The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut Universe #3)

by Mary Robinette Kowal

Behind me, Clemons murmured, “Honestly, if she were a bit younger it might not have been a bad idea, but the original six are old hat now.” The amount of self-control it took to keep walking instead of turning around and slapping him was a testament to my finishing school education. Old hat. Old hat?! Cristiano was a year older than I was, for crying out loud. But men apparently don’t age in the same ways … Old hat.

It is hard, sometimes, to spot the line between a desire to help and ambition.

“Hey, now. Astronauts don’t wear diapers.” “We wear MAGs.” Maximum Absorbency Garments. They’re diapers, but no self-respecting fighter pilot could admit to wearing a diaper. They’re such babies about their egos.

There’s nothing wrong with being short, and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have hit an area that he was sensitive about, but let me tell you a joke that is not funny. When you see a woman with stitches in her chin and ask her what she did to make her husband angry. There are two scenarios. The first is that she’s happily married and you’ve insulted their relationship. The other is that her husband is abusive and she will not thank you for endangering her by drawing attention to it. In the range of possibilities in between, there’s not a single one in which a joke about being a battered woman is funny.

Recognizing a cycle and being able to stop said cycle are not the same thing.

The ritual sequence of sitting and standing gave me space in which to calm myself. This is the value of ritual and repetition, be it in a cockpit or in a church pew. Familiarity gives us room to breathe and to think.

I’m sure it will surprise no one that I am happiest when I am in control.

“With all due respect, I have never found that English idiom to convey respect of any sort.”