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.)

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

T-shirt #307 - TPTA Corporate Olympics 1995

T-shirt #307 - TPTA Corporate Olympics 1995

Today's shirt is similar to ones you will see frequently in the hiatus, and I think this one is the best of the lot.

This shirt comes from my father's company, TPTA (Tower, Pinkster, Titus, and Associates) and its annual participation in a local corporate Olympics competition. I do not recall ever participating myself, but there were always extra T-shirts, and I got one (or sometimes two or three).

During the hiatus, I have decided to spread out what will be a longer essay on "Why T-shirts?" which is a topic that I have not really explored yet. I plan to start this exploration tomorrow with one item at a time.

As for today, I want to share one thing.

I started re-reading Stephen King's On Writing today as an audio book. This may be my third time through, maybe even fourth. I have lost track.

I am experiencing the book as an audio book, which is narrated by Stephen King. I like that he has done his own narration here. Not only is it a personal touch, since, after all, he wrote the book in first person, HIS voice, but also King has the chops to pull it off and make it work. Not all authors have the right voice, tone, inflection, and diction to make this kind of thing work. Neil Gaiman sounds good on audio as does Orson Scott Card. I am sure others do, too, but I have not heard too many.

I am not very far into the book yet, so I am likely to have some more observations to share before I am done with it. But one thing struck me. In his "Second Foreword," King claims that "most books about writing are filled with bullshit." He goes on to recommend Strunk and White's Elements of Style, which is never far from my desk, because "there is ... no detectable bullshit in that book." King tells his reader that he went with a shorter book for On Writing to strive for less bullshit (though not as short as Elements of Style).

As I revealed something in yesterday's blog entry that I have historically kept close to the vest if not outright lied about to cover my own shame and regret, I have a renewed determination and commitment to a "no bullshit" rule on this blog. I know I can go on at length and can be quite self-involved, but that's part of The Blog Journey. In fact, "no bullshit," which is my wife's number one motto, may take a place in the developing Rules of Chris.

As a side note, I have Rober McKee's Story in the bathroom and I am chipping away at it for the third time, too. Can you tell that I am gearing up for the actual "writing" (fiction) come the end of the blog year?

Yup.

No bullshit.


HIATUS TEXT: I am taking a short hiatus. A "hiatus" for the 365 T-shirts Blog does not mean that there will not be shirts or that I will skip posting on any forthcoming day. There will be shirts. But the shirts will not be exciting or the featured shirts will not require me to write a small novel to properly generate the content I feel is sufficient. I created a category for my hiatus so as to group together those "easy" shirts that I consider to be "hiatus shirts." The goal of the hiatus is to fill in many blog days with easy shirts in order to complete longer love letters to beloved popular culture icons on more special shirts and to write more complex entries AHEAD OF TIME. The daily grind is becoming too much and causing me to fall behind and to be forced to post incomplete entries. I am hoping that a series of hiatus shirts will allow me to catch up, get ahead, and stay ahead. Ideally, I would like to be writing the bulk of each entry three days ahead while always working on at least one other. I have a lot of great shirts to share before the end of my blog year (after all I was just given SIXTEEN shirts for my birthday). Stay tuned. I promise to post the more interesting and longer T-shirt entries as I finish them. Thanks for reading. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 58 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1401.22 - 21:26
final publication - 1401.23 - 7:52