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Episode 4: Screw The Man

by Mimi Schmir
Oh, God...I'm going to admit it. I don't usually tell people. It often generates a rolling of the eyes or a patronizing smile, but it's the truth — I'm a goddamn writer. Now granted it's not my primary source of income; that continues to be party planning and sucking the life out of Jeffrey's bank account. But how many writers actually do it for the money, right?

I'm a writer of poems and little fairy tales that I hide under the bed but what I've always really wanted to do is write the kind of big, sweeping love story that makes people think about the romantic possibility in life. Kind of ironic for a divorced woman but there you go. Irony is my middle name. (Actually, Ronnie is my middle name, short for Veronica, after yes, the famed Betty and Veronica duo.

My father had a thing for pin-ups who couldn't talk back which might explain a few of my problems.) The Veronica of it all may also explain why I wrote comics for a while and a long time ago, when I was in my "only wear black phase" (a phase I have every intention of revisiting this holiday season) I did this graphic novel. It's about this really smart little girl who always wanted a tail and then one day she gets one and it like, seriously changes her life because now she basically has a third arm and can get three times as much done as anyone else (you know, hold a cocktail, smoke a clove cigarette and eat a canapé at the same time) which makes her a super girl. I'm not famous or anything but girls and their moms really liked the book and there's all this talk about taking the three-armed super girl (her name is Willa) and making her into a doll.

Anyway, I made enough money off Willa for a two-week stay on the Big Island — yay Four Seasons. And since then, she basically puts gas in my car while Jeffrey and party planning cover the rest. Look, I know it's hard to imagine me planning a party after my last birthday party debacle with Roo but I'm actually not terrible at it, plus my best friend Annabelle is my partner and she really has her head screwed on straight. On top of which she has an A-plus boob job, which makes her really popular with all the single dads who always call us straight away because they like having her around.

You know how guys always go, "Oh, yeah, I can TOTALLY tell when they're fake and seriously, that's so NOT my thing." Well, that's bullshit. They pay top-dollar to have Annabelle carry a tray of pigs-in-blankets next to her cleavage and from a business standpoint I say, "God bless." We're just two "small business-mommies" struggling to make ends meet so I say if you got it, flaunt it — all the way to the ready-teller. Of course the writer in me, well...she has to hold her moral ground. And that's where it gets kinda complicated.

You may have heard there's a writer's strike going on. It's basically a David and Goliath thing where the six companies that rule the media universe don't want their employees to make any more money than they'd get working burger shifts at Mickey D's. Since Jeffrey is a Hollywood producer and I fancy myself a writer, I happily went on strike against my ex-husband, which I think is kind of a metaphor for my life.

The decision hit me the moment I heard a fellow union-type yell, "Screw the man!" That touched me on a number of levels. But if it meant sticking it to Jeffrey in any way possible then by all means count me in. Jeffrey, of course, thinks writers deserve nothing but the clothes on their backs and whatever emotional distress comes with being "creative" and as far as he's concerned, he should be credited in anything I write from now on because he's positive that it all goes back to him. That man has serious balls, at least when he's not having sex. Then he might as well be a castrato — you know, one of those teenage boys whose penises are cut off so that they can sing opera and sound like a girl. (PS: Jeffrey really does sound like a girl. He has one of those really high voices that are one step away from those dudes in boy bands. It's like his Achilles heel and the reason that he works out two hours a day at the Sports Club L.A., like somehow spinning's gonna boost his testosterone to acceptable manly levels.)

Well, it's kind of depressing to be on strike, and weird for me because like my marriage, the writer in me is "on hiatus." And I've been a little mopey and out of sorts, which may or may not be a hormonal thing, it's hard to tell, because as I'm sure you know depression, nervousness and irritability can all be part of "The Change." (They can also be part of commuting in Los Angeles. Sometimes I think I am surrounded by an entire population of menopausal adults.)

So I have this time on my hands, what with the "strike" and all, and so when I'm not waving my "F Jeffrey" picket sign in the air (which I will continue to wave even after the strike is over) I've been doing some serious thinking. (Danger, Will Robinson. DANGER.) And one of the things I remembered while I was thinking was this thing I learned at yoga class once, when I used to go, before I realized that all that competition to get into impossible "relaxing" poses was stressing me out.

Well, apparently, yogis believe that if you expose your armpits several times a day you won't get depressed. There's this exercise called The Triangle or something like that where you slide one arm down your leg and stretch the other one up and over your ear and you're supposed to breathe through your nose and bring all this calming, refreshing energy into your depressed, nervous and irritable body. Well, who doesn't want that, right? So I'm moping around, not able to focus enough to do any writing and more than a little pissed at Jeffrey, whose attorney (she of the devil horns and Jimmy Choos) has just sent me a new, unacceptable custody agreement where somehow he takes the kids on every holiday except for Hannukah and St. Patrick's Day and I realize, there is something I can do here!

And so a la Nancy Drew I jump into my speedy roadster (aka Prius) and shoot over to the Fox lot (which is the movie studio where Jeffrey works) and I jump out of the car, picket sign in hand and I grab aforementioned sign (It reads: "On Strike," nothing fancy because, well - I'm on strike and am being a little stingy with my words) and what do I do? I EXPOSE MY ARMPITS.

I shove that sign into the air and wave it high and I think about Jeffrey and everything he did to fuck us up and I think about not writing and being a party planner for the rest of my days and I think about my body and everything that is changing in me right now and I EXPOSE MY FUCKING ARMPITS. And you know what? It feels GOOD. And I'm like, shit — maybe those yogis know what they're talking about. Maybe I should revisit those impossibly intimidating poses. Maybe I should trust that somewhere, someone has answers for me. Because there I am, thinking about the remnants of my marriage, my career "on hiatus," my body in flux and instead of being depressed, nervous and irritable all of a sudden, just like the yogis promised, just like a super girl with a tail, just maybe because I am exposing my armpits — all of a sudden I have this incredible, invincible feeling of strength and dare I say it? Power.
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