Eileen

On the contrary, being kidnapped was something of a secret wish of mine. At least then I’d know that I mattered to someone, that I was of value. Violence made much more sense to me than any strained conversation.

Why should my heart ache for anyone but myself? If anyone was trapped and suffering and abused, it was me. I was the only one whose pain was real. Mine.

amazing what the mind will do when the heart is throbbing

we could go out to the frozen lake and stand and shoot at the moon. Or to the beach, lie on our backs, make angels in the snow, shoot at the stars. Such were my romantic ideas for the evening with my new best friend

The heart is a moody, greedy thing, I suppose.

I wondered what sort of ecstasy there was to be had without shame to incite it.

The time I languished in the agony of not being beautiful was more than I care to admit even now

A house that is so well maintained, furnished with good-looking furniture of high quality, decorated tastefully, everything in its place, becomes a living tomb. People truly engaged in life have messy houses. I knew this implicitly at age twenty-four. Of course at twenty-four I was also obsessed with death. I had tried to distract myself from my terror not through housekeeping, like the housewives of X-ville, but through my bizarre eating, compulsive habits, tireless ambivalence, Randy and so forth. I hadn’t realized this until sitting at Rebecca’s kitchen table, watching her crack open a peanut, lick her fingers: I would die one day, but not yet. There I was.

In retrospect I see that it was what a sidekick would wear, a uniform of service, a blank page.

Violence was just another function of the body, no less unusual than
sweating or vomiting. It sat on the same shelf as sexual intercourse. The two got mixed up quite often, it seemed.