Shorter Hair Quotes

Everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. It's a fact. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn't want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him.

The satyr gave me a sympathetic glance. She was shorter than me by a foot, with large hazel eyes that matched her curly hair. I tried to keep my eyes away from her furry lower half, but it was difficult, especially when she smelled faintly like a petting zoo.

Everyone has always said I look like Bailey, but I don't. I have grey eyes to her green, an oval face to her heart-shaped one, I'm shorter, scrawnier, paler, flatter, plainer, tamer. All we shared is a madhouse of curls that I imprison in a ponytail while she let hers rave like madness around her head. I don't sing in my sleep or eat the petals off flowers or run into the rain instead of out of it. I'm the unplugged-in one, the side-kick sister, tucked into a corner of her shadow. Boys followed her everywhere; they filled the booths at the restaurant where she waitressed, herded around her at the river. One day, I saw a boy come up behind her and pull a strand of her long hair I understood this- I felt the same way. In photographs of us together, she is always looking at the camera, and I am always looking at her.

Merlin stood up. For once, late as it was, he was pleased to see the Assistant Commissioner because he had been trying unsuccessfully to get hold of him all day. “May I introduce Detective Bernard Goldberg of the New York Police Department.” Merlin held out a hand to the stocky young man now standing on the AC’s right. Detective Goldberg was an inch or two shorter than Merlin, with a closely cropped head of dark-brown hair and the crumpled face of a man who might have walked into a wall.

I don't know if I've ever really touched him. Maybe once or twice when passing papers back. You know, even shorter, his hair looks so soft. Maybe it's time I rub it a little. So I can give more concrete details. I stretch my hand across my desk, but stop when I realize the horror of what I was about to do. Pet Sean. Have I lost my mind?

Sabrina fair Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of Lillies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair, Listen for dear honour's sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save.

This was not Newt's fault; in his younger days he would go every couple of months to the barber's shop on the corner, clutching a photograph he's carefully torn from a magazine which showed someone with an impressively cool haircut grinning at the camera and he would show the picture to the barber, and ask to be made to look like that, please. And the barber, who knew his job, would take one look and then give Newt the basic, all-purpose, short-back-and-sides. After a year of this, Newt realized that he obviously didn't have the face for haircuts. The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair.

Celaena peered in the mirror—and stopped dead. The somewhat shorter hair was the least of the changes. She was now flushed with color, her eyes bright and clear, and though she'd regained the weight she'd lost during that winter, her face was leaner. A woman—a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart.

The hair hierarchy rates worth by length and texture of hair. The longer, the silkier and more European your hair, the higher your worth. The shorter, kinkier, and more African your hair? Kill thyself.

Shadow always had high hopes for haircuts, but they never lived up to his expectations. After every haircut he looked more or less the same, only with shorter hair.

If there is a war, then all of the things most of us do won't matter any more. I have a feeling that one has to work all day and all night and live too, and swim and get the sun one's hair and laugh and love as many people as one can find around and do this all terribly fast, because the time getting shorter and shorter every day.

Princeton isn't actually part of New Jersey. It's a small island of wealth and intellectual eccentricity floating in the Sea of Central Megalopolis. It's an honest-to-god town awash in the land of the strip mall. Hair is smaller, heels are shorter, asses are tighter in Princeton.

Oh- hey, there," he said. He was shorter than me, pudgy with salt-and-pepper hair that always seemed to be in need of a good conditioning. And he always wore sweatpants and T-shirts that had seen more abuse than narcotics. But he was a good landlord. When my heater stopped working in mid-December, it took him only two weeks to get it fixed. Of course, it took me knocking on his door in need of a warm place to sleep to get it that way, but one night on his sofa, where I'd suddenly developed night terrors and epilepsy, and that puppy was running like a Mercedes the next day. It was awesome.

At a mere five feet seven inches, Dan was a head shorter than most of the boys. His body sagged slightly where their muscles rippled, his teeth were crooked where theirs gleamed, and his brown hair was thick and unruly where theirs shone. To judge solely from appearances, it was difficult to believe he’d been accepted into this prestigious little clique. But to judge from appearances was to ignore Dan’s quick wit and effortless charm. These were the characteristics that each of the boys aspired to, and the fact that Dan possessed them in such abundance was a constant source of fascination to them. No matter that he looked so freakishly average. His sense of humour and charisma were the benchmarks toward which the entire group was working, and few within the circle were held in higher esteem.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "What are you doing?" "What do you mean?" "Are you being a dick about my hair? Because I know you're not complimenting me." "Lizzie," I said, pouring on the tease, even though I fucking loved her new hair. It was shorter and cute as hell, but no way could I give her a genuine compliment. We didn't do that. So I said, "Your hair is the stuff of cheerleader fantasy. Of main character daydreams. Your hair runs so that young gingers' hair can walk." She bit down on the inside of her cheek and-holy shit-looked like she wanted to laugh. "Are you high, Wes Bennett?

In these days of physical fitness, hair dye, and plastic surgery, you can live much of your life without feeling or even looking old. But then one day, your knee goes, or your shoulder, or your back, or your hip. Your hot flashes come to an end; things droop. Spots appear. Your cleavage looks like a peach pit. If your elbows faced forward, you would kill yourself. You’re two inches shorter than you used to be. You’re ten pounds fatter and you cannot lose a pound of it to save your soul. Your hands don’t work as well as they once did and you can’t open bottles, jars, wrappers, and especially those gadgets that are encased tightly in what seems to be molded Mylar. If you were stranded on a desert island and your food were sealed in plastic packaging, you would starve to death. You take so many pills in the morning you don’t have room for breakfast. You lose close friends and discover one of the worst truths of old age: they’re irreplaceable. People who run four miles a day and eat only nuts and berries drop dead. People who drink a quart of whiskey and smoke two packs of cigarettes a day drop dead. You are suddenly in a lottery, the ultimate game of chance, and someday your luck will run out. Everybody dies. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God.

His hair was shorter than I remembered, tawny in this half-light, the tousled edges casually framing the clean, commanding lines of his face. His mouth, normally so stern was relaxed now and as I stared a slight sweet smile touched his lips, its curve softening the straight strong lines of his nose and brow. Finally, inevitably, I met his eyes and felt a connection that seared straight through me, down through my soles and away. Those eyes, darker than mine, the darkest blue, dark and as impenetrable as glaciers. Tonight he was real, so very real that my heart thumped, my blood sang, my legs shook.

The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair.

Shadow always had high hopes for haircuts, but they never lived up to his expectations. After every haircut he looked more or less the same, only with shorter hair.

Newt realized that he obviously didn’t have the face that went with haircuts. The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair.

But as soon as we touched, I felt magic crackle over and through me, so strong that I tried to jerk my hand back. But he held tight until, finally, the crackling sensation stopped. My hand slid out of his, and I leaped up from the fountain."What the hell was-" Then I looked down and realized I was completely dry. Not only that, but my demure black dress had been replaced with...well, another black dress, but this one was a lot shorter, sparklier, and also rocking a very low neckline. Even my hair was different, transformed from a soggy braid to silky brown waves. Nick winked at me. "That's better. Now you look more like the Demon Who Would be Queen." He heaved himself out of the water and grabbed Jenna's hand. Within seconds, she went from drowned rat to hottie, her soaked clothes replaced with-what else?-a pink sundress. Of course it showed a lot more skin than anything Jenna would have picked out for herself. "Oh,lovely,Nick," Daisy said, rolling her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "What?" he asked once he laid a smacking kiss on her cheek. "They look better like that." Without thinking,I reached out and grabbed Nick's free arm. His wet white T-shirt and jeans rippled, and suddenly he was wearing a Day-Glo yellow tank top and acid-washed jeans. "And you look better like this." I wasn't sure if it was the ridiculous sight of Nick in those clothes, or the fact that I'd done a spell so easily-with absolutely no explosions-but I could feel my lips curving upward in a smile. As Daisy hooted with laughter, Nick narrowed his eyes at me. "Okay, now you're in for it." He waved his hand, and suddenly I was sweltering. When I glanced down, I saw that it was because I was now dressed like the Easter Bunny.But with the flick of one fuzzy paw,I'd transformed Nick's jeans and tank top into a snowsuit. Then I was in a bikini. So Nick was wearing a particularly poofy purple prom dress. By the time he'd turned my clothes into a showgirl's costume, complete with a feathery headdress, and I'd put him in a scuba suit, we were both completely magic drunk and giggling.

