Bossypants

I have been reading the most grim books lately. I don't know what's come over me. I can barely watch the news, and yet I've been reading grisly murder mysteries, and a bunch of compelling but disturbing non fiction. The other night I was lying in bed when I finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is great, but I was feeling my hope for human beings slipping away and decided I needed to read something happier before I went to sleep. I went into the ibooks store and found Tina Fey's new book Bossypants. I got a sample and started reading. 


15 minutes later, I finished the sample, bought the book, and had to force myself to go to stop reading and go to sleep around 1:30am because Jack was going to be up early for school, and I was going to be wrecked. I finished it the next day after a long nap. SO GOOD. 


If you are a working mom, or a stay at home mom, or have a vagina you should read this book. Also if you don't have a vagina, but you have kids and a job, or a wife, or both, you should read this book. If you hate laughing, and think women shouldn't have jobs because they need to be home sweeping, then as Tina Fey says (I'm paraphrasing) you "can go shit in your hat". 


She talks about her background in improv, the behind the scenes stuff from SNL, what she learned from Lorne Michaels, and how she navigates working 70 hours a week on 30 Rock, while being a mom, a wife, and all around ass kicker. Did I mention she had to personally call Oprah and ask her to PLEASE come and shoot an episode of 30 Rock they already had half shot, all while planning her daughters 3rd birthday (Peter Pan themed), and doing her first performance on SNL as Sarah Palin. Ass. Kicker. 


And finally FINALLY, a wealthy, intelligent, powerful woman cops to the whole nanny/babysitter, I do all the parenting myself lie. (Gwyneth and her "first I get the kids dressed, and make them all breakfast and off to school before I go to my photo shoot"... Ok Gwynie, I'm sure your cook/nanny/housekeepers don't help you with that at all.) My favorite footnote in the book was this one:

*"I know it's bullshit that I say "babysitter" instead of nanny. What I have is a full-time nanny, and I should be roundly punished for trying to make it seem like the teenager next door comes over one night a week. But I don't like the word "nanny." It gives me class anxiety and race anxiety. And that is why I will henceforth refer to our nanny as our Coordinator of Toddlery. "

AMEN! I would now like to apologize for referring to Brenda as Jack's babysitter. Until he started school he was with her 25 hours a week. She was, and still is, indispensable to us. She comes during the week on Jack's non-school days, and takes him to the park or a museum, for walks. He loves her, and a lot of times when she's here, I am too. She allows me to pay bills, take a nap, blog, finish one of my 10,000 projects. Jack can come and get hugs, and most of the time Brenda and I end up gossiping while he says things like "ugh, what are you guys talking about?!?!?!?!" I usually say "feelings" or "jesus" and he goes back to playing. 


So... Having read Bossypants, I now love Tina Fey, even more than I already did. She's smart, funny, and has a tremendous ability to navigate a business that I have only succeeded on the fringe of. (dangle) Read it today, or you can go shit in your hat...