emeralds.” Guffaws erupted from the floor to the rafters. Elizabeth waited until they were finished before she leaned forward and said in a proud, confiding tone, “My husband often says that emeralds match my eyes. Isn’t that sweet?” Sutherland was beginning to grind his teeth, Elizabeth noted. Afraid to look at Ian, she cast a quick glance at Peterson Delham and saw him watching her alertly with something that might well have been admiration. “So!” Sutherland boomed in a voice that was nearly a rant. “We are now supposed to believe that you weren’t really afraid of your husband?” “Of course I was. Didn’t I just explain how very cruel he can be?” she asked with another vacuous look. “Naturally, when Bobby showed me his back I couldn’t help thinking that a man who would threaten to cut off his wife’s allowance would be capable of anything-“ Loud guffaws lasted much longer this time, and even after they died down, Elizabeth noticed derisive grins where before there had been condemnation and disbelief. “And,” Sutherland boomed, when he could be heard again, “we are also supposed to believe that you ran off with a man you claim is your brother and have been cozily in England somewhere-“ Elizabeth nodded emphatically and helpfully provided, “In Helmshead-it is the sweetest village by the sea. I was having a very pleas-very practical time until I read the paper and realized my husband was on trial. Bobby didn’t think I should come back at all, because he was still provoked about being put on one of my husband’s ships. But I thought I ought.” “And what,” Sutherland gritted, “do you claim is the reason you decided you ought?” “I didn’t think Lord Thornton would like being hanged-“ More mirth exploded through the House, and Elizabeth had to wait for a full minute before she could continue. “And so I gave Bobby my money, and he went on to have his own agreeable life, as I said earlier.” “Lady Thornton,” Sutherland said in an awful, silky voice that made Elizabeth shake inside, “does the word ‘perjury’ have any meaning to you?” “I believe,” Elizabeth said, “it means to tell a lie in a place like this.” “Do you know how the Crown punishes perjurers? They are sentenced to gaol, and they live their lives in a dark, dank cell. Would you want that to happen to you?” “It certainly doesn’t sound very agreeable,” Elizabeth said. “Would I be able to take my jewels and gowns?” Shouts of laughter shook the chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings. “No, you would not!” “Then I’m certainly happy I haven’t lied.

It’s not my fault you have no friends and a dead-end job” she ranted, face reddening. She was seething now. “If you’re awkward and ugly, you have no one to blame but yourself. I gave you every opportunity. I gave up my career and my independence, plus any pretense whatsoever of a romantic relationship. I gave you everything, all of me---can you get that through your thick skull? And you thank me for my sacrifices by turning on me the first chance you get? By marching straight to the witness stand? You believed that wench Alex and her bigmouth mother over me? It’s your fault I’m in here, not mine

this reaction. This was on college campuses, exactly the kind of environment where I had expected curiosity, lively debate, and, yes, the thrill and energy of like-minded activists. Instead almost every campus audience I encountered bristled with anger and protest. I was accustomed to radical Muslim students from my experience as an activist and a politician in Holland. Any time I made a public speech, they would swarm to it in order to shout at me and rant in broken Dutch, in sentences so fractured you wondered how they qualified as students at all. On college campuses in the United States and Canada, by contrast, young and highly articulate people from the Muslim student associations would simply take over the debate. They would send e-mails of protest to the organizers beforehand, such as one (sent by a divinity student at Harvard) that protested that I did not “address anything of substance that actually affects Muslim women’s lives” and that I merely wanted to “trash” Islam. They would stick up posters and hand out pamphlets at the auditorium. Before I’d even stopped speaking they’d be lining up for the microphone, elbowing away all non-Muslims. They spoke in perfect English; they were mostly very well-mannered; and they appeared far better assimilated than their European immigrant counterparts. There were far fewer bearded young men in robes short enough to show their ankles, aping the tradition that says the Prophet’s companions dressed this way out of humility, and fewer girls in hideous black veils. In the United States a radical Muslim student might have a little goatee; a girl may wear a light, attractive headscarf. Their whole demeanor was far less threatening, but they were omnipresent. Some of them would begin by saying how sorry they were for all my terrible suffering, but they would then add that these so-called traumas of mine were aberrant, a “cultural thing,” nothing to do with Islam. In blaming Islam for the oppression of women, they said, I was vilifying them personally, as Muslims. I had failed to understand that Islam is a religion of peace, that the Prophet treated women very well. Several times I was informed that attacking Islam only serves the purpose of something called “colonial feminism,” which in itself was allegedly a pretext for the war on terror and the evil designs of the U.S. government. I was invited to one college to speak as part of a series of

Giving control of our social interactions to the outer critic prohibits the cultivation of the vulnerable communication that makes intimacy possible. We must renounce unconscious outer critic strategies such as: [1] “I will use angry criticism to make you afraid of me, so I can be safe from you”; [2] “Why should I bother with people when everyone is so selfish and corrupt” [all-or-none thinking]; [3] “I will perfectionistically micromanage you to prevent you from betraying or abandoning me”; [4] “I will rant and rave or leave at the first sign of a lonely feeling, because ‘if you really loved me, I would never feel lonely’”.

You mean you to tell me you don't eat fish?" Rayna barks. "I told you, Galen! How many times did I tell you?" "Rayna, be quiet," he says without looking at her. "We're wasting our time here!" She slams her fork down. "Rayna, I said-" "Oh, I heard what you said. And it's about time you listened to someone else for a change." Now would be a good time to blackout. Or ten minutes ago, before they unveiled the seafood surprise. But I don't even feel remotely dizzy. Or tired. In fact, Rayna's ranting seems to be igniting a weird charge in the room, sparking some sort of hidden energy all around us. So when Galen stands so fast his chair falls over, I'm not surprised. I stand, too. "Leave, Rayna. Right now," he grinds out. When Rayna stands, Toraf does, too. He keeps his expression neutral. I get the feeling he's used to outbursts like these. "You're just using her as a distraction from your real responsibilities, Galen," she spits. "And now you've risked us all. For her." “You were aware of the risks before you came, Rayna. If you feel exposed, leave,” Galen says coolly. Responsibilities? Exposed? I’m waiting for someone to admit they’re part of some violet-eye cult, and I didn’t make initiation. “I guess I don’t understand,” I say. “Oh, well, that’s a real shocker, isn’t it?” Rayna says.

Oh, and just an aside here, but it drives me nuts when I hear the current federal education minister, Christopher Pyne, say that the people who benefited from free university education in the 1970s were almost all from the ranks of the better off. What he doesn’t say is that they were also mostly women who had been denied the chance of a university education by their fathers, who had preferred to pay the fees for their sons rather than their daughters. Whitlam’s higher education reforms were hugely important for women from the generations before mine and that has had equally important positive results for them, their daughters and our whole society. We should not forget that. Rant over. As

They didn't do things the way you would have. They're not you. That's what their declaration-of-independence rants were all about,when you used to fight, and why they kept telling us they want to do it their way.....Well, now, I get to do it my way......Well, now, I get to do it my way...And you know what? It's fun!...I can do anything I damn well please. It's called freedom. And I earned every minute of it. And that's the best feeling in the world. To me, that's our long-delayed reward for decades of hands-on parenting. And for the tape running through the backs of our minds, in mommy lobe, for the rest of our lives...Because it's really about being a woman at the wheel. We're always moving ahead. Enjoy the trip.

I have a fine desk but I prefer to work from my bed, as if I’m a convalescent in a Robert Louis Stevenson poem. An optimistic zombie propped by pillows, producing pages of somnambulistic ­fruit—not quite ripe or overripe. Occasionally I write directly into my small laptop, sheepishly glancing over to the shelf where my typewriter with its antiquated ribbon sits next to an obsolete Brother word processor. A nagging allegiance prevents me from scrapping either of them. Then there are the scores of notebooks, their contents ­calling—confession, revelation, endless variations of the same ­paragraph—and piles of napkins scrawled with incomprehensible rants. Dried-out ink bottles, encrusted nibs, cartridges for pens long gone, mechanical pencils emptied of lead. Writer’s debris.

Taylor held a finger up to Val and Kate. “Hold that thought for a second while I get this.” As she headed into the living room, she overheard Kate mumble to Val, “Hold what thought? I haven’t understood a word she’s said yet.” Taylor unlocked her front door and opened it. Before she could react, Jason barreled right in, all fired up. “Where have you been?? I tried calling you—is your cell phone off? I need you to tell me who the hell I can sue. I just met with Marty—we got back the mock-ups for the new publicity posters the studio’s going to use to promote Inferno .” Jason stormed into the kitchen, so engrossed in his rant he didn’t notice Valerie and Kate. He opened Taylor’s fridge and helped himself to a bottled water. “And get this,” he fumed angrily, “the dumbasses who designed the posters have me pictured in this scene where I’m putting out a fire with all these other firemen. But if you look at the poster from the side, the water from the hose of one of the other firefighters looks like it’s shooting right out of my crotch. And the best part is, they want to put this poster over the theater entrance for the premiere. I can just see it—” He gestured grandly to the air. “ ‘Come see Inferno! Get pissed on by Jason Andrews!’” With that, he threw Taylor a wink. “It should be right up your alley.” Finished with his rant, Jason took a sip of water. Then he finally noticed Kate and Val. He smiled charmingly. “Oh. People. Hello.” Kate and Val sat in silence at the table. They stared at the sight of this god, this ideal man of modern time, standing before them in all his glory.

I stood the next day in the copper light of sundown in the parish hall where House for All Sinners and Saints meets and confessed all of this to my congregation. I told them there had been a million reasons for me to want to be the prophetic voice for change, but every time I tried, I was confronted by my own bullshit. I told them I was unqualified to be an example of anything but needing Jesus. That evening I admitted to my congregation that I had to look at how my outrage feels good for a while, but only like eating candy corn feels good for a while — I know it’s nothing more than empty calories. My outrage feels empty because what I am desperate for is to speak the truth of my burden of sin and have Jesus take it from me, yet ranting about the system or about other people will always be my go-to instead.

Two years ago, he and Harold were at a restaurant and Harold was giving him a lecture about how his job at Rosen Pritchard had made him essentially an accessory to corporate malfeasance, when they both realized that their waiter was standing above them, holding his pad before him. "Pardon me," said the waiter. "Should I come back?" "No, don't worry," Harold said, picking up his menu. "I'm just yelling at my son, but I can do that after we order." The waiter had given him a commiserating smile, and he had smiled back, thrilled to have been claimed as another's in public, to finally be a member of the tribe of sons and daughters. Later, Harold had resumed his rant, and he had pretended to be upset, but really, he had been happy the entire night, contentment saturating his every cell, smiling so much that Harold had finally asked him if he was drunk.

If I liked listening to him, it was not because I believed or even respected the stuff he mouthed off every day at Café Algiers, but because there was something in the timbre and inflection of his words that seemed to remind me of the person I may have been born to be but had not become. If I didn't take his daily rants against America seriously, it was because it was never really America he was inveighing against, nor was his the voice of a bewildered Middle East trying to fend off a decaying and implacable West. What I hear instead was the raspy, wheezing, threatened voice of an older order of making, older ways of being human, raging, raging against the tide of something new that had the semblance and behaviour of humanity but really wasn't. It was not a clash of civilizations or of values or of cultures; it was a question of which organ, which chamber of the heart, which one of its dear five senses would humanity cut off to join modernity.

