Day 2191 - Blogiversary

I'm beginning my seventh year as a blogger. Seven years is a long time. When I started this journey in December of 2009, I never dreamed that it would become such a marathon. I remember that people were amazed when I posted for five hundred consecutive days without missing a day. That was nothing. Tornadoes, power outages, computer crashes, Internet problems, illness, business travel, and a simple lack of anything to say haven't stopped me yet. At two thousand one hundred ninety one days and counting this blog has acquired a life of it's own. What started as a simple daily journal has slowly evolved into a chronicle of the aging process. I'm not the same person I was seven years ago. If I can manage to continue for another seven years, I'm sure there will be further changes that I couldn't possibly anticipate. I know blogging isn't as popular as it once was, but I hope that some of you will stay for the journey.

The journey is certainly a slow one at times. I inch along trying to keep my head above water while still making a little forward progress. Today, I picked up where I left off yesterday. I climbed up on the roof and got all the water off. It's a good thing I did because the roof was covered in a thick blanket of wet leaves. The leaves had to go. They're heavy and the roof has enough problems as it is. I finally replaced the mini-blinds that I burned with the ceramic heater. The new blinds look good, but cutting them to length wasn't nearly as easy as the instructions said it would be. The process involved tying precise little knots in the string that connected the blinds together. I'm evidently not very good at tying tiny knots.

While I was trying to put the blinds together, Dot woke up from a nap and pooped in her bed. I didn't notice this right away, but I did notice something brown on her paw when she came over to watch me work. Hmm. I've got to quickly get the poop off her paw, so she doesn't track the mess all over the house. She doesn't have her harness on, so it's going to be a bit difficult to lift the paw without causing her to fall. And where is the wet rag when I really need it?  This happens almost every day. I cleaned Dot up. I retraced her path back to the source of the poop. I cleaned everything up using a couple of doggie poop bags. I put the soiled blanket and a small rug in the washer and went back to assembling the mini-blinds.

While all this was happening, I got a call from someone wanting some website changes. I listened to what was needed, asked for some files, and never mentioned that I was cleaning up dog poop while we were talking. When I was younger, the work project might have assumed a higher priority. Now, I know better. Getting rid of the smell of poop in the house as quickly as possible trumps everything.

I foolishly thought I might have a little money left over this month. What was I thinking. I forgot that my property taxes are due this month. It's always something. Inside my tax envelope was a little note saying that my bill was $150 lower because of some referendum that voters passed earlier this year. My first thought was that this was a pretty pitiful savings. Then, I looked up last years bill in Quickbooks and just as I thought, my new bill was actually larger than last year's. Yup. Taxes never really go down.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 715

I feel like I'm competing in a very weird marathon. I've got work stacked up through the end of December that keeps me busy every single day. It's not like the old days where I had five or six high paying jobs every month and had the rest of the time to myself. The world has changed. Now, I have tons of tiny little jobs that pay virtually nothing individually. To make the same income I made ten or fifteen years ago, I have to keep churning this stuff out like a factory.

The continual stream of website updates, quickly written 400 word articles, and down-and-dirty video production is tiring. I no longer have the luxury of really thinking about what I'm doing. For the most part, I put my brain on autopilot, rush full speed ahead, and then correct the inevitable mistakes in the revision stages. Sometimes the final result is surprisingly good, but the effort is seldom fun. For most of my career my work really was fun. Where did that go? A few of my friends still tell me that their work is fun, but I don't believe them because they're all on Prozac.

Five or six years ago when I was still doing gallery shows, I had this vision of myself spending the rest of my life wandering around taking cool looking pictures and then displaying them in galleries and museums. After my first two gallery shows, it became obvious that this experiment was more of a hobby than an avocation. I got lots of complements at the gallery openings, but weeks later at the conclusion of each show, there were very few of the red dots that indicated a sale next to the pictures. At one memorable show, I actually spent more framing the pictures than I made from selling them.

If the market went up 400 points every day, I wouldn't feel so gloomy about the mechanics of earning a living. I could live quite nicely if every day were like today. Unfortunately, when I wake up tomorrow morning, I have a strong feeling that the world will still be broke and living beyond its means. If Angela Merkel sneezes, or Italian bond rates keep climbing, today's gains will evaporate in an instant. Hey, American Airlines went bankrupt today. I used to work on the American Airlines account when it was one of most successful and highly respected airlines in the world. How the mighty have fallen. Probably the only thing left in five years time will be the Apple stores, still selling iPads at full price in vacant shopping malls.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day