Tire Shop Quotes

See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event -- it's a process. Forgiveness happens while you're asleep, while you're dreaming, while you're inline at the coffee shop, while you're showering, eating, farting, jerking off. It happens in the back of your mind, and then one day you realize that you don't hate the person anymore, that your anger has gone away somewhere. And you understand. You've forgiven them. You don't know how or why. It sneaked up on you. It happened in the small spaces between thoughts and in the seconds between ideas and blinks. That's where forgiveness happens. Because anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. At least, that's what I hope.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick flowers in other people's gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children.

How are you coming with your home library? Do you need some good ammunition on why it's so important to read? The last time I checked the statistics...I think they indicated that only four percent of the adults in this country have bought a book within the past year. That's dangerous. It's extremely important that we keep ourselves in the top five or six percent. In one of the Monthly Letters from the Royal Bank of Canada it was pointed out that reading good books is not something to be indulged in as a luxury. It is a necessity for anyone who intends to give his life and work a touch of quality. The most real wealth is not what we put into our piggy banks but what we develop in our heads. Books instruct us without anger, threats and harsh discipline. They do not sneer at our ignorance or grumble at our mistakes. They ask only that we spend some time in the company of greatness so that we may absorb some of its attributes. You do not read a book for the book's sake, but for your own. You may read because in your high-pressure life, studded with problems and emergencies, you need periods of relief and yet recognize that peace of mind does not mean numbness of mind. You may read because you never had an opportunity to go to college, and books give you a chance to get something you missed. You may read because your job is routine, and books give you a feeling of depth in life. You may read because you did go to college. You may read because you see social, economic and philosophical problems which need solution, and you believe that the best thinking of all past ages may be useful in your age, too. You may read because you are tired of the shallowness of contemporary life, bored by the current conversational commonplaces, and wearied of shop talk and gossip about people. Whatever your dominant personal reason, you will find that reading gives knowledge, creative power, satisfaction and relaxation. It cultivates your mind by calling its faculties into exercise. Books are a source of pleasure - the purest and the most lasting. They enhance your sensation of the interestingness of life. Reading them is not a violent pleasure like the gross enjoyment of an uncultivated mind, but a subtle delight. Reading dispels prejudices which hem our minds within narrow spaces. One of the things that will surprise you as you read good books from all over the world and from all times of man is that human nature is much the same today as it has been ever since writing began to tell us about it. Some people act as if it were demeaning to their manhood to wish to be well-read but you can no more be a healthy person mentally without reading substantial books than you can be a vigorous person physically without eating solid food. Books should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. Dr. Johnson said: "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both.

I missed the anonymity-the ability to run to the market without running into my third-grade teacher. I missed the nightlife-the knowledge that if I wanted to, there was always an occasion to get dressed up and head out for dinner and drinks. I missed the restaurants-the Asian, the Thai, the Italian the Indian. I was already tired of mashed potatoes and canned green beans. I missed the culture- the security that comes from being on the touring schedule of the major Broadway musicals. I missed the shopping-the funky boutiques, the eclectic shops, the browsing. I missed the city.

I don’t know how everyone does this shopping thing every day. This is more tiring than fighting a horde of Void Beasts.

When it comes to happiness, our soul is like a colander, a tire with a nail in it, our grandfather's memory. It feels like there is a homeless person inside of us, wandering around pushing a shopping cart.

Cosca smiled up at the dragon, hands on hips. ‘It certainly is a remarkable curiosity. A magnificent relic. But against what is already boiling across the plains? The legion of the dumb? The merchants and farmers and makers of trifles and filers of papers? The infinite tide of greedy little people?’ He waved his hat towards the dragon. ‘Such things as this are worthless as a cow against a swarm of ants. There will be no place in the world to come for the magical, the mysterious, the strange. They will come to your sacred places and build . . . tailors’ shops. And dry-goods emporia. And lawyers’ offices. They will make of them bland copies of everywhere else.’ The old mercenary scratched thoughtfully at his rashy neck. ‘You can wish it were not so. I wish it were not so. But it is so. I tire of lost causes. The time of men like me is passing. The time of men like you?’ He wiped a little blood from under his fingernails. ‘So long passed it might as well have never been.

Shortly before seven, he made Katie her sourdough toast and coffee, and woke her up with breakfast in bed. The tire shop he managed was closed on Sunday, so this was the only day he could relieve his wife of what would otherwise be a seven-day-a-week job. Taking care of the kids so she could sleep in an hour was, she frequently assured him, so romantic, and so sexy—and on most Sunday nights after the kids went to bed, she showed him exactly how much she appreciated the gesture. But

Do you like that?" I'll say in surprise since it doesn't seem like her type of thing, and she'll look at me as if I'm mad. That!?" She'll say, "No, it's hideous" Then why on earth," I always want to say, "did you walk all the way over there to touch it?" but of course...I have learned to say nothing when shopping because no matter what you say... Read more - "I'm hungry", "I'm bored", "My feet are tired", "Yes, that one looks nice on you too", "Well, have both of them", "Oh, for fuck sake", "Can't we just go home", "Monsoon? Again? Oh for fuck sake", "then why on earth did you walk all the way over there to touch it?" - it doesn't pay, so I say nothing.

Nancy zipped across the street and into a photocopy shop. “Hi. I want you to blow something up,” she said to the clerk. “This is a copy shop, not a terrorist headquarters,” said the young man behind the counter. Then he laughed with his entire thin body. “I never get tired of that joke,” he said.

Most people unfamiliar with the men in a new town might search for love until they find it. I picked out some guy on my second day in LA, who worked at the local bicycle shop, and handed my virginity to him. “You can fill a tire? Sounds good to me. Let’s call it a date.” Needless to say he wasn’t Mr. Right.

You would begin talking to some poor devil who had worked in one shop for the last thirty years, and had never been able to save a penny; who left home every morning at six o'clock, to go and tend a machine, and come back at night too tired to take his clothes off; who had never had a week's vacation in his life, had never traveled, never had an adventure, never learned anything, never hoped anything—and when you started to tell him about Socialism he would sniff and say, "I'm not interested in that—I'm an individualist!" And

Just goes to show that if it has tires or testicles, it’s bound to cause you trouble.

It was a puzzle for men how women never got tired of shopping, even if there was nothing to buy

It’s so overwhelming when you notice how the clock ticks; so many tiny pieces holding each other together just so it keeps going. We are like clocks, too! Always ticking to the tocks. When the pieces of our soul are torn away or broken – we can’t be sent to the mending shop, however. So how do we get better? Workable? Thoughts can be tiring, at times. Or maybe it’s the same time – who knows? The clock is broken. Meh.

I was tired of creeping out of my one-bedroom apartment solely to go to the office or to shop for provisions, sick of basing my opinions on television news feeds or lonesome perusals of the Internet. I was simply tired of being alone.

In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic.

Beauty exists everywhere in the world. Love resides in all of us. That’s the point. I only…I only want to deepen that. Show that there can be—that there should be—substance in it all. Of course a bride on her wedding day is beautiful, but that radiance doesn’t diminish in old age, when she’s too tired to keep up with whatever ridiculous fashions the shops and salons put out. I know Arina smiles upon an old couple walking down the road together, hand in hand, firm in their commitment to one another. There is love in caring for the sick, the weak, the ugly. A wilting flower holds just as much splendor as one on the cusp of opening. People are so quick to idolize the fresh and the new. They fetishize it.” He rubbed at his forehead, his eyes bright with fervor. “Why should we celebrate one without the other?

The Second Koran tells us that the darkness in ourselves is a sinister thing. It waits until we relax, it waits until we reach the most vulnerable moments, and then it snares us. I want to be dutiful. I want to do what I should. But when I go back to the tube, I think of where I am going; to that small house and my empty room. What will I do tonight? Make more paper flowers, more wreaths? I am sick of them. Sick of the Nekropolis. I can take the tube to my mistress' house, or I can go by the street where Mardin's house is. I'm tired. I'm ready to go to my little room and relax. Oh, Holy One, I dread the empty evening. Maybe I should go by the street just to fill up time. I have all this empty time in front of me. Tonight and tomorrow and the week after and the next month and all down through the years as I never marry and become a dried-up woman. Evenings spent folding paper. Days cleaning someone else's house. Free afternoons spent shopping a bit, stopping in tea shops because my feet hurt. That is what lives are, aren't they? Attempts to fill our time with activity designed to prevent us from realizing that there is no meaning?

In the course of my life I have had pre-pubescent ballerinas; emaciated duchesses, dolorous and forever tired, melomaniac and morphine-sodden; bankers' wives with eyes hollower than those of suburban streetwalkers; music-hall chorus girls who tip creosote into their Roederer when getting drunk... I have even had the awkward androgynes, the unsexed dishes of the day of the *tables d'hote* of Montmartre. Like any vulgar follower of fashion, like any member of the herd, I have made love to bony and improbably slender little girls, frightened and macabre, spiced with carbolic and peppered with chlorotic make-up. Like an imbecile, I have believed in the mouths of prey and sacrificial victims. Like a simpleton, I have believed in the large lewd eyes of a ragged heap of sickly little creatures: alcoholic and cynical shop girls and whores. The profundity of their eyes and the mystery of their mouths... the jewellers of some and the manicurists of others furnish them with *eaux de toilette*, with soaps and rouges. And Fanny the etheromaniac, rising every morning for a measured dose of cola and coca, does not put ether only on her handkerchief. It is all fakery and self-advertisement - *truquage and battage*, as their vile argot has it. Their phosphorescent rottenness, their emaciated fervour, their Lesbian blight, their shop-sign vices set up to arouse their clients, to excite the perversity of young and old men alike in the sickness of perverse tastes! All of it can sparkle and catch fire only at the hour when the gas is lit in the corridors of the music-halls and the crude nickel-plated decor of the bars. Beneath the cerise three-ply collars of the night-prowlers, as beneath the bulging silks of the cyclist, the whole seductive display of passionate pallor, of knowing depravity, of exhausted and sensual anaemia - all the charm of spicy flowers celebrated in the writings of Paul Bourget and Maurice Barres - is nothing but a role carefully learned and rehearsed a hundred times over. It is a chapter of the MANCHON DE FRANCINE read over and over again, swotted up and acted out by ingenious barnstormers, fully conscious of the squalid salacity of the male of the species, and knowledgeable in the means of starting up the broken-down engines of their customers. To think that I also have loved these maleficent and sick little beasts, these fake Primaveras, these discounted Jocondes, the whole hundred-franc stock-in-trade of Leonardos and Botticellis from the workshops of painters and the drinking-dens of aesthetes, these flowers mounted on a brass thread in Montparnasse and Levallois-Perret! And the odious and tiresome travesty - the corsetted torso slapped on top of heron's legs, painful to behold, the ugly features primed by boulevard boxes, the fake Dresden of Nina Grandiere retouched from a medicine bottle, complaining and spectral at the same time - of Mademoiselle Guilbert and her long black gloves!... Have I now had enough of the horror of this nightmare! How have I been able to tolerate it for so long? The fact is that I was then ignorant even of the nature of my sickness. It was latent in me, like a fire smouldering beneath the ashes. I have cherished it since... perhaps since early childhood, for it must always have been in me, although I did not know it!

