Iris Smyles Is Trying to Be a Human Again

sabotage that love and work. The book's author is also named Irish Smiles. She's earned her reputation as a wickedly funny chronicler of disaffection, family dysfunction, and self loathing. Smiles was precocious from a very early age, with highbrow literary tastes. In the fifth grade, although she found her love for the classics via an unexpected inspiration. There were these cartoons of Mr Magoo and it was like Mr Magoo does

the Classics. And there was one adaptation of Moby Dick where Mr Magoo plays Ishmael, the lone survivor of the Peaquad, who in this case is is seventy year old man got blind. And this blind deaf millionaire. He's the only one. He's the only one who survives. Anyway, I was so

taken with it. I was in fifth grade. So I went to the library and got the book and I was trying to read that, and then my um my school teacher saw the book on my desk and started laughing at me, which I thought there was a gentler way to suggest that maybe it was a bit advanced. But I showed him where did you grow up? With town in di Cell's Long Island, So that was very

was a very wooded back then. Because you said you'd like to quote go around and climb trees, It wasn't really that wooded, but I found the trees and those I climbed Um, all three trees that block, you climbed them. It was somewhat I mean, there were trees around. It was a suburb Um but also Dix Hills. Interesting it is where John Coltrane went to die. Um. I found that out recently. I'm not sure why he went to

the no but also and also it's near Um. Speaking of literature, I grew up on Ibsen Court, which all the streets on my block were named after authors, but no one knew, because I think the planners of the town had these like high hopes for the people who would move in, and instead it was just all of us, and it was more mall culture. So um, they thought it would be like a bunch of literary right. So, for example, I grew up near the Walt Whitman Mall

because Walt Whitman's birthplaces in Melville. But no one knew that Walt Whitman was a poet. So when it came time to learn about Walt Whitman in in high school, everyone was like, Oh, this guy is named after our mall, he must not be that bad. Your parents super brainiac people, are they like reading all the time and playing opera in the house. And you've been a very culture cultural No, um, no, culture culture. No, actually that's not true. Well, my parents

were working so much when I was growing up. You have siblings. I have two older brothers, so you have two older brothers and than you. Yes, but my father was a big reader and so but we didn't have any books in the house because why buy them when

you could borrow them from the library. So in the summertime we would go to the library and like get a whole bunch of books on long loan, and then we would take them with us to Greece, where my mother is from, and read them over there and get them ruined on the beach, which always excited me because I thought I'm going to bring the books. I brought the books back ruined, but I thought I was bringing

them back with the secret history. And how lucky for someone else that happened after they've been all over the world. This ordinary water stains on this book some Greece. Now, so your own connection which lives on now? Correct? You? You you live in Greece part time? Well, I really just say that to make myself sound more interesting. How much of what you say is just to make you sound we're interesting? How much of it is Factum? Very little of what I say is to make myself sound

more interesting. But some of what I write is to make myself sound more interesting. So I never would have said I live in Greece for part of the time. Um, But I did write that in my bio to give myself a little extra glamour. Okay, I lived there like three or four months of the year. You do, now, Yeah, except for right that that right now, I'm here. Now, what did your dad do? Um? He well, growing up, my parents um had a party store. But did they

really Yeah? Yeah, I grew up with all sorts of I mean I thought that that's what they were into, so I really embraced that hard and was really into partying for a long time. But it turns out it was just like they got into it accidentally. They're just you know, business people, so you're doing like a kid's party store. Were like they'd sell party supplies and novelty items. So like I grew up, there's yeah, a lot of would be cushions around my house, like tons. Um, we've

only recently gotten through all of them, you know. Uh. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of Like my parents weren't into material objects, so I didn't have which is important in suburban Long Island. I didn't have like the best clothes, but like on Halloween, I was the best dressed. But the only every other year was like a nightmare for me. I mean every other time of year, all the kids would you know, tease me, but on Halloween, I was like I had everything. You're a goddess. Yeah, I don't

