You'll Grow Out of It (17 page)

Best Week Ever
was the first time I was on TV. People talk about getting “big breaks”—this was the teensiest, itsiest, bitsiest of breaks. Aside from getting trolled online for my appearance, people saw me. I was getting paid. It made up for the fact that I was at a period in my domestic life where one morning I made eggs for breakfast, and then was too emotionally checked out to do dishes for a while. When I finally went over to the sink after a few days, I lifted a plate to reveal a nest of newly born maggots, squiggling all over my dirty dishes and in between the tines of my forks.

I lived a double life for more than a year, being at my job by day, and then doing stand-up at night, with occasional early-morning forays into appearing on TV. The quiet little twinge I had felt years before, that maybe what I wanted to do was this unstable and risky thing, was growing louder. I tried to ignore it, the same way I'd tried for years to ignore the call to do stand-up at all. My father had raised me to avoid risk at all costs—his attempt to save us from the fate of his own father, a gambler whose favorite stakes always seemed to be the well-being and stability of his family (and who lost, in spectacular ways, over and over).

One day I got a call from the head writers of the
Late Show with David Letterman
. They'd seen me on TV and wanted me to submit a writing packet to be considered for a staff writer job. This was a mind-blowing inquiry, seeing as how David Letterman was probably my second biggest comedy crush after Groucho and as a ten-year-old girl I'd had fantasies about meeting him at a party, falling in love, and marrying him. I worked on the packet for weeks, staying at my office till midnight to use the printer, before I finally dropped it off by hand at the Ed Sullivan Theater. I didn't hear anything for months and forgot about it.

Then one day the phone rang. They wanted me. I would be hired on a thirteen-week contract, which would be renewed for another thirteen weeks if I was doing a good job. This is a standard offer for entry-level television writing.

That night I went to my parents' house to tell them the good news. My mom was excited, but my father was dubious. He was not a big Letterman fan. Comedically, his taste runs more toward Lenny Bruce. Then I made the mistake of mentioning the thirteen-week contract.

“Thirteen weeks? And then they can just drop ya?” he asked.

“I guess hypothetically, yes.”

And then he said, “Well, that doesn't sound like much of a job at all.”

And as soon as I heard that, even though I wrestled with it a few more days, I knew I wouldn't take the offer from Letterman.

I hated myself for not taking it. In the days after I sheepishly called to politely decline, my stomach was in a constant knot. But this time I didn't think I had cancer, or an appendix that was about to explode. Unlike all the previous moments in my life when a vague illness would present itself as a kind of physical resistance to the option of growing, of changing, this time my body stayed mum. It was not going to provide me with a distraction from looking into the unknown and having a very serious conversation with myself about why I was pussing out on what I wanted to do. I knew that I was the problem.

When the next offer came, I took it: an offer to write on a show in LA. But it was a year later. It took me that full year to gather my confidence enough to leave.

And this is where I come back to Joan, and why she matters so much to me. I saw an interview with her once where she talked about why she felt she was doing her best work at seventy-one years old. “Because I'm not scared anymore,” she said. “There's nothing they can do to me. They've already done all of it. I've been through everything and I just have no fear.” I thought of these words recently, clung to them actually, as I sat in a hotel room in Los Angeles. I was in the middle of a series of pitch meetings to try to sell a television show. These meetings, for me anyway, are always fraught with the potential for serious self-loathing. You go from network to network, get offered water by an assistant, take the water, and then do your song and dance about yourself and why your story matters to a room full of often bored, and occasionally boring, executives.

I'd just finished my first meeting and was starting to spiral out about how it went. Hearing myself speaking my ideas out loud had suddenly felt embarrassing. And now I was stewing in my hotel room, forecasting my rejection. But then I thought of Joan, who'd just died a few days before. I thought about how she refused to die before she was dead. I thought about how often throughout my life I'd gone into a deep depression about my imagined imminent death. And it occurred to me that imagining death must have been to me on some level less frightening than imagining living—i.e., going forward into this risky, terrifying unknown despite the possibility of failure.

I thought about Joan, and thought about my fear of telling my story and having no one care, and then I thought,
Fuck it. I care. I don't care if they care. It's my story.
I relaxed and ordered an unnecessary amount of room service before driving to my next meeting.

They bought it.

Y
ou watch the Emmys and the Oscars your whole life and you think, Oh, this is so glamorous I want to be a PRINZESS like all these other ladies. Oh, if only I could just walk the red carpet. Oh if only I could just be asked who I am wearing and put my mani in the mani cam and have Ryan Seacrest tell me I look beautiful. I want someone to do my hair so it looks like I just floated across the ocean to Los Angeles via a giant shell. I want to be spray-tanned until I am the color of a just-baked Chips Ahoy cookie, like JLo. I want Giuliana Rancic to ask me how are you in that way where she implies we are friends even though we are not friends. I want to be dripping in sequins and pose with one foot delicately placed in front of the other like I am a perfect little female pony. A golden palomino pony trotting up to the stage to get my golden trophy. Then I would feel amazing, like I am special and an angel, and not be haunted by this frequent feeling that in comparison with them, with the Prinzezzes on the red carpet and in magazines and on billboards, I am dogshit.

These are the feelings I always felt. Then I was nominated for an Emmy.

When we found out we were nominated for best sketch show and best variety writing, for
Inside Amy Schumer
, we all freaked. Not only did we just finish a critically acclaimed third season, but Amy's movie
Trainwreck
had come out over the summer, and she had become very very famous.

Truth be told, we'd been nominated for writing the year prior, but due to a tangle of boring rules, our category's award was presented during what are called the “Creative Arts Emmys,” which are held the week before the “real” Emmys and are untelevised. The categories are primarily technical, as evidenced by the number of awards we watched being given to the editors of the reality show
Deadliest Catch
. The ceremony is usually hosted by some hot B-level actress, who is thrown as a kind of ironic bone to the nominees to apologize for the fact that they themselves are too unfuckable to put on TV. So even though I'd technically been an Emmy nominee the year before, I'd still felt like dogshit. And we lost, which sealed the dogshit feeling.

But this year we are nominated for the real televised Emmys. Yay! We are not dogshit anymore. We are going to be Prinzessez.

I, however, have one major curveball in all this, which is, I am twelve weeks out from having given birth. You might be saying wait, what? You didn't tell me you were pregnant. Well, that's how long it takes to write a book. I wasn't pregnant when I started writing it. Now I have a baby. More on that later. The point is, at the time I'm going to go buy my dress for the televised cool-people Emmys, I am still thirty pounds overweight and I basically have the body of a bodega honey bear. Even my feet have gone up a size. So the Prinzezz fantasy is already facing a major obstacle.

A month before the ceremony, I hand the baby to Mike and run top speed out the door to Bergdorf Goodman, because I only have a few hours before I have to return home to
milk myself
pump. In my head I'm picturing that perhaps I can wear some kind of gauzy, tent-like dress. I'd seen something online in this vein that I thought might work, and texted the picture to a friend, who immediately responded “u can't go to the Emmys looking like Mrs. Roper.” I was bummed because I'd really been relying on that look.

At Bergdorf, I grab a few of the most promising-looking tents and try them on. Even in the largest sizes, nothing is fitting correctly. I look around the floor for a salesperson with a gentle aura and land on a delight of a woman named Jennifer. (Jennifer, if you are reading this, yes you are a DELIGHT.) I explain to Jennifer that I am nominated for an Emmy and this is my chance to be a Prinzezz, but I'm post-baby and I have the body of a mozzarella ball. Jennifer finds a short black dress with a fringe cape that drapes across the front so my newly formed fupa (Google it) is hidden from view. Somehow, it looks kind of great. I cannot believe I have been able to find a dress in under two hours (see: wedding dress chapter) but moreover I am giddy that my red carpet fantasy is back on track. I briefly get nervous about the fact that the dress is too short to be appropriate for a black-tie event, but then I Google “short Emmy dress” and see that Julia Roberts once wore a knee-length dress to the Emmys.
If Julia can do it, I can do it
, I think to myself, even though that is 100 percent not a true thing to think and actually the opposite is true.

