You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

by Felicia Day

  Even though I didn’t get to practice writing as a kid, I was an expert at consuming OTHER people’s writing and daydreaming about it. The first book that made me think, I wanna get inside this character’s life like a pod person was Anne of Green Gables. I’d seen the miniseries on the Disney Channel (which I hated most of the time because, MAN, were girls dumb and painted pink on there), and it made me track down every single one of the books in the series and read them a dozen times over.

  The books inspired me to embrace being as weird as I wanted to be. Because it worked for Anne. I mean, she was also an annoying kid who talked too much and was uppity for her station, and everyone in the books thought she was adorable! At the heart of it, Anne was a fellow redhead I could admire. She and that girl, Khrystyne Haje from Head of the Class. Yeah, it’s superficial, but hair color identification is SUPER important. That’s why I always think, Where’s the redhead one, jerks?! when I see those rows of stupid blonde dolls in the toy aisles. (That American Doll phenomenon is super weird to adult me, but I’d have torn someone apart to get one as a kid. I bet one day they’ll 3-D print them up to make literal doppelgängers. That’ll be terrifying/amazing, and I’ll be there to buy mine on day one! Uh . . . for my future daughter, of course. Ahem.)

  My fandom about the Green Gables series was serious business. I prayed every night for my eyes to turn greener. I planned on naming my children Anne and Gilbert, which could have been awkward, seeing as they were married in the books. I put on my life’s bucket list: “Move to Canada because Prince Edward Island is certainly the most WONDROUS place on the planet.”

  I daydreamed about BEING Anne. Traipsing through nineteenth-century meadows, reciting Romantic poetry (Keats was my fave, because he died with such gruesome panache.) One day, I started creating my own original scenarios of Anne doing her plucky orphan thing. But I didn’t want to deal with the annoying stuff from old-timey days, like sexism and polio, so I moved up the timeline and transported her into modern life as a free-spirited teen heiress. I’d imagine Anne flying to Hong Kong on her private jet, or spying on Communists while she performed gymnastics for the US Olympic Team. Or simple things, like attending a new high school where she’d enter a classroom wearing designer jeans and everyone would gasp at how pretty she was. “Her hair is so long and red. Can I be her best friend immediately?”

  I started throwing in other characters from other books into my headspace, and pretty soon I’d built an imaginary town filled with stolen IP. Perry Mason was there (of course), the whole crew from the Trixie Belden children’s mystery series (Anne loved to steal Trixie’s boyfriend away), Lancelot and Guinevere owned the local garden store, even anthropomorphic pigs and spiders from Charlotte’s Web were full residents with voting rights. It got so complicated I had to start tracking my world in an accounting ledger with everyone’s names, addresses, and personality traits in neat little rows. (“Friendly!” “Secret lovers!” “Murderer!”) My town had it all!

  I’d love to say that the stories I conjured up were deep and fraught with intellectual themes, but they were not. They were straight out of Gossip Girl. Anne would arrive in town with a bang, and everyone would want to be friends with her. It helped that she was an orphan who’d been left billions (à la Richie Rich) and had no adult supervision. She drove a Porsche and owned a mansion with white Corinthian columns where she threw parties every night. It had an arcade AND a bowling alley. She was such a baller.

  Natch, all the cute guy characters wanted to date her. Including Perry Mason and a grown-up Tom Sawyer, for some reason. Everyone referred to her as “Anne with an e,” and if asked: “No last name. Like Cher.” My utopian alternate world lasted a good six months until my mom discovered my census account ledger hidden beneath clothes in my closet.

  One day I walked in on her gathering up laundry in my room. The fact that she was cleaning was shocking enough, but then . . . I saw what was in her hands. Oh my God. My ledger!?!

  “Oh baby, is this your writing? Do you want to be a writer? We should get you lessons, let me see!” The slow-motion horror of her opening my notebook and starting to turn a page felt like ripping my own skin off with a potato peeler.

  “MOM! That’s mine, stop!” I grabbed the notebook and sprinted away, trying to find the nearest bonfire to get rid of the evidence. There wasn’t one around because it was July and I was inside an actual house, so I searched for somewhere else to stash my shame.

  I called out over my shoulder. “They’re just math problems! Can I clean your bedroom? Wash the car? Make me your slave and be distracted, please!” I shoved my ledger under the dog bed as she rounded the living room corner, praying I’d been fast enough to dodge her eye line.

  I was so embarrassed. I love my mom, but she has a habit of ignoring personal boundaries. She’d have no qualms about barging in the bathroom while I was bathing and say, “You need to shave your legs, honey, you look like a bear down there!”

  Thankfully, my mom didn’t have a bizarre impulse to wash the dog bed, so my notebook remained undiscovered. But her unearthing of my alt world shut down all enthusiasm I had for the project.

  And in retrospect it was probably for the best, because I was starting to add TV characters to the ledger at that point. Joey Gladstone from Full House and Anne had gotten involved in a caper with a chambermaid that was . . . it was just becoming odder as I got older, even by my authorial standards. The next morning I got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed the ledger, and dumped it into the trash can. As I closed the lid, I said good-bye to Anne. “Have fun in Cabo with Jason Bourne! Don’t worry, you’ll protect him from the neo-Nazis with your Krav Maga. I imagined it, so it definitely happened.”

  [ Let’s Try That Whole “Writing” Thing Again ]

  Fast-forward to adulthood, when I decided to revisit the idea of writing by taking a comedy sketch class in Los Angeles. Motivation? I was bored, and that’s what Hollywood actors do. Take classes. And have coffee with other actors to complain about their agents.

  It’s a hard life.

  I enrolled at the ACME Comedy Theatre in 2005 with a dozen other people who, I was sure, were 5,000 percent better writers than me. The year before, I’d started writing a screenplay because the “original screenplay” Oscar acceptance speech that year had been stirring and made me think, I could do that! (The speech, not the screenplay.) But the results of my work were, er . . . semi-mortifying.

  Amendment: No “semi” about it. The script was mortifying.

  I wrote about a girl named “Harper Jessamyn” who was graduating from college music school and couldn’t decide what to do with her life.

  HARPER JESSAMYN

  I can’t help being good at the flute, but it’s a trap. What do I do, who do I become? Cut off my fingers and cast me in the ocean! Maybe it’s better if I feed the earth with my flesh. At least I’ll be contributing to the world somehow! There would at least be some kind of . . .

  (BEAT)

  . . . MEANING!

  Harper runs away from Jax, into a practice room, sobbing.

  Yes, there was a sexy jazz trombone player love interest, and his name was “Jax.” The script included four montages of Harper Jessamyn gazing off into the sun to the sound track of Schoenberg. And then one to Bach. In the first thirty pages. Who knows what other genius montages could have been born if I’d plowed through and finished the script, but I didn’t. I bailed. Ninety pages was too daunting. But writing a three-page sketch where I could wear a funny wig and make boner jokes? That was something I might be able to channel my creativity into!

  The teacher at ACME, Kim Evey, was a tiny Asian lady in her thirties who had the gentle spirit of a baby panda bear. No matter how bad someone’s sketch was, she would find something positive to say. “Sure, you fell off the stage, but it was great kinetic energy!” A good teacher is someone you’re willing to share your ugliest, roughest work with and who doesn’t make you feel ashamed or stupid. Kim did that for me, and I loved her for it.r />
  I wrote about a dozen sketches in the class, and surprise! My best ones were based on my (many) real-life insecurities. There was an awkward one about running into a hairdresser I’d ditched, an awkward one about my inner dialogue during a massage (I’m always paranoid about farting); “awkward” was a strong theme for me. My favorite was about a boy and girl arguing in a car about the morality of peeing in a McDonald’s without buying anything.

  Jill: But if I use the bathroom without buying something, it’s stealing!

  Robert: One flush is not equivalent to armed robbery.

  Jill: Fine! I’ll be right back.

  Jill grabs her purse and reaches for the door.

  Robert: Why are you taking your purse?

  Jill: I need it . . . for feminine things.

  Robert: You’re going to buy something, aren’t you?

  Jill: No, I’m not . . .

  Jill tries to get out. Robert grabs her purse.

  Robert: Give me the purse.

  Jill: Stop it, Robert!

  Robert: You’re not going to buy something.

  Jill: Just one apple pie; I didn’t have dessert!

  Robert: Be a man! Or grow another valve!

  Jill: I don’t know what that means!

  (For the record, I still will not pee somewhere without at least buying a dip cone.)

  I wasn’t the best writer in class, but I wasn’t the worst, and I enjoyed myself. It was . . . strangely fulfilling?

  Then the class ended, and I stopped writing because I wasn’t paying someone to hold me accountable anymore. I proceeded to do nothing but play World of Warcraft for the rest of the year. But my teacher, Kim, and I later reconnected at a commercial audition (for soap or cat food or cat shampoo? I can’t remember. Something with a mortifying jingle) and over lunch, she invited me to participate in a new side project.

  “Would you be interested in joining a support group?”

  “A what?” Ugh. Sounded lame.

  “I know, it sounds lame when I put it like that.”

  “I didn’t think that at all!” Liar. “What kind of . . . group?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word support; it sounded dirty, like douching or something.

  “Just me and a few friends. We want to meet every week and check in with each other about our goals. Career, family, long-term, short-term. Totally informal.”

  People? Organized talking? Oh, God. “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you have any goals you haven’t reached? Anything you could use a boost about?”

  Sure, a million things. Thinking about them, I almost started crying. “I guess I can come once or something. If I don’t fit in, you guys can uninvite me.”

  Kim gave me a funny look. “I don’t think anyone will do that.”

  The next week I forced myself to wake up at seven thirty for the first time in about five years and drove to a pancake house in Los Angeles to join a “lady support group.” It felt like going to my first day of college. I had a panic attack in the parking lot and almost drove back to bed, but it’s LA, and everyone is forced to valet, so the dude took my car away before I could escape.

  There were three other women in attendance besides me and Kim. Jane, who had an oovy groovy air like her chakras were WAY in balance; Trina, who was pretty and pleasant, the kind who screamed “perfect TV wife”; and Susan, who had big hair and laughed like a trucker. They were all in their mid- to late thirties, and I was in my midtwenties, so I was intimidated from the get-go by the mass of womanhood. I was wearing jeans I hadn’t washed in a week. I had a feeling they’d left those times far behind them.

  We went around the table sharing our goals. I learned that Jane wanted to be a director, and she was writing screenplays in order to make that happen. Trina and Susan were actors who wanted to work more, but Trina’s bigger goal was to get pregnant. Hearing that immediately made me think, Uterus talk? Get me outta here! but I just nodded quietly, mimicking the others’ supporting-type vibe.

  I got tenser and tenser as the conversation circled around to me, because I didn’t know what I was going to say. I’ve always felt like a failure inside if I’m not already a success. If that makes any sense.

  Jane was the leader, and she was so generous and open; just being around her was like taking a Xanax. She tossed the conversation to me last. “And Felicia, what goals are you working towards?”

  “Uh, acting more. And writing . . . something. A screenplay? Or . . . a pilot? Yeah, a TV pilot.” I grabbed “pilot” out of the air because Jane had already said she was doing a screenplay, and it’s a personal rule of mine never to order the same thing off the menu as someone else. You’re a flawed human being if you think two beet salads at a table is ever acceptable.

  “A TV pilot? Neat! Do you have a concept?”

  “Uh . . . well . . .” Sweat popped out under my armpits. What did I know about? What did I know about?! THINK! SAY SOMETHING, FELICIA! “Gamers?”

  They all jumped in. “That’s great!” “Awesome.” “How unique!” Suddenly I realized, Hey, a gamer TV pilot is a great idea! I put it at the top of my “goals” list. I won’t lie, the sheer act of writing the words “TV pilot” down on the corner of my dirty paper napkin made everything seem possible. This group support thing was gonna work out!

  By the end of the breakfast, we’d named the group Chick-In. ’Cause we were all going to “Hatch GREAT THINGS!” No, I just made that up; it wasn’t our tagline, we were not that dorky. Well, kinda.

