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Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs
Raised in Manhattan by her overprotective sex-therapist mother (who wore “nine inches of shoulder pads”), Wendy Spero has always sought excitement in microthrills, the small, strange highs that give her life meaning—from finding a strip tease video of her grandmother to selling knives door-to-door. As a little girl, Spero passed the time sniffing fruit-scented markers and breaking up arguments between her imaginary friends. As an adult, in her first office job, she formed an unusual relationship with her boss that involved as much marijuana-smoking as it did mentoring. Called “a profoundly funny human being” by Time Out New York, Spero is now a comedian living in L.A., grappling with such grown-up issues as trying to kick her addiction to eating candy in bed and learning how to drive.
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Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs
Raised in Manhattan by her overprotective sex-therapist mother (who wore “nine inches of shoulder pads”), Wendy Spero has always sought excitement in microthrills, the small, strange highs that give her life meaning—from finding a strip tease video of her grandmother to selling knives door-to-door. As a little girl, Spero passed the time sniffing fruit-scented markers and breaking up arguments between her imaginary friends. As an adult, in her first office job, she formed an unusual relationship with her boss that involved as much marijuana-smoking as it did mentoring. Called “a profoundly funny human being” by Time Out New York, Spero is now a comedian living in L.A., grappling with such grown-up issues as trying to kick her addiction to eating candy in bed and learning how to drive.
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Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs

Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs

by Wendy Spero
Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs
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Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs

Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs

by Wendy Spero

Overview

Raised in Manhattan by her overprotective sex-therapist mother (who wore “nine inches of shoulder pads”), Wendy Spero has always sought excitement in microthrills, the small, strange highs that give her life meaning—from finding a strip tease video of her grandmother to selling knives door-to-door. As a little girl, Spero passed the time sniffing fruit-scented markers and breaking up arguments between her imaginary friends. As an adult, in her first office job, she formed an unusual relationship with her boss that involved as much marijuana-smoking as it did mentoring. Called “a profoundly funny human being” by Time Out New York, Spero is now a comedian living in L.A., grappling with such grown-up issues as trying to kick her addiction to eating candy in bed and learning how to drive.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781101218006
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 08/03/2006
Sold by: Penguin Group
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
Sales rank: 713,598
File size: 422 KB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Wendy Spero is an award-winning comedian and actress, and author and performer of the acclaimed one-woman show Who's Your Daddy?. She has been featured on NPR, Comedy Central, VHI, and NBC, and in The New Yorker. She has written for Esquire and The New York Times.

Table of Contents


Welcome to the Microcosmos     xi
Shoulder Padded Muuutual Masturbation     1
Einstein, the Filmmaker     8
Live-in Sidekicks     24
E.T. and OCD     41
A Day in the Life of a Spero Hydra     52
Me, Mom, and Him     67
An Emotional Outlet     75
Vertical Halloweens     83
The Hippo and the Tortoise     92
The Traveling Monchhichis     102
Leaving the Lower Math Group     108
The Pull of Lycra     118
Molly Ringwald or Ally Sheedy?     128
Neopragmatic Hegemonic Paradigms     134
Free Spatulas     143
Apt. 6C     151
How Cool Is My Mom?     163
Why I Ended Up Buying the Most Hideously Bulbous Down Jacket of All Time     167
It's Not You, It's Me     177
Sticky Affairs     182
A Wedding Announcement     190
Stranger Bonding     195
Mom's Big Break     202
Gary     206
Mini Driver     221
Acknowledgments     237

What People are Saying About This

Jill Soloway

MICROTHRILLS was a series of micro-orgasms for me, not only in my funny bone, but throughout my brain. I love the magical minutiae of the way Wendy Spero's mind works. This book will be loved, loved, loved by all. (co-executive producer, Six Feet Under; author, Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants)

Ed Helms

Spero takes you inside her tiny, hilarious world with a brazen vulnerability that is the rare province of truly great humorists.... David Sedaris watch your back! (Ed Helms, The Daily Show)

Sarah Silverman

Reading MICROTHRILLS is like breathing air -- it feels natural. You don't feel yourself reading. Wendy Spero paints a world both familiar and unique -- so specific that you feel implanted in her moments. What I'm trying to say is I really liked it. And I'm trying to say it in a hoity-toity way.

A. J. Jacobs

Funny and touching and insightful. Microthrills is all about the little highlights of life—and by the first chapter, I knew it was going to be a highlight of my reading year. (A. J. Jacobs, author, The Know-It-All)

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