Note To Self: Excellent Advice Edition

The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them--Maya Angelou

Words Of Wisdom From Caitlin Moran

The trick is, and there's a little bit of heartbreak, you have to just give up on the idea of being a princess. You have to give up on the idea of being fabulous. My kind of base position on existence is that you just have to admit you're a bit of a twat. You're a bit of a div, you're a kind of sweaty, stumpy, well-meaning idiot and you're trying your hardest, but it's just enough to be a sort of pleasant, polite person who's working quite hard and tries to be nice to the people they're nice to. We don't need to have any more ambitions than that! This whole sassiness thing – everything's got to be sarcastic, everything's got to be knowing, everything's got to be cynical. You've got to be on top of your shit twenty-four hours a day. THAT is exhausting. It's just far better to go, you know what? I'm just basically a monkey in a dress, and the best I can hope for every day is just to be nice, to smile as much as possible, to be gentle, try and be a bit understanding, work really hard, go and smell some flowers, have a cup of tea, ring your mum if you get on with her, just kind of dial it down a bit. There's a more sustainable idea of being a woman rather than feeling like you're in a fucking movie twenty-four hours a day.

From a great interview with Caitlin Moran on The Hairpin. I actually quoted the part about being a monkey in a dress at my retail job interview a few weeks ago. I guess it worked for me!

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions: Maybe It's Not Paranoia

One of the things people always say to you if you get upset is, don’t take it personally, but listen hard to what’s going on and, please, I beg you, take it personally. Understand: every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you. Underneath almost all those attacks are the words: get back, get back to where you once belonged. When Elizabeth Dole pretends that she isn’t serious about her career, that is an attack on you. The acquittal of O.J. Simpson is an attack on you. Any move to limit abortion rights is an attack on you — whether or not you believe in abortion. The fact that Clarence Thomas is sitting on the Supreme Court today is an attack on you.---Nora Ephron, 1996

The Dud Avocado--Elaine Dundy

"When did all those nightmares begin? My mind keeps going back to that Christmas vacation, sophomore year, when I had an English paper to write and spent most of my time in the Public Library. People kept mistaking me for a librarian. They kept coming up to me and asking for books and things. I thought it was maybe because I didn't wear hats and at first I was merely annoyed. Then I became frightened. I somehow became obsessed with the idea that the reason they kept mistaking me for a librarian was because that's what I really was meant to be, and instinctively they knew it. it was sheer fantasy, of course. I mean they probably asked dozens of other people as well and I just didn't notice. But it started to prey upon my mind. Then I began having this nightmare. Actually I have it so often I've even given it a name. It's called the Dreaded Librarian Dream.

It's all very vague. It takes place in a sort of vast hall, in the center of which sits a girl behind a desk, or rather a circular counter, which completely surrounds her. It's funny about that desk: I've seen it somewhere before, I know I have, although it's quite unlike any desk I've ever seen in a library. Anyway, the closer I get to this girl, the older she becomes, until she turns into a middle-aged spinster librarian. Then I see that it's me. People keep coming up to her from every direction asking her for books. They are all going somewhere. In fact it isn't a library at all, it's more like a station. Everyone is in a hurry. They are all going somewhere except for me. I'm trapped. One of the very worst aspects of this dream is that from the very first time I dreamed it I've known, within the nightmare, so to speak, that it was one I've had before--an old, old nightmare of long ago. That gives it its special, ageless, timeless, hopeless quality. When I awaken from it my space urge is upon me stronger than ever. --(198-199)

God, I Love Her

I'm 41 now which is an important crossroads for an North American lady; you either shack up or go feral. I'm training to become a wolverine.---Neko Case

Good God, The Brilliance This Week

Every Friday, The Hairpin has an advise column called "Ask A Lady." It's a rotating list of A Ladies who answer questions.

Last week's A Lady offered this in response to someone's dilemma:

Brains make thoughts like butts make poops, and none of it necessarily means anything. We get to decide what is important and true.

Words of Wisdom

I came across this great blog called Vespa Vagabond, which details the author's trip from San Francisco to New York several years back and how she planned the route, packed, and made her journey. Totally cool, right? Well, she also puts into words this feeling I have that i try to live by, and that sometimes others are really confused by.

From the site:
Even starting to talk about this has brought a lot of feelings out from different people, and overwhelmingly people my age say 'oh that's so brave, go for it', and people older than me (or people really close to me like family) express lots of concern, and say it's a really bad idea, very dangerous, etc. Did you experience any fear that maybe it really was a bad idea, or that you were taking too many risks with your life? This is kind of a hard question to frame, because really, I'm just interested in your thought process during the planning stage when everyone was weighing in with their opinion on your decision.

