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9eda4be
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And it struck me that maybe True magazine had been wrong. Maybe there are no New Men. Maybe there are only the living and the dead, and all those who are living deserve each other and are equal to each other.
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Miranda July |
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d8b6722
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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.
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Miranda July |
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6a757e3
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I always had to resist the urge to go to him like a wife, as if we'd already been a couple for a hundred thousand lifetimes.
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Miranda July |
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6d0b3ca
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I was actually writhing in heartache, as if I were a single muscle whose purpose was to mourn.
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Miranda July |
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ae305d2
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People tend to stick to their own size group because it's easier on the neck.
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Miranda July |
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ddbcb80
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There had been options, before the baby, but none of them had been pursued... I had been quiet when there was no reason to be quiet, consisten when consistency didn't matter. For the last twenty years I had lived as if I were taking care of a newborn baby.
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Miranda July |
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dcfb6b1
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I could see it so clearly, the zygote- shiny and bulbous, filled with the electric memory of being two but now damned with the eternal loneliness of being just one. The sorrow that never goes away.
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Miranda July |
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47c6560
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I was still feeling the old loss, just in a new way.
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Miranda July |
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3742217
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She was standing on the moon and if I responded I would be on the moon too, right next to her.
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Miranda July |
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a7c0362
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I went home early to study my apartment before the class. I wanted to look at everything through her eyes. I do this before I bring someone new into my life; I try to get a sense of who I am so that I can make it easier for them to know me.
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Miranda July |
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38218b4
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She looked utterly betrayed, as betrayed as the most betrayed person in Shakespeare.
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shakespeare
humour
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Miranda July |
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cecc2c5
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But as the sun rose I crested the mountain of my self-pity and remembered I was always going to die at the end of this life anyway. What did it really matter if I spent it like this...as opposed to some other way? ...If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?
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Miranda July |
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b1ce08d
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Morning had gotten lost on the way home. We would lie this way forever, always saying goodbye, never parting.
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Miranda July |
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042155a
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But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us. She seemed to have room for me; she never turned away in the pauses that allow for turning away.
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Miranda July |
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d7f591c
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Finally, in a low whisper, he said, "I think I might be a terrible person." For a split second I believed him--I thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. Then I realized 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. "No,"
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Miranda July |
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6e2d446
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I was patience defined, patience misspelled, patience sounded out slowly, letter by letter, with the t pronounced "shh."
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Miranda July |
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610b5ea
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Tom began screaming, and I wondered if the baby's soft brain was, in this moment, changing shape in response to the violent stimuli. I tried to intellectualize the noise to protect the baby's psyche. I whispered: Isn't that interesting to hear a man scream? Doesn't that challenge our stereotypes of what men can do? And then I tried, Shhhhhhhhh.
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men
melancholy
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Miranda July |
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2613272
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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. Esperanto.
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Miranda July |
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03aab3f
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Each word he said was boring, but collectively the melody of them lulled me. I tried to resist, but just the weight of him, in pounds and ounces, was a relief.
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Miranda July |
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649ba9a
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I smiled into the air the way I smiled when customers unbuckled their belts, and I made my eyes laugh as if everything were some version of a good time.
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Miranda July |
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ac6ee93
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It had not occurred to me that it would get this bad, that indignity would dance upon bloodshed.
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Miranda July |
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1f2da94
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adm hy fqyry khh dr bkht azmyy brndh myshwnd hych wqt pwldr nmyshwnd.
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Miranda July |
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6eeccf3
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I had forgotten about the baby. Until then she had been giving birth to birth--to contractions and noises and liquids. There was someone in there. We
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Miranda July |
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22deb5b
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Their prayer was rage.
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Miranda July |
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1e1675e
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I always had to resist the urge to go to him like a wife, as if we'd already been a couple for a hundred thousand lifetimes. Caveman and cavewoman. King and queen. Nuns
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Miranda July |
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21afc7d
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Then Potato ran by. He was a little brown dog, just like the woman said. He tore past me like he was about to miss a plane. He was gone by the time I even realized it had to be Potato. But he looked joyful, and I thought: Good for him. Live the dream, Potato.
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Miranda July |
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5718288
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I wanted to be the kind of teacher who learned from her students.
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Miranda July |
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02beb20
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So this was what it was like not to be me.
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Miranda July |
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e874fea
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Where did they go, those things we did?
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Miranda July |
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5f68399
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We could smell each other's shampoo and the laundry detergents we had chosen and I smelled that she didn't smoke but someone she loved did[...]
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Miranda July |
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1a6f44a
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Everyone knows that if you paint a human being entirely with house paint he will live, as long as you don't paint the bottom of his feet. It takes only a little thing like this to kill a person.
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Miranda July |
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24309b1
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Why do you think we are the only animal that kisses? She was near again. Because the area in front of our faces is our most intimate zone. She drew a breath. This is why humans are the only romantic animal!
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Miranda July |
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90e1ee9
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I'm not saying I asked for it, only that there are moments when we are sending signals not just to the boys in the room but to all of creation.
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Miranda July |
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a9e0546
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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.
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Miranda July |
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029306c
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A real mother throws her heart over the fence and then climbs after it.
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Miranda July |
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534c1e0
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You will eat, you will laugh at stupid things, you will stay up all night just to see what it feels like, you will fall painfully in love, you will have babies of your own, you will doubt and regret and yearn and keep a secret. You will get old and decrepit, and you will die, exhausted from all that living.
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Miranda July |
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7e893ef
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The singer was lifted up and illuminated with gratitude, not for any one thing, but for the whole of his life, even for the agony. Even in Latin you could tell he was thanking God for the agony in particular, for the way it allowed him to cleave so tightly to the world.
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Miranda July |
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7308f90
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After a minute a willowy woman with a baby boy came out. The baby was swinging a crystal from a string. I checked to see if he and I had a special connection that was greater than his bond with his mother. We didn't.
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Miranda July |
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f8f98fe
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I was an angel looking down into the world, into one car on the world, into two members of mankind, into their souls, and into the place behind their souls: the void.
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Miranda July |
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a0657ab
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I wanted her to know, from the moment she heard my voice, that I was dying. I delivered a salutation so craven, so wretched, that it fell through language like pebbles. Hello.
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Miranda July |
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2ebca1a
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But we couldn't see to form a chain of doubt between each other's eyes. And her voice had a vibrant certainty that made believing her feel liberating and obvious.
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Miranda July |
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ba3ae09
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He pulled away, the teenager pulled away, but his eyes held my eyes like hands.
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Miranda July |
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f83bea9
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and together we pushed through paragraphs, painstakingly sounding out the words, knitting them into human sentences that said very little.
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Miranda July |
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ad0a75e
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Each word he said was boring, but collectively the melody of them lulled me. I tried to resist, but just the weight of him, in pounds
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Miranda July |