Still, I am amped to walk the red carpet. At Saks I buy a pair of satin Manolo Blahnik shoes with a Swarovski crystal swoosh along the arch. My friend, who has come along as my shoe wingwoman, takes a picture of me holding the shoe box with the
MANOLO
label, as if I am a tourist standing in front of a local landmark, which in some sense I am: I am a tourist in the land of aspirational footwear that costs as much as I used to pay in monthly rent. I have no plans to move here, but I am enjoying a vacation from my country, the land of Toms.

I fly to Los Angeles. The network is paying for me to fly business class, so the Prinzezz feeling is off to a good start. As I drink my pre-takeoff champagne and adjust my seat into a bed (a BED!), I watch the sad Others stream past me into coach. For most of my life I have been one of them, trying to keep my head high as I walk past the smug few, sprawled out in their ample seats, their warm handtowels already crumpled in front of them, waiting to be discreetly tonged away by the sky-help. You cannot help but hate all those people a bit, as you struggle past with your bag, waiting for your fellow hoi polloi to mash their suitcases into the overhead. But now that the tables have turned, and I am the one sitting in business class eating (free) (warm!) nuts, I can't help but feel a pang of survivor guilt. I want the people walking past me to know that I'm one of them. My ticket is being paid for by a corporation; I could not afford it on my own. In my heart I am a coach person. But if I were really a coach person, would I be feeling such joy at perusing the menu I have been handed, with choices of appetizer, entrée, and dessert, as if we were on the ground? Perhaps; but I am also aware that this joy has a shadow over it, which is the sense that I am an imposter in these big fancy loungers, and my grip on these amenities is tenuous. For the next five hours my brain vibrates between pleasure and anxiety as I contemplate my commercial flight identity. I look around to see if any of my fellow passengers are experiencing similar feelings.

Everyone is either asleep or watching Bravo.

On the ground, I carry my garment bag over my shoulder through the airport. Just carrying a garment bag feels pretty special to me. Who am I, the Queen of England?

Or maybe…

I AM A PRINZESS.

The next morning is Emmy morning. I have booked a hair and makeup artist to come “glam” me “up.” The woman who appears at my door is lovely and very kindly pretends not to notice the fact that I am drinking a glass of white wine at eleven a.m. I joke, “It's eleven fifteen somewhere!” She is super nice to ignore this. When she asks if I have any thoughts on a look, I have the embarrassing task of showing her a Pinterest page I've made of celebrities with smoky eyes and side buns. I blather for about five minutes about how I do not expect her to actually make me look like Cate Blanchett. She is a champ and so she lets me splash around in my puddle of low self-esteem without telling me to chill the fuck out, which she would absolutely be within her rights to do.

Two hours later, I do not look like Cate Blanchett, but I have to admit I look nice. I look as nice as I've looked in the three months since a small boy emerged from my vagina. I am wearing my fringy dress and my crystal shoes and even sparkly clip-on earrings.
1
Also I am wearing a pretty ring that Mike bought me for my fortieth birthday. Can a Prinzezz be forty? I look in the mirror and am just starting to feel like maybe I'm pulling this off when I realize the Spanx shorts I have on over my underwear are creating a huge panty line. Prinzezzes don't have panty lines. Prinzezzes probably have perfectly smooth plastic non-genitals like Barbie. I thought the Spanx would smooth out the panty line. Now I have to consider whether these Spanx can be worn without underwear. Am I disgusting? I take off my underwear and sausage myself into the Spanx.

Then I begin the sad task of packing up my breast pump, which will be coming along with me to the Emmys. I have a black canvas tote bag with mesh pockets on the sides meant for holding the kind of giant steel thermoses guys from Colorado carry whenever they leave the house.

I have a pang of regret about not having purchased something fancy in which to carry the breast pump. What kind of hayseed dipshit walks the red carpet with a canvas tote bag in her hand? I had briefly considered buying something sequined and fun to use as an ad hoc pump bag, but then I felt embarrassed. Not wanting to walk the red carpet carrying a breast pump felt like the worst kind of petty vanity. Shouldn't I just be happy to be there? Am I already the kind of person who can't carry my own stuff around? Do I seriously think I'm the Queen of England?

No.

But the dirty secret is, I do want to be a Prinzezzzzz. I can't let go of the fantasy, the image of myself as one of those perfectly poised palomino ladies, every detail, every lash, in place. It's not so much that I want to look the way they look as that I want to feel the way I imagine looking that way feels. I guess this feeling would best be described as, how do you say, “deserving”—a sensation so foreign to most women that L'Oréal was able to sell one dillion lipstick tubes just by having a spokeswoman say the catchphrase, “Because you're worth it.” Four words that penetrated to the core of the female mind, like Luke Skywalker's final shot that detonated the Death Star.

I panic and text a producer friend at the Emmys asking if a production assistant could maybe meet me at the entrance and take my breast pump to the designated dressing room where it's been arranged for me to pump after the show. Even though my producer friend says it's no problem, I feel like I am already a cliché—the temperamental Hollywood asshole who throws an inappropriately foamed latte at some nice young person's head. “You're being too hard on yourself,” some tiny voice from within says. The self-loathing part of me throws a latte at that voice's head.

Tote bag in hand, I get into a white stretch limo with my colleagues at around two p.m. The interior is outlined with disco lights, and there's a giant decanter of brown booze, which means we are officially having Fun!

That afternoon, the temperature is hovering around a hundred degrees. We exit our car and step into the glare of the Los Angeles sun. Within seconds we are soaking in sweat. There's a short pre-red-carpet red carpet into the Staples Center, where servers are offering platters of champagne. There is also a free makeup station where a young girl of about nine is getting a touch-up. Edie Falco walks past me. EDIE FALCO.

Emmys!

By the time I find the nice young lady who is taking my breast pump from me, the champagne people have vanished and the bars have, unbelievably, closed. I'd been relying on booze to help me ignore the pain being caused by the Manolo Blahniks. (I was expecting them to be uncomfortable. We've all heard people talk about suffering for fashion, but I was not expecting them to be excruciating to the extent that even just sitting with them on—not walking or standing—is agonizing.) Oh well. I will just have water, and drink booze later. I'm parched, as most of my body's moisture evaporated on the walk from the car to the lobby.

But there is no water to be found. The Emmys seem to have run out of water bottles. I look to see if Edie Falco has any water, but she has vanished.

Oh God, please don't let Edie Falco dehydrate.

I cannot dwell on this because an announcer tells us over the loudspeaker that it is time to head to the auditorium, which means it's Walk the Red Carpet o'clock. Prinzezz Time. Fancy Go Time. Fantasy Perfect Lady Time. I am so glad I am not carrying my canvas tote. I take a deep breath and join the glittery wave of sequined and tuxedoed humanity clippity-clopping toward the doors that are being held open for us by Emmy elves. My writer colleagues and I cross the threshold and blink for a moment, blinded by the blistering sun. When I open my eyes, I see that there is a velvet rope parting the red carpet, like the sea of the same color, into two paths. To my left there is a barrier, behind which hundreds of random onlookers gawk and take photos. And to my right, illuminated by a lightning storm of camera flashes, are the celebrity nominees, flanked by their attendants.

If I had any doubt about the pecking order, it's quickly erased when I spy a friend of mine on the fancier side of the rope. We squeal and run toward each other with outstretched arms to hug over the partition, when suddenly a giant security guard jumps in front of me and practically body-checks me to the ground. He barks at me to move along. My friend looks at me helplessly as we are forcibly parted. I'm embarrassed. I look for a bottle of water and still can't find any. My colleagues and I end up sharing one mini bottle of “Emmy”-label water that is lukewarm from the heat. We sip each other's backwash as we make our way to our seats, with security occasionally yelling at us to hurry up. I feel a familiar pit pitting around in my gut.

How is it possible I still feel like dogshit?

This was supposed to be the one moment in life that would make up for the thousands of times I looked at red carpet photos of Angelina Jolie and Cate Blanchett and even Selena Gomez at awards shows and felt like they were creatures from another planet. I've never been able to shake this niggling little masochistic compulsion to look at these images, even though they always have given me a small pang of sadness. It is the same pang I felt when I saw the movie
Amélie
and first gazed with awe at Audrey Tautou—this perfect feminine confection with her bangs and her emerald midi skirt and that perfect little bow of a mouth. For weeks afterward I had this unshakable melancholic ache whose cause I couldn't put my finger on, until I realized it was an irrational sense of loss over the fact that I would never, no matter how hard I tried, look like Amélie.