Straight Double Quotes

If someone wants to lead a double life, they will find a way to do it. And they can promise you things until your nerves unfold and you can finally put up your feet. But it can all be a lie. There are no guarantees, even when people mean what they say at the time. People change their minds. People die. And the hurt is as real as a baseball bat.

What would my first sergeant do if he came across me and another girl getting it on? He'd want pictures. He'd want to join in. He'd want me and this other girl to double-team him right then and there. On the other hand, since most heterosexual men are homophobic and sexist, most straight guys figure gay men will treat them the way they themselves treat women- that is, like sex objects. And this freaks them the fuck out.

How many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote FOR something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

They are hypocrites, they think the Church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking in the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believed they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared.

It is as though the space between us were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread an not the interval between.

My heart is heavy, she thought. It’s not just a saying. It is what is—heavy, a great stone lodged in my breast, pressing down my whole being. How can I even stand straight and look out upon the world? I am doubled over into myself and, for all the weight, find only emptiness.

I take pleasure in the little things. Double cheeseburgers, those are good, the sky ten minutes before it rains,the moment your laugh turns into a cackle. And I sit here, and smoke my Camel straights, and I ride my own melt.

If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line - starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King's Highway past the appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circling or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led - make of that what you will.

I was on a mission. I had to learn to comfort myself, to see what others saw in me and believe it. I needed to discover what the hell made me happy other than being in love. Mission impossible. When did figuring out what makes you happy become work? How had I let myself get to this point, where I had to learn me..? It was embarrassing. In my college psychology class, I had studied theories of adult development and learned that our twenties are for experimenting, exploring different jobs, and discovering what fulfills us. My professor warned against graduate school, asserting, "You're not fully formed yet. You don't know if it's what you really want to do with your life because you haven't tried enough things." Oh, no, not me.." And if you rush into something you're unsure about, you might awake midlife with a crisis on your hands," he had lectured it. Hi. Try waking up a whole lot sooner with a pre-thirty predicament worm dangling from your early bird mouth. "Well to begin," Phone Therapist responded, "you have to learn to take care of yourself. To nurture and comfort that little girl inside you, to realize you are quite capable of relying on yourself. I want you to try to remember what brought you comfort when you were younger." Bowls of cereal after school, coated in a pool of orange-blossom honey. Dragging my finger along the edge of a plate of mashed potatoes. I knew I should have thought "tea" or "bath," but I didn't. Did she want me to answer aloud? "Grilled cheese?" I said hesitantly. "Okay, good. What else?" I thought of marionette shows where I'd held my mother's hand and looked at her after a funny part to see if she was delighted, of brisket sandwiches with ketchup, like my dad ordered. Sliding barn doors, baskets of brown eggs, steamed windows, doubled socks, cupcake paper, and rolled sweater collars. Cookouts where the fathers handled the meat, licking wobbly batter off wire beaters, Christmas ornaments in their boxes, peanut butter on apple slices, the sounds and light beneath an overturned canoe, the pine needle path to the ocean near my mother's house, the crunch of snow beneath my red winter boots, bedtime stories. "My parents," I said. Damn. I felt like she made me say the secret word and just won extra points on the Psychology Game Network. It always comes down to our parents in therapy.

I don't know how to be myself. It's like I'm permanently outside myself. Like, like you could push your hands straight through me if you wanted to. And I can see the type of man I want to be versus the type of man I actually am and I know that I'm doing it but I'm incapable of what needs to be done. I'm like Pinocchio, a wooden boy. Not a real boy. And it kills me.

Even if you go for it and it doesn’t work out, you still win. You still had the guts enough to head straight into something that frightened you. That type of bravery will take you places.

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I found that out. So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote: Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. HUCK FINN. I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.

Their [girls] sexual energy, their evaluation of adolescent boys and other girls goes thwarted, deflected back upon the girls, unspoken, and their searching hungry gazed returned to their own bodies. The questions, Whom do I desire? Why? What will I do about it? are turned around: Would I desire myself? Why?...Why not? What can I do about it? The books and films they see survey from the young boy's point of view his first touch of a girl's thighs, his first glimpse of her breasts. The girls sit listening, absorbing, their familiar breasts estranged as if they were not part of their bodies, their thighs crossed self-consciously, learning how to leave their bodies and watch them from the outside. Since their bodies are seen from the point of view of strangeness and desire, it is no wonder that what should be familiar, felt to be whole, become estranged and divided into parts. What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired. Girls learn to watch their sex along with the boys; that takes up the space that should be devoted to finding out about what they are wanting, and reading and writing about it, seeking it and getting it. Sex is held hostage by beauty and its ransom terms are engraved in girls' minds early and deeply with instruments more beautiful that those which advertisers or pornographers know how to use: literature, poetry, painting, and film. This outside-in perspective on their own sexuality leads to the confusion that is at the heart of the myth. Women come to confuse sexual looking with being looked at sexually ("Clairol...it's the look you want"); many confuse sexually feeling with being sexually felt ("Gillete razors...the way a woman wants to feel"); many confuse desiring with being desirable. "My first sexual memory," a woman tells me, "was when I first shaved my legs, and when I ran my hand down the smooth skin I felt how it would feel to someone else's hand." Women say that when they lost weight they "feel sexier" but the nerve endings in the clitoris and nipples don't multiply with weight loss. Women tell me they're jealous of the men who get so much pleasure out of the female body that they imagine being inside the male body that is inside their own so that they can vicariously experience desire. Could it be then that women's famous slowness of arousal to men's, complex fantasy life, the lack of pleasure many experience in intercourse, is related to this cultural negation of sexual imagery that affirms the female point of view, the culture prohibition against seeing men's bodies as instruments of pleasure? Could it be related to the taboo against representing intercourse as an opportunity for a straight woman actively to pursue, grasp, savor, and consume the male body for her satisfaction, as much as she is pursued, grasped, savored, and consumed for his?

Who is the best marshal they have?' The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, 'I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. Also the court does not pay any fees for dead men. Quinn is a good peace officer and a lay preacher to boot. He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say Quinn is about the best they have.' I said, 'Where can I find this Rooster?

Contrary to what most people think, making a decision is one of the easiest decisions in the world, as is more than proved by the fact that we make decision upon decision throughout the day, there, however, we run straight into the heart of the matter, for these decisions always come to us afterward with their particular little problems, or, to make ourselves quite clear, with their rough edges needing to be smoothed, the first of these problems being our capacity for sticking to a decision and the second our willingness to follow it through.

She’d heard my theory on funnel cake and celery stalker men before. Most men were either like funnel cake: delicious and interesting, but who at the end of the day just aren’t good for the heart or complexion. Or they were celery: a sensible, healthy choice that didn’t really bring much to the table but an occasional crunch. If you OD on celery, you end up bingeing on cake behind closed doors. Funnel cake, while warm and delicious, is difficult to make. But you go there because you long for it like the double-twist stomach-dropping roller coaster as soon as you arrive at the amusement park. Wet ribbons of batter crackle and pop until golden and crisp, yielding in the center. The steamy swirls of tender yellow dough absorb confectioners’ sugar like pores. When the luxurious fat melts on your tongue, you exhale. You’ve got sticky batter, dribbling down spouts, leaving rings on your clean countertops, splattering oil growing darker and beginning to smoke. Layers of paper towels and oil-draining weapons clutter your space. With funnel cake, you’ve got steps to follow. Procedures. Rules. No one makes rules about celery. It’s always around for the snacking. You choose it when you’re dieting or trying not to consume too many wings over football. Come to think of it, you don’t even bother eating it when you diet. Instead it’s a conduit for blue cheese. You use it to make stocks and stuffing. It becomes filler, pantry almost.

I am interested in you, Gretchen." When I still won't look at him, he presses his fingers against my jaw and gently turns my face. He is looking straight in my eyes when he says, "I'm interested in you." His midnight blues burn with an intensity that almost makes me believe him. Makes me want to believe him. He knows just the right thing to say to mess with my mind. He always has. He leans closer, watching me. His lips are a breath away from mine. This time I'm not buying it. My knee connects with his soft spot and he doubles over, gasping for air. "Find your own way home," I snap before turning and marching back to my car.

A lot of people are afraid to tell you the truth in this business. Yes, you're going to have to suck a lot of dick. Yes, double penetration makes your ass look fat. Yes, that does look diseased. But I've always tried to be a straight shooter.

He had three incision sites: one where the microscopic camera had gone in and two where they’d done the actual work, and the abuse he’d taken today went straight to her heart. “Oh, Pace.” “I’m guessing that wasn’t an ‘Oh, Pace, you’re so sexy, take me.’

Here’s a tip for you.” He was close to me now, close as he had been when he kissed me, or when I kissed him. “Don’t try to hit a man in the face when he’s looking straight into your eyes. You’ve got traitor eyes, Bandit.” I drove my other fist into his gut hard enough that my knuckles popped. Jin doubled over, coughing. “Thanks for the tip.

Still mad,” she gasped. He covered one of her fists with his hand, entwining their fingers, while his other slipped beneath her, stroking her where they were joined, slowly driving her straight to heaven without a seat belt. “Then I should stop.

Mrs. Van Diemen is considering a face-lift. “What’s the plastic surgeon supposed to do with all the extra double chins?” Evert asked straight-faced.

These were strange caricatures of human beings, weirdly inflated, their breasts enormous spheres, held in place by string bikinis with cups the size of fourteen-meter yacht spinnakers. Their legs were elongated too, their toes pointed straight downward into high-heeled shoes steeper than double black-diamond ski runs.

