I Am So Funny My brief and wondrous career at The Daily Show consisted of making jokes about the Amish and trying to get Jon Stewart to love me.

David Belisle

"And here's your desk!"

Stephanie, the twentysomething office manager at The Daily Show, is gesturing toward the desk in the corner—a desk that is clearly someone else's. There is a sweater slung over the back of the chair with long dark hairs stuck to the collar. There are pictures of dark-haired people in front of Cape Cod–style houses. And there are stacks of scripts that say "Attn: Dark-haired Girl."

"But this is somebody else's desk, right?" I ask.

"Well, technically, it kind of is. But she may not be coming back. But she may be."

"How about if I just sit next to the desk—I'll just use it if I need a hard surface."

Stephanie considers this for a moment and then makes an executive decision.

"No! I want you to go ahead and sit here. All the way. Go ahead, scoot your chair all the way in. But if you do see a woman who looks like this"—she picks up a photo of dark-haired people hugging golden retrievers and points to the woman on the end, the only one without a golden retriever to hug—"then maybe just go ahead and get up and go sit over there." She gestures toward a stained and abandoned office chair in the corner of the room, facing the wall.

It's a slightly less glamorous beginning than I had imagined, but that doesn't matter because getting the job on The Daily Show is the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. I will never know another unhappy day.

Finally, after all the years of striving, I can relax. No more living like a girl-baby born to a Chinese family, having to prove that I am worth something. ("Please don't drown me in the river. I may not be strong and I may not be smart, but hand me that noodle and I'll make a joke with it. Please, let me live! Let me live!")

I am going to be allowed to live.

And not only that, my worth will be well-established. Gone are the days of my telling every gross personal detail about herpes scares and porn-addicted boyfriends peeing in plants. I can now just sit quietly. Like the pretty girls do. (And the depressed girls.) Everything is going to change.

Stephanie whips around to continue her welcoming.

"Okay? So, first day! Exciting! Are you excited?"

"Yeah. I am," I say, making my way toward my corner. "So is this how you find out you're fired here? You just come in to work and someone else is at your desk? I think I'm just going to stand the whole time I'm working here."

Stephanie suddenly looks sad.

"I'm sorry I'm not laughing—it just takes a lot to make me laugh. It has to be like, hilarious, to make me laugh. I'm sure you're really funny, but I'd just be careful with the 'trying to be funny' thing. Everyone has a really low tolerance for that around here. So, anyway, welcome!"

With that, Stephanie leaves the room. I wish I had not said that thing about being fired. Am I trying to "cut through the bullshit" on day one? Next I'll be asking why no black people work here.

One thing's for certain: I don't want to sit at that desk. Except to find clues as to why this desaparecido girl may or may not be coming back. I need to know what not to do. First, don't have dark hair, I got that. There must be other clues—evidence of certain herbs or supplements she had been taking, or journal entries that start with, "Said no to anal—Jon mad again."

Getting your dream job and then being let go—what a nightmare. And apparently when you're let go here it's just sort of "implied." ("Hmmm, that's weird. No paycheck for you again.")

Well, she's OUT and I am IN! So let's get back to the party that started three days ago, when I found out I got the job. You know what would be nice right about now? Another piece of celebration coffee cake, then maybe a gift basket.

The phone rings—it's my manager.

"Hey, ya big fat famous noodle—how is the first day? We have to go celebrate tonight with cosmos and sushi."

I love my manager's wild streak, but offer a gentle suggestion: "If you want, we can wait to celebrate when you're not eight months pregnant."

"Oh please!" she says. "I'm a European mom. I'm sitting in the sauna stoned out of my mind, getting ready to shoot a porno! Ha ha ha!!! So how is it? Tell me, tell me, tell me!"

Someone knocks on the door.

"Oh fuck, someone's at the door," I say, looking for something to duck underneath.

"It's probably Jon Stewart. Get it! Get it!" my manager shouts.

It's Stephanie. The bottom part of her face (from her adorable nose on down) is smiling and happy—full of hope. But the top half, particularly the "windows into her soul," didn't get the memo and is exuding "something has gone horribly wrong."

"Hey, they're gonna use you on the show tonight!" she says with the happy section of her head.

Then the phone rings.

"NO!" Stephanie yells at the phone. And for a moment her face comes together, then snaps right back. "Sorry—exciting first day, huh? Yeah, um, you can go ahead and get that."

