Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Ir STEPHEN had been fearful for Mary’s safety before, she wus now ten times more so. The front was in a condition of flux and the Postes de Secours were continually shifting. An Allied am- bulance driver had been fired on by the Germans, after having arrived at the spot where his Poste had been only the previous evening. There was very close fighting on every sector; it seemed truly amazing that no grave casualties had so far occurred in the Unit. For now the Allies had begun to creep forward, yard by yard, mile by mile, very slowly but surely; refreshed by a splendid transfusion of blood from the youthful veins of a great child- nation. Of all the anxieties on Mary’s account that now beset Stephen, Thurloe was the gravest; for Thurloe was one of those irritating drivers who stake all on their own inadequate judgment. She was brave to a fault, but inclined to show off when it came to a matter of actual danger. For long hours Stephen would not know what 332 THE WELL OF LONELINESS had happened, and must often leave the base before Mary had rè- turned, still in doubt regarding her safety. Grimly, yet with unfailing courage and devotion, Stephen now went about her duties. Every day the risks that they all took grew graver, for the enemy, nearing the verge of defeat, was less than ever a respecter of persons. Stephen’s only moments of com- parative peace would be when she herself drove Mary. And as though the girl missed some vitalizing force, some strength that had hitherto been hers to draw on, she flagged, and Stephen would watch her flagging during their brief spells together off duty, and would know that nothing but her Celtic pluck kept Mary Llewellyn from a break-down. And now, because they were so often parted, even chance meetings became of importance. They might meet while preparing their cars in the morning, and if this should happen they would draw close together for a mo- ment, as though finding comfort in nearness. Letters from home would arrive for Stephen, and these she would want to read to Mary. In addition to writing, Puddle sent food, even luxuries sometimes, of a pre-war nature. To obtain them she must have used bribery and corruption, for food of all kinds had grown scarce in England. Puddle, it seemed, had a mammoth wer map into which she stuck pins with gay little pennants. Every time the lines moved by so much as a yard, out would come Puddle’s pins to go in at fresh places; for since Stephen had left her to go to the front, the war had become very personal to Puddle.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  He had settled for opening beers with house keys, which involved no bodily harm. Davenport, after licking the second joint and setting it aside, used his rear molars on a Heineken. —Hell on the fillings, Charles. He opened the other two, passed them around, and then lit a joint. —Everything’s gonna freeze over, Davenport said. Big freeze. —Yeah, Paulie, Libbets said, are you going to get home okay? They explained about the predicted sudden drop in temperature, the predicted freezing of road surfaces, the devastation—you wouldn’t be able to get a cab, the airports would close down, everything would have to be delivered. All the food. All the health and beauty aids. Then Libbets put on an Allman Brothers tape—8- track, television on with the sound down—and they talked about Duane and the crash. They drank. They smoked pot. Quickly. As though it were an obligation somehow. No matter how many times the weather repeated its four symphonic movements, the specifics of rainfall and wind direction and velocity and barometric pressure seemed new to Paul. The false logic of marijuana was dawning in him. Six Crises, for example, absorbed his complete attention. He gulped for air: the enormity of this Nixonian schema! Urgently, Paul tried to make the various reversals of his life—his grandparents’ deaths, his stolen bicycles, his father’s drinking, his failure to make junior varsity soccer at St. Pete’s, the time in first grade that his mother made him wear tights in the East School Xmas pageant—add up to six crises. In a flash of specious enlightenment, he saw that every life could fit into this ingenious brilliant systematization. Libbets’s life. Davenport’s life. Daisy Chain’s life, even. Then Paul started thinking about Watergate, a seventh crisis. —Holy shit, he said. —How long have we been sitting here? Libbets said. I’m so stoned. —Seven minutes, Davenport said. Who knows? —How much beer is left? Paul said. Davenport reached over to where Paul was sitting. He poked him in the chest. —How the hell do we know? You’re in charge of the kitchen, cowboy. They all laughed. HA! HA! HA! HA! Paul went to fetch still more beers, and while he was there he tried to decide whether or not Davenport and Libbets were really trying to get rid of him. The evidence mounted. It was in their facial expressions. They were using some kind of facial code. Paul remembered that he’d had the same thought last time he was in the kitchen. His mind couldn’t light on anything long enough to reason it out. His mind was a slippery, reptilian thing. How much time had passed? The next beers went more quickly than the first. Paul was careful to permit Davenport to have more than his share. Libbets wasn’t counting. She was just happy to be there. Then Paul excused himself.

