Pride

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 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  ical /caX^cra9 Std TT}? %dpt,TQ$ avrov (16) cforo/eaXitym TOP auToO e^ e/io/ "And when it pleased him who from my mother's womb had set me apart, and who called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me." The affirmation of this sentence that after his conversion, as before, the apostle kept himself apart from the Twelve is not antithetical to that of the preceding, but continues his argument; 84 should, therefore, be translated "and," rather than "but" (RV.). For the purposes of his argument the central element of the statement of vv.16-17 is in v.Mb: " immediately I communicated not with flesh and blood." For this statement, however, pertaining to his con- duct immediately after his conversion to faith in Jesus, he pre- pares the way in vv.16-iea by referring to certain antecedents of Ms conversion. All these he ascribes to God; for that o &,(j>op&ra<> * . , teal /ca\d<ra<> refers to God, and a7roKa\ityat, to a divine act, is evident from the nature of the acts referred to. See esp. on the Pauline usage of /caX^o>, v.6, and detached note on *A7ro/caXt$7rT<» and 'A7ro/caXi^i9, p. 433. Of the three antecedents here named the first and second, expressed by &$apC<ra$ and /eaX^ra<? are associated together grammatically, the participles being under one article and joined by teat But it is the second and third that are most closely associated in time, <i$o/>/aa? being dated from his birth, while the events de- noted by /eaX/ow and a7ro/eaXi5iJ/w; as the usage of the word fcak^ shows, are elements or immediate antecedents of the conversion-experience. By the emphasis which in his references to these antecedents of his conversion he throws upon the divine activity and grace (note cV x<£/>m) and by dating the First of these back to the very beginning of his life he Incidentally strengthens his argu- ment for his own independent divine commission. He whom God himself from his birth set apart to be a preacher of the to the Gentiles and whom by his grace he called into that can not be dependent on men for his commission or subject to their control The question whether the phrase 50 GALATIANS

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Ahora lo entiendo —me susurra mi hermana con burla al oído—. Y aquí estaba yo, preocupada porque sufrieras avances indeseados de un viejo sudoroso y gordo. —Cállate. —Cierro los ojos con exasperación. Escucho que se abre la puerta trasera y el humor se adueña de su voz mientras bromea: —Ahora cuídate de tus hombres. Me giro para cerrarle la puerta de golpe en el rostro, pero grita, cerrándola antes que tenga oportunidad. —Oh, no me gustan las cebollas. Me detengo ante las palabras de Pike y miro la salsa de barbacoa rociada sobre mis obras maestras de aros de cebolla. Son una publicación de Instagram esperando a suceder. Si quito las hermosas cebollas doradas, será solo un fail para Pinterest. —¿Y si pruebas un poco? —Me arriesgo, con una sonrisa tímida—. Te gustará. Lo prometo. En mi experiencia, los hombres comerán lo que tienen enfrente. Parece pensarlo un momento y luego cierra el refrigerador y se encuentra con mi mirada. Su expresión se suaviza. —Bien. Probablemente siente que me lo debe, ya que hice la cena, así que lo acepto. Cubriendo la hamburguesa, le doy el plato, y él lo lleva hasta un taburete, tomando un bocado antes de sentarse. Echo un vistazo por encima de mi hombro. Su mandíbula deja de moverse, y parpadea un par de veces, los músculos de sus mejillas se flexionan. Y luego escucho un gemido. Me vuelvo hacia la estufa para que no pueda ver mi sonrisa. —En realidad, está bueno —asegura—. Realmente bueno. Solo asiento, pero noto una pequeña pizca de orgullo. —Cuando comes barato al crecer —indico—, encuentras tus propias maneras de agregarle un toque gourmet. No dice nada durante unos segundos, pero después de un momento concuerda: —Sí. No estoy segura si eso significa que solo está escuchando atentamente o está de acuerdo conmigo. Si ha descubierto mi apellido, debe saber quién es mi padre. Todos en la ciudad conocen a Chip Hadley, así que tendría una idea de cómo vivíamos. No sé mucho sobre la familia de Cole, o si siempre han vivido en esta ciudad. Pike Lawson no es rico, pero ciertamente no es pobre por el aspecto de su casa. —Es muy bueno. Lo digo en serio —dice nuevamente. —Gracias. —Me doy vuelta y coloco un plato en la isla perpendicular a su asiento para Cole, y el mío junto a ese. Nos quedamos en silencio, y me pregunto si también se siente raro. Hablamos tan fácilmente la otra noche cuando no sabíamos quién era el otro, pero eso ha cambiado ahora. Escucho movimiento desde la sala de estar y miro alrededor para ver a Cole entrando a la cocina. Sonrío. Tiene grasa en toda la camisa y una mancha bajo su labio. Puede comportarse mal como si fuera su trabajo, pero también puede presumir de un encanto infantil como si nada.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  There is plenty of protest in Eve Ensler’s popular play The Vagina Monologues. But why is it that in all those interviews, all those questions, all those monologues, there is not a single mention of a woman’s asshole? So close and yet so far; the space that could change the world. All that “liberated” Pussy Talk, and yet so avoidant about what lies behind their sacred place: the hole of no return. Oh, well. It would be treason, I suppose, to advocate surrender at the rear for those who are just finally claiming victory at the front. Victory from behind, however, seems so much more, how can I put it . . . honorable. I can’t but wonder if my play, The Anal Dialogues, could find a venue even off-off-off-Broadway? Perhaps in some dark performance space down some little-traveled back alley? Clearly, yelling about butt-fucking from the rooftops—or on the national radio waves—is not advised. In April 2004, it was proposed that Clear Channel Communications, the nation’s largest radio broadcaster, be fined no less than $495,000 by the Federal Communications Commission for a single twenty-minute segment of the Howard Stern Show in which Stern discussed, at some length, what he refers to as “anal.” (It probably didn’t help matters that the conversation was frequently punctuated by fart noises.) Thank God that having anal sex is so much cheaper than talking about it. Despite this new trend of sodomitic censorship, ass-fucking has made several auspicious appearances recently on screens both big and small. The subject came up regularly in the popular TV series Sex and the City, whose heroines discussed not only men’s growing interest in “the ass” but also their own willingness to accommodate those interests, the appropriateness of doing so on a first date, and the basic lube how-tos. Perhaps even more surprising was its mention in the Hollywood hit Bridget Jones’s Diary. At one point, when Bridget is lying in bed after having sex with her caddish lover, Daniel Cleaver, she reminds him that what they just did is illegal in several countries. To which he replies, without missing a beat, that that’s one of the reasons he’s so pleased to be living in England today. Is Daniel Cleaver the latest incarnation of the bad-boy lover, the zipless fuck for the twenty-first century? After all, the zipless ass-fuck simply takes zipless to a new hole level. So does missionary-position ass-fucking. The term itself conjures up such perfect contradiction: the most patriarchal position, the most biblically sanctioned, and yet, well, what a difference an inch can make. The experience on the other hand—best achieved with a nice firm pillow under the ass—makes me feel downright missionary. After all, here I am spreading the word, sharing the epiphany like a born-again believer, a convert, an anal zealot. #145 and #146

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I like a shoe with a good metaphor to support me. Toe shoes, hooker shoes, it’s all just bondage in the end. I got a lot of shoe for fifty bucks. I called them my “Don’t-Fuck-With-Me” shoes. They also, ironically, looked a lot like “Fuck-Me” shoes. Ah, the double-entendre shoes, the key to Freud’s question “What do women want?”—“Fuck me!” but “Don’t fuck with me!” Black, heeled platforms. The front pedestal raised the ball of my foot off the ground two and half inches, and the heel, that gloriously slim yet strong heel, raised me up a solid seven inches. Finally, for the first time since being on pointe, I felt myself to be taller than the truth. But most important, my feet were far above the ground: it is the place where I am at my best in both mind and body. And, if necessary, these shoes could deliver a very healthy kick. My new shoes became both shield and armor in the battle for a new way to live. I ended up buying pairs in all the other colors: silver, sky blue, and serious pink. Once strapped on, these shoes changed my entire demeanor. I became my own Amazon—Aphrodite, Artemis, and Athena rolled into one. A- Woman was born. Equal in height to most men, I was now taller than many. I walked slowly, deliberately, proudly, stupendously on my shimmering, high-heeled weapons. Hope sprang alive as I peered about from my new perch. No longer looking up, I was looking down. No longer Slave, I was Mistress: the only refuge for a submissive with no Master. I started wearing my shoes around the house. With sweatpants, with underwear, without underwear, dusting a shelf, doing the dishes. One time I even shaved my pussy in the heels in order to do the dishes. Therapy. And I continued to rinse out my ass every time I bathed—a gesture of hope in a vacant lot. Then, one day, as Leonard Cohen was singing “Dance Me to the End of Love” through the speakers, I started swaying to the music—“moving like they do in Babylon”—and I knew that I would be dancing again before too long in my “Don’t-Fuck-With-Me” shoes. I was healed. I had made the leap across the open chasm. It wasn’t as wide as I’d thought. All those abbreviated M-words were never bridge enough to the other side. I never really liked being a “Miss.” Too prissy. It was slightly better in French—“Mlle.”—but still felt wanting—too petite for my budding enormity. Then came the opportunity for “Mrs.” which felt horrendous, like my mother, and its dry, neutered alternative, “Ms.” The problem with them all is that what followed was always a man’s name—a father’s or a husband’s. Now I only recognize titles befitting a woman who belongs to herself. Having traveled the long and twisted road from Masochist to Mistress . . . What next? Madam?

