Rave Love Quotes

Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?" "I do indeed, sir." "Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat--your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.

From the complications of loving you I think there is no end or return. No answer, no coming out of it. Which is the only way to love, isn’t it? This isn’t a play ground, this is earth, our heaven, for a while. Therefore I have given precedence to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods that hold you in the center of my world. And I say to my body: grow thinner still. And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song. And I say to my heart: rave on.

Miki held up a tennis ball, looked at Sara’s new Pack, and tossed it out into the forest away from the ongoing rave. They all watched it go, then they turned back to Miki. “Okay. Go…” Sara and Angelina slapped their hands over their friend’s mouth before the word “fetch” could come out of it. They pulled her over to one of the food tables. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind?! Everyone here but us is like Sara.” Angelina snapped. “And after seeing them in action I’d rather not fuck with them!” Miki gave that innocent smile. “It was just a little experiment.

Wonderful, Annabeth thought. Her own mother, the most levelheaded Olympian, was reduced to a raving, vicious scatterbrain in a subway station. And, of all the gods who might help them, the only ones not affected by the Greek-Roman schism seemed to be Aphrodite, Nemesis and Dionysus. Love, revenge, wine. Very helpful.

We rant and rave against God for the evil we have to endure but hardly blink at the evil in our own hearts.

Who can remember the pangs and sweetness of those early years? We remember our first real love no more clearly than the illusions that caused us to rave during a high fever.

I haven't had a lot of good, soft things in my life," he said against my forehead. "Not since my family sent me away. Apart from being your sire and feeling that pull to you, it's that goodness, that softness and warmth, along with the resolve and strength in you, that I love. Being turned hasn't taken that from you. If someone were going to design the perfect mate for me, it would be you. Even when you infuriate me with your pigheaded stubbornness and your temper and incredible lack of anything resembling self-preservation—" "Stop describing me please." "You're the most fascinating, maddening, adorable creature I've ever met," he said, sighing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. "So, when I seem possessive or I'm raving like a lunatic, it's just that part of me is still very afraid that I'll lose that—that I'll lose you. I love you.

Love is a festering wound; a scab I compulsively must dig at deeper than the grave which calls me Heaven bound, for each day the Reaper comes to bury me safe and sound. Madly for it, I die...

Don't pretend to be happy with any ordeal, it's cruel and could seal a fate that shouldn't be.

You baffle me, addle me, drive me insane. You muddle, befuddle, and rattle my brain. My senses are mad, Skewed judgment to blame. You drive me half stark-raving bonkers! (But the truly crazy thing is how I love it.)

She is that maze, the one you would love to chase. She is the faith, quite missing nowadays. And her heart is a rave, with hopeless barricades. She is the one, whose tears flow, just as lavishly, as her laughter roars!

A thousand for his love expired each day, And those who saw his face, in blank dismay Would rave and grieve and mourn their lives away- To die for love of that bewitching sight Was worth a hundred lives without his light. None could survive his absence patiently, None could endure this king's proximity- How strange it was that man could neither brook The presence nor the absence of his look!

It feels like giving up. It feels like falling into bed after an all-night rave. It feels that right. It's surrender. It's that thing I have been searching for.

Let us remain in Hell side-by-side, lustful! And, together, both stronger people.

Love life and life will love you, love yourself and you shall feel loved.

Lust, desire and passion. They can turn a wallflower into a sexual predator and a rational person into a raving lunatic.

Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she didn't make…. Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on—how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn that they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskin to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life. I'm no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are 'yours' and which are 'mine.' It's past sorting out. We're both being someone new now, someone incredible….

He walked towards me. My heart was pounding like a nineties warehouse rave.

How could a woman who was that beautiful, who smelled that good, who had such perfectly lovely teeth and bright eyes, be so thoroughly, completely, entirely, stark raving mad?" ~ Robert Cameron

…Henry is tired of winter, & haircuts, & a squeamish comfy ruin-prone proud national mind, & Spring (in the city so called) Henry likes Fall. Hé would be prepared to líve in a world of Fáll for ever, impenitent Henry. But the snows and summers grieve and dream; These fierce & airy occupations, and love, raved away so many of Henry’s years it is a wonder that, with in each hand one of his own mad books and all, ancient fires for eyes, his head full & his heart full, he's making ready to move on.

terrified of being abandoned and all narcissists need Narcissistic Supply Sources. These narcissists prefer to direct their furious rage at people who are meaningless to them and whose withdrawal will not constitute a threat to the narcissists' precariously-balanced personalities. They explode at an underling, yell at a waitress, or berate a taxi driver. Alternatively, they sulk (silent treatment). Many narcissists feel anhedonic, or pathologically bored, drink or do drugs - all forms of self-directed aggression. From time to time, no longer able to pretend and to suppress their rage, they have it out with the real source of their anger. Then they lose all vestiges of self-control and rave like lunatics. They shout incoherently, make absurd accusations, distort facts, and air long-suppressed grievances, allegations and suspicions. These episodes are followed by periods of saccharine sentimentality and excessive flattering and submissiveness towards the target of the latest rage attack. Driven by the mortal fear of being abandoned or ignored, the narcissist debases and demeans himself to the point of provoking repulsion in the beholder. These pendulum-like emotional swings make life with the narcissist exhausting.

Ravings, in short, jealousy of the past, the worst kind of all.

when Rave finally pulled his mouth away she felt drained yet energized, lost but found, sated but wanting. And desperately, irrevocably, and joyously in love.

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me.

There was no room for dust devils in the laws of physics, as least in the rigid form in which they were usually taught. There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won’t fall down or airplanes that won’t suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don’t want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That’s all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus.

THEY WERE PEOPLE who went in for Negroes—Michael and Anne—the Carraways. But not in the social-service, philanthropic sort of way, no. They saw no use in helping a race that was already too charming and naive and lovely for words. Leave them unspoiled and just enjoy them, Michael and Anne felt. So they went in for the Art of Negroes—the dancing that had such jungle life about it, the songs that were so simple and fervent, the poetry that was so direct, so real. They never tried to influence that art, they only bought it and raved over it, and copied it. For they were artists, too.

I love my family, I do, they just drive me stark raving mad. I had the choice of sanity-with-distance or insanity-while-home. I chose sanity.

One girl raved about a nice voicemail a guy had recently left her. I kindly requested she play it and heard this gem: 'Hey, Lydia. It's Sam. Just calling to say what's up. Gimme a ring when you get a chance.' THAT WAS IT. I pleaded to know what was so great about this. She sweetly recalled that 'he remembered my name, he said hi, and he told me to call him back.' Never mind the fact that what she described was the content of LITERALLY EVERY VOICE MAIL IN HISTORY. Name, hello, please call back. Not really a boatload of charm on display. To fail this test, a guy would have to leave a message that said: 'No greeting. This is man. I don't remember you. End communication.

The only thing in this world is music–music and books and one or two pictures. I am going to found a colony where there shall be no marrying–unless you happen to fall in love with a symphony of Beethoven–no human element at all, except what comes through Art–nothing but ideal peace and endless meditation. The whole of human beings grows too complicated, my only wonder is that we don’t fill more madhouses: the insane view of life has much to be said for it–perhaps its the sane one after all: and we, the sad sober respectable citizens really rave every moment of our lives and deserve to be shut up perpetually. My spring melancholy is developing these hot days into summer madness.

When trying to fathom an immense, intricate system, drawing direct arrows of causality between micro and macro-components is perilous. Which stock caused the crash of ’29? Which person triggered the outbreak of World War I? Which word of Poe’s “The Rave” suffuses it with an atmosphere of brooding melancholy?

Man's inhumanity to man will continue as long as man loves God more than he loves his fellow man. The love of God means wasted love. 'For God and Country' means a divided allegiance—a 50 per cent patriot. The most abused word in the language of man is the word 'God.' The reason for this is that it is subject to so much abuse. There is no other word in the human language that is as meaningless and incapable of explanation as is the word 'God.' It is the beginning and end of nothing. It is the Alpha and Omega of Ignorance. It has as many meanings as there are minds. And as each person has an opinion of what the word God ought to mean, it is a word without premise, without foundation, and without substance. It is without validity. It is all things to all people, and is as meaningless as it is indefinable. It is the most dangerous in the hands of the unscrupulous, and is the joker that trumps the ace. It is the poisoned word that has paralyzed the brain of man. 'The fear of the Lord' is not the beginning of wisdom; on the contrary, it has made man a groveling slave; it has made raving lunatics of those who have attempted to interpret what God 'is' and what is supposed to be our 'duty' to God. It has made man prostitute the most precious things of life—it has made him sacrifice wife, and child, and home. 'In the name of God' means in the name of nothing—it has caused man to be a wastrel with the precious elixir of life, because there is no God.

Like the hills under dusk you fall away from the light: you deepen: the green light darkens and you are nearly lost: only so much light as stars keep manifests your face: I feel the total night in myself rave for the light along your lips.

A KING WHO PLACED MIRRORS IN HIS PALACE There lived a king; his comeliness was such The world could not acclaim his charm too much. The world's wealth seemed a portion of his grace; It was a miracle to view his face. If he had rivals,then I know of none; The earth resounded with this paragon. When riding through his streets he did not fail To hide his features with a scarlet veil. Whoever scanned the veil would lose his head; Whoever spoke his name was left for dead, The tongue ripped from his mouth; whoever thrilled With passion for this king was quickly killed. A thousand for his love expired each day, And those who saw his face, in blank dismay Would rave and grieve and mourn their lives away- To die for love of that bewitching sight Was worth a hundred lives without his light. None could survive his absence patiently, None could endure this king's proximity- How strange it was that man could neither brook The presence nor the absence of his look! Since few could bear his sight, they were content To hear the king in sober argument, But while they listened they endure such pain As made them long to see their king again. The king commanded mirrors to be placed About the palace walls, and when he faced Their polished surfaces his image shone With mitigated splendour to the throne. If you would glimpse the beauty we revere Look in your heart-its image will appear. Make of your heart a looking-glass and see Reflected there the Friend's nobility; Your sovereign's glory will illuminate The palace where he reigns in proper state. Search for this king within your heart; His soul Reveals itself in atoms of the Whole. The multitude of forms that masquerade Throughout the world spring from the Simorgh's shade. If you catch sight of His magnificence It is His shadow that beguiles your glance; The Simorgh's shadow and Himself are one; Seek them together, twinned in unison. But you are lost in vague uncertainty... Pass beyond shadows to Reality. How can you reach the Simorgh's splendid court? First find its gateway, and the sun, long-sought, Erupts through clouds; when victory is won, Your sight knows nothing but the blinding sun.

Look, suppose that there was one among all those who desire nothing but material and filthy lucre, that one, at least, is like my old Inquisitor, who himself ate roots in the desert and raved, overcoming his flesh, in order to make himself free and perfect, but who still loved mankind all his life, and suddenly opened his eyes and he saw that there is no great moral blessedness in achieving perfection of the will only to become convinced, at the same time, that millions of the rest of God's creatures have been set up only for mockery, that they will never be strong enough to manage their freedom, that from such pitiful rebels will never come giants to complete the tower, that it was not for such geese that the great idealist dreamt his dream of harmony.

By Jove, it's great! Walk along the streets on some spring morning. The little women, daintily tripping along, seem to blossom out like flowers. What a delightful, charming sight! The dainty perfume of violet is everywhere. The city is gay, and everybody notices the women. By Jove, how tempting they are in their light, thin dresses, which occasionally give one a glimpse of the delicate pink flesh beneath! "One saunters along, head up, mind alert, and eyes open. I tell you it's great! You see her in the distance, while still a block away; you already know that she is going to please you at closer quarters. You can recognize her by the flower on her hat, the toss of her head, or her gait. She approaches, and you say to yourself: 'Look out, here she is!' You come closer to her and you devour her with your eyes. "Is it a young girl running errands for some store, a young woman returning from church, or hastening to see her lover? What do you care? Her well-rounded bosom shows through the thin waist. Oh, if you could only take her in your arms and fondle and kiss her! Her glance may be timid or bold, her hair light or dark. What difference does it make? She brushes against you, and a cold shiver runs down your spine. Ah, how you wish for her all day! How many of these dear creatures have I met this way, and how wildly in love I would have been had I known them more intimately. "Have you ever noticed that the ones we would love the most distractedly are those whom we never meet to know? Curious, isn't it? From time to time we barely catch a glimpse of some woman, the mere sight of whom thrills our senses. But it goes no further. When I think of all the adorable creatures that I have elbowed in the streets of Paris, I fairly rave. Who are they! Where are they? Where can I find them again? There is a proverb which says that happiness often passes our way; I am sure that I have often passed alongside the one who could have caught me like a linnet in the snare of her fresh beauty.

This life is quite a rave- few heartaches, some long waits, altering faiths & breaking cliches!

To be revered, first, you go stark raving mad, then you exit this world in a blaze.

Safe Despair it is that raves Agony is frugal. Puts itself severe away For its own perusal. Garrisoned no Soul can be In the Front of Trouble Love is one, not aggregate Nor is Dying double -

because my anxiety disorder gets really bad on planes and so I end up panicking a bit. Usually I get on Twitter and tell everyone that I love them because that’s about the time that my antianxiety pills kick in and they make me super sentimental and scared that I’m going to die. It’s like taking ecstasy, but instead of having sex and going to a rave I just want someone to stroke my hair and sing me old Irish drinking songs.

For there comes a time in the day’s occupations when old Money Writer falls so in love with an idea that he begins to gallop, steam, pant, rave, and write from the heart, in spite of himself. So, too, the man with the quill pen is suddenly taken with fevers, gives up purple ink for pure hot perspiration. Then he tatters quills by the dozen and, hours later, emerges ruinous from the bed of creation looking as if he had channeled an avalanche through his house. Now, you ask, what transpired? What caused these two almost compulsive liars to start telling the truth? Let me haul out my signs again. WORK It’s quite obvious that both men were working. And work itself, after a while, takes on a rhythm. The mechanical begins to fall away. The body begins to take over. The guard goes down. What happens then? RELAXATION And then the men are happily following my last advice: DON’T THINK Which results in more relaxation and more unthinkingness and greater creativity. Now

Her ravings were so crowded with recriminations and insults and petitions, with weeping and caterwauling and wild expressions of love, that it seemed bewildering to Bob and Charley that Jesse remained there for minutes, let alone hours; yet he did. She was four inches taller than Jesse, a giant of a woman, but she made him seem even smaller, made him seem stooped and spiritless. She made him kiss her on the mouth like a lover and rub her neck and temples with myrtleberry oil as he avowed his affection for her and confessed his frailties and shortcomings.

And who would not risk its terrors to gain its raptures? Ah, what raptures they were! The mere recollection thrills you. How delicious it was to tell her that you loved her, that you lived for her, that you would die for her! How you did rave, to be sure, what floods of extravagant nonsense you poured forth, and oh, how cruel it was of her to pretend not to believe you! '''In what awe you stood of her! How miserable you were when you had offended her! And yet, how pleasant to be bullied by her and to sue for pardon without having the slightest notion of what your fault was! How dark the world was when she snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, just to see you look wretched; how sunny when she smiled! How jealous you were of every one about her! How you hated every man she shook hands with, every woman she kissed—the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed—though you had to be respectful to the last-named! How you looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you were when you did see her, staring at her without saying a word! How impossible it was for you to go out at any time of the day or night without finding yourself eventually opposite her windows!

Only on Sundays do you come across political scout troops with sandals, walking sticks, and knives. In the woods they do round dances, they rave about nature, and have big brawls with each other. It's a strange, baffling young generation. It covet's the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, but not his shy piety and love of nature.

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.

Around the shadow is a heat of abundant sweat. I’m alive.» I'm alive. But I feel that I have yet to reach my limits, borders with what? ... And madly I take control of the recesses of myself, my ravings suffocate me with so much beauty. I am before, I am almost, I am never. And all of this I won when I stopped loving you. I write to you as an exercise in sketching before painting. I see words.

Telling me I’m pretty is nice and all, but if you really want to make my day, tell me I inspired you to read a book. Say you picked up a novel I’ve raved about and that you fell in love with it, too. Or tell me the time we spent reading aloud together was one of your favorite moments. Ask me to read to you, and beg for another chapter. This will fill me with indescribable joy and purpose. And if you really want to make me speechless with wonder, tell me it was MY words and MY story you enjoyed. Tell me you shed tears over the things my characters went through, and that you’re just a little bit in love with them, too. I might never recover. I will carry those words around in my heart for the rest of my life, like a talisman against all past and future criticisms. That’s how important stories are to me.

My God, I can’t stand this! I can’t let you go out every day, fearing every minute that something might happen to you, knowing that every ounce of sanity I’ve got left is hinged on your well-being. I can’t feel this way…it’s too strong…oh, hell. I’ll turn into a raving lunatic. I’ll never be of use to anyone again. If I could just reduce it somehow…love you only half this much…I might be able to live with it.

Lone rangers, that's what we are. We see the world with our naked eyes, unabashed of the greed and ego. Our mind resides on our tongue and we stand for what's right. A little too much fun, and an exciting package. Raving for life and exploring possibilities is our goal. Travel far and wide and into the wild, we will go for it someday. Care so much that even gods would bow down. Love to the hilt and then let go, coz that's what this life is meant for. One life and we will live up to the hilt and leave no regrets. So, when we land into our graves with a satisfied smile, we big farewell to the meanness of this so-called universe. With every journey there is a new lesson learned, every place traveled, explored; makes us in fall in love with the earth. Care less about our whereabouts; we keep the expedition going because we want to go far beyond the civilized, beyond the living, beyond the world of predictability, beyond u and I & into the wild. Feasting the eyes, rejuvenating the senses, every breath we take is a sigh of relief and we make peace. Choosing the roads less traveled, our wandering souls makes our way towards the unknown destination not only to discover ourselves but to discover the wild, nature and the mother earth.

