Scrap Best Quotes

Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.

If I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears. Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didn't tell them, though, was that in the daytime, they'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness. The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.

The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.

The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves. The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding one scrap

Let me get this thing straight, Inigo--we had SCRAPS for dinner? I'M in YOUR fantasy and the best you can come up with is SCRAPS?" She turned toward the door then. "You have no chance of winning my heart.

The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the dark sky red, marked the scraps of the cloud with stolen gold. Underneath it the road twisted up the mountainside towards the fortress of Fontezarmo - a cluster of sharp towers, ash-black again the wounded heavens. The sunrise was red, black and gold. The colours of their profession.

But if you are a poor creature--poisoned by a wretched up-bringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels--saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion--nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends--do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all - not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school.

Early moralists who believed that taking too much pleasure at the table led inexorably to bad character-or worse, to sex-were (in the best-case scenario, anyway) absolutely right.

If romeo was really gone, never coming back, would it have mattered whether or not juliet had taken Paris up on his offer? Maybe she should have tried to settle into the left-over scraps of life that were left behind. Maybe that would have been as close to happiness as she could get.

There I was, clinging to the scraps of happiness that I could finally feel again: coffee and books and an afternoon with my best friend. What right did I have, when he was gone?

He couldn’t look back at the children. He couldn’t think of it. All he could do was watch the eyes of his wife. He pulled her to him, her body soft, her skin warm. She was life, she was his. He took her lips and tasted his freedom once more. The subtle tenderness. The hope hidden in joined breath. He took it into himself. Soaking in the peace that came with it. And even as the rustling began he felt still, he felt calm. Scratching and scrapping within the stones, and the rustle of wings. But all Eli knew was the nature of love.

Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And history is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past. It’s the record of what’s left on the record. It’s the plan of the positions taken, when we to stop the dance to note them down. It’s what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it – a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth. It is no more “the past” than a birth certificate is a birth, or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey. It is the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses, combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them. It’s no more than the best we can do, and often it falls short of that.

Nonfiction is at its best an act of putting the world back together - or tearing some piece of it apart to find what's hidden beneath the assumptions or conventions - and in this sense creation and destruction can be akin. The process can be incandescent with excitement, whether from finding some unexpected scrap of information or from recognizing the patterns that begin to arise as the fragments begin to assemble. Something you didn't know well comes into focus, and the world makes sense in a new way, or an old assumption is gutted, and then you try to write it down.

She fed him scraps from her ragbag because words were all that were left now. Perhaps he could use them to pay the ferryman. Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold. The world is charged with the grandeur of God. Full fathom five thy father lies. Little lamb, who made thee? Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie. On that best portion of a good man's life, his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love. Farther and farther, all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. The air rippled and shimmered. Time narrowed to a pinpoint. It was about to happen. Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Imagine having so much energy to spare after finding food and shelter and clothing and some tiny goddamn scrap of company that you figured you'd make a beautiful silver cup, not because some kid did the best job, but just because she tried the hardest. I tried the hardest all the time, and everyone's just permanently fucking mad at me. Imagine having that much left over that you give one single ghostly shit about the eight-best daffodil.

If there was a religion of Annaism, and I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears. Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didn't tell them, though, was that in the daytime, they'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness. The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.

But it's Atlanta that can lay claim to the best of the best (which is to say worst) chef-friendly dives in America: the legendary Clermont Lounge, a sort of lost-luggage department for strippers, who perform—perfunctorily—on a stage behind the bar.

A shoemaker, in making a pair of shoes, cannot spoil a scrap of leather without having to bear the loss; but in our business we may spoil a man without its costing us a farthing. The blunders are never put down to us, and it is always the fault of the fellow who dies. The best of this profession is, that there is the greatest honesty and discretion among the dead; for you never find them complain of the physician who has killed them.

I know that God is putting me through the fire of afflictions. I've accepted the blows that life has dealt me, and sometimes I feel as cold and indifferent as the water that inflicts such pain on the steel. But my one prayer is this: 'Please, God, my Mother, don't give up until I've taken on the shape that you wish for me. Do this by whatever means you think best, for as long as you like but never ever throw me on the scrap heap of souls.

My mind wandered to all those years of school portraits: the licked palms wrestling cowlicks under the pretense of a loving stroke; letting the boys watch a cartoon while sliding them into handsome, uncomfortable clothes; clumsy efforts to subliminally communicate the value of a “natural” smile. The pictures always came out the same: a forced grin with unparted lips, eyes vacantly gazing into the haze—something from the Diane Arbus scrap pile. But I loved them. I loved the truth they conveyed: that kids aren’t yet able to fake it. Or they aren’t yet able to conceal their disingenuousness. They’re wonderful smilers, the best; but they’re the very worst fake smilers. The inability to fake a smile defines childhood. When Sam thanked me for his room in my new house, he became a man.

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.

As a historian, I found myself all too often treating my historical subjects like fictional characters, malleable entities that could be made to do one thing or another, whose motivations could be speculated upon endlessly, and whose missing actions could be reconstructed and approximated based on assessments of prior and later behaviors. It was one of the hazards with working a fragmentary source base. You had little scraps, like puzzle pieces, and you could put them together as best you could. But no matter how faithful you tried to be to the historical record, there would always be that element of guesswork, of imagination, of (if we're being totally honest) fiction.

Somehow, the city of promise had become a scrap yard of dreams. But fighters do what they do best when they’ve

But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last).

My best friend in all the world really did have a boyfriend and had never told me. My best friend was sharing me with someone else and I knew whatever she had been giving me was only what she had left over from him, the scraps, the tokens, the lies. I had fought for this friendship, worried over it, made sacrifices for it, measured myself against it, lost myself inside it, had little to show for it but this bewildered sense of betrayal. Now I knew that I had never been the one she loved, I was a convenient diversion, a practice run until the real thing came along to claim her.

Roark reached for the 'link again, cursed himself for a fool, then turned away from it. He wasn’t going to keep calling her, her friends, her haunts, hoping for a scrap. Bugger that. She’d be home when she came home. Or she wouldn’t. Christ Jesus, where was she? Why the hell was she putting him through this? He’d done nothing to earn it. God knew he’d done plenty along the way to earn her wrath, but not this time. Not this way. Still, that look on her face that morning had etched itself in his head, on his heart, into his guts. He couldn’t burn it out. He’d seen that look once or twice before, but not on his account. He’d seen it when they’d gone to that fucking room in Dallas where she’d once suffered beyond reason. He’d seen it when she tore out of a nightmare. Didn’t she know he’d cut off his own hand before he’d put that look on her face? She bloody well should know it. Should know him. This was her own doing, and she’d best get her stubborn ass home right quick so they could have this out as they were supposed to have things out. She could kick something. Punch something. Punch him if that would put an end to it. A good rage, that’s what was needed here, he told himself, then they’d be done with this nonsense once and for all. Where the fucking hell was she? He considered his own rage righteous, deserved—and struggled not to acknowledge it hid a sick panic that she didn’t mean to come back to him. She’d damn well come back, he thought furiously. If she thought she could do otherwise, he had a bulletin for her. He’d hunt her down, by Christ, he would, and he’d drag her back where she belonged. Goddamn it all, he needed her back where she belonged. He paced the parlor like a cat in a cage, praying as he rarely prayed, for the remote in his pocket to beep, signaling the gates had opened. And she was coming home.

Italian cuisine, at its very best, is a math problem that doesn't add up. A tangle of noodles, a few scraps of pork, a grating of cheese are transformed into something magical. 1+1=3: more alchemy than cooking.

I can't understand people being rude to their spouses. Your husband or wife should be the one person in the world you treat with loving patience. He or she chose you above all others-for a lifetime! And yet I see women who are nicer to their girlfriends, and men who are more thoughtful toward their employees. That's meshuganeh. Friends come and go. Employees move on. Your partner is there for the long haul. He deserves your best every day of your life.

She warned him, kindly enough, about manners when he forgot the simple ceremonies of eating which everyone knew, such as standing up to unfold the napkin or putting the scraps into the solvent tray and the silverware into the transfer.

