If everything's an emergency, then nothing is.

I was so exhausted at the end of today that I called the pizza delivery place before I left work so that it would be almost ready by the time I got home. My little plan worked, too, by the way--the delivery guy called from our condo building's lobby less than ten minutes after we walked through our own door. And Lawd, did I need a break.

The morning was spent frantically trying to get redlines done so we could print this afternoon. Susanna, Leslie, and Howie will be on a plane early Monday morning heading back to Taterville and Pomme de Terre for another round of user group meetings. See, architects print out their drawings and mark them up, usually with a red pen, noting things that need to be fixed or making notes of the changes the owners want. Hence, we call these redlines. However, I've had a hard time finishing the redlines from the last round of meetings at PdT, because everytime I'm nearly done, I have to go put out a fire on Wheatlands and someone makes more changes to my drawings on PdT while I'm off working on Wheatlands. The past few weeks have been a neverending battle to finish the redlines I was assigned. I originally designed the ground floor of the new tower as well as the renovated parts of the existing building, so I get to do the redlines for it as well.

So, this morning, I'm trying to do the last remaining redlines on my plans, and Howie lumps a new task on me to be done before the end of the day. Then Thurston asks me if I've talked to the food service consultant and seen the plan he sent (no, I haven't, just give me that plan in your hand and I'll draw it into my CAD plan), then he runs off to scan it--no, he'll make a copy--well, would I rather him scan it or copy it ? (I'd rather you hand me the fucking sheet of paper in your hand right now and I'll draw the goddamned thing.) Then he goes off to copy it. (Jesus God, just hand it to me, Scooter Bob.) Then Leslie comes over to announce for the fifteenth time that she's leaving at one and Susanna will be bringing all the plans to the airport and here's a list of things that need doing and here's why (honey, I love you and you're a great architect and I know you only have a couple of tests on the ARE to go, but I can't get anything done if you stand here and keep giving me unnecessary details) and she has to leave at 1pm but here's a list of what else needs to be done.

I've finally had enough and Sarge talks me into going a few blocks away for lunch. I abandon the salad I brought and run out the door before anyone can stop me. I suppose I shoulda stayed and worked through lunch, but Shorty is fresh ourt of give-a-damn. When every day spent on this project is a fire drill, then I no longer have the room in my head to process. Not only that, but this project has had me so busy I've neglected my own project (you know, the one that's three months away from being done?) and have drawings that are overdue to my consultants. I would have had some of those things done this afternoon, but I spent the afternoon doing more of the same. Combine this free-for-all with a frustrating search for drawings that printed to the plotter on the wrong floor of our office which involved me looking for my drawings and Susanna looking for me to tell me she'd found the drawings, and she and I were both ready for a margarita. We spent the last hour of the day marking up the overall plans with colored markers to show which departments were where and singing lines from the musical "Chicago," which I suddenly can't stop singing.

Also, because I was so busy this afternoon, I didn't have time to put together a kick-ass Detail of the Week (I had to beat the pizza guy home, okay?), so I promise you architectural enlightenment and infotainment on Monday, okay? Okay.

In better news, though, our building's HOA finally got the roof on the pool and I had the most wonderful swim this morning. We're looking forward to a pretty quiet weekend, so I'm gonna go enjoy it. Holla.