The New One

by Mike Birbiglia

  And I think, Now God is just fucking with us.

  I’m like, “Uncle Googlemaps, you ever heard of Corn?”

  He’s like, “Corn? OK!”

  Which is just the state abbreviation for Oklahoma. But it isn’t okay because they don’t have gas in Corn. They might have ethanol, but we don’t need ethanol.

  We finally roll into Weatherford on fumes and, twenty minutes later, we’re performing in a giant gymnasium and pretty much no one is there, which makes sense because very few people live in Weatherford, Oklahoma.

  All things considered, the show goes fine. When I’m in Oklahoma I just make fun of Texas and when I’m in Texas I make fun of Oklahoma. I say things like, “Those gun-totin’ one-tooth idiots in Texas…” And they go nuts.

  Oklahomans don’t see the irony, which is that they’re basically part of the same state separated by an arbitrary border. They’re like, “Our state’s shaped like a whistle!”

  After the show I check into my one-and-a-half-star hotel in Weatherford. It’s 11:00 p.m. and they’ve given away my first-floor room since we got there so late. I stay in first-floor rooms when I travel in case I, ya know… jump out the window in my sleep.

  I walk into my second-story room. A lot of red flags: an old dirty comforter that seems to have not been cleaned in a decade, a mildewy bathroom, smoky curtains, rickety windows.

  I think, I guess I might die.

  But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve flown five hours, driven seven hours, and then performed for ninety minutes. I have no energy and this feels like déjà vu with my incident in Walla Walla. So I barricade the window with an enormous standing dresser. It’s about one hundred pounds and I push it across the room and block the window and I get in my sleeping bag.

  The next morning I wake up and I drive all the way back to Dallas to catch my flight but there are delays from storms. So, finally, after a day of travel, I walk into our apartment at one in the morning and I’m soaking wet and exhausted and entirely empty and I arrive at my beloved couch and…

  Oona is asleep on the couch.

  I whisper to Jen: “Clo, it’s not a big deal, but that’s my couch.”

  Jen says, “Great news. That’s where Oona likes to sleep.”

  I say, “I totally get it and in the short term that makes a ton of sense, but long term I think maybe she might want to sleep in a crib.”

  Jen says, “We decided Oona doesn’t like to sleep in a crib.”

  I say, “Who’s in ‘we’?”

  Jen says, “Me and Oona.”

  I say, “I’m not in ‘we’ anymore? I’m a founding member of ‘we.’”

  I walk into the bedroom and get into my straitjacket. It is a shocking revelation when you discover you’ve been evicted from your own life.

  FRIENDLY ADVICE FROM OTHER PARENTS

  Your daughter is getting a sunburn.

  You’re getting a sunburn.

  We’re all getting a sunburn.

  Let them cry.

  Don’t let them cry.

  I’m great with kids.

  It seems like you’re not great with kids.

  Kids will murder each other if you let them.

  You have to let kids murder each other.

  Murder is wrong.

  Murder isn’t always wrong.

  Meat is murder.

  The murder burger at this restaurant is phenomenal.

  Get your kid signed up for camp!

  There was a murder at that camp.

  Our children should be friends.

  I have no friends.

  I need you to be my friend.

  Jokes are funny. I like jokes. I am funny. I am jokes.

  Swimming pools are essential.

  Swimming pools are disgusting.

  I’m disgusting. Will you watch my son?

  You gotta crack an egg to make an omelet.

  Don’t let them touch eggs.

  Kids love mustard.

  Kids hate mustard.

  My son is made of mustard.

  Why isn’t she sleeping?

  Tell her to sleep!

  I think I just woke her up.

  She probably needed to wake up.

  Oprah doesn’t sleep.

  You can’t let them walk all over you.

  If they walk on your back it feels like a massage.

  Here’s a book about how to be a better parent.

  You need this book.

  I haven’t read it. I basically wrote it.

  My son could read when he was two months old.

  Our daughter is better at swimming than yours but she’s also smarter.

  Our son only edits in Final Cut.

  Our daughter’s first steps were out of her mother’s vagina.

  Why don’t you give her chocolate?

  I love chocolate.

  If that was my baby I’d give her chocolate.

  I’d like to dip your baby in chocolate.

  Chocolate-dipped babies are a delicacy in some cultures.

  You need to let her make decisions for herself.

  Yes, it is her body but it is my chocolate.

  Where is her sunhat?

  Where is my social security card?

  Where is her jacket?

  She shouldn’t be outside in this weather.

  She shouldn’t be inside in this weather.

  The government controls the weather.

  My children won’t let me near their children so it’s nice talking to you.

  What’s her name?

  That’s not a name.

  Give her a different name.

  Cut her hair.

  Don’t you dare cut that hair!

  Sell her hair.

  Donate her hair.

  Our son hits.

  They all hit.

  I know our son is hitting your daughter but it’s fine.

  You need to have a thicker skin.

  Where are you going?

  A toast to the third arm

  To the stranger who offers to hold a door for me—

  No need, I walk backwards into doors to inspire a third arm.

