I Can Barely Take Care of Myself (12 page)

When I asked Matt what he said to people who constantly harassed him about when he would procreate and then refused to accept his answer, he told me, “I just say no. That typically ends it.”
Matt has a gift for soft-spoken brevity. Whereas I was always inviting him up to my cabin on Riled-Up Mountain—I tend to live at the top of it.

But, Matt, doesn’t it bother you that people assume that you have no say in the matter? People look at you as some helpless guy who can’t plant his seed because I’m so frigid.

Matt remained calm. “I wouldn’t tolerate people looking at me like that.”

Then again, how many people were really asking Matt about “our” plans to procreate? His friends were more focused on our plans to make sure that we always
had an emergency pack of Camel Lights in our newly acquired hutch (thanks, Crate & Barrel gift registry!) for them to smoke if they got drunk at our place.

Some women tell me that I have to make the decision
for
my husband. They say that whether a man wants kids or not, he doesn’t have a biological clock, so he’s not paying attention to timing, which is the same reason men can’t be trusted to
accept a kick under the table from a woman who wants to leave a boring dinner party. I know a woman who says that even though her husband isn’t ready to have children, she doesn’t want to fight about it and the day she’s ready, she’s just going to “forget” to take her birth control pill. Listen, if I could take two birth control pills, I would. And I’m glad Matt doesn’t have the same hormones I do.
Thank God, because one person crying at those Sarah McLachlan commercials about adopting abused one-eyed dogs is enough in one household.

I REMEMBER THERE was one moment when I tried to muster up the desire to have children. Matt and I had just moved in together. I got work on TV about once a year and I was performing on the road at comedy clubs occasionally, but nothing was sticking. I had to
admit that against my wishes, I basically had a professional hobby. I did not have a career. I was working as a temp to make ends meet. I was filing contracts for a law office in a windowless room. The only
person in the office with a worse job than mine was the pimply intern who had to make ID badges for new hires. He came by my desk with a Polaroid camera to snap my photo (by the way, I think
those kinds of photos actually do steal your soul). He said, “I know you. Do you do stand-up? I’ve seen you around.” I shushed him violently, spitting all over his camera, knowing what was about to happen if anyone overheard him. And right on cue the two women I worked for turned around and said, “You’re a comedian? You don’t seem funny. Tell us a joke!” I wanted to tell them the one about the girl
who thought her life was going to be vastly different by the time she turned thirty-two.

I couldn’t see the future that I wanted. It seemed so impossible. It was easier to picture the future that I didn’t want—me moving back to Needham, Massachusetts, and working in my former high school as the substitute teacher for the tenth-grade drama class and saying things like, “You kids think you understand
Death of a Salesman
? It’s not just about not making a sale—it’s about disappointing everyone who counts on you but eventually realizing that nobody ever counted on you because you’re a ghost of a person.” But I had romantic love. And maybe love was all I was going to have. Some people don’t even have that, right? I thought maybe it would be nice to get to stay home every day, taking care of a
baby instead of temping, and who needed to be out every night doing stand-up at Joan’s Pizza Place’s Thursday Night Open Mic? If I had a baby, surely my hormones would kick in, I’d become really Zen like the Red Sox, and my life would be devoted to our kid. I could even be a funny mom! Maybe that was the master plan for me all along.

But somewhere deep down I knew that being a mother wasn’t right
for me. And by “deep down” I mean that when I pictured having a baby instead of pursuing my dreams, I would immediately feel sick; it felt like my intestines were trying to unwind and slither out of my butt.

My ex-boyfriend Thomas would always say, “When are you going to get this comedy thing out of your system? I’m ready to move to
Northern California and start a family.” And then by beer number
four the dream became “I’m just going to go back to New Hampshire and open up a small revival movie theater. You can come with me. We’ll have a family.”

Thomas had had a mean father who was also a photographer. Unlike his father, Thomas was actually great at photography. Unfortunately he kept his pictures half developed and hidden in his closet. I wanted to invite people over to look at the work
in his closet and tell them it was an art installation called
Hit-You-over-the-Head Symbolism.
He didn’t know how to go for his dreams but he was convinced that once a baby was born, that would replace his dream. His life would be solved. He wouldn’t have to try and maybe fail and disappoint himself or his father in the process, then somehow he’d make enough money showing screenings of
Casablanca
in a rural town to buy the family some diapers and Campbell’s soup and Daddy some Merit Ultra Lights and a six-pack of Budweiser. And then by beer number six Thomas’s plan was to move to Mexico and work with animals just like his favorite guy, Jeff Corwin from Animal Planet. Even if I wanted to go to Mexico with him, kids had to be part of the deal. He always said to me, “Who’s going to take care
of us when we’re old if we don’t have kids?”
Oh, I don’t know, maybe the robust and thriving second-run-movie-theater community will take us in if some of those Mexican armadillos won’t.

Sometimes Matt and I would sit around the living room on a Saturday night and do our version of telling ghost stories around the campfire. We’d try to imagine what life would be like if we got “the urge.”

Well, since we have no family here in California—we could move back to Massachusetts and give up our show business pursuits. Or your mom could move here. Or you could work two jobs while I’m home breast-feeding. Or we could move to a one-room apartment so you wouldn’t have to have two jobs and you could stay home and watch me breast-feed.

I admit, when I would see Matt’s baby pictures, I’d get some
kind of an urge. Those cute dimples. His black curls loose on his
head—his head that’s a little too big for his baby body. I’d say, “Aw, I long for a Baby Matt.” But then I’d head in for snuggles with Adult Matt and realize that dimple is still there; I can run my hand through those curls. I don’t want to raise a little Baby Matt. I want to snuggle inappropriately with Adult Matt.

And sure, at
times I got offended that Matt didn’t seem to have the urge for a Baby Jen running around. How could he not want to make a replica of that girl in the picture who was trying to look so serious and
Swan Lake
–y in her ballet tutu on the front lawn circa 1979? (I was rocking this look long before Natalie Portman made every heterosexual guy in America lust after boobless, boney, and potentially bisexual
ballerinas.) Matt reminded me that he’d be a little overwhelmed with his wife
and
daughter in the house, both vying for his attention—after they’d had a glass of wine—because they wanted him to watch them dance and sing along with the movie
Cabaret.

When I started to think about writing a proposal for this book, I e-mailed Matt to get a quote—in his own words—about his non-paternal instinct.
He wrote back, “Jen, please don’t e-mail me while you’re driving.”

I think that’s a damn good caretaker instinct, and what girl wouldn’t be lucky to have that instinct all to herself?

P.S. I NEVER saw Thomas again except one time on a lunch break at my old temp job. He was leisurely strolling on the other side of the street and looked like he had gained twenty pounds—all of it in his stomach.
Maybe he was finally going to have that baby after all.

5. “You’ll Change Your Mind”

Throughout my life people have told me that I would “change my mind.” I became a vegetarian when I was thirteen and I remember my friend Tracy’s mother saying to me at their July Fourth barbecue, “Oh, Jen. This is just a little phase. You’ll change your mind.” She really thought I’d change my mind, like, that day. She put aside a cheeseburger on a paper plate for me
that got rock-hard and cold into the night because I did not change my mind. Twenty-five years later, I’m still a vegetarian. (Okay, I eat fish sometimes. So I guess I’m a pescatarian—or a poseur, or just someone who is committed to not eating anything with legs.)

When I was thirteen my mother told me that I would not always like the music of Morrissey and that someday I’d realize that he “sounds
like a British Kermit the Frog.” I have seen Morrissey in concert more times in the last three years than I’ve seen my family on holidays. Not only did I not change my mind about Morrissey, my mom changed
her
mind. She got free tickets to see him perform at Foxwoods Casino and she took a break from playing a slot machine to go check him out. I got a voice mail the next day. “Jennifah, it’s Mom.
I was front row at Morrissey and wow, is he a crooner or what?” Meanwhile,
I
have never sat front row at a Morrissey concert.