Once Bee was settled into kindergarten, Bernadette showed no interest in fixing up the house, or in any kind of work. All the energy she had once channeled so fearlessly into architecture, she turned toward fulminating about Seattle, in the form of wild rants that required no less than an hour to fully express. Take five-way intersections. The first time Bernadette commented on the abundance of five-way intersections in Seattle, it seemed perfectly relevant. I hadn’t noticed it myself, but indeed there were many intersections with an extra street jutting out, and which required you to wait through an extra traffic light cycle. Certainly worthy of a conversation between a husband and wife. But the second time Bernadette went off on the same topic, I wondered, Is there something new she wishes to add? But no. She was just complaining with renewed vehemence. She asked me to ask Bill Gates why he’d still live in a city with so many ridiculous intersections

Here’s the thing, people: We have some serious problems. The lights are off. And it seems like that’s affecting the water flow in part of town. So, no baths or showers, okay? But the situation is that we think Caine is short of food, which means he’s not going to be able to hold out very long at the power plant.” “How long?” someone yelled. Sam shook his head. “I don’t know.” “Why can’t you get him to leave?” “Because I can’t, that’s why,” Sam snapped, letting some of his anger show. “Because I’m not Superman, all right? Look, he’s inside the plant. The walls are thick. He has guns, he has Jack, he has Drake, and he has his own powers. I can’t get him out of there without getting some of our people killed. Anybody want to volunteer for that?" Silence. “Yeah, I thought so. I can’t get you people to show up and pick melons, let alone throw down with Drake.” “That’s your job,” Zil said. “Oh, I see,” Sam said. The resentment he’d held in now came boiling to the surface. “It’s my job to pick the fruit, and collect the trash, and ration the food, and catch Hunter, and stop Caine, and settle every stupid little fight, and make sure kids get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. What’s your job, Zil? Oh, right: you spray hateful graffiti. Thanks for taking care of that, I don’t know how we’d ever manage without you.” “Sam…,” Astrid said, just loud enough for him to hear. A warning. Too late. He was going to say what needed saying. “And the rest of you. How many of you have done a single, lousy thing in the last two weeks aside from sitting around playing Xbox or watching movies? “Let me explain something to you people. I’m not your parents. I’m a fifteen-year-old kid. I’m a kid, just like all of you. I don’t happen to have any magic ability to make food suddenly appear. I can’t just snap my fingers and make all your problems go away. I’m just a kid.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam knew he had crossed the line. He had said the fateful words so many had used as an excuse before him. How many hundreds of times had he heard, “I’m just a kid.” But now he seemed unable to stop the words from tumbling out. “Look, I have an eighth-grade education. Just because I have powers doesn’t mean I’m Dumbledore or George Washington or Martin Luther King. Until all this happened I was just a B student. All I wanted to do was surf. I wanted to grow up to be Dru Adler or Kelly Slater, just, you know, a really good surfer.” The crowd was dead quiet now. Of course they were quiet, some still-functioning part of his mind thought bitterly, it’s entertaining watching someone melt down in public. “I’m doing the best I can,” Sam said. “I lost people today…I…I screwed up. I should have figured out Caine might go after the power plant.” Silence. “I’m doing the best I can.” No one said a word. Sam refused to meet Astrid’s eyes. If he saw pity there, he would fall apart completely. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.

And thank you for bringing me." "A pleasure." Bartel returned politely, and stole one last look at the incredible smiling Hairy. Rider stood. Though he was relieved to hear that she planned on staying for a while, he was glad for an excuse to escape his landlady's inquisition. "I'll give you a hand, Bartel." Just short of grabbing the older man's arm, he hustled him out the door. Once outside, bartel chortled jovially. "Ease up,son. She isn't coming after us." Rider exhaled deeply and grinned. "Who put the burr under the lady's saddle?" he asked as they approached the carriage. "Don't know, but she came flying into my store saying she had to get out here and get out here now! I tried to tell her I was too busy to be gallivanting all over hell's half acre, but do you think she'd listen? Uh-uh. Kept ranting and raving something 'bout Miss Willow's welfare. The woman was in a real dither all the way here." Rider groaned. Bartel slapped his back. "I can commiserate with you,son. There isn't anything scarier than a virtuous woman on a crusade.

In 2014—one year after Dasani competed in a track competition at the Pratt Institute—Spike Lee stood onstage there during Black History Month, delivering a rant against gentrification. “Then comes motherfuckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome,” fumed Lee. “You can’t discover this! We been here.” He went on to compare Fort Greene Park to the Westminster Dog Show, “with twenty thousand dogs running around,” while lamenting how his father, a jazz musician who had purchased his home in 1968, was playing acoustic bass when his new neighbors, in 2013, called the police. “You just can’t come in where people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations and you come in and now shit gotta change because you’re here?” The same forces are reshaping Bed-Stuy, the historic neighborhood where Dasani’s great-grandfather June first landed and where her teacher, Miss Hester, still lives. Around the corner from her basement rental, a trendy café now sells $4 espressos. Miss Hester resents the neighborhood’s white transplants, walking around “as if I am the outsider, and I’m like, ‘Excuse me I was born here!’ 

Time to face the facts. This pattern of inserting myself as the narrator between scenes, so that I can burden you with endless rants that no one needs to hear, has an ulterior motive. I've been exploiting my narrative position to hoodwink readers, using this first-person narrator to infuse the work with idiosyncratic nuance. I was arrogant enough to think that I could be the first Japanese author to employ such a sublimely Western style. And yet, I failed. But no, even this confession of failure can be counted as part of the novel's grand design. So you see, I can't be trusted. Don't believe a single word I say." Why do I bother writing novels? Am I lured by the glory of literary celebrity? Or do I simply want to write bestsellers and cash huge checks? Let me spare you the theatrics. I want both. So bad it hurts. But there I go again, another brazen lie. The sort of lie that ties you up in knots when you're not looking. As despicable and treacherous a lie as they come. Why do I bother writing novels - I had to bring it up. Oh well. At the risk of giving you a pompous explanation, I'll put it this way.

Men looove pussy. They can never get enough of it. If you send a guy a pussy pic, he's gonna think you're awesome. And he assumes you feel the same way if he sends you an unsolicited dick pic. He loves jerking off while looking at pussy, and in his mind he's certain that you must love dick pics as much as he loves pussy pics. It is such a given to him, it never even occurred to him that it might not be true. If you have a dog, you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes a dog brings you his favorite toy in the whole world. And he puts it in your lap. Not because he wants you to throw it. This is not for him. This is for you. He wants you to have it. When you look at his toy, all you see is a dirty old sock, covered in crusty dried dog spit. But that's not what he sees. To him that sock is the most awesome thing in the whole world. And he is putting The Most Awesome Thing In The Whole World in your lap. Then he sits down in front of you and stares into your eyes as if to say: "This is my gift to you. May it give you the same endless hours of joy and happiness that it has given me." And that's exactly what men think when they send you a dick pic.

Let me sum up: Hamlet’s the prince of Denmark. His dad, the king, died and though it’s only been two months, his mom married his dad’s brother, Claudius. Now Claudius is king. Hamlet thinks that’s whack.” “Sounds just like Shakespeare.” “One night, three guards see a ghost and they tell Ham. Ham sees it too. It’s Dad. Dad says Claudius poured poison in his ear and killed him. Hamlet’s mind is blown. But hold up, he’s been dating Ophelia, daughter of Polonius. Polonius is Claudius’ right-hand man. Polonius tells Ophelia that Hamlet’s losing his marbles and she has to break up with him. “Ophelia and Hamlet are in love but, like, the fucking patriarchy, right? She caves to her dad’s pressure and agrees to break up with him. Ham’s devastated and rants that all women are traitorous bitches, and Ophelia should go to a nunnery and never reproduce. Then Ham confronts his mom while Polonius eavesdrops and—whoops!—Ham kills Polonius. “Ophelia, having lost her man and her dad, proceeds to lose her mind. She goes nuts, sings a bunch of dirty, sexy-time songs, and drowns herself in the river. Then a bunch of other shit happens until pretty much everyone else in the cast is dead. Curtain.

Ione III. TO-DAY my skies are bare and ashen, And bend on me without a beam. Since love is held the master-passion, Its loss must be the pain supreme — And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream. But pardon, dear departed Guest, I will not rant, I will not rail; For good the grain must feel the flail; There are whom love has never blessed. I had and have a younger brother, One whom I loved and love to-day As never fond and doting mother Adored the babe who found its way From heavenly scenes into her day. Oh, he was full of youth's new wine, — A man on life's ascending slope, Flushed with ambition, full of hope; And every wish of his was mine. A kingly youth; the way before him Was thronged with victories to be won; so joyous, too, the heavens o'er him Were bright with an unchanging sun, — His days with rhyme were overrun. Toil had not taught him Nature's prose, Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes, And sorrow had not made him wise; His life was in the budding rose. I know not how I came to waken, Some instinct pricked my soul to sight; My heart by some vague thrill was shaken, — A thrill so true and yet so slight, I hardly deemed I read aright. As when a sleeper, ign'rant why, Not knowing what mysterious hand Has called him out of slumberland, Starts up to find some danger nigh. Love is a guest that comes, unbidden, But, having come, asserts his right; He will not be repressed nor hidden. And so my brother's dawning plight Became uncovered to my sight. Some sound-mote in his passing tone Caught in the meshes of my ear; Some little glance, a shade too dear, Betrayed the love he bore Ione. What could I do? He was my brother, And young, and full of hope and trust; I could not, dared not try to smother His flame, and turn his heart to dust. I knew how oft life gives a crust To starving men who cry for bread; But he was young, so few his days, He had not learned the great world's ways, Nor Disappointment's volumes read. However fair and rich the booty, I could not make his loss my gain. For love is dear, but dearer, duty, And here my way was clear and plain. I saw how I could save him pain. And so, with all my day grown dim, That this loved brother's sun might shine, I joined his suit, gave over mine, And sought Ione, to plead for him. I found her in an eastern bower, Where all day long the am'rous sun Lay by to woo a timid flower. This day his course was well-nigh run, But still with lingering art he spun Gold fancies on the shadowed wall. The vines waved soft and green above, And there where one might tell his love, I told my griefs — I told her all! I told her all, and as she hearkened, A tear-drop fell upon her dress. With grief her flushing brow was darkened; One sob that she could not repress Betrayed the depths of her distress. Upon her grief my sorrow fed, And I was bowed with unlived years, My heart swelled with a sea of tears, The tears my manhood could not shed. The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero, Disporting in the hour of doom. God made us men; times make the hero — But in that awful space of gloom I gave no thought but sorrow's room. All — all was dim within that bower, What time the sun divorced the day; And all the shadows, glooming gray, Proclaimed the sadness of the hour. She could not speak — no word was needed; Her look, half strength and half despair, Told me I had not vainly pleaded, That she would not ignore my prayer. And so she turned and left me there, And as she went, so passed my bliss; She loved me, I could not mistake — But for her own and my love's sake, Her womanhood could rise to this! My wounded heart fled swift to cover, And life at times seemed very drear. My brother proved an ardent lover — What had so young a man to fear? He wed Ione within the year. No shadow clouds her tranquil brow, Men speak her husband's name with pride, While she sits honored at his side —

I love you!” he bellowed at me and his eyes turned black. “Happy now? I love you, okay? I love you so fucking much that it hurts! It’s driving me insane! I loved you from the moment I saw you doing your Miss Marple impression in those woods back at The Ragged Cove. But I could tell you were sweet on Luke and hey, why not? He’s the good-looking one, right? I mean, I’m just the hired muscle. I’m the one who gets everyone else out of the shit. But I couldn’t help my feelings, I’d never felt like that before. So yeah, okay I stole a kiss from you in the gatehouse – big fucking deal! But you know what? That was the biggest mistake of my life, because that one kiss from you drove me out of my tiny freaking mind! So, I’m sorry if I give the boy a hard time and ain’t too gentle with the girl, but I’m not going to sit back and watch you risk your life just so you can blow their noses and wipe their arses!” I looked at Potter and he seemed almost out of breath after his rant. Once he had finished, he put out his cigarette and lit another one. Standing, I looked at him and said, “Potter, I had no idea…” “Ah, forget it,” he said, waving me away with his hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Besides, I’ll be moving out at first light in search of Luke. Once I’ve rescued him, I’ll bring him to you in The Hollows and you won’t have to see me again.

What bothered me wasn’t so much the girl’s obvious flirting, but the fact that Chris hadn’t cut it off. I mean, two-hundred-plus messages? Come on! But my reaction may have been over the top. “I don’t need this shit!” I yelled, storming into the bedroom where he was still asleep. I threw my coffee-lukewarm, fortunately-all over him. “What? What?” he mumbled, not yet awake. “Get the hell out!” I screamed. There were a lot of expletives. As a Navy SEAL, Chris had surely heard worse-even from me-but he was completely caught off guard. “I’m not hiding anything!” he protested when he realized from my tirade what I was mad about. I continued to let him have it. “The kids can hear you,” he said finally. “Good!” I screamed. On and on-it was a good rant, let me tell you. I completely and totally lost it. Chris got up and left, wisely seeing that as the smart thing to do. I was still frothing. My dad came in, no doubt wondering why his daughter had turned into the Wicked Witch of the West. I showed him some of the messages. “Look at this! Look at this!” I shouted, as if my father were Chris’s defense attorney. “What do you think of this? Why would he do this?” “These are no big deal,” said my dad. “It is a big deal. This how it starts.” I was furious. If I hadn’t had the one experience with the old girlfriend, maybe I wouldn’t have gone so ballistic. In any event, I just saw red.

If anyone’s actually reading this, and I don’t know if anyone ever will, this is the moment where I’ll lose them, where they’ll rant about that stupid character messing up the story. And I get it, because so much of me yearns for you to be my happy ending, but I can’t apologize for doing what's right. I shove out of the rocking chair and step off of the porch. Your gaze goes right to my stomach, as do your hands. I don’t stop you, though my chest feels like it’s caving in. Your eyes are lighting up, and I know—god, I know—you’ll make a great father, one of the greatest, and you’ll love this little girl with every part of your soul. But that can't happen until you’re ready. “I love you,” I whisper, three words you haven’t said, as I put my hand on top of yours on my stomach. “More than everything… except for her.” You meet my gaze. “It’s a girl?” I nod, and hesitate, before I kiss you, lingering, letting you have this moment, and if I’m being honest, it’s just as much for me. I need this moment to gather my courage. And when I do, I pull back and say, “I need you to leave.” You look at me, stunned. “I need you to go and not come back until you get better,” I say. “I’m asking you… no, I’m begging you… don’t come back here like this again. She’s going to need a father, a real one, someone who can love her more than everything. There’s no place in our lives for an addict. So, please… leave, Jonathan.

