I Miss You When I Blink: EssaysNATIONAL BESTSELLER A charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays by acclaimed writer and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott, “the modern day reincarnation of…Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin—all rolled into one” (The Washington Post), about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on a successful life’s to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list—and herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy. But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies—check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic. She’d done everything “right” but still felt all wrong. What’s the worse failure, she wondered: smiling and staying the course, or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options? Taking on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood, Philpott provides a “frank and funny look at what happens when, in the midst of a tidy life, there occur impossible-to-ignore tugs toward creativity, meaning, and the possibility of something more” (Southern Living). She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife and reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary. Most of all, in this “warm embrace of a life lived imperfectly” (Esquire), Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down. You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong. Who among us isn’t trying to do that? “Be forewarned that you’ll laugh out loud and cry, probably in the same essay. Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. This is a book you’ll want to buy for yourself and every other woman you know” (Real Simple). |
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
The Perfect Murder Weapon | 17 |
Wonder Woman | 27 |
Lobsterman | 39 |
Mermaids and Destiny | 45 |
Disappearing Act | 51 |
POISON | 59 |
Rock You Like a Hurricane | 153 |
No Safe Place | 163 |
A Letter to the Type A Person in Distress | 173 |
Stuck in Traffic | 179 |
Diane von Furstenbergs Apartment | 185 |
Nora Ephron and the Lives of Trees | 193 |
This Is Not My Cat | 199 |
Ungrateful Bitch | 209 |
Good Job | 67 |
This Guy | 81 |
Welcome to the Club | 89 |
The Window | 97 |
Me Real | 107 |
The Expat Concept | 121 |
The Pros and Cons of Joining the Ruby Committee | 133 |
Sports Radio | 143 |
And Then the Dog Died | 221 |
Wish List | 231 |
The Unaccountable Weight of Accountability | 237 |
BlindSpot Detection | 243 |
The Joy of Quitting | 249 |
Try It Again More Like You | 265 |
Acknowledgments | 273 |
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Common terms and phrases
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