I also felt last night that there is a phenomenon right now where although so much feels frozen and slow, it turns out your grieving must be quick. I felt a panic to say goodbye, to honor Hal. Because Hal died Tuesday night.
And in New York City, he was one of seven hundred.
And I was just one person mourning Hal. Among probably thousands—all the people who worked with him on SNL for all those years or any number of the crazy, wacky, amazing, and sometimes unbelievable artistic and musical endeavors he was part of, including the album of pirate songs he produced featuring Tom Waits and Patti Smith. It’s like he knew everybody.
And it’s not good between Jack and me. Our different experiences and reactions—the sick one and the one afraid for the sick one, and now the one who has recovered and so is less nervous about COVID and the one who has to remain afraid. And through all of it only getting some long phone calls, some brief ones, and some texts. It feels so unfair. And I know that sounds crazy to say that feels unfair in the midst of everything else going on. But I guess I feel okay saying it because everything else just feels devastating and way beyond just “unfair.” This is unfair. Not to get to see someone, not to have them hold your hand so you stop picking at your fingers. To have this kind of stress put on something I got to really enjoy for the first time in so long, something I was looking forward to at the “end of this.” I had dreams about how good that hug would feel.
But who knows. Who fucking knows anything.
I talked to Kevin yesterday and said if this were “real life” I’d be panicking and calling Jack and crying hysterically and it would feel a bit like life or death to save it. But I don’t have that luxury. Ha.
How to grieve in isolation? Magical thinking, some delusions, stories… therapy, of course therapy. I have a wonderful therapist I speak with over the phone now. She had COVID in March.
But nothing heavy. Because if I let anything become too heavy I won’t make it. I won’t be able to write. I won’t be able to make myself come for what we’re calling “family dinner” each night. I won’t be able to walk outside when it’s sunny. I won’t be able to find moments to feel lucky.
I have to learn to adapt to this new quiet solitude sitting in the eye of a terrifying devastating tornado. I have to learn how to connect and I think I’m getting better at it here, now, than I ever have been, somehow. I have to learn to grieve better. I have to learn patience, which is insanely tough coming from eight years on a weekly live sketch show where everything we do is fast. I have to let myself cry when I don’t want to because I know crying leads to laughing too.
There are so many memes online—the whole world is online now—of people showing a cat crying or something and it says “ME.” And I told Kevin last night that it’s just like the forced laughter. Everyone feels so weird, and I think half of people think they are “supposed” to be either crying or laughing so they just put out this little picture to sort of lightly do both.
And while I appreciate the effort at solidarity or wanting to express some kind of emotion, I want to say, “No, thank you. I’m not a cat.” Neither, I realize, am I that snarling shelter dog I compared myself to recently. I’m a person, and I’m crying because I lost my amazing cousin Owen in January and I was really scared and depressed and panicked for two weeks in my apartment and really lonely and the person I really liked was in an unknown danger and I didn’t know what would happen to him and now I might have lost him anyway and one of the kindest and strangest and coolest people I know died of COVID Tuesday night. And I’m just one person and I don’t say any of this thinking I have it “worse.” I just want to say it. I just want to tell you my story.
And then I want you to tell your story.
April 10, 2020
Today I went through the old texts, curious. Just when was that show? He had just recently been diagnosed. He hadn’t met Dr. Henry and Duke and polio treatments yet. He was starting radiation but nobody quite knew what that meant. What did that mean?
It was March 2018.
Leda: Just saw that the April 7 show is Chadwick boseman and Cardi b…any way I could go to that show? I’ll watch from a coat closet. That’s my future husband thooo.
Cecily: Of course!
Leda: Omg amazing you are my hero And that’s the day after Owen’s bday! I can see if he’d feel up to coming.
Me: YES!!!! If he wants to do the earlier dress version of the show at 8 instead I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll try to get floor seats.
Leda: I have faith that Chad will fall in love with you and hope he does so that I can meet him and try not to cry and maybe get a pic I’ll frame forever.
Leda and even Owen are always lightly hinting that they’d like to see some love in my life, in the way only your polite little cousins can. I tell her of course she can come.
Leda: Amazing!!! I’ll talk to him now but he might not know a little closer to then. They said he won’t even feel side effects of radiation until 3 weeks in so he might feel totally great!
Me: Ok wonderful. I’d flip to have you there. And I can try to have you meet people! We can do the party and the whole thing.
Leda: Yay! I’ll talk to Owen and get back to you.
She does exactly that.
Leda: I was talking to Owen about the April 7 show and he was thinking dress rehearsal might be better. Would it be ok if the two of us went to that but then I stayed for the actual show in the dressing room? And then the party? And then someone will have to kick me out eventually…
They get there that night for the dress rehearsal show. My wonderful colleagues have taped off great seats right up front. Reserved for them. They helped me give them the VIP treatment.
Leda: Ok well we didn’t specify we were the cuzzes so now we’re just in line. Can we just tell the next person we talk to? I mean if they’re taped off for us they won’t give them to anyone else right? At least not right away.
