if I went through life as a truly mediocre stand-up comedian? I start giggling to myself. I mean, what if I had no idea that I was bad at it and found easy satisfaction attending open mics and delivering flat jokes to lukewarm reception? It sounds glorious to have no shame or standards.
I start thinking about what I would do onstage. Maybe I could market myself as a gardener/comedian, the dumbest combo ever. I could wear white Dickies and a white T-shirt with dirt smudges all over them. Maybe some grass stains. A belt full of gardening tools. Maybe a ball cap with the bill pushed up.
“Good evening, I’m Paloma, thanks everybody for coming. I have a question for you. Why is it I can pull weeds out of the ground all day but I can’t weed the jerks out of my life? Maybe I should smoke some grass and figure it out.”
A couple small titters from the crowd.
“I’m just another jerk with a weed whip. I’ll come trim your hedges but if we really get down to business and I mean like fucking, you’ll notice I’m gardener in the streets, hair farmer in the sheets. Full bush on my downstairs! Pubes without borders!”
That one might be hard for people to believe because actually, I am largely hairless. But I think it’s funny.
“I know this isn’t going to be a popular idea but I want to cultivate a secondary full bush out of my butt. I want a giant burst of wiry, filthy hair tufting out of my buns. I then want to trim it into a flat top. Straight buzz cut of the butt. It will look like I have a paintbrush wedged in there or a Dolph Lundgren doll whose feet are wreaking havoc on my tender anal interior.” Because this material directs so much attention to my ass I would have to decide if it’s better to wear flattering white pants or dumpy ones. Does my self-deception also include delusions about my appearance?
“Why is it that so many women who sport a full bush have shaved heads? Isn’t there some kind of policy regarding even distribution of hair?” I wonder if I should find a way to use the word “hirsute” here. It’s such a good word. “I know there is a public idea of Lesbian Hairstyle Choices. Short up on your head, unruly on the V, is clearly a staple of gay lady hair. This is what I have learned from pantsing lesbians. I’d like to see the day that hairstyles are fully disconnected from gender. But more than that, I think I’d just like the idea of a gender binary abolished.” Zing them with an unexpected deep and/or political thought!!
“Why the hell do so many people plant roses? You can get the biggest weirdo, the person who has to research obscure music and thrift bizarre clothes and get novelty coffee mugs, but when you do their garden, they will invariably pick the most generic plants in the whole world, and want them placed in an artless and rudimentary manner. It will be roses and boxwood all the way.” Too niche? Impossible. Do you think Gallagher ever felt like he needed to get less specific? I don’t.
“Why do the richest people take the longest time to pay their bills? And why do they fight their charges more than anyone else?” Wait what is the joke here. “Do you think they just can’t see their bills through all the caviar, Bentleys, ivory figurines, Manolos, Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies, pet jaguars, orchids, vacation home horse farms in Argentina, private jets and blowhards? I wonder if bills for rich people are like human turds in my driveway are for me? Ignore them at first, then hose them down half-heartedly trying not to splash in my face, do an okay job, move on.
“The key is to live like you mean to. Be the hoe you want to dig in the dirt. Keep the raccoons away and call everything that thrives in spite of you what it is: a weed.”
Good night! A career is born. I walk offstage, victorious. I drive home in a beige Toyota Camry. I drink a glass of water and eat a day-old blueberry muffin. Life is mellow and I’m content.
My brother and I are meeting for coffee at a place at Alabama and 21st. He says he has “a proposition” he wants to run by me. I can’t imagine what that could mean. It sounds like the kind of meeting ladies have where they decide to lose weight together. I come in and see him sitting on the back patio with a coffee. I grab one and walk out into the bright, overcast day.
“Loma!” He says, cheery as can be. “I was going to buy you coffee.”
“Beat you to it.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“What? Normal. Why?”
“Have you found a job?”
“Are you serious? Did Mom tell you to ask me that?”
“I have some really cool shit happening right now,” he says with uncharacteristic excitement. “Oliver is helping a couple guys I know start a trim house in Mendo. I’m gonna run it. I mean I’m one of the people running it.”
“Oh. Okay,” I say, as flat as I can. What a stupid piece of news.
“This isn’t just a farm, we’re specifically being commissioned by some famous people whose names I can’t say here. It’s a big deal. We’re going to be growing the best product in California, probably the country.”
“Weed is legal. Why don’t they have an assistant get a card and buy their shit like everyone else does?”
“Tabloids. They don’t want the attention.”
“Snoop Dogg and Seth Rogen don’t seem to have an issue.”
“Yeah but it’s their image and their management is down with that.”
“I thought you hated celebrities.”
“If they want to pay me, no judgment. Especially if they want to back up the money truck like they’re doing now. Oliver and Rigo have been planning this out for the last six months. It’s gonna be tight.”
Rigo is one of Pete’s best friends who he met in jail a few years ago. I’m not entirely clear on why Pete was in there. Seems like it was probably a minor possession bust for heroin or something. I’m the only one in our family who has any enthusiasm for details. I asked my mom and dad what happened this time and they just waved me off, fatigued about the whole thing. Who can blame them? My brother and I are such embarrassments. They would never, ever say that but I know we are. Their friends’ kids did the old-fashioned stuff like getting married young, having kids, and working anachronistic jobs like banker and real estate agent. Things that still pay well and carry a level of stability and prestige with people my parents’ age. Then there’s me and Peter, just dicking around and trying to be “happy.” My great-grandfather worked on the railroad laying ties and busted his body to raise a huge litter of kids alone and give his descendants a new life in this country. If we’re building on that, then it’s in a real lateral way. Maybe more of a spiritually seeking, downwardly mobile way. Which is hard to value when I think about the brutal physical labor of the railroad. We’re just the privileged douches of our generation. Comfortably useless, desperate to be high, terrified to feel anything yet hoping to bond with another human being, valuing animals over people, recycling. I don’t buy organic anything though, I think that stuff is baloney. I think of my dad, languishing in his permanent divot in the couch, napping next to a fleet of pills meant to deal with supposed chronic pain. He was laid off in his early fifties by Sundial, a small software company he helped build that couldn’t afford him because the CEO was supporting a few not-so-secret (except from his wife) boyfriends he had scattered through Silicon Valley. I dare anyone to see my dad’s ongoing emotional k-hole and still think a straight job is any kind of guarantee, or that hard work pays off.
Rigo was in the clink for beating his girlfriend.
