A Strawberry on my Face

I love driving. Really love it. I own a 1998 Mazda MX-5 in bright red, and she's my pride and joy. I tend to close my eyes when the time comes to refuel and simply hand over my credit card.

And now that the weather is warming up here in Brisbane, it's time to start letting the roof down.

A deprived friend of mine had never been in a convertible with the roof down before, so we fixed that this morning. I made sure to take all of my favourite roads, and made a bit of a hoon of myself. We stayed out on the roads for an hour and a half, had lunch on the beach (best calamari I've ever eaten; I'm not kidding), and drove back. Needless to say, I'm not the same colour I was when we left. My upper arms and forehead are a brilliant shade of pink. My nose is an over-ripe strawberry. Oh, my.

Somehow, I hadn't expected this. How is it that I forget every single year? It's never a pleasant experience, and I thought for sure I wouldn't make the mistake this time. I remembered to layer on the sunscreen frequently when I went sailing only a few days ago. And yet, my holiday photographs next week in NZ are all going to feature my spectacularly peeling face-strawberry.

I've managed to avoid showing my annual sunburn to my mother for the last few seasons, but this time there'll be no getting around it. She's going to insist on seeing my holiday snaps, and I don't have a valid reason to hide them. Oh, sure, my camera died a month or so back. My friends and fellow travellers, however, own fully-functional shock- and water-proof contraptions, and this technological age ensures that copies are extraordinarily easy to obtain and distribute. So I'll be getting the skin-cancer lecture again. I really do know the risks, mother dearest. That's why I only need to be reminded once a year.

My friend may have suffered an extra shade on his tan. In case you were wondering.

Just This Once, Make No Statement

Driftwood means nothing. There's no analysis, and no interpretation. It just is, which is probably why I'm struggling so much with the creative class I'm taking this semester. My last assessment scraped a pass, and I've never cut it so fine before. I spent days on the stupid thing, and only just slid by.

Creative monologue? Sure, I can do that. Use it for critical self-analysis? Uh... What?

I have trouble understanding other people at the best of times. Apparently, I'm absolutely hopeless at understanding myself for an assignment. I would applaud anyone who actually does understand themselves. Or I'd simply not believe them.

Perhaps the analysis is what I'm having difficulty with. I don't have meaning. Why should anything else? When I like a painting, or a play, or a book, I like it because it entertains me. Not because it makes a statement about society or environmentalism. In the same way, I write to amuse people, act because it's fun, and paint to hang pretty pictures on my walls. I have enough to worry about between classes, men, girlfriends, family, politics, fuel prices, budgets, and deciding what the f*** I want in life. Once in a while, I like to find something that's just pleasant. Uncomplicated, unthinking, uncritical, and nice.

Surely, I'm not alone in this. Does anyone else want art and film to just shut up for a minute and only be entertaining?