I lay awake listening to the rain, and at first it was as pleasant to my ear and my mind as it had long been desired; but before I fell asleep it had become a majestic and finally a terrible thing, instead of a sweet sound and symbol. It was accusing and trying me and passing judgment. Long I lay still under the sentence, listening to the rain, and then at last listening to words which seemed to be spoken by a ghostly double beside me. He was muttering: The all-night rain puts out summer like a torch. In the heavy, black rain falling straight from invisible, dark sky to invisible, dark earth the heat of summer is annihilated, the splendour is dead, the summer is gone. The midnight rain buries it away where it has buried all sound but its own. I am alone in the dark still night, and my ear listens to the rain piping in the gutters and roaring softly in the trees of the world. Even so will the rain fall darkly upon the grass over the grave when my ears can hear it no more… The summer is gone, and never can it return. There will never be any summer any more, and I am weary of everything… I am alone. The truth is that the rain falls for ever and I am melting into it. Black and monotonously sounding is the midnight and solitude of the rain. In a little while or in an age – for it is all one – I shall know the full truth of the words I used to love, I knew not why, in my days of nature, in the days before the rain: ‘Blessed are the dead that the rain rains on.

It was an American who said that while a Frenchman's truth was akin to a straight line, a Welshman's truth was more in the nature of a curve, and it is a fact that Welsh affairs are entangled always in parabola, double-meaning and implication. This makes for a web-like interest....

[excerpt] The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set ‘em up. What’ll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. I say git that in ya. Then a quick one. Then a nightcap. Then throw one back. Then knock one down. Fast & furious I say. Could savage a drink I say. Chug. Chug-a-lug. Gulp. Sauce. Mother’s milk. Everclear. Moonshine. White lightning. Firewater. Hootch. Relief. Now you’re talking I say. Live a little I say. Drain it I say. Kill it I say. Feeling it I say. Wobbly. Breakfast of champions I say. I say candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I say Houston, we have a drinking problem. I say the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. I say god only knows what I’d be without you. I say thirsty. I say parched. I say wet my whistle. Dying of thirst. Lap it up. Hook me up. Watering hole. Knock a few back. Pound a few down. My office. Out with the boys I say. Unwind I say. Nurse one I say. Apply myself I say. Toasted. Glow. A cold one a tall one a frosty I say. One for the road I say. Two-fisted I say. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink I say. Drink any man under the table I say. Then a binge then a spree then a jag then a bout. Coming home on all fours. Could use a drink I say. A shot of confidence I say. Steady my nerves I say. Drown my sorrows. I say kill for a drink. I say keep ‘em comin’. I say a stiff one. Drink deep drink hard hit the bottle. Two sheets to the wind then. Knackered then. Under the influence then. Half in the bag then. Out of my skull I say. Liquored up. Rip-roaring. Slammed. Fucking jacked. The booze talking. The room spinning. Feeling no pain. Buzzed. Giddy. Silly. Impaired. Intoxicated. Stewed. Juiced. Plotzed. Inebriated. Laminated. Swimming. Elated. Exalted. Debauched. Rock on. Drunk on. Bring it on. Pissed. Then bleary. Then bloodshot. Glassy-eyed. Red-nosed. Dizzy then. Groggy. On a bender I say. On a spree. I say off the wagon. I say on a slip. I say the drink. I say the bottle. I say drinkie-poo. A drink a drunk a drunkard. Swill. Swig. Shitfaced. Fucked up. Stupefied. Incapacitated. Raging. Seeing double. Shitty. Take the edge off I say. That’s better I say. Loaded I say. Wasted. Off my ass. Befuddled. Reeling. Tanked. Punch-drunk. Mean drunk. Maintenance drunk. Sloppy drunk happy drunk weepy drunk blind drunk dead drunk. Serious drinker. Hard drinker. Lush. Drink like a fish. Boozer. Booze hound. Alkie. Sponge. Then muddled. Then woozy. Then clouded. What day is it? Do you know me? Have you seen me? When did I start? Did I ever stop? Slurring. Reeling. Staggering. Overserved they say. Drunk as a skunk they say. Falling down drunk. Crawling down drunk. Drunk & disorderly. I say high tolerance. I say high capacity. They say protective custody. Blitzed. Shattered. Zonked. Annihilated. Blotto. Smashed. Soaked. Screwed. Pickled. Bombed. Stiff. Frazzled. Blasted. Plastered. Hammered. Tore up. Ripped up. Destroyed. Whittled. Plowed. Overcome. Overtaken. Comatose. Dead to the world. The old K.O. The horrors I say. The heebie-jeebies I say. The beast I say. The dt’s. B’jesus & pink elephants. A mindbender. Hittin’ it kinda hard they say. Go easy they say. Last call they say. Quitting time they say. They say shut off. They say dry out. Pass out. Lights out. Blackout. The bottom. The walking wounded. Cross-eyed & painless. Gone to the world. Gone. Gonzo. Wrecked. Sleep it off. Wake up on the floor. End up in the gutter. Off the stuff. Dry. Dry heaves. Gag. White knuckle. Lightweight I say. Hair of the dog I say. Eye-opener I say. A drop I say. A slug. A taste. A swallow. Down the hatch I say. I wouldn’t say no I say. I say whatever he’s having. I say next one’s on me. I say bottoms up. Put it on my tab. I say one more. I say same again

Brewster Place became especially fond of its colored daughters as they milled like determined spirits among its decay, trying to make it home. Nutmeg arms leaned over windowsills, gnarled ebony legs carried groceries up double flights of steps, and saffron hands strung out wet laundry on backyard lines. Their perspiration mingled with the steam from boiling pots of smoked pork greens, and it curled on the edges of the aroma of vinegar douches and Evening in Paris cologne that drifted through the street where they stood together - hands on hips, straight-backed, round-bellied, high-behinded women who threw their heads back when they laughed and exposed strong teeth and dark gums. They cursed, badgered, worshiped, and shared their men. Their love drove them to fling dishcloths in someone else's kitchen to help him make the rent, or to fling hot lye to help him forget that bitch behind the counter at the five-and-dime. They were hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased, these women of Brewster Place. They came, they went, grew up, and grew old beyond their years. Like an ebony phoenix, each in her own time and with her own season had a story.

Always double check. Small things can become big things. And don’t play favors.

What are you afraid of," she said. "Daylight?" No. I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid of myself, of whatever it is I'm going to do or say to make it all go wrong. I'm desperately trying to avoid that moment and walking straight toward it, all at the same time. "I'm just tired," I said.

The river itself is not a hundred yards across, and pa and Vernon and Vardaman and Dewey Dell are the only things in sight not of that single monotony of desolation leaning with that terrific quality a little from right to left, as though we had reached the place where the motion of the wasted world accelerates just before the final precipice. Yet they appear dwarfed. It is as though the space between us were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread and not the interval between. The mules stand, their fore quarters already sloped a little, their rumps high. They too are breathing now with a deep groaning sound; looking back once, their gaze sweeps across us with in their eyes a wild, sad, profound and despairing quality as though they had already seen in the thick water the shape of the disaster which they could not speak and we could not see.

No!" he said, and shoved his hands in his hair, which hadn't grown back long enough yet to support the drama of the gesture, and muttered, "I don't know what to do with myself," plaintively. "I know what to do with you," I said, by which I meant kicking him into next week where maybe he'd have got over himself, only he actually had the nerve to say "Yeah?" in a challenging, pretending-to-be-suave double-entendre sort of way that lasted only long enough for him to hear it coming out of his own mouth, at which point he went red and embarrassed and then darted a look around the room with nobody but us in it and turned even more red, and I went out of the place like a shot and ran straight back to Liu's just to escape.

Here's a tip for you." He was close to me now, close as he had been when he kissed me, or I kissed him. "Don't try to hit a man in the face when he's looking straight into your eyes. You've got traitor eyes, Bandit." I drove my other fist into his gut hard enough that my knuckles popped. Jin doubled over, coughing. "Thank for the tip." I wished victory didn't feel so much like I'd sprained my hand. "Any time." He clutched his stomach where I'd hit him, but it looked like he was laughing.

so evenly was strained their war and battle, till the moment when Zeus gave the greater renown to Hector, son of Priam, who was the first to leap within the wall of the Achaians. In a piercing voice he cried aloud to the Trojans: "Rise, ye horse-taming Trojans, break the wall of the Argives, and cast among the ships fierce blazing fire." So spake he, spurring them on, and they all heard him with their ears, and in one mass rushed straight against the wall, and with sharp spears in their hands climbed upon the machicolations of the towers. And Hector seized and carried a stone that lay in front of the gates, thick in the hinder part, but sharp at point: a stone that not the two best men of the people, such as mortals now are, could lightly lift from the ground on to a wain, but easily he wielded it alone, for the son of crooked-counselling Kronos made it light for him. And as when a shepherd lightly beareth the fleece of a ram, taking it in one hand, and little doth it burden him, so Hector lifted the stone, and bare it straight against the doors that closely guarded the stubborn-set portals, double gates and tall, and two cross bars held them within, and one bolt fastened them. And he came, and stood hard by, and firmly planted himself, and smote them in the midst, setting his legs well apart, that his cast might lack no strength. And he brake both the hinges, and the stone fell within by reason of its weight, and the gates rang loud around, and the bars held not, and the doors burst this way and that beneath the rush of the stone. Then glorious Hector leaped in, with face like the sudden night, shining in wondrous mail that was clad about his body, and with two spears in his hands. No man that met him could have held him back when once he leaped within the gates: none but the gods, and his eyes shone with fire. Turning towards the throng he cried to the Trojans to overleap the wall, and they obeyed his summons, and speedily some overleaped the wall, and some poured into the fair-wrought gateways, and the Danaans fled in fear among the hollow ships, and a ceaseless clamour arose.

Rhesus. Thy way is mine, friend. Straight I run my race In word and deed, and bear no double tongue.

a crooked truth is far straight than a straight lie

The only worthwhile birth control is listening to a baby scream for 6 hours straight while you’re puking and haven’t eaten anything in four days. -Reese to Georgia

Thinking is a double-edged sword. It can help you. But it can also destroy you.

