Read I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star Online
Authors: Judy Greer
I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star (21 page)
While I was shooting my pilot, every day, without fail, something would happen that was completely out of my control, and I needed to get that back. The network throws out the whole script days before we start production? St. Ives Apricot Scrub. We can’t find an actor to play my husband? A pack of black Goody no-break hair elastics and a leopard-print nail file. The cut isn’t working and our editor refuses to scour through the footage to find more options? Neutrogena makeup remover wipes, Burt’s Bees lip balm, CoverGirl NatureLuxe lip shine, and Aveeno shave cream. The day after that particular drugstore run, the editor still seemed to hate me, and the pilot hadn’t changed one bit, but
when I got there in the morning, my lips were a pretty color, my face was superclean, my legs were shaved, and I was ready to start solving some problems. It was all I could control that night, and no matter how shallow I may sound, it helped me sleep a little better too.
For a while I had a new partner in crime for my late-night habit, my stepdaughter, Emilee. She was usually game, no matter how much homework she had. Maybe it’s because she knew I would pay, or maybe she really did need more conditioner, but if that were the case, wouldn’t she just ask me to pick some up for her? I could see the twinkle in her eye while we were parking the car. And like me, she prefers to shop alone. We would wait for the glass doors to part and go our separate ways until we felt ready to face the world again. But now that she can drive herself, she doesn’t need me to take her anymore, she goes alone, which is really how it should be. I don’t know if she picked up the habit from me or her mom, or maybe it’s just in all our lady genes, but I am confident the therapy will serve her well in the future. And if she did get it from me, I’m thrilled I could teach her something of real value.
Dear Laura A. Moses
,
I’d like to start by saying I really like you. In a platonic way, but still, a lot. I am so thankful that we met while shooting
Playing for Keeps
(I still prefer the original title). I have great memories of making that movie because of you and Biel. The “Shreve” will always be a place that I remember fondly. Swimming in the pool at your rental, the alligator in the middle of the road when I drove home one night, lunches on the dock at base camp, it was really fun! You have become a really great friend to me, and I am so thankful to you for introducing me to Transcendental Meditation and Lynn. I hope you and I can visit your hometown of Fairfield, Iowa, one day—I’m dying to go there after hearing all your stories. You are a real inspiration. You’re smart, witty, and beautiful. You have such great style and can talk me into or out of anything, that’s how much I trust you. I look up to you in so many ways. I feel you have a strong moral compass and an original outlook on life
.
Do you remember that Friday night when you were coming home from work in New York and we spur-of-the-moment met for happy hour at Little Dom’s? That night was so fun! I got to see your amazing apartment, and you lent me your cute Nikes? Remember? The next day was April 20, Record Store Day, and Dean Johnsen rented a party bus for his record club? Remember? You told me I should wear your shoes that day because they are so cute and perfect for party-bus record shopping. The Nike Dunk Sky Hi wedges, navy with white flecks? Well
,
I
did
wear them the next day, just like you told me to. I always listen to you, and you were right again, they are the best shoes ever! So cute and comfortable, and the navy is perfect. Really elongates the leg when worn with skinny blue jeans. I decided early in the day I had to buy a pair for myself, so did my friend Jackie. I planned on ordering them online that night!
The party bus was
so fun
! As you can probably imagine, we drank a lot. There was a lot of beer on the bus, we had a driver and a killer playlist playing while we did our record store hop, we even stopped to do shots between stores! Oh my God, we found the coolest bar—so dark and old-school, you would love it. We should totally go there sometime, even though I don’t exactly remember where it was. I have no idea how many beers I had between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., but, like, a lot. You know how when you drink a lot of beer, you have to pee a lot? Right? Well, there was no bathroom on the bus and not really any bathrooms in any of the record stores we stopped in. We all peed in the cool bar where we did the shots, but, man, by the time we got back to the parking garage where the bus picked us up, I had to pee like a race pony…
again
! Of course there wasn’t a bathroom anywhere there either, so we all took turns peeing behind
bushes, Dumpsters, etc. Can you believe that? How old am I, twenty-three? Right? When was the last time you squatted and peed in public? On concrete? Every time I do it, I swear I’m never going to do it again, because you know how when you pour liquid on concrete it splatters? I mean, it splatters a lot when you’re standing a few feet away from the concrete, so you can imagine, or probably remember, how much it splatters when you’re squatting down, peeing on it, just a few inches away from the ground. It splatters
a lot.
