Me, Myself, and Oprah

As regular readers know, Oprah appears here on this blog with a fair amount of frequency, some might even call it an alarming amount of frequency, but I think it's proportionate to the level of influence Oprah has exerted on our culture.  I certainly grew up with Oprah, and although I wasn't a daily viewer of her show, I always liked her and candidly feel a certain kind of kinship, perhaps because, like Oprah, I, too, was a poor black girl from Mississippi.

Or something like that.

The delusional part of me thinks that Oprah and I could be friends.  We'd have a fair amount in common.  We'd bond over our weight issues, and then split two orders of nachos, because if you share two, that's fewer calories than each of us having one, right?  Everyone knows that.

I wouldn't ask a lot of Oprah, except that she finance my dreams and bankroll my lavish lifestyle, which, for those familiar with my "List of Things I Would Have if Rich" include:

Car and driver.  Masseuse.  Fountain soda machine.

I would always be ready when the jet came to pick me up.  I wouldn't make her wait.  And I would be sure to eye roll at Stedman on cue and say, "Oh Stedman," because he clearly doesn't get it and never will.  Whatever "it" is.

And if Oprah and I couldn't be friends, certainly Gayle and I could.  It could happen.   Gayle knows her way around the finer things *and* her way around a country fair, and like me, seemingly her biggest talent is knowing all of the words to every song on the radio.

As someone who likes to experience things and be a part of big pop culture phenomenons, I always wanted to see her show in Chicago, and when I heard she was giving it up after 25 years, I became a little frantic.  My window was closing.  I started thinking of who I might know who could score me tickets.  And perhaps worse, I started getting annoyed at those who I thought might be able to who weren't stepping up to reveal themselves.  If they loved me, they would get me Oprah tickets.

So when I heard that Oprah was coming to NYC to film her new series, "Lifeclass," and that they were looking for audience members, I threw my hat in the ring.  Shockingly, I actually got tickets.  I say shockingly because, as anyone who has ever played a game of chance with me knows, I have no luck with these things, but alas, it was meant to be:  Oprah and I were finally going to be in the same room together.

Even now, at my ripe old age, I get a certain thrill at being in the same room with someone I admire - even if the "room" is Yankee Stadium and the person I admire is Paul McCartney, and there are 50K other people there.

Joining Oprah and me at Radio City Music Hall were motivational guru Tony Robbins, such friends of Oprah as Dr. Oz and Gayle (of course), about 6,000 strangers, and my good friend Mary D.

Mary was my natural choice to be my "date" so to speak for Lifeclass because, between the two of us, we have enough anxiety and restless energy to power a medium size nation.   We also travel under the same black cloud -- which, using the half-empty approach to the world we share -- means that we live in a world where the other shoe drops so often that each of us must own 5,000 complete pairs by now.  And unfortunately, they're all Payless and not any pair you'd want to own, unlike the Louboutins Oprah wears.

Mary and I met a dizzying 15 or so years ago when I was leaving a job and she was coming onboard as my replacement.  We had an immediate connection and I thought, "Too bad I'm leaving because this girl and I could be friends."

Cut to several months later when I returned to the company for a slightly better position, working with Mary confirmed my initial thinking that we had a lot in common, including a shared work ethic, worldview, sense of humor, and sometimes, during lean months, we shared a credit card, each maxing out our card on alternating pay periods.   I followed Mary to another company and position, and when I did, our boss said to me, "I knew she'd come back for you."   We just clicked.

And even though we don't see each other that regularly now and live very different lives -- Mary is long married with two kids living in the suburbs while I am single in the city -- we continue to stay in touch and bond over various misfortunes and maladies.

When I had my accident, Mary was right there, asking what she could do, and, when my birthday rolled around, knowing that I wasn't feeling festive but that it would be a depressing bummer to be alone on my birthday, she made the hour trip in to spend the weekend with me.  On a rare few days away from her kids, in the city that never sleeps, where we could have done anything or gone anywhere, we sat on my couch in my tiny apartment, talked, ordered in BBQ, and each read our respective copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Now that's a friend.

So when the Oprah opportunity presented itself, I knew Mary was my girl.  With some recent misfortunes on both sides, we could both use a dose of sunshine and a more positive attitude, and at the very least, I knew we would laugh our heads off and have a story we could tell for the rest of our lives.  Because that's another thing we have in common -- we essentially will do anything for a good story.  We will embarrass ourselves without any shame as long as it can be retold for a laugh or a cry.

