If you enjoyed high school, you were probably a psychopath or a cheerleader. Or possibly both.

In short? It is exhausting being me. Pretending to be normal is draining and requires amazing amounts of energy and Xanax.

Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. And because there is joy in embracing - rather than running from - the utter absurdity of life.

[On acupuncture:] The needles are small and won't hurt at all. In fact, they'll feel good. Ha, ha! Just kidding. They feel like needles. Because they are.

Every time I get scared or feel like I'm not going to be good enough at something, I say that mantra to myself. "Pretend you're good at it."

When Hailey was born my first thought was that I needed a drink and that hospitals should have bars in them.

So many of us feel like we're misfits until we finally find our tribe - the other people who are are strange in the same way - and suddenly everything clicks.

It’s amazing how much you’re missing in a depressive state until you start to come out on the other side. It’s like breathing again after being underwater for far too long.

But really, what else are you going to talk about in line at the liquor store? Childhood trauma seems like the natural choice, since it’s the reason why most of us are in line there to begin with.

High School Is Life’s Way of Giving You a Record Low to Judge the Rest of Your Life By)

Meanwhile, I was doodling pictures of vampiric cougars.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

Don't ever choose the people who don't matter over the ones that do.

hopes dance best on bald men's hair

Apart from Scottish traditional music, I wasn't really influenced by any kind of music. I just basically followed my own instincts.

I never fit in with my peer group. I never hung out with kids my age - I always wanted to hang out with my mom and her girlfriends.

And in the minds of progressives you are free to live anyway you want so long as it's progressive.

Whenever I get lost in a novel I just throw a poem in. What it does is flare up, and it's so illuminated that I'm able to see where to go. I write between these illuminations.

Some kids want to know why the teachers get paid when it's the kids who have to do all the work.

This is the divine moment when we can hold the fairest blossom of spring in one hand and the sweetest flowers of early summer in the other.

A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion.