Today I felt like I was racing to get nowhere. I hate those kind of days.

I spent the last three hours working, yes, honest to goodness working. I updated that proposal and sent it off (according to my notes I last submitted it in August of 2004 — yikes), and tried to write two more.

And wow, did it ever hurt. I’m so out of practice. Even looking at my old ones, I floundered for ideas and wrote in a stilted, rusty, hollow-sounding fashion instead of the exciting and dynamic style required. A proposal is part outline, part marketing selling tool, and the marketing bit has totally flown away from me over the past two years. My brain hurt (no, really, I needed to take Tylenol), and I wasn’t looking forward to orchestra.

Imagine my surprise when I was called at six to be told that orchestra was cancelled, as our rehearsal venue is unavailable and no one told us ahead of time. This is bad, because we only have a few rehearsals left before July 1, but also a relief, because as a result of struggling with proposals I’m nowhere near the headspace orchestra requires. So because I didn’t get a chance to go out and pick up a few things this afternoon (the proposals took twice as long as I’d expected them to — ah, optimism), I’m heading out now instead.