Everyone But Me

Recently I was on a gig with a few colleagues and our the shuttle that picked us up from the airport was delayed. It was about 1:30pm, and the place we were headed closed for lunch at 2pm. It's lunches were notoriously AH-MAY-ZEENG and we were all starved AF, and with each passing second our stress ballooned as the window to make it to the epic smorgasbord shrank. 

One friend was 100% sure we would make it in time, we just had to put positive thoughts into the universe. The second was pretty sure we were fucked, certain to roll up at 2:01pm. The third friend swung back and forth between wild confidence and despondency. 

The optimist asked me what I felt would happen. Would we make it?

I answered in the most John Loos-ian way possible: "I think everyone will make it except me."

This is generally how I feel most things will go. It will work out for others, but never me.

The shuttle finally took off and we reached the lunch spot with barely a minute to spare. This place was part of a gorgeous corporate complex, so as we stepped off the shuttle, a person greeted us with badges that gave us access to the dining area. Everyone grabbed their badge and walked briskly to their lunch feast, elated that it had worked out. 

Except. 

Oh whoops. 

"I'm so sorry, I don't have a badge for a Mr. John Loos. You'll have to go to the front desk and check with them."

It turns out I was FUCKING RIGHT, BISH. Everyone made it in time EXCEPT. ME.

The story ends happily, don't worry. My friends told the staff I was on my way, and was able to slide in before the dining room door closed. 

But! How fucking powerful were my manifesting skills? I'm a witch! #JohnLoozaBalk!

I mean, okay, I probably don't have that kind of sway over the universe, but even if it the badge thing was just coincidence, lately I've become more aware of what I say out loud, especially what I say out loud to myself. 

Late last year and early into this year, I developed a particularly bad habit of saying not nice things to myself when I was alone. I won't repeat them, but the sentiments I was expressing basically boiled down to "I deserve bad things because I am a bad person." Healthy, right?

Then, oh wouldn't you know! I started shitting blood. 

(cue "Brand New Day" from The Wiz)

So of course I took my Shining Elevator ass to the doctor and ended up getting a colonoscopy and endoscopy. All they found was some tissue irritation, no polyps or growths or evidence of anything else. And I got some super sexy suppositories and some other meds and I also stopped saying those bad things out loud (because no one, not even me, deserves to drink a gallon of colyte. Okay, well, Brett Kavanaugh does. Fuck that guy. He can drink two gallons.)

Three months later, I don't shit blood anymore and everything's  back to normal and my butthole looks GREAT AND SEXY so if you're a hot guy reading this, I promise you everything back there is SUPER FANTASTIC, 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND.

Again, I don't know if there was any correlation between what I was vocalizing and what happened to my body, but I'm not taking any chances and actively working on being kinder to myself. Which, honestly, is so very hard because I have so much intrinsic shame around certain things and also I'm from the Midwest, where being nice to oneself is considered decadent. But, I'm working on it.

I'm especially trying to be kinder with myself in my comedy. I've long had the same mentality in my comedy career that I had on that shuttle.

Everyone is going to make it but me.

And so far, surprise surprise, that's mostly been true! Turns out if you say you can't do something enough times, people will start to believe you! If you're convinced you're invisible, people will struggle to see you! If you say you will fail, you probably will fail!

So I'm trying my best to vocalize positive things. It sounds hokey AF but whatever. I'm trying to say the things I want out loud, and not be ashamed of them. I want to win an Oscar for playing a sad old woman who makes Christmas dolls in her basement! There! I admit it! 

I've even created a dumb little diddy I sing to myself about how I'm going to get a TV deal one day. (Notice I can't even type a sentence about it without diminishing it by calling it dumb, this is 35 years of brutal self-loathing I'm trying to unlearn WHICH IS HARD AND I'M TRYING). 

It's hard, being nice to myself. And it's hard to get myself to a place where I truly believe good things are on the horizon, especially in this FUCKING NIGHTMARE HELL WORLD WE LIVE IN and it's CONSTANT BOMBARDMENT OF HELL NEWS. 

But, I'm trying. 

Say it with me now:

We're all going to make it. 

We're all going to be okay.

I have a place here.

I'm going to get a TV deal. 

I will meet June Squibb.

We're all going to make it.

We're all going to make it.

We're all going to make it.