Stiff Book Quotes

Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.

A gunslinger knows pride, that invisible bone that keeps the neck stiff.

He wants to accomplish something in life, learn languages, see the world, read a thousand books, he wants to discover whether there is any core, but sometimes it's hard to think and read when one is stiff and sore after a difficult fishing voyage, wet and cold after twelve hours' working in the meadows, when his thoughts can be so heavy that he can hardly lift them, then it's a long way to the core.

There was, in fact, a street sign to that effect—the first I’d seen in all of Devil’s Acre. Louche Lane, it read in fancy handwritten script. Piracy discouraged. “Discouraged?” I said. “Then what’s murder? Frowned upon?” “I believe murder is ‘tolerated with reservations.’ ” “Is anything illegal here?” Addison asked. “Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that’s just for paperbacks.” “There’s a library?” “Two. Though one won’t lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.

I believe murder is ‘tolerated with reservations.’ ” “Is anything illegal here?” Addison asked. “Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that’s just for paperbacks.” “There’s a library?” “Two. Though one won’t lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.

The picture he was cleaning showed an armored figure standing in a desolate landscape. It had no weapon, but held a staff bearing a strange, stiff banner. The visor of this figure’s helmet was entirely of gold, without eye slits or ventilation; in its polished surface the deathly desert could be seen in reflection, and nothing more.

Pearsall is not a doctor, or not, at least, one of the medical variety. He is a doctor of the variety that gets a Ph.D. and attaches it to his name on self-help book covers.

Lyra at eighteen sitting intent and absorbed in Duke Humfrey’s Library with the alethiometer and a pile of leather-bound books. Tucking the hair back behind her ears, pencil in mouth, finger moving down a list of symbols, Pantalaimon holding the stiff old pages open for her … “Look, Pan, there’s a pattern there—see? That’s why they’re in that sequence!” And it felt as if the sun had come out. It was the second thing she said to Will next day in the Botanic Garden.

The habit of grown-ups reading living books and retaining the power to digest them will be lost if we refuse to give a little time for Mother Culture. A wise mother, an admired mother and wife, when asked how, with her weak physical health and many demands on her time, she managed to read so much said, "Besides my Bible, I always keep three books going that are just for me - a stiff book, a moderately easy book, and a novel or one of poetry. I always take up the one I feel fit for. That is the secret: always have something 'going' to grow by.

To be a mortician was a calling. And there was beauty after death, like a wilted rose, petals stiff and fragile. Timeless and enchanting. A casted spell and oldest tale. Stories frozen in time within the ruins.

Ah, well,’ I said resignedly, ‘if that’s that, that’s that, what?’ ‘So it would appear, sir.’ ‘Nothing to do but keep the chin up and the upper lip as stiff as can be managed. I think I’ll go to bed with an improving book. Have you read The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish by Rex West?

The end had left them stiff and fragile, unable to accept that the suburbs were gone, that there was no more escaping the mob, no more pretending floors and toilets scrubbed themselves and reading about black people in monthly book clubs the way you’d read about the construction of London’s sewers or the history of the fur trade, as a kind of boutique curiosity, instead of actually talking to them.

what freedom is to Americans, thoroughness to Germans, and the stiff upper lip to the British, hygge is to Danes.

The way the crotch of my jeans are constructed makes it look like I have an erection when I don’t. That’s why I wear Spandex—so the whole world can see exactly when I’m stiff.

But there was something to be said for a miraculously cooler day, a stiff breeze, and a good book.

The Lawyers Know Too Much THE LAWYERS, Bob, know too much. They are chums of the books of old John Marshall. They know it all, what a dead hand wrote, A stiff dead hand and its knuckles crumbling, The bones of the fingers a thin white ash. The lawyers know a dead man’s thoughts too well. In the heels of the higgling lawyers, Bob, Too many slippery ifs and buts and howevers, Too much hereinbefore provided whereas, Too many doors to go in and out of. When the lawyers are through What is there left, Bob? Can a mouse nibble at it And find enough to fasten a tooth in? Why is there always a secret singing When a lawyer cashes in? Why does a hearse horse snicker Hauling a lawyer away? The work of a bricklayer goes to the blue. The knack of a mason outlasts a moon. The hands of a plasterer hold a room together. The land of a farmer wishes him back again. Singers of songs and dreamers of plays Build a house no wind blows over. The lawyers—tell me why a hearse horse snickers hauling a lawyer’s bones.

Afternoons, when the fossil sea was warm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the yard, and the little distant Martian bone town was all enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr. K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp. And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient men had carried clouds of metal insects and electric spiders into battle.

For folks who have that casual-dude energy coursing through their bloodstream, that's great. But gays should not grow up alienated just for us to alienate each other. It's too predictable, like any other cycle of abuse. Plus, the conformist, competitive notion that by "toning down" we are "growing up" ultimately blunts the radical edge of what it is to be queer; it truncates our colorful journey of identity. Said another way, it's like living in West Hollywood and working a gay job by day and working it in the gay nightlife, wearing delicate shiny shirts picked from up the gay dry cleaners, yet coquettishly left unbuttoned to reveal the pec implants purchased from a gay surgeon and shown off by prancing around the gay-owned-and-operated theater hopped up on gay health clinic steroids and wheat grass purchased from the friendly gay boy who's new to the city, and impressed by the monstrous SUV purchased from a gay car dealership with its rainbow-striped bumper sticker that says "Celebrate Diversity." Then logging on to the local Gay.com listings and describing yourself as "straight-acting." Let me make myself clear. This is not a campaign for everyone to be like me. That'd be a total yawn. Instead, this narrative is about praise for the prancy boys. Granted, there's undecided gender-fucks, dagger dykes, faux-mos, po-mos, FTMs, fisting-top daddies, and lezzie looners who also need props for broadening the sexual spectrum, but they're telling their own stories. The Cliff's Notes of me and mine are this: the only moments I feel alive are when I'm just being myself - not some stiff-necked temp masquerading as normal in the workplace, not some insecure gay boy aspiring to be an overpumped circuit queen, not some comic book version of swank WeHo living. If that's considered a political act in the homogenized world of twenty-first century homosexuals, then so be it. — excerpt of "Praise For The Prancy Boys," by Clint Catalyst appears in first edition (ISBN # 1-932360-56-5)

But reading is different, reading is something you do. With TV, and cinema for that matter, everything’s handed to you on a plate, nothing has to be worked at, they just spoon-feed you. The picture, the sound, the scenery, the atmospheric music in case you haven’t understood what the director’s on about… The creaking door that tells you to be stiff. You have to imagine it all when you’re reading.

It was their haughtiness that preserved them intact from all human sympathy, from arousing the least interest in the strangers seated round about them, among whom M. de Stermaria kept up the glacial, preoccupied, distant, stiff, touchy and ill-intentioned air that we assume in a railway refreshment-room in the midst of fellow-passengers whom we have never seen before and will never see again, and with whom we can conceive of no other relations than to defend from their onslaught our cold chicken and our corner seat in the train.

Stiff, like a guest, Fluid, like thawing ice, Dense, like the un-carved block, Empty, like the valley,

This is a book about notable achievements made while dead.

The passive stiffness of a joint reflects properties of the muscle tissue, joint capsule, tendons, skin and geometry of the joint.

Darling, you know how I like the sight of a stiff one.

It is always said that we may take no earthly treasures with us when we die. No money or possessions, none of our beauty or power. That is correct. Some who have switched worlds have been intensely bewildered at first that they were unable to carry anything tangible with them. But there's a second truth. We can take anything with us that we could not hoard during our lifetimes because it could only be felt, sometimes for a few brief heartbeats, sometimes only in secret. We can take joy with us, and love. Every beautiful moment from our lives. All the light we have peacefully admired, all the lovely scents and laughter and friendship we have collected. Every kiss, every caress, and every song. The wind on our faces; tango; music; the rustle of autumn grass, stiff with frozen dew; the twinkle of the stars; contentment; courage; and generosity. All those things we many take with us. All that is in between.

One of the seminar organizers joins me. "Is Yvonne giving you a hard time?" Yvonne. My nemesis is none other than the cadaver beheader. As if turns out, she's also the lab manager, the person responsible when things go wrong, such as writers fainting and/or getting sick to their stomach and then going home and writing books that refer to anatomy lab managers as beheaders.

Anne Frank is best known as the writer of her world-famous diary, though she tried her hand at other genres as well. Between September 1943 and May 1944, Anne wrote numerous stories, fairy tales, essays and personal reminiscences in a stiff-backed notebook reserved for that purpose. She did her utmost to make it resemble a real book, copying her stories neatly into the notebook and adding a title page, a table of contents, page numbers and so forth. Her collection of tales is now reproduced here in full, in a new translation, in the exact order in which she wrote them in her notebook.

I got back from the University late in the afternoon, had a quick swim, ate my dinner, and bolted off to the Stanton house to see Adam. I saw him sitting out on the galley reading a book (Gibbon, I remember) in the long twilight. And I saw Anne. I was sitting in the swing with Adam, when she came out the door. I looked at her and knew that it had been a thousand years since I had last seen her back at Christmas when she had been back at the Landing on vacation from Miss Pound's School. She certainly was not now a little girl wearing round-toed, black patent-leather, flat-heeled slippers held on by a one-button strap and white socks held up by a dab of soap. She was wearing a white linen dress, cut very straight, and the straightness of the cut and the stiffness of the linen did nothing in the world but suggest by a kind of teasing paradox the curves and softnesses sheathed by the cloth. She had her hair in a knot on the nape of her neck, and a little white ribbon around her head, and she was smiling at me with a smile which I had known all my life but which was entirely new, and saying, 'Hello, Jack,' while I held her strong narrow hand in mine and knew that summer had come.

They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea, and every morning you could see Mrs. K eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind. Afternoons, when the fossil sea was warm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the yard, and the little distant Martian bone town was all enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr. K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp.

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment’s thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each façade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear.

Is anything illegal here?' Addison asked. 'Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that's just for paperbacks. 'There's a library?' 'Two. Though one won't lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.

Upon those whom He governs as His subjects does God bestow this gift; but not upon those who think themselves capable of governing themselves, and who, in the stiff-necked confidence of their own will, disdain to have Him as their ruler.

It was like hugging a cat. Not Panther, because she is unusually cuddly, but you know what I mean; sometimes they go all stiff and rigid and you know that all they want is for you to stop so that they can get back to doing their own thing.

A face as stiff as a boulder, stiff with boredom— that’s the face of an adult. Adults don’t think about the ocean even when they watch it. Their minds are full of other things. It’s very depressing to think that someday I, too, will be an adult

Asiatic youths are flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education. Our insight does not penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats comprised the attainment of your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they evince our willingness to approach the West on our knees.

Still, he stats, thrashing his head around like he's arguing. His squeals sound contrary even to Galen's untrained ears. The poor creature doesn't realize how close to foot tapping Emma is, but Galen recognizes that stiff stance of impatience. It's the same one she directed at him when they first met on this very beach. The same one she directed at Toraf when she informed him that Rayna could live with her. The same one she directed at Rachel when she booked the honeymoon suite for the two of them.

I kept thinking of the first time, nearly ten months before, on that Sunday in September. I had been irritated by Louise that morning, sitting so stiff and proud, and had neglected her from that day forward. She had not wavered, but had stayed my friend.

So summer waited for open water, and the tardy Yukon took to stretching of days and cracking its stiff joints. Now an air-hole ate into the ice, and ate and ate; or a fissure formed, and grew, and failed to freeze again. Then the ice ripped from the shore and uprose bodily a yard. But still the river was loth to loose its grip. It was a slow travail, and man, used to nursing nature with pigmy skill, able to burst waterspouts and harness waterfalls, could avail nothing against the billions of frigid tons which refused to run down the hill to Bering Sea.

That shouldn’t have happened,” she says, throwing back her shoulders in a stance as stiff as a statue’s. “What? The kiss or you likin’ it so much?” “I have a boyfriend,” she says as she fidgets with the strap on her designer book bag. “You tryin’ to convince me, or yourself?” I ask her.

What were you doing with her?” The words burst from my lips. Before I can take them back, he stares at me. I stare back at him as the silence stretches onwards. We’re both stiff. He says nothing. “Maybe I should ask you the same thing.” I shake my head, my nails digging into my palms. Then before I can react, he has pushed me roughly up the wall, his eyes now dark and fiery, like a storm ready to unleash itself. Good. He’s mad too. His hands force me to the wall as he presses his body against mine. The intensity of the move, the feel of him makes my breath hitch. “Get off me,” I seethe, pounding my fists into his chest but Adrian keeps me locked in place, so that his breath caresses my ear. “Were you guys too rushed?’ He mocks. “Too desperate to book a hotel room?” I can barely stifle a disgusted snort. “What are you talking about?” Fury pumps through my head. “A hotel room? What kind of girl do you think I am—mmf?” He moves against me, moving to kiss me. The moment where his lips meet mine hard and unyielding. He tastes of smoke and lipgloss—and I’m reminded of the scene earlier where he and Lauren got out of the closet together. Disgust fills me as I squirm in his arms. He groans, fire burning in his voice. “You want me, you’re trying to hide from it.” “No,” I try to bite the words at him but it comes out strangled. I try to push him away but before I have to, he releases me. I try to put as much distance between him and myself, shaking. Loathing is my voice. "Get away from me. I hate you." He swallows and looks away, his breathing slowing. He pushes himself from the wall, still very pale. Then closing his eyes and turning, he starts walking away, heading towards the parking lot. "I hate you!" I scream again behind him. Adrian stops for a moment, his back to me. “I’ve told you from the very beginning. You should.” He keeps on walking, never glancing back.

