My Book is #1 New Release! I'm So Nervous I Want To Barf? And Yes, I'll be with Anne Lamott in SF! Tonight's Launch is in Santa Monica. Then Pasadena, Kalamazoo, Montecito, PDX, Ohio. You Coming?

Proof of Life publishes today! I'm picking the Italy retreat winner tonight at my book launch- so you have until 630 pm pst to enter. Come hug me in person this week? Let's do this!

Tonight! July 8. It’s Pub Day Celebration with me and Shannon! RSVP here. I’m scared it’s going to be 4 people. My Inner Asshole is bullying me, you guys. (So rude.)

Come see Anne Lamott and me in SF at Writing Room? Or…. stream it virtually?

Sign up here. Or click on our mugs below Dr. Evil’s. I still can’t believe I’m doing a thing with The Anne “Bird by Bird” Lamott, or that she blurbed the f*ck out of my book and gave me the greatest gift I could’ve dreamed up (if I was bolder and allowed myself to dream such dreams) by mentioning my sense of humor on the cover! That’s right, dear readers, that is a victory. Consider the fact that my book falls under the category known as: self-help. Sense of humor is not usually synonymous with self-help. Until now! (Insert evil laugh here.)

Things:

• I love you. Like I really really love you. Just look at what you (we) did. Number 1 New Release on Amazon? What! Please tag me in all the pictures and posts, if you do such things. I will repost and cry a little (lot) and pinch myself and holler Thank you out loud and also Ouch, because I will probably (definitely) stub my toe or bump into the edge of table or into a wall and I’ll probably (definitely) scare my neighbors, but tag the f out of me in all of it. #proofoflifebook #proofoflife #anyhashtagyouwant #hashtagsaresilly #iamsilly #whatevenissleep

• I wrote this whole long poetic-ish email to you while I was on set with Henry, during his night shoot last night. He was filming a movie with the loveliest people- Valerie Bertinelli and Eric McCormack (Will of Will and Grace) and that felt refreshing, Like an exhale when I’ve been keep forgetting to.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 3 a.m. and I had to- yes, had to-eat some cookies, then start to write an essay that I have due on finding our I Got You People- and yea, I said start, and yea, I said at 3 a.m. When my eyes got heavy, just as the sun was just coming up, I slept for two seconds, or some such nonsense., and then, we had to leave for the airport to make our way back to LA from Vancouver.

All that to say, I forgot to send the email because of course I did. Would you expect anything less?

Good. I’m glad I’ve set the bar so medium-ish/low.

I am going on book tour! Starts tonight in Santa Monica at Diesel Books. With me and OG Badass

Shannon Watts

at 6:30 pm.!

RSVP here, where it will direct you to buy a book, which serves as your ticket.

If you have already bought a book (thank you!) and want to come to the Santa Monica one, consider gifting the second book or doing a giveaway? I would sign the book, of course, which would make a giveaway fun. I’ll sign it in blood. Just kidding. I will sign it in chocolate if you bring me the real good kind. (Which means: any kind.)

If you’re turned on by guilt trips, here you go: I will cry if you don’t come and I have cried so much (see more on crying below, if you care to. If you have had enough crying for Quite Some Time Thank You, do not see below for more on crying.)

The email that never got sent was all about my book tour. A tour I have sucked balls in telling people about- and which I now suck even more and bigger balls for- I am not into sucking any kind of balls and don’t @ me either. I don’t know why I keep insisting on using that dumb expression, except for the sheer fact that it’s dumb and sometimes I just appreciate a good, solid dumb thing. You know?

• My book published!, It felt like it took 800 years, but now, suddenly it’s the blink of an eye, the bat of that stupid eye’s fake eyelash. Fuck you too, TIME. You gaslighter!

• Wed night in Pasadena starts at 7. Come see me and Henry Czerny by rsvp-ing here. It’s going be a good one. He might be in his Mission Impossible character though (Kittridge.) Also, he has a crazy mustache for a role. Vroman’s Bookstore. Be there, weirdos.

• Kalamazoo, as in Michigan. If you are anywhere even in the state of Michigan- you need to come. You will pee your pants with laughter at Samantha Irby. I meant not at her, but you know. Also, maybe at her? I dunno. Get ready. Here ya go. RSVP if you want the best and funniest night of your life. Henry will be there, too.

• The rest are all listed here and you can always email me. I have events at Godmother’s in Summerland, Ca (Montecito) on July 13, Powells in Portland July 15, San Francisco with Anne Motherfuckin’ Lamott on July 16, Columbus, Ohio with me and Maggie Smith and Henry again on July 30, and July 31 in Santa Monica with Debbie Millman. More to come so stay tuned. (I will be in Chicago Sep 9 and will post asap about my event there.) Click here for all that are listed so far.

