I Can Barely Take Care of Myself Read Online Free PDF Page A

never said point-blank, “Don’t become a stand-up comedian,” but I think that’s an implied desire that parents have fortheir child from the moment he or she is born. That and “Don’t become a stripper or a junkie, or a musician.”
    Being a comic is even harder than being in a band. A stand-up comedian wanders cities alone, saying dirty things into germ-ridden microphones to drunk people, whereas a musician sings things into a germ-ridden microphone to drunk people who at least want to give them free drugs and sleepwith them after. So for the time being, I just told them that I was moving to New York City to get another job in some kind of box office and to start going on auditions as an actress—really put that BFA in theater arts to work.
    In the front seat of the U-Haul Blake and I discussed our relationship. We wanted to remain a couple and try to do the long-distance thing. We agreed that we were onlya four-hour train ride apart and it would be even more exciting when we saw each other. Right outside of the Bronx, I had to pee really badly, but the highway was basically a parking lot. The traffic wasn’t going to move for a while, so I took a Snapple bottle, pulled my pants down, and squatted. I missed and peed on the floor of the van and on Blake’s sneaker. Jewish people step on a glass afterthey take a vow, and in our fucked-up way, we sealed a long-distance relationship deal with my urine on Blake’s foot.
    Blake helped me carry my suitcases up the narrow staircase to my new third-floor walk-up in Brooklyn. My roommates weren’thome but they’d left a key under the mat and a welcome note. When I saw my bedroom for the first time, it felt more like a giant fuck-you note. The room wasso small that there was only space for a single bed and a small nighttable—which had to sit on the other side of the room if I ever wanted the door to open. I moved from living under my parents’ restrictions to a room that physically restricted me from having any space to invite a boy to sleep over unless I moved my bedside table into the living room.
    Blake had to get back to Boston to returnthe U-Haul before we were charged for an extra day. Before he left, he sat on my bed with me. He held me and we cried. The mutual tears seemed romantic, but the truth was that I was mourning my jail-cell-size bedroom and Blake was probably coming to grips with the fact that he had a four-hour drive in a van that reeked of fresh urine.
    That night, I went by myself to a comedy show at a swankyclub called Fez. I already had an intellectual inkling of becoming a comedian, but watching it live onstage—I got what can only be called an urge. I couldn’t just sit there like a normal audience member. I wanted to get out of my seat and run up on the stage and just start talking. I wanted to wave to the audience members and say, “I’m one of them! Not you!” The pull was strong. I had to do this comedything and I wanted to do it at the expense of everything else and I wanted to start right away. This was my proverbial moment of ovulation and I wanted to lie down on the ground with a pillow under my butt and let comedy just come inside me, and one day it would blossom and grow into a career baby.
    I was disturbed from my sleep later that night by the loud noise. Yes, I lived over the Brooklyn-QueensExpressway, but the screeching that roused me wasn’t the cars; it was my roommates having a fight. Did I mention thatAmy and Ed were a couple? It was like living with my parents all over again. Amy had always been volatile in college, but I couldn’t understand what there was to yell about once you’d moved in with a guy. So far, in my limited life experience, the yelling happened because the guy wouldn’t move in with you. But now Amy was upset at Ed because she wanted marriage and kids and was wondering why their cohabitation hadn’t brought out that urge in him yet.
    I understood her urge—not to get married and have kids but to