Why I Hate Avocados
God forbid a doctor ever tell me “you’ll never walk again” because I’d immediately believe them. Even if I was walking at the exact moment that they told me–I’d suddenly collapse at their suggestion. I’d be a great plant at a hypnotist show. Or prime cult material.
My most gullible era was when I was in my early 20’s and living in Amsterdam, though. Man, was I bossed around a lot when I was there. From a Dutch junkie telling me how to lock my bike up so he could steal it as soon as I walked away, to a Greek man I dated convincing me to have a threesome with him and his friend at the end of the night (“But his date didn’t show up! That’s not fair for him!”).
So, it’s not really a shock that I ended up meeting the only “guru” I think I’ve ever had. And by “guru” I mean someone who was fatter than me and from Texas–both things I held in high esteem at the time. Her name was Cynthia and she had moved to The Netherlands to start an experimental theatre company and to escape the law.
The first assignment she had for me was to repeat the mantra “I’m okay..I’m okay..I’m okay…” all through the day. As I smoked pot and read Dutch children’s books, I’d pause every so often and recite it.
Another pearl of wisdom that Cynthia gave me was the “compliment chest.” As Cynthia lay on my futon eating eight avocados and an entire birthday cake (she did bring out two forks when she emerged from the kitchen with it and offered me one, but I was full–on her behalf), I was to take all the good reviews and nice things that had ever been said to me and put them in a chest and then open that chest up before I went on stage.
Which basically meant I went on stage every night remembering that I had good ankles.
One of the last nights that I saw Cynthia before she disappeared, I walked into my apartment and turned the lights on to discover her seated in a chair smoking cigarettes with tears streaming down her face.
Then, with shaking hands she rolled another cigarette and told me how her big financial backer for the theatre company had “gone crazy” and moved back to Texas, so the company was disbanding. I speak crazy, so I knew that what she meant was that the backer had never officially agreed to give any real money and once he’d gotten sick of spending every night at the CockRing Bar, he went back to his job at IBM.
Which meant the year of work that she’d just promised me and about 29 other artists was now gone–but I didn’t get upset with her. I just stuffed her into my compliment chest and tossed her into the ocean.
The Town That Olives Forgot
I’m still in Pittsburgh. I can’t sleep because there is a girl in a car who is sobbing to her boyfriend right below my window. The only words I can make out are “noooooo” and “whyyyyyy”. She’s been crying like this for over an hour. It’s been going on for so long I’ve started to sing along with her like you do with a car alarm that’s been going off for a long time. She’s repeated her rhythm enough time that I just jump right in, “nooooooo” beat-beat “whyyyyyy.” It’s like she’s performing the city of Pittsburgh’s sacred welcoming ritual–a desperate drunk girl in a car crying “NOOOOO.”
When I wake up after a few hours of sleep I wander out on to Carson Street to get some breakfast. The streets are littered with beer cans and dead baby birds. Well, I see two dead baby birds. Which seems like too many. The only store open is Schultz’s market and when I walk in I suddenly miss the dead birds and the beer cans. I walk through the store twice and even with all the food being fully packaged–I trust none of it. The store is a little bit what my friend Allison would call “an ice cream and porno store”. I don’t see any porno–but I feel it. You know the kind–the bad porno where the women are missing a few of their fake nails and are slightly bruised on their cellulite. Later in the day, the people I’m here working for tell me, “Oh, don’t buy anything from Shultz’s. They make their own meat.”
Brian, an ex-Marine and old friend of mine from Seattle, found out that I’m visiting his home town so he’s been calling me and telling me where to go. His suggestion for the neighborhood I’m in is Dee’s bar, a sort of punk rock steel-worker bar. Alcohol feels right in Pittsburgh–like eating corn in Indiana. When I walk in to Dee’s I go up to the bar and don’t see the bartender until I look down and see her sitting on a lawn chair behind the bar. She’s not hidden away to secretly read her trashy novel or eat her dinner in peace–she’s just sitting in her chair and staring straight ahead–maybe thinking. When she pours me a giant pint glass of vodka and adds a few melted ice cubes to it, I ask her if she has any olives to help cut the vodka flavor. She looks at me like I just asked her to hand me the glass with only her right hand and to not look me in the eye as she does so. She can’t even stand to look at me after my olive request. “That will be two dollars.”
“Two dollars! Why I won’t pay!” I tried to sound full of hilarious mock outrage but the fear in my eyes may have fucked up my rhythm. She said, “Fine,” turned around and sat back down in her lawn chair. When I told Brian about what happened he yelled at me, “You did what? You pretentious-snobby LA nightmare. Shove your olive up your ass and get over yourself. I ought to kick your ass.”
For more neighborhood ambience I have a neighbor, a large older white gentleman who sits in front of his house blocking the sidewalk. I’m forced to pass him if I want to go anywhere. He never has his shirt on (so his belly can breathe) and he watches an old TV that he rests on his lap. The trucker cap he wears has his own humorous message written on it in black marker. I can’t get close enough to see what he’s written-but the first word is “WOMEN”. He doesn’t sit alone. In the lawn chair next to him is a large stuffed Wiley Coyote. This made me laugh and continues to every time I pass by. Until today when I walked by and noticed that Wiley Coyote was wearing a white silky brand new bra. A “C” cup.
When I ran around the corner and called Brian to tell him what Pittsburgh had done now, Brian very definitely felt that the guy was fucking Wiley. “Oh for sure.”
If I walk by today and Wiley isn’t sitting next to him–and if he tries to tell me “Oh, he’s just laying down inside. He’s tired…” I’m calling the cops.
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
Take a Deep Breath…
For the last 3 days I’ve been trying to meditate before I walk out of the apartment where I’m staying in Pittsburgh–I really need to get on the relaxation thing now that I’m going to be here for 5 weeks–not because the city isn’t cool as can be…but because I’m staying in a very Sports Bar-laden area of town. Every few steps I’ll think, “Oh somebody spilled their soup again..where is this popular soup place around here that clearly doesn’t have good lids on their take out containers?” Then I realize that it’s not spilled soup–it’s frat boy throw up everywhere….
Since I’ve been here, I’ve been having these moments in the middle of the night where I’ll get up to get a drink of water…and as I stand in the dark of the kitchen I’ll start to wonder if ghosts are real. Then I think about the twins in The Shining who wanted Danny to come play with them “forever…and ever…and ever”…then right from there I start thinking about the word “eternity”…and then I’m so crippled with existential angst I wish ghosts did exist to give me something else to think about.
“You’ve got a letter here from India,” my boyfriend called to tell me. My Xanax had arrived at our home address in Santa Monica “What?!” I feigned confusion. “India? You’re kidding. Well, just send it to Pittsburgh and I’ll check it out…huh.” He was very upset by the rough little exotic brown envelope that was hand addressed to me. So I told him “Just take it easy…I’m sponsoring a child and he sends me fake Xanax whenever he wants to thank me.”
I accidentally had my Indian online doctor send my pills to relax to the wrong address. So I may be forced to learn to meditate.
Years ago I went on a three day silence and meditation retreat called “The Places that Scare You.” You were supposed to let yourself go right into your greatest fears, let yourself really look at them so that they wouldn’t hold so much power. Since my greatest fear was cheating on my then-current relationship, I was able to really bring that fear out of the shadows and into reality–I acted on it the day after the retreat ended.
Since then I’ve used that as my excuse as to why I don’t meditate: “I better not–I’ll have an affair.”
Speaking of affairs, my boyfriend–the most nervous person I know–has done transcendental meditation for years. He actually comes out of his meditations more stressed out than when he went in. I think he uses his meditations as a chance to construct his side of the argument for whatever fight we may have been in the middle of. His eyes will pop open and he’ll immediately say, “hey, you know what? I did pay that bill but they must have just sent out the notice before they got the check–I can show you online…I paid it and…”
“Go back inside…I don’t think your meditation ‘took,’” I tell him.
