Weird 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.

Isn’t it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn’t going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to National Geographic, which she calls “the National Geographic.” She also gave me a white blazer, because I only wear white clothes, and it’s too big to wear so it will last me a long time. She also gave me Grandpa’s camera, which I loved for two reasons. I asked why he didn’t take it with him when he left her. She said, “Maybe he wanted you to have it.” I said, “But I was negative-thirty years old.” She said, “Still.” Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!

CUSTOMER: Do you have any Robin Hood stories where he doesn’t steal from the rich? My husband’s called Robin and I’d like to buy him a copy for his birthday, but he’s a banker, so ...

I'm speechless.I think at the rooftops of Paris. he touches my cheek,pulling my gaze back to him.I suck in my breath. "Anna.I'm sorry for what happened in Luxembourg Gardens.Not because of the kiss-I've never had a kiss like that in my life-but because I didn't tell you why I was running away.I chased after Meredith because of you." Touch me again. Please,touch me again. "All I could think about was what that bastard did to you last Christmas. Toph never tried to explain or apologize. How could I do that to Mer? And I ought to have called you before I went to Ellie's,but I was so anxious to just end it,once and for all,that I wasn't thinking straight." I reach for him. "St. Clair-" He pulls back. "And that.Why don't you call me Etienne anymore?" "But...no one else calls you that.It was weird.Right?" "No.It wasn't." His expression saddens. "And every time you say 'St. Clair,' it's like you're rejecting me again." "I have never rejected you." "But you have.And for Dave." His tone is venomous. "And you rejected me for Ellie on my birthday. I don't understand.If you liked me so much,why didn't you break up with her?" He gazes at the river. "I've been confused. I've been so stupid." "Yes.You have." "I deserve that." "Yes.You do." I pause. "But I've been stupid,too.You were right.About...the alone thing.

Sending someone all of the possible birthday party emoji is extra festive: great! But sending someone all of the possible phallic emoji (say, the eggplant and the cucumber and the corncob and the banana) is NOT extra sexxaayy: that’s a weird salad.

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.

When Mrs. Casnoff saw us, she walked over to us. "Sophie," she said, her voice warmer than I'd ever heard it. "Happy birthday. It's good to see you." I actually believed he meant it, which was weird. Weirder still was the smile she gave me as she said, "I was just talking with several of the guests about your decision not to go through with the Removal. We're all so pleased." Great. Nothing better than my superpersonal decision being party chitchat. "Well,that's probably a first for you," I tried to joke. When she just looked confused, I clarified. "Being pleased with me." And then she completely freaked me out by laughing. Granted, it was a low, short laugh, but still.

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 summer of my fifteenth birthday, my family had to move to Louisville.

I bury my face in the crook of his neck and laugh at nothing in particular, at how funny the world can be, at how weird it is that he’s a boy. How weird it is that he’s a boy.

We found out yesterday that Robert has won the Drama Desk Award for Possessed, a huge Broadway honor. Jeff—who is over the moon about it—is planning a fiftieth birthday party/award celebration. Of course I have to be there . . . and of course Calvin will be, too. No way am I going solo. I need major reinforcements, and nobody makes me laugh harder than Davis. “I know where this is going,” he says once I’ve explained the situation. He lets out a long sigh. “Does this mean I need to get a plane ticket and rent a tux?” “Well yeah, because I want my date to look hot.” “That is some Flowers in the Attic stuff, Holls. Don’t be weird.

Every year my wife would get me a card for my birthday, then as I got more involved with her family I found most of her family would send me a card, hell people I didn't even know would send me a card. Considering I'd had years and years without any of this card, gift business, years of just seeing it as another day and cracking on then this was weird beyond compare and I liked it. It made me feel good, but it also made me notice the things that hadn't happened

I received my birthday greetings on Facebook. It was weird to get tens of happy birthday messages on my wall and not know whether they had smiled, or if they had dedicated more than a few seconds while browsing other people’s messages, email, web sites, chat windows, and who knows what else. I have never met in real life most of the people who greeted me. Some of them I don’t even know or remember who they are. None of the people who left me a birthday message called my phone.

Life is wonderful and strange...and it’s also absolutely mundane and tiresome. It’s hilarious and it’s deadening. It’s a big, screwed-up morass of beauty and change and fear and all our lives we oscillate between awe and tedium. I think stories are the place to explore that inherent weirdness; that movement from the fantastic to the prosaic that is life.... What interests me—and interests me totally—is how we as living human beings can balance the brief, warm, intensely complicated fingersnap of our lives against the colossal, indifferent, and desolate scales of the universe. Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. Rocks in your backyard are moving if you could only stand still enough to watch. You get hernias because, eons ago, you used to be a fish. So how in the world are we supposed to measure our lives—which involve things like opening birthday cards, stepping on our kids’ LEGOs, and buying toilet paper at Safeway—against the absolutely incomprehensible vastness of the universe? How? We stare into the fire. We turn to friends, bartenders, lovers, priests, drug-dealers, painters, writers. Isn’t that why we seek each other out, why people go to churches and temples, why we read books? So that we can find out if life occasionally sets other people trembling, too?