I was extremely curious about the alternatives to the kind of life I had been leading, and my friends and I exchanged rumors and scraps of information we dug from official publications. I was struck less by the West's technological developments and high living standards than by the absence of political witch-hunts, the lack of consuming suspicion, the dignity of the individual, and the incredible amount of liberty. To me, the ultimate proof of freedom in the West was that there seemed to be so many people there attacking the West and praising China. Almost every other day the front page of Reference, the newspaper which carded foreign press items, would feature some eulogy of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. At first I was angered by these, but they soon made me see how tolerant another society could be. I realized that this was the kind of society I wanted to live in: where people were allowed to hold different, even outrageous views. I began to see that it was the very tolerance of oppositions, of protesters, that kept the West progressing. Still, I could not help being irritated by some observations. Once I read an article by a Westerner who came to China to see some old friends, university professors, who told him cheerfully how they had enjoyed being denounced and sent to the back end of beyond, and how much they had relished being reformed. The author concluded that Mao had indeed made the Chinese into 'new people' who would regard what was misery to a Westerner as pleasure. I was aghast. Did he not know that repression was at its worst when there was no complaint? A hundred times more so when the victim actually presented a smiling face? Could he not see to what a pathetic condition these professors had been reduced, and what horror must have been involved to degrade them so? I did not realize that the acting that the Chinese were putting on was something to which Westerners were unaccustomed, and which they could not always decode. I did not appreciate either that information about China was not easily available, or was largely misunderstood, in the West, and that people with no experience of a regime like China's could take its propaganda and rhetoric at face value. As a result, I assumed that these eulogies were dishonest. My friends and I would joke that they had been bought by our government's 'hospitality." When foreigners were allowed into certain restricted places in China following Nixon's visit, wherever they went the authorities immediately cordoned off enclaves even within these enclaves. The best transport facilities, shops, restaurants, guest houses and scenic spots were reserved for them, with signs reading "For Foreign Guests Only." Mao-tai, the most sought-after liquor, was totally unavailable to ordinary Chinese, but freely available to foreigners. The best food was saved for foreigners. The newspapers proudly reported that Henry Kissinger had said his waistline had expanded as a result of the many twelve-course banquets he enjoyed during his visits to China. This was at a time when in Sichuan, "Heaven's Granary," our meat ration was half a pound per month, and the streets of Chengdu were full of homeless peasants who had fled there from famine in the north, and were living as beggars. There was great resentment among the population about how the foreigners were treated like lords. My friends and I began saying among ourselves: "Why do we attack the Kuomintang for allowing signs saying "No Chinese or Dogs" aren't we doing the same? Getting hold of information became an obsession. I benefited enormously from my ability to read English, as although the university library had been looted during the Cultural Revolution, most of the books it had lost had been in Chinese. Its extensive English-language collection had been turned upside down, but was still largely intact.

He turned out the lamps and walked down to his bedroom. He had no preliminary sketch of an idea, not a scrap, not even a hunch, and he would not find it by sitting at the piano and frowning hard. It could come only in its own time. He knew from experience that the best he could do was relax, step back,

Where is he?” Leo sat up, but his head felt like it was floating. They’d landed inside the compound. Something had happened on the way in—gunfire? “Seriously, Leo,” Jason said. “You could be hurt. You shouldn’t—” Leo pushed himself to his feet. Then he saw the wreckage. Festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they’d rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged. Festus hadn’t been so lucky. The dragon had disintegrated. His limbs were scattered across the lawn. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion’s yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow. “No,” Leo sobbed. He ran to the dragon’s head and stroked its snout. The dragon’s eyes flickered weakly. Oil leaked out of his ear. “You can’t go,” Leo pleaded. “You’re the best thing I ever fixed.” The dragon’s head whirred its gears, as if it were purring. Jason and Piper stood next to him, but Leo kept his eyes fixed on the dragon. He remembered what Hephaestus had said: That isn’t your fault, Leo. Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines. His dad had been trying to warn him. “It’s not fair,” he said. The dragon clicked. Long creak. Two short clicks. Creak. Creak. Almost like a pattern…triggering an old memory in Leo’s mind. Leo realized Festus was trying to say something. He was using Morse code—just like Leo’s mom had taught him years ago. Leo

Life may have been hard, but we were happy. Yes, boys died and food was difficult to come by, but at least no one was shooting at us. We only ate one meal a day, but for me, coming into the camp at the age of six, I accepted this as normal. I never thought that life was unfair because I had to eat garbage. Instead, I looked at the scraps of food from the dump as a blessing. Not all the boys in the camp could do this. I knew some who chose to feel sorry for themselves, who complained constantly about their lot in life. What is the point of such complaining? After all the whining and complaining is over, you still live in a refugee camp. All the complaining in the world will not make your life any better. Instead, you must choose to make the best of whatever the situation in which you find yourself, even in a place like Kakuma.

Wait." Walter went to the basket, taking what was a gray sleeve, drawing it out fro the middle of the heap. "Oh," He said. He held the shapeless wool sweater to his chest. Joyce had knit for months the year Daniel died, and here was the result, her handiwork, the garment that would fit a giant. It was nothing more than twelve skeins of yarn and thousands of loops, but it had the power to bring back in a flash the green-tiled walls of the hospital, the sound of an ambulance trying to cut through city traffic in the distance, the breathing of the dying boy, his father staring at the ceiling, the full greasy bucket of fried chicken on he bed table. "I'll take this one," Walter said, balling up the sweater as best he could, stuffing it into a shopping bag that was half full of the books he was taking home, that he was borrowing. "Oh, honey," Joyce said. "You don't want that old scrap." "You made it. I remember your making it." Keep it light, he said to himself, that's a boy. "There's a use for it. Don't you think so, Aunt Jeannie? No offense, Mom, but I could invade the Huns with it or strap the sleeves to my car tires in a blizzard, for traction, or protect our nation with it out in space, a shield against nuclear attack." Jeannie tittered in her usual way in spite of herself. "You always did have that sense of humor," she said as she went upstairs. When she was out of range, Joyce went to Walter's bag and retrieved the sweater. She laid it on the card table, the long arms hanging down, and she fingered the stitches. "Will you look at the mass of it," she exclaimed. "I don't even recall making it." ""'Memory -- that strange deceiver,'" Walter quoted.

But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last). ‘Niceness’—wholesome, integrated personality—is an excellent thing. We must try by every medical, educational, economic, and political means in our power to produce a world where as many people as possible grow up ‘nice’; just as we must try to produce a world where all have plenty to eat. But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world—and might even be more difficult to save.

The elect sneer at popularity; they are inclined even to assert that it is a proof of mediocrity; but they forget that posterity makes its choice not from among the unknown writers of a period, but from among the known. It may be that some great masterpiece which deserves immortality has fallen still-born from the press, but posterity will never hear of it; it may be that posterity will scrap all the best sellers of our day, but it is among them that it must choose.

Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, says it best:     It’s hard work. I’m not going to lie. Anyone who tells you that it’s really easy to build a content business is not telling you the truth. You have to accept the fact that this is going to be grueling, difficult, time consuming, and laborious work. But if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and get dirty, and are willing to constantly analyze what you’re doing and scrap what doesn’t work and continue what does work, and keep at it, you can be very, very successful.

But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one.

To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as one can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive: 1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life. 2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of “quality control”: You will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat. 3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence. 4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers. 5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions? 6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. 7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species. The

He turned out the lamps and walked down to his bedroom. He had no preliminary sketch of an idea, not a scrap, not even a hunch, and he would not find it by sitting at the piano and frowning hard. It could come only in its own time. He knew from experience that the best he could do was relax, step back, while remaining alert and receptive. He would have to take a long walk in the country, or even a series of long walks. He needed mountains, big skies. The Lake District, perhaps. The best ideas caught him by surprise at the end of twenty miles, when his mind was elsewhere. In bed at last, lying on his back in total darkness, taut, resonating from mental effort, he saw jagged rods of primary color streak across his retina, then fold and writhe into sunbursts.

A Lancashire Weaver This place might be haunted the ghost hunter said 'Midst the dust and the grime walk the feet of the dead. The machines now stand idle Looms clatter no more There's a stack of old bobbins piled up by the door. I remember my Mam she worked here, so she said A Lancashire weaver but now she is dead Along with this mill and along with the dreams of working mill lasses and their jobs, so it seems We once wove the best cotton cloth in the world But now that's all gone on the scrap heap been hurled The clatter of clogs on the old cobbled street the humdrum staccato from thousands of feet. Tough work and much hardship and many a care Folks they got by for brass, it was rare but still we had pride By Christ, did we ever! Will it ever come back The answer is NEVER This place might be haunted the ghost hunter said 'Midst the dust and the grime walk the feet of the dead. I'm glad that my Mam never saw it this way Out in all weathers came here every day When this closed down she had already died Perhaps just as well She'd have bloody well cried.

January 8 BEGIN TODAY The first step that the earnest student must take to locate the Inner Light within himself is to settle on a definite method of working, selecting whichever one seems to suit him best, and then giving it a fair trial. Merely reading books, making good resolutions, or talking plausibly about the thing will get him nowhere. Get a definite method of working, practice it conscientiously every day; and stick to one method long enough to give it a fair chance. You would not expect to play the violin after two or three attempts, or to drive a car without a little preliminary practice. Get to work on some concrete problem, choosing preferably whatever it is that you are most afraid of. Work at it steadily; and if no improvement at all shows itself within, say, a couple of weeks, then try your method on another problem. If you still get no result, then scrap that method and adopt a new one. Remember, there is a way out. The problem really is, not the getting rid of your difficulties, but finding your own best method for doing it. … Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you (John 16:23).

