On Saturday my nanny Beth came into my bedroom/study with a strange look on her face. "Justine?"

I looked up from my laptop.

"Did you know that [insert name of famous show] called? Twice."

"What?"

"They left two messages on the answering machine. They really like your article*. Suzy [the other nanny] is jumping up and down."

I went downstairs to the kitchen. Beth played the messages for me.

I felt a little shaky and had to sit down on the floor.

A thought occurred to me and I said, "How did they get this number?"

"It's [insert name of famous person]," said one of the nannies. She waved her hands around. "[Famous person] knows all."

I returned the call and talked to a woman named Jackie who was friendly in a crisp, efficient way. "We're always looking for stories where lessons are learned, where the person acquires wisdom after coming through the storm," she said, "and we feel you definitely did that.** So what I'd like to do is give your contact info to our booking producers, who might want to call you in coming weeks to see if there's something they can work on with you. So this is the initial call."

"Thank you, Jackie," I said.

And now I put it out of my head.



* I wrote a piece for the October issue of the magazine Marie Claire. To see images of yourself sandwiched in between glamorous twiggy beauties is, shall we say, a bizarre and humbling experience. It makes you remember how awkward you felt in front of the camera because you didn't know how to move or what to do. I like the photographs -- taken by one of my favorite photographers, Lauren Greenfeld -- but it's like I can hear the voices of the judges in America's Next Top Model berating me because I "lost my neck":

"You must elongate the neck!" Tyra lengthens her own neck to demonstrate, looking like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

Nigel nods wisely.

"It's very important. You must always be conscious of your neck!"

"And she needs to relax her mouth," says Janice. "I'd rather look at the dog than at her."

"To be fair," says Tyra, "it's a very charismatic dog."

"I don't like those dogs," says Nigel, "they're way too yappy-yappy. Kind of like Janice."

"At least the dog knows how to pose," says Janice. "I mean, seriously, who told this twit she should be in a magazine?"

I have no idea why my mind works like this. Clearly I've seen too many episodes of that show. (Elise, the candid and intelligent model/med student from the first season, is my favorite reality TV character ever. She's the black swan, the freakish phenomenon, of reality TV women, who seem chosen to perpetuate some of the worst beliefs about our kind.)

** This could be debatable, of course, but it's not like I'm going to argue with the woman.