“Last night I was able to do it for 4 minutes. I used the very powerful mantra of, “ohmmmmmm–please let the people in India get a label maker so it doesn’t look so suspicious…and please let them get it soon…ohmmmmmm.”
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
I Want a Ritalin Patch
Last weekend my beautiful 15 year-old niece and her mother/my sister were visiting me from Indiana. My niece is all about hip-hop and ironically the one part of her body that I got to know very well during her trip was her hip–because that’s the part of her body where she wears her Ritalin patch. If she doesn’t wear her patch, according to her mother, she’s moody. When I complained to her that I don’t believe in putting minors on mood-altering drugs just to suit our comfort levels, my sister reminded me of my last trip home. “Remember when she screamed at me ‘motherfucker, don’t touch my yearbook?’ She wasn’t wearing her patch that day.”
The patch is like a giant piece of packing tape–so my niece has to follow re-applying her lip gloss with yanking her mini skirt down and yanking at the hairs that have gotten stuck to the patch. Cat hairs, sweater hairs…hairs that were blowing by in the wind.
When I was young, my parents were convinced that I had petite mal epilepsy because I seemed to ‘be in my own world’ and I laughed too much. Plus I was adopted, so who knows what had happened to me those 8 days that I was just laying in the garbage bin waiting to be found. So, I’ve always felt almost angry that my niece is being medicated. She’s intense–like I was–so I’m sure that if the ADD thing had been as big back then as it is now, it would be me, and not my niece, yanking my mini skirt down in order to yank the stray hairs that had gotten stuck to it in the course of a day.
Our first stop on their “Lauren’s Hollywood Tour for Visiting Family” was Rose’s Café in Venice for brunch–light and airy and lovely and sunny. My niece and sister said nothing about how lovely the restaurant was… hich made me think they were mad there wasn’t a race car hanging from the ceiling.
My niece spent most of the meal hoping her friend would text her. She liked this friend even though she was a “cockblocker.” That word was like a magic wand–cockblocker tapped me on the forehead and poof I was a fucking granny. Clutching my heart , I asked her if she still had the finger puppets I’d given her for Christmas when she was three, “or have you been using them as whimsical condoms?”
At the end of a long day of shopping I took her and her mom to another café so they could watch me drink. I ended up taking them to a place that I thought would have a Venice Beach-y vacation feel, but instead was a complete date rape sports bar. As we stood at the hostess stand, my niece started hiking her mini skirt up–or down (what’s the difference really)–and ferociously weeding the stuck hairs out of her patch. When she noticed me watching her, she told me that “mommy’s gonna bring one for you tomorrow…you’ll love it. You’re never hungry.”
It was stressing me out wondering if the patch was working…not working…if the restaurant would be appropriate…and would my sister really bring me one of those patches like she’d promised? I had a bunch of phone calls that I’d been putting off…
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
A few years ago I wanted to get a tattoo on my wrist that would symbolize “trust your instinct.” Unfortunately I felt compelled to get this tattoo while I was in Idaho.
When I walked into the tattoo parlor in Boise I saw the dreadlocked owner of the store holding a baby so tiny and squishy it looked like it had just dropped out of the mini skirt of the girl standing next to him. (“So glad I didn’t wear underwear today–super easy birth.”) The owner dude looked down at the baby’s face and then handed it right back to its mother with a “gross, get that thing away from me” shudder and he told her that one of the baby’s eyes was way bigger then the other one. “And it’s freaking the shit of out me.”
He then responded to my very simple Hopi Indian design with, “Oh fuck, circles are really hard.” My instinct whispered very softly to me “THIS IS A PLACE OF EVIL…GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE,” and then it told me to wait until I was in prison to get this ink. At least there everyone is pretty much detoxed and they don’t have the morning shakes as bad as this guy had them.
