A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body

by Lauren Weedman

  One month later, I’m back in the executive producer’s office.

  “Okay, I don’t want to freak you out,” she is saying. “I want to help you. Here’s the deal. You need to get Jon to like you.”

  “I wasn’t aware that he didn’t,” I respond, in an unemotional, I-could-care-less-about-this-job, it’s-a-walk-in-the-park tone.

  She continues: “Somehow he’s getting the impression that you could care less about the job. He feels like you’re treating this whole thing like it’s a walk in the park. Like you could take it or leave it. And we all like you but we need him to like you too, so—”

  Just then someone opens her office door. It’s Jon, sticking his head in. I throw up a little bit in my mouth. Then swallow it. Then hope it won’t affect my breath in case Jon wants to give me a hug.

  The executive producer’s voice goes up a few octaves.

  “Hey, Jon, come on in! I was just talking to Lauren about how excited we are to have her as a part of the show. Just telling her to try to relax and have fun.”

  Jon nods his head and very politely says, “Yeah. Good. Listen, can I talk to you when you’re done with Lauren?”

  I jump to my feet, put my hands on my hips, pinch my nipples, and say, “I just want to please you. Do I please you, Jon? Do I?”

  Jon looks at the executive producer and seems like he’s about to say something. Since he doesn’t laugh I figure I’d better start dancing like Shirley MacLaine—as fast as I can.

  “Jon! I think that my nervousness—trying to act like this isn’t the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me—is backfiring. It’s like when I first started dating my husband, I tried to act like I was used to sexy, gorgeous men. Which in my mind meant acting very cool and underwhelmed. I’m so worried about you licking me—what is wrong with me?—I mean liking me—”

  “Is she serious?” Jon asks the executive producer.

  She tells him that I’m kidding. She speaks for me a few more times before I say, doing my best deaf person imitation and using sign language, “Tell Jon I like his shirt.”

  The executive producer bursts out laughing. “Oh my god!” she exclaims. “Girlfriend, you’ve got to get us all what you’re on! Oh my god! Okay, Jon, I’ll be in your office in a minute.”

  She continues to laugh until Jon closes the door behind him. The instant it clicks shut, she leaps toward me, grabs my arm, and starts shaking me.

  “You have got to calm down!” she says. “Stop auditioning for the job! Relax!”

  Am I acting so differently from the way I normally do? This is just me, right?

  When I was six years old, my mom set me up to play with a foster kid named Fritz from down the street. At that age, the difference between “adopted” and “fostered” wasn’t clear to me—they were both said with a sad whisper. So the day I found out that Fritz had been considered “a handful” and that his foster parents had sent him back was more than mildly traumatizing. Poor Fritz had clearly not provided his new family with hours of entertainment. From the day of his deportation on I started performing at least ten minutes of stand-up comedy a day at the dinner table.

  Now, standing in front of the bulletin board in the hallway, I scan all the sign-up sheets for softball games and trips to Vegas and free tickets to stand-up shows to see if Jon’s name is anywhere. One of the other on-air correspondents walks by and I ask him if Jon ever plays softball and he laughs in my face. He recovers and decides to share the secret to his success on the show.

  “You need to stop treating Jon like a peer,” he says. “He’s not your peer. Just lay low until they want to use you on the show. Don’t ask for too much feedback. You’re just calling attention to yourself. And don’t sign up for anything on this board. On-camera people don’t do that.”

  A producer on his way to pick up his antidepressants stops and joins in. “And don’t laugh so much. I didn’t laugh at anything for the first year I worked here. So when I finally did, it really meant something.”

  I’m in the studio for rehearsal. I should be practicing my lines but instead I’m practicing not laughing. Starting with not laughing at my own jokes (which, for me, embarrassingly, is incredibly difficult).

  As soon as Jon walks in, everyone quiets down and gets focused.

  “Don’t spin around in the chair,” the stage manager whispers to me, trying to help. “Just sit still.”

  Jon has brought his new puppy, who’s jumping all over the crew.

  “Sorry about my puppy, you guys, he’s going through a licking stage,” he says.

  “I wish my husband had one of those!” I exclaim, careful not to burst out laughing. The studio falls silent and then, in the Jewish tradition of ripping one’s clothing to signify “you are dead to me,” the studio is full of the sound of collars being torn.

  I’ve only been on the show for six months and I’ve been banished from sitting next to Jon in the studio. “You’re too jumpy, you make him nervous,” I’m told.

  They have me work almost exclusively in the field, finding mildly retarded people who don’t have cable so they’ll never know how much the show makes fun of them.

  Sometimes I enjoy myself. Dripping wax on my breasts at an Amish candle-making studio for a “Wild on Amish Country” piece is memorable. Not for my parents, but I enjoy it.

  Interviewing a tobacco lobbyist whose wife and child had just left him and moved out the day before is less fun. Mocking is one of my favorite pastimes, but this is rough. He makes the entire crew lunch and plays with his dog on camera, which we ask him to do because he looks so ridiculous doing it. He rolls around on the ground with snorty abandon.

  In the van, driving away, I feel like a bully. The guy is a tobacco lobbyist, for god’s sake—he deserves to have his eyeballs colored in red and horns drawn on his head. So why do I feel like I’ve just gone up to the fattest girl in high school (which could have been me, though technically I was the twelfth fattest, but was heavily girdled) and told her that the cool kids wanted her to come to a movie with us? And did it in such a way that she took a chance and joined us at the movie. But of course we’d only asked her so we could mock the shit out of her. And it wouldn’t be until the next day at school (or the “air date”), when we’d be reporting how she ate nachos with her chubby fingers, that she’d realize she’d been set up.

  You’d think after so many years of having my metaphorical lunch money stolen, I’d be pleased to finally get cast in the role of bully with health insurance. But I wasn’t. I missed jumping up and down in my chair next to Jon.

  Like most workplace dramas, my situation came to a head, as it were, with the Giant Black Cock (GBC) incident.

  There are no sexual harassment lawsuits in comedy. Maybe because there are so few women around to get offended. (“Did he mean my pubic hair? Hey!”) And “just kidding” works in every situation.

  So when the first thing that greets me on my computer screen one morning is a picture of a white blond chirpy (WBC) enjoying a GBC, I know exactly how this day is going to go.

  My job is to march around the office trying to find out who did it and pretending I’m going to press charges. (Since there are no black people working on The Daily Show I don’t have to worry about someone saying, “It’s not mine.”)

  By the end of the day there is only one person whom I have not yet asked about the GBC. And I find that person conveniently trapped in his makeup chair, right before the show.

  “Jon, was it you who downloaded the giant black cock onto my computer?” I ask.

  Jon looks truly shocked. This is the same guy who sat around making jokes with the writers about grandmas falling on young men’s dicks, and now he’s looking at me like I’ve taken a shit in my hand and offered it to the Pope.

  “What are you talking about, Lauren?”

  The makeup lady looks like she is about to cry.

  “I came in to work and there was a picture of this giant black cock on my computer, and normally it’s my mom who send
s me those pictures but—”

  He stands up and thanks the makeup lady and walks out.

  The makeup lady, who has been working with Jon since he was on MTV, says, “I think you need to go and have a heart-to-heart with him. He thinks you’re making fun of him or something. He can’t tell that you’re kidding, I think. I’ve known him a long time and I just think he doesn’t get your kidding. I would go right now and talk to him. Like how you talk to me. Like how you talk to everyone but him. Just as yourself.”

  I know she’s right. This has gone on for too long. I knock on the door of the green room.

  BAM BAM BAM. People respond to truth. I want to tell him my truth.

  BAM BAM BAM. The Lord has sent me. Open up.

