Excitement

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 44 of 182 · 20 per page

• From Middlesex (2002)

  ing maple-syrup-colored wax whereitwasneeded withaflat wooden spoon, and pressing instrips ofgauzebeforeit hardened.When the large woman was done ononeside,Helgaflipped herover. Tessie and Ilay inour chairs, listeningto waxbeingviolentiyremoved. "Oh my!" criedthe largelady. "Is nothing,"belittledHelga."Idoitper- fect." "Oweee!" yelped a bikini-liner.AndHelga,takinganoddly feministstance: "See whatyoudo forthemens?Yousuffer.Isnot worthit." Now Helgacame overto me.Shetookholdofmychinand moved myhead fromsideto side,examining.Shespreadwaxabove my upperlip.She movedtomy motheranddidthesame.Thirty sec- onds laterthewax hadhardened. "Ihavea surprise foryou,"Tessiesaid. "What?"Iasked,as Helgaripped.Iwas certain myfledglingmus- tachewasgone. Also,myupperlip. "Yourbrother's cominghomeforChristmas." Myeyesweretearing.I blinkedandsaidnothing,momentarily dumbfounded.Helga turned tomy mother. "Somesurprise,"Isaid. "He'sbringing a girlfriend." "He'sgota girlfriend? Whowouldgooutwithhim?" "Her nameis.. ." Helgaripped.Afteramomentmymotherre- sumed,"Meg." Fromthen on,SophieSassoontookcareofmyfacialhair. Iwent inabouttwice amonth,addingdepilation toanever-growinglistof upkeeprequirements. Istartedshaving my legs and underarms. I pluckedmy eyebrows.Thedresscode atmy school forbadecosmet- ics. ButonweekendsI gottoexperiment,withinlimits. Reetika and I painted ourfacesinher bedroom,passing a handmirrorbackand forth. Iwas particularly giventodramaticeyeliner.Mymodelhere was MariaCallas, orpossibly BarbraStreisandinFunnyGirl.Thetri- umphant, long-nosed divas.At homeIsnoopedin Tessie'sbath- room. Iloved the amulet-likevials,thesweet-smelling,seemingly edible creams.I triedout her facial steamer,too.Youputyourfaceto theplastic cone and wereblastedbyheat.Istayedawayfromgreasy moisturizers, worried theywouldmake mebreakout. With Chapter Elevenoff atcollege—hewasasophomorenow— I had the bathroom to myself. Thiswasevidentfromthe medicine cab- 311 inet. Two pink Daisyrazorsstooduprightin asmalldrinking cup, next toa spraycan ofPsssssstinstant shampoo.Atubeof DrPepper Lip Smacker, whichtasted like thesoftdrink,kissed abottleof "Gee, Your HairSmells Terrific." MyBreckCreme RinsewithBody prom- isedto makeme "thegirlwiththehair" (butwasn'tIalready?). From therewe moveonto thefacialproducts: myEpi*ClearAcne Kit;my GrazyCurl hairiron;abottleofFemlron pillswhichIwashopingto someday need;anda shakerofLove's BabySoft body powder. Then therewas myaerosolcanofSoft & Drinon-sting antiperspirantand mytwo bottlesof perfume:Woodhue, amildlydisturbing Christmas presentfrommy brother,whichIconsequently neverwore;and L'Air du TempsbyNinaRicci ("Only theromanticneedapply").I alsohadatub of Jolen CremeBleach,forbetweenappointments at theGolden Fleece.Interspersedamidthesetotemicitemswerestray Q-tips andcotton balls,lipliners,MaxFactor eyemakeup,mascara, blush,and everythingelseIusedin a losingbattletomakemyself beautiful.Finally,hiddeninthebackofthecabinet,wastheboxof Kotexpads, whichmymotherhadgivenmeoneday."Webetterjust keep theseonhand,"she'dsaid,astonishingme completely. No fur- therexplanationthan that. ThehugIhadgivenChapter Eleven inthe summerof '72 turned outtobe a kindoffarewell,becausewhenhe returnedhomefrom collegeafter hisfreshman year my brotherhadbecomeanotherper- son.He'dgrownhishairout(notaslongas mine,butstill).He'd startedlearning the guitar.Perchedonhisnosewasa pairofgranny glasses and insteadofstraight-legshenow worefadedbell-bottom jeans.Themembers ofmy familyhavealways had a knackforself- transformation. WhileIfinished myfirstyearat Baker & Inglisand beganmysecond, whileIwentfrombeinga short seventhgraderto an alarmingly talleighth grader, Chapter Eleven,upatcollege, went fromsciencegeek to John Lennon look-alike. He bought a motorcycle. Hestarted meditating. Heclaimedto understand 2001 :ASpaceOdyssey , eventhe ending. Butitwasn'tun- tilChapter Eleven descendedintothe basement toplay Ping-Pong with MiltonthatIunderstood whatwas behind allthis.We'dhad a Ping-Pongtableforyears, butsofar,no matterhowmuch my brotherorI practiced,wehadnever come close to beatingMilton. 312 Neither my newlong reachnorChapter Eleven's beetle-browed con- centrationwas sufficient tocounter Milton'swicked spin orhis "killershot" whichleft redmarkson ourchests, throughour clothes. But that summer, somethingwas different.WhenMiltonused his extra-fast serve, Chapter Eleven returneditwithaminimum ofef- fort. When Milton employedthe "English"he'dlearnedin theNavy, Chapter Eleven counter-spun. EvenwhenMiltonsmasheda winner across the table,Chapter Eleven, withstupendousreflexes,sent it back whereitcame from. Miltonbegantosweat.His faceturnedred. Chapter Eleven remainedcool. Hehadastrange, distractedlookon hisface. His pupilsweredilated. "Go!"I cheered him on."Beat Dad!" 12-12. 12-14. 14-15.17-18.18-21! Chapter Elevenhad done it!He'd beatenMilton! "I'monacid,"he explainedlater. "What?" "Windowpane.Threehits." Thedrughad madeeverythingseemasifitwere happeningin slowmotion. Milton'sfastestserves,hismostarchingspinshots and smashes,seemedtofloat intheair. LSD?Three hits?ChapterEleven had beentrippingthewhole time!Hehadbeentrippingduringdinner!"Thatwasthehardest part,"hesaid."I was watching dadcarvethe chickenandthenit flappeditswingsandflewaway!" "What'sthematterwith thatkid?"I heard my father ask my mother throughthewallseparating ourrooms."Nowhe's talking aboutdropping outofengineering. Saysit'stooboring." "It's justastage.It'll pass." "Itbetter." Shortly thereafter, ChapterElevenhadreturnedtocollege. He hadn'tcome backforThanksgiving. Andso, as Christmasof '73 approached, weallwondered whathewouldbelike whenwesaw himagain. We quickly found out.Asmyfatherhadfeared,Chapter Eleven had scuttledhis plans tobecomeanengineer.Now, heinformedus, he wasmajoring inanthropology. As partofan assignmentforoneof his courses,ChapterEleven conducted what hecalled"field work"duringmost of thatvacation. Hecarried ataperecorderaround withhim,recordingeverything we 313

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  Just as our hated opponent stopped dribbling and prepared for his shot, the Colonel stood up and screamed something. Like: “For the love of God, please shave your back hair!” Or: “I need to be saved. Can you minister to me after your shot?!” — Toward the end of the third quarter, the Christian-school coach called a time-out and complained to the ref about the Colonel, pointing at him angrily. We were down 56–13. The Colonel stood up. “What?! You have a problem with me!?” The coach screamed, “You’re bothering my players!” “THAT’S THE POINT, SHERLOCK!” the Colonel screamed back. The ref came over and kicked him out of the gym. I followed him. “I’ve gotten thrown out of thirty-seven straight games,” he said. “Damn.” “Yeah. Once or twice, I’ve had to go really crazy. I ran onto the court with eleven seconds left once and stole the ball from the other team. It wasn’t pretty. But, you know. I have a streak to maintain.” The Colonel ran ahead of me, gleeful at his ejection, and I jogged after him, trailing in his wake. I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails. one hundred eight days before THE NEXT DAY, Dr. Hyde asked me to stay after class. Standing before him, I realized for the first time how hunched his shoulders were, and he seemed suddenly sad and kind of old. “You like this class, don’t you?” he asked. “Yessir.” “You’ve got a lifetime to mull over the Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness.” He spoke every sentence as if he’d written it down, memorized it, and was now reciting it. “But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it’s over, be present out there,” he said, nodding toward the lake and beyond. “Yessir.” one hundred one days before ON THE FIRST MORNING of October, I knew something was wrong as soon as I woke up enough to turn off the alarm clock. The bed didn’t smell right. And I didn’t feel right. It took me a groggy minute before I realized: I felt cold . Well, at the very least, the small fan clipped to my bunk seemed suddenly unnecessary. “It’s cold!” I shouted. “Oh God, what time is it?” I heard above me. “Eight-oh-four,” I said. The Colonel, who didn’t have an alarm clock but almost always woke up to take a shower before mine went off, swung his short legs over the side of the bed, jumped down, and dashed to his dresser.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  In the noncelebrity area, Reese passes a photo booth in front of a sad little square of red carpet, so that civilians could activate a machine in order to make it look like a photographer had taken a red-carpet photo of them. Reese considers pressing the button for herself and posting the results to her social media, but rules it out: To stage an elaborate selfie on a fake red carpet would be demeaning. “Katrina says she’s by the shampoo table,” Ames reads to Reese from a text, then glances up from his phone, perplexed. “Shampoo table? What’s a shampoo table?” “There!” Reese points. A celebrity designer whose features have been pleasingly redrawn with fillers stands before a booth decorated with images of his own face. Two assistants are giving away shampoo to an eager crowd of the noncelebrities. Reese is suddenly covetous, because the bottles look full-sized, not sample-sized. Wait, maybe even family-sized! “Katrina, this is Reese. Reese, this is Katrina,” Ames says to a woman who has peeled away from the crowd. “Hi,” says Katrina, and by way of greeting lifts her chin to indicate the celebrity designer’s booth. “Did you get the free shampoo?” “No! Not yet!” Reese says, and despite herself, she is disarmed. Katrina hands her a sagging tote bag, heavy with the shampoo, and an additional selection of what looks to be an assortment of lip balms and skin moisturizers. “I grabbed an extra one for you.” Reese peers into the tote bag, then holds it at her side, pleased. “It’s confirmed,” Reese says to Ames. “You have good taste in women.” Katrina leads them through the crowd. A brief thrill passes over Reese as she makes meaningful eye contact with a hot middle-aged butch in a white suit who looks like Robin Wright but is not Robin Wright, because this woman can lean against a wall more louchely than Robin Wright could ever dream of doing. But no, Reese! Do not be distracted! Reese breaks off eye contact regretfully and moves on, dutifully following Katrina and Ames who, Reese now notices, hold hands. Reese decides to postpone any feelings about this state of hand affairs for the moment. In the back of one of the conference rooms, beside a coffee bar, Katrina finds an empty couch. As the three settle in, Reese finds herself reluctant to be the first to talk. “Do you want one of those fancy martinis?” Ames asks Reese, and Reese nods. Off to one side of the room stands a Ketel One bar, where bartenders fill glasses with premixed craft cocktails. Ames stands and lets go of Katrina’s hand. “What about you? Can I get you something besides a martini?” Indirect as it is, this is the first acknowledgment of Katrina’s pregnancy, and Reese’s attention narrows.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Bless him, Jesus. Tell it, brother.”“When Jesus tells you stand up and walk, you better get on your feet. Get up!”People all over the tent rose from their seats, hands in the air. Pam and I stood in our chairs, trying to see over or around the grown-ups. My mother began to play “God Don’t Never Change,” a fast-paced song that turned up the energy.Brother Terrell stood at the top of the prayer ramp and the crowd moved toward him. The sick, the blind, the deaf, the deformed in body and spirit. By the time the prayer line formed, his right hand was red and hot and jerking like a downed power line.My mother was deep into the music, a gap-toothed double-wide smile parked across her face. Betty Ann left my brother in the care of a friend and moved to the front to help with the prayer line. Pam and I climbed down from our chairs and made our way to the side of the platform at the end of the prayer ramp. Brother Terrell was someplace else entirely. Randall came and stood beside us, his cowlick standing straight up.“Look at that.”A woman with a stomach so large she looked two years pregnant labored up the ramp, pulling herself forward by the rails, breathing through her mouth. With each step, her face turned a little redder. Randall put his hand over his mouth.