Working girl

The sound of fireworks is fizzling out only thirty minutes into the new year.

Bye bye 2003, I hardly knew ye. I’d do a best of list if I could, because I did see films and I did read stuff and I did hear music, but I really don’t remember much other than that there never seemed to be enough time to enjoy anything.

I won’t remember 2003, the year I turned 40, for much else than the fact that I turned 40, that I did it in London and that I was surrounded by good people. Everything else is a blur.

My temp job lasted and still lasts, though probably not for very much longer. It’s been mostly good – it covered the bills (but not much more), but there was always the pressure of budget cuts and reorganisation, of being understaffed and overworked.

Apart from the full time job I wrote two books for Omnibus Press in the evenings and on weekends. I have no idea how I did that. The first one nearly killed me. The second one I would have killed not to do.

Somehow I managed to run my websites as well. Whedonesque.com thrived despite my involvement, U2log.com survived by some clever hiring of staff.

In the second half of the year most of my energy went into ‘supporting the arts’, playing personal googlist and — I believe it’s called — confidante to an entertainer. Of all the work I do, this is the closest to my heart. It’s also the most draining. The judges are still out on whether it’s the most satisfying or frustrating.

So I worked. I worked. And I worked some more. Yet I feel as if I accomplished nothing. I’m tired of tying up the loose ends of other people’s lives. I’m just tired.

If I believed in New Year’s resolutions I would promise to live more and work less. As unemployment is a very real possibility this year, that doesn’t seem too much of a challenge.