BOTOX
FOR WOMEN, turning 30 is a wake-up call. It dawns on you that the people around you — the ones driving cars, making deals, and showing their boobs in Playboy – happen to be an entire generation younger! It comes on so fast. When you’re an actor, the deck is shuffled and, just like that, you’re replaced by a younger queen. You get offered the far less glamorous roles of wife, mother, and lady who patrols the Cul-de-sac with an Ugg-boots-wearing dog.
The problem? You still feel like a kid. You think: This can’t be happening. I only just started forgiving people for how they treated me in high school. And: Now I’m being tossed out with the trash, written off as a ‘puma,’ and relegated to the C-storyline of some sexy CW show were I play the mom? FUCK. THIS. SHIT. I’m getting Botox!
Here’s the deal with Botox. It’s awesome. The only people that don’t like it are people that don’t get it. Prime example: My husband, Jason. He thinks freezing your face is a gateway procedure. Something that will eventually lead to knives, and lasers, and me looking like my parents. Which is completely ridiculous since I’ve been using lasers waay longer than Botox! So in a selfless effort to appease him, I don’t tell him about it. And aside from one or two occasions where I’ve had to throw myself down a flight of stairs to explain a rogue bruise, or pretend that the environmental stresses of our home life have resulted in a mild case of Bell’s palsy, things have been pretty copasetic. My husband is happy and completely in the dark and I look ever-so-slightly photoshopped.
I was the first of my friends to take the plunge with Botox. But over time, I’ve watched almost all of them succumb to the delicious temptation to stave off nature with injections.
My friend Candice is one year older than me. She’s one of those purists who never really got into makeup. She never needed to. Her skin is porcelain and her eyebrows are full. She’s the type of chick you picture stands in front of a mirror for two seconds and just sort of wills her (never-been-dyed) hair into submission. Nothing about her is forced or fake. So you can imagine my surprise when one night, over dinner, she blurted out: “I think I want to get Botox.”
A warm soothing wave of validation washed over me. Candice wanted to look amazing — like I do. “What were you thinking you needed?” I asked, as if she’d just said let’s take a bath in a tub of Nutella.
“Oh, I don’t know, I wanted to fill in these smile lines and maybe tweak this dent between my eyebrows,” she admitted bashfully.
I offered to take her to my guy.
Candice is so innocent it’s hard not to want to expose her to every depraved thing I can think of. It’s what I picture taking a child to Disneyland must feel like for parents. I wanted to be there to help her, but also to vicariously experience the wonder that comes from seeing a couple CCs of Restayln shot under your skin for the first time.
A dermatology office is like Planned Parenthood for the middle-aged. Nobody makes eye contact, nobody talks, and everyone is guilty of something. After several uneasy minutes of Candice making me swear on my dogs’ lives that I would never tell her husband about our little visit to the dermatologist’s, a nurse walked out to greet us. She escorted us back to an exam room where we waited for Dr. Rosenblatt.
Dr. Rosenblatt is a handsome, hyperactive, narcissist man of unspecified age who, over the course of the last decade, has become Los Angeles’ uncrowned king of injectables.
“They call me the uncrowned king of injectables,” he said as he strutted into the room like he was on a fucking catwalk.
Putting on gloves and grabbing a black marker, Dr. Rosenblatt didn’t ask Candice any questions, he just drew. After Jackson Pollocking Candice’s virginal face, he handed her a mirror.
“So this is what I would suggest. What did you have in mind?” He asked only out of obligation.
“I — uh –” Candice stuttered as she examined her Sharpie tribal face tattoo.
“I don’t think she needs all that,” I interjected. “ We were thinking just some Restylane in her smile lines and a couple drops of Botox between the brows.”
“Oh, is that what YOU were thinking?” Rosenblatt chided. “Okay, fine. You’re the boss,” he said, reminding me that I was in no way the boss.
“That work for you, Candice?” he asked, probably hoping she would take his side.
“I think for now, yes,” she said.
Suck it, Rosenblatt!
The nurse came back in and cleaned the abstract expressionist rendering off Candice’s face. Rosenblatt prepared his syringe of hope and approached us like John Wayne at high noon. “How very Pollock of him,” I thought.
“You gonna hold her hand?” he asked.
Candice clawed into my wrist and answered for me. “Yes, please,” she said, trembling.
With precision, Rosenblatt injected the Restylane and massaged it down each side of her mouth. He then took a separate syringe and injected several dots of Botox into her forehead.
“I have a bit extra so I’m just gonna put it in your crow’s feet. That okay, with you, Jenny?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, mortified that he just told my friend she had crow’s feet.
Minutes later, the nurse handed Candice back the mirror.
“Wow! This shit is amazing,” she said, blown away by the drastic effects of the filler.
Pleased with his work, and with himself in general, Rosenblatt rattled off his routine advice, “No exercise for the rest of the day, any slight bruising is normal, and if you have an adverse reaction, please call the office immediately.”
Candice nodded and thanked him for his help.
“You’re almost due to come back in, aren’t you Jenny?” he asked sweetly, taking one last jab at me.
“Almost,” I smiled and walked out.
Candice paid her bill in cash and reiterated that under no circumstances should the office ever contact her via phone. One part paranoid and one part elated, she hugged me hard and bid me farewell.
That night, I sat in bed taking pictures of my forehead with my iPhone to ensure it didn’t need further freezing.
