# data[].attributes.headline
"It was easy to sublimate my own desire and sustain my feelings of physical worthlessness" (201).

# data[].attributes.subject
"It was easy to sublimate my own desire and sustain my feelings of physical worthlessness" (201).

# data[].attributes.body
Sublimate (v.):
to divert the energy of (a sexual or other biologicalimpulse) from its immediate goal to one of a more acceptable social, moral, or aesthetic nature or use.

I attempted to sublimate my inability to stop talking by using my words to promote worthy causes.

# data[].attributes.body
December 9, 2016

# data[].attributes.headline
"Reading and writing poetry brought together everything that had ever been important to me. I could still dwell in the realm of the senses, but now I had a discipline, a form for them. Rather than a way to create my own private life and shun the world, the ability to perceive was now a way to enter the world. Language itself, words and images, could be wrought and shaped into vessels for the truth and beauty I had so long hungered for" (193).

# data[].attributes.subject
"Reading and writing poetry brought together everything that had ever been important to me. I could still dwell in the realm of the senses, but now I had a discipline, a form for them. Rather than a way to create my own private life and shun the world, the ability to perceive was now a way to enter the world. Language itself, words and images, could be wrought and shaped into vessels for the truth and beauty I had so long hungered for" (193).

# data[].attributes.body
I love this quote a lot, partially because I myself am a poetry fanatic, but also because it is interesting to read of Grealy's admiration for great writing when she, throughout the book, has proven to be a great writer. She has an amazing ability to say things about life that I agree with so completely but would never be able to explain, and I think that this was precisely what she aimed to do with her words. A few days ago, I read in an article that in 2002, when she was 39, Grealy died of a heroin overdose. Knowing this information made this passage of the book all the more poignant. It's a beautiful thing, amidst a lot of awful things, that Grealy was able to make readers of her work feel the same way that she'd felt towards the writings of others.

# data[].attributes.headline
"I looked at girls in my class, with their perfect faces, and wondered why on earth they ruined them with so much makeup, such stupid hair. If I had a face like that, I told myself -- then harshly reprimanded myself for any stirrings of desire. My face was my face, and it was stupid to wish it any other way" (151).

# data[].attributes.subject
"I looked at girls in my class, with their perfect faces, and wondered why on earth they ruined them with so much makeup, such stupid hair. If I had a face like that, I told myself -- then harshly reprimanded myself for any stirrings of desire. My face was my face, and it was stupid to wish it any other way" (151).

# data[].attributes.body
This quote addresses what I'd consider the most interesting subject of the book: the impact of beauty on how we perceive ourselves and how our lives unfold. Here, Grealy attempts to convince herself that her "face was just a face," which is true, logically, but somehow still feels untrue. It's amazing to me the effects that something as unintentional and seemingly inconsequential as the shapes of our bodies can have. This story is devastating in part because of the disease that Grealy has to live through at such a young age, but I find the stories of her being called names and believing she was too ugly to go to school even more devastating.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Just seven or eight months after that premonition, I had my first experience of death" (161).

# data[].attributes.subject
"Just seven or eight months after that premonition, I had my first experience of death" (161).

# data[].attributes.body
Premonition (n.):

1. a feeling of anticipation of or anxiety over a future event; presentiment

2. a forewarning

Indeed, she had her premonitions regarding the job interview, but she did her best to avoid thinking about it.

# data[].attributes.headline
"I was too groggy to sense what was going on, but I relished the aura of attention, the cool hands on my warm arms, the way my name distantly sounded in their soft, I-won't-let-anything-bad-happen-to-you voices, the notion that I was somehow special, that I mattered" (144)

# data[].attributes.subject
"I was too groggy to sense what was going on, but I relished the aura of attention, the cool hands on my warm arms, the way my name distantly sounded in their soft, I-won't-let-anything-bad-happen-to-you voices, the notion that I was somehow special, that I mattered" (144)

# data[].attributes.body
A recurring idea in this memoir seems to be the fact that, at every stage of her life and regardless of the state of her health, Grealy craves attention. This is embarrassingly relatable. I can't speak for everybody, but I personally have had my fair share of "I wish something big would happen to me so I would be special" moments. To hear Grealy say that she was a bit excited at the prospect of being sick, and that the desire for attention held through her ill years, makes me wonder what this instinct says about people.

# data[].attributes.headline
"They both noticed that the pills seemed to be disappearing quickly, but they assumed my brothers were pilfering them" (142).

# data[].attributes.subject
"They both noticed that the pills seemed to be disappearing quickly, but they assumed my brothers were pilfering them" (142).

# data[].attributes.body
Pilfer (v.):
to steal, especially in small quantities

Each day, Caroline pilfered m&ms from her brother's bag of candy.

# data[].attributes.body
December 2, 2016

# data[].attributes.headline
“I felt quite certain that I looked awful in those wigs, yet why did my belief not seem to match up with everyone else’s?” (111).

# data[].attributes.subject
“I felt quite certain that I looked awful in those wigs, yet why did my belief not seem to match up with everyone else’s?” (111).