I’m pretty sure if Socrates ever met a Kardashian, he’d have gone into the first bar and ordered himself a double hemlock straight up with a twist.

And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I

He stopped the flyers And by his rare example made the coward Turn terror into sport. As weeds before A vessel under sail, so men obeyed And fell below his stem. His sword, Death's stamp, Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot He was a thing of blood, whose every motion Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered The mortal gate o' th' city, which he painted With shunless destiny; aidless came off And with a sudden reinforcement struck Corioles like a planet. Now all's his, When by and by the dim of war gan pierce His ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit Requickened what in flesh was fatigate, And to the battle came he, where he did Run reeking o'er the lives of men as if 'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we called Both field and city ours, he never stood To ease his breast with panting.

Laura Carmichael is Edith: During the war, Edith learns to drive the family car. "I haven't got a driving license, so I think production were a bit nervous! But in some ways it was an advantage that driving isn't second nature to me because I wasn't so surprised about where the things were. My heart was in my mouth - the car is one of the last of its kind and worth half a million pounds. The gears are all in a straight line and neutral is a tiny point in between, you have to do double declutching - so I just kept it in first. On the second take I thought I was thought o kill the cameraman! We were filming in Bampton so all the locals were watching, just to add to the pressure...

What’s going on?” Ingrid asked. “Listen, nothing bad today, please.” She pulled a chair out and sat down. Faye stared at her and said the words as quickly as she could. “I’m just going to give it to you straight as I can. Mila is a witch.” Ingrid busted out with a laugh. “I wouldn’t call her that,” she said. “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” She poured the juice into her glass and took a drink. “What did the brat do this time?” She set her glass down.

And why would that be of any interest to me? I prefer straight-talking to double meanings, by the way." - "Me too. But isn't that the trouble with all of us who have even a whiff of Irish descent. We're masters of turning a simple sentence into a confusing riddle

They are hypocrites, they think the church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and no go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking into the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believe they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared. But God is everywhere, and cannot be caged in, as men can.

Goodbye,Nick," she said, starting to close the door. "And thank you for stopping by." He accepted her decision with a slight inclination of his head, and Lauren made herself finish closing the door. She forced herself to walk away on legs that felt like lead, reminding herself at the same time how insane it would be to let him near her. But halfway across the living room she lost the internal battle. Pivoting on her heel, she raced for the door, yanked it open and hurtled straight into Nick's chest. He was lounging with one hand braced high against the doorframe, gazing down at her flushed face with a knowing, satisfied grin. "Hello,Lauren.I happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by." "What do you want,Nick?" she sighed, her blue eyes searching his. "You." Resolutely she started to close the door again, but his hand shot out to stop her. "Do you really want me to go?" "I told you on Wednesday that what I want has nothing to do with it. What matters is what's best for me, and-" He interrupted her with a boyish grin. "I promise I'll never wear your clothes,and I won't steal your allowances or your boyfriends either." Lauren couldn't help starting to smile as he finished, "And if you swear never to call me Nicky again, I won't bite you." She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On second thought," he grinned, "I take part of that back.I'd love to bite you." "Pervert!" she returned teasingly, her heart thumping so much with excitement that she hardly knew what she was saying. "Come here and I'll show you just how perverted I can be," he invited smoothly. Lauren took a cautious step backward. "Absolutely not.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I looked around the empty lot. I wavered on getting out when a giant lightning bolt painted a jagged streak across the rainy lavender-gray sky. Minutes passed and still he didn’t come out of the Three Hundreds’ building. Damn it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped out of the car, cursing at myself for not carrying an umbrella for about the billionth time and for not having waterproof shoes, and ran through the parking lot, straight through the double doors. As I stomped my feet on the mat, I looked around the lobby for the big guy. A woman behind the front desk raised her eyebrows at me curiously. “Can I help you with something?” she asked. “Have you seen Aiden?” “Aiden?” Were there really that many Aidens? “Graves.” “Can I ask what you need him for?” I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled at the woman who didn’t know me and, therefore, didn’t have an idea that I knew Aiden. “I’m here to pick him up.” It was obvious she didn’t know what to make of me. I didn’t exactly look like pro-football player girlfriend material in that moment, much less anything else. I’d opted not to put on any makeup since I hadn’t planned on leaving the house. Or real pants. Or even a shirt with the sleeves intact. I had cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt with sleeves that I’d taken scissors to. Plus the rain outside hadn’t done my hair any justice. It looked like a cloud of teal. Then there was the whole we-don’t-look-anything-alike thing going on, so there was no way we could pass as siblings. Just as I opened my mouth, the doors that connected the front area with the rest of the training facility swung open. The man I was looking for came out with his bag over his shoulder, imposing, massive, and sweaty. Definitely surly too, which really only meant he looked the way he always did. I couldn’t help but crack a little smile at his grumpiness. “Ready?” He did his form of a nod, a tip of his chin. I could feel the receptionist’s eyes on us as he approached, but I was too busy taking in Grumpy Pants to bother looking at anyone else. Those brown eyes shifted to me for a second, and that time, I smirked uncontrollably. He glared down at me. “What are you smiling at?” I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, trying to give him an innocent look. “Oh, nothing, sunshine.” He mouthed ‘sunshine’ as his gaze strayed to the ceiling. We ran out of the building side by side toward my car. Throwing the doors open, I pretty much jumped inside and shivered, turning the car and the heater on. Aiden slid in a lot more gracefully than I had, wet but not nearly as soaked. He eyed me as he buckled in, and I slanted him a look. “What?” With a shake of his head, he unzipped his duffel, which was sitting on his lap, and pulled out that infamous off-black hoodie he always wore. Then he held it out. All I could do was stare at it for a second. His beloved, no-name brand, extra-extra-large hoodie. He was offering it to me. When I first started working for Aiden, I remembered him specifically giving me instructions on how he wanted it washed and dried. On gentle and hung to dry. He loved that thing. He could own a thousand just like it, but he didn’t. He had one black hoodie that he wore all the time and a blue one he occasionally donned. “For me?” I asked like an idiot. He shook it, rolling his eyes. “Yes for you. Put it on before you get sick. I would rather not have to take care of you if you get pneumonia.” Yeah, I was going to ignore his put-out tone and focus on the ‘rather not’ as I took it from him and slipped it on without another word. His hoodie was like holding a gold medal in my hands. Like being given something cherished, a family relic. Aiden’s precious.

By the way-" Jim stopped her "-I spoke with Mary and set her straight about who was seduced by whom a few weeks ago." Lauren sighed defeatedly. "I wish you hadn't..." "Be damned glad I did. Mary worked for Nick's grandfather, and she's known Nick since he was a baby.She's fiercely loyal to him. She's also a staunch moralist with a particular dislike for aggressive young women who pursue Nick. She'd have made your life a living hell." "If she's such a staunch moralist," Lauren said mutinously, "I can't imagine how she can possibly work for Nick." Jim winked. "Nick and I are great favorites of hers.She's convinced that the two of us aren't beyond redemption.

She strong-armed the swinging door and walked through. Straight into an acid flashback. Clara’s first reaction was to laugh. She stood stunned for a moment then started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh until she thought she’d piddle. Peter was soon infected and began laughing. And Gamache, who up until this moment had only seen a travesty, smiled, then chuckled, then laughed and within moments was laughing so hard he had to wipe away tears. ‘Holy horrible taste, Batman,’ said Clara to Peter who doubled over, laughing some more. ‘Solid, man, solid,’ he gasped and managed to raise a peace sign before having to put both hands on his knees to support his heaving body.

The US "Down Low" is thronging with young Black males who live double lives in the homosexual urban underground. These "Black" and "queer" young males, who have sex with men and live straight lives, reject "gays" as "faggots who dress, talk and act like girls", thereby ascribing a White effeminacy to gayness and embracing a Black hypermasculinity.

It's important to point out to the executive that when a company doubles in size, she has a new job. This means that doing the things that made her successful in her old job will not necessarily translate to success in the new job. In fact, the number-one way that executives fail is by continuing to do their old job rather than moving on to their new job.

You didn't wear that offensive shapewear again, did you? If so, we're heading straight to the bathroom. You can't take it off me, I hissed. So you did wear it? If you were me, you might have been tempted to double up. Lamont rolled his eyes, a ghost of a smile flirting with the edges of his lips. There is nothing wrong with your figure, other than you trying to strangle it every time you wear a dress.

What if Susan, from religious or moral scruple, had discouraged his interest, and taught him nothing more than tactical astuteness when playing mixed doubles? What if Macleod had continued to hold a sexual interest in his wife? None of this might have happened. But given that it had, then if you wanted to attribute fault, you were straight away into prehistory, which now, in two of their three cases, had become inaccessible.

The interior voice nagging me not to be a fool - to save my skin and take off my skis and walk down, camouflaged by the scrub pines bordering the slope - fled like a disconsolate mosquito. The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower...I aimed straight down...A small, answering point in my own body flew towrds it [the sun]. I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery - air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy." I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromised, into my own past. People and trees receded on either hand like the dark sides of a tunnel as I hurtled on to the still, bring point at the end of it, the pebble at the bottom of the well, the white sweet baby cradled in its mother's belly.

