Girl Logic

by Iliza Shlesinger

  About two years ago, I got in bed with A Very Good Production, Ellen DeGeneres’s company. What I wanted to do was pitch a show about me and my life as a comedian. Which made sense; I mean, every meeting I took for the past three years, all anyone has ever talked about has been “women in comedy,” “funny women,” blah blah. I figured if Seinfeld, John Mulaney, Louie, and a smattering of other guys had gotten to write a show and proudly and openly proclaim that they were real-life stand-up comedians at the same time, who better than me to say, “I’m a woman and a stand-up, and this is my story”?

  Ellen’s company liked the idea, and they said I should get paired with a writer to draft an outline. At that time I had written one other script with Sex and the City’s Cindy Chupak. So the idea of being paired with a powerful, more seasoned writer seemed like the logical way to go. After all, I wasn’t a sitcom writer.

  A few weeks later I got a call telling me that this “acclaimed” writing team was interested in me. Knowing that I don’t know everything, I met with them and signed on. Did I love them? Meh. But when the bigger picture is getting a show on a network, I decided I could learn to like them, especially if I had to learn that lesson from atop a pile of money.

  Then… I got another call. They didn’t like the comedian idea. Now they wanted to do a show about me and my dating life. I hated their take on it, and I asked if I could at least say I was a stand-up, so we’d each get something. They said I could mention it, but it was really about dating. OK, deep breath and repress the rage at being pigeonholed. Eye on the prize. We took some meetings and they wrote an outline.

  For those of you who don’t know, in Hollywood there’s this time called “pitch season,” when writers, comedians, and producers go to the networks to pitch ideas for a script.

  A week before we were set to pitch the dating idea, the writing team called Ellen’s production company: “We want full creative control.” Since there were two of them, they already had 50 percent control. This wasn’t a decision they were making after mulling it over; this was a strategic move, done at the last minute, to put pressure on me to say, “Oh no! I don’t want to miss pitch season! Yes! You can have control, just get me my show!”

  It didn’t feel right. Creatively, emotionally, and ethically. So I said, “The idea that after this many years of me writing my own stand-up, that these two think they could write my voice and that I wouldn’t be at every meeting and in every writer’s room for this show is insane. They can’t have full creative control. The answer is no.”

  They thought I was nobody, so they could bully me. Their people called back and said they weren’t budging. I was faced with the idea of being underestimated and having to compromise myself creatively. I’m never opposed to taking advice and guidance from someone smarter; I’m always into the idea of collaborating with someone better than me. But I didn’t know these people, and, well, they were assholes.

  I called my agent back and said I was walking away. I knew that if I’d gotten this far without them, I could do it again.

  The next week I had a call with my executive at AVGP. I decided to lay it all out there and said, “I think it’s time to do a show where a woman gets to say she is a stand-up comedian, and there is no woman more qualified than me. This is my life and I want to write about it.”

  I knew he was going to say no. The silence on the other end of the line told me that this, like so many of my ideas, would be a “hard pass.”

  Then I heard, “We totally agree.” And I said, “In theory, or?…”

  He laughed. “We want to work with you; we are invested in you.”

  I had never heard those words before! I choked out, “You mean on this or like, hypothetically in the future?…”

  No, he meant this; he meant now.

  I added, “I want to write it myself.” He said, “We totally agree.”

  I quickly added, “And… I want a pony!” Nothing.

  But a few months later, I got to write that pilot myself. And someone even bought it.

  I had earned the chance to create the show I wanted on my terms. I got there by betting on myself and refusing to sell my ideas short.

  This past year of my life has been all about betting on myself, even when it comes to this book. I’ve pitched versions of Girl Logic for years. The talk show I got on Freeform in 2017 was the result of four late-night pilots on three different networks over the course of five years. My first theater tour in 2016 was the result of more than seven years of nonstop road-dogging. My hair is slowly starting to get thicker because I started taking vitamins! See, literally nothing other than zits, regret, and flowers bloom overnight.

