Life As I Blow It

S
arah Colonna believes that just because she dislodged her ass from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and moved all the way to Los Angeles, she no longer deserves to work at a fast-food chain called Chucky's. She is wrong. I don't know if there is a fast-food chain called Chucky's, but if there is, that's where she deserves to be.

I met Sarah at an improvisation class in the Valley when we were both twenty-one years old. We were magnetically drawn to each other because we both looked like we were in our mid-forties. The class was an embarrassment of riches and a testament that everything happens for a reason. Had I not looked to a sixty-year-old wannabe actor/comic for direction in weaving the name of a city and a profession, yelled out by another classmate, into a hilarious Southwest-level
comedy bit, I would never have seen Sarah in her underwear. We have smoked cigarettes while wearing our Invisalign. Well, I was wearing mine, but she needs it.

Shortly after I met Sarah she inherited a cat from a male friend of hers who died. I felt bad that her friend had died, but I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of keeping someone else's cat. I knew she had to be from the South or the Midwest, and at the time both of those areas meshed together in my mind, so it really didn't matter. What mattered is that she kept that cat and it is still fucking alive.

We spent a lot of time together drinking excessively and waiting tables to pay for the former. She drove a smelly white Mustang with doors the size of chaise lounges and I drove a Toyota Echo. Both of those cars survived a lot of fast food, a lot of alcohol spilling, a lot of men, a lot of drive-bys, and a lot of fender benders that were not reported to the LAPD.

She paired that feculent Mustang with a horrifying haircut that I imagined you would find on a secretary from Omaha who worked full-time at a potato plant. I told her repeatedly to let her hair grow out, especially after I saw her license picture once, when we were both proving to each other how old we actually were. She had long blond hair when she was in college at the University of Arkansas and looked ten times better than the girl whose glassy eyes I was barely staring into. We were both drunk on her bed wondering why no one thought we were our actual age. At thirty-five we still have the same problem, so the idea that you grow into it is a complete lie.

We started doing stand-up together somewhere around 1997 and one of us would stop, and then start again, then one of us would stop; then we'd start again. The problem is
we hung out so much that our stand-up was too much alike and people would get us confused all the time. All we both talked about was drinking and being broken up with by AM/PM mini-mart managers. We both kind of hated it, but knew there was really no other option for either one of us to get anywhere in life in the real world, and we were both too lazy to change our material. Sarah had more of an acting background. I had more of a bad-attitude background. Our biggest priority was fun and Sarah is probably the funniest person I know and I happen to know a lot of funny people. Unfortunately, none of them are the people I work with.

Cut to almost fifteen years and ten boyfriends later. She and I get to work together every day and I have forced her to share an office with one of the loudest Jewish eaters in the history of West Los Angeles. She is a huge part of
Chelsea Lately
and
After Lately
and is by far the most popular person in the office. Everyone loves Sarah. She is my favorite and she will be yours, too. If I write any more, this will start to sound like a eulogy. We've come a long way from using our debit cards at Del Taco. We both only eat organic Mexican now; excluding every other Thursday, when Chuy has us over for brunch.

I
'm sitting alone in my apartment with a big glass of vodka next to me. I've filled it three times so far, and it's only 4
P.M.
Whatever, it's Sunday.

I'm trying to figure out how to start this book. I've ended it, but I haven't started it. That's how I do a lot of things. I get to the end of a meal much faster than I should, like I've been given the last hamburger on earth and someone is about to rob me. I walk like I'm being chased. I tend to fuck first and ask questions later.

I'm thirty-six years old, but I don't feel like it. Some days I feel like I'm twenty-one, some days I feel like I'm pushing sixty. I work really hard and because of that I believe I should be able to play really hard. It's not easy to find a guy who can handle that. It's also not easy to find a guy who
doesn't mind that at one point in my life, I slept with somebody named “Paul's friend.”