Women do not simply have faces, as men do; they are identified with their faces. Men have a naturalistic relation to their faces. Certainly they care whether they are good-looking or not. They suffer over acne, protruding ears, tiny eyes; they hate getting bald. But there is a much wider latitude in what is esthetically acceptable in a man’s face than what is in a woman’s. A man’s face is defined as something he basically doesn’t need to tamper with; all he has to do is keep it clean. He can avail himself of the options for ornament supplied by nature: a beard, a mustache, longer or shorter hair. But he is not supposed to disguise himself. What he is “really” like is supposed to show. A man lives through his face; it records the progressive stages of his life. And since he doesn’t tamper with his face, it is not separate from but is completed by his body – which is judged attractive by the impression it gives of virility and energy. By contrast, a woman’s face is potentially separate from her body. She does not treat it naturalistically. A woman’s face is the canvas upon which she paints a revised, corrected portrait of herself. One of the rules of this creation is that the face not show what she doesn’t want it to show. Her face is an emblem, an icon, a flag. How she arranges her hair, the type of make-up she uses, the quality of her complexion – all these are signs, not of what she is “really” like, but of how she asks to be treated by others, especially men. They establish her status as an “object.

She’d chopped it too. It was longer than Matt’s, shorter than Kellan’s, somewhere in between like…Denny. Fuck. I looked like Denny now. Anna was gonna flip when she saw this. After my hair was completely fucked, Harold took me to meet the rest of the cast.

What Jessica said—hair much shorter, wearing a darker mouth of different outline, harder lipstick, her typewriter banking in a phalanx of letters between them—was: "We're going to be married. We're trying very hard to have a baby." All at once there is nothing but his asshole between Gravity and Roger. "I don't care. Have his baby. I'll love you both—just come with me Jess, please... I need you...." She flips a red lever on her intercom. Far away a buzzer goes off. "Security." Her voice is perfectly hard, the word still clap-echoing in the air as in through the screen door of the Quonset office wth a smell of tide flats come the coppers, looking grim. Security. Her magic word, her spell against demons.

Jodi in tactical gear was something to behold. Pert, a lot shorter than I am, blond hair tucked under a helmet, cinched into body armor never intended to mold to the body of a curvy woman. Ugly but efficient attire. Someone needs to talk to armor designers about female body shapes and style.

Disco bowling? Seriously? Is there such a thing?" He laughed. "I've never been,but you mentioned bowling a few weeks ago,and I figured tonight of all nights I could go ahead and impress you with my mad lack of bowling skills.Besides which, you look way too hot to waste on trick-or-treaters.They have a costume competition-you're a shoo-in." I laughed,giddy,and grabbed his hand to kiss his knuckles.I knew he'd rather stay at home,but he planned tonight around making me happy. And he wanted to show me off,which appealed to my vanity more than I cared to admit. Best. Boyfriend. Ever. "Pictures,please?And if we're going disco bowling,you have to dress up." He pretended to sigh,but his glamour hair grew out into a massive 'fro and I squealed with delight. Then it shifted into shorter hair with a yellow-blond side part. "I figure with an ascot and blue pants I can do a mean Fred to your Daphne,right?" Tonight was perfect.

Word of my arrival spread as soon as I walked out of the ocean. Our beach is on the North Shore of Long Island, and it’s enchanted so most people can’t even see it. People don’t just appear on the beach unless they’re demigods or gods or really, really lost pizza delivery guys. (It’s happened—but that’s another story.) Anyway, that afternoon the lookout on duty was Connor Stoll from the Hermes cabin. When he spotted me, he got so excited he fell out of his tree. Then he blew the conch horn to signal the camp and ran to greet me. Connor had a crooked smile that matched his crooked sense of humor. He’s a pretty nice guy, but you should always keep one hand on your wallet when he’s around, and do not, under any circumstances, give him access to shaving cream unless you want to find your sleeping bag full of it. He’s got curly brown hair and is a little shorter than his brother, Travis, which is the only way I can tell them apart. They are both so unlike my old enemy Luke it’s hard to believe they’re all sons of Hermes. “Percy!” he yelled. “What happened? Where’s Beckendorf ?

I can tell that much even from this distance. This man’s hair is darker and cut shorter, his frame a little more broad. It’s not the same man.

Kali's breath came shorter as her heartbeat quickened and her gaze was drawn to the stubble on his cheeks and chin, the curve of his mouth, the dark, fine fringe of his hair...

Her hair was shorter and more fashionable, he guessed,

And with age he has become shorter and broader, he’s got more face to wash and less hair to comb, and finds

If skirts get any shorter, said the flapper with a sob, I'll have two more cheeks to powder and a lot more hair to bob!

Maxi Taxi, you’ve got him now, you’ve got him, Jew boy, you’ve got him, you’ve got him!” A small kid with soft tufts of hair, a beaten nose, and swampy eyes, Max was a good head shorter

There are sparkles of rain on the bright Hair over your forehead; Your eyes are wet and your lips Wet and cold, your cheek rigid with cold. Why have you stayed Away so long, why have you only Come to me late at night After walking for hours in wind and rain? Take off your dress and stockings; Sit in the deep chair before the fire. I will warm your feet in my hands; I will warm your breasts and thighs with kisses. I wish I could build a fire In you that would never go out. I wish I could be sure that deep in you Was a magnet to draw you always home. from "Runaway

The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians’ State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter.

I’m opinionated, obstinate, and obsessive. I am quick to anger, quick to cry, quick-witted and a slow runner. A very slow runner. I don’t know if you can really call it running, really. I don’t know what I want. Some heavy making out? Someone to text me for no reason? A person who is absolutely, positively in love with me? It varies, day by day. I know that I want you to play with my hair while we lay on the couch and listen to records. I want you to hold my hand while we’re driving and take out the trash before you’re ever asked. I want you to want me, but not need me. To be there for me without my asking, and to go away without being told. I want you to keep me company and keep your promises. PS: Please, don’t be shorter than me. Chapter Seven Finders Keepers

Spenser Reynolds was a bit shorter than Web average, but far handsomer. His hair was curled but cropped short, his skin appeared bronzed by a benevolent sun and slightly gilded with subtle body paint, his clothes and ARNistry were expensively flamboyant without being outré, and his demeanor proclaimed a relaxed confidence that all men dreamed of and precious few obtained. His wit was obvious, his attention to others sincere, and his sense of humor legendary. I found myself disliking the son of a bitch at once.

Even though I had always sexualized Thom Wright everyone else now realized he was built, the jawline seemed more pronounced, the hair was now shorter—somewhat ubiquitous among the guys at Buckley (mostly because of haircut regulations) but Thom’s was now something stylish, a moment, a cue to manliness

SHE CAME ALONG THE ALLEY AND UP THE BACK STEPS THE WAY she always used to. Doc hadn’t seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe & the Fish T-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered,

I had been thinking you were going to stay out on the farm through the whole Festival,” Perrin Aybara shouted at Rand over the clamor. Half a head shorter than Rand, the curly-haired blacksmith’s apprentice was so stocky as to seem a man and a half wide, with arms and shoulders thick enough to rival those of Master Luhhan himself. He could easily have pushed through the throng, but that was not his way. He picked his path carefully, offering apologies to people who had only half a mind to notice anything but the peddler. He made the apologies anyway, and tried not to jostle anyone as he worked through the crowd to Rand and Mat.

Diana’s gorgeous, with wide-set eyes, platinum-blond hair, and a sassy mouth. She’s a little shorter than I usually like, barely over five feet, five-two if we’re being generous. A pint-sized hottie with a big personality. Although it seems like a major part of that personality involves busting the balls of yours truly.

She had grown tired of the pouffy floating hair of zero gravity and, after a few weeks of clamping it down with baseball caps, had figured out how to make this shorter cut work for her. The haircut had spawned terabytes of Internet commentary from men, and a few women, who apparently had nothing else to do with their time.

He wore a white girdle that pulled in his waist just above the hips. He was, of necessity, slender. She believed men should take up as little space as possible. He wore his black hair long over his shoulders, tied once with a white ribbon. The men allowed to live were, of course, beautiful, far more beautiful than any of the women Zezili knew. Anavha was clean-shaven, as she wanted him, lightly powdered in gold, his eyes lined in kohl, eyes a stormy grey, set a bit too wide in a broad face whose jaw she has initially found almost vulgar in its squareness. He stood a hand shorter than she; she easily outweighed him by fifty pounds. She liked him just this way.

