I don’t know yet what we’ll do about the car, if there is to be a car at all. The sensible side of my brain reminds me that the best way to ensure my son stays safe on the roads is to give him plenty of practice and patience. But in another part of my brain—the part that talked me into the fleece seat covers for the stroller—I wonder if there might be some essential new invention on the market. I wonder if I can trade away something so small as money in exchange for something so big as his life.
The Joy of Quitting
I love to make people laugh.
And I love approval.
So to get the approval of being selected as an official laugh-maker by a magazine that presides over grocery store checkout lanes and pedicure chairs across the country felt like a big deal. A funny writer-friend of mine brought me on board at Us Weekly and explained how it works: The editors send us, the writers, a file of celebrity photos every Tuesday. On Wednesday, we each email back a list of jokes to go with each photo. The next week, a few captions for each image are chosen to run in the magazine’s Fashion Police spread.
Analyzing fashion is great fun. Take gladiator sandals, for instance. They make your calves looked like pork tenderloin trussed with twine, so how did they get to be so popular? What message is a woman conveying when she wears them? I love the feel of air on my toes and also want people to know I’m tough enough to stab a lion or errant Roman with a sword in front of a roaring crowd? I guess.
I figured the Us Weekly job would be right up my alley.
* * *
I didn’t exactly knock it out of the park at the start. To me, a deadpan, literal description of a garment is funny, but apparently that’s not the style Us Weekly is looking to serve up to its consumers.
“Rihanna emerges from limousine, nipples mashed to two-dimensional discs by translucent bandeau compression-top.” They didn’t run that.
“Hair whipped into anti-gravitational balloon, Adele orders tea from behind fruit-platter-size sunglasses.” Not that one either.
Knowing that we wouldn’t be penalized for jokes that didn’t make the cut, sometimes I sent in rambling captions like this one, on a starlet in a python-and-lace tube dress: “She looks like a very fancy snake going to a wedding where all the other snakes are like, ‘Daaaaamn, girl, dontchoo know better than to upstage the snake-bride?’ but she’s like ‘Bitch, please, I do what I want.’ ”
They did not run that.
I tried studying the jokes that did make the cut each week. I knew some of the other writers. They were wildly talented, but the captions running under their names weren’t as funny as their other writing. It seemed the magazine was deliberately choosing the most bland, punny lines. So I tried toning down the weird, softening my humor a bit.
A shredded cape: “The fringed poncho. Froncho, if you will.”
A long blazer over apparently no pants at all: “Suit yourself. Or, you know, half-suit yourself. Whatever.”
A demure skirt suit with black leather hand wear: “It’s all fun and crumpets until someone puts on OJ gloves.”
Tiny red hot pants: “Ruby slippers take you home; ruby knickers take you everywhere.”
A floral gown: “My grandmother had those curtains.” That’s not even a joke. It’s just a statement. It ran.
Eventually, I got the hang of it and got at least a few “jokes” in every issue. I wanted them to come with a disclaimer: I can be better than this. But I was on a roll.
I think the only caption they ever ran that I felt really proud of was for Jane Fonda, who in her late seventies had no qualms about showing up on a red carpet in a skintight sequined green bodysuit. “The Green Lantern’s mom is looking hot,” I quipped. She did look hot. And she looked like the Green Lantern’s mom.
* * *
I didn’t like the jokes I was making to gain acceptance, but there was something else that bothered me even more. The role I put myself in to do this job made me uncomfortable. There’s a difference between poking fun at professional ads or photos from a fashion runway and taking aim at what real people are wearing. No matter how funny or not-funny my captions were, this job, at its core, was poking fun at people.
Sure, some of our subjects were standing on red carpets, posing for cameras, inviting the public gaze. You could say they were asking for it. But how many of them were doing it because they really loved dressing up and posing for public consumption? How many were doing it because it was a necessary part of the job—promoting a movie or an album or receiving an award—and they couldn’t let people down by saying no, or they were afraid they’d lose out on much-needed publicity for a project if they abstained? How many were dressed by a crazy stylist who said, “Trust me, this yellow vinyl bustier is a great idea,” as a manager stood by and said, “It’s fabulous, so fabulous.”
And that’s not even including the people who weren’t on red carpets at all—whose pictures were snapped as they walked, heads down, through airports and in and out of gyms and coffee shops, going about their lives at the end of a paparazzo’s long-range lens.
I wanted to look away, to give them a little space.
You could say, well, they’re so famous, they shouldn’t complain. You see that line of reasoning all the time: “You’re the one who decided to go into show business.” You asked for it, people imply. It comes with the package.
No, they didn’t ask for that. Not all of them. Some of them just wanted to act—or to sing or to write—not to have a guy with a camera popping out from behind trash cans as they walk down the street. I thought about all the articles and tweets I’d read by celebrities begging the paparazzi to respect their family’s privacy, all the interviews in which they described the relentless way the photogs dogged them, pouncing as soon as they exited a hotel or restaurant, following too closely in traffic, trotting along five steps behind on the sidewalk.
