Stephen's Interview

It's been one of those approach-avoidance days. I am writing a feature article about my friend, Stephen Peithman, the host of Capital Public Radio's Musical Stages, a weekly hour-long show where Steve plays cast recordings of Broadway musicals and talks about the background of the show and helps the audience "see" what is going on on stage. We have been fans of the show for years.

Stephen and I got together a week or so agofor an interview. I dearly love interviewing Stephen. He is a PR person himself, so most of what he gives you is pure gold. You really only have to transcribe it and rearrange it, throwing in a few "he saids" and the article pretty much writes itself.

We had a great time chatting and I knew that this was going to be an easy article to write.

But I always get too complacent in these situations. Ever since I stopped transcribing for the psychiatrist, I have developed such a horrible aversion to transcribing anything. The thought of putting those earphones in my ears and typing what I hear just does things to me that I can't even understand.

It's certainly not that it's difficult. Good grief, I can transcribe in my sleep, and often have. And my interview with Steve was fun. So I just can't explain why I kept putting off transcribing it.

We were getting down to the wire when we were getting ready to leave for Napa. I stuck the interview on a flash drive (love those things) and brought it along to work on if I had the opportunity.

The first night, I mistakenly left the computer in the room where Walt was sleeping, and I didn't want to wake him up, but the second night I remembered to leave it set up when I went to sleep, so at 5 a.m. I was hunched over the computer, sunglasses on to cut down the glare, and working on the transcription of Steve's interview.

I did get a chunk of it done and was going to finish up when we got home last night, but because I had been up so early transcribing, I was zonked and by the time I'd finished writing my journal entry and getting the video put together, I was too tired to finish the transcription too.

So I knew I would have to hit the ground running this morning because now I had both the transcription to finish and the article to write in the same day.

Then a bazillion distractions popped up, including getting all the Napa photos organized and uploaed to Flickr. Whenever I'd put the earphones in my ears, I'd think of something else I needed to do. Right now. Like plan next year's Christmas dinner or check out what had been said about the Survivor finale. Things that were much more important than meeting my deadline.

Part of this, I know, is that my eyes are really bad right now and it's increasingly difficult to read and that frustrates me so much I just have to get up and walk off some of that frustration because down deep in my soul I have this horrible feeling that when they get in there to do the cataract surgery, something will go wrong (it's possible!) and I'll lose my eyesight completely. My hypochondria is working overtime and I think that is a big part of why this project has been so difficult for me to stick with.

I finally finished the transcription around 10 p.m. but by then I was ready for (another) break, so took time out to watch Dirty, Sexy Money 'cause there was a shooting at the end of the last episode and I wanted to know who was killed, even tho this episode was really, really stupid. Then I wrote the first 800 words of the article but realized that it's sounding stilted and whenever I reach that point, the only thing I can do is go to sleep and finish it in the morning. I do this with reviews all the time.

I know it's going to get done. And Steve gave me about four times more material than I can use, so I'm not going to have to pad it at all. But I do hate the way I work. I hate that I push myself to the very edge before I finally create what I should have been able to create days before.

It's not like anybody can help me. It's not that there is work that can be shared, it's that all the elements have to be right before the creative juices start flowing. This time it's been a little worse than usual. I am really pushing my luck with this one.

But I'm going to let it sit and then finish it off first thing in the morning.

After I check e-mail, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter, have breakfast, feed the dogs, and probably a few other things.

I'm sure I'm a real textbook case for some psychiatrist somewhere.