I'd been so tired of 'strong female characters' for so long by then. I was so tired of the way female strength was made to look cold and humorless; the way it was characterized as deviant and 'unnatural' and always lonely and exceptional. I was tired of the grim undertone of tragedy that lurked under its surface. 'Strong female characters' were never funny, and they never had any fun, either. More often than not, they were celibate, friendless, and clinically depressed. Their monomaniacal devotion to crime fighting made them lean, cranky, and impatient. Naturally, they had axes to grind: they were avenging brides, poker-faced assassins, gloomy ninjas with commitment issues. Who were these characters? What were they trying to tell us? Why didn't they ever say goodbye before hanging up the phone? And why were they always being reborn or remade as killing machines after losing everything they held dear? ...I don't want to see another symbolic woman start all over again. I want to see the symbolic world change to acknowledge her existence. I don't want to see a young girl get a makeover or go shopping with her boyfriend's credit card. I want to watch her blow up the Death Star - metaphorically, of course.

Creon devoted himself to music, ancient manuscripts, long afternoons browsing in the antique shops of Thebes. But now Oedipus and his sons are dead. So Creon put away his books and his antiques, he rolled up his sleeves, and he took their place. Sometimes, in the evenings, when he's very tired, he wonders if it isn't pointless, leading men. He wonders if he shouldn't leave the sordid job to someone else, someone less refined, less sensitive... And then, in the morning, the more immediate problems present themselves, waiting to be solved, and he gets up, calmly, like any workman at the start of a new day.

You’re a grumpy gills this morning,” she chirps, tucking into the fruit salad she paid about fifteen bucks for in the airport shop. “Early. Tired,” I grunt. “Poor baby,” she says sarcastically, giggling and pinching my cheek. “Want to sleep on my boobs on the plane?” “I obviously wanna sleep on your boobs,

Why am I tired of the Internet I have no friends here I write down words in my room For a thousand hours and no likes So, instead of the Internet I will make a little shop In an art gallery and tell no one In my dirty leopard coat it will be 1992 forever Burned out hamburger sign in the foreseeable distance

They would tell you that governments could not manage things as economically as private individuals; they would repeat and repeat that, and think they were saying something! They could not see that “economical” management by masters meant simply that they, the people, were worked harder and ground closer and paid less! They were wage-earners and servants, at the mercy of exploiters whose one thought was to get as much out of them as possible; and they were taking an interest in the process, were anxious lest it should not be done thoroughly enough! Was it not honestly a trial to listen to an argument such as that? And yet there were things even worse. You would begin talking to some poor devil who had worked in one shop for the last thirty years, and had never been able to save a penny; who left home every morning at six o’clock, to go and tend a machine, and come back at night too tired to take his clothes off; who had never had a week’s vacation in his life, had never traveled, never had an adventure, never learned anything, never hoped anything—and when you started to tell him about Socialism he would sniff and say, “I’m not interested in that—I’m an individualist!” And then he would go on to tell you that Socialism was “paternalism,” and that if it ever had its way the world would stop progressing. It was enough to make a mule laugh, to hear arguments like that; and yet it was no laughing matter, as you found out—for how many millions of such poor deluded wretches there were, whose lives had been so stunted by capitalism that they no longer knew what freedom was! And they really thought that it was “individualism” for tens of thousands of them to herd together and obey the orders of a steel magnate, and produce hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth for him, and then let him give them libraries; while for them to take the industry, and run it to suit themselves, and build their own libraries—that would have been “Paternalism”!

I’m sorry, did you just say your boyfriend ditched you to go shoe shopping?” my mom asks her. Charlotte sighs and crosses her arms in front of her. “He didn’t ditch me. I told him he could go because I was tired.” “You don’t really mean shoe shopping right? You meant to say shopping for sports equipment or a new surround sound system, right?” Aunt Liz asks. “He told us his favorite book of all time was Under the Rainbow: The Real Liza Minnelli. I’m pretty sure shoe shopping would be right up his alley,” Mom reminds her. “Has Rocco gotten the memo yet that he’s gay?” Aunt Liz questions her. Tyler starts laughing hysterically and reaches his hand up to fist-bump my aunt. “Seriously, Mom? Are you judging him? That’s really low,” Charlotte complains. “I’m not judging him. Some of the best people I’ve ever met are gay. I just don’t particularly want my daughter dating someone who’s gay.” Charlotte stomps her foot and growls at Liz, and I have to tell myself not to get too excited. I love seeing her get fired up. Her cheeks turn pink and her eyes sparkle. Now is NOT the time to get a boner. “He is NOT gay! He’s just … he’s in touch with his feminine side.” Tyler snorts and Charlotte shoots an angry look in his direction. “Honey, he doesn’t have a feminine side. He has a vagina,” Aunt Liz informs her.

What is the value of sensitives? Look around: we live in a ugly and stupid world which could have been prevented if sensitives had been present, and had the power to influence things. That block-shaped, pressed concrete, ugly shopping mall? The princess would opine that no one could have any peace of mind with such hideous backgrounds, and demand something like a traditional building, with ornate spires and comfortable human spaces instead. Grating, two-note music ranting about copulation and projected sexual desire? No princess would want this crass gibberish around her, nor would she recognize music which neglected the finer parts of composition, melody, harmony, rhythm, and narrative. She would hire Schubert instead. Schools that treat students like livestock, jobs that are jails, marriages that are suicide pacts, and boring tract housing? Similarly, a princess would have no use for those, and perceive that these would be abusive to her so must be to others as well. As children, we made fun of the sensitivity of the princess. A pea, under twenty mattresses, really? The point — in the visual-metaphorical language of fable, religion, literature, and conspiracy theory — tells us that sensitivity is in fact needed, and it needs power to save the rest of us from what we do not yet perceive. In this story, the princess is simply a finer instrument. After twenty years, we might notice that we woke up tired in the mornings, and eventually investigate and find the pea, but she knew right away, intuitively and by the nature of her character. This is part of what makes an aristocrat.

WALTER (Gathering him up in his arms) You know what, Travis? In seven years you going to be seventeen years old. And things is going to be very different with us in seven years, Travis. … One day when you are seventeen I’ll come home—home from my office downtown somewhere— TRAVIS You don’t work in no office, Daddy. WALTER No—but after tonight. After what your daddy gonna do tonight, there’s going to be offices—a whole lot of offices.… TRAVIS What you gonna do tonight, Daddy? WALTER You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction … a business transaction that’s going to change our lives. … That’s how come one day when you ’bout seventeen years old I’ll come home and I’ll be pretty tired, you know what I mean, after a day of conferences and secretaries getting things wrong the way they do … ’cause an executive’s life is hell, man—(The more he talks the farther away he gets) And I’ll pull the car up on the driveway … just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white walls—no—black tires. More elegant. Rich people don’t have to be flashy … though I’ll have to get something a little sportier for Ruth—maybe a Cadillac convertible to do her shopping in. … And I’ll come up the steps to the house and the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you. … All the great schools in the world! And—and I’ll say, all right son—it’s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you’ve decided? … Just tell me where you want to go to school and you’ll go. Just tell me, what it is you want to be—and you’ll be it. … Whatever you want to be—Yessir! (He holds his arms open for TRAVIS) YOU just name it, son … (TRAVIS leaps into them) and I hand you the world!

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

So we do go out to the San Jose highway to watch Cody recap tires—There he is wearing goggles working like Vulcan at his forge, throwing tires all over the place with fantastic strength, the good ones high up on a pile, “This one’s no good” down on another, bing, bang, talking all the time a long fantastic lecture on tire recapping which has Dave Wain marvel with amazement—(“My God he can do all that and even explain while he’s doing it”)—But I just mention in connection with the fact that Dave Wain now realizes why I’ve always loved Cody—Expecting to see a bitter ex con he sees instead a martyr of the American Night in goggles in some dreary tire shop at 2 A.M. making fellows laugh with joy with his funny explanations yet at the same time to a T performing every bit of the work he’s being paid for—Rushing up and ripping tires off car wheels with a jicklo, clang, throwing it on the machine, starting up big roaring steams but yelling explanations over that, darting, bending, flinging, flaying, till Dave Wain said he thought he was going to die laughing or crying right there on the spot.

Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick. The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous. -George Leonard Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it…the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way…To take the master’s journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new levels of competence. But while doing so–and this is the inexorable–fact of the journey–you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere. (Mastery, p. 14-15). Backsliding is a universal experience. Every one of us resists significant change, no matter whether it’s for the worse or for the better. Our body, brain and behavior have a built-in tendency to stay the same within rather narrow limits, and to snap back when changed…Be aware of the way homeostasis works…Expect resistance and backlash. Realize that when the alarm bells start ringing, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sick or crazy or lazy or that you’ve made a bad decision in embarking on the journey of mastery. In fact, you might take these signals as an indication that your life is definitely changing–just what you’ve wanted….Be willing to negotiate with your resistance to change. Our preoccupation with goals, results, and the quick fix has separated us from our own experiences…there are all of those chores that most of us can’t avoid: cleaning, straightening, raking leaves, shopping for groceries, driving the children to various activities, preparing food, washing dishes, washing the car, commuting, performing the routine, repetitive aspects of our jobs….Take driving, for instance. Say you need to drive ten miles to visit a friend. You might consider the trip itself as in-between-time, something to get over with. Or you could take it as an opportunity for the practice of mastery. In that case, you would approach your car in a state of full awareness…Take a moment to walk around the car and check its external condition, especially that of the tires…Open the door and get in the driver’s seat, performing the next series of actions as a ritual: fastening the seatbelt, adjusting the seat and the rearview mirror…As you begin moving, make a silent affirmation that you’ll take responsibility for the space all around your vehicle at all times…We tend to downgrade driving as a skill simply because it’s so common. Actually maneuvering a car through varying conditions of weather, traffic, and road surface calls for an extremely high level of perception, concentration, coordination, and judgement…Driving can be high art…Ultimately, nothing in this life is “commonplace,” nothing is “in between.” The threads that join your every act, your every thought, are infinite. All paths of mastery eventually merge. [Each person has a] vantage point that offers a truth of its own. We are the architects of creation and all things are connected through us. The Universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level . . . The intention of the universe is evolution. We exist as a locus of waves that spreads its influence to the ends of space and time. The whole of a thing is contained in each of its parts. We are completely, firmly, absolutely connected with all of existence. We are indeed in relationship to all that is.

