Excitement

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 How God Became King (2012)

  In the year 1900, a book was published that changed the imagination of America. Its creator, L. Frank Baum, had stumbled into writing fantasy fiction some years before, mostly to while away time spent on the road as a traveling salesman. But The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was an instant hit, and Baum never looked back. Three years later, the show of the same name (but without the “Wonderful”) opened on Broadway. In one form or another, the story has been delighting audiences young and old ever since. Baum, as I said, never looked back—in more ways than one. He wrote several sequels to the Wizard, but never a prequel. Almost a hundred years later, in 1995, Gregory Maguire remedied this omission—and changed the way a new generation would understand the original book and the original show. He published a book entitled Wicked, in which the Wicked Witch of the West was not always so wicked. All sorts of new light is shed on why things were as they were when Dorothy, the heroine of the original story, came to the land of Oz. By 2003, exactly a century after the original Broadway show, Wicked opened as a musical and is running there and elsewhere in the world to this day. The idea of telling the “previous history” of an already famous story is not, of course, new. J. R. R. Tolkien published his celebrated fantasy novel The Hobbit in 1937 and followed it with the magnum opus The Lord of the Rings in 1954–55. But it was left to his son, Christopher, to assemble the bits and pieces that his father had written about the far distant history of Middle-Earth in The Silmarillion (1977) and the massive twelve-volume History of Middle-Earth (1983–96). Happily, we are not in the same position with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their backstory was written long ago, and it is readily available. But—perhaps to our surprise!—many people, reading the gospels today, read them not only as if that backstory did not exist, but as if there was a different backstory altogether. For people in that position, rediscovering the proper backstory will mean that, like those who return to The Wizard of Oz after reading or experiencing Wicked, they will see the main story itself in a whole new light. The first speaker of our quadraphonic sound system to be turned up is this: the four gospels present themselves as the climax of the story of Israel. All four evangelists, I suggest, deliberately frame their material in such a way as to make this clear, though many generations of Christian readers have turned down the speaker to such an extent that they have been able, in effect, to ignore it. In order to grasp this point we need to take a step back. We need to think about the ways in which the story of Israel was being told at the time. The Strange Story of Israel

• From The Pisces (2018)

  My romantic adventures were something to really be excited about—something that could really keep the nothingness away. As I walked home tugging the wagon, I decided not to think about anything that would happen after. I wasn’t going to think about my languishing thesis again. I wouldn’t think about Claire or her phone calls. Certainly not Jamie or Phoenix. I would think about Dominic enough to make sure that he stayed alive. But I didn’t have it in me anymore to really spend quality time, snuggling and imbibing his warmth. I had begun to feel differently about him now, not as a delight or a gift, but just another responsibility. I decided also that I wasn’t even going to think about what would happen if Theo got frightened and refused to come with me. Instead I busied myself, cleaning the house, playing with the lighting, picking out music. Everything on Annika’s iPod seemed primed for a spontaneous bout of triangle pose, but not really for sex. I needed to get the moment just right if it was going to remain eternal, stretch over the face of the time-space continuum, and suck up all of the nothingness everywhere. 35.Claire called, but I didn’t pick up. Then she texted: What’s your favorite suicide method? Where are you what are you doing? I hate to be needy so I’m going to pretend I don’t need you but seriously where are you? Lucy, I am so on edge and hate everything namely me I couldn’t get out of bed to drive my kids to school do you think I am an awful person? Don’t have children they destroy everything Do you want to go shopping? I didn’t mean to be cold, but something about her really scared me now. She’d passed over to the darkness, the edge of nothingness, and she’d done it by trying to access the light, the glitter. Those highs, even if they were fake and we knew that they wouldn’t last forever, felt so real when we were in them. That’s where I was now. I just couldn’t discern the ephemeral nature of what I was experiencing, and didn’t want to. Perhaps what I had with Theo was as synthetic as what Claire had with her men, but it felt so good—how could we ever even care when we were in it?

