Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)

Interviews & Essays

Questions from Jen Lancaster to Jenny Lawson:

Jen Lancaster: You appear to have a soft spot for dead, stuffed creatures, particularly if they're clad in bowler hats or acting out a scene—please explain.

Jenny Lawson: My father is a professional taxidermist, so it's not like I had a fighting chance. And besides, I think the real question here is, who wouldn't be interested in ferrets in cancan dresses? Old anthropomorphic taxidermy is fascinating and I've collected an entire menagerie of creatures that make up my personal posse. Cuban pirate alligators, Shakespearean mice, heavily armed squirrels, vampire-slaying ducklings. I'm not sure how you say no to those. My husband can, but I'm fairly sure there's something not right about him. Anyone who can turn his nose up at the Last Supper constructed of Victorian kittens has a problem. I suspect it's because he's a Republican.

Jen Lancaster: Who would you say is more powerful, The Bloggess Army or the KISS Army? Compare and contrast.

Jenny Lawson: My gut says the Bloggess Army is a bit more intimidating because we don't dress up like kitties, but I'd probably still pick the KISS Army because Gene Simmons scares the shit out of me. Plus, my fans are less of an army and more of a collection of misfit minions looking to have a good time. Actually, now that I think about it, there's probably a lot of crossover with the KISS Army. We should host a potluck together.

Jen Lancaster: Can you believe some people don't know what a confidence wig is?

Jenny Lawson: Right?! It's shocking how often I walk in with one and I hear people whispering about the poor cancer patient that just walked in. I'm not a cancer patient, people. I just wear a wig to increase confidence. Plus, if I really mortify myself, I can just run to the bathroom, throw away the wig, and come back in and ask everyone who invited the crazy blonde that just crawled out of the bathroom window. There is no downside.

Jen Lancaster: What's it going to take for Nathan Fillion to send you a photo of himself holding a ball of twine?

Jenny Lawson: I think it's going to take Nathan Fillion holding a ball of twine. I've offered him thousands of dollars and he still rebuffs me. I have no idea what the hold up is, but I can only imagine that Nathan Fillion is allergic to either twine or to bringing smiles to the faces of strange women who really aren't asking for that much, Nathan.

Jen Lancaster: Complete this sentence: "An oversized metal chicken . . . "

Jenny Lawson: "Means never having to say you're sorry. Because it's not towels."

Jen Lancaster: Snooki or Kim Kardashian?

Jenny Lawson: Alphabetically, or in order of who is most likely to fuck up the youth of America? Because those are two different answers. Or possibly they aren't, now that I think about it.

Jen Lancaster: What would you be doing if you weren't writing? ("Hard time" is an acceptable and, frankly, the anticipated answer, FYI.)

Jenny Lawson: Well, I was going to say "hard time" but now you've ruined it. Which makes me feel stabby. Which leads to hard time. I think this is an example of circular logic. In real life, though, I'd be writing. Before my book it was blogging and before blogging, it was journaling and several times in between, it was graffiti. Writers write always. I thought Ray Bradbury said that, but I can't find the quote anywhere so I'm taking credit for it. Writers write always.

Jen Lancaster: I don't consider you a mommyblogger, but many PR companies do. What's the worst pitch you've gotten?

Jenny Lawson: Once a PR exec accidentally "replied to all" and called me "a fucking bitch" after I asked them to stop sending me pitches about a Kardashian wearing panty hose. He replied that I should feel flattered that I was even viewed as relevant enough to be pitched to, and I replied "Please stand by for a demonstration of relevancy" and tweeted it out to hundreds of thousands of people. It was kind of awesome. And terrifying.

Jen Lancaster: Wil Wheaton or William Shatner?

Jenny Lawson: Wil Wheaton. Unless we're doing the "destroying America thing" again. Then I have to recalculate. William Shatner and I are still recovering from a feud that was covered by MSNBC and Gawker when he refused to come to my house after I apparently offered him the wrong type of hooker. That man is a damn diva. Wil Wheaton, on the other hand, is an officer and a gentleman. William Shatner could learn a lot from that man.

Jen Lancaster: If you had one piece of advice for someone hoping to follow your career path, what would it be?

Jenny Lawson: My one word of advice would be "FORTHELOVEOOFGODDON'T." I've fallen backward into this, and I have done every single thing wrong. I have no sacred cows and am fairly unmarketable to any mainstream advertisers. I burn bridges because I like the pretty way they glow and I do exactly the opposite of everything I'm ever told to do. Thank God there's a steady stream of intellectual misfits and misanthropic joy-seekers who get me, because that's the only thing that's saved me. Finding my tribe was a great gift that the Internet gave me. I returned the favor with tweets about shit my cat was doing. We're pretty even.

Jen Lancaster: What's it like to ride around in your head for the day?

Jenny Lawson: Cramped. Exhausting. Exhilarating. Baffling. I have no way to compare it, but whenever I let slip the bizarre things I'm thinking about, people seem alarmed and step away slowly, so I think "disorientating" is probably fair as well.

An additional Q&A with Jenny Lawson
Quick, when you hear the letters B and N, you think of. .. ?

"I'd like to buy a vowel." Then I think, "Hell, I've wasted my turn," because it's clearly Barnes & Noble.

Favorite book ever?

One day when I get to heaven I'm going to be asked why I didn't put "The Bible, of course" here. Truthfully, though, my favorite book ever is probably the collected works of Ray Bradbury. The man is a damn genius.

Favorite top five authors?

Neil Gaiman
Ray Bradbury
David Sedaris
Dorothy Parker
Hunter S. Thompson

First book you remember buying at a bookstore?

Ramona and Her Father, by Beverly Cleary. It was one of my favorite books, and I always related to Ramona—never fitting in and always messing up everything. I reread it again as an adult recently and was surprised to realize that it was really about kids dealing with a parent suffering from depression and unemployment. I suddenly felt I could identify with Ramona's father as much as with Ramona. It's the mark of a strong book that it still holds up thirty-plus years later.

How old were you when you learned to read?

Five. I read early (for the time) because we didn't have much else to keep us occupied. When I was little, the bookmobile would come and we'd walk to it and fill our bags to bursting and then slowly devour the books. I remember having to limit myself to just a few chapters at a time so I wouldn't run out before the bookmobile made its run back to the country. In a way, I think I'm lucky that we had so little but always had access to books, because it taught me the joy of escaping into other worlds. When I'd run out of books to read, I'd pull out a notebook and write my own stories. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but boredom is the mother of authors.

If you didn't write, what would you do?

Drugs, probably. I use writing as a therapy to help me deal with chronic pain and various fun mental disorders. I used to do art therapy, but my rheumatoid arthritis is so bad now that it's hard to draw sometimes. Writing saved me.

Why should people buy your book?

Because they will feel much better about themselves by comparison. The book is basically a compilation of all the most mortifying moments of my life—and why those moments ended up being the best ones. .. the ones that made me who I am today.

If you could cast the movie of your book, who would play you? Your husband, Victor? Hamlet von Schnitzel?

Mindy Kaling would play me, because we have the same voice. Victor would be Seth Rogen. My dad would be played by Zach Galifianakis. My mom would be Don Cheadle, because I think he has great range.

In your author photo, you're in a bathrobe with a towel and a cat on your head. One of our favorite chapters of the book takes place while you are in the bathroom with (spoiler alert!) your cat on the other side of the door. The other day you tweeted a picture of yourself almost naked. Do you ever wear real clothes? Are you ever more than twenty feet away from your cat?

I was wearing clothes while I was in the bathroom. Who goes to the bathroom naked? How messy is it going to get, for God's sake? Also, I wasn't completely naked in that picture I tweeted. I was wearing a wolf. Technically the wolf was naked, though. And no, I'm never more than twenty feet away from my cat. Mostly because my cat has separation anxiety. Ferris Mewler will probably go on tour with me. He'll be the naked one in the cat suit.

The tagline for your book is "For every intellectual misfit." But if you're such a misfit, how do you explain that you have 200,000 followers on Twitter?

There are lots of misfits out there. For every one person who reads my stuff and identifies, there are a hundred others who don't get it at all and who also loved high school and can't wait to pay their taxes and go to jury duty. They probably also never show up on the news mostly naked. I feel sorry for those people.

Where is Beyoncé right now?

He's in the backyard, but a windstorm knocked him over. Victor keeps going to the window and yelling, "CHICKEN DOWN," but neither of us has the strength to go pick Beyoncé up. So now we're just pretending that he's sleeping. He looks totally peaceful.

You've invited us over for dinner—thank you, we'd love to come. What should we expect when we walk in the door of your house? What should we wear? What will we eat? And will it be good?

Honestly? You'll be greeted by a life-sized Marie Antoinette, in the form of a parade-float statue, and a three-story haunted dollhouse. We'll eat sandwiches from the gas station nearest us because I can't cook, and then I'll make us homemade booze snow-cones. Then I'll have a panic attack and hide in the bathroom, but I'll invite you to join me. Black tie optional. IT WILL BE AMAZING.