And then Raspail himself … died. Why?” “Frankly, I got sick and tired of his whining. Best thing for him, really. Therapy wasn’t going anywhere. I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they’d like to refer to me. I’ve never discussed this before, and now I’m getting bored with it.” “And your dinner for the orchestra officials.” “Haven’t you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what’s in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?” “Yes. I think I’ll just call you—” “Dr. Lecter—that seems most appropriate to your age and station,” he said.

Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after him carefully and would not let him play with other children for fear of being robbed. When the boy was grown up and wanted to go out into the world, his mother said: “We have done so much for you,we ought to be able to share your wealth.” Then her son took a large piece of gold out of his brain and gave it to his mother. He lived in great style with a friend who, however, robbed him one night and ran away. After that the man resolved to guard his secret and to go out to work, because his reserves were visibly dwindling. One day he fell in love with a beautiful girl who loved him too, but no more than the beautiful clothes he gave her so lavishly. He married her and was very happy, but after two years she died and he spent the rest of his wealth on her funeral, which had to be splendid. Once, as he was creeping through the streets,weak,poor, and unhappy, he saw a beautiful little pair of boots that would have been perfect for his wife. He forgot that she was dead- perhaps because his emptied brain no longer worked- and entered the shop to buy the boots. But in that very moment he fell, and the shopkeeper saw a dead man lying on the ground. This story sounds as though it were invented, but it is true from beginning to end. There are people who have to pay for the smallest things in life with their very substance and their spinal cord. That is a constantly recurring pain, and then when they are tired of suffering… Does not mother love belong to the ‘smallest’, but also indispensable, things in life, for which many people paradoxically have to pay by giving up their living selves?

Mecca is a lot farther away than the Pyramids. When I was young, all I wanted to do was put together enough money to start this shop. I thought that someday I’d be rich, and could go to Mecca. I began to make some money, but I could never bring myself to leave someone in charge of the shop; the crystals are delicate things. At the same time, people were passing my shop all the time, heading for Mecca. Some of them were rich pilgrims, traveling in caravans with servants and camels, but most of the people making the pilgrimage were poorer than I. “All who went there were happy at having done so. They placed the symbols of the pilgrimage on the doors of their houses. One of them, a cobbler who made his living mending boots, said that he had traveled for almost a year through the desert, but that he got more tired when he had to walk through the streets of Tangier buying his leather.” “Well, why don’t you go to Mecca now?” asked the boy. “Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive. That’s what helps me face these days that are all the same, these mute crystals on the shelves, and lunch and dinner at that same horrible café. I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.

Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,” murmured Lord Henry. “Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man—that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won’t like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic.

We are lost; waiting tables at Denny's or forgetting ourselves stripping on poles, or working at a coffee shop misplaced in history or slowly dying on the inside as a secretary or landscaping lawns out of desperation working jobs with no futures, like bartending. The next generation of teachers, historians, lawyers, police officers and civil engineers work at this bar because the money can not be passed up, when you’re drowning in debt. The world brings us to our knees and we service it because it nourishes us just enough to get by. We are tired and we don't understand why. We, the over educated searching for happiness at the bottom of the bottle.

When I finally leave the market, the streets are dark, and I pass a few blocks where not a single electric light appears – only dark open storefronts and coms (fast-food eateries), broom closet-sized restaurants serving fish, meat, and rice for under a dollar, flickering candles barely revealing the silhouettes of seated figures. The tide of cyclists, motorbikes, and scooters has increased to an uninterrupted flow, a river that, given the slightest opportunity, diverts through automobile traffic, stopping it cold, spreads into tributaries that spill out over sidewalks, across lots, through filling stations. They pour through narrow openings in front of cars: young men, their girlfriends hanging on the back; families of four: mom, dad, baby, and grandma, all on a fragile, wobbly, underpowered motorbike; three people, the day’s shopping piled on a rear fender; women carrying bouquets of flapping chickens, gathered by their feet while youngest son drives and baby rests on the handlebars; motorbikes carrying furniture, spare tires, wooden crates, lumber, cinder blocks, boxes of shoes. Nothing is too large to pile onto or strap to a bike. Lone men in ragged clothes stand or sit by the roadsides, selling petrol from small soda bottles, servicing punctures with little patch kits and old bicycle pumps.

By the same token, in refusing gifts we seem to excuse ourselves from the obligations that arise naturally with gratitude. The taxicab driver Stewart Millard observes, The first conclusion I reached is that money makes us exquisitely inept at real human relationship. If I have just gotten a new set of tires from my friend Greg at his tire shop (I, indeed, was sitting in his parking lot thinking about this!) and no money was exchanged, then how would I repay Greg? And, a bit more subtle question arose: What if I didn’t accept this offer (gift) of tires from Greg? By accepting the gift of tires without money, then an automatic set of behaviors and consideration arise. What can I offer in return? I could wait for him to ask, or I can do the more arduous task of actually getting to know Greg, and thus allowing a more organic exchange to take place. Money means I can pay, and then pay no more attention to my fellow human across the counter. No getting to know him, no exchange of life to accommodate a natural mingling of flows in dependence and appreciation. A reason we are so intolerant of each other is simply because we have money. If that person is displeasing, we just take our money elsewhere—and the original is just left blowing in the wind. One of the most important gifts you can give is to fully receive the gift of another.

the agonisingly stilted telephone call with George. Chapter 5 Disturbing Siesta Time Marigold deigned to join me for a stroll around the village in lieu of the promised dip. An enormous pair of rather glamorous sunglasses paired with a jaunty wide-brimmed straw sunhat, obscured her face, making it impossible to read her expression though I guessed she was still miffed at being deprived of her swim. As we walked past the church and the village square the leafy branches of the plane trees offered a shaded canopy against the sun. Our steps turned towards one of the narrow lanes that edged upwards through the village, the ancient cobbles worn smooth and slippery from the tread of donkeys and people. The sound of a moped disturbed the peace of the afternoon and we hastily jumped backwards at its approach, pressing our bodies against a wall as the vehicle zapped past us, the pensioned-off rider’s shouted greeting muffled by the noisy exhaust. Carrier bags of shopping dangling from the handlebars made me reflect the moped was the modern day equivalent of the donkey, though less useful; the old man was forced to dismount and cart the bags of shopping on foot when the cobbled lane gave way to steps. Since adapting to village life we had become less reliant on wheels. Back in Manchester we would have thought nothing of driving to the corner shop, but here in Meli we delighted in exploring on foot, never tiring of discovering

Sometimes I have such a longing to do landscape, just as I crave a long walk to refresh myself; and in all nature, for instance in trees, I see expression and soul, so to speak. A row of pollard willows sometimes resembles a procession of almshouse men. Young corn has something inexpressibly pure and tender about it, which awakens the same emotion as the expression of a sleeping baby, for instance. The trodden grass at the roadside looks tired and dusty like the people of the slums. A few days ago, when it had been snowing, I saw a group of Savoy cabbages standing frozen and benumbed, and it reminded me of a group of women in their thin petticoats and old shawls which I had seen standing in a little hot water-and-coal shop early in the morning.

Beauty exists everywhere in the world. Love resides in all of us. That's the point. I only...I only want to deepen that. Show that there can be - that there should be - substance in it all. Of course a bride on her wedding day is beautiful, but that radiance doesn't diminish in old age, when she's too tired to keep up with whatever ridiculous fashions the shops and salons put out. I know Arina smiles upon an old couple walking down the road together, hand in hand, firm in their commitment to one another. A wilting flower holds just as much splendor as one on the cusp of opening. People are so quick to idolize the fresh and the new. They fetishize it." He rubbed at his forehead, his eyes bright with fervor. "Why should we celebrate one without the other?

Genevieve went over and kicked lightly at the front tire of her Dodge—to her the tire always looked low. The boys had made her remember what it was to be young. Once, before they had any kids, she and her husband Dan took off one weekend and drove to Raton, New Mexico. They stayed in a motel, lost twenty dollars at the horse races, made love six times in two days, and had dinner in the coffee shop of a fancy restaurant. She had even worn eye shadow. Romance might not last, but it was something while it did. She looked up the street and waved at Sam the Lion, but he was looking the other way and didn’t notice her and she went back into the empty café, wishing for a few minutes that she was young again and free and could go rattling off across Texas toward the Rio Grande.

