Kat's 'Til Death Blog

Steph (me) goes a little crazy this week. While Joy (Joely Fisher) and Eddie (Brad Garrett) are out of town visiting their daughter Allison (Krysten Ritter) at college, Steph decides to put some new tile on the bathroom wall. Since she and Jeff (Eddie Kaye Thomas) always fight whenever they work on household projects together, Jeff decides to hire Hector, a maintenance guy, to help Steph. As far as Steph knows, Jeff hired Hector because tiling is a job that is better left to a professional. What she doesn't know is that Jeff wants to hire someone to take the heat in case Steph gets upset during the tiling process. Jeff's brilliant idea backfires when Steph and Hector end up battling over how to place and cut the tiles. When Steph is unhappy with the final product, she blames Jeff for the mishap. Sometimes men just can't win.

Overall, I believe the notion that "men can't win" is a silly cliché. I even hate to utter the statement, because most of the time I don't think it's true — at all. Men win all the time. In good relationships, partners communicate and make compromises and sometimes fight and then have makeup sex and everybody wins (see our pilot episode). I'd like to think that disagreements don't lead to a win and a loss but rather to a mutually agreed upon outcome, where both parties can be happy with whatever decision has been reached.

That said, I will admit that in this week's episode, Jeff really can't win. No matter how much he tries to avoid a fight, Steph cannot seem to let anything slide. First she battles Hector about the tiles, then she blames Jeff for the way the tiles turn out, and then she suckers Jeff into sponge-painting the dining room with her, which will inevitably end up creating a fight every minute.

Once, about five years ago, I went to a boyfriend of mine's parents' house for the holidays. I got there the day after Christmas, so my present was still sitting under the tree. It was clear from the box that he had bought my present from Victoria's Secret. So we had dinner with his family and hung out and played charades and did all of the family stuff that you do, but secretly all I could think about was the fact that he had gotten me lingerie. This enraged me. First of all, his giving me lingerie for Christmas seemed inappropriate at his parents' house — not a gift for under the family tree. Secondly, lingerie seemed more like a present for him than me. And lastly, we had been going out for over a year at this point. Why hadn't he told me before that he wanted me to wear lingerie?! I felt grossed out, like I was seeing a whole new skeevy side of him.

After saying goodnight to his fam, the dreaded moment arrived. We sat on his bed, and he presented his gift to me. I don't think I faked my excitement too well as I untied the ribbon and opened the box. Finally, I ripped off the tissue paper to find: the ugliest blue flannel pajamas and a huge bulky red terry-cloth robe. I started to cry. Really cry. I was devastated. He wants to cover me up in ugly pj's and a huge-ass bathrobe? You don't want to see me in lingerie?

In that moment, my boyfriend, just like Jeff, simply could not win. The lingerie would have made me angry too, but receiving the ugly, totally unromantic and far-from-sexy sleepwear made me feel like I got a fat joke for Christmas. To me, in that moment, it felt very reasonable to cry over pajamas and all that they stood for. In retrospect, however, I'll admit, I acted a little insane. Just like Steph in this week's episode.

It's incidents like these that give women a bad reputation. In fairness, we can get a little switchy-changey sometimes. One minute we want one thing and the next we want something else. But we're allowed. Men change their minds all the time; it's just that either they don't talk about it or they have too much pride to admit their indecision. So, call us crazy, but you have to give us women credit for going after exactly what we want and not being afraid to speak up and express what's in our minds and hearts, no matter how "crazy" it might make us seem to the men with whom we share our lives.

So, men, here's what to do: Next time your girlfriend or your wife wants to redecorate, offer to help her. Give her your honest opinion, and when it differs from hers, change it. Then go to Victoria's Secret and pick up something nice for her (whatever your heart desires). You've been such a sport about fixing up the house, she'll love whatever you've bought. And she'll wear it (see our past episode, "Sex for Furniture"). Avoid a fight and make hot sexy love: I'd call that a win-win.

The "Clay Date" episode of 'Til Death airs Wednesday, March 14, at 9:30 pm/ET on Fox.

The episode we are working on this week, "The Italian Affair," deals with secret pasts. In cleaning out their storage closet, Eddie (Brad Garrett) and Joy (Joely Fisher) find a roll of film with photos from a trip to Italy they've done their best to forget. The reason they've tried to bury the whole vacation is that on their way home, Eddie spanked Joy like a toddler. She was so humiliated that she left him, and he had to do everything he could to get her back. For the last 20 years, Eddie and Joy have not spoken of their trip to Italy, lest they dredge up the old feelings of resentment sparked by this terrible event.