• From Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  Then, he spoke and every one of those happy butterflies went still.Her belly went tight with knots strong enough to hold back even the wildest of horses.Her belly turned to water.Panic jabbed hard at her stomach.SweatA sheen of sweat was visible on her brow.Sweat clung to his brow.A fine sheen of sweat shone on his upper lip.Beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead.Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.Her brow perspired.He wiped the moisture developing at his brow.Cold sweat glued his shirt to his back.Cold sweat trickled down her sides.The lack of expression on his face belied the sweat trickling down his spine.Sweat erupted on his forehead and he shuddered, gripping her arm to keep from stumbling.Sweat beaded on his forehead and broke out on his back as he swallowed hard.Sweat beaded around his hairline.An achingly lonely bead of sweat skittered down my spine until it disappeared against the snug waist of my dress.Sweat rushed down her back.A lonely drop of sweat sashayed down her spine. It danced with her attention just long enough for her to glimpse him unguarded.Sweat trickled down her neck, beaded up along her spine.A bead of sweat like a lover’s fingertip traced her spine beneath her blouse.Throat, neck and shouldersShe tensed her shoulders.The sight made the back of his neck tingle.Panic clawed at his throat.His breath audibly hitched in his throat.Her neck was flexing.Her face shook as pink rose up her cheeks.Bile burned the back of his throat. He inhaled deeply against it.Fear clogged his throat.His pulse pounded in his throat.She felt her sweaty neck.He spat to clear the rasp from his voice.He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.She swallowed hard at a tangle of words stuck in her throat.Angry bile stung her throat.A lump got caught in her throat and promised to choke off air.Her throat squeezed down on a scream. IndifferenceIndifference can be hard to convey through a beat, because you’re really describing the lack of a physical reaction. And your characters can only shrug so much before they start looking like they're having a seizure. Some useful beats are: She looked down at him through laced fingers.She steepled her long fingers together.He absent-mindedly cracked his knuckles.He dismissed her with a commanding gesture.She pressed her hands to her cheeks.She made a steeple of her fingers.She sent an indifferent glance about the room.He cast only the slightest of glances to the woman before focusing back to [object].He yawned.ShrugsShe gave a one-shoulder shrug.She gave a half shrug.He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug.She sloughed off a lame shrug.She sloughed off that hint of doom.A flinch issued from her shoulder.A quick shrug usurped her intended nod.His shoulders flinched a tight/nervous shrug.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  In her prescient book Pornified, Pamela Paul found that women had begun feeling competitive with porn stars, worried that unless they put on their own show to maintain a partner’s interest, they would lose him to the Internet. They believed that the unnatural thinness, inflated breasts, and overfilled lips of those surgical cyborgs were distorting men’s standards of beauty, eroding women’s own body image, increasing their self-consciousness. “Porn has terrible effects on what young women are supposed to look like, particularly during sex,” said Leslie Bell, a psychotherapist and author of Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom. “There’s this idea that someone is going to be evaluating your appearance not only outside of the bedroom, which was true before, but also during sex, that your body has to look a certain way then. It seems very pressured and shame-inducing, because bodies don’t look like that naturally.” You’d need self-esteem of steel to remain immune. The girls I met sometimes disconnected from their bodies during sex, watching and evaluating their encounters like spectators. “I’ll be hooking up with some guy who’s really hot,” confided a high school senior in Northern California, “and we’ll be snuggling and grinding and touching and it’s cool. Then things get heavier and all of a sudden my mind shifts and I’m not a real person: it’s like, This is me performing. This is me acting. It’s like, How well am I doing? Like, This is a hard position, but don’t shake. And I’m thinking, What would ‘she’ do? ‘She’ would go down on him.’ And I don’t even know who it is I’m playing, who that ‘she’ actually is. It’s some fantasy girl, I guess, maybe the girl from porn.” JON MARTELLO IS a simple guy, a New Jersey native who cares about “my body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my guys, my girls, my porn,” not necessarily in that order. The protagonist of the film Don Jon, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who also wrote and directed), Jon Martello got his womanizing nickname by “pulling” a different girl every weekend. No single partner, though, can compare to the bounty he finds online. “All the bullshit fades away,” he says in a voice-over, “and the only thing in the world is those tits . . . dat ass . . . the blow job . . . the cowboy, the doggie, the money shot and that’s it, I don’t gotta say anything, I don’t gotta do anything. I just fucking lose myself.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  This mishap appeared to have damped his ardour, for he sighed and removed his cap and apron. ‘Can anyone open this bottle of olives? And the cocktails? Here, Stephen, you can tackle the cheese; it seems rather shy, it won’t leave its kennel.’ In the end it was Stephen and the cook who must do all the work, while Brockett sat down on the floor and gave them ridiculous orders. 3 Brockett it was who ate most of the dinner, for Stephen was too over-tired to feel hungry; while Puddle, whose digestion was not what it had been, was forced to content herself with a cutlet. But Brockett ate largely, and as he did so he praised himself and his food between mouthfuls. ‘Clever of me to have discovered this pâté—I’m so sorry for the geese though, aren’t you, Stephen? The awful thing is that it’s simply delicious—I wish I knew the esoteric meaning of these mixed emotions!’ And he dug with a spoon at the side that appeared to contain the most truffles. From time to time he paused to inhale the gross little cigarettes he affected. Their tobacco was black, their paper was yellow, and they came from an unpropitious island where, as Brockett declared, the inhabitants died in shoals every year of some tropical fever. He drank a good deal of the Rose’s lime-juice, for this strong, rough tobacco always made him thirsty. Whiskey went to his head and wine to his liver, so that on the whole he was forced to be temperate; but when he got home he would brew himself coffee as viciously black as his tobacco. Presently he said with a sigh of repletion: ‘Well, you two, I’ve finished—let’s go into the study.’ As they left the table he seized the mixed biscuits and the caramel creams, for he dearly loved sweet things. He would often go out and buy himself sweets in Bond Street, for solitary consumption. In the study he sank down on to the divan. ‘Puddle dear, do you mind if I put my feet up? It’s my new bootmaker, he’s given me a corn on my right little toe. It’s too heart-breaking. It was such a beautiful toe,’ he murmured; ‘quite perfect—the one toe without a blemish!’ After this he seemed disinclined to talk. He had made himself a nest with the cushions, and was smoking, and nibbling rich-mixed biscuits, routing about in the tin for his favourites. But his eyes kept straying across to Stephen with a puzzled and rather anxious expression. At last she said: ‘What’s the matter, Brockett? Is my necktie crooked?’ ‘No—it’s not your necktie; it’s something else.’

