We’ve finished the fourth full day of no-holds-barred negotiations and I sense the honeymoon phase is ending.  Overall I’m still enjoying the experience — it’s different from any other deal I’ve worked on; it’s quite an adventure — but the pace is starting to wear.  I’m tired of being stuck with only one suit and two shirts, needing a haircut (I was supposed to have it cut on Saturday), and not being able to exercise or eat properly (sitting for sixteen hours at a time with nothing to eat but cookies, honeydew and Diet Coke is not a recipe for health and happiness). 

Mostly I’m just tired.  Today was better than yesterday in the sense that it was a 9am-to-2am workday.  But worse in the sense that most of those hours were wasted through inefficient project-management by the client.  Plus, although I’m getting to bed three hours earlier than I did last night, I also have to be back in the conference room three hours earlier tomorrow morning:  The first meeting kicks off at 6am. 

So, without further ado, I’m going to bed.

But first let me just say that I have a growing horror of a baby-faced little man on the client’s in-house legal team whose nose is the only thing in his face that moves when he speaks.  Makes me think of a cross between an expressionless twelve-year-old and a gerbil.