August Happiness Challenge 2010 -- Day 29

Little things mean a lot. This evening my best friend sent a message while he waited in the parking lot outside his daughter's ballet studio. They're waiting together for the 2010 Nutcracker cast. She's terribly excited and very confident and he's nervous -- hopeful but worried he should be managing her expectations a bit.

I love this.

He's very good at sharing the big things -- like when one of us is afraid for our jobs or when we first heard about Kathleen's condition. But sometimes he forgets how valuable it is to share the littler things, too. Because it's moments like this that make up our lives.

PS She got two roles -- a soldier in the first act and a Chinese dancer in the second.

Life imitates art

Tonight's episode of Mad Men ("Waldorf Stories") surrounds the Clio Awards. A commercial done by Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is nominated, and even though Peggy believes the original idea was hers and that her contribution should be recognized, she isn't invited to represent the agency at the ceremony.

This very thing happened to me. Back in the late 1980s, a campaign I worked on won a Clio. I not only wasn't sent to the ceremony, I didn't even get a statue. Why would I? I only wrote all the copy.

I did, however, get a copy of the award certificate with my name listed, and the haircare company I worked for back then paid to have it framed. At the time, I was exuberant.

Didn't occur to me until this evening that I was passed over not because my contribution wasn't important -- it was vital. I was too junior. And back then, I acted like a girl (instead of a woman) on top of it. While my work was taken seriously, I wasn't.

I love Mad Men.