Waiting Birthday Quotes

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

My birthday is on a holiday. I just have to wait until I die and they commemorate me.

There was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

Do you always wear underwear like this, or is it for me?” I rolled to my back and pulled the sheet to my waist. “It isn’t for you, I’ve been wearing underwear like this since Gram gave me my first Frederick’s of Hollywood box on my sixteenth birthday. Now, I owe Victoria’s Secret my first-born child.” Before speaking again, Lee waited several seconds that can only be described as ‘loaded silence’. While this silence was going on, he pulled the sheet back down. “You’re tellin’ me that since you were sixteen you’ve been sittin’ next to me every year at Christmas Dinner wearin’ underwear like this?

[T.J.] I pulled my arms out from underneath her body and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I love you, Anna.” The surprised look on her face told me she hadn’t seen that coming. “You weren’t supposed to fall in love,” she whispered. “Well, I did,” I said, looking into her eyes. “I’ve been in love with you for months. I’m telling you now because I think you love me too, Anna. You just don’t think you’re supposed to. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. I can wait.” I pulled her mouth down to mine and kissed her and when it ended, I smiled and said, “Happy birthday.

November 20. Andrius's birthday. I had counted the days carefully. I wished him a happy birthday when I woke and thought about him while hauling logs during the day. At night, I sat by the light of the stove, reading Dombey and Son. Krasivaya. I still hadn't found the word. Maybe I'd find it if I jumped ahead. I flipped through some of the pages. A marking caught my eye. I leafed backward. Something was written in pencil in the margin of 278. Hello, Lina. You've gotten to page 278. That's pretty good! I gasped, then pretened I was engrossed in the book. I looked at Andrius's handwritting. I ran my finger over this elongated letters in my name. Were there more? I knew I should read onward. I couldn't wait. I turned though the pages carefully, scanning the margins. Page 300: Are you really on page 300 or are you skipping ahead now? I had to stifle my laughter. Page 322: Dombey and Son is boring. Admit it. Page 364: I'm thinking of you. Page 412: Are you maybe thinking of me? I closed my eyes. Yes, I'm thinking of you. Happy birthday, Andrius.

In a lightning-fast move, he placed both of his hands on the brick wall, caging me with his body. He leaned toward me and my heart shifted into a gear I didn't know existed. His warm breath caressed my neck, melting my frozen skin. I tilted my head, waiting for the solid warmth of his body on mine. I could see his eyes again and those dark orbs screamed hunger . "I heard a rumor." "What's that?" I struggled to get out. "It's your birthday." Terrified speaking would break the spell, I licked my suddenly dry lips and nodded. "Happy birthday." Noah drew his lips closer to mine; that sweet musky smell overwhelmed my senses. I could almost taste his lips when he unexpectedly took a step back, inhaling deeply. The cold air slapped me into the land of sober.

You’re not doing well and finally I don’t have to pretend to be so interested in your on going tragedy, but I’ll rob the bank that gave you the impression that money is more fruitful than words, and I’ll cut holes in the ozone if it means you have one less day of rain. I’ll walk you to the hospital, I’ll wait in a white room that reeks of hand sanitizer and latex for the results from the MRI scan that tries to locate the malady that keeps your mind guessing, and I want to write you a poem every day until my hand breaks and assure you that you’ll find your place, it’s just the world has a funny way of hiding spots fertile enough for bodies like yours to grow roots. and I miss you like a dart hits the iris of a bullseye, or a train ticket screams 4:30 at 4:47, I wanted to tell you that it’s my birthday on Thursday and I would have wanted you to give me the gift of your guts on the floor, one last time, to see if you still had it in you. I hope our ghosts aren’t eating you alive. If I’m to speak for myself, I’ll tell you that the universe is twice as big as we think it is and you’re the only one that made that idea less devastating.

And then . . . we’re going to get in my car.” I waited for him to elaborate on a destination. “And?” He gently kissed the nape of my neck. “What do you think?” I couldn’t help a small gasp of delight. “Oh, wow.” “I know, right? I was racking my brain for the best present ever, and then I realized that nothing was going to rock your world more than you and me in your favorite place in the entire world.” I swallowed. “I’m kind of embarrassed at how excited I am about that.” Never had I guessed my love of cars would play a role in my sex life. Eddie was right. Something had happened to me. “It’s okay, Sage. We’ve all got our turn-ons.” “You kind of ruined the surprise, though.” “Nah. It’s part of the gift: you getting to think about it for the next three days.

When it’s time to leave, we put on our shoes, kiss Daddy good-bye, and tumble out the front door. Waiting for us on the street in front of his car is Peter with a bouquet of cellophane-wrapped pink carnations. “Happy birthday, kid,” he says. Kitty’s eyes bulge. “Are those for me?” He laughs. “Who else would they be for? Hurry and get in the car.” Kitty turns to me, her eyes bright, her smile as wide as her face. I’m smiling too. “Are you coming too, Lara Jean?” I shake my head. “No, there’s only room for two.” “You’re my only girl today, kid,” Peter says, and Kitty runs to him and snatches the flowers out of his hand. Gallantly, he opens the door for her. He shuts it and turns and winks at me. “Don’t be jealous, Covey.” I’ve never liked him more than in this moment.

Shepley walked out of his bedroom pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?” “Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it. “Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.” “You knew she was going to class. Quit being a cry baby.” Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the cry baby? Do you remember last night?” “Shut up.” “That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?” “She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.” “So what are we doing?” “Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.” Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?” “How do you feel about a puppy?” Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.” I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.” “Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?” “I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.” “A what?” “Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.” Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.” “What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.” “It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.” “So does America … minus the crapping.” Shepley wasn’t amused. “I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.” “You can’t keep it from barking.” “Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.” Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?” My brows pulled together. “Quit it.” His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog…” I grinned with victory. “…if you admit you have feelings for Abby.” I frowned in defeat. “C’mon, man!” “Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it. I looked to the floor, and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day. “I like her,” I said through my teeth. Shepley held his hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.” “You’re an asshole! Did you hear that?” Shepley crossed his arms. “Say it.” “I like her, okay?” “Not good enough.” “I have feelings for her. I care about her. A lot. I can’t stand it when she’s not around. Happy?” “For now,” he said, grabbing his backpack off the floor.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

We can learn a lesson from the butterfly beginning it's life crawling along the ground, then spinning a cocoon, patiently waiting until the day it will fly.

-You know how to call me although such a noise now would only confuse the air Neither of us can forget the steps we danced the words you stretched to call me out of dust Yes I long for you not just as a leaf for weather or vase for hands but with a narrow human longing that makes a man refuse any fields but his own I wait for you at an unexpected place in your journey like the rusted key or the feather you do not pick up.- -I WILL NEVER FIND THE FACES FOR ALL GOODBYES I'VE MADE.- For Anyone Dressed in Marble The miracle we all are waiting for is waiting till the Parthenon falls down and House of Birthdays is a house no more and fathers are unpoisoned by renown. The medals and the records of abuse can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust, but like whips certain perverts never use, compel our flesh in paralysing trust. I see an orphan, lawless and serene, standing in a corner of the sky, body something like bodies that have been, but not the scar of naming in his eye. Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside. Light, wind, cold, dark -- they use him like a bride. I Had It for a Moment I had it for a moment I knew why I must thank you I saw powerful governing men in black suits I saw them undressed in the arms of young mistresses the men more naked than the naked women the men crying quietly No that is not it I'm losing why I must thank you which means I'm left with pure longing How old are you Do you like your thighs I had it for a moment I had a reason for letting the picture of your mouth destroy my conversation Something on the radio the end of a Mexican song I saw the musicians getting paid they are not even surprised they knew it was only a job Now I've lost it completely A lot of people think you are beautiful How do I feel about that I have no feeling about that I had a wonderful reason for not merely courting you It was tied up with the newspapers I saw secret arrangements in high offices I saw men who loved their worldliness even though they had looked through big electric telescopes they still thought their worldliness was serious not just a hobby a taste a harmless affectation they thought the cosmos listened I was suddenly fearful one of their obscure regulations could separate us I was ready to beg for mercy Now I'm getting into humiliation I've lost why I began this I wanted to talk about your eyes I know nothing about your eyes and you've noticed how little I know I want you somewhere safe far from high offices I'll study you later So many people want to cry quietly beside you

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. No, no, wait. Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a wee house in the woods. Once upon a time there were three soldiers, tramping together down the road after the war. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Once upon a time there were three brothers. No, this is it. This is the variation I want. Once upon a time there were three Beautiful children, two boys and a girl. When each baby was born, the parents rejoiced, the heavens rejoiced, even the fairies rejoiced. The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch. This which was the same age as the beautiful children, and as she and they grew, she was jealous of the girl, and jealous of the boys, too. They were blessed with all these fairy gifts, gifts the witch had been denied at her own christening. The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable and handsome. Though it's true, he was exceptionally short. The next boy was studious and open hearted. Though it's true, he was an outsider. And the girl was witty, Generous, and ethical. Though it's true, she felt powerless. The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her. She was lonely. Her only strength was her dark and ugly magic. She confuse being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confuse being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts are making them think. Hey magic was all she had, and she used it to destroy what she most admired. She visited each young person in turn in their tenth birthday, but did not harm them out right. The protection of some kind fairy - the lilac fairy, perhaps - prevented her from doing so. What she did instead was cursed them. "When you are sixteen," proclaimed the witch in a rage of jealousy, "you shall prick your finger on a spindle - no, you shall strike a match - yes, you will strike a match and did in its flame." The parents of the beautiful children were frightened of the curse, and tried, as people will do, to avoid it. They moved themselves and the children far away, to a castle on a windswept Island. A castle where there were no matches. There, surely, they would be safe. There, Surely, the witch would never find them. But find them she did. And when they were fifteen, these beautiful children, just before their sixteenth birthdays and when they're nervous parents not yet expecting it, the jealous which toxic, hateful self into their lives in the shape of a blonde meeting. The maiden befriended the beautiful children. She kissed him and took them on the boat rides and brought them fudge and told them stories. Then she gave them a box of matches. The children were entranced, for nearly sixteen they have never seen fire. Go on, strike, said the witch, smiling. Fire is beautiful. Nothing bad will happen. Go on, she said, the flames will cleanse your souls. Go on, she said, for you are independent thinkers. Go on, she said. What is this life we lead, if you did not take action? And they listened. They took the matches from her and they struck them. The witch watched their beauty burn, Their bounce, Their intelligence, Their wit, Their open hearts, Their charm, Their dreams for the future. She watched it all disappear in smoke.

Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic. Curses bloomed. Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collapsed into enchanted sleep. Unconscious beneath cobweb canopies, frozen in coffins of glass, they waited for their princes to come. Or they tricked ogres, traded their voices for love, danced until their glass slippers cracked. A prince would awaken, roused by the promise of true love, and find he had a witch to destroy. A heart to steal. To tear from the rib cage, where it was cushioned by bloody velvet, and deliver it to the queen who demanded the princess's death. Girls became victims and heroines. Boys became lovers and murderers. And sometimes... they became both.

Marriages, kids, a divorce—we’d all been through the ringer, and it was a wake-up call one day when I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention.

I was sad that nobody had come to my birthday party, but happy that I had a Batman figure, and there was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

what are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?

What if, ladies and gentlemen, today I told you that anyone here who was born on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday was free to leave right now? Also, they'd be given the most central parking spots in the city, and the biggest houses. They would get job interviews before others who were born later in the week, and they'd be taken first at the doctor's office, no matter how many patients were waiting in line. If you were born from Thursday to Sunday, you might try to catch up – but because you were straggling behind, the press would always point to how inefficient you are. And if you complained, you'd be dismissed for playing the birth-day card.” I shrug. “Seems silly, right? But what if on top of these arbitrary systems that inhibited your chances for success, everyone kept telling you that things were actually pretty equal?

I took a steadying breath. “Listen, I know we have a full night ahead of us, but I wanted to give you your birthday present.” “Oh, darling, you didn’t need to get me anything. Every day with you is a gift.” He leaned in and kissed me. “Well, I hadn’t planned on getting you a gift, but then something presented itself, so here we are.” “All right then,” he said, placing his glass on the ground. “I’m ready. Where is it?” “That’s the only problem,” I started. I felt my hands begin to shake. “It won’t actually arrive for another seven or eight months.” He smiled but squinted. “Eight months? What in the world could take . . .” As his words drifted away, so did his eyes, leaving my face and making their way to my stomach. He seemed to expect me to look different, for me to be as big as a house already. But I’d done my best to hide everything: the tiredness, the nausea, the sudden distaste for foods. He stared on and on, and I waited for him to smile or laugh or jump up and down. But he sat there, frozen to the point that it started to frighten me. “Maxon?” I reached out and touched his leg. “Maxon, are you all right?” He nodded, still watching my stomach.

I’m calling in one of my birthday presents, Tru,” he says softly. His eyes look opaque, heavy with desire. “What do you want?” My voice is quiet, trembling. Propping himself up on his elbow, I tilt my head back as he looks down at me. He pulls my hair free from its knot, running his fingers through it. “You.” He moves his face close to mine, staying a breath away, waiting for his invitation. “Happy birthday,” I whisper.” Excerpt From: Towle, Samantha. “The Mighty Storm.” iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

Everyone takes the picture of the kid with the birthday cake on his face," he said once. "Wait for the unexpected. That's the magic.

Ollie Girl, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, lived my life a little too carelessly, in ways that people didn’t approve of. But I wouldn’t change a thing. Because I was waiting for you. Waiting for a love that would walk into my life and blow my whole world up. I want to celebrate every Valentine’s Day & birthday with you. Love, Carter

I didn’t move; I just waited out the night. The school was quiet around me, and I let the silence calm my heartbreak, lull me into a sleepless trance as I stared past my reflection in the dark glass, and whispered, “Happy birthday, Daddy.

Blessings are waiting, so don't miss the flight Your Birth Day Gonna be very shiny bright Look everywhere and adore every single sight May your BirThDay be filled with chocolates, Cakes & Candle Light May the happiness hugs you like soo tight Take me serious, because I am gentle and polite

The warm night claimed her. In a moment it was part of her. She walked on the grass, and her shoes were instantly soaked. She flung up her arms to the sky. Power ran to her fingertips. Excitement was communicated from the waiting trees, and the orchard, and the paddock; the intensity of their secret life caught at her and made her run. It was nothing like the excitement of ordinary looking forward, of birthday presents, of Christmas stockings, but the pull of a magnet - her grandfather had shown her once how it worked, little needles springing to the jaws - and now night and the sky above were a vast magnet, and the things that waited below were needles, caught up in the great demand. ("The Pool")

MOTHER – By Ted Kooser Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume. You have been gone a month today and have missed three rains and one nightlong watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar from six to eight while fat spring clouds went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured, a storm that walked on legs of lightning, dragging its shaggy belly over the fields. The meadowlarks are back, and the finches are turning from green to gold. Those same two geese have come to the pond again this year, honking in over the trees and splashing down. They never nest, but stay a week or two then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts, burning in circles like birthday candles, for this is the month of my birth, as you know, the best month to be born in, thanks to you, everything ready to burst with living. There will be no more new flannel nightshirts sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand. You asked me if I would be sad when it happened and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner, as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that. Were it not for the way you taught me to look at the world, to see the life at play in everything, I would have to be lonely forever.

I told her if she really cared about me, then she’d let me do whatever I wanted for my birthday, just like Mom did when I was twelve.” “What happened when you were twelve?” “Oh, Mom offered to take us all out for dinner—us girls, Dad was out of town—to celebrate, but I didn’t want to. This book I’d been waiting for had just come out, and the only thing I wanted to do was read it all night.” “My God,” I said, touching the top of her nose. “You’re adorable.” She swatted me away. “Anyway, Carly and Zoe really wanted to go out so that they could score a meal, but Mom just said, ‘It’s her birthday. Let her do whatever she wants.’” “Your mom is cool.

For a very long time I worked and worked and worked, and then I looked up one day and all my friends were married with children. These married-with-children people were still my friends, but they'd become part of a community I wasn't in, a club I didn't belong to. Socially, their lives had completely changed, and they were busy. Their attention had turned to carpools and birthday parties and school tuition, and I was playing catch-up:"Wait, so we don't have game night anymore? You guys, who's free for dinner Saturday? Oh, absolutely no one?

Why do men stay together? It is easy to understand why they fuck, but why do they stay together, what is the answer? Why do they live in the same house, share meals together, argue about money and parents, why do they have pets, plant begonias, bring home birthday cakes? Where are the children, where is the sense of permanence, what is the tie that binds? Yet they slept peacefully, side by side, and the body of one became adjusted to the rhythm of the other, and the breathing of one slowed the breathing of the other, and they dreamed in tandem and shared fragments of each other's dreams, and they grew more like each other day by day, not in personality, but in the fissures of the brain, because, seeing the same things every day, day after day, they laid down crevices in themselves that were the same shape, that were the same events written into memory, and this was enough, without words, to keep them silent about the fact of their hates and their fears, their deep concerns about each other, and the certainty that one of them would die first and neither of them knew which one it would be. The certainty that one of them would leave first, and that only by waiting could they learn which of the two.

Though she’d begun to get a bit fat that winter, it was in February, around when her father found a toy poodle (sitting there, in the side yard, watchful and waiting as a person), and adopted it, that a weightlessness entered into Chelsea’s blood—an inside ventilation, like a bacteria of ghosts—and it was sometime in the fall, before her 23rd birthday, that her heart, her small and weary core, neglected now for years, vanished a little, from the center out, took on the strange and hollowed heaviness of a weakly inflated balloon.

Shouldn't be having a birthday party two weeks after your birthday ... Okay, three days, no more than that though, it's not your birthday anymore! There’s gotta be a time, there’s gotta be a cutoff point where you can’t have birthday parties. You’re so desperate for a party that you have to have a party two weeks after? Wait till next year, you missed it!

I had let it all grow. I had supposed It was all OK. Your life Was a liner I voyaged in. Costly education had fitted you out. Financiers and committees and consultants Effaced themselves in the gleam of your finish. You trembled with the new life of those engines. That first morning, Before your first class at College, you sat there Sipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not, What eyes waited at the back of the class To check your first professional performance Against their expectations. What assessors Waited to see you justify the cost And redeem their gamble. What a furnace Of eyes waited to prove your metal. I watched The strange dummy stiffness, the misery, Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, ugly Half-approximation to your idea Of the properties you hoped to ease into, And your horror in it. And the tanned Almost green undertinge of your face Shrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaited Head pathetically tiny. You waited, Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezers Of the life that judges you, and I saw The flayed nerve, the unhealable face-wound Which was all you had for courage. I saw that what you gripped, as you sipped, Were terrors that killed you once already. Now I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely Girl who was going to die. That blue suit. A mad, execution uniform, Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled, Unable to fathom what stilled you As I looked at you, as I am stilled Permanently now, permanently Bending so briefly at your open coffin.

