"I Lost on Jeopardy, Baby."

The room was unnaturally cold, and way too bright. Not to mention that I felt like one of those old movie stars, like Bogart or Cagney, who had to wear platform shoes to be as tall as their leading ladies; I was standing on a riser that boosted me off the ground at least half a foot. Not that, since I’m 5’ 4”, I wasn’t grateful for the compensatory lift, but it did strike me as unfair that in the land of equality, height disparities were not permitted. I was standing in front of an audience of around two hundred people. There were school groups, youngsters of modest means dressed in the same brightly colored shirts that would fall apart after one wash. There were the tourists, happy for the air conditioning, raffled prizes and free admission. And of course, the suspiciously idle elderly. There I stood, on my precarious perch, chatting about my inappropriately large collection of LP’s with none other than our most beloved and trusted game show host, Alex Trebek. I had made it on to Jeopardy!, and while I was ecstatic to be there, what I will always carry most about that moment was that I was truly there. No nerves, no fear, no anticipation; just a chubby, jovial New Yorker and a snowy-haired Canadian discussing their mutual love of vinyl in front of an estimated TV audience of eleven million people. I must admit that I was, at the same time, trying to remember the capital of Laos, in case it came up in the Daily Double.

It was a long and bumpy road to those lofty heights, some six inches off the ground. When I was seven, my class went on a tour of NBC Studios, and got to watch a taping of the original Jeopardy! (I’m not certain if everyone in my group was wearing the same t-shirt that day). That was the Jeopardy! of Art Fleming and Don Pardo, of flip pads and Final Jeopardy answers scribbled in magic marker, of those conical Dixie Cups of water, years’ supplies of Turtle Wax and of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat. I was hooked, and being able to remember most everything useless, I was on my way. Cross-dissolve to early February, when my office phone rang and the number that flashed on the Caller ID was from a Southern California area code. I had made it. The month that ensued was one of ceaseless practice, and of endless advice from my friends on how to study and to prepare my thumbs for the buzzer, for that is truly where the game is won or lost, it is said. What to do? Study what I already knew well to master it, or try to cram everything I could into my rapidly aging brain in the month I had? As the day approached, I got more and more anxious; the night before we left for LA, Maria called, Leia to my Luke. She sensed my anxiety instantly, and said, “Listen—it comes down to one thing. Be there. Be in the moment. Enjoy it, and be present for it, ‘cause it ain’t coming again.” It was then that I realized that I had become so wrapped up in what might or might not happen that I had lost sight of the chance I had to do something I’ve wanted to do since Nixon was president.

Did I succeed? The flight out was a nightmare, like the night before the SAT, sure that if I stopped studying, the next thing I would have studied had I not closed the book would definitely have shown up as a question. Dinner and our stay at the fabulous Marriott Century City was a blur. They taped five shows that day, and by luck of the draw, I went last. I had to spend all day, sweating it out, sure that after they’d asked such an easy Final Jeopardy question that mine would be the hardest in the history of the show. And afterwards, when I did not win but acquitted myself with some distinction, I was a complete wreck. It had taken everything I had to hold myself together, and that release combined with the disappointment of not winning reduced me to a puddle. We flew the redeye home; I bustled Susan into a cab, and headed out to work, thus setting a domestic distance record for longest morning commute.

But here’s the thing; for all the drama and stress before and after, for the thirty minutes I was actually on, I was actually on. I had been able to accomplish what I thought would be impossible for me, and for those thirty transcendent moments, commercial breaks included, I was sharply aware and appreciative of everything going on around me and inside my head. It brought to mind the end of Camus’ The Stranger, when someone asks Meursault if his captivity is unbearable to him. Meursault’s response is that if one were to spend just one day alive, truly conscious and open to the world, it would provide one with enough memories to sustain them through a hundred years of incarceration. It is a rare occasion when we are not held prisoner by the past or the future, but my experience taught me that once in a while, it is a possibility. I’ll take “Life-Altering Moments” for $400, Alex.