“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” -- Nora Ephron

"Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women." -Nora Ephron, Wellesley College '62.


I dream that one day I'll write like Nora Ephron, until then, I hope I can advocate for women as fiercely and authentically, and with as much humility, as she did.


xo kate

The most amazing thing that has ever happen anywhere ever.

Hillary R. Clinton submitting her own meme to textfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com.  Prove that Wellesley girls not only run the world, they do it with a sense of humor.

Oh, hey, D, remember how you and Hill lived in the same room?

xo kate

Hey, don't forget your sword boo.

Happy weekend!

Continually shhh'ed

“Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.”

Zooey Deschanel

Its like the friggin big dig all over again.

Did you guys ever read The Odyssey?

I read it three times and hated it three times. I think Odysseus is a friggin moron.

The only redeamable character in the book is his long abandoned wife, Penelope.  Let me splain.

Odysseus keeps pissing the residents of Mount Olympus off, and so he hasn't been home in legit 20 years. Back at the ranch, everyone's trying to get Penelope to pick a new man and get re-married.

Penelope has no idea that her asshat of a husband is getting up close and personal with Circe and Calypso and Zeus knows who else, and wants to remain loyal to Odysseus.  So she comes up with this sweet plan.

She tells her suitors that she will pick a new husband, when and only when she finishes weaving a totally baller funeral shroud. Every day, homegirl is weaving weaving weaving...working those threads.

And every night, when no one is watching...Penelope undoes the day's work...thus delaying her remarriage.

This is where the Big Dig comes in.

I think those big diggers were huge liars. And took a cue from Penelope.

Every day they would dig. And every night, they would fill it back in...undoing the day's work...and thus delaying the end of the paychecks.

Boom.

Oh yea...watch this...

Tuesday Loseday: Shit Nonnas Say

Offensive or hilarious or somewhere in between? You tell me.

 

Tuesday Loseday: Shit Girls Say

Listen.

Listen. Listen. Listen.

Shut. Up.

Me too.

(via southerngirlandpearls)

The Real Housewives of South Boston

Are you (or someone you know) from South Boston?  How do you feel about this video? Offended? Delighted? A little bit of both?  And most importantly, do you know Marky Mark?

Sounds about right.

On October 3rd he asked me what day it was. I said October 3rd.

Mean Girls references aside, I have some very important information for you.  One of my personal favorites, Mindy Kaling's blog, Things I Bought That I Love, is back!  It's in a new form -- a tab on her new website, The Concerns of Mindy Kaling.  The link is here.  I'm pretty sure it's sad that this is the best part of my life right now, but this is the best part of my life right now.  Thank you, Mindy.  Love, DC area first-year teachers.

xo kate

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

The first excerpt of Mindy Kaling's book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns), hit the internet this week.  I appreciated the free 26-page excerpt (which you can read for yourself here) and, apparently -- according to The New Yorker, am Mindy's target demographic, "i.e., unmarried,
babyless women above the age of sixteen and under the age of thirty."  Gee, thanks New Yorker, there really isn't enough pressure to be married and having babies in your twenties, or even pejorative comments made in the media about young women -- I needed you to point out that I'm the target of certain authors.  


Media targeting aside, my favorite part of the excerpt was Mindy's rights and responsibilities for being best friends.  One of the best parts about being a women is the ability to have really great friendships with other women.  I always feel bad for guys because, although they often have a lot of male friends, for some reason men don't seem to be allow (I don't know if this is a testosterone thing or a society thing -- or some combination of the two) to have intimate friendships with men in the same way that women are allowed to be friends with women.  Personally, I think that having close, adult friendships with other women is the reward that girl's get for surviving middle school.  Mindy's best friendship rules remind me of how lucky I am to get to have great friendships with my best friends and include: I can borrow all your clothes (as long as you've worn them once), We sleep in the same bed (how else can we talk until we fall asleep?), I can ditch you -- within reason (as long as alternative plans for travel home have been established), I will try to like your boyfriend five times, I will hate and re-like people for you (but don't get mad if sometimes I can't keep track), and It's okay to take me for granted (when you fall in love, but don't forget about me completely).


