listography: books (noteworthy I)

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listography	GIVE A GIFT OF MEMORIES
	FAVORITE LISTOGRAPHY MENTIONS
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bel

books (noteworthy I)

here for a good time not a long time
Immerse yourself, get out of comfort zone and seek help when needed
Take hold of opportunities
Ethos and approach to life
Career trajectory
Serendipitous
Profusion of colour the rock will be covered in
Make this incredible pilgrimage
Eudaimonism
once the notion of belief is to hand, the old notion of knowledge becomes redundant.
the disinformation that is spread when we promulgate uncertain eyewitness testimony and other kinds of insecure putative knowledge
"the moon is our friend, our constant companion through life. whatever we have going on in life, the moon is always there with us, facing us. we can yell or we can offer our own friendship in return. the moon doesn't judge, but accepts all."
Singapore's replete with Christmas-themed parties, people catching up with old friends etc.
as the 28th year of my life continued on the same flat trajectory
decoding this communication conundrum
presents itself as a bucolic game
for an extrovert, a shopping trip is a cornucopia of energising sights and sounds
Love remains the all-important linchpin of these stories: love is supposed to bring us joy, solve our problems, and get us to our happy ending.
They also shape our expectations of what love will be like – expectations by which we will want to abide, leading us to shoehorn our feelings into that idealised form.
This changed with the advent of modernity, where romantic love acquired the cultural acclaim that it commands today.
Love is central to the fabric of society, so any change in its ideal will ripple through all sorts of human relations: between workers and bosses, between states and their citizens, between the ideals of modernity and those who are branded as ‘ethnic others’, to name but a few.
But that family is a rather patchwork affair, a mixture of biological, adoptive and indeterminate relations
I have evaded much of the violence and oppression imposed on so many others by our capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal system because of the privileges I enjoy by dint of my race, health, education, and conventional gender presentation. That has nothing to do with the merit of my character. The commodification and exploitation of my face came at the expense of other victims whose constant persecution apparently does not warrant similar moral outrage.
vacuously retweeted by politicians, itemised on a BuzzFeed listicle. Despite so much inane coverage, Melania energetically leveraged her platform to highlight the misogyny embedded in the violence and today’s hate crime rates.
Turning now to John Leyden (1775– 1811), the third in this trio of Orientalists, we find him to be very different from Ellis and Erskine, indeed, in many ways one of a kind: a man with a brilliant gift for languages, eccentric in the extreme, a vivid character with a buccaneering impetuosity of manner and a high opinion of his own accomplishments, and a non-stop talker with a “screech voice” which did not endear him to everyone. Indeed these qualities divided people sharply, some finding him (taking him at his own always generous estimate) a genius and endlessly entertaining, others finding him hard to bear and difficult to escape.
precrastination is a perversion of diligence. “It’s the dark side of being really good at getting things done,” he said. “It stems from the concern that you won’t have enough time to do something well"
mentally onerous to carry a to-do list in our mind we’ll engage in behaviors that let us reduce that cognitive load even if it means exerting more effort
inherently satisfying to check things off
hamper your productivity
dive in headfirst as opposed to giving yourself time to consider your options
nebulous
Avoid conversational cul de sacs
we’re all invited for a stickybeak around Singapore’s most famous home and office
No actual children play Neopets anymore. They’re all nostalgic twentysomethings like me, dripping with uncertainty about the future and malaise about the present. It’s both absurd and comforting to see this familiar forum from my childhood re-appropriated to commiserate about our generation’s shared dread on how some of us feel we’ll never pay off our loans, and sometimes we feel depressed.
our problem is that we’re all millennials woefully unprepared for the future.
More than anything, we modern-day Neopians worry a great deal about how our lives haven’t turned out as we hoped they would.
How terrifying, cathartic, and under this virtual cloak of anonymity, addictive. I flashed back to my middle-school days on the NeoBoards, confessing to complete strangers how much I longed for clear skin and to be a writer one day.
For whatever reason, I felt moved to comfort him and posted a heartfelt reassurance.
Aquaman is able to cash the check it’s writing.
Each person’s mileage is going to vary. But if you feel overcommitted, no is a small word that can remind you how much control you have over your destiny.
Humans are social animals who thrive on reciprocity. It’s in our nature to be socially obliging, and the word no feels like a confrontation that threatens a potential bond. But when we dole out an easy yes instead of a difficult no we tend to overcommit our time, energy and finances.
The ability to communicate ‘no’ really reflects that you are in the driver’s seat of your own life. saying “I don’t” as opposed to “I can’t” allowed participants to extract themselves from unwanted commitments. While “I can’t” sounds like an excuse that’s up for debate, “I don’t” implies you’ve established certain rules for yourself, suggesting conviction and stability. And since it’s personal, it also maintains the social connection humans crave.
When you have these phrases ready, you don’t have to waste time wavering over an excuse. And you start to develop a reflexive behavior of saying no.
To combat the problem
Finding time to maintain friendships as an adult only gets harder as we age. Family and work obligations often take precedence over other relationships, so one of the keys to fitting socialization into a slammed schedule is to find ways to hit multiple activities at a time.
do things at a glacial pace
I can barely make words. This could probably be the greatest moment of my life, and I’m fighting back the giddiest of smiles.
Love is a full belly
sequestered
indelible
granted
irascible
introspective
heedless of
he drifted towards the light of fuck it, toward the light of leaving his body. No more L.A’s most wanted. No more county food, clothes, checks. No more county anything.
yet my knowledge of Korean literature has remained in the embryonic phase
my dad passed away unexpectedly at the age of fifty-three. We sat and listened to my father’s music. I can’t explain how powerful it is to hear the voice and passion of someone you’ve otherwise lost
the idea behind the tattoo, which rests above three cigarette burns, was some grasp at Catholicism, forgiveness, and the holy trinity. It’s kind of hard to remember, though, because of all the whiskey. life mistakes are isaac’s co-pilot
it was the greatest, most peaceful moment of my life and I wanted to remember it forever.
the thought of what my kids were going through, would go through, continually crushed my heart
the growth that comes with healing
setting up shop indefinitely
i moved across the country from my family, not to be far away, but with no concern for being close. I was a taciturn family friend.
i hate the time I wasted, and I fear the rate of everyone’s disappearance. Now when I leave, the distance between us is not nearly as expansive.
i get a strikingly predictable set of questions from my customers
chris, for whom I am my favourite self, forever
she’s a forest lover and I’m a salty sea dog
the respect and admiration i have for her is difficult to articulate
now Sasquatch walks with me all around the world on adventures every bit as improbable as he is
committed to the denial of all this change, we pursued permanence
getting something matching didn’t feel special enough, so we thought about two-part tattoos and came up with the lock and key. We unlocked one another, and now our hearts are locked together, forever. We’re both the lock, and we’re both the key.
as a nod to my own aviation training, i added the wings (to my tattoo).
the griffin has a head of an eagle (America) and the body of a lion (representing my African ancestry). that really spoke to me. the melded identities. i liked that it was two things at once and i didn't have to choose a side.
wanted to memorialise him
my tattoo is a series of childhood moments combined to embody her spirit in an abstract way
my tattoo is not only a tribute to my family's memory and spirit, but also a reminder to live in the moment, explore, and enjoy every day
my worldview was morphing, evolving. the tattoo reminds me of emerging from that hibernation, looking around, and loving this magical city
my anger and the vicodin wore off
the mother box is what fit. it's weird and beautiful and representative of individual imagination. someone put it this way after one of my fumbling attempts at an explanation: "I love it. it's personal mythology." yes, exactly
hated how it communicated to the world that our separateness was more profound than our connectedness. it was the opposite of true
my tattoo was step three in a four-step process of learning to trust myself and make increasingly permanent decisions while simultaneously breaking bad news to my mother. step 1. shave long blond hair completely off two weeks after moving away from home. (mother: "but, why?") Step 2. get bridge piercing. (mother: "don't you have enough pain in your life already?") step 3. get this tattooed on my back. (mother: "that's very permanent.") step 4. tell mother that i am transsexual. (mother: "but, why? don't you have enough pain in your life already? thats very permanent.")
