keeping my mind distracted

"[That was how it went. Every day for an hour i sat in Luce's office and talked about my life, my feelings, my likes and dislikes. Luce asked all kinds of questions. The answers I gave were sometimes not as important as the way I answered them. He watched my facial expressions; he noted my style of argument.] Females tend to smile more at their interlocutors more than males do. Females pause and look for signs of agreement before continuing. Males just look into the middle-distance and hold forth. Women prefer the anecdotal, men the deductive. It was impossible to be in Luce's line of work whithout falling back on such stereotypes. [He knew their limitations. But they were clinically useful.]"

"[He directed me to a chair. I - the easily rechristened Cal Stephanides, teen runaway - set my suitcase down and hung my jacket on the rack.] I walked across the room, concentrating as I did on walking like a boy. Like a stroke victim, I was having to relearn all the simple motor skills. As far as walking went, this wasn't too difficult. The time when Baker & Inglis girls had balanced books on their heads was long gone. The slight gracelessness of my walk, which Dr. Luce had commented on, predisposed me to join the graceless sex. [My skeleton was a male's, with its higher center of gravity. It promoted a tidy, forward thrust.] It was my knees that gave me trouble. I had a tendency to walk knock-kneed, which made my hips sway and my back end twitch. I tried to keep my pelvis steady now. To walk like a boy you let your shoulders sway, not your hips. And you keep your feet farther apart. [All this i had learned in a day and a half on the road.]"


music: zero 7 - in time & somersault | girl with a pearl earring OST - griet's theme

["you encourage the eating of icecream"]