# data[].attributes.body
This concept keeps seeming to come up in my life, be it in our prompt on Two Views of a River, or in my friend’s acting assignment in which she had to depict How She Sees Herself versus How Others See Her. It’s a fascinating thing, to think about how our opinions of ourselves differ from the opinions of others, and this seems to be an overarching theme of the book. In this section, it is especially apparent that Grealy did not see herself as she saw all the other cancer patients, and it reminds me that nobody expects that they will end up “the sick person.”

# data[].attributes.headline
“I was disappointed that the rain only shellacked their bodies instead of being absorbed into them in dark, shiny streaks, as real as skin and hair would allow” (95)

# data[].attributes.subject
“I was disappointed that the rain only shellacked their bodies instead of being absorbed into them in dark, shiny streaks, as real as skin and hair would allow” (95)

# data[].attributes.body
Shellack (v.):

1. to coat or treat with shellac, lac that has been purified and formed into thin sheets to make varnish.

2. Slang.
to defeat; trounce.
to thrash soundly.

We re-shellacked the table before selling it at the yard sale.

# data[].attributes.headline
"My inner life became ever more macabre" (126).

# data[].attributes.subject
"My inner life became ever more macabre" (126).

# data[].attributes.body
Macabre (adj.):
disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury.

She was unable to watch the macabre war scene and had to close her eyes during that part of the movie

# data[].attributes.headline
"Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them" (78).

# data[].attributes.subject
"Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them" (78).

# data[].attributes.body
This is such a beautiful statement, and relevant to the life of almost anybody, I think. It also provides an explanation for why Grealy writes the way she does. She tells a broad story through the lens of very specific moments, giving a detailed depiction of one specific experience before jumping to an entirely new one and repeating the process. By including a series of moments to tell a story that took place over more than two years, Grealy creates a nice balance between storytelling and explanation.

# data[].attributes.body
November 28, 2016

# data[].attributes.headline
"This house had absolutely nothing to do with any of our lives. Most of the children in the hospital came from the surrounding poor neighborhood, and this little house was a rarefied version of everything they would never have and, with its protective glass partition, were not allowed to touch even in miniature" (40).

# data[].attributes.subject
"This house had absolutely nothing to do with any of our lives. Most of the children in the hospital came from the surrounding poor neighborhood, and this little house was a rarefied version of everything they would never have and, with its protective glass partition, were not allowed to touch even in miniature" (40).

# data[].attributes.body
This passage uses a small anecdote to reflect the character of the patients at the hospital. I love how Grealy is able to reprise her earlier descriptions of the suburban houses and her desire to live a life like that with a concrete anecdote from her time in the hospital. As she extends the metaphor and includes the glass partition, she is able to emphasize the fact that she and the other patients would never have what they longed for.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Though couched in jargon, their conversations often held overtones of flirting, their true meanings as clear to me as a shiny present, unseen by the intended receiver, held cumbersomely behind the besotted one's back" (46).

# data[].attributes.subject
"Though couched in jargon, their conversations often held overtones of flirting, their true meanings as clear to me as a shiny present, unseen by the intended receiver, held cumbersomely behind the besotted one's back" (46).

# data[].attributes.body
Besotted (adj.)
1. strongly infatuated.
2. intoxicated; drunk.

By the end of the night, she was so besotted that she could barely see straight.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Certain that these families were nothing like my own, a certainty wrought with a sense of vague superiority and even vaguer longing, I took pride and pleasure in knowing that I was the person in that strangely surreal trailer with the kicking ponies and angry muffler, that I had driven by their house that day, that I had brushed against their lives, and past them, like that" (3).

# data[].attributes.subject
"Certain that these families were nothing like my own, a certainty wrought with a sense of vague superiority and even vaguer longing, I took pride and pleasure in knowing that I was the person in that strangely surreal trailer with the kicking ponies and angry muffler, that I had driven by their house that day, that I had brushed against their lives, and past them, like that" (3).

# data[].attributes.body
What stands out in particular about this quote is the phrase "a sense of vague superiority and even vaguer longing." It seems that Grealy is stating two things at once: she feels as though she is above the shallow suburbanites whom she so closely observes, but still she admires something about them. By writing that her superiority is vague and her longing even vaguer, Grealy implies that the deeper emotion is longing.  She tells herself that to look at these people is to look down upon them, but, in reality, this notion is probably just a way for Grealy to cope with the fact that her family will never be like the ones in the suburbs: careless, agreeable, "normal."

# data[].attributes.body
November 18, 2016

# data[].attributes.headline
"I began to list the names of the menagerie back home, aware that a faint buzzing was growing louder and louder" (23).

# data[].attributes.subject
"I began to list the names of the menagerie back home, aware that a faint buzzing was growing louder and louder" (23).

# data[].attributes.body
Menagerie (n.):

1. a collection of wild or unusual animals, especially for exhibition.

2. a place where they are kept or exhibited.

3. an unusual and varied group of people.

Upon making it to university, Carmen was astounded at the menagerie of people she'd found there.

# data[].attributes.body
11/18: 1-68
11/29: 69-139
12/2: 140-190
12/9: 191-223

# data[].attributes.body
I'd been wanting to read Autobiography of a Face for quite a while and was finally able to get my hands on it this summer. After reading a data-heavy book like The New Jim Crow, it seemed time to shake it up a bit and read something in a more narrative style, so, even though this book is not the most uplifting story, it seemed like a good shift from my last read.