Should’ve Known Better

“Can I go to bed?” I asked. Mom nodded. Dad didn’t say a word. After I exhaled the biggest breath in my life, I slid out of my chair and padded down the hall. Like a robot, I brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas, and made for my bedroom. “No stories tonight,” I called down the hall to Mom. “I’m tired.” I didn’t know what they thought. I felt bad for them. I loved my parents to pieces, but all the questions they’d failed to answer had begun to add up. They should’ve known better.

They’d done everything possible to make me into a thinker, a hard worker, a doubter of universal truths. And finally it had turned against them.

Darkness Between the Stars (Eaters of the Light Book 1) by J Edward Neill

Donut Stealing Sheriff Caught Red-Handed

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“Sheriff, would you happen to have any information about this case?”

There was no use trying to get away with crime in this town. Especially when you were the sheriff.

The Case of the Missing Donut, written by Alison McGhee and illustrated by Isabel Roxas

James Monroe and Political Finances

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JAMES MONROE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1817

The Executive is charged officially in the Departments under it with the disbursement of the public money, and is responsible for the faithful application of it to the purposes for which it is raised. The Legislature is the watchful guardian over the public purse. It is its duty to see that the disbursement has been honestly made. To meet the requisite responsibility every facility should be afforded to the Executive to enable it to bring the public agents intrusted with the public money strictly and promptly to account. Nothing should be presumed against them; but if, with the requisite facilities, the public money is suffered to lie long and uselessly in their hands, they will not be the only defaulters, nor will the demoralizing effect be confined to them. It will evince a relaxation and want of tone in the Administration which will be felt by the whole community.

United States Presidents’ Inaugural Speeches by United States. Presidents.

 

Honest Lies

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“I don’t know.”
“But if you had to guess—?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Because you’re hoping I’ll say something different.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Then don’t tell me to be honest.”

The White Magic Five & Dime by Steve Hockensmith, Lisa Falco

Not Pretty, Not Angry, Just Honest

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Not A Pretty Girl

“I am not a pretty girl
That is not what I do
I ain’t no damsel in distress
And I don’t need to be rescued”

“I am not an angry girl
But it seems like I’ve got everyone fooled
Every time I say something
They find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger
And never to their own fear
And imagine you’re a girl
Just trying to finally come clean
Knowing full well they’d prefer
You were dirty and smiling”

Not A Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco

Temporary Trust

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“All I can do is decide if I trust Marcus or not. And while he has done cruel, evil things, our society is not divided into “good” and “bad.” Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind. Marcus is not good or bad, but both. Well, he is probably more bad than good. But that doesn’t mean he’s lying.”

People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.

Insurgent (Divergent Book 2) by Veronica Roth

Friends Are Honest

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Gilda and I had been friends for twelve years, ever since we’d moved into the neighborhood. It was her honesty that I counted on. If I needed a comforting lie I was perfectly capable of telling one to myself.

Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray

Dear Unknown Blogger – Thanks For The Book

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I must admit to deciding to read this book based on a blog posting that I can no longer locate. The blog was written by a young (teens? 20s?) woman who was making a comment about trying to discuss this book with a 30+ year old woman only to discover the older person had never heard of it.

While the post was mostly about generational gap communication (or so to speak), it made me curious enough to track down a copy and read it.

The first thing I realized was the existence of a movie I vaguely remembered seeing in random advertisements…somewhere. (I don’t have regular television, only Netflix and Amazon Prime, so visual advertisements are encountered online and in newspapers.)

The second thing I realized was how impossible it is to put this book down. Simply impossible! The first sentence drew me in. I stopped reading because it was time to get back to work or make dinner or…whatever…but the moment my eyes scanned random words from a sentence on a page it was like some irresistible force was sucking me back into the story.

Seriously!

At one point, I turned on my Kindle to check the time and the state of my email (read: how many unread messages have piled up?), glanced at the page long enough for my mind to register that this book was still open, read half a sentence and ten minutes later I was forcing myself to close the book, within the reader (before shutting it off), so that I could get back to my regularly scheduled life.

I really wish I knew what kind of mojo this author has to turn a simple and (frankly) uneventful story into such an aggressive attention grabber. Don’t get me wrong, the story was very good, but the magic is in the style, not the plot.

The Fault in Our Stars is a love story between two teenage cancer survivors (Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters). Teenagers facing both love and death. It’s a mix that could easily devolve into ultra-dramatic and highly annoying youth angst. Yet, somehow, it never loses the solidity of reality. It’s a book that gently pulls on the heartstrings instead of dragging them out of your chest. It presents the characters in moments of strength and weakness. It portrays cancer in a way that is almost to real.

I am of the opinion that the reality of life lived by the dying is the strongest aspect to the plot. There are many points where the popular perception of the dying is discussed by the dying in blunt, honest and occasionally sarcastic tones. It frankly examines the realities the not-yet-dying either do not consider or purposely chose to refrain from acknowledging. It also frames these observations and events within an almost to-perfect-to-be-true relationship.

Obviously, I enjoyed the book.

If you are the blogger who inadvertently recommended it to this no-longer-20-something reader, I thank you. If you are a reader (of any age) who is still considering cracking the spine of this text, here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

““Augustus Waters,” I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love”

““The world,” he said, “is not a wish-granting factory,” and then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness.”

“If you go to the Rijksmuseum, which I really wanted to do—but who are we kidding, neither of us can walk through a museum. But anyway, I looked at the collection online before we left. If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You’d see Jesus on the cross, and you’d see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you’d see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.”

-The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Not Good, Not Nice, Just Right

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Last Midnight

“You’re so nice.
You’re not good, you’re not bad,
You’re just nice.
I’m not good, I’m not nice,
I’m just right.
I’m the witch.
You’re the world.
I’m the hitch, I’m what no one believes.
I’m the witch.”

Into The Woods, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine

Caring Criticism

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Candor, or caring criticism, always ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, when candid exchanges between people collide, the fusion generates entirely new insights, new ideas, and new approaches—what we collectively call innovation, where value is created—that might never have been considered independently. Candor gives us the ability to take risks, preparing us to solve problems collaboratively—both at work and in our personal lives—with better results than we would ever have achieved alone.”

Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success–and Won’t Let You Fail by Keith Ferrazzi