  Figuring out what makes you happy can be a minute-to-minute adventure or a lifelong endeavor, but never stop. I know one thing for sure: whatever you want is out there, and the universe wants you to find it. (Unless it’s thinner thighs, in which case I’m pretty sure I’ll be taunted by the universe forever.)

  Afterword

  I Care, You Care, We All Care, but… Not All the Time

  This book was not written as an autobiography because, at thirty-four, I still don’t feel I have accomplished enough to write it all down and say, “This is the story of how I made it.” The reality is, I haven’t “made it” yet, and, even when I do, I doubt I will realize it. If anything, I could offer a guide on how to work really hard to get to the middle and explain the journey thus far. But I know about how girls think, I know what hard work in stand-up feels like, and I know that I have so much more to learn and accomplish. I also thought that writing from the perspective of someone still in the trenches would be helpful. Hindsight always brings relief. Once you’ve made your money and become a success, it’s easy to spout out platitudes like “just enjoy the ride.” But it’s hard to enjoy the ride when it’s making you nauseous and scared and you aren’t sure when it will be over. I wrote this book while on the ride. I’ll let you know how I feel when it’s over.

  As a woman in comedy, I have to lead with strength. As I did the emotional excavating of writing this book, I realized that something born out of necessity has grown into something of a detriment for me: I might be too tough. I know I’ve preached the idea that a woman can’t be too confident, and I definitely still believe that. But, on a personal note, being constantly prepared to fight has become… exhausting. I walk around tense and hypervigilant, poised to strike.

  It’s only within the past year that I’ve learned to let go of my obsession with what everyone else is doing and what everyone else thinks of me. I finally began to chill and take comfort in the fact that all I can do is, well, what I’m doing. Part of it came because I realized that I was fighting against something that would never change. People would never stop moving past me, things would never completely go my way.… But I would never stop trying. Me trying was the only thing I could control. That and not looking at social media as much! It’s all poison. It just reminds you that you aren’t perfect enough, famous enough, accomplished enough, and that everyone around you is dying of cancer and the planet is turning into a giant ball of melted ice caps and plastic. Want to know why you have anxiety? Because you hit the “Discover” button on Instagram too much.

  It can be hard to play passive, sit back, and not care. Or even pretend to not care. Women are taught that a lot of our success rides on our ability to be likeable. Men, however, are lauded for being stoic and remote, for not giving a fuck. On them, that’s considered attractive. No one questions what men are giving up by being so strong. No one says, “Sure, he kicks ass in the boardroom but he had to give up having kids.” No one calls a man an ice queen when he’s standoffish, says he just needs to get laid when he’s frustrated, or asks, “Wow, what’d your dad do to you?” when he’s angry.

  And this? It all just makes me even more determined to be true to myself in every circumstance. It no longer matters to me what people think of my strength, my occasional aloofness, or my bouts of rage about the state of humanity. I’m a woman and I get
mad. Don’t like it? Look away.

  Of course, Girl Logic makes it incredibly difficult to not give a fuck what people think of you, your decisions, your job, your… everything. Again, there’s the likability factor. Other people’s perceptions are a far greater enemy to women than they are to men, and they can be deadly. “She seems slutty,” “She seems like a ball buster,” “She seems like someone who reminds me of someone who hurt me.…” Some days all you can think is, “WHY TRY?!”

  The thing is, I have no interest in superfluous pain. I like winning, but I never throw the first punch. I don’t have the energy to try to win every fight anymore, and walking around constantly preparing myself to do battle only keeps me in a perpetual state of tension and anxiety. For years, if I looked at the Comedy Store lineup and saw a comic’s name that I didn’t like, for any reason—competition, disagreements, or even just random awkwardness—I would spend all night feeling nervous about running into them. One day I just stopped. I started asking myself, “What’s the worst that could possibly happen?” Are they gonna pull me aside and attack me? Nope. Worst case, we see each other, nod, and keep walking. It’s crazy how often we forget to have a rational discussion with ourselves about the worst possible outcome.

