Romantic Comedy, page 17
One more sidenote: Apropos of my declaration above about thinking that I understand appearance pressure because I’m a woman, yet another of the reasons I suspect it’s almost time for me to move on from TNO is that, while so much of my worldview has been shaped by beliefs about men and women and sexism and feminism, most younger writers at the show accept as a given that gender is a social construct. And to my surprise, the more I read on this subject, the more I agree. In 2012, when I got a sketch on air about elementary school girls playing four square at recess, it felt subversive and notable. I guess it’s a sign of progress that now it’s just accepted as fact at TNO that the world is wildly sexist (thanks, 2016 election?) and that “female” topics are as worthy as “male” ones. On a good day, this makes me think my work is done, and on a bad day, it makes me think I’m about to be put out to pasture.
Before I go, what is your favorite color? Do you have any pets?
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 24, 2020, 10:40 PM
subject: Actually
This is all fascinating…but raises a lot more questions than it answers. For starters:
-I assume you only have the letters Freja wrote you and not the ones you wrote her? Which is such a bummer because I bet the letters that 4th grade Sally wrote were pretty spectacular. Maybe even national treasure level.
-What does “having a moment” with Martin mean? Is that a euphemism that everyone except me knows? It seems like the Martin anecdote is missing a few key details.
- I appreciate the reassurance about being the best pen pal ever but admit I am still feeling a little insecure that you are so much more experienced than I am. (I guess that’s not a question.)
-Yeah, such things are sometimes murky. (I guess that’s not a question, either.)
-Your marriage and divorce…is there a pdf somewhere I can download to get a comprehensive overview of when/where/why?
-Same question as above but about the TNO mindfucker.
About online dating…a few years ago I tried an app that is supposed to be “discreet”…not like for people doing shady things but for respecting users’ privacy. I went on a couple dates through this, none memorable. I’m not convinced online dating is for me. Even with the supposed emphasis on privacy, when I was texting with women, I needed to keep in mind that any of them could talk to or even be a reporter for a shitty gossip website. I’m sure that being so wary didn’t increase my likelihood of making a connection. For the record, I don’t worry at all that you will sell me out.
About how I fly…it’s usually in a space shuttle that takes off with rocket boosters. My time is so precious that this allows me to get where I’m going as efficiently as possible without having to interact with the riffraff. Yes, of course I sometimes fly commercial! Admittedly, it’s first class and if the airport has a private terminal, that’s where I wait. On tour, sometimes we charter a plane and sometimes it’s a bus, and even with the fancier buses, there are very unglamorous parts…traffic, band members getting sick, band members washing their hair with the non-potable water, and on and on. And yet on those buses I have for sure had some of my happiest times.
My favorite color is yellow. I do not have any pets but would like a rabbit.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 9:03 AM
subject: Actually
Sally,
Since sending that last email I have realized that asking if I can download a pdf about your marriage and divorce probably sounded disrespectful and I’m very sorry. I was trying to be funny, but I crossed a line. I want you to know that I realize (from watching my sister and some friends) that getting divorced is a very challenging life experience, and I shouldn’t have been flippant about it. As I’ve said before, these emails right now are really a lifeline for me. I hope I have not done anything to jeopardize our communication.
Best,
Noah
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 25, 2020, 9:32 AM
subject: Actually
I wish you could see how hard I’m laughing right now. You also get an A+ in squirming apologies. I especially appreciate how you included a salutation (I wasn’t sure before this if you knew my name) and a signature (because before this I wasn’t sure what your name was). But the “Best” is a really nice touch, like you were reaching out to ask if my marketing firm is currently hiring.
First of all, didn’t I tell you back in 2018 that anyone who works at TNO is hard to offend? The reason I didn’t reply yet wasn’t that I was offended. It was just that it’s taking me a long time to figure out how to summarize my marriage and the mindfuck. I’m still working on them! Maybe the emails should be divided into two parts, like Czechoslovakia in 1992.