With all due respect to you, sir, you can all go piss up a rope,” Steve said. That brought a lot of gasps and exclamations. He forged ahead as if they hadn’t said a word. “You people are the best the Conclave has to offer? I’d rather eat broken glass than listen to you.” “Those are some harsh words, young man,” Moon said. “You mind explaining yourself?” “All this week, I’ve seen Chance bust his ass to do what you people are supposed to be doing!” Steve said, his finger pointing at the Council. “He’s been looking for a girl who was kidnapped by a vampire, trying to keep his own family safe from the guy who took her, and looking for this sword. While he’s trying to do all that, he’s under this Ordeal, trying to prove himself to you so you don’t kill him! And tonight? When it came down to saving his own ass or helping someone else, he chose to save his friend and twelve other kids: kids you should have been looking for, instead of sitting on your lazy butts judging my friend. If you ask me, he shouldn’t have had to choose between kissing your collective ass to save his own life and doing the right thing. He did the right thing even when you might have killed him for it, and frankly, I’ll follow his example over yours any day of the week.” In the silence that followed his rant, I looked at him with a new respect. “I believe,” Moon said after a few moments, “that we’ve been rebuked, Master Draeden.” “Justly so,” Draeden said

I wish you’d stop acting as if-as if everything is normal!” “What would you have me do?” he replied, getting up and walking over to the tray of liquor. He poured some Scotch into two glasses and handed one to Jordan. “If you’re waiting for me to rant and weep, you’re wasting your time.” “No, at the moment I’m glad you’re not given to the masculine version of hysterics. I have news, as I said, and though you aren’t going to find it pleasant from a personal viewpoint, it’s the best possible news from the standpoint of your trial next week. Ian,” he said uneasily, “our investigators-yours, I mean-have finally picked up Elizabeth’s trail.” Ian’s voice was cool, his expression unmoved. “Where is she?” “We don’t know yet, but we do know she was seen traveling in company of a man on the Bernam Road two nights after she disappeared. They put up at the inn about fifteen miles north of Lister. They”-he hesitated and expelled his breath in a rush-“they were traveling as man and wife, Ian.” Other than the merest tightening of Ian’s hand upon the glass of Scotch, there was no visible reaction to this staggering news, or to all its heartbreaking and unsavory implications. “There’s more news, and it’s as good-I mean as valuable-to us.” Ian tossed down the contents of his glass and said with icy finality, “I can’t see how any news could be better. She has now proven that I didn’t kill her, and at the same time she’s given me irrefutable grounds for divorce.

TOM: Slušaj! Misliš da ludujem za skladištem? Misliš da sam zaljubljen u tvornicu cipela Kontinental? Misliš da želim provesti pedeset i pet godina u onoj prostoriji od celoteksa s' fluorescentnim cijevima? Više bih volio da mi netko maljem razbije glavu i prospe mozak nego da se onamo vraćam svakoga jutra! A ipak idem! Svaki put kad mi uđeš u sobu i vikneš ono prokleto:"Ustani i blistaj! Ustani i blistaj!" - ja kažem samome sebi: "Blago mrtvima!" A ipak ustajem! I idem! Za šezdeset i pet dolara mjesečno odričem se svega što bih želio raditi i biti! A ti kažeš da sam sebičan... da uvijek mislim samo na sebe. Čuj me, majko, da mislim na sebe, učinio bih ono što je on učinio - OTIŠAO BIH! Što dalje moguće! Ne diraj me, majko! AMANDA: Kamo ćeš? TOM: Idem u kino! AMANDA: Ne vjerujem u tu laž! TOM: Idem u jazbine gdje se puši opijum! Da, majko, u jazbine, u jazbine poroka gdje se sastaju kriminalci. Pridružio sam se Hoganovoj bandi, ja sam plaćeni ubojica, nosim automat u kutiji za violinu! Upravljam nizom bordela! Zovu me Koljač, Koljač Vingfield, živim dvostrukim životom, majko, danju sam običan pošteni namještenik u skladištu, a noću svemoćni car podzemlja! Zalazim u kockarnice, za ruletnim stolom rasipam silna bogatstva! Preko oka nosim crni ovoj i stavljam lažni brk, katkad stavljam zelenu bradu i brkove. Tada me zovu El Diablo! Mogao bih ti ispričati takve stvari da ne bi mogla oka sklopiti! Moji neprijatelji namjeravaju dići ovu kuću u zrak. Oni će nas jedne noći otpremiti u nebeske visine!

Syn’s head snapped back at Furi’s rant. “Alright. You’re upset about what just happened and you’re projecting. I’m gonna give you some alone time. There’s beer in the fridge, guest bath is down the hall. Make yourself at home.” Syn turned to go to his bedroom. He’d be damned if he was going to let Furi turn this into a fight about him accepting who he was. “Fucking coward,” Furi mumbled. Syn halted at his bedroom door. Did he really just fucking say that? Syn pivoted on his heels and hurried back into the living room. “What the fuck did you just call me?” Furi’s eyes bulged at Syn’s anger. He rose slowly from his seated position and eased around to the other side of the couch. The fear on his face quickly turned to anger. “You want to fight me? Beat me up, Detective?” “What?” Syn gasped at the absurdity of that question. He faced Furi head on and held his angry, black glare with his own. “First of all, how dare you even think for a second that I would put my hands on you in anger? Just because the bastard you chose to marry did, doesn’t mean all men hit.” Syn pointed at his chest. “I’m not a coward, Furious. In case you forgot, I just saved your goddamn life.” “Oh no, I haven’t forgotten, but yes you’re the worst kind of coward. You’re not scared of being shot at or throwing yourself in front of two tons of speeding metal, but you’re afraid to hold a man’s hand, a man you claim to like, in public. Such a badass in the fucking street, but too pussy to admit what you really are.” Syn wasn’t sure how long he stared at Furi before turning walking to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Caligula! Toi aussi, toi aussi, tu es coupable. Alors, n'est-ce pas, un peu plus, un peu moins! Mais qui oserait me condamner dans ce monde sans juge, où personne n'est innocent! (Avec tout l'accent de la détresse, se pressant contre le miroir.) Tu le vois bien, Hélicon n'est pas venu. Je n'aurai pas la lune. Mais qu'il est amer d'avoir raison et de devoir aller jusqu'à la consommation. Car j'ai peur de la consommation. Des bruits d'armes! C'est l'innocence qui prépare son triomphe. Que ne suis-je à leur place! J'ai peur. Quel dé-goût, après avoir méprisé les autres, de se sentir la même lâcheté dans l'âme. Mais cela ne fait rien. La peur non plus ne dure pas. Je vais retrouver ce grand vide où le coeur s'apaise. Tout a l'air si compliqué. Tout est si simple pourtant. Si j'avais eu la lune, si l'amour suffisait, tout serait changé. Mais où étancher cette soif ? Quel coeur, quel dieu auraient pour moi la profondeur d'un lac ? (S'agenouillant et pleu-rant.) Rien dans ce monde, ni dans l'autre, qui soit à ma me-sure. Je sais pourtant, et tu le sais aussi (il tend les mains vers le miroir en pleurant), qu'il suffirait que l'impossible soit. L'impossible! Je l'ai cherché aux limites du monde, aux confins de moi-même. J'ai tendu mes mains (criant), je tends mes mains et c'est toi que je rencontre, toujours toi en face de moi, et je suis pour toi plein de haine. Je n'ai pas pris la voie qu'il fallait, je n'aboutis à rien. Ma liberté n'est pas la bonne. Hélicon! Hélicon! Rien! rien encore. Oh, cette nuit est lourde! Hélicon ne viendra pas: nous serons coupa-bles à jamais! Cette nuit est lourde comme la douleur hu-maine.

In America a child can no longer visit the place where she was born a shopping mall stands there instead. In America a grownup can no longer see the school where she learned the art of growing sad a freeway goes through there now an overpass her memories of brick turn to glass the suburb goes from white to black and time speeds up so much she has to stay young forever and reset the clock every five minutes just to know where is there and there is everywhere because she lives in time and not in any space! In our country here the future is in ruins before it is built a fact recognized by postmodern architecture that grins at us shyly or demonically as it quoted ruins from other times and places! There are no buildings in America only passageways that connect migratory floods the most permanent architecture being precisely that which moves these floods from one future ruin to another that is to say freeways and skyways and the car is our only shelter the architecture of desire reduced to the womb a womb in transit from one nowhere to another!” Saddened by his own vision and sensing smugness in the audience, Wakefield is revolted by his desire to please the foreigners. He coughs. He is portraying his own country now for the sake of… what? Applause? There isn't any. He veers down another path. “The miracle of America is of motion not regret in New Mexico the has face of Jesus jumped on a tortilla in Plaquermine a Virgin appeared in a tree In Santuari de Chimayo the dirt turned healer a guy in Texas crasahed into a wall when God said Let me take the wheel! And others hear voice all the time telling them to sit under a tree or jump from a cliff or take large baskets of eggs into Blockbuster to throw at the videos the voices of God are everywhere heard loud and clear under the hum of the tickertape and all these miracle and speaking gods are the mysteries left homeless by the Architecture of speed and moving forward onward and ahead!” Wakefield throws his hands into the air as if to sprinkle fairy dust on the room; he is evoking the richness of a place always ready for miracles.

I DON'T WANT to talk about me, of course, but it seems as though far too much attention has been lavished on you lately-that your greed and vanities and quest for self-fulfillment have been catered to far too much. You just want and want and want. You believe in yourself excessively. You don't believe in Nature anymore. It's too isolated from you. You've abstracted it. It's so messy and damaged and sad. Your eyes glaze as you travel life's highway past all the crushed animals and the Big Gulp cups. You don't even take pleasure in looking at nature photographs these days. Oh, they can be just as pretty as always, but don't they make you feel increasingly ... anxious? Filled with more trepidation than peace? So what's the point? You see the picture of the baby condor or the panda munching on a bamboo shoot, and your heart just sinks, doesn't it? A picture of a poor old sea turtle with barnacles on her back, all ancient and exhausted, depositing her five gallons of doomed eggs in the sand hardly fills you with joy, because you realize, quite rightly, that just outside the frame falls the shadow of the condo. What's cropped from the shot of ocean waves crashing on a pristine shore is the plastics plant, and just beyond the dunes lies a parking lot. Hidden from immediate view in the butterfly-bright meadow, in the dusky thicket, in the oak and holly wood, are the surveyors' stakes, for someone wants to build a mall exactly there-some gas stations and supermarkets, some pizza and video shops, a health club, maybe a bulimia treatment center. Those lovely pictures of leopards and herons and wild rivers-well, you just know they're going to be accompanied by a text that will serve only to bring you down. You don't want to think about it! It's all so uncool. And you don't want to feel guilty either. Guilt is uncool. Regret maybe you'll consider. Maybe. Regret is a possibility, but don't push me, you say. Nature photographs have become something of a problem, along with almost everything else. Even though they leave the bad stuff out-maybe because you know they're leaving all the bad stuff out-such pictures are making you increasingly aware that you're a little too late for Nature. Do you feel that? Twenty years too late? Maybe only ten? Not way too late, just a little too late? Well, it appears that you are. And since you are, you've decided you're just not going to attend this particular party.

exhausts himself and falls asleep in our faces. When that happens, Chase puts a blanket over him and we tiptoe out. On this particular day, we decide to grab a snack and screen our video footage. I suggest frozen yogurt at Heaven on Ice—the words are out of my mouth before I remember what happened the last time we were in that place together. He looks worried, so I add, “I promise not to dump anything over your head.” Heaven on Ice is just a few blocks away. We load up sundaes, pick a corner booth, and start to preview the day’s efforts on the flip-cam. It’s good stuff. Mr. Solway is ranting about how the designated hitter has ruined baseball, so we’re both holding back laughter as we watch. We already have enough footage for five videos. I can’t shake the feeling that we keep going back for more just because we don’t want it to end. Chase is having the same thoughts. “I’m going to keep visiting Mr. Solway even after we finish.” “I’ll come with you.” My response is instant, even though I had no idea I was going to say that. “Shosh?” I look up and there’s my mother in line at the register, carrying a small frozen yogurt cake. Suddenly, an expression of utter horror spreads across her face. “Mom? What’s wrong—?” Then I realize that she’s just recognized the person that I’m with, our heads together as we watch the tiny flip-cam screen. I never told anybody in my family who my partner is for the video contest, so I know how this must seem to Mom: that I’m cozied up, practically cheek to cheek, with the horrible bully who made Joel’s life unbearable and forced him out of town. “It’s not what it looks like!” I blurt. Her expression is carved from stone. “The car’s outside. I’ll drive you home.” “But, Mom—” “I said get in the car.” Chase stands up. “Mrs. Weber—” She’s been quiet up to now. But being addressed directly by Chase is too much for her. “How dare you speak to me?” she seethes, her entire body shaking. “Everyone in my family is off-limits to you! If I had my way, you and your filthy friends would be in juvenile hall!” I speak up again. “This is my fault, not his! If you have to blame someone, blame me!” “I am blaming you!” She hustles me out the door, tossing over her shoulder at Chase, “Stay away from my daughter!” “Can’t we talk about this?” I plead. “Oh, we’ll talk about this,” she agrees. “Trust me, by the time we’re through, your ears will be blistered.” We’re halfway home before either of us realizes that she never paid for the frozen yogurt cake.

