A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body (3 page)

My job is to march around the office trying to find out who did it and pretending I'm going to press charges. (Since there are no black people working on
The Daily Show
I don't have to worry about someone saying, “It's not mine.”)

By the end of the day there is only one person whom I have not yet asked about the GBC. And I find that person conveniently trapped in his makeup chair, right before the show.

“Jon, was it you who downloaded the giant black cock onto my computer?” I ask.

Jon looks truly shocked. This is the same guy who sat around making jokes with the writers about grandmas falling on young men's dicks, and now he's looking at me like I've taken a shit in my hand and offered it to the Pope.

“What are you talking about, Lauren?”

The makeup lady looks like she is about to cry.

“I came in to work and there was a picture of this giant black cock on my computer, and normally it's my mom who sends me those pictures but—”

He stands up and thanks the makeup lady and walks out.

The makeup lady, who has been working with Jon since he was on MTV, says, “I think you need to go and have a heart-to-heart with him. He thinks you're making fun of him or something. He can't tell that you're kidding, I think. I've known him a long time and I just think he doesn't get your kidding. I would go right now and talk to him. Like how you talk to me. Like how you talk to everyone but him. Just as yourself.”

I know she's right. This has gone on for too long. I knock on the door of the green room.

BAM BAM BAM. People respond to truth. I want to tell him my truth.

BAM BAM BAM. The Lord has sent me. Open up.

BAM BAM BAM. Listen. Fritz got sent back because of me! I set him up. He asked if he could have one of my dad's pennies from his penny jar, and I said, “Yes! Take it!” Then Fritz returned to his foster home and they checked his pockets and found the penny. When my mother asked me, “Did you tell Fritz he could have the penny?” I told her, “No! I didn't! He stole it! Something is wrong with that kid! He's bad, I tell ya, BAAAAD!”

When Jon finally says, “Come in,” I walk into the room to find him surrounded by all his people. Every single one of the eight important people in the room looks at me as if I have a bomb strapped to my torso.

“Jon,” I say, certain of my mission. “I want to talk to you for minute. Could you come out in the hallway, please?”

Jon doesn't smile or try to smile or act patient. He is done with that shit. He says, “What? Out there?” He actually starts to stand up, and then hangs in midair above his chair as he changes his mind. “No, I'm not going out there. What do you want?”

I dive in. “Jon, every time we have an interaction I hear the next day that I've upset you. And I don't know what it is. No matter what I do I just make it worse and worse. And I don't mean to. I honestly keep thinking that I'm being myself but somehow—”

Jon stops me. “Lauren, you strike me as a very obsessive person. You need to calm down. I don't know what you're
talking about. I don't think about you or our interactions as much as you seem to.”

And I shut up because I get it. My muscles unclench. My heart rate slows and I get it.

It's like I've been running after Jon for a year, asking, “Does this shirt smell? Does it? Tell me, tell me!” And now he's told me, quite honestly. It's liberating. I feel free and ready to start doing some actual work.

Enjoying this new sense of relaxation and ease, looking forward to how well I'll finally sleep tonight, I calmly turn around and begin to close the door behind me. But before the door has completely shut I stick my head back in.

“You mean you don't think about me on the weekends?” I say. “I think about you ...”

 

 

Three weeks later, I call in to retrieve my voicemail and a strange woman answers my phone.

“Oh ... hi,” I say, after a long pause. A long, long pause. “I was just calling to get my messages. Who is this?”

S
even months after 9/11, things in New York are still touch and go. There's a lingering feeling of unease in the air, and it seems like every time I look at the clock it says 9:11. I have my job on
The Daily Show
though, and neurosis and fear breed some amazing comedy (case in point—Buddy Hackett). But at this point in time (9 /11 + 7) I am, along with the rest of the staff, just one loud door slam away from sobbing in a bathroom stall and eating my own hair. Which is not (yet) comedy we can market to our target audience of males ages eighteen through twenty-eight. They want the kind of comedy where a piece of poop comes to life and becomes an
action hero. Nothing too reality-based right now. They are not alone. I, too, want out of this reality. Where are you, SuperPoo Man? Save me ...

Walking into work I stop by my mailbox to see if my lesbian fan in Brooklyn has written me with updates about the website she's working on: ChicksWhoDigChicksWhoDig
Weedie.com
. But she hasn't. I wish my one fan wasn't so lazy. I've been waiting for the website to be up for months, acting like I couldn't be more annoyed by the whole thing while secretly feeling frustrated she isn't moving more quickly. Everyone else's fans drive them crazy, stalk them, etcetera. Mine has no follow-through. The only piece of mail in my box is a memo I received a few months back and left in my slot so it wouldn't look so completely empty. It's Comedy Central's “How to Deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” handout, which only reminds me of what I missed out on during the first weeks after 9 /11—the weight loss and the “Why not? The world is ending!” promiscuous sex that everyone was having. Instead, I gained fifteen pounds and was begging my husband to “please, just blow on it, clear the cobwebs out, that's all—then you're done.”

 

 

When I arrive at work, I find Mary, the production assistant, at her desk and in the middle of a visual gag—a scathing commentary on the officewide obsession with personal water bottles. She has taken one of the giant plastic jugs that usually supplies the water cooler and has written in large letters on
the side, “MARY'S WATER BOTTLE.” It's casually placed on her desk, taking up the entire surface, as she tries to get her work done around it. As I walk by she grabs it and hoists it up to her mouth using both arms. Two hours later, when we're both done laughing, she asks me if I've heard about the big announcement: We're going to the Emmys.

During the past seven months I've been careful not to feel anything from the nose up or the neck down. So upon hearing this news, all I'm able to squeeze out of my chin is a small, reserved, “That's exciting.” I'm afraid to get excited about a fluffy, braggy, American thing because if I do the evildoers will get us. Then again, if I think that way, “They've won.” And I'd rather win—for best comedy show.

