Tina Fey Grew Up In My Backyard

When I wrote hyacinth tea in the last post, I meant hibiscus.  HIBISCUS.  The internetz is saying that hyacinth tea is, in fact, very much poisonous.  I'm still here and not strong enough to combat poisonous teas, so yeah, hibiscus it was.  I don't know how I mixed up the two, but if I'm being honest, I will probably mix the two up again at some point in the near future.  Nothing sticks, I tell you.

Moving on to bigger and grander, more fascinating news: I have been reading this summer.  Woo-wee, have I been reading.  I've been sluggishly moping around with brain-splitting headaches caused by my terrible dry eyes to prove it.  The amount of ibuprofen I've consumed this summer is alarming.

Tina Fey's Bossypants was just as bad as I thought it would be, which doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it.  I've always had an interest in Ms. Fey's talent and success.  She grew up in a neighborhood adjacent to mine.  By virtue of the fact that we were raised drinking the same tap water, there's a certain level of camaraderie in that, you know?  Before we moved to a Philadelphia zip code, it was an apartment complex in Upper Darby where I learned to eat solid foods, walk, and potty-train my baby doll.  It's a real wonder how I would carefully position my doll on top of my potty training bowl (there's a picture to prove it), but my own behind?  Not so much.  Let's just say that I was not a good potty trainee.

Bossypants was a good, light read.  In two short sittings, while I didn't laugh out loud or find her stories particularly engaging, I smiled whenever she mentioned one of the many neighborhood landmarks that I had forgotten about.  From the local parochial schools, the aquarium, the hair salon where I had also gotten a hideous perm, and to the local Dairy Queen where my mother always got her vanilla cone dipped in a butterscotch shell, I recognized them all.  It was the act of pulling these small memories from a time so long ago that kept me turning the pages.

It wasn't that I have particularly fond memories from that time period; it was that pieces of those memories were familiar.  The mind is a funny thing.  It so readily and willingly settles for the odd comfort that only the familiar can offer.