Triggered Woman Quotes

A man without a woman is like a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman who makes the man go off.

Guys can smell desperation. It triggers an instinct in them to run far and fast so they aren't around when a woman starts peeling apart her heart.

Guys can smell desperation. It triggers an instinct in them to run far and fast so they aren't around when a woman starts peeling apart her heart. They know she'll ask for help in putting it back together the right way - intact and beating correctly - and they dread the thought of puzzling over layers that they can't understand, let alone rebuild. They'd rather just not get blood on their hands. But sharks are different. They smell the blood of desperation and circle in. They whisper into a girl's ear, "I'll make it better. I'll make you forget all about your pain." Sharks do this by eating your heart, but they never mention this beforehand. That is the thing about sharks.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

You could be a really great and fabulous person, but if your method of communication with a woman doesn’t trigger her physical attraction by “pushing the right buttons,” you will only ever be “just a friend” in her eyes.

Stop the idea that a woman’s beauty is for a man’s gaze, that you have the right to touch her. This idea that she must smile and accept unwanted approaches even when she is clearly uncomfortable. Just because you call a woman beautiful does not mean you have the right to behave like her beauty belongs to you. There are women healing from scars gotten from men who have called them beautiful yet offered them pain. The beauty of a woman is hers and hers alone. There are triggers for some women, respect this and know this. The beauty of a woman is hers and hers alone

Female sexual turn on begins, ironically, with a brain turn off. The impulses can rush to the pleasure centers and trigger orgasm only if the amygdala- the fear and anxiety center of the brain- has been deactivated. The fact that a woman requires this extra neurological step may account for why it takes her on average three to ten times longer than the typical man to reach orgasm.

standing on a stool on his wondrously functional pre-Libya legs, the bullet that would sever his spinal cord still twenty-five years away but already approaching: a woman giving birth to a child who will someday pull the trigger on a gun, a designer sketching the weapon or its precursor, a dictator making a decision that will spark in the fullness of time into the conflagration that Frank will go overseas to cover for Reuters, the pieces of a pattern drifting closer together.

There is something quite amazing and monstrous about the education of upper-class women. What could be more paradoxical? All the world is agreed that they are to be brought up as ignorant as possible of erotic matters, and that one has to imbue their souls with a profound sense of shame in such matters until the merest suggestion of such things triggers the most extreme impatience and flight. The "honor" of women really comes into play only here: what else would one not forgive them? But here they are supposed to remain ignorant even in their hearts: they are supposed to have neither eyes nor ears, nor words, nor thoughts for this -- their "evil;" and mere knowledge is considered evil. And then to be hurled as by a gruesome lightning bolt, into reality and knowledge, by marriage -- precisely by the man they love and esteem most! To catch love and shame in a contradiction and to be forced to experience at the same time delight, surrender, duty, pity, terror, and who knows what else, in the face of the unexpected neighborliness of god and beast! Thus a psychic knot has been tied that may have no equal. Even the compassionate curiosity of the wisest student of humanity is inadequate for guessing how this or that woman manages to accommodate herself to this solution of the riddle, and to the riddle of a solution, and what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must stir in her poor, unhinged soul -- and how the ultimate philosophy and skepsis of woman casts anchor at this point! Afterward, the same deep silence as before. Often a silence directed at herself, too. She closes her eyes to herself. Young women try hard to appear superficial and thoughtless. The most refined simulate a kind of impertinence. Women easily experience their husbands as a question mark concerning their honor, and their children as an apology or atonement. They need children and wish for them in a way that is altogether different from that in which a man may wish for children. In sum, one cannot be too kind about women.

A white woman may well be punished for an emotional outburst when interacting with men, but if she is engaged in a terse interaction with a woman of color and she becomes emotional, by which I mean either angry or distraught, with or without actual tears, the deeply embedded notions of gender and femininity are triggered and it is the white woman who is likely to be vindicated.

Women have less direct relationship to anger...When a woman "bites" her tongue to avoid expressing anger, its not at all socialization. A lot of it is brain circuitry. Even if a woman wanted to express her anger right away, often her brain circuits would attempt to hijack this response, to reflect on it first out of fear and anticipation of retaliation. Also, the female brain has a tremendous aversion to conflict, which is set up by fear of angering the other person and losing the relationship. Instead of triggering a quick action response in the brain, as it does in males, anger in girls and women moves through the brain's gut feeling, conflict-pain anticipation, and verbal circuits. Scientists speculate that though a woman is slower to act out of anger, once her faster verbal circuits get going, they can cause her to unleash a barrage of angry words that a man cant match. Typical men speak fewer words and have less verbal fluency than women, so they may be handicapped in angry exchanges with women. Often when I see a couple who are not communicating well, the problem I see is that the man's brain's circuits push him frequently and quickly to an angry, aggressive reaction, and the woman feels frightened and shuts down.

Mark wants to scream, to tell her not to do it. But it’s too late. The woman pulls the trigger. The boat drives on.

Do not do her work for her. Do not build her up in your mind. She's only one woman.

He loves me so he hurts me To try and make me good. It doesn't work. I'm just too bad And don't do what I should. My memory has so many different sections and, like all survivors, there are so many compartments with so many triggers. I'll remember a smell which reminds me of a man which reminds me of a place which reminds me of another man who I think was with a woman who had a certain smell — and I'm back to square one. This is the case for most survivors, I believe. When we try to put together our pasts, the triggers are many and varied, the memories are disjointed — and why wouldn't they be? We were children. Even someone with an idyllic childhood who is only trying to remember the lovely things which happened to them will scratch their head and wonder who gave them that doll and was it for Christmas or their third birthday? Did they have a party when they were four or five? When did they go on a plane for the first time? You see, even happy memories are hard to piece together — so imagine how hard it is to collate all of the trauma, to pull together all of the things I've been trying to push away for so many years.

It does mean the better the guy you’re interested in is, the more it becomes important to let the guy do the chasing. Great men have enough women throwing themselves at their feet. The high-value woman is different. You are high value and can be picky too. He will sense that, and that’s what will trigger his initial attraction level.   So

ask me, all mongrels are better than pedigree anything, said the woman. it´s why america is such an interesting country. filled with mongrels.

Infancy is irretrievable. Its memories live underground. To what extent they return by stealth or are triggered by various catalysts remains an ongoing question.

Too often the survivor is seen by [himself or] herself and others as "nuts," "crazy," or "weird." Unless her responses are understood within the context of trauma. A traumatic stress reaction consists of *natural* emotions and behaviors in response to a catastrophe, its immediate aftermath, or memories of it. These reactions can occur anytime after the trauma, even decades later. The coping strategies that victims use can be understood only within the context of the abuse of a child. The importance of context was made very clear many years ago when I was visiting the home of a Holocaust survivor. The woman's home was within the city limits of a large metropolitan area. Every time a police or ambulance siren sounded, she became terrified and ran and hid in a closet or under the bed. To put yourself in a closet at the sound of a far-off siren is strange behavior indeed—outside of the context of possibly being sent to a death camp. Within that context, it makes perfect sense. Unless we as therapists have a good grasp of the context of trauma, we run the risk of misunderstanding the symptoms our clients present and, hence, responding inappropriately or in damaging ways.

thought about the years I still had left to live and decided that without her it wasn’t worth it, for I would never find another woman with her green hair and underwater beauty. If anyone had told me then that I would live to be more than ninety, I would have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.

You'll want something mid-range. A 5.56 all right?" "I suppose." "AR-15?" "Ugh. AR-15? I'd rather not have my gun break down on me every second week." Besides, every wannabe and their dog had an M16 or M4 variant these days. "G7." "Not accurate enough." "FAL?" "A 7.62? Maybe," I said. "Though I hate the triggers." "As picky as a woman with her shoes," Abraham grumbled. "Hey," I said. "That's insulting." I knew plenty of women who were pickier with their guns than they were with their shoes.

He placed a pinch of snow on his tongue and thought of making snow ice cream with Frank and their mother when they were small boys - 'First you stir in the vanilla' - Frank standing on a stool on his wondrously functional pre-Libya legs, the bullet that would sever his spinal cord still twenty-five years away but already approaching: a woman giving birth to a child who will someday pull the trigger on a gun, a designer sketching the weapon or its precursor, a dictator making a decision that will spark in the fullness of time into the conflagration that Frank will go overseas to cover for Reuters, the pieces of a pattern drifting closer together.

Never mind the fact that coding sensitivity as a weakness is bizarre (what do you think this is-the Ministry of Magic under Voldemort's shadow government?), it's also simply out of step with reality. You can't do this job if you have an emotional hair trigger. Undersensitivity is practically a prerequisite.

Maybe I can be good for Zeph. Maybe she can be the woman for me. We’ll be two meth heads trying to keep each other clean. What could go wrong with that?

Ask me, all mongrels are better than pedigree anything,” said the woman. “It’s why America is such an interesting country. Filled with mongrels.

If you want to be successful and happy in love, do not plead or beg, as beggars are losers; trigger her feelings for you instead - and be a winner.

All our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman is a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman that sets the man off.

His cellphone alarm beeped. Now. Who would he nail? A single target tonight. So, a single bullet in the gun. David put the crosshairs on one of the guys walking out of the Quick Trip. Tall man, longish hair, scruffy beard. The guy pulled keys from his pocket and the crosshairs settled on his face. What was next? David pulled the trigger. The back of the guy’s head exploded. A massive wound. The guy’s friend looked around. The pregnant woman screamed. The black guy ran. The girls hugged each other. David pulled the trunk lid back down. Clicked and locked. A gentle walkway wound around the mall. Sol slowly drove away. David’s breaths came fast, almost pants. He then took his black pants off and removed his soiled underwear. He reached in the plastic bag for the fresh pair. Changing in the trunk of a dark and hot and moving car was difficult. Just part of the job now. When he pulled the trigger, he orgasmed. Always did. David slowed his breathing. Taylor series for ex = 1 + x + X2 / 2! + X3 / 3! etc. Yes, that was better. He closed his eyes and let go of the rope and let the rifle roll to one side. That guy’s head exploded. They drove away, below the speed limit. Didn’t want to attract attention. No need to, in no hurry.

