Trip Finished Quotes

First the husband tried to make the wife his possession, and once she is a possession he loses interest. There is some hidden logic in it: his whole interet was to possess; now that is finished, and he would like to try some other woman so he can again go on another trip of possesion.

He watched as she pressed the berry to her lower lip. He kept looking at her mouth after she'd done it. He knew he should look away, but he couldn't. "Right. Good. If there's no stinging, you'd put it to your tongue." Perry shot to his feet before he finished the words, nearly tripping over himself. He ran a hand over his head, feeling skitty, like he needed to laugh or run or do something. He picked up a stone and tossed it into the creek, trying to get the image of her tasting the berry out of his mind.

Reading a book, for me at least, is like traveling in someone else's world. If it's a good book, then you feel comfortable and yet anxious to see what's going to happen to you there, what'll be around the next corner. But if it's a lousy book, then it's like going through Secaucus, New Jersey -- it smells and you wish you weren't there, but since you've started the trip, you roll up the windows and breathe through your mouth until you're done.

[Keefe’s] smile softened into something that made Sophie’s cheeks warm. And her heart seem to trip over itself as he leaned close and carefully pinned Krakie to the back of her hand, right in the center. His palm rested over her is when he finished, and she got the sense that there was something he wasn’t saying. But then his eyes skipped past her, landing on Fitz for a beat before he shifted his focus.

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

And you can keep the pin.” “Uh-uh, it’s yours.” “But you want it.” “And I want you to have it! So how about we call him ours? Will name Krakie, and he can live right here.” He pointed to the bandage covering her right hand. “That way Krakie can protect you from the echo – not that you need protection. He’ll just be your backup.” 246 His smile softened into something that made Sophie’s cheeks warm. And her heart seem to trip over itself as he leaned close and carefully pinned Krakie to the back of her hand, right in the center. His palm rested over her is when he finished, and she got the sense that there was something he wasn’t saying. But then his eyes skipped past her, landing on Fitz for a beat before he shifted his focus.

I know you come from big spenders, but I could put you on a private jet tonight, fly us to Paris for a shopping trip down Champs Elysées, then have the jet fly us to Hong Kong to finish off our day on Causeway Bay. We could return to the States and stop at the Porsche dealership and pick you out a new 911 and that day wouldn’t put a dent in my finances.

The way to finish the book is to turn down the volume on the stuff that’s all about how other people react.

And the funny, impish magic of a wrap party is that everyone still has scraps of their characters hanging off them like Salome's veils, fluttering, fading, but not quite finished tangling the tongue and tripping the feet. You're not in Wonderland anymore, but you positively reek of rabbit.

Don't let anyone trip you up before the finish line!

This book, this job, this trip, this never-ending, days-spanning conversation. I want to make it all last, and I need to know how it ends. I want to finish it, and I need it to go on forever.

So, you wanna know what I want? I want it all. I want to be in love so much it hurts. The frissons. The pin pricks. The mind-blowing sex. The connection. And I want to be married with kids I adore and a husband who makes me feel safe, sexy, smart, secure, silly, serious, salacious, sinful, serene, satisfied. I want someone who makes me laugh until milk comes out of my nose (only I don’t drink milk). I want to finish someone’s sentences. I want to believe in someone, in something, in a future that’s not just about laundry and soccer practice and subdivisions and minivans and guilt-tripping grandparents. I want to make someone a better person. I want to be a good example. I want to love some kids into the world. I want someone who stimulates my brain as much as my body. I want to taste everything and go everywhere. I want to give and I want to get. I want too much and I want it all in one person.

Marial and Uncle were no longer by his side, and they never would be again, but Salva knew that both of them would have wanted him to survive, to finish the trip and reach the Itang refugee camp safely. It was almost as if they had left their strength with him, to help him on his journey.

A person has all sorts of lags built into him, Kesey is saying. One, the most basic, is the sensory lag, the lag between the time your senses receive something and you are able to react. One-thirtieth of a second is the time it takes, if you are the most alert person alive, and most people are a lot slower than that. Now Cassady is right up against that 1/30th of a second barrier. He is going as fast as a human can go, but even he can't overcome it. He is a living example of how close you can come, but it can't be done. You can't go any faster than that. You can't through sheer speed overcome the lag. We are all of us doomed to spend the rest of our lives watching a movie of our lives - we are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we are in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past, and we will really never be able to control the present through ordinary means. That lag has to be overcome some other way, through some kind of total breakthrough.

neon sign in red letters EXIT TO HELL…A walks under the arch….she seems not to notice where she is going….Just as the angels are preparing to carry the arch away B makes a desperate dash at it and dives through. Everything blacks out… What happens when you start the downward trip?...Of course there isn’t a hope of ever getting out again into the light. Once you’re on your way down, the machinery takes charge of you, you’re caught, trapped, finished for good and all…you might just as well give in and pluck the cruel thorn of hope out of your heart.

I finished and e-mailed to myself to see what it’d read like to open, and decided it looked a little loopy and that I’d been the right person to open it after all. I read him, thought about him, and I never saw him again except on television once.

Vase [Why weep Come back tomorrow There are also poisonous flowers and flowers always open in the evening she loves the cinema she has been in Russia Love married with disdain Pearl-studded watch a trip to Montrouge Maisons- Lafitte and everything finishes in perfumes remember Let the flower bloom and let the fruit rot and let the grain sprout while the storms rage]

How many thousands have I spent on perfume and alcohol, cigarettes and Turkish baths, disappointing trips and third-class movies; how many months in silent bars or parks, expecting, in a chair with a book not reading, or waiting in line, waiting in line? Who will tell me it’s a loss when I know life must be for pleasure? The parks were balanced by museums, the baths by oceans, bars by composition, and the dreaming chair by books finished. Nothing is waste that makes a memory.

You bought a one-way ticket to New York with no return flight booked,” he says. “I’m flying to New York and I’m not coming back for a month or two,” I explain. “I’m not booking a round-trip flight at this point.” “I understand. No problem. We’ll be finished right after a quick thorough search.” I think he’s kidding. He’s not. I keep trying to joke with him as he frisks me a little too eagerly. “I thought you’d buy me a drink first,” I say. “I guess the only people drinking fifteen minutes before a flight are the pilots.

the lightness of having nothing to do and nowhere to be. She thought of all the things she could do once she’d finished this chapter of her life, all the books she could read and the picnics she could eat and the funfairs and shopping trips and holidays and parties.

He had already authenticated his experience by telling me things he could not otherwise have known. But now I had to square his answer, “three minutes,” with all the rest. I stared down at my Bible, lying open on the kitchen table, and turned over the possibilities in my mind. Three minutes. It wasn’t possible that Colton could have seen and done everything he’d described so far in just three minutes. Of course, he wasn’t old enough to tell time yet, so maybe his sense of three actual minutes wasn’t the same as an adult’s. Like most parents, I was pretty sure Sonja and I weren’t helping that issue, promising to be off the phone, for example, or finished talking in the yard with a neighbor, or done in the garage in “five more minutes,” then wrapping it up twenty minutes later. It was also possible that time in heaven doesn’t track with time on earth. The Bible says that with the Lord, “a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”1 Some interpret that as a literal exchange, as in, two days equals two thousand years. I’ve always taken it to mean that God operates outside of our understanding of time. Time on earth is keyed to a celestial clock, governed by the solar system. But the Bible says there is no sun in heaven because God is the light there. Maybe there is no time in heaven. At least not as we understand it.

On an evening when Perdita's away on a school trip, Harriet sits in front of her computer eating sample squares of lavender shortbread and practicing her favorite form of procrastination: writing highly positive reviews of her eBay, Etsy, and Amazon purchases. Five stars for everybody. She didn't finish one of the books she just gave five stars to. She just liked the author photo. Five stars for the portrait photographer, then. She's been doing this ever since some of her students told her they do this with one-star reviews. Opposing random negativity with random positivity - that's the main thing.

That’s what high school’s for. You make plans and you don’t follow through. You dream and you can be brave when you’re dreaming, brave enough to imagine that there’s actually a yourself to find, brave enough to finish projects even though you were never born with endings, brave enough to plan volunteer trips even though you’d probably be dead of asphyxiation by the time you’re there because you’re always holding your breath as if that can keep you together.

Dig deep to finish what you start. Because no matter how hard it feels to push through adversity at the time, once your done, you'll own the experience for the rest of your life.

The missing remained missing and the portraits couldn't change that. But when Akhmed slid the finished portrait across the desk and the family saw the shape of that beloved nose, the air would flee the room, replaced by the miracle of recognition as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and cousin found in that nose the son, brother, nephew, and cousin that had been, would have been, could have been, and they might race after the possibility like cartoon characters dashing off a cliff, held by the certainty of the road until they looked down -- and plummeted is the word used by the youngest brother who, at the age of sixteen, is tired of being the youngest and hopes his older brother will return for many reasons, not least so he will marry and have a child and the youngest brother will no longer be youngest; that youngest brother, the one who has nothing to say about the nose because he remembers his older brother's nose and doesn't need the nose to mean what his parents need it to mean, is the one who six months later would be disappeared in the back of a truck, as his older brother was, who would know the Landfill through his blindfold and gag by the rich scent of clay, as his older brother had known, whose fingers would be wound with the electrical wires that had welded to his older brother's bones, who would stand above a mass grave his brother had dug and would fall in it as his older brother had, though taking six more minutes and four more bullets to die, would be buried an arm's length of dirt above his brother and whose bones would find over time those of his older brother, and so, at that indeterminate point in the future, answer his mother's prayer that her boys find each other, wherever they go; that younger brother would have a smile on his face and the silliest thought in his skull a minute before the first bullet would break it, thinking of how that day six months earlier, when they all went to have his older brother's portrait made, he should have had his made, too, because now his parents would have to make another trip, and he hoped they would, hoped they would because even if he knew his older brother's nose, he hadn't been prepared to see it, and seeing that nose, there, on the page, the density of loss it engendered, the unbelievable ache of loving and not having surrounded him, strong enough to toss him, as his brother had, into the summer lake, but there was nothing but air, and he'd believed that plummet was as close as they would ever come again, and with the first gunshot one brother fell within arms' reach of the other, and with the fifth shot the blindfold dissolved and the light it blocked became forever, and on the kitchen wall of his parents' house his portrait hangs within arm's reach of his older brother's, and his mother spends whole afternoons staring at them, praying that they find each other, wherever they go.

It is a curious thing that at my age — fifty-five last birthday — I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so young, perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting, fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it — I don't yet know how big — but I do not think I would go through the last fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the "Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if I have any.

I have a system with bathrooms. I spend a lot of time in them. They are sanctuaries, public places of peace spaced throughout the world for people like me. When I pop into Aaron’s, I continue my normal routine of wasting time. I turn the light off first. Then I sigh. Then I turn around, face the door I just closed, pull down my pants, and fall on the toilet— I don’t sit; I fall like a carcass, feeling my butt accommodate the rim. Then I put my head in my hands and breathe out as I, well, y’know, piss. I always try to enjoy it, to feel it come out and realize that it’s my body doing something it has to do, like eating, although I’m not too good at that. I bury my face in my hands and wish that it could go on forever because it feels good. You do it and it’s done. It doesn’t take any effort or any planning. You don’t put it off. That would be really screwed up, I think. If you had such problems that you didn’t pee. Like being anorexic, except with urine. If you held it in as self-punishment. I wonder if anyone does that? I finish up and flush, reaching behind me, my head still down. Then I get up and turn on the light. (Did anyone notice I was in here in the dark? Did they see the lack of light under the crack and notice it like a roach? Did Nia see?) Then I look in the mirror. I look so normal. I look like I’ve always looked, like I did before the fall of last year. Dark hair and dark eyes and one snaggled tooth. Big eyebrows that meet in the middle. A long nose, sort of twisted. Pupils that are naturally large—it’s not the pot— which blend into the dark brown to make two big saucer eyes, holes in me. Wisps of hair above my upper lip. This is Craig. And I always look like I’m about to cry. I put on the hot water and splash it at my face to feel something. In a few seconds I’m going to have to go back and face the crowd. But I can sit in the dark on the toilet a little more, can’t I? I always manage to make a trip to the bathroom take five minutes.