She’s so, everybody’s so stupid, you know? Christian too, Todd, whoever says stupid things, you’re from different worlds, like you dropped here in a spaceship.” I had to say something. “Yeah,” I said. “So—?” “So they can fuck themselves,” you said. “I don’t care, you know?” I felt a smile on my face, tears too. “Because Min, I know, OK? I’m stupid I know, about faggy movies, sorry, fuck, I’m stupid about that too. No offense. Ha! But I want to do it, Min. Any party you want, anything, not go to bonfires. Whatever you want to do, for the eighty-ninth birthday, even though I can’t remember the name.” “Lottie Carson.” I stepped close to you, but you held your hands out, you weren’t done. “And they’ll say things, right? I know they will, of course they will. Your friends are, probably, too, right?” “Yes,” I said. I felt furious, or furiously something, pacing with you and waiting to fall into your moving arms. “Yes,” you said, with a huge grin. “Let’s stay together, I want to be with you. Let’s. Yes?” “Yes.” “Because I don’t care, virginity, different, arty, weird parties with bad cake, that igloo. Just together, Min.” “Yes.” “Like everyone is telling us not to be.” “Yes!” “Because Min, listen, I love you.” I gaped. “Don’t, you don’t have to—I know it’s crazy, Joan says I’ve really lost it, but—” “I love you too,” I said.

Your birth day happens once, it is the day you were born, why wait until the anniversary of your birth date to celebrate you? Every day is the anniversary of your BIRTH DAY if you counted in DAYS not YEARS So celebrate DAILY not YEARLY Treat yourself with kindness every day, spoil yourself, do things that make you happy, do things that are fun. You are a very special soul, a unique individual, a precious person. Enjoy celebrating YOU, EVERYDAY

Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies—my only talent—smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall—on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire.

Often people who are very ill, but are near their birthday, seem to wait until it’s passed before dying. I

I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention.

On every birthday, when I wake, I now take out the old Nagan, load it with one bullet, spin the chamber and pull the trigger with the barrel in my mouth. I've cheated death nine times. It is my greatest achievement. And three months to go to my next birthday. I can't wait.

Let’s see if I remember all of this—born in Charlottesville, Virginia, but raised in Salem by her mother, Susan, a teacher, and her father, Jacob, a police officer. Attended Salem Elementary School until your tenth birthday, when your father called into his station to report an unknown child in his house—” “Stop,” I muttered. Liam looked over his shoulder, trying to divide his attention between me and the boy reciting the sordid tale of my life. “—but, bad luck, the PSFs beat the police to your house. Good luck, someone dropped the ball or they had other kiddies to pick up, because they didn’t wait around long enough to question your parents, and thus, didn’t pre-sort you. And then you came to Thurmond, and you managed to avoid their detecting you were Orange—” “Stop!” I didn’t want to hear this—I didn’t want anyone to hear it.

I was sent forth from the power, and I have come to those who reflect upon me, and I have been found among those who seek after me. Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, and you hearers, hear me. You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves. And do not banish me from your sight. And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing. Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard! Do not be ignorant of me. For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband. I am the midwife and she who does not bear. I am the solace of my labor pains. I am the bride and the bridegroom, and it is my husband who begot me. I am the mother of my father and the sister of my husband and he is my offspring. I am the slave of him who prepared me. I am the ruler of my offspring. But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday. And he is my offspring in (due) time, and my power is from him. I am the staff of his power in his youth, and he is the rod of my old age. And whatever he wills happens to me. I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the idea whose remembrance is frequent. I am the voice whose sound is manifold and the word whose appearance is multiple. I am the utterance of my name. -The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Gift cards?” Hi’s complaining brought me back to the present. “Why not just hand me a note that says: I don’t care enough to make an effort.” April 7. Hiram Stolowitski’s sixteenth birthday. “When exactly were we supposed to shop?” Shelton was scrolling Rex Gable emails on his laptop. “It’s been a hectic week, bro.” “I bought you Assassin’s Creed six weeks before your birthday,” Hi shot back. “Waited in line all afternoon. The guy behind me smelled like fish tacos, but I stuck it out.” Ben clapped Hi’s shoulder. “If it helps, I didn’t remember to get you any gift. Tory and Shelton picked that up. I signed the card though. See? Ben. Right there.” “These are the memories that scar,” Hi huffed. “I’m gonna be so complicated when I grow up. I’ll probably film documentaries.

That part of the press release about me asking your father’s permission to marry you was true—well, partly true, anyway. I didn’t ask permission—I knew you wouldn’t like that, it’s sexist. You’re not your father’s property. But I did see him before we left, to tell him I was going to propose to you this weekend, and ask for his blessing.” I was stunned. “Wait . . . is this what you meant when you said before we left that you’d talked to my parents?” “Yes. I spoke to your mother, too, because she played an even bigger role in raising you. I thought it was the right thing to do. How do you think you got out of doing all those events—and birthday Cirque du Soleil with your grandmother—so easily?

My birthday is September 7th,” I tell her. “Doesn’t surprise me that you’re a Virgo. Next,” she prompts sassily, waiting for my next answer. I bite my lip, tempted to spank her ass and give her a reason to be sassy.

You won’t manage, you’ll forget me; but if after a year, alas, more perhaps, a sad text, a death, or a rainy evening reminds you of me, you can offer me some altruism! I will never, never be able see you again . . . except in my soul, and this would require that we think about each other simultaneously. I’ll think about you forever so that my soul remains open to you endlessly in case you feel like entering it. But the visitor will keep me waiting for a long time! The November rains will have rotted the flowers on my grave, June will have burned them, and my soul will always be weeping impatiently. Ah! I hope that someday the sight of a keepsake, the recurrence of a birthday, the bent of your thoughts will guide your memory within the circle of my tenderness. It will then be as if I’ve heard you, perceived you, a magic spell will cover everything with flowers for your arrival. Think about the dead man. But, alas! Can I hope that death and your gravity will accomplish what life with its ardors, and our tears, and our merry times, and our lips were unable to achieve?

Helena silently put down the phone and tiptoed to the bathroom door. What should she do? Run? Knock? Walk in? Get naked? And…how should she feel? Excited? Freaked out? Angry because he hadn’t called for three weeks? Relieved, because the wait was over and she could finally start asking all those questions swimming in her head? The door swung open, and Niccolo boldly stood before her in his birthday-suit-glory, his unforgettable diamond-cut abs glistening with drops of water. A whoosh of air left her lungs. I’m going with…naked and excited!

We were getting closer and closer to that invisible line in the sand. The line that, when crossed, meant I’d no longer be Jamie Maysen’s wife. I’d be some other man’s girlfriend. A part of me wanted to run away from that line. Another wanted to take a flying leap to the other side. As it was, I was just standing with my toes on its edge. Frozen. Because I knew the man who’d pull me across was Cole. … He was the man of the future, patiently waiting on the other side of the line. I could imagine him standing there, holding out his hand. I wanted to take Cole’s hand.

I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who loves me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home to me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to look in their little faces and explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence?

Cheerios One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago as I waited for my eggs and toast, I opened the Tribune only to discover that I was the same age as Cheerios. Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios for today, the newspaper announced, was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year. Already I could hear them whispering behind my stooped and threadbare back, Why that dude's older than Cheerios the way they used to say Why that's as old as the hills, only the hills are much older than Cheerios or any American breakfast cereal, and more noble and enduring are the hills, I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.

All this time, he'd been waiting for his real life to begin: Once he was accepted by Roland's friends and the band made it big. Once he found his mother. Then, things would change. But his life had been happening all along, in the jolt of the orange juice on his tongue or how he dreamt in two languages, how his students' faces looked when they figured out the meaning of a new word, the wisp of smoke as he blew out his birthday candles. The surge and turn and crunch of a perfect melody.

The back of my neck breaks out in a sweat, and I’m getting nervous. Why is he just standing there, staring at me? “What do you want?” I press, my tone curt. He opens his mouth but then closes it swallowing. “Pike, Jesus—” “The day you left,” he blurts out, and I stop. I wait, listening as a look of fear crosses his eyes. “The house was so empty,” he continues. “Like a quiet that was never there before. I couldn’t hear your footsteps upstairs or your hairdryer or anticipate you walking into a room. You were gone. Everything was…” he drops his eyes, “gone.” A ball lodges in my throat, and I feel tears threaten, but I tense my jaw, refusing to let it out. “But I could still feel you,” he whispers. “You were still everywhere. The container of cookies in the fridge, the backsplash you picked out, the way you put all my pictures back in the wrong spot after you dusted my bookshelves.” He smiles to himself. “But I couldn’t rearrange them, because you were the last to touch them, and I wanted everything the way you had it.” My chin trembles, and I fold my arms over my chest, hiding my balled fists under my arms. He pauses and then goes on. “Nothing would ever go back to the way it was before you came into my house. I didn’t want it to.” He shakes his head. “I went to work, and I came home, and I stayed there every night and all weekend, every weekend, because that’s where we were together. That’s where I could still feel you.” He steps closer, dropping his voice. “That’s where I could wrap myself up in you and hang on to every last thread in that house that proved you were mine for just a little while.” His tone grows thick, and I see his eyes water. “I really thought I was doing what was best,” he says, knitting his brow. “I thought I was taking advantage of you, because you’re young and beautiful and so happy and hopeful despite everything you’d been through. You made me feel like the world was a big place again.” My breathing shakes, and I don’t know what to do. I hate that he’s here. I hate that I love that he’s here. I hate him. “I couldn’t steal your life from you and keep you to myself, you know?” he explains. “But then I realized that you’re not happy or hopeful or making me feel good because you’re young. You are those things and you’re capable of those things, because you’re a good person. It’s who you are.” A tear spills over, gliding down my cheek. “Baby,” he whispers, his hands shaking. “I hope you love me, because I love you like crazy, and I’m going to want you the rest of my life. I tried to stay away, because I thought it was the right thing, but I fucking can’t. I need you, and I love you. This doesn’t happen twice, and I’m not going to be stupid again. I promise.” My chin trembles, and something lodges in my throat, and I try to hold it in, but I can’t. My face cracks, and I break down, turning away from him. The tears come like a goddamn waterfall, and I hate him. I fucking hate him. His arms are around me in a second, and he hugs me from behind, burying his face in my neck. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he whispers in my ear.

I was sad that nobody had come to my party, but happy that I had a Batman figure, and there was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

Humans are like mirrors: We reflect each other. When a wise person wants something from others, she first does what she desires from them, exemplifying rather than asking for it. If you want a friend to remember your birthday, remember hers first. If you want your husband to give you a massage, give him a massage first. If you want your children to watch less TV, turn off your TV first. Don’t just wait for what you want to happen. Act first.

Muslim Girlhood I never found myself in a pink aisle. There was no box for me with glossy cellophane like heat and a neat packet of instructions in six languages. Evenings, I watched TV like a religion I moderately believed. I watched to see how the others lived, not knowing I was the other - no laugh track in my living room, no tidy and punctual resolution waiting. I took tests in which Jane & William had so many apples. I fasted through birthday parties and Christmas parties and ate leftover tajine at plastic lunch tables, picked at pepperoni from slices like blemishes and tried not to complain. I prayed at the wrong times in the wrong tongue. I hungered for Jell-O & Starburts & margarine; could read mono- and diglycerides by five, knew what gelatin meant, and where it came from.

Cole does the yard work. Or me,” I tell her, moving around her toward the lawnmower. “Got it?” I don’t wait for an answer as I spin around, heading for the lawnmower. But I hear her small, sweet voice behind me. “Yes, Daddy.” I blink long and hard, my hand tingling with an urge to give someone a spanking for the first time in my life.

Okay, so first we get you a new computer and then a Facebook page. Priorities, you know," he said, typing in Kyle's password. "What would I do without you--" "Found her," he interrupted. "She's at Carrie's OK Bar. It's downtown." "What the hell is Carrie's OK Bar?" "It's a karaoke bar. Travis, come on." "Wait, how do you know she's there?" "She checked in there about twenty minutes ago." "What does that mean?" "Oh. Right. Since you left, it's become very important that we all constantly know each other's thoughts, locations, and birthdays." "That's really stupid. Except for in this one very specific situation. I can't go if her fiancé's there, though. That would be too weird." "He's not." "How do you know?" "Because she put 'Girls' Night' with about five exclamation points after it." "Are people just asking to be murdered?" "Pretty much. So are we going?

The things that people were the most grateful for were the ordinary things in life. The sound of your spouse’s laugh, the smell of morning coffee, the echo of children playing in the yard. The little things. In waiting for the big moments—the vacations, the retirements, the birthdays—we risk missing the experiences of life most worthy of celebrating.

If you are not too long I will wait here for you all my life.” ― Oscar Wilde

was a wake-up call one day when I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention.

and it was a wake-up call one day when I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention.

it was a wake-up call one day when I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention.

I grinned. “I got a planet for my birthday. I don’t think any other birthday is going to top this.” Mom laughed. “Wait until you start having sex, you might be surprised.

... entering a room like the star quarterback he was in high school and still waiting for a fucking applause.

Can’t wait too long, though, or I’ll be getting the senior citizen discount at the kid’s graduation dinner.

I just want the life.” The life. Those words hit hard, and I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m still waiting for the same

Stupid. Fantasies and expectations that never measure up in reality. I should know better. Here I am, sitting here waiting for whenever he happens to show up, ready to be at his beck and call.

In the restaurant kitchen, August meant lobsters, blackberries, silver queen corn, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. In honor of the last year of the restaurant, Fiona was creating a different tomato special for each day of the month. The first of August (two hundred and fifty covers on the book, eleven reservation wait list) was a roasted yellow tomato soup. The second of August (two hundred and fifty covers, seven reservation wait list) was tomato pie with a Gruyère crust. On the third of August, Ernie Otemeyer came in with his wife to celebrate his birthday and since Ernie liked food that went with his Bud Light, Fiona made a Sicilian pizza- a thick, doughy crust, a layer of fresh buffalo mozzarella, topped with a voluptuous tomato-basil sauce. One morning when she was working the phone, Adrienne stepped into the kitchen hoping to get a few minutes with Mario, and she found Fiona taking a bite out of red ripe tomato like it was an apple. Fiona held the tomato out. "I'd put this on the menu," she said. "But few would understand.

and there was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway. My

But even as a kid you learn pretty quick that church doesn’t start and stop with the hours of service posted on the church sign. No, church dragged on like the last hour of the school day as we waited in the hot car with Dad for Mom to finish socializing in the fellowship hall. Church lingered long into the gold-tinted Sunday afternoons when Amanda and I gamboled around the house, stripped down to our white slips like little brides. Church showed up at the front door with a chicken casserole when the whole family was down with the flu and called after midnight to ask for prayer and to cry. It gossiped in the pickup line at school and babysat us on Friday nights. It teased me and tugged at my pigtails and taught me how to sing. Church threw Dad a big surprise party for his fortieth birthday and let me in on the secret ahead of time. Church came to me far more than I went to it, and I’m glad.

I'm going to lay it out straight for you here, Carson. And the reason that I'm going to do that is because I have every confidence that it will scare you off badly enough that I can then finish my drink in peace, and we can part as acquaintances who simply have nothing in common." He raised one eyebrow and I joined my hands in my lap, tilting my head as I continued. "I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who love me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence?" Chapter 1

The small Japanese immortal sat cross-legged, his two swords resting flat on the ground before him. He folded his hands in his lap, closed his eyes and breathing through his nose, forcing the chill night air deep into his chest. He held it for a count of five, then shaped his lips into an O and blew it out again, puncturing a tiny hole in the swirling fog before his face. Even though he would never admit it to anyone, Niten loved this moment. He had no affection for what was to come, but this brief time, when all preparations for battle were made and there was nothing left to do but wait, when the world felt still, as if it was holding its breath, was special. This moment, when he was facing death, was when he felt completely, fully alive. He’d still been called Miyamoto Musashi and had been a teenager when he’d first discovered the genuine beauty of the quiet moment before a fight. Every breath suddenly tasted like the finest food, every sound was distinct and divine, and even on the foulest battlefields, his eyes would be drawn to something simple and elegant: a flower, the shape of a branch, the curl of a cloud. A hundred years ago, Aoife had given him a book as a birthday present. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that she’d missed his birthday by a month, but he had treasured the book, the first edition of The Professor by Charlotte Bronte. It included a line he had never forgotten: In the midst of life we are in death. Years later, he’d heard Ghandi take the same words and shift them around to create something that resonated deeply within him: In the midst of death life persists.

Then the image changed to something else. A birthday cake. It was chocolate with a plastic horse in the center, rearing up. Four candles flickered around it. “He’s four,” I said, trusting that that was what Eli was trying to tell me. But I knew. I’d seen the dates on the grave. “He would be six now.” She shook her head defiantly. I waited. The child looked up at me expectantly and then looked back at his mother. “He’s still four,” I said. “Kids wait.” Her lower lip trembled and she bit into it. She was starting to believe me. That, or she was starting to hate me. Or maybe she already did. “Wait for what?” Her voice was so soft I barely caught the question. “Wait for someone to raise them.

I don’t wait for an answer as I spin around, heading for the lawnmower. But I hear her small, sweet voice behind me. “Yes, Daddy.” I blink long and hard, my hand tingling with an urge to give someone a spanking for the first time in my life.

The lawn lay like the pristine waiting page Of a prison report. Who would write what upon it I never gave a thought. A dumb creature, looping at the furnace door On its demon’s prong, Was a pen already writing Wrong is right, right wrong.

Fuck, baby, I can’t wait. I need to get inside you.” “It’s my birthday! Don’t I get a say?” “After this, I need to take the edge off.” Chris scoots up the bed, thrusting inside me, hard and fast. “Goddamn, eating that pussy gets me so fucking hard.

Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side, and light on skepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'. But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder and gained very little skepticism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they are willing to accept inadequate answers, they don't pose follow-up questions, the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade. And it's not just puberty. I'd guess that it's partly peer pressure not to excel - except in sports, partly that the society teaches short-term gratification, partly the impression that science or mathematics won't buy you a sports car, partly that so little is expected of students, and partly that there are few rewards or role-models for intelligent discussion of science and technology - or even for learning for it's own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as nerds or geeks or grinds. But there's something else. I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. 'Why is the Moon round?', the children ask. 'Why is grass green?', 'What is a dream?', 'How deep can you dig a hole?', 'When is the world's birthday?', 'Why do we have toes?'. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation, or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. 'What did you expect the Moon to be? Square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science.