Stop the idea that a woman’s beauty is for a man’s gaze, that you have the right to touch her. This idea that she must smile and accept unwanted approaches even when she is clearly uncomfortable. Just because you call a woman beautiful does not mean you have the right to behave like her beauty belongs to you. There are women healing from scars gotten from men who have called them beautiful yet offered them pain. The beauty of a woman is hers and hers alone. There are triggers for some women, respect this and know this. The beauty of a woman is hers and hers alone.

Here's a good one. God made man. Guns made man equal. Guns are the legacy of liberty. Just because...just because our magazine doesn't feature a naked woman on the cover! Hell, no, there's no naked women. The sickos would rather squeeze a trigger than a woman's breast. Guns are good old boys! They got them wham-whap two-fisted names, like...like Savage, Colt, Ruger, Baretta, Sigs, Winchester... Springfield! Browning! Luger. Smith & Wesson. Remington Viper. Glock. Don't forget Glock! Markov, Walther! H and K. Mauser parabellum. Anschutz. Magnum! All sorts of mags. I quit, you win. Mags are it.

[...] For instance, a gay man who played with dolls in his childhood, dresses pink and engages in anal sex with another man triggers a gender prejudice, by proxy rather than based on a characteristic of their own, like racism and classism do: dolls and pink are traditionally associated with the feminine sphere, anal sexuality has a higher stigma mainly because a more visible power level play comes into effect (with a dominant and a submissive role) than other sex positions. Consequently, when a man crosses his "designated" gender role boundary of masculinity, strength, dominance into femininity, weakness, submission, then he is no longer valued as a human being, for the man has become [or is] a woman. Therefore, homophobia and transphobia are actually by-products of misogyny, which is is turn gynophobic whitewashing, deeply rooted in the dominant ideology of patriarchy and historical sexism.

partner—is standing there, holding her gun. Mark slouches down, waiting for the barrage of bullets. But instead, he notices the woman aim the weapon at herself, the muzzle propped against the bottom of her chin. Mark wants to scream, to tell her not to do it. But it’s too late. The woman pulls the trigger. The boat drives on.

Of course the one type of sashimi you really must try is fugu,” Alexander said expansively, smoothing his napkin across his straining cummerbund. “It’s simply the most exquisite taste.” “Fugu?” I said, trying to insert myself into the conversation. “Isn’t that the horribly poisonous one?” “Absolutely, and that’s what makes the experience. I’ve never been a drug taker—I know my own weaknesses, and I am very aware of being one of life’s lotus-eaters, so I’ve never trusted myself to dabble in that sort of thing—but I can only assume that the high one experiences after eating fugu triggers a similar neuron response. The diner has diced with death, and won.

Because flushed cheeks and high color are cues that men use to gauge a woman’s health, women rouge their cheeks artificially to trigger men’s attraction. Because smooth, clear skin is one of men’s evolved desires, women cover up blemishes, use moisture cream, apply astringents, and get facelifts. Because lustrous hair is one of men’s evolved desires, women highlight, bleach, tint, or dye their hair, and they give it extra body with conditioners, egg yolks, beer, or weaves. Because full red lips trigger men’s evolved desires, women apply lipstick skillfully and even get injections to enlarge their lips for the “bee-stung” look. And because firm, youthful breasts stimulate men’s desires, women obtain breast implants and wear push-up bras.

Once upon a time," said the Kiritsugu, "there were people who dropped a U-235 fission bomb, on a place called Hiroshima. They killed perhaps seventy thousand people, and ended a war. And if the good and decent officer who pressed that button had needed to walk up to a man, a woman, a child, and slit their throats one at a time, he would have broken long before he killed seventy thousand people." Someone made a choking noise, as if trying to cough out something that had suddenly lodged deep in their throat. "But pressing a button is different," the Kiritsugu said. "You don't see the results, then. Stabbing someone with a knife has an impact on you. The first time, anyway. Shooting someone with a gun is easier. Being a few meters further away makes a surprising difference. Only needing to pull a trigger changes it a lot. As for pressing a button on a spaceship - that's the easiest of all. Then the part about 'fifteen billion' just gets flushed away. And more importantly - you think it was the right thing to do. The noble, the moral, the honorable thing to do. For the safety of your tribe. You're proud of it -

White women’s tears in cross-racial interactions are problematic for several reasons connected to how they impact others. For example, there is a long historical backdrop of black men being tortured and murdered because of a white woman’s distress, and we white women bring these histories with us. Our tears trigger the terrorism of this history, particularly for African Americans.

For most men, what’s tougher than breaking up is the moment when their ex finally falls out of love with them and lets go, perhaps because it triggers a childhood fear—a psychological terror—of losing the first woman whose love they needed: their mother. And so, as Sheila would recommend, I let myself feel the pain, the loneliness, and the fear, using all my strength as the days pass to keep from giving in and reaching out to Ingrid.

We are not built to be weapons, Kasara. But to build and renew, to lead with empathy and compassion, that is a woman’s job. Think of the other leaders, think of how their factions run on hate and greed. That is why I am here, that is why I took up the VO, because women are supposed to change the world. My father didn’t have only daughters as punishment from some distant god. No, he had daughters because some distant god knew what we could do.

Frank standing on a stool on his wondrously functional pre-Libya legs, the bullet that would sever his spinal cord still twenty-five years away but already approaching: a woman giving birth to a child who will someday pull the trigger on a gun, a designer sketching the weapon or its precursor, a dictator making a decision that will spark in the fullness of time into the conflagration that Frank will go overseas to cover for Reuters, the pieces of a pattern drifting closer together.

I grin. “It’s just a party,” I assure her. “Nothin’ big.” “There ain’t nothin’ that happens on this ranch that’s organized by your mama that ain’t big. That woman’s about as subtle as a shotgun.” “A shotgun can be subtle if it ain’t bein’ fired,” I point out. She narrows her eyes. I think she’s about to quip back with something super sassy, but then a smile wrinkles up her face. “You sayin’ I’m better off to keep the shotgun from firin’?” “I’m sayin’ quit playin’ with the trigger, Grandma.

And just in case you didn't know this little tidbit about social interaction, let me fill you in on something: Do not ever comment on how or what or when a woman is eating anything. Don't do it. Because you know what might happen? You might trigger an obsession with food that the woman had managed to stifle for over twenty years - an obsession that throttled her ability to function throughout high school and college - all because you couldn't resist monitoring her refried beans. Good job. Well done. Five stars. Ten points for you.

The world just wants to forget, and as long as Katniss is there, they can't. So she is hidden away where she won't trigger painful memories for these who are trying to build a new world. She doesn't fit into the new narrative, the new stories they will make for themselves. Those stories might include heroic figures like the girl on fire or the Mockingjay, but a broken young woman who finds life almost unbearable? No. The real Katniss won't be part of that story. Her story is different. It is a story of slow healing and small comforts.

What it adds up to is that, with the advent of the pill, woman is beginning to get her finger on the genetic trigger. What she will do with it we cannot quite foresee. But it is a far cry from the bull who gets to be prolific just because he's tops at beating the daylights out all the other bulls. It may be that for homo sapiens in the future, extreme manifestations of the behaviour patterns of dominance and aggression will be evolutionary at a discount; and if that happens he will begin to shed them as once, long ago, he shed his coat of fur.

Toss your piece over here.” Luke’s gaze was on Jack’s Colt. “Nice and easy.” Jack kept his aim steady, sighting on Luke’s forehead. “If you think I’m going to hand over my weapon just because you’re pointing a gun at Ms. Killeen, you’ve been watching too much television.” Luke glared at him. “You don’t understand. All I have to do is pull this trigger—” “Harm the woman I love, and there will be no escape for you anywhere on this earth. Do you understand me?” Jack waited for an answer, then repeated his question, this time shouting. “Do you understand me?

Let her go or I’ll shoot you.” “I’ve never met a woman who’d have the guts to shoot a man,” he sneered. All the women he knew were too kind. Too gentle. “I have the guts,” the girl said. “Better yet, I want to shoot you.” That shook him. The words, and the tone, a kind of flat, plain aversion the like of which he’d never met in all of his privileged life. What had he ever done to deserve this girl’s contempt? And why did he even care? “Which part of me will you shoot?” he mocked. “All that’s showing is my head—and you can’t be that good with a gun.” “I am,” the girl said. “On the count of three, I’ll shoot. One . . .” “You’d take the chance of hurting Miss Victorine?” he asked. “I won’t hurt her. Two . . .” “Amy, please, let him go!” Miss Victorine begged. “He was such a sweet boy.” “Three.” Amy’s eyes narrowed. Her finger began to squeeze the trigger. And he released Miss Victorine, spinning her away from him and into a cabinet. She landed with a thud and fell. The pistol roared. He dived to the floor. A shot whistled past the place where his head had been. “Damn, that was close. Good thing you surrendered, my lord!” “Don’t swear, dear, it’s not ladylike.

Now,” Samite continued, “after Essel has just spent time warning you about generalities and how they often don’t apply, I’m going to use some. Because some generalities are true often enough that we have to worry about them. So here’s one: men will physically fight for status. Women, generally, are more clever. The why of it doesn’t matter: learned, innate, cultural, who cares? You see the chest-bumping, the name-calling, performing for their fellows, what they’re really doing is getting the juices flowing. That interval isn’t always long, but it’s long enough for men to trigger the battle juice. That’s the terror or excitation that leads people to fight or run. It can be useful in small doses or debilitating in large ones. Any of you have brothers, or boys you’ve fought with?” Six of the ten raised their hands. “Have you ever had a fight with them—verbal or physical—and then they leave and come back a little later, and they’re completely done fighting and you’re just fully getting into it? They look like they’ve been ambushed, because they’ve come completely off the mountain already, and you’ve just gotten to the top?” “Think of it like lovemaking,” Essel said. She was a bawdy one. “Breathe in a man’s ear and tell him to take his trousers off, and he’s ready to go before you draw your next breath. A woman’s body takes longer.” Some of the girls giggled nervously. “Men can switch on very, very fast. They also switch off from that battle readiness very, very fast. Sure, they’ll be left trembling, sometimes puking from it, but it’s on and then it’s off. Women don’t do that. We peak slower. Now, maybe there are exceptions, maybe. But as fighters, we tend to think that everyone reacts the way we do, because our own experience is all we have. In this case, it’s not true for us. Men will be ready to fight, then finished, within heartbeats. This is good and bad. “A man, deeply surprised, will have only his first instinctive response be as controlled and crisp as it is when he trains. Then that torrent of emotion is on him. We spend thousands of hours training that first instinctive response, and further, we train to control the torrent of emotion so that it raises us to a heightened level of awareness without making us stupid.” “So the positive, for us Archers: surprise me, and my first reaction will be the same as my male counterpart’s. I can still, of course, get terrified, or locked into a loop of indecision. But if I’m not, my second, third, and tenth moves will also be controlled. My hands will not shake. I will be able to make precision movements that a man cannot. But I won’t have the heightened strength or sensations until perhaps a minute later—often too late. “Where a man needs to train to control that rush, we need to train to make it closer. If we have to climb a mountain more slowly to get to the same height to get all the positives, we need to start climbing sooner. That is, when I go into a situation that I know may be hazardous, I need to prepare myself. I need to start climbing. The men may joke to break the tension. Let them. I don’t join in. Maybe they think I’m humorless because I don’t. Fine. That’s a trade I’m willing to make.” Teia and the rest of the girls walked away from training that day somewhat dazed, definitely overwhelmed. What Teia realized was that the women were deeply appealing because they were honest and powerful. And those two things were wed inextricably together. They said, I am the best in the world at what I do, and I cannot do everything. Those two statements, held together, gave them the security to face any challenge. If her own strengths couldn’t surmount an obstacle, her team’s strengths could—and she was unembarrassed about asking for help where she needed it because she knew that what she brought to the team would be equally valuable in some other situation.

If there was any doubt about the authenticity of his fake ID, it would now be put to the test. As Sage waited for the Secret Service to do their due diligence, I wondered how much our mission to find Dad would be set back by Sage taking a quick detour to federal prison. “He’s clear,” the lead agent finally said. Great, we could go in. Sage politely insisted that Rayna and I enter before him. “Not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said, but he wouldn’t hear it. Rayna, Ben, and I shared a knowing smile. Then I shrugged and stepped over the threshold…immediately triggering the Piri alarm. I don’t know how she knew; she was all the way in the kitchen. But the minute I stepped into the foyer she raced in, arms waving in the air, a high-pitched scream keening from her lungs. “AIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!” “He made me do it, Piri,” I said, happily tossing Sage under the bus. “I tried to tell him-“ Piri strode right up to Sage, her head barely reaching his sternum, and jabbed her finger into his chest to emphasize each scolding word. “You never let a woman enter this house before a man! Very bad luck! And when the senator’s doing business! Jaj!” She pushed us back outside, closed the door, and spit three times on the porch (barely missing the shoes of one of the Secret Service agents), then turned her baleful eyes to Sage, asking him to do the same. “I don’t think I really need to spit on Clea’s porch,” Sage said uncomfortably, but Piri’s glare only grew more and more violent until he withered under its power…and spit three times. Piri smiled smugly and opened the door, gesturing for Sage to enter. Ben went next, bending to Piri’s ear to murmur, “If it’d been me, I would have gone in first.” “That’s because you’re a smart boy,” Piri said, kissing him on both cheeks. Once we were all in, Piri greeted us as if for the first time, with huge hugs and two-cheeked kisses. As she led us to the luncheon raging in the other room, Ben crowed to Sage, “You know, a real European scholar would be up on old-school superstitions.” Sage grimaced.

the only thing the hero knows about the girl is that she is beautiful. He shows no interest in her intellect or personality—or even her sexuality. The man is either a ruler or has the magic power to awaken her, and all she can do is hope that her physical appearance fits the specifications better than the other girls. In the original Cinderella story, the stepsisters actually cut off parts of their feet to try to fit into the glass slipper. Maybe this marks the origins of the first cosmetic surgery. Besides romanticizing Cinderella’s misery, the story also gives the message that women’s relationships with each other are full of bitter competition and animosity. The adult voice of womanly wisdom in the story, the stepmother, advises all her girls to frantically do whatever it takes to please the prince. This includes groveling, cutting off parts of themselves, and staying powerless. I was heartsick to watch Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” with my three-year-old daughter. The little mermaid agrees to give up her voice for a chance to go up on the “surface” and convince her nobleman to marry her. She is told by her local matron sea witch that she doesn’t need a voice—she needs only to look cute and get him to kiss her. And in the story, it works. These are the means to her one and only end: to buy a rich and respected guy. Women are taught to only listen to an outside patriarchal authority. No wonder there is so much self-doubt and confusion when faced with the question, “What do you want out of your life?” This question alone can be enough to trigger an episode of depression. It often triggers a game of Ping-Pong in a woman’s head. Her imagination throws up a possibility and then her pessimistic shotgun mind shoots it down. The dialog may look something like this: “Maybe I want to go back to school.... No, that would be selfish of me because the kids need me…. Maybe I’ll start a business.... No I hate all that dogeat-dog competition…. Maybe I’ll look for a love relationship…. No, I am not sure I am healed ye….” and on it goes.

One was taught that such things could not be; that things like Coleridge’s ‘Cristabel’ or Bram Stoker’s evil fairy tale were only the warp and woof of fantasy. Of course monsters existed; they were the men with their fingers on the thermonuclear triggers in six countries, the hijackers, the mass murderers, the child molesters. But not this. One knows better. The mark of the devil on a woman’s breast is only a mole, the man who came back from the dead and stood at his wife’s door dressed in the cerements of the grave was only suffering from locomotor ataxia, the bogey-man who gibbers and capers in the comer of a child’s bedroom is only a heap of blankets. Some clergymen had proclaimed that even God, that venerable white warlock, was dead.

One was taught that such things could not be; that things like Coleridge’s “Cristabel” or Bram Stoker’s evil fairy tale were only the warp and woof of fantasy. Of course monsters existed; they were the men with their fingers on the thermonuclear triggers in six countries, the hijackers, the mass murderers, the child molesters. But not this. One knows better. The mark of the devil on a woman’s breast is only a mole, the man who came back from the dead and stood at his wife’s door dressed in the cerements of the grave was only suffering from locomotor ataxia, the bogeyman who gibbers and capers in the corner of a child’s bedroom is only a heap of blankets. Some clergymen had proclaimed that even God, that venerable white warlock, was dead.

The nose is crucial because it clears air, heats it, and moistens it for easier absorption. Most of us know this. But what so many people never consider is the nose’s unexpected role in problems like erectile dysfunction. Or how it can trigger a cavalcade of hormones and chemicals that lower blood pressure and ease digestion. How it responds to the stages of a woman’s menstrual cycle. How it regulates our heart rate, opens the vessels in our toes, and stores memories. How the density of your nasal hairs helps determine whether you’ll suffer from asthma. Few of us ever consider how the nostrils of every living person pulse to their own rhythm, opening and closing like a flower in response to our moods, mental states, and perhaps even the sun and the moon.

What happens to a marriage? A persistent failure of kindness, triggered at first, at least in my case, by the inequities of raising children, the sacrifices that take a woman by surprise and that she expects to be matched by her mate but that biology ensures cannot be. Anything could set me off. Any innocuous habit or slight or oversight. The way your father left the lights of the house blazing, day and night. The way he could become so distracted at work that sometimes when I called, he’d put me on hold and forget me, only remembering again when I’d hung up and called back. The way he wore his pain so privately, whistling around the house after we’d had a spat, pretending nonchalance, protecting you and your sisters from discord, hiding behind his good nature, inadvertently

She didn’t want to give the murder-pornography frame by frame. Didn’t want to recite her route across Manhattan, the length of the knife blade and the number of times she pulled the trigger, the color of the blood-splattered wallpaper in the hotel room, the man falling to the floor, the baby crying in the next room, the woman emerging and dropping the bottle, its nipple popping off and the milk spilling onto the carpet, the woman pleading “Por favor,” her hands up, shaking her head, asking— begging— for her life to be spared, her big black eyes wide, deep sinkholes of dark terror, while Kate trained the Glock on her, a seemingly eternal internal debate, while the baby sounded like he was the same age as Jake, late infancy, and this poor woman the same age as Kate, a different version of herself, an unlucky woman who didn’t deserve to die.

