Bananapants

by Penny Reid

he’s known as Raziel the Thoogist.”

something like a wizard related to Neoplatonism? Which I now know is a movement of old white dudes talking about spirits and their divine essence and so forth.

the theurgist is a third-level spellcaster, their spellcasting ability is Intelligence.”

What a bunch of ignorant, bigoted twatwaffles!

It’s all weirdos, trying to do their best, and looking like fools until they meet that person who makes them feel exceptional instead of foolish.”

a dearth of morals but an abundance of ethics.

Her laughter caused her to shine like a fucking star,

didn’t matter if I considered my history to be ten dump trucks full of horse shit or ten dump trucks full of fresh flowers, ten dump trucks of anything is too much all at once.

Everything he did seemed to make my heart squeal.

This guy was shadier than a redwood.

he seemed fueled by kid giggles. If we were still giggling, he was still throwing.

We Catholics keep the identity of our exorcists a secret for their safety from both people and demons.

Also, biggest disappointment of my life, the word palindrome isn’t a palindrome. Why is that? It doesn’t make sense to my brain. Who are these people assigning meaning to words? Someone slept on that. I wanna talk to a manager.”

“I don't wish to be without my brains, tho’ they doubtless interfere with a blind faith which would be very comfortable.”

Ada Lovelace,

I’d slept over at her place and woke up in a great fucking mood. Like Christmas and Easter and the Cubs winning the World Series kind of good mood.

My therapist always told me, “Feelings aren’t facts,”

It was the slowest elevator known to humankind and eighty-four years later, we arrived at Des’s floor.

taking in my greasy hair and stained sweats. Again, whatever. Let my pity party costume be my armor of apathy.

For Des, I was one hundred percent, manufactured in the USA, a fool.

It felt like the old cut had finally been cleaned and now it could heal. Sincere apologies were straight-up magic.

the stars in his eyes becoming celestial events, fiery and nebulous.

“I think you like being adored.”

Like I’m in the passenger seat of my life and, I don’t know, fear—maybe—is driving?”

“A dopamenu. It’s this list, or a few lists, where a person writes down tasks or things that help pull them out of sadness, or distract them from it.”

Gentoo penguins make structures out of rocks called scrapes and they line them with feathers and moss.”

“It’s all smoke and mirrors and pretending, honey,” she went on. “Everyone is in various stages of falling apart. All the time.”

It's amazing what a little bit of time buys, a little bit of caring about another person. Showing up mattered.

Really, it was Ava and her brilliance and love of process and procedures. Ava had known the magical words

all that really matters to society is paperwork.

cuddling in bed, late into the night, whispering our secrets and fears, trading them like currency.

I wanted a relationship with my dad more than I wanted to be right about being wronged.

looked to my dad for help. He stared at the pot he currently dried like it might hold the answers to the afterlife.

“Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.”

― Carrie Fisher,

I’d hit his kidney directly. Blows

to the kidney hurt almost as bad as a sharp elbow to the nuts.

abstained by some miracle of self-discipline and adultiness.