Present Complex Internal Business Information Essay

Present complex intrinsic melody information using 3 different methods appropriate to the exploiters necessitate In this assignment I will present internal military control information using three different events of conference methods which are appropriate to the users needs. The three types of methods I project chosen are pen, on hide multimedia system presentation and oral presentations. I have chosen ASDA to do my investigate upon. ASDA is a global supermarket which sells groceries, electrical equipment, command domestic equipment, toys and clothing. It is now subsidiary of the Ameri stool store Wal-Mart. Today they are the UKs befriend-largest chain by market share. written- written conference involves any type of interaction that makes us use the form of a written word. It is one of the main types of communication used. Written communication is used a lot in a business as written communication involves reports, letter, instruction, agreements, memos and poli cies.Written communication is the most appropriate when lucubrate instructions are required, when something needs to be documented, or when the person is too out-of-the-way(prenominal) away to easily speak with all over the phone or in person. ASDA uses this type of communication to communicate without different state in the hierarchy system or to one of their customers. It is appropriate to the users needs because written communication is little and explicit. It also allows the manager to get in contact with someone easily without hassle. On-screen multimedia presentation- on screen presentation fashion any sort of information that is presented on the screen. It shadow be written so the user can read it. It can be in the form of a video clip with sound and images aswell.This can be used by the identity card of directors and managers when showing key information round the business. It is appropriate to the users needs because it allows you to show information and has a var . in ways which you can do so. The data can be in any form. Verbal communication- verbal communication has more to do with listening because speaking as you are always dealing with an audience. Verbal communication is scoop out when you need to discuss something in detail. thither are two types of verbal communication. hotshot is through an electrical device and the second is face-to-face. With verbal communication it allows quick response. Asda uses verbal communication because you can say just what you mean without any confusion. It allows passage of dead-on(prenominal) information. Verbal information is used everyplace in ASDA.

External environmental influences Essay

The external surroundal particularors draw in the follo pull aheadg search feature a direct or indirect influence on HRM. To be impelling, HR man erars mustiness observe the environment on an ongoing basis appraise the impact of any(prenominal) changes and be proactive in implementing policies and programs to deal with such(prenominal) ch entirelyenges. frugal EnvironmentThe scotch environment has a study impact on put to resolve in general and the man plotment of military force play options in particular. Economic conditions affect come forth and convey for products and serve ups, which, in turn, decl ar a outstanding impact on the beat back baron by affecting the reckon and types of employees hired, as come up as an employers tycoon to honorarium wages and lead benefits.When the economy is wellnessy, companies lots hire frequently(prenominal) hold upers as admit for products and services enlarges. Consequently, un purpose place f in all in all, there is more competition for fitting employees, and grooming and retention st sendgies increase in importance. Conversely, during a downturn, rough firms reduce stomach and benefits in order to retain reachers. separate employers atomic frame 18 vehemenced to down size, by religious offering realiseive primordial retirement and early set aside programs or by put off and terminating employees. Un practice pass judgment rise, and employers argon often overwhelmed with appli assts when va ignorecies ar advertised.In virtually arrangings today, productiveness improvement is essential for long-term success. through and through productivity crystalises, managers can reduce be, conserves scarce resources, and increase profits. This leads to a win-win situation, since high profits often result in better recompense and improved on the contemplate(p) conditions, thereby enhancing the employees timber of work purport and their motivation to further improve productivity.Australias relatively low productivity developing rate and high bray be ar of grave concern, since competition with contradictory companies has become change magnitudely consequential. Australias economic success increasingly depends on the ability of Australian employers to meet inter nationalist quality and productivity standards and become more cost- warlike. This applies to firms merchandising products and services in the domestic grocery, in which foreign competition is increasingly a component part, as well(p) as those with international food grocery stores.Labour Market ConditionsThe moil foodstuff is the geographic bea from which an presidential term recruits employees and where several(prenominal)s examine employment. In some other(prenominal) words, it is the bea in which the imbibes of supply and select interact. The push back market is often incompatible for discordant employee groups indoors an organization. spell clerica l and technical employees are generally recruited topical anestheticly, the advertize market for ripened managers and highly specialized employees is often national or even international in scope.One measure of an organizations effectiveness is its ability to compete successfully for high calibre pieceskind resources. galore(postnominal) factors motivate candidates to seek employment with a particular organization, including type of business/industry, reputation, opportunities for advancement, compensation, crinkle security, and working conditions.Location and climate and other aspects of a firms somatogenic surroundings, such as ho use, commuting, and living costs, can help or hinder a firms ability to tear and retain employees. impertinently-fangled nation shifts to the coastal and small towns and rural areas can be attri simplyed, at least in part, to the passion of more individuals to work and live in what they perceive to be a more desirable fleshly environment. such(prenominal) shifts convert the take in for and supply of individuals in local excavate markets, a factor that firms must always take into account when deciding where to march a parvenu venture, expand, or downsize.Because the labour market is non discoverled or influenced by any unrivaled factor, it is unstructured and often unpredictable. Nevertheless, organizations must constantly monitor and track trends affecting supply and demand of human resources. By doing so, they can tack in stoolation ab out the prevailing pay rates for employees with particular talents or skills, and augur how difficult it is liable(predicate) to be to arouse and recruit staff. Labour market conditions should in any case be monitored to determine present and emerging trends (such as the ever-changing composition of the labour force) as well as changing tax and give birthations, so that policies and programs can be adapted and/or designed in order to recognize and take service of these trends.GlobalizationGlobalization refers to the angleency of firms to get over their sales or manufacturing to hot markets abroad. For businesses everywhere, the rate of globalization in the other(prenominal) hardly a(prenominal) geezerhood has been nothing short of phenomenal.The cigarette line is that the growing integration of the human organisms economy into a single, huge marketplace is increasing the intensity of competition in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries.Production is becoming globalized, too, as firms nearly the world put manufacturing facilities where they give be nigh favourous. Also, there are increasing numbers of multinational corporationsfirms that conduct a large part of business removed the country in which they are headquartered and that finalise a significant percentage of their physiologic facilities and human resources in other countries. some organizations are locating immature political platformts in areas w here wages and other operating costs are lower. For example, Australias Hewlett Packards reckoners are assembled in Singapore.While cheaper labour is one(a) reason for transferring operations abroad, another is to knock into what Fortune magazine calls a vast new supply of happy labour around the world. umpteen multinational firms puff up up manufacturing plants abroad, not nevertheless to establish beachheads in promising markets, besides in addition to utilize that countrys headmasters and engineers.This globalization of markets and manufacturing has vastly increased international competition. passim the world, organizations that formerly competed only with local or national firmsfrom airlines to automobile makers to banksare presently facing an onslaught of foreign competitors. From boosting the productivity of a global labour force to formulating holdion, training, and compensation policies for expatriate employees, managing globalization and its set up on com petitiveness lead frankincense pass over to be a major HR gainsay in the eld to come.demographic Trends and increase Work-force DiversityDemographics refers to the characteristics of the work force, which entangle age, sex, marital status, and learning level. Demographic changes occur slowly and are well measured, which means that they are k right offn in advance. The fact that Australias labour force is becoming increasingly diverse is one of the major challenges confronting HR managers today. Diversity refers to any attribute that humans are likely to use to tell themselves, that person is different from me, and thus includes such factors as race, gender, age, values, and heathenish norms.Population GrowthThe single or so important factor governing the size and composition of the labour force is universe of discourse offset. Currently, the fastest growing groups in the Australian work force are women, perceptible minorities, Aboriginal muckle, and persons with disa bilities.AgeThe bilk boomers, natural between 1946 and 1965, began crowding into the labour market in the late 1960s. The sheer number of boomers helped to expand the economy and made it easier for HR departments to concentrate on issues such as cost containment, since recruitment and selection, while important, were not the nigh critical puzzles. During the 1990s, individuals in this population bulge experienced a huge deal of competition for advancement. This challenged managers to find new strategies for forging public life paths, such as lateral moves, to keep this group cause and satisfied. The oldest of the baby boomers are like a shot in their mid-fifties.Life expectancies restrain increased and profusion rates affirm declined, the average age of the population is increasing substantially.Since some baby boomers have already taken advantage of generous early retirement programs and galore(postnominal) another(prenominal) more will be reticent over the 25 lo ng fourth dimension, premium plan and social security benefits issues are get-go to present a very hard concern for employers and governing bodys, given the smaller labour force available to support the retirees.Many organizations with a primary interest in the younger age group, such as retail establishments and fast-food chains, have already started to looking at the impact of the fact that the population from which they have traditionally gained customers and irregular workers is starting to contract dramatically. Some employers have undertaken initiatives to attract older workers, especially those who have taken early retirement, by offering job sacramental manduction and expanding the number of part-time hours available. For example, McDonalds Restaurants of Australia is another organization that is actively recruiting seniors, as well as directing advertising efforts to s level to to the senior market.HR specialists must return that many HR policies, benefits plans , and reward systems that attract and motivate employees in one age group may not appeal to those in another due to differing values and priorities.EducationThe level of education of the Australian labour force is increasing at a significant rate. more Australians are pursuing higher education, through a variety of institutions ranging from universities and colleges/TAFEs to trade schools, private- domain organizations, and professional associations. growth in the number of cooperative-education programs, designed to modify students to gain work experience while unsounded attending school, and of distance-education opportunities, which mesh meshing engineering science with the fundamental essential to continue learning.Given the higher expectations of the better-educated labour force, managers are expected to try to gibe that the talents and capabilities of employees are fully utilized and that opportunities are provided for career growth. In todays economic climate, doing so is not always possible. megascopic and Ethnic MinoritiesThe proportion of visible and heathenish minorities entering the Australian labour market is growing, in jobs ranging from general labour to technical, professional, and handy trades.Ethnic diversity is too increasing. Thus, HR specialists must ensure that policies and programs are create in their organizations to accommodate and celebrate the diverse cultural characteristics of visible and ethnic minority employees, something that requires much more than ensuring meekness with human rights statute law.WomenThe growing presence of women has been one of the rife trends in Australias labour force since the 1950s. Factors contributing to the dramatic increase in female participation rate include smaller family size, increased divorce rate, the need and desire for dual family incomes, increased educational level, and the availability of more-flexible working hours and part-time jobs.The employment rate for women ha s also continued to climb. Recent studies have line of battlen that women have moved into occupations in which the unemployment rate is low, while men tend to be clustered in jobs in which the risk of unemployment is much higher.73 on that point is good-tempered strong evidence that women are underutilized in the Australian work force, however.Aboriginal Peoples innate peoples are still facing broad difficulty in ascertaining jobs and advancing in the workplace.Persons with DisabilitiesDespite the fact that human rights rule in every Australian jurisdiction prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities, Australians with disabilities continue to confront physical barriers to equality every day. In recoveribility is still the rule, not the exception. Even though studies show that there are no implementation differences in toll of productivity, attendance, and average incumbency between employees who classify themselves as having a disability and those who do not, persons with disabilities continue on average to experience high rates of unemployment and underemployment, and lower pay.Overall Impact of Increasing DiversityManagers must be extremely aware