Paper Post #9: Fullbeck and Birth of the Dragon

  • Why Steve Mckee, was he supposed to be Steve McQueen? Either way that movie did not need him to serve as the bridge.
  • Bruce even says in the movie “It’s not about you, it’s about me” then proceeds to be a side character for Steve’s story.
  • I don’t know how I feel about Bruce’s depiction, he was arrogant as hell. Didn’t root for him even though my mind felt I should. Have heard that he was really arrogant in real life though, and he was supposed to be 23 at during the film.
  • Steve must be the center of the universe or some shit, this entire story is revolving around him.
  • This film feels like a really missed opportunity
  • The ridiculousness of the fight scenes was great though
  • Really made me think about the deification of celebrities and people in general
  • Movie ends with Wong and Steve embracing with a handshake
  • The blood lick homage was great
  • Bruce Lee and the making of his own style is similar to the early jazz artists that pushed the boundaries of the music to places never gone before.
  • “Take what is useful, develop from there”

 

Major Themes and connections to other texts:

  • Merging of dreams and reality
  • Breaking the cycle
  • Coming of age
  • Identity
  • Sexuality
  • Pop culture so ingrained into our lives now
  • Masculinity
  • Home
  • Finding Home
  • Going Home
  • Family
  • Expectations
  • Bravado
  • Being other
  • Not having a place of belonging

 

Seeing Banana Split and then learning that Kip Fulbeck started the work as a spoken word made gave the the text more clarity in my eyes.

One:

  • Unlike in Donald Duk the protagonist seems to like the more Asian parts of their life. With the dim sum and the Korean food in the beginning being things that the protagonist longs after.
  • “Semi Hometown” – This phrase stood out to me and I feel like it fits several of the stories in the novel. The descendants of Asian immigrants, the generation of “Asian Americans” I feel greatly have semi hometowns. Could have been born there or lived their whole life there, didn’t matter, they were other. The texts of this quarter reflect a lot of the feelings and treatments that can create a semi hometown.
  • Already so many pop culture references. (Axl Rose, Honda, VH1, KISS, Staples Center, Nerf, etc…)
  • “Born and raised Eurasian, Amerasian, and Hapa in dry, inland SoCal, I grow up watching a city called Covina turn from orange groves and cows into condo complexes and mini malls like some silkworm caterpillar turning into a moth.” (18)       
  • Oral history within family
  • “Aren’t all of our fathers storytellers?
    Aren’t all of our fathers alcoholics?” (19)
  • “If you prepare for the worst, you’re either ready for it or you’re pleasantly surprised. And sometimes being pleasantly surprised is a nice thing.“ (19)
    The protagonist inherits this instilled belief from their father. An instilled set of different rules are taught to the kids of parents whose child isn’t part of the majority group.
  • “Prepare for the worst, a sense of occasion, control your pain, store your anger. These are things I learn from my father.” (20)
  • Mother’s first husband killed for exposing salt mafia, Mother spared because she was helping a beggar and wasn’t there when the shooting took place.
    Lesson from this story is “everything comes around”
    That event led to the protagonist and rest of family existing.
  • The Mother spares the the man who killed her husband.

Two:

  • Chinese Mother, American Father, Chinese “Brothers” Cousins.
    Doesn’t know the games they play
    Can’t ask the dad, the out-of-place American father
  • American Father sees tans as beautiful
    Chinese Mother sees tans as primitive
  • Chinese prejudice on being alabaster and white
  • Guy’s sister tells daughter to not get tan, says “You’ll look like him”
  • “I admit it. You are better than I am” (24)
  • Boy doesn’t want dad to hit mom?
    The parents don’t sleep together
  • They have such an awkward connection, what is the deal here
  • This is some macho bravado shit going on
  • God “taste my first tongue” so creepy
  • Reference to Bruce Lee, martial arts, Jimi Hendrix, Basketball.
  • “As young boys we claim independence from parents and fear. As older boys we claim independence from women and fear. Both times we’re usually lying.”
  • “I never asked anyone for sight. I never thanked anyone for it either. It’s just there.” (28)

Three:

 

  • I swear I went through that exact same thing when I took swimming lessons
  • .The father went into action mode to save his kid.
    “Sometimes we’re supposed to drown
  • “Summers and love are about water””

 

    • Seeing his father like that made him realize subconsciously how dangerous the water is?

