Jen Kirkman - I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

ONE NIGHT SHORTLY after the Superfudge debacle, I got offstage after my set at M Bar and headed to the bar. A married male comedian—a friend of mine—stopped me to chat. I didn’t think this was anything out of the ordinary; he always loved to talk comedy and give advice. He said that a bunch of people were going next door to a bar for a postshow drink and I should come by.

When I got there it was just him. He started to confess that being married is hard and he wanted to know my opinion as a single woman on this complicated issue. Before I could answer, he asked me whether I thought that his jerking off in front of me would be considered cheating on his wife. I wasn’t sure of the answer, in part because he was a dozen pounds overweight and wore a crooked hairpiece that resembled a golf course divot. I wasn’t attracted to him. If he were Robert Downey Jr. and RDJ wanted to know whether I thought his jerking off in front of me was cheating, I would have said absolutely not. Not only is it not cheating, I think it’s good for America if you show me your cock. And if you are at all tired from touching yourself, please allow me to do it for you.

But just as I was about to say, “Look, you’re really funny but I have no interest in seeing your dick,” I heard a familiar voice behind me say hello. I turned around and saw Matt. He said jokingly, “I know. You don’t remember me. But I’m Matt. We’ve met. I’m not a DJ.”

That was the moment. He called me on my shit. I laughed. And I realized that for the last ten years I’d been wearing a sheet over my head like a shitty Halloween ghost costume and that’s why I kept picking the bad candy out of the bunch.

My comedian friend immediately pulled out pictures of his kids from his wallet and acted like, “Oh, hey, everyone. You walked in just in time. I was just telling Jen how great my family is. Here’s Johnny on his fifth birthday. Isn’t he cute?” I subtly turned my back to concentrate on Matt.

It turns out he was from a small beach town in Massachusetts, and I bonded with him by telling him I was from a suburb near the city. He reminded me that we had already discussed this several times. I was starting to think I either had multiple personalities or was just a complete asshole. Apparently it’s hard to pay attention to the guy right in front of you who is ready to create a story with you when you’re busy obsessing about what to write to a guy who doesn’t like you in a copy of Superfudge that he didn’t ask for.

Matt and I talked about how excited we were that it was almost August and the Red Sox were still having a good season. I know nothing about baseball. I don’t know the stats of each player. I don’t even know the last name of each player. I don’t know what RBI stands for. I don’t understand why with all of those steroids those baseball players are so fat.

But I specifically liked the 2004 Red Sox team. They were a ragtag bunch of millionaires who grew their hair long, as opposed to their bitter rivals, the Yankees, a more obedient group of millionaires, who under the supervision of owner George Steinbrenner were forbidden to wear their hair long or have facial hair below the lip. (In baseball this is called “discipline.” But when a woman suggests that her boyfriend cut the hair on his scalp and chin area, that’s known as “This controlling chick is telling me what to do.”)

In case you didn’t know because you’ve been living in a vacuum-sealed hut off the coast of New Zealand or are a Goth teenager, the Red Sox hadn’t won a World Series since 1918 and were known as having an eighty-six-year-old “curse” on their heads. The superstition started after the Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919–1920. Before the sale of “the Bambino” the Red Sox had been a successful baseball franchise. The 2004 Red Sox referred to themselves as “the Idiots”—an almost Zen declaration that the game they played was one of camaraderie, hope, and joy. It was to be played one pitch at a time and it didn’t matter whether there was a curse or how many RBIs (whatever those are) a guy had.

Most people from Massachusetts know a little bit about the ride of Paul Revere but “a lot a bit” about the curse of the Boston Red Sox. It served as a metaphor for all of our lives on an as-needed basis. If something didn’t go right in your life, you could remember that nothing was going right for the Red Sox either. The entire state was cursed. The entire state was an underdog. Sometimes things don’t work out and maybe we’re working against a punishing power higher than ourselves that doesn’t want us to win. That kind of “I’m the piece of shit that the world revolves around” attitude is unique to Massachusetts and I think it’s why so many comedians are from Boston, and why most people in Boston are sarcastic, angry, and wicked drunk.

WHEN I TURNED thirty a few weeks later I was still single and threw myself one of those parties that is no longer appropriate past the age of thirty—the type where you send out an Evite and ask everyone to meet you at a bar and pay for their own drinks. I heard that Matt showed up that night, although I didn’t see him. I was busy flirting with an artist who, according to my friend, thought I was cute. I think the only reason he thought I was cute was because we had met months earlier at a party and I completely ignored him. Not on purpose. I just didn’t know he was there.

If I like a guy, I can’t ignore him. I can only try to own and occupy him like a celebrity does a small island. I followed the Artist back to his house in a drunken stupor after my party. I slept over. We made out. I fell asleep halfway through our fooling around so I really did only “sleep” with him. The next morning, the sunlight streaming through his window and onto his bed made me self-conscious. Who knows what kind of cellulite could have developed overnight as I transitioned from age twenty-nine to thirty? I left and hoped that he would call me. He didn’t call me. I called him. A lot. A week later, I invited him to see Manhattan at a revival theater. (He had told me on my birthday that it was his favorite movie.) He said he couldn’t go. But why would he not want to see it with me after he told me it was his favorite movie? It couldn’t be because I had called him fifty times since we had first met, right? At least I didn’t drop a special-edition DVD of Manhattan on his doorstep—only because I couldn’t remember where he lived.

September rolled around and I hadn’t run into Nice Matt from Boston anywhere. I decided that it was time to invite him to my regular Sunday-night karaoke party. I’d never once actually corralled a group of people together for a Sunday-night karaoke party, but Matt wouldn’t know that. Besides, I’d always wanted to be the type of girl who has a regular Sunday-night karaoke gathering. I sent out an e-mail to a bunch of friends—including Matt—and said, “It’s a Sunday Night Karaoke Party! At the usual place—Sardo’s in Burbank.” Interestingly, nobody wrote back to say, “What the hell are you talking about? We don’t have a regular karaoke night. Are you trying to get something going with a boy?”

Matt showed up. I sang my usual karaoke song, Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart”—if you ever see me sing that song at karaoke, it means I’m trying to impress you. And if you’re a cute boy, it means I’m trying to get you to impress your penis on me.

Later Matt sang a nervous rendition of “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass. Eventually we were the last ones there. It was like our friends and the patrons of Sardo’s were trying to make the decision for us. Come on, you two, make a move already!

You know when you want to make out with someone and you’re pretty sure that he wants to make out with you because you’re both touching each other’s arms? You think to yourself, This is Body Language 101. He’s touching my arm because he knows it’s sending me a signal that he’s interested. But wait, who would be so obvious and actually touch someone’s arm? He’s not reading Cosmo. Maybe he touches everyone’s arm. I’ve never hung out with him before. That could be his “thing.” I better not act on this and ask him if he wants to leave and go somewhere else. Nope. His flirtation is so by-the-book that I’m suspicious. We should just keep sitting knee to knee in this booth and ignoring the fact that we are blind to everyone else at our table but each other.