Happenings

Madness surely comes through using more than 10% of your brain.  I don't say this in anything resembling arrogance since I believe the use of over 10% of ones brain is not a gift, but merely the result of having too much information crammed into it largely against one's will.  And the fascinating and horrific result is not Steven Hawking-like abilities, but rather in long, animated conversations (in public) with imaginary audiences about taxes, gardening, or why one would never remarry should one's long-suffering husband finally wise up.  "No really, Imaginary Audience.  I realize it would be a total waste of excellent woman, but should I be so unfortunate as to lose the one man I can tolerate, I would prefer a life of solitude and intellectual pursuit with occasional bouts of copious alcoholic consumption."

Other side effects include facial tics, hand gestures and twitches of all kinds, and a really base, immature impulse to snicker when an instructor says "rectilinear."

I have one term left of school. One. That's it.  And I have senior-itis in the worst possible way.  I don't want to do any work anymore for any class.  I want to work on real stuff, but stupid class stuff keeps getting in the way.

And we're trying to buy a house.  We found one we really liked, but then panicked because we wouldn't have gotten it for anything less then our absolute limit.  Then we panicked about panicking because it was in a really good area with really good schools and was the lowest priced house in the subdivision.  But in a silver lining kind of way, we found out there was a 14 foot easement past the patio in the back yard.  Yeah.  No.  Sorry.  I don't much get along with government these days, and this includes local ones too.  

And of course this all converged with PMS, a trip back to Houston for a crawfish boil, and a house that could really use a nice wife to take care of it.

Oh and my mom and stepdad are not getting divorced again.

Ketchup

I finished my portfolio class last week which had been making me craaaazy. It very much confirmed the fact that I have a weird form of OCD because I went off the deep end, tweaking each and every project to within an inch of it's (and my) life, going without sleep just to think about each project, and ultimately hating everything I put into my portfolio. It really brought home the reason why I never engage in large, time-consuming projects like housework or child-rearing.

Anyway, I went to my portfolio review with a feeling of resigned despair. This was the first portfolio review for the school where they had invited people from graphic design firms around the city. Everyone who went before me had come back from their review saying that the critics had ripped their shit to pieces and made them defend each and every thing they did. I was at the point where I couldn't remember why I did anything. I couldn't even remember why I wanted to do graphic design. So I just decided that to any criticism I would just respond, "I hadn't thought about it that way, and I just might have to consider that" but knowing that I might cry or become sarcastic. I don't take criticism as well as I ought.

But I didn't even get a chance to defend my work. They loved it. They had nothing bad to say. Not even suggestions for improvement. I was truly overwhelmed. Probably because I was exhausted. They raved the most over my copywriting and typesetting skills. Copywriting is not technically what I'm supposed to be doing, but I did have a couple of funny ads which made them laugh. And typsetting, while not terribly sexy, is somewhat necessary for work in graphic design that pays. So I was thrilled. Too thrilled to do much more than stammer out a "thank you so much" although I did manage to make a crude hand gesture which I didn't intend. I'll explain that one when I post one of my ads.

Anyway, it was quite gratifying, but now that the class is over, I feel like something is missing. And on top of that, my laptop screen cracked from stem to stern and I had to send it off for repairs. I can't wrap my head around the fact that I don't have any projects left to complete so I'm wandering around like a zombie during the day and my nights are filled with dreams of package designs and logos that simply must be done in 4 hours.

If you'll pardon the crudeness of the comparison, I feel like a man who was in the middle of having great sex, but whose lady friend suddenly decided she is no longer interested and he's left violating the air.