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.

It sucks,” she said, her voice thick. “It sucks that everyone just … moves on, and forgets. They expect me to forget. But I can’t.” She rubbed at her chest. “I can’t forget. And maybe it’s fucking weird that I bought my dead friend a bunch of birthday croissants. But the world moved on. Like she never existed.

tight, trembling line. “It sucks,” she said, her voice thick. “It sucks that everyone just … moves on, and forgets. They expect me to forget. But I can’t.” She rubbed at her chest. “I can’t forget. And maybe it’s fucking weird that I bought my dead friend a bunch of birthday croissants. But the world moved on. Like she never existed.

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.

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.

Camille, did you know that when your mother was a little girl she baked her own birthday cakes?" "That's weird," Camille said. "At first she baked birthday cakes for all her friends in school and then one year, I think she was nine, I was having a party for her and she asked if she could bake her own cake. Nine was very young, I thought. It was a complicated cake. I don't remember what kind it was now. I think she made it up." "Do you remember what kind of cake it was, Mom?" I shook my head no, but of course I remembered. The first cake I ever made for myself was a landmark in my personal baking history. It was a lemon glow chiffon that I sliced into twelve half-inch layers, spread with strawberry jam, reassembled, and covered in seven-minute icing. Looking back, such a cake would appear to have been a monstrosity, but to a nine-year-old it was a glamorous, ambitious cake that had the aura of something very French, even though I had no idea what that meant at the time.

In June, I received my birthday greetings on Facebook. It was weird to get tens of happy birthday messages on my wall and not know whether they had smiled, or if they had dedicated more than a few seconds while browsing other people’s messages, email, web sites, chat windows, and who knows what else. I have never met in real life most of the people who greeted me. Some of them I don’t even know or remember who they are. None of the people who left me a birthday message called my phone.

I’m still struggling to get over the fact that I just let some weird alien creature crap all over me. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting this birthday in a hurry. The

i booked a ticket home to watch grandma die but it was my boyfriend's birthday. after the party he said "no one thought you were weird but i think you think you're weird

her face, like she had just opened all her birthday presents. Andrea Young thinks she’s so smart. “I hate arithmetic,” I announced. “You know what?” Miss Daisy said. “I hate arithmetic too!” “You do?” we all said. “Sure! I don’t even know what you get if you multiply four times four.” “You don’t?” “I have no idea,” Miss Daisy said, scratching her head and wrinkling up her forehead like she was trying to figure it out. “Maybe one of you kids can explain it to

In social situations like this, like when you find yourself in an elevator with someone who keeps humming “Happy Birthday” to his socks, you pretend the weird person isn't there.

This is way better than the time Bael asked me to use my truck to help him move a gold statue of a hippo. A life-size statue, mind you, with ruby eyes the size of my fist. The thing was creepy. Dragons get very weird birthday presents.

I wanted so badly to feel like I fit in here. I had tried, but I’d been raised so differently and I continued to feel like an outcast. I wanted that large family who were kind and caring and spent time together. I wanted big family Christmases and vacations. I wanted uncles who got too drunk and told hilarious stories during family gatherings and grandparents who bought you socks for every birthday. I wanted a family who gossiped and gloated. I wanted all the weird stuff that each family does that for them is normal. This

Whoa! That’s really scary Jeff. Great costume,” Skelee said. “RAAAAGGGHHRRR!” “So realistic!” Slimey said. “RAAAAGGGHHRRR!” “And it’s really scary how you keep saying, RAAGGHHRR and stuff,” Creepy said. “RAAAAGGGHHRRR!” “Hey, you want some food?” I asked Jeff. “We got human worm fingers, booger cupcakes, spider eye cookies…” “RAAAAGGGHHRRR!” “And we have a cake that looks like…brains!” “RAUUH?” “Yeah, gross right? My Mom made it. Dig in.” Jeff started sniffing around the brain cake real weird like. But Jeff was always weird, so I guess it was OK. “BRRAINNSS?” “Yeah, it looks just like brains.