To the naked eye, I'm completely responsible. I pay my bills not only on time, but early. I return emails and phone calls in a prompt manner. I won't go near an egg that is one second past its expiration date. I've always known what I want to do with my life professionally. But if you ask me what I want in my personal life, forget it.

I always wanted to get married, until it looked like someone might want to marry me. I was sure I didn't want kids, then for a couple of months I wanted kids, then a couple of months later I thought kids were horrible. I loved someone so much that I broke up with him because I didn't want to get hurt. Then when he proved he loved me back, I broke up with him again. I'm a fucking mess, but so are you. Most of us are. I don't just mean women. Men are a mess, too. We're all in this together.

We all have two very different personalities living inside us and sometimes those people are at war with each other. It's confusing to see what two completely different paths can offer you. My mom showed me that if you lived close to your family, you always had a birthday party. You also always had a big Thanksgiving dinner, a big Christmas, an Easter egg hunt. Maybe those events became annoying, but you always knew you could rely on them. And you always had each other.

My dad showed me that if you went off on your own, you could have the career that you always wanted. Your family might change with each marriage and you might have to move around, feel alone for a while, and make new friends, but you'd always be climbing the ladder. Plus you could go on really nice vacations and stay in hotels with nice comfy
robes that could be yours for the reasonable price of eighty-nine dollars.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I want both. Or I want it all. Or I only want part of both. I don't know. I just know that you don't always end up happy with what you thought would make you happy. You've probably been there a time or two yourself. You can't always want what you get.

A
t the time of my parents' divorce, I was five years old and we were all living in Dallas. Lori came into our lives soon after. My mom's family was in Arkansas; she went there to look for a place for us to live so that she'd have a support system now that she was going to be a single mom. While she was gone, Lori stayed at our house in Dallas. She didn't seem to have many housekeeping skills, so I knew she wasn't a maid. Dad also suggested we didn't mention the amount of time Lori spent at our house to Mom, so I knew she wasn't a friendly gal pal. It all seemed to tie together to the time that Mom locked the dead bolt on the front door and then broke a broomstick in half and shoved it into the track of our back sliding-glass door. It was pretty late, so I
asked her if she was scared that someone was going to break in. She just smiled and told me to go to bed. I woke up later when my dad tried to climb through a window and didn't fit. The next day, when I asked Dad why he got home after midnight he told me that he had worked late with Lori. This woman was around at really inconvenient times.

My older sister, Jennifer, and I were flower girls in Dad and Lori's wedding. Neither of us was too pumped up about the event, but we showed up and did our jobs. I didn't like weddings to begin with. I found them long and boring and it cut into the time I would normally spend playing “Charlie's Angels” with my sister. She was brunette, so she played Jaclyn Smith's character. I was awesome, so I played Cheryl Ladd's. The third Angel we just pretended was on vacation, because nobody we lived near wanted to be Kate Jackson. We had water guns and a telephone that didn't work so that we could report to “Charlie.” Since we didn't have a brother, we considered ourselves very lucky that on the show nobody ever saw Charlie.

This wedding in particular really had me in a foul mood. I didn't like my new stepmom. She was annoying and made me eat some sort of salmon dish with the skin around it while she said things like “one day your mom and I will be the best of friends.” I'd stare at her, try to count in my head all of the times my mom had called her a slut, spit my dinner into a napkin, and vow to hate her forever. She was also Polish, which made for lots of fun Polack jokes for Jennifer and me. Dad didn't find them amusing.

I tried to display my distaste for their union. I refused to eat cake at the reception, which at six was my way of saying “fuck you.” The whole thing took place in my old backyard,
where I used to live with my family in Dallas. Now it was my dad's house with a new woman who sucked and had a jacked-up nose. Lori made Jennifer and me wear brown floral skirts that went past our knees and off-white shirts that buttoned so high up the neck I thought I was going to choke to death. I went to my old room right after they exchanged vows, and on the way I mentioned to a dozen people that Lori's nostrils were a lot bigger than my mom's.