So, the Costume Institute Gala was last night.

You would think that, as a costume/fashion nerd, I would be all over it. And you would be correct, except that I've been to two, and I have a near-pathological aversion to the ENTIRE MET that I am only slowly overcoming.

I worked that event two years in a row with the event production company.

JESUS GOD.

( I drop names! I whine! I make my own dress! Details inside! )

Today's work: 2k or bust. This will change as I feel myself able.

ETA 3:5pm: Okay, well, that was 2k. Uh, then another 2k, I guess!

This is what happens when you clean your apartment and start opening up folder; flashbacks. I know, I know, I should never open dusty folders, but I was possessed or something!

When I first got to New York, I signed up with a temp agency that specialized in the arts. It sounds supremely awesome, and it was...mildly awesome. I mean, I was answering phones and filing just like in any other temp job, except that sometimes you'd have to field a call from [eh, redacted celebrity], who's really angry that [redacted SO] can't be flown with her to location because of lack of space in first class, and she's not about to make him fly coach. Solve that in five minutes with no authority to change anything! Good times.

Anyway, I ended up working at a small production company; technically I was a temp, but I think they just wanted a freelancer at temp rates, because on Day 2 I was asked to research and write up trivia questions and intro copy for a magazine insert promoting [redacted televised event], as well as writing copy for the official program. It was extremely cool and interesting work, but I hardly remember a thing about it. Why?

Because our offices were right next to the writing offices of a soap opera, and they never closed their doors.

Some of the best memories of my life are sitting at my little desk, looking up old winners, compiling trivia questions, and listening to the writers one office over gleefully discussing how they could not only make her amnesiac, but make her amnesiac AND BLIND, so she would have to "learn by touch" and they could start an evil-twin subplot with the local minor noble, since she would testify they were the same person because they had the same face that she had touched in her AMNESIAC BLINDNESS.

They also really enjoyed: high school girls lying about sexual prowess to impress alpha men and then having to fake-make out with some shy guy who's always secretly loved them; desperate yet really naive people trying ot save a family business by doing shady business deals with people who have faked their own deaths in order to launder money; people being fatally shot on Fridays and falling into comas that last until the Friday two weeks later when they rise from the depths of comatude just in time to whisper the name of another character (eyes closed). If the person at their beside was a spouse, then the patient whispered the name of a romantic rival; if the person at the bedside was an enemy, the injured person would whisper that person's name ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME. This last thing was my absolute favorite part of the time I spent there. That kind of accuracy is reassuring, you know?

Note: I'm pretty sure half these writers are working for Law and Order: Special Victims Unit now.