"Yes, Please" - Amy Poehler (2014)

Това определено е една от първите биографични книги, която успява да ми задържи вниманието от първата до последната страница. По принцип не съм много голям почитател на този жанр, но последните няколко години много мои любими актриси и режисьори издадоха свои биографии. Крайно време е да ги започна! 

А и последната биография, която успя да ме впечатли истински, беше "Преди да се родя и след това" на Ивайло Петров. Преди мно-о-ого време.

Ейми Полър е страхотна актриса и сценарист. Изключително забавна е, като хуморът й в много случаи не е просташки (твърде рядко срещано качество днес). 

Затова бях убедена, че и книгата й ще е също толкова забавна. Не останах разочарована. В "Yes, Please" има много хумор, но също и силни откровени моменти, които наистина ме впечатлиха.

Ейми разказва за живота си по разпокъсан начин - не започва от раждането си, прескача постоянно. Това не прави историята хаотична или объркана, а много по-интересна. Едно от най-забавните неща в книгата е участието на близките й хора - Сет Майърс, родителите й и продуцентът Майкъл Шур. Те пишат отделни глави или коментари, което направи стила на тази биография още по-необикновен.

Това, което научих от книгата, е колко интересен, силен и много забавен човек е Ейми Полър. Имах някаква представа преди това, но сега съм напълно убедена. Като всеки добър комедиант, тя умее да казва истини и шеги едновременно.

Тази книга може да помогне не само за бягане от реалността. Много моменти ме накараха да си кажа "Това ми е познато" или "Аз също!", което една истински добра книга трябва да може. Убедена съм, че нямаше по-удобен момент, в който можех да прочета тази необикновена биография.

За финал няколко страхотни цитати от книгата, които ме накараха да се почувствам по-близка до Ейми и да й се възхищавам още повече. Много моменти ми харесаха от книгата, затова и избраните цитати са толкова (дълги) много:

"That voice that talks badly to you is a demon voice. This very patient and determined demon shows up in your bedroom one day and refuses to leave. You are six or twelve or fifteen and you look in the mirror and you hear a voice so awful and mean that it takes your breath away. It tells you that you are fat and ugly and you don’t deserve love. And the scary part is the demon is your own voice. But it doesn’t sound like you. It sounds like a strangled and seductive version of you. Think Darth Vader or an angry Lauren Bacall. The good news is there are ways to make it stop talking. The bad news is it never goes away. If you are lucky, you can live a life where the demon is generally forgotten, relegated to a back shelf in a closet next to your old field hockey equipment. You may even have days or years when you think the demon is gone. But it is not. It is sitting very quietly, waiting for you."

"Decide what your currency is early. Let go of what you will never have. People who do this are happier and sexier."

"Hopefully as you get older, you start to learn how to live with your demon. It’s hard at first. Some people give their demon so much room that there is no space in their head or bed for love. They feed their demon and it gets really strong and then it makes them stay in abusive relationships or starve their beautiful bodies. But sometimes, you get a little older and get a little bored of the demon. Through good therapy and friends and self-love you can practice treating the demon like a hacky, annoying cousin. Maybe a day even comes when you are getting dressed for a fancy event and it whispers, “You aren’t pretty,” and you go, “I know, I know, now let me find my earrings.” Sometimes you say, “Demon, I promise you I will let you remind me of my ugliness, but right now I am having hot sex so I will check in later.”

Other times I take a more direct approach. When the demon starts to slither my way and say bad shit about me I turn around and say, “Hey. Cool it. Amy is my friend. Don’t talk about her like that.” Sticking up for ourselves in the same way we would one of our friends is a hard but satisfying thing to do. Sometimes it works.

Even demons gotta sleep."

"Any painful experience makes you see things differently. It also reminds you of the simple truths that we purposely forget every day or else we would never get out of bed. Things like, nothing lasts forever and relationships can end. The best that can happen is you learn a little more about what you can handle and you stay soft through the pain. Perhaps you feel a little wiser. Maybe your experience can be of help to others."

"I don’t miss the frustration of youth, the anticipation of love and pain, the paralysis of choices still ahead. The pressure of “What are you going to do?” makes everybody feel like they haven’t done anything yet. Young people can remind us to take chances and be angry and stop our patterns. Old people can remind us to laugh more and get focused and make friends with our patterns. Young and old need to relax in the moment and live where they are. Be Here Now, like the great book says."

"Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won’t rain forever. You just have to sit down and watch it pour outside and then peek your head out when it looks dry.

"The only thing we can depend on in life is that everything changes. The seasons, our partners, what we want and need. We hold hands with our high school friends and swear to never lose touch, and then we do. We scrape ice off our cars and feel like winter will never end, and it does. We stand in the bathroom and look at our face and say, “Stop getting old, face. I command you!” and it doesn’t listen. Change is the only constant. Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being."

"Time moves too slow or too fast. But I know a secret. You can control time. You can stop it or stretch it or loop it around. You can travel back and forth by living in the moment and paying attention. Time can be your bitch if you just let go of the “next” and the “before.”

I believe you can time-travel three different ways: with people, places, and things."

"A person’s tragedy does not make up their entire life. A story carves deep grooves into our brains each time we tell it. But we aren’t one story. We can change our stories. We can write our own."

"The only way we will survive is by being kind. The only way we can get by in this world is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are."