want to see. Were you close to your parents? But you think your parents understood you. Did they cultivate sides of you that are have kind of evolved Now you're writing. Did you show your parents you're writing and did you share with them stuff you wrote? Um? No, Well then I was. I was always writing a journal, and my father asked me once if he could, if he could read what I was writing. And so I said, okay, but after I die, because you wrote I really want

to kill my father. It was just that's how it's done. You know my posthumous papers, You don't. You don't publish your your journal before you die. Although I have published a selection of my journal in my upcoming book. I just slipped it in there just to promote it. But you wrote a journal and you didn't share it with anybody. No, that was the whole you know, the whole point of it, um, and that it would be published posthumously. But I'm not sure about that anymore. I mean, that was my idea

when I took it up in fourth grade. But you know, my legacy as every fourth grader should be concerned with. But in retrospect, I'm not sure it's such a I've been looking over the pages and I'm not I'm not sure if I actually am going to publish them after I die, I might have to destroy them. You started writing that when you were how old? Fourth grade? I think? What kinds of things did you write in fourth grade? Um? Well, that's you'll just have to wait. Give us just a

vague notion of what you vote. Was it all about, like you know, today I walked home from school, it was cold or was it? Was it beyond that? Was it? Like? Well? It changed? So there were sometimes there were crushes, a lot of crushes, um, I think, which you might think sounds out a lescent, But that's what the romantic poets were doing. So there's a long tradition of that sort of thing, um, you know. And then I was trying to work on my my descriptions for a while, so

I would describe water and trees, how many patients. Mostly it's the good stuff we need to add down. It's volumes. Yeah, I don't think. I don't think I'm actually gonna publish it any anymore. That was the idea then, though. But one time I had when I first came out of college and I had started, I had it I wanted to be a writer, and so I had written this thing, and I had this idea. I told my parents, you know, instead of getting a job, I'm going to be a

columnist because that's really easy. No, it's just what you said, what you say, and what's real or no, I mean that's I was at the point where I thought, you just want to be something and then you do it. Um So, so I had read them this thing that I had written. I mean, I thought it was funny, but their faces kind of just fell because it was really depressing. It turns out anyway, the point is, don't

show your work to your parents. They won't get it because they just look at it to sort of like figure out what's wrong with you, you know, like some kind of Rosetta stone, to like where they failed, rather than seeing its literary merit, Like, you know, where they failed is pretty much where my writing succeeds, I think. And neither of them writers ever. Well, my father is creative, so he's he used to write and to do different.

He has a sort of artistic temperament. When is your writing change beyond the journal that we're never going to be reading. Um well, I guess I didn't really begin writing properly until I was around twenty eight or twenty nine. I'm and I was writing before that and fancied myself a writer, but I didn't really become I was kind of more of a dilettante um. And what changed were we in the gap between ten and twenty eight? What were you doing? You went to college for what? Oh?

I went to UM, I went to n y U to study acting. Um. What were your feelings about that? Oh? It was you know, I wanted to be an actress, but there was a lot of time there. I missed academics. You know, at especially at n y U, it's a conservatory program, so it's a lot of money to be pretending to be in a large body of water or holding a coffee cup for like hours and hours everything.

That's exactly the two analogies I always mentioned. People, I say, you're hip deep in some viscous substance, and now let's change the viscosity and change and change. And then everybody wore black clothes and smoked and drank a lot of coffee. I did that for two years, principally because studio. Yeah, I was in the Strasburg was I really So that's why you say hip deep and avy and drinking coffee. Yeah, that's what I went to. Who are your teachers? Ms?

Sandr Marsha No, yes, yes, Jeff he was my teacher. Who yes, Yeah, I mean that was that was I I enjoyed it. I just um, I just wanted to study more things while I was in school, and then I kind of got away from it. I think it was a very good thing because I guess as an actor you have to audition a lot, and I don't think you know, I guess that's your real job, not actually acting, and for most people, a few people actually have the opportunity. I think that's that that's that's potentially right.

