Chocolate, Please
Page 16
I searched my head for an affirmation, maybe something I’d heard in a meeting or while reading one of the dozens of self-help books I bought, read four pages of, and relegated to a box marked “Self-Help Books, Second String.” Then I scanned my act for a comment but remembered the “no profanity” rule. Apparently, saying “I am beloved by the fags” would be out of the question.
Instead, I said, “Um, I, uh, I can do this.” The girls nodded their assent, visibly appreciating my positive first-day newbie attitude. “And, uh, I can do this one meal at a time.”
“Ahh”s and knowing looks ricocheted back at me. Obviously, I had impressed the girls with my adaptation of the twelve-step saying “One day at a time” to jive with our current situation. As the last girl spoke, a cry went up through the group: “Rosewood cheer!”
Dismayed, I looked around as a clapping was heard throughout the room and the mealtime cheer went up:
I [clap, clap]
Do what it takes [clap, clap]
I persevere [clap, clap]
I am worthwhile [clap, clap]
I face my fear, whooo!!!
Boogety-boogety-boogety, growl!
Gotta do it, gotta do it, gotta do it, do it, do it! Cha-chow!
The only line that was missing from the cheer was:
Patty cake, patty cake, I want some fucking cake!
A cheer?!? If saying that wouldn’t kill my desire to eat, nothing would.
As the group cleared their dishes away, I tried to hide my apprehension for this crazy, cheerleadery fat camp by looking over the hunger scale in the binder. My stomach growled as I leafed through the literature. With the minuscule amount I was allowed to eat at each meal, I wondered if it would ever be possible to be out at an eight (You feel as if they are going to have to put you on a truck and haul you away. Your body is screaming, “Get me out of here!”).
I knew my body might never scream that at Rosewood, but my mind was just about there already.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Escape from Wickenburg
No apologies allowed! If I apologize, call me on it!” I looked down at the pink tattered sign that was held around my neck with a fraying piece of lavender yarn. I had slipped it over my head nearly twenty-four hours before, and it was finally almost time for it to come off.
You see, in rehab—even food rehab—you do as you’re told. And what I had been told yesterday by my therapist Dee was that I apologize too much. I apologize for my opinions, I apologize for my feelings, I even apologize when I know the other person is clearly wrong. So, when she heard me in group saying, “I’m sorry, I just feel like I’m weak for having this issue. I mean, I haven’t learned anything in forty-eight years. Never mind—forget I said anything. I’m sorry,” she glanced around the room at the seven other girls in the circle.
“You know what I think Lisa needs?” Dee said, already knowing what the response would be. I made a mental list. A man? A Grammy? A hot fudge sundae? “No apologizing,” the girls said in unison with the precision and timing reserved for the Israeli military, Muslim extremists, or the Radio City Rockettes. And before I knew it, I was making a sign that said if anyone caught me apologizing in any way, they should bring it to my attention.
Of course, the voice of Lisa Lampanelli, the Queen of Mean, was screaming in my head: “A sign!?! A fucking sign!?! I ain’t wearing no sign. Who does she think she is trying to make me wear a sign? Bill Engvall?” But plain ol’ Lisa Lampanelli, the chick desperate for a solution to her issues, obediently went down to the crafts table, got out the markers, and did what she was told. Why? Because in rehab, you better surrender or why are you even freakin’ there?
“Now, whatever they ask you to do, do it,” my therapist in Connecticut had told me the day before I was to depart for Rosewood. “No matter how stupid you think it sounds, whether it’s blindfolding you, working with the horses, art therapy…just do it. You may not understand the point of it at the time, but no matter how wacky it sounds, there’s a reason. Hey, they’ve got your money. You might as well play along.”
And damned if my shrink hadn’t been right! For twenty-eight completely exhausting five-A.M.-to-ten-P.M. days packed full of therapy, meetings, and planned meals, half the shit we did sounded like it was straight out of a movie parody. But you know what? As goofy as each individual assignment sounded on paper, as the days went by, I noticed that I was craving sugar less and less, and I was starting to learn about what really makes me tick. Most important, I was feeling my feelings—I had no other choice. With the food cupboard locked and my phone completely empty of men, there was nothing to distract me and help me push down my feelings. I was forced, for the first time in forty-eight years, to focus on me, just like the folks on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.