I’m Steve, and I’m an addict,” Steve said after raising his hand to share. Steve was in his seventies and always shared first. It was as if he prepared an amazing speech every morning to present to all of us and his words always had a way of putting everything into perspective for me. “I look at these young girls over here, man,” he said pointing to our row, “and I can’t help but feel a bit envious. I’m 71 years old. I’ve got five years clean. I used for fifty years. I missed so damn much. I missed everything.” His voice broke and I could tell he was getting emotional. “I lost my wife once she finally got sick enough of my shit. My kids are adults and haven’t spoken to me in over twenty years—hell—I got grandbabies I ain’t even met.” He stared down at the table for a moment, you could hear a pin drop in that room. When he finally looked up, he looked straight at me and stared into my eyes. “Man, I’ll tell you what…. I would give anything in this world, to go back in time, and enter these rooms when I was your fucking age. Then I might actually have something to look back on and be proud of. You girls are young enough now to get it right, to have a life and make something of yourself. Don’t do what I did. Get it now so that you aren’t my age looking back on your life and thinking damn…I wasted all of it.” It felt like I’d suddenly been struck by lightning. Tears began welling in my eyes as I processed what he’d just said. I imagined what it would be like to have waited until I was an old woman to get clean – if I made it that long. I imagined my children being adults and never speaking to me. The loneliness, the guilt… for what? A momentary high? Never in my life had anyone’s words saturated my skin and seeped into my soul like his just did. I could hear other members voices mumbling as they shared their own bits of wisdom, but all I could do was replay in my head what Steve had said. That was it. That was the moment. Steve’s words changed my life that day. The universe had carefully devised a grand plan to align our paths so we both ended up in the same room that day. Whatever higher power was out there, knew that I needed to hear what that man had just said.

Beneath it all I wish everyone would stop worrying about who is gay, who is straight, who is bisexual. Why must we define people by their sexuality? Why does Billy need to be gay Billy? Why does Sally need to be lesbian Sally? Why does Eric need to be Bi Eric? Why can't they just be Billy, Sally and Eric? Society groups people into classes to feel stability and safety. In doing so they break the hearts and souls of people like myself who don't fit into either class.

dashed across streets without looking, they got horsing around in the lake and suddenly realized they had floated far past their depth on their rubber rafts and had to paddle back, they fell off monkey-bars on their asses and out of trees on their heads. Now, standing here in the fading drizzle in front of a Trustworthy Hardware Store that had been a pawnshop in 1958 (Frati Brothers, Ben recalled, the double windows always full of pistols and rifles and straight-razors and guitars hung up by their necks like exotic animals), it occurred to him that kids were better at almost dying, and they were also better at incorporating the inexplicable into their lives. They believed implicitly in the invisible world. Miracles both bright and dark were to be taken into consideration, oh yes, most certainly, but they by no means stopped the world. A sudden upheaval of beauty or terror at ten did not preclude an extra cheesedog or two for lunch at noon.

The problem with the word "vagina" is that vaginas seem to be just straight-out bad luck. Only a masochist would want one, because only awful things happen to them. Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get "examined.".. No. Let's clear this up right now - I don't actually have a vagina. I never have. I, personally, have a cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word, and it doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word.

Am I crazy? Do I really intend, tomorrow, to charge into the teeth of the enemy, mounted on my warhorse Bucephalus, who is recognizable on sight by every man of the foe while I myself am dressed in distinctive armor, wearing a double-plumed helmet so that every warrior on the opposing side knows it’s me? Every enemy arrow is going to be aimed at me, every javelin, every lance, every sling bullet. The greatest champions of the foe will all rush straight at me, seeking to win glory by being the one to slay me. Am I out of my mind to put myself in such a position? Surely Alexander’s comrades seconded this. “Don’t risk yourself, Sire! We need you! What will the army do if you are killed?” That was reality. Objective assessment. Who could argue with it? Yet . . . Yet there existed simultaneously—and Alexander, beyond all others, was aware of it—a second reality. In this second Reality, Alexander’s seemingly reckless charge made absolute sense. Its audacity would strike terror into the hearts of the enemy.

people, also, after all, let the lovely cornflower bloom./No one planted it, no one watered it./Vulnerable, it grows freely/and in cheerful confidence/that it will be allowed to live its life/under the wide sky.” Such is the image of friendship; such is the image of grace. Such is the manifesto of people everywhere, gay, straight, male, female, black, white, who might not quite fit, seeking sacred communion with the other: “Far or near/in fortune or calamity--/each knows in the other/the faithful helper/toward freedom and humanity.

If all superheroines were as indestructible as Superman, leaping across rooftops, smashing through windows, and flying through flames in a skimpy swimsuit wouldn't be such a problem. However, male heroes are usually presented as being unquestionably more powerful than women.Yet, they wear costumes that cover and protect most of their bodies. Women on the other hand, are written as weaker, and presumable less able to protect themselves. Yet they charge into battle with most of their bodies exposed............................................... ...............The reason for this superhero fashion double standard is that comic books have always been primarily targeted to a heterosexual male reader. As a result, female superheroes must look attractive to these readers. And in the world of male fantasy, attractive= sexy. So, revealing costumes are fitted onto idealized bodies with large breasts, tiny waists and impossible long legs. Men need to look powerful and virile, but can't display bulging genitalia showing through their spandex, as it would be too threatening for most straight male readers.

They are hypocrites, they think the church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking into the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believe they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared. But God is everywhere, and cannot be caged in, as men can.

of numbers. Where Speaker treasured nuance, semantics, word roots, double meanings, Tracker feasted on riddles of calculus and the satisfaction of solution. The ends to their respective means were the same: finding the most elegant way of expressing a desire. They were two components of the same tool, in that respect. All Akarak twins were halved souls, but Speaker and Tracker’s bond was what was called a triet. ‘Straight cut’ was the literal definition, but the word in Ihreet was weighty, reverent, a way of describing a pair made whole by the other’s complement.

These are cold and proud people, and not good neighbours. They are hypocrites, they think the church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking into the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believe they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared. But God is everywhere, and cannot be caged in, as men can.

Our garden regularly ruptures my sense of progress and process and time. There is the forward trajectory of days into months, seasons into years. June's tight rosebuds will lead to July's full-crowned blooms. Evident and irreversible change, straight forward as an arrow toward its mark. But there is revolution in the garden as well. And reversals. Months and seasons and days turning so far forward they bend backward. I stand in the past and in the future when I stand in the present of our garden. Just as with grief, neatly outlined stages double back and return well after or long before I expect them to appear or be over.

If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line—starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King’s Highway past appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led—make of that what you will. I

Does being true to one's self mean offering the literal truth or the truth that should have been, the truth of the image of one's self? It hardly matters by this time. By this time the border between seeing straight on and seeing round the corners of solid objects, between the world as smooth and coherent and the world as dissociated skinless particle, is thoroughly blurred. No longer a case of double vision, but of two separate eyes whose separate visions - what happened and what might have happened - come together in what we call the past, which we see with hindsight. Memory is revision. I have just destroyed another piece of my past, to tell a story.

Well, friends, he lost a full day of his life that weekend. Or maybe it was more? Maybe it was a day and a half? Two days? Our friend Seth called him twice during that time and it didn’t go straight to voicemail, but it went after-seeing-Seth-was-calling straight to voicemail. The sun went up, the sun went down, he realized he’d had to pee for an hour, and at some point he thought to order Chinese food (steamed chicken and vegetables, no water chestnuts, please), but mostly he remained aloft on the wind of the messages he was getting—women who wanted to LOL at his every joke, and send winkies, and pictures, and set his weary heart afire with double entendre

My life didn’t feel like a novel. It felt like a million moments. I didn’t want to make anything fit together. I didn’t want to make anything up. I didn’t want it to make sense the way I understand a novel to make a kind of sense. I didn’t want anywhere to hide. I didn’t want to be able to duck. I wanted the shock of truth. I wanted moments that felt like body blows. I wanted moments of pure hilarity, connected to nothing that came before or after. I wanted it to feel like the way I’ve lived my life. And I wanted to tell the truth. My truth doesn’t travel in a straight line, it zigzags, detours, doubles back. Most truths I have to learn over and over again.

When he unlocked the door, the smell of the building came at me like a shout: an old, elusive smell, damp and smoke and lemon, nothing like the antiseptic tang of DV in the new building up in Phoenix Park. I hate nostalgia, it’s laziness with prettier accessories, but every step hit me straight in the gut with something: me running down those stairs with a bunch of files in each hand and an apple caught between my teeth, my partner and me high-fiving each other outside that door after getting our first confession in that interview room; the two of us double-teaming the superintendent down that hallway, one in each ear, trying to hassle him into giving us more overtime. It seemed like the corridors had an Escher look, the walls all tilting in subtle, seasick ways, but I couldn’t focus my eyes enough to figure out exactly how.

Lambspun’s Whodunnit Shell   Very Easy Knit with Bulky Yarn GAUGE: 2 sts/in   MATERIALS: US size 15 needles (or size to obtain gauge), 14-inch straight Very bulky yarn with gauge of 2 sts per inch   INSTRUCTIONS:     BACK: With yarn required for gauge, CO 40, 44, 46, 50, 52 sts. Work in garter stitch, (knit every row) or if you like an edge that rolls, work in stockinette (knit one row, purl one row) throughout garment. Continue in garter or stockinette until piece measures 8, 8.5, 9, 9, 9 inches or desired length to armhole. At armhole edges BO 3 sts once, 2 sts once, 1 st once. Work on remaining 28, 32, 34, 38, 40 sts until piece measures 14.5, 15, 15.5, 16, 16.5 inches.   NECK SHAPING: Work 11, 12, 12, 14, 15 sts. Join second ball of yarn and bind off center 6, 8, 10, 10, 10 sts. Work remaining sts, turn. Working both sides at once, bind off 1 st from the neck edge 3 times. Continue working on reaming sts until piece measures 17, 18, 18.5, 19, 19.5 inches. Place remaining 8, 9, 9, 11, 12 sts on holders.   FRONT: CO 39, 43, 45, 49, 51 sts. Work in garter stitch, (knit every row) or if you like an edge that rolls, work in stockinette (knit one row, purl one row) throughout garment. Continue in garter or stockinette until piece measures 8, 8.5, 9, 9, 9 inches or desired length to armhole. At armhole edges BO 3 sts once, 2 sts once, 1 st once. Work on remaining 28, 32, 34, 38, 40 sts until piece measures 14.5, 15, 15.5, 16, 16.5 inches.   NECK SHAPING: Same as for back.   FINISHING: Join shoulders with three-needle bind off. Single crochet around every edge. Hand seam sides together. Pattern courtesy of Lambspun of Colorado, Fort Collins, Colorado.

that’s how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there.… And at the end of your life, your whole existence has that same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day.” “I guess it’s one way to look at things,” Grant said. “No,” Malcolm said. “It’s the only way to look at things. At least, the only way that is true to reality. You see, the fractal idea of sameness carries within it an aspect of recursion, a kind of doubling back on itself, which means that events are unpredictable. That they can change suddenly, and without warning.” “Okay …” “But we have soothed ourselves into imagining sudden change as something that happens outside the normal order of things. An accident, like a car crash. Or beyond our control, like a fatal illness. We do not conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as built into the very fabric of existence. Yet it is. And chaos theory teaches us,” Malcolm said, “that straight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn’t a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way.” Malcolm sat back in his seat, looking toward the other Land Cruiser, a few yards ahead. “That’s a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But, for some reason, we insist on behaving as if it were not true.