“Rosenblatt was just trying to mindfuck me into giving him more money or killing myself,” I grumbled to my dogs. “Oh, PS I swore on your lives today, try not to be mad,” I added.
When Jason came home, I spoke nothing of the occurrence and we fell asleep as the best of friends who tell each other everything.
The next morning, I woke to a series of cryptic texts from Candice urging me to call her immediately, if not sooner. Before I could even get through all the messages, my home phone was ringing.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Oh my god! Oh my god!” Candice sobbed into my ear.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” I asked, scared.
“My face!” she cried. “I’m bruised right next to my eye! Nick is going to shoot me!”
Feeling completely responsible, I threw on some shoes and drove to Candice’s house. When I got there she was wearing sunglasses from Nordstrom’s collection for the blind.
“Come in,” she said, as if someone had just died.
We walked into her bathroom, where she unveiled herself. Relieved that the bruise was small, I assured her it would only last a few days and that she’d just need some concealer.
“What’s that?” she said.
Oy vey! I forgot I was dealing with an amateur. Rummaging through my purse, I found a cover up stick that was at least a shade too dark. I mixed it with some baby powder and hoped for the best. Candice went back to freaking the fuck out. “This won’t work! Nick will be more skeptical if I’m wearing makeup! There has to be another way.”
“Okay, well in my experience I always find the easiest thing to do is lie,” I said. “What could you have done today that might have caused this bruise?”
“Um, maybe something at the gym? It’s just such a conspicuous shape. It looks like a needle was in there.”
She was right, the bruise kind of screamed: I just had face work, I’m afraid of getting old, and I was an extra in the movie DEATH BECOMES HER. We had only one choice… We had to make it bigger. Candice stood in front of me bravely as I cocked my fist back and prepared to slug one of my best friends in the face.
“Don’t break anything!” she warned.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, swung… And hit the wrong eye.
“Candice!” I screamed.
“You got the wrong side!” she barked.
“I’m left handed!” I reminded her.
We both looked in the mirror at Candice’s rapidly swelling right eye. Not only did she look like she was recently Botoxed, she also looked like she had been mugged and possibly raped by a really small doctor with no upper body strength. This is how I picture those botched jobs you always hear about on the news. The only thing missing was a bathtub full of ice and a note saying, “I gotcha Kidney!” More afraid of her husband’s judgment than physical pain, Candice demanded that I finish what I started and clock her other eye.
“This is a terrible idea. Are you sure?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t sure.
“Jenny! If you don’t do this for me,” she started.
Before I gave her time to think, I knocked her in the face with my less graceful right fist. “This better bruise!” she said, looking in the mirror like some sort of masochistic freak. I was horrified by my behavior, shocked by what had transpired, and I was unable to say anything except, “The first rule of fight club is: We don’t talk about fight club.”
Candice erupted into laughter, then shrieked in pain and ambled to the kitchen for ice.
Later that evening, Jason got a phone call from his good friend Nick, Candice’s husband. I was too nervous to eavesdrop so I buried my head in a book and turned up the TV. His face was grave when he entered the room.
“I just got off the phone with Nick,” he started.
Fuck, she cracked under the pressure. I should have known she was out of her league in the lies and deception department, I thought.
“I guess Candice’s trainer dropped the bench press bar on her face today at the gym. They’re cancelling dinner this weekend because she has two black eyes.”
“Really! That’s insane,” I said, relieved.
“Why don’t you look surprised?” he asked.
“No, I am! Baby, that’s just my face.” I reassured him. “See, I knew I didn’t need anymore Botox,” I said smugly to the Dr. Rosenblatt in my head.
Once Jason was fast asleep, I texted Candice to congratulate her on pulling off her story. This was the response I got: “What do you think I’d look like with a boob job?”
PUPS ON A PLANE
I’M PRETTY SURE MY PARENTS ARE TO BLAME for my utter lack of respect for rules and authority. Growing up in a house full of doctors (and people who assume they are doctors by association), you get accustomed to sick notes getting you out of participating in anything annoying, ever. Not to mention all the fabulous drugs. In a strange way, this luxury shielded my innocent–albeit narcotized–eyes from the fact that you can’t always do whatever you want.
My husband, on the other hand, is the type of guy who uses his blinker every time he makes a left turn on a green arrow. He’s the only guy I know who has never returned anything already worn to Nordstrom’s. He plays by the book and obnoxiously expects me to do the same. That is, of course, when it doesn’t have to do with my dog, Mr. John W. Teets.
Teets is an 11-year-old, 9 lb poodle man who’s been in my life six years longer than Jason, which means he has seniority. He’s a regal little gentleman who drinks his water out of a glass, sleeps with his head propped on a Tempur-Pedic pillow, and only poops in ivy. So when someone tries to tell me that my dog doesn’t belong in a hospital to visit my sister’s newborn son, or at a Benihana birthday dinner held in his honor, I’m inclined to tell that person to suck a bag of dicks.
When I was single, Teets and I had our routine down pat. I’d look all doe-eyed and vulnerable while he’d don a ‘Service Animal’ vest and escort me straight to the pre-made sushi section of Whole Foods. Afterwards, we’d walk through the mall making fun of people with children, then catch an afternoon matinee at the Arc Light Cinerama Dome. When first introduced to this I-don’t-give-a-fuckedness level of behavior, my husband, Jason, was appalled. He insisted that if we were going to get married, I’d have to make a more concerted effort to not pretend to be blind, deaf, German, have seizures, low blood sugar, or schizophrenia just because I wanted to take my dog everywhere.
