Hello. I should use a microphone, really. Hi. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was the perfect amount of applause. I didn’t have to stand here too awkwardly long. Thank you for coming. I am Jen. If you didn’t know, maybe you wandered in, now you’re having a fun time with me. Um… It has been brought to my attention by doctors, some codependent yoga teachers, and everyone who’s ever met me that I am high strung. And… it’s been suggested… that therapy isn’t enough, that I need to meditate. And so, now, I am one of these people who meditates. And by “I meditate,” I mean, “I do not ever meditate.” But… I have a meditation playlist, some gongs going, “gong, gong.” I’ve got apps, I think about meditation. I have a meditation chair in my living room. You have one, too. It’s just a fucking chair. But… I put a candle next to it and I call it my meditation chair, yeah. And when you come over, I point out to you, “Oh, don’t mind that, that just, um… That’s my meditation chair, yeah. No, every morning I get up and I think about doing it and I don’t. I get up and I… sit in it and take a few deep breaths. Don’t be intimidated, you can sit in it if you want. Yeah, it’s not… Not everyone’s on the same spiritual plane, but we don’t have any rules in this… happy home with the chair and the… Don’t worry about why the candle has never been lit, just…” But this one day, I did meditate because I had an important thing to do. I wanted to get a job. I wanted to write and I wanted someone to pay me for it. I wanted to have an interview and I wanted to get it. So, that being said, there were a little nerves in the morning. I thought maybe I’ll try this meditation thing that everyone is talking about. And I did about five minutes of meditation. And if you’re not impressed with that, then you’ve never meditated. Because after five seconds, you’re like, “Why did the Lord stop time?” Five minutes is a long time to clear your mind of things and I did it. And I woke up and came out of it and I was like: “Oh, I get what everyone’s talking about. I feel… so… Like, I could handle anything. If I didn’t have to leave the house today, I could really handle anything.” But I did have to leave the house. And so, I got in my car and I’m driving in the Los Angeles 9 a.m. traffic. When I saw the green light, I was like, “Green’s pretty.” And I was trying to figure out what green meant, like, on a deeper level. And I’m like, “Green, what can that tell me?” And I didn’t realize in that moment, all I needed to know about green is it means fucking go. And so, I’m, “Green,” and I start to slow down. And the people behind me are starting to lose it because they are late for work. And so they’re just, “beep!” and they’re honking and their horns, and I’m like, “Oh, now it’s yellow. Oh, red. Oh, that was fun.” And I realized… I’m stopped at the red light, which is normal, but I really stopped at the green light. And then I realized, “Oh, my God, I… I screwed these people.” That could’ve made the difference between them being early and being late. Guy behind is pissed like: I see him in my rear-view mirror. And I just… I feel so calm, though, because I meditated. Yeah, so… I just turned and give him a wave that just says like, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you think you’re late for work, but… you don’t know what I know. There is no time, so, yeah.” I’m even embarrassed to say that I heard his horn. That’s not very meditation of me. What is a sound, right? That’s… That’s just the meaning I placed on it, right? I could’ve heard anything. I could’ve heard butterflies eating candy. So… I’m driving, feeling really good about myself, and just, like… Just so much better than everyone else that’s so mad. And that’s what meditation’s for, is to feel superior to others. So… I turned the corner and we go to the next stoplight… and I pull up to it and so does the guy behind me that was all pissed. And I’ve got the sunroof open, the windows down. I’m just happy as can be. Again, did I mention I had meditated that morning? And the guy next to me, typical what you think of Los Angeles if you’ve never been. Producer-looking guy, kind of chomping on his cigar, bald, kind of chubby, in his red BMW, probably 50, two divorces. And he’s sitting there and he is pissed at me. And he’s in his car… and he just looks over and goes, “Hey, dumbass, what were you doing at that light?” And I’m just sitting in my car like: “I meditated today. Can’t get angry. What would it be like to kill him? Don’t think about that.” So, he yells again, “Hey, dumbass, what were you doing at that light? Texting your boyfriend?” That one got me. Because I didn’t have a boyfriend and I was not happy about it. Then I got pissed. I’m like, “He thinks I’m texting my boyfriend? That’s what he thinks when a woman makes a mistake in traffic? It’s always about a man. Anytime you see a five-car pile up, it’s like, ‘Are you coming home for dinner or not?'” You know? So, I was like, “This guy is not gonna bully me. Fuck this. I don’t care about meditation. Everybody gets angry. I’m not a goddamn saint.” Not that they meditate, but whatever they do. And so, I put the car in park and I stood up in my seat and I put my head out of the sunroof and then I went into the passenger seat. And I leaned over and I went, “What the fuck did you just say to me?” For those at home watching, this isn’t being taped in New York City. He said, “I said, what were you doing at that light, dumbass?” Now, I didn’t wanna tell him, “I meditated today and I got loopy at the green light.” I didn’t want to tell him that because he was mean to me and I wanted to win. I wanted to say something that would make him feel so bad about what he did that he’d be like, “Oh, my God, I have to think before I speak and put myself in other people’s shoes. You never know what someone’s going through.” Right? So, I said to him something that’s true, meaning, I actually said it. The content is not true. I said, “What was I doing? I was thinking. I just found out that my mother died this morning.” I didn’t say I was a good person, I just said I meditated. He goes, “You’re still a dumbass.” And I was like: “What kind of person says that to someone whose mother just died?” She didn’t, he doesn’t know. He is a bad person. I am the winner in this story still. And then I just lost it. And I went, “Oh, go fuck your car.” I don’t know what that means either, but I just… I had to keep going, like I knew what I was talking about. Like, “Yeah, stick your dick in the tailpipe, buddy. I know who you are. What are you, a producer? Divorced? You had two wives and left both of them for your assistant. And what, you…? You tell young girls you’re gonna put them in movies? You don’t have any movies to put them in. You’re a loser.” And the light turned green and he… The light turned green and he drove off. That’s what you do at green lights, you drive away. So, as he drives off, he screams, “You’re crazy.” And I was like: And I screamed out of the… Out of the passenger seat sunroof: “I’m not crazy. I meditated today, motherfucker.” Thank you. Which is an ancient chant from the Buddha. So… But then I thought… My adrenaline’s going, I’m shaking. And I went, “Holy shit, all this happened and I meditated today. What if I hadn’t, you know?” And just a little lesson for you guys, do not call a woman crazy unless you wanna see a woman go fucking crazy, okay? Just don’t. Save yourselves. If you wanna see… If you wanna tell a woman she’s crazy, just call her calm. It’ll just throw us off and the whole thing’s dissipated. Just go, “Hey, you’re being really calm right now.” “Oh, thank you. A psychic told me I was calm once. Thanks. What were we fighting about? I didn’t even know.” So… I’m driving and I’m like: “Okay, just calm down. Adrenaline’s coming down.” I get to the next stoplight. This stoplight never changes. The guy is there again and I’m like, “Okay, don’t start anything, Jen. Stay in your lane and, literally, do not be or seem crazy.” So, I put on some music and I’m bopping around happy as can be. “Look at me, I’m not crazy at all. I wasn’t just screaming, ‘I meditated, motherfucker.’ I am fun and happy.” And he’s kind of looking at me and he yells into my car, “Hey… sorry about your mom.” And I’m like, “Oh, fuck, I forgot my mom died.” And so, you know… I suddenly get real upset, I go: “Oh, I know, it’s been a tough morning. So much paperwork.” What? I don’t know… What is…? Why would there be paperwork so soon, an hour? If it’s real, she lives in Boston, I live in L.A., she died an hour ago, there’s paperwork, do I have a fax machine that’s like, “Someone died, come on,” you know? And so, he looks at me and goes, “Well, love, we got kind of heated, but I hope you have a good day whatever you’re doing.” And I’m like, “You, too, man.” And he drives off and I start sobbing. I’m like, “Oh, my God. So full of emotion, you know. I don’t know if it’s just my mom or just… I… It just kind of… You know, I’ve talked to two people this morning already and I would never do that, but that’s the meditation, it brings us together. It’s so powerful.” So, then I parked the car. I’m no longer crying, or passionate, or crazy, or condescending because I’m meditating. And I walk in into this meeting, introduce myself, we have a chitchat, they’re gonna pay me, I’m gonna do the job, I nailed it. I’m like, “I shouldn’t be allowed to do that. I should not be allowed to act normal ’cause I was acting like a maniac.” How come they don’t have to know what I was doing. You’re allowed into a building and be whatever you want even though you were screaming. I can’t believe we do that, but we do. I’m like, “But registered sex offenders don’t get to do that.” I feel like, I should… When I get crazy like that, I should be treated like a registered sex offender. Like, they have to go door-to-door. “I’m your neighbor. I have things in my past.” Like, I should have to go to a meeting, like, “Hello, I’m a nice person, but I just screamed, ‘I meditated today, ‘ in the middle of the road and…” But I got away with it. It’s like… If you’ve ever been going to a party and you’re in the car with your partner and just… You hate them and you’re like: “That outfit doesn’t match. What’s so funny is you talk about how much you love your mom and she used to put you in these outfits. She fucking sucked at teaching you how to dress. Oh, yeah, I am gonna start in on your mom. Oh, yeah, I am. Oh, yes, I am. Oh, no. No, don’t even… No, no, no. Know what? I wanna go to this party for five minutes and I don’t wanna look at you. They’re my friends, not yours.” Then you walk in, “Hey, I brought muffins,” and you’re like… You wanna stay all night. “Aren’t we having fun?” He’s in the corner and your friends are like: “Isn’t she great?” And he’s like, “She’s fucking great.” And you get back in the car and you forget about the fight from before and you’re like, “Weren’t those muffins great? I’m great.” And he’s just looking at you like, “Shut up. I know who you really are.” I know you can probably sense I’m a bit of a badass. Um… Not… I don’t mean because of that story, but you can tell I have a tattoo. I know you can. Um… I have… Not everyone gets one, you know. There’s badasses and the rest of you and, um… But I have a tattoo and I’m only gonna have one. I think the whole tattoo thing is a lot like kids. Like, first of all, some people want one, some people want none, some people want a bunch, like… And it’s all over their arms and it looks like a lot of work. But… But you go to a place, you lay down, there’s a lot of pain and you’re like: “God, I hope I love it. It is permanent.” So… So, I’m having a tattoo instead of a child. And… So, for me, I’m one of the one-and-doner types. So, you know that my tattoo has to be very meaningful, right? If… If you’ve ever thought about getting a tattoo, you think about it for a while. “I don’t wanna get something dumb. I have to have something that means something.” And I’ve been waiting my whole life to find something succinct that means something that I can put on my body permanently. I thought of something a couple of years ago and I was like: “Don’t do it, give it another year and if you’re still thinking about it, do it.” That’s what I did. And I was inspired by my friend who got a tattoo of her grandfather’s name on her wrist and his birthday because he has an amazing story, so… My… My friend’s grandfather survived the Holocaust because he was a Nazi. But… No, that’s… Okay. Sorry. That… That’s just a fun joke. That is not… I didn’t set you guys up, there really is a story about my friend. I just had to throw in because he was… My friend’s grandfather survived the Holocaust. And my friend, just like her father and her father’s father, and like many of us in this country, suffers from depression and anxiety. And the story he would tell was the survival story of his mind. When he was in the camps, he would say a prayer of gratitude to God and say, “I don’t… If this has to end this way, fine, but thank you for making me me and not one of the evil people. Thank you for putting love in my heart.” And that is mind-blowing. Of course you put that guy’s name on your wrist. The most beautiful story I’ve heard. And I don’t have anyone in my family like that. I… I come from a family of Catholic people from Boston and we don’t talk to God like that. We don’t like God. We are mad at God and we assume he’s mad at us. “Jennifer, why would you have gratitude for a bad thing that happened? That means God’s mad… Mad at you. He’s punishing you. Jennifer, why would you have gratitude for God being so mean to you? Maybe he’ll think you like it there and he’ll keep you in there. We’re not bothering God with all this gratitude unless something good happens. Nothing bad’s ever happened in our family, but it could and we’re gonna complain in advance and we’re gonna stay vigilant. So, no tattoos of anything our family said, please.” So, I had to go elsewhere. So, I’ll show you my… My tattoo… and then I’ll explain. Thank you. It’s on my ankle. It’s on my ankle. It says, “JKL,” which stands for JK living, which stands for just keep living, which is Matthew McConaughey’s catchphrase. Thank you. This tattoo could not be less ironic at all. I mean it with all my heart. Just keep living… inspires me. And I’m not suicidal. But I am a soul trapped in a body. I didn’t ask to be born and I’m afraid to die. And that’s the shit I live in every day. And so… Yeah. I love what you get excited about. “Yeah, that’s right. We’re trapped!” Before you judge, or if you think I’m just some shallow Hollywood person. No, no, no. There’s a story behind “just keep living.” Just like my friend had a story behind her tattoo of her grandfather. So, I’m at the nail salon and I’m having a bad day… but I don’t know why I’m having a bad day. I just don’t feel good. Physically, I feel fine. Mentally, not into it. So, I’m scrolling through People magazine and I see an article about Matthew McConaughey. Well, he had a tough day once, too. I’m not sure why you’re laughing. This is very serious. He was filming Dazed and Confused and he knew he was going to be a big star, but his father is dying, so, he was like: “Something good and something bad is happening at the same time. Well, I guess I better just keep living.” And then that became his catchphrase. And I see you’re not as moved to silence by it as you were the Holocaust story. And that’s fine. Different things for different people. The thing about this tattoo is it’s in an inconvenient place. If my friend is having a bad day, she can remind herself, “Not as bad as my grandfather had it,” by going like this. I have to be like: “I will board this plane in a minute, I’m having a bad day, and I need a reminder… Go… Go ahead. Go. Go ahead.” People say things about tattoos like, “You’re gonna regret it. It looks dumb.” I’m like, “It looks dumb now, I’m all set. Thank you.” I got the, uh… I actually got the tattoo on my birthday last year. Didn’t do anything fun for my birthday this year. Got