The New One

by Mike Birbiglia

  That day I call Joe for advice.

  I say, “What happens when you’re not in your family anymore?”

  Joe says, “Hang in there. Maybe you should hire a babysitter one night a week. For the marriage.”

  I say, “Joe, I brought that up today and it didn’t go great. When Jen got pregnant we were on the same page that we were gonna hire a nanny or babysitters, but it feels like that might be a little off-limits now.”

  Joe says, “Has Jen said that?”

  I say, “No, but it’s sort of in the air.”

  Joe says, “It’s not healthy to repress your feelings.”

  I say, “Right, but I think it’s for the best.”

  I get off the phone and decide, I’m going to win back my wife from my daughter.

  I say to Jen, “I think it’s important for our marriage that we do something that’s just the two of us.” I was very clear.

  That weekend we get a babysitter.

  We plan to see a movie, but Jen can’t stomach the idea of leaving Oona with a virtual stranger, so our date is basically walking into the next room and having sex.

  I don’t remember the exact conversation with the babysitter, but it was something like:

  “I think we’re gonna stay here.”

  “So you don’t need me?”

  “No, we do need you, but we will also be here.”

  “Where?”

  “We’ll be in the next room. We’ll be back in eleven minutes.”

  We make it back in six minutes out of respect for her time.

  The sex post-Oona is awesome because it feels covert. Like we’re getting away with something. But it’s also laced with insecurities that are nearly impossible to overcome.

  When we leave the babysitter and enter the bedroom, I take Jen’s hand and she says, “I look like a monster.”

  I say, “No, you don’t, you look like the most beautiful—”

  She interrupts me and says, “MONSTER!!”

  I say, “Please let me finish. It’s a little unfair for you to alter my sentence midstream. You’re so beautiful you’d scare monsters because they’d be like, ‘We didn’t know that level of beauty was possible,’ and they’d start comparing their weird monster bodies to yours and then they’d do sort of a group monster-suicide thing because they’d know they could never be as beautiful as you. Also, I’m deeply and animalistically attracted to you and I’d really like to have sex with you.”

  I’ve never been great with pickup lines, but that one worked pretty well.

  We pay for sex.

  We agree that the sex is better when we pay for it. That we are getting away with something while living under the oppression of a little tyrant. We pay Anna Norman from my yoga class 20 US dollars/hour to hold our baby while we have sex.

  I remind him be gentle… I remind him be slow… with the pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding everything is tender and somehow new.

  Your ass, he says… I’ll give him that,

  I do a strengthening workout so I can be a stronger

  mother.

  Gentle, they’re sensitive.

  I remind him the milk is for her…

  … by the end, neither of us is gentle.

  He tells me I am an angel… I put my shirt back on

  while he is still inside me… time is money.

  MY SIDE OF THE STORY

  I want to take a moment to point out that everything you’re reading in this book that isn’t a poem is my side of the story.

  Whenever you hear someone tell a story it’s not the story.

  It’s a story.

  It’s a version of the story.

  But it’s never the story.

  The best example of this from my life came a few years back when I was asked to host the Gotham Independent Film Awards.

  In the audience that night were stars like Claire Danes, Amy Adams, Matt Damon, and David O. Russell.

  David O. Russell, despite being one of my favorite directors, infamously shouted at Lily Tomlin many years ago on the set of I Heart Huckabees. It was caught on tape and ended up on YouTube and millions of people saw it.

  In case you haven’t seen this video, I typed out a transcript of what David O. Russell shouted at Lily Tomlin. So, verbatim, on the set of I Heart Huckabees, in the heat of a disagreement, David O. Russell said to Lily Tomlin:

  I’m just trying to fucking help you, you understand me? I’m just bein’ a fuckin’ collaborator. I’m just trying to help you figure out the fucking picture. Okay, bitch? I’m not here to be fuckin’ yelled at. I didn’t work on this fuckin’ thing for three fuckin’ years to have some fucking cunt yell at me in front of the fuckin’ crew WHEN I’M TRYING TO FUCKIN’ HELP YOU, BITCH!

  When I saw this video I thought, I should talk about that onstage at the Gotham Independent Film Awards.

  Because if comedy is tragedy plus time, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

  So I was hosting these awards and David O. Russell was in the fourth row.

  And so I said, “David O. Russell is here tonight, one of my favorite directors, known for going to extremes to get exactly what he wants. The great director Elia Kazan once said, ‘You do whatever it takes to get the shot,’ and David O. Russell once said:

  ‘I’m just trying to fucking help you, you understand me? I’m just bein’ a fuckin’ collaborator. I’m just trying to help you figure out the fucking picture. Okay, bitch? I’m not here to be fuckin’ yelled at. I didn’t work on this fuckin’ thing for three fuckin’ years to have some fucking cunt yell at me in front of the fuckin’ crew when I’m just trying to fuckin’ help you, bitch.’”

  Then I said, “Two great directors, basically saying the same thing.”

  The audience enjoyed it.

  David O. Russell left.

  Which was unfortunate timing because he was just about to receive the lifetime achievement award.