...As for the true, valid, compassionate concern ~ my answer to this (to others and to myself) is that "the bad things" could happen anywhere. I could wreck and lose a leg while riding in SF or even in a tiny, safe suburban neighborhood. Same with the gang rape. Same with any great fear anyone might have. Give yourself every reason to succeed with proper knowledge and confidence (not to be confused with cockiness), and then, why not go for it? Safety is an illusion. Another illusion is that you are ever not safe. I say this because the things in my life that have seemed like the worst things at the time have proven to be the things I am most grateful for. It took the separate incidents of nearly dying and having my home burn down for me to grasp this, but it's now a truth for me.

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

Scot walked in, took one look at the spiral staircase that piroutted up to the loft bedroom and the only bathroom, and he started to sweat. He unpegged his blue dufflecoat. Above the collar of his white buttoned-down shirt, Scot had knotted a shiny yellow and green scarf around his neck, something Mildred Monterosso might have worn over hair curlers. It wasn't an ascot; it was sportier than that, tomboyish, a neckerchief that made you think of bobby socks and Doris Day and the butch glamour of those platinum blondes who starred in movies with Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean--actors who became famous for their smouldering looks, which was the popular way of saying Doris worked liked a wet blanket on their passions.

You're a decent person. You're among friends. What do you say to a boy in a neckerchief?

Sam didn't say anything. He had a policy of not embarrassing Scot in public.

I didn't say anything. I had a policy of not embarrassing Sam in public, and after we'd planted Mildred's bulbs and showered, I had inspected Scot's bedroom for neatness, and Sam was supposed to approve Scot's outfit for the evening.

Joan and Greg didn't say anything, either. Joan had a policy: When other people's kids do something bad or humiliating in public, you pretend not to notice. It is just as rewarding to gloat later on, in private.

Besides, Hank was cranky.

Robert and Danny were in the worst position. This was their first physical encounter with Scot, which for most people turned into an encounter session with themselves. You wanted to laugh, only you didn't want to be the person who laughed at the girlie boy. You figured he wanted to be noticed, to be complimented in his attire, only you knew that was not really the history of your own fashion disasters; you yourself had once worn that flashy silk shirt with the large, floppy collar, and you'd kept your coat on at the party.

That was just the first split second in the atomic reaction.

--Breakfast with Scot, Michael Downing, (71)

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

From Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married by Marian Keyes:

"So what if my ideal man was a selfish, dependable, unfaithful, loyal, treacherous, loving flirt who thought the world of me, never called when he said he would, made me feel like the most special woman in the universe and flirted with all my friends? Was it my fault that I wanted a Schrodinger's cat of a boyfriend, a man who was several directly conflicting things simultaneously?" (9)

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

From Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn:

They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to wake up to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss. (64)

The children, too, hovered about, little blond ghosts trapped in a limbo between indolence and stupidity. (89)

I alsways feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me. Oh, yes, and one time she bought me lotion with vitamin E. (96)

Like all rural towns, Wind Gap has an obsession with machinery. Most homes own a car and a half for every occupant (the half being an antique collectible, or an old piece of crap on blocks, depending on the income bracket), plus boats, Jet Skis, scooters, tractors, and among the elite of Wind Gap, golf carts, which younger kids without licenses use to whip around town. Technically illegal, but no one ever stops them. (128)

"Ah, well, being conflicted means you can live a shallow life without copping to being a shallow person." (132)

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women in my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny hip. Women get consumed. Not surprising, considering the shear amount of traffic a woman's body experiences. Tampons and speculums. Cocks, fingers, vibrators, and more, between the legs from behind, in the mouth. Men love to put things inside women don't they? Cucumbers and bananas and bottles, a string of pearls, a Magic Marker, a fist. Once a guy wanted to wedge a Walkie-Talkie inside me. I declined. (204)

My own mother had been a mother's aide, a coveted, elite position in the school that only women who didn't work could do: swoop into classrooms twice a week and help organize arts, crafts, music, and for girls on Thursdays, sewing. At least in my day it had been sewing. By now it was probably something more gender neutral and modern. Computer usage or beginners' microwaving. (215)

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way.

--Dark Places, Gillian Flynn (191)

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

"Being easily freaked out comes with its own special skill set: you develop subtle tricks to work around it, make sure people don't notice. Pretty soon, if you're a fast learner, you can get through the day looking almost exactly like a normal human being."