The way to break the cycle and avoid embalming, the casket, the heavy vault, is something called green, or natural, burial. It is only available in certain cemeteries, but its popularity is growing as society continues to demand it. natural burial is what transpired with Edward Abbey's remains, minus the whole stealing-the-corpse and hightailing-it-into-the-desert-thing. The body goes straight into the ground, in a simple biodegradable shroud, with a rock to mark the location. It zips merrily through decomposition, shooting its atoms back into the universe to create new life. Not only is natural burial by far the most ecologically sound way to perish, it doubles down on the fear to fragmentation and loss of control. Making the choice to be naturally buried says, "Not only am I aware that I'm a helpless, fragmented mass of organic matter, I celebrate it. Vive la decay!

How do you build a history based on ceaseless self-slaughter and betrayal? Do you deny it? Forget it? But then you are left orphaned. So history is rewritten to suit the present. As the President looks for a way to validate his own authoritarianism, Stalin is praised as a great leader who won the Soviet Union the war. On TV the first attempts to explore the past, the well-made dramas about Stalin’s Terror of the 1930s, are taken off screen and replaced with celebrations of World War II. (But while Stalin’s victory is celebrated publicly and loudly, invoking him also silently resurrects old fears: Stalin is back! Be very afraid!) The architecture reflects these agonies. The city writhes as twentyfirst-century Russia searches, runs away, returns, denies, and reinvents itself. “Moscow is the only city where old buildings are knocked down,” says Mozhayev, “and then rebuilt again as replicas of themselves with straight lines, Perspex, double glazing.

History determines your hiring policy. Why are tech companies being lectured by media corporations on “diversity”? Is it because those media corporations that are 20-30 points whiter than tech companies actually deeply care about this? Or is it because after the 2009-era collapse of print media revenue, media corporations struggled for a business model, found that certain words drove traffic, and then doubled down on that - boosting their stock price and bashing their competitors in the process?12 After all, if you know a bit more history, you’ll know that the New York Times Company (which originates so many of these jeremiads) is an organization where the controlling Ochs-Sulzberger family literally profited from slavery, blocked women from being publishers, excluded gays from the newsroom for decades, ran a succession process featuring only three cis straight white male cousins, and ended up with a publisher who just happened to be the son of the previous guy.13

Trina, I never expected to fall in love again. I thought I got my shot, and I was okay with that, because I had my girls. I didn’t realize anything was missing. Then came you.” Ms. Rothschild’s hands are covering her mouth. She has tears in her eyes. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Trina.” Ms. Rothschild starts choking on her candy, and Daddy leaps up off his knee and starts pounding her on the back. She’s coughing like crazy. From his tree Peter whispers, “Should I go do the Heimlich on her? I know how to do it.” “Peter, my dad’s a doctor!” I whisper back. “He’s got it.” As her coughing subsides, she stands up straight and wipes her eyes. “Wait. Were you asking me to marry you?” “I was trying to,” Daddy says. “Are you all right?” “Yes!” She claps her hands to her cheeks. “Yes, you’re all right, or yes, you’ll marry me?” Daddy asks her, and he’s only half kidding. “Yes, I’ll marry you!” she screams, and Daddy reaches for her, and they kiss. “This feels private,” I whisper to Kitty. “It’s all part of the show,” she whispers back. Daddy hands Ms. Rothschild the ring box. I can’t quite make out what he says next, but whatever it was, it makes her double over laughing. “What’s he saying?” Kitty asks me, just as Peter says, “What did he say?” “I can’t hear! Both of you be quiet! You’re ruining the video!” Which is when Ms. Rothschild looks over in our direction. Shoot. We all pop back behind our respective trees, and then I hear Daddy’s wry voice call out, “You can come out, guys. She said yes!” We run out from behind the trees; Kitty launches herself into Ms. Rothschild’s arms. They fall over onto the grass, and Ms. Rothschild is laughing breathlessly, her laughter echoing through the woods. I hug Daddy, and meanwhile Peter’s still playing videographer, recording the moment for posterity like the good boyfriend he is. “Are you happy?” I ask, looking up at my dad. His eyes brimming with tears, he nods and hugs me tighter. And just like that, our little family grows bigger.

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I’d start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, “Simone, just do what you do in practice.” And before I went out for each event, she’d high-five me and say, “Just like practice, Simone!” I’d say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. “Just like practice” became our catchphrase. As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I’d come up with in practice—a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I’d landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I’d strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn’t want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout—body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air—then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I’d have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves. I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I’d already performed the combination at national meets that year, but doing it at Worlds was different. That’s because when a completely new skill is executed successfully at a season-ending championship like Worlds or the Olympics, the move will forever after be known by the name of the gymnast who first performed it. Talk about high stakes! I’ll cut to the chase: I nailed the move, which is how it came to be known as the Biles. How awesome is that! (The only problem is, when I see another gymnast perform the move now, I pray they don’t get hurt. I know it’s not logical, but because the move is named after me, I’d feel as if it was my fault.)

He whirled,almost violently,and stared at her accusingly. "Damn it, Gennie, I've had my head lopped off." It was her turn to stare.Her fingers went numb against the stoneware. Her pulse seemed to stop long enough to make her head swim before it began to race. The color drained from her face until it was like porcelain against the glowing green of her eyes.On another oath, Grant dragged a hand through his hair. "You're spilling the coffee," he muttered, then stuck his hands in his pockets. "Oh." Gennie looked down foolishly at the tiny twin puddles that were forming on the floor,then set down the mugs. "I'll-I'll wipe it up." "Leave it." Grant grabbed her arm before she could reach for a towel. "Listen,I feel like someone's just given me a solid right straight to the gut-the kind that doubles you over and makes your head ring at the same time.I feel that way too often when I look at you." When she said nothing, he took her other arm and shook. "In the first place I never asked to have you walk into my life and mess up my head. The last thing I wanted was for you to get in my way,but you did.So now I'm in love with you, and I can tell you,I'm not crazy about the idea." Gennie found her voice, though she wasn't quite certain what to do with it. "Well," she managed after a moment, "that certainly puts me in my place." "Oh,she wants to make jokes." Disgusted, Grant released her to storm over to the coffee. Lifting a mug, he drained half the contents, perversely pleased that it scalded his throat. "Well, laugh this off," he suggested as he slammed the mug down again and glared. "You're not going anywhere until I figure out what the hell I'm going to do about you." Struggling against conflicting emotions of amusement,annoyance,and simple wonder, she put her hands on her hips. The movement shifted the too-big robe so that it threatened to slip off one shoulder. "Oh,really? So you're going to figure out what to do about me, like I was an inconvenient head cold." "Damned inconvenient," he muttered. "You may not have noticed, but I'm a grown woman with a mind of my own, accustomed to making my own decisions. You're not going to do anything about me," she told him as her temper began to overtake everything else. She jabbed a finger at him,and the gap in the robe widened. "If you're in love with me, that's your problem. I have one of my own because I'm in love with you." "Terrific!" he shouted at her. "That's just terrific.We'd both have been better off if you'd waited out that storm in a ditch instead of coming here." "You're not telling me anything I don't already know," Gennie retorted, then spun around to leave the room. "Just a minute." Grant had her arm again and backed her into the wall. "You're not going anywhere until this is settled." "It's settled!" Tossing her hair out of her face, she glared at him. "We're in love with each other and I wish you'd go jump off that cliff.If you had any finesse-" "I don't." "Any sensitivty," she continued, "you wouldn't announce that you were in love with someone in the same tone you'd use to frighten small children.

APRIL 21 MY HOLY SPIRIT WILL REPAIR THE BROKEN GATES OF YOUR LIFE RAISE YOUR PRAISES to Me, for I have strengthened the bars of your gates and made peace in your borders. Through My Spirit I have made the crooked places straight and broken the enemy’s bars of iron from your life. I have opened the double doors of your gates so they will not be shut against Me. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am your God. I will establish the gates of praise in your life and open the gates of righteousness that you may enter in. PSALM 147:13; ISAIAH 45:1–4; PSALM 118:19 Prayer Declaration Holy Spirit, establish the gates of praise in my life. Repair the broken gates of my life, and open them before me that I may go in and receive the treasure of the hidden riches of Your secret places. Let all the gates of my life and city be repaired through You, and break the gates of brass and iron that the enemy has used to try to hold me captive. Open the double doors of Your righteousness in my life so that the gates will not be shut.

