Week End 9/3/04

We worked hard this week but I don't know that we got anywhere with it. We still haven't been paid for the next phase of the commercial website we're building, and they've avoided us all week. Does every small business owner have trouble getting paid for their work? It's amazing how this happens over and over, and we put as many hours into collecting payment as we put in actually doing the job. So we head into the holiday weekend, broke, and discouraged that there will be nothing we can do about it until Tuesday. The Great Big Company chugs forward very slowly and we continue to answer all of their requests. They at least seem to be taking our proposal seriously and are finally asking smart questions about our methodology as supported by our intellectual property. I know better than to get my hopes up though, having been down this road before, not just with them but with a variety of Great Big Companies who love to bleed independents of innovation without compensation. Still, somehow this evening, I have new hope that they are indeed serious about working with us. This morning, for a while, I really wanted to just sell the damn patents, because the personal price that we've paid and continue to pay, is just too high, particularly for the children. I look at us, at our family, and realize that the invention has consumed us, has defined our existence and I don't like the way it feels. Then I talked to (son number) One and he convinced me that we are almost there, and that it will be worth it. He's younger and braver and has far greater stamina than I (that's why they send young men into battle instead of old women). So I find myself, on a Friday evening, resolved to carry on after a brief collapse, oddly unhappy to have a holiday weekend, because the work will stop progressing for these next days and I just want to get it done and get paid. I envy people with real jobs and continue to yearn for the security of one myself, but I can't quite figure out how to quit the job I have.