College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names based on their obscurity.

that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbon’s could hardly wait for the night to forget themselves in sleep

So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.

To start with, look at all the books.

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride, look down, and shake their heads as though disagreeing with life.

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness", "joy", or "regret". Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that is oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions.