My Squirrel Days: Tales from the Star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Office

by Ellie Kemper

Once, I found myself with Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon in my hands. I quickly realized I had been using it to prop up my pad Thai container so I didn’t need to lean down as far while watching The Comeback, but still, I could tell I was becoming much more focused.

I think that what a person lacks in finesse, she can often make up in hustle—and running is something that you can just keep doing and doing until you get faster.2

In college, there was both a communal shower and individual showers; however, only the goalie ever showered alone. I always tried to smile at Clara as she made her way past the big showers and into the lonely stall. Come on, I said with my eyes. Come on in to the big showers with the naked field hockey players so it won’t be weird.

And so I spent nine months in England, where I studied British literature at Oxford. My focus was nineteenth-century British fiction, but most of my energy went into the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) and McVitie’s Digestives.

I guess that sometimes it just takes a year of having no real direction or consistent sunlight for the fiery heart to let its passions be known. As it turned out, my own fiery heart was dying to go for the laughs.

After lunch, we return home for a nap. James cries his usual ten minutes before falling asleep, and as soon as he does, I cry my usual ten minutes and then fall asleep, too.

this character, Kimmy, this young woman who was kidnapped while walking to school one morning and then held captive in an underground bunker where she was tortured repeatedly for fifteen years, this woman insists on looking at the bright side of things. As corny as it sounds, when I am having a bad day, I give myself a nudge. I think of Kimmy in that situation, and I get my act together. Calling on my inner Kimmy has been particularly helpful during the Trump administration. You thought I would go the entire book without getting political—but at last it comes out! That is what she said!