by Judy Greer
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 …)
Random Judy Texts
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?
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I am about to use my food processor for the first time in my life that I can remember.
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#fuckyes! #welcomehome #thesunwillcomeoutnow
#ionlyspeakinhashtagnow
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Just cried during a Rust-Oleum commercial.
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MY MOTHER IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!
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New Verizon iPhone commercial just made me cry. I’m at an airport. Humiliated.
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$23 worth of Taco Bell and 3 hours later, back to our regular programming.
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Lizard in bedroom. I repeat—lizard in bedroom. Did you hear me screaming? You did.
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I am pooped. And I think I peed my pants a little. Should I be worried? Is that an old person thing?
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Dude. I’m all for ghetto. Go ghetto or go home. That’s like my main saying.
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How old are we? No really. How old are we?
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I’ve decided I really want a tee pee.
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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.
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I just cried when I saw the poster for The Blindside.
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I’m on a steady diet of Subway, red wine and NyQuil.
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Beyonce. Is. Everything. I don’t even know about Jason Bourne anymore.
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PS I cried in yoga today when the teacher said the Baskin-Robbins closed.
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They let celebrities high dive?
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Don’t get killed or die. OK? Promise?
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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
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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.
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Sent from my iPhone
He Doesn’t Have AIDS
I REMEMBER SO CLEARLY THE CONVERSATION WHEN Dean Johnsen told me he had kids. We were set up on a blind date by our mutual friend Matt but couldn’t schedule it for a few weeks (because of his custody schedule, though I didn’t know that at the time), so we just started talking on the phone. A lot. We talked on the phone almost every day before we even met. It was fun and romantic, and I liked feeling free to just talk without being self-conscious that my bangs were greasy, if I spilled sauce on my white shirt, or if I had a booger. It was a very stress-free way to get to know someone. Maybe that’s what it’s like to Internet date. Although I did like the idea that if this Dean Johnsen turned out to be a super jerk, I could punch Matt in the arm, and I would never be able to punch my computer in the arm for a bad fix up, and I knew I’d want to punish someone, not some thing—it’s much more gratifying.
Dean didn’t tell me about the kids or even the divorce for our first few phone dates, and then one night, a few days before our first actual in-person date, he said, “Did Matt tell you about me?” Immediately, my mind went to AIDS. He has AIDS. You see, my house is off what I lovingly refer to as AIDS Boulevard. It’s not a boulevard of AIDS but a very busy road that is plastered with billboards touting the dangers of unsafe sex. It’s a scary drive to the valley from my house, and since I was single again, I couldn’t help but harbor a fear that I would end up like Molly Ringwald in the Lifetime movie where she got AIDS from sleeping with some bartender one time. Look, those billboards for safe sex work on me: they really freak me out! So, there I am, talking on the phone with my future husband, and he asks me a question like that? Of course I thought he had HIV, and of course I would get fixed up with a really nice, smart, funny guy who also had no immune system. Well, you can probably guess that he didn’t have it (and doesn’t, and neither do I. PSA: Have you been tested in a while? Should you? Yes), but he did tell me that he was divorced. That’s it? Divorced? No big deal. I knew he was older than I was, and I wanted to date someone older since the Peter Pans of Los Angeles had yet to work out for me, and I figured an older man had the likelihood of being divorced. Then he told me he had kids … and that was OK too. I was sort of prepared for that possibility. I mean, you almost want an older guy to be divorced because if he’s not, there could be a weird reason he never married. And if he is divorced, then chances are good he has kids. I admittedly didn’t think it that far through at the time, but I wasn’t shocked or even surprised.
