There is a show.

It is insidious in nature, bereft of substance, and convoluted in its presumptions. It is TLC's "What Not to Wear." If you're unfamiliar with it, the premise is this: hosts Stacey London and Clinton Kelly help the fashion-incompetent develop a more refined personal style. That, I'm sure, is what a fan of the show would tell you.

An alternate description might be this: two self-involved fashion "experts" believe that everyone in the world should dress like they do. They find people (usually women), toss out all the girl's offending garments, then send her on a $5,000 shopping spree in New York City. It might sound like a dream, if not for the fact that she's followed around by Stacey and Clinton who act like Joan Rivers on Oscar night, tearing apart her style, attitude, speech, and even eyewear.

It's not that they're picking on people who are unhappy with the way they dress. They find a girl who is confident and comfortable, and the two of them pick away at her like vultures until she can barely stand to look in the mirror.

Every show ends with variations of the same outfit: a blouse beneath a very practical blazer, flaring slacks, and pointy-toed pumps peeking out from underneath. Occasionally there's a dress, but that's when the hosts get "crazy."

If you've never seen the show, I recommend watching one. At the very least, it will put a nice lump of remorse for humanity in your belly. If you have seen the show, or even better if you're somehow involved with the production of TLC's "What Not to Wear," please please consider the repercussions of this show on the psyche of American women who are already self-conscious enough. Why not build up a person's individuality rather than turning them into prefabricated versions of each other? Fashion is all about the celebration of unique styles, not the homogenization of personalities.

Peace out.

When you've been out of work for a month, every weekday is pretty much like the other. I don't mean this in the "churning cogs of monotony" sense like what you get during a normal work week. I mean this in the same sense that you feel during a summer vacation from college. I've had to post a calendar next to my desk so I at least know what day it is. So when I may have once said TGIF, I now say TGIF (but now it means Thank God I'm Free).

Don't misunderstand me though. I love not being a manager, but I loathe not having a job. A man needs good productive work to occupy his thoughts and days, and that's why I've gotten back on the comic strip.

Anyway, Friday has lost its traditional spotlight as Best Weekday, and I'm finding out that weekends have actually become the one period of the week when I can't get anything done! How ironic is that? With any luck, this is exactly how my next job will be. Haven't we all wanted a job that pays us to do what we really want to do?

I always thought that getting a job as an artist would be right up there with spending an evening with Charlize Theron, or finding out that I have superpowers. Now that I'm so near my goal, I'm getting giddy just thinking of the possibilities.

Once I'm a professional artist, I'm going to test my flight abilities.

TTFN

Enough people are asking me on a regular basis how my job hunt is going that I'm thinking of making this blog your official source for all of my job hunt related questions. Not that I mind people asking if I've found anything yet, but I lose track of who I've told what, so maybe this can fill in the gaps in my friend chain.

I don't have any job leads yet. I've applied to more than twenty positions, and had one interview (which was bogus because they'd already hired someone but "wanted to meet me" anyway). I've also applied for unemployment, concreting my status as a jobless leech. I know that Unemployment Insurance is something I've been paying into for as long as I've been working in Washington, but I can't shake the childhood conception that drawing unemployment is something lazy or talentless people do.

How ironic would it be if that turned out to be true?

So, to keep from feeling like a completely ineffectual blight, I've been practicing painting. I've never liked painting really, because I've always been obsessed with my line work. I grew up drawing cartoons so everything in my world is separated by nice clean lines. I also rarely worked with color. So whenever I tried painting, the finished product usually looked like a paint-by-number but without the subtle nuances of hue.

Also, I had the worst painting teacher in college. I only took one semester of painting (making sure it was acrylic painting because I was too impatient and rigid to work with water or oil), and I almost instantly recognized it as a mistake. Despite the name "Beginning Acrylic," the instructor taught as though I already knew what I was doing. This was the first time I was introduced to "under-painting." She didn't explain what the under-painting was for, so I only saw it as an obstacle between me and my finished painting. A waste of time. She caught me skipping the process once or twice, so I did have to experiment with it a little, but never saw any appreciable results.

The first project we turned in was a "mood" piece using color and composition to convey an emotion. I stayed in the studio for almost five hours working on that piece, and I was so happy with it that I could hardly sleep when I got home.

She never gave me a C- and a note that said "You obviously didn't try, so neither will I."

My final project required me to take two personal objects and a found object and use them as the subjects. That piece got the same grade as my first along with a scalding comment about my landscape being cliche.

So, a combination of no experience and bad experience has lead me to this point in my life where I'm trying to teach myself how to do something new with my art. It's frustrating as all hell, and I feel like I'm 10 years old and trying to learn how to shade with a pencil.

I'm not crying.

Anyway, you can see some of my new stuff on my gallery, and I'll be keeping y'all posted.