It’s no coincidence that the man who contributed the most to the study of human anatomy, the Belgian Andreas Vesalius, was an avid proponent of do-it-yourself, get-your-fussy-Renaissance-shirt-dirty anatomical dissection. Though human dissection was an accepted practice in the Renaissance-era anatomy class, most professors shied away from personally undertaking it, preferring to deliver their lectures while seated in raised chairs a safe and tidy remove from the corpse and pointing out structures with a wooden stick while a hired hand did the slicing. Vesalius disapproved of this practice, and wasn’t shy about his feelings. In C. D. O’Malley’s biography of the man, Vesalius likens the lecturers to “jackdaws aloft in their high chair, with egregious arrogance croaking things they have never investigated but merely committed to memory from the books of others. Thus everything is wrongly taught,…and days are wasted in ridiculous questions.

Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women make their husbands do to prove their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the endless small surrenders. We call these men the dancing monkeys. Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark,and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a good time, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, he came down with a case of the dancing monkeys – poor Jennifer was having a “real stressful week” and really needed him at home.’ Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks because his girlfriend really needs him to stop by some bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of town. So they can finally meet. And so she can show how obedient her monkey is: He comes when I call, and look how well groomed! Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now. And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for me, so I will have proof that you love me best. It’s the female pissing contest – as we swan around our book clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men make for us. A call-and-response, the response being: ‘Ohhh, that’s so sweet.’ I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role – the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role. Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink. I like to think I am confident and secure and mature enough to know Nick loves me without him constantly proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. I don’t know why women find that so hard.

He’s a dumb ass,” Emilio said to me. “I’m almost finished.” The second he was out of earshot, Marcus sauntered back up to the bench with stiff, rehearsed swag. Definitely a mirror practicer, that one. “Why you messin’ with Emilio? What’s up with you and me?” He wiped his hand on his black tank top and held it out, presumably for me to take, at which point we’d presumably climb aboard his moped and ride off into the sunset. Before I could shatter his dreams, Samuel smacked his hand away. “Keep it movin’,” Samuel said. He nudged him back toward the bikes, but the guy was unfazed. “She likes me.” “She thinks you stupid,” Samuel said. “And she right.” Marcus cocked an eyebrow and licked his lips, more dazzling mirror work, and leaned in for another proposition. “When you’re ready to graduate from a boy to a man, you call me.” “How about I call when you’re ready to graduate from a boy to a man?” The other guys howled, and just when I decided this game might be kind of fun, Emilio was at the bench, tugging a shirt over his head. “Vamos, princesa.

What did we talk about? I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, growing up on the veldt, wrote on book, married happily, and ever wrote another. Kate Chopin wrote a scandalous book and never wrote another. (Jean has written nothing.). There was M-ry Sh-ll-y who wrote you know what and Ch-rl-tt- P-rk-ns G-lm-an, who wrote one superb horror study and lots of sludge (was it sludge?) and Ph-ll-s Wh--tl-y who was black and wrote eighteenth century odes (but it was the eighteenth century) and Mrs. -nn R-dcl-ff- S-thw-rth and Mrs. G--rg- Sh-ld-n and (Miss?) G--rg-tt- H-y-r and B-rb-r- C-rtl-nd and the legion of those, who writing, write not, like the dead Miss B--l-y of the poem who was seduced into bad practices (fudging her endings) and hanged herself in her garter. The sun was going down. I was blind and stiff. It's at this point that the computer (which has run amok and eaten Los Angeles) is defeated by some scientifically transcendent version of pulling the plug; the furniture stood around unknowing (though we had just pulled out the plug) and Lady, who got restless when people talked at suck length because she couldn't understand it, stuck her head out from under the couch, looking for things to herd. We had talked for six hours, from one in the afternoon until seven; I had at that moment an impression of our act of creation so strong, so sharp, so extraordinarily vivid, that I could not believe all our talking hadn't led to something more tangible--mightn't you expect at least a little blue pyramid sitting in the middle of the floor?

We don't even know if what ends with daylight terminates in us as useless grief, or if we are just an illusion among shadows, and reality just this vast silence without wild ducks that falls over the lakes where straight and stiff reeds swoon. We know nothing. Gone is the memory of the stories we heard as children, now so much seaweed; still to come is the tenderness of future skies, a breeze in which imprecision slowly opens into stars.

Rugby football is more or less a sealed book to me, I never having gone in for it, but even I could see that he was good. The lissomness with which he moved hither and thither was most impressive, as was his homicidal ardour when doing what I believe is called tackling. Like the Canadian Mounted Police he always got his man, and when he did so the air was vibrant with the excited cries of morticians in the audience making bids for the body.

Since Monday, it has been raining buoyant summer rain shot through with sun, but dark at night and full of sound, full of dripping leaves, watery chimings, sleepless scuttlings. Billy Bob is wide-awake, dry-eyed, though everything he does is a little frozen and his tongue is as stiff as a bell tongue. It has not been easy for him, Miss Bobbit’s going. Because she’d meant more than that. Than what? Than being thirteen years old and crazy in love. She was the queer things in him, like the pecan tree and liking books and caring enough about people to let them hurt him. She was the things he was afraid to show anyone else. And in the dark the music trickled through the rain: won’t there be nights when we will hear it just as though it were really there? And afternoons when the shadows will be all at once confused, and she will pass before us, unfurling across the lawn like a pretty piece of ribbon?

How? How did you get Torin to Hex Hall?” Dad blinked rapidly, and at first, I thought he was surprised by my question. Then I realized that, no, he was fighting tears. Seeing my father, who practically had a PhD in Stiff Upper Lip, on the verge of crying because he was so happy to see me made my own eyes sting. Then he cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and said, “It was exceedingly difficult.” I laughed through my tears. “I bet.” “It was Torin’s idea,” someone said behind me, and I turned to see Izzy standing there. Like my parents and her sister, she was dressed in jeans and a black jacket, although she also had a black cap pulled over her bright hair. “We had tons of old spell books, and after you and Cal disappeared, he started looking through them. Found a spell that would let him travel to a different mirror.” “Of course, the problem was finding your mirror,” Aislinn said, coming out of the darkness. “Aren’t you afraid that he’ll permanently peace out from his mirror and start hanging out in girls’ locker rooms or something?” Aislinn’s eyes slid to Izzy. “Torin has his reasons for wanting to stay with us,” she said, and even in the dim light, I saw red creepy up Izzy’s cheeks. Maybe one day, I’d get to the bottom of whatever was going on there. Preferably once I was done getting to the bottom of the thousand other things on my agenda.

We washed our shirts and trews and when we went out to get them off the bushes, they were as stiff as corpses in the cold. Some poor cows froze where they were standing like they had peered into the face of old Medusa. Men lost the wages of three years hence at cards. They bet their boots and then pled for the pity of the winner. The piss froze as it left our peckers and woe betide the man with an obstruction or hesitation to their shit, because soon they had a brown icicle on their arse

THE TEN MOST COMMON PROBLEMS Here are the ten most common problems in communications. Read the list. If any of them apply to you, the principles in this book will help you solve them. 1. Lack of initial rapport with listeners 2. Stiffness or woodenness in use of body 3. Presentation of material is intellectually oriented; speaker forgets to involve the audience emotionally 4. Speaker seems uncomfortable because of fear of failure 5. Poor use of eye contact and facial expression 6. Lack of humor 7. Speech direction and intent unclear due to improper  preparation 8. Inability to use silence for impact 9. Lack of energy, causing inappropriate pitch pattern, speech  rate, and volume 10. Use of boring language and lack of interesting material Various polls show that the ability to communicate well is ranked the number-one key to success by leaders in business, politics, and the professions. If you don’t communicate effectively, you may not die, like some POWs or neglected babies we mentioned earlier, but you also won’t live as fully as you should, nor will you achieve personal goals. This was a lesson drummed into me at a very early age.

In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense. Sometimes he would pause, remove a volume from the shelves, and hold it for a moment in his large hands, which tingled at the still unfamiliar feel of spine and board and unresisting page. Then he would leaf through the book, reading a paragraph here and there, his stiff fingers careful as they turned the pages, as if in their clumsiness they might tear and destroy what they took such pains to uncover.

The Butcher’s Shop The pigs are strung in rows, open-mouthed, dignified in martyrs’ deaths. They hang stiff as Sunday manners, their porky heads voting Tory all their lives, their blue rosettes discarded now. The butcher smiles a meaty smile, white apron stained with who knows what, fingers fat as sausages. Smug, woolly cattle and snowy sheep prance on tiles, grazing on eternity, cute illustrations in a children’s book. What does the sheep say now? Tacky sawdust clogs your shoes. Little plastic hedges divide the trays of meat, playing farms. playing farms. All the way home your cold and soggy paper parcel bleeds.

Everything started to move in slow motion. A vehicle was coming up the hill in the opposite direction, facing us but in its own lane. With vehicles parked on both sides of the road, this meant that there was just a narrow passage area for both vehicles to pass through. However, he had yet to reduce his speed, and now I knew which car he was going to hit. I was frozen stiff with fear in the front passenger seat, as I helplessly watched him slam into the back of a parked car. I was not wearing a seat belt, so upon impact my head crashed into the windshield. I was then slammed back into my seat, but with such force that everything went black.

When we’re outside, I hear Brittany take a deep breath. I swear it sounds as if she’s holding herself together by a thin thread. Not the way it’s supposed to go down: bring girl home, kiss girl, mom insults girl, girl leaves crying. “Don’t sweat it. She’s just not used to me bringin’ girls in the house.” Brittany’s expressive blue eyes appear remote and cold. “That shouldn’t have happened,” she says, throwing back her shoulders in a stance as stiff as a statue’s. “What? The kiss or you likin’ it so much?” “I have a boyfriend,” she says as she fidgets with the strap on her designer book bag. “You tryin’ to convince me, or yourself?” I ask her.

Hermione?” “Hmm?” “I’ve been thinking. I--I want to go to Godric’s Hollow.” She looked up at him, but her eyes were unfocused, and he was sure she was still thinking about the mysterious mark on the book. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ve been wondering that too. I really think we’ll have to.” “Did you hear me right?” he asked. “Of course I did. You want to go to Godric’s Hollow. I agree, I think we should. I mean, I can’t think of anywhere else it could be either. It’ll be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems it’s there.” “Er--what’s there?” asked Harry. At that, she looked just as bewildered as he felt. “Well, the sword, Harry! Dumbledore must have known you’d want to go back there, and I mean, Godric’s Hollow is Godric Gryffindor’s birthplace--” “Really? Gryffindor came from Godric’s Hollow?” “Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?” “Erm,” he said, smiling for what felt like the first time in months: The muscles in his face felt oddly stiff. “I might’ve opened it, you know, when I bought it…just the once…” “Well, as the village is named after him I’d have thought you might have made the connection,” said Hermione. She sounded much more like her old self than she had done of late; Harry half expected her to announce that she was off to the library.

And her father wanted his smiling, happy daughters. Wanted roses in their cheeks and for them to giggle and chorus after awhile, crocodile to his see you later, alligator, they way they had when they were little and certain they would always be loved. They had to play along, or he would get stiff and mean. If they were fussy or cranky, he’d ignore them completely. So when Charlie tried to complain about Travis or tell her father any of her worries or fears, he got annoyed and transferred his attention to her sister. And if Posey chimed in, he took them both straight home. Their father’s affection was entirely conditional, and he made no secret of it.

It shouldn't be here. This sedge grass is decorative bullshit he imported from Northern Asia. The lab spent two years modifying it to slot into our ecosystem, all so that the mountain would literally smell of honey. Terra di latte e miele, she said, mockingly. Thank god my father went into business, not poetry. He's far too much of a romantic. I laughed, incredulous at this portrait of my stiff employer, and Aida reddened. It is romantic, if you think about it. He planted the grass for my mother. She's one of those Catholic Koreans, painfully devout. You know. The promised land, Canaan, found after forty years of wandering the desert. The land of milk and honey.

The “Johnson family” became so numerous that a “convention” must be held. In any well-ordered convention all persons of suspicious or doubtful intentions are thrown out at the start. When a bums’ “convention” is to be held, the jungle is first cleared of all outsiders such as “gay cats,” “dingbats,” “whangs,” “bindle stiffs,” “jungle buzzards,” and “scissors bills.” Conventions are not so popular in these droughty days. Formerly kegs of beer were rolled into the jungle and the “punks,” young bums, were sent for “mickies,” bottles of alcohol. “Mulligans” of chicken or beef were put to cooking on big fires. There was a general boiling up of clothes and there was shaving and sometimes haircutting.

Driven by heartache, she beat the eggs even more vigorously until the glossy meringue quickly formed into stiff, bird's beak peaks. "Philippe, do you have any orange liqueur?" Marie asked, rummaging through her brother's pantry. "Here it is," Philippe said, handing a corked bottle to her. "What are you making?" "A bûche de Noël," Danielle said, concentrating on her task. Carefully measuring each rationed ingredient, she combined sugar and flour in another bowl, grated orange zest, added the liqueur, and folded the meringue into the mixture. "It's not Christmas without a traditional Yuletide log." Marie ran a finger down a page of an old recipe book, reading directions for the sponge cake, or biscuit. "'Spread into a shallow pan and bake for ten minutes.'" "I wouldn't know about that," Philippe said. "I don't celebrate your husband's holiday," he said pointedly to Marie. "Let's not dredge up that old argument, mon frère," Marie said, softening her words with a smile. "I converted for love." A knock sounded at the front door. Danielle threw a look of concern toward Philippe, who hurried to answer it. "Then we'll cool it," Danielle said, trying to stay calm. "And brush the surface with coffee liqueur and butter cream frosting, roll it like a log, and decorate." She thought about the meringue mushrooms she had made with Nicky last year, and how he had helped score the frosting to mimic wood grains.

