I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star

by Judy Greer

  The second mistake I made over and over again was not believing people when they told me that relationships should be easy. My mom told me when I was younger that relationships were work, but I took her literally. She was telling me this in response to people she knew getting divorced without working on their marital problems first. I know now that she was trying to teach me to be a good partner, a team player. She meant you have to work at keeping relationships good and healthy and strong, not that you had to work to make a bad relationship good. Oops.

  People ask Dean and me all the time if it was love at first sight when we met, if we just “knew” because we met on a blind date and are so perfect for each other. Together and separately we both give the same answer every time. No. I remember so vividly the moment I first saw Dean Johnsen. It wasn’t on Facebook, I don’t have that. Or Instagram, or Twitter, or even MySpace, Friendster, or the microfiche at the local library. It was the old-fashioned, 100-percent blind-date way. When I opened the front door. He was tall. He was handsome. He smiled brightly, and his eyes were happy. He seemed nice. Did my stomach do flips? No. Did I feel like I was having an out-of-body experience? No. Was I excited that he had a bottle of wine in his hand? YES.

  We had a totally normal first date. A predinner glass of wine on my deck, where we discussed different landscaping options (yawn) while Buckley sat next to Dean panting and staring, never taking his eyes off him for a second. Then we went to dinner at a loud, dark sushi restaurant and tried to make small talk, but it was too loud and too dark. When we finished dinner, we both had to use the bathroom before leaving, which was down a hallway that was even darker than the restaurant. The ladies’ room was just as dark as the hallway, and my eyes never really adjusted as I waited in the hallway for Dean to come out. There was a man standing there waiting for his date, just staring at me. I stared back for a second, but I quickly gave an uncomfortable smile and looked away, nervous Dean would come out of his bathroom and see me staring at another man in the hallway and be offended. But Dean was taking forever. All this time I could have been primping, I thought. I hurried so I didn’t seem like the kind of girl who took forever in the ladies’ room, even though I am totally that kind of girl. I was starting to get worried. What if he was allergic to something I ordered and was really sick? What if he went to the valet to get the car? Wait, what did we agree on? Was I supposed to wait in the hall for him? Or were we to meet at the valet stand? What if he left altogether because I was screaming all through dinner because it was so loud? Shit. And as this was all running through my head, this guy was still staring at me. “Fine,” I thought, “I can stare too.” Finally, the guy said, “Should we go?” SHIT! Shit, shit, shit, that is my date! Did I actually forget what my date looked like, even though I have been staring at his face for the last two hours? Yes. I squeaked out a “Sure. You?” And Dean answered, “Yes. Unless you want to hang out in this hallway longer?” “No, I’m good,” I said. We walked. I cringed.

  For the record, I would have gone out for a nightcap with him anyway, but after that debacle there was no way I was ending the night there. It was the Guinness across the street that finally loosened us up. About a year later I told Dean about that moment in the hallway and was thrilled to find out he was having the same panic attack I was! I guess the whole concept of love at first sight kind of slipped us by, considering that neither of us had any idea who we were staring at on our first date anyway.

  A book I read once quoted a man saying, “It wasn’t love at first sight, but it is now.” And I always think of that when people ask me about that first blind date. I really had no idea what he looked like, but after getting to know him on the phone for a few weeks prior, I decided it didn’t really matter. I liked talking to him on the phone. He made me laugh uncontrollably before we even met, and when I saw his number on my caller ID I picked up, no matter what. Still do, actually. Yes, when I opened my front door and he seemed clean and didn’t look like he had a record, I was pleased, but honestly I would have been excited to go out with him anyway.

  When I say that realizing I was in love with him snuck up on me, I really mean it. I just found myself making room for him in my schedule. I wanted to tell him good news first, and I wasn’t embarrassed to tell him the bad stuff. He was easy and fun to hang out with. We didn’t fight. He made me laugh really hard every time we spoke on the phone. He wasn’t jealous or competitive with me. He never judged. He was the first real grown-up I had ever dated, and it was easy. But the aha moment was when I was talking to my friend Sean about him and Sean said, “You know how I know he’s the one? Because you’ve never asked me what I think about him. Because for the first time you don’t care.” Aha.

  I told Dean I loved him for the first time waiting in line to use the bathroom at a restaurant in Austin, Texas, it seemed like the perfect place, it was another dark hallway, but this time I knew exactly who I was talking to.

  Drugstore Therapy

  I’VE YET TO HAVE A PROBLEM SO HUGE THAT A MIDNIGHT trip to a twenty-four-hour drugstore couldn’t give me at least a few moments of calm and clarity. I began my drugstore therapy in earnest during college. I lived dangerously close to a twenty-four-hour Walgreens, and my roommates and I spent many nights procrastinating on our schoolwork by scouring the shelves for some late-night beauty inspiration. It is where Janet and I would buy fashion magazines, which would then inspire another trip out to purchase the items required to make us look exactly like the models on the pages. It didn’t always work (tip: don’t try to dye your hair from brown to platinum blond using a box of hair bleach, or at least don’t let Janet do it), but we had fun, and who cares if my hair turned pink and orange? We were in college. My life was easier then, when my issues weren’t as big, but even now, while my problems are getting grander in scope, a new tube of lipstick or a travel-size body lotion still has the power to lighten my stress load a considerable amount. I’ve had this experience to a lesser degree at malls in the past, and trust me, if there was a mall open at 11:00 p.m., I’d probably hit that up too. But shopping decisions are bigger at malls, and I’m safer on a smaller scale. If I hate my lipstick the next day, it’s a less costly retail mistake than buying a new dress.

  Maybe it’s the aimless wandering under the fluorescent lights or the hopefulness that a new pack of pens promises. I’m not really sure, but CVS might just be my happy place. And not because of the abundance of ice cream and candy bars; in fact, I don’t usually buy food. Usually. For me, the draw is the products. Skin care, makeup, hair accessories … I am wired to believe that somewhere in those aisles the solution to my problem will be found. A new bottle of Nivea might make the girl who got the part I auditioned for pass on it. Revlon’s Orange Flip lipstick could very well make my ex-boyfriend fall down a flight of stairs (where he would turn up injured, not dead, jeez, I’m not that evil). Even a three-pack of Pilot fine-point pens purchased at 1:00 a.m. will probably make the network decide to pick up my pilot, or at least make some footage that was never filmed miraculously turn up in the editing room. WHAT? THESE THINGS COULD HAPPEN!

  OK, I know they will not happen, but there is something about a late-night drugstore run that promises change, and in these moments, all I really want is change. I want to not have the problem I am having. I want to be a different person, and maybe if I were different, my problem would be solved, or better yet, not exist at all. If I were cleaner, if my nails were Revlon Red, if my hair was coated in Moroccan oil, if I used Cetaphil to wash my face, as all dermatologists recommended and all celebrities claimed they did in the magazines also purchased in these late-night runs, my life would be hassle-free. I even went on my wedding day, although this trip was not to solve a problem, or to check out for a while, it was to savor a few stolen moments with my girls before the wedding would take over the day, as weddings tend to do. Everyone was telling me to steal a few moments with my groom during the reception, but what about my best friends? And what better place to do it than in the Walgreens across
from the hotel? Besides, I “needed” some face wash before I walked down the aisle, duh. I bought all of their favorite products, and while I used them up in the following months I thought of Janet, Kelly, and me walking up and down the aisles talking about our favorite lotions—not that I was about to walk down a more serious aisle at 5 p.m. that evening. We bonded and I felt calm and excited for this next stage of my life. For a while, my trips got a little crazy. I was producing and starring in a TV pilot about my life, and every night before I went home, I told my husband I had to “run an errand,” which was code for a drugstore run. He knew it, I didn’t need a code, but there was also an element of secrecy that I needed from it too. I didn’t want to be running a real errand; I wanted to be selfish about my trip. I wanted it to be my secret place where I could lose myself in whatever was catching my eye. Not on a mission for Ziploc baggies for tomorrow’s school lunches, I wanted to wander, I wanted to discover, I wanted to silence my phone, be by myself, and think of nothing. I don’t know how else to describe this to a man, except to say it’s my sports.

