It was a surreal moment in my ordinary life to be flipping channels late on Friday night and see my own face fill up the screen, thinking, "Oh god, not again."This is the story of how China's treasured Terra Cotta Warriors took over my life...
In April I got called into the head honcho's office and told that the company was going to sponsor an exhibit of the Terra Cotta Warriors at a museum in Orange County. It was just going to be him and me working on it apparently, and since he is ridiculously busy, that meant it was mostly just going to be me. It sounded like the first few weeks of preparation would be stressful and then as the exhibit continued through the months the sponsorship would likely maintain itself.
Wrong. WrongWrongWrong.
I won't bore anyone with recounting exactly all that has gone into this new chunk of my job, but will say that at only 27 years old, I have spotted a few gray hairs. And I know that those damn warriors are to blame for at least half of them. The major projects involved have been the press conference before the exhibit opened, a membership-drive program on PBS - complete with a company commercial - and 2 private events at the museum and with the warriors for 600 guests.
The PBS stresser was back in June. A group of us went to the station for the filming of the program and sat in the back with headsets and computers taking pledges. I talked to a couple of oldies who called in and cringed when the commercial came on, hoping that I hadn't messed it up somehow. I genuinely wasn't paying attention to what the camera was ever pointing at and later learned that for about 10 seconds too long, it was directly pointed at me adding its infamous 10 pounds. When I got home later that night and watched the recording I was horrified. I kept pausing it on my round face, watching as I tried to calm down some old bitty who didn't want to pay the shipping fee on the free stuff she was getting in return for her pledge. (Christine would later refuse to believe that there was actually anyone on the phone and insists that I am really just a horrible actress.) That night I consoled myself with the thought of, "At least it's only on PBS. It will air a few more times and no one will ever have to know about it."
A couple of weeks later Christine answered my call in laughing hysterics. She had been flipping channels and flipped right by my face. Now she was wiping tears out of her laughing eyes. So much for no one else knowing about it. Sigh... The last media report from PBS informed us that the program had aired almost 80 times. So much for it only airing a couple of times and then disappearing. Double sigh...
In a few days we'll have our second event at the museum. The first one almost killed me. At the end of the night, after all of the guests had gone, I wandered into the exhibit hall and was alone with the warriors. I was so exhausted that I was barely keeping up on wobbly legs, but I wobbled around and stared at each of their stoic faces. The whole time remembering how I'd first heard of them after Laura went to China on spring break when we were 16. The discovery of thousands of clay life-sized soldiers buried underground had sounded so... unbelievable and fascinating. Now, here we were. Me and them, face-to-face. An arm's length away.
Quite honestly, I'm getting a little sick of them. I've thought about them too much. I know more about them than I ever thought I would. And they may be leaving California in October, but they'll be sticking with me for a lot longer than that. The company plans on sponsoring their entire tour across the country... so Atlanta, Houston, D.C., here we come.
But on a Friday night as I'm contemplating turning in and mindlessly flipping channels, there they are again. There I AM again. Guh! There is no escaping them. They've followed me into my own living room. They're over 2,000 years old...they're made of clay... and they've totally taken over my life. Bastards.
So, welcome to my ongoing tale. Judging by my excessive whining, it is indeed full of sound and fury and likely does signify absolutely nothing. But it entertains my parents and Willie is long gone, so why stop now? 