Second, there are a lot of things about all marriages, including mine, that deserve flippancy and disrespect. Unfortunately, my marriage itself was kind of boring and not that funny, but it’s safe to say that I am not someone who thinks marriage as an institution is sacrosanct. In fact, I aspire to find anything in life sacrosanct.
Seriously, your remorse here is very endearing, in addition to being hilarious. Please consider saying a few more things that you think are inappropriate and then apologizing for them.
In the meantime, as I write up my marriage/mindfuck opus, I have to congratulate you on your perceptiveness in realizing I left some details out of the Martin story. “Having a moment” with Martin means that (steel yourself?! Again?) I lost my virginity to him IN Erin’s pool (!) while other people were sitting in the lounge chairs approximately ten feet away (!!). I guess out of deference to the other people, Martin and I didn’t kiss while semi-publicly boning.
In other words, no, you don’t need to worry about my selling you out because, although there’s a smaller audience for my secrets, we’re in a mutually assured destruction situation. Not that I’d sell you out anyway.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:18 AM
subject: Actually
Phew!!!
I have to admit I got kinda spooked by that part about how you never emailed Martin again after the Thanksgiving awkwardness. I don’t want you to ever stop emailing me!
I guess my main question about Martin is, was it a good experience for you? I have a bombshell to drop, something that no one in my whole life knows about me except my sister. See? I really do trust you! The bombshell is that my first album came out before I’d ever had sex. Everyone interpreted Making Love in July (a song I know you have great fondness for) as autobiographical, but I’d never “made love” in real life before its release and didn’t until four months later. If you’re trying to do the math, I was nineteen when the song came out and twenty by the time I lost my virginity. The song was a fantasy of sex, not a memory. When I wrote it, I’d kissed a couple girls, but that was it. My all-boys’ high school was affiliated with a girls’ school more or less on the same campus, and junior and senior year, we could take classes at their school and vice versa, so I can’t even use the single-sex school thing as an excuse. I just had no game. Also my black nail polish phase, while brief, may have made girls think I was gay. (Speaking of, gender is absolutely a social construct…didn’t David Bowie and Prince teach us that? At the same time, I’m sure there’s always a place for your thoughts on men and women and sexism and feminism.)
A part of my virgin story that for some reason I think you might appreciate is that there are two separate actresses, Angela Shinske and Kathryn Woo, who the media often says Making Love in July is about, and Angela goes along with these claims, even though she and I only ever went on two dates, and by then it was 2004. Kathryn and I dated for longer, and she was my date to the 2002 Grammys, but I’d written the song well before then.
So…is your marketing firm currently hiring?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:59 AM
subject: Actually
Wait, who DID you lose your virginity to? (Yes, I am ending a sentence with a preposition, but that’s how urgently I need to know.) Did you tell the other person she’d deflowered you? I’ve always assumed that the Great Pool Boning of August 2000 was Martin’s first time, too, and I wouldn’t say it was magical, but it wasn’t a negative experience, which I think counts as a win?
I hope you are not disappointed to learn that I don’t find it shocking or embarrassing that you didn’t have sex until you were twenty. I beat you by, what, just a year or two?
Regarding our emailing versus my emailing with Martin, this situation feels pretty different. Because you and I are adults? And because he and I had hardly spoken outside the pool (or in the pool, for that matter) whereas you and I have before this correspondence had many deep conversations about cheese, panthers, and snakes. Hmm, maybe these aren’t such persuasive points after all. But I suspect unless either of us has changed dramatically in the last two years, we have a sense of what it’s like to talk to each other in the same room.
Although, since we have arrived at this somewhat weird juncture…I don’t know…do you have a handle on what we’re doing here? Can you tell I’m borrowing your ellipses right now? To…convey…my…laidback…chill…personality…
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 11:26 AM
subject: Actually
Nope, I can’t say that I have a handle on what we’re doing. But it’s fun, huh?
