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He has a bit of a caring-too-much problem about most things, including whether people can pay their medical bills, or marry whomever they love, or not get shot at school.
One does not foster a lifelong love of Star Wars without knowing an “empire” isn’t a good thing.
“And, still,” he barrels on. “In terms of, like, sexuality, what does that make me?” Nora’s eyes snap back up to him. “Oh, like, I thought we were already there with you being bi and everything,” she says. “Sorry, are we not? Did I skip ahead again? My bad. Hello, would you like to come out to me? I’m listening. Hi.” “I don’t know!” he half yells, miserably. “Am I? Do you think I’m bi?”
Right-wing think pieces about entitlement thrown in his and June’s direction, reeking of: Mexicans stole the First Family jobs too.
“Seriously?” she hisses. “You’re literally putting your dick in the leader of a foreign state, who is a man, at the biggest political event before the election, in a hotel full of reporters, in a city full of cameras, in a race close enough to fucking hinge on some bullshit like this, like a manifestation of my fucking stress dreams, and you’re asking me not to tell the president about it?”
I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?
His dad laughs ruefully. “You know, in a lot of ways, your mom and me were a stupid idea. I think we both knew it wouldn’t be forever. We’re both too fucking proud. But God, that woman. Your mother is, without question, the love of my life. I’ll never love anyone else like that. It was wildfire. And I got you and June out of it, best things that ever happened to an old asshole like me. That kind of love is rare, even if it was a complete disaster.” He sucks his teeth, considering. “Sometimes you just jump and hope it’s not a cliff.”
Yep
I used to think, if I pictured the person I wanted to be and took all the crazy anxiety in my brain and narrowed it down to that point, I could rewire it. Use it to power something else. It’s like I never learned how to just be where I am.”
“Look, I don’t know. I don’t even exactly know, like, how being a legislator would work if I’m with a prince of another country. So, you know. There’s stuff to figure out. But way worse people with way bigger problems than me get elected all the time.”
Please do keep me in your—what is it American politicians say?—thoughts and prayers.
You see, for me, memories are difficult. Very often, they hurt. A curious thing about grief is the way it takes your entire life, all those foundational years that made you who you are, and makes them so painful to look back upon because of the absence there, that suddenly they’re inaccessible. You must invent an entirely new system.
Oh Daddy
P.S. From Michelangelo to Tommaso Cavalieri, 1533: I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which I live; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes my body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves you to my mind. Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what condition I should find myself.
I can’t match you for prose, but what I can do is write you a list.
He shouldn’t feel wronged deep in his gut. But that everyone seems enamored, when the only difference between the lie and the truth that would burn up Fox News is the gender involved … well, it fucking stings.
How true
“It’s about to be gay DEFCON five in this administration. For God’s sake, put some clothes on.”
I really truly can’t stop laughing
“But it happens to you when you’re young. It happens when your brain isn’t even fully done cooking—when you’ve barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you’ll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it
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Just me crying on a plane. Nbd
He is the most loving, nurturing, selfless person you could hope to meet, but there is a sadness and a hurt in him that is tremendous, and you may very well never truly understand it, but you need to love it as much as you love the rest of him, because that’s him.
“This is why we set rules about the personal-slash-professional lines at the outset of the relationship. It works for us.” “If you want a fight, you should have seen it when I found out he had known about you two all along,” Zahra says. “Why do you think I got a rock this big?” “It usually works for us,” Shaan amends. “Yep,” Zahra agrees. “Plus, we banged it out last night.” Without looking up, Shaan meets her hand in a high five.
But … I’m as much a person and a part of this family as you.
Pretty sure I’ve said these words before
and I couldn’t let a fucking predator be the most powerful man in the country if it was within my power to stop it.”
Sobbing because round 2
we stood at a precipice as a nation. There were those who would have seen us stumble backward into hatred and vitriol and prejudice, who wanted to reignite old embers of division within our country’s very soul.
I wish
To every person in search of somewhere to belong who happened to pick up this book, I hope you found a place in here, even if just for a few pages. You are loved. I wrote this for you. Keep fighting, keep making history, keep looking after one another.
Sobbing
