Am I Ready For My Close-Up?

All right, so today I made my first television appearance - ever. I'd never even stood outside the "Today" show waving madly as Al Roker looks on fearing for his life.

I was pretty nervous about it - visions of Albert Brooks in "Broadcast News" ran through my head. You know the scene - he finally gets his big break to anchor the network news and then the flop sweat starts. And it goes, and goes, and goes. He sweats more than you ever thought was humanly possible without collapsing from dehydration. Hair and make-up people scramble during commercial breaks trying to mop up the sweat and blow-dry his shirt to no avail, his appearance is a disaster.

I'm happy to say that no blow-drying was required, and I think I did all right. I was on to talk about my new-found-passion, life lists, because well, if I don't have a book of my own to sell I might as well sell someone else's - "The Next Thing On My List" by Jill Smolinkski.

This was just a local cable access show, but good practice I think for the time in the future when I do have a book to sell and am finally invited to "The View."

"Oprah," of course, is the ultimate goal, but I have this fantasy of sitting at that "View" table with Barbara, Joy, Whoopi and yes, I guess... Elisabeth.

Aside from the momentary whooshing of my heartbeat in my ears when the cameras started I think I stayed on point, and I didn't evoke one, "That's what she said" joke even when there was a perfectly good opening.

So essentially I proved to myself that I can be on television (something to check off the life list)and in all seriousness, it felt good to do something that scared me a little. Scared in a good way, not in that I-heard-a-scary-noise-and-why-is-my-cat-looking-freaked-out way.

So maybe over the next couple of days you can find something to scare yourself a bit - not big-scary, but push yourself just a little out of your comfort zone. Next for me? I'm not sure, but I do have a new tube of red lipstick taunting me to wear it out. I have to go to the dump tomorrow, who knows, maybe I'll wow the seagulls.