What they said:
I wish I lived in the fifties/sixties everything was so much better then
What I heard:
I wish I lived in the fifties/sixties when minorities/non heterosexuals/trans* folk/women knew their place and didn’t want rights because boy it sure is exhausting not being an awful shithead
What they could've meant:
I wish I lived in the fifties/sixties because problems such as cyber bullying, high gas prices, global warming, or the United States debt weren't around. By me making a simple, albeit somewhat uneducated and thoughtless comment, does not make me an 'awful shithead', just an ignorant and unknowing person. Though it does make you, the listener, who likes to jump to conclusions, an asshole for not waiting for me to expand on my fucking comment.
What lingered after them was not life, which always overcomes death, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself. Her brain going dim to all else, but flaming up in precise points of pain, personal injury, lost dreams.
The Virgin Suicides, aka the best book ever.
- ? May 28th 2012