06/25/2004: "The Interview"

As many of you know, I *hate* talking on the phone. I almost never answer my phone and I'm one of the few people I know who refuses to go cellular. Well, last night I was getting ready to go out and work in the garden (anything to put off practicing for the Quick Draw event tomorrow morning) and the phone range. I happened to be passing right by it at the moment so I picked it up, out of instinct.

It was the arts and entertainment editor from our local daily. He wanted to ask a few more questions. I wanted to quickly slam the phone down but knowing that wouldn't be a very wise career move, I said "Sure!” I have to stress that unless you're a really close friend that I've known for years and years, I will start to get extremely nervous talking on the phone...and leaving a message on someone's answering machine is ten times worse. I start to talk super fast and become practically incoherent. And yes, I *do* take medication for bi-polar disorder but in certain circumstances I still find myself having full blown manic episodes where I'm practically hovering outside my body watching myself melt down, yelling "SHUT UP YOU FOOL!" but being powerless to stop myself.

I'm sure it wasn't as awful as I remember it, god, it couldn't be could it? The guy was incredibly nice and under normal circumstances, very easy to talk to. I could hear him typing away a mile a minute and that did little to ease my panic. I said some *very* stupid things. For example...I vaguely remember trying to describe to him (what I wrote about previously in my blog) about the dangers of too much PhotoShop, about how I spend so much time using PhotoShop that sometimes I see the little tools (like the magic eraser) in my head while I'm talking to living people in reality and I fantasize about deleting their tie or changing the color of the sky, etc. Except it didn't even come out that coherently, it was probably closer to...

"so, yah, I like, I em, use a lot of, like, PhotoShop, OK? For, you know, like HOURS N HOURS N HOURS and so then sometimes when I'm, you know, talking to someone, I'm really like, deleting them, like, you know, with tools, and like, changing, emmm the colors and like if I don't like their tie, ya know?"

And I could tell he really didn't understand what the hell I was talking about and he was giving me a few nervous courtesy laughs every so often, but really I'm sure he was thinking... "what the %&#!?”

He wanted me to send him a larger res photo of one of the paintings so that was exciting. Looks like it might make it into the paper. I think this guy seemed very nice and will probably not make me seem as freaky as he rightly could; giving the things I told him and my demeanor. Still... When I sent him the photo this morning I wrote him a brief apology explaining the nervous on the phone thing so hopefully he'll show mercy. I suppose I should feel flattered that he called for an interview at all. If there doesn't end up being an article in the paper about the show though, I'll understand.

Why oh why can't I be better adjusted??? The last time I did an interview for the paper I knew several days in advance that the guy was going to be calling and although as I recall I was equally spazzy...I did prepare something coherent to tell the guy. Have others of you had similar experiences with the press?