  See, somewhere between putting too much weight on being liked and being obnoxiously selfish lies your individual version of bliss. Everyone wants to be loved; everyone wants to feel included and appreciated. (Sometimes, the shittier someone is, the more they need outright adulation.) Women should be especially mindful of this as we claw our way to happiness. Give another girl a compliment every now and again, knowing she took just as long to get ready as you did (and her Girl Logic probably erroneously convinced her nothing in her closet would ever look cute enough). Be kind, be gracious, be above it all, and if none of that works, fuck what anyone else thinks—you tried.

  It might sound cynical, but one major lesson I’ve learned by living in Hollywood is that nothing we do really matters. That red-carpet dress you spent weeks finding? No one is gonna remember it next year. That date you went on when you gave the guy a weird impression and he ghosted on you immediately after dropping you off? Guess what—he’s married now and doesn’t think about you, just like you don’t remember half the guys you’ve blown off. Upsetting people, worrying about outfits, fretting over how you looked or sounded in a conversation—none of it matters because if I asked you right now what you wore or did or said last year on this day, you wouldn’t remember. Facebook would, but only your mom is looking through those lame digital albums it makes.

  Of course it’s hard to remember all that stuff in the moment, when you actually need it. Here’s an embarrassing anecdote, though, to illustrate. I remember being at the Netflix Emmy party a few years ago, and Orange Is the New Black was the belle of the ball. I don’t typically drink at events, but this one was different because, well, I was leaving early to meet a boy. On my way out of the party, I saw Adrienne C. Moore, who plays Tova. I had been so in love with her character arc that season, and I was a huge fan of the show for what it did for women—lesbians and women of color in particular.

  Anyway, in my buzzed excitement I trotted up to her and blurted out, “Oh my God, I’m such a fan! You were amazing in the episode when you converted to Judaism!” I was ready for us to bond over that scene; we would swiftly become best friends, obviously. Exhausted, not just from having come from the Governor’s Ball, but probably from a lifetime of white girls saying whatever they wanted to her, she looked at me and said, “That’s not me.”

  I was talking to the wrong actress. I was talking to Danielle Brooks, the actress who plays Taystee.

  God fucking no, I don’t think all black people look alike! It was a mortifying mistake, but I was drunk and overly excited and, to be totally fair, not wearing contacts and coming at her from afar. Regardless, in that moment, I wanted to throw a smoke bomb, yell, “THIS NEVER HAPPENED,” and disappear. As a rush of hot embarrassment washed over me, I remembered, “Wait… she has no idea who I am, and this doesn’t need to matter.” I said, “I sincerely apologize.” She told me it was fine, and I turned on my heels and waited for her to walk away.

  I felt horrible! But I took an odd comfort in knowing that what I’d said would probably be the last thing on her mind on a night as big as this. I truly hope she doesn’t remember it; I hope I didn’t taint her wonderful night with the memory of someone unintentionally saying something stupid. But I was never happier to not be famous and recognizable than in that moment.

  If anything, that forgiveness is something I chose to pay forward, a year later, when a waiter scurried up to me at the Upfronts and said “you’re my favorite stand up comic, I can’t believe I’m blanking on your name! Oh! Ilana Glazer!” Not only do I not look like her, she doesn’t do stand up. Still, I knew he was a fan of mine and perhaps simply said the more famous girl whose first name started with I.” I smiled, knowing it really didn’t matter and knowing he meant well.

  Truth is? Though very few things actually matter in the long run, Girl Logic can help you suss out what matters to you, personally, the most. Sure, strive to be kind, but you can’t always treat others the way you want to be treated because sometimes “others” are so dense, you’re pretty sure clubbing them over the head might be the only thing they’ll understand.