Well … so think about where your feet are in relation to where the pee splatters when you’re squatting down like that. Yeah, your feet are right there, getting splattered with pee. So gross, and your shoes get covered in pee … literally…
your
shoes got covered in pee. I peed all over your shoes. That’s what this is really about. I mean, they were drenched, I had
so many
beers, and I had to pee so badly … I’m really sorry, like, really, really sorry. I should have stopped peeing. I should have taken your shoes off and just peed on my bare feet, that’s what a better person would have done, but I didn’t think of it at the time. I’m only thinking of that now, in fact
.
I had a plan, though! When I fell in love with your Nikes that morning, I was planning on ordering them that night for myself anyway, and since we wear the same size, I thought, “Okay, this is bad, Laura’s shoes are covered in my pee, but it’s cool because I’ll just order the new pair for her, and I’ll keep this pair with my pee on them. No biggie.” Well, biggie. That night I searched all over the World Wide Web, and those navy Nikes were sold out everywhere. They were gone, even on eBay. I feel terrible. I am really sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I got really bad scrapes on one of my bum-cheeks from the hedge I was squatting in front of. See, once I saw what was happening, I rearranged my position, thinking
that there was more of a slope downhill if I was bum to hedge instead of facing the hedge. It didn’t really make much of a difference, though, and I just ended up getting several scrapes on the left half of my ass. When I got home, I hosed the shoes down and left them in the sun for a few hours, which my mother, a registered nurse, told me should kill all the odor and was safer than washing and risking ruining the shoes and then neither of us could have them. I’m sorry, Laura. I hope you can forgive me, you’re not too mad, and you still want to be friends. I should have told you when I returned the shoes, but I just couldn’t risk you refusing to lend me shoes again. You have such a great shoe wardrobe, and none of my other friends wear my size. I swear that I will only urinate in toilets while wearing your footwear from now on. I promise. I am the mayor of Promiseville. Just don’t cut me off. I forget if you said you wear socks with those Nikes or not … I hope you said you did
.
RECENTLY, I WAS SITTING WITH LOMO (A.K.A. LAURA
A. Moses) at a restaurant when a stranger walked past me. A woman. I didn’t know her, but I was thinking of how happy I was that she didn’t hate me. (Not that she necessarily liked me either, I have no idea, I’d never seen her before in my life.) I was writing this book at the time, and it got me thinking that I was really pleased knowing that I didn’t have any enemies … that I know of. (Wait, does my friend’s ex-husband who is a total douche bag count? I hate him, but I don’t consider him an enemy per se, I just hate him.) I realized this also meant at no time would I ever be nervous to run into someone (except Matt Damon, but for starstruck reasons, not enemy reasons). I think this is because I don’t lie to people anymore (unless someone asks if she looks fat and she does. I sometimes lie about that). I’m not patting myself on the back or anything, and I have lied plenty in the past (
plenty
), but in the last few years I realized that lying takes time and mental space and I just don’t have either anymore. When you don’t lie, among other things, you don’t really have to ever fear
running into anyone (except for Matt Damon, and I’m going to add my friend’s ex-husband to this list too).
During my last foray into singledom, before I met my husband, I decided that I would date a lot instead of jumping into another relationship right away (even though I kind of jumped into a relationship with my husband right away). But I made a rule for myself: if I wasn’t interested in going out with someone anymore, I was going to tell that person (unless there was some way I could get away with not telling that person—there never was). I wanted to do it for myself. I needed to learn to be more honest and direct (still need to learn that). I didn’t want to text, or avoid people, or be nervous about the dreaded run-in (but I’m still nervous about running into Matt Damon, friend’s ex-husband, and also my last therapist because I never officially quit therapy, I just quit going because I got really busy and had broken up with the guy I complained too much about during my sessions). For being one of the largest cities in the country, Los Angeles can be really small (except when you’re driving in traffic, then it feels like the size of Asia). You are basically guaranteed to run into someone you don’t want to, at some point, somewhere, when you least expect it. Most likely, when you didn’t put makeup on, are hungover, leaving yoga and have crotch sweat (or just have regular non-yoga crotch sweat), and definitely when you have pinkeye and are buying a broom at a local hardware store (OK, in this instance it wasn’t anyone I’d lied to, or who had lied to me, it was a famous actor I had worked with, but still, you get the point. And he was with his impossibly thin and gorgeous model girlfriend. You just always run into people at the worst times). Yep, that’s when it will happen. But if you are always direct and honest with people, you really have nothing to fear. Except accidentally giving someone pinkeye (or a shark attack, or public speaking, change, an ear infection, car accident, mugging …).
