فصل 37

37

A Note from Your Friend Old Lady Jackson

Old Lady Jackson is a character I made up when I started catching myself giving advice—initially to Mae and Miles on the Parenthood set—that sounded like it came from your gray-haired grandma who spends her days in a rocking chair knitting you scratchy socks you pretend to love at Christmas. By creating this character, who was obviously very, very, very far away from myself, I hoped to confuse Mae and Miles, among others, into thinking that while I might sometimes seem to offer suggestions that could be considered a tad “old-timey,” they weren’t actually coming from me; they were really coming from this weird, remote other persona, and I was actually still very hip and relevant and wore my L. L. Bean duck boots ironically, and of course I knew who Tegan and Sara were (but only because Miles made me a CD).

When I started feeling older than my co-stars and other younger friends—some of whom were in their teens and early twenties—it was not in the normal ways I would’ve expected, like getting up from a chair and exclaiming “Oy, my hip!” For me, it started when my mention of Happy Days was met with a blank stare, and I couldn’t convince anyone that the AOL pager had ever been a “thing.” Because I live in Hollywood and am contractually bound never to age, instead of shouting “Your generation doesn’t understand anything!” and stalking off to use the landline to call my answering service, I’d just roll my eyes and say, “I don’t mean to sound like Old Lady Jackson here, but do you really want to post that picture of yourself in your underwear on Instagram?” As if to say, Of course it’s fine with me if you do that, because personal boundaries are so late 1990s, but someone way less cool, who doesn’t use Postmates to get their groceries delivered, might think it’s just a wee bit of an overshare.

Old Lady Jackson isn’t judgmental; she’s just worried about you, and wonders about things like your nose ring (doesn’t that hurt? And how can you possibly keep it clean?) and that sixth tattoo you got (isn’t five enough?). But not me—no sirree, I’m proud of you for expressing yourself!

One morning in the Gilmore Girls makeup trailer (during the first series) I was prattling on to Alexis about the possibility of getting a tattoo and the exciting potential of designing it myself, because, I explained, that’s where the real fun was, the real artistry. I could just picture my new tattooed life: I’d be out at some cool club or bar (assuming that along with my new tattoo I had also started going to cool clubs and bars for the first time ever), and some hot dude in a biker jacket would catch my eye and appreciatively check me out, and what better conversation opener, what more sure path to lifelong happiness and true bliss, than “Cool tat. Did you design that yourself?”

After I went on and on about my fantasy post-tattoo life for a while, Alexis smiled and gently said, “So, what would you get? A shamrock?”

Um, no. I mean, what? NO. A sham—? Please, that’s just SILLY! Why would you think I’d get something as predictable as a sham—OH DEAR HOW EMBARRASSING YOU’RE RIGHT. I’M A CLICHE OF A SOMEWHAT IRISH PERSON. But hey, it’s not like I was going to put it on my ankle, so at least there’s—OH FINE OKAY YES THAT’S EXACTLY WHERE I WAS GOING TO PUT IT.

After my embarrassment faded, I realized I didn’t want a tattoo anymore. Why? Because through her (more mature) eyes I suddenly saw the inherent futility of it. All at once, it was like I’d done it already, experienced a brief thrill, lived with it for a couple of years, and eventually woke up one day and felt like, huh, what a weird thing that was for me to do.

Sometimes the idea of doing something is the most fun part, and after you go through with it, you feel deflated because you realize you’re back to looking for the next thrill. Often, waiting reveals the truth about something, and not responding to your every impulse can save you the heartache of waking up in the morning with a sense of regret after having impulsively texted that guy at 2:00 a.m. because you just had to tell him about the funny skit you just watched on SNL, and it’s not like you want to date him or anything, and you’d only had one glass of wine, or was it two? But in any case he was probably up anyway! Don’t press send, Old Lady Jackson is fond of counseling. Just wait a beat.