I’m not saying that I’ve never been wrong about what I want. I’m
capable of changing my mind in certain situations and admitting that my judgment was a little off. Like the time in sixth grade when I declared that I was always going to love Ross Damon no matter what and
I would never ever change my mind. Then my friend Shannon told me, “Ross Damon put tennis balls in his shorts in gym class today and kept asking everyone to ‘touch his balls.’ ” I changed my mind about Ross immediately. I also once stated that Madonna’s song “Borderline” would be my favorite song forever and ever. In my defense, I had no idea that “Vogue” was waiting for me six years down the line.

I said to my dad when I was in high school, “Dad, I don’t care about money, only happiness.” I’ll admit that I’ve changed my mind on that one. I would like both money and happiness and I’m not entirely convinced that money doesn’t buy happiness. I’ve traveled first class on someone else’s dime to Australia, and if you think lying down in a fully reclining seat that turns into a bed while sipping
free champagne for eleven hours doesn’t solve all of your earthly problems—you’re right. But it sure does numb you to the pain of those earthly problems for a little while.

But one thing I haven’t changed my mind about is the fact that I am not going to have children. My parents support this decision, yet my choice to be childfree gets questioned by strangers, like they’re the CIA and I’m a suspect
who isn’t giving them the whole story. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday one of these baby-happy people decides that in order to get a satisfactory answer, I’ll need to be water-boarded on a Slip’N Slide.

MATT AND I were at some mutual friends’ wedding in Los Angeles. We were seated with two other couples with whom we were friendly, but we weren’t close. Let me put it this way—we were all Facebook
friends but we didn’t have each other’s phone numbers. Somewhere between the breadbasket running out and the salad course being served, one of the other women, let’s call her Sally, said to me, “So,
are you and Matt having children?” Sally didn’t know she was jumping the gun. Matt and I weren’t even married yet at this point, just newly engaged. The first order of small talk in this situation
should be, “So, are you and Matt having a DJ or a band at the wedding?” and not, “So, do you two plan to bring a human life onto planet earth?”

“Oh, we just got engaged,” said Matt.

Sally prodded, “Right, but are you two going to have kids?”

You know what? I’m going to refer to her as Lucy, because Sally was a sweet character from
Peanuts
and Lucy was the know-it-all character from
Peanuts
who had the gall to open up a psychiatrist booth without a license, charging five cents to listen to people’s problems.

Matt said, “No.” I confirmed our decision, adding, “We don’t want kids.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose and cocked her head to one side. Her voice got high-pitched, like she was really trying to emphasize that she was asking a
serious
question. “How old are you?” “Thirty-four,” I answered.
Lucy looked at me and with a wave of her hand cleared the air of the words I’d just spoken. She said, “You don’t want kids now but you’re young. You’ll change your mind.”

I do not like being called “young” by someone who is only a couple of years older than I am, because what that really means is “You’re dumb.” I’m okay with it when elderly people call me “young.” It reminds me that my dread
at turning forty is a nonissue. Forty is still a decade away from menopause. It’s like the teen years of middle age! I especially like when elderly people call less elderly people “kids.” It implies, “Hey, you might be eligible for social security and discounted movie tickets, but don’t think that you’ve earned the badge of courage that is known as being ‘old’ until you have knee replacement surgery
and permanently cold hands. Until your limbs start breaking from simply trying to open a cabinet and your grandchildren are kind of afraid of you because you look like the undead—you’re still a kid. Now, who are you and where am I?”

Lucy pressed on. “So, why do you think you don’t want kids?” The salads were delivered at this point in the dinner conversation and I realized we had two more courses
to go and there was a chance she wasn’t going to let up until the cake was cut. I was livid. I had never met her and she was implying in a condescending tone that I only
think
I don’t want children? Condescension is not the right tone for wedding small talk with strangers. Condescension is something that should be reserved for conversations with our loved ones or fights with our significant others.
What if I was barren? What if this whole “we don’t want kids” thing was just a big cover-up because I was too ashamed to say to a total stranger, “My uterus is broken”? What if my fiancé had sperm made out of sawdust and he could never impregnate me? None of this was true, but Loudmouth Lucy didn’t know that as she kept poking and prodding away at the status of my uterus, which hurt more than
the time that I was physically poked and prodded by my sadistic former gynecologist who insisted that putting two gloved fingers up my butt was now a standard part of my annual Pap smear.