It must be my manager calling back—probably hoping Jon is in the room and that maybe I'll put him on and when they hit it off she can have a quick fling before her baby is born.

Personally, I would never ask for a fling. "Soul mate" is more my secret hope. After watching tape after tape of The Daily Show to prepare myself for the job (I'd never seen the show before I was hired, cable being as mystical and magical as health insurance), I had to agree with all the men, women, and stalkers: Jon is a charming, humble, political genius of a man.

Trying to be ironic and witty, I pick up the phone with a mock reporter voice:

"This is Lauren Weedman, new correspondent on The Daily Show. Can I help you?"

Long pause. Long, long pause.

"Oh... hi. I was just calling to get my messages. Who is this?"

It's 4:00 p.m.—rehearsal time—and I can't find the studio.

This morning, Stephanie had told me something something something, turn right, then left. But every right turn runs me into a bagel buffet or cold-cereal kitchenette and every left turn takes me into someone's secret mini Butterfingers stash or a bowl of brownies. The building is like a giant feedbag.

I'm really lost. It's 4:05. Shit. I'm going to have to go back up to my office and start again.

Why don't I just ask someone where it is? Why am I suddenly shy? I see a guy coming out of the writers' room by himself—he seems safe.

"Hello," I call out.

"You can just say 'hi.' You don't have to be ironic about it," he says and walks away.

I finally find the studio on my own.

Even though I'm late, I take a brief moment to savor this momentous occasion. I am about to walk into The Daily Show studio for the first time. Pausing to reflect, I grab a mini Snickers from the bowl in the hallway and cram it into my mouth.

This is my first time meeting Jon—dear god, I hope I don't fuck this up.

Somebody should probably warn him that sometimes I'm not funny, and now I'm being paid to be funny.

Which suddenly seems like an intense amount of pressure. I'm going to end up like John Belushi or Chris Farley by the end of the week. Minus the legend part. Just bloated with drugs and alcohol and mini Snickers. But I'm not always funny. Sometimes I'm tired.

That's kind of funny, I think. I'm gonna say that when I walk into the studio.

Upon opening the studio door, I find a circle of men throwing around a Nerf football, one of whom is Jon Stewart. Nobody even turns his head when I walk in. Maybe I should start crying. No, I'll save that for my second season. As soon as I see Jon, I want to tell him my story about my boyfriend peeing in the houseplant and show him the tuft of hair by my ankle that I always miss when I'm shaving.

I remind myself: You're an oak tree—your roots run deep and your skin is barky—just be rooted and present. Remember, like grizzly bears, these guys are more scared of you than you are of them. It's a comedy show—have fun! Yukka, yukka, banana peel, whoa! Come on! We're all just folks—folks are folks—we live, we die, we rot. Jon Stewart is just a man—he's just a man—and you've had so many men before, in so many ways—he's just one more. Oh my god, it's a song lyric from Jesus Christ Superstar—I've turned Jon Stewart into Jesus.

Right as I'm about to belt out the alto line, "What's the buzz, tell me what's a-happening!" the men spot me and stop throwing the ball.

I run in (holding my breasts since I'm not wearing a jog bra) as if I were late for the game. I squeeze myself into the circle, throw my hands above my head, and scream, "I'm open! I'm open!"

And I mean it. Open to new friends, new experiences, new anything.

But the game comes to a complete stop.

That's when I notice that Jon has the ball. (It's not until later that I realize he always has the ball.)

He greets me with a worried "Hi, Lauren. How're ya doing?"

"I'm just... dealing with all the... sexual... tension." (Pause.) "You know... fine. I'm fine."

"Good. It's good to see you. We'll be starting rehearsal in about 20 minutes," he says with a look on his face that is not amused surprised, as I'd initially interpreted, but fear.

The first time I'm on the show, I'm assigned a bit where I'm an entertainment expert talking about which of the Backstreet Boys is the gay one, which is the really gay one, and which is the really, really gay one.

In the studio, you do one rough run-through, where you're bad and you flub your words and then squeegee the sweat off your eyebrows and do it again. The first one is a stumble-through, and it is petrifying. Since I had originally auditioned for the executive producer, rather than for Jon, it is also the first time that the star of the show is seeing me "act like a reporter."

I complete the first run-through and immediately begin an inner mantra like a screaming army sergeant: "YOU'RE OKAY! YOU'RE OKAY! THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME—GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!"

Then I feel the ground rumbling. A herd of comedy writers is making its way toward me and soon I'm surrounded by urgent suggestions. One writer steps out in front of the mob only to be shoved out of the way by someone even more desperate to save his joke from the new girl.

"Lauren! Okay... how can I explain this—"

"Just tell her what you want."

"Okay, you're an expert. Meaning you know what you're talking about. Have you ever seen Stone Phillips?"

"Don't confuse her. Maybe she doesn't understand exactly what the joke is. Underline it in the script!"

"She doesn't understand. Let me try. Hey, Lauren! Whassup! You look great! Pretty hair!"

"We don't have this kind of time. We need to give it to a Steve!"

At which point the entire studio erupts in a chant: "Steve! Steve! Steve!"

I join in. "STEVE! STEVE! STEVE!"

After learning that both Steves are on vacation, we do one more run-through before the actual taping. It is even worse than the first one because suddenly I can't remember how to keep my eyeballs from shaking. I decide the best thing to do is to suck my cheeks in, nod a lot, and look angry yet insecure. The "just be yourself" technique. This seems to give the writing staff the comfort of knowing "that's as good as she's going to get," and they leave me alone during the actual taping.

The next morning, the executive producer asks me, "Where'd you go after the show? Jon wanted to congratulate you, but you just disappeared. I think he was worried you were upset."

Normally I wait to make sure everyone is looking at me before I storm out of a building in tears, but this time I'd forgotten to check over my shoulder. And Jon had noticed. Oh my god. I love him.

"You are my new boyfriend," I say, sticking my head into Jon's office. He looks surprised to see me. He's on the phone with Wolf Blitzer. At least, I assume it's Wolf Blitzer because he says, "I'll talk to you later, Wolf," and hangs up.

I notice Jon's Emmy is on a shelf, still wrapped in plastic.

"Look how modest you are, Jon," I say. "You haven't even unwrapped your Emmy."

Jon brings the conversation back under his control.

"Hey, great job on the show last night," he says. "Welcome. I didn't see you after the show, so I wanted to make sure you were feeling okay."

"Thank you. I appreciate that," I reply. And that should be the moment I leave, but I don't.

"I just love that you don't have a special cabinet built for your awards. Everyone I know with a bowling trophy has special spotlights installed—giant arrows on the wall pointing to it. Naked women dancing around it. That's what you should get."

Jon looks confused, but he continues to keep his concern focused.

"Well, Lauren. We're glad to have you here. I just wanted to tell you that after the taping."

"You know what happened after the show?"

Jon glances at the clock on the wall and takes a breath. But I am oblivious to his "I don't have time; I've reached out to you, now please let me get some work done" signals.

"I walked out of the studio and immediately started sobbing."

He makes sad eyes that say, "Oh, no!" and then looks at his phone. Probably praying for Kofi Annan or Carrot Top to call him. I continue.

"It's just intense. I've never been on national television before, and the stakes were so high. I had to get out of the building and let all the stress out. I went in the alley to have a private breakdown, but ended up sobbing in front of the doors where the audience exits. So suddenly the doors fly open: 'Hey, there's the new girl! Great job!' and I'm trying to stop crying—"

I finally stop myself because I realize Jon has a "that's a sad story" look frozen on his face, but his eyes are darting from the phone to the clock to the door. The phone, the clock, the door. The phone, the clock, the door.

I start to laugh and hope he'll join me. But somehow he doesn't see the humor in a new hire telling him that she may or may not be stable.

We very formally end our conversation with some "welcome agains" and "I'm exciteds" and "thank yous."

The journey to my office is always exhausting. Every time I pass an open office door, I stick my head in and try to say something funny. I try to convince myself that I'm just saying hi. Getting to know the people of The Daily Show. By the end of the first week, it's turned into a bizarre dance routine.

Step, step, look right, "Okay, guys—hands outta your pants!"

Step, step, look left, "Man, crack cocaine makes you sweat a lot, look at you!"

Step, step, look right, "For a fat person, you're looking very thin today."

Ball change and repeat.

If the person responds or laughs, I take that as an invitation to come on in and ask him or her for advice. I want to know what the women before me have done. And why everyone keeps saying, "It's sooo hard to keep women here." But people just nod and smile at me and reveal nothing. Which may have to do with the fact that they're "working."

