#book eleven

[stargazingdustbunny]

Safe

(For now)

Hiccup and company in the secret hideout in the cave behind the tree before finding Snotlout (and before the vampire spy dragon finds them)

[maryannmackey]

'I don't get why you'd write scripts for romantic comedies if you think romance is cheesy nonsense.'

'That's just it, though,' I said. 'I don't write from a point of clarity. I write out of confusion.'

'Then how about this- can you define cheese for me? Because I still haven't figured out, after two decades, where the line is between cheese and emotional extravagance that's acceptable. What makes a song or a movie or a moment in real life land on one side or the other? This is part of why the Cheesemonger sketch hit a nerve for me.'

I was quiet for a few seconds, and finally said, 'That's a good question. But the line is subjective, right? Kind of like the Supreme Court definition of obscenity being 'I know it when I see it.''

'What's a song you think is legitimately, non-cheesily romantic?"

'At the risk of being predictable, there's an Indigo Girls song called 'Dairy Queen.'

'But isn't that about a relationship that doesn't work out?'

'Romance doesn't require a happy ending.'

-Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld

[deardiaryproject]

[divine-nonchalance]

Do you want to know why you’re here?

Graduation You come in to this earth prepared to help humanity, and you think you’re alone, and you think you’re singular. Do you want to know why you’re here? I’ll tell you. Let me revisit it yet again. There was a time when you leaned into the wind of birth when we were holding your hand, and we were next to you, holding you back for a moment. You hadn’t moved in yet, and it wasn’t yet time to go, and we were questioning you, “Are you sure you want to go? Do you really want to be received into the earth?” And you said, “Yes. Look at what’s going on down there, there is the potential – the potential that we can change all of it.” Did you understand, did you ever realize, did you ever think that maybe all your past lives, cumulatively, were like classes you attended for graduation? Would you have ever missed this graduation? That’s why you’re here. Everything you did in all your past lives has ramped up to this. From Kryon Book Eleven – Lifting the Veil – Page 226 ~ KRYON through Lee Carroll

[maryannmackey]

'Be my date this weekend? Please? The wedding isn't until Saturday night, so that would work, right? If you can't do Friday night I understand, but if there's any way you could come to the rehearsal dinner with me, I would.. I don't know what I would do. Really appreciate it? Buy you all the cheese you wanted? ' How did he go from zero to babbling and pleading with this woman in thirty seconds flat?  'Drew, I... are you sure?' He smiled. With that question, he knew he'd almost got her.  'Positive. Come to the wedding, be my sandwich, protect me from poisoning and disaster. It'll be your good deed for the year. And it's only May- look at you, getting your good deed for the year done and over before the year is even half over!' He was so close to victory; he could tell by the smile in her eyes as she looked up at him. 'Come on, Alexa.' He touched her shoulder. 'Save me.'  She took a deep breath, and he held his as she considered. 'When you put it like that, what else can I say? I'll do it.'

The Wedding Date, Jasmine Guillory

[maryannmackey]

The pleasure of being lusted for was amplified by the consciousness that she might be the only thing he'd ever coveted that couldn't be his. For nearly a year Olga rode this high, but now, finally, it had begun to wane. When it was just sex, she delighted in the affair, but lately Dick had been pressing for a real relationship, a circumstance that interested her not at all. Dick was tedious and needy in a way that she was repulsed by, yet felt compelled to indulge. He was sweet, but she found him simple. He'd married his college sweetheart, they had kids, he inherited his father's hardware store empire. He was competent enough to grow the business, but he was hardly an innovator. Even his divorce was boring. Because no one knew about the affair, the financial matters were settled quickly and quietly. And what, after twenty-six years of marriage to one person- five of which completely sexless- did Dick then want to do? Just repeat the whole thing, but with another woman. No sooner did Dick move out than he was pressing Olga to move in. Had she been a different type of girl, one who valued her sanity less and inherited wealth more, perhaps Olga would have seen this as an opportunity. Instead, she could imagine nothing more boring than a life filled with the minutiae of Dick's personal wellness routine or intermittent fasting rituals designed to keep him 'young.' She couldn't imagine the horror of suffering a holiday with Victoria and her dough-faced husband, no mater how exotic the locale they were in. She also could not bear the thought of letting Dick get one more thing that he wanted.

-Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez

[maryannmackey]

The previous weekend had been the vacationers' last hurrah, the town packed full of people and cars. For three days, wanting to avoid them, Jane barely left the house. Not until 7pm on Monday did she go further than the end of the road. She wandered then to the Cliffwalk, and found it close to empty. On the stretch of sand in the distance, not a single umbrella could be seen. All the tourists were sitting in traffic on 95, homeward-bound. The people of Awadapquit had their town to themselves again. This was her favorite time of year here. It had been her grandmother's favorite. Her mother's too.

-The Cliffs, J. Courtney Sullivan

[maryannmackey]

In the dark I felt her tracing the scar on my back; it started on my flank and snaked up toward my shoulder, like a tree bending sideways against the wind. She ran her hand over the line of black dots that still opened from time to time, spitting out shrapnel. I knew this moment would come. I knew she would start asking questions about the war; all the women I'd been with did. I would give them the broadest outline of a story about my time in Iraq, and their eyes would widen with horror and they'd want to kiss me and make me feel better. It wasn't hard, it worked every time. There was something false about it, though. Even when I managed to hold on to them for more than a couple of months, the look in their eyes that said I was a hero would drive me away. But Nora didn't look at me with that kind of wonder. Long before I'd gone to war, war had come to her- a brick thrown in her father's window, a slur written on her locker. I wouldn't be able to satisfy her with the answers I'd given the others, and even if I could, I wasn't sure I wanted to. With her, I was less inclined to speak of the war in two voices, the wistful one I used with my buddies and the weary one I reserved for my dates. With her, everything felt mixed up.

The Other Americans, Laila Lalami