I show up knowing exactly who I was and never leave as myself.
The parents say, 'Can you talk to my daughter and say that it's OK? That she can have muscles?' They'll say, 'I show her pictures of you so they can know she's good at what she does but still looks like a girl. She wears dresses.' It releases people to be whoever they want to be in the sport.
My mother would never say anything I cooked for her was great. She was always a 'Yeah, but' person. When she tasted my food, I used to say to her 'Don't tell me too straight, lie to me!' She couldn't even understand why I was on television.
I want to satisfy the listener, exactly. I want to entertain the audience. I want the people to leave the show with the feeling I used to leave shows with when I was young, and I couldn't get over it for another three or four days after it. I just kept reliving the set in my mind.
It's quite funny. I grew up with my mother: as a designer, she was always working, and I actually used to say to her, 'Whatever you do, never leave me your business.'
And even if she isn’t—even if by some miracle, she survived the escape and has been squeezing out a living in the Wilds—she would never join forces with the resisters. She would never be violent or vengeful. Not Lena, who used to practically faint when she pricked a finger, who couldn’t even lie to a teacher about being late. She wouldn’t have the stomach for it.
I never got along with my dad. Kids used to come up to me and say, 'My dad can beat up your dad.' I'd say 'Yeah? When?'
I have to be able to stick to very dedicated times to work on things, do exactly as I say I'm going to do, show up when I say I'm going to show up and focus that's the only way I've been able to pull off everything last year but I'm hoping I'll never have to do that again, it's a hell of a lot of work that's for sure.
There were times I wouldn't leave my room for weeks and sometimes missed school because I hated how people would look at me. But my older sister helped me find the positive: She used to show me pictures of Alek Wek to say, 'See! You can be a model if you want!'
...because in a way it happened to someone else. I don't really speak that person's language anymore, and when I think about her, she embarrasses me sometimes, but I don't want to forget her, I don't want to pretend she never existed. So before I start forgetting, I have to get down exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about everything. She was me a lot longer than I've been me so far.
Don't be so damn hard on yourself. Yeah, you screwed up. You're not perfect, fine. Learn from it. But don't punish yourself. Be kind to you, even when you screw up. You'll bounce back eventually. You'll make up for it.
I would say get to know somebody who isn't exactly like you and doesn't come from the same background as you, educate yourself and then just keep showing up. Finding ways to show up for people and your voice will come out of that relationship and out of your pursuit to seeing people who aren't exactly like you.
I don't want anybody to be under a misunderstanding. Donald Trump never even said the word "assassination." That was the word used by Hillary Clinton in 2008, which CNN is calling a gaffe. (impression) "But Trump meant it! Yeah, Trump, he meant it." With Hillary, "It was a gaffe! We all know Hillary Clinton, and we all know Hillary Clinton didn't really mean what she said." Yeah, right. Double standards.
The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn't show up invited, eventually she just shows up.
Now that she decided she knew exactly what she wanted –him- she couldn’t wait to break the news. And if he didn’t want her, she could live with that – what she wouldn’t be able to live with was if she never told him.
She wouldn't say what we both knew. 'The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true: is that it? But you know it is true now. I can almost tell you the day when you knew it is true. Why won't you say it, even to yourself?' She will not say it.