A few days ago I was interviewed for a Valentine's Day article for The New York Times. It's one of those articles that uses a series of quotes or vignettes from a reader friendly demographic pool of "everyday folks". At most I expected my name in the story, maybe a small quote or a little blurb about what I'm doing for Valentine's Day.
Friday morning I wake up to find a couple of messages on my phone from a photo editor at the paper, then an hour later there's a Facebook PM from the writer to email the story editor or call the photo desk. They want to send a photographer over immediately to take photos of me making truffles.
Last minute scheduling usually involves lots of phone tag and a series of brief conversations. By the time I received a call back I was on my way to Councilman Tom LaBonge's field office in Toluca Lake. My day was already packed with appointments and tasks. I didn't' have anything prepped. My place was, and still is, a mess.
I canceled the rest of my appointments; rushed to Trader Joe's to buy semi-sweet chocolate and heavy cream; picked up my kids early from school; made a mad dash to a kitchen in Pasadena; and frantically prepped before the photographer arrived.
The photo shoot took about an hour or so, including downloading photos to a laptop, quick adjustments, and emailing to New York. Axel, the photographer, had a fabulous Euro-Bohemian photojournalist style about him and was utterly charming to boot.
This morning I wake up to find that my photos were not included in the article, "Days of Wine and Roses Are Over This Valentine's". The editors chose a photo of a wan and forlorn man shopping for groceries rather than a photo of a cheerful woman making truffles. If you read the story it makes sense. And no, I'm not disappointed. This kind of thing is par for the course with lots of projects and in public relations.
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