And I also think that the job is really what do you do with your stuff when you're not acting? Yeah. I always say to people, the task is to find out how much you like acting, because you're going to

get to do so little of it. So what I found out when I was at acting school and why I stayed with it for two years, is I really I had discovered the nightlife in New York City, and I had never had a social life in high school because I had so many you know, my god, you're my doppel gang or keep going, Really, what happened to me? I'm in New York. I got a couple of bucks in my pocket. My what's party? Yeah? Well it was wasted.

It was extraordinary. And I mean as a as a as a young woman in New York City, you're really sort of taken up. And I was weird in high school, you know, because I was really too enthusiastic. I was involved in all of these extracurricular activitis. And I was in the I founded the debate club with one other with one other student. He was the president because he was a senior, and I was the vice president because I was a freshman, and we were the only members.

That was the club for independent thought. There was the drama club, of course, and then I was president of my class and um whils. I was in the I was in the kick line, the dance team, the swim team. I was in running. But then my knees gave out, so I was just really busy all the time. Um. But then when I came to college, it was like all of a sudden, you don't have to do anything. You don't you barely have to go to class. There's no required of you. Yeah, so I was like oh

now I can. Just so the real work was at night, you know, going out, being out until like five in the morning, and um at that time, let's see, there was a remember the first time I went to a nightclub called Chaos, and it was like the world broke open. And and the thing is I was so weird in high school. But then all of these men they thought I was so sophisticated and interesting. That's what they said. I understand, you know, and they were like, you don't

really you don't seem eighteen. I thought for sure you were twenty one. I thought this was that meant I was sophisticated. They were just saying, like, I thought you were like legal and on the level that I could feed you. And I wasn't get in trouble as I'm passing you this Manhattan. Yeah, when you stopped going to the drama program and you transferred to Gallatin correct and when you transferred to Galaton, you study philosophy and literature sort of, Yeah, yeah, that's what did they call it

a Gallaton? They call it individualized studies. So basically you could just string together, yeah, would be as many books as possible. And then and then when you left in your heart. You left acting. You did not only leave the acting program. You decided I'm not going to be an actress. Did not do that. I want, I figured I would be an actress after after college, but I

just didn't need to do that. Yeah, I could do that later, But then the further I got from them, she went two years to uh Gallaton and you were studying independent thought? Were you writing then? I was? I was writing poetry. But you but you discount that and say, no serious writing until Why No, I was writing somewhat seriously, but I mean I wasn't writing with the kind of

rigor to really put together a body of work. You know, I was dabbling or calling myself a writer, But I mean, you really need to put in many many hours, well hours every day to be a writer consistently. Um. So before that, I just did a lot of drinking and talking about writing and then you know, a little writing. And when you say you did a lot of drinking, was that something that you were doing um with groups of people with friends and it was all social and

carefree and reckless. Or were you like going home and cracking open a bottle of old Smuggler and having that at four in the morning by yourself or both? Um? Yeah, both. I mean I guess when I first started drinking, I actually started drinking. Um, I mean yeah, I guess. There were a few times where I drank alone, mainly because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't doing it out of pure pressure. Do I really enjoy this? It

turns out I did. I don't need you. Yeah, But I mean it was both social and you know, and then eventually it's just it's great all the time. And were you crushing on these men that were trying to buy these Manhattan's when you were trying to figure out if you were really twenty one years old? Um? Some of them I liked. I guess sometimes I just like that they liked me. You know, it's always you wanted to be adored. Yeah, it doesn't everyone two years at Gallaton.