a gift from mom. It wasn’t my only gift, but she handed me this piece of paper. Um… She does that now that she’s getting older. I don’t know if she’s made a will, but she seems to send me things and hand me things whenever I see her and it’s always a dramatic speech. “Jennifer, I had to give this to you because if I die how would you know I had it?” I go, “I’m gonna ransack the house. Yeah, I’ll get everything, don’t worry.” But she give me this thing and it is as old as I am. It is 42 years old. It is the piece of paper they gave her when she left the hospital with me when I was a little baby. I know, so cute. I was 7 and a half pounds when I was born. So thin. Now I am 42 years old and I’ve been over this before, you know, when we talk about complimenting women and men, too, of telling people they look young. It’s a scary thing. Do not do this to people, okay? Stop complimenting people by saying, “You don’t look your age.” Don’t do that. I don’t like when women in their 20s are like: “Oh, my God, I thought you were my age.” Not a compliment. I’ve been in my 20s. I don’t wanna look like I have four roommates and shitty towels. I don’t wanna look like that. So… Thank you. I’m the only one I know that loves being called “ma’am.” I love it. I… Whenever someone goes, “Your change, ma’am,” I’m like, “You noticed. Thank you. Yeah. I have had a really rich and storied life. Yeah. I, um… No, I’ve got time to tell you. I had a pager, sure, yeah. I… I was a cashier before scan technology, made change in my head. And I was around when Bruce Willis thought he should record an R&B album. So, yeah. Survivor, seen a lot. Thanks.” Anyways, my mom gives me this. This is all they gave you in the ’70s when you had a child, a living thing that you had to take care of. Not even 8-by-10. “Here you go. Bye.” This I found very strange. It says, “Friends and relatives, these people are interested in your baby.” Oh, thank you. “And they want to hold and hug him.” Oh, they didn’t have girls in the ’70s. “We must caution you to keep visitors away from your baby. The newborn baby is best kept as much to himself as possible.” Which is different than now. I go to my friends’ houses, they’re like: “Look at the baby, swaddle the baby, you can breastfeed the baby. It’s fine.” But in the ’70s, it’s just like, “Joyce, didn’t you have a baby?” “Yeah, three months ago.” “Where is he?” “He’s in the other room. We haven’t taken him out yet. You know, they say, the doctor says too much looking, and touching, and fussing, it… It can lead to a sense of well-being, so we don’t want that, we’re just gonna… Don’t look at him.” But… This is my favorite part, we might have to go over it twice if there’s any confusion. It explains crying. Why does a baby cry? Well, he’s too hot, he’s too hungry, he’s too thirsty. We got it. Here’s one. “If it is less than three hours from the feeding, check to make sure there are no pins sticking in him. And change him.” So, I’ll explain for anyone very young. Velcro, although invented in the ’40s, was something they didn’t put on diapers. I don’t know if they didn’t put it on diapers. We didn’t have Velcro diapers in the ’70s in my house. Whenever we didn’t have something, we were told it wasn’t invented yet. I’d be like, “Can we get a microwave?” My parents were like, “Not invented yet.” I’m like, “Oh, my God, I must be so genius. How did I know there was…?” But we… We did not have Velcro diapers. Back then, you’d wear a cloth diaper and then they’d put safety pins to keep it on. So, that’s fine. Make sure no pins are sticking in him. But why must you wait three hours? Can’t you…? Can’t you feed the baby, put him down in the other room where no friends or family can see him… If five minutes goes by, can you check and see if there’s no pins in him? If there aren’t, then go, “I guess he’s gonna cry for a while.” But, no, this says three hours. You could see a movie in three hours. But you don’t have a VCR back then. So, you have to go to a movie and you can come all the way back, and have 15 minutes left before you check on your kid. “Should we check on him?” “It says three hours. We don’t wanna be smothering.” “You’re right, we got 15. Make me a drink, then we’ll go in, I’m gonna…” So… I basically know that I was just thrown in another room with pins sticking in me growing up. Which is why I’m so comfortable being alone and I do acupuncture. But, um… I travel alone, I went to Italy by myself this year. And it invoked a lot of reactions from people. You would have thought I said, “I started a race riot this year.” People were like, “What? You did what?” People are very freaked out with being alone. Like, I love being alone. I think it’s great. People are like, “How do you do it?” How do I decide that I don’t like other people and make sure I’m not around them? Pretty easy. People are like: “I don’t even wanna go to the movies alone.” Why would you wanna go with another person? What can you do at the movies with another person besides jerk them off or something? There’s nothing to do at the movies. And I’m a grown woman. I don’t care if people think I’m a loser for being alone.
I was excited for this trip before people started putting a damper on it. My dad was saying, “Aren’t you afraid of ISIS? ISIS is everywhere. Be afraid of ISIS.” I was like, “Who… I’m a woman. I don’t have time to be afraid of ISIS. I’m just busy being afraid of plain old men. Are you kidding me?” You ever walked by a bar at 1 a.m. when dudes in baseball hats are getting out? Fuck ISIS. ISIS are adorable. ISIS have costumes and beards, look like bartenders. ISIS, they’re not… I’m not afraid of them at all.
So… I’m packing for my trip and I’m thinking like, “Where should I go?” Like, you know, I’m making list of, like, where I’m gonna see and what I’m gonna do. Then I Googled just at the last minute, ’cause I booked a trip to Venice. I just Googled, “What are the safest places in Italy where woman don’t get raped?” – Oh! – “Oh! Oh! She said rape.” Let me fucking tell you something. Rape exists, I’m gonna talk about it. That’s not a joke, that’s a fact. I looked that up because I didn’t wanna get raped. I’ll stop talking about rape when men stop raping. So, don’t give me your little outrage, “Ooh, oh, oh!” So… But it’s true, there are websites for this stuff. Well, it’s just Yelp. There should be… There should be “Relp” for like, “Where will I get raped? Help.” And so you go on that website. So… I felt very safe in Venice, and if anyone cares I came out of it unscathed, it was a very safe time. But people were saying to me: “Wouldn’t you rather wait and go with a man?” Not for safety, just it’s not fun to go, I guess, without a man. And I’m in a relationship and that’s what shocked people more. “Why isn’t he going?” ‘Cause I’m a comedian, I happen to be in Europe for some work anyway. I thought I’d just jaunt over to Italy for a couple days, and he has a job and so he can’t just do that. And they’re like, “He’s abusive.” I’m like, “No, no, he just… He just has a different job, and I have free time, and… It’d be a waste to not go to Italy, it’s just two hours away.” And they’re like, “He should be by your side for this.” I’m like, “It’s not chemo. I’m just going on a trip. I’m just going on a trip. It’s all good, they have food there, they have wine, they have people that talk, it’s just like here, it’s just like here.” But I don’t understand. Obviously, you wanna sometimes spend time with your partner. But traveling… Why risk the relationship? Why travel with a partner, right? I went to Paris once with my husband. Guess what, now he’s my ex-husband. It… You don’t have to travel with your partner. It’s the time that you see them 24 hours a day and everything they do, you’re like: “Why are you walking on the plane using your legs? God!” When you travel alone, you can eat with your hands. I don’t mean pizza. I was eating a salad. I would rub it on. It was great.
