Nicole > Recent Status Updates

“Maribel had spent a lot of her youth dating terrible men, mostly Pinoy, Vietnamese, and Taiwanese first gens, still had a bit of an eating disorder from the years of insecurity and self-loathing; not to mention the mean-ass Asian would-be mother-in-laws fully enmeshed with their sons, so happy to have children and thus be on the right side of oppression at last.”

Omg LOL

“At first she wanted some defiant little precolonial name, like Dimasalang (untouchable), Dimaapi (unoppressable), Dimacuha (unobtainable), Dimaisip (unfathomable), Dimalanta (untiring), Dimapasoc (unbreachable), Dimasupil (unvanquishable)…”

“Cixi praised European fashions for their ‘pretty colors’, but said that while the foreign costume was very becoming to well-made and well-proportioned people’, it was unfortunate for any one who was not so blessed. The Manchu costume, on the other hand, falling in straight lines from the shoulder, was more becoming to stout people for it hid many defects”.

“In true aristocratic fashion, Dad had never learned a profession. He had attended elite private schools, then Harvard and John Hopkins. After college, he traveled around Eastern Europe for six years, picking up five languages along the way. He had a gentleman’s education, charm, and endless stories, but little professionalism”.

“You look so good,” he said, his breath catching on the last word.
“It’s called Prada,” I said, holding out the fabric of the skirt so he could see its texture. “It makes you feel feminine and powerful, according to the girl I borrowed it from. Fashion is her music.”

“I loved these Craftsmen homes of Berkeley, especially the undisturbed, unkempt ones. They were soulful and comfortable and had all the amenities that actually make people happy, like porches and window seats, and none of the things we believed to make us happy, like open-floor plans and living rooms optimized for Super Bowl viewing.”

“Coming from Spy magazine to Vanity Fair was like coming from managing One Direction to managing the Metropolitan Museum”

*the One Direction fan in me* 😆

“For a small magazine, your printer is your banker.”

A book dedicated to reversing the “disappearance” of English women writers before Austen.

I love this as an audiobook so far! It’s very motivating and empowering to read about underestimated female writers. I feel a lot of joy rediscovering their value with the author.

Men’s Fashion in the 1930s:

“Formal wear meant not ‘coat and tie,’ but the tuxedo, strictly the tuxedo, with the white tie, cummerbund, vest, and patent-leather pumps.

The barong tagalog has become extinct”.

"Books do not find value when they are written. They find value when they are read. Every book here is both worthless and priceless at the same time".

“During the proceedings, a member of the jury passed a note to the judge:

‘I don’t know if this is appropriate, but would w we be able to see the cigarette burns on the victim’s skin, as well as the gun wounds on the victim’s forehand?’

As they faced the gallery, they looked as though they were holding each other up.

As he showed his scar, Juan thought:

‘Everyone who was gone is here’

“All the misery in the world can come crashing down on you, it keeps you awake at night. It’s the same with their voices: if you let yourself fall for a voice on the other end of the line, it will grab hold of you and drag you in, and before you know it, you find yourself on board their boat with them, trembling with cold and fear, your nose level with the waves, and how will you help them?”

😮

During the Bush years, immigration policies were changing to accommodate more Chinese nationals who were at the time fleeing China because of the country’s one-child policy

“She wants to be free, and what is freedom if not the wresting of the self from the gaze of others, including her own? Life is meant to be lived, and seized for all the beauty and joy to be wrung out of it; it isn’t meant to be contained and inventoried for the sake of safety.”

“For everything that does not rise into consciousness will return as fate”.

Abundance is the author of suffering.

Shapewear circa 1500s England:

“She wore a bodice designed to flatten the chest and push her breasts up, creating a smooth silhouette for her kirtle, a dress designed to function as an undergown”.

“Freedom wasn’t free. It cost thousands of lives and thousands of dreams”.

“In May 1527 renegade troops belong so Charles V had sacked Rome and the Vatican and taken the Pope captive. Charles V was Queen Catherine’s nephew, and though he pronounced himself horrified at his troops’ actions he now had the Pope effectively at his mercy”

“The Pope was not going to countenance an annulment simply to legitimise adultery”

“Because Catherine has indeed been married to Henry’s brother Arthur, she and Henry had had a dispensation from the Pope to allow them to marry. To ask the Holy Father to now pronounce the marriage invalid and permit an annulment meant that he would have to declare that that dispensation should have not been granted”.

“Why, Henry demanded, had they not had a son? Why so many dead babies? Was God angry with him?”

“Elizabeth’s father the Duke of Buckingham had been summarily executed for high treason. Her father-in-law and husband sat on the jury that convicted him, and her father-in-law, the man now dining at her table, had pronounced the death sentence. Her father’s crime had been one of attitude.”

“The pain wasn’t as bad as I let on, but I had to let them people know having a baby was more than a bowel movement. I hurt just like them white women. Just cause I wasn’t hooping and hollering before didn’t mean I wasn’t feeling pain”.