That’s probably the first and last way in which I relate to movie stars, but I do relate. It’s fair to want some parts of an experience but not all. It’s fair to realize that while you did indeed mean to take every step that led you to where you are, now that you’re there you realize you don’t love everything about it. It’s fair to say, Stop. Not all of this is okay.
* * *
So I had mixed feelings about this Fashion Police thing.
But I’m not a quitter. Anyone can give up on something; the trick is staying the course when things get hard, right? Rising to the challenge. Pushing through. When it feels like something can’t be done, a real achiever finds a way. A real achiever doesn’t squander an opportunity.
Or does she?
* * *
I blew an interview on purpose once.
It was eleventh grade, and I’d been contacted by the Governor’s Honors Program—a summer camp of sorts where kids from all over the state lived on a college campus and took classes in leadership and team-building and the performing arts and calculus and all sorts of other advanced subjects. It’s not something you apply for; one day you just get a letter that says, “You’ve been selected to interview,” and you’re supposed to show up and talk to somebody who will determine whether you’ll be one of the lucky ones.
Except it didn’t sound so lucky to me. It sounded boring. Four weeks of forced socialization with people I didn’t know? School in the summer? Oh, hell no.
Summer might normally be a perfectionist kid’s nightmare, what with all that time off from studying and getting grades. But summer, to me, was sacred. Sanctioned by school itself as a break from the classroom, summer existed purely by nature of the school year that surrounded it on both sides. Like the negative white space created by not painting on part of a canvas, the weeks from June through August were meant to stay blank. One could still fill them with accomplishments like reading fifty books or swimming two hundred laps or eating a Popsicle every single day for a seventy-day streak. But one should not be in school during the summer. I may have been a nerd, but I was a real human kid, too.
But what
to do? I’d been chosen. I did like being chosen.
My gut churned as my mother drove me to the interview office.
* * *
The first several questions passed easily. What’s your favorite subject? (English.) What do you do for fun? (Read.) What do you like about leadership? (Leading. And being right. And getting shit done.) Then we got to this one:
“What would you do this summer if you weren’t selected for this program?”
Huh.
That’s when I took a sharp turn. I did what I had never done before and wouldn’t do again for a long time.
With no one watching—it was just the interviewer and me in the room—I decided that while I liked being chosen, I didn’t like what I had been chosen for. As Cheap Trick said, I want you to want me, but I didn’t want all that came with this “honor.”
So I answered: “I’d be pretty happy, actually.”
* * *
I got in the car. Buckled my seat belt, eyes on the dash.
“How’d it go?” my mom asked.
“Fine, I guess.”
I felt like I’d just committed murder.
My heart still races when I think of it.
* * *
One Tuesday several months into my tenure on the Fashion Police force, we received in our weekly packets a photo of the singer Kelly Clarkson wearing a T-shirt tucked into a full skirt made of fabric printed with records all over it. A music skirt! It was adorable. Also? Props for knowing how to tuck a top into a skirt, Kelly. People act like that’s a skill women are born with, but I’m here to tell you, it’s not. Every time I try it, the skirt ends up hiked up in the back and down in the front with my shirt blousing out around my belly like I’m Eloise.
I couldn’t make fun of her or her outfit. I wanted to send in, “This is how to set a record for looking marvelous, fuckers.”
I knew I couldn’t send that in, so I started making a list of music puns instead, rolling my eyes at every stupid phrase I typed.
I felt like a faker.
* * *
It goes against my nature to leave a task incomplete. I’ve only recently been able to let myself give up on a book I don’t like without reaching the last page, and to do so I had to convince myself that because part of my job is reading and evaluating books, I technically am completing the task by deciding which books are worth reading to the end. I’ve set my phone to chime and go dark at 10:20 p.m., because I know I have a habit of checking Twitter before I go to bed. It’s impossible to reach the end of the internet, and without a reminder to put my phone away, I’m in danger of scroll-scroll-scrolling infinitely, scanning screen after screen of tweets as if there’s a last tweet coming, a window that will pop up and say, “All done. You finished the internet. Good night.”
But maybe the trick isn’t sticking everything out. The trick is quitting the right thing at the right time. The trick is understanding that saying “No, thank you” to something you’re expected to accept isn’t failure. It’s a whole other level of success.
It takes courage to quit something, but often you get that courage back with dividends. The novelist Katie Coyle once tweeted: “Last week I killed a book I’ve been writing for three and a half years and now I feel drunk with power.” The older I get, the more I find Katie’s right. A good quit feels powerful. Deciding what you won’t have in your life is as important as deciding what you will have. Trying out something you expect to love, realizing you don’t really love it, and giving it back, that takes guts.
It takes letting go of the idea that living right means racking up every honor you can get. It means understanding that success isn’t about nailing every role; it’s about choosing the roles you’ll play and how well you want to play them. It’s about refusing to see yourself as the passive recipient of a life someone else awards you.
The Fashion Police accepted my resignation with grace and good wishes.
