A Thousand Words

The pencil lead broke. He was pressing too hard again. The more he tried, the harder it became until his frustration caused him to tense up and ruin another drawing. Why couldn’t he have real talent? Why couldn’t he make his hand draw what his mind could see so clearly? He felt like one of the people he’d seen auditioning for a talent show. They believed in themselves, but they didn’t have any talent. When they got up to sing, everyone cringed because it was off key. They put their hearts into it, but they just weren’t any good.

The difference was that those talentless rock star wannabes didn’t know they couldn’t sing. They thought they were the next great thing that would take the world by storm. Ian knew he didn’t have the talent it took to be a great artist. It wasn’t that he was less passionate about it or that he couldn’t draw at all. He’d taken classes. He’d filled sketchbooks. He could do a decent rendering from a photograph in pencil. He really couldn’t paint that well. And give him a live model and his sketches barely came out looking human.

He wanted so badly to be an artist, but all he had was broken pencils.

“Great job on this campaign, Ian,” Jack said as they left the meeting room. “I don’t know how you come up with these ideas, but recasting the commercial for men’s deodorant from the perspective of a woman was brilliant. You can really think like a woman. It’s not new to use a woman to make the man want to please her, but to actually market to the woman to get her to buy it for her man is a breakthrough. Nice job.”

“Thanks, Jack. It’s just trying to look at everything from a new angle.”

“You’re the most creative guy we have on the staff. Next time, though, get Gloria to help you on the artwork for the proposal. It was the only weak spot. You know what they say—a picture’s worth a thousand words.”

“Will do.”

Ian went into his office seething. Most creative guy on staff and he couldn’t draw. He knew the storyboard looked cartoonish, but it was the best he could do. Gloria wasn’t likely to be much help. She only wanted to draw her own ideas, not someone else’s.

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but when all you had was words, that’s what you had to use. It worked, but this client was ready for a big change in its approach. He could turn the whole thing over to Gloria or Burk to develop the collaterals. Then it would be a miracle if they turned out the way he’d described them. Gloria’s standard mantra was “I can make it so much better than that.”

He swiveled in his chair and stared out the twenty-first-floor window at the Lake. The office faced east and none of the ‘artists’ wanted it because the light was bad. At least he didn’t have to worry about that when he was writing. He’d researched and purchased ceramic window film and installed it himself. He couldn’t tell the difference between natural light and the filtered light. He could see out his windows just fine and there was no glare from the morning sun on his computer screen.

The artists, of course, hated it. They wouldn’t show their work in his office. They had to have the conference room with north facing windows and 5000K lighting. He wondered exactly how many of their clients or their clients’ customers would look at the artwork under those precise conditions.

He often sneaked the artwork into his office to see if he could tell a difference. He couldn’t.

At home alone, Ian ate heated-up leftovers from the night before. The food was good, even coming out of the microwave. It wasn’t that he couldn’t cook. But he didn’t really know how to cook for one. Everything he made was the way his Northside mother had made it—in quantity. He cooked once or twice a week and ate the leftovers the other nights. Sundays were reserved for steak, grilled on the balcony of his apartment.

He wondered if he could learn to cook for two, should the occasion ever arise. Not that it was likely he’d need to. He’d had ‘relationships’ before. But they always seemed to end up the same. They both left disappointed that it wasn’t what they expected or hoped for. It wasn’t heartrending. It wasn’t filled with screaming and hatred. It was just a creeping sadness that came over them before they said goodbye.

He could see her in his mind’s eye. He spent hours trying to draw her, to no avail. There was always something missing. The pictures in his mind simply weren’t complete. Still, he knew she was out there. Somewhere.

“Why don’t you ever ask me out?” Gloria demanded as she threw the drawings down on his desk. They were working on a new campaign for shampoo. It appeared they had become the go-to team for personal care products. “I always make your ideas so much better.”