Me: Oh no of course not They are yours! VIP bb.
Leda: Owen and I want updates on your date after.
Cheeky cousins. I had a good first date recently and I guess somehow I slipped and told my little cousins about it, and I can only think it was from seeing them right after the diagnosis and being nervous still and thinking I needed to talk to fill space, and so I guess I offered up my embarrassing dating life. Of course my cousins don’t treat it that way and only want to give me pep talks. Oh, and that guy and I had a very mediocre second date.
Owen is tired, but sure enough he’s there in some nice coat, tall and skinny and handsome and smiling and right there and thrilled to walk around a bit after the show. My castmates Alex and Chris take pictures with us on the stage. I love them so much for this I can’t tell you. I’m worried now about time as it’s between shows and we are on the set and I have our pre-air show company meeting in Lorne’s office soon. And I wonder if Owen is embarrassed by taking too many pictures anyway, like I am. I wonder if he is tired. Or how tired, I guess. So we get four pictures. Then I move us along.
All the pictures are so dark. You can hardly see us. I’m wearing leopard-print slippers and leggings next to gorgeous Leda in a sleek black midriff-baring suit and Owen, standing center, like a distinguished tree, his arms over and around the whole group. I wish I would’ve taken more time to make sure the pictures were good. But part of me is glad I didn’t. It’s okay to not know what to do. It’s okay to not treat every moment like it’s maybe the last, and if it were, would I want to spend the time getting a good iPhone picture?
He went home not long after the photo. Leda stayed at the show, and although I didn’t go to the after-party after all, she went with her friend Shanda. They tried to get pictures with Chadwick but he said he was too tired.
Today I smile because I remember the sketch I wrote with James, Kent, and Kate that week for Chadwick. It’s a sketch about sort of nerdy traveling a cappella singers. And it’s so funny to me right now because it hits me—duh!
Owen sang in an a cappel
la group in college. In fact, that was my second-to-last text on my message thread with him. At one point around Halloween last year I was talking to someone who surprised me by saying he was into a cappella groups, so I texted Owen.
Me: Hey what was your a cappella group called at school?
Owen: S Factor. Why? Is SNL looking for a musical guest? Ha ha.
Me: Ha ha. No I was talking to an a cappella freak and I brought you up and he asked the name.
It didn’t occur to me until now. It’s like we wrote that sketch just for Owen!
April 11, 2020
There was a little thunderstorm today. I don’t like when it rains. We have a “gale” warning till Saturday. There was an alarm wailing outside for some time this morning. It felt too heavy, too sad. Because it sounded too much like sobbing, heavy weeping and moaning. Lucy was scared and ran under the bed.
But now the sun is out. I’m sitting up, writing. Lucy is next to me on the bed.
I’m lucky.
April 12, 2020
It’s Easter. Have I said that in twenty years?
Last night I did another Instagram Live. I’m trying to “get out” more. I talked to Jack on the phone for the first time since he told me he wanted the break. It was nice, I think. I can’t do this without some sort of delusion, some sort of magic.
I talked to my friend Whitney today about all of it. I sent her some of what I’ve been writing and she read it and she’s crying. We talked about the importance of making room for magic in our grieving.
So here is a magic story for you:
Saturday Night Live aired last night, an “at home” special. I wasn’t really there. I haven’t been here much this week. I’m trying to come back, but I’m not ready. I want to laugh. I know the importance of laughing. I want to make people laugh. But I’m just not there yet.
The producers are very gentle with me about this, especially my good friend Erin. She’s wonderful and we’ve been close since my first year. It was her wedding I missed in January. I actually asked Rashida to text her. I had no idea what I’d text. It seemed absurd. I’m sorry I can’t come to your wedding tomorrow. My cousin just passed away. Will you be able to fill my spot? I hope you don’t lose money. I hope I’ll stop crying someday. I’d say “passed away” or “passed,” something like that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay saying the word died. Erin has suffered some big losses in her own family. She sends flowers to Owen’s service. She comes, along with her husband and her baby daughter. She tells me she remembers how seeing a baby at her father’s funeral service was so important to all of them. There is something hopeful about it, or at least distracting in a really good way. I think she is wonderful.
She understands I can’t do the show yet. We do a Zoom table read on Wednesday or Thursday and everyone is a face on a square on a screen now and we’re seeing each other but not really and we can’t hug each other and we are all in shock I think because of Hal. I’m doing it from my bed. We silently wave goodbye to each other at the end. It’s as much as I will contribute to this first episode. It feels so wrong and somehow disrespectful to my grief to go on TV, however we do it, and I pretend that I’m okay. I’m not okay. But I promise Erin I will be. I want to be okay again. I will get there. She knows.
I watch that first episode with the rest of the viewers live that night, not knowing what this show will look like. It feels strange. They do a really nice special tribute to Hal. Because we haven’t shown up at work, hearing his voice and seeing him makes his passing that much more surreal. I hardly remember what anyone said. I was crying throughout, Kevin with his arm around my shoulders.
