Christy > Recent Status Updates

"The weird grammar of death. You die, he or she dies, they die but there is no genuine form for 'I.' Not really. All know that, none know when."

"He's the type of person who loves the idea of being an outsider because he thinks by not belonging it makes him superior in some way. What he doesn't get is that the real outsiders would do anything to be on the inside. A real outside can't be seen at all."

First page and I already love it: "How they admired their own steadfast lives. Right up to the day when hope in all its versions when out of stock, including the crummy discount brands, and the heart had just one instruction left: run."

I have to get up early in the morning and I should really try to sleep, but I can't stop reading this.

Hilarious. "Though Penny wasn't so innocent that she never thought of sex, she also could not imagine an actual way that it wouldn't be awkward and unpleasant. In general, sex seemed like chicken pox, inevitable and scarring."

Had to stop reading because I was crying so hard I couldn't see the page.

Damn. Only on page 13 and I've already cried. This might be rough.

Laughed so hard I cried at the chapter called "Thanks for the Zombies, Jesus."

I am already laughing out loud.

I really am enjoying this book, but it's kind of starting to give me a headache.

Having so much trouble maintaining interest in this. I think there are just too many threads and it becomes hard to get really invested in one when they're constantly being interrupted. Also, in the process of switching back and forth, I keep forgetting about some of the characters and their stories. Not a good sign.

Having trouble with McGonigal's argument and this is one reason why: "Compared with games, reality is trivial. Games make us a part of something bigger and give epic meaning to our actions." Hm. Really? *Reality* is epic.

"The secret of survival is forgetting. If evolution favored conscience, everything with a backbone would have hanged itself from the ceiling fan eons ago, and invertebrates would once again be running the place."

Love this image: "Seemed to me the trauma was trotting right along with me, like a dog on a leash with its owner. I was the dog."

"You'd think the predators of the world would eventually learn that it's not a good idea to charge the sort of person who brings throwing knives to a dance club."

I am absolutely loving this book, but it is *hard* to read. Every single chapter makes me cry and I have to keep stopping to recover and absorb before I can go on.

I am so loving this book and this narrator. "You know, class is like magic. There's nothing there you can point to, it evaporates if you try to analyse it, but it's real and it affects how people behave and makes things happen."

"Kidnapping: More Hassle Than It's Worth?"

Off to a great start: "the children would play their own made-up games: Wild-West Accountants! in which they would calculate the loss of a shipment of gold stolen from an imaginary stage coach, or Recently Divorced Scientists! in which they would build a super-collider out of garbage to try and win back their recently lost loves."

I like this advice (even if I don't follow it): "Don't put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles--drug or tattoo--and . . . no inessential penises, either."

Ah, lovely. "Hope, I've discovered, is a sad nuisance. Hope is a horse with a broken leg."

A promising beginning: "...facts without motives, without the *story*, are just road signs with all the letters worn off. Meaningless as blank tombstones."

A promising beginning: "...facts without motives, with the *story*, are just road signs with all the letters worn off. Meaningless as blank tombstones."

Forcing myself to put the book down and try to sleep.

"Our minds we salvage from history's rubbish, & they are machines to make chaos into story." I've seen some complaints about these interludes about storytelling, these authorial intrusions, but I love them. They provide the above commentary & turns of phrase like these: "[a] researcher into the mind, a psychonomer, a thought-mapper" or "the cheeky escapology of narrative." They also re-connect this to Moby Dick.

Meh. Still not drawn into this. Moving on to something else.

""Basically, I'm just a ramblin guy . . . on his way to the Big Sky." And hell, why not? Montana! Or Wyoming. Fucking Rapid City, South Dakota. Anyplace but here." I get excited at mentions of Rapid City in my reading now. They come less often than mentions of Dallas.

"Children don't mind you talking over their heads--they're used to it, and used to figuring it out. Anything is better than being talked down to." I just love LeGuin.

"Silence introduced in a society that worships noise is like the moon exposing the night."