Sorority Quotes

Oh," he said, knocking a red ball into a hole. "It's you." "You were expecting someone else?" I asked. "Am I interrupting your social calender?" I made a big show of glancing around the empty room. "I don't want to keep you from the mob of fans beating down your door." "Hey, a guy can hope. I mean, it's not impossible that a car full of scantily clad sorority girls might break down outside and need my help.

Hey, a guy can hope. I mean, it’s not impossible that a car full of scantily clad sorority girls might break down outside and need my help.” “That’s true,” I said. “Maybe I can put a sign out front that says, ‘ATTENTION ALL GIRLS: FREE HELP HERE.’” “‘ATTENTION ALL HOT GIRLS,’” he corrected, straightening up. “Right,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. “That’s an important distinction.” He pointed at me with the pool stick. “Speaking of hot, I like that uniform.” This time, I did roll my eyes.

Anyway, I was the one in real danger. I got cornered by a pack of wild sorority girls in the food court. Apparently it's mating season.

He alternated between ignoring me and shooting me disdainful looks that clearly said “Who is this ugly off-brand non-sorority girl ruining our homo-erotic bro-times?

I've tried to make sense of how someone who didn't stalk his victims in advance ended up going after the best and the brightest. And I think that's it, the thing they all had in common - a light that outshone his. He targets college campuses and sorority houses because he's looking for the cream of the crop. He wants to extinguish us - we are the ones who remind him that he's not that smart, not that good-looking, and there's nothing particularly special about him.

The prettier the wine bottle, the higher the likelihood sorority girls will buy it.

Although I get a lot of specialty services like wraps, scrubs, and mustache removal, my favorite is the simple manicure/pedicure. They work on your hands and feet at the same time while you sit in a vibrating chair. I call it the sorority girls version of a threesome.

Happy" was a word for sorority girls and clowns, and those were two distinctly fucked-up groups of people.

I don't see what women see in other women," I told Doctor Nolan in my interview that noon. "What does a woman see in a woman that she can't see in a man?" Doctor Nolan paused. Then she said, "Tenderness." That shut me up.

Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's injunction to 'remember your humanity and forget the rest.' It would be immodest to claim membership in this fraternity/sorority, but I hope not to have done anything to outrage it. Despite the idiotic sneer that such principles are 'fashionable,' it is always the ideas of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation.

Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said. From the Latin.

When you spend any time at all paying attention to the proclivities of the natural world, you realize that nature has no problem including in its sorority the dead, dying, and ailing as fully as the lovely, healthy, and whole.

...Stop worrying about her." "Women must worry about other women," she snapped. "God knows men won't do it." - Annabelle.

Yeah. She'd manipulated the second most powerful vampire in town into taking her side against a psycho bitch-queen sorority girl. She'd talked rationally about putting people's brains into computers. This was a normal day. No wonder she was screwed up.

Yes, she liked to get dressed up, but she called sorority girls “sorostitutes” and fraternity guys “fratilos.” She labeled them “group thinkers” and claimed they suffered from a herd mentality.

If I were a lesbian and had a thing for narcissistic ex-sorority girls? I’d totally do me." Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, or Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office: A Memoir

The ability for a woman to be free is connected with her ability to love another woman.

There wasn't even enough meat to make proper fun of [....] I keep waiting for somebody else to come on TV, maybe a cabinet member, to read the real speech, the one that tells us ... I dunno ... stuff. Seriously, sorority girls have done the Walk of Shame home from frat parties feeling more satisfied.

So what if they weren’t as happy as they’d ever been? They were adults, with a nearly grown child. “Happy” was a word for sorority girls and clowns, and those were two distinctly fucked-up groups of people. They were just wading through the muck like everyone else.

With the Smithies, it was different. There was sometimes no telling where one of them began and the others left off.

snuggling in bed at our sorority house, reading smut books, and avoiding social gatherings”.

Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said.

A stampede of footsteps came pounding up, accompanied by the yodeling howls of two very excited pugs. They loved drama like blonde haired sorority sisters.

She drew herself up and crossed her arms over her chest. “So Buck can enjoy sitting in a cell contemplating how he blew up his life. That dickwad hurt two people sitting at this table. And you’re worried about who’ll look bad if they tell? Screw that. Dean and D.J. and Kennedy and every frat boy on this campus can all go fuck themselves. Are we sisters or not?

Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said. From

This is a part of post-college life that nobody ever warns you about. Your social life is no longer dropped into your lap by virtue of shared classes and extracurricular activities. Relationships, whether with friends, family, or romantic partners—from here on out, they’re going to take a lot more work. No more built-in friends at the sorority, or hollering down the stairs when I need my mom. It’s certainly not going to be as easy to meet guys now that I’m done with school. It’s not like I can just chat up the cute guy in econ class anymore.

I don't want to keep you from the mob of fans beating down the door." "Hey, a guy can hope. I mean, it's not impossible that a car full of scantily clad sorority girls might break down outside and need my help." "That's true," I said. "Maybe I can put a sign out from that says, 'ATTENTION ALL GIRLS:FREE HELP HERE.'" "'ATTENTION ALL HOT GIRLS,'" he corrected, straightening up. "Right," I said, trying not to roll my eyes. "That's an important distinction." He pointed at me with the pool stick. "Speaking of hot, I like that uniform." This time I did roll me eyes.

Her problem is with pretty,” Tennyson said. "She thinks I’ll need all these dresses in college. Like I would ever in a billion years pledge a sorority. I’ll pack a few of these to be ironic, though. I can wear them to, like, truck stops at night with mascara running down my cheeks and stuff.

(At a health and fitness fair) Though normally superconfident, I am not prepared for the judgmental stares of the ultrafit. They don't know me and have no idea of my prowess in the boardroom. They're unfamiliar with my shoe collection and unaware that I live in the Dot-Com Palace. And they didn't notice me pulling up in the Caddy. All they can see is how much space I occupy. With each step I take, I feel cellulite blossoming on my arms, my stomach, my calves. Stop it! I think my chin just multiplied and my thighs inflated. No! Deflate! Deflate! And I'm pretty sure I can see my own ass out of the corner of my eye. Gah! Cut it out!! Am I imagining things, or do my footsteps sound like those of the giant who stomped through the city in the beginning of Underdog? And how did I go from aging-but-still-kind-of-hot ex-sorority girl to horrific, stompy cartoon monster in less than an hour? My sleek and sexy python sandals have morphed into cloven hooves by the time I reach the line for the race packet. While I wait, the air is abuzz with tales of other marathons while many sets of eyes cut in my direction. Eventually an asshat in a JUST DO IT T-shirt asks me, "How's your training going?

You were kind of mean to Brittany,” Holly said. “Was I? Trying to be protective, I guess. I have a problem with cheerleaders, sorority sisters, gangs, committees, groups, anything pack-related.” She shrugged. “Yeah, you’re not really a joiner.” I was never much for cheerleaders or jocks myself, especially in high school. I always knew that kind of popularity was short term, but when you’re a teenager it seemed like the most important thing in the world. But Holly was only twelve.

Maureen Dowd - that catty, third-rate, wannabe sorority queen. She's such an empty vessel. One pleasure of reading the New York Times online is that I never have to see anything written by Maureen Dowd! I ignore her hypertext like spam for penis extenders.

just don’t get why a pretty girl like you would do this to herself, he said. I wanted to ask, What does pretty have to do with it?

—Llegar al mundo e irse no son cosas que haya que hacer solas. —La mujer de los panes toma aire para seguir hablando—: Si las mujeres nos juntamos, ahí está nuestra fuerza.

She was the sweetheart queen, sorority president. Boys trailed her like a tail on a kite,

She’s probably shocked to see me at a party, instead of my typical “snuggling in bed at our sorority house, reading smut books, and avoiding social gatherings”.

I was with my tribe of tri-Delt sorority girls, and we were all having sex with mermen. It was nice feeling, like I was part of something larger than myself.

I know many friends who loved their sororities. I wasn’t traumatized. I was just bored.

Aren’t the gorges beautiful? This year, two girls jumped into one holding hands. They didn’t get into the sorority they wanted. They wanted Tri-Delt.

How the three of them had met at Jacy’s sorority, where they all slung hash,

She no longer looked like herself: diligent, plump, prim. She looked like a surfer girl or a sorority sister, one of those quivering dewy creatures she had always silently disliked.

Social media has put an incredible pressure on the Facebook generation. We’ve made our lives so public to one another, and as a result we feel pressure to live up to a certain ideal version of ourselves. On social media, everyone is happy, and popular, and successful—or, at least, we think we need to look like we are. No matter how well off we are, how thin or pretty, we have our issues and insecurities. But none of that shows up online. We don’t like to reveal our weaknesses on social media. We don’t want to appear unhappy, or be a drag. Instead, we all post rose-colored versions of ourselves. We pretend we have more money than we do. We pretend we are popular. We pretend our lives are great. Your status update says I went to a totally awesome party last night! It won’t mention that you drank too much and puked and humiliated yourself in front of a girl you like. It says My sorority sisters are the best! It doesn’t say I feel lonely and don’t think they accept me. I’m not saying everyone should post about having a bad time. But pretending everything is perfect when it’s not doesn’t help anyone. The danger of these kinds of little white lies is that, in projecting the happiness and accomplishments we long for, we’re setting impossible standards for ourselves and others to live up to.

Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said. From the Latin. He

And it feels very similar to rushing a sorority; the planned conversation with the more important sorority sisters, always pretty, usually white, who've already gone through a list of photos and have their favorites pegged and the answers to their questions preloaded. "Oh, no way! You were a cheerleader, too?! So was I! You'll fit in so well in our house!" Meanwhile, we, of source, knew she was a cheerleader because we spent days studying the rushee's photos and applications, and we already knew which ones we'd be attacking. And here I am, in my mid-thirties, re-creating the same behavior to sell a similar promise of a different sisterhood.

I’ve tried to make sense of how someone who didn’t stalk his victims in advance ended up going after the best and the brightest. And I think that’s it, the thing they all had in common—a light that outshone his. He targets college campuses and sorority houses because he’s looking for the cream of the crop. He wants to extinguish us—we are the ones who remind him that he’s not that smart, not that good-looking, that there’s nothing particularly special about him.

The horror movies made in the ’70s didn’t have rules and often lacked the reassuring backstory that explained the evil away or turned it into a postmodern meta-joke. Why did the killer stalk the sorority girls in Black Christmas? Why was Regan possessed in The Exorcist? Why was the shark cruising around Amity? Where did Carrie White’s powers come from? There were no answers, just as there were no concrete connect-the-dot justifications of daily life’s randomness: shit happens, deal with it, stop whining, take your medicine, grow the fuck up.

..it’s not impossible that a car full of scantily clad sorority girls might break down outside and need my help.” “That’s true,” I said. “Maybe I can put a sign out front that says, ‘ATTENTION ALL GIRLS: FREE HELP HERE.’” “‘ATTENTION ALL HOT GIRLS,’” he corrected, straightening up.

..it’s not impossible that a car full of scantily clad sorority girls might break down outside and need my help.” “That’s true,” I said. “Maybe I can put a sign out front that says, ‘ATTENTION ALL GIRLS: FREE HELP HERE.’” “‘ATTENTION ALL HOT GIRLS,’” he corrected, straightening up.

In 315 CE, for example, the Synod of Neocaesarea (now Niksar, Turkey) banned men from marrying the wife of a dead brother—no levirate marriage. A decade later, in 325, the Council of Nicaea prohibited men from marrying the sister of a dead wife—no sororate marriage—and from marrying Jews, pagans, and heretics.

Si eres hombre y estás leyendo esto, no te sientas atacado ni nervioso, que nosotras estrechemos lazos no tiene nada que ver contigo ni con nuestra relación con los hombres, es algo independiente, algo nuestro. Igual que existe el compadreo (del latín pater, «padre») también existe la sororidad (del latín soror, «hermana»).

This is the Marina. This is where you go between the fraternity or sorority house and your first divorce. Look around, except for our waitress, who I guarantee doesn’t live in this neighborhood, it’s all people who are completely self-absorbed without a shred of self-awareness.” “Wow, that’s harsh,” Mike said. “You haven’t served them,” Lily said.

They love laboring over every speck of minutiae that goes with their job, but for us, it’s the homicide detective equivalent of watching paint dry.

My career has had its low points. But I can’t remember a day more rock bottom than this one.

William Congreve. Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.

Malory! You've got a chipmunk on your pussy!

Honey, people never grow up. Adulthood is just high school with Restylane. You of all people should know that by now. Toodles, bitch!

slam dunk.

Tonight, I was hoping you would feed me. And then I was planning on fucking you to sleep.

Why did the killer stalk the sorority girls in Black Christmas? Why was Regan possessed in The Exorcist? Why was the shark cruising around Amity? Where did Carrie White’s powers come from? There were no answers, just as there were no concrete connect-the-dot justifications of daily life’s randomness: shit happens, deal with it, stop whining, take your medicine, grow the fuck up.

When I couldn’t take the hunger anymore, I called Taylor and told her everything. She screamed so loud, I had to hold the phone away from my ear. She came right over with a black-bean burrito and a strawberry-banana smoothie. She kept shaking her head and saying, “That Zeta Phi slut.” “It wasn’t just her, it was him, too,” I said, between bites of my burrito. “Oh, I know. Just you wait. I’m gonna drag my nails across his face when I see him. I’ll leave him so scarred, no girl will ever hook up with him again.” She inspected her manicured nails like they were artillery. “When I go to the salon tomorrow, I’m gonna tell Danielle to make them sharp.” My heart swelled. There are some things only a friend who’s known you your whole life can say, and instantly, I felt a little better. “You don’t have to scar him.” “But I want to.” She hooked her pinky finger with mine. “Are you okay?” I nodded. “Better, now that you’re here.” When I was sucking down the last of my smoothie, Taylor asked me, “Do you think you’ll take him back?” I was surprised and really relieved not to hear any judgement to her voice. “What would you do?” I asked her. “It’s up to you.” “I know, but…would you take him back?” “Under ordinary circumstances, no. If some guy cheated on me while we were on a break, if he so much as looked at another girl, no. He’d be donzo.” She chewed on her straw. “But Jeremy’s not some guy. You have a history together.” “What happened to all that talk about scarring him?” “Don’t get it twisted, I hate him to death right now. He effed up in a colossal way. But he’ll never be just some guy, not to you. That’s a fact.” I didn’t say anything. But I knew she was right. “I could still round up my sorority sisters and go slash his tires tonight.” Taylor bumped my shoulder. “Hmm? Whaddyathink?” She was trying to make me laugh. It worked. I laughed for the first time in what felt like a long time.

I swear, I stick my foot in my mouth more times than I’d like to count with this girl and the reminder of her earlier suggestion comes to mind, but my foot is going nowhere near my ass. Shuddering, the memory of that sorority girl sticking her finger in that place makes me cringe. Sure, I know some guys are cool with that and they like it, but I swear my cock deflated the moment she touched me there. Never fucking again.

I kept my antennae up for intel, but the only subject of conversation was Dorothy. Which should have been a good thing, considering that she was the one I was really here to learn about. Unfortunately, no one was sharing any useful information. It was all about how beautiful Dorothy was, or how kind she was, or how lucky we were to be working for the greatest person in all of Oz. It was weird. They were like a creepy, overeager maid sorority.

I was just trying to demonstrate to the students of Rowland University that Rowland University was not infinite. It had taken me a long time to figure out what the problem was, but one day I realized that the students at Rowland University thought that Rowland University was infinite. Infinite bookstore. Infinite fraternities and sororities. Infinite sports teams. Infinite snack shop. Infinite Homecoming. Infinite graduation. Infinite prospects.

But those moments I spent with her on the terrace... I will never forget them. We played like little girls. We saw colours come vividly to life before us. We joked. We laughed. We were us. In those moments when we threw mugfulls of water into the open space, I saw that we were two faces to one soul. She, bucolic. I, urban. She, conventional. I, modern. She, her. I, me. Sisters, the members of a sorority of pain. But the problems were one, real, single.

I fell asleep at nine that night and didn’t move until nine the next morning, waking up still dressed and wrapped like a pupa in the Park Hyatt’s comforter. Marlboro Man wasn’t in the room; I was disoriented and dizzy, stumbling to the bathroom like a drunk sorority girl after a long night of partying. But I didn’t look like a sorority girl. I looked like hell, pale and green and drawn; Marlboro Man was probably on a flight back to the States, I imagined, after having woken up and seen what he’d been sleeping to all night.

They are the ones who started kindergarten together, their circle remaining small until high school graduation. They fled town in groups of twos and threes to attend a handful of colleges all within driving distance of here. They all joined sororities and fraternities with other groups of twos and threes with similar backgrounds, only to gravitate back to this small Louisiana town, the circle closing once again. Greek letters have been traded out for Junior League memberships and dinner parties and golf on Saturday afternoon, as

You wouldn’t think so, but . . . well. You were . . . amazing, throwing that fire like some kind of ancient warrior goddess.” Annoyed, I turned away. “Stop making fun of me.” He caught my arm and pulled me back toward him. “I am absolutely serious.” I swallowed, speechless for a moment. All I was aware of was how close we were, that he was holding me to him with only a few inches between us. Almost as close as at the sorority. “I’m not a warrior or a goddess,” I managed at last. Adrian leaned closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both.

The social codes are different, distinctly preppy, fraternity-sorority, hip, flip, fast-and-cute, nauseating, and artificial. I have no doubt that the majority of these people are interesting, likeable, intelligent people. Unfortunately, they've been taught not to show it. The problem lies in socializing. When these people socialize, they don a common "mask." They talk a certain way (hip, flip) act a certain way, do certain things, all of which have been defined as socially acceptable. By acting in such a way, one makes "friends." With time, friends use their masks less and less, and a true, deep friendship results.

My first impression of him was that he was free spirited, clever, funny. That proved to be completely inaccurate. We left the party together and walked around for hours, lied to each other about our happy lives, ate pizza at midnight, took the Staten Island Ferry back and forth and watched the sun rise. I gave him my phone number at the dorm. By the time he finally called me, two weeks later, I’d become obsessed with him. He kept me on a long, tight leash for months—expensive meals, the occasional opera or ballet. He took my virginity at a ski lodge in Vermont on Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t a pleasurable experience, but I trusted he knew more about sex than I did, so when he rolled off and said, “That was amazing,” I believed him. He was thirty-three, worked for Fuji Bank at the World Trade Center, wore tailored suits, sent cars to pick me up at my dorm, then the sorority house sophomore year, wined and dined me, and asked for head with no shame in the back of cabs he charged to the company account. I took this as proof of his masculine value. My “sisters” all agreed; he was “suave.” And I was impressed by how much he liked talking about his emotions, something I’d never seen a man do. “My mom’s a pothead now, and that’s why I have this deep sadness.” He took frequent trips to Tokyo for work and to San Francisco to visit his twin sister. I suspected she discouraged him from dating me.

Indirect aggression is characterized by a clique of relatively powerless (compared with their male counterparts) girls or women who exert power “indirectly” by bullying, gossiping about, slandering, and shaming one girl or woman so that she will be shunned by her female intimates, thrown out of her college sorority, perhaps fired from her job, divorced by her husband, and definitely dropped from the A-list of partygoers. Gossip is a chief weapon of indirect aggression. Slandering another girl or woman (“she’s a slut,” “she’s … different,” “she really thinks she’s something”) leads to her being ostracized by her female friends and peers, a punishment that girls and women experience as being put into solitary confinement or as a social death.

Skye snorted. “Parents are so lame sometimes. Mine think I’m a virgin. They also think I’d never drink beer because I’m a calorie freak. No one is that much of a calorie freak.” Frowning as she yanked me along, I wondered about the calories in those tacos. Skye must have sensed my concerns because she snorted again. “The freshman fifteen is expected. If we don’t pack on a little weight, people will think we’re full of ourselves. Those girls over there,” she said, waving her hand in the direction of a bevy of pretty sorority girls. “They’re obsessed with being hot. Unfortunately, while you can snag a man by being hot, you can’t keep him. To keep them, you have to be confident and I am. I’m just confident enough to pack on a few pounds from eating tacos. I’m a keeper

A Lake Charles-based artist, Sally was a progressive Democrat who in 2016 primary favored Bernie Sanders. Sally's very dear friend and worl-traveling flight attendant from Opelousas, Louisiana, Shirley was an enthusiast for the Tea Party and Donald Trump. Both woman had joined sororities at LSU. Each had married, had three children, lived in homes walking distance apart in Lake Charles, and had keys to each other's houses. Each loved the other's children. Shirley knew Sally's parents and even consulted Sally's mother when the two go to "fussing to much." They exchanged birthday and Christmas gifts and jointly scoured the newspaper for notices of upcoming cultural events they had, when they were neighbors in Lake Charles, attended together. One day when I was staying as Shirley's overnight guest in Opelousas, I noticed a watercolor picture hanging on the guestroom wall, which Sally had painted as a gift for Shirley's eleven-year-old daughter, who aspired to become a ballerina. With one pointed toe on a pudgy, pastel cloud, the other lifted high, the ballerina's head was encircled by yellow star-like butterflies. It was a loving picture of a child's dream--one that came true. Both women followed the news on TV--Sally through MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and Shirley via Fox News's Charles Krauthammer, and each talked these different reports over with a like-minded husband. The two women talk by phone two or three times a week, and their grown children keep in touch, partly across the same politcal divide. While this book is not about the personal lives of these two women, it couldn't have been written without them both, and I believe that their friendship models what our country itself needs to forge: the capacity to connect across difference.

