Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

The Pregnancy Diary: Pee On A Stick

On Sunday January 20th 2008, it was official. After an impromptu pregnancy-stick-buying journey to Walgreens on 9th and Market, I found out in front of the submission board panel of The San Francisco Improv Festival that I was pregnant.

There is really no way to keep this information secret. I was surrounded that Sunday by some of the biggest mouths in The San Francisco Improv and Comedy Community. The last thing I needed to hear at some point later that week was someone sending me an email going Why didn't you tell me?!

Hey doll. At least let me tell my family before I get to you.

I already knew I might be pregnant. The menstrual symptoms without the annoying bleeding. The sweating. The hairlip. No cycle. Either I'm pregnant, or I have hit menopause.

I thought to myself: If I'm 42 and going through menopause and missed the whole baby process? HEADS WILL INDEED ROLL. I'm taking people out. Husband first. Then nameless people walking up the street screaming at their children for no reason, followed by the happy smiling couples not screaming at children, who have taught their children to appreciate opera before they were born.

Heads? They will roll. There will be a trail of parent parts.

The night before the news gets out at the Submission Panel, I get picked up by a man from Storytellers Unplugged for our Saturday Night Show at Eth-Noh-Tec in the Mission. I inform him I might be pregnant.

Him: (wryly.) So, who is the father?
Me: (dryly) I will tell Hans that it is you so he can kill you.

You bring the wacky joke. I bring Hans the butcher knife. It's the Chicago way.

He asks when I will know. I tell him I hopefully before the submission panel for SFIF the following morning, which he'll be at my house bright and early.

The next morning Hans and I awake at 8:00. There is no time to run to Walgreens to "Pee on a Stick." We had officially dubbed this process "Pee On a Stick" as we set up the Brunch for our panel.

Being a Submission Panel Member for The San Francisco Improv Festival was a completely thankless job: You got credit on our submission panel page in our programs. We fed you and got you free shows and drinking during the festival. In turn, you had to watch improv comedy submissions from around the country on DVD's, through Youtube Links, and on that one lone old media videotape.

Thankless and not fun. If anyone has ever sat through a four hour audition session behind the table? I think there would be a lot of bobbing heads in agreement. If you have ever had to sit and watch hours of anything on mostly blurry video, with bad sound quality? You bet. A thankless job.

The Man From Storytellers Unplugged arrives at the house around 9:30am. Our festival co-producer Clay Robeson has already arrived with Krispy Kremes and I have already set out the Mimosas (if we have to watch hours of blurry improv on tape? We are going to do this with appropriate liquor to fit the time of day).

Man From Storytellers Unplugged: So, are you pregnant?
Me: Don't know yet. I have not gotten the Pee on the Stick Thing.

(Pause)

MFSU: (excited) Go get it. Get it NOW!

This panel for SFIF submissions has turned into something else. Everyone now wants me to pee on a stick.

So Clay Robeson (Co-Producer of SFIF) and I head outside, running into other panel member Paul Killam (BATS Improv).

Paul: Hey. Where are you heading off to?
Me: The store to get a stick to pee on...I think I'm pregnant.
Paul: Cool!

We get to Walgreens. I buy the special 2 for 1 Pee on A Stick Kit.

I really wish it was called "Pee on a Stick Kit." It's a great name for a pregnancy product.

We get back to the house and all the panel members are there. Everyone is buzzing around the house. To them, finding out if I'm pregnant is more interesting than any iO West or UCB Improv house team being funny on video could ever be.

I don't feel like I have to pee. I can't have the Mimosa I had poured for myself beforehand, so I swig water and head into the bathroom.

I Pee on a Stick and put the cap back on.

It takes less than three seconds for that little stick to scream YOU ARE PREGANT MS. LANDRY. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE ANYONE OUT AS YOU ARE NOT GOING THROUGH MENAPAUSE. YOU STILL GOT IT! NOW WAX THAT HAIRLIP!

I call the only non-improviser panel member Linda into the bathroom (Who is a great panel person: Someone who represents the audience, as she really never wishes to do improv comedy at all and keeps the rest of us jaded comedians in check) to make sure I have done this right. She concurs.

I then call in my husband Hans.

Me: I'm pregnant again.
Him: Are you happy?
Me: Yes. You?
Him: This will be FUN!

And that is my husband in a nutshell. It was not as though we were facing nine months of very careful planning. It was not as though I had previously miscarried at three months, only to find myself at Kaiser with my legs up watching myself for the first time on national television improvising as a Fake Bride on TLC's Perfect Proposal, sobbing and saying This is the strangest miscarriage documented in the Annals of Miscarrying Times.

To Hans, it was going to be fun. And I believed him. This is why I love him.

For me...it was going to be tough. I wanted to be extra careful at age forty two, as I have always treated my body like a Temple.

The Temple of DOOM.

The five dollar smokes? I set outside and let the rain destroy. The collection of wines? I let others enjoy for a while. The prenatal vitamins from Urban Market? I got the ones with 100% more folic acid than normal. And in less than a twenty-four hour span, I became close and personal friends with the bathroom facilities.

I cancelled auditions. I rescheduled events. I still did the BOA festival that year, as my role in all of it only required my character to sit down and do a crossword puzzle at a coffee table.

I would be good and pregnant by the time I say the words "Welcome to the fifth year of the San Francisco Improv Festival!" at the Purple Onion, I thought to myself.

I spent ten minutes explaining to a very excited company member of Oui Be Negroes why it might be a little bit more difficult to tour that year:

Me: Baby, you see there are three members of Negroes. And right now 33% of the cast is pregnant and another 33% is the father.

My wonderful childlike husband proclaimed as I stood in the bathroom door that it was going to be "Fun."

And I believed him.

I heard the rumbling in the kitchen from the other men. Well?

I walked into my kitchen and looked at my mimosa and said, Somebody better drink that glass. Because I can't. Everyone cheered and hugged both myself and Hans.

I was four weeks pregnant. Let the fun begin.

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