It turns out he was right–circles are really hard. The circle he left on me looked all inbred and fucked up. Just like the Quasimodo baby that he tried to act like he wasn’t the father of.
And imagine my surprise when I got back to LA and discovered that the three little dots that were a part of the tattoo design were the Mexican gang symbol for Mi Vida Loca. Boy, was my face red–with the blood that was gushing from the head wound where a cholo threw a beer can at me in the 7-11 parking lot.
Even though I sort of hoped the gang symbol on my wrist would help me get a better partner at my salsa class, I knew I needed to get it removed, or at least changed into the Chinese symbol for “All Girl Babies Must Be Drowned in the River”.
The hipster LA tattoo parlor that I found magically transformed my jail tat’ into what most people refer to as “a piece of toast with a weird gang design in the middle.”
At first I’d said “No.” when the LA tattoo artist sketched out what looked to me like an old mahjong tile…but he manipulated me. When I said “I don’t really like it” he shook his head and said, “I think you’re making a mistake. It’s actually really cool.” I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t recognize cool when I saw it…so I laid back and let him do it.
When I went to pay for his work, I spotted “tattoo removal brochures” and started to ask for one–but didn’t want to be rude.
Right after it was done I sat in my car thinking of bracelets that I could wear or having my arm sawed off. As I sat sobbing, staring at the bizarre tattoo of what was starting to look like a piece of concrete toast that was now on my body for the rest of my life, I heard on the radio that one of my favorite writers and fellow Hoosier, Kurt Vonnegut, had died.
So every time someone aggressively grabs my wrists and demands to know, “What the hell is that?” I tell them it’s a piece of concrete toast that Kurt Vonnegut wrote about in some of his lesser known works. If they don’t believe me, I lie and say it was the last mahjong tile my grandmother played right before she died. If they don’t believe that, I point out the three dots that are still visible in the design–and threaten to kill them if they ask anymore questions.
No Really, Shut Up
Normally, I don’t talk politics. When I was on “The Daily Show” as a correspondent I had to practice how to say Kofi Annan’s name over and over for a joke that I didn’t even understand. My self-absorption level works well with writing poetry and drinky parties but it can get in the way of good political banter.
But the other day I thought I had a political insight.
Sitting on the beach eating tacos I read about how Winston Churchill loved war. Which I thought was sick and sad and wrong. And much like my personal life.
My friend Gay Jon had recently yelled at me over the phone that I was “addicted to drama”. Which I thought was ironic since he was the one screaming and who moments before was claiming to have lung cancer because he’d been feeling “oddly tired” all the time. He implied that I always create drama because I saw myself as a struggling artist and needed the striving and suffering to feed my work. He claimed that he was sick of me acting like I was a victim to it all and didn’t want to talk to me until I had more pleasant things to say about my life (we haven’t spoken since). I hung up the phone, took Gay Jon out of my contact list in my cell phone and went to Circuit City to buy a Tivo so I don’t have to suffer through the experience of missing another episode of “Intervention”.
Gay Jon was right, though…I like conflict. The tension and the drama. It keeps me feeling productive. I may not have “worked” today at an actual job…but I did spend 3 hours fighting with my boyfriend and getting angry at Sprint. And I may say that I’d like peace…but do I really? I’m sure Winston didn’t say, “God, I love war” out loud. And then there’s Bush.
President Bush and I have so much in common. First there’s the nose thing. I have one…he has one. There have also been moments that I thought I recognized our shared humanity. Like when they told him that we were under terrorist attack–he stopped reading to the kids and looked stunned. When I saw that moment I recognized it as a human moment–“wow, he looks pretty stunned and jolted. That’s how I looked when I found out. God, we’re just alike.” Then he kept reading to the kids–and I thought–“oh, there we go–I’m back to not recognizing him as ‘one of us’ anymore”.
So I thought about how Bush loves war. This sounds simplistic, but he must sadly and oddly love the full on, all-encompassing conflict that leaves room for nothing else. I could get out of my relationship–but why would I want to when I’d be left with such real and deeper issues that take a lot more effort to solve.
