ACCOZZAGLIA

i’m on the bus. i have some things to process. this could get a little weird.

when one of my talent agencies phoned me yesterday about a potential senior designer contract to fill at REI’s world headquarters, i thought, “hmmm. i could make a few extra dollars for the next month before moving east. this would really help me out.”

for the uninitiated to the region, REI is located in Kent. i live in Everett. that’s about 65km, or 40mi, of spread.

so, this morning, my talent agency contacted me and mentioned that the art director (AD) at REI wanted to meet me in person. during the afternoon.

the one-way transit started at 12:30p. i arrived there at 4:15p, thirty minutes early. i probably won’t get home until 8:30p or 9, now that i’m thinking about it. this includes a bunch of walking, because the bus that goes in front of my place stops after 5:30p.

unfortunately, the AD was a half hour late, and i was about to leave when she finally appeared.

the quick quasi-interview lasted no longer than about twenty minutes. unfortunately, i was either exhausted or feeling really odd about the AD. she didn’t have a lot to say, save and aside from giving me a quick and dirty run-down of why she was needing a senior designer. otherwise, she was less than conversationally interactive, and in a way, now that i think about it, a bit boring.

it probably isn’t much help that my work is too diversified and thus not deep enough for what she was probably wanting (you know, A-list book, somebody who does nothing but design, who “lives, breathes and eats design” — can i vomit already?). mind you, i was reading her body language, and her really subtle verbal indications said to me that she wasn’t buying my portfolio.

i found myself speaking with greater difficulty like i normally do on those days when i wake up and i work on design stuff all day. in other words, if i wake up and do non-linguistic activity, it sets the tone for how my brain will operate until i go to sleep. if i design a lot, then i can’t put words together if i’ve been writing or speaking all day, i feel totally on.

this was both odd and bad for me. it’s odd, because i’ve actually completed so little design work in the last two years. and it was bad, because i couldn’t remember such simple words like “centrepiece” or “flagship” when i was talking to her. good god me.

but yanno, it was just my interactive chemistry with this AD that didn’t fly. she was nearly shocked when she heard that i came down from Everett on such short notice. what she didn’t realise was that i hadn’t driven down, as she vocally presumed. nuh-uh.

so, as uneasily and quickly as it began, it was over — well, quickly and uneasily. and as i left the abandoned REI campus, i thought about what had just happened there.

hi, that was a real lead balloon, and it was like pulling out my corneas by hand. not that i personally know how that feels, nor would i care to discover, but i think it gets the idea across.

but seriously. the last real design work i completed in a contracting capacity was the week before September 11, 2001. and yes, while i’ve done work for a couple of clients since, i have to be honest with myself. it’s been two years. even my own work is a product of Queen Without-A-Budget.

and besides, it feels stagnated, because i’ve done so little of it for other major clients. it’s always very small clients. if there’s anyone who’s proven that you can’t get blood from a stone by squeezing it with nothing more than hands, it’s me. and it shows. i have scars.

people can consider my work creative, and for some people within the industry, it is creative. but when an AD or a creative director (CD) is more interested in getting their job done, they don’t care about the talent a candidate has. they just want to see high-dollar print samples on soy-based inks, printed on whatever paper stock the money-wielding client of that sample so desired.

when i made my way to the bus stop in Kent, two people immediately came to mind: typenik and wohali. i’m not entirely sure why, but i think the thought i fell upon could make some sense why.

i’ve been afraid of admitting something that would more or less make me face exactly what i’ve been trying to avoid for years now. i’ve believed that my difficulty with getting into the direct stream of being a permanent contributor for some creative department anywhere was my reason and ergo, root to why i feel so much discontent with even trying to be a creative professional myself.

but quite effortlessly, and remarkably subconsciously, i audibly heard me actually saying aloud to myself, “i really hate art direction.”

while i didn’t stop my pace to get to the bus stop, i couldn’t actually believe that i was hearing myself say this. aloud. emphatically. effortlessly. like a weighty confession, even though i’m not, well, Catholic.

i’m honestly not sure what this means, but it’s really, uh, overwhelming right at the moment.. i’m even a little scared to think like this. okay, maybe more than a little.

what does this mean? did i perhaps make a mistake in pursuing a dead-end career path for me borne from a choice i made a decade ago? after all, i got into this line of work completely by accident. i didn’t go to university for this (hell, i didn’t even go to university), and it all happened because i agreed to work in the desktop publishing department at a Kinko’s back in 1994 after working graveyard shift long enough.

if this isn’t my profession, my vocation or the activity that makes me look forward to each morning (or just higher plateaus in this path), then what in the world have i been doing all this time? and if this isn’t my calling, then is there really even anything out there for me?

oh my god. this is scary. without this, what am i qualified to do? without a baccalaureate, how do i prove that i’m more than just a high school graduate?

(am i more than a high school graduate at the age of thirty?)

i don’t know what to say, and darkness has fallen. i still have a third bus to catch before walking another 4km (2.5mi) home from the main street. i’m tired, and i don’t know if i can say anything more.