You and I have found something few people ever do.Do you not understand, Matthew? I refuse to let your misguided nobility keep us apart.My life as a princess, or a peasant, is not worth living without you in it." "And mine is without you? I'm willing to go to Avalonia and be your blasted lapdog, if that will keep you in my life. Damn it all, Tatiana, I love you. I have loved you from the moment you went up in my balloon. From the moment I saw the tilt of your smile and the spark in your green eyes. From the first lie to the last, I have loved you. And I love you now!" "Then do stop screaming at me!" "I am not screaming! I am..." He stopped abruptly and blew a long, frustrated breath. Stark....raving...mad." "I suspected as much." The corners of her lips twitched as if she were about to laugh.His heart leapt. He stared at her for a long moment. "Can you forgive me?" "Never." She shrugged. "Perhaps. Possibly. Someday.Years from now." "After a great deal of groveling, I imagine?" He raised a brow. "Begging, beseeching, pleading and so forth as well, no doubt?" "Without question." "And how long do you expect the groveling, begging, beseeching and so forth would continue?" He started around the table toward her. "A lifetime should do." She cast him the look, and any lingering doubt he had vanished. "I see. Exactly where will I be doing this groveling, begging and beseeching?" He reached her and pulled her into his arms and back into his life. "Do not forget the so forth." She stared defiantly up at him. "I would never forget the so forth." He bent and kissd the hollow of her throat. "The so forth has always been my favorite part.Now,where?

In short: you, dear reader, are correct. You are always correct. Not only in what you imagine, but in what you feel. You are allowed to not-love the novel the rest of the world is raving about; you are allowed to cordially loathe your sister’s favourite author. Reading is not a test. Whether or not you love a book is not a matter for debate; and not something you can be persuaded into. Books are the magical everyday that is all your own. Read on, and enjoy.

you were mad, do you think I should hate you?” “I do indeed, sir.” “Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable.  Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.  Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive.  I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for

Let the systematic theologian spell it out. Let the artists throw out thoughts and slants, maybe even slants no one else has thought of. They should give another view of something familiar to help us learn more about it. They should deal with love, life, good, evil, God, the world and faith. Many of the biblical writers were poets more than they were theologians. Poets and prophets ranted and raved, and storytellers wrote great yarns that all had different slants on God and life and faith. Perhaps the poet's absence from the Church for many centuries has left it deprived of much insight.

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’”.

From: James Grayson To: Luke Whitford Dec 12 I sucked him off again. From: Luke Whitford To: James Grayson Dec 12 What? Details, mate! Were you drunk again? From: James Grayson To: Luke Whitford Dec 12 We weren’t drunk. It was a normal evening. We were just hanging out, played some video games, had a pizza—you know, all the normal things. And then…then I was on my knees again. Honestly, I don’t know how it happened! He didn’t say a word. We looked at each other and I just dropped to my knees in front of him. And he let me. He let me, Luke! I know we should have talked first, should have said something, but I couldn’t. I was scared to freak him out. I could feel how tense he was. He just stared at me hard, his face totally impossible to read. So I went for it. Fuck, it was the hottest thing I’ve ever done. Now I understand why people say that sex is better with someone you love. I’d never understood those people who raved about sucking dick, but Jesus, I could spend days sucking Ryan’s. And he got really rough, you know. Like, he fucked my mouth, not just passively allowed me to blow him. From: Luke Whitford To: James Grayson Dec 12 Okaaay. Let’s pretend this isn’t awkward at all and I’m not turned on. What happened after that? You couldn’t have passed out again. You weren’t drunk this time.

Ah! Gentle, gracious Dove, And art thou grieved in me, That sinners should restrain thy love, And say, “It is not free: It is not free for all: The most, thou passest by, And mockest with a fruitless call Whom thou hast doomed to die.” They think thee not sincere In giving each his day, “ Thou only draw’st the sinner near To cast him quite away, To aggravate his sin, His sure damnation seal: Thou show’st him heaven, and say’st, go in And thrusts him into hell.” O HORRIBLE DECREE Worthy of whence it came! Forgive their hellish blasphemy Who charge it on the Lamb: Whose pity him inclined To leave his throne above, The friend, and Saviour of mankind, The God of grace, and love. O gracious, loving Lord, I feel thy bowels yearn; For those who slight the gospel word I share in thy concern: How art thou grieved to be By ransomed worms withstood! How dost thou bleed afresh to see Them trample on thy blood! To limit thee they dare, Blaspheme thee to thy face, Deny their fellow-worms a share In thy redeeming grace: All for their own they take, Thy righteousness engross, Of none effect to most they make The merits of thy cross. Sinners, abhor the fiend: His other gospel hear— “The God of truth did not intend The thing his words declare, He offers grace to all, Which most cannot embrace, Mocked with an ineffectual call And insufficient grace. “The righteous God consigned Them over to their doom, And sent the Saviour of mankind To damn them from the womb; To damn for falling short, “Of what they could not do, For not believing the report Of that which was not true. “The God of love passed by The most of those that fell, Ordained poor reprobates to die, And forced them into hell.” “He did not do the deed” (Some have more mildly raved) “He did not damn them—but decreed They never should be saved. “He did not them bereave Of life, or stop their breath, His grace he only would not give, And starved their souls to death.” Satanic sophistry! But still, all-gracious God, They charge the sinner’s death on thee, Who bought’st him with thy blood. They think with shrieks and cries To please the Lord of hosts, And offer thee, in sacrifice Millions of slaughtered ghosts: With newborn babes they fill The dire infernal shade, “For such,” they say, “was thy great will, Before the world was made.” How long, O God, how long Shall Satan’s rage proceed! Wilt thou not soon avenge the wrong, And crush the serpent’s head? Surely thou shalt at last Bruise him beneath our feet: The devil and his doctrine cast Into the burning pit. Arise, O God, arise, Thy glorious truth maintain, Hold forth the bloody sacrifice, For every sinner slain! Defend thy mercy’s cause, Thy grace divinely free, Lift up the standard of thy cross, Draw all men unto thee. O vindicate thy grace, Which every soul may prove, Us in thy arms of love embrace, Of everlasting love. Give the pure gospel word, Thy preachers multiply, Let all confess their common Lord, And dare for him to die. My life I here present, My heart’s last drop of blood, O let it all be freely spent In proof that thou art good, Art good to all that breathe, Who all may pardon have: Thou willest not the sinner’s death, But all the world wouldst save. O take me at my word, But arm me with thy power, Then call me forth to suffer, Lord, To meet the fiery hour: In death will I proclaim That all may hear thy call, And clap my hands amidst the flame, And shout,—HE DIED FOR ALL

When Myron opened the conference room door, Ned Tunwell charged like a happy puppy. He smiled brightly, shook hands, slapped Myron on the back. Myron half-expected him to jump in his lap and lick his face. Ned Tunwell looked to be in his early thirties, around Myron’s age. His entire persona was always upbeat, like a Hare Krishna on speed—or worse, a Family Feud contestant. He wore a blue blazer, white shirt, khaki pants, loud tie, and of course, Nike tennis shoes. The new Duane Richwood line. His hair was yellow-blond and he had one of those milk-stain mustaches. Ned finally calmed down enough to hold up a videotape. “Wait till you see this!” he raved. “Myron, you are going to love it. It’s fantastic.

...one of the key psychological characteristics of the Tea Party is its oxymoronic love of authority figures coupled with a narcissistic celebration of its own “revolutionary” defiance. It’s this psychic weakness that allows this segment of the population to be manipulated by the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. The advantage is that their willingness to take orders has allowed them to organize effectively (try getting one hundred progressives at a meeting focused on anything). The downside is, they see absolutely nothing weird in launching a revolution based upon the ravings of a guy who’s basically a half-baked PR stooge shoveling propaganda coal for bloodsucking transnational behemoths like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

The Dying Man" in memoriam W.B. Yeats 1. His words I heard a dying man Say to his gathered kin, “My soul’s hung out to dry, Like a fresh salted skin; I doubt I’ll use it again. “What’s done is yet to come; The flesh deserts the bone, But a kiss widens the rose I know, as the dying know Eternity is Now. “A man sees, as he dies, Death’s possibilities; My heart sways with the world. I am that final thing, A man learning to sing. 2. What Now? Caught in the dying light, I thought myself reborn. My hand turn into hooves. I wear the leaden weight Of what I did not do. Places great with their dead, The mire, the sodden wood, Remind me to stay alive. I am the clumsy man The instant ages on. I burned the flesh away, In love, in lively May. I turn my look upon Another shape than hers Now, as the casement blurs. In the worst night of my will, I dared to question all, And would the same again. What’s beating at the gate? Who’s come can wait. 3. The Wall A ghost comes out of the unconscious mind To grope my sill: It moans to be reborn! The figure at my back is not my friend; The hand upon my shoulder turns to horn. I found my father when I did my work, Only to lose myself in this small dark. Though it reject dry borders of the seen, What sensual eye can keep and image pure, Leaning across a sill to greet the dawn? A slow growth is a hard thing to endure. When figures our of obscure shadow rave, All sensual love’s but dancing on a grave. The wall has entered: I must love the wall, A madman staring at perpetual night, A spirit raging at the visible. I breathe alone until my dark is bright. Dawn’s where the white is. Who would know the dawn When there’s a dazzling dark behind the sun. 4. The Exulting Once I delighted in a single tree; The loose air sent me running like a child– I love the world; I want more than the world, Or after image of the inner eye. Flesh cries to flesh, and bone cries out to bone; I die into this life, alone yet not alone. Was it a god his suffering renewed?– I saw my father shrinking in his skin; He turned his face: there was another man, Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid. He quivered like a bird in birdless air, Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere. Fish feed on fish, according to their need: My enemies renew me, and my blood Beats slower in my careless solitude. I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed. I think a bird, and it begins to fly. By dying daily, I have come to be. All exultation is a dangerous thing. I see you, love, I see you in a dream; I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum, And that slow humming rises into song. A breath is but a breath: I have the earth; I shall undo all dying with my death. 5. They Sing, They Sing All women loved dance in a dying light– The moon’s my mother: how I love the moon! Out of her place she comes, a dolphin one, Then settles back to shade and the long night. A beast cries out as if its flesh were torn, And that cry takes me back where I was born. Who thought love but a motion in the mind? Am I but nothing, leaning towards a thing? I scare myself with sighing, or I’ll sing; Descend O gentlest light, descend, descend. I sweet field far ahead, I hear your birds, They sing, they sing, but still in minor thirds. I’ve the lark’s word for it, who sings alone: What’s seen recededs; Forever’s what we know!– Eternity defined, and strewn with straw, The fury of the slug beneath the stone. The vision moves, and yet remains the same. In heaven’s praise, I dread the thing I am. The edges of the summit still appall When we brood on the dead or the beloved; Nor can imagination do it all In this last place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun Little by little the night turns around. Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn Lotuses lean on each other in yearning Under the eaves the swallow is resting Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Over the mountain watching the watcher. Breaking the darkness, waking the grapevine. One inch of love is one inch of shadow Love is the shadow that ripens the wine. Set the controls for the heart of the sun. The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun. Witness the man who raves at the wall Making the shape of his questions to Heaven Whether the sun will fall in the evening Will he remember the lesson of giving? Set the controls for the heart of the sun. The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness, it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still. If you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a straight waist-coat–– your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you have me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.

