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a7a3a33
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She wasn't only gay, she was a gay elf.
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Maureen Johnson |
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4eaf031
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Irony is the word I forget the meaning of immediately after I look it up, but I kind of feel like I live in a constant state of it.
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Maureen Johnson |
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d117bc9
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What you lack in any investigation is time. With every passing hour, evidence slips away. Crime scenes are compromised by people and the elements. Things are moved, altered, smeared, shifted. Organisms rot. Wind blows dust and contaminants. Memories change and fade. As you move away from the event, you move away from the solution.
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criminal-investigation
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Maureen Johnson |
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4ad9964
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Spicy food and I have a close relationship--an obsessive one, in fact. If it's spicy, I want it. I want to sweat and shake and go half blind from the searing pain . . . which, now that I put it that way, seems really suggestive. But spicy stuff is addictive. That's a known fact of science.
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Maureen Johnson |
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7a59195
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Although it was very cold, he wore no coat. I think some English people think coats are for the weak.
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Maureen Johnson |
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21bde84
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We heard her come halfway up the stairs, where she must have seen the bedroom light on. Again, the normal parent reaction would have been to say something like, "You had better come out this moment or I am releasing the tiger!" But Debbie was not a normal parent, so we heard her gigle and creep away, saying, "Shhh! Rachel! Come with Mommy! Stuart is busy!"
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Maureen Johnson |
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5c73d85
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Anxiety and excitement are cousins; they can be mistaken for each other at points. They have many features in common--the bubbling, carbonated feel of the emotion, the speed, the wide eyes and racing heart. But where excitement tends to take you up, into the higher, brighter levels of feeling, anxiety pulls you down, making you feel like you have to grip the earth to keep from sliding off as it turns.
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Maureen Johnson |
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233df4d
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English rain feels obligatory, like paperwork. It dampens already damn days and slicks the stones.
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english-weather
london
london-weather
rain
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Maureen Johnson |
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165cd81
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Oh, the ongoing love affair between hair and mouths. Hair always goes for the mouth. The mouth opens, and hair says, "I'm going in! I'm going in!" like a manic cave diver."
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Maureen Johnson |
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bfd9ad1
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Sometimes Stevie felt bad for her parents. Their idea of what constituted interesting was so limited. They were never going to have as much fun as she did.
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Maureen Johnson |
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ee994db
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Probably some period thing. I go completely mental too. Period fever. It's the worst." This effectively killed all conversation for a while. ..."Fixed that," she said. "You told him I had ," I replied. "There's no such thing as period fever." "No such thing as ghosts either." "No, there is no such thing as period fever. There's a difference between being a guy and being ."
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name-of-the-star
rory
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Maureen Johnson |
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6e2664f
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You don't know me yet," I said. "Rory was telling me she lives in a swamp," Charlotte said. "That's right," I said, turning up my accent a little. "These are the very first shoes I've ever owned. They sure do pinch my feet." Jerome gave a little snort."
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Maureen Johnson |
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b4e7dcf
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It was like she had been punched in the gut. Stevie said stuff like that all the time and was told she was wrong. David said it once and got a nod and a compliment. Oh, the magic of dudes. If only they bottled it.
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Maureen Johnson |
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e3519ac
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It's us," Stephen said. "Oh, thank God," said a voice. Callum emerged from behind the Dumpster. Even with all that was going on, it was hard not to take notice of this: he wore only his underpants and his socks and shoes. ...I don't think I hid my staring very well either. "Go ahead and change," Stephen said, handing me the bag. "I'll go and get the car." "Please be quick," Callum added. "This is not as fun as it appears."
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Maureen Johnson |
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08e7154
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When they separated, the freckleless spot between Pete's eyes was bright red. Before anything else could be said or done, May grabbed her bike and hopped on. She waited until she was six houses down to turn and see if he was still standing in the driveway watching her. He was. She stopped for just a moment, and they caught each other's eyes. Then he slowly started walking backward toward the house. May couldn't see that well, considering th..
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Maureen Johnson |
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3a92698
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Something about this boat screamed, "I am a very popular model in the world's oil-bearing regions. I cost more than your soul!"
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Maureen Johnson |
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b02e565
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Sometimes I even felt like he dated me as part of his plan, like they were going to have a checklist on the application, and one of the things to tick off was going to be, "Do you have a reasonably intelligent girlfriend who shares your aspirations, and who is fully prepared to accept your limited availability?"
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Maureen Johnson |
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ab2d1c3
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when something happens to me - good, bad, boring it doesn't matter - I have to someone to make it count. There's no point in anything happening if you can't talk about it.
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Maureen Johnson |
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c9d88b6
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He's been in love with Miss Gina since high school, but he doesn't really know how to talk to girls, so he's just been...staying around her since then. He just tends to go where she goes." "Isn't that stalking?" Jazza said. "Legally, no," I replied. "I asked my parents this when I was little. What he does is creepy and socially awkward, but it's not actually stalking."