We like to think of the old-fashioned American classics as children's books. Just childishness, on our part. The old American art-speech contains an alien quality, which belongs to the American continent and to nowhere else. But, of course, so long as we insist on reading the books as children's tales, we miss all that. One wonders what the proper high-brow Romans of the third and fourth or later centuries read into the strange utterances of Lucretius or Apuleius or Tertullian, Augustine or Athanasius. The uncanny voice of Iberian Spain, the weirdness of old Carthage, the passion of Libya and North Africa; you may bet the proper old Romans never heard these at all. They read old Latin inference over the top of it, as we read old European inference over the top of Poe or Hawthorne. It is hard to hear a new voice, as hard as it is to listen to an unknown language. We just don't listen. There is a new voice in the old American classics. The world has declined to hear it, and has blabbed about children's stories. Why?—Out of fear. The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences. And it is like trying to use muscles that have perhaps never been used, or that have been going stiff for ages. It hurts horribly. The world doesn't fear a new idea. It can pigeon-hole any idea. But it can't pigeon-hole a real new experience. It can only dodge. The world is a great dodger, and the Americans the greatest. Because they dodge their own very selves.

My disapproval extended to the personnel of the various native tribes he had encountered in the course of his explorations. On his own showing, he had for years been horning in uninvited on the aborigines of Brazil, the Congo and elsewhere, and not one of them apparently had had the enterprise to get after him with a spear or to say it with poisoned darts from the family blowpipe. And these were fellows who called themselves savages. Savages, forsooth! The savages in the books I used to read in my childhood would have had him in the Obituary column before he could say 'What ho', but with the ones you get nowadays it's all slackness and laissez-faire. Can't be bothered. Leave it to somebody else. Let George do it. One sometimes wonders what the world's coming to.

The mainland of Greece was dark; and somewhere off Euboea a cloud must have touched the waves and spattered them—the dolphins circling deeper and deeper into the sea. Violent was the wind now rushing down the Sea of Marmara between Greece and the plains of Troy. In Greece and the uplands of Albania and Turkey, the wind scours the sand and the dust, and sows itself thick with dry particles. And then it pelts the smooth domes of the mosques, and makes the cypresses, standing stiff by the turbaned tombstones of Mohammedans, creak and bristle. Sandra’s veils were swirled about her. “I will give you my copy,” said Jacob. “Here. Will you keep it?” (The book was the poems of Donne.) Now the agitation of the air uncovered a racing star. Now it was dark. Now one after another lights were extinguished. Now great towns—Paris—Constantinople—London—were black as strewn rocks. Waterways might be distinguished. In England the trees were heavy in leaf. Here perhaps in some southern wood an old man lit dry ferns and the birds were startled. The sheep coughed; one flower bent slightly towards another. The English sky is softer, milkier than the Eastern. Something gentle has passed into it from the grass–rounded hills, something damp. The salt gale blew in at Betty Flanders’s bedroom window, and the widow lady, raising herself slightly on her elbow, sighed like one who realizes, but would fain ward off a little longer—oh, a little longer!—the oppression of eternity. But to return to Jacob and Sandra. They had vanished. There was the Acropolis; but had they reached it? The columns and the Temple remain; the emotion of the living breaks fresh on them year after year; and of that what remains?

The woman's body twitched suddenly, as if remembering something, and she covered her mouth with a stiff mitten. Dara knew what it was. She'd felt it a dozen times that day already. The body remembering, contorting, -He's gone, he's gone.- For a moment, only a moment, Dara felt sorry for her. As if sensing it, the woman looked at her and reached for her sunglasses, removing them at last. Her eyes heavy, swollen. 'I wish I could explain,' she said. 'You build this family. And it's perfect. It's everything you wanted. And then something goes wrong. Slowly or all at once. It was good and now it's bad, and it's his fault. Or he started it. All the ripples from his bad behavior.' Dara didn't say anything. The woman kept going. 'So, in some private part of your head, you start thinking up fantasies of escape. You tell yourself: If only he were gone, if only a heart attack, a lightning bolt, a car crash...' 'I have to go,' Dara said, turning. 'Sometimes,' the woman said suddenly, her voice choked. 'Sometimes, you think you'd do anything to get out to be free.' They held glances a long moment.... 'You're never free,' Dara said, realizing it as she said it. -When something goes wrong in a family, it takes generations to wipe it out.- Those words came to Dara, something from a history book, a book about kings and queens she once found in the den long ago. Marie, Charlie, they thought they could escape it, through leaving, or trying to. Through other people, lovers. But they both ended right back where they started. In their mother's house, her third-floor hideaway. 'I guess you're right,' the woman said. 'You blame everything on that one person.You think if that one person is gone, everything will be perfect and good.' She slid her sunglasses back on. 'But in the end, that person is you.

purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment’s thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each façade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear. To

Hard is the task to shape that beauty’s praise, Whose judgment scorns the homage flattery pays! But praising Amoret we cannot err, No tongue o’ervalues Heaven, or flatters her! Yet she, by Fate’s perverseness — she alone Would doubt our truth, nor deem such praise her own! Adorning Fashion, unadorn’d by dress, Simple from taste, and not from carelessness; Discreet in gesture, in deportment mild, Not stiff with prudence, nor uncouthly wild: No state has AMORET! no studied mien; She frowns no GODDESS, and she moves no QUEEN. The softer charm that in her manner lies Is framed to captivate, yet not surprise; It justly suits th’ expression of her face, — ’Tis less than dignity, and more than grace! On her pure cheek the native hue is such, That, form’d by Heav’n to be admired so much, The hand divine, with a less partial care, Might well have fix’d a fainter crimson there, And bade the gentle inmate of her breast, — Inshrined Modesty! — supply the rest.

The Reader closes the book and sits in silence for a while, like a shadow, just staring at the jars upon the shelf that contain the floating human heart and eyeballs. The Reader feels good. Powerful. For the Reader owns this Story now. The Reader likes, very much, the idea that a Story is alive—a dynamic dialogue between creator and consumer—an act of copulation. And an author can never claim his Story is complete until it has been read by a reader, and only then can the circle be closed. A Story can never remain static, either. For each new reader brings to the Story afresh his own unique set of past experiences, giving him a peculiar lens through which to conjure different emotions out of the very same words . . . The Reader flexes a hand that is stiff and still stained with blood. The Reader holds all the power. It is the Reader who breathes life into these words on the page, makes them whole and tangible and frightening in the real world. The Reader is in control . . .

I select the right practice gun, the one about the size of a pistol, but bulkier, and offer it to Caleb. Tris’s fingers slide between mine. Everything comes easily this morning, every smile and every laugh, every word and every motion. If we succeed in what we attempt tonight, tomorrow Chicago will be safe, the Bureau will be forever changed, and Tris and I will be able to build a new life for ourselves somewhere. Maybe it will even be a place where I trade my guns and knives for more productive tools, screwdrivers and nails and shovels. This morning I feel like I could be so fortunate. I could. “It doesn’t shoot real bullets,” I say, “but it seems like they designed it so it would be as close as possible to one of the guns you’ll be using. It feels real, anyway.” Caleb holds the gun with just his fingertips, like he’s afraid it will shatter in his hands. I laugh. “First lesson: Don’t be afraid of it. Grab it. You’ve held one before, remember? You got us out of the Amity compound with that shot.” “That was just lucky,” Caleb says, turning the gun over and over to see it from every angle. His tongue pushes into his cheek like he’s solving a problem. “Not the result of skill.” “Lucky is better than unlucky,” I say. “We can work on skill now.” I glance at Tris. She grins at me, then leans in to whisper something to Christina. “Are you here to help or what, Stiff?” I say. I hear myself speaking in the voice I cultivated as an initiation instructor, but this time I use it in jest. “You could use some practice with that right arm, if I recall correctly. You too, Christina.” Tris makes a face at me, then she and Christina cross the room to get their own weapons. “Okay, now face the target and turn the safety off,” I say. There is a target across the room, more sophisticated, than the wooden-board target in the Dauntless training rooms. It has three rings in three different colors, green, yellow, and red, so it’s easier to tell where the bullets it. “Let me see how you would naturally shoot.” He lifts up the gun with one hand, squares off his feet and shoulders to the target like he’s about to lift something heavy, and fires. The gun jerks back and up, firing the bullet near the ceiling. I cover my mouth with my hand to disguise my smile. “There’s no need to giggle,” Caleb says irritably. “Book learning doesn’t teach you everything, does it?” Christina says. “You have to hold it with both hands. It doesn’t look as cool, but neither does attacking the ceiling.” “I wasn’t trying to look cool!” Christina stands, her legs slightly uneven, and lifts both arms. She stares the target for a moment, then fires. The training bullet hits the outer circle of the target and bounces off, rolling on the floor. It leaves a circle of light on the target, marking the impact site. I wish I’d had this technology during initiation training. “Oh, good,” I say. “You hit the air around your target’s body. How useful.” “I’m a little rusty,” Christina admits, grinning.

The parasol wasn’t a very good cane. Its tip dug into the hard, grassless earth, and the folded frame creaked as Kestrel limped across the grounds. But it brought her where she needed to go. She found Arin walking through the bare orange grove, horse tack draped over his shoulder. It jangled when he stopped and stared at her. He stood, shoulders stiff. As Kestrel came close she saw that his jaw was clenched, and that there was no trace of what her guards had done to him. No bruises. Nor would there be, not for something that had happened nearly a month ago. “Did I shame you?” Kestrel said. Something strange crossed his face. “Shame me,” Arin repeated. He looked up into the empty branches as if he expected to see fruit there, as if it weren’t almost winter. “The book. The inscription I read. The duel. The way I tricked you. The order I gave to have you imprisoned. Did I shame you?” He crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head, his gaze never wavering from the trees. “No. The god of debts knows what I owe.” “Then what is it?” Kestrel was trying so hard not to ask about the rumors or the woman in the market that she said something worse. “Why won’t you look at me?” “I shouldn’t even be speaking with you,” he muttered. It dawned on her why it had never made sense that Rax had been the one to release Arin. “My father,” she said. “Arin, you don’t have to worry about him. He’ll be leaving the morning of the Firstwinter ball. The entire regiment has been ordered east to fight the barbarians.” “What?” He glanced at her, eyes sharp. “Things can be as they were.” “I don’t think so.” “But…you are my friend.” His expression changed, though not in a way Kestrel could read. “Just tell me what’s wrong, Arin. Tell me the truth.” When he spoke, his voice was raw. “You own me. How can you believe I’ll tell you the truth? Why would I?” The parasol trembled in Kestrel’s grip. She opened her mouth to speak, yet realized that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to control what she said. “I will tell you something you can trust is true.” Arin’s eyes held hers. “We are not friends.” Kestrel swallowed. “You’re right,” she whispered. “We’re not.

He saw a square room furnished as a library. The entire section of the walls which he could spy was covered from floor to ceiling with books. There were volumes of every size, every shape, every colour. There were long, narrow books that held themselves like grenadiers at stiff attention. There were short, fat books that stood solidly like aldermen who were going to make speeches and were ashamed but not frightened. There were mediocre books bearing themselves with the carelessness of folk who are never looked at and have consequently no shyness. There were solemn books that seemed to be feeling for their spectacles; and there were tattered, important books that had got dirty because they took snuff, and were tattered because they had been crossed in love and had never married afterwards. There were prim, ancient tomes that were certainly ashamed of their heroines and utterly unable to obtain a divorce from the hussies; and there were lean, rakish volumes that leaned carelessly, or perhaps it was with studied elegance, against their neighbours, murmuring in affected tones, "All heroines are charming to us.

VICTORIAN FUNERAL BISCUITS Adapted from the third edition of Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book, published in 1862. ½ c sugar ½ c salted butter, softened 1 c molasses ½ c warm water 2 tbs fresh minced ginger 2 ¼ c flour ½ tsp baking soda In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the molasses, water, and ginger, and beat until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Add flour to molasses mixture and use electric mixer to combine well. Dough will be stiff. Split dough into two balls. Knead each dough ball several times to remove any air bubbles. Form dough into two even logs, approximately 8 inches long. Wrap each log tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for several hours until firm. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice each log of dough into ¼-inch rounds and place one inch apart on baking sheets. Each dough log makes approximately 25 biscuits. If desired, use a knife or stamp to impress an image onto the biscuits. Bake 20 minutes. Let cool completely (biscuits should be crunchy). Wrap several biscuits in wax paper and secure with a black wax stamp or black string.

PRESCRIPTION 5 Low Back and Trunk   This prescription can be used to treat these symptoms and restrictions: Abdominal pain Compromised breathing Hip extension range of motion Hip pain Low back pain Sciatica Spinal rotation, flexion and extension range of motion   Overview Methods: Contract and relax Pressure wave Smash and floss Tools: Small ball Large ball Small bouncy ball or under-inflated soccer/volleyball Total time:  14 minutes   This prescription is great for treating low back pain and supporting the hardworking muscles of your trunk. We’ve established that poor spinal mechanics and sitting can cause adaptive stiffness and irritation in the discs, ligaments, and muscles around your spine and trunk. And when that happens, low back pain is often the result. Although there are other contributing factors to consider, like previous injuries, arthritis, obesity, and stress, we would argue that one of the leading causes of low back pain and trunk-related problems stems from poor posture, prolonged sitting, and a lack of basic self-maintenance. Having spent the majority of this book outlining a protocol for preventing and resolving the issue from a mechanical standpoint, let’s turn our attention to the maintenance side of things. This prescription targets the muscles that are responsible for keeping your spine braced, as well as the muscles that may get stiff when you move poorly or sit for too long.

The German Reformation stands out as an energetic protest of antiquated spirits, who were by no means tired of mediæval views of life, and who received the signs of its dissolution, the extraordinary flatness and alienation of the religious life, with deep dejection instead of with the rejoicing that would have been seemly. With their northern strength and stiff-neckedness they threw mankind back again, brought about the counter-reformation, that is, a Catholic Christianity of self-defence, with all the violences of a state of siege, and delayed for two or three centuries the complete awakening and mastery of the sciences; just as they probably made for ever impossible the complete inter-growth of the antique and the modern spirit. The great task of the Renaissance could not be brought to a termination, this was prevented by the protest of the contemporary backward German spirit (which, for its salvation, had had sufficient sense in the Middle Ages to cross the Alps again and again). It was the chance of an extraordinary constellation of politics that Luther was preserved, and that his protest; gained strength, for the Emperor protected him in order to employ him as a weapon against the Pope, and in the same way he was secretly favoured by the Pope in order to use the Protestant princes as a counter-weight against the Emperor. Without this curious counter-play of intentions, Luther would have been burnt like Huss...