woman like you?” Despite her relation to his sworn enemy, Beck couldn’t deny the fact that the girl he’d met in college was all grown up and one hell of a knockout. “You’re sweet.” She sniffed and he was afraid he’d triggered a crying jag, but she forced a smile instead. “He found someone who completes him,” she said, using quotation marks with her fingers. “And he hopes I find the love and excitement he has.” She finished with more finger quotes. She sniffed again. “But the bastard did it by text. And I’m celebrating because everything is paid for, and I think just maybe he did me a favor. Even if I sometimes want to cry.” She fluttered her thick black lashes, and Beck was afraid she’d do just that. He didn’t know what to make of Chloe or what to do with her. On the one hand, he wanted to beat the crap out of the man who’d hurt her. On the other, he needed to remember she was Linc’s sister and he ought to stay far away. “Anyway.” Chloe interrupted his

You have insulted me and degraded me every time I’ve been in your presence. If my brother were here, he’d call you out! Since he is not here,” she continued almost mindlessly, “I shall demand my own satisfaction. If I were a man, I’d have the right to satisfaction on the field of honor, and as a woman I refuse to be denied that right.” “You’re ridiculous.” “Perhaps,” Elizabeth said softly, “but I also happen to be an excellent shot. I’m a far worthier opponent for you on the dueling field than my brother. Now, will you meet me outside, or shall I-I finish you here?” she threatened, so beside herself with fury that she never stopped to think how reckless, how utterly empty her threat was. Her coachman had insisted she learn to fire a weapon for her own protection, but although her aim was excellent when she’d practiced with targets, she had never shot a living thing. “I’ll do no such silly damned thing.” Elizabeth raised the gun higher. “Then I’ll have your apology right now.” “What am I to apologize for?” he asked, still infuriatingly calm. “You may start by apologizing for luring me into the greenhouse with that note.” “I didn’t write a note. I received a note from you.” “You have great difficulty sorting out the notes you send and don’t send, do you not?” she said. Without waiting for a reply she continued, “Next, you can apologize for trying to seduce me in England, and for ruining my reputation-“ “Ian!” Jake said, thunderstruck. “It’s one thing to insult a lady’s handwriting, but spoilin’ her reputation is another. A thing like that could ruin her whole life!” Ian shot him an ironic glance. “Thank you, Jake, for that helpful bit of inflammatory information. Would you now like to help her pull the trigger?” Elizabeth’s emotions veered crazily from fury to mirth as the absurdity of the bizarre tableau suddenly struck her: Here she was, holding a gun on a man in his own home, while poor Lucinda held another man at umbrella point-a man who was trying ineffectually to sooth matters by inadvertently heaping more fuel on the volatile situation. And then she recognized the stupid futility of it all, and that banished her flicker of mirth.

Some addictions are clear. The homeless woman with the fresh track marks over years of scars. The man who loses his home and car to gambling debts and now is hiding from dangerous creditors. Some addictions are softer, easier to engage in and still get up and function every day. Those of us who take out a bag of chips or tray of muffins after a tough day. Or go shoe shopping for our 8th pair of black sandals that we are never going to wear. There are addictions that excuse us from society altogether, those that keep us barely afloat within it, and those that become a barrier between us and the rest of the world. It’s only a matter of degree, in the end. How do we define when we cross over into addiction territory? As a relationally-trained therapist, my answer is a simple one. When our addiction becomes our primary relationship. Maybe not in our hearts and heads. But in our behaviors, definitely. When we don’t have control over our addictions, we are spending time, resources, and energy on the addiction instead of the people we love. And instead of, let’s face it…ourselves.

There was a young man with a hot temper. He was not all bad, but he was reckless, and he drank more than he should, and spent more than he could, and gave a ring to more women than one, and gambled himself into a corner so tight an ant couldn't turn round in it. Once night, in despair, and desperate with worry, he got into a fight outside a bar, and killed a man. Mad with fear and remorse, for he was more hot-tempered than wicked, and stupid when he could have been wise, he locked himself into his filthy bare attic room and took the revolver that had killed his enemy, loaded it, cocked it and prepared to blast himself to pieces. In the few moments before he pulled the trigger, he said, "If I had known that all that I have done would bring me to this, I would have led a very different life. If I could live my life again, I would not be here, with the trigger in my hand and the barrel at my head." His good angel was sitting by him and, felling pity for the young, man, the angel flew to Heaven and interceded on his behalf. The in all his six-winged glory, the angel appeared before the terrified boy, and granted him his wish. "In full knowledge of what you have become, go back and begin again." And suddenly, the young man had another chance. For a time, all went well. He was sober, upright, true, thrifty. Then one night he passed a bar, and it seemed familiar to him, and he went in and gambled all he had, and he met a woman and told her he had no wife, and he stole from his employer, and spent all he could. And his debts mounted with his despair, and he decided to gamble everything on one last throw of the dice. This time, as the wheel spun and slowed, his chance would be on the black, not the red. This time, he would win. The ball fell in the fateful place, as it must. The young man had lost. He ran outside, but the men followed him, and in a brawl with the bar owner, he shot him dead, and found himself alone and hunted in a filthy attic room. He took out his revolver. He primed it. He said, "If I'd known that I could do such a thing again, I would never have risked it. I would have lived a different life. If I had known where my actions would lead me..." And his angel came, and sat by him, and took pity on him once again, and interceded for him, and... And years passed, and the young man was doing well until he came to a bar that seemed familiar to him... Bullets, revolver, attic, angel, begin again. Bar, bullets, revolver, attic, angel, begin again...angel, bar, ball, bullets...

My God. How can people be so cruel and thoughtless? They should be thanking you for your service!” “That’s even worse! What the fuck do they think they’re thanking me for? They don’t know what I did over there! They don’t understand that I’ve got seconds to make a judgment call that will either save my guys or end someone’s life—and that someone could be an enemy combatant or it could be a civilian. A farmer. A woman. A child. Or it could be both! That’s the real fucked-up part of it. It could be both a child and the enemy. That kid you’ve been giving candy and comic books to? The one that brought you fresh bread and knows your name and taught you a few words in his language? Is he the one reporting your position? Did he pull the trigger wire on the IED that killed your friend and wounded every single guy in your squad? Has he been the enemy all along? Is it your fault for talking to him?” I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to say. Tears burned my eyes, and my chest ached as I raced along beside him. “Oh, Ryan, no. Of course it isn’t.” “It is. I should have known. I let them down.” “You didn’t,” I said, trying to touch his arm, but he shrugged me off, refusing to be comforted. “And how about the time Taliban fighters lined up women and children as shields behind a compound wall while they fired at you, only you didn’t realize what they’d done until after you’d fired back, killing dozens of innocents?” The tears dripped down my cheeks, but I silently wiped them away in the dark. This wasn’t about me, and I didn’t want him to stop if he needed to get these things out. “Or how about the farmer I killed that didn’t respond to warning shots, the one whose son later told us was deaf and mute? Should I be thanked for that?” I could see how furious and heartsick he was, and I hated that I’d brought this on. “Yes,” I said firmly, although I continued to cry. “Because you’re brave and strong and you did what you were trained to do, what you had to do.

The defenders retreated, but in good order. A musket flamed and a ball shattered a marine’s collar bone, spinning him around. The soldiers screamed terrible battle-cries as they began their grim job of clearing the defenders off the parapet with quick professional close-quarter work. Gamble trod on a fallen ramrod and his boots crunched on burnt wadding. The French reached steps and began descending into the bastion. 'Bayonets!' Powell bellowed. 'I want bayonets!' 'Charge the bastards!' Gamble screamed, blinking another man's blood from his eyes. There was no drum to beat the order, but the marines and seamen surged forward. 'Tirez!' The French had been waiting, and their muskets jerked a handful of attackers backwards. Their officer, dressed in a patched brown coat, was horrified to see the savage looking men advance unperturbed by the musketry. His men were mostly conscripts and they had fired too high. Now they had only steel bayonets with which to defend themselves. 'Get in close, boys!' Powell ordered. 'A Shawnee Indian named Blue Jacket once told me that a naked woman stirs a man's blood, but a naked blade stirs his soul. So go in with the steel. Lunge! Recover! Stance!' 'Charge!' Gamble turned the order into a long, guttural yell of defiance. Those redcoats and seamen, with loaded weapons discharged them at the press of the defenders, and a man in the front rank went down with a dark hole in his forehead. Gamble saw the officer aim a pistol at him. A wounded Frenchman, half-crawling, tried to stab with his sabre-briquet, but Gamble kicked him in the head. He dashed forward, sword held low. The officer pulled the trigger, the weapon tugged the man's arm to his right, and the ball buzzed past Gamble's mangled ear as he jumped down into the gap made by the marines charge. A French corporal wearing a straw hat drove his bayonet at Gamble's belly, but he dodged to one side and rammed his bar-hilt into the man's dark eyes. 'Lunge! Recover! Stance!

When she turned back to me, her eyes were full of tears. Then she unbuckled herself, slid across the seat, and climbed into my lap. My heart jumped at the unexpected affection. I pulled her in and tucked her head under my chin, breathing in the smell of her hair. The feel of her small, warm body in my arms was like home. There was no other word for it. She was home. It was hard to see how much he affected her. This was the second time I’d seen her crying and both times had been over him. The jealousy was almost more than I could handle. This woman was mine. She was mine, not his. Why couldn’t he have stayed away from her? Let her just get over him? But then I realized the truth. She wasn’t mine—she never was. I’m hers. And it’s not the same thing. I’d been fine being patient, because I was just waiting for her to come out of it. I hadn’t been braced for him to come back into her life. And now, faced with the reality that I might lose her altogether, I realized what I’d known for weeks. I’m in love with her. And now this guy that I couldn’t even begin to compete with might take her from me. I felt helpless. Panicked. A fight response triggered inside and it had nowhere to go, because I couldn’t do shit about this. All I could do was be me, and that wasn’t good enough. A sex thing. It will only ever be a sex thing. She raised her head and planted a soft kiss under my chin, and it almost broke my fucking heart. She was never like this with me. And as much as I loved it, it was all fueled by her feelings for someone else. He hurt her and I was here, so I got to be the one to comfort her. But it was something. At least I could do something for her beyond just scratching an itch. She was with me, holding me. Letting me hold her. I needed to enjoy the moment because I didn’t know how many more of them I’d get. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced down the lump in my throat, tried to focus on her breath on my neck, her cheek pressed to my collarbone—the vulnerability she was giving me that I only ever saw when she was sleeping curled up next to me on those nights when she let me in. I vowed to make tonight fun so she’d forget. And so I’d have something to remember when she left.

Most disconcerting of all were those experiences in which the patient's consciousness appeared to expand beyond the usual boundaries of the ego and explore what it was like to be other living things and even other objects. For example, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female prehistoric reptile. She not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species' anatomy she found most sexually arousing was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. Although the woman had no prior knowledge of such things, a conversation Grof had with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles, colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. Patients were also able to tap into the consciousness of their relatives and ancestors. One woman experienced what it was like to be her mother at the age of three and accurately described a frightening event that had befallen her mother at the time. The woman also gave a precise description of the house her mother had lived in as well as the white pinafore she had been wearing—all details her mother later confirmed and admitted she had never talked about before. Other patients gave equally accurate descriptions of events that had befallen ancestors who had lived decades and even centuries before. Other experiences included the accessing of racial and collective memories. Individuals of Slavic origin experienced what it was like to participate in the conquests of Genghis Khan's Mongolian hordes, to dance in trance with the Kalahari bushmen, to undergo the initiation rites of the Australian aborigines, and to die as sacrificial victims of the Aztecs. And again the descriptions frequently contained obscure historical facts and a degree of knowledge that was often completely at odds with the patient's education, race, and previous exposure to the subject. For instance, one uneducated patient gave a richly detailed account of the techniques involved in the Egyptian practice of embalming and mummification, including the form and meaning of various amulets and sepulchral boxes, a list of the materials used in the fixing of the mummy cloth, the size and shape of the mummy bandages, and other esoteric facets of Egyptian funeral services. Other individuals tuned into the cultures of the Far East and not only gave impressive descriptions of what it was like to have a Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan psyche, but also related various Taoist or Buddhist teachings.

There is one thing I need to be sure of,” said the Emperor, taking an arrow, and placing it in the bow, cocking it back, “I need to know where your loyalties lay, Miss Roberts.” “With you, Emperor,” said Areli, scared, “of course, they’re with you.” “Then prove it,” said the Emperor, “prove your obedience to me. Prove your allegiance.” He placed the crossbow in her fingers, laced her finger against the trigger, and positioned the butt of the weapon against her shoulders. “That woman there. She’s a follower, Areli. She’s a deceitful little tramp that had taken residence in the bed of Degendhard’s. I want you to kill her for me. I want you to punish her, for her crimes against her Empire.” Areli looked at him, bewildered, with eyes that screamed, you can’t be serious! “If you don’t. Then I will have no other option than to assume you have been taken to Degendhard’s bed as well. You will do this, Areli. You will punish her. Prove your worth.” Areli took a deep breath, feeling the smoothness of the wood and the coldness of the trigger for the first time since having the harsh weapon thrust into her hand. The Emperor, sensing her hesitation, forced himself upon her. Her lifted her arms, and steadied the weapon into her shoulder, his chest pressed up against her back, his lips rubbing against her ear. The crossbow shook. The woman’s head lulled back and forth as she was stuck in a drug rendered dream-state, not knowing that her body faced impalement. “Stop shaking!” said the Emperor. Areli’s finger kept going back and forth between the trigger and the wooden body of the bow. “She’s moving too much!” cried Areli. “Fine,” said the Emperor. He turned Areli’s body to face her mother, the arrow aimed at her chest. “Maybe this will be an easier target.” “No!” screamed Areli, “no, please, I beg of you. I’ll do it, please. Please!” The Emperor moved the aim of the arrow back to the prisoner. “Hesitate now, Areli . . . this arrow will be lodged between your mother’s eyes. I can promise you that.” Areli’s whole body shook. The woman’s head continued to move as if it was a board on water, caught in a wicked storm. “I’m so sorry,” said Areli, under her breath, “I’m so, so sorry.” Her heart caught in her lungs, as the Emperor slid his fingers on top of hers. “All you have to do is pull, Areli,” said the Emperor, “just pull the trigger.” Areli closed her eyes, the Emperor held himself firmly pressed against her, steadying her convulsing body, and kept the weapon pointing true. She pulled her finger towards her body. She felt the kick of the bow, as violent as an unbroken horse, against her shoulder. She heard the snap of the arrow being pushed towards its target. “Welcome to Abhi, Areli” whispered the Emperor into her ear. “You’re dismissed.” She opened her eyes. The weapon fell from her hands. The prisoner was no longer in front of her kneeling. The force of the arrow had knocked her onto her back, the shaft lodged into the woman’s head. Areli had just killed a person. Not just killed, but executed someone. And not just someone, but a follower of Degendhard.

The invitation came from Studio Morra in Naples: Come and perform whatever you want. It was early 1975. With the scandalized reactions of the Belgrade press fresh in my mind, I planned a piece in which the audience would provide the action. I would merely be the object, the receptacle. My plan was to go to the gallery and just stand there, in black trousers and a black T-shirt, behind a table containing seventy-two objects: A hammer. A saw. A feather. A fork. A bottle of perfume. A bowler hat. An ax. A rose. A bell. Scissors. Needles. A pen. Honey. A lamb bone. A carving knife. A mirror. A newspaper. A shawl. Pins. Lipstick. Sugar. A Polaroid camera. Various other things. And a pistol, and one bullet lying next to it. When a big crowd had gathered at eight P.M., they found these instructions on the table: There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility. Duration: 6 hours (8pm - 2am) Slowly at first and then quickly, things began to happen. It was very interesting: for the most part, the women in the gallery would tell the men what to do to me, rather than do it themselves (although later on, when someone stuck a pin into me, one woman wiped the tears from my eyes). For the most part, these were just normal members of the Italian art establishment and their wives. Ultimately I think the reason I wasn’t raped was that the wives were there. As evening turned into late night, a certain air of sexuality arose in the room. This came not from me but from the audience. We were in southern Italy, where the Catholic Church was so powerful, and there was this strong Madonna/whore dichotomy in attitudes toward women. After three hours, one man cut my shirt apart with the scissors and took it off. People manipulated me into various poses. If they turned my head down, I kept it down; if they turned it up, I kept it that way. I was a puppet—entirely passive. Bare-breasted, I stood there, and someone put the bowler hat on my head. With the lipstick, someone else wrote IO SONO LIBERO—“I am free”—on the mirror and stuck it in my hand. Someone else took the lipstick and wrote END across my forehead. A guy took Polaroids of me and stuck them in my hand, like playing cards. Things got more intense. A couple of people picked me up and carried me around. They put me on the table, spread my legs, stuck the knife in the table close to my crotch. Someone stuck pins into me. Someone else slowly poured a glass of water over my head. Someone cut my neck with the knife and sucked the blood. I still have the scar. There was one man—a very small man—who just stood very close to me, breathing heavily. This man scared me. Nobody else, nothing else, did. But he did. After a while, he put the bullet in the pistol and put the pistol in my right hand. He moved the pistol toward my neck and touched the trigger. There was a murmur in the crowd, and someone grabbed him. A scuffle broke out. Some of the audience obviously wanted to protect me; others wanted the performance to continue. This being southern Italy, voices were raised; tempers flared. The little man was hustled out of the gallery and the piece continued. In fact, the audience became more and more active, as if in a trance. And then, at two A.M., the gallerist came and told me the six hours were up. I stopped staring and looked directly at the audience. “The performance is over,” the gallerist said. “Thank you.” I looked like hell. I was half naked and bleeding; my hair was wet. And a strange thing happened: at this moment, the people who were still there suddenly became afraid of me. As I walked toward them, they ran out of the gallery.

He put the proverbial gun to the head of his woman and pulled the word trigger that night, efficiently ending their story together.

A sensual woman is a conscious woman. A conscious woman is not triggered by anything because she has done the inner work that allows her to be the temperature and not the thermostat

Take, for example, a young man who had a distant, narcissistic mother. As an infant or child, he experienced her coldness as abandonment, and to be abandoned must mean he was somehow unworthy of her love. Or similarly, a new sibling on the scene caused his mother to give him much less attention, which he equally experienced as abandonment. Later in life, in a relationship, a woman might hint at disapproval of some trait or action of his, all of which is part of a healthy relationship. This will hit a trigger point—she is noticing his flaws, which, he imagines, precedes her abandonment of him. He feels a powerful rush of emotion, a sense of imminent betrayal. He does not see the source of this; it is beyond his control. He overreacts, accuses, withdraws, all of which leads to the very thing he feared—abandonment. His reaction was to some reflection in his mind, not to the reality. This is the height of irrationality.

Habit formation, in The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg talks about three components necessary to form a habit. A cue, or something that triggers us to perform a routine so that we may receive a reward. For example, you smell cigarette smoke, the cue, you reach for a cigarette, and light it up, the routine, and you get a nicotine buzz, the reward. Duhigg asserts that we don't really break habits, rather we change out the routine from existing habit loops. In other words, when we are trying to extinguish a habit, the cue remains, and the reward remains, we just change out the middle part. In the case of cigarette smoking, you still have the same cues, the stress, the smell, the smoke, seeing people inhale. The difference is what you do with those cues. Maybe you go for a run or make a pot of coffee or do some breathing exercises instead. Whatever it is, the new healthier routine needs to provide a similar reward, so you're motivated to replicate it in the future. If it doesn't get you off it won't work.

