Interview A Day

One interview a day for a year.

[interviewaday]

The Human Lemon

The human lemon wished to be interviewed anonymously. 

You're a self-proclaimed human lemon?

I am. I'm a human lemon. I'm a lemon that is also human.

And this is something that runs in your family?

It does. My sister is a lemon. My brother is also a lemon. My brother was born with fucked up lungs. He had really terrible asthma and was also born with only half a kidney, which has been giving him trouble recently. My sister was born with a broken heart. She had a hole between her left and right ventricles. She had to have open heart surgery when she was three and her growth was super stunted. She's still a ball breaker but she has a big scar down her chest. So my mom thinks it's because she took antibiotics when she was pregnant with me. It's possible. It's also possible that I'm just a lemon like my brother and sister. I often run into people who have skin problems, and like, gross growths on them, and I don't think it's an unusual problem to have something weird, but I feel like weekly I have another weird thing. And I feel like, it's growing exponentially and I wonder if I can return it and get another body.

Would you feel comfortable sharing some things that have happened to you in your career as a lemon? 

Oh yeah. Well, it didn't start happening until recently. I was like (sings) "I'm the healthy child. My brother and sister are sick all the time and I'm fine." My toe got stepped on by a horse and then I was Irish dancing and my toe got fucked up and now my whole foot is fucked up as a result of that. Then I got pneumonia and my lungs got fucked up because of pneumonia and they thought I had a pulmonary embolism and then, let's see, what else? Then I got skin cancer, which is kind of weird for a twenty-year-old. I got it in all the same places that my grandpa has it, except my grandpa is seventy-nine and it's pretty normal at that age. It's weird that it was in the same places as my grandpa. So they had to cut up my face a little bit. And then my ovary burst open. I had a ruptured cyst. Thought I had appendicitis. I'm also narcoleptic. 

Do you think this physical frailty has resulted in increased mental hardiness? 

Maybe. At this point I just really don't think it's a big deal. I'm just like (sings), 'Oops, body can't do it again.' And I know a lot of people freak out when they go to the doctor or avoid going to the doctor, especially my dad, who is a doctor. He had a tumor the size of a grapefruit because he hadn't gotten it checked out in a long time and let it grow until my mom was like, 'Sweetheart, you have to go.' He was always like, 'Kids, don't see doctors. Just sleep it off.' So once I woke up in Vietnam and my eye was HUGE, like a grapefruit. (laughs.) It was like, the size of a donut. And I called my dad long distance from Vietnam and was like, 'Dad, what the fuck is this,' and he was just like, 'Sleep it off!' And I did. I took a shower and I took a nap and my eye was normal again. And my boyfriend was saying that I looked like one of the aliens from District Nine. So I never figured out the cause of Donut Eye. 

So would your advice to other lemons be to sleep it off? 

I would say you should probably see a doctor unless you're in Vietnam. I would say probably…uh…don't leave your house (laughs.) Just stay in there. Don't go out in the sun.

That's the other thing. When I got skin cancer they said it was from sun damage. And I said, 'Well, I did theatre pretty much my whole life and fencing. I pretty much have never been outside.' And they're like, 'Yep, sun damage.' So I was like, 'Well, I'll buy it.' 

Care to speculate on the cause of your lemonhood?

…I imagine--getting skin cancer when you're twenty-one…I don't think it was caused by sun damage. I think it was just caused by some moral failing on my part (laughs.)

Weak moral fiber?

Or they just messed up the wiring somehow. 

Any general advice for other human lemons?

I mean, you're probably not a lemon. I'm not a lemon. I just complain a lot. Like, there are people who have CP and psoriasis and no eyes and it's probably pretty insulting for me to be like, 'I have a fucked up toe and I fall asleep all the time, my life is hard' So the moral is that I suck. Go on being a trooper. And get regular skin checks so you don't have a tumor growing on your face for three years. 

[interviewaday]

Between classes and work and trying to find a job for next year, this is how I feel right now.

[interviewaday]

Day 62: Outside Piece: OkCupid

This is basically an interview with a website. The future! Kat Vecchio wrote and recorded the story for Narrative.ly. 

"Many users with profiles on OkCupid have received flattering emails telling them they have been deemed attractive by other OkCupid users. Due to your high attractiveness rating, the email says, you are now going to see more pretty people when you search for matches. So how exactly does the algorithm decide who is good looking?" 

Read More. 

[interviewaday]

Day 61: Outside Piece: Jerry Jacob

This is from a project called Stry.us where a bunch of journalists moved to the Ozarks for a summer and compiled long form pieces about the residents and goings on of Springfield, Biloxi and Joplin. 

