I can tell when people are lying to me when they start their sentence with “I have to be honest with you.” They may as well say, “Listen, I’m about to lie straight to your face.” Why do people need to clarify when they’re being honest? Does that mean everything else they’ve ever said has been a lie? Yesterday they said they liked my sweater but they didn’t say they were being honest. Does that mean they hated it?
It’s so strange to me. It almost feels like they’re giving me the option to not hear the truth. As if when they say, “I have to be honest with you,” I might say, “No, no. Please. Only lies right now.”
For the most part, we’re honest people. Which is good because when you think about it everything around us is based on the honor system. Look at airport baggage claim. We all stand around a conveyor belt totally unsupervised and all those bags are there for anyone to take. I know because I was at the airport recently and I took four. I got some good stuff—three travel irons and a large man’s nightshirt.
There are a lot of places that rely on us to be honest. Banks put out candy and hope you only take one or two pieces. Restaurants put out toothpicks. Libraries have those giant statues of lions out front. They’re practically begging us to get a crane and a flatbed truck to cart those things away.
Think of how honest we’re expected to be when we go to the movies. We pay for one ticket but in theory we can sneak into as many theaters as we want once we’re inside. We can even pay the child’s price and sneak in our own popcorn and vegan appetizers. I’m guessing.
And as much as certain people and places rely on us to be honest, we rely on others to be honest with us. I mean, we hand our car keys over to a complete stranger at the valet just because he’s wearing a vest. (By the way, now you now why I wear a lot of vests and have so many cars.)
It’s nice to think we can trust each other. It would be depressing to walk around every day thinking people are lying to us all the time. I prefer to believe people are good and honest and respect me enough to tell me the truth. It’s not easy to find those people all the time, but they’re out there. They’re usually the people who don’t hesitate to tell you when you look tired or that you have broccoli hanging from your lip. They might be blunt and sometimes they might hurt your feelings with their candor, but honestly? You’ll appreciate it.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
If there is any message I want you to take from this book, it is that befriending a parrot can be both frustrating and infinitely rewarding. And if there is another message I want you to take from this book, it’s that you can be happy. There is so much bad news in the world right now and sometimes it’s hard to see the positive side of things, but it is possible and there are things you can do to be happy.
In the interest of full disclosure I want you to know that I’m not a spiritual adviser. Yes, it’s true that if my mother didn’t name me Ellen she was going to name me Deepak. But she didn’t and that is not the path I followed. And I would never want to mislead you by telling you that I have all the answers, because I don’t. I mean, I do know a lot. Like, A LOT a lot. I am very worldly. What’s that? No, I’m not in Mensa or anything. But I could be. Obviously. I just don’t have time for all the paperwork. Or those meetings. Those are probably a drag. So, in conclusion, the only reason I are not in Mensa is because I don’t have time for the paperwork or the meetings. Moving on.
I spend a lot of time listening to spiritual advisers and I have read a lot of books on the power of positive thinking. And I agree with what they say—it makes a big difference in your life when you stay positive. I am positive of this. It helps to surround yourself with positive people. No one likes to be around Negative Nellies. Try and spend more time with Positive Peters and Happy Helens. And Beyoncé. She’s so pretty and fun.
Another thing you can do—and this is just off the top of my head—is watch my show every day. I try to make it an escape from the things in life that are not so great. I keep it happy and positive and upbeat. Plus, it’s much cheaper than a prescription with none of the negative side effects.
It has been proven that when we’re positive and happy, endorphins rush through our system. Now, I’m no scientist, but I know what endorphins are. They’re tiny, little magical elves that swim through your bloodstream and tell funny jokes to each other. When they reach your brain, you hear what they’re saying and that boosts your health and happiness. “Knock, knock… Who’s there?… Little endorphin… Little endorphin who?… Little endorphin Annie.” And then the endorphins laugh, and then you laugh. See? It’s science.
Don’t get me wrong. Everyone has good days and bad days. We’re humans. We have emotions. In fact, I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have emotions. Have you ever met someone who says they’ve never had a bad day in their whole entire life? Don’t you want to poke them in the face? I don’t understand people like that. We all wake up on the wrong side of the bed some days. Some days we even wake up on the wrong side of our neighbor’s driveway because of a late night out and some confusion over strikingly similar front doors. My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The piña and the colada.
The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself. If everything you have got stripped away—your home, your job, your family, your things, your favorite T-shirt with all the holes in it that you won’t throw away even though it reveals a large part of your stomach region—if you lost all of those things and you had to live in a cave all alone with absolutely nothing, you should still be happy. Happiness comes from within. You have the power to change your own mind-set so that all the negative, horrible thoughts that try to invade your psyche are replaced with happy, positive, wonderful thoughts.
I myself have made a conscious choice to not allow negative thoughts to even enter my mind. Is it hard? You bet it is. Negative thoughts are powerful. For example, if I didn’t make that commitment to myself to think positively all the time, I would probably start thinking about how scary it would be to live in a cave all alone with absolutely nothing. Because I mean, if I really think about the reality of that situation, it’s terrifying—to be trapped in a cave with all those bats flying around everywhere. And the spiders! There are probably literally millions and millions of spiders in caves. I don’t have anything against bats and spiders. Especially if they’re happy living their lives all alone in caves. More power to them, I say. It’s just that it’s so dark in caves. I guess that goes without saying. They’re caves. But once you really get inside, there’s not even a hint or trace of light. Just little bat eyes darting around everywhere, waiting for you to turn your head so they can pounce on the back of your neck like a cheetah with bat wings.
I’m so scared of the dark. I usually leave the bathroom light on all night with the door slightly ajar (notice my Mensa-level vocabulary) just so there’s a strip of light. I know it wastes electricity but one time I woke up in a pitch-black room and thought for sure I’d been kidnapped by cave dwellers who had taken me and my bed to their underground cave where they would train me to move like a dinosaur and only eat tree bark. Turns out I had an eye mask on, but that’s neither here nor there. My point is, I like a little bit of light.
You know, there’s probably a lot of moisture in caves, too, which would be bad for my hair. And all those sharp edges. I wouldn’t want to move. I’d just sit in the cave all day long and think about how scared I was to be there. I’m probably not gonna sleep tonight thinking about how I could easily end up trapped in a cave one day, surrounded by bats, spiders, water droplets, sharp edges, and complete and total darkness.
What was I saying? Oh right—negative thoughts. Get rid of ’em! I did! You know what a wise person once said? “Why pay full price for a sweater when you can steal it for free?” You know what another wise person once said? “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” Amen, sister friend!
Let me break that down for you so it’s easy to u
nderstand. Happiness is a journey. This means that happiness is like a long car ride. Let’s say you’re in a car and you’re driving to Hawaii. Sure, it seems like Hawaii, your destination, is going to be the happiness part. But really, the car ride is the happiness part because of all the fun games you can play in a car and all the stops you can make at beautiful public toilet areas, not to mention how fun it would be to drive on top of the ocean. Be happy on your journey to Hawaii so that once you get there you can be miserable. Wait. I don’t know if that’s right.
However you choose to live your life, just try to enjoy it as much as you can. Fill yourself with joy. (Not the dishwashing liquid.) And accept what life throws at you—the good, the bad, the ugly, the awkward, the fun, the boring, the sweet, the sour, the salty, the ripe, the unripe… I’m sorry, I have to be right back. I just got really hungry.
Magic
I love magic. I’ve had a lot of magicians and illusionists perform on my show and I am always in awe of what they can do. I actually learned a mind-reading trick and I thought I would try it out on you if you’d like.
All you have to do is think of a number. Any number.
Are you thinking of it?
Okay, say it out loud.
Now turn the page.
That’s what I was thinking of.
Ahhh! Isn’t that freaky?!
Girl Power
The bra. Disposable diapers. Wite-Out. A medical syringe. Windshield wipers. Chocolate chip cookies. Spanx.
What do all of these things have in common? They’re all in my shopping cart right now. Shoot. I must have taken someone else’s cart by accident. I hate when that happens.
Well, anyway. Do you know what else these things have in common? They were all invented by a woman. Not the same woman. They were each invented by different women over the course of the last hundred years or so. (That would be incredible if the same woman invented all of those things. What an eclectic and potentially unstable person that would be!)
And those are just a few of the things that female ladies have invented. The list goes on and includes things that have become staples in our everyday lives, like the car heater, the dishwasher, the electric washing machine, and perhaps one of the greatest inventions of our time, the trash can with a foot pedal. We take so many of these things for granted and yet without the women who invented them, we would be cold, filthy people with soiled dishes, disgusting cans, and unruly breasts.
I’m very proud to be a woman. I’ve been one my whole life. And I know that without the amazing and inspiring women who came before me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I grew up admiring strong, funny women like Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, and Oprah Winfrey paved the way for me to be doing exactly what I’m doing. Oprah paved the way with actual gold because she had some left over from when she paved her driveway.
And now that I have my own show on television I feel a sense of responsibility to follow in their footsteps and have a positive influence on the young girls and women who watch me every day. That’s why I keep things light and upbeat and it’s why I try to have powerful and influential women on my show to serve as examples for the people at home. I love having women like Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton on my show. I also love having regular, everyday women on my show with inspiring stories about their personal journeys. And one time I had a woman on who could bend over backward and put a hat on her head using only her feet. If that’s not inspiring, I don’t know what is.
My show is targeted to women. I know men watch, too, and I’m happy about that. I like to think men, women, children, and cats can enjoy my contagious wit in equal measure. But overall the audience for my show is mostly made up of women. I don’t know exactly what the demographics are. It’s a very confusing and complicated system that only people with high government clearance levels can fully understand. But I believe our key demographic is women 25 to 54 years old. Beyond that we try to target Armenians between the ages of 35 and 80, and women named Diane between the ages of 18 and 104.
I don’t know if that’s right. And don’t even get me started on the ratings system. From what I understand, there’s a gentleman in a basement somewhere keeping track of who turns their televisions on between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and he writes it down on a piece of lint and then, based on his annual report and opinion, shows get canceled or picked up.
Anyway, I just want to able to use the platform I have in front of millions of people around the world every day for good things. I want young girls to know that they should dream big and that if they put their minds to it they can accomplish anything. When I go out and do my show every day I’m thinking two things: Can I inspire someone today? And will my guests have good breath?
I always think of that James Brown song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” when I think about girl power. I also think of the Spice Girls, which makes me think about spices, which makes me think about food, which makes me hungry, which makes me need to eat a sandwich every time that song comes on the radio.
I like James Brown but that song is so wrong. It’s not just a man’s, man’s, man’s world. It’s also a woman’s, woman’s, woman’s world. He sings that “man made the cars to take us over the road.” And that may be true, but what terrible driving visibility we would have on that road were it not for the woman who made the windshield wipers.
If you’re going to listen to that song then you should also listen to my personal anthem, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” as sung by one of the most brilliant songstresses of all time, Aretha Franklin. She sings about how sisters are not just stuck working in kitchens anymore. They’re now doctors, lawyers, and politicians. At first, I did think she was singing about one very talented family of sisters all doing wonderful things with their lives. Now, of course, I realize she meant sisters, as in all women.
Women can do stuff, too! And to whoever is listening to me or watching me or reading me, that is what I want to say. The world can benefit from more smart ladies. I like smart people. I assume most people do. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Boy, do I love idiots,” though I’m sure people have.
Maybe at some point we won’t have to break success down along gender lines. Maybe we won’t have to say a man did this or a woman invented that. Maybe we’ll just be able to say this wonderful, smart, creative person did something extraordinary and that will be that. But until then, I’m proud to be part of the sisters who are doin’ it for themselves.
Boredom
Do you ever just think, “I’m bored”? Maybe because we’re always moving at such a fast pace or because there are only so many Lifetime movies about perfect couples who aren’t actually perfect you can watch in one weekend, every once in a while when we’re sitting still we find ourselves thinking, “I’m really bored right now.” So here are some suggestions for things you can do when you get bored.
Clean my house.
Look at your pets. If you look at them long enough, you can almost figure out what they’re thinking. Usually it’s “Why has she been looking at me for so long? She must be really bored.”
Cut up fruit.
Sext.
Make a smoothie.
Volunteer.
Volunteer opinions to strangers.
Hitchhike.
Photograph geese.
Put on a blazer and pretend to be a docent at your local museum.
Ellen’s Guide to Gift Giving
It is better to give than to receive.
—Liars
Gift giving might be one of the most complicated things that exist on this Earth. It’s an art that requires skill and some people have it and some people don’t. The people who have it got you tickets to your favorite opera last year. The people who don’t got you a keychain of the letter “O” even though your name is Jane.
There are no strict rules when it comes to gift giving, but there are some guidelines. It’s good etiquette to bring something whenever you go to som
eone’s house. It’s polite and generous and it shows that you appreciate being welcomed into somebody’s home. But my question is, how long does that go on for? What if you’ve been to their house a million times? Do you still have to bring something? The first time you go, you bring a bottle of wine. Then the second time maybe you bring flowers. When does it stop? And are the gifts supposed to keep getting bigger? After a few years of game nights does it become, “Look what we brought you, Joyce! It’s an above-ground pool!”
My brother-in-law and his wife are very good at gift giving. They are extremely polite and bring something every single time they come over for any occasion. They could be coming over because they left their sunglasses at our house and they will bring us each a brand-new set of crystal goblets. They write thank-you notes. They send flowers. And they’re so great about paying the dry cleaning bills I send them after they get little specks of dirt and wine on my outside furniture.
There are some people who refuse to bring anything when they go to someone’s house. Even if you bring something every time you go to their house, they bring nothing to yours. Here’s my solution for people like that. When you go to their house you take something. You bring a bottle of wine, you take their microwave. You bring a Bundt cake. You take their car. It’s yin and yang.
House gifts are pretty easy to manage. Where it gets tricky is holiday gifts. I don’t know where you draw the line at holiday gifts. When you’re a kid the only people you have to get gifts for are your parents and your siblings and your dog. That’s it. And it’s usually a macaroni picture frame covered in glitter. As you get older you have to give gifts to more people because you have more people in your life trying to suck you dry.