Joy

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 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Woodell and I gave her the third desk. She sat, placed her palms on the desktop, looked around the room. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. Woodell handed her a list of things—typing, bookkeeping, scheduling, stocking, filing invoices—and told her to pick one or two each day and have at it. But she didn’t pick. She did them all. Quickly, and with ease. Inside a week neither Woodell nor I could remember how we’d ever gotten along without her. It wasn’t just the quality of Miss Parks’s work that we found so valuable. It was the blithe spirit in which she did it. From Day One, she was all in. She grasped what we were trying to do, what we were trying to build here. She felt that Blue Ribbon was unique, that it might become something special, and she wanted to do what she could to help. Which proved to be a lot. She had a remarkable way with people, especially the sales reps we were continuing to hire. Whenever they came into the office, Miss Parks would size them up, fast, and either charm them or put them in their place, depending on what was called for. Though shy, she could be wry, funny, and the sales reps—that is, the ones she liked—often left laughing, looking back over their shoulders, wondering what just hit them. The impact of Miss Parks was most apparent in Woodell. He was going through a bad time just then. His body was fighting the wheelchair, resisting its life imprisonment. He was plagued by bedsores and other maladies related to sitting motionless, and often he’d be out sick for weeks at a time. But when he was in the office, when he was sitting alongside Miss Parks, she brought the color back to his cheeks. She had a healing effect on him, and seeing this had a bewitching effect on me. Most days I surprised myself, offering eagerly to run across the street to get lunch for Miss Parks and Woodell. This was the kind of thing we might have asked Miss Parks to do, but day after day I volunteered. Was it chivalry? Devilry? What was happening to me? I didn’t recognize myself. And yet some things never change. My head was so full of debits and credits, and shoes, shoes, shoes, that I rarely got the lunch orders right. Miss Parks never complained. Nor did Woodell. Invariably I’d hand each of them a brown paper bag and they’d exchange a knowing glance. “Can’t wait to see what I’m eating for lunch today,” Woodell would mutter. Miss Parks would put a hand over her mouth, concealing a smile. Miss Parks saw my bewitchment, I think. There were several long looks between us, several meaningfully awkward pauses. I recall one burst of particularly nervous laughter, one portentous silence. I remember one long moment of eye contact that kept me awake that night. Then it happened.

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  I love this bar, the floor is a velvet trampoline, a mirrored ball revolves above the dance floor, stars move across faces and hands, everyone encountered is a close personal friend. I’m in line for the bathroom, chatting with strangers. “I like your shirt.” This from the woman behind me, she may be trying to negotiate her way up the line. “Thanks,” I tell her. She’s pretty. “I like yours, too.” “Your cousin’s really drunk,” she says, rolling her eyes. I guess she knows me. She means Nick, not Wendell. Women are always striking up conversations about Nick. “I know” is what I tell her. I smile when I say it and shrug, trying to indicate that she can come to family dinners with Nick as far as I’m concerned. We lapse back into silence until the door bursts open and three women come out, reeking of reefer and perfume. I look at the woman who struck up the conversation with me. We raise our eyebrows. “Nice perfume,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Nice reefer,” I say. I let her come in while I go and she checks her makeup and examines her teeth in the mirror. I wait for her, too, bending over at the waist, shaking the hair out, and then flipping it back. It makes it fluffier for a few minutes, before it settles back into the plank again. The bending and flipping sends the room careening for a moment, I’m in a centrifugal tube, then it halts. She wants to know who Nick’s going out with. “His dog, I think,” I tell her. I’m politely not noticing her peeing. “He’s got the nicest golden retriever you ever saw.” I love that dog; it refuses to hunt, just walks along and stirs up ducks and pheasants, watches with surprise when they go flapping off. “That’s one thing about Nick. His dog’s nice.” I don’t think Nick ever shoots anything anyway, he just looks good in the boots and the vest. Actually, I think Cousin Nick’s going out with everyone, but I don’t tell her that. She looks hopeful and sparkly and she’s not nearly as drunk as me. I give her a swimmy smile on the way out and we part company forever. The band rolls into a slow one, with a creaky metallic guitar hook and a lone warbling voice. Someone asks me to dance and we stroll around the floor, amid the stars and the elbows. I close my eyes for a moment and it’s night inside my head, there are strange arms moving me around, this way and that, feet bumping into mine. The steel guitar comes overtop of it all, climbing and dropping, locating everyone’s sadness and yanking on it. In the shuffling crowd the dark curtain of rum parts for an instant, and reveals nothing. I open my eyes and look up at my partner. He’s leading away, a grinning stranger, his hand strolls down and finds my back pocket, warms itself.