Imagine you work hard to prepare a talk on a subject you care about. You get your message across, and when you finish the audience rises to its feet, its clapping sustained and sincere. One person might leave the room feeling, “I’m glad I got my message across, but I’m also happy it’s over; now I can get back to the rest of my life.” Another person, more sensitive to buzz, might walk away feeling, “What a trip! Did you hear that applause? Did you see the expression on their faces when I made that life-changing point? This is great!” But

How lovely the months, the years with him had been. At the moment I hadn’t understood their importance, and now here I was, growing sad. The rain the cold the snow the scents of Spring along the Arno and on the flowering streets of the city, the warmth we gave each other. Choosing a dress, glasses. His pleasure in changing me. And Paris, the exciting trip to a foreign country, the cafes, the politics, the literature, the revolution that would soon arrive, even though the working class was becoming integrated. And him. His room at night. His body. All finished. I tossed nervously in my bed unable to sleep. I’m lying to myself , I thought. Had it really been so wonderful ? I knew very well that at that time, too, there had been shame. And uneasiness, and humiliation, and disgust: accept, submit force yourself. Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to rigorous examination

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who means execution, which outlives the most untimely ending. All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land.

You say you know these streets pretty well? The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone. It saw you steeling yourself for the job interview, slowly walking home after the late date, tripping over nonexistent impediments on the sidewalk. It saw you wince when the single frigid drop fell from the air-conditioner 12 stories up and zapped you. It saw the bewilderment on your face as you stepped out of the stolen matinee, incredulous that there was still daylight after such a long movie. It saw you half-running up the street after you got the keys to your first apartment. It saw all that. Remembers too. Consider what all your old apartments would say if they got together to swap stories. They could piece together the starts and finishes of your relationships, complain about your wardrobe and musical tastes, gossip about who you are after midnight. 7J says, ''So that's what happened to Lucy; I knew it would never work out.'' You picked up yoga, you put down yoga, you tried various cures. You tried on selves and got rid of them, and this makes your old rooms wistful: why must things change? 3R says: ''Saxophone, you say? I knew him when he played guitar.'' Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers of your reinventions.

This is a plot: I hope he will keep quiet while he looks at them. I dive under the table and push the chest against his patent leather shoes, I put an armload of post cards and photos on his lap: Spain and Spanish Morocco. But I see by his laughing, open look that I have been singularly mistaken in hoping to reduce him to silence. He glances over a view of San Sebastian from Monte Igueldo, sets it cautiously on the table and remains silent for an instant. Then he sighs: 'Ah, Monsieur, you're lucky ... if what they say is true-travel is the best school. Is that your opinion, Monsieur?' I make a vague gesture. Luckily he has not finished. 'It must be such an upheaval. If I were ever to go on a trip, I think I should make written notes of the slightest traits of my character before leaving, so that when I returned I would be able to compare what I was and what I had become. I've read that there are travellers who have changed physically and morally to such an extent that even their closest relatives did not recognize them when they came back.

It felt warm sitting around the dhuni. I felt connected to the sadhus, to the temple, and even to Shiva. Is this it? Am I on the precipice of something? Is this what I've been looking for? It feels so close, I can nearly reach out and grab it, the answer to all my questions could be right in this circle, I could follow this path, I could grow my hair six feet long, I could stand in one spot for six years with my arm in the air, I could cover myself in ash, I could smoke chillums all day and chant all night, yes, this is what it's all been leading to, already, I feel my mind emptying out, it's slowing down just like in Greece, but this time the filmstrip is coming into focus, this time I can almost make it out, this time things are making sense, yes, of course, Paul is right, I must act like a sadhu, I must do what's right, and now the film stops for one brief second and I take a look, and there it is, my journey, yes, it's anything but a straight line, it's more like a spiral that twists all over the place, just like the lines in my palm, it's a spiral that at any moment could point up or down, in or out, and now, sitting at the feet of the holy men, looking into the warm pools of the sadhu's eyes - I suddenly realize what this is all about. Each person's journey is different, and this spiral of mine isn't finished spinning. At least, not here - not now, not in this magical arcade. It's as I always suspected. I don't want a guru. I don't want an ashram. I need to find my own way.

This definition matched everything I saw on the ground during my trip. Perhaps more importantly, Israel’s own leaders have long seen apartheid as well within the range of possibilities for its government. In 2007, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert warned that without a “two-state solution” Israel would “face a South African–style struggle for equal voting rights.” The result of that struggle in Olmert’s mind would be grim—“the state of Israel [would be] finished.” Three years later, Ehud Barak, then serving as Netanyahu’s defense minister, issued a warning: As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.

Right then,” said Hermione, checking her watch. “She ought to be here in about five minutes. When I’ve Stunned her--” “Hermione, we know,” said Ron sternly. “And I thought we were supposed to open the door before she got here?” Hermione squealed. “I nearly forgot! Stand back--” She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward her, to make it look as though it was still closed. “And now,” she said, turning back to face the other two in the alleyway, “we put on the Cloak again--” “--and we wait,” Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione’s head like a blanket over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Harry.

But there’s another reason you can’t go. You still haven’t told me about your trip to Tennessee.” A sudden spark seemed to light his keen eyes. “I wanted to tell you, but you didn’t come, even when I gave you back your bed.” She looked up, full of wonder. “You wanted me to come upstairs?” “You know I wouldn’t hurt you . . . dishonor you.” “I—I know you wouldn’t . . . but . . . being alone with you . . . like that . . .” She faltered and looked away, a furious blush staining her face. “It’s not the proper way,” he finished for her. She merely nodded, trying to start sewing again, but instead making a knot of her thread. He said quietly, “Sometimes I think you’re still afraid of me.” She looked up at him again and wished she hadn’t. His eyes held hers with a startling intensity, as if daring her to deny it. She got up abruptly, nearly spilling her sewing onto the floor. “I made some broth,” she said. “You’ll need to regain your strength. And I’ll have to see to your shoulder.

Imagine you work hard to prepare a talk on a subject you care about. You get your message across, and when you finish the audience rises to its feet, its clapping sustained and sincere. One person might leave the room feeling, “I’m glad I got my message across, but I’m also happy it’s over; now I can get back to the rest of my life.” Another person, more sensitive to buzz, might walk away feeling, “What a trip! Did you hear that applause? Did you see the expression on their faces when I made that life-changing point? This is great!

He swelled into the piece, his hand flat-hatting across the keyboard and thundering the lower notes like a trip-hammer. Finishing what I assumed was the first portion of the piece, he turned to look at me with his sad eyes. “Personally, I think it’s a masterpiece.” We sat there smiling at each other until we became aware of the silence and looked up once again to find the onlookers dumbstruck. I leaned his way and spoke in a low voice. “Maybe not a highbrow crowd.” Leeland immediately launched into a jazzy blues version of “This Train.” “Boy howdy.

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

He knows how quiet it gets when hockey tells you you’re finished. How quickly you start to miss the ice, the locker room, the guys, the bus trips, the gas-station sandwiches. He knows how as a seventeen-year-old he would look at the tragic former players in their forties who used to hang around the rink going on about their own achievements in front of an audience that got smaller and smaller each season. The job of GM gave him a chance to live on as part of a team, to build something bigger, something that could outlast him. But with that came responsibility: make the difficult decisions, live with the pain.

Why are you saying this?” she whispered, her face ashen. “So you won’t have any illusions about your little nest here! We can use you, do you understand? As long as you are useful to the community, you’ll be allowed to live here like a princess. Just as long as you’re useful.” “Useful, how? No one wants to look at my paintings. I’ve finished the maps and drawings of the trip.” “I’m going to dissect your every thought, your every wish, every dream. I’m going to find out what happened to you, what made you separate yourself from your sisters, what made you decide to become an individual, and when I find out we’ll know how never to allow it to happen again.

I quickly scrambled back up to my feet just in time to see Vinny’s big hand coming right at me. I swiftly ducked underneath it and then swung my sword at the giant’s arm, grazing his right arm. “Ooof!” Vinny groaned and reeled back. I took the opportunity to swing at him with another strike, this time at his feet. Vinny stumbled and shook as he tried to keep his balance. As sneaky as he sometimes can be, Jack had already finished digging a hole behind the giant while he was busy fighting me. Vinny, as he kept taking his steps backwards, tripped on the hole and came crashing down on the ground below. Jack and I both jumped on top of the giant. I smacked him a little with the blunt side of my sword, while Jack slapped the giant with a porkchop. “Ready to answer questions now?” I asked the giant. The giant opened his mouth to reply but was promptly slapped by Jack with another porkchop. “Jack, you have to let him talk first, then smack him if he refuses to answer,” I explained. “Oh, right. My bad. I was really into it,” Jack apologized, “To be fair, I was just tossed through a barn. I feel like I deserve a bit of vengeance.” “Okay, okay. Stop with the porkchop slapping,” Vinny pleaded, “I’m a vegan.” “Oh, sorry,” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bread and then slapped the giant with the bread instead.

in Howard was in one of those moods during which crazy ideas sound perfectly sensible. A bullish, handsome man with decisive eyebrows and more hair than he could find use for, Lin had a great deal of money and a habit of having things go his way. So many things in his life had gone his way that it no longer occurred to him not to be in a festive mood, and he spent much of his time celebrating the general goodness of things and sitting with old friends telling fat happy lies. But things had not gone Lin’s way lately, and he was not accustomed to the feeling. Lin wanted in the worst way to whip his father at racing, to knock his Seabiscuit down a peg or two, and he believed he had the horse to do it in Ligaroti.1 He was sure enough about it to have made some account-closing bets on the horse, at least one as a side wager with his father, and he was a great deal poorer for it. The last race really ate at him. Ligaroti had been at Seabiscuit’s throat in the Hollywood Gold Cup when another horse had bumped him right out of his game. He had streaked down the stretch to finish fourth and had come back a week later to score a smashing victory over Whichcee in a Hollywood stakes race, firmly establishing himself as the second-best horse in the West. Bing Crosby and Lin were certain that with a weight break and a clean trip, Ligaroti had Seabiscuit’s measure. Charles Howard didn’t see it that way. Since the race, he had been going around with pockets full of clippings about Seabiscuit. Anytime anyone came near him, he would wave the articles around and start gushing, like a new father. The senior Howard probably didn’t hold back when Lin was around. He was immensely proud of Lin’s success with Ligaroti, but he enjoyed tweaking his son, and he was good at it. He had once given Lin a book for Christmas entitled What You Know About Horses. The pages were blank. One night shortly after the Hollywood Gold Cup, Lin was sitting at a restaurant table across from his father and Bing Crosby. They were apparently talking about the Gold Cup, and Lin was sitting there looking at his father and doing a slow burn.