I have been all over the world cooking and eating and training under extraordinary chefs. And the two food guys I would most like to go on a road trip with are Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlmann, both of whom I have met, and who are genuinely awesome guys, hysterically funny and easy to be with. But as much as I want to be the Batgirl in that trio, I fear that I would be woefully unprepared. Because an essential part of the food experience that those two enjoy the most is stuff that, quite frankly, would make me ralph. I don't feel overly bad about the offal thing. After all, variety meats seem to be the one area that people can get a pass on. With the possible exception of foie gras, which I wish like heckfire I liked, but I simply cannot get behind it, and nothing is worse than the look on a fellow foodie's face when you pass on the pate. I do love tongue, and off cuts like oxtails and cheeks, but please, no innards. Blue or overly stinky cheeses, cannot do it. Not a fan of raw tomatoes or tomato juice- again I can eat them, but choose not to if I can help it. Ditto, raw onions of every variety (pickled is fine, and I cannot get enough of them cooked), but I bonded with Scott Conant at the James Beard Awards dinner, when we both went on a rant about the evils of raw onion. I know he is often sort of douchey on television, but he was nice to me, very funny, and the man makes the best freaking spaghetti in tomato sauce on the planet. I have issues with bell peppers. Green, red, yellow, white, purple, orange. Roasted or raw. Idk. If I eat them raw I burp them up for days, and cooked they smell to me like old armpit. I have an appreciation for many of the other pepper varieties, and cook with them, but the bell pepper? Not my friend. Spicy isn't so much a preference as a physical necessity. In addition to my chronic and severe gastric reflux, I also have no gallbladder. When my gallbladder and I divorced several years ago, it got custody of anything spicier than my own fairly mild chili, Emily's sesame noodles, and that plastic Velveeta-Ro-Tel dip that I probably shouldn't admit to liking. I'm allowed very occasional visitation rights, but only at my own risk. I like a gentle back-of-the-throat heat to things, but I'm never going to meet you for all-you-can-eat buffalo wings. Mayonnaise squicks me out, except as an ingredient in other things. Avocado's bland oiliness, okra's slickery slime, and don't even get me started on runny eggs. I know. It's mortifying.

After years of hearing my father rant at my flaws, one loss has caused me to take up his rant. I’ve internalized my father—his impatience, his perfectionism, his rage—until his voice doesn’t just feel like my own, it is my own. I no longer need my father to torture me. From this day on, I can do it all by myself.

I sat in front of the TV hour after hour watching the news about how Trump was fucking up the government’s response to the spreading corona virus infection. Why didn’t he invoke the federal government’s power under the Defense Production Act as soon as the virus hit Washington State? All the experts knew how fast-spreading and dangerous this corona virus could be? Instead, he ignores the CDC’s advice and downplays the risk to the nation’s health. Not until mid April, when it’s way too late, does Trump finally use some of the government’s power under the DPA, and even then it’s a half-assed measure. Not enough testing, not enough ventilators, not enough PPE, not enough swabs. The number of infections kept rising. By the end of March the US led the world in infections and deaths caused by the virus. What does Trump do? He refuses to wear a mask. He’s not going to look like a weakling. Testing? Overrated. It increases the number of infections. Why doesn’t the country have enough PPE and ventilators? Obama’s fault. The President is in charge, but if there’s any failure, it’s the fault of governors and mayors. He keeps repeating his mantra, “The situation is under control.” Pence’s team will whip the virus. Or was it Jared’s team? This virus isn’t as bad as the flu. America always wins. Doesn’t matter who or what the enemy is, we always triumph. We’re going to kill that little bug. Those people wearing masks are doing it to spite me, Donald J. Trump, the greatest President in history. “The situation is under control.” But the deaths keep mounting. It surpasses annual deaths from auto accidents, 34,000. It surpasses US deaths in the Vietnam War, 58,000. Next, it’s going to surpass total deaths of US soldiers in World War I, 116,500, and it’s not going to stop there. What the fuck!? This is the United States of America! We’re supposed to have the best healthcare in the world, the best of everything. We’re Number One! Yeah, Trump made America great again. He said with him as President America would win so much we’d get tired of winning. Right on, man! We are Number One – in corona virus infections and deaths! After spending all day switching back and forth among the cable news networks on TV, I’d turn off the television and get on my laptop and rant on Twitter about what an idiot the President was. That was my life during the lockdown. From "Anarchist, Republican... Assassin

replies:

아이스판매 【텔레:lg000sk】빙두판매,작대기판매 “I thought the book was ok. One of my old boyfriends recommended it to me, and while I was reading it I told him what an asshole I thought Ignatius J. Reilly was, and that I was sick of hearing about his valve. He got pissed off at me and told me that I didn't get it. He said Ignatius was a misunderstood genius stuck in a shitty town with no one who understood him. To be honest, my eyes kind of glazed over and I don't remember the rest of his rant, but I finished the book anyway. I think the most valuable thing I learned was to lie on my left side to fart. [One of my pet peeves is when someone says, "You just don't get it." No, I get it, I just don't like it. One time I saw this shitty band (I don't remember their name) open for the White Stripes, and they kept saying, "You guys don't get it. Some of you get it, but the rest of you just don't get it." NO, you guys just SUCK!

And to my family, thank you for tolerating this Wednesday Addams wannabe through another publishing cycle fraught with angst, distraction, erratic excitement, and rants about esoteric topics. I love you more than I can say.

Listen to me, Xenie." I began ranting, for no reason, I was frantic. "You've been involved in literary goings-on. You must have read De Sade. You must have found De Sade fantastic. Just like the others. People who admire De Sade are con artists, do you hear? Con artists!

For a story on Facebook’s failings in developing countries, Newley Purnell and Justin Scheck found a woman who had been trafficked from Kenya to Saudi Arabia, and they were looking into the role Facebook had played in recruiting hit men for Mexican drug lords. That story would reveal that Facebook had failed to effectively shut down the presence of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on Facebook and Instagram, allowing it to repeatedly post photos of extreme gore, including severed hands and beheadings. Looking into how the platform encouraged anger, Keach Hagey relied on documents showing that political parties in Poland had complained to Facebook that the changes it had made around engagement made them embrace more negative positions. The documents didn’t name the parties; she was trying to figure out which ones. Deepa Seetharaman was working to understand how Facebook’s vaunted AI managed to take down such a tiny percentage—a low single-digit percent, according to the documents Haugen had given me—of hate speech on the platform, including constant failures to identify first-person shooting videos and racist rants.

This is me just going on a rant about self harm and my experience started when I was 7 through 10 I was always getting raped my my cousin I had told my brother and after he said "well so u wanna have sex with me" i kept telling him no then he force me to I was 7 he was 9 and the thing with him lasted until i was fucking 12 mothers day weekend of 2022 i was scared, alone so I went to my last resort, cutting i was always in the care of my father fast forward to about 2 months later so in july i went 4 months without seeing my father so iwas heart broken i couldent see him so now my father was in a motorcycling accident i mean he was mentally abusive so i kinda laughed then i realized that he night not make it

He was completely wrong. There had been plenty of signs throughout Yellowstone warning visitors that the wildlife was dangerous. By the roadside, the driver of the RV was now arguing with Morton’s children, most likely about who was at fault in the accident. Just as Morton’s daughter leaned in to let the driver have it, the family car burst into flames. Morton screamed again. So did his wife. She seemed to forget that her husband was wounded and raced toward the flaming car. “Our clothes!” she shouted to her children. “Get our clothes!” Mom sighed heavily. “I think we’re going to have to take this guy to the hospital.” I wasn’t happy about that. And I could see that Dad and Summer were disappointed too. But we couldn’t leave Morton wounded in the middle of the wilderness. “Darn right I need to go to the hospital,” Morton said. “Lousy, no-good deer! This is the last time I ever go on vacation in a national park!” “I’m sure the park service will be happy to hear that,” Summer informed him. Morton ignored her and kept on ranting. “We should have gone on a cruise. They don’t have any homicidal deer on cruise ships.” Dad looked to me and rolled his eyes. “Welcome to Yellowstone,” he said. I laughed, figuring this was the strangest thing that would happen to me that day. It wasn’t even close.

While we vented and ranted about the quarantine life hoping to wake up miraculously from this dystopian nightmare, we also discovered a newfound respect for the life that was, that we had left behind.

I cope with jealousy by having a furious conversation in my head when I rant and rave to Mum about how much attention the TWELVE-YEAR-OLD is getting. I swear a lot and make some evil unforgivable things and it makes me feel much better. Out loud, I say, "Of course, go ahead, that's fine, you go and enjoy yourself." As you do.

called Nancy the next day, explaining that my team had drafted a drastically scaled-back healthcare proposal as a fallback but that I wanted to push ahead with passing the Senate bill through the House and needed her support to do it. For the next fifteen minutes, I was subjected to one of Nancy’s patented stream-of-consciousness rants—on why the Senate bill was flawed, why her caucus members were so angry, and why the Senate Democrats were cowardly, shortsighted, and generally incompetent. “So does that mean you’re with me?” I said when she finally paused to catch her breath. “Well, that’s not even a question, Mr. President,” Nancy said impatiently. “We’ve come too far to give up now.” She thought for a moment. Then, as if testing out an argument she’d later use with her caucus, she added, “If we let this go, it would be rewarding the Republicans for acting so terribly, wouldn’t it? We’re not going to give them the satisfaction.

You are full of… horse feathers, cowboy." Leaning over him, she stared hard into his eyes. "I didn't work like a damned dog out there and freeze my butt off—excuse me, Sunshine—so we could just let those damned—'scuse me, Sunshine—stupid cows starve or freeze. And we aren't going to find a buyer for them now, that's for damned sure—excuse me, Sunshine.

Miles nodded, his head bobbing loosely on his neck. “Yeah. Ellie and I have been besties forever.” Then he frowned. “Wait. I can’t call you Ellie anymore. Sorry, Ellie.” The hair on the back of my neck prickled. Elise had told me not to call her Ellie. I’d wondered why at the time but had dropped it. Miles knew, though. He knew something about her I didn’t. Elise waved him off. “It’s fine.” Sam turned to her. “Wait, what’s wrong with Ellie? It’s a cute nickname.” Miles tried to snap his fingers, but when he couldn’t, he pointed at her. “Right? It is a cute nickname, but I had to go ruin it. I ruin everything.” His head dropped and Elise reached for him, but he flung her hand off and stumbled to his feet. Elliot and I exchanged a glance. He lifted a shoulder. Neither of us understood what was going on, but my gut told me it wasn’t good. My gut told me to shut my brother up before he continued his path of destruction. I got to my feet, but Miles was already ranting. “I thought it would be funny, you know?” He shook his head. “Maybe I didn’t think that. Maybe I didn’t think at all. I saw you on the first day of school. You had a sparkly headband on, and you were laughing with friends. Friends, Lisie. You had friends, but I was supposed to be looking out for you when I had no one.” He was staring right at Elise, red-faced, his chest heaving. “So, I called you that. Ellie the Elephant, and they laughed. Then I had friends. People laughed with me, they wanted to be around me.” My mouth fell open, trying to wrap my head around what my brother was saying. Elliot’s chair scraped back. He circled the table to get to Elise, who looked like a deer caught in headlights. She was frozen, eyes wide, watching my brother. We all were.

He’s holding a white box wrapped with string, and he slides it onto the windowsill. The surface is slightly damp. “What’s this?” I ask. “I remember you saying you liked lavender cake, and I saw some in the bakery.” He takes the spyglass from me and starts staring out the window. I take the box and sit on the bed, scooting back cross-legged. I pull the string on the box, unwrapping it. “You got me cake?” I’m still confused. This doesn’t square with his rant about not liking me. “Why?” “Because you said you liked it. You told me you ordered the lavender cake, but you got blackberry.” I stare at his large back, stunned. “That was six months ago.” “Right.