Rob’s entire life was successfully laid out, his attributes taking center stage, his accolades only a few seconds shy of the next brilliant offer, and the next rave review. Our family life seemed happy, at least from the outside looking in, and why wouldn’t it? I was the dutiful little housewife, he was the brilliant plastic surgeon, and his daughters closed the circle of the perfect family. When he was gone, working late, patching people up, consulting on emergencies, with the children long asleep, I would often stare at myself in the mirror, and wonder how my life had gotten so far left of where I was once headed. My face, without makeup, was burdened with secrets, lines that threatened to one day reveal themselves like a roadmap of my unhappiness. But for all Rob’s planning, he couldn’t have anticipated that on the second day of August, at 5:45 a.m., his life was about to become completely and forever irreparably changed.

Don't you be wasting of me good time in the numbering of me hands," cried Freckles. "The stringth of me cause will make up for the weakness of me mimbers, and the size of a cowardly thief doesn't count. You'll think all the wildcats of the Limberlost are turned loose on you whin I come against you, and as for me cause----I slept with you, Wessner, the night I came down the corduroy like a dirty, friendless tramp, and the Boss was for taking me up, washing, clothing, and feeding me, and giving me a home full of love and tinderness, and a master to look to, and good, well-earned money in the bank. He's trusting me his heartful, and here comes you, you spotted toad of the big road, and insults me, as is an honest Irish gintleman, by hinting that you concaive I'd be willing to shut me eyes and hold fast while you rob him of the thing I was set and paid to guard, and then act the sneak and liar to him, and ruin and eternally blacken the soul of me. You damned rascal," raved Freckles, "be fighting before I forget the laws of a gintlemin's game and split your dirty head with me stick!

The pièce de résistance, put into the can on the very first day, owed its inspiration to Little Richard, who would whip audiences to further frenzy between numbers by self-congratulatory cries of “Well...all right!” Buddy turned the phrase into a gentle love song infused with all his special quality of patience and optimism and his developing ability to make personal sentiments into universal ones. “Well, All Right” is a riposte to all the criticism and condescension that teenagers faced from their elders in the rock 'n' roll fifties—and have in every decade since. The setting is as adventurously simple as that of “Everyday”: Buddy plays flamenco-accented acoustic guitar, with only a plashing cymbal for company. The mood is not one of youthful anger and defiance but of maturity before its time: calm, stoical, steadfast in affirming its “dreams and wishes.” The intimacy in the voice could equally be that of lover or elder brother. Girl or boy, you can imagine you and he are alone together, gazing into the fire and imagining a bright future when the young will “live and love with all our might,” which could almost be a prophecy of the sixties' hippie culture.

CUCHULAIN’S FIGHT WITH THE SEA A MAN came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.’ Then Emer cast the web upon the floor, And raising arms all raddled with the dye, Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry. That swineherd stared upon her face and said, ‘No man alive, no man among the dead, Has won the gold his cars of battle bring.’ ‘But if your master comes home triumphing Why must you blench and shake from foot to crown?’ Thereon he shook the more and cast him down Upon the web-heaped floor, and cried his word: ‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird.’ ‘You dare me to my face,’ and thereupon She smote with raddled fist, and where her son Herded the cattle came with stumbling feet, And cried with angry voice, ’It is not meet To idle life away, a common herd.’ ‘I have long waited, mother, for that word: But wherefore now?’ ‘There is a man to die; You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’ ‘Whether under its daylight or its stars My father stands amid his battle-cars.’ ‘But you have grown to be the taller man.’ ‘Yet somewhere under starlight or the sun My father stands.’ ‘Aged, worn out with wars On foot, on horseback or in battle-cars.’ ‘I only ask what way my journey lies, For He who made you bitter made you wise.’ ‘The Red Branch camp in a great company Between wood’s rim and the horses of the sea. Go there, and light a camp-fire at wood’s rim; But tell your name and lineage to him Whose blade compels, and wait till they have found Some feasting man that the same oath has bound.’ Among those feasting men Cuchulain dwelt, And his young sweetheart close beside him knelt, Stared on the mournful wonder of his eyes, Even as Spring upon the ancient skies, And pondered on the glory of his days; And all around the harp-string told his praise, And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings, With his own fingers touched the brazen strings. At last Cuchulain spake, ‘Some man has made His evening fire amid the leafy shade. I have often heard him singing to and fro, I have often heard the sweet sound of his bow. Seek out what man he is.’ One went and came. ‘He bade me let all know he gives his name At the sword-point, and waits till we have found Some feasting man that the same oath has bound.’ Cuchulain cried, ‘I am the only man Of all this host so bound from childhood on. After short fighting in the leafy shade, He spake to the young man, ’Is there no maid Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round, Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground, That you have come and dared me to my face?’ ‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden place,’ ‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s head That I loved once.’ Again the fighting sped, But now the war-rage in Cuchulain woke, And through that new blade’s guard the old blade broke, And pierced him. ‘Speak before your breath is done.’ ‘Cuchulain I, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’ ‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’ While day its burden on to evening bore, With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed; Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid, And she, to win him, his grey hair caressed; In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast. Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men, Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten, Spake thus: ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and brood For three days more in dreadful quietude, And then arise, and raving slay us all. Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea.’ The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days. Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried; And fought with the invulnerable tide.

There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won’t fall down or airplanes that won’t suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don’t want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That’s all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus.

Somehow, the strife made our marriage better. We got back to holding hands and making out on the couch, touching each other during the day, and cuddling in bed. We’d been distracted by everything, and now we returned to what was important. We laughed; we had fun. I felt again like we were made for each other. There is a point for everyone, I think, where physical attraction is everything, and it can lead to love. A person looks beautiful to you, and therefore you love them. Beyond that, as you grow with them, as your love deepens, your perception of beauty starts to deepen. At that point, what you love becomes beautiful-or rather, you are better equipped to recognize the inherent beauty. We were there. Chris would gaze at me in the mirror from the bedroom as I was getting ready for bed, and his eyes would be filled with love. I would lie next to him on the bed and just feel loved, secure in the knowledge that the most amazing man in the world had me in his arms. And yet, there was a little part of me, a nagging part, that told me I didn’t deserve all this happiness. I remember calling a girlfriend around this time and raving about how our marriage seemed to have gone to a new level: Amazing. Then I added, “But I feel like something bad is going to happen to one of us. Because it’s just too perfect.

Tonight, however, Dickens struck him in a different light. Beneath the author’s sentimental pity for the weak and helpless, he could discern a revolting pleasure in cruelty and suffering, while the grotesque figures of the people in Cruikshank’s illustrations revealed too clearly the hideous distortions of their souls. What had seemed humorous now appeared diabolic, and in disgust at these two favourites he turned to Walter Pater for the repose and dignity of a classic spirit. But presently he wondered if this spirit were not in itself of a marble quality, frigid and lifeless, contrary to the purpose of nature. ‘I have often thought’, he said to himself, ‘that there is something evil in the austere worship of beauty for its own sake.’ He had never thought so before, but he liked to think that this impulse of fancy was the result of mature consideration, and with this satisfaction he composed himself for sleep. He woke two or three times in the night, an unusual occurrence, but he was glad of it, for each time he had been dreaming horribly of these blameless Victorian works… It turned out to be the Boy’s Gulliver’s Travels that Granny had given him, and Dicky had at last to explain his rage with the devil who wrote it to show that men were worse than beasts and the human race a washout. A boy who never had good school reports had no right to be so morbidly sensitive as to penetrate to the underlying cynicism of Swift’s delightful fable, and that moreover in the bright and carefully expurgated edition they bring out nowadays. Mr Corbett could not say he had ever noticed the cynicism himself, though he knew from the critical books it must be there, and with some annoyance he advised his son to take out a nice bright modern boy’s adventure story that could not depress anybody. Mr Corbett soon found that he too was ‘off reading’. Every new book seemed to him weak, tasteless and insipid; while his old and familiar books were depressing or even, in some obscure way, disgusting. Authors must all be filthy-minded; they probably wrote what they dared not express in their lives. Stevenson had said that literature was a morbid secretion; he read Stevenson again to discover his peculiar morbidity, and detected in his essays a self-pity masquerading as courage, and in Treasure Island an invalid’s sickly attraction to brutality. This gave him a zest to find out what he disliked so much, and his taste for reading revived as he explored with relish the hidden infirmities of minds that had been valued by fools as great and noble. He saw Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë as two unpleasant examples of spinsterhood; the one as a prying, sub-acid busybody in everyone else’s flirtations, the other as a raving, craving maenad seeking self-immolation on the altar of her frustrated passions. He compared Wordsworth’s love of nature to the monstrous egoism of an ancient bellwether, isolated from the flock.