When it passes us, the driver tips his cap our way, eying us as if he thinks we're up to no good-the kind of no good he might call the cops on. I wave to him and smile, wondering if I look as guilty as I feel. Better make this the quickest lesson in driving history. It's not like she needs to pass the state exam. If she can keep the car straight for ten seconds in a row, I've upheld my end of the deal. I turn off the ignition and look at her. "So, how are you and Toraf doing?" She cocks her head at me. "What does that have to do with driving?" Aside from delaying it? "Nothing," I say, shrugging. "Just wondering." She pulls down the visor and flips open the mirror. Using her index finger, she unsmudges the mascara Rachel put on her. "Not that it's your business, but we're fine. We were always fine." "He didn't seem to think so." She shoots me a look. "He can be oversensitive sometimes. I explained that to him." Oversensitive? No way. She's not getting off that easy. "He's a good kisser," I tell her, bracing myself. She turns in her seat, eyes narrowed to slits. "You might as well forget about that kiss, Emma. He's mine, and if you put your nasty Half-Breed lips on him again-" "Now who's being oversensitive?" I say, grinning. She does love him. "Switch places with me," she snarls. But I'm too happy for Toraf to return the animosity. Once she's in the driver's seat, her attitude changes. She bounces up and down like she's mattress shopping, getting so much air that she'd puncture the top if I hadn't put it down already. She reaches for the keys in the ignition. I grab her hand. "Nope. Buckle up first." It's almost cliché for her to roll her eyes now, but she does. When she's finished dramatizing the act of buckling her seat belt-complete with tugging on it to make sure it won't unclick-she turns to me in pouty expectation. I nod. She wrenches the key and the engine fires up. The distant look in her eyes makes me nervous. Or maybe it's the guilt swirling around in my stomach. Galen might not like this car, but it still feels like sacrilege to put the fate of a BMW in Rayna's novice hands. As she grips the gear stick so hard her knuckles turn white, I thank God this is an automatic. "D is for drive, right?" she says. "Yes. The right pedal is to go. The left pedal is to stop. You have to step on the left one to change into drive." "I know. I saw you do it." She mashes down on the brake, then throws us into drive. But we don't move. "Okay, now you'll want to step on the right pedal, which is the gas-" The tires start spinning-and so do we. Rayna stares at me wide-eyed and mouth ajar, which isn't a good thing since her hands are on the wheel. It occurs to me that she's screaming, but I can't hear her over my own screeching. The dust wall we've created whirls around us, blocking our view of the trees and the road and life as we knew it. "Take your foot off the right one!" I yell. We stop so hard my teeth feel rattled. "Are you trying to get us killed?" she howls, holding her hand to her cheek as if I've slapped her. Her eyes are wild and glassy; she just might cry. "Are you freaking kidding me? You're the one driving!

I remember a time when my mind wouldn’t have been able to shut down, my cases churning so relentlessly that I could barely see the person standing right in front of me. I remember when it had to be me who solved the case, who figured out the riddle. Now I didn’t care who did it, how it came about, just as long as it was over. I’m tired of seeing all the rotten things one person does to another person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to open a flower shop. But this is my dream: One day, I leave my job at my office and it doesn’t follow me home and haunt me in my sleep. Another dream: I don’t live in my brother’s basement apartment. After everything I’ve seen and done and mused about endlessly, I’m convinced of one thing: There’s more to life than this, and sometimes when I picture more, it looks like something so simple, like so much less.

Montgomery, Alabama. December 1, 1955. Early evening. A public bus pulls to a stop and a sensibly dressed woman in her forties gets on. She carries herself erectly, despite having spent the day bent over an ironing board in a dingy basement tailor shop at the Montgomery Fair department store. Her feet are swollen, her shoulders ache. She sits in the first row of the Colored section and watches quietly as the bus fills with riders. Until the driver orders her to give her seat to a white passenger. The woman utters a single word that ignites one of the most important civil rights protests of the twentieth century, one word that helps America find its better self. The word is “No.” The driver threatens to have her arrested. “You may do that,” says Rosa Parks. A police officer arrives. He asks Parks why she won’t move. “Why do you all push us around?” she answers simply. “I don’t know,” he says. “But the law is the law, and you’re under arrest.” On the afternoon of her trial and conviction for disorderly conduct, the Montgomery Improvement Association holds a rally for Parks at the Holt Street Baptist Church, in the poorest section of town. Five thousand gather to support Parks’s lonely act of courage. They squeeze inside the church until its pews can hold no more. The rest wait patiently outside, listening through loudspeakers. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd. “There comes a time that people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression,” he tells them. “There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amidst the piercing chill of an Alpine November.” He praises Parks’s bravery and hugs her. She stands silently, her mere presence enough to galvanize the crowd. The association launches a citywide bus boycott that lasts 381 days. The people trudge miles to work. They carpool with strangers. They change the course of American history.

On the way to the cake shop I kept stopping to shake the wet leaves off the soles of my brown suede Whistles boots. I bought them at Sue Ryder, the charity shop in Camden Town. [...] I know how to find good clothes in those places. First scan the rails for an awkward colour, anything that jumps out as being a bit ugly, like dirty mustard, salmon pink or olive green with a bit too much brown in it. A print with an unusual combination of colours – dark green and pink, bright orange and ultramarine – is also worth checking out. If the quality of the fabric is good, pull the garment out and check the label. Well-cut clothes can look misshapen on a hanger because they're cut to look good on the body. I'll buy a good piece if it fits, even if it doesn't sometimes. Even if it's not my style or has short sleeves, or I don't like the shape or the buttons. I learn to love it. I never tire of clothes I've bought that I've had to adjust to. It's the compromise, the awkward gap that has to be bridged that makes something, someone, lovable.

A poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little red devils, who had come in again that year, were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards. Margaret was no morbid idealist. She did not wish this spate of business and self-advertisement checked. It was only the occasion of it that struck her with amazement annually. How many of these vacillating shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it was a divine event that drew them together? She realised it, though standing outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if pressed, would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their belief were Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced, a little money spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten. Inadequate. But in public who shall express the unseen adequately? It is private life that holds out the mirror to infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision.

Disability is a set of innovative, virtuosic skills. When abled people fuss about how hard it is to make access happen, I laugh and think about the times I’ve stage-managed a show while having a panic attack, or the time the accessible van with three wheelchair-using performers and staff inside broke and we just brainstormed for two hours—Maybe if we pull another van up and lower their ramp onto the busted ramp folks can get out? Who has plywood? If we go to the bike shop, will they have welding tools?—until we figured out a way to fix the ramp so they could get out. If we can do this, why can’t anybody? And this innovation, this persistence, this commitment to not leaving each other behind, the power of a march where you move as slowly as the slowest member and put us in the front, the power of a lockdown of scooter users in front of police headquarters, the power of movements that know how to bring each other food and medicine and organize from tired without apology and with a sense that tired people catch things people moving fast miss—all of these are skills we have. I want us to know that—abled and disabled.

I told them we’re tired of the culture wars, tired of Christianity getting entangled with party politics and power. Millennials want to be known by what we’re for, I said, not just what we’re against. We don’t want to choose between science and religion or between our intellectual integrity and our faith. Instead, we long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. We want to talk about the tough stuff—biblical interpretation, religious pluralism, sexuality, racial reconciliation, and social justice—but without predetermined conclusions or simplistic answers. We want to bring our whole selves through the church doors, without leaving our hearts and minds behind, without wearing a mask. I explained that when our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends aren’t welcome at the table, then we don’t feel welcome either, and that not every young adult gets married or has children, so we need to stop building our churches around categories and start building them around people. And I told them that, contrary to popular belief, we can’t be won back with hipper worship bands, fancy coffee shops, or pastors who wear skinny jeans. We millennials have been advertised to our entire lives, so we can smell b.s. from a mile away. The church is the last place we want to be sold another product, the last place we want to be entertained.

Mama made the coach stop at a barber shop around the corner from their house. 'Go in there,' she told Francie, 'and get your father’s cup.' Francie didn't know what she meant. 'What cup?' she asked. 'Just ask for his cup.' Francie went in. There were two barbers but no customers. One of the barbers sat on one of the chairs in a row against the wall. His left ankle rested on his right knee and he cradled a mandolin. He was playing 'O, Sole Mio.' Francie knew the song. Mr. Morton had taught it to them saying the title was 'Sunshine.' The other barber was sitting in one of the barber chairs looking at himself in the long mirror. He got down from the chair as the girl came in. 'Yes?' he asked. 'I want my father’s cup.' 'The name?' 'John Nolan.' 'Ah, yes. Too bad.' He sighed as he took a mug from the row of them on a shelf. It was a thick white mug with 'John Nolan' written on it in gold and fancy block letters. There was a worn-down cake of white soap at the bottom of it and a tired-looking brush. He pried out the soap and put it and the brush in a bigger unlettered cup. He washed Johnny’s cup. While Francie waited, she looked around. She had never been inside a barber shop. It smelled of soap and clean towels and bay rum. There was a gas heater which hissed companionably. The barber had finished the song and started it over again. The thin tinkle of the mandolin made a sad sound in the warm shop. Francie sang Mr. Morton’s words to the song in her mind. Oh, what’s so fine, dear, As a day of sunshine. The storm is past at last. The sky is blue and clear. Everyone has a secret life, she mused.

Kenilworth, Mountainside, Scotch Plains, Dunellen... they themselves seemed far from Jersey: names out of Waverley novels, promising vistas of castles, highland waterfalls, and meadows dotted with flocks of grazing sheep. But the signboards lied, the books had lied, the Times had lied; the land here was one vast and charmless suburb, and as the bus passed through it, speeding west across the state, Freirs saw before him only the flat grey monotony of highway, broken from time to time by gas stations, roadhouses, and shopping malls that stretched away like deserts. The bus was warm, and the ride was beginning to give him a headache. He could feel the backs of his thighs sweating through his chinos. Easing himself farther into the seat, he pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The scenery disappointed him, yet it was still an improvement over what they'd just come through. Back there, on the fringes of the city, every work of man seemed to have been given over to the automobile, in an endless line of showrooms and repair shops for mufflers, fenders, carburetors, ignitions, tires, brakes. Now at last he could make out hills in the distance and extended zones of green, though here and there the nearness of some larger town or development meant a length of highway lined by construction, billboards touting banks or amusement parks, and drive-in theaters, themselves immense blank billboards, their signs proclaiming horror movies, "family pictures," soft-core porn. A speedway announced that next Wednesday was ladies' night. Food stands offered pizzaburgers, chicken in the basket, fish 'n' chips.

So when they reached the checkout Will was excited and happy because they’d nearly won. And when his mother couldn’t find her purse, that was part of the game too, even when she said the enemies must have stolen it; but Will was getting tired by this time, and hungry too, and Mummy wasn’t so happy anymore. She was really frightened, and they went around and around putting things back on the shelves, but this time they had to be extra careful because the enemies were tracking them down by means of her credit card numbers, which they knew because they had her purse.… And Will got more and more frightened himself. He realized how clever his mother had been to make this real danger into a game so that he wouldn’t be alarmed, and how, now that he knew the truth, he had to pretend not to be frightened, so as to reassure her. So the little boy pretended it was a game still, so she didn’t have to worry that he was frightened, and they went home without any shopping, but safe from the enemies; and then Will found the purse on the hall table anyway. On Monday they went to the bank and closed her account, and opened another somewhere else, just to be sure. Thus the danger passed. But sometime during the next few months, Will realized slowly and unwillingly that those enemies of his mother’s were not in the world out there, but in her mind. That made them no less real, no less frightening and dangerous; it just meant he had to protect her even more carefully. And from the moment in the supermarket when he had realized he must pretend in order not to worry his mother, part of Will’s mind was always alert to her anxieties. He loved her so much he would have died to protect her.

