Illustration: Sarah Kilcoyne
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On Saturday Night time Dwell, Sarah Sherman has performed a lady lined in singing meatballs, a Jewish Elvis, and — final week — a drunk raccoon ribbing Colin Jost. However for Squirm-heads, she’s in her truest, most pleasant kind when she’s taking us via her personal head: speaking about some sort of disarmingly nasty physique horror, full with guttural sounds, clad in her famously brilliant, patterned, clown-adjacent wardrobe. In her HBO Max comedy particular, Sarah Squirm: Dwell + Within the Flesh, she likens oysters and their snotty slime to discharge. “Individuals suppose I like gross shit, however the cause I do all this gross stuff is as a result of I’m disgusted by it,” she says. “I’m actually disgusted by oysters. The feel is grotesque.” She’d fortunately commerce oysters for her favourite foods-slash-old-lady classics: black licorice and the cereal Grape-Nuts. “I eat like an previous Jewish girl in Boca,” she says. “I feel I’d have completed wonderful in the course of the Nice Despair.”
Friday, November 28
I get up at 10 a.m., and like an enormous bitch, I drive my boyfriend to make espresso at gunpoint (yeah, BOYFRIEND — sorry, women!!!). I’ve two cups earlier than realizing I haven’t had any water, so I refill a Stanley cup and drink the whole factor in a single sitting. I don’t love Stanley cups, however Bowen gave me a Depraved one he acquired for being within the film, and if Bowen provides me one thing, it turns into one in all my most prized possessions.
I’m off from SNL and never touring, which is good as a result of it means I don’t eat like shit 24 hours a day. At work, I eat roughly 85 kilos of chips and Weight loss program Coke each 5 seconds.
For breakfast, I get experimental with some English-muffin sandwiches with egg, microgreens, spinach, avocado, basil, and cashew paste, all lined in Serrano sizzling sauce. I eat them extremely quick. I really like an enormous, inexperienced, savory, spicy breakfast. There’s a bunch of leftover inexperienced paste within the blender, so I toast some pita and make little pita chips and scrape the remaining inexperienced paste out of the blender. Can’t depart a drop to waste!
By midday, I drink roughly 100 extra cups of espresso and solely notice I’ve had an excessive amount of as soon as I begin feeling a loopy panic assault approaching. Not a capital-P, capital-A Panic Assault, only a small, low-grade Jewish one. I normally have about three to 4 small Jewish panic assaults a day. I’m ravenous, so I eat some bizarre overnight-oats factor I discovered at a elaborate grocery store referred to as Mush that randomly has 15 grams of protein in it. Why are all of the girlies hooked on protein rapidly? Did everybody grow to be a bodybuilder in a single day? What am I lacking right here?
After the oats, I stare at my pc and write one web page of a “script” (meant to put in writing extra) and watch hours of a canceled Wes Craven sitcom on YouTube. My pal Martin texts me “Walter’s later?” I’m so completely happy, as a result of I used to be sitting round feeling like a loser all day. I chug a bottle of coconut water from Happier Grocery, as a result of I’m a dumb bitch who likes getting tricked into liking fancy shit. I eat, like, two handfuls of dry cereal straight out the field, then head to Walter’s for dinner.
I order my favourite meal: a salad with fries. I’m lactose illiberal, so I can by no means have an amazingly enjoyable salad, however I like this one so much as a result of it has celery and fennel in it. My different favourite meal is black licorice, and fennel tastes anise-y, so I’m mainly in salad/fries heaven. I shock myself by ordering an everyday Coke, which I made a decision simply now’s probably the most glamorous factor on this planet. Consuming an everyday Coke at 8 p.m.? What am I … a supermodel? Usually, I’m a Weight loss program Coke addict. I like ordering Weight loss program Cokes for the desk. Everybody’s like, “Okay … I didn’t need one,” however they drink it.
I eat all my fries and the remainder of Martin’s fries, and when the server asks us if we would like dessert, I scream an emphatic “sure!” I really like getting dessert at a restaurant greater than something, as a result of it means you possibly can hang around with your pals longer. The issue with being lactose illiberal, apart from the diarrhea, is that you could by no means truly eat dessert at a restaurant.
Tonight, all of the desserts at Walter’s are dairy-crazy, so I am going dwelling and eat 90,000 Happier Grocery dried-mango slices, watch extra YouTube, drink zero water, and go to mattress.
Saturday, November 29
I get up at 9 a.m. and instantly make a bizarre Ka’Chava smoothie with too many scoops of almond butter and frozen blueberries. Please, God, inform me these are wholesome. I haven’t actually appeared into what’s wholesome about it, and I don’t know what my physique wants. I simply know that I’m making an attempt to fill myself up as a result of I’ve a busy day. Clearly, I at all times overcorrect on this and find yourself making myself sick by consuming a smoothie that’s mainly the equal of consuming a complete Thanksgiving dinner.
I make an enormous pot of espresso, and I chug as a lot of that and water as humanly attainable. I pour one other cup of espresso into the glass bottle that had the coconut water from yesterday. I sit on the prepare chugging my glass-bottle espresso for 45 minutes and really feel like I’m about to blow up. Nobody on earth has ever been filled with this a lot liquid.
I am going to the TMJ physician, who tells me I’m “not past assist,” which I take as a trigger for celebration, and I deal with myself to a different espresso from the Each day Provisions throughout the road. I additionally seize some avocado toast to go. I really like their avocado toast! Sue me!
Then, at round midday, I run to my picture shoot (superstar supermodel way of life!), the place I inhale the avocado toast. I be certain that my breath doesn’t odor like shit in order that I’m not respiration hot-avocado mouth throughout my pal Nina, who’s doing my make-up.
Somewhat later, we beg one of many guys working the picture shoot to expire and seize us pastries, and he comes again with a bag of bagels and croissants. I eat a sesame challah, and it’s truthfully higher than birthday cake.
By 5 p.m., I’ve about 2.5 seconds between the picture shoot and recording an episode of the podcast Chapo Lure Home. I seize a tofu-vermicelli noodle bowl from a close-by Vietnamese place and eat it by unhinging my jaw and swallowing it complete, like a snake gulping down a rat.
I do the podcast whereas chugging Coke Zero. It’s enjoyable, and so they’re actually making me giggle. That’s the New York Metropolis girlie’s life Carrie Bradshaw may solely dream of!
Afterward, my finest pal, Ruby, and I hang around and speak shit for 5 hours. I head dwelling at midnight and eat a bowl of Cocojune coconut yogurt with sunflower-maple cereal. As somebody who hasn’t been capable of have a drop of dairy in years, Cocojune tastes insanely wonderful to me. It tastes like heaven on earth. I can’t even consider I’m allowed to eat it.
I finished consuming dairy 5 years in the past as a result of it occurred to me that I’ve had diarrhea my complete life and I possibly ought to take into consideration whether or not it was one thing I used to be consuming. I went to a gastroenterologist, and he was like, “Effectively, your life is demanding,” and I used to be like, “Fuck you.” He was like, “Perhaps you need to reduce out espresso,” and I used to be like, “No.” However I reduce out dairy and I really feel higher.
Sunday, November 30
I get up on the crack of ass to take the prepare to Lengthy Island to go to my dad and mom. My dad and mom are superior and loopy and loud, despite the fact that they suppose they’re not. I get a espresso from my native espresso store, and as soon as I get to Penn Station, I feel, Effectively, have a look at all these espresso outlets. May as effectively get extra espresso. I get a black iced Americano as a result of for some cause I really feel like that’s not like consuming two coffees. I additionally throw in a GoMacro bar.
The second I get off the LIRR, we get bagels from Ace Bagels on Northern Boulevard. It’s this new bagel place that’s run by a man my dad says he’s finest associates with. There’s at all times a brand new man with a brand new deli that my dad is finest associates with.
I lived in a bagel home rising up. We’d get a dozen bagels for the week, slice them, and freeze them. You’d have a bagel with cream cheese within the morning, and then you definitely’d have a bagel with tuna-fish salad or one thing for lunch. At dinner, you’d eat no matter dinner was, after which for dessert, you’d have a bagel with jelly. A bagel 3 times a day.
At Ace, I get a sunflower-seed flat with dairy-free cream cheese (unhappy). It was the most effective fucking bagel I’ve ever had. Perhaps this place will grow to be a brand new favourite. COVID destroyed loads of my favourite locations rising up, however there’s this place that’s nonetheless round that I really like referred to as Kensington Deli. You may get a pastrami on rye with mustard and a knish and a pickle. It seems to be straight out of 1961, and it’s my favourite place to go on Lengthy Island. I don’t go this journey, however possibly subsequent time.
For dinner, my household and I get sushi. Everybody will get these, like, large, loopy dragon-roll cream-cheese sashimi no matter. However I’m hooked on avocado rolls. Marcello [Hernandez] and I’ll order avocado rolls earlier than the reside present as a result of it’s not going to show left on you. It’s not going to betray you! I get avocado rolls with a bunch of pork gyoza, and in some unspecified time in the future, my dad is like, “Can I get one in all your smoji?” We had been like, “What?” It took minute to appreciate he meant my gyoza. He’s a Lengthy Island man, and he couldn’t fairly wrap his mouth round gyoza, and the phrase “smoji” got here out. It was an earnest try! Bless his coronary heart.
I take the LIRR dwelling. After I get again, I eat my favourite dessert, which is Grape-Nuts cereal and almond milk. My grandma would at all times eat Grape-Nuts rising up, and I simply cherished it. I like the way it’s salty and candy and actually crunchy. It’s so exhausting it feels prefer it’s breaking your enamel, however then it softens up with the milk. It’s the right meals to me. Is that loopy? Does any younger particular person eat Grape-Nuts?
Monday, December 1
I get up feeling like crap, so I name out of labor. I spend the day in mattress dying and groaning and complaining. I muster the power to make electrolyte-powder drinks, and I drink 100 of those all through the day, till I’m satisfied I can mainly pee out all of the virus.
My superb meals after I’m sick is boiling-hot matzo-ball soup or udon soup. One thing I can drink boiling sizzling, as a result of I’m making an attempt to boil the illness out of my physique, which is one thing I invented. I get udon soup from Raku and bean curd for lunch. It’s therapeutic, despite the fact that I don’t love getting takeout. I get creeped out fascinated about all of the arms which might be touching all my shit.
I’m not good at cooking. I don’t have an developed palate. But it surely’s good to feed your self. After I make meals at dwelling, I make loads of salads and silly inexperienced mush. I really like actually, actually crunchy lettuce. I don’t care that white lettuce isn’t good for you. And I combine in different crap, like pistachios, olives, pomegranate seeds, fried rooster, pink peppers, pickled onions. Simply, like, shit that doesn’t go collectively. I’ll chop up a hard-boiled egg and act prefer it’s cheese. I’m hooked on cucumbers and celery and crunchy chili oil that I placed on every little thing. I’ll make a very mustardy French dressing that has far more mustard than it ought to, as if it’s a sizzling canine.
Not right this moment. My head is in a fog, so I order Thai meals and name it an evening.
On the very least, the illness isn’t dairy induced. One time, I used to be doing an hour of stand-up in Chicago possibly three years in the past. It was after I had reduce out dairy, and I used to be consuming a burrito proper earlier than the present, and the burrito had just a little little bit of cheese in it. And midway via my hour, I’m simply, like, sweating. I believed I used to be going to puke and shit on the similar time. A lot of my hour is making bizarre, gross gagging sounds, and I used to be like, Oh, I’m truly gonna throw up. I needed to run offstage ten minutes early.
Tuesday, December 2
It’s writing evening at work, so y’all know I’m about to be treating my physique like a dumpster. I get up at 9 and drag my ass off the bed to go to remedy. I do really feel higher, which makes me suppose I truly did boil out the germs. It’s chilly outdoors, however I nonetheless drink iced espresso.
After remedy, I make a pot of espresso and put it in a glass “to-go” bottle once more. I in all probability shouldn’t put sizzling espresso in that. I’ve, like, 9 telephone calls earlier than work, so I take a automotive. Huge mistake. I must pee due to the hundred cups of espresso, however we’re caught in visitors!!
As soon as I get to 30 Rock, I get a large bagel from Each day Provisions with an egg on it. No cheese. A tragic life. My cortisol ranges at all times spike as a result of I’m anxious about writing good sketches, which suggests I’m ravenous all day in a approach the place my physique is a bottomless black gap.
As soon as I’m at work, I eat my bagel. I’m provided espresso, so I take one other iced black espresso … I’ve to be up late writing, okay?! I additionally eat handfuls of sweet, as a result of there are bowls of sweet throughout 30 Rock: tiny Twix, Hello-Chews, these minty Life Savers.
I additionally hold black licorice in my bag. I like all types of black licorice, however I’ve been carrying across the French type that tastes like drugs. They’re these minty black-licorice shards, and so they make my abdomen really feel higher. It looks like a really previous Jewish factor. Along with bowls of sweet, there are additionally little luggage of chips all over the place. I’m at all times snacking on these after I’m working. I seize a bag of Baked Lays. Yeah, Baked Lays. Sue me!!!
At the moment, there’s additionally an expansion of Cuban meals out, and at any time when there’s a buffet, my disgrace flies out the window. I don’t ladle meals. I shovel it onto my plate. I attempt to take advantage of colourful plate as humanely attainable. I pile it excessive with rice, beans, vegan empanadas, rooster, and sauce. I am going loopy with it. There’s salad too. I really like dumping a chilly salad close to sizzling meals, so I try this.
A typical writing evening at work means staying at work till 2 a.m. and consuming like shit. If I don’t get Thai meals, I like getting spicy Sichuan rooster from Blue Willow. Spicy meals retains me up. Tonight, it’s Thai. I at all times order from a unique place in midtown, hoping it’ll be the one, however it by no means is. I get pad Thai and fake-cheese vegan curry puffs, and so they’re good. They remind me of Cheetos Puffs, which I really like greater than something, however I can’t eat shit I like anymore. Being Jewish and in your 30s is gloomy.
At midnight, there’s at all times McDonald’s within the workplace. They put out an expansion, like when Trump orders hamburgers for the White Home. I normally attempt to not eat it as a result of I image all of the fucking writers at work simply rubbing it with their little slimy, little poop arms, touching all of the fries. However tonight I do.
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