• From Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)

  That is to say, once again, the material rewards from street contact (the quintessential method of the panhandler) are simply greater, even if spread out over a decade, than the rewards from a session of networking—which rewards take place (I say again) largely in the realm of shared knowledge. That evening, around seven-twenty, I got home to comet Hale-Bopp, bright and fuzzy-bearded above the west extremity of Eighty-second Street, against an indigo evening only a single shade away from full black. At the corner, I phoned up to Dennis in the apartment (one payphone was broken; I had to cross over to use the one on the far corner), who hadn’t seen it yet, to come out and take a look. Two minutes later he was down on the stoop. To prepare him, I pointed out a couple of diamond-chip stars overhead. “Now that’s a star. And that’s a star. But if you look over there—” Without my even pointing, he declared, “Wow, there it is!”—the fuzzy starlike object with its gauzy beard of light fanning to the east (I’d first seen it on my birthday, two nights before, up in Massachusetts). Dennis dashed back up to get his binoculars and go check it out from our roof; I turned up the street to make a quick trip to the supermarket. On my way back down Eighty-second Street, Hale-Bopp created a veritable wave of contact. First an overheard father and two kids, son and daughter: “Hey, do you see the comet up there . . . ?” “Yeah, I saw it last week.” Moments on, I pointed it out to a heavy, white-haired plainclothes policeman lounging in jeans and blue sweatshirt by the gate up at the precinct, who responded, “Do I see it? Sure. It’s right up there, isn’t it?” Which turned two women around in their tracks, one in a brown raincoat, both in hats. “Is that it? Oh, yes.” “Yes, right there. My!” “You can really see it tonight! Maybe we should go down to the river and look.” I left the policeman explaining to them why they didn’t want to do that. Thirty yards further down the block, I pointed it out to a stocky young Hispanic couple who passed me hand in hand: “Yeah, sure. We already seen it.” A minute later I pointed it out again to a homeless man in his twenties with blackened hands and short black hair, who’d set his plastic garbage bag down to dig in a garbage container for soda and beer cans. “Oh, wow! Yeah—” slowly he stood up to rub his forehead—“that’s neat!” While I walked on, a moment later I glanced back to see he’d stopped an older Hispanic gentleman in an overcoat, with a pencil-thin mustache, who now stood with him, gazing up: “There, you see the comet . . . ?”

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  The heart and premise of these very confidential seminars (no disrobing is permitted) was to create a safe, respectful place for women to exchange ideas on sexuality that they knew worked. And when women shared what they knew with others it in turn validated and expanded what they already knew. Chances are you will recognize some of these techniques as your own, or very similar to your own. Outstanding! If you find yourself already familiar with any of these techniques, that’s great. Simply move on to the next or compare notes with how yours is done. Though I have led these seminars for over five years, I still hear something new in each and every one of them. How? By always staying open and ready to learn. The women who come to the seminars feel the same way. One woman, a Russian émigré, said, “This is my fourth seminar and I can’t believe how much I can still learn. I came again for a refresher.” At the beginning of the seminar, the ladies think I am the one who knows; by the end, they feel as if they are the ones who know. How to Be a Great Lover draws on the thousands of interviews I’ve conducted and scientific research I’ve reviewed over the past fifteen years, and is a compilation of what I have learned listening to the myriad women who have attended the seminars. The women come to share, listen, and learn, and it’s in this spirit that the book is written. The seminars continue to grow, with women learning about them from word of mouth (so far, I have not done any direct marketing). Secret from Lou’s Archives As men age, they need more stimulation and foreplay. In a way they become more like women. Regardless of your present experience or level of inhibition, there is something here for you. The book has a lot of fresh ideas about the sensual basics of romantic ambiance, kissing, intercourse, and safety. But the juice is found in the chapters on oral and manual stimulation. I’ve found this area to be where women seem to have the least amount of confidence in their sexual ability. If you’ve been less than secure in this area, you won’t be much longer. Here you’ll find easy-to-follow instructions on many hand and mouth techniques, the results of which (according to seminar participants nationwide) will blow his mind. For those who enjoy a little whimsy in the bedroom or who have been curious about sexual toys and how to use them, the final chapter of the book was created just for you. After reading, you may just find yourself the recipient of a brand new strand of pearls—that is, once he finds out how you intend to use them.