We also learn yet a little more about the sordid past of Steph (me). As far as we knew at the beginning of the series, Steph was as sweet and innocent as could be. True, she did trade sex for furniture, but for the most part, a joyful post-wedding romantic haze surrounded her. Things have changed since the wedding.

Before I bring us to this week's episode, let's do a brief timeline highlighting the key moments in Steph's transformation from sweet to sultry:

"Pilot Episode" (9/7/06) — We meet naive and cute Steph. Romantic Steph. Feisty Steph. But mostly newly wedded-bliss Steph.

"Dream Getaway" (11/16/06) — Steph has a sex dream about Eddie. Still innocent, though — we all have sex dreams. And it doesn't count if it's only the subconscious.

"The Anniversary Party" (1/4/07) — Jeff (Eddie Kaye Thomas) reveals to Eddie that Steph "dances like a whore." We then see what he means as she starts bumping and grinding with Cofeld (Anthony Anderson) on the dance floor.

"The Hockey Lie" (1/11/07) — When Jeff finds out that Steph is not really as into hockey as she first claimed to be, he begins to question other things she's told him. He asks if she's really only slept with 14 people before him. After silently counting to herself, just to make sure, she confirms the number.

"The Colleague" (2/1/07) — Steph casually reveals that the number is actually 15, including a Navy Seal named Dave.

"The Bachelor Party" (2/8/07) — When Joy comes down with a cold, Steph comes over with some "homeopathic remedies." The two enjoy some "special" hallucinogenic tea that, we find out, Steph receives in the mail once a month from an old fling in exchange for a hundred bucks. Yes. Steph buys drugs.

"The Italian Affair" (2/15/07) — Finally, in this current week's episode, we discover that Steph has taken photos in the nude. Drunk. In Puerto Rico.

While I'll admit that sometimes I dance like a whore (à la "The Anniversary Party") and have ingested hallucinogenic substances a few times (à la "The Bachelor Party"), I have never had a sex dream about Brad Garrett (à la "Dream Getaway"), nor have I ever taken naked pictures.

OK, there was this one time.... I was in college, my roommate's photographer friend had been wanting to take my picture. It was innocent enough, until we decided to knock out the last of the fourth roll of film with me in nothing but bed sheets — and not toga-style. But sheets is not naked. So, I am only like Steph in two out of three ways: whorish dancing and a few nights of seeing tracers, yes. But nudie pics, no. I don't think I could do it. Honestly. I think I'd feel foolish. I mean I feel silly enough posing for pictures with my clothes on. I can't imagine subjecting myself to posing with my clothes off.

When this series first started, I was always asked if I was like Steph Woodcock. And I used to say, "No, not at all." But I'd always add that even though Steph was nothing like me in real life, she was actually, in some ways, living my secret fantasy life. And what I meant by that was that I've always secretly (or not so secretly, I guess, since I'm telling everybody) dreamed of being married and living in a nice house in the suburbs. It'd be so nice, I sometimes think, if I could just move to a nice neighborhood far away from New York or Los Angeles and marry an amazing guy and write a book or take care of our children. It would be so nice if I didn't have a job that took me all over the place. A job that was so unpredictable. It would be so nice to know what my life might look like next Thanksgiving, because every year it is so different. (In the last 10 years, for instance, I have moved 12 times.) And since I continue to secretly wish for all of those things, I would still say, if asked, that Steph is living my fantasy life.

But more and more, it seems that I am actually like Steph in real life. Or maybe it's just that Steph is becoming more like me. And I don't mind that. So, Steph and I both have had some wild times. I don't regret anything and neither would she.

The "Italian Affair" episode of 'Til Death airs Thursday, Feb. 15, at 8 pm/ET on Fox.

This week’s episode of 'Til Death is called “The Bachelor Party.” Eddie (Brad Garrett) finds out that Jeff (Eddie Kaye Thomas) never had a bachelor party and decides to throw him one. So Eddie, Jeff, Cofeld (Anthony Anderson) and Stan (Jerry Lambert) go out to a strip club to “celebrate Jeff’s bachelorhood” even though he’s been married to Steph (me) for six months.