Dude, what're you waiting for?" Carlos calls. "Plant one on her." I lift my eyes and am shocked to see Brandon is staring at my mouth. He swallows audibly and flicks his gaze to mine. the emotions darkening the soft green color are too confusing to name. Does he want to back out? An exhale of breath leaves Brandon's lips, almost like a laugh, and he scoots closer to me on the blanket. I twist my legs under myself, sitting tall as I face him. He cups my chin and tilts it toward him, drowning me in the now dark-green depths of his eyes, the cologne I gave him for his birthday filling my head. It's woodsy and yummy and I always loved how it smelled on the store testers, but on Brandon, it's even sexier. My eyes flutter closed, and I inhale again, this time slowly. Goose bumps prickle my arms, and my head gets fuzzy. Brandon slides his hand down the column of my neck and brings the other up, threading his fingers through the hair at my nape. His breath fans across my cheek, and everything south of my bellybutton squeezes tight. When his mouth first meets mine, it's hesitant, questioning. But as I move my lips with his, he quickly grows bolder, coaxing them apart. Desire, pure and raw, electrifies my veins as his tongue sweeps my mouth. A whimpering sound springs from my chest, and instinctively, I wrap my arms around his neck, tugging him closer. Needing more. My teeth graze his full bottom lip, and I pull it, sucking on it gently. He moans and knots his fingers in my hair, and a thrill dances down my back. Brandon is an amazing kisser, just as I knew he would be. I have no control over my body's reactions. I lose myself in his lips, his tongue, and his strong arms, forgetting time and space and even my surroundings...

Mother did not spend all her time in paying dull calls to dull ladies, and sitting dully at home waiting for dull ladies to pay calls to her. She was almost always there, ready to play with the children, and read to them, and help them to do their home-lessons. Besides this she used to write stories for them while they were at school, and read them aloud after tea, and she always made up funny pieces of poetry for their birthdays and for other great occasions, such as the christening of the new kittens, or the refurnishing of the doll's house, or the time when they were getting over the mumps.

I think every one who has some vague belief in God, until he becomes a Christian, has the idea of an exam, or of a bargain in his mind. The first result of real Christianity is to blow that idea into bits. When they find it blown into bits, some people think this means that Christianity is a failure and give up. They seem to imagine that God is very simple-minded! In fact, of course, He knows all about this. One of the very things Christianity was designed to do was to blow this idea to bits. God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam, or putting Him in your debt. Then comes another discovery. Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present." Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.

I thought I was long done with the Firsts. First Easter since his death, First Birthday, First Trip to IHOP, First Phillies Game. But everything we ever did together, that we'd never share again--like Longwood Gardens at Christmas--still waited before me. In that moment, I dreaded the rest of my life.

Cixi’s lack of formal education was more than made up for by her intuitive intelligence, which she liked to use from her earliest years. In 1843, when she was seven, the empire had just finished its first war with the West, the Opium War, which had been started by Britain in reaction to Beijing clamping down on the illegal opium trade conducted by British merchants. China was defeated and had to pay a hefty indemnity. Desperate for funds, Emperor Daoguang (father of Cixi’s future husband) held back the traditional presents for his sons’ brides – gold necklaces with corals and pearls – and vetoed elaborate banquets for their weddings. New Year and birthday celebrations were scaled down, even cancelled, and minor royal concubines had to subsidise their reduced allowances by selling their embroidery on the market through eunuchs. The emperor himself even went on surprise raids of his concubines’ wardrobes, to check whether they were hiding extravagant clothes against his orders. As part of a determined drive to stamp out theft by officials, an investigation was conducted of the state coffer, which revealed that more “than nine million taels of silver had gone missing. Furious, the emperor ordered all the senior keepers and inspectors of the silver reserve for the previous forty-four years to pay fines to make up the loss – whether or not they were guilty. Cixi’s great-grandfather had served as one of the keepers and his share of the fine amounted to 43,200 taels – a colossal sum, next to which his official salary had been a pittance. As he had died a long time ago, his son, Cixi’s grandfather, was obliged to pay half the sum, even though he worked in the Ministry of Punishments and had nothing to do with the state coffer. After three years of futile struggle to raise money, he only managed to hand over 1,800 taels, and an edict signed by the emperor confined him to prison, only to be released if and when his son, Cixi’s father, delivered the balance. The life of the family was turned upside down. Cixi, then eleven years old, had to take in sewing jobs to earn extra money – which she would remember all her life and would later talk about to her ladies-in-waiting in the court. “As she was the eldest of two daughters and three sons, her father discussed the matter with her, and she rose to the occasion. Her ideas were carefully considered and practical: what possessions to sell, what valuables to pawn, whom to turn to for loans and how to approach them. Finally, the family raised 60 per cent of the sum, enough to get her grandfather out of prison. The young Cixi’s contribution to solving the crisis became a family legend, and her father paid her the ultimate compliment: ‘This daughter of mine is really more like a son!’ Treated like a son, Cixi was able to talk to her father about things that were normally closed areas for women. Inevitably their conversations touched on official business and state affairs, which helped form Cixi’s lifelong interest. Being consulted and having her views acted on, she acquired self-confidence and never accepted the com“common assumption that women’s brains were inferior to men’s. The crisis also helped shape her future method of rule. Having tasted the bitterness of arbitrary punishment, she would make an effort to be fair to her officials.

Being friends with Brad again is weird. Not bad weird. Just... you know when you were a little kid and you went to a birthday party and ate five times the amount of sugar your parents allowed, and you felt dangerously high? It's that kind of weird. And something in me is tense as if I'm waiting for the crash.

The day you left,” he blurts out, and I stop. I wait, listening as a look of fear crosses his eyes. “The house was so empty,” he continues. “Like a quiet that was never there before. I couldn’t hear your footsteps upstairs or your hair dryer or anticipate you walking into a room. You were gone. Everything was”—he drops his eyes—“gone.

I believe in always going to the funeral. My father taught me to do that....'Always go to the funeral' means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't really have to and I definitely don't want to. I'm talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully underattended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The shiva call for one of my ex's uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. In going to funerals, I've come to believe that while I wait to make a grand heroic gesture, I should just stick to the small inconveniences that let me share in life's inevitable, occasional calamity. On a cold April night three years ago, my father died...His funeral was on a Wednesday, the middle of the workweek. I had been numb for days when, for some reason, during the funeral, I turned and looked back at the folks in the church. The memory of it still takes my breath away. The most human, powerful, and humbling thing I've ever seen was a church at 3:00 on a Wednesday full of inconvenienced people who believe in going to the funeral.

The Tender Place Your temples , where the hair crowded in , Were the tender place. Once to check I dropped a file across the electrodes of a twelve-volt battery -- it exploded Like a grenade. Somebody wired you up. Somebody pushed the lever. They crashed The thunderbolt into your skull. In their bleached coats, with blenched faces, They hovered again To see how you were, in your straps. Whether your teeth were still whole . The hand on the calibrated lever Again feeling nothing Except feeling nothing pushed to feel Some squirm of sensation . Terror Was the cloud of you Waiting for these lightnings. I saw An oak limb sheared at a bang. You your Daddy's leg . How many seizures Did you suffer this god to grab you By the roots of the hair? The reports Escaped back into clouds. What went up Vaporized? Where lightning rods wept copper And the nerve· threw off its skin Like a burning child Scampering out of the bomb-flash. They dropped you A rigid bent bit of wire Across the Boston City grid. The lights In the Senate House dipped As your voice dived inwards Right through the bolt-hole basement. Came up, years later, Over-exposed, like an X-ray -- Brain-map still dark-patched With the scorched-earth scars Of your retreat . And your words , Faces reversed from the light , Holding in their entrails.

Only twice in my nearly fifty years of friendship with David Belasco did he ever disappoint me; and I am glad that experience came early. When I was perhaps seven or eight years old, he promised me, many months before my birthday, that he would give me a pony. What boy would nurse that promise to his bosom for any number of months? When the 12th of August dawned, I was downstairs early, I think before anyone else was up. I looked out at the barnyard. No pony. I waited all day. No pony. I said nothing. No pony. There were other presents, of course, and all the other excitement of a small boy’s birthday: but underneath it I was having my very first experience of a forgotten promise.

How stupid. My mom and dad had lost each other, and for what? So they could fit better at their parents’ tables at Christmas and Passover? So their brothers and sisters could be comfortable? The families who had worked so hard to tear them apart had gone smugly back to their own lives after it was over. I didn’t see any of my grandparents more than once a year. I got colorful birthday cards with twenty-­dollar bills in them from my aunts and uncles on my birthday. Meanwhile, my parents spent their lives so lonely. Dad wandered, seeking home in a mistress’s Mimmy-­canted face. Mimmy waited, her lamp trimmed, for a day that never came. Meanwhile, all they’d ever wanted was alive inside the other.

She loved being able to touch these photos, rather than having them floating around in the cloud, mingling with millions of other memories exiled by thousands of strangers. All those holidays, weddings, and birthday parties jumbled up together in the ether, just waiting to be called down for their moment in the sun, or thrown up as a random Facebook memory.

I don’t think you bought enough beer,” my dad commented in Spanish. I shot him a look over my shoulder as I poured another two bags of ice over the bottles. “Pa, it’s Josh’s birthday. Nobody needs to be getting drunk. Come on. I bought like half the sodas, waters, and juice boxes that the grocery store carried. Everyone can get Capri Sun wasted if they want.

Charlie nodded, like not getting it was valid. "I don't know how to explain it. But one thing's for sure. I'm not making you birthday doughnuts because your dad guilt-tripped me. I'm making you doughnuts because I'm grateful that you're here—for whatever you being here is doing to my life. And I genuinely want you to have a happy birthday." Ugh. One of those unwelcome tears of mine spilled over. And Charlie, like a reflex, reached up and wiped it away. Like you might do for someone you cared about. "Also," Charlie said, "I burned a hundred canned biscuits before I got the hang of this, so these little guys really are miracles." I gave Charlie the wobbly smile that happens when you try to shift emotional gears. Something was making me feel shaky. Maybe that I wasn't just a writer to him. Or that he was glad to have me in his life. Or that I was doing things to him—just like he was doing things to me. "You have to eat one," Charlie said then, putting his arm around my shoulders and turning us both toward the waiting donuts. "So many canned biscuits gave their lives for this moment." And now I really smiled. Despite myself.

Dear March, most Awaited is your arrival, You are the inspiration for revival!! Winter’s farewell! Spring’s knocking… Tiptoeing Beauty, elegance and new beginnings.. I leave my old behind, embrace myself afresh and new.. To step into a brand novel chapter and year of life’s hue.. Sunflowers turn their course towards sun.. Courage and magic enriches new vigour, initiatives are marked done.. You choose, you pick up the best, happy and grateful.. Why linger on with dented, stale and awful? Your time and journey are solely yours.. Possess and empower them with open hearts and doors… Power, blessings, happiness, Surety, agreements are waiting your hug. Run and welcome them all, whisper aloud- Yes and find luck!! -Dr Radhika Vijay (Originals)

All of those years that Ella and I wrote to each other, I dated here and there, but never anything serious, and nothing to warrant my reputation. Even then, before I’d met her in person, Ella was the only one I wanted. I’d been waiting for her to turn eighteen. I planned to fly out to Boston after her birthday to meet her and her mother in person. I was ready to explain to them who I was and how I felt. “After Ella’s accident, when I thought I’d lost her forever, a part of me died. The women that followed were nothing but my way of trying to fill the void Ella’s disappearance created. It was a stupid way to grieve, but that’s what I was doing. Not one of those women ever came close to giving me even a fraction of the happiness I get from a single text from Ella.” Okay,

Once we got Cole out, I came home to find our apartment completely trashed. Apparently, he was trying to throw me a late birthday party at our place, but our friends—his friends—didn’t wait to start the festivities. By eleven, everyone was drunk, the pizza was gone, but hey, they saved me a piece of cake. I had to go into the bathroom so I wouldn’t cry in front of them when I saw the place.

What about you?” I broach. “Any ideas about how you want your life to be someday? Your marriage, the wedding, the perfect day, the perfect dress…?” She just sighs and takes a drink from the bottle. “I really don’t care about the wedding,” she says, staring back at the television. “I just want the life.” The life. Those words hit hard, and I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m still waiting for the same thing.

What about you?” I broach. “Any ideas about how you want your life to be someday? Your marriage, the wedding, the perfect day, the perfect dress…?” She just sighs and takes a drink from the bottle. “I really don’t care about the wedding,” she says, staring back at the television. “I just want the life.” The life. Those words hit hard, and I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m still waiting for the same thing.

When I took it off, I glanced in the mirror behind the dresser, and I nearly screamed when I saw the reflection. Finn was sitting behind me on the bed. His eyes, dark as night, met mine in the mirror, and I could hardly breathe. "Finn!" I gasped and whirled around to look at him. "What are you doing here?" "I missed your birthday," he said, as if that answered my question. He lowered his eyes, looking at a small box he had in his hands. "I got you something." "You got me something?" I leaned back on the dresser behind me, gripping it. "Yeah." He nodded, still staring down at the box. "I picked it up outside of Portland two weeks ago. I meant to get back in time to give it to you on your birthday." He chewed the inside of his cheek. "But now that I'm here, I'm not sure I should give it to you at all." "What are you talking about?" I asked. "It doesn't feel right." Finn rubbed his face. "I don't even know what I'm doing here." "Neither do I," I said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see you. I just...I don't understand." "I know." He sighed. "It's a ring. What I got you." His gaze moved from me to the engagement ring sitting on the dresser beside me. "And you already have one." "Why did you get me a ring?" I asked tentatively, and my heart beat erratically in my chest. I didn't know what Finn was saying or doing. "I'm not proposing to you, if that's what you're asking." He shook his head. "I saw it and thought of you. But now it seems like poor taste. And here I am, the night before your wedding sneaking in to give you a ring." "Why did you sneak in?" I asked. "I don't know." He looked away and laughed darkly. "That's a lie. I know exactly what I'm doing, but I have no idea why I'm doing it." "What are you doing?" I asked quietly. "I..." Finn stared off for a moment, then turned back to me and stood up. "Finn, I-" I began, but he held up his hand, stopping me. "No, I know you're marrying Tove," he said. "You need to do this. We both know that. It's what's best for you, and it's what I want for you." He paused. "But I want you for myself too." All I'd ever wanted from Finn was for him to admit how he felt about me, and he'd waited until the day before my wedding. It was too late to change anything, to take anything back. Not that I could have, even if I wanted to. "Why are you telling me this?" I asked with tears swimming in my eyes. "Because." Finn stepped toward me, stopping right in front of me. He looked down at me, his eyes mesmerizing me the way they always did. He reached up, brushing back a tear from my cheek. "Why?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I needed you to know," he said, as if he didn't truly understand it himself. He set the box on the dresser beside me, and his hand went to my waist, pulling me to him. I let go of the dresser and let him. My breath came out shallow as I stared up at him. "Tomorrow you will belong to someone else," Finn said. "But tonight, you're with me.

And tell your mama I’ll come later, as soon as I can. Tell her to wait for me to have dinner, because she has a cake for you. It’s your birthday today. I wanted to show you everything today, but she stopped me. She said to me, “Bit by bit, Francisco.” And she was right: bit by bit. But I’m tired now. Look at me lying here. You go, but stay in the shade. Let me rest in my shade. Run so you reach the cake before the candles go out—they don’t last long. You’d better blow them out, blow hard, because I can’t now. I’ll stay to water the trees, soon as I can, because if you don’t irrigate them as soon as they’re planted, the roots don’t take. The roots are important, Francisco. Water the roots. Come on, Francisco, we’re a long way from home. Run now, or the candles will go out. I’ll watch you go, Francisco. Go on. Where are you? Have you gone?

Monsoon Love is a love story with a few comic twists. The idea for this story came to me when I went into the local town of Pokhara with a friend to buy his son a birthday present. We had just arrived at the shops when a heavy down pour began, and as we had arrived on his motorbike and didn’t have raincoats or umbrellas so we had to wait for the rain to stop. We were standing under a awning watching the street while we waited, and I noticed this very beautiful young woman walk past me dressed in a t-shirt and jeans with the cuffs rolled half up her legs, but the way she held her umbrella made it impossible to see her face, though with the nice body she had her face must have been just as lovely. Then I though, imagine some guy stuck working in an office, and seeing a view like that every day of the same woman, and falling in love with her despite not seeing her face.

Well then. Let us begin with essentials. Are you free to marry me?” He exhaled slowly, in a pointed effort not to hold his breath. “Of course. When I come of age, that is.” “Tell me your birthday.” She smiled. “The first of February.” “It will be our wedding day.” He traced the shape of the birthmark on her hip. “Very convenient for me, for your birthday and our anniversary to coincide. I’ll be more likely to remember both.” “I wish you would stop touching me there.” “Do you? Why?” “Because it is ugly. I hate it.” He tilted his head, surprised. “I quite adore it. It reminds me that you are imperfectly perfect and entirely mine.” He slid down her body and bent to kiss the mark to prove the point. “There’s a little thrill in knowing no one else has seen it.” “No other man, you mean.” He kissed her there again, this time tracing the shape with his tongue. She squirmed and laughed. “When I was a child, I would scrub at it in the bath. My nursemaid used to tell me, God gives children birthmarks so they won’t get lost.” Her mouth curled in a bittersweet smile. “Yet here I am, adrift on the ocean on the other side of the world. Don’t they call that irony?” “I believe they call it Providence.” He tightened his hands over her waist. “You’re here, and I’ve found you. And I take pains not to lose what’s mine.” He kissed her hip again, then slid his mouth toward her center as he settled between her thighs. “Gray,” she protested through a sigh of pleasure. “It’s late. We must rise.” “I assure you, I’ve risen.” “I’ve work to do.” She writhed in his grip. “The men will be wanting their breakfast.” “They’ll wait until the captain has finished his.” “Gray!” She gave a gasp of shock, then one of pleasure. “What a scoundrel you are.” He came to his knees and lifted her hips, sinking into her with a low groan. “Sweet,” he breathed as she began to move with him, “you would not have me any other way.