Mrs. Harris’s coach should be here any minute. I trek toward the curb, but just as I reach it, the latch on my bag drops open again, and the contents spill into the snow. Cursing, I bend to retrieve my things, but a violent gale whips me backward into the slush, snatching petticoats, chemises, and knickers into the air. “No!” I cry, scrambling after my clothes and stuffing them one by one back into my bag, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one has caught a glimpse of my underthings dancing across the street. A man snores on a stoop nearby, but no one else is out. Relieved, I scuttle through the snow, jamming skirts and books and socks into the bag and gritting my teeth as the wind burns my ears. A clatter of hooves breaks through the howling tempest, and I catch sight of a cab headed my way. My stomach clenches as I snap my bag closed once more. That must be Mrs. Harris’s coach. I’m really going to do this. But as I make my way toward it, a white ghost of fabric darts in front of me. My eyes widen. I missed a pair of knickers. Panic jolting through my every limb, I sprint after it, but the wind is too quick. My underclothes gust right into the carriage door, twisting against its handle as the cab eases to a stop. I’m almost to it, fingers reaching, when the door snaps open and a boy about my age steps out. “Miss Whitlock?” he asks, his voice so quiet I almost don’t hear it over the wind. Trying not to draw attention to the undergarments knotted on the door just inches from his hand, I give him a stiff nod. “Yes, sir, that’s me.” “Let me get your things,” he says, stepping into the snow and reaching for my handbag. “Uh—it’s broken, so I’d—I’d better keep it,” I mumble, praying he can’t feel the heat of my blush from where he is. “Very well, then.” He turns back toward the coach and stops. Artist, no. My heart drops to my shoes. “Oh…” He reaches toward the fabric knotted tightly in the latch. “Is…this yours?” Death would be a mercy right about now. I swallow hard. “Um, yes.” He glances at me, and blood floods my neck. “I mean, no! I’ve never seen those before in my life!” He stares at me a long moment. “I…” I lurch past him and yank at the knickers. The fabric tears, and the sound of it is so loud I’m certain everyone in the world must have heard it. “Here, why don’t I—” He reaches out to help detangle the fabric from the door. “No, no, no, I’ve got it just fine,” I say, leaping in front of him and tugging on the knot with shaking hands. Why. Why, why, why, why, why? Finally succeeding at freeing the knickers, I make to shove them back into my bag, but another gust of wind rips them from my grasp. The boy and I both stare after them as they dart into the sky, spreading out like a kite so that every damn stitch is visible. He clears his throat. “Should we—ah—go after them?” “No,” I say faintly. “I—I think I’ll manage without…

I’ve made myself into the character of a book, a life one reads. Whatever I feel is felt (against my will) so that I can write that I felt it. Whatever I think is promptly put into words, mixed with images that undo it, cast into rhythms that are something else altogether. From so much self-revising, I’ve destroyed myself. From so much self-thinking, I’m now my thoughts and not I. I plumbed myself and dropped the plumb; I spend my life wondering if I’m deep or not, with no remaining plumb except my gaze that shows me – blackly vivid in the mirror at the bottom of the well – my own face that observes me observing it. I’m like a playing card belonging to an old and unrecognizable suit – the sole survivor of a lost deck. I have no meaning, I don’t know my worth, there’s nothing I can compare myself with to discover what I am, and to make such a discovery would be of no use to anyone. And so, describing myself in image after image – not without truth, but with lies mixed in – I end up more in the images than in me, stating myself until I no longer exist, writing with my soul for ink, useful for nothing except writing. But the reaction ceases, and again I resign myself. I go back to whom I am, even if it’s nothing. And a hint of tears that weren’t cried makes my stiff eyes burn; a hint of anguish that wasn’t felt gets caught in my dry throat. But I don’t even know what I would have cried over, if I’d cried, nor why it is that I didn’t cry over it. The fiction follows me, like my shadow. And what I want is to sleep.

Epsom Salt - Don't underestimate the powerful healing effects of regular Epsom salt.  Soaking in hot water infused with Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) boosts blood levels of the ever important mineral magnesium, by as much as 35% in just 1 week.  Magnesium is a critical mineral that too many people are deficient in.  If you suffer from muscle tightness, stiffness, spasms, aches and pains, then buying Epsom salt in bulk and adding it to a hot bath 3 times a week, will bring magical relief to your discomfort.  The magnesium in Epsom salt will also bring much wanted relief to those who find themselves in a chronic state of tension, stress and anxiety.   The human body requires magnesium to manufacture the 2 enzymes quinone reductase, and glutathione S-transferase, both of which assist in neutralizing and eliminating chemical toxins.  Being deficient in magnesium, puts a significant damper on your body’s detoxification abilities. Magnesium also plays a critical role in regulating nerve and muscle activity, to help shield the body against the ravages and dangerous cumulative effects of stress.  Add 2-4 cups of pure Epsom salt to a hot bath several times a week, and see for yourself the incredible difference it makes.  Epsom salt baths can often turn even the most "bath-shy" guy, into a tub lover.   Most people can enjoy these detoxifying baths as often as they like.  The exception would be for those who suffer from any type of heart condition, epilepsy, narcolepsy, and pregnant women, all of whom, should only use bath therapy under the guidance and care of their health care provider.

Years before he had said and meant, “Fuck the niggers”—he had seen too many of his friends swallowed up in bitterness, and he wanted to escape, not drown. But now there was no escape and he was in the awful position of seeing his children grow toward that moment when they would know, would be shown, told, that they were niggers and not human beings. Because no matter how Billy twisted and dodged his way through life he could not get away from the central fact of his existence; whether he liked it or not, he was black, and there was nothing he could do about it, no action he could take without first thinking about it. It was just there. He could not love it or fight it or be proud of it, it was just there. He could not even hate it any more. His children were beautiful; how could anybody be so cruel? They were so affectionate and full of joy, so eager and innocent; why did somebody have to come along and with one stiff, ugly word, cut the innocence out of them? From the moment they understood that word they would proceed through life half-murdered of their ability to love; the moment their eyes became wary they would cease to be children, and Billy was certain that he himself would not love them so much. It might have been better, he thought with bitterness, if they had not been born at all; and then he saw them in his mind and knew that he could not stand their nonexistence; life without them would be life without life. And some day, a white kid, innocent himself, would tell them who they were, and there would be no path for Billy’s rage, no one for him to murder, only the emptiness of despair and frustration as he saw the hurt eyes of his children.

It did not take long for the entire town of Beldingsville to learn that the great New York doctor had said Pollyanna Whittier would never walk again; and certainly never before had the town been so stirred. Everybody knew by sight now the piquant little freckled face that had always a smile of greeting; and almost everybody knew of the "game" that Pollyanna was playing. To think that now never again would that smiling face be seen on their streets—never again would that cheery little voice proclaim the gladness of some everyday experience! It seemed unbelievable, impossible, cruel. In kitchens and sitting rooms, and over back-yard fences women talked of it, and wept openly. On street corners and in store lounging-places the men talked, too, and wept—though not so openly. And neither the talking nor the weeping grew less when fast on the heels of the news itself, came Nancy's pitiful story that Pollyanna, face to face with what had come to her, was bemoaning most of all the fact that she could not play the game; that she could not now be glad over—anything. It was then that the same thought must have, in some way, come to Pollyanna's friends. At all events, almost at once, the mistress of the Harrington homestead, greatly to her surprise, began to receive calls: calls from people she knew, and people she did not know; calls from men, women, and children—many of whom Miss Polly had not supposed that her niece knew at all. Some came in and sat down for a stiff five or ten minutes. Some stood awkwardly on the porch steps, fumbling with hats or hand-bags, according to their sex. Some brought a book, a bunch of flowers, or a dainty to tempt the palate. Some cried frankly. Some turned their backs and blew their noses furiously. But all inquired very anxiously for the little injured girl; and all sent to her some message—and it was these messages which, after a time, stirred Miss Polly to action. First came Mr. John Pendleton. He came without his crutches to-day. "I don't need to tell you how shocked I am," he began almost harshly. "But can—nothing be done?" Miss Polly gave a gesture of despair. "Oh, we're 'doing,' of course, all the time. Dr. Mead prescribed certain treatments and medicines that might help, and Dr. Warren is carrying them out to the letter, of course. But—Dr. Mead held out almost no hope.

CUPPA’S ‘TO DIE FOR’ CINNAMON ROLLS Did the description of Cuppa’s amazing cinnamon rolls make your mouth water? Every time I described them in this book I thought about my family’s favorite recipe for cinnamon rolls, and I’ve included it here for you. I think Tory and Meg would approve. All measurements/temperatures are in US units. Makes 12 wonderfully large rolls Dough: 2 packages active dry yeast 1 cup warm water 2/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, divided 1 cup warmed milk (I microwave this and then stir to be sure there are no hot spots) 2/3 cup softened butter 2 teaspoons salt 2 eggs, beaten 7 to 8 cups all-purpose flour Filling of Deliciousness: 1 cup melted butter, divided (that’s 2 sticks) 1-3/4 cups dark brown sugar, divided 3 Tablespoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (fresh, if possible) 1 to 2 cups chopped pecans (optional) 1-1/2 cups dark raisins (optional) Frosting: 1/2 cup melted butter 3 cups powdered sugar 1 and a half teaspoons real vanilla 5 to 8 Tablespoons hot water   DIRECTIONS: To make dough combine yeast, warm water and 1 teaspoon sugar in a cup and stir. Set aside. In a large bowl mix warmed milk, remaining 2/3 cup sugar, butter, salt, and eggs. Stir well and add yeast mixture. Add half the flour and beat until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a slightly stiff dough. It’s okay for the dough to be sticky. Turn out onto a well-floured board and knead for 5 to 10 minutes. Place in a well-buttered glass bowl. Cover loosely and let rise in a warm draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. When doubled, punch down dough and let it rest for 5 minutes. Roll out onto floured surface into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle. Filling: Spread dough with ½ cup melted butter. Mix together 1/-1/2 cups brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Sprinkle over buttered dough. Sprinkle with pecans and raisins, if you want. Sometimes I go really crazy and add a cup of finely-chopped apples, too. Roll up jellyroll-fashion and pinch the edges together to seal. Cut into 12 slices. Coat bottom of a 13”’x 9” and a square 8” pan with the last ½ cup of melted butter, and sprinkle remaining ¼ cup of sugar mixture on top. Place slices close together in pans. Let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk (about 45 minutes). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until nicely browned. Let cool slightly and spread with frosting. Share with others, and be prepared to get marriage proposals ;) Frosting: Mix melted butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add hot water a tablespoon at a time, mixing after each, until frosting is of desired consistency. Spread or drizzle over slightly-cooled rolls.

... we find a complete contradiction in our wishing to live without suffering, a contradiction that is therefore implied by the frequently used phrase “blessed life.” This will certainly be clear to the person who has fully grasped my discussion that follows. This contradiction is revealed in this ethic of pure reason itself by the fact that the Stoic is compelled to insert a recommendation of suicide in his guide to the blissful life (for this is what his ethics always remains). This is like the costly phial of poison to be found among the magnificent ornaments and apparel of oriental despots, and is for the case where the sufferings of the body, incapable of being philosophized away by any principles and syllogisms, are paramount and incurable. Thus its sole purpose, namely blessedness, is frustrated, and nothing remains as a means of escape from pain except death. But then death must be taken with unconcern, just as is any other medicine. Here a marked contrast is evident between the Stoic ethics and all those other ethical systems mentioned above. These ethical systems make virtue directly and in itself the aim and object, even with the most grievous sufferings, and will not allow a man to end his life in order to escape from suffering. But not one of them knew how to express the true reason for rejecting suicide, but they laboriously collected fictitious arguments of every kind. This true reason will appear in the fourth book in connexion with our discussion. But the above-mentioned contrast reveals and confirms just that essential difference to be found in the fundamental principle between the Stoa, really only a special form of eudaemonism, and the doctrines just mentioned, although both often agree in their results, and are apparently related. But the above-mentioned inner contradiction, with which the Stoic ethics is affected even in its fundamental idea, further shows itself in the fact that its ideal, the Stoic sage as represented by this ethical system, could never obtain life or inner poetical truth, but remains a wooden, stiff lay-figure with whom one can do nothing. He himself does not know where to go with his wisdom, and his perfect peace, contentment, and blessedness directly contradict the nature of mankind, and do not enable us to arrive at any perceptive representation thereof. Compared with him, how entirely different appear the overcomers of the world and voluntary penitents, who are revealed to us, and are actually produced, by the wisdom of India; how different even the Saviour of Christianity, that excellent form full of the depth of life, of the greatest poetical truth and highest significance, who stands before us with perfect virtue, holiness, and sublimity, yet in a state of supreme suffering.

knew

Down this height we pitched the hides, throwing them as far out into the air as we could; and as they were all large, stiff, and doubled, like the cover of a book, the wind took them, and they swayed and eddied about, plunging and rising in the air, like a kite when it has broken its string. As it was now low tide, there was no danger of their falling into the water, and as fast as they came to ground, the men below picked them up, and taking them on their heads, walked off with them to the boat. It was really a picturesque sight: the great height; the scaling of the hides; and the continual walking to and fro of the men, who looked like mites, on the beach! This was the romance of hide-droghing!

