I Know What I'm Doing (31 page)

“Can’t I flirt? GOD!”

“Nothing wrong on paper with flirting, Jen. But you’ve never been able to just flirt. You dive headfirst before checking if there’s water in the pool.”

When David and I met I was glad I did my hair. By the way, I know that guys have no idea how to differentiate between when a woman’s hair is “done” or when it’s lice-ridden. But it made me feel like my light was on, blinking AVAILABLE FOR FLIRTING, advertising the current vacancy in my soul. I hip-checked Gay Nath so that I could sit next to David in the van. We talked nonstop. He’s a Ramones fan, like me. I told him if he were ever in Los Angeles I’d take him to Johnny Ramone’s grave. (Three months later we were doing just that. It was like some punk rock version of
The Secret
.)

Cue montage of stolen looks, laughs laughed, drinks drunk, finding reasons to touch (“Oh my god, you guys, let’s get a picture! No. I’ll stand
here.
”
Elbows everyone else out of the way.
). End montage with us in my room overlooking the Story Bridge over the Brisbane River, a half a bottle of wine, and iTunes open as we each pick songs to play, switching on and off to provide the soundtrack to this scene we will call, Two People Pretending Like They Always Stay Up Late Together Drinking Near a Bed.

The Story Bridge was lit up with stark red lightbulbs—like hundreds of red-nosed reindeers outlining its shape. A subtle sign from the Universe? STOP! DO NOT GO! DO NOT START THIS! We ignored it. At three in the morning he announced he was going to bed. He stated confidently but without a hint of perv, “And I would like that bed to be yours.” I joined him. ONLY SLEEP. It wasn’t so much a test for him as a sober moment for me. Absolutely. No. One. Night. Stands. At. My. Age. I woke up to the feel of being snuggled. I’m irritated by snuggling. I’m not trying to say a traditionally masculine thing in a misguided effort to sound chill. I really find snuggling impossible—especially with a neck that’s prone to go out just from sleeping on a pillow, never mind sleeping in the crook of an arm. But something about this cuddle fit. And it was then I decided that although a
one-night stand
is not an option—an
affair
was most definitely okay. Unlike a one-night stand, which implies, “I want instant gratification with zero feeling—except in my junk,” an affair has an air of respectability. Except for affairs involving a politician with good hair and his love-struck videographer during his wife’s struggle with cancer.

I had made a promise to myself to get organized during the last five days of my stay in Australia. I had tons of e-mails to return, a calendar to update, and Brisbane was experiencing flash floods on account of relentless rainstorms. There would be nothing else to do. After our first morning together, I assumed maybe David and I would fling regularly every night but I didn’t expect we would be inseparable for five days. We drank coffee every morning and wine every evening. We went dancing at a gay club. We sent texts back and forth during the half hour a day we weren’t together. I didn’t open my laptop once. I let myself be unorganized. No affair story ever started with, “Well, first I paid some online bills, emptied my spam folder, and
only after all that was done
did I fall into the arms of a guy who was the first person in a long time who made me feel like there was something special at first sight going on. Oh! AND I ran a thorough backup on a second hard drive!! It was such a whirlwind.”

Despite the fact that passionate dalliances usually involve lots of sex—that wasn’t what was intoxicating to me. One afternoon when it seemed like the rain was going to wash our hotel right down a hill, David and I sat lazily entwined on his couch reading books and magazines, stopping to read things aloud to each other. This was the intimacy I had been craving. It’s conventional wisdom that for the sleep-deprived, a marathon night of deep REM can’t make up for lost sleep but according to my research, I felt like the lack inside me from a year without intimacy was being filled instantly by an afternoon on a couch. Normally, it would undo me to be happy with someone knowing that a plane is waiting to take me seven thousand one hundred and eighty-two miles away but I felt this incredible sense of calm. I had a quiet knowing that everything would be okay. That sounds stupid. Of course we would be okay. We weren’t refugees from a war-torn country. We were two white people who got up to some kissing at the risk of getting a little heartache. Big deal, right?

On our last day together—the first day the sun returned—we walked across the Story Bridge. Only halfway. I couldn’t make it all the way to the other side without my fear of heights kicking in, which would probably result in a massive panic attack. The symbolism of not being able to “finish the story” in Australia is not lost on me. (It probably wasn’t lost on you either but I’m a codependent author and I really felt I needed to point it out.)