St. Clair tucks the tips of his fingers into his pockets and kicks the cobblestones with the toe of his boots. "Well?" he finally asks. "Thank you." I'm stunned. "It was really sweet of you to bring me here." "Ah,well." He straightens up and shrugs-that full-bodied French shrug he does so well-and reassumes his usual, assured state of being. "Have to start somewhere. Now make a wish." "Huh?" I have such a way with words. I should write epic poetry or jingles for cat food commercials. He smiles. "Place your feet on the star, and make a wish." "Oh.Okay,sure." I slide my feet together so I'm standing in the center. "I wish-" "Don't say it aloud!" St. Clair rushes forward, as if to stop my words with his body,and my stomach flips violently. "Don't you know anything about making wishes? You only get a limited number in life. Falling stars, eyelashes,dandelions-" "Birthday candles." He ignores the dig. "Exactly. So you ought to take advantage of them when they arise,and superstition says if you make a wish on that star, it'll come true." He pauses before continuing. "Which is better than the other one I've heard." "That I'll die a painful death of poisoning, shooting,beating, and drowning?" "Hypothermia,not drowning." St. Clair laughs. He has a wonderful, boyish laugh. "But no. I've heard anyone who stands here is destined to return to Paris someday. And as I understand it,one year for you is one year to many. Am I right?" I close my eyes. Mom and Seany appear before me. Bridge.Toph.I nod. "All right,then.So keep your eyes closed.And make a wish." I take a deep breath. The cool dampness of the nearby trees fills my lungs. What do I want? It's a difficult quesiton. I want to go home,but I have to admit I've enjoyed tonight. And what if this is the only time in my entire life I visit Paris? I know I just told St. Clair that I don't want to be here, but there's a part of me-a teeny, tiny part-that's curious. If my father called tomorrow and ordered me home,I might be disappointed. I still haven't seen the Mona Lisa. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.Walked beneath the Arc de Triomphe. So what else do I want? I want to feel Toph's lips again.I want him to wait.But there's another part of me,a part I really,really hate,that knows even if we do make it,I'd still move away for college next year.So I'd see him this Christmas and next summer,and then...would that be it? And then there's the other thing. The thing I'm trying to ignore. The thing I shouldn't want,the thing I can't have. And he's standing in front of me right now. So what do I wish for? Something I'm not sure I want? Someone I'm not sure I need? Or someone I know I can't have? Screw it.Let the fates decide. I wish for the thing that is best for me. How's that for a generalization? I open my eyes,and the wind is blowing harder. St. Clair pushes a strand of hair from his eyes. "Must have been a good one," he says.

it was a wake-up call one day when I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention. That train I was waiting to catch raced by me without stopping. There probably wouldn’t be a wife, and I would never know what it would be like to have my kids grow up seeing me every day. At this point, I’m too used to being on my own that I’m like an only child. And an only-child doesn’t know how to share his things.

It’s a simple question. The kind of question anyone would ask on the first date. Or even before the first date just in case the man ends up being an obsessive stalker who murders people.” I tip my head back, a deep laugh pouring from my throat. “My birthday is September 7th,” I tell her. “Doesn’t surprise me that you’re a Virgo. Next,” she prompts sassily, waiting for my next answer. I bite my lip, tempted to spank her ass and give her a reason to be sassy. “Meadows, baby. Our last name is Meadows.

First, the boy. Pink cheeks, a mop of black hair, clenched fists. And then, in the next bassinet, the girl. A thin coating of blond fuzz on her head, a sweet smile on her lips. Angelina knew it was just gas, but that smile told her a lot. It told her all she needed to know. She stepped back and waited. A few minutes later, the two mothers appeared from different directions, wheeled up to the window by their happily exhausted husbands. The younger of the two women had her dark curly hair pulled into a loose ponytail.

Something dangerous is beginning: I am coming late to my own self. I made an appointment with my thoughts- the thoughts were snatched from me. I made an appointment with Faulkner- but they made me go to a banquet. I made an appointment with history, but a grass-widow dragged me into bed. Worse than barbed wire are birthday parties, mine and others', and roasted suckling pigs hold me like a sprig of parsley between their teeth! Led away for good to a life absolutely not my own, everything that I eat, eats me, everything that I drink, drinks me. I made an appointment with myself, but they invite me to feast on my own spareribs. I am garlanded from all sides not by strings of bagels, but by the holes of bagels, and I look like an anthology of zeros. Life gets broken into hundreds of lifelets, that exhaust and execute me. In order to get through to myself I had to smash my body against others', and my fragments, my smithereens, are trampled by the roaring crowd. I am trying to glue myself together, but my arms are still severed. I'd write with my left leg, but both the left and the right have run off, in different directions. I don't know- where is my body? And soul? Did it really fly off, without a murmured 'good-bye! '? How do I break through to a faraway namesake, waiting for me in the cold somewhere? I've forgotten under which clock I am waiting for myself. For those who don't know who they are, time does not exist. No one is under the clock. On the clock there is nothing. I am late for my appointment with me. There is no one. Nothing but cigarette butts. Only one flicker- A lonely, dying, spark...

I felt more at home in the army than I did in my house. (I feel more at home in my office now than I do at home, and I don't feel at home there. I get along better with the people there.) I don't think I ever had a good time at home on a furlough. I don't think I've ever had a good time on a vacation (I'm not sure I've ever had a good time anywhere); I find myself waiting for them to end. We have too many holidays. Birthdays and anniversaries come around too often. I'm always buying presents or writing out checks. The years are too short, the days are too long.

But then they hand you your beautiful baby, and the baby gazes up at you and says hello, and your heart just melts.” “It talks?” Sophie asked, then remembered Alden telling her months earlier that elvin babies spoke from birth. It sounded even stranger now that she could picture it. “Your speaking caused quite the uproar,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Though luckily no one could understand the Enlightened Language, so they thought you were babbling. I spent the majority of your infancy inventing excuses for the elvin things you did.” “Okay,” Sophie said, wishing he’d stop with the weird-info overload. “But what I mean is . . . I’ve been counting my age from my birthday.” Mr. Forkle didn’t look surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “How could I? Humans built everything around their birthdays. As long as you were living with them I had to let you do the same. And since you’ve been in the Lost Cities, we’ve had so little contact. I assumed someone would notice, since your proper ID is on your Foxfire record—and in the registry. But I don’t think anyone realized you were counting differently.” “Alden wouldn’t have thought to check,” Della agreed. “Neither of us knew humans didn’t count inception.” “So wait,” Biana jumped in, “does that mean that by our rules Sophie is—” “Thirty-nine weeks older than she’s been saying,” Mr. Forkle finished for her. Fitz cocked his head as he stared at Sophie, like everything had turned sideways. “So then you’re not thirteen . . .” “Not according to the way we count,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Going by Sophie’s ID, she’s fourteen and a little more than five months old.” Keefe laughed. “Only Foster would find a way to age nine months in a day. Also, welcome to the cool fourteen-year-olds club!” He held out his hand for a high five.

Being a glacier, I remember birth, The waves of stars falling over the years, White, six-pointed stars descending to form My soul. On my birthday, it always snows. Being the sea, you wait for everything With motherly love. You eat continents Of land, continents of ice. Your blue tongue Catches snow. You taste like salt. You make sand. I’m inland now, grinding the path that ends At your door. I’ll pause for weeks on the shore Before I let go. You will let me in Then begin to melt me down as I float. Months later you’ll ask me, “Do you love me?” I’ll answer you, “Does the sea love the sea?

Thirty is a bad birthday when you've got nothing to show for it. By then the old excuses are wearing pretty thin. A failure at thirty is likely to be a failure the rest of his life, and he knows it. But the worst of it isn't the embarrassment, which may even do some good in small dosages; the worst of it is the way it works its way into the cells of your body, like asbestos. You live in the constant stink of your own fear, waiting for the next major catastrophe: pyorrhea, an eviction notice, whatever. It's as though you've been bound, face to face, to some maggoty corpse as an object lesson in mortality.

He took my hand and stopped walking then shook his head when I looked up at him. “Look, I didn’t want to do this on your birthday, but this isn’t working out.” I raised an eyebrow at him. No shit, Sherlock. I waited for him to continue. “This whole arrangement with you and Lane, it’s weird. You’re not kids anymore. I can put up with your choice of livelihood. Hell, I can even get used to the fact that you refuse to do yourself up in the morning before I wake up when you spend the night.” He paused at my frown. “But I won’t play second place man in a woman’s life. If you want to have any chance with me, you’re going to have to leave him. Move out; get your own place. Just quit having him around all the time.” “If I want to have a chance with you?” Wow, this man was a piece of work. I gazed over to Lane who didn’t look too happy as he watched what was happening. I turned back to Brian. “But who would get custody of Iggy? We can’t do that to him. It would break his fragile little heart! And joint custody won’t work. We can’t just move an iguana around in the middle of winter. Plus, have you tried moving that tank? It’s huge…” I said the last of my speech to his back as he simply turned and walked away. “Jackass.

Happy birthday,” he whispered, his breath landing warm and suddenly close to my lips, making my insides flip. And just as quickly as he’d surprised me with the cake, he kissed me, one frosting-covered hand moving from my hair to the back of my neck, the other solid and warm in the small of my back, pressing us together, my chest against his ribs, my hip bones just below his, the tops of our bare summer legs hot and touching. I stopped breathing. My eyes were closed and his mouth tasted like marzipan flowers and clove cigarettes, and in ten seconds the whole of my life was wrapped up in that one kiss, that one wish, that one secret that would forever divide my life into two parts. Up, down. Happy, sad. Shock, awe. Before, after. In that single moment, Matt, formerly known as friend, became something else entirely. I kissed him back. I forgot time. I forgot my feet. I forgot the people outside, waiting for us to rejoin the party. I forgot what happens when friends cross into this space. And if my lungs didn’t fill and my heart didn’t beat and my blood didn’t pump without my intervention, I would have forgotten about them, too. I could have stayed like that all night, standing in front of the sink, Matt’s black apple hair brushing my cheeks, heart thumping, lucky and forgetful…

Megan Meade’s Guide to the McGowan Boys Entry One Observation #1: When they’re beautiful, they know they’re beautiful. Like the second-to-oldest one, Evan. He’s a senior. He is perfection personified. And he knows it. You can tell because he just sort of smiles knowingly when you gape at him. Not that I’ve been gaping at him. Not at all. Anyway, too soon yet to tell if it negatively affects his behavior. (Like Mike Blukowsi and his Astrodome-sized ego problem.) Observation #2: They like skin. Especially skin they think they’re not necessarily supposed to be seeing. Like the space between your belly tee and your waistband. Observation #3: They have no problem bringing up events that would mortify me into shamed silence if the roles were reversed. Like Evan totally brought up the wiffleball bat incident, when if that had happened to me, I’d be wishing on every one of my birthday cakes for everyone to forget it. Observation #4: They gossip. Can you believe it? I overheard Finn and Doug in the backyard talking about some girl named Dawn who blew off some guy named Simon for some other guy named Rick for like TWENTY MINUTES! They sounded like those old mole-hair ladies at Sal’s Milkshakes. ‘Member the ones who lectured us for a whole hour that day about how young women shouldn’t wear shorts? Wait, okay, I got sidetracked. Observation #5: The older ones are so cute with the younger ones. They were playing ultimate Frisbee when I first got here and Evan totally let Caleb and Ian tackle him. It was soooooo cute. **sigh.** Observation #6: They’re cliquey. I mean, eye-rolling, secret-handshake, don’t-talk-to-us-unless-you’ve-got-an-X-and-a-Y cliquey. Very schooled in the art of the freeze-out. Observation #7: They have no sense of personal space. I need a lock on my door. STAT. Observation #8: Boys are icky. Do not even get me started on the state of the bathroom. I’m thinking of calling in a haz-mat team. Seriously. Observation #9: They have really freaky things going on down there. Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready to elaborate on that one yet. Observation #10: They know how to make enemies. Big time.

There were four ways out of Nickel. One: serve your time. A typical sentence fell between six months and two years, but the administration had the power to confer a legal discharge before then at its discretion. Good behavior was a trigger for a legal discharge, if a careful boy gathered enough merits for promotion to Ace. Whereupon he was released into the bosom of his family, who were very glad to have him back or else winced at the sight of his face bobbing up the walk, the start of another countdown to the next calamity. If you had family. If not, the state of Florida's child-welfare apparatus had assorted custodial remedies, some more pleasant than others. You could also serve time by aging out. The schools showed boys the door on their eighteenth birthday, quick hand-shake and pocket change...Boys arrived banged up in different ways before they got to Nickel and picked up more dents and damage during their term. Often graver missteps and more fierce institutions waited. Nickel boys were f***** before, during, and after their time at the school, if one were to characterize the general trajectory... Three: You could die. Of 'natural causes' even, if abetted by unhealthy conditions, malnutrition, and the pitiless constellation of negligence. In the summer of 1945, one young by died of heart failure while locked in a sweatbox, a popular corrective at that time, and the medical examiner called it natural causes.

Once upon a time I'd left Los Angeles and been swallowed down the throat of a life in which my sole loyalty was to my tongue. My belly. Myself. My mother called me selfish and so selfish I became. From nineteen to twenty-five I was a mouth, sating. For myself I made three-day braises and chose the most marbled meats, I played loose with butter and cream. My arteries were young, my life pooling before me, and I lapped, luxurious, from it. I drank, smoked, flew cheap red-eyes around Europe, I lived in thrilling shitholes, I found pills that made nights pass in a blink or expanded time to a soap bubble, floating, luminous, warm. Time seemed infinite, then. I begged famous chefs for the chance to learn from them. I entered competitions and placed in a few. I volunteered to work brunch, turn artichokes, clean the grease trap. I flung my body at all of it: the smoke and singe of the grill station, a duck's breast split open like a geode, two hundred oysters shucked in the walk-in, sex in the walk-in, drunken rides around Paris on a rickety motorcycle and no helmet, a white truffle I stole and shaved in secret over a bowl of Kraft mac n' cheese for me, just me, as my body strummed the high taut selfish song of youth. On my twenty-fifth birthday I served black-market fugu to my guests, the neurotoxin stinging sweetly on my lips as I waited to see if I would, by eating, die. At that age I believed I knew what death was: a thrill, like brushing by a friend who might become a lover.

The Forgiveness Castle remains open all day and all night, and the best thing is that there are so many entrances, usually found where you'd never thing to look: behind potted plants, in crayon drawings, and on old birthday cards. I have it on good authority that one entrance is through a tree fort. Many of the Forgiveness Castle's entry points remain secret, which is why you hunt around, press the blue walls gently, and wait. Sometimes saying the most obvious words, 'I'm sorry', opens a hidden door right where there seemed not possibility." He looks away. "You're welcome to visit this castle to wait for a friend, to sit in one of its orange and yellow gardens, or to find your own reflection in the polished blue rock and whisper, 'Please.Come home.

There were times when I did not stop at Amen. I could make the Beatitudes go on and on. There was never enough time to list all the blessed. Blessed are my students, I said, and blessed be their friends; blessed are the quitters; blessed are the nervous; blessed are those who hide; blessed are the messy; blessed are the ones who say 'Oh, that's over my head'; blessed are the late bloomers, and blessed are the foolish; blessed are those who lisp; blessed are the birthday party clowns; blessed are the waitresses; blessed are the awkward; blessed are those who burn the roofs of their mouths because they cannot stand to wait; and blessed are the heartbroken, the ones who haven't arrived at the other side of their pain. Thank you very much. Amen, amen, amen.

Mom?” Then again, louder. “Mom?” She turned around so quickly, she knocked the pan off the stove and nearly dropped the gray paper into the open flame there. I saw her reach back and slap her hand against the knobs, twisting a dial until the smell of gas disappeared. “I don’t feel good. Can I stay home today?” No response, not even a blink. Her jaw was working, grinding, but it took me walking over to the table and sitting down for her to find her voice. “How—how did you get in here?” “I have a bad headache and my stomach hurts,” I told her, putting my elbows up on the table. I knew she hated when I whined, but I didn’t think she hated it enough to come over and grab me by the arm again. “I asked you how you got in here, young lady. What’s your name?” Her voice sounded strange. “Where do you live?” Her grip on my skin only tightened the longer I waited to answer. It had to have been a joke, right? Was she sick, too? Sometimes cold medicine did funny things to her. Funny things, though. Not scary things. “Can you tell me your name?” she repeated. “Ouch!” I yelped, trying to pull my arm away. “Mom, what’s wrong?” She yanked me up from the table, forcing me onto my feet. “Where are your parents? How did you get in this house?” Something tightened in my chest to the point of snapping. “Mom, Mommy, why—” “Stop it,” she hissed, “stop calling me that!” “What are you—?” I think I must have tried to say something else, but she dragged me over to the door that led out into the garage. My feet slid against the wood, skin burning. “Wh-what’s wrong with you?” I cried. I tried twisting out of her grasp, but she wouldn’t even look at me. Not until we were at the door to the garage and she pushed my back up against it. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I know you’re confused, but I promise that I’m not your mother. I don’t know how you got into this house, and, frankly, I’m not sure I want to know—” “I live here!” I told her. “I live here! I’m Ruby!” When she looked at me again, I saw none of the things that made Mom my mother. The lines that formed around her eyes when she smiled were smoothed out, and her jaw was clenched around whatever she wanted to say next. When she looked at me, she didn’t see me. I wasn’t invisible, but I wasn’t Ruby. “Mom.” I started to cry. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be bad. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, I promise I’ll be good—I’ll go to school today and won’t be sick, and I’ll pick up my room. I’m sorry. Please remember. Please!” She put one hand on my shoulder and the other on the door handle. “My husband is a police officer. He’ll be able to help you get home. Wait in here—and don’t touch anything.” The door opened and I was pushed into a wall of freezing January air. I stumbled down onto the dirty, oil-stained concrete, just managing to catch myself before I slammed into the side of her car. I heard the door shut behind me, and the lock click into place; heard her call Dad’s name as clearly as I heard the birds in the bushes outside the dark garage. She hadn’t even turned on the light for me. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over. The door was locked. “I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!” Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights.

There was a present on the front seat of Ethan's car, a Gap box tied with a white ribbon. "Happy birthday, Jenna," Ethan said, leaning over to kiss me, his lips cool from the iced chai he stopped for every morning. I opened the box and pulled out an orange sweater with a cream-colored stripe down the arms. "Thank you. I love it." "I know," he said, pulling away from the curb. "That's what you said when you handed it to me at the store and told me to get it for your birthday." "I'm sorry," I said, holding the sweater in my lap. I knew he was just teasing, but I wanted to be the kind of person who could enjoy surprises. I wanted to be as spontaneous and free as everyone else seemed to be and not feel all the time like if I didn't follow some kind of specific map of daily life, disaster would be right there waiting. "I just...really liked it." "And wanted to make sure you got it," he said, smiling. "So basically you're greedy." "Basically.

