I met someone who lives in an elevator.

I grew up with an artist father, and my parents' friends were also mainly artists or writers, so he connects what I do with his example.

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks of empty breath and tone.

Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.

The world's large enough and interesting enough to take a different approach each time you sit down to write about it.

To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.

Life is fundamentally up for grabs