Edward Lasco was on the screened porch of his rented house in a comfortable but not elegant older section of the town where he'd lived for the past fifteen years when his wife, Elise, who six months before had left him and moved to a nearby city to work in a psychiatric hospital, came around the side of the house and stood beside the screen looking in. She had on a business outfit—natural linen suit, knee-high boots, dark glasses with at least three distinguishable colors tiered top to bottom in the lenses—and she carried a slick briefcase, thin and shiny. Her hair was shorter than he'd seen it, styled in a peculiar way so that it seemed it spots to jerk away from her head, to say, "I'm hair, boy, and you'd better believe it." Edward had come outside with a one-pint carton of skim milk and a ninety-nine-cookie package of Oreos and a just-received issue of InfoWorld, and he was entirely content with the prospect of eating his cookies and drinking his milk and reading his magazine, but when he saw Elise he was filled with a sudden, very unpleasant sense that he didn't want to see her. It'd been a good two and a half months since he'd talked to her, and there she was looking like an earnest TV art director's version of the modern businesswoman; it made him feel that his life was fucked, and this was before she'd said a word.

This leads me to the Higher Editing. Take of well-ground Indian Ink as much as suffices and a camel-hair brush proportionate to the inter-spaces of your lines. In an auspicious hour, read your final draft and consider faithfully every paragraph, sentence and word, blacking out where requisite. Let it lie by to drain as long as possible. At the end of that time, re-read and you should find that it will bear a second shortening. Finally, read it aloud alone and at leisure. Maybe a shade more brushwork will then indicate or impose itself. If not, praise Allah and let it go, and ‘when thou hast done, repent not.’ The shorter the tale, the longer the brushwork and, normally, the shorter the lie-by, and vice versa. The longer the tale, the less brush but the longer lie-by. I have had tales by me for three or five years which shortened themselves almost yearly. The magic lies in the Brush and the Ink. For the Pen, when it is writing, can only scratch; and bottled ink is not to compare with the ground Chinese stick. Experto crede.

She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn't seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe & the Fish T-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she swore she'd never look.

Adrian was a man who, in certain respects, could be seen as slightly less than average. He was slightly shorter than the average man. He was slightly thinner than the average man. But his face… There was nothing average about his face. He was gorgeous. Dreamy blue eyes that were so light they were almost translucent and those blue eyes were only further accentuated by his short, dark hair. However, it was not those eyes that got women caught in his talons. No. It was his smile. His smile served as bait to the unsuspecting. It was a Brad Pitt sort of smile—naughty and sexy at the same time. The type of smile that warned you of the heartbreak to come, but left you powerless to protect yourself against its charms.

There’s a photo of him onstage accepting the plaque, a big grin on his face, white teeth shining through black beard. I don’t recognize his shoes and his hair is shorter than I’ve ever seen it. Embarrassment creeps up my spine as I realize he probably wasn’t thinking about me at all in that moment. There isn’t a single moment when I’m not thinking about him.

Well?” Jules asks when Joseph and Billy are safely out of range. “What do you think of him?” Arsinoe squints. Billy Chatworth wears the clothes of an islander, but he does not wear them well. He is only an inch or two shorter than Joseph, and his sandy hair is short, almost pressed flat against his head. “He’s not nearly as handsome as Joseph is,” Arsinoe teases, and Jules blushes scarlet. “I knew he would grow into that Sandrin jawline. And those eyes.” She prods Jules in the side until she laughs and swats her away. “Anyhow, what do you think of the mainlander?” “I don’t know,” Jules says. “He said he had a cat that looked like me when he was younger. With one blue eye and one green. He said it was born deaf.” “Charming,” says Arsinoe.

My school is filled with kids who do not look like me. Kids with pale freckled skin, kids with hair the color of summertime corn. And kids with skin darker than mine, kids shorter than me, and kids taller than me. I have never seen so many different types of people in one place. I write to Fatima and tell her that sometimes it feels like the whole world lives at my new school.

Your hair! You cut it all off!” She pulled off her own hood as she crossed the distance between them. Indeed, the long silver-white hair was now cropped short. It made him look younger, made his tattoo stand out more, and … fine, it made him more handsome, too. Or maybe that was just her missing him. “Since you seemed to think that we would be doing a good amount of fighting here, shorter hair is more useful. Though I can’t say that your hair might be considered the same. You might as well have dyed it blue.” “Hush. Your hair was so pretty. I was hoping you’d let me braid it one day. I suppose I’ll have to buy a pony instead.” She cocked her head. “When you shift, will your hawk form be plucked, then?” His nostrils flared, and she clamped her lips together to keep from laughing.

had my hair permed down the center but cut shorter on the sides, in a recent fit of enthusiasm for the artist who was still then known as Prince and also for the look of a singer named Adam Ant. Despite my stylist’s valiant efforts, my hair looked nothing like theirs. But I did look like someone trying very hard not to look like everyone else; I was elaborately disguised as someone who didn’t care what other people thought of me.

We pair off on the metal bridge in the hydra. Victra taking the right, me the left. My Praetorian is shorter than I. Her helmet off, hair in a tight bun, ready to proclaim the grand laurels of her family. “My name is Felicia au…” I feint a whip at her face. She brings her blade up, and Victra goes diagonal and impales her at the belly button. I finish her off with a neat decapitation. “Bye, Felicia,” Victra spits, turning to the last Praetorian.

The room was small, lit by two naked bulbs in wall recesses, and bare of anything except for two solid wooden posts the height of a man and four feet apart. In each post, at just below shoulder height, was set a large iron ring. There were two other men already waiting, both leathermen. Len indicated each in turn. 'Rick and Sam.' The two men regarded Mike with arms folded. Rick was in his late twenties, a tall, blond biker, his hair hanging down well past his shoulders. Under his leather waistcoat he was bare-chested, his spare, pale flesh covered with tattoos of skulls, burning angels and other biker motifs, the twining reds, blues and blacks extending along both arms as well. He was wearing black leather gloves and impenetrable black shades. Shaven-headed Sam was older, shorter and stockier, built like a rugby player. A leather harness stretched across the barrel of his chest, its steel circlet buried in wiry hair. Through his leather chaps Mike could see a sizeable pouch, heavy with its contents.

She was a beauty queen!'' ''Holy shit.'' Harrison dissolved into a fit of laughter. ''No way is Redding pulling that one off. Look at her. Her hair's shorter than mine. ''My hair is convenient for my job,'' I said, running a hand over inch-long, blond locks that had been trapped under a hot wig the day before, ''and besides, I thought short hair was fashionable.'' ''Short, yes,'' Harrison said, ''but you're sporting the Britney Spears Nervous Breakdown style. Not a hit among men or the beauty pageant circuit

The Wheel Revolves You were a girl of satin and gauze Now you are my mountain and waterfall companion. Long ago I read those lines of Po Chu I Written in his middle age. Young as I was they touched me. I never thought in my own middle age I would have a beautiful young dancer To wander with me by falling crystal waters, Among mountains of snow and granite, Least of all that unlike Po’s girl She would be my very daughter. The earth turns towards the sun. Summer comes to the mountains. Blue grouse drum in the red fir woods All the bright long days. You put blue jay and flicker feathers In your hair. Two and two violet green swallows Play over the lake. The blue birds have come back To nest on the little island. The swallows sip water on the wing And play at love and dodge and swoop Just like the swallows that swirl Under and over the Ponte Vecchio. Light rain crosses the lake Hissing faintly. After the rain There are giant puffballs with tortoise shell backs At the edge of the meadow. Snows of a thousand winters Melt in the sun of one summer. Wild cyclamen bloom by the stream. Trout veer in the transparent current. In the evening marmots bark in the rocks. The Scorpion curls over the glimmering ice field. A white crowned night sparrow sings as the moon sets. Thunder growls far off. Our campfire is a single light Amongst a hundred peaks and waterfalls. The manifold voices of falling water Talk all night. Wrapped in your down bag Starlight on your cheeks and eyelids Your breath comes and goes In a tiny cloud in the frosty night. Ten thousand birds sing in the sunrise. Ten thousand years revolve without change. All this will never be again.

Lady Merritt Sterling was a vibrantly attractive woman with large, dark eyes, a wealth of lustrous sable hair, and a flawless porcelain complexion. Unlike her two sisters, she had inherited the shorter, stockier frame of the Marsden side instead of the slender build of her mother. Similarly, she had her father's square-shaped face and determined jaw instead of her mother's delicate oval one. However, Merritt possessed a charm so compelling that she eclipsed every other woman in the vicinity, no matter how beautiful. Merritt focused on whomever she was talking to with a wealth of sincere interest, as if she or he were the only person in the world. She asked questions and listened without ever seeming to wait for her turn to talk. She was the guest everyone invited when they needed to blend a group of disparate personalities, just as a roux would bind soap or sauce into velvety smoothness. It was no exaggeration to say that every man who met Merritt fell at least a little in love with her. When she had entered society, countless suitors had pursued her before she'd finally consented to marry Joshua Sterling, an American-born shipping magnate who had taken up residence in London.

Mott glanced back to nod a hello at me. He and Cregan couldn’t have been designed to look more different from each other. Mott was tall, dark-skinned, and nearly bald. What little hair he did have was black and shaved to his scalp. He was the one by the tavern who’d tripped me when I was trying to escape the butcher. In contrast, Cregan was short — not much taller than I was, and shorter than the tanned boy near me. He was surprisingly pale for a man who likely spent much of his day outdoors, and he had a thick crop of blond hair that he tied back at the nape of his neck. Mott was lean and muscular while Cregan looked softer than I knew him to be, judging by the way he’d clubbed me at the orphanage.

Do you know where the dictionary is?” Fang looked at the girl who had spoken. “What?” “Our reference materials are over here,” the girl said, pointing. “When we have free study time, you can walk around and do homework. If you need to look up stuff, the computers and other references are over here.” “Oh. Okay. Thanks.” “No problem.” The girl swallowed and stepped closer. She was shorter than Max and had long, dark red hair. Her eyes were bright green, and her nose had freckles. “I’m Lissa,” she said. “And you’re Nick, right?” What did she want? He looked at her. “Uh-huh,” he said warily. “I’m glad you’re in our class.” “What? Why?” She stepped still closer, and he could smell the lavender scent of soap. Giving him a flirtatious smile, she said, “Why do you think?

Well, well, do we have a new girl?’ I looked up to see three girls standing behind Tak. The one in the middle was tall and slim with bronzed skin and long shiny black hair and she had that air about her that the popular girls at school back home did. I was instantly wary. Those girls had never been nice to me. ‘Don’t be shy, what’s your name?’ the girl on her left said. Curly red hair framed her perfect face and she put her hands on her ample, curvy hips, waiting for me to answer. ‘Pandora,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m Arketa,’ said the slim girl. ‘And this is Filis and Kiko.’ The red-head, Kiko, cocked her head and gave me an over-the-top smile. ‘We’re Aphrodite descendants.’ That explained why they were so attractive, I thought. ‘You know, you’re not pretty enough to hang out with us but you’re better than these losers,’ Filis said. She was shorter than the other two, with rich brown hair and an exotic looking face with full pouty lips.

She tasted disgusting, worse than Gurdyroots! Okay, Ron, come here so I can do you…” “Right, but remember, I don’t like the beard too long--” “Oh, for heaven’s sake, this isn’t about looking handsome--” “It’s not that, it gets in the way! But I liked my nose a bit shorter, try and do it the way you did last time.” Hermione sighed and set to work, muttering under her breath as she transformed various aspects of Ron’s appearance. He was to be given a completely fake identity, and they were trusting to the malevolent aura cast by Bellatrix to protect him. Meanwhile Harry and Griphook were to be concealed under the Indivisibility Cloak. “There,” said Hermione, “how does he look, Harry?” It was just possible to discern Ron under his disguise, but only, Harry thought, because he knew him so well. Ron’s hair was now long and wavy; he had a thick brown beard and mustache, no freckles, a short, broad nose, and heavy eyebrows. “Well, he’s not my type, but he’ll do,” said Harry.

pull Harry to his feet. “Yeah,” said Harry, straightening up. “What was it?” “Ton-Tongue Toffee,” said Fred brightly. “George and I invented them, and we’ve been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . .” The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers. “How’re you doing, Harry?” said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it. Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry’s hand. Bill came as something of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the Wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to

Two sailors hauled on ropes, hoisting the jolly boat up to the ship’s side, revealing two apocryphal figures standing in the center of the small craft. At first glance, Sophia only saw clearly the shorter of the two, a gruesome creature with long tangled hair and a painted face, wearing a tight-fitting burlap skirt and a makeshift corset fashioned from fishnet and mollusk shells. The Sea Queen, Sophia reckoned, a smile warming her cheeks as the crew erupted into raucous cheers. A bearded Sea Queen, no less, who bore a striking resemblance to the Aphrodite’s own grizzled steward. Stubb. Sophia craned her neck to spy Stubb’s consort, as the foremast blocked her view of Triton’s visage. She caught only a glimpse of a white toga draped over a bronzed, bare shoulder. She took a jostling step to the side, nearly tripping on a coil of rope. “Foolish mortals! Kneel before your king!” The assembled sailors knelt on cue, giving Sophia a direct view of the Sea King. And even if the blue paint smeared across his forehead or the strands of seaweed dangling from his belt might have disguised him, there was no mistaking that persuasive baritone. Mr. Grayson. There he stood, tall and proud, some twenty feet away from her. Bare-chested, save for a swath of white linen draped from hip to shoulder. Wet locks of hair slicked back from his tanned face, sunlight embossing every contour of his sculpted arms and chest. A pagan god come swaggering down to earth. He caught her eye, and his smile widened to a wolfish grin. Sophia could not for the life of her look away. He hadn’t looked at her like this since…since that night. He’d scarcely looked in her direction at all, and certainly never wearing a smile. The boldness of his gaze made her feel thoroughly unnerved, and virtually undressed. Until the very act of maintaining eye contact became an intimate, verging on indecent, experience. If she kept looking at him, she felt certain he knees would give out. If she looked away, she gave him the victory. There was only one suitable alternative, given the circumstances. With a cheeky wink to acknowledge the joke, Sophia dropped her eyes and curtsied to the King. Mr. Grayson laughed his approval. Her curtsy, the crew’s gesture of fealty-he accepted their obeisance as his due. And why should he not? There was a rightness about it somehow, an unspoken understanding. Here at last was their true leader: the man they would obey without question, the man to whom they’d pledge loyalty, even kneel. This was his ship. “Where’s the owner of this craft?” he called. “Oh, right. Someone told me he’s no fun anymore.” As the men laughed, the Sea King swung over the rail, hoisting what looked to be a mop handle with vague aspirations to become a trident. “Bring forth the virgin voyager!

Gene looked at me, and smiled kindly. “You never learn how to write a novel,” he told me. “You only learn to write the novel you’re on.” He was right. I’d learned to write the novel I was writing, and nothing more. Still, it was a fine, strange novel to have learned how to write. I was always aware of how very far short it fell of the beautiful, golden, gleaming, perfect book I had in my head, but even so, it made me happy. I grew a beard and I did not cut my hair while I was writing this book, and many people thought I was a trifle odd (although not the Swedes, who approved and told me that a king of theirs had done something very similar, only not with a novel). I shaved the beard off at the end of the first draft, and disposed of the unfeasibly long hair shortly after that. The second draft was mostly a process of excavation and clarification. Moments that needed to grow grew and moments that needed to be shorter were trimmed. I wanted it to be a number of things. I wanted to write a book that was big and odd and meandering, and I did and it was. I wanted to write a book that included all the parts of America that obsessed and delighted me, which tended to be the bits that never showed up in the films and television shows. I finished it, eventually, and I handed it in, taking a certain amount of comfort in the old saying that a novel can best be defined as a long piece of prose with something wrong with it, and I was fairly sure that I’d written one of those.

Toward an Organic Philosophy SPRING, COAST RANGE The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees. It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish, Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons; The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall. There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now. There were sheep here after the farm, and fire Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch, The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat And plate the surface like scales. Twenty years ago the spreading gully Toppled the big oak over onto the house. Now there is nothing left but the foundations Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge, Six lonely, ominous fenceposts; The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge Over the deep waterless creek bed; The hills are covered with wild oats Dry and white by midsummer. I walk in the random survivals of the orchard. In a patch of moonlight a mole Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein; Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean; Leo crouches under the zenith. There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees. The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible. As the wind dies down their fragrance Clusters around them like thick smoke. All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight They are silent and immaculate. SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant, Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes. I have seen its light over the warm sea, Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing; And the living light in the water Shivering away from the swimming hand, Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair. Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late, The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone. The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring: Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs, The glacier contracts and turns grayer, The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow, The sun moves through space and the earth with it, The stars change places. The snow has lasted longer this year, Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake, The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow, Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet, In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops, Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular Where it disappears again in the snow. The world is filled with hidden running water That pounds in the ears like ether; The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel; Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red, The white snow breaks at the edge of it; The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes Of someone kissed in sleep. I descend to camp, To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves, To the first violets and wild cyclamen, And cook supper in the blue twilight. All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves, In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass At the edge of the snow.

This was my first rebirth into a body of the same species. I found the transfer much more difficult than changing planets because I had so many expectations about being human already in place. Also, I’d inherited a lot of things from Petals Open to the Moon, and not all of them were pleasant. I’d inherited a great deal of grief for Cloud Spinner. I missed the mother I’d never known and mourned for her suffering now. Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale. I’d inherited unexpected limitations. I was used to a body that was strong and fast and tall—a body that could run for miles, go without food and water, lift heavy weights, and reach high shelves. This body was weak—and not just physically. This body seized up with crippling shyness every time I was unsure of myself, which seemed to be often these days. I’d inherited a different role in the human community. People carried things for me now and let me pass first into a room. They gave me the easiest chores and then, half the time, took the work right out of my hands anyway. Worse than that, I needed the help. My muscles were soft and not used to labor. I tired easily, and my attempts to hide that fooled no one. I probably couldn’t have run a mile without stopping. There was more to this easy treatment than just my physical weakness, though. I was used to a pretty face, but one that people were able to look at with fear, mistrust, even hatred. My new face defied such emotions. People touched my cheeks often, or put their fingers under my chin, holding my face up to see it better. I was frequently patted on my head (which was in easy reach, since I was shorter than everyone but the children), and my hair was stroked so regularly that I stopped noticing when it happened. Those who had never accepted me before did this as often as my friends.

When a little of his strength returned he moved onto his side, taking her with him, still a part of her. Her hair spilled over his naked chest like a rumpled satin waterfall, and he lifted a shaking hand to smooth it off her face, feeling humbled and blessed by her sweetness and unselfish ardor. Several minutes later Elizabeth stirred in his arms, and he tipped her chin up so that he could gaze into her eyes. “Have I ever told you that you are magnificent? She started to shake her head, then suddenly remembered that he had told her she was magnificent once before, and the recollection brought poignant tears to her eyes. “You did say that to me,” she amended, brushing her fingers over his smooth shoulder because she couldn’t seem to stop touching him. “You told me that when we were together-“ “In the woodcutter’s cottage,” he finished for her, recalling the occasion as well. In reply she had chided him for acting as if he also thought Charise Dumont was magnificent, Ian remembered, regretting all the time they had lost since then…the days and nights she could have been in his arms as she was now. “Do you know how I spent the rest of the afternoon after you left the cottage?” he asked softly. When she shook her head, he said with a wry smile, “I spent it pleasurably contemplating tonight. At the time, of course, I didn’t realize tonight was years away.” He paused to draw the sheet up over her back so she wouldn’t be chilled, then he continued in the same quiet voice, “I wanted you so badly that day that I actually ached while I watched you fasten that shirt you were wearing. Although,” he added dryly, “that particular condition, brought on by that particular cause, has become my normal state for the last four weeks, so I’m quite used to it now. I wonder if I’ll miss it,” he teased. “What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked, realizing that he was perfectly serious despite his light tone. “The agony of unfulfilled desire,” he explained, brushing a kiss on her forehead, “brought on by wanting you.” “Wanting me?” she burst out, rearing up so abruptly that she nearly overturned him as she leaned up on an elbow, absently clutching the sheet to her breasts. “Is this-what we’ve just done, I mean-“ “The Scots think of it as making love,” he interrupted gently. “Unlike most English,” he added with flat scorn, “who prefer to regard it as ‘performing one’s marital duty.’” “Yes,” Elizabeth said absently, her mind on his earlier remark about wanting her until it caused him physical pain, “but is this what you meant all those times you’ve said you wanted me?” His sensual lips quirked in a half smile. “Yes.” A rosy blush stained her smooth cheeks, and despite her effort to sound severe, her eyes were lit with laughter. “And the day we bargained about the betrothal, and you told me I had something you wanted very badly, what you wanted to do with me…was this?” “Among other things,” he agreed, tenderly brushing his knuckles over her flushed cheek. “If I had known all this,” she said with a rueful smile, “I’m certain I would have asked for additional concessions.” That startled him-the thought that she would have tried to drive a harder bargain if she’d realized exactly how much and what sort of power she really held. “What kind of additional concessions?” he asked, his face carefully expressionless. She put her cheek against his shoulder, her arms curving around him. “A shorter betrothal,” she whispered. “A shorter courtship, and a shorter ceremony.

Christine's heart is thumping wildly. She lets herself be led (her aunt means her nothing but good) into a tiled and mirrored room full of warmth and sweetly scented with mild floral soap and sprayed perfumes; an electrical apparatus roars like a mountain storm in the adjoining room. The hairdresser, a brisk, snub-nosed Frenchwoman, is given all sorts of instructions, little of which Christine understands or cares to. A new desire has come over her to give herself up, to submit and let herself be surprised. She allows herself to be seated in the comfortable barber's chair and her aunt disappears. She leans back gently, and, eyes closed in a luxurious stupor, senses a mechanical clattering, cold steel on her neck, and the easy incomprehensible chatter of the cheerful hairdresser; she breathes in clouds of fragrance and lets aromatic balms and clever fingers run over her hair and neck. Just don't open your eyes, she thinks. If you do, it might go away. Don't question anything, just savor this Sundayish feeling of sitting back for once, of being waited on instead of waiting on other people. Just let our hands fall into your lap, let good things happen to you, let it come, savor it, this rare swoon of lying back and being ministered to, this strange voluptuous feeling you haven't experienced in years, in decades. Eyes closed, feeling the fragrant warmth enveloping her, she remembers the last time: she's a child, in bed, she had a fever for days, but now it's over and her mother brings some sweet white almond milk, her father and her brother are sitting by her bed, everyone's taking care of her, everyone's doing things for her, they're all gentle and nice. In the next room the canary is singing mischievously, the bed is soft and warm, there's no need to go to school, everything's being done for her, there are toys on the bed, though she's too pleasantly lulled to play with them; no, it's better to close her eyes and really feel, deep down, the idleness, the being waited on. It's been decades since she thought of this lovely languor from her childhood, but suddenly it's back: her skin, her temples bathed in warmth are doing the remembering. A few times the brisk salonist asks some question like, 'Would you like it shorter?' But she answers only, 'Whatever you think,' and deliberately avoids the mirror held up to her. Best not to disturb the wonderful irresponsibility of letting things happen to you, this detachment from doing or wanting anything. Though it would be tempting to give someone an order just once, for the first time in your life, to make some imperious demand, to call for such and such. Now fragrance from a shiny bottle streams over her hair, a razor blade tickles her gently and delicately, her head feels suddenly strangely light and the skin of her neck cool and bare. She wants to look in the mirror, but keeping her eyes closed in prolonging the numb dreamy feeling so pleasantly. Meanwhile a second young woman has slipped beside her like a sylph to do her nails while the other is waving her hair. She submits to it all without resistance, almost without surprise, and makes no protest when, after an introductory 'Vous etes un peu pale, Mademoiselle,' the busy salonist, employing all manner of pencils and crayons, reddens her lips, reinforces the arches of her eyebrows, and touches up the color of her cheeks. She's aware of it all and, in her pleasant detached stupor, unaware of it too: drugged by the humid, fragrance-laden air, she hardly knows if all this happening to her or to some other, brand-new self. It's all dreamily disjointed, not quite real, and she's a little afraid of suddenly falling out of the dream.

The ambulance came, and they all followed it to the hospital. Sarah was pronounced dead when she got there. She was gone. I know there are families who have had tragedies. But we were always somehow spared. There’s a comfort you slip into as good Christians. God’s got his angels over me, you think. I was taught—and generations before me believed—that we were protected. Without that blind faith, what did we have? Mom and I got on the next flight home. I was in shock, I realize now, thinking if we did everything right, we would somehow undo the reality. Maybe like Aunt Debbie’s prayers. I thought we would go up in the air and then touch down on a world where this hadn’t happened. Going through the clouds, I put my head down on my mother’s lap. I don’t know if I fell asleep, but I had a dream that I had fallen asleep, if that makes sense. Whether it was a dream or a vision, Sarah came to me. She had her long curly hair again. She had gotten her hair cut shorter a few weeks before and told me she hated it. But there it was. “I’m okay,” she said, giving me that smile she gave me every time she gently shook her head and told me to relax. “Please tell my mom I’m okay. Please give her a hug for me.” Mom stroked my hair, and I sat up. “Sarah just came to me in a dream,” I told her, adding what she’d said about her mom. “Well, you should let Aunt Debbie know,” she said. “She needs to hear that.

smiled a real smile, then looked from Daegan back to him and nodded. Not sure why she wanted Daegan to explain—or how he even knew all the information that suddenly flashed in his mind—he nevertheless answered for her. “She is from a lost race that is from deep within the mountains. There are not many left of her kind... the Ehsmia. They have gifts beyond those of other Faeries, but I’m not sure all of what they can do. They keep to themselves, but she knew we were coming so she came out to meet us.” He frowned. Turning to Ella, he asked, “Why us? I do not understand how you know what we are looking for, let alone that we are looking at all.” “In due time, all will be revealed to you,” she said, looking deeply into his eyes, boring into his soul. It was personal and invasive, but before he could look away, she released him, leaving him with a sensation of warmth spreading throughout his body. “You are ready, Daegan of the Ferrishyn. Do not fear your destiny.” She inclined her head slightly, but Daegan could only frown, feeling a sense of foreboding, as though everything was about to change. What is she talking about? “The Ehsmia? I have heard stories... legends of your people. You are also called the Hidden People, are you not?” Hal asked in awe. When Ella only nodded, he continued. “I thought your people were no more, if they even had existed at all.” He did not mean to be rude. “That is how we prefer to be known... or not known at all. Otherwise, what purpose would our hiding be if we were known?” she said with a smirk on her face but said no more. Ella turned to face the rock wall, which looked like a crumbling ruin of what was at one time a part of a great wall. It was built into the side of the Kandrian Mountains. Hal’s look of confusion mirrored Daegan’s own. Hal finally shrugged his shoulders, figuring they would understand “in due time.” Oddly, his typical nonchalant response gave Daegan a sense of calm. Staring at the rocks that made up the wall for what seemed several minutes but in reality was probably much shorter, Ella laid her hand flat onto a rock that suddenly appeared smoother and duller than all the other old, jagged stones. There was a rumbling of the ground that stopped as suddenly as it started. She gave them a sneaky smile. Daegan still wasn’t sure he trusted her, but at this point it seemed she might be the only one with answers of any kind. “Are you ready to follow where not many have been before, a land within a land?” she asked. Without waiting for their answer, she turned around and walked straight into the rock wall, which had magically become an illusion. Daegan and Hal both knew there was magic in Alandria and that every species had their own type of magic. They had their own magic as well, but they had only heard of this kind of magic in their own legends. Halister and Daegan quickly followed Ella, not wanting to get shut out of what could be their only opportunity to see where the Hidden People were, well, hidden. CHAPTER FIVE It was dark, yet they had no trouble following Ella through the murky tunnel of rock and stone that looked worn from centuries of use and natural erosion. Other than the thin layer of water trickling over some of the stones, it was silent and peaceful. They had been following a star, literally, for the past several minutes, but it wasn’t above them. Ella’s short, jagged snow-white hair allowed them to see the back of her neck, upon which was a horizontally stretched eight-point star from which a soft blue light emanated, marking her as other. Assuming she could see in the dark, they kept following and soon the tunnel began to lighten. Green leafy vines began crawling up the sides of the

Photographs from Distant Places (1) In distant villages, You always see the same scenes: Farms Cattle Worship spaces Small local shops. Just basic the things humans need To endure life. (2) ‘Can you stay with me forever?’ She asked him in the airport, While hugging him tightly in her arms. ‘Sorry, I can’t. My flight leaves in two hours and a half.’ He responded with an artificially caring voice, As he kissed her on her right cheek. (3) I was walking in one of Bucharest’s old streets, In a neighborhood that looked harshly beaten by Time, And severely damaged by development and globalization. I saw a poor homeless man Combing his dirty hair In a side mirror of a modern and expensive car! (4) The shape and the color of the eyes don’t matter. What matters is that, As soon as you gaze into them, You know that they have seen a lot. All eyes that dare to bear witness To what they have seen are beautiful. (5) A stranger asked me how I chose my path in life. I told him: ‘I never chose anything, my friend.’ My path has always been like someone forced to sit In an airplane on a long flight. Forced to sit with the condition Of keeping the seatbelt on at all times, Until the end of the flight. Here I am still sitting with the seatbelt on. I can neither move Nor walk. I can’t even throw myself out of the plane’s emergency exit To end this forced flight! (6) After years of searching and observing, I discovered that despair’s favorite hiding place Is under business suits and tuxedos. Under jewelry and expensive night gowns. Despair dances at the tables where Expensive wines of corruption And delicious dinners of betrayal are served. (7) Oh, my poet friend, Did you know that The bouquet of fresh flowers in that vase On your table is not a source of inspiration or creativity? The vase is just a reminder Of a flower massacre that took place recently In a field Where these poor flowers happened to be. It was their fate to have their already short lives cut shorter, To wither and wilt in your vase, While breathing the not-so-fresh air In your room, As you sit down at your table And write your vain words. (8) Under authoritarian regimes, 99.9% of the population vote for the dictator. Under capitalist ‘democratic’ regimes, 99.9% of people love buying and consuming products Made and sold by the same few corporations. Awe to those societies where both regimes meet to create a united vicious alliance against the people! To create a ‘nation’ Of customers, not citizens! (9) The post-revolution leaders are scavengers not hunters. They master the art of eating up The dead bodies and achievements Of the fools who sacrificed themselves For the ‘revolution’ and its ideals. Is this the paradox and the irony of all revolutions? (10) Every person is ugly if you take a close look at them, And beautiful, if you take a closer look. (11) Just as wheat fields can’t thrive Under the shadow of other trees, Intellectuals, too, can’t thrive under the shadow Of any power or authority. (12) We waste so much time trying to change others. Others waste so much time thinking they are changing. What a waste! October 20, 2015

Becca and Danielle looked at each other joyously. What a pair they made: Becca, dark-skinned, shorter and chunkier than Danielle, wearing a flashy pair of jams, her thick hair arranged in ponytails; and Danielle, still pale, with the shape of a bean pole, wearing droopy jeans and her even droopier "BALD IS BEAUTIFUL" T-shirt, a blue-and-green scarf not really hiding her almost bald head.

It’s a guy maybe an inch or two shorter than my six one frame with dirty-blond hair, warm hazel eyes, and a cute smile. He looks too thin to be a hockey player.

You're a liar, and worse-- you broke my heart. You're not a mother. You're a villain." Gothel's eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and hung there as though even she was a little curious as to what she would say, what words would come and bring the situation back under her control. "I would rather take my chances with an honest villain like Bathory!" Rapunzel hissed. "Get out of my sight and never let me see you again!" "Or what?" Gothel asked, a knowing, nasty tone in her voice: her real voice. "What could you do to me, Rapunzel? I am your mother, and besides that I control all of these sword-playing idiots." "Did you forget that I'm a crown princess? And a powerful witch who can control her hair now. Or did you think the castle just fell on its own today? "Either way, your time with me is over, if you know what is good for you." The two women glared at each other. And after a minute, Rapunzel realized that's what they were: two women. Despite being younger and shorter than Gothel, she wasn't a girl anymore. She had power and will and a stubborn disposition. "Go. Now," she ordered. "Never approach me again." Her mother started to growl something-- "What's that? I can't hear you. All that mumbling," Rapunzel said airily, and walked away, turning her back on the woman forever.

Jacinta and I shared a doll. I don’t know where it came from, but it wasn’t from a shop because by the time we adopted her, she was missing her shoes and socks. We named her Grace. She had long, curly hair until Jacinta cut it short and I cut it even shorter. We scribbled nonsense on her body with felt tips and tried to rub it off with cotton balls soaked in nail varnish. We fought over her so hard, Jacinta at one end, me at the other, we pulled her head clean off and agreed to play separately with the two parts of her until Mum found a way to reattach the decapitated head, saying, “You can forget about a hamster.

While those eating plant-based diets appear to enjoy lower risk of cardiovascular disease and longer lives,3719 those eating low-carb diets suffer significantly higher rates of cardiovascular disease and shorter lives—a 22 percent increase in overall mortality risk.3720 So, the side effects of low-carb ketogenic diets may not only include, as a recent review recited, “chronic fatigue, nausea, headaches, hair loss, reduced tolerance to alcohol, reduced physical performance, heart palpitations, leg cramps, dry mouth, bad taste, bad breath, gout, or constipation,”3721 but premature death as well.3722

With a snarl of pain, she forced herself to sit up, her head spinning with the sudden movement. One hand touched her temple, sticky with dried blood. She winced, feeling a gash along her eyebrow. It was long but shallow, and already scabbing over. She clenched her jaw, teeth grinding, as she surveyed the beach with squinting eyes. The ocean stared back at her, empty and endless, a wall of iron blue. Then she noticed shapes along the beach, some half-buried in the sand, others caught in the rhythmic pull of the tide. She narrowed her eyes and the shapes solidified. A torn length of sail floated, tangled up with rope. A shattered piece of the mast angled out of the sand like a pike. Smashed crates littered the beach, along with other debris from the ship. Bits of hull. Rigging. Oars snapped in half. The bodies moved with the waves. Her steady breathing lost its rhythm, coming in shorter and shorter gasps until she feared her throat might close. Her thoughts scattered, impossible to grasp. All thoughts but one. “DOMACRIDHAN!” Her shout echoed, desperate and ragged. “DOMACRIDHAN!” Only the waves answered, crashing endless against the shore. She forgot her training and forced herself to stand, nearly falling over with dizziness. Her limbs aches but she ignored it, lunging toward the waterline. Her lips moved, her voice shouting his name again, though she couldn’t hear it above the pummel of her own heart. Sorasa Sarn was no stranger to corpses. She splashed into the waves with abandon, even as her head spun. Sailor, sailor, sailor, she noted, her desperation rising with every Tyri uniform and head of black hair. One of them looked ripped in half, missing everything from the waist down. His entrails floated with the rear of him, like a length of bleached rope. She suspected a shark got the best of him. Then her memories returned with a crash like the waves. The Tyri ship. Nightfall. The sea serpent slithering up out of the deep. The breaking of a lantern. Fire across the deck, slick scales running over my hands. The swing of a greatsword, Elder-made. Dom silhouetted against a sky awash with lightning. And then the cold, drowning darkness of the ocean. A wave splashed up against her and Sorasa stumbled back to the shore, shivering. She had not waded more than waist deep, but her face felt wet, water she could not understand streaking her cheeks. Her knees buckled and she fell, exhausted. She heaved a breath, then two. And screamed. Somehow the pain in her head paled in comparison to the pain in her heart. It dismayed and destroyed her in equal measure. The wind blew, stirring salt-crusted hair across her face, sending a chill down to her soul. It was like the wilderness all over again, the bodies of her Amhara kin splayed around her. No, she realized, her throat raw. This is worse. There is not even a body to mourn. She contemplated the emptiness for awhile, the beach and the waves, and the bodies gently pressing into the shore. If she squinted, they could only be debris from the ship, bits of wood instead of bloated flesh and bone. The sun glimmered on the water. Sorasa hated it. Nothing but clouds since Orisi, and now you choose to shine.

She was several inches shorter than me, her chin-length black hair glossy and straight, her skin tan and smooth, and her face—pretty, bordering on plain—was bored, if not mildly irritated. But Amren’s eyes … Her silver eyes were unlike anything I’d ever seen; a glimpse into the creature that I knew in my bones wasn’t High Fae. Or hadn’t been born that way. The silver in Amren’s eyes seemed to swirl like smoke under glass. She wore pants and a top like those I’d worn at the other mountain-palace, both in shades of pewter and storm cloud, and pearls—white and gray and black—adorned her ears, fingers, and wrists. Even the High Lord at my side felt like a wisp of shadow compared to the power thrumming from her.

Since you seemed to think that we would be doing a good amount of fighting here, shorter hair is more useful. Though I can’t say that your hair might be considered the same. You might as well have dyed it blue.” “Hush. Your hair was so pretty. I was hoping you’d let me braid it one day. I suppose I’ll have to buy a pony instead.” She cocked her head. “When you shift, will your hawk form be plucked, then?” His nostrils flared, and she clamped her lips together to keep from laughing.

As usual, Roman’s dark brown hair – shorter at the sides but longer on top – hung into his eyes, his shirt was half untucked, his tie was loose, and he carried his skateboard in one hand, his other hand a fist.

Lula is two inches shorter than me and has a lot more volume. Much of the volume is in boobs and booty, giving her a voluptuousness that would be hard to duplicate with surgery. Lula achieved her voluptuousness the old-fashioned way. Pork chops, fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, tubs of mac and cheese and potato salad, barbecue ribs, chili hot dogs. Her hair was magenta today. Her skin is polished mahogany. Her dress and five-inch stiletto heels are from her Saturday night ’ho collection and two sizes too small. The overall effect is spectacular, as usual. I

Dead leaves scatter, caught and swirling in smoky exhaust. Now the hiss of hydraulic brakes, the ticking blinker, the whine of straining gears as the bus disappears down the city hill like some mechanical land-whale sounding in a concrete sea. A young soldier stands alone on the curb. She thumbs her earbuds in, cranks her music up, slings her service pack on and walks the empty morning sidewalk toward home. Passing a pawnshop, she spots her reflection in the glass and stops to look—Taller, broader, her hair shorter than before—she isn’t sure who she is, who she has become. All she knows for sure is she isn’t who she was when she left. Nobody is, and nobody ever will be. The streets are quiet, even for the early hour. A digital clock on an unfinished bank building behind her blinks mindlessly, the red numbers reversed in the glass. She’s turning to read the time when she’s caught by the flash. A bright magnesium burn in the corner of the gray sky. Bright and then brighter. Then the heat hits. She stiffens, her skin crawling with searing pain. Weightless now, she’s floating above the blinding street, a garbage can suspended beside her, its contents already aflame. When she hits

Cookie, I thought when I looked at Ellie. Not that I wanted to eat her. I wasn't a cannibal or anything. But she reminded me of the cookies my mother baked when her bridge group came to our house. The smell of them in the oven was all rich vanilla and spice, oh-so-sweet. Ellie was a little shorter than me, with endless curves that swooped and dipped, creamy skin sprinkled with cinnamon freckles up and down her arms and across her round cheeks. Her short hair fell in soft honey-colored curls, and her big blue eyes... well, that's where the whole cookie idea fell down, but they made me think of my favorite pair of worn-out jeans. But back to those cookies. Every time, I'd tiptoe to the cooling rack and reach for one perfectly round, warm cookie when I thought Mom wasn't looking. And every time, out of nowhere, she'd slap my grubby hand away, snapping, "Not for you." Ellie may have looked warm and round, but she had "not for you" written all over her.

[describing Aaron, hero's brother] His hair was shorter and lighter, and his eyes were more green than blue. And even though he was tall, he wasn’t quite super-sized. He was more sculpted, more … elegant. more slender and beautiful and less raw-boned. Less Stone Age and more Bronze Age—but till the kind of man who enjoyed living in a cave.

Burial of the dead was usually on platforms lashed to the limbs of trees beyond the reach of wolves. Securely wrapped in buffalo robes, firmly bound with rawhide thongs, the bodies were safe from ravens, crows, and magpies. Weapons and pipes were buried with warriors, root-diggers and cooking utensils with the women. Often a number of horses were killed at the burial of a warrior, so that his spirit might ride in The Sand Hills, the Heaven of the Blackfeet. In mourning for a son, or other male relative, both men and women scarified themselves, and cut off their hair, the women wailing piteously, sometimes for long periods. The mourning for women was of shorter duration, and not so wild.

cried the entire time my mom shaved my head. She wanted to cut it shorter and wait, but I wanted to be in control. I needed to be in control. I was going to make the decision of when my hair got to leave my body. Not someone else or my cancer. People

the hair hierarchy rates worth by length and texture of hair. The longer, silkier, and more European your hair, the higher your worth. The shorter, kinkier, and more African your hair? Kill thyself. I

During this period, I served many celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Vince Vaughn, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Rob Lowe, Colin Farrell, Tom Selleck, David Spade, Thomas Haden Church, Sharon Osbourne, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tara Reid, Toby Maguire and Diane Keaton. You know all of them, so no explanation needed. The hardest thing about serving such famous Hollywood icons, at least for the first time, is trying not to stare at them. It’s so otherworldly to see someone like Selleck, who’s not just huge -he’s bigger than life- and who you´ve watched on big screen and small for years… they are, invariably, taller or shorter than you’d imagined. And the women are either spectacularly beautiful or very ordinary without screen makeup. But you can’t stare. It’s verbatim by ownership. Brad Pitt was cool and very humble. He had a few Pyramid beers with a producer friend, and then took off on his motorcycle down Sunset Boulevard, heading West towards the Palisades. Am I saying that he was driving drunk? No. He was there for two hours and had two beers, so he wasn’t breaking the law. At least not with my assistance. He had been there many times before, I just hadn’t been the one serving him. I remember when he came in during his filming of Troy. He had long hair and a cast on his leg. Ironically, he had torn his Achilles’ tendon while playing Achilles in the epic film.