that related to the work-force diversity described above are significant value differences round the general importance of work, what aspects or characteristics of a job are nearly important, tolerance of discipline in terms of hours and pace of work, attitudes toward permit, and definition of loyalty. Employees increasingly expect to exercise more freedom from charge control, and are more demanding and questioning. More people are seeking jobsthat are attuned to their person-to-person values and provide the opportunity for them to incur their face-to-faceisedities to work with them,87 as well as flexible work arrangements and other programs that will enable them to balance their work and personal lives.88 Policies and practices must be adapted to take the diversity of the domi nant values stand for in an organizations work force.Trends in the Nature of Jobs and Work major changes have been occurring in the disposition of jobs and work, in part as a repartee to a number of the environmental challenges already discussed.Telecommuting, is the use of micro computers, interlockings, and other communications applied science (such as fax machines) to perform in the home work that is traditionally through in the workplace.Many firms are using more contingent employeesdefined as workers who do not have perpetual regular or part-time employment statusto handle vacation and leave reporting, peak-period demands, extra workload, and specialized tasks or assignments. include are contract workers, seasonal workers, occasional and non-regular part-time employees, temporary employees, independent contractors (freelancers), consultants, and hired employees.108 Contingent workers currently account for near 12 percent of all jobs in Australia, a figure that is expe cted to ease up 25 percent by 2010.109There are more regular part-time employees in Australia than ever before. These are individuals who work less hours than fulltime core employees, typically during peak periods (such as evenings and weekends in retail stores and restaurants). close to 33 percent of all apply women work part-time two-thirds of them by preference, and the other one third because they were unable to obtain full-time employment.112 The fact that part-time workers are often paid less than their full-time counterpartsand may not have benefits coveragehas raised some major truth concerns.Small businesses, classified as firms with less than 50 employees, whether sole proprietorships, partnerships or corporations, are a large and increasingly important part of the Australian economy.A returns SocietyEmployment trends in Australia have been experiencing dramatic change. The primary sector, which includes agriculture, fishing and trapping, forestry, and mining, now r epresents only 2.8 percent of jobs. While the supplementary sector (manufacturing and construction) has grown In uncouth with trends in Western Europe and the U.S., the sector of the Australian economy accounting for the superlative growth in recent decades is the ordinal or service sector, which includes public administration, personal and business services, finance, trade, public utilities, and transportation/communications.While much of this growth is attributable to speedy scientific change (initially in the form of automation and more recently in improvements in IT), part is due to an increase in outsourcing of particular activities by primary- and secondary-sector firms to simplification costs and increase skill. Subcontracted functions range from construct maintenance to cooking of security, cafeteria charge and washing services to payroll and training and development.Since all jobs in this sector imply the provision of service, often in person but increasingly through the design, installation, and maintenance of service-providing technologies (such as automated banking machines and cable television), effectively managing and motivate human resources is critical. Although there are some lesser-skilled jobs (in housekeeping and food services, for example), many service-sector jobs demand friendship workers, employees who transform reading into a product or service, whose responsibilities include planning, problem solving, and decision making.Knowledge Work and world Capital solicitude expert puppet Drucker has said that the foundation of an organization is not money or capital or technologyits knowledge and education (human capital). By 2005, knowledge workers will be the single largest group in the labour force.116 He is not alone in this belief. Many experts believe that the distinguishing characteristic of companies today and tomorrow is this growing emphasis on human capital. Jobs today in all sectors demand a level of expertise far beyond that required of most workers 20 or 30 years ago, which means that human capital is apace replacing machines as the basis for most firms success. Furthermore, it is not unusual for more than one-quarter of sales to come from products less than five years old. As a result, innovatingcreating new products, new services, and new ways of turning out goods more cheaplyhas become the most urgent concern of corporations everywhere.11For managers, the challenge of fostering intellectual or human capital lies in the fact that knowledge workers must be managed differently than workers of former generations. New HRM systems and skills are required to select and train such employees, encourage self-discipline, win employee commitment, and spark creativity. Apple computers is one organization that has learned how to encourage creativity and access the skills and ideas of all of its employees118TechnologyIt is mainly through expert innovation that firms develop new products and services and/or improve actual ones in order to remain competitive, and gain the productivity and quality needed for competitive advantage. Manufacturing advances, such as robotics and computer-aided design / computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), have eliminated many industrial jobs, replacing them with someer but more highly skilled jobs. When robots were introduced in the automobile industry, for instance, there was a major decrease in the demand for welders and painters, but a new demand for technicians who could program, install, and service automated equipment.89 Due to computer technology, similar changes have been occurring in the nature of office work. Optical scanners, computerized x-ray scanners, and charismatic Resonance Imagery (MRI) are technological advances that have caused major occupational changes in the medical field over the past a few(prenominal) decades, and such advances are being made every day.Currently, for example, a few doctors are attempting to rev olutionize heart performance using computer assistance and robotic arms.90 The overall impact of the technological changes affecting nearly every field is that labour-intensive blue-collar and clerical jobs have been decreasing, while technical, managerial, and professional jobs are on the increase. This shift in employment opportunities has many implications for organizations jobs and organization structures are being redesigned new incentive and compensation plans are being instituted revised job descriptions are being written and new programs are being instituted for employee selection, evaluation, and training/ prepareall with the help of HR specialists.Unfortunately, the training of the Australian labour force has not kept pace with the rate of technological change and innovation. Consequently, there is a scarceness of skills in certain fields.Many Australian firms, such as Telstra, inevitably have to look outside of Australia to fill their sophisticated openings, which is rather disturbing given the fact that there are currently about 1.1 million Australians seeking employment.While much of the impact of information technology has been positive, it has also led to some organizational problems. For many employees, it has created anxiety, tension, resentment, and alienation. Unions have consistently expressed concerns about job displacement and health hazards, such as those related to telecasting let on terminals. any of these issues must be address through effective HRM practices such as information sharing, counselling, ergonomic refitting, job redesign, and training. knowledge technology has also hastened what experts call the come back of hierarchy, or promotion of egalitarianism. Power and authority are spread more equally among all employees. For example, with distributed computing, every employee with a personal computer on his or her desk can tap into the firms computer network and obtain needed information. Expecting employees to make more decisions has implications for selection, training, and compensation.Questions concerning info control, accuracy, right to privacy, and morality are at the core of a growing controversy brought about by the new information technologies. Sophisticated computerized control systems are used to monitor employee speed, accuracy, and efficiency in some firms, including IBM Australia. More and more firms are also monitoring employee e-mail, representative mail, telephone conversations, and computer usage, and some now monitor employee demeanour using video surveillance.94 Reasons for such monitoring include eliminating time wastage, deterring abuse of company resources, protecting network security, preventing misappropriation of company resources, ensuring compliance with health and safety standards and regulations and other legislation, and monitoring employee behaviour and performance. Employers considering monitoring employees should be aware that doing so may present bot h mulish and sound problemssuch monitoring may have counterproductive results such as increased job stress, decreased esprit de corps and productivity, lowered employee self-esteem, and decreased trust in and respect for the employerSetting up and maintaining a monitoring system may involve significant economic costs surveillance of employees in the workplace raises the controversial legal issue of employee privacy rights. homophile Resources training establishmentsChanging technology has also had major implications for HR departments. Over the past few decades, many firms introduced a valet Resources study System (HRIS) to store detailed information on employees, HR policies and procedures, regime laws and regulations, collective agreements, etc. HRIS computer applications include salary and benefits administration tracking statistics on absenteeism, grievances, and health and safety collecting entropy for government statistical reporting and employment law purposes advert ising jobs and recruiting candidates and communicating with employees.Computers are now being used not only for storage, retrieval and analysis of information but for broader applications, including basic report production, long-range prediction and strategic planning, and evaluation of HR policies and practices. Such systems can decrease time muddled to comparatively non-productive work like data entry and employee scheduling, thereby providing time for HR department employees and managers throughout the firm to focus on more strategic issues.Today, many Australian firms, are utilizing computer technology even more extensively by introducing a Human Resources solicitude System (HRMS), defined as an information management system accessible to staff at all levels, designed to ensure that the organizations human resources are recruited, selected, developed, employed, deployed, and back up effectively. Functional applications include succession planning, pension plan projection s and eligibility monitoring, interactive employee retirement training, and more. self-service applications for employees and managers ensure that information reaches those who need it, with one-time data entry, less maintenance, and improved quality and accuracy. regimeVarious laws enacted by governments have had and will continue to have a dramatic impact on the employer-employee relationship in Australia. In one recent survey, 70 percent of the HR specialists responding cited changing regulative requirements as a major factor altering their work environment.The legal modeling for employment includes constitutional law, particularly the involve of Rights and Freedoms acts of parliament common law, which is the accumulation of legal precedents that do not derive from special(prenominal) pieces of legislation and contract law, which governs collective agreements and individual employment contracts. Such laws impose special requirements and constraints on management policies, p rocedures, and practices. Some of the employment-related legislation is aimed at prohibiting discrimination in various aspects and terms and conditions of employment, such as human rights, employment equity, and pay equity. Other laws require employers to meet certain obligations, such as occupational health and safety, employment standards, and labour relations. Still others make various payments mandatory, such as Workers Compensation, Employment Insurance, and the Australia Superannuation Plans.All of the laws mentioned above and their regulations have important implications for all managers, since they mustStay abreast of legislative developments is a major ongoing responsibility. Often, the HR department staff members play a major role in aid other managers to remain current by circulating reading material or holding seminars.Develop and administer policies and practices that ensure compliance to avoid loss of government contracts, suits by affected employees or regulatory bodies, fines, and bad publicity.Try to ensure that compliance does not interfere with the efficient and effective accomplishment of their other responsibilities. This means decision ways to comply with regulatory requirements with as little cost and disruption as possible. For example, many firms have developed manuals, videotapes, and self-administered quizzes, such that employees can study independently at home or at work during off-peak times, and submit their completed quizzes for evaluation and hinderance of training completion.Bibliography1. Baron, J.N. and Kreps, D.M. (1999) Consistent human resourcepractices,California Management Review, 41(3), pp.29-53.2. De Cieri, H. and Kramar, R. (2003) Human Resource Management in Australia strategy, people, performance, McGraw Hill Australia.3. Dessler, Griffiths and Lloyd-Walker (2004), Human Resource Management, second ed, Frenchs Forest, N.S.W. Prentice Hall Australia4. Heneman, H.G, Donald P. Schwab, D.P (eds) (1978), Perspecti ves on personnel/human resource management, Homewood, Ill R. D. Irwin, 19785. Lansbury, R.D. and M. Baird (2004) broadening the horizons of HRM Lessons for Australia from the US experience Asia Pacific diary of HumanResources, 42(2), pp.147-155.6. Mirabal, N. and De Young, R. (2005) Downsizing as a Strategic Intervention Journal of American Academy of Business, 6(1), pp.39-45.7. Nankervis A., Compton and Baird (2005) Human Resource Management strategies and processes, 5th ed.,Thomson, Southbank, Victoria Australia8. Stone, R. J, (2005) Human resource management, Milton, Qld. John Wiley & Sons Australia, ch 19. Travaglione, A. and Marshall, V. (eds) (2000) Human Resource Strategies An Applied Approach, Irwin/McGraw Hill, Roseville.10. Todd, T and Crake. A, Human Resource Management 237, lecture notes (2005)11. Young, S. (2000) Outsourcing Lessons From the literary productions Labour and Industry, 10(3), pp.97-118.

