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Some People Are Uncomfortable With Silences. Not Me. I’ve Never Cared Much For Call And Response. Sometimes I Will Think Of Something To Say And Then I Ask Myself: Is It Worth It? And It Just Isn’t.

-Miranda July

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Some People Are Uncomfortable

Miranda July

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Some People Are Uncomfortable With Silences. Not Me. I’ve Never Cared Much For Call And Response. Sometimes I Will Think Of Something To Say And Then I Ask Myself: Is It Worth It? And It Just Isn’t.

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I Steeled Myself Against Laughter; I Would Rather Die Than Laugh. I Didn’t Laugh, I Did Not Laugh. But I Died, I Did Die.

So The Recordings Were These Immersive Landscapes, And Yet, Unlike The Performances That Almost No One Would See, I Had A Sense That These Could Live Forever. I Was Just Starting To Get My Head Around The Democratic Aspect Of Art; I Didn't Want To Make Rarefied Things That Were Either Alienatingly Obscure Or Elite And Art-worldy, So A Recording That Anyone Could Buy Was A Great Medium.

Some People Need A Red Carpet Rolled Out In Front Of Them In Order To Walk Forward Into Friendship. They Can't See The Tiny Outstretched Hands All Around Them, Everywhere, Like Leaves On Trees.

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I Knew The Beginning And The End – I Just Had To Dream Up A Convincing Middle.

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The Idea That You Might End Up In A Job That Doesn't Allow You To Be Who You Are, Over The Course Of A Lifetime, Is Still One Of The Most Chilling Nightmares To Me. It's A Good Metaphor For Fears I Have About Losing My Soul In Some Accidental, Mundane Way. So, To Me, These Jobs That My Characters Have Are Very Loaded. They Immediately Suggest A Complex Character To Me, A Woman Who Is, Say, A Secretary, But Also A Vigilante On Behalf Of Her Own Soul.

He Was Worried She Would Not Let Him Love Her With The Stain. He Had Already Decided Long Ago, Twenty Or Thirty Minutes Ago, That The Stain Was Fine. He Had Only Seen It For A Moment, But He Was Already Used To It. It Was Good. It Somehow Allowed Them To Have More.

Would She Understand That Time Had Stopped While She Was Gone.

I Wrestle My Fears With Every Big Decision I Make. Ultimately, Maybe All That Wrestling Does Is Make You Sick Of Your Own Thoughts, And So With Nothing Resolved You Just Go Ahead And Have Unprotected Sex. The Moment I Became Pregnant, Everything Became Out Of Gait. None Of Those Fears Seem Relevant In The Same Way, And That's So Like Life, That Once You Do The Daring Move You're In A Totally Different Landscape. Now It's A New Story.

Thus Far, Everything I've Made Has Come Out Of My Really Feeling It, Out Of The Fire Of My Life.

People Tend To Hold On To Their First Impressions - That's Why Those First Descriptions Can Be So Important. You Don't Even Necessarily Look At People That Carefully After A While; You Just Hold On To That Early Impression.

First Impression

She Never Inquired, But She Never Recoiled, Either. This Is A Quality That I Look For In A Person, Not Recoiling.

If You Are Sad, Ask Yourself Why You Are Sad. Then Pick Up The Phone And Call Someone And Tell Him The Answer To The Question. If You Don't Know Anyone, Call The Operator And Tell Him. Most People Don't Know That The Operator Has To Listen, It Is A Law. Also, The Postman Is Not Allowed To Go Inside Your House, But You Can Talk To Him On Public Property For Up To Four Minutes Or Until He Wants To Go, Whichever Comes First.

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I Spend A Lot Of Time Obsessing About Getting A Dignified Eight Hours' Sleep.

That Day I Carried The Dream Around Like A Full Glass Of Water, Moving Gracefully So I Would Not Lose Any Of It.

She Bludgeoned Me With A Look Of Such Limitless Compassion That I Immediately Began To Cry.

When I Was Fifteen, A Dark Shape Came Into My Room At Night. It Was Dark, But It Glowed, Which Is The First Of Many Facts You Will Have To Tackle With Your Imagination. It Wasn't In The Shape Of A Person, But Right Away I Knew It Was Like A Person In Every Way Except For How It Looked. As It Turns Out, Our Looks Are Not The Main Thing That Makes Us Human.

