All round there was a rising tide of beer, widow Désir's barrels had all been broached, beer had rounded all paunches and was overflowing in all directions, from noses, eyes - and elsewhere. People were so blown out and higgledy-piggledy, that everybody's elbows or knees were sticking into his neighbour and everybody thought it great fun to feel his neighbour's elbows. All mouths were grinning from ear to ear in continuous laughter.
A teenage boy with a Mohawk sat across from me, sneering. I’d seen that look before. Why was it a problem to knit in public?“My grandma knits.”I ignored him.“So what are you making, Grandma?” Mohawk’s voice was ugly.I arched my eyebrow. “A cashmere cock ring. Your grandma ever knit one of those?”The kid’s eyes grew wide, and he suddenly became very interested in a four-year-old issue of Teen Vogue.
One of the stall doors swings open and a fortyish-year-old woman walks out tucking her shirt into her jeans. Her heavy lined eyes land on Seth. "This is the women's restroom." She points a finger to the door. "Can't you read?""Can't you see that everyone in this club is about twenty years younger than you?" Seth retorts, turning to the mirror. With his pinkie, he messes with bangs. "Now if you'll excuse us, we're going to have some fun.
Perhaps the current state of my health should have raised a bright red caution flag, but instead it fired me up. I wanted to do what I wanted. I didn't care if hefting plywood and climbing ladders weren't on my doctor's recommended list of activities, or if I was foolhardy to think I could lift a fifty-pound roll of tar paper into and then out of my car. I was going to do it because it sounded like a blast, like the best possible way to have fun.
She tossed her towel on her dresser and turned to the bed where shed left her PJs. Only it wasn't just her PJs on the bed anymore. Lucas, eyes wide, sat on the foot of her bed, about four feet from where she stood completely naked. She squealed. He laughed. She dashed for the towel. Once she had it around her, she glared from a still grinning Lucas to the door. "I'm killing Della!" He laughed again. "I'm afraid I might have to protect her for this one.
...we are taught to put fun and serious pursuits on a continuum as opposed extremes, when this dichotomy is entirely false, made even worse when we act as though we can instantly exchange one for the other...Exerting yourself at a task that is serious and rewarding can still be quite fun, but doing something fun because you have a neurotic need to pack your life full of un is pretty much a guarantee that any long-term benefits you derive will be entirely happenstance.
Well, I’ve had my fun; I’ve had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums. And it was smashed to atoms—his fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one makes up the better part of life, he thought—making onself up; making her up; creating an exquisite amusement, and something more. But odd it was, and quite true; all this one could never share—it smashed to atoms.
Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin's success. I am aware that the ideas of business as being fun and creative goes right against the grain of convention, and it's certainly not how the they teach it at some of those business schools, where business means hard grind and lots of 'discounted cash flows' and net' present values'.
I can’t help but think that if she was going to kill herself, she might as well have done it earlier. Perhaps when I was a toddler. Or better yet, an infant. It certainly would have made my life easier. I asked my uncle Hugh (who is not really my uncle, but he is married to the stepsister of my current mother’s brother’s wife and he lives quite closeand he’s a vicar) if I would be going to hell for such a thought. He said no, that frankly, it made a lot of sense to him. I do think I prefer his parish to my own.
Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play--more than piety, more than charity or vigilance--was what allowed human beings to transcend evil.
You don't have to lie to me to be nice, Jake. You can just say, 'Wow, your nails look crappy.'" I did my best boy voice."Well, I will tell you that's a crappy imitation of my voice." He smiled so wide I could see his eyetooth from across the table. "But you've got to know you're totally hot, chipped nails and all." He burned beet red all the way to the roots of his hair. "Man, you get me to say some embarrassing stuff, Brenna." He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck."Hey, don't blame me when you feel moved to make strange declarations.
Oh, girl! He's got a big one,” the fortune teller exclaimed, her dark eyes briefly flickering up to Violet's face before returning back to the cards spread out in front of her. She paused for a moment as she studied them, her pointer finger tapping against her jaw. Finally, she added, “Just like a summer sausage, and I'm not talking about the snack-sized ones. And it's attached to a body that could put Dwayne Johnson to shame. What women could resist a package like that? I'd say the future is definitely going to be bright... at least for you.
What were you chanting when you gave me your blood?”“More of my vampire magic. I cast a healing spell to aid the powers of my blood.”She sniffled, her nose stuffy. “It was better than Vicodin.”“Vicodin?”“A painkiller from my world.”“A killer of pain. Did you love him?” The words were growled.A burst of unexpected humor gave her strength. “No. In fact, he was hard to shake. He, uh, stalked me, that kind of thing. I had to pretend he didn’texist.”Nicolai kissed her temple and relaxed against her.
I never saw "being different" in and of itself as the point to "being Goth" -- dressing different from most others, maybe, but the point to me was to get together with people who liked the same music and clothes, or at least very similar music and clothes, and go to clubs, go to movies, go to coffee-houses and hold poetry readings and, in general, just have some good harmless fun. Did I look like a dork? Sure, but so did everybody else in the club. We weren't "being different", at least not all of us, we just were different and the point was to stop bitching about being different and just have fun.
Magic?" What did magic have to do with breaking into someone's store and stealing their stuff?"Don't you get it?" Peter said. "You're free now. You don't have to live by their rules anymore." Peter pointed into the inky blackness of the basement. "The darkness is calling. A little danger, a little risk. Feel your heart race, listen to it. That's the sound of being alive. It's your time, Nick. Your one chance to have fun before it's all stolen by them, the adults, with their cruelty and endless rules, their can't-do-this, and can't-do-that's, their have-tos, and better-dos, their little boxes and cages all designed to break your spirit, to kill your magic.