Can I wear your sweater with the daisies on it?” she asks me, her mouth full of omelet. I glance at the clock. “I’ll go get it, but you have to eat fast.” He’ll be here any minute. When it’s time to leave, we put on our shoes, kiss Daddy good-bye, and tumble out the front door. Waiting for us on the street in front of his car is Peter with a bouquet of cellophane-wrapped pink carnations. “Happy birthday, kid,” he says. Kitty’s eyes bulge. “Are those for me?” He laughs. “Who else would they be for? Hurry and get in the car.” Kitty turns to me, her eyes bright, her smile as wide as her face. I’m smiling too. “Are you coming too, Lara Jean?” I shake my head. “No, there’s only room for two.” “You’re my only girl today, kid,” Peter says, and Kitty runs to him and snatches the flowers out of his hand. Gallantly, he opens the door for her. He shuts it and turns and winks at me. “Don’t be jealous, Covey.” I’ve never liked him more than in this moment.

I will grant you one wish, for your birthday. Anything at all, except sex.” “Wait…what?” “You heard me. So what do you want?” Grayson questioned, keeping calm about the whole thing. Konnor thought those words over in his head again. He was literally telling him he could do what he wanted with him, as a birthday treat, as long as they didn't sleep together. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that if I wanted to…” he asked, but found that he didn't want to embarrass Grayson by saying it. His eyes went there any way. They focused on his crotch withoutshame, wondering if he would get to remove clothes. “Yes,” he nodded. “And you'd let me? Why?” he asked, too stunned to do anything else but ask. “Because it's not your fault I'm straight. And it's not your fault you're attracted to me. If I can't give you everything you want I can at least give you a birthday to remember, right?” Grayson smiled. Konnor felt like kissing him so hard he wouldn't be straight any more.

After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them and the pressure to fill the plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mother’s Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the trash can, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.

-Wait, Anna, do you hear it? Listen" "-What is it?" It sounds like barking. "-Look- seals." She points about thirty feet down the share where a dozen or so brown lumps wriggle and play in the sand, barking like some kind of water dogs, "-Wow", I breath. "I'm changing my answer." "Anna, What's the number one coolest thing you've ever seen in your life?" He asked me on night, about a week after my birthday, when We saw three shooting stars in a row behind his house. It was after midnight, and everyone was asleep but the crickets. I remember telling him about this crazy lighting storm I saw when I was ten. It was far away but I could see the rain billowing out in sails and sheets, all the dark blue-gray sky lit up in flash after flash after flash. "What's yours?" "It's always been the ocean. but I'm thinking about changing my answer." He didn't say anything after that. He just looked at my eyes for a long, long time, missing all the stars above Us until it was too light to see them anyway. "-What answer?" Frankie asks. "-Seals. The seals are officially the number one coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Anna: Right. I can only imagine. Etienne: And what, exactly, ist hat supposed to mean? Anna: Forget it. Etienne: No. Let’s not forget it. I’m sick and tired of forgetting it, Anna. Anna: You’re tired of forgetting it? I’ve had to do nothing BUT forget it. Do you think it’s easy sitting in my room every night, thinking about you and Ellie? Do you think any of this has been easy for me? Etienne: I’m sorry. Anna: You tell me I’m beautiful, and that you like my hair and you like my smile. You rest your leg against mine in darkened theatres, and then you acta s if nothing happened when the lights go up. You slept in my bed for three nights straight, and then you jsut … blew me off for the next month. What am I supposed to do with that, St. Clair? You said on my birthday that you were afraid of being alone, but I’ve been here this whole time. This whole time. Etienne: Anna. I am so sorry that I’ve hur you. I’ve made terrible decisions. And I realize it’s possible that I don’t deserve your forgiveness, because it’s taken me this long to get here. But I don’t understand why you’re not giving me the chance. You didn’t even let me explain myself lad weekend. You just tore into me, expected the worst of me. But the only truth I know is what i feel when we’re together. I thought you trusted those feelings, too. I thought you trusted me, I thought you knew me … Anna: But that’s just it! I don’t know you. I tell you everything, St. Clair. About my dad, about Bridgette and Toph, about Matt and Cherrie. I told you about being a virgin. And what have you told me? Nothing! I know nothing about you. Not about your father, not about Ellie … Etienne: You know me better than anyone. Andi f you ever bothered to pay attention, you’d understand that things with my father are beyond shite right now. And I can’t believe you think so poorly of me that you’d assume I’d wait the entire year to kiss you, and then the moment it happened, I’d … I’d be done with you. OF COURSE I was with Ellie that night. I WAS BLODDY BREAKING UP WITH HER! You say that I’m afraid of being alone, and it’s true. I am And I’m not proud o fit. But you need to take a good look at yourself, Anna, because I am not the only one in this room who suffers this problem.

The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a bus. Like I felt the wind of the bus. I could even see a couple of the passengers, all shaken by a potential suicide. And out of nowhere, the guy rushes over, yanks me toward him, and escorts me out of the street.” “The birthday boy?” “No, different guy. You all start to look the same after a while, you know that? Anyway, we were both so high on adrenaline, we couldn’t stop laughing the whole night. Then he asked me out. Now one of our jokes is about that time I flung myself into traffic to avoid him.” “You were in shock.” “No, I wasn’t.” “Why isn’t the joke that he saved your life?” “I don’t know, Amos,” I said, folding my fingers together. “Maybe we’re both waiting for the day I turn around and say, ‘That’s right, asshole, I did fling myself into traffic to avoid you.’ I’m joking.” “Are you?” “Am I?” I mimicked him. “Should the day come when you manage to face-plant yourself into a relationship, you’ll find there are certain fragile truths every couple has. Sometimes I’m uncomfortable with the power, knowing I could break us up if I wanted. Other times, I want to blow it up just because it’s there. But then the feeling passes.” “That’s bleak.” “To you, it is. But I’m not like you. I don’t need to escape every room I’m in.” “But you are like me. You think you want monogamy, but you probably don’t if you dated me.” “You’re faulting me for liking you now?” “All I’m saying is you can’t just will yourself into being satisfied with this guy.” “Watch me,” I said, trying to burn a hole in his face. “If it were me, the party would have been our first date and it never would have ended.” “Oh, yes it would have,” I said, laughing. “The date would have lasted one week, but the whole relationship would have lasted one month.” “Yeah,” he said, “you’re right.” “I know I’m right.” “It wouldn’t have lasted.” “This is what I’m saying.” “Because if I were this dude, I would have left you by now.” Before I could say anything, Amos excused himself to pee. On the bathroom door was a black and gold sticker in the shape of a man. I felt a rage rise up all the way to my eyeballs, thinking of how naturally Amos associated himself with that sticker, thinking of him aligning himself with every powerful, brilliant, thoughtful man who has gone through that door as well as every stupid, entitled, and cruel one, effortlessly merging with a class of people for whom the world was built. I took my phone out, opening the virtual cuckoo clocks, trying to be somewhere else. I was confronted with a slideshow of a female friend’s dead houseplants, meant to symbolize inadequacy within reason. Amos didn’t have a clue what it was like to be a woman in New York, unsure if she’s with the right person. Even if I did want to up and leave Boots, dating was not a taste I’d acquired. The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a decision. They knew they were on trial too, but our courtrooms had more lenient judges.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She lived at 623 Daisy Lane. Her parents were named Helen and Glenn and she had a room with blue walls. She had a computer and a desk and nail polish that she could wear to school. She would put on eye shadow in the school bathroom with her friends. Blue to match her eyes. She was almost ten. And right before her birthday, she got sick and had to stay home and missed the big trip to see the aquarium, but her friends said it sucked and there weren't any dolphins and her parents said she never ever had to go there. She had her party and ate cake and ice cream and then... and then... And then that's where the story ended. Even then, in the beginning, when I tried to pretend, I couldn't. Nothing waited for that girl after she missed her trip. Nothing I could see past her room and her parents and they didn't fade, never faded, but froze, never moving. What had been became what was and a story only works when you know the ending. When the people in it don't seem like pretend. When you can think about that girl and how she was once upon a time, and see her. When you don't already know the story is a lie.

YOU GO THROUGH LIFE thinking there’s so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish Breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don’t want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow—it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The watercolor sunset hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars. The cab was waiting outside the station. The airport, I said, but no sound came out. “The airport,” I said, and we pulled away. You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

maybe he hasn’t been judging Carl for other reasons. Maybe Owen doesn’t judge him because Carl returns the favor, by not judging a secret Owen felt safe confiding in Carl. Even if that theory is wrong, I still need to talk to him. Because Carl’s also the only lawyer I know in town. I knock on the front door, but no one answers. Not Carl, not Patty. It’s odd because Carl works from home. He likes to be around for his kids—his two young kids—who usually nap at this time. Carl and Patty are sticklers for their children’s schedule. Patty lectured me about it during our first night out together. Patty had just celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday, which made the lecture all the more enjoyable. If I was still able to have children—that was how she said it—I was going to have to be careful not to let them rule the roost. I’d have to show them who was in charge. That meant a schedule. That meant, in her case, a 12:30 P.M. nap every day. It’s 12:45. If Carl isn’t home, why isn’t Patty? Except that through the living room blinds, I see that Carl is home. I see him standing there, hiding behind those blinds, waiting for me to go. I knock on the door again, pressing hard on the doorbell. I’m going to ring the doorbell for the rest of the afternoon until he lets me in. Kids’ naps be damned. Carl swings the door open. He is holding a beer; his hair is neatly combed. Those are the first indicators that something strange is going on. His hair is usually uncombed,

I think every one who has some vague belief in God, until he becomes a Christian, has the idea of an exam, or of a bargain in his mind. The first result of real Christianity is to blow that idea into bits. When they find it blown into bits, some people think this means that Christianity is a failure and give up. They seem to imagine that God is very simple-minded! In fact, of course, He knows all about this. One of the very things Christianity was designed to do was to blow this idea to bits. God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam, or putting Him in your debt. Then comes another discovery. Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present." Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.

What if—” I stopped, swallowing hard. Nope. I couldn’t even say it aloud. We’d figure something else out because we had to. Time for a subject change before I lost it. “What did your mom say?” “Mostly that she thinks my hair is getting too long and I should cut it.” “That’s not helpful.” “That’s my mom for you.” He was trying for humor but his voice caught, and I wondered if he was thinking about how if she left and he didn’t, he’d never ever see her again. “So,” I said, sitting on the floor against the wall as close to the kitchen doorway as I could get without Lend dropping like a rock, “do you want your Christmas present?” “You got me something?” He sounded surprised. “I’ve been working on it for a while.” “I, uh, didn’t find you anything yet. I was actually setting up for your party, not Christmas shopping like I said.” “Being kidnapped by the Dark Queen and then cursed gets you off the hook for a lot. Besides, my birthday party totally counted.” “This isn’t how I wanted our first Christmas to go. We were going to go all out, pick out a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, decorate it, watch cheesy holiday movies, drink hot chocolate, let my dad make his eggnog and then complain about how disgusting it was, then I was going to deck out my entire room in mistletoe . . .” “Wait, you mean you didn’t plan for us to be stuck in different rooms for the holidays?” “Well, that part’s kind of nice.” I heard his head bang against the wall where he was sitting right on the other side of it from me. “I mean, who wants to actually be able to touch their super hot girlfriend? Overrated.” “I know, right?” I tried to laugh, but it came out choked. I swallowed, forcing my one to come out light. “And I totally dig watching people sleep. It’s so sexy.

There’s more, Anna. When we first got to California,” she says, “you asked me if I remembered your birthday party.” I nod, picking at a thread on her comforter. “I did remember. Matt was acting like such a space cadet that night after we got home – like he was floating. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out, but of all the things that he could have been thinking about, you were the last – I mean, my mind just didn’t even go there. You were like our sister.” “But I–” “Wait – let me get this out.” She looks at me hard, her broken wing eyebrow trembling to keep the tears back. “After I brushed my teeth, I walked into his room. He was sitting on his bed, playing with that blue glass necklace he always wore, a big smile on his face. Remember the necklace?” The necklace. “Of course.” “I asked him what was so funny. He jumped a little, not knowing I’d been watching him smile there like a goofy little kid. He said it was nothing – just that he had fun at the party. And I believed him, all the way up until the day I read your journal. That’s when it all made sense. All the times he’d ask me about who you liked at school, or who wanted to take you to whatever dance.” She’s quiet as I digest her story, putting the pieces together to form a complete whole from the missing half that’s haunted me since that night – how did he really feel about me? Was it just one stupid moment, perpetuated a little too long, only to be forgotten as quickly as it came? As soon as he went away to school? “I was in love with him forever – since I was, like, ten,” I confess. “Yeah,” she says. “You both were in love. I know that now. We were all so close, you know? I just didn’t see it coming until I read your – I’m sorry, Anna.” I close my eyes, fighting back the image of her hand on my journal. “It’s okay.

Are you ready, children?” Father Mikhail walked through the church. “Did I keep you waiting?” He took his place in front of them at the altar. The jeweler and Sofia stood nearby. Tatiana thought they might have already finished that bottle of vodka. Father Mikhail smiled. “Your birthday today,” he said to Tatiana. “Nice birthday present for you, no?” She pressed into Alexander. “Sometimes I feel that my powers are limited by the absence of God in the lives of men during these trying times,” Father Mikhail began. “But God is still present in my church, and I can see He is present in you. I am very glad you came to me, children. Your union is meant by God for your mutual joy, for the help and comfort you give one another in prosperity and adversity and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children. I want to send you righteously on your way through life. Are you ready to commit yourselves to each other?” “We are,” they said. “The bond and the covenant of marriage was established by God in creation. Christ himself adorned this manner of life by his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. A marriage is a symbol of the mystery of the union between Christ and His Church. Do you understand that those whom God has joined together, no man can put asunder?” “We do,” they said. “Do you have the rings?” “We do.” Father Mikhail continued. “Most gracious God,” he said, holding the cross above their heads, “look with favor upon this man and this woman living in a world for which Your Son gave His life. Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world. Defend this man and this woman from every enemy. Lead them into peace. Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle upon their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their friendship, in their sleeping and in their waking, in their joys and their sorrows, in their life and in their death.” Tears trickled down Tatiana’s face. She hoped Alexander wouldn’t notice. Father Mikhail certainly had. Turning to Tatiana and taking her hands, Alexander smiled, beaming at her unrestrained happiness. Outside, on the steps of the church, he lifted her off the ground and swung her around as they kissed ecstatically. The jeweler and Sofia clapped apathetically, already down the steps and on the street. “Don’t hug her so tight. You’ll squeeze that child right out of her,” said Sofia to Alexander as she turned around and lifted her clunky camera. “Oh, wait. Hold on. Let me take a picture of the newlyweds.” She clicked once. Twice. “Come to me next week. Maybe I’ll have some paper by then to develop them.” She waved. “So you still think the registry office judge should have married us?” Alexander grinned. “He with his ‘of sound mind’ philosophy on marriage?” Tatiana shook her head. “You were so right. This was perfect. How did you know this all along?” “Because you and I were brought together by God,” Alexander replied. “This was our way of thanking Him.” Tatiana chuckled. “Do you know it took us less time to get married than to make love the first time?” “Much less,” Alexander said, swinging her around in the air. “Besides, getting married is the easy part. Just like making love. It was the getting you to make love to me that was hard. It was the getting you to marry me…” “I’m sorry. I was so nervous.” “I know,” he said. He still hadn’t put her down. “I thought the chances were twenty-eighty you were actually going to go through with it.” “Twenty against?” “Twenty for.” “Got to have a little more faith, my husband,” said Tatiana, kissing his lips.

A woman decides to have a facelift for her 50th birthday. She spends $15,000 and feels pretty good about the results. On her way home, she stops at a news stand to buy a newspaper. Before leaving, she says to the clerk, "I hope you don’t mind my asking, but how old do you think I am?" "About 32," is the reply. "Nope! I’m exactly 50," the woman says happily. A little while later she goes into McDonald’s and asks the counter girl the very same question. The girl replies, "I’d guess about 29." The woman replies with a big smile, "Nope, I’m 50." Now she’s feeling really good about herself. She stops in a drug store on her way down the street. She goes up to the counter to get some mints and asks the clerk this burning question. The clerk responds, "Oh, I’d say 30." Again she proudly responds, "I’m 50, but thank you!" While waiting for the bus to go home, she asks an old man waiting next to her the same question. He replies, "I’m 78 and my eyesight is going. Although, when I was young, there was a sure-fire way to tell how old a woman was. If you permit me to put my hands under your bra, then, and only then can I tell you EXACTLY how old you are." They wait in silence on the empty street until her curiosity gets the best of her. She finally blurts out, "What the hell, go ahead." He slips both of his hands under her blouse and begins to feel around very slowly and carefully. He bounces and weighs each breast and he gently pinches each nipple. He pushes her breasts together and rubs them against each other. After a couple of minutes of this, she says, "Okay, okay...How old am I?" He completes one last squeeze of her breasts, removes his hands, and says, " Ma dam, you are 50." Stunned and amazed, the woman says, "That was incredible, how could you tell?" The old man says, "Promise you won’t get mad?" "I promise I won’t," she says. "I was behind you in McDonald’s.

In chem, Peter sits a row in front of me. I write him a note. Why would you tell Josh that we’re-- I hesitate and then finish with a thing? I kick the back of his chair, and he turns around and I hand him the note. He slouches in his seat to read it; then I watch as he scribbles something. He tips back in his chair and drops the note on my desk without looking at me. A thing? Haha. I press down so hard my pencil tip chips off. Please answer the question. We’ll talk later. I let out a frustrated sigh and Matt, my lab partner, gives me a funny look. After class Peter is swept away with all his friends; they leave in a big group. I’m packing up my backpack when he returns, alone. He hops up on the table. “So let’s talk,” he says, super casual. I clear my throat and try to gather my bearings. “Why did you tell Josh we were--” I almost say “a thing” again, but then change it to “together?” “I don’t get what you’re so upset about. I did you a favor. I could have just as easily blown up your spot.” I pause. He’s right. He could have. “So why didn’t you?” “You’ve sure got a funny way of saying thank you. You’re welcome, by the way.” Automatically I say, “Thank you.” Wait. Why am I thanking him? “I appreciate you letting me kiss you, but--” “You’re welcome,” he says again. Ugh! He’s so insufferable. Just for that I’m going to toss a little dig his way. “That was…really generous of you. To let me do that. But I’ve already explained to Josh that it’s not going to work out with us because Genevieve has you whipped, so it’s all good. You can stop pretending now.” Peter glares at me. “I’m not whipped.” “But aren’t you, though? I mean, you guys have been together since the seventh grade. You’re basically her property.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter scoffs. “There was a rumor last year that she made you get a tattoo of her initials on your butt for her birthday.” I pause. “So did you?” I reach around him and fake try to lift up the back of his shirt. He yelps and jumps away from me, and I collapse in a fit of giggles. “So you do have a tattoo!” “I don’t have a tattoo!” he yells. “And we’re not even together anymore, so can you stop with this shit? We broke up. We’re over. I’m done with her.” “Wait, didn’t she break up with you?” I ask. Peter shoots me a dirty look. “It was mutual.