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

  Calvin wrote to the Council of Geneva from Neuchâtel on Sept. 7, explaining the reason of his delay.621 The next day he proceeded to Bern and delivered letters from Strassburg and Basel. He was expected at Geneva on the 9th of September, but did not arrive, it seems, before the 13th. He wished to avoid a noisy reception, for which he had no taste.622 But there is no doubt that his arrival caused general rejoicing among the people.623 The Council provided for the Reformer a house and garden in the Rue des Chanoines near St. Peter’s Church,624 and promised him (Oct. 4), in consideration of his great learning and hospitality to strangers, a fixed salary of fifty gold dollars, or five hundred florins, besides twelve measures of wheat and two casks of wine.625 It also voted him a new suit of broadcloth, with furs for the winter. This provision was liberal for those days, yet barely sufficient for the necessary expenses of the Reformer and the claims on his hospitality. Hence the Council made him occasional presents for extra services; but he declined them whenever he could do without them. He lived in the greatest simplicity compatible with his position. A pulpit in St. Peter’s was prepared for him upon a broad, low pillar, that the whole congregation might more easily hear him. The Council sent three horses and a carriage to bring Calvin’s wife and furniture. It took twenty-two days for the escort from Geneva to Strassburg and back (from Sept. 17 to Oct. 8).626 On the 13th of September Calvin appeared before the Syndics and the Council in the Town Hall, delivered the letters from the senators and pastors of Strassburg and Basel, and apologized for his long delay. He made no complaint and demanded no punishment of his enemies, but asked for the appointment of a commission to prepare a written order of church government and discipline. The Council complied with this request, and resolved to retain him permanently, and to inform the Senate of Strassburg of this intention. Six prominent laymen, four members of the Little Council, two members of the Large Council,—Pertemps, Perrin, Roset, Lambert, Goulaz, and Porral,—were appointed to draw up the ecclesiastical ordinances in conference with the ministers.627 On Sept. 16, Calvin wrote to Farel: "Thy wish is granted, I am held fast here. May God give his blessing."628 He desired to retain Viret and to secure Farel as permanent co-laborers; but in this he was disappointed—Viret being needed at Lausanne, and Farel at Neuchâtel. By special permission of Bern, however, Viret was allowed to remain with him till July of the next year. His other colleagues were rather a hindrance than a help to him, as "they had no zeal and very little learning, and could not be trusted." Nearly the whole burden of reconstructing the Church of Geneva rested on his shoulders. It was a formidable task.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The truth was this: that whatever successes I might achieve as a girl, they would be nothing compared to the triumphs I should enjoy clad, however girlishly, as a boy. I had, in short, found my vocation. Next day, rather appropriately, I got my hair cut off, and changed my name. The hair I had barbered at a house in Battersea, by the same theatrical hairdresser who cut Kitty’s. He worked on me for an hour, while she sat and watched; and at the end of that time I remember he held a glass to his apron and said warningly: ‘Now, you will squeal when you see it - I never cropped a girl before who didn’t squeal at the first look,’ and I trembled in a sudden panic. But when he turned the glass to show me, I only smiled to see the transformation he had made. He had not clipped the hair as short as Kitty‘s, but had left it long and falling, Bohemian-like, quite to my collar; and here, without the weight of the plait to pull it flat and lank, it sprang into a slight, surprising curl. Upon the locks which threatened to tumble over my brow he had palmed a little macassar-oil, which turned them sleek as cat’s fur, and gold as a ring. When I fingered them - when I turned and tilted my head - I felt my cheeks grow crimson. The man said then, ‘You see, you will find it queer,’ and he showed me how I might wear my severed plait, as Kitty wore hers, to disguise his barbering. I said nothing; but it was not with regret that I had blushed. I had blushed because my new, shorn head, my naked neck, felt saucy. I had blushed because - just as I had done when I first pulled on a pair of trousers - I had felt myself stir, and grow warm, and want Kitty. Indeed, I seemed to want her more and more, the further into boyishness I ventured. Kitty herself, however, though she also smiled when the barber displayed me, smiled more broadly when the plait was re-affixed. ‘That’s more like it,’ she said, when I stood and brushed my skirts down. ‘What a fright you looked in short hair and a frock!’ Back at Ginevra Road we found Walter waiting for us, and Mrs Dendy dishing up lunch; and it was here that I was given a new name, to match my bold new crop.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  couldn’t concentrate. She made almost no progress. Daniel and Gus eyed each other smugly. Vix was determined to prove them wrong. She rose at sunrise the next day and for two days after that. The others would find her there when they came down to breakfast, studying the pieces, locking together the edges, constructing separate sections, until the end of the sixth day, when she knew she had it. She let them watch that night, enjoying every step toward victory, and when she placed the final pieces Sharkey pumped his fist in the air and cried, “Yes!” He lifted her out of her chair and before she could stop him, swung her around. She was totally amazed. But when she smiled down at him he released her without a word, collected his share of the winnings, and disappeared. Gus and Daniel hung around to help the girls celebrate. “How about a consolation prize?” Gus said. “What did you have in mind?” Caitlin asked. He smiled and looked her over. “Whatever you’re willing to give.” “You wish!” She threw the empty puzzle box at him. He and Daniel laughed and went off together. 