More moving madness! Today was a dreaded trip to the Time Warner office to close out the cable and return equipment. I was sweating some catastrophe where I would have to make a return trip. Luckily it went relatively smoothly, despite eating up my entire morning.
In a feeble attempt to reduce the amount of stuff I have, and thus have to move, I took some clothes to donate, which included a suit that I bought after graduating from college and proceeded to wear once. I quickly discovered that the suit did not fit my tastes (or my body type). But it’s a suit. How does someone just let go of a suit, especially if it’s his only one? I’m hopeful that someone finds it and gets much better use out of it than I do.
Looks like BBDO keeps coming back for more. In typical last-minute fashion, I’m getting called in for tomorrow and Wednesday as well as next week so this blog will go back on break.
The post count for each month on this blog keeps dwindling, which is a great thing. That means I’m working and not… um, unworking.
Daily Panic Level: Low
Financial Outlook: No cash
Job Scorecard (Interviews – Freelance Work – Freelance Busts): 8 – 5 – 29
Last Night’s Meal: Pizza and gnocchi in the Village
I woke up with sickness paranoia. For the past few days, the moving has stirred up a lot of dust in the apartment and I’ve had relentless allergy attacks. But when I woke up this morning, I felt horrible so wondered if it was really allergy related or if I was coming down with something. So I decided to not fight it and slept it.
When I awoke later, it was 12:30 and I still didn’t feel much better. So it was a day of catching up on DVR TV.
It’s my opinion that The Office has totally lost its magic. The stories aren’t very funny or even believable. I hate to attribute it all to the marriage of Jim and Pam since I had faith that the writers could sustain their likability. But Pam doesn’t even seem to be much of a factor in the current shows, and Jim has been cast in a manager role that doesn’t really fit with the character we’ve watched over the years.
The show’s cousin, Parks and Recreation, has seemed to pick up the slack, as well as mimicked The Office‘s second season turnaround. The characters are starting to take shape and the writers are figuring out how to create involving stories.
I’ve been pulling for Community because I like several of the actors/characters but it’s still a pretty uneven shows. Some episodes are hysterical and then others are just meh.
30 Rock has been firing on all cylinders, delivering solid, joke-packed episodes that leave me in awe. It’s amazing that this show isn’t more of a blockbuster, but probably the fact that most of America can’t relate to its New-York-ness as well as my friends and I do.
It is astounding to find out how NBC is totally floundering, especially with these shows that I just mentioned. But that’s just 2 hours of one night. The Leno experiment has been deemed all but a total disaster, and it’s sad to hear that Conan will probably be a victim of collateral damage.
I was initially looking forward to a wild Friday night but with my “sickness” and an impending crazy weekend, it may be best to keep it on the down low.
Daily Panic Level: Low
Financial Outlook: Broke as a joke
Job Scorecard (Interviews – Freelance Work – Freelance Busts): 8 – 4 – 28
Last Night’s Meal: Pasta with vodka sauce, leftovers
This week seems to be flying by. I forget that tends to happen when you’re not slaving away in an office.
Instead, I’m slaving away on various side projects, including a website design for a friend and illustrations for another friend’s venture. I’ve been putting off the illustrations forever, mostly due to my own insecurities. I’m sure my friend is hating my guts for taking so long.
Packing is also taking up a lot of time. Progress is happening… I’m assuming. It’s at that point where there are a ton of boxes piled up but it looks as if nothing has been packed. I hate that. I must’ve done an incredible job of squirreling away all my possessions because it never looked like I had that much stuff.
The move is sucking up a lot of my time and attention so not much else is going on. My job hunt has been minimal, but it’s also near Thanksgiving so I have my doubts of much going on anyway.
But I do have one question. How the hell did this crazy bitch worm her way back into the national attention???
Daily Panic Level: Higher, but more due to moving
Financial Outlook: Zero cash flow
Job Scorecard (Interviews – Freelance Work – Freelance Busts): 8 – 4 – 28
Last Night’s Meal: Pasta with vodka sauce
My friend Kristen has been trying to land me a gig at her current company for a while now. The problem is that the company is almost exclusively an interactive agency and I have very little experience there.
However, she seems to have made some headway and asked me to compile a PDF portfolio of my very best work. I definitely wanted to include my recent work from BBDO since it’s current, interactive and pretty cool. Thus most of today was spent on putting together a new mini-portfolio to send out by end of day.
I also couldn’t take it anymore so bought a stack of moving boxes and started packing up. My room is in such a state of disarray, it’s killing me. It occurs to me that much of what I have to pack are just books and design magazine. Heavy design magazines. It’s amazing how much a pile of books weigh, so I can’t stuff the boxes full. Thus I have a bunch of boxes half full of books and then I’m tossing whatever random stuff I can with them. And the boxes are still heavy. Good thing I’m planning to hire movers. They will not be fans of me.
But I’m thinking that once I get all my books packed up, there wont be much left. Furniture is confined to what I have in my bedroom and it’s not much. DVDs, too many CDs, art supplies, and clothes. That’s my life.
I’m feeling very uninspired with cooking right now. Money has led me to just rely on my cheap, easy dishes, but after a whole summer of eating the same thing, I’m just bored. My last trip to the grocery store came up mostly empty handed as far as dinner ingredients. I need some new recipes.
Daily Panic Level: A bit higher
Financial Outlook: C’mon BBDO, c’mooooooon
Job Scorecard (Interviews – Freelance Work – Freelance Busts): 8 – 4 – 28
Last Night’s Meal: Beef chow mein, takeout
So BBDO passed on me since I couldn’t work today. Rather, I could’ve worked today but it would’ve required a bunch of shuffling around and I pushed my luck. Thus, it looks like I won’t have work this week or next since it’s Thanksgiving. Hopefully I won’t regret this action down the line.
Today was about finally, finally attempting to wrap up the phone app with Vic. I think my contribution is done so it’s up to Vic now. So I took the afternoon to get a haircut.
Or more specifically not get a haircut. The stylist: a very confident, opinionated, highly-recommended guy, actually said he wasn’t going to cut my hair. This is also after offering me a glass of bourbon. So to explain, I told him I didn’t want a drastic cut, I was happy growing it out a bit for the winter, but just wanted maybe to control parts of it. And his response was “No. Why would I cut it, if you’re wanting to grow it?”
It’s not as if what I was requesting was that absurd. I’ve done it before with other stylists, and it never fazed any of them. They were always reacting in ways like “Yeah, let’s get some of the mass out.” But with this guy, he just had such an aggressive manner that it makes you balk at your own actions, even if they’re perfectly normal.
I shouldn’t paint the guy in such a negative light. He was actually a nice guy. Just had a different demeanor than I normally come up against. He didn’t even charge me.
Apartment moving is looming now, and I’m in a state of anxiety. I want to just pack up everything all in one instance, but am forced to acknowledge that I can’t since I need some of these things for everyday functions. Thus I’m in this limbo where I keep looking around at my room and mentally packing things up.
Tony walked by the hallway and laughed at how there are “giant dust-bunnies all over the apartment” and how he doesn’t care. Actually, none of us care anymore. Fargo mentally checked out months ago. And Junior… well, he’s Junior.
The end of the month can’t get here soon enough.
Daily Panic Level: Still low
Financial Outlook: Would reeeeeally like that first check from BBDO. Any time now.
Job Scorecard (Interviews – Freelance Work – Freelance Busts): 8 – 4 – 28
Last Night’s Meal: Beef with veggies; soup
I’m back! It’s a bit shocking how long I’ve been working. A 4-day stint at BBDO somehow kept expanding until it ended up being a 3-week stint, with the possibility that it’ll go on again.
It was a new working environment for me. I’m used to small design studios with maybe 6 designers max. BBDO is simply on a different scale. With the desire to impress, I worked my ass off. Normal credos (such as always taking a full hour lunch, not consistently staying late, or working on weekends) all went out the window. I figure this is a place that opens doors and also pays pretty well so it’d be smart to get on their good side. I guess I did since they kept calling me in. They even started turning to me to do some of the work of another freelancer who wasn’t impressing them.
What bugged me about all my previous jobs were the office politics and egos that I constantly had to dance around with, and that definitely doesn’t go away, even in a place like BBDO. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. In fact, when you upgrade to the talent and reputation of a place like this, egos are likely to be much bigger. The difference this time around for me was that I was new so it didn’t bother me, but also knowing that I was a freelancer and not going to be invested long-term to anything. It was a liberating feeling. I just got to enjoy the environment, work hard on interesting stuff, and let others handle the dirty work.
So now I’m back at my apartment. Let’s hope this stint doesn’t last 3 months like the last one. Actually, BBDO called late last night to see if I could work the rest of this week. But I had some things to take care of so told them I couldn’t go in until Wednesday. There’s a chance they’ll pass but I’m hoping I get to go back in. It’s nice to catch a breather after working but I’m wary of passing too much up in case I go through another extended dry spell.
Today was dedicated to catching up and clearing away all the build up. Groceries, laundry, going to the gym were all shoved aside since I had no time to do anything while working at BBDO. I’m amazed at how anyone who works there gets other things in their lives done. Which is probably why New Yorkers invented drop-off laundry, take-out, 24 hour gyms and Fresh Direct.
I also wanted to get to the phone app that Vic and I have been working on. We’re both itching to get it done and released so that it can start selling and hopefully make some money. So that’s what most of the afternoon was spent on.
I somehow have a backlog of websites to help create. I’ve also been seeing things I want to do differently on my site which is ridiculous since it was just redone in June. But that’s the curse of the designer: you can never stop trying to change and improve your work.
The evening consisted of going with Sok to see Fantastic Mr Fox, which was pretty fantastic. I was starting to lose faith in Wes Anderson after The Life Aquatic, and especially after The Darjeeling Limited. But everything was perfectly done in this stop-motion gem. Jason Schwartzman hit it out of the park with his voice acting. Throughout the movie, the audience was laughing and clearly enjoying it all. I’m not a film expert by any means but it is obvious to realize the genius and talent of Anderson as a filmmaker. His work is on a higher level than 99% of anyone else in his profession. People talk of visionaries of the past and I have a feeling they’ll be talking of Anderson in the same way.
Daily Panic Level: Low
Financial Outlook: Good, once I get that first check from BBDO
Job Scorecard (Interviews – Freelance Work – Freelance Busts): 8 – 4 – 27
Last Night’s Meal: Popcorn
