Yesterday was a crazy work day with curve balls coming at me left and right!
I was sending emails to people I haven't seen in years telling them what I'm up to these days. These are all folks I care about, were important as my career developed or I flat out like. They are also survivors ... meaning I purged my contact list last week and none of them were deleted.
Well ... to be honest a few were deleted but when we launched the new business (www.letustellit.com) several of them wrote me nice words so they were un-deleted which is like being raised from the dead.
Just as I was hitting my groove, Sarah burst into my office on the back deck where I prefer to work. Her office is at the other end of the house in the red room.
Our offices have a couple of distinct differences.
She prefers quiet when she works, has a proper desk and everything she needs is spread on it before her. I sit outside at a table under an umbrella with music blasting from on Rhapsody from my laptop, loving the sunshine, dancing leaves in the ocean breeze and yellow butterflies sucking the pollen out of the red Hibiscus blooms.
We have a quick "coffee break" without actually drinking any coffee.
She goes back to her office and I get back to work. But people have actually started answering my emails. That can screw up a day's agenda! Now I have to answer their email! Christ! How am I supposed to get any work done!
Then Stacy Jennings calls me from the Savannah Morning News asking if I would stop everything I'm doing and write something for the paper. Double Christ! I can't tell Stacy "No!"
Stacy is a lot like Joshua in the Old Testament. She can make the sun stop, the moon stop, avenge herself on her enemies and completely screw up someone's daily agenda. (See Joshua 10:13. That's really about Stacy.)
So I wrote it and send it only to be confronted by these evil people called editors. Evidently my words needed work. So I do what I always do when confronted by editors ... I ignored them. I'm a big believer that if you ignore a problem long enough it will go away.
On the other hand, Stacy had already stopped the sun and the moon from moving so ... I was edited which is like getting the paper you were proud of writing in college handed back to you marked up in red by some idiot professor who doesn't recognize great writing!
When I got back to work, MORE PEOPLE HAD REPLIED TO MY EMAILS!
Now there's even more to do!
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the sun had moved. Of course it had! Stacy had gotten what she wanted.
My computer kept beeping with new emails as the sun painted the deep blue sky in pinks and purples. Inexplicably "Scarborough Fair" streamed through my computer.
Seriously? "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?
I got mellow, walked inside and poured myself a glass of wine. Sarah was still working away in her quiet solitude. No one else else was working but then again no one else was here.
Returning to my office on the back deck I stuck my bare feet on the rail and toasted Stacy Jennings. She's freaking amazing. And apparently does all of this on one foot.
How do you compete with that?
I turned off the computer, drank wine and watched the sun set.
