-Our next guest is a talented actress and comedian,
known from shows like "Parks and Recreation"
and films like "Obvious Child."
The paperback edition of her book "Little Weirds"
is available now.
Please welcome back to the show, our friend, Jenny Slate.
Hi, Jenny! -Hi, Seth!
-It's so lovely to see you.
It's been about a year since we've crossed paths.
It's been about nine months since the world shut down.
How have your last nine months been?
-Whu-- Well -- [ Sighs ]
Let me tell you, on night one of the lockdown,
we had a really, like, romantic night of being together.
Um, real sweet with my fiancé.
And then, I did what everyone else did.
I kind of, like, hunkered down and baked a lot of bread,
but I just want to say, I think --
I think I might have baked, like, too much bread
or eaten too much bread.
You tell me, Seth. But I think...
[ Laughter ] -I can't really --
-Oh! Oh, yeah!
-Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know if you can see --
-Oh, yeah, that's a lot of carbs.
[ Laughter ] -It's different.
It's, like, different. -[ Laughing ]
It feels -- I feel different. [ Both laugh ]
Um, how have the exact last nine months been?
-Oh, my God. -They've been, um...
real pregnant for me. -That's amazing.
Now, I will say, you know, my wife, Alexi, has said, like,
that people who timed it like you,
she feels, like, crushed the timing.
Like, because you basically had to hunker down anyway.
Have you felt, like, "Oh, this was a fortuitous time
to do this"?
-You know, in a way -- First of all, it's very nice
to have something that is incredibly positive
during a time that's, like, hard and sad.
It's nice to have, like, a little secret treasure.
Um, but, yeah, I mean, like,
I've basically been just chilling out.
Doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Not having to see anyone or figure out, like,
how to gracefully wear pants.
I haven't worn pants in many moons.
You know? [ Laughter ]
And, also, like, spending an hour of my day
doing, like, a hypno-birthing meditation every day.
So I'm very chill. -Gotcha.
So you found your way, even during a pandemic,
to find the time to do the sort of birthing-class stuff?
-[ Laughing ] Yeah, it's nice. I mean, it's so --
Everything is weird. Like, this isn't what
I thought I would be doing. But, like, one thing I do --
I do all the birth-prep stuff, and I really like it.
I'm also, like -- Many of my friends
will remind me that I am the number-one person
who would join a cult, like,
without even having to be pressured.
[ Both laugh ]
Like, I love chill vibes,
and I like it when someone seems like they have the answer.
But I've been listening to this doctor who --
I think she's from India but has lived in England
for a while -- that's what I'm getting from her accent.
And I listen to her every day, and she said things like,
"Take your attention to your liver, kidneys, and 'co-lon.'"
[ Laughter ]
-'Co-lon.' -'Co-lon.'
That means colon. -Yeah.
You -- have you guys been on the East Coast during this time?
-Yeah, we've been in Massachusetts,
in a beautiful tiny little seaside town where we live.
And just my luck, I moved in with my fiancé,
and, of course, he lives in, like, a very old house that is,
I think, most certainly haunted and has an actual pet cemetery.
-A real pet cemetery? -Yeah.
-Like, based on the fact that, over the years,
this house has had that many befallen pets?
-[ Laughing ] Yeah.
I mean, they didn't get murdered.
I think they all kind of went their way,
and then they died, and then they buried them,
but it has been in my fiancé Ben's family, like,
since the '30s, I think.
So, it's, you know, like 90 years of pets.
And it's like, they're all little fancy guys
like cocker spaniels and stuff.
And at the start of the pandemic,
when I was, like, just newly pregnant,
I started to go out and visit the pet cemetery every day.
And Ben told me that, like, I started saying things like,
"I'm just gonna go outside and visit the pets."
[ Both laugh ]
It was like -- I think it's like --
It's, like -- That's, like, how a scary movie starts.
-Yeah. -You know, like,
a pregnant lady is like, "My pets.
My precious, precious pets."
[ Both laugh ]
-You -- You've thrived as an artist during this time.
I did not know your sort of visual skills.
-Yeah. -I guess this was to like --
You had a chalkboard and this was, like, to mark the days?
-[ Laughing ] Okay. Yeah. Okay, okay.
So, what this is -- is that I felt like,
at the start of the pandemic, it's, like, hard to keep track
of the days after a while.
If you don't -- If you're, like, kind of just in your house
and you don't have --
You're like an actor who has no set to go to.
So, I started to write the days, and draw a picture,
and then that devolved into this --
or evolved into this cartoon that is about our new dog
that we adopted and a brontosaurus
who loves her. -Yeah.
So, on Thursday, for those of you who can't read,
the brontosaurus is saying, "Sally, I love you.
Do you love me?"
And Sally's agreeing and saying, "I love you."
-Yeah. -And then, on Friday,
"Do you want to go on a trip with me?"
Right? -Yeah.
-And then, the following Monday, now it's lundi.
It's lundi, and they're in Paris.
That's beautiful. -Yeah.
Yeah, they traveled over the weekend,
and I guess I didn't take any pictures
of what happened on the weekend.
But there was one of Sally packing a suitcase
filled with bones, and, like, saying like,
"Give me some hints. I don't know what to pack."
Um, and then, Sunday was them on a very crudely drawn --
It was like a bicycle, I guess.
And Ben is very charitable towards me,
and I'm a terrible visual artist.
He's a really good one.
But he, like, congratulates me every day and tells me it's --
like, they're really, really good.
-That's very -- That is very lovely of him.
Um, your book is very, very good.
We've talked about it before, and now it's in paperback.
What is it like to revisit a book that is really funny
but also really vulnerable in this time
that I think has been really vulnerable for a lot of people,
particularly those who might pick it up and read it?
-Yeah. I mean, it is a nice --
It's actually -- I mean, it's a plug.
But it is a nice book to read now because I wrote it
during a time when I was kind of, like,
trying to work through sad feelings
and trying to figure out how to be alone
in a way that didn't feel scary or like a punishment.
And then, we sort of all had to be alone,
in one way or another, for so many months now.
And I think it's -- it's sometimes just, like, hard
to find a little bit of positivity in that.
But I think the book, it's all these little pieces
about my feelings during those times.
But I think -- I think kind of anyone could read them
and find something to get for themselves.
But it's -- it's just that, when I finish the book,
the last chapter is sort of like,
"And I'm a woman alone, and I will be alone now."
And then, like, a month later,
I fell in love, and now I'm pregnant.
[ Both laugh ]
It's not -- It's a happy ending.
I just didn't expect it to be so happy and so soon.
-Well, it is. We're so happy that it is
that ending for you. You more than deserve it.
And it's always just such a delight to see you, Jenny.
Thanks so much for being here.
-Thanks for having me, Seth. It's nice to be here.