EB: 'Ll showed me a long verse-letter, very obscene, he’d received from Dylan T[Thomas] before D’s last trip here [New York]—very clever, but it really can’t be published for a long, long time, he’s decided. About people D. met in the U.S. etc.—one small sample: A Streetcar Named Desire is referred to as 'A truck called F———.' RL: 'Psycho-therapy is rather amazing—something like stirring up the bottom of an aquarium—chunks of the past coming up at unfamiliar angles, distinct and then indistinct.' RL: 'I have just finished the Yeats Letters—900 & something pages—although some I’d read before. He is so Olympian always, so calm, so really unrevealing, and yet I was fascinated.' RL: 'Probably you forget, and anyway all that is mercifully changed and all has come right since you found Lota. But at the time everything, I guess (I don’t want to overdramatize) our relations seemed to have reached a new place. I assumed that would be just a matter of time before I proposed and I half believed that you would accept. Yet I wanted it all to have the right build-up. Well, I didn’t say anything then.' EB: 'so I suppose I am just a born worrier, and that when the personal worries of adolescence and the years after it have more or less disappeared I promptly have to start worrying about the decline of nations . . . But I really can’t bear much of American life these days—surely no country has ever been so filthy rich and so hideously uncomfortable at the same time.

I’m beginning at least to notice when I’m consuming the United Nations of edible plants and animals all in one seating. (Or the WTO, is more like it.) On a winter’s day not long ago I was served a sumptuous meal like this, finished off with a dessert of raspberries. Because they only grow in temperate zones, not the tropics, these would have come from somewhere deep in the Southern Hemisphere. I was amazed that such small, eminently bruisable fruits could survive a zillion-mile trip looking so good (I myself look pretty wrecked after a mere red-eye from California), and I mumbled some reserved awe over that fact. I think my hostess was amused by my country-mouse naïveté. “This is New York,” she assured me. “We can get anything we want, any day of the year.

I remember, the first time I saw you.” I did too, something seared into my memory, but it wasn’t about me, right then. “You were this… fierce thing,” he said, moving the wipe to my left eye, pressing carefully to the eyelid. “Tall and gorgeous and fucking bitchy as all hell.” He set the wipe down behind me and then pulled out another. He started in on the other eye. “And I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything as amazing as you before.” My throat clicked audibly as I wondered where this was leading to. Because he was talking about Helena, not me. “You were with Paul,” he continued. “Though I didn’t know who he was at the time. All I wanted to do was find out who you were.” He finished with my eyes and used another wipe on my cheeks. My lips, though, there wasn’t much lipstick left. He didn’t say much more until he’d finished. By the time he sat back, my skin felt raw and my heart was tripping all over itself in my chest. “And then you disappeared,” he said. “But you came back. As her.” I froze. He sighed and took my hands in his. “You were Sandy when I first saw you,” he said, squeezing my fingers. “You were Helena when I saw you again.” His eyes darted away. “And you were Sandy when I was an asshole. That was on me, and I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive myself for that.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I don’t care if you’re Helena. I don’t care if you never put on a wig again. I will take anything you’re willing to give me. But just know that it was you I saw first, Sandy. Not her. I don’t need her or whatever division you think exists. I don’t want just part of you. I want all of you.

When Kell returned, Rhy was sitting in Kell’s favorite chair, which he’d dragged around so it was facing the room instead of the balcony doors. “What was that about?” he asked, head resting in his hand. “That’s my chair,” said Kell flatly. “Battered old thing,” said Rhy, knowing how fond Kell was of it. The prince had mischief in his pale gold eyes as he got to his feet. “I’m still nursing a headache,” said Kell. “So if you’re here to force me on another outing—” “That’s not why I’m here,” said Rhy, crossing to the sideboard. He started to pour himself a drink, and Kell was about to say something very unkind when he saw that it was simply tea. He nodded at one of the sofas. “Sit down.” Kell would have stood out of spite, but he was weary from the trip, and he sank onto the nearest sofa. Rhy finished fixing his tea and sat down opposite.

If nothing else, she would certainly keep him entertained the rest of his days, and not just in the bedchamber. Somewhat reassured by that thought, Daniel turned back to Richard and Langley as he finished with his cravat, and then grimaced when he saw Langley's glowering look. "We are getting married," he announced at once to forestall any outraged accusations the man might be nurturing at that moment. "You've decided for certain, have you?" Richard sounded amused. "I am not sure that is the correct phrasing for it," Daniel admitted with a wry smile. "It would be more fitting to say I have bowed to the inevitable. The woman is a force of nature." "That she is," Langley agreed, appearing to relax. "So,when is the trip to Gretna Green to occur? I should like to accompany you." "The sooner the better," Daniel decided grimly. "If Suzette jumps out and drags me into one more room, I cannot guarantee she will reach Gretna as pure as she is now, and she is already less pure today than she was yesterday.

You’ll recall from our trip to the Serengeti that a fight-or-flight stress response starts when you recognize an external threat. Your brain and body then go into the self-defense mode of attack or escape. The pause-and-plan response differs in one very crucial way: It starts with the perception of an internal conflict, not an external threat. You want to do one thing (smoke a cigarette, supersize your lunch, visit inappropriate websites at work), but know you shouldn’t. Or you know you should do something (file your taxes, finish a project, go to the gym), but you’d rather do nothing. This internal conflict is its own kind of threat: Your instincts are pushing you toward a potentially bad decision. What’s needed, therefore, is protection of yourself by yourself. This is what self-control is all about. The most helpful response will be to slow you down, not speed you up (as a fight-or-flight response does). And this is precisely what the pause-and-plan response does. The perception of an internal conflict triggers changes in the brain and body that help you slow down and control your impulses. THIS

You look terrible,” was Ron’s greeting as he entered the room to wake Harry. “Not for long,” said Harry, yawning. They found Hermione downstairs in the kitchen. She was being served coffee and hot rolls by Kreacher and wearing the slightly manic expression that Harry associated with exam review. “Robes,” she said under her breath, acknowledging their presence with a nervous nod and continuing to poke around in her beaded bag, “Polyjuice Potion . . . Invisbility Cloak . . . Decoy Detonators . . . You should each take a couple just in case. . . . Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat, Extendable Ears . . .” They gulped down their breakfast, then set off upstairs, Kreacher bowing them out and promising to have a steak-and-kidney pie ready for them when they returned. “Bless him,” said Ron fondly, “and when you think I used to fantasize about cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall.” They made their way onto the front step with immense caution: They could see a couple of puffy-eyed Death Eaters watching the house from across the misty square. Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, then came back for Harry. After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Harry found himself in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. It was as yet deserted, except for a couple of large bins; the first Ministry workers did not usually appear here until at least eight o’clock. “Right then,” said Hermione, checking her watch. “She ought to be here in about five minutes. When I’ve Stunned her—” “Hermione, we know,” said Ron sternly. “And I thought we were supposed to open the door before she got here?” Hermione squealed. “I nearly forgot! Stand back—” She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward her, to make it look as though it was still closed. “And now,” she said, turning back to face the other two in the alleyway, “we put on the Cloak again—” “—and we wait,” Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione’s head like a blanket over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Harry.

I Never Knew What They Meant by Flyover Country until the first time someone put me on a plane, windowed me into the congregation looking down on our fields stretched out endless in orderly blanks, redactions in the transcripts of the trial of man versus nature. All this holy squinting at scrimshaw country roads draped with power lines - trip wires lying in wait for the giants we just sort of mice around. I watched the others look down on our Fridays racing Opal Road to hit the tiny hill that drops stomachs like a roller coaster, headlights off for cops. Eighty; Ninety. Ninety-five in a fifty-five, how Kyle's brother talked about defusing IEDs on tour - snip whichever wire you want, you'll only find out if you're a hero. We learned a word for this, its reckless in court, predestination in church. Funny how a thing gets a different name there. Robe becomes vestment. Bench becomes pew. Truth grows a capital letter. Anything to help believe, Mom says, though when it comes to theology we are Presbyterian in casseroles only. This is the word of God, says the pastor into the microphone. See you at the picnic after. See you at the finish, says Kyle's Honda Civic. See you never says his brother's IED.

Tata's car trips, always with a driver at the wheel, typically lasted five or six days. Tata would visit different regions of Karnataka to give talks, preside over functions, participate in literary events and always drop in on his friends. If he was in southern Karnataka, he would invariably visit us at Mysore. Tata was incredibly punctual, following a schedule that he sent me well in advance. As Tata grew older, I kept telling him to avoid these longer trips. One day in late 1987, when Tata did not reach our home from Tumakuru at 7 p.m. as he had promised, we were worried that the car may have broken down, or worse, met with an accident. In those pre-cellphone days, we could not check on him. Finally, much to our relief, Tata turned up an hour late. Looking apologetic, he explained, 'Just as I finished my talk, a man approached me with the manuscript of a story he had written, seeking my comments. I could not refuse because he was so old (thumba mudukaru).' I asked Tata to guess how old the aspiring writer was. 'The poor man was at least seventy' came the reply. Prathibha and I both burst out laughing, looking at the expression on his face when I asked him his own age. Tata was so full of life force that he never realised that he was eighty-five.

The stories we read in books, what's presented to us as being interesting - they have very little to do with real life as it's lived today. I'm not talking about straight-up escapism, your vampires, serial killers, codes hidden in paintings, and so on. I mean so-called serious literature. A boy goes hunting with his emotionally volatile father, a bereaved woman befriends an asylum seeker, a composer with a rare neurological disorder walks around New York, thinking about the nature of art. People looking back over their lives, people having revelations, people discovering meaning. Meaning, that's the big thing. The way these books have it, you trip over a rock you'll find some hidden meaning waiting there. Everyone's constantly on the verge of some soul-shaking transformation. And it's - if you'll forgive my language - it's bullshit. Modern people live in a state of distraction. They go from one distraction to the next, and that's how they like it. They don't transform, they don't stop to smell the roses, they don't sit around recollecting long passages of their childhood - Jesus, I can hardly remember what I was doing two days ago. My point is, people aren't waiting to be restored to some ineffable moment. They're not looking for meaning. That whole idea of the novel - that's finished.

I have a horror that I will fall,” he told her conversationally, using the axe handle to lever a twisted trunk aside. “And one of these stubs that I’ve left will catch me in the thigh, right where the big artery is, and I will bleed out before I can finish cursing. And even then I will probably apologize for having cursed. My last words will be I’m sorry. Toadling croaked a laugh. It was funny and it hurt, because she was nearly certain that her last words would also be I’m sorry, or perhaps just stammering as she tried to get an apology out. “Ah, you are a toad again.” He swung the axe, then grunted as the blade bound into the dead wood and he had to wiggle it loose. “It’s for the best, I suppose. Toads probably don’t trip and fall and impale themselves on broken branches. I am feeling guilty enough for having bothered you. If you tripped on a branch, I would likely expire from guilt. The Brother Librarian said that I was almost guilt-ridden enough to join a monastery, but our faith does not have an equivalent. And if I expired from guilt, my mother would be very upset, and I would have to feel guilty about that, too. I’m babbling now, aren’t I?” “Somewhat,” said Toadling, turning back into a human in a little space in the thorns. “I thought so. I do that when I don’t know what to say. I talk to fill spaces. I’m a wretched liar. Although a good liar would probably say that, wouldn’t they?

Listen to me, Theodora Dorokhova, and listen well. You are not difficult to love—you have never been difficult to love. Whatever happened in your life to make you believe you might be is a tragedy and a betrayal, a crime against truth. Whoever told you or made you believe you’re difficult to love is a liar. You’re not difficult to love. You are so easy to love that I fell in love with you without even meaning to, I fell in love with you even when you wouldn’t let me, and I keep falling in love with you every day. I don’t even think I’ll ever stop falling in love with you. In fact, I fell in love with you earlier, when I saw you in that summer dress, and I fell in love with you five minutes ago when you were talking about James Hook. And I believe I shall fall in love with you in a few minutes when I take your hand and take you into the tree to kiss you where nobody can see us and get on my knees to worship you the way I know best. And I’ll fall in love with you this summer, when we go swimming in the lake and take road trips to Oxford, and I’ll fall in love with you every night when I take you to my bed or when you decide to be stubborn and take me to your bed instead. And I’ll fall in love with you when you finish that damnable pirate romance book, and I’ll fall in love with you when we’re in university and you’ll be angry at me for looking down my nose because I’m studying philosophy and you’re not. I’ll keep falling in love with every part of you because every part of you is perfectly, utterly lovable.” - Zachary

Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting room, as the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or sledge-hammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin, and when he did begin he made every down-stroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block, but on the whole he got on very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction.

