Raymond hadn’t phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to intervene. He’d elected to look after me himself.
These magazines could tell me which clothes and shoes to wear, how to have my hair styled in order to fit in. They could show me the right kind of makeup to buy and how to apply it. This way, I would...
Hamartia
My hair was mousy brown, parted in the center, straight and not particularly thick. Human hair, doing what human hair does: growing on my head.
It is incomprehensible to me now that I could ever have thought that anyone would love this ambulant bag of blood and bones.
It often feels as if I’m not here, that I’m a figment of my own imagination. There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thi...
It seemed there was an announcement every five minutes from the mythical conductor, imparting sagacious gems such as large items should be placed in the overhead luggage racks, or that passengers shou...
The only criterion I have is that the books must look clean, which means that I have to disregard a lot of potential reading material in the charity shop. I don't use the library for the same reason,...
It was too hot inside the hospital and the floors squeaked. There was a hand-gel dispenser outside the ward, and a big yellow sign above it read Do Not Drink. Did people actually drink sanitizing hand...
Mummy told me, years ago, that men go absolutely crazy for sausage rolls. The way to a man’s heart, she said, is a homemade sausage roll,
It’s SpongeBob, Eleanor, he said, speaking very slowly and clearly as though I were some sort of idiot. SpongeBob SquarePants? A semi-human bath sponge with protruding front teeth! On sale as if it we...
I’m familiar with the concept of bacchanalia and Dionysian revels, of course, but it strikes me as utterly bizarre that women should want to spend an evening together drinking and purchasing such item...
I’m not lonely, Mummy, I said, protesting. I’m fine on my own. I’ve always been fine on my own.
There was, it seemed, no Eleanor-shaped social hole for me to slot into.
Janey was planning a short engagement, she'd simpered, and so, of course, the inevitable collection for the wedding present would soon follow. Of all the compulsory financial contributions, that is th...
What, after all, is the point of eating out if you have to clear up yourself? You might as well have stayed at home.
She was, quite simply, a nice lady who’d raised a family and now lived quietly with her cats and grew vegetables. This was both nothing and everything.
Your voice changes when you’re smiling, it alters the sound somehow.
Raymond hadn’t phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to intervene. He’d elected to look after me himself. I’d been pondering this, and concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult be...
People seem to like me better with makeup on, for some reason, I said. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, apparently as stumped as I was.
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