At any rate, I wasn't blown away by what I read so far, but I did enjoy it and, given my love for Mindy Kaling, I'm sure I'll read the whole thing when it comes out.  That is, unless I get married or pregnant before that, in which case, I'm out.


xo kate

“You can’t do it alone. As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, and spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” - Amy Poehler

Today is the graduation exercises for the Harvard University class of 2011.  As members of the class of 2010, D and I have spent weeks preparing to not even pretend to be genuinely happy for the class of 2011.  We'll be too busy trying to be bitter that we aren't the specialest anymore.  Because although we both think education is great and should be celebrated, we also really like to be the center of attention.  So forget those graduates, focus on us again! 

But, however unexpectedly, that crafty class of 2011 managed to warm our hardened hearts by inviting our girl-crush, Ms. Amy Poehler, as their class day speaker. 

Enjoy her speech here:


And congratulations to the class of 2011.  We guess.

xo kate

"I know this might be uncool/ But I'm just telling the truth/ My self esteem's not low enough to date you/ It's close, but not quite there/ Give me time to get a little bit more desperate/ And you and I could make an awesome pair/ A totally awesome pair." - Garfunkel and Oates

Three up-and-comers in women in comedy.

Heather Morris

"Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?"

Joining the cast of Glee as a professional dancer performing in a musical show, I don't think that Heather Morris intentionally became a comedienne, but her deadpan humor and classic one-liners made Brittany S. Pierce the second best thing about the show.

It remains to be seen if she'll be able to play anything else besides hilariously clueless but as long as she's making the lulls between performances on Glee slightly less mind-numbing, I'm on team Heather.

Garfunkel and Oates

Actresses/Comediennes Kate Micucci (Scrubs, Raising Hope) and Riki Lindhome (Million Dollar Baby) together form the comedic singing duo Garfunkel and Oates.  G&O cleverly and hilariously write and perform original songs that listeners can really identify with, such as "Pregnant Women are Smug" and "This Party Took a Turn for the Douche." 

xo kate

"Scott, this may be solid gold, but to us it's lighter than air, because dreams never weigh you down." - Fairchild Van Waldenberg, Blades of Glory

"It was reported that a spectacular light show that
many stargazers enjoyed last week was created
when the spaceshuttle Discovery emptied their urine tanks.
Haha! Serves you right for looking into space, nerds!"

Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers' room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start.  There were always a lot of noisy "comedy bits" going on in that room.  Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can't remember what it was exactly, except that it was dirty and loud and "unladylike."  


Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, "Stop that! It's not cute! I don't like it."


Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him, "I don't fucking care if you like it." Jimmy was visibly startled.  Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit.  (I should make it clear that Jimmy and Amy are very good friends and there was never any real beef between them. Insert penis joke here.)


With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place.  Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute.  She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.  (Tina Fey, Bossypants, pgs. 143-144)


I think that pretty much sums it up.

xo kate

"I'm not good at anything except writing jokes." - Mindy Kaling

Things I know about Mindy Kaling that I love:

"Oh my God I have so much to tell you!  Tom Cruise and
Katie Holmes, they had a baby and they named it Suri,
and then Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, they had a baby,
too, and they named it Shiloh. And both babies are amazing!" 

(1) Kelly Kapoor is hi-lar-ious.  One of my all time time favorite moments on The Office is when she tells Ryan she's pregnant and the shot cuts to her shaking her head.  Or the one when Ryan, who's at that point the new boss, asks if anyone has any questions and she says, "Yeah, I have a lot of questions.  Number one: how dare you?"  Seriously, I'm giggling to myself just typing it.  I really wish it was on YouTube. Damn you, ComcastNBCUniversalGeneralElectric.

(2) She went to Dartmouth.  And I may or may not be (but definitely am) going to Dartmouth reunion this year in the hopes of meeting her.  Also, a little bit to see my friends.  But a lot to meet Mindy Kaling.

(3) The talented Ms. Kaling, writing under the name Mindy Ephron -- in a nod to the immeasurable Nora Ephron (Wellesley '62) -- used to write an awesome blog called Things I've Bought That I Love.  She stopped writing it about three years ago, but I loved it.  Generally stars writing about all the fancy things they buy with their money would piss me off, but Mindy did it in a way that was not annoying and endearing.  It was funny and totally ridiculous, but she knew that, totally owned it, and posted all the emails her friends wrote her about being frivolous.  I feel like it was her nobody-puts-Baby-in-a-corner moment.

Daryl Philbin is the most complicated man that I have ever met.
I mean, who says exactly what they're thinking? What kind of game is that? 