I Suppose The Daily Disciplines Are Just A Reflection Of The Qualities Of My Inner World - A Mixture Of Paralysis And Terror And A Lighter, Freer, Kind Of Rebellious Woman. So Those Are Just Constantly Pushing Against Each Other, And That's Played Out In Every Area Of My Life.

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To Get Anything Done, You Used To Have To Brush Past, Or At Least Lay Eyes On, Someone Whose Reality Was Totally Different From Your Own. That Used To Be Inevitable. If That Goes Away Because Everything's So Convenient, Everything's Brought To You, Well, Then There Goes One Of My Favorite Parts Of Life, And Something That I've Gone Out Of My Way To Court.

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I Nodded, Pretending I Was Relaxed. I Watched The Sunlight Sparkling On The Water And Practiced Mind-body Integration For A Few Seconds By Quietly Hyperventilating.

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Somewhat Predictably, I'm Much More Comfortable In Front Of An Audience - And A Big Audience Is Even Better - Than Faced With One Stranger. This Always Seems Like A Bit Of A Failing On My Part, As A Human. I Think That's Also Why I Put Myself Situations Where I'm Forced To Engage In Other Ways.

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Life Is Just This Way, Broken, And I Am Crazy To Hope For Something Else.

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I Walked Down The Hall And Saw That [she] Was Sitting On The Floor Next To A Chair. This Is Always A Bad Sign. It's A Slippery Slope, And It's Best Just To Sit In Chairs, To Eat When Hungry, To Sleep And Rise And Work. But We Have All Been There. Chairs Are For People, And You're Not Sure If You Are One.

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... We Had Once Called Out Hello Into The Cauldron Of The World And Then Run Away Before Anyone Could Respond.

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That's The Artist's Job, Really: Continually Setting Yourself Free, And Giving Yourself New Options And New Ways Of Thinking About Things.

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I Cried In English, I Cried In French, I Cried In All The Languages, Because Tears Are The Same All Around The World.

It Is Terrible To Have To Ask For Anything Ever. We Wish We Were Something That Needed Nothing, Like Paint. But Even Paint Needs Repainting.

Where Do We Come From? Do Souls Really Exist? I Can't Answer These Questions, Especially Not At 6am.

We Humans Are Here Because Nothing Can Be Perfect. There Always Have To Be Some Living Things That Are Unsatisfied, Itchy, Trying Too Hard. If It Was All Just Animals And Rocks And Lettuce, The Gods Wouldn't Feel Like They Had Enough To Do.

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My Ideal Life Is Just Lounging Around The House And Every Once In A While I'll Kind Of Write Something, And Then I'll Leave And Eat Something And Masturbate Or Whatever - Just This Very Fluid Life Of Comforting Myself.

We Had Loved People We Really Shouldn't Have Loved And Then Married Other People In Order To Forget Our Impossible Loves, Or We Had Once Called Out Hello Into The Cauldron Of The World And Then Run Away Before Anyone Could Respond.

Nothing Really Mattered, And Nothing Could Be Lost.

Did You Ever Really Love Her? Not Really No. But Me? Yes. Even Though I Have No Pizzazz?

I Made Orange Juice From Concentrate And Showed Her The Trick Of Squeezing The Juice Of One Real Orange Into It. It Removes The Taste Of Being Frozen. She Marveled At This, And I Laughed And Said, Life Is Easy. What I Meant Was, Life Is Easy With You Here, And When You Leave, It Will Be Hard Again.

Maybe That's Why People Take Pictures Of Themselves, To Avoid Being Described.

I Was Going To Die And It Was Taking Forever.

I Can Guarantee You Nothing I Do Is A Conscious Attempt To Inject Something In.

That Is My Problem With Life, I Rush Through It, Like I'm Being Chased. Even Things Whose Whole Point Is Slowness, Like Drinking Relaxing Tea. When I Drink Relaxing Tea I Suck It Down As If I'm In A Contest For Who Can Drink Relaxing Tea The Quickest.

I Mean Obviously We're All Dealing With A Lot More Strangers Due To The Web. I'd Say It Has More To Do With The Quality Of Interactions. When You're Physically Interacting With Someone, It Forces You To Be More Present And Probably A Little More Uncomfortable. You Have To Tolerate Being Outside The Comfort Of Your Own Home.

It Was A Real Whale, A Photograph Of A Real Whale. I Looked Into Its Tiny Wise Eye And Wondered Where That Eye Was Now. Was It Alive And Swimming, Or Had It Died Long Ago, Or Was It Dying Now, Right This Second? When A Whale Dies, It Falls Down Through The Ocean Slowly, Over The Course Of A Day. All The Other Fish See It Fall, Like A Giant Statue, Like A Building, But Slowly, Slowly.

I Realize That We All Think We Might Be Terrible People. But We Only Reveal This Before We Ask Someone To Love Us. It Is A Kind Of Undressing.

I've Always Been Terrified Of Getting Used To Something That Is Actually Killing Me-a Relationship Or A Job. But In Those Cases, You Can Count On A Friend To Say Something. The Internet Is Different, Because All My Friends Are In The Same Relationship.

He Seemed To Be Waiting For Me To Move Forward. Weren't We All.

We Were Always Getting Away With Something, Which Implied That Someone Was Always Watching Us, Which Meant That We Were Not Alone In This World.

They Wordlessly Excused Each Other For Not Loving Each Other As Much As They Had Planned To. There Were Empty Rooms In The House Where They Had Meant To Put Their Love, And They Worked Together To Fill These Rooms With Midcentury Modern Furniture. ("birthmark").

… It Wasn’t Pretend, I Wasn’t In A Fairytale Or A Fable. I Shut My Eyes And Absorbed The Silent Whoomp That Always Accompanies This Revelation. It’s The Sound Of The Real World, Gigantic And Impossible, Replacing The Smaller Version Of Reality That I Wear Like A Bonnet, Clutched Tightly Under My Chin.

Inelegantly, And Without My Consent, Time Passed.

I'm Totally Not Kidding. Life Is Too Short. This Is All Too Hard To Do To Actually Be Kidding About The Whole Thing.

Life Is Too Short

I Wondered If I Would Spend The Rest Of My Life Inventing Complicated Ways To Depress Myself.

This Pain, This Dying, This Is Just Normal. This Is How Life Is. In Fact, I Realize, There Never Was An Earthquake. Life Is Just This Way, Broken, And I Am Crazy For Dreaming Of Something Else.

It Was An Act Of Devotion. A Little Like Writing Or Loving Someone — It Doesn’t Always Feel Worthwhile, But Not Giving Up Somehow Creates Unexpected Meaning Over Time.

Live The Dream, Potato.

Living The Dream

I Think It's More Interesting If You Go All The Way With The World You Have, And Really Look At It, And Push It To An Even More Extreme Extreme.

I Think Because I Write So Many Short Stories, It's Not That Hard To Come Up With Characters That Are Not Me.

I Think Titles Are Tricky Because They're Like A Really Short Ad For The Book. And Like An Ad, They Should Open The Door In A Way That Might Be More Accessible Than The Book Itself. So I Always Like Titles To Be Familiar. I'm Not Trying To Break Ground With The Title Itself. The Title Should Feel Like Something Already Celebrated.

I'm Always The Kind Of Friend Or Girlfriend Who Suggests, When There's Some Cataclysmic Problem In The Relationship, I'm Like, "well, Maybe We Can Come Up With A Creative Activity That Will Help Us Out." I'm Like, "let's Get Out The Pens! Draw A Picture Of How Much You Hate Me!"

The Life You Live In Front Of An Audience Is Like An Altered State - It's Not Totally Real. I'm Always, Even In The Course Of One Day, Trying To Find Ways To Balance Both Sides.

A More Normal, Mature Way To Think About It [my Work] Would Be, Oh, I Work On Multiple Projects At Once And They Overlap, But The Actual Psychology Of It Is A Lot More Self-abusing.

Sometimes I Lie In Bed Trying To Decide Which Of My Friends I Truly Care About, And I Always Come To The Same Conclusion: None Of Them. I Thought These Were Just My Starter Friends And The Real Ones Would Come Along Later. But No. These Are My Real Friends.

Writing A Novel Was Like I Had Some Play-doh To Work With And Could Just Keep Working With It - Doing A Million Drafts And Things Changing Radically And Characters Appearing And Disappearing And Solving Mysteries: Why Is This Thing Here? Should I Just Take That Away? And Then Realizing, No, That Is There, In Fact, Because That Is The Key To This. I Love That Sort Of Detective Work, Keeping The Faith Alive Until All The Questions Have Been Sleuthed Out.

We Don't Really Believe In Mowing The Lawn; We Do It Only To Avoid Unnecessary Engagement With The Neighbors.

