The Rumpus Interview With Ted Travelstead! When Ted recalls the funniest thing he has seen firsthand, he shares a memory about his wife and it is obvious that he loves his wife. I found his answer to be a love story. Then he says, “Oh! Just thought of another one. One time a teen elephant slapped my sister across the face with its trunk.”
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When I was five years old, my mother and I would visit my sister who lived in Berkeley, and we drove up and down Interstate 5. I held my breath when we drove through that cow stench stretch. Mari Naomi contributes another Smoke in Your Eyes and tells you about what she remembers because of that stench.
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My life is filled with much quiet and solitude. I’m always on the verge of loneliness. This is why I find comfort in Miranda July’s The Future and why I decided to watch it again today.
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In Sonya Chang’s On Loneliness: Art, Life, and Fucking Human Beings, she meditates on loneliness and, in the last paragraph, writes, “Today, I am having one of those days when what it is to be a fucking human being is to be lonely.” I suppose I am having one of those days, too.
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In The Rumpus Interview With Miranda July, Zack Ruskin asks her, “Is the web killing our ability to bond with strangers?”
She answers, “No, I mean obviously we’re all dealing with a lot more strangers due to the web. I’d say it has more to do with the quality of interactions. When you’re physically interacting with someone, it forces you to be more present and probably a little more uncomfortable. You have to tolerate being outside the comfort of your own home.”
In The Rumpus Interview With Lady Cheeky, Lady Cheeky shares, “When you get rejected in cyberspace, it has nothing to do with who you are or how you look, so it’s ‘safe in that way.’ You are a fake person. Completely free.”
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In another beautiful essay, Thomas Page McBee writes, “You have zombies shaped like memories or loves long-gone, you have clothes in your closet that hold selves you’ll never be. Maybe you’re still waiting or maybe, like me, you’re just beginning to let it go.”
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I’ve gone through long stretches of loneliness, and the loneliness is beautiful and the loneliness hurts. Sometimes the stretches go on for much too long and I feel like a woman who is haunted. During these times, I think of Thom Yorke singing Give up the ghost.