11 VIX WONDERED if Abby ever guessed how she fantasized about being her daughter, how she dreamed of being beautiful and rich and living in the big house in Cambridge, not that she’d ever seen it, but she’d seen pictures. Just weeks earlier, on the night of Vix’s fourteenth birthday, when she and Caitlin had dressed up for dinner at The Black Dog, Abby had said, “You both look so pretty. You remind me of how much I’ve always wanted a daughter.” “Don’t get any ideas,” Caitlin had told her. “We already have mothers.” Vix could see the hurt in Abby’s eyes, hear it in her voice. “I only meant ...” Abby started to say, but then she looked away and never finished. Vix asked Caitlin once if she didn’t miss Sharkey and Lamb during the school year, if she didn’t want to live in Cambridge, too. “I miss them,” Caitlin answered. “But Phoebe needs me, to prove she’s not a failure as a mother.” Vix thought of Phoebe’s postcards. Last summer there had been just one, from Tuscany. Dear Ones, Hope your having a grand summer, as always. I’m about to leave for a few days in Venice. See you soon! All my love, Phoebe The card was addressed to Caitlin and Sharkey Somers. One card for two kids. One card every summer. Sharkey dismissed it as fast as he’d read it, telling Caitlin she could add it to her collection. Caitlin stuck it in her

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

  After the accession of the new and better procurator, Festus, who is known to have succeeded Felix in the year 60, Paul, as a Roman citizen, appealed to the tribunal of Caesar and thus opened the way to the fulfilment of his long-cherished desire to preach the Saviour of the world in the metropolis of the world. Having once more testified his innocence, and spoken for Christ in a masterly defence before Festus, King Herod Agrippa II. (the last of the Herods), his sister Bernice, and the most distinguished men of Caesarea, he was sent in the autumn of the year 60 to the emperor. He had a stormy voyage and suffered shipwreck, which detained him over winter at Malta. The voyage is described with singular minuteness and nautical accuracy by Luke as an eye-witness. In the month of March of the year 61, the apostle, with a few faithful companions, reached Rome, a prisoner of Christ, and yet freer and mightier than the emperor on the throne. It was the seventh year of Nero’s reign, when he had already shown his infamous character by the murder of Agrippina, his mother, in the previous year, and other acts of cruelty. In Rome Paul spent at least two years till the spring of 63, in easy confinement, awaiting the decision of his case, and surrounded by friends and fellow-laborers "in his own hired dwelling." He preached the gospel to the soldiers of the imperial body-guard, who attended him; sent letters and messages to his distant churches in Asia Minor and Greece; watched over all their spiritual affairs, and completed in bonds his apostolic fidelity to the Lord and his church.418 In the Roman prison he wrote the Epistles to the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon. 6. A.D. 63 and 64. With the second year of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome the account of Luke breaks off, rather abruptly, yet appropriately and grandly. Paul’s arrival in Rome secured the triumph of Christianity. In this sense it was true, "Roma locuta est, causa finita est." And he who spoke at Rome is not dead; he is still "preaching (everywhere) the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, with all boldness, none forbidding him."419

• From City of Night (1963)

  Withholding the pictures dramatically, he said proudly: “These are only some of my Converts. People just Radiate toward me. And I open the world theyve been hunting—hunting, mind you, without even knowing it sometimes. That way, I help them find Themselves.” He spoke as if delivering a familiar speech. “You should see some of the ones that come to me—so timid: Just knowing someone like Me exists helps them. Even the first time, they walk out the door differently: Proud. Erect. Glad to be: Men!... I lead them carefully. I open doors for them, slowly.... They call me up—I had a call from a youngman in Seattle the other day. He’d heard about me, through friends—and he wanted to come down especially to see me. Why, I get calls all the time from Los Angeles.... And, well, Whu-I NOT?” He attempted another shrug, again frustrated. Dreamily: “I like to see youngmen coming out—I like to see them—well, flower out—...Rather,” he corrected himself hastily, “I like to see them burst out Violently! And I watch them move in the direction they were meant to go. Theyre like Disciples, discovering The Way.... Sometimes,” he said wistfully, assuming a benign look as he gathered his hands over the photographs on his lap, “sometimes—I get the feeling that Im something of a—... yes, something of a Saint.” I look at “The Saint” in the strange costume. His stare challenges mine. With a flourish, he spreads the photographs on a table before me as proudly as a peacock spreads his tail. There are youngmen dressed as military officers of long-ago periods, cowboys, motorcyclists, policemen, pirates, gladiators.... Single, they seem to have menaced the camera. In groups, they depict scenes of violence.... I lay the pictures down without looking at the rest. “I took every one of them myself,” he sighed. The cat had returned surreptitiously, winding in and out of Neil’s legs. Again, he shoved it away with his boot, this time much more violently. He watched as the cat moves away. “And now!” Neil announced. “Ill show you My Real Collection!—the most complete in California—and (Whu-I NOT) possibly in the United States!—though Ive heard theres a man near Griffith Park in Los Angeles who has a pretty good collection,” he condescended. “His name is—... Dan? Stan? Something like that. But Ive been told hes not at all like Me!” He ushered me into the bedroom. When he pushed open the door, past which I thought I had seen an unmoving foot earlier, I start. There are two men in the bedroom: a policeman wearing sun-glasses and a motorcyclist, legs spread, hands planted on hips, his head thrust forward as if ready to attack with gloved, clenched fists.