Sunday, November 30, 2008

I Feel Rather As If The Turkey Stuffed Me.

Ok, Trash, ok.

So all my best laid plans were for naught.  I meant to give Douchebag his note back on Wednesday, but my class got our early and I wanted to get home, so I kept the note in my pocket and decided to give it to him when I got back from Houston.  Alas, and to make a long story short, I washed the jeans with the note in the pocket and it is now but a soggy, shredded memory.

So now it's on to plan B which is to ignore completely.  I can do.  And if he brings it up again, I'm going to point at his crotch, snicker, and say "I don't think so, jefe."

Problem solved.  Except that I might get my tongue cut out in the parking lot.

Thanksgiving went off with only one major psychotic episode involving the use of my grandfather's car, which is probably a record.  One good thing about having a million sisters is that one, tiny lesbian girlfriend goes virtually unnoticed.  She's a quiet little thing and just for that I like her.  Probably better than most of my sisters.

Anyway, there is more, but it isn't very interesting and I have major shit due tomorrow, so I will say adieu for now.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Okay.  I'm going with Tater's suggestion.  I'm going to write something brief as in "no, and please don't bring this up again. Ever." on it and give it to him.  That way I've given everything back to him and he knows there is no question lingering.  I get what people are saying about ignoring him completely, but it isn't a large school, I will definitely have him in other classes, and he would be very difficult to avoid.  Also he was a little too persistent to ignore and I really want to avoid any further conversation.  It was intensely embarrassing.

I just love blogging.  You gain access to such clear thinkers, even if you do have to wade through mounds of troll droppings sometimes.

So enough of that.

What is everyone doing for the holidays?  We are going to my mom's house and my "lesbian" sister is bringing her "girlfriend" whom she will be introducing as her "roommate."  

*whine* I don't waaanna go home!!!  I wanna stay in New Town with my sexy American boyfriend and make my own stuffing and cranberry sauce and turkey.  */whine*

Anyway, I am going to finish my logo projects and post them when I'm done.  I'm doing one for the Ice Hotel in Scandinavia, which is the coolest thing ever.  I can't wait to show off that one.

Monday, November 24, 2008

The *Heart* Letter

Men are so frickin' weird. I really think they would molest a wasps' nest covered in broken glass and lemon slices if it looked like it had boobs.
Here's a letter I got from one of my classmates. After coming on to me repeatedly tonight in spite of my gentle, yet consistent negativity, he followed me out of class as I was leaving and gave me this note (spelling and grammar all his):

Zelda,
Hey thanks for talking to me . Just to let you know I wouldn't want to cross no lines
But maybe a little flirtation. I've always found you attractive and I know you situation.
But if you ever become Free let me know. Hope we can talk as friends and just a little Flirting wouldn't Hurt.
well you can answer me back or throw this away. well my email is ---------@-----.com
ok.
I think you are sweet, too Very sexy & Hot. your man is lucky.
Mmmm. Honestly I would love to Be with you. I don't think you can Image what I'm thinking :-) well talk to you later.

Classmate

P.S. Would I Have a chance?

And he put a heart around the word 'love'.  
I told Jethro because we promised to tell each other shit like this, and I gave him the letter. Then I ran away and hid my head under the pillows in our room while he read it and laughed his ass off.
I'm not quite sure what to say. It goes against my nature to be harsh or cruel directly to someone's face or even in a letter back to them, mostly because I am rather pathetically grateful that anyone finds me attractive enough to write a cheesy letter to.
Anyway, I'm emailing him back tomorrow and here's what I have so far:

Classmate,
I read your letter and I would never consider the idea. If I wasn't clear about this at school, I'm very sorry and I'm glad for a chance to be direct. I am deeply in love with my husband and my relationship with him means everything in the world to me. There is no one on this earth that would make me put it in danger. You're a nice man, but I know you have a wife and children and I'm sure they need you the same as I need my husband, and my daughters need their father. I don't mind being friends and colleagues, but even a flirtation would be out of the question. I wish nothing but good for you, but there is no good that would ever come of what you suggest, for you or for me.
May God bless and keep you always.
Zelda

I think this is pretty unequivocal without being unnecessarily mean. I think mentioning God might help too. He has a habit of putting somewhat of a damper on sexual fantasy. Maybe it's a little cowardly, but sometimes God comes in handy.
Now I'm just wondering if it isn't too pious/arrogant/overly thoughtful a response to someone who just considers me a warm hole.
I guess I don't care. I'm spelling it out in no uncertain terms.  
And I'm not just a warm hole.  
Sometimes I get really frickin' cold.

Anyway, feedback would be appreciated, but it will have to be quick because I'm going to send it tomorrow.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Where I Discuss Vibrators and Design. And Capitalism.