The Pi Betas had accepted the fact that Rose was Mexican, but it was obvious they would just as soon ignore it. And they seemed to assume Rose wanted to do that, too. The other girls might not be overtly disturbed by the fact that Rose was a chicana, but they certainly were not going to encourage her to explore her heritage. No, if Rose joined the Pi Betas, she would have to deny the biggest part of herself. She would have to become completely American.

Janitorial" All morning he drifts the spacious lawns like a gleaner, picking up this and that, the summer clouds immense and building toward afternoon, when the heat drives him under the shade of the oak trees in the quad and then along cool corridors inside to pull down last term's flyers For the chamber recital, the poetry reading, the lecture on the ethics of cloning, the dinner with some ambassador, the debate between Kant and Heidegger, the frat party, the sorority party, the kegger, the weekend Bergman festival, the Wednesday screening of Dumb and Dumber. He says hello to fine young ladies, and tries not to dwell on their halter tops, their tanned thighs, shorts up to here. At five he climbs into an old, dumpster-colored olds, lights up and heads home across the barge-ridden river in its servitude to East St. Louis, where you know this poem—glib, well-meaning, trivial-- grows tongue-tied, and cannot follow.

I fell asleep at nine that night and didn’t move until nine the next morning, waking up still dressed and wrapped like a pupa in the Park Hyatt’s comforter. Marlboro Man wasn’t in the room; I was disoriented and dizzy, stumbling to the bathroom like a drunk sorority girl after a long night of partying. But I didn’t look like a sorority girl. I looked like hell, pale and green and drawn; Marlboro Man was probably on a flight back to the States, I imagined, after having woken up and seen what he’d been sleeping to all night. I made myself take a warm shower, even though the beautiful marble bathroom was spinning like a top. The water hitting my back made me feel better. When I came out of the bathroom, refreshed and wearing the Park Hyatt robe, Marlboro Man was sitting on the bed, reading an Australian paper, which he’d picked up down the street along with some orange juice and a cinnamon roll for me in hopes it would make me feel better. “C’mere,” he said, patting the empty spot on the bed next to him. I obliged. I curled up next to him. Like clockwork our arms and legs began to wrap around each other until we were nothing but a mass of flesh again. We stayed there for almost an hour--him rubbing my back and asking me if I was okay…me, dying from bliss with each passing minute and trying to will away the nausea, which was still very much hovering over our happiness.

Chubby: A regular-size person who could lose a few, for whom you feel affection. Chubster: An overweight, adorable child. That kid from Two and a Half Men for the first couple of years. Fatso: An antiquated term, really. In the 1970s, mean sorority girls would call a pledge this. Probably most often used on people who aren’t even really fat, but who fear being fat. Fatass: Not usually used to describe weight, actually. This deceptive term is more a reflection of one’s laziness. In the writers’ room of The Office, an upper-level writer might get impatient and yell, “Eric, take your fat ass and those six fatasses and go write this B-story! I don’t want to hear any more excuses why the plot doesn’t make sense!” Jabba the Hutt: Star Wars villain. Also, something you can call yourself after a particularly filling Thanksgiving dinner that your aunts and uncles will all laugh really hard at. Obese: A serious, nonpejorative way to describe someone who is unhealthily overweight. Obeseotron: A nickname you give to someone you adore who has just stepped on your foot accidentally, and it hurts. Alternatively, a fat robot. Overweight: When someone is roughly thirty pounds too heavy for his or her frame. Pudgy: See “Chubby.” Pudgo: See “Chubster.” Tub o’ Lard: A huge compliment given by Depression-era people to other, less skinny people. Whale: A really, really mean way that teen boys target teen girls. See the following anecdote.

Suddenly I realized I was standing on the hot wood of the dock, still touching elbows with Adam, staring at the skull-and-crossbones pendant. And when I looked up into his light blue eyes, I saw that he was staring at my neck. No. Down lower. “What’cha staring at?” I asked. He cleared his throat. “Tank top or what?” This was his seal of approval, as in, Last day of school or what? or, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or what? Hooray! He wasn’t Sean, but he was built of the same material. This was a good sign. I pumped him for more info, to make sure. “What about my tank top?” “You’re wearing it.” He looked out across the lake, showing me his profile. His cheek had turned bright red under his tan. I had embarrassed the wrong boy. Damn, it was back to the football T-shirt for me. No it wasn’t, either. I couldn’t abandon my plan. I had a fish to catch. “Look,” I told Adam, as if he hadn’t already looked. “Sean’s leaving at the end of the summer. Yeah, yeah, he’ll be back next summer, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to compete once he’s had a taste of college life and sorority girls. It’s now or never, and desperate times call for desperate tank tops.” Adam opened his mouth to say something. I shut him up by raising my hand. Imitating his deep boy-voice, I said, “I don’t know why you want to hook up with that jerk.” We’d had this conversation whenever we saw each other lately. I said in my normal voice, “I just do, okay? Let me do it, and don’t get in my way. Stay out of my net, little dolphin.” I bumped his hip with my hip. Or tried to, but he was a lot taller than me. I actually hit somewhere around his mid-thigh. He folded his arms, stared me down, and pressed his lips together. He tried to look grim. I could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “Don’t call me that.” “Why not?” “Dolphins don’t live in the lake,” he said matter-of-factly, as if this were the real reason. The real reason was that the man-child within him did not want to be called “little” anything. Boys were like that. I shrugged. “Fine, little brim. Little bass.” He walked toward the stairs. “Little striper.” He turned. “What if Sean actually asked you out?” I didn’t want to be teased about this. It could happen! “You act like it’s the most remote poss-“ “He has to ride around with the sunroof open just so he can fit his big head in the truck. Where would you sit?” “In his lap?” A look of disgust flashed across Adam’s face before he jogged up the stairs, his weight making the weathered planks creaked with every step.

If we consider the possibility that all women–from the infant suckling her mother’s breast, to the grown woman experiencing orgasmic sensations while suckling her own child, perhaps recalling her mother’s milk-smell in her own; to two women, like Virginia Woolf’s Chloe and Olivia, who share a laboratory; to the woman dying at ninety, touched and handled by women–exist on a lesbian continuum, we can see ourselves as moving in and out of this continuum, whether we identify ourselves as lesbian or not. It allows us to connect aspects of woman-identification as diverse as the impudent, intimate girl-friendships of eight- or nine-year-olds and the banding together of those women of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries known as Beguines who “shared houses, rented to one another, bequeathed houses to their room-mates … in cheap subdivided houses in the artisans’ area of town,” who “practiced Christian virtue on their own, dressing and living simply and not associating with men,” who earned their livings as spinners, bakers, nurses, or ran schools for young girls, and who managed–until the Church forced them to disperse–to live independent both of marriage and of conventual restrictions. It allows us to connect these women with the more celebrated “Lesbians” of the women’s school around Sappho of the seventh century B.C.; with the secret sororities and economic networks reported among African women; and with the Chinese marriage resistance sisterhoods–communities of women who refused marriage, or who if married often refused to consummate their marriages and soon left their husbands–the only women in China who were not footbound and who, Agnes Smedley tells us, welcomed the births of daughters and organized successful women’s strikes in the silk mills. It allows us to connect and compare disparate individual instances of marriage resistance: for example, the type of autonomy claimed by Emily Dickinson, a nineteenth-century white woman genius, with the strategies available to Zora Neale Hurston, a twentieth-century black woman genius. Dickinson never married, had tenuous intellectual friendships with men, lived self-convented in her genteel father’s house, and wrote a lifetime of passionate letters to her sister-in-law Sue Gilbert and a smaller group of such letters to her friend Kate Scott Anthon. Hurston married twice but soon left each husband, scrambled her way from Florida to Harlem to Columbia University to Haiti and finally back to Florida, moved in and out of white patronage and poverty, professional success and failure; her survival relationships were all with women, beginning with her mother. Both of these women in their vastly different circumstances were marriage resisters, committed to their own work and selfhood, and were later characterized as “apolitical ”. Both were drawn to men of intellectual quality; for both of them women provided the ongoing fascination and sustenance of life.

It’s my turn next, and I realize then that I never turned in the name of my escort--because I hadn’t planned on being here. I glance around wildly for Ryder, but he’s nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by the sea of people in cocktail dresses and suits. Crap. I thought he realized that escorting me on court was part of the deal, once I’d agreed to go. I guess he’d figured it’d be easier on me, what with the whole Patrick thing, if I was alone onstage. But I don’t want to be alone. I want Ryder with me. By my side, supporting me. Always. I finally spot him in the crowd--it’s not too hard, since he’s a head taller than pretty much everyone else--and our eyes meet. My stomach drops to my feet--you know, that feeling you get on a roller coaster right after you crest that first hill and start plummeting toward the ground. Oh my God, this can’t be happening. I’ve fallen in love with Ryder Marsden, the boy I’m supposed to hate. And it has nothing to do with his confession, his declaration that he loves me. Sure, it might have forced me to examine my feelings faster than I would have on my own, but it was there all along, taking root, growing, blossoming. Heck, it’s a full-blown garden at this point. “Our senior maid is Miss Jemma Cafferty!” comes the principal’s voice. “Jemma is a varsity cheerleader, a member of the Wheelettes social sorority, the French Honor Club, the National Honor Society, and the Peer Mentors. She’s escorted tonight by…ahem, sorry. I’m afraid there’s no escort, so we’ll just--” “Ryder Marsden,” I call out as I make my way across the stage. “I’m escorted by Ryder Marsden.” The collective gasp that follows my announcement is like something out of the movies. I swear, it’s just like that scene in Gone with the Wind where Rhett offers one hundred and fifty dollars in gold to dance with Scarlett, and she walks through the scandalized bystanders to take her place beside Rhett for the Virginia reel. Only it’s the reverse. I’m standing here doing the scandalizing, and Ryder’s doing the walking. “Apparently, Jemma’s escort is Ryder Marsden,” the principal ad-libs into the microphone, looking a little frazzled. “Ryder is…um…the starting quarterback for the varsity football team, and, um…in the National Honor Society and…” She trails off helplessly. “A Peer Mentor,” he adds helpfully as he steps up beside me and takes my hand. The smile he flashes in my direction as Mrs. Crawford places the tiara on my head is dazzling--way more so than the tiara itself. My knees go a little weak, and I clutch him tightly as I wobble on my four-inch heels. But here’s the thing: If the crowd is whispering about me, I don’t hear it. I’m aware only of Ryder beside me, my hand resting in the crook of his arm as he leads me to our spot on the stage beside the junior maid and her escort, where we wait for Morgan to be crowned queen. Oh, there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow. I have no idea what we’re going to tell our parents. Right now I don’t even care. Just like Scarlett O’Hara, I’m going to enjoy myself tonight and worry about the rest later. After all, tomorrow is another…Well, you know how the saying goes.

His mother claims she didn’t know anything about the racist terror going on in Mississippi and Alabama; she was caught up in joining a sorority, not knowing what was going on in the rest of the world. Or around the corner.

I always hated the sound of that. Polly Sigh. It sounds like mass hysteria in a sorority house.” “Or one of those inflatable sex dolls.” Still he read.

Deinde pervenimus in Boemiam, de qua absens fueramus undecim annis. Invenimus autem, quod aliquot annis ante mater nostra dicta Elyzabeth mortua erat. Ipsa vero vivente soror nostra secundogenita, filia sua, nomine Guta, missa erat in Franciam et copulata Iohanni, filio primogenito Philippi, regis Franciae, cuius sororem, nomine Blancam, habebamus in uxorem. Tertia vero soror nostra et ultima nomine Anna erat apud dictam sororem nostram in Francia temporibus illis. et sic cum venissemus in Bohemiam, non invenimus nec patrem nec matrem nec fratrem nec sorores nec aliquem notum. Idioma quoque Bohemicum ex toto oblivioni tradideramus, quod post redicimus, ut loqueremur et intellegeremus ut alter Bohemus. Et divina autem gratia non solum Boemicum, sed Gallicum, Lombardicum, Teutonicum et Latinum ita loqui, scribere et legere scivimus, ut una lingua istarum sicut altera ad scribendum, legendum, loquendum et intelligendum nobis erat apta. Tunc pater noster procedens versus comitatum Luczemburgensem propter quandam guerram, quam gerebat cum duce Bravancie ipse et college sui, videlicet Leodiensis episcopus, Juliacensis marchio, Gerlenensis comes et quam plures alii, commisit nobis auctoritatem suam temporibus absencie sue in Boemia. Quod regnum invenimus ita desolatum, quod nec unum castrum invenimus liberum, quod non esset obligatum cum omnibus bonis regalibus, ita quod non habebamus ubi manere, nisi in domibus civitatum sicut alter civis. Castrum vero Pragense ita desolatum, destructum ac comminutum fuit, quod a tempore Ottogari regis totum prostratum fuit usque ad terram. Ubi de novo palatium magnum et pulchrum cum magnis sumptibus aedificari procuravimus, prout hodierna die apparet intuentibus.

Wanted to linger in the flat winter alone at the property line, where barbed wire twists irrelevant through the pines. Wanted to merge into the speckled landscape like the fine lacework of roots turning by touch through dim earth, to feel that energy wick up my legs. Wanted oneness in the nameless sorority of trees and creeping lichen. Almost— But then, you break in with your body, and my body turns woman again. My skin distinct from grey bark and rudely aware of all the secret pink places you’ve kissed me. How I hate you for a heartbeat, before I look up to see your face stinging sweet with cold and recognition. Your pupils open wide to drink in the sight of me, and here is this other beauty I wanted. — Aza Pace, “Definition in the Woods,” The Boiler (no. 30, Summer 2019)

She was my age, or at least close to it. Dark hair that ran down her back in silky waves. An hourglass figure that was accentuated by her jeans and t-shirt. A tight little body begging to be touched. She was sexy in a way that seemed effortless, unlike most of the dolled-up sorority girls who usually flirted with me. Sarah was a fucking smokeshow.

Use your love and good instincts to know when to growl, to pounce, to take a swipe, when to kill, when to retreat, when to bay till dawn. To live as closely as possible to the numinous wild a woman must do more head tossing, more brimming, have more sniffing intuition, more creative life, more “get-down-dirty,” more solitude, more women’s company, more natural life, more fire, more spirit, more cooking of words and ideas. She must do more recognition of sorority, more seeding, more root stock–keeping, more kindness to men, more neighborhood revolution, more poetry, more painting of fables and facts, longer reaches into the wild feminine. More terrorist sewing circles, and more howling. And, especially, much more canto hondo, much more deep song.

First ladies aren’t elected. But Betty Ford had even less of a mandate from the people than the other members of her sorority: Her husband remains the only American vice president and president who was elected to neither position. That she made the most of the situation and acted so ambitiously on projects dear to her is impressive enough. That she then went on to overcome her addictions, share them with the world, and draw upon her personal experience to help others in the same predicament - well, that’s simply heroic.

I rifle through its contents, trying to see if any cans are at least semi-cold, but it’s full of girly shit like peach-flavoured spiked seltzer and light lime-flavoured beer. Did a sorority do the alcohol run tonight, or what? Who drinks that crap?

Chicago, I quickly learned, was an insular town, a sorority that I was not invited to pledge, with a population as icy as its winters.

What makes me the proudest about Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., is that she truly lives up to the ideals and principles she stands for. This sisterhood is proactive and is ever progressing, never settling, and always upholding the highest level of expectations of the membership and all that she comes in contact with. At the forefront of any major change you will always see a Delta; the leadership of any progressing organization always had a Delta in the midst. My sisters are dynamic in all their ways and that makes me proud to be a Delta. They are examples of the essence of Fortitude in every sense of the word! —LaKesha Russ, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Singurătate, pulchra soror, aș vrea să-ți dau inima mea, dar tu ești inima mea, Soledad. Aș vrea să-ți dau amintirile mele, dar amintirile le avem împreună, aceleași, pentru că tu m-ai însoțit mereu. Te simțeam uneori ca o lumină răsfrântă de apele mării, mi-ai fost ceață și noapte, mi-ai fost putere. Mai ții minte desigur răsăritul acela pustiu, obosit ca un amurg. Sau după amiaza albă când moartea a încercat să-mi sfâșie inima cu gheara ei de cristal și când a biruit iubirea, lăsându-mă durerii și lumii. Ape limpezi se preling ca niște lacrimi negre pe piatra neagră a unei stânci, așa te simt uneori. Și te mai simt uneori purificată de orice întâmplări, formă pură. Soledad, mai e puțin și o să plecăm împreună, tineri cum am fost, peste vârste, mereu.

