This Is My Life

Long divorced Dottie Ingels lives with her two daughters, teenage Erica and adolescent Opal, in Queens, where she works at the cosmetics counter at the local Macy's. Dottie's ex-husband is not a factor in their lives with they not even knowing where he is, Erica only remembering select things while Opal remembers virtually nothing about him. Her failed marriage has soured Dottie on the notion of romantic love and thus ever getting married again. With Erica and Opal's support, Dottie takes whatever opportunity in achieving her goal of becoming a stand-up comic, her evolving act using whatever happens in her and by association the girls' lives. So when she comes into a financial windfall of sorts, Dottie quits her job, and moves herself and the girls to Manhattan to pursue that stand-up life full-time. With Dottie spending more time and energy on that stand-up life and as she gets greater exposure in the process, it begins to have an effect on the girls, especially self-conscious Erica, who is in the sensitive time of growing into young womanhood. While Erica needs her mother now more than ever without needing to ask for that guidance, Dottie who becomes less and less a present figure in their lives, she also finds her life is no longer her own as it is shared on stage for the world to hear.