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Oklahoma. By 1876, all of our Pawnee neighbors had fled Nebraska for Indian Territory. Eventually my horror rusted over. I did nothing, and soon it was covered by the grasses of my new home.

Kulturkampf was the German campaign to steal the national identity grom the Poles so they could take over their land, exactly like we did to the Indians.

The train was paused for a full day by the migrating buffalo. The great herd looked like a mountain in pieces, tumbling toward us.

poorer you were the more expensive things became, and if you were a Black man or woman, the White proprietors in Uz would overcharge you without shame, then go to bed feeling they’d done you a kindness by serving you at all.

Sometimes I imagine the glee of those journalists at the New York City papers—typing up the story of our worst day in their fancy language. Adjusting the margins and pushing our tragedy into a skinny column, just like old Marvin at the funeral home shoving a tall corpse into a tight suit.

Love can wash dirt off a memory until it feels like something else entirely .

She’s a wave in an ocean of reminders, and I’m drowning.

And there, sitting on the rug, is herself. There is Kitty, in her striped bathing- suit, her cap pulled down low, and there she is. Esme. Sitting next to Kitty, her sister, in her matching suit, accepting a cold chicken leg from her mother. Esme stares. The scene seems to tremble and break apart.

He had sandy, wavy hair, a green jacket with patches on the elbows, and he was carrying a bunch of flowers. Nerines. Iris knew a lot about flowers. Her father had taught her.

SAD!

When he passed Albert, he could see something had died inside his little brother. Anthony felt it, too, a withering and perishing inside. His innocence. His belief in himself. His childhood. Everything George and Acoko and his teachers had taught him about growing up to be a good human. All of it felt gone in a single step.

What does Scrooge mean when he tells go present that they deny people there one meal of the week?

Interesting…Marley says the spirits will visit 3 nights in a row but that’s not what happens

Veronica nodded. She was scared, too—but she wasn’t about to back down. Not like Chamberlain, with his “peace in our time.” She remembered what her father used to say about his days in the Navy: The only time you back down is when you’re dead.

She drew herself up, let herself out, went to one of the sinks, and washed her hands with cold water. They were no longer trembling as she reapplied her lipstick, her war paint. Staring at her face in the mirror, she pressed her lips together and made a final, irrevocable decision. Housewife turned spy. No one would ever believe it. Not in a hundred years. She tried not to laugh

Who does this remind you of???

Change your look,” he ordered. “Grow your hair longer, color it blonder. Wear dresses and skirts. Lots of red and black.” He considered. “Maybe a small cross necklace, some braids. Do you want to get married?”

Her mother had made her linen trousers and a blouse for her, and she’d styled her outfit with the backward-worn cotton cardigan so popular at Hunter, a green floral scarf in her hair, and chunky Bakelite bracelets

. “As Martha Gellhorn wrote to Max Perkins, ‘If a writer has any guts he should write all the time, and the lousier the world the harder a writer should work. For if he can do nothing positive, to make the world more livable or less cruel or stupid, he can at least record truly, and that’s something no one else will do, and it’s a job that must be done.’ She believed those words. She lived those words.

They force-fed us,” Vi said in a flat voice. She pushed her plate away. “It doesn’t sound that bad, maybe, but it was awful. They shoved tubes down our throats. It was painful and degrading. And dangerous.”

Well, that’s the shadow that accompanies the light of democracy, sweetheart,” Wally said, helping himself to more salad. “People are free to abuse their freedoms.”

He’d walked from Njoro—pointing himself at me the way you might throw a single arrow at several hundred square miles. For all of Kenya’s vastness, it was incredibly difficult to disappear into, even if you wanted to. There were so few of us that we left trails as clear as smoke signals. That Ruta had managed to find me wasn’t a surprise, but that he had wanted to. I

. Arap Ruta had found me. He’d found me, even here. I looked at his bare feet, the plaited thongs tied around dusty ankles.

moved towards the door, still not recognizing the voice. I pushed open the thatch door and saw a tall, well-muscled warrior with his shuka gathered over one shoulder. A curved sword rested in a leather scabbard swung low on narrow hips. His hair was shorn close but for one heavy plait that began at his forehead and cut over his clean scalp. His eyes were black and bottomless and when I saw them I wanted to cry.

Let me think . . . rattlesnake, jellyfish, hemlock, black widow, words without wisdom, power without compassion, appetite without boundaries, pleasure without gratitude, art without humility.. . . I wonder if Basil could write a song called “Poisonous Beauty.” In the journal where

I know I’m gonna tell you this really cool part of the book I have it

Omg remember D-Zerta?

Impressive!

Viv had sewn according to her instructions, using fabric from an old pup tent. It looked a bit like a concave canvas bucket, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with long ties sewn a few inches above the opening. In theory the canvas was waterproof. But Viv had melted down some old candles and brushed the inside with beeswax, just to make sure.

“Baby, they’s justice and they’s mercy. If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other, I say always go the mercy way. If you make a mistake, make it for mercy. Bad mercy don’t hurt nearly like bad justice, and always remember, the eye of God can see.”

Mr. Wordsworth, perhaps in a literature class at some point in your studies. He once wrote that the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.’

I find it interesting that Portugal was unaffected by World War II. I did not know that they were also neutral. I wonder how countries got to be that?