from frugaldad.com.
WTF | THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE.
america, media, society, why i don't have cable
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Then one morning she’d begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn’t remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she’d realized again what she’d learned at five when her mother left – that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small things first, the smell of the soap her mother had bathed with, the color of the dress she’d worn to church, then after a while the sound of her mother’s voice, the color of her hair. It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief that was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree’s heartwood.
— Ron Rash, Serena
From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.
— Anaïs Nin
In the years since I’d given up drinking, I’d worried I’d grown dull. Yeah, sobriety was healthier—it made you more “present,” “alive,” “in touch with your feelings”—blah, blah—we all know the benefits—believe me, I don’t need to be convinced. But sometimes, when I was having one of those 4 a.m. existential crises when your eyes snap open in a panic and you start inventorying all the deficits of your life, I worried that by giving up booze, I’d forfeited the last of whatever had made me really interesting and edgy and effervescent.
— Susan Jane Gilman, Donna Has Left the Building
Judith looked all wrong. Her hair was pulled back tightly; she was wearing some cheap polka-dotted dress she'd bought at a thrift shop. Our meeting was all full of false starts. What's going on at school? How is your painting? What did you do over spring break? What music are you listening to? Then it got into harder stuff. I took her hands. I grabbed at them greedily and held them in my lap. Why wasn't I good enough? I asked. Why couldn't I be closer to her than I was? What was I doing wrong? Why was I so bad at human commerce when it was the thing I wanted more than anything?
— Rick Moody, The Brightest Ring of Angels Around Heaven