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  Journal Entries

  I usually like to keep my private matters private, but I thought I could make an exception this one time to share some of the journal entries I’ve written since 2003, right around the time my last book came out. Please enjoy a little insight into my personal musings over the last several years.

  May 30, 2003

  Dear Journal,

  Remember that movie called Finding Nemo that I told you I worked on years and years ago? Well it came out today and guess what—it set the record for best opening day ever of an animated movie! I’m so proud to have been a part of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pixar called me today to say they want to make a sequel. This is great. This is really, really great. What a wonderful, wonderful, perfect situation this is, Journal.

  August 1, 2003

  Journal,

  Finding Nemo is now the highest-grossing animated movie of all time! Can you believe it?! Hang on, my phone’s ringing. It’s probably Pixar telling me they want to make a sequel! Bye, Journal! Talk to you again when I’m rich!

  August 2, 2003

  Journal,

  That phone call wasn’t about Finding Nemo 2, but I’m sure they’ll call any minute. The call was about my new talk show! That’s another thing I’m so excited about. It starts in about a month. I have to start thinking about what I want to wear on my first show and how I’m gonna get my hair did. Just thinking about it makes me want to dance up and down aisles for some reason! Anyway, I’ll let you know when Pixar comes a-knockin’! Should be any second now.

  September 8, 2003

  Dear Journal,

  Big day today. My talk show premiered on TV! Wow. I think this is gonna be really fun. People seemed to like it and I’m really proud of it. I don’t know what my schedule is going to be like over the next few months and years, but don’t worry, I’m still gonna try and write in here every single day.

  February 25, 2007

  Journal,

  I just finished hosting the Oscars. I am currently experiencing an indescribable feeling. It’s joy mixed with relief mixed with the smell of Clint Eastwood’s aftershave. I can’t believe I just hosted the Academy Awards! I’m headed to the after party now. I’m sure it’ll be a quiet, tame night. Just kidding. It’s about to get crazy up in here. I have a feeling my three-piece suit will be down to one piece in about an hour, Journal, if you understand what I’m saying.

  August 16, 2008

  Dear Journal,

  Today was the happiest day of my life. I got married. I am soooooooooooooooooooooo happy. You can tell how happy I am based on how many “O”s I used. I’ve never used that many “O”s. Portia and I got married and exchanged vows in front of a small group of our friends and family. It was a perfect day.

  May 16, 2009

  Journal,

  Today I gave the commencement speech at Tulane University in my hometown of New Orleans. I had a great time and I think I gave those kids a lot of great advice. I can’t believe they let me do that even though I didn’t go to no college. I meant to, but I totally forgot. I think I made my mama very proud today by making one of her dreams for me come true. I finally wore a gown.

  January 26, 2010

  Dear Journal,

  Today is my birthday. I had a great day today and I’m so excited for this year. I have so much to look forward to. American Idol is starting up soon. I can’t wait. I think I’m gonna want to do it forever.

  March 15, 2010

  Journal,

  I’m on a sugar cleanse. I haven’t had any sugar in over three weeks. I think I’m experiencing withdrawal. Today I screamed at a plant. I don’t know why I decided to do this. It’s crazy. There’s sugar in everything. Did you know that? Everything. Even cupcakes. All right, I have to go, Journal. You’re being a jerk.

  May 26, 2010

  J,

  Big news. I’m starting a record label. I love music and I love discovering new artists. I won’t be any different though now that I’m going to be a mogul. I’ll still be the same old Ellen. Oh, I gotta bounce. My pimpmobile is outside. Look at those rims! Holla!

  July 27, 2010

  Journal,

  What an exciting day. Remember I told you about all that gold I mailed in for cash? Guess what! The money arrived today. I got $1.24!

  August 16, 2010

  Dear Journal,

  Today Portia and I celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary. When I got home from work Portia [OMITTED].

  September 8, 2010

  Journal,

  I made my Broadway debut tonight in the Big Apple! I starred in a show called Promises, Promises alongside my supporting cast, Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. It was so much fun, but guess what, Journal? I think I caught the theater bug. Literally. There was a roach in my dressing room the size of my fist. New York City is filthy.

  January 1, 2011

  Happy 2011, Journal! Had a great New Year’s Eve. Set a new record and managed to stay up until 9:30. It was craaaaazy, Journal.

  January 18, 2011

  Hey Journal,

  I watched The Biggest Loser tonight. That show is so good. I can’t stop crying. I don’t know how they do it. I’m crying so much I have mascara running down my face. And I’m not even wearing mascara. This show is powerful.

  May 25, 2011

  Dear Journal,

  Today was the very last episode ever of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Wow. I can’t believe it. I don’t know how her show got canceled. So many people loved it. But you know what this means? Now that Larry King retired, Oprah’s moving on, and Regis quit, all of television will be mine! Hahahahaha!

  June 24, 2011

  Journal,

  I’m about to turn my new book in to the publisher. Writing a book is hard. I thought it was mostly going to be journal entries like this, but it turns out they need more to fill a book. I wish it could be all journal entries. Anyway, I’m gonna send the book in and then probably head to the movies. You know what comes out today, Journal? Cars 2. Isn’t that great? A sequel to a hit animated movie. I’m so, so, so happy for them.

  Important Words

  Now this is a very difficult chapter for me to write. This chapter, chapter ten, is my favorite chapter in one of my favorite books so I feel an enormous amount of pressure to make it spectacular. There are other books I’ve read where chapter ten was not that great at all. But I prefer not to tell you to which book I’m referring. Maybe the author of that book failed to read the chapter in the book I aforementioned.

  I don’t know if “aforementioned” is a word or if it’s correctly used here. But whenever I feel stress or pressure of any kind I try to use big, important words. It makes me feel better and more powerful. Like, if I get pulled over for speeding I usually say something like, “Mr. (or Mrs. or Ms. depending on the situation, of course) Gentleman Enforcer of the Legal Government Principles, I am en route to my appendectomy.” And then they usually say something like, “License and registration.” And then I say, “Cacophony!” And then they usually write me a ticket.

  I don’t know why bigger words seem like they’re more important. Really all words are important, even small words like “the” or “it” or “a” or “or,” for that matter. You can’t form a sentence without those words. Let me try to make a sentence without using any of those words just to make a point.

  See? I can’t.

  Well, I guess technically “I can’t” is a sentence that doesn’t use “the” or “it” or “a” or “or” but you understand what I’m trying to say. All those small words are just as important as big words. I say it all the time about words and only words—it’s not the size that counts. It’s the way you use them in sentences, paragraphs, and slam poetry.

  Some authors try to be all show-offy with fancy sentences. And I could do that if I really wanted to. It’s not like I don’t know all those rarely used big, fancy, ostentaneous words, too. Of course I do. And if that’s what it takes for a book to win a Pulitzer or some grand literary
prize I guess I could throw a sentence or two in. Why not? I’ll do it right now.

  One day my domesticated feline Charlie was unequivocally euphoric. I deducted this based on my astute observation of her level of loquaciousness while she hurriedly pursued her high-pitched squeakable toy rodent of the species Mouseous.

  See? Easy. Here is another example:

  Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making pudding and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

  Okay, that was from Jane Eyre. I can’t keep this charade up for a whole chapter. That Jane Eyre is really good, though, isn’t it?

  Family

  We are family. I got all my sisters with me.

  We are family. Get up everybody and sing.

  —Sister Sledge

  A few years ago I received a letter from a genealogist at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. At first I thought it was a letter from my lady doctor, but then someone told me “genealogy” means “family.”

  They wanted to know if I was interested in learning about my lineage. Up until that point in my life, I hadn’t thought much about my family history. All I knew for sure was that I was born in Metairie, Louisiana, and I came out of my mama’s belly button.

  But as soon as I received the letter I started thinking about my past and my ancestors. Who am I? Where am I from? Why do I love hummus so much? So I asked the genealogists to do some research for me and they found out some very interesting facts.

  They told me I am related to a whole bunch of celebrities, and not just in a Kevin Bacon sort of way. I mean actually related to. First of all, I found out I’m married to Portia de Rossi, which is amazing. She is beautiful and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

  I also found out that I am tenth cousins once removed from Academy Award–winning actress Halle Berry. That’s a pretty obvious one. Look at us. We’re like twins. People are probably always passing her on the street, yelling, “Ellen, dance!”

  I am also a distant cousin of Richard Gere, so now there are two reasons we can’t date. I am eighth cousins nine times removed from George Washington, which explains why I cannot tell a lie and I love to wear powdered wigs. And, most important of all, I’m royalty. I am fifteenth cousins with the future queen of England, Kate Middleton, which makes it a lot less weird that I have everyone who works for me call me Your Royal Highness.

  Actually, I found out that my ancestors date all the way back to fifteenth-century England. That’s like when Big Ben was just a tiny little baby Ben. I have relatives with names like Jean Laurent de Generes and Jean Baptiste de Generes, which are really fun to say. And I’m a descendant of William Brewster, who came over on the Mayflower. I assume that’s why I’m so attracted to a shoe with a buckle.

  It’s exciting to find out what our roots are. Knowing where we come from explains so much about who we are. Plus, it gives us so many more people to borrow money from.

  What’s interesting when you really think about where we all come from and how different our pasts might be is that if you were to peer into the window of any house on any street during a big family holiday celebration, you would most likely see many of the same scenes. You would also risk getting arrested for trespassing, but still you would see that all of our families are very much the same. No matter where we’re from or to whom we’re related or how our pasts have impacted our current lives, every family gathering tends to go the same way.

  First, you hope that your favorite aunt invites you to her house for the holidays because she has the finished basement with the nice pool table. She’s not going to. Instead, everyone is going to your uncle’s who has four pit bulls and an indoor skate ramp made out of recycled beer bottles.

