Dear Roseanne,

I started reading your book last night. I expected a light read, like a comedic "Twilight" if you will. After the first chapter I was hooked. It was as though you sprinkled the pages with crack. I initially started reading because I, like many people watching grew up thinking that they were Darline, with a penis. I grew up wishing that I was a part of you're TV family. As a child, when my pediatrician was the same one in Hollywood that you took your kids to, at least that is what my mother told me. I felt a connection from there on. Truthfully I hoped that we would bump into you at the Dr's and you would demand that I appear on your show, but that's another story. As a standup comic, I watch Youtubes of your comedy on repeat to make me laugh, when I'm having a bad day and already have eaten my weight in love.

About the book, it's really an interesting read. You talk about how you never fit in as a kid. You stood out from day one. You were also teased and bullied. It's way better though than any "it get's better" video, cause you are actually keeping it real. Unlike the "it get's better" campaign, you open a clear forum for dialogue where you are honest about who you are, and how badly you felt being teased. You put all the cards on the table and don't apologize. Every other line in the book is funny although this may drift right over the heads of those not educated in sarcasm or Jewish guilt. You talk about growing up Jewish in Salt Lake City which shocked me because I had no idea they had Jews there at all. You talk about your Jewish grandmothers, one old world, the other, a meld of Europe and modern woman. I felt that if you added heavy Russian accents and various pickled cabbage recipes, you could be talking about my own grandmothers. My point is that your story is one that anyone could relate to.

When I started reading your book, while at one of my lame jobs as a doorman at a local bar (doing what I can that lets me do stand up and tell my jokes and use that soap box to show the world why I AM special). Point is, that while I was reading the book at the door, everyone that walked by to glance at my kindle, giggled as I mentioned your book. They laughed like you couldn't be taken seriously, but each walked away with sentences along the lines of, "she disappeared, I loved that show though."

As a kid, I saw your character Roseanne who had dreamed of becoming a writer. This truly inspired me to write, a lot. Half the time it's gibberish, run-on sentences. Sometimes I do think that this writing and expressing my point of view is what will make my mark on the world. If I had never seen you, an "every man," doing the same thing, I would have thought that I had no chance.

You found a way as an artist and person to change the world's viewpoint. Your standup and show's messages changed us all and for this reason I think your book and soapbox is ever more relevant to the modern day. While the "domestic goddess" is gone, her rich, successful future self gives me hope as a comedian, a uniquely Jewie-faced, Jew-fro of a human. On a daily basis I get told that I don't look or act like anyone else. Is it my fault that I look like what would have resulted if Charlie Brown had fucked Barbara Streisand? While I am nothing like you, a generation younger, and of course a fagalla-yiddishy-punim, I am just like you. I have always felt like an outsider of the world, and only as an adult can understand that is a blessing in disguise.

My larger point is this, thank you.

Best,
Yuri Kagan