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Maureen Johnson |
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4aef892
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Go talk to her," Boo said. "About what?" "Anything." "You want me to walk up to her and say, 'Are you a ghost?'" "I do that," she replied. "I love it when you get it wrong," Callum said. "Once. It happened ." "It happened twice," Stephen said, looking over."
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Maureen Johnson |
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5085bbb
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She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that--impossible as it seemed--it was a fox.
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Maureen Johnson |
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898729d
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What are you?" I asked. "I'm the Ghost of the Night Before Exams." "And how long did it take you to come up with that?" Jazza asked. "I'm a busy man," he replied."
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Maureen Johnson |
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66e9375
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I feel warm and reassured," I whispered. "He's like Santa." --
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Maureen Johnson |
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d4be2d9
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Did I just kill someone?" "You can't kill a dead person," Callum said. "Makes no sense."
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Maureen Johnson |
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7fa988c
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I dumped out the bag and found what had been inside was a bunched-up police uniform, complete with the vest. "Where did you get this?" Boo asked. "It's Callum's," he said. "What's he wearing?" "At the moment, not much of anything. Put it on." I noticed Book perk up a bit at this piece of information."
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Maureen Johnson |
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3ea14d5
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but somehow when it's real, when it's your life... that person can feel even farther off and more unobtainable than an actual celebrity. Proximity doesn't breed familiarity
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life
maureen-johnson
proximity
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Maureen Johnson |
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c619999
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What did you do?" she hissed. "Me?" "Don't be a dick," she said. "That ship has sailed. Hang on. We can't fight yet. Where's my hug?"
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Maureen Johnson |
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11ef7a5
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You'd been petting a stuffed dog?' she said 'A dead one?' 'It was a really well stuffed dog' I clarified. 'I have seen some bad taxidermy. This was top-notch work. It would have fooled anyone.
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Maureen Johnson |
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e5d7ff6
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People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened.
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grief
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Maureen Johnson |
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a259714
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Albert Ellingham said knowledge was his religion and libraries were his church, so he built a church.
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Maureen Johnson |
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fcaee3d
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Dr. Everest, got up and gave us a little pep talk. Mostly it boiled down to the fact that it was autumn, and everyone was back, and while that was a great thing, people better not get cocky or misbehave or he'd personally kill us all. He didn't actually say those words, but that was the subtext.
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Maureen Johnson |
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9fadeb3
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I could pretend, at least, and if I pretended long enough, maybe I could make it into a reality.
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Maureen Johnson |
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3f284c7
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I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.
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Maureen Johnson |
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aa383da
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Which is both gross and breathtakingly romantic. He could always have just gone upstairs and brushed his teeth, but he stayed and lurked by the fish for me.
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Maureen Johnson |
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cc36c87
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Few words are more chilling when put together than make friends.
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friendship
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Maureen Johnson |
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fdeddeb
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Well, what now? You have no job. I have no job. Wanna play Jenga?
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Maureen Johnson |
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8ba841b
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One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra
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drunken-behaviour
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Maureen Johnson |
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bc60054
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The truth was that she had managed to betray everyone by doing nothing. No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong. Not cheating on a non-boyfriend with the non-boyfriend of a friend. The pressure of thinking that one through made her swollen body ache.
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Maureen Johnson |
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e2a37dc
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Prefects. I had learned this one. Student council types, but with superpowers. They who must be obeyed.
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Maureen Johnson |
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30ab549
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It wasn't ass-screaming Beaker, though. It was fourteen girls in matching, form fitting sweats, all of which read RIDGE CHEERLEADING on the butt. (A form of ass-screaming, I suppose.) Each had her name on the back of her sleek warm-up fleece. They clustered around the snack bar, yelling at the top of their lungs. I really hoped and prayed that they wouldn't all say "Oh my God!" at once, but my prayers were not heard, maybe because God was b..
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Maureen Johnson |
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908302f
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No sausage?" he asked. Apparently my pork consumption habits were a matter of public record."
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Maureen Johnson |
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e6edf86
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It rang and it rand and it rang. I looked at the screen one last time, then at Stuart, and then I reached my arm back and threw the phone as hard as I could (sadly, not that far), and it vanished into the snow. The eight-year-olds, who were truly fascinated with our every move at this point, chased after it. 'Lost it,' I said. 'Whoops.
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stuart
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Maureen Johnson |
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f67b8ce
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All right. Normal rules apply." "Right." The man walked off, leaving us. "What are the normal rules?" I asked. "He walks away and has a tea break and doesn't ask any questions." --
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Maureen Johnson |
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6c24b09
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A pause while my mother made high-pitched sisterly devotions of gratitude.
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Maureen Johnson |