So you're done after four years and you leave college and you say you want to what. Well, I wanted to be a writer obviously at that point. I mean I always do that. I always wanted to actress actings over No, I still wanted to be an actor, I mean, and I had thought maybe I'd be a movie star to support my writing, you know, reasonable stuff. There you go again and UM and then I then I had an idea to maybe be um a business mogul to support my acting, which would support the writing. UM, so

human rights were it was all business mogul movie star. Yeah. Well I actually, I mean I did. I was a teacher. I talked, I so so, but but I didn't do it for any good reason. I mean I had I was teaching with Teach for America teachers and teaching fellows at a at at a troubled school in the South Bronx. How long did you do that? Um? I did it for a year and then it was the school was taken over by the state, so they got rid of everyone, and then I went to UM. Then I went to

a different school. How many years total teaching to to to that? I was teaching middle school? So you took two years to teach for no good reason? Well, because I think because I needed a job. I mean that I didn't have any good intentions that I was going to save anyone. But I think this is why I lasted at the at this public school, because all of the Teach for America fellows quit within a month because you know, they were being threatened and things like that.

So were they being threatened by the students. Yes, both of the eventually ended up having to teach Jim too, because both of the gym teachers by the end of the year were jumped. It was a very rough school for your assaulted at all. No, but I was often sore from breaking up fights. What was it in your in your mind that I thought you thought you were you were born to referee fights among middle school children

in the Bronx. Well, I just needed I mean, I just have this image of you being like, you know, here here now enough of that, and you're like stepping in between like somebody with a broken bottle and a chair. No, actually, one time someone did have a chair over another another kid's head. That wasn't Actually, that wasn't one time. How many fights did you break up during your two year career? Oh? It was multiple times a day, right, and then ended

after two years? Why? Well, in order for me to escape to graduate school and you went to graduate school were Um? I went to City College to study writing for how long? Um? I tried to stretch that out as long as possible. Again, I mean that's why I say, first of all, The truth is, graduate school is most of the time, unless someone's becoming a doctor, it's pretty much a shelter for for kids who just don't want

to grow up. Yeah, And I mean that's why I had even considered a PhD, because I was like, I'm just gonna make this last forever. Um. But so I was there for a few years. I was also teaching in the I was teaching undergraduate humanities and creative writing at the same time. And all the time you're doing this, what's funny to you, what's entertaining to you, what's humored to you? What are you reading? What are you watching listening to? Did you go to the theater to the

movies all the time? Well, I was reading. I've I've always been reading all of the time. But what were you reading? What were you reading that was funny? Um, I don't know, perhaps a little bit of Donald barthel Me Selene Journey to the End of the Night. I never I've never really read anything that's been exclusively funny. I like things that are very very serious, but that make you laugh consistently, because I think that that's more truthful and how life is, or at least that's how

I experienced life. Um, were your movie cover? Yeah, I like to go to the movies alone. That sounds so sad, it's perfect. Well, you don't need anybody go to the movies. It's you. I don't understand the whole world for the people up there on screen. Why do people go with other people? They just chew and then they look at you and you can hear them breathing. I don't understand going to the movies with another person. Um, I love going to the movies alone. That's the way to do it.

And if you can, if you to go in the afternoon to a movie that's been out and really for a really long time, and you have the whole theater, especially in New York City. I mean when I was younger, I was living in a very small place. Now it's just small, but my early place was very small. So you go to this place and it's this huge room all to yourself. I mean it's like you're you're like a kid for a little Yes, coming up smiles, talks about what she used to do with many of her days,

drink heavily explore the Here's the thing archives. I spoke with the late Elaine Stritch, who wasn't a native New Yorker, but became one of the city's most iconic residents. When she retired and finally left the city, she knew what she was going to miss. The personality of human beings in New York. They are so opened and second, they're not watching what they're doing. They're not you know, they're they're not watching their language, They're not watching anything. They're

just going through life saying what. Yeah, all right, fuck you take a listen at Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing. Author Irish Smiles is honest about her life. Both of her books humorously deal with very real issues of alienation and self abuse. Both of these were present in her life even when she was in graduate school

and working jobs on the side. I was teaching creative writing and humanities at the at the school to undergraduates, and I had picked up some some jobs waitressing and as a hostess. But I wasn't good at those so because um I had well, I was drinking really heavily. Uh so, and then they gave me this brunch. Also, I'm just not a good waitress, but they gave me this brunch shift, right, So I would go out and I would drink until four in the morning or five,

