Paging Dr. Ten. Dr. Ten white courtesy phone!

The evening before last I just could NOT get off to sleep. At all! It’s been a zillion years (it seems) since I’ve had a night like that. I believe I’ve already mentioned the Slumberville healing powers of my man Ten. He was in the bed so...what the fuck and shit? Was ist los? I'm askin' ya!

Eh, I have a BIG-ass, mega confusing layout job in house. The customer's instructions are radically conflictual, no small amount of image files are absent and, though I could see they’d attempted to be organized, the directions looked more like a ball of yarn after a team of kittens had been at delirious play. 

Work stress – WHAT FUN!

I managed an hours nap after which Ten and I motored down to Nantasket for a brief high tide walk. After, we sat on the seawall to watch the big show – the sun peaking out from beyond the waves and ever so slowly rising up, turning the world into a giant, golden disco-balled club with its beautiful blinding rays.

There’s just nothing more restorative than Nantasket in the pre-dawn hours; taking a lovely stroll on the sand; watching the emerging ruby tones of the coming day paint the waves; witnessing the seagulls as they play, glide and hunt for brekkie.

We came home and, after that nearly complete night spent awake, attempting to parse and follow the design/layout customer’s myriad instructions (written by committee with, seemingly, zero internal communication) I climbed into bed to read before dropping into ZZZ Land. Yes, even Nantasket's healing beauty was no match for that.

But what story was I reading? Hard to recall when I'm brainjammed from lack of sleepytime.

Was it the one about the WWII Englishwoman working as a spy within a nest of Nazi sympathizers? Maybe it was the one about the young zombie girl trying to thwart a zombie/human war (can’t we all just get along?). OR could I have been reading the story about the woman who finds herself in an alt. dimension, leading someone else’s precarious, danger filled life?

I believe I dropped off whilst puzzling this out.

Regarding that giant, tangled mess of a book that I’m attempting to lay out in a clean, elegant way… This is gala season for all the local nonprofits.  Essentially, the galas are elaborate thank yous to donors, come-hithers to hoped for future volunteers and givers AND, just generally the adult version of a prom.

The folks submitting files for these booklets are, for the most part, overworked volunteers doing all this in their time off from demanding full time, paying rent-making gigs.

I managed to put together a sample for review based on my understanding of the notes. I also noted where the missing bits were supposed to appear but couldn’t owing to them not existing in their submitted tangled mass.

For the mo, this particular, biggest of gala books is off my plate. I’m sure they’ll get back to me in another day or three with 1,001 indignant and impatient “NO, we meant X or Y” and “oh, here’s that ad/pic/text you needed” notes. I just gotta let this roll off – water/seagulls back and all that. They’re just exhausted, unpaid people doing what they can to support those who who need a hand – the deaf/blind, the homeless, young girls needing an entrée into adulthood, etc.

Huh, I've come up with yet another example of when I shouldn't take shit personally. Waddya know?