The only thing that sucked about my trip, and I hate to complain about such a privileged thing as to go to Italy by myself, is that I booked a walking tour ’cause I love that stuff. And I booked the ghost tours of Venice, which I thought was gonna be so fun. I was reading the website, people were leaving comments. “It was so fun, then a theater troupe jumped out at us and they tried to scare us and we saw sites where people got slaughtered back in the 1700s, we heard these crazy ghost stories and we saw secret canals and secret this and secret that.” And I was like, “I want that. I want all the secrets.” So, I signed up for it. And it was my last night in Venice. And so at the last minute, I checked my e-mail confirmation from the company. And I had accidentally booked a private tour. And I was like, “No. No.” Thank you for understanding. “I don’t wanna walk alone with someone for 90 minutes. That’s my worst nightmare.” And they make me meet him on the bridge, like some romance story. And he sees me and he goes, “Is it just you?” And I go, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Oh, this breaks my heart.” And he was doing this big thing. “I don’t wanna give you the ghost story tour. Oh, it’s too sad. You’re alone in Venice. Oh, no, no, no. We do the love story tour.” I go, “I wanna see where people got murdered. Tell me about dead babies. I wanna hear all kinds of crazy shit.” And he asked, “Where is the man?” I don’t know if he meant my boyfriend or “the man” that’s coming down on us. I’m like, “If I knew where ‘the man’ was, we’d all be free,” right? And so… I didn’t know what he was talking about. He was very concerned, I had to explain, “I’m in a…” You know, like all walking tours start this way, you explain. You’re in a relationship, very happy. You’re just taking sometime alone. Don’t worry. And then I got down on my knees and screamed: “Why, God, I miss him! I haven’t seen a penis in a week! Oh, God!” But then we started the tour. But when… The other problem… Not just being a woman with a man. When you’re anybody with anybody, when you’re alone on a walking tour, they can start taking advantage of you. So, he was like, “Miss, if you don’t mind, I don’t feel so much like walking tonight.” I’m like, “You picked the wrong job.” He’s like, “I’m a little tired. It’s been a hard day. I am sad and it’s hot. Could we stand here?” And so I said yes.
I stood under a bridge with a man while he told me stories that were not ghost stories for 90 minutes, okay? And I knew the inevitable was gonna happen. I knew it was gonna happen. He asked me… why I was in Italy. And I said, “For vacation.” He said, “But why alone?” I said, “All right, I was in London doing some work and I came here.” “What work do you do?” And I… I don’t wanna tell him I’m a comedian. You guys, you’re nice to comedians when we’re on stage, but in real life, people say awful things to us. They find we’re comedians they’re like, “You don’t seem funny.” “I’m getting my fucking colon removed, that’s why.” So… I always have a lie whenever I check-in to a hotel, get into an Uber. “What brings you to town?” Shuts them up. “My friend’s having an abortion. I had to come right in. And it’s a guy so it’s a weird procedure, so just please leave me alone. I don’t wanna…” So, I just tell him I’m a comedian and then he goes: “Madam, this is not a provocation… but your life does not seem interesting enough that you have to go around the world and tell it.” And he’s right, isn’t he? And that was how the tour ended is he said “not a provocation” and then gave me a big old provocation. And then he did one nice thing. I was trying to look at the positive, I’m a meditator. Is he took me to an Italian restaurant. Obviously, I was in Italy. He took me to a restaurant, I don’t have to say Italian restaurant. “Is this here an Italian restaurant or what?” So, he took me… He took me to a restaurant. He didn’t sit with me, he just brought me there. And I was actually very grateful because it was on the Grand Canal and if you’ve ever been to anywhere, you sometimes don’t know what’s the authentic restaurant and what is the cheesy tourist place. And so, I said, “I never would’ve picked this place. I had no idea by looking at the restaurants on the Grand Canal what was authentic and what wasn’t, so, thank you for bringing me here.” Now he’s standing over my table, waiter is bringing the wine, things are starting to happen and he says, “May I tell you one more story, then?” I go, “Okay.” He hadn’t told me a ghost story yet, so I was like, “Maybe this is it.” He goes, “You remind me, there’s a story about perception. You bring up you don’t know what restaurant is good based on looks. Isn’t that life? You don’t know a man or a person, just based on looking at them, what’s in their soul. Maybe there’s a man and he’s fun and he walks and he tells the stories. But then maybe he goes home and he kills himself.” “Is that it?” He goes, “Yes.” I go, “Okay, well, have a good night. Thanks for the tour.” What…? “Just keep living.” I was annoyed because he never told the horror story. He only told me the love story. I was like, “Oh, that’s so… I don’t… Not everyone’s meant for this world. Whatever he wants, I don’t care.” But I thought, maybe I should complain. Like, I don’t wanna get him fired, but I wanna complain and get my money back and then just have the manager just tell everyone, “Hey, you know, we can’t mess around with the tours. Give people what they want.” So, maybe, what if I call the manager right now? What if she was like, “Sergio? He did not meet you on the bridge at 7.” I’d be like, “He did.” She’d be like, “Oh, no, ma’am, at 6:30 he killed himself.” I’d be like, “Oh, my God, that was the greatest ghost tour ever!” Yes. Now you like a suicide joke when it has a little punch to it, right?
So, you know, I’m a hypochondriac, but not… I don’t invent things. It’s just that when something happens, I think it’s worse than it is, right? I had an incident with my doctor six months ago… where she told me I couldn’t come back for a year even if I really was dying. Because I had such a hypochondriacal episode… and made an ass of myself. Now, I wanna tell you the story, but it’s gonna be filmed… and now a cliché is gonna be stuck on me. Because the story also involves my period. And people have a problem when women talk about their periods. “People.” Men. So… the common wisdom that people say is women aren’t funny. Okay, great. I can’t do anything about that. If you don’t think I’m funny, check out other women, right? “Women” is not a type of comedy. “Women” is a type of person. I think women are people, I’m not sure. Anyway, but… Let’s take apart why it’s so difficult to talk about a period. I think sometimes people just don’t know what a period is. And so, a man doesn’t wanna hear about it because he’s like: “I feel stupid. I don’t know what it is.” And no problem. They didn’t explain it to us either. I turned 11, mother said, “You’re gonna get your period.” “What’s that?” “A thing you’re gonna get.” “When?” “Anytime between now and the next seven years.” “Oh, God.” And then you’re just walking to school like, “Gonna get my period. What’s my period? Comes out of here. Do I have it? Can anyone see?” And so, it’s… It’s… Here’s what a period is. Let’s start with education and get to the fun story about hypochondria and my period, right? Here we go. In case anyone doesn’t know what a period is, every month a woman sheds the interior of her uterine lining because she’s not pregnant, because she’s a dirty, dirty whore… who didn’t do the one thing God put her on earth to do, which is make a baby. And that’s her three- to-five-day punishment. So… that’s what a period is. Now… I think men can handle that fact, right? And I’m not making fun of men. I mean, I… The thing… Men aren’t ever mean to us about our periods when we talk about them. They’re never mean to us. They just don’t wanna hear it. And I understand that because the world caters to you and you don’t have to hear about anything that you don’t know about. And that must be really scary when you have to, so, we must… We