My mother had lived in London since I was little, so she never got to see my school plays and stuff.

None of my characters have really had jobs.

I've dated people who I thought were going to be a big deal in my life, and I've also spent long periods by myself.

I would rather be a person who struggled there than someone who had a great, easy time and then got out in the world and was like, "Wait a minute, I didn't get voted class president? What's going on?" You know, "popular" doesn't necessarily correlate to anything. "Popular" still has to get up at 7:00 in the morning and go to work and do something worthy too. There's no edge, really, that you get from being whatever was popular in school.

I have to introduce the part of me that feels like a winner to the part of me convinced I’m a loser, and see if they can’t agree to exist somewhere closer to the middle.

I was always torn between wanting whatever I pictured as a typical high school experience and that being just a part I wanted to play. I've written about this, but one of those typical high school experiences was drill team. Like, I just really wanted to wear a uniform and get on the bus and be part of this group. As an only child, the idea of blending in - and literally everyone being in sync and not standing out at all - felt like kind of a fun family thing.

Maybe I should sit. Plenty of people use sitting as a way to pass the time.