Friday, September 22, 2000

')' = argument missing
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Arguments I have or will have in the near future:

Numbering scheme of Gundams and their pilots in GW
The pronunciation of the names 'Trowa' and 'Quatre'
Whether or not my Hubie-esque catboys look like Fabio
Whether or not anime sucks
If I need a boyfriend
The qualities that said boyfriend should posess
The relative merits of certain television shows

I was always under the impression that the Gundams and their pilots were numbered thusly:

01 -- Wing Gundam, Hiiro Yuy
02 -- Shinegami(me? I forget), Duo Maxwell
03 -- Heavyarms, Trowa Barton
04 -- Sandrock, Quatre Rabera Winner
05 -- Shenlong/Nataku, Wu Fei

I have a book that backs me up, but as the information in question all pertains to Yaoi stories, I can't really show it to the seventh-grade -boy- I'm arguing with. *Ahem* Anyhow...
And speaking of arguing and GW, if 'Quatre' is -really- pronounced 'Keht-ra', then is 'quarter' pronounced 'kehrt-er'?

My cat-boys do NOT look like Fabio. They do not all have long flowing locks, and their hair probably won't ever land them a job. Poor things.

Anime rules, and that's all I have to say about that. I take that back... -Subtitled- anime rules!

I do not need a boyfriend. Even more specifically: I do not need uninformed, twittery, giggly, messed-up little girls to find me one. Particularly since they only seem to know guys that are...less than compliant with the laws and statutes of our great state and/or nation. (More on thins in a minute.)

I don't like the smell of cigarette smoke or the entire concept of football. Is that so wrong?

Gundam Wing would be a great show, if they hadn't dubbed it. Hee. And Tenchi In Tokyo isn't all that bad... I still like Batman: The Animated Series. *Blink* Y'know, if they'd been thinking, they could have gotten that to spell out BATS. Or maybe that was an obvious aim, and so they didn't go for it...
Posted by: Shannon M.: 7:16 PM |

I love the name 'Absolution' for a ship. Toonami.com is having a contest to figure out what the Absolution's new engines should look like, and the grand prize, awarded to randomly drawn participants, is a trip for two to Japan. I've already entered.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 7:19 PM |

I still don't know what I'm going to do for Halloween. My choices are (so far): drag king, Mer-person of some stripe, Leopard Princess to match my friend's Tiger Princess, ultra-pink girlygirl, or ultraGoth. The latter two are only funny or significant if you know me, and know what makes them a costume rather than defining me as trick-or-treating chaperone.

I'm leaning towards the underwater-person, since I don't think I could get a big-enough set of wings in town to go as a Khaarsa... Never -mind- that I'm too short. *Sniggle* Of course, I -do- live on the coast (more or less...), so you could argue that I'm the perfect size for a coastal Khaarsa. The -other- drawback, of course, is that only -I- will know what I am.

But back to the underwater thing! I have the opportunity to make a Halloween mask coming up in the next couple of weeks, and I was thinking of making a Kachemak-bay themed Spirit Mask... That would probably be really cool. I could paint my face and dye my hair, and get some good bottom-of-the-bay colored scarves and things at Value Village... I might certainly do that.

I'll probably go for the UltraGoth look at school during the day... *Blink* I just realized that I have a doctor's appointment in the middle of the morning. *Giggle* Well, I'm sure they've seen stranger things. And it -is- Halloween, so they'll probably be -prepared-.

*Smirk* I -have- considered just...-enhancing- my natural features and going as myself, but I don't think I have the guts. Oh well.

And speaking of natural features... I've gotten -complimented- twice in two days. This week! Once by a woman that asked if I'd think her rude if she commented, and then followed it up with "I like it.", and once by a lady old enough to be my grandma that told me she liked it and gave me a thumbs-up.

Not that I wouldn't -mind- being flirted with/hit on, and not even by women, but... I'm just no good at dealing with this. If I say 'thanks', I feel weird, if I don't I feel bad, because that's just rude. You get a compliment, you say thank you, that's just how I was brought up. But to be complimented on something I never wanted, that I didn't start on purpose and never -kept- on purpose (it's easier to leave it be than to deal with the upkeep, yes... But it sometimes is almost harder to endure the public eye. It's six of one and a half-dozen of the other...), what do I do with that? And the fact that it's the result of a genetic disorder... It's kind of like getting a compliment on your nice new prosthetic limb, I guess. Maybe. Maybe it's not like that at all.

I'm confused by it, because I've struggled mightily with the tide of public opinion. I -don't- look like everyone else, so I feel outcast. I don't want to -change- it, either, because nothing I can do at the moment is a painless, permanent solution, -and- because if I -do- change it, then I'm giving into the fascist beauty standards of today.

