It’s my birthday today. I turn 32, and H.C.Staff turns 5. The first two years of the blog’s life (under the name Heart’s Content) were sucked into the Great Palestinian Hackervoid, but nobody remembers the first two years of their life anyway.
One of my classmates showed up on the second-to-last day of class wearing a bright green St. Patrick’s Day shirt. It turns out he is part Irish and his friend runs a bar. He told me that outside of Ireland, the place to be on St. Patrick’s Day is Chicago. This year they are bringing back the St. Patrick’s Parade (cancelled during previous years due to excessive drunkenness) and as per tradition, coloring the Chicago River green.
I’m in Chicago now, and while I will be back in Seattle for St. Patrick’s Day itself, I’m here for a particularly Irish reason: to see Lunasa in concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The best spring break activity ever is also the best birthday present ever.
So while normally birthday posts are the time for me to gripe about how much I fail at life and how I’m so far from reaching my dreams, I’m too happy for that today. Instead, you get this.
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Now some of you may be wondering how I managed to graduate from art school with my work looking like it did in 2002. The answer lies in the fact that people are not the only subjects people draw, although it could be argued that they are the most important.
When I was much younger, I took a personality test to predict my future career and the result was “Architect”. Now that was a complete miss, seeing as I ended up becoming a Systems Engineer. But it did somewhat foretell that I would be better at drawing buildings and other things made out of straight lines. I suck at drawing people, but I can draw everything else. I don’t have the polish of a true professional, but that’s just because I haven’t practiced enough.
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I may not be able to put as many hours into my artwork as I would want to. I may not learn things as quickly or as easily as people who are more gifted. I may fail more often and waste more time and effort. I may complain too much and work too little.
But I’ll be better this year than I was last year.
