#cut

People always want to know what it feels like, so I’ll tell you: there’s a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, and yet you’ve gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, because it’s truly dazzling—that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And—God—the sweet release, that’s the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that’s tied to a little kid’s hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know that balloon is thinking, Ha, I don’t belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon remembers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights. When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel (better than a washcloth, because the stains don’t ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel your embarrassment; it’s a backbeat underneath your pulse. Whatever relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, because you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you’ve let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it’s summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it were really that easy. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#beauty

I glance down, and my eyes get big. "What?" He glances down, realizes why my eyes are big, and shrugs his shoulders. "It's morning." "It's cute. Can I keep it? ↗

— Jillian Dodd

#lol-cute #rolling-with-laughter #lol

He doesn't see my breasts or my waist or my hips. He only sees the nightmare. ↗

— Laurie Halse Anderson

#eating-disorders #eating-disorders

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution. ↗

— Hank Aaron

#execution #going #guessing #hitter #just

Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive. ↗

— Scott Adams

#because #becoming #cartoonist #executive #failed

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#age #antiquity #censure #eminent #escaping

I really like the old stuff that I cut my musical teeth on, and I loved it when the industry was just like that, without really a genre. Today, country radio's more aimed at a demographic than a genre. It just softens everything. ↗

— Gary Allan

#country #cut #demographic #everything #genre

So I cut out all the drinkin' and hangin' out and stuff like that early on. ↗

— Luther Allison

#early #i #like #out #stuff

I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me. ↗

— Mose Allison

#been #consecutive #good #i #many

There are more people at Obama's table offering ideas than there were five years ago, but when it came to facing up to the Republicans' threat to force a double-dip recession if they didn't get their millionaires' tax cut, they still amounted to nothing. And therein lies our fundamental problem. ↗

— Eric Alterman

#amounted #came #cut #facing #five