Tuesday, October 17, 2006

A Little Blood in Every Piece (and on the Keyboard Too)

Coffee in the Los Angeles skyline mug, "Corpus Christi Carol" by Jeff Buckley on iTunes, nothing new written. So yesterday, lots of blood. I hate the Pop Art pieces. It is inevitable if you have to individually wash, rinse and dry 240 newly cut rectangles of glass that you will cut yourself. Multiple times. The last time was deep enough for stitches, but placed so that I could just close the flap back up and bandage it tightly together and it will heal fine. Didn't even have to use any butterflies. (Is it "butterflys" when referring to the closures?). This morning I opened up one of the cuts while taking out the studio trash hence the blood on the keyboard. Luckily it's on my thumb so as long as I blot it before it drips...

I am striving for sanguine today. You might think it funny after yesterday, but a little cheerful optimism wouldn't go amiss right now. I ended the day yesterday with a note from the editor. (As opposed to "my" editor with whom I have as yet had no dealings. I am not really sure she exists as she blew me off entirely last Friday when I was at the publisher's. Apparently she didn't even come in to work that day.) She wanted to know when the projects will be all done so they can do the beauty shots for the book up there at the publisher's... (beauty shots are the full page pictures of each project). Hello? We have had this conversation already. 1) I can't travel anymore this year. I am booked *solid* through December 12 already and I expect some stuff to still come in. 2) I can't ship the projects, some of them are just too fragile and even for those that I wouldn't normally expect to break, the cost would be too high if they did. 3) This is my book and I want to be there for the photography providing input as appropriate.

So I wrote back points 1 and 2 along with "we can just do them here with the rest of the photography". As far as Dave is concerned that's it, it's over and done now, that's the way it will be. I am not so... sanguine. I have a feeling it's just beginning and I am going to get bullied into another herculean effort, which will really piss off my husband who is the support behind all effort at this point. Borrowing trouble? Maybe.

In the meantime, I need to do a screen melt today and fuse (really, really) the last Art Institute and first back-up Uncommon Goods load I have not done for the past two days. I think part of the reason I have been dragging on doing this fuse is that it is speculative (and I am having deja vu... have I written that already?). I am making 20 platter and plates sets in case UG orders them against their second PO. There is no assurance that they will need them and that I won't get stuck with them. I know, someone will eventually want them and it will be nice to have them already done, but you don't spend the margin at the edges of life force on maybe.

And it's about time for some of the money for all this effort to come rolling in. The first Net 30 payment is due Friday with three more due by Monday, 14 in all due by November 9. Now I feel more sanguine. The thought of money coming in always makes me cheerful.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just keep reminding yourself that the year is almost over and the book deal will be history. Next year, you will only have to keep up with orders and you will have so many of them that you can't do any more shows for lack of time.
MONYMAN

ren said...

heh. sounds like you really are sanguine...better bandage that up! and keep them clean and have a sense of "humors". (sorry. sorry, i can't help myself.)

Brenda Griffith said...

Oh Ren, you are so bloody funny! (we could keep this up all day, couldn't we? :-)

Anonymous said...

...and I thought I was the cut-up around here...

Brenda Griffith said...

And I thought you were supposed to stitch me back together!