and then I would have to be there later. And usually it was like I don't know, I was coming off some kind of bender. And then I had to um carry the drinks during brunch, which was really it's really hard to carry a tray with drinks, and especially when you have the shakes so like that the glasses are rattling all over the place unless you drink one and and then I mean so every I mean I spilled a lot of drinks or sometimes the customers would catch them in time, you know, because I would lower

the I would lower the tray really slowly. Many people came there. It was kind of a game see if you can catch the drinks when they well. One of the games was I was so bad at the job that the manager was like, are you sure you should be in service? But then every time you tried to broach the subject of my quitting, I would start to tear up because I was very sensitive and wanted to do well. And then it became sort of a game like who am I going to quit? Or is he

going to fire me? The people around you know, like like whoever you were close with, friends, family, did they know you had a drinking problem? Well it was anybody uh trying to intercede there, know, because I was really great at drinking. I mean there was. That's why it was hard. It was hard to stop. I mean I was That's like pretty much that was my main thing. That was like my art form partying. Um. Yeah, drink at home. Yeah, and maybe have some you know, have some,

have a friend over. I don't know, it just sort of it's not that it would begin. It basically never stopped. You know. To say where it begins is like I don't know, um birth um. But but so it was hard to give up because that was so much of my identity and people around me loved it because I was always giving parties and I was creating a lot of fun. I mean I wasn't a miserable drink. I

was drunk. I was. It was just hurting me. Um. And also I mean the reason that I gave it up is because I wanted to become something I wanted. I mean I realized that like, you know, you you drink and you have created a wonderful time, But what do you, what have you made? And so I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to make something. So when did that change? When you did you decide that

drinking was not compatible with who you really wanted to be? Well, it was really becoming harder and harder to keep doing it, I mean physically, Um that hangovers were becoming pretty bad. I just started to realize that I was kind of I was getting further and further away from anything that I ever wanted to do. And I had big dreams and I just was not getting anywhere near them. And um, I figured, either I have to revise my dreams, my aspirations, um, or make a change in my life in order to

actually accomplish something. And you did make that change. I did, and it was kind of the most exciting. I say, the biggest adventure and the most exciting time of my life was five years I spent I'd completely retired from social and I was just kind of writing and living like a monk, I mean on the outside of the

after graduate school. Yeah, year around I was I guess when you went into the cave, when I went into the cave, And then I kind of came out five years later with a book and happily got it published and and now I'm sort of, you know, trying to be a human again. So what I wonder is when you go into this kind of cloister, when you go into the cave, why don't you stay there? If it was so fruitful, Ultimately you're missing it was great. But

I don't I think again it was. It was an extreme and it's not sustainable in the same way that I mean basically, I took everything that I was giving to like my drinking and party lifestyle, and put it into into work. And I don't think that you know this, the pendulum swings and it has to come back another another obsession. Yeah, and so it was, it was good.

But now I'm I'm trying to sort of cultivate some kind of balance, and you know, I want to have a have a personal life, so I'm trying to figure that out. Um, although it's I'm very intense, it would be a lot I long for the cave in truth, but you know, it's a new challenge to sort of be balanced in the middle. Moderate but doesn't sounds like terrible. Who wants to be moderate at anything? And you came out with the book called iris has free time? What do you do? What? What do you do with a book?

If you're a writer and you write a book and your parents aren't at cannap for something and or Simon and Schuster and you're you're you're you with all of the defining things about who you are? What do you do with that book when you're done? Where do you

go with it? Well, happily I had met um, a professor at City College who liked my work and encouraged me to keep writing, and so I showed it to him, and then he introduced me or referred me to a few different agents, which means that they, you know, put my cover letter at the top, and then rejected me before all of the other all of the other people. But then one of them, finally, one of them kind of took me, took me on, and so we made our way and got the book out um because of

how it was published by Counterpoint Um. But those meetings like for you, when you're pitching a book or you're selling a book to them, what's it like for you? You know, out of a period of intense isolation, if you will, and now you've got to be a bit more collaborative. Was that difficult for you to collaborate with them? Um? It was terrible. It was how much did they want to change your book? Well? I mean, and that was that's why it was a little bit of a process.

