The client who's signed me up for three weeks in the fall wants eight hours of proofreading a day. As in, that number that's about equidistant between seven and nine. Yipes.

At about Hour Seven today my eyeballs threatened to secede from the rest of my body (actually, it was those little muscles that control pupil size that hurt the most). But the fall gig will make me solvent, at least for a time, and that's a pretty sexy idea.

As I walked out the door of the pub house the fact-checker was still there, and I found myself very thankful I'm no longer trying to do that job and be a backup copyeditor: one cannot handle research and proofreading at the same time. Someone has to concentrate on dates, prices, and proper nouns, and someone else has to look for grammatical errors, typos, unintended double entendres, graphics that don't line up, and excessive word repetition.

So I finally understood today that my getting laid off from the fact-checking end of things was a blessing in disguise. It's better for the organization this way, and a lot better for me. Presumably, I bill at a higher rate than the woman who was looking up arcane facts about refrigerators at 7:00 p.m. tonight. And that's fine, too: after all, I'm older.

And more evil, I suspect.

Darrell, thanks for the care package. I might not be able to pick it up until tomorrow, or perhaps even Friday. But knowiing that it's there makes me feel all warm and gooey inside.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:06 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 :-) I get the paper version of Gmail delivered anyway. Thanks for the advance copy!

Posted by: Darrell at June 20, 2007 08:50 PM (o7kvN)

2 Was anyone ever so gullible?

Posted by: Attila Girl at June 20, 2007 10:12 PM (VgDLl)

3 And I still haven't opened that email yet--but I've been tempted. Especially since I know I won't be at the mail drop until tomorrow.

Posted by: Attila Girl at June 21, 2007 07:25 PM (VgDLl)

4 No one can accuse you of requiring instant gratification. Good girl! But it does force the same on me. . .sigh. I'll live. Barely.

Posted by: Darrell at June 21, 2007 10:14 PM (vkYzb)

5 You might as well know that email is just a bust shot of me. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Posted by: Darrell at June 22, 2007 11:12 AM (rr8YX)

6

Posted by: Attila Girl at June 22, 2007 08:13 PM (VgDLl)

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Or, three jobs, if you count the fact that I have two separate accounts at one establishment, and they are "sharing" me right now. Naturally, I avoid that situation like the plague, but Dept B is having an emergency, and needs me. So Dept. A (which had dibs for the day) is being a good sport about it. (Reminder to self: acquire some diplomatic balm, since I may well need it before the week is up. Do they sell that stuff at Office Depot?)

And now I need to wind down, since they'd like me in the office at a normal time tomorrow. The faster I lose consciousness, the better. Would someone come over here and bang me on the head, please? Thank you.

In the meantime, my head is filled with brilliant insights into the human conditions that may never get written down—much less read by anyone. So I shall simply assure you that it's Really Good Stuff.

Ogden Nash:
"Oh, Duty, Duty—why hast thou not the visage
Of a Sweetie, or a cutie?"

Why not, indeed?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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