Life As I Blow It (24 page)

I had forgotten how small Joanna's place was until we got back and saw it through Chelsea's eyes. When we walked in, she looked around like she'd been taken hostage.

“Well, this is stupid,” she said. “I'm sleeping on the top bunk since it's as far away from all of you as I can get.” With that she hopped in bed.

Joanna crawled onto the bottom bunk, so Ryan Comic and I were left to tangle up on the world's smallest couch. We made out for about ten seconds before I decided that I wasn't interested in him and fake passed out. He tried to wake me, but luckily I'm so good at fake passing out that I wound up passing out.

When we all woke up the next morning, Ryan Comic was gone. I checked my phone to see if Ryan Friend of Friend had called me back but he hadn't. I felt a pang of disappointment. Chelsea and Joanna woke up and immediately started making fun of me for allowing Ryan Comic to come back with us.

“He was like thirty-eight,” Chelsea said.

“Really?” Joanna asked. “I thought he was forty-eight. The bald spot must have mixed me up.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I conceded. “But at least I didn't do anything with him. And it could have been worse; I could have brought back the German wrestler we met at that one bar.”

“Good point,” Chelsea added. “Weren't you supposed to leave at nine for your flight?”

“Yes,” I said. “What time is it?”

“Nine forty-five.”

I was flying out of Long Island and had completely missed the train I was supposed to take. There was barely enough time to make it, but if I took a cab I might be fine. Chelsea had to lend me a hundred dollars in order to get me to the airport. I was really starting off my thirties on the right foot. I'm also pretty sure I never paid her back. Chelsea, if you're reading this, I owe you a hundred bucks.

When I got back to Los Angeles, I heard back from Ryan Friend of Friend. He said that he had been pretty busy while
he was in New York and was sorry that we didn't get a chance to meet up. He wondered if I'd like to go see a movie or something. I said yes.

The first date I went on with Ryan Friend of Friend was the best first date I've ever been on. Nothing special happened; we saw
Ocean's Twelve
and went out to dinner. He scored points right off the bat by taking me to the movie first. I like it that way, because then you have something to talk about at dinner, although there isn't a ton to dissect in a George Clooney sequel.
He
probably just figured if we had dinner last, when he took me home I'd still have a buzz from the nice wine he ordered, and we could fool around. He was correct.

We went to this little French place in Hollywood that I love. It's got great food, a patio, and a good wine selection. When the bill came he opened it and said, “What the fuck did you have?” which made me laugh. I decided for that I'd let him touch my boobs.

Ryan really wasn't my “type.” He always dressed like he was about to go on a hike, you know, like a lesbian. He loved to buy clothes at REI, which is where people shop when they are about to go on a camping trip or need bug spray for a weekend in Costa Rica. He also loved to talk about how the shirt he was wearing also repelled water or how his shoes could be worn in a lake.

“Well, are you going to a lake?” I'd ask.

“No.”

“Then why can't you just wear land shoes?”

Regardless, it was crazy to me how much I wanted to hump him.

That hadn't been the case when we'd first met. He'd come up to me when I was working one night to tell me that
he'd been in the bar a few months before and I'd given him back the wrong credit card at the end of the night. Apparently it made a trip to Vegas a real hassle for him and he wanted to tell me all about it.

“So a few months ago I mixed up your credit card and you came in here on a Saturday night at eleven
P.M.
to let me know?” I asked. I was really busy, and really annoyed.

“I play softball with Mike Gould. He told me you'd think it was funny. I was mad about it all this time, but he insisted that you're really cool. So I thought I'd just—”

“Sorry about your credit card. Can I get back to work now?” I walked off.
Who is this dick?

He came back up to me later to try to explain again his motivation for telling me his story. “Hey, I wasn't trying to bother you earlier when I told you that story. I just thought—”

“It's not personal. I'm just really busy.”

“Okay, good. So it's your problem,” he snapped. Then he walked away.

I told Mike later that night how annoying his friend was. He laughed. “He said the same thing about you.”

A few weeks later Ryan came back into the bar, and I wasn't as busy. I was talking to some other customers and he overheard that I did stand-up. Then he realized he'd seen me perform before.

“You're really funny. I saw you at the Improv a couple of months ago. I just put it together that it was you,” he told me.

That's when I softened on him. After all, he thought I was funny.

U
nfortunately, even though Ryan and I had had a great first date, it became really obvious that he was still hung up on his ex-girlfriend. I was 75 percent sure that she was a lesbian, and I figured that since he dressed like one maybe they were meant for each other and I shouldn't get in the middle. Either way, it was clear he was involved in an on-again, off-again relationship that always seemed like it was about to be on-again.

I was visiting my dad in Palm Desert, where he'd moved so that he could play golf on a regular basis. We went out to dinner and after five drinks I ended up telling him about Ryan.

“Sounds like a good guy,” my dad told me.

Given my dad's track record, I made the decision to break
things off with Ryan the next day. I called him on my drive home and told him we could just be friends.

“It's obvious you and Mary are still talking, and I don't really have an interest in dating you while you try to figure that out,” I told him flatly.

“I understand. This is sad, though, Sarah. I really like you.”

“It's not sad. It would have been sad later, but I stopped it before it could get sad,” I told him calmly while I repeatedly blinked in order to stop the tears from flowing. “I have to go, the freeway is a mess.” I hung up and coasted home. I'd never seen the freeway so empty before.

Ryan and I became really good friends after that. I still had a huge crush on him and hanging out with him only made it worse, so I did it on a regular basis. Obviously I'd learned nothing from Andy, Patrick, and the list goes on. I continued to break my own rule of not hanging out with an ex. Since these guys were friends first, I had found a loophole.

When Ryan got back together with his ex for a while, I retaliated by dating a customer I met at Formosa. I
know
.

The first night I met him, Gavin was cryptic about what he did for a living. I was bartending and he was drinking—so I wrote down the name on his credit card and went home and Googled him. I quickly figured out why he wouldn't tell me what he did for a living. Not all porn editors are proud of their jobs.

The next time that he came in I told him I knew what he did. He was definitely pursuing me and I needed to let him know that while my standards might not be high, they were higher than porn.

He explained that it was just a way to make money. He
wanted to act and he wanted to edit real movies, he said, but for now editing pornography was paying the bills. He made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. I decided to lower my standards. I needed someone to date so that I could show Ryan that I was
so
not interested in
him
. I
know
.

Gavin didn't have his own place. He lived with an old man who used to be an acting teacher, or something like that. He said the old man needed help from time to time and he offered to let Gavin live in his house rent-free if Gavin could lend him a hand. So far Gavin was turning out to be a real catch. I opted to stick it out and just not tell Ryan any of those details.

I stayed the night at his house one time after we started seeing each other. It was creepy and musty and old, just like the acting teacher. He was certainly making enough money to get a small, shitty apartment, so clearly he was either really cheap or secretly involved in a twisted gay relationship with the old man.

He had two dogs and two cats and they all stayed in his bedroom with him. Apparently that was the only room that was really his. The fucking dogs were the size of grown men and they slept in his bed with him. His room was covered in Superman posters and dog hair. I still didn't run. I
know
.

The Superman obsession didn't stop with the poster. He had the giant
S
logo in the form of a sticker on his car. He also had a Superman tattoo. I guess I was dating a Super Loser.

Unfortunately
Superman Returns
came out while we were dating. I had never seen a Superman movie and I had hoped to keep it that way. Gavin, on the other hand, behaved
in the days leading up to the release of that movie as if Jesus were about to pay him a visit. He even pulled one of those really annoying moves and got tickets to the first showing at midnight the day it opened.

“I waited in line for five hours for these,” he said, beaming.

“That's great,” I lied. Then I called Jackie and asked her if that was normal behavior for a man in his thirties.

“No, it isn't,” she scolded me. “He's ridiculous. Why are you still dating him?”

“Have you broken things off with that prick Colin yet?” I asked.

“No.”

“When you stop seeing him, I'll stop seeing Gavin.”

“God, maybe I should move back onto your couch. At least then we were having some fun.”

I bought four airplane-size bottles of vodka and met Gavin at the movie theater.

“You want anything from the concession?” he asked. “We should get it now and go get a seat right up front.”

Up front at a movie? Worse—at a
Superman
movie. We really had nothing in common. “I just want lemonade,” I told him. “But only fill it up halfway.” It was going to be a long two hours.

The movie was horrible, and to make matters worse it was in 3-D. Twenty minutes in, I had already finished all of the alcohol I had with me and was trying to figure out if there was something in the seat that I could kill myself with. I looked over at Gavin. He was grinning from ear to ear. I don't think I'd ever seen anybody look so happy.
Oh my God, he's retarded
.

I broke things off with Gavin two days after the movie. I would have done it the next day, but I was so annoyed about the movie that I couldn't even talk to him long enough to break up with him.

I decided to invite him to lunch and told him I thought we were going “in different directions.” He got really upset, which I wasn't expecting.

“Is it because of the porn thing?” he asked. “I want to get out of it. It's just that right now it pays the bills.”

“It's not that. It should be, but it's not.”

“I don't believe you. It ruined things with my ex-wife and now it's ruining things with you.”

“Your ex-what?”

“Didn't I tell you I was married?”

“No, you didn't.”
It wouldn't have mattered if you did. If that whole acting teacher
/
animal situation didn't run me off I doubt an ex-wife would have
.

“Well, I was married. For almost three years.”

“And she didn't like that you edited adult movies for a living?”

“She didn't care about that. But she was in some of them, so it just got weird when I'd have to cut her scenes with some other dude.”

I stopped chewing my turkey burger. I looked for a place to spit it out. I couldn't find one. I swallowed. I assumed his ex-wife did, too.

“Your ex-wife was in porn? She was a porn star? She had sex with people on camera and you watched?”

He didn't really say much after that, other than “yes” when I demanded to know if he'd been tested for HIV.

“Well, this has been great. I came here to break up with you, so I'm going to stick to that and get on out of here. You
can go ahead and pay the bill. Don't forget to leave a nice tip.”

Much like Nico, Gavin lived within walking distance of Formosa. He continued to come into the bar and have drinks long after we quit seeing each other.
I really need to get a new job
.

R
yan and I continued to be friends throughout it all. Every time I dated someone, I couldn't wait to tell Ryan about it in hope of a reaction. If that sounds familiar, go back a few chapters. It is.

All of Ryan's friends hated Mary, which was very satisfying, especially since they all liked me. They continued to break up and get back together like a couple of dumb high school kids, while I continued to harbor secret feelings for him. She and I never met. I don't know why she was fine with her boyfriend constantly going to movies and dinners with some girl she didn't know, but she was. Or she didn't know anything about it. I didn't really ask. I just knew that they led very separate lives for a couple. I was positive that there was no way they could last, which kept me from developing
anything real with anybody else. In case it isn't obvious, I really, really liked Ryan.

Ryan was really successful in voice-over and made a pretty good living. Mary had a pretty great voice-over career, too, so I decided that was why he liked her better.
Why would he want to be with a bartender?

My own lack of career stability made me feel really insecure and inferior, even though he seemed pretty impressed with my dedication to pursuing what I loved. It's weird when other people are comfortable with your life and you aren't. Then again, they aren't balancing your sad checking account at 3
A.M.
while polishing off a bottle of cheap cabernet.