(4) Since she no longer writes on Things I've Bought That I Love, her Twitter is one of the seven people I follow, six of whom I don't care about.  Seriously, most of the time I don't even sign in -- I just going to twitter.com/mindykaling.

(5) I think that Mindy is the best writer on The Office, as evidenced by the fact that she wrote so many of my favorite episodes, including: The Dundies (the first Dundies awards); The Injury (Michael burns his foot on the George Foreman grill); Ben Franklin (this is the one where they hire the strippers for Phyllis and Bob Vance's bachelorette and bachelor parties but instead of a male stripper they get a Ben Franklin impersonator); Niagara (Jim and Pam's wedding); and Michael's Last Dundies (obvious, right?).

All of this is to say that she's smart, she's funny and I'm fairly certain we'd be best friends if we ever met.  Which we will, since I too am smart, funny and also kind of creepy.

xo kate

"The theme of the Egg Hunt is "learning is delightful and delicious" - as, by the way, am I." - CJ Cregg

Every time I see a White House press conference I think
about how much better it would be if CJ was running it.

Allison Janney is one of the best character actresses in Hollywood today.  She can literally play anything.  From American Beauty to Strangers with Candy, from 9-to-5 to The Hours, from TV to film to stage and voiceover, she's one of the most versatile actresses in Hollywood.  Allison can be the star of the show or a supporting character in one scene and she will always, always. always bring it.

Ms. Janney can also play any kind of funny.  She's hilarious as the trashy mother to Ellen Page's Juno.  She steals the show as the odd-ball Ms. Perky in 10 Things I Hate About You. Her disillusioned mother who maybe hates her kids cracks me up in Away We Go, And, most famously, she's the witty, biting, endearing and painfully bright Press Secretary CJ Cregg on The West Wing.  I can't even describe to you how great this show and this character are.  Over the course of the show's seven years, CJ is the daughter, the mother, the friend, the protector, the agitator and the conscience of the show's male characters.  She is one of the only women in a man's world and plays her role with nuance, humor and grace.  I know she's a fictional character, but she's kind of my idol.  And she's really, really funny.

It's hard to pick a scene from The West Wing because most of them don't really make sense out of the context of the show and the characters, but I think this one works even if you haven't seen an episode.  This is classic West Wing and classic CJ.



xo kate

“What 19-year-old Virginia boy doesn’t want a wide-hipped, sarcastic Greek girl with short hair that’s permed on top? What’s that you say? None of them want that? You are correct. So I spent four years attempting to charm the uninterested.” - Tina Fey

"Why's this book called Bossypants? 
One, because the name Two and 
a Half Men was already taken."

Tina Fey and I have a weird relationship.  I mean, I guess it's mostly that I have a weird relationship with Tina Fey because Tina Fey does not actually know that I exist.  I lovelovelove Tina.  Love her.  And I really want to lovelovelove 30 Rock, because it's her baby.  But I just don't.  I love Alec Baldwin and Jane Krakowski.  I just don't love 30 Rock.  I've tried a bunch of times to make it happen, but it's just not going to work out between us.  Sorry, Liz Lemon, I'm just not that into you.


Luckily, Tina Fey does about 8,302,483,920 other things that I do love.  In high school, I loved her as a writer on Saturday Night Live.  In college, I loved her as a writer and performer in Mean Girls.  In grad school, I loved her as pitch-perfect Sarah Palin on everything.  And in my life that is not currently defined by being in school, I lovelovelove her as the author of the new memoir-or-something (it's not exactly a memoir, it's more like a series of comedic short stories mixed with advice and personal details) Bossypants. Seriously, it's hilarious and poignant and endearing.  It vacillates between priceless anecdotes from childhood, (Including one about the utter confusion that results when a girl gets her first period and it's not bright blue like in maxi-pad commercials.) tales of life at the Second City and Saturday Night Live, (“Only in comedy does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity.") and personal stories about her family and friends.  

