Zone Tan Quotes

I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little grid, determine what the day of the week would be. So we located our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her cart-wheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't handspring at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenze sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive). And a pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto). Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling- even if it was just a brother, it was better than being an only child as I was. But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth birthday- in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction. It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I would secure a responsible baby-sitter for our two (possibly three) children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out past midnight, so technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I would have just won a big case- somehow proven that an innocent man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel, my beautiful wife, the mother of my chidren and the finest lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I watched her purse her lips as she processed this information. "You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder. "We'll be old by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old." I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty. The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching ths show Thirty Something together. It wasn't our favorite- we preferred cheerful sit-coms like Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains- but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirty Something was the whiny characters and their depressing issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties would surealy last forever. Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone myself. I had plenty of time..

Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude--the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: "Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!" Because if you're up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you're shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea. And if a tornado just peppered the land around your Oklahoma town with random trailer trash and redneck nuggets, then you can find a quantum of solace in the fact that the earth actually opened up in the San Fernando Valley and swallowed a whole caravan of commuting SUVs.

Let me tell you something, honey. When your boobs fall south and that pretty skin of yours looks like you’ve been tanning in a nuclear war zone, you’ll see what I mean about independence. When the looks are gone, all you’ve got left is your spirit, and ya gotta use it until you lose it. That and the occasional sponge bath from Francisco, but soon his ass will be just as wrinkly as mine. Beauty fades, but a strong will keeps ya young and springy. -Miss Velma

Nothing helps your partner keep his mind on Jesus more than having a sign of His love tanned on your primary erogenous zones.

unlikely tan on one of Lonny Zone’s whores and the crisp naval uniform of a tall African whose cheekbones were ridged with precise rows of tribal

Our masterpieces are Shakespeare and Jane Austen and griots and Murasaki Shikibu, but they’re also J.K. Rowling and Chuck Palahnuik and Douglas Adams and Amy Tan and Suzanne Collins and Chinua Achebe. Read. Read them all. Read the books you love, and try to read books you don’t. Read the genres you love, but sometimes also read a book outside your comfort zone. Read voraciously.

A pirate! A black patch covered her rescuer's left eye. The elastic holding it in place drew a thin line between his dark brows and across his forehead. His dark hair was wet, and slicked back off his lean face. His strong jaw was hazed with dark bristle. His face bore the austere lines of a man hounded by demons and comfortable with danger. He looked scruffy, unkempt, and strangely appealing. Tally attributed her reaction to being delirious with shock. "Seen enough?" he asked dryly as she continued to stare. "Or do you want me to turn around?" By all means, do. "Sorry. I wasn't really looking looking-I zoned out there for a second." Very smooth, Tallulah. "I wasn't looking looking"? Oh, brother. She blew out a sigh. He wasn't quite a giant, but he was solidly built, and towered over her own not insubstantial five foot nine by a good five or six inches. Six foot four of sheer power, hard muscle, and sex appeal. His broad, darkly tanned shoulders gleamed with moisture. Salt water glittered like tiny diamonds in the hair on his chest and on the silky dark hair on his thickly muscled legs. His hands and feet were enormous. "Understandable." His mocking and enigmatic gaze took in her clinging clothes, bare feet, and grim hold on the railing as his boat rode the swells. There wasn't a thing she could do about her appearance, so she didn't bother fiddling. Besides, she didn't want to draw attention to the wet transparency of her blouse. Not that he looked the type to be crazed by lust. Especially for a woman like her. Perversely disappointed, she realized that far from being crazed with lust at the sight of her size A boobs, the pirate hadn't even noticed he could see right through her shirt. That one, piercing, whiskey-colored eye locked onto her, and Tally's stomach did a weird little somersault. Adrenaline still raced through her body at a furious clip. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Tally Cruise." Pleased she sounded coherent under the circumstances, she thrust out her hand and smiled. "Michael Wright." He took her hand, not with his right, but his left. His thumb brushed the back of her knuckles. Little zings of electricity shot up her arm.

These are all good things, I said. But no one knows where your country is or who you are. You don't have a familiar ethnic cuisine; your diaspora , from what I understand, is mostly in Southern California, three time zones removed from the national media in New York; and you don't have a recognizable, long-simmering conflict like the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians, where people in the richer nations can take sides and argue over at the dinner table. The best you can do is get the United Nations involved, as in East Timor. Maybe they'll send troops." "We don't want the United Nations" Mr. Nanabragov said. "We don't want Sri Lankan troops patrolling our streets. We're better tan that. We want America.

Obesity is so rampant that it seems contagious. It’s an epidemic now, and it’s spreading to other countries— the British are gaining, the Chinese are gaining, even the French are gaining— which makes it a pandemic. There are frantic efforts to make it stop. Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous were just early tactics in a long war that would go on to include the Pritikin Principle, the Scarsdale Medical Diet, Slimfast, the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, The Zone, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, the Blood Type Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Master Cleanse, the DASH diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Paleo Diet, and the Raw Diet. Americans have eaten fat- burning grapefruits, consumed cabbage soup for seven straight days, calculated their daily points target, followed the easy and customizable menu plan, dialed the 1- 800 number to speak to a live weight- loss counselor, taken cider vinegar pills, snacked strategically, eliminated high- glycemic vegetables during the fourteen- day induction phase, achieved a 40:30:30 calorie ratio, brought insulin and glucagon into balance, sought scientific guidance from celebrities, abstained from the deadly cultural practice known as cooking, tanned and then bled themselves to more fully mimic the caveman state, asked that the chef please prepare the omelet with no yolks, and attained the fat- burning metabolic nirvana known as ketosis. It has all been a terrible, amazing failure.

Learn Chinese in 5 Minutes  1) That’s not right = Sum Ting Wong  2) Are you harbouring a fugitive = Hu Yu Hai Ding  3) See me ASAP = Kum Hia  4) Stupid Man = Dum Fuk  5) Small Horse = Tai Ni Po Ni  6) Did you go to the beach = Wai Yu So Tan  7) I bumped the coffee table = Ai Bang Mai Fa Kin Ni  8) I think you need a face lift = Chin Tu Fat  9) It’s Very dark in here = Wai So Dim  10) I Thought you were on a diet = Wai Yu Mun Ching  11) This is a tow away zone = No Pah King  12) Our meeting is scheduled for next week = Wai Yu Kum Nao  13) Staying out of sight = Lei Ying Lo  14) He’s cleaning his automobile = Wa Shing Ka  15) Your body odor is offensive = Yu Stin Ki Pu  16) Great = Fa Kin Su Pah

walk out to the middle of the road and look both ways, trying to determine in which direction town might be. To the left, nothing but dry fields. To the right, the same. No shade, no life. Just the blazing Kenyan sun in front, and behind me, at the hotel, a cruel pantomime of Africa played out in blackface, replete with rich, tanned Euro-travelers demanding afternoon cocktails from illiterate Kenyan waiters in bow ties and white jackets.

Good morning,” she said, smiling as she slid over beside me and straddled the stick shift. All worries of Sawyer fled my mind. “Good morning, beautiful,” I replied, and leaned over to kiss her. She immediately sighed and moved closer to me, running her fingers through my hair. It took all my self-control to pull back. “Don’t you want to get out of here first?” I asked. She pouted as if I’d just taken away her favorite toy and sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “How’re you feeling today?” I asked, pulling out onto the road. Her dimple winked at me. It took extreme willpower to keep driving and not pull over so I could kiss that sweet spot. “I’m fine…I mean, better than fine. I’m--” She paused, and I glanced down to see her cheeks flush a pretty, bright pink. I couldn’t keep from chuckling at the innocent blush on her face. Reaching down, I gently pulled one of the small hands she was wringing nervously in her lap and threaded my fingers through hers while the first stirrings of possessiveness came over me. “Are you sore?” I asked. I’d heard virgins were normally sore afterward, but Ashton had been the first virgin I’d ever been with. She started to shake her head, but then her blush deepened. “Maybe a little.” “I’m sorry,” I replied, feeling a tug of protectiveness to go with the healthy heaping of possessiveness rearing up inside me. She was turning my insides into a war zone. She gazed up at me and smiled shyly. “I’m not.” God, I loved her. She wrapped her arms around mine and laid her head on my shoulder. It was one of the few times I hated my stick shift. I’d prefer to remain just like this without having to move my arm. “Tell me you put on sunblock,” I said, glancing down at her lightly tanned skin. The sun on the beach was intense for even the best tanner. She giggled and nodded her head. All was right with the world. Once I pulled out onto the highway, heading south, I tucked my hand between her thighs and enjoyed the ride.