Jen Kirkman - I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

Jen, sometimes you just have to let a kid be a kid. As a parent, I know this from experience. It’s a tough, underappreciated job, having kids. May I suggest noise-canceling headphones?

I haven’t had time to bake any cookies (or buy any ingredients), and I’m definitely not up for wearing headphones around my house ten to twelve hours a day. But I have found a solution that works for me. Every time I hear Tony running up and down the entire length of the apartment upstairs and squealing, “ Aahhhhhhhhhhhh! ”—I put on a pair of high heels and I run up and down my hardwood-floored hallway, stomping and clunking and also yelling, “ Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh! ” at the top of my lungs. (I don’t have any downstairs neighbors—unless you count the termites underneath our complex.)

I’m hoping that Tony’s parents get the hint and realize that they are not living in a soundproof building. So far, even if they have gotten the hint, the noise hasn’t stopped. But I’m actually having a ball. It’s so therapeutic and freeing, I just might cut back my therapy sessions from weekly to biweekly. And if Tony’s parents stop by to complain, I’ll just ever so subtly inform them that my inner kid needs to be a kid and that I know from experience how hard it is to raise one.

If it was a Tuesday night in 2004, I was hanging out at the M Bar, a supper club that housed a popular night of stand-up comedy in a strip mall on Vine at Fountain in Hollywood. I was on a bit of a comedy hot streak—I mean as much of a hot streak as a stand-up comic can have who is performing unpaid for fifty people who are all crammed in the back of the room, trying to avoid sitting at a table because they’re too broke to order the stale bruschetta. My hot streak was because I was single and I’m never funnier than when I’m feeling dejected and undersexed. I’d just come to the natural end of a love relationship with (aka I was dumped by) Thomas, who had decided that it would be an improvement in his life to get back together with Hariette, his adult-Goth ex-girlfriend with a death wish. I should have known. He talked about her incessantly and I couldn’t keep anything in the nightstand drawer on the side of his bed that I slept on because it was full of her cards and letters from their fucked-up relationship. One card had dried blood and a rose on the inside. Yes, I read the cards. How else should I have amused myself while he was taking a shower or sleeping? This was before the Instagram app or Netflix Instant was invented.

I joked onstage about the band Weezer one night at M Bar and the guy who acted as the comedy show DJ played one of their songs as I left the stage. I couldn’t see him, but I knew that this mysterious figure in the booth had been listening closely to my act. That’s thoughtful, I thought to myself, and went to the bar for a drink. At the bar the mysterious DJ introduced himself to me. His name was Matt. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

“We’ve met a million times before and every time you say it’s nice to meet me,” Matt said.

“Oh,” I answered. “You’re a really good DJ. Where else do you work?”

He smiled and said, “I’m not a DJ for a living. I just play music for this show. We’ve also had this same exact conversation a few times.”

I wish I could say that normally I hate being called on the fact that I’m terrible with names, faces, and conversations that happened more than five minutes ago, and that when Matt called me on it I immediately responded positively and realized that I needed this man in my life to love and guide me and help me stay present and in the moment. Nope. I thought, Well, that’s no fun—being called on my shit. And then I ended up going home and washing the dishes that my clinically depressed roommate had left in the sink.

SPRING CAME AND went. I found myself still thinking about Thomas and doing drive-bys past his apartment complex. I know that when someone in Los Angeles claims to do a drive-by, that person usually has gold teeth and a hit rap song, but I just mean that I was circling his block to make sure his car was in the driveway so I could come to the auspicious conclusion that Thomas was home, forlorn and missing me.

On our first date Thomas had told me that his most cherished book from childhood was Judy Blume’s Superfudge. The night that Thomas and I ended our relationship (aka when he dumped me as I cried snots out of my eyes on his bedroom floor and begged him to reconsider), he told me that he wanted to reconnect with his childhood and that he had lost himself.

One evening in May, after not having been Thomas’s girlfriend for eight weeks, six days, and four hours, I decided that I’d cement myself as a shoo-in for the Museum of Most Romantic Gestures. I went on a hunt for a hardcover copy of Superfudge. At the Barnes & Noble cash register, my eyes welled up as I thought about the very John-Hughes-movie moment I was about to enact. I sat in my car outside of Thomas’s house, inscribing the inside front cover with “Dear Thomas, you haven’t lost yourself. He was here all along.” I took a moment of silence to be moved by my sentiment—and briefly wondered whether he would have preferred it written in my blood.

I walked up to his door and at the last minute realized that just dropping the book off would leave our fate up to chance. I wanted to present the one-of-a-kind Superfudge to Thomas in person, watch him read the dedication in front of me, and then collapse into my arms with cries of, “You’ve changed my life! I was such a fool to let you go. Come inside my apartment and come inside my… heart. We’ll set fire to the Hallmark Hariette nightstand and build our own future with a nice bedroom ensemble from IKEA. Listen, we can’t afford anything better right now, but surprisingly they have many bedroom furniture options that don’t look like plywood and thick cardboard that’s been Scotch-taped together. I may have a nervous breakdown about my lack of manhood when I’m forced to assemble the nightstands with three beers in my system and a faulty Allen wrench, but we’ll get through it!” I knocked. Thomas opened the door, saw me, and slammed the door in my face. I heard him frantically affix the door chain.

He yelled from behind the safety of this barricade, “Give me a minute!” I heard whispering. I heard a hysterical girl accuse, “Who is that?” I heard Thomas answer, “Hariette, go into the bedroom. This will only take a second.” Thomas unchained the door and opened it. He looked at me and whispered loudly, “What?” I handed him the book. I guess I thought that it was worth a try even though it was probably not the best idea to rekindle a relationship with someone who had another girl over and who had just slammed a door in my face.

He took the book and studied it. I started to explain. “Thomas, you once said this was your favorite book from childhood and—”

“Oh, Jen,” he said. He didn’t say “Oh, Jen” in a romantic “Take me, Jen!” way, but more like I had just spilled oatmeal on the floor from my high chair. He pitied me and knew that it was pointless to yell because I clearly didn’t know better. “It’s over, Jen.” He handed the book back to me. I became indignant. If you would just reread Superfudge, Thomas, you would know that you and I were meant to be together. I have no idea what the fuck even two words are from Superfudge, but I have my heart set on this dramedy I’ve written in my head and there can be no rewrites.

Thomas shut the door and I heard him twist both dead bolts. He said, “Hariette? Hariette? Come here, honey.” I got up and left Superfudge on his doorstep. It was just like when I threw a copy of the Albert Camus book The Stranger to Robert Smith onstage when I saw the Cure in high school. I’d read that their song “Killing an Arab” was based on that book and I wrote a wistful fan letter on the inside flap that was more of an argument as to why I was Robert Smith’s only living soul mate and how unfortunate it was for him to have gone this long without me in his life. In both instances I never got a response. But at least I’m spreading to many men the joy of reading.