This Is How It Always Is

This Is How It Always Is

by

Laurie Frankel

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Rigel Character Analysis

Rosie and Penn’s son, Orion’s twin, and brother to Poppy, Ben, and Roo. Orion and Rigel are the middle children, and they are loud and rambunctious boys; however, they are also kind, and they are very protective of Poppy. Like Rigel’s brothers, he finds it impossible to keep Poppy’s gender a secret, and when a kid at school says he is “like Poppy,” Rigel tells him all about Poppy in case he needs someone one to talk to. Rigel illustrates one of the reasons why Frankel argues one’s gender identity should not be kept a secret. Without knowing about Poppy, the boy at school might not have known that Rigel was an ally and safe to open up to.

Rigel Quotes in This Is How It Always Is

The This Is How It Always Is quotes below are all either spoken by Rigel or refer to Rigel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Gender and Binaries  Theme Icon
).
Part I: Bedtime Story Quotes

Bedtime stories were a group activity. And because showing the pictures all around to everyone involved a great deal of squirming and shoving and pinching and pushing and get-outta-my-ways and he-farted-on-mes and you-got-to-look-longer-than-I-dids, Penn often resorted to telling stories rather than reading them. He had a magic book he read from. It was an empty spiral notebook. He showed the boys it was blank so that there was no clamoring to see. And then he read it to them. Like magic.

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy, Rosie, Penn, Roo/Roosevelt, Ben, Orion, Rigel
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

In all, a successful bedtime and an accomplishment on par with finishing a particularly difficult chapter or a tax return. It wasn't diagnosing a pulmonary embolism, but it was not unimpressive, and it allowed a pulmonary embolism to be diagnosed. It could not, unfortunately, be followed up by work or by house cleaning, dish doing, lunchbox packing, exercising, or any of the other things that needed doing. Bedtime could only be followed by TV. Or drinking. On the night Claude became—the fruition of which, of course, would only make bedtime worse—Penn thought both at once sounded best and gave it a good try but was asleep on the couch before he was very far into either one.

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy, Rosie, Penn, Roo/Roosevelt, Ben, Orion, Rigel
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Part II: Strategically Naked Quotes

They had four and a half boys, plus Penn, but in some ways, Aggie was maler than any of them. She was a girl who dug holes and ran hard and liked bugs and all that other tomboy shit, but it was more—or maybe less—than that. She'd dismantle toy trucks to build spaceships to fly dolls to day spas built inside killer volcanoes. You just couldn't nail the kid down.

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy, Rosie, Penn, Roo/Roosevelt, Aggie, Ben, Orion, Rigel
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Part II: Fifty-Fifty Quotes

“We couldn't be best friends.” Aggie flung her arm across her eyes. “If your parents didn't beat the fifty-fifty and you were a boy, it would be the worst thing ever.”

Poppy opened her mouth, and everyone waited. Roo looked at his feet. Ben looked at his feet. Rigel and Orion looked at each other's feet. Cayenne narrowed her eyes at all of them. But Poppy swallowed and agreed wholeheartedly: “It would be the worst thing ever.”

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy (speaker), Aggie (speaker), Roo/Roosevelt, Ben, Orion, Rigel, Cayenne
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:
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Rigel Quotes in This Is How It Always Is

The This Is How It Always Is quotes below are all either spoken by Rigel or refer to Rigel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Gender and Binaries  Theme Icon
).
Part I: Bedtime Story Quotes

Bedtime stories were a group activity. And because showing the pictures all around to everyone involved a great deal of squirming and shoving and pinching and pushing and get-outta-my-ways and he-farted-on-mes and you-got-to-look-longer-than-I-dids, Penn often resorted to telling stories rather than reading them. He had a magic book he read from. It was an empty spiral notebook. He showed the boys it was blank so that there was no clamoring to see. And then he read it to them. Like magic.

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy, Rosie, Penn, Roo/Roosevelt, Ben, Orion, Rigel
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

In all, a successful bedtime and an accomplishment on par with finishing a particularly difficult chapter or a tax return. It wasn't diagnosing a pulmonary embolism, but it was not unimpressive, and it allowed a pulmonary embolism to be diagnosed. It could not, unfortunately, be followed up by work or by house cleaning, dish doing, lunchbox packing, exercising, or any of the other things that needed doing. Bedtime could only be followed by TV. Or drinking. On the night Claude became—the fruition of which, of course, would only make bedtime worse—Penn thought both at once sounded best and gave it a good try but was asleep on the couch before he was very far into either one.

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy, Rosie, Penn, Roo/Roosevelt, Ben, Orion, Rigel
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Part II: Strategically Naked Quotes

They had four and a half boys, plus Penn, but in some ways, Aggie was maler than any of them. She was a girl who dug holes and ran hard and liked bugs and all that other tomboy shit, but it was more—or maybe less—than that. She'd dismantle toy trucks to build spaceships to fly dolls to day spas built inside killer volcanoes. You just couldn't nail the kid down.

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy, Rosie, Penn, Roo/Roosevelt, Aggie, Ben, Orion, Rigel
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Part II: Fifty-Fifty Quotes

“We couldn't be best friends.” Aggie flung her arm across her eyes. “If your parents didn't beat the fifty-fifty and you were a boy, it would be the worst thing ever.”

Poppy opened her mouth, and everyone waited. Roo looked at his feet. Ben looked at his feet. Rigel and Orion looked at each other's feet. Cayenne narrowed her eyes at all of them. But Poppy swallowed and agreed wholeheartedly: “It would be the worst thing ever.”

Related Characters: Claude/Poppy (speaker), Aggie (speaker), Roo/Roosevelt, Ben, Orion, Rigel, Cayenne
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis: