Yesterday M texted to say that she’d written “about sex” for EmilyBooks; my iPhone autocorrected my response of “heyyyyy!” to the less salacious, more problematic “hefty!”

It turns out that this essay is not really “about sex” (though my standards on that front are probably internet-skewed at this point) but it is really great— as was Ruth’s yesterday, and as is the book itself. I’d highly recommend reading all three.

emilybooks:

by Miranda Popkey

I didn’t expect to recognize myself in a short story collection that centers on an HIV-positive ex-heroin addict who moves to Minnesota to get her body clean and her life in order. I own a lot of skirts that hit below the knee and the only thing I’ve ever really been addicted to is other people’s approval.

Emily Carter knows what it’s like, whatever “it” is. She knows the sweet seduction of willed failure, the feeling that makes you want to “go have a drink, or  … eat an entire Philadelphia cheesecake, which will make it impossible to think about anything but [your] intestines for the next three hours,” immediately after meeting someone accomplished. She knows that “There is no man anywhere so psychotic, so drunk, so evil, so helpless, so brutal, indifferent, or even just annoying that some woman somewhere won’t keep him warm even if she freezes to death doing it, just for a chance to wipe away the invisible tears she thinks she sees on his face, like clear ice on a cold windowpane.” She knows that this is especially true if other people are helpfully pointing out that there are, really, no tears. Glory says, “But I didn’t want to get what I deserved. Who does?”

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