All right there, mate?’ Clark jumped and turned round. He straightened up and looked at Billy, recognition taking a few seconds. Billy’s hair was shorter now, and his face was tanned. ‘Christ, you startled me,’ he said. ‘What have you got there?’ Clark held up the jar by a piece of tatty string. ‘Sticklebacks!’ For a moment his blue eyes shone with excitement, then they clouded over. He ran a wet hand through his red hair and swept it off his face. His freckles were more pronounced than usual, and for a moment Billy saw him as an eleven-year-old again. He felt his throat constrict, which made his next sentence a strangled croak. ‘We had fun, didn’t we, Clark?’ Clark snorted and set the jar of fish down on a large stone. He waded out of the water and sat down heavily on the bank. Billy edged closer and then tentatively sat down next to him. ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ said Clark. ‘Look, Clark. Can’t we be friends again?’ ‘Can’t we be friends again?’ mimicked Clark. ‘We’re not in the school playground now, Billy.’ ‘Why did you come here?’ asked Billy. Clark thought for a moment. ‘To reflect.’ He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a brown envelope. ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting it into Billy’s hands. Billy opened the envelope and stared at the contents. ‘You’ve been called up?’ ‘Military training,’ explained Clark. Billy knew it was only a matter of time. Since Parliament had passed the Act in April, all men aged twenty and twenty-one were required to undertake six months’ military training. He didn’t know what to say. ‘Clark, look …’ He passed the envelope back. ‘How’s Chrissie?’ asked Clark, looking Billy directly in the eye. Billy was taken by surprise at the sudden mention of her name and picked at a blade of grass. ‘She’s fine, thanks. In fact she’s with me now, over there.’ Clark looked in the direction of Billy’s finger and Chrissie slid out sheepishly from behind a tree.

It’s for you, Gabby!” Rachel called from the kitchen.  A hint of laughter laced her voice. I moved toward the kitchen, wondering why Nicole had gone to the back door.  When I saw who stood just outside, I stopped abruptly. He stood motionless in the yellow glow of the porch light.  The blue coveralls he wore had the name Clay sewn on the right pocket.  Spattered patterns of grease stained the material, and one arm had a tear, making the getup look far from new.  I’d never seen the coveralls before but didn’t give it much thought as I stared at his face.  I could actually see it.  Well, sort of. Our eyes met, and I couldn’t look away.  He’d pulled his hair back into a ponytail, fully exposing a broad forehead, nicely shaped eyebrows, and thickly lashed brown eyes, for the first time.  His beard covered most of his cheekbones, but everything above his upper lip, he had trimmed shorter. Stunned, I said nothing in greeting.  I could feel Rachel’s curious gaze flicking between the two of us.  His eyes crinkled at the corners, and I knew he smiled at my reaction.  It warmed my stomach and set my heart fluttering. Thankfully,

Doing as many makeovers as I do, I’ve learned a few things about what makes women feel better about themselves. The starting point is usually getting a new haircut. I don’t want to generalize, because every case is different, but I think it’s best to err on the side of styling your hair shorter the older you get. In my opinion, it’s generally not a good look for women over thirty to have hair way below their shoulders.

Wheeler was the kind of guy I’d be wary to have in my section. His arms were covered with tattoos, and he wore a sleeveless shirt to show them off. No smile touched his face behind the facial hair that surrounded his mouth but didn’t extend up to his ears in a full beard. His scruffy brown hair was styled shorter on the sides and fell all over the place on top. He had a morose expression as he leaned on the table and sipped his whiskey, sliding his bright eyes up to mine without saying a word. Dark, Dannika (2014-07-27). Five Weeks (Seven Series #3) (p. 63). . Kindle Edition.

My motto? Don’t trust someone who is just as cagey as yourself." "What kind of detective are you?” “A lousy one and proud of it. I write, remember?” She looked down at her hand & laughed. “Berretta doesn’t make lighters.” "Why I was a writer! My life revolved around fiction. I could make something up" "She looked down at her hand & laughed. “Berretta doesn’t make lighters.” "So they're not Tolstoy, they're a little shorter...Okay, okay a lot. Go ahead, read my mystery series anyway." "A detective has their boundaries especially me. So mine shifted occasionally...okay a lot" “Beat it, Buster. My temper and this mace have a hair trigger.” “Interference could be lethal.” I got right up in his face, hissing, “Don’t push me, I’m hormonal.” I'm not really a lousy detective, just rough around the edges.

A brother and two sisters, all blond-haired and blue-eyed.” Andrea noted that Sarah’s eyes were green. She noticed a few other differences too. Sarah’s lips were thinner, her hair was several inches shorter, and she had a small birthmark on the side of her jaw. Her eyebrows were thicker and unplucked, whereas Andrea carefully shaped her

At her age, another woman would wear her hair shorter and her skirts lower. But Linda had that classic Nordic skin: pale, soft and clean looking. The kind of woman who doesn’t need to wear much if any makeup. She wore lightly-applied lipstick, but kept her blond hair basic. Sometimes she let it flow, easy and beautiful; other times, done up tightly with bobby pins. No matter, because she was Beauty, the men Beasts. Her clothes were simple, too, not plain, but easy on the eyes, like her face. Easy on the eyes. She was the kind of a good lookin’ dame you’d be proud to call your wife. She was innocent looking; yeah, well, that’s one in her favor. Because men trusted her, because she acted with such guileless innocence, she became confessor to numbers of men with no one else to turn to. The cigarette girl. “Hey, babe!” Gunnar Swernbernin shouted as he snuck up behind Linda at the Club Festival. “Eowww!” she shrieked as Gunnar grabbed her around the midsection. Linda turned quickly around and slapped her molester. The sound reverberated throughout the club. “Ouch!” Gunnar yelled. “You didn’t have to do that!” “Buster,” she yelled back, “the next time you touch me, prepare to die!

Newt realized that he obviously didn't have the face that went with haircuts. The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair.

A fourth man entered, this guy a little shorter than the others, but wider, and hard to see when your eyes are blurring. He was in his fifties, with crinkly gray hair and a florid face and a dark blue shirt open at the neck to show a lot of grizzled chest hair. He was also holding a McDonald’s soft drink cup. Large. I guess that’s where Dmitri got it from.

The clurichaun wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests. Not only was he short—four feet at best—but he was rather squat. Not brawny, but of a sturdy build with shorter-than-average legs and overly long arms. His face, which could best be described as having been sculpted by a young child, didn’t improve upon his unusual proportions. His nose was bulbous and lumpy, his ears stuck out from his head, and his short hair shot out from his head in uneven spikes. His clothes were another matter entirely. The stained and ripped jeans were held up by a twine belt, and the faded plaid shirt was half-untucked, missing buttons, and one arm was holding on to the body of the shirt by a thread. “Oh,

You’re going to what?” It wasn’t anything Sean hadn’t asked himself every five minutes or so since getting sucked into Emma’s plan, but it sounded different when his cousin said it. Or maybe it was Kevin’s subsequent pointing and laughing his ass off that changed the tone. “It’s only a month,” Sean said, maybe a little defensively. The shorter, dark-haired waitress—Darcy, he thought her name was—put a beer in front of him and he took a long pull. He’d been looking forward to it all day. Kevin looked skeptical. “A month of living with a total stranger, pretending you’re so madly in love with her you’re going to marry her? For real?” “No, not for real, moron. For pretend. That’s the point.” His cousin laughed some more, then pulled out his cell phone and started texting. Sean craned his neck, but couldn’t see the screen. “What the hell are you doing?” Kevin chuckled. “Telling my wife.” “You could have waited until I went upstairs.” “No, I really couldn’t.” Kevin shut his phone, but it was only a few seconds before it chimed. He looked at the screen, chuckled, then was texting again. Sean pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Kevin. I’m still here, asshole. Send. A couple minutes later, Kevin grinned and slid his phone back in his pocket. “Beth wants to know the sleeping arrangements since there’s no way even a grandmother will buy a separate-bedrooms story.” “Beth wants to know, huh?” “Trust me, by now the whole family wants to know.” Sean was tempted to bang his head against the bar, but he wouldn’t be able to knock himself out, so he didn’t waste the effort. “There’s a sofa in the bedroom. She’ll sleep on it and I get the bed.” “Chivalrous.” “I’m too tall for a sofa.” “I don’t know Emma well, but I seem to recall she’s not exactly short.” Kevin gave him a knowing look. “Not exactly hard on the eyes, either.” That she wasn’t.

I need you and Dennis on the house. Two men, twenties to thirties, dark hair straight and on the long side, five-eight to five-ten. The shorter guy is probably Latino.” “They at your place now?” “No, but they’ll be back. They made keys.” “Ah. You want’m field dressed?” “Just let me know.