April 22, 2008

Crash and Burn

Mayday! Mayday!

[By Crabby]

(Note: This is one of two posts today, the "real" one is coming up soon.)

So have you folks discovered the blog Elastic Waist yet? If you haven't checked it out, you definitely should.

I love Kim and Weetabix and Anne, and the whole crew over there. They're hilarious, and they manage to combine lots of useful information about food and fashion and fitness with positive messages about women's self image and size acceptance and all that cool stuff. Plus there's a lot of entertaining celebrity gossip, swearing, snark, and general outrageousness. What's not to like?

Given how much I admire the professionalism and general kick-ass awesomeness of Elastic Waist, I'm always shocked that they take the time to be so nice to funky little blogs like Cranky Fitness.

So recently Elastic Waist gave me an opportunity to talk about Cranky Fitness! But due to a misunderstanding, my being a total moron, I ended up being unprepared for the phone call.

You know that nightmare you have where you're on stage and you don't know your lines and so you start just saying things at random? (OK, so maybe not everyone has that nightmare). Anyway, that's kind of what happened.

I burbled and babbled and made no sense. Here was this great opportunity to introduce people to the blog, and I just said things that weren't funny and I sounded completely psychotic! Oh, and I said "Um" a lot--like, um, every other, um, word. The Elastic Waist folks did the best they could, and were very nice about it. They put up amusing photos in the background and edited like crazy, but they couldn't hide the fact that I was a blithering idiot.

Sigh.

So here's the dilemma: while I don't want people to actually witness my idiocy, it occurs to me that just ignoring it on the blog is kind of rude to people who were so very nice to me! I do want to acknowledge the great site that Elastic Waist is, and the great job Kim does in hosting the Daily Special.

So check out the Daily Special! Just not the one I was in.

Has anyone else ever embarrassed themselves in an interview or other stressful public speaking situation? Did you eventually recover your dignity and self-esteem at some point?

(And do stay tuned for the next post, it's much better than this one!)

16 comments:

  1. Okay I admit, I didn't listen and went and watched your episode. I think it was GOOD! Really. You didn't blow it at all. Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's very sweet, weelittleme!

    But "avoid cheerful people?" Urgghhh. I swear if I ever get the chance to do an interview again I'll think ahead about what I might say instead of just burbling.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awww, Crabby! You were great! I saw their video before I read your post and I giggled the whole time. Don't be so hard on yourself. Elastic Waist is a great site (Conde Nast, right?) & I think it's awesome they featured you!!

    Besides, I've always secretly thought that we'd be great friends if we were ever to really meet and now I know we would!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think you did just excellently and I didn't think you sounded like you didn't know what you were talking about at all. I also must thank you for reminding me about Elastic Waist, because one day it took me an hour to read through google reader because too many people posted, and decided I needed to take some feeds off of it. I think I confused Elastic Waist with another blog and I forgot how awesome the Daily Special is.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You said not to so I did.

    "avoid cheerful people" is good advice. They're annoying as hell.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You did just fine, Crabby. Fun stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Like the Cirrus company says,"Chute Happens!"

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Aircraft_Parachute_System

    Your fans will always give you a soft landing, Crabby!

    Dr. J

    ReplyDelete
  8. You did very well!
    The Bag Lady can totally relate to how you feel, though. When she was much younger, she was in a beauty pageant and during the part where you are supposed to dazzle the audience with your brilliance when answering some kind of fluff question (like, "how would you foster world peace?"), the Bag Lady totally froze.
    She stared at the questioner, looked at the audience, tried not to throw up on stage, asked him to repeat the question and totally and completely humiliated herself! (And no, she never did think of an answer to whatever the question was...)
    Oh, and no, she didn't win the pageant, either.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I like when she said legwarming :)

    and seeing your face.

    and hearing your snark live.

    more please :)

    M.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I certainly know that feeling, but at least you learn from it! The next interview (and there will be one) will go much smoother.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Crabby, you did a great job!

    ReplyDelete
  12. alright, i watched it. and you didn't sound like a blithering idiot at all!! i would totally freak out in a situation like that, so i say good job!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I would keel over and die if a phone conversation of mine were recorded and then put on the internet.
    No, actually I would fake static-y noise and say, "oh oh! You're cutting out, sorry!"
    I might even throw up mid-interview...if it meant I could get out of it.

    I think I have a phone phobia or something. I just know I always sound like an idiot.

    that said, I thought you did just fine! And fun to see more pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I went for a job interview. Everything was going great til it was time for me to leave. I could NOT for the life of me open the door. One of the ladies interviewing me had to get up, walk across the rather long room and turn the knob for me. I felt like a total idiot. Apparently door-opening skills are a good indicator of work efficiency at a library, so I was very obviously not given the job. Lordy.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I may have done a C&B today trying on a new job I really really need, it's just invoicing with Quickbooks Pro and Excel 2007, I've never seen even a screenshot of QB and in Excel 2003 I can fairly manage other people's constructions, but knowing how to use and put together formulas ??! Plus his accounting system is spread over several networked computers, and it's one he put together himself, and it bears litle relation to any bookkeeping system I've seen before, and it's esoteric stuff that they do, and it's well, different.

    I made some really nice blank invoices! ;D

    But he's letting me come back, and I'm off to go put his online store together.

    Crabby, you were fine!

    ReplyDelete
  16. You folks are all WAY too nice.

    So I love the way that really kind people can make you feel better about things even if you don't totally believe what they are saying. I was totally depressed about this, but you extremely wonderful people made me feel much, much less icky about it (even if you are all lying through your collective teeth, as I would too if I were you).

    Thank you so much!

    Note: I thought I left a comment like this earlier but it's not here... must have hit preview instead of publish. But if it shows up late, just don't think I'm a nutcase!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting, Cranky Fitness readers are the BEST!

Subscribe to comments via RSS

(Note: Older Comment Threads Are Moderated)