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5c614f7
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I'm red as a berry, shiny from the pickling of the womb, and squinting at the world through suspicious, slitted eyes.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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509a13c
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At twenty-two, I had the callowest possible definition of interesting and, by the measure of my own calipers, was far from interesting myself.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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e80b7f0
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Is there a character in all of fiction more isolated than the little red hen?
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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d4ad9b3
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We call them feelings because we feel them.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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8a8bcc8
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Whatev was the first hand sign I learned at college, but there were several popular then. There was the thumb-and-index-finger L held against the forehead, which meant Loser. The whatev W could be flipped up and down, W to M to W to M, in which case it meant Whatever, your mother works at McDonald's. 'Cause that's the way we rolled back in '92.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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54c0f8f
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intended as a dig at my father, the enterprise being another of science's excesses, like cloning or whisking up a bunch of genes to make your own animal. Antagonism in my family comes
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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e4565da
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The monkey girl had made another unscheduled appearance, and it had landed her in jail again. When would she learn to behave with restraint and decorum?
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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d54dec4
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And this is a small point by comparison, but why do Republicans persist in substituting "Democrat," with its "rat" ending, when "Democratic" would be correct? Because they want us to know, in every word they speak, how much they hold us in contempt. In my lifetime, the Republicans have never accepted a Democratic president as legitimate, no matter how many people vote for him [or her.])"
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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cade179
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I read a postelection blog post by the great Ursula K. Le Guin that said that we should stop using the metaphors of war. We should not think in terms of enemies and battles, because such thoughts, in themselves, change who we are. We need to be like water, she wrote. Water can be "divided and defiled, yet continues to be itself and to always go in the direction it must go." The water metaphor takes me many places. It takes me to the melting..
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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d657c52
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A man at another table accused his breakfast partner of pulling rainbows and unicorns out of her ass.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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9ac5458
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Once, he'd dreamed of experimental fusions, that he would be the one to merge folk harps with anime. Now he saw the incommensurability. In his own words: matter and antimatter. The end of the world.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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3df437b
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My brother and sister have led extraordinary lives, but I wasn't there, and I can't tell you that part. I've stuck here to the part I can tell, the part that's mine, and still everything I've said is all about them, a chalk outline around the space where they should have been. Three children, one story. The only reason I'm the one telling it is that I'm the one not currently in a cage.
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siblings
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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3010396
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It's true that, as my brother grew larger, he also grew dangerous, same as my sister. But they're still ours and we want them back. They're needed here at home.
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siblings
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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25c397a
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The storm which blew me out of my past eased off.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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5c345b7
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Don't side with assholes," she said. Her voice was very not chill."
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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36dba1c
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I want a normal girlfriend. Someone restful. You know anyone like that?
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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8fcf3e6
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Tryptophan: a chemical in turkey meat rumored to make you sleepy and careless. One of the many minefields in the landscape of the family Thanksgiving.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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0e42131
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When you think of two things to say, pick your favorite and only say that, my mother suggested once, as a tip to polite social behavior, and the rule was later modified to one in three.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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ac2fe03
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Our parents met at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona at a high school summer science camp. "I'd come to see the heavens," our father always said. "But the stars were in her eyes," a line that used to please and embarrass me in equal measure. Young geeks in love."
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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9f5755b
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We used to believe that memories were best retrieved in the same place that they were first laid down. Like everything else we think we know, that's not so clear anymore.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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0f01ea0
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No more politics, Grandma Donna had said as a permanent new rule, since we wouldn't agree to disagree and all of us had access to cutlery.
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politics
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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5fff1a4
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The value of money is a scam perpetuated by those who have it over those who don't.
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money
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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bc658d0
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When I run the world, librarians will be exempt from tragedy.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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5f65963
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We should get you Linux, too. Nobody uses Windows anymore.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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cd9627a
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Scientists have solved the problem of solipsism with a strategy called 'inference to the best explanation'. It's a cheap accommodation, and no one is happy about it, with the possible exception of those alien overlords.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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378d210
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So many problems, however infinitely varied they first appear, turn out to be matters of money. I can't tell you how much this offends me. The value of money is a scam perpetrated by those who have it over those who don't; it's the Emperors's New Clothes gone global.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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92f3cdc
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Instead I watched our mother obsessively for signs of breakage.
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Karen Joy Fowler |
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0263611
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If she was exposing more skin than usual, that was because it was going to be a hundred-fucking-six degrees. Was she supposed to wear a suit?
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Karen Joy Fowler |