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Sorry. For disappearing the last coupla weeks.
Let me see ... how do I start? Oh, yeah. I quit my job. Eloped with Matt. Got pregnant. And I'm blogging this from the balcony of our honeymoon suite in Morocco
Kidding.
Instead of getting a bikini wax, I got chicken pox. How grand. Me, with chicken pox at this age! Having Matt's babies doesn't seem such a bad idea compared to this horrid ordeal of oozing pus. I've evolved into a bubble wrap. I'm afraid someone will catch me and start popping my pox with glee. Okay. This bubble wrap has to go hide in a box now.
Pencil chewed at 2:11:00 pm //
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Chaos control
I've always said Matt had bad timing. But not tonight.
"I've just been ditched," I said, when I answered his call.
"Huh?" he asked, tentatively.
"My Art Director, Heng, he walked out!"
"What?"
"Gosh," I said, a thousand 'what-ifs' running through my mind. What if Heng never comes back? What if I have to handle this alone? What if he gets into an accident? What if he runs amok and slashes Susan and me up? "Urgh! What am I to do?"
"Can you call him?"
"He turned off his phone. He's so pissed. The presentation is next Wednesday. Oh God, take me now."
"He'll turn up on Monday. He just needs some time to think things through, cool off. Work off the steam."
"I hope so," I said feebly, wanting to believe. "That man is demon possessed. I've never seen him so ... so broken. It's the proverbial straw - broke his bloody back."
"What about you? You ok?"
I sighed, "I dunno." I had not thought about myself. "As alright as I can be, I guess. I'm ... I'm just tired."
"You want to call it a day?"
"I can't," I sighed, while squeezing my temples, "I have to think about the new proposition ... whether it works, I have headlines to work on ... urgh, what the heck! You thirsty?"
"Always," he said.
Anywhere was better than being in the office. I was drained - mentally, emotionally.
How strange, the day had started out as usual but towards the end, we saw ourselves like we never had.
Heng the Stoic was emotional. Susan the Strategic was silly. Me, the Paragon of Peace was chaos. And Matt the EgoManiac was sensitive. Even kind.
He didn't talk too much.
Thank God for small mercies.
Pencil chewed at 1:29:00 am //
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Heng scalds!
Heng was called into the MD's office today. He was given a little "lecture" on etiquette and team work. Heng held his tongue so hard, he almost bit it off.
Once he was back in his cubicle - he let out a loud roar of expletives. If I weren't so involved, it would be comical. I hurried over to him.
"Heng," I said in my gentlest voice, resting a hand on his shoulder.
I have a calming effect, people tell me. But, not tonight. He shrugged off my hand and started thrashing the briefs and visuals on his table.
"*&^% job. Take it and stick it up their ass," he hissed.
"Come on, don't let them get to you," I consoled, "We're so close to winning."
"Win? They know wat they are doing or not? Wat is dis crap? Stupid, STOOOPID proposition."
"Heng, it's ok," I continued, "We don't have to go with the new proposition."
"All dis people, how they get their job? &^%$?! Pay them tons of money and they come up with stupid things like that! &^%$*!"
I laughed uneasily, trying to disperse the tension. "I know what, why don't we re-look at our stuff and see how we can tackle this situation." I suggested optimistically.
"You want to do, you do it yourself!" he glared at me. He looked dejected, lost and suddenly, much older. I felt a shiver. Words dried in my mouth.
"F---!" He muttered, picked up his knapsack, threw a backward glance at his desk, and walked out.
My heart stopped for a moment.
Then it hit me. My partner left me.
Pencil chewed at 11:55:00 pm //
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Heng heats up
Heng spit out the F words 5 times in succession. Each one a little louder than the last. He was mega-pissed and he wanted her to know it. Nothing ever ruffles Heng but when one succeeds in heating up this block of ice - man, can he boil.
Susan wanted to change the proposition. Wait. Didn't client loved it? Why now? 4 days from presentation? Might as well tie our hands to a boulder and throw us into the Klang River. Do you know how much I want to win this? Woman, do you know that this could be my gold pencil sharpener?
Amidst all these thoughts I kept my cool. Because it's Susan. And I genuinely like this suit. So I was willing to listen. Perhaps she is right? Perhaps it would be a better piece of work. Perhaps she's all bull.
But not Heng. I've never seen him so angry. His eyes bulged out its sockets, the veins in his neck, like thick cables, throbbed furiously. Aggravated by his lack of vocabulary he kept repeating a few choice 4 letter words, punctuated only by differing decibels.
He has spent the last 48 hours tweaking the initial campaign. He has hardly slept. Hardly eaten. Hardly seen his wife. Hardly had any.
"Look! I'm not asking you to throw out everything - just tweak it towards this proposition," Susan tried to swing us over to her side.
"*&^%!" Heng replied.
"We can't just change this without re-thinking the whole process," I interpreted. A change at midstream can only mean one thing - back to a blank sheet.
"All I'm saying is that this is a tighter proposition ..."
"*&^% @#$$%$@%^#!!!!" Heng shouted and he stomped out, slamming the door behind him.
My ears rang. The office reverberated.
Pencil chewed at 11:53:00 pm //
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Second wind
Susan briefed us this morning. Some tweaking and we'll have to re-present the campaign next Wednesday. We have to win. My career and future happiness depends on it.
Nah! Not really. It's just to psyche myself up for the long nights ahead.
I've written over 30 headlines today. None that I'm happy with.
I've spent more than 8 hours trying to craft 150 words.
I've drank 5 cups of coffee.
And eaten only 1 burger.
These are the sacrifices you make for your craft, they tell me. Some times I wonder whether it's worth it. What can I do with a Gold Pencil? It won't keep my bed warm on lonely nights. It won't make me Milo when I'm down with flu. It won't even pat me on the back for winning it. Sheesh, I can't even write with it.
But no, I just gotta have it.
Sucker.
Pencil chewed at 9:51:00 pm //
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Spam Poetry
No one wants to read spam. That's until Kristen Thomas weaves them into poetry. Cool. Check it out here.
Spam is really a Direct Marketing concept gone berserk. What started out, perhaps, innocently has grown into a monster that lurks behind your Inbox and pounces at you with lurid subject lines. Of course, in a bid to overhaul its image, the industry has given it a new fancy name - Viral Marketing. Now, doesn't that sound like something you can charge clients 10,000 smackaroos?
Sadly, I do write Direct Marketing pieces. Yeah, shoot me. I'm the culprit behind the junk mails stuffed in your mail box. I'll confess, it is tough, really tough to write great DMs. A good DM probably has a window of about 8-10 seconds before the addressee decides to open the letter or bin it. Even if you win the "opening", he might not read beyond the first line of the letter. *sigh* And what's worse? DM writers get paid less than their mainstream counterparts. :(
Enuf said. Done well, DM can be a powerful tool. Done badly, I hope, some one will write poetry out of it. At least, that'll make slogging behind this desk worth it.
Pencil chewed at 8:20:00 pm //
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As clear as day
This morning, in the pantry, Tomas was laughing so hard that tears were spilling from his slitty eyes.
"Aisehman, you're really putty in his hands," he said, drying his eyes on his sleeves.
I looked away, a little miffed.
"Maybe he really is the man of your dreams masquerading as a Freud's SuperEgo."
"Very funny," I said. "I really tried to end it. It's not my fault that he has a hearing impediment."
"Alright, alright," he said and ruffled my hair, "What you're gonna do now?"
"I don't know. I didn't plan on Plan B!"
"Just cruise along lah. Maybe it'll work out. Not bad what? Got free dinner, movie."
"Sheesh," I said, "you're supposed to be on my side, remember?"
"I mean, you've gotta give the guy credit for ingenuity."
I sighed. "You know, in a sick, twisted kinda way, I'm glad."
"See, there you go."
"No, not that. But I feel ... relieved. I mean, he knows I'm not ... well ... keen. If he still wants to try his luck, I guess that's his problem. My conscious is clear. I can sleep happy."
Tomas chuckled, took a puff of his Marlboro and eyed me in this strange way.
I took my mug of coffee and left. Somehow, I didn't want to know what he thought.
Pencil chewed at 3:37:00 pm //
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