Yes Please (25 page)

On the other hand, men are sometimes wildly inappropriate in the way they share with women. By a show of hands, how many of you have seen a strange penis on the street? On the subway? At a sleepover? I was once walking with my friend Keri in the middle of the day and some guy asked us for the time. When we looked down at our watches, his dick was in his hands. We giggled and screamed and ran away. We were probably ten. I have been really drunk in high school and had a guy try to fool around with me. I have been called a bitch and a lesbian when I rejected a guy in college. I have locked eyes with various subway masturbators. I have been mugged but not raped, pushed and spit on by someone I knew, and forced to pull over in a road-rage incident where a man stuck his head into my car and told me he was going to “cum in my face.” And I count myself very lucky. That is what “very lucky” feels like. Oof.

Many women, and even some men, have their own version of how they have been lucky or unlucky. It can make it hard not to be on high alert for people using power to manipulate you. Which leads me to this story. I share it because it’s an example of a shady use of power and how I attempted to push back. Also, it is a story that shows no matter where or who you are, it can sometimes be hard to get a creep to stop hugging you.

I was asked to perform at an event honoring someone. I had worked on my bit and was excited to be a part of a special night for this person whom I admire. Usually, leading up to an event you are asked to run your ideas past some producers. I have learned that with these events I need to conserve the amount of real estate I let people take up in my heart and brain. Most people like to talk about things too much and too often, especially producers. When you are dealing with nervous producers hoping for a great show, you can be asked to take on their energy and be responsible for their feelings. I try to combat this by ignoring e-mails and hoping the whole situation just goes away. When that doesn’t work I spend an hour or so getting angry at myself for saying yes to the thing in the first place when I am much too busy! I am so busy! Why won’t people understand that! After I have stomped around a bit more I usually call or e-mail the producer late in the game and speak as vaguely and as quickly as I can.

So I talked to the producers about my speech (briefly; see above) and prepared to head to the event. I was ushered in to do a little rehearsal. It all went well. We went over my bit, and it got a bunch of laughs. The producer was a pleasant older gentleman in his sixties who thanked me for joining and assured me I would be in great hands. I cursed myself for having been so grumpy with the production team.

Right before I walked out onstage for the actual performance, the sound guy made some last-minute adjustments to my microphone. Then I walked out and started my section. My bit went fine. I would give it a B-minus. I’m at the point in my life now where delivering a B-minus performance on a televised show with some of my comedy heroes doesn’t ruin my week. I don’t know if that is the most inspiring or most depressing sentence I have ever typed, but there you have it. But right as I was building to the climax, the lights went down too early and I was cut off from delivering the ending that I was excited about and that had gone so well in rehearsal. At
SNL
we always wished for bad rehearsals. There was nothing worse than performing live and waiting for the laugh that came in rehearsals, and never getting it. I coined it “phantom laugh syndrome.” A hot dress audience was met with some head shaking because usually there was nowhere to go but down. My hot dress had morphed into me not really delivering and being cut off too early. I semi-stormed offstage and headed right into the path of one of the producers.

“Great job,” he said.

“You guys missed my cue,” I said.

“No one noticed.”

“I did.”

“Relax, it was great.”

“Relax” is a real tough one for me. Another tough one is “smile.” “Smile” doesn’t really work either. Telling me to relax or smile when I’m angry is like bringing a birthday cake into an ape sanctuary. You’re just asking to get your nose and genitals bitten off.

“This is the part where you apologize to me,” I said, getting angry. “You guys screwed up and this is where you make me feel better about it.”

I like to use this tactic on people. It can work. When someone is being rude, abusing their power, or not respecting you, just call them out in a really obvious way. Say, “I can’t understand why you are being rude because you are the concierge and this is the part of the evening where the concierge helps me.” Act like they are an actor who has forgotten what part they are playing. It brings the attention back to them and gives you a minute to calm down so you don’t do something silly like burst into tears or break their stupid fucking glasses. Not that there is anything wrong with crying. It was Marlo Thomas and the
Free to Be . . . You and Me
gang who reminded us that “crying gets the sad out.” It’s just that sometimes anger should just stay anger and tears can change anger to something else. However, if you do start crying in an argument and someone asks why, you can always say, “I’m just crying because of how wrong you are.”

So, I tell this producer to apologize to me and he kind of slinks away like “Yeesh, she’s a handful.” Luckily, that doesn’t bother me the way it used to. That kind of feeling would have been hard to hold in my heart and stomach when I was in my twenties. It was hard to feel like somebody didn’t like me. It felt like such a failure. I don’t care as much now. It’s really great. It’s like I can finally eat spicy food without the gut ache later, or something similar. I have a stomach for other people not stomaching me. Or at least I am working on it.

I stomped upstairs and felt angry for about five minutes, and then I watched the anger travel through my body like a wave and leave. Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won’t rain forever. You just have to sit down and watch it pour outside and then peek your head out when it looks dry. I had all but gotten over the whole thing when I heard a gentle knocking on my dressing room door.