One of the things that I’ve always felt missing from funerals and services is the voice of the man or woman who was the deceased’s partner in life. I’ve always wanted to hear from the person who’d loved them more than anyone. Biblically, the two become one flesh--the spouse is their other half. It has always seemed to me that his or her voice was critical to truly understanding who the deceased was in life. I also felt that American Sniper had told only part of Chris’s story--an angry part in much of it. There was so much more to him that I wanted the world to know. People said Chris was blessed that I hung in there during his service to our country; in fact, I was the one who was blessed. I wanted everyone to hear me say that. Beforehand, a friend suggested I have a backup in case I couldn’t finish reading my speech--a “highway option,” as Chris used to call it: the way out if things didn’t go as planned. I refused. I didn’t want a way out. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. Knowing that I had to go through with it, that I had to finish--that was my motivator. That was my guarantee that I would finish, that I would keep moving into the future, as painful as it surely would be. When you think you cannot do something, think again. Chris always said, “The body will do whatever the mind tells it to.” I am counting on that now. I stand before you a broken woman, but I am now and always will be the wife of a man who is a warrior both on the battlefield and off. Some people along the way told Chris that through it all, he was lucky I stayed with him. I am standing before you now to set the record straight. Remember this: I am the one who is literally, in every sense of the word, blessed that Chris stayed with me. I feel compelled to tell you that I am not a fan of people romanticizing their loved ones in death. I don’t need to romanticize Chris, because our reality is messy, passionate, full of every extreme emotion known to man, including fear, compassion, anger, pain, laughing so hard we doubled over and hugged it out, laughing when we were irritated with each other and laughing when we were so in love it felt like someone hung the moon for only us… I looked at the kids as I neared the end, talking to them and only them. Tears ran from their faces. Bubba’s head hung down. It broke my heart. I kept reading. Then I was done.

Small Change Snack Tips 1. Limit a snack to approximately 200 calories maximum. 2. Turn coffee or a tea into a snack by adding a cup of low-fat milk or soymilk. 3. Do not have a carbohydrate alone (such as an apple or a serving of crackers); you will still be hungry. Instead, pair a carb with a lean protein or healthy fat. Have low-fat cheese with your apple, or some peanut butter on your whole grain crackers. 4. It’s okay to have carbs alone before bed (such as a piece of fruit) because it doesn’t need to keep you full—you’re about to go to sleep. 5. Don’t double dip. For instance, don’t do string cheese and nuts, or string cheese and yogurt. Instead, choose one high-fiber carb and one lean protein or healthy fat; otherwise your calories (and fat) can add up. 6. When you eat straight from the bag, box, or can, you’ll consume more. Preportion items like nuts in resealable snack-size bags. 7. Try to keep snacktime to three hours after you have eaten. If you eat it too close to your last meal, it won’t do its job for the next meal. 8. If buying an energy bar, read the label and look for more fiber and protein, less calories and fat. 9. Just because it’s a “100-calorie pack” doesn’t mean it is a healthy snack. Make sure it offers some fiber and protein or healthy fat—and if not, skip it.

You said she works at an ice-cream shop around here, right?” He made a big show of wiping the sweat off his brow. “Come to think of it, a nice double cone would really hit the spot in this heat.” Zach’s expression was one of pure teenage mortification. “Yeah, because that’s exactly what will help my inability to talk to her—my older brother watching and critiquing all my moves.” “I thought we’d already established that you don’t have any moves.” “Now that’s funny. Picking on someone half your age. Hey, here’s an idea: I’ll introduce you to Paige as soon as I meet this so-called smart, witty, and hot woman you’re supposedly seeing. Sounds a lot like one of those made-up girlfriends who live in Niagara Falls.” “She’s real. I’m seeing her tonight, in fact.” They hadn’t decided their specific plans yet, but Brooke had texted him last night, asking if he was free. “Wow. You actually, like, beamed when you said that.” “Get out of here,” Cade scoffed. “I did not.” “What’s her name?” Cade opened his mouth to answer, then paused. Zach grinned. “Worried you can’t say it without beaming again?” Ridiculous. “Her name is Brooke.” He deliberately maintained a straight face Zach made a big show of studying him, presumably looking for any sign of this alleged “beaming.” He stepped closer and then, with a comically scrutinizing face, slowly looked at one side of Cade’s face, and then the other. Cade never cracked once. Finally, Zach gave up. “Dude, I’m impressed. You need to show me that trick.

Bobby ran up on the deck and skidded to a stop in front of them. “It’s time for the Kowalski Fourth of July Football Game of Doom!” Cat laughed and pushed herself out of her seat. “We’ll talk about this some other time, Emma. Go have fun.” “I’m not sure I want to play football. Especially if there’s doom involved,” she said, but Bobby grabbed her hand and dragged her off the deck. They were divvied up into teams roughly by size, each with an assortment of men, women and children. Emma was on Sean’s team, which was good. She’d just hide behind him, because the only thing she knew about football was that it involved a lot of hitting. It only took a few plays to see that the Kowalskis played by their own rules and the few they had were fluid. Mostly they served to ensure the smaller kids didn’t get plowed over, victims of the adults’ competitive streak. Five minutes into the game, Emma somehow ended up with the ball. She squealed and looked around for somebody—anybody—to hand it off to, but there was nobody. Well, there was Danny, but he was doubled over in laughter. “Run, Emma,” Lisa yelled. She ran in the direction her friend was frantically waving her hand, but she only went a few feet before two very strong arms wrapped around her waist and then she was falling. Luckily, she landed on a body instead of the ground. “I love football,” Mitch said, grinning up at her. Emma grimaced and managed to get one of her knees on solid ground so she could push herself to her feet. He was quicker and freed himself to stand and help her up. “They should give you the ball more often,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling and the grin so like Sean’s—but not quite as naughty—in full force. “Hands off my girl,” Sean told him, pulling on Emma’s elbow. “You should do a better job of blocking for her. “Let’s go,” Brian shouted. The very next play, Mitch intercepted Mike’s pass to Evan and turned to run toward the other end zone. He was halfway there when Sean took him down hard. They hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud that made Emma wince, and came up pushing and shoving. When Sean drew back his arm to throw the first punch, Mary blew her whistle from the sidelines. “Boys! Enough!” Instead of heading straight for the huddle, Sean walked to Emma and pulled her into his arms for a hard, almost punishing caveman kiss that made her skin sizzle and her knees go wobbly. Then he glared at his brother for a few long seconds and went back to his team, leaving Emma standing there breathless and discombobulated.

YOU FIRST When entering into relationships, we have a tendency to bend. We bend closer to one another, because regardless of what type of relationship it might be — romantic, business, friendship — there’s a reason you’re bringing that other person into your life, and that means the load is easier to carry if you carry it together, both bending toward the center. I picture people in relationships as two trees, leaning toward one another. Over time, as the relationship solidifies, you both become more comfortable bending, and as such bend farther, eventually resting trunk to trunk. You support each other and are stronger because of the shared strength of your root system and entwined branches. Double-tree power! But there’s a flaw in this mode of operation. Once you’ve spent some time leaning on someone else, if they disappear — because of a breakup, a business upset, a death, a move, an argument — you’re all that’s left, and far weaker than when you started. You’re a tree leaning sideways; the second foundation that once supported you is…gone. This is a big part of why the ending of particularly strong relationships can be so disruptive. When your support system presupposes two trunks — two people bearing the load, and divvying up the responsibilities; coping with the strong winds and hailstorms of life — it can be shocking and uncomfortable and incredibly difficult to function as an individual again; to be just a solitary tree, alone in the world, dealing with it all on your own. A lone tree needn’t be lonely, though. It’s most ideal, in fact, to grow tall and strong, straight up, with many branches. The strength of your trunk — your character, your professional life, your health, your sense of self — will help you cope with anything the world can throw at you, while your branches — your myriad interests, relationships, and experiences — will allow you to reach out to other trees who are likewise growing up toward the sky, rather than leaning and becoming co-dependent. Relationships of this sort, between two equally strong, independent people, tend to outlast even the most intertwined co-dependencies. Why? Because neither person worries that their world will collapse if the other disappears. It’s a relationship based on the connections between two people, not co-dependence. Being a strong individual first alleviates a great deal of jealousy, suspicion, and our innate desire to capture or cage someone else for our own benefit. Rather than worrying that our lives will end if that other person disappears, we know that they’re in our lives because they want to be; their lives won’t end if we’re not there, either. Two trees growing tall and strong, their branches intertwined, is a far sturdier image than two trees bent and twisted, tying themselves into uncomfortable knots to wrap around one another, desperately trying to prevent the other from leaving. You can choose which type of tree to be, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with either model; we all have different wants, needs, and priorities. But if you’re aiming for sturdier, more resilient relationships, it’s a safe bet that you’ll have better options and less drama if you focus on yourself and your own growth, first. Then reach out and connect with others who are doing the same.

Success in entrepreneurship is very much like a game—part chess match, part poker tournament, and part schoolyard soccer competition. You’ve got to make decisive moves in a really strategic way, bluff on occasion when you want others to think that you have a better hand, and pass the ball to and from teammates to hit your goals. Sometimes, it will be a straight line to a quick score, and at other times, you will have to double back, up the ante, and formulate a new plan.

If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line—starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King’s Highway past appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led—make of that what you will.