She flipped through the notebook. In most places, Murphy’s large, crooked handwriting ate up the pages greedily, as if she couldn’t write large enough to get her point across. Occasionally Birdie’s more graceful handwriting appeared, adding asides or participating with Murphy in some kind of list she had thrown together, like favorite Leeda moments, or most unknown things about Leeda, or Leeda’s top five best articles of clothing. Mostly, though, it was all Murphy. Listing albums Leeda had to own before she died, like Janis Joplin’s Pearl. Copied scraps of her favorite poetry: about nature and despair and cities and even one or two about love that Murphy had annotated with words like Sickening, but she’s good and Horrible but worth reading. Dried leaves---pecan, magnolia, and, of course, the thin slivered shape of the peach leaf---taped in messy crisscrosses. A cider label Birdie had once kissed. A diagram of Leeda---outlined sloppily with colored-in blond hair, with words on the outside pointing to different parts of her: brainy pointing to her head, good posture pointing to her back, hot gams pointing to her legs, impenetrable (ha ha) pointing to her heart.

And so part of the declaring of love means you are working to a commission, now. You are not the sole architect of the person you are building. Someone else is looking over your blueprints--nodding, enthusiastically,over this turret--so you build the turret bigger! and remaining tactfully silent over an ostentatious fountain, which you immediately and silently scrap. You have entered a new world--in which there are two opinions on what will make the very best you. And if your partner is wise, and kind, and has the same taste as you, you will make amazing things together. And if your partner is broken, or impatient, or has darker needs--is unknowingly trying to build you in the shape of another woman he once knew, and lost; is trying to lean into your foundations to make his own stronger--you will make something with rotten walls, and impossible angles, which will, one day in the future, collapse. But that is all part of becoming an adult. That is the difference between girls and women. That they are finally ready to hear the secret of what makes them them,. That they are strong enough--for good, or for ill--to ask someone what is, unexpectedly,the most terrifying, relevatory question, on Earth; one you have to be brave, and ready, to hear: "Why do you love me?

Figure out the secret yet?” he asked, leaning on the nearest cot like he’d made himself dizzy. “Um. Not really,” Sophie admitted. Ro snorted. “Wow. You’re a horrible teacher.” “Psh, I’m the best,” Keefe insisted. “No boring lectures. And Foster’ll get it this time—you’ll see.” He floated the scrap of bandage back toward himself, then set it back down. “You know what? It’ll be easier to notice with something bigger. Hmmmmmm . . . Oh! I know!” He lunged and thrust his arms toward Ro—who yelped as she launched toward the ceiling. “Put. Me. Down!” “Aw, is the big, tough ogre princess scared of a little elf-y mind trick?” Keefe asked. “You realize I can end you with one dagger, right?” Ro asked, drawing one from the sheath around her thigh. “And there’s no way you’d be fast enough to stop it.” “Probably not,” Keefe agreed. “But I could do this.” He let her plummet, then blasted her back up with a big enough jolt to knock her weapon from her grasp. “Uh, I’m pretty sure she’s going to murder you in your sleep tonight,” Sophie warned. “Oh, I’m planning something much more painful than that,” Ro snarled. “See, and I thought you’d be honored to be part of this important moment, when Foster shows us how much she’s learned from my brilliant demonstration. Go ahead,” he told Sophie. “Tell Ro the secret.

I decide that candor is probably best, that I will never see this woman again after this month. “I’m honestly not sure why I’m here, other than I feel like I could use some spiritual direction in my life.” This is the truth. “Why do you feel that way?” Nora asks. I sit for a few seconds, because this is a good question. I’m not terribly sure, other than my soul is weary, my usual recipe of prayer and reflecting on passages from the Bible isn’t inspiring me, and I sense a gaping, run-ragged hole in my soul where mature wisdom should be. Also, I don’t know where my home is, where I might really belong. Years have passed since I last felt poured-into, I tell her, and I have not bothered to seek it out. I have embarked on this year of travel, at age thirty-seven, feeling less confident than I did a decade ago about what I believe to be true, and how that truth intersects with who I am. I am weary from game playing and formulaic answers, and the evangelical-Christian hat that I have worn daily with every outfit since I was fourteen feels too small, headache inducing. I fidget daily in its discomfort, but I don’t know how to exchange it, how it should be resized. Perhaps I can stitch a new hat from scraps I find scattered around the globe, I suggest. Perhaps she could be my milliner, maybe help me find the first scrap, floating somewhere along the sidewalks of old Chiang

romantic between us, but when he opens his arms I don’t hesitate to go into them. His body is familiar to me — the way it moves, the smell of wood smoke, even the sound of his heart beating I know from quiet moments on a hunt — but this is the first time I really feel it, lean and hard-muscled against my own. “Listen,” he says. “Getting a knife should be pretty easy, but you’ve got to get your hands on a bow. That’s your best chance.” “They don’t always have bows,” I say, thinking of the year there were only horrible spiked maces that the tributes had to bludgeon one another to death with. “Then make one,” says Gale. “Even a weak bow is better than no bow at all.” I have tried copying my father’s bows with poor results. It’s not that easy. Even he had to scrap his own work sometimes. “I don’t even know if there’ll be wood,” I say. Another year, they tossed everybody into a landscape of nothing but boulders and sand and scruffy bushes. I particularly hated that year. Many contestants were bitten by venomous snakes or went insane from thirst. “There’s almost always some wood,” Gale says. “Since that year half of them died of cold. Not much entertainment in that.” It’s true. We spent one Hunger Games watching the players freeze to death at night. You could hardly see them because they were just huddled in balls and had no wood for fires or torches or anything. It was considered very anticlimactic in the Capitol, all those quiet, bloodless deaths. Since then, there’s usually been wood

Every July, when Eli was grwoing up, his mother would close the cabin and move the family to the Sun Dance. Eli would help the other men set up the tepee, and then he and Norma and Camelot would run with the kids in the camp. They would ride horses and chase each other across the prairies, their freedom interrupted only by the ceremonies. Best of all, Eli liked the men’s dancing. The women would dance for four days, and then there would be a day of rest and the men would begin. Each afternoon, toward evening, the men would dance, and just before the sun set, one of the dancers would pick up a rifle and lead the other men to the edge of the camp, where the children waited. Eli and the rest of the children would stand in a pack and wave pieces of scrap paper at the dancers as the men attacked and fell back, surged forward and retreated, until finally, after several of these mock forays, the lead dancer would breach the fortress of children and fire the rifle, and all the children would fall down in a heap, laughing, full of fear and pleasure, the pieces of paper scattering across the land. Then the dancers would gather up the food that was piled around the flagpole—bread, macaroni, canned soup, sardines, coffee—and pass it out to the people. Later, after the camp settled in, Eli and Norma and Camelot would lie on their backs and watch the stars as they appeared among the tepee poles through the opening in the top of the tent. And each morning, because the sun returned and the people remembered, it would begin again.” (p. 116)

To begin with, it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting-up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called "good prose style." On the other hand it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about. In prose the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures or sensations. Afterwards one can choose--not simply accept--the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally.

Though it’s best not to be born a chicken at all, it is especially bad luck to be born a cockerel. From the perspective of the poultry farmer, male chickens are useless. They can’t lay eggs, their meat is stringy, and they’re ornery to the hens that do all the hard work of putting food on our tables. Commercial hatcheries tend to treat male chicks like fabric cutoffs or scrap metal: the wasteful but necessary by-product of an industrial process. The sooner they can be disposed of—often they’re ground into animal feed—the better. But a costly problem has vexed egg farmers for millennia: It’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between male and female chickens until they’re four to six weeks old, when they begin to grow distinctive feathers and secondary sex characteristics like the rooster’s comb. Until then, they’re all just indistinguishable fluff balls that have to be housed and fed—at considerable expense. Somehow it took until the 1920s before anyone figured out a solution to this costly dilemma. The momentous discovery was made by a group of Japanese veterinary scientists, who realized that just inside the chick’s rear end there is a constellation of folds, marks, spots, and bumps that to the untrained eye appear arbitrary, but when properly read, can divulge the sex of a day-old bird. When this discovery was unveiled at the 1927 World Poultry Congress in Ottawa, it revolutionized the global hatchery industry and eventually lowered the price of eggs worldwide. The professional chicken sexer, equipped with a skill that took years to master, became one of the most valuable workers in agriculture. The best of the best were graduates of the two-year Zen-Nippon Chick Sexing School, whose standards were so rigorous that only 5 to 10 percent of students received accreditation. But those who did graduate earned as much as five hundred dollars a day and were shuttled around the world from hatchery to hatchery like top-flight business consultants. A diaspora of Japanese chicken sexers spilled across the globe. Chicken sexing is a delicate art, requiring Zen-like concentration and a brain surgeon’s dexterity. The bird is cradled in the left hand and given a gentle squeeze that causes it to evacuate its intestines (too tight and the intestines will turn inside out, killing the bird and rendering its gender irrelevant). With his thumb and forefinger, the sexer flips the bird over and parts a small flap on its hindquarters to expose the cloaca, a tiny vent where both the genitals and anus are situated, and peers deep inside. To do this properly, his fingernails have to be precisely trimmed. In the simple cases—the ones that the sexer can actually explain—he’s looking for a barely perceptible protuberance called the “bead,” about the size of a pinhead. If the bead is convex, the bird is a boy, and gets thrown to the left; concave or flat and it’s a girl, sent down a chute to the right.