“Her stomach will be there three days before the rest of her. Daddy’ll be lucky if she don’t die before she gets to him.”We giggled. Brother Terrell leaned over and whispered something to the woman. She nodded and raised her hands. The people who stood in line behind her on the ramp backed up. Betty Ann and the preachers who waited in front of her on the ramp moved away. If this woman went down in the spirit, no one wanted to go with her. Randall, Pam, and I edged beyond the corner of the platform for a better view. No one was left on the ramp but the woman and Brother Terrell. The music and the clapping stopped. He raised his hand to place it on her forehead, but before he could touch her, the woman’s skirt dropped around her ankles. Her big stomach was gone. Randall let out a whoop. Brother Terrell looked over his shoulder at the men on the platform, and they all doubled over laughing. He whirled back toward the audience and jumped up and down, just above the ramp where the woman still stood with her hands raised and her eyes closed.“She’s healed, praise God. The spirit of God has filled this place like a mighty wind, just like in the Bible, hallelujah! The healing power of God destroyed the tumor. It’s gone.”Anyone still in their seats rushed to the front.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Werner Herzog was the first famous person interested in the clothing she handed out who actually showed up in person. How he ended up on her agency’s PR list remained a mystery; everyone’s favorite Bavarian director is no one’s favorite fashion icon. Herzog met Reese on the street outside the Bowery-based offices of the menswear brand Barking Irons. He wore an outfit of resolute anti- fashion: khakis, a shapeless button-up, and a navy blazer cut much too long—years out of style. He shook Reese’s hand, a greeting that she disliked. An overly firm handshake could clock her, so she overcompensated with a floppy, limp wrist that undercut any semblance of authority. She felt much more at home with a kiss on the cheek. Nothing better for a Wisconsin girl than European manners. She wondered what he thought of trans women. Or any women for that matter. Were there women in his movies? She couldn’t remember many. Perhaps some women died in a jungle over the course of one movie or another. In the Barking Irons office, a loft space stylishly decorated in Gilded Age antiques, Herzog picked through t-shirts emblazoned with images of New York City lore, while the brand’s founders, two local brothers, delivered a spiel on themselves and their branding, as they did whenever an actual celebrity bothered to show up. Herzog nodded sagely. He told them that to succeed in anything, be it fashion or documentary film, one must scrap for everything— and that was why, despite his success, he made it a practice to accept free clothing. In the way that poor artists invited to upper-class salons a century ago were expected to be witty and entertaining, Herzog offered his benefactors at Barking Irons a truly Herzogian experience. In lieu of small talk, he announced that these new clothes were especially welcome as that very day he had experienced a horror: The hotel in which he preferred to stay while in New York City had been overrun by an infestation of bedbugs. He pronounced the word “infestation” with five syllables, overstressing the vowels in a manner that struck Reese as clearly habitual yet bordering on self- caricature. Werner Herzog played by Werner Herzog. With a demented urgency, he advised Reese and the two brothers that should they ever encounter such bloodthirsty vermin, they must immediately strip off their clothing, and place that clothing in a freezer turned down to “the temperature of zero for no less than two days, so that in the darkness and cold, all life will slowly drain from the parasites.” Having thus paid for his shirts in trade, he gathered them in a paper bag, bid his dumbstruck audience thank you and goodbye, and descended in the elevator back out into the city street. For the first time in her life, Reese had a professional story that she couldn’t wait to tell at parties.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  It’s just running. “Five,” he said. “Four. Three. Two. One. Light it. Light it. Light it.” It lit with a sizzle that reminded me of every July Fourth with my family. We stood still for a nanosecond, staring at the fuse, making sure it was lit. And now, I thought. Now. Run run run run run. But my body didn’t move until I heard Takumi shout-whisper, “Go go go fucking go.” — And we went. Three seconds later, a huge burst of pops. It sounded, to me, like the automatic gunfire in Decapitation, except louder. We were twenty steps away already, and I thought my eardrums would burst. I thought: Well, he will certainly hear it. We ran past the soccer field and into the woods, running uphill and with only the vaguest sense of direction. In the dark, fallen branches and moss-covered rocks appeared at the last possible second, and I slipped and fell repeatedly and worried that the Eagle would catch up, but I just kept getting up and running beside Takumi, away from the classrooms and the dorm circle. We ran like we had golden shoes. I ran like a cheetah—well, like a cheetah that smoked too much. And then, after precisely one minute of running, Takumi stopped and ripped open his backpack. My turn to count down. Staring at my watch. Terrified. By now, he was surely out. He was surely running. I wondered if he was fast. He was old, but he’d be mad. “Five four three two one,” and the sizzle. We didn’t pause that time, just ran, still west. Breath heaving. I wondered if I could do this for thirty minutes. The firecrackers exploded. The pops ended, and a voice cried out, “STOP RIGHT NOW!” But we did not stop. Stopping was not in the plan. “I’m the motherfucking fox,” Takumi whispered, both to himself and to me. “No one can catch the fox.” A minute later, I was on the ground. Takumi counted down. The fuse lit. We ran. But it was a dud. We had prepared for one dud, bringing an extra string of firecrackers. Another, though, would cost the Colonel and Alaska a minute. Takumi crouched down on the ground, lit the fuse, and ran. The popping started. The fireworks bangbangbanged in sync with my heartbeat. When the firecrackers finished, I heard, “STOP OR I’LL CALL THE POLICE!” And though the voice was distant, I could feel his Look of Doom bearing down on me. “The pigs can’t stop the fox; I’m too quick,” Takumi said to himself. “I can rhyme while I run; I’m that slick.” The Colonel warned us about the police threat, told us not to worry. The Eagle didn’t like to bring the police to campus. Bad publicity. So we ran. Over and under and through all manner of trees and bushes and branches. We fell. We got up. We ran.