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f98cacc
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It occurred to Liz one day, as she waited on hold for an estimate from a yard service, that her parents' home was like an extremely obese person who could no longer see, touch, or maintain jurisdiction over all of his body; there was simply too much of it, and he--they--had grown weary and inflexible. During
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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b721fe9
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I seriously think he's one of those dudes where, his whole life, he's gotten credit for being smart and moral for no reason other than he's tall. Anyway,
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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cb78a26
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It was one thingfor a person who didn't really know me to act distant, but it was quite another for someone to get to know me and then back away.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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d1ec2bc
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It was one thing for a person who didn't really know me to act distant, but it was quite another for someone to get to know me and then to back away.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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8946d4f
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The fact that I had no opinion on, for instance, relations between the U.S. And China did nit mean I didn't feel things.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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64616b9
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Does being forty feel fabulous and foxy?" Liz asked."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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d95e32f
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Upon receiving that text from Georgie, she had, of course, wondered, Heard what? But she'd quickly gone from wondering to suspecting that she knew to being certain. Never would she have leapt to a conclusion this way when writing an article, never would she have allowed a fact to be alluded to without clarification. Trust but verify--that's what she'd have done. Yet not once in the past three months had she even attempted clarification. How..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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96dd76e
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Since Liz's adolescence, when viewing television commercials that celebrated the ostensibly unconditional love of mothers for their children, or on spotting merchandise in stores that honored this unique bond with poems or effusive declarations--picture frames, magnets, oven mitts--she had felt like a foreign exchange student observing the customs of another country.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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606fd44
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she was at times most able to enjoy her family members when she could sense their presence nearby without actually interacting with them.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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5ba1b01
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She wasn't wrong, which wasn't the same as the idea being a wise one.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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c02271e
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There are, I have learned, so many gifts of motherhood, and so many sadnesses, and one of the sadnesses is the asymmetry of the family experience: that in spite of all the daily nuisances, and in spite of the unforgivable way I transgressed, these years of the children being little are the sweetest time in my life. And yet, for Rosie and Owen and Gabe, these won't be their best years. They'll grow up and go away, they'll find spouses and ha..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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c3b5c79
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I have always found it peculiar, to say the least, when conservatives, especially conservative men, make these particular issues their ideological focus; there is something suspect to me about individuals who devote enormous amounts of time and attention dos objects they profess to find repugnant
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4c74b21
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The tarps Ken Weinrich's crew used has yellow and royal blue stripes, not unlike those for a circus, and this had lent a festive yet undignified mood to the proceedings.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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6cfae47
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Our windows were open, and the radio had been playing continuously--not one but two Billy Joel songs had come on during our drive--and the air was dense with the humidity of a midwestern summer, weather that even then made me homesick, though it was hard to say for what. Maybe my homesickness was a form of prescience because when I look back, it's the circumstances of this very car ride that I recognize as irretrievable: the experience of d..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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c0251d1
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Dena seemed about to respond, but instead, she belched again, a smaller belch that seemed unequal as a harbinger to the monstrous chunky gush that erupted from inside her. I held her hair back and looked away as she finished retching. Working with children had made me less squeamish--they were constantly presenting their grubby hands to your, having accidents--but at some point, disgusting was still disgusting, Especially with an adult woma..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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bd75205
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Yet surely she was as culpable as he was; recalling her casual speculation about when Jasper's wife's grandmother might die and thereby free Jasper and Susan to divorce, Liz wondered if a stronger sign of a relationship's essential corruptness could exist than for its official realization to hinge on the demise of another human being.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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67d1f80
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And I didn't yet understand that just because you can recognize what another person wants and just because that person is older and more powerful than you are, you don't have to give it to them.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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80a9ecc
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Of course, now I wonder where I had gotten the idea that for you to participate in a gathering, the other people had to really, really want you to be there and that anything short of rabid enthusiasm on their part meant you'd be a nuisance. Where had I gotten the idea that being a nuisance was that big a deal? Sometimes now I think of all the opportunities I didn't take - to get a manicure in town, to watch television in another dorm, to go..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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47227f6
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Among the women, a spontaneous cheer went up, which Liz was surprised to find herself joining, and this was when (she was on her fifth drink) she realized both that she was completely drunk--not just tipsy, not merely buzzed--and also that she was much happier than she'd been an hour or two before. She felt a retroactive remorse for all the Eligible contestants she'd deemed trashy and idiotic from the comfort of her living room; apparently,..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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bc5097a
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I wonder if they are the only three in the world: the man who is with you completely, the man who is with you but not with you, the man who will get as close to you as he can without ever becoming yours.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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e654531