While David runs the financial end of the Rockefeller dynasty, Nelson runs the political. Nelson would like to be President of the United States. But, unfortunately for him, he is unacceptable to the vast majority of the grass roots of his own party. The next best thing to being President is controlling a President. Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon are supposed to be bitter political competitors. In a sense they are, but that still does not preclude Rockefeller from asserting dominion over Mr. Nixon. When Mr. Nixon and Mr. Rockefeller competed for the Republican nomination in 1968, Rockefeller naturally would have preferred to win the prize, but regardless of who won, he would control the highest office in the land. You will recall that right in the middle of drawing up the Republican platform in 1960, Mr. Nixon suddenly left Chicago and flew to New York to meet with Nelson Rockefeller in what Barry Goldwater described as the "Munich of the Republican Party." There was no political reason why Mr. Nixon needed to crawl to Mr. Rockefeller. He had the convention all sewed up. The Chicago Tribune cracked that it was like Grant surrendering to Lee. In The Making of the President, 1960, Theodore White noted that Nixon accepted all the Rockefeller terms for this meeting, including provisions "that Nixon telephone Rockefeller personally with his request for a meeting; that they meet at the Rockefeller apartment…that their meeting be secret and later be announced in a press release from the Governor, not Nixon; that the meeting be clearly announced as taking place at the Vice President's request; that the statement of policy issuing from it be long, detailed, inclusive, not a summary communiqué." The meeting produced the infamous "Compact of Fifth Avenue" in which the Republican Platform was scrapped and replaced by Rockefeller's socialist plans. The Wall Street Journal of July 25, 1960, commented: "…a little band of conservatives within the party…are shoved to the sidelines… [T]he fourteen points are very liberal indeed; they comprise a platform akin in many ways to the Democratic platform and they are a far cry from the things that conservative men think the Republican Party ought to stand for…" As Theodore White put it: "Never had the quadrennial liberal swoop of the regulars been more nakedly dramatized than by the open compact of Fifth Avenue. Whatever honor they might have been able to carry from their services on the platform committee had been wiped out. A single night's meeting of the two men in a millionaire's triplex apartment in Babylon-by-the-Hudson, eight hundred and thirty miles away, was about to overrule them; they were exposed as clowns for all the world to see." The whole story behind what happened in Rockefeller's apartment will doubtless never be known. We can only make an educated guess in light of subsequent events. But it is obvious that since that time Mr. Nixon has been in the Rockefeller orbit.

He looks through the windscreen at nothing. They are returning to Cuba. The announcement came after the droids withdrew. An auto-animated voice. It did not proclaim their furlough a success or failure. Ibn al Mohammed does not know if the others will accept implantation. He believes they will not, as he will not. Temptation is legion, yet what does it mean? He is not of Satan’s world. What would implantation bring except ceaseless surveillance within a greater isolation? That, and the loss of his soul. Sun-struck and empty, so immense it frightens, the desert is awesome in its indifference. Even as he stares at it, Ibn al Mohammed wonders why he does so. The life that clings to it is sparse, invisible, death-threatened. Perhaps they will cast him out just here, he and all others who do not cooperate. No matter: he has lived in such a place. Sonora is not the same as Arabia, or North Africa, or The Levant, yet its climate and scant life pose challenges that to him are not unfamiliar. Ibn al Mohammed believes he would survive, given a tent, a knife, a vessel in which to keep water, a piece of flint. Perhaps they will grant these necessities. A knife, they might yet withhold. As if, wandering in so complete a desolation, he might meet someone he would want to hurt. As he watches, images cohere. Human figures made small by distance, yet he knows them. His mother, in a dark, loose-fitting, simple abaya. How does he recognize her, in the anonymous dress? Ibn al Mohammed has not seen his mother in a dozen years. He knows her postures, movements she was wont to make. He sees his sisters, also wearing abayas and khimars. What are they doing? Bending from the waist, they scrounge in the sand. Asna, the eldest, gentle Halima, Nasirah, who cared for him when he was young. They are gathering scraps and remants, camel chips for a fire. Where is their house? Why are they alone? It seems they have remained unmarried—yet what is he seeing? Is it a moment remembered, a vision of the past? Or are these ghosts, apparitions summoned by prophetic sight? Perhaps it is a mirage only. His sisters seem no older than when he left. Is it possible? His mother only appears to have aged. She is shrunken, her back crooked. Anah Kifah, who is patient and struggles. He wonders how they do not see the ship, this great craft that flies across the sky. The ship is in the sky, their eyes are on the ground. That is why they do not see it. Or his windscreen view is magnified, and Halima and Nasirah and Asna and Anah Kifah are much farther away than they seem, and the ship is a vanishing dot on an unremarked horizon. If he called, they would not hear. Also, there is the glass. Still, he wishes to call to them. What is best to say? “Mother … Mother.” Anah Kifah does not lift her head. His words strike the windscreen and fall at his feet, are carried away by wind, melt into air. “Nasirah? It is Ibn. Do you hear me? Halima? Halima, I can see you. I see all my sisters. I see my mother. Asna? How has it been with you? Do you hear me? It is Ibn. I am here—far away, yet here, and I shall come back. They cannot lock me always in a cage, God willing. In a month, in a year, I shall be free. Keep faith. Always know God is with you. God is great. God protects me. God gives me strength to endure their tortures. One day, God will speed my return.” The women do not lift their heads. They prod the sand, seemingly indifferent to what they find. Straining toward them, Ibn al Mohammed cries out, “Mother! Nasirah! I am alive! I am alive!” [pp. 160-162]

It was the funeral of a woman who had henpecked her husband, driven her kids half nuts, scrapped with the neighbors at the slightest opportunity, and even made neurotics of their cat and dog with her explosive temper. As the casket was lowered into the grave, a violent thunderstorm broke, and the pastor's benediction was drowned out by a blinding flash of lightning, followed by terrific thunder. "Well, at least we know she got there all right," commented her husband.

The anti-narcotic agencies have long understood that discouraging poppy cultivation is best achieved by putting the crop at constant risk, so that farmers take a safer option. This has been proven around the world. By far the most effective way to achieve this is by using crop-dusters to dump herbicide. But the president has always opposed this, arguing that it would be misunderstood and cause an uprising, and, ultimately, loss of power. That’s why the international narcs had to scrap their way in to appallingly dangerous areas with ‘tractors and weed-whackers’. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work much at all.

Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made." (Roger Caras)

Is he a good man?” he found himself asking past a throat tight with jealousy. She looked up, startled. “Who?” He shook his head at himself. ’Twas none of his concern, not when he was willing to toss aside the vows he’d made like scraps from the dinner table. But he still wished to ken what manner of man would get a woman with child and not marry and care for her. “The one you’re so eager to return to.” Her hand shifted from her box to her belly. “You mean, the man who got me pregnant?” A flicker of something that wasn’t quite shame flitted through her eyes. “He has some good qualities,” she said with furrowed brow. Anger climbed his neck. She was eager to return, but the man waiting for her didn’t inspire her confidence. Rand protested his ruthless tightening of the girth with a grunt and a stomp of his hoof. “Will he at least provide for you?” he asked, doing his best to keep his temper. “No,” she said. “He married another woman. But I don’t need a man to provide for me.” Her chin lifted with pride. “I have a good job and a comfortable apartment. I can take care of myself.

1 = Very important. Do this at once. 2 = Worth doing but takes more time. Start planning it. 3 = Yes and no. Depends on how it’s done. 4 = Not very important. May even be a waste of effort. 5 = No! Don’t do this. Fill in those numbers before you read further, and take your time. This is not a simple situation, and solving it is a complicated undertaking. Possible Actions to Take ____ Explain the changes again in a carefully written memo. ____ Figure out exactly how individuals’ behavior and attitudes will have to change to make teams work. ____ Analyze who stands to lose something under the new system. ____ Redo the compensation system to reward compliance with the changes. ____ “Sell” the problem that is the reason for the change. ____ Bring in a motivational speaker to give employees a powerful talk about teamwork. ____ Design temporary systems to contain the confusion during the cutover from the old way to the new. ____ Use the interim between the old system and the new to improve the way in which services are delivered by the unit—and, where appropriate, create new services. ____ Change the spatial arrangements so that the cubicles are separated only by glass or low partitions. ____ Put team members in contact with disgruntled clients, either by phone or in person. Let them see the problem firsthand. ____ Appoint a “change manager” to be responsible for seeing that the changes go smoothly. ____ Give everyone a badge with a new “teamwork” logo on it. ____ Break the change into smaller stages. Combine the firsts and seconds, then add the thirds later. Change the managers into coordinators last. ____ Talk to individuals. Ask what kinds of problems they have with “teaming.” ____ Change the spatial arrangements from individual cubicles to group spaces. ____ Pull the best people in the unit together as a model team to show everyone else how to do it. ____ Give everyone a training seminar on how to work as a team. ____ Reorganize the general manager’s staff as a team and reconceive the GM’s job as that of a coordinator. ____ Send team representatives to visit other organizations where service teams operate successfully. ____ Turn the whole thing over to the individual contributors as a group and ask them to come up with a plan to change over to teams. ____ Scrap the plan and find one that is less disruptive. If that one doesn’t work, try another. Even if it takes a dozen plans, don’t give up. ____ Tell them to stop dragging their feet or they’ll face disciplinary action. ____ Give bonuses to the first team to process 100 client calls in the new way. ____ Give everyone a copy of the new organization chart. ____ Start holding regular team meetings. ____ Change the annual individual targets to team targets, and adjust bonuses to reward team performance. ____ Talk about transition and what it does to people. Give coordinators a seminar on how to manage people in transition. There are no correct answers in this list, but over time I’ve

Keri answered the door, looking frazzled and not having the best hair day he’d ever seen. “Hi, Sean. I was just thinking, gee, I need more Kowalskis in my life right now.” He laughed and stepped into the big foyer. “Baby acting up?” “I thought the Kowalski men were royal pains in the ass—no offense—but you guys have nothing on the girls.” “Joe writing?” She blew out a sharp breath and put her hands on her hips. “No. Joe is pretending to write so I won’t dump Brianna in his lap, but he’s probably playing some stupid game.” From the other room came a pissed-off howl that Sean hoped was their daughter and not a wild animal foraging for table scraps. “So he’s in his office?” Keri nodded and waved a hand in that direction before making a growling sound and heading off to appease her daughter. Welcome to the jungle, he mused before heading to Joe’s office. He rapped twice on the door, then let himself in. Joe looked up with a guilty start and Sean knew his wife had him all figured out. “She knows you’re only pretending to write so you don’t have to deal with the kid.” “You know what really sucks? Everybody keeps saying to just wait till she’s older. Like it gets worse. How can it get worse?” Sean lifted his hands in a “don’t ask me” gesture. “For years I’ve been writing about boogeymen and the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. I had no idea there’s nothing scarier than a baby girl.” Sean laughed. “She can’t be that bad. What does she weigh? Ten pounds?” “Fifteen. But it’s fifteen pounds of foul temper and fouler smells. Trust me.” “I’ll take your word for it.” Joe leaned back in his leather office chair and sighed. “Let’s talk about your life. She still on the couch?” “Yes, she is.” “Good. I said you’d last three weeks.” Maybe, but Sean wouldn’t bet on it. Or he shouldn’t have bet on it, anyway. Especially a whole month. His balls ached just thinking about it. “You guys come up with a plan for the kids for Saturday yet?” “Yeah, but it’s going to cost you.” “Not a problem. I’ll just take it out of all the money I’m going to collect from you idiots at the end of the month.” Joe grinned. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy.” He was. With as much oomph as he could muster. And he’d probably keep telling himself that up to the minute he got Emma naked.

Don’t give your family and friends the scraps you have left over while you give the world your best. The world will let you down in the end. It will take everything you have and disappear when you are in need.

at a pinch even the best of men when in love scrap as a matter of course that code of honour which they observe in business office or at the card table and to each other, and about which they are so entertainingly strong and silent, but that where women are concerned they are capable of conduct, cowardices and dishonesties that would get them kicked out of any decent club or service.

   David sat down in the only unoccupied chair in the room.                  The kid scooted his chair a few inches in the direction of the door.  David frowned at his new attorney.  “You think I did everything they’re saying about me.”                 “Ah… ah… no… “the kid said, sweat popping out on his brow.  “Let’s get started.”  David made a sudden move, his hands shooting out across the table.  The lawyer jumped back, his chair scrapping against the concrete floor.  His face paled, his hand trembled, his finger above the orange button on the radio.                  “Great, just what I needed, an attorney who believes I’m guilty.”                  “Mr… er… Reverend Padgett, I’m trying to help you.”                 “Am I your first client?”  The boy cleared his throat.                  “I assure you, Reverend Padgett, I will defend you to the best of my ability.”                 “You just passed the bar, didn’t you?”                  “Ah, yes, but I did so on my first try.  Some don’t pass until their second or third try.”                                                   “Wonderful, well we have something in common; this is the first time I’ve been on trial for my life.”                  “I have some good news for you,” Barlow said, picking up a piece of paper he handed it to David.                  “What’s this?” David said, his eyes scanning the sheet.                  “It’s a plea agreement.  I persuaded the prosecutor to only sentence you to 50 years; you will be eligible for parole in 25.”                 “You want me to plead guilty to something I didn’t do and spend the next 25 to 50 years in prison?”                 “If we go to trial, the prosecutor is going to ask for the death penalty.”                 “Have you even looked at the evidence?                 “I’m sorry, as you know I was just assigned the case this morning.”                 “Get out!”                 “Excuse me?”                 “Press your talk button on the radio and tell them you want to leave.”                  “But we haven’t discussed...”                 “If you persist I will fire you as my attorney, how will that look on your record?”     “Okay, okay, Reverend Padgett,” confused, Barlow pressed the orange button, “I’m ready to go now.”  Somewhere an alarm sounded. Suddenly there was a rumbling of running feet coming down the hall.      “You pushed the wrong button,” David shouted.  With hands trembling, he reached for the radio.  “Here let me have it.”     Keys jingled in the lock. Five officers rushed in, pulling David from the chair.  They threw him face down on the floor, he cried out in pain as one of the officers put his knee in the middle of his back.  Another grabbed David’s hands, snapping the handcuffs on his wrists.

Another issue I often see with Bees (and Crickets for that matter) is the fear of disposing of items incorrectly. Again, this comes from perfectionism. I have had more clients than I can count obsess over the best place to recycle old electronics or torn and soiled used clothing. Everything from empty boxes to fabric scraps can be a huge stumbling block when they focus on the “right” and “perfect” way to dispose of something. Sometimes, the garbage really is the best option. It’s sad and wasteful, but holding onto garbage because you are afraid to put it in a landfill isn’t a long-term option.

