"how many of these guys have we hooked up with?"

Stand-up is not just telling jokes into a microphone. It’s not just making friends with some other weirdos at a gross bar in Glendale. Stand-up seeps into your life in these strange little ways, sometimes reminding you of things you would rather forget.

I record my sets. Many comics do. Of course, I don’t often listen to them. I used to, in the early days, when I would do three mics in a night. In the car, driving to the next bar, I’d put the phone to my ear, listen to the way I ordered the words, what could be cut. And then, I wouldn’t listen unless I’d had a good riff, unless I changed a joke in a way I hadn’t planned and I wanted to remember what I’d done. But really, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to my sets. 

This summer, perhaps this fall, I hope to record an album, and so I’ve been forcing myself to go back. I listen to a set from 2013, the earliest one I have saved. I talk about being a virgin. I speak in a monotone, I lilt my words in a way that’s grating to me now. 

I look for all the Bitchface sets. Bitchface was a show I ran for five years with my friend Amy. I tried to do at least some new material every month. Sometimes I would do a set I’d never do again. One time I did an interpretive dance to Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.” Once I played my guitar, singing a pseudo ballad I wrote about killing somebody’s girlfriend so he’d be forced to go out with me. There was another song I wrote about wanting to have more sex since my virginity had finally been taken. That one was called “Sweet Puss.” The chorus was just me spelling out “S-W-E-E-T-P-U-S-S-put-it-in-me.” None of that material I kept.

In most sets, I cannot make out specific laughs of specific people, but I can in those Bitchface sets, because they were almost always attended by my roommates. I can hear them lifting the energy of the room, I can hear them saving some of my jokes. Amy and I ran Bitchface, but I don’t think that show could have survived without my roommates - their faithful attendance, their loud and easy laughter, their unwavering belief in me. I lived with them for five years, and they were my best friends. 

But then we were no longer roommates. And while they had once felt like my family, the people who knew me best, the people I ate with and baked for and hosted parties with, the people I celebrated holidays with, the ones who comforted me when I got fired, who I had become a grown-up with, who rented a van with me so we could drive two hours and cut down our own Christmas tree, they’re gone. I had a baby, there was a pandemic, we moved, and now I hear their laughter in my kitchen, and I wonder, “Is this all I have of them?” They always felt like family, but with family, you always have ties pulling you back together. With my old roommates, we have floated away, untethered. 

It is difficult for me to be grateful for those years instead of sad about how they ended, and how far apart we are now. In my kitchen, I pause the set, I close the app. I wonder what else I will find if I keep listening. 

Ten years ago, before stand-up, I went to a conservative Christian college outside of Chicago. We went to chapel three times a week. We did not drink, we did not have sex, many of us did not even date. We loved Jesus, and learning, and while I no longer call myself a Christian, I did love my time there. 

I have an old college classmate named Peter who wound up in LA. He came to a show or two, and we met a couple times for dinner. In college, we weren’t really friends, and in California, we weren’t really friends. We overlapped because of stand-up. A few months ago, when I post about performing at the Lincoln Lodge in Chicago, he tells me he lives in Chicago now, and close to the shows, and he’ll be there on Saturday.

Friday night, he texts to say his family is actually in town on Saturday, so he won’t be able to make it, and he wishes he’d come that night instead. I tell him I won’t go up until the end, so he could probably still make my set if he wanted to. I tell the woman taking tickets that a guy named Peter is allowed in, he’s here to see me, and I’m in that room over there. Peter texts to say he’s there, but when the show ends, I don’t see him, and we find out he was sent to the wrong room. He’s so angry about it that I know, right away, he’s not doing well. 

We sit at the bar, but neither of us are drinking. I am probably not pregnant since my husband and I only had sex once and who knows when I’m ovulating since COVID fucked up my period, but I would feel guilty to chance it. Peter has just broken up with his fiance. He moved out. He’s now in his own place with a mattress on the floor, a camping chair, plastic cutlery, paper plates. He begins to cry as we talk, stops crying, starts again. He doesn’t go into detail about the break-up; he doesn’t want to. I tell him about having a child, the depression it prompted. This seems to make him feel better. He’s still angry at the woman up front for sending him to the wrong show. He’s at Northwestern Law and says all his classmates are 24 and get their news from Twitter and are much smarter than he is. 

Peter’s still a Christian. I guess a number of people I know from college have retained their faith. I think about this, as people squeeze by us in the bar. Peter’s a Christian. And years ago, I was too. Years ago, I had Jesus grounding my life. Years ago, I sang hymns and went on missions trips and loved people because that was what God wanted me to do. 

As we leave, Peter says he’ll pray for me. “Okay,” I say. “Unless you don’t want me to,” he says. I tell him I don’t care if he prays, but I just don’t think it will do anything. “I think prayer can be effective as a form of meditation, you know, surrendering stuff that’s weighing you down, that’s burdening you. But I don’t think it actually changes the course of events. God doesn’t adjust life according to your requests. So if you want to pray for me, go ahead, but I don’t think it will actually help me in any way.” He understands this. He says, “I guess when I tell you that I’m going to pray for you, what I really mean is that I care about you, and I don’t want to forget you.” “Say that, then,” I say. “That is much nicer. That is beautiful, in fact.”

We go opposite ways on the street. “I don’t want to forget you,” I say. 

I dated a comedian once who said, “We’re going to know each other for the rest of our lives.” After we broke up, it was an unsettling truth to swallow. For most people, once you break up with someone, you do not see them again. But for comics hooking up with comics, this is not the case. I remember an open mic in the basement of a wine bar in Atwater. A friend turned to another friend. She said, “How many of the guys in here have we collectively fucked?” They counted at least five. 

But it’s not just the comedians I run into - it’s old classmates and acquaintances, it’s friends who are strangers now, it’s lives I used to lead.

Back in January, here in Wisconsin, I am hired to perform at a birthday party in Kiel, a small town not far from where I grew up. I don’t know whose birthday it is, or the person who arranged for a show. It’s snowing while I drive, but I’m unconcerned about the roads. Instead, I wonder, “Who will be there?”