Apparently, it could be triggering for the old-school gangsters to take orders from a woman.

For my maternal grandmother, who lives with us for a few months every year, that line came as an incredible relief. For her, it was personal. She and my grandfather grew up in Czechoslovakia during the very worst of communism. Unlike most of these new-age Starbucks-chugging socialists in Brooklyn, they knew the horrors that can come from a state-run economy, and the scars of socialism are seared in her memory. I vividly remember speaking with her during the lead-up to the 2016 election, when she was watching neo-socialists such as Bernie Sanders on CNN almost every day. (We’re working on getting her off the CNN train, by the way. But back in the Czech Republic, you pick up CNN early, like a drug addiction. Soon she’ll be watching Fox with the rest of the sane people in the world.) “Don, don’t these people understand?” she asked, her voice quavering, tears coming to her eyes. This is a woman who hid from Nazis in the basement of her farmhouse as a child and lived under Communist occupation for decades. At ninety-three, she’s still stronger and tougher than most. But she feared that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren might go through some of the same things she went through, and the thought of that had scared the hell out of her. “They don’t know how bad it can be. Please do something. Don’t they know this is all lies?

The revolver was chambered for .442 rounds, which meant there was only room for five. "These are large caliber bullets for such a short gun," Merritt remarked. "It's designed to stop someone at close range," Ethan said, absently arching up to rub a spot on his chest. "Being hit by one of those bullets feels like a kick from a mule." "Why is the hammer bobbed?" "To keep it from catching on the holster or clothing, if I have to draw it fast." Keeping the muzzle of the gun pointed away from him, Merritt reassembled the revolver, slid the extractor rod into place, and locked it deftly. "Well done," Ethan commented, surprised by her assurance. "You're familiar with guns, then." "Yes, my father taught me. May I shoot it?" "What are you going to aim for?" By this time, the others had come out from the parlor to watch. "Uncle Sebastian," Merritt asked, "are those pottery rabbits on the stone wall valuable?" Kingston smiled slightly and shook his head. "Have at it." "Wait," Ethan said calmly. "That's a twenty-yard distance. You'll need a longer-range weapon." With meticulous care, he took the revolver from her and replaced it in his coat. "Try this one." Merritt's brows lifted slightly as he pulled a gun from a cross-draw holster concealed by his coat. This time, Ethan handed the revolver to her without bothering to disassemble it first. "It's loaded, save one chamber," he cautioned. "I put the hammer down to prevent accidental discharge." "A Colt single-action," Merritt said, pleased, admiring the elegant piece, with its four-and-a-half-inch barrel and custom engraving. "Papa has one similar to this." She eased the hammer back and gently rotated the cylinder. "It has a powerful recoil," Ethan warned. "I would expect so." Merritt held the Colt in a practiced grip, the fingers of her support hand fit neatly underneath the trigger guard. "Cover your ears," she said, cocking the hammer and aligning the sights. She squeezed the trigger. An earsplitting report, a flash of light from the muzzle, and one of the rabbit sculptures on the wall shattered. In the silence that followed, Merritt heard her father say dryly, "Go on, Merritt. Put the other bunny out of its misery." She cocked the hammer, aimed and fired again. The second rabbit sculpture exploded. "Sweet Mother Mary," Ethan said in wonder. "I've never seen a woman shoot like that." "My father taught all of us how to shoot and handle firearms safely," Merritt said, giving the revolver back to him grip-first.

These words: if classes were in session, today is the day Nathaniel would have done his lecture on the pheromones of trees. It’s a way of catching the attention of the undergraduates for a minute with the counterintuitive news the trees, so silent and so still, have ways of reaching out to one another, lines of communication, systems of warning. There is something satisfying in it, that the plain reality of the universe reads to us like magic. Henry might go further. He would point out how much our brains are limited by what we believe already - how once, when people expected to see ghosts, ghosts were what they saw. Henry’s presence in the house, and in these words, triggers a second longing, too, a profound need for his daughter to be here, and not just as she is now - a grown woman in San Francisco, whom he calls on the phone to say yes, yes, it really is amazing - but also as she was once: a six-year-old girl in blue butterfly barrettes , trailing behind him and Henry, as she did on so many evenings back then, out in these same woods, reciting the names of the trees like catechism, ponderosa, manzanita, white oak, her pockets bulging with pinecones. His daughter, as she is now, the grown woman in San Francisco, does not seem to understand what he is trying to tell her on the phone. “He’s cured?” She says. “How is that possible?” She has a lot of questions that he does not want to consider. A rush of anger comes over him, washing everything else away. “Just leave it,” he says to her. “Just leave it alone.

...a perceived abandonment at any point in life will cause the individual to revert back in her mind to the very first traumatic separation— AND—the earlier the first trauma, the greater the panic and anger generated when perceived abandonment occurs again. [...] McKenzie proved in his massive study that the same regions of the brain were reactivated—the same brain cells ignited—all still hard-wired to the rest of the body as though stuck in the past. More simply—a perceived abandonment in later life triggers the brain back to the earlier stages of brain development when the first perceived abandonment occurred. For example, a woman’s husband leaves or dies— she shifts brain activity to the region of her brain that was developing at the time of the initial separation to sometime during infancy [...] She becomes the helpless little girl once again, developmentally: the same neurotransmitters and all. This is the McKenzie TwoTrauma Mechanism. Everyone has an inner child that will never mature with unresolved conflict from early separation panic. However, as Dr. McKenzie showed, the earlier that the separation trauma occurs, the more it sets the stage for enormous rage later in life.

You were right,” Reacher said. “Most of the things you’ve said are correct. A couple of inaccuracies, but we spread a little disinformation here and there.” “What are you talking about?” Ray asked. Reacher lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m World Army,” he said. “Commander of the advance party. I’ve got five thousand UN troops in the forest. Russians, mostly, a few Chinese. We’ve been watching you on the satellite surveillance. Right now, we’ve got an X-ray camera on this hut. There’s a laser beam pointed at your head. Part of the SDI technology.” “You’re kidding,” Ray said. Reacher shook his head. Deadly serious. “You were right about the microchips,” he said. “Look at this.” He stood up slowly and pulled his shirt up to his chest. Turned slightly so Ray could see the huge scar on his stomach. “Bigger than the modern ones,” he said. “The latest ones go in with no mess at all. The ones we put in the babies? But these old ones work just the same. The satellites know where I am at all times, like you said. You start to pull that trigger, the laser blows your head off.” Ray’s eyes were burning. He looked away from Reacher’s scar and glanced nervously up at the roof. “Suis pas américain,” Reacher said. “Suis soldat français, agent du gouvernement mondial depuis plusieurs années, parti en mission clandestine il y a deux mois. Il faut évaluer l’élément de risque que votre bande représente par ici.” He spoke as fast as he could and ended up sounding exactly like an educated Parisian woman. Exactly like he recalled his dead mother sounding. Ray nodded slowly.

The rise in ketones also triggers the release of a calming neurotransmitter called GABA. This neurotransmitter has an anti-anxiety effect on your brain, leaving you feeling more relaxed despite not eating any food.

Some people may have been unable to express any grief or sadness for a significant period of time while they were living with abuse. Suppressing grief may have been a survival strategy, especially if a woman's visible crying and sorrow had been a trigger for further abuse from a partner. Some women have also faced a dilemma about allowing their children to see them visibly upset, and have buried their grief for many years while the children were young or dependent. For these women, the extent and complexity of their grief and loss may feel overwhelming, even frightening.

For starters, risk is always relative. While some danger must be courted for flow, confrontations with mortality are not required. In fact, even physical risk itself is optional. A shy man need only cross the room to say hello to an attractive woman to trigger this rush. In casual conversation, merely telling someone the truth can serve the same purpose. “To reach flow,” explains Harvard psychiatrist Ned Hallowell, “one must be willing to take risks. The lover must lay bare his soul and risk rejection and humiliation to enter this state. The athlete must be willing to risk physical harm, even loss of life, to enter this state. The artist must be willing to be scorned and despised by critics and the public and still push on. And the average person — you and me — must be willing to fail, look foolish, and fall flat on our faces should we wish to enter this state.

One of my biggest triggers whenever I told someone that I thought I was autistic or even after being diagnosed is, “yeah, but you’re so smart.

They adored their handsome uncle. Whether the thing was triggered when the girls came over to help him decorate the new house or had some other proximate cause is not at all clear. Hammond, however, soon found himself engaged in sexual dalliance with all four girls. He confessed it later in his diary. “Here were four lovely creatures, from the tender but precious girl of 13 to the mature but fresh and blooming woman nearly 19 (in 1840–41), each contending for my love, claiming the greater share of it as due to her superior devotion to me, all of them rushing on every occasion into my arms and covering me with kisses, lolling on my lap, pressing their bodies almost into mine, wreathing their limbs with mine, encountering warmly every portion of my frame, and permitting my hands to stray unchecked over every part of them and to rest without the slightest shrinking from it, in the most secret and sacred regions, and all this for a period of more than two years continuously.” Hammond complained that instead of condemnation, he deserved praise. “Is it in flesh and blood to withstand this?” he wrote in his diary. “Is there a man, with manhood in him and a heart susceptible of any emotions of tenderness, who could tear himself from such a cluster of lovely, loving, such amorous and devoted beings? Nay are there many who would have the self-control to stop where I did? Am I not after all entitled to some, the smallest portion of, credit for not going further?” He should be honored for his restraint, he wrote, and likened himself to “a creature of chivalric romance.” The relationship lasted from 1841 to 1843, during which, he wrote, “I gave way to the most wanton indulgences. It would be improper to state in detail what these indulgences were. It will be sufficient to say that they extended to every thing short of direct sexual intercourse, that for two years they were carried on not with one, but indiscriminately with all of them, that they were perfectly habitual and renewed every time or very nearly every time we met at my house in Columbia, which was never less than once a week while I was there, and most usually much oftener.” The nieces never balked at his “amorous advances,” he claimed, but rather “again and again made the advances themselves, so much so as often to excite my astonishment and to fill my mind with the most extraordinary suspicions as to their past experience.

am a black woman, writing about experiences as a BLACK WOMAN. Baby, if you’re looking for something other than that, respectfully back away from the catalog and be blessed on your journey. Last but certainly not least, there is mention of suicide, cheating, mental health, estranged family, abuse, and infertility. IF THAT AT ALL TRIGGERS YOU, step lightly. I made this entire book up. Nothing is real. None of these people are real. None of these scenarios are in real order. And quite frankly, some of this maybe be unrealistic to you. But my dear, that’s what you call fiction. And in fiction, I hold the license to make sh*t up! Read this for pure enjoyment. Now that we’ve gotten that out the way, you’ll be triggered. You’re going to be angry, you’ll laugh, and you’ll cry. If you want something without feeling, I’m sure it’s…somewhere. Just not here. Love ya, bye!

Sitting at the front of the briefing, Joe was worried about her, worried that the emotion – the anger – would trigger a heart attack. A woman of her age and with her weight shouldn’t get this wound up. She’d already been warned about her blood pressure, took medication for it, when she could be bothered to remember.

In the real world, when we encounter something that triggers our fight, flight, or freeze response, we don’t go behind a tree and shake it out. We just keep moving, and unlike the bunny, our process never completes. That trauma lives on in us, and then when we encounter something that reminds us of the traumatic event, we get transported right back into it, and experience it exactly as if it were happening in the present—there is absolutely no difference between a body that is running for its life, and a body that thinks it’s still running for its life ten years later; only the environment has changed.

Maybe we’ve gone soft. Gotten used to the relative safety of the farms in the past week. But Mack slows down immediately, and I jump off without hesitation so I can run over to help. I should know better. We both should. But things have felt settled and secure since we got together for real, like the worst of the danger should be over. But we still live in the world. And The Wild has never been safe. And this is undoubtedly a trap for the most gullible of travelers. Evidently today that’s us. Before I can reach the prostrate woman, a man steps out from behind a thick tree. The woman isn’t armed, but he is. And he lifts his pistol, aiming it unwaveringly at the largest threat. That’s Mack, of course. I can’t even take a breath before he’s pulled the trigger, firing directly at Mack. I act on pure instinct. Not because I’ve thought it through in even the slightest of ways. This stranger is shooting a gun at Mack, and Mack will always—always, always—be mine. So I jump right at the man, blocking Mack from the bullet that would have killed him. Unfortunately that means the bullet hits me instead.

Consider a study of college women who took a difficult math test along with two other students. In one condition, all three of the students were women. In another condition, two were women and one was a man. In a third condition, one was a woman and two were men. This seemingly arbitrary gender composition of the group had a dramatic effect on the women’s math performance: they got 70 percent of the answers right when in an all-female group, 64 percent when one of the other group members was male, and 58 percent when two of the other group members were male. The gender composition of the group had no effect on women’s performance on a verbal test, suggesting that the presence of men in the math groups triggered the stereotype that women are not as good at math.

Eat different things from day to day. Eating the same thing every day significantly limits the phytonutrient diversity of your diet. You have to eat a variety of foods to get a variety of nutrients. Plan at least four different go-to breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that you rotate eating regularly. Over-consuming a specific food, even a food considered healthy, can result in that food triggering an inflammatory response. Eat a variety of nuts, not just almonds. Use a variety of oils, mostly olive and coconut, but not processed oils like canola. Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, and proteins.

Petrified, my body is trembling uncontrollably as every nerve violently pulsates at my fingertips. My heart pounds hard, knocking at my chest, wanting to burst from my body as I stare out the window to the backyard that overlooks a magnificent lake, and what was once a beautiful backdrop to a loving home. Frozen in place with the phone to one ear, I listen in disbelief to the cruel words coming from the woman who is my entire world. At this moment, it seems as though she can easily dismiss my life as if it never meant anything to her. Confused and traumatized, I pull the hammer back on the gun, and put my finger on the trigger. Gasping for air, I struggle to find each breath as I uncontrollably hyperventilate. My breathing is so erratic that when I speak saliva spews from my mouth and drools down my chin. I’m losing control of all emotions and sensibility. I can’t think straight. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m in utter distress as I put the gun to my head and scream my heart out, “Tell me now! Do you still love me or not?” The woman on the other end of the line is listening, but cannot hear my distress or just doesn’t want to.

I had the feeling that the feds were in a strange way afraid of us. While we were relaxed, as Indians usually are, they were nervous and trigger-happy. One

If you find yourself comparing your abilities, your work or your body to another woman, first observe and acknowledge what’s happening. Then calmly ask yourself, ‘What am I feeling, why has this been brought up and where has it come from?’ What in this other woman has triggered you? What parts of you are feeling vulnerable or threatened by her presence that you can make sense of? This is not about the woman. She is just being herself. It is about you. It’s highly likely that the parts that you feel triggered by, the parts that are making you compare yourself, are parts that you already have inside of you.

The Comanche rode in a wide circle around the frightened, riderless horses and tossed Amy into the arms of a fellow Indian who waited in the ranks. The little girl’s indignant screeching filled the air. Loretta lifted the Spencer carbine to her shoulder, leveling the sights on the Comanche as he circled back to her. The bells on his moccasins tinkled merrily with each movement of his horse. “Let me go!” Amy screamed. “You stinkin’ savage.” Loretta glanced toward the child. A young brave struggled to keep Amy atop his pony. He laughed uproariously when she tried to scratch him. The girl caught a handful of his black hair and pulled with all her might. “Ai-ee!” the boy exclaimed. “She tries to take my scalp.” Whoops of laughter spiraled among the men. Loretta dragged her gaze back to Hunter. He had halted his mount some fifteen feet from her. “Where will you spend your cartridge?” he asked. “If you love her, shoot her. It is wisdom.” Amy’s screaming turned to pitiful sobbing. Loretta’s aim wavered, and she glanced toward the other Indians, trying to see her cousin. What was Henry doing? Why didn’t he back her up? How long could it take to load a rifle? The miserable coward. “You have time for one shot,” Hunter went on. “If you waste it on me, my friend will take your sister and avenge me. Your father hides behind his wooden walls. You stand alone.” Sweat ran into Loretta’s eyes. She turned slightly and leveled the barrel of her gun at Amy. Blinking, she snugged her finger around the trigger. Tears sprang to her eyes as she recalled Amy’s queries about blessed release. It’s something bad, isn’t it? It’s killing yourself, isn’t it? Not always, Loretta thought. Sometimes it was death by a loved one’s hand. “Think long on this, Yellow Hair,” Hunter cautioned. “I came in peace to buy a woman, not steal a child. She is too skinny to bring this Comanche pleasure. You are not.” He leaned forward, stretching an arm along his horse’s neck, his hand open to her. “Come to me, and I will send your sister back to her mother unharmed.” Loretta stared at him. Did he mean it? His eyes pierced hers. The scar on the side of his face flickered as his jaw muscle tightened. If the tales about him were true, he might spare Amy. On the other hand, he might take them both captive if given half a chance. She remembered how gently he had touched her last night, and her confusion mounted. “Drop the weapon and come,” he urged. “It is a fair trade, no? She goes free. I have spoken it.” In the background, Loretta heard laughter ringing. Already the braves made sport of Amy. The child screeched again. “You will do this, no? You have courage. It shines in your eyes. If you fight the big fight, you cannot win. It is best to hold the head high and surrender with dignity. Put down the gun.

I still had my innocence of a woman who just wanted to keep her “gifts” for her husband, But what about the innocence of the girls who can’t even spell the word assault? What about the girls who don’t even know how to spell sex? You take away the innocence of young girls who are yet to learn what their bodies are made for. You let your hands become landmarks on bodies you tried to make worlds of… You kill in us the trust we’d ever need to have towards our one day husbands… You create in us a fear every man like yourself might trigger just by being present… You create in us a fear of the dark, but hey they say hope begins in the dark. But who said that is what everyone’s dark needs to look like?

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch, He said to me, “You must not ask for so much.” And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door, She cried to me, “Hey, why not ask for more?” —Leonard Cohen, “Bird on a Wire

The state of bliss is based on having pleasure, the basis of which is sexual pleasure. Without the regular sexual life, there cannot be a state of happiness. However, in sexual intercourse, the essential factor for getting sexual pleasure doesn't depend primarily on this sexual act in itself, but on the fact that the brain should be ready to experience this sexual pleasure -- the impulses receiving during sexual intercourse can rush to the pleasure center of the brain and trigger an orgasm. At this point, the functional state of the female brain, which is very sensitive to external factors, differs from the male brain. The sexual impulses in general can trigger an orgasm in sexual intercourse only if the fear and anxiety center of the brain has been deactivated. But this deactivation does not occur in a similar way in both genders. Neuropsychology says that before the fear and anxiety center has been turned off, in the female brain, any last minute worry -- even if about kids, or getting dinner on the table, not to mention the serious career-related anxiety -- can interrupt the march of sexual impulses toward orgasm. Unlike the female brain, male brain does not experience such difficulties associated with orgasm. For that reason, women in general may be less likely to be happy in social life than men. Perhaps, in some cases, the happy face of a career woman is simply a social mask for others.

