Mike Birbiglia - Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories

Copyright 2010 by Mike Birbiglia

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Designed by Nancy Singer

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Birbiglia, Mike.
Sleepwalk with me and other painfully true stories / Mike Birbiglia.
p. cm.
1. Birbiglia, Mike. 2. ComediansUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
PN2287.B45463A3 2010
792.7'6028092dc22 2010018393

ISBN 978-1-4391-5799-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-7565-1 (ebook)

To my parents, Vincent and Mary Jean.
If it werent for your support of my many delusions, I
would not have been able to write this book.
Also, dont read the chapters about yourselves.
Also, I love you.

Its January 20, 2005, and Ive just performed at a college in Walla Walla, Washington. Now Im staying at a hotel called La Quinta Inn. Some people correct me when I say that. Theyre like, No, its La Keeen-tah. Im like, Thats not fair. You cant force me to speak Spanish. I didnt press 2.

Im asleep, and I have a dream that theres a guided missile headed toward my room and there are all these military personnel in the room with me. And I jump out of bed and I say, Whats the plan? And the soldiers say, The missile coordinates are set specifically on you. And I say, That seems very bad.

Well, the only difference between this dream and any other is that I literally leapt out of my bed, because a few years before that I had started walking in my sleep.

SLEEPWALK
WITH
ME

Im sitting at a Starbucks in Manhattan. Starbucks is the last public space with chairs. Its a shower for homeless people. And its a place you can write all day. The baristas dont glare at you. They dont even look at you. Every once in a while they walk around with free samples of banana-chocolate something. No thanks. Just the two-dollar coffeecheapest rent in New York. Plus, they sell CDs and even Christmas gifts. If this place sold toilet paper, I probably wouldnt have to shop anywhere else.

Well, the reason Im writing is that I want to tell you some stories. And theyre true. I always have to point this out because whenever I tell stories, people ask me, Was that true?

And I say, Yeah.

And they say, Was it?

And I dont know how to respond to that. I guess I could say it louder. Yeah!

Its probably true. He said it louder.

Growing up, I was discouraged from telling personal stories. My dad often used the phrase Dont tell anyone. But not about creepy things. I dont want to lead you down the wrong path. It would be about insignificant things. Like I wouldnt make the soccer team and my father would say, Dont tell anyone. And I would say, Theyre gonna know when they show up to the games and Im not on the team and Im crying.

One time I built up the courage to ask him about this, which was tough because my dad is a very serious man. Hes a doctora neurologist. When hes home, he spends most of his time in this one armchair reading these thick war novels. My dad goes through war novels like I go through boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

So I built up the courage to ask, How come you play everything so close to the vest?

My dad said, The more people know about you, the more they can use it against you.

This sent shivers down my spine because it had that kind of open-ended fear to itlike that feeling you get when youre driving and you see a cop. And youre not speeding. You dont have drugs. But youre just thinking, I hope he doesnt notice Im driving.

Once in a while I told personal stories at the dinner table and my father would say, Hush! Ill give you an example. In grade school, I was a terrible reader. We used to do these things at school called Student Reading Assignments, and the teacher would post on the wall a list of how many everyone had donewhich is a great way to squash a childs self-esteem. I remember there was this girl in my class named Jamie Burson who finished 146 of these things before I finished 2. And I distinctly remember thinking, I might be retarded. And then I looked at the wall and thought, Oh yeah, I am.

So one night, I sat at the dinner table and said to my dad, I think I might be retarded. And he said, Hush! Which is one way to address a problemjust keep it under wraps.

Thats what my father would say whenever anyone told uncomfortable stories. So I developed this habit of telling uncomfortable stories.

So here goes...

The earliest memory I have of getting widespread attention was at age five when I was shitting in my backyard. I dont want to set a dirty tone for this book, but its precisely what I was doing. Shitting, that is. The logic at the time made perfect sense. Our dog Duffer shat in the yard. Duffer and I were friends. We were also treated with roughly the same amount of respect. I had the urge. So I just pulled down my pants on the periphery of the woods (which is where Duffer did it too!) and laid one down. About four seconds into it I hear Michael!

That was my mother.

Then I heard laughter. That was my brother Joe and our neighbor Leslie. The thing about shitting in the backyard is that word travels fast. Thats a quick, easy story to tell: Mike Birbiglia shat in his own backyard. Yes, like a dog.

JD Howarth lived across the street to our left. Mean, dangerous, and my brother Joes age (four and a half years older than me), JD had nicknames for everyone in the neighborhood. He called my sister Patti Pat Pat Patterson. He called my brother Joe Jew-sef (were Catholic). He called Gina First Class Weiner-Burger (not that similar to her name or persona, but catchy). He called our neighbor Amy Wall Small Wall (clever). He had a special name for me.

In addition to shitting in the backyard, I had peed on Mrs. Jarviss lawn on several occasions. Mrs. Jarvis lived across the street from us and she didnt want us anywhere near her house. As a matter of fact when we rode our bikes and big wheels on the sidewalk in front of her house, she came out and shouted at us, Get off my lawn! She must have had motion sensors on and around her lawn, because the moment you entered that space, Mrs. Jarvis was there.

When my mother came out and explained that we werent on her lawn, Mrs. Jarvis explained that she owned the sidewalk.