I was DEE-lighted to receive Delaine's book in the mail, a signed donation from the author to the Barnard Library. Somehow I had never read her zines, but I'd seen her always-adorable comics in A.j. Michel's compilations and maybe others. I always meant to… Well, her My Small Diary zines seem to be out of print, but you can still buy Not My Small Diary. Back to being delighted, the MSD collection is comprised of nearly a hundred one-page comics, similar to a daily comic. What's different, aside from the fact that the comics aren't dated to a single day (they're generally labeled with a season and year), is that the four to six images on each page aren't linear or even necessarily connected. They're more like a handful of illustrated Facebook status updates. (Forgive me for saying that.)
Note that the image above pictures page 45. If you're up on your memes know that the first sentence on that page describes your sex life. "What will YOUR fortune fish say?"
The comics date back to 1993, and there are sketches from even earlier. I appreciate that Delaine has post-annotated every page so you know a little more about what was going on in her life at the time or how the images are reflected in the present.
Delaine is closer to my age than a lot of other zine publishers, so her references make sense to me, even if I stopped watching Beverly Hills 90210 before she did. In the mid-70s we both played with punch cards our fathers brought home from work (mine) and school (hers).
My other favorite thing about the book is that it's indexed. You know what a sucker I am for an index! One of the more populous entries is for John McEnroe, with whom Delaine is a tad obsessed. Since I just read Tatum O'Neal's memoir, I think that's a little bonkers, but we can't always choose who we love, can we? And maybe if I'd read McEnroe's tell-all instead of O'Neal's tell-all, I'd be swoony for him, too.
How do I get so off-topic? The point is that I Am My Own Stereotype is a fun, quick read with massively cute drawings that depict the life of someone you find yourself wanting to be friends with.