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Randall suggested husbands and wives, a variation on doctor that was always his favorite game.Pam groaned. “We played that yesterday.”He sighed and walked around the barn, hands deep in his pockets. “I got it. We’ll play sinners!”As sinners, Pam and I bunched our dresses into our long white panties to make shorts and stood on street corners holding little sticks between our fingers and blowing imaginary smoke through pursed lips. We thrust our chins out and dared passersby to look at us. When they did, we stared them straight in the eye. Only true Jezebels wore shorts and smoked. We had played sinners all that week, so there wasn’t anything new in that idea.Pam looked hard at Randall, trying to figure out his angle. “We’re not playing sinner husbands and wives, Randall.”“I’m not talking ’bout that , Pam. I mean we’ll be real sinners.” Randall paused and looked up at the barn eaves. When he spoke again, it was in a hushed voice.“We won’t play sinners. We’ll be sinners, real sinners. And we’ll smoke real cigarettes.”I took matches from the kitchen, Pam stole money from the piles of change her daddy left on the counter every night, and Randall went to the store to buy the cigarettes.Pam and I traced with our fingers in the air the flight of two flies as they rose through the shafts of light streaming through the holes in the barn roof. We licked each other’s arms to see whose were the saltiest and practiced arm wrestling. Gary fell asleep in the corner, sweat trickling down his face, a fly on his lip. Finally, the barn door creaked open and Randall appeared.“Anybody want an ice-cold cocola?”“What took you so long?” Pam ran to take the paper bag he carried under his arm. It was wet with the condensation from the bottles of soda, and ripped as she pulled it from him. Four RC Colas, a bottle opener, four slightly melted candy bars, and a pack of Lucky Strikes spilled out onto the hay. Randall ripped open the cigarettes.“What comes first, cigarettes or candy bars? I vote cigarettes.”Pam held the matchbook in the air. “We vote candy, and I got the matches, so we win.”Randall doled out the chocolate bars and pried off the tops of the sodas with the bottle opener. We took big bites of the chocolate and washed it down with RC. In the rush of sugar I forgot all about the cigarettes, but Randall remembered.“Time to be sinners. Gimme the matches, Pam.”He put a cigarette between his teeth and struck the match. He puffed and coughed and puffed some more until the tip glowed steadily. He passed the matches to Pam, who lit one and handed it to me, then lit another for herself. We puffed until we grew dizzy and slipped to the ground. Randall tried to stand and stumbled.My stomach lurched, but I smoked on. Randall threw down his cigarette butt and fired up another.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  “If the people of Columbia won’t come out to praise the Lord, the same God that turned a valley of dry bones into a living army in the Old Testament will command these old wooden chairs to stand up and praise him!”He ran back and forth across the stage, his mouth stretched wide over the microphone. “Will somebody, oh somebody please stand up and say hal-le-lu-jah with me?”His question and the response it generated reverberated through the living rooms and bedrooms of people who lived up to a mile away from the state fairgrounds. Not prone to late-night religious ecstasy, the neighbors picked up the phone and gave the sheriff an earful. By the time the patrol car crawled through the parking lot, the crowd was so caught up chanting “Hallelujah!” that no one noticed. The sheriff parked behind the tent and waited inside the car with his deputy, windows down, cigarette tips glowing in the night. Brother Wilson, the new tent manager, walked over to talk to the officers. He assured them that neither he nor Brother Terrell wanted any trouble and that he would personally turn down the sound system.After the service that night, the tent manager relayed to Brother Terrell and the rest of the team what the sheriff had said: too many complaints, turn down the speakers.Mama snorted. “They don’t tell those worldly entertainers to turn down anything. This is the state fairgrounds! They must be used to noise around here.”Everyone agreed we were being persecuted, but the speaker volume was lowered before service began the next morning. Brother Terrell asked the sparse daytime audience to move closer to the large speakers at the front of the platform so they could hear. The lower volume worked with the smaller, more compact seating arrangement, but posed a problem at night, when the crowd, though small for us, was still too large to be contained in one or two small sections. The volume crept back up and the sheriff began to make regular appearances. The sound system had posed problems before, but the tent team and authorities had usually reached an agreement. Before we reached that point in Columbia, someone called the press. We didn’t make the front page as folks would later remember, but the newspaper coverage did stir up interest. Our crowd size increased, and so did the noise and the pressure for a showdown.Brother Terrell began to point out the sheriff’s car from the platform. “That viper out there that’s supposed to protect us is out here trying to shut down the revival. They’re trying to stop God. You can’t stop God.”Mama played “I Shall Not Be Moved,” and the crowd joined hands and sang, swaying to the music. Inspired by the civil rights movement, two hundred of the faithful descended on the Richland County courthouse demanding freedom of religion. The sheriff scratched his head and told Brother Terrell’s followers and the reporters who accompanied them he wasn’t out to restrict anyone’s religion.