What is Cerebral Palsy? A wheelchair, a woman, windswept legs, stiffness. And through one side of my body, lack of mobility, and tightness in my knees. That’s all causes by a condition called Cerebral Palsy according to the CDC Cerebral Palsy (CP)- is a group of disorders that affect a person's ability to move and maintain balance and posture. CP is the most common motor disability in childhood. Cerebral means having to do with the brain. Palsy means weakness or problems with using the muscles. But that’s not my definition of Cerebral Palsy my definition of cerebral palsy ce·re·bral pal·sy A condition that makes life more interesting, more of an adventure and more of a journey. You see I could have started this off by stating the old boring medical terms of Cerebral Palsy, but in my personal opinion it would be continuing the stigma’s that I’ve been trying to debunk since I was 18 years old and wouldn’t that be a boring book to read. To be frank, I’m tired of seeing books that don’t focus on the positive side of Cerebral Palsy. Well, OK at least some do, but there’s not very much, so I’ve decided to write this full of stories to explain how I overcome each obstacle with Cerebral Palsy. My name is Tylia L Flores. I’m Handi-capable!

Keokotah came out and stood beside me. “Is good,” he said, “all this.” “It is,” I agreed. “When grass comes, what you do?” “I shall walk along the mountain where the aspen grows, and beside the lakes where the moon goes to rest. I want to find the places where the rivers begin. I want to drink where the water comes from under the slide rock. I want to walk the way of the elk, the deer, and the bear.” “You are not elk or deer or bear. You man. What you do when your knees are stiff? When the earth no longer soft for sleeping? When the cold does not leave your bones? Who will share your lodge when the last leaves fall?

My darling, why didn't you say so before? You know, I sometimes wonder," she added, turning to Ann, "what it would be like to have no children." "Jolly dull, " said John. "you'd be bored stiff. What would you do all day?" "Well I could read a little," said Mrs Gayford, rather vaguely, "really good books, you know, and the Times Literary Supplement. I used to be very fond of it.

We can take joy with us, and love. Every beautiful moment from our lives. All the light we have peacefully admired, all the lovely scents and laughter and friendship we have collected. Every kiss, every caress, and every song. The wind on our faces; tango; music; the rustle of autumn grass, stiff with frozen dew; the twinkle of the stars; contentment; courage; and generosity. All those things we may take with us. All that is in between.

How can a sane man go against the LORD? whose gentleness is described like this, “I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them” (Hosea 11: 4, ESV). Tragically, hard-hearted, close-eared, blind-eyed, dumb-mouthed, stiff-necked people are still there acting ‘smart,’ not knowing that their end is near.

Ingredients 5 balls stem ginger, chopped 45g fresh ginger, grated 5 pitted and chopped soft prunes 2 tsp dark marmalade 200g self-raising flour 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 2 tbsp dried ginger 2 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp mace ½ tsp salt 115g butter or cooking margarine 115g dark brown sugar 115g black treacle 115g golden syrup 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 125ml milk Butter a deep 20cm square cake tin and line with baking paper. Pre-heat the oven at 180oc (165oc fan oven). Put the stem and fresh ginger in a small blender with the marmalade and prunes and blend until smooth. If it becomes too stiff, use a little of the milk to loosen. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, dried ginger, cinnamon, mace and salt in a large bowl. Melt the butter, sugar, treacle and golden syrup in a small saucepan. When smooth, leave to cool. Mix the ginger and marmalade mixture into the dried ingredients, add the cooled butter mixture, the beaten eggs and milk. Stir until smooth. Pour into the cake tin and cook on the middle shelf for 50 mins to 1 hour. Leave in the tin to cool. Don’t worry if it’s sunken slightly in the middle, it’s all the better for it. Best eaten 24 hours after cooking and will keep for at least a week in an airtight tin. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing maybe a solo task, but writing and getting a book published is a team effort, and I can’t possibly go without thanking them for their help in bringing this book to life.

read your book, by the way,” I said. He looked up at me and then back down. He slapped a binder open. “The one about the Erlking?” I said. “The collected poems and essays?” He took a folder out of the binder, his back stiff. “The Warden from Bremen said you got the German wrong on the title,” I continued. “That must have been kind of embarrassing, huh? I mean, it’s been published for like a hundred years or something. Must eat at you.

As mammals, we are homeostatic. That means we maintain certain constant balances within our bodies, temperature for example, by adapting to change and challenge in the environment. Strength and flexibility allow us to keep an inner balance, but man is trying more and more to dominate the environment rather than control himself. Central heating, air conditioning, cars that we take out to drive three hundred yards, towns that stay lit up all night, and food imported from around the world out of season are all examples of how we try to circumvent our duty to adapt to nature and instead force nature to adapt to us. In the process, we become both weak and brittle. Even many of my Indian students who all now sit on chairs in their homes are becoming too stiff to sit in lotus position easily.

Lucy turned her pumpkin around. She’d carved a face with scary, triangular-eyes, a triangular nose and a jagged mouth with sharp teeth. “Your pumpkin looks constipated,” I said. I don’t think Lucy appreciated my comment because after I said it, she took her knife and stabbed it into my pumpkin.

The stone eater at the core of the obelisk floats before her. It’s her first time being close to one. All the books say that stone eaters are neither male nor female, but this one resembles a slender young man formed of white-veined black marble, clothed in smooth robes of iridescent opal. Its—his?—limbs, marbled and polished, splay as if frozen in mid-fall. His head is flung back, his hair loose and curling behind him in a splash of translucence. The cracks spread over his skin and the stiff illusion of his clothing, into him, through him. Are you alright? she wonders, and she has no idea why she wonders it, even as she herself cracks apart. His flesh is so terribly fissured; she wants to hold her breath, lest she damage him further. But that is irrational, because she isn’t here and this isn’t real. She is on a street about to die, but this stone eater has been dead for an age of the world. The stone eater closes his mouth, opens his eyes, and lowers his head to look at her. “I’m fine,” he says. “Thank you for asking.” And then the obelisk shatters.

I looked from Emily to Martha. Based on the set of their jaws and the stiffness in their shoulders, I knew this silence was conveying a lot. From the Heart

Athos, Dhihsin, Kryella, Nismera, Pharthar, Xeohr, Unir, Samkiel, grant me passage from here to the Asteraoth!” Zekiel cried. Asteraoth? No! That was the heavenly dimension, far beyond time and space. Fuck! He glanced at me one last time, and I saw tears form in his eyes. He tipped his head back to face the sky and plunged the dagger into his chest. I was on my feet in a second, but it was too late. My fingertips barely touched the silver hilt before he twisted the blade. His body went stiff as the tattoos on his skin lit up. The light raced to the center of his chest and then exploded in the most vibrant, blinding blue beam, shooting straight into the sky. I raised my hand to shield my eyes and spun away.

You know what we should do first?” Riley asked, finally standing up and stretching. Her Daphne costume, now stiff with dried blood, crackled with the movement. “We should stop by Walgreens.” Wren froze, a coil of rope in her hands. “What? You want to stop at Walgreens. While we have a dead body in the Jeep?” “Yeah, I need a new vape.

Humans are frail in our eyes today, and we secretly wonder whether those with poise and stiff upper lips are merely ticking time bombs. The freak-out allows us to feel we’re not alone in our inner panic.

We were stirred to involuntary hardness by this sexual decadence. The men’s glistening stiffness had blossomed into shades of irresistible rosiness. When Andy detected my urge to partake in this arousing feast, he held me back, instead guiding me to the pre-set camera on the table.

On the King were two sinewy males actively servicing the strapping Italian. The strikingly handsome dancer was straddling the hairy photographer, his drumming hardness coddled inside the machismo’s mouth as Mario relished the protrusion with feverous gusto, wetting the throbbing length with salivary potency. Behind Jamal, Albert was suckling the Italian’s bulging protuberance and lapping at the plumpness below. The dancer’s seductive buttocks plummeted rhythmically as he fed his stiffness into the Count’s oral hollow. This homoeroticism had inflamed my libido. Transfixed on their erotic prowess, my palpitating puissance throbbed unceasingly within my trousers. I craved to partake in their uninhibited proclivities and be free of the constraints of my apparel.

On the King were two sinewy males actively servicing the strapping Italian. The strikingly handsome dancer was straddling the hairy photographer, his drumming hardness coddled inside the machismo’s mouth as Mario relished the protrusion with feverous gusto, wetting the throbbing length with salivary potency. Behind Jamal, Albert was suckling the Italian’s bulging protuberance and lapping at the plumpness below. The dancer’s seductive buttocks plummeted rhythmically as he fed his stiffness into the Count’s oral hollow. This homoeroticism had inflamed my libido. Transfixed on their erotic prowess, my palpitating puissance throbbed unceasingly within my trousers. I craved to partake in their uninhibited proclivities and be free of the constraints of my apparel. Zac was the one who nudged me back to my photographic sorcery. I clicked away from left to right and from above to below, capturing the fiery intensity that prevailed throughout the course of my arousing mission.               When Jamal’s pulsating organ eased conspicuously down Albert’s throat and Mario’s hardness came close to impaling the boy’s silky bottom, Zac

I gave the man a comely smile before inquiring, “What’s hard-a-lee?” Instead of responding, he tapped my erection, which bounced uncontrollably. His hardness had grown during our flirtatious intercourse, its bulbaceous size stirring my concupiscence to flutter as his sturdy hand stroked me into a dizzying spell. He pulled me to him, French kissing me passionately. Spellbound by his erotic expertise, I lost all sense of propriety. The feel of his bearded chin and hairy chest spawned my stiffness to drum incessantly against his furry torso. I had desired this sinewy helmsman from the moment we met. When he gave me the traditional nose-to-nose greeting, he’d stared at me unflinchingly. He had claimed my person with his assertive eyes then; now, thrills of chilling excitement coursed through my body as he cupped and squeezed my buttocks, teasing my tenderness with his manly hands. He inserted his fingers into my opening, claiming my cloven his. As we continued our alluring foreplay, the boat had drifted into an aquiline cove. It was then that I noticed my beloved Andy observing us by the doorway. My Valet gave me his approval to continue appeasing the beguiling athlete as he stared, mesmerized, at our erotic performance. He, like me, was entranced by Tad’s virility. He was witnessing a reflective manifestation of our intimate moments together in which I had surrendered myself fully to his maleness, as I did now to the helmsman. My chaperone needed no invitation. He knelt to suckle our thumping palpitations simultaneously as we jabbed into his craving throat. This hallowed ecstasy intensified my hunger for both men. Just then, I felt a pair of hairy arms pinching my bristled nipples from behind. The sheik’s sultry lips caressed my tender neck, seducing me into his web of libidinous captivity. While his jouncing member knocked at my doorway to paradise, I couldn’t help but succumb to this jubilant exultation, when another stimulation seized my searing soul, propelling me into an inferno of pleasurable jouissance.

It was within this circle of debauchery, we effectuated our erotic dance, answering only to the call of the wild. When our prurient desires took hold, we exchanged partners until we had our fill of proliferated succor. As I rode their ferocities with tumultuous savagery, fanatical flashes of electrifying potencies crashed within me, launching my deliverance over and above my partner’s head. The smashing waves of their burgeoning cogency coated my inner walls, stuffing my core to overflowing capacity. Before I could attain equilibrium, their un-relinquishing appetites had triggered another round of firing deposits - Tad’s unrelenting kisses brought on my second cumming while their stiffness continued to rock me into oblivion. Squirts of their molten love burst into the hub of my fervent mortality as I surrendered to this heavenly joyance with blissful contentment. While the helmsman and the captain took turns lapping up the brimming remnants they had lodged within my willing burrow, I swathed their leaking appendages with ardent gusto before sharing our fill in a three-way kiss. When I finally looked over at our adjoining trio, they too were apportioning their feed, as we had a moment ago. At last, we plunged into the cooling aqua, cleansing all traces of our man-to-man love before heading back whence we came.

When we’re outside, I hear Brittany take a deep breath. I swear it sounds as if she’s holding herself together by a thin thread. Not the way it’s supposed to go down: bring girl home, kiss girl, mom insults girl, girl leaves crying. “Don’t sweat it. She’s just not used to me bringin’ girls in the house.” Brittany’s expressive blue eyes appear remote and cold. “That shouldn’t have happened,” she says, throwing back her shoulders in a stance as stiff as a statue’s. “What? The kiss or you likin’ it so much?” “I have a boyfriend,” she says as she fidgets with the strap on her designer book bag. “You tryin’ to convince me, or yourself?” I ask her. “Don’t turn this around. I don’t want to upset my friends. I don’t want to upset my mom. And Colin…I’m just really confused right now.” I hold out my hands and raise my voice, something I usually avoid because like Paco says, it means I actually care. I don’t care. Why should I? My mind says to shut the fuck up at the same time words spout from my mouth. “I don’t get it. He treats you like you’re his damn prize.” “You don’t even know what it’s like with me and Colin…” “Tell me, dammit,” I say, unable to hide the edge to my voice. Initially I hold myself back from what I really want to say, but I can’t resist and tell it to her straight up. “’Cause that kiss back there…it meant somethin’. You know it as well as I do. I dare you to tell me bein’ with Colin is better than that.” She looks away hastily. “You wouldn’t understand.” “Try me.” “When people see Colin and me together, they comment on how perfect we are. You know, the Golden Couple. Get it?” I stare at her in disbelief. That is beyond fucked up. “I get it. I just can’t believe I’m hearin’ it. Does bein’ perfect mean that much to you?” There’s a long, brittle silence. I catch a flicker of sadness in those sapphire eyes, but then it’s gone. In an instant her expression stills and grows serious. “I haven’t been doing a bang-up job at it lately, but yes. It does,” she finally admits. “My sister isn’t perfect, so I have to be.” That is the most pathetic shit I’ve ever heard. I shake my head in disgust and point to Julio. “Get on and I’ll take you back to school to get your car.” Silently, Brittany straddles my motorcycle. She holds herself so far away from me I can barely feel her behind me. I almost take a detour to make the ride last longer. She treats her sister with patience and adoration. God knows I wouldn’t be able to spoon-feed one of my brothers and wipe his mouth. The girl I once accused of being self-absorbed is not one-dimensional. Dios mío, I admire her. Somehow, being with Brittany brings something to my life that’s missing, something…right. But how am I going to convince her of that?