She’d changed his concept in the renderings again. He’d had a simple image in mind of a guy out running and playing with his dog. Big, hairy dog. He wasn’t sure what kind. After a long day, he comes home hot and sweaty and takes a shower. The shampoo bottle was in the picture with the brand name clearly recognizable. Then the camera pans down to the dog—same color hair—with lather all over him. Cut to the guy opening his door to a beautiful woman. Next, there are a woman’s hands running through his luxurious hair. Pull back, see the woman petting the dog and the tag, “Be careful where you use it.”

Her concept might have been considered sexier because the woman was in the shower with the man and dog and as he shampoos her hair, she does the dog. It just missed all the humor and the poignancy of the original.

“No, you don’t,” he sighed. “You make the idea yours, but not better. In fact, you lose half the concept when you try to make it better. You’re a fucking illustrator, not a concept person. Just draw what I ask for and quit trying to make it better.”

He admitted, he was angry. This wasn’t the campaign he wanted to put words around. The images were sexy, but the point was lost. He wondered if Burk could do any better, but he’d used up his company resource allotment. If he wanted something different, he’d have to pay for it himself. That was the way Gloria worked. She used up his resources and he never had anything to spend on something better.

That, he decided, was the problem with women.

In a thousand words or less, Ian could describe exactly what he wanted in an ad, could create the emotional impact, and could sell an entire campaign. Why couldn’t he draw the pictures himself? Sometimes he swore stick figures would be more effective than trying to rewrite an entire campaign to meet the illustration that his art team came up with.

“Great presentation, Ian,” Jack said. Jack was the account manager and the product du jour was toothpaste. Ian just couldn’t wait until they were doing suppositories. What a fucking job. “Where was Gloria today? She did good work on this one.”

“It wasn’t Gloria’s art,” Ian grumbled. “I can’t work with her.”

“What? We can’t afford to go outside the company for concept art! Ian, you have to use the resources we have.”

“I paid for it out of my pocket. Jack, every time Gloria gets hold of my concepts I end up having to rewrite everything to match her art. She actually had the guy squeezing hair gel onto his toothbrush instead of the toothpaste. I’m through with her.”

“You can’t dump her, Ian.”

“Yes, I can. I know you’re sleeping with her, Jack. God! The whole office knows. She had the gall to ask me when I was going to take her out. Hope you know that she’ll sleep with anyone here to be the star, including you. I won’t use her again,” Ian said. Jack scowled at him.

“She’s more valuable than you are, Ian. She can draw. Get over it,” Jack growled.

“Let’s see what she can come up with on her own, then. Just give her your next project and quit using me as an intermediary.”

“Ian, this is a pretty heavy accusation,” Floyd said. Ian sat across the desk from the CEO of the advertising firm. “We’ve always been pleased with your work, but the complaint from Jack about you being unable to work as a team with your fellow employees seems to be supported. We’re going to have to put you on probation. Work with your resources or pack your desk.”

Ian sat staring at the old-school exec. He still wore a three-piece suit, had three-martini lunches, and was fucking at least three of the women in the company. Ian could see the film clip in his mind. “A Triple Threat.” He started to chuckle.

“I don’t see the humor in your situation,” Floyd said.

“Mr. Anderson, find another writer. Oh, and I’d suggest you have the illustrations finished before you ask him to do a campaign so all he has to do is caption them.” Ian walked out of the CEO’s office and grabbed a banker’s box from the storeroom. It was too big for the personal possessions he had in his office.

For a moment, he was tempted to strip the ceramic film off the windows, but that was petty and he wouldn’t be able to use it elsewhere anyway. He did stop long enough to run a format program on his hard drive and wipe all his personal files. He stopped at the receptionist’s desk and gave her an inventory of the items in his box and had her check off each item. Then he walked out the door. Unemployed.

Ian needed his income. He had three months’ cash in reserve. All his other savings were tied up in long term IRAs for his comfortable retirement. He might have to live on dogfood until then. It was a long time away. Monday, he would have to hit the street looking for a new position.

