"In my bedroom, while Mom wept, I opened up the centerfold - blond and proud and gracefully, benevolently smiling. With an X-acto knife I cut a hole where her pubic hair was. Then I turned down the lights - I had a dimmer - took off my clothes, and pressed myself to the 23-by-10-3/4-inch page...
"After cutting out the pubic hair I knew I had made a mistake . It looked wrong. Everything was not O.K. I wondered if the real woman was in terrible pain now. I wondered what to do with the small, triangular patch of hair I'd cut out. Throw it away? Where? Someone would find it. But I still wanted to make love. Maybe everything would be O.K. once we started making love. I put my penis in the hole, scraping my skin against the edges of the paper, knowing my skin cells were getting all over - in science class the teacher had had us scrape out skin with the edge of a glass slide and then look at it under the microscope to see the cells. But I was still excited! I thought she might become real somehow when she felt how much love I had
"I said, 'I love you. I want to have babies with you.' I pressed myself down and she crinkled. This was not glorious.
'Oh the glory of it all' was something I said when I was alone and things were glorious." (p. 27)
this book made me laugh and cringe and cry and every other possible reaction. it's fabulous. it's a memoir, too, which makes me love it even more because there are excruciatingly embarassing things in it that i couldn't imagine letting anybody read. but, since it is out there in the world, i suggest you all go buy it right this minute.
i'm going to eat a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and then i'm actually going to study for exams, so i don't fail and hopkins doesn't withdraw their acceptance...because that would be sucky.
random thought: i want to dance to "this magic moment" by the drifters at my wedding.
blogger isn't uploading my pictures right now for some reason, so here's a playlist, instead. really relaxing music.
- challengers- the new pornographers
- so much love- lionel neykov
- turnaroundturnmeon- sean hayes
- i'm on fire- bruce springsteen
- outlaws- joe purdy
- love and doubt- slow runner
- the knife- grizzly bear
- flowered dresses- slaid cleaves
- dream- priscilla ahn
- i can't make you love me- bonnie raitt
- sad lisa- cat stevens
- st. anthony- richard mcgraw
- the wolves (act I & 2)- bon iver
Hey Sophi-THANKS for your comments! I comment on YOUR comments at my blog, but I'm not sure if you read them.
ReplyDeleteVERY "interesting" books you read. That excerpt gave me a disturbing visual I'll have to shake before going to bed- for I fear I shall not sleep perchance to dream if I do not!
mmmmmmmmmm...mint chocolate ice cream-yum!
Hopkins? Med school? What career path do you plan to pursue?
Many years ago my band was fortunate enough to play at gigs w/Springsteen (cool guy by the way) & Jon Bon Jovi- nice guy w/good hair, but not a fan.
you're right, i don't read them, haha. i just comment and forget that i commented. i'll try to be better, though.
ReplyDeletethe book is obviously about more than having "sex" with centerfolds, but i was just looking through it and this was the first passage i came across that i thought was funny and worth putting on here. the other good passages have to be read in context.
i'm planning on double majoring in creative writing & psychology @ hopkins, and maybe a minor in italian.
will you lend me this book? I love memoirs. I think I would want to be a creative non fiction writer. I've had a messed up enough childhood... but its not a funny kind of messed up, its the kind of messed up that would probably cause people in my family to stop talking to me...
ReplyDeletefor sure lending you the book, as soon as exams are done. i promise you will la-ove it.
ReplyDelete