Cynthia Nixon is mistress of ceremonies

I don't generally get star struck. Well, OK, there was the time I met Warren Beatty at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City in 1976. When I say met, it might sound like a rendevous of some kind but, alas, he was sitting with George McGovern (who was also a rock star in my book) at a table in the restaurant when I arrived with some other college journalism students in town covering the Democratic National Convention. We wanted to sit in the same restaurnt as the likes of Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman and other members of the Round Table. When we saw McGovern at the table across the room, one of the students decided she had to talk to McGovern, who she had worked for in his presidental campagin. But she didn't want to go alone, so I tagged along. Of course when she got there, she was tongue tied, and I babbled something about being sorry to interrupt their dinner. The babbling came as a result of looking down where I was standing and seeing Warren Beatty looking up at me. It was an amazing week. This week at the Oncology Nursing Society Congress in Boston I get to meet and introduce another celebrity who I have come to admire greatly, Cynthia Nixon. Nixon is the mistress of ceremonies at our annual Extraordinary Healer event when we will name one oncology nurse as the winner of an essay contest. The essays are written by patients about the nurse that made a difference in their healing. Nixon played the role of Miranda on the television series Sex and the City, and while I came to the show a few seasons after it started, I was immediately taken with her character. Miranda was the type A attorney who was sometimes the straight woman to Carrie Bradshaw (how did that woman live the life she lived on the salary of a newspaper columnist). I guess that was the point of the show. Each of the women appealed to a different segment of the audience. What I loved about Miranda was how honest she was. In one scene she called Carrie for support after taking the chocolate cake she had thrown away out of the trash. Another call was on her honeymoon, when she realized she had left her cell phone charger at home and she was RUNNING OUT OF BARS. The fact that Nixon was also very visible about her breast cancer also stands out as a reason I like her so much. I interviewed her for the introduction I will do this week and asked her if the Sex in the City story line about Samantha getting breast cancer was her doing. She wouldn't take credit. She explained that there had been a rash of diagnoses among the writers and others who worked on the show. But we all know it had to take some discussion to deal with such a serious matter on SITC. I can't wait. I'll give you an update next week on how it went.