A few years ago, a couple of young men from my church came to our home for dinner. During the course of the dinner, the conversation turned from religion to various world mythologies and we began to play the game of ‘Name That Character.” To play this game, you pick a category such as famous actors, superheroes or historical characters. In turn, each person describes events in a famous character’s life while everyone else tries to guess who the character is. Strategically you try to describe the deeds of a character in such a way that it might fit any number of characters in that category. After three guesses, if no one knows who your character is, then you win. Choosing the category of Bible Characters, we played a couple of fairly easy rounds with the typical figures, then it was my turn. Now, knowing these well meaning young men had very little religious experience or understanding outside of their own religion, I posed a trick question. I said, “Now my character may seem obvious, but please wait until the end of my description to answer.” I took a long breath for dramatic effect, and began, “My character was the son of the King of Heaven and a mortal woman.” Immediately both young men smiled knowingly, but I raised a finger asking them to wait to give their responses. I continued, “While he was just a baby, a jealous rival attempted to kill him and he was forced into hiding for several years. As he grew older, he developed amazing powers. Among these were the ability to turn water into wine and to control the mental health of other people. He became a great leader and inspired an entire religious movement. Eventually he ascended into heaven and sat with his father as a ruler in heaven.” Certain they knew who I was describing, my two guests were eager to give the winning answer. However, I held them off and continued, “Now I know adding these last parts will seem like overkill, but I simply cannot describe this character without mentioning them. This person’s birthday is celebrated on December 25th and he is worshipped in a spring festival. He defied death, journeyed to the underworld to raise his loved ones from the dead and was resurrected. He was granted immortality by his Father, the king of the gods, and was worshipped as a savior god by entire cultures.” The two young men were practically climbing out of their seats, their faces beaming with the kind of smile only supreme confidence can produce. Deciding to end the charade I said, “I think we all know the answer, but to make it fair, on the count of three just yell out the answer. One. Two. Three.” “Jesus Christ” they both exclaimed in unison – was that your answer as well? Both young men sat back completely satisfied with their answer, confident it was the right one…, but I remained silent. Five seconds ticked away without a response, then ten. The confidence of my two young friends clearly began to drain away. It was about this time that my wife began to shake her head and smile to herself. Finally, one of them asked, “It is Jesus Christ, right? It has to be!” Shaking my head, I said, “Actually, I was describing the Greek god Dionysus.

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

So, what did you want to watch?’ ‘Thought we might play a game instead,’ he said, holding up a familiar dark green box. ‘Found this on the bottom shelf of your DVD cupboard … if you tilt the glass, the champagne won’t froth like that.’ Neve finished pouring champagne into the 50p champagne flutes she’d got from the discount store and waited until Max had drunk a good half of his in two swift swallows. ‘The thing is, you might find it hard to believe but I can be very competitive and I have an astonishing vocabulary from years spent having no life and reading a lot – and well, if you play Scrabble with me, I’ll totally kick your arse.’ Max was about to eat his first bite of molten mug cake but he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘You’re gonna kick my arse?’ ‘Until it’s black and blue and you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’ That sounded very arrogant. ‘Really, Max, Mum stopped me from playing when I was thirteen after I got a score of four hundred and twenty-seven, and when I was at Oxford, I used to play with two Linguistics post-grads and an English don.’ ‘Well, my little pancake girlfriend, I played Scrabble against Carol Vorderman for a Guardian feature and I kicked her arse because Scrabble has got nothing to do with vocabulary; it’s logic and tactics,’ Max informed her loftily, taking a huge bite of the cake. For a second, Neve hoped that it was as foul-tasting as she suspected just to get Max back for that snide little speech, but he just licked the back of the spoon thoughtfully. ‘This is surprisingly more-ish, do you want some?’ ‘I think I’ll pass.’ ‘Well, you’re not getting out of Scrabble that easily.’ Max leaned back against the cushions, the mug cradled to his chest, and propped his feet up on the table so he could poke the Scrabble box nearer to Neve. ‘Come on, set ’em up. Unless you’re too scared.’ ‘Max, I have all the two-letter words memorised, and as for Carol Vorderman – well, she might be good at maths but there was a reason why she wasn’t in Dictionary Corner on Countdown so I’m not surprised you beat her at Scrabble.’ ‘Fighting talk.’ Max rapped his knuckles gently against Neve’s head, which made her furious. ‘I’ll remind you of that little speech once I’m done making you eat every single one of those high-scoring words you seem to think you’re so good at.’ ‘Right, that does it.’ Neve snatched up the box and practically tore off the lid, so she could bang the board down on the coffee table. ‘You can’t be that good at Scrabble if you keep your letters in a crumpled paper bag,’ Max noted, actually daring to nudge her arm with his foot. Neve knew he was only doing it to get a rise out of her, but God, it was working. ‘Game on, Pancake Boy,’ she snarled, throwing a letter rack at Max, which just made him laugh. ‘And don’t think I’m going to let you win just because it’s your birthday.’ It was the most fun Neve had ever had playing Scrabble. It might even have been the most fun she had ever had. For every obscure word she tried to play in the highest scoring place, Max would put down three tiles to make three different words and block off huge sections of the board. Every time she tried to flounce or throw a strop because ‘you’re going against the whole spirit of the game’, Max would pop another Quality Street into her mouth because, as he said, ‘It is Treat Sunday and you only had one roast potato.’ When there were no more Quality Street left and they’d drunk all the champagne, he stopped each one of her snits with a slow, devastating kiss so there were long pauses between each round. It was a point of honour to Neve that she won in the most satisfying way possible; finally getting to use her ‘q’ on a triple word score by turning Max’s ‘hogs’ into ‘quahogs’ and waving the Oxford English Dictionary in his face when he dared to challenge her.

After I checked my suitcase, I walked through the terminal crying. When you go to boarding school, you're always leaving your family, not once but over and over and over, and it's not like it is when you're in college because you're older then and you're sort of supposed to be gone from them. I cried because of how guilty I felt, and because of how indulgent my guilt was. Standing in a store that sold bottled water and birthday cards and T-shirts that said Indiana in ornate writing, less than twenty minutes away from my father's house, I missed them so much I was tempted to call my mother and ask her to come wait with me for the plane; she'd have done it. But then she'd know what she'd probably only suspected--how messed up I really was, how much I'd been misleading them for the last four years. It would be much better once I got on the plane, better still back on campus. But while I was in their city, it just seemed like such a mistake that I had ever left home, such an error in judgement on all our parts.

Beatrice. I just like B and that’s all. I was named after the month of Junie. ’Cause Junie is the month I was born in, of course! And wait till you hear this! Yesterday, I finally had my birthday!

I waited for her outside her house and saw her approaching in the aqua-blue dress I had gifted her on her last birthday. She obviously remembered my love for that colour on her and how I always told her that it complimented her skin beautifully. My heartbeat increased just a little as she sat in my car and the scent of her signature perfume- Chanel No 5- diffused in the air of my car. Her sleek-straight hair fell on her face. "Hi Neel. How have you been?" I thought about the first month of sleepless nights, crying, sulking and overthinking and said, "I've been okay.

You know how some events turn out to be the big stepping-stones between one part of your life and the next? I don't just mean the steps you intend to take, like leaving home or starting a new job or marrying the person you love on a summer's afternoon. I mean the unexpected steps: the middle-of-the-night phone calls, the accidents, the risks that don't pay off. My twenty-third birthday turned out to be one of my unexpected stepping-stones; a step away from the solid foundations built by my indomitable parents toward quicksand where they are fragile and human and need me as much as I need them. It's knocked my world off-kilter; I'm sickly nervous every time the phone rings and there's a permanent cesspool of fear sloshing around in the base of my stomach. If I had to sum it up in a sentence, I'd say I feel hunted. I'm caught in the, waiting for the bullet that may or may not come, running, looking over my shoulder, braced for impact." -Laurie

dragging Katie with her, half-patting her back as she slid the cardboard box onto the island. In the box, Ariel’s phone dinged with a new message alert. Ariel picked it up as she scooped Katie into a full hug, making soothing shushing noises. She let her daughter cry into her shoulder, waiting it out. Over Katie’s shoulder, Ariel opened the screen for her messages. Maybe it would be Dylan, with some uplifting birthday getaway planned that would help both Ariel and Katie get over this awful day. But it wasn’t. Ariel gaped at the phone screen. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The text was from Dylan, but it wasn’t anywhere near about mistletoe and ski slopes. It simply said: This just isn’t working out. It seems like we’re going in different

My friend Meera sent a gif of a luxurious-looking long-haired cat holding a Martini in its paw with the message “cannot wait for tonight, birthday gal!!!!!,” which meant she would certainly be in bed before eleven. This is what happens when people with children get too worked up for a night out—they tire themselves out with anticipation,

A woman’s voice came wailing on the wind. Norman looked up and spotted Sandra high up on an even steeper funnel of snow and ice. She was crying: ‘Your father is dead. What are we going to do?’ One of her shoulders was hanging weirdly. There was a bloody wound on her forehead, matted with hair. Then he saw his dad, still in his seat but slumped awkwardly forward. Norman turned around on the steep slope and inched over towards him, sneakers pathetically trying to hold an edge. He slipped and almost plummeted like a bobsleigh down the mountain. He caught a hold. Then he started crawling back up. It took him thirty minutes to climb 6 m (20 ft). His dad was doubled over. ‘DAD!’ No response. Snow was falling on his father’s curly hair. Above him, Sandra sounded delirious. By the time he was four, Norman had skied every black run at Mammoth. On his first birthday, his dad had him strapped to his back in a canvas papoose and took him surfing. Reckless, perhaps, but it had given the boy an indomitable spirit. Eleven-year-old Norman hugged his dad for the last time then tracked back across the slope to see what he could salvage from the wreckage. There were no ice axes or tools, but he did find a rug. He took it and scrabbled back to Sandra. She couldn’t move. Somehow he got her under the ragged remains of the plane’s wing and they wrapped themselves in the rug and fell into an exhausted sleep. Norman was woken around noon by a helicopter. He leapt up, trying to catch the crew’s attention. They came very, very close but somehow didn’t see him. They were going to have to get off this mountain themselves. A brief lull in the storm gave them a sudden view. The slope continued beneath their feet, sickeningly sheer, for hundreds of feet. Then lower down there were woods and the gully levelled a little before a massive ridgeline rose again. Beyond that lay a flatter meadow of snow and, at the edge of the world, a cabin. Sandra wanted to stay put. She was ranting about waiting for the rescuers. For a moment Norman nearly lay down beside her and drifted off to sleep. The

Happy Birthday, Dom,” she whispers softly, running her fingers over my chest before drifting off. Somewhere between the drift of sleep and consciousness, I claim the only gift I want, palming her thigh and drawing it up to bring her snugger to me. Pressing and keeping my lips to her forehead, I inhale her scent and let myself fall into the idea of us and linger there—knowing that eventually, I’ll be jerked away by the hard, unforgivable reality waiting for me when I hit the ground.

We definitely wait for birthdays. Or even an ice cream. Like [my daughter] has to earn it. Yesterday we promised her an ice cream, but then she behaved horribly. And

I have two wishes: something true somewhere and someone true sometime.

The girl’s expression turned crestfallen. “It’s only . . . today’s my birthday, and everyone seems to have forgotten.

1973 was the year when the United Kingdom entered the European Economic Union, the year when Watergate helped us with a name for all future scandals, Carly Simon began the year at number one with ‘You’re So Vain’, John Tavener premiered his Variations on ‘Three Blind Mice’ for orchestra, the year when The Godfather won Best Picture Oscar, when the Bond film was Live and Let Die, when Perry Henzell’s film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff, opened, when Sofia Gubaidulina’s Roses for piano and soprano premiered in Moscow, when David Bowie was Aladdin Sane, Lou Reed walked on the wild side and made up a ‘Berlin’, Slade were feeling the noize, Dobie Gray was drifting away, Bruce Springsteen was ‘Blinded by the Light’, Tom Waits was calling ‘Closing Time’, Bob Dylan was ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, Sly and the Family Stone were ‘Fresh’, Queen recorded their first radio session for John Peel, when Marvin Gaye sang ‘What’s Going On’ and Ann Peebles’s ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’, when Morton Feldman’s Voices and Instruments II for three female voices, flute, two cellos and bass, Alfred Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style for violin and piano and Iannis Xenakis’s Eridanos for brass and strings premiered, when Ian Carr’s Nucleus released two albums refining their tangy English survey of the current jazz-rock mind of Miles Davis, when Ornette Coleman started recording again after a five-year pause, making a field recording in Morocco with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, when Stevie Wonder reached No. 1 with ‘Superstition’ and ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’, when Free, Family and the Byrds played their last show, 10cc played their first, the Everly Brothers split up, Gram Parsons died, and DJ Kool Herc DJed his first block party for his sister’s birthday in the Bronx, New York, where he mixed instrumental sections of two copies of the same record using two turntables.

It was my father's car, he bought the car the same time he bought this house, the house was my mothers and father's summer house, soon after that my father had a heart attack in the garden and died while my mother was doing the dishes, my father loved gardening he was working on the same spot you are digging in the garden, I was at the beach with the new beetle car that my father bought for me for my birthday when I returned home I saw the ambulance outside, my mother tried frantically to resuscitate him but to no avail twenty years later my mother died, and here I am alone and waiting to die myself

Before I forget to say it: Thank you. This is… This is…” He shook his head once more, setting down his glass, and she caught a glimmer of silver in his eyes that made her heart clench. He blinked it away and looked back at her with a small smile. “No one has ever thrown me a birthday party since I was a child.” She scoffed, fighting past the tightness in her chest. “I’d hardly call this a party—” “Stop trying to downplay it. It’s the greatest gift I’ve been given in a long while.” “Dorian got you an Asterion stallion.” “But Dorian doesn’t know what my favorite stew is, does he?” he glanced up at her and she bit her lip. “How long have you been paying attention?” She became very interested in her stew. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just bullied the castle’s head cook to tell me what dishes you favored.” He snorted. “You might be Adarlan’s Assassin, but even you couldn’t bully Meghra. If you’d tried, I think you’d be sitting there with two black eyes and a broken nose.” She smiled, taking a bite of stew. “Well, you might think you’re mysterious and brooding and stealthy, Captain, but once you know where to look, you’re a fairly easy book to read. Every time we have roast boar stew, I can barely get a spoonful before you’ve eaten the whole tureen.” He tipped his head back and laughed, and the sound sent heat coursing through every part of her. “And here I was, thinking I’d managed to hide my weaknesses so well.” She gave him a wicked grin. “Just wait until you see the other courses.

It was common courtesy. A birthday was a birthday, and that meant it got celebrated on the day of birth. None of this waiting for the weekend nonsense. That was weak-kneed hippie talk. Everyone has a job to get to, now take your damn shot.

Let me put your bag in the house, and then we can leave for dinner,” Rhodes kept going, before angling his body toward me. They were going to a dinner I hadn’t been invited to. I could read a cue. “In that case, it was nice meeting you, Mr. Randall. I will—” Rhodes’s hand landed on my shoulder, the side of his pinky landing on my bare collarbone just a little bit. “Come with us.” I jerked my head up to meet his gray eyes. He had his serious face on, and I was pretty sure he’d used his Navy Voice, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention because I’d been distracted by his finger. “I’m sure you three want to spend some quality time together….” I trailed off, cautiously, not sure if he wanted me to go or… not? “Come with us, Ora.” It was Amos who piped up. But he wasn’t the one I was worried about. Rhodes’s big hand gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, and I was fairly certain his gaze softened, because his voice definitely did. “Come with us.” “Are you asking me or telling me?” I whispered. “Because you’re whispering, but you’re still using your bossy voice.” His mouth twisted, and he lowered his voice to reply, “Both?” I grinned. I mean, okay. I wasn’t at a good part in my book yet, and I hadn’t eaten dinner either. “Okay then. Sure, if none of you care.” “Nope,” Am muttered. “Not at all,” Mr. Randall answered, still eyeballing me speculatively. “I’ll wait out here then while you put his things up,” I said. “I’ll come along. I’d like to wash my hands before we leave,” Randall said with a sniff. Rhodes gave me another squeeze before he stepped aside and headed toward the back of his father’s Mercedes. In no time at all, he had pulled a suitcase out of the back, and he and his dad were heading inside the house. Amos stayed outside with me, and the second that door closed, I said, “I’m so sorry, Am. I just heard him being so rude, and you guys were trying to be polite, and I could tell your dad was about to lose his shit, and I just wanted to help.” The kid stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me, hesitated for a second, then patted me on the back awkwardly. “Thanks, Ora.” He hugged me. He’d fucking hugged me. It felt like my birthday. I hugged him back real tight and tried not to let him see the tear in my eye so I wouldn’t ruin it. “Thanks for what? Your dad is going to kill me.” I felt him laugh against me before he dropped his arms and took a big step back, his cheeks a little flushed. But he was smiling that sweet, shy smile he rarely shared. “He’s not.” “I’m 50 percent sure it might happen,” I claimed. “He’s going to bury me somewhere no one will ever find me, and I know he could do it because I’m sure he has a bunch of spots picked out where, if it ever came down to it, he could pull it off. 

Hope was a fruitless emotion with no action behind it. Hope was waiting for something good to happen, making a birthday wish; action required so much more.

Opa and Oma, their children and grandchildren, celebrating someone’s birthday or an anniversary. They tend to sit there looking a bit lost, waiting for one of the children or grandkids to make an attempt to draw them into the conversation. A conversation they have trouble following because of the ambient noise, and anyway, what the others are talking about is often way over their heads. They’re sitting there, but they don’t really belong, not really.

Zoë notched an arrow and aimed it straight at the manticore’s head. The guards on either side of us raised their guns. “Wait!” I said. “Zoë, don’t!” The manticore smiled. “The boy is right, Zoë Nightshade. Put away your bow. It would be a shame to kill you before you witnessed Thalia’s great victory.” “What are you talking about?” Thalia growled. She had her shield and spear ready. “Surely it is clear,” the manticore said. “This is your moment. This is why Lord Kronos brought you back to life. You will sacrifice the Ophiotaurus. You will bring its entrails to the sacred fire on the mountain. You will gain unlimited power. And for your sixteenth birthday, you will overthrow Olympus.” No one spoke.

