Lauren > Recent Status Updates

Already love how Cutter writes about intuition — Tim’s thoughts of “unclean,” & that the man wanted not just to eat but to “feed.”
I also appreciated the small moment of indulgence the sick man had at being the object of Tim’s revulsion, how he played into it by leaning into Tim’s hand. That read very human; there is a giddiness when someone flinches away from your pain. A kind of ugly validation.

Rec’d by 2 of my Powell’s friends… I’m so squeamish about parasites but let’s GOOOO

“I won’t try to call my feeling for Arty love. Call it focus. …He scalded or smothered anyone he needed, but his needing and the hurt it causes me were the most life I have ever had.”
Arty is the most physically reliant on external support, so he reframes that need into granting someone the privilege of tending to him. Oly is aware of that manipulation, & that only makes her more susceptible

*frantically googles if Arty’s characterization was inspired by Jim Jones*

“Chick was wrapped in one of Dr. P’s white coats with the sleeves rolled up. His glowing face was bent towards the pillow.” Literally going to crawl through the page to save this kid. I’m gonna feed him veggie wraps and put on a penguin documentary and he’s never going to touch a blade again.

Nothing’s tragic without love. Oly loves being needed, Arty loves a dog. The perversion of love is not the absence of it. I think that’s what makes it so tragic. It would be gentler if Oly was more hateful. It would be kinder without any love at all.

“Did you ever wonder,” Arty asked, in his coolly speculative tone, “why he doesn’t fly? He should be able to.”
—
Chick, at 6 yrs old, has never thought to fly. He’ll clean the tank and feed the cats and tend to the grounds — he’ll even make that fucker a sandwich. I’m going INSANE, he just wants to be helpful. Chick baby I’m gonna get u out of there

“…you must have wished a million times to be normal.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’ve wished I had two heads. Or that I was invisible. I’ve wished for a fish’s tail instead of legs. I’ve wished to be more special.”
“Not normal?”
“Never.”

AUGHHHSHSHSH

“Matthew Yglesias also affirms a ‘deregulatory agenda.’ For these authors and more, hyper-commodification of housing is not the problem — it is the solution.” LMAO YGLESIAS CAUGHT A STRAY

The FIRST LINE is “in the body, where everything has a price, I was a beggar” ... this collection is gonna make me cry on my flight huh. Just me and someone else’s toddler bawling our eyes out in coach.
Anyway faves so far are Threshold, Immigrant Haibun, & Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds