No One is Talking About This

The protagonist relates her childhood fear of having hiccups after reading about a man who suffered from hiccups for 55 years. She worries that in the portal “everything tangled in the stream of everything else” (84) with no distinction between what is popular and what is important.

She believes men of her father’s socioeconomic upbringing to have been “infected” with conservative and misogynistic beliefs. When speaking with her mother, the protagonist learns that someone she attended high school with has lately “escaped, who was nowhere to be found in any of the places where you typed in names” (85).

The protagonist considers how feminism is currently obsessed with beauty trends, when before it was bound feet, poisonous teeth whitening, and other harmful habits undertaken in the name of beauty. The protagonist believes that her current choice of beauty trends is not a choice she made freely, nor were the choices of past women made freely. Rather, they are culturally determined. One of her admirers on the portal pays her $300 for a pair of used sneakers. In a text exchange with her brother, the protagonist cries, “Why are we talking like this?!” (87) in response to his use of slang.