More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Miranda July
Read between
November 13, 2021 - December 23, 2022
Every time I see them out there, I put a little mark on my calendar. The next time the patio is empty, I go sit on it. Then I cross off the mark. Sometimes I lag behind and have to sit out there a lot toward the end of the month to catch up.
Feels good to know that there are other weirdos out there like me :)
Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.
How to Stay Alive 101
I asked Vincent more questions, and his answers became longer and longer until they hit a kind of cruising altitude and I didn’t have to ask, he just orated. It was unexpected, like suddenly finding oneself at work on a weekend.
Like how the water starts moving when the dam is opened!
I pretended I was pausing before telling him about the secret feeling of joy I hide in my chest, waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to notice that I rise each morning, seemingly with nothing to live for, but I do rise, and it is only because of this secret joy, God’s love, in my chest.
Waiting for someone to notice the struggle, acknowledge it, and appreciate is for the struggle we put forth knowing full well that there is no gain from all of this fiasco :(
I was still happy to sit there beside him, but that is only because I have very, very low expectations of most people, and he had now become Most People.
:(
Maybe there are only the living and the dead, and all those who are living deserve each other and are equal to each other.
I pressed my lips against his ear and whispered again, It’s not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told.
Be told! Very true!
Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass 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. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It’s okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.
It is okay to be unsure. It is okay to feel whatever you are feeling. Your feelings don’t have to stop you from feeling grateful for everything that Mother Nature has given to you. Hold onto these gifts tight while you are unsure of life and its purpose.
were named
You seem incredibly faraway to me, like someone on the other side of a lake. A dot so small that it isn’t male or female or young or old; it is just smiling.
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.
Not within your field of life!
That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.
didn’t know what I would think about when I began moving again. William. Who was William. It felt perverse, almost illegal to think about him now. And exhausting. Suddenly it seemed as if our relationship took mountains of strength to maintain.
Its amazing how our brains work. We are so attached to a thought when we still have it in our brain and are so disgusted by it when it seems a little far away from the brain. Objects in the mirror are not as attached as we think they are!
She has always taken care of me like this. If I could quietly kill her without anyone knowing, I would.
Oh, Miranda! How well you read my mind? I have seen people comment on these stories as weird and peculiar. But these stories are a wonderful way to tell us weird people that its okay. You have company. You are not alone. Let’s continue being weird together.
the earthquake happened years ago. 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 to hope for something else.
We are all crazy.
I have never taken such care with anything. 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. Or if I’m in a hot tub with some other people and we’re all looking up at the stars, I’ll be the first to say, It’s so beautiful here. The sooner you say, It’s so beautiful here, the
Me too! I try to rush through things so that I can then relax without interruptions. Only I don’t relax. Living in the moment - is such an impossible and Herculean task in my to-do list. The fact that I just mentioned it as part of my to-do list might have something to do with it!
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. 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. They are people with jobs in their fields of interest. My oldest friend, Marilyn, loves to sing and is head of enrollment at a prestigious
...more
Oh my God! This makes me feel so so less alone! I was just thinking this thought the other day - There are a few people in my life for whom I thought I would die for. In the literal sense, if necessary. Even in the non-literal sense too. But I sometimes feel that I wouldn’t care less if they were to die or just disappear. If I am not in contact with a friend of mine or if they fade away from my life intentionally, this is how think. I am not proud of this fragile state of my mind, but I feel what I feel. I cannot hide my feelings.
It wouldn’t be so hard to return calls and be more genuinely modest, but it’s too late for these friends. They wouldn’t be able to see that I’m not a drag anymore. I need clean new people who associate me with fun. This is my number two problem: I am never satisfied with what I have. It goes hand in hand with my number one problem: rushing. Maybe they aren’t so much hand in hand as two hands of the same beast. Maybe they are my hands; I am the beast.
I am the monster. The monster is me.
The only sound is Kevin breathing. What if I spend the rest of my life in this bed, listening to Kevin breathe.
The horror! I sometimes think if this is all life about. Would every other day be the same as today for the rest of my lives? If yes, what is the point of it all? If no, where is this change that people say is the only thing that remains constant?
I held on to some things too tightly, ripping pages as I turned them, and let go of other things too suddenly, plates, breaking them.
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 will ask myself: Is it worth it? And it just isn’t.
The energy!
You won’t die from overbreathing, because you are a breathing machine, specially calibrated to adjust to the changing amounts of air in the room.
I need to stick this on my wall!
You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that.
