Alysia Wood

I tell jokes onstage and long-winded pointless stories off stage (actually, they have a point, I swear, I just never get to it). I'm starting to love LA: it’s the only city where you introduce yourself and get corrected. People assume pronunciations and spellings for my name which leads to all sorts of "me’s" running around. One LA person told me they’d heard that they hadn’t had a chance to check out Alissa Woods, but they heard she was really funny. "You mean Alysia (pronounced Alicia) Wood?" I asked. They looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "No," condescendingly. "It’s Alissa Woods." "You’re sure you don’t mean me?" I said. "Who are you?" "I’m Alysia Wood." They spun around and walked off wordlessly. That’s awkward. It's especially uncomfortable when people pronounce my name "Elijah Wood"- especially over PA systems in places like LAX.