So when I walked in Monday morning for the table read, I couldn’t help but notice that the set of our strip club was fully equipped with a beautiful, shiny brass pole, situated at the end of a glossy black catwalk. On a whole third of our stage, a large and well-appointed strip club had been expertly replicated by our fantastic ‘Til Death set-design and set-decoration team. The club is called Flesh Gardens.

We did the table read and it went great — the script is fantastic — but secretly there was a part of me that couldn't stop thinking about the stripper pole. I just wanted to do a pole dance.

I used to work at a strip club in New York, just not as a “dancer.” That, by the way, is what strippers like to be called. Not “strippers,” but “dancers.” So the next time you’re talking to a stripper, you should say, “So how long have you been dancing?” She’ll know that what you’re really asking is how long it has been since she changed her name to Carlotta, started sending holiday cards to her waxer, and when the jewel-encrusted thong and boobie-tassels became more than just “special occasion” wear but a part of the work uniform.

Anyway, we rehearsed as usual, but like I said, a small secret part of me wanted to get up on the catwalk and work it with the stripper pole. So when the day was done and everybody had left the stage, except for the guys who build the sets and other crew people who were busy enough doing their own thing not to stare, I climbed onto the shiny black edge of the catwalk and got friendly with the pole.

At first I was struck by how difficult pole-dancing actually is. In my imagination, I thought I would be able to do lots of fancy twirls and crazy spinning gymnastic gyrations, but at first I was pretty ungraceful and definitely not sexy. To my surprise, it’s not that easy to look good pole-dancing. I mean ,I’m pretty sure no one’s first time is all that sexy. But then... Britney Spears’ “Toxic” came on.

It was playing from a small portable stereo that the work guys had set up. Apparently, all I needed was some slutty background music with a good beat and I was pole-dancing like I’d always (only secretly) dreamed of. And from henceforth I will refer to myself as Carlotta, Queen of Flesh Gardens. So there I was, ferociously spinning around the pole, using it to steady my undulations and back bends, wrapping my legs around it like it was my dance partner in an Argentine tango. It was hot.

OK, all of the sudden I feel like I could be writing a soft-core romance novel. The end of the story is just that I danced till I was totally sweaty. For those of you who have thought about taking one of those pole-dancing fitness classes that have become so popular, it is an awesome workout. Then I went to the gym for an hour’s worth of the recumbent stationary bike followed by a spirulina protein smoothie and a shot of wheatgrass — just about the least sexy thing in the world. I read somewhere that Catherine Zeta Jones eats big plates of pasta with Michael Douglas because it’s sexy when a woman eats. Yeah, needless to say, the words “big plate of pasta” are nowhere to be found in my daily nutrition journal, not even in the doodles that cover the margins.

And speaking of eating... today our newly cast strippers, oops, I mean “dancers,” came to work. I was doing a fitting in the wardrobe room and the girl playing D.J. in this episode came in to try on her outfit, which consisted of a sequined army fatigue/nurses' uniform crop-top and a could-be-worn-as-a-belt miniskirt. If anyone actually wore this outfit to basic training or a hospital, let alone out their front door, it would definitely get them arrested. Still, wow. And I thought I looked hot in my brown linen pants and comfy-cute V-neck T. Not after seeing her. The hotness in this episode is covered... but not by me. I will never, no matter how much recumbent bike riding I do, have a body like that. And no doubt she’s allergic to vegetables and has no choice but to live on only beer and pizza. Ugh. Sickening.

What’s great, though (and here comes the moral of the story), is that I’m an actor. And although this seems contrary to popular opinion in Hollywood, I don’t have to look like a stripper. And what I learned yesterday, mid-pole-dance, is that even though I don’t look like Carlotta, I can still feel like I look like Carlotta. And if I feel hot in my size 6(ish) linen pants, then I... will look like Carlotta. Well, maybe not exactly like her, maybe not even close, but I’ll look hot, that’s all I’m saying.

So from now on, I’m working on feeling hot no matter what I’m wearing. Outwardly carrying the confidence of my inner stripper, I mean “dancer.” And I’m thinking too that I might buy a pole for my house, so I can do private dances for myself whenever I need a little boost in the feeling-sexy department.

The "Bachelor Party" episode of 'Til Death airs Thursday, Feb. 8, at 8 pm/ET on Fox.