Day Fifteen - Keeping up with appearances

Well.... it's Wednesday. Normally tomorrow would be my last day of formal work in the office, but this week is somewhat crazy - I'm sorry, am I repeating myself? - so I need to be in the office Friday, due to the holiday next week (and I am taking Wednesday off); the fact that the art director is going to be out Friday then next Tuesday & Wednesday; the Editorial Director is going to be away for this issue's closing (she's 0 for 3: of the 3 issues she's been employed for, she hasn't been around at the closing of ONE of them!!! WTF?); there's a cookbook going out on Friday which has been a dischordant symphony of mayehm and disorganization from day one; and the next issue is going out to the printer on Monday. With a bunch of stuff missing, stuff like ads to drop in later. And there's a promotional thing that is gathering steam that is spearheaded by one of my least-favorite salespeople. He's a nice guys and all, but he's so jittery and all over the place: so disorganized and yet wants everything done as soon as the request has left his mouth.

I guess it's job security.... to have all these things to keep me busy at work. But I swear to god, I was having some kind of heart palpitations when I was racing around the office this afternoon getting to meetings, after sitting on my ass all morning in other meetings and doing tedious image re-sizing, re-naming (to the insane naming convention of our publisher, he's WHACKED), placing, searching for mis-spelled words, etc. All I can say is, thank god for computers, to make this go faster.

In other news, did any of you hear about the pitcher that the Boston Red Sox paid $50.1 MILLION to "negotiate" with? And if they sign this until-now inexperienced, never-pitched-in-a-major-league-pitcher, his salary? Is another $40 MILLION!!! Where the hell do I sign up for the likes of that? They don't even need to pay me that much, I'll do it for $20 Mil! OK, $10 million. $5 million? $5?

I apologize that this is not nearly as exciting as other bloggers are. I just am lacking the creative genius and spark due to several days in a row of stressful jumping back and forth at my job and several nights of proofing a big job that is going to press on Friday. Some people thrive on this kind of business, and I used to: in fact, during my senior year of college I was taking part-time undergrad classes (4), a graduate course, I was working 20 hours a week on campus, I was a nanny 3 days a week, I worked - briefly - for a fast-food company, I was an officer in my fraternity as well as the pledge educator which meant I had weekly meetings with 15 or so pledges, I was in PR Lab which required many late evenings with getting our presentation ready (I was a presenter too), I performed every couple of weeks with a women's singing group through the college (and had after-hour rehearsals). This was the year that I was on the Dean's list - oh, and I got a 4.0 (my only one!) my second semester. Also: I turned 21 my 2nd semester of my senior year, so I had to do the entire beer list at McCawbers downtown in just 4 months. There was a lot of drinking to catch up on. And now, thinking about being this busy? Makes me want to lay my head down and go to sleep on my desk. This is how I felt when I was looking for a job, too: like when I even gave it 30 seconds of my time my brain just sagged and went limp and turned slightly more gray than pink.

Is this what happens when we get older?