In the beginning. I had seen a couple of agents who who liked it, but they were like, yes, but what we wanted you need to change it all around and do this and and so that was really scary because after five years you think, well, this is my chance. Do I go agree with them or But I didn't want to change it. I didn't believe in that. So I took a risk and I, um sort of stuck to my guns, found another agent, finally found a publisher

who didn't also didn't want me to change it. Um. And it was just sort of the same thing with my with my second book. Um, I think you know it's an editor is is important, but it has to be the right editor. In your first book, did you have the right editor to some degree? Even? Sure? Sure woman, yes, But I I think that What I mean is that lots of people and now I think, especially now there's there's this idea of like writing as much more collaborative and so a lot of people put their hands on it,

and I don't think that's a good idea. I think that comes from the comes from so many people are going to graduate school for writing, and so they have this idea that they're going to like work, shop it and put it through the committee, and the more eyes it has, the better. And I don't think so I

don't think it should be collaborative at all. I think even you know, really can't be Kenneth No, and it gets dulled down, and it should be you know, individual and full of I mean, I'd rather see you know better, that it be imperfect but extravagant than some kind of like measured. Yeah, when you've been working on your second book, your your second book is coming out. It just came out a month ago. And was it the same publishers

different Hoteon Mifflin Harcourt. Was it better this experience? Um? Different? The counterpoint is as an independent publisher, and so I was the big fish there, so they you know, really gave it a push. But then at the same time, because they're an independent publisher, they have less influence. So now I'm a small fish at a big house. Um. So it's been it's been, uh great. I like them, and I'm very excited because Houghton Mifflin is also the publisher of cliffs Notes, So I feel like that's one

step closer to publishing cliff Notes from my own book. Yeah, which is important because then people won't even have to read my book anymore. They can just you know, study up on the symbolism and the foreshadowing, which is important. Without actually and just you know, my book could disappear completely. The title of your first book was Iris Has Free Time? Iris Has Free Time? Came out when two thousand and

thirteen June, not too long ago. And how would you and how would you characterize, if it'll how you've changed as a writer since your second came up, which is called dating tips for the UM. I think that when I right now, I UM. I used to have to write a lot more before I found the beginning of something, and now I kind of have a better sense of you know, I can get there faster, so there's there's less wasted. I'm just you know, I guess, yeah, that's it. Yeah,

I'm getting better with practice. That happens. Where do you living now? Oh? I live in UM in New York, city over um on the sort of the middle East side, which is really nice over there. I moved to around Beekman Place, which is I moved there because I'm getting on in my years and that's where Anti Maim lived. So I feel like I'm entering my main years and it's a good place to establish my spinster pad. I really like it be a spinsters at a goal. No, um no, do you fear that no one will get you?

Do I fear no one will get me? Um? Yeah, I mean I guess I would. I would like to meet someone do date? When you date men, Like, when you meet a guy that you like, what do you typically like about them? Well, that doesn't happen that often, I like, but it does happen. Describe that you want someone who's clever, funny. No, And I don't generally don't go in for for looks. I've noticed I sort of have a pattern of dating kind of like a lot

of like hideous creatures. Yeah, I don't know. I guess there was just tend to be more interesting or I don't know. I don't think they're hideous, but I mean according to the standard, the standard, Um, I mean, they're not pretty boys. But you don't care. And I guess I noticed a slight pattern. I what I go in for is like a man I really like man. No, no, no no, because he was again hate. I have a

real thing against him. Um but no, I don't like him either because I don't like all those pretensions to intellect and all of that. I don't don't like arrogance. But so some I've noticed that I have a pattern with sort of like, um, I guess like dummies, you know, because sometimes you know, smarter men don't they're not. They sometimes they're not they don't know how to handle me. They're nervous. But like a guy who's not that bright

