Just because I had made an underground feminist network that served me and a few hundred women, didn’t mean that world at large had survived. I was so punk and uninvested in the mainstream, that I had forgotten the mainstream matters. I think that’s the bare minimum you need to sustain yourself – some sort of context of other women making things. It helps me so much to know that I’m not alone. I have female friends who work in all different mediums who I speak to at least once a week. It was more like, well, this is working fine, but maybe there’s a way that life could be better. So in a way, no one was guiding the other on how to live. He was one of the men I was competing with one of the men I vanquished. We met at Sundance with our first movies. It’s been 12 years and it’s more or less like our first date. I don’t know if I’m recommending this, but it really keeps it new. Everyone’s ready at all times to have to be alone. We were two people who frankly thought we’d be fine if we weren’t married, and decided to try it… until it sails off. My husband and I are two people who never thought we’d be married. Sometimes I’d be told: “Go kiss Grandpa, we’ll hold back Sam.” Samantha would be seething and going wild as I crept towards my grandpa, who I didn’t want to kiss anyway. When I met my husband, he already had two dogs, and I think we both downplayed our relationship to dogs at the beginning. But in my defence, I’m married to one of the greatest dog-lovers on earth. On the other hand, I guess he’s learning about the importance of writing down an idea. Sometimes I’ll turn and write something down on my phone, and now my four-year-old son has just started saying: “Oh, do you have an idea?” Part of me is like, oh shit, I’ve been busted that I’m not thinking about him. If I have an idea, I have to write it down right then.

The first bad man by miranda july