Your brain is not your friend when you need to apologize. Your brain and your ego and your intellect all remind you of the “facts.
I’m a moon junky. Every time I look at the moon I feel less alone and less afraid. I tell my boys that moonlight is a magic blanket and the stars above are campfires set by friendly aliens.
People who are committing and taking risks become the king and queen of my prom.
We all have a tiny whispery voice inside of us, but the bad ones are usually at a lower register and come through a little clearer. I don’t know where the good voice came from. It was a mix of loving parents, luck, and me. But ever since I was a small child, I would look at places where I wanted to be and believe I would eventually be on the other side of the glass.
Yes Please is an attempt to present an open scrapbook that includes a sense of what I am thinking and feeling right now. But mostly, let’s call this book what it really is: an obvious money grab to support my notorious online shopping addiction. I have already spent the advance on fancy washcloths from Amazon, so I need this book to really sell a lot of copies or else I am in trouble. Chop-chop, people.
I think middle age begins once you start looking forward to eating dinner before six thirty, or when you call the cops when your next-door neighbor has a party.
A word about apologizing: It’s hard to do it without digging yourself in deeper.
Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.
I know how good I am at bemoaning my process and pretending I don’t care so that my final product will seem totally natural and part of my essence and not something I sweated for months and years.
I loved school. I loved new shoes and lunch boxes and sharp pencils. I would hold dance contests in tiny finished basements with my friends. I roller-skated in my driveway and walked home from the bus stop on my own. We never locked our door. I had a younger brother whom I loved and also liked. I thought my mother was the most beautiful mother in the world and my father was a superhero who would always protect me. I wish this feeling for every child on earth.
A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I’ve grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let’s peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write.
PUDDING IS DELICIOUS.
The things you have done for me – to help me, support me, surprise me, and make me happy – go above and beyond what any person deserves. You are all I need. I love you and I like you.
He was the first important person in my life to die, and when he did, it was the first time I realized that life is not fair or safe or even ours to own. I miss him.
When I yell at the dads drinking coffee and looking at their phones at the playground while their seven-year-olds play on the preschool monkey bars, I feel like I am fully alive.
It also reminds you of the simple truths that we purposely forget every day or else we would never get out of bed. Things like, nothing lasts forever and relationships can end. The best that can happen is you learn a little more about what you can handle and you stay soft through the pain. Perhaps you feel a little wiser. Maybe your experience can be of help to others.
Short people DO NOT like to be picked up.
A word about apologizing: It’s hard to do it without digging yourself in deeper. It’s also scary and that’s why we avoid the pain. We want so badly to plead our case and tell our story. The bad news is that everybody has a story. Everyone has a version of how things went down and how they participated.
Teenage bodies should be filled with Vonnegut and meatball subs, not opiates that create glassy-eyed party monsters.
It’s called Yes Please because it is the constant struggle and often the right answer. Can we figure out what we want, ask for it, and stop talking? Yes please. Is being vulnerable a power position? Yes please. Am I allowed to take up space? Yes please. Would you like to be left alone? Yes please.