Don't you see, Rosalia? I wouldn't mind giving up Paris for you. That's why I can think about staying here or even asking you to come with me to Paris. I can't envision being without you. Before, you said I was being kind to you when I told you how it makes me sad when you're sad, and happy when you're happy. But I'm not being kind. I'm falling in love with you. Can't you see that? I'm crazy about you, and it's tearing me up on the inside. You're all I think about when I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. You're in my dreams. Even when I'm struggling over how to make a better pastry better, you pop up into my mind! I wonder what you would add to make it better. Then again, whom are we fooling? Your desserts are always better than mine!" Rosalia lowered her eyes and said softly, "That's not true. You've won a few of the contests we've had. Madre Carmela wouldn't lie." "She's getting old. Her palate is changing. I've heard the other workers who have tried your pastries express how good yours are and how they're often better than everyone else's." Rosalia folded her hands in her lap. He is falling in love with me. He'd said it! Though she was frightened to hear this, she couldn't deny that she was also elated. Antonio came back to the bed and sat down next to her. This time, he closed the space between them. He pushed her hair back behind her ear, and then took her face in both of his hands. She had no choice but to look at him. "I love you, Rosalia. I know you say we haven't known each other long, and we need to just think about today, but I'm tired of keeping how I feel about you inside of me. I love you. And nothing is going to change that. I'll wait for you. Whenever you are ready, I will be here, and I promise you my feelings won't change. Do you hear me?

I stood on the street corner. I thought about chasing after her, but she was churning swiftly through the neighborhood -- she was already almost a block away -- so instead I entered a coffee shop. This is why I was on the street. I was going to a coffee shop, and I was buying a coffee, and then I was walking to class, and then I would teach, and then during office hours I would reassure the students who needed reassuring, and I would be tough on the students who could take it, and if someone cried in my office for reasons unrelated but maybe sort of related to the imperfect short story they'd written, I would tell them that fiction makes you cry, the fiction you read though more often it's the shitty fiction you write that makes you cry, and I would also be thinking, You poor person, you have no idea what awaits you. A life awaits you, like a serious fucking life. This is what I would want to say. And then I would go home to my serious fucking life, and it would be so ridiculously unserious; it would involve soup spills and dirty dishes and lengthy logic proofs meant to coerce tired, inarticulate people to bed, and I would think how lucky I was to have this unserious life, i.e., to be forced to do somewhat or even thoroughly banal things every day. Because what awaits you if you don't? What kind of life awaits you then? A life where you don't calmly think, as you're scraping up the crystallized juice rings before showering before getting dressed before buying coffee before teaching class before reassuring people their hard lives would only get harder, Fuck this whole existence. You're running down the street and you're screaming at a university to which you no longer belong, you're wearing a sweatshirt not even branded with the insignia of the university on which you blame your breakdown, the university to which you are no longer affiliated, because you are so deeply unaffiliated that you are barely even affiliated with your own face.

My route, Sior Francis—and don't be surprised when you hear it—my route when I set out to find God... was... laziness. Yes, laziness. If I wasn't lazy I would have gone the way of respectable, upstanding people. Like everyone else I would have studied a trade—cabinet-maker, weaver, mason—and opened a shop; I would have worked all day long, and where then would I have found time to search for God? I might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack: that's what I would have said to myself. All my mind and thoughts would have been occupied with how to earn my living, feed my children, how to keep the upper hand over my wife. With such worries, curse them, how could I have the time, or inclination, or the pure heart needed to think about the Almighty? But by the grace of God I was born lazy. To work, get married, have children, and make problems for myself were all too much trouble. I simply sat in the sun during winter and in the shade during summer, while at night, stretched out on my back on the roof of my house, I watched the moon and the stars. And when you watch the moon and the stars how can you expect your mind not to dwell on God? I couldn't sleep any more. Who made all that? I asked myself. And why? Who made me, and why? Where can I find God so that I may ask Him? Piety requires laziness, you know. It requires leisure—and don't listen to what others say. The laborer who lives from hand to mouth returns home each night exhausted and famished. He assaults his dinner, bolts his food, then quarrels with his wife, beats his children without rhyme or reason simply because he's tired and irritated, and afterwards he clenches his fists and sleeps. Waking up for a moment he finds his wife at his side, couples with her, clenches his fists once more, and plunges back into sleep.... Where can he find time for God? But the man who is without work, children, and wife thinks about God, at first just out of curiosity, but later with anguish.

To this day, I am still not sure what it was about Chip Gaines that made me give him a second chance--because, basically, our first date was over before it even started. I was working at my father’s Firestone automotive shop the day we first met. I’d worked as my dad’s office manager through my years at Baylor University and was perfectly happy working there afterward while I tried to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. The smell of tires, metal, and grease--that place was like a second home to me, and the guys in the shop were all like my big brothers. On this particular afternoon, they all started teasing me. “You should go out to the lobby, Jo. There’s a hot guy out there. Go talk to him!” they said. “No,” I said. “Stop it! I’m not doing that.” I was all of twenty-three, and I wasn’t exactly outgoing. She was a bit awkward--no doubt about that. I hadn’t dated all that much, and I’d never had a serious relationship--nothing that lasted longer than a month or two. I’d always been an introvert and still am (believe it or not). I was also very picky, and I just wasn’t the type of girl who struck up conversations with guys I didn’t know. I was honestly comfortable being single; I didn’t think that much of it. “Who is this guy, anyway?” I asked, since they all seemed to know him for some reason. “Oh, they call him Hot John,” someone said, laughing. Hot John? There was no way I was going out in that lobby to strike up a conversation with some guy called Hot John. But the guys wouldn’t let up, so I finally said, “Fine.” I gathered up a few things from my desk (in case I needed a backup plan) and rounded the corner into the lobby. I quickly realized that Hot John was pretty good-looking. He’d obviously just finished a workout--he was dressed head-to-toe in cycling gear and was just standing there, innocently waiting on someone from the back. I tried to think about what I might say to strike up a conversation when I got close enough and quickly settled on the obvious topic: cycling. But just as that thought raced through my head, he looked up from his magazine and smiled right at me. Crap, I thought. I completely lost my nerve. I kept on walking right past him and out the lobby’s front door. When I reached the safety of my dad’s outdoor waiting area, I realized just how bad I’d needed the fresh air. I sat on a chair a few down from another customer and immediately started laughing at myself. Did I really just do that?

I am speaking of the evenings when the sun sets early, of the fathers under the streetlamps in the back streets returning home carrying plastic bags. Of the old Bosphorus ferries moored to deserted stations in the middle of winter, where sleepy sailors scrub the decks, pail in hand and one eye on the black-and-white television in the distance; of the old booksellers who lurch from one ϧnancial crisis to the next and then wait shivering all day for a customer to appear; of the barbers who complain that men don’t shave as much after an economic crisis; of the children who play ball between the cars on cobblestoned streets; of the covered women who stand at remote bus stops clutching plastic shopping bags and speak to no one as they wait for the bus that never arrives; of the empty boathouses of the old Bosphorus villas; of the teahouses packed to the rafters with unemployed men; of the patient pimps striding up and down the city’s greatest square on summer evenings in search of one last drunken tourist; of the broken seesaws in empty parks; of ship horns booming through the fog; of the wooden buildings whose every board creaked even when they were pashas’ mansions, all the more now that they have become municipal headquarters; of the women peeking through their curtains as they wait for husbands who never manage to come home in the evening; of the old men selling thin religious treatises, prayer beads, and pilgrimage oils in the courtyards of mosques; of the tens of thousands of identical apartment house entrances, their facades discolored by dirt, rust, soot, and dust; of the crowds rushing to catch ferries on winter evenings; of the city walls, ruins since the end of the Byzantine Empire; of the markets that empty in the evenings; of the dervish lodges, the tekkes, that have crumbled; of the seagulls perched on rusty barges caked with moss and mussels, unϩinching under the pelting rain; of the tiny ribbons of smoke rising from the single chimney of a hundred-yearold mansion on the coldest day of the year; of the crowds of men ϧshing from the sides of the Galata Bridge; of the cold reading rooms of libraries; of the street photographers; of the smell of exhaled breath in the movie theaters, once glittering aϱairs with gilded ceilings, now porn cinemas frequented by shamefaced men; of the avenues where you never see a woman alone after sunset; of the crowds gathering around the doors of the state-controlled brothels on one of those hot blustery days when the wind is coming from the south; of the young girls who queue at the doors of establishments selling cut-rate meat; of the holy messages spelled out in lights between the minarets of mosques on holidays that are missing letters where the bulbs have burned out; of the walls covered with frayed and blackened posters; of the tired old dolmuşes, ϧfties Chevrolets that would be museum pieces in any western city but serve here as shared taxis, huϫng and puϫng up the city’s narrow alleys and dirty thoroughfares; of the buses packed with passengers; of the mosques whose lead plates and rain gutters are forever being stolen; of the city cemeteries, which seem like gateways to a second world, and of their cypress trees; of the dim lights that you see of an evening on the boats crossing from Kadıköy to Karaköy; of the little children in the streets who try to sell the same packet of tissues to every passerby; of the clock towers no one ever notices; of the history books in which children read about the victories of the Ottoman Empire and of the beatings these same children receive at home; of the days when everyone has to stay home so the electoral roll can be compiled or the census can be taken; of the days when a sudden curfew is announced to facilitate the search for terrorists and everyone sits at home fearfully awaiting “the oϫcials”; CONTINUED IN SECOND PART OF THE QUOTE

Tatiana’s hands trembled whenever she thought of him. She trembled all day long. She walked through Stonington as if she were sleepwalking, stiff, unnatural. She bent to her son, she straightened up, she adjusted her dress, she fixed her hair. The churning inside her stomach did not abate. Tatiana tried to be bolder with him, less afraid of him. He wouldn’t kiss her in front of Jimmy, or the other fishermen, or anybody. Sometimes in the evenings, as they walked down Main Street and looked inside the shops, he would buy her some chocolate, and she would turn up her face to thank him, and he would kiss her on the forehead. The forehead! One evening Tatiana got tired of it and, jumping up on the bench, flung her arms around him. “Enough with the head,” she said, and kissed him full on his lips. His one hand on the cigarette, the other on Anthony’s ice cream, he couldn’t do more than press against her. “Get down,” he said quietly, kissing her back without ardor. “What’s gotten into you?” Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you man o’ war!