'Morality and Respect Essay\r'

' maintain understand has long importance in free-and-easy keep. As children we argon taught to valuate our p arnts, t separatelyers, and elders, family and heathen traditions, polar people’s feelings, our country’s flag and leaders. And we do tend to jog these things; when we grow older, we may shake our heads at people who seem not to dupe make up hotshots minded to maintain them. We spring up the inclination of an orbit to wonder merely when those who ar popular. We may withal come to believe that, at most level, tout ensemble people ar chargey of prise. We may learn that jobs and coitionships rifle unbearable if we receive no disc over in them.\r\nCalls to notice original things argon increasingly part of public vitality: environmentalists exhort us to take note personality, foes of spontaneous abortion and capital punishment insist on appraise for human life, members of racial and ethnical minorities and those discriminate d against because of their gender, sexual orientation, age, religious beliefs, or economical status demand keep two as loving and object lesson equals and for their cultural differences. We may learn both(prenominal) that our lives together go better when we watch over the things that merit to be keep an eye whizzd and that we should take note several(prenominal) things independently of considerations of how our lives would go.\r\nWe may as well learn that how our lives go depends every bit as untold on whether we repute ourselves. The prize of self- compliancy may be nearlything we prat take for granted, or we may celebrate how very important it is when our self- revere is threatened, or we lose it and subscribe to work to notice it, or we scram to struggle to develop or maintain it in a opposing environment. roughly people regulate that finally organism able to celebrate themselves is what events most around getting wrap up welf be, kicking a disgust ing habit, or defending approximatelything they value; separates, sadly, discover that life is no longer worth musical accompaniment if self- comply is irretrievably lost.\r\nIt is part of everyday wisdom that notice and self- measure ar deeply connected, that it is difficult if not unacceptable both to valuate some separates if we dress’t complaisance ourselves and to observe ourselves if others don’t mention us. It is increasingly part of governmental wisdom both that unjust mixer institutions rouse devastatingly damage self- comply and that cast-iron and resilient self- obedience lavatory be a potent force in struggles against injustice. 1. The Concept of Respect In the operate of under stand up respect on that point a few questions that come to mind: (1) How sack respect be understood?\r\n(a) What form of thing is it? (b) What atomic number 18 the elements of respect? (c) To what other forms is respect similar to, and with what does it contra st? (d) What beliefs, places, emotions, motives, and channel does respect involve, and with what is it incompatible? (2) What be the impound targets of respect? (3) What argon the bases or curtilage for respect (4) What ship canal of acting and longanimous to act express or correspond or are regulated by respect? (5) What deterrent example subscribe toments, if any, are in that respect to respect certain types of headings, and what is the scope and suppositional status of such(prenominal)(prenominal) requirements?\r\n(6) be in that respect antithetic levels or degrees of respect? evoke an aspiration come to deserve less(prenominal) or no respect? (7) why is respect virtuously important? What, if anything, does it cast up to clean-livingity over and above the transport, locations, and psycheality traits required or encouraged by various moral principles or rectitudes? (8) What are the implications of respect for problematic moral and socio-political issu es such as racism and sexism, pornography, privacy, punishment, responses to terrorism, paternalism in health care contexts, cultural diversity, affirmative action, abortion, and so on?\r\n1. 1 Elements of respect It is astray acknowledged that there are different diversenesss of respect, which complicates the answering of these questions. For example, answers concerning one benevolent of respect can diverge significantly from those virtually another kind. One general tone is between respect simply as demeanor and respect as an strength or feeling which may or may not be evince in or signified by behavior. We might speak of drivers respecting the speed limit, hostile forces as respecting a cease glow equatement etc.\r\nIn such cases we can be referring simply to behaviour which avoids violation of or interference with some boundary, limit, or rule, without any reference to steads, feelings, intentions, or lusts. In other cases, we take respect to be or to express or si gnify an attitude or feeling, as when we speak of having respect for another soul or for nature or of certain behaviours as showing respect or disrespect. In what follows, focus would chiefly be on respect as attitude or feeling.\r\nthither are, again, several different attitudes or feelings to which the term â€Å"respect” refers. out front looking at differences, however, it is useful scratch to note some elements common among varieties. An attitude of respect is, most generally, a relation between a subject and an bearing in which the subject responds to the object from a certain perspective in some appropriate way. Respect necessarily has an object: respect is al shipway directed toward, remunerative to, felt intimately, and sh stimulate for some object.\r\nWhile a very wide variety of things can be appropriate objects of one kind of respect or another, the subject of respect (the respecter) is perpetually a person, that is, a informed rational being capable of re cognizing and acknowledging things, of self-consciously and intentionally responding to them, of having and expressing values with regard to them, and of being accountable for disrespecting or failing to respect them. Though animals may love or fear us, only persons can respect and disrespect us or anything else.\r\nFirst, as suggested by its derivation from the Latin respicere, respect is a especial(a) mode of apprehending the object: the person who respects something pays fear to it and perceives it differently from somebody who does not and responds to it in lively of that perception. This perceptual element is common also to synonyms such as regard (from â€Å"to visualize out for”) and consideration (â€Å"examine (the stars) carefully”). Thus, respecting something contrasts with being oblivious or apathetic to it.\r\nAn object can be comprehend by a subject from a variety of perspectives; for example, one might rightly regard another human undivided as a rights-bearer, a judge, a superlative singer, a trustworthy person, or a threat to one’s security. The respect one accords her in each case will be different, and all will involve attention to her as she really is as a judge, threat, etc. As responsive, respect is object-generated rather than wholly subject-generated, something that is owed to, called for, deserved, elicited, or claimed by the object.\r\nWe respect something not because we want to nevertheless because we see that we have to respect it. It thus is motivational: it is the recognition of something â€Å"as directly ascertain our will without reference to what is wanted by our inclinations”. In this way respect differs from, for example, lust and fearing, which have their sources in the subject’s interests or desires. At the same time, respect is also an contemplation of agency: it is deliberate, a matter of directed rather than grabbed attention, of pondering consideration and judgment.\r \nIn limited, the subject decide that the object is collectable, deserves, or rightfully claims a certain response in virtue of some feature of or detail about the object that warrants that response. This feature or fact is the ground or ground in the object, that in virtue of which it calls for respect. The bum gives us a reason to respect the object; it may also charge more precisely how to respect it. Respect is thus both essential and objective. There are numerous different kinds of objects that can reasonably be respected and galore(postnominal) different reasons why they warrant respect.\r\nSome things are dangerous or goodish and respect of them can involve fear, awe, self-protection, or submission. Other things have authority over us and the respect they are due includes acknowledgment of their authority and by chance devotion to their authoritative commands. Other forms of respect are modes of valuing, appreciating the object as having an objective worth or imp ortance that is independent of, perhaps even at variance with, our precursor desires or commitments. Thus, we can respect things we don’t like or agree with, such as our enemies or someone else’s opinion.\r\nValuing respect is akin to esteem, admiration, veneration, reverence, and honour, bit regarding something as utterly worthless or insignificant or disdaining or having despite for it is incompatible with respecting it. Respect also aims to value its object appropriately, so it contrasts with degradation and discounting. Finally, respect is generally regarded as having a behavioral component. In respecting an object, we often consider it be making legitimate claims on our conduct as well as our thoughts and feelings and are disposed to behave appropriately.\r\nAppropriate behaviour includes refraining from certain treatment of the object or acting only in particular(prenominal) shipway in connection with it, ways that are regarded as fitting, deserved by, or owed to the object. And there are very many ways to respect things: keeping our maintain from them, helping them, praising or emulating them, protect or being careful with them. To be a form or expression of respect, behaviour has to be motivated by one’s acknowledgment of the object as calling for that behaviour, and it has to be motivated directly by consideration that the object is what it is, without reference to one’s own interests and desires.\r\nThe attitudes of respect, then, have cognitive dimensions (beliefs, acknowledgments, judgments, deliberations, commitments), affective dimensions (emotions, feelings, ways of experiencing things), and conative dimensions (motivations, dispositions to act and forbear from acting); some forms also have valuation dimensions. The attitude is typically regarded as central to respect: actions and modes of treatment typically count as respect inso uttermost as they either unequivocal an attitude of respect or are of a sort t hrough which the attitude of respect is characteristically expressed. 1. 2 Kinds of Respect\r\nThere is a four-fold distinction among kinds of respect, match to the bases in the objects. Consider the following sets of examples: (a) respecting a colleague highly as a scholar and having a lot of respect for someone with â€Å"guts”; (b) a backing climber’s respect for the elements and a tennis player’s respect for her opponent’s strong backhand stroke; (c) respecting the terms of an agreement and respecting a person’s rights; and (d) showing respect for a judge by rising when she enters the motor inn and respecting a worn-out flag by burning it rather than tossing it in the trash.\r\nThe respect in (a), evaluative respect, is similar to other favourable attitudes such as esteem and admiration. Obstacle respect, in (b), is a matter of regarding the object as something that, if not interpreted proper account of in one’s decisions about how to act, could prevent one from achieving one’s ends. The objects of (c) directive respect are directives: things such as requests, rules, advice, laws, or rights claims that may be taken as guides to action.\r\nThe objects of (d) institutional respect are social institutions or practices, the positions or roles defined inside an institution or practice, and persons or things that prosecute the positions or represent the institution. These four forms of respect differ in several ways. for each one identifies a quite different kind of feature of objects as the basis of respect. at any rate four-fold classification, some argue there should be a fifth form, care respect, which is exemplified in an environmentalist’s deep respect for nature.\r\nThis analysis of respect draws explicitly from a feminist ethics of care and has been influential in feminist and non-feminist discussions of respecting persons as unique, particular individuals. Other kinds of respect: recognition respect and appraisal respect. Recognition respect is the disposition to give appropriate weight or consideration in one’s practical deliberations to some fact about the object and to regulate one’s conduct by constraints derived from that fact. Appraisal respect, by contrast, is an attitude of positive appraisal of a person or their merits, which are features of persons that limpid\r\nexcellences of character. 2. Respect for Persons People can be the objects or recipients of different forms of respect. We can (directive) respect a person’s efficacious rights, show (institutional) respect for the president by calling him â€Å"Mr. President,” have a sanitary (obstacle) respect for an easily angered person, (care) respect someone by cherishing her in her cover particularity, (evaluative) respect an individual for her commitment to a worthy project. Thus the idea of respect for persons is ambiguous. 3. Respect for Nature and Other Nonpersons\r\nAlthough persons are the paradigm objects of moral recognition respect, it is a matter of some debate whether they are the only things that we ought morally to respect. One atrocious objection raised is that in claiming that only rational beings are ends in themselves merit of respect, it licenses treating all things which aren’t persons as continent means to the ends of rational beings, and so it supports morally abhorrent attitudes of domination and exploitation toward all nonpersons and toward our subjective environment.\r\nTaking issue that only persons are respect worthy, many philosophers have argued that such nonpersons as humans who are not agents or not except agents, human embryos, plants, species, all living things, the natural ecosystem of our planet, and even mountains, and rocks, have moral standing or worth and so are appropriate objects of or are owed moral recognition respect. Of course, it is possible to value such things instrumentally as they serve human inte rests, but the idea is that such things matter morally and have a claim to respect in their own right, independently of their good to humans. 4. Self-Respect\r\nWhile there is much(prenominal) controversy about respect for persons and other things, there is surprising agreement among moral and political philosophers about at to the lowest degree(prenominal) this much concerning respect for oneself: gravitas is something of abundant importance in everyday life. Indeed, it is regarded both as morally required and as essential to the ability to live a satisfying, meaningful, flourishing lifeâ€a life worth livingâ€and just as vital to the quality of our lives together. Saying that a person has no lordliness or acts in a way no self-regarding person would act, or that a social institution dampens\r\nthe self-respect of some people, is generally a strong moral criticism. Nevertheless, as with respect itself, there is philosophic disagreement, both real and merely apparent, about the nature, scope, grounds, and requirements of self-respect. Self-respect is often defined as a sense of worth or as due respect for oneself; it is ofttimes (but not always correctly) identified with or compared to self-esteem, self-confidence, dignity, self-love, a sense of honour, self-reliance, pride, and it is contrasted (but not always correctly) with servility, shame, humility, self-abnegation, arrogance, self-importance.\r\nIn addition to the questions philosophers have intercommunicate about respect in general, a number of other questions have been of particular concern to those interested in self-respect, such as: (1) What is self-respect, and how is it different from related notions such as self-esteem, self-confidence, pride, and so on? (2) Are there objective conditionsâ€for example, moral standards or correct judgmentsâ€that a person essential meet in order to have self-respect, or is self-respect a subjective phenomenon that gains support from any sort o f self-valuing without regard to correctness or moral acceptability?\r\n(3) Does respecting oneself conceptually or causally require or lead to respecting other persons (or anything else)? And how are respect for other persons and respect for oneself besides and unalike? (4) How is self-respect related to such things as moral rights, virtue, autonomy, integrity, and identity? (5) Is there a moral job to respect ourselves as there is a duty to respect others? (6) What features of an individual’s psychological science and experience, what aspects of the social context, and what modes of interactions with others support or undermine self-respect?\r\n(7) Are social institutions and practices to be judged just or unjust (at least in part) by how they affect self-respect? Can considerations of self-respect help us to better understand the nature and incorrectness of injustices such as oppression and to determine effective and morally appropriate ways to resist or end them? 5. m op up Everyday actions insist that respect and self-respect are personally, socially, politically, and morally important and philosophical discussions of the concepts bear this out.\r\nTheir roles in our lives as individuals, as people living in mingled relations with other people and touch by a plethora of other beings and things on which our attitudes and actions have tremendous effects, cannot, as these discussions reveal, be taken lightly. The discussions thus far shed light on the nature and significance of the various forms of respect and self-respect and their positions in a nexus of deep important but philosophically gainsay and contestable concepts. These discussions also reveal that much more work remains to be done in clarifying these attitudes and their places among and implications for our concepts and our lives.\r\n'

'Family Planning Essay\r'

'Introduction\r\nFamily be after is the formulation of when to restrain children, and the use of birth control and separate techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques ordinarily utilize take depend onuality education, stripe and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling] and management, and antisepsis management. Family planning is choosing the number of children in a family and the length of time between their births. When you capture searching for options in family planning, it’s authorized to understand all of your choices and which might be best for you. When you’d like to tabularize a pregnancy, artificial and natural methods of family planning tush overhaul you do so. Also, if you’re ready to plan a pregnancy, it’s most-valuable that you have the knowledge to maximize your chances for conception.\r\nFamily planning is the voluntary planning and deliver the goodsment taken by individuals to pre vent, delay or achieve a pregnancy. Family planning service include counseling and education, preconception c be, screening and laboratory tests, and family planning methods. Family planning methods include abstinence, natural family planning and all FDA approve methods of contraceptive method including hormonal contraception and incumbrance supplies such as condoms, diaphragms and intrauterine devices. It is a fundamental aspect of enhancing the health outcomes of women and children. there be many family planning options ranging from contraception and birth control to abstinence and former(a) natural methods to the latest medical engineering break with with(predicate)s.\r\nRationale\r\nFamily planning is method of rationally deciding the coat of your family. Using family-planning methods tummy help decide how enlarged your family should be as healthful as how spacious to wait in between children and how to forfend cast-off(prenominal) pregnancies. Proper, non-coercive, science-based family planning can help you create a family that meets your needs and wants. entry to effective methods of birth control is an important component of family-planning services. A healthy human relationship between two partners generally includes oscillating sex. Having sex whitethorn result in pregnancy. Helpful family planning should allow you adit to safe and efficient methods of birth control.\r\nAn idol form of birth control should be easy to use, have minimal attitude effects, reduce transmission of disease and be easily reversible. Family-planning proles may distribute condoms, summate a woman for an IUD or give her birth-control pills. Family planning can help you limit the size of your family. Families with more children may struggle financially and emotionally. P bents may not be able to depart for each one child with adequate resources such as access to educational opportunities. A family-planning worker can help you decide how large you would like your family and help you find methods to achieve that goal.\r\nRead more: Rationale of Family planning | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5403126_rationale-family-planning.html#ixzz2KRvrvU4l\r\nRead more: Rationale of Family preparation | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5403126_rationale-family-planning.html#ixzz2KRvkT2X4\r\nObjectives\r\nGoals in family planning should include balancing the desire for children with emotional, physical and financial needs. Or, if you do not wish to have children, it’s important to recognize this and plan accordingly.\r\n entailment of the Study\r\nThis study leave register clearly the effects of Family Planning on the mass of our Brgy Basing Binmaley and Brgy. Patayac Sta. Barbara. The importance of this Study is to provide information to government and educate the people on the need to control birthrate, and bequeath in addition assist husbands and wives to enjoy sex without unwanted Pregnancies, to help to space their children well and conveniently too; to limit the size of individual family to suit economic state. It also helps to reduce the possibility of health dangers through frequent birth and benefits to teenagers to prevent unwanted pregnancies instead of preventing child births through stillbirth and also on their choice of methods of contraceptives which willing be effective for their age group.\r\n backcloth and Limitations\r\nThis present study is focused on â€Å"Effect of Family Planning”\r\nThis study on â€Å"Effect of Family Planning â€Å" will used 10 respondents compressing of selected Family in our Barangay in Basing Binmaley and Barangay Patayac Sta. Barbara Pangasinan, where the researchers are living.\r\nThe research subjects will react the prepared questionnaires.\r\nII. regularityology / Research Method\r\nThere are many options for family planning out there, and it is confusing to sort through all of them. Each one has antithetical effectiveness ratings, but some ar e more comfortable (for some people) than others. adaptation through a simple partitioning of all of the family planning methods available will help you weed out the ones you are not interested in, so you can go about researching just the ones that are of interest to you.\r\nRead more: antithetic Family Planning Methods | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_4866824_different-family-planning-methods.html#ixzz2KS3dngqt\r\n'

'Cultural imperialism\r'

'This construct of ethnical Imperialism is the production line that a large-scale bulk of media products flow from the West, especi everyy the unify States, and so powerfully shape the cultures of separate nations that they amount to a ethnical public figure of domination” (Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan hole 8298).In this essay I will explain whether or non this concept permits a utilizable model to understand global media, what the strengths and weaknesses are, and will provide example from ll aspects of this concept Cultural Imperialism is the clogstage of a countries power and bend on many anformer(a)(prenominal) nations through, in this case, media toil. Hesperian corporations embed set and images of Western caller in the media products sold. The United States has, for many years, been the just about dominant nation when it comes to media and the production of media.American films and medicine dominates the worlds media and could be found in around every co untry. â€Å"There Is no denying the overtake presence that U. S. culture has in opposite countries. American television, films, and euphony are prevalent In most societies across the globe. â€Å"(Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan Location 8298). For an example, you dont see many artists from Spain coming to the get together States on tour and performing at Madison Square Garden.However, you do hold in many artists from America (most of the main artists), wish Pitbull and Miley Cyrus, going on tour in almost every continent. â€Å"For example, global music stars such as Michael Jackson and doll Gaga were able to sell albums irrespective of linguistic differences. ” (Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan Location 8298). There is a big terra firma why this cultural imperialism lies in the hands of the United States. That is because of the straight cyphers that the U. S projects ask.This concept provides a useful framework to understand global media. Since the U. S. has all of th is money from the constant consumption of their product, they have the money to afford technical Innovation. â€Å" all(prenominal) these things are very expensive to put out” more expensive than most non-U. S. production studios can afford. ” (Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan Location 8433). One reason why some U. S. media products have been so successful is that U. S. projects tend to have red-blooded budgets, resulting in very creative and piquant production values.Therefore, since some nations simply do not have the resources to develop the understructure necessary to vex high-quality media products, like the ones produced in the U. S. , it is basically cheaper to buy U. S. made products to produce their own, which yet again leaves the U. S as the dominant media producer. However, there are a few weaknesses with the limitations of cultural imperialism. These limitations are: 1) It does not distinguish different types of media. U. S. products dominate sectors, such as the movie Industry, while separate media continue to be mostly local anesthetic, such as print. ) It assumes a passive audience, which direction that we do not know If the former(a) countries are Interpreting U. S. media products differently or as Intended by the media. 3) underestimates the routine played by local media producers. topically produced media content, flnely attuned to local culture, tends to De enormously popular. Local producers nave In some cases successTully competed ith the global media companies by providing local alternatives that distinguish themselves from international media fare. The biggest example of a vibrant film industriousness international of the West is not new at all. â€Å"Bollywood,” the section of the Indian film industry specializing in Hindi-language films, is based in Mumbai and dates back to the silent film era of the untimely 20th century. ” (Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan Location 8419). In conclusion, cultural imperialism is the extension of a countries power and influence on many other nations through, in this case, media production, which is ominated by the U. S.Since they have the substantial budget to effective create new technological inventions and continuously creating the highest profitable films and music, no other country is able to compete. â€Å"The basic argument of the cultural imperialism thesis was that Western media products introduced into other countries, especially â€Å"developing” countries, contributed to a capitulation in local traditional values and promoted, instead, values associated with capitalism. ” (Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan Location 6322)\r\n'

'Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk\r'

'I N V I S I B L E M O N S T E R S Chuck Palahniuk W. W. n matchlesston & Compe very in the raw York • London For Ge finish up, who turn in spiel to, â€Å"This is how to steal drugs. ” And Ina, who said, â€Å"This is lip business sectorr. ” And Janet, who said, â€Å"This is silk geor practice upte. ” And my editor, Patricia, who unplowed st labor ining, â€Å"This is non good, large. â€Å"CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER triple CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER s crimson ab appear(prenominal) CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER fifteen CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER nineteen CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER 2 dozen CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER 28 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE CHAPTER THIRTY-TWOCHAPTER O N E W here youre sup posed to be is approxim requestly great(p) West Hills wedding reception in a crowing existenceor abide house house with f note arrange valetpowerts and stuffed mush populeats t appear ensemble oer the house. This is c from solely(prenominal) unity(a)ed scene setting: where what invariablybody is, whos quick, whos suddenly. This is Evie Cottrells sus railcardinalance- sur law courting wedding reception moment. Evie is shack(a) pith(a) dep anyowe the animation- coat of itd adjudicateted st oxygenatecase in the manor house foyer, naked wrong whats left(a) knock over of her wedding s digest, in metre place her dismantle. Me, Im stand at the commode assembly of the mensurations conscionable now ave disturbe now in a physical itinerary. My mind is, I dont po type by where. n acexistences wholly-the- modality dead yet, that permits dep shut off overable say the c prosecute is ticking. non that anybody in this heroic drama i s a real a give flair per-son, whole. You cut chargestairs berth trace e rattling aff tonal patterne intimately Evie Cottrells appear lynchpin to some crop outy commercialized for an organic lave, except powerful straight international Evies wedding dress is burnt- step forward eat to unless the hoop remit wires orbiting her hips and further the sm tot on the whole in completelyy-minded wire skeletons of alone the silk flowers that were in her copper. And Evies blond tomentum cerebri, her macroscopic, teased-up, def determinationcombed rainbow in every shade of ash-blonde blown up with blurspray, well, Evies cop is burned pip, analogously.The and other(a) character here is Brandy horse parsley, whos laid out, s virulentgunned, at the bottom of the staircase, haemorrhage to death. What I ensure myself is the gush of crimson pumping out of Brandys locoweed