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I had been wearing it as a kind of bracelet, only: it had not occurred to me to tell the time with it. Now I moved the arms to 4 and 3, for Maria’s sake - but there was really no need, of course, for me ever to wind it at all. The watch was my finest gift; but there was a present, too, from Maria herself: a walking-cane, of ebony, with a tassel at the top and a silver tip. It went very well with my new opera gear; indeed, we made a very striking couple that night, Diana and I, for her costume was of black and white and silver, to match my own. It came from Worth’s: I thought we must look just as if we had stepped out from the pages of a fashion paper. I made sure, when walking, to hold my left arm very straight, so the watch would show. We dined in a room at the Solferino. We dined with Dickie and Maria - Maria brought Satin, her whippet, and fed him dainties from a plate. The waiters had been told it was my birthday, and fussed around me, offering wine. ‘How old is the young gentleman today?’ they asked Diana; and the way they asked it showed they thought me younger than I was. They might, I suppose, have taken Diana for my mother; for various reasons, the idea was not a nice one. Once, though, I had stopped at a shoe-black while Diana and her friends stood near to watch it, and the man - catching sight of Dickie and reading tommishness, as many regular people do, as a kind of family likeness - asked me if she, Dickie, were not my Auntie, taking me out for the day; and it had been worth being mistaken for a schoolboy, for the sake of her expression. She once or twice tried to compete with me, on the question of suits. The night of my birthday, for example, she wore a shirt with cuff-links and, above her skirt, a short gent’s cloak. At her throat, however, she had a jabot - I should never have worn anything so effeminate. She did not know it - she would have been horrified to know it! - but she looked like nothing so much as a weary old mary-anne - one of the kind you see sometimes holding court, with younger boys, on Piccadilly: they have rented so long they’re known as queens. Our supper was a very fine one, and when it was over Diana sent a waiter for a cab.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  And at that, Kitty herself turned to me - and showed me such a look of wonder and confusion that it was as if, just for a second, she had never seen me before; and I do not know whose cheeks at that moment were the pinker - mine, or hers. Then she gave a tight little smile. ‘Very nice,’ she said, and looked away; so that I thought, miserably, that the dress must suit me even less than I had hoped, and readied myself for a wretched party. But the party was not wretched; it was gay and genial and loud, and very crowded. The manager had had to build a platform from the end of the stage to the back of the pit, to carry us all, and he had hired the orchestra to play reels and waltzes, and set tables in the wings bearing pastries and jellies, and barrels of beer and bowls of punch, and row upon row of bottles of wine. We were much complimented, Kitty and I, on our new dresses; and over me, in particular, people smiled and exclaimed - mouthing at me across the noisy hall, ‘How fine you look!’ One woman - the conjuror’s assistant - took my hand and said, ‘My dear, you’re so grown-up tonight, I didn’t recognise you!’: just what Mrs Dendy had said an hour before. Her words impressed me. Kitty and I stood side by side all evening but when, some time after midnight, she moved away to join a group that had gathered about the champagne tables, I hung back, rather pensive. I wasn’t used to thinking of myself as a grown-up woman, but now, clad in that handsome frock of blue and cream, satin and lace, I began at last to feel like one - and to realise, indeed, that I was one: that I was eighteen, and had left my father’s house perhaps for ever, and earned my own living, and paid rent for my own rooms in London. I watched myself as if from a distance - watched as I supped at my wine as if it were ginger beer, and chatted and larked with the stage-hands, who had once so frightened me; watched as I took a cigarette from a fellow from the orchestra, and lit it, and drew upon it with a sigh of satisfaction. When had I started smoking? I couldn’t remember.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “Oh, no!” he exclaimed adamantly, obviating such a simple explanation. “Nothing like that!... Im convinced it’s someone who just wants to know— has to Know!—that someone, somewhere—someone like Me—exists. Eventually,” he predicted solemnly, “whoever it is will speak to me, and he’ll ask me if he can come up.... Oh, you may not know it, but I am rather—well, I’ll say it: Why not?” (Except that he said it like this: “Whu-I NOT-” and he shrugged his fleshy shoulders—or, rather, attempted to: The warning stretching sound of the shirt rejected the movement.) “I am rather Famous in California.” “Because of your costumes?” “‘Dressing up,’” he corrected me coolly, “does not mean wearing costumes! ” He finished his first cup of tea—offered me another cup, which I refused. “When I spoke to you the other night in the bar,” he told me, “it was because I felt a certain propinquity—I mean,” he added carefully, “a certain interest.” “You stood out—even in that bar,” I said tactfully. Again, it wasnt what he wanted to hear. “What I mean,” he said testily, “is that I felt you were ‘ready.’” “Ready for what?” He avoided the question mysteriously. A furry amber cat curled like an ostrich plume about the man’s boots, then jumped lithely on his lap. Neil began to stroke the cat absently. In the long silence that followed, I could hear the satisfied purring of the animal as it pressed itself against the leather costume. As if just realizing that he’d been stroking the cat, Neil pushed it away suddenly, thrusting it angrily to the floor. He almost lifted it away with the tip of his boot. “I hate him when he becomes snivelingly affectionate!” he said. He rose precariously from the chair. The tight costume would not even allow him to walk easily. And when he opened a drawer in the antique desk, he crouched before it uncertainly, rigidly to keep his clothes intact. He brought out a box, removed a key from another smaller box, opened the first, and took out a stack of pictures which he brought over to show me. I prepared myself. That world, being a world of fleeting contacts, has a great attachment to photographs, as if to lend some permanence to what is usually all too impermanent. But I know before Ive seen them that the ones Neil will show me will be far from ordinary—will, in fact, be a part of a game Im convinced hes playing with me.