Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Everyone’s eyes are caught so Adina looks at herself in the mirror, expecting to see a goddess emanating a buttery glow. Instead, she sees a petite woman in a half-top lunging politely. Hair frizzed above her head like a disoriented halo. Unattractive redness blooms through her cheeks and neck.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
abeyance
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
Nettie and he—a sort of perseverance, a persistent understanding. Where would Nettie have found strength for the unremitting concessions of daily life? She was precipitated from delight to lamentation without logical sequence, as though life were too short; she must cram everything in and perhaps sort it out later.
Shirley Hazzard, Brigitta Olubas, • Collected Stories
Believing in the inherent value of your body—and yourself—is a tricky act in modern America, where we are expected to work a paid job in order to “earn a living.”
Angela Garbes • Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change

“It might be hormones,” I suggested. “Well, who cares?” said practical G. “Who cares if it’s hormones. That doesn’t make it hurt less.”
Claire Dederer • Love and Trouble
What is required, then, is some means of making employees feel secure even when they know they’re not. One solution to this is to place the onus of employment security on the individual worker by making each and every worker responsible for his or her own “career.”
Micki McGee • Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life
Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective
Jia Tolentino • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Men Explain Things to Me—and