  To the stranger who hands me napkins,

  I guess I look like I could use a napkin.

  To the stranger yelling across restaurant tables—

  how’s the baby sleeping?—She doesn’t—

  I play whale songs all night to aid her infant sleep.

  To the two strangers who scold me—

  where’s the baby’s sunhat!

  —as I walk down my own street—

  I am like Johannes Kepler tracking the angle of sun

  using the planet of my body to shade her.

  To the stranger who follows me down the street

  as I hold an 18-pound car seat, a 10-pound diaper bag

  and a 17-pound baby—

  then yells as I decline his help—

  You women want to do everything yourself!—

  He comes closer—I decline his help again.

  He comes closer. I decline—

  You women want to do everything yourself—

  He is yelling at me—I accidentally hit my daughter’s tiny

  head into a cab door.

  —He is too close to the cab—the baby is screaming—

  I am holding her. I am tangled up

  in an 18-pound car seat and 10-pound diaper bag—

  He is almost in the cab—

  I don’t have a hand to close the door—

  He comes closer and I

  FFFV–

  He is almost in the—and I—

  FFFHUDHUDHUD—FFFFVVVVFVDFVDFVDVUUDHDHHDRVRHUH—

  That’s “get the fuck away from my baby” in whale song.

  And I slam the cab door.

  To the guy drinking on an East Village street-corner yelling,

  God bless the baby as I pass—

  Thanks, guy.

  To my dear neglected husband—he would like to go on a date

  with me,
last night was kind of rough, luv—

  To get this look: sleep deprivation and spit-up in the hair.

  SEX MAYBE

  When Oona is six months old, Jen and I go out for the night and eat pizza and drink wine and reminisce about the day we first met.

  Our marriage was as unlikely as our having a child. When we met, neither of us wanted to be in a relationship at all. We treated the relationship like it was a joke.

  It started in St. Louis.

  My friend Andy and I were performing for Jen’s company there. Andy introduced us in the lobby of our hotel, which intersected with a staircase of a mall. So we sort of met at the mall. Well, we met on a mall staircase. It was very American.

  From the moment I met Jen, I knew I wanted to sleep with her at least once.

  Stay with me.

  I had just come off a long, difficult breakup with my college sweetheart Abbie. We were planning to get married and then we weren’t and when we weren’t I was so heartbroken I just entirely swore off the idea of marriage or even living with someone.

  But I really wanted to sleep with Jen.

  I didn’t think it was going to happen. I’ve never had that kind of confidence. I think of myself as a “sex maybe”—which is to say that if I’m seeing a woman, she’d think, I could imagine having sex with him… maybe. I’m not ashamed of that. There were periods of my life where I was a “sex never” or a “sex with self always.” And often. Surprisingly often.

  I don’t remember what Jen and I talked about on the mall staircase, but I remember that Jen’s eyes told a story that was so deep and profound that I just wanted to get inside her eyes and stay awhile. Maybe buy a place. At the very least I wanted to rent.

  I asked Andy to convince Jen to go out that night for St. Patrick’s Day. We were going to this famous Irish pub called McGurk’s and it took so much coaxing to convince Jen to come out that by the time she did, she thought she was on a date with him. So I had to sort of push him out of the bar so that I could spend time with her, and then she realized she was on a date with me.

  She wasn’t thrilled about that.

  The joke I kept telling that night was that Jen had ruined “a perfectly good night that I was going to spend alone with my friend Andy.” This is a classic fourth-grade technique when you have a crush on someone: act like they are in some way ruining your life. She wasn’t as excited about me as I was about her until the end of the night when we shared a ride home and we were stuffed in the back seat of this little car and we started talking about the Ionesco play Rhinoceros. I was reading it at the time and she had read it a few years before. It’s a classic absurdist play and little did we know that we in fact were two absurd people with absurd idiosyncrasies who would even have annoyed Ionesco. When we got back to the hotel I walked Jen to the elevator and I leaned in to kiss her and she said, “Oh, no thank you.”

  Which was polite, but disappointing.

  When I got back to my room, I called her phone. We talked for hours. I don’t even remember how long. It’s possible that conversation has continued until this very day.

  Jen offered to see me in New York, which is where we both lived. She gave me her number and I typed it in my phone and from that point on she would be:

  “Jen—Irish Pub—Nice.”

  When we got back to New York, I offered to take Jen out to a restaurant I couldn’t afford so that I could show her how much money I could put on my credit card. At dinner she said, “Everyone hates me at work.”

  I said, “Why would they hate you? I love you.”

  She said, “You love me?”

  I said, “I mean… you seem cool.”

  I didn’t want to show her all my cards. Just nine of them.

  Two weeks into dating I asked Jen if she wanted to go on a trip to Bermuda. I felt the need to overcompensate for the fact that she was way out of my league. So I invited her on a trip to Bermuda. In retrospect I meant to say Aruba. Which would’ve been a lot nicer. Because it was the winter. And when it’s winter in New York it is also winter in Bermuda.