La Isn’t A Walking City, Or A Subway City, So If Someone Isn’t In My House Or My Car We’ll Never Be Together, Not Even For A Moment. And Just To Be Absolutely Sure Of That, When I Leave My Car My Iphone Escorts Me, Letting Everyone Else In The Post Office Know That I’m Not Really With Them, I’m With My Own People, Who Are So Hilarious That I Can’t Help Smiling To Myself As I Text Them Back.

I Looked At Other Couples And Wondered How They Could Be So Calm About It. They Held Hands As If They Weren't Even Holding Hands. When Steve And I Held Hands, I Had To Keep Looking Down To Marvel At It. There Was My Hand, The Same Hand I've Always Had - Oh, But Look! What Is It Holding? It's Holding Steve's Hand! Who Is Steve? My Three-dimensional Boyfriend. Each Day I Wondered What Would Happen Next. What Happens When You Stop Wanting, When You Are Happy. I Supposed I Would Go On Being Happy Forever. I Knew I Would Not Mess Things Up By Growing Bored. I Had Done That Once Before.

You Always Feel Like You Are The Only One In The World, Like Everyone Else Is Crazy For Each Other, But It's Not True. Generally, People Don't Like Each Other Very Much. And That Goes For Friends, Too.

There's All Different Kinds Of People, But I Don't Think It's That Unusual That Once You Get Like A Little Power, You Get To Do Your Weird Thing Even More.

We Really Wanted To Know All The Unknowable Things About Each Other And How We Were The Same And How We Were Different, If We Even Were, Maybe Nobody Is.

I Don't Think I'm More Of A Screenwriter Than I Am A Fiction Writer. I'm More Of A Reader Than A Film-watcher, So I Imagine That I'm Not Approaching Fiction Or Films In A Particularly Cinematic Way.

Now Began The Part Of Her Life Where She Was Just Very Beautiful, Except For Nothing. Only Winners Will Know What This Feels Like. Have You Ever Wanted Something Very Badly And Then Gotten It? Then You Know That Winning Is Many Things, But It Is Never The Thing You Thought It Would Be.

If You Read My Short Stories, There's A Lot Of Sex In Those In All Different Ways. To Me, It's A Really Good, Useful Thing To Get To Have In A Story. And In A Movie, It's Amazing, Because You Actually Get To Show Things.

It Was A Tiny Sound But It Woke Me Up Because It Was A Human Sound.

I Guess Like Any Writer Or Screenwriter I'm Alone In My Own World So Much Of The Time That I'm Often Trying To Force Myself Out Of My World. Into More Risk. A Less Controlled Kind Of Inspiration. I'm So Keenly Aware Of How Easy It's Getting To Not Leave The House, With Amazon, Especially.

I Laughed And Said, Life Is Easy. What I Meant Was, Life Is Easy With You Here, And When You Leave, It Will Be Hard Again.

I Went To The Bedroom And Lay On The Floor, So As Not To Mess Up The Covers.

It Was A Small Thing, But It Was A Thing, And Things Have A Way Of Either Dying Or Growing, And It Wasn’t Dying.

Making A Movie: It's So Hard. It's The Hardest Of All The Things I Do.

For A Split Second I Felt As Though She Was Nobody Special In The Larger Scheme Of My Life. She Was Just Some Girl Who Had Tied Me To Her Leg To Help Her Sink When She Jumped Off The Bridge. Then I Blinked And Was In Love With Her Again.

Sometimes I Would Make Left Turns All The Way Around A Block, And When I Returned To The Original Intersection, I Would Feel Disappointed To Find All The Drivers Were New. It Wasn't Like A Square Dance, Where You Miraculously End Up With Your Original Partner, Laughing And Feeling Giddily Relieved To Find Him After Dancing With Everyone Else In The World. Instead, They Swung Around And Kept On Going, Some People Were At Work By Now, Or Halfway To The Airport. In Fact, Driving Might Be The Thing Most Opposite Of Dancing.

We Come From Long Lines Of People Destined Never To Meet.

If There Were A Map Of The Solar System, But Instead Of Stars It Showed People And Their Degrees Of Separation, My Star Would Be The One You Had To Travel The Most Light-years From To Get To His. You Would Die Getting To Him.

People Tend To Stick To Their Own Size Group Because It's Easier On The Neck. Unless They Are Romantically Involved, In Which Case The Size Difference Is Sexy. It Means: I Am Willing To Go The Distance For You.

