An Introvert On The Today Show
I was on live TV, in front of 5 million people. What could possibly go wrong?
So what was a mild-mannered, middle-aged librarian doing on the Today Show in the first place?
I’d written an essay, At Ease With A Body Fighting Gravity, about the fact that I’m more comfortable in a bathing suit at age 58 than I was in my youth, when I actually had the body to rock a Speedo. This, apparently, was so unusual that after it was published in the New York Times, a Today Show producer invited me onto the show to talk about it.
“I’d love to,” I replied. “But not in a bathing suit.”
I had my doubts about whether a librarian gabbing about an essay would make for riveting TV. While I can be funny on paper, I’m no dazzling wit. You’d never use the words “life of the party” to describe me. Plus, the prospect of being on national television was, to put it mildly, terrifying. At work, I’m always ready to entertain a crowd of toddlers with “The Wheels on the Bus” or “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” But entertaining millions of people on live TV?
That sounded more like an Itsy Bitsy Heart Attack.
My library colleagues assured me that I could do it. “If you can handle Tiny Tot Story Time,” they told me, “You can handle anything.”