I finally managed to buy a new vibrator after the old one flamed out so grotesquely.  I think it's telling and rather sad that I actually took note of the package design before I took note of the product.  Learning about design makes you see things differently.  I don't know if I like it.  I was happy just being brainwashed like everyone else.  And that sounds far more arrogant than I mean it.

But I refuse to look at what I'm doing as brainwashing.  Yes, ultimately it's about trying to entice someone to buy a product.  But there is no way for a superior product to go up against its old, established competition unless they have some good advertising.  And that means pretty pictures.  And that's the fun part.  Really, the capitalism is a lot of fun.

Anyway, I'm swamped with procrastinating on my school projects and carting the kids everywhere.  And the house really needs a thorough cleaning especially because Jethro bought me an i-phone for my Christmas present and he thinks that now entitles him to sex and a bed free from clothes, dinnerware and small animals (how can he want the sex and not the small animals?).  Honestly, I don't know what he's thinking sometimes.  I allow him to provide for me in a manner to which I have yet to become accustomed...isn't that enough?

So this will have to explain my lack of posting, but I did want to show you a logo I am working on.  It's not quite done yet, I'm going to make the speed lines less uniform, fix the tail, put a little shadow under the back tire of the bike, and maybe put a little crash helmet on him, but I thought the idea was cute.  Everyone in my class liked it.  And most of them aren't completely short-bus.



Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Upstream

Jethro and I took the girls on a little camping trip over the weekend to Garner State Park on the Frio River with our friends Jen  (who took some fantastic pictures) and Vince and their two little girls.
I don't think I can describe how much we needed it.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The Frio River is crystal clear, which is kind of unusual for rivers in Texas.  Usually they're brown and full of water moccasins and other unsavory creatures.  At least that's how I imagine them, and there is a reason:  
In upstate NY, where I grew up, the streams and rivers were pretty clear and you'd never see anything more threatening than a turtle.  When my family was moving down to TX (which was a two week process involving the summer, 7 girls, and camper with no a/c - did you know girls can smell not-so-great after two weeks in a camper without a/c in the middle of the summer?) we stopped at a campground in Louisiana to sleep for the night.  It was still light out when we pulled in and there was a big pond.  Since it was hotter than I ever believed could be possible, I thought I would take my little sisters wading.  Sure the pond was had a little algae and it didn't smell quite right, but why not?
We got to the water's edge and I was about to cautiously put my toe in, when I saw something slithering in the murk.  It was about 7 feet long.  I stared at it, my toe hovering cautiously, and an evil head came up and opened its monstrous, fanged mouth lined in startling white.  I hustled my sisters away from there as fast as I could and spent the night not sleeping and getting up periodically to stuff shoes and socks through the cracks in the camper.
I hate snakes more than I fear hell and this phobia does not improve with age.
But enough of that.  The Frio was gorgeous and we really had fun.  We took the girls fishing, hiked up into the hills and saw a great view, made a campfire, roasted marshmallows, drank some beer, and bundled up during the night like I haven't done in years.
Jen and I also took the girls to hear a park ranger expound upon the geology of the TX hill country.
This particular park ranger was a gentleman probably in his early to mid-40s.  He wore a cowboy hat like everyone with any type of authority (real or imagined) does in TX, had a little beer gut, and was mostly nondescript except for a massive handlebar mustache.  It was distracting in its luxuriant perfection.  I immediately started imagining having sex with him just because I wondered if it was possible to convince a man with a handlebar mustache to have sex with me.
Then he started talking and I realized he was as gay as a trout in a stream and that my imagination is forced to draw the line at having relations with gentlemen who flick their wrists in an airy fashion, even if they do have gorgeous handlebar mustaches.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

I Can't Decide If It's Ironic or Bittersweet



" 'I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!' yelled one former campaign worker."
" 'I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system,' said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker."
" 'It should have been $480. It's $230,' said Imani Sankofa"
" 'They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90,' said Charles Martin."
" 'I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned,' said Randall Waldon."
" 'They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens,' said Antron Grose."
" 'Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin',' said Martin."

Monday, November 03, 2008

Levon



Levon wears his war wound like a crown

He calls his child Jesus

`Cause he likes the name

And he sends him to the finest school in town



Levon, Levon likes his money

He makes a lot they say

Spend his days counting

In a garage by the motorway



He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said God Is Dead

And the war’s begun.

Alvin Tostig has a son today



And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man


He shall be Levon



Levon sells cartoon balloons in town

His family business thrives

Jesus blows up balloons all day

Sits on the porch swing watching them fly



And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus

Leaving Levon far behind

Take a balloon and go sailing

While Levon, Levon slowly dies...


From time to time, I dust off my liberal arts education and apply it to something. My blog drafts are one long series of philosophical ramblings which I would probably never allow to see the light of day. I know just enough to be aware of the limitations of my intellect.