Deep inside every woman is a rich well of strength that might lie dormant until life’s circumstances trigger this dragon, until there is a need, an urgency, for the warrior within her to rise to the surface. It will happen in the spark of a moment; it will be like putting a flame to a stick of dynamite; it will be explosive, miraculous, amazing, and significant to everyone connected to this woman and to this woman herself. Know

Take Brooksley Born, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), who waged an unsuccessful campaign to regulate the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market. Soon after the Clinton administration asked her to take the reins of the CFTC, a regulatory backwater, she became aware of the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market, a rapidly expanding and opaque market, which she attempted to regulate. According to a PBS Frontline special: "Her attempts to regulate derivatives ran into fierce resistance from then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who prevailed upon Congress to stop Born and limit future regulation." Put more directly by New York Times reporter Timothy O'Brien, "they ... shut her up and shut her down." Mind you, Born was no dummy. She was the first female president of the Stanford Law Review, the first woman to finish at the top of the class, and an expert in commodities and futures. But because a trio of people who were literally en-titled decided they knew what was best for the market, they dismissed her call for regulation, a dismissal that triggered the financial collapse of 2008. To be fair to Greenspan et al., their resistance was not surprising. According to psychologists Hillel Einhorn and Robin Hogarth, "we [as human beings] are prone to search only for confirming evidence, and ignore disconfirming evidence." In the case of Born, it was the '90s, the markets were doing well, and the country was prospering; it's easy to see why the powerful troika rejected her disconfirming views. Throw in the fact that the disconcerting evidence was coming from a "disconfirming" person (i.e., a woman), and they were even more likely to disregard the data. In the aftermath, Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the SEC, said, "If she just would have gotten to know us... maybe it would have gone a different way."12 Born quotes Michael Greenberg, the director of the CFTC under her, as saying, "They say you weren't a team player, but I never saw them issue you a uniform." We like ideas and people that fit into our world-view, but there is tremendous value in finding room for those that don't. According to Paul Carlile and Clayton Christensen, "It is only when an anomaly is identified—an outcome for which a theory can't account that an opportunity to improve theory occurs."13 One of the ways you'll know you are coming up against an anomaly is if you find yourself annoyed, defensive, even dismissive, of a person, or his idea.

features 3 in-depth videos, where I walk you through how to flirt with girls and avoid debilitating conversation mistakes. Click HERE to Get Instant Access to the Free Video Series Inside you will learn: - The 5 conversation mistakes that put you in the friendzone - My secret conversation framework that gets me 3-4 dates every week - The "invisible trigger" that activates attraction in a woman's mind, often within seconds of meeting you

What happens to a marriage? A persistent failure of kindness, triggered at first, at least in my case, by the inequities of raising children, the sacrifices that take a woman by surprise and that she expects to be matched by her mate but that biology ensures cannot be. Anything could set me off. Any innocuous habit or slight or oversight. The way your father left the lights of the house blazing, day and night. The way he could become so distracted at work that sometimes when I called, he’d put me on hold and forget me, only remembering again when I’d hung up and called back. The way he wore his pain so privately, whistling around the house after we’d had a spat, pretending nonchalance, protecting you and your sisters from discord, hiding behind his good nature, inadvertently calling out my ill nature in the process, persisting in being optimistic, and cheerful, and affectionate, when there was clearly no call for any of that. These were the tallies I kept, the grudges I nursed. Would I have indulged myself that way if I’d fully understood the situation? I would have behaved better, I hope. I hope I would have been kinder. P

Like I said, Meg, I’m an idiot, and one not prone to rapid change. Although it’s taken almost a year for you to blossom into a woman, for me it was in a blink of an eye, and I’m a man who needs time to adjust.” He tucked a finger under her chin. “In my mind’s eye, you left in pigtails and braces.” He swallowed hard, mesmerized by the silky sweep of dark lashes, the lush curve of lips that triggered far too dangerous a response. “Now you’re a woman who obviously turns heads and races a man’s pulse, and that takes some getting used to.” She peeked up with surprise in her eyes while a soft haze of color dusted her cheeks. “Is that what happened then? Tonight when you saw me? I . . .” Her blush deepened. “Raced your . . . pulse?” The heat in her cheeks had nothing on him—blood gorged his face. He shifted away, removing his arm from her waist to drape it over the settee, then cleared his throat. “I guarantee you, Meg, you raced everybody’s pulse in that room tonight from sheer shock over one of the most remarkable transformations any of us have ever seen.” A perfectly adorable grin skimmed her lips. “So I did race your pulse.” His palms began to sweat as he slipped her a smile, wishing he could just lie. “Blue blazes, Bug, I didn’t even know it was you at first, so yes, of course you raced my pulse—you’re a beautiful wo—” He swallowed hard, his prior awkwardness returning in force. “Young lady.” Never

Sometimes it was hard for me to connect the boy I knew—the skinny smart kid who collected lead soldiers and pursued Boy Scout merit badges—with the phenomenally successful man he’d become. But sooner or later, when we were together, some remark would inevitably trigger childhood memories and then we’d be off, zipping down a path that existed now only for the two of us.

day, the trigger was an older woman with deep wrinkles. To this day, I cannot be certain about what caused her to react so strongly. Perhaps she had used up her patience simmering in the sun for hours at the back of the line. Perhaps she had some desperately hungry grandchildren who she needed to get back to. It is impossible to know exactly what happened. But after she received her allocation of wheat, she broke the established rules of the feeding site and moved toward Bubba. She looked up at him and unleashed a verbal attack. Bubba, as gentle as ever, simply smiled at her. The more he smiled, the angrier she got. I noticed the commotion when our Somali guards suddenly tensed and turned toward the disturbance. All I could see was Bubba, head and shoulders above a gathering crowd, seemingly unperturbed, and smiling down at someone. His patient response only fueled the woman’s rage. I heard her sound of fury long before I spotted the source when she launched a long stream of vile curses at Bubba. Thankfully, he didn’t understand a word that she was saying. It was now possible to understand her complaint. She was upset about the quality of the “animal feed” that was being distributed for human consumption. She was probably right in her assessment of the food. These were surplus agricultural products that United Nations contributing members didn’t want, couldn’t sell, and had no other use for. As this hulking American continued to smile, the woman realized that she was not communicating. Now, furious and frustrated, she bent down, set her plastic bag on the ground, grabbed two fistfuls of dirty, broken wheat, grain dust, dirt and chaff. She straightened to her full height and flung the filthy mixture as hard as she could into Bubba’s face. The crowd was deathly silent as I heard a series of loud metallic clicks that indicated that an entire squad of American soldiers had instinctively locked and loaded all weapons in readiness for whatever might happen next. Everything felt frozen in time as everyone waited and watched for Bubba’s reaction. A Somali man might have beaten the woman for such a public insult—and he would have considered his action and his anger entirely justified. I knew that Bubba had traveled half-way around the world at his own expense to spend three months of personal vacation time to help hurting people. And this was the thanks that he received? He was hot, sweaty, and drained beyond exhaustion—and he had just been publicly embarrassed. He had every reason to be absolutely livid. Instead, he raised one hand to rub the grit out of his eyes, and then he gave the woman one more big smile. At that point, he began to sing. And what he sang wasn’t just any song. She didn’t understand the words, of course. But she, and the entire crowd, stood in silent amazement as Bubba belted out the words to the 1950’s Elvis Presley rock-n-roll classic: You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog Cryin’ all the time You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog Cryin’ all the time Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit And you ain’t no friend of mine. By the time he started singing the next verse, the old woman had turned and stomped off in frustration, angrily plowing a path through the now-smiling crowd of Somalis to make her escape. Watching her go, Bubba raised his voice to send her off with rousing rendition of the final verse: Well they said you was high-classed Well, that was just a lie Ya know they said you was high-classed Well, that was just a lie Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit And you ain’t no friend of mine.

Removing the shotgun from its rack, Susannah settled the butt into her right shoulder and braced her feet. Swinging just ahead of the flock, she squeezed the trigger. A duck dropped into the yard. Jake barked in approval. Jesse burst from behind the apple tree. “You scared the you-know-what out of me, woman!” “I’m sorry.” She pointed. “I thought you might like duck for dinner.” Jesse ran his thumb along her right collarbone and slipped her nightgown off her shoulder. “No bruise. Not even a red mark. You know how to handle a gun. What else haven’t you told me?

behind the mighty-looking corporations are a group of wealthy people whose personal lives are lived in marginality. To maintain the show of corporate power, they must give up something of themselves, their spirit. These people start to become invisible because they are mere instruments of the power being displayed, the power being made visible. They take a back seat to the corporation’s need to be powerful. They then begin to lose touch with their own souls, with the world of the invisible. This is why they are marginal. The greatest needs ends up being expressed by these people and through these people. It is the action of those in power that produces the poor, the menial worker, the man and woman in debt and the homeless. Misused power triggers its exact opposite as if that opposite needed to be there to highlight the dysfunctionality of its creator. The menial worker, the man and woman in debt, the poor and the homeless exist, as if they must, to highlight the person in power. The person who displays this kind of power needs more help than those who are, more or less, the casualties of this power display. The

Behind me, Trigger whistles. I turn to find him rubbing his hand over his crotch and shaking his head. “You better have a case of crabs and not be jerking yourself to my girlfriend.” First Tally taking my girl out to the fuckin’ movies, and now this asshole. “Sorry, brother. She’s a fine woman. Don’t fuck that up. Lotta men would be willing to treat her right.” “Fuck you.” “You’re not my type.” He glances down the hall. “Now, Mallory on the other hand—” “Don’t.” I hold up both hands. “Go there, brother. I will straight up gut you.” He laughs and claps me on the back. “Don’t touch me with your damn dick-rubbing hands.” I jerk my shoulder out of his grasp.