“Talk to Aziz. Here’s his number. Kristen Schaal? Sure, here you go.”
He is beyond generous, and when he kisses me over Heinekens at 2A in the East Village where we’ve met to talk about my story, I realize, oh yeah, that’s why.
You have to realize, this kind of attention is all new to me.
When I got married to James, I never wore makeup or watched my weight or dyed my hair or even got my eyebrows done. I wore clothes either far-too-old-for-my-age dowdy-professional or retro thrift, as if I hoped to seduce Eddie Vedder should I ever get a time-travel machine to 1993. I never played games at all with men. Ever. Unless the game was to act like the kind of nightmare who hysterically cries at the drop of a hat and relies on a man for all manner of self-validation, self-worth, and approval to fill that giant gaping hole inside.
But when James broke my heart, he broke all of my idealism as well. I pulled a complete one-eighty, a total George Costanza in terms of how I approached men, dating, and relationships. Had I made fun of The Rules before? Well, fuck it, this time, I was going to read it with an open mind. Did I never date conservative guys as a rule but instead gravitate toward anyone who would bring up Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky within the first ten minutes of small talk? Well, why not date a union-busting corporate lawyer instead and “yes and” every Darth Vader illustrative anecdote he made over chardonnay as I fell down drunkenly on his boat?
Nothing mattered. The dream of true love was dead, and I was ready to position myself as a player. Now, sixty pounds lighter, hair much more bleached, makeup much more applied, clothes much more tweaked for sex appeal, ideology completely shredded, I was suddenly a piece of ass. And it was the strangest feeling of power, one I had never quite experienced before.
With Liam, I am open to romantic possibility, but after the one daytime date we have, seeing Brokeback Mountain in the theater, complete with awkward hand-holding, I realize I like him more as a friend than anything else. I so want to have that immediate-boyfriend-in-New-York experience, but there’s nothing lonelier than trying to convince yourself that a friend is something more, when your heart knows differently.
Out at Liam’s stand-up showcase one night, I meet Andy Borowitz, the humorist and creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, who has enough money to retire on forever but enjoys doing stand-up at small showcases in the city. He tells me I look ten years younger than my age, kisses me on the cheek, and gives me his number when I ask if I can ever use him as a source for a “future piece.”
Ever the eager networking rube, I take this not-even-an-overture overture and leverage it with another pen-pal friend of mine, the then relatively unknown and future creator of You’re the Worst, Stephen Falk, who had reached out to me as a fan of my blog a year ago. Stephen would check in from time to time to see how my New York adventures were going. He had heard national radio pickup in LA on my “dinner whores” piece and wrote me about teaming up to bring in one of my future articles to option to his agent.
So how do I respond to Stephen?
“Yeah, sure,” I demur. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just want to work for The Daily Show . . . Maybe sometime I could call you and we could chat. I also think the creator of The Fresh Prince wants to bed me so maybe that will take care of everything. Ha ha.”
Question: Is it possible to die from literally cringing at yourself? Because I just did. A million times over. Why—specifically?
1. Because I idiotically didn’t realize that Stephen was handing me actual gold on a platter (anyone reading this: Know there is no better way to “break in” to Hollywood as a journalist than to have an established screenwriter option one of your pieces).
2. Because I dismissively swatted his idea away like the moron I was.
3. Because I instead took the opportunity to go on about various flirtations that existed largely in my mind—as if that meant anything. Honestly, I think because I had never experienced this kind of male attention before, I actually thought this was part of my résumé.
Stephen writes me back, true to hilarious form, and says, “That’s so funny. I got my first agent by fucking the guy who created Head of the Class. Sure, let me know what your schedule is and we’ll set up a phone call. So official!”
After my article “How He Blew It” comes out, I receive an inquiry from a guy named John who says he is a movie producer who can get me into William Morris. Almost daily, I write him nauseating emails trying to represent myself as the Carrie Bradshaw/Samantha Jones ice queen I think he envisions me to be (versus the crumpled-up identity-crisis mess I actually am). In writing this producer (I just googled him now; his career consists of one low-budget film no one saw in 2010), I even make Dr. Tom out to be this dramatic Romeo because I know I need some kind—any kind—of Mr. Big figure in the messy shit show that is my life.
“You’ll be pleased to know I had two heartwarming conversations with The Doctor this week,” I email John. “For the sake of The Hollywood Ending, of course. Also got approached about doing a stand-up showcase in March. Should be fun.”
My emails to John contain every excruciating nook and cranny of every development in my life. Someone wants me to write for a literary collection. Should I do it? My story for the next day’s paper is about spooning positions people sleep in, so insert shitty joke here, keep an eye out for that one!
God, I feel so lonely and unhinged. Little do I realize, John is
