[Music]
situation normal if I were in charge of
the universe I'd love you normal people
best for you are the most numerous why
try so hard to be extraordinary
you finished 80% of anything
tiny beloved's half of that with a
committee 1/3 of that if the
government's involved it's downright
normal to be mediocre but I'm not in
charge of the universe and normal she
keeps me company she raises her glass of
red wine and clinks mine 11 times a week
see she normally has $34 in her purse to
pay for those Pinos which is a good
thing because I normally abnormally
never carry cash she texts right back in
the 5 hours a day we spend on average on
our phones and I love her when I was in
middle school I wanted Levi's straight
leg corduroy jeans because everyone else
had them and my mom said to me if
everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn
Bridge would you do that too and four
decades later when I think about it if
everyone I knew and everyone I loved
really had jumped off the Brooklyn
Bridge
why wouldn't I consider following
since it's normal for us to clump
together like stinky goats why didn't
all the Neanderthals go blind at the
first Eclipse from following where their
buddies were pointing and then fail and
flail around and not be able to find
food and get eaten by saber-toothed
Tigers how did we even continue on to
procreate further it makes me think that
failure and conformity are hard baked in
our DNA we make on average each year 218
mistakes in the workplace that bonus
crushing reply all that feel free to
bawl me personally when what you really
meant was call me personally my husband
thinks everyone else has it more
together than we do that everyone else
is more normal they can find their
softball met the first day of softball
season they know where the rebate
receipts are and their tax documents but
I've been in the homes and garages of my
townspeople and I know that their
messiness and ours share much in common
I know none of us could find that pair
of Groucho glasses in the hour before
the Halloween party perfection my
friends earth eye comparison my friends
is the thief of joy and you here in this
room you're not all that normal either
what's your deepest darkest secret when
I was little I used to wish that
everyone on the sidewalk with me had a
t-shirt on that had their deepest
darkest secret we would all feel so much
more at home and what would my t-shirt
say and would it even fit on a t-shirt
the average household in the average
person walking down the street in my
town wears an expression that implies I
want to do the right thing the average
person moving to my town does so I think
because they like that about us still we
mess up she's celebrating her fifth
affair over Surrey he's cheating on his
diet again she's saving all her
fingernail clippings from adulthood and
and I have a friend who every time they
buy a new box of gym socks labels each
one one 1 two 2 three 3 four 4 five 5
six six and wears them in matched pairs
because that comforts them the average
household in my town spends 40 1480
dollars a year on retail goods and
services one zip code to the east of us
the average household doesn't even make
that much in a year while two zip codes
to the west of us that could be
someone's annual handbag budget across
the United States 1% of us will become
homeless each year and around the world
1 billion people live on a dollar a day
or less everyone is normal no one is
normal maybe normal doesn't even exist
do you know what is normal
61% of us report being lonesome a full
quarter of us don't have someone to talk
to you about our problems of people who
are 50 and lonely they're twice as
likely to die in a given year as those
who have many friends here's what I
really want to tell you we clump
together for comfort we're all here in
the flabby middle of the belly of the
bell curve we we clump together to find
love we gather in groups to stay alive
all of us are normal all of us are not
norm
maybe the only normal people are those
we don't know well at all thank you
[Applause]