Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered

by Karen Kilgariff

  Introspection brings up messy crap, which I think is why it’s so hard for some people to get themselves to go to therapy at first. Sometimes we’re just not prepared to even think about the messy psychological bullshit, let alone unpack it and start to sort through it.

  It’s like when you get a facial because you have acne, but the facial itself brings up all the gross crap under the surface of your skin, which causes you to break out more as it eradicates itself, but eventually the end result is glowy skin with fewer blackheads.

  Side note: therapy and facials are two of my favorite self-care things. Coincidence?? Probably.

  Don’t Be a Fucking Lunatic: Final Thoughts

  KAREN: What’s your favorite form of escape?

  GEORGIA: Reading and yoga are the only two things that really get me out of my head. I tend to think too much and worry a lot, but reading takes me into a totally different world where there’s no room for my own bullshit. I know I’ve found a good book when I realize I’ve been completely transported to a fictitious place while reading.

  As for yoga, if I don’t concentrate, I’ll fall on my ass, so that’s good motivation not to be distracted by how badly I need a pedicure or if I locked my car.

  KAREN: Anything you were a huge fan of when you were younger that you now can’t believe you ever liked?

  GEORGIA: So much stuff, including going to raves, loud music, drugs, roller-skating, staying out all night, smoking cigarettes, Long Island iced teas, emotionally unavailable dudes, boot-cut jeans, tube tops, body glitter, lying out without SPF.

  KAREN: What’s the weirdest situation you ever got into because of drugs or booze?

  GEORGIA: For sure the time my then boyfriend and I ate pot and went to an amusement park. I got too high and broke my brain. I’m pretty sure the park employees knew we were high and were fucking with us, because the ride we were on broke down in the middle of an intense section involving monsters, and they left us there with the horrible singsongy theme music playing on repeat in our locked seats for like ten-plus minutes. I freaked out.

  After, we went to “chill” at the Muppets 3-D movie, and I couldn’t move my body and was convinced I had been brainwashed by the CIA via the Muppets. When I finally got myself moving and ran toward the theater doors, hitting all the poor people in the row in front of me in the head with my purse, Miss Piggy yelled from the screen, “Get her! She’s getting away!”

  Oh, also I chewed up a crayon while on LSD because my friend and I thought it would make our spit look really pretty. It did.

  art by Claire Mabbett

  6

  GET A JOB

  KAREN: “Get a job” was the first step in the three-part process I once blurted out while we were ranting about the importance of personal safety. Self-sufficiency is your first form of self-defense. The sooner you accept that you must work for a living, the sooner you can roll your sleeves up, find your true calling, stack that paper, and spend the rest of your days singing along knowingly to every Destiny’s Child song.

  Karen’s Dos and Don’ts Guide to Becoming Employee of the Month

  If you work in Hollywood long enough, and you don’t go insane and drive your Range Rover off a parking structure, you’ll inevitably be asked the following question by someone who wants to work in your profession: “Can we get coffee sometime so I can pick your brain?” They will actually say the words pick your brain as if it isn’t the grossest and most invasive image of all time. Sure, come dig around in my mind. The key that unlocks the golden door of show business is definitely in there somewhere.

  It was much worse when I worked on a popular TV show. You wouldn’t believe the asks that came rolling into my in-box—people I barely knew explaining that their son or daughter had recently graduated from college and was now interested in taking a job in television. It was all I could do not to reply, “And are you going to do the job for them? Because as far as I can tell, you want it more than they do. Sent from my iPhone.”

  Now, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to help people. I was just saving all my help for people who actually deserved it. And I was surrounded by those people every day. There was a roomful of interns who’d gotten there by signing up for a college internship program. They were chosen out of hundreds of applicants. Those bright young minds moved from all over the country to Los Angeles to spend months cleaning the office kitchen and loading paper trays and carrying pallets of bottled water up and down stairs FOR FREE. For fucking free. The ones who didn’t quit or get cut eventually moved up to production assistant (PA) positions. And if they were good PAs and stuck with it, there was a chance that they might get promoted into the department they wanted to work in. That entire process took at least two years. Those were the people who deserved a leg up. They’d earned it.

  Wait, were you ever a PA or an intern, Karen? No. Shut up. How dare you. I paid my Hollywood dues in a different way. It was not as noble as the journey of the humble intern, but it was on par. You see, when I was twenty, instead of applying for an internship program at my college, I flunked out. My loving parents had no choice but to cut me off, so for about six months, I lived in a white-hot, flat-broke panic. And then it came to me: I had to do something big to prove I wasn’t the flunky loser that reality was making me out to be. So I decided to become a stand-up comic.

  This really seemed like a solution to me at the time. I’d always wanted to do comedy, and I’d studied every stand-up comedian’s act that I’d seen on TV since I was ten. I figured I’d start, work my way up in the clubs, and then become rich and famous. It was a three-part plan. Easy peasy.

  But it turns out, that plan didn’t have three parts. It had like, two hundred and fifty. It literally took me fourteen years to “make it” in any real, bill-paying way in show business. And in the meantime, my job choice was constantly being questioned by my parents, my friends, their parents, my parents’ friends, just about anyone who wandered by our house and heard what I did for a living. I was told it was impossible. I was told to be realistic. I was told I needed a safety net and that nobody made it in show business without connections. None of these people who were talking had ever worked in show business. Many of them had never been to LA for more than a weekend. But they sure knew how it all worked. And how it wasn’t going to work out for me.

  This is when I learned a valuable lesson: anyone trying to give you career advice is full of shit, especially if it’s a family member. People hear about you trying to do something they were never brave enough or lucky enough to try. You making a go of trying to make your dreams come true makes them feel bad. Maybe because they had the same dream. Maybe because they had a mean dad who made them become a stock analyst. Now they see those small decisions dictated the shape of their lives, and it makes them feel disappointed somehow. Whatever the details are, they’re projecting all their old shit on you. Step away from these people gingerly. Do not engage.

  Because it doesn’t matter if you fail. Your trying is what sets the tone for your whole life story. Think of everything you do as being chapters in your future autobiographical self-help book about murder. Your “career” is just another word to help you categorize the journey you will take through life. Why not start brave and bold and believing in yourself? And if you fail in the thing you want to do, that’s fine. You can start your career-having life in one career, and then if you need to, you can switch to another. I did.

  After I’d lived in LA for six years, I was at the end of my rope. I was still doing stand-up and getting auditions here and there, even a small part or two, but the initial magic I experienced was clearly drying up. I was totally broke and didn’t have any prospects. I called my dad for yet another loan. This time, he didn’t yell or lecture me. Instead, he very sadly said, “Honey, I think it might be time for you to throw in the towel.” I waited to be heartbroken, but it didn’t happen. In that moment, I knew he was wrong. I didn’t hope he was wrong, I was positive. I told him to give me a couple of more months. It was spring.
At some point, my friend Jay Johnston got a producing job on a new sketch show for the WB. He told me to put a packet together and submit it. I said I didn’t know how. He said, “Yes, you do.” I got my first writing job at the end of that summer.

  * * *

  I separated this sidebar so it didn’t screw up the flow, but I should note here that there were many people in my life who always, always believed in me. My grandma Grace, who used to make me stand up and sing at the dinner table when I was three; my aunt Kathleen, who used to make me stand up and sing at family parties when I was twelve; my uncle Rich, who always told me how talented he thought I was; my sister, Laura, and her best friend, Adrienne, who never said anything to my face but showed up for practically every single comedy show I ever did; and my mom, who used to chuck me under the chin and say, “Whatever it is, you’ve got it, kid.” I will also include my father in this group, because, although he was in a constant state of worry over my lack of job skills and all-around instability, he always let me know that he admired my bravery and he celebrated every one of my showbiz victories by declaring loudly, “You did it! And you did it without knowing anybody!” Of course, this isn’t true. The only way you get anywhere in Hollywood is by making friends with people who like you enough to get you jobs. He meant that I wasn’t the spoiled child of some movie star or studio head.

  * * *

  OK, now back to changing careers midstream even though you’ve invested years in one particular arena.

  Frequently Asked Questions Right Up Top:

  Q: Is it hard to change jobs?

  A: Yes. But so is everything.

  Q: Will it take a long time?

  A: Of course, dummy. Nothing worth it doesn’t.

  Q: If I switch careers, won’t it mean that I’m a failure and everyone on Facebook will laugh at me?

  A: Yes. No. So what. Get off Facebook. That shit’s for the birds.

  Now that there are definitely no more questions, here are some vague lessons I learned from the other glamorous jobs I’ve had:

  Horse Stall Muck Person

  To the twelve-year-olds who didn’t listen earlier when I told them not to read this book and are still waiting for dead body pics, this one’s for you: don’t let adults guilt you into being their indentured servants.

  When I was around nine, the lady down the street hired me to muck her horse stalls after school every day. I think she paid me ten bucks a week and I never got snacks, but that wasn’t the worst of it. These horses were kept in a tiny stall strung up with an electrified wire top rail.

  That right there should’ve been sign enough that I, a small child, was not qualified to deal with these particular horses. The lady had explained that she didn’t want them rubbing against the stall entry, but—and I only just thought of this now—who buys a horse and leaves it in a small pen all day only to have a child come and walk it for an hour after school? That’s horrible. I feel like any qualified horse person would not approve of her setup. If any animals should be free range, it’s horses.

  But I wanted my own horse so badly, I was willing to do whatever it took. I figured if I could prove that I could take care of one, my parents would buy me one for Christmas or my birthday or just because they loved me. They had explicitly and repeatedly told me they would never, ever do that. But maybe they would. My mom would always wink at me and say, “You and your expensive tastes.”

  * * *

  She was right. I really have always had an eye for the finer things. If there were five sweaters on a table, I’d pick the imported cashmere. I’ve always loved bleu cheese since I was like six. I once told my parents if anything happened to them, I wanted to live with my aunt Michelle because she had such a nice house. Also, while I have you here, I’m realizing what a big winker my mom was. If you have kids, I really recommend winking at them conspiratorially. It’s fun and special, and the overall effect lasts for years. Ugh, I miss my mom.

  * * *

  OK, so as you could imagine, by the time I got to these horse stalls every day, the two horses were DYING to get out of their stalls. Just going nuts in a very intimidating, Legend of Sleepy Hollow sort of way. The high-pitched whinnying and stomping of their front hooves was downright biblical and legitimately dangerous. These horses were so scary I never learned their names. And I was a nine-year-old girl! I must have known they were only going to break my heart.

  They weren’t like my aunt Jean’s horse Lady, the horse I grew up riding, who was so nice you could currycomb her for an hour and she’d never move. Lady was the best. She looked like a horse from a sexy horse calendar, chestnut brown with the white star on her forehead and pretty, long bangs.

  She was infinitely patient, except when you saddled her; she always did that horse trick of bloating out her stomach so it wouldn’t be too tight. One time she did that, and then my cousin Stevie put me on the horse with him and ran Lady around the field at a full gallop. It was super fun until the saddle started to slide over to the left more and more. Right before we fell off, we were riding perfectly horizontal to the ground as she trotted along. She was good enough to stop walking when we fell off. She had a real “You crazy kids!” attitude, and she loved alfalfa. God bless you, Lady. You were good people.

  OK, so back to these other scary horses.