They didn't, in the end, wait for her birthday. Their mutual willingness to do so seeming sufficient.

CAMPBELL CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE FROM that of a holding room where you wait to meet Christ later to a living room in which to commune with Christ’s consciousness here and now. It’s not just the personal-relationship “Buddy Jesus” I was taught in Sunday school, the Divine Pal we keep in our pockets, sticking His head out of our handbags like a purse dog, ready to offer help finding parking or protection from the flu that’s been going around. It’s an invitation you extend for His essence to pass through you. Active and empowering, not just “please protect me,” but transform me. Merge with me. Help me kill this overactive, critical, limiting brain of mine. Help me escape the dungeons of cultural expectation, familial expectation, all the I shoulds and I shouldn’ts, I cans and I can’ts. Help me take the small person inside me and kick his ass, leave him for dead, and resurrect to my full, connected, light-filled potential. The story is you being reborn, you getting saved from your basic, boring, limited, mundane, same-story-at-every-party, same-vacation-every-year, same-restaurant-every-birthday, same-river-of-negative-thoughts self-loathing and cruel humanity and awakening to who you really are. Go and do likewise.

When I was a kid, Mom would always try to gently coax me into new activities. She’d never force me. But she’d tell me that if I went to the birthday party or the field trip, or the day camp, she’d wait in the car outside, and if I wanted to leave before it was over, I could. Most of the time I’d have fun and I’d end up staying. And then after a while she didn’t need to wait at all. It was knowing that leaving was an option that gave me the courage to try.

or trepidation, like they wanted to run away as fast as they could once the photo was taken. But Manfred Lange appeared happy to be photographed. His occupation was listed as art historian, and his date of birth as 29 June 1871. All consistent with what Anna knew about him. She flipped the little cardboard folder of his work permit over. Underneath was a membership card to the NSDAP, the Nazi Party. Again, his unapologetic face stared out at her. Member number 149578. So he had been a party member. Anna twinged a little. Had he told her he had been a party member? People with important jobs usually had to be, and it didn’t necessarily mean they were true believers, or even sympathizers. Still, it bothered her. She scanned the room trying not to appear furtive but failing. She quickly flipped pages to see if she could find his Fragebogen, the questionnaire the Americans would have made him complete. But it wasn’t there, of course, because these were the Germans’ files, not the Americans’. Deeply uncomfortable, she flipped back to the party membership card. The date of issue was 20 April 1933. Hitler’s birthday. Manfred Lange had been what the Germans called a March Violet—a late bloomer. March Violets were those who joined the party right after Hitler had seized full authority in March of 1933. Many with elite jobs and who considered themselves to have standing in society, rushed to join the party in order to be on the right side of the power grab. Probably that’s what Manfred Lange had done, too, like millions of others. She closed the folder indicating she was ready to go. She wanted to be out of the building and far away. “Find anything we should know about?” Bender asked, as he held the door for her. “No,” she lied. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat. The air had turned colder and the sky was socked in with dense clouds. “Looks like we’re in the clear for now. At least with the folks working for us.” He shot her a look. “Should you have let me see Herr Lange’s information?” Anna retaliated to deflect any further line of questioning. He smiled as he started the engine. “Probably not,” he said, “but I can’t help it. I’m so nosy.” Six “Where were you? I couldn’t find you at all yesterday.” Cooper was flustered and irritated but a smile appeared when Anna looked up at him from her desk. Things had piled up while she was out with Bender, so she had come in early to catch up. Anna honestly couldn’t remember if Manfred Lange had mentioned being a party member; she could only recall that he was very against the Nazis’ attitude toward art and free speech to the point where the memories had upset him. She hated that these misgivings lived on and probably would forever. One day, Amalia would ask her what she had done in the war. “I went with Bender to Darmstadt. I thought you knew about that,” she said. “He told me he had checked with you.” “That’s right. Of course. Was it a successful trip?” He sat down in the chair next to her table, intent on something. “I think so. He asked me to help him translate some paperwork. He was checking on some personnel? I didn’t find anything.” “Sounds like good news. For us, anyway. We already had to fire some people when their past caught up with them.” “Because they were party members?” “Or worse. Makes sense, but we had to let some very qualified people go. And with all these government types breathing down our necks, we can’t afford a single screw up. Washington is just waiting for something to go wrong so they can scrap this whole operation.” His face sank back into the shadows it had carried for the past weeks. He leaned forward and dropped his face into his hands. Anna felt sorry for him. “That won’t happen,” she said. “You will make sure of it.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. Without looking at her, Cooper took her hand in his and held it in place, his

Some may get religion, then they’re all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real. Even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it’s there—ready! Respectable countrywomen keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’ That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—‘blight the genial bed.’ Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny housewifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run round being harmful, or to run round being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led.

I didn’t think it was going to be any different on my ninth birthday. Instead, she dropped me off at Basilica di San Giovanni and swore she would be right back. You want to know how long I waited?” She swallows and sits up, looking away instead of giving me an answer. One side of my lips tilts up the slightest bit, but there’s nothing funny about a mother abandoning her child. “That’s the thing, I’m still waiting,” I finish, never lifting my searing gaze from her.

Where was the girl who’d pushed back against her mother’s modeling dreams for her and insisted on going to college instead? Who’d lived life with unapologetic joy and unbridled optimism, and who’d once dumped a boy for forgetting her birthday? That girl would’ve never sat around waiting for a man. She’d had goals and dreams, but somewhere along the way, they’d fallen by the wayside, consumed by the gravity of her husband’s ambition.

At fourteen years old, your first love is always going to be a disaster, but I didn’t have just one, I had three. All of them older than me, smarter than me, and completely out of my reach. But that didn’t stop me from following them around for the next four years.  I bided my time, waited for them, let them run havoc, fucking endless amounts of whores, but that stops now. Tonight is my eighteenth birthday and there is only one thing I want.

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.

Well, what if we meet new friends waiting in line for one of the shows?” Paige asks. “And we end up staying in the same hotel as them. And then one of them has a birthday. We would want to decorate their hotel room door, wouldn’t we?” She grins and holds up the plastic bag. “Thus, balloons!

BUILDING RENEWAL INTO YOUR WORKDAY – Tony Schwartz Zeke is a creative director at a large agency. The workday he described when we first met was typical of the managers and leaders I meet in my travels. After six or six and a half hours of sleep—which never felt like enough—Zeke’s alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. each morning. His first move was to take his iPhone off the night table and check his e-mail. He told himself he did this in case something urgent had come in overnight, but the truth was he just couldn’t resist. Zeke tried to get to the gym at least two times a week, but he traveled frequently, and at home he was often just too tired to work out. Once he got to work—around 7:30 a.m. most days—Zeke grabbed a cup of coffee, sat down at his desk, and checked his e-mail again. By then, twenty-five or more new messages were typically waiting in his in-box. If he didn’t have an early meeting, he might be online for an hour or more without once looking up. Zeke’s days were mostly about meetings. They were usually scheduled one after the other with no time in between. As a result, he would race off to the next meeting without digesting what he’d just taken in at the last one. Lunch was something Zeke squeezed in. He usually brought food back to his desk from the cafeteria and worked while he ate. Around two or three in the afternoon, depending on how much sleep he’d gotten the previous night, Zeke began to feel himself fading. Given his company’s culture, taking even a short nap wasn’t an option. Instead, for a quick hit of energy, he found himself succumbing to a piece of someone’s leftover birthday cake, or running to the vending machine for a Snickers bar. With so many urgent demands, Zeke tended to put off any intensive, challenging work for later. By the end of the day, however, he rarely had the energy to get to it. Even so, he found it difficult to leave work with so much unfinished business. By the time he finally did, usually around 7:30 or 8 p.m., he was pretty much running on empty. After dinner, Zeke tried to get to some of the work he had put off earlier in the day. Much of the time, he simply ended up returning to e-mail or playing games online. Either way, he typically stayed up later than he knew he should. How closely does this match your experience? To the extent that it does resonate, how did this happen? Most important, can you imagine working the way you do now for the next ten or twenty years? YOUR CAPACITY IS LIMITED The challenge is that the demand in our lives increasingly exceeds our capacity.

So just over a year ago, there was this guy. I really liked him. I mean really – since I was a kid.” “Did Frankie know him?” “The three of us were best friends. We basically grew up together.” “Complicated.” “Very. So anyway, last year on my birthday, he finally kissed me.” Sam stays quiet, focused on his feet taking off and landing against the sand. It feels strange to tell him about this for so many reasons, but the words are coming too fast for me to stop, even if I want to. “We started hanging out all the time – even more than before. Every night. Only we didn’t know how to tell Frankie, because we didn’t want her to freak or feel left out or whatever.” “Makes sense,” Sam says. “He thought it would be better if he told her himself, so I promised him that I wouldn’t say anything. But before he could talk to her about it, he–” I almost choke on the word, holding my hand against Sam’s arm to stop our forward motion along the shore. “What did he do?” Sam asks. “He just – he – I’m sorry. Wait.” The words of this story have passed a thousand times from my hand to the pages of my journal, but never from my lips to the ears of another living soul. I take a few deep breaths before I’m able to meet Sam’s eyes and say it. “He died, Sam.

I wondered what it was like, to gradually lose little pieces of your mind. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if you didn’t know it was happening, if you just kind of slowly sank into oblivion. Papa had celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday in April. He’d had a long, happy turn at life and yet it was still sad to watch it slowly ebb away. Papa continued to regard me with quiet scrutiny while my uncle rocked back on his heels and waited for someone to say something. I didn’t want to stay in this house alone tonight. I really didn’t want to stay here alone with Easton. I opened my mouth to plead with my senile great-grandfather to stay and keep me company. He spoke before I did though. “You’re no fun,” he said in a plaintive, childish voice. “Hear that, Claud?” Rocco teased. “You’re no fun.” “Shut up.” He sighed and turned serious. “I’m just trying to look out for you. I don’t think you should hide forever.” “I was only planning on hiding until Saturday.” That was the day after Jack and Anya were scheduled to return from Atlantic City. It was the date stamped on my return plane ticket. And then I would return to Arizona and go back to hiding out on that side of the country. Rocco wasn’t done prodding me. “Why don’t you go out tonight?” “I can’t find Jack’s car keys.” Rocco crossed the room in three long strides, rattled around in the kitchen for a minute, and returned with Jack’s key ring. “Excuses, excuses,

I deserve this shrimp. Born to people who clearly shouldn't have reproduced, I date my best friend and turn him gay, date another man who doesn't know he's gay, almost have dinner with a third man who's more interested in his reflection than me, and land on a yeti who turns out to be a millionaire playboy. "I lost the man I thought of as a father, had my thirtieth birthday party minus any family, and now I'm being dissed in the gossip rags. I am only human and I can take no more, so, yes, I have consumed my body weight in wine and I plan on eating this whole goddamn plate of shrimp.

Wait, you clean my dildo?’ I ask, slowly. ‘Every week, I clean it with the polish.’ ‘With furniture polish?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Jesus.’ Sophie got me the dildo for my birthday present three years ago. I have never used it. No matter how little sex I get, I’ve never been able to get turned on by a piece of rubber. And thank God; I’d probably have died of toxic poisoning by now with half a gallon of Mr Sheen being wedged up my vagina. ‘Katya,

Take the initiative with deliberate steps to be a polite person: 1. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. 2. Reciprocate a thoughtful word or a good deed in kind. 3. Say "excuse me" when you bump into someone, unintentionally violate someone’s space, or need to get someone’s attention. 4. Apologize when you’ve made a mistake or are in the wrong. 5. Live by the "Golden Rule" and treat others the way you would like to be treated. 6. When dining at home or in a restaurant, wait until everyone is served before eating your meal. 7. Acknowledge notable events like birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries.

Take the initiative with deliberate steps to be a polite person: 1. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. 2. Reciprocate a thoughtful word or a good deed in kind. 3. Say "excuse me" when you bump into someone, unintentionally violate someone’s space, or need to get someone’s attention. 4. Apologize when you’ve made a mistake or are in the wrong. 5. Live by the "Golden Rule" and treat others the way you would like to be treated. 6. When dining at home or in a restaurant, wait until everyone is served before eating your meal. 7. Acknowledge notable events like birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries. 8. Reply to invitations, regardless of whether you will be able to attend. 9. Acknowledge and show gratitude for gifts and gestures of hospitality. 10. Put things back where they belong. Leave the world a better place than how you found it.

place. His old-fashioned manservant, Harvey, always kept a hot meal waiting. After supper, he read in his study for an hour or so, then retired to bed, content to repeat the cycle the next morning. But somewhere in the vicinity of his sixtieth birthday, Tony's private life began to feel a little, well, too private. Tempting fate, he wished for a change. And something wonderful and terrible happened: his wish came true. "It's not fair!" a small boy shrieked as Tony entered the kitchen, knackered from another long day at the Yard. "I say." He caught the boy, Henry

After blowing out the candle in one puff once the song was over, she took a careful bite. He waited for her to spit it back out, but she actually swallowed, then took a second bite. "Try it," she said around the mouthful. "It's pretty good." Sailor figured she was pulling his leg, but it was her birthday after all. He took a bite. And felt his eyes widen. "I'm a culinary genius." Actually, the cake was chewy and dense, but there was no salt instead of sugar, which, in his book made this a win. But even better was seeing Ísa smile with open happiness.

Part of you liked him," Jack said, giving her an intent stare. "I could see it in your writing." She smiled uncomfortably. "Well, in the realm of fantasy, I suppose I did. But certainly not in reality." The hand behind her neck closed in a gentle but secure grip. "Then here is your birthday present, Amanda. A night of fantasy." He loomed over her, his head and broad shoulders obliterating the firelight as he bent to kiss her. "Wait," Amanda said in a flash of panic, turning her head as Jack's mouth approached hers. His lips pressed on her cheek, a brush of intimate heat that astonished her. "Wait," she said again, her voice wobbling. Her face was turned full toward the fire, its yellow glow dazzling her eyes as she sought to avoid the stranger's exploring kisses. His mouth moved gently over her cheek and toward her ear, tickling the tiny wisps of hair just above it.

You have no business looking forward to pink cakes. That’s not your world anymore. Your world is hunting the Book and staying alive. They’re mutually exclusive, you bloody fool.” “No, they’re not! It’s only if I eat pink cakes that Ican hunt the Book! You’re right—we’renot the same. I can’t walk through the Dark Zone at night. I don’t scare all the other monsters away. I need rainbows. You don’t. I get that now. No birthdays for Barrons. I’ll pen that in right next toDon’t wait on him andDon’t expect him to save you unless there’s something in it for him . You’re a jackass. There’s aconstant for you. I won’t forget it.

Well, then either you wait for a week, or you chase him down. We’re past the days of having to get dolled up for men.” Gran rolls her sleeves up and flexes her shiny new nails. “Get dolled up for yourself and go after what you want.

Just as a Being’s life is but a phase in one’s existence, so too is life a series of many births. Lives, birthdays, sunrises, even heartbeats mark beginnings along a timeline of different scales. One’s lack of mindfulness does not make this simple truth less compelling. It only marks the Being’s loss in not seeing the Cosmic opportunities waiting with the next breath. —The Modei Book of Fire (First Book)

Daniel.” “Ma.” “Are you well?” She was angry. If the straight-to-voicemail treatment for the last week hadn’t tipped me off, her tone now was a dead giveaway. “I’m great,” I lied. “And how are you?” “Fine.” I laughed, silently. If she heard me laugh, she’d have my balls. “Did you get my messages?” “Yes. Thank you for calling.” I waited for a minute, for her to say more. She didn’t. “I leave you twenty-one messages, three calls a day, and that’s all you got for me?” “I’m not going to apologize for needing some time to cool off and I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Who do you think I am? Willy Wonka? You missed my birthday.” She sniffed. And these weren’t crocodile tears either. I’d hurt her feelings. Ahh, there it is. The acrid taste of guilt. “Ma . . .” “I don’t ask for a lot. I love you. I love my children. I want you to call me on my birthday.” “I know.” I was clutching my chest so my heart didn’t fall out and bleed all over the grass. “What could have been so important that you couldn’t spare a few minutes for your mother? I was so worried.” “I did call you—” “Don’t shit on a plate and tell me it’s fudge, Daniel. You called after midnight.” I hadn’t come up with a plausible lie for why I hadn’t called on her birthday, because I wasn’t a liar. I hated lying. Premeditated lying, coming up with a story ahead of time, crafting it, was Seamus’s game. If I absolutely had to lie, I subscribed to spur-of-the-moment lying; it made me less of a soulless maggot. “That’s true, Ma. But I swear I—” “Don’t you fucking swear, Daniel. Don’t you fucking do that. I raised you kids better.” “Sorry, sorry.” “What was so important, huh?” She heaved a watery sigh. “I thought you were in a ditch, dying somewhere. I had Father Matthew on standby to give you your last rights. Was your phone broken?” “No.” “Did you forget?” Her voice broke on the last word and it was like being stabbed. The worst. “No, I sw—ah, I mean, I didn’t forget.” Lie. Lying lie. Lying liar. “Then what?” I grimaced, shutting my eyes, taking a deep breath and said, “I’m married.” Silence. Complete fucking silence. I thought maybe she wasn’t even breathing. Meanwhile, in my brain: Oh. Shit. What. The. Fuck. Have. I. Done. . . . However. However, on the other hand, I was married. I am married. Not a lie. Yeah, we hadn’t had the ceremony yet, but the paperwork was filed, and legally speaking, Kat and I were married. I listened as my mom took a breath, said nothing, and then took another. “Are you pulling my leg with this?” On the plus side, she didn’t sound sad anymore. “No, no. I promise. I’m married. I—uh—was getting married.” “Wait a minute, you got married on my birthday?” Uh . . . “Uh . . .” “Daniel?” “No. We didn’t get married on your birthday.” Shit. Fuck. “We’ve been married for a month, and Kat had an emergency on Wednesday.” Technically, not lies. “That’s her name? Cat?” “Kathleen. Her name is Kathleen.” “Like your great aunt Kathleen?” Kat wasn’t a thing like my great aunt. “Yeah, the name is spelled the same.” “Last month? You got married last month?” She sounded bewildered, like she was having trouble keeping up. “Is she—is she Irish?” “No.” “Oh. That’s okay. Catholic?” Oh jeez, I really hadn’t thought this through. Maybe it was time for me to reconsider my spur-of-the-moment approach to lying and just surrender to being a soulless maggot. “No. She’s not Catholic.” “Oh.” My mom didn’t sound disappointed, just a little surprised and maybe a little worried. “Daniel, I—you were married last month and I’m only hearing about it now? How long have you known this woman?” I winced. “Two and a half years.” “Two and a half years?” she screeched...

At five o’clock Tatiana took off her coat and her mask and goggles, splashed water on her face, retied her hair into a neat ponytail, and left the building. She walked on Prospekt Stachek, along the famous Kirov wall, a concrete structure seven meters tall that ran fifteen city blocks. She walked three of those blocks to her bus stop. And waiting for her at the bus stop was Alexander. When she saw him—Tatiana couldn’t help herself—her face lit up. Putting her hand on her chest, she stopped walking for a moment, but he smiled at her and she blushed and, gulping down whatever was in her throat, walked toward him. She noticed that his officer’s cap was in his hands. She wished she had scrubbed her face harder. The presence of so many words inside her head made her incapable of small talk, just at the time when she needed small talk most. “What are you doing here?” she asked timidly. “We’re at war with Germany,” Alexander said. “I have no time for pretenses.” Tatiana wanted to say something, anything, not to let his words linger in the air. So she said, “Oh.” “Happy birthday.” “Thank you.” “Are you doing something special tonight?” “I don’t know. Today is Monday, so everyone will be tired. We’ll have dinner. A drink.” She sighed. In a different world, perhaps, she might have invited him over for dinner on her birthday. Not in this world. They waited. Somber people stood all around them. Tatiana did not feel somber. She thought, but is this what I’m going to look like when I’m here by myself, waiting for the bus like them? Is this what I am going to look like for the rest of my life?

and at as after an add act adjective answer ask am animal ant ax Africa Medial that can had back last has than man hand plant began stand black happen fast apple /a/ LONG A, OPEN SYLLABLE RULE Initial able acre agent apron Asia apex April Medial paper lady baby radio crazy labor lazy flavor tomato navy station basic label equator relation vapor enable volcano vibration basis hazy potato ladle vacation tablecloth table /a/ LONG A, FINAL E RULE Initial ate age ache ale ape ace Medial make made face same came state late tale place name wave space gave base plane game shape baseball spaceship racetrack shapeless cake /a/ LONG A, AI DIGRAPH Initial aim aid ailment ail Medial rain train wait tail chain jail mail pain sail strait afraid brain claim detail explain fail gain main obtain paid remain wait plain laid faint grain rail nail See also List 7, Suggested Phonics Teaching Order; List 8, Phonics Research Basis. // LONG A, AY DIGRAPH Medial always mayor layer maybe gayly haystack wayside payment rayon jaywalk player daylight Final day say away play may today pay gray bay stay birthday highway repay anyway way pray lay gay hay crayon

because there was a new face in the chorus, and rumor—in the person of his friend Aubrey—said she was a promising possibility as a mistress. And indeed she was, Lucien had to admit—at least, she would be for Aubrey, who had come into his title and had full control of his fortune. But not for someone like Lucien—a young man on a strict allowance and whose title of Viscount Hartford was only a courtesy one, borrowed from his father. Being my lord was, he had found, one of the few benefits of being the only son of the Earl of Chiswick. “She’s quite attractive, as game pullets go,” he told Aubrey carelessly after the play, as they cracked the first bottle of wine at their club. “Have her with my blessing.” Aubrey snorted. “You know, Lucien, it’s just as well you’re not looking for a high-flyer, for you damned well couldn’t afford her.” Lucien forced a smile. “She’s not my sort, as it happens.” “Balderdash—she’s any man’s sort.” Not mine, Lucien thought absently. He might have said it aloud if the sentiment hadn’t been so startlingly true. How odd—for the chorus girl had been a prime piece, buxom and long-limbed and flashy, as well as incredibly flexible as she moved around the stage. How could he not be interested? Aubrey was looking at him strangely, so Lucien said, “If she’s so much to your taste, I’m surprised you didn’t go around to the stage door after the performance and make yourself known.” “Strategy, my friend. Never let a woman guess exactly how interested you are.” Aubrey waved a hand at a waiter to bring another bottle, and as they drank it, he detailed his plan for winning the chorus girl. “It’s too bad you can’t join the fun, for I’m certain she has a friend,” Aubrey finished. “The gossips have it that your father is never without a lightskirt, so why should he object to you having one?” “Oh, not a lightskirt. Only the finest of the demimonde will do for the Earl of Chiswick.” Lucien drained his glass. “I’m meant to be on the road to Weybridge at first light—for the duke’s birthday, you know. A few hours’ sleep before I climb into a jolting carriage will not come amiss.” “Too late.” Aubrey tilted his head toward the nearest window. “Dawn’s breaking now, if I’m not mistaken. You won’t mind if I don’t come to see you off? Deadly dull it is, waving good-bye—and I’ve a mind for a hand or two of piquet before I go home.” Lucien walked from the club to his rooms in Mount Street, hoping a fresh breeze might help clear his head. The post-chaise Uncle Josiah had ordered for him was already waiting. The horses stamped impatiently, snorting in the cool morning air, and the postboys looked bored. Nearby, Lucien’s valet paced—but he

Jack must have looked confused, and Sienna leaned closer to him as she explained. Her perfume was sharp and floral, and he took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh fragrance after a day on the road smelling dust and tar. “When we were in high school, Uncle Renzo brought us down here to the pier at Monterey for a birthday dinner, and he spun Georgie a story about his grandmother going to sleep at the table when he was a little boy, and drowning in her chowder.” Jack grinned as Sienna continued the story. “He had her sucked in, hook line and sinker, for the whole night until she started to cry, and then he took pity on her.” Sienna smiled as she looked at Jack. Her long, delicate neck arched gracefully as her head turned slowly from side to side, and Jack got another whiff of her perfume. Her eyes were hooded and Jack sensed she was waiting for something.

Her heart is beating inside me. She moves inside me. She gets the hiccups inside me. Aborting her now is no different in my mind than waiting until she’s born and smothering her with a pillow, or throwing her in the lake on her third birthday, or shooting her in the head when she’s twelve.” Priscilla

Tree was lonesome, and the adjustment to campus life was not proving to be an easy one for her. She missed the intimacy of her neighborhood back in Columbia, where she knew everyone she passed on the street. She had the typical freshman sensation of being overwhelmed. The lectures were hard to follow, a lot of the terms and subjects were new to her, and she struggled to take notes at the collegiate pace. She tried to keep up as best she could, but it seemed like she was always behind. She studied for two weeks for her first biology test. She was afraid of failing. Semeka Randall, in the next bed, heard Tree weeping. Semeka slid out of bed and padded back to Tamika and Ace’s room—she was about to cry herself. She said, “Tree’s crying and it’s her birthday. We have to do something.” The three of them spent all afternoon planning a surprise. They bought a vanilla cake with white icing; they blew up eighteen balloons and decorated the back bedroom with them; they strung crepe paper, and ordered pizzas. Word got back to me that Tree was having a hard day. In the afternoon, I called the freshmen suite. I sang “Happy Birthday” to Tree, in my voice that was hoarse from yelling at her. That cheered her up some. That evening, Ace, Semeka, and Tamika acted like it was just another night in their dorm room. They talked about going out, and decided against it. Semeka said, “Let’s just eat pizzas.” Tree thought, “There goes my birthday.” When the pizza arrived, Tamika told Tree to stay in the front room. After a minute, they called Tree into the back. She walked into a room darkened except for a flaming birthday cake. It was the final icebreaker. Tree beamed. The three freshmen circled Tree, and began to sing. Semeka started first. But she didn’t sing “Happy Birthday.” She sang their favorite song from the film Waiting to Exhale. As Semeka sang a verse, the others joined in. “Count on Me,” they sang. Tree, touched, started crying again.

While they waited for the tram, Alexander said, “I brought you something.” He handed her a package wrapped in brown paper. “I know Monday was your birthday. But I didn’t have a chance before today…” “What is it?” Sincerely surprised, she took the package from him. A small lump came up in her throat. Lowering his voice, he said, “In America we have a custom. When you’re given presents for your birthday, you’re supposed to open them and say thank you.” Tatiana nervously looked down at the present. “Thank you.” Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper. “No. Open first. Then say thank you.” She smiled. “What do I do? Do I take the paper off?” “Yes. You tear it off.” “And then what?” “And then you throw it away.” “The whole present or just the paper?” Slowly he said, “Just the paper.” “But you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?” “It’s just paper.” “If it’s just paper, why did you wrap it?” “Will you please open my present?” said Alexander. Eagerly Tatiana tore open the paper. Inside were three books—one hefty hardcover collection by Aleksandr Pushkin called The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems, and two smaller books, one by a man she’d never heard of, named John Stuart Mill; the book was called On Liberty. It was in English. The last one was an English-Russian dictionary. “English-Russian?” Tatiana said, smiling. “It’s less helpful than you might think. I speak no English. Was this yours from when you came here?” “Yes,” he said. “And without it you won’t be able to read Mill.” “Thank you so much for all of them,” she said. “The Bronze Horseman book was my mother’s,” said Alexander. “She gave it to me a few weeks before they came for her.

Wait a minute, look at them. Smiling and laughing. Just having a wonderful time, enjoying themselves to the fullest. Why shouldn't they? They deserve it. It's Christmas. Their Christmas. The best day I ever had was the day Karla found me and brought me here, to my home. Ryan, Kaley, Matt and yes, even Derek, are my family too. I'm treated so well I've lost perspective. Well, what do you expect, I am a dog after all. They always find the time to take me for walks, play with me in the yard, bring me to the vet, get me in out of the heat and cold, cuddle up with me before bedtime and even celebrate my birthday. Today is for them and not for me. The least I can do is to let them enjoy it without me getting in the way. But if this continues tomorrow there'll be hell to pay! Who am I kidding, it'll never happen.

From the First World War to his death eighteen years later, George V spent just eight weeks abroad. George VI travelled widely as Duke of York but for much of his reign his capacity for travel was curtailed by war and ill health. The Queen, who had never left the country until shortly before her twenty-first birthday, has visited 135 separate nations, some of them several times. And yet she had to wait until she was eighty-five to visit the nearest of the lot – the Republic of Ireland – in May 2011.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. —Matthew 5:6 (KJV) Hey, old man.” It was my sister Keri on the line. “I can’t believe you are about to turn forty.” Hearing those words rang hard in my head. How could I be forty? It was time for a reality check. I was passionate about my career. My son Harrison was a wellspring of joy, and six-month-old Mary Katherine had forever changed Corinne’s and my life for the better. Yet, I couldn’t help but think about my shortcomings. Did I reach out to others or was I too self-centered? Was I giving back in proportion to what had been given to me? Was I mindful enough of the teachings of Jesus? Was I His defender? I tortured myself remembering that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. achieved greatness before age forty. How could my life ever measure up to theirs? My big day started with birthday calls, but by lunch I was feeling disappointed. How anticlimactic it seemed. In the afternoon, Corinne suggested we take a drive to a friend’s farm. She led me to a converted barn and swung open the door. “Surprise!” The room was filled with family and friends. Toasts followed. One friend spoke of our work in Africa; another thanked me for helping his parents through a hard financial time; another mentioned my work in the inner city. Small steps, I thought. Tiny acts far from greatness. But wait! Why am I treating forty as a deadline? What better age to begin again to make the world right, to reach out, to give, to defend God’s rightness? Everything old turned new in that moment, and I was on my way. Father, I want to do more than long for a better world. Come with me. Help me make it happen. —Brock Kidd Digging Deeper: Gal 6:9; Eph 2:10

We should show him the one where she took all her clothes off at that birthday party,” my mom said to my dad with a smile. “Oh my God! What, have you been holding on to that picture all these years just waiting for this opportunity to humiliate me?” “Oh come on! It’s so cute! She’s shaking her na**d little tuckus to Disney songs.” My dad smiled at Braden who looked like he was trying not to laugh. “What is wrong with you people? I finally bring a guy home and you immediately have to break out the kiddie porn?” “Gabby! I’m sure he’s seen you na**d before,” my mom said. Clearly my parents weren’t going to stop until I had no pride left.

s a child, I was so shy I once hid in a closet at my own birthday party! But again and again, over the years, God has confronted me with opportunities to step outside of myself to touch others. And you know what? Saying yes to God is always a hopeful endeavor. If someone asked me 40 years ago whether I'd ever write a book or speak in front of a large audience, I'd have told her she was crazy. But that's what my ministry became! And as I've matured in the Lord, my hope has grown too. These days I'm far from a hopeless romantic. I'm not a hopeless anything. I'm a wide-eyed child of God eagerly waiting to see what He has in mind for me next. hese troubling days are the perfect time to enjoy the company of old and dear friends. You can share your sorrows, rejoice at God's love, and reminisce about good times. Through all life's seasons friends add so much depth and meaning. Don't think you have to fill every minute with activities. Spend time talking, listening, and enjoying companionship. Gather around a table of great food and soak up the warmth of years of friendship. Share a verse of Scripture and a time of prayer. The Bible says, "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). ver the years I've put together a "This Is Your Life" scrapbook for every one of my children. The books are filled with birth announcements, birthday party pictures, graduation memories-everything imaginable. Report cards, favorite Bible verses, photos of friends, even letters they wrote from camp. My kids have so enjoyed their special books-their own personal history. I love the scripture in Proverbs that says: "The

brought the two call-up notices to the office and showed them to an elderly colonel there. He admitted that they really needed me at the present job and promised to accompany me to the two different authorities. I mentioned that I had something special for him. Thus he followed me home, waited in front of the house. I went up to take the bottle of liqueur, that had been given to me, on my birthday in March, by the Romanian secret police commissar. When I came down with the French liqueur, he was beaming with delight. He achieved my release in no time, from both places - the army and the Donbas - he made me look very important in front of the authorities. Fine, I was saved again and continued at the Railroad Telephone and Telegraph station.

Roommates ...the door opened and the most improbable trio walked in: a tiny dark-haired man, a very tall and big-nosed guy with long hair like a rock star, and a girl in a white nightgown with a toilet seat around her neck. They were Edmondo Zanolini, Michael Laub, and a fifteen-year-old girl named Brigitte—an Italian, a Belgian, and a Swede— and they were the performance-art trio who called themselves Maniac Productions. They gave themselves this name because, among other things, they would enlist people from their own families to do strange things. For instance, Edmondo’s grandfather was a pyromaniac. And since he was also a bit senile, he was very dangerous—he had set his house on fire a number of times. His family was very careful to keep matches out of his reach at all times, except when Maniac Productions was performing. Then Edmondo would invite his grandfather to the theater and give him a big box of matches; the grandfather would wander around the theater lighting fires while the group performed and pretended not to notice him. This was his maniac thing. It was very original theater, and very satisfying to Edmondo’s grandfather. He didn’t care if the audience was looking at him or not, because he had his box of matches. Edmondo and Brigitte moved into our flat. Michael came from a family of diamond merchants in Brussels and stayed in five-star hotels. Another tenant was Piotr from Poland. Piotr had a book of logic—I think it was Wittgenstein translated into Polish—and for reasons best known to himself, he kept it in the freezer. This book was his favorite thing in the world. And every morning he would wake up with this imbecilic smile on his face, take his book out of the freezer, wait patiently until the page he wanted to read unfroze, read to us from it in Polish, then turn the page and put the book back in the freezer for the next day. Brigitte’s father had started the pornography industry in Sweden—a very big deal; the porn revolution really began there—and she hated her father; she hated everybody. She was a deeply depressed person: she literally never spoke a word. All of us in the flat ate all our meals together, and she would just sit there, completely silent. Then in the middle of the night one night, Edmondo knocked on our door. I opened it and said, “What’s wrong?” “She talks, she talks!” he said. “What did she say?” I asked. “She said, ‘Boo,’ ” he said. “That’s not much,” I said. The next morning, she packed and left. (...) “I’m so happy,” Michael told us one day, about his pair of girlfriends. “The two of them complement each other perfectly.” Marinka and Ulla knew (and liked) each other, and knew (but didn’t like) the arrangement. Then Ulla got pregnant—not only pregnant, but pregnant with twins. When Michael told Marinka about it, she moved to Australia. And Piotr followed her there, and committed suicide on her birthday.

I’m in the middle of my fantasy when I hear Him, loud and clear in my mind. “Jennette, I, the spirit of the Holy Ghost, command you to cross your name out on the sign-in sheet, go to the restroom, touch your underwear band five times in a row, twirl on one foot, unlock and relock the bathroom door five times, come back, and re-sign in on the sign-in sheet.” I’m elated. He has spoken. The Holy Ghost, aka my Still Small Voice, has finally spoken to me. I’ve been waiting for Him to speak to me since my eighth birthday when I had my baptism.

honeymoon swimming circles around us in the bathroom bleach blue water. It was waiting for a turn, every time he took me to bed. It is especially present at anniversaries and birthday parties and holidays. Anytime we are expected to be happy, our third raises its head.

I didn't expect this day was like this. I should be there with u now but I can't n just d thing I can only do is praying god to keep u happy n healthy my love. Every year, I used to wish u a happy birthday at 12 am. But, I lost that chance today. Anyways I wish my sweet heart always be active like deer, lovable like dog, cute like our babies, clever like fox, daring like lion, pure like dove, handsome like harry potter, creative like dolphin, romantic like love birds, being with me like my heart. Ur gonna be such responsible n challenging husband in our life. I wish all the happiness, joy n love to u. We will travel with what we face struggles or sufferings whatever it may be, But only together I promise u. This promise is d the only one gift I can give u many more times throughout our life my dear platinum. Finally, my words are waiting to wish u a many more happy returns of the day

Cuddy believed if he waited until he could get everything ready at once, make all arrangements, forget no detail, then life would begin for him like a birthday party at last, and keep on noisy and warm always.

If you want to treat yourself, you could make plans to go someplace you’ve never been before, or arrange a birthday celebration for yourself, or dress beautifully for an upcoming event. If you want to feel respected at work, you could decide that you’re going to make a list for your own benefit of everything you contributed to a project. We think of feeling appreciated, respected, and loved as core needs in a relationship, but when we attend to these needs for ourselves in small ways every day, then we don’t have to wait for our partner to deliver them through a grand gesture.

Life is short, my friend. We have to make the most of our chances. We’re not so different from these little guys. Happiness is out there. But it’s not guaranteed, and we can’t wait for it to come to us.

I laugh a little self-consciously and wipe the lipstick from his mouth. I start to pull away, but Rhyson bends to whisper in my ear, holding me still in front of him. “You might, uh, wanna just stand here for a second unless you want this boner poking Aunt Ruthie in the eye.” I drop my head to his chest and giggle, but stand there obediently until he releases me to greet the people waiting to wish me a happy birthday.