If only this were true! If only there were greener grass on the other side!
so like this person to become depressed on the happiest day ever,
:)
Certain jerks and idiots and assholes appear from time to time, and it is as if they have had plastic surgery, their faces are disfigured with love.
Hahahaaa! You sly and beautiful woman!
An Olympic medal might redeem this person in the eyes of everyone this person has ever known. But no such contest exists, so there will be no redeeming.
No redeeming -> No sense of feeling good > No energy to carry on and you know where that leads one to, right?
sleeps.
All I could think of while reading this story was of a person who committed suicide, but couldn't go through with it, had to come back to the world to see kinder people, only to realise nobody forgets anything. And that this isn't going to change anything. So, the person goes back to their initial plan of ending their life and be done with it. And this makes me very sad.
Chairs are for people, and you’re not sure if you are one.
Uffff!
our breasts exchanged their tired histories, tales of being over-and underutilized, floods and famines and never mind, just go.
pushed our crying ahead of us like a lantern, searching out new and forgotten sadnesses, ones that had died politely years ago but in fact had not died, and came to life with a little water. 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.
Doing things for the sake of doing them and running away before you face the consequences of doing them - Wait, do I know you? If not, how do you write so well about me? We definitely must know each other, right????
We felt like orphans and we felt deserving of the pity that orphans get, but embarrassingly enough, we had parents.
Ouch
looked at Pip and 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.
Story of my life! I sometimes forget how cunning my brain is. It is one thing to cheat others with your words and thoughts. But its a whole different ballgame to cheat your own mind. How does one ever differentiate our thoughts from our emotions? Is there even a distinction?
We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint.
Something that doesn’t need taking care of. Something that can sustain on its own.
My mind slows down to a rate that would not be considered functional for any other job.
I had done strange things like this before. I had hidden under cars for hours, waiting to be found; I had written the same word seven thousand times attempting to alchemize time.
OCD, bro :(
In truth, I had not yet learned how to hate anyone but my parents.
Do we ever learn?
There was no way I could ever be in love with her because she was just as pathetic as me.
- x - = + and + x + = + and + is always boring!
There was no person, no business, no library, hospital, or park that had not stolen from us, be it psychically or historically, and thus we were forever trying to regain what was ours.
FSOCIETY!
We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant we were not alone in this world.
—but the list still gave me a cozy feeling. I liked to watch her write it, knowing that someone was steering the day.
In some bizarre, alternative, science-fiction reality, the rent was due. It was just one month ago that we had lifted Leanne’s dirty slip.
Hahahaaaaaa! I feel you, bro. I do.
If I died this way, as Gwen, would the rest of me still go on living?
Good question. What happens to all the other versions inside me if just one of them decides to go off? Do they all go off together and sleep till death? Or do they move on pretending that new versions will replace the dead ones?
I knew all about those things that weren’t very hungry; my life was full of them. I didn’t want any more weaklings who were activated by water and heat but had no waste and were so small that when they died, I buried them only with forgetfulness. If I was going to bring something new into my home, it would be a big starving thing. But I could not do this. I didn’t tell the boy, because I was just his dog-believer.
He picked up a book that was lying on the floor and held it in the air between his two fingers. The subtitle of the book was Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships. I was working through it, word by word. So far I had done Keeping and was just starting on Love. I worried that by the time I got to Committed and Relationships, I would have forgotten Keeping. Not to mention Alive and all the other words. He carried the book like this, between two fingers, into the kitchen. He carefully laid it on the corner of the kitchen floor, and I said thank you and he nodded.
didn’t want him to see I was the kind of person who wore hair gel, because I’m not, really. A friend left it here. Wouldn’t that be nice? If I had a friend and she brought her hair gel over and she left it here?
Works. If only I had a friend.
I said no, and a pillow fell off the couch by itself. This happens sometimes and I try to ignore it.
Spirits inside the home to make you feel less lonely. That should be comforting.
took off my shoes and got under the covers. I whispered, Shut your eyes, and I shut my eyes and pretended it was night and that the world was all around me, sleeping. I told myself that the sound of my breathing was really the sound of all the animals in the world breathing, even the humans, even the boy, even his dog, all together, all breathing, all on Earth, at night.
I am not alone. There are so many others living just like me. Even if I die, there would be at least one other person who would die the same time as me. So, not really alone, you see!
pretended I was from another country and couldn’t read her body language.
How is that working out for you?
There should be an option on the car for driving in place, like treading water.
Coooooooooool
Or at least a light that shines between the brake lights that you can turn on to indicate that you have no destination.