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Two of John’s cardinals met Sigismund at Como, Oct. 13, 1413, and discussed the time and place of the new synod. John preferred an Italian city, Sigismund the small Swabian town of Kempten; Strassburg, Basel, and other places were mentioned, but Constance, on German territory, was at last fixed upon. On Oct. 30 Sigismund announced the approaching council to all the prelates, princes, and doctors of Christendom, and on Dec. 9 John attached his seal to the call. Sigismund and John met at Lodi the last of November, 1413, and again at Cremona early in January, 1414, the pope being accompanied by thirteen cardinals. Thus the two great luminaries of this mundane sphere were again side by side.288 They ascended together the great Torazzo, close to the cathedral of Cremona, accompanied by the lord of the town, who afterwards regretted that he had not seized his opportunity and pitched them both down to the street. Not till the following August was a formal announcement of the impending council sent to the Kaufhaus Gregory XII., who recognized Sigismund as king of the Romans.289 Gregory complained to Archbishop Andrew of Spalato, bearer of the notice, of the lateness of the invitation, and that he had not been consulted in regard to the council. Sigismund promised that, if Gregory should be deposed, he would see to it that he received a good life position.290 The council, which was appointed for Nov. 1, 1414, lasted nearly four years, and proved to be one of the most imposing gatherings which has ever convened in Western Europe. It was a veritable parliament of nations, a convention of the leading intellects of the age, who pressed together to give vent to the spirit of free discussion which the Avignon scandals and the schism had developed, and to debate the most urgent of questions, the reunion of Christendom under one undisputed head."291 Following the advice of his cardinals, John, who set his face reluctantly towards the North, reached Constance Oct. 28, 1414. The city then contained 5500 people, and the beauty of its location, its fields, and its vineyards, were praised by Nieheim and other contemporaries. They also spoke of the salubriousness of the air and the justice of the municipal laws for strangers. It seemed to be as a field which the Lord had blessed.292 As John approached Constance, coming by way of the Tirol, he is said to have exclaimed, "Ha, this is the place where foxes are trapped." He entered the town in great style, accompanied by nine cardinals and sixteen hundred mounted horsemen. He rode a white horse, its back covered with a red rug. Its bridles were held by the count of Montferrat and an Orsini of Rome. The city council sent to the pope’s lodgings four large barrels of Elsass wine, eight of native wine, and other wines.293

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I had no idea what it was. Good. i’ve always wanted to fuck there. wear lingerie and I’ll fuck you in your sweet little pussy and asshole I’d never thought of my pussy as little. Maybe it was big. What if I had a huge pussy? Also, my asshole? I had never had anal and it seemed terrifying to me. I knew, through all of the butt songs the kids listened to on campus, that the ass was a big thing now. Apparently everyone was eating each other’s assholes and putting things in them. But then why did he want me to wear lingerie? It seemed kind of retro, not contemporary at all like anal. Now that I thought of it, though, anal sex was a timeless act. The Romans all fucked each other in the ass. I felt like I didn’t know anything. But also I was excited. what color I asked. It was like I had become a puppet. I just wanted to please him. Black bra black panties. and garters. meet me in the lobby at 1 pm All of my underwear was white and kind of threadbare. I had never been a sexy-lingerie kind of girl. It never went with my aesthetic. Also, I had a propensity for yeast infections. Whenever I wore anything other than cotton there were issues. So I called Claire. “I’m going to be having sex…at a hotel…he’s getting a room for the night…the graphic designer, not the chimpanzee one. He wants me to wear lingerie. Do you know where I should go to get something cute? Victoria’s Secret?” “Victoria’s Secret? You’re joking,” she laughed. “That’s faff. Let me take you somewhere good.” I skipped group and met her in Brentwood at a place called La Boom Boom. Immediately I could tell it was way out of my price range: a hybrid of Mercedes-keyed tight-bodied moms in yoga pants and potential porn stars. You couldn’t tell who were the moms and who were the porn stars, but they all definitely had money. Who were these women buying lingerie in the middle of the day? I guess this was what everyone did in L.A. The place reminded me of being inside a black-and-pink birthday present. The walls were pink with black velvet stripes and there were little pink chocolates on a table. I ate some. “Come on,” said Claire. “Don’t be scared.” “How much do you think this stuff is?” “Just go in there,” said Claire, pointing to one of the little pink changing rooms. “I’ll bring you stuff. What size are you?” “I’m a 32 B on the top last time I checked,” I said. “But barely. I have no idea what I am on the bottom.”

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  During Clement’s rule, Rome lived out one of the picturesque episodes of its mediaeval history, the meteoric career of the tribune Cola (Nicolas) di Rienzo. Of plebeian birth, this visionary man was stirred with the ideals of Roman independence and glory by reading the ancient classics. His oratory flattered and moved the people, whose cause he espoused against the aristocratic families of the city. Sent to Avignon at the head of a commission, 1343, to confer the highest municipal authority upon the pope, he won Clement’s attention by his frank manner and eloquent speech. Returning to Rome, he fascinated the people with visions of freedom and dominion. They invested him on the Capitol with the signiory of the city, 1347. Cola assumed the democratic title of tribune. Writing from Avignon, Petrarch greeted him as the man whom he had been looking for, and dedicated to him one of his finest odes. The tribune sought to extend his influence by enkindling the flame of patriotism throughout all Italy