After Noah and I left Kansas City in 2020, I returned two weeks later (on Delta Air Lines, not a private jet) to check on Jerry. That November, I flew again to Kansas City (on a private jet, not Delta Air Lines) and, as planned, Jerry and Sugar flew back with me to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving and stayed until March, setting up camp in the pool house. This was a pattern we repeated in 2021, and in 2022, they came and just stayed. Which is to say that whether you consider beagles to be small or medium-sized, that’s the kind of dog that Noah now lives with. Sometimes in the late afternoon, Jerry and I do chair yoga by the pool, though we also regularly do water aerobics. It turns out California agrees with him.
In July 2021, Noah and I got married. On a Friday morning, we went together to get the license, which cost eighty-five dollars, and I provided the date of the dissolution of my previous marriage. Though there are, I learned, paparazzi that lurk at various L.A. courthouses hoping to catch high-profile people on this very errand, there is also such a thing as a confidential marriage license in California—it’s not designed to accommodate celebrities but rather the convenient result of a law from the 1800s meant to allow already-cohabiting couples to marry without public shame. This was the kind of license we obtained, then we drove immediately to a hotel in Montecito, where we’d rented a private villa overlooking the coast. On the villa’s lawn, the hotel’s general manager officiated at a ceremony with no other witnesses.
I don’t know if this is the wedding Noah and I would have had if not for Covid, but of course I don’t know if we’d have had any wedding if not for Covid; I don’t know if we’d have found each other again. And I realize it’s not the wedding most people would want, but I found a deep beauty in its irreducibility. We spent that weekend ordering room service, marveling at our new circumstances, and, well, making love in July. That Monday, we returned to Topanga and called our family and friends to tell them. On Tuesday, Noah’s publicist released a statement announcing our marriage and suggesting that anyone who wanted to help us celebrate could do so by making a donation to a nonprofit working to elect Democratic women. “We need to offset my reentry into the ultimate heteropatriarchal institution,” I’d said, and he’d laughed and replied, “As newlywed wives often tell their husbands.” That, among lots of my former colleagues, both Autumn and Elliot contributed struck me as unnecessarily magnanimous of them.
The Internet had opinions about Noah marrying me, and though I’ve inferred that some people saw it as a tragedy for him while others considered it a victory for feminism and/or mousy-looking straight women everywhere (two entities that are not, in fact, interchangeable), I’ve managed to avoid reading the vast majority of the comments.
By the time we got married, Noah and I were both, with effort, in the habit of leaving our phones in a drawer in the kitchen overnight. When I awaken in the morning, I sometimes go to that other far bathroom even now, but I always return. Noah is usually asleep when I do, and his unguarded face is startlingly handsome; the truth is that I still can’t believe a hot, smart, kind man loves me back. Often when I climb into bed, he reaches for me, opening his eyes as he does, smiling because he’s glad to see me. There are, presumably, texts and tweets and news articles I’m missing, but in these moments none seem all that urgent.
For beloved and funny C
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For facts, anecdotes, and analysis, I’m indebted to many sources. These include the books Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests, edited by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales; A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost; Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live by Jay Mohr; Bossypants by Tina Fey; Yes Please by Amy Poehler; Girl Walks into a Bar…: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle by Rachel Dratch; I Am the New Black by Tracy Morgan with Anthony Bozza; Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon with Sean Wilsey; and The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman. I also benefited from reading the New York Times article “Lives of the After-Party” by Paul Brownfield; the New York article “Comedy Isn’t Funny” by Chris Smith; and the New Yorker article “Leslie Jones: Always Funny, Finally Famous” by Andrew Marantz. I listened to the podcasts WTF with Marc Maron; Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out; Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend; and Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade. And I watched the documentary Saturday Night, directed by James Franco, as well as Saturday Night Live’s YouTube channel and its “Creating Saturday Night Live” videos. Finally, though I hope this is already clear, I was inspired by almost five decades of episodes of Saturday Night Live and am grateful to their creators, producers, writers, cast members, hosts, and crew.
Articles on other topics that helped guide my writing include “I’m Not Ready to Perform” by Will Butler and “The Day the Live Concert Returns” by Dave Grohl, both in The Atlantic; and “Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis” by Linda Villarosa in The New York Times.
I’m incredibly lucky to work with people in publishing who are very smart and very kind. Among them are my editor, Jennifer Hershey; my agent, Claudia Ballard; and my publicist, Maria Braeckel. Also at Random House, I am supported by Gina Centrello, Andy Ward, Susan Corcoran, Rachel Rokicki, Windy Dorresteyn, Madison Dettlinger, Jordan Pace, Wendy Wong, Marni Folkman, Paolo Pepe, Cassie Gonzales, Robbin Schiff, Kelly Chian, Theresa Zoro, Leigh Marchant, Benjamin Dreyer, and Elizabeth Eno. At WME, I am supported by Anna DeRoy, Tracy Fisher, Suzanne Gluck, Fiona Baird, Oma Naraine, and Stephanie Shipman. And over at Transworld, I am extremely thankful for Jane Lawson, Larry Finlay, Patsy Irwin, Vicky Palmer, and Richard Ogle.
My first reader for this book was my brother, P. G. Sittenfeld, whose wit and intelligence made writing more fun and whose strength, optimism, and big heart make him my role model. Other early readers were Ellen Battistelli, Tiernan Sittenfeld, Matt Carlson, Essie Chambers, Dessa, Julius Ramsay, Lewis Robinson, Aminatou Sow, Erin White, Bryan Miller, and Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff. I especially appreciated nuanced insights from Essie Chambers and Dessa. Celeste Ballard and Claire Mulaney showed me great generosity and patience. I am so glad to be part of a larger community of writers who include Susanna Daniel, Emily Jeanne Miller, Sheena MJ Cook, Cammie McGovern, Sugi Ganeshananthan, Sally Franson, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Will McGrath, Frank Bures, Jennifer Weiner, Elin Hilderbrand, Sarah Dessen, and Jodi Picoult. Stephanie Park Zwicker will forever be my Indigo Girls authority; Kari Forde-Thielen is a friend to beagles and Curtises. And my family members, both human and canine, are just such a delight to sit on the couch and watch TV with. Thank you all.