Life As I Blow It (18 page)

“These aren't ‘funny little things' that I do. You didn't write down that I alphabetize my CDs or that I set my alarm three times in a row before going to bed; you wrote down where I go and who I'm with!”

We went back and forth for a little bit, but he finally admitted that he was keeping tabs on me. He said that he felt like I went out way too much for someone who was in a relationship and that he started to write it down so that when he approached me about it, he'd have ammunition. He was correct, I did go out too much, but keeping a journal of it wasn't any better.

“How about just saying ‘I think you go out too much'?” I asked him. “That would have been far more efficient.”

I told him that there was no way we were dating anymore and hung up. I grabbed my stuff, went to my car, checked underneath for a bomb, and drove home. I was a little relieved because I knew he wasn't the right guy for me in the long run, but I found myself crying and I wasn't sure why I felt sad at all.

The me now knows why it hurt. I was living far away from my family. I was a waitress, and I was broke. Having a boyfriend made me feel like I was doing one thing right, and now that that was over I was back to doing everything wrong.

When I got home I told Tilley what happened and she started laughing. I stared at her, wondering where the sympathy
was, then a few seconds later I started laughing, too. I got myself ready and went to meet CH at RR. When it turned 1
A.M.
I was relieved that I didn't have to call anybody to check in, and that in turn nobody could write down what time I had called.

S
hortly after I ended things with Kevin, I booked my first commercial. I was more excited than you can imagine. I finally had my first acting job and I had gotten it all on my own. I felt a new sense of independence.

The commercial was for Sprint Canada. I played a girl who sees Candice Bergen on a plane and tells her all about how I met a guy on vacation in Greece and we stayed in touch through Sprint Canada and now we're engaged. It reminded me of Marc. Yes, we met in Mexico, not Greece. We stayed in touch through email, not Sprint. We were not engaged; in fact we hadn't talked for a few months. Other than that, this commercial
was
our relationship.

My mom found it very disappointing that my first acting job wouldn't be airing in the United States, but I assured her
there were many more to come and that this particular job was really just a sign for me to get back in touch with Marc. I figured since he lived in Canada, he'd probably see the commercial. The least he deserved was a heads-up. I was so excited for a reason to reach out to him since I was completely bored in the guy department. I emailed him and anxiously awaited a response, but after a couple of weeks with no word, I assumed I wasn't going to hear back.

I did realize that booking a commercial wasn't a career maker, especially when it only aired in Canada. I was a few months from turning twenty-five and so far my life wasn't turning out as planned. But at least I was more hopeful now.

I met another comic, Ira Goldstein, and thought he was really cute. He did stand-up and had a job doing promos at NBC. The latter part was nice because he had a real job, like Kevin had, but it sounded more fun and he seemed to like it. I'd gone for responsible, and I'd gone for complete messes; with Ira I sensed something different. He had that funny-but-responsible combo that I really needed. Funny would keep me from getting bored and responsible would keep me from getting unemployment.

I didn't care that Ira was Jewish. In fact, I didn't realize he was until Chris Franjola explained to me that the name “Ira Goldstein” might as well be “Jewey Jew-Jew.” One thing about growing up in a small town in Arkansas was that I was really sheltered from anything but plain old white Southern people. This can go two ways: You can either emerge really closed-minded and slightly racist, or you can be so used to seeing everybody the same way that you continue to do that, no matter who you meet. I like to believe I emerged the latter. When I told my grandpa that I was dating
a Jewish guy he asked, “So he's cheap?” He emerged the former.

I hadn't spent much time with Ira. We'd had a couple of good conversations in which we both figured out that we loved bad movies and Mötley Crüe. There was something very sweet about him, but also very smart. He was a lot different from the other guys I had dated, and as far as I was concerned, that was a good thing.

He called me one afternoon and asked me if I wanted to go to something called Burning Man. It's a big outdoor festival in the middle of a desert where people congregate and some display their creativity through art, music, or a really dumb costume. I think it used to actually mean something, but now it's just a place to go for a week to do mushrooms and ecstasy. Ira had told me that he was going with a few guys, and one had backed out. He offered me the fall-out spot.

I said yes without really thinking, which trumped Quebec as the most spontaneous thing I'd ever done. I still do very few things that aren't well thought out, with the exception of sex. I told myself that in agreeing to do this I was really branching out, then went to my friend's house and borrowed an eighties prom dress so that I could fit in for costume night.

Getting to the festival requires flying to Reno, then driving for a couple of hours. Ira and his friends had already rented an RV, which we'd be sleeping in. All I had to do was get on a plane, which was perfect because outside of that I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I was nervous.

Once I landed in Reno and met up with Ira I felt better—he was way too adorable to have friends who would
gang-rape me. In fact I started to realize that it was a bold move for him to invite a girl he didn't know that well to the desert with his two best friends for four days. I knew how brutal guys could be from my own male friends. I focused on not seeming drunk and stumbled over to introduce myself to his buddies. After a slight delay of forty-five minutes when I couldn't find my bag even though it was right behind me, we left the airport.

We all hit it off immediately and the drive was fun. When we got to the camp, the first thing we saw was a guy standing in the back of his pickup truck singing “Born to Run” to two other people through a portable karaoke machine. I was in heaven.

Although, thanks to my family, I was certainly used to camping, this was nothing like what I'd experienced in the past. It was crazy hot during the day and freezing at night. We had no running water. The guys had packed a ton of bottles for drinking and for the occasional attempt at an armpit wash. I gave myself a little pat on the back for remembering to pack some Always feminine wipes since Ira had warned me that the shower situation was grim. I also took long walks to the outhouse every day. There was no way I was going number two in an RV.