I haven’t been drained that low in a long time. I shouldn’t have tried to take so much all at once,” I muttered, wanting to apologise but not quite finding the right words beyond that statement. “Well feel free to just steal all of mine then,” Darcy spat icily, clutching her neck tighter. I had the urge to heal her, but knew if I tried to touch her again, she’d only recoil. The ambulance pulled away and I glanced around, double checking Darius wasn’t here and I was glad to find he’d listened to me for once. That was something anyway. “Come on, I can drive you girls back in my car,” I offered. I’d left my Faerrari parked at the Acrux Hotel when I’d last visited Tucana, opting to stardust home because I’d been too drunk to drive. But I hadn’t had any magical drinks tonight, so I’d healed myself of the effects of the whiskey I’d consumed before coming to get Darius from the nightclub. Tory’s lip curled back as she glared at me with poison in her gaze. “We’re not going anywhere alone with you,” Darcy said bitterly, distrust in her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped, stepping forward to get hold of her. I’d protect her tonight whether she liked it or not. Tory moved to intercept me and Caleb joined her too like a prime asshole. “You don’t fucking touch her again,” Tory growled. I narrowed my eyes at her, about to object, but as my gaze slid to Darcy over her shoulder and I saw the wall in her eyes that told me to get fucked, I knew I wasn’t going to win this fight. “Bastard,” Darcy hissed at me, looking woozy. Shit, I needed to heal her. And I could get her a blood replenishing potion back at the academy. “Come on, girls. The bus is gonna leave soon,” Caleb said, tugging Tory after him but she dug her heels in, waiting for Darcy. I opened my mouth to try and find the words that would convince Blue to stay with me, but she walked straight past me with her cheek turned and Tory threw me one more filthy look before they all headed down the street to the bus stop where mountains of students were gathering. Professors were among them and I knew they were safe enough in numbers, but my feet were still rooted to the pavement as I watched Darcy leave. You drank way too much. You have to get a grip. How are you going to keep feeding from her if you act like a monster every time your teeth are in her? I’d never had this problem before. The only thing I could compare it to was when my magic had been Awakened and my Order had Emerged. That first feed had made me feel like a ravenous beast with a bottomless stomach, and yet it still didn’t have a pinch on what it was like to feed from Blue. Caleb led Tory and Darcy past the queue straight onto the bus and my hackles rose as they joined Max and Seth on the back seats. And as Seth pulled Darcy close to him and nuzzled against her cheek, that feral animal in me awoke once more. I took out my Atlas and shot an update to Francesca, anxiously scoring my fingers through my hair. Just as the bus pulled away and rounded a corner, the FIB appeared on the street and I was immediately surrounded by three agents with dark frowns on their faces. “Lance Orion, you need to come down to the station and make a statement,” Captain Hoskins said and I sighed, knowing it was going to be a long ass night. I agreed and as I was stardusted away to the precinct, my heart was tugged in another direction, nearly forcing the stars to guide me elsewhere. But the captain ensured I made it to where he wanted to take me and I made a silent prayer to the stars that Darcy wouldn’t end up in Seth Capella’s bed tonight. Because I wasn’t sure I could control the demon in me who’d want his head for that. (ORION POV)

First, I warn you to stay out of the limelight, and you ride Lowell straight out of the Ranch and into international stardom like a dominatrix on a sex pony. Then, you double down by evicting every skeleton from the collective closet of Commonwealth’s board. You, Ms. Kim, are either a total fucking maniac or seriously out of practice at this whole intrigue thing.

She had sung him nursery rhymes, and comforted him when the other children made fun of him. He was only five the first time it had happened. She had never dreamed it would begin so soon. "Maman, what's a half-breed?" His eyes had been so puzzled, so wide, so hurt. Of course none of the chil- dren had the slightest idea what a half-breed might be: just words picked up from parents. But in the manner of children they could use words cruelly, playing happily with him one moment, making him feel isolated and alone the next. This had been a double insult, for the child had called him demi-sang, a term reserved for horses, not men. One of the children discovered that he could make a rhyme of it, and the rhyme caught on and all the children except Paul joined in. Moussa burst into tears and ran away. Later he climbed into Serena's lap where she stroked his hair and searched her mind for words of comfort, but the words would not come. She knew it would not be the last time he would feel the sting of disapproval, the agony of being different. She felt it herself every day, had felt it ever since coming to France with Henri. Peo- ple stared at her and laughed and whispered and pointed. They made fun of her accent and touched the long locks of her hair as though she had crawled from under a rock. She was strong, stronger than they, strong enough to stand straight and stare back, and so could only tell her son that which she knew

My grief comes in waves and is usually triggered by something arbitrary. I can tell you with a straight face what it was like watching my mom’s hair fall out in the bathtub, or about the five weeks I spent sleeping in hospitals, but catch me at H Mart when some kid runs up double-fisting plastic sleeves of ppeongtwigi and I’ll just lose it.

There are many kinds of windows, but nothing’s better for your fenestration vocabulary than learning the names of the parts of the most common window style — the double-hung. Now you can talk the talk! Let’s start from the top. The header is the top horizontal piece of the frame. The jamb refers to the vertical side pieces of the frame. The sill is the horizontal part at the bottom of the frame. (Looking at the window from outside, you’d see the stool where the sill is, often supported by a small board called an apron.) Now let’s get to the real business of this window. Double-hungs have two moving pieces, called the sash. The piece on top is the upper sash, which can be lowered from its closed position, and on the bottom is the lower sash, which can be raised. The rails are the horizontal part of the sash frame and the stiles are the vertical parts. The sash, upper and lower, hold the glass portion of the window. A single piece of glass is called a pane. A sash can have one or more panes; the dividers between the panes are called muntins. On both vertical sides of the sash are channels, which guide the sash up or down in a straight line. The small molding piece that runs up the front, at the sides of the lower sash is called the inside stop, which keeps the sash running smoothly in its channel. The sashes lock together by means of a two-piece latch, positioned atop the upper rail of the lower sash, and the bottom rail of the upper sash. If your windows look like double-hungs, but the upper sash doesn’t move, these are called single-hung windows.

IN DIRE STRAITS, WE HEAD STRAIGHT TO THE OCEAN The good Lord answered Beryl’s prayer when Dorjan came home next. On the cusp of the rainy season, when porch sitting Beryl was more inclined to watch tufts of moisture hung from invisible threads in fairytale skies than her playing children, he announced, “I have a will ‘ta move ‘ta the land of Hollywood and ‘burgeoning coastal developments,” like he’d read that phrase in a magazine. Then, he pressed on the horn in case she hadn’t heard his hollering. “I want a piece o’ that action, baby,” he said. “I can run my own company. ‘Reckon I know to do just about anything related to construction. Heya baby, why not?” He grinned as he rolled out of the driver’s seat. As she came down the steps to him, he smacked his thighs in a rhythm and did a fancy two-step. “The sun’s always shining. There’s bound to be work for me till I have no more need.” She went to hug him. “Lickety split, we’ll be going west… at the childr’n’s school break,” he said. That’s just what the Hudsons did. They left their free-of-charge huge, white house to the older brothers and sisters, taking brother Dennis along in the back seat with three of the children. Coalbert, sitting up front, sighed. “We’re just gonna leave the house like that? For someone other’n us to occupy, Daddy?” His heart was lying in that big white house with the wraparound porch. “Small thing. The place is tainted. It ‘taint yours and it ‘taint mine.” “I hope we get an indoor toilet, Mama!” Laila shouted. “Your daddy’s set on getting all the new things where we’re going to.

Use of informants is ethically questionable. The DEA ends up paying money to dubious characters, albeit toward busting bigger drug loads and bigger criminals. In theory, agents cannot pay informants actively involved in criminal activities. In practice, agents try not to know what their informants are up to. As they admit, “these guys are not choirboys.” Agents are also worried the informant could be a double agent who is feeding info to the cartel. Or a triple agent. Daniel discovered you have to push into an informant’s mind to make sure he is playing straight.

I feel like I started with a twenty-four-piece puzzle box, but inside is a five hundred-piece double-sided puzzle with no straight edges.

Someone's Double Shot of Whiskey [Verse] When the sun sets low on a Tennessee sky, And the world feels heavy, makes you wanna cry, You walk down that dirt road, kicking up dust, Thinking 'bout the past and who to trust. [Verse 2] The porch light's flickering, but no one's home, You're feeling like a stray dog, lost and alone, Nothing but the whispers of the evening breeze, And the sound of your boots on the fallen leaves. [Chorus] You may not be everyone's cup of tea, But believe me, honey, you're a sight to see. To someone out there, you're more than a dream, You're their double shot of whiskey, straight from the stream. [Verse 3] The radio plays those old-time songs, Reminding you of how far you've come along, Life ain't always bright, but it's not so bad, When you remember the good times you once had. [Verse 4] Folks might not understand your country ways, But there's someone out there prayin' for brighter days, For every broken heart and tear you cry, There's a love out there that won't pass you by. [Chorus] You may not be everyone's cup of tea, But believe me, honey, you're a sight to see. To someone out there, you're more than a dream, You're their double shot of whiskey, straight from the stream.

I will always be with you”—“nor forsake you.” The force of that promise is, “Being with you, I will never let you work alone. I will help you. I will not desert you as to My Presence and I will not desert y ou as to My succor. I will be with you and I will help you in all that you have to do.” This is a double promise and it is doubly sweet! Besides that, this promise wards off from us the most terri ble calamity that could possibly occur to us . It may help to make this promise increasingly precious to us if we think for a minute what would become of us if God did leave us or forsake us. Then, indeed, might the heavens be hung with bl ackness and the light of the sun be put out forever if God should leave us! The straight road to Hell would be open before us and we shoul d soon be going there if we were forsaken of God. It would have been far better to never have been born, or never to have known the way of life at all than, after all, to be deserted of God and be left to perish! Thank God that can never be the portion of anyone who has truly trusted in Him. Recollect also that, if He had not been God, He w ould have forsaken us long ago . Our patience with our fellow crea- tures holds out but a very little while. But it is because G od is God and, therefore, changes not, that we are not con- sumed. Have you not done a t housand times enough to have made Him forsake you if He were like the sons of men? I con- fess sorrowfully that I know I have. And if He could turn from His eternal purpose, and if His everlasting love could change, then surely He would long ago have cast my poor soul far away from His Presence, to receive its well-deserved punishment! Is it not a blessed thing to think that the very th ing that is most to be feared by any man can never happen to a Believer, for God has said, “I will neve r leave you, nor forsake you”? You well de serve to be forsaken of God, but He will never leave you! He will deal with yo u in the way of Grace, and not of Justice. If He left you, you would utterly pe- rish, but He will not and cannot do so —you are too dear to Him for His he art to ever turn away from you.