 

  • Never wants to leave the ocean.
    Strong connection to the ocean, it is his home, his place of belonging?

 

Four:

  • First two pages capture the fake macho bravado that male friends “Just have”
  • Forced into being either a swimmer or a tennis player by his unconnected father.
  • Swimming is home, never about like or hate, just do.
  • Can’t beat someone else unless you can beat yourself
  • Swimming and the psyching out of the opponent
  • Father a professor always in public never seen as just a normal dude
  • Never cheered at any of the miniscule amount of races he was in attendance for.
    Mom parades achievements, Dad silently celebrates
  • Stopped growing, reached the highest point he could.
  • No longer the talk of the town

Five:

    • The experience with the condoms is too real.
      No talk on sex, Dad wants football, Son wants cartoons

 

  • Speed Racer, Kimba and Ultraman are my childhood, flashbacks man.

 

  • Dad forbids him from watching.
    Knows not to emulate the behavior
    “as long as the end counts, it doesn’t really matter how you get there.” (40)
  • Life isn’t that, the race gets harder and harder, protagonist understands this.
    Hearing you did your best gets old fast, not about being told you tried, actually about accomplishing
  • American cereals out of rice bowls and chinese silverware
  • Soggy cereal was my life force for a while
  • Doesn’t realize the kids on Fat Albert are black until his sister asks “why they all talk so funny, and why they play in a junkyard.”(40)
    Doesn’t care whether the kids are black or white, what does that have to do with him?
  • Eat everything, starving kids in china, “And what’s China got to do with me anyway? What” (40)
  • His saturday morning “”kid time” is eating cereal watching cartoons, and reading condom instructions.
  • Oh god Schoolhouse rock, I have seen every single one of those at least 20 times by now
  • I can see each frame of animation accompanying the lyrics from the screen,
    Gone down the rabbit hole now, listening to schoolhouse rock while reading.
    “Lucky Seven Sampson” is some gold.
  • The morals of the show will be lost on those who need to hear it as they won’t be there to witness them.
    Real world not like cartoons
  • Bullying really is a part of public education now, shame.
    God kids are just assholes, (Wild Meat, Forgotten Country), racism isn’t born it’s taught and instilled.
    Oh great, the fifth grade kids with both racism and homophobia.
    “Just the way it is”
    The rules for being a new Asian student at a white school,
  • Chinese on Japanese resentment being shown through the mother.
  • The japanese man from hawaii ok but a japanese man from japan, now way.
    Don’t buy Japanese products even when they have superior products
  • Afraid of punishment from mother, blending the lines between child abuse there.
  • What the hell, why would the mom do that, that isn’t just endangering her and her son, but every other driver on the road.
  • Why is the cop being Chinese such a big deal?
  • Compares self to David Carradine and not a Chinese martial artist. Bruce Lee seen as negative as a result of bullies?
  • All right in just two pages way too many pop culture references to count, wow just loaded up (Spiderman, Rocky, Star Wars)
  • Classical music references
  • Whole family wants him to continue with the piano, finds no joy in it.
    I relate hard. My parents at first wanted me to be a pianist, got good, hated it, Guitar was more my style and my parents realized that too.
    “Inside I was always a counterfeiter” (47)
    “I got cast in the wrong fairy tale” (47)
  • Music references to feeling the groove, letting the music overtake you, becoming the music. “Ray Charles or Professor Longhair or Keith Jarrett or Thelonious Monk.” (47)
    All of those musicians hold a special place in my heart. All inherited from my father, he introduced me to each of these artists.
    “They were black artists. They played black music. They were more “expressive” in their interpretation. More “spiritual.”(48)
    ”Those Asian Whiz Kids” article
  • “Happiness is measured in degrees and patents and square footage and Advanced Placement credits. Perfectionism is above all, our family religion. And, like any religion, if you believe in it enough, it will make you content.” (49)
    Wow, this just stands out, wow
  • Following the Grateful Dead, This novel is doing a great job of pulling things that are in my life into the story, really keeping me in it.
  • His father has a want to rebel as well?
  • Fuck man “It’s just a dog” that one hurts
  • “When my brother-in-law asks me how I learned massage, I respond by asking him how he can live his life without learning massage. I’m serious,’ he says. “So am I.”” (49)
  • When my brother-in-law asks me how I learned massage, I respond by asking him how he can live his life without learning massage. I’m serious,’ he says. “So am I.”
    Childhood clouded his perceptions of music and himself
  • “Better late than never” (50)