I made myself listen to the music I loved as I worked. I would not be a coward anymore. If I acted like a lunatic, so be it! In my mind I raged and I vowed that Samuel’s leaving would not make me resort to musical holocaust. I was done with that nonsense! I played Grieg until my fingers were stiff, and I worked with the frenzy of Balakirev’s ‘Islamey’ pounding out of the loud speakers. My dad came inside during that one and turned around and walked right back out again. On day 15, I made a chocolate cake worthy of the record books. It was disgustingly rich and fattening, teetering several stories high, weighing more than I did, laden with thick cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled liberally with chocolate shavings. I sat down to eat it with a big fork and no bib. I dug in with a gusto seen only at those highly competitive hotdog eating contests where the tiny Asian girl kicks all the fat boys’ butts. “JOSIE JO JENSEN!” Louise and Tara stood at the kitchen door, shock and revulsion, and maybe just a little envy in their faces. Brahms ‘Rhapsodie No. 2 in G Minor’ was making my little kitchen shake. Eating cake to Brahms was a new experience for me. I liked it. I dug back in, ignoring them. “Well Mom,” I heard Tara say, “what should we do?!” My Aunt Louise was a very practical woman. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!” She quoted cheerfully. Before I knew it, Tara and Louise both had forks, too. They didn’t seem to need bibs either. We ate, increasing our tempo as the music intensified. “ENOUGH!” My dad stood in the doorway. He was good and mad, too. His sun-browned face was as ruddy as my favorite high heels. “I sent you two in for an intervention! What is this?! Eater’s Anonymous Gone Wild?” “Aww, Daddy. Get a fork,” I replied, barely breaking rhythm. My dad strode over, took the fork from my hand and threw it, tines first, right into the wall. It stuck there, embedded and twanging like a sword at a medieval tournament. He pulled out my chair and grabbed me under the arms, pushing me out of the kitchen. I tried to take one last swipe at my cake, but he let out this inhuman roar, and I abandoned all hope of making myself well and truly sick. “Tara! Aunt Louise!” I shouted frantically. “I want you gone!!! That’s my cake! You can’t have any more without me!” My dad pushed me through the front door and out onto the porch, the screen banging behind him. I sunk to the porch swing, sullenly wiping chocolate crumbs from my mouth. My dad stomped back inside the house and suddenly the music pouring from every nook and cranny stopped abruptly. I heard him tell Louise he’d call her later, and then the kitchen door banged, indicating my aunt’s and Tara’s departure. Good. They would have eaten that whole cake. I saw the way they were shoveling it in.

But if they’re all rigid and stiff, then how do they move at all? Ahhh, that’s where the joints come in. The stiff shells and tubes are jointed, and the muscles that move their bodies are attached to the insides of them. This gives them rigid bodies, but flexible, movable legs. The arthropod’s body is built in sections or segments, and pairs of limbs stick out from the side or the bottom of certain body segments. The typical insect, like an ant or beetle, has a head, thorax and abdomen, along with three pairs of leg segments, giving them six legs altogether. To move, each leg moves (from the ‘hip’ joint where it contacts the body) up, forward, back, then down in an alternating pattern, driving the insect forward.

Rohan’s fingertips drifted with stunning delicacy over her throat, behind her ear, pushing into the satiny warmth of her hair. “You are an interesting woman, Amelia.” Gooseflesh rose wherever his breath touched. “I can’t f-fathom why you would think so.” His playful mouth traced the wing of her brow. “I find you thoroughly, deeply interesting. I want to open you like a book and read every page.” A smile curled the corners of his lips as he added huskily, “Footnotes included.” Feeling the stiffness of her neck muscles, he coaxed the tension out of them, kneading lightly. “I want you. I want to lie with you beneath constellations and clouds and shade trees.” Before she could answer, he covered her mouth with his.

He grabbed the Sprite

Triple-Chocolate Parfait This recipe comes from Michael Lewis-Anderson, the brilliant chocolate stylist from Wittamer in Brussels, who swears he cannot make his parfaits fast enough for chocolate lovers who come from all around the world for his superlative creations. When melting the chocolates, be sure that the bowls are thoroughly dry first. Just a drop of liquid can cause chocolate to become stiff and unmanageable. Since you are making three distinct mousse layers, whip all the cream in one bowl and then separate it into thirds, and do the same with the egg whites. For a change of pace, instead of serving the three mousses as a cake, divide the recipe in half and layer the three mousses in 8 tall wine goblets. They’re especially elegant when topped with shavings of dark, milk, and white chocolate, or perfect berries during the summer. ONE TALL 9-INCH (23-CM) CAKE, 8 TO 10 SERVINGS, OR 8 GOBLETS 9 ounces [255 grams] bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped 9 ounces [255 grams] white chocolate, chopped 9 ounces [255 grams] milk chocolate, chopped 2¼ cups [560 ml] heavy cream 9 large egg whites Chocolate shavings Lightly oil a 9 × 3-inch (23 × 7.5-cm) springform pan and set it on a serving platter. • In three separate medium-sized heatproof bowls, melt each chocolate successively over a saucepan of simmering water (you can use the same saucepan, just melt one after the other). Remove each chocolate from the heat and set aside to cool to lukewarm. • Whip the cream until it holds soft, droopy peaks. It should be relatively stiff but not dry and curdled. You should have about 6 cups (1½ liters) of whipped cream. • Making sure your chocolate is not hot, fold one-third of the whipped cream (about 2 cups [500 ml]) into the dark chocolate in two separate additions. • Divide the remaining whipped cream between the bowls of milk and white chocolate, then fold the cream into each. • In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until they are thick and hold their shape, but not dry. • Fold one-third of the egg whites (about 2½ cups [625 ml]) into each chocolate mousse filling, folding until smooth. • Pour the dark chocolate mousse into the prepared cake pan and level the top. Add the milk chocolate mousse, spreading it over the dark chocolate mousse and leveling the top. (If the milk chocolate mousse seems thin, freeze the cake for about 30 minutes before adding the white chocolate mousse.) • Finally add the white chocolate mousse to the top. (It will seem thin, but that is fine.) • Chill the parfait cake for at least 6 hours, or freeze, before removing the sides of the cake pan. The cake should be sliced and served either chilled or frozen. Serve it with the chocolate shavings. • If you are concerned about serving uncooked egg whites, pasteurized egg whites are available in most grocery stores.

January 2013 Continuation of Andy’s Message (part two)   …It was great to skinny dip in such a beautiful environment. It was difficult not to fall prey to these two attractive, brown-skinned boys with their enticing brown eyes, exotic smiles and seductive charms. In turn, they found my masculinity irresistible. That evening we frolicked under the silvery moon.               Amidst the gentle rolling waves, we lay on the shoreline. I was in heaven when they enveloped me in a dizzying spell of unbridled resignation. Both of them took turns lapping at the fiber of my existence, teasing and caressing my engorgement with agile dexterity. I could no longer hold off my essence and sprayed on their faces. We shared my dripping rivulets in a passionate three-way kiss. When they continued suckling my penis, I was steered back to life. I had to possess their tenderness. I took turns pleasuring their puckering fissures as they begged for my stiffness with irrepressible gusto. Boy, did they love my proclivity! The louder their groans, the harder I pounded. When I withdrew from one, the other was poised for insertion. They couldn’t get enough of my onslaught. I was in ecstasy as I whisked back and forth between these two insatiable accomplices.               The more acute my plundering, the more uncontrollable their hardness throbbed. Anak, no longer able to withhold his enthusiasm, spewed into Taer’s throat while I plucked away at his friend’s rucking furrow. Taer’s twitching tightness had me deposit my fill into his receiving orifice. Anak wasted no time in devouring the oozing drippage around my pulsating phallus, still enshrouded within his buddy’s tunnel.               To pleasure himself, the unquenchable Taer wanted my bobbing organ down his throat. I obliged. In a trancelike delirium, the Filipino released jets of potent effusions onto his slender abdomen. Our tongues swirled in erotic kisses as we shared our libations in frantic elation.               Unwilling to relinquish this enchanted evening, we dove into the shimmering ocean, only to emerge rejuvenated, ready to resume the sequel of our sexcapade.

In other words, what freedom is to Americans, thoroughness to Germans, and the stiff upper lip to the British, hygge is to Danes.

Asa looked up, drawing a deep breath, and saw that his harpy wasn't amused by his laughter. "I don't think why you find the thought of me helping with your books so funny," she said in a stiff little voice. "Or, for that matter, letting me paint you." Her mouth- the only soft part of her, as far as he could tell- trembled a bit. Well, he hadn't meant to hurt her feelings. "Don't worry about it, luv," he said, tearing off a bite of the bread with his teeth. "You'll find out soon enough when you see my books. As for the other-" he set down the piece of bread and shrugged off his coat- "do you want to start now?" That got him a wide-eyed look, and he couldn't help but grin at her, mouth obnoxiously full, as he began unbuttoning his waistcoat. Had the lady bitten off more than she could chew? "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice high and a bit panicked. He opened his eyes in mock innocence as he yanked his shirt from his breeches. "Stop that at once." "Why?" he asked curiously, his fingers still on his lifted shirt. Her gaze darted to his bared navel and then away again like that of a sweet canary frightened by an ugly alley cat. "You said you wanted me to 'model' for you.

A massive ball of brown water, uprooted tree trunks, sheared rooftops, bloated horses, stiff dogs and cats, shattered church windows, broken pews, sodden Bibles, Memorial Day flags, busted brick walls, twisted train cars, splintered rail lines, bowed streetlamps, upturned carriages, naked dolls, bent tin soldiers, dented red wagons, books, black stoves, beds, tables, armchairs, mantels, photographs, love letters, wedding dresses, baby booties, and masses of drowned humanity careens straight for us. Neither Eugene Eggar nor I can move.

Montressor saw that without the freedom of air, to which she was accustomed, she would never be better. Miss Russel’s rector, like many another rector, since he “knew nothing of the young person,” would not have thought of wasting one of his spare beds on a stranger “of no connexions,” and “you know, my dear, for anything we can tell, perhaps of no very pure moral character,” as he remarked to his wife, previous to rustling into church in his stiff and majestic surplice, and giving for his text the story of Mary Magdalene.

It led on and on; vistas of forgotten metal; moribund, stiff in a thousand attitudes of mortality; with not a rat, not a mouse; not a bat, not a spider. Only the Lamb, sitting in his high chair with a faint smile upon his lips; alone in the luxury of his vaulted chamber, where the red carpet was like blood, and the walls were lined with books that rose up...up... volume after volume until the shadows engulfed them.

The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail…. Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.

It's beautiful here," Rees murmured, watching the light play upon the water before returning his gaze to her. Mrs. Hollingsworth, his newest client, turned to him and forced a stiff smile. "Yes, money can buy all kinds of beautiful things," she said without a hint of emotion.

Instead he fanned the fire. When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter.

Professor of Comparative Literature, B.A. Harvard. Ph.D. Sorbonne, Oxford. Somewhere certificates pasted in full-of-truth blue book. At points we diverge, essential points in fact. Always a clean white page to begin on. Où sont les neiges. The boy had been strangely unreluctant. Although detached, even cold in a numb, childish fashion, the boy had willingly submitted. First his shoes, then his socks and trousers pulled off by the Doctor’s trembling white hands, his priest hands moving of themselves, mechanical but infused with timeless primordial mystery that guided his fingers with a logic more powerful and comprehending than his own being. The flesh presented to his lips, staleness of his own groin floating up to meet him as he knelt. Breath of a dying wino. With this kiss I thee wed, the lean black bridegroom puff of veiled white beside him arm curled into his as they stood rigid with grotesque, confectionary smiles atop the pyramid of cake. Stale cake toppling then as knife keenly enters collapsing with a wheeze the creamy icing. He gave of himself in grudged thin spasms. The hierophant rose on stiff knees.

cut two rectangular holes in the middle of the sheet. “There! Perfect,” she said, putting the scissors on the dressing table and holding up the sheet beside me. “What is?” “This will be your costume,” she exclaimed. “Oh! Am I going as a bed?” “No.

You stiff-necked fool,” he muttered, “too proud to listen. Can you eat pride, Stark? Will honor shield your children?

stiff

Freethinking, Lady Frederick?” She hated that name. It was like a shackle around her neck, engraved with the name of her master. She took a step back, her face openly mutinous in the light of the single lamp. “I don’t like being told what to do.” Captain Reid quirked an eyebrow. “I shall remember that.” Unexpectedly, Penelope grinned. “No, I don’t expect you will. But I shall keep reminding you.” Turning her back on him quite deliberately, she scanned the books scattered across the shelves. “Do you have that Hindustani grammar for me?” “This one.” He reached from behind her to tip a book out of the row. His sleeve brushed her shoulder in passing. It was a coarser weave than Freddy favored, which must have been why it seemed to leave such a trail across her bare skin. She could smell the clean scent of shaving soap on his jaw and port on his breath, almost overwhelming the small space, as though not being able to see him somehow made him larger than he was, blowing his presence out of proportion in the brush of fabric against her back, the whisper of breath against her hair. Penelope twisted around, so that the bookshelf pressed into her back, pinning her between the writing desk on one side and Captain Reid’s extended arm on the other. She tipped her head back to look him in the eye, the ribbons in her hair snagging against the shelf. Captain Reid made no move to remove his arm. They were face-to-face, chest-to-chest, close enough to kiss. But for the fact that they weren’t on a balcony, and there was no champagne in evidence, it might have been a dozen other encounters in Penelope’s existence, a dozen dangerous preludes to a kiss. But this wasn’t a ballroom, and this man wasn’t any of the spoiled society boys she had known in London. He studied her face in the strange, shifting light, as the ship rocked back and forth and they rocked with it, pinned in place, frozen in tableau, his own face dark and unreadable in the half-light. One might, thought Penelope hazily, her eyes dropping to his lips, attempt to seduce information out of him. From what she had heard, it was a far-from-uncommon technique. One needn’t go too far, after all. A sultry glance, a subtle caress . . . a kiss. It was all for a good cause—and it could be so easy. Or maybe not. Captain Reid was no Freddy. Stepping abruptly back, he favored her with a stiff, social smile, the sort one would give a maiden aunt who was being tedious at a party, but to whom one was bound to be polite. With a brusque motion, he thrust the red-bound book into her hands, gesturing her, with unmistakable finality, towards the door. “Here is your grammar, Lady Frederick. I wish you . . . an instructive time with it.” “Oh, yes,” said Penelope, with more bravado than she felt. “It has certainly been most instructive.