schadenfreude
trite
vapid
counterintuitively
purview
ignominious
conflagration
my crowning moment occurs Friday
i'm having a quiet epiphany about how good things are
the delight in my voice impossible to mask
touche
biding my time until she comes
i can almost hear my blood surge from facing him this closely
I'd rather be with him in the real world than by myself, fantasising about some idealised version of our relationship. because that's all ideals are - fantasies
how is it that human anatomy evolved so that something as stupid-looking as a repetitive back-and-forth movement can generate the peak of physical ecstasy?
i even feel an illicit thrill from them knowing that there's more to me than the grade-grubber most people pigeonhole me as
what made these evenings with him so sublime was
being childless fits in with his footloose existence
your brain really does turn to mush in the heat of the moment
having a second woman in the room helps defuse the weirdness
mortifying
his tone remains blasé
my curiosity outgunning my eagerness to go home
shrouded in secrecy
it's fruitless to explain. having never been in my place, he can't possibly appreciate the momentousness of this night
my brain's like vapour
i'll be damned if a man's my only gateway to feeling this heavenly
unconscionable
time turns into a blur of hedonism and endorphin highs
birthdays are purely chronological milestones
for no explicable reason
after an interminable lull
he's confounded
it's such a misnomer that 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' have the word 'friend' in them
i'm languid and off-kilter
momentary relief that you're free. but that's quickly eclipsed by all the good memories you had together and the realisation that there won't be any more of them
she's simply besieged with emotions and is unloading it on the nearest warm body
it seemed disingenuous to hold things against him that before i readily accepted as the price of love
i waver between feeling disconcerted and pleased by that
i'm too incensed
she acted like a bedrock of support for me
any pride i had has been supplanted with worry for her
i'm trying to be patient for it, but powerlessness is the most dismal feeling in the world, and waiting is just powerlessness plus time.
his lithe, tall frame
'high school sweetheart' is such an innocuous-sounding term for something that can tear out your guts
steel myself for this moment
if love is part hate, and pleasure part pain, then eliminating heartbreak would preclude the greatest happiness
i smile at her, and all at once every trace of suffering vanishes from her face. I'm glad to be able to give her this little reprieve from thinking only about him.
i always chalked it up to my being too slow-witted or ignorant for him
quick to blame myself
i say, breaking the lull
the separation between us is as palpable as a brick wall. i can almost smell the burning ashes of the last flecks of hope i didn't know i had that we'd maybe get back together. it's so evident to me now that just because someone is a great guy doesn't guarantee we'll make a great couple, no matter how much i work at it and want it.
i grow morose
speaking to him might rope me back into the depression stage of grief
trivialise how special and intense our relationship was
pain was my tie to a past that a part of me wanted to hold on to. the more i hurt, the more i knew i loved, and that felt like a good thing. so that I'm letting go of the pain means I'm also letting go of the love.
ruin all his hopes and crush his little lovelorn heart
repudiation
stamp out hurtful memories by making happy and empowering ones
i sidle next to him
begrudgingly accepting
my heart's still lurching
dizzy with disbelief
moot point
makes all bad feelings evaporate into thin air
seems needless to wait any longer
marriage is a primeval institution
he appears unaware of the cognitive dissonance of saying that to someone he was happy with
i should formulate my thoughts more before i start talking, but the word-vomit spews anyway
seventeen-year-old me would've stewed in silence in the hopes that any red flags would disappear on their own
Stifle my grin
i cover my face with my hands, ashamed at how deluded i was not to detect earlier that he was too good to be true
admittedly
it's so messed up how little control we have over whether we want somebody
compartmentalise emotions
deplorable state of mind
i hate how you can feel broken up with someone without ever having dated
disillusioned
devolving into full-out masochism
another sleep-deficient night
foraging through the pile
elevate us to a higher plane than merely two star-crossed teenagers in love
quip
his feelings are monumentally important to me
agonise over a boy
'somebody has to introduce you to the finer things.'
