I need to hide under the covers forever. I have done several media interviews over the last couple of days. The two I did on Monday – one of which was a TV interview (not live) – were okay. They redressed this horror. I was starting to feel over-exposed, though – I am not a particularly outgoing person, and in fact used to be paralytically shy. It takes a fair amount of energy for me to be on like this, and I don't take pleasure in it. (and in fact sometimes have crazy moments of thinking I need to take down my blog RIGHT NOW because I feel on display and think, “what the hell am I doing having a blog??”...)

Then I got called about doing a CBC morning show radio interview this morning. I was apprehensive - a bit much for me to handle, a live radio interview - but I thought I should say yes. I tried to prepare last night, and have in my head all the messages I wanted to deliver. I woke up at 4:28 this morning because of nerves.

I did the interview. It was terrible. Most of it was relatively okay, if not at all stellar – any eloquence I had basically went out the window. But I was asked one question that totally threw me. Totally. I was clearly rattled by it and said, “I don’t know how to answer that question” before then semi-recovering with an actual semi-answer.

I am horrified. I have always thought, with CBC interviews, that people being interviewed seem so polished that they must have the questions in advance. (Not so, I was told by the producer when I asked – it is against CBC policy to give out questions in advance.) I have never heard anybody – in years of listening to the CBC – say something as stupid as I said. Actually admit that they didn’t know what to say.

Do you know, their listening audience in the mornings would easily be in the tens of thousands. As if that’s not bad enough, many of my colleagues here listen to the CBC – that’s what university professors do, isn’t it, after all – and so many of these people would have heard it. Oh god. I am so embarrassed.

It is only compounding other embarrassments about this week that I can’t blog about – events that I had no real control over, but which make me look bad. Make me look like a potentially stupid person. A worst fear. That make me look like an idiot to colleagues. I am so done. So done. I need this to be over. I need to not ever speak to media again, and I just need to be able to turn off.