  So here’s what I got to do in my childhood horse-taming-cum-stall-mucking job. First, I took down the impossibly taut electric wire, then I put their bridles on and walked them out of the stall, then I mucked the stall while the nameless horses grazed on the grass around the barn, and then I put them back. I shocked myself with that fucking wire every day. And the horses knew I was nervous, so they’d usually bolt when I opened the door. I got very good at walking them out the doorway, then dropping the rope and jumping aside so I didn’t get dragged along or trampled when they took off. IMAGINE A CHILD HAVING THIS JOB TODAY. Or even an adult. Like, fuck this lady.

  So then, one day I show up and the wire has somehow come down and one of the horses has gotten its leg tangled in it. It wasn’t electrified, thank god, but the horse was losing its shit and had been for a while. I ran and got my aunt Jean, who cut the wire and then let the horse out. Then she started asking me questions about my “after-school job.” That night, she told my mom this lady had given me WAY too much responsibility. When the lady came home and my aunt told her what happened, she tried to blame me for not putting the wire fencing back properly in the first place.

  My aunt lost it, because her trying to pin that on me meant the lady hadn’t checked on the horses herself in a full day. I mean, I’m sure she was also offended that a grown woman would accuse a child of mishandling electric fencing, but that was a subtler aspect of her argument.

  Anyway, I just remember when the yelling started, I knew I wouldn’t have to do that job anymore. I remember dropping to my knees in the rain and thinking, HALLELUJAH PRAISE JESUS, but that might just be that scene in The Shawshank Redemption and not an actual memory. I remember my mom being really upset and telling me to please tell her the next time I was ever in over my head like that. I said I would. (Cut to a montage of me having many assorted “wild horse” problems and not telling anyone over and over for the rest of my life.) After that, my interests turned to watching TV and staying very still for hours at a time. Like Lady with her currycombs.

  Shoppe Clerk

  Here’s the thing: if you have an obsession and it’s for a thing, don’t get a job at the place where they sell that thing. Like, if you’re a blackout drunk, don’t work at a bar. Don’t hang out at the barbershop if you’re trying to grow your bangs out. Don’t get a job at a tuna cannery if you’re a cat. I wish someone had said any of these things to fifteen-year-old me before I got a job at a frozen yogurt shoppe.

  When frozen yogurt made its big splash in the mid-’80s, I couldn’t believe how great it was. I wanted to eat it all day. And as a nation, we all believed it was the healthy alternative to ice cream. We believed it was nonfattening. We were fools.
The cool girls at my high school started getting jobs at the new frozen yogurt shoppe in town, How Sweet It Is. It was fun and easy, but when I worked there by myself, I could not stop eating the strawberry yogurt. It was tart and cold and hit me somewhere deep inside. I only wanted that taste in my mouth for the rest of my life.

  Now, my eating disorder was in full swing at this point, so I had begun to deal with all the heartache and social stress of high school by eating. And eating. And eating. I wish I’d known at the time that this was pretty much standard fare for teenage girls. But I didn’t, so I burned with shame, angry that I didn’t get the food issue that makes you skinny and light-headed and just as ashamed. I got the one that convinces you the best way to deal with things is to be alone and bingeing. Ideally on fast food. I despised myself for being so hungry all the time and despised my face and body for showing the effects of my indulgences. But the other girls who worked at the yogurt shoppe either didn’t have my problem or dealt with it in a different way. And I still had years to go until I was to discover sex and drugs.

  For a while, food was the only high I could access, so I abused it terribly. I hadn’t realized how much until one day when I had the afternoon shift and our boss and the owner, Thelma (not Georgia’s grandma), stopped by the store. She was having meetings with people and doing some yogurt shoppe business. I’d cleaned all the things I was supposed to clean and no one had come in, so I served myself a small strawberry yogurt, posted up on a stool, and read a book. There’s no way Thelma liked that, but she didn’t say anything. Nor did she say anything when I helped myself to more yogurt. It was only when I went for a third refill did she ask me in a frustrated tone to go wash the dishes. I was baffled. I mean, didn’t she tell us we could eat the yogurt? What was her problem?