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Brumberg’s book was published in the late 1990s, a good decade before social media took off. With the advent of MySpace, then Facebook, then Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tinder, YikYak, and—mark my words—some social media–linked microchip that they’ll soon implant in all our heads, the body has become even more entrenched as the ultimate expression of the female self, evolving from “project” to consciously marketed “product.” There are myriad ways social media can be fun, creative, connective, political. They can be a lifeline for kids who feel different from their peers, particularly LGBTQ teens, providing them with crucial support and community. They have also reinforced the relentless externalization of girls’ sense of self. There is evidence that the more concerned a girl is about her appearance, weight, and body image, the more likely she is to consult the magic mirror of her social media profile, and vice versa: the more she checks her profile, the more concerned she becomes about appearance, weight, and body image. Comments on girls’ pages, too, tend to focus disproportionately on looks, and even more than in the real world, that becomes a measure of friendship, self-image, and self-worth. In a windowless basement office on a private midwestern college campus, Sarah, a first-semester sophomore, stood in front of me with the toes of one foot pointed forward, one knee slightly bent, to demonstrate the “leg bevel”—a pose pioneered by showgirls but which is now standard in girls’ social media photos. “It slims your body more than if you stand normally,” she explained. Sarah grew up in Atlanta, where she attended a small Christian high school. She had dyed blond hair that hung to her shoulders, blue eyes, and carefully applied makeup—foundation, eye shadow, lipstick. “People will”—she stopped and laughed self-consciously—“this is so stupid, but people will learn the ways to pose in pictures so they’ll look good on Facebook or Instagram. I mean, I do it. A hand on your hip—that makes you look thinner, too. Or, whichever side you part your hair on, the other side would be your ‘better’ side, so I try to face this way in photos.” She turned her right cheek toward me and continued. “I edit little blemishes out and fix the lighting. And if you watch things like America’s Next Top Model, you learn to ‘find your light.’ Things like that.”

