NEUTRONS PROTONS

A gorgeous new comic from Erin K. Wilson at Neutrons Protons this morning. 

‘While it is true that Mr. Adamson only got a B- on the final draft, he thinks that David Foster Wallace would have probably only gotten a B- on many of his essays if he had turned them in to the honors’ English board at Oberlin. Frankly, the stuffy and over-the-hill faculty at Oberlin don’t really “get” this kind of thing. They’re too preoccupied with obsolete and out-of-date works of literature, such as “The Iliad” and “Howl.”’ — Sophie Lucido Johnson, “Presenting the Graphic Novelization of my David Foster Wallace Thesis Paper”

“I paused for but a moment there, suspended in the wild emotion of internal frenzy. No one but God himself can judge the way I use (or fail to use) my lemons, and I remember distinctly throwing back a glance at you that should have defined this emotion, this internalized outrage, this — not suggestion but — mental command to you to back off step down shut your dirty lemon-picking mouth. All of this should have been clear in the mere reflection of my retinas.” — Nikcole Wiles, Suicide Preventions

http://neutronsprotons.submittable.com

“I was at a barbecue talking about TV, and I recommended “The Americans.” A young father in his early 30s, a patriot with his polo shirt tucked into his belted cargo shorts, dabbed the ketchup from his hairless chin and explained that he couldn’t watch a show where the hero was a KGB spy. He preferred characters who were “relatable,” like Tony Soprano or, you guessed it, Walter White.”

"Bubbe: Happy Memories,” by Rebekah Porath-Katz

”It will feel like you are looking at the surface of the moon. Everything is wearing egg white and everything feels the way antiseptic does — clean but sticky. Your room will have two egg white twin beds, a double paned window, egg white linoleum floors and shower shoes. It will all smell like Herbal Essence shampoo, and this smell will follow you for the rest of your life. Try not to worry about that, either. You will have a roommate. She will be in bad shape. Every entire vein on her body will be collapsed and egg white. She will be sick at night, and you will lie in your bed and think about your shower shoes and whether or not they’ve been splattered on.” — Heather Hall, “How to Break Out of a Mental Institution”

Read the rest of her new serial comic in Neutrons/ Protons today. 

“Also this summer I went camping with my dad. I have always loved camping because it is really fun and exciting and at night one can feel the insensate hum of the earth that has been undulating since before the time of man. At night it gets really dark but it is not that scary and also it reminds me of the contriturating and lightless vacuum of the universe. When me and my dad went camping in the woods this summer we built a fire from scratch and with penitent and mud-caked faces gazed into the lambent embers as if in search of the ultimate determinant of our imprecate existence. After that we made s’mores!” — My Summer Vacation by Cormac McCarthy by Taylor Lee

“My never-have-I-evers began to topple with furtive nudes slipped to a boyfriend across the country. Having crossed the threshold, I would agree with the groans of “long distance sucks!” but at the time it was the perfect situation for me.” — Ariella Carmell, Never Have I Ever

“‘Lela’ is the Chilean word for ‘lesbian,’ which I kind of like. It’s the same initial sound, but it’s feminized with the la. I want to ask a gender queer or masculine of center person who identifies as a lela about that, but all in due time.” — Laura Burns, “Queer Travelogue: Flirting”

“And there they are, eye-level on the shelf. $4.99. The kind I know. The kind I trust. How many times before had I brought them into my home? How many potentially stressful domestic incidents had they turned into joyous ones, filled with the pure laughter of children whose mild roughhousing is no match for the most absorbent quilted paper towels on the market?” — River Clegg, “I Bought the Bargain Brand Paper Towels: A Survivor’s Tale.”

“Daily, ongoing questions have quickly morphed. They were once Hipster Academic. (Is David Foster Wallace overrated?) They are now Hipster Maternal. (Why doesn’t Chipotle have changing stations in all of their bathrooms? They make a big deal out of not being able to provide their sustainably-raised carnitas, but I could really go for not spreading my flannel shirt on the floor and changing Mae on top of it. I’m not asking for a lot. A tree stump would suffice.)” — Meg Thompson, “Words To Your Mothers”

“I am a 26-year-old woman squatting in the backyard of my day job in an attempt to be discrete, sweating in the raging heat while holding my debit card in mild shock and simultaneously formulating a plan to pay an extra few hundred dollars more than I accounted for when I did the household finances last night. Yes, I want this sperm to be vital. My household, much like the average American household, doesn’t have a column for “sperm” in the budget.” — Nikcole Wiles, “Suicide Prevention”

For those who aren’t familiar with the cultural juggernaut that is The Twilight Saga allow me to say that a tamer series has rarely been written. The burning glances are many, the heaving bosoms are few.Eclipse involves a discussion about pre-marital sex which ends in an engagement. The fourth and final book in the series begins with a wedding. Not since my high school health class had I experienced such a ringing endorsement of abstinence until marriage. There’s dirtier talk in Tiger Beat magazine. — Jackie Baxter, “Fiction Addiction”