Tales from the Steppes

2004-04-15

2:27 p.m.
Must control fist of death

Yet another Thursday afternoon spent waiting for our worksession to start. It has been a bad day/week here at Park & Planning. Yesterday we came into the office to find out that a very prominent staff member had dropped dead of a heart attack, at age 50, early that morning. It was kind of a double-whammy, professional and personal, because not only was he a really nice guy (in a cynical kind of way) but also presented many of the development cases to the Planning Board. He was the guy the developers had to negotiate with and citizens bitched at. Actually, I guess they complain to all of us, but Malcolm was really the point man for new development in the county. The Board session has gone like usual though. The guys down in development review had to scramble to cover, but they did a great job. But still a sad session all around.

Last night I drove to school to meet with my little friends. Except they were not there. Needless to say, I was displeased. One of them was working on stuff for his studio class and gave me a printout of the "latest and greatest." This is what we are supposed to be presenting tomorrow to people who have driven three hours to see us???? Absofuckinglutely not! How embarassing.

The scale of the buildings and plazas is totally wrong. The arrangement is not totally sucko, but the masses render the space unusable. There are actually standards for this sort of thing because we study how people behave in spaces. It is a completely fascinating subject because many of the norms and preferences transcend culture and time.

Tonight, there will be no more Ms. Nice Guy. Up until now, I have been the soul of restraint, no matter what I might have written here. I have not insisted but merely offered my opinion. That changes tonight. I am hoping to show up with a plan already drawn so that we merely have to produce the rest of the drawings. Why, oh why, must we do this the night before we present? We have had months to get our shit together. But no dice. And here I have been so good recently, not using the m word. Sigh.