The Shape of Days

Let me get this out of the way right now: my speech went well. I had two purposes, and I think I achieved both of them to an extent. My first purpose was to convince the woman who hired me to keep paying me. I think I did that… but not as effectively as I could have. She still wants me to work for an hourly rate that’s simply insulting. But when there’s nothing else going on, I’m happy to get that pittance, because it’s better than the zero dollars an hour I make sitting around here and writing in my diary. (More on this later.)

My second purpose was to convince her client to hire her to do their branding campaign. I don’t know if I achieved that purpose or not, because, frankly, she fumbled the ball. Her job was to go into a budget meeting after my presentation and get the client to agree to engage the firm for a reasonable retainer—say, $15,000 a month or so—to do the branding and marketing work. That’s not what she did. Instead, she nickel-and-dimed herself down to the extent that we’re basically doing their branding for free.

I’m still going to do it, of course, because it’s going to be an important resume and portfolio item for me if I can do it well. But it annoys me that she’s apparently unaware of the value of what she’s selling.

In other news, though, I landed a client yesterday who is willing—heck, eager even—to pay me a fair rate for my services. So guess who gets my attention? That’s right. I booked an entire day of work for that client tomorrow, and I’m expecting to do at least half a day of work for them on Friday. That’s good news. My other client—the cheap one—will be annoyed, but that’s business.

Enough with the shop talk. What else is going on in my life right now? Well, I bought new shoes last weekend. This is a bigger deal than you might think. I’ve got strange feet—the details aren’t worth going into—so finding shoes that fit me well is a challenge and a half. redacted took me to Luke’s, which is to sporting goods stores as the Mercedes dealership is to car lots, and we sat down with a footwear consultant for half an hour. The net result is that I walked out of there with a new pair of running shoes that, for the first time in my life, didn’t hurt my feet at all. Wearing them actually feels good, if you can believe that.

Yes, running. I’ve taken up jogging. It didn’t go well because I was wearing crappy shoes, and my knees and shins started to hurt something awful. But now that I have the technology, I’m back at it full-bore, and having a pretty good time.

(Don’t tell redacted I’m enjoying it. I think the likes the challenge of getting me to exercise. If I didn’t grumble and grouse, I think she’d be a little disappointed.)

And finally, from our “where are they now” department, we bring you the story of an unfinished novel. Yeah, it’s sitting here on my desk. Four hundred and thirty pages worth. Will I ever finish it? YES. Dammit, yes. But not today, and maybe not tomorrow.

It’s a little discouraging, but the simple truth is that I can’t afford to take whole days off to write any more. So it sits here, untouched.

• The weather report
• Day of death
• Nib and the weather