anxiety – Memoirable Moments

So last night I spent an hour zooming with Judy Blume and Jenny Lawson, and it was a little bit mind blowing. Partially because I was star-struck, but mainly because Judy Blume’s purple glasses are the height of fashion and I couldn’t stop staring at them. They both look like people who would help you up from the sidewalk if you happened to faceplant near them.

The meeting was essentially a book tour for Jenny Lawson to talk about her new book Broken: In the Best Possible Way (she also wrote Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy, both of which live on my bookshelf) while Judy Blume asked her questions about it. But really it was Jenny and Judy talking about starting their own bookstores, when they decided to grace the world with their humor, and how anxious they both are. When Judy is anxious, she eats half a cupcake (she said she was so anxious before the meeting that she ended up going back for a second half from the freezer). Jenny battled her pre-meeting anxiety by drinking a large cup of discount rum during the entire interview (pictured below).

A pair of true queens. I love them both. (Also shoutout to Muffy, the sign language interpreter, for being equally as impressive.)

Instead of doing the things I’m supposed to be doing (hours of grad school work, editing articles for a marketing company, cleaning the apartment, discovering something I can eat for breakfast that isn’t made of chocolate), I have been trying to come up with what kind of book to write.

Originally it was going to be a memoir. Then maybe a graphic novel. I briefly thought about a children’s book. Maybe poetry? A wordless picture book full of amazing illustrations? A book of conversations I’ve had with strangers? A book entirely written in tweets?

And I have come to the conclusion that it will have to be a mixture of all of those things. But you could write more than one book, Emily. You don’t have to create the book version of filling a cup with every soda that the soda machine offers until you’ve formed a gross brown liquid that seemed great in theory but actually makes you gag.

You’re right but you’re also wrong, because I want this book to be a reflection of my mind, which means it will include pages of humorous dialogue, beautiful prose, collaged pictures, rambling inner monologues about anxiety, old poetry, awkward pictures from my childhood, probably a lot of lists, and maybe even some fun puzzles because WHY NOT.

Get excited, everyone.