A Short Lived Hobby

“I need a hobby,” I whined at Jeff as he stared at the computer screen, clicking away on the mouse.

We had been dating for over three years and I knew very well the I was Jeff’s second love. His first love was the computer. I knew where I stood. And I was alright with that.

But when I needed it, I knew what  to do to get his attention.

And if that didn’t work, I knew that crying and having a little fit would make him stop and pay attention to me.

Hey, I never said our relationship was perfect.

“Jeff, I need a hobby.” I said more forceful.

“Huh?!” he said turning away from the computer, finally noticing me.

“I need a hobby,” I said, “I want something that I can do up here while you are playing games so that we can be together doing something.”

“Ok,” Jeff said.

“Yeah, I figure we can have our separate interests but do them together,” I clarified.

“Was this in a magazine?” Jeff asked.

“Um… yeah,” I said. “It was an article all about having a successful relations… separate but together or something like that.”

“What do you want to do?” Jeff questioned me.

“Well, I am not sure but I was thinking about doing some drawing,” I said, “I thought you could make me an easel and I would get some art books and just draw while you played games.”

And with that my new hobby of drawing was off and running.

Jeff spent the next two weeks making and installing my easel up in the attic computer room. I spent hours in the book store picking just the right book on chalk drawing since I decided that was the medium I decided to do my art in.

One evening, Jeff presented me with a surprise.

“What is it?” I asked giddy with excitement.

“Open it,” he said with a smile.

I tore into the package and the a squeal of delight escaped my lips.

“You got me a box of chalk and paper!” I said jumping into his arms. “Thank you, this is so awesome!”

That night it was time to put my plan in motion. Jeff and I walked up to the attic computer room and he sat down at the computer and I sat down at my new easel.

I opened the ‘how to draw’ book, spread out the paper and opened my new box of chalk. Jeff smiled at me as I chose my color and put it to paper then turned and began to focus on his game.

I was going to do this.

I was going to start my new hobby of drawing. Of course, I wasn’t actually artistic and the last time I drew something was in middle school when I had to draw a picture to pass art class and I drew a flower but what the hell, how hard could drawing be?

It’s not like making works of art takes talent or practice, lots and lots of practice.

“Want to see what I am drawing?” I asked Jeff after a couple minutes

Jeff took his head phones off and looked at me as I held up my drawing.

“Um….” he began, “that is…. good.”

“Yeah, well it’s just a start,” I said. “I am totally good at this.”

Jeff half smiled half gave me that ‘girl you crazy’ look.

I placed my picture back on the easel and picked up another piece of chalk as Jeff took this as his cue to return to his game.

“Man, it’s hot up here,” I said after a couple seconds more of ’shading’ which to me was really just coloring in the lines.

“Yeah, it is an attic and it’s summer,” Jeff said

“Well, I don’t do hot so I am going to go,” I said and I pushed my chair back and walked downstairs.

And that was the end of my hobby as an chalk artist.

This post is part of Writer’s Workshop

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1. Lost and Found
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5. What to do with all that Artwork

Tagged as: Artwork, Humor, Marriage, Writer's Workshop