• If you can’t come see me in person (why do you hate me?¹) and you want to order the book from an Indie bookseller, great. Click here to do that and get a signed copy. Otherwise, get it wherever you can (including Amazon.) If you want a shot at winning my Sep 13-20 Italy retreat spot, you have to purchase 10 copies from any indie bookseller (here is a link for indies)) and email me proof of purchase by 630 pm pst Tues night. If you want to enter as a donation, meaning that if you were to win, I would donate the spot to a woman who has lost a child- that is a beautiful mitzvah. Just let me know. I’ll probably cry more. I have a long list of women. (You immediately get a lifetime paid subscription to my Substack just by entering the contest, too.) I’ll pick the Italy winner at the bookstore with Shannon Watts, just after we finish our sesh. Exciting!

My episode on Debbie Millman’s podcast is live. Listen here, or by clicking on the photo below (taken by

T. Chick McClure

.) Debbie & I will be together in Santa Monica on July 31st at

Zibby Owens

Bookstore. RSVP now as space is limited (but you can also livestream it you are not local.)

Real quick. You guys! Come over. Run me a bath. Hold me. Give me snacks. I don’t know, rescue me from my Inner Asshole or something. Binge a show all night long with me, just so I can whine how I got no sleep and not be alone in doing so. Braid my hair. Just kidding. (It is odd how there are no question marks after any of those things, as if I am commanding you.² I don’t particularly love me in a braid either to be honest, but that just felt like it was something tender and comforting a mom would do for her little girl WHEN SHE WAS SCARED SHITLESS. I’m the little (old) girl. Hi.

If you have ordered the book: thank you.

I will shut up soon about it all, trust you me, but in the meantime: thank you. Also, now it is ORDER, rather than Pre-Order. OMG! It’s real! I’m going to hide under the bed bye. bye. bye again.

hi. i’m back.

My son is in London with his Daddy and I miss him so much it hurts. He sent me that video just before I boarded the plane (which I posted, along with a caption on my Insta). Can you even stand him though? Ugh, he is my whole heart. He is so funny, I just know my dead dad, that mensch, had a hand in that one. I’m no dummy, ya dummy!

Please ignore if you saw it already on Instagram, but most likely, if you’re like 98.9% of people, you might have seen it, but didn’t read the caption. I am not above this attention span deficit. I am, in fact, far below it.)

On my Instagram, I’d written:

I don’t have concise words for how I’m feeling-not sure there are any.

Lack of sleep simply adds to feeling RAW.

My book publishes tomorrow and I can’t stop the tears.

It’s still such a new thing to be able to cry.

Plus: sober. So, no buffer.

Add to that: coming back to a country that’s more and more (openly) hate-filled feels backwards and I can’t stop thinking of those Camp Mystic kids/parents. I wrote a whole lot about that in my email last night- the one I never sent.

I’m sitting with just how much I’ve pushed everything down my entire life. How I pushed everything right back inside, as if that would make it not be so. Or how I left my body or escaped in some sort of manner.

(Hi dad dying when I was 8 AND never dealing w/ that UNTIL NOW.)

This morning I realized in a drunken haze (minus the drunk part but lack of sleep makes you FEEL drunk, so kind of same same, minus literal booze):

It hit me that I once again haveset myself up by (unconsciously) thinking that something (my book this time) will:

• finally fix me,

• finally fill the hole,

• finally make me good,

• finally prove I’m deserving.

(yeah I hear myself. Even while deaf.)

FFS!

That’s my whole book right there. The irony is so ironic that it isn’t even ironic and that made no fucking sense. But for real this time, Proof of Life is literally about:

reminding us (myself! me! Raises bot hands! I need constant reminders) that:

• There’s nothing we can ever show that makes us worthy or lovable or valuable

• We never need to (or will be able to) prove that because: We are our own proof of life.

I wrote the dang book! And yet. And yet. And yet.

I feel like I’ve (once again) set myself up for disappointment.

Oh ya know, the ole:

• Didn’t do enough,

• Didn’t work hard enough,

• Didn’t get noticed by the “right” people (lol like there even is such a thing) enough

Bla bla 🤮

I don’t know WHY I’m so emotional. All of it? None of it? Who knows?

I just am and so it is. It is what is so.

What I do know: I AM grateful.

Thank you for putting up w my yapping about the importance of preorders ad nauseum

and thank you to those who supported that.

I AM very proud of this book.

Also: terrified. It’s vulnerable in a way that you’ll just have to experience, and maybe you won’t experience that. Not for me to say. Or decide. t for you to FEEL. And whatever you feel is perfect.

Maybe it’s just for me to feel that particular hot rush of vulnerability? Who can say?

Maybe it’s the letting go that’s so terrifying?

I’ve never been any good at that. Letting go, and all.

And yet, it’s no longer mine.

I love you. I do know that too.

And I got you too.

May we remember.

It’s here. Time to let go and give it to you. Take it. Know that I put all I got into it and now I give it to you.

I cherish you and this community.

Here is the link with all my events so let me know (you can reply to this email or jennifer@jenniferpastiloff.com) if I should be on the lookout for you, okay?

1. Kidding. I know you don’t. Or wait. Do you? Are you mad at me?

2. I am not. I command only me, and mostly it is my Inner Asshole who does that, but I try and ignore those commands.