A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  UNDERMEDICATED: A LOVE STORY

  EMMYS

  EAGLES ARE SUCH A GOOD SIGN

  LIVE NAKED GIRL

  BORDERLINE

  DIARY OF A JOURNAL READER

  SMILES, EVERYONE, SMILES

  I’M HUGGING YOU WITH MY VOICE

  A FATTY-GAY CHRISTMAS

  ABROAD

  THE HOMECOMING FLOAT

  ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

  Acknowledgements

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  To Sharon and Sid Weedman,

  Happy fiftieth wedding anniversary—

  please don’t actually read this book

  and

  Jeff

  INTRODUCTION

  The stories in this book are all half lies and exaggerations, yet completely true.

  All names have been changed with the exception of a few that I forgot but am not worried about because none of them are the litigious sort.

  UNDERMEDICATED: A LOVE STORY

  And here’s your desk!”

  Stephanie, the twenty-something office manager at The Daily Show, is gesturing toward the desk in the corner—a desk that is clearly someone else’s. There is a sweater slung over the back of the chair with long dark hairs stuck to the collar. There are pictures of dark-haired people in front of Cape Cod-style houses. And there are stacks of scripts that say “Attn: Dark-haired Girl.”

  “But this is somebody’s else’s desk, right?” I ask.

  “Well, technically, it kind of is. But she may not be coming back. But she may be.”

  “How about if I just sit next to the desk—I’ll just use it if I need a hard surface.”

  Stephanie considers this for a moment and then makes an executive decision.

  “No! I want you to go ahead and sit here. All the way. Go ahead, scoot your chair all the way in. But if you do see a woman who looks like—” she picks up a photo of dark-haired people hugging golden retrievers and points to the woman on the end, the only one without a golden retriever to hug—“this, then maybe just go ahead and get up and go sit over there.” She gestures toward a stained and abandoned office chair in the corner of the room, facing the wall.

  It’s a slightly less glamorous beginning than I had imagined, but that doesn’t matter because getting the job on The Daily Show is the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. I will never know another unhappy day. Even bad days will be kind of good because I’ll have health insurance. Like the Queen.

  Finally, after all the years of striving, I can relax. No more living like a girl baby born to a Chinese family, having to prove that I am worth something. (“Please don’t drown me in the river. I may not be strong and I may not be smart, but hand me that noodle and I’ll make a joke with it. Please, let me live! Let me live!”)

  I am going to be allowed to live.

  And not only that, my worth will be well established. Gone are the days of my telling every gross personal detail about herpes scares and porn-addicted boyfriends peeing in plants. I can now just sit quietly. Like the pretty girls do. (And the depressed girls.) Everything is going to change.

  Stephanie whips around to continue her welcoming.

  “Okay? So, first day! Exciting! Are you excited?”

  “Yeah. I am,” I say, making my way toward my corner. “So is this how you find out you’re fired here? You just come in to work and someone else is at your desk? I think I’m just going to stand the whole time I’m working here.”

  Stephanie suddenly looks sad.

  “I’m sorry I’m not laughing—it just takes a lot to make me laugh. It has to be like, hilarious, to make me laugh. I’m sure you’re really funny, but I’d just be careful with the ‘trying to be funny’ thing. Everyone has a really low tolerance for that around here. So, anyway, welcome!”

  With that Stephanie leaves the room. I wish I had not said that thing about being fired. Am I trying to “cut through the bullshit” on day one? Next I’ll be asking why no black people work here.

  One thing’s for certain: I don’t want to sit at that desk. Except to find clues as to why this desaparecido girl may or may not be coming back. I need to know what not to do. First, don’t have dark hair, I got that. There must be other clues—evidence of certain herbs or supplements she had been taking, or journal entries that start with, “Said no to anal—Jon mad again.”

  Getting your dream job and then being let go. What a nightmare. And apparently when you’re let go here it’s just sort of “implied.” (“Hmmm, that’s weird. No paycheck for you again.”)