Precisely that. I'd give anything to hear them in concert, and I'd give even a bit more not to hear them when the orchestra is playing. I'm afraid I am a hopeless realist. Great singers are not great actors. To hear Barillo sing a love passage with the voice of an angel, and to hear Tetralani reply like another angel, and to hear it all accompanied by a perfect orgy of glowing and colorful music - is ravishing, most ravishing. I do not admit it. I assert it. But the whole effect is spoiled when I look at them - at Tetralani, five feet ten in her stocking feet and weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, and at Barillo, a scant five feet four, greasy-featured, with the chest of a squat, undersized blacksmith, and at the pair of them, attitudinizing, clasping their breasts, flinging their arms in the air like demented creatures in an asylum; (...) But even the conventions must be real. Trees, painted on flat cardboard and stuck up on each side of the stage, we accept as a forest. It is a real enough convention. But, on the other hand, we would not accept a sea scene as a forest. We can't do it. It violates our senses. Nor would you, or, rather, should you, accept the ravings and writhings and agonized contortions of those two lunatics to-night as a convincing portrayal of love. (...) I merely maintain my right as an individual. I have just been telling you what I think, in order to explain why the elephantine gambols of Madame Tetralani spoil the orchestra for me. The world's judges of music may all be right. But I am I, and I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind. If I don't like a thing, I don't like it, that's all; and there is no reason under the sun why I should ape a liking for it just because the majority of my fellow-creatures like it, or make believe they like it. I can't follow the fashions in the things I like or dislike.

When we first started dating, my talent in the kitchen was a turn-on. The prospect of me in the kitchen, wearing a skimpy apron and holding a whisk in my hand- he thought that was sexy. And, as someone with little insight into how to work her own sex appeal, I pounced on the opportunity to make him want and need me. I spent four days preparing my first home-cooked meal for him, a dinner of wilted escarole salad with hot bacon dressing, osso bucco with risotto Milanese and gremolata, and a white-chocolate toasted-almond semifreddo for dessert. At the time, I lived with three other people in a Columbia Heights town house, so I told all of my housemates to make themselves scarce that Saturday night. When Adam showed up at my door, as the rich smell of braised veal shanks wafted through the house, I greeted him holding a platter of prosciutto-wrapped figs, wearing nothing but a slinky red apron. He grabbed me by the waist and pushed me into the kitchen, slowly untying the apron strings resting on my rounded hips, and moments later we were making love on the tiled kitchen floor. Admittedly, I worried the whole time about when I should start the risotto and whether he'd even want osso bucco once we were finished, but it was the first time I'd seduced someone like that, and it was lovely. Adam raved about that meal- the rich osso bucco, the zesty gremolata, the sweet-and-salty semifreddo- and that's when I knew cooking was my love language, my way of expressing passion and desire and overcoming all of my insecurities. I learned that I may not be comfortable strutting through a room in a tight-fitting dress, but I can cook one hell of a brisket, and I can do it in the comfort of my own home, wearing an apron and nothing else. Adam loved my food, and he loved watching me work in the kitchen even more, the way my cheeks would flush from the heat of the stove and my hair would twist into delicate red curls along my hairline. As the weeks went by, I continued to seduce him with pork ragu and roasted chicken, creamed spinach and carrot sformato, cannolis and brownies and chocolate-hazelnut cake.

Every once in a while at a restaurant, the dish you order looks so good, you don't even know where to begin tackling it. Such are HOME/MADE's scrambles. There are four simple options- my favorite is the smoked salmon, goat cheese, and dill- along with the occasional special or seasonal flavor, and they're served with soft, savory home fries and slabs of grilled walnut bread. Let's break it down: The scramble: Monica, who doesn't even like eggs, created these sublime scrambles with a specific and studied technique. "We whisk the hell out of them," she says, ticking off her methodology on her fingers. "We use cream, not milk. And we keep turning them and turning them until they're fluffy and in one piece, not broken into bits of egg." The toast: While the rave-worthiness of toast usually boils down to the quality of the bread, HOME/MADE takes it a step further. "The flame char is my happiness," the chef explains of her preference for grilling bread instead of toasting it, as 99 percent of restaurants do. That it's walnut bread from Balthazar, one of the city's best French bakeries, doesn't hurt. The home fries, or roasted potatoes as Monica insists on calling them, abiding by chefs' definitions of home fries (small fried chunks of potatoes) versus hash browns (shredded potatoes fried greasy on the griddle) versus roasted potatoes (roasted in the oven instead of fried on the stove top): "My potatoes I've been making for a hundred years," she says with a smile (really, it's been about twenty). The recipe came when she was roasting potatoes early on in her career and thought they were too bland. She didn't want to just keep adding salt so instead she reached for the mustard, which her mom always used on fries. "It just was everything," she says of the tangy, vinegary flavor the French condiment lent to her spuds. Along with the new potatoes, mustard, and herbs de Provence, she uses whole jacket garlic cloves in the roasting pan. It's a simple recipe that's also "a Zen exercise," as the potatoes have to be continuously turned every fifteen minutes to get them hard and crispy on the outside and soft and billowy on the inside.

Something diseased and furry had crawled into her mouth and expired while she slept. That was the only possible explanation as to why Neve had a rancid taste in her mouth and a heavy, viscous paste coating her teeth and tongue. ‘I think I’m dying,’ she groaned. The wretched state of her mouth was the least of it. There was a pounding in her head, echoed in the roiling of her gut, and her bones ached, her vital organs ached, her throat ached, even her hair follicles ached. ‘You’re not dying,’ said a voice in her ear, which sounded like nails scraping down a blackboard, even though Max’s voice had barely risen above a whisper. ‘You’ve got a hangover.’ Neve had had hangovers before and they just made her feel a tiny bit nauseous and grouchy. This felt like the bastard child of bubonic plague and the ebola virus. ‘Dying,’ she reiterated, and now she realised that she was in bed, which had been a very comfy bed the last time she’d slept in it, but now it felt as if she was lying on a pile of rocks, and even though she had the quilt and Max’s arm tucked around her, she was still cold and clammy. Neve tried to raise her head but her gaze collided with the stripy wallpaper and as well as searing her retinas, it was making her stomach heave. ‘Sick. Going to be sick.’ ‘Sweetheart, I don’t think so,’ Max said, stroking the back of her neck with feather-soft fingers. ‘You’ve already thrown up just about everything you’ve eaten in the last week.’ ‘Urgh …’ Had she? The night before was a big gaping hole in her memory. ‘What happened?’ ‘I don’t know what happened but I got a phone call from the Head of Hotel Security at three in the morning asking me if I could identify a raving madwoman in a silver dress who couldn’t remember her room number but insisted that someone called Max Pancake was sleeping there. They thought you might be a hack from the Sunday Mirror pretending to be absolutely spannered as a way of getting into the hotel.’ ‘Oh, no …’ ‘Yeah, apparently Ronaldo’s staying in one of the penthouse suites and I saw Wayne and Coleen in the bar last night. Anyway, as you were staggering down the corridor, you told me very proudly that you’d lost your phone and you’d just eaten two pieces of KFC and a bag of chips.’ ‘KFC? Oh, God …’ ‘But I wouldn’t worry about that because after you’d tried to persuade me to have my wicked way with you, you started throwing up and you didn’t stop, not for hours. I thought you were going to sleep curled around the toilet at one point.’ ‘Goodness …

