clown girl blues

today is my comedian friend garret’s birthday, which means for a full twenty four hours i am legally obligated to affirm a man’s desire to speak into a microphone. unfortunately for feminism, garret is actually quite funny, so laughing at his jokes isn’t too humiliating. but i would rather die than admit that out loud.

we’re celebrating tonight with dinner and, drumroll please, drinks. it’s going to be at my favorite thai place in brooklyn where the noodles are perfectly broad and it’s never hard to get a table. garrett called me for advice on where to have the party because he just moved to the city last month, whereas i’m basically a native new yorker now (lived here just shy of a year and spent all eleven months sucking off a man from queens).

i of course pounced on the opportunity to plan garret’s birthday dinner. one because i adore garrett, and two because any time i use resy i feel like a project manager who works in manhattan and makes a million hundred dollars per year. i also feel this way when i wear a slicked back bun or manage to eat lettuce without ranch.

dinner rolls around and my boyfriend doug and i head out to eat pad see ew and listen to a bunch of brooklyn comics talk about themselves. (not much different than doug’s typical day to day now that i’m back doing stand up). we arrive about fifteen minutes late, even though the reservation is under my name. i would love to say this was some sort of power move, but really i just had a winged eyeliner incident.

when we get to the restaurant, garret and his other friends are all standing around outside. i know it’s about to be introduction time so i script out something in my head to sound aloof enough that no one will question it when i leave early. “i’m rachel. i live up the street”. nailed it. creating an aura of mystery is all about being from a vague location.

twenty five minutes and three awkward handshakes later, we’ve reached the cocktail part of the birthday dinner. the hostess has to pull the table out to accommodate my juicy ass which makes me feel like obama era adele. there is a girl sitting across from me who is way cooler than me (has bangs and glasses), so all i really know how to do is talk about instagram. before we can really vibe, garret interrupts the sidebar conversations to ask us what our favorite memory of him is. we all go around and try to one up each other with funny answers. i love my creative community.

it’s 7:45 which means doug and i have to start our trek into manhattan to see my other (new) comedy friend morgan’s show. i finish my second lychee martini and give garret his birthday gift. on the way into the city, i think about how lucky i am to know a guy like garret, as aren’t many straight men out there to have a normal friendship with. he’s the kind of guy whose idea of virtue sort of starts and stops at humor. we make each other laugh and neither of us really cares about much else. we first met years ago at an open mic in pittsburgh. i was at rock bottom, living on a diet of garlic bread, valium, and twisted tea. he liked my jokes and a kinship slowly blossomed. the best people are the ones whose idea of friendship has nothing to do with where you’re at in therapy. that’s a scientific fact, i’m sure of it.

morgan’s show is at von bar in the lower east side. every time i go there i am nostalgic for my first nyc apartment. honestly, i’m nostalgic for my life back then in general. it was a simpler time, before i reaped what i sowed. when i was callous, carefree, and every thing i did was for the sake of a good story.

i still had my harem of morally ambiguous forty five year olds who i could call up any time i was lost or horny (i was usually both). and even better, i still had my hot smart girl power friends. if i knew those friendships were going to dissolve one day, i would have invited them to sleep over every night and not been so annoying when things weren’t all about me. but i can’t live in the past, especially when it’s time to cross the street without being hit by a yellow cab.

after morgan’s show is over, doug and i head home. every girl on the lineup tonight was so funny and so cool in a baggy t-shirt kind of way, i couldn’t even be jealous. since moving back to new york, i’ve only been on a few shows myself, but being around other comedians is motivating me to bust my ass and suffer through mics until i have something clip-worthy to send around.

but even with my envy in check and goals laid out, i can’t say i have the healthiest relationship to comedy right now. sometimes i feel like i am haunted by the ghost of my former creative self. which is such a kendall roy thing to say, but it does accurately describe the experience of re-entering an artistic space as a completely different, saner person.

i’m much happier now, i take therapy seriously, and my life is no longer a series of self-destructive choices that i mine for punch lines. unless of course you count the first date i went on upon moving back to new york, where i let a man feel me up on the patio of a gluten free restaurant that was apparently not closed for the night. but that man is now my boyfriend, so it’s still a bit boring right?

i think those of us who got into comedy, writing, or really any creative pursuit as a way to cope with pain tend to romanticize the days when life and art felt like one in the same. as the pain fades, the two begin to untangle and eventually it can feel like the project you were once so passionate about no longer resonates. what used to be a reflection of your most authentic self now feels like an ill-fitting costume you have to stuff your ass and tits into and still somehow put on an effortlessly good show.

and yes, i know i’m supposed to say that it’s foolish to link artistic passion with pain or chaos. how through my healthy, loving relationship i’ve discovered my true voice that was buried underneath the chaos all along. one that’s much more empowering (marketable) and far less concerned with turning problematic relationships into notes app poetry. maybe that’s some people’s journey, but it’s certainly not mine.

mess is still my muse. i think it always will be. the trick now is how to find it amidst my very tame life and joke about it in a way that doesn’t feel dishonest, but doesn’t sound like a TED talk either. i have no idea how to do that! and i don’t think it’s something that can be rushed or forced. so until then, i guess i just have to go with the best i’ve got (recycled jokes about nightmarish tinder dates and feeling body conscious in the petco leash aisle). and honestly, i’m probably overthinking it all anyway. i’ve noticed that when i get stuck in a rut of doing nothing, it’s usually because i’m thinking instead.

alright, i’m starting to talk like the joker. time to shut my laptop, be horny towards my lover, and watch the sopranos until i fall asleep on the couch.

-Rachel