He needed to find an agency where content was more important than presentation. If he could find an agency where the content and presentation were equally important, it was possible that he could manage a good working relationship. Collaboration. That’s what it was all about. An image was nothing without the words that went with it.

Take that painting at the Met he liked so much. Simply describing the painting wasn’t enough. A girl ... woman? Definitely female ... in a dress stood on a balcony looking out over a cityscape. In the distance light reflected off the lake behind which mountains arose. One hand was placed casually on the rail. It’s an old-fashioned balustrade, so the scene could be any time from the Renaissance to the present. Balconies, lakes, cities, and mountains coincided in dozens of countries all over the world. There was not enough detail in the city or the dress to identify a period or location. It was a great advertising illustration. He could write an ad for soap, champagne, perfume, designer clothing, or tourism off that illustration. The key would be how it was worded. He could write a tragedy or a romance or a comedy based on that image alone.

It had been a long day, but the evening approached, rife with the expectation of celebration. She could smell the excitement in the air. Her own true love was out there somewhere. He was gallant and handsome and she loved him to the bottom of her soul. But he did not even know she existed. A cool breeze blew her hair across her face and its tickle against her ears caused the bumps to rise on her flesh—including those touchstones of her arousal pressing against the fabric of her dress. Her eyes drifted closed. So many possibilities. With her hand on the balustrade she flexed her knees and leapt to the cold embrace of the courtyard below.

Perhaps that message would have been more to the point than Shakespeare’s rendering of the same scene. They end up the same.

It had been a long day, but the evening approached, rife with the expectation of celebration. She could smell the excitement in the air. Her own true love was out there somewhere. He was gallant and handsome and she loved him to the bottom of her soul. But he did not even know she existed. A cool breeze blew her hair across her face and its tickle against her ears caused the bumps to rise on her flesh—including those touchstones of her arousal pressing against the fabric of her dress. Her eyes drifted closed. So many possibilities. She sighed, “Romeo. Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

Or perhaps there was a less doomed version of the same scene. Something in which the lovers find each other. Perhaps the same scene made her smile or laugh.

It had been a long day, but the evening approached, rife with the expectation of celebration. She could smell the excitement in the air. Her own true love was out there somewhere. He was gallant and handsome and she loved him to the bottom of her soul. But he did not even know she existed. A cool breeze blew her hair across her face and its tickle against her ears caused the bumps to rise on her flesh—including those touchstones of her arousal pressing against the fabric of her dress. Her eyes drifted closed. So many possibilities. The strains of the minstrels below wafted up to her aerie and she smiled at their antics. “Are you ready, my love?” he asked coming up behind her. “So ready,” she responded, welcoming his embrace and the hot touch of his lips to hers.

What his agency hadn’t understood was that it was his words that sold the message. The artwork supported it. Somewhere, there must be an agency that understood.

Just like somewhere there must be a woman who was right for him. He sighed, his own picture of winsome frustration as he stood on the tiny balcony of his apartment. Maybe that was why he couldn’t draw. He was too caught up in the words and the picture they painted in his mind to put a feeble stroke of a brush on the paper.

Or maybe he just didn’t have any talent.

He’d been hitting the pavement for four weeks. Figuratively. No one literally went door-to-door to hunt for a job these days. He sat in front of his computer for hours each day searching job sites and taking online courses on getting an interview, effective interviewing, and goal setting. His bottle of Laphroaig was almost empty. Second bottle. Who cares? It was the weekend and he could have a drink in the afternoon if he wanted. It just didn’t seem to do anything. He took another sip and then tossed the rest into the back of his mouth.

If he was going to drink it like that, he could buy cheaper scotch. He returned to his computer to work through yet another self-improvement course.

Set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goals that motivate you and write them down to make them feel tangible. Then plan the steps you must take to realize your goal, and cross off each one as you work through them.

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

Well, that was the first problem. What did he want? A job. A life. A woman. He laughed out loud when he filled out the form. The way he felt right now, the right woman could make about any job or life tolerable. None of those desires, though, were very specific. He could accept any job, but he couldn’t accept just any woman. He thought about Gloria at the office and shuddered. What did he really want in a woman? Besides his cock.