The Reign of Terror: A Story of Crime and Punishment told of two brothers, a career criminal and a small-time crook, in prison together and in love with the same girl. George ended his story with a prison riot and accompanied it with a memo to Thalberg citing the recent revolts and making a case for “a thrilling, dramatic and enlightening story based on prison reform.” --- Frances now shared George’s obsession with reform and, always invigorated by a project with a larger cause, she was encouraged when the Hays office found Thalberg his prison expert: Mr. P. W. Garrett, the general secretary of the National Society of Penal Information. Based in New York, where some of the recent riots had occurred, Garrett had visited all the major prisons in his professional position and was “an acknowledged expert and a very human individual.” He agreed to come to California to work with Frances for several weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a total of kr 4,470.62 plus expenses. Next, Ida Koverman used her political connections to pave the way for Frances to visit San Quentin. Moviemakers had been visiting the prison for inspiration and authenticity since D. W. Griffith, Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown walked though the halls before making Intolerance, but for a woman alone to be ushered through the cell blocks was unusual and upon meeting the warden, Frances noticed “his smile at my discomfort.” Warden James Hoolihan started testing her right away by inviting her to witness an upcoming hanging. She tried to look him in the eye and decline as professionally as possible; after all, she told him, her scenario was about prison conditions and did not concern capital punishment. Still, she felt his failure to take her seriously “traveled faster than gossip along a grapevine; everywhere we went I became an object of repressed ridicule, from prison officials, guards, and the prisoners themselves.” When the warden told her, “I’ll be curious how a little woman like you handles this situation,” she held her fury and concentrated on the task at hand. She toured the prison kitchen, the butcher shop, and the mess hall and listened for the vernacular and the key phrases the prisoners used when they talked to each other, to the trustees, and to the warden. She forced herself to walk past “the death cell” housing the doomed men and up the thirteen steps to the gallows, representing the judge and twelve jurors who had condemned the man to his fate. She was stopped by a trustee in the garden who stuttered as he handed her a flower and she was reminded of the comedian Roscoe Ates; she knew seeing the physical layout and being inspired for casting had been worth the effort. --- Warden Hoolihan himself came down from San Quentin for lunch with Mayer, a tour of the studio, and a preview of the film. Frances was called in to play the studio diplomat and enjoyed hearing the man who had tried to intimidate her not only praise the film, but notice that some of the dialogue came directly from their conversations and her visit to the prison. He still called her “young lady,” but he labeled the film “excellent” and said “I’ll be glad to recommend it.” ---- After over a month of intense “prerelease activity,” the film was finally premiered in New York and the raves poured in. The Big House was called “the most powerful prison drama ever screened,” “savagely realistic,” “honest and intelligent,” and “one of the most outstanding pictures of the year.

Robert Askins Brings ‘Hand to God’ to Broadway Chad Batka for The New York Times Robert Askins at the Booth Theater, where his play “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday. By MICHAEL PAULSON The conceit is zany: In a church basement, a group of adolescents gathers (mostly at the insistence of their parents) to make puppets that will spread the Christian message, but one of the puppets turns out to be more demonic than divine. The result — a dark comedy with the can-puppets-really-do-that raunchiness of “Avenue Q” and can-people-really-say-that outrageousness of “The Book of Mormon” — is “Hand to God,” a new play that is among the more improbable entrants in the packed competition for Broadway audiences over the next few weeks. Given the irreverence of some of the material — at one point stuffed animals are mutilated in ways that replicate the torments of Catholic martyrs — it is perhaps not a surprise to discover that the play’s author, Robert Askins, was nicknamed “Dirty Rob” as an undergraduate at Baylor, a Baptist-affiliated university where the sexual explicitness and violence of his early scripts raised eyebrows. But Mr. Askins had also been a lone male soloist in the children’s choir at St. John Lutheran of Cypress, Tex. — a child who discovered early that singing was a way to make the stern church ladies smile. His earliest performances were in a deeply religious world, and his writings since then have been a complex reaction to that upbringing. “It’s kind of frustrating in life to be like, ‘I’m a playwright,’ and watch people’s face fall, because they associate plays with phenomenally dull, didactic, poetic grad-schoolery, where everything takes too long and tediously explores the beauty in ourselves,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s not church, even though it feels like church a lot when we go these days.” The journey to Broadway, where “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday at the Booth Theater, still seems unlikely to Mr. Askins, 34, who works as a bartender in Brooklyn and says he can’t afford to see Broadway shows, despite his newfound prominence. He seems simultaneously enthralled by and contemptuous of contemporary theater, the world in which he has chosen to make his life; during a walk from the Cobble Hill coffee shop where he sometimes writes to the Park Slope restaurant where he tends bar, he quoted Nietzsche and Derrida, described himself as “deeply weird,” and swore like, well, a satanic sock-puppet. “If there were no laughs in the show, I’d think there was something wrong with him,” said the actor Steven Boyer, who won raves in earlier “Hand to God” productions as Jason, a grief-stricken adolescent with a meek demeanor and an angry-puppet pal. “But anybody who is able to write about such serious stuff and be as hilarious as it is, I’m not worried about their mental health.” Mr. Askins’s interest in the performing arts began when he was a boy attending rural Texas churches affiliated with the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod denomination; he recalls the worshipers as “deeply conservative, old farm folks, stone-faced, pride and suffering, and the only time anybody ever really livened up was when the children’s choir would perform.” “My grandmother had a cross-stitch that said, ‘God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing,’ and so I got into that,” he said. “For somebody who enjoys performance, that was the way in.” The church also had a puppet ministry — an effort to teach children about the Bible by use of puppets — and when Mr. Askins’s mother, a nurse, began running the program, he enlisted to help. He would perform shows for other children at preschools and vacation Bible camps. “The shows are wacky, but it was fun,” he said. “They’re badly written attempts to bring children to Jesus.” Not all of his formative encounters with puppets were positive. Particularly scarring: D

Home Cooking: The Comforts of Old Family Favorites." Easy. Baked macaroni and cheese with crunchy bread crumbs on top; simple mashed potatoes with no garlic and lots of cream and butter; meatloaf with sage and a sweet tomato sauce topping. Not that I experienced these things in my house growing up, but these are the foods everyone thinks of as old family favorites, only improved. If nothing else, my job is to create a dreamlike state for readers in which they feel that everything will be all right if only they find just the right recipe to bring their kids back to the table, seduce their husbands into loving them again, making their friends and neighbors envious. I'm tapping my keyboard, thinking, what else?, when it hits me like a soft thud in the chest. I want to write about my family's favorites, the strange foods that comforted us in tense moments around the dinner table. Mom's Midwestern "hot dish": layers of browned hamburger, canned vegetable soup, canned sliced potatoes, topped with canned cream of mushroom soup. I haven't tasted it in years. Her lime Jell-O salad with cottage cheese, walnuts, and canned pineapple, her potato salad with French dressing instead of mayo. I have a craving, too, for Dad's grilling marinade. "Shecret Shauce" he called it in those rare moments of levity when he'd perform the one culinary task he was willing to do. I'd lean shyly against the counter and watch as he poured ingredients into a rectangular cake pan. Vegetable oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and then he'd finish it off with the secret ingredient: a can of fruit cocktail. Somehow the sweetness of the syrup was perfect against the salty soy and the biting garlic. Everything he cooked on the grill, save hamburgers and hot dogs, first bathed in this marinade overnight in the refrigerator. Rump roasts, pork chops, chicken legs all seemed more exotic this way, and dinner guests raved at Dad's genius on the grill. They were never the wiser to the secret of his sauce because the fruit bits had been safely washed into the garbage disposal.

I hear the door open and close, and I peek to see the one and only. “What do you want?” I ask, staring back up at the stars, taking a large sip of my beer. He doesn’t answer, but takes a seat next to me. I turn to see he’s also drinking a beer. He’s back in his work attire, sporting a pair of kakis and a button up polo. “What happened to your Guns-N-Roses shirt? Don’t want anyone to know your alter ego? They might find out you’re really some sort of party animal who raves to heavy metal and goes on drinking binges instead of science fairs?” I laugh taking another swig. We connect eyes and something in them tells me that I might be on to something. “No way. Tell me I’m not wrong. The science teacher secretly has a bad side.” He stands quickly sticking out his hand. “Come with me.” Huh? “No way. Why? You gonna try and retaliate? Avenge all teachers I’ve tried to take out this week?” His laugh is like a tickle to my lady parts. I fight to admit that I seriously love that sound. “No, but it would be fitting though, Peter Parker, saving the world from the reckless bad girl.” I give him my evil eye while he smiles wider. “Come with me. I promise, I’ll bring you back in one piece.” His hand taunting, I decide, what the hell. I stick my hand out, sliding it into his, the feel of his warm skin wrapped around mine. He walks me around to the front of the house and a few cars down, until he stops beside a Jeep. Unlocking the door, he says, “Jump in,” and walks around the other side. Knowing I have a pretty loud voice if he does try and kill me, I jump in. The inside smells just like him. Of spice and aftershave.

He wanted to be angry, his mission was was to be angry, and he had nothing to be angry about; the world would not let him rave, this was the great injustice he suffered from.

Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 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. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. - Philippians 4:5-9

Poetry Reading To be a boxer, or not to be there at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds? Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare— it’s time to start this cultural affair. Half came inside because it started raining, the rest are relatives. O Muse. The women here would love to rant and rave, but that’s for boxing. Here they must behave. Dante’s Inferno is ringside nowadays. Likewise his Paradise. O Muse. Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet, one sentenced to hard shelleying for life, for lack of muscles forced to show the world the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists with luck. O Muse, O bobtailed angel, Pegasus. In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore: he dreams his wife’s alive again. What’s more, she’s making him that tart she used to bake. Aflame, but carefully—don’t burn his cake!— we start to read. O Muse.

Go ahead. Make the midnight knock. Stand up on behalf of those you love. And, yes, stand up on behalf of those you do not. “Pray for those who hurt you” (Matt. 5:44 NCV). The quickest way to douse the fire of anger is with a bucket of prayer. Rather than rant, rave, or seek revenge, pray. Jesus did this. While hanging on the cross, he interceded for his enemies: “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34 MSG). Jesus, even Jesus, left his enemies in God’s hands.

