My Delirium*

So I'm sitting at a table at the hippest breakfast spot in Istanbul, very occasionally even getting to glance up and see the Bosphorus.

This is why I went freelance, right?

Except for the fact that my choice wasn't totally voluntary.

And that I have barely moved from a table in nearly seven hours and have had to spend a small fortune ordering drinks to "rent" my wireless. This is because I got here last night – plane, complete with eleventeen screaming babies – way delayed, with four stories due today and my friend's cleaner (friend is an expat brat!) had broken her wireless, Skyping while ironing!

I was anxious during a (very late) dinner with her friends, thinking about how much work I had to do and how much I envied them their stable jobs and the ability to have a glass of wine without worrying they wouldn't be able to finish their work. Then I stayed up until 4 am trying to get work done (and feeling like a bad, tetchy, anxious guest, which I guess I sort of was). I was up again at 7.

Tonight I've got her birthday dinner, sure to be a boozy, expensive affair where I suspect I'll be the only one anxious about calories and finances. (I am looking forward to a drink, though I may collapse of exhaustion due to severe sleep-deprivation over the last few days.)

This is after a day where I've barely moved four feet and eaten, well... I'll let you be the judge:

For lunch I ordered what I thought would be small: a wheatberry side dish and a fruit bowl. Except instead of a cold salad the wheatberry thing turned out to be a delicious, cheesy, carby yum bomb. And the fruit bowl was, like, an entire farmers market worth of fruit crammed into half a melon. And to think I didn't order the watermelon with feta I spied across the room just because _it_ was like Mt Watermelon (also because I couldn't find it on the menu...)

I ate half of the cheese/carb hug-on-a-plate and the entire fruit bowl (which, sadly, did not have any watermelon). I ignored the bread and olive oil I was brought, as well as the biscotti perched on the side of my fruit bowl. I guess it could be worse.

God, I'm tired. One more article to go. I fear it may be written in a language tantalizingly close to English. (Yes, I am grateful for the work, though.) The subject seemed so small and manageable when I pitched it, and has morphed into one of those Seymour-feed-me type horrors that cannot be tamed and feel, to me, like a referendum on my entire career.

But maybe that's just me, and me-on-sleep-deprivation is a seriously pessimistic thing to behold.

***

After fighting for weeks with the extremely idiotic PR woman for an extremely successful company (can't be due to her efforts), I finally landed the interview I needed. (Well, maybe I shouldn't speak too soon – it's next week.) So I was very, very amused this morning when I was accidentally sent an e-mail chain from the PR department showing in very poorly spelled and punctuated yet very plain English (a) how much they lie, (b) how aware they are of how much they lie, (c) how afraid they all are of making any decision at all lest it be the wrong one, and (d) just how dumb they are.

Lucky for them I am not as careless as they are I could, um, accidentally forward it to the CEO.

(No, I'm not quite mean enough to do that, and I wouldn't wish a life of uncertainty on anyone. But it was tempting to think about for a second or two...)

*Also the title of a very excellent workout song by Ladyhawke, a Kiwi singer who's the shyest artist I've ever encountered