Don’t Look At Me! ..... DON’T LOOK AT ME!

I got an email from a reporter for one of the local papers a few days ago. Apparently her editor found my blog and he suggested she contact me for an interview. I was flattered, of course. She had mentioned “my web site” in the email, but I wasn’t sure if she meant my blog or the original web site for The Petch House.

The original web site is very static. Even when I was updating it, I didn’t do it very often. I don’t really tell anyone locally about my blog, and if it weren’t for the crazed mayoral candidate that was stalking me last year, I doubt anyone would know about it. I emailed her back and said I might be interested, and I asked her which web site she was referring to in her email.

Eventually we spoke on the phone and it turns out she was talking about the blog – This Blog. I could go on endlessly about my house, and anyone who reads this blog probably thinks I do. The truth is, though, I don’t really talk about it a lot to people around town. More often than not, when the topic does come up, I find myself simply having to explain the basic difference between a restoration and a remodel. I’ve found it’s much easier to just keep my mouth shut rather than trying to explain things to people.

The other local daily paper in town did a short piece on me and the work I’m doing on the house 2 years ago. It was a lot of fun, but I didn’t mention the blog in that one. In that instance, it was part of an insert that specifically deals with local architecture and restoration. It’s a captive audience, so to speak, so I assume the people who read it already have an idea of what I’m going through.

It seemed from my brief conversation with the reporter this week that the focus of the story would be the blog, which is of course, about the house. I’m just not too keen on that. As many of you know, I often digress from the basic facts of restoration. As I told her over the phone, I don’t care if someone in Atlanta reads what I have to say, but I’m not sure if I want my next door neighbor to read it. Not to mention all of the pictures and the level of detail I go in to some time. Then of course, there are all of the typos and the occasional {cough} poor sentence structure. It would kill me to have someone critique my writing right in front of me. This assumes, of course, that anybody really cares in the first place.

The odd thing is, a few weeks ago I was interviewed for a story that is coming out in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 21 (I think). We do get the Chronicle daily here in town and it is widely available. It’s not like you need to go to some obscure newsstand or bookstore some place to get it. It didn’t bother me so much to be interviewed for that story. The Chronicle is not really a local paper and I don’t think it is as widely read as the two dailies printed here in town. Also, although the focus of the story is about House Blogs, I got the feeling it was mainly about Bay Area House Blogs. It wouldn’t surprise me if I got little more than a passing mention at the bottom.

“Oh yea, and there’s some goof-ball up in Eureka that writes a bunch of nonsense about some house he’s working on. I forget the URL, but you know, check it out if you want.”

So, I’m not sure if I’ll do it. I told here when we first spoke that I couldn’t do anything until later this month because I have family coming and I’m trying to make real progress on the bathroom AND get the place cleaned up a bit. I emailed her back today and said I would let her know after the 20th. We’ll see what happens.

Perhaps I'm being too neurotic about it, or maybe the whole Mayor Droz thing left me a bit uneasy about advertising the blog locally.