One month later, I'm back in the executive producer's office.

"Okay, I don't want to freak you out," she is saying. "I want to help you. Here's the deal: You need to get Jon to like you."

"I wasn't aware that he didn't," I respond, in an unemotional, I-could-care-less-about-this-job, it's-a-walk-in-the-park tone.

She continues: "Somehow he's getting the impression that you could care less about the job. He feels like you're treating this whole thing like it's a walk in the park. Like you could take it or leave it. And we all like you, but we need him to like you, too, so—"

Just then someone opens her office door. It's Jon, sticking his head in.

The executive producer's voice goes up a few octaves.

"Hey, Jon, come on in! I was just talking to Lauren about how excited we are to have her as a part of the show. Just telling her to try to relax and have fun."

Jon nods his head and very politely says, "Yeah. Good. Listen, can I talk to you when you're done with Lauren?"

I jump to my feet, put my hands on my hips, pinch my nipples, and say, "I just want to please you. Do I please you, Jon? Do I?"

Jon looks at the executive producer and seems like he's about to say something. Since he doesn't laugh, I figure I'd better start dancing like Shirley MacLaine—as fast as I can.

"Jon! I think that my nervousness—trying to act like this isn't the biggest thing that's ever happened to me—is backfiring. It's like when I first started dating my husband, I tried to act like I was used to sexy, gorgeous men. Which in my mind meant acting very cool and underwhelmed. I'm so worried about you licking me—what is wrong with me?—I mean liking me—"

"Is she serious?" Jon asks the executive producer.

She tells him that I'm kidding. She speaks for me a few more times before I say, doing my best deaf-person imitation and using sign language, "Tell Jon I like his shirt."

The executive producer bursts out laughing. "Oh my god!" she exclaims. "Girlfriend, you've got to get us all what you're on! Oh my god! Okay, Jon, I'll be in your office in a minute."

She continues to laugh until Jon closes the door behind him. The instant it clicks shut, she leaps toward me, grabs my arm, and starts shaking me.

"You have got to calm down!" she says. "Stop auditioning for the job! Relax!"

Standing in front of the bulletin board in the hallway, I scan all the sign-up sheets for softball games and trips to Vegas and free tickets to standup shows to see if Jon's name is anywhere. One of the other on-air correspondents walks by and I ask him if Jon ever plays softball and he laughs in my face. He recovers and decides to share the secret to his success on the show.

"You need to stop treating Jon like a peer," he says. "He's not your peer. Just lay low until they want to use you on the show. Don't ask for too much feedback. You're just calling attention to yourself. And don't sign up for anything on this board. On-camera people don't do that."

A producer on his way to pick up his antidepressants stops and joins in. "And don't laugh so much. I didn't laugh at anything for the first year I worked here. So when I finally did, it really meant something."

I'm in the studio for rehearsal. I should be practicing my lines, but instead I'm practicing not laughing. Starting with not laughing at my own jokes (which, for me, embarrassingly, is incredibly difficult).

As soon as Jon walks in, everyone quiets down and gets focused.

"Don't spin around in the chair," the stage manager whispers to me, trying to help. "Just sit still."

Jon has brought his new puppy, which is jumping all over the crew.

"Sorry about my puppy, you guys, he's going through a licking stage," he says.

"I wish my husband had one of those!" I exclaim, careful not to burst out laughing. The studio falls silent and then, in the Jewish tradition of ripping one's clothing to signify "you are dead to me," the studio is full of the sound of collars being torn.

I've only been on the show for six months and I've been banished from sitting next to Jon in the studio. "You're too jumpy; you make him nervous," I'm told.

They have me work almost exclusively in the field, finding mildly retarded people who don't have cable so they'll never know how much the show makes fun of them.

Sometimes I enjoy myself. Dripping wax on my breasts at an Amish candle-making studio for a "Wild on Amish Country" piece is memorable. Not for my parents, but I enjoy it.

Interviewing a tobacco lobbyist whose wife and child had just left him and moved out the day before is less fun. Mocking is one of my favorite pastimes, but this is rough. He makes the entire crew lunch and plays with his dog on camera, which we ask him to do because he looks so ridiculous doing it. He rolls around on the ground with snorty abandon.