Because during the Hal tribute, they play one song. They sing along to the song.
The song I sang and danced along to on the night of Owen’s birthday.
Just a few nights ago.
The night it turns out Hal was leaving us.
It’s “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed.
I cry harder.
April 14, 2020
I heard something once that’s always stuck with me, about why we get the pins-and-needles feeling in our hands and feet when blood flow has been restricted and then comes back. Because the blood is bringing that body part back to life. And coming back to life hurts.
It’s our fourth week in the Hudson Valley. It feels like it’s been no time because of how little has changed or moved, and it feels like such a drastically different world that years may as well have passed.
I had a good talk with Jack today. And it was good because I am finally in a place where I can say the rules have changed for me. How can we be the same as we were over six weeks ago? How can you date someone the way you want to? But I don’t think you can go through isolation by just cutting someone off. I didn’t like feeling hated or shunned or something. And I’m not. That was important to hear. I needed that. He is dealing with his own coming back to life, and I am dealing with mine. And someday maybe we will be in the same city, and we can see each other, and maybe we will want to smooch again. But for now, I am content with a voice on the phone who I can have a good conversation with. That’s actually really nice.
The rules have changed.
Life has changed.
It most likely will change again.
Not a dramatic change. Not huge. Not in ways I can know how to describe yet. I feel like I should be sadder than I am. At the same time, I feel sadder than I should be about something vague and distant that I can’t put my finger on.
I do believe that it doesn’t have to stay sad. It doesn’t have to stay painful. The blood comes back, and it hurts for a bit, but then it’s okay. Things change. It will be different.
New York has been without Owen since January. SNL will be without Hal, if and when we come back. We will come back. I will work again. I made a video today. I’m doing Instagram Lives. I’m adjusting. I’m not fighting. It’s not what I prefer, sure, but it’s what I’ve got, and I will hopefully find a way back to the person I like best.
Maybe not, but it’s what I choose to believe. You can choose to believe brain cancer is a death sentence. Or you can believe in polio therapy. Dr. Henry believes it. Owen believed it.
That’s the team I want to be on.
I’m not where I want, but I’m where I am, and I am choosing to try my best to not fight any of it and instead discover my new rules.
1) Nothing too heavy.
2) Notice the sunshine.
3) It’s okay to cry as much as it’s okay to laugh.
4) Say yes to these Instagram Live shows more often.
5) Do your makeup if you want. Feel pretty.
6) Don’t feel bad for wanting to feel pretty.
7) Trust yourself just enough to know that although you think the idea that everything happens for a reason is bullshit, you do think you are doing this the best way you know how, and you should be proud.
8) It hurts to come back to life, but all of this has made it hurt less.
Four weeks have passed since I started writing.
In my solitude you haunt me
With reveries of days gone by
That Billie Holiday song just popped into my head.
I miss so much.
April 17, 2020
Do you also cry yourself to sleep?
So often?
I keep approaching “okay.”
But I’m never fully there.
I’ll only ever be “okay adjacent.”
I’m everything “adjacent” because words are hard to find these days.
I’m living “life adjacent” right now.
April 20, 2020
It’s June 2012. I have just somehow been flown to New York to screen-test for SNL after doing a showcase in Chicago. It feels so crazy and unreal that I don’t tell many people. I assume I won’t get this job I don’t even dare to dream about, so I try to take the audition as the win. I’m staying at a tiny hotel right by 30 Rock. I am terrified. I do my short audition at what I recognize as the stage where
I’ve seen countless heroes hug each other at the SNL good nights. I always thought, They must genuinely be so happy to live that life and end their week by hugging their friends before they all go to a fabulously fun party. I’m on that stage after waiting in a small room by myself for what feels like eight hours. I have no idea what I’m doing.
I do three character pieces: a New York cruise ship passenger trying to bring a fresh pineapple back onto the ship with her and demanding to speak to someone in charge when they won’t let her; a chubby little boy thanking his waitress at a diner after a Saturday family meal; and a Midwestern party aunt bragging about wearing her niece’s size. Then I do three impressions: Elizabeth Dole handling hecklers; Rebecca Lobo, the WNBA star, trying her hand at standup, but it’s really just her trying to sneeze because she has been told she sneezes funny; and a contestant from a 1997 episode of ElimiDATE Milwaukee.
ElimiDATE was one of those early dating shows before the big reality TV boom. I watched all of the reality TV before real reality TV, and I was crazy about it. There were the talk shows: Jenny Jones with her favorite sidekick, Rude Jude; Maury, who seemed to really enjoy bad teen girls, paternity disputes, and weird phobias (I have a funny memory of a woman who was afraid of olives, saying they reminded her of dead people); Sally Jessy Raphael, who would bring bad people onstage only so she could say “GET OFF MY STAGE” to thunderous applause; and of course Montel Williams, with his favorite medium Sylvia Browne, who, with the voice of a longtime chain smoker, would ask the audience, “Does someone here have a connection to the letter B? It is maybe a father figure.”
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