  Over the next six months, the group met once a week, covering pancake houses across Southern California with hope and positive feelings. (I found out later the whole meet-up idea was inspired by the book The Secret, but I decided to gloss over that fact, like you do when eating nonorganic produce. It’s still good fiber!) And over time, the support started to work. Everyone was getting their lives organized. Step by step.

  Everyone except me.

  The ladies would go around the table sharing “wins” every week.

  “I finished the first act of my screenplay . . .”

  “I booked a national commercial! That gets me health insurance this year!”

  “Met with a new manager, he’s keen to help me get more TV jobs.”

  “We’re thinking about doing infertility treatments . . .”

  Then it was my turn. “Uh, I created a Word template for our weekly to-do lists.”

  They stared. I babbled on. “You know, because it’s nice to get organized. I used a special font and imported pretty graphics.”

  “Isn’t that the third to-do template you’ve made for us this month?”

  “Yeah . . . but this one perfected the format! I also wrote down some Universe Goals to motivate myself.” I’d thought long and hard about them, for maybe twenty minutes the night before, and was confident about my new “self-statement.”

  Realistic goals all around, right? Especially the rain forest part. I was excited to hear the group’s affirmation of my goals.

  I got none.

  Kim said, “Did you work on your pilot?”

  I dug into my pancakes with a fork. Stabbing motions. “Well, I did some research.” Which meant, I’d played a lot of World of Warcraft. They all sort of deflated. Because they’d heard it many times before.

  The months I went to Chick-In coincided with the height of my gaming addiction. The main accomplishments I had brought in to the ladies every week were things like, “Raided Zul’Gurub. Got new armor for Keeblerette. Achieved maximum faction with the Argent Dawn . . .” I watered the vocabulary down for the civilian ladies as “Played a lot of video games,” but the result was the same. I was making zero progress toward my goal of writing and acting more, and that made me depressed. So I played more. Vicious cycle.

  “You did ‘research’ by playing video games?”

  “Yeah, but I’m definitely gonna cut back.” I filled the silence that followed with positive-thinking intentions.

  They didn’t believe me.

 
I didn’t believe myself.

  After a few more months of conversations like that, the guilt started to wear me down. That and the fact that I was gaming so much that my conscious and subconscious were bleeding together until I felt like a living gaming entity, a robot controlling the virtual character of my flesh-and-blood self. I knew I had to change SOMETHING. If only to make sure the ladies kept me on the invite list.

  I went to the next Chick-In with newfound determination. “I quit the game.” It was like a bomb dropped into the nonvegetarian ladies’ corned beef hash.

  “For real?” “Congratulations!” “That’s awesome!” There was relief on their faces, like they never understood this whole “video game thing” going on with Felicia, but they knew it wasn’t good. Quitting was a big step!

  “Are you going to start your screenplay now?” Trina said, smiling. She had perfect teeth. I made a mental note to ask about her dentist later, because I was flush with proactivity.

  “Pilot,” I corrected her. “Yeah, I’m gonna do it!” And in that moment I believed it. I could do it!

  But . . . I didn’t. Yes, I quit WoW cold turkey, but that didn’t mean I could shake it instantaneously. An addiction isn’t something you say good-bye to without pesky obsessive-compulsive strings attached.

  For a month after my resolution, I stumbled through life, sleepwalking from withdrawal. Like quitting coffee times 85,000 percent. I was in a daze, itching every moment to get back online. Time became SO SLOOOOW! Like driving behind a ninety-year-old woman in a ’72 Chrysler with a handicapped license plate slow. It was torture. I’d sit in my silent house, staring at the clock, the endlessly ticking clock, wondering how people endured the task of filling their whole lives with this LIVING thing. Inside I was screaming. There’s nothing to DO anymore!

  “Cold turkey” slipped into “lukewarm turkey.” As a workaround, I kept up on all the blogs for the game, because that wasn’t technically “playing.” I followed the forums to keep up with my raid buddies, aching to rejoin them. At my lowest, I started sobbing when the game announced limited-edition pumpkin heads for people’s characters to wear during Halloween and I couldn’t get one. That amazing pumpkin would have covered my ugly penis hair SO PRETTY!