The last bomb Dean dropped was that he lived in Thousand Oaks, California. That may mean nothing to a lot of you, but it is an hour away from where I live. And an hour and a half in L.A. traffic. At first I was silent on the phone, processing. I asked Dean about the Target that was there, right off the 101 highway. He said, “Yeah, we have a Target out here, but the one you’re thinking of is in Woodland Hills. Thousand Oaks is farther than that.” There was somewhere farther than that? I was thinking he meant Woodland Hills, which is still far, but about twenty minutes closer than the suburb he was talking about. Woodland Hills I could stomach. But then he told me Thousand Oaks was actually in Ventura County. There was a differe
nt area code for this land he lived in. Now I’m really spinning/reeling/freaking out. I realize I hadn’t even gone on my first date with this guy, I still had no idea what he looked like, but still, I had to wonder how I would manage a relationship with anyone who lived in a different county than me. Until that point, I had a strict rule about not dating anyone on the Westside of Los Angeles, but this wasn’t anything I’d even considered before. Divorce? Whatever. Kids? OK, fine. But an hour-plus commute if everything went the way I was hoping it would go? That was a tougher pill to swallow … an hour? And the kids live there? And so does their mom? And their grandma? And they all like it there? Do they have a lot of friends? What I’m getting at is that I was hoping that these young Johnsens had wanderlust and no friends or ties to the community and would love nothing more than to move with their dad to Los Angeles! Yes, my brain was moving way faster than our relationship was, but I really liked this Dean Johnsen, he gave good phone, and we’d already had the STD talk. Well, my fantasy was just that, a fantasy. His kids have all the friends. In fact, they seem to know almost everyone in that town. They play all the sports. They go to a public school, and it’s a really good one, and since their mom and grandma also live there, they are not going anywhere.
Well, lucky for me, I was reading a book in my book club that made my decision to go through with the date an easy one. It was called Marry Him by Lori Gottlieb. Someone in my book club knew the author, I think, so we were reading it in hardcover. It was about how single women limit themselves with all their deal breakers when dating. I thought it was a little harsh, but Ms. Gottlieb made some good points, and I thought she might be right. Most of my single friends did seem to be limiting themselves by their prerequisites, and I felt maybe I was in danger of limiting myself as well. So, with this theme fresh in my head, I was willing to give this guy a shot. I had been striking out with guys my age who were geographically desirable, so why not go out with a guy who I knew owned a house and a car, had insurance, and made me laugh? Those items were high on the list I carried around in my wallet of what I wanted in a husband.
So, we finally had our first date. I was dying to see what this guy looked like. If he was as cute as he was funny, I was going to have a hard decision ahead of me. And he was. I liked him. A lot. I didn’t meet his kids until we were serious, though. My first “date” with the kids was at Claim Jumper (their turf). But we sat in the bar (my turf). I brought them cupcakes as per my aunt Teresa’s suggestion to win them over with sugar. Things went really well, and eventually we started having sleepovers in Thousand Oaks even on nights he had the kids. Judge if you must, but we waited until we were super in love, and the kids seemed to like having me and Buckley around.
And I can’t leave out their mother, the Sheriff. For a really long time my friends thought I was joking and that was a nickname I made up for her, but no. She is an actual sheriff in Ventura County. I feel like a character Paul Rudd would play in a romantic comedy about a guy who finds out the gal he likes has an ex who’s a cop. But it’s not Paul Rudd, it’s me, and it’s not a movie, it’s my life. My competition is Sheriff Barbie. Oh, yeah, did I mention the Sheriff is hot? She has a rockin’ body and long blond hair and is, miraculously, always tan. And she carries a gun, everywhere. When she runs to the bathroom during one of Emilee’s soccer games and asks me to keep an eye on her purse, I have to think twice about whether or not I want that kind of responsibility. She is nice, though, and fun, and we get along really well. I am super lucky. I’ll take gun-toting police Barbie over a bat-shit-crazy ex who hates my guts and makes it her mission in life to make me miserable. Yeah, I got it good, because I have heard horror stories, like scarier than the Saw movies.