I'm not going to Wichita,' Vladimir said, the word 'Wichita' rendered by his accent as the most foreign word imaginable in the English language. 'I’m going to live with Fran and it’s going to be all right. You’re going to make it all right.' But even as he was laying down the law, his hands were shaking to the point where it was hard to keep the shabby pay-phone receiver properly positioned between his mouth and ear. Teardrops were blurring the corners of his eyes and he felt the need to have Baobab hear him burst out in a series of long, convulsive sobs, Roberta-style. All he had wanted was twenty thousand lousy dollars. It wasn’t a million. It was how much Dr. Girshkin made on average from two of his nervous gold-toothed patients. 'Okay,' Baobab said. 'Here’s how we’re going to do it. These are the new rules. Memorize them or write them down. Do you have a pen? Hello? Okay, Rule One: you can’t visit anyone—friends, relatives, work, nothing. You can only call me from a pay phone and we can’t talk for more than three minutes.' He paused. Vladimir imagined him reading this from a little scrap of paper. Suddenly Baobab said, under his breath: 'Tree, nine-thirty, tomorrow.' 'The two of us can never meet in person,' he was saying loudly now. 'We will keep in touch only by phone. If you check into a hotel, make sure you pay cash. Never pay by credit card. Once more: Tree, nine-thirty, tomorrow.' Tree. Their Tree? The Tree? And nine-thirty? Did he mean in the morning? It was hard to imagine Baobab up at that unholy hour. 'Rule Five: I want you to keep moving at all times, or at least try to keep moving. Which brings us to…' But just as Rule Six was about to come over the transom, there was a tussle for the phone and Roberta came on the line in her favorite Bowery harlot voice, the kind that smelled like gin nine hundred miles away. 'Vladimir, dear, hi!' Well, at least someone was enjoying Vladimir’s downfall. 'Say, I was thinking, do you have any ties with the Russian underworld, honey?' Vladimir thought of hanging up, but the way things were going even Roberta’s voice was a distinctly human one. He thought of Mr. Rybakov’s son, the Groundhog. 'Prava,' he muttered, unable to articulate any further. An uptown train rumbled beneath him to underscore the underlying shakiness of his life. Two blocks downtown, a screaming professional was being tossed back and forth between two joyful muggers. 'Prava, how very now!' Roberta said. 'Laszlo’s thinking of opening up an Academy of Acting and the Plastic Arts there. Did you know that there are thirty thousand Americans in Prava? At least a half dozen certified Hemingways among them, wouldn’t you agree?' 'Thank you for your concern, Roberta. It’s touching. But right now I have other… There are problems. Besides, getting to Prava… What can I do?… There’s an old Russian sailor… An old lunatic… He needs to be naturalized.' There was a long pause at this point and Vladimir realized that in his haste he wasn’t making much sense. 'It’s a long story…' he began, 'but essentially… I need to… Oh God, what’s wrong with me?' 'Talk to me, you big bear!' Roberta encouraged him. 'Essentially, if I get this old lunatic his citizenship, he’ll set me up with his son in Prava.' 'Okay, then,' Roberta said. 'I definitely can’t get him his citizenship.' 'No,' Vladimir concurred. 'No, you can’t.' What was he doing talking to a sixteen-year-old? 'But,' Roberta said, 'I can get him the next best thing…

The first lesson on Lying 101 is that it's best to begin with a lie with a scrap of truth --it lends an air of credibility to an otherwise

Day had fucked up big time. This was all his fault, all because he couldn’t keep his nosy ass out of other peoples private business. Day rushed to God’s side. “I’ll help you ba—” Day didn’t know how, but God had found enough strength after that beating to push him so hard that he flew into the dresser, knocking it and all of the items that were on top of it to the floor, including the television. Day rolled a few feet, the dresser just missing falling on top of him. “Cash, what the fuck!” Day cursed. He rolled to his side and winced at the sharp pain in his ribs from coming into contact with the dresser. “I was trying to help you get into bed.” “Get the fuck out, Leo.” God’s face was an unyielding mask. For the first time in four long years, Day couldn’t read what the hell was going through God’s mind. Day stood slowly. “God, I only called him because I needed to go—” “It doesn’t matter why you did it! You had no right! You have no clue what you just did!” God yelled. “Now get out!” “Cashel, please. Just hear me out,” Day pleaded. His eyes begged for God to see the sincerity in them. He really didn’t mean for any of this to happen. “Baby, I swear. I didn’t know any of this was happening between you and your family. You should’ve told me. Why was he calling you a murderer?” No matter what, Day couldn’t turn off his detective side. Day watched God squeeze his eyes shut. He went down on one knee and clutched his chest when the hard coughing started again. God’s eyes were full of water and pain. Day timidly eased over to God’s side but God cut his eyes at him, daring him to come any closer. Day had to fight the moisture in his own eyes. “I just want to help you into bed.” “Day, if you don’t get the fuck out of my house, I’m going to show you why he called me a murderer,” God said through clenched teeth. Day couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped his lips, or the pain that radiated through his chest, as if his rib cage had been torn open and his heart ripped out and thrown underneath the bed. Day kept his eyes on God as he knelt to pick up the dresser, then the television. God watched him as well. Day didn’t say anything as the rogue tear fell down his face without his permission. Day went around to the opposite side of the bed and pulled a pen and piece of scrap paper from the drawer, still watching God carefully. He really didn’t like the look on his best friend’s face. He’d seen the look before, but he’d never had it leveled on him. Day scribbled a couple of phone numbers on the paper.

Please, God, my Mother, don't give up until I've taken on the shape that you wish for me, Do this by whatever means you think best, for as long as you like, but never ever throw me on the scrap heap of souls.'" - Edda's teacher

I turned with the receiver to the wall as I absorbed the fact of Ivan’s voice, and when I glanced back at the man on my sofa, he seemed like a scrap of paper, or the handle from a broken cup, or a single rubber band—a thing that has become dislodged from its rightful place and intrudes on one’s consciousness two or three or many times before one understands that it is just a thing best thrown away.

And a very good thing (he used to say), an excellent thing, the very best of practices, is to write a little every day. Just a little scrap, but cultivate the habit of doing it every day. I don't mean what is called keeping a diary, you know. Don't write what you do. There's no benefit in that. We do things for all kinds of reasons and it's the reasons, not the things, that matter. Let your little daily scrap be something you've thought. What you've done belongs partly to some one else; often you're made to do it. But what you think is you yourself: you write it down and there it is, a tiny little bit of you that you can look at and say, 'Well, really!' You see, a little bit like that, written every day, is a mirror in which you can see your real self and correct your real self. A looking-glass shows you your face is dirty or your hair rumpled, and you go and polish up. But it's ever so much more important to have a mirror that shows you how your real self, your mind, your spirit, is looking. Just see if you can't do it. A little scrap. It's very steadying; very steadying....

Sell Your Scrap Cars With No Hassles, No Questions Asked Sell My Car - Cash for cars in Gold Coast now! If you are a car owner and wish to dispose of your used vehicle then you must get cash for cars in Gold Coast. Do you want to sell your car and get cash for cars in Gold Coast? Sell your scratched, damaged, broken, scraped or hopelessly unappealing vehicle and wish to sell it off at the same time. Cash For Car Removal in Gold Coast provides top dollar cash up to $15,500 depending on the vehicle's present condition and make. You can also get cash for cars in Gold Coast by selling off your car at a garage or to a private party. Why waste valuable time looking for buyers for your scrap car? Call us and get instant cash instantly. No need to wait days or weeks to sell my car and no need to pay anyone to give you cash for cars gold coast online quote. Just call us and tell us your details. We can get cash for cars Gold coast instantly, right from our offices in sunny Brisbane. Our junk car removal services are backed by a team of dedicated, skilled and experienced professionals who work with their clients to thoroughly inspect your vehicle and make sure you get cash for cars in Gold Coast. As soon as your details are confirmed, we send your used car for a thorough inspection at our workshop. During this time, we make every possible attempt to diagnose any problems such as engine trouble, transmission problems, bodywork damage, etc. Once all your problems have been identified, we make cash for cars Gold coast instantly. After our detailed inspection, we transport your car to our secured warehouse in Brisbane's western suburb, where our cash for cars experts work together with you to assess the car's worth. If there are still things to be done, we will contact you and give you an updated update. If you agree, we tow truck your damaged car to our secure facility and arrange for free pick up, safe inside our tow truck premises. It takes only 24 hours to get cash for cars in Gold coast and the best part is that you don't have to worry about doing the paperwork. Most companies offer free quotes online. All you need to do is provide some basic information about your car's condition including the number of repairs, bodywork damage, paint damage, interior damage, etc. and a free quote will be provided. Contact us and get a free, no obligation, no hassle, no questions asked cash for cars in Gold coast - anytime. For more information on how to sell scrap cars or how to arrange free quotes for Gold Coast vehicle buyers, visit us now. The experts can help you choose the right company to sell your car to and arrange free pick up. Our expert team will also help you sort out any issues you may encounter along the way.

Austick Copper Recycling Sydney will pick up your scrap copper as well as various other scrap metals, evaluate them, and afterwards trade them for transfer. Austick Copper Recycling Sydney can help you make the most of your non-ferrous metal stockpile. Our experts offer scrap copper pick-up and metal recycling services in Sydney as well as across NSW. We offer the best prices no matter how much scrap metal we have. We accept all scrap metals, including copper scrap to scrap aluminium to scrap brass to lead. Our NSW-wide team also provides our Scrap Metal Pick Up Service. This is done in the shortest time possible. Get a quote today – best price guarantee!

Is it true that God created humanity in such a way that every single man, woman, boy, and girl deserves to be beaten, scourged, and nailed to a tree? Of course it’s not true! You know it’s not true! No one deserves to be tortured to death! So where does this religious nonsense come from? It mostly comes from Calvin painting himself into a theological corner in order to maintain the logic of his system. (Once you’ve concocted a theological system that forces you to defend the idea that every person deserves to be tortured to death, it would be best to just scrap the whole system!)

