Now THIS is freakin' creepy

It hasn't always been easy being named Jill. Of course, when you're a little kid, you get all the Jack and Jill jokes, which of course escalate once the kids start getting an inkling about sex. And since you yourself still think sex is icky, instead of taking it as a compliment that you're really hot (even if you are a slut), you're just embarrassed.

Then there's the issue of it being a little girly name. I remember being in my teens and wondering what would happen when I got old and had this ridiculous little-girl name. I suspect all the Brandys and Brandis and Heathers and Jennifers and Tiffanys and others who have these preposterously feminine names will have the same problem. Whereas the Gladyses and the Margarets and the few Gertrudes still around will have the world kicked in the ass.

So it hasn't always been easy having this name. Oh, it's not as bad as the person I used to know whose last name was Fox and who named her kid Lacey, or the former San Diego Padres pitcher Randy Ready who named his kid Justin Casey. But still -- at times it's been weird.

Well, it just got weirder, because I have now found out, after playing Marc Maron's new comedy CD, Tickets Still Available, recorded at Seattle's Giggles Comedy Club in December 2004, that I am Marc Maron's inner girl.

If you saw Marc Maron on Conan O'Brien a couple of weeks ago, you know that he believes that inside every straight guy is a little gay man saying "Hello!", and that the straight guy should greet him, have sex with him once, then tell him you'll meet him once a year in the mountains of the Wyoming of your mind, but meanwhile you've got to go do this thing with the wife.

Well, it seems that the Wyoming of Marc Maron's mind has a girl living there too, and in some ways she bears an alarming resemblance to me:

I believe that all men have an inner girl, you know? You just don't want her to come out at the wrong time. I know I have an inner girl. I know she's a bitch...I'm starting to think she has an eating disorder....and her name is Jill. And there's no shame in that. I have no shame about Jill. The only weird thing about Jill is, and it's really not her fault, is that every once in a while the guy who's in my head saying, "You suck, Jew, I'm gonna kick your ass", says, "And I'm gonna fuck Jill." And all I can do is sit there and watch uncomfortably. I mean, what do you do when your inner biker is fucking your inner girl? Do you masturbate? Do you wait it out? I dunno, you know, I feel helpless.

Well, I don't mind sharing mindspace with that little gay man; after all, we can go to movies and then dish about them afterwards over coffee, or we can deconstruct last night's episode of Survivor, and we're pretty much in synch politically. So that wouldn't be so bad. But as a happily married woman, the idea of having to fuck the biker that occupies that mindspace is not exactly an appealing prospect. And I don't think Mr. Brilliant would appreciate it.

So if Marc Maron is reading this, might I ask that you look inside yourself and see if, just maybe, your inner girl is named, oh, I don't know, maybe Paris or Britney, or if the eating disorder is a big deal, how about Mary-Kate?

Because sometimes it's tough enough living inside MY head, let alone yours.

(Note: I kid, of course. Maron's inner girl may have my name, but she isn't me, nor is she based on me. I have met Marc Maron exactly once, at City Bakery in June 2005 -- six months after this CD was recorded. It's just a little disconcerting to find that you're a walking comedy bit. I guess all Jews ARE alike after all.)