I Know What I'm Doing (27 page)

“We’re not open for
business
,” he corrected.

“Okay. I’m a little drunk. And I don’t want to be the rude American who thinks she can just get any doughnut she wants in any country at any time but I see a doughnut right there. It’s in front of me in a display case. And the display case is open. I have a lot of whiskey to soak up and this glazed doughnut is calling to me like a sponge that wants to help. I have to have this doughnut. I will leave you money and when you officially open for business that’s when you can put it in your cash register? Maybe?”

“No! Miss. We are closed. Get. OUT.”

“Okay, but this doughnut is leaving with me!”

I rescued the doughnut from its display case like an action-movie hero and I ran out of there . . . probably more like a drunk woman in platform boots. A cop car was parked outside. I decided to turn myself in. I knocked on his window. “Sir. I’m American. I’m drunk and I just stole a doughnut. But I tried to pay I really did.”

He smiled, “You have fun, miss.”

Man. I know it’s a stereotype but of course the cop understood that sometimes you just have to have a doughnut. I strolled down the cobblestone street as the sun warmed church steeples and I thought of something that David the Tarot Card Reader told me. “You’ll have one more fling and realize you don’t want to keep doing the same thing over and over.”

Huh. Maybe he was psychic after all. Then again, who couldn’t predict that a woman might have a fling and then want to move beyond chance encounters?

What no one could have predicted was that I would be temporarily and blissfully unaware that I had sent a certain tweet, sleeping off the whiskey while the Internet was catching fire about a tirade from an American comedian about how Irish people are a bunch of cunts. They did not take it as a term of endearment. Imagine that? I had broken my own rule about comedy. Saying awful things as a term of endearment can only be done among the familiar. This is why you can call your best friend a whore but you can’t expect a random woman walking down the street to find this greeting fun and kooky. I might be able to call my drunken friend a “cunt” but I had addressed an entire nation and expected them to get a joke that really wasn’t there.

I woke up and got on Twitter to let anyone in Dublin following me know that I had one last show that afternoon. That’s when I saw this headline on Entertainment.ie: “Jen Kirkman Comedian Calls Dubliners a Bunch of C**ts, Goes on Twitter Tirade.”

Whoops. I could declare that I’ve joined Al Qaeda and no one in America would notice. So allow me to be a little defensive here—this proves there isn’t much entertainment going on in Dublin if I’m making news.

I checked the comments in the article. Oof. If they thought me calling them cunts was bad—they should have gone back and reread what they said about
me
. I should die. I’m a whore who should get AIDS. I’m an unfunny waste of space. Someone should murder me while I’m in Dublin. I’m a wretch. (That was a fun one—almost had a seventeenth-century-witch-hunt vibe.)

The worst part of the web is that it’s like a virus feeding off of itself. More and more people passed around screen shots of the offensive tweet I had deleted. The more I tweeted to apologize the worse it got. Irish people that weren’t even following me on Twitter were finding my feed and just telling me that they’ve watched my stand-up online and I suck and should kill myself. The only good part about the Internet being like a virus is that it clears up in a few days and everyone forgets how awful it felt.

I had a matinee show that day—which to a hungover person who has been drinking whiskey until six a.m. is like having a show at six thirty-five a.m. that same day. I showed up to the tent completely defeated. I wore one of my vintage dresses—made to look even more vintage with the coffee stains. (Hard to walk on cobblestone in heels and balance a hot coffee). I put on my motorcycle boots so that I could have good arch support in case I had to break into a run from angry mobs. I sat on a stool and said to the audience, “Well, I’m sorry I called your city a bunch of cunts. And I’m so glad that my flight leaves tomorrow morning.”

This particular audience seemed to be what we call the Comedy Nerds, and that’s not pejorative. It seemed I had some actual fans in Dublin and they were at the afternoon show free from bachelor parties, university reunions, and general alcohol poisoning. And maybe they appreciated that I sat before them with dirty hair, no makeup, a stained dress, and a remorseful soul. I walked out of Iveagh Gardens with a hat pulled down over my face just in case the Internet trolls were out there waiting to give me AIDS or burn me at the stake. I heard, “Jen Kirkman! Jen Kirkman!” I turned around ready to face whatever fate Dublin had for me—which was just a guy who looked like every other twentysomething I’ve seen in America: plaid shirt, beard, premature gut, and he was drinking an unconcealed beer while walking down the street. He burped. “I’m your biggest fan!”

