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. 

Today Will Be Different - Maria Semple

Poor Eleanor Flood has spent the last ten years of her life fighting her own inertia. She's moved to Seattle with her famous hand-surgeon husband Joe, and is less than busy raising their 9-year-old son, Timby. Once upon a New York, Eleanor was the animation director of a popular TV show called Looper Wash. But since then she's sort of lost her way. But on this day, the day covered in this delightful book, she promises upon waking that Today Will Be Different. She will be present in her conversations with people, she will spend time with Timby, she will initiate sex with Joe. 

So of course her plan goes off the rails early when she is about to meet up with someone for lunch when she gets a call from Timby's school saying he has a stomach ache and needs to be picked up. Between Eleanor's awkwardness and inability to recognize/remember faces/names, a lot starts to go wrong. Joe, who is supposed to be a work is not. Her lunch date with friend Sydney Madsen turns out to be a lunch date with a former Looper Wash intern, Spencer Martel. 

Eleanor is forced to face the reality of her life and her wasted potential and talent. So the day does turn out to be different, just not in any of the ways Eleanor imagined. 

The thing I enjoy about Maria Semple's work, is that although the characters can be a bit out there, there are some real life gems in the way she creates conflict for the main characters - in this story between Eleanor and her sister Ivy. And Semple isn't afraid to not wrap up those conflicts in a neat bow. I appreciate that, because it's not true to life.

4/5 Stars.