But in a war people are dying–so this is a bad comparison.
So for the last 3 days I’ve been living my milk toast liberal motto of “No More War” at home with the BF and have stopped all the conflicts. The sad thing is that once I created peace…the days seemed so long. Not fighting is so lonely.
Peace is so lonely. And how do you know that you’re getting anything done or going anywhere if someone isn’t sobbing on the bathroom floor in his or her underwear. Covered in whipped cream and throwing poker chips at their own face.
“Empathy for Humanity” or “Ode to Whores” or “Inbred and Corn Fed…Let’s Move to Florida” or “But That’s Not Funny”
It’s the oddest feeling when people laugh at things that aren’t meant to be funny.
“My Grandma died” shouldn’t get a laugh–except maybe if it’s used absurdly. Like if she’s standing right next to you. Or if you quickly tack on, “9 years ago…so that’s why I couldn’t come to your party last night.” Although I’m certainly no laugh police (I’m the dream police). Folks are free to laugh at what they want. Except in Florida.
I just got back from Florida where I performed a solo theatre piece that I wrote called BUST. It’s a play that’s billed as a “dark comedy” about me volunteering in the women’s jail in LA. As I said before, I started volunteering in the jail because I needed to find the one environment in LA where I had a shot at being the prettiest girl in the room–but with all the movie stars serving DUI time, not even the jails can put you on top of the heap anymore…sad. I digress. So BUST the play has comedic elements but it’s also about women caught in a horrific system and who have for the most part been completely forgotten and left inside the jails.
HA HA HA HA!!!
Now, if you are in Florida reading this right now–you are doubled over with yuks. It would have been the line “completely forgotten” that just killed ya. That was the sort of thing they were laughing at. The audience behavior consisted of people laughing at lines about characters being molested, answering their cell phones, or walking out in the middle of the show because they had no idea what was going on. I didn’t have any idea either–but I was on stage so I had to stay.
There’s a point in the play when the character of the prostitute says, “I don’t know how to read or write because when I was in third grade my step dad took me out of school…so I could be with him…so I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.” The line was said and the theatre erupted with laughter. For a second I thought maybe I’d unwittingly made a funny clown face, or a little clown midget that had escaped from the circus had run across the stage behind me being chased by a man dressed like a caveman with a club–you know, stuff they think is funny in Florida.
It was so confusing. The only thing I could come up with is that these were the folks that thought “COPS” was comedy. “Oh boy…here come the dogs! Ha ha ha!! They’re sending the dogs after him–he’s not even going to try to jump that fence is he!” When I mentioned how odd it was for them to be laughing at all the NOT FUNNY parts the woman who booked me said, “well, you said the show was a comedy so they get it into their heads that it’s a comedy and you know.” She blamed the victim…
Which reminds me of a little story…about my ex sister-in-law.
My ex sister-in-law (who has a HOT BOD) would wear outfits that she’d decided would look a lot cuter on her than on her 3 month old baby. So she’d tear them off the baby, shove herself into them, add some heels, and off to the strip mall we’d go for Taco Salads and smoothies. As soon as we’d park and step out of her car she would be aggressively sexually harassed which didn’t surprise me at all. What did surprise me was how absolutely angry and insulted she was by the whistles and the flicking tongues. “God! What the hell!?” she’d yell back the first few times. It would get to the point where we couldn’t carry on a conversation without a man covered in dried concrete interrupting our lunch to say “Hi.” She’d just ignore them and keep her focus on whatever it was we were talking about. She’d look honestly depressed by how inappropriate she thought the boys were all acting.
I didn’t get it. I blamed her for dressing like that. I still do. That story doesn’t really relate but I just wanted a chance to write about what a whore she was. Just kidding. She wasn’t and she isn’t and she never responds to my messages on MySpace–but that’s not what this about. I SWEAR. What this is about is how I get now why Florida is responsible for Bush being President. They think it’s funny when people are molested and that Bush won the presidency. They’re all confused. Which is kind of funny…except for the whole war thing and being hated around the world and destruction of our country–other than that–it’s frickin’ hilarious.