doesn't know enough to be nervous. So he's just so he's sort of like you know, just he's just more he's just more simple, proactive. Yeah, he's not like doubting, he's not worrying and elemental. Yeah. I don't know. I'm but you don't care what you're single? No I do. I'd like to meet someone. I'd like to meet someone nice. I'm gonna be funny if you met your husband going to a costume shop somewhere in Minneola. Oh, that sounds

so romantic. It could be great. Now before we have you read something for us, Um, what are your dating tips for the unemployed? Because you yourself, I've never really been unemployed, have you? You? When you talk about your life, that arc is working, working, working and having a job, whether it was what you whether it defined you until you can get to the point now where you're a writer. Well,

I've spent Yeah, I've been unemployed. I mean it hasn't been even my jobs didn't seem that seriously when you had a job, I've always felt unemployed. I guess it's the state of life. I think so, And that's why I called the book that because it's not all about being unemployed. But I think it's, you know, the idea, it's it's really I guess if you're trying to date when you're unemployed, it's like you're you're a mess, but you're trying. You have to make this presentation that you're

attractive in some way. And I think I've always felt that way at my core, even now when people ask me what I do, and I thought it would all be solved if I could say a writer or a novelist, and now I say I'm a writer. And I feel embarrassed, and all of a sudden, I feel like I'm law dying or it's not true, I'm not writing enough, so I don't know if that feeling will ever be over. One of your dating tips for the unemployed, Well, um, so there's not actually any tips, And I mean the

book is not actually any tips. It's just it's stories that form a novel about, you know, kind of being in that awkward period and feeling unformed. But there's one piece where there where the character reads an article about dating tips for the unemployed, and the tips there there's two. Um,

it's never date anyone more or less miserable than you. Um, that's the one tipa exactly because even if if you go with someone who is less miserable than you, then eventually, and even if you can fake it for a while, eventually they'll find out that you're more miserable and they just you have to be miserables date each other. Non miserables date each other. How do you determine this is the next tip. How do you determine and who is

a miserable and who is a non miserable? Because everyone goes around and presents themselves as a non miserable pretty much and about their misery very very few. And one way that you can determine that is how people answer the question what do you do? So if you answer it honestly and you say, I'm an accountant or I you know, um, I wait tables, then that person is

pretty okay with themselves. But if they answer it with some sort of clever thing, if they say, like, you know, I'm a I'm a I make the toast on the

astronaut whatever, I'm an astronaut toastmaker. You know, somebody their breakfast on the space and they're obviously and they don't actually do that, you know, but they respond with like too much charm, like compulsive charm, almost defensive charm, like actually happy people don't feel the need to be that charming, which is why, by the way, why I am so adorable and charming, because I've spent years compensating for my misery. Um.

But so yeah, So that's how you can tell. So for example, if someone responds if you say like on on social media on Facebook, things like that, if it says under occupation, if a person writes blowfish right, then that person is definitely miserable. If a person writes Bonds Trader, that person is not miserable. So the bonds Trader and the blowfish will never work out. That's what you need to know. Between Do you have a little extrap you want to read? I don't know, let me see what

to read. Whatever amount you read, it's fantastic just to go with. Just do whatever you want to do. Um, okay, well, since I mentioned uh, I guess I'll read the family politics politics right, yeah, sure, okay. My family is downstairs yelling. They're not arguing. That's just how they talk. It's a Greek thing, that's what we say. But the truth is, when we visit Greece, people remark on how loud we are.

We respond it's an American thing. I'm in my old room at my parents house because I just got into a fight with my brother Teddy. He was going on about the internet, spelling the end of physical books. Lowering his voice to just a yell, he said, in the future, no one's gonna want your precious little books, Iris. The book will be obsolete. I told him he was wrong, that people will always want books. Then he said nan nan nan nana, and I lost it and ran upstairs.

So now I'm up here digging out old swimming trophies and dance costumes from under my bed. I have a trophy from nineteen ninety two that says highest Achiever. I dust it off and think about bringing it back to my apartment in Manhattan. Maybe I could turn it into a cigarette holder or something. I try on a blue ballet costume, and I'm excited to find it still fits. I look at myself in the mirror and think about Zelda Fitzgerald. She was my age when she took up ballet.

Taking stock of my reflection, I understand for the first time her insanity. I turn in my tutu and notice my thighs are thicker than they used to be. I'm an oversized child, a monster of wilted potential. I put on my point shoes and attempt a few poses in front of the mirror. After a while, I changed back into my regular clothes and head downstairs. Everyone is standing around the kitchen table yelling at the top of their lungs,

agreeing that Bush has betrayed the party. I hold up a hanger with the tutu on it and ask my mom, what's the best way to remove wrinkles from tool. What do you want with that old thing? Now throw it out? No way, I say, I can't believe you had it all scrunched up in a bag. I could use it for a Halloween costume or my author photo. A web magazine is going to publish one of my stories this spring. Oh god, she says, steam it. Maybe hang it in the shower. I pull out the blue tool. Worry a

loose sequin. Then sit at the end of the table and listen. I don't know how to talk to them. All they ever talk about is politics, which I've given up, having decided long ago that cultivating opinions about politics is against my better interests. I lean right economically, which as a writer would put me at odds with the artistic and academic communities in which I work. I recognize my views are somewhat paradoxical. For example, idealistically speaking, I'm a

rugged individualist. The government is a necessary evil, I like to say, like boyfriends. But practically speaking, were it not for my parents, I would need government handouts more than anyone. I'm prime welfare material, in fact, trying to assuage my father's disappointment in the maccayan candidacy last election. My mother told him, on the bright side, if Obama is elected,

the government will help us support IRIS. It's pretty well understood in my family that I can't take care of myself, which is why family values are so important to me. It's paramount that I marry so as to preserve my identity as a rugged individualist. If my parents ever cut me loose and I were forced to rely on the state for support, my whole ideology would crumble. I don't approve of social programs. F DR ruined this country with

this pink O rescue plan. Let those in need pull up their socks, I say, all while dreaming of the day that my parents burden me might be transferred to a rich husband and I might continue to cultivate my pioneer spirit in safety. Fantastic pantest. What's your favorite holiday? Halloween? Of course? Are you writing another book now? Um? Yes, I'm I'm completing I'm starting a new novel, but I'm completing a volume of light verse, sort of called Girls

Who Wear Glasses. It's poems about you know, love and partying and and sex. Um, but they rhyme. It's a sort of updated Dorothy Parker Ogden Nash kind of thing rhyming. I mean, who doesn't love that Irish smiles. Dating Tips for the Unemployed is available in bookstores now. Oh, I forgot to give you your prime. Oh my god, I'm so glad you reminded me. Okay, now tell tell our

listeners what exactly it is I'm getting. I won the blurb Contest, the National blurb Contest that's right for your book, for my book, and the blurb Contest of the The award ceremony was held where at the Econo Lodge in New York City, in the lobby next to the ice machine at six am during their free continental breakfast. I was so sorry I couldn't make it. I told you I was crushed. I'm sorry you couldn't make it too. Did you accept on my behalf? I did? I did?

May I see it? Yes? Um? So this is your whole price package. It comes with it, IRIS has free time bag. My god, I mean. And then here's your award for your actual blurb. I love it. And of course there you know it is a signed copy of the book. A signed copy of the book with your blurb printed on the back. Now in the book, and the book that's been published is my blurb on the back of the book. Is not an alternate version. You just have these made up for me as a gift.

I'm on the book. You you've made it. Have you ever eaten entimates? Oh? Yes, I love them? Did I say I didn't read this book and I didn't have to. On the cover it said Irish smiles and that's more than enough for me. Like logos for Coca Cola, Frido's and antimons Iris's name assures me that what's inside is so yummy. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.