I Miss You When I Blink: Essays(62)

I held out the penguin-on-a-stick that was in my hand, offering it to her as if it were a glass of wine.

When I recall that moment, I don’t remember making a decision. I didn’t think, You know what I should do right now? I should take this cartoon animal and place it into the hands of the person standing before me whom I don’t know, with no explanation. I just did it.

“Do you want . . . a picture?” she asked. I nodded.

“Maybe you should hold that,” she said, pointing at the penguin. I pulled it back. Suddenly, I was doing everything I do not do. I flapped my hair behind my ears again and again. I tried to remember what my younger colleagues had taught me about taking selfies. Was it stick the chin out or suck the chin in?

My friend took the photo. Mindy Kaling walked away. I stood there holding a cardboard bird, wondering what had just happened.

I’ve thought about that evening again and again, reliving my embarrassment in waves, and sending my apology out into the universe in hopes it would reach her: I was an idiot, and I’m sorry, Mindy Kaling.

But there’s something else about that moment that has occurred to me recently. I’ve decided that if I ever see Mindy Kaling again, I’ll make only the most minimal eye contact, and it will go something like this:

Mindy Kaling’s eyes: Oh no, not you again.

My eyes: Wait. Remember how I turned into a weirdo fangirl at that party? I didn’t even know that version of me existed until then. And if that person was somewhere inside me, just waiting for her moment to emerge, who else might be in there? Imagine.

Before I turn away as if I don’t even see her, I’ll nod a little thank-you, and Mindy will understand.





Try It Again, More Like You


As soon as the cameras start rolling, I freeze.

I’m supposed to introduce the guest and say my opening lines, “Welcome to A Word on Words. I’m Mary Laura Philpott, and today we’re talking to . . .” but suddenly my ability to modulate my own volume and pronounce vocabulary in the language I’ve been speaking all my life has left me. I’m yelling: WELCOME! TO! AWORDONWORDS! I’m MARYLAURAPHILPOTT! AND TODAYWERETALKIN! I sound like the robo-voice of a 1990s answering machine on high speed—Please! Leave! Amessage! Afterthetone!

Matt laughs. He’s operating one of the cameras, and because this is public television and everyone has at least two roles at the same time, he’s also our editor, the one who will later take all the rough interview footage and weave it together into a finished show. I know why he’s laughing. This happens every time.

He leans out from around the camera.

“Try it again, more like you,” he says.

I take a deep breath and start over.



* * *



The problem comes when I think about the role I’m playing instead of the thing I’m doing. I can discuss nitty-gritty life-and-literature stuff with anyone, anywhere, all day long. But when I become aware of the camera and of my job as an interviewer, the halting emphasis on random syllables starts up again: “What’s the se-CRET to a great co-MED-ic no-VEL? Today we’ll TALKTOTHEAUTHOR! ANDFINDOUT!”

We came to an agreement, Matt and I. He understood that it would take me a few rounds of filming the intro before I’d loosen up enough to record a keeper. And I trusted that he’d tell me when I screwed up, so I could fix it. The whole team knew I was inexperienced. They’d known ever since the first time I looked into the camera and spoke my name during the screen test, sitting on my hands to keep from scratching the rash on my face.

“I’m—wait, where do I look?”

“Into the camera.”

It felt strange and impersonal to address the rectangular lens and not the person whose outline I could just make out beyond it. I knew the crew was there in the shadows, but I couldn’t make out their faces. The cavernous Nashville Public Television studio—two stories high and packed along each wall with discarded set pieces—was completely dark, except for the spot where I sat in a tall director’s chair, lit by a beam coming from somewhere behind the camera. The NPT producers had invited me to come do a screen test to be considered as a host of A Word on Words, an author interview show. I’d never done on-camera work before, but the folks who produced the show had seen some of my writing about books and thought I might be a good candidate for a host. I love talking about books, so I said sure.

The week before the screen test, I’d treated myself to a facial, which I knew damn well was a bad idea. I’ve had maybe four facials in my life. It always takes me a while to forget my sensitive skin’s unforgiving policy on unfamiliar emollients; but then I get sucked into a tranquil-looking advertisement and think, Yes, I would become a relaxed person if I let a stranger massage mystery oils into my face for an hour. My skin started boiling with bumps a few hours after I left the day spa. By the next day, it looked like I’d tried to cure a severe case of acne by rubbing my cheeks with poison ivy. I did not look or feel like myself when I screen-tested; I felt like a raw hamburger patty crawling with ants, being filmed for a nature documentary. That they took a chance and let me come back and shoot a pilot episode is a miracle.

If you take one thing from this story, let it be that you should never get a facial before recording a television show.



* * *



That’s not the only lesson I got from my first television job. In addition, I learned: You must turn off your clip-on microphone before going to the bathroom. It takes professional drag queen levels of makeup not to look washed out under the lights. If you sit comfortably, you’ll look on-screen as if you’re slumped over in your chair like a corpse; you must hold the electrified posture of a startled ballerina if you want to look like you’re sitting up straight.