As a gesture of love I did something I rarely do. I compromised. I agreed to leave Teets at home with our two less privileged dogs on a more regular basis, and Jason agreed that when we left town, Teets would come with.
And that would be fine if I didn’t have a problem with buying Teets a plane ticket. Yeah, sure, it’s only a hundred bucks and probably a day’s worth of red tape, but I’d rather give Teets a three-hour blowjob than deal with anything involving me waiting in a line or filling out forms, ever. My plan for expediting this process was simple: Hide the dog in a bag and act like he’s not there. At airports, only the ticketing agent at the departure gate is responsible for checking in pets. And if they aren’t expecting them, they don’t ask. So seconds after being hand raped by security, Teets gets gingerly tucked into my carry-on. Then, after takeoff, he’s invited out onto my lap to have a sip of coffee creamer and possibly a delicious hot cashew or two.
With time, Jason became anesthetized to the dog ruse and tried to focus his OCD on other things, like turning off both our cell phones before takeoff and reading up on protocol in the event of an ocean landing. Things were pretty sweet. Until American Airlines, flight 56 from LAX to JFK.
Every Christmas, we fly back east to visit my husband’s family. This time we got cocky and decided to smuggle not one dog, but two. I think Jason was drunk when I got him to agree to this. But he kept his word, and Gina, our three-year-old, 5 lb little werewolf woman, was invited along for the ride. Unlike Teets, Gina is a pain in the ass. She doesn’t understand the dynamics of getting in a bag and shutting the fuck up. She thinks of herself as a pleasure to be around, a spreader of sunshine, and a sheer joy to come into contact with. To deprive even one person of her little lady lasso tail or her beady Fraggle eyes is, in her mind, an epic crime against humanity.
Unfortunately, we learned her feelings the hard way.
We boarded a red-eye bound for New York City around 10 pm on a Friday night. I carried Teets and Jason carried Gina. After takeoff, we reclined our seats, popped some Ambiens, and put the dogs under blankets on our laps. Before Natalie Portman even told Ashton Kutcher she wanted to be Friends with Benefits, I was unconscious. Roughly two hours later I felt a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see my husband looking at me, panic-stricken.
“Baby, do you have Gina?” he asked.
I looked down. Teets was snuggled across my legs.
“What? No. You have her,” I said, still groggy.
“Umm, no Jenny, I DON’T have her! Where the fuck is she?” he said, standing up and looking down the aisle.
Gina was missing! Like a werewolf ladysnake on a plane, this crazy little terrier bitch could be anywhere. Left with no choice, we rang the flight attendant buzzer.
“You’re talking!” Jason insisted as a Tammy-Faye-Baker-looking stewardess appeared out of the darkness.
“How can I help you?” she asked with her southern drawl.
I looked back at my husband. He was pretending to be asleep. I’d definitely have to pluck one of his ball hairs out later for this little stunt.
“Ma’am?” the flight attendant continued.
“Yes. Uh–I seem to have misplaced something,” I started.
Before I could finish, my rule-dork husband opened his eyes and started tattling on me like douchebag hall monitor with a fanny pack full of detention slips.
“My wife can’t find our dog. We snuck her on the plane and now she’s missing,” he said.
Teets popped his head out to see the commotion causing the flight attendant to jump in horror.
“Oh, not that dog. Another one,” I explained.
Jason looked at me, speechless. Within minutes, we were on our feet and armed with flashlights, moving from seat to seat, looking for our gremlin-at-large. Thirty-seven aisles later, there was still no sign of her.
At 2 am in the morning somewhere over East Bumblecock, Missouri, all of the lights on the plane went on. The pilot came on the loud speaker and gave a vivid description of the runaway canine. People were instructed to check their laps, look under the seat in front of them, and remain calm. The passengers were assured that the animal was non-aggressive, hypoallergenic, and that she answered to the name Gina Baby Lady.
“Found her!” a little boy called out over the announcement. Gina was raised up by the child’s mother and dangled above a window seat about 15 rows back. She had a piece of McDonald’s Happy Meal burger hanging from her mouth.
“That her?” Tammy Faye asked.
No, that’s a lycanthrope cruising the cabin for food, I thought.
“I’m seriously gonna kill you,” Jason whispered under his breath.
“Me? You were the one who was supposed to be watching her!” I grunted.
The stewardess retrieved Gina and handed her to Jason while the rest of the passengers stared at him like he was total fucking asshole. Then, as fate would have it, another traveler called out, “Hey is that Jason Biggs?”
Tammy Faye turned to Jason and gave him a once over. It was Jason Biggs! Oopsie. Assuming I was being issued divorce papers upon landing, I made one last attempt to improve the situation by doing what I do best… lying through my teeth. Throwing myself on the ground, I faked a series of convulsions. Jason stared at me in disbelief.
“Honey, I need my medication!” I screamed.
Desperate to get the attention off himself, Jason played along. He ran over to his carry-on, whipped out a pill bottle and slipped me a Zoloft. Having no concept of long it takes a person to stop seizing, I stood up instantly (probably before I even swallowed the pill). I whipped out Teets’ ‘Please don’t pet me I’m working vest,’ which was still stashed in his travel bag from years past, and waved it around like a white flag. I explained to Tammy that Gina wasn’t a stowaway but my trained medical aide.
“And who’s that?” she asked, pointing at the other four-legged mammal on my lap.
“Her assistant?” I said, stroking Teets’ concerned face.
The cabin’s hatred gradually turned to empathy and a request for a signed Jason Biggs cocktail napkin. I disembarked from the plane in a wheelchair with both dogs on my lap and barely a slap on the wrists. Once safely and on our way into the city, I knew what I had to do… I shot Gina.
Just kidding. I didn’t kill my dog. But I did make Jason a ‘promise’.
“Baby, if we ever travel with Gina again, we’ll do it the legal way,” I said.
Jason’s eyes immediately drifted over to Teets, like he was waiting for me to address the issue of our other covert companion.
I balked. “Why should Teets get punished for something Gina did?”
Once we were back in LA, our couples therapist helped us work out a compromise. I was super high on Xanax at the time so I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but I think it’s something like: I still skip out on the paperwork, but I don my own vest that reads ‘Ignore the dogs! I can get you Jason Biggs’ autograph!’
STARFUCKERS
THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN PEOPLE TREATING ME POORLY IS WHEN THOSE SAME PEOPLE TREAT MY HUSBAND WELL. Some might say it comes with the territory. I’m constantly being reminded by my close-knit group of 43,000 Twitter followers that it was my choice to marry “the guy that fucked the pie,” and how no matter what happens in my life, I’ll forever be eclipsed by his notoriety.
There’s a part of me that wishes I could just sit back, relax, and spend all his residual checks on Shopbop. But I’m too much of an overachiever to not want to bring down everyone who’s ever written me off as some girl who got a golden ticket. Also, I haven’t seen anything that cute lately—I think we’re between seasons.
The thing is, I was awesome before I met Jason. In fact, he’s lucky even I like him. He could have easily landed in the hands of some freak sycophant who’d seen more than one of his movies.
Fortunately, I don’t care about things that don’t involve food, poodles, or me in a well-priced cute outfit. But seriously, I love my husband for who he is when it’s just the two of us. The fact that he’s an actor is probably the least interesting thing about him–aside from the fact that he’s recently gotten into NASCAR.
Fame brings out the best and the worst in people. Most of the time, the worst. I’ve seen uptight businessmen practically come their pants over snapping a photo. I’ve had mothers hand me their children so they could scamper off to get their tits signed in Sharpie. And even my own father describes me as “my daughter married to Jason Biggs.” I guess none of this would be an issue if I had any real self-esteem. Unfortunately for my husband, I don’t.
So when traveling around the world on a press trip I can name roughly a billion things more exciting than listening to my husband, Jason Biggs, talk about being Jason Biggs. Our chauffer in Sydney, Australia, however, could not.
Jason and I, along with my brother-in-law, Larry, landed in Sydney a day before the American Pie 4 world tour began. We were picked up at the airport by assigned drivers and taken to our hotel. Having the rest of the day off, the studio arranged a harbor cruise for the entire cast.
Ben, our driver, not only got us to and from the cruise with ease, he also happened to be a cornucopia of information. We stopped at the greatest frappuccino shop on earth, walked through the botanical gardens, and even managed to catch an underground Bon Iver acoustic set at the Opera House. Ben was the greatest chaperone of all time. There was no way I was going to let this human Wallpaper Guide be wasted on my husband. The rest of Jason’s time in Sydney was going to be all work, but Larry and I had two full days to fill with the best Sydney had to offer.
I broke the news to Ben just before he dropped us off at our hotel that night. “So Ben, tomorrow instead of driving Jason, we want you to come with us!” I said, as I presented him with a matching visor we’d bought him in the Opera House gift shop. “You, me, and Larry! All we want is to have the BEST day a local Sydney-ite could ever imagine. The ball’s totally in your court–we are up for whatever!” I high-fived him and jumped out of the car.
Ben laughed uncomfortably, nodded his head and bid us goodnight.
The next morning, after a leisurely stroll on the hotel treadmill, I poured my jetlagged body into a pair of sweats and wandered downstairs to meet Larry. Larry broke the news.
“I guess Ben went with Jason and we are getting his little brother Aaron,” he started.
“Wait, what?” I said, confused, taking off my Opera House visor.
“Yeah, I guess he was just being polite but he really wanted to be with the movie star,” Larry said.
“He’s kind of a fan,” Ben’s tiny doppelganger interjected from across the lobby. “I’m Aaron,” he said, extending his hand.
I was too under-caffeinated to cut his face off, so I acquiesced and got into Aaron’s sedan. Unlike his brother, Aaron happened to be THE WORST tour guide of all time. We knew we were fucked when he suggested a place that served deep-fried cod pie for lunch. The fuck is that, even? Larry and I spent most of our day carsick in the back seat, burning through our international wireless plans.
“Ben fucked us!” I texted Larry.
“In the ass!” he wrote back.
There was nothing left to do but sublimate my feelings of rejection into a full-blown plot for revenge. I started Aaron’s interrogation slowly, so as not to spook him. “So, your brother. What’s his story? Tell me EVERYTHING!” I demanded. “Married, single, dating someone he doesn’t love?” I needed to gather as much information on Ben as possible so that at a time of my choosing I could tactfully use it to destroy him.
Despite his flaws, Aaron did have a knack for gossip. He told me all about the girl Ben was dating and how Ben was dragging his heels about marrying her. We analyzed her family (aka her family of origin–a psychology term, look it up) and decided her father, Hugo, might be the cause for Ben’s trepidation. To be honest, Ben could have learned a fucking lot if he’d been there. Shit got deep.
By 6 pm that night, I knew more about Ben’s potential father-in-law than I did about my own father-in-law. I knew that Ben’s girlfriend was Hugo’s only daughter. I knew that Hugo hated Ben. I also knew that Hugo ran this coffee cart on Manley beach, was 5’5”, with silver hair and wire-rimmed Armani spectacles. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the facts I’d collected but I knew I had to do something to get back at Ben for ditching us.
“I’m so glad I’m not Ben right now,” Larry said, as we took the elevator back to our rooms to change for dinner.
I opened the door to my hotel room and Jason was already washing up for dinner.
“You guys were gone forever!” he exclaimed. “I’m so jealous. You must have had the best day ever!”
I smiled, kissed him, and didn’t get into the details.
“You need to hurry, though because we have to be at dinner in less than thirty. Ben is parked out front and I don’t want to keep him waiting,” Jason explained.
I called Larry and told him to shower fast. Twenty-five minutes later, I was reunited with Ben.
“Yo, yo! My big J-man!” Ben shouted to Jason across the lobby like they were in a gang in the eighties. After high-fiving Jason, Ben decided it was time to acknowledge Larry and I: “Hey, Mousketeers! How was your day?”
“Good!” Larry laughed and shot me a look.
“I’m gonna fucking kill this guy!” I muttered.
“Hey Jaysky, why don’t you sit up front with me so you can control the radio!” Ben went on.
Jason, unable to be mean, obliged after squeezing my hand and kissing me on the cheek.
The entire drive to the restaurant was filled with Ben licking my husband’s ass. Growing uncomfortable, Jason finally diverted the conversation to Larry and I.
“So what did you guys end up doing today?” he asked.
At this point I was fuming. But nothing was going to distract me from my goal. “Wow! Well, we did so much! Aaron took us down to the beaches. Oh my God baby, I didn’t even tell you yet…” I started.
“What?” said Jason, taking the bait.
“I was completely sexually harassed today!” I told him.
Larry looked at me, unsure of where I was going with this.
“Where did this happen?” Jason asked, concerned.
Here it was, my perfect moment… “Um, Where was it, Larry? Manley Beach? I think. It was so weird–this little older man named Ugo? Or Hugo?” I started.
“Hugo, I think,” Larry chimed in. “It got bad.”
“Like really bad, right?” I asked Larry.
Sitting in the front seat, Jason grew more and more upset. Meanwhile, Ben started to sweat.
“Jenny! Stop being so cryptic! What happened?” Jason demanded.
“Well, we were at the coffee cart and this guy who I guess owns it with like silver hair, propositioned me,” I told him. “People are really aggressive here. Thank god Larry was there to intervene.”
I looked up. Ben looked on the verge of cardiac arrest.
“Did he touch you in some way?” Jason asked, now furious.
“Just… Thank god for Larry is all I really feel comfortable saying, right now.” I fake whimpered as we came to a stop in front of the restaurant.
Jason spun around to look at me but before our eyes could meet, I buried my head in Larry’s chest and proceeded to fake sob.
What happened next, I didn’t have to see. The sound and smell were insight enough. Ben had just vomited all over his homeboy, Jason.
“Wow. Dude, are you okay?” Larry asked as Jason opened Ben’s car door and redirected his mouth.
As you can imagine, the conversation that followed wasn’t exactly easy.
“So listen baby, I lied because I needed Ben to understand that I’m more powerful than he can imagine and that fucking with me is basically asking for physical and emotional castration,” I said.
“Jenny! That was really too far, and if it had been done by anyone other than you, I’d have been thoroughly underwhelmed. Your acting was magnificent. You sold the shit out of that story. I’m proud of you,” he said, smiling.
“Really? You understand why I couldn’t help myself?” I asked.
“Baby, the guy was a star-fucker and if I were as unfamous as you, I’d have done the same thing,” he assured me.
I threw myself into Jason’s still vomit-soaked arms and kissed him. I realized that it doesn’t matter how the rest of the world views me. My husband thinks I’m Madonna, so fuck everyone else. And though his visibility can sometimes lead to me feeling like an extra in my own life, I’m head-over-heels in love with him, so I just have to deal.
Bottom line? None of this would have had to have happened if Ben had just worn his matching visor.
-
Jenny Mollen Biggs is an actress and writer living in Los Angeles with two poodle angel muffins and an asshole miniature pinscher. She also has a husband. Keep up with her at IMDB or on Twitter @jennyandteets.
GOING GIRL
SOMETIMES I WISH I WERE A LESBIAN. I’d be so much cooler. I’d have a choppy haircut, a sexy, monochromatic house, I’d only wear skinny jeans and blazers, hang out with Samantha Ronson and probably change my name to something ambiguous, like Bleu.
I’ve tried to go girl before. When I first got out of college, I poached this raspy-voiced Irish lesbian named Gemma. She was a chatterbox, with crazy blue eyes and platinum blonde hair. If I had to write a recipe for her it would be: Four cups Melissa Ethridge, two tbsp. Karen Allen, a dash of Eminem, and a sprig of Guinness. Saying the girl could sing would be a massive understatement. Gemma could wail!
“How is she white?” I said to my friend Matt as we watched my Leprechaun crush sing Radiohead’s “Creep” on stage one night in Santa Monica.
“I have to meet her,” I whispered as she bowed and walked off stage.
Blocking her path to the bar, I introduced myself awkwardly. “Hey, I’m Jenny. That was incredible.”