and to induce its cities to throw off the yoke of their tyrants. Success and glory turned his head. Intoxicated with applause, he had the audacity to cite Lewis the Bavarian and Charles IV. before his tribunal, and headed his communications with the magnificent superscription, "In the first year of the Republic’s freedom." His success lasted but seven months. The people had grown weary of their idol. He was laid by Clement under the ban and fled, to appear again for a brief season under Innocent V. Avignon was made papal property by Clement, who paid Joanna of Naples 80, 000 florins for it. The low price may have been in consideration of the pope’s services in pronouncing the princess guiltless of the murder of her cousin and first husband, Andreas, a royal Hungarian prince, and sanctioning her second marriage with another cousin, the prince of Tarentum. This pontiff witnessed the conclusion of the disturbed career of Lewis the Bavarian, in 1347. The emperor had sunk to the depths of self-abasement when he swore to the 28 articles Clement laid before him, Sept. 18, 1343, and wrote to the pope that, as a babe longs for its mother’s breast, so his soul cried out for the grace of the pope and the Church. But, if possible, Clement intensified the curses placed upon him by his two predecessors. The bull, which he announced with his own lips, April 13, 1346, teems with rabid execrations. It called upon God to strike Lewis with insanity, blindness, and madness. It invoked the thunderbolts of heaven and the flaming wrath of God and the Apostles Peter and Paul both in this world and the next. It called all the elements to rise in hostility against him; upon the universe to fight against him, and the earth to open and swallow him up alive. It blasphemously damned his house to desolation and his children to exclusion from their abode.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  These books are not long. They are hardly War and Peace —but they are every bit as much page-turners as some of the great novels. We need to shed some inhibitions and experiment with ways of allowing the gospels to speak their message afresh. Preachers and teachers too need to face the challenge of communicating the excitement and drama of an entire book, so that hearers are led both into fresh worship then and there and into an eagerness to read it, and live it, for themselves. Equally, we need to try new ways of praying the gospels. Many have used, with great profit, the Ignatian method of entering into a story, becoming a character within it. Think of yourself as a bystander or onlooker as you watch Jesus asleep in the boat with the disciples panicking all around him, or as an extra guest at the supper table, suddenly wondering, “Lord, it’s not me, is it?” Stay there long enough to hear what he has to say to you in particular. That method is well known, and rightly so. But there are ways of doing this corporately too. Again, be innovative. Read the gospels for all they’re worth; and they’re worth a lot more than we have usually supposed. Consider, for instance, reading through Matthew and allowing the Lord’s Prayer, which Matthew puts at the center of the Sermon on the Mount, to become the prayer you pray after each chapter or section to sum up and draw together all that you’ve been reading. Or try doing the same with John’s gospel, using Jesus’s great High-Priestly Prayer in chapter 17. The point is that if it’s true that in Jesus God was genuinely “becoming king,” that is something that cannot remain a matter of mere “information,” something we learn about with our heads. It’s something we must pray, something that, through prayer, must become a new reality in our lives and our communities . This whole book has been about new reality, the new reality of Jesus and his launching of God’s kingdom. The new reality of a story so explosive (unlike the muddled, murky, “self-help” world of the noncanonical gospels!) that the church in many generations has found it too much to take and so has watered it down, cut it up into little pieces, turned it into small-scale lessons rather than allowing its full impact to be felt. Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the “orthodox” have preferred creed to kingdom, and the “unorthodox” have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It’s time to put back together what should never have been separated.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Jack emphasizes that he is on his own on this weekend trip; his daughter spends most of her time with her boyfriend, leaving him lonely, as his wife died many years earlier and he just ended a relationship with a girlfriend. I tell him I am separated from my husband and have three kids. This whole interaction feels so surreal that I decide to adopt the old adage “Fake it till you make it” and play the role of a poised, confident single woman as best I can. As if I am auditioning for the role of divorcée out on the town on a Saturday night, I become increasingly coquettish, shrugging my bare tan shoulders toward him, delicately setting my bright pink nails on the dark mahogany bar. Finally, the lights dim and musicians start to fill the small stage. “You won’t be able to see the stage from your seat,” he says, so I pop up from my perch on the barstool. When I do, my hair, finally dry and in tight, messy curls from having been left to its own devices, brushes against his face and he says, “Your hair smells amazing.” I’m a literary snob yet here I am trapped in my own Danielle Steel romance novel. The singer is dreadful. I look at Jack, shrugging and grimacing. He leans over my shoulder and whispers into my ear, “I can’t believe Don traveled hours for this.” A man with a girth like a linebacker in front of us turns around and with a withering look, asks Jack if he plays any instruments. Jack responds that he plays a little guitar and the man says he hopes he will play in public one day so that people will come and heckle him as we are doing to this singer. Abashedly silenced, we make it through one more song before Jack presses close to me again to ask, “Will you eat something if I order food?” I see now that we are in this together, but I don’t have time to answer before we get shushed again. The proper girl in me needs to escape before getting in trouble yet again. I whisper back, “If you’re hungry, I can show you somewhere good to eat and we can talk without getting in trouble.” “OK,” he whispers. “You leave first. Say goodbye to Don. I’ll meet you outside in a few minutes so it won’t be obvious that we’re leaving together.” Though I am not certain why it would matter, it seems like fun to play along. Later, I will wonder if he thought this was a common scene for me and I will feel touched that he wanted to protect my reputation in this small town. Don is surprised that I’m leaving already, but I tell him it’s been a long day and slip out. The street outside is deserted and wet from the rain.