I lost my virginity to…I am white knuckling it here…a model named Brittain Smith. Brittain and I met at the premiere of a movie I had a song in and dated for just a few months. I much later seriously dated one other model, whose name is Maribel Johnson. For the record, those are the only two models I’ve ever dated, period. Not that I feel the need to justify it…in fact, it seems very sexist that anyone would automatically assume a relationship with a model is shallow. But the bigger reason I reacted badly when you said that thing in the bar about 22-year-old models is that when someone brings it up as a way of accusing me of being a playboy, it’s not only insulting but just plain wrong.
Send the marriage/mindfuck pdf!
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 25, 2020, 5:12 PM
subject: Actually
This might seem off-topic, but in my experience, there are two kinds of TNO hosts. With the good kind, the mood preparing for a show is fun. Everyone is aware of the host’s higher status, and accordingly deferential, but we’re all trying to achieve the same goal. With bad hosts, the person’s status is the defining element of being in a room with them, because that’s clearly the lens through which they view life—they’re textbook narcissists. In that case, no matter how rude or unreasonable the host is, the TNO staff contorts itself to make sure they’re happy with every situation while also getting the show on air by Saturday at 11:30. That kind of host isn’t invited back. Even so, after their week, I feel dirty for having exerted a lot of energy to make them look good.
To be clear, you are 1000% not a noxious narcissist. But I can’t help starting to wonder why I’m trying so hard to entertain you (and to compliment you! and to assuage you!). Because you’re a celebrity? Who’s bored during the pandemic? And I’m lucky to get attention from you? Until a vaccine exists and you can go back to surfing in Costa Rica and singing to a stadium of 18,000 people?
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 8:58 PM
subject: Actually
Sally, I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you. I’m confused because it feels like things just went off the rails, but I don’t know why. When I said I never want you to stop emailing me, did that make you think I’m taking you for granted? I intended to express the opposite. It is such a true joy to be in touch with you and I was trying to tell you how grateful I am and how awesome I think you are. I’m not disputing that I may have done something wrong here, but I’m not sure what it was.
If someone were to ask me, “Are you a celebrity?” my answer would be “Yes, I’m a celebrity.” If the question was “Does America have a fucked up love-hate relationship with celebrities?” my answer to that is “Definitely, yes.” Fame is kinda something I chose…albeit without fully understanding what I was choosing…and kinda something that chose me. It has huge advantages and some disadvantages, but at this point it’s just a fact of my life. When you point out that I’m a celebrity, you’re not revealing something I’m trying to conceal. And it isn’t a part of my identity that can be separated from the other parts. It’s not something I have the option of leaving at home on some days, like an umbrella.
All of that said, I’m a person to exactly the same degree you’re a person. I’m not a mannequin who stands on a stage and plays the guitar. Maybe my feelings, hopes, and worries aren’t identical to yours, but I hope I don’t need to convince you that I have feelings, hopes, and worries. The biggest bummer about your last email is the implication that I’m using you. I thought our emailing was mutual…mutually fun…and in the last few days when I have told you how into it I am, I was trying to compliment you, not make you feel like you are obligated to amuse me. Aren’t we all just looking for someone to talk about everything with? Someone worth the effort of telling our stories and opinions to, whose stories and opinions we actually want to hear?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:15 PM
subject: Actually
1) You HAVE been in therapy, haven’t you? That’s an asshole’s way of saying I appreciate your very calm response to my half-crazy (75% crazy?) email that I have felt remorseful about ever since hitting Send. (Send is capitalized for a different reason from why Sentence 1 was capitalized in the first email I sent you—but maybe those will also be stories for another day?)
2) This is a weird question but do you remember when you were rehearsing the song Ambiguous at TNO and I sat near the stage and listened? And if you do remember, would you say you were serenading me?
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:21 PM
subject: Actually
I remember that perfectly. And I’m happy to answer your question but what do you mean by serenading?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:24 PM
subject: Actually
Were you trying to seduce me?
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:33 PM
subject: Actually
I’m nervous right now because it seems like there’s a right and wrong answer to your question, and I’m not sure which is which. So I’m just going to be honest because I’ve heard there’s no point in having a pandemic pen pal if you’re not honest.
I would say I was definitely trying to impress you and I was not trying to seduce you.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:58 PM
subject: Actually