Six:

  • Father doesn’t like Chinese food, doesn’t eat rice, doesn’t like chinese restaurants, always orders same thing, I have relatives like that, hate eating out with them
  • Cousins into the Chinatown gang thing
    Chinese gangs talked about in Donald Duk, Dark blue Suit had the Filipino American gangs.
  • Witnessing of the chicken death, damn man seeing any blood would have freaked little me out
  • Kung fu masters being everywhere in chinatown a stereotype from the kung fu movies of the 20th century
  • Gangs aren’t like in movies, don’t know kung fu, just any other street thug
  • “That’s what happens in our family. People just get erased from conversations. Their names disappear and they just start doing their own thing. Pretty soon no one ever talks about the drug addict cousins. No one ever talks about the uncles in jail. No one ever talks about the suicides, the homosexuals, the divorcees, in the tree or you’re not. And if you’re not, you don’t exist.” (53)
  • Remember to forget”
  • Not even supposed to mention one of the cousins anymore
  • Expansion of Chinese population being shown by number and proximity of Dim Sum restaurants
  • Mom says you have to eat them hot, HAVE to. Dad never eats them hot.
    Tiny little things showing rift between parents
  • I agree 100% dinner should not bet 2 ½ hours, the chinese dim sum come and go is where it’s at for me
  • An attractive women immediately turned the protagonists mood around.
    The back and forth between his adolescent mind’s sexual thoughts and the actual experiences was too real.
  • The amount of of the sexualized machismo is staggering
    Is this what guys do normally?
  • Star trek hallucination, hg wells.
    Dreams and reality are being merged pretty well
  • Have anything you like? What do you mean he wants to not be there. Doesn’t like sweets


Seven:

  • Love and desire reserved for whites
    Didn’t even know Asian women could be attractive
    “Just Asian enough for their parents. Just white enough for them. Chinese girls are usually the worst.” (61)
  • Too white for the Asians, too Asian for the whites
    In many of the films we watched this quarter
    Being other
  • Affirmative action as it comes to dating
    Never thought of that
  • ““I’ve always preferred…” “I’ve just always tended to date…” “I seem to get along better with…” “You know, I’ve never really been attracted to…” (61)
  • Choosing your own identity instead of having someone else choose it for you
  • “And she’s pretty good-looking. For a Chinese and all.” (64)
  • Boys experience the racism harder than the girls?
    Forgotten country would like a word with you
  • New Chinese kid at school, Oh you must know him or be related
  • Rumors and stereotypes about Yang and his family
  • Brendan Yang, that is so sad, kids are just cruel
  • Didn’t dance with another Chinese kid after all. Protagonist was based on lies though kind of?
    Didn’t exactly get that chapter

Eight:

  • Asian Women hit his mind like zeros on December 7th. Great metaphor
  • Wow the disgust towards the chinese woman in playboy surprised me
  • He clearly wants a white women
  • Young cousin even tries to make his eyes more western
  • Same team, different ranks
  • “As an adult we’re allowed to use cheap words. I can say I went through stages. I can say I matured. I can say I grew up. I can say rank never really mattered. If you listen closely enough, you can almost believe the air.” (75)

Nine:

  • The open season on humiliating everyone is too real, I was the target in high school
  • Living in constant fear of being embarrassed by one another, yeah that’s high school guys for you
  • Herd mentality
  • “What’s wrong with this picture”
  • This situation just isn’t sitting right with me
    She is just 14 right?
    This isn’t right
  • Protagonist can tell there is something wrong with situation
    Looking for excuse to not continue with the cigarettes
  • Events are removed and conceptual to the protagonist
  • On stage 24/7
  • Was he staying with her because she was white? Was that it?
    again honestly confused about the chapter

Ten:

  • Quciksand…
    This text is not what I would expected I would be getting
  • His relationship with carly seems not right
  • All a game, about male attraction.
  • About possession
  • She is cheating on him?
  • So many pop culture references (legos, brady brunch, beach boys, styx, Night ranger, Brian Wilson)
  • Reading about teen sex just isn’t what i’m really looking for when I read so…


Eleven:

  • I mean I get it, this is the male high school perspective, but damn
  • I really don’t get the point of these chapters
  • Duran Duran , Billy Idol
  • Haven’t learned that nothing is fair yet
  • Their relationship is all kinds of messed up
  • Carly isn’t wearing a seatbelt
    Dude is crying
    They are going to die
  • What’s the deal with all this, what is going on, is she dead?.
  • Wait was the crash a dream?
    This text is merging reality and dreams much like many of the other texts we read this quarter
  • “Sweetness…Sweetness, I was only joking when I said I’d like to smash every tooth in your head…” (102) red flag right there
  • God cigarettes, really captures the gross feeling of them
  • The smoke comes to bed with him
  • All a game
  • Used him to get cigarettes
  • Works as lifeguard during summer, bringing back to the water
  • I shot the sheriff reference, Rodan, King Ghidra,
  • Bruce lee tapes and Bree lee imitators,
  • Monster Island, surrounded by water,

Twelve:

  • Turning 18, adulthood doesn’t feel any different
  • Strength is measured in childish means
  • Father will only pay for college if he goes to ROTC
  • Born to kill (full metal jacket)
  • Doesn’t want to be a part of the US war machine
  • War was the coming of age ritual for his father
  • Doesn’t want to keep the fish but will go catch the fish
  • Engrossed with works of literature, constant references to hemingway
    Forced inherited the English literary side from his father
  • Protagonist always thinking of sex
  • Old rich white lady assumes him and his father are gay. Looks heartbroken when she learns they are father and son
  • “No shortage of stupid people in this world” (111)
  • Father tells him he doesn’t confront racism because he is mixed-blood
    “All in your attitude”
  • Father and son’s relationship very layered and complex

Thirteen:

  • Covina used to be beautiful but now urban and gloomy
  • The massage place is being painted as a front for a brothel
  • Sarlacc, Boba Fett, and Star Wars references
  • “Oriental” and it being synonymously with being exotic
  • Middle aged white man looking for an exotic woman
    Cashing in on social status and ethnic fetish
  • “And every Asian woman in this country deals with the residue.” (114)
  • Asian cleanliness customs
  • “Keep your sunglasses on and keep walking. Walk with a purpose.” (114)
    Donald Duk, Dark blue Suit vibes right there
  • I am very confused now, what’s the deal with the sex stuff he imagines in the massage place
  • The merging of dream and reality is seamless
  • In Hawaii now?
  • New character’s point of view?
  • Oh god yeah, that is the worst, Faces I can remember but names are way to hard.
  • Some gay tourist looking for a brown skinned local boy
  • As he is getting hit on by a guy he reflects on his treatment of women
  • (Hapas not really being Asian American) Didn’t even know that was a sentiment that was held by people
  • He is waiting for the therapist to ask about sexual abuse
  • Feels like he hurt the massage prostitutes feelings

Fourteen:

  • Mid-twenties
  • Ongoing Hapa identity process
  • I love Jerry Garcia as someone who appears to grant you enlightenment
  • Now into dating Asian women
  • Oh this will be his first Chinese girlfriend story
  • So anxious about being on date with a Chinese girl
  • Connection in shared heritage felt very quickly
  • Oh no the Buddha’s Feast,
    I like getting all these stories and memories in from his own different perspectives
  • Oh god Red Dawn
  • Buddha’s Feast man
  • More Jerry Garcia

Fifteen:

  • Had a Asians only stage, had whites only stage
  • Dating strong Chinese woman
  • Oh hey reference to Frank Chin
  • The taste has to align
  • McDonald’s and cigarettes the same
  • Human beings are just attracted to human beings they are attracted to
  • No choice not to make a choice
  • Because the other person is a women it doesn’t register as a threat
  • It should matter, the gender of the person makes it different? That’s some latent something there
  • Non physical attraction strange to protagonist
  • “Girls and feelings need to be kept separately” (136)
  • Oingo Boingo
  • They just seem like predators
  • Dazed and Confused, you get older, they stay the same
  • All the lifeguards are really fucking creepy
  • Lord of the flies
  • When asked about a promotion he reflects on the lifeguards treatment,
    Would never want own daughter coming here
  • The cycle stops here
  • Realized that 18 year old him was kind of scummy
  • Raging waters has first drowning after he leaves, would have been on his shoulders if he stayed
  • Doesn’t register his near death experiences in the water as the same as others
  • Never going to really die in the water, is his home
  • “Water will never hurt me” (145)
  • Always on duty
  • Poor Tanisha
  • 5 days at the water park = a 12 year old girl

 

Sixteen:

  • Back with mandy now
  • Issues with her not touching him on his dick
  • Feels she has brought her feminist theory into the bedroom because she won’t let him mount her
  • “Why do you assume I’, part of the monster” (150)
    Kinda was a little bit of a creep for awhile, still could be
  • The always suffering activist does fit the bill for some people out there
  • Underlying laws
  • Wishes women came with warning labels
  • Deals with feminism
  • Keeping theory and the bedroom close, this was a really interesting chapter.