I see you lost more of your eyebrows last night. Any other big Zombie changes happen?” “Not really, Dad.” I wanted to tell him about my extra chin mold, but my Dad would’ve probably made a big deal about it. “I remember when I turned 13,” my Dad said. “I really wanted to grow a mold mustache but I couldn’t. So I just let my nose hairs grow really long and it looked just as good. Eating was a bit of a problem, but I eventually got used to it.” Man. My parents are so weird. But, I got my whole schedule all set up for today. First my Mom is going to take me to Zombies R Us to buy some more stuff for my birthday Party. And she needed to get another costume for Wesley since I kind of destroyed his. She wasn’t too happy I took Wesley’s costume. But I think she forgot about it once she saw that Wesley and I were going to have matching costumes this Halloween.

And that’s pretty much when you start lying there, wondering how this is going to play out. (I felt sort of bad about this date, because it had been Dan’s birthday the day before. My parents brought in cupcakes and we pretended like there was a celebration and it was nice and I wasn’t awaiting surgery.) It was a weird Thursday. I took a few walks around the

So here’s the dealio; I was trying to think of what I could get for your birthday that would mean something, not just the usual Barbie crap. And I was thinking—you and me are Indian. Your mom’s not, but we are. And I’ve always liked Indian symbols. Know what a symbol is?” She shook her head. “Shit that stands for shit. So let’s see if I remember this right.” Sitting on the bed, he plucked the bird card out of her hand, turning it around in his fingers. “Okay, this guy is magic. He’ll protect you from bad spells and other kinds of weirdness you might not even be aware of.” Carefully he unwound the wire ties that attached the small charm to its plastic card and placed the bird on her bedside table. Then he picked up the teddy bear. “This fierce animal is a protector.” She laughed. “No, really. It may not look like it, but appearances can be deceiving. This dude is a fearless spirit. And with that fearless spirit, he signals bravery to those who require it.” He freed the bear from the card and set it on the table next to the bird. “All right. Now the fish. This one might be the best of all. It gives you the power to resist other people’s magic. How cool is that?” She thought

زبون : أين أجد قسم الكتب الشعرية؟ البائعة : إنه هناك . زبون :عظيم، هل تعرفين من كتب القصيدة التي تقول : (Happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one too) البائعة : . . .

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

Even though I'm trying hard not to let it show, I want to swim past the breakers, and sink to the bottom and stay there with my eyes closed and the water covering my ears. And yes, I know that's an overreaction. When you read this you'll think "Mom, please. Really?" You'll roll your eyes in that carefree way of yours and shrug those rebellious bangs off your forehead. You'll offer the one-sided smirk that says "you and I are the weird ones in the family - the two that always get each other's hidden meanings". Only this time, you don't get it. You can't. You won't for another 25 or 30 years - until you lie on the sand, or sit in a stadium seat somewhere or stand at your kitchen stove and catch a glimpse of your first born, your baby, suddenly inhabiting the body of an adult. Someone you barely recognize. In that instant, you'll think "how did this happen? When did this happen? Have I taught enough? Have I listened enough? Have I coached and planned and laughed and worried enough? Can I let go enough?" I'm afraid I won't be able to do it gracefully when the moment comes. I'm not ready. It's too soon. Instead of compiling pictures for a tasteful collage to make your dorm room homey, I want to climb inside the photos and live them again. Every bedtime story, lost tooth, birthday cake, backyard campout, ballgame, wildflower bouquet, rainy day and homemade Mothers Day card. All the golden moments and all the quiet, ordinary ones. I'd treasure them even more the second time around. If only life came with a rewind button, with do overs.

Joe blinked, turned his head and tried to focus on the table. There was a card that said 'Happy Birthday' except that the word Birthday had been crossed out and the phrase 'Badass Cyborg Arm Surgery' had been hastily written beneath it in what appeared to be black marker.

It’s probably a good idea to warn you about Grandma Melvyn in case you’re expecting her to be a sweet little grandma who brings me cookies and milk and knits me cozy blankies. She’s not. But if you have an extra grandma like that, I’m interested. Grandma Melvyn is not even my real grandma. She’s not anyone’s grandma. She’s my great-great-aunt, but trust me, it doesn’t matter how many “greats” you put in front of her title—there is nothing great about her. Dad started calling her Grandma Melvyn after our real grandma died. I guess he felt sorry for her because she didn’t have anyone to call her Grandma. This might be a good time to point out that feeling sorry for Grandma Melvyn is like kissing a scorpion. You get over the idea real fast. I know that sounds mean, but it’s not. All it takes is one look at Grandma Melvyn to understand. She’s about as tall as a mailbox and she wears glasses that are two inches thick and make her eyes look as big as baseballs. You can see every vein and every floater and sometimes, when she gets mad, her eyeballs wobble. That is not something you want to see. Trust me. I once saw her make a nine-year-old cry at his own birthday party. Okay, it was me. But you’d cry, too, if she gave you the Wicked Wobble Eye. Grandma Melvyn never smiles and she never ever, ever laughs. Did I mention never? One last thing about Grandma Melvyn. She calls everybody “Trixie.” And I mean everybody! Keep reading. You’ll see what I mean. When Ape Boy yelled, I ran out of the kitchen and looked out the dining room window. Uncle Pete was trying to help Grandma Melvyn up the sidewalk. Every couple of steps, she pushed him away and waved her cane at him like a fencer with a foil. Then she tottered forward a bit and tilted to the right, then the left and backward, until she looked like she would fall over. Even through the window glass, I could hear her yell, “Get over here, Trixie! Are you going to let an old lady fall down and die out here in this zoysia wasteland you call a yard? Zoysia? Who plants zoysia?” Uncle Pete grabbed Grandma Melvyn’s arm and helped her for a couple of steps, until she pushed him away and the whole thing started all over again, like some weird modern dance. Aunt

& i am feeling a lil weird cause you tell me to go away but normally i’m supposed to be not so far. or something.

& i am feeling a lil weird cause you tell me to go away but normally i'm supposed to be not so far. or something.

Dunce is completely bald and has a really pointed head so the temptation to get him paralytic on his thirtieth birthday, carry him to the tattooist’s and get a nice big ‘D’ smack bang in the middle of his forehead was too much for me. Trouble is he can’t afford to have it removed so he wears a big plaster over it. Gangs of children tease him. ‘What’s underneath the plaster, mister? Show us!’ They swear he has a third eye under there. My name is Bill but Dunce calls me ‘Fez’ on account of my hat. I’ve known Dunce for over sixteen years.

ingredient, Cap’n Crunch cereal!” Miss Bri-Bri beamed proudly. At first we all just FROZE. Then, slowly but surely, the significance of Miss Bri-Bri’s highly unusual ingredients started to sink in. Even the weird shape of her cookies finally made sense to us. Mom, Dad, and I gagged, coughed, and spit out our cookies at exactly the same time! . . .

We sat down and Cage introduced me to a few of his teammates and their spouses, ones I of course didn’t get around to meeting at Everson’s party. “So how did you two meet?” Brea, one of the wives, asked me as Cage and her husband chatted. She must have thought we were there together. The way she stared at me with her bottom lip protruding out in a you-poor-thing expression told me she also thought I looked less than presentable compared to all the other women there. With my hair back and hat pulled down low on my head to shadow my face, I did look like my next stop might be robbing a convenience store. “It’s a long and really weird story, but it happened by chance several years ago and we hadn’t seen each other since, until we ran into each other at Everson’s birthday party.” She leaned in close to me, looking past the shadows of my hat. “Oh my God, you’re that cat lady!” There it was, that label that would stick forever. “You had that cat that looked like … like … uh …” I let her fumble her words. If she thought I would jump in and admit to being the cat lady, she was so very wrong.

It’s weird when you think about, isn’t it? What if the Rider had a more positive orientation? Imagine a world in which you experienced a rush of gratitude every single time you flipped a light switch and the room lit up. Imagine a world in which after a husband forgot his wife’s birthday, she gave him a big kiss and said, “For thirteen of the last fourteen years you remembered my birthday! That’s wonderful!” This is not our world. But in times of change, it needs to be. Our Rider has a problem focus when he needs a solution focus.

One of the books that has had the most influence on me is a little manual called Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander. I know, it’s a weird title, but give it a read. I read it first when I was 12 years old and I still read it once a year to this day. It teaches you in life to be like a rhino - to have a single purpose, to charge at obstacles and goals with total commitment and to develop a thick skin to deal with the slings and arrows that try to slow you down. Still to this day, Shara loves to buy me things for my birthday with a rhino on. Lampshades, slippers, cushions, door knobs…you name it. In fact, it’s become a bit of a family joke to get me the most obscure rhino trinket they can find. But it means that at home wherever I look I am reminded of the simple (and fun!) truths of the book. They are all daily reminders to me to be a rhino in life. So find a way, whatever way works for you, of making motivation part of your daily life. Write notes to yourself on your bathroom mirror, keep a book that inspires you next to the loo, and feed your mind with the good whenever you can. If you do this every day, it’ll soon become a habit. A good habit. One that empowers you every day to climb high, aim big, and have fun along the way.

You wanna be illegally married to Cay and live in dirty fucking sin with him? You want to be his good girl and ride his weird, ribbed cock for the rest of your life?” I snort. It’s quite a set of vows. The kind you most definitely immortalize in song form so that your children and their children can never escape it. I’ll put daddy to work on it as a birthday present for Cay. “Yes,” I say, my gaze locked on Cay’s gorgeous, dark eyes. “I marry you, Caleb. You’re mine.