A rainy day, the showers stopped for a bit so I took a late lunch and drew the corner of A and 1st. I’ve drawn this corner a few times, they’ve painted this building a few times too. It’s some frat house, Zeta Psi. It’s a whole culture of American university life that we didn’t really have in British universities, not to this extent anyway. I suppose it’s important for stuff, parties on picnic day and beer pong and definitely no hazing. I’ve never been inside a frat house but I imagine it’s either like some gathering of the offspring of wealthy elites with secret codes and fridges of champagne and butlers, or it’s like the house in the Young Ones with bits of old mouldy fruit that talk to socks and Neil the Hippy burning his lentils while Rik the Peoples Poet plans the next protest against fascist pigs. The imagination is probably much better than the reality. You usually see all the new frat and sorority people out and about in large groups in Fall during their ‘Rush’, all dressed up in shiny clothes. As I sketched, the occasional jogger ran by, taking advantage of the break in the rain. I have not yet re-started my own running, I’ve been a little bit lazy on that front. I have the Davis Stampede coming up too, and need to prepare for it more. I had a lot on my mind this day, I often do, the world weighing down, hard to understand. One of the reasons I draw I think is to gain a tiny bit of control over the world around me, as if I can hold it in my hand, but maybe I’m over analyzing it, maybe I just like to draw because I really like drawing. This day was my son’s 16th birthday which was a scary thought too, and my own birthday is coming up soon which always makes me fill with a little dread. Every birthday I’ve had in my 30s and 40s has been spent over here, I’ve not had a birthday in England since my 20s, and those 20s seem like a very distant memory now. Ah well, we move along with time, it’s just not always that fun.