"When Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her
grapes in half And stick with beer. " - From the chapter entitled, A Mother's
Prayer for its Daughter)

All if this is told through by women trying to work hard to be the best mother, wife, daughter, friend and professional she can be.  Although Tina's stories are often extraordinary (Not all of us hang out with Alec Baldwin and Will Ferrell everyday. Or are the boss of two hundred people on a hit comedy show.) her voice is ordinary; her struggles to balance work and family, to compromise her ideals and her reality, are universal.  She's almost unbelievably real, and undeniably funny.


xo kate

Stepping toward funny

I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling enormous pressure for Bridesmaids (billed as the female The Hangover) to have a huge opening weekend.  I don't want to feel this pressure because it implies that everything women do has to be some statement about feminism and I don't like that.  But I feel it anyway.  Apparently, the future of comedic women in film is entirely riding on Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo's ability to write a funny movie, starring women and about women that can entertain men.  Although I think this is kind of a ridiculous premise -- if Bridesmaids doesn't do well it's not like women aren't going to continue to be funny and maybe a studio will even take a chance on them again in 75 years or so -- I do heavily resent the prevalent notion that women aren't funny.  Women are hilariously, smartly, stupidly, subtly and not-so-subtly, funny.  And, yet, men (and generally men who aren't very funny) are always telling me that we are not.

How many wedding photographers will force women to pose like this this
wedding season?  I'm guessing it will be roughly equal to the number of
wedding DJs playing Train's Marry Me at receptions.

While I agree that there are far fewer women comedians and women comedy writers than men, I think that this is attributable not to the fact that women aren't funny, but to the massive sexism throughout the entertainment industry.  It's much more difficult for women to get and stay in jobs as comedians and writers because these organizations are run like old boys clubs. (Even Jon Stewart, love of my life, has been accused of being a part of this institutionalized sexism in the workplace.)  From the earliest days of Saturday Night Live female cast members have been underrepresented (both on screen and in the writers room), under-promoted and over-terminated. Allegations abound of SNL producers of firing women over their weight.  Anyone who have ever watched SNL knows that this is not a problem that men on the show experience.  Women writers and cast members have routinely been undermine by male performers -- including SNL darling Jim Belushi who reportedly went out his way to undermine women because "women aren't funny."   SNL cast reunions are notoriously awkward with men squirming, denying and joking as women bring up the mistreatment they experienced.  Ingrained, institutionalized sexism exists throughout the film-making industry, and never is it more obvious than in comedy.

Funny girls.

But "women aren't funny" refrain is not just heard in Hollywood and live from New York, it prevails throughout society.  When describing what they look for in a mate, women consistently look for a man who "is funny", while men are more likely to describe a woman who "laughs at his jokes" or who "has a good sense of humor."   Women aren't expected to be funny, they are just expected to think that men are.  I think this common misconception comes from the same segment of the population that believed (or still believes) that women aren't smart.  Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens writes that men are funny because they are trying to attract women and women aren't funny because they are trying to attract men.  Men don't wish to see women as rivals for comedy or anything else.  He then goes on to write a bunch of bullshit about how this relates to conception and men's overall inferiority to women and how the human condition is about the march to death women can't find the death of a child funny.  That part is a whole load of crap.  But the part about attracting the opposite sex is on the nose.  Women aren't thought to be funny because they aren't allowed to be funny.  If they are too funny, society assumes that they must be making up for something that is wrong with them, like they are fat, or ugly, or barren.  And, if they are pretty and thin and fertilely abled, they should only be funny in a way that is stupid -- like Cameron Diaz, or in a way that plays off the man's humor (the joke is the woman's reaction to the man, not the women herself) like Jennifer Aniston in every movie ever.  It's all part of the societal narrative that teaches women (and men) that they should never be equal to men.  This narrative is so insidious that even the most self-aware and feminist men and women don't realize that they fall into it.  But the root of the problem is not that women inherently aren't funny, it's that they are taught (implicitly and explicitly) that being funny isn't for them. 

Ironically, there is no "Everyone loves 
a funny girl" shirt.

So, is Bridesmaids the key to changing all that?  No.  And even Bridesmaids, with it's sparkling "Judd Apatow Produced" headline, and women-are-obsessed-with-weddings-and-getting-married-concept is certainly not a pillar of feminist values.  But a funny movie that is written by women and about women, but aimed at both women and men, is a step in the right direction.  Having women who are funny as writers, as actresses and as producers is a step in the right direction.  Creating a new normal, where women's humor is valid and appreciated on it's own and not as compensation for something else is a step in the right direction.  This week, in honor of Bridesmaids, I'm going to write about some women that I think are very funny.  Call it my step in the right direction.  Hope you enjoy.


xo kate