We do eventually get dressed and look for food, although we only make it to the dining room in time for lunch. Egeria accepts her ousting as Alpha Sinta without a hint of anger or regret. Clearly, it’s what she was expecting all along. Piers is away on a recruitment trip, but the rest of the family is here and overjoyed by our wedding announcement. Jocasta decrees that we have to go shopping, now, and Kaia bounces in her seat, beyond excited about any outing that will actually get her on the other side of the castle gate. Shopping requires money, so I dig around in Griffin’s pocket under the table, letting my fingers wander enough for him to nearly choke on his stew. I find four gold coins and hold on to them. “You never pay me.” He looks aghast. “I can’t pay you anymore.” “We’re about to get married. No one’s going to confuse me with a prostitute.” Kaia spits out a grape. It bounces across the table and then lands in her mother’s lap. Kaia slaps her hand over her mouth, her blue-gray eyes huge, and Nerissa gives her a quelling look. The look finishes on me, and I might have felt a little quelled myself if Carver hadn’t suddenly made a noise like a donkey, finally belting out the laugh he’d been holding back. Anatole bangs his hand down on the table and bursts out laughing. He sounds like a donkey, too. It’s contagious, and the whole table erupts, snorting and braying until most of us are wiping tears from our eyes. I shake my head, grinning. I haven’t laughed like this in…well, ever. Nerissa eventually gets up, comes over to me, and then kisses my cheek, something that would usually make me squirm. Today, it somehow feels normal. “I always wanted to have four daughters.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Now I do.” I keep smiling like a loon even though my throat suddenly feels thick, and heat stings the backs of my eyes. I have a family that loves me. I would protect them with my life. Well, maybe not Piers, but I have a feeling he would return the sentiment

Sylphid was beginning to play professionally, and she was subbing as second harpist in the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall. She was called pretty regularly, once or twice a week, and she’d also got a job playing at a fancy restaurant in the East Sixties on Friday night. Ira would drive her from the Village up to the restaurant with her harp and then go and pick her and the harp up when she finished. He had the station wagon, and he’d pull up in front of the house and go inside and have to carry it down the stairs. The harp is in its felt cover, and Ira puts one hand on the column and one hand in the sound hole at the back and he lifts it up, lays the harp on a mattress they keep in the station wagon, and drives Sylphid and the harp uptown to the restaurant. At the restaurant he takes the harp out of the car and, big radio star that he is, he carries it inside. At ten-thirty, when the restaurant is finished serving dinner and Sylphid’s ready to come back to the Village, he goes around to pick her up and the whole operation is repeated. Every Friday. He hated the physical imposition that it was—those things weigh about eighty pounds—but he did it. I remember that in the hospital, when he had cracked up, he said to me, ‘She married me to carry her daughter’s harp! That’s why the woman married me! To haul that fucking harp!’ “On those Friday night trips, Ira found he could talk to Sylphid in ways he couldn’t when Eve was around. He’d ask her about being a movie star’s child. He’d say to her, ‘When you were a little girl, when did it dawn on you that something was up, that this wasn’t the way everyone grew up?’ She told him it was when the tour buses went up and down their street in Beverly Hills. She said she never saw her parents’ movies until she was a teenager. Her parents were trying to keep her normal and so they downplayed those movies around the house. Even the rich kid’s life in Beverly Hills with the other movie stars’ kids seemed normal enough until the tour buses stopped in front of her house and she could hear the tour guide saying, ‘This is Carlton Pennington’s house, where he lives with his wife, Eve Frame.’ “She told him about the production that birthday parties were for the movie stars’ kids—clowns, magicians, ponies, puppet shows, and every child attended by a nanny in a white nurse’s uniform. At the dining table, behind every child would be a nanny. The Penningtons had their own screening room and they ran movies. Kids would come over. Fifteen, twenty kids.

And you know what else they probably pray for every night?” I paused for a moment before saying, “Someone to save them. We could be that someone. We could end this plague. We could save the world. But I can’t do it alone. I’m gonna need your help, specifically the help of our tier 1s and tier 2s.” The crowd started murmuring to each other. “So, that’s what this speech is about—I’m asking for volunteers for this final mission. Now, I know what I’m asking, and I know it’s a lot. I’m basically asking you to risk your lives to help me fight the hardest battle ever. And I can’t guarantee your safety, nor can I guarantee our success… but still, we have to try. For the greater good, we have to try. Because we’ve come too far to give up now. That’s why we’re gonna give this one last mission our best effort. We’re gonna all come together and push hard through the finish line. And with our newly crafted dragon equipment and all the new class upgrades, I believe our chance of success is higher than ever before. So, with that in mind, what say you, my friends? Who’s with me? Who’s gonna help me put an end to the nightly plagues?” There was a brief moment of silence as my final words echoed through the night. But then Devlin spoke up. “I’m with you, Steve! Always.” “Me, too!” yelled Bob. “An epic fight between good and evil?! Can’t miss out on that!” shouted Arthur. “I got your back, bro!” yelled Obsidian Fist. Dozens of more tier 1s and 2s volunteered and made themselves heard. As I watched their hands shot up into the air, I smiled and let out a breath of relief. “Were you worried that there wouldn’t be enough volunteers?” the mayor whispered to me. “Yeah, kinda…” I whispered back. Then he smiled at me. “You’re their general, Steve. They’re not going to let you go off into battle alone… and neither would I.” He shook my hand. “Great speech, by the way. I’ll take it from here.” “Thank you, sir,” I said as I handed him the microphone. The mayor’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Alright, well said. Let’s give it up for General Steve!” Everyone clapped and cheered. “For those of you that volunteered, we’ll be heading out in a day or two. We still need to make preparations for the trip, and Cole still needs to fit the new armor to the golem suits, so all that is going to take some time. I’d suggest you use this time wisely—spend it with family, friends and loved ones. Eat with them, relax with them, be merry and carefree. Because when it is time to go, we’ll be in it to fight the battle of our lives.” The tier 1s and 2s in the crowd nodded.

As he gazed at the sun-darkened, battle-worn warriors before him, he decided that he would rather fight a hundred enemies by himself than have to stand up in public and risk the disapproval of others. Until the moment he opened his mouth, Eragon was not sure what he was going to say. Once he started, the words seemed to pour out of their own accord, but he was so tense, he could not remember much of what he said. The speech passed in a blur; his main impressions were of heat and sweat, the groans of the warriors when they learned of Nasuada’s fate, the ragged cheers when he exhorted them to victory, and the general roar from the crowd when he finished. With relief, he jumped down from the back of the wagon to where Arya and Orik were waiting next to Saphira. As he did, his guards formed a circle around the four of them, shielding them from the crowd and holding back those who wished to speak with him. “Well done, Eragon!” said Orik, clapping him on the arm. “Was it?” Eragon asked, feeling dazed. “You were most eloquent,” said Arya. Eragon shrugged, embarrassed. It intimidated him to remember that Arya had known most of the leaders of the Varden, and he could not help but think that Ajihad or his predecessor, Deynor, would have done a better job with the speech. Orik pulled on his sleeve. Eragon bent toward the dwarf. In a voice barely loud enough to be heard over the crowd, Orik said, “I hope that whatever you find is worth the trip, my friend. Take care you don’t get yourselves killed, eh?” “I’ll try not to.” To Eragon’s surprise, Orik grabbed him by the forearm and pulled him into a rough embrace. “May Gûntera watch over you.” As they separated, Orik reached over and slapped the palm of his hand against Saphira’s side. “And you as well, Saphira. Safe journeys to the both of you.” Saphira responded with a low hum. Eragon looked over at Arya. He suddenly felt awkward, unable to think of anything but the most obvious things to say. The beauty of her eyes still captivated him; the effect she had on him never seemed to lessen. Then she took his head in her hands, and she kissed him once, formally, on the brow. Eragon stared at her, dumbstruck. “Guliä waíse medh ono, Argetlam.” Luck be with you, Silverhand. As she released him, he caught her hands in his own. “Nothing bad is going to happen to us. I won’t let it. Not even if Galbatorix is waiting for us. If I have to, I’ll tear apart mountains with my bare hands, but I promise, we’re going to make it back safely.” Before she could respond, he let go of her hands and climbed onto Saphira’s back.

went off, without waiting for serving men, and unsaddled my horse, and washed such portions of his ribs and his spine as projected through his hide, and when I came back, behold five stately circus tents were up—tents that were brilliant, within, with blue, and gold, and crimson, and all manner of splendid adornment! I was speechless. Then they brought eight little iron bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a soft mattress and pillows and good blankets and two snow-white sheets on each bed. Next, they rigged a table about the centre-pole, and on it placed pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of towels—one set for each man; they pointed to pockets in the tent, and said we could put our small trifles in them for convenience, and if we needed pins or such things, they were sticking every where. Then came the finishing touch—they spread carpets on the floor! I simply said, "If you call this camping out, all right—but it isn't the style I am used to; my little baggage that I brought along is at a discount." It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables—candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell—a genuine, simon-pure bell—rang, and we were invited to "the saloon." I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates, dinner-plates—every thing, in the handsomest kind of style. It was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future! It is midnight, now, and we break camp at six in the morning. They call this camping out. At this rate it is a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

The day-to-day horror of writing gave me a notion of tournament time. Writing novels is tedious. When will this book be finished, when will it reveal its bright and shining true self? it takes freakin’ years. At the poker table, you’re only playing a fraction of the hands, waiting for your shot. If you keep your wits, can keep from flying apart while those around you are self-destructing, devouring each other, you’re halfway there. … Let them flame out while you develop a new relationship with time, and they drift away from the table. 86-7 Coach Helen’s mantra: It’s OK to be scared, but don’t play scared. 90 [During a young adult trip to Los Vegas] I was contemplating the nickel in my hand. Before we pushed open the glass doors, what the heck, I dropped it into a one-armed bandit and won two dollars. In a dank utility room deep in the subbasements of my personality, a little man wiped his hands on his overalls and pulled the switch: More. Remembering it now, I hear a sizzling sound, like meat being thrown into a hot skillet. I didn't do risk, generally. So I thought. But I see now I'd been testing the House Rules the last few years. I'd always been a goody-goody. Study hard, obey your parents, hut-hut-hut through the training exercises of Decent Society. Then in college, now that no one was around, I started to push the boundaries, a little more each semester. I was an empty seat in lecture halls, slept late in a depressive funk, handed in term papers later and later to see how much I could get away with before the House swatted me down. Push it some more. We go to casinos to tell the everyday world that we will not submit. There are rules and codes and institutions, yes, but for a few hours in this temple of pure chaos, of random cards and inscrutable dice, we are in control of our fates. My little gambles were a way of pretending that no one was the boss of me. … The nickels poured into the basin, sweet music. If it worked once, it will work again. We hit the street. 106-8 [Matt Matros, 3x bracelet winner; wrote The Making of a Poker Player]: “One way or another you’re going to have a read, and you’re going to do something that you didn’t expect you were going to do before, right or wrong. Obviously it’s better if you’re right, but even if you’re wrong, it can be really satisfying to just have a read, a feeling, and go with it. Your gut.” I could play it safe, or I could really play. 180 Early on, you wanted to stay cool and keep out of expensive confrontations, but you also needed to feed the stack. The stack is hungry. 187 The awful knowledge that you did what you set out to do, and you would never, ever top it. It was gone the instant you put your hands on it. It was gambling. 224