In the van, driving away, I feel like a bully. The guy is a tobacco lobbyist, for god's sake—he deserves to have his eyeballs colored in red and horns drawn on his head. So why do I feel like I've just gone up to the fattest girl in high school (which could have been me, though technically I was the 12th fattest, but was heavily girdled) and told her that the cool kids wanted her to come to a movie with us? And did it in such a way that she took a chance and joined us at the movie. But of course we'd only asked her so we could mock the shit out of her. And it wouldn't be until the next day at school (or the "air date"), when we'd be reporting how she ate nachos with her chubby fingers, that she'd realize she'd been set up.

You'd think after so many years of having my metaphorical lunch money stolen, I'd be pleased to finally get cast in the role of bully with health insurance. But I wasn't. I missed jumping up and down in my chair next to Jon.

Like most workplace dramas, my situation came to a head, as it were, with the Giant Black Cock (GBC) incident.

There are no sexual-harassment lawsuits in comedy. Maybe because there are so few women around to get offended. ("Did he mean my pubic hair? Hey!") And "just kidding" works in every situation.

So when the first thing that greets me on my computer screen one morning is a picture of a white blond chirpy (WBC) enjoying a GBC, I know exactly how this day is going to go.

My job is to march around the office trying to find out who did it and pretending I'm going to press charges. (Since there are no black people working on The Daily Show I don't have to worry about someone saying, "It's not mine.")

By the end of the day, there is only one person whom I have not yet asked about the GBC. And I find that person conveniently trapped in his makeup chair, right before the show.

"Jon, was it you who downloaded the giant black cock onto my computer?" I ask.

Jon looks truly shocked. This is the same guy who sat around making jokes with the writers about grandmas falling on young men's dicks, and now he's looking at me like I've taken a shit in my hand and offered it to the pope.

"What are you talking about, Lauren?"

The makeup lady looks like she is about to cry.

"I came in to work and there was a picture of this giant black cock on my computer, and normally it's my mom who sends me those pictures, but—"

He stands up and thanks the makeup lady and walks out.

The makeup lady, who has been working with Jon since he was on MTV, says, "I think you need to go and have a heart-to-heart with him. He thinks you're making fun of him or something. He can't tell that you're kidding, I think. I've known him a long time and I just think he doesn't get your kidding. I would go right now and talk to him. Like how you talk to me. Like how you talk to everyone but him. Just as yourself."

I know she's right. This has gone on for too long. I knock on the door of the green room.

BAM BAM BAM. People respond to truth. I want to tell him my truth.

BAM BAM BAM. The Lord has sent me. Open up.

When Jon finally says, "Come in," I walk into the room to find him surrounded by all his people. Every single one of the eight important people in the room looks at me as if I have a bomb strapped to my torso.

"Jon," I say, certain of my mission. "I want to talk to you for minute. Could you come out in the hallway, please?"

Jon doesn't smile or try to smile or act patient. He is done with that shit. He says, "What? Out there?" He actually starts to stand up, and then hangs in midair above his chair as he changes his mind. "No, I'm not going out there. What do you want?"

I dive in. "Jon, every time we have an inter-action I hear the next day that I've upset you. And I don't know what it is. No matter what I do, I just make it worse and worse. And I don't mean to. I honestly keep thinking that I'm being myself but somehow—"

Jon stops me. "Lauren, you strike me as a very obsessive person. You need to calm down. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think about you or our interactions as much as you seem to."

And I shut up, because I get it. My muscles unclench. My heart rate slows and I get it.

It's like I've been running after Jon for a year, asking, "Does this shirt smell? Does it? Tell me, tell me!" And now he's told me, quite honestly. It's liberating. I feel free and ready to start doing some actual work.

Enjoying this new sense of relaxation and ease, looking forward to how well I'll finally sleep tonight, I calmly turn around and begin to close the door behind me. But before the door has completely shut, I stick my head back in.

"You mean you don't think about me on the weekends?" I say. "I think about you...."

Three weeks later, I call in to retrieve my voice mail and a strange woman answers my phone.

"Oh... hi," I say, after a long pause. A long, long pause. "I was just calling to get my messages. Who is this?"

One day at work, I find Mary, the production assistant, at her desk and in the middle of a visual gag—a scathing commentary on the office-wide obsession with personal water bottles. She has taken one of the giant plastic jugs that usually supplies the water cooler and has written in large letters on the side, "MARY'S WATER BOTTLE." It's casually placed on her desk, taking up the entire surface, as she tries to get her work done around it. As I walk by, she grabs it and hoists it up to her mouth using both arms. Two hours later, when we're both done laughing, she asks me if I've heard about the big announcement: We're going to the Emmys.