During our five days together, David and I talked in an abstract way about who we were, who we’ve been, who we wanted to be. When he said he might be in America soon, I told him, “Great, if you come to Los Angeles, we can have coffee!” I was ready to go back home and continue to be with myself—unless someone came along who made me want to try a relationship again. Someone like David. But obviously
not David because he wasn’t coming home with me.
This affair would have to end in Brisbane. I wasn’t going to allow myself to be on the receiving end of dick pics (not that he’s the type to send them) and I wasn’t going to be just another girl in his Rolodex. (I explained what a Rolodex is . . .) There was no teary good-bye, although some jokes were made about jumping off the bridge together. Thank God for that fear of heights keeping me alive.

I told David I have this issue with not feeling my feelings in the moment. My therapist says my feelings tend to send me a postcard about a week after a big incident in my life, letting me know where they are and that they’ll be back soon. I knew that being back in America, back in the day-to-day of life, actually having to return e-mails, no bridges to hold hands on, that I would start to long for him. But I also knew enough not to long for someone who I still didn’t know that well. I would not allow any interruptions to my sanity. I asked him if we could just not keep in touch right for the time being, just in case my heart caught up to my brain and realized, “Wait! Where is that guy we liked? He’s really not here anymore?”

David didn’t listen. He contacted me every day. I have to admit it felt good to be pursued. And I didn’t feel gutted because he was so expressive—leaving me voice mails with sentiments like, “I don’t know where you came from but I knew the minute I saw you I wanted you in my life . . .” I made every effort to not text, call, or Skype back. After a month of talking every day—I got that postcard from my feelings. I was falling in love. (And fuck people who take love too seriously and think that it can only be between two people who have two point five kids and are practically sick of each other.) I wanted to see him again. His trip to America to visit friends turned into a specific trip to Los Angeles to visit me—talk of visiting for one month turned into a booked stay of three months. And here we are. Even though he eats about eleven bananas a day and keeps them in an unsightly paper bag on my deck so that they ripen—I actually don’t mind someone living in my home right now. I know we wouldn’t live together under normal circumstances. But for now, for what this is—an affair turned into a circumstantially challenged relationship—I like having someone here who does the weirdest things—like take all my clothes out of my energy-efficient dryer in the middle of the night and spread them out to dry on my dining room table to “save even more energy.”

A week before David arrived, I was driving through Iowa on tour. I kept seeing signs alerting me to the fact that if I turned off the road I could see THE BRIDGE from
The Bridges of Madison County
. A few days later I came down with exhaustion and after canceling a gig (sorry Pittsburgh) I took to bed (I’m really good at that by the way) and decided, “Hey, I’ll watch
Bridges of Madison County
.” I never saw the movie about Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep) and Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) having a four-day affair centered on their time spent NEAR A BRIDGE. This was sounding vaguely familiar. The conversations Francesca and Robert have sounded eerily similar to ones between David and me. Then I remembered the psychic’s prediction that I would meet a man in my travels with a CLINT EASTWOOD quality. This character was also a traveling man, just passing through, who finds himself wanting more than an affair. Fuck. Maybe I should have been like Meryl Streep’s character and resisted this intensity going more than five days. Unlike her character, I have no resolve. I’m all in. I want this relationship to last even if the Universe has deemed it not meant to be.

I WANNA CONTROL THE UNIVERSE!

And I’m not sure that I can. Clinical research trials on whether my will can bend the cosmos are still being conducted.

As I write this I’ve found out I will work on a project that will keep me from traveling for a year. I’m sad. I’m pissed. Australia? I meet a super feminist guy who unlike most male comedians LIKES the fact that he’s dating another comedian. He’s smart. Passionate. Funny. Politically motivated. Dresses cool. Even voluntarily talked to my mom on the phone . . . and he lives all the way at the bottom of the earth? And yes, he would love to live in America. But things like that take time to figure out and in the meantime I’m not free to return the gesture of a massive visit to his country. I don’t want a relationship that comes with ten months of long distance. And no, I’m not going to marry him so he can get a green card as one married person I know suggested. (Have you met me? Get MARRIED? Ahem, AGAIN?) Some of my coupled-up friends are giving me advice. “If you love someone set them free and if it’s meant to be you’ll find each other again.” Really? That’s how you see the world, Jane and Josh?
^I

I feel a little changed. I know now that I can function in a relationship and still feel like ME—not some neutered version of myself. Maybe David is the guy I was supposed to meet who gets me ready for
the next guy who actually lives in America
? Maybe life isn’t that linear and signposts aren’t that vague? Maybe it just IS. I met someone really amazing and we have limited time together. Goddamn it. We would have had a good long run together before continental drift.

There is no right answer. There is no right way to have a happy ending. Is there? Why do we care so much about endings anyway? Nobody ever talks about happy beginnings or happy middles. The last minute of a massage when the overworked woman jerks off some creep is known as the “happy” part but what about the fifty-nine minutes before that where it was all delightful rubbing, loosening of muscles, and sighs of relaxation?

At least unlike Francesca Johnson, I don’t have a husband and kids who are about to pull into the driveway once my Robert Kincaid leaves. I’m free to walk across any bridge I find—alone or with whomever I want. And if I don’t cross the entire thing—it’s still a happy ending because I’m alive.

I
. Made-up names. I notice when you guys started dating you guys didn’t move to the opposite ends of the world for a year to “see what happens.” In fact, you two went to the Cheesecake Factory together every night.

25

WOMEN AREN’T FUNNY. THEY’RE HILARIOUS.

I would not want to live if I could not perform. It’s in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.

—JOAN RIVERS

J
oan Rivers has been a hero to me since I started my journey in stand-up comedy back in 1997. I’m sorry to say “journey.” I don’t mean to sound like I’m a guest who’s overly proud of herself on an episode of
Oprah’s Master Class
. But stand-up is an actual journey because it can take you places—literally places that exist on maps and figuratively places in your head that make you wonder,
Why the hell am I doing this? Am I even funny? Why aren’t things going better for me? I’m funnier than him/her/it/everyone. Maybe I should quit. Why doesn’t everyone else quit and make room for me?
If you’re smart you’ll also journey to therapy. Neurosis can always be mined for laughs as long as the audience is confident that the performer is not currently having a nervous breakdown on stage.

Joan’s first memoir,
Enter Talking
, was my bible. I carried it around with me in my purse when I was a lowly temp pounding the pavement in New York City. (That isn’t an expression—I used to wear very heavy John Fluevog brand Mary Jane heels.) Joan became a stand-up in her twenties and by her midthirties she still hadn’t found the big break that her peers Woody Allen and Bill Cosby had. She also hadn’t married her stepdaughter or allegedly drugged and raped countless women—which illustrates my theory that if you’re going to be jealous of people, you have to be willing to trade places with the ENTIRETY of who they are, their whole life, and not just their success. Joan may not have been making millions as America’s favorite TV dad but she also wasn’t an (alleged) rapist, so life wasn’t all bad. She taught me to never compare and despair and to never fucking stop doing what you love. At the very least you’ll drop dead having done what fulfilled you.

Joan’s big break came on her first appearance on Johnny Carson in 1965—an appearance that was hard fought. She had been rejected by the show many times—not by Johnny directly but by the gatekeepers, the talent bookers on
The
Tonight Show
. That’s another lesson I learned from Joan. There will always be people in life who tell you no and sometimes it’s because they have nothing else to do that day except exert their power, and if you let their no stop you, you’ve just validated their opinion of you as worth more than your own.

I admired Joan for being one of the only stand-up comedians who also happened to be a woman at a time when women weren’t supposed to be doing men’s jobs, least of all comedy. Women weren’t supposed to be funny. Women weren’t supposed to speak their truth about how hard it is to be pregnant and feel sexy. Women weren’t supposed to talk about abortion, being single, sex with their husbands—not even in private, let alone on television. Also, I say “stand-up who also happened to be a woman” because I don’t believe in saying “female comedian.” A comedian is a comedian is a comedian. “Female” is not a type of comedy. You can say that someone is a one-liner comic, a storyteller, a prop comic, or a shitty comic, but when you write “female” it’s implied that male is what a comic really is and a female comic is a lesser version. It also implies that females only talk about “one thing”—being female, and that men, just regular old comedians, discuss more important, universal things. You know, like their dicks.