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prep. curtis sittenfeld
...this book summoned interlochen for me, over and over and over:
on boarding school:
"My present world was always, in it's mildness, a little dissapointing. I've never since Ault been in a place where everyone
wants the same things; minus a universal currency, it's not always clear to me what I myself want. And anyway, no one's watching
to see whether or not you get what you're after--if at Ault I'd felt mostly unnoticed, I'd also, at certain moments, felt
scrutinized. After Ault, I was unaccounted for.....I never paid as close attention to my life or anyone else's as I did then.
How was I able to pay such attention? I remember myself as often unhappy at Ault, and yet my unhappiness was so alert and
expectant; really, it was, in its energy, not that different from happiness."
on boys:
"The interest I felt in certain guys then confused me, because it wasn't romantic, but I wasn't sure what else it might be.
But now I know: I wanted to take up people's time making jokes, to tease the dean in front of the entire school, to call him
by a nickname. What I wanted was to be a cocky high-school boy, so fucking sure of my place in the world."
on friendship like that:
"Years later, I heard a minister at a wedding describe marriage as cutting sorrow in half and doubling joy, and what I thought
of was not the guy I was seeing then, not even some perfect, imaginary husband I might meet later; I thought immediately of
Martha."
on what we gain:
"He made me ready, as Conchita had once made me ready for a freindship with Martha; there are people we treat wrong, and later,
we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships,
and I would like to think it all evens out--surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people."
on flirting:
"But what strikes me now is that I had no idea how much I'd give away in the service of flirting. This was just the beginning!
For years for years, there would be so many things I'd do for a guy that I wouldn't do in my usual life--jokes I wouldn't
normally tell, places I wouldn't normally go, clothes I wouldn't normally wear, drinks I wouldn't normally drink, food I wouldn't
normally eat or food I would normally eat but wouldn't eat in front of him. I am twenty-four, and I and the guy I like are
with a group of people and the person driving is drunk and the seat belts are buried in the seat and I ride along anyway because,
apparently, what I want from the guy is worth more than everything else I want or believe. It must be, right?"
lorrie moore.various works.
"She glared at him and tried not to cry. She hadn't loved him enough and he had sensed it. She hadn't really loved him at
all, not really. But she had liked him a lot! So it still seemed unfair. A bone in her opened up, gleaming and pale, and she
held it to the light and spoke from it:I want to know one thing. She paused, not really for effect, but it had one.
Did you have oral sex?" (willing)
"It is like having a book out from the library.
it is like constantly having a book out from the library."
(how to be an other woman)
"That had been in Agnes's mishmash decade, after college. She had lived improvisationally then, getting this job or that,
in restaurants or offices, taking a class or two, not thinking too far ahead, negotiating the precariousness and subway flus
and scrimping for an occasional manicure or a play. Such a life required much exaggerated self-esteem. It engaged gross quantitities
of hope and despair and set them wildly side by side, like a Third World country of the heart. Her days grew messy with contradictions.
When she went for walks, for her health, cinders would spot her cheecks and soot would settle in the furled leaf of each ear.
Her shoes became unspeakable. Her blouses darkened in a breeze, and a blast of bus exhaust might linger in her hair for hours.
Finally, her old asthma returned and, with a hacking , incressant cough, she gave up." (agnes of iowa)
"Sidra. This is not right! You need to go out with someone really smart for a change."
"I've been out with smart. I've been out with someone who had two Ph.D's. We spent all of our time in bed with the light on,
proofreading his vita." She sighed. "Every little thing he'd ever done, every little, little, little. I mean, have you ever
seen a vita?"
(willing)
"What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things
they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and--let's be frank--fun,
fun, fun! There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves,
enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life's
efforts bring you. The mystery is all."(people like that are the only people here)
"The Mother does not know how to be one of these other mothers, with their blond hair and sweatpants and sneakers and determined
pleasentness. She does not think that she can be anything similar. She does not feel remotely like them. She knows, for instance,
too many people in Greenwich Village. She mail-orders oysters and tiramusu from a shop in SoHo. She is close friends with
four actual homosexuals. Her husband is asking her to Take Notes. Where do these women get their sweatpants? She will find
out." (people like that are the only people here)
"To Ruth, it seemed so sad and true, just like life: someone assumed the form of a great love of your life, only to reveal
himself later as an alien who had to get on a spaceship and go back to his planet. Certainly it had been true for Terence.
Terence had gotten on a spaceship and gone back long ago. Although, of course, in real life you seldom saw the actual spaceship.
Usually, there was just a lot of drinking, mumbling, and some passing out in the family room." (real estate)
"Sunday is always a bad day. A sort of gray purgatory that resembles a bus station with broken vending machines. God is dead,
and denied the last word on things, is acting like a real baby. Sunday is some sort of revenge. 'And on the Seventh Day he
was arrested,' Gerard likes so say." (anagrams)
"We are gasping, quiet, in the dark, and then the wash of violet and night tornadoes through my legs and up behind my eyes,
plumbs and spirals my spine, and I know if I can keep feeling like this I'll be okay, if I can feel like this I'm not dead,
I won't die. Life is sad. Here is someone." (anagrams)
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