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
