930am
I am having Lipton tea at my old desk, back at ALM. I am not technically freelancing, but temping, and we'll call it a consultancy.
I can only have this one cup of caffeinated tea today, as tomorrow is the fasting holiday. It was weird enough being here on the 11th, but to be here today and knowing it'll happen again for at least a couple of months (or whenever I get a new job) is so unusual. My dear Ashlee is gone and that part stings because although I like a lot of the people here, aside from George I do not have the same rapport.
My heart races on and off -- like it's running sprints inside my ribcage. The more I think about how fast the last 9 months have gone it picks up the pace. The law firm feels like a dream/nightmare and the last two months of homebound work is like a haze. Everything and nothing changed and in the end I wound up right where I started. I have not had that much time with Chickie before and depending on what side of the coin you favor, it shouldn't happen again.
But Rich and Susan are here and Josh and Sam have been more than fair. I briefly renegotiated my rate and now it's certainly better.
It's like being in a slightly parallel universe. It's familiar and nearly identical, but some different people and arrangements. In some ways my professional heart was here all along -- it's a weird thing to admit. It makes a lot of sense, though. I feel very fortunate to be here and earning and I just want to do the job and go home. I'm waiting for some more direction.
Around noon I wanted to drink really badly. My heart was pounding and I would have dove headfirst in to a whiskey casket. I hated admitting that to George but I had to tell someone. I do not think booze would have quelled me but maybe. Part of me wants to cry a bit. Did I attract this (for better or worse)? Is it the end result of staying on the radar all this time? Or do they want someone they can trust and kick around?
I had lunch with Rich at the Vietnamese shop and we discussed what's going on and how that would apply to the bicycle show I always wanted to write. Now that we have this in-person second-chance I am going to do my best to crank it out.
There were a lot of good memories and some rough ones at this desk. It's more the feeling that I'm worried about. I do not want to fall back in to bad old habits. Now that the job is different, there will be different hurdles. I wanted the NY Mag thing to happen but it's not to be right now.
Last week started and I thought I'd be doing that web site. Two days later I was bombing on a press release. A day later I got a call about coming back in. Then I did the Hotel Editorial test (results pending). Now I'm here. What was old shall become new again.
We'll have to see what to do about the bike.
Thank you for reading this.
