A Love Letter For Tina Fey

Dear Tina,

I can call you Tina, right? I've read Bossypants twice, so I feel like I know you. And I love you. This is probably making me sound like a creepy stalker, but I swear I'm not. First of all, I'm not creepy. Second of all, I'm way too lazy to stalk anyone. And if I was going to stalk anyone, it would probably be Taylor Kitsch. Or Jon Stewart. Or Brett Favre.

I have eclectic tastes.

Anyway, I love your work - 30 Rock, Bossypants, Mean Girls, essays, some of my favorite SNL years. But more than your work, I love that you are so honestly yourself. You don't try to pretend that you're perfect or that every aspect of your life is perfect all the time. You have this amazing career, a great family, a bunch of (much deserved) awards, and yet you still fret about things.

I find it comforting. Reassuring, even. The knowledge that even if I became the most successful mommy blogger of all time (or managed to actually finish a book and publish it and have it turned into a movie), with the financial security, uber-patient nanny and awesome housecleaner that would come along with that success, I would still have moments of insecurity. I would still feel like I was juggling things not very successfully all the time. I would still cry for no good reason every ninth Tuesday.

I think our generation of women  has always had this idea that we could do it all, that we should do it all and that it wouldn't be that hard. I have a friend who was really ticked that she was still having these times of insecurity and panic when she turned 40. As if we would eventually hit a point, at 30 or 40 or whenever, where we would have everything figured out. That all those inner critics and inner 13 year olds would disappear suddenly. I had that idea too, until I started reading books and blogs by all these amazing women, who sometimes trip or feel insecure or say the wrong thing.

I'm so grateful to you and to the other successful women who are openly imperfect (Mindy Kaling! Kathy Griffin! Scary Mommy! The Bloggess! Jenn Lancaster! Laurie Notaro! Jenna Fischer! Adele! And that's who I can think of off the top of my head. Who did I forget?). I'm so thankful that you have helped create a world in which Christopher Hitchens seems like a total idiot for not thinking women are funny. I love that you are a feminist in my favorite sense of the word, not someone obsessed with checking all the boxes of stereotypical academic feminism.

You make me look forward to the (fast-approaching) day when I need glasses. You make me proud of my husband for having such a huge crush on you. You make me proud to have a been a theater nerd. You make my teenage self proud to have been called "too smart" by too many loser guys. You make me happy.

                                                                                                          Thanks,
                                                                                                             Jen

Mama What?

I don't make fun of Sarah Palin much on this blog because Tina Fey does it so much better. To be honest, the whole blog would be better if Tina Fey wrote it, but I believe she's busy writing Emmy winning television shows and doesn't blog much. When I grow up, I want to be Tina Fey.

Oh right, this post isn't actually about Tina Fey and my massive girl crush.

It's not really about Sarah Palin either, though. It's about her fans. Her fellow "Mama Grizzlies".

Do we really want our parenting skills and feelings to be likened to those of the grizzly bear?

Assuming that losing at least a hundred IQ points doesn't bother you (it does me. I'm pro smart people. Especially government people. But I digress.), I want you to imagine spending 2 years alone with your kids.

No mate. No family. No friends. Because that's how grizzlies do it.

They hibernate every winter.

Also, there's inbreeding.

And finally, there's the part that I believe Palin likes. Grizzlies, of course, attack when their cubs are threatened. Threatened can mean that humans are too close to the cubs, even if said people are minding their own business. Threatened can mean that anything is close to their cubs, even if said things have no interest in the cubs.

Because grizzlies bears are not smart enough to tell what is an actual threat and what is some idiot hiker wandering off the trail. Which, I believe, describes Palin and her ilk perfectly.

Gay marriage is not going to hurt their children. Health care for poor kids is not going to hurt their children. Whether or not there is a mosque at Ground Zero is not going to even affect their children because none of them live in lower Manhattan.

Yes, I believe in protecting my children. I'll fight to the death for them.

Just don't call me a "Mama Grizzly".