Coffee, Chaos, and Cuss Words: Life Through The Eyes Of A Former Army Interrogator & Others By: Kevin Dirmann A disabled combat veteran in a world where we all experience or have felt alone, misunderstood… or as if they are alone in their thoughts and feelings… This is a collection of the real life experiences and the perspectives on the complexity of life through the eyes of Kevin Dirmann as well as others. Encompassing difficult and traumatic events including: the stories of war as a former Army interrogator, the struggles of PTSD, depression, childhood trauma, rape and rape survival. Know you are not alone in your experiences, struggles, and trauma. There is an entire community just like yourself for support and kinship. Our stories may differ, but we all experience and struggle the same. Additionally, Kevin Dirmann strives for the family, friends, and loved ones to gain a deeper understanding or kinship of trauma, struggle, and hardships so many experience. Most importantly, to start conversations increasing understanding between one another. With understanding comes empathy, support, and healing. Our world becomes bigger, we gain empathy and understanding for those we don’t know. This is an opportunity of personal growth and understanding within ourselves and the world that surrounds us.
Shows how analogy-making pervades human thought at all levels, influencing the choice of words and phrases in speech, providing guidance in unfamiliar situations, and giving rise to great acts of imagination.
Welcome to the Printer Club, a gathering of unlikely souls bound by their love for the art of printing. Our story unfolds in a world where the rhythmic click of a dot matrix printer is music to the ears, where ink cartridges are treasured relics, and where a good printer jam can be a source of both frustration and amusement. Meet Arthur, the club's president, a man whose love for vintage technology knows no bounds. He can tell you the history of every printer ever made and could probably assemble one blindfolded (though he'd prefer you didn't ask him to). There's Eleanor, a freelance graphic designer who yearns for a simpler time. She's got a thing for vintage typewriters and can tap out a sonnet faster than you can say "Courier New." Brian, the struggling novelist, finds solace in the precision of laser printers. He believes that a well-formatted document is the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe. And then there's Janice, the retired schoolteacher with a knack for troubleshooting even the most baffling printing issues. If your printer is acting up, Janice is your woman. But their lives are thrown into disarray when Alistair joins the club. Alistair is a man shrouded in mystery. He arrives with a sleek, state-of-the-art printer that seems to have a mind of its own. He boasts of an encyclopedic knowledge of printing technology that makes even Arthur raise an eyebrow. Is Alistair a genuine printing enthusiast, or is he harboring a secret? Join us as we delve into the quirky world of the Printer Club, where every meeting is a comedic adventure, where the line between reality and absurdity blurs, and where the bonds of friendship are forged in the shared passion for the art of printing.
Enjoy the ride of your life with the Wall Street Journal bestseller None of us can expect to get through life without any challenges. Life isn’t always a constant daydream of unbridled pleasure and happiness. But that doesn’t mean you can’t approach everything with some zing – a big dose of positive energy is what you need to feel great, be successful and love life! And the international bestselling The Energy Bus can help you live your life in a positive, forward-thinking way. Learn the 10 secrets that will help you overcome adversity and harness the power of positive, infectious energy, so that you can create your own success. International bestselling author Jon Gordon draws on his experience of working with thousands of leaders and teams to provide insights, actionable strategies and positive energy. The Energy Bus: Shows you how to ditch negativity and infuse your life with positive energy Provides tools to build a positive team and culture Contains insights from working with some of the world’s largest companies Foreword by Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-Minute Manager
The bestselling authors of Cat and Nat’s Mom Truths go deeper than ever before with outrageous revelations and relatable stories that let every mom know she's not alone. Remember when you were first expecting, and it seemed like every woman on the planet who had ever given birth felt the need to warn you? Your life is about to change forever! With seven kids between them, Cat and Nat know a thing or two about the way motherhood turns your life upside down. Fiercely committed to dismantling the pressure to be perfect, they’ve connected with their audience by sharing their completely real take on the stress, guilt, and joy of being a mom. One might even say they’ve made a brand of oversharing. In their first book, they shared short dispatches and advice from the trenches. Now, Cat and Nat have invited the legion of moms who love them to share their own deepest darkest parenting secrets, and use those to kick off their own stories, going deeper about big topics like guilt, balancing career with motherhood, and body image. Cat dives into the Bachelor-inspired trend of taking your kids on “one-on-one’s” and shakes off the guilt when she doesn't have the time/energy/helicopter to pull it off. Nat explains why her husband is completely off base when he “romantically” refers to her as his best friend (obviously, Cat already fills that role!). And Cat and Nat finally share the skincare routine that a lot of you have been asking about (it involves the car mirror and severely delayed deodorant application). These moments of truth are wildly funny, but also universal and oh-so-relatable. Grab a weighted blanket and curl up with this book for the comfort and camaraderie every mom needs.