Ian took a drawing pad and a pencil to the balcony and sat on his lounger. Hmm. If he was going to have a woman in his life, he should get another chair. Or maybe he should trade this one in on a double. The woman he wanted in his life wasn’t one who sat on the other side of the balcony.

Who was she? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine her. He should be job hunting. He wasn’t going to attract a young woman by sitting on the balcony daydreaming. Hmm. That was one criterion. He jotted it down.

She’s a young woman. Well, that was a bit egotistical. Why would a young woman want a forty-some-year-old failure? Young women wanted money. If she was a beautiful young woman, she wanted a lot of money. And besides, who wanted to put up with a person who was just starting out in life and had to discover all the things that he’d already been through. It wasn’t really young that he wanted. It was more... youthful.

She’s youthful in appearance and action, though probably older than she looks. She stays healthy and fit because she has an active life, not because she obsesses over it. And it’s not just that she’s youthful, she makes me feel younger when I’m with her and encourages me to be healthy and fit. Not by nagging at me, but by being a person I want to be able to keep up with.

He looked at his drawing pad. He’d always avoided writing on drawing paper because he was supposed to draw on drawing paper. That’s why it was called drawing paper. He had flimsy sheets of yellow legal pads for writing. That was writing paper. But somehow, looking at those words on the substantial drawing paper, it seemed right. He was going to paint a picture on the page. Only he was going to use a thousand words.

Ian was called for an interview on Monday and gladly sat with the director and an account manager for nearly two hours as they grilled him about his work and portfolio. Portfolios are different today than they were back when. When he’d taken his college portfolio to his first job interview, it was a thick binder filled with stories, ad copy, sketches, and two video tapes. Now he carried a laptop, showed a presentation, and ran some YouTube videos.

“Why did you leave Anderson? It looked like you had a lot going for you, including over ten years with the firm,” Mr. Melrose said. I had to laugh.

“This is a business where you stick your neck out on a regular basis and risk getting it chopped off,” Ian said. “That means you have to have enough ego invested in the project to believe it is the best the client can get. I’ve got a good record of successful campaigns, but the best were ideas that I presented before creative got hold of them. I was told that I had to use the resources available, but they felt it was their right to make changes without looping me in to discuss them. I was continually coming up to a presentation and discovering that the visuals didn’t match what I’d written at all. I had to make adjustments on the fly, sometimes getting surprised during a client meeting by my account manager and artist. Most of the time, they were good ideas. They just weren’t as good as the ones I’d put together. I’m no artist, but the campaigns I showed you—and I know you were already familiar with them—were the best. Those were the campaigns that I presented to the client with my own pretty meager art skills for the renderings. I was told that showing my art made the company look bad and I had to use our creative group. I simply couldn’t get the results I needed. So, I left. Ego. I’ve got my share of it, Mr. Melrose, but I don’t let that get in the way of putting the best product out there.”

“I think we’d need to have you meet with our creative group to see if you could establish a working relationship with them,” Melrose said. “I don’t mind telling you that I have a lot of faith in our creative department. Maybe we can do a test project as a consultant.”

The interview ended without a commitment. Ian wasn’t going to compromise his values or creative control on a project, even if it meant he needed to eat Ramen noodles for the next month.

With the last of his scotch and his sketchbook, Ian sat on his balcony looking at the lights of the city and began to dream about what he’d like to do in life with the woman of his dreams.

She wants to travel and see the country—the world. She’s a free spirit and is ready to go at the drop of a hat. She packs light so we can fly to Paris or hitchhike to Disneyland. She’s up for the cheap way to get there because the journey is as important as the destination. If there is an adventure to be had, she is ready to take it. If we can’t find an adventure, we’ll make one up. But she’s not a daredevil or adrenalin junkie. If she jumps out of an airplane it’s because the plane is crashing. But flying along behind a boat on a kite, she’d find that fun. And she’s not concerned about money. Between us, we have enough to live simply and fulfill dreams. She’s not into accumulating stuff. She knows she might need to leave it all behind in order to do something new.

