I stumbled upon this book in a thrift store several years ago and have reread it several times since. Miranda July writes about feelings so acutely and so tenderly it is startling. This book is a foundational text for my best friend and I, and began a tradition of annotating that continues to this day.
Miranda July, Melissa Broder, Sheila Heti, and Chloe Caldwell exist in this genre of writers that have shaped me so completely as a woman and as a young person, I really believe that everyone can become a truer version of themself by reading books like this that exist to display difficult and dirty and uncomfortable emotions in a way that questions them and validates them in equal measure.
This Person is my favorite story in the collection. I return to it like a prayer.
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An old friend of mine would talk about this book a lot. Finally got around to reading it this past fall and it just sucked me in. July has such an incredible imagination and ability to craft worlds with her stories. It inspired me so much, and has really changed how I think about my own lyric writing
Jul 2, 2024
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My favorite read of 2024. Ive always been a fan of Miranda July and this novel is quintessentially her: tender, funny, weird, perverted and so in her own head.
one of my favorite excerpts:
"But to be clear, I had not, at any age, desired a specific male body in the way I did now. While all my boyfriends and crushes had been reasonably good-looking, my attraction hovered up near their face, where they kept their talent and power. Lusting for the whole length of a person, head to toe, was what body-rooted fuckers did, Jordi, and men. Now, for the first time, I understood what all the fuss was about. How something beautiful could strike your heart, move you, bring you down on your knees and then, somewhat perversely, you wanted to fuck that pure, beautiful thing. Sex was a way to have it, to not just look at it but to be with it. I suddenly understood all of classical art. The endless carved nudes, Venus in her shell, David. And sexy clothes. I had worn them without really understanding why, thinking of sexy as one of many styles, not realizing it was the only style. You should always be emerging from a shell if possible. Without knowing it, without really understanding it, I had been a body for other people but I had not gotten to have one myself. I had not participated in the infuriating pleasure of wanting a real and specific body on Earth. I lay in the center of the bed, unblinking. Wanting a body had a seriousness to it. When you said you might never recover, you really meant it. This kind of desire made a wound you just had to carry with you for the rest of your life. But this was still better than never knowing. Or I hoped it was. Because in truth it was like a bad dream, a nightmare. Life didnโt just get better and better. You could actually miss out on something and that was that. That was your chance and now it was over. I wondered if I would continue with my work and then I realized that my work was all I had now. I had gotten it completely wrongโI thought I was laboring toward a prize, but the prize was right there, I already had it, and work was something I could do afterward, after I was no longer young enough to be beautiful and could no longer be wanted by someone beautiful."
Jan 29, 2025
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Miranda July has been one of those people that Iโve forever (or at least as long as Iโve been on Tumblr) known that one day I was gonna get to and finally the time has come. I finished this book yesterday and really loved it. Iโm so excited to dive into more of her work. I remembered I had a copy of The First Bad Man and started reading it the second I got home from work.
Feb 11, 2025
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Apr 14, 2025
The vines are consuming fire hydrants and power lines and stop signs and every gust of wind is filling the air with a delicious magnificent jasmine scent and I feel delirious and reborn and glad to be alive
!!!
Take a walk, take a whiff :-)
Apr 8, 2025
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This is something that I started doing last year and they are now fundamentally important to me.
A dessert walk is an after dinner stroll you take ideally during sunset. You walk to a grocery store and buy a sweet treat or piece of fruit and a fun beverage. For me usually a peach and a kombucha. You walk for a bit as the sun sets and return when your treats are consumed.
A delicious end to your evening that helps you digest.
Feb 22, 2025