Off Mary and I went to join the other 5,000 women, 990 gay men, and ten straight men (including Tony Robbins, Dr. Oz, and Oprah's crew) at Radio City Music Hall where Oprah and Tony were going to help us "Live Fearlessly."

As audience members, we had all been invited to share our stories in advance, with the hopes of being chosen to share the stage at Radio City.  I got to a certain point in my email submissions to producers, but I guess my stories weren't compelling enough, which is probably a good thing, because I probably would have been too nervous to participate.  But I admit, the deluded part of me thought that this was my big break.  Oprah was going to meet me, and demand that I come to work for Harpo right now.  She would order me onboard the jet, and a nameless minion would be sent to my apartment to burn all of my now unacceptable belongings, and pack my cat in his new Vuitton carrier, sending us both to a new life in Chicago or Santa Barbara.  But alas, not.

There was a huge amount of energy there in Radio City.  Everyone had come to worship at the church of Oprah.  They encouraged us to be active on Facebook and Twitter and spread the Oprah gospel around the world.

The actual Lifeclass experience was interesting, but I'm sure played better on television -- or rather, someone who doesn't have ADD, who wasn't busy trying to find him or herself in the camera shots of the masses of Radio City and instead was focusing on the show, might have had a better experience than we did.

Tony Robbins has a lot of energy, and even succeeded in getting the room up and moving and hugging each other.  Embracing strangers was practically required as part of an exercise designed to help us understand that "Emotion follows motion," essentially a play on "Fake it till you make it."  So we were challenged to greet strangers as warmly as we would family - not a strong suit for me, especially since my family isn't really the hugging kind.  And, after all, I do live in NYC, and have a fear of getting bedbugs, but I threw myself into it and embraced strangers ... and then promptly threw all of my clothes into an air-tight laundry bag when I got home.  You can't expect miracles, people.

My favorite part was actually a behind the scenes exchange between Oprah and Tony that went something like this -- clearly not verbatim, and with my liberal editorializing:

Oprah:  So, here's what we're gonna do:  I will do x and then you do y.
Tony:  Or, I have an idea, it might work better if I do y and THEN I do x and you watch.
Oprah:  Perhaps you didn't hear me -- I SAID "I will do x and then YOU will do y."  And now I'm annoyed so now you are not even allowed to do y; you can just sit there and behold my power.  And by the way, I'm Oprah Winfrey, b*tch.

You get the idea.

I got nervous for Tony  -- I immediately reached into my bag to eat the forbidden nuts I had smuggled in to start stress eating on his behalf (Oprah understands) -- but he got what what he deserved on that one.  You don't question Oprah:  you do as you're told and say thank you.  Besides, he made some other comments that evening that were a little homophobic and misogynist -- in my opinion -- and if you're gonna pick a room to be either of those things, Oprah's Lifeclass is not that room, especially with the Fox studios right across the street.

The biggest takeaways I had from the evening were:

Action is the solution to fear.
The past does not equal the future unless you live there.
You become who you spend your time with.
Courage is feeling the fear, and yet going ahead anyway - you can't have courage without fear.
Change the story you tell yourself, change your life.

The last was pretty eye opening for me  -- we all have perceived truths about our lives -- who we are, what we are, what we do.   Until we see ourselves a different way, we can't affect change.  Or, simply put, many of us aren't living our LIVES but living the STORIES we've created for ourselves.  We get caught in thinking of ourselves a certain way, i.e. fat, thin, loved, unloved, rich, poor, single, codependent, stupid, smart, ugly, pretty.  And those are tied to the "if onlys" -- if only I were x, my life would be better.

All of this makes a lot of sense.  For many people, it's time to rewrite the story.  I believe we don't fail or succeed DESPITE where we come from or who we are, but BECAUSE of those things.

Pretty deep stuff.

Seeing Oprah live in person fulfilled a pretty-much lifelong wish of mine -- and seeing her with a friend who loves me unconditionally despite my story, or perhaps, even because of it, was an even bigger gift.  As we say a lot at Girls Inc., one of the greatest things the people who love us can do for us is see in us things we don't in ourselves -- and imagine greater things for us than we could ever dream of for ourselves.

Ever the good student, I am going to get to work doing what Oprah said and start changing my story, dreaming bigger.

So scratch the masseuse off my list of must haves -- I can do better than that.

But I still want that fountain soda machine.

I have to have SOMETHING to serve when Oprah and Gayle come over.

I Worry, Therefore I Am...

Back in the saddle blogging after several weeks. I wish I could say that I was off doing something exciting or newsworthy, but the truth is I've just been busy working. And when not working, I've been indulging in my favorite hobby: Worrying. And I use the remaining time not spent working or worrying on my second favorite hobby: Worrying about worrying.

