Wow, No Thank You.

by Samantha Irby

  Roy answered on the Bluetooth in the car, which is truly Big Dick Energy of the highest magnitude, and we had a good, funny conversation while he glided through the streets of Chicago on his way to his many important senior errands. He had a son my age and a daughter my mom’s age (maybe his daughter was my mom!), and I could hear him listening to the Chi-Lites in the background. Yet I remained undeterred, because I was in an emotional place where I believed validation from an older man would fractionally improve my self-worth. That was also a point in my life when I thought I liked sex, when what I really like is contracting all my muscles so they remain perfectly taut and not squashing all nineteen of my chins flat against my neck while someone who doesn’t care what music I like grinds around on top of me for ten minutes.

  This dude was obviously cool—I mean, he owned at least one suit jacket that he was confident enough to wear to the club. He didn’t flinch even once at my evening-wear Birkenstocks. I thought this would be an impressive notch in my bedpost. Which really means a notch in his, because at the time, I was sleeping on a mattress that had come rolled up in a cardboard box that I caught my neighbor trying to steal off the UPS truck.

  We gradually increased the frequency of our phone calls until we were talking to each other every other day, which was a milestone in my life that I have yet to achieve again, even though I now have an actual wife. But he wasn’t asking me to go out. He told me how he watched the moon landing in real time and where he was the day man discovered fire, but never once did he try to get me to swing by the retirement village for sex. Instead of employing the “he’s just not that into you” wisdom instilled into me by one Miranda Hobbs, I started doing dumb shit like calling him from other people’s numbers (what) and dragging my friends to the club week after week, looking as sexy as possible (sure), trying to accidentally run into him. I want to remind you that this was a visceral-fat-compressing-bike-short-under-a-dress time in fashion history, so “getting dressed up” meant “binding my ribs to my spleen,” and that is way too much effort to ever put into anyone, especially someone who clearly had a wife at home or happened to be in witness protection. The silver lining is that I eventually developed a decent bachata from all those Latin nights at the club; the storm cloud being that I did all that work moisturizing my calluses and shaving my finger hairs for a gentleman I talked to for weeks but never saw in person again.

  *

  Looking back on that experience now, I really do just shake my head and think about how lucky I am that someone like Abbi saw something in me and my diarrhea book worth exploring, because I am the Roy in this scenario, and, seriously, WHO HAS TIME FOR MY SHIT? I made Abbi chase me for months, and I’m not entirely sure it was worth her effort.

  But she caught me like a slimy, garbage-filled, oily-whiskered catfish on a hook! She got on a plane and came to Chicago, and I rifled through all the horrible clothing in my closet to find something remotely appropriate for brunch with a TV star. We made plans to meet at this restaurant called Little Goat that I like because it’s owned by Stephanie who won Top Chef, and I will do literally anything anywhere that has a TV tie-in. I was surprised by how normal Abbi looked, and I processed everything I wanted to say at least three times in my head before I allowed it to come out of my mouth. We got a booth in the back, and I noticed waitstaff noticing us, which is a thing I’ve grown used to after having known her. It hadn’t even occurred to me that people would actually be trying to take my photo while I was with her. By “take my photo” I mean, “catch me unawares with my mouth open and my shoulders hunched and my neck looking like a pack of hotdogs in the blurry background of their pictures of an actual famous person.”

  I did this show in Chicago called The Paper Machete a couple weeks after Meaty was first released in the fall of 2013. It’s a weekly live lit show that takes place at the Green Mill cocktail lounge in Uptown, and it’s kind of hard to describe, but I’ll try: it’s a modern take on an old-fashioned salon; writers and comedians and poets and actors write essays on the news of the week, and sometimes there are sketches because fuck you if you want to see a live show in Chicago that an improv troupe hasn’t weaseled their way into, and there’s usually one or two live musical acts, plus a talking bird puppet who is very good at reporting the latest science stories in the news. It’s hosted by Christopher Piatt, a tall and hilarious alien who used to be the theater critic for Time Out Chicago. And it’s one of the most popular theater-adjacent attractions in the city. If you’re ever in town, you should fucking go. The Machete is a reliable place to get to work on the kind of material I don’t usually write (topical, newsworthy shit that requires at least a skimming of CNN dot com), in front of a giant, tipsy crowd. I did the show consistently enough and performed well enough to work my way up to staff writer, which just meant that if people dropped out at the last minute, Piatt could send me a desperate text begging me to come up with a tight five about Bill Cosby going to prison or about how the Cubs finally winning the series turned the North Side of the city into a human garbage disposal.

