My parents were always avid readers of the New Yorker. We had them stacked up all over the house. They kept them like prized souvenirs. And while some of the articles are time sensitive, a lot of them are just timeless. So, I appreciated the fact that there was always something to read to read in our house. Or at least, to look at. I have had a long affair with the New Yorker’s cartoons. In a funny way, it was really my parents who introduced me to Roz Chast, cartoonist and hypochondriac extraordinaire, who I’ve admired since I was in high school. I have literally been following her cartoons, and laughing at her sarcasm and quirky wit since I was 16. In January, on a freezing cold Friday, frigid as New England can serve them up, I went with my husband, who loves Roz like I do, and whose cartoons have played a big part in our 25 year marriage, and my friend Steph, who came up from Connecticut to celebrate our birthdays, which are just four days apart, by seeing Roz at The Sanders Theater. (This place alone was worth the trip. What a gorgeous building.) Roz was sort of slight, not someone who was at all impressed with herself. She was warm, and talked about how her career had come to be, and showed some of her favorite cartoons, and then she disappeared into the bowels of the building like she’d never been there.
Sometimes it’s a little disappointing to see the people you have admired a long time. And in this case, it was a little like that. I really thought she would somehow be TOTALLY HILARIOUS, part Jewish neurosis, part Sally Cynical, part Ellen Degeneres (who, by the way, is the funniest person I have ever seen live. I THOUGHT MY FACE WAS GOING TO FALL OFF.), but she wasn’t. She was sort of ordinary. People laughed, and I giggled politely, but honestly, she wasn’t as funny as I thought she would be, given how brilliant her work is. I guess I forgot that she’s not a stand up comedian, she’s a cartoonist. I have two of her books, which never fail to get me in a good mood. One is called Theories of Everything, which is big and will keep you laughing for a good long time, and the other is called The Party After You Left, which might be the most descriptive book title ever. I mean don’t you just always think when you’re leaving a party, “Oh, now it’s going to get really fun.” Anyway, I’m grateful for all the years Roz has made me laugh and made me feel like we were sharing an inside joke. There’s nothing I love as much as laughing (except maybe my family, well and my dog, and bacon, and there’s the beach, and hair dye, and possibly a good massage, and a lipstick that makes my thin lips appear poutier, and maybe a sale at ABC Carpet, and any piece of clothing that makes me look thin).
*the gratitude-a-thon 