not quitting my day job

Behold, my first homework assignment from the very basic computer art class I'm taking this summer. We were told to draw a bug and give it an environment, and I was inspired by an incident at work that would've been disastrous had I not spotted the "situation" before the customer did and done a quick little switch-a-roo.


I kinda phoned in the background, but I'm pretty proud of my maggots.


I guess I just could've told him it was a Vermont farmstead raw milk artisanal version of Casu marzu.

local color

After spending a few days last month in Ashland, Oregon, I was not at all surprised to read about this crazy naked lady on Jezebel. I didn't have the fortune of seeing her while I was there, but here are some other characters I encountered:

First, we have Crawdad Nelson and his nature poetry featured in a local arts magazine.

My favorite line: Something turns, either sun or moon, inside gymnosperms in spring and I sort through outcast belongings there's Jessica's panties again, soiled and unspeakably crusted together with a set of polyester socks and some torn jeans . . . And pretty much all the other ones. 

While we're on a dirty note, there was this contraption at the local dive bar (which of course I sniffed out on my first pass through downtown Ashland.) I desperately wanted a sexy surprise, but we'd spent all our quarters on Ms. Pacman. Why don't they have these in New York anymore? Don't these sorts of things, uh, expire? Where do they come from? So many questions, it's like opening up a . . . 

Ha!

So my friend Sasha and I had planned on visiting nearby Central Point, aka the home of Rogue Creamery, aka cheese nerd paradise. Unfortunately, our planning didn't evolve beyond that and we were shocked to learn that we couldn't get a last minute rental car on Memorial Day Weekend. So we took the bus. The Southern Oregon bus. The Southern Oregon bus that looked like it hadn't been serviced since 1972. But the trip proved fruitful in more ways than cheese. 

First, there was this guy.

Standing out in the rain all day on a street corner in a dinky town playing a cardboard pizza guitar. Though you can't tell from this particular photo, his enthusiasm and commitment to his enterprise are to be admired.

And then, while looking out the front window of the bus and fearing for my life, something caught my eye.

No, not the strangely attractive youth with what appeared to be freckles tattooed all over his face (seriously, they were blue) but the woman up front. What is that she's reading?

It's the Kirk Cameron autobiography! You keep growing, Kirk!