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.)

Monday, February 17, 2014

T-shirt #333 - Traverse City - Blue


T-shirt #333 - Traverse City - Blue

I have now set the record for the farthest I have been behind yet. And this is supposedly my week off work.

I wrote the previous sentence when I originally posted this item, incomplete, another one, on Monday the 17th.

The purpose of HIATUS is to catch up and get ahead, which so far has not happened. I know you regular and frequent readers are on the edges of your seats awaiting this update, as if it is not painfully obvious already.

So this will be short and sweet.

February weather is a bit... oppressive.

Here's pictures of me yearning for Traverse City, where, in my mind, it's always summer and looks like the next two pictures.

SERENITY NOW.

(and sorry about the lack of foreground focus in the first. Trying for the sunset focus).



It's amazing that even as I set a new record for most incomplete posts in a row (four days), my page views remain high compared to my average. This makes me feel badly for not delivering enough quality content and to work hard to catch up.

Definitely, my pages views increase with my social media disseminations.


One thing I have learned so far on the Blog Journey is that I am the toughest task master. I am the one who beats me up when I miss a day. I am the one who is disappointed the most when I fall behind. Since I have no one else chiding me, It's easier to forgive myself for falling behind.

The goal of the blog is the write something every day. The goal of writing something every day is not to blog, not exactly, though I will continue to blog when my 365 days ends in JUST THIRTY TWO days. The ultimate goal is to convert this time I have carved out of my schedule to real writing time, fiction writing time.

One thing I have started doing is prioritizing work more. I need to keep all things in balance. Some days it makes more sense to clear the work decks first and blog later, like today. Other days, I prefer to blog first and work later. The former method works great to get the work done that I am paid to get done, but sometimes, like on Saturday and Sunday, does not serve the blog well at all when other things later in the day prevent me from logging that blogging time.

Lessons for me to learn. I am not a natural multi-tasker.

Meanwhile, I will keep producing content and showing off this INSANE number of T-shirts that I own.


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 - 32 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1402.17 - 19:44
final publication - 1402.18 - 12:06