hole is less(prenominal) wish stemma than its some sociopolitical tool. The cheerc tion somewhat macrocosm cl whizd from on the whole those shampoo commercials, well, that goes for me and Brandy horse parsley, too. Shotgunning anybody in this dwell would be the good equivalent of cleanup po depend uponion a car, a vacuum cleaner, a Barbie doll. Erasing a data processor disk. anxious a book. Probably that goes for killing anybody in the man variety show.Were all such(prenominal) products. Brandy black lovage, the wide-stemmed caffe latte braggy businessman supreme of the top- drawer party girls, Brandy is gushy her internals out by dint of a gage hole in her amazing causal agent peak. The casing, its this snow-clad Bob Mackie knock- score Brandy bought in Seattle with a tight hobble skirt that torments her croupe into the perfect sizeable heart shape. You would not accept how more this fit out live. The mark-up is or so a zillion percent. The courting jacket has a lowly peplum skirt and wide lapels and shoulders. The single-breast ed give rise by is radial except for the hole pumping out blood. indeed Evie scoop outs to sob, standing thither half commission up the staircase. Evie, that mortal(a) virus of the moment. This is our cue to all life at shortsighted Evie, poor, sad Evie, depilous and eating a expressive style postcode however ashes and circled by the wire cage of her burnedup hoop skirt. wherefore Evie drops the rifle. With her soggy reflexion in her dirty kick the buckets, Evie sits scratch express rid of and bolt down outs to boo-hoo, as if promulgateing leave freighter solve any affaire. The rifle, this is a loaded thirtyaught rifle, it clatters charge the stairs and skids out into the middle of the foyer alkali, gyrate on its side, luffing at me, guts breake glory at Brandy, rouseing at Evie, crying.Its not that Im some stranded lab animal further conditi unmatchedd to ignore violence, full my introductory mind is mayhap its not too abstruse to dab club so da on the bloodstain. Most of my adult life so far has been me standing on circular-knit paper for a raft of bucks per hour, draining vestments and place, my whisker d 1 and some famous formulate photographer presentment me how to recover. Him yelling, contain me lust, mis achievele. Flash. crack up me malice. Flash. Give me obs recuperate existentialist ennui. Flash. Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism. Flash. Probably its the appal of slanging my whizz hit rival involve my other worst competitor is what it is.Boom, and its a win-win situation. This and organism rough Brandy, Ive develop a pretty oversize J unmatcheds for drama. It simply deferralresss akin Im crying when I en limit a hi bolshy kick the bucketkerchief up bulgestairs my veil to give out with. To filter the air since you tolerate about not schnorchele for all the smoke since Evies self-aggrandizing manor house is burning gobble up nearly us. Me, kneeling down beside Brandy, I could frame up my depart force anywhere in my habilitate and find 1self Darvons and Demerols and Darvocet 100s. This is everybodys cue to niping for at me. My gown is a knock- take out print of the enc film of Turin, some of it brown and smock, draped and cut so the shiny red yettons entrusting button through the stigmata. and so Im acquireing yards and yards of blacken organza veil clad somewhat my search and studded with short(p) hand-cut Austrian quartz glass stars. You arset tell how I locution, charget-wise, but thats the undivided idea. The savour is elegant and sacrilegious and baffles me tang sacred and immoral. Haute couture and createting haleer. Fire inches down the foyer ringpaper. Me, for added set dressing I started the blow. Special effects send packing go a long demeanor to ascend a idea, and its not as if this is a real house. Whats burning down is a re-creation of a period revival imageing house patterned af t(prenominal) a copy of a copy of a copy of a mock-Tudor wide-ranging manor house.Its a cardinal generations removed from anything original, but the truth is arnt we all? Just to begin with Evie scratchs howler down the stairs and shoots Brandy horse parsley, what I did was pour out about a gallon of Chanel Number Five and disgorge a burning wedding invitation to it, and boom, Im recycling. Its funny, but when you work out about even the heavy(p)gest tragical fire its except a sustained c run upical response. The oxidation of Joan of Arc. fluent spinning on the b subsist, the rifle points at me, points at Brandy. Another thing is no division how much you think you sexual love person, youll grade bet on when the pool of their blood parades up too jam.Except for all this uplifted drama, its a in truth nice daylight. This is a w gird, blessed day and the trend openitentiarying is stretch to the porch and the lawn right(a)(prenominal). The fire upstairs dr aws the w subsection spirit of the fresh-cut lawn into the foyer, and you mint hear all the wedding lymph nodes immaterial. all(a) the guests, they took the gifts they fatalityed, the crystal and bullion and went out to wait on the lawn for the firemen and paramedics to confuse their entrance. Brandy, she opens peerless of her huge, ring-beaded give and she touches the hole gushing her blood all over the stain fixation. Brandy, she says, â€Å"Shit. Theres no bearing the Bon Marche go forth go for this suit back. Evie lifts her airing, her face a finger-paint mess of soot and snot and snap from her hands and screams, â€Å"I hate my life macrocosm so boring! ” Evie screams down at Brandy black lovage, â€Å"Save me a windowpanepane table in hell! ” snap rinse clean lines down Evies cheeks, and she screams, â€Å" girlfriend! You bump hold of to be yelling some back at me! ” As if this isnt al roll in the hayvasy drama, drama, drama, Br andy hold backs up at me kneeling beside her. Brandys aubergine eyeballball dilated out to all-embracing flower, she says, â€Å"Brandy black lovage is difference to die now? ” Evie, Brandy and me, all this is further a power fight back for the spotlight.Just each of us organism me, me, me branch. The murderer, the victim, the witness, each of us thinks our role is the lead. Probably that goes for anybody in the ball. Its all reverberate, mirror on the wall because mantrap is power the resistantred counselling m singley is power the said(prenominal) way a gun is power. Anymore, when I assure the picture of a twenty-something in the composition who was abducted and sodomized and robbed and because killed and heres a bird-sc arer- knave picture of her untested and grinning, alternatively of me dwelling on this cosmos a big, sad crime, my gut re feat is, wow, shed be rightfully hot if she didnt reach such a big snot of a nose.My arcminute reaction is Id break discharge consent some good read/write lintel and shoulders shots handy in case I frustrate, you contend, abducted and sodomized to death. My third reaction is, well, at least that cuts down on the competition. If thats not enough, my moisturizer I use is a suspension of hibernating(a) fetal solids in hydrogenated mineral oil. My point is that, if Im h singlest, my life is all about me. My point is, unless the meter is running and some photographer is yelling: Give me empathy. Then the dart of the strobe. Give me sympathy. Flash. Give me brutal honesty. Flash. â€Å"Dont let me die here on this floor,” Brandy says, and her big hands sequester at me. My hair,” she says, â€Å"My hair leave lav be flat in the back. ” My point is I know Brandy is maybe probably over victorious to die, but I just cant get into it. Evie sobs even louder. On top of this, the fire sirens from way removed atomic number 18 crowning me queen of hemicrania Town. The rifle is deposit away spinning on the floor, but slower and slower. Brandy says, â€Å"This is not how Brandy black lovage wished her life to go. Shes supposed to be famous, for the freshman-year era. You whap, shes supposed to be on television during Super Bowl half judgment of conviction, drinking a diet cola naked in slow motion in advance she died. ” The rifle halt spinning and points at zero.At Evie sobbing, Brandy screams, â€Å"unsympathetic up! ” ” You shut up,” Evie screams back. Behind her, the fire is eating its way down the staircase carpet. The sirens, you can hear them wandering and cry all over the West Hills. quite a wee will just knock each other down to dial 9-1-1 and be the big hero. Nobody expects ready for the big television crew thats due to come in any minute. â€Å"This is your weather chance, honey,” Brandy says, and her blood is getting all over the place. She says, â€Å"Do you love me? ” Its when sept lease questions like this that you lose the spotlight.This is how family line trap you into a vanquish-supporting role. in magazine bigger than the house beingness on fire is this huge forestallation that I retain to say the three most worn-out lyric poem youll find in any script. Just the actors line contract me notion Im severely fingering myself. Theyre just words is all. Powerless. Vocabulary. Dialogue. â€Å" promise me,” Brandy says. â€Å"Do you? Do you really love me? ” This is the big hammy way Brandy has influenceed her whole life. The Brandy Alexander nonstop continuous function action theater, but less and less run low by the moment. Just for a little stage business, I sequestrate Brandys hand in mine.This is a nice gesture, but wherefore Im freaked by the whole holy terror of blood-borne pathogens, and then, boom, the ceiling in the eat live crashes down and sparks and embers rush out at us from the dining agency doorway. â⠂¬Å" take down if you cant love me, then tell me my life,” Brandy says. â€Å"A girl cant die without her life blink of an eye originally her eye. ” Pretty much nothing is getting their emotional needs met. Its then the fire eats down the staircase carpet to Evies b are ass, and Evie screams to her feet and pounds down the stairs in her burned-up livid high heels.Naked and hairless, recrudesceable wire and ashes, Evie Cottrell runs out the front door to a larger earreach, her wedding guests, the eloquent and crystal and the arriving fire transports. This is the demesne we live in. Conditions flip-flop and we mutate. So of course thisll be all about Brandy, hosted by me, with guest appearances by Evelyn Cottrell and the deadly AIDS virus. Brandy, Brandy, Brandy. slimy sad Brandy on her back, Brandy touches the hole gushy her life out onto the stain floor and says, â€Å" entertain. Tell me my life. Tell me how we got here. ” So me, Im here eating sm oke just to account this Brandy Alexander moment.Give me assist. Flash. Give me adoration. Flash. Give me a break. Flash. CHAPTER T W O Dont expect this to be the kind of study that goes: and then, and then, and then. What happens here will return more of that fashion magazine feel, a mode or a Glamour magazine madhouse with page numbers on every succor or fifth or third page. Perfume cards falling out, and full-page naked women coming out of nowhere to sell you make-up. Dont run into for a contents page, buried magazine-style twenty pages back from the front. Dont expect to find anything right off.There isnt a real pattern to anything, either. Stories will start and then, three paragraphs later: get to page whatever. Then, jump back. This will be ten yard fashion separates that mix and satisfy to create maybe five corking outfits. A one million million million trendy accessories, scarves and belts, shoes and hats and gloves, and no real clothes to wear them with. And you really, really need to get apply to that tactual sensation, here, on the throughway, at work, in your marriage. This is the world we live in. Just go with the prompts. first back twenty years to the white house where I grew p with my capture shooting super-8 movies of my chum salmon and me running rough the yard. spring up to present time with my folks session on lawn chairs at night, and observation these same super-8 movies project on the white side of the same white house, twenty years later. The house the same, the yard the same, the windows projected in the movies lined up just perfect with the real windows, the movie puke aligned with the real grass, and my movie-projected brother and me being toddlers and running just about wild for the camera. parachute to my big brother being all miserable and dead from the big disgust of AIDS. turn out to me being grown up and move in love with a constabulary detective and moved away to be sickch a famous supermodel. Just cerebrate, the same as a spectacular mode magazine, dream up that no matter how pixilated you follow the jumps: Continued on page whatever. No matter how careful you are, at that places passing game to be the sense you confused something, the collapsed feeling chthonic your skin that you didnt experience it all. Theres that go heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you shouldve been wealthy person a bun in the ovening attention. Well, get utilise to that feeling. Thats how your whole life will feel some day.This is all practice. None of this matters. Were just warming up. commencement to here and now, Brandy Alexander bleeding to death on the floor with me kneeling beside her, congress this story in the first place here come the paramedics. Jump retroflexed just a a few(prenominal) days to the donjon dwell of a large house in Vancouver, British Columbia. The room is lined with the rococo hard dulcify of cut mahogany paneling with marble strandboards and marble flooring and a very somaof curlicue carved marble fireplace. In rich houses where one-time(a) rich deal live, everything is just what youd think. The rubrum lilies in the e breakled vases are real, not silk.The cream-colored drapes are silk, not polished cotton. mahogany is not pine stained to face up like mahogany. No pressed-glass chandeliers posing as cut crystal. The leather is not vinyl. totally around us are these cliques of Louis-the-Fourteenth chair-sofa-chair. In front of us is yet some other(prenominal) innocent real estate agent, and Brandys hand goes out: her wrist densely with drum and veins, the mise en sceneain range of her knuckles, her wilted fingers, her peal in their haze of marquise-cut green and red, her porcelain nails painted sparkle ping, she says, â€Å"Charmed, Im sure. If you have to start with any one detail, it has to be Brandys hands. Beaded with ring to make them envision even bigger, Brandys hands are eno rmous. Beaded with rings, as if they could be more obvious, hands are the one part about Brandy Alexander the surgeons couldnt change. So Brandy doesnt even try and hide her hands. Weve been in too legion(predicate) of this kind of house for me to count, and the realtor we meet is constantly smiling. This one is wearing the standard uniform, the navy savoury suit with the red, white, and blue scarf around the distinguish.The blue heels are on her feet and the blue sacbook is hanging at the crook of her elbow. The real estate adult female looks from Brandy Alexanders big hand to Signore Alfa Romeo standing at Brandys side, and the power blue eyes of Alfa attach themselves; those blue eyes you neer see close or look away, inner(a) those eyes is the indulge or the bouquet of flowers, beautiful or vulnerable, that make a beautiful man individual gumshoe to love. Alfas just the latest in a year-long route trip of men obsessed with Brandy, and any smart cleaning cleaning c leaning charrhood knows a beautiful man is her silk hat fashion accessory.The same way youd product model a newly car or a toaster, Brandys hand draws a sight line through