I did realize that booking a commercial wasn’t a career maker, especially when it only aired in Canada. I was a few months from turning twenty-five and so far my life wasn’t turning out as planned. But at least I was more hopeful now.
I met another comic, Ira Goldstein, and thought he was really cute. He did stand-up and had a job doing promos at NBC. The latter part was nice because he had a real job, like Kevin had, but it sounded more fun and he seemed to like it. I’d gone for responsible, and I’d gone for complete messes; with Ira I sensed something different. He had that funny-but-responsible combo that I really needed. Funny would keep me from getting bored and responsible would keep me from getting unemployment.
I didn’t care that Ira was Jewish. In fact, I didn’t realize he was until Chris Franjola explained to me that the name “Ira Goldstein” might as well be “Jewey Jew-Jew.” One thing about growing up in a small town in Arkansas was that I was really sheltered from anything but plain old white Southern people. This can go two ways: You can either emerge really closed-minded and slightly racist, or you can be so used to seeing everybody the same way that you continue to do that, no matter who you meet. I like to believe I emerged the latter. When I told my grandpa that I was dating a Jewish guy he asked, “So he’s cheap?” He emerged the former.
I hadn’t spent much time with Ira. We’d had a couple of good conversations in which we both figured out that we loved bad movies and Mötley Crüe. There was something very sweet about him, but also very smart. He was a lot different from the other guys I had dated, and as far as I was concerned, that was a good thing.
He called me one afternoon and asked me if I wanted to go to something called Burning Man. It’s a big outdoor festival in the middle of a desert where people congregate and some display their creativity through art, music, or a really dumb costume. I think it used to actually mean something, but now it’s just a place to go for a week to do mushrooms and ecstasy. Ira had told me that he was going with a few guys, and one had backed out. He offered me the fall-out spot.
I said yes without really thinking, which trumped Quebec as the most spontaneous thing I’d ever done. I still do very few things that aren’t well thought out, with the exception of sex. I told myself that in agreeing to do this I was really branching out, then went to my friend’s house and borrowed an eighties prom dress so that I could fit in for costume night.
Getting to the festival requires flying to Reno, then driving for a couple of hours. Ira and his friends had already rented an RV, which we’d be sleeping in. All I had to do was get on a plane, which was perfect because outside of that I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I was nervous.
Once I landed in Reno and met up with Ira I felt better—he was way too adorable to have friends who would gang-rape me. In fact I started to realize that it was a bold move for him to invite a girl he didn’t know that well to the desert with his two best friends for four days. I knew how brutal guys could be from my own male friends. I focused on not seeming drunk and stumbled over to introduce myself to his buddies. After a slight delay of forty-five minutes when I couldn’t find my bag even though it was right behind me, we left the airport.
We all hit it off immediately and the drive was fun. When we got to the camp, the first thing we saw was a guy standing in the back of his pickup truck singing “Born to Run” to two other people through a portable karaoke machine. I was in heaven.
Although, thanks to my family, I was certainly used to camping, this was nothing like what I’d experienced in the past. It was crazy hot during the day and freezing at night. We had no running water. The guys had packed a ton of bottles for drinking and for the occasional attempt at an armpit wash. I gave myself a little pat on the back for remembering to pack some Always feminine wipes since Ira had warned me that the shower situation was grim. I also took long walks to the outhouse every day. There was no way I was going number two in an RV.
I always saw something ridiculous when I wandered around. I saw a guy riding his bike completely naked, which seemed both brave and painful. There were “techno” tents set up for raves. One group of guys had built a huge, crazy maze. I wandered in and smoked pot, which I don’t do well, then ended up sitting in a corner of the maze until someone came by and led me to the exit.