proceeds to demonstrate how all the equipment operates with the same zeal as a kid in a toy store
i knew this was coming, but my pulse springs up to three digits anyway
omnipresent odor
wasteland of alcohol paraphernalia - discarded beer bottle caps, dirty shot glasses, a funnel tube...
Tamer than i envisioned
my heart spasms in anticipation
gazes plaintively at me
the more accurate assessment is that we're not ready, but there's no point in splitting hairs when he's taking this as well as i could've hoped
my belly's doing full-on backflips
most talking consists of banal chitchat and rumours
'silly me. how could i have spoken such blasphemy?'
i'm too exultant to respond
brain fart
after a protracted breath
astounded that she can sound so cavalier about this
campsite coitus
being separated is like a litmus test for a relationship, so think of it as an experiment
proclaims
logging zero hours of deep sleep
"'candy striper' is hopelessly antiquated, dad. the proper term is 'patient care intern'."
we take sanctuary in my bedroom, where i bring her up to date
gripes
decrees
breaking your self-imposed celibacy with
shrug apathetically
not in a receptive head space
peals
crisis is averted
how good it will be to snooze away the Saturday
'pathetic hopeless ugly reject'. like i haven't wasted enough time feeling like one
dawns on me that I'm a fifth wheel. inevitably my mind begins wandering where it shouldn't
i mentally slap myself across the face and keep my eyes trained on the sky, in a futile attempt to focus on the present
irredeemably dumb
dickwad
incandescent
i like how he's built and broad-shouldered without crossing the line into gross muscleman territory
doing a lousy job of acting inconspicuous
my insides constrict as i slowly lift my nose from the page to face him. 'really?' i squeak.
a lull ensues
cuteness and kindness are often inversely proportional in people. cuteness and intelligence don't frequently coexist either, so he's an exception to that.
i'm euphoric that he took the bait
fighting my compulsion to kiss him for sounding so erudite
he squeezes my hand as we shake, unleashing a swarm of butterflies beating against my abdomen. i haven't had that in so long, and i love how transcendent it feels - like I'm weightless, or free-falling through space.
game playing was par for the course
it just felt logical to pursue a boy the same way i applied to college - by expending exorbitant time and energy showing what a great catch i am
i'm floored that it was so easy. but i feel like something just snapped, unshackling this fearless Amy-like side of myself i never thought existed. it's freeing. it's exhilarating... until my more dominant, non-Amy side starts bracing for him to say no.
learn his intentions right off the bat
dredged up all that drama in my head
the butterflies return in droves
cloister myself in
eased back into our normal repartee
chaperone
Her target audience: the sedentary souls perennially slouched over their computers
People have nagging pain and they can’t figure out how to get rid of it, so they just live with it.
A single mother, she wanted both a reliable source of income and a flexible schedule. Braiding the skills she acquired during a stint as a personal trainer with the moves she learned as a dancer
overwhelmed by the minutiae of daily life
laity in technical toothpaste theories
when Claude Hopkins was selling Pepsodent, he found a way to create a new habit by triggering a new craving. But to change an old habit, you must address an old craving. You have to keep the same cues and rewards as before, and feed the craving by inserting a new routine.
notice how closely this study hews to the Golden Rule of Habit change
it is simplistic, even cavalier, to suggest a young man's death can have an impact on Football games.
practices and scrimmages
the people with the greatest proclivity to use the spray
a palpable sense of relief
bastion of safety
he had done this so many times in his head that, by now, it felt rote.
not sharing an opportunity to learn is a cardinal sin
crafted self-discipline into a habit
surmount inflection points
defuse a confrontation
self esteem got battered
inordinate number
browbeat people out of their list - intimidate (someone), typically into doing something, with stern or abusive words. "a witness is being browbeaten under cross-examination"
decadence
Enamoured of him
frigid
throws self a pity party
'Work hard but never work smart n not smart'
convalescence - time spent recovering from an illness or medical treatment; recuperation. "a period of convalescence"
maiming - wound or injure (a person or animal) so that part of the body is permanently damaged. "100,000 soldiers were killed or maimed"
large teeth w their goofy malocclusion (imperfect positioning of the teeth when the jaws are closed)
sanguine - optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation. "he is sanguine about prospects for the global economy"
collecting blood in a cloche
an enameled piquancy
Polyglot
aplomb (self confidence or assurance esp in a demanding situation - she passed the test with aplomb.)
abstemious
chaise
bereft
Meager exaltation
So many heartwarming messages from people all over the world, who were telling us his project had touched something in them- a belief and hope for a better world. A childlike wonder. The determination to follow a dream.
Delving into an arresting piece of writing gives readers a key to unlock a private, quiet space, away from the demands and hassles of daily life.
"The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours." - The History Boys by English author Alan Bennett, which sums up why he likes to read
"She is vile." "Don't say that." "Vile vile vile. Like a crocodile."
"I've got to go. See you later, alligator."
"After a while, crocodile," Barbie said.
hefty silence
wasn't sure how many drinks she'd need to ward off the Uzis of anger coming out of Ashley's eyes at her
fanned the flames of mother-wrath
"I could read it to you," offered Bod. "I could do that." "You could go and boil your fat head," said Thackeray, and he swung a punch at Bod's ear.
Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they're scared for the fear to become real. Mo was terrified, and now Nick was too.
overcome by a complex maelstrom of feelings
ennui
derriere
‘Marija!’ protested Baldo from the couch, where he was stretched out lazily, wearing just a tight pair of briefs, his feet resting on the arm of the sofa. He was so hairy, he could have been mistaken for a blanket, which explained why he was so scantily clad in New York in January.
The close bond I have with my elder daughter is one of the most precious things in my life. It is deeply gratifying, all-encompassing nourishment for my curmudgeonly soul.
paltry amount of time I spend with her in a regular work week
the dagger of hard-nosed self-interest may be concealed, rather deftly, under a benevolent cloak of opaque, obfuscatory charm.
she favors little pointed, high-sided shoes that button up the front, and old-fashioned stockings with seams, and diaphanous, tunic-like dresses inside which her lithe and seemingly weightless body moves, as though independent of any restraint, to its own sinuous, nervy rhythm. Have you noticed that you do not see her hands in close-up? They are another flaw, although I like them, also. They are large, too large certainly for their delicate wrists, and strongly veined, with big-knuckled, spatulate fingers.
She is poised and thoroughly self-possessed, as you would imagine, yet I detect, deep down in her, at the very base of her being, a beat of primordial terror, a quivering along the nerves so rapid and faint it hardly registers, the vibration of fear that everyone in our trade is prone to - and everyone outside it, too, for all I know - the simple, blank insupportable fear of being found out.
this is what psychopaths are like. Outwardly personable, they use their charm, charisma and seamless psychological camouflage to distract us from their "true colors": the latent anomaly right in front of our eyes. Their intoxicating, hypnotic presence draws us inexorably in.
shadowy, spectral dictates of human evolution
an overarching question in the grand etiological scheme of things is from which ontological perspective the condition should actually be viewed
devastating, dazzling, and super-confident are the epithets that one often hears about them
rapacious proclivity to live in the moment, to "give tomorrow the slip and take today on a joyride"
anchor your thoughts entirely in the present, screen out the chatter of the querulous, recriminative past and the elusive, importunate future, and anxiety begins to subside
calamitously
i was already regretting the sandwiches i had so profligately thrown away
i went and sat on the beach, and made a funnel of my fist and let sand pour through it while i gazed dolefully out to sea. the water with the sun on it was a broad sheet of rapidly bobbing sharp metallic flakes, old-gold, silver, chrome. People were out walking their dogs, and there were a few swimmers in the sea already, splashing and squealing.
