At this precise moment, I’m in the early phases of a new project at work. I’m listening to the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows (pretty good btw) and taking stock of the varied balls I’m juggling at the moment.
I apologise for the narcissism and slight, ‘woe is me’ness of this post, but what’s a blog if not a little narcissistic.
So, from the top:
1. An onslaught of innovation and design projects from IDEO. It’s still the best design company in the world and it still kicks my ass everyday.
2. Teaching a 7 week class at the School of the Art Institute (each class is from 9am to 4pm). It’s a mix of under graduate, graduate, and continuing studies students. It’s a great mix of students in the class (we have a mother and daughter combination) and after the 3 week, I really got a good sense that the group is galvanising together into a cohesive team. I teach this with my partner in crime, Sara and my students would be seriously suffering if it weren’t for her.
3. Running a small t-shirt business, Hubwear, with my business partner Sara. We’ve run this for almost 2 years now and each quarter we’re seeing a slow, steady increase in awareness and acceptance of the concept. After trying to run it on my own for about 6 months, and making a lot of mistakes along the way, Sara is now a full time partner and contributor to Hubwear. The entire backend processes are now being managed by her and Hubwear is running better than ever. You know, I almost wrote a post ages ago about trying to start a new business. It was called, “Feeling complacent? Start a business.” It was going to extol the fact that almost every spare minute is swallowed up by improving the business. It would have been a great post, trust me.
4. Getting a married next year to my beautiful fiancee Sara (her again?!). For being engaged for two months we’ve already getting through some of the bigger decisions. Date, venue, caterer (almost!), groomsmen and bridesmaids… the next big one will be the final invite list. What a giant socially awkward game this is. Ugh. Oh and we now have a year to raise a shit load of money too. This wedding’s not going to pay for itself you know 
5. Buying my first house. Well it’s our house. And it’s really a condo. But still, it feels really good to say, house. My house. Wow. We should be finally closing by the end of the year and I can tell you with no uncertainty that I am ready to move. Wicker Park is dead to me. What the hell happened to it? Yuppy assholes like me is what happened to it! Christ, you can’t swing a cat without a Venti Decaf Soy Chai Latte being knocked out a manicured hand and splashing the hood of a Landrover. Ugh.
So, there you have it. Five big balls. All moving, and all differently weighted. And to be clear, it’s not as though all five of them need to stay in the air indefinitely. The class for instance will end in just two more weeks and when we teach it again in the spring we can finally reap the benefits of the hard work in creating the class. But knowing me, when one ball evaporates, another one will get thrown in there just to keep on my toes.
While I feel a little overwhelmed at times it is an exciting period of my life. I can only say over and over again, how thankful I am to have Sara as my partner, girlfriend, friend, confidant, sounding board, muse and soon to be wife. If I’m good at one thing, it’s coming up with the “What if…” statements. She’s even better at coming back with the ‘This is how we do it…” responses.
More posts to come, once the class is over, I promise.
