Yes, I'm a Total Has Been

Let's face it - I'm a total has been. I know that this was kindly pointed out by Steve Baldwin last year but I am finally feeling it.

Just stopped by Dooce's blog which is everything that my blogs are not - funny, prolific, high-profile.

Okay, so maybe I have just a wee bit of blog envy, but I do think she is terrific. Her latest entry "Snaggletooth and Soledad" (as in Soledad O'Brien), has a link to a CNN Roundtable featuring some of the top bloggers and Web personalities discussing Time magazine's Person of the Year.

In addition to Heather of Dooce, there was handsome-without-his-dreadlocks Omar Wasow of BlackPlanet.com and MSNBC/NBC Internet commentator fame. And leading the discussion was the aforementioned Soledad. And yes, pathetic little ol' me thought "I should have been there." Who me? Who am I anyway? Nobody anymore or so it seems.

I feel like wading in the shallow pool of semi-fame that I experienced back in the mid-90s, just for a little while. Ah, those were the days. I was limo'd out to CNBC as an Internet expert, featured on Lou Dobb's CNN show and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (although never met the man - the producer of the segment was Karen Raffensperger).

I was the only woman invited to participate on a USA Today panel of heavy weight technology and media titans including Michael Dell and Comcast president Brian Roberts. Like Dooce, I remember being completely unable to say anything relevant but at least got a laugh when I jumped on someone mentioning "shopping" in regards to new technology developments and I said something to the effect of "I'm so glad I wasn't the one to bring up shopping." My favorite business writer Kevin Maney from USA Today made some sympathetic comments about my being a little out of my league there. But I digress...

So there leading the CNN Roundtable was Soledad O'Brien who I think is smart and talented and very savvy to have leveraged her newspaper gig into a TV stint on an early Internet-related cable show called "The Site." She interviewed me on that show sometime in 1997, I think it was. I was nursing a bad cold and laryngitis and she was incredibly sweet, bringing me some tea before the interview. She seemed so nervous on camera, but she and I had a nice conversation and stayed in touch. We had dinner one night in Manhattan after she started working for MSNBC news. She was so down-to-earth and talked openly about her marriage and personal life as well as business. I was excited to see her not only go from MSNBC and NBC to CNN but also to see her pregnant several times. She was birthing babies while I was miscarrying. She was moving up the television ranks as I wandered the country in an old RV then settled into obscurity in Wyoming.

Anyway, there at the CNN Roundtable discussion was Omar Wasow who actually got his start at MSNBC because I, like an idiot nincompoop, turned down an invitation to be part of the first group of "talking heads" experts for a brand new channel called MSNBC when it first launched. They wanted more women and minorities who could speak about technology, the Internet and even current events. I thought (stupidly) that it was better that I devoted my time to Cybergrrl, Inc., the company I founded. The producer at CNN asked if I knew any other women or minority who would look great on camera and fit the bill.

I recommended Omar and contacted him to see if he was interested. He was so I made the connection to MSNBC for him. He wisely leveraged his occasional role into a full-fledged position as an Internet expert, appearing on the Today Show frequently. The irony is that I tried so hard in those early years to position myself as the Internet expert on a morning show and was working with Al Berman at "CBS This Morning" before Brian Gumbal came back and turned it into "The Early Show" and fired a lot of people. Al was testing me out to be their on-air Internet expert and then everything changed over there. I think he went on to co-produce "Survivor."

At one point, I was in discussions with "Oprah's people" to come onto her show and teach her how to use the Internet because, back then, Oprah had no idea how to get online. The Oprah Show had approached me and they thought having a woman teaching Oprah would be so much better than a man. Then, they dropped me like a hot potato and instead went with Omar. I don't blame them - besides being smart and talented, he's was a hot-looking dreadlocked young black man.

Remembering where I was going in those days and seeing where I am now, I have mixed feelings. I am incredibly happy in my life now with a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby girl and a little house in Alaska, but I sometimes wonder why I took the road to career oblivion instead of the road to career success? I made some decisions based on what I felt was right at the time, based on what I perceived was integrity, but in hindsight was just fear of success or fear of failure and an incredibly powerful deep seated insecurity, a ferocious lack of self-esteem.

I think Heather, Omar and Soledad deserve their high profiles and don't want this to come off like I'm disparaging them in any way. I am no longer funny or prolific or on the cutting edge. Living so far removed from "that world," having a baby, struggling with miscarriages and now post partum depression - it all adds up to a whole lot of nothing in terms of my career. I've lost my identity. I walked away from the company I founded, Cybergrrl, Inc., with nothing but the right to refer to myself as "The Original Cybergrrl." And you know what is pathetic? I still use that reference now and then. Loser.

Today, my struggles with identity come from realizing that becoming a mother isn't what I thought it would be and has somehow replaced all the other things I thought I was. My addled brain has no room or energy for anything other than trying to get through each day. I can sometimes get a brain spark and blog a bit like this post, but what I really should be doing is working on my latest work-for-hire book (because I'm too freaking pathetic to get my own book deal these days). Deadline is fast approaching. And somebody has got to do it.

Comments

[AY]

You need to read a lot of more Dooce if you're stuggling with post-partum. She was hospitalized. And she was dooced--ie fired for blogging before anyone else had a blog. And she lives in freakin' Utah!

[Cynthia Samuels]

My God girl! I have known you through all this and experienced a similar journey when I left the world of TV news. But no way a nobody. Just someone who took some risks that worked and some that didn't. I'll bet your battles with depression and the hormonal roller coaster of miscarriages (DO NOT underestimate that) are what are tripping you out.
I'm just so sorry you have to go through it - but given the spunk and capacity you've shown, when you come out from under the early babyness you'll find a way. Linda Ellerbee started in Alaska. So did Elizabeth Arnold. Hang on and write to us when you need to.