Girl Logic Read online

  Back to my fun fantasy world. My Girl Logic was part of the engine pushing me to disregard the crap I’d learned in high school, like, “play sports and join clubs you don’t care about because other kids do it, plus it’ll look good on your application.” My GL kept whispering that, deep down, the creativity I’d been fostering would simply have to be rewarded because IT WAS MY TIME. I thought, “This is the path for all funny people; no one understands you and then one day… YOU’RE FAMOUS!” First step toward that? College!

  Could I have skipped that step and moved right to LA at eighteen? Yeah, but, with no training, skills, or know-how (also, the fact that not going to college was just not an option in my wildest imagination), I can tell you for a fact that I would have ended up making a lot of money doing something shady, like managing the HR department at Vivid Video, all while justifying to my parents, “I’m nowhere near the porn—it’s a normal company with a great insurance package!” But to stay creative I would end up doing long-form improv in Burbank on weekends, and my troupe would have some “hilarious” name like Hot Dog Time Machine. No, college was the way.

  I would go there, and my teachers and fellow students wouldn’t even notice how bad I was with trig or how low my standardized test scores were—they’d sense something deeper in me. They’d spot my raw talent and pick up on the fact that I had the heart of a great comedic artiste. I would head off to film school and move to LA and become a famous funny person, the breezy celebrity who claims her airplane “essentials” are Hermès scarves, Valentino loafers, and canned placenta dust (for the protein, of course). So I visited, researched, and sent personal essays to the best film schools in the country:

  NYU

  SARAH LAWRENCE

  BARD

  SYRACUSE

  VASSAR

  USC

  ITHACA

  BU

  UT

  CHAPMAN

  POMONA

  EMERSON COLLEGE

  NORTHWESTERN

  I was rejected by every single one of them.

  Not even wait-listed! I couldn’t even hang on to the possibility that the kid ahead of me would die or have a hallucinogenic-mushroom-fueled meltdown and let me nab his spot. My confidence, however, remained unwavering. I couldn’t grasp why these schools didn’t want me. So what if I came in at far below average on all the traditional litmus tests of academic aptitude? I had MOXIE! And I used words like “MOXIE”! But… nope. It wasn’t enough. This time, there would be no half points awarded for perceived effort. Drat!

  Of course, the truth was that I hadn’t earned entrance to those schools, and I was delusional to think I’d get in. My fantasy-driven GL had been pushing me in a positive direction, of course—deciding to go to college and pursue the arts was obviously a good idea. But in the excitement of pursuing my dream, I decided that inherent creativity would have to override things like grades, athletic achievement, and academic ability. Sure, I’d tested into a competitive prep school in Dallas, but I had a horrific SAT score (sorry, I already told you I had a nose job, you don’t get to know my shitty SAT score—that number dies with me), took no honors classes, and I was JV on every sport until I did lacrosse, where there weren’t enough of us for JV and varsity so we were just one team. I dropped out of the Stock Market Club three weeks in because it was nothing like the movie Wall Street. And I couldn’t be in the Spanish Club because, even after six years of the language, I was still speaking in solamente present tense (though I knew tons of random vocab words about airplanes and vegetables).

  Luckily, I’d applied to the University of Kansas in case hell froze over, which was, as I would come to find out, exactly how locals describe the winter weather there. I soaked up KU for a year, had a blast, and then transferred to Emerson College in Boston. That’s right, on my second try, I got into Emerson and felt validated. Years later, as I accepted Emerson’s Young Alumni Achievement Award for winning Last Comic Standing, I would tell the students that “just because they don’t see it in you, doesn’t mean it’s not there.” I doubt anyone involved with that award knew Emerson’s administration had rejected me the first time around.

  I also want to point out that I was granted that award for winning another award based on skills I had acquired through a lifetime of rejection. All because, before I was anybody, I thought I was somebody.

  Given all that, it’s probably not surprising that I became a stand-up comic—a job that requires a surplus of confidence to combat all the rejection and wheel spinning of show business. I was surprised, though, that before long the media (media at my level being bloggers, morning-show DJs, other comics whispering, etc.) had labeled me a “hot” girl in comedy—another moniker I hadn’t really earned. “She’s hot,” people would vomit out. Sometimes followed by, “… so she can’t be funny.” Or worse, “She’s hot, so I’m going to be a complete shit to her because I’m still butt-hurt that the prom queen didn’t date me in high school.” Out of nowhere I had this new identity that came with a false perception that my life had been easy, that I’d always been the favored pretty girl who got everything she wanted. Motherfuckers, funny was all I ever had.

  So sad, huh? “Oh, people thought you were sooooo pretty, boo hoo.” I’ll liken it to this: What if you had been heavy your whole life and then you moved to, say, Milwaukee, and suddenly everyone around you was twice your size? Sounds great, right? Sure, until people start calling you a bitch because, to them, you’re thin, and you’re left thinking, “What the hell? What did I do to you? I don’t deserve this. I’ve dealt with shit, too!”

  On the road, one of the necessary evils we comedians encounter is the morning radio DJ. Morning DJs—thoughtful cultural commentators that they are—love to say things like, “So, is doing stand-up hard as a hot chick? Are you single? What’s your favorite sex position?” Who asks that of a stranger at 7 a.m.? What’s that got to do with me letting you know I’m at the Giggle Bucket this weekend?

  “Is it hard being hot and being on the road? Is it hard being hot and ordering dinner?” I was sitting there with no celebrity boyfriends, no pageants, no trophies or modeling credits, and bags under my eyes, and I’m supposed to talk about what life has been like for a “hot girl”? Go fuck yourselves. “You know what is hard?” I wanted to tell them. “Running on three hours of sleep while being interviewed by a failed open mic-er with an inferiority complex. I’m trying to sell tickets! I’m sorry your dick isn’t everything you’d hoped it would be! SEE ME AT THE FUNNY BONE THIS FRIDAY!”

  Because I’m blonde and outspoken, people assume I’ve always been the “mean girl,” the head cheerleader. But those kinds of assumptions encapsulate a whole other aspect of Girl Logic: having to deal with other women’s GL. For example, a girl who was mocked for being dorky in high school might grow up, look at me, and write me off, thinking, “I’m not even gonna bother; she’s just going to be mean to me. All blonde girls were and are terrible.” It’s a classic GL loop: turning something that happened in the past into a negative expectation that will eternally color your present and future.

  Whatever, though—I’m not going to write a book about how being an upper-middle-class white girl who had her college paid for has been hard. Black, white, brown, fat, thin, ugly, pretty, molested… everybody has their shit, and everybody has stories about how they overcame it (or didn’t; some people write books from prison, I guess). Did I have a hard life? I had my struggles, but I’ve never been discriminated against because of my skin color, I’ve never been overweight, I’ve never gone without food, I’ve never been abused. My objective isn’t for you to pity me. I only aim to tell my story.

  And let me share something with you that I didn’t do much thinking on until I was writing this book. For my whole life, I struggled to make friends. I changed schools five times between first grade and high school, and I always had to adjust to new social rules. Everywhere I went, people already had their cliques, so I was constantly fighting to be included. My mother showed me a let
ter I wrote to “God” in the second grade where I asked him to make all the girls in my class fall asleep so I could whisper to them that they should invite me to their sleepovers. I think having a sense of self and being hyperaware from a young age made me.… Ah, fuck it; I think it was my nose.

  But not being included hurt. And that sense of exclusion leaves kids thinking they aren’t important and are easily forgotten. Which brings us to my present-day dilemma. My biggest fear in life (aside from being kidnapped and having my mouth duct-taped shut and being unable to communicate that I can’t breathe through my nose) is feeling like I never existed. After high school and college, it felt like I was walking through life alone. Though I still have a few close friends from my younger days, I’m not in touch with 99 percent of the people I went to college or high school with. Depending on what else was going on at the time, my GL would either tell me to withdraw completely or to keep reaching out, but I usually didn’t because I felt too… disregarded. As a result, I’ve created a relationship with my fans in which I get back a lot of what I’ve always needed: not only acceptance but being wanted in the first place.

