Sublime

When I saw her with all her makeup off, I felt a little better. On the platform, I felt like I wasn’t even seeing my own sister. What a relief. I’d thought she was a walking skeleton, but she wasn’t half as skinny as I’d thought. She’d worn the wrong foundation, and way too much of it. No wonder she looked pale. Maybe she hadn’t really changed that

My mother found a fancy wristwatch catalog in the book swap at the dump. The front cover was crumpled, but she ironed it, as she ironed crumpled dollar bills. On the coffee table, next to a glass bowl from a garage sale, it looked like something a rich person would have. She set it just askew on the table, as if someone had been reading it and care

Wang was a near-Olympic figure skater as a teenager. Aged nineteen, she changed tracks when she realized she wasn’t going to make it to the top. ‘I really lost my way when my figure-skating career ended. I was nineteen, and I was in a panic because nothing had played out the way I’d hoped, after years of hard work.’12

She had been stricken from her marriage, rendered near penniless by the events, and was now an older and disregarded woman. It’s a harrowingly common feeling, even if the details of her experience and solution are particular. We women age, eyes sweep over us in obvious disregard, our moments of confusion are mocked, our knowledge makes us schoolmar

I had come to New York five years earlier, to create a life for myself there. I had not created a life for myself there. I had wanted to find the emerging writers and thinkers of my generation. I had found the sycophants, careerists, and media parasites who were redefining mediocrity for the 21st century.

The medical uncertainty compounds patients’ own uncertainty.