“Oh, it was just a wee set I threw together on the fly,” she said.
I half-understood what she meant and offered to buy her a drink. EEEEK! I’m buying a girl a drink, I thought.
Matt shot me a raised eyebrow and kept his mouth shut. Gemma and I sat at the bar talking for the next hour. I was more nervous around her than any guy I’d ever spoken to ever. This shit was harder than seducing my high school guidance counselor, and it wasn’t even going to get me out of industrial arts.
How do lesbians do it? I thought.
Do I lean over and touch her leg? Should I reference a totally fictional ex-girlfriend? If only I had a fucking thumb ring!
Before I could make any advances, the bartender told us it was last call. Gemma thanked me for the beer and offered me one of her CDs. She wrote her number across the top and told me to call her with my thoughts. I just stood there smiling like a deer in the headlights (deer totally smile) as she walked out.
Once we were in the car, the hazing began.
“You wanna eat her pussy!” Matt chanted at the top of his lungs the entire drive home. I’d never eaten a pussy. I didn’t know what it would be like. Would I be able to go through with it? Would I freak the fuck out and start vomiting all over myself? Would I get half way into it and start laughing uncontrollably? I mean she was beautiful and talented and would sure as hell have a bigger impact on my image than the fucking Japanese character tattoo I got at the fair, but could I really be in a relationship with a woman? I needed to at least try, right?
That night I listened to Gemma’s CD from beginning to end. By the end of the week, I knew every word to every song. The following weekend, I finally worked up the courage to call her. I told her how moved I was by her music and that it would be cool if we could have dinner sometime. She said she was busy for the next couple days but could go out on Tuesday.
Only after I hung up the phone did I notice that Tuesday was fucking Valentine’s Day.
Jesus, lesbians do move fucking fast! Oh, my God, oh, my God, Oh, my God! What did I get myself into? I’m going out on my first lesbian date on the most expectation-ridden day of the year! I thought, pacing and hyperventilating around my apartment.
There was really only one logical thing to do: Find a cute lesbian outfit.
I went to J.Crew to cultivate my carpet muncher couture. I wanted to look like Shane from the L Word had a baby with Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. Unfortunately the best I could find was a red button-down and camel-colored corduroys that made me look more like Jane Lynch had a baby with Diane Keaton in Baby Boom (once she left the city to make applesauce in Vermont).
I made a reservation at a cute little Italian restaurant in Culver City–partially because it was cute and partially because I didn’t live anywhere near Culver City. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be seen with Gemma. It was more that I didn’t quite know how to seduce a woman and I didn’t need to run into any random riff raff who might throw me off my game.
When Gemma showed up at the restaurant, I instantly felt like a loser for trying too hard. She was uber-casual in faded jeans, a see-through camisole, and an army jacket. Fuck! Already I was being out-lesbianed. She ran up to me and kissed me on the lips, which I totally counted as getting to first base.
The hostess, picking up on our non-threatening ‘we’re hot but totally not in competition with you’ swagger, escorted us to the best table in the house. Blondes may have more fun but lesbians never get seated next to the kitchen.
Gemma drilled me on my dreams and ambitions over two bottles of red. She asked every question most guys are too stupid to ask. I felt she understood me in a way that only another woman could.
At the end of the night I excused myself to the bathroom to apply some more chapstick. After several minutes of pacing in front of the mirror wishing I had a nose ring or at least a cartilage piercing to make me seem more dangerous, I decided I was gonna go for it! I was drunk enough to say and do just about anything. I might as well try getting fingered, I concluded.
I sauntered back to the table. Gemma told me she was gonna head home.
“Should I come with you?” I asked.
“If you’d like,” She said.
Wait, what? I thought, I’m really doing this? Oh, fuck, I’m really doing this!
We took a cab back to Gemma’s and stumbled inside. She gave me the extended tour of her house, which of course ended in her bedroom.
What do I do now? I thought, panicking.
She slowly started to kiss my neck. The only thing I could think to say was, “I’ve never done this before.”
“I know,” she replied, as if I was a fucking moron to think she ever believed I knew what I was doing.
“I wish my areolas were smaller, sorry,” I stuttered as she took off my shirt.
She began rubbing herself up against me and within seconds I was a giggling fucking mess.
“I… I’m sorry. I think I may be a little too drunk.” I said.
I was scared shitless. I also knew I was doing something just to say I did it. But this was real life for Gemma, and I couldn’t bring myself to lead her down that straight girl rabbit hole.
Gemma and I ended up hanging out for about two months, doing little more than holding hands. I wanted so badly to be able to go there with her but I never did. I partially blame her for this because unlike a man, she never really tried to talk me into it. The fact that we were both waiting to be seduced eventually brought us to a stalemate.
“If I actually trusted women and had a better relationship with my mother, we really would make a great couple,” I told her as we ended things amicably on the phone, one night .
Several months later, I was on a date with a guy in Santa Monica when we walked in on Gemma playing a set at the same bar. I was humming along to the music the minute we walked in. He asked if I’d seen Gemma perform before and raved about how talented she was.
“No,” I lied, looking down at my drink.
No less than two seconds later, Gemma stopped her song. “You know those people who tell you they love you but then never want to sleep with you? This song is dedicated to Jenny…”
I looked up at my date and smiled innocently, knowing there were about a trillion Jennys in the world.
Gemma continued, “There are two Jennys here tonight. This song is dedicated to Jenny Mollen.”