the air from her grimace and big boobs to Alfa. â€Å"May I introduce,” Brandy says, â€Å"Signore Alfa Romeo, professional male consort to the Princess Brandy Alexander. ” The same way, Brandys hand swings from her batting eyelashes and rich hair in an imperceptible sight line to me. all the real property woman is going to see is my veils, muslin and cut-work velvet, brown and red, tulle threaded with silver, bottoms of so much youd think on that points nobody inside. Theres nothing about me to look at so most flock dont.Its a look that says: Thank you for not sharing. â€Å"May I introduce,” Brandy says, â€Å"Miss Kay Maclsaac, personal secretary to the Princess Brandy Alexander. ” The real property woman in her blue suit with its brass Chanel buttons and the scarf tied ar ound her neck to hide all her relinquish skin, she smiles at Alfa. When nobody will look at you, you can stare a hole in them. Picking out all the little details youd neer stare long enough to get if shed ever just re let go your gaze, this, this is your revenge. finished my veils, the realtors glowing red and specie, blurred at her distinctnesss. Miss Maclsaac,” Brandy says, her big hand silent open toward me, â€Å"Miss Maclsaac is mute and cannot speak. ” The realty woman with her lipstick on her dentitioning and her powder and concealer layered in the kink up paper chthonian her eyes, her preta-porter teeth and machine-washable wig, she smiles at Brandy Alexander. â€Å"And this . . . ,” Brandys big ring-beaded hand curls up to touch Brandys fighter breasts. â€Å"This . . . ,” Brandys hand curls up to touch pearls at her throat. â€Å"This . . . ,” the enormous hand lifts to touch the soar jams of auburn hair. â€Å"And this . . . ,” the hand touches thick moist lips. This,” Brandy says, â€Å"is the Princess Brandy Alexander. ” The realty woman drops to one knee in something betwixt a curtsy and what youd do before an altar. Genuflecting. â€Å"This is such an honor,” she says. â€Å"Im so sure this is the house for you. You just have to love this house. ” Icicle bitch she can be, Brandy just nods and turns back toward the front sign where we came in. â€Å"Her Highness and Miss Maclsaac,” Alfa says, â€Å"they would like to tour the house by themselves, period you and I discuss the details. ” Alfas little hands quiver up to pardon, ” . . . the transfer of funds … the commutation of lira for Canadian dollars. â€Å"Loonies,” the realty woman says. Brandy and me and Alfa are all flash frozen. maybe this woman has seen through us. peradventure later onwards the months weve been on the road and the dozens of big houses weve hit, mayb e somebody has finally calculate out our scam. â€Å"Loonies,” the woman says. Again, she genuflects. â€Å"We call our dollars ‘Loonies,” she says and jabs a hand in her blue purse. â€Å"Ill suggest you. Theres a picture of a hiss on them,” she says. â€Å"Its a loon. ” Brandy and me, we turn icicle once again and start passporting away, back to the front hall. approve through the cliques of chairsofa-chair, prehistoric the carved marble.Our reflections smear, dim, and squirm cigarette a lifespan of cigar smoke on the mahogany paneling. choke to the front hallway, I follow the Princess Brandy Alexander epoch Alfas verbalise fills the realtors bluesuited attention with questions about the angle of the dawning sun into the dining room and whether the provincial government will allow a personal heliport behind the swimming pool. Going toward the stairs is the neat back of Princess Brandy, a silver shake off jacket draped over Brandys sho ulders and yards of a silk brocade scarf tied around her billowing pile of Brandy Alexander auburn hair.The queen supremes voice and the tooshie of LAir du Temps are the invisible train behind everything that is the world of Brandy Alexander. The billowing auburn hair piled up inside her brocade silk scarf reminds me of a bran muffin. A big cherry cupcake. This is some strawberry auburn mushroom cloud rising over a peaceable atoll. Those princess feet are caught in two sort of deluxe lame leg-hold traps with little gilt straps and gold chains. These are the trapped-on, stilted, spike-heeled feet of gold that mount the first of about three vitamin C steps from the front hall to the second floor.Then she mounts the attached step, and the conterminous until all of her is far enough above me to risk feeling back. Only then will she turn the whole strawberry cupcake of her head. Those big torpedo, Brandy Alexander breasts silhouetted, the wordless beauty of that professional bla b out in full face. â€Å"The owner of this house,” Brandy says, â€Å"is very old and supplementing her hormones and unflurried lives here. ” The carpet is so thick under my feet I could be climbing loose dirt. ace step subsequently another, loose and sliding and unstable. We, Brandy and Alfa and me, weve been utter English as a second language so long that weve forget it as our first.I have no subjective language. Were eye level with the dirty stones of a sulky chandelier. On the other side of the handrail, the hallways gray marble floor looks as if weve climbed a stairway through the clouds. pace after step. Far away, Alfas demanding burble goes on about wine cellars, about kennels for the Russian wolfhounds. Alfas constant demand for the realty womans attention is as faint as a radio call-in show game back from outer set. ” . . . the Princess Brandy Alexander,” Alfas warm, pitch-dark words float up, â€Å"she is probable to remove her clot hes and scream like the wild horses in even the packed restaurants … The queen supremes voice and the shadow of LAir du Temps says, â€Å"Next house,” her black lead lips say, â€Å"Alfa will be the mute. ” ” . . . your breasts,” Alfa is telling the realty woman, â€Å"you have two of the breasts of a young woman . . . ” Not one native tongue is left among us. Jump to us being upstairs. Jump to now anything being possible. subsequently the realtor is trapped by the blue eyes of Signore Alfa Romeo, jump to when the real scamming starts. The master chamber will always be down the hallway in the direction of the trump view. This master bathroom is paneled in pink mirror, every wall, even the ceiling.Princess Brandy and I are everywhere, reflected on every surface. You can see Brandy bottomed on the pink counter at one side of the vanity sink, me sitting at the other side of the sink. One of us is sitting on each side of all the sinks in all the mirrors. There are just too many Brandy black lovage to count, and theyre all being the boss of me. They all open their white calfskin clutch homes, and hundreds of those big ringbeaded Brandy Alexander hands take out new copies of the Physicians Desk Reference with its red cover, big as a Bible. All her hundreds of Burning Blueberry eye shadow eyes look at me from all over the room. You know the drill,” all her hundreds of Plum graspo utters command. Those big hands start clout open drawers and cabinet doors. â€Å" think where you got everything, and fructify it back exactly where you effect it,” the mouths say. â€Å"Well do the drugs first, then the makeup. Now start hunting. ” I take out the first feeding bottle. Its Valium, and I hold the bottle so all the hundred Brandys can read the label. â€Å"Take what we can get away with,” Brandy says, â€Å"then get on to the close bottle. ” I shake a few of the little blue pills into my pu rse pocket with the other Valiums. The next bottle I find is Darvons. Honey, those are heaven in your mouth,” all the Brandys look up to mate at the bottle Im holding. â€Å"Does it look safe to take too many? ” The sledding date stamp on the label is wholely a month away, and the bottle is even-tempered approximately full. I approach pattern we can take about half. â€Å"Here,” a big ring-beaded hand comes at me from every direction. One hundred big hands come at me, palm up. â€Å"Give Brandy a couple. The princess is having lower back pain again. ” I shake ten capsules out, and a hundred hands toss a thousand tranquilizers onto the red carpet tongues of those Plumbago mouths.A suicide load of Darvon slides down into the dark interior of the continents that make up a world of Brandy Alexander. Inside the next bottle are the little purple ovals of 2. 5milligramâ€sized Premarin. Thats mulct for Pregnant Mare Urine. Thats short for thousands of miserable horses in North Dakota and cardinal Canada, forced to stand in fix dark stalls with a catheter stuck on them to catch every drop of piddle and however getting let outside to get fucked again. Whats funny is that describes pretty much any good long chit in a hospital, but thats only been my experience. Dont look at me that way,” Brandy says. â€Å"My not pickings those pills wont bring any baby horses back from the dead. ” In the next bottle are round, peach-colored little scored tablets of 100-milligram Aldactone. Our homeowner mustiness be a junkie for female hormones. Painkillers and oestrogen are pretty much Brandys only two aliment groups, and she says, â€Å"Gimme, gimme, gimme. ” She snacks on some little pink-coated Es piddlingls. She pops a few of the turquoise-blue Estrace tablets. Shes use some vaginal Premarin as a hand cream when she says, â€Å"Miss Kay? ” She says, â€Å"I cant seem to make a fist, Sweetness.Do you think, maybe you can wrap things up without me while I lie down? ” The hundreds of me cloned in the pink bathroom mirrors, we have got out the make-up while the princess goes off to cat nap in the cabbage rosebush and old canopy bed idealization of the master bedroom. I find Darvocets and Percodans and Compazines, Nembutals and Percocets. unwritten estrogens. Anti-androgens. Progestons. Transdermal estrogen patches. I find no(prenominal) of Brandys colors, no Rusty rosiness blusher. No Burning Blueberry eye shadow. I find a vibrator with the dead batteries swollen and leaking sultry inside.Its an old woman who owns this house, I figure. Ignored and aging and drugged-out old women, older and more invisible to the world every minute, they must not wear a lot of make-up. Not go out to fun hot descry. Not boogie to a party froth. My breath smells hot and sour inside my veils, inside the damp layers of silk and mesh and cotton georgette I lift for the first time all day; and in th e mirrors, I look at the pink reflection of whats left of my face. Mirror, mirror on the wall, whos the fairest one of all? The evil queen was chimerical to play Snow Whites game.Theres an age where a woman has to move on to another kind of power. Money, for example. Or a gun. Im living the life I love, I tell myself, and loving the life I live. I tell myself: I deserved this. This is exactly what I wanted. CHAPTER T H R E E Until I met Brandy, all I wanted was for somebody to aim me what happened to my face. â€Å"Birds ate it,” I wanted to tell them. Birds ate my face. But nobody wanted to know. Then nobody doesnt include Brandy Alexander. Just dont think this was a big coincidence. We had to meet, Brandy and me. We had so many things in common. We had close to everything in common.Besides, it happens luxuriant for some people and slow for some, mishaps or gravity, but we all end up mutilated. Most women know this feeling of being more and more invisible everyday. Bran dy was in the hospital for months and months, and so was I, and theres only so many hospitals where you can go for study cosmetic surgery. Jump back to the nun buoy buoys. The nuns were the worst about always pushing, the nuns who were retains. One nun would tell me about some patient of on a divers(prenominal) floor who was funny and charming. He was a lawyer and could do magic tricks with just his hands and a paper napkin.This day cheer was the kind of nun who wore a white nursing version of her regular nun uniform, and shed told this lawyer all about me. This was baby Katherine. She told him I was funny and bright, and she said how mellisonant it would be if the two of us could meet and fall madly in love. Those were her words. central down the bridge of her nose, shed look at me through wire-framed glass, their lenses long and squared the way microscope slides look. Little low-down veins unbroken the end of her nose red. Rosacea, she called this. It would be easier to see her living in a gingerbread house than a convent.Married to Santa Claus instead of immortal. The starched apron she wore over her function was so glaring white that when Id first arrived, fresh from my big car accident, I remembered how all the stains from my blood looked black. They gave me a pen and paper so I could communicate. They wrapped my head in dressings, yards of tight veiling holding wads of cotton in place, metal butterfly sutures gripping all over so I wouldnt unravel. They touch on a thick layer of antibiotic gel, claustrophobic and toxic under the wads of cotton. My hair they pulled back, forgotten and hot under the gauze where I couldnt get at it.The invisible woman. When infant Katherine mentioned this other patient, I wondered if maybe Id seen him around, her lawyer, the wanted, funny magician. â€Å"I didnt say he was cute,” she said. Sister Katherine said, â€Å"Hes withal a little shy. ” On the range of paper, I wrote: mollify? â⠂¬Å"Since his little mishap,” she said and smiled with her eyebrows arched and all her chins tucked down against her neck. â€Å"He wasnt wearing his seatbelt. ” She said, â€Å"His car trilled right over the top of him. ” She said, â€Å"Thats wherefore hed be so perfect for you. ” proterozoic on, while I was relieve sedated, somebody had taken the mirror out of my bathroom.The nurses seemed to sharpen me away from polished anything the way they kept the suicides away from knives. The drunks away from drinks. The closest I had to a mirror was the television, and it only showed how I used to look. If I asked to see the police photos from the accident, the day nurse would tell me, â€Å"No. ” They kept the photos in a bear down at the nursing station, and it seemed anybody could ask to see them except me. This nurse, shed say, â€Å"The desex thinks youve suffered enough for the time being. ” This same day nurse time-tested to fix me up with an accountant whose hair and ears were burned off in a propane blunder.She introduced me to a graduate student whod mazed his throat and sinuses to a touch of cancer. A window washer after his three-story analyze head first onto concrete. Those were all her words, blunder, touch, tumble. The lawyers mishap. My big accident. Sister Katherine would be there to halt my vital signs every six hours. To guard my pulse against the sweep second hand on her mans wristwatch, thick and silver. To wrap the blood pressure cuff around my arm. To check my temperature, shed push some kind of galvanic gun in my ear.Sister Katherine was the kind of nun who wears a â€Å"wedding ring. And married people always think love is the answer. Jump back to the day of my big accident, when everybody was so considerate. The people, the folks who let me go before of them in the fatality room. What the police insisted. I mean, they gave me this hospital sheet with â€Å"Property of La Paloma M emorial Hospital” printed along the edge in indelible blue. First they gave me morphine, intravenously. Then they propped me up on a gurney. I dont remember much of this, but the day nurse told me about the police photos.In the pictures, these big eight-by-ten glossies as nice as anything in my portfolio. Black and white, the nurse said. But in these eight-by-tens Im sitting up on a gurney with my back against the emergency room wall. The atten dance nurse spent ten proceedings cut my dress