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  There is an exciting, and often ignored, inner core to the story of God and Abraham that points all the way forward to the gospels themselves. The larger framework for the story is the narrative sweep that goes all the way from the original creation through to the end of the book of Exodus (of course, there are still larger frameworks: the whole Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and then the whole Old Testament itself; but let’s stay focused on Genesis and Exodus for the moment). The original creation story envisaged a God who was making a dwelling place for himself. The six “days,” or “stages,” of creation indicate, to those who understand the world of the ancient Near East, that creation itself, heaven and earth together, is a kind of temple, a dwelling place for God. And, as in all ancient temples (except the one in Jerusalem, for reasons that will become apparent), there was an “image” or statue of the god in question, so the creator God places into the “temple” of his heaven-and-earth creation his own “image,” human beings made to reflect him, to bring his creativity to birth in his world, and to reflect the praises of the world back to the creator. That, of course, is the heart of the story, which is then spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures. One might be forgiven for supposing that this original intention had been lost sight of entirely in the story that then follows. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob find that God appears to them now here, now there, always unexpectedly, in different ways and guises. Sometimes they mark the spot with a stone, a shrine, or an altar. But then the story takes a nosedive into chaos. Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt and, though this has the effect of saving the family from a famine, the long-term result is slavery. Israel’s long servitude in Egypt is formative not only, as we have already seen, for Israel itself, but also, if one can put it this way, for God. God remembers the covenant with Abraham, passes sentence on the enslaving Egyptians, and rescues Israel from Egypt through the amazing events of Passover under the leadership of Moses. God then gives Israel the law, to be the way of life for this rescued people.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I ask, stupidly, and we make a plan to meet after dinner by the bar on the private beach. He says he will wait there for me as no one comes on that beach at night. I calmly rise from my seat despite the thumping of my heart. He catches my arm as I turn to go and pulls me down toward him so that my lips meet his for a kiss as passionate as it is quick. I have been rendered speechless, so I touch my lips with my index finger, give a small smile and walk away. It takes every iota of self-restraint I have not to leap down the beach, cackling with glory and laughter. Instead, I walk slowly, attempting to sashay, knowing he is watching my every step. Back at the pool, the kids and Michael have disappeared so I dig my phone out of my bag and call Tina, who knows Blaze from her recent vacation here. I silently plead for her to pick up and when she finally does, I blurt out, “Tina, I have a date with Blaze tonight.” “Mama, what are you talking about? You just got there! Hang on, I’m at pick-up, school just let out. I have to tell Alexandra and Sarah, they’re right here,” she says, and I hear shouts of kids in the background as she excitedly tells Alexandra and Sarah that I’m calling from the Caribbean and I have a date with the object of my fantasy. There is joyous shrieking and laughter all around and then Tina comes back on the line, saying, “We are so excited for you. Tell us everything. And be safe!” I call #6, feeling the need to confess, wanting to give him one last chance to say he can’t have me sleeping with another man, but he doesn’t answer. CHAPTER 44Lost CondomsI still find it challenging to put my own needs up there with my kids’ needs, but I know it’s the only way forward. I have to take care of myself properly if I am to take care of them the way I want to, which means not just managing their basic care but showing by example how to live a life with joy, serenity, kindness and compassion. If I do not give myself opportunities to feel happy or at peace or filled up as a woman, how will I be a mother who can share these qualities with her children? I am consumed with feelings of guilt, terrified that if I let myself thrive in my life outside of motherhood I am sacrificing my children. Friends and books keep telling me I must grab the oxygen mask first for myself and second for the kids, but it sounds like validation for selfish behavior.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I am moved that this room has been given such attention to detail, especially when the rest of the place has a just-moved-in feel. He offers me a glass of wine and we sit on the beige L-shaped sofa. The television is on but muted, and I can see the local news flickering. He seems distracted by the TV, his eyes darting over every few minutes to follow the news stories, but he makes no move to turn it off. He asks me what I want to do for the evening and I tell him that he gets to decide since we are on his turf. He decides to take me for a drive in his convertible down to the water, where there is a bar he likes. First, he has to change his clothes. He goes into his bedroom but leaves the door open, and I can see him pull his T-shirt over his head before turning the corner toward the closet. I think back to my first night of sex, with #1, how I nervously took off all my clothes while he was in the