Me and Dr. Oz

Last night, during one of my many google searches for me (yes folks, both egotistical and neurotic, but far more of the latter), I found a snippet of our Dr. Oz interview at Oprah.com under the heading "Understanding Menstruation." The almost hour long interview had been edited down to 8 minutes. 3 questions. Plus a couple of soliloquies that went no where.

And that was it. No fan fare. No hype. No announcement at his site. No advance notice from the producers. No "airing this Friday on Dr. Oz." It just quietly slipped under the radar and if I hadn't been searching, most likely I'd never know it was there.

This was, I had thought, going to be our big break. A main stream media icon with a huge following talking about FLOW. I was prepared to hype the hell out of it. I've gotten good at letting people know what's going on. While I've backed off significantly since one person asked me, in a polite yet scathing way, to be taken off my email list, in the past few months I've established lots of ways of spreading the word. Twitter, facebook, fanpages, blogging, email, skype. I spent last night sending the Oprah link (in case you're one of the 7 people I know who missed it: http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/Understanding-Menstruation-Audio) to just about everyone I know. Posted it everywhere. Tried to build excitement after the fact.

It wasn't easy.

And honestly, there wasn't all that much to drum up excitement about.

I sounded fine. Listening the first time, I got nervous. I always do. It's very hard to hear myself, almost expecting my junior high school lilt that I fought so hard to annihilate, the "ums" and "likes" that used to fill my conversations would come rushing back in moments of nervousness. They didn't. I wasn't nervous. That's one of the surprising, yet cool things about this journey. I don't panic. I'm not consumed with anxiety, although having said that I'll probably blank at a signing I've got this afternoon.

I love being interviewed. I love being put on the spot, pulling facts and stories together, weaving them into interesting conversation. I love talking FLOW. I love that people want to hear what I have to say.

Let's be honest. I love talking.

More than that, I love having something to say.

Much of my life I've felt insignificant, unimportant, a lightweight surrounded by intellectualism. Most of the stories I've told have been about my parent's divorce, my battle with anorexia, my struggles adjusting to motherhood. Most of my books have been on the fluffier side. Fluff with significant research and backbone, but not the stuff of deep conversation. That's not to say that for some, learning to wave like a beauty queen wasn't life changing, but FLOW is on a different plane entirely.

And that's translating to a different me. I'm taking myself more seriously. For just about the first time I'm not apologizing for what I've worked on. I'm not rationalizing, explaining, defending.

I'm wearing black glasses with rhinestones in the corner. Bold. Smart. Decisive.

I'm more secure than I've ever been.

I'm starting to own what I do, who I am, what I'm growing into.

Having said that, I have to go angst about what I'm going to wear to my signing today.

It's not going to be pretty.