This time of year is always particularly anxiety-filled for me. My life is generally anchored in my work, and I have a very busy season that starts in September, peaks in January, and then, come end of April, it settles down with a bit of a breather until September rolls around again. So, when allergies flare up, so does my anxiety; April-August are peak worrying months.

Without the distraction of too much work, I'm left to focus on the other areas of my life that I have been neglecting for eight months: Should I change jobs? Should I move out of NYC or somewhere else within the city? Was that crack always in the shower door? Why are those raisins in the refrigerator? Oh wait, I think those were grapes at some point ... Can I still eat them?

Some people feel pressure in work and relax when it dies down. Not me. I start to panic inside thinking of everything that I'm now going to have to handle. Work is such an easy excuse - I'm too busy to focus on that, it'll have to wait.

And this year with the accident and related annoyances -- doctors' appointments, bills, and paperwork, I've felt more maxed out than ever. So much so that I essentially took a vacation from dealing with it - shoving everything into a metaphorical box for a few weeks and refusing to even look at the mounting paperwork or deal with test results.

It was worrying about worrying that sent me to my doctor ("Are you sure that my brain isn't irretrievably broken?"), who suggested I might try a little talk therapy. Since there are few things I like more than the sound of my own voice, I decided to give it a try.

All went great the first session -- she asked me a lot of questions, and I told her all about me, a favorite topic. The second session, I showed up, said hello, she smiled at me, I smiled back. She smiled at me again, I smiled right back in my most charming fashion, although I was getting irritated inside. Sensing I wasn't getting it, she said, "I don't talk anymore, you talk."

Um, okay.

So, I talked for about 10 seconds, about what, I don't know, and then said, "That's all I've got." "That's okay," she replied, "We'll sit quietly."

Now, my version of sitting quietly is reading a book with my iPod on while Khloe and Lamar plays in the background. I don't know from quietly. I don't even sleep in peace, but instead have vivid dreams.

So after about what seemed like an hour but was really about 30 seconds, I said, "So, what's the deal here? How much longer is this going to go on with the no talking?" and she said, "Until you start talking again. It's up to you."

Okee.

Then she said, "I get the impression that you're uncomfortable being quiet." And even though, inside I was thinking, "No, what I'm uncomfortable with is paying to sit here in uncomfortable silence with a stranger when I could do this for free anywhere in this city, and if this is therapy, I just did that for 45 minutes on the way over here on the subway," I had to admit she was right. ''

My brain never stops and I'm always obsessing about something. I don't know how it is for most people, but I'm told that some people are actually able to relax every now and then. To me, those people are like unicorns. If you are one of those people, please self-identify, because I've yet to really find one, and everyone I ask says they are similarly tortured. Which I believe wholeheartedly, especially here in 21st century New York.

I can tell you this much -- I totally understand why people who have anxious brains self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol. Or, in my case, food and work. Anything to turn down the noise. When I'm forced into periods of quiet, it's harder to tune out what's really important, as opposed to, say, how adorable Bo Obama is, so I cover that up with obsessions like, "Did I leave the stove (the stove that I have never once turned on for four years living in this apartment) on?" and "Let's use this relaxation time to determine a detailed evacuation plan for this building in an event of a fire."

I'd rather cover up with the noise with other things. Which is, apparently, the total wrong thing to do. So I'm supposed to try to sit quietly as much as I can, so sayeth the therapist, even if it's uncomfortable, especially if it's uncomfortable, because that's where all of the good stuff is waiting to be mined.

So far, none of the good stuff has shown up yet but it's definitely there; I just need to step up the excavation. Somewhere under old episodes of The Brady Bunch and song lyrics to every song released in the 80s, lie some key questions and answers to the questions above - and beyond, maybe even some juicy ones like, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" But like any archaeological dig, I need to be patient and careful. I don't want to destroy any precious artifacts nor do I want to lose any of those treasures buried on top of them like Sam the Butcher's last name (for the record, it's Franklin). All of that is what makes me who I am.

I don't know if therapy is something I'll continue forever. I've yet to see a bill so somehow I think that will, unfortunately, be a determining factor, and when I see that, I'll have something else to worry about. So I'll have to take quiet where I can find it, which sounds like an urban quest in and of itself!

Or perhaps simply the topic of a future blog post ...

PS, stay tuned for a second blog I'm launching soon with my good friend Mary D. called "The Hypochondriacs Are In." Bring your best Google searches of symptoms...