In those pamphlets that they give at mental health centers where they list the ten or so symptoms that would indicate a clinical depression, 'suicide threats' or even simple 'talk of suicide' is considered cause for concern. I guess the point is that...
One of the most astounding dynamics in human relationships is how the unconscious intuition of our brain's right hemisphere is able to act as radar to find us just the right person to provoke and recreate our childhood attachment relationship ...I've...
A kind of wonder takes Chaucer over as he pants up Fleet Street and past the walled orchards and gardens of this lovely riverside suburb for princes of kingdom and Church. This isn't mob action, not really, even if there were men back there shouting ...
Well, in the meantime, Carter and I have been discussing the matter of Ryan." This time it wasn't the clang of a pan I heard, but instead a messy smack--the contact of Carter's backhand with Dean's head, I presumed. "Just hear me out. You have option...
[...] Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It's as if she came perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing s...
Who knew there were still people like that in this world, though? Everybody wants to talk about themselves, and everybody wants to hear everybody else's story, so we take turns playing reporter and celebrity. 'It must have made you very sad when your...
As a teenager, I began to question the Great Christian Sorting System. My gay friends in high school were kind and funny and loved me, so I suspected that my church had placed them in the wrong category... Injustices in the world needed to be address...
[Robert] Jensen calls for an end to our current understanding of masculinity. He says, "We men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings." What's funny is that that statement essentially echoes the same hope I have for women: that...
Isabel Valverde was coming home. The brief, terrible letter from her brother had brought her across five thousand miles of ocean, from the New World to the Old, and during the long voyage she thought she had prepared herself for the worst. But now th...
Oh Josie," Samuel sighed gently. "Your heart is too tender for your own good." "I don't usually cry like this, Samuel. Geez, it's been years since I've cried like this. Since you've been back I can't seem to stop. It's like a cloud has burst inside m...
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the ...
It was strange how in that moment of tragedy, it had seemed so unreal, like an old-fashioned movie reel playing on a screen for my eyes only. The pain and broken heart were blocked off for a little while, leaving me numb with disbelief. Shock is what...
Each instinct and passion of man is amoral; it is only the abuse of these passions that makes them wrong. There is nothing wrong about hunger, but there is something wrong about gluttony; there is no sin in thirst, but there is a sin in drunkenness; ...
Have you ever had somebody grip you with a passion you never thought existed outside the fucking movies? As though they found you the most precious thing in the world? I felt it then, and couldn't believe that somebody would actually want me that muc...
It's kind of weird," she told Qi. "Gilly doesn't run up and kiss people. She doesn't dance. Se's usually so quiet. I mean, it's cool as hell, but for Gilly, it's weird." "Part of it is Maggie," Qi said. "She has a talent for making people fall in lov...
Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love--it just happens!--but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn't choose, you ended up with what was l...
He stopped walking when we reached his truck, looked from the ground to my lips and then he took a step closer to me, pushing me until my back was up against the cold wet truck. He reached up and cupped my face. "I'm done trying to stay away," he sig...
And dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia and bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating. "Ordered" eating is the practice of eating when you are hungry and ceasing to eat when your brain sends the ...
Maybe we can just park and check out the fields," said Ethan. "It doesn't look like anyone's around." I was sad to leave the playlist behind--I was worried the car was my snow globe and it would shatter without us being in this small space filled wit...
Then I didn’t think much about it, I just did it. I started wearing some of the things he left behind, especially his bathrobe, some shirts too, but only in the house. I read his books, I am embarrassed at this. I also did some things to the place ...
Anyone who lives in her own world is crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different from others.' Like you?' On the other hand,' Zedka continued, pretending not to have heard the remark, 'you have Einstein, saying t...
