Recovering from a dreary winter. 05/17/05
We had a barbecue at our house on Sunday, the first of the season. Last year I don’t remember having any of the summer barbecues at our place, but the year before we hosted maybe 4 parties/barbecues and it would be great to get back to doing that.
At one point the pork ribs were dropped out of the grill and onto the lawn, leaving a patch of the grass in a curious smoking charcoalish state. Wine was spilled on the pale blue carpet, and Karl left the barbecue-cleaning plastic brush on the grill and melted it over the coals for about half an hour before we noticed the black smoke. Luckily we hadn’t put any of the meat on the grill yet, and we have another barbecue, so we got more charcoal and started over. Needless to say, we were all drinking and having a great time.
We cleaned up the house a bit, for about 4 hours, before our friends came over. The house is indeed a mess if cleaning for that long only puts a slight dent in the dirt and junk that accumulates everywhere…
I threw my back out on Saturday, when we were out sailing. This is the first day I didn’t wake up quite stuck and in pain and unable to climb out of bed without doing a bizarre "rolling, slowly unfolding, and staggering at an odd angle" maneuver. The worst bit was that simply sitting up in a chair or on the couch was mildly painful and lying on my back with my feet up was the only completely pain-free way to be.
I am thinking of getting out of advertising. I saw a postcard in the bookstore the other day, which showed a cat on a leash, tugging away in the opposite direction from where the leash-holder wanted him to go, and the text above it was like, “Americans are bombarded with over 300 advertising messages and images every day!” And in big bold print, “RESIST!” I saw that and yeah, I hate commercials, insidious marketing campaigns, trying to lure customers… I sometimes long to create something more meaningful with my artistic talents. As I sit assembling a bright yellow and red ad for an oil change special at Watsonville Auto… My dream as a child was to make a career at writing and illustrating children’s books. But it would take an extreme amount of luck and hard work to get into doing that and actually make money at it. I may give it a shot someday anyway, when I have more free time. At the moment I’m just hoping to find different places to apply for a job than at the local newspapers and advertising firms.