On Aigburth Road, wind was doing its best to direct the shoppers, but failed to throw Rose under a car. Layer on layer of dark cloud piled up like sediment at the horizon. Against the sky trees glared, bunches of frayed rusty wire. Birds were scraps of light high overhead, in danger of being blown out. Above a church doorway a Virgin and Child were caged by wire netting, which rattled as though they were trying to escape.

Fear is reactionary and defensive, and it leads to an eventual downward spiral into despair. Fear tells our hearts that scary, outside forces have dominion over our lives, so we’d better grasp and grapple for whatever scraps of control we can reach. Fear tells us that if the worst thing happens, our lives will no longer be worth living or that everything good in our lives as we know it will be over. The alternative—hope—isn’t blind optimism or denial of reality. Like fear, hope says that our lives are not our own, but unlike fear, hope speaks the truth that a force much greater than current events or our own abilities is in control, and we can rest in that divine power to sustain us. Hope enables us to live confidently and with peace, no matter what happens, because we trust in a God who is with us in both the best and worst of times. In those dark deployment days, sitting through funeral after funeral, I felt God’s hope speaking to me, telling me that even if the worst happened and Drew did not come home, life might be different, but it would still be worth living and full of good things. Even so, each day, I had to make a choice. Which path would I travel: fear or hope?

Things get broken and lost and forgotten as we go through the world, things that we love, things we thought we couldn’t live without. You don’t need to fix everything. It’s not your job. And if we’re both a little broken because of the people we lost, so what? All we can do is keep going, Ishmael. The best thing we can hope for is not that we’re ‘fixed,’ but that we find people who understand the ways in which we’ve been broken. People who stand beside us anyway.’ We kneel on the new floor, holding the scraps and broken pieces of my father’s watch, and cry. It almost feels good to be crying with company, to be crying at home, in this familiar place.

Behold these joyful devourers The land laid out skewered in silver Candlesticks of softest pewter Rolling the logs down cut on end To make roads through the forest That once was—before the logs (Were rolled down cut on end)— We called it stump road and we Called it forest road when Our imaginations starved You can make fans with ribs Of sheep and pouches for baubles By pounding flat the ears Of old women and old men— Older is best for the ear grows For ever it’s said, even when There’s not a scrap anywhere to eat So we carried our wealth In pendulum pouches wrinkled And hairy, diamonds and gems Enough to buy a forest or a road But maybe not both Enough even for slippers of Supplest skin feathered in down Like a baby’s cheek There is a secret we know When nothing else is left And the sky stops its tears A belly can bulge full On diamonds and gems And a forest can make a road Through what once was You just won’t find any shade PENDULUMS WERE ONCE TOYS BADALLE OF KORBANSE SNAKE

Defeatism won’t get you anywhere (except defeat). But focusing your entire effort on the little bit of room, the tiny scrap of an opportunity, is your best shot.

She beamed. “Perhaps the best of the lot! He has a title—he is a baron. He has never been wed but he has several children. His home is quite nice, apparently, it is in Sussex, and he has a pleasing income! I believe it is two thousand a year.” She waited. He stared, appearing close to an apoplexy. “So he is a rake?” “You have bastards!” “I am a rake! Next.” She choked. “Next?” “Amanda is not marrying a rake. Her husband will be loyal to her.” “Then maybe you should consider de Brett? He is very handsome and I am sure that he might fall in love with Amanda!” “Who is Ralph Sheffeild?” Cliff ignored her. She had saved the best for last. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Sheffeild. “He was knighted during the war for his valor, he is the youngest son of an earl, the family is very wealthy, and he can marry as he chooses. He is not a rake. If he is taken with Amanda, it would be perfect!” “How do you know he is not a rake?” “I know his reputation.” “He must be a rake, or he would be wed.” “I feel certain he is not a rake,” she said quickly. “If he were a rake, the gossip would be all over the ton.” “Does he have a mistress?” “Not that I know of.” “Then he must prefer men.” Cliff smiled in triumph. “What a leap to make!” She was aghast. “He is too perfect. Something is wrong with him. If it isn’t that preference, perhaps he gambles!” “He doesn’t gamble.” She had to control her laughter now. She had no idea if Sheffeild gamed. “And Cliff, he likes women. I have met him personally, I am certain.” Cliff folded his arms across his chest and stared. “Something is wrong with this one, I can feel it. What aren’t you telling me?” “I have told you everything. He is perfect for Amanda!” He tore the paper not in two, but in shreds. Then he smiled, letting the scraps drift to the floor. “Cliff!” she gasped. “What is wrong with Sheffeild?” “No one is perfect,” he retorted. “He is hiding something.” “You cannot reject everyone!” “I can and I will, until I find the right suitor. Make me another list,” he ordered, walking away. She couldn’t resist. She took a book from the shelf and threw it, so it hit him square in the back. He turned. “What was that for?” “Oh, let’s just say I am going to enjoy watching you taken down a peg or two. And by the by, we are all rooting for Amanda.” He simply looked at her, clearly clueless as usual.

This is because perfection just doesn’t exist but you put yourself under all this pressure to try and achieve it. Of even more importance, so called perfection is often never required in your daily life. Perfectionism for me was one of the biggest triggers of my procrastination that I had to overcome. I, like I’m sure you do, always want to deliver to the best of my ability. Whether it be in business or at home. Sometimes even when it came to sport. Because of this I would find myself never being happy with what I was producing and always deferring it to later or often scrapping what I had all together because I didn’t think it was good enough.

It’s that kind of energy and creativity and above all faith in yourself that you need right now. Defeatism won’t get you anywhere (except defeat). But focusing your entire effort on the little bit of room, the tiny scrap of an opportunity, is your best shot.

Never quit on her To deal with the desires and feelings of the heart, Demands you to be an artist who knows life’s every art, That to love, feel loved and be sometimes discarded like scrap, And still steer the heart from this destiny’s trap, Where it seeks to push you into the base of the pit, Where longing and agony become your permanent habit, And if you realise it and yet you love her true, The pit shall reveal to you the sky that is clear and blue, And from there too your heart shall say, “I love you everyday and anyway!” It is then you shall become the artist who can paint hearts, Fo to paint hearts needs the knowledge of life’s most faint and sensitive colours of all sorts, That make the admirer believe in its beauty that throbs always, Though the person is not around but her feelings somehow seep into life’s long nights and short days! Just to keep you alive in the pit, So that you still love her and you do not quit!

With a mob trashing his restaurant and scrapping in the street outside?” “That’s right, sir.” “Ah. I get it. There’s none so deaf as those that won’t hear, are you saying?” “Something like that, sir, yes. Look, it’s all over, sir. I don’t think anyone’s seriously hurt. It’ll be for the best, sir. Please?” “Is this one of those private dwarf things, Captain?” “Yes, sir—” “Well, this is Ankh-Morpork, Captain, not some mine in the mountains, and it’s my job to keep the peace, and this, Captain, doesn’t look like it. What’re people going to say about rioting in the streets?

Grumpy Cutter’s Flaky Square Buttermilk Biscuits 3 cups of all-purpose flour 2 Tbsp sugar 1 tsp salt 4 tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda 2 sticks of butter, frozen (16 Tbsps) 1½ cups of buttermilk Preheat oven to 400°F. Prepare a baking sheet with a light spray of oil or cover with parchment. In a bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Grate the two sticks of butter and add to the dry ingredient mixture. Gently combine until the butter particles are coated. Next add the buttermilk and briefly fold it in. Transfer this dough to a floured spot for rolling and folding. Shape the dough into a square; then roll it out into a larger rectangle. Fold by hand into thirds using a bench scraper. Press the dough to seal it. Use the bench scraper to help shape the dough into flat edges. Turn it 90 degrees and repeat the process of rolling it out to a bigger rectangle and shaping it again. Repeat this process for a total of five times. The dough will become smoother as you go. After the last fold, and if time allows, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Otherwise, cut the remaining dough into squares and place 1 inch apart on the baking sheet. Brush the tops with melted butter. Bake at 400°F for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool on a rack before serving—if you can wait that long. Tips to remember: • A buttermilk substitute can be made by adding one teaspoon vinegar to one and a half cups regular milk and letting it stand for a few minutes. • Handle the dough lightly—don’t overwork it. • Freeze the butter. It makes it easier to grate and distribute it throughout the dough. • For the very best results, your bowl and other utensils should be cold. • Rolling and folding the dough 5 times produces the flaky layers—again, don’t get too heavy handed. • Shaping the dough into a square and cutting it into squares avoids waste and rerolling (and overworking) the scraps. • If time allows, let the dough rest for 30 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge before you cut into squares. This helps them rise tall in the oven without slumping or sliding. Makes about a dozen biscuits.