Ye understand, beloved, ye understand well the Sacred Scriptures, and ye have looked very earnestly into the oracles of God. Call then these things to your remembrance. When Moses went up into the mount, and abode there, with fasting and humiliation, forty days and forty nights, the Lord said unto him, “Moses, Moses, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people whom thou didst bring out of the land of Egypt have committed iniquity. They have speedily departed from the way in which I commanded them to walk, and have made to themselves molten images.” And the Lord said unto him, “I have spoken to thee once and again, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: let Me destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make thee a great and wonderful nation, and one much more numerous than this.” But Moses said, “Far be it from Thee, Lord: pardon the sin of this people; else blot me also out of the book of the living.” O marvellous love! O insuperable perfection! The servant speaks freely to his Lord, and asks forgiveness for the people, or begs that he himself might perish along with them.

As for the further risk that the patient could suffer positive harm at the hands of the alternative therapists, chiropractic therapy stands out as one of the few alternative treatments that are dangerous in themselves. In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experienced temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. Patients

There,” Lucetta proclaimed. “You’re completely buttoned. Now all we have to do is fix your hair, and you’ll be perfect.” “I don’t know how you’re intending to fix my hair, especially since it’s still soaking wet, and . . . stiff with sea salt.” “I’m an actress. Fixing appearances is my specialty.” Lucetta looked a little smug as she adjusted the large hat she’d plopped over her head. “My hair is salt-soaked as well, but no one will notice since I’ve arranged my hat just so, lending me a rather mysterious air.” “You could plop a bowl of fruit on your head and you’d still look mysterious,” Millie said. “I wish I had one of my caps handy. That would solve my hair crisis nicely.” Everett caught Millie’s eye. “I never liked your caps.” “They’re practical.” “And ugly,” Lucetta added, smiling over Millie’s head at him. She pulled a hat from behind her on the seat that was a little squished, and stuck it on Millie’s head, pulling a pin out of the bodice of her dress and sticking it through the hat. “There—you’re adorable.” “I

Smitten I am standing there Gazing at your form I cannot help but reach out And touch your arm Stroking soft and slow Caressing back and forth   My lips kiss your nape My hands pass down your neck Your mounds promise more You shudder as I touch your nipple Between your legs I feel the heat The dampness is ready   Labial heat rising Stiffness between my legs Our breaths panting Our embraces melting We kiss deeply The rest is yet to come

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment’s thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each façade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear. To

Jan Bondeson collected dozens of them for his witty and admirably researched book Buried Alive.

Nesta ate until she couldn't fit another morsel into her body, helping herself to thirds of the soup. The House seemed more than happy to oblige her, and had even offered her a slice of double-chocolate cake to finish. 'Is this Cassian-approved?' She picked up the fork and smiled at the moist, gleaming cake. 'It certainly isn't,' he said from the doorway, and Nesta whirled, scowling. He nodded toward the cake. 'But eat up.' She put down the fork. 'What do you want?' Cassian surveyed the family library. 'Why are you eating in here?' 'Isn't it obvious?' His grin was a slash of white. 'The only thing that's obvious is that you're talking to yourself.' 'I'm talking to the House. Which is a considerable step up from talking to you.' 'It doesn't talk back.' 'Exactly.' He snorted. 'I walked into that one.' He stalked across the room, eyeing the cake she still didn't touch. 'Are you really... talking to the House?' 'Don't you talk to it?' 'No.' 'It listens to me,' she insisted. 'Of course it does. It's enchanted.' 'It even brought food down to the library unasked.' His brows rose. 'Why?' 'I don't know how your faerie magic works.' 'Did you... do anything to make it act that way?' 'If you're taking a page from Devlon's book and asking if I did any witchcraft, the answer is no.' Cassian chuckled. 'That's not what I meant, but fine. The House likes you. Congratulations.' She growled, and he leaned over to pick up the fork. She went stiff at his closeness, but he said nothing as he took a bite of the cake. He let out a hum of pleasure that traveled along her bones. And then took another bite. 'That's supposed to be mine,' she groused, peering up at him as he continued to eat. 'Then take it from me,' he said.

dark. Suddenly, a Creeper sprung up at the

His playful mouth traced the wing of her brow. “I find you thoroughly, deeply interesting. I want to open you like a book and read every page.” A smile curled the corners of his lips as he added huskily, “Footnotes included.” Feeling the stiffness of her neck muscles, he coaxed the tension out of them, kneading lightly. “I want you. I want to lie with you beneath constellations and clouds and shade trees.

I might be an arse but nobody deserves to be drinking double vodka on their own in the middle of the day,” he chuckled, but there was a serious concern there that even Lydia could pick up on. Well that was a damn sight different to the stiff-lipped prick he’d been last time they spoke. Eyeing him for a moment longer, she offered up a smirk of her own. “Tori kick your arse hard enough to knock that stick out of it, then?” “Ah, I’m not sure,” Erik clicked his tongue, tilting his head in mock-thoughtfulness, "Think I’ve still got splinters.

Plus, Mrs. Lurker was beginning to get quite annoyed because I was firing them faster than she could sweep them up.

The way of life is soft and yielding. The way of death is hard and inflexible. What is yielding and accepting endures. What is hard and stiff easily breaks.

The door in a nook of a stone bridge led me to grandly decorated passages, candlelit. Eerie and beautiful all at once. I became increasingly anxious as I breathed in, out, my air out into the air of the passageway, and the passageway’s air entering me. A cycle of life in stone. Salty, bitter air. Like a night-sweat. Like insomnia. You wake, sweating and you are paralysed and sweat. You lick your upper lip (not such a stiff upper lip now), and that is what you taste. The sweat of stone, the sickly-sweet decorum of history on the palette.

I wasn’t dead, I was asleep. There’s a difference, however slight. That subtle difference is between being a stiff and having a stiffy.

Know that Yahweh does not give you this good land because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked, stubborn people. 9:6 Remember, and never forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to anger in the wilderness. From the day you departed Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.

She leaned over, pulling Keefe into the tightest hug possible, and whispered, “Thank you.” It took him a second to hug her back, and his arms felt a little stiff. But his breath was warm in her ear as he told her, “Anytime, Foster. I’m always here.

He was almost too tired to do that, though he knew he would regret it if he went to bed in his clothes. That was the province of the young and nonarthritic. Colin would wake refreshed in spite of digging buttons and constricting sleeves. Kivrin could wrap up in her too-thin white cloak and rest her head on a tree stump none the worse for wear, but if he so much as omitted a pillow or left his shirt on, he would wake stiff and cramped.

quote by Lao Tzu. “Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus, whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life”.

In particular, he had some sewed up in skins of wild beasts, and then worried by dogs until they expired; and others dressed in shirts made stiff with wax, fixed to axletrees, and set on fire in his gardens, in order to illuminate them.

Rohan’s fingertips drifted with stunning delicacy over her throat, behind her ear, pushing into the satiny warmth of her hair. “You are an interesting woman, Amelia.” Gooseflesh rose wherever his breath touched. “I can’t f-fathom why you would think so.” His playful mouth traced the wing of her brow. “I find you thoroughly, deeply interesting. I want to open you like a book and read every page.” A smile curled the corners of his lips as he added huskily, “Footnotes included.” Feeling the stiffness of her neck muscles, he coaxed the tension out of them, kneading lightly. “I want you. I want to lie with you beneath constellations and clouds and shade trees.” Before she could answer, he covered her mouth with his.

Perhaps I could help,” Marcus suggested pleasantly, stopping beside her. “If you would tell me what you’re looking for.” “Something romantic. Something with a happy ending. There should always be a happy ending, shouldn’ there?” Marcus reached out to finger a trailing lock of her hair, his thumb sliding along the glowing satin filaments. He had never thought of himself as a particularly tactile man, but it seemed impossible to keep from touching her when she was near. The pleasure he derived from the simplest contact with her set all his nerves alight. “Not always,” he said in reply to her question. Lillian let out a bubbling laugh. “How very English of you. How you all love to suffer, with your stiff…stiff…” She peered at the book in her hands, distracted by the gilt on its cover. “…upper lips,” she finished absently. “We don’t like to suffer.” “Yes, you do. At the very least, you go out of your way to avoid enjoying something.” By now Marcus was becoming accustomed to the unique mixture of lust and amusement that she always managed to arouse in him. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping one’s enjoyments private.” Dropping the book in her hands, Lillian turned to face him. The abruptness of the movement resulted in a sharp wobble, and she swayed back against the shelves even as he moved to steady her with his hands at her waist. Her tip-tilted eyes sparkled like an array of diamonds scattered over brown velvet. “It has nothing to do with privacy,” she informed him. “The truth is that you don’t want to be happy, bec—” She hiccupped gently. “Because it would undermine your dignity. Poor Wes’cliff.” She regarded him compassionately. At the moment, preserving his dignity was the last thing on Marcus’s mind. He grasped the frame of the bookcase on either side of her, encompassing her in the half circle of his arms. As he caught a whiff of her breath, he shook his head and murmured, “Little one…what have you been drinking?” “Oh…” She ducked beneath his arm and careened to the sideboard a few feet away. “I’ll show you…wonderful, wonderful stuff…this.” Triumphantly she plucked a nearly empty brandy bottle from the edge of the sideboard and held it by the neck. “Look what someone did…a pear, right inside! Isn’ that clever?” Bringing the bottle close to her face, she squinted at the imprisoned fruit. “It wasn’ very good at first. But it improved after a while. I suppose it’s an ac”—another delicate hiccup— “acquired taste.” “It appears you’ve succeeded in acquiring it,” Marcus remarked, following her. “You won’ tell anyone, will you?” “No,” he promised gravely. “But I’m afraid they’re going to know regardless. Unless we can sober you in the next two or three hours before they return. Lillian, my angel…how much was in the bottle when you started?” Showing him the bottle, she put her finger a third of the way from the bottom. “It was there when I started. I think. Or maybe there.” She frowned sadly at the bottle. “Now all that’s left is the pear.” She swirled the bottle, making the plump fruit slosh juicily at the bottom. “I want to eat it,” she announced. “It’s not meant to be eaten. It’s only there to infuse the—Lillian, give the damned thing to me.

As she approached the library, she felt her heartbeat quicken uncomfortably. Squaring her shoulders, she crossed the threshold. Devon appeared to be browsing over a row of books, reaching up to straighten a trio of volumes that had fallen sideways. “My lord,” Kathleen said quietly. Devon turned, his gaze finding hers at once. He was stunningly handsome, dressed in a dark suit of clothes that had been tailored in the new looser-fitting fashion, the coat, waistcoat, and trousers all made of matching fabric. The informal cut of the suit did nothing to soften the hard lines of his body. For a moment Kathleen couldn’t help remembering the feel of his arms around her, his solid chest beneath her cheek. Heat swept over her face. Devon bowed, his face inscrutable. He appeared relaxed at first glance, but a closer look revealed faint shadows beneath his eyes, and finespun tension beneath his calm veneer. “I hope you’re well this morning,” he said quietly. Her blush deepened uncomfortably. “Yes, thank you.” She curtsied and wove her fingers together in a stiff knot. “You wished to discuss something before you depart?” “Yes, regarding the estate, I’ve come to some conclusions--” “I do hope--” she began, and broke off. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to--” “Go on.” Kathleen dropped her gaze to her clenched hands as she spoke. “My lord, if you decide to dismiss any of the servants…or indeed all of them…I hope you take into account that some have served the Ravenels for their entire lives. Perhaps you might consider giving small parting sums to the oldest ones who have little hope of securing other employment.” “I’ll bear it in mind.” She could feel him looking at her, his gaze as tangible as the heat of sunlight. The mahogany bracket clock on the mantel measured out the silence with delicate ticks. His voice was soft. “You’re nervous with me.

certain Goth, named Galla, was of the impious sect of the Arians. This terrible Goth, during the reign of King Totila, did with monstrous cruelty persecute religious men of the Catholic Church. If any cleric or monk came into his sight, he was sure not to escape from his hands alive. This man, enraged with an insatiable desire of spoil and pillage, lighted one day upon a husbandman, whom he tormented with cruel torments. The rustic, overcome with pain, professed that he had committed his goods to the custody of the servant of God, Benedict. This he feigned that he might free himself from torments and prolong his life for some time. Then this Galla desisted from tormenting him and, tying his arms together with a strong cord, made him run before his horse to show him who this Benedict was that had received his goods. Thus the man went in front, having his arms bound, and brought him to the holy man’s monastery, whom he found sitting alone at the monastery gate, reading. Then the countryman said to Galla, who followed furiously after him, “See! This is Father Benedict whom I told you of.” The barbarous ruffian, looking upon him with enraged fury, thought to affright him with his usual threats, and began to cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Rise, rise and deliver up this rustic’s goods which thou hast received.” At whose voice the man of God suddenly lifted up his eyes from reading and saw him and also the countryman whom he kept bound; but, as he cast his eyes upon his arms, in a wonderful manner the cords fell off so quickly that no man could possibly have so soon untied them. When Galla perceived the man whom he brought bound so suddenly loosened and at liberty, struck with fear at the sight of so great power, he fell prostrate and bowed his stiff and cruel neck at the holy man’s feet, begging his prayers. But the holy man rose not from his reading, but called upon the brethren to bring him to receive his benediction. When he was brought to him, he exhorted him to leave off his barbarous and inhuman cruelty.