I always saw something ridiculous when I wandered around. I saw a guy riding his bike completely naked, which seemed both brave and painful. There were “techno” tents set up for raves. One group of guys had built a huge, crazy maze. I wandered in and smoked pot, which I don't do well, then ended up sitting in a corner of the maze until someone came by and led me to the exit.

The second night, one of Ira's friends suggested we do mushrooms. I had never done them before and I was still
afraid of drugs. Pot was all I had ever tried and I wanted to keep it that way. As far as I knew, the worst thing alcohol did was make you puke and/or forget stuff. Those were two consequences I was comfortable with. I didn't like the idea of anything that might make me lose complete control and jump off a building or run through a glass door, which is what I was convinced mushrooms would do. That being said, when Ira's friend offered them to me I said “Sure!” and ate a handful. After all, this was the new, spontaneous Sarah. I needed to take mushrooms to get myself to the next level. It was a horrible, horrible idea.

When the mushrooms started to take effect, I began to realize I was in the middle of nowhere with three guys I barely knew, and thousands of other people who were carrying glow sticks that I started to think were actually butcher knives.
What am I doing here? Am I insane?
Too bad I had that thought, because that's when it hit me that I was going insane. Ira looked at me, noticed that things were headed downhill fast, and suggested he and I go back to the RV. He slowly guided me back to our camping spot, reassuring me that once we got there I was going to be okay.

“You're probably just overwhelmed,” he told me. “You just need to sit down and take a few deep breaths.”

He sat with me in the trailer and tried to get my mind off the fact that I was losing it. He asked me lots of questions about myself but all I could think about was what camping was like when I was growing up. I didn't understand why it had to be so different now, other than the fact that my mom fed me biscuits and gravy rather than hallucinogens.

He listened while I talked about how much my family liked to go camping, and how there was an unspoken competition among them all about who had the better camping
trailer. I was definitely not making sense, because Ira thought I meant that my family actually held an annual trailer competition. I was frustrated at how white trash that sounded, but I couldn't fix it. I was just a floating mouth that was babbling while underneath it all my brain was reeling with images of me in a straitjacket.

I pictured my mom telling people what kind of potential I'd had before I lost my mind. People would agree and say it was sad I allowed myself to be pulled into the world of drugs.

“I thought she was smarter than that, but I guess I was wrong,” she'd sigh as she completed the paperwork to have me committed.

Ira sat with me all night until eventually the mushrooms wore off. I had curled up on the sad little RV bed and he had curled up next to me. When I woke up in the morning I was relieved to figure out that nothing had happened between us, and that I was still sane.

I rolled over and looked at him. He was wide awake. “I think I'll just stick to drinking for the rest of the trip,” I announced.

That night his friends suggested we do ecstasy. Jesus, had nobody seen what had happened to me the night before?

“I can't do any more drugs,” I told them.

“It's okay, I promise. Nobody I know has ever had a bad trip on ecstasy,” his friend urged.

“Has anyone you know ever had a bad trip on mushrooms?” I asked.

“Totally, all the time.”

“Thanks for the heads-up on that last night.”

His other friend piped in. “Tonight is when they actually
‘burn the man.' It's the big event. Everyone will be on E. You have to do it!”

“She doesn't have to.” Ira grabbed my hand. “You don't have to.”

“Are
you
going to?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”

“Then so am I,” I said. I figured if the conservative Jewish guy was doing it, I should, too.

Aside from the burning-of-the-man ceremony, it was costume night. I dropped a hit of ecstasy and headed out to the big gathering place wearing a teal prom dress and no shoes. I barely recognized who I was, but felt a huge sense of pride that I was once again stepping so far out of my comfort zone.

Ira's friend was right. Doing ecstasy was a blast. I danced around in circles and laughed and talked to complete strangers. I marveled at how good the air felt. At one point I had wandered off from the group. I plopped down by some guy who immediately started talking to me.

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I'm a bartender,” I replied. I was also a waitress, but bartender sounded more impressive.

“Cool. How old are you?” he asked.

“Almost twenty-five!” I said excitedly. I loved ecstasy. This was the first time that I'd been excited about turning twenty-five.

“Why are you almost twenty-five and just a bartender?”

I stared at him for a second, or maybe it was ten minutes. I felt like someone was letting the air out of my big new balloon.

“I don't know.”
Shit, why am I just a bartender?
I felt myself start to panic.

We sat there in silence for a moment, then I stood up and walked away.

I heard him try to call after me but I kept going. I didn't want to let what he said ruin my night. I decided that I was becoming stronger and more independent—that, or it was just really good ecstasy.

I spotted Ira standing with the other guys and walked up to them. I was wearing a prom dress, and now I had found my date.

“There you are!” he said with a huge smile. “Are you having fun?”

“I'm having the best time.”

I meant it. Bad trip and rude guy aside, the past few days had been fantastic. I was really, really starting to like Ira.

When we returned to L.A., our relationship quickly escalated to full-on boyfriend and girlfriend. I was crazy about him, and he was crazy about me. It also turned out he was a lightweight. But I decided it was cute that he got a buzz off one Stoli Vanilla and ginger ale. It was different from how I felt when I was with Kevin. Ira didn't judge me or make me feel self-conscious. I could be goofy, or I could be drunk, and he didn't roll his eyes at me either way. He seemed to like the real me. So I wanted to like the real him.

I remember once going out for Mexican food with him. He ordered a blended strawberry margarita. Normally that kind of behavior would prompt me to say, “Do you crave strawberries when you're on your period?” but with Ira I held my tongue. He was an aspiring writer. He wanted to write plays and TV shows and did really adult things like stay home during the week when he was working on a project, but he managed to stay fun. I figured maybe he had his shit together because he didn't drink five tequilas on the
rocks on a Tuesday night. In solidarity, I ordered a frozen strawberry margarita, too. It was a very loving and adult move for me.