If you're feeling like it's an F-bomb kind of day

Who, in these crazy times, is not in need of reading that will either make you laugh or bring some level of comfort? These bright yellow covered books are road signs to mental health that do both AT THE SAME TIME!

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, Samantha Irby: Get inside the head of one of the funniest people I've met on the page in a long time. Irby's inner monologue as she fills out an application to reality TV show, The Bachelor, had me in stitches from page one. Her self-deprecating humor offers Philip Lopate style permission for each of us to be human. Also, if you like swearing, which I really do, run don't walk to pick this one up. And when you finish the book and just NEED MORE FUNNY, take refuge in Irby's blog.

F*ck Feelings, Michael and Sarah Bennett: Here is the thing your shrink won't admit, everyday that you don't get your shit together equals another day of gainful employment for them. Believe me, as the daughter of a therapist, if at all possible you should avoid becoming a shrink's lifetime bread and butter. The Bennetts agree. This book lists the most frequent chronic problems they witness in contemporary adults (everything from living childhood trauma, to raising a kid with an LD, to adultery--they cover A LOT of ground), and then suggests perspective shifts that will help you live with the problem rather than solve it. In the wise words of Maggie Nelson, "the shit stays messy," and the Bennetts are here to teach you how to celebrate small victories and stop wasting time solving unsolvables. As someone who has both been the bread and butter and gone to college on the bread and butter cases, I get it, there is nothing that can replace a real person resonating with your trauma. And still, from the minute I read the phrase "f*ck self-improvement" I got the tingling feeling of a laugh going, and the sense that liberation was much closer at hand than I allow myself to believe.

P.S. Here is a public service announcement for my fellow middle aged people. Did you know that double spaces after a period MAKE YOU LOOK OLD? Lord, how did I miss this? So forget your anti-aging creams, just drop that extra space after a period and you will be looking ten years younger already.