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “It’s different in Norway. And anyway, I have always been tall and I told her I was twenty.” “We aren’t in Norway.” “T know,” he said. “I just bought a Chrysler LeBaron.” He stabbed his key lime pie with the tines of a fork to emphasize his point. The complete lack of segue threw her. “A what?” “A Chrysler LeBaron.” He aimed a whipped cream—covered fork out the window. Parked in front of the diner sat an early-nineties-era red Chrysler LeBaron convertible with the top down. “It is not a very good car, everyone tells me, but it looks like such an American car— like what I saw on television in Kristiansand growing up—and it was so cheap. I could never have a car like that in Norway.” She stared at the car, at a complete loss. She didn’t have a car, but even if someone offered her a LeBaron, she wasn’t sure she’d want it. “Will you come for a ride with me?” Suddenly, he was boyish, his face animated, and Reese had a moment to contemplate how charm and charisma had something to do with how someone speaks, the patterns and pauses, and how an accent can suddenly amplify that. “Say yes, please”—again the strange P to L shift that Reese had already noticed—“I have a red American convertible and I need a pretty American girl in the front seat.” She nodded without quite thinking of what she was agreeing to, just happy to be in the pretty-American-girl category. “After work, though. At seven.” She sat in that same seat two weeks later, as he drove the LeBaron west, across the pastel Badlands of South Dakota. He hadn’t liked the rules of the Wisconsin swim team any better than he’d liked the rules of the University of Oslo team, and he found Madison as stultifying as the prospect of forever nights at the Russian border.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  But Reese has smelled something new and curious. Yes, she’s supposed to take care of her friends tonight, but a betrayal of Ames? Katrina wanting to talk to her? Reese has had such opportunities seldom enough that when one comes, she knows to move. “Honestly, the girl was closer to my friends than me, so I’m mostly here for support.” This is half-true. “Who was she?” “A trans girl from around.” “Tm sorry.” Reese mmhmms in the mournful manner one properly receives a condolence, waits the necessary moment to avoid unseemliness, then asks, “So what’s this betrayal all about?” “Can we talk about it in person? I might have outed Ames to the whole company. I’m not sure of the etiquette for that. I’m happy to come to you to make things easier.” Reese moved into an apartment in Greenpoint with Iris a year and a half ago: a low-ceilinged ancient-brown-carpeted second-floor unit in a three-story building with asbestos siding that sits at the base of the Pulaski Bridge. The apartment had at some point in history been a one-bedroom, but by barely hewing to the New York real estate law that a room must have a window and a closet to qualify as a bedroom, a long-ago landlord had squeezed three bedrooms into the space by building a maze of walls. Each oddly shaped bedroom had exactly one window and a closet that protruded from the wall like a box. Iris took the largest bedroom and in the smallest bedroom, she had placed a massage table and decorated the walls with tapestries and candles, turning it into a part-time erotic massage parlor. Iris had enrolled in massage classes the year before as she cleaned up and got sober. She had been working since then at a spa in Williamsburg. Iris divided up her male clients into two categories, daddies (positive!) and dickbags (negative!) and liked to detail at length their various behaviors for Reese after work. Occasionally, Iris offered good daddies who dropped the right hints the chance for sessions with happier endings at the apartment. Reese lived in the medium-sized bedroom—what had once been a bathroom. Since the bathroom had a window, it had been made into a bedroom, and the living room closet made into the bathroom as building codes did not require bathrooms to have windows. Every night she rested her head on a pillow that lay in the space where the toilet had once been.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  He has put the women at a big table by the kitchen, and has been bringing out all sorts of delicate Italian desserts special for them, all of which taste to Reese like York Peppermint Patties dressed up in pretension, although the other less aggressively anointed women note for each other many other complex flavors, none of which are peppermint. Finally, the Empress of Dry Cleaning announces, “Okay, I can’t wait any longer. I have to know everything.” She is trying to be excited and bubbly, socially proper for some kind of impromptu baby shower, but the phrasing suggests a note of concern. Katrina explains with much less of a sales pitch than Reese was expecting. It’s not exactly like Reese wants Katrina to lie to her friends, but she doesn’t even try to soft-pedal it. Reese’s sense of her own gender does not allow her to make sports analogies, but like, Katrina is doing the thing where the guy who throws the ball does so with no spin whatsoever. What is Katrina doing? She has to know this is a weird thing to tell her friends. That she had an affair with her employee, who turned out to be hiding that he was a former transsexual woman, which is why he mistakenly thought he was sterile, and now Katrina is going to raise the baby with him and his ex-girlfriend, another transsexual. Katrina’s friends’ smiles have dimmed, and the creases of worry between their eyes have deepened. “It’s not as weird as it sounds,” Reese says, trying to make her voice bright. “Yes, it is,” Katrina says, “but that’s okay; that’s what I want to express. That, yes, it’s like, not how most people get pregnant, or how most people raise a family. But we’ve thought it through. It’s exciting. I’m excited not to do the heteronormative thing.” And suddenly Reese gets what is happening. That word “heteronormative” reveals the game to her. She thought that she was the one coming out. But no, Katrina is coming out as queer to her friends. That’s why she’s being so aggressive about it. This is the path of the baby queers. The borderline confrontational assertion: This is what I am, got a problem with it? It is delivered with all the zealotry of the recent convert, who has yet to be bludgeoned into weariness and compromise for her ways, who believes that the new religion holds the answers lacking in her old one. Even more revelatory to Reese: Katrina is defiantly excited! She thinks this queerness makes her interesting! Katrina’s friends trade discreet but doubtful expressions. They are still a few steps behind. “So the man”—Kathy tries—“the father, I mean, he is a man?” “What?” Katrina says. “She means is he coming or going?” clarifies the Empress of Dry Cleaning, then adds for Reese’s benefit, “No offense.”