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  So, in a state of fever and high tension, Lilith went to fetch Mabel. She did not dare confess what her husband had done to her. She remembered all the stories that she had heard about Spanish fly. In the eighteenth century in France, men had made great use of it. She remembered the story of a certain aristocrat who, at the age of forty, when he was already a little weary from his assiduous lovemaking to all the attractive women of his time, fell so violently in love with a dancer who was only twenty years old that he spent three full days and nights with her in sexual intercourse—with the help of Spanish fly. Lilith tried to imagine what such an experience might be, how it would take her at some unexpected moment and she would have to run home and confess her desire to her husband. As she sat in the darkened cinema, she could not watch the screen. Her head was in chaos. She sat taut on the edge of her seat, trying to sense the effects of the drug. She pulled herself up with a start when she noticed first of all that she had sat with her legs far apart, her skirt up on her knees. She thought this was an expression of her already growing sexual fever. She tried to remember whether she had ever sat in this position before at the movies. She saw the parted legs as the most obscene position ever imagined, and realized that the person sitting in the row in front of her, which was set so much lower, would be able to see up her skirt and regale himself with the spectacle of her fresh new panties and new garters that she had bought only that day. Everything seemed to conspire for this night of orgy. Intuitively she must have foreseen it all when she went to buy herself panties with a fine lace ruffle on them, and garters of a deep coral color, which were very becoming to her smooth dancer’s legs.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I asked if he’d thought about the promotion he’d said was possible. He stood at the reservations pulpit, writing in his tight script on the back of a menu. Sure, I’ve thought about it, he said, not looking up. His gold pen scratched out a line. Is anything decided? I asked. The pen scraped. His belt-halved gut bulged out, grazing the zinc edge, like an animal about to lunge. It fit his look of menace: if provoked, his flesh might achieve its escape. I glanced past him, trying not to stare. In a torn baseball cap, a man slumped against the other side of the glass. It had started raining. Paul? What’s that? he said. Do I qualify for the job? Kid, what’s the rush? I don’t mean to push you— Sure, you do, he said. —but I need the cash. Since you said that I, I’ve waited tables two months, so I was hoping . . . He dropped his pen on the pulpit top. Tell me something, he said. Do I look like I give a fuck what you need? No. He nodded. On the third upswing, he raised his head. Do I care what you need, or what I need? What you need, Paul. I’ll ask you something, he said. Why do people sit down at a restaurant like this, make a night of it? It’s not the food. If all they want is to eat, they can drive half a mile to the closest shop, buy a big, filling roast fucking chicken for six bucks. It’s not this crowd. Who spends to line up at the trough with a pile of strangers to get fed in unison like pigs? No. They’re wild about a first-rate place like this because it’s selling an illusion. He paused, expecting a response. It’s an illusion, I recited. That’s it, he said. Illusions, kiddo—but of what? The illusion of love, I said. I’d overheard him giving this catechism to waiters before. He clapped my back. Bingo. To be fed well is also to feel loved. But like with all illusions, you’ve got to be consistent. This cousin of mine, he worked in Disneyland, and he dressed up like one of those animals, Mickey, Ducky, I forget. His one job, it’s to strut around, let the little kids take pictures with him. They’d shout like he was this big hero. Not so hard, right? But then one day he felt sick, so he took off his head to throw up, and this one kid who noticed, he lost his shit. See, the kid believed my cousin was the cartoon. From the kid’s angle, Mickey had ripped off his own head. Like that, my cousin lost his job. Why? Because he busted the illusion. His boss told him, Idiot, you should have thrown up in your costume. Will, at times, I look at you, I can tell you’re not faking it right.

• From Hot Rods: Gay Erotic Stories (2011)

  Title : Hot Rods: Gay Erotic Stories Author: Laurence, Sean [image file=image_8.jpg] Table of Contents Title Page FRISK CHROME-OBSESSED URBAN COWBOYS THE BIG HOMO DADDY’S GUIDE TO LOVEMAKING BETWEEN SHOTS FIRED SANDHOGS ABOUT THE AUTHORS Copyright Page [image file=image_39.jpg] FRISK Hank Edwards I sat nervously in the conference room surrounded by my partners in law and, unfortunately, crime. A slick bead of sweat ran from my armpit to the waistband of my boxers, leaving behind a track of moisture that brought on a shiver. “What’s the matter, Zack?” asked the senior partner, George, narrowing his gray eyes in my direction. “Caught a chill?” I shrugged as nonchalantly as possible considering the situation. “Goose walked over my grave, I guess.” The seven men surrounding the fine oak conference table chuckled quietly. All of us had conspired to hide certain business transactions from the government. Now I found myself involved in a sting operation to save my hairy hide and rat out my partners. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. A few months ago the state’s attorney had shown up on my doorstep along about midnight. Midnight visitors are never good, and this one had lived up to that promise. I opened the door to a full-court press and after several hours of talks I agreed to turn state’s evidence against the other partners in my law firm. The state’s attorney had approached me because I was the newest member of the partners’ roster and could ask the many questions that needed to be answered on tape without raising much suspicion. For this effort, I would receive a reduced sentence in a white-collar prison and lose my license to practice law. Hey, what a deal, right? I now wore a small transmitter and microphone to every encounter I had with any of the partners. I had been doing it for several weeks, but at each meeting I felt as nervous as the first time. Would I screw up somehow and blow the whole operation? Then where would I be? Each time I wore the transmitter I had to go through a certain procedure. It was placed on different areas of my body depending on the type of meeting: golf, conference room, travel by car or rail, that kind of thing. With two other witnesses in the office, one of the agents would meet me just before I was to leave for the appointment and tape the transmitter to my waist, back or leg. This required me to partially disrobe, a fact that forced me to start wearing boxers to better hide the fact that I was usually sporting a partial hard-on. I don’t know where they found the field agents for this assignment, but I want a two-week vacation to that place.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  5 When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, “Come, let us return, otherwise my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and become anxious about us.” 6 The servant said to him, “Look here, in this city there is a man of God, and the man is held in honor; everything that he says comes true. Now let us go there; perhaps he can advise us about our journey [and tell us where we should go].” 7 Then Saul said to his servant, “But look, if we go [to see him], what shall we bring to the man? For the bread from our sacks is gone and there is no gift to bring to the man of God. What do we have [to offer]?” 8 The servant replied again to Saul, “Here in my hand I have a quarter of a shekel of silver; I will give that to the man of God, and he will advise us as to [where we should go on] our journey [to find the donkeys].” 9 (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the seer”; for he who is called a prophet today was formerly called a seer.) 10 Saul said to his servant, “Well said; come, let us go.” So they went to the city where the man of God was living. 11 As they went up the hill to the city, they met some young women going out to draw water, and said to them, “Is the seer (prophet) here?” 12 They answered them, “He is; look, he is ahead of you. Hurry now, for he has come into the city today because the people have a sacrifice on the high place today. 13 “As you enter the city you will find him before he goes up to the high place to eat, for the people will not eat until he comes, because he must ask the blessing on the sacrifice; afterward, those who are invited will eat. So go up now, for about now you will find him.” 14 So they went up to the city. And as they came into the city, there was Samuel coming out toward them to go up to the high place. God’s Choice for King 15 Now a day before Saul came, the LORD had a informed Samuel [of this], saying, 16 “About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him as leader over My people Israel; and he will save My people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have looked upon [the distress of] My people, because their cry [for help] has come to Me.” 17 When Samuel saw Saul, the LORD said to him, “There is the man of whom I spoke to you.