One of the greatest (and least discussed) barriers to compassion practice is the fear of setting boundaries and holding people accountable. I know it sounds strange, but I believe that understanding the connection between boundaries, accountability, acceptance, and compassion has made me a kinder person. Before the breakdown, I was sweeter—judgmental, resentful, and angry on the inside—but sweeter on the outside. Today, I think I’m genuinely more compassionate, less judgmental and resentful, and way more serious about boundaries. ... The heart of compassion is really acceptance. The better we are at accepting ourselves and others, the more compassionate we become. Well, it's difficult to accept people when they are hurting us or taking advantage of us or walking all over us. This research has taught me that if we really want to practice compassion, we have to start by setting boundaries and hold people accountable for their behavior. We live in a blame culture -- we want to know whose fault it is and how they're going to pay. In our personal, social, and political worlds, we do a lot of screaming and finger-pointing, but we rarely hold people accountable. How could we? We're so exhausted from ranting and raving that we don't have the energy to develop meaningful consequences and enforce them. From Washington, D.C., and Wall Street to our own schools and homes, I think this rage-blame-too-tired-and-busy-to-follow-through-mind-set is why we're so heavy on self-righteous anger and so low on compassion.

Rochford reached out and his cold fingers traced the line of her jaw. “I could be nothing but gentle with you, love. You need never fear me. I’ve never raised a hand to a woman in anger, and I do not mean to start now. I would be kind to you, too, and though I am not so blind to my own failings that I can promise I won’t ever rant or give into a temper tantrum, you are at liberty to rant right back. Tell me I’m an obnoxious arse when you need to. I’ll not punish you for it, God, I want to hear you scold me. I’d give anything to hear you telling me what a pompous idiot I am. Tell me every day. Please. I’ll be the better for it, I swear.

The collapse of society was the western front, that conflict augmented by a lack of preparation, limited physical resources, and a severe shortage of human assets. A dark, ominous cloud of uncertainty was the enemy’s primary weapon. Levi was certain that this was going to be a war of attrition. On the eastern front loomed old age. Twenty years ago, Levi would have feared no man. While he’d never spoiled for a fight in any theatre, when one came his way, he had always felt up to the task. Years of military schools and courses had instilled this confidence. Numerous engagements on the battlefield had proven him worthy. That man, however, had been a different Levi York, both physically and mentally. Now, Father Time was employing a strategy that seemed destined to make him fail. He knew the outcome of this battle was inevitable. Ultimately, he had no chance of winning. He was a ball player intentionally fouling his opponent, merely wrangling to prolong the game, desperately trying to stop the clock from counting down to zero. “Aren’t we all fighting for more time?” he reflected as he prepared for his shift on patrol. “Isn’t that what this is all about? I’ve fought insurgents, radicalized religious zealots, power-hungry holy men, and indoctrinated crazies,” he proclaimed to the mirror. “In every single case, we gave better than what we received. I controlled the field at the end of day, each and every time. Is it finally my turn to fall? Will the combination of foes we’re facing finally take me out of the fight?” he ranted. As he pondered his own questions for several moments more, Levi’s spine stiffened, his shoulders squaring off. “Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “You’re not going down without leaving your best on the field. You’re not going to fade quietly into the night. To the end, you’re going to give it your best, old man.

One day, meandering through the bookcases, I had picked up his diaries and begun to read the account of his famous meeting with Hitler prior to Munich, at the house in Berchtesgaden high up in the Bavarian mountains. Chamberlain described how, after greeting him, Hitler took him up to the top of the chalet. There was a room, bare except for three plain wooden chairs, one for each of them and the interpreter. He recounts how Hitler alternated between reason – complaining of the Versailles Treaty and its injustice – and angry ranting, almost screaming about the Czechs, the Poles, the Jews, the enemies of Germany. Chamberlain came away convinced that he had met a madman, someone who had real capacity to do evil. This is what intrigued me. We are taught that Chamberlain was a dupe; a fool, taken in by Hitler’s charm. He wasn’t. He was entirely alive to his badness. I tried to imagine being him, thinking like him. He knows this man is wicked; but he cannot know how far it might extend. Provoked, think of the damage he will do. So, instead of provoking him, contain him. Germany will come to its senses, time will move on and, with luck, so will Herr Hitler. Seen in this way, Munich was not the product of a leader gulled, but of a leader looking for a tactic to postpone, to push back in time, in hope of circumstances changing. Above all, it was the product of a leader with a paramount and overwhelming desire to avoid the blood, mourning and misery of war. Probably after Munich, the relief was too great, and hubristically, he allowed it to be a moment that seemed strategic not tactical. But easy to do. As Chamberlain wound his way back from the airport after signing the Munich Agreement – the fateful paper brandished and (little did he realise) his place in history with it – crowds lined the street to welcome him as a hero. That night in Downing Street, in the era long before the security gates arrived and people could still go up and down as they pleased, the crowds thronged outside the window of Number 10, shouting his name, cheering him, until he was forced in the early hours of the morning to go out and speak to them in order that they disperse. Chamberlain was a good man, driven by good motives. So what was the error? The mistake was in not recognising the fundamental question. And here is the difficulty of leadership: first you have to be able to identify that fundamental question. That sounds daft – surely it is obvious; but analyse the situation for a moment and it isn’t. You might think the question was: can Hitler be contained? That’s what Chamberlain thought. And, on balance, he thought he could. And rationally, Chamberlain should have been right. Hitler had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. He was supreme in Germany. Why not be satisfied? How crazy to step over the line and make war inevitable.

One day, meandering through the bookcases, I had picked up his diaries and begun to read the account of his famous meeting with Hitler prior to Munich, at the house in Berchtesgaden high up in the Bavarian mountains. Chamberlain described how, after greeting him, Hitler took him up to the top of the chalet. There was a room, bare except for three plain wooden chairs, one for each of them and the interpreter. He recounts how Hitler alternated between reason – complaining of the Versailles Treaty and its injustice – and angry ranting, almost screaming about the Czechs, the Poles, the Jews, the enemies of Germany. Chamberlain came away convinced that he had met a madman, someone who had real capacity to do evil. This is what intrigued me. We are taught that Chamberlain was a dupe; a fool, taken in by Hitler’s charm. He wasn’t. He was entirely alive to his badness. I tried to imagine being him, thinking like him. He knows this man is wicked; but he cannot know how far it might extend. Provoked, think of the damage he will do. So, instead of provoking him, contain him. Germany will come to its senses, time will move on and, with luck, so will Herr Hitler. Seen in this way, Munich was not the product of a leader gulled, but of a leader looking for a tactic to postpone, to push back in time, in hope of circumstances changing. Above all, it was the product of a leader with a paramount and overwhelming desire to avoid the blood, mourning and misery of war. Probably after Munich, the relief was too great, and hubristically, he allowed it to be a moment that seemed strategic not tactical. But easy to do. As Chamberlain wound his way back from the airport after signing the Munich Agreement – the fateful paper brandished and (little did he realise) his place in history with it – crowds lined the street to welcome him as a hero. That night in Downing Street, in the era long before the security gates arrived and people could still go up and down as they pleased, the crowds thronged outside the window of Number 10, shouting his name, cheering him, until he was forced in the early hours of the morning to go out and speak to them in order that they disperse. Chamberlain was a good man, driven by good motives. So what was the error? The mistake was in not recognising the fundamental question. And here is the difficulty of leadership: first you have to be able to identify that fundamental question. That sounds daft – surely it is obvious; but analyse the situation for a moment and it isn’t. You might think the question was: can Hitler be contained? That’s what Chamberlain thought. And, on balance, he thought he could. And rationally, Chamberlain should have been right. Hitler had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. He was supreme in Germany. Why not be satisfied? How crazy to step over the line and make war inevitable. But that wasn’t the fundamental question. The fundamental question was: does fascism represent a force that is so strong and rooted that it has to be uprooted and destroyed? Put like that, the confrontation was indeed inevitable. The only consequential question was when and how. In other words, Chamberlain took a narrow and segmented view – Hitler was a leader, Germany a country, 1938 a moment in time: could he be contained? Actually, Hitler was the product

Beta?” she asked, turning to rummage through one of the storage containers. “Do you know where I put the welder?” “Miss Alys, I don’t think we’re alone anymore.” “Very funny. Did Dad send someone to find me, after all?” She yanked out what felt like a welder, but ended up being the broken end of a screwdriver. “Damn it.” “Alys!” Beta’s voice was a little harsher this time. “Turn around.” Sighing, she had a whole rant on the tip of her tongue to scold the droid for trying to scare her, but then all the words disappeared the moment the droid turned on the lights outside of the pod. A man floated outside of her sub. No, not a man. Something else entirely. His long, dark hair hovered around his head, graceful and delicate in comparison to the hard swath of muscles that tapered down from his broad shoulders to a very narrow waist. But that was all that looked human. She could see the delicate webs between his fingers that ended in deadly black claws. The gills that fluttered on the side of his neck and the bright green scales that created a tiger stripe pattern all down his body. It was... What was he?

... Me resulta esencial recordar que una historia ví rante y apasionada sobre personajes atractivos es más importante que los sistemas de magia espectaculares o las secuencias de acción épica. Los personajes y la emoción son la verdadera magia.

We were on a swing through the Midwest, and Brian’s asthma had got him and he was in hospital in Chicago. And, hey, when a guy’s sick, you double for him. But then we saw pictures of him zooming around Chicago, hanging at a party with so-and-so, fawning over stars with a silly little bow around his neck. We’d done three, four gigs without him. That’s double duty for me, pal. There’s only five of us, and the whole point of the band is that it’s a two-guitar band. And suddenly there’s only one guitar. I’ve got to figure out whole new ways to play all of these songs. I’ve got to perform Brian’s part as well. I learned a lot about how to do two parts at once, or how to distill the essence of what his part was and still play what I had to play, and throw in a few licks, but it was damn hard work. And I never got a thank-you from him, ever, for covering his arse. He didn’t give a shit. “I was out of it.” That’s all I would get. All right, are you gonna give me your pay? That’s when I had it in for Brian. One can get very sarcastic on the road and quite vicious. “Just shut up, you little creep. Preferred it when you weren’t here.” He had this way of ranting on, saying things that would just grate. “When I played with so-and-so…” He was totally starstruck. “I saw Bob Dylan yesterday. He doesn’t like you.” But he had no idea how obnoxious he was being. So it would start off, “Oh, shut up, Brian.” Or we’d imitate the way he cringed his head into his nonexistent neck. And then it went to baiting him in a

Might've saved yourself there. The heroine in the book is so dry and salty and apathetic -- about everything." Ben winced. "He probably thought that meant a strong female character." I threw up my hands. "I know, right? A woman can be emotional and vibrant and love things. That doesn't make her weak or inferior--argh! I'm not going to rant about it, it'll just make me upset.

Sunlight severs me from sleep. I grasp at a fading dream, catch its last breath, quiet and wispy as a cobweb. It feels tragic, but I already forget what the dream was about. Something good. Was I at the mall again? I’m always dreaming about this mall. It’s the same mall, except a little different every time. The stores change, the layout. The fountain to throw loose change into while wishing to strike it rich. I’ll have to tell Naomi. She also has a dream mall. It’s a cornerstone of our friendship. Someday we’ll meet in the dream mall, she’ll say. How do you know it’s the same mall? I’ll ask. It’s obviously the same mall. I take her word for it. She speaks with such certainty, it’s impossible not to. Sometimes when I bring up the dream mall, she’ll go on a rant about capitalism infiltrating our subconscious. Sometimes she’ll try to interpret, say the dream is about choices, about decision paralysis, or insecurity, or identity; then she’ll eulogize her be-loved dream dictionary, which she accidentally left on a train when she was a teenager. It was a gift from her favorite aunt, who bought it from a clairvoyant in Prague—irreplaceable. I’ve never asked her why we’ve yet to find each other there, at the dream mall, what that could mean. I’m sure she’d have an answer. Naomi has an answer for everything.

It occurred to me that we’d had sex for the first time last night, and I’d just spent a full five minutes ranting about planets.

We’ve had lots and lots of millionaires in our ranks. And it just drives me crazy when they flaunt it. Maybe it’s none of my business, but I’ve done everything I can to discourage our folks from getting too extravagant with their homes and their automobiles and their lifestyles. As I said earlier, I just don’t believe the lifestyle here in Bentonville should be much different than what would be high moderate income in most other places. But from time to time I’ve had a hard time holding back folks who have never had the opportunity to get their hands on the kind of money they’ve made with their Wal-Mart stock holdings. Every now and then somebody will do something particularly showy, and I don’t hesitate to rant and rave about it at the Saturday morning meeting. And a lot of times, folks who just can’t hold back will go ahead and leave the company. It goes back to what I said about learning to value a dollar as a kid. I don’t think that big mansions and flashy cars are what the Wal-Mart culture is supposed to be about. It’s great to have the money to fall back on, and I’m glad some of these folks have been able to take off and go fishing at a fairly early age. That’s fine with me. But if you get too caught up in that good life, it’s probably time to move on, simply because you lose touch with what your mind is supposed to be concentrating on: serving the customer.

