Funny Feelings (56)

I rest my head against the wall for a brief moment, trying to collect myself before I lean back and settle her on her feet.

I zip and button her back up, hands trembling much harder than when they started, my voice even more so when I say, “Fee?” She smiles hazily up at me as I start walking her in the intended direction, shaking my head a little to clear it. “I want you to go out there and tell everyone what makes you angry, sad, happy, horny, whatever pops into your head, you say it. You go out there and start talking to them and tell them every funny feeling. It’s showtime,” and then I spin her around, give her a nudge with a swat on the ass before she steps out onto the stage.





24





NOW





“Comedy is defiance. It’s a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it’s the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale.” - Will Durst





FARLEY


“So on that note, I’d like you all to give a warm welcome to Miss Farley Jones!” Lance calls into the mic.

The applause roars as I turn and look back over my shoulder at a smug Meyer, though not sure how smug someone can really pull off while adjusting his pants like he is. The corner of his mouth flicks up and he blows a bubble my way— a bubble with my gum, I now realize.

I look around with a smile, immediately recognizing a few faces as I take stock of how I feel.

Somehow, making me thoroughly fall apart on his hand, detonating me into shimmering little fragments of light that rival the ones shining down on me now has wiped my head clean of the anxiety and the panic.

A little road map forms in my mind, one with no street names or distances but a guide for how this thing is going to go. I lengthen my strides, my smile curving genuinely.

The mic is a friend, a comfortable weight in my hand. Their claps are little bursts of energy that shoot straight into my veins.

“Hello hello, everyone!” I smile and wave at the faces I recognize, Marissa at a front row table. “First, and foremost, I have some announcements to make. To declare. To decree, if you will…” I sigh happily. “Fuck it, I’m smug, you guys. I. Am. Smug. And I don’t care who knows it! Because things are good. They’re really good. They’re so good that I’m actually more anxious. Like, how bad things happen in three’s, good things only happen in singles so around the corner, any minute now, I think I’m going to trip over my own feet on the sidewalk and snap my neck on the curb before a bus comes and squishes my head like a grape kinda anxious.” A swell of laughter lifts me. “Side bar here, I no longer allow stools in my house since watching Million Dollar Baby.” The laughter rolls, accelerating.

“But back to business. I am smug, and yes, anxious about why I’m so smug, so I’m here to talk it out with you all and unpack this baggage because this just seems like a great place to air out all my shit, you know?

“First announcement: I am no longer single. You may have heard, but I am in a relationship. Yes, me, okay? And I get it, yes, go ahead and clap because it’s a feat worth celebrating…

“It’s a feat worth celebrating because we all know it’s not this kinda girl—” I jab a thumb at myself “— that gets the guy. Not the loud, crass, girl who knows she’s damaged and high maintenance and makes jokes about it. No, no. It’s always two types of women who get the man:” I hold up two fingers to elucidate. “It’s either the subtle wallflowers, or the ones who know they’re sexy, and confident. It seems like you either have to have no idea how appealing you are, or you have to be fully aware of it and proud to embrace your power. It’s not us weird in-betweeners. Not the truly unhinged.” I open my eyes as wide and crazily as I can. “The ones who get dressed to the nines in the sexiest getups they own, and then get drunk and aggressively convince all the other girls on the dance floor to take off their foot-prisons, build a shrine with them in the middle of a ceremonial circle while you get them all to perform a weird-girl tribal dance to Beyonce.” I mime a little dance, hopping around the stand in a circle as I cackle maniacally away from the mic. People start jostling around in their seats with the laughter, like they’re all on an off-roading adventure down a bumpy mountain road.

Well, buckle up, motherfuckers.

“No. It’s not the ones who incite chaos and riots and bring down the collective sexiness in the atmosphere, the ones who dial up the crazy.

“And yet, I’ve somehow managed to land a man, so of course I now feel qualified to give pointers on what I can only guess has worked for me.”

“First and foremost, I’m here to tell you that bonding over a shared love of things is overrated. I mean it. Fuck your hobbies Andrew, I don’t care about what you love, what brings you contentment. No, give me the things you hate. Bonding over things you hate?” I clutch my chest and let my eyes roll back in mock ecstasy with a moan. “If there isn’t a dating app centered around that yet, there needs to be. Because you can learn to craft your own home brewed IPA by yourself, leave me out of it, that’s fine. But if we go somewhere together and you don’t share my hatred for the bicyclists who are pedaling away on the god damn line and not in their lane, then already our night is off to a bad start. And if you won’t talk shit with me about that other couple we know who created a joint Facebook page, then I don’t want it. I mean that wholeheartedly.”