The lights went out in the dining room and Owen entered the kitchen, stopping several feet away. She leaned on her hands, her head bent nearly to her chest. She could only see his feet and legs. “Claire, you’re exhausted. Why didn’t you just go up to bed?” “The meds kicked in. Too tired to move.” Unexpected and exciting, he plucked her right off the counter and settled her in his arms and against his broad, hard chest. Too tired to make a fuss and exert her independence, she gave in to something else entirely and snuggled closer, nestling her face in his neck and settling her head on his strong shoulder. His chest rumbled with a laugh. “You’re like a contented cat, snuggling in for the night.” “Deep down, I’m fine on my own. The meds have made me mushy and weak.” “Not weak. After the night you’ve had, you just need a hug.” He squeezed her to his chest. She tried to hide the wince of pain, but he felt her stiffen in his arms. “Sorry, overstepped.” They reached the top of the stairs, and he stopped. “No, you didn’t. I didn’t realize how banged up I got. I feel like I got hit by a car,” she joked. “The meds are helping out considerably. My room’s on the right.” Owen walked down the hall and entered her room, stopping just inside and looking around. “Wow. It’s like another house in here.” “I moved in over a year ago, but I spent all my time opening the shop and running it. A couple of months ago, I started on the house. I spend so much time at the shop, the most time I spend here is sleeping, so I redid the master bedroom first. I’ve upgraded the bathroom, but I still need to add the finishing touches.” “You added the flower pots on the back patio with the lounge and table set.” “I like to drink my coffee out there in the morning when the weather is nice.” “You spend a lot of time working, so spending the morning outside is relaxing.” “Yes. Sounds like the same is true for you, too.” He nodded. “I spend most evenings outside reading over briefs and preparing for court. I take care of the horses and barn cats. It gets me out of my head.” “You can put me down now.” “I knew you’d say that.” She laughed, and he set her on her bed. -Owen & Claire

Besides, it was satisfying just to look at my work. Whenever I build something in my wood shop, several days pass before I tire of looking at it. Something about the creative process inspires a person to enjoy just looking at what he has built.

how to make notes ========== Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (Preeti Shenoy) - Your Highlight at location 1584-1589 | Added on Monday, 15 June 2015 11:21:47 wanted to share my ‘colour coded’ way of remembering things with everybody, so they too could benefit. I felt like I had stumbled upon a great secret and my discovery would be hailed. I pictured it being used in schools, colleges and everywhere else as a new memory technique. I wondered why nobody else had thought of such a simple but brilliant technique earlier. As I was waiting for him to finish making the photocopies, my eyes chanced upon small glittering stickers of cartoon characters like Tw eety bird, Fairies and Garfield and some Disney characters, which children use to decorate their books and other objects. I thought the stickers would make a nice finishing touch and I bought twenty sheets. I also came across some very beautiful printed stationery and could not resist buying about eight packets of writing sheets. They looked very beautiful and ========== Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (Preeti Shenoy) - Your Note at location 1596 | Added on Monday, 15 June 2015 11:24:46 cont. how to make notes ========== Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (Preeti Shenoy) - Your Highlight at location 1590-1596 | Added on Monday, 15 June 2015 11:24:46 I also looked around the shop and discovered some water colours. I had last painted with water colours only in school. On an impulse, I bought a set of water colours and a set of brushes as well. It was like an urgent impulse inside my head that was driving me to buy all this stuff. They seemed absolutely essential. I reached home armed with my large bag of purchases and unpacked them carefully and arranged them all on my desk. Then I sat down and decorated the corners of each set of notes with tiny stickers of cartoon characters. I used highlighter pens and highlighted each set of the notes in my colour coded way with green, purple and orange. There were seventy sets to finish and I was like a woman possessed. I stayed up the whole night doing just this. I was a reservoir of energy. I just couldn' t stop. Strangely I did not feel even a little tired. ========== Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (Preeti Shenoy) - Your Highlight at location 1617-1617 | Added on Monday, 15 June 2015 11:55:29 uncannily ========== Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (Preeti Shenoy) - Your Highlight at location 1650-1650 | Added on Monday, 15 June 2015 14:48:08 besotted ========== Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (Preeti Shenoy) - Your Highlight at location

The truth is, I had lived alone for so long I sometimes forgot that the responsibility for running my life was solely mine. There was no sharing of duties and decisions in the life I'd chosen. Whether it was taking the car to the repair shop or hanging the screen door, it was up to me. Most of the time I liked being in charge of my life, thrived on it, in fact. But occasionally, when I was tired or unhappy, I'd find myself thinking how nice it would be to let someone else run the show, at least for awhile.

Often people get desires that are godly early on, yet they leave intimacy with God to pursue the vision. He said, “I am not impressed with that, even if the natural man is impressed.” He continued to tell me that He wants us to see and perform great exploits, but they must be done from a place of peace and rest in Him. He wants us to offer the city the abundance of blessing we have received. But it’s hard to offer the city light, hope, and life if we are tired and empty spiritually. The reality is, He is giving us an invitation into His heart, and He wants to bless us beyond our ability to ask. He says, “Come to My table and be with Me and eat until you are full. Then we can talk shop.

On which day do zombies eat people? A: Chewsday! Q: How did the zombie accomplish all his goals? A: He was very deadicated! Q: When does a zombie sleep? A: When he’s dead tired! Q: What did the zombie say to the human? A: Pleased to eat you! Q: Why did the zombie go to the hospital? A: To have his ghoul-stones removed! Q: Where do zombies shop for clothes? A: The monstore!

Leslie Schwab was born in Bend, Oregon. After service in the Air Cadet Corps during World War II, he returned to Oregon and bought OK Rubber Welders, a small tire shop that he turned from a $32,000-a-year business into one generating $150,000 annually. In the 1950s, Schwab began expanding his business throughout the Pacific Northwest. Through innovations such as profit sharing, "supermarket" product selection, and independence from the tire manufacturing companies, the company now operates over three hundred stores with sales exceeding $l billion annually.

Until now Ashima has accepted that there is no one to sweep the floor, or do the dishes, or wash clothes, or shop for groceries, or prepare a meal on the days she is tired or homesick or cross. She has accepted that the very lack of such amenities is the American way.

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CoaterZ in Palm Harbor is Pinellas County's One-Stop Shop for premium auto and boat restoration and customization needs. Specializing in ceramic coating, paint protection film (PPF), car window tinting, car wraps, auto detailing, auto paint correction, paintless dent repair, and more. Our services will not only protect your car or boat but will also enhance it's appearance. CoaterZ also offers wheels, tires, and truck accessories.

What can be worse than rough hair which is split at the ends?Split ends and breakage of hair come off as one of the most annoying and chronic hair issues ever faced; their occurrence always comes off regardless of hair types and orientation. Achieving healthy hair after split ends may end up being tiring and a long process. The required solution may range the right way of detangling to many advanced levels of clinical operations. Before things go out of hand, keep in mind the following in your consciousness to carry out the most anticipated scalp as well as hair care. GENTLE MOTIONS A hairbrush with a soft ergonomic shape is the ideal solution for damaged and rough hairs. The NuWay C Brush takes the required care of the delicate hair follicles and puts firm and controlled pressure on the scalp while gently and smoothly. It ensures the intactness of the hair strands which further prevents them from breakage. HEAT REDUCTION Heat is considered as one of the most harmful and destructive causes for damaged scalp and hair. A brush with a proper venting scheme can be stated as a good brush since it possesses the capacity of absorbing heat and distributing heat evenly, thus preventing your hair or scalp from burning. EVERYDAY DETANGLING Detangling is the best way to prevent split ends and breakage as it helps the hair strands from colliding and getting trapped with each other, which inevitably ruins the strength of the hair. HYDRATION Moisturisation and hydration might be some of the forgotten steps which are most of the time taken for granted. The scalp skin is more delicate than the skin on other body parts. Just like the facial skin requires hydration, the scalp demands it too! When your hair is fully moisturized it allows your scalp and hair to rejuvenate and prevent drying out which in turn helps to prevent hair breakage. Therefore, it doesn't matter what hair care products you use, but you need to take care of the scalp and provide moisturisation in all cases. NUWAY BEING THE PRO SPLIT ENDS AND BREAKAGE HANDLER Ever thought of a brush that could properly promote blood circulation? The C Brush from NuWay does it all, just for you. There are millions of underlying reasons for our superior acclamations. NuWay is one of the reliable hair product companies that believes in providing a one-stop solution for every hair issue of yours NuWay's Double C shape brush has all the amenities one can ever think of. Besides being the pro brush for detangling, it is a vent brush that absorbs heat. So what are you waiting for? Hurry up! Shop your own C brush and see your tresses shinning and healthy!

It was Rogers who hurried to the carpenter shop beneath the forecastle and reappeared triumphantly, holding a hacksaw. He insisted on taking the first turn at cutting through the forged steel link. Soon, he tired of the task and handed the saw to a seaman. Then he wandered off, whistling to himself. Psychiatrists who later examined Rogers or studied his own account of these events have been struck by the marked disturbance of his thinking. A disturbed or psychotic personality suffering from this “thought disorder” has tremendous difficulty separating the relevant from the irrelevant, recalls and remembers everything, describes events in almost incredible detail. Rogers’ description of what happened to him when he left the bridge clearly displays this condition: “There had been a canary down in the hold of the ship. It belonged to the boatswain. I had seen the canary there. I was looking for a pair of shoes. I had lost mine overboard. “I got the canary and put a towel around the bird and came up. He was the only living thing down there. I got halfway up and the heat was terrific. I went all the way with the flashlight and I noticed there was a space of about four feet on the bulkhead that was beginning to glow, turning red.” Clutching the canary, he shuffled back to the deck and delivered the “news that the place was glowing hot down there and it’s a shame to use a five-and-ten-cent method to saw through the chain.” Suddenly the steel link snapped. In all, five hours had passed since the Tampa first offered help.

Oh God! Ray will kill me.” She ran into the bathroom, showered, and dressed. “What will you tell your husband?” Jack asked when he kissed her in the doorway. “That I was shopping.” “Won’t he notice you’re not bringing anything home?” She laughed. She dashed out the door, tired but satisfied. When Ray approached her that night, she grimaced, finding his advances almost unendurable.

As much as it celebrates regional produce, this book hopes to be a young Singaporean's love song to the markets. In the course of writing this book, the market's beauty has grown on me. When I fumble with coins in my purse, the vegetable uncle always tells me that I can pay the next time. I learn cooking tips and recipes not only from the vendors, but also from fellow patrons - shopping at the wet markets is an interactive, immersive experience. I do not think I will ever tire of walking through markets, admiring the way the produce spills over baskets and cartons, relishing the way everything feels so organic, so raw and so real.

There’s a pretty strong narrative shaming people for being lazy, promoting the solution of shopping locally, and all the effort that goes along with it. But people are too tired. There’s too much competing for our mental energy. It’s totally understandable that customers crave familiarity and convenience. I think the only thing that works is to make the unique more approachable.

Did she slash your tires, too?” “No, I traded in the car; got an SUV.” He reaches out and opens the door, and I climb into the Range Rover. “When did you go car shopping?” I ask as he slides into the driver’s seat. “Do you like it?” “Yes, it’s nice, but …” I stop when he lifts the console separating us. “Now you can sit next to me.” “You bought a car so I could sit next to you?

He’s not just using me for my body,” Megan said. “He’s also using me as Prozac. Yesterday morning, Drew basically told me his life was all bleak like a black-and-white movie, and then I came into the picture and started rocking his world in Technicolor.” “That’s not using someone,” Rory said. “That’s happiness.” “No. It’s like a drug. I’m like a drug. But the effect on a guy only lasts for a while. When the drug high wears off, where does that leave me?” “I don’t think that’s…” Rory trailed off, confused. “You’ve never had a boyfriend, and you’ve never done drugs, so this is all a foreign concept to you. How can I put this in a metaphor you can understand?” Megan thought about it then went with the first idea that popped into her head, as she usually did. “I’m like cheap birthday cake. I’m the corner slice with all the icing. Drew is the greedy kid at the party. He wants me, the chunky corner piece with all the icing, but he’s going to get a stomach ache, and soon, he’s going to want his plain sandwiches again.” Rory looked down, and there was only the sound of the washer and dryer. Finally, she looked up, her eyes sad and hopeful at the same time, and said, “You’re not cake.” “But I’m not exactly Tina, am I? I’m not the marrying kind. I’ll never get a guy as good as Luca. Nobody’s going to sell out the flower shop just to take me on a date. I’m the girl they call to help them fix a flat tire.

In the world of the OWO, people are locked in isolated little boxes called houses, watching junk on TV, eating junk, reading junk, vegetating. They are passive, submissive, weak, lazy, tired, unambitious. They haunt shopping malls like fading wraiths. Gods can never come into being in shopping malls. Gods need ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink of the deities. They need to breathe aether – the most rarefied, divine air. They need spiritual sustenance, not full shopping baskets.

Then I had one of those odd shifts of focus and looked down at my bike, and my dusty, worn gloves on the handlebars. We were in the greatest place in the world, but what had it taken to get here? Quite a bit. Learning to ride, getting a driver’s license in high school. Acquiring tools, learning to change flat tires and clutch cables. Gaining dirt experience and going to dealerships to shop for the right bike. Installing knobbies and handguards and a skidplate. After years of youthful indigence, moving through a series of jobs that finally allowed you to afford a truck or a bike trailer. Learning to read maps and cross rivers in deep water. Finding helmets and enduro jackets and motocross boots that fit. Getting a passport, paying your bike registration, learning a smattering of useful Spanish.… And living long enough to have friends who were crazy enough to do all these things, as well. People you could count on who’d gone through the same lifetime of motorcycle connections that had brought us to this perfect spot in time. As I put my helmet back on, it occurred to me that you are never more completely the sum of everything you’ve ever been than when you take a slightly difficult motorcycle trip into a strange land. And make it back out again.

Ben, my four year old, had had it. “I’m tired of poop,” he told me. Max hated the smell of the coffee grounds we picked up from a local coffee shop, “It smells like cigarettes!” I liked to tell myself I was teaching them resourcefulness, but truthfully, I think I was addicted.

We mean to make things over; we’re tired of toil for naught but bare enough to live on: never an hour for thought. We want to feel the sunshine; we want to smell the flowers; We’re sure that God has willed it, and we mean to have eight hours. We’re summoning our forces from shipyard, shop and mill: Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!

Tomoya: Nagisa! (gasps) Nagisa! Nagisa: (weakly) Tomoya… Tomoya: She’s here, Nagisa. She’s-she's right here! You can hear her, right? That’s our baby, that’s our baby crying. Nagisa: (weakly) Y-yeah… Tomoya: Here, look! I got to hold her before anyone else, see? Nagisa: Oh…she turned out so cute… Tomoya: This is our little baby, Nagisa. It’s our little Ushio. Nagisa: Hey there, Shio… Tomoya: It’s a girl, she’s as healthy as can be! Nagisa: Yeah… I’m so glad I could have her here with you, Tomoya… I’m sorry I had to make Shio work so hard for it, but at least we were all together… Tomoya: You did a great job. I mean it. Nagisa: (Sighs) Hey…I’m sorry, but I’m starting to feel a little tired. Could you let me rest? Just for a second…? Tomoya: Come on, let’s talk just-just a little longer, okay? You don’t have to say anything, just listen. Come on, you have to look at our baby. She kinda looks like a cute little monkey, doesn’t she? See? She’s so tiny. Here, I’m going to call her name, okay? Ushio. Hey, it’s daddy, Ushio. And this is mommy, see? Look at her, see? (Sniffles and laughs softly) She’s ignoring me. Guess, she doesn’t understand yet. I’ll bet she’ll grow up before we know it. She’ll be starting school. We’ll have to go clothes shopping with her. We’ll have open house and school festivals to go to. We’ll do it all as a family, even though I used to make fun of that stuff growing up. (chuckles) Nagisa? (gasps) Nagisa. Here, it’s Ushio’s cheek. Come on. Hey… (Nagisa Breathes heavily) Tomoya: Nagisa. You told me you’d always be by my side. You said, we’d always be together. You promised me that, remember? Over and over again. We both promised. That was my only dream. Nothing good ever happened to me until I met you. I thought I had a crappy life but even someone useless like me finally found something to live for. Right, Nagisa? Right? Nagisa… NAGISA!!! Tomoya thinks of flashback when they first met: Nagisa's voice echoing in his head: Do you like this school? I have to say that I love it very very much! But soon, everything changes. Well, at least it does eventually. Fun things, happy things, they’ll all eventually change someday, you know. But, do you think you can still love this place anyway? (Instead of meeting her Tomoya turns the other direction and walks away) We never should have met. We should have kept going down our separate paths. We never would have gone out. We never would have gotten married and Ushio never would have been born. Then, at least I wouldn’t have to go through so much suffering. (sniffle) (sighs) We never should have met.

It had a shape that filled your mouth, a rounded and warm sweetness that immediately made the saliva run and mix with the juices in anticipation of the next bite. It tasted just like the smell around us, but more so. It was like tasting a smile. You’d have thought this fanciful, I expect. Your shops would have been full of pesh and other things even more exotic. You probably wouldn’t even have been able to remember the first pesh you ate, among all the different tastes you were used to. And of all the glories and riches in your gone world, that’s one thing I don’t envy you for. That’s something I have that you didn’t: the glory of that first pesh, taken in the warm sun at the end of a long, tiring day. It was perfect.

Her grandmother and Angharad had gone shopping. She had felt too tired to join them, which was a shame as Angharad was having a dress fitting and she had wanted to be there to share her friend’s excitement.

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The idea here is that we have only a limited amount of self-control or willpower to draw on, and when our reserves are drained we have a harder time resisting temptation. Fatigue, mental strain, stress, and hunger can all work as drains on our self-control resources.48 Research shows that stigma or the threat of rejection can also reduce self-control through ego depletion,49 so stereotype threat can be a trigger for overspending if you use retail therapy. However our egos get worn down, the effect is the same: We have less self-control. So, when we are ego depleted, just trying harder to resist temptation will only work against us, making us more tired and more ego depleted. Instead, if we want to resist the temptation to shop when our egos are drained, the solution is not to be hard on ourselves, but to focus on replenishing our resources. This is where affirmations come in.

To my dearest friend, I stood by your bed last night, I came to have a peep. I could see that you were crying, you found it hard to sleep. I spoke to you softly as you brushed away a tear, "Its me, I haven't left, I'm well, I'm fine, I'm here." I was close to you at breakfast, Iwatched you pour the tea. You were thinking of the many times your hands reached down to me. I was with you at the shops; your arms were getting sore. I longed to take your parcels, I wish I could do more. I was with you at my grave today; you tend it with such care. I want to reassure you, that I am not lying there. I walked with you towards the house, as you fumbled for the key. I gently put my paw on you; I smiled and said ''its me''. You looked so very tired, and sank into a chair. I tried so hard to let you know, that I was standing there. Its possible for me to be so near you everyday. To say with certainty, "I never went away". You sat there very quietly, then smiled, I think you knew in the stillness of the evening, I was very close to you. The day is over..... I smile and watch you yawning, and say "goodnight, God bless, I'll see you in the morning." And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide, I'll rush across to greet you and we'll stand, side by side. I have so many things to show you, there is so much for you to see. Be patient, live your journey out..... then come home to me.

