jerks

just a couple of jerks

new headshots

red dress

and banana top

Photo credit: Ari Scott

Ari Scott is a talented lady

Thanks for the hair flip pic!

from Limor

One shot

Can't stop won't stop (singing this song to myself)

my finest work

No, You Like All The Songs	UCBcomedy.com
Watch more comedy videos from the twisted minds of the UCB Theatre at UCBcomedy.com

Remy the Raindeer

When my family found out that there was new kid on the way, my mom and I went temporarily insane at the Babies 'R' Us in Richmond, Virginia. We bought just about everything that wasn't bolted down, including this - a monkey costume. I thought it would be a perfect Halloween costume for my soon-to-exist nephew since his pre-birth nickname was "Monkey Boy".

I don't remember how or why Remy got stuck with the nickname "Monkey Boy". Sue and Pascal got pretty annoyed with it after a while, but they refused to tell us his name, so we told them to suck it and went on calling him Monkey Boy (at least to each other) until the day he was born.

What I did not realize at the time was that Remy's monkey costume was actually a reindeer costume. I had been looking forward to him being dressed as a monkey for months and months! I can't believe I thought it was a monkey. The antlers should have been a dead give away. But in my defense, I wasn't really thinking straight. I did go temporary insane.

I think the reindeer costume worked out just fine. In fact, I like it better - "Remy the Reindeer" - good alliteration.

Funny story: I take 100% accidental credit for naming him Remy...

For Mothers Day this year, I sent Sue a pre-mother's day card that said...

"Yo Mom, Hey! It's me, Monkey Boy! I'm writing to you from the future like in that movie 'The Lake House' with Keanu Reeves! Anyway thanks for having me and I'll see you soon. Love, Monkey Boy. PS. The future is great."

I put the card in an envelope, and, without thinking about it, I picked a stamp from my Pixar-themed book of stamps. The stamp I chose? "Ratatoille". The name of the main character in "Ratatoille"? Remy! The name Remy was already on their short list, but they took this as confirmation.

So basically what I'm trying to say is there are no accidents. Monkey costumes, reindeer costumes, Keanu Reeves... Things that appear to be an accident actually spring from the deepest source of destiny. This happens all the time! What I'm trying to say is "The Lake House" was a pretty good movie. What I'm trying to say is I've never actually seen "The Lake House" but Sandra Bullock is in it and they just named a hurricane after her, so you know, think about that.

EDIT: from Sue: (Mom) returned the monkey costume, and then I told her that the costume was ok and she should send it, and then she bought the reindeer one by accident, and then I wrote this long and boring explanation.

Williamsburg Bridge

I can hardly believe this.

my forehead is bleeding?

this girl looks like she eats yogurt

Cheers

When I was six I fell out of the tree in my backyard. I wanted to impress the kids by swinging from the High branch. If you know anything about the climbing tree in my backyard, you'll know that swinging from the High branch was like kiiind of a big deal. Anyway, I fell and landed flat on my back and couldn't get up. I remember laying on the ground, looking up at the sky and thinking, very calmly and clearly, "Huh, interesting, so this is it, I guess, this is how I die."

The other kids ran and got my dad and he came and picked me up and carried me into the house. Later that day I woke up on the couch in the TV room. My dad was on his chair. Cheers was on TV. I laid on the couch and watched Cheers with him. I think about this every time I watch that show.

Cheers was great. 11 seasons and it never got bad.

My hipster nephew's first hoodie.

All he needs now is a beard, a PBR, and a masters in library science.

hilarious

This is his punchline face. We're still working on the deadpan Carroll stare. Pretty good for 2 months.

I WILL NOT REST

UNTIL I OWN ALL OF THE WIGS!

San Francisco

This is my mom. She does a great Christopher Columbus impression.

Showing Up

Last week I was asked to show up at a club. It was amazing and insane and wonderful, and honestly, I haven't fully processed it. This was last Thursday after the CH Offline Show which was great. I arrived with an entourage of, oh I don't know, 12 people? Luke, Limor, Damian, Jeremy, Ben, Maria, and some other people I can't remember, I think maybe there was someone named Amanda?