But since I'm feeling rather apocalyptic and since this is the last day what I write has the possibility of really seeming prescient, I'll allow my musings some air time.

Now to anyone who has really studied philosophy, what I'm about to write will undoubtedly seem hopelessly amateurish, and I'll concede that right now. Philosophy interests me more and more lately, but I'm no scholar.

If you haven't studied philosophy at all, it will most likely seem pretentious. That isn't my intention, but I'm not going to tell anyone what to think.

I realize Elton John would probably faint dead away at this because I think he’s made it clear what an enormous erection he has for him, but this song rather forcefully brings to mind the possibilities of an Obama administration. And since Bernie Taupin wrote the words, I'm not sure that even Sir Elton knows what they really mean.

Now if you’ll briefly allow me a few liberties I’ll show you why I was a lit major instead of pursuing a more lucrative course of study and why the government should never, ever, finance students of the liberal arts.

“Levon wears his war wound like a crown”

Bearing in mind the theme of the Trinity in this song (Alvin Tostig, Levon, and Jesus), and Obama’s God/Messiah complex, Levon is Obama as President. He wears the scars of his political/"racial" battles like a crown of thorns.

“He calls his child Jesus
`cause he likes the name
And he sends him to the finest school in town


He thinks he’s God. And I see America as the Jesus in the song. He’s promising us all the best, but promises do not mean results, and we just may end up on a cross.

“Levon, Levon likes his money”

Maybe not his money exactly. More like OUR money.

“He makes a lot they say”

He certainly will if he has his way.  But at whose expense?

“He was born a pauper to a pawn…”

I don’t know about him being a pauper exactly, but certainly born to a pawn. Two pawns, actually. Both supporters of a cause that cared nothing about them and left more helplessness than help.

“…on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God Is Dead”

So now we get hot and heavy into Nietzsche, and, I think, the meat of both the song and my interpretation.

The song is from an album entitled "Madman Across the Water."

The famous headline was in Time Magazine, not the NYT.  But Nietzsche's famous quote, while attributed to his more widely known "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" was actually first stated in "The Gay Science." It was mentioned in three sections of the work, but Sec 125, where the idea was given the most detail is entitled "The Madman." And the words were spoken by a madman addressing atheists and agnostics.

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? ….. What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

If you take Heidegger’s approach, that the “death” of God is actually the death of metaphysics and with it the concept of the Christian God, the idea has been both lamented and embraced. But it can’t really be argued that there hasn’t been a scramble to invent “festivals of atonement” and “sacred games” to stave off the nihilism Nietzsche insisted was inevitable. The need to punish ourselves for our sins did not end with the “death” of the Christian God. The racial guilt evoked by Obama’s candidacy is just one manifestation, but his entire campaign and platform has seemed like one long festival of atonement.

Obama's entire Messianic persona has been given to him by the god-killers, looking for a new god to make them worthy of having killed the old one.

"And the war's begun"

Certainly true, but maybe not the war everyone knows right now. There is an ideological war that will be lost if the god-killers gain permanent ascendence. Our rights and freedoms, inherent in the Constitution, are completely dependent on the idea that there is a Higher Power to which we are answerable. The government cannot control us because we are not answerable to them. Read The Federalist Papers, I beg you.

I see a relentless quest to destroy this idea without any alternative structure that will keep our rights and freedoms intact. Even worse, I see the opposite. A deliberate destruction of the idea of a Higher Power in order for the government in the form of a god-king to gain control over everyone from business owners who will be forced to sacrifice their earnings, to the paupers who will find themselves completely dependent on the government and subject to it's every whim.

"And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man"


It's the plaintive cry of those looking for a god-king. Projection will not make it so, but it doesn't stop the hopeful, even wistful chanting.

But Levon is not actually a good man.

Of course there is more of the song to interpret (most of it scarily appropriate), but I think I exposed a bit of the center. Or at least the inner covering of the center.

Feel free to skewer.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

I'm so busy with school I haven't been able to post anything.  But this doesn't mean I don't have things to write about.  I figure I'll list them right here, right now, so when I have a second to write about them, I won't forget.  Hopefully the subjects are titillating enough to keep people returning.

In no particular order:

Gwennie and Jethro's drawers.

Zelda's Annual Sexy Halloween Picture - Less sexy with each passing year.

Emma at the All-You-Can-Eat Dessert Bar

Bathilda (one of Jethro's patients)

Maybe I'll post a project or two.  I would post more of them, but I'll finish one and think it's good enough for class, but then when I think about the general public seeing them, I am overcome with crippling anxiety.  I don't think it's a good attitude for a wannabe logo designer, but there is always the possibility that I suck, and I want to live in denial for a little while longer.

I'll resurface soon.  Promise.