If there's anyone that -should- be wearing the 'Fuck Your Fascist Beauty Standards' shirt, it's me. My mother and grandmother would have kittens, though, so... I guess I'd have to wear it somewhere else. Hee.

But anyhow. I'm just not sure what to do about it. If/when I start my new meds, it'll probably fade quite a bit. If I remember right, though, it won't go away completely. I'm starting to think it's okay, though... The funny thing is, I started reading this book that's -supposed- to be a murder-mystery (I can't remember if I read it, or if it's just an independantly-formed conclusion, but if you're writing a murder mystery, you'd better kill someone in the first couple of chapters.), and one of the characters is a quasi-drag queen who loves to be the center of attention wherever s/he goes. S/he's -disappointed- if everyone is -not- staring at her, because s/he assumes that they are. I've tried to cultivate a little bit of that attitude -- just the 'I'm so fabulous that they'll -all- be staring at me, of course! How could they not?' part, and it seems to be helping. Not a lot, and not with things like a trip to the doctor's, but some.

Maybe it's time for me to start wearing fabulous clothing to help develop that attitude further... After all, I -am- fabulous. Who -wouldn't- want to look at me?
Posted by: Shannon M.: 7:52 PM |

"She said "Hey T-Bone what's your sign?"/I blinked and answered, "neon!" I thought I'd blow her mind..."

This all actually started about two weeks ago. I was sitting at a table, innocently trying to eat my lunch without getting it all over my drawing pad, when I was set upon by a pair of students. We'll call them Lynn and Jill for the moment.

Lynn is a nice-enough person, though she does tend to tell repetitive stories. Jill is a new girl, and also seems nice enough. However... They don't have much in the way of... I don't know. Maturity, I guess.

I was drawing one of my catguys, and I was greeted with "Oooh, he is so cute!" Cute? Okay, yeah, I'll agree with that. I try to draw my people as bishounen as I can, when it's apropos, and as handsomely as I can when it's not. I think I've been doing rather well, lately.

So, feeling generous (and always one to encourage an appreciative audience to stick around and be -more- appreciative), I flip back to the beginning and start showing off my stuff. We get to this one guy that I drew as an experiment -- ears and long hair. I thought he turned out beautifully, and -they- just about fell on the floor, they were laughing so hard.

They thought he looked like Fabio! He looks nothing -like- Fabio. He has no muscle tone, for one thing, and he's got ears like a cat's for another. Yeesh. They insisted on rounding up all the girls in the school and showing them this poor guy, insisting that he looked like Fabio. -I- was exhorted to do my rendition of the 'I can't believe it's not butter!' line... It was okay, for the most part.

Then came the requests. Draw Fabio (I can't! I don't have a picture); draw Heavyarms (I can't, again, no picture); draw a severed limb! (That one I ended up doing, if for no other reason than to disturb the people that were bugging me.)

The requests for a picture of people kissing keeps coming back to haunt me -- I -would- just print out or , but somehow I doubt they'd appreciate them much.

So. On Wednesday, between rescuing my belongings from the prying fingers of a girl we'll call Tammy, eating my lunch, and fending off more demands for limbs and liplocks, I get asked a most unusual question.

Tammy: "Hey, Nine, if you're married why don't you wear a wedding ring?"

Me: "What?"

Tammy: "Where's your wedding ring?"

Me: [Thinking: Who told Tammy I was married? The hell?] "Um... I don't wear one because I'm not married."

Tammy: "Really? Why not?"

Me: "Uh... Because I'm only 22....? And I've never had a boyfriend, let alone someone I'd wanna marry?" [The -hell-? What is wrong with this kid?]

Tammy, in complete horror: "You've never had a boyfriend?"

Jill, also horrified: "Oh my God..."

Me: "And I made it all the way through high school without going on a single date." (I have to admit that I said this deliberately, because I _knew_ it would get a reaction. Unfortunately, I forgot to adequately assess the possible post-reaction reactions. Oopsie.)

Tammy, by now shocked beyond anything she's displayed so far this year: "OH my GOD! No -way-!"

Jill, chiming in: "Okay, we -gotta- find somebody to fix you up with."

Me: [Oh, God, save me from my own stupidity! Now what?] "Uh, that's okay, really..."

Tammy/Jill, ignoring me: "Gotta get you some -clothes-, and some -makeup-, and get you all fixed up... Who do I know that you could go out with?"

Me: "It wouldn't work! It wouldn't help. I've got clothes, I even have makeup... It really wouldn't do any good!"

Tammy: "What? Why not?"

Me: "Because I'm not good with strangers. I can't talk to them very well..."

Tammy: "Oh, well, how about if I introduce you? That way you can get to know each other!"

Me: [Uh, no, you're missing the point.] "It's really okay, you don't have to go to any trouble on my part..."

Jill: "We'll find you a guy on computer, then!"

Tammy: "Yeah! There you go. Oh, hey, I know this -great- guy. His name is..." Dramatic pause. "-Alvin-."

Me, trying not to guffaw in her face: "Um... That's really okay."

Tammy: "No, wait, you can't go out with Alvin. He's a sex fiend."

Me, fortunately thinking first and not just blurting out what was running through my mind: [And what's wrong with being a sex fiend? What makes you think I wouldn't be interested in sex? Oh, wait... If Tammy knows him, I bet he's not the good kind of sex fiend. Okay then.] "See...? There you go."

Tammy: "Oh, I know! He's got a brother... His name is Brad."

Me: [Brad? That's the guy that Taffy is always cooing over. No thanks. Hey, wait a minute...] "Wasn't Brad one of the characters in Rocky Horror Picture Show?"

Jill: "Hey, yeah! I loved that show!" (She then spent the next couple of minutes trying to remember how the Time Warp goes.)

Tammy: "No! He's -really- fine, has lots of muscles, he's a really great guy."

Me: "Uh-huh... That's nice... Um... Does he like football?"

Tammy, nodding seriously: "Oh, -yeah-."

Me: "Oh, sorry. I really can't handle that."

It went downhill from there, with the suggestion that I find a guy online popping up a couple more times. I sort-of squished that idea by telling them that you only meet crazy people online, and that I should know -- I'm friends with three of them. Tammy then asked me, much as she had with the wedding-ring question, out of the blue: "Are they bisexual?"

Me, figuring it couldn't get much worse: "A couple of them are, I think, yeah."

Tammy, surprised and... I don't know, scared maybe: "Whoa..."

Me, trying to gloss things over and get the conversation to go somewhere far, far different: "I like 'em though, they're fun." (Meaning, of course, that they're fun people and that I like them as friends...)

Tammy: "Okay, that just sounded -wrong-."

Me, in a pretty non-committal tone of voice: [I know it did, and I don't care! Ha!] "I know it did, but only realized it after I said it..."

Oi. This was also the day that I chose to wear my Alaska Grown t-shirt to school and then subsequently got bugged about it... Apparently, in some circles, AK Grown applies specifically to pot; most likely to the eloquently-named Matanuska Thunderfuck variety... So I got teased about "rockin' the ganj", and asked if smoking -me- would get the students high. I told them no, they'd just get preserved me. Nothing like the cold water of literal-mindedness to douse parades...

In fact, the first and to date -only- time I've ever been invited to smoke marijuana occurred last week, and I think the person was half-joking anyways. *Rolls eyes* He also wanted to know if I'd buy him booze, to which I answered, "Well... I've got a couple of heroin deals scheduled, and there -is- that shipment of cocaine I got in that I need to go pick up... But yeah, I think I can squeeze you in there somewhere." I then went on to list all of the people that I was NOT _ever_ buying booze for, himself included. Fortunately, it did not snowball into -another- interminable argument about drinking being fun, nor was I told that I needed to lighten up.

Is it so wrong to want to abide by the law? Is it so wrong to think that throwing up isn't fun? I mean, really.

So that was my week at school in a nutshell, minus the computer-related hell. I swear, it's a good thing they're paying me to do this... We had file-sharing problems all week, topped off with the fact that our laptops didn't have any printer-drivers. I -did- find our printer-driver CD, though, so there was much rejoicing (yaaaay).

I will be scanning things soonly. Pictures of Hubie! Pictures of other guys! A quasi-comic of Hubie and Alvin at The Hilarium!

Posted by: Shannon M.: 8:57 PM |

Ack! Explanation Time: My mom and I have a running joke about Brad and Taffy, two idiots that exist solely in our imaginations. Brad is a khaki-cargo-wearin', skateboardin' trendy guy that's always trying to impress Taffy, and Taffy just doesn't even have the brains the Lord gave a boiled turnip, so she adores him. And visits him in the hospital when he gets hurt. This is where the whole Taffy cooing over Brad thing came from.

Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:14 PM |

Well, I think I've finally decided. I'm going to get my hair cut middling-short -- about to the middle of my back. I'll see how that does for a while, and then decide if I want to keep growing it out, or if I want to go even shorter... Yeek. I haven't had really short hair in a long time...
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:24 PM |