Psalms 71:13/ Genesis 49:27

I was furious. Oh so easily I could have hit you, stomped on your eyes. I'd have enjoyed setting your house on fire, or filling your swimming pool with acid. I could have called your wife and pretended to be your mistress, and then broken your son's heart. Selling your business' secrets would have been a joy, setting you up to take the fall for fraud would have been so easy. Laughing, I'd've keyed your car, and slashed your tires, lit some of your disgusting, noxious cigarettes and then put them out on your fancy leather seats.

I could tell the police that you knocked me around and show them the bruise I got from falling off the stepladder as proof. I could have stolen some of your underwear and then hung them from the flagpole outside your office. I'd sell your antique motorcycle on the internet. Being so much smarter than you, it would have been easy, like a logic puzzle just below your level. I would have loved it. Highlight of my year, easily.

But instead I sat back with my Bible and thought to myself, "Karma sucks."

Philippians 4:8/ Genesis 49:25

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.

1 Timothy 6:6-7/ Genesis 49:22

Things I Want in My Coffin When I Die:
-my flute case (leave the instrument to Jenny)
-pictures of my children
-some flowers
-my husband. he's the one who killed me, after all.

Colossians 3:23/ Genesis 35:14

May my cup filleth over, may I do nothing half-assedly.

That didn't seem quite appropriate for my three-year-old's prayers. She would, after all, have enough time in her life to get creative with the praying.

So I taught her a version of the Lord's Prayer:

Give us this day our daily bread, and deliver us from evil.

I still prefer mine.

1 Corinthians 8:8-9/ Genesis 17:16

"But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do," I quoted.

"That doesn't mean," my sister replied, "that I can't both be Catholic and go to culinary school."

Galatians 5:22-3/ Genesis 14:2-3

The new girl rejected my random act of kindness. She was from New York City--how exotic!--and I was dying to ask her all kinds of questions. She looked a little standoffish, and a little proud, but I hung on her every word.

"Would you like to eat lunch with me and my friends?" I asked quietly outside English. Mrs. Ford had asked me to help her to her next class. I bit back all the other questions dying to spill out, taking nearly all the self-control that I had. Anything outside Little Rock was interesting, cosmopolitan. I wanted to know about it all.

"I don't need your charity," the girl snapped, as she flounced into Health.

1 John 3:2/ Genesis 4:16

I never saw you as you were until you wanted me to.
Never.
Not once.

And the funny part?
Once you showed me what you were, you remembered you didn't want me to know.
Because as soon as I knew?
For a few moments, I was just like you.

When I didn't know what you were, I didn't know what I was:
petty, foolish, and prone to mistakes.
But now I know and, unlike you, I'm working to change it.

Good thing you're gone, or I'd be stuck.

Speaking in Tongues H

I used sign language for the words I didn't know how to say. At least then, I reasoned, I had said them (if only on a technicality), but nobody understood. Of course, this was not helpful to me in cases such as, "I never want to see you again."

Speaking in Tongues G

The new Spanish kid was a jerk. "I have studied for years," he said. "I can speak four languages."

I scoffed and tossed my hair. "I haven't studied a day in my life," I said. "And I can say 'no' in fifteen."

Speaking in Tongues F

The subtitles didn't help. My written Russian wasn't any better than my spoken Russian. And I wasn't terrible, but the words were flashing across the screen with a speed I couldn't match.

Russia sort of sucked, so far.

That seemed to be the way of things. My dad got leave to do some research and I wound up being dragged to some sucky corner of the world for a year. But at least last time I'd only had to go to Canada. They spoke English in Canada.

When someone says to you, "You have six months to learn Russian," you're sort of beat. Especially if the reason you have to learn Russian is that you're moving to Moscow. And you still have to go to school during those six months. And you can't find anything except Rosetta Stone to teach you Russian.

Speaking in Tongues E

Bobby is triste; Bobby is traurig; Bobby is trist; Bobby is smutný.
Bobby is triest; Bobby is surullinen; Bobby is ked af det; Bobby is smutny.

Bobby is sad; he dropped his ice cream on the ground.

Under Your Dresser, Towards the Back/ When the Sperit is in Her

I swear to you, I do not know--
Where is The Land Where The Lost Hairties Go?
They huddle in multicolored masses
Speaking in tongues of strands and clumps
With tangles for their curses.
Tis a braid that makes up their Parliament
(though French or Dutch I can't ascertain)
And the prissy bun for the Queen.
They huddle in circles
(circles a little misshapen, like themselves)
And mourn lost comrades,
The ones who didn't escape in time,
Giving funerals at the garbage can.
The Land Where The Lost Hairties Go
Is a mysterious land indeed.

And I fear it will never be found.

Speaking in Tongues C

Vocabulary List
August 20th, 2008

-aviation
-auxiliary
-emigrate
-immigrate
-measure
-melodramatics
-voyagers

Welcome home; band sort of sucks.

Speaking in Tongues B

I gave up French in the ninth grade so that I could take band. I'm glad that I did, or I would have known earlier, from the phone conversations, that my boyfriend had a girlfriend in his secretary.

Speaking in Tongues A

The only thing she ate that day (she was far too nervous to leave her post by his bedside) were the stale cinnamon candies left over from Halloween. They were bitter and the doctors offered a diagnosis in tongues far from her reach.

Pigeon Found at NYC Playground Was Painted Purple/ Wearing the Face of a Stranger

After setting up her video camera,
the little girl set loose the painted pigeon,
and waited for the reaction of the finders.

Funny. Giggles.

Georgia Men Claim Hairy, Frozen Corpse is Bigfoot/Jury Finds Pastor Did Not Assault a Flight Attendant

Bigfoot was hiding in the woods where I was trying to camp.
When we found him, Netta screamed and Shane got this really funny shade of pale and Bryan put his hand over his nose.

But the only thing I could think of was that it would have been really inconvenient to find this here if I had been planning to serial-kill them all.

Winnie-the-Pooh Charged for Robbery?/Isère: deux femmes s'immolent par le feu

The little girl's lip actually trembled. The culprit, in his outrageous getup, squirmed in my arms. I hated my job, but didn't let go, not even when the little girl said,

"Mr. Policeman, why are you arresting Pooh Bear?"

Cops Say Alleged Robber Locked Keys In Getaway Car/Deux cas graves d'intoxication alimentaire en Ille-et-Vilaine

"Good morning. This is WKRP 107.9 with your morning news update. Michael Phelps wins again in 100-meter, scoring another gold: his seventh in these Olympic games, matching the world record for most gold medals in one games. Russian forces pull back from the center of Georgia, Obama and McCain are back on the news after a forum on faith. And, locally, cops say alleged robber locked keys in getaway car...

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Buy Evidence of My Husband's Adultery on eBay/L'UMP salue le "succès" de Sarkozy en Géorgie, le PS partagé

"What are you doing, Stella?"

Guiltily, I slammed my laptop shut. Recently Liz had been more of a taskmaster than a friend, but whether that was because I was procrastinating on my dissertation or because I now lived with her, I wasn't sure.

Sometimes I really, really hated Eastern History. Stupid Georgia was making splashes, which meant I had to do research where I thought I was done. And Liz didn't really have room for me in her apartment, and my being here was sort of cramping her and Dave's romance, and geez but I hated Ken, anyway.

You think you know a person, you really do; then you find out that marriage doesn't mean anything to them.

You'd really think that marriage meant something.

So maybe it was too embarrassing to tell Liz, but it sure was therapeutic to sell Ken's lover's underwear on eBay.

Way more therapeutic than Georgia.

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Tuesday/ U. S. anthem cut short with Phelps on podium

Though August, it was cold outside in the early morning. I snuggled into Julie's side, and she tucked the old blanket that Mom had let us lay on the grass tighter around me. The beeping of Julie's alarm had woken me up and I hadn't wanted to leave my warm bed, not even to do something special with Julie, who was usually too busy studying for me.

Julie was going to be a scientist, and because she lived with us, I knew a lot of things. I knew that babies didn't grow in Mom's tummy--Jack had grown in Mom's uterus. Julie taught me that grown-up word. I knew that Santa didn't make Christmas night long when he traveled around the world--there were time zones because the Earth spun like a top. Julie knew everything.

Groom Charged With Being Too Near Bride At Wedding/People Only Eat One, When The Chips Are Brown

The priest had one of those terrible, nasal, droning voices. My brother always did have terrible taste. "We are gathered here today in the presence of family and friends, together under God, to bring together this man and this woman"--here he pointed at Mike and Claire--"in holy matrimony."