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Maybe I have always been, as Vi would subsequently accuse me, someone who creates obstacles for myself than looks around in surprise, wondering where they came from.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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b43f0e8
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I have no idea, of course, that of all the feelings of my youth that would pass, it was this one, of an abundance of time so great as to routinely be unfillable, that would vanish with the least ceremony.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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fdcb35a
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And the reason I'm telling you all this is that I want you to know no one in my life has ever made me feel worse about myself than you.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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fa04795
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Did I used to think being pretty was my primary obligation because I was in some way delusional? Or was it that I'd absorbed the messages I was meant to absorb with the same diligence with which I studied? As the mother of a daughter, I hope she won't judge herself as harshly as I judged myself, but her personality is so unlike mine - she is boisterous and outspoken - that I'm not inordinately concerned.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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05ab56c
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There's a belief that to take care of someone else, or to let someone else take care of you--that both are inherently unfeminist. I don't agree. There's no shame in devoting yourself to another person, as long as he devotes himself to you in return." Within"
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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95eb224
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Reading the nurse's name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, "Bernard! We're mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?" --
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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0e5efc0
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No, we were still in the same room, both of us having to breathe and speak in the aftermath of her wink.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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092c8d8
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All the more reason for you to go
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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935d474
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But sometimes speaking is so hard! It's like standing still, then sprinting.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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5ebf97a
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Oh, how different my life would have been had I not grown up in the same house with my grandmother, how much narrower and blander!
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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a647f6f
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Rudolph Walsh, you are my fierce advocate, and your wit and wisdom
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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1087694
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I felt an old, visceral insecurity that manifested itself in an impulse to cover up our cribbage game, to literally shield the board with my hands.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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ed82889
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quantity, at
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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49d1585
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Such compliments--they were thrilling but almost impossible to absorb in this quantity, at this pace. It was like she was being pelted with a magnificent hail, and she wished she could save the individual stones to examine later, but they'd exist with such potency only now, in this moment. And
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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0d859e8
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Dude," he said, "Calm down." This was something I hated being told, especially by a boy. My voice might rise half an octave, I thought of telling him, but there's no need to take cover - I will not leap from my chair to embrace you, I will not even shriek with delight."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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65dfb3b
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We both were smiling, and I loved him, I loved him completely, and I knew that he loved me back. I could feel it. That moment- inside it, I could anticipate the thing I most wanted and I could be beyond it, it had happened already, and I was ensconced in the rich reassurance of knowing it was certain and definite.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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0ff7cb0
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Nin--" Jasper said, and his pained tone was a reminder that, however he had transgressed, he hadn't done so entirely callously. His affection for her was not fake; it just was partial. Or perhaps it was fake, he was faking emotion now, and he had a personality disorder; but between these possibilities, she preferred to see him as inadequate rather than clinically diagnosable. "I'm going to do better," he said. "Starting now, I'm getting my ..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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1d18f4c
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Easterners didn't really care? Niceness for its own sake wasn't a virtue to them.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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71e3e37
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And now I knew myself to be generous with encouragement only when I either did not want the thing the other person sought of did not believe the person would really get it.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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8aaffe2
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And the things you said, the walk from chapel to the schoolhouse, your backpack, tests, these were a bridge running above the rushing water of what you actually felt. The goal was: learn to ignore what's down below. Fine if you met someone else who was the same as you, but you had to realize that nothing another person could do would make you feel better about any of it.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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1108731
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There were many terrible moments, a lifetime of terrible moments really, which is not the same as terrible lifetime.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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2754ebb
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But she actually was glad to have identified the one thing about Jasper she'd change, because it was similar to realizing what you'd forgotten to take on a trip, and if it was only perfume, as opposed to your driver's license, you were relieved.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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0ff4d05
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It was so nice to rest in the moment without pushing it further, to feel its possibilities rather than its limitation.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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d3483e6
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I take it you don't believe in love at first sight.' 'Does anyone over the age of thirteen? Do you?' 'I don't, no,' Darcy said. 'But I don't rule out for others what I haven't experienced first hand.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |