Am I Ready for my Close-Up?

I’ve been feeling very Eyore-ish lately:  grouchy, touchy, under-appreciated and basically unhappy with my lot in life. Not tragically unhappy, where I could get some sympathy and maybe food and presents. Not even unhappy enough to whine about.

Then I received some validation from a source other than my dogs, who love me way more than is healthy.  No, my family didn’t hold an intervention in which they furiously berated each other for not realizing that they’d be lost without me. And I didn’t get a raise at work. 

My validation came in an email from Paula Morell, asking that I read an essay of mine for Tales from the South (http://www.talesfromthesouth.com/index.html) at the Starving Artist Café in Little Rock. My first two thoughts:

Holy shit, I’m going to be on NPR!

When Sally Field won the Oscar (best actress AND best head piece) for the Flying Nun and said something like “You like me, you really like me!”

Instead of wondering what to make for dinner, I’m looking for a media consultant. Before that, though, I have to figure out what to wear before a radio audience and how much voice lessons cost. I want an elegant, yet casual look and a smokey voice: Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil vs. an extra from Deliverance. I could write a book about how much that movie disturbed me.

Worrying about how I will sound makes me think of how David Sedaris makes fun of his own voice and how, being NPR people, we’re going to be the best of friends.

“I should have read Six to Eight Black Men,“ he’ll whimper over the phone from a hotel in the heartland. "My piece about their city being a magnet for porn actresses didn’t go over at all! They hated me!”

“Now, Blisters,” I’ll say. “I thought it was hilarious. I listened to it while I was preparing one of my fabulous dinner parties for my other NPR friends – the Crème brûlée almost fell because I was laughing so hard! By the way, I’m mailing you a small manuscript that I hope you’ll be honest about. “

I know the paparazzi is sure to come for me. I hate the thought of having to be “on” all the time.  Instead of hitting the girls at the store when they whine, I’ll have to throw back my head in a playful way, as if thinking “these girls of mine say the darndest things!” And forget going to the beach: I don’t want my thighs and buttocks to end up on the cover of the Inquirer where you have to guess whose they are. I'm just going to have to go incognito.

Frankly, my big worry is how many of my friends I'm going to have to give up for my new celebrity BFFs.  Sure, they've been loyal through thick and thin (to tell the truth, I'm a bit of a high-maintenance friend), but are they ready for being under a magnifying glass because they know me?  One thing is sure: I've GOT to get new dogs.