Unwifeable(17)

So how do I respond to Stephen?

“Yeah, sure,” I demur. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just want to work for The Daily Show . . . Maybe sometime I could call you and we could chat. I also think the creator of The Fresh Prince wants to bed me so maybe that will take care of everything. Ha ha.”

Question: Is it possible to die from literally cringing at yourself? Because I just did. A million times over. Why—specifically?

1. Because I idiotically didn’t realize that Stephen was handing me actual gold on a platter (anyone reading this: Know there is no better way to “break in” to Hollywood as a journalist than to have an established screenwriter option one of your pieces).

2. Because I dismissively swatted his idea away like the moron I was.

3. Because I instead took the opportunity to go on about various flirtations that existed largely in my mind—as if that meant anything. Honestly, I think because I had never experienced this kind of male attention before, I actually thought this was part of my résumé.

Stephen writes me back, true to hilarious form, and says, “That’s so funny. I got my first agent by fucking the guy who created Head of the Class. Sure, let me know what your schedule is and we’ll set up a phone call. So official!”

After my article “How He Blew It” comes out, I receive an inquiry from a guy named John who says he is a movie producer who can get me into William Morris. Almost daily, I write him nauseating emails trying to represent myself as the Carrie Bradshaw/Samantha Jones ice queen I think he envisions me to be (versus the crumpled-up identity-crisis mess I actually am). In writing this producer (I just googled him now; his career consists of one low-budget film no one saw in 2010), I even make Dr. Tom out to be this dramatic Romeo because I know I need some kind—any kind—of Mr. Big figure in the messy shit show that is my life.

“You’ll be pleased to know I had two heartwarming conversations with The Doctor this week,” I email John. “For the sake of The Hollywood Ending, of course. Also got approached about doing a stand-up showcase in March. Should be fun.”

My emails to John contain every excruciating nook and cranny of every development in my life. Someone wants me to write for a literary collection. Should I do it? My story for the next day’s paper is about spooning positions people sleep in, so insert shitty joke here, keep an eye out for that one!

God, I feel so lonely and unhinged. Little do I realize, John is pretty much doing to me the same thing I am doing to everyone else: parlaying. Neither of us is a player (no matter how many times he talks to me about getting “Dane Cook or Jennifer Aniston attached”). But we just keep mentioning enough dribs and drabs to convince ourselves (and, more important, other people) that we are.

Here’s how you parlay—in a nutshell. You try to pique the interest of someone else by inspiring the basest of human desires: jealousy that the other person is going to miss out on lightning. I’ve got this BIG EXCITING THING going on, and this person and this person are interested, and boy wouldn’t you be bummed if you didn’t snatch this/me/it/whatever right up? What I failed to realize at the time was this: It’s not about the connections. It’s only about the work. Only. If you don’t have work that stands up on its own, you are toast. You are an embarrassment. You are as see-through as Saran Wrap.

The exact same theory applies to dating and romance. You want this guy and that guy and the other to be The One, but if you haven’t done the work on yourself? World of hurt, baby. World. Of. Hurt.

Soon after John’s inquiry, an agent from ICM named Kate Lee contacts me after I feature her then client Nick Kroll. True to form, I keep up my roll of great decision making.

Kate and I get together for lychee martinis and conversation (during which I make sure, of course, to relate every interaction I’ve ever had with anyone who has so much as glimpsed the Hollywood sign). Then I do a conference call with her and her team, who wisely tell me that no one has heard of this movie producer “John” I keep mentioning. For my grand finale, I tell her I am going in a different direction.

Brilliant.

Should you ever want to break into the entertainment industry, I’m about to save you a lot of time and tell you the only two words you need to know (which an executive finally told me years later): deal memo. Or here’s one more: contract.

Everything else means nothing. It’s just talk. Treat it accordingly.

In the midst of all this, Fashion Week descends on the newsroom. This is a time when the models showcase the upcoming seasons and every lifestyle editor wants to jump off a cliff due to the insane workload, late nights, and tens of thousands of photos filing in.

Steve says he has a potential assignment for me. Would I be interested in being body-painted nude while modeling a Vivienne Tam design and writing a first-person piece about it?

“Yes,” I tell Steve. “But if I’m going to be naked in the paper, I’m not going to eat until it happens.”

“You weigh like twenty pounds already,” Steve says.

The day of the body-painting is surreal. While being brushed in oily black and red painted peonies, I scratch notes on my pad in pencil, including what is to be the lede: “My breasts look fantastic. That’s what people keep telling me anyway.”

The piece continues, “I am wearing nothing but a Cosabella thong and pasties. All of my bits have been shaved. I am so glad I went to journalism school.”