Happy Hour

by Marlowe Granados

My mother always told me that to be a girl one must be especially clever.

All I wanted was to put him back together.

Seeing someone you used to love is like visiting a house you once lived in. Everything about them is familiar yet strange.

There is comfort in getting ready to go out.

is difficult to explain the euphoria I experience when I go dancing. It is kind of like breathlessness or hypnosis.

“How can I seem mysterious? I haven’t stopped talking.”

sometimes getting older feels like striking the same chord and it sounding different.

It was my favourite time of evening, when the sun starts to set and the lights come on in the streets and it’s all blue and yellow. It’s the time when people come home and turn on a lamp, and no one thinks to draw their curtains just yet. Civil dusk, it’s called. It’s the only hour in any city where everything suddenly turns familiar.

I feel as though becoming a woman is like a long tradition of going through things and coming out strong,

“No one can afford tragedy, but there are always things worth salvaging, no?”

“It’s funny how in a place where everything is an Experience, people see such little value in just living.”

“What I’m finding is there’s a clear difference between the men you like and the men you entertain. It’s too bad straight men put morals in front of pleasure.”

Beauty is a funny thing. It fools you into thinking you like someone when really all you want is to possess them. Ultimately, I guess that’s what desire is. Something I find so beautiful should be mine!

A piece of advice: You’ll come across many people who will want to be with you. People’s imaginations aren’t entirely idle; they can slot you into their futures easily. You have qualities that people wouldn’t mind spending time with, at least for a while. You could be the perfect girl for Anybody.

When someone asks, even if I’m feeling particularly anguished, I can’t seem to form the words. Maybe it comes from the fear of what may change. The atmosphere suddenly hardens and from one moment to the next the person feels differently. I am really terrified of that. To be free to communicate without consequence—is that ever a possibility?

New York is populated with girls like that. They make you feel like either you’re wearing too much makeup or what you’re wearing is too New. They throw out names into the conversation to see if you know them, and if you do, it’s usually someone you hate.

Is it wrong to think of pain as quantifiable? If it is not in quantities, how can we digest it? How does it move through our bodies without us knowing its size?

Death makes people uncomfortable because there is never a thing to say to make it better, and I am not one to inconvenience someone else in their experience of the world.

Gala was always waiting for someone else to give her direction. Her ability to live in the present was made possible by relying on other people’s ideas of what she could do. Her usual method of doing that was being in a relationship, but really, what is the difference between a cult and a boyfriend?

I do wonder whether who I am when I’m alone is who I am really. I feel most myself reeling off a sprightly rhythm of conversation to whoever may listen.

Life can be boring when you have nothing to cry about.”

“How can you really ever know someone? People change and are in a constant state of revealing themselves. To think you know everything about someone is to leave yourself vulnerable to surprise.”

If I am reckless, it is because I am tired.

—A girl can’t go on laughing all the time.”