“Amy, can I talk to you?”

“He’s coming to apologize,” I thought. I instantly decided I was not upset. Not only that, I decided I was going to let him off the hook easy. I just wanted to go watch the rest of the show and have a drink and celebrate, so I opened the door with relaxed shoulders and a genuine smile of reconciliation. He came in and sat down without asking if that was okay with me. I noticed this.

“We have a problem.”

“Oh?”

“Your audio wasn’t good. Your mic wasn’t working correctly.”

“Oh.”

So now I realized not only was he not coming to apologize, he was there to deliver more bad news. I practiced a few things I have learned from my therapist and other badass business bitches. I sat back. Actually, I leaned back. I thought about my second book, which will be a bestseller coauthored with Sheryl Sandberg titled
Lean Back
. I uncrossed my legs and I made eye contact. I immediately decided this was not my problem, and the relief of that decision spread across my chest like hot cocoa. Too often we women try to tackle chaos that is not ours to fix.

“Well, that is disappointing,” I said.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

I practiced another new thing I’ve learned. I just sat there quietly. It was so hard. I once sat next to Christopher Walken as we were rehearsing a sketch for
SNL
. I had tried small talk with him a few times, and he was extremely pleasant, but I just felt like I was bothering him. So as an experiment I tried to just sit next to him and be quiet. It was excruciating. I think I lasted for three minutes and then I had to pretend to read a bag of chips. Not talking can be hard for me. But I tried it.

“Hmm,” I said. (I know, I know, I was
technically
talking.)

“Would you do it again? Without an audience? So we could make sure we have it for the broadcast?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said, quietly but firmly.

“Well, I just don’t know what to do,” he said.

I sat in silence. I’m doing good so far, right?

“Maybe I can do ADR if you need it,” I said. ADR is recording audio over a taped piece. Notice what I am doing? I am starting to offer ways to fix it even though a minute ago I felt great reminding myself it wasn’t my problem to fix.

“That would be great,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to do it again, just so we can be sure we have it?”

So now he had heard my no and was still asking. Gavin de Becker talks about this in his wonderful book
The Gift of Fear
. He talks about how the word “no” should be the “end of the discussion, not the beginning of a negotiation.” I am obsessed with
The Gift of Fear
. I quote it too much. My friends roll their eyes when they hear my
Gift of Fear
train coming. But how can you deny such hilarious gems as “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death”? I mean, who doesn’t want me spouting that kind of stuff at their Christmas party?

I said no again. I said that I didn’t want to go back out and do my speech again in front of an empty room.

So that should have been it, right?

No.

Instead, the producer stood up and said, “I’m sorry. This has been stressful. Can I give you a hug?”

Now, I wish that I could tell you I said no. When I retold the story that night to my friends, I lied and told them I didn’t let him hug me. I told them that I said something like “No. No, you can’t.” My friends all nodded their heads when I told them that. They all believed that I wouldn’t let this guy give me a hug. I was a successful and independent woman! I was strong! I secretly disliked most new people!

But I did let him hug me. I let that creepy guy hug me. I stayed seated and he came over and hugged my stiff body while my arms stayed at my sides. All I was thinking at that moment was that if I let him hug me he would feel better and this would all be over soon.

Do you think he would have hugged a male performer?

Me neither. Either way, it never ends.

A little space.

Yes Please.

let’s build a park

© NBC/Getty Images

P
LAYING LESLIE KNOPE IS AS FUN AS IT LOOKS
.
I get to be the lead on a show I would actually watch. I’ve met friends whom I will treasure forever. I am allowed on a weekly basis to both crack jokes and cry. It’s been hard to wrangle this chapter because I still feel too close to the job to step away and share it all with you. When this book goes to print we will be finishing our seventh and last season, and shooting our 125th show. My nose is still pressed up against the painting and I have little perspective. Because of this, I am going to do what I have been doing for the past six years, which is write something and ask
Parks and Recreation
creator Mike Schur to make it better. Let’s continue . . .

Every acting job feels like the end of the road. If you’re lucky, you get to peek at what is around the corner. It’s a privilege if a clear path is laid out that will take you to another work environment. It’s rare that someone builds a bridge to the next great thing. After
Saturday Night Live
my bridge was Michael Schur. The next great thing was
Parks and Recreation.
¹

¹
  
Note from Mike:
My grandmother wanted me to be an engineer; being called a “bridge” is the closest I will ever get, and so I thank you.

Mike and I were friends and coworkers at
Saturday Night Live
. He was a writer before I got there and ran “Weekend Update” during the Tina Fey/Jimmy Fallon years. Mike is a whip-smart Harvard grad who manages to be as compassionate as he is funny. He is a lover of justice, the underdog, and the good fight. Never is this demonstrated more than in his love for the Boston Red Sox. I watched the Red Sox win the World Series with Mike and Seth Meyers and other Boston writers,
²
and Mike even turned all those e-mails into a book.
³
On the last page, Mike transcribed a phone message from his therapist
⁴
congratulating him on the Red Sox win.