Friday, August 04, 2006
Diary of a woman who left her job a week ago to start a career in freelancing and hasn't stopped since
Last Thursday was my last day at work. I worked there 6 and a half years. I went straight from my going away party to the train station, and up to New York. I got to my hotel room at 11:30pm; the next morning, I was up at 7, and off to a breakfast meeting/schmooze-fest with a potential client. 10:45am, another meeting. 11:30, another.
1pm, lunch in Times Square with a guy a friend of mine thought I'd hit it off with - not romantically, more in a hey-they-have-a-lot-in-common way. He's self-published a bunch of albums and has a well-known blog and I'm trying to build up Creative DC... 3:30, coffee with a friend/producer. 5:30 drinks with another friend, a toast to my freedom.
8pm, the first in a string of probably 20+ improv shows I would see over the course of the weekend, as part of the Del Close Improv Marathon. More hours than I'd care to count spent in a dank basement theater surrounded by people with terrible B.O. cheering for creatures who, like myself, have tasted the improv high and can't quit til they get it back. Hoping Amy Poehler would show up - she didn't. Drinks with friends, more shows, more drinks, walking up and down 8th Avenue between shows, cheap pizza, cheap egg sandwich from a Korean grocery without air conditioning.
Sunday, a restaurant with good A/C, the first we've had all weekend, brunch with a friend. Sunday night, on a train home, exhausted, high on the fumes of activity, finally finish the Truman Capote biography I'm reading, slam through a vapid interior decorating magazine, pick up the crumbs of the Yoga Journal I started on the ride up. Home, exhausted, midnight.
10:00 the next morning, a conference call with another potential client. Sore throat, cancel a lunch meeting, exhausted. Sit hunched over laptop finishing PowerPoint slideshow for former boss's going away party back at....work. Show up at 3:30, part of the decorating committee. Decorate. Party from 4-6:30, cheerful, surrounded by ghosts of workdays past. "Yep, I'm just ready for a little variety," I chirp.
Wine. Potato chips - perfect salty taste. Then off to auditions for my improv troupe, Jinx. 7:30-10. Grapefruit juice. Drinks afterwards, who are we going to pick? Pick. Home to bed. Sleep til noon, exhausted. Afternoon with a spreadsheet, mapping out 90-day goals for me, my blog, my freelance business. Clarity. Bed.
Wednesday and Thursday, long peaceful drive out to Rockville to do government support work my mom helped me get. Mindless - thrillingly so. View out the office window of trees, reminds me of Maryland - of course I'm in Maryland, but it reminds me of Maryland, of growing up, of all the time spent there. Today, slept til 11:30, sore throat descended into full-on cold. Stumble out in the heat to walk my dog. We're out of milk so I drink my coffee black.
1pm, lunch in Times Square with a guy a friend of mine thought I'd hit it off with - not romantically, more in a hey-they-have-a-lot-in-common way. He's self-published a bunch of albums and has a well-known blog and I'm trying to build up Creative DC... 3:30, coffee with a friend/producer. 5:30 drinks with another friend, a toast to my freedom.
8pm, the first in a string of probably 20+ improv shows I would see over the course of the weekend, as part of the Del Close Improv Marathon. More hours than I'd care to count spent in a dank basement theater surrounded by people with terrible B.O. cheering for creatures who, like myself, have tasted the improv high and can't quit til they get it back. Hoping Amy Poehler would show up - she didn't. Drinks with friends, more shows, more drinks, walking up and down 8th Avenue between shows, cheap pizza, cheap egg sandwich from a Korean grocery without air conditioning.
Sunday, a restaurant with good A/C, the first we've had all weekend, brunch with a friend. Sunday night, on a train home, exhausted, high on the fumes of activity, finally finish the Truman Capote biography I'm reading, slam through a vapid interior decorating magazine, pick up the crumbs of the Yoga Journal I started on the ride up. Home, exhausted, midnight.
10:00 the next morning, a conference call with another potential client. Sore throat, cancel a lunch meeting, exhausted. Sit hunched over laptop finishing PowerPoint slideshow for former boss's going away party back at....work. Show up at 3:30, part of the decorating committee. Decorate. Party from 4-6:30, cheerful, surrounded by ghosts of workdays past. "Yep, I'm just ready for a little variety," I chirp.
Wine. Potato chips - perfect salty taste. Then off to auditions for my improv troupe, Jinx. 7:30-10. Grapefruit juice. Drinks afterwards, who are we going to pick? Pick. Home to bed. Sleep til noon, exhausted. Afternoon with a spreadsheet, mapping out 90-day goals for me, my blog, my freelance business. Clarity. Bed.
Wednesday and Thursday, long peaceful drive out to Rockville to do government support work my mom helped me get. Mindless - thrillingly so. View out the office window of trees, reminds me of Maryland - of course I'm in Maryland, but it reminds me of Maryland, of growing up, of all the time spent there. Today, slept til 11:30, sore throat descended into full-on cold. Stumble out in the heat to walk my dog. We're out of milk so I drink my coffee black.