You ever see that show on VH1? Don’t worry, I already know the answer—no! Of course you don’t watch it, ’cause if you did watch it, you wouldn’t be reading this book—you’d be watching Celeb Rehab and only Celeb Rehab on an endless loop day and freakin’ night. Yeah, folks—it’s that fucking good! It’s like all those other horrible has-been reality shows, only in this one, the participants actually pretend to want the help they so obviously need.
And you know what? Celebrity Rehab is no exaggeration. Sure, there are cameras and losers who do the show for all the wrong reasons, but it really is a true representation of how it is in the real joint. During my month in Rosewood working on my food issues, I could have cast that show twenty times over. We had our own Jeff Conaway, a lovable but doped-up older broad whose self-esteem was the only thing that hung lower than her tits. There was our own Mary Carey, who wowed us with stories of sucking dick in plain sight on a dance floor and having so many abortions her story changed every time we heard it. Put it this way: This chick had so many abortions, she got one free with her Planned Parenthood punch card. And then there was me—the gregarious, not-quite-as-tall and not-quite-as-crazy Brigitte Nielsen who added some fun to the group.
And trust me, injecting some levity into this group wasn’t easy. Every morning at five A.M., the alarm would go off and I’d shake my head, asking myself the Pet Shop Boys’ eternal question, “What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?” But before my feet hit the floor, I’d quickly remind myself that it would be worth all the early mornings, twelve-step meetings, and tearful sessions in group therapy if I could just stop eating and dating to medicate myself. All I had to do was think back to my miserable, unmanageable days before I had arrived, and I knew why I was there.
But before you think I went entirely touchy-feely on you, worry not, my fans. I showed little glimmers of being the Lisa Lampanelli you know and love throughout my month there. Hey, I wouldn’t be L.L. if I didn’t.
“Today, we are going to write a greeting card to Ed,” said Honor, the art therapist. (She swears that’s her real name, so I have no choice but to believe her, but oh, c’mon!)
“Who,” you may ask, “is Ed?” Ed, I was to find out my second day there, was ED, or “eating disorder.” Apparently, our eating disorder was so enmeshed in our lives, we not only had a first name for it, it was a guy’s first name to boot.
“Now, in your card, say good-bye to Ed,” Honor said. “As of today, Ed is no longer a part of your life. But since you have shared time with him—some good times and some bad—you need to say good-bye.” Of course, I would have preferred to have one last fling with Ed—a “pity binge,” so to speak. And I bet he would have too. C’mon, we all know guys hate getting cards.
I looked at the table full of markers, construction paper, crayons, beads, feathers, and other kindergarten arts and crafts essentials and resisted the urge to tell her to stick a brush up her ass and paint with her leather Cheerio. I thought, “I have an eating disorder, ho. I’m not in the special needs class.”
Just then, my home shrink’s voice in my head echoed the familiar phrase “Do whatever they ask you to.” I picked up a brown sheet of construction paper and a dark blue cra
yon and began to draw for the first time in forty-two years—unless you count penis doodling in library books.
When it was time for us to share our cards, many of the girls’ creations were greeted with knowing nods, sympathetic eyes, and tears. When they finally got to me, I knew the group could use a laugh, and I delivered.
On the front of my card was a crude drawing of my face, round with pink-streaked extensions made of feathers. The mouth was open, emitting a cartoon bubble full of the symbols for cursing—“&%$#@?”
“Hey, Ed! In case I haven’t been clear…,” I read from the front of the card, holding for the laugh I would receive at the punch line inside.
“…You’re the reason God created the word ‘Cunt’! Now, step off!! Douchecock!!”
I held up the open card so the rest of the girls could see my standard “XOXO, Lisa Lamp!” signature at the bottom.
Now, I realize that this wasn’t my finest work. However, when you’re in rehab, it don’t take much to add a little humor to such a grave environment. Add to that the fact that I did break the “cunt” barrier. So, just as I’d planned it, a huge involuntary laugh came up from all the girls in the group. Even the new girl who had the distended stomach of a starving Ethiopian and the rotting teeth of Beetlejuice emitted a chuckle. And with that, I had a new addiction—I had gotten a laugh in rehab. And it was with a tough crowd of girls whose emotional range hovered between miserable and suicidal about 90 percent of the time. I was hooked.
At the break, I walked outside to the smoking pit. Now, I’m not a smoker—except a good cigar every now and again after a show, at a Friars Club event, or as a home remedy for a yeast infection. But as everyone who’s gotten as far as high school knows, the cool kids are always the smokers. That’s an inarguable fact. So, every day, during our breaks, I would rush through my food to go hang out with the cool group while they smoked. In fact, it’s well known that a lot of the best work people do in rehab happens without therapists, and that is especially true in the smoking pit.
“I know who you are.”
The words came from behind me and I turned around.
“I saw you on the roasts, dude. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody,” said a tall, lean girl with pin-straight corn silk hair as she exhaled her Camel Light. “If I send you a friend request on MySpace, will you accept me as a friend?”
Now, I’m a nice person. Of course, I’d accept her as my MySpace friend. That’s what MySpace is for—pretending to like people. Oh, c’mon! You don’t get more than fifty thousand friends by being picky. And as far as her not telling people who I was, I wanted to yell, “Tell people, bitch! You think I’ve worked my ass off for seventeen years to be anonymous?” But my overall feeling was: “What a rush!!” This chick knew who I was! In Rosewood, I might not have food or men, but I still had my fame, even if it was just from one smirky seventeen-year-old anorexic. But, as I believe is true in anything and especially comedy, all you need is one person who believes. Standing there with my one link to my pre-rehab self, I knew I could build on that and be the star of the place. Trust me, I’m the queen of self-promotion. I would make it my mission to make that happen.
“Just don’t be too funny,” Meghan interrupted my thoughts as she took a drag off her cigarette. “They made Greer go forty-eight hours without making a joke. They know humor is a defense and a way of avoiding your feelings.” And, she left out, a really good way to make a living.
Just as Meghan predicted, the hammer eventually came down. Dee, my therapist, told me I was not allowed to be funny for an entire weekend. A weekend! I hadn’t done that since I played Pips in Brooklyn twelve years earlier. That was going to be impossible. I’m a comic—that’s when we work! Bad enough that every Friday and Saturday night in Rosewood, I was working on myself instead of just plain working like I had for the past seventeen years. Now I had to spend the weekend humor-free—with a sign around my neck heralding it: “No humor. If I make a joke or any attempt at humor, call me on it!” Hmmm, come to think about it, I think Sandra Bernhard had a similar sign hanging around her neck during her last one-woman show.
With humor gone as my last defense, I had no idea what I was going to do. I thought and I thought, and I finally came up with a plan. I would stop being Robin Williams (code for “needy attention whore”) and start being Billy Crystal (self-serious Hollywood type). Switching modes right then and there in the smoking pit, I said, as casually as I could, “Oh, I almost forgot. I should probably text Jim.”
Let me explain: Right before I went into Rosewood, I landed a pilot deal for a weekly show on HBO, due in large part to Jim Carrey. See, Jim Carrey is my guardian angel—the guy who discovered me almost a year before and who wanted to develop a TV show based on me. For nearly nine months, we had creative meetings and came up with a dynamite series idea and finally paired up with a brilliant Emmy-winning writer who could breathe life into the show. So, as I sat in Rosewood working on my eating, the contracts for the pilot script were being signed in L.A.
What better way to show the girls—without using humor—that I was somebody? Now, enlightened folks would call this substituting “other esteem” for “self-esteem” since the value I was finding would be not because of who I was on the inside, but because of what I had on the outside, i.e., a connection to one of the most hailed comic actors of our time. But as I sat in the smoking pit, cockblocked from making jokes by Dee the therapist, I needed to feel good somehow and Jim Carrey was the ticket.
“I should probably text Jim.” As I expected, one of the girls took the bait.
“Jim who?” she asked anxiously. See, the only time men seemed to be mentioned at Rosewood were when we talked about our non-nurturing, abusive, or emotionally absent fathers, or our non-nurturing, abusive, or emotionally absent boyfriends. So I shattered her hopes of bonding over some horrible man who was beneath us and casually said to her without taking my eyes off my BlackBerry, “Jim Carrey. I’m working on a TV show with him for HBO. Didn’t I tell you? I thought I told you that.”
Well, that got their attention. And I didn’t even have to say, “Knock, knock. Who’s there?”
“You know Jim Carrey?!?” one of the women who was nearly my age asked in wonderment. “That is sooooo cool. Is he a good guy? He seems like a good guy.”
“Have you ever been to his house?” another said, piping up.
“Have you met Jenny McCarthy?”
“What’s he really like?”
“Why the fuck did he make The Majestic?”
The girls tripped over themselves, lobbing me questions like baseballs at batting practice. And I fielded them all. Yes, he’s a good guy. The best. No, I’ve never been to his house. I was invited once but had to do a gig instead. (You know contracts—you just can’t get out of them.) No, I’d never met Jenny but I think she’s hilarious. He’s really, like, an amazing guy, a genius, a real pro. And best of all, he gets me. And as far as The Majestic goes, I have no fuckin’ idea.
The girls gazed at me starry eyed. I had gone up a notch in their books.
But you know what they say. Jim giveth and Jim taketh away. And this case was no exception. I sent him a simple text: “Hey, Jim, just wanted to say I miss you, and can’t wait to start work on the project”—God, I was cool; I was using industryspeak—“when I’m back in L.A. Love ya and have a great week.” I pressed Send and waited. If those girls thought I was on fire before, wait ’til they saw how fast Jim Carrey—the Jim Carrey—got back to me. I had no reason to think he wouldn’t. In the past, he’d always called back or texted within moments. He’d even left me a glowing congratulatory voice mail when I was nominated for my Grammy.
The seconds ticked by. No response.
“He’s probably busy. He could be on vacation with Jenny. I mean, he’s really good about taking time out to enjoy life,” I vamped as I sensed their interest waning.
As the seconds turned into minutes and the minutes to hours, I was bummed. Jim had been my ace in the hol
e, the only way I had left to impress the girls, and now unless I could teach them a way to vomit silently without using their fingers, I had nothing.
Two days later, Jim texted me back, thanking me for my message and saying he was excited to work on the project too. Sure! Now he was excited! Where was he two days ago when I was trying to impress a roomful of anorexics? To add insult to injury, I was alone in my room when the text arrived. I shook my head and didn’t text back.
By the time I hit my two-week mark at Rosewood, there didn’t seem to be much to laugh about. Day after day, I counted the hours ’til I could escape. I looked longingly at my dustier-by-the-minute car as it sat in its sad little space outside my room—mocking me, taunting me. I longed to start it up with the spare key I kept in my bra day and night (that was the only place I could guarantee no one would look—not even the lesbian house moms). I fantasized about cruising down the four-lane Route 60, slowing down only for the speed traps, as I cranked the Hairspray or Grease soundtrack. (Hey, I’m a fag hag. What’d ya expect? Motörhead?) I’d floor the gas pedal on that Camry and escape for at least an hour. First stop, the 7-Eleven for a decaffeinated Diet Coke. Next stop, a movie theater that played something other than that hideous Indiana Jones Temple of Gloom sequel that was playing at the Wickenburg Theatre what seemed like every single weekend. After eating a small box of popcorn—no butter, of course—I would stop by Barnes and Noble and enjoy a decaf latte as I roamed through the stacks of self-help and meditation books. Now, I know that to some of you, this fantasy sounds just as torturous as rehab. At least I wasn’t squeezing one out in the bathroom this time. This was progress.
But I was only building a castle in the sky. I would not be allowed to leave Rosewood until I had put in some hard time there, and I was going stir crazy. And as I got more antsy, I got more angry.