  The best thing about the show, other than my scorching hot takes on local politics I don’t understand, is that Piatt somehow can always convince Very Famous People Who Happen to Be in Town for Something Else to swing by the Mill at 3 p.m. on a Saturday to do the show. The week my first book was published, I was slated to read a piece I’d written about the forthcoming Fifty Shades of Grey movie and just how much I would die for Charlie Hunnam to step on my neck. When I got to the bar after racing around through pouring rain and on unreliable public transportation, Piatt told me that the day’s very special guest was none other than Janeane Garofalo.

  I don’t need to tell you how much Janeane Garofalo’s body of work means to me. You could probably flip through my old DVD collection and answer that question for yourself, which is to say that I own at least TWO original copies of The Truth About Cats & Dogs. I spotted her by the bar, this pocket-size person (every famous person is approximately four feet, two inches) in a puffy winter coat, and my intestines liquefied, and I had to steel myself to keep from crying. I just love her that much. Before the show started, the stage manager told me that I would be reading right before Janeane went on. No pressure, of course. I cashed in my drink tickets and hoped that a couple drinks would settle me down. I read my ridiculous, disgusting essay and people laughed and I could make out Janeane chuckling appreciatively in the shadows next to the bar and my heart skipped about a dozen beats. After she did her set (do real comedians still call it a set?), shuffling through her notes while apologizing incessantly, the show ended, and she was immediately swarmed by people thrusting old VHS copies of Reality Bites in her face for her to sign. Which, in hindsight, was a brilliant idea, and I’m mad I didn’t do the same. I waited my turn at the end of a line that inched forward so slowly that it honestly felt like I was moving backward, and when I got to her I vomited a bunch of words that sounded something like, “You are a goddess, I love you. Is there anyone you need me to murder?” and she was very gracious and told me my thing was funny, and then I said, “Hey, can I give you a copy of my book?”

  I had two copies of Meaty in my bag because when you put out a book with a tiny independent press, one thing you have to do is constantly carry copies of that book on your person while alienating everyone you meet as you beg them to please buy one, and she very graciously accepted them and thanked me by saying, “I don’t use social media or e-mail, so I have no way to tell you if I like your book,” which is hilarious because feedback isn’t even a thing I had considered. Also hearing what people think about your book is excruciating. I was just super stoked to be able to put them in her hands and watch her walk away with them. She could have thrown them in the garbage right after for all I’d know, but that wouldn’t matter because Vickie Miner had a copy of my dumbass book in her purse and I could die happy, whether she tweeted at me about it or not. I walked next door to have my usual post-Machete dinner of Three Chili Chicken and Dan Dan noodles at Lao
Sze Chuan and then went on living the rest of my boring life.

  *

  At breakfast the day I met Abbi, in the back booth at Little Goat where I ordered the Fat Elvis waffles and Abbi had the spiced apple pancakes, she told me that she had been gifted my book by Janeane. Excuse me? I’m sorry, what did you just say? I knew she had guest starred on the show because I had watched a bunch of episodes to prepare for our meal, just in case famous people do shit like quiz you on obscure trivia from all their projects. What if you met Tom Cruise (GOD WILLING) and he was like, “Before we get down to business, I need you to tell me the name of my character in Collateral.” I would drop dead. And pass the test. (It was Vincent.) Anyway, Janeane did the show, and to thank them for the pleasure of having her, she gave both Abbi and Ilana copies of my nightmare book about puking and dead moms, then Abbi read it and loved it and tracked down my e-mail and sent me a message that took me eight months to respond to.

  The idea she wanted to pitch me was this: Have you ever thought about turning your book into a television show? And, reader, I had absolutely fucking not. I had definitely thought about making a show about an imaginary person who could be on-screen all the things I am not in real life, but the idea of that person being the actual me had never crossed my goddamn mind. I am neither beautiful nor smart. My most impressive skill is being able to quietly shit in unexpected places. And the closest I’d been to Hollywood at that point was going to several tapings of Judge Mathis during his first couple years on the air. I immediately started doing the one thing I’m best at: making a mental list of all the reasons a thing that has just been suggested to me absolutely will not work.

  I didn’t want to piss off an actual celebrity, but I also was never going to quit my job or go on a diet or get fillers injected into my lips or do any of the things I imagined were keys to Hollywood entry. I seriously thought, “Would it be possible to have a show on television and also still go to work every day? I need this fucking prescription coverage.” It’s not cool to act like you’re not excited about a big opportunity but, come on, dude, I don’t have the kind of life that has been conducive to ~dreaming big~ or whatever. I wasn’t in a place physically or financially to throw caution to the wind and risk it all for the chance to maybe possibly have a TV show four years from now. Because that’s what “developing a show” actually means, that a network gives you a little piece of money to guarantee that for a year or two they are the only ones that have the right to refuse to produce whatever the thing is that you spent months of your life fine-tuning to their specific tastes. I didn’t even know that then, at Little Goat, vainly trying to think of a nice way to say, “Thank you for getting on a plane, but can I just pay for your pancakes and we’ll call it even?”

  But what if I spent the rest of my life going to parties and telling the same old story of how I met the girl from Broad City one time and never capitalized on that experience? What would my friends think if I told them I had turned down an opportunity without even trying it first? Honestly, I have the kind of friends who would be like, “Who cares? Do what you want,” which is why they are my friends, but I’m sure I could find someone in my circle who would turn up their nose at my letting a possible half-hour comedy series slip through my fingers. So I did what I always do, which is to say “YEAH, SURE” and then hope that later on, if it sucks, an escape hatch will open up for me and I can get out of it.

  I e-mailed my Hollywood agent (a man I had never met whom I thought I would never have a reason to really know) to inform him that I might finally be needing his services, and he wrote back, “Wait, I’m sorry, who???” and then I melted into the earth, and that is the end of this story.

  Just kidding, kind of. He e-mailed something positive because he is relentlessly optimistic, which is a feature of this industry that can be very confusing to a normal, realistic person who does not mind the truth. I have grown used to being ruthlessly edited and have zero ego when it comes to having my work corrected. My calls about my writing from NYC are always like, “Hey, dummy, this thing you wrote is a turd. Wow, do you need new medicine? We refuse to pay you for this ridiculous trash. Rewrite the whole fucking thing by tomorrow or we’ll see you in court.” And my calls from LA are like, “Hi, sweetie, great meeting feedback! They really vibed with you and totally want to have your babies! It’s just that they’re pivoting to hardcore computer-animated docufiction, so your project isn’t a fit right now, but the good news is they think you’re hilarious and would love to circle back if you ever come up with another idea in the future. P.S. The entire network is now following you on Instagram!!” COME ON, WHAT. Just tell me to fuck off!

  *

  The first thing Abbi decided to do when we started to organize everything was to find someone who could also write the pilot with me, because I had never written a script before. I had never seriously written dialogue before. I’m not even sure that with most of my TV diet being made up of shows like RHONY and MTV’s The Challenge that I’d even heard enough scripted dialogue to be able to properly mimic it. I also didn’t know what an act break was or what the words “cold open” meant when put together like that.

  Next, we had to put the story together. Which basically means that we had to look at the broader stories and themes in my book (… my life??) and extract one main one that we would use as the basis for the pilot and essentially a thesis statement for the whole show. That’s a wild-ass undertaking, because how the fuck do you decide what part of your life is the most interesting for an audience of people who have never heard of your messy ass before? I tried to pull way back from this thing I’d lived and written, and to disconnect emotionally from it as much as I could when it was about my painful breakups and my dead mom, and tried to figure out how to package it into something I could convince strangers to pay Comcast for.

