Until four months ago, I knew that I wanted to work for a fashion magazine, or at least that’s what I thought I wanted to do until four months ago. That was when I received an email from Chelsea Handler’s publicist about the column I had written about her.
What happened next is still unfathomable to me to this very day. I was told Ms. Handler had read my column and liked it. The thought of having the woman whose work I had read my entire life reading my work brought tears to my eyes.
Her assistant told me I could expect something in the mail at my home in New Hampshire as well as two tickets to her show “Uganda Be Kidding Me.” Surely enough, a hand written note arrived at my house signed “XO Chelsea.” In today’s fast-paced world, I found it odd that my hero would take the time out of her busy day to thank some small town girl going to school in Alabama. However, there was the note, sitting on my old dining room table.
All of a sudden things became very clear and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a writer for “Chelsea Lately,” the show I had watched every night since I was 13 years old. I wanted to go to a place where I could go into work every day and laugh and work with the funniest people in show business. There was no question I was going to make it there one day, all I had to do was figure out the “how?” part.
Recently Chelsea’s manager Irving Azoff told “The Hollywood Reporter” that “Chelsea intends to leave when her contract expires. She hired me to figure out her life after E! We have at least seven suitors and many ideas.” I had finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life, and in one fell swoop it all came crumbling down. There is talk that she may go to radio and that there might be deal with Netflix in the works, but either way my heart is broken.
But do not cry for me, because I am the girl with no future or plan ahead of her. There is still a road trip I plan to take with my sister, the very person whose “My Horizontal Life” book I had stolen so many years ago. We are headed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to watch her perform at Caesar’s Palace. While Atlantic City may seem an odd place for me to pick to some of you, it was my first choice for a reason. Chelsea Handler is from New Jersey and I thought, “What could be a better place to be than her home state?”
Even though she may be leaving “Chelsea Lately” in seven months, I’m not worried. There is a look Chelsea gives in her live performance where she deadpans towards the audience after she’s said something that’s almost funnier than the joke itself. You see, she knows that if you wait long enough, another laugh will come.
My future may not be clear at the moment, but I know everything will be okay. Who knows, I may end up working for Chelsea Handler one day. I could end up writing my own book, or hosting my own show, or maybe not end up doing anything worthwhile at all. What I do know is that it will all be OK, because if Chelsea has taught me anything, it’s that another laugh will always come. You just have to wait for it.
