I have been, quite intensely, on the phone with someone whom I am interviewing…for the past 45 minutes.

An interview…can be several things…interesting, riveting sometimes..and sometimes, very draining….

There are times (thankfully, much more often) when I am in charge of the interview. I think of what information I want, and lead the conversation…I elicit the information needed for the interview, and quite often, a lot of other details that satisfy my own curiosity about a person’s life, views, and work.

Indeed, most often, it is quite difficult to extract information that I want, and I have to work at it with a combination of talk, leading remarks, direct and indirect questions, sometimes flattery, sometimes a barb that will result in a reaction….

But sometimes, like now, I get drowned. Drowned in the flow of words from someone. The words have been flooding over me in a cataract of information and opinion. I keep asking the person to talk about one particular thing, and that person keeps talking about something else, in a wealth of detail that I can neither absorb nor use….It’s like trying to keep a kayak afloat in rushing rapids…

Adding to the problem is that this person’s English is, to put it mildly, very picturesque, and making sense of the words is sometimes a challenge on its own!

This person apparently does not, also, realize that I have to type out and keep track of all the stuff that is pouring out, and later separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

I am amazed at the extremely high need some artistes have, to talk about themselves!

When this person stops talking (my left ear is warm-bordering-on-hot as I type this, and I am gettig a crick in my neck, typing as I just listen with a “hm” interjected), I am going to heave a sigh of relief and tiredness, and go off and take a ten-minute break!

My goodness, I didn’t realize that there are people in the world who talk more than I do!!