The commonplace can break your heart. Really. The creak of a chair, the hush of fabric, the shape of a leaf, plywood, orange juice. The simplest things in and of our every day, when considered, can too often tend toward tears. Of course, it's not those things themselves that are heartbreaking, but what they represent — the creak says he's gone; the hush tells you she was never really there; the shape was once an idea; plywood is what could have been built; and that pitcher of juice was your share of something cool and refreshing that never will be shared again.

Hell, in the stories of Miranda July, even the dust on a television can make you violently sad. It saddens her characters anyway, all of whom seem to waltz through life with inner monologues made from the pain of nuance. Everybody may not hurt, but if you look close enough, everything does. But, sad as things can be, July's characters still trot hopefully off to open the post office box. Sure, there's desperation in the air, yet somehow they're moved to believe that pie in the sky will one day be theirs for the eating.

You probably know July's work — the two musical releases on Kill Rock Stars, the split on K, her Camera d'Or-winning flick (Me and You and Everyone We Know), and her feel-good phenomena of site and soundedness (Learning to Love You More), not to mention a long run of shorts, including the one she did for her ex, director Miguel Arteta (Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?). And you may even know the stories, which have appeared everywhere from McSweeney's to The New Yorker. But little can prepare you for these intimately examined moments of lives that are longing to be lived, loved, and witnessed — no matter how much give it takes. We read these things because we feel these things — or we should.

-John Hood