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  • One of the excuses I hear from men in my seminars is that they are too big to fit into any of the condoms currently available. Whenever I hear a man saying this I know a simple yet most effective response: simply open a regular size condom, shape your fingers into a bird’s beak, and, watching your nails, unroll the condom over your hand. Pull it down, stretching it so that it covers your entire forearm past your elbow (it will fit, trust me). Then ask him how much bigger than that he is. Whenever I do this in the ladies’ seminar, there is a great deal of laughter. • Some men are likely to be more comfortable in a bigger condom. If your lover has a thick, broad penis, a regular size condom may fit a little too snugly at the base of his shaft or at the head. There is no reason for him to suffer. For this reason condoms also come in larger sizes. The Italian MethodThere is a way I’ve found that rarely fails to make a man welcome the application of a condom. I have dubbed it “The Italian Method,” but it is actually an old trick that has been used by “working girls” since the invention of the condom. This isn’t a reinvention of any wheel, but the renaming of a much-used wheel. The name is strictly a marketing term and has nothing to do with Italian men, an old Italian boyfriend, or anything at all Italian. I simply needed a code name that was acceptable to polite society. Simply put, The Italian Method is the application of a condom using your mouth, and men absolutely go crazy for it. A thirty-eight-year-old female computer executive from Dallas put it this way: “I used to hate having to put on a condom. It always seemed to put a damper on the mood. When I perform The Italian Method, the mood is anything but dampened! In fact, it puts me more in the mood to make love.” Secret from Lou’s Archives If his pubic hair is too thick for you, you might want to consider trimming it. You can even make it part of your foreplay.

• From The Plum in the Golden Vase: Jin Ping Mei, Vol. 1, Tangled Pleasures

  The hairpin had a four-line poem engraved on it, saying, "I have a hairpin with intertwined lotus, a gift for you to wear in your hair. Let us always be together, and never separate." Ximen Qing was delighted when he saw the gifts and hugged the woman, giving her a kiss, and said, "I never knew you were so clever!" The woman asked Ying'er to pour a cup of wine for Ximen Qing, and she bowed and kowtowed to him like a blooming flower. Ximen Qing quickly helped her up, and the two sat side by side, toasting and drinking together. After a few cups, Madam Wang drank with them for a while, and when her face turned red from the wine, she bid farewell and went back home. The two of them enjoyed their time and indulged in pleasure. As the saying goes, extreme happiness breeds sorrow. Time passed quickly, and before they knew it, the seasons had changed from early summer to late summer. The weather was hot, and it rained frequently on the road, delaying their return by three months. They felt restless and uneasy during their journey, and their minds and bodies were in a trance. Ximen Qing first sent a soldier to inform the county magistrate of his arrival, and then he privately sent a letter to his brother Wu Da, saying that he would definitely return within August. The soldier delivered the message to the county magistrate and then went to find Wu Da's home. Coincidentally, Madam Wang was at the door. When the soldier saw the door closed, he was about to knock, but Madam Wang asked, "Who are you looking for?" The soldier replied, "I am sent by Commander Wu to deliver a letter to his brother." Madam Wang said, "Wu Da Lang is not at home; he went to the grave. If you have a letter, give it to me. When he comes back, I will give it to him." The soldier bowed and said, "I will leave the letter with you then," and handed the letter to Madam Wang before hurriedly leaving on his horse. Madam Wang took the letter and walked to the woman's house through the back door. The woman and Ximen Qing were madly in love and had slept until noon. Madam Wang called out, "Sir and Madam, wake up. I have something to tell you. Wu Er has sent a letter to his brother, saying he will be back soon. I took it and sent him away. Don't delay; you must act quickly." Ximen Qing couldn't ignore this news; his body turned cold. They both hurriedly got up, put on their clothes, and invited Madam Wang to sit in their room. They took out the letter for Ximen Qing to read. The letter said that Wu Er would return home during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Both of them were in a panic and said, "What should we do? Auntie, help us.