The second night, one of Ira’s friends suggested we do mushrooms. I had never done them before and I was still afraid of drugs. Pot was all I had ever tried and I wanted to keep it that way. As far as I knew, the worst thing alcohol did was make you puke and/or forget stuff. Those were two consequences I was comfortable with. I didn’t like the idea of anything that might make me lose complete control and jump off a building or run through a glass door, which is what I was convinced mushrooms would do. That being said, when Ira’s friend offered them to me I said “Sure!” and ate a handful. After all, this was the new, spontaneous Sarah. I needed to take mushrooms to get myself to the next level. It was a horrible, horrible idea.
When the mushrooms started to take effect, I began to realize I was in the middle of nowhere with three guys I barely knew, and thousands of other people who were carrying glow sticks that I started to think were actually butcher knives. What am I doing here? Am I insane? Too bad I had that thought, because that’s when it hit me that I was going insane. Ira looked at me, noticed that things were headed downhill fast, and suggested he and I go back to the RV. He slowly guided me back to our camping spot, reassuring me that once we got there I was going to be okay.
“You’re probably just overwhelmed,” he told me. “You just need to sit down and take a few deep breaths.”
He sat with me in the trailer and tried to get my mind off the fact that I was losing it. He asked me lots of questions about myself but all I could think about was what camping was like when I was growing up. I didn’t understand why it had to be so different now, other than the fact that my mom fed me biscuits and gravy rather than hallucinogens.
He listened while I talked about how much my family liked to go camping, and how there was an unspoken competition among them all about who had the better camping trailer. I was definitely not making sense, because Ira thought I meant that my family actually held an annual trailer competition. I was frustrated at how white trash that sounded, but I couldn’t fix it. I was just a floating mouth that was babbling while underneath it all my brain was reeling with images of me in a straitjacket.
I pictured my mom telling people what kind of potential I’d had before I lost my mind. People would agree and say it was sad I allowed myself to be pulled into the world of drugs.
“I thought she was smarter than that, but I guess I was wrong,” she’d sigh as she completed the paperwork to have me committed.
Ira sat with me all night until eventually the mushrooms wore off. I had curled up on the sad little RV bed and he had curled up next to me. When I woke up in the morning I was relieved to figure out that nothing had happened between us, and that I was still sane.
I rolled over and looked at him. He was wide awake. “I think I’ll just stick to drinking for the rest of the trip,” I announced.
That night his friends suggested we do ecstasy. Jesus, had nobody seen what had happened to me the night before?
“I can’t do any more drugs,” I told them.
“It’s okay, I promise. Nobody I know has ever had a bad trip on ecstasy,” his friend urged.
“Has anyone you know ever had a bad trip on mushrooms?” I asked.
“Totally, all the time.”
“Thanks for the heads-up on that last night.”
His other friend piped in. “Tonight is when they actually ‘burn the man.’ It’s the big event. Everyone will be on E. You have to do it!”
“She doesn’t have to.” Ira grabbed my hand. “You don’t have to.”
“Are you going to?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“Then so am I,” I said. I figured if the conservative Jewish guy was doing it, I should, too.
A
side from the burning-of-the-man ceremony, it was costume night. I dropped a hit of ecstasy and headed out to the big gathering place wearing a teal prom dress and no shoes. I barely recognized who I was, but felt a huge sense of pride that I was once again stepping so far out of my comfort zone.
Ira’s friend was right. Doing ecstasy was a blast. I danced around in circles and laughed and talked to complete strangers. I marveled at how good the air felt. At one point I had wandered off from the group. I plopped down by some guy who immediately started talking to me.
“What do you do?” he asked.
“I’m a bartender,” I replied. I was also a waitress, but bartender sounded more impressive.
“Cool. How old are you?” he asked.
“Almost twenty-five!” I said excitedly. I loved ecstasy. This was the first time that I’d been excited about turning twenty-five.
“Why are you almost twenty-five and just a bartender?”
I stared at him for a second, or maybe it was ten minutes. I felt like someone was letting the air out of my big new balloon.
“I don’t know.” Shit, why am I just a bartender? I felt myself start to panic.
We sat there in silence for a moment, then I stood up and walked away.
I heard him try to call after me but I kept going. I didn’t want to let what he said ruin my night. I decided that I was becoming stronger and more independent—that, or it was just really good ecstasy.
I spotted Ira standing with the other guys and walked up to them. I was wearing a prom dress, and now I had found my date.
“There you are!” he said with a huge smile. “Are you having fun?”
“I’m having the best time.”
I meant it. Bad trip and rude guy aside, the past few days had been fantastic. I was really, really starting to like Ira.
When we returned to L.A., our relationship quickly escalated to full-on boyfriend and girlfriend. I was crazy about him, and he was crazy about me. It also turned out he was a lightweight. But I decided it was cute that he got a buzz off one Stoli Vanilla and ginger ale. It was different from how I felt when I was with Kevin. Ira didn’t judge me or make me feel self-conscious. I could be goofy, or I could be drunk, and he didn’t roll his eyes at me either way. He seemed to like the real me. So I wanted to like the real him.
I remember once going out for Mexican food with him. He ordered a blended strawberry margarita. Normally that kind of behavior would prompt me to say, “Do you crave strawberries when you’re on your period?” but with Ira I held my tongue. He was an aspiring writer. He wanted to write plays and TV shows and did really adult things like stay home during the week when he was working on a project, but he managed to stay fun. I figured maybe he had his shit together because he didn’t drink five tequilas on the rocks on a Tuesday night. In solidarity, I ordered a frozen strawberry margarita, too. It was a very loving and adult move for me.
I started to think that maybe this relationship was going to be a good influence on me. I had been panicking for months that my career hadn’t taken off yet. I wasn’t sure if I wanted a family … but the career, I knew that was what I wanted. Now I was with someone who seemed to know how to make things happen for himself, and maybe that would rub off on me.
A couple of months into my relationship with Ira, I got an email from Marc. It was the first I’d heard back since sending him that email about the commercial. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his name, and my hands shook a little as I read the email. It said that he was going to be in L.A. for two nights and he wanted to get together. I felt like I was doing something wrong even reading the email, but I had to see him.
After hours of laboring over how to handle it, I settled on talking to Ira about Marc’s visit. I decided that if I told him what was going on, it was okay for me to do it. I’d see Marc, I’d tell him that I had a boyfriend, and we’d just have a nice meal as friends. I was in an adult relationship and this was an adult situation that needed to be handled with an adult attitude. I shoved aside the urge to lie about the whole thing, meet Marc in a hotel, and fuck his brains out.
Ira handled the conversation pretty well. He said that if I wanted to see Marc then I should see him. He acted tough, but I could tell that it was bothering him. To make matters worse, the same night that I was going to be able to see Marc, Ira and I had plans to go to a friend’s party.
“If that’s the only night you can see him, I can just go to the party by myself,” he said graciously. “No problem!” But the look on his face told me it was a problem.
As I was getting ready to meet Marc, I felt like I was going to throw up. I was nervous and excited and guilty. When I started to obsess about what to wear, I realized that seeing him was a bad idea. I obviously had some unsettled feelings for him. One drink and I might end up convincing myself it wouldn’t be cheating if he just went down on me for a few minutes.
If I wanted the relationship with Ira to work I was going to need to let this night go. I called Marc, told him I was sorry that I couldn’t make dinner, and drove to meet my boyfriend at the birthday party. The look of relief on Ira’s face when I walked in the door was all I needed to know that I had made the right decision.
For several years of my life I dreaded every December, knowing I’d have to go home for Christmas and try to make it seem like things were great in Los Angeles. Maybe they were okay; I wouldn’t know because I had set my expectations so high for when I’d be doing what. All I knew was that I didn’t want my family to think I’d made a bad decision. And I didn’t want to have to run into any of the annoying, pissy girls I went to high school with in Wal-Mart and answer their barrage of questions.
