"It's not a parade anymore..."

This was the sentiment expressed to us by a clearly over-it police officer following the Grand Illumination Parade in downtown Norfolk last night, as we were steering our float back to our building. While it echoed much of what I was already musing over, in actuality he was commanding us to turn off the music we still had blaring through the speakers. "Turn that off... It's not a parade anymore."

I have a love/hate relationship with this parade - I adore the work, and the opportunity to get out from behind my desk. I love the problem solving aspects of creating giant pieces and getting them to do what you want them to. And that great feeling when it actually works. I love creating. I love the freedom of it. I would do this kind of stuff all the time and leave the graphic work in the dust if it made any sense to do full time. I love that every now and then you'll hear an old lady in the crowd say, "Now THAT'S a beautiful float," and it seems worth it.

I hate having to depend on other people to make it work, but I LOVE the people that I have. There are a handful I trust to show up when they say they will, do the work they promise to do, and generally not despise me for my nit-picky ways. But, eventually I expect to wear those people thin, and have to replace them with less reliable folks. (And when I say "a handful" I probably mean 2 or 3 tops - they're REALLY hard to come by.)

I hate knowing that no matter what I create for this thing, we will never, EVER win - I just can't cater my taste to the over-cluttered, super-shiny, gaudy cluster that I know the judges love. It's really ok by me if we never win (it matters way more to me that I like the final product), but I hate having to tell people we didn't. I can't manage everyone else's expectations, and I get the vague impression that people don't understand why we keep putting so much work into it it if we never win.

I hate that for every thank you from a kid whose hand you put a candy cane into, you get an equal number of parents screaming at you that they have TWO kids, and need TWO candy canes!!! Even though, at that point, you're twenty feet away, because the parade moves so quickly, and there are 20 billion people on the route. There's some math there that will never balance out.

This year was particularly weird for me because my boss somehow checked out of the whole process. I tried to express my disappointment about this to a friend who really didn't want to listen and I probably should've let it go then, but it's still bothering me. I never signed up to take the whole thing on myself - sure, I'll put in the huge amount of extra hours to make the float happen, but I never wanted to be responsible for organizing the whole event. I don't need the added complications of making sure everyone knows where they're going, and gets there on time, and that all the marketing materials are in order, making sure we get shots to send to the show, and instructing the actors to wave enthusiastically, and realizing at the END of the parade that 2000 promotional candy canes doesn't even put a dent in the number of people at this thing, and we should reevaluate that for next year. She came down once in the process to look at the thing when it was half-finished, and told me to make sure I wrote Star Awards (our internal company award system) for everyone who helped me on it, and was never seen again. I don't want to write Star Awards. I've personally thanked everyone, many times over - if we have to go through bureaucratic process, I'd prefer that didn't fall to me. I'm a designer. I just want to design the thing, let the organize-y people organize and let the leadership lead. And though I'd prepared myself for the moment when she wouldn't show up - she has a new baby and I sympathize - I was still surprised when she didn't.

But on more positive notes, everything went off as hitchless-ly as possible. We made it to and from the parade in one piece (ALWAYS the biggest concern for me), the costumes looked great, and everyone had a good time. And now it's over. As an overwrought cop once said, "It's not a parade anymore."