Seventeen:

  • Visiting one of the few white guys in Japan not looking for a Japanese wife
  • Exploring culture to explore it vs. exploring a culture to make up for inadequacies back home
  • “Could I do it without Vanilla Icing” (156)
  • One of the few times darker skin is referred to as better
  • “He tells me the white man caused it, so the white man burns first.” (157)
    That’s great
  • Baywatch and the treatment of lifeguards
  • Job took the joy out of the job
  • Other here as well when the Ocean is just as much his home as anyone else’s
  • The environment of these life guards is just as scummy as the waterpark
    Sexism and racism out the wazoo
  • Fucking “Boy’s will be boy’s” bullshit
  • The only other guy who gets it is the chicano guy
  • Beaches in japan are so great, giving me nostalgia
  • Half the board in the impact zone
    Oh shit someone’s drowning
  • Convince yourself that they are dead, avoidance and denial
  • Wow damn first time not going after someone
  • The fifteen frames and wondering whether or not you should do something
  • “Adults are supposed to take care of themselves anyway. Sometimes they’re supposed to take care of each other, too.” (165)

Eighteen:

  • Rice chaser
  • White people who search for culture
  • I-wish-I-wasn’t-white kind of people who desperately search for something ethnic
  • Marvel references
  • Voluptuous vs. fat
  • NAYHO MA! How are you
  • Whoa she has cancer
  • Whoa the cancer was fake
  • Miss Saigon
  • That abortion view hits home
    Not ready to be father
    Shouldn’t pressure
    Ok with abortion
  • That argument, just the worst
  • “And I witness a basic truth in this country—it’s easier and more acceptable to make a white man look colored than to make a colored man look white.” (177)
  • Leukemia now
  • Every one of these situations are complex and in no way black and white
  • Not the fact that she is sick, he just really dislikes her
  • Oh she was faking this too?
    Fucking Katherine
    Lied about so many things
  • What the hell Katherine?
  • Pretend
  • He escaped the virus

 

Nineteen:

  • “How’d you get strong?”
    “Been poor all my life”
  • Border between art and life
  • “I take people on walks.” (87)
  • Underground tunnel adventure
    This novel is just full of individual coming of ages
  • His walk with keith was an experience in it’s own, taught him to appreciate

Twenty:

  • Most experiences with cops bad
  • Yoshi Hattori death
    Knows you stop when the cop says or you will get shot
  • Realizes what the Vietnamese police office Bau Tu has gone through and respects him
  • “Nothing makes a power structure happier than watching its smaller dominions fight one another.” (199)
  • “I got a cousin like you. You guys sort of look the same.” (200)
  • Hapas are their women being fucked by white barbarians
  • “White enough to be attractive, Asian enough to pass with their parents” (201)
  • Always political on some level

Twenty-One:

  • Dating another Hapa person, wants to convince them they are dating them for who they are but not what they are
  • Kip feels like he is going home with Hanako
  • I wonder what the performance he is growing his hair out for is going to be
  • What the hell, the pee thing at the movie theater just more confusion

Twenty-Two:

  • Asian guy dating white vs. Asian girl dating white
    Operate on different policies
  • Hapa not Asian
  • Conversation with Sophana
  • People will see you as choosing because you can
  • Can’t do your thing without the shit attached


Twenty-Three:

  • Most of us hunters, all of us prey
  • Afraid of arbitrary things when most dangerous thing is each other
  • On a dive
  • Everyone draws a line
  • Bambi and donner party
  • Stop teaching, just functioning
  • “The university isn’t about teaching”
  • Univeristy could be about money
  • Ph.d meaning nothing outside of academia
  • Univeristy could be about sex
  • Finds picture that reminds him he an artist from his old professor and now peer
  • Always goes back to teaching swimming and junior lifeguards
  • With those students he talks about the real things
  • Shot fish, has to make sure he eats it, no killing just for killing
  • “I notice mostly things I can do nothing about.” (224)  