“Why are you living in California if all you’re doing is serving Jack-and-Cokes?” the last girl I’d run into had asked.
“Well, I’m just doing that for now. You have to have a night job so you can go to auditions and stuff,” I said in an attempt to defend myself.
“Well, why don’t you forget about that little fantasy of yours and come back! You can get a job easily. They have bars here, you know!”
“I know, your husband is in one every night,” I said with a smile and walked off. “Oh, and if you’re looking for the Slim-Fast, try aisle five.” I didn’t actually say that last part, but I wish I had. I was just trying to impress you, the reader.
My birthday is also in December. The year I was with Ira I spent Christmas in Arkansas but came home in time to spend my twenty-fifth birthday with him. When it struck midnight and it was officially my birthday, Ira lit up. He smiled and kissed me and told me happy birthday. I started crying.
“Oh my God, you’re crying! Oh, shit, what did I do? Should I leave?”
Ira was three years older than me, but I was his first real girlfriend. He had no idea how to handle female emotions.
“You didn’t do anything!” I cried. “You’re perfect! It’s just—I’m such a loser. I’m twenty-five and I have to wear a vest and a bow tie to work every day. I can’t believe you’re even with me.”
Ira held me and told me how silly I was.
“Twenty-five is so young, Sarah. You don’t have to have everything figured out yet.”
“You have everything figured out. I bet you even did when you were my age.”
“I don’t have anything figured out, except that I love you.”
A huge sense of relief washed over me. His words made me smile, so I allowed my boyfriend to make me feel better. He took me to dinner that night at the Palm, which is a famous old restaurant in Hollywood. It was pretty expensive in comparison to places I had been eating at with my Mirabelle money. I couldn’t believe when you ordered a steak all you got was the steak. In Arkansas that would have come with a baked potato, vegetable, AND you could add a house salad for a dollar. Here you had to order all of the sides separately and they were like eight dollars each. I ordered up a storm and reminded myself to tell my grandpa how not cheap Ira was—at least for that night. Usually he was actually kind of cheap.<
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There was a several-week phase that he stayed home every night to work on something, so we barely saw each other. He preferred I didn’t sleep over, so that he didn’t “lose focus.” So I went out with my friends more than I had in a while. I drank lots, then when he’d ask me about my night I’d tell him I’d gotten home early and had only had a couple of drinks. I appreciated that he worked hard. I worked hard at trying to get my career going, too. But I’ve always believed you also have to have fun. Otherwise what’s the point? Maybe Ira didn’t know how to do both. He seemed to go to such an extreme when in “work mode.” And I felt really left out.
Whatever my insecurities were, they were magnified by the feeling that I wasn’t good enough or doing enough. Now it was like it felt with Kevin, but this time the guy wasn’t judging me. I was judging myself.
Once again I wasn’t the same person when I was with my boyfriend as I was when I was without him. Before, I’d stay over and I would wake up and make breakfast for him and watch TV with him and feel that “couple” thing that I assumed was like being married. If marriage were as simple as bacon and eggs and a Friends rerun, I’d be a fucking expert. But now I felt shut out and I was getting restless. I decided that I didn’t know what I was thinking before, but twenty-five was way too young to be tied down.
We broke up on July 2. Don’t ask why I remember that. I thought it was an incredibly romantic split because we both cried. A couple of days later I decided I needed to have fun so I went to Chris Franjola’s annual July Fourth party. This party was a mess. It was at his apartment complex pool—which is always gross. There was a ton of drinking, bad cheese dip, and lots of good hair band music. For some reason when Chris and his roommate thought of July Fourth, they thought of Mötley Crüe. Normally I’d be really on board with that, but since Mötley Crüe was the band Ira and I had bonded over, the sound of Vince Neil’s voice devastated me. “Don’t Go Away Mad” still does. That’s just a good fucking song.
Life As I Blow It Page 14