  In a way, my independence born out of rejection has been a good thing. Because of my past, I’m super sensitive to people feeling included, and whether I’m at a party or at work, I’m always the first to say, “Come sit with us.” Do I love competition? I do. In fact, I hate losing more than I enjoy winning. But my objective is never to make someone feel like they’re wrong for wanting to be part of a group. I think that’s why my comedy is so inclusive. I want people to come to my shows and feel that someone understands them.

  But when someone does make unfounded assumptions about you right off the bat, it almost never has to do with anything you actually did. How could it? There was a club I didn’t play for years because the booker decided she just… didn’t like whatever little she knew about me. Maybe she just didn’t like me? Maybe she hated female comics? Who knows? But I couldn’t change her mind.

  To be fair, we all do this kind of projecting, at least sometimes. When I was sixteen, a girl from Australia broke my best friend’s heart, so for years I hated Australians. Rather than realizing this was immensely ignorant, I thought I was “ride or die.” Loyalty to the Point of Stupidity should be plastered on my tombstone. (P.S. Australians are not only the happiest, nicest people ever, but they’re also almost all hot.)

  The worst, though, is how this plays out with men. Every now and again guys are shitty to me; they seem to forget that I’m not, in fact, one of the girls who wouldn’t go out with them in high school. Once I went out for drinks with a dorky—but cute and smart—writer, and afterward, lo and behold, he didn’t call. It happens. A week later, he texted, “How does it feel?” Not sure if he was telling me he loved D’Angelo or if he was sending another girl a sexual text, I typed back, “What?” His response: “Being rejected.”

  DUDE? PLEASE DO SOCIETY A FAVOR AND GO LIVE WITH RACCOONS IN A FOREST.

  Now, obviously, he is an insane person, and that is an extreme example. But that sort of “I’ll show her” attitude can quite easily escalate into “I’m bringing an AK-47 to the workplace tomorrow because women won’t fuck me.” Naturally, I blocked him and then talked shit about him to my friends. I had to get something satisfying out of that date.

  So, to all the dudes out there actively seeking a girl to be angry at, here’s a bit of breaking news: I was never a cheerleader. I was actually the school mascot (a giant hornet—I had a stinger and a giant head, and I was glorious). I was not the homecoming queen, I was in our school improv group. I skipped basketball to do the yearly fall musicals, I didn’t drink, and for about a year I attended raves with my best friend, Michelle, solely because we loved the dancing. (I know it would be cooler to say were candy kids who loved ecstasy, but for us, it was really just about escaping the banality of playing flip cup with our friends every weekend.)

  I am nothing like the girl who rejected you. My parents divorced when I was seven, my father moved away, and when I was eight a malamute bit my face ON THANKSGIVING. That part isn’t really germane to the story, it’s just kinda crazy. Point is, my life hasn’t been all hand jobs and lollipops. More like rejection, sidelines, and some hand jobs when I was too full from dinner to have sex.

  Mental Makeover

  I’ve always thought the cliché shouldn’t be “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”; it should be “what doesn’t kill you should have tried harder, and just leaves you kind of annoyed.” Because I get annoyed a lot. I’m annoyed right now, and I’m not even sure why. I get frustrated with almost everything: people, situations, societal expectations… gravity, pedestrians, any shirt with the shoulders cut out… and the fact that no matter how hard I try, I can never pick a good book on my own. I somehow always end up with something about witchcraft or World War II.

  And I get really annoyed when I think I’m being undervalued by others, which happens often when you think you’re a ten (or at least an eight who reads a lot and does squats) and other people are too dumb to see it. Friends who set you up with a loser, a boss who won’t give you the job you want, or a director who won’t give you a chance; all are iterations of someone not smart enough to realize your value.

  Evaluating your worth based on the opinions of others is a dangerous trap. The perpetual juggling act of trying to process everyone else’s assumptions about you—assumptions that are often incorrect—is as exhausting as it is useless. I’m the first to admit it’s tough to stay strong when your Girl Logic kicks in and nudges you into nitpicking over why that new friend is blowing you off and what HER reaction to you might mean about your other friends, and the friends you had when you were six, and your future friendability (or lack thereof).