  The woman who booked me for the event came over to our table where I was sitting with Jen and she said, “Mike, David is very upset about your joke. And I think he might leave. Would you talk to him?”

  I said, “Absolutely.”

  Because worst-case scenario, it goes terribly, and best-case scenario, he makes me the lead of his next film.

  So I was walking with the event director and she said, “It’s my fault, I never should have let you tell that joke. I should have screened your jokes.”

  And I felt so bad because I wanted to say, “I never would have let you screen my jokes. I would have sent you decoy jokes. I would never hand someone a piece of paper with the word ‘cunt’ written on it. I wasn’t raised that way.”

  But instead I said, “It’s probably your fault? Who knows?”

  So we arrived at the men’s room and David O. Russell stormed out and bolted for one of the exits.

  Then the event director followed him.

  And I followed her.

  Then David looked back and said, “Give your fucking award to someone else!”

  And I thought, Awesome. This is like we’re in that video.

  I returned to my table and Jen said, “What’s going on?”

  And I said, “Clo, it’s a long story and it hasn’t ended yet.”

  Sitting at our table was Jared Leto, but I didn’t know it was Jared Leto because he was preparing for his role in Dallas Buyers Club so he had lost all this weight and shaved his eyebrows, and he looked like this strange skeleton man. And he leaned over and said, “I haven’t eaten in twenty-one days, and that joke made me laugh my ass off.”

  And I thought, Thank you, strange man. That means a lot to me because I’m in a lot of trouble right now.

  Amy Adams got up to present the award to David O. Russell… or not. She said, “David is a wonderful collaborator,” which was the exact language from the video, though she left out the c-word—which I thought was smart.

  After Amy’s presentation David did indeed come onstage to receive the award. He gave a wonderful speech. A
fter his speech he sat down at his table and all of these reporters swarmed over to him and they said, “What did you think of Mike Birbiglia’s joke?”

  He said, “Comedians are gonna make jokes about what they’re gonna make jokes about.”

  Then the same reporters rushed over to my table and said, “What do you think of David’s reaction to the joke?”

  And I said, “Whatever he said is fine.”

  That week an article came out in Variety magazine about the Gotham Awards and the opening line read:

  “Before any winners were announced at Monday’s 22nd edition of the Gotham Awards, one thing became clear: Host Mike Birbiglia will not be in David O. Russell’s next picture.”

  And I think that’s fair. Because if David O. Russell were given space in this book to respond, he’d probably write something like, “I was invited to that event to be honored by my peers and then this comedian, whom I’ve never heard of, walked onstage and recited verbatim the most regrettable three minutes of my life and everyone laughed.” And that’s not wrong.

  That’s his side of the story.

  My Side of the Story

  Dear Oona, If in a conversation with your significant other about the future—

  Believe them if they say they don’t want to take care of a baby. If in a conversation about the future, you respond by saying that you have no intention of changing your life, wait to meet your child before you laugh at other parents while promising to be nothing like them. Saying, It’s not good for the kid or the parent to act that way. Before your child is born, you might say things like, It’s the baby who will have to learn to integrate into my life not the other way around. Next thing you know you are walking down the street, your baby in a stroller crying, her father trying to talk to you about his day and you stop him to say, She doesn’t like it when we talk—and you walk ten blocks in silence. Wait, you could find yourself alone in a hospital bed in the middle of the night, the father away on business because you insisted nothing change once the baby is born—and you, at the hospital in the middle of the night, unslept, on painkillers—but holy shit the pain—unable to stand, your baby one day old, left in a bassinet across the room by nurses saying she is inconsolable in the nursery, you cannot stand, she cries out, you stand, you sway you sing you feed, no matter your fresh stitches, she stops crying when you hold her, holy shit the pain, you do not let her go until morning, you wait it happens in a moment.

  V.

  PRETENDING

  As a child I felt like I lived in this town where everyone was pretending to be happy and pretending to be in a good marriage and pretending they had a nice house with a nice living room. I thought, I need to get out of here.

  So I went to college as far away as I could think of. Washington, DC. Everyone at college was pretending to have a lot of friends. And pretending to be smart. And pretending to be well read. And pretending to have a plan for the future. So I moved to New York City. And I met all these comedians who were pretending to be confident and pretending to be successful. Now my wife and I have a daughter and we live in a neighborhood full of parents who are pretending to love their lives and pretending to have nice apartments and pretending to have nice living rooms. Our daughter loves dressing up as a fairy and a princess and a bunny. It’s practically the first thing we teach her. To pretend.

  When Oona is several weeks old I’m strolling her around the neighborhood. Part of the stroll is spent dodging potholes and cracks in the sidewalk and the other part is spent staring at these zombie parents who I am convinced are pretending to experience joy.

  I may be wrong.

  This is just how I experience it. One strange twist of having a child is that people expect you to experience joy. One day our neighbor spots me strolling Oona and says, “Is it the most joy you’ve ever experienced?”

  The most joy? Um… I don’t know. Maybe?

  I don’t say this, of course. I think it. I feel like saying a lot, actually. I feel like saying, I didn’t experience joy before. I don’t have to start now. Don’t impose your unrealistic expectations on me. I will be a good dad. A decent dad. The #1 dad in America, according to several ceramic mugs. But my dad did a decent job and he didn’t experience joy.

  And don’t get me wrong, I experience joy but it’s also a little lonesome, because my wife and child adore each other and I’m perhaps even more lonely because not only am I lonely but I’m not allowed to say I’m lonely. I have to say, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

  My stiff and fake grin creates the expression of a serial killer. My hair juts in five directions, my face is unshaven, my back aches, my shirt buttons are in the wrong holes. I’m the luckiest man in the world.

  Having a child is like being a pro ballplayer where a young recruit gets called up from Triple-A and you realize you’re gonna get bumped out of the lineup. But in this case you’re bumped out of… being alive. And after you get bumped people say, “Is it the most joy you’ve ever experienced?” Becoming a dad is like if you died and nobody cared and people showed up to the funeral for the food.

  So I experience joy, but I’m starting to understand joy in a new way. There are different types of joy. There’s “light joy” and “dark joy.”

  Light joy is eating watermelon in the summertime. Dark joy is smoking pot through a watermelon.

  Light joy is when a puppy licks your face. Dark joy is when a lady at a bar licks your face.

  Light joy is flying a kite at the beach. Dark joy is having sex on a broken kite.

  Light joy is watching YouTube videos of cats. Dark joy is watching waterslide accidents.

  When I was single I had a lot of dark joy. Dark joy is abundant in your twenties when you don’t care what happens in your life. Dark joy occurs when people tell you “life is sacred” and you think, Nah, fuck that. I’m gonna eat nineteen pounds of chocolate and roll the dice. I’m gonna stay out ’til 5:00 a.m. and get advice from a guy wearing a snake.

  So that’s gone. Which is probably for the best because with dark joy, when the joy goes away you’re literally in the dark.

  When you have a kid you can no longer watch yourself living. There’s just not enough time. And some parents try to do it. They pull out their phones when anything remotely exciting happens:

  “Mabel just pointed at her teeth!!! Do it again, Mabel! Rolling… and action. Say the thing about your fucking teeth, Mabel!! Oh great, we missed it. This whole shoot’s been a fucking waste!”

  I’m strolling Oona through the neighborhood when it occurs to me:

  Maybe having a kid is the darkest joy of all.

  Because the stakes are so high. Your child could grow up and cure cancer or solve climate change, but she could also become an addict or a runaway or have a life-threatening disease. There is literally no way you could know. That is some dark stuff.

  It’s possible that the only way to cope with these dark possibilities is to pretend.

  Confetti

  I wake to a town populated by fairies and sea creatures and dinosaurs, and my daughter is brushing her hair with a seashell—Several fairy offerings lay on my pillow—a teacup, a mushroom, a drawing of the sky—there are monkeys and glitter in the sky—And I am decorated—with orca whales and narwhals and homemade-confetti which slide off me when I stretch or fidget. And all the dolls of the room are cared for—lined up and tucked under a blanket—shhh—all my babies are sleeping.

  VI.

  MONKEY WON’T SLEEP

  THERE’S NO ME IN WE

  Five months into Oona’s life, Jen and I are both living our dreams come true, but for the first time in our marriage they are different dreams. I’m on tour with a new show and Jen is a mom. I’m rooting for her and she’s rooting for me, but we’re growing apart.

  One night I’m doing a show in Weatherford, Oklahoma, which is a direct flight from nowhere, which is why I flew into Dallas.

  Google Maps told me Dallas was a four-hour drive to Weatherford, but I’ll tell you somet
hing about Google Maps:

  Google Maps is a fucking liar.

  Google Maps is like that uncle you have who isn’t going on the trip but has very strong opinions about the trip.

  Uncle Googlemaps is like, “Ehhhh, it’s, like, four hours.”

  “But, Uncle Googlemaps, a lot of these are side roads and that road just looks like a field.”

  “Eh, four and a half. Don’t forget to stop at Waffle House. Best waffles!”

  It’s a seven-hour drive.

  I drive with a comic friend named Mike MacRae and we’re seven hours into this trip and he’s chain-smoking out the window, which killed me because I had rented the car and I had just signed a form that said something like, “If you smoke, we will take your brain out of your skull.”

  And I’m signing it, thinking Mike Birbiglia… I’m sure that’ll be fine.

  But MacRae is very intimidating so I don’t wanna bring it up. I say, “Hey, maybe don’t… I think they might… take my brain outta my…”

  MacRae cuts me off: “I’ve been smoking in rentals for seventeen years.”

  Fair enough. Smoke away. Don’t mind me. I’m just lightheaded and have no idea where we are.

  Which is true. After six and a half hours of driving we’re running out of gas through fields of nothing. I mean… NOTHING. There are parts of Oklahoma where they don’t even have molecules. You’re driving on a road and then all of a sudden you think, We’re nowhere in space or time… but there are two senators! Which is odd, but that’s not the point.

  I don’t know what to do and so I drive faster to avoid the suspense of running out of gas. The next town we arrive in is literally called Corn.