How many drinks have you had today, Livia?” She shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. This is not about me being a tiny, miniscule amount of tipsy.” Her normally precise voice stumbles over the word miniscule. “This is about you lying about your super sperm!” Well. Everyone is certainly staring at us now. I take Liv’s elbow and guide her into a corner of the room, deciding that sober Liv probably wouldn’t want to rant about sperm in front of a room of strangers. Once we get into the corner, Liv yanks her elbow out of my grasp with the unflappable dignity of the drunk. “You said you had super sperm,” she continues in a whispered hiss. “And you don’t. You have the opposite of super sperm! You have unsuper sperm, you have microsperm, you have…” Her eyes glance around as she tries to think of something especially cutting. They land on my arm, where my tattoo peeks out from under my sleeve. “You have Hydra sperm. Captain America would hate your sperm.” Whoa. “Now, let’s not say things we’re going to regret in the heat of the moment.” She growls again. “And baby, you barely know my body at all if you think my sperm is unsuper, micro, Hydra sperm.” “I do know your body, and I know about your giant, awesome cock—” “Okay, well maybe you know my body a little bit—” “—and you were supposed to get me pregnant and you didn’t.” Her eyes get glossy and her chin has the faintest tremble in it. And for some reason, seeing her chin quiver is like being punched in the chest. I can’t stand it. I’m already pulling her into my arms when she manages in a teary whisper, “I got my period this morning. I’m not pregnant.

Oh. Okay. Okay,” she said, burying her nose in Holden’s neck, wetting his skin with her tears. “Thank . . . thank you for coming.” “Gris, I love you. Hellfire couldn’t have k-kept me away.” She sobbed again, then laughed softly, thinking his words came perilously close to Caleb Foster’s rants. “Or my wickedness?” “Or your idle hands.” “Or my heathen ways.” “Or your evil spring tits.” He leaned back, and his eyes were glassy, but he managed a small grin. “I fucking love your tits.

You want to know what gets on my nerves? When people say 'you can't be a Christian because you're LGBT+, or you used to be a Muslim/Hindu/atheist/pretty much anything else really'. The reason people say those things is because we believe doing so is sinning, but haven't we all sinned? Aren't we all in the same boat, at the mercy of the storm raging outside? If so, why keep to ourselves in what we think is the safest corner, but the whole boat sinks nonetheless? Every sin, whether it's stealing a cookie from the cookie jar to murdering and robbing an innocent child is sin. Even if you have never done any wrong, except did one thing, isn't your soul still poisoned, still doomed to being a sinner? Why must we separate ourself because we believe we are 'righteous', when in doing so we simply dirty ourselves in sinful dust even more so, yet continue to believe ourselves better then anyone else? If you don't think you are worthy, or can possibly be righteous, well, I'm afraid your not on track. The only reason we are even not-dead-yet is because a perfect soul died after never sinning, Jesus payed the price we so selfishly went into debt for because we wanted temporary satisfaction and worthless paper called money. If we have all been called to be clean, why must we refuse this and say others are dirty, when if that's true we are dirty as well ourselves? We sink the boat we are on to see others drown, yet in the process we drown ourselves. We have been selfish, lazy, prideful, and sinful, every one of is, and yet are so blind we cannot even see the great light that calls us to be clean and perfect. There is no such thing as too far gone, so why do we say others are too far gone yet set the bar lower for ourselves? Are we more perfect, more righteous, more forgiven then people who don't know God as well as we do? Surely not! If we know God, instead of keeping him to ourselves we are quite clearly instructed to give freely in the Bible, and yet we refuse to do so for the sake of our sinful pride. Why do we not reach down, and get our knees dirty to help the poor? What is stopping us from going that extra mile, from giving more then you have, from reaching out with the great news of the savior? We are too prideful, we don't want our silken robes to get muddy in someone else's sin even when they're already disgusting in ours. We tell ourselves we're are too tired to walk the extra mile, yet powerful enough to strike down the needy and ones in poverty. We are too greedy, we would rather keep the Savior to ourselves then give it, even though in giving you get even more. What right do we have to choose who should come with us into heaven? What heavenly authority gave us the power to say 'you sin, you cannot come to heaven', even though we sinners think we can when there is no difference between us? Any one can truly believe, there is no 'special requirement' to be a Christian other then to know God exists (well, duh you didn't need to tell us that) and to know you are a sinner and to try to not sin, even though we all fail miserably at that, and to love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as much as God loves them. (No, autocorrect is not a human, I hate it too). There is no human on earth who is perfect, if you believe yourself to be so you are even more wrong then before. If there is anyone reading this, who is suicidal or LGBT+ and have been bullied or just don't know, trust me, there is nothing, NOTHING preventing you from believing except for your own will. I don't know if this is a quote or a rant ;;

You might think your pussy is the wrong color or the wrong shape or the wrong size, but when a man looks at it, all he sees is heaven. Trust me, he's not worried about whether your lips are symmetrical. He's just counting his lucky stars to see you naked. It's very difficult for a man to understand why a woman would be so self-conscious about her hooha.

You still talk to your horses.” I jerked and Sackett shifted, not liking the spike of energy that shot through me or the fact that my fingers had yanked at his mane. Moses stood silhouetted in the barn door, holding what looked to be a large canvas in his hand. I hadn’t realized I was still talking to Sackett, and I did a quick examination of what I’d just said. I believe I had just uttered an embarrassing rant on Moses not being allowed in Georgia. Oh, Lord, I prayed fervently, you can make the blind man see and the deaf man hear, so it shouldn’t be too much to ask to make this man forget everything he’s just seen and heard. “What does Sackett think about those new, stricter laws in Georgia?” I looked up at the rafters, “Hey, thanks for comin’ through for me, Lord.

I am angry, Anna.” The earl rose again. “I fear diplomacy is beyond me.” “Are you angry with me?” “Oh, I want to be,” he assured her, his gaze raking her up and down. “I want to be furious, to turn you over my knee and paddle you until my hand hurts, to shake you and rant and treat the household to a tantrum worthy of His Grace.” “I am sorry.” Anna’s gaze dropped to the carpet. “I am not angry with you,” the earl said gravely, “but your brother and his crony will have much to answer for.” “You are disappointed in me.” “I am concerned for you,” the earl said tiredly. “So concerned I am willing to seek the aid of His Grace, and to pull every string and call in every favor the old man can spare me. Just one thing, Anna?” She met his gaze, looking as though she was prepared to hear the worst: Pack your things, get out of my sight, give me back those glowing characters. “Be here when I get back,” the earl said with deadly calm. “And expect to have a long talk with me when this is sorted out.” She nodded. He waited to see if she had anything else to add, any arguments, conditions, or demurrals, but for once, his Anna apparently had the sense not to fight him. He turned on his heel and left before she could second guess herself.

Forget him. Let's get on with this date you keep talking about," Kane said, glancing back over his shoulder at Avery as he rounded the stairwell, taking the next flight of stairs down. "I don't want him here anymore," Avery said, taking each step much slower. Kane was already close to the door. "Neither do I," Kane replied, peeking up at Avery over the banister. "I'm not kidding, Kane. I think you need to move in with me where he can't find you. He makes me uncomfortable," Avery said. By the one raised eyebrow on Kane's face, Avery had to mentally stop his rant and think about what he might have said that caused that look. He couldn't figure it out. The answer seemed so clear to him.

A rat, Evie,” she murmured. “A rat on my table . . . gnaws the threads . . . the salamander stares at me from the shadows . . . the serpent coils around the tree . . . and chokes its roots.” How had she gotten so much worse in such a short time? Her gaze darted. “Spite couldn’t spit . . . and the Devil knew his verses. The cups see the future . . . in a chalice of blood.” ...“Only you can bring us back. You must win . . . the earth depends on it. Cards know it . . . beware the Fool . . . dark dealings. The dark calling, the calling dark.” When she started on another rant, I touched her arm. “What about the Fool?” “The wild card! The game keeper.”... “You have to kill Death. He will turn on you—they all will. Death is poisoning me!” I read until her chest no longer rose and fell. My grandmother was at peace. For some reason, I turned to the last page. Gran had updated the chronicles. The first entry: The cunning Empress has beguiled Death, until all he can see is her. He reunites an Arcana with her Tarasova, courting his own destruction. Another entry: They are murdering me, but the Empress turns a blind eye. Though they have tricked her, I see clearly. She won’t do what’s necessary, so I have put the end into motion. She can never be with him. She has no idea what Life and Death become. . . . What had she meant by that? And what “necessary” thing had she put into motion? I left you clues, Evie. Nothing is as it seems. Midnight serpents choke the roots. The Agent. The ro—

Being numb no longer suits me. It’s ill-fitting and I’m antsy about it. I find myself snapping back at people more. Or writing little Bailey-esque rants into my emails when someone’s upset me. I don’t want to be numb. I want to tell someone who has upset me to take their attitude and shove it right up their— Well, let’s just say that I am starting to prefer it to shoving some food in my mouth on top of my hurt feelings.

Of these, the one that has consumed the most thought, time and energy was the abortion. From an entirely unexpected source came the suggestion that I forgive her. Well hell, my natural response was indignation and self-righteous anger: “Why should I forgive her?” says I, “She screwed up, not me; I didn’t do anything wrong.” My friend let me rant for a bit, then patiently explained that my wife didn’t need my forgiveness; but it was I who needed to forgive; but again, not for her but for me. A major paradigm shift happened that day. What I learned is that forgiveness is for the person doing the forgiving; not for the person who – we believe – perpetrated the wrong.

We’re living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We’d rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other. The pressure parents put on teenage kids to get into the “right schools” is stressful and cruel. So please forgive me while I preach a little about the joy of children and grandchildren, because plenty of sensible people will tell you to do anything but commit to love first and to career, money and possessions second. And this isn’t only about heterosexual love. Everything I’m ranting about here is just as true for gay men and lesbian women who are in love and who want children and who like me also want to put their relationships ahead of stuff, prestige and ego. So I have news for us all: it’s the entire cycle of life that counts. And that cycle is the only real “biological clock” that matters. Everything else is just a footnote.

Love peeps who have 2 correct me. Well it's peeps like you that give me fault when it comes to Apple. Apple been annoying me as well when it comes 2 trying 2 auto-correct me. Always ends up spelling it freaking wrong and just generally making me look like an asswipe as well as itself. It was fine b4 you changed it, I know I spelt it right, just like COLOUR is not spelt COLOR in my country!!! I never typed PEAK!! I wrote PEEK! it just decided not to and pissed me off just like peeps, like you, who like 2 auto-correct me! Rant over!

Nowadays, people often ask me what it’s like hunting with my dad. We’ve actually had offers of tens of thousands of dollars from people who want to spend a day in Phil’s blind. It always amazes us because when we were growing up, duck hunting was our everyday life. When we were kids, we were always in the blind with Dad. I don’t remember my first hunt or the first duck I killed, like other young hunters. It was a different time and Phil wasn’t exactly a traditional dad. He didn’t take pictures of our first duck. It wasn’t sentimental; it was just life. We hunted and fished because we wouldn’t eat if we didn’t. Phil’s number one concern was always safety. If you were careless with a loaded gun, you would not come back to the blind. You’d be stuck at home with Mom the next time. Also, you had to be prepared because Phil wasn’t gonna baby you out there. If you didn’t wear the proper clothes, you were gonna freeze your butt off. And I did many times! You had to get your stuff together as well: shells, guns, and whatever you needed. I will never forget a time when I was about ten and we were all going on a dove hunt. It was opening day, and we were all excited. I was shooting a .410 shotgun, but I could only find one shell. Since we were leaving early in the morning, Phil let me know we wouldn’t be able to stop at a store because none of them would be open that early in the morning. “You better make that shot count,” Phil told me. So I shadowed Phil during the entire hunt, watching him drop ‘em. I rant to fetch the birds for Phil, and if any were still alive, he would pinch their heads. With one flick of Phil’s wrist, the dove’s head separated from its body. I was fascinated and yet a little freaked out. You can’t be sensitive when you’re hunting with Phil. I kept throwing my shotgun up to shoot, but I knew I had only one shot. Finally, about eleven o’clock in the morning, I saw my opportunity. I told Phil I was gonna take my shot. He was supportive and told me to make it count. Boom! Wouldn’t you know I smoked the dove? I couldn’t believe it. I went one-for-one with only one shell. As I turned to look at my dad with the biggest smile ever, I noticed he was putting his gun down. He’d shot at the exact same time. He wanted to make sure my shot counted. “Good shot, Willie boy, put your safety back on,” Phil told me. I didn’t know why the safety mattered since I only had one shell, but he wanted to instill the practice in my brain. We’ll never know who hit that bird, but believe me, I told Jase that I got it for sure.

