“Today Will Be Different” by Maria Semple

I am an organized person and I have always operated under the belief that life should be organized in order to achieve happiness. However, life is really truly so messy most of the time I can hardly believe it. Crazy things happen all the time and I find myself wondering, “Is it just me? Or is hell breaking loose all the time?” Case in point: I once witnessed my sister blow her nose into the hem of her dress because she was about to attend a big event and had no Kleenex. My brother and I once had to quickly chase the runaway tire on my daughter’s wheelchair when it was making a bee-line toward Baltimore’s icy harbor. And my leg once fell asleep during sorority rush at Northwestern, so I had to drag my leg like a piece of heavy driftwood across the room as I then left the house with 35 pretty blonde girls staring after me. Life is most of the time chaotic. The authors who I love to read most, celebrate the mess that life brings to all of us, and make us feel like we are not alone. “Today Will Be Different” by Maria Semple is a book that chronicles a day in the life of a Seattle mom named Eleanor Flood. The narrator is a former television writer, married to a famous hand surgeon and mother of a little boy named Timby who attends the Galer Street School. Semple also is the author of the “Where’d You Go Bernadette,” a 2012 book about a wife, architect and private school mom who disappears. Both books take place in Seattle, and offer a glimpse into that microcosm. If you have not read  “Where’d You Go Bernadette,” you should read it first before “Today Will Be Different.” Although they are not a series, there are similarities between the two books that are tangible and amusing. Semple, a former television comedy writer (“Mad About You” and “Arrested Development.”) and daughter of a screenwriter, has an over all-hand-down funny perspective on the universe. Who else could write a book about a woman who hires a private poetry teacher, and then later sees him working his second job at Costco pushing samples of snacks. Semple’s writing is so fresh and spot-on. She refers to “People Magazine” as “People I don’t know.” The idea that a person – any person -- can juggle a relationship, a full or part time job, motherhood, friendships and just getting out of bed in the morning without going a bit crazy, is impressive. The fact that Semple writes about being a person in the modern world who keeps her shit together, who stays in the game and makes it all work -- makes her a writer that I want to read any day of the week. To purchase this book on Amazon click here.