Unwifeable(16)

That day, at our Tuesday 11 a.m. pitch meeting I decide to suggest a story on the best comedy spots around the city—and I make up my mind to hyper-sell it.

Our pitch meetings are always a nerve-wracking process, with the possibility of having something shot down in a span of two seconds as seeming too weak, already done, unfocused, boring, or, in the most delicious smackdown of all (and a favorite of editor in chief Col Allan’s): “Great idea. Tell them to buy an ad.”

The ultimate symbol of approval from Steve, though, is “It’s a talker,” meaning, well, you know. People will talk.

One by one, every reporter sitting around the long conference room table takes turns pitching. Now it is mine.

I suggest a bunch of things scribbled in my notebook. “Haircut that changes your life?” Pass. “The reconciliation vacation—a last-ditch attempt to save a relationship.” Maybe—find a news peg. “Replacement hotties—the next generation of young Hollywood set to upstage their older sibling stars?” Hard pass. “The detox-retox diet—the way pretty much every New Yorker lives.” Approved. “The emerging ‘fempire’ of women in Hollywood?” Pass. (“All you have is the word ‘fempire.’?”) “The blog girls primed for Hollywood, from Stephanie Klein to the Washingtonienne herself, Jessica Cutler.” More reporting—and we’ll see.

Then it came time for my big pitch—the only one that really mattered. “One more idea that I’m, uh, really excited about,” I begin. “So I think the New York comedy scene is really having a moment right now.”

Tip: If you are ever pitching a story to any publication on the planet, be sure to use the phrase “having a moment.” Anorexia? Having a moment. Morbid obesity? Having a moment. Moments? Having a moment.

I continue: “There’s a bunch of comics set to break out in a big way, like Aziz Ansari. Kristen Schaal. Nick Kroll. Baron Vaughn . . . I was thinking I could do a story roundup of where to check out tomorrow’s biggest stars . . .”

Steve pauses. He knows I did comedy back in Chicago. He knows comedy is my big love.

“I could see that . . . for a Saturday cover,” he says. “Talk to Katherine.”

And just like that, my life changes again.

I now have a reason to contact every single emerging comedian who is breaking out and also an excuse to discover the best underground clubs. The most helpful person in all this proves to be a young comic named Liam McEneaney, who knows every single person in the scene.

“Talk to Aziz. Here’s his number. Kristen Schaal? Sure, here you go.”

He is beyond generous, and when he kisses me over Heinekens at 2A in the East Village where we’ve met to talk about my story, I realize, oh yeah, that’s why.

You have to realize, this kind of attention is all new to me.

When I got married to James, I never wore makeup or watched my weight or dyed my hair or even got my eyebrows done. I wore clothes either far-too-old-for-my-age dowdy-professional or retro thrift, as if I hoped to seduce Eddie Vedder should I ever get a time-travel machine to 1993. I never played games at all with men. Ever. Unless the game was to act like the kind of nightmare who hysterically cries at the drop of a hat and relies on a man for all manner of self-validation, self-worth, and approval to fill that giant gaping hole inside.

But when James broke my heart, he broke all of my idealism as well. I pulled a complete one-eighty, a total George Costanza in terms of how I approached men, dating, and relationships. Had I made fun of The Rules before? Well, fuck it, this time, I was going to read it with an open mind. Did I never date conservative guys as a rule but instead gravitate toward anyone who would bring up Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky within the first ten minutes of small talk? Well, why not date a union-busting corporate lawyer instead and “yes and” every Darth Vader illustrative anecdote he made over chardonnay as I fell down drunkenly on his boat?

Nothing mattered. The dream of true love was dead, and I was ready to position myself as a player. Now, sixty pounds lighter, hair much more bleached, makeup much more applied, clothes much more tweaked for sex appeal, ideology completely shredded, I was suddenly a piece of ass. And it was the strangest feeling of power, one I had never quite experienced before.

With Liam, I am open to romantic possibility, but after the one daytime date we have, seeing Brokeback Mountain in the theater, complete with awkward hand-holding, I realize I like him more as a friend than anything else. I so want to have that immediate-boyfriend-in-New-York experience, but there’s nothing lonelier than trying to convince yourself that a friend is something more, when your heart knows differently.

Out at Liam’s stand-up showcase one night, I meet Andy Borowitz, the humorist and creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, who has enough money to retire on forever but enjoys doing stand-up at small showcases in the city. He tells me I look ten years younger than my age, kisses me on the cheek, and gives me his number when I ask if I can ever use him as a source for a “future piece.”

Ever the eager networking rube, I take this not-even-an-overture overture and leverage it with another pen-pal friend of mine, the then relatively unknown and future creator of You’re the Worst, Stephen Falk, who had reached out to me as a fan of my blog a year ago. Stephen would check in from time to time to see how my New York adventures were going. He had heard national radio pickup in LA on my “dinner whores” piece and wrote me about teaming up to bring in one of my future articles to option to his agent.