And they looked at her, watched her, wanted to squirt her full of baby juice. - Katherine Dunn

'Show off' was no insult in our family, but Arty had a way of turning 'sweetheart' into a thumb in the eye.

There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees.
Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull.

She is suspicious and fearless and her progress is alarming.