You guys? Thanks so much for all your cool tweets, Facebook messages and comments here. I appreciate all your encouragement and good wishes! How’d it go- that whole ABC TV thingy?

Ok, well, my awesome friend Tara did the best she could with all her fancy Bare Minerals this n that makeup and curled my eyelashes for the first time since 1991 when the Clinique lady curled them for my wedding. No, Tara did not use the Brandied Plum eyeshadow still in my makeup bag worn to said wedding. We are keeping that as a ‘nostalgic museum piece’ now- plus aren’t you supposed to keep your wedding eyeshadow in case your daughter wants to wear it someday?

My local hair salon applied blowdrying, straightening and lots of hairspray- they actually let me BORROW the hairspray (yes, I returned it) because they didn’t have any small bottles and dude, I wasn’t going to spend $18 on hairspray I would never use again. I could buy two baseball hats to cover up the fact that my hair is not done for that money.

I drove my husband’s pickup truck to the downtown swankified Washington DC neighborhood. Was this smart? Eff no. Of course, I got lost- wait let me rephrase: MAPQUEST GOT ME LOST. AGAIN. Diehard PJ&Cers may remember the Mapquest drama back in July in my comments section. Why, self? Why did you trust Mapquest again? Because you were too cheap to pay the sitter for an extra hour and take the Metro? You’re a dumbass. Get a fucking GPS.

So I eventually found the studio.

And there was a parking garage next to it. Good news? The dude is going to park it for me. Bad news? $20. Yowch. My lunch money!

I go to the very secure-looking locked door and speak too-loudly into the microphone, giving the name of the person I was supposed to ask for. The security lady asks me ‘Name?’ and I loudly again repeat the producer’s name. “YOUR NAME???” she overly loudly asks back, because she has clearly figured out that I must be here to tape the Challenged, ‘Special’ Moms: Do They Need Helmets? segment.

I am escorted upstairs by the lovely, gorgeously heeled-and-skirted Rhonda.* She says she will take me to Hair And Makeup. Me: ohtheytoldmetobeinhairandmakeupalready. Rhonda gives me a little ‘we’ll just fix you up a bit for tv’ kinda glance and I’m all thinking dude, bring on the blowtorch, Botox and bytheway can you digitize out this double chin?

Then I see this:

and I nearly faint because this is where BarbaraWaltersDianeSawyerBarackObama would sit before they went in, and I bet they weren’t wearing $19 Old Navy jeans and I believe I am now going to suffocate myself with cotton balls from that large glass jar.

Here is a self portrait of me, complete with Cindy Brady freak-out stare:

And then: he magically appears. Harry* the mythical, magical makeup unicorn who tells me I have pretty eyes and chats with me about favorite writers and- darn it- can’t talk about whose makeup he’s done. I think I am going to leave my husband, because I am sure that Harry* has a swankified urban loft and makes things with sauteed pine nuts, and omg, he just dusted me with something that makes me look less like a hag, and yes, I’m definitely in love.

Then I wait in the green room for a short time:

I was putting the ‘green’ in ‘green room’ because I was ready to hurl from being terrified. The Good Morning America sign? And This Week With George Stephanopoulos?  EEK!

So then I’m sitting in ‘the chair’ with the big, scary-looking camera in front of it. Then Rhonda* is putting a secret-service thingy in my ear and a microphone wire under my shirt (while I think go Life Savers and deodorant!). After a bit I hear “New York will be with you in a minute.”

New York? Oh, yeah, Big Apple, well why are you keeping me waiting?! Do you know who I AM? I am, um…. Oh, that’s right. I’m a fat housewife from the suburbs who is going to take her kids to soccer practice right after this. You can keep me waiting. It’s cool.

Wow, these hot lights are going to make me sweat. Crap.

Then I hear ‘can you give us a 1 to 10 so we can get a microphone check?’

I think: Um, sure, if you don’t mind when I PUKE between 3 and 4 because I am effingfreakingout.

Then I hear JuJu Chang and Romi Lassally, and they are way, way cool, and laid back and funny, and then I’m all kinda calm all the sudden, and everything goes pretty well, I guess. I hope. I mean, I am terrified to see the clip- because I am going to look fat and double chinny and wrinkly and sound stupid and stuff. If they don’t cut my segment, which I think was maybe a minute or two long. And can I say? Juju Chang said she read my blog, which she named, and that it cracked her up. Wow! Go, blog not sucking!

The deets: the show is called Moms Get Real and it’s on ABC News Now. It’s on live today at 2:30, but I don’t get the channel on my cable, so I have to wait for the link, which the producer told me will be up by tonight or tomorrow morning. I will put it in the comments of this post, unless I look like an ass, then I will be all ‘what TV show?’

Seriously though? The experience was tons of fun and I hope I get to hang out with the awesome Moms Get Real peeps again- even if it means I need to buy another $14.99 (on sale from $49!) top from the Liz Claiborne outlet. Plus then I would get to write the “When Harry Marries Marymac” post.

If you see the clip and then post here, please LIE LIKE A RUG and tell me I did ok! Thanks for all your support guys- it totally kept me from hurling. Heart you!

*names have been changed to protect innocent TV station workers.