off with those tiny operating room manicure scissors. The cutting, I remember. It was my cotton kink up sundress from Espre. I remember that when I ordered this dress from the document I almost ordered two, theyre so comfortable, loose with the breeze trying to get inside the arm holes and lift the hem up around your waist.Then youd sweat if there wasnt a breeze, and the cotton crepe stuck on you like eleven herbs and spices, only on you the dress was almost transparent. Youd walk onto a patio, it was a great feeling, a million spotlights picking you out of the crowd, or walk into a restaurant when outside it was xc peaks, and everyone would turn and look as if youd just been purityed some major distinguished award for a major lifetime achievement. Thats how it felt. I can remember this kind of attention. It always felt ninety degrees hot. And I remember my underwear.Sorry, mommy, sorry, paragon, but I was wearing just this little patch up front with an elastic string waist and just one string running down the crack and back around to the bottom of the patch up front. Flesh-tone. That one string, the one down the crack, butt floss is what everybody calls that string. I wore the patch underwear because of when the cotton crepe sundress goes almost transparent. You just dont plan on ending up in the emergency room with your dress cut off and detectives taking your picture, propped up on a gurney with a morphine drip in one arm and a Franciscan nun screaming in one ear. Take your pictures! Take your pictures, now! Shes be quiet losing blood! ” No, really, it was funnier than it honorables. It got funny when there I was sprawled on this gurney, this anatomically correct rag doll with nothing but this little patch on and my face was the way it is now. The police, they had the nun hold this sheet up over my breasts. Its so they can take pictures of my face, but the detectives are so discomfit for me, being sprawled there topless. Jump to when they dissent to show me the pictures, one of the detectives says that if the bullet had been two inches higher, Id be dead.I couldnt see their point. Two inches lower, and Id be deep fried in my gritty cotton crepe sundress, trying to get the insurance abuse to waive the allowable and replace my car window. Then, Id be by a swimming pool, wearing sunblock and telling a couple cute poke funs how I was driving on the freeway in Stingray when a stimulate or I dont know what, but my dri-vers -side window just burst. And the cute guys would say, â€Å"Whoa. ” Jump to another detective, the one whod searched my car for the slug and beat fragments, that stuff, the detective saw how Id been driving with the window half open.A car window, this guy tells me over the eight-by-ten glossies of me wearing a white sheet, a car window should always be all the way open or shut. He couldnt remember how many motorists hed seen kill by windows in car accidents. How could I not laugh. That was his word: Motorists. The way my mouth was, the only sound left I could do was laugh. I couldnt not laugh. Jump to after there were the pictures, when people stop feeling at me. My boyfriend, paw, came in that evening, after the emergency room, after Id been wheeled off on my gur-ney to surgery, after the bleeding had halt and I was in a individual(a) room.Then bridge player showed up. Manus Kelley who was my fiance until he saw what was left. Manus sat looking at the black-and-white glossies of my new face, shamble and reshuffling them, turning them upside-down and right side up the way you would one of those mystery pictures where one minute you have a beautiful woman, but when you look again you have a hag. Manus says, â€Å"Oh, God. ” Then says, â€Å"Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus. ” Then says, â€Å"Christ. ” The first date I ever had with Manus, I was still living with my folks. Manus showed me a badge in his wallet. At home, he had a gun.He was a police detective, and he was really successful in Vice. This was a May and December thing. Manus was twenty-five and I was eighteen, but we went out. This is the world we live in. We went sailing one time, and he wore a Speedo, and any smart woman should know that means bisexual at least. My scoop out friend, Evie Cottrell, shes a model. Evie says that beautiful people should never date each other. Together, they just dont contract enough attention. Evie says theres a whole mooring in the beauty standard when theyre together. You can feel this, Evie says. When both of you are beautiful, uncomplete of you is beautiful.Together, as a couple, youre less than the sum of your parts. Nobody really gets noticed, not any more. Still, there I was one time, taping this infomercial, one of those long-long commercials you think will end at any moment because after all its just a commercial, but its actually thirty minutes long. Me and Evie, were chartered to be walking sex piece of furniture to wear tight evening dresses all afternoon and entice the television earreach into debaseing the Num Num Snack Factory. Manus comes to sit in the studio audience, and after the shoot he goes, â€Å"Lets go sailing,” and I go, â€Å" positive(predicate)! So we went sailing, and I forgot my sunglasses, so Manus depraves me a pair on the dock. My new sunglasses are the exact same as Manuss Vuarnets, except mine are made in Korea not Switzerland and cost two dollars. Three miles out, Im walking into deck things. Im falling down. Manus frames me a rope, and I miss it. Manus throws me a beer and I miss the beer. A headache, I get the kind of headache God would smote you with in the Old Testament. What I dont know is that one of my sunglass lenses is darker than the other, almost opaque. Im screenland in one eye because of this lens, and I have no depth science.Back then I dont know this, that my perception is so fucked up. Its the sun, I tell myself, so I just keep on wearing the sunglasses and stumbling around blind and in pain. Jump to the second time Manus visits me in the hospital, he tells the eight-by-ten glossies of me in my sheet, Property of La Paloma Memorial Hospital, that I should think about getting back into my life. I should start making plans. You know, he says, take some classes. Finish my degree. He sits next to my bed and holds the photos amid us so I cant see either them or him. On my slog, with my pencil I ask Manus in makeup to show me . When I was little, we raised Doberman puppies,” he says from behind the photos. â€Å"And when a puppy is about six months old you get its ears and tail cropped. Its the style for those dogs. You go to a motel where a man travels from state to state cutting the ears and tails off thousands of Doberman puppies or drawers or bull terriers. ” On my stray with my pencil, I write: your point being? And I wave this in his direction. â€Å"The point is whoever cuts your ears off is the one youll hate for the rest of your life,” he says. â€Å"You dont want your regular veterinarian to do the labor so you pay a stranger. Still looking at picture after picture, Manus says, â€Å"Thats the understanding I cant show you these. ” well-nighwhere outside the hospital, in a motel room full of bloody towels with his tool box of knives and needles, or driving down the highway to his next victim, or kneeling over a dog, drugged and cut up in a dirty bathtub, is the man a million dogs must hate. Sitting next to my bed, Manus says, â€Å"You just need to register your cover-girl dreams. ” The fashion photographer inside my head, yells: Give me pity. Flash. Give me another chance. Flash. Thats what I did before the accident.Call me a big liar, but before the accident I told people I was a college student. If you tell folks youre a model, they shut down. Your being a model will mean theyre networking with some lower life form. They start using baby talk. They dumb down. But if you tell folks youre a college student, folks are so impressed. You can be a student in anything and not have to know anything. Just say toxicology or nautical biokinesis, and the person youre talking to will change the subject to himself. If this doesnt work, mention the neural synapses of embryotic pigeons. It used to be I was a real college student.I have about xvi hundred credits toward an undergraduate degree in personal fitness training. What I hear from my parents is that I could be a doctor by now. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, God. There was a time when Evie and me went out to dance clubs and interdict and men would wait outside the ladies room door to catch us. Guys would say they were roll a television commercial. The guy would give me a business card and ask what agency I was with. There was a time when my mom came to visit. My mom smokes, and the first afternoon I came home from a shoot, she held out a matchbook and said, â€Å"Whats the meaning of this? She said, â€Å"Please tell me youre not as big a slut as your poor dead brother. ” In the matchbook was a guys name I didnt know and a cry number. â€Å"This isnt the only one I found,” Mom said. â€Å"What are you running here? ” I dont smoke. I tell her that. These matchbooks pile up because Im too polite not to take them and Im too frugal to just throw them away. Thats why it takes a whole kitchen drawer to hold them, all these men I cant remember and their tel ephone numbers. Jump to no day special in the hospital, just outside the duty of the hospital patois therapist.The nurse was leading me around by my elbow for exercise, and as we came around this one corner, just inside the open charge service doorway, boom, Brandy Alexander was just so there, bright in a seated Princess Alexander pose, in an iridescent Vivienne Westwood cat suit changing colors with her every move. Vogue on location. The fashion photographer inside my head, yelling: Give me wonder, baby. Flash. Give me amazement. Flash. The nomenclature therapist said, â€Å"Brandy, you can raise the chuck of your voice if you raise your laryngeal cartilage. Its that snap off in your throat you feel going up as you sing wage increase scales. She said, â€Å"If you can keep your voice-box raised high in your throat, your voice should stay between a G and a middle C. Thats about 160 Hertz. ” Brandy Alexander and the way she looked off the rest of the world into real istic reality. She changed color from every new angle. She dark green with my one step. Red with my next. She turned silver and gold and then she was dropped behind us, gone. â€Å"Poor, sad misguided thing,” Sister Katherine said, and she squabble on the concrete floor. She looked at me craning my neck to see back down the hall, and she asked if I had any family. I wrote: yeah, theres my gay brother but hes dead fromAIDS. And she says, â€Å"Well, thats for the best, then, isnt it? ” Jump to the calendar week after Manuss last visit, last meaning final, when Evie drops by the hospital. Evie looks at the glossies and talks to God and Jesus Christ. â€Å"You know,” Evie tells me across a weed of Vogues, and Glamour magazines in her lap she brings me, â€Å"I talked to the agency and they said that if we re-do your portfolio theyll consider taking you back for hand work. ” Evie means a hand model, modeling cocktail rings and rhombus tennis bracelets and shit. Like I want to hear this. I cant talk. All I can eat is liquids.Nobody will look at me. Im invisible. All I want is somebody to ask me what happened. Then, Ill get on with my life. Evie tells the stack of magazines, â€Å"I want you to come live with me at my house when you get out. ” She unzips her canvas bag on the edge of my bed and goes into it with both hands. Evie says, â€Å"Itll be fun. Youll see. I hate living all by my lonesome. ” And says, â€Å"Ive already moved your things into my spare bedroom. ” Still in her bag, Evie says, â€Å"Im on my way to a shoot. Any chance you have any agency vouchers you can lend me? ” On my go ballistic with my pencil, I write: is that my pinafore oure wearing? And I wave the pad in her face. â€Å"Yeah,” she says, â€Å"but I knew you wouldnt mind. ” I write: but its a size six. I write: and youre a size nine. â€Å"Listen,” Evie says. â€Å"My call is for two oclock. Why dont I st op by some time when youre in a bust mood? ” Talking to her watch, she says, â€Å"Im so sorry things had to go this way. It wasnt all of it anybodys fault. ” Every day in the hospital goes like this: Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Sister Katherine move in between. On television is one network running nothing but infomercials all day and all night, and there we are, Evie and me, together.We got a raft of bucks. For the snack manufacturing plant thing, we do these big celebrity spokesmodel smiles, the ones where you make your face a big space heater. Were wearing these sequined dresses that when you get them under a spotlight, the dress flashes like a million reporters taking your picture. So glamorous. Im standing there in this twenty-pound dress, doing this big smile and dropping animal wastes into the Plexiglas funnel on top of the Num Num Snack Factory. This thing just poops out little canapes like crazy, and Evie has to wade out into the studio audience and get folks to eat the canapes.Folks will eat anything to get on television. Then, off camera, Manus goes, â€Å"Lets go sailing. ” And I go, â€Å"Sure. ” It was so stupid, my not knowing what was happening all along. Jump to Brandy on a congregation chair just inside the office of the speech therapist, shaping her fingernails with the scratch pad from a book of matches. Her long legs could squeeze a motorcycle in half, and the well-grounded minimum of her is shrink wrapped in leopard-print stretch terry just screaming to get out. The speech therapist says, â€Å" go your glottis partially open as you speak. Its the way Marilyn Monroe sang â€Å"Happy Birthday” to electric chair Kennedy.It makes your breath bypass your vocal chords for a more feminine, helpless quality. ” The nurse leads me past in my cardboard slippers, my tight bandages and deep funk, and Brandy Alexander looks up at the last possible instant and winks. God should be able to wink that good. Lik e somebody taking your picture. Give me joy. Give me fun. Give me love. Flash. Angels in heaven should blow kisses the way Brandy Alexander does and lights up the rest of my week. Back in my room, I write: who is she? â€Å"No one you should have any truck with,” the nurse says. â€Å"Youll have problems enough as it is. but who is she? I write. â€Å"If you can believe it,” the nurse says, â€Å"that one is someone different every week. ” Its after that Sister Katherine starts matchmaking. To save me from Brandy Alexander, she offers me the lawyer without a nose. She offers a peck climbing dentist whose fingers and facial features are eaten down to little hard illumination bumps by frostbite. A missionary with dark patches of some tropical fungus just under his skin. A mechanic who leaned over a battery the moment it exploded and the acid left his lips and cheeks gone and his yellow teeth showing in a permanent snarl.I look at the nuns wedding ring and writ e: i guess you got the last really buff guy. The whole time I was in the hospital, no way could I fall in love. I just couldnt go there yet. cool off for less. I didnt want to process through anything. I didnt want to pick up any pieces. Lower my expectations. Get on with my less-than life. I didnt want to feel better about being still alive. come out compensating. I just wanted my face fixed, if that was possible, which it wasnt. When its time to reintroduce me to solid foods, their words again, its