Kode’s older sister, Kira, was leaning over a display of jewelry, fisting a jade-green necklace in one hand. Her nose was two inches from the Braetic across the table, the two exchanging intimidating glares. Eena watched for a few seconds as Kira all but crawled over a pile of merchandise, her face scrunched up with resentment, yet enviably stunning as always. “Hey Kode,” the young queen whispered. “Hey, girl.” “What’s going on?” “Kira’s bartering.” Eena watched the fistful of necklace come within a whisker of smacking the merchant’s nose. “She isn’t going to hurt the guy, is she?” Kode snorted on a chuckle. “Not if the dude’s got any sense.” Validly concerned, Eena inched closer to the confrontation, straining to hear their growled dialogue. Kode and Niki crept closer too. Efren, however, stayed where he was, testing the flagpole’s ability to support his body weight. They watched the feisty Mishmorat hold up a small pouch and shake it in front of the Braetic’s eyes. Kira’s fingers curled like claws around the purse. She seemed to smirk for a second when the merchant flinched. In a blink he was back in her face again, shoving aside the purse. “What is she trying to trade?” Eena asked, her voice still hushed as though she might disturb the haggling taking place across the way. “Viidun coins,” Kode said. “Ef gave ‘em to her.” “Are they worth much?’ Kode grinned wryly, “He sure as hell don’t freakin’ think so.” Eena foresaw Niki’s disapproving smack to the back of Kode’s head before he even finished his sentence. He cursed at his girlfriend for the physical abuse, an unwise response that earned him an additional thump on the head. “Freakin’ tyrant,” Kode grumbled. “Vulgar grogfish,” Niki retorted. Still unable to hear well enough to satisfy her curiosity, Eena stole in closer to the scene of heated bartering. She stopped when Kira’s strong voice carried over the murmur of the crowd. Kode and his girlfriend were right on her heels. “This purse is worth ten of those gaudy necklaces. You oughta be payin’ me to take ‘em off your hands, Braetic!” “That alien money is worthless to me, Mishmorat. In all my life I’ve never left Moccobatran soil. And even if I were to take an interstellar trip someday, you’d never catch the likes of me on a barbarian planet like Rapador!” Kira jerked her head, causing her black, cascading hair to ripple over her shoulder. The action made the trader flinch again. His eyes tapered, appearing to fume over what he perceived as intentional bullying. “You ain’t gonna sell this crap to no one else,” the exotic Mishmorat said. “Be smart and take the money. Hell, you could make a dozen pieces of jewelry from these coins. Sell ’em all for ten times the worth of anything you got here.” The Braetic shoved his finger at Kira’s chest, breathing down her throat at the same time. “Why don’t you just take your pretty little backside away from my table and make your own Viidun jewelry. Sell it yourself and then come back with a reasonable offer for my necklace.” His palm opened flat, demanding she hand over the jade stones still in her fist. “You wanna make me?” Kira breathed. “What do you plan to do, steal it?” The merchant challenged her in a gesture, nostrils flaring. “I’m no thief, but I’m not above beating some sense into you ‘til you choose to barter like a respectable Braetic!” Caught up in the intense interaction, Kode supported his sister a little too loudly. “Teach the freakin’ crook a lesson, Sis!” Niki smacked her boyfriend upside the head without missing a beat.

Get dressed. We’re going hunting,” he says randomly. In my half-woke state, I feel like I’ve missed something crucial, because I don’t understand how those words are supposed to make sense. “I’m sorry, but what?” I ask, sipping the coffee like the lack of caffeine is the reason I heard him wrong. “We’re going hunting. Emit has some rogue, unregistered wolves who’ve just done something heinous and stupid, and we’re taking you with us, apparently.” “I don’t want to hunt wolves,” I point out, taking a step back, since he’s acting very un-Vance-like. “I don’t want you to hunt wolves, but apparently you’re going with us, or you’re going with him,” he says bitterly, glancing over his shoulder to where there’s a large SUV. Emit’s behind the wheel, smirking like he’s proud of all this. “Yeah, no. Thanks for the offer,” I say as I shut the door…and lock it. I sip my coffee again, as Lemon drinks hers in the kitchen. Her phone rings, and she stands and answers it, while I go to the fridge in search of something to eat. I hear the door unlocking, and look over my shoulder, as Lemon gives me a very unapologetic grin. “Sorry,” she says, confusing me. “But he’s still my alpha.” Emit walks in, filling up my doorway, before he grins over at me in a way that’s sort of…scary. “It’s not really optional,” he says before he stalks to me so fast I don’t have time to react, and I’m unceremoniously slung over his shoulder. My breath comes out in a surprised rush, and I bounce against him as my mind comes to terms with why the world has tipped upside down. Ingrid comes down the stairs with a small bag, giving me a shitty excuse for a contrite smile. “I’ll remember this,” I tell the traitorous omegas dryly, as they give me a little wave and send me on my way like this is a planned vacation. I don’t really put up a fight. I’ve never seen Emit actually determined to do anything, but clearly I’m outnumbered and out wolfed on this one... I allow a small smile as I’m dropped to my feet, and then wipe the smile away because I’m supposed to be annoyed... I climb in as my backpack and small duffel finish flopping to a stop, and close my robe a little more before digging for my boots. “We’ve got everything here under control! Don’t worry about deliveries or the store,” Leiza calls very excitedly, bouncing on her feet. “This is a hunting trip to kill things, right?” I ask Vance directly, though my eyes are on the very happy omegas, who are animatedly waving from the porch now. “Yes,” he states in a tone that assures me he’s not one bit happy I’m here. “Why are they treating it like I’m going on spring break?” I ask, genuinely concerned about their level of enthusiasm. I thought they were a little saner than this. Emit snorts, but clears his expression quickly. “Do I want to know what spring break is a euphemism for?” Vance asks Emit. “You’re really that old?” I groan. “Do you know how long a century is?” Vance asks me dryly. “I averaged a C on vocab tests, so yeah,” I retort, matching his condescension. Emit releases a rumble of laughter, as his body shakes with the force. Then he pulls out and begins to drive us off on our hunt. I’m so not adjusting this fast, but it seems I have no choice in the matter. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining size and momentum. Either I’ll boulder through anything when I reach the bottom, or I’ll simply go splat into a mountainside. “Do you know how quickly the vernacular shifts and accents devolve, evolve, or simply cease to exist?” Vance asks me. Now I feel a little talked down to. “No.” “I swear he used to be fun,” Emit tells me, smiling at me through the rearview

In almost all cases, the objective of a trip is paradoxical. You ultimately want to return to the starting point safely. Writing fiction is the same; no matter how far you go, or a how deep a place you go to, in the end when you finish writing, you have to return to the place where you started. That is the final destination. However, the starting point to which you return is never the starting point where you actually started. The scenery is the same, and the faces are the same, and things placed there are the same. However, something fundamental has changed significantly. That's what we discover; it's your discovery. To know that difference is also one of your prime objectives - or at least to acknowledge that difference.

Why’re you staring at the hedge?’ he said suspiciously. ‘I’m trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire,’ said Harry. Dudley stumbled backwards at once, a look of panic on his fat face. ‘You c-can’t – Dad told you you’re not to do m-magic – he said he’ll chuck you out of the house – and you haven’t got anywhere else to go – you haven’t got any friends to take you –’ ‘Jiggery pokery!’ said Harry in a fierce voice. ‘Hocus pocus … squiggly wiggly …’ ‘MUUUUUUM!’ howled Dudley, tripping over his feet as he dashed back towards the house. ‘MUUUUM! He’s doing you know what!’ Harry paid dearly for his moment of fun. As neither Dudley nor the hedge was in any way hurt, Aunt Petunia knew he hadn’t really done magic, but he still had to duck as she aimed a heavy blow at his head with the soapy frying pan. Then she gave him work to do, with the promise he wouldn’t eat again until he’d finished.

particular, identify a deep task (that is, something that requires deep work to complete) that’s high on your priority list. Estimate how long you’d normally put aside for an obligation of this type, then give yourself a hard deadline that drastically reduces this time. If possible, commit publicly to the deadline—for example, by telling the person expecting the finished project when they should expect it. If this isn’t possible (or if it puts your job in jeopardy), then motivate yourself by setting a countdown timer on your phone and propping it up where you can’t avoid seeing it as you work. At this point, there should be only one possible way to get the deep task done in time: working with great intensity—no e-mail breaks, no daydreaming, no Facebook browsing, no repeated trips to the coffee machine.

In this position, she was able to control his depth. What an amazing feeling it was to have all that sinewy power beneath her, his robust body braced between her thighs. There was a flicker of challenge in his eyes, and his hips nudged upward in playful invitation. Helen moved carefully, rising and lowering, catching her breath at the hot slide of him within her. He was patient, letting her experiment, while his heart beat like a trip-hammer beneath her flattened palms. She found a gliding back-and-forth motion that sent spasms of heat through her. Judging from his ardent groan, he seemed to enjoy it as well. His mouth caught at the tips of her breasts whenever she moved high enough, and she began to delight in teasing him, sometimes letting him have what he wanted, sometimes withholding. The ribbon had come loose from her hair, the curtain of silvery locks tickling his face and chest. "You like to torment me," Rhys said, his eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure. "Yes." In fact, it was fun, enormously exciting fun of a kind she'd never imagined. The hint of a grin crossed his lips and vanished quickly as she plunged harder, filling herself with him. He began to answer her rhythm in earnest, fisting his hands in the bedclothes. She loved the sight of him lost to passion, his head tilted back and his strong throat exposed, the muscles of his chest sharply delineated. A storm of sensation swept through her, and her shuddering body locked on him. He continued to thrust, the movements becoming jerky and forceful, finishing in a powerful shove that arched his hips and most of his back completely off the bed.

As we sat together on a mid-river boulder, the shadows crossed the water and the sun sank lower. We looked into each other’s eyes and talked about all the things we loved. I realized then that there was no turning back: I had fallen in love with Steve. As the sun set, we made our way back across the boulders before it got dark. “Nighttime is croc time,” Steve told me. “It’s important to get off the water before they are active and hunting.” Back in camp, Steve started cooking. I asked if I could help. He waved me off. “My trip, my treat,” he said. I sat with my lemonade and watched the river as it changed with darkness coming on, and enjoyed the smell of onions cooking and steaks frying. I could hear the soft flapping noise of the fruit bats overhead. At first there were just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds, crossing above the crowns of paperbark trees and honey myrtles. In the last glimmer of light they looked surreal, spooky and beautiful, gliding across the darkening sky. I felt pleasantly tired, but Steve seemed more energized the longer we stayed in the bush. I would see it again and again over the years. This was where Steve belonged, and where he seemed most alive. We finished dinner, and Steve popped the dishes into the dishpan. “Right,” he said. “We’ll leave them to soak and come back to clean up later.” We jumped into the boat and headed back up the river. This was Steve’s favorite time. I hadn’t understood what he was doing on our first trip earlier that afternoon. He had memorized where he had seen the slides. While during the day we hadn’t spotted a single croc, almost immediately after getting on the water, Steve shone his spotlight across the inky blackness and picked up the red eye-shine of crocs. As we slowly idled the boat upstream, the red orbs would blink and then vanish as the crocodiles submerged on our approach. Suddenly I felt terribly exposed in the little dinghy. The beautiful melaleuca trees that had looked so spectacular during the day now hung eerily over the water, as their leaves dipped and splashed in the black water. Fish came alive too. Everything made more noise in the dark.

