Size is relative. If everyone is fat, no-one is fat

I have no end of failings as a mother, but I have always followed the rules.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.

Besides, I'd heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the form of boasts. The prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, who would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches.