Me and Slippy Jenkins (January 2007)
Honestly? For honests? I get a little emosh when I think about Jim Kleckner aka Slippy Jenkins. Here’s why: Anyone who’s being real with themselves will tell you that LA is a very hard city to form meaningful relationships in. It just is. I have theories as to why, but none of them are as bold or bright as the fact that it’s just fucking hard to make friends in this town.
I met Slippy at my first job in LA. I actually got a job via CraigsList serving as the assistant to the CEO of the company that Slippy writes for. Between dealing with panic attacks and anxiety for the first time in my life, figuring out what it meant to be a post-grad adult on my own 3000 miles away from my fam and my general inability to do exactly what someone tells me to do, I sucked major fucking dick at that job. Not literal dick, but figurative dick? Like, I ATE figurative dick at that job. I was always running late, over sleeping because I was on anti-depressants for the first time (which BTW, I stopped needing six months later and have not needed since), I didn’t entirely see eye to eye with my boss on anything and ya know, I’m just not a really great personal assistant. I’m OK with that. There’s tons of things I am good at, that’s just really really REALLY not one of them. So yeah, I got fired.
Slippy and I weren’t really very good friends at all before I got fired. He was very big brotherish toward me. I remember him calling me a hate monger to my face in a meeting one day, which both delighted me and mortified me at the very same time. We just weren’t peas in a pod. However, the day I was laid off, I went in to Slippy’s office of all people, I shut the door and I started crying. I don’t know why, I just felt comfortable with him, like maybe he understood deep down that even though I sucked at being an assistant he still thought I was a good person.
After that, he and I became pretty good friends and obviously our work relaysh has taken on new form with all his help on my Defamer To Dos and The Molls Show. This picture here was taken the year we met at a company party that was also kinda my birthday (the party was the 9th, my birthday is the 10th, at midnight we stopped drinking for the company and started drinking for me). You wanna know what about this guy? This year he spent my third birthday in a row with me and I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to have him there. Slippy is someone who I will always smile when I see, who I will always miss when he’s not around and who I know I will probably have in my life in some way or another forever. We sometimes go months without really talking because we both lead busy lives, but despite the fact that we aren’t always around each other, I feel a loyalty and affection toward him that I know I’m very lucky to have. I have a lot of friends in this town, but he’s the only one who has been here since the beginning and I know that I’m enormously lucky to be able to say that.
(FYI, in case you’re wondering “What about Ed!?”, Ed and I have known each other since college, but for most of my frist year in LA he was living in Iowa for work. I know, I know. Ed in Iowa. Pretty crazy thought.)
Jeez, Molly. I don’t know what to say. This is one of the sweetest things ever. I’d write something just as sweet and sappy about you (because you’re really awesome, and I truly believe that), but my keyboard is covered in tears right now so I can’t. Sorry, emo-lls!