• From Vox (1992)

  Well, I’m driving down the expressway of an eastern city one evening around ten o’clock, in town on business, in my rented midsize car, my Ford Topaz, with the radio going, a classics oldie station, playing ‘Ain’t Nobody,’ and I’m just driving along, and as usual I have my Mmmm-Detector open on the seat beside me, but the fluid is dark, and then I start curving through this residential area, very close to the buildings on either side, and I glance down at the seat beside me, and my God, I’m getting a very strong signal, I’m getting wave patterns I’ve never seen before, from very near and to my right, and craning my neck I catch sight of a lighted window, and I know that behind it you are in process, you are beginning. My years of practice in reading the flux patterns in the watch tells me this is something very special, something I cannot pass by, and so I palm the steering wheel around suddenly and veer onto the off ramp and scoot back through the narrow streets, swearing at all the one-way signs, and when I come to the door where the Mmmm-forces are flowing from, I park in a place that is sure to get me a ticket, and I leave my flashers on, and I go into the foyer. There’s a row of buttons with names beside them: I hold the detector to each one until one, the third one down, makes the Mmmm-Detector glow with strange colors, and I hesitate, I know that I am interrupting you, and I don’t want to do that, that’s the last thing I want to do, but it seems so clear to me, reading the force waves, that there is a strong possibility that you would want me to interrupt you, if you knew me, and the conviction that this is true grows in me, and my finger trembles at your button, and there is a huge interior war between reticence and attraction, between the fear that I will inspire fear and the certainty that I should not inspire fear and that we would like each other if I could simply push that button, and I look down at the Mmmm-Detector and I see that you are going to come in less than four minutes if you keep on at that rate, you’re really moving, the colors are increasingly intense, and I’m trembling, I’m shivering, but I’m compelled, and I push the button, bzzzzt . You’re on your bed, and you’re wearing a blue long-sleeved pullover sort of shirt, and black pants and black sneakers, but your black pants are around your ankles, and you’ve got that tattered, disintegrating issue of Forum in your left hand, and you’re reading about a job interview in which the woman interviewer is sucking the interviewee’s cock, and you’re right in the middle of things, when bzzzzt , the doorbell.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Accordingly he sent for Melchizedek and receiving him familiarly, seated him by himself, then said to him, 'Honest man, I have understood from divers persons that thou art a very learned man and deeply versed in matters of divinity; wherefore I would fain know of thee whether of the three Laws thou reputest the true, the Jewish, the Saracen or the Christian.' The Jew, who was in truth a man of learning and understanding, perceived but too well that Saladin looked to entrap him in words, so he might fasten a quarrel on him, and bethought himself that he could not praise any of the three more than the others without giving him the occasion he sought. Accordingly, sharpening his wits, as became one who felt himself in need of an answer by which he might not be taken at a vantage, there speedily occurred to him that which it behoved him reply and he said, 'My lord, the question that you propound to me is a nice one and to acquaint you with that which I think of the matter, it behoveth me tell you a little story, which you shall hear.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Jeroboam Appoints False Priests 14 For the Levites left their pasture lands and their property and came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had excluded them from serving as priests to the LORD . 15 Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places, for the satyrs (goat demons) and calves (idols) which he had made. [1 Kin 12:28 ] 16 Those from all the tribes of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the LORD God of Israel followed b them to Jerusalem, to sacrifice to the LORD God of their fathers. 17 So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam the son of Solomon for three years; for they walked in the way of David and Solomon for three years. Rehoboam’s Family 18 Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David, and of Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse. 19 She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. 20 After her he took Maacah the daughter (granddaughter) of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. 21 Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter (granddaughter) of Absalom more than all his wives and c concubines—for he had taken eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. 22 Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah the chief leader among his brothers, because he intended to make him king. 23 He acted wisely and distributed some of his sons throughout the territories of Judah and Benjamin to all the fortified cities. He gave them abundant provisions, and he sought many wives for them . 2 Chronicles 12 Shishak of Egypt Invades Judah 1 W HEN THE kingdom of Rehoboam was established and strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the LORD . 2 And it came about in King Rehoboam’s fifth year, because they had been unfaithful to the LORD , that a Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem 3 with 1,200 chariots and 60,000 horsemen. The people who came with him from Egypt were beyond counting—the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the b Ethiopians. 4 Shishak took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem. 5 Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “Thus says the LORD : ‘You have abandoned (turned away from) Me, so I have abandoned you into the hands of Shishak.’ ” 6 Then the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The LORD is righteous.” 7 When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, “They have humbled themselves so I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some measure of a remnant [that escapes]; and My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by means of Shishak.