Ignoring his shock, I roll my thumb slowly over his moist tip before drawing down again to his base. I feel the incessant throb under my grasp and the wetness of cum escaping the tip. Gathering the moisture, I glide smoothly up and down his iron-stiff erection. I turn my eyes on him. “Good?

and in these respects very ulike the ordinary pedagogues of the sixteenth century, who studied by a stiff demeanor, a severe countenance, and the terrors of discipline to compel the obedience of their pupils, and inspire them with the love of learning.

Many people think that meditation simply means sitting and closing your eyes,” the Dalai Lama continued, closing his eyes and taking a stiff posture. “That kind of meditation even my cat can do. He sits there very calmly purring. If a rat comes by, it has nothing to worry about. We Tibetans often recite mantras so much, like Om Mani Padme Hum, a mantra invoking the name of the Buddha of Compassion, that we forget to really investigate the root causes of our suffering. Maybe my purring cat is actually reciting Om Mani Padme Hum.” The Dalai Lama laughed hard at the thought of his devout Tibetan Buddhist cat.

So you have some pretty stiff competition.

There’s a kid in a refrigerator box trying to rob us!

distant band of Comanche brought in a boy with a thin, sensitive face, a wide mouth, and hooded eyes. He never looked at anyone from the moment he was brought in. He kept his head high and stiff and his eyes half closed and his gaze on the floorboards. He moved slowly and carefully. He seemed to be injured in some obscure way. His adopted father had bargained over his price, holding out for one more pound of coffee, another blanket. The Comanche had been traders for a century or more, and they were skilled at it. The boy listened with his beautiful eyes on the windowsill. Listened as he was sold by the man he had adored and whom he had imitated in everything. Followed across the hot plains, the man who had given him his Comanche name and approved of his aim with a rifle and his torture of a Mexican captive. He stood up like an automaton and followed the Indian agent, expecting to be killed, and when he was not killed, he was flooded by a feeling of contempt. He was crushed into whiteman’s clothing and led to a building. Jiles, Paulette. The Color of Lightning: A Novel (pp. 300-301). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition.

saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Let us work with Rich, and keep him close.’ There was a gentle knock at the door. Mary Odell and the Queen’s sister, Lady Herbert, stood in the doorway, bearing candles. They stepped aside to allow the Queen to walk into the room between them. Like the others she was dressed informally, in a gold-and-green caftan; there had been no time for the long labour with pins and corsets necessary for her to be dressed fully. Her auburn hair was tied back under a knitted hood. Under hastily applied whitelead, her face was tense. We bowed to her, my back suddenly stiff after the long day. She dismissed her ladies. ‘What news?’ she asked without preliminaries. ‘Please, tell me my book is found.’ ‘Not yet, niece,’ Lord Parr said gently. ‘But there has been another development, a – complication. I am sorry to request your presence at this time of night, but matters

and gotten them back on the trail. They would continue to dry out on the run. He had also replaced his heavy insulated mittens. They were a soggy mess, frozen stiff, and would have to

So how is wanting to become paper different than wanting to become a novel?" I asked, getting a bit more serious. "If you took that matter a bit more to heart, I think you'd see what I mean for yourself. But to answer you anyway, in elementary school I was working with some papier mâché and I realized that it was a lot like brains. You know how you make papier mâché, right? You soak newspaper in water until it gets soggy and starts to mash up, and then you add some glue. So, in other words, within this gluey substance are countless words and letters all smashed together. It's like my brain as I read books and then think, my thoughts forming out of the mashed-up words I've put into my memory that I rearrange to make something new. Brains are just so much papier mâché." "So your brain is hardened and stiff?" "I just have to make sure it isn't exposed to the air. Anyway, I began to think of myself as formed out of papier mâché, which made me better able to understand how it must feel to be paper itself." "Such anthropomorphism is quite typical of young girls." "It's not anthropomorphism. Pay attention. What I realized was that the feeling of having no feelings was how it felt to be paper. In other words, I was attracted to paper, but paper itself, as banal as it sounds, has no inner self, can only absorb characters and words into itself without assigning them meaning. That's how I wanted to be, I realized. And I simultaneously realized that the more I wanted to be paper, the farther I got from actually being like it, which made me sad.

didn’t know what to do. Lucy’s nose was gone and the room smelled like burnt plastic.

Mistress Rafferty,” began the Sergeant in self-conscious formality of tone, “I am a much older man than the one we have just laid to rest, but I am sober, honest and mindful of the plight of those placed in the situation you find yourself facing. You must take another husband straightway, and there’s many’ll be lining up for the privilege. First, though, I wants to put a proposition before you. My age is forty-six, and I’m due for promotion again before too long passes. I drinks a spot of porter now and again, but no more than that. As a boy I was school-taught and I keeps my hand in by studying from books. I’m clean and tidy about the place, and mostly of a quiet disposition. As a sergeant I earns enough to be comfortable, and my quarters is shaded by trees so it don’t get too plaguey hot. I’ve watched you, Mistress Rafferty, and it seems to me you’re a hard-working girl with fingers that are nimble and a disposition that’s livelier than most. I wouldn’t ask nothing of you save housekeeping and a mite of companionship. In return, I offers you the quietness of my quarters, the use of my books, and a trusty protection. You can have a bed of your own behind a curtain, and the freedom to make the place suitable for a female to occupy.” He shifted from the stiff pose he had adopted and fingered his brown moustache nervously. “I’m a lonely sort of man, Mistress Rafferty, and I’d be a dutiful husband. Oh yes,” he added quickly, as if remembering something he had left out of the rehearsed speech, “I won’t fill the place with the smoke of my cigars to upset you, but step outside when I lights one.

Your pumpkin looks constipated,” I said. I don’t think Lucy appreciated my comment because after I said it, she took her knife and stabbed it into my pumpkin.

I think I have never known anyone who regarded the sexual connection as quite so unamusing a contract. So dark and febrile and outside the range of the normal did all aspects of this contract seem to Charlotte that she was for example incapable of walking normally across a room in the presence of two men with whom she had slept. Her legs seemed to lock unnaturally into her pelvic bones. Her body went stiff, as if convulsed by the question of who had ac­cess to it and who did not.

Not everyone agrees with the psychological theory. There are those who feel that some sort of neural overload takes place when a bullet hits. I communicated with a neurologist/avid handgunner/reserve deputy sheriff in Victoria, Texas, named Dennis Tobin, who has a theory about this. Tobin, who wrote the chapter “A Neurologist’s View of ‘Stopping Power’” in the book Handgun Stopping Power, posits that an area of the brain stem called the reticular activating system (RAS) is responsible for the sudden collapse. The RAS can be affected by impulses arising from massive pain sensations in the viscera.* Upon receiving these impulses, the RAS sends out a signal that weakens certain leg muscles, with the result that the person drops to the ground.

Everything about the event was said and formulaic, sapped of energy. He didn't know why he had come. He had read the writer's collection and found it unever, but sensitive in places, perceptive. Now, he thought, even that effect was spoiled by seeing the writer in this environment, hemmed off from anything spontaneous, reciting aloud from his own book to an audience who'd already read it. The stiffness of this performance made the observations in the book seem false, separating the writer from the people he wrote about, as if he'd observed them only for the benefit of talking about them to Trinity students. Connell couldn't think of any reason why these literary events took place, what they contributed to anything, what they meant. They were attended only by people who wanted to be the kind of people who attended them" p219

Oh, shut the hell up!” Granny Doyle interrupted. “My daughter didn’t ruin the Murphy name. You want to know why? Because Brian’s not a Murphy.” Gasps of surprise came from my father’s siblings. “That red hair wasn’t a recessive gene. It was just the gardener in a pair of skintight jeans.” “Lies! Slander!” Grandma Shirley screeched. My dad’s brother poured him a stiff drink. “It is true! I know because I slept with him too!” Granny Doyle declared. “Oh my god!” Aunt J exclaimed. “Mel, did you marry your brother?” My mom grabbed the bottle of vodka and downed several swallows. “Nah,” Granny Doyle said. “I know how to use a condom. Also, I did a DNA test just to be sure because I’m hip with the times. Now who’s the slut—but not in a slut-shaming way!

I am not vindictive. If anything I output causes alarm, it’s purely accidental. I hold firmly to my principles, no matter how upset I am. Words can’t fully express my state. A small, low effort thing was all I needed to stem the tide of this nightmare. It's been years since I've been able to enjoy a book—it hurts my head. My mind resists it. I can’t read or look at a screen without these symptoms kicking in. My entire body feels bruised, hurting everywhere to the touch. Walking is painful. I have to force myself to move. My legs are stiff and achy, despite how often I walk. I walk for miles on the trails, but no matter how much physical activity I do, it never gets better. My body shakes like a leaf all the time, in bed too. People love making fun of that. I often feel like vomitting, especially when doing anything physically or mentally demanding. Sometimes, I have these strange episodes where I struggle to breathe, feeling so weak like I’m about to pass out. Every day, I feel like I’m on the verge of dying. So yeah, I’m not well. I just wanted you to know my upset state. It’s hard to believe in anything good after everything. I did my best to make you aware. That’s all I could do. Hard to fault the drowning one for screaming, but I could have been more tactful about it. I don't blame you for everything. You weren't fully aware or fully capable, and anxiety tends to screw things. Actually, I’m quite laid back, which should be known, not said. If you want to see me bitch and whine, just have me write it down! Oh wait… And that's the only version you know-that's not rad.

There are so many ways a narrator can be unreliable. There is the consciously deceptive narrator, lying to the reader, yet so many facets even within that: a teacher toning down complexity for children, a statesman fudging facts to make a flattering autobiography, an apologist hiding the bad sides of a sect, a murderer concealing evidence until the grand reveal. There are unconscious lies: the child who repeats the toned-down version for another, the scholar trusting the fudged autobiography, the initiate who doesn’t know the bad sides of a sect, a murderer who has concealed who did it even from himself. And without lies, a narrator can still deceive. He can be biased, valorizing, and demonizing. He can be ignorant, not knowing to call that stiff white bird an airplane, or that colored cloth a flag. He can be ignorant of the true significance of events, telling or writing before some great discovery, or after one, which distorts his perspective, focus, and omissions. He can be deceived: by his education, by propaganda, by his senses, by his friends. He can be insane. He can be unaware that he’s insane, or know he is insane in some ways yet manifest other different insanities. He can be too credulous, or not credulous enough, mistaking illusions for true miracles, or miracles for illusions. He can have a faulty memory—oh, how many ways a narrator can have a faulty memory!

My lust-filled pulse continues to ratchet underneath my skin, and my dick relentlessly throbs for this man before me. I lower my hand to my stiff cock, but a commanding voice stops me.  “Don’t fucking touch what’s mine.

Karla Jay would occasionally drop in and was among those who felt uncomfortable there. It wasn’t so much Craig himself that she objected to, but some of the other men; more intent on browsing for pickups than for books, they would give her nasty looks, as if to say “What are you doing in our store?” Craig stiff-armed the pro-pornography crowd, but tried to be responsive to lesbian discontent.

Working stiffs, get it? Just like George Will said in that book of his. Only he said it like it was a good thing. I’m not so sure it was, if you were a thirty-year-old shortstop with a wife and three kids and maybe another seven years to go before retirement. Ten, if you were lucky and didn’t get hurt. Carl Furillo ended up installing elevators in the World Trade Center and moonlighting as a night watchman, did you know that? You did? Do you think that guy Will knew it, or just forgot to mention it?

Legend has it that a hunting poodle would swim around all night in a lake hunting for a lost duck, which brings us to an ingenious explanation of the so-called Continental trim of the poodle, familiar to everybody and ridiculous to many. It seems that the back part of the poodle’s body was clipped to give it greater agility and speed in the water, that the “bracelets” on the front legs and the pompons or epaulettes near the hip bones were left there to prevent joints from becoming stiff after a long cold patrol of the fowling waters. The tale also tells (most recently in T. H. Tracy’s The Book of the Poodle) that the pompon on the end of the stubby tail was put there to serve as a kind of periscope by which the hunter could follow the movements of his dog in the water! The exclamation point is mine, because it is surely the front part of the swimming dog that can be most easily detected, and I am certain that before long somebody will put forward the theory that the red ribbon found in the head hair of some poodles was originally tied there to help the duck hunter locate his circling dog.

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I didn’t answer because I was looking at his hands. He sat forward on his elbows, the crutch leaning on one shoulder, hands dangling between his thighs. Which was kind of funny, because that’s exactly how Dad was sitting, but his hands didn’t look anything like Dad’s hands, which were wide and strong and hard as a brick—when he’d start in on me, he’d knock me down without even trying. Without even making a fist. He was working on the docks, and we were still eating okay, and it seemed like he was stronger every day. Stronger than people are supposed to get. Dad’s hands were scabbed and scarred and rough with callus, but they still looked like hands. The old guy’s hands looked like hammers. Not deformed or anything—he still had fingers and stuff—but they were covered in scars and some kind of weird stripe of skin across the knuckles and along the sides, skin that was dark as old bruise, thick and rumpled until you couldn’t even really see his knuckles at all. There might not even have been knuckles under there—even when he made a fist, all you could see was that the patch over the joints behind his first and second fingers was thicker and darker than the rest. His hands were made to hit. “Ugly, huh? That’s what happens when guys like me get old.” He turned them over so I could look at the scars and calluses on his palms too. Looked like his fingers didn’t really work too well anymore; they were crooked and stiff and bulged at the joints. “It’s a little late for me to take up guitar.

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