#perfect comeback

[aunti-christ-ine]

[lespenseesdepandee]

HYOLYN - 달리 (Dally)

[reekyteekicha]

When I was in university I was an un-athletic nerd in Kinesiology a program primarily attended by varsity athletes.

One of our classes was on the physics of human movement. For the lab they would have the class do physical activities and measure the results.

One day we had to do a standing long jump. It became a friendly competition between the students about who could jump farther. Most people managed more than a meter (2.5 feet) and one guy did two metres. (Nearly 6 feet)

I steeled myself as my turn approached, the only sport I ever participated in was swimming. My jumping ability was mediocre at best. I did my jump and I got 30cm.

I was a bit red in the face, but none of my classmates said anything. Instead the lab assistant (a masters student) cried out “Ohhhhh! That’s so embarrassing!”

And then I made the greatest comeback I have ever made in my life. “Yes, my lack of athletic ability has been embarrassing me since elementary school”

Perfect silence swept over the classroom, suddenly the situation wasn’t about my jump, it was about the assistant putting his foot in his mouth so badly.

After class he apologized profusely. I told him I wasn’t mad, just to think about how he speaks to his students. I like to think that day was a learning experience for both of us.

[razreads]

The perfect comeback only comes to you way after the offending incident, most especially when you’re alone in the shower with no one but the shampoo bottle to tell it to.

Emma Mills, Lucky Caller

[internetbt]

[squirrelgirl006]

Who You Calling Funny Looking?

My brother was holding my 1 yr old daughter and made a comment about how she was kind of funny looking in the morning (crazy hair). She immediately pointed to his picture on the wall.

[astrobolism]

Book Diary, various unrelated books

A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar

I've read a bunch of Tidhar's novels now, and I have a pretty conflicted view of all them: I like them on a sentence level, but something I can't quite put my finger on hasn't quite "worked" about them. This one is easily my favorite. Pretty disturbing, though there's also a kind of an ironic (or is it?) sheen (disturbing in its own way) over the whole thing. Certainly provocative.

The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks

A novel about normal, believable people working through problems. Far from what I normally read, but I liked it. I think it lacked the quirkiness that drew me to Dicks's earlier novels, but he's a good enough writer of dialogue and mental states that I didn't mind.

Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze

Good, tragically implacable noir about a couple of doomed yet compelling and rather complicated crooks who can’t really live with themselves after pulling of a “perfect” heist. The writing is good: it’s blunt and poetic page by page (describing the walls of a crummy hotel as “cheese colored” is about perfect) and full of interesting little sections like the horrific interlude when the narrator works the power shears in a factory for a while, or when he and his partner in crime learn to ski. It had been a hard novel to find for years--a while back I tried reading a POD version borrowed from a friend of mine, but it was full of typos to the point of distraction. Now there’s a New York Review of Books edition, which are uniformly great.

[ginniepark]

random but in some ways (not saying all but some), Winner is like YG’s ver. of SHINee heh. Sprinkled in a tiny bit with Bigbang too, plus that own special Winner color.