Just Hacking Away...

Today has been kind of weird to me.

I went outside to read this morning, and this is what it looked like to be me:




I never forget to thank my lucky stars that I have the option of working from home, and while I don't take advantage of it TOO much (trust me, I am drawn to my desk to work at all kinds of crazy hours whereas most people leave work guilty-conscience-free and enjoy their lives--at least that's my theory).

Notice a few things here--I'm covering my nasty, cheesy-colored, bear-claw feet with this book. Also, this is the most massive coffee cup available, which I originally bought as kind of a joke at the NFL Football Hall of Fame (a business trip gone terribly wrong which could fill up a whole blog). Also, I think something Freudian is going on, because look at what I'm reading (irony: I can't see it while I'm typing, so I'm frantically trying to remember exactly what it says...seriously, it is something about "How to Overcome your fear of writing...")

So, I look up, and the sun is glazed by the clouds (it looks like the round circle I used to draw with a yellow crayon), and the sky looks like faded blue jeans. It's breathtaking to me.



So, after snapping this picture, what is my first thought? You know, if I took this to Photoshop, I could decrease brightness, increase contrast, and darken the sky to a beautiful indigo --isn't that sick? I felt ashamed...and left it untouched--fortunately, my camera caught EXACTLY what it looked like.

A couple of other notes on composition: I purposely caught the rooftops but not the houses to imply that we are stacked here in Texas suburbia like cordwood. The tops of the houses indicate a structure but, at least in my mind, doesn't let your mind wander to consider the people living there (if I showed the sides of the houses, paint colors, landscaping, idiosyncratic crap littering their yard, hot tubs, etc. it would draw your mind away from the beauty of the sky today.) Also, I waited 20 minutes (okay, maybe 5) for a damn bird to fly by so I could counterbalance the sun in the sky with something that has defined edges, but no birds would comply--consider it bad karma from my excellent bird-hunting skills during dove season this year...

Then, looking on the internet for a perhaps copyable rendition of "Starry Night", I found this quote by Van Gogh about peasant workers clothing:

"The people here instinctively wear the most beautiful blue...when this fades and becomes somewhat discolored by the wind and weather, it is an infinite delicate tone that particularly brings out the flesh colors."

OK, whoa. Psychic connection complete, I guess...

Now, I'm on to more productive things for the rest of today, I promise.