february 14

gruel

All I can say is that entire hell year at The Big Agency must have been preparation for this time. I am so freaking exhausted and overwhelmed that I'm essentially getting nothing done. I'm in react mode all the time and really, after 7, I can't do anything productive. Around 10 PM, I can kick back into it, but then I'm up late, only get 4 hours of sleep, and I'm a mess the next day. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Big Presentation is next week. It's going well but it's killing me. Then there's another pre-presentation interview tomorrow with another potential client where I'm going in with a group of developers I barely know. It was the only way I could bid on it. My gut says they're good guys, but they're no better at the biz dev stuff than I am. See, when we worked in post, the agencies picked us. There was none of this auditioning shit. You showed them your reel, the rate sheet, then haggled a bit and then you built the schedule. No proposals (or rarely, at least), no custom designed presentations that take a week, no $300 printed leave-behinds.

Anyway, my point is, this shit is hard. The only thing that prepared me for this was all the time I put in at the Big Agency. But, if we look back at those few entries logged during that time, I WAS MISERABLE. And I practically wrecked my marriage.

I really want to say Fuck It. I'm so close to that. Just go home and go to bed. But I have to finish this tiny sliver of copy for the print piece, I have to prepare for the meeting tomorrow and I have to outline the proposal that I will spend all weekend writing. And I haven't logged enough hours on the other project I'm managing for the Fantastic Little Agency so it's behind (after I worked so hard to kick the client into shape), and my billings will be low this period.

Wow. I never never talk about work in this much detail. It's a small town and I worry about the fact that my former employees who work for competitors kind of know about this journal (I have no idea if they read it), but fuck. I'm human. And even though I'm whining and pissing and moaning I'm still doing it. And I can't quit now. There are too many possibilities. I'm going to do this until it dies or kills me.

So. We'll see. Maybe it will bite me in the ass. Maybe I'll change my mind. But I suppose I have to talk about work because it's all all all I do. If I can't talk about work, I can't talk. At least right now. And really, you don't want to read about how my sunflower starts froze to death (waaaah), or how I haven't cleaned my bathroom in about two months (oh, the horror), or that I have a gigantic zit on my left cheek that had better go away before next Wednesday.

I've got the Olympics on again. One of those guy figure skaters looks just like this architect I know who worked on the office at The Big Agency who's from Jersey and who I haven't seen since we ran into him with his wife about four days after 9/11. They were, of course, a mess. We were all crying out in the parking lot at Nature's. I haven't seen them since. We aren't really friends, but we should be. I wish I knew how to find him.

Did I mention that I bought a bunch of WTC posters online? I heard a piece on NPR this evening about a couple who got married at the top of the towers on Valentine's Day (it's a tradition I guess) and had this rule that every time they saw the WTC towers they had to kiss. I can't imagine what kind of anniversary they're having today.

Okay. Back to it.

Tomorrow will be better. I will work hard. Get a new haircut. Drink wine. Sleep.

Ah, sweet sleep. How I miss thee.

- february 14