After spitting my martini all over my date, I calmly suggested we cut the night short. Shooting me one of those, ‘You’re fucking batshit’ looks, he obliged.
I really don’t remember telling Gemma I loved her but that does sound like something I would have done. In retrospect, I realize that whether we were fucking or not, I was still leading her on.
The ironic thing is that now I’ve had sex with plenty of women and think it is actually the easiest thing ever. The thing that makes it complicated is when you know someone could get hurt. The truth is, I did genuinely care about Gemma. And at the end of the day I refuse to ‘experiment’ with people’s feelings.
Unless I want a guy to fix my computer or drive me to the airport.
Final Note to Women: If you haven’t gone down on a girl, you need to ASAP-tual. You will never ever again feel bad for a guy having to eat you out for more than two minutes. I’m telling you, blowjobs are so much more arduous and boring. Also, you know how you always worry that it might smell or taste bad? It doesn’t taste like anything! It’s a fucking myth that guys propagate to keep us insecure and sexually low-maintenance!
You’re welcome!
Dear Ben from The Bachelor,
Dear Ben from The Bachelor,
Last night, watching Kacie B., otherwise known as The Jewish Gremlin, tell you she had an eating disorder was of the most outrageous pieces of television I’ve ever seen. Not outrageous in the way Jamie tranny-lap-raped you later in the episode, but outrageous in the way your beady little puppet eyes stared blankly at this 24-year-old girl as she poured out her heart to you about the darkest time of her life.
Look Ben, even though I saw a piece of your man pussy in that little Kachina doll get-up you wore on the group date, I don’t know you. Maybe you aren’t a totally soulless dildoface. And I get how you’d think you’re some kind of rock star for turning down a blow from Jennifer Love Hewitt before this season started, but news flash: That’s every guy I know! You aren’t a big deal. You know what is a big deal? A girl telling you she starved herself on national television.
Okay, let’s prescind from your shit for a minute and talk about Kacie B.’s anorexia. They say anorexia is a good girl’s disorder, the rejection of food being a way of symbolically rejecting love. It’s a defense mechanism. A way to say to your parents, teachers, lovers, and friends, “If I don’t need your affection then your lack of it can’t hurt me.” The more concerned people get, the more alluring the problem becomes. The attention feels good. Like a million girls out of your league begging you to propose to them with a Neil Lane ring from the Jared collection.
If you think you’d be freaked dipping The Jewish Gremlin in water, imagine seeing her at 80 lbs with hematomas on her back from sitting in the bathtub. Try to picture the inside of her toilet bowl after she just had fajitas or the inside of her pants after she overdosed on laxatives. Guys like you tend to assume anorexics are girls who don’t like food. Ben, an eating disorder means you are obsessed with food, you fucking Muppet! When you’re starving, it’s hard to focus on anything else.
While you’re wasting whatever brain cells your Brazilian blow-out hasn’t killed on which girl gets a rose, girls like Kacie B. are stressing out about what they had for lunch and how that affects what they can have for dinner. (Diet Coke.)
The worst part of an eating disorder is how long it takes to recover. Gaining the weight back happens almost immediately. But most people spend years trying to rewire their thoughts. Unlike an alcoholic, you can’t just close your eyes and pretend food doesn’t exist, like those assholes that have weddings and only serve lemonade. You have to learn to eat again. You have to not hyperventilate when a restaurant only serves pizza or you find out after the fact that the brussel sprouts were marinated overnight in chicken fat. You have to accept that you aren’t in control, nothing stays the same, and not even the approval of a guy with a fucked up eighth-grade hair cut is worth dying for.
I know the odds of you changing are slim-to-none. To be honest, I wouldn’t enjoy watching your show if you gained too much self-awareness. But your non-reaction annoyed me. That vacant coma-patient-stare should be pulled out for more appropriate occasions, like when a PhD student is trying to ‘rap’ her feelings to you. (Intimacy issues.)
I feel for Kacie B. because I know how much courage that kind of self-disclosure takes. There are so many women out there who aren’t even ready to call their disease by name. Those women are all around you. They are your friends, your co-workers even your weird sister… probably not your mom because we all know that’s just you in a wig. But you get what I mean.
The pain that galvanizes this type of somatization needs to be treated with empathy, or at least a raised fucking eyebrow. Bottom line: If you don’t want to come across as a total douchebag-cashew-nosed-asshole, please wake the fuck up.
Sincerely,
Jenny Mollen Biggs
PS. If you can’t tell, I had an eating disorder.
When Sloppy Seconds Become BFFS
WHEN PEOPLE ASK HOW I KNOW MY FRIEND KATE, I’ll tell them we dated the same guy. After several cryptic minutes of me giggling uncontrollably, I’ll usually break down and tell them the real story.
In my early twenties, my best friend Chad Gervich tried to set me up with this guy, Johnny, he knew from work. He told me the two of us were exactly alike and would hit it off the moment we met. I was intrigued. Chad typically hated the idea of me with any man. It took away from my time being the stand-in for his out-of-town girlfriend, who was dating another guy and not returning his phone calls. I knew if Chad was willing to doff off his beard, this guy must be worth it. I agreed to meet him.
After a few days of silence from Chad, I called him.
“What the fuck? I thought you were setting me up with my soul mate?”
“Yeah. Well, turns out he’s dating someone and it just kind of got serious.”
“So a week ago he was willing to be set up and now he’s in something serious? I don’t get it.”
“Well,” Chad said, “he bought her a Christmas present.”
