I Know What I'm Doing (4 page)

WHOMP! THERE IT IS.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

—ERMA BOMBECK

T
he thing is—before seeing a marriage counselor or a ring doctor in the spring of 2011, I had completely lost my sex drive after the first year of my marriage. Up until then, every relationship I had ever been in started with can’t-live-without-his-scent, animal attraction, sex. It was an instinct I felt with all of my ex-boyfriends. Underneath the love, friendship, and trust was this constant feeling of
I want
to climb up on you
.

Matt was the first boyfriend who didn’t elicit this instinct from me. He was also the first boyfriend who caused me absolutely no anxiety. I had convinced myself that this non-spark we had was a sign of our maturity. He balanced me out. I should marry this balancing act. Then I learned later, with lots of therapy, that only people who feel unstable feel that they need balancing out, and that should never be a lover or boyfriend or husband’s job—because to put it in heady psychology terms, that just ain’t sexy.

I blamed myself for my lack of sex drive that year. I thought that I was on the wrong birth control pill. Maybe my natural hormones weren’t reacting well to the synthetic hormones—like ex-wives who don’t want to see their kids’ hot new stepmoms at the soccer game. I got off of the Pill. Doing so immediately caused such lousy cystic acne that I had to wear turtlenecks in the summertime and act like I was just really into French film. I thought that maybe I was depressed. I saw my doctor and got on Wellbutrin, which at least had the added effect of not making me want to smoke a cigarette. (I had taken to smoking cigarettes whenever I started to feel stressed about not being horny.) The Wellbutrin made my heart race so fast that even if I did end up having sex it would have thrown me into cardiac arrest. I got off of the Wellbutrin. I had all kinds of things tested, like my thyroid. I even hoped there was some kind of flashlight that a gynecologist could shine up into my vagina and see if there were any cobwebs up in that thing making it impossible to feel alive.

The one thing I didn’t think about doing was talking to my husband about it. I was too ashamed. I wasn’t that great at marriage. We
talked
a lot. But we didn’t
communicate
well. I was so closed off from my feelings. I was also apprehensive about starting that conversation and possibly hearing my husband say that maybe he just wasn’t that slayed by me anymore. Some people say that women are more sexually active in their late thirties, while others say that’s just a myth. All I knew is that I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t even have a crush on Robert Downey Jr. anymore. He was always the man of my dreams during his pre–heroin arrest years and new sobriety years. I took a few years off from crushing on RDJ when things started looking bleak for him. I didn’t think I could be with someone who doesn’t come home at night because he’s so high he walked into a stranger’s house and passed out in the spare bedroom. And I hated the haircut he had in prison. I would not have stood by him through that. I need something to run my fingers through during a conjugal visit.

But what I’m saying is, it freaked me out—like a generator kicking on after the main power goes out—when I met Kevin in January 2011, about a year and a half into my marriage. I was in New York City to tape an episode of a stand-up TV show for Comedy Central. A bunch of comedians from Los Angeles were flown to NYC for the taping. Matt didn’t come with me. I loved New York and he was never that big on it. My sister Violet took a train in from Boston to see the taping and (mostly) to crash in my fancy hotel room. She has insomnia, but for some reason hotel beds lull her into a womblike slumber.

My comedian friend Brian brought his friend, native New Yorker Kevin, to the taping. We all had drinks after. More comedians filled the bar. My sister talked to people and this Kevin stranger and I ended up talking just to each other. He said to me, “You seem like someone I would want to know. I’m glad you ended up sitting next to me.”
Whomp!
Something happened in my stomach that reverberated into my heart. This was clearly the first sign of a rare cardiac disease that had thus far gone undetected. It all started to make sense now. I had to come to New York City from my home in Los Angeles to tape a quick spot on a stand-up comedy show for Comedy Central. But, I started to fantasize, the
real
reason I was in New York was so that when my heart condition made itself known I could be within walking distance of some of the finest hospitals and research centers. With my sense of humor and no fear of public speaking, I imagined I would become the spokeswoman for this unknown Whomping Disease and talk to auditoriums full of people about the importance of early detection and reassure them that while there’s no cure for a case of the Whomps and the way they titillate a heart—there is a way to live with hope.

It’s a story I predicted I would tell for years. “It seems so silly but coming to New York City in January of 2011 to be on television didn’t save my career but it saved my life!” I would have to give up stand-up comedy, something I’m sure I would find unfulfilling anyway once I began my role as health ambassador. I would need to give up a life of telling jokes to drunks in order to be taken seriously enough to appeal to Congress often, imploring them to spend less money on senseless wars and more money finding a cure for us afflicted with the Whomps.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!
It happened again. I grabbed my heart. Kevin grabbed my shoulder. “Are you okay?” When his hand touched my shoulder there was a ricochet effect. I realized that this wasn’t some incurable disease—it was worse. I was maybe attracted to Kevin.

It’s not that Kevin was even my type or that I consciously felt like pawing him but his energy—something about him—made me feel . . . all of those things I hadn’t felt in years. Or maybe my hormones just kicked back in after all of the acupuncture treatments and Kevin just happened to be there.

He asked me for my number because he figured we could “kick around” the next day in New York City with our mutual friend. I love kicking around! Whatever that was! I wasn’t going to be in town the next day. My flight left at eight in the morning. But hey, why ruin a fun night with a new friend with the truth? I instinctively gave him my e-mail address instead of my phone number. He never made a move on me. My sister made a move on me as she hip-checked me, sliding into the booth. She said to Kevin, “I had to get my little sister. Sometimes she needs to be told to go to bed!”

As we put on our flannel pajamas and hopped onto the king-size hotel room mattress—as though it were night one of living our Grey Gardens lifestyle—my sister said, “Were you flirting with that guy?”

I tried to explain to my older sister, who lives on a farm and raises horses, that in the big city of New York and in the cosmopolitan world of comedy, men and women stay out at all hours of the night together because they are
artists—
not because they are
flirting.

I laid my head on the goose down pillows that I’m normally allergic to except when I’m drunk. I prepared myself mentally for the worse-than-news-of-a-dead-relative feeling I was going to receive via a phone call in three hours—the wake-up call from the front desk. Once the lights were out and all was quiet on the bedroom front, my sister, lying on her side with her back to me, got in the last word. “Besides. He’s not your type.”

What did my sister know about my type? I stewed while sitting on a Virgin America plane back to Los Angeles listening to the soft sounds of their oddly soothing club music and appreciating the soft purple lights that didn’t challenge my dehydrated, hungover eyeballs. I watched out the window as the baggage handlers loaded suitcases into the bottom of the plane. I actually spotted my suitcase. For a childfree person like myself, it almost evokes in me a maternal feeling. “Be gentle with her, she has breakables inside, and a wobbly wheel!”

I immediately regretted having checked a bag, knowing that waiting for it to come down the chute at baggage claim in L.A. could add as much as an extra twenty minutes to my travel experience. Twenty minutes I could spend nursing my hangover in my bed. I mean
our
bed.
The
bed that I shared with my
husband
. I glanced at my wedding and engagement rings. I talked in my head to my sister.
Yeah. I know I’m married. I love my husband and I’m looking forward to our Sunday-night dinner at home tonight. I will even tell him about the new friend I met.

I reflected that even though I was not interested in Kevin, he actually
was
exactly one of my former types: a skinny, messy-haired guy who wears all black. He was the 2.0 version of the type of guy I had hankerings for in high school and maybe he’d graduated from flushing algebra books down the toilet in the boys’ room and now just wanders around parties in leather pants, full of life and wanting to make friends for a night. My husband’s job required him to work and travel long hours. He had to dress comfortably. I couldn’t ask someone who sits in front of a computer straining his back and eyes to sit there like David Bowie in vinyl pants and some kind of androgynous frilly blouse.