• From The Wrestler: A Life of Passion and the Pursuit of Greatness (2016)

  before stepping on the mat to compete. There were expectations of me. I was expected to win state titles. And rather than distance myself from the expectations of others, I swallowed these expectations inside of me and allowed them to dictate my mindset and emotions. I never learned how to cope with the atmosphere or magnitude of the event. So this means that I hated the state tournament. The discomfort didn’t settle until I was done wrestling and the tournament was over. I simply didn’t possess any sort of overarching perspective relative to my life as a competitor on the mat. Not only did I not enjoy my time in the sport, but I couldn’t see what I was gaining from it. And I suppose that’s one of the amazing things about the sport of wrestling. That is, every competitor is gaining unique qualities from it that transfer to their life regardless if they know or acknowledge these qualities when competing. It just sort of happens, like an unexpected gift. Now, I do believe that, even though we all inherit the unique qualities of the sport regardless of our disposition when competing, those who know what they’re acquiring early on are better off and can take full advantage of these qualities. What I mean is that they won’t have to go through the arduous process of looking back on their life as a competitor, years removed, in order to find the gift they thought they left behind. If wrestlers are able to recognize what they are gaining from the sport in the midst of their competitive days, they will be better off in the long run, and could perhaps intentionally use these qualities to aid them through life. Moreover, they could use these qualities in order to aid them in the process of taking full advantage of their time in the sport while competing. In other words, rather than waiting until it’s over, they could enjoy the journey while the journey is still taking place! This contains immeasurable value! I think this is why I am going to be intentional regarding when I introduce my kids to the sport of wrestling. I know what I gained from it as a person, and it’s because of this that I hope my children choose to engage the sport as well. This is at least part of it. The other part lies in the fact that I simply love wrestling! I do believe there is value in introducing kids to the sport early on. But just how early is the question. If they’re too young, they might not be able to appreciate the struggle and eventually lose interest altogether. If they’re introduced to the sport too late, they might not have the necessary time to grow in their technique, skills, and abilities before competing in high school which is

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  THE BOOK OF JUDGES LECTURE 11 The opening of the book of Judges describes a pattern in which the idolatry of Israelites is followed by God leaving them to foreign oppressors. Then, when the people cry out, God raises up a judge, a charismatic leader, who frees them—until they revert to idolatry upon the judge’s death. The judges who follow the first judge, Othniel, are leaders who increasingly engage in questionable behaviors themselves. This lecture focuses on the latter parts of the book of Judges. Gideon The second half of Judges starts with an extended cycle about the judge Gideon in chapters 6 through 8. Chapter 6 begins according to the pattern the book of Judges sets out at its start. Israel is in the hands of its enemies, and it then cries out to God for help. 11 l e Ct Ure 11 | t he Boo K of J Udges 63 However, instead of raising a judge, God sends a prophet, whose role is to remind the Israelites that crying out is not itself repentance and that the lord’s intervention in their plight is not necessarily assured. However, God does eventually choose Gideon to be the next judge. This sets in motion first a religious reform, and after that, military redemption. Gideon claims to be unfit to be the next judge because his family is from a weak faction of the Manasseh tribe. The story of Gideon is really about where true power lies. For Gideon, it’s about numbers and strength, while God tries to teach him to depend on divine assistance. gideon is appointed Judge

• From Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  When he dropped his hands back onto his knees with a slap, his hair was sticking up where he had ruffled it and his eyes looked wide, if not a little manic.She closed her eyes and summoned a deep breath, holding it in. Turning her head a fraction, as though straining to hear the notes of a song playing softly in the air, she looked blindly skyward.She looked like someone had just walked over her grave.Her voice whipped him back.Her face was blotchy, as if she’d been crying.He looked away and delicately pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes.Tears streaked down her face.She scratched her nose/head.He rubbed his forehead.She pinched the bridge of her nose.She cringed.He shuddered.She flinched.She shivered.She trembled.His body shook.She cowered.She shrank away from him.He huddled in the corner.She stiffened.She pulled a face of shock.She wrinkled her nose, stuck her hip out and folded her arms.He whipped his head around to face her.She jerked her head back.She turned her face away.Her mouth was bone dry.Fear etched his features.She rubbed her temples.Her head bobbed nervously.Nervous whispers and giggles fluttered freely in the hot air.Her head went to wagging back and forth.She worked up one of those smiles the simpleminded get for no particular reason.His tongue darted out of his mouth to lick his dried lips.Blood and all its heat left her face and settled in her feet.HairPeople often play with their hair when nervous (keep in mind that they may also do this when flirting). For example: She ran her hand through her hair.He threaded a hand through his hair.He raked his fingers through his hair.He shoved his hair back away from his face.She toyed/played with a lock of hair.She twirled her hair.She wrapped a curl around her finger.She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.She undid her ponytail and shook out her hair.She tossed her hair.He buried his hands in his hair.He stroked his beard.He scratched his beard.A chilling voice raised the hairs on the back of her neck.Every hair on his scalp stood to attention, every skin cell tingled, every neuron fired.The hairs on the back of his neck kept tingling in a way that signified he was being watched.The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.His words brought up the hairs on the back of her neck.The hairs on his arm itched beneath his cotton shirt.He stabbed his fingers through his hair.His hair was disheveled from raking his fingers through it repeatedly.He rubbed his fingers through his hair like his head had a pain deep inside.

• From Vox (1992)

  “Yes. I let her into the apartment, and the way my apartment is laid out, there is a very short entryway with a kitchen that opens on the left, and then you’re immediately in the living room—so she walked ahead of me into the living room, and even though I was careful not to turn on any lights in there, still, there was the couch against one wall and there was the VCR on a table against another wall, and it was as if there was this phosphorescent dotted line connecting the two things, they were linked, nothing else in the room counted, and I saw her turn quickly toward me so as not to face the living room quite yet, and she put down the bag with the blanket—oh, I forgot one other important thing that happened in the car. I parked the car in back of my apartment building, and I went around and opened the door for her, and she handed me the bag with the blanket and People magazine in it, and then she got out, and then—and for some reason this seemed exactly right—she held her arms out for me to hand her the blanket bag again. It had become somehow hers to carry. I held the tape, she held the blanket. Anyway, she put the bag down in the middle of the living room, and she said, ‘So, will you give me the grand tour ?’ And the conventionality of ‘grand tour’ showed how nervous she was, but she was one of those people who are improved by being nervous, you know?—who are nervous in a way that makes your detection of their nervousness seem like a privilege. So I showed her the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom—she nodded knowingly at the magnets on my refrigerator—beautifully nervous. I listed off what I could offer her to drink, and she said she wanted orange herb tea and she went in the bathroom. So I put two cups of orange herb tea in the microwave. Normally I make only one cup, of course, and I put it on two minutes, but I figured four minutes to handle the extra volume of water, but it was a bit too long, and the water was very hot. I walked out with the two teas and saw her again in the living room, with her back to me: she had been linking at the TV—it’s just a dinky Malaysian TV, somehow everybody still thinks that if you have a VCR, that means you’ve got to have a TV worthy of it—but I don’t know, I think maybe even the smallness was right for that evening. But anyway she slid her purse off her arm and put it on the rug next to an armchair on the wall farthest away from the couch, and took off her shoes and put them next to her purse—establishing a little separate non-couch locus for herself.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  As a parent, I am all for harm reduction. So I will absolutely explain to my daughter the particular effects of alcohol on the female body. I will explain how predators leverage that difference by using liquor itself as a date rape drug, and how bingeing increases everyone’s vulnerability to a variety of health and safety concerns. I know that getting loaded can seem an easy way to reduce social anxiety, help you feel like you fit in, quiet the nagging voice in your head of paralytic self-doubt. Still, knocking back six shots in an hour in order to have fun—or, for that matter, to prove you are fun—is, perhaps, overkill. Nor is it ideal to gin up courage to have sex that would otherwise feel too “awkward”—even if the results are consensual, the sex will probably suck. Two people who are lit may both behave in a manner they will later regret—or not fully remember, making consent difficult to determine. Should that constitute assault? Students themselves are divided. Nearly everyone in a 2015 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of current and former college students agreed that sex with someone who is incapacitated or passed out is rape (a huge and welcome cultural shift). But if both people are incapacitated? Only about one in five agree; roughly the same percentage say that is not assault, and nearly 60 percent are unsure. That’s understandable, given the paradox of students’ sexual lives: drunkenness is obligatory for hookups, yet liquor negates consent. There are bright lines—lots of them—and they are too often crossed. But there are also situations that are confusing and complicated for everyone. Recall Holly, who mixed Red Bull and shots (a combination that makes a person appear deceptively sober) before blacking out? Maybe she seemed coherent and eager to have sex; maybe her partner was equally drunk and oblivious; maybe he was stone-cold sober and consciously targeted her; she’ll never know.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Fifteen minutes, a man said. The crowd shifted forward. I put a hand in my pocket, and I felt a twist of plastic wrap I’d forgotten bringing. It was a small bundle of prescribed sedatives, pills I’d grabbed at the last minute because Phoebe and I planned to stay in the city that night. I had enough trouble sleeping that I relied on these pills, the bottle’s festive castanet rattle a promise, preludial to rest. Though I hadn’t tried taking them except at night, before I went to bed, the pills also tranquilized. I could use a little extra calm, I thought. I opened the cellophane. To rush the effect, I chewed the pills. – The march began. We’d been asked to walk in silence. Phoebe stayed close to me, a light hand at my back. The first time we showered in a shared stall, she’d pointed out the indent of my spine. This, she said. Here. She’d traced the rill, following the line down to my ass. I hadn’t conceived, before then, of having a back worth noticing: now I did, the skin gilded with Phoebe’s sight. This situation, well, it was a crisis. The girl I loved was in a cult—and that’s what it is, I thought, a cult. It was a problem, but I’d solve it, because I was intelligent. The sun’s heat intensified. Disquiet thawed until, tranquil, awash, I almost sympathized with these people. If I were convinced that abortion killed, I, too, might think I had to stop the licit holocaust. It wasn’t so long ago that I’d believed as they did. In fact, I pitied them. Goodwill toward all, I thought. While driving down from Noxhurst, I’d asked Phoebe, at last, if she agreed with the protest’s object, having abortions outlawed. It isn’t what I want to think, she’d said, but a fetus has a pulse within a month of fertilization. It’s alive. We marched awhile before the pill’s effect changed shape. I’d been watching protest signs bob past, marveling at bloodied photos, when a fetus jumped down. Others followed, flailing. Infant fists lifted; placentas writhed like tails, trailing dots of blood. One fell inches from my foot. I squatted, and I picked it up to prevent its being trampled. It was small, not quite spanning my hand, so I retrieved a second twisting fetus, then a third. Phoebe crouched down with me. What’s wrong? she whispered.