Sean winced inwardly. “I don’t think that’s anyone’s business, Hal. Not even yours,” he added defensively. A colossal mistake. Hal’s temper exploded. “What do you mean, not my business? Okay, McDermott, we’ll skip over the political repercussions for you as mayor if someone other than me caught you and Lily. I guess the phrase conflict of interest doesn’t ring a bell. To tell you the truth, I don’t give a rat’s ass about politics. I’ll go straight to what I do care about: you breaking Lily’s heart.” “What?!” Sean exclaimed. “Yeah, I know. You’re gonna tell me that what I interrupted just a few minutes ago was just a casual romp in the pool. That’s a load of crap, McDermott. You know as well as I that Lily’s never been casual about anything in her life. Especially not you. ’Sides, what I witnessed back there was not casual. Shit, I’m surprised the water wasn’t boiling with the heat you two were making.” “Christ, Hal.” Sean spread his hands, his palms up. “Things kind of exploded between us. But Lily’s not a girl anymore—” “If you’re stupid enough to believe that, then you don’t understand dick about Lily—no matter how hard you were trying back in my pool!” Sean opened his mouth, but Hal was in full rant. “I’ve known Lily since she was a lonely, awkward kid. Of all people, you, Sean, should remember what she was like, how it was for her.” “She ended up fine—” “Yeah, she did. Because of her brains and her heart, she’s accomplished everything she’s dreamed of. But accomplished as she is, with all that beauty, she’s as lonely, as vulnerable as she was at thirteen. She needs a home, McDermott. She needs to know she belongs. That there’s a place for her to care about above sea level.” “Hal—” “I’m warning you, Sean. I’ll have your ass if you go and hurt Lily and make her run away. Now, get out of here before I get really pissed.” Hal was wrong, and his protective impulse was way overblown. Thoroughly misguided, too, Sean thought, as he slammed the office door behind him. It was he—not Lily—who was in need of protection. Sean had an awful feeling he’d lost his heart back there in the pool, and that when Lily discovered she had it, she’d toss it away.

I pace the room backstage as I rant. I know I’m overreacting, but Creighton doesn’t understand my mama or the stress that comes along with just thinking about her. He watches me pace, letting me vent, which is probably a smart move on his part. Come near the clawing she-beast and you may lose an important appendage, and wouldn’t that be a shame?

She continued her rant as if she didn’t hear his response, which was probably the case. “It’s worse for me on two fronts. As a shifter, I can’t leave the boundaries of Pyraan, and as a female, I’m barred from joining the Northwatch Legion. It’s so unfair! I should be going with you. I’m better with the sword than just about any male in this entire land.” She made the declaration without even a hint of boast in her tone. She was simply stating fact.

While I knew him, he made me see--Poe did; made me understand that, unlike a bodily organ, the soul desires, even wills, its own continuance.It can be said to be the seat of will and desire and, even in its necrotic state, the root of evil. ... A Sunday school lesson or one of Cotton Mather's gaudy rants that helped to kindle the Salem bonfires is nearer to the truth of it than a fable by Poe, Hawthorne, or Melville. Evil's a malignancy beyond the skill and scalpel of {doctors} to heal or extirpate.

But by this stage, in her midthirties, she was less frantic about herself: “When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business—that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time. But we begin at last to understand that these things are important only to one’s own consciousness, which is but as a globule of dew on a rose-leaf that at midday there will be no trace of. This is no high flown sentimentality, but a simple reflection which I find useful to me every day.”13

Schadenfreude is as old as the Scriptures. Believe me, when the girls in the Red Sea bowling league heard that Lot’s wife had morphed into a pillar of salt, the deer-lick jokes flew.

Their champion, Goliath of Gath,” said Shammah. Goliath continued his rant, “I DEFY THE RANKS OF ISRAEL THIS DAY! CHOOSE FOR YOURSELVES A CHAMPION TO FIGHT ME! IF HE WINS, THE PHILISTINES WILL BE YOUR SERVANTS. IF I WIN, YOU WILL BE OUR SERVANTS!” Abinadab muttered, “He has taunted us these forty days with the same challenge.” “Forty days?” said David. How had he failed to hear about it, he wondered. “Is there no one to stand up to this blasphemer?” Shammah snickered, “Easy for you to say from the comfort of your palace luxury.” Abinadab threw in, “The man who kills him, the king will laud with tax exemption and great riches.” The next words that came from Abinadab struck David in the chest like an iron rod. “The king has even offered up the hand of one of his daughters to the soul who triumphs over this titan.

And you know, while I’m at it, I don’t care what arcane passage you pull out of the Old Testament and run through your Jeremiah-begat-Jedediah Decoder Ring, one of the definitive tenets of Christianity is tolerance. Trust me, there’s no version of the Bible that says Love thy neighbor unless he’s a Peter Allen fan. Any supposedly Christian doctrine must have at the core a belief in the concept of unqualified love for your fellow man. Unless of course he proves himself to be a total asshole. Then you can ditch him. Sure, God understands that, who do you think booked Satan’s flight? What he can’t understand is turning against someone because you don’t happen to agree with their sexual preference. Forget your linear, biblical interpretation that tells you to ostracize gays, and follow your heart. It’s like when your driving test instructor would tell you to run the stop sign. And you would, and then he’d flunk you. And you’d say, “But you told me to.” And he’d say, “Sorry, but you never run a stop sign.” And you never carpet bomb a group of people with hate because they’re different from you. Case closed, Tail-gunner Joe.

I’m Captain Florida, the state history pimp Gatherin’ more data than a DEA blimp West Palm, Tampa Bay, Miami-Dade Cruisin’ the coasts till Johnny Vegas gets laid Developer ho’s, and the politician bitches Smackin’ ’em down, while I’m takin’ lots of pictures Hurricanes, sinkholes, natural disaster ’Scuse me while I kick back, with my View-Master (S:) I’m Captain Florida, obscure facts are all legit (C:) I’m Coleman, the sidekick, with a big bong hit (S:) I’m Captain Florida, staying literate (C:) Coleman sees a book and says, “Fuck that shit” Ain’t never been caught, slippin’ nooses down the Keys Got more buoyancy than Elián González Knockin’ off the parasites, and takin’ all their moola Recruiting my apostles for the Church of Don Shula I’m an old-school gangster with a psycho ex-wife Molly Packin’ Glocks, a shotgun and my 7-Eleven coffee Trippin’ the theme parks, the malls, the time-shares Bustin’ my rhymes through all the red-tide scares (S:) I’m the surge in the storms, don’t believe the hype (C:) I’m his stoned number two, where’d I put my hash pipe? (S:) Florida, no appointments and a tank of gas (C:) Tequila, no employment and a bag of grass Think you’ve seen it all? I beg to differ Mosquitoes like bats and a peg-leg stripper The scammers, the schemers, the real estate liars Birthday-party clowns in a meth-lab fire But dig us, don’t diss us, pay a visit, don’t be late And statistics always lie, so ignore the murder rate Beaches, palm trees and golfing is our curse Our residents won’t bite, but a few will shoot first Everglades, orange groves, alligators, Buffett Scarface, Hemingway, an Andrew Jackson to suck it Solarcaine, Rogaine, eight balls of cocaine See the hall of fame for the criminally insane Artifacts, folklore, roadside attractions Crackers, Haitians, Cuban-exile factions The early-bird specials, drivin’ like molasses Condo-meeting fistfights in cataract glasses (S:) I’m the native tourist, with the rants that can’t be beat (C:) Serge, I think I put my shoes on the wrong feet (S:) A stack of old postcards in another dingy room (C:) A cold Bud forty and a magic mushroom Can’t stop, turnpike, keep ridin’ like the wind Gotta make a detour for a souvenir pin But if you like to litter, you’re just liable to get hurt Do ya like the MAC-10 under my tropical shirt? I just keep meeting jerks, I’m a human land-filler But it’s totally unfair, this term “serial killer” The police never rest, always breakin’ in my pad But sunshine is my bling, and I’m hangin’ like a chad (S:) Serge has got to roll and drop the mike on this rap . . . (C:) Coleman’s climbin’ in the tub, to take a little nap . . . (S:) . . . Disappearin’ in the swamp—and goin’ tangent, tangent, tangent . . . (C:) He’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (Fade-out) (S:) I’m goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (C:) Fuck goin’ platinum, he’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (S:) . . . Wikipedia all up and down your ass . . . (C:) Wikity-Wikity-Wikity . . .

She was good at multitasking, and there was really only one way to keep Ian on task or he would go off on one of his arctic, curse-filled rants that tended to make everyone around him dive for cover. “Jesse Murdoch shot me.” Ian grunted a little, his hips bucking slightly. “I knew there was a reason I liked the kid.” She rolled her eyes. “Nice.

Don’t talk,” Ian commanded between gritted teeth. “I don’t need a running commentary.” “But I can do both.” She was good at multitasking, and there was really only one way to keep Ian on task or he would go off on one of his arctic, curse-filled rants that tended to make everyone around him dive for cover. “Jesse Murdoch shot me.” Ian grunted a little, his hips bucking slightly. “I knew there was a reason I liked the kid.” She rolled her eyes. “Nice.

Prayer and Action Go Hand in Hand     “Prayer and action go hand in hand” (Nehemiah 4:17).     I remember the frustration experienced in my home because of homework. Each day my kids would return from school, we would argue over when and where and how to do their nightly assignments. The ordeal stressed us and caused family strife. I decided to take it to God in prayer. I hoped that God would change my childrens’ attitudes so that they would look forward to doing their homework.This, however, was not the case.   I learned that although I can pray to God and ask Him to help I must also be willing to be part of the solution.   I can’t just pray and then throw up my hands and carry on with my day. I can ignore the fear and worry but I still need to be willing to take action. I believe it was Joyce Meyer who said, “Don’t react, act.”  So I don’t need to react with ranting, raving, whining and nagging. I must rely on God’s guidance and proceed with a solid plan to resolve this homework issue.   God often answers prayer through people. He can and will divinely interject but usually He uses people who are willing and obedient. I can pray for wisdom and knowledge but I must also act upon that knowledge and “do” something. It’s not enough for me to say, “Dear Lord, help my child to do homework” without listening for His answer and being open to His guidance.   We devised a homework system through listening to the wisdom of others and spending time in quiet reflection with God. I realize that although my plan is working well now, I may need to change it in the future. As our family’s needs change I can ask God for His guidance and His wisdom. Then I must be open and listen for it. God wants to answer our prayers but He wishes to work though His creation, not impose His will upon it.       Prayer is intimacy ~ Elsie Montgomery         How Does God Reveal Himself?     “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it,

Prayer and Action Go Hand in Hand     “Prayer and action go hand in hand” (Nehemiah 4:17).     I remember the frustration experienced in my home because of homework. Each day my kids would return from school, we would argue over when and where and how to do their nightly assignments. The ordeal stressed us and caused family strife. I decided to take it to God in prayer. I hoped that God would change my childrens’ attitudes so that they would look forward to doing their homework.This, however, was not the case.   I learned that although I can pray to God and ask Him to help I must also be willing to be part of the solution.   I can’t just pray and then throw up my hands and carry on with my day. I can ignore the fear and worry but I still need to be willing to take action. I believe it was Joyce Meyer who said, “Don’t react, act.”  So I don’t need to react with ranting, raving, whining and nagging. I must rely on God’s guidance and proceed with a solid plan to resolve this homework issue.   God often answers prayer through people. He can and will divinely interject but usually He uses people who are willing and obedient. I can pray for wisdom and knowledge but I must also act upon that knowledge and “do” something. It’s not enough for me to say, “Dear Lord, help my child to do homework” without listening for His answer and being open to His guidance.   We devised a homework system through listening to the wisdom of others and spending time in quiet reflection with God. I realize that although my plan is working well now, I may need to change it in the future. As our family’s needs change I can ask God for His guidance and His wisdom. Then I must be open and listen for it. God wants to answer our prayers but He wishes to work though His creation, not impose His will upon it.       Prayer is intimacy ~ Elsie Montgomery

Getting up from her seat, she walked over to him and— Slap. As Beth followed through with her palm, the sharp cracking sound faded in the room and her beloved mate shut up. Staring at him calmly, she said, “And now that I have your attention and you’re not ranting and raving like a lunatic, I’d appreciate your telling me where I can find whatever they sent us.