The Likeness, Tana French (8)

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

The list of what women wanted was growing longer and more complicated the more she thought about it. The first rule of thumb, though--and this wasn't a bad thing:
1. What women wanted was always in flux. There was always something more, something new, something different to want. In her twenties, for example, Every Woman wanted to couple, to share, and if she was successful in that department, she wanted, by the time she was forty, to be left alone to watch Comedy Central.
2. She did want to be the right woman for her man, easier said than done, but still, a goal. It was sad if the situation arose that she irritated him, belittled him, or henpecked him. Because she absolutely wanted to honor who he was.
3. She wanted dominion in specific areas but with the knowledge that he she was way off course he would steer her straight without ever bragging about it or even acknowledging his superior navigation abilities.
4. She wanted a respective and attentive and sympathetic audience, a man with advanced listening skills but not so advanced that he seemed like a phony or a girlfriend. His skills were male, his own, and empowering.
5. She wanted genuine appreciation for her creativity, her flexibility, and her generosity. In addition, she wanted her own genuine appreciation for his talents.
6.When it turned out he had very few of the qualities on the wishlist, and if the Serenity Prayer didn't work, that old saw about accepting the things you cannot change, then women wanted the perils of freedom.

Jane Hamilton, Laura Rider's Masterpiece, pg 211-212.

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

"I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn't be a staring contest."--Frank Sinatra

From The Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

I'll post a review of it later, but Moonlight Downs runs away with this category. My god, the descriptions:

"You wouldn't consider staying with your old man for a while?"

"I just come from the Jenny, Tom. I love old Jack, but do I want to spend my time sitting on top of a gold mine in the middle of a salt pan with him and his trained gorillas? I don't think so."

"You could come with us, back into Bluebush..."

"Bluebush!"

He appeared to be offended by the look of alarm that shot across my face. I was, I supposed, insulting the place he'd chosen to make his home. But Bluebush! What a dump! The sort of town where it's easier to buy a silencer than a decent coffee. When we visited town, I'd never leave my father's side: as a little black kid, you could feel the antagonism radiating out from the whitefellers when you passed them in the street.

And what a mob they were themselves. A bigger collection of dickheads and drop-kicks you'd have to travel a long way to find: boozers, bruisers and substance-abusers, rockjaw Germans and lockjaw Yorkshiremen, grease monkeys and gamblers, meatworkers, meat-heads, missionaries, maniacs, men on the run, men on the dole, men on the Witness Protection Program, Peddlers, pushers, whores and bores, desperadoes of every denomination. You name it, they were there, drawn to the town like flies on a carcass.

"Tom, the only way you could get me to go and live in Bluebush would be if you were to knock me out, handcuff me and throw me into the back of your paddy wagon." (46)

From The Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

Taken from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Junior (the narrator) and his new friend Gordy have been talking and Gordy just explained the 3 level reading method. Oh, and they just went to the high school's library.

"What's your point?"
"The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know."
Wow. That was a huge idea.
Any town, even one as small as Reardon, was a place of mystery. And that meant Wellpinit, the smaller, Indian town, was also a place of mystery.
"Okay, so it's like each of these books is a mystery. Every book is a mystery. And if you read all of the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you keep on learning so much more you need to learn."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Gordy said. "Now doesn't that give you a boner?"
"I am rock hard," I said.
Gordy blushed.
"Well, I don't mean boner in the sexual sense," Gordy said. "I don't think you should run through life with a real erect penis. But you should approach each book--you should approach life--with the real possibility that you might get a metaphorical boner at any point." (97)

From The Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

I was thinking about this whole Kerry Talk Story! thing that I do and recalled this quotation from Nora Ephron's Heartburn:

Vera said: "Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story?"
So I told her why:
Because if I tell the story, I control the version.
Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.
Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much.
Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it. (176-177)

I think I first picked up this book when I was 11 or 12--totally did not get much of it, but I did take that passage to heart. I turn everything into a story. I think sometimes it seems as if I don't take things seriously or feel deeply, but I do. Telling stories is a defense mechanism. There's not much I can control in life, but by telling stories I control others by amusing them and perhaps keeping them from taking too close a look at me.

From The Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

Taken from Lillian Hellman's introduction to the 1964 collection of Dashiell Hammet's short stories and shorter novels, The Big Knockover:

"I know as little about the nature of romantic love as I did at eighteen, but I do know about the deep pleasure of continuing interest, the excitement of wanting to know what somebody else thinks, will do, will not do, the tricks played and unplayed, the short cord that the years make into rope and, in my case, is there, hanging loose, long after death." (xx-xxi)

God, that's so beautiful. I have had that kicking around for a while waiting for a wedding to make a speech using that, but I had to write it down in case I forget it or can't get a copy of the book.