Jen Kirkman - I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

I was struck by Miriam’s independence. She was divorced and happily never married again. She had no kids. She seemed just as content and natural as other women her age who were grandmothers. I couldn’t picture Miriam ever having ugly stained potholder mitts on her red-lacquered hands. Money was saved not for a rainy day but for a few days later at the TKTS booth in Times Square. She was exactly the kind of person a teenager/young adult looks up to. She seemed to be doing all of the things that reminded me of what James Dean did during his years in New York City—taking dance classes, being creative, hanging out with interesting people who knew they were interesting, kissing men.

I smiled in bed as I read Bill Cunningham’s column and wondered whether Miriam was still alive. I hadn’t thought of her in fifteen years but that day, because of her, I wasn’t sad to be alone in bed, reading the New York Times. I’d never read the paper with my husband, or any man, as a couple. I cringe at those TV commercials that show couples doing the crossword puzzle together in the morning. I start to get claustrophobic just watching. Can’t couples do anything apart? Can’t one of them run an errand while the other one chain-smokes at an outdoor café? How do they have all of this free time to waste together? And more important, who has one pencil in their home— let alone two?

I always knew that I was a Miriam, but as each year of my life went by I talked myself out of it, thinking that since being a Miriam wasn’t what most women did, my reasons for wanting to be like her were probably just immature fantasies or excuses to myself about why I couldn’t have a “real” job and a “normal” marriage and family. Parents talk a lot about how much strength and dedication it takes to raise a child. It does. It also takes a lot of strength and dedication to carve out a life that doesn’t seem normal to anyone else.

After my marriage ended I found out that I have something in common with moms and dads. Divorcées count time in months just like new parents who say, “Little Jillian is only sixteen months old but she’s already reading!” I find myself saying, “It’s been nine months since my twenty-month marriage ended and I’m not waking up in the middle of the night with nervous explosive diarrhea anymore!”

People used to ask me whether Matt would regret marrying a woman who didn’t want children. I don’t know whether my ex-husband has any regrets. I do know that he has to write a letter to Brookstone and tell them to stop sending catalogs addressed to him at what is now just my apartment. I also know that, like not wanting to have kids, one of the only other instincts I ever had as a young adult turned out to be correct and it’s that I am a Miriam. Miriam is like the silent, fifth character from The Golden Girls. She’s the spontaneous and unafraid-to-be-alone woman who lives inside all of us. Just like the spirit of God exists even in the most lapsed Catholics—we can access our inner Miriam as much or as little as we want at any given moment in our lives.

I do have one regret, though. I never asked Miriam how she managed not to get yellow, nicotine-stained fingers after smoking her three morning unfiltered Pall Malls.

I’m sure plenty of people will be mad at me for writing about them in a book—even with a fake name. And now everyone else can be mad at me for either forgetting or omitting them from the acknowledgments. I will try to keep this list of people I’m thanking to those who have something directly to do with the book—or else the list is going to go on and on and I’ll end up thanking Morrissey or just listing private jokes I have with my friends as if this were a middle school yearbook.

Thank you to Sarah Knight at Simon & Schuster. Because of your lack of maternal instinct, you made me a paid author. Thank you for your smart notes and encouragement to keep this book on target and funny and to take chances. Thank you to my manager, Kara Baker, for encouraging me to write a book about my experience as a childfree chick. Thank you to my agent Simon Green at CAA for your support and for selling this. Thanks to everyone at Avalon and CAA.

Thank you to Chelsea Handler. Let’s be honest. Nobody was buying my book ideas before I became part of your show(s). Thanks for everything you’ve done for me—and for hiring me twice. Before you hired me the first time I was temping in a windowless room. I love you.

Thanks to everyone at Chelsea Lately —especially the printer by my desk for printing out the first completed manuscript. Everyone else—thanks for reading things in advance and telling me this isn’t a piece of shit that should be thrown away: Chris Franjola, Brad Wollack, Heather McDonald, Fortune Feimster, Sarah Colonna, Jeff Wild, Sue Murphy, Tom Brunelle, April Richardson, Josh Wolf, Dan Maurio, Steve and Andrea Marmalstein.

Thanks to my immediate family for just being you: Ron, Joan, Linda, and Gail; and my nieces and nephews, Buffalo, Ali, and Zac. Thanks to my extended family for just being you. If I list you all by name, this will turn into an encyclopedia. I love you all.

Thanks to my friends who were part of this book, from the child-having to the child-free. I appreciate your reading early drafts and sharing your stories. Margaret Morse, Andrew Donnelly, Sharon Houston, Morgan Murphy, Tami and Tara Fitzkoff, Shauna Beland, Teri McDonald, Paul F. Tompkins, and Janie Haddad-Tompkins. Thank you to everyone who has ever had me on their podcast.

Thanks to “Mr. Bergen.” I still have the card.

Jen Kirkman is a stand-up comedian as well as a writer and regular roundtable guest on Chelsea Lately, and one of the stars of the hit spin-off mockumentary show After Lately. Jen’s latest stand-up album, Hail to the Freaks (released May 2011), hit no. 13 on the Billboard comedy album charts. Her debut album was 2006’s Self Help. Jen is also well known for her role as the narrator in the cult-hit series Drunk History from Funny or Die/HBO, which won the jury prize in short filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival. Every month, Jen makes a storytelling appearance on Paul F. Tompkins’s podcast, The Pod F. Tompkast, which was hailed by Rolling Stone as “the best comedy podcast of the moment.” Jen has performed stand-up on Conan, John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Late Friday on NBC, Comedy Central’s Premium Blend , and the BBC’s The World Stands Up. Jen was also a cast member of VH1’s sketch show Acceptable TV. She did many voices on the Cartoon Network’s Home Movies as well as Current TV’s political cartoon SuperNews! Entertainment Weekly has twice named Jen as a comedian to watch and the Huffington Post has named her one of the top ten comedians to follow on Twitter. Jen tours as a stand-up and is based in Los Angeles.