Tyra taping

I taped a short segment on the Tyra Banks show on Dec 5. It was about asking The Hard Questions before you get married.

This is not the dress I wore, but it was basically this style:

Here’s what happened:

The roller coaster ride is over and I’m back at my desk in Boston wondering if the whole thing even happened at all. That’s how it is with these things. It’s like being kidnapped by aliens who perform bizarre experiments on you and then return you to earth. When your livelihood depends in any part on having your work publicized (as mine does), it adds a strange layer to the whole thing: I hope they’ll like me. I hope my book will sell because of this. Maybe my career is really happening/doomed. I hope they won’t think I’m too old/young/fat/skinny/stupid/smart. Maybe I DO know what I’m talking about. Maybe I DON’T. DO. DON’T.

I have several friends who also go on talk shows every now and then, and some of them handle it in a totally balanced way. They don’t get caught up wondering about the validity of their thoughts. They don’t go into the interview with one idea about how workable their career is and exit it with a different one entirely. I don’t know how they do it. Apparently, they see themselves as inhabiting a stable world, one of their own making, that provides a reliable working basis that they can return to whether or not the viewers of this or that show respond to them. They don’t fall into self-doubt the moment the interview is over. And this is when things go well. Forget about the possibility of your ideas being attacked!! Actually, it’s not the idea of being criticized that’s so bad, it’s the possibility of having your motives and/or intelligence impugned. That really hurts. I totally never, ever, ever read reviews of my books on Amazon for this reason. My mom used to call me whenever someone posted a good review and I had to beg her like 1000 times to not do that. I do not like going on that ride. I even have one friend (whom I blogged about previously) who was roundly criticized in Newsweek for god’s sake, and came away from it thinking, “wow, I really shook them up.” I have no idea how one holds their seat in this way, and I admire this guy beyond words.

ANYWAY. The taping. If you’re interested, here’s what happened. (In part. I can’t tell too much about the show because there are some surprise elements in it and I don’t know when it will air. Maybe Valentine’s Day.) I got to the studio with the publisher’s publicist (whom I had never met before). She had booked the appearance, which to me came out of the blue. I had no idea she’d been working on this. Thank you, Jennifer! She had hired a car service to pick us up and when we got to the studio, there was a line of people waiting to get into the studio audience. Our driver came around and opened the door for me and when I stepped out, people turned to look. At me. Weird. I could see that they were ready to see a “celebrity” and whether or not I was one, I was one to them. The projections are so unbelievably strong in a situation like this. I can see how it would be tempting to either look down in shame at not being famous or look away as if I was indeed a famous person. Holding on to your actual reality is quite a trick. (Not this and not that.) We were taken to a green room where other guests were waiting. People were running all up and down the halls with headphones and clip boards. They were all incredibly, incredibly busy but also super nice. Mostly I just waited around for the first hour, looking again and again at the notes I’d been sent about the interview I’d be doing with Tyra and a young couple. Before my segment, they were going to flash a full screen shot of my book, “The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say ‘I Do'” and after the segment, they were going to give away a copy of the book to everyone in the audience. Cool!! I was going to discuss 3 of the hard questions and as I did, each question was going to appear at the bottom of the screen. I wanted to use the same wording as the screen, so I kept going over and over it. Okay, I’ll speed up this synopsis. I got taken to hair and makeup and they pumped the hell out of my hair until it was fairly gigantic. I said to the young, cute, goth-y hairdresser, don’t you think this is a little matronly? “Matronly? Never! That’s my name on top of your head and I’d never do that!” So okay, I had Gina on top of my head. Then the makeup guy got his hands on my face and plied it with every product imaginable. But he did so with such a casual air–it was like he was swabbing my face with a mop. So I was shocked when I looked in the mirror and saw how perfect it was. I’ve learned that you can really, really trust these people–that even when you think you look ridiculous, somehow it all looks great on TV. So except for the matronly comment, I kept my mouth shut. Then the wardrobe guy came into the green room with 3 dresses. One was way too big. One was way too small. One was heavenly–but a little tight around the rib cage. So they sent in a seamstress who basically sewed the dress closed. I looked down and saw that my chest had been transformed into cleavage central. How that happened, I really don’t know. I guess that’s what happens when you get sown into your clothes. They liked my boots, so I got to wear them.

The sound person came in an miked me, clipping the device onto my bra strap which showed out the back of the dress, but who cares, no one was going to see my back. Someone came up to bring me down to the stage and as we were walking, wardrobe showed me three bracelets and I picked one. I was shown to my seat on stage and everyone in the audience is smiling at me like I am someone and then there’s Tyra and the producer is shouting, Tyra, meet Susan, Tyra, meet Susan! except someone else was also talking to her so we basically shook hands as her cue cards came up and the camera rolled. (PS She’s gorrrrgeous!!) She talked to me, I talked to her, we talked to the cute couple who was considering the hard questions, and boom it was over. 5 minutes. They escorted me back upstairs, cut the dress off me and I was back out on the street with my very nice publicist and there was no car to pick us up and it was snowing and she said just take a cab and send me the receipt. My hair was still way poofy and I had a load of makeup on, but showtime was over. I couldn’t get a cab. Then I did and went to meet a friend at the City Bakery before heading to Penn Station to take the train home, gargantuan hair and all. (The guy sitting next to me told me I looked like Carly Fiorina… um, excuse me?!) I rode wave after wave of they hated me, they liked me, I did fine, I sucked. Whatever. I just wanted to get home.

This morning I woke up in my own bed and my hair was sticking straight up totally like bride of Frankenstein and there were little specks of mascara on my cheeks. I felt like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd, except I was so NOT ready for my closeup. I jumped in the shower and turned the water on full speed until my hair got tamped back down into place.

This is my report.

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categorized in: relationships