“A highly personal, richly informed and culturally wide-ranging meditation on the loss of meaning in our times and on pathways to rediscovering it.” —Gabor Maté, MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction A neuroanthropologist maps out a revolutionary new practice—Hedonic Engineering—that combines the best of neuroscience and optimal psychology. It’s an intensive program of breathing, movement, and sexuality that mends trauma, heightens inspiration and tightens connections—helping us wake up, grow up, and show up for a world that needs us all. This is a book about a big idea. And the idea is this: Slowly over the past few decades, and now suddenly, all at once, we’re suffering from a collapse in Meaning. Fundamentalism and nihilism are filling that vacuum, with consequences that affect us all. In a world that needs us at our best, diseases of despair, tribalism, and disaster fatigue are leaving us at our worst. It’s vital that we regain control of the stories we’re telling because they are shaping the future we’re creating. To do that, we have to remember our deepest inspiration, heal our pain and apathy, and connect to each other like never before. If we can do that, we’ve got a shot at solving the big problems we face. And if we can’t? Well, the dustbin of history has swallowed civilizations older and fancier than ours. This book is divided into three parts. The first, Choose Your Own Apocalypse, takes a look at our current Meaning Crisis--where we are today, why it’s so hard to make sense of the world, what might be coming next, and what to do about it. It also makes a case that many of our efforts to cope, whether anxiety and denial, or tribalism and identity politics, are likely making things worse. The middle section, The Alchemist Cookbook, applies the creative firm IDEO’s design thinking to the Meaning Crisis. This is where the book gets hands on--taking a look at the strongest evolutionary drivers that can bring about inspiration, healing, and connection. From breathing, to movement, sexuality, music, and substances--these are the everyday tools to help us wake up, grow up, and show up. AKA--how to blow yourself sky high with household materials. And the best part? They’re accessible, by anyone anywhere, no middleman required. Transcendence democratized. The final third of the book, Ethical Cult Building, focuses on the tricky nature of putting these kinds of experiences into gear and into culture—because, anytime in the past when we’ve figured out combinations of peak states and deep healing, we’ve almost always ended up with problematic culty communities. Playing with fire has left a lot of people burned. This section lays out a roadmap for sparking a thousand fires around the world--each one unique and tailored to the needs and values of its participants. Think of it as an open-source toolkit for building ethical culture. In Recapture the Rapture, we’re taking radical research out of the extremes and applying it to the mainstream--to the broader social problem of healing, believing, and belonging. It’s providing answers to the questions we face: how to replace blind faith with direct experience, how to move from broken to whole, and how to cure isolation with connection. Said even more plainly, it shows us how to revitalize our bodies, boost our creativity, rekindle our relationships, and answer once and for all the questions of why we are here and what do we do now? In a world that needs the best of us from the rest of us, this is a book that shows us how to get it done.
Jessica Alexander arrived in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide as an idealistic intern, eager to contribute to the work of the international humanitarian aid community. But the world that she encountered in the field was dramatically different than anything she could have imagined. It was messy, chaotic, and difficult—but she was hooked. In this honest and irreverent memoir, she introduces readers to the realities of life as an aid worker. We watch as she manages a 24,000-person camp in Darfur, collects evidence for the Charles Taylor trial in Sierra Leone, and contributes to the massive aid effort to clean up a shattered Haiti. But we also see the alcohol-fueled parties and fleeting romances, the burnouts and self-doubt, and the struggle to do good in places that have long endured suffering. Tracing her personal journey from wide-eyed and naïve newcomer to hardened cynic and, ultimately, to hopeful but critical realist, Alexander transports readers to some of the most troubled locations around the world and shows us not only the seemingly impossible challenges, but also the moments of resilience and recovery.
A woman appears in the village, apparently with innocent intent, but it transpires that she is there for a reason, and even this reason holds a far darker secret. Peter Shortbody has a dream, and discovers that he can if he so wishes make the dream come true, but should he do so, and what will be the consequences? Out of a sad event Emily receives good news, but even the good news is hard for her to come to terms with, and Will must try to see his beloved through her uncertainty. Percival had quite accepted that his life would be with Sally, but now Louise has entered the arena of his emotions again, and thrown this aspect of his life into new chaos, and his recent actions in regard to the cult from the West – Country have serious consequences, but perhaps this is only the beginning. Victoria has her portrait painted, and is at pains to be sure how she otherwise feels toward the painter, whilst suffering another dilemma; should she tell her brother that Rebecca’s child is also his child? Meanwhile, something is found under the floorboards of Orchard House, which takes Michael on a voyage of ultimately astonishing historical discovery, and he and Elin have an announcement to make to the world. Tara continues her musical career, whilst her sister, Rosie, must decide whether her new love for Quentin and his for her will survive her telling him that she is a witch. Rebecca is forced to leave the sanctuary of the village, and an ancient curse puts her in new and mortal danger.
