You Might Be a Geek

I need more tee shirts like I need pneumonia. I remember reading somewhere that tee shirts were the number one clothing item found in landfills. I believe it. I have a month's worth of good shirts and a half a month's worth of "but I can't throw this away" shirts.

I have trained myself to not look at the collectible tee shirts when I visit a location. Last year's trip to the north half of the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Forest, yielded a coat and a pair of socks that I love. They had nice tee shirts, very nice, but I can't have any more. In fact, I've started a box of tee shirts I no longer wear because they are useful in crafting. Somewhere, there exists a grand plan for turning a month's worth of tees into a quilt. Some day. Some day.

Still, I think one of the reasons people gravitate towards the tee is because you can "wear your heart on your sleeve" so to speak, with little impunity. I can broadcast that I've been to Charleston, South Carolina, that I love cats, that I read banned books from the relative "safety" of my chest. Freedom of expression seems more free when plastered on the front of a navy Hanes bulky tee. And, if you're going to give away a mass quantity of something for participants at your event, you can't go wrong with a tee shirt, although I admire your ability to decide how many XXS and XXL you need to get to have enough and not 85 left over.

Although I steer clear of them now, owing to the number in my closet, I'm not immune to their siren song. This was a shirt seen at Woot.com at the beginning of January.

Woot is an overstock distributor. Every day, they have a wide variety of items marked way down to liquidate. It's quality stuff. I've purchased sheets and yard items from them. They also feature tee shirts from independent producers. This one is amazing and I had to get it.

For those of you scratching your head, the style is reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night". It's got the similar colors done with the ball stars and the impressionistic brush strokes. What made this shirt appealing was the design. This is Discworld, the science fantasy world created by Sir Terry Pratchett. The world is a flat disc, supported at four points by elephants. These elephants stand on the back of the great space turtle, A'tuin. He flies around the universe and, occasionally figures into the books.

If you want to start this series, get "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic". The Wiki link has a list of the books as written. Pratchett would jump forward and backward and sideways through the lives of his characters. As a for instance, the 5th book  in the list, "Sourcery", has the main character from the first two, Rincewind, interact with "The Witches", who were in the 3rd book written. Characters come and go and there are often references to events in other books, books you might not have written. "Oh dear. Must go get that one now."

There's really not a definitive order to reading them. You could just grab the first one you see and jump in. But the scene is set by reading the first two mentioned. When I think about thinning my library, getting read of Discworld books is not part of the equation. Accumulating all of them, that's something I'm trying to do.

So now the task is to go through the shirts I have and move at least one to the quilt/craft box. I have long told myself that if I buy a tee shirt, I have to give one away or take it out of circulation. I suppose putting it in the craft box is not the same at giving it away, but I'm thinning what's in the closet, which is the important part.

You'll rarely see my face in my own blog, but this is a momentous occasion.

My favorite Discworld quote, "What is there that makes life worth living? Cats...cats are nice." DEATH from "Sourcery".

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast Tea

Deb