“To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.”

“For most of his life, record store owner Kim Ji-yun has battled against a feeling he has trouble describing; a mystery of the soul, a puzzle that many say helps define their culture — the ineffable sadness of being Korean.”

the idea that people would rather tag you in pictures from fourteen years ago when you were fat and sweaty rather than pictures of you approaching forty, far more thin and far more happy seems like something akin to sadism.

the sound of my neighbor just ragequitting her boyfriend.