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
My Perfect Day
When I was in 5th grade I wrote an essay called “My Perfect Day”–I ate pizza for every meal and got to go see the movie Stir Crazy after school. Which seems pretty standard. But the upsetting part of the essay was the part where I wrote, “and my hair looks perfect and my jeans make me look really skinny. Then I walk out to the bus stop and see my friend Wendy. She looks horrible.”
And that for me was a perfect day. Me looking great and everyone else looking like shit. When I started volunteering at the LA County Jail for Women, my on-going joke was about how “it’s the only environment in LA where I have a shot at being the prettiest girl in the room. Damn it, I’m going to the jails so I can feel successful.” Interestingly, I noticed that those who knew me well didn’t laugh. They just smiled sadly, patted my back and told me that when I’m not in direct sunlight–you could hardly see my moustache. So I should go back inside.
A few years ago I was in a pilot for Showtime and I got to meet Richard Pryor.
(What’s that thing on the floor right there? Oh, whoops, it’s the name I just dropped. Sorry about that–hope it didn’t land on your foot because that would really hurt since it’s so HEAVY.)
He was very sick and very weak when I met him, but he was being wheeled in for an interview with “Entertainment Tonight” that his wife, I think, had arranged. He couldn’t actually answer the questions himself so his wife would answer for him. And it’s not like he would whisper the answer to her and then she’d repeat them nice and loud for America to hear. Pat, the creepy interviewer, would ask him about let’s say, his past drug use–and there would be a pause as if there was a chance that Richard was going to answer–then after a few beats his wife would answer, “When I re-married Richard I said no crack, no whores…” She looked fabulous and healthy as Richard was slumped down in his wheelchair with a look in his eyes that seemed to be saying, “Pat, please tell this bitch to wheel me away…”
Maybe his wife was enjoying the perfect day that I’d fantasized about–she just seemed SO alive and SO happy sitting next to someone so dying and so sad. Oh god, I’m not implying that she was happy at how sick he was–I don’t mean that. I mean…anyway…she’s a very nice lady that rescues dogs and she cared for Richard a long time…
Back to me. When I was in high school I’d try hard to sit next to the one girl in the band who was fatter than me. There was just the one…and when she lost weight I had to resort to telling people how she considered using a tampon “losing her virginity.” I’ve heard that she actually did use a tampon when she turned 18 and they’ve been dating ever since.
There–so now I’M THE MONSTER.
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
SHE gay, HE gay…they ALL gay
I’ve spent more time than really should be necessary discussing how I’m not a lesbian with…mostly lesbians–and TV people. An agent in New York once told me that “I think the reason people think you’re a lesbian is because you seem smart and you don’t really put off a sexual vibe,” (according to him, a gay male). So, smart and not sexy=TV lesbian. That was when I learned to start every meeting with “Hi nice to meet you, I’m Lauren and by the way…cock, yum yum yum.”
Then I couldn’t even get cast in the lesbian parts for TV–I wasn’t hot enough for the hot lesbian and not fat enough for the funny lesbian. Who do you have to fuck in this town to get a lesbian part! A woman, I guess.
The Pittsburgh gay pride people asked me to ride in a convertible for their gay pride parade–I don’t mean to brag. I told them that I would if it was okay that I carried my “Fags Burn in Hell” sign and wore my Baby Fetus Plushy Costume that I like to wear to all parades and “baby’s first birthday parties”. They responded with an “oh you hilarious dyke, you!” email. So then I had to do what I’m forced to do 4 times a day–scream “I’M NOT A LESBIAN”, punch the wall, then watch 20 minutes of girl on girl porn.
I saw a lesbian punch a wall once and now I associate it with being a lady lover. Someone from Brazil needs to punch the wall in front of me so I can have a new association.
