My First Show!
Saturday, January 5, 2008 at 4:32PM The week between Christmas '07 and New Year's '08 seemed a bit funky this year. Usually I'm all a glow from the excitement of wearing my new gifts and the anticipation of preparing a big New Year's Eve celebration for friends and family but for some reason I just wasn't feeling it this year. Of course it didn't help that I was laid up on the couch from Christmas afternoon until New Year's Eve day with something that can only be described as death warmed over, but even through the wheezing, sniffing, choking, whining, and weight loss (the one good thing) I knew something else was wrong... I had developed a huge mental "why?"
I hate to admit it, but this all goes back to the beginning of the year... maybe even into '06. Back in April I finally landed a job in my new city. My husband, Chris, and I had made a quality of life move away from the big city (and our big city film jobs) to live in the mountains and it had taken almost a year for me to find what I thought would be the perfect job for my new life. Within the first week of work it became clear that the position I had so desperately applied for was actually a big huge dud complete with misrepresentations of company capabilities, goals and future growth - have you ever heard the joke about the devil's reel? EXACTLY! All the signs of doom were present on the very first day but I just couldn't believe "the best game in town" was actually film making 101, so I made a deal with myself to give the position 6 months. I walked out the door on the afternoon of 6 months and three days knowing that I had just wasted a huge professional chunk of time perfecting every form of mediocrity that can possibly exist in my chosen career. The last three days were the most frustrating of my life (and I have put up with some pretty stellar crap in my time) and as I walked to my car, it had became very clear that I hated my new home, I hated the way I had spent the last year and a half of my life, and most of all, I hated that I couldn't for the life of me come up with a plan B of what I wanted to do instead of produce television commercials. I had been zapped of the cat-like skills that had always allowed me to land on my feet and then lick a paw (metaphor for brushing my bangs behind my ear) while looking back at the mess I had just left as if it had nothing to do with me.
So come forward to last week: I'm lying on the couch looking out the window on my first white Christmas and dreading the end of my illness because it meant that I would have to start drumming up work in a place I consider to be the largest creative void in the universe... now that's the blues!
As with most women, I like to lick my wounds (metaphor for pity party) while watching Oprah. So each day during that week I tuned in to see WWOD - What Would Oprah Do. I watched her play a bogus game of "Deal Or No Deal" where the Hershey Corporation gave an audience member $100,000 dollars even though Oprah lost the game. I watched Stacy what's her face, from TLC's "What Not To Wear" tell me about the perfect pair of black pants for $700 . I don't remember seeing Gail (O's BFF) but I did watch the episode featuring the man who left Microsoft to deliver books to children in Burma and the woman who collects PJ's for children in shelters and it made me think (Oprah calls them "A-HA" moments) about what my problem really was... I've been stumped by a mental "why?" which makes life dull. By 3:45 on that day I realized my pity party was getting in the way of my joy and I had to make a change if I was going to fullfill my dreams of being a great person.
Without really trying to drum up something positive to do I started to think it would be fun to try to live my life by using the Oprah show as a template. I have favorite things and I read books that are cool... I have a friend like Dr. Oz who told me why I see spots when I first wake up and why I lost a bunch of hair when I fasted for 5 days (I'll still do it again). I might not be able to broadcast my thoughts to ten million people but I do come from a pretty big family so I've got a good jump on the whole captive audience part of the show. And did I mention how much I LOVE watching Oprah? OMG, I have been watching this woman through thick and thin and for years. I use to watch as a child because my mom would tune in during cartoons to catch up on the latest tranny trends... this was back when Oprah didn't have billions of dollars to tell the network she isn't going to do tranny shows. She's still my inspiration should I ever want to run a marathon and it's been what, 11 years since she did that?! I'm not going to hide it any more. You will no longer hear me say "I think I was watching the History Channel when I learned..." IT WAS OPRAH, PEOPLE - I WAS WATCHING OPRAH!!!
So here I go - My first episode will be about my resolutions for 2008. Between episodes about "MY Favorite Things" and "Spice's Book club" I'll check in with the resolutions to see how we're doing. Please join along, ask questions and make comments - people do it to Oprah!