in those echoless caverns of empty time, being unobserved, unnoticed, I became increasingly detached from myself, increasingly disembodied. At moments I seemed to have become a phantom, and felt that I might walk up to people and pass straight through them and they would not even register a breath
it was eerie how often that day I seemed to see - no, how often I saw her appear out of the throngs of summer people. She was everywhere, a tantalizing brightness flitting among so many featureless shades. It was exhausting, coping with these surges of joyful recognition that no sooner rose up in me than they were dashed down again. It was like being teased by a mischievous and cruel-hearted sprite playing hide-and-seek with me among the drifting crowd. The more often I spied her and immediately lost her again the more maddened with longing for her I became, until I thought I should faint, or lose my reason, if the real she did not soon appear. Yet when she did, I had seen so many imaginary versions of her that I did not at first believe my eyes. I had relinquished hope by then and was trudging up the road to the station on my way to take the last train home. So dispirited was I that I did not so much as cast a glance at the Beach Hotel as I passed by.
i had been right about the sunburn: there was a pink flush on her forehead and in the hollow of her throat, and a few freckles were sprinkled very fetchingly across the saddle of her nose
she tilted her head and was regarding me with a sharp, side-wise stare, her eyes narrowed and her mouth set. the look of fright that had come into her face at the sight of me was turning now into a frown of suspicion and angry reproach. I could see her urgently calculating in her mind the dimensions of the problem that my sudden, shocking appearance here had presented her.
broiling, tumid summer
fear of provoking capricious Fate, which so far had been smiling upon me with such unwonted tolerance
twinge of misgiving
exultant
balloon of life's possibilities was on the instant full to bursting again and tugging at its tether
she was peering at me in her short-sighted way, which made her lift her full upper lip a little in the middle and wrinkle her nose. in those big lenses her pale, protuberant eyes were the size and shade of two shrunken gooseberries
commiserating
that was, to my faint surprise, the end of our exchange, for like a child satisfied with only the opening of a goodnight story Dawn Devonport sighed and turned her face away and slept, or pretended to. I waited, not moving for fear of making the chair creak and causing her to have to wake up again. In the quiet I fancied I could hear the snow falling outside, a faint susurrus that yet bespoke unstinting labor and muffled suffering steadfastly endured. How the world works on, uncomplaining, no matter what, doing what it has to do. I was, I realised, at peace. My mind seemed bathed in a pool of limpid darkness that acted on me like a balm.
their sleeves pugnaciously rolled
I have an image, as in one of those sedulously crafted landscape paintings that were so popular in these parts in those days, of a big sky adrift with cotton clouds, and far gold fields with pudding-shaped haystacks, and a single distant spire, thin as a tack, and at the horizon the merest brushstroke of cobalt blue to suggest a glimpse of sea.
idyll
maintain the insouciant front that I did before the summer
being young, I was sceptical of the future, and saw it as a matter of potential only, a state of things that might or might not arise and probably never would.
the boys were homunculoid, grimy-faced, and had scabby knees and hacked-at hair
old and fussed and infirm
How did i get through the rest of that day? I drifted, outwardly listless yet all aquiver within. My world yesterday with her in it had all the lightness and glossy tension of a freshly inflated party balloon; now, today, with her gone, everything was suddenly slack, and tacky to the touch. Anguish, this constant, unremitting anguish, made me tired, terribly tired, yet I did not know I might rest.
accusing me of besmirching Cass's memory
I said she was welcome to come with us but that only seemed to make things worse, and there was a very long silence, the air vibrating between us, and slowly she lowered her head, her brow darkening ominously, and I felt like a very tiny toreador facing a frighteningly cold and calculating bull
I had the conviction, greatly to my consternation, that she found the whole thing more than anything else absurd
since it seems that nothing in creation is ever destroyed, only disassembled and dispersed, might not the same be true of individual consciousness? Where when we die does it go to, all that we have been? When I think of those whom I have loved and lose I am as one wandering among eyeless statues in a garden at nightfall. The air about me is murmurous with absences.