By the time I reach my office I've gone from "I don't really think about shallow things like award shows" to looking for babies to step on to get my name on the list of confirmed guests.

Between my normal work activities of wandering around searching for new snack options and finding new people to listen to me explain how hard it is to be married to a bartender, I notice that nobody is acting excited about going to the Emmys, but everyone is—without a doubt—going.

A few days after 9/11, there had been a staff meeting to talk about how much time it would take before we could be funny again. The state of shock in the room made it hard to get the discussion going, so in the meantime we were all instructed to try and find stories that involved soft and comforting things, like Amish people. And they had to be local Amish people, not Amish people who required an airplane trip to get to. Even the word "airplane" made our stomachs plop into our laps. Nobody wanted to take the subway—much less fly—ever again. We all decided that for the rest of our lives we would do like Loretta Lynn and the morbidly obese do: wrap a fried biscuit and a stick of butter in a plastic bag and take the bus. There were no circum-stances that could ever justify taking what was now a nightmarish mode of transportation. Nobody was flying. Ever. Again.

Unless it was to the National Television Academy's 53rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

The intercom system blasts an announcement through the building: "All staff needs to stop by Mary's desk to get your Emmy tickets and limo assignments. And Lauren Weedman, please report to the executive producer's office right now."

As the gods of television broadcasting would have it, my contract is up for renewal the same day the limo assignments are being made for the Emmys.

When I walk into the executive producer's office, she has a look on her face that says, "Well, I tried." She offers me a freelance contract and a hit of pot. I accept both and give her a big hug. Ask her how her son is doing. Where she got her shirt. How much weight has she lost. Did she end up getting that cabin? Can I get one more hug?

Next thing I know, I'm outside her office door, thinking that was a good meeting. Now I'll have more time to do other projects, plus I'm still on the show. It's kind of perfect.

The first person I run into after the meeting is my good friend and field producer Carrie. She's my "What do you want me to do—lie to you?" friend. She's let me know that one of the issues that got in the way of my success on the show was that, though talented, I just wasn't as cute as the other female reporters. Carrie clarified this by explaining, "I'm not saying that I don't think you're cute. I'm just talking about guys, the fans of the show, the American People and all the Comedy Central executives." She was painfully honest, and I have to admit, I trusted her. (Or I hated myself—tough call.)

"They offered me a freelance contract," I say and start to clap my hands to help get the applause going.

"That means you're fired," Carrie says, with not a hint of emotion in her voice. Unless exhaustion counts as an emotion.

"But why wouldn't they just tell me I'm fired?"

"They don't want to hurt your feelings. I'll go tell everyone we're going out to have a 'Lauren's been canned' drink after work."

It occurs to me that perhaps, as is often the case with Carrie, she's just doing what they'd taught her in preschool—to share whatever she had a lot of, whether it be Jolly Ranchers or bitterness. Maybe she doesn't really know whether I'm fired. She just wants to keep me down so she can look cheerful in comparison to someone who may have just been fired.

The next three random people I pass on the way back to my desk tell me the same thing. "That means you're fired. They just don't want to be mean."

The fourth person I pass is Mitch, a full-time comedy writer whose contract was also up for renewal. I know because he was called in to the office directly after me. He tells me they offered him a freelance contract, too. And he's smiling. So you see, maybe it's not what Carrie says. And all those other people. Maybe it's exactly how it sounds.

"Yeah, freelance. So what do you think?" I ask him.

"No fucking way," Mitch says. "That's a joke. I just quit as soon as she offered it. I'm not stupid. I would never accept a deal like that."

After work, the few employees who aren't whooping it up at Mitch's "I told them to fuck themselves" party sit at a corner table for my "Sorry you got canned" party. Carrie tactfully asks the four other employees who've shown up if I'll be allowed to go the Emmys now that I'm not a full-time employee.

"They already invited me! They can't uninvite me!" I say.

"Yes they can!" the entire bar answers in unison.

This is an excerpt from Lauren Weedman's new book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body (Tales from a Life of Cringe). She reads on Thurs, Oct 4, at, Neumo's, 925 E Pike St, 709-9467, 6 pm, free, 21+.