  So we went to Bermuda in our third week of dating. When we got on the plane the flight attendant brought us champagne and said, “Congratulations on your honeymoon.”

  I said, “Oh, no thank you. We’re not on a honeymoon.”

  When she left, Jen and I started talking about marriage.

  I said, “It just seems like a doomed idea. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. But that’s just first marriages. Second marriages: 67 percent. Third marriages: 74 percent. That’s a learning curve. Second of all, I’m never gonna be happy, why would anyone want to be a part of that?”

  Jen said, “That’s a very detailed argument.”

  I said, “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  Jen said, “I don’t think I’ll ever get married either.”

  I said, “How come?”

  She said, “The person I wanted to marry is dead.”

  She told me about her high school sweetheart Brian. He was her first love and he died from leukemia.

  I said, “Do you ever talk to people about that?”

  She said, “No.”

  I said, “Well, you can talk to me.”

  After we got back from Bermuda, I kept coming up with excuses for me and Jen to spend every minute together. I was doing shows in Ireland and so I invited her to come. We went to Dublin, Galway, and Dingle.

  At this point she had completely checked out at work. They would call her from the office and say, “Where are you?”

  And she would say, “I’m in Ireland.”

  One night we were in a pub in Dingle and Jen said to me, “There are special berries from here. I’ve heard of this.”

  I said, “I don’t think that’s right. I think ‘dingleberries’ is an expression that refers to something else.”

  She said, “No, I’m sure of it. Just ask someone.”

  So I said to the bartender, “Is this town known for its berries?”

  And the bartender told everyone at the bar. And the entire bar was laughing.

  And we were laughing.

  For about three more years. Until finally we went to city hall and got married.

  And then the joke became real. Even when we got married, no one we knew got us a present because they thought it was a joke.

  After we went to city hall, Jen called her mom and her stepfather, Bob, and said, “Mike and I got married today.”

  Bob said, “That’s great, did your cats get married too?”

  Jen said, “It’s funny you should mention that, because we actually looked up whether you can marry your cats, and you can technically marry your cats through certain websites but they can’t marry each other.”

  We hung up the phone, and Bob called back a few hours later and said, “I’m so sorry, I thought you were joking when you said you got married. I didn’t know it was real. Congratulations!”

  But it is real. Our marriage is the most real thing I’ve ever been a part of, but at this moment I feel like it’s fading.

  I’m sitting with Jen at this small brick-oven pizzeria on our anniversary, and I decide I’m going to tell her this. I’m going to let her know that I miss our old life and I want it back.

  But before I can gather the words, Jen says, “I’m sorry. I promised things wouldn’t change and they have. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  I say, “There are times lately when I’ve felt like you’ve abandoned me.”

  Jen says, “That was part C of the vows. That I could disappear.”

  I say, “I get it. I totally understand why everything changed.”

  But secretly I think, I still want our old life back.

  GREAT JOB

  When Oona is seven months old she starts to talk.

  Jen says, “Hi!”

  Oona says, “Hi.”

  And I say, “Hi!”

  Oona blinks. She’s not giving me “hi” yet. I haven’t earned it.

  When Oona is
eight months old I find this:

  An Infant Reaches

  An infant reaches for something (I don’t know what)—pushes it farther away and cries in frustration each time she reaches without realizing she is crawling for the first time.

  She is like her father.

  That’s a poetry burn.

  That week Oona is teething. As far as we can tell she’s growing 237 teeth. The only time she’ll stop screaming is when she’s suckling Jen’s boob with her freaky shark teeth. Breastfeeding is the greatest magic trick in the history of humankind. I couldn’t invent a better trick with my imagination. I could say, “I can blow out candles with my penis,” and someone could simply reply, “That’s nice, but what Rhonda can do is feed a child for three years without going to the grocery store.” I’d think, I shouldn’t have mentioned my candles trick. One morning Jen and Oona are at the kitchen table. Their love is palpable. Their existence as a single unit is undeniable. Oona’s sucking all the life and food and energy out of Jen, which is what I want to do, but I can’t because I’m doing the dishes.

  Jen says, “You’re doing a great job.”

  And I say, “Thanks. Sometimes I’m not sure.”

  She says, “Not you.”

  TRYING

  a puddle

  a toddler dances naked in the window

  with a gob of summer squash in her hair.

  then slips in a puddle of her own urine.

  I’m sitting in the living room, watching our eight-month-old daughter try to pull herself up on the ottoman.

  Then she falls.

  Then she pulls herself up.

  She’s trying.

  I’m thirty-seven years old and it’s just occurring to me that my entire life is defined by trying. I tried to crawl, then I tried to walk, then I tried to be Larry Bird, then I tried to get into college, and then I tried to be a comedian.

  You don’t choose what you remember in life, but for some reason I remember all the times I tried.

  When I was a sophomore in high school I joined the wrestling team because my brother told me “it builds character.” I thought, Well, sure, I’ll do it—if it builds character.