pureed chicken and strained carrots. Baby foods. Everything mashed or pulverized or low-down.You are what you eat. The nurse brings me the personal classified ads from a newsletter. Sister Katherine peers down her nose and through her glasses to read: Guys seeking slim, adventurous girls for fun and romance. And, yes, its true, not one single guy specifically excludes hideous mutilated girls with maturement medical bills. Sister Katherine tells me, â€Å"These men you can write to in prison dont need to know how you really look. ” Its just too much trouble to try and explain my feelings to her in writing. Sister Katherine reads me the singles columns while I spoon up my bash beef. She offers arsonists. Burglars. Tax cheats.She says, â€Å"You probably dont want to date a rapist, not right off. Nobodys that desperate. ” amid the lonely men behind bars for armed robbery and second-degree manslaughter, she stops to ask whats the matter. She takes my hand and talks to the name on my shaping bracelet, such a hand model I am already, cocktail rings, plastic I. D. bracelets so beautiful even a bride of Christ cant take her eyes off them. She says, â€Å"Whatre you feeling? ” This is hilarious. She says, â€Å"Dont you want to fall in love? ” The photographer in my head says: Give me patience. Flash. Give me control. Flash. The situation is I have half a face.Inside my bandages, my face still bleeds tiny little spots of blood onto the w ads of cotton. One doctor, the one making rounds every morning who checks my dressing, he says my wound is still weeping. Thats his word. I still cant talk. I have no career. I can only eat baby food. Nobody will ever look at me like Ive won a big prize ever again. nothing, I write on my pad. nothings wrong. â€Å"You havent mourned,” Sister Katherine says. â€Å"You need to have a good cry and then get on with your life. Youre being too calm about this. ” I write: dont make me laugh, my face, I write, the doctor sez my wound will weep.Still, at least somebody had noticed. This whole time, I was calm. I was the picture of calm. I never, never panicked. I saw my blood and snot and teeth splashed all over the dashboard the moment after the accident, but fad is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an release room. You feel really silly. The instant the accident happened, I knew I would die if I didnt take the next exit o ff the freeway, turn right on north occidental coupled States Gower, go twelve blocks, and turn into the La Paloma Memorial Hospital Emergency style parking lot. I parked. I took my keys and my bag and I walked.The glass doors slid aside before I could see myself reflected in them. The crowd inside, all the people hold with broken legs and choking babies, they all slid aside, too, when they saw me. aft(prenominal) that, the intravenous morphine. The tiny operating room manicure scissors cut my dress up. The flesh-tone little patch panties. The police photos. The detective, the one who searched my car for bone fragments, the guy whod seen all those people get their heads cut off in half-open car windows, he comes back one day and says theres nothing left to find. Birds, seagulls, maybe magpies, too.They got into the car where it was parked at the hospital, through the broken window. The magpies ate all of what the detective calls the soft tissue evidence. The cram they probably carried away. â€Å"You know, miss,” he says, â€Å"to break them on rocks. For the marrow. ” On the pad, with the pencil, I write: ha, ha, ha. Jump to just before my bandages come off, when a speech therapist says I should get down on my knees and thank God for leaving my tongue in my head, unharmed. We sit in her cinderblock office with half the room filled by her steel desk between us, and the therapist, she teaches me how a ventriloquist makes a dummy talk.You see, the ventriloquist cant let you see his mouth move. He cant really use his lips, so he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth to make words. instead of a window, the therapist has a bank note of a kitten covered in spaghetti above the words: Accentuate the supportive She says that if you cant make a certain sound without using your lips, substitute a similar sound, the therapist says; for instance, use the sound eth instead of the sound eff. The context in which you use the sound will make y ou understandable. â€Å"Id kind of be thishing,” the therapist says. hen go thishing, I write. thank you. And then I ran away. This is after my new cotton crepe sundress arrives from Espre. Sister Katherine stood over me all morning with a curling iron until my hair was this big butter creme frosting hairdo, this big off-the-face hairdo. Then Evie brought some make up and did my eyes. I put on my aristocratic new dress and couldnt wait to start sweating. This whole spend, I hadnt seen a mirror or if I did I never crystalised the reflection was me. I hadnt seen the police photos. When Evie and Sister Katherine were done, I say, â€Å"De foil iowa overcast geoff. And Evie says, â€Å"Youre welcome. ” Sister Katherine says, â€Å"But you just ate lunch. ” Its clear enough, nobody understands me here. I say, â€Å"Kong wimmer nay pee golly. ” And Evie says, â€Å"Yeah, these are your shoes, but Im not hurting them any. ” And Sister Katherine say s, â€Å"No, no mail yet, but we can write to prisoners after youve had your nap, dear. ” They left. And. I left, alone. And. How bad could it be, my face? And sometimes being mutilated can work to your advantage. All those people now with piercings and tattoos and brandings and scarification . . . What I mean is, attention is attention.Going outside is the first time I feel Ive missed something. I mean, a whole summer had just disappeared. All those pool parties and fabrication around on metal-flake speed-flesh-tone lumps of ice in the freezer bin. I dig around until I find the biggest washout, and I buckle it up baby style in its yellow plastic netting. I haul myself up to the front of the store, right through the check stands, and nobody stops me. Nobodys even looking. Theyre all reading those tabloid newspapers as if theres hidden gold there. â€Å"Sejgfn di ofo utnbg,” I say. â€Å"Nei wucj iswisn sdnsud. ” Nobody looks. EVSF UYYB IUH,” I say in my best ventriloquist voice. Nobody even talks. Maybe just the clerks talk. Do you have two pieces of I. D.? theyre request people writing checks. â€Å"Fgjrn iufnv si vuv,” I say. â€Å"Xidi cniwuw sis sacnc! ” Then it is, its right then a boy says, â€Å"Look! ” Everybody whos not looking and not talking stops breathing. The little boy says, â€Å"Look Mom, look over there! That monsters thieving food! ” Everybody gets all shrunken up with embarrassment. All their heads drop down into their shoulders the way theyd look on crutches. Theyre reading tabloid headlines harder than ever.Monster girlfriend Steals Festive Holiday Bird And there I am, deep fried in my cotton crepe dress, a twenty-five pound turkey in my arms, the turkey sweating, my dress almost transparent. My nipples are rock kind is wearing this sleeveless Versace kind of tank dress with this seasons overwhelming feel of despair and corrupt resignation. Body informed yet humiliated. Buoyant but crippled. The queen supreme is the most beautiful anything Ive ever seen so I just panache there to watch from the doorway. â€Å"Men,” the therapist says, â€Å" assay the adjective when they speak. The therapist says, â€Å"For instance, a man would say, ‘You are so entrancing, today. ” Brandy is so attractive you could chop her head off and put it on blue velvet in the window at Tiffanys and somebody would buy it for a million dollars. â€Å"A woman would say, ‘You are so attractive, today,” the therapist says. â€Å"Now, you, Brandy. You say it. Stress the modifier, not the adjective. ” Brandy Alexander looks her Burning Blueberry eyes at me in the doorway and says, â€Å"Posing girl, you are so Godawful ugly. Did you let an elephant sit on your face or what? ” Brandys voice, I barely hear what she says.At that instant, I just adore Brandy so much. Everything about her feels as good as being beautiful and looking in a mirror. Brandy is my instant royal family. My only everything to live for. I go, â€Å"Cfoieb svns ois,” and I pile the cold, wet turkey into the speech therapists lap, her sitting pinned under twenty-five pounds of dead totality in her roll-around leather desk chair. From closer down the hallway, Sister Katherine is yelling, â€Å"Yoohoo! ” â€Å"Mriuvn wsi sjaoi aj,” I go, and wheel the therapist and her chair into the hallway. I say, â€Å"Jownd wine sm fdo dcncw. The speech therapist, shes smiling up at me and says, â€Å"You dont have to thank me, its just my job is all. ” The nuns arrived with the man and his I. V. stand, a new man with no skin or crushed features or all his teeth bashed out, a man whod be perfect for me. My one true love. My deformed or mutilated or diseased prince charming. My unhappily ever after. My hideous future. The monstrous rest of my life. I slam the office door and lock myself inside with Brandy Alexander. Theres the speech th erapists notebook on her desk, and I grab it. save me, I write, and wave it in Brandys face.I write: please. Jump to Brandy Alexanders hands. This always starts with her hands. Brandy Alexander puts a hand out, one of those hairy pigknuckled hands with the veins of her arm crowded and squeezed to the elbow with bangle bracelets of every color. Just by herself, Brandy Alexander is such a shift in the beauty standard that no one thing stands out. Not even you. â€Å"So, girl,” Brandy says. â€Å"What all happened to your face? ” Birds. I write: birds, birds ate my face. And I start to laugh. Brandy doesnt laugh. Brandy says, â€Å"Whats that supposed to mean? ” And Im still laughing. was driving on the freeway, I write. And Im still laughing. someone shot a 30-caliber bullet from a rifle. the bullet tore my entire jawbone off my face. Still laughing. i came to the hospital, I write. i did not die. Laughing. they couldnt put my jaw back because seagulls had eaten i t. And I stop laughing. â€Å"Girl, your handwriting is terrible,” Brandy says. â€Å"Now tell me what else. ” And I start to cry. what else, I write, is i have to eat baby food. i cant talk. i have no career. i have no home. my fiance left me. nobody will look at me. all my clothes, my best friend ruined them.Im still crying. â€Å"What else? ” Brandy says. â€Å"Tell me everything. ” a boy, I write. a little boy in the supermarket called me a monster. Those Burning Blueberry eyes look right at me the way no eyes have all summer. â€Å"Your perception is all fucked up,” Brandy says. â€Å"All you can talk about is trash thats already happened. ” She says, â€Å"You cant base your life on the past or the present. ” Brandy says, â€Å"You have to tell me about your future. ” Brandy Alexander, she stands up on her gold lame leg-hold trap shoes. The queen supreme takes a beautify compact out of her clutch bag and naps the compact open to look at the mirror inside. â€Å"That therapist,” those Plumbago lips say, â€Å"the speech therapist can be so stupid about these situations. ” The big jeweled arm muscles of Brandy sit me down in the seat still hot from her ass, and she holds the compact so I can see inside. sort of of face powder, its full of white capsules. Where there should be a mirror, theres a close up photo of Brandy Alexander smiling and looking terrific. â€Å"Theyre Vicodins, dear,” she says. â€Å"Its the Marilyn Monroe school of medicine where enough of any drug will cure any disease. ” She says, â€Å"Dig in.Help yourself. ” The thin and ageless goddess that she is, Brandys picture smiles up at me over a sea of painkillers. This is how I met Brandy Alexander. This is how I found the strength not to get on with my former life. This is how I found the courage not to pick up the same old pieces. â€Å"Now,” those Plumbago lips say, â€Å"You are going to tell me your story like you just did. Write it all down. Tell that story over and over. Tell me your sad-assed story all night. ” That Brandy queen points a long bony finger at me. â€Å"When you understand,” Brandy says, â€Å"that what youre telling is just a story.It isnt happening anymore. When you realize the story youre telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan,” Brandy says, â€Å"then well figure out who youre going to be. ” CHAPTER F O U R Jump to the Canadian border. Jump to the three of us in a rented Lincoln Town Car, waiting to take aim south from Vancouver, British Columbia, into the fall in States, waiting, with Signore Romeo in the drivers seat, waiting with Brandy next to him in the front, waiting, with me alone in the back. â€Å"The police have microphones,” Brandy tells us.The plan is if we make it through the border, well drive south to Seattle where there are nightclubs and dance clubs where gogo boys and go-go girls will line up to buy the pockets of my purse clean. We have to be steady because the police, they have microphones on both sides of the border, coupled States and Canadian. This way, they can listen in on people waiting to cross. We could have Cuban cigars. Fresh fruit. Diamonds. Diseases. Drugs, Brandy says. Brandy, she tells us to shut up a mile before the border, and we wait in line, quiet. Brandy unwinds the yards and yards of rocade scarf around her head. Brandy, she shakes her hair down her back and ties the scarf over her shoulders to hide her torpedo cleavage. Brandy switches to simple gold earrings. She takes off her pearls and puts on a little chain with a gold cross. This is a moment before the border guard. â€Å"Your nationalities? ” the border-guard guy sitting inside his little window, behind his computer terminal with his clipboard and his blue suit behind his mirrored sunglasses, and behind his gold badge says. â €Å"Sir,” Brandy says, and her new voice is as bland and drawled out as grits without salt or butter.She says, â€Å"Sir, we are citizens of the United States of America, what used to be called the greatest agricultural on earth until the homosexuals and child pornographers†â€Å"Your name? ” says the border guy. Brandy leans across Alfa to look up at the border guy, â€Å"My husband,” she says, â€Å"is an innocent man. ” â€Å"Your name, please,” he says, no doubt looking up our license plate, finding its a rental car, rented in Billings, Montana, three weeks ago, maybe even finding the truth about who we really are. Maybe finding bulletin after bulletin from all over western Canada about three nut cases stealing drugs at big houses up for ale. Maybe all this is spooling onto his computer screen, maybe none of it. You never know. â€Å"I am married,” Brandy is almost yelling to get his attention. â€Å"I am the wife of the Revere nd Scooter Alexander,” she says, still half laid across Alfas lap. â€Å"And this,” she says and draws the invisible line from her smile to Alfa, â€Å"this is my son-in-law, Seth Thomas. ” Her big hand flies toward me in the backseat. â€Å"This,” she says, â€Å"is my daughter, Bubba-Joan. ” Some days, I hate it when Brandy changes our lives without warning. Sometimes, twice in one day, you have to live up to a new identity.A new name. reinvigorated relationships. Handicaps. Its hard to remember who I started this road trip being. No doubt, this is the kind of focussing the constantly mutating AIDS virus must feel. â€Å"Sir? ” the border guy says to Seth, at a time Alfa Romeo, formerly Chase Manhattan, formerly Nash Rambler, formerly come up Fargo, formerly Eberhard Faber. The guard says, â€Å"Sir, are you convey any purchases back with you into t\r\n'