From books I've recently read

From Books I’ve (Recently) Read:

By Elizabeth Scarboro, My Foreign Cities:

Re first time she hung out with her (HS) friend, Stephen (who eventually became her husband):

They’re cutting class & sitting at a diner, eating & sharing parts of the paper, and she writes:
      ‘...and there was something going on here, this feeling I couldn’t explain.  It was something about stepping out of the noisy halls and into this quiet, above-ground place, looking down at the world from the second story, the way I could see the mountains as well as the brick walkway, the line of the western slope through the snow.  It was something about being out of time, but it was a little different than that, more that time had slowed down, or we’d slowed it down somehow.  We’d switched movies or soundtracks, or we were deep inside a single track, the way you could sink into a song, lose awareness of its 3-minute life span, live within it for what felt like a while.  There was something about this particular 10:15 on a Tuesday, we’d crawled inside it, we’d willed it to open up a little, we were stretching it out, the minutes were slowed and they were ours, and we were sitting here in them, like it was what they were meant for, and it was something about the two of us together that was making it happen, or maybe it was  just Stephen, maybe this was what minutes felt like to him all the time.

         ‘How the length of Stephen’s time here on earth influenced our sense of months, and years, and minutes, and days.  I don’t know how to describe it except to say we were deep in time, and also aware of its passing.  Maybe it’s most similar to being in love long-distance, when you finally get to see the person, and you know you only have a week together, and so you live deep inside that week, refusing to look out its windows, and your refusal is an acknowledgment that the windows exist.’

From Joanna Herson’s  The Outside of August:

Re:  giving handjobs in high school:

‘He said he’d call her but she didn’t really care.  Once she had done something like that, once she surprised herself and someone else, the rest felt forced and steeped in obligation, and she didn’t trust obligation any more than she trusted good old neglect.’

Re:  post-fight w/ her mother, riding the train home together:

‘They each read their books and by the time they reached home they were both worn out from keeping quiet.  They had that in common.  While Gus and her father could keep quiet for days with an ease that seemed almost sinister, Alice and her mother couldn’t do it.  Neither had the will or the stamina.’

Re: cruel chicks:

‘The secret world of mean girls – it must be universal.  It must be programmed in the genes – an intimidation technique that never failed.  Alice often felt that if she could just tap into this secret world of indisputable female command, everything would be so much simpler and clearer.  Kindness never meant as much when such power was close by; this feminine sway with a touch of cruelty was more elusive and voluptuous and more utterly distracting than a perfect pair of breasts.’

From Kathy Ebel’s  Claudia Silver to the Rescue:

(Here, about 90s NY women at a concert:)

     ‘A posse of gorgeous young women with big gold hoops and  kohl-rimmed eyes threw daggers at Claudia (the white chick).  They’d probably been Tri-Delts at Spelman, but were lately emboldened by their kente-cloth head wraps, motorcycle jackets and the sustained, empowered rush that comes from getting one’s law school applications in early.

     ‘…She returned to the bar and took her place among the three other anonymous white girls, assuming a casual pose with good posture that would telegraph a kind of bad-ass dignity, as opposed to loneliness.’

Here, picturing her love object Ruben choosing between ‘Anonymous White Girl Number Two or Kente-Cloth Bitch-Rag, Esq')

About Ruben:

     ‘Ruben’s fierce masculinity consumed the little apartment.  His leather clothes creaked with cold, his guitar scraped the walls of the narrow hallway, a fresh, warm cloud of vetiver rose from his body.’
And:

      ‘Claudia and Ruben left the apartment together that morning, strode to the subway stairs, and galloped their descent to the platform.  With each step, Ruben expertly distanced himself from her, so that while they began the brief journey to the train as lovers, they became acquaintances at the stairwell, and were complete strangers by the time they were smashed together on the rush-hour train.  Ruben’s hand grazed Claudia’s body with the indifference of a commuter.’