  While I was shooting my pilot, every day, without fail, something would happen that was completely out of my control, and I needed to get that back. The network throws out the whole script days before we start production? St. Ives Apricot Scrub. We can’t find an actor to play my husband? A pack of black Goody no-break hair elastics and a leopard-print nail file. The cut isn’t working and our editor refuses to scour through the footage to find more options? Neutrogena makeup remover wipes, Burt’s Bees lip balm, CoverGirl NatureLuxe lip shine, and Aveeno shave cream. The day after that particular drugstore run, the editor still seemed to hate me, and the pilot hadn’t changed one bit, but when I got there in the morning, my lips were a pretty color, my face was superclean, my legs were shaved, and I was ready to start solving some problems. It was all I could control that night, and no matter how shallow I may sound, it helped me sleep a little better too.

  For a while I had a new partner in crime for my late-night habit, my stepdaughter, Emilee. She was usually game, no matter how much homework she had. Maybe it’s because she knew I would pay, or maybe she really did need more conditioner, but if that were the case, wouldn’t she just ask me to pick some up for her? I could see the twinkle in her eye while we were parking the car. And like me, she prefers to shop alone. We would wait for the glass doors to part and go our separate ways until we felt ready to face the world again. But now that she can drive herself, she doesn’t need me to take her anymore, she goes alone, which is really how it should be. I don’t know if she picked up the habit from me or her mom, or maybe it’s just in all our lady genes, but I am confident the therapy will serve her well in the future. And if she did get it from me, I’m thrilled I could teach her something of real value.

  Dear Laura A. Moses: A Letter to a Friend

  Dear Laura A. Moses,

  I’d like to start by saying I really like you. In a platonic way, but still, a lot. I am so thankful that we met while shooting Playing for Keeps (I still prefer the original title). I have great memories of making that movie because of you and Biel. The “Shreve” will always be a place that I remember fondly. Swimming in the pool at your rental, the alligator in the middle of the road when I drove home one night, lunches on the dock at base camp, it was really fun! You have become a really great friend to me, and I am so thankful to you for introducing me to Transcendental Meditation and Lynn. I hope you and I can visit your hometown of Fairfield, Iowa, one day—I’m dying to go there after hearing all your stories. You are a real inspiration. You’re smart, witty, and beautiful. You have such great style and can talk me into or out of anything, that’s how much I trust you. I look up to you in so many ways. I feel you have a strong moral compass and an original outlook on life.

  Do you remember that Friday night when you were coming home from work in New York and we spur-of-the-moment met for happy hour at Little Dom’s? That night was so fun! I got to see your amazing apartment, and you lent me your cute Nikes? Remember? The next day was April 20, Record Store Day, and Dean Johnsen rented a party bus for his record club? Remember? You told me I should wear your shoes that day because they are so cute and perfect for party-bus record shopping. The Nike Dunk Sky Hi wedges, navy with white flecks? Well, I did wear them the next day, just like you told me to. I always listen to you, and you were right again, they are the best shoes ever! So cute and comfortable, and the navy is perfect. Really elongates the leg when worn with skinny blue jeans. I decided early in the day I had to buy a pair for myself, so did my friend Jackie. I planned on ordering them online that night!

  The party bus was so fun! As you can probably imagine, we drank a lot. There was a lot of beer on the bus, we had a driver and a killer playlist playing while we did our record store hop, we even stopped to do shots between stores! Oh my God, we found the coolest bar—so dark and old-school, you would love it. We should totally go there sometime, even though I don’t exactly remember where it was. I have no idea how many beers I had between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., but, like, a lot. You know how when you drink a lot of beer, you have to pee a lot? Right? Well, there was no bathroom on the bus and not really any bathrooms in any of the record stores we stopped in. We all peed in the cool bar where we did the shots, but, man, by the time we got back to the parking garage where the bus picked us up, I had to pee like a race pony… again! Of course there wasn’t a bathroom anywhere there either, so we all took turns peeing behind bushes, Dumpsters, etc. Can you believe that? How old am I, twenty-three? Right? When was the last time you squatted and peed in public? On concrete? Every time I do it, I swear I’m never going to do it again, because you know how when you pour liquid on concrete it splatters? I mean, it splatters a lot when you’re standing a few feet away from the concrete, so you can imagine, or probably remember, how much it splatters when you’re squatting down, peeing on it, just a few inches away from the ground. It splatters a lot. Well … so think about where your feet are in relation to where the pee splatters when you’re squatting down like that. Yeah, your feet are right there, getting splattered with pee. So gross, and your shoes get covered in pee … literally… your shoes got covered in pee. I peed all over your shoes. That’s what this is really about. I mean, they were drenched, I had so many beers, and I had to pee so badly … I’m really sorry, like, really, really sorry. I should have stopped peeing. I should have taken your shoes off and just peed on my bare feet, that’s what a better person would have done, but I didn’t think of it at the time. I’m only thinking of that now, in fact.