Every time the fashion runway makes a place for a plus size woman, an eccentric tomboy, an awkward aristocrat, or four dozen sorority girls, it is a nod to Versailles. That was a moment when the individual trumped the group, when five Americans triumphed not because of the cut of the clothes or any extraordinary embellishments, but because of the spirit in which they were worn. American individualism showed its best face.

I am gobsmacked.” I smiled. It’s always a treat to meet a teenager who can express enthusiasm without using the word awesome.

Sophie lets out a sorority girl "Hell yeah!" and high fives Billy. I expect a forced fist bump from Ethan in response, so am surprised when I feel his lips come in for a soft landing on my cheek. "Hell yeah!" he whispers into my ear, laughing quietly.

He targets college campuses and sorority houses because he’s looking for the cream of the crop. He wants to extinguish us—we are the ones who remind him that he’s not that smart, not that good-looking, that there’s nothing particularly special about him.

Don’t you hate how Hollywood portrays sororities? It’s always drunk chicks having pillow fights in lingerie and chopping up mountains of cocaine and leading live sheep into wild parties. Give me a break.

She’s just supersophisticated and chic. That girl in the coffee shop (Fudge? Fudgie?) is so lucky to have this elegant woman as her mom. I feel like the sorority would love someone so cosmopolitan, and I hope Dean Grace agrees.

Liz used to joke that when she was an undergrad at Cornell, she and the girls in her sorority would play “Homeless? Or tenured professor?” while driving around the streets of Ithaca. It was a hard game.

She probably assumed Janelle would mess up, too, because she’s so young, but she had no idea Janelle was competent. Dean Grace intentionally sabotaged the sororities so she could fill them with higher-paying students and get herself promoted to provost.

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to join the stupid sorority anyways. I just wanted to prove I could get in. That I could be asked in. I think … I think I just wanted to prove I could belong somewhere. That I could be an ordinary person. But I wanted to be the one…” “To make the choice.” “Yeah.” Her nervous drumming stopped. “Pathetic, right?” “No.” It took a lot for her to force the question to the surface: “Why not?” “Because it’s brave,” he said. “Rushing a sorority?” “No.” Joey was waiting, not patiently. He tried to figure out the words but they all sounded wrong. He remembered pulling over on that dusty Texas road and vomiting the bile out of him. He said, “To risk getting hurt in a way you don’t know how to defend against.” A pause. “Yet.” The faintest upward tug at her lips. She blinked a few times, wiped at her cheeks. “Could you get me a glass of orange juice?

The exact quote is, ‘Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.

After the miscarriage I was surrounded by dead-baby flowers, dead-baby books, and lots of boxes of dead-baby tea. I felt like I was drowning in a dead-baby sea. My mother didn’t know how to help but knew that I needed her. She sent me a soft bathrobe and a teapot, and I wept for hours on the phone with her. Mostly, she listened as I sorted through all my thoughts and feelings. If I’m angry or upset about something, or even if I’m happy about something, it isn’t real until I articulate it. I need a narrative. I guess that’s something Jeff and I share. We both need a story to fit into. The Burton ability to turn misfortune into narrative is something I’m grateful I was taught. It helps me think, Well, okay, that’s just a funny story. You should hear my father talking about his mother and those damn forsythia bushes. My sisters-in-law sent me lovely, heartfelt packages. Christina sent me teas and a journal and a letter I cherish. She included Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Christina is a mother. I felt like she understood the toll this sadness was taking on me, and she encouraged me to practice self-care. Jess gave me the book Reveal: A Secret Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked by Meggan Watterson and some other books about the divine feminine. She knew that there was nothing she could say, but everything she wanted to articulate was in those books. Jess has always had an almost psychic ability to understand my inner voice. She is quiet and attuned to what people are really saying rather than what they present to the world. I knew her book choices were deliberate, but I couldn’t read them for a while because they were dead-baby books. If people weren’t giving me dead baby gifts, they wanted to tell me dead-baby stories. There’s nothing more frustrating than someone saying, “Well, welcome to the club. I’ve had twelve miscarriages." It seemed like there was an unspoken competition between members of this fucked up sorority. I quickly realized this is a much bigger club than I knew and that everyone had stories and advice. And as much as I appreciated it, I had to find my own way. Tara gave me a book called Vessels: A Love Story, by Daniel Raeburn, about his and his wife’s experience of a number of miscarriages. His book helped because I couldn’t wrap my head around Jeff’s side of the story, and he certainly wasn’t telling it to me. He was out in the garage until dinnertime every day. He would come in, eat, help Gus shower, and then disappear for the rest of the night. I often read social media posts from couples announcing, “Hey we miscarried but it brought us closer together." I think it’s fair to say that miscarriage did not bring Jeffrey and me closer together. We were living in the same space but leading parallel lives. To be honest, most of the time we weren’t even living in the same space. That spring The Good Wife was canceled. We had banked on that being a job Jeff would do for a couple of years, one that would keep him in New York City. Then he landed Negan on The Walking Dead, and suddenly he would be all the way down in Georgia for the next three to five years. We were never going to have another child. It had been so hard to get pregnant. I felt like I was pulling teeth trying to coordinate dates when Jeff would be around and I’d be ovulating. It felt like every conversation was about having a baby. He’d ask, “What do you want for dinner?" I’d say, “A baby." “Hey, what do you want to do this weekend?" I’d say, “Have a baby.