Not that going to the Emmys was ever a childhood dream of mine. Winning an Oscar for playing Annie in the movie
Annie
had been my main concern. And “a trip to the Emmys” didn't make the cut this past New Year's Eve, when I did a ritual with a circle of sage-smoking women where we all had to write down our Dreams for the Coming Year. (They should have called it what it ended up being: Everyone But Lauren Write the Word “Peace” on a Slip of Paper. I would have added “peace” to my long list, too, but the paper was so small, and I just didn't have room in between “health insurance” and “the ability to love without slander.”)

By the time I reach my office I've gone from “I don't really think about shallow things like award shows” to looking for
babies to step on to get my name on the list of confirmed guests.

Between my normal work activities of wandering around searching for new snack options and finding new people to listen to me explain how hard it is to be married to a bartender, I notice that nobody is acting excited about going to the Emmys, but everyone is—without a doubt—going.

I remember how a few days after the eleventh there had been a staff meeting to talk about how much time it would take before we could be funny again. The state of shock in the room made it hard to get the discussion going, so in the meantime we were all instructed to try and find stories that involved soft and comforting things, like Amish people. And they had to be local Amish people, not Amish people that required an airplane trip to get to. Even the word “airplane” made our stomachs plop into our laps. Nobody wanted to take the subway—much less fly—ever again. We all decided that for the rest of our lives we would do like Loretta Lynn and the morbidly obese do: wrap a fried biscuit and a stick of butter in a plastic bag and take the bus. There were no circumstances that could ever justify taking what was now a nightmarish mode of transportation. Nobody was flying. Ever. Again.

Unless it was to the National Television Academy's 53
^rd
Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

 

 

The intercom system blasts an announcement through the building: “All staff needs to stop by Mary's desk to get your
Emmy tickets and limo assignments. And Lauren Weedman, please report to the executive producer's office right now.”

As the gods of television broadcasting would have it, my contract is up for renewal the same day the limo assignments are being made for the Emmys.

When I walk in the executive producer's office, she has a look on her face that says, “Well, I tried ... ” She offers me a freelance contract and a hit of pot. I accept both and give her a big hug. Ask her how her son is doing. Where she got her shirt. How much weight has she lost. Did she end up getting that cabin? Can I get one more hug?

Next thing I know I'm outside her office door, thinking that was a good meeting. Now I'll have more time to do other projects, plus I'm still on the show. It's kind of perfect.

The first person I run into after the meeting is my good friend and field producer, Carrie, and her dog, Fred, both of whom had been evacuated to New Jersey on the eleventh. She's my “What do you want me to do—lie to you?” friend. She's let me know that one of the issues that got in the way of my success on the show was that, though talented, I just wasn't as cute as the other female reporters. Carrie clarified this by explaining, “I'm not saying that
I
don't think you're cute. I'm just talking about guys, the fans of the show, The American People and all the Comedy Central executives.” She was painfully honest, and I have to admit, I trusted her. (Or I hated myself—tough call.)

“They offered me a freelance contract,” I say and start to clap my hands to help get the applause going.

“That means you're fired,” Carrie says, with not a hint of emotion in her voice. Unless exhaustion counts as an emotion.

“But why wouldn't they just tell me I'm fired?”

“They don't want to hurt your feelings. I'll go tell everyone we're going out to have a ‘Lauren's been canned' drink after work. Come on, Fred.”

It occurs to me that perhaps, as is often the case with Carrie, she's just doing what they'd taught her in preschool—to share whatever she had a lot of, whether it be Jolly Ranchers or bitterness. Maybe she doesn't really know whether I'm fired. She just wants to keep me down so she can look cheerful in comparison to someone who may have just been fired.

I reach down to pet Fred, trying to get a little comfort, but he yanks his head away.

“He only likes full-time employees,” Carrie says.

“Me too,” I whine.

“I'm kidding, geez. Sensitive. Are you going to be a mess at the ‘Lauren's been canned' party? Because that's what everyone is gonna be scared of. So try not to be. We like a cheerful fired girl. Come on, Fred.”

The next three random people I pass on the way back to my desk tell me the same thing. “That means you're fired. They just don't want to be mean.”

The fourth person I pass is Mitch, a full-time comedy writer whose contract was also up for renewal. I know because he was called in to the office directly after me. He tells me they offered him a freelance contract too. And he's smiling. So you see, maybe it's not what Carrie says. And all those other people. Maybe it's exactly how it sounds.

“Yeah, freelance. So what do you think?” I ask him.

“No fucking way,” Mitch says. “That's a joke. I just quit as soon as she offered it. I'm not stupid. I would never accept a deal like that.”

After work, the few employees who aren't whooping it up at Mitch's “I told them to fuck themselves” party sit at a corner table for my “Sorry you got canned” party. Carrie tactfully asks the four other employees who've shown up if I'll be allowed to go the Emmys now that I'm not a full-time employee.

“They already invited me! They can't uninvite me!” I say.

“Yes they can!” the entire bar answers in unison.

 

 

The next morning I run up to Mary, who is wearing what she claims to be Snoop Dogg's underwear on her head, and ask her if I am still going to the Emmys. She rolls her eyes. Pats me on the head. Makes the sign for “she's gone cuckoo!” and says, “You nut! Of course you are! How could you not go—you're a part of the show! Why would you suddenly not be going?”

“Well, the freelance contract thing ...”

“Freelance contract!” she says, pulling the underwear off her head. “You're on freelance contract? When did this happen? Um, I have to take Jon's puppy on a walk. We'll talk about this later.”

She puts the underwear back on her head and walks straight into the executive producer's office. Which is not where Jon keeps his puppy.