The joy of Loretta’s homecoming was overshadowed by Henry’s rage. Friends with a murderin’ savage, was she? A Comanche slut, that’s what, kissin’ on him in broad daylight, comin’ home to shame them all with her Injun horse and heathen necklace. His land looked like a bloomin’ pincushion with all them heathen lances pokin’ up. He was gonna get shut of ’em, just like he had those horses. Half of ’em stole from white folks! Some trade that was! Loretta listened to his tirade in stony silence. When he wound down she said, “Are you quite finished?” “No, I ain’t!” He leveled a finger at her. “Just you understand this, young lady. If that bastard planted his seed in that belly of yours, it’ll be hell to pay. The second you throw an Injun brat, I’ll bash its head on a rock!” Loretta flinched. “And we call them animals?” Henry backhanded her, catching her on the cheek with stunning force. Loretta reeled and grabbed the table to keep from falling. Rachel screamed and threw herself between them. Amy’s muffled sobs could be heard coming up through the floor. “For the love of God, Henry, please…” Rachel wrung her hands in her apron. “Get a hold on your temper.” Henry swept Rachel aside. Leveling a finger at Loretta again, he snarled, “Don’t you sass me, girl, or I’ll tan your hide till next Sunday. You’ll show respect, by gawd.” Loretta pressed her fingers to her jaw, staring at him. Respect? Suddenly it struck her as hysterically funny. She had been captured by savages and dragged halfway across Texas. Never once, not even when he had just cause, had Hunter hit her with enough force to hurt her, and never in the face. She’d had to come home to receive that kind of abuse. She sank onto the planked bench and started to laugh, a high-pitched, half-mad laughter. Aunt Rachel crossed herself, and that only made her laugh harder. Henry stormed outside to get “those dad-blamed Indian lances” pulled up before a passing neighbor spied them and started calling them Injun lovers. Loretta laughed harder yet. Maybe she had gone mad. Stark, raving mad.

«Around the shadow is a heat of abundant sweat. I’m alive.» «I'm alive. but I feel that I have yet to reach my limits, borders with what? ... And madly I take control of the recesses of myself, my ravings suffocate me with so much beauty. I am before, I am almost, I am never. And all of this I won when I stopped loving you. I write to you as an exercise in sketching before painting. I see words.»

-give it a break, it says- It's an art to realize our worst fears Glee is the body turned out of shape, where meaningless expectations drool a string stiffened at both ends in fists of life and failures belief pirouette, bows and falls Those milky decision exiled in dust of time She says, "this year is raving, its skeleton has crippled the soil" Code blue has alarmed electronic crickets chime on monitor rhythms of farewell dance of death lodestar grins at distance. (Give it a break) The stars are gleaming outside the window birds chirruping intermittently valid sound of crickets dust settling on painted cities A cyclic equilibrium, I tell you, to bring the body in shape.

Around the shadow is a heat of abundant sweat. I’m alive. But I feel that I have yet to reach my limits, borders with what? ... And madly I take control of the recesses of myself, my ravings suffocate me with so much beauty. I am before, I am almost, I am never. And all of this I won when I stopped loving you. I write to you as an exercise in sketching before painting. I see words.

Around the shadow is a heat of abundant sweat. I’m alive. I'm alive. But I feel that I have yet to reach my limits, borders with what? ... And madly I take control of the recesses of myself, my ravings suffocate me with so much beauty. I am before, I am almost, I am never. And all of this I won when I stopped loving you. I write to you as an exercise in sketching before painting. I see words.

Up until that night at the club, my pelvic region had been hibernating. Big South had awakened it, and now, everything down there was acutely alive and active like molecules colliding in the atmosphere. It felt as if someone was throwing a damn rave in my yoni.

We fear that if we go into our deeper emotions, we will be consumed by them. We fear that if we close our bedroom door and face the emotion, we will be consumed by the monstrous darkness of our inner being. We think our fears will turn us into a neurotic mess of blubber, our anger will turn us into raving lunatics, and our sadness will be so overwhelming that we will never function in the world again. It is not so. One only has to practice this a few times to know that, far from destroying us, going into our inner thoughts deeply works them through to their conclusion, or at least to some degree.

Please, Rave. Tell him to talk to me. I know my request sounds ridiculous, especially because your marriage isn’t real. You said it yourself, the two of you are just friends, and considering how much he loves me, it’ll never be more than that, but he just… he has such a strong sense of loyalty. Remind him that it’s misplaced.

Peace, I seek to deck my passion, for I Love you much Calliope, the fine voice: as It belongs to a never discouraging land, where Moon it never wans and Music raves high.

The title came when Drummond turned to Cauty at a rave, intending to ask when the MDMA they had taken would kick in, but found himself phrasing the question in the words ‘What time is love?’ At which point, they both understood that it had started to work.

Not only in what you imagine, but in what you feel. You are allowed to not-love the novel the rest of the world is raving about; you are allowed to cordially loathe your sister’s favourite author. Reading is not a test. Whether or not you love a book is not a matter for debate; and not something you can be persuaded into.

True love is maddening, all- consuming, and it’s fucking selfish, Rave.

You are all that I’ve ever wanted. I’ve never been this happy before, baby. You fucking complete me, Cupcake. You’re the part I never realized I was missing. You’re my heart, my soul. It doesn’t matter how many years I spent with Hannah, because just a few months with you brought me more happiness than years with her ever did. If she and I were meant to be together, we’d have made it work, Rave. If I truly loved her, I never would’ve fallen for you, and certainly not so quickly. Hell, if I loved her the way you seem to think I do, I’d never have let her go in the first place.

She sat on the wall, opened her book, and paid him no mind. After a few minutes the sounds of clipping stopped, and she felt his gaze on her. She turned a page. “Jane,” he said with a touch of exasperation. “Shh, I’m reading,” she said. “Jane, listen, someone warned me that another fellow heard my telly playing and told Mrs. Wattlesbrook, and I had to toss it out this morning. If they spot me hanging around you..” “You’re not hanging around me, I’m reading.” “Bugger, Jane…” “Martin, please, I’m sorry about your TV but you can’t cast me away now. I’ll go raving mad if I have to sit in that house again all afternoon. I haven’t sewn a thing since junior high Home Ec when I made a pair of gray shorts that ripped at the butt seam the first time I sat down, and I haven’t played pianoforte since I quit from boredom at age twelve, and I haven’t read a book in the middle of the day since college, so you see what a mess I’m in.” “So,” Martin said, digging in his spade. “You’ve come to find me again when there is no one else to flirt with.” Huh! thought Jane. He snapped a dead branch off the trunk. Huh! she thought again. She stood and started to walk away. “Wait.” Martin hopped after her, grabbing her elbow. “I saw you with those actors, parading around the grounds this morning. I hadn’t seen you with them before. In the context. And it bothered me. I mean, you don’t really go in for this stuff, do you?” Jane shrugged. “You do?” “More than I want to, though you’ve been making it seem unnecessary lately.” Martin squinted up at a cloud. “I’ve never understood the women who come here, and you’re one of them. I can’t make sense of it.” “I don’t think I could explain it to a man. If you were a woman, all I’d have to say is ‘Colin Firth in a wet shirt’ and you’d say, ‘Ah.’” “Ah. I mean, aha! is what I mean.” Crap. She’d hoped he would laugh at the Colin Firth thing. And he didn’t. And now the silence made her feel as though she were standing on a seesaw, waiting for the weight to drop on the other side. Then she smelled it. The musty, acrid, sour, curdled, metallic, decaying odor of ending. This wasn’t just a first fight. She’d been in this position too many times not to recognize the signs. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked. “Were we ever together enough to require breaking up?” Oh. Ouch. She took a step back on that one. Perhaps it was her dress that allowed her to compose herself more quickly than normal. She curtsied. “Pardon the interruption, I mistook you for someone I knew.” She turned and left, wishing for a Victorian-type gown so she could have whipped the full skirts for a satisfying little cracking sound. She had to satisfy herself with emphatically tightening her bonnet ribbon as she marched. You stupid, stupid girl, she thought. You were fantasizing again. Stop it! It had all been going so well. She’d let herself have fun, unwind, not plague a new romance with constant questions such as, What if? And after? And will he love me forever? “Are you breaking up with me…?” she muttered to herself. He must think she was a lunatic. And really, he’d be right. Here she was in Pembrook Park, a place where women hand over scads of dough to hook up with men paid to adore them, but she finds the one man on campus who’s in a position to reject her and then leads him into it. Typical Jane.