Twenty Four:

  • Man killed by shark in same area Kip was halibut fishing
  • “So either you don’t surf there, or you surf there anyway and you deal with it.”(227)
  • Honesty doesn’t exist in the arts, that seems counter productive
  • Led Zeppelin and Spinal Tap references
  • The I like your balls thing seems like there was some miscommunication going on
  • “Waikiki is a human sewer. It’s everything we’ve done wrong to the islands” (230)
  • Poor Mark Housner, Magic the gathering guys aren’t all bad only some.
    Obviously out of place
  • “As human beings we flock around those who reflect and accentuate your own professed attributes. More insecurity, more flocking.” (232)
  • “In the end we’re all telling the same story.” (232)
  • “It’s not cut and dried. Because if someone stands up first, the wave is theirs. If someone’s local, it’s theirs. If someone’s meaner, it’s theirs. Sometimes it’s just basic human territoriality. And how do you teach that?” (235)
  • Is Mark going to get hurt or something?
  • Pole Position
  • Boy’s ability to not comprehend
  • In therapy for crisis-management
  • “There are just too many people know. Too much attitude. Too much male insecurity.”
  • “why should I have to carry the trust and duty of the entire male gender? That maybe we aren’t all assholes. That maybe we aren’t all pigs. If I don’t show her, who will?” (238)
  • Best sleep was with virgin named holly
  • The hitting the dog would be traumatic as hell
  • “How does it feel to eat a man? How does it feel to eat a cow? How does it feel to eat a shark?” I really like that comparison
  • Another coming of age, realization of importance of body’s purpose and composition

 

Twenty Five:

  • Mason also very other
    Doesn’t have father figure
  • I really like the way the author blends the thoughts and the conversations together throughout the text
  • Damn some needed reality for mason
  • Without commitment there’s no point
  • Fuck, Nicole and the counselor, that is so shitty “It is a male dominated instrument”
  • The bit with Mason “I totally respect you and your parents’ cultures.” (254)
  • Just doing best you can and hoping the next generation can learn
  • “To some people, the whole world revolves around whether or not my work offends them, whether or not I use the words “Oriental” or “bitch” or “pussy” or “white trash.” As if it doesn’t exist if it’s not in here. To some people, any man talking straight about sex or race or women is part of the problem. Maybe we’re all a little too caught up in our own boners for our own good. Maybe we’re all a little too caught up in our own boners to notice anything else around us. Maybe all we see outside of ourselves and our own private circles are approaching opponents and future attackers. I’m not here to hurt you. Think about it. If you want to change things in this world, you don’t start by ignoring them. None of us is thirteen anymore.”
    That last paragraph, wow. Fucking made me think

Twenty Six:

  • Always searching for a ritual
  • Art needs the voice
  • “I need that uncertainty to push me, to scare me, and to surprise me.” (257)
  • Art world just like every other world
  • “That’s what I want it to do. I want art to make me believe.” (257)
  • Conforming in art
  • Pop Culture so ingrained within this text
  • All about figuring out systems
  • “That’s pretty much it. Figure out how the system works and make sure you’re in with the right people.” (263)
  • This chapter is captivating me
  • Yeah I feel like I suck without deadlines as well
  • Always a system
  • “Like everywhere I go, people have made up their minds long before I ever got there. Their decisions are set and locked in.” (267)
  • This text is fucking great, god damn

 

Twenty Seven:

  • “anybody else would be happy” (270)
  • “There are always distractions to keep you from grasping where you really are, what you’re really doing, and what you’re really looking for.” (271)
  • Story of meeting his wife
    Ok never mind not his wife
  • “Sometimes nature just goes through the motions, and all we can do is sit around and watch it happen. And sometimes we have everything we need to chase after what we want in life. Everything is just a matter of timing. I know what I’ve got in my hands right now. I know what I’m looking for, and I know what I have to offer. But I can only guess what you have in yours. I don’t know where you are, who you’re with, or how you’re sleeping. And I don’t know what you’re holding behind your back. If I ask really nice, will you show me?” (280-281)

Wow just wow, this text, I would recommend this to friends, I was blown away by this, the thoughts it forced me into, just wow.