Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Me? Fidgety and Sweaty? Absolutely.

First, what the hell is with people entering the enclosures of animals in zoos? Particularly those of pandas or bears? Do these people get "one complementary stupid pill" with admission to any zoo of their choosing, or were they just born that way? Hey Moat Jumpers: these creatures are not Teddy Bears; they are WILD ANIMALS and if you climb into their lair to mess with them or give them a hug or feed them the rest of your Churro, prepare your face for a well-deserved date with claws and teeth, followed by years of reconstructive plastic surgery. Congratulations, Moat Jumpers: you are massive societal drains!

Okay, now that I have that off my chest, I can move on.

Tomorrow morning I'm taping a segment on Good Day Wisconsin, about my Saturday appearance at the upcoming Fox Cities Book Festival. I've never done TV before, for several reasons:

1) I make lame comments to friends like, "Sweet Jesus, I'll need extra-strength Secret anti-perspirant if it's LIVE," and there is a very real and frightening chance that I'll repeat this on live television.

2) I am fond of wild hand gestures that could actually make me take flight.

3) Every so often I get one of those "Swallow-mid-sentence clicks" or "Bubble throat" effects, and nobody wants to hear that shit.

4) I have been known to get eye tics when I'm nervous. You know, the ones where it looks like your eye has overdosed on heroin and is convulsing.

5) Despite an adolescence forcing relatives to watch my cousins and me "performing" skits and lip sync "shows" at every family gathering, I am now much more comfortable sitting in the back row poking gentle fun at the people onstage. (Oh dear God, the Karma! The KARMA!)

Anyway, I'm not sure if the segment will be live or just taped tomorrow morning, so if you tune in and I'm not there, it'll either be shown later, or I crapped my pants immediately before the segment and we had to cancel.

If you catch me on TV and I don't scare you away, I'd love to see you at my reading at the Kimberly Public Library this Saturday at 12:30. I probably won't be as sweaty in-person. There's a panel discussion on chicklit before my event, and I'm going to sit in the audience and heckle the panelists to compose myself. Later that evening at the author reception I'm going to swoon over Sherman Alexie and try to rub Elizabeth Berg's head for good luck.

Hey, she was on Oprah like three times!

I'm totally kidding about the panel heckling and head-rubbing, but not so much about the swooning.

PS: an angry zit the size of Cleveland has just taken up timely residence on my chin. Good thing I won't be on high definition TV! oh, wait...

7 comments:

  1. I wish I could watch, to see if you take off into flight or not. We can determine whether you crapped your pants or not depending on how close people are willing to stand by you.

    Hope it goes really well, and the chick lit library thing, too.

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  2. Oh, and the polar bears? How dumb do people come? Pretty dumb, I'm guessing.

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  3. And if anybody wanted to tape your appearance and put it on YouTube...

    Good luck--sounds like you're going to have a great weekend! (Aside from the live TV/missed my finals nightmare.)

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  4. Just remember, don't let them change your regular hairdo because you'll end up touching your hair on camera because it's unfamilar.

    And if they put on too much of anything, eyeliner, lipstick or blush, either tell them you don't like it or go in the women's room and wipe it off. The makeup and hair people never watch the tapings.

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  5. Ahhhh.. If only we had hair and makeup people. Good thing she came ready to go!
    Jess was just here and she was great! Right clothes. Right make-up. (Covered her zit.) Perfect hair. If you want to see the segment go to www.fox11online.com and click on Good Day WI.

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  6. I am so there with you about WTF happens to people when they go to the zoo. It is my understanding the "woman in the polar bear" well they said her elevator didn't go to the top floor...uhmmm well don't leave her un-attended then. Stupid is what stupid does!!

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  7. Oh, congrats...forgot to mention..dang you are a celebrity!

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