“Alright. So he has a girlfriend,” I said.
“He still said he’d love to hang out as a group one night, though.”
Ew. Fuck this guy! He thinks I’m fucking desperate enough to go out under the pretense of ‘hanging with a couple of friends’ just to meet him?
“Tell this guy to suck a dick! Also, I’m really offended you would think I’m anything like this douche.”
“What do you mean? Meeting someone while you have a boyfriend is totally a you move! You’re like the queen of the accidental date!”
I hung up on him.
For the next two months, every action I took was a strategic move to make Johnny throw himself off a bridge. I didn’t even know this guy but I needed his face to be smashed into a million pieces while my 7 foot tall smile looked down on him from a giant billboard in the sky. This was the first time in my life I was being rejected by someone I’d never met. According to my father, I was the catch of the century. A Goddamn debutante! And this fucking guy thought he could just pass on ever knowing me altogether? “I hope he dies in a grease fire,” I thought.
Six months later, Chad called me from work. He was sitting next to Johnny who’d just seen my epic turn on the Lucy Vanous vehicle, 18 Wheels of Justice. Johnny was apparently single now and suggested the three of us go out to dinner.
“Well, well, well. Look who decided to come groveling back,” I thought. I told Chad I’d need to check my schedule and get back to him. And then I did a victory jig around my apartment.
“See Douchnozzel, this is what happens when you play out of your league!” I screamed at the mirror, imagining it was Johnny.
An hour later, I called back and agreed to dinner. I changed my outfit three times before meeting them at a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood. My goal in going definitely wasn’t to date Johnny; it was solely to make him spend the rest of his life on earth wishing he’d dated me. Then the unexpected happened.
I met Johnny and instantly realized he wasn’t some cocky asshole trying to Neil Strauss me into liking him. He was a total dork. This awkwardly tall, socially inept video game nerd was fueling my deviant behavior for absolutely no fucking reason. The dinner was innocuous and the conversation light. “I must have gone home with at least three guys in an attempt to spite you!” I thought to myself while watching him show Chad a wizard trick with his straw.
Once we finished, Johnny asked if I could drive him home. Reveling in the fantasy that he didn’t have a car, I obliged. This poor, innocent, fool needed my compassion. Sure, he was relatively good-looking, and had a job far more stable than mine but that was no reason for me to like him. I needed to have nothing to do with Johnny. I’d made the point that I was irreverent, engaging, and adorable and now it was time for him to never see or hear from me again. Unless of course it was on TV and I was riding Brad Pitt naked in lighting that made my boobs look less like penne pasta noodles.
When we pulled up to his place, he invited me inside. His apartment was clean and sensibly decorated. Knowing I wasn’t there to hook up with him, I didn’t do my usual excuse myself to the bathroom and check out all his prescription drugs routine. Instead, I just plopped down on his couch and requested a drink.
Two drinks and two hours later I had to make a decision: Drive home or take pity on this guy and at least let him kiss me. Sitting on the far end of the opposite couch, I knew there was no way in hell this fragile bird was going to make the first move. I stood up and told him I needed to get going. But what I felt like saying was, “Hey, Dickwich, you have a hot chick in your apartment, I doubt this happens much! Maybe you should try to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Johnny extended his hand like a gentleman and asked if he could walk me out. I couldn’t take these shenanigans any longer so I grabbed his face and stuck my tongue in his mouth.
At that exact moment, his phone rang.
“It’s probably your girlfriend calling,” I whispered.
His answering machine responded before he could.
“Hey Johnny, It’s Kate. Remember when you came your initials on my chest? I’m just listening to the Strokes and thinking about how we used to fuck all the time to this album. I’m sooooo wet right now.” Beeeeeep.
“The fuck!? Did I just hear that correctly?”
“I. Um. Wow. I swear I haven’t spoken to that person in at least—”
“Who has sex to the Strokes?” I asked, utterly thrown.
My entire perception of Johnny changed again. If he had crazy sex with this girl and she’s still calling for more, maybe he wasn’t such a prude. Maybe there was a side to him he’s not sharing. And just like that, with a few X-rated sentences, Kate gave Johnny all the game he was lacking. I slept with him that night not because I genuinely wanted to but because I wanted whatever it was Kate had.
“Who has sex to the Strokes?” I asked, utterly thrown.
After dating Johnny for thirty days, I slowly came to the conclusion that Kate must have been heavily intoxicated and had zero other male contacts in her Rolodex when she drunk dialed that night. Johnny was as vanilla in the bedroom as he was in real life: Not once did he offer to come his initials anywhere near my tits.
In the twilight of our relationship we went to a group dinner at a mutual friends’ house where Kate had also been invited. I walked into the house nervous and wishing I’d had a professional do my makeup. Kate was there, sitting in the living room, practically glowing. She was beautiful, charming, and ecstatic to meet me. As soon as our eyes met, she jumped up and ran over. Before saying a word, she handed me a package. I opened it to find a CD. It was the Strokes. Written in black sharpie across the cover was a note: “Not wet anymore. Just mortified!”
“I think I love you,” I blurted.
It turns out I was right about Kate’s drunken stupor. She had no recollection of making the phone call and only learned about it when Johnny told her the story later.
I spent the rest of the evening not with Johnny but gamming it up in a corner with Kate. She was me, if I’d gone to law school and actually did something meaningful with my life.
“Maybe Chad did introduce me to a soul mate after all,” I said to Johnny when I broke up with him on the drive home.