Diary, do you know the best part of an ice cream bar? It’s the end part after you’ve eaten most of the bar, where the rectangular base chocolate flake pokes out. You have to tilt your head and bite off the bottom scrap of chocolate. Yeah. That place. I always lick it a few times too. Why is it so interesting? Because it’s definitive...it’s something again. The whole bar is predictable until you reach its finale, where the texture is its own. If people were ice creams, most would slip out of the stick, never deciding to be, never knowing they haven’t decided. We must be our own surface.

At Osteen's Load and Go, you can rely on us to provide the dumpster rentals you require when and where you need them. With several roll-off dumpster rental dimensions, we can help you consist of and eliminate the scrap and waste from any task. Our bins are the best waste management service for all types of jobs, big and little. They're easy to fill thanks to their low, durable walls and they are versatile enough to be parked safely anywhere. The very best part is that we make renting a dumpster easy.

The worst part of being a parent is knowing you’ll make mistakes, and fearing them, and feeling the pain that accompanies the inevitability of letting your child down. But two people can better strategize. Two people can talk through the process. Two people can bear the disappointments more fully and comfort each other with the reminder “we did our best.

The tree had not changed at all since his childhood. As a boy of six, he had climbed it, not realizing its age, and lacking the experience to know the signs of a rotten branch. The wood beneath his feet had crumbled, and he had tumbled with a cry, hands reaching for branches, but only scraping against bark. And then he hadn't been falling anymore. A man caught him before he struck the ground, and tossed him up into the air again with a chuckle before setting him safe and whole onto his feet. He had been enormous, especially to his child's eyes. A giant of a man, with shoulders so wide they would barely fit through his bedroom door, and eyes as blue as summer. Red-gold hair spilled from a scrap of leather, tying it back, and even crouched before him, Ryam had fairly craned his neck to meet his eyes. "Best to test the branches first, boy," the man had said, smiling. "Never give your weight fully to any one limb when you climb. I cannot promise I will always be in time to catch you, otherwise.

One thing her trip taught, and that is apparent to scientists studying the pronghorn, is the vital importance of “connectivity.” It is a lesson being learned, and preached, by innovative environmental thinkers all over the West, and it applies to many of the region’s threatened species. It comes down to a simple point: wild animals need to roam. It’s true that putting land aside for our national parks may be, to paraphrase Stegner paraphrasing Lord Bryce, the best idea our country ever had, and it’s also true that at this point we have put aside more than 100 million acres of land, a tremendous accomplishment that we should be proud of. But what we are now learning is that parks are not enough. By themselves they are islands—particularly isolated and small islands—the sort of islands where many conservation biologists say species go to die. That would change if the parks were connected, and connecting the parks, and other wild lands, is the mission of an old friend of Ed Abbey’s, Dave Foreman. Foreman, one of the founders of Earth First!, eventually soured on the politics of the organization he helped create. In recent years he has focused his energy on his Wildlands Project, whose mission is the creation of a great wilderness corridor from Canada to Mexico, a corridor that takes into account the wider ranges of our larger predators. Parks alone can strand animals, and leave species vulnerable, unless connected by what Foreman calls “linkages.” He believes that if we can connect the remaining wild scraps of land, we can return the West to being the home of a true wilderness. He calls the process “rewilding.” Why go to all this effort? Because dozens of so-called protected species, stranded on their eco-islands, are dying out. And because when they are gone they will not return. A few more shopping malls, another highway or gas patch, and there is no more path for the pronghorn. But there is an even more profound reason for trying to return wildness to the West. “We finally learned that wilderness is the arena of evolution,” writes Foreman. Wilderness is where change happens.

When daylight lasts until 10pm because of the time change, and the traffic noise has died down, I have the illusion that all I’d need to do is return to those faraway neighborhoods to find the people I’ve lost, who had never left [...] Colette is leaning against the door of a private townhouse, hands in the pockets of her raincoat. Every time I look at that picture, it hurts. It’s like in the morning when you try to recall your dream from the night before, but all that’s left are scraps that dissolve before you can put them together. I knew that woman in another life and I’m doing my best to remember. Maybe someday I’ll manage to break through that layer of silence and amnesia.

The gondola jolted backward as Falco pulled the rope tight. Cass looked up, surprised to find herself back at the villa already. Falco hopped out of the boat and turned to her with an expectant look. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I thought you had someplace to be.” She couldn’t keep the hurt from leaching into her voice. “I’m going to walk you to your door, of course.” “I can walk myself, thank you.” Cass clambered over the side of the gondola, her chopines clutched in her left hand. Her cloak snagged on the boat. One of the tall wooden overshoes slipped out of her fingers and landed in the shallow water. “Mannaggia,” she muttered, reaching down to retrieve the soggy shoe. She pushed past Falco as she headed across the lawn. Falco caught up with her easily. “Cassandra, be reasonable. There’s a murderer running around.” She didn’t answer. She headed around to the back of the villa, doing her best to ignore him as he loped beside her in the manicured grass. He couldn’t just freeze her out for the whole boat ride and then pretend everything was fine. Cass tucked her hands into the pockets of her cloak. Her fingers closed around a scrap of fabric--her handkerchief. She remembered Mada’s words. If he keeps it for a little while, then he’s yours. Did she want Falco to like her? Cass wasn’t sure. “A presto,” Falco said, with a short bow. “Until very soon.” “All right.” Cass bit back the tears that were suddenly pushing at the back of her throat and eyes. If she turned around, even for a second, she knew that she would cry. But why? What had happened? She didn’t know. She let the handkerchief slip from her pocket as she pushed quickly into the house, shutting the door behind her without looking back. Leaning against the wall of the kitchen, Cass forced herself to breathe. A single tear worked its way down her cheek, and she brushed it roughly from her face. She turned and peered through the thick glass window. Falco was still there. He had picked up her handkerchief. It looked small in his hands. He paused for a moment, glanced in the direction of the back door, and then tucked the cloth square into his pocket. Overwhelmed by the evening’s events and her swirling emotions, Cass let her body slide slowly to the floor. This time she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

Deep inside, Zoe just wanted Madeline to meet someone really nice for a change, someone who wasn't unreliable and someone who wasn't a commitment phoebe as Madeline deserved the very best but somehow she was always scrapping around in the gutter of heartbreak with the absolute worst.

he motioned for his soldiers to rush ahead to scavenge. Sometimes they were good at picking the right ones. But other times, they chose poorly, and he was left with scraps of a being. The secret was this: the will had to still be present in the spirit. It usually shined brightest right before death. Mortals ran either cold or hot, their souls like ice or fire. He had discovered long ago that ice served him best, but every now and then, fire would surprise him.

I am not against playfully imagining possible decivilized worlds. But for such imaginings to be truly playful and to have experimental potential, they cannot be models worked out from abstracted conceptions of either past or future societies. In fact, in my opinion, it is best to leave the concept of “society” itself behind, and rather think in terms of perpetually changing, interweaving relationships between unique, desiring individuals. That said, we can only play and experiment now, where our desire for the apparently “impossible” meets the reality that surrounds us. If civilization were to be dismantled in our lifetime, we would not confront a world of lush forests and plains and healthy deserts teeming with an abundance of wildlife. We would instead confront a world full of the detritus of civilization — abandoned buildings, tools, scrap, etc., etc. Imaginations that are not chained either to realism or to a primitivist moral ideology could find many ways to use, explore and play with all of this — the possibilities are nearly infinite. More significantly, this is an immediate possibility, and one that can be explicitly connected with a destructive attack against civilization. And this immediacy is utterly essential, because I am living now, you are living now, not several hundred years from now, when an enforced program aimed toward a primitivist ideal might be able to create a world in which this ideal could be realized globally — if primitivists have their revolution now and enforce their program.

Animals bring out the best and worst in people. They don’t judge. They only love. They are really clear about who they like and who they don’t like. They can’t pretend. Pets cut right through deceptions we throw up to protect ourselves.

But if this was to be my end – and it sure as fuck was coming, for my breaths were slower, my heartbeat faster, and everything was starting to feel ever so cold – then I wanted to go out like him. Like my beautiful Mathias, proud and determined, and the best man I’d ever met. And so even though it felt fucking impossible, I moved my hand. Not much: just an inch, and even that cost me every remaining scrap of strength and willpower I had left in me, but enough to wrap around Panarin’s ankle where he stood over me. Enough to tighten my fingers so that he glanced down in surprise, and then disdain. Not enough to achieve anything more. I couldn’t pull him off balance, or keep him away from Mat, but I could distract him for that tiny second, a moment that could make a difference even though it probably wouldn’t. It was a useless, futile move, but I did it anyway. Because it’s what Mat would have done.