Monday Night Live

live from East Williamsburg, it's Monday Night

When we’re little we’re told we can do anything. As we grow older we’re told we can do anything we set our minds to. Already an obstacle. I come here today to confess that there’s a lot I’m not good at. A few of you have told me over the past few weeks that this newsletter has become less funny, more sentimental. And maybe that’s the route I’m on right now. But that’s scaring me, because being funny is the only thing I’ve ever felt consistently confident about in my life. It feels like the core part of my identity, internally and externally. In 3rd grade my teacher said I distracted the other kids in class. Senior year I was voted class clown. And 2 weeks ago I crushed at an open mic in an outdoor bar patio in Prospect Heights. Lorne Michaels was sitting in the back row, I didn’t know at the time, but he came up to me after and asked me to audition for SNL. So what I did right there was a lie. In an adjacent google doc on my computer right now I have an empty SNL application, because even looking at it is making me anxious.

So instead of trying to be funny today, I’m going to lean into the sentimentality I seem to be projecting and talk about things that are hard. There is a lot I cannot do. I can’t relax. I can’t whistle and I can’t dive off a diving board and I can’t fulfill. I can’t go to a restaurant without reading the menu beforehand. And I can’t clip on a bra behind my back. I’m working on it but also I’ve gone a decent amount of time clipping it in the front and turning it around and I could spend my free time learning a more valuable skill like insider trading.

We’re told that women can do anything men can do, but I don’t think that’s true. There’s a lot that we can’t do. Women can’t be the first billionaire to recreationally go to space because Richard Branson just did that. Women cannot, in my experience, tell a story without including trivial details that are not pertinent to the story but rather an embellishment for their own brain. They’ll tell a story about a fight they saw at a restaurant and say oh wait what was I eating? Did I get the squash soup or was that at the other place on Bowery? Oh no I’m doing it.

I’m confident that if a woman designed the Titanic she would not have called it “unsinkable.” She would have said “We are confident in its structural integrity and we think it will stay afloat but no worries if not.” 

Sometimes I get overwhelmed and upset and I don’t know why and I cry. I feel at points confident and at other points doomed. Maybe doomed is a strong word but I don’t have a word for when you feel like you’re the closest you’ve ever been to a big goal and you’re still so far away. It’s 9pm on a Monday and I told you these would go out on Thursdays. I’m bad at keeping to deadlines because they don’t scare me. I was bullied by blonde ballerinas at summer camp, that’s what scares me.

I’m gonna sign off for now and come back Thursday to be on schedule for my 12th month of Pillowtown. I feel sad today. I said it and I’m going to figure it out and one day when I’m sad I’ll be able to wipe my tears away with my Emmys. I didn’t even proofread this so if you find something that’s grammatically incorrect or doesn’t lend itself to the plot, please reach out. Until then, I’m rewatching Girls. Because the best stories ever are about things that women can do. Even when they’re annoying.