Life is something we need to stop correcting. My boy was a pocket universe I could never hope to fathom. Every one of us is an experiment, and we don’t even know what the experiment is testing.
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books > Bewilderment: A Novel (Powers, Richard)
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books > Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy: 2nd Edition: Fully Revised and Updated (Myra J. Wick)
How to ease the queasiness To help relieve morning sickness: Choose foods carefully. Opt for foods that are bland or dry, easy to digest, and lower in fat. Some research suggests that protein-based foods may relieve nausea better than foods rich in carbohydrates. Salty snacks are sometimes helpful, as are foods that contain ginger — such as ginger lollipops. Avoid greasy, spicy and fatty foods. Snack often. Before getting out of bed in the morning, eat a few soda crackers or a piece of dry toast. Nibble throughout the day, rather than eating three larger meals. An empty stomach may aggravate nausea. Drink plenty of fluids. Sip water or ginger ale. It may also help to suck on hard candy, ice chips or ice pops. Pay attention to triggers. Avoid foods or smells that seem to make your nausea worse. Keep rooms well-ventilated and free of cooking odors, which can aggravate nausea. Get plenty of fresh air. Weather permitting, open the windows in your home or workplace. Take a daily walk outdoors. Take care with prenatal vitamins. If you feel queasy after taking prenatal vitamins, take the vitamins at night or with a snack. It may also help to chew gum or suck on hard candy after taking your prenatal vitamin. If these steps don’t help, ask your care provider if it might be possible to switch to a type of prenatal vitamin that doesn’t contain iron. Experiment with acupressure and acupuncture. Although they haven’t been proved to be effective, some women find these therapies to be helpful in relieving morning sickness. Acupressure involves stimulating certain points on the body with pressure. Acupressure wristbands, available in pharmacies without a prescription, are designed to stimulate a certain point on the wrist. This action is thought to reduce nausea. Acupuncture involves inserting hair-thin needles into your skin. Some women find it helpful, but it requires an appointment with a licensed acupuncturist.
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books > Piranesi (Clarke, Susanna)
After she had gone, I thought about what she had said. I cannot imagine not wanting to be with people. (Though it is true that Dr Ketterley was sometimes annoying.) I remembered how Raphael had wondered which of the People of the Alcove had been murdered and how the simple fact of her posing the question had made the whole World seem a darker, sadder Place. Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not. Perhaps that is what Raphael means.
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books > Piranesi (Clarke, Susanna)
Once you have found the door, it is always with you. You simply look for it and there it is. Finding it the first time is where the difficulty lies. Following the insights that Addedomarus had given me, what I eventually concluded was that it was necessary to cleanse one’s vision in order to see the door. To do this one must return to the place, the geographical location where one last believed the world to be fluid, responsive to oneself. In short one must return to the last place in which one had stood before the iron hand of modern rationality gripped one’s mind.
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books > Spaceman of Bohemia (Kalfar, Jaroslav)
For a moment, the leap looked soothing. I could jump after the iron shoe and my aches would split apart like the shoe. No more thoughts of Lenka, no more knee pain, but the body must not be violated. The body was the most important thing, carrying within it the code to the universe, a part of a larger secret that was significant even if it was never to be revealed.
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books > Spaceman of Bohemia (Kalfar, Jaroslav)
Valerie was an unknowing force. Leaving her chocolates seemed banal and almost insulting, but she didn’t need to be the victim of my glorification of her, idolatry in itself a certain kind of death.
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books > Spaceman of Bohemia (Kalfar, Jaroslav)
“My father never did anything else after that,” Valerie said. “Mostly, he became a drunk. But a man only needs one thing to be proud of. It will carry him through the rest of his life.”
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books > Spaceman of Bohemia (Kalfar, Jaroslav)
We believe that we can fix our marriage. We know that the world operates on a whim, a system of coincidences. There are two basic coping mechanisms. One consists of dreading the chaos, fighting it and abusing oneself after losing, building a structured life of work/marriage/gym/reunions/children/depression/affair/divorce/alcoholism/recovery/heart attack, in which every decision is a reaction against the fear of the worst (make children to avoid being forgotten, fuck someone at the reunion in case the opportunity never comes again, and the Holy Grail of paradoxes: marry to combat loneliness, then plunge into that constant marital desire to be alone). This is the life that cannot be won, but it does offer the comforts of battle—the human heart is content when distracted by war.
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books > Spaceman of Bohemia (Kalfar, Jaroslav)
The second mechanism is an across-the-board acceptance of the absurd all around us. Everything that exists, from consciousness to the digestive workings of the human body to sound waves and bladeless fans, is magnificently unlikely. It seems so much likelier that things would not exist at all and yet the world shows up to class every morning as the cosmos takes attendance. Why combat the unlikeliness? This is the way to survive in this world, to wake up in the morning and receive a cancer diagnosis, discover that a man has murdered forty children, discover that the milk has gone sour, and exclaim, “How unlikely! Yet here we are,” and have a laugh, and swim in the chaos, swim without fear, swim without expectation but always with an appreciation of every whim, the beauty of screwball twists and jerks that pump blood through our emaciated veins.
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books > Spaceman of Bohemia (Kalfar, Jaroslav)
“I went to the spring celebration a few years back,” Dr. Bivoj says. “I could see the stars, dew on the grass, and I felt an irresistible urge to remove my shoes. A woman I didn’t know kissed me on the cheek. I’m telling you this because I imagine that by knowing these people, I also knew your grandfather. People who have a different idea of ambition. Of building houses with their own hands and living off simpler things. They made me realize that the way I viewed ambition had been a cancer, killing me since the day I was born. Do you want your name to be known, Jakub? I used to. I wanted people to pronounce it in classrooms after my death. I’ve made myself unhappy most of my life so a professor could write my name on the blackboard and punish students for not memorizing it. Isn’t that something?”