bathroom, and I wonder again if this is a cue. Am I supposed to follow him to his room? Did he want me to, but not want to say it for fear of being too forward? If he didn’t want me to, wouldn’t he have closed his door? I set my glass of wine on a sports magazine on the coffee table and walk quietly to his bedroom, where I lean against the doorway, watching him get dressed. He has put on a pair of jeans and is buttoning a purple-and-white checked Oxford shirt. When he sees me watching him, he asks if his outfit looks OK. “Yes, it looks quite good,” I respond, a smile slowly forming. “But maybe don’t go through all the trouble of buttoning it.” He comes to the doorway and faces me, coyly asking, “Oh no? What should I do with it?” “Let me see what’s underneath it,” I say, my fingers already undoing the top button. When I finish with the bottom button, I let my hand linger on his stomach. His ab muscles are rock-hard, his six-pack defined and angular. He stands still, watching me eye him, not making a move closer to me but not moving away either. “I think we should have sex before we leave,” I state matter-of-factly. “Oh really?” he says, laughing. “You can’t wait, huh?” “Of course I can wait,” I say. “I just don’t want to.” I put my hands on his shoulders so that I can push the shirt down his arms and off. He has the firefighter body of my dreams, each muscle distinct and firm without being excessively bulky. I unsnap the narrow belt cinching my dress in and then pull down the flimsy straps so that I can shimmy out of it.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  And now you’re single and dating, like your life is going in reverse.” “It feels that way to me too, like I’m sowing the wild oats I should have sown in my 20s,” I say, and then tell her about my one-night stand with #1, my debacle with #2, my summer flings with #3 and #4, the disaster that #5 has turned out to be, the promising potential of #6. “Oh wow, you’ve been busy!” she says. ‘I’m impressed with how bold you’ve been and that you keep forging ahead even when you have experiences that aren’t positive.” “I’m surprised too that I haven’t been deterred by the more unpleasant experiences. The pros outweigh the cons I guess, and every date with a new man is an adventure. It’s exciting to walk in with no idea what to expect and see where it goes. And it turns out that I really love having sex. I feel like I’m insatiable. I imagine at some point the novelty will wear off, but right now I’m trying to make the most of it.” “Have you had anal sex?” she leans forward to quietly ask. “No, and it’s funny you should ask because a few of the men have asked me about it. I’m pretty open-minded, but that terrifies me. I’m squeamish even thinking about it.” “I swear to you it’s the best thing ever. It makes every other orgasm you’ve ever had feel like a warm-up. You just have to get over it mentally. When I have sex now that’s not anal, it’s totally humdrum,” she says. “Huh. I would not have expected you to say that. I will try to work up the courage,” I say. “Laura, please start writing all of this down. It might be cathartic for you and you have a lot of good stories,” she says. I give her a half-hearted reply, saying I will think about it but don’t think I have enough of an attention span to write coherently. * The barrage of phone calls and texts from #5 continue well into the night. Sometimes they’re sweet, “I will miss our morning hellos and the sound of your voice and the way your hair smells”, and sometimes full of fury, “I can’t believe I opened up to you, you’re such a liar, I never should have trusted you. And here I thought you were different from other women.” I text him back one time to let him know that I will not be responding anymore. The onslaught goes on for days. Lauren suggests that I block him but I am convinced he’s going to make an appearance at my building or wait for me after I drop Georgia at school, so I would rather get his texts and ignore them to know if he’s still at it or trailing off.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  An overgrowth of facial hair, body completely covered in tattoos, you’re holding a gun, you only show one photo of yourself and ten of sunsets, you’re dressed up in an elaborate costume, you show your body but never your head, your head but never your body, you say you’re forty but look like a teenager, you say you’re forty but look like a grandpa? Despite this, I am amused and delighted. I live in a densely populated city, so the quantity of people to potentially match with seems limitless. Sure, I have to swipe left 100 times before I earn the privilege of clicking on a heart, but there are certainly educated, sporty, fit hearts to be had and when I click one and am instantly rewarded with hearts flying at me and “It’s a Match” popping across my screen in bold letters, I feel a moment’s worth of well, look at that, my work here is already done . Like Pavlov’s dogs, I am so roped in by instant gratification that I cannot stop looking and swiping and clicking. When I wake up in the morning, I have a new reason to open my eyes: to check my Tinder action! There have been so many matches that now I can afford to get a little cocky, double-checking men’s profile pictures and thinking, no, surely this one was a mistake, I would never click on a man wearing a fitted muscle shirt at his gym or someone arrogantly winking into the camera . But there are enough that seem promising and some have sent messages that are cheeky and charming, like “Hey Laura, you have lovely pics … just curious, how many ‘little black dresses’ do you have :)” or “Hi Laura, you didn’t write anything about yourself, but you have very sweet dimples”. I write back short answers with questions thrown in to attempt a conversation, “Why thank you, nice to meet you on here, looks like you travel a lot, where have you gone recently that you’ve loved?” or “You seem to be on the move a lot, what’s your favorite neighborhood to explore?” I feel silly and am forcing a whole lot of chipper-ness, but I have nothing to lose and I am enchanted by the anonymity the site provides (though it turns out that I will someday randomly run into people I’ve exchanged messages with on Tinder, and after figuring out the connection, I will feel wholly exposed and most decidedly un -anonymous).

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Next I took to grooming my body. I couldn’t stop thinking about the possible anal. My asshole was definitely not a vacant space. What was I going to do? How was his dick going to get in if there was a shit blocking the way? Would there be a shit blocking his dick? Would he get shit on his dick? In the bathtub I tried to give myself a fake enema, swishing some of the water from the bath directly into my ass. It didn’t feel like anything was giving. I wondered how far in the canal it was. So I reached my finger in my butt and felt around. There was the tip of it, not far from the entrance. Dripping wet, I went over to the toilet and sat down. Dominic looked up at me from underneath his doggy eyebrows. I squeezed and squeezed, sliding around on the toilet, but nothing came out. How did others do this all the time? Who could be expected to have a pristine butthole? I slid my finger in and dug around. I tried to pull some out, and it worked. Now there was shit on my finger, some in the toilet, but still some in the hole. I’d only broken the shit in half inside me, not gotten it all out. So I went back in. Then I squeezed again. I felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out. Eventually the rest of the piece of shit came out. I could tell that it was the end. I got back in the bathtub and ran the water again. I washed off my finger and my butt four times each with rose soap. It was a fancy tub with jets. I turned them on and put my ass up to the jets, like a bidet. My hole felt tired already and no one had even fucked it yet. But then the jet started to turn me on. I felt a feeling I had never felt before, almost like my butthole was blossoming. I wondered if my whole ass canal was full of water. I imagined it was Garrett’s dick. I didn’t come but I felt really warm inside. This was exciting. I felt a bit like a Hollywood starlet, someone with something going on. A life was happening. 20.I arrived at the Shalimar wearing the lingerie under a trench coat that I found in Steve’s closet. I’d done a lot of snooping in Annika’s house, looking for I wasn’t sure what. Something to help me know my sister better? Something to show me that the life she and Steve had together wasn’t as beautiful as it seemed to be? But there were no private journals with any confessionals, no secret passageways or locked boxes. Their relationship was like her ample ass: out in the open, giving no fucks, proudly just there. It was what it was.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  These books are not long. They are hardly War and Peace—but they are every bit as much page-turners as some of the great novels. We need to shed some inhibitions and experiment with ways of allowing the gospels to speak their message afresh. Preachers and teachers too need to face the challenge of communicating the excitement and drama of an entire book, so that hearers are led both into fresh worship then and there and into an eagerness to read it, and live it, for themselves. Equally, we need to try new ways of praying the gospels. Many have used, with great profit, the Ignatian method of entering into a story, becoming a character within it. Think of yourself as a bystander or onlooker as you watch Jesus asleep in the boat with the disciples panicking all around him, or as an extra guest at the supper table, suddenly wondering, “Lord, it’s not me, is it?” Stay there long enough to hear what he has to say to you in particular. That method is well known, and rightly so. But there are ways of doing this corporately too. Again, be innovative. Read the gospels for all they’re worth; and they’re worth a lot more than we have usually supposed. Consider, for instance, reading through Matthew and allowing the Lord’s Prayer, which Matthew puts at the center of the Sermon on the Mount, to become the prayer you pray after each chapter or section to sum up and draw together all that you’ve been reading. Or try doing the same with John’s gospel, using Jesus’s great High-Priestly Prayer in chapter 17. The point is that if it’s true that in Jesus God was genuinely “becoming king,” that is something that cannot remain a matter of mere “information,” something we learn about with our heads. It’s something we must pray, something that, through prayer, must become a new reality in our lives and our communities. This whole book has been about new reality, the new reality of Jesus and his launching of God’s kingdom. The new reality of a story so explosive (unlike the muddled, murky, “self-help” world of the noncanonical gospels!) that the church in many generations has found it too much to take and so has watered it down, cut it up into little pieces, turned it into small-scale lessons rather than allowing its full impact to be felt. Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the “orthodox” have preferred creed to kingdom, and the “unorthodox” have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It’s time to put back together what should never have been separated. In Jesus, the living God has become king of the whole world. These books not only tell the story of how that happened. They are the central means by which those who read and pray them can help to make that kingdom a reality in tomorrow’s world. We have misunderstood the gospels for too long.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The “public phase” began with my earliest attempts to go out into the world as a woman. My very first experience involved walking around a shopping mall for about fifteen minutes, followed by purchasing a milkshake at a fast-food drive-through window. The fact that nobody seemed to give me a second glance, and that the cashier said, “Thank you, ma’am,” as she handed me my change, completely blew me away. Like the mirror moments, these experiences of having my femaleness acknowledged in some small way were profound and moving. Over time, I continued to go out dressed in public more and more, typically doing rather mundane things such as going to museums or shopping. I always made sure that there were lots of people around and that I could easily “get away” in the event that something bad happened. Admittedly, the early sense of excitement associated with being dressed as female in public was enhanced by the inherent sense of danger that unfortunately plagues any public crossdressing experience. The fear, of course, was not merely that I would be noticed or “read” as a crossdresser (which happened on countless occasions during the many years that I publicly crossdressed), but that I might be targeted for violence if I was ever “found out” by the wrong person. It was during my public phase that I first began going to crossdresser support and social group meetings (this was in Kansas in 1994, before the word “transgender” came into vogue). They were my first opportunity to speak openly about my crossdressing and to meet others who shared that experience. It also provided me with the chance to learn some of the techniques that other crossdressers used to make their female appearance more convincing. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing crossdresser named Deborah take me under her wing. Among other things, she showed me how to use cosmetics to effectively cover my beard shadow, an invaluable skill for any crossdresser who wishes to be gendered by others as female. It’s common for people to dismiss crossdressers for what is perceived to be their exaggerated use of makeup. However, the truth of the matter is that crossdressers (unlike cissexual women) typically have beard shadows, which are perhaps the dominant visual cue we rely on when gendering people as male. While I would have preferred to have the privilege of forgoing makeup if I wished, my beard shadow made it virtually impossible for me to be regularly gendered as female without it.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  The morning we are to leave, they both text to wish me luck. It breaks my heart that from Michael I do not hear even a small peep, as if he’s given up on us. CHAPTER 17Easy AccessMission College Drop-off accomplished, I am gifted a small, precious window of time when the kids go to my parents’ house for the night. I contemplate what to do: settle in with a glass of wine and a book I won’t be able to focus on, or attempt to conjure up that bold vixen who tells strange men that she is available, ready and able. One foot in front of the other , I remind myself, just keep moving forward . I had felt thoroughly defeated days ago, but now I’m trying to view it as a temporary trouncing, like losing to my sister at Big Boggle when I had been the family winner since childhood, or ceding the “Who can hold the longest plank?” contest to Hudson after I had been undefeated for years. I didn’t as a result of those losses abruptly stop playing Boggle or say I’ll never do a plank again. Those sleek women on the city streets may have unwittingly held up an unflattering mirror to me last week, but that can’t mean I’m supposed to quietly retreat. Before I lose momentum, I text #3 and #4 that I have some free time. I have not told either of them that I’m actively dating other people, which makes me feel sneaky and dishonest, but I am unclear as to how to establish dating parameters. Is it assumed that you’re dating other people until you clarify with each other that you’re not, or is it assumed that you’re not dating other people until you clarify that you indeed are? It feels a little late in the game now to bring this up so instead I swallow the discomfort and proceed to throw myself into their orbits, hoping at least one of them will want me and give me a chance to get my head back in the game. Both men respond, so with a fair amount of anxiety I book #4 for late afternoon into evening and book #3 for later in the night. When #4 opens the door to his house for me later that day, he is wearing a plush green bathrobe loosely belted around his waist, his skin and hair still damp from the shower. He opens his arms and I step inside them; wordlessly we stand like that, with the pugs running circles around us and the front door open, for longer than I think I’ve ever hugged anyone before. I rest my head against his chest, he presses his body against mine, and I feel like I might be having a spiritual breakthrough, so strong is my reaction to being touched. Why have I never liked to be hugged before?

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “So what have you been reading lately?” he asked, after toasting me with one of his two shots. I had told him over the Internet that I was a librarian, and he loved that. He had asked me to wear my glasses, but I didn’t wear glasses. “I’m almost always reading the Greeks,” I said. “I’m doing a project on the poet Sappho that I’ve been working on for a number of years. Trying to finish it this summer.” “Oh yeah, I read him in high school,” he said. “I’m really into the Beats right now. Do you like the Beats?” I liked the Beats for a second when I was fourteen. By sixteen I realized they were mostly just good for picking out a douchebag. There was something about douche bros and the Beats. They just gravitated there. “Yeah, I love them,” I said. “Who is your favorite?” “Kerouac,” he said. “I’m really into Kerouac, Burroughs, and Bukowski. Kerouac just keeps it so real, like the way he writes his characters it’s just so—legit. I would love to write like him someday.” “Right,” I said. “So how about that walk?” he said. Outside it was almost dark. He lit up a cigarette and offered me one. I declined and watched him squint and inhale, then exhale. Clearly he had studied that move: a James Dean kind of smoking pose. But he was no James Dean, and his hands were even more monkey-werewolf than the rest of him: monkey in the way they curled around the cigarette like they were clutching a banana and werewolf in the way his arm hair crawled well over his wrist and onto the hands themselves. He was hairy to the knuckle. We started to walk and I felt like I was going to vomit. I kept wanting to say, “You know what? Thanks, but I’m not feeling so great and I’m just going to walk home.” But we kept walking. Suddenly he grabbed my hand and said, “Can I kiss you?” But he didn’t wait for me to respond. His palm was sweaty, but his lips were full and I closed my eyes and it felt shocking to be kissing someone new. The new mouth shape was exciting, also strange. After eight years I forgot that lips could come in different shapes and feels. Also, the taste of cigarettes and whiskey was exciting. I was half nauseated and half turned on. I felt rebellious and young. “What?” he said. “Nothing,” I said, giggling. “You’re just cute.”