Living Oprah

by Robyn Okrant

  10/22 “Whether you’re a parent or grandparent, aunt or uncle, I hope you’ll pass some of them along to a child you love.” (SHOW) 0h 2m Nothing was funnier than my 3-year-old niece’s blank look as I taught her about fiscal responsibility before she opened her Christmas presents.

  10/23 “Find out how to get paid for doing what you love.” (SHOW) 0h 0m This felt exhilarating to hear. (O)

  10/23 “Following your passion, allowing yourself to be paid for what you love will give you a meaningful life.” (SHOW) 0h 0m Well, I am following my passion. And I’m allowing myself to get paid for what I love. And I know the universe will shower me with salary any moment now. Any moment… Universe?… (O)

  10/23 “Do what you love and the money will come.” (SHOW) 0h 0m See above. (O)

  10/24 “Take a breath, everybody.” (SHOW) 0h 0m Oprah wanted us to breathe and relax and know the economy will be fine.

  10/24 Buy a Kindle reader “if you can afford it.” (SHOW) 359.00 0h 5m Couldn’t afford it at first. Saved up! Bought it on 12/29/08.

  10/24 “You are really going to love yourself when you do this.” (SHOW) 1h 0m Make Chicken Pot Pie from Cristina Ferrare’s recipe (made on 11/28 for family during Thanksgiving weekend). My parents bought ingredients. Wouldn’t tell me how much they spent.

  10/27 “Every woman needs a fan!” (to make us look great in portraits) (SHOW) 0h 0m Hilarious. I had the photographer turn on a fan during the photo shoot for this book. You can’t tell because my hair’s so short, though.

  Date Assignment Cost Time Notes

  Throughout Month Watch every episode of Oprah. (LO) 23h 0m 23 shows

  Throughout Month Do Best Life Challenge exercise. (BLC) 6h 0m 80 minutes a week for 4.5 weeks

  Throughout Month Take A Course in Miracles. (WEB/SHOW) 7h 45m approx. 15 minutes a day for 31 days

  MONTHLY TOTAL 461.04 52h 11m

  YEAR-TO-DATE TOTAL 4,092.64 1062h 54m

  ONGOING PROJECTS

  – “Reinvigorate your appearance with some great advice on how not to look old…”

  – “Rethink your eating habits with some absolutely delicious and utterly original meals…”

  – Use cloth and reusable bags at grocery store. No more plastic.

  – Change lightbulbs to energy-efficient bulbs.

  – “I think in terms of investment, it’s the best thing you can ever give yourself is to have beautiful surroundings.”

  – “I would just say to anybody, whatever secret you’re holding, live your own truth.”

  – Sharon Salzberg meditation

  – Make your rooms personal.

  – Best Life Challenge exercise and diet guidance

  – “I do want you to start thinking about, as I have started thinking about, how much you consume. I mean, like every time you throw away a paper towel. Every time you are, you know, wasteful with food in your house… just think about how much you really need.”

  – “Get a lift when you come in the front door.”

  – “I want you to savor every meal.”

  – “I want you to pay attention to how happy women get that way.”

  – A Course in Miracles

  – Declutter home/life.

  – A New Earth meditation

  – “With the arrival of spring, I hope you, too, will reconnect with nature.”

  – “When you think that you’re going to get in a car and drive, I want you to think about this mother holding her daughter’s head on the side of the highway. That’s the thought I want to come to your mind before you go to get in the car after having even one drink.”

  – “Stop defining yourself by what you see — or think you see — when you look in the mirror.”

  – “Everybody think about this: On the way to work or on the way to do whatever you do during the day… how many negative things… the negative tape that’s playing in your head all day long about yourself. I can’t do that, I shouldn’t do that, I’m too fat, oh, look at my thighs…”

  – “I think we should be open like Horton.”

  – “Alexis Stewart talks candidly about trying to get pregnant on her radio show Whatever, on Martha Stewart Living Radio. Tune in to follow her progress there.”

  – The YOU: Staying Young Aging Quiz

  – Learn to accept all people.

  – “Stop saying that” (re: using the word “just” to describe ourselves).

