Tig Notaro

In standup, you don't have anything near you except a microphone. There's something a lot more self-conscious feeling when there's cameras coming in for close-ups. It makes you very aware.

It was a free-for-all with music when I was growing up. My mother was a huge music fanatic so I was listening to everything from country to heavy metal to Indigo Girls to Elton John. I guess when I was really young I didn't like Willie Nelson, and she obviously loved him. Now I do too, I'm so thankful to her for playing his music nonstop.

I get kind of, um, bored by all the sexuality and gender labels because I feel like that's where the problem comes in, when people feel that they need to have these particular identities. If you didn't have these labels, and you just acted on how you genuinely felt at any point, then you wouldn't have anything to contend with.

I just absolutely adore Denver and the Boulder area. Having lived there several times, it feels like home to me.

In the past, I played in bands, worked at coffee shops, babysat, and worked as a production assistant.

My career has always kind of moved forward and upward. I've never had anything kind of stall out or go in the opposite direction. I've always kind of been moving in the right direction.

If I'm caught off guard or I'm not in a great mood, or if I'm feeling down or if I'm in my head and somebody comes up to me and I can't match the energy, I just have to think, 'Well, I did my job, which was to do the show or release the album or be in the TV show or write the joke. Beyond that, it's kind of a hit or miss what happens between us.'

I don't personally feel like I've dealt with any sort of discrimination or sexism. I'm not doubting that there might have been that going on and I just didn't read it that way.

Stephanie and I got married publicly on the beach, in front of friends and family, and the local police shut down the highway for us to cross the street back to my cousin's house. Cars backed up for miles, and everybody in town cheered.

I was a full-blown tomboy; I was very mischievous and got into a lot of trouble. Everybody in my family smoked, and I started smoking probably when I was nine. My friends used to call me Huckleberry Tig.

I never really consider myself an awkward person, but once I got into stand-up, I kept hearing that word. The only thing I can trace it back to is that my mom had a similar sensibility. She always made people uncomfortable.

My favorite thing to wear from about first to third grade was a blue t-shirt with an iron-on monkey and the caption 'Here Comes Trouble.'