So, if a guy I didn’t really like called to ask me out again, I would say, “I had fun, but I don’t want to go on dates with you anymore.” (And, “You’re really great and cute and special and awesome and I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s me, not you. I’m such a jerk, you know what? Never mind. Let’s keep dating.”) There was usually a moment of silence, followed by a quick good-bye, and it was over, easy, just like that. (And sometimes the guys would say that they didn’t want to go on dates anymore either and that’s why they were calling, and I would cry, and then we would go out again.) I was given this wise but devastatingly simple advice by a male friend, and it really worked (I only did it twice). And I got good at it (again, only did it twice). And I have never been afraid to run into anyone ever again (except Matt Damon and friend’s ex-husband, and last therapist, and people who have sent me scripts they have written that I haven’t read yet). I didn’t blow anyone off, I didn’t lie or make up excuses, I just told the truth (twice). Actually, I think my friend Brad summed it up best when he recently said to me, “Judy, I’m not going to lie to you, sometimes I lie.” (OK, Brad is kind of a friend; he is a prop master I have worked with twice. We’d probably be friends if we weren’t so busy and …)
SOME PEOPLE YOU HAVE TO TAKE TIME TO GET TO
know; some people you just know. Janet and I are that kind of friends, the instant kind. We met our first days of college, and we have been sharing a brain, her dad’s Levi’s, and a thrifted gold cardigan ever since. Well, if I’m being honest, I can’t fit in the Levi’s anymore, she can, though, and that’s the only thing I don’t like about her. After sending in her description of what it was like to be friends with me (see chapter titled “The Ultimate Best Friend”), Janet decided to compile this list of all the random text messages I have sent to her over the past year. All but three of them are apropos of absolutely nothing. I guess I have been using my best friend as Twitter for as long as I can remember, because isn’t this what Twitter is? When my publicist was trying to explain to me what to tweet about, she should have just said to tweet what I text to Janet every day. So I guess what I’m wondering is, is Twitter taking the place of our best friends? I don’t want it to. I want Janet to get my thoughts as I think them, not tens of thousands of strangers. Yes, they can have them eventually, but I want an actual eye roll. I need it. I want a real person who loves me to tell me that I am ridiculous, because I need to hear it.
RANDOM JUDY TEXTS
For dinner I had 20oz of coffee and 5 Kraft singles. Am I going to die?
***
I am about to use my food processor for the first time in my life that I can remember.
***
#fuckyes! #welcomehome #thesunwillcomeoutnow
#ionlyspeakinhashtagnow
***
Just cried during a Rust-Oleum commercial.
***
MY MOTHER IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!
***
New Verizon iPhone commercial just made me cry. I’m at an airport. Humiliated.
***
$23 worth of Taco Bell and 3 hours later, back to our regular programming.
***
Lizard in bedroom. I repeat—lizard in bedroom. Did you hear me screaming? You did.
***
I am pooped. And I think I peed my pants a little. Should I be worried? Is that an old person thing?
***
Dude. I’m all for ghetto. Go ghetto or go home. That’s like my main saying.
***
How old are we? No really. How old are we?
***
I’ve decided I really want a tee pee.
***
The woman behind me complained quite a bit about her UTI before the plane took off, and every time she went to the restroom, she grabbed my seat and pulled my hair. But don’t feel bad for her, she’s on antibiotics and it should clear up in a few days.
***
I just cried when I saw the poster for The Blindside.
***
I’m on a steady diet of Subway, red wine and NyQuil.
***
Beyonce. Is. Everything. I don’t even know about Jason Bourne anymore.
***
PS I cried in yoga today when the teacher said the Baskin-Robbins closed.
***
They let celebrities high dive?
***
Don’t get killed or die. OK? Promise?
***
The only thing worse than crying uncontrollably while watching a Tina Fey movie on an airplane is doing it while sitting next to two 16 year old boys. #newlow
***
Did I tell you my MOM gave me a breast exam last time she visited? Yeah, I made the mistake of telling my mom I thought I felt a lump. DON’T EVER DO THAT.
***
Sent from my iPhone