• From Hot Rods: Gay Erotic Stories (2011)

  Walking toward me is a younger version of Sonny, what he must have looked like when he first put on his hard hat forty years ago. Six foot at least, broad shoulders, thick neck. No gut—that’ll come later after a few years spent drowning his fears in pitchers at O’Malley’s after work, if he makes it. For the time being his stomach is flat, hips lean. He’s wearing a dark blue flannel shirt and stiff jeans that look brand new. Enjoy the feeling while it lasts, kid. They’re going to be covered in mud and soaked in sweat by quitting time. “I’m Billy,” he says, holding out his hand for me to shake. It’s big, like the rest of him, but soft. Not a single fucking callus, although his grip is strong. Well, that’ll change soon enough. Those smooth palms will be sprouting blood blisters by the end of the day. If he lasts that long—most don’t. They’ll go topside at lunchtime and never come back. Billy tried college but hated it, and decided to follow in his dad’s footsteps. We’ll see if this is just another thing he quits. “Ready to go?” I ask, looking into Billy’s dark blue eyes. I’m still sizing him up, looking for weaknesses, for anything that’ll give me a clue as to whether he’s going to make it or be crying for his mama before noon. I see nervousness masked by Brooklyn cockiness, a cool I-dare-you-to-fuck-with-me flash in his eyes and a tight, thin smile on his lips. Well, you can’t fool me, kid. Don’t bother with the tough-guy attitude—I know better. I’ve seen too many boys like you go down, full of piss and vinegar, only to come up an hour later shaking and puking on the toes of their brand-new rubber boots. “Okay, then. Let’s go. Flip your tag,” I order, nodding toward the Check-In/ Check-Out board. Billy takes a minute to find his name on the pegboard. Under each man’s name is a double-sided hangtag. Green side means you’re topside, red means you’ve gone down into the belly of the beast. We have to flip the tags on the way down and when we get back up—it’s the law. In reality, it’s the only way the contractor will know which bodies to look for if something goes wrong down there, although I refrain from mentioning that tidbit of information to Billy. No sense in having him shit his pants before we even get down. I lead Billy over to the cage, the narrow, metal-grated elevator that will take us into the shaft. This is it, the moment of truth. Once the cage gets deep enough where the surface is so far above your head that you can’t see the sky or feel the air moving, a man is forced to be truthful with himself. It’s in that moment that he finds out if he’s got the balls for this kind of work.