must be kind to men. I don’t like the old hacky thing of, “If men had their periods, they’d be like, ‘Yeah, blood everywhere. Gonna name a bar after it. Yeah… ‘” You know. Maybe that’d be true, maybe it wouldn’t. But I don’t know if it’d be true because if men were the ones getting their periods, then women would be the ones not getting their periods. And so, it would be unequal. And I know what I’m like when I don’t understand things in a man’s body. Know what I mean? Like, “Why do you have balls?” “‘Cause I have them.” “Get rid of it.” Like, I’m not necessarily nice. And so, I wonder what I would be like if I had a boyfriend who got his period because men get the periods and I’ve never had one. If I’m at dinner… and my boyfriend comes out of the bathroom and he’s like: “Uh, Jen… we gotta go.” “Jonathan, we didn’t order an appetizer yet.” “Jen, I just got my period a day early and I’m wearing white pants. We gotta go. We gotta go.” “Uh, what do you mean you got your period a day early? Doesn’t it come on the same day every month? “” No, it’s a hormonal thing, it’s irregular. I can’t control it.” “Oh, I can’t control my body. Oh, it’s hormones made me do it. Come on, you can control it.” “Jen, I can’t.” “They have tampons in the bathroom?” “No, they’re out and I… So, we gotta go.” “You have a tampon in your purse, Jonathan?” “No, I forgot.” “Jonathan, how many times have I told you be a fucking man and keep a tampon in your purse in case… you get your period early. And why wear white pants anywhere near the week of your expected period? God, what…? How long have you been getting this, 20 years now? Why can’t you do this, Jonathan? You can leave. I’m eating here. We’ve had this reservation for two weeks. Leave, I’m staying. Go. Tie your jacket around your waist, Jonathan. Everyone can see your period.” Then I call my friend, “I’m at a restaurant alone. Yeah. But Jonathan got his period. No, of course he didn’t. He didn’t know it was coming, no. He never knows. Oh, like Jonathan had a tampon. Are you crazy? We’re talking about Jonathan. He’s the… I don’t know if I can be with him ’cause if he can’t plan for himself, then, like, how can he plan for me, you know?” So, that might be what women are like if men got their periods. Here’s what happened to me. Now, my period comes on the same day every month. Never been early, never been late. I don’t get cramps. Thank you. So… One morning… when I was 41 and a half years old and really feeling it… just thinking about it, God… almost 50. I mean, not really, but… closer than I was when I was 13. Right? I woke up in the morning and I went to the ladies’ room. There’s not a ladies’ room in my house. It’s not like ladies, men, wheelchair, you know, it’s… I went… I was going pee. And I looked at my underwear and there were some fresh drops of blood. Now, again… it was two weeks from when I was supposed to get my period. And this was not uterine lining-looking blood. This was prick-your-finger fresh blood. It actually looked like the blood… that my roommate’s cat had years and years ago. When I was just a young thing with a roommate in Brooklyn and she had a dying cat. And the cat dragged its body across the floor as little drops of blood came out because the cat’s kidneys were failing. That’s right. And my roommate had to put the cat in a cage and the cat got put down that day, the same day that the blood drops appeared in the morning. And I looked at myself and I went, “Today is the day I will be put down. I don’t have a human-sized cage and I live alone. I knew if I didn’t start a family this would happen, but I’ll have to put myself down. I will call the vet and I will make an appointment.” Because I knew that’s internal bleeding. My kidneys are failing. I have internal bleeding. But before I freaked out, I checked my vagina for glass. And so I just wanted to make sure… Because I take sleeping pills sometimes, you can sleepwalk on those. I wanted to make sure that in the middle of the night I didn’t start sleepwalking, then get into a bar fight, break a bottle, and then put it in me and you go, “Come at me!” So… I called friends, I’m like, “Did I get in a bar fight with my vagina?” They’re like, “I don’t think so.” I was like, “Thanks. The bad news is then I must be put down today. It’s internal bleeding. I’m gonna call my doctor.” So, I called. I said, “I have to come in. I have internal bleeding.” I get there, she puts me in the stirrups, which is stupid. I’m like, “This isn’t a period thing. Do an x-ray. I have internal bleeding. My kidneys are failing. Rapidly. Come on.” She looks up and goes, “Jen, this is your period.” I go, “No, it isn’t.” And she goes, “Yes, it is.” “It’s not supposed to be here for two weeks.” She goes, “Two weeks early.” I go, “Well, I want a second opinion.” She goes, “What do you want a second opinion about?” I said, “I still think this is internal bleeding.” And she said, “It’s not.” And I said, “How do you know?” And she said, “Because you’re seeing the blood externally.” “Oh, that’s such a fucking amazing point. I never thought about that. That’s why people die from internal bleeding, because they don’t see the blood. Okay, I got it. Good. All right. I am stupid.” She looked at me and went, “Are you okay?” And I went, “I don’t think so. No, I don’t…” And like a child being handed a toothbrush by a dentist, she just handed me a tampon and was like, “Get out of here.” And, um… Now, the worst part is, I have a subscription for tampons on Amazon. And I keep forgetting to cancel it, and so every month, I get so many tampons. And I have a closet filled with them. They will outlive me. I will not… I will be in menopause before them. I’ll be dead. I will one day be in a chair, no blood left in my body, like: “I haven’t even seen blood on a tooth, let alone this.” I have no kids, I have no one to give them to. I’m the weird lady at Halloween every year where it’s like, “Trick or treat.” And I’m like, “You’ll be a woman someday. Yes, take this.” Even you, little boy, you never know. Take it, take it. Take it, everybody.” It’s amazing what we don’t know about our bodies, we don’t think about things. Like, I was taught nothing about my body growing up. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was basically almost 22 years old, which I have a lot of shame about. I think it’s kind of old, kind of dorky. And even the person I lost my virginity to does not know that he took it, ’cause I had to lie that I lost it at age 16 under a creeping willow tree. You get real detailed when you lied about stuff, right? I lost my virginity at age 21, but, like, almost 22, like, 21 and 11 months. And it wasn’t ’cause I was a prude. I wanted to lose my virginity. It had always been my life’s goal ever since I was a little girl. Just grow up someday and lose my virginity. And the thing that stopped me… It was a Catholic thing. Well, first of all, I didn’t really understand even what sex was, right? I mean, I had sex education, as we all did. They didn’t, like, teach you how to fuck, it was just like… They never said anything about, like, making love and sensuality, and… There’s never gay people involved. It was just a man lays next to a woman, they get pregnant. I was like, “Why would anyone do that?” And so… Single bed for life, right? And so… All we had in sex education for the girls, we had a big poster of fallopian tubes. And I was like, “Those are inside of me?” They looked giant, like, “Why aren’t they coming out my mouth?” It was just like… And there was just a vagina right there with an egg right here. Looked like a ball in a catcher’s mitt. It looked like the egg is always there, like, “Let’s play ball. Impregnate me. Come on, we’ll go around the bases.” And then for the boys, they just had a poster of sperm. And they taught us in one little drop of semen there’s billions and billions of sperm. I was like, “Okay.” That’s all I remembered. As I got to be a teenager, my mother was like: “Never have sex, you’ll get pregnant every time.” And I was like, but I