V is for…

An Acrostic Valentine’s Poem about a love I once knew and a home I once drew.

 
V is for V-Ray and the picture I hold of you in my mind, back before the value engineering when your value was invaluable.

A is for AutoCAD, because I’d try to flirt and you were auto-catty. In the afternoon, my typing turned to pushing your buttons, and you’d stop working. But I won you over with clean drawings and exceptional line-weight hierarchy. Your smile turned Archi-glad. You may have your bad habits, like refusing to fix how things are hatched, but between us, a romance hatched.

L is for Lumion and though it sometimes took eons for you to illuminate, when those landscape lights came on, after an appointed time with those code-required astronomical clocks, you shined bright. I told you that evening, “you could be a model…home.”

E is for Excel, for that is what you do. Behind that fine facade of beauty is a matrix of specs and spreadsheets of numbers and schedules, for you are sharp and fine-tuned. Then there was the VE meeting, and we got the news about that accent on your cheek, on your fair façade, and I shuttered to think that it was inoperable.

N is for NURBS, but I will not bring up that period in our lives; it was a crazy time, nothing was uniform and all was unique. But I’d B-lyin’ if I told you your B-splinin’ curves let me think with any sort of rational basis.

T is for Title – 24 years we’ve been together now, and you have aged gracefully. I’d say you’re still hip with those cool-roof tiles we’ve installed, and those solar shades you wear standard. I replaced your windows and feel like I can see more deeply into your soul. Then there came disagreement, last winter: I told you to dress warm because it was cold, and you said you’d grab a coat. I said you should have three coats because it is more effective, but you just put on one and got that stubborn, one-inch-rigid-foam look on your face and went out in the storm. You never looked back, and I was stuc-oh so well.

I is for InDesign, for you are a growing and everchanging work of beauty, never under construction, but always in design.

N is for NCARB, for because of you, I Never Carry Around Radiant Barrier. You claimed I was only a fan of a part of you, but I declared I was a Whole House Fan. I stopped that radiant barrier short of your insulation and never picked it up again.

E is for Entitlement, for you shone like a star for the city. You did not need enhancements or painted beauty, you were glorious in your own right. And now I must let you go; my tears will run down your positive sloping building paper, down through to your weep screed, and finally to the earth from whence we both came. Best of luck out there, my dearly drawn home, be kind to strangers, always welcome your loved ones home, oh and…wear a coat!