This Will Only Hurt a Little - Busy Phillips

Right about the time I was wrapping up high school, I fell pretty hard for a brown haired boy and was so frustrated by the girl who wouldn't notice him for fear of ruining a friendship. Of course I'm talking about Pacey Witter and Dawson's Creek (Team Pacey, don't @ me). But then I went to college and so did Joey Potter and that's when I first saw Busy Phillips. I wasn't a huge fan of the character of Audrey. The writers and show runners so obviously wanted to place someone in juxtaposition to Katie Holmes' character and they went a lot overboard with Audrey in the process.

So I lost the thread on Busy Phillips for a while until she was gearing up to have a late night show on E! called Busy Tonight. Finally, said the feminist inside me. A late night show hosted by a woman. This is so great. Hmm 10 p.m. said practical sleepy me. And while I followed both the show and Busy Phillips on social media (instagram), I didn't stay up to watch any episodes. And inevitably the show was cancelled and I'm mega-bummed but also can only really blame myself.

Busy's book has been on my to-read pile for a while but it took some time to get around to it as the urgency of connecting the book with the show became lost. So, having no other knowledge of her career, I dug into this (audio) and really enjoyed it. Busy is honest AF about her life and irreverent of the system within which she works for her profession. Hollywood is about as rough and misogynist as I imagined. I really connected with her journey through balancing motherhood and work, and her loneliness following the birth of her first daughter. Being a new mother can be terribly isolating and society does not prepare men to become dads and shoulder ANY of the load. Men who have managed to figure out how to do this are going above the norm and this should change.

Busy on her show. At the end of the night she drank a margarita in her nightgown. 

I'm glad women like Busy exist to demand to take up space and give voice to some of the pitfalls women when we're trying to be polite. I'm only sad Busy's show was cancelled before she got a chance to have Glennon Doyle on. But, at least I can rewatch the Kristen Bell episode whenever I want to really live my best TV life. 

4/5 Stars.