Did I ever tell you that we used to keep our horses where your house is?” “Yeah,” I mumbled. She continued her story, “My brothers used to get up early every morning and go across the street, well, there wasn’t a street there yet. It was just a dirt road, and they used to get up and clean the stables and feed the horses every morning. I would go over there once they had finished and give the horses a brush, even though none of those horses were mine. I had always wanted my own horse, but I never got one. When my father got older, he got rid of the horses and sold the land, all but this yard here." She spread her hand over the yard as she said this. "I grew up and got married and had to move away. My husband and I lived in an apartment above a bread store. And it was so cramped, let me tell you. There was nowhere to move around and no yard to take care of. It was terrible. I’m not saying I wanted my husband to die. I’d never have wished that in a million years. But I was so relieved to come home after two years, and I've lived here ever since." I had stopped raking, turned and looked at her. "I know why you don’t want to leave this street," she said, "You’ve been in that house your whole life, just like me. And no matter where you go it’s not going to seem like home. But just like me, you’re going to come back. You have to remind yourself of that. And I did hate being away from home, but it was the most memorable time in my life, being away. It was an adventure as much as it was scary. But when I came home, I learned to get out more. I went to beauty school and got a job at the salon and took trips with friends. I like to get away from the house so that I can come back and still appreciate it. And you will too after you come back.” I nodded at Violet. What she was saying made sense. “I’ll go,” I said, “Tell them I’ll go.” - The Stable House

You will be warm with me in my lodge? I have many buffalo robes. And plenty food. Meat, yes? And my strong arm will protect you, forever into the horizon. There is nothing to fear.” He pressed his hand more firmly against her midriff. “My tongue does not make lies. It is the truth I speak, not penende taquoip, the honey talk, but a promise. I have spoken the words, and they are carried away on the wind to whisper to me always. You will trust? When I go away from you on raids and hunting trips, my brother’s strong arm will be yours. No harm will come to you.” Loretta swallowed. His brother? The man who had helped pour water down her, she guessed. The one he called Warrior. “You can seek death another time. Te-bit-ze, sure enough. But first, you will see what lies on the horizon. It is wisdom.” “I want--” Tension and disuse strung her voice so taut, it twanged like a harp cord. “I want to go home.” “That cannot be. You go with me--to a new place. You are my woman, eh? You have said it, I have said it. Suvate, it is finished.” “I’m not your woman,” she cried. “You stole me from my family.” “I traded many fine horses.” “You bought me, then. And that’s just as--” Loretta craned her neck and stared up at his carved features. “I’m a person, not a thing.” “The white men have slaves, and this is okay, yes? Your Gray Coats fight the great fight so you can own black men. Is this not so? This Comanche has a slave, too. It is good.” “No! It’s not good. It’s monstrous.” She passed a hand over her eyes. “I’ll die before I let you touch me. You hear me?” “Ah, but Blue Eyes, I tough you now.” He slid his hand up her ribs and gently cupped her breast. “You see? I touch you, and you do not die. There is nothing to fear.

Your heart holds great love for her.” “Yes. Those terrible men-- She’s just a little girl. They’ve already had her for eight days. I can think of nothing else. Even in my sleep I dream about what could be happening to her, hear her calling for me. I try to find her, and I can’t.” He grasped her chin, his touch deceptively gentle, as it had always been. “This night, you will sleep without dreams. I have said I will find her. Suvate, it is finished.” With that, he left the lodge. A few minutes later he returned. After donning a pair of buckskin pants, which he pulled on while still wearing his breechcloth, he gathered his weapons, making several trips outside to his horse. When he had collected everything he needed, he sat on a fur pallet, propped a small shaving mirror on his knees, and painted his face, outlining his eyes with black graphite and striping his chin thrice with crimson. Loretta sat on the edge of the bed watching him. When he finished he glanced over at her. She was seeing Hunter the killer for the first time. On the one hand, he looked so fierce that he terrified her; on the other, she felt strangely reassured. Such a brutal, grimly determined man would be able to find and rescue Amy when another might fail. “What does the paint say?” she asked. “That this Comanche rides for war.” “War?” she whispered. “Santos will know by the paint that I come in anger.” “Will there be a fight? Amy might get hurt.” “Your Aye-mee will suffer no harm.” He rose and put away his paints, cleaning his hands on a swatch of cloth. Turning to face her, he said, “My brother, Warrior, and my good friend Swift Antelope will remain beside you. Their strong arms are yours.” He motioned for her to stand. “I take you to Warrior now. You will sleep in his lodge circle. No harm, eh?

Hunter was sitting under a brush arbor, tossing dice with several men, when Blackbird came tearing up the path between the lodges, screaming, “The yellow-hair! She’s back, Uncle! She’s back!” Accustomed as he was to Blackbird’s mischief, Hunter ignored her while he finished a throw. Then he swept the child onto his lap and growled like a bear, playfully biting her belly. He knew something was amiss when Blackbird didn’t let loose with her usual cackles of glee. “The yellow-hair! She’s come back!” Blackbird caught his face between her tiny hands so he had no choice but to look at her. “She isn’t moving. I think she’s waiting for you.” Hunter’s heart tripped. “If you’re teasing me, you little weasel, I’ll toss you into a prickly pear.” Blackbird’s eyes danced. “She’s here! Grandmother sent me to tell you. Nabone, look!” Hunter set the child aside and left the arbor. He shaded his brow against the sun. Up on the plateau, he could see the distinct silhouette of a white woman on a horse. As he walked up the path between the lodges, the breeze caught her hair and lifted it. Gold glinted in the sunshine.

His book For Whom the Bell Tolls was an instant success in the summer of 1940, and afforded him the means to live in style at his villa outside of Havana with his new wife Mary Welsh, whom he married in 1946. It was during this period that he started getting headaches and gaining weight, frequently becoming depressed. Being able to shake off his problems, he wrote a series of books on the Land, Air and Sea, and later wrote The Old Man and the Sea for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1954. Hemingway on a trip to Africa where he barely survived two successive airplane crashes. Returning to Cuba, Ernest worked reshaping the recovered work and wrote his memoir, A Moveable Feast. He also finished True at First Light and The Garden of Eden. Being security conscious, he stored his works in a safe deposit box at a bank in Havana. His home Finca Vigía had become a hub for friends and even visiting tourists. It was reliably disclosed to me that he frequently enjoyed swinger’s parties and orgies at his Cuban home. In Spain after divorcing Frank Sinatra Hemingway introduced Ava Gardner to many of the bullfighters he knew and in a free for all, she seduced many of hotter ones. After Ava Gardner’s affair with the famous Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín crashed, she came to Cuba and stayed at Finca Vigía, where she had what was termed to be a poignant relationship with Ernest. Ava Gardner swam nude in the pool, located down the slope from the Hemingway house, after which he told his staff that the water was not to be emptied. An intimate friendship grew between Hemingway’s forth and second wife, Mary and Pauline. Pauline often came to Finca Vigia, in the early 1950s, and likewise Mary made the crossing of the Florida Straits, back to Key West several times. The ex-wife and the current wife enjoyed gossiping about their prior husbands and lovers and had choice words regarding Ernest. In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba during the revolution, and was delighted that Batista, who owned the nearby property, that later became the location of the dismal Pan Americana Housing Development, was overthrown. He shared the love of fishing with Fidel Castro and remained on good terms with him. Reading the tea leaves, he decided to leave Cuba after hearing that Fidel wanted to nationalize the properties owned by Americans and other foreign nationals. In the summer of 1960, while working on a manuscript for Life magazine, Hemingway developed dementia becoming disorganized and confused. His eyesight had been failing and he became despondent and depressed. On July 25, 1960, he and his wife Mary left Cuba for the last time. He never retrieved his books or the manuscripts that he left in the bank vault. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban government took ownership of his home and the works he left behind, including an estimated 5,000 books from his personal library. After years of neglect, his home, which was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886, has now been largely restored as the Hemingway Museum. The museum, overlooking San Francisco de Paula, as well as the Straits of Florida in the distance, houses much of his work as well as his boat housed near his pool.

Tina, who clearly had it in mind to dazzle her new husband in the kitchen, wanted desperately to learn the secrets of Angelina's red gravy. So they picked a Sunday afternoon soon after New Year's and Angelina hauled out her mother's old sausage grinder and stuffer. Gia had volunteered to make the trip to the butcher's shop and brought back good hog casings, a few pounds of beautifully marbled pork butt and shoulder glistening with clean, white fat, and a four-pound beef chuck roast. It wasn't every that the grinder came out for fresh homemade sausages and meatballs, but it wasn't every day that Gia and Angelina teamed up to pass on the Mother Recipe to the next generation. Gia patiently instructed Tina on the proper technique for flushing and preparing the casings, then set them aside while Angelina showed her how to build the sauce: start with white onion, fresh flat-leaf parsley, and deep red, extra-sweet frying peppers; add copious amounts of garlic (chopped not so finely); season with sea salt, crushed red pepper, and freshly ground black pepper; simmer and sweat on a medium flame in good olive oil; generously sprinkle with dried herbs from the garden (palmfuls of oregano, rosemary, and basil); follow with a big dollop of thick, rich tomato paste; cook down some more until all of the ingredients were completely combined; pour in big cans of fresh-packed crushed tomatoes and a cup of red wine (preferably a Sangiovese or a Barolo); reseason, finish with fresh herbs; bring to a high simmer, then down to a low flame; walk away.

What you are hearing, Mr. James,” Mounir whispered to me, “is the sound of ancient Egypt. The chords these women are singing go back to Pharaonic times.” “What is Christian for you and me is Pharaonic for these women, it seems.” “Much of what we believe to be Christian in our rituals and beliefs comes from our ancient inheritance,” Mounir finally admitted. “Let us hope, Mounir,” I added, “that before we finish this trip, we might begin to know what it means to be Egyptian, Christian, and Muslim all in one.

By late January 2014, Tesla had completed the construction of a cross-country Supercharger corridor that would allow Model S drivers to get from Los Angeles to New York without having to spend a penny on energy. The electric highway took a northern route through Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Illinois, before approaching New York from Delaware. The path it cut was similar to a trip taken by Musk and his brother, Kimbal, in a beat-up 1970s BMW 320i in 1994. Within days of the route’s completion, Tesla staged a cross-country rally to show that the Model S could easily handle long-distance driving, even in the dead of winter. Two hot-pepper-red Model S’s, driven by members of the Supercharging team, left Tesla’s Los Angeles–based design studio just after midnight on Thursday, January 30. Tesla planned to finish the trip at New York’s City Hall on the night of February 1, the day before Super Bowl XLVIII, which would take place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just across the state line. Along the way, the cars would drive through some of the snowiest and most frigid places in the country, in one of the coldest weeks of the year. The trip took a little longer than expected. The rally encountered a wild snowstorm in the Rocky Mountains that temporarily closed the road over Vail Pass and then provided an icy entrance to Wyoming. Somewhere in South Dakota, one of the rally’s diesel support vans broke down, forcing its occupants to catch a flight from Sioux Falls to rejoin the rest of the crew in Chicago. And in Ohio, the cars powered through torrential rains as the fatigued crew pressed on for the final stretch. It was 7:30 A.M. on Sunday, February 2, when the Teslas rolled up to New York’s City Hall on a bright, mild morning. The 3,427-mile journey had taken 76 hours and 5 minutes—just over three days. The cars had spent a total of 15 hours and 57 seconds charging along the way,

Jesse finishes scanning the paper and looks up over my shoulder in outrage. “Where’s my fucking trip to Vegas?” he scolds Nate. “You broke my fucking rib,” Nate reminds him.

After days, weeks and months spent waiting to escape from the crazed normality of day-to-day life, it makes no sense to race through the wilderness and finish a trip early.

Trisha shook her head in total disbelief as she silently mourned inside herself, Genesis had run the race of love and almost won, only to stumble and trip over the rock of Cherise's rejection just before he'd reached the finish line and it seemed so unfair.

