Note: For five years I've wanted to keep a frequent-entry one-liner diary because our new media world moves so quickly. We're already forgetting the most interesting events and ideas. Here's my attempt.

Sunday February 22, 1998

I'm working for a digital marketing agency in San Francisco. I brave the horrible weather and show up. I surf the web and read magazines. I find names of companies that might need our digital marketing services and eventually I write to them and send a packet. Then my CEO calls them. We're running about a 25% success rate so he's happy.

Today I'm working with my young assistant. She's just out of college and landed an admin job with this company. I teach her everything I can because she's smart and full of life. I think about the total lack of mentors and role models in my life. I never even meet a character in a book with whom I could identify.

When I was in my twenties and struggling to be an artist in New York, all the women artists were married to men artists and were really keeping house or working to support those men. Now I try to help women. I thought they'd have a shoe-in in this new world of multimedia but things are pretty much run by men. We'll see how it turns out.

Thursday February 26, 1998

Thursday evening I drive to Palo Alto for a get together at the World Internet Center. I thought it would be a think tank but it's more like an international trade association with three big sponsors. They have non-profit type problems already and they are for profit. They only "think" about their sponsors' issues.

I'm here because we've been trying to start our own think tank up around Marin. My colleague had a brilliant idea that goes like this. The one thing these corporations lack by definition is unfettered creativity. We (there are three of us) have that creativity and we direct it to all kinds of problems. We want corporations to sponsor us to just think, without guidelines. Then we publish our results and they can take whatever is useful to them and make a product, a company, a strategy or whatever. We recognize that as soon as we act within a set of parameters, we're not going to think of anything really new or really unthought of. It's called The Caldera Dream Tank.

Friday February 27, 1998

Back at work. Can't focus because I have a whole new computer. I've gotten ahead of the company - they can't follow up on the calls already on the table. Clients are pouring in. Now we need strategy. How to grow and not pay out too much to meet the clients needs and still collect our fees. An old problem. No one has solved it yet in this business. Meanwhile I discover that a huge potential client has failed to register their corporate name in time and someone else has taken it. Makes you wonder what people think about.

Saturday February 28, 1998

I spend hours structuring the Oldest Woman web site. I created it hastily two weeks ago. Now I'm enjoying making it work, making the logo, writing, cleaning it all up. Can hardly remember how to do web coding (html). Winds are forty miles an hour. All the herons in the marsh outside have disappeared.

Monday March 16, 1998

I mail my Oldest Woman press kits to places like Interview and Good Morning America and then I xerox more copies of the inserts. This sounds so simple, but it takes a lot of 'psychic' energy to put yourself out there. I reward myself with a leisurely Thai lunch. It's wonderful to eat alone (without an escort) and really order anything you want and not have anyone touch it.

After lunch I meet with a two women clients who first called me to help them do a website. Their company has already evolved into something great, but I can't write about because it's in 'non-disclosure.' That's corporate talk for "don't tell my idea or I'll sue you." We all want to do what they're offering, I guarantee that. Stay tuned!

Tuesday March 17, 1998

Surfing the web at work. I'm always amazed how far one can travel on the web from a simple Yahoo search and end up reading that estrogens cause ALL uterine cancers.

Today would have been my 35th anniversary if I had been able to stay married. I guess I married for life, even if it only lasted fifteen years. Is there a website called www.healoldwounds.com?

Thursday, March 18, 1998

I go to a gym for an organized workout. To waive the $10 guest fee, I 'talk' about gym services (no pun intended) with the most gorgeous man I ever saw. I could have talked to him forever - six five, black hair, blue eyes, great buns, but we were interrupted. Although I prefer outdoor exercise (if any), I am trying to overcome my prejudices. The noise in a gym really bothers me. The music is awful. The machines look like the Spanish Inquisition. But I try. Later in my mind I build gyms that have lots of trees and vegetation, outdoor machines, varied environments from soft pastels to more masculine colors, etc. Is it economics that forces the most people into the smallest space with the most machines?

Last week I listened to my former doctor, Christiane Northrup, on TV speaking about women's health. She started a 'clinic' in Yarmouth, Maine, about ten years ago. They bought an old country Victorian, fixed it up with peach and turquoise and antique furniture, turned bedrooms into examining rooms, and so on. A pre-Martha Stewart gynecological environment. Why can't we do that with gyms?

I spend the afternoon dressing, preparing and traveling to see a recruiter for a very high level web development job. When I arrive, she tells me she has just spoken to the client, whom I know. According to the recruiter the client said, "I have the greatest respect for Sherry. She's made a tremendous contribution to this industry and she's very creative. But I know the corporate environment here and I don't think it's a good match."

Friday, March 20, 1998

I'm rejected today for another job because "You are too creative for this position. We're holding onto you until another great creative opportunity comes along." All this produced a huge depression. How can one be unemployable for being too creative or too good at a job? Or are these euphemisms from people who don't want to hire the Oldest Woman on the Web?

Everyone asks, "Why would you like to stop what you are doing and go to work in a company?' As I write this diary, I have either lots of money and no time or lots of time and no money. I look for work when I need to even out the cycle. I'm not manic and I prefer to live on an even keel, as far as self-induced ups and downs go. Life offers enough unintended difficulties.

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