Yes Please (24 page)

More cold auditions followed and none amounted to much. Almost every job I have ever gotten was due to someone knowing my work or seeing me in something else. I was in UCB and Andy Richter suggested I do stuff for
Conan
. Being on
Conan
helped me land a part in
Deuce Bigalow.
My
UCB
television show and friends helped me get an audition for
SNL;
my
SNL
connections resulted in
Parks and Recreation
. See, years and years of hard work and little bits of progress isn’t nearly as entertaining as imagining me telling a joke in a Boston food court when suddenly Lorne Michaels walks up and says, “I must have you for a little show I do.”

I once was having dinner with an old friend back when I was on
SNL
.
Baby Mama
was coming out and I was in the middle of one of those weird press pushes where your face is on taxis and you are doing talk shows all the time. My friend, who was as funny and talented as me but chose not to be an actor, was talking about how he was seeing my face everywhere. He went on and on about how weird that was. He pointed out that people were really starting to know my name and asked me if I “could believe it.” “Yes,” I said. I had worked for over a decade to get to this moment. I hadn’t just dropped my script into someone’s lap on a train. “Can you?” I asked him.

But I was lucky. Your career and your passion don’t always match up. Plenty of talented people don’t have the careers they want. Plenty of untalented people make millions and make movies. There is a difference between determination and talent. Hard work doesn’t always matter. You can be the best at making contacts and going after jobs, but then suddenly you want it too much. Suddenly everybody feels how bad you want it and they don’t want to give it to you. Even at six years old Archie is learning to stop paying attention to the toy he wants. He knows that if he lets on how bad he wants it his four-year-old brother will snatch that shizz up in a hot second. Pretending to not want something can work. Really not caring if you get it takes a lifetime of practice.

I guess the Buddhists would call this idea healthy detachment. Too often we are told to visualize what we want and cut out pictures of it and repeat it like a mantra over and over again. Books and magazines tell us to create vision boards. Late-night commercials remind us that “anything is possible.” Positive affirmations are written on our tea bags. I am introducing a new idea. Try to care less. Practice ambivalence. Learn to let go of wanting it. Treat your career like a bad boyfriend.

Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It’s never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you.

Your career will never marry you.

Now, before I extend this metaphor, let me make a distinction between career and creativity. Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you. That joy that comes when you do something you love. That small voice that tells you, “I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.” That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us feel less alone in the world. Your creativity is not a bad boyfriend. It is a really warm older Hispanic lady who has a beautiful laugh and loves to hug. If you are even a little bit nice to her she will make you feel great and maybe cook you delicious food.

Career is different. Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. Career is something that fools you into thinking you are in control and then takes pleasure in reminding you that you aren’t. Career is the thing that will not fill you up and never make you truly whole. Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.

I was on a panel once with the genius writer David Simon. I think
The Wire
is the best-written show in recent memory. I have watched each episode of all five seasons twice. For Mother’s Day one year, Aziz Ansari got me a signed and framed picture of Omar Little with the inscription “Amy, You come at the King You Best Not Miss. Omar.”

Next to my children and my blood diamonds this is the only thing I would grab in a fire. A nice young person stood up at the panel and asked David and me how we found the “courage” to do what we do. We both bristled a bit at the idea of our work being “courageous.” We both admitted that we often think about how if everything went away tomorrow we would still have a trade and a skill to depend on. He could go back to reporting, a career he started in, and I could go teach improvisation at the UCB theater or choreograph dance for child pageants. (A path I am interested in pursuing at a later date.) Either way, we both agreed that ambivalence is key to success.

I will say it again. Ambivalence is key.

You have to care about your work but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.

I realize this is extremely difficult. I am not saying I am particularly good at it. I’m like you. Or maybe you’re better at this than I am.

You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, “I made it!” You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other. Our ego is a monster that loves to sit at the head of the table, and I have learned that my ego is just as rude and loud and hungry as everyone else’s. It doesn’t matter how much you get; you are left wanting more. Success is filled with MSG.

Ambivalence can help tame the beast. Remember, your career is a bad boyfriend. It likes it when you don’t depend on it. It will reward you every time you don’t act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you. If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else.

partner in crime

T
INA FEY IS MY COMEDY WIFE
.
I have known her for almost a double decade. We met each other when we were poor and single. Now we are both rich as shit and have husbands all over the world. People think of us as a “comedy team” and I am not quick to correct them. Why wouldn’t I want to connect myself to the fiercest and most talented voice in the comedy world?

I am mistaken for Tina all the time. I recently renewed my license at the DMV and the African American woman asked me to do my Sarah Palin. She was confused and perhaps racist, but it only made me happy. I’m happy that people call me Tina because she is my friend and she happens to be crushing it.

Tina helped me get on
Saturday Night Live
and asked me to join her on “Update” as one of the first two women coanchors. It was as fun as it looked. We have performed in front of our parents and the whole world, and each time we’ve looked at each other and laughed at what we get to do. Tina reminds me of how far I have come. She knew me when. When we are together I feel strong and powerful. Maybe too powerful. (I tend to show off and run my mouth a little bit.)

We don’t compete against each other, we compete against ourselves.

Often there is only one other person in the world who understands the very specific thing I am dealing with, and it’s Tina. Well, Tina and Judge Judy, actually, but I only have Tina’s phone number. It is intense to have little kids and a television show and be a woman in general, and I am lucky to have someone to walk through this weird life with.

Tina shows her love for you by writing for you. I can’t tell you how many times she wrote something special and wonderful for me. Most of my memories of her at
SNL
involve Tina sitting at her computer, working on something for someone else. Tina wrote a lovely chapter about me in her book, and boy have I dined out on that for a while. In an attempt to return the favor, I will honor Tina with an acrostic poem, arguably the laziest form of writing.

i’m so proud of you

O
NCE A WOMAN TURNS FORTY SHE HAS TO START DEALING WITH TWO THINGS: YOUNGER MEN TELLING HER THEY ARE PROUD OF HER AND OLDER MEN LETTING HER KNOW THEY WOULD HAVE SEX WITH HER
.
Both of these things are supposed to be compliments but can often end up making this particular woman angry. I don’t think a man who is fifteen years younger than me should tell me he is proud of me unless he is my sober coach or my time-travel dad. Older men can be sexy and powerful, but when a thrice-divorced entertainment attorney puts his bony hand on my knee, I want to whisper in his ear, “You’re crazy, old man.”

I’m not sure if you have heard about this new theory that men and women are different, but it’s really starting to catch on. Most of my life has been spent in a room full of men, and I have learned the different ways they communicate. I find that, in general, the amount of sharing men do with each other in one year is about the same as what I share with my female friends while we wait for our cars at the valet. I was once part of an
Asssscat
show that included a young comedian doing monologues. In one of his stories he briefly mentioned his failed marriage. After the show, the comedian, ten other guys, and I were all hanging out in the greenroom drinking beers. This ratio is not uncommon in comedy. If you’re a woman, you are often the only one, or one of two, in a room full of men. This is certainly the case in most writers’ rooms, except for
SNL
and
Parks and Rec,
which both had more women writers than many other shows because Seth Meyers and Mike Schur (the head writers on each of these shows, respectively) are real men who love women. Anyway, back to the greenroom. One guy said to the comedian, “Hey, I didn’t know you used to be married.” The comedian said, “Yeah.” Another guy said, “Huh.” The comedian said, “Yeah.” There was a moment of silence and then the comedian breathed deep and said, “Thanks for letting me talk about it, guys.” He actually felt like he had shared something. This is how men talk to each other. It’s amazing to see up close.