How she managed to make her way through the lobby's crepuscular gloom with those sunglasses on I do not know - they are unsettlingly suggestive of an insect's evilly gleaming, prismatic eyes - but she crossed to the desk ahead of me at a rapid, crisply clicking pace and plonked her handbag down beside the nippled brass bell and took up a side-ways pose, presenting her magnificent profile to the already undone fellow behind the counter in his jacket of rusty jet and his frayed white shirt. I wonder if these seemingly effortless effects that she pulls off have to be calculated anew each time, or are they finished and perfected by now, a part of her repertoire, her armory? You must understand, I felt permanently as abject before the spectacle of her splendor as did the poor chap behind the desk - this absurdity, O heart, O troubled heart.
I could hear Dawn Devonport next door making many mysterious small noises, clinks and knocks and softly suggestive rustlings as she unpacked her bags. Then there came that moment of mild panic when the clothes had been hung, the shoes stowed, the shaving things set out on the bathroom's marble shelf, where someone's forgotten cigarette had left a burned stain, a black smear with amber edges. Down in the street a car swished past, and the flare of its head-lamps poked a pencil-ray of yellow light through a chink in the curtains that probed the room from one side to the other before being swiftly withdrawn. Upstairs a lavatory gulped and swallowed, and in response the drain in the bathroom here, getting into the spirit, made a deep-throated sound that might have been a gurgle of lewd laughter.
adopt a cravenly ingratiating manner, smiling and lisping, shrugging my shoulders and mopping my brow, frowning at my feet
the first catcalls are rising as I start awake, and find myself huddled around myself piteously in the middle of a disordered, hot and sweat-soaked bed. There was someone at the door. There was someone pounding at the door. I did not know where I was, and lay palpitant and motionless like a hunted criminal cowering in a ditch.
the room was cold and yet I wad sweating, and had to step through a miasma of my own fetor
At the door I hesitated, a hand on the knob. i had not switched on a lamp and the only illumination in the room was provided by the sulfurous glow of the street-light through the curtains behind me.
spivvish young fellows in suits
balefully deprecating looks
ignominious end
stochastic settings on his brain's moral compass
callous levity
we used to have seismic fights, violent, hours-long eruptions that would leave us both shaking, I ashen-faced and Lydia mute and outraged, the tears of fury and frustration spilling down her cheeks like runnels of transparent lava
How I love the archaic sunlight of these late-autumn afternoons. Low on the horizon there were scrapings of cloud like bits of crinkled gold leaf and the sky higher up was a layering of bands of clay-white, peach, pale green, all this reflected as a vaguely mottled muave wash on the motionless and brimming surface of the canal
That husband. I find him a peculiarly unappetizing specimen. He is tall and thin, with many concavities, as if slices had been taken off him at flanks, stomach, chest; he has a pin-head and a mouthful of rotting teeth; his grin is more like a snarl. When he looks about him the things his eye falls on seem to quail under his tainting glance.
A pair of swans approached upon the water, a pen and her mate, surely, for are they not a monogamous species? We stopped to watch them as they came. Swans in their outlandish and grubby gorgeousness always seem to me to be keeping up a nonchalant front behind which really they are cowering in a torment of self-consciousness and doubt. These two were skilled dissemblers, and gave us a speculative stare, saw our hands were empty of crusts, and sailed onwards with a show of cool disdain.
tragicomic fact
this extraordinary account of incredible interplanetary insouciance epitomizes life on the horizons of possibility, where triumph and disaster share a fraught and fragile frontier and cross-border traffic flows freely

nov 13 2013 ∞
jan 10 2020 +