But hey, opposites attract, right? I’m sure I wasn’t Matt’s perfect type either. If Matt was just a friend and I had to hook him up with the perfect woman, I’d have picked a tall, lanky girl with long dyed red hair, tattoos, seriously needed but ironically horn-rimmed prescription eyeglasses, and hands that can’t stay manicured because she’s a bass player or the type who sews and glues a lot of cool art-type things to sell on Etsy. I’m more like the young version of the older women I want to grow into—sort of a Joan Rivers/Iris Apfel-type mixed in with a little bit of a Led Zeppelin groupie meets aging-disco-queen thing. Matt often seemed to distance himself from me when we walked down the street and I was in one of my sequined jackets. In theory, he supported my fashion choices. He said he found it hilarious that since he’d met me when I was only thirty, I was already embracing a midlife flair with many faux fur coats.

As we taxied to our runway, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I no longer cared about “types,” to the point where I realized,
Oh shit. Kevin is my type. I still have a type. I’m a married woman who went against type
. The plane took off, revving up to speeds that still weren’t as fast as the thoughts in my head. It must be okay to be with another type than the one I married. People do this all the time, right? Short women with straight black hair and small lips play the “Free Pass” game and say things like “My husband’s free pass is Julia Roberts.”

Besides, I was just turning Kevin over in my thoughts on an airplane. I wasn’t fantasizing about him. I couldn’t even fantasize if I wanted to. I couldn’t remember the details of Kevin’s face. I didn’t know what his nose looked like. See? Maybe he wasn’t even my type after all. He could have had some weird Michael Jackson nose that’s easy to pull off like a Band-Aid. As the plane leveled out, I did too. I had done nothing wrong. I spent some time with a new friend. I didn’t put my wedding ring in my pocket and twirl Kevin’s long curly hair in my fingers.
Ah! There’s something. I don’t like long
curly hair. Kevin has long curly hair. This will never work.

The flight attendant announced that the use of electronic devices was now permitted. I decided to check Facebook—the greatest place to find out who someone really is by stalking their pictures. I found Kevin’s Facebook page and was able to browse his photos without asking for a friend request. This activity is still perfectly within a married woman’s rights. I can’t look at pictures of my new friend? What is this—the 1950s? I might as well quit my job and bake cakes in high heels! I clicked through Kevin’s life. He’s a homeowner. That’s impressive. But his home is in the country part of New York. Not my style. I only like pine trees during the Christmas season. I couldn’t stand the smell emitting from trees year-round that makes me feel like I have to hit the mall and buy everybody gifts. He has lots of women friends. That’s always a good sign that he’s evolved, possibly a feminist. Blech. What was this picture? He hosted a ukulele party? That’s annoying. I don’t see myself dating someone who pulls out a tiny instrument during cocktails and starts plucking away. Well, this session was productive. I felt nothing as I looked at pictures of Kevin. He would really be just another type that eventually I would get annoyed with, right? “Kevin, pick up your ukulele and that sweatshirt you wear in every picture off of the floor! Pick up those pine needles off of the carpet! Why does it smell like pinecones in here? I’m losing my mind in the woods! Why can’t they build a Starbucks that’s more than forty-five miles a-fucking-way?”

I clicked off Facebook, never requesting his friendship, and went to write an e-mail to my husband to let him know I would be grounded soon and ready to spend some time together. That’s when Kevin’s e-mail popped up. The subject heading: “Hello Unique Lady!” The body of the e-mail said, “Just wanted to see if you would be willing to let a dork like me tag along with you as you spend the day traipsing around New York City spreading smiles to everyone by just being you—and doing whatever silly and fun Jen things that you do!”

Fun? I hadn’t been fun in a long time. I hadn’t joined my husband to go see bands. (Too loud.) I had skipped parties that started after nine p.m. (Why go anywhere when we have an array of snack bowls from Crate & Barrel and our very own wine decanter?) Kevin didn’t know the REAL me. I must have fooled him by having a night of temporary fun-sanity.

I looked at my ring. And then I started to cry. I didn’t have a tissue or a napkin so I wiped my eyes with the stiff barf bag. I felt that’s all the comfort I deserved for having these thoughts. I didn’t even go to Catholic school—I had no idea where this guilt was coming from. I immediately spilled my feelings about everything in an e-mail. That I was having doubts about the marriage, that I hadn’t even wanted to have sex with Robert Downey Jr. recently, and that I didn’t think this was some kind of pre–seven year itch, or something to work through. I really think that I, we, made a mistake and that we shouldn’t be married anymore.