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

Doonae think I’ve fergotten ye disobeyin’ me and puttin’ yersel’ at risk in a misguided attempt to save me.” She blinked in surprise at the sudden turn his anger had taken, then felt some anger of her own coming up to meet it. “Well, ‘doonae’ you think I’ve ‘fergotten’ you dared to give me such an order and expected me to watch you die like some hapless good-for-nothing twit.” Connall’s anger immediately gave way under amazement at her words. “Did you say doonae? Are ye makin fun o’ me speech, wife?” he asked with dismay. “Would I do that?” she drawled. His amazement slowly transformed, his tension easing and a small smile claiming his lips for the briefest of moments, then Connall sobered and drew her into his arms with a sigh. “Only you could make me smile at a time like this, Eva. Yer a cheeky lass.” “And yer a stubborn ass,” Eva said a tad irritably, not having quite given up her anger. “Ordering me to stand by helplessly and what? Watch ye die? Not in this lifetime, my lord. Or any other, I should hope. I am your wife, your partner, your mate. I shall guard your back, your front, and your top to bottom to the best of my sad abilities so long as there is air in my lungs and strength in my body. Do not ever expect me simply to—” Connall brought her rant to an end, simply by closing his mouth over hers. He kissed her with all the passion and hunger he felt for her, then eased the kiss slowly before gently easing away to kiss first the tip of her nose, her closed eyelids, then her forehead. “I love ye, Eva MacAdie.” Eva sighed against his chin, kissed him there, then added solemnly, “And I love you Connall MacAdie. And I will do till the day I die.” His

Still can’t believe you did that to me. I just fucking can’t believe it! Like you didn’t know how much I loved you! Jesus, I gave you everything. Ever think you’d live in a house like the one I built you? Ever think so? I took you out of that dump you were in and put you in a decent place, a place with some class. What did you ever need that I didn’t give you?” And on and on he ranted. While she listened, the first thought that came was that he was so delusional, it was as shocking as frightening. He really believed that a nice house, some material things, could make the abuse tolerable. She

Prayer and Action Go Hand in Hand     “Prayer and action go hand in hand” (Nehemiah 4:17).     I remember the frustration experienced in my home because of homework. Each day my kids would return from school, we would argue over when and where and how to do their nightly assignments. The ordeal stressed us and caused family strife. I decided to take it to God in prayer. I hoped that God would change my childrens’ attitudes so that they would look forward to doing their homework.This, however, was not the case.   I learned that although I can pray to God and ask Him to help I must also be willing to be part of the solution.   I can’t just pray and then throw up my hands and carry on with my day. I can ignore the fear and worry but I still need to be willing to take action. I believe it was Joyce Meyer who said, “Don’t react, act.”  So I don’t need to react with ranting, raving, whining and nagging. I must rely on God’s guidance and proceed with a solid plan to resolve this homework issue.   God often answers prayer through people. He can and will divinely interject but usually He uses people who are willing and obedient. I can pray for wisdom and knowledge but I must also act upon that knowledge and “do” something. It’s not enough for me to say, “Dear Lord, help my child to do homework” without listening for His answer and being open to His guidance.   We devised a homework system through listening to the wisdom of others and spending time in quiet reflection with God. I realize that although my plan is working well now, I may need to change it in the future. As our family’s needs change I can ask God for His guidance and His wisdom. Then I must be open and listen for it. God wants to answer our prayers but He wishes to work though His creation, not impose His will upon it.       Prayer is intimacy ~ Elsie Montgomery         How Does God Reveal Himself?     “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near”(Revelation 1:3).     At my church, we worked through a Bible study by Beth Moore. A video series, entitled “A Heart Like His”, Beth invited us to join her on a journey to know King David, a man after God’s own heart.   Beth explained that when we ask God for something we shouldn’t be expecting Him to talk to us through the clouds. Instead, God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. If we have a concern or problem or issue, we need to read the Bible to “listen” for God’s voice and His answer. Before opening the Bible, we need to pray that God would reveal Himself to us through the words on the page.   Beth gives the example of how God revealed Himself to Samuel through His Word, the Bible. Samuel 3:21 says, “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.”  

Let me explain, Eoin. I’m not a witch. I . . .”  He immediately interrupted me with more words in Gaelic that I didn’t understand before he turned and walked over to the window seat to stare outside.  “What do ye expect me to do with ye now, lass? I should’ve left ye down in the dungeon to rot, but I expect ye spelled me so that I would relent and release ye, aye? What did ye plan to do, Blaire, place spells on us to do yer bidding and torture me for having married ye? I canna believe Arran was right! What a wicked bitch ye are!” Anger flared within me, and I made no effort to continue the accent I’d tried so hard to use over the past weeks. “Are you crazy? Have I done or said anything to anyone since I’ve been here that would make you think that I wanted to hurt you? If you’d just stop all of your insane ranting and listen to me, I could explain what I was doing in the spell room.” “How did ye even know about the room, Blaire? Ye had no business being in that part of the castle at all!” “Mary showed me. It’s where she found me when I showed up here.” “Ye are a damned liar, Blaire! Do ye no remember the day ye arrived? Ye insulted just about everyone in the castle, and ye nearly broke poor Kip’s back with the inconsiderate load ye piled onto him!” “No!” I was no longer afraid, but I was so angry I was on the verge of tears. Each breath seemed painful in my chest. “I don’t remember the day Blaire arrived because I’m not Blaire! I don’t understand why or how I got here, but I’ve spent almost every minute since I showed up in this godforsaken place trying to get back home to Texas.” “Not Blaire? Texas? God, Arran was right! How could I have been so blind? Well, I’ll no more be fooled by ye, and I’ll no have ye causing havoc here anymore.” He reached as if to grab for my arm, but I evaded him, jumping quickly to the left and chunking the nearest object I could reach at his head. It hit him square on the nose. With a ferocious growl, he leapt in my direction once more.

And she saw Mr. Nobley clearly. The thin wrinkles just beginning at the corners of his eyes, the whiskers on his chin darkening already after his morning shave, the hint of lines around his mouth that suggested he might smile more in real life. He had the kind of face you wanted to kiss--lips, forehead, cheeks, eyelids, everywhere except his chin. That you wanted to bite. Jane thought: I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers. Miss Erstwhile thought: My, what a catch. How the society page would rant! “I think you should stay away from him, Miss Erstwhile.” Mr. Nobley turned his back on Martin and took her arm, returning her to the path. “I don’t know why you care, sir,” she said, doing her best to sound Austen-y, “but I certainly will, if you’ll do me a favor. Perform in the theatrical.” “Miss Erstwhile…” “Oh, come on! It will please me to no end to see you so uncomfortable. You’re not afraid, are you? You seem so stuck on being proper all the time, but there can’t be anything really wrong in doing a little theatrical. This is, after all, the nineteenth century. So perhaps your protests stem from your fear of appearing the fool?” “You accuse me of vanity. It may be that the enterprise simply does not seem to me amusing. And yet in part you are right. I am not much of an actor.” “Aren’t you?” She looked at him meaningfully. He flinched and recovered. “My true concerns, however, are in regards to the delicate sentiments of our good hostess.” “And if we propose the recreation to her and she approves, will you participate?” “Yes, I suppose I must.” He tightened his lips, in annoyance or against a smile, she wasn’t sure. “You are infuriatingly persistent, Miss Erstwhile.” “And you, Mr. Nobley, are annoyingly stubborn. Together we must be Impertinence and Inflexibility.” “That was clever.” “Was it? Thanks, it just came to me.” “No forethought?” “Not a lick.” “Hm, impressive.” Jane jabbed him with her elbow. When they caught up to the rest of the party, Miss Charming was engaging Colonel Andrews in a discussion on the “relative ickiness of tea” and Captain East and Amelia were either walking in silence or whispering their hearts’ secrets. “We’re going to do the theatrical,” Jane announced to the others. “Mr. Nobley is clay in my hands.

There was no point in saying it again. Either he believed me, and--I swallowed painfully--I’d given him no particular reason to, or he didn’t. Begging, pleading, arguing, ranting--none of them would make any difference, except to make a horrible situation worse. I should have made amends from the beginning, and now it was too late. He took a deep breath. I couldn’t breathe, I just stared at him, waiting, feeling sweat trickle beneath my already soggy clothing. Then he smiled a little. “Brace up. We’re not about to embark on a duel to the death over the dishes.” He paused, then said lightly, “Though most of our encounters until very recently have been unenviable exchanges, you have never lied to me. Eat. We’ll leave before the next time-change, and part ways at the crossroads.” No “You’ve never lied before.” No “If I can trust you.’” No warnings or hedgings. He took all the responsibility--and the risk--himself. I didn’t know why, and to thank him for believing me would just embarrass us both. So I said nothing, but my eyes prickled. I looked down at my lap and busied myself with smoothing out my mud-gritty, wet gloves.

... so, for those keeping score at home, he wants a guerrilla war where Americans shoot and hang other Americans. It will be very easy to tell who they need to kill because they will be the ones telling you to wear a medical mask and get a vaccine. Even after I gave him the first food he had eaten in two days, he still was not willing to listen to me for just a few seconds and explain that “socialism” actually means using taxes to pay for hospital visits, instead of running up huge medical debts. Rather than letting me talk, he threatened to hang me, all while still eating my food. On most days, I might dismiss a conversation like this as nothing but the rantings of a homeless guy whose mind has been pushed too far. But today he’s just come from the Sea of People who stormed the Capitol and forced Congress to flee for their lives. On a day like today, I think this interview merits more consideration, especially when so many others I interviewed concurred with parts of what he said. I believe

... so, for those keeping score at home, he wants a guerrilla war where Americans shoot and hang other Americans. It will be very easy to tell who they need to kill because they will be the ones telling you to wear a medical mask and get a vaccine. Even after I gave him the first food he had eaten in two days, he still was not willing to listen to me for just a few seconds and explain that “socialism” actually means using taxes to pay for hospital visits, instead of running up huge medical debts. Rather than letting me talk, he threatened to hang me, all while still eating my food. On most days, I might dismiss a conversation like this as nothing but the rantings of a homeless guy whose mind has been pushed too far. But today he’s just come from the Sea of People who stormed the Capitol and forced Congress to flee for their lives. On a day like today, I think this interview merits more consideration, especially when so many others I interviewed concurred with parts of what he said. I believe men like him represent a much larger segment of the population than those mesmerized by The Media want to accept. Based on the miles I’ve driven and the conversations I’ve had while Chasing History, I’d say men (and women!) like him are a large minority of the population and they ain’t going away. And unless some modern-day messiah manages to re-open political dialogue in this country, I see more trouble in the years ahead.

Against you, Doctor! How could I have it in for you when you’re so nice to me? Against poor Leonard, who does everything he can so that I don’t get worked up, so that I get along here as well as possible? Against anyone else? Well, that’s another story! I have to say that I can’t stand that quack Bid’homme. Of course, I feel sorry for him—as he deserves—but I am tired of seeing this ridiculous fool, who should be put in a straightjacket, intimidate, act like a tyrant, rant and rave, yell and insult everyone. He should be washed with Niagara jets until he bursts, which would not be a great loss to humanity! That Bid’homme! Argh! Him, yes, I hate! He’s a constant danger to the patients, whom he knows nothing about, and whom he might kill with his stupid brutality! Why don’t you lock up this dangerous lunatic, Doctor—or, at least, send him back to Franche-Comté, to his family, if they agree to be responsible for such an evil creature and keep him tied up 24 hours a day?” What was I saying? Doctor Froin looked different; he shrugged his shoulders sadly. I saw him—his mind was made up now: I was a monomaniacal madman with delusions of persecution. All my ideas, all my preoccupations and all my anger, was focused on Bid’homme. I was acting exactly like someone who was crazy. I would keep saying that he hounded his patients and hated them all—me, first and foremost! His doubts about his assistant might even have been erased by my angry outburst. He could blame it all on my madness. I tried desperately to redeem myself, to save myself. What should I do? What should I say? Wouldn’t I be cleverer to tell him everything I was thinking—however uncomfortable it might be? I cried out—as unloudly as possible: “Doctor! No! Don’t write me off like that with a flick of your hand. I know what you’re thinking; you think I’m obsessed! Don’t deny it: I’m sure of it! But it’s nothing like that! To show you I’m not the least bit deranged, let me say that I was a little hard just now—even though I hate your colleague Bid’homme, and think he’s dangerous and harmful to your patients, I have absolutely no problem thinking about other things. Why, today, I thought about a thousand things that had nothing to do with him. Do you want me to tell you about waking up this morning in this room? About what went on inside my head—pointing out the difference between the sane ideas and those that are still a little…off? Do you want to be sure that I am not sneaky or vindictive, like most of the mental patients? Well! You just told me that my relatives are coming on Monday, but you didn’t say whom, probably because you were concerned about making me angry. I’m going to tell you: it’s Roffieux—the one who brought me here. I swear to you that I have no hard feelings against him. I can honestly say that he is close to my heart, but if I leave Vassetot, no harm will come to him from me, I guarantee it. I will do what any good man would do in the same situation: I will go as far away as possible. True enough, he disgusts me and I don’t want him to have any more control over me, but it would never enter my mind to play a dirty trick on him!

I ask if he has any potential stories in mind. “Sorry Graham, I've not done me prep,” he then clears his throat. “I did have an idea for one called ‘The Death of Standards’.” I'm thrilled by the fact he already has a title for it. And what a title! He goes on to outline the bare bones of a story about a woman who works in local government. On her drive to work she perpetrates a hit and run. Upon arriving at the office, she rants to her staff about how hit and run drivers should be executed. Then members of her staff start behaving in the same odd manner: performing terrible acts then raging against those very acts. This sounds exactly like something I'd love to watch.