Gawky
Authors: Margot Leitman
GAWKY
Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase
Copyright © 2013 Margot Leitman
Published by
Seal Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
1700 Fourth Street
Berkeley, California
www.sealpress.com
www.margotleitman.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leitman, Margot,
Gawky: tales of an extra long awkward phase / by Margot Leitman.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-58005-479-9
1. Leitman, Margot. 2. ComediansâUnited StatesâBiography. 3. Tall peopleâHumor. I. Title.
PN2287.L358A3 2013
792.702'8092âdc23
[B]
2012041687
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover and interior design by Domini Dragoone
Distributed by Publishers Group West
For Dan
Thanks for loving me
Chapter 2: A Very Tiny Grown-up
Chapter 4: Big Plans to Do Good
Chapter 5: Sticking Your Neck Out
Chapter 7: Not Exactly a Horse Girl
Chapter 8: Sneaking Off to Church
Chapter 10: A Dangerous Camper
Chapter 12: Lesbian Shoes and Baby Teeth
Chapter 13: Subsidary Acid Tripper
Chapter 15: He Looked Like a Man
Chapter 16: My Little Ben Franklin
Chapter 17: Less of a Nerd Than I Thought
Hi, and thanks for buying/borrowing/downloading my book. Seriously. I appreciate it. Now, the stories you are about to read in this book are mostly true comedic portrayals of my youth to the best of my memory. They are written for entertainment purposes and with the kindest of intentions. I've tried to keep things as accurate as possible
as I remember them
. I must point out that I have indulged in a few too many dirty martinis as an adult, which may have affected the way I remember things. Maybe I went to school with you and you remember something differently. That's fine by me. However, most likely if I went to school with you, you won't remember any of this stuff anyway because you've moved on with your life and are not concerned in the least with my petty tales of growing up too tall.
While I have condensed or rearranged some time-lines for clarity, and created a few composite characters so the reader's head doesn't explode keeping track of all the faces from my youth, I've done my absolute best to
keep things real. I've changed names and identifying characteristics of almost everyone in these tales. (Unless, of course, the person asked for his or her real name to be used because they, like me, seek attention wherever they can get it. I understand.) So if you're reading this book and you think a character is actually you, congrats! You really made an impression! (Or not, maybe it isn't you. What, do you think the world revolves around you? Come on!)
Lastly, I wasn't one of those spazzy kids walking around with a recording device at all times (though I did keep extensive cat journals detailing the hardships of being a tall teen in the hopes that I'd one day be discovered for the genius diarist I was). Some dialogue is simulated as to what was
probably
said in the moment. Also, I'm a comedian. So although these stories are true and this all happened, I have gone for the laugh here and there. Forgive me. It's my job . . . really, it is. When I fill out forms at the doctor's office, under “Occupation” I put “Comedian,” so you know I mean business. My hope is that you will laugh at my horrendous teen years and feel better about yours. Okay, I think that's it. Enjoy the book. I loved writing it a lot more than I loved going through all these changes. And I hope after you read this, whatever rough memories you have of adolescence will be a little funnier in hindsight.
I
had a regrettable physical condition when I was a child. It was not a debilitating illness or missing limb or anything particularly life threatening, but it was life affecting, sure. I was tall. And I mean, really tall: five foot six midway through fourth grade. Picture a giant, gawky child, a kid in every sense of the word, inhabiting an adult's body, but unlike in the movie
Big
, I couldn't blend in to save my life. There are some tall girls who glide through rooms with elegance, every article of clothing hanging just so on their perfectly proportioned bodies. These are the girls who have thin wrists with dainty bracelets, perfect posture, and a stylish selection of scarves. Then there are the athletic tall girls, the ones whose big feet seem to accent their toned and tan legs. These are the tall girls who look hot while running cross-country and whose naturally pin-straight hair always looks impeccable even after a three-hour volleyball match.
