WHY DIDN'T I MENTION OPRAH?

Making a video Friday on the 12th, about "HEROINES," I didn't mention Oprah.

Isn't she a heroine? For many woman, she certainly is.

On my Website,The Readery, in my virtual library sits my book "Somebody," The Woman of the Century. At the end of the 20th Century, in 1999. Cordelia, my heroine is age 99. Discussing the future with her granddaughter, she murmurs -- "Who will be the queen-pin. the king-pin, in 2010? Oprah? Hillary? Madeline Albright?"

It was what I was thinking as I finished final revisions of the book in 2008.

But now my current HEROINES list is -- Hillary, Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Madeline Albright, Christiane Amanpour; Carol Burnett, Amelia Earhart, Whoopi Goldberg; Germaine Greer, Anita Hill, Mahalia Jackson, Rachel Maddow, Dinah Shore, Joan Rivers.

No name is there because she is, or was a performer.

Oprah is amazing, likable, lovable, someone to admire, to adore for her good deeds, for her open mind, her generosity, but Oprah is a star performer.

Despite the details about her that she's let her people reveal, I'm not sure who Oprah Winfrey is.

Wait a minute -- Oprah's up-front, never pretentious -- she talks to the audience and her guests, looks them in the eyes -- admits when she is wrong. She even laughs at herself. We've seen her struggles with her weight -- see the wide variety of clothes, hairdos, grooming -- Oprah Winfrey lets us into her life... sort of ...

Well, maybe ... well ... maybe not.

Oprah is an opinion-maker -- books she praises become best-sellers -- movies she likes often become smash hits. And her guests (if they're not already names), very often become "names."

When I was writing "Somebody," I wondered if there was a way to get my book to Oprah. If you "know somebody who knows her, maybe," people said. "Or write her a letter.''

What would I say? I love your show? Be one of the thousands of letters, that her staff reads for her? Quote a passage from the book?

I have mulled over imaginary letters but never wrote one -- always got stuck on the thousands of letters she gets, and where would I send a letter, to what address?

Harpo, Inc., founded in 1988 by Oprah Winfrey is her production facility in Chicago, controlling her entertainment interests, currently four talk shows.. Harpo publishes, in partnership with Hearst Magazines, "O, The Oprah Magazine," and "O at Home," a home design magazine, and Harpo is producing, in partnership with Sony, a fifth talk show.

Harpo/Sony has announced, " The Nate Berkus Show," which will be a multi-topic series, with a broad range of subjects and guests based on lifestyle, entertainment and personal transformation."

I'll probably never see it. " I'm not a watcher of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Dr Oz," or "Dr. Phil" -- there's something too-too humbly sincere about Phil, and Oz annoys me -- he promotes himself too much. And "Rachel Ray," whose forte is cooking, doesn't interest me.

I don't watch Oprah because I'm too busy -- I don't have time when I'm writing a new post everyday ... well ... actually I could watch, but I don't ... maybe, probably because she makes me feel small, unimportant.

I'll say again what I said in my video.

I think of FAME as a huge bright green lawn, a stadium, a playing field surrounded by spotlights and a huge audience in the bleachers.

Wending my way to the center of that field, I felt like a lost child.


I got off the lawn!

Would I like to do what Oprah's doing?

Be like her?

No. she's big business. She's an unstoppable power,

I'd rather be me.