Death hit people differently. She was getting by. He had all but given up. There was no middle ground as woman. She was used to it, but it still pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hrad, or emotionally unstable. When USA sneezed , the UK caught the cold. Her face was often difficult to read, but at that moment it told him whatever McEvoy found Margie Knight o not, she'd tear every dodgy sauna, massage parlour and tin-pot knocking shop in the city apart trying. It might have been a few minutes, it might have been an hour, when he heard Holland's voice... The mood she is in right now, Holland, if you're so much as suggest that it might be her time of the month, I'm guessing she'll kill you on the spot. I think the poison inside me has eaten away every ounce of courage there might ever have been. I need to find just a little more. "Look, I'm getting tired of saying sorry" "Well I'm not tired of hearing you say it, OK?" Maybe they bred them somewhere, taught then how to put their hair in a bun and look down their pointed noses, before sending them out into the world with a pair of bug glasses, a fondness for tweed and something uncomfortable up their backside. "I'm going to kill Holland. No, I'm going to make him listen to some proper country music and then I'm going to kill him." "Actually, fuck that, the music would be wasted on him anyway. I'll just kill him." "fuckfuckbullocksfuck..." "What? I make you sick? I make you want to hurt me?" "You knock, you wait, you get asked to come in, you come in. It's pretty bloody straightforward." ...sat at home like Tom Throne, trying to keep the rest of the world well away. Police officer and prison staff are old enemies. The finders and the keepers resenting each other. 'Everybody says it switches around when you get old and they have to look after you. The parent becomes the child...It's non sense though., it really is. Even when they're cooking for you and getting your shopping in, you know? Even when they're doing up the buttons on your pyjamas and pretending to listen to your stupid stories, even when they're wiping your arse, you're still the father--It never stops, never. You're still the father and he's still the son. Still the son...' A thin layer across the top of the cistern in the ladies, invisible unless used in some of the more drugs-conscious clubs. ...Depending on how it looks, thy either do nothing, or break it again, re-set it.' 'Do they need volunteers?' "Don't talk to me. Not like that, do you understand? Not 'are you all right?' Not 'sorry'..." "I don't..." "Talk to me like a murdered." Holland couldn't believe what he was hearing. Palmer? 'Sorry?' Throne shouted. 'Fucking sorry...?' 'Shut your fucking stupid cunt's mouth. I will kill you, is that clear? I'm not afraid, certainly not of you. I don't care what happens. He can shoot the pair of us, I don't give a fuck. But if I hear so much as a breath coming out of you before this is finished, a single poisonous whisper, I'll rip your face off with my bare hands. I'll take it clean off, Nicklin, I'll make you another nice, new identity...

Beatrice, walk in to the hospital and say you’re my guest; Ethel will come for you if I can’t manage it. It will last about an hour, and you’ll have met quite a few of the people there already.’ He had barely glanced at her, but Ethel had noted her tired face and, being the soul of discretion, had said nothing. Beatrice, unaware that his quick look had taken in her unhappy face, thanked him politely and poured her coffee, buttered a croissant and took a bite. She was feeling better already; the doctor’s bracing manner didn’t allow time for melancholy, and listening to Ethel’s cheerful voice she felt ashamed of her self-pity. They left the breakfast-table presently and went their various ways with last-minute instructions from the doctor as to the quickest way to reach the Academisch Ziekenhuis from the shopping centre. The morning went pleasantly. She bought another present or two, had coffee and then began to stroll towards the hospital. She had gone to her room after breakfast

Depending on your point of view, Jersey City was the rose, or possibly the thorn, of the Garden State. It is so far back that my memories are rather vague, but they were my first memories, and this is where I have to start. We lived at 77 Nelson Avenue, behind my parents’ German-style delicatessen, in three Spartan rooms counting the kitchen. Supermarkets were not yet prevalent and the neighborhood general store, grocery store or delicatessen was where most folks shopped for food. It was during the pre-World War II years, when very few people owned cars and the general public did not have the modern means of travel, which we now take for granted. Every item people needed came from a different store, so to go shopping was a daily task of which people were not even consciously mindful. Even if they had a car, they would have to deal with constant breakdowns, poor and frequently unpaved roads, and tire problems. Garage rentals were crowded behind and between buildings. Parking on the street was limited and most people respected the concept that the parking space in front of a dwelling was for the resident who lived there. It was much easier to use the available mass transportation or endure long walks.

I knew that I was in despair. The house was empty, too big for me to fill. All I could bring to it was an enormous, slow, bleak loneliness. In a junk shop I found a shabby but surprisingly comfortable old sofa covered in gold brocade that was bleached almost to silver. When it was delivered I saw only its dated gentility; but then I tossed an equally ancient pink silk cushion on to it, and the pink and faded gold sang to each other in quiet, tired voices. I saw that, living alone, one must play out one's domestic dramas through inanimate objects. Suddenly this did not seem so terrible.

I like the flexibility of being a full-time writer I can set my own hours and be home when my kids are home. And I love being creative and getting paid for it—there is nothing more exciting (well, almost nothing) than when a new idea pops into my head, then when the details and scenes start coming together to form a story. The downside is the inconsistent money — my kids get tired of hearing me say, “I’m supposed to get a check sometime soon, then we can go shopping!” I also don’t like it when people act as if I’m not working — writing is fun but it’s also a lot of hard work. Working at home can get lonely too!

She owned a small shop, but anything I needed, Elise could make it happen in half the time anyone else did, and at a decent price. “Everything okay? You seem a little on edge,” I said as she helped me load the baby Jacaranda trees in the back of my Chevy. Her raven-dark hair was piled up in a bun on top of her head, and she just looked tired. “Yeah, I’m just... redoing my website, hoping it’ll bring in more business. I just don’t know how to pimp it up.” “I could give you a testimonial. Or better yet, you could include the pictures from the Murieta project.” That was the one I won the Best Garden award for. Her eyes widened. “Are you sure? I don’t want to steal your laurels.” “You’re not stealing anything,

I never thought I’d envy you,” she said. “Never in a million years. You’re so composed, so serious. So cold.” His hands balled into fists. How dare she? How dare she burst into his room and kiss him and dive into a river and invade his dreams and make him go shopping and throw herself headlong into danger and lean back against a pear tree in a dress the exact color of her hair kissed by fading sunlight? How dare she make him forget? Damn it all. Damn her for making him care. “I want to go cold,” she said. “All these feelings—they’re like flames inside me. I’m tired of getting burnt. I don’t want them anymore. I want to put out the fire and just go cold. I never imagined I’d envy you, but today …” Her voice wavered. “Today, I do.

Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after him carefully and would not let him play with other children for fear of being robbed. When the boy was grown up and wanted to go out into the world, his mother said: “We have done so much for you,we ought to be able to share your wealth.” Then her son took a large piece of gold out of his brain and gave it to his mother. He lived in great style with a friend who, however, robbed him one night and ran away. After that the man resolved to guard his secret and to go out to work, because his reserves were visibly dwindling. One day he fell in love with a beautiful girl who loved him too, but no more than the beautiful clothes he gave her so lavishly. He married her and was very happy, but after two years she died and he spent the rest of his wealth on her funeral, which had to be splendid. Once, as he was creeping through the streets,weak,poor, and unhappy, he saw a beautiful little pair of boots that would have been perfect for his wife. He forgot that she was dead- perhaps because his emptied brain no longer worked- and entered the shop to buy the boots. But in that very moment he fell, and the shopkeeper saw a dead man lying on the ground. Daudet, who was to die from an illness of the spinal cord, wrote following this story: This story sounds as though it were invented, but it is true from beginning to end. There are people who have to pay for the smallest things in life with their very substance and their spinal cord. That is a constantly recurring pain, and then when they are tired of suffering… Does not mother love belong to the ‘smallest’, but also indispensable, things in life, for which many people paradoxically have to pay by giving up their living selves?

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In dust, heat, and discouragement and fatigue beyond telling, the British retreat continued. Trailing through St. Quentin, the tired remnants of two battalions gave up, piled up their arms in the railroad station, sat down in the Place de la Gare, and refused to go farther. They told Major Bridges whose cavalry had orders to hold off the Germans until St. Quentin was clear of troops, that their commanding officers had given the mayor a written promise to surrender in order to save the town further bombardment. Not caring to confront the battalion colonels whom he knew and who were senior to him, Bridges wished desperately for a band to rouse the two hundred or three hundred dispirited men lying about in the square. “Why not? There was a toy shop handy which provided my trumpeter and myself with a tin whistle and a drum and we marched round and round the fountain where the men were lying like the dead playing the British Grenadiers and Tipperary and beating the drum like mad.” The men sat up, began to laugh, then cheer, then one by one stood up, fell in and “eventually we moved off slowly into the night to the music of our improvised band, now reinforced with a couple of mouth organs.

with tuk-tuks and rickshaws. While some of the districts were modern and clean, others were colourful and ramshackle. Kiosks selling cigarettes, phonecards, sweets and general supplies lined the streets and traders piled fruit and vegetables on sheets to sell. The highway to the south took us through the main commercial district, Galle Road, which was clean and modern. We headed out down the coast and soon the offices, apartments and shops melted away and were replaced by lush forest on one side and blue white-tipped ocean on the other. An hour away from the city we found a quiet little village on a bay of golden sand. We’d read about some beach houses there which were available for rent and we asked the driver to stop so Mum and Dad could have a look. We were all tired and looking forward to relaxing and having a meal. The place was ideal. Like many of the tourist areas in Sri Lanka, the accommodation was right on the beach, where land was more valuable. There was a house big enough for us all and nearby restaurants and bars, but in a family-friendly location. We booked in for a night. Our parents never initially paid for more than one night’s accommodation when we went somewhere new in case there was a nightclub or building site next door that the guides had failed to mention.

take the Paris métro to the Mairie de Clichy station and walk north along the Rue Martre, past the long blocks of shabby tire shops and falafel stands, you will eventually come to a small bridge that arches over the Seine. The bank on the far side is steep, slick with moss, and sags toward the river like an old man’s shoulders, as if it were just too weary to hold itself up anymore. Le Cimetière des Chiens—the Cemetery of Dogs—is a few steps west of the bridge, sagging on that saggy bank, under a heavy canopy of huge, drooping trees. I had come to Le Cimetière des Chiens

The rest of the week went uneventfully. Well, by my standards anyway. My canary arrived and promptly died. I’ve been through four of them so far and haven’t been able to keep them alive long enough to take them out to the gate in Sharpsburg. They are stupidly fragile and drop dead if you use any mean on them at all, try to feed them dog food, or squeeze them too tight. I’m running out of local pet shops, and Wyatt is getting tired of begging them to ship me yellow canaries. Hopefully, the next one would live long enough for my purpose. Wyatt was

I'd learned many years earlier to hold my true friends close. I was still deeply connected to the group of women who had started gathering for Saturday playdates years earlier, back in our diaper-bag days in Chicago, when our children blithely pitched food from their high chairs and all of us were so tired we wanted to weep. These were the friends who'd held me together, dropping off groceries when I was too busy to shop, picking up the girls for ballet when I was behind on work or just needing a break. A number of them had hopped planes to join me for unglamourous stops on the campaign trail, giving me emotional ballast when I needed it most. Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses like these, swapped back and forth and over again.