  BAM BAM BAM. Listen. Fritz got sent back because of me! I set him up. He asked if he could have one of my dad’s pennies from his penny jar, and I said, “Yes! Take it!” Then Fritz returned to his foster home and they checked his pockets and found the penny. When my mother asked me, “Did you tell Fritz he could have the penny?” I told her, “No! I didn’t! He stole it! Something is wrong with that kid! He’s bad, I tell ya, BAAAAD!”

  When Jon finally says, “Come in,” I walk into the room to find him surrounded by all his people. Every single one of the eight important people in the room looks at me as if I have a bomb strapped to my torso.

  “Jon,” I say, certain of my mission. “I want to talk to you for minute. Could you come out in the hallway, please?”

  Jon doesn’t smile or try to smile or act patient. He is done with that shit. He says, “What? Out there?” He actually starts to stand up, and then hangs in midair above his chair as he changes his mind. “No, I’m not going out there. What do you want?”

  I dive in. “Jon, every time we have an interaction I hear the next day that I’ve upset you. And I don’t know what it is. No matter what I do I just make it worse and worse. And I don’t mean to. I honestly keep thinking that I’m being myself but somehow—”

  Jon stops me. “Lauren, you strike me as a very obsessive person. You need to calm down. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t think about you or our interactions as much as you seem to.”

  And I shut up because I get it. My muscles unclench. My heart rate slows and I get it.

  It’s like I’ve been running after Jon for a year, asking, “Does this shirt smell? Does it? Tell me, tell me!” And now he’s told me, quite honestly. It’s liberating. I feel free and ready to start doing some actual work.

  Enjoying this new sense of relaxation and ease, looking forward to how well I’ll finally sleep tonight, I calmly turn around and begin to close the door behind me. But before the door has completely shut I stick my head back in.

  “You mean you don’t think about me on the weekends?” I say. “I think about you ...”

  Three weeks later, I call in to retrieve my voicemail and a strange woman answers my phone.

  “Oh ... hi,” I say, after a long pause. A long, long pause. “I was just calling to get my messages. Who is this?”

  EMMYS

  Seven months after 9/11, things in New York are still touch and go. There’s a lingering feeling of unease in the air, and it seems like every time I look at the clock it says 9:11. I have my job on The Daily Show though, and neurosis and fear breed some amazing comedy (case in point—Buddy Hackett). But at this point in time (9 /11 + 7) I am, along with the rest of the staff, just one loud door slam away from sobbing in a bathroom stall and eating my own hair. Which is not (yet) comedy we can market to our target audience of males ages eighteen through twenty-eight. They want the kind of comedy where a piece of poop comes to life and becomes an action hero. Nothing too reality-based right now. They are not alone. I, too, want out of this reality. Where are you, SuperPoo Man? Save me ...

  Walking into work I stop by my mailbox to see if my lesbian fan in Brooklyn has written me with updates about the website she’s working on: ChicksWhoDigChicksWhoDig Weedie.com. But she hasn’t. I wish my one fan wasn’t so lazy. I’ve been waiting for the website to be up for months, acting like I couldn’t be more annoyed by the whole thing while secretly feeling frustrated she isn’t moving more quickly. Everyone else’s fans drive them crazy, stalk them, etcetera. Mine has no follow-through. The only piece of mail in my box is a memo I received a few months back and left in my slot so it wouldn’t look so completely empty. It’s Comedy Central’s “How to Deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” handout, which only reminds me of what I missed out on during the first weeks after 9 /11—the weight loss and the “Why not? The world is ending!” promiscuous sex that everyone was having. Instead, I gained fifteen pounds and was begging my husband to “please, just blow on it, clear the cobwebs out, that’s all—then you’re done.”

  When I arrive at work, I find Mary, the production assistant, at her desk and in the middle of a visual gag—a scathing commentary on the officewide obsession with personal water bottles. She has taken one of the giant plastic jugs that usually supplies the water cooler and has written in large letters on the side, “MARY’S WATER BOTTLE.” It’s casually placed on her desk, taking up the entire surface, as she tries to get her work done around it. As I walk by she grabs it and hoists it up to her mouth using both arms. Two hours later, when we’re both done laughing, she asks me if I’ve heard about the big announcement: We’re going to the Emmys.

  During the past seven months I’ve been careful not to feel anything from the nose up or the neck down. So upon hearing this news, all I’m able to squeeze out of my chin is a small, reserved, “That’s exciting.” I’m afraid to get excited about a fluffy, braggy, American thing because if I do the evildoers will get us. Then again, if I think that way, “They’ve won.” And I’d rather win—for best comedy show.

  Not that going to the Emmys was ever a childhood dream of mine. Winning an Oscar for playing Annie in the movie Annie had been my main concern. And “a trip to the Emmys” didn’t make the cut this past New Year’s Eve, when I did a ritual with a circle of sage-smoking women where we all had to write down our Dreams for the Coming Year. (They should have called it what it ended up being: Everyone But Lauren Write the Word “Peace” on a Slip of Paper. I would have added “peace” to my long list, too, but the paper was so small, and I just didn’t have room in between “health insurance” and “the ability to love without slander.”)

  By the time I reach my office I’ve gone from “I don’t really think about shallow things like award shows” to looking for babies to step on to get my name on the list of confirmed guests.

  Between my normal work activities of wandering around searching for new snack options and finding new people to listen to me explain how hard it is to be married to a bartender, I notice that nobody is acting excited about going to the Emmys, but everyone is—without a doubt—going.

  I remember how a few days after the eleventh there had been a staff meeting to talk about how much time it would take before we could be funny again. The state of shock in the room made it hard to get the discussion going, so in the meantime we were all instructed to try and find stories that involved soft and comforting things, like Amish people. And they had to be local Amish people, not Amish people that required an airplane trip to get to. Even the word “airplane” made our stomachs plop into our laps. Nobody wanted to take the subway—much less fly—ever again. We all decided that for the rest of our lives we would do like Loretta Lynn and the morbidly obese do: wrap a fried biscuit and a stick of butter in a plastic bag and take the bus. There were no circumstances that could ever justify taking what was now a nightmarish mode of transportation. Nobody was flying. Ever. Again.

  Unless it was to the National Television Academy’s 53rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

  The intercom system blasts an announcement through the building: “All staff needs to stop by Mary’s desk to get your Emmy tickets and limo assignments. And Lauren Weedman, please report to the executive producer’s office right now.”

  As th
e gods of television broadcasting would have it, my contract is up for renewal the same day the limo assignments are being made for the Emmys.

  When I walk in the executive producer’s office, she has a look on her face that says, “Well, I tried ... ” She offers me a freelance contract and a hit of pot. I accept both and give her a big hug. Ask her how her son is doing. Where she got her shirt. How much weight has she lost. Did she end up getting that cabin? Can I get one more hug?

  Next thing I know I’m outside her office door, thinking that was a good meeting. Now I’ll have more time to do other projects, plus I’m still on the show. It’s kind of perfect.

  The first person I run into after the meeting is my good friend and field producer, Carrie, and her dog, Fred, both of whom had been evacuated to New Jersey on the eleventh. She’s my “What do you want me to do—lie to you?” friend. She’s let me know that one of the issues that got in the way of my success on the show was that, though talented, I just wasn’t as cute as the other female reporters. Carrie clarified this by explaining, “I’m not saying that I don’t think you’re cute. I’m just talking about guys, the fans of the show, The American People and all the Comedy Central executives.” She was painfully honest, and I have to admit, I trusted her. (Or I hated myself—tough call.)

  “They offered me a freelance contract,” I say and start to clap my hands to help get the applause going.

  “That means you’re fired,” Carrie says, with not a hint of emotion in her voice. Unless exhaustion counts as an emotion.

  “But why wouldn’t they just tell me I’m fired?”