  SEASON 2, EPISODE 3

  So what were the themes in this book that we were trying to make into a show? What would the book look like when translated to TV? If I wasn’t me, and I had thirty seconds in an elevator to convince a network president to give me millions of Viacom’s dollars to play make-believe, I would say: Meaty is about a morose orphan too old to elicit sympathy for her parentless-ness who drops out of college to grieve said dead parents while scamming as many meals/free places to crash as she can, trying to scratch together a living by working odd jobs, poorly managing a very confusing autoimmune disease, and also getting broken up with all the time while constantly trying to stay soft and open in the pursuit of romance.

  Right? Kind of? Something like that! Here’s the basic pitch bible I wrote and memorized and recited in a very chill and casual way for a show loosely based around my butthole and my worst exes.

  inflammatory bowel disease

  I don’t treat my Crohn’s like it’s an albatross around my neck, like I’m laboring under the weight of this oppressive disease. I’m just having diarrhea in airports and sometimes taking Medrol to settle my inflamed large intestine. I’m not going to google what percentage of the population has an IBD, but I’m sure the number is significant, at least according to the number of people who come to my readings bearing gifts of quality toilet paper. If I’m going on a date that might be a sex date, then I know I have to eat saltines and bananas all day and stay away from coffee. But that doesn’t really matter because I still get bloated and gassy and have to shove a wad of toilet paper in my butt to mask my farts while this person I really want to fall in love with me has the movie paused in the other room and the apartment is eerily quiet and they think I’m just peeing. It’s a serious topic that can be dealt with in a really funny way while also repping for the chronically ill and constantly medicated, like me.

  a kind of careless bisexuality

  I have never been the kind of person who felt in control of her dating life, but I also didn’t slip and fall into any amazing relationships, either. Throughout my twenties, I basically dated anyone who asked me out and let them dictate the terms. Not having parents meant I
never had any pressure to date with intention, and I never had to worry about the gender or personality or life goals of anyone I was sleeping with because it wasn’t like I was going to bring anyone home to meet the people in charge of my trust. Lesbian relationships are often treated with such treacly tenderness and no thank you to that. It’s not all hand-holding and heartfelt conversations. I’ve had a number of relationships with women that were defined by casual “hey u up?” texts that resulted in sex and ended with my foraging through her old takeout containers in the morning, then wearing the exact same clothes to work that I’d been wearing the day before. Why don’t we see relationships with women and nonbinary people treated without the preciousness? Like, yes, it’s possible for non-men to ghost on you!! No one is a monolith!

  fat people doing fat shit without crying big fat tears about it

  I can’t watch This Is Us because even though the brothers are hot and the dad is a smoke show, in the first couple episodes the fat girl doesn’t get to be much more than “fat,” and wow, no thank you! Maybe there are fat people sitting around silently weeping about being fat every minute of every day, but that is a redemptive arc thin people like to see on television, and it’s just not the fucking truth. And I like physical comedy as much as the next guy, but it’s also super gross to watch a fat bitch just bounce off shit all the time? I don’t know, dude, sometimes the chair with fixed arms isn’t going to work for me, but it’s not like every time I sit in a desk, I get up and take the whole thing with me, or I’m sighing wistfully as everyone else at brunch joyfully eats their quiche while I pick at a piece of boiled lettuce. The shit is called Meaty, and sometimes I hate my body not because it’s fat, but mostly because I never wake up in the morning to discover it has transformed into a wolf or a shark overnight. When is the last time you watched a show with a fat woman who didn’t at some point reference a new diet or some ill-fitting old jeans? Also this idea that fat people only get pity sex from recent parolees or whatever is bullshit; I’ve never fucked a repulsive loser ever in my life. JUST THE HANDSOME KINDS OF LOSERS.