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It would take me three hours to summit Algonquin Peak-at 5,115 feet, the second-highest mountain in the Adirondacks. Here I would complete my three-month journey, add my last quest bird (plus the last non-quest bird of the trip), and finish up with a live radio interview with Ray Brown on his show, Talkin' Birds.

A grocery store trip could become an adventure by turning it into a family competition (who can finish their portion of the list first?) or by adding a stop at an international grocery store or a farmer’s market. If you work from home, you’ll take breaks at some point, so why not use one for a fifteen-minute bike ride?

knowledge of the environment helped her: she just walked calmly by the creatures, confident that they generally do not attack humans. The stream supplied her with ample clean water and a natural path through the dense rainforest. But it gave her no real food. The only sustenance she had was some candy she had found scattered by the wreckage. She also had several open lacerations which were vulnerable to parasites. After a few days, Juliane became aware of an unusual sensation in one of the cuts on her arm. It felt a bit like an infection, but it became increasingly irritating, as if there was something in the wound. When she looked she discovered that a fly had laid its eggs in the hole in her arm. They had hatched and now maggots were writhing within her flesh. Terrified that she would lose her arm, there was little she could do without proper medical attention. As each day passed she became weaker and more vulnerable. Was she right to have followed her father’s advice? What if there were no human settlements for hundreds of miles? Maybe she should have waited to be rescued. But then, on the tenth day, she stumbled out of the jungle and almost tripped over a canoe. There was a shelter beside it, and there she waited. A few hours later, the lumberjacks who lived in the shelter finished their day’s work

When he finished he had a magnificent house, perched on the edge of a precipice at whose feet the ocean thundered, but it was a house that knew no happiness, for shortly after Whip had moved in with his third wife, the Hawaiian-Chinese beauty Ching-ching, who was pregnant at the time, she had caught him fooling around with the brothel girls that flourished in the town of Kapaa. Without even a scene of recrimination, Ching-ching had simply ordered a carriage and driven back to the capital town of Lihune, where she boarded an H & H steamer for Honolulu. She divorced Whip but kept both his daughter Iliki and his yet-unborn son John. Now there were two Mrs. Whipple Hoxworths in Honolulu and they caused some embarrassment to the more staid community. There was his first wife, Iliki Janders Hoxworth, who moved in only the best missionary circles, and there was Ching-ching Hoxworth who lived within the Chinese community. The two never met, but Howxworth & Hale saw to it that each received a monthly allowance. The sums were generous, but not so much so as those sent periodically Wild Whip's second wife, the fiery Spanish girl named Aloma Duarte Hoxworth, whose name frequently appeared in New York and London newspapers... p623 When the polo players had departed, when the field kitchens were taken down, and when the patient little Japanese gardeners were tending each cut in the polo turf as if it were a personal wound, Wild Whip would retire to his sprawling mansion overlooking the sea and get drunk. He was never offensive and never beat anyone while intoxicated. At such times he stayed away from the brothels in Kapaa and away from the broad lanai from which he could see the ocean. In a small, darkened room he drank, and as he did so he often recalled his grandfather's words: "Girls are like stars, and you could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different." It was now apparent to Whip, in his forty-fifth year, that for him the moon did not intend to rise. Somehow he had missed encountering the woman whom he could love as his grandfather had loved the Hawaiian princess Noelani. He had known hundreds of women, but he had found none that a man could permanently want or respect. Those who were desirable were mean in spirit and those who were loyal were sure to be tedious. It was probably best, he thought at such times, to do as he did: know a couple of the better girls at Kapaa, wait for some friend's wife who was bored with her husband, or trust that a casual trip through the more settled camps might turn up some workman's wife who wanted a little excitement. It wasn't a bad life and was certainly less expensive in the long run than trying to marry and divorce a succession of giddy women; but often when he had reached this conclusion, through the bamboo shades of the darkened room in which he huddled a light would penetrate, and it would be the great moon risen from the waters to the east and now passing majestically high above the Pacific. It was an all-seeing beacon, brillant enough to make the grassy lawns on Hanakai a sheet of silver, probing enough to find any mansion tucked away beneath the casuarina trees. When this moon sought out Wild Whip he would first draw in his feet, trying like a child to evade it, but when it persisted he often rose, threw open the lanai screens, and went forth to meet it. p625

You do know who I am, don’t you, Trip? You understand how serious I am about protecting my clients while paving their way into history. Can you really be that stupid to think I would take you at your word? I protect my investments…even from themselves.” “I have a wife, daughters.” “You should have thought of them before you hired two sex workers in less than twenty-four hours.” He was visibly shaking now. “I warned you what would happen if you crossed me,” I reminded him. “I didn’t cross you. This isn’t what it looks like,” he sputtered. “The girl you hired this morning? She turned eighteen last week. Your oldest daughter is what? Sixteen?” I asked. “I-It’s a sex addiction. I’ll get help,” Trip decided. “We’ll keep it quiet, I’ll get treatment, and everything will be fine.” I shook my head. “I see it’s not sinking in yet. You’re finished. There’s no way for you to throw yourself on the mercy of the court of public opinion, because they’ll eat you alive. Especially seeing as how you missed the vote on veterans benefits because you were paying to have your cock sucked.” Little beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “You threw it all away because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants. Your career, your future. Your family. Your wife will leave you. Your daughters are old enough that they’ll hear every salacious detail of Daddy’s extracurricular sex life. They’ll never look at you the same again.” I nodded at the open folder in his lap. “I’ve already had a press release drafted about how my firm was forced to sever ties with you after learning about your sexual exploits.” He closed his eyes, and I had to turn away when his lip began to tremble. “Please. Don’t do this. I’ll do anything,” he begged. He was yet another weak, pathetic addition to the long list of men who risked everything just to get off. “I’ll give you a choice. You’ll resign from Congress immediately. You’ll go home and tell your wife and daughters that you had an epiphany and that your time together is precious. You don’t want to work a job that keeps you away from them so much anymore. You’ll go to fucking therapy. Or you won’t. You’ll save your marriage or you won’t. One thing you won’t do is ever cheat on your wife again. Because if you do, I’ll deliver copies of every photo and every video to your wife, your parents, your church, and every member of the media between here and fucking Atlanta.” Trip put his head in his hands and let out a broken moan. I almost wished he’d put up more of a fight, then smothered that feeling. “Get out. Go home, and don’t ever give me a reason to share the information I’ve collected.” “I can be better. I can do better,” he said, rising from the chair like a puppet on strings. “I don’t give a fuck,” I said, leading the way to the door. He was weak. No one could build a foundation on weakness.

I once said to her on the phone, "Jann, this group of kids in Newfoundland have won a spot at a rock camp showcase in Madrid. They are fundraising. They need to raise ten thousand more dollars if they are going to make the trip." Before I could finish talking, she said, "Okay, I'll give them five grand, you do the same, and it's done, easy." I answered, "I was going to suggest we sign a picture for them for their auction." Thanks to Jann, they made the trip. She changed the lives of a group of teenage rock and rollers that she didn't know.

Move, Shaun,” Yaya said again. This time she looked me dead in my eyes. The fire dancing in her beautiful orbs dared me not to do what the fuck she said. “This isn’t about you. That ho put her hands on me, so I’ma give her what the fuck she wants!” Standing here, I thought back to when she kept me from beating Erik’s ass. Had that nigga put his hands on me, nothing anyone would’ve done could’ve saved him. I understood where Yaya was coming from, which was why I faked like she pushed my big ass to give her enough space to leap off of the sofa. No one was holding Shayla back, so she immediately went to swing on Yaya. Dodging that shit like a pro, Yaya delivered a right hook to Shayla’s face that made Shayla’s neck snap back. Shayla stumbled backward as her arms flailed, trying to keep up with Yaya. Yaya’s ass delivered straight blows to Shayla’s face—no hair pulling. It only took a handful of punches for Shayla to trip and bust her ass on the marble floors. Instead of Yaya jumping on top of Shayla to finish her off, Yaya backed away, shaking her head. “Next time I won’t be so fuckin’ nice,” she stated too fucking calmly. Everyone in the section followed Yaya’s switching ass as she went back to the table to pour her a drink. She plopped down on the sofa and crossed her legs. Her bare foot swayed as she sipped her drink as if nothing just happened. Damn, this girl was the truth!

And the funny, impish magic of a wrap party is that everyone still has scraps of their characters hanging off them like Salome’s veils, fluttering, fading, but not quite finished tangling the tongue and tripping the feet. You’re not in Wonderland anymore, but you positively reek of rabbit.

AMERICAN WHEAT OR RYE BEER Refreshing wheat or rye beers can display more hop character and less yeast character than their German cousins. This is a beginner-level style that can be brewed by extract or all-grain methods. Ferments at 65° F (18° C). OG FG IBU Color Alcohol 1.040-1.055 (10-13.6 °P) 1.008-1.013 (2.1-3.3 °P) 15-30 3-6 SRM 6-12 EBC 4-5.5% ABV 3.2-4.3% ABW Keys to Brewing American Wheat or Rye Beer: This easy-drinking beer style usually has a subtly grainy wheat character, slightly reminiscent of crackers. The hop flavor and aroma are more variable, with some versions having no hop character, while others have a fairly noticeable citrus or floral flair. Even when the hops are more prominent, they should not be overwhelming, and the hop bitterness should be balanced. The rye version of this style has a slight spicy, peppery note from the addition of rye in place of some or all of the wheat. The key mistake many brewers make is in assuming that American wheat beer should be similar to German hefeweizen. However, this style should not have the clove and banana character of a hefeweizen. This beer should not be as malty (bready) as a German hefeweizen, either, so all-grain brewers will want to use a less malty American two-row malt. To get the right fermentation profile, it is important to use a fairly neutral yeast strain, one that doesn’t produce a lot of esters like the German wheat yeasts do. While you can substitute yeast like White Labs WLP001 California Ale, Wyeast 1056 American Ale, or Fermentis Safale US-05, a better choice is one that provides some crispness, such as an altbier or Kölsch yeast, and fermentation at a cool temperature. RECIPE: KENT'S HOLLOW LEG It was the dead of winter and I was in Amarillo, Texas, on a business trip with Kent, my co-worker. That evening at dinner I watched as Kent drank a liter of soda, several glasses of water, and three or four liters of American wheat beer. I had a glass of water and one liter of beer, and I went to the bathroom twice. Kent never left the table. When I asked Kent about his superhuman bladder capacity, he thought it was due to years of working as a programmer glued to his computer and to the wonderful, easy-drinking wheat beer. This recipe is named in honor of Kent’s amazing bladder capacity. This recipe has a touch more hop character than many bottled, commercial examples on the market, but a lot less than some examples you might find. If you want less hop character, feel free to drop the late hop additions. If you really love hops and want to make a beer with lots of hop flavor and aroma, increase the late hop amounts as you see fit. However, going past the amounts listed below might knock it out of consideration in many competitions for being “too hoppy for style,” no matter how well it is brewed. OG: 1.052 (12.8 °P) FG: 1.012 (3.0 °P) ADF: 77% IBU: 20 Color: 5 SRM (10 EBC) Alcohol: 5.3% ABV (4.1% ABW) Boil: 60 minutes Pre-Boil Volume: 7 gallons (26.5L) Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.044 (11.0 °P) Extract Weight Percent Wheat LME (4 °L) 8.9 lbs. (4.03kg) 100 Hops   IBU Willamette 5.0% AA, 60 min. 1.0 oz. (28g) 20.3 Willamette 5.0% AA, 0 min. 0.3 oz. (9g) 0 Centennial 9.0% AA, 0 min. 0.3 oz. (9g) 0 Yeast White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen, Wyeast 1010 American Wheat, or Fermentis Safale US-05 Fermentation and Conditioning Use 10 grams of properly rehydrated dry yeast, 2 liquid yeast packages, or make a starter. Ferment at 65° F (18° C). When finished, carbonate the beer to approximately 2.5 volumes. All-Grain Option Replace the wheat extract with 6 lbs. (2.72kg) American two-row malt and 6 lbs. (2.72kg) wheat malt. Mash at 152° F (67° C). Rye Option This beer can also be made with a portion of malted rye. The rye gives the beer a slightly spicy note and adds a certain creamy mouthfeel. Replace the wheat extract with 6 lbs. (2.72kg) American two-row malt, 3.75 lbs. (1.70kg) rye malt, and 3 lbs. (1.36kg) wheat malt. Mash at 152° F (67° C).