When I was on “The Daily Show”, I had one die hard fan in Brooklyn who wanted to start a website called “Chicks Who Dig Chicks Who Dig Weedie M” but she never got it together and got it up. Which was frustrating to have such a passionate yet lazy fan. Everybody else had stalkers and would receive little gifts in the mail. I just kept getting long letters from her asking me if I ever wore tube socks to bed.
I’d love to be a lesbian because it’s true–they do get so much done in a day. I don’t do anything; I just sit around thinking, “Oh, my boyfriend will wash the dishes.” It’s odd because the boyfriend will wash the dishes but not all of them. He always leaves 4 items unwashed, which is symbolic because he’s sort of half a lady–emotional and delicate like a lady man but rough and angry like a Brooklyn street kid.
The other night he screamed and grabbed his heart because he thought he hadn’t made a salad for dinner and it turned out he did.
So, I’m basically in a lesbian relationship. Or a gay male relationship. He does love Project Runway with a fierce passion and gets almost violent when he’s interrupted while watching it. “Not now! They’re judging!!! Just hold on!” He yells then he picks up his mug of tea and slurps it with a pinkie out to the side.
Which I can relate to–whenever anyone interrupts me when I’m watching Ani DiFranco in concert on DVD, I punch them–then the wall. Or vice versa.
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
Grief Counseling
I’m spending far too much time alone. Yesterday, I called 3 friends in a row who all had to cut off my 40 minute story about what happened to me at the hair salon place with an “uhm…Lauren, I’m actually AT WORK. I have to go…” So down the list of my friends I went…trying all the people who I know for a fact don’t do shit at their jobs. Even they had to remind me that my life is grossly unstructured. I should have a baby. But until then…
So yesterday, at the hair salon place, I was laying back to get my hair washed by my hair lady Sashiko–and I heard the lady next to me say “My brother died in March and this November is his birthday. And it’s the first birthday without him. And with the holidays coming right after that–it’s going to be so…” and the lady who was washing her hair chimed in loudly and with a crazy cheerful voice-“Isn’t Emily’s birthday in December!?”
Apparently she didn’t want to hear this sad news as she deep conditioned. So she just chirped her way past it. I should have leaned over and chirped in a “Hey! Did I hear March? MY birthday is in March! And talk about tough birthdays…I’m gonna be 39! OUCH!!!”
I remember right after I got divorced and I called my parents and started crying about how it was all so much harder than I thought it was going to be–and my Mom brought her voice up into a happier octave and sang “Oh my gosh–it’s just tough all over! Are you still liking your car?”
Her idea is always that she wouldn’t want to upset me more by saying something like “that must be hard” just in case I’d completely moved on in the half a second since I had MENTIONED IT and she was just bringing up all these painful memories. But I love her and I can tell stories about her like that BUT YOU BETTER NOT TALK SHIT ABOUT MY MOTHER.
The woman in the salon—she was so sad. Oh, her voice…I wanted to reach over and grab her hand and tell her something like “yeah, that’s tough” but she had on this giant smock that they give us to wear–this big poncho to protect us while we get our hair cut. I’d have to pat around for a while to find her hand under it. I imagined myself patting away, “pat..pat…pat…pat…that’s not your hand…okay, there’s your belt…now I’m going in the wrong direction–where’s your damn hand so I can…comfort you…what the hell is this? There’s your non erect strap on penis…that’s interesting but not want I’m looking for…no real nerve endings there–I can’t comfort you with THAT. Let’s see…pat pat pat…here’s your belt again–okay–there’s your hand…GOT IT!”
The entire time I was getting my hair cut, I thought about the lady and her brother who had died–and as I was walking out I passed her as she was buying some shampoo–and I really wanted to say something to her. About losing a brother…or about the first birthday after someone has died. Something.
“Your hair looks amazing.” I blurted out and walked out the front door.
I should work in grief counseling.
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net