  To be a woman who thrives, you have to pinpoint what’s good about you and let the confidence in that guide you. Whether it’s a stunning sense of humor, a brilliant brain, or a body chiseled from fucking marble, hopefully you feel worthy of attention, love, and acceptance—and when you don’t get it, fuckin’ right you’re pissed. Think about anytime you’ve gone on a date and it was good (not delusional good, good like it was clear both parties were having fun), and the person never communicated with you afterward. You’re left thinking, “I’m pretty great, how is this person not seeing this?” Then you immediately take a sexy picture and post it on Instagram, hoping they’re secretly stalking you. No? Just me? Come on, you know they’re lookin’.

  Point is, I don’t think it’s possible to be overly confident, especially as a woman. So let the losers hate, and be the best at whatever it is you do, without apologizing. After all, which surgeon would you choose to perform your surgery—the one who says, “This is going to go incredibly and you’ll be back to work in no time,” or the one who admits, “I’m not quite sure how this will pan out; let’s just hope I don’t fuck up, LOL.”

  Holding your head high in the face of all life throws at you can be tough. We live in an era when not only is being a feminist hard, but being judged on what kind of feminist you are is a given. But honestly, confidence is kinda… everything. Your GL might sometimes be the devil on your shoulder, whispering that you’re not good enough. But more often than not, she’s actually your ally—trying to help you remember past patterns and future pitfalls. Give her some credit every now and then; she deserves it. She’s just trying to help you enjoy your life!

  One of my favorite quotes ever is from Jon Stewart: “I’m not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.” Maybe the girl version should be: “I’m not going to downplay my strengths so you feel less shitty about your own shortcomings.” Shout it from the mountaintops, then come down from that mountain because dudes can see up your skirt (unless you’re into that, which is totally cool).

  2

  Case Clothed

  Let’s face it: most women’s clothing seems designed to make us feel horrible, no matter what size we are. I can’t count the number of normal outfits I’ve tried on in a dress
ing room that ended with the salesperson sniffing at me, “Oh, you’re not supposed to wear a bra with that.” Are you fucking kidding me, Skyler? Am I eighteen? Is it 1969?

  Clothing-related Girl Logic can lead you on a roller coaster ride full of, well, lots of downs and only a few ups. You may be innocently trying on clothes for fun, but if your GL goes off the rails, you could be left in tears, not only hating your body but your job, hair, best friend, and that one bitch who works at the juice place who never smiles at you! All because of one pair of jeans that said “size 6” but we all know were really a 0 and solely there to make you feel like a POORLY SHAPED LOSER WHO WILL NEVER FIND LOVE OR BE HAPPY BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE HATES YOU.

  The reason Girl Logic and clothing are so combustible together is because clothes are a physical expression of how we want to appear—or think we should appear—to the outside world. A lot of our ideas about what we should be wearing are absorbed via osmosis from the fashion world: an industry built on making women hate themselves. We inadvertently buy into the aesthetic that dictates all women should be 5’ 10” and 105 pounds every time we pick up a magazine or click an Instagram link to a fashion blogger (the caption always being “Obsessed with this look”). We’re passively encouraged to criticize, compare, and nitpick our own bodies, so when our fashion options meet our Girl Logic, our clothing choices often veer into the irrational.

  This isn’t because women are stupid, of course—it’s just aspiration gone awry. That’s the only reason otherwise rational women will think OF COURSE paying too much money for jeans so tight your vagina looks like it’s in a choke hold is a good idea; I mean, Vogue said so. Here’s a tip: if you can’t sit down or normally function in an item of clothing, don’t buy it. You’ll wear it once, get PTSD, and then fear it every time you stumble across it in your closet. I feel that way about a pair of white rag & bone skinny jeans. Every year I wear them once, hate them, and then bury them in the closet (they’re rb, I’m not throwing them out) only to rediscover them next summer. Like unearthing a long forgotten treasure, I then grab them from under a pile of heels on the closet floor, and think “this year fashion will be mine!” Oh wait, they’re still a size 24 and I can’t even zip ’em. Back to the closet floor you go.