Having taken on the care of foster children, a mother forced her own daughter to beat them. According … - Julie Gregory

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All the cold-reading clairvoyants and the nonsensical astrologers and absurd ESP merchants and other such people who talk about vibrations and energies. . . . God, if there's a word that drives me mad it's "energy" used in a nonsensical way-don't get me started!

Julie Gregory

Having taken on the care of foster children, a mother forced her own daughter to beat them. According to her later account: Mom puts the fly swatter in my hand and shows me how to do it: grab their wrists, and whack the plastic handle over their pink baby palms. She stands in the doorway of their room until I can crack hard enough to make them scream.

Account, Children, Daughter, Mom, Mother, Pink

Same Author Quotes

I pride myself on how little space I take up. I am going to shrink and shrink until I am a dry fall leaf, complete with a translucent spine and brittle veins, blowing away in a stiff wind, up, up, up into a crisp blue sky.

Away, Blue, Fall, Pride, Space, Wind

But the memories that hang heaviest are the easiest to recall.

Easiest, Hang, Heaviest, Memories, Recall, Recalls

Books are my friends, where it's okay to be silent, where you're not a freak if you don't want to get drunk, peel out in the parking lot, tip cows.

Book, Drunk, Okay, Tip, Want

When I look in the fridge, I see groceries, but I don't see food. My stomach growls; but there is no appetite. Appetite and hunger are different. Appetite is the mental prompting that kicks the auto-response into drive so you actually reach out, take the food, put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. I learned this in my first psychology course. Eating isn't just a physical need; it starts in the mind, generating hunger, which then should trigger the body to ingest food. I have no sparks between these plugs.

Course, Mind, Mouth, Prompting, Psychology, Sparks

I start to see that I surround myself with broken people; more broken than me. Ah, yes, let me count your cracks. Let's see, one hundred, two. . . yes, you'll do nicely. A cracked companion makes me look more whole, gives me something outside myself to care for. When I'm with whole, healed people I feel my own cracks, the shatters, the insanities of dislocation in myself.

Broken, Cracked, Insanities, People, Two