The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir (26 page)

Brother Wagner took my blood pressure and immediately put me on an IV.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just mono,” I confessed to him awkwardly, like it was an STD.

“Does your throat hurt?”

“No.”

He touched my neck. “And your glands don’t feel swollen?”

“No. But I’ve kissed a lot of people this month, and last month. Well, and the month before that, too.”

“I’m going to take your blood and run some tests,” he said, unfazed.

A nurse wheeled me into a private room and Alison, who had to go back to work, said good-bye. I was alone when Brother Wagner returned with the prognosis a few hours later.

“Other than exhaustion you don’t have any of the symptoms of mono,” he began. “But we want to keep you here overnight because your blood pressure is extremely low. In fact, if it were any lower, you’d be dead.”

“
Why?
What’s wrong with me?”

He opened my chart. “Who prescribed phentermine to you?”

I bit my lip. I’d almost left the “Are you taking any medication?” question blank for fear it’d incriminate me.

“I got it off the Internet,” I answered.

“Do you have any of these pills on you?”

“Yes.” I pointed to my purse. Brother Wagner handed it to me. I opened it and took out a bottle.

“You shouldn’t be taking this,” he said, reading the label.

“But I took it before and this didn’t happen.”

“When?”

“Three years ago when I went on a diet.”

“Do you know what phentermine is?”

“No.”

“It’s an amphetamine.”

“
Ampheta
what?”

“An amphetamine,” he explained. “It’s half of the drug fen-phen, which got pulled from the market when a number of people using it went into cardiac arrest. It’s basically a derivative of speed.”

“What?”
My voice trailed off as my diet, start to finish, flashed before my eyes. To me it was an out of body experience—Christ was dwelling inside me. I was waking up early, jogging incessantly, my appetite was gone, and I had an obsessive need to clean: All because of God. Only this change in my behavior hadn’t started the night I got back from Wookey and prayed for His grace. These symptoms began two weeks later when I first took phentermine.
My BIG miracle,
I realized,
the closest thing I had to evidence of God’s existence, was actually just me—ON SPEED!

 

I slept for the rest of the day. At 6 P.M., just before visiting hours were over, my best friend Kevin came for a surprise visit. Kevin is my other half. He’s eccentric, he has wild blond hair that sits in a poof on the top of his head and a very distinct way of dressing inspired by Diane Keaton that involves color and layering.

He tiptoed into my hospital room, looking like an evil villain in dark sunglasses, a teal tuxedo shirt, checkered suit coat, tight black pants, and pointy shoes. I’d never been happier to see anyone in my entire life.

“Kevin!”

He took one look at me. “Are you insane?” he said.

“It’s nice to see you, too.”

“You look like you’ve just been exorcised.”

“I feel like shit.”

Kevin sat in a plastic folding chair and took out a cigarette.

“You can’t smoke in here,” I told him. “And besides, it’ll kill you.”

He put the cigarette back in his pocket and glared at me.
You’re one to talk.
Kevin’s the only person who knew about the diet pills. I took them before each meal and every time I did he lunged at the pill bottle, screaming, “
Intervention!”

“I know what you’re thinking,” I began. “But it was an honest mistake. I just went too far too fast. I’m not the kind of girl who diets her way into a hospital.”

“Where exactly do you think you are right now?” Kevin asked.

Touché. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Kevin’s the type of person you can be completely honest with, no judgment. Which is why he is so central to my life. I tell him all the things I can’t tell my family.

“I come bearing gifts.” He opened his bag and took out a Kingsley Amis book, a Hello Kitty drawing pad, and a pack of markers.

“I love you,” I said.

A nurse came in a few minutes later to tell us that visiting hours were up. Kevin made a face, and said farewell. I felt his absence immediately. The room was devoid of all color. And so, even though I don’t like it, I turned on the television to pass the time. I only got two stations, ESPN and VH1. I chose the latter;
Plastic Surgery Obession
was playing, a “documentary” with sassy comments and clips of the
craziest
plastic surgery moments of all time. I watched the entire show.

As the countdown got closer to the
Number One Craziest Moment
, I felt sick. Not because I was in a hospital, but because of all of it: the obsession with beauty, the desire to look young, to cheat death, and to weigh nothing. Coupled with the belief that self-worth, character, and individuality are qualities that we can buy; an obsession that I, in spite of everything, still feed into. I lifted my head off my pillow and looked down at myself.

My hospital gown had tiny sheep on it, and there was a thick IV coming out of my arm.
I can’t believe I did this to myself.

Just then, Jocelyn Wildenstein’s face flashed onto the television screen—half-woman, half-pussycat meets bottom of tractor.
At the very least,
I consoled myself,
I’ll never get plastic surgery.

Point of No Return

N
o man can serve two masters for either he will love the one or hate the other
, or so the Bible says. I’ve always tried to love the world and church equally. But it was like riding two horses. I had one foot on the back of each. As long as these horses were close together, I could continue with my journey. But the more that time passed, the farther apart these horses got. I wasn’t riding either one well, and since my legs were in the splits and my eyes were bulging—the journey wasn’t all that enjoyable.

It wasn’t moving to New York, losing weight, meeting Matt, or working at Nobu that put me into contact with the “things of this world,” it was everything. One of the positive aspects of the breakup was that I started going after my creative dreams again. I did this partly because I’d given up performing after FAO Schwarz and I missed it. And I did it partly for Matt. He loved hearing me tell him stories, and I secretly wanted him to see a flyer for one of my shows on the street, and I wanted him to come and fall in love all over again. And so, after a two-year hiatus from writing and performing, I got back onstage and started trying to do stand-up. As a result, my life became even more disjointed. I’d go from hearing dick jokes to hearing church sermons, and then back to dick jokes again.

One Sunday, when the bishop walked up to the podium to begin our sacrament meeting, I accidentally clapped my hands and made a loud
Woo!
Everyone turned around to glare at me. I slunk down in my seat. I wasn’t trying to make a commotion, I’d just forgotten which world I was in.

If I wasn’t performing comedy, I was kissing men I didn’t really like to prove that I still had it. Which I did, down to an art. I’d begin with an audacious intro, followed by a funny anecdote. We’d dance, and then make out until it got to a nipple, or an unzip.
STOP!
I’d cut things short, and run off feeling validated but empty.

My hospitalization for accidental drug abuse was the final straw. The drug abuse part wasn’t what upset me. It was the revelation that my diet was aided by speed. It caused me to lose the remainder of my faith. For years the idea that my diet was a miracle had sustained me. In fact, it was the main reason I couldn’t have sex with Matt. I thought,
He only wants to see me naked because I lost weight and I look more attractive now. And this only happened because I prayed and asked God for a miracle. Misusing my new body would be like taking a gift from God and defiling it.

And they say religion makes people crazy?

I was a wreck. I would sit in church every Sunday and think
I gave up an incredible person for stale bread and an uncomfortable pew.

I’d wanted Matt to get an answer from God for himself, but I also needed him to get one
for me
. An atheist believing in God was like scientific evidence of His existence. And if God was real, my religion was worth practicing.

It wasn’t just a breakup. It was an existential crisis.

In spite of Matt’s prayer, I still believed that God would answer me if only I’d ask. That’s how Joseph Smith founded the Mormon religion. He was trying to decide which church to join when he read a passage in the Bible that said, “If any of ye lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.” He followed this advice, prayed, and started a faith.

I needed wisdom. I needed to know what to do once and for all. And so I decided to follow the example of my father and do what he did when he was nineteen, driving through the desert on his way to serve a mission. I would ask God for a point of no return. If I got one, I’d be Mormon. If I didn’t, my religion and I could go our separate ways and I wouldn’t feel guilty. I’ve been seeking this my entire life—an out that didn’t go against my conscience.

Not everyone needs this. In fact, most of my friends who were raised religious walked away from their churches without difficulty. “It just wasn’t for me,” they decided. If you’re wondering why it’s so impossible for me to leave, it’s because of something Jesus said: “If you do my will you will know it is of me or of Him who sent me.” Which basically means, if you follow my teachings you will gain faith that they are true. In spite of my doubt, I practiced my religion and up until this point every choice that I made proved to be the right decision. Doing what I was supposed to do and then feeling good about it is what helped me to sustain my faith. It was my anchor, my ballast. Now I wasn’t so sure. I’d let go of Matt, and instead of a pay-off, I got misery.

Is it right to suppress my sexuality? Or do religious choices just make me happy because I was trained to feel this way?
I wondered.
Is there a God up there that’s trying to remind me that I am like him, a spiritual being living in a physical moment? Or am I merely a physical being that’s going to live, die, and then cease to exist? Will my choices on earth really help me progress in heaven? Or is heaven a made-up place, and am I just making sacrifices for an imaginary reason?

And so, on a cold afternoon in October, after wrestling with my thoughts for the millionth time, I locked myself in a classroom on the third floor of the chapel. With the intention of making up my mind once and for all, I knelt down, folded my arms, and said the following:

That was it; my prayer. I said
Amen
, kept my eyes shut as tightly as possible, and waited. At first all I could hear was my own voice in my head:
What if I don’t hear anything? Or what if I do—how can I be sure it isn’t just me?
I’m not sure how long it was that I sat there wondering if I’d get an answer. But after a few minutes something happened. I felt a warm feeling in the center of my chest and I was overcome by a certain familiar stillness, a peace I’d almost forgotten.

“And after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire;
but
the Lord
was
not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

Tell me what to do
, I asked the voice to direct me. What followed was a series of questions.

“Is everything you want in life available to you at Nobu?”

No
, I almost laughed.

“Is everything you want in life available to you when you’re on stage performing?”

I thought about it.
No,
I answered.

“Is everything you want in life available to you within your family?”

“Is everything you want in life available to you within you?”