Look At The Sky: That Is For You. Look At Each Person's Face As You Pass Them On The Street: Those Faces Are For You. And The Street Itself, And The Ground Under The Street, And The Ball Of Fire Underneath The Ground: All These Things Are For You.

In The Weeks That Followed, We Amazed Ourselves. Our Habits Slid Apart Easily...and Our Very Few Intimacies Were Simply Discontinued. Where Did They Go, Those Things We Did? Were They Recycled? Did Some New Couple In China Do Them? Were A Swedish Man And Woman Foot To Foot At This Very Moment?

I Don't Tally The World, Asking, "would This Annoy You? Would This Annoy You?" That's So Far Removed From Where I'm At When I'm In The Trenches Struggling With How To Express Things That I Don't Fully Understand Myself.

The Things Keeping You Back-these Embarrassing, Boring, Stupid Obstacles-are The Heart Of What It Is To Be Human. They’re The Whole Reason For Making And Needing Art. So You Might As Well Go Ahead And Begin In Whatever Way You Can Right Now.

What A Terrible Mistake To Let Go Of Something Wonderful For Something Real.

An Erratum Is A Correction Inserted Into A Book After Publication. It's A Nice Thing To Collect Because You Can't Go After Them, You Just Come Upon Them. In 25 Years I've Only Found About 12.

Some People Are Uncomfortable With Silences. Not Me. I’ve Never Cared Much For Call And Response. Sometimes I Will Think Of Something To Say And Then I Ask Myself: Is It Worth It? And It Just Isn’t.

Things Usually Make Sense In Time, And Even Bad Decisions Have Their Own Kind Of Correctness.

The Thing I Am Most Interested In Is Power Relations - It Is So Easy In A Relationship Like That [of An Artist And A Gallery Manager], To Imagine That The Other Person Is Living A Perfect Life.

If You Want To Have A Character Who Falls Into Crisis, All You Have To Do Is Turn The Internet Off, And Then We All Understand How That Feels, When You Suddenly Just Have Time And Yourself.

I Definitely Wanted Much More Normalness Than What Was Around Me.

After I Had My Son I Looked Everywhere For A Book That Might Serve As Some Kind Of Mirror. I Bought So Many Silly Books. Now I See What The Problem Was: I Wanted A Book About Time-about Mortality. I Can't Think Of A Writer Who Is At Once So Experimentally Daring And So Rigorously Uncompromising As Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness Is An Incredibly Elegant, Wise Book, And I Loved It.

I'm Always Just Trying To Get The Work Done So That I Can Be Free - Like, With The Sense That, Like, The Real Me Has No Interest In This? I Just Gotta Do It For My Boss. But The Catch Is That I'm Never Free, I Never Finish The Work, So I Don't Know Who This Freewheeling Employee With Extracurricular Interests Is.

I'm Not A Cinephile. My Films Don't Reference Films. I'm More Interested In Rhythm And Feeling.

The Word God Asks A Question And Then Answers It Before There Is Any Chance To Wonder.

I Asked Myself If I Would Kill My Parents To Save His Life, A Question I Had Been Posing Since I Was Fifteen. The Answer Always Used To Be Yes. But In Time, All Those Boys Had Faded Away, And My Parents Were Still There. I Was Now Less And Less Willing To Kill Them For Anyone; In Fact, I Worried For Their Health. In This Case, However, I Had To Say Yes. Yes, I Would.

The Whole Thing Of Working In All These Different Mediums, It's Just So That I Can Always Be Playing Hooky From One Of Them. I Can Always Be Rebelling Against My Boss. Like, I'm Supposed To Be Writing This Book, But - Heh Heh Heh - I'm Writing A Movie, Secretly. I'm Procrastinating, And In My Off-hours I'm Working On This Movie That I'm Not Allowed To Do, Because I'm Supposed To Be Writing A Book!

Most Great Filmmakers Are Good At Place. Like How People Say, Like, "the City Itself Is A Character In The Movie," You Know? I'm So Interior. I Always Forget There's Such A Thing As An Exterior Wide Shot, Where You Can See Where Someone Is. As Opposed To Just: How Can We Show What This Person Is Thinking, In An Abstract Way That Is Felt?

Well,i Have A Theory That Men Don't Actually Cry Less Than Women,they Just Do It Differently. Since We Never Saw Our Fathers Cry,we Are Forced To Invent Our Own Unique Method.

He Pulled Away, But His Eyes Held My Eyes Like Hands.

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William Kingdon Clifford

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