We were met at the front entrance and led to the sectioned-off VIP couches with plenty of booze and ice and mixers. Everything was so shiny and breathtaking and new and beautiful. Especially the people. It was a 20-something night and these gay men were so perfect-looking, I could have sworn I was just in a really loud wax museum.

At some point the pictures started. For every picture that has been posted on facebook, another 10 billion were snapped. Someone went through the process of printing out actual MK bucks. Another delightful lad came dressed as Ashlamp which totally blew me away. People were swooning. I was too.

I had bodyguards on hand. Not Luke, actual real-life bodyguards. Big, nice, black men in big, nice, black suits. They held my hand as they took me around the club. I liked that, it felt safe. They were such fast walkers, which is refreshing because it's literally beyond my understanding how there are people in the world who walk slow.

I went up on stage at some point. I'm not sure when, 2 am maybe? I was introduced by the host who was dressed up as Ashley. She used the words "Youtube sensation..." which makes me giggle. Luke and I did an improvised bit which went over well. I made a comment about how there were so many beautiful men there tonight with such perfectly sculpted eye brows and it made the room laugh. Then Luke turned to me and said, "Do you want to do the crowd surfing thing?", and in that moment, I remembered we discussed the possibility of crowd surfing if the place was packed enough and the stage was high enough. Turns out it was. So I put the microphone on the ground and threw myself into the crowd. I remember thinking, "Well, this isn't a normal Thursday..." The crowd surfing seemed to last forever, but then eventually my wig came off and I held on to it for dear life. I remember thinking, "The depressed Elaine of 2009 would have been mortified by this..." But honestly that version of Elaine would not have even shown up. However, this version of Elaine, the slightly more evolved Elaine of 2012, the one who is starting to believe that it's okay when your wig comes off and it's actually kind of great when you show your vulnerability because it means you're human, yeah, that version? She had a great time.

I put my wig back on and danced with my friends until we were all thoroughly exhausted. Then somebody put me in a cab and I went back to Brooklyn and my chariot turned back into a pumpkin right around the Williamsburg Bridge.

I learned three important things that night: 1. that I know all the words to all of Katy Perry's songs without having actively listened to them, 2. that I'm good at identifying when someone waxes their eyebrows vs. tweezing, and 3. that the perimeters of my comfort zone are actually a lot wider than I thought.

Speaking of comfort zones, someone a lot smarter than me once said that everything we're seeking - wisdom, understanding, love, acceptance, a t-shirt that says "I belong!" in comic sans - is right outside your comfort zone. So I'm glad I went to the club. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Some days I'm treated like royalty and some days I'm not. The next day I woke up late and ate soup and wore zero make-up except for what was caked on from the night before, and I went about my day, sweaty yoga clothes and all, without anybody recognizing me and it felt strange... like I had a weird, elaborate dream that I couldn't shake. Part of me wondered if it was a dream. Then I signed on to FB and saw all those pictures and, sure enough, the damn thing was real.

The way to induce psychosis in rats is to behave inconsistently with them. I hope the inconsistencies of my day to day don't drive me too crazy. Mostly, I just go around in my sweaty yoga clothes and read my books on the subway and get shit on by pigeons and look like a glorified homeless person, and all I can do is work. And keep working. And keep writing. And try my best to be as sane as possible in all situations. And show up for things when things arise.

Remy

This is my nephew Remy. He's handsome, smart, funny, and 3 days old. He has his mother's last name because he was born into a family of hippy-dippy-San-Francisco-tofurky-eating feminists. This poor kid probably won't eat a hamburger until he's 18.

For Andy

My Left Foot

Well the FIRST time I sprained my ankle, I was playing freeze tag on the side of a hill at St. Mary's. Even though it hurt a whole lot, I didn't stop playing because why on earth would anyone ever want to stop playing freeze tag?

This picture was taken 2 years ago after I had surgery to fix my broken ankle. I'm all better now, thanks :)

Hello I'm Elaine Schmarroll and everything is always more or less fine.

Truth

I love these words so much.

I can't stop looking.

Dig if you will this picture...

Here's my whole thing.

This is my problem with humanity at large. As a species...

1. We are too demanding.
2. We are too bold.
3. We are never, ever, in the least bit satisfied.

We become our mothers, we become our fathers, we scream at each other and we don't know why. Animals sense it, they feel the heat, and frankly it upsets the doves.

