The girl whose table I occupied was reading a book but I couldn’t help but notice that all this time, she was secretly watching me.“You are beautiful.”I took my eyes off my phone and I saw the girl talking to me. I was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say or how to react.
Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of others”; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers – without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse.Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.
Shane never knew how to address her friends' parents. She wanted to call her Mrs. Eliot's Mom, but knew that the cutesiness would not be appreciated. “Mrs. Kaspar” sounded too like a phone solicitor, which would not do after having kissed the circumference of her son's neck.
He paused at the bedroom door, shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and walked right out like it was any other morning, and he and Jack would be having breakfast as if they hadn't had sex the night before."Morning," he said, casting a quick glance over his shoulder."Mmm," D grunted."You done in the bath
For a moment, I tried to see myself through the eyes of the girl with the black hair, or even the boy in the cowboy hat, studying my features for a vibration under the skin. The effort was visible in my face, and I felt ashamed. No wonder the boy had seemed disgusted: He must have seen the longing in me. Seen how my face was blatant with need, like an orphan's empty dish. And that was the difference between me and the black-haired girl- her face answered all it's own questions.
2. Stutter. I can be on the phone for hours with my best friend, but if confronted by a cute guy, wham! I get power outage, my brain is short circuited. You'd be lucky to get anything out of me besides "er...um...uh..." and a ton of blushing.3.Stumble. I trip over my own feet. Yeah it's easy to do that when you're five feet seven and gangly, but I managed to make the dance teacher cry when I was five years old. Or even worse, I knock things over and spill things over and spill food.
So how did you get this job, anyway?' I asked.'My science teacher.''Why'd he pick you?''For my brains and good looks, obviously.''Yeah, right. My social studies teacher picked me, but I can't really figure out why."'For your brains and good looks, obviously.''Um, thanks.' Had Aaron just complimented me? Wow.