I’m Sorry, Mindy Kaling
I’m at an age where I know myself pretty well. There are things I do—I rise early; I floss; I ask for the dessert menu, then give it back, then wish I hadn’t, then stare jealously at the cake on everyone else’s plate. And there are things I do not do—I do not wear scented deodorant; I do not eat celery; I do not drink lukewarm cocktails. Not a lot of surprises here.
One thing I’ve known about myself for a long time is this: I do not bother celebrities. I think people deserve to have privacy, even in public, so I make a point of ignoring famous people when I see them. When I found myself in the cereal aisle of Publix with Elton John (at least I think it was Elton John), I looked down at my box of Honey Bunches of Oats, humming “Tiny Dancer” inside my head until he passed. When I bumped into Anthony Hopkins on a sidewalk in Italy (it was definitely Anthony Hopkins; I’d accidentally wandered into the periphery of a movie set), I kept walking, mostly out of deference and a little bit because I’m still scared of Hannibal Lecter.
And I know—I just know—that when I do this, when I respect the personal space of a famous person, they recognize it and feel grateful. I believe it forms a connection between us that is much more meaningful than the few seconds of contact they might have with some fame-whore holding out an iPhone. And I’ll be honest with you, I’m a little smug about it. When I see someone walk up to Dave Grohl in the produce section at Whole Foods and start freaking out about their lifelong love of the Foo Fighters, I think, amateur. I’ve built this scenario up in my head where I’m the silent, helpful wing-woman of every celebrity I see.
I’ve even imagined how I would treat my favorite celebrities if I ever did run into them. Like, let’s say I’m sitting at a bar, and Oprah walks up to order a drink. Probably a smoothie made of golden beets and angel wings or something.
What could happen is that I walk over to Oprah and yell, OPRAH! and make crazy eyes and put my arms out for a hug.
What really would happen is that I see Oprah. Oprah sees that I see Oprah; but Oprah also sees that I am acting like she is not Oprah, although she knows that I know that she’s Oprah. As excitement ripples through the crowd and bar patrons begin pressing closer around her, going, “Hey, Oprah, it’s you, Oprah!” we exchange a glance. And in that instant, a silent conversation takes place:
* * *
With her eyes, Oprah would say: Everywhere I go, it’s like this.
And my eyes would say: I know. Sorry.
OPRAH:
Thank you. You’re obviously different from the rest. We should be friends.
ME:
We SHOULD be friends. But I’m not going to come over there and give you my phone number, because you’ve already got people pushing paper in your face.
OPRAH:
That’s okay. By virtue of the connection we are making right now, your email address will spell itself in my organic alphabet soup when I have lunch tomorrow, and I will always know how to contact you.
ME:
I’m glad we had this moment.
OPRAH:
Me too. Thank you for respecting me.
ME:
Be well, Oprah. Be well.
(I’ve thought about it a lot.)
* * *
I was in New York for a publishing conference. That evening, a crowd of book people—writers, editors, agents—had arranged themselves among the hanging ferns and tastefully threadbare rugs of the Bowery Hotel terrace at sunset to toast the actress Mindy Kaling’s new memoir. I’d been up since five, having spent the day going from the Javits Convention Center out to Brooklyn bookshops and back again signing copies of my own book, Penguins with People Problems, a slim volume of illustrated humor. Still tucked into my pocket was the flat cartoon penguin character I’d been using as a prop. I smoothed its laminated wings with my thumb as I chatted with a friend and silently admired Arianna Huffington’s shoes.
An hour into the party, Kaling still had not shown, and expectant partygoers were checking their watches and glancing around. I scoffed. Everyone was anxiously fretting over whether they�
��d get a moment with her, a photo, some souvenir of experience. Not me. Heck, I might even leave.
Then the buzz started: “Mindy’s downstairs! She’s almost here! Mindy! Mindy! Mindy!” Guests jostled for position along the exposed brick wall by the door.
The tension rose and the over-the-shoulder glances grew more anxious. The guest of honor appeared in the doorway; then the tide of humanity lifted her and she was buoyed along the crowd. Within seconds, she landed right in front of me. I stood face-to-face with Mindy Kaling, and this is what I said:
“OH MY GOD, HI MINDY KALING. I LOVE YOUR BOOKS AND YOUR SHOW, MINDY KALING.”
I informed her of her own name. Twice.
Perhaps it was the sudden real-life presence, just inches from my face, of this entertainer I’d long admired that caused my behavioral short circuit. Perhaps I was just tired, and the starstruck atmosphere had infected my weakened system like a virus. Or maybe I sensed in a split second that this was our chance to meet and be friends, but my mouth couldn’t catch up with my brain’s message to say a simple hello and smile. All I know is what happened next:
I held out the penguin-on-a-stick that was in my hand, offering it to her as if it were a glass of wine.
When I recall that moment, I don’t remember making a decision. I didn’t think, You know what I should do right now? I should take this cartoon animal and place it into the hands of the person standing before me whom I don’t know, with no explanation. I just did it.
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