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I shivered a little bit. “I guess the gaps are sort of a reminder that, in love, things get disconnected,” I said. “People just disappear.” “Maybe they leave room for something more infinite,” he said. “Maybe,” I said. “All I know is it’s not going very well. I’m not enjoying it.” “But you’re still doing it?” he said. “Yes,” I said. “I guess I like torturing myself.” “That can also be sexy if done right, I suppose.” Was he fucking with me? I stood up. I didn’t know whether to move closer to him or away from him on the rock, so I looked up at the moon, which was a crescent. I thought about licking it or putting it inside me. “Well, Lucy, I wish you only the best with the self-torture,” he said. “And with your next date.” “Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you out here again?” “Maybe,” he said. “Okay.” “Have a good night,” he said. And with that he pushed off the rock and began to breaststroke away. 13. Later, as I waited for Adam on Ocean Front Walk, near Marina del Rey, where the homeless cleared and the vibration of the boardwalk became more desolate, I was so excited that I was nauseated. The Santa Monica Mountains were covered in fog, so the pink and palm-tree silhouettes of Venice looked like their own island—an old beach scene frozen in time. It was windy out and I was cold, but I felt important—momentous—like I was on a timeless mission. I could be anyone standing by any beach in history, waiting for a lover. I could be Sappho, unafraid of Eros, calling Aphrodite to her shrine. But as soon as I saw him coming, I thought, Oh God no. He sort of looked like his picture, but more the monkey aesthetic than the hot one. Also, he had an additional werewolf essence that the photo had not captured. It wasn’t just his jagged teeth, the scruffy goatee, but something else that was distinctly werewolf. He waved to me, and I waved back, cursing through my teeth, already disappointed. When he crossed the street I tried not to let it show, to be warm, though I wasn’t sure why I cared what he thought. I guess I felt bad about rejecting someone without even knowing him. I felt sort of ashamed that I was judging him for his looks, but with an alley make-out what other attributes could there be? It figured. Of course this werewolf-monkey creature was the best that I could do. He might have been disappointed in what I looked like too, but he didn’t show it. “You’re really cute,” he said, as though assuring both me and himself. “You look a lot younger than forty. A lot younger.” “I’m thirty-eight,” I said. “Not that I don’t like older women. I love older women. You’ve got seasoning. But you look like a young older woman.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  God is now, through Abraham, going to undo the plight of the human race and will thereby enable humans to pick up again the threads of the project that had been theirs from the start (looking after God’s world, making it fruitful, and peopling it), but that had been aborted through human rebellion. There is an exciting, and often ignored, inner core to the story of God and Abraham that points all the way forward to the gospels themselves. The larger framework for the story is the narrative sweep that goes all the way from the original creation through to the end of the book of Exodus (of course, there are still larger frameworks: the whole Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and then the whole Old Testament itself; but let’s stay focused on Genesis and Exodus for the moment). The original creation story envisaged a God who was making a dwelling place for himself. The six “days,” or “stages,” of creation indicate, to those who understand the world of the ancient Near East, that creation itself, heaven and earth together, is a kind of temple, a dwelling place for God. And, as in all ancient temples (except the one in Jerusalem, for reasons that will become apparent), there was an “image” or statue of the god in question, so the creator God places into the “temple” of his heaven-and-earth creation his own “image,” human beings made to reflect him, to bring his creativity to birth in his world, and to reflect the praises of the world back to the creator. That, of course, is the heart of the story, which is then spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures. One might be forgiven for supposing that this original intention had been lost sight of entirely in the story that then follows. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob find that God appears to them now here, now there, always unexpectedly, in different ways and guises. Sometimes they mark the spot with a stone, a shrine, or an altar. But then the story takes a nosedive into chaos. Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt and, though this has the effect of saving the family from a famine, the long-term result is slavery.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  After getting my color I went into some clothing stores, all of them insanely expensive. It was rich hippie shit: silk kimonos for $700, cuff bracelets and bib necklaces that looked like they came from a tent at Woodstock but were upwards of $3,000, fringe vests for $1,900. But then I found one boutique that advertised everything for $20 or less. I tried on a black long-sleeved dress that showed off my slender legs and waist, but was A-line at the hip. The saleswomen all said I looked amazing, and I liked their enthusiasm. I liked the attention and it made me high. Now I didn’t even care how the date with Adam went. Just getting ready for it felt like something to live for, some net in my life that caught me and strained me out of the ooze. It was as though some wonderful future event were being extended backward in time. The future event needed only to exist so that I could have this excitement and anticipation now. Next I went to a fancy makeup shop and bought some lipstick to match my hair color, a matte crimson. The women there treated me like an interloper and gave me strange stares. I think I talked about my date too much. I kept mentioning the tech exec and Santa Barbara so they would think that I was rich enough to be there. But they never smiled. Was I not supposed to talk to them? Could you only talk to some women about imaginary dates, while others could smell your reality the moment they looked at you? The final touch was a bikini wax. I went to a dive—some shithole where they said they could take me right away. I was just going to do the sides, but when the waxer—a bosomy woman named Kristina—saw my vagina, she started yelling. “Too much hair! Too much hair!” “I know! What do you think I should do with it?” “Me? I say take it all off.” “Ha, no way,” I said. “Okay, fine. I take some off. I show you. Just lie back.” I lay back on the small pillow covered in paper. The room was cold and the ceiling was covered in what looked like big pee stains and mold. “You have boyfriend?” she asked. “What he think of hair?” “No,” I said. “No boyfriend.” “Ah, see!” she said. “I will fix that. Relax.” I felt her spread on the wax. It felt too hot, but I didn’t know how warm it was supposed to be. It felt like my right labia was burning. She blew on the wax a few times with frenetic movements. “One, two, three,” she said. Then she ripped. I felt like my vagina was a tree, its roots being torn out of the ground. It was an ache, a tearing, and a burning all at once. I wanted to kill her. “Oh my God!” I yelled.