It’s nearly 1am. I don’t know why I always have this need to blog when I can’t sleep. My restless mind is keeping me up. This must be a common problem for designers. The foundation of our careers is based on the judgements of others. We never really feel like we are doing enough. There is always new software to learn and articles to read—oh and don’t forget we need to know everything.

Regardless, I feel okay with it. Much like I enjoy running up steep hills. I enjoy the challenge. However, creative minds get bored easily. This leads me to stop and evaluate where I am and where I want to go. I have recently been considering the Peace Corps. I feel the need to go get some perspective, to do something that can change someone’s life, to take a break. Sometimes I wish that someone could just hand me a spreadsheet of my life outlining all the possibilities and outcomes. Then again, that would probably just bore me.

Over the next three months as the temperature rises, so will my mcflurry addiction.

Transformations happen everyday. In this case, it happens on the weekends. As you take your first steps upon the dock you’ll find carpenters, lawyers, resort managers, millionaires, and the debt ridden poor living as neighbors. You have entered a community where it’s acceptable to drink beer at 10am and showering is optional.  A place where the introverted are converted to outgoing gossip gathering socialites. Where the boring is fun and the fun is boring. Where writers find their voice and artists find their vision. It’s a place to lose all your money, or win a free camp chair. It’s a place to run away to. It’s a place to run away from. Suspended on the surface of a lake, you have arrived at a house-boating community.

There is a coffee house that caters to and pokes fun at the yuppie lifestyle. I love this coffee house. That is why I chose it that lazy Sunday afternoon. It was a morning of unmotivated inspiration. I remember scribbling designs for a coffee table I had been meaning to build—then never actually building it. My mind was filled with plans, but lacked the motivation to act on them. I continued to scribble and read as I waited for my coffee date to arrive. Once he arrived we began a conversation filled with witty banter. The coffee house walls proudly displayed framed artwork of the masters. One of the paintings was The Son of Man by René Magritte. The coffee house version replaced that famous apple with a cup of joe. My friend asked me if I remembered what the original painting looked like. I hesitated for a moment and opened my mental file cabinet. I flipped through the folders and looked through my memorized slides from art history, found the Magritte and blew off the dust. There it was, clear as can be. A man standing in front of a stone wall with no head to hold up his hat, just the sky. I snapped back to reality and blatantly said, “Well, the original version didn’t have a coffee cup, just the sky.”
Damn my memory file cabinet for failing me!

I was walking through a large open courtyard when I saw him. There he was, as cute as can be, playing in the water of a stone fountain. He used his trunk to spray water in the air as I reached out to pet him. I always loved baby elephants. We were both caught off guard by the trumpeting cry of his angry mother. She snorted and stomped—preparing to charge. I attempted to move away from her baby, but there was no use, he just followed me as though he was just as terrified as I was. I turned to the baby elephant and yelled, “Go!” He looked back at me with big sad eyes and moved closer. The mother continued to stomp and snort angrily. Realizing I had to get away, I kicked the baby elephant on the rear and once again yelled,”GO!” This time he went. Then I watched in horror as the mother elephant devoured the baby.

I just walked through my front door and made the mistake of looking up. There were two large dead spiders stuck to the top of my door. Both of them entangled in  some other spider’s web. I bet there is a large cannibalistic spider now crawling around inside my apartment. Tonight, I sleep with a can of Raid—watch out.

I wont be sleeping this week. After a long day of work, I came home and turned on the evening news. The reporters exchanged witty banter about the movie Spider Man. Little did I know, this would be a transition to a story that will haunt me all week. They introduced a cute little boy—a Spider Man fan—who was having ear problems. The boy described a strange snap, crackle, pop sensation inside his ear. His father took him to the doctor. What happens next is horrifying. The doctor found two spiders living inside the boy’s ear, supposedly eating his ear wax. The boy is the embodiment of my fears—arachnophobia and bad hygiene.

It has officially been a year since graduation. This hit me the other night while I admired the work at the 2007 graphic design student portfolio show. Somewhere in the massive crowd I found myself talking with a past instructor. I told him, “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I graduated!” He said,”No, you’ve had a year of experience.” I suppose that’s a better way to think of it.
I walked around to check out the work. Each student made a large vertical promotional banner that hung behind them. I thought this was a nice touch. It separated the students by their style and made it easy to navigate through the crowded restaurant. Some students handed out promotional pieces, and others simply charmed their viewers with a business card and a smile. I left that night feeling a little envious of their place in the world. That feeling that the world is your’s for the taking and anything is possible. The excitement of the unknown. I also had a desire to design a large vertical banner.