Hanging with Amy Poehler. My new best friend...

Or not.

I was all set for us to be friends. And so sure we would be….

Get your cup of coffee. I’m calling this one “My Friendship with Amy Poehler”.

About two weeks ago, one of the two women who manage my writing retreats, Megan, forwarded a note to me that had just landed in her box. “You won’t believe who turns out to be a fan of yours,” she said. “Take a look.”

The author of this note, a man named Paul, introduced himself as the Guest Coordinator of Amy Poehler’s podcast, “The Good Hang”. An image of Amy Poehler herself was displayed at the bottom of his letter . He was writing to invite me to be on the show. To hang with Amy.

Within minutes I received two similar emails—one from the other woman who manages my retreats, Gina. One from my agent, Caroline. Each of them wrote with equal excitement, passing on the same letter from Paul, containing the same great news. Evidently Amy Poehler really wanted to make sure she reached me.

I wrote back to Paul, naturally, to say I was available to be on the show. (One minor problem: I was in Guatemala, and would continue to be in this country for the next two months, working on a new book and preparing to host a series of retreats.) For this appearance on Amy Poehler’s podcast, did I need to be in Los Angeles? If so—who knows—I might actually have done this. But it would definitely require a long trip, and another long trip back.

Paul wrote back within minutes. I could appear virtually, he told me. No problem. When I mentioned that I am not so great at technology—meaning, a remote visit to the show might prove challenging—he said he’d help me get set up for my appearance, via my laptop. He assured me he’d talk me through all the steps.

We set a date for this conversation. Both of them: the conversation with Paul, in which we’d get the tech aspects taken care of, and the one to follow, with Amy Poehler, as well as a pre-interview chat with Amy the night before the show. We’d address the tech issues within a few days. The episode of “Good Hang” on which I’d be appearing would take place on February 2. Live.

I was familiar with Amy Poehler, of course. I think she’s one of the funniest women around. I’d seen her on Saturday Night Live, and in movies, and up on stage at places like the Oscars, riffing with her pal Tina Fey. But at the point my conversations with Paul got under way, I had never watched “Good Hang”. Once I knew I’d be on her show I did, of course.

The show proved to be terrific. Amy (she was just “Amy” to me now) turned out to be a great interviewer. As is often true with genuinely funny people—if they are not only funny, but generous—they tend to make the people they’re talking with funny too, by virtue of their own sense of humor and gift. Since I already consider myself a pretty funny person (funny, as in humorous, not funny as in odd, though that too no doubt) I was confident that once Amy and I got going we’d have a great time.

One thing surprised me, as I was doing my research into “Good Hang”. With the exception of one guest—the famous chef, Ina Garten, who recently published a memoir—they were all famous movie or television stars. Oh…not quite all. One recent guest had been Michelle Obama.

You might have thought, then, that I’d wonder what I was doing, hanging on “Good Hang”. But I didn’t. To me it made all the sense in the world that Amy Poehler would like my books and that, since she did, would want to talk with me. I saw this original choice as further proof of her intelligence and good taste.

You might think I got busy telling all my friends about my upcoming appearance on Amy Poehler’s Golden-Globe-Winning podcast, but I didn’t. I told a couple of people—Gina and Megan of course, and my agent, who was thrilled for what this could do for my career. I told my boyfriend, Hoyt, a woodworker and builder who is not on social media, and doesn’t follow this kind of thing. He couldn’t remember if Amy Poehler was the brunette one or the blonde. He seemed happy for me, but the news didn’t make a big impression. After I delivered it, and he said that was nice, we went back to discussing an issue concerning the septic system at my house, which had been acting up.

Three people I did not inform about my upcoming appearance in front of a few million viewers were my three children. For starters, my career is not a source of fascination in their lives. I liked the idea that one of their friends might send them a text, on February 2, saying “Did you know your mom’s on Amy Poehler?” And they’d say, “No, she didn’t mention it.”

Preparations continued. Over the days between receiving the invitation and the date of my conversation with Amy I was pretty busy. From around 6 a.m. to sunset, I was spending my days writing a novel. But I did make time for a long Zoom call with Paul, to set up the tech aspects of my impending appearance on the podcast. This required Paul to spend close to an hour helping me navigate through settings on my laptop—whose screen I was sharing with him—to be ready for The Big Day.

This didn’t go well. I was having trouble. The steps Paul walked me through were many, and Paul talked too fast. His accent—Indian—sometimes made it hard for me to understand what he was telling me to do. (Click here, click there, refresh your screen, etc. Followed by more clicking. )

“I’m a lot older than you, Paul,” I told him. “Pretend you’re helping your mom.” This suggestion had little effect.

After a full hour of navigating through steps on my Facebook page, it seemed we’d gotten nowhere. “Do not worry,” Paul said. “We will try again in a few days.”

I did worry, however. The last thing I wanted was to reach the day of my long-awaited conversation with Amy Poehler only to discover that she and I couldn’t connect. To leave her waiting, breathless, to talk to me, while I clicked through settings on my Mac, to no avail.

“Do not worry,” said Paul “I will l call again.”

I’ll add here that while the tech aspects of my appearance on “Good Hang” had me nervous, the actual conversation did not. Though Paul asked me to send him a document containing bullet points for what Amy and I might talk about—themes and topics in my life—I assured him that I’d be just fine having a free-wheeling conversation without a lot of advance planning. In the end, I did submit the requested bullet point document, but even as I prepared it, I knew I wouldn’t stick to my bullet points, about which Paul showed no interest anyway. He was a tech guy if ever there was one.

“Good Hang”? Or just “good hair”? Very possibly I’d be Amy Poehler’s first guest, ever, tuning in from Guatemala.

One thing I felt no need to do was promote the workshops I host, or the new novel that’s coming out this summer, or the one I’m presently writing, or any of my old ones. My agenda for my conversation with Amy Poehler was simple: To have a great time. I knew we would.

I did worry about one other thing, however. Any woman reading this will appreciate the issue I’m about to name: My hair. Though I am never the kind of person who sports an immaculate coiffure, and I am not even sure I still own a blow dryer (but if I do, I definitely didn’t bring it with me to Guatemala), in the two weeks I’d been holed-up writing my new book, my hair had gotten out of control. And while I didn’t mind that I had no great outfit to wear on Amy Poehler’s podcast, the idea of appearing on the program with bad hair was just plain unacceptable.

You might think there aren’t a lot of great stylists at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. If so, you don’t know my friend—and stylist—Ross, who runs a salon called Two Brothers, on the other side of the lake from where I’ve been writing.

Originally from the U.K., where he had a more conventional kind of salon, with an assortment lovely older British ladies for his clientele, Ross came to Guatemala ten years ago and set up shop in a pretty unconventional spot, where a person is as likely to find a can of WD-40 or a bong as she will, a chart showing various options for hair coloring. (One of the more popular of which, at Two Brothers Salon, may well be purple.)

My own taste in hair styling is a lot more basic, but that’s not to say I’m not picky. I give a lot of thought to my hair. In all my days of paying what have often been large sums of money for a haircut or blow dry, nobody has ever done a better job with my hair than Ross. Who generally remains shirtless as he cuts and styles, and sports a handlebar moustache. A little younger than the younger of my sons, I count him as one of my favorite people here at the lake.

So I made an appointment. Hopped on a boat that took me to the other side of the lake. Spent two hours in Ross’s chair, where he turned my hair from a dry and nearly hopeless seeming mess to… I don’t want to brag…really great.

When it was over—and after a nice visit with Ross’s parents, who’d popped by; they were visiting from their village in England— I paid him the fee (around $50 for cut, color, deep condition and blow dry) and hopped back on the boat. Normally I like to sit right in the prow, to take in the signt of the volcanos, but I sat inside to protect my hair.

Exhibit A: What happens to a person’s hair when she rides in the front of a lancha boat at Lake Atitlan.

More days passed. Paul didn’t call, leaving me anxious about the tech part of our plan. Saturday night I was due to have my pre-interview call with Amy Poehler herself. I waited, phone in hand. No call.

I had a theory about this. One day earlier, the great comedienne and actress Catherine O’Hara had died unexpectedly. I was sure she and Amy Poehler would have been friends. I figured Amy was just so sad about Catherine O’Hara’s death (as I was myself, though we’d never met) that she forgot about our call.

The next day—yesterday—I sent three messages to Paul, my tech advisor for the podcast. No response. It was early afternoon when my friend Justin reached out to me. The week earlier, I’d enlisted Justin to update my website in preparation for my appearance on a podcast beamed all over the world.

“Are you sure this podcast invitation is real?” he asked me. Long pause. His voice turned gentle and apologetic. “You might have been scammed.”

It all came back to me then. Paul’s lack of response to the bullet point document I’d sent him, and how little he—a humorless individual if ever there was one-- seemed like the kind of person Amy Poehler might choose to work with. The hour I spent waiting for Amy’s phone call the previous night.

“Did you share your screen with this guy?” Justin asked me.

Well, yes.

Justin told me to change my passwords immediately. Check my bank account. “Let’s hope you dodged a bullet this time,” he said.

It appears I did. It’s been a week now since that hour I spent, with Paul’s cursor crawling around on the screen of my laptop. So far, nothing seems to have changed.

Except that I’m not one of Amy Poehler’s favorite writers after all. Or who knows, maybe I am, but that doesn’t mean she’s inviting me on “Good Hang”.

This morning I’m back to work on my novel. I won’t have to interrupt my work to click on my Facebook page and try to go live. I don’t even need to put on makeup and fluff up my hair.

I’ll keep hanging with the characters I create. And with you.

This is fine actually. Better than fine. It’s a very good life.