What could have possessed her to sleep with Matthew Swift?” “I doubt there was much sleeping involved,” Annabelle replied, her eyes twinkling. Lillian gave her a slitted glare. “If you have the bad taste to be amused by this, Annabelle—” “Daisy was never interested in Lord Llandrindon,” Evie volunteered hastily, trying to prevent a quarrel. “She was only using him to provoke Mr. Swift.” “How do you know?” the other two asked at the same time. “Well, I-I…” Evie made a helpless gesture with her hands. “Last week I m-more or less inadvertently suggested that she try to make him jealous. And it worked.” Lillian’s throat worked violently before she could manage to speak. “Of all the asinine, sheep-headed, moronic—” “Why, Evie?” Annabelle asked in a considerably kinder tone. “Daisy and I overheard Mr. Swift t-talking to Lord Llandrindon. He was trying to convince Llandrindon to court her, and it became obvious that Mr. Swift wanted her for himself.” “I’ll bet he planned it,” Lillian snapped. “He must have known somehow that you would overhear. It was a devious and sinister plot, and you fell for it!” “I don’t think so,” Evie replied. Staring at Lillian’s crimson face, she asked apprehensively, “Are you going to shout at me?” Lillian shook her head and dropped her face in her hands. “I’d shriek like a banshee,” she said through the screen of her fingers, “if I thought it would do any good. But since I’m fairly certain Daisy has been intimate with that reptile, there is probably nothing anyone can do to save her now.” “She may not want to be saved,” Evie pointed out. “That’s because she’s gone stark raving mad,” came Lillian’s muffled growl. Annabelle nodded. “Obviously. Daisy has slept with a handsome, young, wealthy, intelligent man who is apparently in love with her. What in God’s name can she be thinking?” She smiled compassionately as she heard Lillian’s profane reply, and settled a gentle hand between her friend’s shoulders. “Dearest,” she murmured, “as you know, there was a time when it didn’t matter to me whether I married a man I loved or not…it seemed enough just to get my family out of the desperate situation we were in. But when I thought about what it would be like to share a bed with my husband…to spend the rest of my life with him…I knew Simon was the only choice.” She paused, and sudden tears glittered her eyes. Beautiful, self-possessed Annabelle, who hardly ever cried. “When I’m ill,” she continued in a husky voice, “when I’m afraid, when I need something, I know he will move heaven and earth to make everything all right. I trust him with every fiber of my being. And when I see the child we created, the two of us mingled forever in her…my God, how grateful I am that I married Simon. We’ve all been able to choose our own husbands, Lillian. You have to allow Daisy the same freedom.

Madison! This is too perfect. Join us.” Reed stood coolly in the middle of the hall, oblivious to the swarm of kids around him. “Reed, I’d love to join you,” Madison shouted above the bustle. “But I told Piper I’d meet her in the parking lot.” “This’ll just take a minute,” Reed insisted. Madison hesitated. Much as she wanted to avoid talking to Jeremy, she didn’t want to look like a rude jerk. She maneuvered her way around Jeremy and stood next to Reed. “Of course you know Jeremy,” Reed said, not letting her off the hook. Jeremy answered for her. “We’re like this,” he said, holding up two fingers at arm’s length. “Funny,” Madison replied without a smile. Reed seemed oblivious to their awkwardness. “Listen up. My mom’s a marketing specialist and she might be able to get us some airtime on some of the local radio stations. What do you think?” Jeremy nodded. “That would be extremely cool.” “Would the interviews be separate?” Madison asked, not wanting to spend any time in close proximity to Jeremy. “I’d prefer to do mine alone--or with you, Reed.” Jeremy scowled. “What is it with you, Madison? Can’t you at least be civil?” “Not to you,” Madison said with an angry toss of her head. “Give me a break,” Jeremy snapped. “Whoa! Time out! Truce!” Reed quickly stepped between them and draped his arms around their shoulders. “Look, this is just an election. You don’t need to get so malignant.” “Save the lecture for someone who needs it,” Jeremy grumbled. “Like Miss Stuck-up.” Madison clutched her chest as if she’d been shot in the heart. “Oh, you got me,” she said melodramatically. “I’m mortally wounded.” Jeremy’s cheeks flared a deep red. Clenching his fists at his sides, he took several deep breaths. Clearly he was trying not to say anything back to Madison. At last he turned to Reed and said evenly, “The radio station idea is a good one. I’ll catch you later to discuss it.” He turned on his heel and strode away. Madison felt the heat creep into her own face. Most of the students nearby had witnessed the entire exchange. Madison felt pretty certain that, at this moment, she looked like a complete, raving idiot. Reed shook his head in amazement. “Wow. I don’t need to do a thing to win this election,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll just stand back and let you two destroy each other.

Tonight she'll be with Jeremy, her lieutenant, but she wants to be with Roger. Except that, really, she doesn't. Does she? She can't remember being so confused. When she is with Roger it's all love, but at any distance- any at all, Jack- she finds that he depresses and even frightens her. Why? On top of him in the wild nights riding up and down his cock her axis, trying herself to stay rigid enough not to turn to cream taper-wax and fall away melting to the coverlet coming there's only room for Roger, Roger, oh love to the end of breath. But out of bed, walking talking, his bitterness, his darkness, run deeper than the War, the winter: he hates England so, hates "the System," gripes endlessly, says he'll emigrate when the War's over, stays inside his paper cynic's cave hating himself... and does she want to bring him out, really? Isn't it safer with Jeremy? She tried not to allow this question to often, but it's there. Three years with Jeremy. They might as well be married. Three years ought to count for something. Daily, small stitches and easings. She's worn old Beaver's bathrobes, brewed his tea and coffee, sought his eye across lorry-parks, day rooms and rainy mud fields when all the day's mean, dismal losses could be rescued in the one look- familiar, full of trust, in a season where the word is invoked for quaintness or a minor laugh. And to rip it all out? three years? for this erratic, self-centered- boy, really. Weepers, he supposed to be pas thirty, he's years older than she. He ought to've learned something, surely? A man of experience? /// If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. Damned Beaver/Jeremy IS the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made- that we are meant work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the sense and the second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day... Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane. Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she did not make... Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on- how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskins to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. /// Jessica steps away from Roger to blow her nose. The sound is as familiar to him as a bird's song, ip-ip-ip-ip NGUNNGG as the hankerchief comes away..."Oh sooper dooper," she says, "think I'm catching a cold." You're catching the War. It's infecting you and I don't know how to keep it away. Oh, Jess. Jessica. Don't leave me,,,,

Tonight she'll be with Jeremy, her lieutenant, but she wants to be with Roger. Except that, really, she doesn't. Does she? She can't remember being so confused. When she is with Roger it's all love, but at any distance- any at all, Jack- she finds that he depresses and even frightens her. Why? On top of him in the wild nights riding up and down his cock her axis, trying herself to stay rigid enough not to turn to cream taper-wax and fall away melting to the coverlet coming there's only room for Roger, Roger, oh love to the end of breath. But out of bed, walking talking, his bitterness, his darkness, run deeper than the War, the winter: he hates England so, hates "the System," gripes endlessly, says he'll emigrate when the War's over, stays inside his paper cynic's cave hating himself... and does she want to bring him out, really? Isn't it safer with Jeremy? She tried not to allow this question to often, but it's there. Three years with Jeremy. They might as well be married. Three years ought to count for something. Daily, small stitches and easings. She's worn old Beaver's bathrobes, brewed his tea and coffee, sought his eye across lorry-parks, day rooms and rainy mud fields when all the day's mean, dismal losses could be rescued in the one look- familiar, full of trust, in a season where the word is invoked for quaintness or a minor laugh. And to rip it all out? three years? for this erratic, self-centered- boy, really. Weepers, he supposed to be past thirty, he's years older than she. He ought to've learned something, surely? A man of experience? /// If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. Damned Beaver/Jeremy IS the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made- that we are meant work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day... Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane. Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she did not make... Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on- how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskins to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. /// Jessica steps away from Roger to blow her nose. The sound is as familiar to him as a bird's song, ip-ip-ip-ip NGUNNGG as the hankerchief comes away..."Oh sooper dooper," she says, "think I'm catching a cold." You're catching the War. It's infecting you and I don't know how to keep it away. Oh, Jess. Jessica. Don't leave me....

There were a few times when I thought you were awake; however, you were ranting and raving about Tom, and hearts, and how we had to go to the Devil’s Isles. You didn’t even know I was holding you,” said Baltsaros, his hand stroking Jon’s hair softly back. As he blinked sleepily, Jon turned his head and captured Baltsaros’s hand, pressing it against his cheek. “I love you,” he said softly and promptly fell back to sleep.

I am never one to judge others; I am so eccentric myself that I have no right to cast aspersions. A person may or may not like a thing, and I have little to say other than I love it too or how could you dare not like it please die promptly, but I leave everyone to find their own niches in time. We are all avid about certain things; I happen to rave over many subjects, all of which have a place in the Kingdom of Nerdonia, and whenever I hear someone unjustly disparage a thing I consider sacred, I lay it down that the person is either mistaken or a dunderwhelp, the latter being the likeliest of the two. There is a great difference between knowledge accompanied by bias and ignorance accompanied by gallantry, and while all tastes may be what they are, there are bare necessities that will immediately define a character and relationship, these things usually being how many Monty Python lines one knows and whether or not they know what Iocaine is. The strength of lasting friendships rests on whether one can sing the theme to Neverending Story.

She was around two. She and Laura went down in a shipwreck. I heard Henry didn’t eat or sleep for days. He searched for them for weeks, but there was never any sign of them. There were no survivors.” “How sad,” she whispered. He touched her chin and turned her liquid eyes toward him. “Don’t cry. It happened a long time ago. I’m sure Henry is over it all by now.” “Love like that never dies.” He smiled. “Such romanticism. No wonder you read poetry.” “Does he ever talk about them?” He released her chin and shook his head. “Clara would be in tears if he did. The servants tell how he raved like a madman when he heard the news. Molly said she’d never heard a grown man cry like that.