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Life is not a game. Life is not a clean narrative and people are real and flawed and you can’t force anything on them or yourself. The second you try to love someone, it’s gone. And if you find yourself in this kind of situation over and over again, maybe it’s time for you to take some time to try to love yourself.

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I have really good taste in book and movies, and then when it comes to music, I just sort of give up. When I start making a mix CD for a friend, I start off with a couple of good tracks by, say, The New Pornographers or someone — and then I start feeling an inevitable drift towards the shitty, shitty songs that I actually love. Then I start coming up with excuses in my head: “Maybe X also likes the Spice Girls,” I say to myself, knowing that this is not, in fact, the case.