Posts (page 2)

Overwhelmed with emotion, he reached out his hand in a vain attempt to hold onto something he'd lost long ago.  She was well out of his reach, so he lowered his head and hand, sobbing freely.  He knew she was gone, and had been for years.

"He should have listened," she thought.  "This never would have happened if he had listend to me!  We could still be together."

His sobs consumed him.  His grief was all he knew, and he collapsed onto the ground in a heap - a mess of tears and snot.

"Why? Damn it!" she continued to think.  "Why did he let her back into his life?  How could he, knowing how manipulative she is?  He knew that slut would just use him up and spit him out."

People stared at him, and he didn't care.  He looked again to her walking away and was astonished that the only ridiculous, childish, grief stricken thought that came to his head was how good her ass looked in those pants.  He pounded his head with his fist for that idiotic thought, and curled into a sobbing fetal position. 

"That good for nothing asshole!  Thinking he could come here, and lay that bullshit on me!  I found the note, smelled the perfume, tasted the sweetness of her on his lips.  How could he be so cruel?  He'll pay.  One day karma will come around the corner and bite him in the ass!"

As his sobs subsided, he got himself together, and unheeded by the stares he received from those around him, he went he went on his way.

I'm a little late in posting this, but it's something that has been on my mind.  Something I needed to get off my chest. 

Phillis Schlafly gave a speech at Bates College recently and...

At one point, Schlafly also contended that married women cannot be sexually assaulted by their husbands.
"By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape," she said.

A statement like this makes me cringe, because on the surface it seems so blatantly ignorant and dismissive of a woman's personal freedom.  However, I find myself analyzing such statements in an attempt to see the other's point of view.  I view this is a healthy exercise because not only does it give you insight into another person, it can also bolster your own argument.  Here is my personal and completely biased feminist analyzation.

My first thought was perhaps this particular belief comes out of a certain naivete...perhaps built on the belief that all marriages are built on love and are blessed by God.  If that is indeed the case, then a person would be led to believe that there can be no ill will in the husband towards his wife.  A husband would never do such a thing to his wife, and therefore no rape can be claimed.  However, if this were true, then wouldn't every woman understand this and be willing to succumb to her husband's desires, for wouldn't she want the same thing herself?  Not to mention, that a woman would never hold any ill will towards her husband, because (as stated above) the union is based on love and blessed by God.  Neither party in this blessed state should have ill will towards the other.  (Oh wait, I forgot, women are evil...)

This led me to my second thought.  Women are totally at the whim of their husband's will, regardless of the woman's feelings.  If the husband wants to have sex, the woman better step up and put out.  By marrying him, she's already consented to sex (whether or not she wants to right then and there is regardless - she apparently has consented to sex any time day or night), and it's the woman's duty to satisfy her man!  It's not her place to question her man's needs and wants.  Why he is, after all, king of his castle, and his will should reign supreme.  It was Eve who took the first bite out of the apple, after all, and now all women must pay for her sins - sins of the father...well, mother...and all that. 

When I think about women who are in an abused relationship, and are violated in such an extreme way, I can't hold to the belief that marriage = consent to sex.  Marriage should be a partnership in which both people better each other, and love each other.  Neither person should have to give up their personal freedoms - or in this case, parts of their body - for union.  When sex is non-consensual, it such a deep violation, and it makes it ten times worse when it comes from someone you trusted and loved.  We as a society should step up to help women (and men) in these situations, and not condemn them further.  The union should not be held above the individual's suffering.

I wish that I could have stuff just magically pour out of my head that would inspire or enlighten the two or three people who read this thing, but the fact is that I just don't have anything interesting to write about.  I get ideas in my head of stuff I could write about, like my father or my current obsession with World of Warcraft, but when I sit down to put my thoughts into words, I just fail.  Perhaps I'm too much of perfectionist.  Perhaps I just get bored too easily.  I don't know what it is.  I'm going to try to force myself to write more though, because when I actually start pouring stuff out, I find myself enjoying it.  I love the way words flow together, and the way they sound in my head.  And I love to imagine people reading them and laughing or nodding their heads in agreement with the things I have to say. 

So, we'll see where this thing takes me...

The t-shirts arrived for Stikkit today!  They're sweet looking!  It's exciting to see your work come to fruition!  Now, I have to gather all of these materials together, and take a photo of them for my portfolio.  And also so I can show people the cool stuff I did!  This has been one hectic week, and I'm completely exhausted.  But seeing it all come together has been a very exciting thing!  Quite an energy booster, I must say.

When you're driving down route 26 towards Portland, OR, you eventually reach a tunnel that splits off into three directions.  The right most lane takes you towards I5 South which leads to places like Wilsonville and Salem.  The middle lane takes you straight to downtown Portland, specifically right down Market.  If you stay on Market you'll eventually meet up with the Willamette River.  The left lane takes you towards I5 North which leads to Washington State. 

This left most lane is one of the most exciting lanes to drive in, because it is so perfectly banked that you can zip right down it without slowing down much at all.  So it is with dismay when I drive down this lane, whether it be morning, noon or night, and people slow down to incredibly crazy speeds, and therefore take one of my more pleasant adventures away from me.  Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate driving down this lane at 70mph or anything, but you surely don't have to slow down to 30mph, do you?

Why do people want to take my fun away?

For those who don't know me, I am a graphic designer.  At least, that's what my shiny new degree has to say on the subject.  After I graduated this June, I decided to take the summer off to recover from a program that quite honestly kicked my ass (yet, in a loving, caring way), and to perhaps come to some decisions about which direction I would like to take my life.  I had some soul searching to do, because up until two years ago, I had believed I was destined for a career in music.  (I have an old dusty degree that occasionally speaks up on the subject, but is muffled by someone called apathy and the shiny upstart of a new degree.)  It's somewhat scary to envision yourself in a role different from that which you had originally planned for the majority of your years walking the planet.  So, I took it easy, enjoying some new found freedoms, and catching up on massive amounts of lost sleep.  Eventually, I came to terms with my new role in life.

So, it made for a quiet summer, esepcially with regards to work.  The biggest project I did was to design some business cards for a new company Values of n. The business cards were a huge hit, and opened the door for me to design materials for an upcoming launch of their product Stikkit at Web 2.0.  In addition to these projects, I've also been contacted by a number of people who wish me to do work for them.  I went from being stagnant (and relaxed, I might add), to being super busy and barely able to keep my eyes open most days. 

I've heard that this is the way of the design business.  Either you are mulling around with little to do, or you are so overwhelmed with stuff, you don't know what a bed looks like anymore.  As the old overused saying goes, when it rains, it pours, and I'm definitely in the midst of that experience right now.

In very many ways it is exciting, but there are times when I'd like to find a nice comfy rock under which to hide.  You wouldn't happen to know of any with a nice ocean view, would you?