Day 509 - Mother's Day

I think last night's Wine on the Roof party was the most enjoyable of these events I've been to yet. The weather was perfect. Everything was extremely well organized. The award recipients were gracious and after each of their acceptance speeches, nobody regretted giving them their award. It was a nice evening. It hard to believe I've been involved with these things for ten years now. To me, it still just seems like yesterday that we were planning the first one.

Since it was Mother's Day today, the dog park was pretty empty. Everyone was probably having a special brunch with Mom when we arrived with Dot and Dash. The dogs had a great time though. I think they like the park better when it isn't crowded with too many dogs. Dash actually played with a few dogs today and although Dot is seldom playful, she certainly enjoyed the beautiful Spring weather.

This afternoon, I finally threw away about seventy-five pounds of old magazines, advertising samples and ancient financial records that have been cluttering my office. I don't really think I need American Express receipts from 1987 anymore. I don't need advertising samples from companies that don't even exist anymore either. I can't believe I did so much work for Memorex Telex. Where is Memorex Telex these days? Out went years of Communication Arts and EQ magazines, along with a surprising number of of old French Vogue magazines and a few old Esquires and Atlantic Monthly magazines that I must have saved because someone I knew had gotten a story published in them. I saved a few old AdWeek magazines with pictures of a much younger me drinking cocktails at various advertising functions. I threw away a lot more though. The ad agency world and me are ancient history now.

As a result of my efforts, I now have room to store away some photo backdrops and camera equipment that has been sitting in a corner on the office floor for months now. I've still got a long way to go, but I am determined to have a nice working space again by the end of the year. If I was really brave, I would just tell Janet to throw away everything that irritated her the next time I went away on a business trip. I'm sure I would be alarmed when I returned, but I probably wouldn't be missing anything of real value. Everything I need to do my job is on this computer now. It's actually been here for over five years. I am still surrounded by paper, but only because I've spent a good part of my life writing and designing things that were meant to be printed on paper. One of these days, I'm going to have to acknowledge that paper has become irrelevant. My clients don't use it anymore. My bank and my accountant don't want it anymore. The post office still delivers piles of it to me everyday, but I throw 99% it straight in the trash.

I was a big step for me to finally be able to throw away most of my paper ad portfolio. I haven't really lost anything though. The same stuff is already on my iPad.

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