To walk the path of creating things of lasting value, we have to understand elements as diverse as the needs of the people we’re working with, the shape that the work will take, the structure of the arguments we make, and the process of what happens after we “finish.” To make that possible, we need to give ourselves space to think. When we have space to think, we can attend to the problem of why and so what before we get tripped up in how.

The student with whom Hal shared a bedroom, Englishman John Abel Smith, bore educational credentials that Hal could only dimly conceive. John was the namesake of a renowned merchant banker and British Member of Parliament. He had attended Eton, one of the world’s most famous preparatory schools, before entering Cambridge, where he had “read” under the personal tutelage of English scholars. Hal began to understand the difference between his public-school education and the background of his roommates when he surveyed them relative to a reading list he came across. It was titled, “One Hundred Books Every Educated Person Ought to Have Read.” George Montgomery and Powell Cabot had read approximately seventy and eighty, respectively. John Abel Smith had read all but four. Hal had read (though not necessarily finished) six. Hal also felt his social inferiority. He had long known that his parents weren’t fashionable. His mother never had her hair done in a beauty parlor. His father owned only one pair of dress shoes at a time and frequently took long trips abroad with nothing but his briefcase and a single change of underwear, washing his clothes—including a “wash-and-wear” suit—in hotel sinks at night. That was part of the reason why Hal took an expensive tailored suit—a broad-shouldered pinstripe—and a new fedora hat to Boston. He knew that he needed to rise to a new level, fashion-wise. But he realized that his fashion statement had failed when Powell Cabot asked, late in October, to borrow his suit and hat. Hal’s swell of pride turned to chagrin when Powell explained his purpose—he had been invited to a Halloween costume party, and he wanted to go as a gangster.

others.We must be good stewards of our physical and mental health while at the same time carefully avoiding the things that can trip us up. In these ways we accomplish our first strategy to live well till the end.

Buster finished off his soup as he watched the other people pass by the window: a woman walking a collie puppy on a frayed leash, people in dress coats hurrying through the wind and shouting into their cell phones, a parade of young women picking their way through the slush in high heels. He was beginning to think that, at last, he had deciphered the reason women wore high-heeled shoes: to keep from tripping on their pant legs. Though, of course, that raised the question of why they felt they needed such long pants, in the first place. It was a never-ending battle, understanding women – and other people, in general.

Let me ask you something.” Davis took a sip of his coffee. “Is the thought of marrying me so horrible that you’d rather suffer through all this?” She inhaled deeply, fighting the tears rising in her eyes. “I have nothing against you personally. Truly I don’t. You seem like a nice enough man, but I really don’t know you. However, that aside, it is my intention to return to Indiana when we reach Oregon. So you see I can’t get married. Not to you, not to anyone.” Davis put his cup down and reached toward Emma. He put his fingers gently under her chin, turning her head until he looked directly into her eyes. “What makes you think you’ll be able to get back to Indiana once you reach Oregon?” “I’ll hire someone, sell my wagon, and do whatever I need to. I will go back to Indiana.” Her words were not as forceful as she intended. Looking directly into Davis’s eyes with the firelight dancing in front of them made it difficult to catch her breath. Her heart pounded, but she attributed it to her annoyance at having to explain herself. “Ah, darlin’, you won’t be able to do that. Once you’ve finished this trip, believe me, there is no way you’ll want to set out again.” He began to slowly rub his thumb over her chin. “I hear Oregon is a fine place to settle.” “I want to go back to Indiana.” Emma jerked away from his touch. “I was happy there.

You do seem different.” He touched her arms, pulled her in closer. “I’m happy to see you too, if you’d know. I think I missed you a bit.” “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” “I’m certain I could think of something nicer.” He looked up, thinking before turning back to her again. “I’m sorry about what I said before. All the other women I’ve seen at Pembrook Park seemed to be toying with ideas of affairs while their husbands were on business trips. I couldn’t reconcile what I knew of the women who come here and what I knew of you. When I saw you that day walking with Mr. Nobley and the others, I realized you’re here because you’re not satisfied--you’re looking for something. And when I finally realized that, can you imagine how lucky I felt that out of everyone, you would choose me?” “Thanks,” she said. “That was honest and encouraging, but Martin, you were going for nice.” “I wasn’t finished yet! I also wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful.” “That’s better.” “Unbelievably beautiful. And…and I don’t know how to say it. I’m not very good at saying what I’m thinking. But you make me feel like myself.” He swept a loose lock of hair from her forehead. “You remind me of my sister.” “Oh, really? You have that kind of sister?” “Yes, confident, funny…” “No, I meant the kind that you want to smooch.” Martin swept her up again, this time in a more romantic style than the over-the-shoulder baggage. She fit her arm around his neck and let him kiss her. She pressed her hand to his chest, trying to detect if his heart was pounding like hers. She peered at him and saw a little frown line between his eyes. “No, my sister doesn’t kiss half so well.” He walked her around, singing some ludicrous lullaby as though she were a baby, then set her down on a tree stump so they were nearly the same height. “Martin, could you lose your job over this?” He traced the line of her cheek with his finger. “At the moment, I don’t care.” “I’ll talk to Mrs. Wattlesbrook about it at our departure meeting tomorrow, but I don’t think my opinion means much to her.” “It might. Thank you.” Then there was silence and with it a hint of ending, and Jane realized she wasn’t quite ready for it. Martin was the first real guy she’d ever been able to relax with, turn off the obsessive craziness and just have fun. She needed to be with him longer and practice up for the real world. “I’m supposed to leave tomorrow,” she said, “but I can stay a couple more days, change my flight. I could find a hotel in London, far away from Wattlesbrook’s scope of vision, and I could see you. Just hang out a bit before I go home, no weirdness, no pressure, I promise.” He smiled broadly. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse because I’m simply mad to see you in pants. I have a feeling you have a very nice bum.

You cannot be serious.” “I am.” “You need another favor?” It’s two weeks after the Vail trip and a week since I saw him last—when I did laundry at his house. And other stuff. “Don’t you still owe me two favors?” “So I’ll owe you three, which is a big deal. You could cash in three favors for one really big favor.” Yes. Yes, my mind does instantly detour into the gutter. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “Chloe. I’m not even making this up. I really need your help.” “What is it? I’m not getting on an airplane.” “Meet me at the book store down the street. At 18th and Walnut.” “The book store?” I ask, my voice dripping sarcasm. “Really, Boyd? Are you being serious right now or is this one of your weird come-on lines? ‘Oh, Chloe, I’ll do your laundry,’” I purr into the phone in a sexy voice. “‘Chloe, I have an emergency at the book store. Hurry,’” I add in the same tone. “Please, Boyd,” I finish, my voice back to snarky. He laughs, his voice a throaty chuckle over the phone, and I can picture his smile as he does. I wonder if he shaved today or if he’s sporting the day-old scruff look. “No, this is legitimate. Hurry up.” Then he hangs up on me before I can object again. What a weirdo. But I put my shoes on all the same.

practice. It may save your life on this trip.”   “Hmm…okay, I guess you’re right.”   After eating, we got up and headed towards a herd of sheep.   “Here, take this stone sword and whack a sheep,” I said to Bob.   “Just whack it?”   “Yeah, just swing as hard as you can at the sheep.”   Bob grabbed the sword and walked up to a sheep. “Okay, I’ll try.”   He swung as hard as he could, but missed completely and fell to his butt. “Ow…”   I laughed. “What was that? Okay, don’t swing with all your might. Swing lightly, we’ll take baby steps.”   “Alright…” Bob got up and approached the sheep again. This time he swung and made contact. The sheep started running off.   Baaaaaaaaaa!   “Go finish it, Bob! Chase it down.”   “What?

The water stands so high in the paths that I cannot walk dryshod, and I found in the large bougas or prairies in front, that it lay knee deep, so I sent on two men to go to the first villages of Matipa for large canoes to navigate the Lake, or give us a guide to go east to the Chambezé, to go round on foot. It was Halima who informed on Chirango, as he offered her beads for a cloth of a kind which she knew had not hitherto been taken out of the baggage. This was so far faithful in her, but she has an outrageous tongue. I remain because of an excessive hæmorrhagic discharge. [We cannot but believe Livingstone saw great danger in these constant recurrences of his old disorder: we find a trace of it in the solemn reflections which he wrote in his pocket-book, immediately under the above words:—] If the good Lord gives me favour, and permits me to finish my work, I shall thank and bless Him, though it has cost me untold toil, pain, and travel; this trip has made my hair all grey.

What did he do?” I whipped around, startled. I had been so immersed in my own thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed Philantha standing into the doorway to one of the sitting rooms. “Pardon?” “Well, in my experience, it’s usually the man who bumbles about causing most of the problems in relationships of romance,” she said. “So, naturally, I assumed that your young man has done or said or thought something that caused you to come bursting in like a hurricane. Am I correct?” I shook my head so violently the braid coiled around my head threatened to come loose. “We’re not in a…relationship of romance. He’s just my friend.” Philantha made a sound surprisingly like a snicker. “Truly?” she asked. “I suppose that’s why he’s been with you most evenings.” “Like I said, we’re friends. And we haven’t seen each other in a long time.” She raised an eyebrow. “I may not care about it--or at least I didn’t, until recently--but I do hear some of the court gossip when I visit the college. The noble students, they bring it with them, you know. And one of the stories is how the Earl of Rithia and his wife are scrambling to find eligible matches for their son.” I felt suddenly dizzy for no reason, and a hot flush--disturbingly like the jealous feeling I had experienced at the inn--rushed through me. “Matches?” I repeated. “Girls, young women, marriageable prospects. Strange, how suddenly they started. Right after the princess came back, it’s been noted. As if they had had hope for another match before, and it was ruined.” “Me?” I asked. “People think Kiernan’s parents wanted him to marry me? That’s…ridiculous. Princesses don’t marry earls--a duke, maybe, but not an earl, not unless he’s foreign and brings some grand alliance. And besides, we’re just--” “Friends,” Philantha finished. “I know. That’s what you keep saying.” She eyed me, before saying, “They haven’t had much luck, though, from the gossip. He’s polite to everyone they trot out, but nothing more. But that’s neither here nor there, since you don’t love him.” I glared at her, my face and chest still filled with that rush of heat. “In fact, he’s made you angry, hasn’t he?” “He did. Well, I said…Yes, we fought. He says that Na--the princess--wants to see me. And I told him that he couldn’t bring her to me, that I didn’t want to see her. He said that if she asked, he would have to. But he’s wormed his way out of stickier situations than that. He could find a way to avoid it, if he wanted to.” “Then perhaps he doesn’t want to,” Philantha answered before gliding away up the stairs and out of sight. I had plenty of time to mull over Philantha’s words, because I didn’t see Kiernan for the next three days. It was the longest we had been parted since I returned to the city, and even through my anger at him it drove me to distraction. I mangled my spells even worse than usual, spilled ink, and tripped so frequently that Philantha threatened to call Kiernan to the house herself and turn him into a sparrow if we didn’t make up. Her eyes glinted dangerously when she said it, and only that was enough to force away a bit of my muddleheadedness.