Free The Graphic Details by Evelin Smiles Page A

of random businesses
with wonder. Restaurants, department stores, grocery stores; I
would even stare at the ugly red neon signs that graced the front
of cruddy liquor stores and those lack even a modicum of
imagination. That should tell you how into design I was. I would
search for any type of graphic design I could wrap my eyes around.
As I grew older I started to notice more and more design around me.
I would see it in the clouds and I would see it in the bark of
trees and the waves of water in the sea. Nature was my graphic
design wonderland. I would stand and stare at billboards for what
seemed like hours. I would look at magazine covers for actual hours
at bookstores and I would study every typeface and font I could,
and I would marvel at the way the text would curve around the
beautiful model on the cover, models that I sometimes envied,
sometimes not. Mostly I just thought they had too much make-up on.
Who am I kidding? I wanted my make-up the exact same way. So I
bought most of those magazines, mostly to study the design aspects
of the ads on the inside. Well, that was what I told myself
anyway.
    When I was in Junior high, my mother bought
me a sketchbook and I filled every page of that book with all sorts
of shapes and colors and illustrations and fonts of my very own
design. She soon had to buy me about ten more of those books, and I
still have every one of them in my closet. In fact, there are more
sketchbooks in there than there are clothes. Maybe I am a nerd
after all.
    I graduated college a few years ago, and I
immediately found a job doing graphic design at a very famous
fashion magazine up here in cool San Francisco, California. Yes, my
portfolio was just that good. Now I was the one wrapping beautiful
actresses in typefaces suggesting corny headlines about how to have
mind-blowing sex while pregnant, and the ten top signs to look for
to tell if your boyfriend is cheating on you.
    San Francisco is a stark contrast to the
place of my birth: Salt Lake City, Utah. That place is cold,
mountainous and littered with white structures with sharp points at
the top of them that resemble spacecraft from bad science fiction
movies. You might know them better as Mormon temples (I have many
Mormon friends and I like to kid them once in a while. I love
them). San Francisco is breezy, and clear and littered with the
steepest hills you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s also littered
with many men. And as per the myriad stories I’ve heard about this
place, many of those men are of the gay variety. Not all of them
mind you, but a great number of the ones I’ve encountered have
been. And a lot of them have made great friends.
    In fact, I’ve been having so much fun hanging
out with the new friends I’ve made here and since I’m happy with my
job at the magazine, I haven’t even given relationships a single
thought. I was happy in my career and secure with myself. I didn’t
even want children––a statement that my mother and her sisters did
not like hearing from my lips. I even got myself a cat, a chubby
little Tabby that I named Selina. I had a life of my own filled
with friendship and job stability. What did I need with children or
a man?
    With my contentment and all, you can imagine
my surprise when my whole world got turned upside down in a single
moment; the moment I met him .
     
     
    Introducing, Charles
     
    It was a typical Monday morning in San
Francisco, a little cloudier than usual, but nice nonetheless. I
was working on an ad spread that I had been stressing out over the
past weekend. I lost sleep over something as trivial as what font
to use for the headline. I even made about three of my very own to
use, but it still wasn’t coming out quite right. I wasn’t looking
my best that morning: my hair was out of place and my eyes were
baggier than, than… well, something really baggy. But what did I
care what anyone thought of my looks. My work place was
surprisingly lax about the dress code, despite the