Ian wasn’t called in for another interview, nor was he given a project as a consultant. He didn’t go online for three days. Instead, he focused on the pad of drawing paper with a No .2 pencil and his dream of the perfect woman for him. And before his eyes, she took shape in 1,000 words.

She’s youthful in appearance and action, though she is probably older than she looks. She stays healthy and fit because she has an active life, not because she obsesses over it. And it’s not just that she’s youthful, she makes me feel younger when I’m with her and encourages me to be healthy and fit. Not by nagging at me, but by being a person I want to be able to keep up with.

She’s pretty. That doesn’t mean she’s a fashion model or a Playboy centerfold. She has a pretty face and smile. She lights up a room when she smiles and I respond by thinking, “Gee, she’s pretty!” When she turns that smile toward me, I feel like the most important person in the universe. My smile, in turn, tells her she is the most beautiful woman in the world. The rest of her body complements that smile. It reflects the beauty I see when I look in her eyes. She turns me on. I desire her.

A picture can only show how she looks, but what’s inside is even more important. She’s smart. She doesn’t need to be a Rhodes Scholar, though that would be okay. She has a broad view of life with experience to back it up. She can see past the petty issues that crop up and not get distracted from the big things. She reads, but doesn’t believe everything she reads. She investigates to find out what is true and what isn’t.

She has ideas. Lots of ideas. And she likes to talk about them. We get into long discussions about things that no one else would think of. Her voice is clear and even when she speaks quietly, I don’t have any problem hearing her. It’s like she’s attuned to my ears. And when we’ve talked about an idea—maybe an article we read, a book, a movie, or deep philosophical musings—she isn’t afraid of the silence. We can sit enjoying each other’s company for hours without saying anything.

She’s funny—sometimes by accident and sometimes by design. She just has a good sense of humor and can see the lighter side of almost any situation. She likes to laugh. She thinks I’m funny, too. But not that I’m funny-looking. She smiles at me and makes a face when I say something stupid, then breaks out laughing.

She wants to travel and see the country—the world. She’s a free spirit and is ready to go at the drop of a hat. She packs light so we can fly to Paris or hitchhike to Disneyland. She’s up for the cheap way to get there because the journey is as important as the destination. If there is an adventure to be had, she is ready to take it. If we can’t find an adventure, we’ll make one up. But she’s not a daredevil or adrenalin junkie. If she jumps out of an airplane it’s because the plane is crashing. But flying along behind a boat on a kite, she’d find that fun. And she’s not concerned about money. Between us, we have enough to live simply and fulfill dreams. She’s not into accumulating stuff. She knows she might need to leave it all behind so we can do something new.

She doesn’t need me. She wants me. She is complete, whole, and content with who she is, but likes being with me. She likes having me to plan with and to play with. It’s more fun, and she likes having fun. She has ideas about where to go and who to visit along the way, but doesn’t need to be in any one place to be happy. She’s happy when she is with me, and I am happy with her.

She’s not desperate. I’m not her last hope. She’s not desperate for love, for a family, for sex, or for money. She’s happy if any of those come her way as a bonus for being with me. She gives me a reason to get up in the morning, to work, to play, to adventure. And she gives me a reason to turn off my computer and go to bed at night. Both the getting up and the going to bed reasons fill my heart with joy.

She’s comfortable in her own skin and makes me comfortable in it as well. If we’re just hanging around, clothing is always optional and usually discarded. She loves to cuddle and kiss. Feeling her skin against my skin sends a thrill through our bodies. We’re happy to just be in touch, but if something else comes up, we’re happy for that, too.

Her spiritual side is revealed in the way she cares about other people, the land, the animals. She might have a religion, but she doesn’t feel compelled to convert anyone to it, nor does she have patience for people trying to convert her. It is deeply personal and respected by both of us. Our shared spiritual experience is in the sunset, the waves lapping on the shore, the stark desert, and the lush jungle. In these things, we come together as one heart and soul.

