Something That Needs Nothing

Last week I bought Miranda July's short stories collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You. Since then, all I've been reading is that. And all I've been listening to is The Smiths, but that's a different story--well, OK, it's really part of the same story. Which you can figure out yourself, I'm sure. I'll give a hint: both are fairly inspirational for a person who stays at home all day and cannot muster any motivation to do otherwise.

The book. It's the best book I've read in a long time. I think I like July's short stories as much as Haruki Murakami's, which, considering Murakami has been my favorite short story writer for nearly a decade, is a serious statement. If Murakami's stories are about people who have lost themselves, July's stories are about people who have lost the world. July's writing has an unmistakable innocent-yet-ageless plainess, and the oft-absurd characters and plots somehow become vessels for truths that transcend mere realism. Yes, many--all--of the stories are sad, at least in some ways, but it feels like a melancholy that comes from understanding what good and happiness truly are.

(Don't believe me?)

My ad hoc lit-crit origami hat aside, another one of the reasons I like this book so much is flawless relative timing, like the summer of 2002--that draining summer that whittled us all down to the bones--when I suddenly decided I really wanted to hear an R.E.M. album, bought New Adventures in Hi-Fi on the way home and finally "got" the band. I'd flipped through the book a month or two ago, probably because Jess had mentioned July's name at some point, but something made me jump on my bike and sprint down to the bookstore to bring it home. I've endured a frustration or two recently that I'd rather have avoided, it's true, but at least they made me think.

For example: about how I should be more selective about when, where, and how I interact with people. Repeatedly, it seems the times when I'm least able to be nice to people are the times I'm least prepared or motivated to interact with them, yet somehow find myself doing so anyway. Like when my mother calls on Sunday morning (damn 12 hour time difference) and I'm not quite ready mentally or physically to get out of bed, much less explain why I'm still asleep at 11AM--something easy to explain to everyone except my mother--yet attempt to do so anyway, and it always ends up with me saying, no, I don't want to talk about my week right now, no, nothing happened (whether that be the case or not), please let me go back to bed. Or when I asked for a ride from Sam and Mary-Beth, two kids I halfway know, to a Beach House show on a night when I really shouldn't have been around anyone; I spent half the evening standing around thinking about how I couldn't bear to look at all those people anymore (though seeing the homeboys and homegirl of Beach House did cheer me up a little, by the end). In such times, I imagine I must act in a way that suggests to people around me I dislike them very much, even though that is almost never the case; in the first case, for example, I eventually did get out of bed, and several hours later as I biked down the Jones Falls trail to the Hexagon everything was fine. But when I can't, I can't, and as I'm realizing, probably shouldn't.

I used to complain that people only talked to me when they needed advice, when they needed me to be sympathetic and wise. When they needed something from me, in other words. Now I think maybe that is the best possible scenario, since sympathetic and wise is all I want to be to people anyway, and it allows me to avoid dealing with people involuntarily except when I am on my best behavior. The more I have a clear idea of what I want to be and how I want to act, the more I realize the effort it would take to do it all the time. What I would like is for people in my presence to not have to worry about any of the things I'd rather not worry about myself. Things like strange girls who shove their phone numbers into your hands unbidden and then don't return your calls, for example. Of course, they're probably going to worry anyway, and even if they don't, they'll get into the worrying scene again as soon as we part--whatever, all I ask is they don't drag me along. Call it a non-invasive (but very much evasive) enforcement of personal space.

I imagine these all seem like bewildering, purposefully naive ramblings. But the thing is, complicated things and upsetting things happen anyway, whether we intentionally make them happen or not. We don't need to lift a finger in order to frustrate others or to put wry faces on ourselves. But making things more comfortable, conversely, takes effort. As Morrissey noted, "it takes strength to be gentle and kind." I'm starting to see the logic behind twee...

Of course, when I feel functional, I'll keep going out and doing whatever (meeting fetish models at the Hexagon and listening to them talk about their iPhones, etc.). I've confidence that I'm at least decent at doing such things, at least some of the time. I just need to draw the line a little clearer.

It's something to preoccupy myself with, anyway. An experiment of sorts. Of course, knowing me, I'll probably find myself at some ill-advised outing trying to fold myself into the shadow of a Boh bottle before long.