  As soon as you get there you get stuck talking to your brother-in-law’s brother. You have nothing to talk about so you start with “Wow, I haven’t seen you since you were on Cops.” Immediately your mom grabs you and says, “You weren’t supposed to mention Cops! Why did you mention Cops?!”

  Then you apologize for mentioning Cops. Somehow in the apology, you make a joke like, “Well at least you weren’t on To Catch a Predator, right?” Another apology is made.

  Then cousin Pam shows up with her famous corn casserole that is famous for all the wrong reasons. You know the first thing she’s going to want to do is play the guitar and sing about peace, so you decide to go outside for some fresh air even though it’s four degrees and snowing and you forgot to pack a coat. Two seconds later, nine kids follow you outside to pelt you with snowballs and when you don’t throw any back at them they start to call you names and make you feel bad that your skin turns so red in the cold. It’s not your fault, you’ve always had sensitive skin and there’s nothing wrong with being sensitive.

  You tell the kids that but it doesn’t go well at all so you head back inside and ask if you can do anything to help because you’re polite, and also because your mom is giving you the “You better ask if you can help, I didn’t raise you to just stand there and do nothing” look. You hope the answer will be no, but your aunt says, “Sure! I haven’t made the sweet potato pie yet. You can do that!”

  Then you panic because you’ve never known the difference between a sweet potato and a yam and both are on the counter, and if you start making a yam pie you’ll never hear the end of it.

  So you start making a yam pie. Luckily, people are distracted by a dozen grown men screaming in the living room because little Timmy unplugged the TV just as a football team was scoring a touchdown.

  Timmy starts to cry. The dogs start to bark. Everyone finally sits down to eat. The wine will start flowing and so will the secrets. Guess what? Mom’s pregnant. Guess what else? So is Dad. He can do that now.

  You scarf down your meal and head home wondering if everyone’s family is that crazy. The answer is a resounding yes.

  But we should be grateful for them because without our family—the ancestors we descend from, the cousins we see once a year, the loves of our lives we see every day—life is pretty boring. You don’t have to believe me, but you should. I’m royalty.

  What Would Jesus Do?

  I don’t know if you’ve read a magazine lately or gone online or watched TV or visited a mall—I don’t know what you do in your spare time and frankly it isn’t any of my business. But if you have done any of those things, you’ve probably been asked to participate in an opinion poll. Opinion polls have become incredibly popular. People love them. I know because I read that in an opinion poll.

  Lately it seems that every magazine has a poll, every tabloid has a poll, every Internet site, every bedroom in my house. That’s a different kind of pole, but I’m just sharing with you. And I have to say—I’m not sure that all these polls are totally necessary. A lot of them ask the same questions. Which couple is cuter? Do you like her dress? Do you like his shirt? Who wore it better? Are they too skinny, too fat, too pretty, too ugly, too tall, too short, too hairy, not hairy enough?

  Many of them ask questions that not only seem unnecessary but, to use a technical term, are also bonkers. I won’t say the name of the magazine (it sounds like “Pin Style”) I stole from my dentist’s office but there was a poll in it that asked readers, “How far will you take the season’s hot shade of green?” Thirty-nine percent of people said “All the way,” 37 percent said “Halfway,” and 24 percent said “Just a hint.”

  Now, here’s my first question: What?! How far will you take the season’s hot shade of green? What does that mean? What does it mean to take green “all the way”? Like, to the
prom? Are you going to settle down and have children with the color green? And look how close it is between “All the way” and “Halfway.” There’s only a 2 percent difference. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about that on the evening news.

  I read another poll in a different magazine that I cannot and will not name even if you beg me to. (It sounds a lot like “Clamor.”) It asked readers, “Hot pink dress—is it a do or a don’t?” Now here’s my question about this poll: Who cares? If you want to wear a pink dress, wear a pink dress. It doesn’t matter what other people think. One hundred percent of the people polled could say a pink dress is a “do” and guess what? I still ain’t wearing one.

  I’ve been in these magazines and it’s always an awkward thing to open one up and see yourself compared to a bunch of random people. It’s like, “Who wore it better? Ellen or Heidi Klum?” And obviously when you put the two of us side by side, it’s just not fair to Heidi.

  They go after everyone in those polls. I actually think if Jesus were alive today, there would be polls about him in Us Weekly. “Who wore this flowy gown better? Jesus or J. Lo?” “Jesus’s sandals—hot to trot or heavens no?” “Do you think Jesus should cut his hair?” Fifty-four percent of readers say yes, Jesus should cut his hair. And of course that would be followed by “Should Jesus cut his hair into a mullet or buzz cut?”

  All these polls do is make everyone so judgmental. And I don’t believe in judgment. Unless it’s judgment of judgment. I don’t think someone has to “wear something better” or have a better hairstyle. That’s why the word “different” exists in our language. (I don’t know why the word “mustache” exists, though. Can’t we just call it lip hair?)