Life As I Blow It (15 page)

“I guess that's what he was talking about.”

I wasn't special. It turns out that girl had been pissing George off daily and my sob story was all he needed to push him over the edge. I felt guilty for about half an hour, then remembered that I had ten dollars in my checking account.

Mirabelle turned out to be a great place to work. Aside from Tilley, I worked with a guy named Chris Franjola, who also did stand-up. That was one of the things that I wanted to do and I now had someone to talk about it with. We're friends to this day, and I even get to work with him.

After work we always went to the bar next door, called Red Rock. On any given night it was like a frat house, so I liked it. Mirabelle closed earlier than they did so we always headed over there for last call, then the bartender would let us stay and drink while he closed up. I made a habit of stopping by there after my Sunday brunch shifts with my coworker Jackie. We'd always plan to have a Bloody Mary and go home but would end up sitting on the same stool in our black pants and white shirts until at least 1
A.M.

There was a manager named Barry who worked there and was always flirting with me. His face was acceptable,
but he had a weird body. His waist was where his knees should be, so we called him “Lo-Waisted” behind his back. As I type this I realize that it probably isn't that funny to read, but it made us laugh.

I was never even the slightest bit attracted to Lo-Waisted, so one night I went home with him. I had been at the bar for at least six hours with no break from drinking other than to pee. Lo-Waisted offered to drive my car to his house, which, looking back, was no help. If he had truly wanted to assist me he would have driven my car to my house and then cabbed home; at least that's what he would have done if he weren't trying to get laid. I covered one eye so that I could see Jackie clearly and told her that Barry was going to give me a lift to his place.

“You're going home with Lo-Waisted because you're wasted,” she laughed.

“Right?!” I giggled.

I said bye to her and the next thing I knew I was at Lo-Waisted's apartment. The only thing I remember from the drive was that I was glad I was not driving. His place was small but it didn't really matter since we went straight to the bedroom. We had uneventful sex, but I don't put all the blame on him since for most of it I was in a blackout. The next thing I knew, it was morning. I rolled over to see that I was lying in bed next to Lo-Waisted.
I need to start going home after my Sunday shifts
, I thought to myself.

He was dead asleep so I felt confident I could get out of there without waking him. I grabbed my clothes—my waitressing clothes—and put them back on. There isn't a worse feeling than that. I grabbed my black Reeboks and my shirt that said “Don Julio Rules,” picked up my purse, and headed out the door. I was in a rush, but caught out of the corner of
my eye that his apartment was disgusting. It had a funky smell and there was a piece of pizza sitting on the coffee table, all by itself. I officially hated Lo-Waisted.

When I got to the parking garage I couldn't remember where he had left my car. After a few minutes I finally spotted it, and I ran. Suddenly I was in a panic to leave. I didn't want him to wake up and come down to find me. I was barefoot, hopefully not pregnant, and really hungover. I just wanted to get home. I couldn't figure out how he had gotten my car into the spot it was in. I couldn't even open the door all the way; I had to turn my body into a pretzel and slide through. I felt like I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I threw the car in reverse and instantly heard a loud “crunch” sound. I looked behind me … thank God … not a person. Then I looked to my left and saw that I had hit a huge beam. In order to keep from doing worse damage, I'd need to go forward, do a bunch of quarter turns, and maneuver out. So I gunned it and let the beam scrape all the way down the side of my Mustang. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. That car sucked anyway.

I didn't want to have to give up going to Red Rock, so the next day I went in with Jackie. When I saw Lo-Waisted, I just pretended that nothing had happened. I hugged him around his waist, which required me to bend my knees, then plopped down on a stool and ordered a vodka cranberry with an extra shot of vodka. He was too confused to do anything but follow my lead and act normal. Jackie was shocked.

“Really? That works?” she asked.

“Every time,” I told her. “Guys are more insecure than we are. All you have to do is act like everything is fine.
They're just so relieved they don't have to deal with your feelings; they don't want to talk about it, either.”