Our relationship was picking up pace, and I started spending more and more time in TO (Thousand Oaks). I was getting used to the suburban atmosphere. It reminded me of the Southern California version of where I grew up, yet so different from everywhere I’d lived since. I loved that there wasn’t much traffic, there was ample parking, well-stocked chain stores were everywhere, and it was safe—thanks in part to the Sheriff. People’s lives seemed to revolve around their kids and the community. No one had a nanny, and families ate dinner together every night. Dean told me it was like Mayberry, and after looking up what that was, I have to agree. I especially liked that Hollywood wasn’t a player in this town, and no one cared what I did for a living.
Soon we got engaged and started to talk about where we were going to live. Dean’s job is a five-minute drive from my house in Hollywood, and he only has the kids half of the time; it didn’t really make sense for him to have that commute every single day if he didn’t have to. Dean had been driving three hours a day for years, his back hurt, he had 200,000 miles on his hybrid, and I had a perfectly good house that we could stay in on the days we didn’t have the kids. And selfishly, I was nervous about being out there alone during the days that Emilee and Lucas were with their mom. I thought the transition would be easier for me if I got to hang on to a little bit of my old life. So we decided to change nothing. We never moved in with each other. And as of today, we still haven’t. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” my dad has told me a million times. So we didn’t. We lead a very double life. Or we have the best of both worlds, depending on your preferred idiom.
Dean and I fell in love and got married, and I became a stepmom in a faraway land (fifty-three miles from my house, to be exact). In the deal I got two kids, a crazy long commute every other week, an ex-wife, and another dog! Most people just get a new set of dishes. It’s been fun, and half of the time we have a totally newlywed-like lifestyle. We go out to eat, see bands play, get drinks a lot, see movies, hang out with friends. And the other half of the time we hang out at the local baseball field, carpool to and from soccer practice, try to think of fun things to do as a family between sports, and then collapse into bed, totally exhausted, wondering how we will make it to Friday, kind of like every other family in the world. But it’s awesome! In the beginning, I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know where anything was in that town. I got lost driving home from a drop-off two blocks away. I couldn’t remember the days we had the kids and the days we didn’t. It was a gigantic change for me, but I think I’m kind of getting the hang of it, or at least I’m getting better at hiding the fact that I’m not.
Best Advice I’ve Ever Gotten
I LOVE ADVICE. I LOVE ENCOURAGING WORDS, AND my bookshelves reflect this. But I am also pretty certain that most people know more than I do about almost everything. I think I can come off at times as a bit of a know-it-all, but it’s really just a defense mechanism I have cultivated after years of feeling like a total imbecile. I do love learning from others, though, and I want the real experts (about everything!) to teach me. This idea was the basis for my Web series, Reluctantly Healthy. It was really just an excuse for me to gather expert advice and share it with the world for free! Instead of paying a trainer or chef or nutritionist to tell me what to do, I can just have a few cameras film the whole session, air it on Yahoo!, and I’m set! Advice for me and the masses! I think I really nailed that one.
Of course sometimes there is advice that no one can help me with. There are just some life lessons that we all have to learn on our own, and those are the hardest. There aren’t a lot of quotes and advice I live by—I forget them too easily, unless I write them on Post-its all over my kitchen—but these have done me pretty well thus far. And in the interest of sharing the Reluctantly Healthy way (minus the cameras and airing it on the Internet), I thought I’d pass them along to you, too.
“When in doubt, sing loud.”
—MRS. HUTCHINSON, CHOIR TEACHER, HIGH SCHOOL
She was being literal when she said this to me my junior year, I did it, and I got a solo in The Pajama Game that I should not have gotten because my singing voice is challenged, at best. My co-star had to hum the tune in my ear during the performance, which I later learned was picked up on the mic. But whatever! She was right. I’ve hear
d “Go big, or go home,” but I like Mrs. H.’s version better. Also, because it reminds me of my audition and how when I left the room that afternoon someone in the hallway said, “Oh my God, that sound was you singing?”
