I’m Just a Person

I watch movies and TV shows so I’ve seen Tig Notaro around, but didn’t necessarily know her name. I can definitively say that I liked her every time. I vaguely recall her from In a World… and believe that she may have been the only sensible person in the debut season of Transparent. I then saw her on The Daily Show promoting her since canceled Amazon series, One Mississippi, which I promptly put in my queue. I did not know that she wrote a book until I went to the library and started stalking the aisles for autobiographies and saw her distinct name on a cover. It took less than a week to read the book, but it would have only taken days if I could cobble together more than a few minutes here and there.
I’m Just a Person is Notaro’s account of her Joan Didion like plummet in health and the loss of her mother which eventually led to great career and personal success, which did not mitigate the preceding blows. Even though it is a book about her life, it is not told chronologically, and it is not comprehensive. I could have missed it, but I’m still not sure where her given name came from. At one point, she is working with bands then suddenly she is a comedic household name. The book is not a conventional chronicle of a life, but an emotional journey about saying goodbye to the most important person in her life, becoming herself and maintaining or letting go of relationships with friends, family, colleagues and significant others.
Even though the book’s title is I’m Just a Person, Notaro’s life is unconventional and unique. She wisely discarded the lessons in school about how to live one’s life and just did her own thing, which initially could have seemed like nothing and a dead end route. She had an early sense of self aided by her mother’s instruction to say, “go to hell” to anyone or anything that made her feel uncomfortable regardless of the context. Notaro may live an unconventional life, but in contrast she has a sensible, sober and grounded perspective. This clash in action and thought is the nexus point of her humor, makes her extremely relatable and easy to love.
Even though she talks about big human turning points such as grief and illness, reconciling human reactions to sensible actions in the real world, balancing work with mortality, what you need with what you get and who can give it to you and her ultimate lack of faith in finding the one, it never feels philosophical or remote or devolves into a Ridley Scott level tantrum at the unfairness of death. I’m Just a Person is a matter of fact account of a natural thought process during turbulent times.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Notaro, she is gay, but unlike most books written by gay protagonists, she treats her relationships like heterosexual protagonists treat their sexuality, it is not given center stage. She briefly mentions people that she is dating. They are clearly women. She discusses her relationships. There are no passages about how she knew that she was attracted to women, coming out, whether or not her sexuality affected her positively or negatively. This aspect of her life is normal. I’m not criticizing the more conventional narratives of gay protagonists, but Notaro is where everyone else will hopefully be in the future when being gay isn’t a record scratching moment. I’m Just a Person is revolutionary in treating sexuality as it should be treated: equally and normally, another part of life, a non-event.
If you like Tig Notaro or if you’re just a human being experiencing some heavy, life shit and the self-help aisle leaves you cold, I highly recommend I’m Just a Person and am so excited to start checking out One Mississippi.