Then, there are the rest of us. Olive Oyl, Mackenzie Phillips, and “Big” Ethel Muggs (Jughead's tall and ugly stalker from the
Archie
comic books) all fall into this category. And me. We're the tall girls who are always tripping over our own feet, who never look normal in any size clothing, and who are constantly screaming “Wo-oah!” as we grab the tablecloth in a desperate attempt to break our fall and take the entire dining room table down with us. Chances are you know one of us, or are one of us, or sympathize with us. We're a delightful bunch, and have all had our fair share of teasing.
And now, on top of being gigantic in the height category (I eventually capped at five-foot-ten after a half inch more growth
after
I started college), I am about to have a baby. Because weight-gain-wise I haven't turned completely into a sweaty hippopotamus, I wishfully and unrealistically assumed that meant the baby was going to be a dainty little six or seven-pounder wearing tiny, clean, white newborn onesies and gliding out into the world in a virtually painless forty-five-minute labor. That was until I went to the doctor the other day. The second the sonogram began, he exclaimed in his former-beach-bum California accent, “Woah . . . this baby's got a huge head!” Before I could declare my concern that something was wrong, he guided the machine down my belly farther and continued, “Which is directly in proportion to its
huuuge
body! This is gonna be a big one.”
Of course it's gonna be a “big one.” How could I have possibly thought, even for just one day, that anything associated with me could be petite? I was in the seven-pound range when I was born, making me “average.” This was the first and last time my size was average. Average is all I have ever wanted to be. By the time I was eighteen months old I was in the ninetieth percentile for height. By age two I was in the ninety-ninth percentile . . . and I stayed there for the next sixteen years.
Look, I'm well aware that there are much worse physical attributes than being tall. And if you're good at volleyball or basketball, or pretty enough to model, then being a tall girl at a young age is actually an asset! But if you're like me, uncoordinated and incapable of taking a
decent photo, let alone looking anything but gawky while walking, then being tall is just a waste. It's a gift left unopened on Christmas morning, sitting there collecting dust, only to be shoved in a closet and opened years later by an unappreciative adult who just doesn't get what is so cool about a hot-pink Tamagotchi.
I compiled this larger story of how I came to grips with my size and all the bumps along the way mostly onstage. A few years ago, my hilarious, accomplished, and articulate friend Jim O'Grady emailed me a few hours before we were both on a storytelling show together. He wrote, “I'm switching to stories about growing up sensitive and artistic in the suburbs of New Jersey. Because
that's
never been done before.” He was right. I was telling the same story in different ways over and over again. I couldn't believe how many separate stories I had about being this gawky teenage girl. But when I compiled them together, it made sense as to how I ended up here. Here: about to give birth to a giant baby, albeit now in Los Angeles instead of the Garden State.
To avoid becoming the size of a full-fledged hippopotamus, I've been doing a lot of walking (insert your very own “who walks in L.A.?” joke here). With too-small feet (only a size 8½) to hold up my too-tall body, and now a pregnant belly, I have wiped out publicly countless times. In fact, I wipe out
only
when I'm in public. The worst is when I get up, exaggeratedly going through all the motions of finding out just what it was that offset my balance. Was it a crack in the sidewalk? A large rock? A fallen branch from a nearby palm tree? No . . . it was
nothing
. It's always nothing at all that has made me fall, splattered on the sidewalk with shopkeepers and local customers all gazing out store windows to make sure I haven't killed my unborn child with my sheer lack of basic balance. The worst that has happened is permanent scarring on my knees from falling in exactly the same way repeatedly. And by the way, I thought I was supposed to get boobs out of this. Isn't that the exchange? You carry a child for over nine months, feel like crap, gain a bunch of
weight, but have huge knockers? Why am I still packing a rack the size of Shelley Duvall's? Pregnancy is starting to feel a lot like middle school . . . always waiting for boobs.
I'm hoping that if this baby is a boy, he will be thought of as strong and mighty and will be picked first in gym class and will be fought over by admiring girls who want to be his prom date. But if it's a girl, I fear that she too will have an “extra-long awkward phase” and be forced to be funny to overcompensate for her garish size. We shall soon see.