Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life---and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy;...
Magazine and television advertisements have me subconsciously believing that a sexy airbrushed image can sell a lot more canned tomatoes than without this image. Who’s to say that a dolled up vagina can’t buy me love? Yet this is what we teach ou...
Steve [sports psychiatrist] had already taught me to try and stop worrying so much about pleasing everyone. We knew that this was one of my most draining flaws and he again used three groups to clarify my thinking. There would always be some people, ...
Where are you going?" "To get my Bible." "Right now? You can't get your Bible out right now! I'm, I'm, we're just about to..." She'd never be able to go through with this if he got out his Bible. She wiped all humor from her face. "I believe you. Pro...
I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce. Beth went a little nuts. I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year o...
Being with a friend in great pain is not easy. It makes us uncomfortable. We do not know what to do or what to say, and we worry about how to respond to what we hear. Our temptation is to say things that come more out of our own fear than out of our ...
There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things she doesn't know; like how I remember when she first came home from the hospital, a big pink blob with a perma-smile, and she used to fall asleep while grabbing on to my pinter finger; how I...
We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time. When we hesitate in b...
One reason might be that if I hadn't tripped, I'd have been hamburger. When this sort of thing occurs, people often say that there was some power greater than themselves at work. This sounds reasonable. I am just suggesting that it is not necessary t...
My mother made a squeaking sound that might of been either "yes" or "help". Poseidon took it as a yes and came in. Paul was looking back and forth between us, trying to read our expressions. Finally he stepped forward. "Hi, I'm Paul Blofis." Poseidon...
Villanelle for my valentine Old love, I thought I'd never see the time because of all we've done and often said when I'd be yours, my dear, and you'd be mine. And what relief to soften, and resign the battle of the heart over the head. old love, I th...
Save your explanations, I got some questions for you first and you'd better answer them!' [slurred Hellian.] 'With what?' [Banaschar] sneered. 'Explanations?' 'No. Answers. There's a difference-' 'Really? How? What difference?' 'Explanations are what...
I doubt your Argonaut kin would approve of that,” she managed. “They didn’t much like me being in your realm.” “They’ll just have to get used to it. Some things in life are more important than duty and honor.” Gods, how she wished that ...
Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell ...
Too embarrassed even to try as long as everyone was looking at me, I made what was probably a fairly unique request. ‘Um, I’ll have a go. But I can’t do it if you’re all looking at me. Can I go inside the wardrobe and sing from there?’ The ...
Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded l...
Little Cinder Girl, they can't understand you. You rise from the as-heap in a blaze and only then do they recognize you as their one true love. While you pray beneath your mother's tree you carrve a phoenix into your palm wth aa hazel twig and coal; ...
Mister Geoffrey, my experiment shows that the dynamo and the bulb are both working properly," I said. "So why won't the radio play?" "I don't know," he said. "Try connecting them here." He was pointing toward a socket on the radio labeled "AC," and w...
My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me. What can i do?" "The feeling isn't there anymore?" I asked. "That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have thr...
Miss Millick wondered just what had happened to Mr. Wran. He kept making the strangest remarks when she took dictation. Just this morning he had quickly turned around and asked, "Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Millick?" And she had tittered nervous...
My mouth hung slightly open, i was getting ready to sat something important. what i wanted to say was: I's so, so sorry. but instead I said, "i love you." Only then, when i said it out loud, did i know that it was true. Carly threaded her fingers thr...