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Come to think of it, maybe I got off lucky, because he's been scared of anything
glittery ever since. It's really very sad. He lives a glitter-free half life. He can't ever
go to Mardi Gras. Children don't want to do arts and crafts with him. He can't even
look at a pinata. But hey! This isn't a chapter about my brother's grandma-induced
neuroses, it's about my beautiful home.
So, let me throw open these French doors and lead you into my living room. To the
left, the length of the wall is covered with that nature-scenery wallpaper like they
used to have at the dentist's office when I was a kid. This particular scene is a lake
in autumn; beautiful fiery reds and oranges, with the calm of the dark blue lake in
the background. It's gorgeous and scuff-resistant.
That sets the perfect tone for my sunken conversation pit, the centerpiece of the
room. These were very popular back in the seventies, when people were really
interested in talking. I find now they're just as useful for drinking and waiting for
dinner to be served. All the furniture in the pit is brown and the carpeting is a dark
apricot. I wanted the overall effect to be pit-like, but most people don't get it. A lot
of people assume I'm colorblind.
To the right, I have a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over my
professional Ping-Pong court. Comedy is my life, but Ping-Pong is my passion. It's
great to sit in here in the summer and watch a match. If you're in the pit, you're
watching at about knee level but that's when you realize the game of Ping-Pong is
all in the knees. It's awe-inspiring.
Let's plow ahead and go into this back hallway. The kitchen is on our left, but
there's nothing too exciting in there to show you, unless you love sponges. I had
everything in my kitchen made of sponge. That way, the spill cleans itself up and
no one ever cuts their finger. But it's not that interesting, just very bouncy to walk
around in.
Now, this back hallway stretches one hundred yards in both directions. This not
only helps reduce sound when I'm having late-night parties and babysitting, but I
can also do my wind sprints without having to go outside. These are the things you
dream of when you're house hunting, but you don't think you'll ever actually find.
At the end of each hallway are matching guest bedrooms that have been decorated
to be the mirror images of each other. I loved this idea when I thought of it, until I
realized I had to look at one room, walk two hundred yards, look at the other
room, and then think about how they were the same but opposite. It's not as
"freaky" as I wanted it to be. It kind of just seems like a hotel.
This first guest bathroom here to our right has its own shower, sauna, and karaoke
machine. I know it sounds extravagant, but it was here when I moved in. I think
it's the perfect combination: You can take a sauna to warm up your vocal cords
and free your throat of any phlegm, then hop into the shower and crank up the
karaoke machine for some of the best shower singing you've ever done in your life.
It's the kind of setup I never knew I needed before, and now I can't live without it.
In fact, a lot of the really fancy stuff here, like the second-floor Olympic-size
swimming pool and the tanning bed breakfast nook, came with the house. The
man who had this house built was the guy who invented "doing lunch." Apparently,
he made a mint off of that idea, so when he was designing his new dream home,
the sky was the limit. He lived here for two years and then got an idea for a
dreamier dream home. That happens all the time here in Hollywood. Dreams are a
dime a dozen and so are the homes that are built because of them.
So that's the whole tour! I mean, I could show you the grounds but I don't want to
get my slippers all grimy. Besides, the gardeners haven't trimmed the topiaries in
a while, so the hedge that's supposed to look like a dolphin looks like a dolphin
with a beard and pants.
Here, I'll just have you picture a beautiful garden, whatever a "beautiful garden"
means to you and then spray some Glade. That's just what my backyard is like!
In fact, that's what everyone's backyard is like in Hollywood.
Thank you for coming into my humble home, reader. I hope it was all you
imagined it would be, and more! Now, if I could just ask you to let yourself out
that screen door right past the stained-glass window depicting me performing live
onstage, it would be such a help.
Toodle-loo!
things to be grateful for
I'd read somewhere that it's good to keep a gratitude journal. We forget how many
great things there are in our lives and when you start jotting them down and really
get introspective about even the littlest of things, it's amazing how all the terrible
things in life don't seem as bad.
Gratitude can surprise you. Once you start seeing things in a positive way, you can
make almost anything seem like a gift.
At first it's difficult to get to the things that matter. My journal started off like this:
I'm grateful for air I need it to breathe.
I'm grateful for food I need it to live.
I'm grateful for water it's what my body is 80% of.
Then, after listing five pages of life-sustaining needs, I became angry with my
journal (as you probably already are) and decided I needed to dig a little deeper.
Animals don't talk. At first I thought, Oh, that's a shame, poor things can't
communicate to us. But then I thought, If some people are annoying, think about
how bad it would be to come home from work and listen to your dog or cat tell you
what it did all day long.
First, your pet would berate you for not paying enough attention to it.
"Well, it's about time! It seems like you've been gone forever. I have no concept of
time and I'm aging faster than you, you'd think you'd want to spend as much time
with me as you could. Why'd you even get me? To pet once in a while? Oh! Thank
you, master. Look, I'm bored. I have this one flea that is driving me nuts. I give
and give and give. I'm your best friend, I love you unconditionally, and what do
you do for me? Oh, you feed me. That same boring dry food every day. I see what
you eat. You think I'm stupid? I know there's variety in your meals, but I, for some
reason, don't deserve anything but this monotony."
Then the animal would go into a longwinded, boring monologue about the day.
"Okay, this morning there is this bird outside chirping and chirping and chirping
and so I start barking, right? And the bitch woman next door screams, "Shut up"
to me. She doesn't tell the stupid bird to shut up, just me. So I barked a few more
times just to piss her off. I mean, she can't tell me what to do, you know what I'm
saying? I hate her. Then, I heard something a few blocks away, so I started
barking again and guess what? Yep, she started yelling at me again. It's not like
she doesn't make noise of her own. She's got the TV on all day long, all the talk
shows & and she thinks I'm loud? Those people on TV yell at each other constantly
and when they do the audience applauds and cheers? Give me a break. I'm
supposed to just lie around and make no noise? Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm just
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