Guest Book Review: I will always say YES to Shonda Rhimes.

Disclosure: I am a Shonda Rhimes fan (duh): Meredith, Addison, Olivia, Annalise. You name, I worship.

So it really should come as no surprise that I loved her first book, Year of Yes. I loved it on spec, really. Shondaland disciples understand. (Juju be with you. And also with you.) But I was still excited that it met and exceeded my expectations. It was great to read about SHONDA, not just to see her peppered into little bits of her characters.

As you may infer from the title, Rhimes dedicated a year to saying “yes” to things outside her introverted writer comfort zone: giving the commencement speech at her alma mater (Dartmouth, NBD); losing more than 100 pounds; making self-care a priority; saying “no” when necessary; accepting praise — as a woman especially — with a “thank you” and no attempt to negate or downplay your achievements. (Have y’all seen that Inside Amy Schumer thing? You should. We all should. And then we should all knock that shit off.)

Really the best thing I can say about the book is: it made me feel better. I hesitate to use the word “inspirational,” because UGH. But it was. It helped me during a tough time (specifically, the week I happened to be reading it, my brain was not being especially kind to me). But the book still made me laugh so hard my lady-belly ached. I had to put it down multiple times to laugh it out. On at least one page, Rhimes had me brimming with weepy tears, then cry-laughing two paragraphs later. It’s one of those comforting books that made me feel like things are actually pretty OK — I am a badass lady and I shall “power pose like Wonder Woman,” and if you don’t like it, you can just step right off.

I actually bought a LivingSocial deal for an audiobook site just so I could have Shonda Storytime. Maybe her “badassery” can infiltrate me via hypnosis osmosis while I sleep.

Her reflections on Mommy Wars were insightful and hilarious, even though I don’t have children. Standing up at a PTA meeting and shouting “Are you fucking kidding me?!” when they demanded homemade desserts instead of store-bought? Hero. But it also made me think about how I speak to my friends who are mothers, and to consider again the way women address and judge each other. (By the end of that chapter, you too will be all, “Whitney Houston. Curling iron. Solidarity.” Just trust me.)

My favorite chapter was the one about her weight loss, how food is amazing and DOES make you feel better, because it’s delicious but also because it’s a lovely, numbing spackle for your internal wounds. Oh, Shonda — you had me at “Cheesecake will always taste like love.”

My new favorite expression — and get ready, because you’ll see me use it in the future — is “veal practice.”

“Did I tell you what veal practice is?” asks Rhimes. “Oh! Veal practice involved me lying very still on the sofa trying as hard as I could to mimic the life of a veal. While eating veal. I wish I were kidding. It. Was. Magic.”

Veal practice, people. It’s gonna be a thing.

2015 was actually my own Year of Yes — a year that brought me Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy, Matthew Quick’s Silver Linings Playbook, and finally Year of Yes, the icing on the therapeutic cake (but only metaphorical cake because I try not to use cake as therapy anymore).

Rhimes’ book is, in essence, about deciding to stop living your life being small — meek, numb, detached. Going through the motions, doing only what you have to, not being present, not feeling joy. Sleeping, basically…hardly even living. I struggle every day NOT to live that way, but she’s right — sometimes it really is easier, so I can’t say I always succeed.

It was as if this year the book gods had bestowed upon me the exact books I needed to get my shy ass off the couch and out to an aerial yoga with a Creative Ladies’ Club full of women I didn’t know, to an oral sex class or a burlesque workshop, and to really deal with my family issues and these romantic ensnarements I can’t escape — Olivia Pope ahoy, y’all. (I suspect I won’t get past them until I find my own Jake Ballard, though, so I think I just have to wait that out. Plus, Liv totally screwed up that Jake thing. I mean, honestly — Jake taught you how to shoot, danced to Stevie Wonder with you, fingered you on a tropical beach, and brought you Gettysburger. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT, OLIVIA? You want “Olitz,” seriously? Fitz is a giant bitch-baby with an overly emotive forehead. Vermont is cold, and jam sucks — Jake shakes like jelly. For the love of God, Liv, go STAND IN THE SUN!!!!!!)

*pant* *pant* *pant*

I sense I have too many feelings about this.

So. You go get yourself a copy of Year of Yes.

And I? I will go enjoy some veal practice.

#YearOfYes

*At my request (pleading, really), the lovely people at Simon & Schuster send me a copy of Year of Yes for my review.

Singleton/Poehler 2016!

Screw it, you guys — I am also running for president. 
The main focus of my platform will be universal pie and vibrators. In fact, by the end of my first term, I’d like us to have pie-brators. I’m not exactly sure what that would entail, but that’s where your generous funding comes in. Together, we can make the merging of baked goods and sex toys a glorious (if sticky) wave of the future. And gentlemen, I didn’t forget you — check my website to read all about my Fleshlight Freedom Initiative, coming (heh) in 2017. 

Other key priorities of my campaign: 

• Naps. 
• Very low-dose Xanax in the drinking water. (I promise not to create Reavers.)
• Once-monthly days off for when you just can’t even, and also for when the weather is too nice to go to work. 
• Cute bras and clothes available in all sizes. 
• Food delivery through your TV, like when the Golden Girls have cheesecake, you can say, “TV, fetch me cheesecake,” and it WILL (see also: The Making “Fetch” Happen Doctrine — we’re gonna do it!)
• Freedom puppies. 
• A constitutional amendment banning alarm clocks.
• All establishments that serve coffee shall also deliver it. 
• Barnes and Noble stores all get converted to huge, constantly-restocked libraries where you can just take books as you choose and return them if/when you feel like it. (Again, you send me money, I’ll work out the logistics.)

Stephen Colbert is Secretary of Everything; Anna Kendrick will be my Ambassador of Stuff. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye are the new co-leaders of the EPA.

And Amy Poehler will be my VP. Obviously. 

So vote for me, people. With liberty, and punch and pie for all. 

Except for Donald Trump and Kanye West. No punch and pie for you. No.

Quotable Poehler

“Since I’ve spent most of my life in rooms filled with men, I feel like I know you well. I love you. I love the shit out of you. I think this book will speak to men in a bunch of different ways. I should also point out that there is a secret code in each chapter, and if you figure it out, it unlocks the next level and you get better weapons to fight the zombie quarterbacks on the Pegasus Bridge.”

— Amy Poehler, Yes Please

Hot women-on-women crime…

Apparently it’s an Elizabeth Gilbert kind of day in my brain, but I was also thinking about this after reading Amy Poehler’s book, Yes Please, where she talks about stay-at-home moms v. working moms, breastfeeding, and that whole culture, and listening to Girl On Guy with Aisha Tyler discussing infertility and the completely inappropriate and disheartening things people can say about it.
Even besides being kind to other women, just… don’t be a dick to anyone, OK? Generally. Blanket policy. I LOVE blankets. I love dick. WIN-WIN.

Unless people are dicks to you. Then by all means, you dick right back. You hear me? YOU. DICK. RIGHT. BACK.

(I may be a little winter-loopy, sorry.)

But P.S.? You look terrific!