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  your ticket and you learn on the Internet that richer or more desperate fans are offering $3,000. Would you sell? If you resemble most of the audience at sold- out events you do not sell. Your lowest selling price is above $3,000 and your maximum buying price is $500. This is an example of an endowment effect, and a believer in standard economic theory would be puzzled by it. Thaler was looking for an account that could explain puzzles of this kind. Chance intervened when Thaler met one of our former students at a conference and obtained an early draft of prospect theory. He reports that he read the manuscript with considerable excitement, because he quickly realized that the loss-averse value function of prospect theory could explain the endowment effect and some other puzzles in his collection. The solution was to abandon the standard idea that Professor R had a unique utility for the state of having a particular bottle. Prospect theory suggested that the willingness to buy or sell the bottle depends on the reference point—whether or not the professor owns the bottle now. If he owns it, he considers the pain of giving up the bottle. If he does not own it, he considers the pleasure of getting the bottle. The values were unequal because of loss aversion: giving up a bottle of nice wine is more painful than getting an equally good bottle is pleasurable. Remember the graph of losses and gains in the previous chapter. The slope of the function is steeper in the negative domain; the response to a loss is stronger than the response to a corresponding gain. This was the explanation of the endowment effect that Thaler had been searching for. And the first application of prospect theory to an economic puzzle now appears to have been a significant milestone in the development of behavioral economics. Thaler arranged to spend a year at Stanford when he knew that Amos and I would be there. During this productive period, we learned much from each other and became friends. Seven years later, he and I had another opportunity to spend a year together and to continue the conversation between psychology and economics. The Russell Sage Foundation, which was for a long time the main sponsor of behavioral economics, gave one of its first grants to Thaler for the purpose of spending a year with me in Vancouver. During that year, we worked closely with a local economist, Jack Knetsch, with whom we shared intense interest in the endowment effect, the rules of economic fairness, and spicy Chinese food. The starting point for our investigation was that the endowment effect is not universal. If someone asks you to change a $5 bill for five singles, you hand over the five ones without any sense of loss. Nor is there much loss aversion when you shop for shoes. The merchant who gives up the shoes in exchange for money certainly feels no loss. Indeed, the shoes that he hands over have always

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Now known as Madame d'Etioles, she could realize a great ambition: she opened a literary salon. All of the great writers and philosophers of the time fre- quented the salon, many because they were enamored of the hostess. One of these was Voltaire, who became a lifelong friend. Through all Jeanne's success, she never forgot the fortune-teller's pre- diction, and still believed that she would one day conquer the king's heart. It happened that one of her husband's country estates bordered on King Louis's favorite hunting grounds. She would spy on him through the fence, or find ways to cross his path, always while she happened to be wearing an elegant, yet fetching outfit. Soon the king was sending her gifts of game. When his official mistress died, in 1744, all of the court beauties vied to take her place; but he began to spend more and more time with Madame d'Etioles, dazzled by her beauty and charm. To the astonishment of the court, that same year he made this middle-class woman his official mistress, ennobling her with the title of the Marquise de Pompadour. The king's need for novelty was notorious: a mistress would beguile him with her looks, but he would soon grow bored with her and find someone else. After the shock of his choice of Jeanne Poisson wore off, the courtiers reassured themselves that it could not last—that he had only cho- sen her for the novelty of having a middle-class mistress. Little did they know that Jeanne s first seduction of the king was not the last seduction she had in mind. As time went by, the king found himself visiting his mistress more and more often. As he ascended the hidden stair that led from his quarters to hers in the palace of Versailles, anticipation of the delights that awaited him at the top would begin to turn his head. First, the room was always warm, and was filled with delightful scents. Then there were the visual delights: Madame de Pompadour always wore a different costume, each one elegant and surprising in its own way. She loved beautiful objects—fine porcelain, Chinese fans, golden flowerpots—and every time he visited, there would be something new and enchanting to see. Her manner was always light- hearted; she was never defensive or resentful. Everything for pleasure. Then there was their conversation: he had never been really able to talk with a woman before, or to laugh, but the marquise could discourse skillfully on any subject, and her voice was a pleasure to hear.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “T usually choose the Wedding Dress or Married category,” Amy said. “Weddings are so kinky. I think most non-kinky people just never realize it. Think about it! You put a woman in a special elaborate outfit, and then one man gives her to another man like some kind of BDSM scene, and then they put like a symbolic collar on the woman’s finger, and then the man lifts her dress to show everyone there—maybe hundreds of people!—her garter and lingerie. Then he picks her up and takes her away to fuck her while everyone else knows it’s happening! It’s so dirty. It’s like the kinkiest thing I could ever imagine and it actually happens all the time. So I like to think about it happening to me.” She had never said anything like this aloud before. Patrick laughed. And then she laughed. As she laughed, Patrick did something unexpected. For most of the drive, he’d been leaning forward, peering through the windshield, his hands at two and ten o’clock. But he dropped his left hand and started rubbing his crotch. Amy thought Patrick might just be adjusting, but no, he kept at it. He was playing with himself. He didn’t so much as glance at her, just kept going, talking about which of the stories he liked from his favorite category, Physically Forced or Blackmailed. For a moment, Amy felt disgusted. But isn’t this what she wanted? Didn’t she understand it? Hadn’t she wanted to share the sexuality she hid with someone? Anyone? She reached down and rubbed herself too. But she couldn’t keep going. The vibe in the car wasn’t sexy. She felt like a boy, with a man, but a man she’d judged to be an unattractive loser. Maybe she’d feel differently after they had dressed up. Glamour Boutique got fun after about a half hour. The clerk introduced herself as Jen. As Amy’s jitteriness faded, Jen actually began to help Amy with clothes. The sense of women advising each other on outfits, of her inclusion in that feminine rite, nearly overwhelmed Amy. It was more than she could have hoped for. Wearing the breast forms and bra, she wanted to try on everything— not just the fetish clothes, items she’d only ever seen online—but simple dresses as well. “Always look for the empire waist,” Jen encouraged, holding up a yellow dress with a sash under the bust. “Everyone always thinks it’s about minimizing the shoulders, but no, it’s about the right ratio between shoulders and hips. Empire waists flare out, give you hips.”