  Well, she’s OUT and I am IN! So let’s get back to the party that started three days ago, when I found out I got the job. You know what would be nice right about now? Another piece of celebration coffee cake, then maybe a gift basket.

  I stare at the phone, imagining the congratulatory calls that are sure to come from the prominent figures from my past ...

  “Lauren! It’s Mrs. Hart, and all the members of your third-grade class. We just called to say (here we go, everybody!), 1-2-3, CONGRATULATIONS!”

  And then there will be the calls from my current life as well ...

  “Lauren, it’s your father. Congratulations, good for you! Listen, you forgot to return the video you rented when you were here visiting. So you owe us twelve dollars for late fees. And your Uncle Noble died.”

  Back in reality, the phone rings—it’s my manager.

  “Hey, ya big fat famous noodle—how is the first day? We have to go celebrate tonight with cosmos and sushi.”

  I love my manager’s wild streak but offer a gentle suggestion: “If you want we can wait to celebrate when you’re not eight months pregnant.”

  “Oh please!” she says. “I’m a European mom. I’m sitting in the sauna stoned out of my mind, getting ready to shoot a porno! Ha ha ha!!! So how is it? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

  Someone knocks on the door.

  “Oh fuck, someone’s at the door,” I say, looking for something to duck underneath.

  “It’s probably Jon Stewart. Get it! Get it!” my manager shouts.

  I hang up and start self-fluffing. Come on, Lauren, get hard ... get hard.

  It’s Stephanie. The bottom part of her face (from her adorable nose on down) is smiling and happy—full of hope. But the top half, particularly the “windows into her soul,” didn’t get the memo and is exuding “something has gone horribly wrong.”

  “Hey, they’re gonna use you on the show tonight!” she says with the happy section of her head.

  Then the phone rings.

  “NO!” Stephanie yells at the phone. And for a moment her face comes together, then snaps right back. “Sorry—exciting first day, huh? Yeah, um, you can go ahead and get that.”

  It must be my manager calling back—probably hoping Jon is in the room and that maybe I’ll put him on and when they hit it off she can have a quick fling before her baby is born.

  Personally, I would never ask for a fling. “Soulmate” is more my secret hope. After watching tape after tape of The Daily Show to prepare me for the job (I’d never seen the show before I was hired, cable being as mystical and magical as health insurance), I had to agree with all the men, women, and stalkers. Jon is a charming, humble, political genius of a man.

  Trying to be ironic and witty, I pick up the phone with a mock reporter voice:

  “This is Lauren Weedman, new correspondent on The Daily Show. Can I help you?”

  Long pause. Long, long pause.

  “Oh ... hi. I was just calling to get my messages. Who is this?”

&
nbsp; It’s 4 p.m.—rehearsal time—and I can’t find the studio.

  This morning Stephanie had told me something something something, turn right, then left. But every right turn runs me into a bagel buffet or cold cereal kitchenette and every left turn takes me into someone’s secret mini Butterfingers stash or a bowl of brownies. The building is like a giant feedbag.

  I’m really lost. It’s 4:05. Shit. I’m going to have to go back up to my office and start again.

  Why don’t I just ask someone where it is? Why am I suddenly shy? I see a guy coming out of the writers’ room by himself—he seems safe.

  “Hello,” I call out.

  “You can just say ‘Hi.’ You don’t have to be ironic about it,” he says and walks away.

  I finally find the studio on my own.

  Even though I’m late, I take a brief moment to savor this momentous occasion. I am about to walk into The Daily Show studio for the first time. Pausing to reflect, I grab a mini Snickers from the bowl in the hallway and cram it into my mouth.

  This is my first time meeting Jon—dear god, I hope I don’t fuck this up.

  When, at age nineteen, I first met my birth mother, my adoptive mother sent her a letter to help prepare her for me:Dear Diane,

  Thank you for our beautiful daughter! She has given us literally hours of entertainment. But Lauren can also be quite a handful. She tends to live only for today with never a thought for tomorrow! This has made her life—and ours!—very difficult at times. She is also very bad with money. If left unmonitored she will nickel and dime herself to death!

  My spending habits are not what Jon should be warned about—somebody should probably warn him that sometimes I’m not funny, and now I’m being paid to be funny.

  Which suddenly seems like an intense amount of pressure. I’m going to end up like John Belushi or Chris Farley by the end of the week. Minus the legend part. Just bloated with drugs and alcohol and mini Snickers. But I’m not always funny. Sometimes I’m tired.

  That’s kind of funny, I think. I’m gonna say that when I walk in the studio.

  Upon opening the studio door I find a circle of men throwing around a Nerf football, one of whom is Jon Stewart. Nobody even turns his head when I walk in. Maybe I should start crying. No, I’ll save that for my second season. As soon as I see Jon I want to tell him my story about my boyfriend peeing in the houseplant, show him the tuft of hair by my ankle that I always miss when I’m shaving, and then, oh my god, I want to nickel and dime myself to death.

  I remind myself: You’re an oak tree—your roots run deep and your skin is barky—just be rooted and present. Remember, like grizzly bears, these guys are more scared of you than you are of them. It’s a comedy show—have fun! Yukka, yukka, banana peel, whoa! Come on! We’re all just folks—folks are folks—we live, we die, we rot. Jon Stewart is just a man—he’s just a man—and you’ve had so many men before, in so many ways—he’s just one more. Oh my god, it’s a song lyric from Jesus Christ Superstar—I’ve turned Jon Stewart into Jesus.

  Right as I’m about to belt out the alto line, “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening!” the men spot me and stop throwing the ball.

  I run in (holding my breasts since I’m not wearing a jog bra) as if I were late for the game. I squeeze myself into the circle, throw my hands above my head, and scream, “I’m open! I’m open!”

  And I mean it. Open to new friends, new experiences, new anything.

  But the game comes to a complete stop.

  That’s when I notice that Jon has the ball. (It’s not until later that I realize he always has the ball.)

  He greets me with a worried “Hi, Lauren. How’re ya doing?”

  “I’m just ... dealing with all the ... sexual ... tension.” (Pause.) “You know ... Fine. I’m fine.”

  “Good. It’s good to see you. We’ll be starting rehearsal in about twenty minutes,” he says with a look on his face that is not amused surprised, as I’d initially interpreted, but fear.

  The first time I’m on the show, I’m assigned a bit where I’m an entertainment expert talking about which of the Backstreet Boys is the gay one, which is the really gay one, and which is the really, really gay one.

  In the studio you do one rough run-through, where you’re bad and you flub your words and then squeegee the sweat off your eyebrows and do it again. The first one is a stumble-through, and it is petrifying. Since I had originally auditioned for the executive producer, rather than for Jon, it is also the first time that the star of the show is seeing me “act like a reporter.”

  I complete the first run-through and immediately begin an inner mantra like a screaming army sergeant: “YOU’RE OKAY! YOU’RE OKAY! THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME—GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!”

  Then I feel the ground rumbling. A herd of comedy writers is making its way toward me and soon I’m surrounded by urgent suggestions. One writer steps out in front of the mob only to be shoved out of the way by someone even more desperate to save his joke from the new girl.

  “Lauren! Okay ... how can I explain this—”

  “Just tell her what you want.”

  “Okay, you’re an expert. Meaning you know what you’re talking about. Have you ever seen Stone Phillips?”

  “Don’t confuse her. Maybe she doesn’t understand exactly what the joke is. Underline it in the script!”

  “She doesn’t understand. Let me try. Hey, Lauren! Whassup! You look great! Pretty hair!”

  “We don’t have this kind of time. We need to give it to a Steve!”