  I have to stop myself once an hour and remind myself that the universe isn’t against me. That the woman in front of me in line at CVS didn’t wake up and think, “I’m gonna make Iliza’s life miserable today.” (Honestly? Try as I might, I do believe there is a secret meeting in Los Angeles every morning at five where people gather and get their “Annoyance Assignments” for the day. I bet people are given tasks like, “just get in your car and drive on the freeway, any freeway; do whatever you can do to create more traffic and not contribute to society. Oh, and make sure that when your car breaks down, you never push it off to the shoulder.” Or the people at the airport who don’t know the rules. You know the ones. It’s like, “WE ARE IN A TSA LINE! YES, YOU HAVE TO THROW OUT YOUR FUCKING WATER! YOU HAVE HAD TO THROW IT OUT FOR THE PAST SIXTEEN YEARS, TODAY ISN’T ANY DIFFERENT! THERE IS STILL A WAR ON TERROR!”)

  But then I remember it doesn’t actually matter, that I don’t have to give a fuck about every little bump in the road. The minor irritations, the major fuck ups- yes they hurt, and it’s a minute to minute conscious decision to move past it and focus on the future.

  Girl Logic is all about the gray, and figuring out just how much you actually care about the stuff you think you care about. You’ll drain yourself of both energy and fucks-to-give if you throw them at every little thing. But the fact that I’m given the chance to create because I pushed for my chance to create, that’s what matters most to me.

  Your Girl Logic will prepare you for a million scenarios where things can go utterly wrong, and it will help you survive when everything falls apart. Rejection happens, but unless you’re dying, there’s no reason you can’t use your GL to help you create an even better opportunity. Anything good in this world was created by someone who cared enough to fail over and over. That’s why I feel sorry for kids who inherit money (and thereby power): they miss out on the thrill of failure and the rush that comes from rebuilding. See, GL will always help you rebuild. Whether it’s prompting you to try an insane (and awesome) new look after a terrible breakup, launch a new career after a job loss, shape a new life after a divorce, give chances to people who hurt you, or rethink your idea after you pitch a black version of Harry Potter called Black Magic that no one was into (I still have the outline if anyone wants), it behooves you to listen to your GL—at least, say, 75 percent of the time.

  At the beginning of this book, I explained that Girl Logic makes up the thought processes that help you weigh the past, present, and future in every little decision you make. I also said that most of your decisions won’t truly matter in the long run. So what can you do? You can give yourself a break when you’re tired, you can work hard wh
en it’s important, and you can try to remember that you are the one in charge of your own happiness. Also, I know this is hard to wrap one’s mind around, but most people are too selfish to ever try to make you unhappy. If someone pisses you off, it’s usually by mistake. If it’s deliberate, try feeling sorry for them because they’re jealous and deranged or they’re just a bully who had bad parents.

  Finally, allow me to leave you with the tips I give aspiring comics, aside from “be funny”:

  Be kind.

  Work hard.

  Don’t take shit from anyone.

  And remain merciful.

  My mother and me in 1986, in case my mom’s sweater didn’t give the year away.

  Michelle and me at the pool, outside of something that we used to call a 1-hour photo. Ask your parents what that is.

  Michelle and me in 2003. We had both just gotten off work at our summer jobs—I was a waitress at a place that still allowed customers to smoke cigarettes indoors. Here we’re waiting outside for the fake-ID store in Irving, Texas, to open.

  1992. Dad and Barbara’s wedding. As you can tell from the picture, I was totally cool with divorce.

  1993. Playing with leather scraps from my dad’s factory.

  1996. My best guy friends and me at camp.

  2001. The only girl in my high school improv troupe.

  Andriana and me in 2004, on Semester at Sea. Nowadays she is just as tan, but my face is less full.

  2008. The night I won Last Comic Standing. Pretty sure they legally had to make the logo half pink because there was a girl in the competition.