Looking at him like he’d grown another head, she raised her hands up as she asked, “Don’t you have some other girl you want to harass? Maybe a girl who would actually appreciate it?” “Nope. You are the only girl I want to harass.” Which was the truth. Since he’d met Deanna, no other woman had existed for him. If he wasn’t with her, he was thinking about her. When he was with her, he wanted to stay with her, get to know her—and not only in the biblical sense, but that was definitely on top of his list. More attendees started filing out of the double doors, and Deanna’s head fell back as she let out a small groan. She might not have meant for the gesture to be or sound sexual, but that’s exactly what it’d been. He wanted to lean forward and press his lips to the soft skin on her neck, slide his hands up her dress and find out if she was wearing lace panties, silk panties, or no panties… “You win.You can drive me home.” She sounded anything but happy at her acquiescence, but Lucky was happy…Very happy. Well, this night had gone from bad, to worse, to horrible, to just plain humiliating. As Lucky opened the passenger side door to his SUV and held her hand while she got in, she immediately sent up a silent prayer that he didn’t notice the way a shiver ran up her arm from the touch of his large, rough hands. Deanna took a deep breath and pushed down the frustration and panic that was battling inside of her for top billing. Once he shut the door, she tugged her skirt down. When he got in, the entire left side of her body broke out in goosebumps from the intense stare he directed at her, but she kept her eyes trained ahead, looking out the windshield. She sat with her jaw set, her hands folded in her lap, and her back straight, hoping to convey that she just wanted to go home. “You’re quiet,” Lucky observed as they drove out of the parking lot. Proving his point, Deanna continued focusing out the window, at the moonlight dancing off the river. She knew she was being rude. She was a little too emotional and didn’t trust herself to speak. Especially considering the six glasses of wine she’d had this evening. Loose lips sank ships, and alcohol made her one Chatty Cathy capable of taking down an armada of ocean liners. “How was your evening tonight, Lucky?” he asked himself before answering his own question. “Oh, it was great, actually. Thanks for asking.” Deanna bit her lips to keep from smiling. She should’ve been annoyed at his adolescent behavior, and if it were any other guy, she was sure she would’ve been. But this was Lucky. And, whether she liked it or not (which, for the record, she didn’t), what should’ve been annoying or irritating on him always landed in the charming and amusing columns. “Of course!” he replied enthusiastically, still talking to himself. “I’m so glad you had a good time! What was the highlight of your evening, if you don’t mind me asking?” If he kept going, she was going to start cracking up, so she worked to maintain her composure. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Which she was fully aware made her behavior even more adolescent than his. She was being ridiculous. Still, trying to disguise her amusement, Deanna sighed. “Fine. You win again. What do you want to talk about?” Lucky shook his head as he clicked his tongue. “Sorry, Pop-Tart. You had your chance.” Pop-Tart? Had he seriously just called her Pop-Tart!? Before she was able to form an appropriately indignant response, he continued the conversation he was having with himself. “Wow. Highlight of my evening…” He hissed through his teeth. “That’s a tough one. I’m going to have to go with the dance that I had with this smokin’-hot brunette.” Her cheeks burned at his description. Then she tried to remind herself that he was joking around, but the message got to her head and, she feared, her heart too late.

The popular culture has also lowered the threshold on public shaming rituals. It is not only suppressing certain speech on college campuses, but making public denunciation of certain classes of people into a form of popular entertainment. The masters of the funny cheap shot are comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who routinely and cleverly skewer conservatives as stupid bigots. After the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, for example, Stewart asked what was wrong with opponents of same-sex marriage, as if a view held for thousands of years, even not very long ago by both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, were incomprehensible. The use of humor is a cultural trick. It provides a cultural permission slip to be nasty because, or so the assumption goes, the enemies of "the people" are so unattractive that they deserve whatever Stewart or Colbert throws at them. When Stewart compares Senator Ted Cruz to the Harry Potter character Voldemort, he knows we will then think of Cruz as the book's author describes Voldemort, "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". It may seem futile to complain about the crudeness of American mass culture. It has been around for decades, and it is not about to change anytime soon. The thin line that exists these days between politics and entertainment (witness the rise of Donald Trump) is undoubtedly coarsening our politics. It is becoming more culturally acceptable to split the world into us-versus-them schemata and to indulge in all sorts of antisocial and illiberal fantasies about crushing one's enemies. Only a few decades ago most liberals had a different idea of tolerance. Most would explain it with some variation of Evelyn Beatrice Hall's line about Voltaire's philosophy of free speech: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". That is no longer the case. It is now deemed necessary, indeed even noble, to be intolerant in the cause of tolerance. Any remark or viewpoint that liberals believe is critical of minorities is by definition intolerant. A liberal critique of conservatives or religious people, on the other hand, is, again by definition, incapable of being intolerant. It is a willful double standard. For liberals, intolerance is a one-way street leading straight to conservatism.

Then there is Roman engineering: the Roman roads, aqueducts, the Colosseum. Warfare, alas, has always been beneficial to engineering. Yet there are unmistakeable trends in the engineering of the gamgster states. In a healthy society, engineering design gets smarter and smarter; in gangster states, it gets bigger and bigger. In World War II, the democracies produced radar and split the atom; German basic research was far behind in these fields and devoted its efforts to projects like lenses so bog they could burn Britain, and bells so big that their sound would be lethal. (The lenses never got off the drawing board, and the bells, by the end of the war, would kill mice in a bath tub.) Roman engineering, too, was void of all subtlety. Roman roads ran absolutely straight; when they came to a mountain, they ran over the top of the mountain as pigheadedly as one of Stalin's frontal assaults. Greek soldiers used to adapt their camps to the terrain; but the Roman army, at the end of a days' march, would invariably set up exactly the same camp, no matter whether in the Alps or in Egypt. If the terrain did not correspond to the one and only model decreed by the military bureaucracy, so much the worse for the terrain; it was dug up until it fitted inti the Roman Empire. The Roman aqueducts were bigger than those that had been used centuries earlier in the ancient world; but they were administered with extremely poor knowledge of hydraulics. Long after Heron of Alexandria (1st Century A.D.) had designed water clocks, water turbines and two-cylinder water pumps, and had written works on these subjects, the Romans were still describing the performance of their aqueducts in terms of the quinaria, a measure of the cross-section of the flow, as if the volume of the flow did not also depend on its velocity. The same unit was used in charging users of large pipes tapping the aqueduct; the Roman engineers failed to realize that doubling the cross-section would more than double the flow of water. Heron could never have blundered like this.

They’d never had anyone on the show who was missing an arm before. They’d had amputees on the show, but with different injuries. Mine posed a bit more of a challenge for dance. They mentioned Amy Purdy, the double amputee, who had been on the show, so I said, “Yeah, Amy Purdy is amazing, a very athletic, very impressive woman, but she has both of her knees. I don’t have a knee on my left side.” The phone went silent for a little while. But it didn’t turn them off. They just resumed talking. “Do you have any dance experience?” “No.” “Anytime in your life, if you were at a bar or a club, what did you do?” “I stood at the bar and ran my mouth. That’s what I do. I have never danced in any capacity. I don’t dance.” I was not trying to sell myself to them at all. I was being straight with them. Then they said, “If you decide to do it, we’ll put you in a house in L.A.” I knew then I had to say no to this show. “Well, I’m sorry, I’ve got three kids here and I can’t be away that long.” And without hesitation Deena Katz, one of the executive producers, said, “That’s fine. Your dancer will come to where you are and that’s where you’ll rehearse and come back and forth. Where do you live?” “Alabama.” She just answered, “Okay.” I don’t think they thought about that, either. Alabama is a long way from Los Angeles. We talked a little while longer and that was it. I never said yes. They never said I was doing it.

And because I’d begged my mom for the damn cat, guess who got stuck picking up after her?” I poked both of my thumbs hard into my chest. “This girl. But that wasn’t the worst of it.” “Should I pull over for this?” Jamie teased. “This is serious, Jamie Shaw!” I smacked his bicep and he chuckled, holding the steering wheel with his thumbs but lifting the rest of his fingers as if to say “my bad.” “Anyway,” I continued. “So, Rory would always find small ways to torture me. Like she would eat her string toys and then throw up on my favorite clothes. Or wait until I was in the deepest part of sleep and jump onto my bed, meowing like an alleycat right up in my ear.” “I think I like this Rory.” I narrowed my eyes, but Jamie just grinned. “You think you’re hilarious, don’t you? Do you just sit around and laugh at your own jokes? Do you write them down and re-read them at night?” Jamie laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “As I was saying,” I voiced louder. “She was a little brat. But for some weird reason, she always loved to be in the bathroom with me when I took my baths.” “You take baths?” “You’re seriously missing the point of this story!” “There’s a point to this story?” I huffed, but couldn’t fight the smile on my face. “Yes! The point is, I thought that was our bonding time. Rory would weave around my legs while I undressed and she’d hang out on the side of the tub the entire time I was in the bath, meowing occasionally, pawing at the water. It was kind of cute.” “So you bridged your relationship with your cat during bath time?” “Ah, well see, one would think that. But, one night, that little demon hopped onto the counter and just stared at me. I couldn’t figure out why, but she just wouldn’t stop staring. She kept inching her paw up, setting it back down, inching it up, setting it down. And finally I realized what she was going to do — and she knew I did — because as soon as realization dawned, Rory smiled at me — swear to God — and flipped the light off in the bathroom.” Jamie doubled over that time, and I spoke even louder over his laughter. “I’m terrified of the dark, Jamie! It was awful! And so I jumped up, scrambling to find a towel so I could turn the light back on. But because I’m a genius, I yanked on the shower curtain to help me stand up, but that only took it down and me along with it. I fell straight to the floor, but I broke my fall with my hands instead of my face.” “Luckily.” “Oh,” I chided. “Yeah. So lucky. Except guess where Rory’s litter box was?” Jamie’s eyes widened and he tore his eyes from the road to meet mine. “No!” Ohhh yeah.