SexTV/Canada and me

Got your attention, right? Despite the name, SexTV in Canada is a prestigious, informative and very big television show in Canada, and their shows are concerned with sex and relationships. Recent shows include a report on polygamy and there's an upcoming show on the book, Going Gray, about the ramifications for women when they stop dying their hair (I reviewed this book for The Boston Globe.) So a crew came to my house yesterday to talk with me about my infamous Cassandra/High Infidelity essay that was in the anthology The Other Woman, in New York magazine, and has all this film interest, which is why I'm killing myself to finish the script.

Of course, two days before they were due to come, my face exploded. I had some sort of weird bump on my eyebrow which really hurt and the left side of my face was swollen to the size of a small planet. I rushed to the doctor who told me it was probably preseptic cellulitis and the infection was spreading and I needed to get to an opthamologist fast because this kind of thing can cause oh...blindness and brain disease. Totally panicked, I ran to the opthamologist who put me in a waiting room with a TV (I had to watch General Hospital) and then told me, nope it wasn't that. It was just a badly infected cyst and yes, the infection was spreading, and was I picking at it? Insulted, I said of course I wasn't picking at it. After the doctor asked me several more times if I was picking at it, he gave me antibiotic, told me to put hot compresses on it and told me to come back.

By yesterday, the swelling was gone except for a weird bit under my eye, and I did my best to spackle makeup on the little sucker.

But Michelle, the producer, and Jeff the camera guy were great. We sat around and made fun of Bush for a while, (and I told them in the dems don't take the white house, we are moving to Canada), then we made fun of the Queen, and then we got to work. Michelle asked a million smart, thoughtful questions and I wasn't nervous at all, which was a surprise. Afterwards they filmed me talking with Jeff, then filmed me walking, then we went to the river so they could film me with the Empire State building behind me.

Michelle thought Jeff was Italian and that I was Irish (This totally dumbfounded me and then I figured it was because of my pale skin, freckles, green eyes and black hair, I guess, which is known s black Irish.) This happens all the time, though when we were in France, the French thought we were both Italian, and when we were in Italy, the Italians thought we were French and Greek. Nope. We are Russian,Polish-American Jews. Spaciba, horosho. (Sorry, no Russian letters on my keyboard.)

Lots of fun and now I get to say I was on SexTV!
Infected swollen face and all!