It was stupid for them to make everyone go through this again. Mike and Claire's first wedding was unbearable, and that was before they'd had that fight over buying the house, and gotten divorced; that was before Mike had become obsessed with Claire and she'd taken out a restraining order. And that was definitely before Claire decided to go all Mother Theresa on us and forgive Mikey, teaching him the unfortunate lesson that stalking pays off.

Chicken Crosses the Road, Then Abandoned By Thief/Hautmont : la vie après la tempête

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"If you say 'to get to the other side,' I'm going to kill you so dead."

"Why did the five-foot rooster cross the road?"

"Is this a variation on the same question? Because I think you're a moron."

"Why did the five-foot, four hundred-pound rooster cross the road?"

"Go away."

The Periodic Table of the Elements/ The Speed of Light

strontium sulfur L yttrium
iodine
hydrogen astatine E
carbon helium M iodine sulfur TR yttrium.

And for sure that's a fact.

Chemistry G

The only compliment I ever received from my chemistry teacher was about how well my lab partner and I were doing our liquid-nitrogen ice cream lab. And all that was was mixing. It wasn't even chemistry, practically. It was cooking...

Hell.

I've never received a compliment from my chemistry teacher.

Chemistry F

I felt a little too self-aware
standing there--in just my socks
and a hospital gown.
The doctors, milling around,
en masse
didn't really care that my butt
was poking out the back.
They mostly just wanted to know
what was in my blood.

Chemistry E

If the Law of Conservation of Mass and the Law of Conservation of Energy and Entropy are all valid chemistry laws and concerns, you know what I don't understand?

Babies.

Chemistry D

She had a candle in her bag, one of those monster pillar ones, with a three-inch diameter. After that, she pulled out matches and lit the candle between us on the first try. Together, we sat on the floor of the janitor's room at midnight.

This was, hands down, the most daring thing I'd ever done.

This was, hands down, the most thrilling thing I'd ever done.

She had a navy eyelet-lace dress, and sat cross-legged and wore little white sneakers. Her dark brown curls were held back by a headband and slung in low pigtails. Every single detail--every single one--spoke of innocence, of purity of intention. I'd known from the beginning that she wasn't innocent, but it wasn't until she'd lured me to a dark part of the school in the middle of the night that I'd begun to suspect anything of her intentions.

"Now," she murmured seductively, "isn't this fun?" I didn't think she was trying to seduce me, precisely, but she was doing a damn good job, anyway.

I shrugged. Compared to her, I looked absurdly sloppy. My jeans were my nicest ones, and my t-shirt at least had long sleeves, which made me something less of a slob, maybe. But compared to her, I was slovenly. Boys didn't care half as much.

Eye-Hand Coordination

The foreign exchange student was my lab partner. God, but it figured. She was in two of my classes and didn't speak English, as far as I could tell. And I wasn't precisely a shining star in Chemistry. I liked basketball. And swimming. And anything that didn't require either math or steadiness of hand.

Her name was Katya, and she was from Russia or Belarus or Bulgaria or something. Some people thought she was from Germany, but her accent didn't quite match up. She swiveled every so slightly to either side on the lab stool, looking absentmindedly pleased; if she wasn't in my Honors Chem class, I might have thought that she was a little stupid. But I guessed she was just sort of lonely, and had to take it where she could get it.

I chewed on my pen as the labs were handed out. Awkward.

Chemistry B

Chemistry Lesson 136:

Hold the crucible with the tongs.
No, really.
It'll really turn out much better if you do.

However.

There's always that possibility.
The possibility that burning magnesium will explode all over your chest.
Then you'll have to buy a new crucible.

But holy crap does it make a good story afterwards.

Chemistry A

Akash offered me a hundred bucks to clean out his grandmother's apartment when she finally kicked the bucket. All in all, this seemed a little callous, but a hundred bucks was a hundred bucks and just because my roommate crapped gold, it didn't mean I was loaded.

It sort of sucked how loaded Akash was. The dude was freaking Midas. Sort of a selfish bastard, but Midas just the same.

And so who was I to turn up my nose at his offer? I kept my comments to myself and, on my day off, made the trek across town to the crappy apartment where Grandmother Akash had lived out her last.