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Oh, no me gustan las cebollas. Me detengo ante las palabras de Pike y miro la salsa de barbacoa rociada sobre mis obras maestras de aros de cebolla. Son una publicación de Instagram esperando a suceder. Si quito las hermosas cebollas doradas, será solo un fail para Pinterest. —¿Y si pruebas un poco? —Me arriesgo, con una sonrisa tímida—. Te gustará. Lo prometo. En mi experiencia, los hombres comerán lo que tienen enfrente. Parece pensarlo un momento y luego cierra el refrigerador y se encuentra con mi mirada. Su expresión se suaviza. —Bien. Probablemente siente que me lo debe, ya que hice la cena, así que lo acepto. Cubriendo la hamburguesa, le doy el plato, y él lo lleva hasta un taburete, tomando un bocado antes de sentarse. Echo un vistazo por encima de mi hombro. Su mandíbula deja de moverse, y parpadea un par de veces, los músculos de sus mejillas se flexionan. Y luego escucho un gemido. Me vuelvo hacia la estufa para que no pueda ver mi sonrisa. —En realidad, está bueno —asegura—. Realmente bueno. Solo asiento, pero noto una pequeña pizca de orgullo. —Cuando comes barato al crecer —indico—, encuentras tus propias maneras de agregarle un toque gourmet.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  He sat down to help me draw up a list of intelligent questions so I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of this greatest of West Virginia’s native sons. What was going through your head when you first broke Mach I? What was going through your head when A. Scott Crossfield broke Mach II? What is your favorite aircraft? What are your thoughts on the feasibility of flying at the speed of light? Dad wrote up about twenty-five or thirty questions like that and then insisted we rehearse the interview. He pretended to be Chuck Yeager and gave me detailed answers to the questions he’d written out. His eyes got misty as he described what it was like to break the sound barrier. Then he decided I needed some solid grounding in aviation history, and he stayed up half the night briefing me, by the light of a kerosene lamp, on the test-flight program, basic aerodynamics, and the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach. The next day Mr. Jack, the principal, introduced Chuck Yeager during assembly in the auditorium. He looked more like a cowboy than a West Virginian, with his horseman’s gait and his lean leathery face, but as soon as he started speaking, his voice was pure up-hollow. As he talked, the fidgety students settled into their folding chairs and became enraptured by the legendary, world-traveled man who told us how proud he was of his West Virginia roots, and how we, too, should be proud of those roots, roots we all shared; and how, regardless of where we came from, each and every one of us could and should follow our dreams, just as he had followed his. When he finished talking, the applause about shattered the glass in the windows. I climbed up on the stage before the students filed out. “Mr. Yeager,” I said, holding out my hand, “I’m Jeannette Walls with The Maroon Wave .” Chuck Yeager took my hand and grinned. “Jes’ spell my name right, ma’am,” he said, “so’s my kin’ll know who you’re writin’ about.” We sat down on some folding chairs and talked for nearly an hour. Mr. Yeager took every question seriously and acted like he had all the time in the world for me. When I mentioned various aircraft he’d flown, the aircraft Dad had briefed me about, he grinned again and said, “Heck, I do believe we got an aviation expert on our hands.” In the hallways afterward, the other kids kept coming up to tell me how lucky I was. “What was he really like?” they asked. “What did he say?” Everyone treated me with the deference accorded only to the school’s top athletes. Even the varsity quarterback caught my eye and nodded. I was the girl who had actually talked to Chuck Yeager. Dad was so eager to hear how the interview went that he was not only home when I got back from school, he was even sober.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  “Who’s there?” I called out, but because I had my braces on, it came out sounding like “Phoof der?” “It’s your old man,” Dad answered. “What’s with the mumbling?” He came over to my bunk, held up his Zippo, and flicked it. A flame shot up. “What the Sam Hill’s that on your head?” “My brafef,” I said. “Your what?” I took off the contraption and explained to Dad that, because my front teeth stuck out so badly, I needed braces, but they cost twelve hundred dollars, so I had made my own. “Put them back on,” Dad said. He studied my handiwork intently, then nodded. “Those braces are a goddamn feat of engineering genius,” he said. “You take after your old man.” He took my chin and pulled my mouth open. “And I think they’re by God working.” THAT YEAR I STARTED working for the school newspaper, The Maroon Wave . I wanted to join some club or group or organization where I could feel I belonged, where people wouldn’t move away if I sat down next to them. I was a good runner, and I thought of going out for the track team, but you had to pay for your uniform, and Mom said we couldn’t afford it. You didn’t have to buy a uniform or a musical instrument or pay any dues to work on the Wave . Miss Jeanette Bivens, one of the high school English teachers, was the Wave ’s faculty adviser. She was a quiet, precise woman who had been at Welch High School so long that she had also been Dad’s English teacher. She was the first person in his life, he once told me, who’d showed any faith in him. She thought he was a talented writer and had encouraged him to submit a twenty-four-line poem called “Summer Storm” to a statewide poetry competition. When it won first prize, one of Dad’s other teachers wondered aloud if the son of two lowlife alcoholics like Ted and Erma Walls could have written it himself. Dad was so insulted that he walked out of school. It was Miss Bivens who convinced him to return and earn his diploma, telling him he had what it took to be somebody. Dad had named me after her; Mom suggested adding the second N to make it more elegant and French. Miss Bivens told me that as far as she could remember, I was the only seventh-grader who’d ever worked for the Wave . I started out as a proofreader. On winter evenings, instead of huddling around the stove at 93 Little Hobart Street, I’d go down to the warm, dry offices of The Welch Daily News, where The Maroon Wave was typeset, laid out, and printed. I loved the newsroom’s purposeful atmosphere. Teletype machines clattered against the wall as spools of paper carrying news from around the world piled up on the floor.