  I had a plan, though! When I fell in love with your Nikes that morning, I was planning on ordering them that night for myself anyway, and since we wear the same size, I thought, “Okay, this is bad, Laura’s shoes are covered in my pee, but it’s cool because I’ll just order the new pair for her, and I’ll keep this pair with my pee on them. No biggie.” Well, biggie. That night I searched all over the World Wide Web, and those navy Nikes were sold out everywhere. They were gone, even on eBay. I feel terrible. I am really sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I got really bad scrapes on one of my bum-cheeks from the hedge I was squatting in front of. See, once I saw what was happening, I rearranged my position, thinking that there was more of a slope downhill if I was bum to hedge instead of facing the hedge. It didn’t really make much of a difference, though, and I just ended up getting several scrapes on the left half of my ass. When I got home, I hosed the shoes down and left them in the sun for a few hours, which my mother, a registered nurse, told me should kill all the odor and was safer than washing and risking ruining the shoes and then neither of us could have them. I’m sorry, Laura. I hope you can forgive me, you’re not too mad, and you still want to be friends. I should have told you when I returned the shoes, but I just couldn’t risk you refusing to lend me shoes again. You have such a great shoe wardrobe, and none of my other friends wear my size. I swear that I will only urinate in toilets while wearing your footwear from now on. I promise. I am the
mayor of Promiseville. Just don’t cut me off. I forget if you said you wear socks with those Nikes or not … I hope you said you did.

  I Don’t (Really) Have Enemies

  RECENTLY, I WAS SITTING WITH LOMO (A.K.A. LAURA A. Moses) at a restaurant when a stranger walked past me. A woman. I didn’t know her, but I was thinking of how happy I was that she didn’t hate me. (Not that she necessarily liked me either, I have no idea, I’d never seen her before in my life.) I was writing this book at the time, and it got me thinking that I was really pleased knowing that I didn’t have any enemies … that I know of. (Wait, does my friend’s ex-husband who is a total douche bag count? I hate him, but I don’t consider him an enemy per se, I just hate him.) I realized this also meant at no time would I ever be nervous to run into someone (except Matt Damon, but for starstruck reasons, not enemy reasons). I think this is because I don’t lie to people anymore (unless someone asks if she looks fat and she does. I sometimes lie about that). I’m not patting myself on the back or anything, and I have lied plenty in the past (plenty), but in the last few years I realized that lying takes time and mental space and I just don’t have either anymore. When you don’t lie, among other things, you don’t really have to ever fear running into anyone (except for Matt Damon, and I’m going to add my friend’s ex-husband to this list too).

  During my last foray into singledom, before I met my husband, I decided that I would date a lot instead of jumping into another relationship right away (even though I kind of jumped into a relationship with my husband right away). But I made a rule for myself: if I wasn’t interested in going out with someone anymore, I was going to tell that person (unless there was some way I could get away with not telling that person—there never was). I wanted to do it for myself. I needed to learn to be more honest and direct (still need to learn that). I didn’t want to text, or avoid people, or be nervous about the dreaded run-in (but I’m still nervous about running into Matt Damon, friend’s ex-husband, and also my last therapist because I never officially quit therapy, I just quit going because I got really busy and had broken up with the guy I complained too much about during my sessions). For being one of the largest cities in the country, Los Angeles can be really small (except when you’re driving in traffic, then it feels like the size of Asia). You are basically guaranteed to run into someone you don’t want to, at some point, somewhere, when you least expect it. Most likely, when you didn’t put makeup on, are hungover, leaving yoga and have crotch sweat (or just have regular non-yoga crotch sweat), and definitely when you have pinkeye and are buying a broom at a local hardware store (OK, in this instance it wasn’t anyone I’d lied to, or who had lied to me, it was a famous actor I had worked with, but still, you get the point. And he was with his impossibly thin and gorgeous model girlfriend. You just always run into people at the worst times). Yep, that’s when it will happen. But if you are always direct and honest with people, you really have nothing to fear. Except accidentally giving someone pinkeye (or a shark attack, or public speaking, change, an ear infection, car accident, mugging …).