Don't cry. Just accept that this is true and if that's not enough, I don't know, write a song about it?

Hello!

I haven't blogged here in a while. Why, hello again, this blog.

You know what I think happened: I started tweeting and that deflated my blogging momentum. I like twitter, but I miss the long, rambling, meandering garbage that can be born out of this nonsense. I probably have a badly curated web presence. Ah well. The prodigal daughter returns, dirty laundry in hand.

The short update is this: I'm in New York and everything is more or less fine. If you would like to read on, you are most welcome to, but I'm going to talk about the Higgs Boson because I am a nerdy uncool human person. Consider yourself warned.

I would like to talk about the Higgs Boson not because I know anything about it or because I want to pretend to know anything about it, but science gives me a boner and blogs are best when they're self-indulgent so here I fucking go.

The Higgs (yeah I'm on a first-name basis with this Boson, no big) was front page news. Any time something science-y makes the front page, you know that's big time stuff, like when they found a new number between 23 and 24.

From my understanding, the Higgs Boson is the final puzzle piece on the periodic table of physics, and while I know next to nothing about what that means, when I listen to the experts talk about it, it gives me that same sensation of warmth and delight that I felt as a kid listening to the grown-ups talk. I didn't understand the details, but I liked their voices and their tones. It made me feel safe. The Higgs Boson makes me feel safe, like the human race has successfully crawled two more inches closer to the fountain of Infinite Clarity and Understanding.

We're still a long way off. And it may very well be a mirage. Nonetheless, it's still neat. My whole point is that I just blogged something.

Oh shit my dad discovered technology...

And it's making him funnier than the rest of us.

last but not least

This person is as close to me, biological speaking, as anyone can get. Today I said the words I love you in an email and for whatever reason it took a silly amount of courage so now I'm putting these facts on my blog in an effort to be less of a pussy about this sorta thing.

forgot to post this a few weeks ago

My dad insisted on making his own birthday cake this year because in his old age he is regressing into Julia Childs. Anyway, he nailed it. That cake was dynamite. Here he is, posing with his finest work.

Laurias and Melichareks

My history-digging sister found our grandma and grandpa on the 1940 census!

Turns out, they lived next door to each other. Also, look at that handwriting. I mean, wow. Humans actually used to write words by hand on paper!

I think this was made for me.

This is my new favorite

Things to know:
- That is my actual real life bed in my actual real life bedroom where I actually sleep in real life.
- I couldn't keep a straight face during the twitter line. Nope. Not to save my life.
- Luke Sholl is as kind and wonderful as he appears.
- Everybody who works on VMK is kind and wonderful.
- We originally shot this episode about a year ago in LA, but I wasn't happy with how it came out, so this was a reshoot.
- After shooting this, we all went to a bar and got drinks. It was fun.
- I'm allergic to trout.
- Jupiter has 64 moons or something stupid like that.
- I've never seen Raging Bull.
- The picture leaning against the wall was taken by my friend Noah.
- I love coffee and I drink it often.

Thank you for drawing this Julianna

This made me laugh.

The internet loves Neil deGrasse Tyson and you know what? So do I.

Tyson 2012. Let's get that trending on twitter, ya'll. Hiya.

hey baby, nice hoodie

I look confused.

hey mom

Let me borrow that DRESS!

hey family

What year is this? 84? 83? Whose house is that? Why don't I know these things! Why am I shouting? Somebody give me my pacifier.

hey baby, cool vest

I am probably pooping.

My So-Called Website

Hello.

Tell me. What's worse? Not having a website at all OR having a website where none of the links work?

The person who was working on the problem has bailed. I've been left to my own devices. So far I've discovered that completely ignoring the problem has done nothing to fix the problem. Neither has stewing in my own shame and embarrassment over it. At least not so far!

Having a malfunctioning website would be fine if I didn't care, but I do care. Because for every day that my website goes unfixed, I feel as if I am one step closer to becoming a homeless person. And the homeless people in Los Angeles are a different breed. I'm not sure I'm cut out for it.

Los Angeles has been full of tacos and sunshine and hikes and auditions. This picture is from a shoot earlier this week. I wear wigs for a living. It's silly.