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  bring myself to stick that needle in Dad’s arm one more time. We both looked at the two dark, slightly sloppy stitches. “That’s some fine handiwork,” Dad said. “I’m mighty proud of you, Mountain Goat.” When I left the house the next morning, Dad was still asleep. When I came home in the evening, he was gone. DAD HAD TAKEN TO disappearing for days at a time. When I asked him where he’d been, his explanations were either so vague or so improbable that I stopped asking. Whenever he did come home, he usually brought a bag of groceries in each arm. We’d gobble deviled-ham sandwiches with thick slices of onion while he told us about the progress of his investigation into the UMW and his latest moneymaking schemes. People were always offering him jobs, he’d explain, but he wasn’t interested in work for hire, in saluting and sucking up and brownnosing and taking orders. “You’ll never make a fortune working for the boss man,” he said. He was focused on striking it rich. There might not be gold in West Virginia, but there were plenty of other ways to make your pile. For instance, he was working on a technology to burn coal more efficiently, so that even the lowest-grade coal could be mined and sold. There was a big market for that, he said, and it was going to make us rich beyond our dreams. I listened to Dad’s plans and tried to encourage him, hoping that what he was saying was true but also pretty certain it wasn’t. Money would come in—and with it, food—on the rare occasion that Dad landed an odd job or Mom received a check from the oil company leasing the drilling rights on her land in Texas. Mom was always vague about how big the land was and where exactly it was, and she refused to consider selling it. All we knew was that every couple of months, this check would show up and we’d have plenty of food for days at a time. When the electricity was on, we ate a lot of beans. A big bag of pinto beans cost under a dollar and would feed us for days. They tasted especially good if you added a spoonful of mayonnaise. We also ate a lot of rice mixed with jack mackerel, which Mom said was excellent brain food. Jack mackerel was not as good as tuna but was better than cat food, which we ate from time to time when things got really tight. Sometimes Mom popped up a big batch of popcorn for dinner. It had lots of fiber, she pointed out, and she had us salt it heavily because the iodine would keep us from getting goiters. “I don’t want my kids looking like pelicans,” she said. Once, when an extra-big royalty check came in, Mom bought us a whole canned ham. We ate off it for days, cutting thick slices for sandwiches. Since we had no refrigerator, we left the ham on a kitchen shelf. After it had been there for about a

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  cottonwood tree. We were so stiff from holding on all night that our joints could scarcely move, and the mud kept sucking at our shoes, but we got to dry land as the sun was coming up and climbed the hill to the house just the way I had seen it. Dad was on the porch, pacing back and forth in that uneven stride he had on account of his gimp leg. When he saw us, he let out a yelp of delight and started hobbling down the steps toward us. Mom came running out of the house. She sank to her knees, clasped her hands in front of her, and started praying up to the heavens, thanking the Lord for delivering her children from the flood. It was she who had saved us, she declared, by staying up all night praying. “You get down on your knees and thank your guardian angel,” she said. “And you thank me, too.” Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it, I was the one who’d saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel. No one was up in that cottonwood tree except the three of us. Dad came alongside me and put his arm around my shoulders. “There weren’t no guardian angel, Dad,” I said. I started explaining how I’d gotten us to the cottonwood tree in time, figuring out how to switch places when our arms got tired and keeping Buster and Helen awake through the long night by quizzing them. Dad squeezed my shoulder. “Well, darling,” he said, “maybe the angel was you.” Continue Reading... Half Broke Horses Jeannette Walls JEANNETTE WALLS was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in the Southwest and in Welch, West Virginia. She graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York City for twenty years. Her award-winning memoir, The Glass Castle, is an international bestseller and has been translated into twenty-three languages. Walls is also the author of Half Broke Horses, a novel about her grandmother Lily Casey Smith. She is married to writer John Taylor and lives in Virginia. MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT SimonandSchuster.com • THE SOURCE FOR READING GROUPS • MOTION PICTURE ARTWORK © 2017 LIONS GATE ENTERTAINMENT INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Also by Jeannette Walls Half Broke Horses The Silver Star We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook. Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

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

  Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sex—otherwise there would not be feminine boy and masculine girl children. We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism. We must challenge all those who insist that women who act or dress in a feminine manner take on a submissive or passive posture. For many of us, dressing or acting feminine is something we do for ourselves, not for others. It is our way of reclaiming our own bodies and fearlessly expressing our own personalities and sexualities. It is not us who are guilty of trying to reduce our bodies to mere playthings, but rather those who foolishly assume that our feminine style is a signal that we sexually subjugate ourselves to men. In a world where masculinity is assumed to represent strength and power, those who are butch and boyish are able to contemplate their identities within the relative safety of those connotations. In contrast, those of us who are feminine are forced to define ourselves on our own terms and develop our own sense of self-worth. It takes guts, determination, and fearlessness for those of us who are feminine to lift ourselves up out of the inferior meanings that are constantly being projected onto us. If you require any evidence that femininity can be more fierce and dangerous than masculinity, all you need to do is ask the average man to hold your handbag or a bouquet of flowers for a minute, and watch how far away he holds it from his body. Or tell him that you would like to put your lipstick on him and watch how fast he runs off in the other direction. In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female-or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  When we’d run through those, I went on to presidents and state capitals, then word definitions, word rhymes, and whatever else I could come up with, snapping at them if their voices faltered, and that was how I kept Helen and Buster awake through the night. • • • By first light, you could see that the water still covered the ground. In most places, a flash flood drained away after a couple of hours, but the pasture was in bottomland near the river, and sometimes the water remained for days. But it had stopped moving and had begun seeping down through the sinkholes and mudflats. “We made it,” I said. I figured it would be safe to wade through the water, so we scrambled out of the cottonwood tree. We were so stiff from holding on all night that our joints could scarcely move, and the mud kept sucking at our shoes, but we got to dry land as the sun was coming up and climbed the hill to the house just the way I had seen it. Dad was on the porch, pacing back and forth in that uneven stride he had on account of his gimp leg. When he saw us, he let out a yelp of delight and started hobbling down the steps toward us. Mom came running out of the house. She sank to her knees, clasped her hands in front of her, and started praying up to the heavens, thanking the Lord for delivering her children from the flood. It was she who had saved us, she declared, by staying up all night praying. “You get down on your knees and thank your guardian angel,” she said. “And you thank me, too.” Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it, I was the one who’d saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel. No one was up in that cottonwood tree except the three of us. Dad came alongside me and put his arm around my shoulders. “There weren’t no guardian angel, Dad,” I said. I started explaining how I’d gotten us to the cottonwood tree in time, figuring out how to switch places when our arms got tired and keeping Buster and Helen awake through the long night by quizzing them. Dad squeezed my shoulder. “Well, darling,” he said, “maybe the angel was you.” Continue Reading… [image "Half Broke Horses Cover" file=Image00016.jpg] Half Broke Horses Jeannette Walls [image "images" file=Image00017.jpg] JEANNETTE WALLS was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in the Southwest and in Welch, West Virginia. She graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York City for twenty years. Her award-winning memoir, The Glass Castle, is an international bestseller and has been translated into twenty-three languages. Walls is also the author of Half Broke Horses , a novel about her grandmother Lily Casey Smith.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  supposed to go to a senior. Only a handful of students wanted to work for the Wave, and I ended up writing so many of the articles that I abolished bylines; it looked a little ridiculous having my name appear four times on the front page. The paper cost fifteen cents, and I sold it myself, going from class to class and standing in the hallways, hawking it like a newsboy. Welch High had about twelve hundred students, but we sold only a couple hundred copies of the paper. I tried various schemes to boost the circulation: I held poetry competitions, added a fashion column, and wrote controversial editorials, including one questioning the validity of standardized tests, which provoked an irate letter from the head of the state Department of Education. Nothing worked. One day a student I was trying to get to buy the Wave told me he had no use for it because the same names appeared in the paper again and again: the school’s athletes and cheerleaders and the handful of kids known as slide rules who always won the academic prizes. So I started a column called “Birthday Corner,” listing the names of the eighty or so people who had their birthday in the coming month. Most of these people had never appeared in the paper, and they were so excited to see their names in print, they bought several copies. Circulation doubled. Miss Bivens wondered aloud if “Birthday Corner” represented serious journalism. I told her I didn’t care—it sold papers. • • • Chuck Yeager visited Welch High that year. I’d been hearing about Chuck Yeager all my life from Dad, about how he’d been born in West Virginia, in the town of Myra on the Mud River over in Lincoln County, about how he joined the air force during World War II and had shot down eleven German planes by the time he was twenty- two, about how he became a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base high up on the Mojave Desert in California, and about how one day in 1947 he became the first man to break the sound barrier in his X-1, even though the night before, he’d been up drinking and had been thrown from a horse and cracked some ribs. Dad would never admit to having heroes, but the brass-balled, liquor-loving, coolly calculating Chuck Yeager was the one man in the world he admired above all others. When he heard that Chuck Yeager was giving a speech at Welch High and that he’d agreed to let me interview him afterward, Dad could hardly contain his excitement. He was waiting on the porch for me with a pen and paper when I got