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  You are always one step ahead and in control. Give the victim a thrill with a sudden change of direction. The Calculated Surprise I n 1753, the twenty-eight-old Giovanni Casanova met a young girl named Caterina with whom he fell in love. Her father knew what kind of man Casanova was, and to prevent some mishap before he could marry her off, he sent her away to a convent on the Venetian island of Murano, where she was to remain for four years. Casanova, however, was not one to be daunted. He smuggled letters to Caterina. He began to attend Mass at the convent several times a week, catching glimpses of her. The nuns began to talk among themselves: who was this handsome young man who appeared so often? One morning, as Casanova, leaving Mass, was about to board a gondola, a servant girl from the convent passed by and dropped a letter at his feet. Thinking it might be from Caterina, he picked it up. It was indeed intended for him, but it was not from Caterina; its author was a nun at the convent, who had noticed him on his many visits and wanted to make his acquaintance. Was he inter- ested? If so, he should come to the convent's parlor at a particular time, when the nun would be receiving a visitor from the outside world, a friend of hers who was a countess. He could stand at a distance, observe her, and decide whether she was to his liking. Casanova was most intrigued by the letter: its style was dignified, but there was something naughty about it as well—particularly from a nun. He had to find out more. At the appointed day and time, he stood to the side in the convent parlor and saw an elegantly dressed woman talking with a nun seated behind a grating. He heard the nun's name mentioned, and was astonished: it was Mathilde M., a well-known Venetian in her early twen- ties, whose decision to enter a convent had surprised the whole city. But what astonished him most was that beneath her nun's habit, he could see that she was a beautiful young woman, particularly in her eyes, which were a brilliant blue. Perhaps she needed a favor done, and intended that he would serve as her cat's-paw. His curiosity got the better of him. A few days later he returned to the convent and asked to see her. As he waited for her, his heart was beating a mile a minute—he did not know what to expect. She finally appeared and sat down behind the grating. They were alone in the room, and she said that she could arrange for them to have supper together at a little villa nearby. Casanova was delighted, but wondered what kind of nun he was dealing with. "And—have you no lover but me?" he asked. "I have a I count upon taking [the French people] by surprise.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  “Your mom is a wonderful woman.” The Eagle smiled. “You’re tellin’ me.” The Colonel grinned. “See you on Sunday.” — As we walked toward the gym parking lot, the Colonel said, “I called her yesterday and asked her to cover for me, and she didn’t even ask why. She just said, ‘I sure trust you, son,’ and hot damn she does.” Once out of sight of the Eagle’s house, we took a sharp right into the woods. We walked on the dirt road over the bridge and back to the school’s barn, a dilapidated leak-prone structure that looked more like a long-abandoned log cabin than a barn. They still stored hay there, although I don’t know what for. It wasn’t like we had an equestrian program or anything. The Colonel, Takumi, and I got there first, setting up our sleeping bags on the softest bales of hay. It was 6:30. Alaska came shortly after, having told the Eagle she was spending the weekend with Jake. The Eagle didn’t check that story, because Alaska spent at least one weekend there every month, and he knew that her parents never cared. Lara showed up half an hour later. She’d told the Eagle that she was driving to Atlanta to see an old friend from Romania. The Eagle called Lara’s parents to make sure that they knew she was spending a weekend off campus, and they didn’t mind. “They trust me.” She smiled. “You don’t sound like you have an accent sometimes,” I said, which was pretty stupid, but a darn sight better than throwing up on her. “Eet’s only soft i’ s.” “No soft i’ s in Russian?” I asked. “Romanian,” she corrected me. Turns out Romanian is a language. Who knew? My cultural sensitivity quotient was going to have to drastically increase if I was going to share a sleeping bag with Lara anytime soon. Everybody was sitting on sleeping bags, Alaska smoking with flagrant disregard for the overwhelming flammability of the structure, when the Colonel pulled out a single piece of computer paper and read from it. “The point of this evening’s festivities is to prove once and for all that we are to pranking what the Weekday Warriors are to sucking. But we’ll also have the opportunity to make life unpleasant for the Eagle, which is always a welcome pleasure. And so,” he said, pausing as if for a drumroll, “we fight tonight a battle on three fronts: “Front One: The pre-prank: We will, as it were, light a fire under the Eagle’s ass. “Front Two: Operation Baldy: Wherein Lara flies solo in a retaliatory mission so elegant and cruel that it could only have been the brainchild of, well, me.” “Hey!” Alaska interrupted. “It was my idea.” “Okay, fine. It was Alaska’s idea.” He laughed.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  Many stores in New York City sell lottery tickets, and business is good. The psychology of high-prize lotteries is similar to the psychology of terrorism. The thrilling possibility of winning the big prize is shared by the community and reinforced by conversations at work and at home. Buying a ticket is immediately rewarded by pleasant fantasies, just as avoiding a bus was immediately rewarded by relief from fear. In both cases, the actual probability is inconsequential; only possibility matters. The original formulation of prospect theory included the argument that “highly unlikely events are either ignored or overweighted,” but it did not specify the conditions under which one or the other will occur, nor did it propose a psychological interpretation of it. My current view of decision weights has been strongly influenced by recent research on the role of emotions and vividness in decision making. Overweighting of unlikely outcomes is rooted in System 1 features that are familiar by now. Emotion and vividness influence fluency, availability, and judgments of probability—and thus account for our excessive response to the few rare events that we do not ignore. Overestimation and Overweighting What is your judgment of the probability that the next president of the United States will be a third-party candidate? How much will you pay for a bet in which you receive $1,000 if the next president of the United States is a third-party candidate, and no money otherwise? The two questions are different but obviously related. The first asks you to assess the probability of an unlikely event. The second invites you to put a decision weight on the same event, by placing a bet on it. How do people make the judgments and how do they assign decision weights? We start from two simple answers, then qualify them. Here are the oversimplified answers:

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Uninhibitedness. Most people are repressed, and have little access to their unconscious—a problem that creates opportunities for the Charismatic, who can become a kind of screen on which others project their secret fantasies and longings. You will first have to show that you are less inhibited than your audience—that you radiate a dangerous sexuality, have no fear of death, are delightfully spontaneous. Even a hint of these qualities will make people think you more powerful than you are. In the 1850s a bohemian American actress, Adah Isaacs Menken, took the world by storm through her unbridled sexual energy, and her fearlessness. She would appear on stage half-naked, performing death-defying acts; few women could dare such things in the Victorian period, and a rather mediocre actress became a figure of cultlike adoration. An extension of your being uninhibited is a dreamlike quality in your work and character that reveals your openness to your unconscious. It was the possession of this quality that transformed artists like Wagner and Picasso into charismatic idols. Its cousin is a fluidity of body and spirit; while the repressed are rigid, Charismatics have an ease and an adaptability that show their openness to experience. The Charismatic • 101 Fervency. You need to believe in something, and to believe in it strongly enough for it to animate all your gestures and make your eyes light up. This cannot be faked. Politicians inevitably lie to the public; what distinguishes Charismatics is that they believe their own lies, which makes them that much more believable. A prerequisite for fiery belief is some great cause to rally around—a crusade. Become the rallying point for people's discontent, and show that you share none of the doubts that plague normal humans. In 1490, the Florentine Girolamo Savonarola railed at the immorality of the pope and the Catholic Church. Claiming to be divinely inspired, he became so animated during his sermons that hysteria would sweep the crowd. Savonarola developed such a following that he briefly took over the city, until the pope had him captured and burned at the stake. People believed in him because of the depth of his conviction. His example has more rele-vance today than ever: people are more and more isolated, and long for communal experience. Let your own fervent and contagious faith, in virtually anything, give them something to believe in. Vulnerability. Charismatics display a need for love and affection. They are open to their audience, and in fact feed off its energy; the audience in turn is electrified by the Charismatic, the current increasing as it passes back and forth. This vulnerable side to charisma softens the self-confident side, which can seem fanatical and frightening.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Finally, you might think it wiser to present yourself as someone reliable, not given to caprice. If so, you are in fact merely timid. It takes courage and effort to mount a seduction. Reliability is fine for drawing people in, but stay reliable and you stay a bore. Dogs are reliable, a seducer is not. If, on the other hand, you prefer to improvise, imagining that any kind of planning or calculation is antithetical to the spirit of surprise, you are making a grave mistake. Constant improvisation simply means you are lazy, and thinking only about yourself. What often seduces a person is the feeling that you have expended effort on their behalf. You do not need to trumpet this too loudly, but make it clear in the gifts you make, the little journeys you plan, the little teases you lure people with. Little efforts like these will be more than amply rewarded by the conquest of the heart and willpower of the seduced. Symbol: The Roller Coaster. The car rises slowly to the top, then suddenly hurtles you into space, whips you to the side, throws you upside down, in every possible direction. The riders laugh and scream. What thrills them is to let go, to grant control to someone else, who propels them in unexpected directions. What new thrill awaits them around the next corner? Keep Them in Suspense— What Comes Next? • 249 Reversal Surprise can be unsurprising if you keep doing the same thing again and again. Jiang Qing would try to surprise her husband Mao Zedong with sudden changes of mood, from harshness to kindness and back. At first he was captivated; he loved the feeling of never knowing what was coming. But it went on for years, and was always the same. Soon, Madame Mao's supposedly unpredictable mood swings just annoyed him. You need to vary the method of your surprises. When Madame de Pompadour was the lover of the inveterately bored King Louis XV, she made each surprise different— a new amusement, a new game, a new fashion, a new mood. He could never predict what would come next, and while he waited for the next surprise, his willpower was temporarily suspended. No man was ever more of a slave to a woman than was Louis to Madame de Pompadour. When you change direction, make the new direction truly new. Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion It is hard to make people listen; they are consumed with their own thoughts and desires, and have little time for yours. The trick to making them

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  He would scold her for her laziness, the nostalgia for her children, her abysmal housekeeping. He would take her on trips around the world, on very little money, never letting her settle down, although it was her fondest wish. They fought and fought. Once in New Mexico, in front of friends, he yelled at her, "Take that dirty cigarette out of your mouth! And stop sticking out that fat belly of yours!" "You'd better stop that talk or I'll tell about your things," she yelled back. (She had learned to give him a taste of his own medicine.) They both went outside. Their friends watched, worried it might turn violent. They disappeared from sight only to reappear moments later, arm in arm, laughing and mooning over one another. That was the most disconcerting thing about the Law- rences: married for years, they often behaved like infatuated newlyweds. Interpretation. When Lawrence first met Frieda, he could sense right away what her weakness was: she felt trapped, in a stultifying relationship and a pampered life. Her husband, like so many husbands, was kind, but never paid enough attention to her. She craved drama and adventure, but was too lazy to get it on her own. Drama and adventure were just what Lawrence would provide. Instead of feeling trapped, she had the freedom to leave him at any moment. Instead of ignoring her, he criticized her constantly— at least he was paying attention, never taking her for granted. Instead of comfort and boredom, he gave her adventure and romance. The fights he picked with ritualistic frequency also ensured nonstop drama and the space for a powerful reconciliation. He inspired a touch of fear in her, which kept her off balance, never quite sure of him. As a result, the relationship never grew stale. It kept renewing itself. If it is integration you are after, seduction must never stop. Otherwise boredom will creep in. And the best way to keep the process going is often to inject intermittent drama. This can be painful—opening old wounds, stirring up jealousy, withdrawing a little. (Do not confuse this behavior with nagging or carping criticism—this pain is strategic, designed to break up rigid patterns.) On the other hand it can also be pleasant: think about chest, your arms tight around her neck. \ You want peace? Give her kisses, make love to the girl while she's crying— \ That's the only way to melt her angry mood. —OVID, THE ART OF LOVE, TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN Beware the Aftereffects • 425 proving yourself all over again, paying attention to nice little details, creat- ing new temptations.