Not this again. “You’re my biggest fan? Did you see the show?”

“You’re doing shows here?”

“Yes. About a hundred yards from where we are standing.”

“Oh shit. What are you doing in Dublin?”

“Um, that show I just mentioned.”

“Cool. Well, come back sometime.”

“It’s probably going to be a while before I come back but it’s nice to know I have a fan . . . who is drinking publicly on the street and didn’t come to my show.”

I decided to Black Snake Moan myself that night and not go out. I know that nobody knows this reference but it’s a movie. A movie I haven’t seen but love to reference nonetheless. From what I understand Samuel L. Jackson plays a Mississippi bluesman who finds a troubled and beaten woman (a very thin, very bleached-blond Christina Ricci) on the side of the road and holds her captive in his house (I think by chaining her to a radiator) in an attempt to cure her of nymphomania. Whenever I’m recovering from a big night out I call staying home the next night “Black Snake Moaning” myself. I wasn’t chained to a radiator but I was under the covers. I fell into a peaceful sleep—only to be woken up at two in the morning. The drunken “cunts” were getting out of the bars, right underneath my window.

Ironically, a group of Irish men were yelling “Fuck off” at one another and then spontaneously broke into singing “Born in the U.S.A.” I was wide-awake. I took listening to this drunken Dublin version of Bruce Springsteen’s big hit as my penance. I pondered my contentious relationship with the people of Ireland. Hadn’t I also responded to drunks by getting drunk, going on a tirade, kissing a barely postpubescent boy, and stealing a doughnut? Was I any better? I was sure that Oscar Wilde walked these very streets, just as drunk and just as belligerent. But I bet he was dressed in ascots, not backward baseball caps. I really feel that Oscar Wilde would be on my side were he here in my room listening to this new generation say uncreative and unpoetic things like “fuck yourself in your head.”

I lay in bed longing to hear the ghost of Oscar Wilde shouting profound things outside my window in his perfect peacoat: “I drink to separate my body from my soul!” I decided that I could not beat these people—and so I would join them, with a little help from ol’ Oscar. I googled “drinking quotes Oscar Wilde” and armed myself with a good one. I opened my window (God, I love European hotels—they trust us with fresh air and don’t worry about anyone jumping out) and yelled down to the pub-crawlers, “Work is the curse of the drinking classes!” The guys looked up.

“What’s that?”

I said, “Work is the curse of the drinking classes!”

They paused. Then cheered. “That’s right. That’s right,” they shouted back.

“Good night, Dublin!” I yelled—taking the bow I felt I finally deserved.

21

GRAY ANATOMY

I am not afraid of aging, but more afraid of people’s reactions to my aging.

—BARBARA HERSHEY

I
t was another perfectly hot summer day in Los Angeles, just weeks before my fortieth birthday, and I was headed to the pool. Not my pool.
The
pool. I pay dues at a local hotel to be part of their summer pool club. I feel the same way about owning my own pool as I do about owning a gun. I just have a feeling that if I purchase either one what I’m really buying is the thing that will eventually accidentally kill me. I slathered SPF 50 all over my white/clear skin, tied my bikini top, and as I pulled my bikini bottoms on, I noticed something. I had a new crop of gray pubic hairs. My gynecologist had already tipped me off to the existence of my first ones a couple of years earlier but I had plucked those. And now they were back. I really thought that the first couple of aging hairs were one-offs, almost like seeing an outdoor bug that shouldn’t exist inside your home. “Oh, that must have crawled in from outside because of the rain.” But I had to be honest with myself. It wasn’t raining outside of my bikini bottoms. These pubes weren’t coming in from a storm—belonging somewhere else. They belonged to me. I made a quick decision to not head out into the sunshine. Everything seemed pointless. I knew that this moment of confronting my mortality would pass but I decided to say no way to facing the day. I got into bed for a rare under-the-covers daytime nap—still in my bathing suit. I felt like I was giving even less of a fuck than normal by sleeping in clothes that were specifically meant for outside activity only.

I wasn’t quite forty years old yet and I’d been bragging to anyone who would listen and even people who wouldn’t that I was going to hit forty without even getting my first fine line or wrinkle. What a stupid thing to boast about. Wrinkles on the face don’t necessarily mean that someone is old. A person in his or her twenties can have wrinkles if they have thin skin, smoked cigarettes for half their life, got way too much sun, or even if they’ve just had a hard life. They can lower their voice like John Wayne and tell you that they’ve “seen some shit.” I wish that my pubic hair changing color meant anything
but
the fact that I’m getting older. It doesn’t. I can’t say, “Well, my vagina was a chain-smoker in the eighties; of course I have these hairs.” I can’t say, “Well, I roasted this thing in the sun at least three times without SPF and I aged it.” And as much as I would love to be able to say that it’s really lived, I cannot honestly say, “My vagina has seen some shit.” The only thing that’s true is that the machine inside of my body is slowing down. The power plant cannot afford to keep all of its nonessential cosmetic employees anymore. The little elves that lived in my abdomen who paint the pubic hairs black have all been forced to retire.

I wish the pubes were white. I would grow them out luxurious and silky like Kenny Rogers’s beard. I would stroke them to look wise while I answered questions. Or I would go the other way and fashion them into a Mohawk, telling everyone that I have a Billy Idol–esque punk rock pussy. But they were gray. Gray is a mean color. Gray is the color of barbed wire that sits atop buildings and sends the message, “Hey. KEEP OUT OF HERE OR I WILL CUT YOU.” I’m paranoid that my yoo-hoo is now that house in your neighborhood that you suddenly notice on Halloween is in contrast to all of the nice homes with manicured green grass and white picket fences. People approach that house—usually occupied by an old lady—with a sense of fearful wonder.
Was this house like this last year? I don’t remember. But look. There is only dirt where there once was grass. Some strange-colored weeds are popping up on the property where flowers used to grow. Does this house even produce candy anymore or will we only get dry pennies?

I know that I can remove these hairs. I’ve been getting Brazilian waxes since before the invention of the iPhone, but they still grow back little by little before it’s time for the next ripping. And I know that men don’t really care. Men always say things like, “I’m just happy to be down there.” That’s very sweet, but I feel like I only have a window of a few days a month after I wax to feel sexy while the rest of the time I’ll be feeling like someone’s nana has moved into my underpants.

And now I’m reading in every women’s magazine and hearing from every guy I know that pubic hair is back. The ladies are abandoning their landing strips in favor of letting the brush grow over the runway. Great. Now my hoo-hah is going to be like that old lady who hasn’t updated her wardrobe in thirty years. My vagina is the flowered housecoat of body parts.

I’ve decided that I must accept that my distinguished salt-and-pepper vagina possesses wisdom and will only get more wise as it ages. My lady part is no different from a president who prematurely grays from a tough two terms of decision making. My vagina has had to meet a lot of different men—even when she wasn’t feeling that talkative. She’s had to endure multiple doctors poking, prodding, and swabbing. She puts up with plucking, waxing, and shaving. She’s stayed with me through three hundred and twelve menstrual cycles, and simply grinned and bore it when confronted multiple times a day with tampons. My vagina is one tough bitch and if she doesn’t feel like looking young anymore why should I judge her? I was wrong. She
has
seen some shit. I offered her some tea and tried to talk about the possibility of getting her a Life Alert bracelet but she said she feels as young as ever and all I need to do is let her grow old gracefully. She just begged me not to introduce her to any more young men because she would like to meet a penis she can actually talk to and doesn’t want to have to keep explaining things like Andy Gibb was
not
one of the Bee Gees.

22

TURNING FORTY AND TAKING STOCK(HOLM) OF MY LIFE

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.

—MADELEINE L’ENGLE

I
told people I was forty years old the entirety of my thirty-ninth year just so that when I turned forty it wasn’t a shock. It worked well. My fortieth birthday wasn’t a shock, but the fact that I spent it on a blind date in Stockholm, Sweden, ended up being quite the surprise.