Shannon Cannon

When I heard that Molly Shannon had written a memoir, I thought, oh, that'll be hilarious.  And it was, crammed with all the outlandish childhood and SNL anecdotes you'd expect.  But Hello, Molly! is so much more than a punchline.  It's ultimately Molly's story of her relationship with her dad.  Her mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident.  Four-year-old Molly and her older sister were also in the car, and their father was the one driving.  I'm going to pause to let that sink in for a moment because it's extraordinarily heavy. 

But -- and I cannot stress this enough -- Hello, Molly! isn't a downer.  It's the bittersweet, clean kind of sad that makes you appreciate life and remember that everything happens for a reason.  Like This is Us, plus comedy.  In other words, it has a good tone (and you know how much I value that).  Molly describes the highs and lows of life with her dad -- and her struggles to make it in showbiz -- with the straight-from-the-heart candor of a coming-of-age novelist.  She always sees the best in everything, even when audition doors are slammed in her face and her father acts more like a child.  Because it all really happened -- and made Molly the lovable, no-holds-barred performer we know today -- it's much more engaging than fiction.      

Of course, you can't talk about Molly Shannon without mentioning Mary Katherine Gallagher.  Or, as Shannon calls her, MKG (not to be confused with that other Irish icon, Machine Gun Kelly).  Shannon created the character while she was at NYU, almost a decade before she crashed into Studio 8H at SNL.  And it turns out that everyone's favorite painfully earnest, awkward Irish Catholic teen is based on Shannon herself.  Shannon joined SNL in 1995, so I remember the MKG years vividly.  And the sketch that stayed with me the most is the one where she's reenacting a scene from A House Without a Christmas Tree.  Not only is it cringeworthily funny, it's heartbreaking, showing Mary Katherine at her most vulnerable, reminding you that she's just a kid from a dysfunctional family who wants the world to love her.  After learning about her life, it rings even truer.  

Raw and sweet and hysterical, Hello, Molly! is an American tale (and no, not like when Fievel goes west; although, on second thought, maybe?).  It embodies timeless themes that readers hold dear: Midwestern girl makes good, optimism in the face of incredible odds, and an unorthodox but unbreakable father-daughter bond.  It's universal, its magic extending far beyond SNL.  At the end, I felt like hers was a life well lived (not that it's over yet!), brimming with love and adventure.  

No doubt about it, she's a Superstar.

Mall Crawl Before You Can Catwalk

After a year and two months of buying stuff only online, last weekend I busted out and went shopping IRL.  Three weeks had passed since my second Pfizer shot, and I had a dentist appointment in a few days.  So I thought it was time to mingle with the masses -- and see if I remembered how to drive.  I chose my outfit carefully, settling on a navy sweater with a rainbow stripe in the middle, ripped jeans, navy crushed velvet flats with yellow socks, a quilted red and black shoulder bag, and a side pony tied with a red and white polka dot ribbon.  It turned out to be way too warm -- I was sweating even before I crossed the parking lot! -- but I liked the look, so no regrets.  

My first stop was Macy's.  It was a Sunday, so it was crowded.  I threaded through the racks, careful to avoid fellow shoppers even though they were masked.  I visited my usual haunts, namely juniors, shoes, and costume jewelry, and was disheartened to come up empty.  Everything was picked over, and what was there was lackluster.  So I hotfooted it up to Macy's Backstage, which is the Marshalls clone section.  Fashion-wise, it too was a wasteland, but I did find a cute picture frame, some pastel gnome salt and pepper shakers, and a pink potted faux succulent for my office.  When it was my turn to pay, I slid my finds through the opening in the Plexiglass that separated the clerk and me.  "I like your outfit," the clerk said, "It's very mall girl."  "I'll take it," I answered.  But that's where the good vibes ended.  Because next he asked what brought me to Macy's, and I explained that it was my first outing in a year after getting vaccinated.  "And you chose Macy's?" he asked, incredulous.  "There are far better places!"  I bit back the urge to retort, "I don't think Mr. Macy would agree," and instead gamely uttered, "Don't worry, I'll hit them all," meaning other stores.  But that turned out to be the wrong tack to take.  "You don't have to spend money! You can do anything!" he counseled, wrapping my $20 worth of baubles with the authority of a financial advisor trying to talk his client out of buying a Bentley.  "Now go out and do something fun," he decreed, thrusting the bag at me as if it held dog poo.  Oddly enough, this wasn't the first time I'd been shopping shamed by a clerk.  But it was certainly the most dramatic.  Nothing like dipping your toe back in the pool only to be tossed into the deep end!  

My next and last stop was Kohl's.  I was disappointed that there weren't any exciting clothes there either.  However, I did score two rainbow rhinestone Simply Vera brooches and a faux wicker pineapple picnic server that I now use to store/display beads.  This time the clerk was much kinder, so much so that she erred on the side of anxious.  I felt for her.  I wouldn't want to work in a store during a pandemic, wondering if each and every customer was carrying COVID.   

So, was the expedition a success?  Even before the quarantine, department stores were definitely on the decline.  But being away from them for a year and then seeing them with fresh eyes made me realize that maybe they weren't so great in the first place.  Online, you can find anything in any size, style, or color without having to settle for something just because you could reach out and touch it.  Brick and mortar stores are always there for you, but they don't always have what you want.  They're like that boring banker boyfriend who's punctual and remembers your birthday but whose stories about his coworker stealing his PB&J make you wish you were with a guy who doesn't wear a watch or have let alone manage a bank account.  That said, the best part of the day was, shocker of shockers, the driving -- or, rather, rediscovering the radio (apparently, I like Machine Gun Kelly).  There's just something about being out there on the road with no responsibilities, singing at the top of your lungs.  Another surprise was the, ahem, pedestrian one of walking.  Despite (sort of ) keeping up with my exercises, running in place in my living room just isn't the same as getting out of the house.  Carrie Bradshaw once famously said "shopping is my cardio."  But it wasn't until I became housebound that I realized it was mine too.  That said, some shopping trips may not deliver the goods in terms of actual, well, goods.  But they give you more than you bargained for in other (good!) ways.

So, yeah.  It's nice to know I can still take on the world, snarky clerks and all.  But that I don't have to if I don't want to.

Which means that next time I'll hit up Macy's online instead of heading Backstage.