How I Got My Passport Renewed, Fell in Love with E. Jean Carroll (Again), and Realized My Best Friend Might Be a Witch

Let me paint you a picture:

It’s 3:00 a.m.

Not the fun kind where you’re falling into bed in sequins and leftover laughter. No. This was the “drag yourself out of bed and into an Uber in the dark” kind of 3 a.m. Because I had a mission:

Get to San Francisco, enter a federal building, and walk out hours later with a freshly minted passport and, ideally, a restored sense of trust in at least one government function. Spoiler: I got both.

But first: travel chaos. Because of course.

Our plane was held back for mechanical issues. I was supposed to be at the passport agency at 8:30 a.m. sharp. The math was not mathing. But I was with my best friend, “A,” who goes to San Francisco multiple times a week, knows the layout of SFO like a symphony conductor, and had already survived this passport process herself. If anyone could get me to the third floor on time, it was her.

She is the living definition of a Best Friend: she herded me, guided me, ran beside me, and quite possibly bent time. I wore heels (naturally), which are excellent for photo ops but less ideal for sprinting through terminals and leaping into Ubers. Which brings me to…

The Uber Fiasco:

Yes. Our Uber got rear-ended. A literal collision. The driver had to trade info with the woman who hit us. And of course there were six separate accidents on the freeway. So we detoured. Onto side roads. Through construction zones. Past what might’ve been a half submerged old delivery truck in the bay at Candlestick Park.

And yet—we made it. A little late. But the passport gods (and the kind staff at the security desk) waved me through. And A had that look, the kind that says “She will be seen. She will be stamped. She will leave here with government-issued documentation, or you will deal with me.”

Inside the Federal Fortress:

Now, this is where the miracle really happened.

Because the federal employees? The ones we’re all trained to imagine as DMV-level grumpy or post office weary? These folks were the opposite.

They were kind. Professional. Flirty. Funny. Calm under pressure.

I watched them process hundreds of passport requests like a symphony of efficiency. Every document was checked twice. Every citizen was spoken to like they mattered. I watched a young employee fix a toddler’s application while joking with her mom and then immediately turn to help a retired veteran with quiet respect.

These were government employees doing their jobs to absolute perfection.

I left the building clutching my new passport like a holy relic.

And I turned back.

I looked the employees in the eye, and I said:

“Thank you. I’ll see you in ten years.”

Meanwhile, Let’s Talk About That Book

Oh darling, let me take a deep breath and an even deeper sip of something fizzy, because E. Jean Carroll’s memoir NOT MY TYPE is the literary equivalent of a dirty martini tossed straight into the face of the American patriarchy—followed by a wink, a laugh, and a joyful skip into the sunset wearing something fabulously unpractical, like silver boots or a floor-length feathered coat.

And the audiobook? Read by E. Jean herself? It’s like having a cosmically mischievous aunt whisper you secrets from a life so wild, so absurd, and so entirely hers, that you don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or sell everything and start fresh in Montana with a dog and a vengeance.

Let’s Begin at the Beginning (Which is Usually a Man)

“Not My Type” isn’t just a book. It’s a confessional séance. A genre-defying act of resistance and self-reclamation wrapped in hot pink cover art. It’s Carroll telling the world: Yes, she was raped by Donald Trump in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store, and no, she won’t shut up about it, thank you very much. But if you’re expecting a courtroom drama or a linear trauma memoir, you clearly don’t know our E. Jean. She doesn’t do pity parties. She throws glitter bombs.

The book bounces—no, vaults—through time like a woman possessed by a divine mix of Hunter S. Thompson and Dorothy Parker. You’ll get the tragic, the comic, the downright bizarre:

• Her dating disasters and near-marriages

• Her cross-country road trip in an aging Subaru to find the perfect man

• Her rollicking career from Elle magazine advice doyenne to national symbol of survival

• And yes, that infamous orange-haired disgrace of a president who finally met his match in a six-foot-tall goddess with a spine of titanium and the wit of a stand-up comic who’s been through it

And oh! The voice! The audiobook! Listening to E. Jean narrate her own life is like hearing Dorothy Gale recount The Wizard of Oz but add 400% more lipstick, lawsuits, and laughter. Her voice cracks in all the right places. She giggles when she shouldn’t. She swears just enough. You don’t just listen—you ride shotgun.

It’s Not Just a Memoir. It’s a Middle Finger Dipped in Red Lipstick.

She talks about Trump not with the solemnity he doesn’t deserve, but with a hilarious, scalpel-sharp irreverence. She calls out the media, the fashion of forgiveness, the gaslighting of women who dare to speak up, and the absurdity of being told you’re “too much” when you were just enough to survive. It’s funny. It’s searing. It’s a feminist battle cry disguised as a romp.

But perhaps what’s most Ephronian about it is that it’s written by a woman who, even after being litigated, humiliated, and dismissed, still believes in love, beauty, and a great pair of boots. Nora would’ve adored her—hell, she might’ve written the screenplay. Or stolen her lines.

Final Review?

Not My Type is the anti-romantic comedy for women who’ve been through hell and came back with punchlines. It’s blistering. It’s brave. And it’s funny in that way women are funny when they’ve seen too much and laugh anyway, teeth bared.

Listen to it. Buy it. Gift it. Wrap it in crime scene tape if you must, but do not ignore it. This is E. Jean’s love letter to defiance, her personal how-to on being gloriously unruly in the face of cruelty—and baby, it sings.

Be like A. Be like E. Jean. Be the woman who runs in heels, reads in line, and never forgets that the truth—especially when told by women—is the most subversive act of all.

Plans to read the book? Already read it? Thoughts? Please let me know in the comments. Always forward, Gloria