She appreciates my unique talent and has a talent that I can equally appreciate. Recognizing each other’s strengths, we can collaborate on new and creative projects that bring us both fulfillment and joy.

We share simple needs, have simple desires, eat simple food, drink simple wine. We don’t overindulge because when we are with each other, we have so much stimulation with clear heads. She keeps her wits about her, even if I’m near to losing mine. She’s neat and tidy, but doesn’t get stressed out if I leave the dishes until morning.

Most of all, she wants to be with me for this part of our journey and if we grow apart as companions or lovers, we will still be together as friends. Our relationship is built on respect, trust, and care for each other. From that comes love.

Ian read what he’d written. He’d spent hours erasing and rewriting. He looked again at the rules for setting goals. Specific. Measurable. Attainable. Relevant. Time-bound. He added a line.

She is out there somewhere and I will find her within a year.

He looked at the empty scotch bottle that hadn’t been touched in three days and tossed it in the recycling. He ran hot water in the kitchen sink and washed the dishes, dried them, and put them away. He pulled out his little vacuum cleaner and ran it across the floors before taking all the accumulated garbage and recycling to their repositories. He stripped his bed, gathered his dirty clothes, and went to the laundry room. He sat watching the clothes tumble in the dryer and thought about what he wanted.

What is it that she wants from me?

“Ian, it’s Floyd Anderson,” the voice said when Ian answered his phone.

“Hello, Mr. Anderson. Did I fail to complete the exit interview?” Ian asked. He couldn’t imagine why his former boss would be calling.

“Let’s leave it at Floyd. We’ve been too formal for too long,” Anderson said. “How’s your vacation? Ready to get back to work?”

“It’s been productive,” Ian hedged. He’d cleaned his apartment and written a description of his ideal woman. That was productive.

“Melrose isn’t going to call you, Ian. We talked.”

“You blackballed me?”

“Quite the opposite. I gave you a very good recommendation. I was glad you were considering a good agency,” Anderson said. “They went behind you. They hired Jack and Gloria.”

“Shit.”

“No loss here. They hadn’t sold a campaign since you left. I found out a lot of things that hadn’t surfaced before you left. None of them were good.” Anderson cleared his throat and began his pitch. Ian could recognize the change in tenor. He was going to be sold something. He waited.

“This is a cut-throat business as you well know, Ian. We have good employee retention here because we’ve tried to compensate our people fairly and provide a positive work environment. Sometimes we mess up on that and lose an employee who was truly valuable, like you, Ian. It usually plays out on the other side. Employees use us as a stepping stone into a better, more lucrative, or more powerful position. That’s what happened with Jack and Gloria. They’d been planning their move for over a year and Melrose had just hired them when he interviewed you. Jack is now the Vice President of Sales and he took Gloria and another creative person with him. When he found out you had interviewed, he said he wouldn’t have you on his team. That’s why you won’t be hired.”

“It’s a blessing. If I’d gone there and found he was the boss, I’d have quit on the spot. A short-lived employment record.”

“That’s the thing, Ian. You weren’t using us as a stepping stone. You liked your job here and you were good at it. You left out of principle. Few people in this industry have those. It took me a while to figure that one out, but when I discovered how long it had taken for you to get an interview at Melrose, I realized you didn’t have a plan for leaving our agency. That’s why I want you to come back,” Anderson said. “I need a man with principles to run creative and sell our big ideas.”

“Run creative?”

“That’s right. I know your strength is writing. You’ll do a lot of it. But I want to infuse our whole new team with the kind of principles you demonstrated. We’ve got the opportunity to bid the entire marketing campaign for Restore Youth. It’s right up your alley and I’ll give you full license to run the show. Come back, Ian. You’ll like your new employment package and we have some crackerjack people lined up for you to interview to fill out your team. I’ve talked to those from the old team that are still here and they are enthused to have you take the reins. We need you, Ian. And I think you need us.”