“It must suck to be a funny lady putting out a memoir right after Tina Fey. It would be like me putting out a book right after Greg Vance (you probably donât know Greg Vance unless you went to middle school with me. Iâm trying to maintain the fame ratio set up by the Fey/Kaling dynamic. I am slightly less famous than Greg Vance).
But what would REALLY suck is if Greg Vanceâs book got more attention, but mine wasâ¦well, better.
I laughed, and the way the book was put together helped. Instead of talking about every moment behind the scenes of the Office (for which she writes, awesomely) Mindy Kaling breaks the book up into little sections. Some of my favorites:
âTypes of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Realâ
Hilarious, plus this has gotten me closer to understanding the appeal of a romantic comedy than Iâve ever been. Which is still really far, but I feel like I can grasp it in the same way that I can understand THAT some people like birds as pets, even if Iâll never understand WHY.
âFranchises I Would Like to Rebootâ
I know this was a joke, but I think I would see Lady Ghostbusters, possibly on opening weekend.
âGuys Need to Do Almost Nothing to Be Greatâ
A list of 12 easy steps to becoming a great guy. Very doable, even for shitty guys like myself.
And because she had so many helpful tips on how guys can be great, I would like to offer a couple theories to answer the question posed by the section âWhy Do Men Put on Their Shoes So Slowly?â
1. For some reason, I think weâve decided that this is something that can be done in tandem with something else, like skimming a Skymall while talking on the phone. It is not. For me, itâs like brushing my teeth. Something in my brain tells me that I should be able to do something else while I brush my teeth. It should be an autopilot thing, so taking out the garbage and brushing my teeth should be easy to do simultaneously. Cut to two minutes later and Iâm either standing in the bathroom with a bag of garbage or walking out to the dumpster, toothbrush dangling from my mouth like a bizarre-looking, foamy cigarette.
2. It may also be an unintentional stalling tactic held over from childhood. As a kid, when it was time to go somewhere I didnât want to go, Iâd take as long as possible to put on my shoes. I donât know what I thought the result would be. I donât think it ever crossed my momâs mind to say, âYou know what, youâre slow at putting on shoes, so just stay here and play Sega.â As an adult, I donât think itâs a conscious choice, but if Iâm leaving my home thereâs a 50/50 chance that Iâm going somewhere I actually want to go, so it might be that leftover, reptile survival part of the brain kicking in.
The big difference Iâve seen between man memoirs and lady memoirs is that lady memoirs almost all seem to have some portion devoted to coming to grips with whatever type of body the author possesses. Iâve read one man memoir where body talk was a big topic, but it was the memoir of a kid who doused a bathrobe in gasoline and set himself on fire, so it was about his body, but more about how horribly burned his body was.
Anyway, itâs always the section Iâm least interested in, and the longer it is, the more I start to drift off. And it doesnât matter the body type, either. I tried to read Jenna Jamesonâs book after the 15th time the copy at our library was mutilated, and hearing about her body was no more exciting or interesting. I glaze over without fail.
I think the male equivalent of this is articles about the best way to shave. Every ten minutes thereâs a new product, which is new and exciting because itâs more like an old product. And no, I donât really care how cowboys did it. I donât do ANYTHING to my body the way cowboys did it, with the exception of drinking weird little potions that always turn out to be just hard drugs mixed with flavors.
So if youâre burned, losing a foot to diabetes, some sort of fishman or rhino lady, or youâre Lucy Grealy, then Iâm interested in hearing about your body. But thatâs just me.
The book is fast, funny, and has the best photo captions ever written, such as âRainn Wilson, violent Ogre.â
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