“But what if they like you? Lo-Waisted doesn't necessarily realize that you knowingly did permanent damage to your car just so you could get out of his garage.”

“I know. That's why this works. Now he will be way too insecure to ask me out. He'll just chalk it up to a one-night stand and move on.”

“Okay, so what if
you
like
them
?” she challenged me.

“I haven't figured that one out yet,” I said, then polished off a plate of chicken fingers.

A
fter several months of living in Los Angeles, I started to realize that I wasn't doing much to get my career going. I hadn't moved to L.A. to waitress, but the only productive thing I'd done outside of that was take a bad acting class. That wasn't going anywhere, since most of the time all the teacher had us do was sit in a chair in the middle of the room and conjure up emotions, which is what I already did at home.

Some of the waiters I worked with told me that I should take an improv class. They said it would come in handy for thinking on my feet during auditions. I nodded my head in agreement even though I had never been on an actual audition.

I flipped through the free weekly paper and found a cheap improv class in Sherman Oaks. I was nervous the first night, but it was just introductory. We all went around and said a little bit about ourselves in an attempt to get to know one another. There were a couple of people who stood out to me as someone I'd want to hang out with: a guy named Neil and a girl named Chelsea.

Chelsea seemed like fun and she quickly confirmed that she was. We had similar sensibilities and a similar affection for cocktails. Neil, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He didn't drink at all. In fact, he told me he had never had a drink in his life.

“Never even a sip?” I challenged him.

“Never even a sip,” he responded. “Why doesn't anyone ever believe me?”

“Because it just sounds so … so … dumb,” I said.

“I guess that's what people think. But alcohol just doesn't interest me.”

“Do you have a hard time getting along with people who drink?” He was cute, so I needed to know the answer to that question right away.

“Not at all. But usually people who like to drink have a hard time accepting that I don't.”

“Well, that sounds really immature. How sad for them.” Inside, I feared I might agree with “them.”

But I figured his not drinking shouldn't be a big deal to me if my excessive drinking wasn't going to be a big deal to him. He also drove any time that we went out, which was kind of awesome.

Neil was new to town, via Florida. He told me that he had once performed for a week in Australia, so I felt like
he had already made it in show business. Chelsea had also recently moved to L.A., so it felt good to have new friends who were trying to figure it out like I was.

The class itself was really stupid. Although I very much appreciate and respect people who are good at improv, I dislike doing it. That's probably because I suck at it. I can think on my feet; I just find the “games” annoying. Maybe that's why I always knew what I wanted to do. In acting, things are written for you. In stand-up, you write it yourself. In both, you don't have to ask the audience to help you come up with an uncomfortable scenario.

I introduced Chelsea to Red Rock and it was love at first drink. She enjoyed the clientele and the chicken wings. The latter part I was not thrilled about. I fucking hate watching people eat chicken wings, and Chelsea Handler is no exception. She sticks the whole thing in her mouth and ten seconds later pulls out a bare bone. It's like she's committing a crime and wiping the carcass clean of evidence. It's not just her; that's how everybody eats chicken wings. It's really gross and I don't get it. Why couldn't it be like eating a rib, where people nibble on it daintily until the meat is gone. I considered Chelsea lucky I didn't write her off based on how she ate.

My friendship with Neil was different from anything I could remember. He really intrigued me. For a while I thought he was gay, because I didn't know other guys who were that well dressed, funny, and into doing characters. I really wanted Neil to be impressed with me the way that I was with him. He'd traveled and was witty and he believed without a doubt that he was going to be successful. If he thought the same about me, maybe it would make it true.

I confirmed for myself that he was not gay one night after he spilled his guts about his ex-girlfriend in Florida that he was sad he'd left behind. It was obvious that he still cared for her, but he insisted that they were through.

“We still talk,” he admitted. “But we're just friends.”

“Being friends after you break up with someone is dumb,” I lectured.

It was clear Neil was not emotionally available to fall in love with someone, so I developed a huge crush on him. Since I drank but he didn't, I acted like I drank less than I actually did. The responsible girl in me didn't want to chase him off until she knew for sure where the relationship was going. Luckily I've grown more comfortable with who I am, so now, if I meet a guy who tells me he doesn't drink, I tell him that things between us aren't going to work out.

Neil and I started hanging out constantly. If I wasn't at Red Rock with Chelsea, I was with Neil. His disinterest in alcohol meant that we did things like go to the movies or wander through art museums, but no matter what we did we had fun. We checked out bands and went for hikes. I saw a lot more of Los Angeles in the months after I met him than I had in the year prior. I thought it was kind of weird how much time I was spending with Neil. It made sense for him; he'd just moved to California and the only person he really knew was the guy he was staying with, Mark. They were acquaintances, which is why Mark had set up an air mattress for him in his spare room, but I had
friends
. I had Chris, I had Tilley. I had Jackie and my other friend Casey. I even had a couple who had moved out from Arkansas: Brandon and Liz. I felt pretty lucky in the support department. Regardless, for a while I made nearly all of my plans with Neil.

After three solid months of spending almost every day and night with me, Neil took a trip back to Florida to retrieve his two cats from his ex-girlfriend.

“That's so
great
that you are going to see her,” I lied. “It's almost summer. I bet she's really tan!”

I know it sounds like I played it cool, but inside I was in turmoil over whether the two of them were going to fall back in love the second they laid eyes on each other. I wasn't sure if I was even allowed to have feelings about it, so I said that I didn't. We weren't officially boyfriend and girlfriend. We hadn't had sex. We'd spent almost every night together for the past few weeks, but we never did more than make out. I wasn't sure that asking him to be faithful to me was within my rights.

The night before Neil left for Florida, I stayed the night on his air mattress with him. I had a perfectly comfortable trundle bed at home, but I wanted to be where he was. That night I was sure that our kissing would lead to more, but it didn't. He looked at sex differently than I did; he thought that it meant something. I was pretty sure we weren't right for each other but every time I thought that he and I had zero in common, he'd make me laugh and our differences wouldn't seem important anymore. I started to think that maybe it was good we were different. Maybe that's what I needed. It was like Paula Abdul and that animated cat said: “Opposites attract.”

Neil returned from his trip to Florida with a convertible and two cats.

“You aren't doing anything to squash people's thoughts that you're gay,” I told him. “Why don't you just design a car shaped like a penis and drive that around town?”

He didn't care. He just laughed and said, “I lived in
Florida. Now I live in California. Not having a convertible is a waste!” I envied his ability to not give a shit what people thought.

I casually grilled Neil about his visit with his ex.

“HOW WAS IT!?” I screamed. “It must have been GREAT to see her!?! So, was she PRETTY as ever?”

“It was okay,” he replied.

“
Okay
as in you LOVE HER?” I subtly asked.

Neil laughed. “
Okay
as in we broke up months ago and now we live in different states and I'm hanging out with you.” He smiled.

I smiled, too. “Hanging out” was good enough for me, even though I wasn't positive what it meant.

Neil asked me if I could take his cats for a while.

“My roommate Mark isn't a cat guy. I need to leave them with you until I find my own place.”

“Uh, how long would I have them for?” I asked. I liked cats but this seemed like a big job. I considered telling him what Shirley told me when I asked her if I could bring my cat with me when I moved in with her and Dad, which was “I'm allergic,” which is code for “I fucking hate cats.”

“Just until I find my own place. I'm only living with Mark until that happens.”

“Okay, no problem.” I actually liked cats, and I figured that Tilley did as well. Most single girls do. So I took the little fuckers, Mischief and Malki, and let them join us in our sad one-bedroom, which was now starting to get a little crowded.