think she’s right ’cause I thought back to those two signs, the egg waiting and ready and then billions and billions of sperm. What are the odds? A billion to one. You’re going to have a baby, right? I was like, “How come women just have one? How come they’re aren’t like:” Like, why aren’t babies just, like, spilling out of everybody? Like, there’s billions and billions of sperm and one egg. So, I didn’t wanna… I didn’t wanna, you know, lose my virginity so fast. It was the Catholic Church’s fault. Like, now, I’m cool with Jesus. I knew Jesus didn’t mind if I had sex ’cause Jesus loved whores, right? It’s in the Bible. He hung out with prostitutes, they were his favorite people. When he was fed up with the apostles, “Where are my prostitutes?” “We’re here.” He’d be like, “We’re not gonna write about you in the Bible.” And then he was friends with them. So, I knew that once I had sex, I would just confess to Jesus, “I had sex.” He’d be like, “I love that.” I’d be like, “Just telling you.” And so that would be fine. What I was afraid of was getting pregnant. Obviously, I didn’t want to be a teenage mother or a mother period. I knew if I got pregnant, I would have to have an abortion and I was very afraid of abortion because of church. Not ’cause of Jesus, but because of the priest at church. Every single sermon the priest at my church did were about abortion. Even though it was not in the Bible that day, you know. They would be like, “Merry Christmas, everybody. And we are here ’cause Mary had a baby. She kept it even though she didn’t know who the fuck gave it to her. And we will celebrate Mary. She didn’t have an abortion like you girls who go to the clubs and use it as birth control. Then if you had an abortion, you go to hell. If you know someone that’s had an abortion, you go to hell. Guys, don’t worry. We’ll high-five you. You got a woman pregnant. But the women are going to hell.” And I was like, “I don’t wanna go to hell.” I decided I’m never gonna get pregnant and the easiest way to do that is to never have sex. And I really didn’t understand what an abortion was. I didn’t know it was a safe medical procedure that prevents a pregnancy from becoming a pregnancy. I thought you carried a baby to full term and then in a doctor’s office, they, like, shot it in the head. You know, I was like, “I’m not doing that.” I’m not judging, but I’m not doing that. So, instead of sex… Instead of sex, I was the girl who loved being fingered. I loved fingering. Loved? I still love it. I love fingering. I am bringing back fingering. It’s amazing. Do it to everybody. It’s not just for… It’s not just for kids. It’s like sugar cereal. Adults can enjoy it, too. It’s wonderful. You’re going right to the source. Greatest feeling on Earth. And so… I had a lovely boyfriend who used to finger me. And the first time I ever got fingered… Oh, my God. I mean, I touched myself before, but when you get to go hands free, it’s like, “Whee!” It’s so exciting. And the feeling was so powerful that after I got fingered, every moment after that that I wasn’t getting fingered, I was in a deep, dark depression. That’s why when you see Goth girls walking around, they’re not trying to get attention, they’re upset. They got fingered once and haven’t been fingered since. They’re like, “It’s so dark. Everything is horrible. I don’t feel anything.” So, anyway… My boyfriend usually went first on me ’cause he was a good guy. But this one time I wanted to return the favor. And so I took my two dry hands, and I rubbed his penis up and down like you do, and it almost caught on fire. And… So, like a skilled firefighter, he grabbed it like a hose and was like, “I got this,” you know. And he came on his hand like a young man of 17 does, wiped it on his T-shirt in the basement and then he kindly went in to return the favor. All I saw on that finger… I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. Billions and billions of sperm. I didn’t wanna be like: “Can you wash your hands? I’m not ready to become a mother.” ‘Cause that’s dorky, right? Then I was like, “You can’t get pregnant from fingering. They would’ve told us. They would’ve told us that in school. Unless they don’t know what this is, and we just invented it.” I was like, “I need that good feeling,” so I let it happen. No consequences. I didn’t care. I woke up in the middle of the night and put my hand on my stomach and I felt a heartbeat and I was like: “Oh, my God. I’m a mother.” I was so dumb. I didn’t know that you could feel a pulse anywhere else but your wrist. That was the first time I had noticed a pulse anywhere else in my body. And I thought I’d grown a baby in four hours. I was like, “Whoo! That happens fast. No wonder this abortion is such a hot topic. There is a living, breathing person in there.” Well, I couldn’t tell my mom. She’d kill me. I didn’t have the Internet back then, not just ’cause my mom wouldn’t let me, it wasn’t invented yet, okay? So, all I had was a typewriter, and you can’t ask your typewriter: “Can I get fingered, and then get pregnant from that?” ‘Cause your typewriter just has a piece of paper looking back at you, like: “I don’t know if you can get pregnant. I’m a typewriter.” So, you’re just stuck. It’s a standstill, right? So, I had to go… to the library. And I couldn’t ask the librarian because she was a friend of my mom. I couldn’t be like, “I got finger-blasted. What do you think, baby or no?” So, I had to take a walk to the card catalog. Which if you’re younger and you don’t know, it’s what we had before the Internet at the library. It’s a catalog filled with cards. And in it are cards that have the name of every book in the library. Now, as years go by and more information is out there, they keep jamming more cards in the catalog. They don’t get extra catalogs, no, no. Just shove it in the one. You put your finger in and take a risk. You might not get your finger back. Like, “Aah!” And so I had to look for books about pregnancy. Now, again, the card catalog is not in alphabetical order. No, no, no. It is in something called the Dewey Decimal System, which is a complicated series of numbers that librarians have to go to college to learn. But they throw it in the lobby at us, like, “You’ll figure it out.” And so… I find books on pregnancy and, you know, of course, it doesn’t just say pregnancy and then aisle P. No, I have to memorize, like, 12 numbers. And so, back then we used to be smart. We could memorize 12 numbers. We didn’t have to take a picture or anything. And so… Then I walked all the way back… to the shelves. I didn’t give an example of the 12-number thing ’cause I’m too stupid now. There was no book What to Expect If You’re Expecting ‘Cause You’ve Been Fingered, so I was like, “Argh!” So, I just didn’t do anything. If I had been pregnant, it would’ve been like those TV shows where I just have it in a toilet. But nine months later, when no baby came, I was like, “I must have miscarried. So tragic, but so right for me, you know.” So, then I found out. I found out all the facts. The egg’s not sitting there, it only comes once in a while. And if you use condoms it’s 99.9 percent effective. I was like, “I gotta lose my virginity then.” But my boyfriend and I had broken up and I was about to go to college, I was like, “How am I gonna lose my virginity now? I don’t know anyone at college yet. What, am I gonna walk in and go to a guy and go, “Wanna have sex?” They have to be in love before they do that. I didn’t know anything. And then I thought, “Wait, how am I gonna get a guy to be interested in me unless he thinks I’m experienced? No guy wants to sleep with a virgin.” I didn’t know that either. So, I spread a rumor about myself. I told everyone that at age 18, entering college in 1992, that I had already fucked ten guys. That’s a lot, ten guys. I mean, not now, but then. That was a lot. Ten guys at 18 was a lot. Some people don’t have ten people in their town. Ten guys. And 1992 was an innocent, innocent time. Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda and Dylan, they waited a year to lose their virginity to each other. Dylan was an alcoholic who lived by himself. He was a virgin. It was an innocent time. So, no guys wanted to have sex with me because they thought I had an STD because I’d fucked ten guys. And so, I went year after year after year not getting laid until I met someone who transferred into my college my senior year and he hadn’t heard the rumors and I didn’t tell him. We had sex, it was fun, it was fine. I don’t remember every detail ’cause it was long ago, but it was lovely. And I walked home that day, just, you know, listening to my Discman, listening to Madonna, you know, Bedtime Stories album. I’m like, “I get it. I’m sexual, too, Madge.” And, um… But something stopped me dead as I was walking and I was like, “Wait a minute, my hymen didn’t break.” That’s another thing they teach us girls. We have a hymen. It’s a piece of skin that’s somewhere in our vagina and a penis pokes it and we bleed and get sheets dirty and we suck, fuck you, you’re dumped. So, now… my hymen didn’t break and I was like, “Uh-oh. I hope my hymen didn’t get pushed up into my body and now it’s strangling, you know, my internal organs.” I don’t even know what a hymen is. How strong is it? How does it work? And I was like, “I gotta go to a doctor.” And so, I went to the school nurse, but I didn’t wanna act like I just lost my virginity, so, I tried to play it all “cas.” I walked in, I was like, “Hey, quick question. Um… When I lost my virginity, whenever that was… uh… my hymen didn’t break. What’s up with that?” She was like, “That’s an old wive’s tale. It’s fine. If you’ve used a tampon or ridden a horse or took a dance class it can stretch, it can break.” I go: “Okay, it can’t get shoved up and start strangling your organs?” “No, it’s a tissue.” “Can it get wadded up and…?” “No, not a tissue. Like, it’s a…” I go, “Oh, okay, okay.” She looks at my chart like, “About to turn 22.” She goes: “So, you didn’t just lose your virginity, did you?” “No, I fucked like ten guys.” And that’s when I got my first STD test. So… So, I’m in a relationship, and I don’t have jokes about it because it’s a nice story. I’m with someone that I love a lot, we’ve known each other for a long time… And look at you get quiet. No one likes nice things, I understand. But there was a time in my life when I was what I call “single” single, when I was like, “God, like, no one seems to like me.” I wasn’t getting picked and I didn’t like how it felt. And I read a self-help book that was like, take yourself on a self date. And so, I did that. And I would sit at bars and… guys would come up and go, “Can I sit here?” I go, “No. I’m also sitting there, please stop. I’m on a… I’m on a date with myself, so, would you please?” I started saying bullshit things, you know, after reading these books, like, “You know what? Gonna take some time. Can’t love someone till you love yourself, you know?” What bullshit. You can love someone when you don’t love yourself. What a fun distraction, right? So… But my friend did this. She decided to have a party. She called it Facebook in Real Life. And she invited a bunch of people… Really good idea. She invited people that sort of know each other. You could vouch for someone if you don’t know them well. So, you could be like, “Oh, hey, John’s fun. He’s a murderer, though. Don’t go home with him, but fun at parties. Okay.” They’re like, “Oh, cool.” I met this guy, really nice guy. He was age appropriate, we got each other’s numbers, started texting. We liked the same things, talked about the same stuff. He didn’t send a dick pic, nothing inappropriate. I felt respected and then, you know, after a couple of weeks, he asked me to go have wine with him. I was like, “We’re going on date.” We’re sitting there and drinking and talking. I’m not getting a vibe he wants to sleep with me, but I’m like, “I’ll loosen him up a little.” Waitress comes and she’s like, “Want a third?” We do that dance you do when you, “I don’t normally drink more than two. Do you? I don’t. I could if you… I… You will? I’ll have one, yeah. We’re gonna fuck. Yeah, we’re gonna fuck. Bring a third.” So, she brings the third. As I’m taking a sip, he’s like, “Anyway, my girlfriend…” I’m like, “Pfft! Your fucking what? What kind of shit is this?” I don’t say that, but… No, I act interested. I’m like, “Tell me about your girlfriend?” And… Nothing wrong hanging out with a woman if you have girlfriend. Absolutely nothing. I have tons of male friends. But that’s it, the door is shut. Thank you, I have male friends. I don’t need any more. I don’t need any more. I have plenty, right? I didn’t understand what his angle was. I said, “Does your girlfriend get upset that you go out with women?” He goes, “Oh, no, she knows I love women. I’m a male feminist.” I go, “‘I’m a male feminist.’ Thanks so much for being on our side, male fucking…” If I wanna fucking drink wine with a feminist, I’ll stay home by myself and I might even get laid. I… And my fingers do not have billions and billions of sperm. I started to figure it out, like, “I see how life is different. I see how it’s different.” Back in the day, men would marry the woman that cooks and cleans and has the babies and he starts to look at her more like a mother. So, he needs to get sex on the side. Now, men are smart. They live with the sex and they want the brains on the side. Well, me and all the other women are not gonna be your mind whores, dude, all right? You’re not gonna finger her then come out, have a drink with me and talk about documentaries until midnight, you pig! Thank you. So… we’re not friends anymore, but I really… I know it sounds like I hate men. I really don’t. I love men and I look at them the way I look at children, which is like, “Oh, my God, for people who don’t know what you’re doing, you have so much energy about it, you know.” But… the… The one… The one area that is really cool, I like that people say they’re feminist, and it’s like, you know, white people can say they identify for Black Lives Matter, and men can say they’re feminist. It’s really cool. There’s one area, though that I don’t know why we can’t nip this, it would be so quick and easy to do, is street harassment. It is still a thing that we are shouting at some men to understand, you know, that it is a really serious scary thing. And I feel like if you’re going to yell out of your car at a woman, commit to it. Get an old-timey car with a horn that’s like, “Aooga!” It’s so stupid. So, you know, mo… All of my guy friends are not idiots, they do not act this way, but I found out one of my friends who I respect does this. I’m like, “You street harass?” “It’s not harassment, it’s a compliment.” And I go, “What kind of things do you do?” “I’ve yelled, ‘Nice tits.'” “You yell ‘Nice tits’ at a woman?” He goes, “Her tits were nice.” “I understand the inspiration behind that, I’m just… You can’t do that to us. It’s… It’s… It’s scary.” He goes, “What’s scary about ‘Nice tits’?” I go, “Well…” He goes, “It’s a compliment.” I go, “I get it. Let me take this apart. I get on its face that ‘nice tits, ‘ dictionary, technically a compliment, yes. But we don’t know, if we don’t respond the way that you want us to respond, or if we don’t respond at all, ‘nice tits’ can be followed up with, ‘Fuck you, bitch, ‘ and then we get scared.” And my friend goes, “Oh, I got it. What if I just yell ‘nice tits’ but don’t yell ‘fuck you, bitch’ after?” I’m like, “No, but we don’t… We don’t know. We don’t know. ‘Nice tits… ‘” Compliments and murder both start with compliments. So, we don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know when someone says “nice tits” if it’s just, beep, beep, “Nice tits, bye,” and they drive off, or if it’s gonna be like, “Nice tits” stop the car and like, ‘”Nice tits. So nice. Gonna chop them up, put them in a blender. Then I’m gonna put them in a freezer and make tits pops. Tits, tits, tits.'” We don’t know. So, my friend goes, “What should I say?” I go, “Just say nothing. Say no words. Say no words.” He goes, “That’s my free speech. That’s free speech. You can’t do that.” I go, “It’s not… Whatever free speech means. But, okay, fine, free speech. I didn’t say you couldn’t say ‘nice tits, ‘ I said, please don’t yell it to us. So, maybe if you’re driving by a woman who has nice tits, you roll up your window and smash your face against the glass and just go, ‘Nice tits.’ You could do that. Or see a woman with nice tits and call a friend and go, ‘Nice tits, nice tits, I see nice tits. Okay. Nice tits.’ Or if you have the time, veer off the road, go into a field, get on your knees and let God know. ‘Nice tits!'” My friend and I could not come to any agreement on this. And so, I was like, “Maybe he’s right.” If we just yell, “No, no, no,” guys just hear their mothers: So, we can’t just say, “Don’t say this, don’t…” Maybe there’s a middle ground. Maybe there’s something you can say. I don’t know what it is. But I had an experience recently that gave me kind of an idea. So, I was in North Carolina and I was walking by myself. And I was on the side of the road and it was dusk. And a white guy in a truck… drove by. And then he stopped… and he pulled back… and he just stared at me out the window. And I was like, “Oh, fuck.” Because if you’re a woman or not white or gay and you’re walking alone in the South and a white guy in a truck pulls up, you know in 20 minutes there’s gonna be candles and flowers right where you were standing, right? That’s… Yeah. Guy rolls down his window and goes, “Excuse me, ma’am. You mind if I say something real creepy to you?” And like an idiot, I walk up to the truck. “Okay.” And then I get mad and I think of… I take a minute and think of all the women from real… Real severe street harassment, acid in the face to just little infractions like “nice tits,” and I’m like, “No. No, you cannot say something creepy.” I go, “No, you cannot and fuck you.” I start walking away proud of myself and realize, “I look crazy.” That’s what happens, is if you’re talking to a girl in a bar and it’s going well and after a minute she’s just like, “Fuck you!” “What did I do?” “Nothing.” But we’re taught to be polite and so, we’re holding it in. All we have to say is, “I don’t feel like talking.” But we talk and we’re like, “Eat shit!” And you’re very confused. And so… We have to get better at that. And so, anyway… he goes, “Ma’am, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry. I…” I just wanted to say I love your boots. That’s it, I love your boots. I was wearing big, black platform boots, he goes: “I’m a married man. I’m not trying to pick you up. I’ve never noticed fashion in my life. Well, I have one more question.” “Here comes a creepy question.” I go, “What?” He goes, “Are they comfortable?” “Yeah.” “That’s a win-win for you, ain’t it?” I’m like: And he said, “Thank you. Thank you for letting me give you that compliment. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t.” And then he drove off. I was like, “He couldn’t have lived with himself if he didn’t give me that compliment.” That is so dramatic. And again, it is hard for men in the world. We must be kind to them. And so… But part of me is evil and I was like: “God, it would’ve been great if I didn’t let him compliment me.” Somehow I got to see the rest of his life played out, that deep regret, you know. It’s just like some kind of play set in the South and he’s just at home every night and he’s like: “I’m not hungry tonight, Martha.” She’s like, “Henry, I made your favorite. Two nights and you haven’t eaten it. You’re all bones. “Are you cheating on me, Henry?” “No, Martha, it’s not about sex. Sometimes things are about… fashion. Son, if you ever get the chance to compliment a woman and don’t take it, you might not be able to live with yourself. Listen to your daddy.” He’s on his death bed, his father is like, “Son, any more wisdom before you go?” And he’s just like, “Black boots,” and then he dies. No one knows what he means. His wife never understood. “Black boots? I know what that means. His daddy was in the war. His daddy wore black boots. He wants to wear his daddy’s boots in his coffin.” And he doesn’t. She’s shoving the daddy’s boots on his corpse feet. And he’s up in heaven, like, “That’s not the black boots I meant. I like women’s shoes. That’s right, Jesus, I like women’s shoes. I can be myself up here.” So… that’s when I started to think. The compliment, if you must yell at us, yell about our outfit, not our bodies. We don’t wanna think about the fact we have a body every five minutes, and you make us think about it all the time, and we don’t want to. You know that feeling when you just have keys and your phone and you feel so free? We’d love to feel that way at the bank, but can’t take our tits and vagina and leave them on the table. So, we’ve got to take these things even at 8:30 in the morning. We’re like, “Oh, God, everyone’s looking.” And, you know… And if someone is like: “Nice ass,” but we don’t feel good, we’re like, “Is that sarcastic?” It’s a whole mind fuck, right? But if you just compliment clothes, we can all get along, right? If you wanna street harass us and you drive by and you’re like, “Sweetheart. Hey, honey… that little bow matches that detail in your shoes. That is not lost on me, baby. I love a good accessory. I hope you’re going to dinner tonight. Doesn’t have to be with a man, could be by yourself. You seem unafraid. I like that. You’re walking with your job and your freedom. And I’m not threatened by that at all. I don’t have to man-splain to you. I’m just letting you know that a plaid and a polka dot can sometimes match. You go, toots.” Thank you guys so much. You’ve been amazing. Thanks again. JKL. Jennifer. – Oh! – Sweetheart. – Hi. – Lovely to see you. – You looked so gorgeous up there. – Mom. Oh, thank you. – Jennifer, what’s all this food? – Oh, that’s part of my rider. – What’s a rider? – It’s like, you know, food they bring backstage. Part of your budget. – You like the show? – They take this out of your pay? This is wasteful. Jennifer, you’re not good with money. It’s not my money. Didn’t like the show or anything or…? Oh, my God. No. Mom, Dad, get out, we’re filming. We’re filming. Cut. – Jennifer, who is this? – Filming what? – This is my real family. – Still speeding. – We can still roll on this? – Why would you do this? Why would you hire people to play us? We’re here. Well, that’s you. It’s already done. She doesn’t look like me. I have blond hair. She has gray hair. And I’m not Oriental, Jen. Oh, my God, Dad, don’t… That’s racist. You’re… I’m Japanese. Oh, Jennifer’s best friend at school was Japanese and she taught Jennifer how to say the word “hello.” – “Konichiwa.” – Konichiwa. But it doesn’t matter. Konichiwa to you. Listen, these are actors hired to represent the character of Jen Kirkman, right? That make it better? What? There’s no character based on your sister, Gail? Okay, Gail, I would’ve put you in it, but you told me when I used to have that joke about how you got caught smoking pot, you said: “Don’t put me in your act anymore.” So, I do not say anything about you anymore out of respect. Jen, you just told that story again… on camera. That’s what she does, she talks about everybody. She called Dad a racist. – He said, “Oriental.” – Maybe we can take a break. Yeah. Where’s the pizza? Did you get any pizza? No, I didn’t get any pizza. I just did a show. And I’m sorry, there’s no part for you, and the reason is not because I didn’t think you’d be good, but you’d make a scene. It’s happening. You’re making a scene. I’m not all comfortable. I’m really not comfortable. – You’re not comfortable? How do we feel? – Jen, why do you ruin everything? – Yeah. Jeez, you know. – I know a great place, guys. – You do? – We should just leave. – Just forget about her. – Were you in the audience, – because I didn’t see you out there. – Yeah. Can we use any of that? Can we use any of that because my parents just ruined my Netflix special and it was kind of fucking awesome.