"'I figure, I go over there, I get blown up, I had my 20s and 30s. An 18-year-old goes over there and gets blown up, he’s giving up or she’s giving up so much more. That is a greater sacrifice than if I go over there and get blown up,' Jerry says. 'When you get killed you lose the day you got killed to the one you would have died otherwise, that’s what you’ve sacrificed. The older you get, the less of a sacrifice it is, was my mentality.'"

Read More.

[interviewaday]

Day 60: Self Interview #3: I Explain This Picture, I Promise

Every month I’m going to do a post where I talk about the project a little bit. This is because I come from a generation of narcissists and would like to fit in with my peers. 

What's with the insane series of tiny comments on how dull and unhappy February is? 

February Hate is a classic trope of life at my tiny isolated college, so, for my last February here, I decided to pay tribute to it by writing everyone's moaning down for posterity. 

How did that go? 

As one interviewee joked, "I tell you my sad story, open up to you emotionally, and you say 'Thank you' and write it down." So basically was a mini version of interviewing and journalism in general. People told me their sad stuff and I said thank you and wrote it down.

What's that picture? Why do you look so terrible?

It's a self-portrait I did right after I got my wisdom teeth out last year, puffy-cheeked and still weepy from the anesthetic. I feel like it captures the angst of the month and the silliness of that angst in a way that's appropriate. I also just think it's a really funny picture in context. It is in no way the most grisly or graphic image in the series; somehow after it was taken I managed in my loopy state to get a picture of the hole in the back of my mouth where the tooth used to be. Lucky for you, that image will not be featured here.

[interviewaday]

Day 59: One Last Word On February

Well, nothing fun is associated with February. The only holiday is Valentine's Day, which everyone - single and otherwise - secretly hopes will stop being a holiday. I generally muddle through february in hopes that I'll wake up one day and realize that it's March; lucky for me, that day is tomorrow.

-John 

[interviewaday]

Days 54-58: In the Interest of Catching Up

Hi, latter half of February. I'll fill you with interviews someday. But for now, here's something endlessly fascinating. I hope it distracts from the pain of me ignoring you. 

[interviewaday]

Day 53: Outside Piece: Something to Weigh

I saw this photo essay by Memphis photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero a few days ago and keep coming back to it. I think there's something to her anxiety about being looked at and perceived on a superficial level that everyone can relate to.

[interviewaday]

Day 52: February Continues

"February is a month of purgatory. It begins frigid and dark, firmly taking the reins of its big brother January. But as Feb grows she gets confused and becomes weirdly warm, especially here in Ohio... Suddenly she's playing with March while January is left in the dust."

-Gabe

[interviewaday]

Day 51: Outside Piece: David Foster Wallace

Ostap Karmodi did an interview with David Foster Wallace in 2006. 

"My personal belief is that because technology and economic logic has gotten so sophisticated, cruelties can be perpetrated now that would have been unimaginable two or three hundred years ago. Therefore we are under more of a moral obligation to try very very very hard to develop compassion and mercy and empathy."

Read More. 

[interviewaday]

Day 50: General Complaints

The February thing snowballed. 

"When the stranger in front of you has a gray hair you can't extract, split ends you can't pick, a pimple you can't pop or a unibrow you can't pluck. (Can't, of course, in terms of personal space and having to follow certain social norms.)"

-L

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Day 48: February Continues

"[Zenly,] People just have to keep in mind that weather is not bad. It just IS." 

-Austin

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Day 47: Yep

This morning I got an rejection email from a grad school. Then I walked out of the room to take a shower and tripped over my roommate's bike and skinned my knee. Then there wasn't any hot water in the shower. I also have a throat infection.

-Lucy 

[interviewaday]

Day 46: Or Maybe It's the Worst

"February is the month when everyone’s grandparents die."

-Phoebe 

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Day 45: February Isn't So Bad

"Everyone is a little overly dramatic abut February. It’s a month just like the rest of them. Cold is good for your body, and everyone just needs to calm down." 

-Maureen

[interviewaday]

Day 44: February Continues

I snorted way too much Adderall in February.

-Anonymous

[interviewaday]

Day 43: February Continues

"February of my senior year in high school, I tried to break up with my first girlfriend and, in my ignorance, didn’t end it cleanly, so we let it go on for a while. And over the course of February, we grew more estranged and it ended poorly where she just felt so unhappy in the relationship that she broke up with me."

-Stephen