Life as I Blow It is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed. Any resulting resemblance to any persons living or dead is coincidental and unintentional.
A Villard Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2012 by Sarah Colonna
Foreword copyright © 2012 by Chelsea Handler
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Villard Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
VILLARD BOOKS and VILLARD & “V” CIRCLED Design
are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Todd Shaw aka Too $hort for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Don’t Fight the Feelin’,” written by Todd Shaw aka Too $hort. Copyright © 1989. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of Todd Shaw aka Too $hort.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Colonna, Sarah.
Life as I blow it: tales of love, life & sex … not necessarily in
that order / Sarah Colonna.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52838-4
1. Colonna, Sarah. 2. Women comedians—United States—Biography.
3. Television actors and actresses—United States—Biography. I. Title.
PN2287.C5745A3 2012
792.702’8092—dc23 2011046763
[B]
www.ballantinebooks.com
Title page photograph © Zan Passante
Cover design: Jen Montgomery at Meat and Potatoes, Inc.
Cover photographs: Zan Passante
v3.1
What I had in mind was spending the night
with a stranger who loves me.
—DUDLEY MOORE, Arthur (1981)
SLOPPY SARAH
A Foreword by Chelsea Handler
Sarah Colonna believes that just because she dislodged her ass from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and moved all the way to Los Angeles, she no longer deserves to work at a fast-food chain called Chucky’s. She is wrong. I don’t know if there is a fast-food chain called Chucky’s, but if there is, that’s where she deserves to be.
I met Sarah at an improvisation class in the Valley when we were both twenty-one years old. We were magnetically drawn to each other because we both looked like we were in our mid-forties. The class was an embarrassment of riches and a testament that everything happens for a reason. Had I not looked to a sixty-year-old wannabe actor/comic for direction in weaving the name of a city and a profession, yelled out by another classmate, into a hilarious Southwest-level comedy bit, I would never have seen Sarah in her underwear. We have smoked cigarettes while wearing our Invisalign. Well, I was wearing mine, but she needs it.
Shortly after I met Sarah she inherited a cat from a male friend of hers who died. I felt bad that her friend had died, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of keeping someone else’s cat. I knew she had to be from the South or the Midwest, and at the time both of those areas meshed together in my mind, so it really didn’t matter. What mattered is that she kept that cat and it is still fucking alive.
We spent a lot of time together drinking excessively and waiting tables to pay for the former. She drove a smelly white Mustang with doors the size of chaise lounges and I drove a Toyota Echo. Both of those cars survived a lot of fast food, a lot of alcohol spilling, a lot of men, a lot of drive-bys, and a lot of fender benders that were not reported to the LAPD.
She paired that feculent Mustang with a horrifying haircut that I imagined you would find on a secretary from Omaha who worked full-time at a potato plant. I told her repeatedly to let her hair grow out, especially after I saw her license picture once, when we were both proving to each other how old we actually were. She had long blond hair when she was in college at the University of Arkansas and looked ten times better than the girl whose glassy eyes I was barely staring into. We were both drunk on her bed wondering why no one thought we were our actual age. At thirty-five we still have the same problem, so the idea that you grow into it is a complete lie.
We started doing stand-up together somewhere around 1997 and one of us would stop, and then start again, then one of us would stop; then we’d start again. The problem is we hung out so much that our stand-up was too much alike and people would get us confused all the time. All we both talked about was drinking and being broken up with by AM/PM mini-mart managers. We both kind of hated it, but knew there was really no other option for either one of us to get anywhere in life in the real world, and we were both too lazy to change our material. Sarah had more of an acting background. I had more of a bad-attitude background. Our biggest priority was fun and Sarah is probably the funniest person I know and I happen to know a lot of funny people. Unfortunately, none of them are the people I work with.
Cut to almost fifteen years and ten boyfriends later. She and I get to work together every day and I have forced her to share an office with one of the loudest Jewish eaters in the history of West Los Angeles. She is a huge part of Chelsea Lately and After Lately and is by far the most popular person in the office. Everyone loves Sarah. She is my favorite and she will be yours, too. If I write any more, this will start to sound like a eulogy. We’ve come a long way from using our debit cards at Del Taco. We both only eat organic Mexican now; excluding every other Thursday, when Chuy has us over for brunch.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
SLOPPY SARAH:
A FOREWORD by Chelsea Handler
WHERE DO I START?
HOW MANY POLACKS DOES IT TAKE TO RUIN A MARRIAGE?
VOLUN-TEARS
HYMEN GO SEEK
FRIENDS WITHOUT BENEFITS
ALCOHOL IS FOR CLOSURES
CABO WOBBLE
TRUNDLE BEDS AND MASTURBATORS
HELL CAT
THE LIST
BIKINI ROCK BOTTOM
REALLY BAD HAIR DAY
LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE
DIRTY THIRTY
THE CUSTOMER IS NEVER RIGHT
MOVE IT OR LOSE IT
ALONE TIME
CLOSING ARGUMENT
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
About the Author
WHERE DO I START?
I’m sitting alone in my apartment with a big glass of vodka next to me. I’ve filled it three times so far, and it’s only 4 P.M. Whatever, it’s Sunday.
I’m trying to figure out how to start this book. I’ve ended it, but I haven’t started it. That’s how I do a lot of things. I get to the end of a meal much faster than I should, like I’ve been given the last hamburger on earth and someone is about to rob me. I walk like I’m being chased. I tend to fuck first and ask questions later.
I’m thirty-six years old, but I don’t feel like it. Some days I feel like I’m twenty-one, some days I feel like I’m pushing sixty. I work really hard and because of that I believe I should be able to play really hard. It’s not easy to find a guy who can handle that. It’s also not easy to find a guy who doesn’t mind that at one point in my life, I slept with somebody named “Paul’s friend.”
To the naked eye, I’m completely responsible. I pay my bills not only on time, but early. I return emails and phone calls in a prompt manner. I won’t go near an egg that is one second past its expiration date. I’ve always known what I want to do with my life professionally. But if you ask me what I want in my personal life, forget it.
I always wanted to get married, until it looked like someone might want to marry me. I was sure I didn’t want kids, then for a couple of months I wanted kids, then a couple of months later I thought kids were
horrible. I loved someone so much that I broke up with him because I didn’t want to get hurt. Then when he proved he loved me back, I broke up with him again. I’m a fucking mess, but so are you. Most of us are. I don’t just mean women. Men are a mess, too. We’re all in this together.
We all have two very different personalities living inside us and sometimes those people are at war with each other. It’s confusing to see what two completely different paths can offer you. My mom showed me that if you lived close to your family, you always had a birthday party. You also always had a big Thanksgiving dinner, a big Christmas, an Easter egg hunt. Maybe those events became annoying, but you always knew you could rely on them. And you always had each other.
My dad showed me that if you went off on your own, you could have the career that you always wanted. Your family might change with each marriage and you might have to move around, feel alone for a while, and make new friends, but you’d always be climbing the ladder. Plus you could go on really nice vacations and stay in hotels with nice comfy robes that could be yours for the reasonable price of eighty-nine dollars.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I want both. Or I want it all. Or I only want part of both. I don’t know. I just know that you don’t always end up happy with what you thought would make you happy. You’ve probably been there a time or two yourself. You can’t always want what you get.
HOW MANY POLACKS DOES IT TAKE
TO RUIN A MARRIAGE?
At the time of my parents’ divorce, I was five years old and we were all living in Dallas. Lori came into our lives soon after. My mom’s family was in Arkansas; she went there to look for a place for us to live so that she’d have a support system now that she was going to be a single mom. While she was gone, Lori stayed at our house in Dallas. She didn’t seem to have many housekeeping skills, so I knew she wasn’t a maid. Dad also suggested we didn’t mention the amount of time Lori spent at our house to Mom, so I knew she wasn’t a friendly gal pal. It all seemed to tie together to the time that Mom locked the dead bolt on the front door and then broke a broomstick in half and shoved it into the track of our back sliding-glass door. It was pretty late, so I asked her if she was scared that someone was going to break in. She just smiled and told me to go to bed. I woke up later when my dad tried to climb through a window and didn’t fit. The next day, when I asked Dad why he got home after midnight he told me that he had worked late with Lori. This woman was around at really inconvenient times.
My older sister, Jennifer, and I were flower girls in Dad and Lori’s wedding. Neither of us was too pumped up about the event, but we showed up and did our jobs. I didn’t like weddings to begin with. I found them long and boring and it cut into the time I would normally spend playing “Charlie’s Angels” with my sister. She was brunette, so she played Jaclyn Smith’s character. I was awesome, so I played Cheryl Ladd’s. The third Angel we just pretended was on vacation, because nobody we lived near wanted to be Kate Jackson. We had water guns and a telephone that didn’t work so that we could report to “Charlie.” Since we didn’t have a brother, we considered ourselves very lucky that on the show nobody ever saw Charlie.
This wedding in particular really had me in a foul mood. I didn’t like my new stepmom. She was annoying and made me eat some sort of salmon dish with the skin around it while she said things like “one day your mom and I will be the best of friends.” I’d stare at her, try to count in my head all of the times my mom had called her a slut, spit my dinner into a napkin, and vow to hate her forever. She was also Polish, which made for lots of fun Polack jokes for Jennifer and me. Dad didn’t find them amusing.
I tried to display my distaste for their union. I refused to eat cake at the reception, which at six was my way of saying “fuck you.” The whole thing took place in my old backyard, where I used to live with my family in Dallas. Now it was my dad’s house with a new woman who sucked and had a jacked-up nose. Lori made Jennifer and me wear brown floral skirts that went past our knees and off-white shirts that buttoned so high up the neck I thought I was going to choke to death. I went to my old room right after they exchanged vows, and on the way I mentioned to a dozen people that Lori’s nostrils were a lot bigger than my mom’s.