  – Take Dr. Oz–recommended vitamins and supplements (vitamin D, folic acid, fish oil)

  – Rise and Shine — how to wake up less stressed.

  – “Be sure to check him [Dr. Oz] out on XM156, Oprah and Friends, and also on our section of Oprah.com. Keep those questions coming.”

  – Ten Secrets to a Better Love Life

  – Get Rolfed.

  – Burt’s Bees Eye Cream and Ageless Night Cream

  – “Going out to work every day, which every man does who is responsible for his family, after a while men feel taken for granted that they are doing that… so there needs to be some acknowledgment of that”

  – “The truth of the matter is, men do need to be made to feel like they’re winners. They do need to have themselves built up.”

  – “Go to Oprah.com for more of Suze’s advice on how to survive these tough times.”

  – “So, if you or somebody you know needs help with addiction and finding treatment in your area, call the National Drug and Alcohol Addiction Hotline.”

  – “You have to do your own self-test” (re: breast self-exam)

  Accounting Abbreviations: LO = Living Oprah Project Task, SHOW = The Oprah Winfrey Show, WEB = Oprah.com, MAG = O, The Oprah Magazine, BC = Oprah’s Book Club, BLC = Best Life Challenge, (O) = ongoing project

  Video: This is a link to the Today Show interview I mention in this chapter: http://robynokrant.com/media.html

  Blog: And how was your morning? http://www.livingoprah.com/2008/10/and-how-was-your-morning.html

  NOVEMBER:

  Guess who’s coming to dinner?

  Time spent this month: 72 hours, 53 minutes

  Dollars spent this month: $260.03

  Most challenging assignment: “Live with cellulite. Be happy.”

  Most enjoyable assignment: “Get rid of your toxic friends.”

  Words that stuck: “Oprah really loves grated orange zest. I think it might be her favorite food. Who uses that much zest?” — My aunt Rayna, after she cooked several Thanksgiving recipes from Oprah.com

  I ’VE DEVELOPED a new talent: I can recite the script from the Lowe’s commercials along with Gene Hackman’s voice-over. I’ve seen and heard these ads so often during Oprah’s show, I know his intonations — every nuance of his line readings. I am able to perform this trick with several of Oprah’s sponsors, and after I watch each episode, I find myself humming jingles as I go about my day. If there is an advertising edition of Trivial Pursuit, I highly recommend you purchase it and ask me to be on your team. I’m a ringer.

  I can also tell you what’s on sale each given week at Old Navy and Target. I’m a walking, talking circular. I’m not allowed to wear cargo pants this year, because they supposedly make me look old, but I sure know where they can be purchased at a low, low price for a limited time. Twice I’ve dragged Jim downtown to shop for items I’ve seen sandwiched between segments of the Oprah show. I never liked to shop before, but these bright, sassy commercials are turning my repulsion into compulsion.

  This is one of the more surprising by-products of my daily viewing of the show. Oprah’s advertisers have become integrated into my daily intake of television. While I prefer to mute or fast-forward through the commercials during the rest of my TV-watching time, I think it’s important for me to absorb the full Oprah experience along with millions of other viewers. These ads become an extension of the show itself.

  The Oprah audience is mainly female. Oprah.com says “Women outnumber men in the audience by a ratio of 19 to 1,” and women drive most of the purchasing for their hou
seholds. If I were an advertiser, I’d covet the opportunity to be part of Oprah’s hour. When I see an ad for a product or service during the show, it is inextricably connected to the Queen of Talk herself. It’s almost as if Oprah is personally urging us to join Jenny Craig when those commercials play between segments of her episodes about weight loss. And doesn’t she want us to buy new tools from Lowe’s when she does a program about home makeovers? For a nation of susceptible TV viewers who have limited funds, it feels like a dangerous concoction to mix TV’s most influential woman and advertising.

  Oprah has aired many episodes this year about fiscal responsibility. One of her experts, Suze Orman, has read us the riot act about chilling out when it comes to throwing our hard-earned dollars around. The country’s economy is circling down the drain because many of us are spending money we don’t actually have. Oprah and her panelists have urged us to be smart with our finances and to save. We’ve been informed about our hostess’s distaste for waste. She recommends that we stop to consider what we can live without. And yet it’s the nature of the television business that we don’t follow her well-meaning advice. To keep shows on TV, we must put money in advertisers’ pockets or else their dollars will dry up and our favorite shows will be canceled. I am dubious when television shows tell us to stop spending. I can’t help but think about Philip Morris’s Youth Tobacco Prevention Department or their QuitAssist® program. When I first heard about these, I just about fell out of my chair. Will Duncan Hines sponsor a diabetes support group next? If I hadn’t quit smoking back in 1997, the frustration I now feel over this corporate game-playing might make me reach for a cigarette.

  November 3, 2008

  I love my vulva!

  Oprah told me I should.

  I’m so relieved her new sexpert, Dr. Laura Berman, has convinced Oprah to use anatomical terms for a woman’s body. If I never hear the word “vajayjay” again, it’ll be too soon. I don’t want to pretend I’ve always been above embarrassment when it comes to discussing my body. When I was a preteen, I used to call the entire space below my navel and above my knees my “area.” In Oprah’s defense, at least “vajayjay” strongly insinuates the word “vagina” when used in context. “Area” could imply just about anything that takes up space. But hey, I was 11.

  Oprah widens the sexual horizons of the daytime talk show audience. While I find her discussions pretty tame, it’s the nature of the beast that daytime television falls behind prime-time TV in raciness. The kids are home, after all. Oprah seems ready to break through the constraints of what’s socially acceptable to discuss before the kiddos’ bedtime. The sex-related shows contain warnings galore so concerned parents can turn on the DVR or whisk their children out of the living room and throw them in front of World of Warcraft on the computer instead. You know, so they don’t have to learn the evils of human sexuality.

  I really appreciate the frankness of these shows. I would prefer they go even further in-depth, but I suppose baby steps are in order. Some of my blog readers were none too happy about such shows playing before the sun sets, but as a child-free woman, I say bring on the openness!

  Oprah’s audience emulates her. I think it is her responsibility, as someone whose goal it is to empower women, to display as much comfort with the human body and sexuality as possible. Shame often surrounds the topic of our bodies and sex, so the more Oprah can let her guard down, the more we will. I know this is a tall order for someone who comes from a background of sexual abuse, so I appreciate and admire her growth in this area. One small step for woman, one giant leap for a mostly female viewing audience of millions.

  Speaking of viewing, tonight I am in my bathroom, squatting over a hand mirror. Oprah and Dr. Berman have urged us to familiarize ourselves with our genitals. I surprised myself when I thought back and realized I haven’t done this since I still played cassettes on my boom box. I am not very intimidated by the assignment, but it is taking me ages to find a hand mirror. Once I finally locate the necessary prop, I have a little private time in the bathroom. I can’t help but sing “Getting to Know You” in my best Julie Andrews vibrato while I reflect upon my best side.

  “Robyn?”

  I leap about five feet in the air. I hadn’t heard Jim come home from work, and I nearly step on the mirror as I hustle to put on some pants. “I’m in here!” I call out to him.

  Jim pokes his head in the bathroom, where I’ve just managed to button my jeans. For some reason, instead of telling him what I’ve been doing, I pretend I’ve just used the john and I flush the toilet and wash my hands.

  “How was work?” I ask him. Then I recall another assignment I was given this morning and throw my arms around his neck, kissing him deeper than our usual peck hello. I count down in my head.

  “10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.”

  I let him go.

  He looks pleasantly surprised and asks what brought that on. I tell him Oprah advocated that women kiss their partners for ten seconds every day. He looks bummed out that it was Oprah, rather than he, who inspired the smooch. Immediately, I regret killing the moment.

  In the following days, I can’t help imagining Dr. Berman and Oprah nodding enthusiastically as Jim and I kiss for our allotted seconds. While my husband is initially eager about this assignment, I’m kind of bored. It is making make-out time not so fun for me, and it’s not an overstatement to say I actually start to dread kissing my own partner, whom I adore and who is truly quite kissable. While I count down our kissing seconds in my head, I am certain Jim is counting down the days until this project is over. I’m hoping the new year will immediately erase Oprah’s presence from my bedroom.

  Spontaneity is nonexistent lately. Oprah told her audience, “The first thing you need to do in preparing for sex… is wash yourself…. I’m just assuming that everybody has taken a shower.” Jim looks entirely confused every time things get steamy between us and I run to the bathroom to get clean. By the time I dry off, his mind is elsewhere. Maybe next time I should bring him with me. We think about Oprah’s advice every time we feel the least bit romantic, and this threesome is not enhancing my marriage. Her guidance has been helpful in many other aspects of my life, but Winfrey is no Spanish fly.

  November 12, 2008

  I’ve signed another contract. Oprah’s guaranteed a clutter-free home if we follow the plan laid out in the Oprah’s Clean Up Your Messy House Tour program. Oprah must know how to keep a house clean — from the photos I’ve seen of her various homes, her living space appears to be impeccable. I’ve come a long way as a housekeeper since the beginning of the year, but I’ve still got miles to go. I imagine Oprah and I have different methods and requirements when it comes to cleaning our homes.

  Okrant:

  Organize kitchen cabinets.

  Spend ten minutes each day decluttering closets.

  Stop accumulating kitchen gadgets.

  Make sure drawers aren’t a struggle to close.

  Oprah:

  Hire housekeeper.

  The Oprah’s Clean Up Your Messy House Tour is a mobile program that sends fleets of adorable VW Beetles around the country to help people like me. I don’t want an army of latex-gloved strangers in my home, so I’m not applying for direct help, but I am signing my contract and following the rules. The program is six months long, and it’s the first time I’ve been confronted with the concrete question about whether I’ll continue any of this once my year ends in 49 days. Not that I’m counting.

  This is one area of my life I’m hoping to maintain. It’s nice to have breathing room in my small home. The cats have more fun when there are piles to hide behind, but it makes me feel stressed, distracted, and embarrassed. Jim even uses the word “declutter” now. It’s like our new hobby: our boring but satisfying hobby. Still, I’ve had this avocation for less than a year. Will the habits of decades be broken? My fingers are crossed.

  Today I witnessed one of the reasons I believe Oprah has been able to build and maintain her p
opularity since 1986. I’ve already spoken about how her passion is magnetic, but so is her pain. Today she informed us of the passing of her beloved cocker spaniel Solomon. She shared her grief with us. She wept and so did I. Her pain recalled the loss of pets in my past. I don’t wish such sadness on anyone, but Oprah’s ability to display her deep emotion makes her so much more accessible to me. It is her unguarded feelings that allow her audience a heartfelt connection to her. While some believe her lifestyle makes her unable to relate to the average Jane, it is in times like these I think we are able to reestablish our bond, if we desire to maintain one. Sure, she’s guarded about many things that I wish she’d make more transparent, but in the moments when her boundaries dissipate and we see her express pain, embarrassment, joy, and excitement, she becomes human once again.

  I think of Martha Stewart, also a media magnate and self-made success who has capitalized on her own passions. I’ve learned a lot of practical advice from her. In fact, my own interests fall more in line with Martha’s expertise than Oprah’s priorities. I believe Martha to be a strong teacher and a skilled, clever, and enthusiastic craftsperson. Yet, while she’s shared her marvelous hints about creative housekeeping over the years, she doesn’t have the same personal emotional connection to her audience that Oprah maintains. Martha appears more subdued and self-protective than Oprah. She doesn’t yell guests’ names like Tarzan or burst into an “ugly cry.” (Oprah’s self-proclaimed “ugly cry” is just what it sounds like — an unrestrained display of genuine emotion, complete with tears, snot, and running mascara.) I get the sense that Martha is perceived as a contained and controlled authority figure, while Oprah is embraced as everyone’s BFF.

  After today’s show, even I wanted to give Oprah a comforting hug. I’ve never felt as if Martha needed my hug, but I’m not offended. It’s way too dangerous to hug a woman with a hot glue gun in her hand, anyway.