Still Life with Tornado: List 2

by A.S. King
Sixteen-year old Sarah is thrown into an existential crisis as she struggles to regain her artistic abilities while struggling with her parents' toxic relationship in the urban ruins of Philadelphia.

This list covers "Helen's Charades"–"Bruce."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3
35 words 19 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. restraint
    a device that hinders something's motion
    If she hadn’t been pregnant or hallucinating, we could have done chemical restraints, but this time we had to go with old-style straps. Rules are rules. If you hit my staff, you go in restraints until you make a deal that you’ll behave.
  2. mirage
    something illusory and unattainable
    Even when he’s not shrugging, I see him shrugging. It’s like a mirage for me now.
  3. joist
    a beam used to support a floor or ceiling
    Sometimes I think of my father’s stories about working on the big skyscrapers in Philadelphia—walking the iron girders fifty stories high and welding joists and climbing scaffolding—and I can’t figure out how I married a man who works in a cubicle all day processing paperwork and making deals.
  4. scaffold
    a temporary arrangement erected around a building
    Sometimes I think of my father’s stories about working on the big skyscrapers in Philadelphia—walking the iron girders fifty stories high and welding joists and climbing scaffolding—and I can’t figure out how I married a man who works in a cubicle all day processing paperwork and making deals.
  5. crude
    conspicuously and tastelessly indecent
    And if you think night ER-trauma nurses who listen to Metallica are original, you’re wrong. A lot of her co-workers are metalheads, too. She says metal makes them feel more at home when they’re away from the chaos of car accidents, crude drunks, and strokes.
  6. contempt
    lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike
    If you plan to get married and have kids, find someone who will never say they are “babysitting” their own kids. They’ll expect trophies for just being there and by the time the kids grow up and leave the house, you’ll have nothing but contempt for all of them.
  7. unscathed
    not injured
    Magician’s assistant goes into the sword-trick box in one costume, comes out, unscathed, in another.
  8. subjective
    taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias
    “I just don’t see myself ever being an artist. And what kind of dream is art, anyway? It’s so subjective and stupid.”
  9. sternum
    the breastbone
    I feel this burr in my chest, right behind the top of my sternum.
  10. matinee
    a theatrical performance held during the daytime
    The theaters are closed until later today when the matinees will open and people will drive in from out of town and try to find the cheapest parking.
  11. municipal
    of or relating to the government of a district
    I’m about to ask her if she knows that Philadelphia City Hall is the tallest municipal building in America, but then I remember she’s me and she knows because I know and I’ve known for years.
  12. mortified
    made to feel uncomfortable because of shame or wounded pride
    I was mortified that Mom wore a bikini.
  13. buoy
    an anchored float that marks locations in a body of water
    Bruce taught me how to paddle and we got out past the string of buoys and the sea was rougher than it should have been.
  14. cathartic
    emotionally purging
    The saw spat plastic dust as I worked and it smelled awful, but there was something cathartic about cutting up a big thing into little things.
  15. flotsam
    the floating wreckage of a ship
    I wove a curved rectangle about five by eight inches and wove in complicated designs and threaded in decorations like beads and other flotsam.
  16. spoke
    a rod joining the hub of a wheel to the rim
    When I was done weaving, instead of clipping off the extra wires that acted as warp spokes, I turned them to the sky and made them into shapes and curlicues and other things and spread them out so it looked like you were wearing the sun on your head.
  17. curlicue
    a round shape formed by a series of concentric circles
    When I was done weaving, instead of clipping off the extra wires that acted as warp spokes, I turned them to the sky and made them into shapes and curlicues and other things and spread them out so it looked like you were wearing the sun on your head.
  18. humble
    marked by meekness or modesty; not arrogant or prideful
    I remember feeling humble because artists should be humble.
  19. lanky
    tall and thin and having long slender limbs
    So after lunch Bruce and I went for a swim, me in my one-piece bathing suit and him in his oversize surfer trunks, which looked even bigger on his lanky frame.
  20. patella
    a small flat triangular bone in front of the knee
    Mom disallowed weird names for body parts. I knew what a uvula was by the time I was four. And a patella. And a sternum.
  21. adorn
    make more attractive, as by adding ornament or color
    Between doves, there were the usual tricks and the usual sequin- adorned female assistants.
  22. eccentric
    conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual
    When he threw that imaginary fruit at the guy a minute before, he didn’t really seem crazy-crazy. More like eccentric or bored with how everyone else acts.
  23. portico
    porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered area
    Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station has Corinthian columns. It has a portico.
  24. gnarly
    rough and misshapen and full of knots
    He takes a piece of cloth—an old T-shirt or a towel or something—out of another pocket and he spits at the chicken drawing and rubs his spit into the headdress and the feet, which look gnarly and rigid.
  25. oblige
    cause to be indebted
    He’s never said a word to people who give him money. Not a thank you or a much obliged.
  26. heed
    pay close attention to
    Behind her is graffiti in six-foot-high multi-colored letters. HEED. That’s what it says. HEED.
  27. shyster
    a person who uses unscrupulous or unethical methods
    His solution to “shyster therapy” was monthly meetings.
  28. obsidian
    glass formed by the cooling of lava without crystallization
    One of the things traded there was obsidian. I didn’t know what obsidian was, so I asked Bruce, but he was just walking fast and trying to find the Amstar representative so we wouldn’t miss the van. So I kept saying the word over and over. Obsidian. Obsidian. Obsidian. It was a cool word.
  29. badger
    persuade through constant efforts
    This one guy kept badgering the driver about getting his money back.
  30. strew
    spread by scattering
    The resort made a big deal out of these romantic dinners—warm, dim lighting, rose petals strewn around the tent, romantic Mexican music.
  31. futile
    unproductive of success
    I decide art is futile. I decide there are better things than art.
  32. debris
    the remains of something that has been destroyed
    I draw an enormous tornado. Swirls and swirls of dust and debris.
  33. bile
    a digestive juice secreted by the liver
    The color in here is awful. It’s the worst green anyone ever imagined. No wonder I couldn’t draw the pear. I live inside of bile.
  34. mesmerize
    attract strongly, as if with a magnet
    An ambulance comes into the ER bay with its lights on and its siren off. The lights are mesmerizing. Red, blue. Red, blue. Red, blue. It’s like light-art.
  35. invigorating
    imparting strength and vitality
    I’ve never had a more invigorating shower. It feels like I was reborn last night.
Created on Thu Sep 15 09:56:58 EDT 2022 (updated Tue Oct 18 11:13:14 EDT 2022)

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