  At which point the entire studio erupts in a chant: “Steve! Steve! Steve!”

  I join in. “STEVE! STEVE! STEVE!”

  After learning that both Steves are on vacation we do one more run-through before the actual taping. It is even worse than the first one because suddenly I can’t remember how to keep my eyeballs from shaking. I decide the best thing to do is to suck my cheeks in, nod a lot, and look angry yet insecure. The “just be yourself” technique. This seems to give the writing staff the comfort of knowing “that’s as good as she’s going to get,” and they leave me alone during the actual taping.

  The next morning the executive producer asks me, “Where’d you go after the show? Jon wanted to congratulate you but you just disappeared. I think he was worried you were upset.”

  Normally I wait to make sure everyone is looking at me before I storm out of a building in tears, but this time I’d forgotten to check over my shoulder. And Jon had noticed. Oh my god. I love him.

  “You are my new boyfriend,” I say, sticking my head into Jon’s office. He looks surprised to see me. He’s on the phone with Wolf Blitzer. At least, I assume it’s Wolf Blitzer because he says, “I’ll talk to you later, Wolf,” and hangs up. It could have been Wolfman Jack. He’s dead, but Jon can get anyone on the phone.

  I notice Jon’s Emmy is on a shelf, still wrapped in plastic.

  “Look how modest you are, Jon,” I say. “You haven’t even unwrapped your Emmy.”

  Jon brings the conversation back under his control.

  “Hey, great job on the show last night,” he says. “Welcome. I didn’t see you after the show, so I wanted to make sure you were feeling okay.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that,” I reply. And that should be the moment I leave, but I don’t.

  “I just love that you don’t have a special cabinet built for your awards. Everyone I know with a bowling trophy has special spotlights installed—giant arrows on the wall pointing to it. Naked women dancing around it. That’s what you should get.”

  Jon looks confused, but he continues to keep his concern focused.

  “Well, Lauren. We’re glad to have you here. I just wanted to tell you that after the taping.”

  “You know what happened after the show?”

  Jon glances at the clock on the wall and takes a breath. But I am oblivious to his “I don’t have time; I’ve reached out to you, now please let me get some work done” signals.

  “I
walked out of the studio and immediately started sobbing.”

  He makes sad eyes that say, “Oh no!” and then looks at his phone. Probably praying for Kofi Annan or Carrot Top to call him. But until they do, I continue.

  “It’s just intense. I’ve never been on national television before, and the stakes were so high. I had to get out of the building and let all the stress out. I went in the alley to have a private breakdown but ended up sobbing in front of the doors where the audience exits. So suddenly the doors fly open: ‘Hey, there’s the new girl! Great job!’ and I’m trying to stop crying—”

  I finally stop myself because I realize Jon has a “that’s a sad story” look frozen on his face, but his eyes are darting from the phone to the clock to the door. The phone, the clock, the door. The phone, the clock, the door.

  I start to laugh and hope he’ll join me. But somehow he doesn’t see the humor in a new hire telling him that she may or may not be stable.

  We very formally end our conversation with some “welcome agains” and “I’m exciteds” and “thank yous.”

  The journey to my office is always exhausting. Every time I pass an open office door I stick my head in and try to say something funny. I try to convince myself that I’m just saying hi. Getting to know the people of The Daily Show. By the end of the first week, it’s turned into a bizarre dance routine.

  Step, step, look right, “OK, guys—hands outta your pants!”

  Step, step, look left, “Man, crack cocaine makes you sweat a lot, look at you!”

  Step, step, look right, “For a fat person you’re looking very thin today.”

  Ball change and repeat.

  If the person responds or laughs I take that as an invitation to come on in and ask them for advice. I want to know what the women before me have done. And why everyone keeps saying, “It’s sooo hard to keep women here.” But people just nod and smile at me and reveal nothing. Which may have to do with the fact that they’re “working.”