The reporter reports

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 29 March 2005

Up early this a.m. to meet with, interview and observe subject of second Esquire piece I'm working on. A long, interesting trail of a day where I asked every question I could think of, and when I was done, I have 3.5 hours of tape and almost 30 pages of notes. This one will be more the straight profile than the Pentagon-centric piece, and I walked away today with enough to write 1,000 words each on: where this guy came from, who is he today, what he does today, and how he does it (the most interesting part). I will sit on this material for now, possibly getting back to him with more demands next week or the one after that. The other piece rules in priority, but this one will be a more interesting writing challenge for me personally, because it will be so not-me and all-him.

So today I really felt a lot more like a reporter. I was watching everything with different eyes, and writing lotsa atmospherics down, because to describe this guy is to describe him, and where he works, and what that day feels like. I've been around people like this for years, and those offices for years, and those meetings for years. But it all was different today, because I chose to look at it differently.

Because I was a reporter today.

Sitting in an office in the Department of Energy today, following the conversation I was permitted to witness, I notice a picture on the wall of the flag being draped over the Pentagon wedge hit by the plane on 9/11, and I notice that the shade in the window is a distinct green. I think to myself: that green tint stuff goes at least as far back as 9/11, and so I realize it may just be that the new window tinting exists only on those windows that are going up in the new wedges (second one almost complete now after first wedge re-done after 9/11) and I had never been in the new wedge before--at least in the E Ring--so I thought it was something quite new.

And I thought to myself, if I wasn't trying to be so observent, I'm not sure I would have realized my mistake in yesterday's blog.

And so I felt like . . . an observent reporter.

Now I just feel tired. Flew back after roughly 7 hours with this guy (nice, but that is one loooong meeting; I simply popped off the recorder when I realized we both were running on empty), and find my Pilot's battery dead. Long story short: boys playing in my car Saturday while I washed it, hit lights in car accidentally, but since master switch off no issue until I drive to airport, pull into darkish parking, turn on lights to see what I'm grabbing and then don't notice cab lights left on in back. Bingo!

So I get to hang for a bit until airport security help me out.

No pretense in trying to finish edit of Chapter 3 tonight. Will get to last 5k words (out of 23k) tomorrow early. Then tackle Chapter 4. Mark and I are very comfortable turning in Chapter 5 with only his edit, plus Conclusion, Afterward and Preface with only his edits. By the time I hit 5, I was humming, so we're both cool with that minimal editing for delivery of text on time Friday. We'll continue to work the text following.

You know, yesterday, whenever they brought me into an office to meet someone, all the aides and admin people would state to one another: "The reporter is here . . . The reporter is outside . . . I have the reporter now," and so on. The first few times I would almost look around instinctively to see if it was someone famous (I really like reporters as a rule). But by the end of the day I stopped flinching, especially as I had to write "Esquire" down for my "COMPANY/OFFICE REPRESENTED" on the sign-in books.

A strange transition, but there you have it.

I have got to get some of those really cool business cards from Esquire.

Oh, and brush up on my First Amendment rights.

Do you think I'm afforded any more protection in my blogging on this basis?