“If you’d like to see a photo comparison, I have one ready,” I told one of my dad’s co-workers. Nobody bit on the offer. Just as well, I needed to get to sleep. I was going back to Arkansas the next day and I needed all of my energy for wowing the flight attendants with my wit. “What has four legs and won’t live longer than two years?” I’d ask them. One woman would guess a hamster; the other would be so stumped she wouldn’t even have a guess. I’d smile proudly and deliver the punch line perfectly: “My dad’s new marriage!”
I was hilarious. I made my first mental note to myself to become a comedian when I grew up.
By the way, their marriage lasted about two years. The day Dad asked me, “How do you get a one-armed Polack out of a tree?” I knew it was over.
When they separated, Lori sent letters to my sister and me asking if we could stay in touch and still be friends. I guess she didn’t realize we weren’t friends when she and Dad were married. I thought I had made it obvious that I never liked her. I made a mental note to make that more clear to people in the future.
While it only took my dad a handful of months to remarry, my mom was not interested in dating. She was a single mom living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was too busy working and raising us to care about finding a man. She probably also hated men for a while, but I wasn’t old enough to figure that out yet.
After the divorce, her first job was at a school cafeteria. She refused to work at our school, because she thought we’d be embarrassed. I told her of course I wouldn’t be embarrassed that my mom was a lunch lady, then ran to my room and thanked God that she had chosen a different school. I also apologized to Him for lying to her, but it seemed like a necessary one.
After a bit of prodding from some friends, Mom decided to join a singles’ group. In my mind it wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know if they even have those anymore; I think online dating has replaced them. Later on in the book, you’ll find out why I think online dating sucks ass. Stick with me here, it’s a really humiliating story. I promise.
I pictured my mom’s singles’ group taking place in one of those weird banquet rooms at a hotel. There’s a long table set up in front covered with name tags. Mom walks up and finds hers: HELLO, MY NAME IS CHERYL. She pins it to her red mock turtleneck, smoothes out her Lands’ End slacks, and nervously walks into the room. She immediately heads for the refreshment table and scans the contents—coffee and donuts—then fixes herself a cup of decaf; she doesn’t want to get too wound up. She notices a couple of people looking at her. Oh, good, people are already noticing me. She starts to relax, then finds their gazes to be strange. It feels like they are smirking, laughing. Oh, no, she thinks to herself. They must all know that my husband left me and that he is already remarried. I must smell like a victim. She starts thinking that this was a terrible idea. Why did I let anybody talk me into this? What the hell am I doing here? she wonders. She starts to feel dizzy. She looks around frantically for the ladies’ room. She walks briskly to the restroom; she just needs a minute to compose herself. She runs in and finds the bathroom empty. Thank God, a minute alone. She walks to the sink and turns on the faucet. She runs cold water over her hands and then onto her face. As she rises from the sink she opens her eyes to look at herself in the mirror. Horror washes over her. She forgot to take off her hair net after work. She rips it off, throws it in the trash, and leaves the hotel. Maybe next time, she decides as she makes her way to her car.
At least that’s what I always imagined it was like. I watch a lot of Lifetime movies.
At some point she found her groove in the group. She had a few dates with a couple of different people. Mom had become friends with some of the other women, and one of them tipped her off to someone who could babysit us while she went out. I don’t remember the
babysitter’s name. I just know I called her “Penny,” which was short for Pentecostal, because, well, she was Pentecostal. I didn’t really know what that was at the time. My mom was Methodist and my dad was busy. I went to church from time to time with Mom but there wasn’t much to our religion. Everybody was nice and it didn’t seem like there were a ton of rules. The preacher did a sermon, a couple of hymns were sung, someone passed around the offering tray, and we were out. Pretty basic. That was not the case with Penny. She took her religion very, very seriously. She refused to cut her hair; I think she thought it was a direct line to God. It was long and stringy and almost touched the ground, kind of like Crystal Gayle but without the hit records. From what I could tell, her religion didn’t like skin, because she wore long, straight skirts and shirts that buttoned all the way up to her chin. Her outfits kind of reminded me of what I had to wear when Dad married Lori.
When I first met Penny I asked Mom if she was Amish, but Mom told me never to ask Penny that to her face. So the next time I saw her, I asked. She told me that she was not Amish, but thanked me for the interest in her life.
“I’m Pentecostal,” she continued. “Would you like me to explain to you what my religion is?”
“Maybe next time. I’m pretty wiped,” I lied. God immediately got me back because now I had committed to going to bed at 7 P.M.
One night Mom had a date on a Wednesday. That was Penny’s church night, so she was never available to sit for us. Mom called her anyway, thinking maybe just this one time she’d need the money and skip church. Obviously Mom had never really paid any attention to Penny because she would never miss church. Unfortunately for me, my previous inquiry into Penny’s religion had stuck in her mind. She told Mom that she would gladly watch Jennifer and me. She’d just take us to church with her. I couldn’t believe I had to go to church on a Wednesday night. This seemed unfair.
“We have to go to church so that you can go on a date!” I yelled in as high a pitch as I could get my voice to. It doesn’t go that high. I’m often confused for a man on the phone.
Life As I Blow It Page 1