us & the gray lady

working in media relations, the scariest thing in the world to me is having to speak to a reporter on record. when you know all the myriad ways things can go wrong, it's almost paralyzing.

so how did i end up spending nearly three hours with the new york times, on the record?

it's a long story, and the short version is that we have our house on the market and a reporter and interactive producer for the nyt found photos of it online. next thing you know, the mister and i are being interviewed via phone about living in palm springs, mid century architecture, etc.

cut to yesterday morning, 8am. after a few stiff drinks the night before, we awake at 5:30 to drive out to the desert. getting both dogs and our tired asses out the door at that hour is a daunting task on the best of mornings, but yesterday was not a 'best of' kind of morning. i throw on a hat, track jacket, jeans from the day (days?) before. we head out the door.

lo and behold, upon our arrival, we find our realtor and the nyt guy in the driveway. we knew he was coming at some point, but thought we were going to be avoiding him. because this is part of a large interactive package on the web (in addition to a print story, as we understand it), he had quite a setup. still sleepy from the lack of sleep, groggy from the drinks of the previous night, and sore from two hours in the car, imagine my surprise when he says "can you get miked up and take me through the house?"

i did this, for an hour, and he said my recorded commentary would only be used as a form of notes for the story. let's hope so. then, he says "i want to get a shot of you."

so, at this point, i have to make a decision: look ridiculously vain and tell him 'wait one second while i get my crimping iron' or just go with it, unshowered, behatted, and slovenly. i opted for the latter, which i attribute to the 'ah, fuck it' impulse, which seems to grow stronger with every passing year.

the best part: i have to open the front door and say "hi, i'm so-and-so and welcome to my home!," then rattle off statistics about it. i do this five times, and i think i reached diane sawyer-esque cheesy perfection on the last take. i might be the new elisabeth hasselbeck, if only barbara walters would notice me.

you're probably wondering where the mister was. well, the mister was still suffering under flu conditions, so not feeling camera ready. you can likely imagine our further surprise when the reporter calls back after the hour and fifteen minutes he spent with us yesterday morning to say that he would like to come back for evening shots and interview both of us on camera.

so that's what we did. for whatever reason, he had us practically sitting in each other's laps (perhaps the liberal media is once again trying to promote homosexuality?). anyway, it was horrifying and yet i think, if you see us, you will notice that we are prettier and a lot more special than we were before.