365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

T-shirt #40: Indiana University in Hebrew

T-shirt #40: Indiana University in Hebrew - GO HOOSIERS

Today feels a little milestone-ish. Welcome to 365 T-shirts: Blog #40. After the last few days, I feel a bit like I have been dragged for a few miles by crazed apocalyptic warriors riding motorcycles across the hard-packed wastelands of the desert climates of Australia. (Does Australia have deserts or was that just a movie thing?)

My shirt for today features the word "Indiana" in Hebrew, meant for Indiana University. I received the shirt in the mail last week as a gift from my best friend, Tom Meyers, who attended IU back in the 1990s for law school. Tom has some Jewish heritage, which makes the gift resonate a bit more vividly. During our regular correspondence, I sent Tom links to my blog, and he was inspired to send me this shirt as a gift. Though it's a LARGE, and typically I wear an EXTRA LARGE, just to be comfortable not because I am all that extra or large, it does fit well. And though this is not the usual practice, I am wearing it right now as I type this blog entry.



As for the significance of IU, I visited Bloomington many times during those years to spend quality time with Tom, who goes by the title of the Lord of Chaos or the LOC (and this title thing is a story for another time). We played Ultimate in pick up games at Dunn Meadow on IU's campus. There's some creek there. I can see it on Google Maps, but it's not named. We also played a lot of D&D in his various apartments in Bloomington.

One of our sessions ranks as the second greatest gaming session of my life, second only to the first time, which is unbeatable. We played for sixteen straight hours with few breaks and without leaving the apartment. When we did emerge, at like two in the morning, the world around us seemed strange and lackluster. After all, we had been living in our imaginations for the entire day, the length of TWO typical work days; we had been engaged in highly complex discourse as we constructed a story within a world featuring multiple characters, high drama, great risk, and great reward. We also consulted rules and debated the finer points. Our intellects were fully operational and at  maximum capacity, so that when we emerged, and went to Kroger of all places, the world seemed dull and the people dim-witted by comparison. As if struck by lightning and doused with chemicals, I had an epiphany about the cause of my own misanthropy. This was it!! I had trouble understanding how people could not be so immersed in the imagination and the power of creation, the intellect, and art. I think of this time often as I struggle to be more loving and accepting of others and not so misanthropic. As for the game, Tom rolled dice better than he ever has in his life with back-to-back, critical, natural 20 rolls to beat unbeatable opponents. It was epic, and we still talk about it to this day. It's experiences like this one that define a life.

The gift is special as is my friendship, and those times are cherished.

Indiana University is a beautiful place. Sometimes I wonder how my life might have been different had I gone to school there.

- chris tower 1304.30 - 8:54


1 comment:

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