Speak

When I say something that’s not quite normal in mixed company, all I’m really trying to express is: I think we can do more with this conversation. We don’t have to state the obvious or repeat ourselves. Not necessarily. We can do more with this tiny lot, spruce it up a little, throw in an outdoor daybed and a tea set and a few banjos. We can knock ... See more

Maybe I myself am aggressive and hopelessly narrow and that’s the problem. But I don’t think so. I think that right now, I’m just trying to figure out how much of myself I can give, and who I should be giving it to.

When I say something faintly off-kilter or boundary-pushing... Let’s not call it boundary pushing . Let’s call it boundary stretching . When I stretch a boundary, I’m just trying to give us all more territory to roam around in.

My point is not that I alone am TRULY GREAT (although that’s obviously the subtext of most of what I write). I just mean that some of us have much, much more to say than just what is absolutely necessary, and when we walk around believing that we should shut the fuck up most of the time, we’re playing by the rules of people who either 1) don’t have... See more

I mean this is a shockingly common attitude, actually: You watch made-up people on TV or the internet getting dramatic or romantic or audacious or yes, obnoxious, and you say, “Mmmm, I love this person!” But in your everyday life, no one is allowed to break out of a tiny conversational and behavioral cage, or you start to feel unsteady.