Sex is No Accident :: MTV:Sexidents

Brilliant advertizing for MTV. With a good message questionmark

 

Source: Grey \ Found imjustcreative.co.uk

If you could go back five years & tell yourself something...

What would those five things be? A twitter friend of mine asked this on her blog and this is what I commented;

“01. Grow some balls kid! Kiss the girl! (or at least let her know you like her)

02. Don’t get woo’ed by the fancy fine arts department of your school! Keep to your guns and go into graphic design or illustration

03. Minor in Art Therapy, I know you want to focus on your art, but this will help you in the 2nd semester of senior year when you realize you want to go to grad school for this!

04. Keep up with the vegetarian eating, you’re losing tons of weight and the family is actually supporting your diet. Keep it up. (i have severely slacked in this department lately)

05. Push yourself to the limit with networking, jobbing and interning, the socialization can happen in class and at night, make those connections, don’t focus solely on friendships.”

I always say I don't have regrets, because quite frankly I don't like to think of making the "wrong" decision because having not gone into sculpture, and ultimately printmaking (i switched majors my Jr. year) I wouldn't have met and formed awesome relationships with the people I did. I mean they say hindsight is 20/20 so its easy to see where decisions could have been made different and the ultimate outcome would have left me in, not necessarily better, but a different place. Who knows for a fact but I'd like to think that I made the right decisions in the moment.

If you could have gone back and told the five years ago "you" five things, what would they be? Either comment here or write your own post about them! ( and send me a link to your post). I'd love to hear them!

I do think a girl in glasses is cute!

[found @ Shmitten' Kitten via I'm Not A Genius]
I also hate that I'm feeding into the "hipster" trend...

oh crud...

So... I installed the fancy new (atleast new to me) commenting system disqus, and it apparently hides all of my old blog comments :( I'm trying to figure out how to add them back, I promise I'm not moderating comments!

thankfulTHURSDAY #2

   With being unemployed and being sequestered from my friends for about two years now, I have to admit that, its hard for me to remember that I do have things to be thankful for; its easy to lament on how i haven't had any constant source of income, that I haven't had time with friends in months (this is a side effect of no income, it takes money to go see them) or that I'm not exactly happy to be living where I am. In reality I do have things to be thankful for.  While last week I didn't post this week I am going to (even though its technically not thursday anymore.)

001. That I'm fortunate enough to be sitting on a couch, in a heated house, with electricity to type on this computer.

002. Thankful for the weird, semi accepting community that I live in, they all humor me and talk to me when I'm there to watch my little brothers sports games, or when we run into each other when I pop into Wawa

003. I got to goto my first real ice hockey game this past week! Sure it wasn't an NHL game, but it was with their minors (a half of step below the big league)

004. My knee left knee is back to normal completely (i guess my right one is the slower more retarded one... he takes after me!)

005. I got a new client this week and he loved the first round of logos I designed for him.

006. My friends meg and cat who are pretty much always there for me to show a design and they will tell me which parts suck, or which parts are good and sometimes that i should ust start over again!

007. I finally beat the game "Saints Row" and I'm now onto "Saints Row II"

008. My aunt and cousin(and he now fiance) they let me come up and escape to their house and work with them to get my out of the terrible state of Jersey. Its always a good time when I'm with them.

009. I'm thankful for my friend Amy ("met" her through twitter!) for offering to send me some of her text books on Psychology and such, even if I can't afford to goto school who says I can't read about what I wish I could goto school for?!


010. the family ordered pizza for dinner tonight... I know this sounds silly but I haven't had the money to order pizza in a while and I've REALLY been wanting some unhealthy, greasy, amazing pizza recently. Its strange, I don't know why, but... I have been.

Now, I leave you with two pictures that I'm stealing from tumblr...

sometimes i really think the burbs' are...

I live on a freakin island... I forget this people!

this is what love looks like...

image from los @ ragamuffinsoul

We can learn so much from this group of Egyptian Christians forming a human barrier around muslims praying during the protests in Egypt. We're not called to hate on other religions we're called to love people.

late night lulz

"1bourbon, 1scotch, 1beer" (via c'mon bro)

why i love don miller

“My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don’t really do that anymore. Sooner or later, you just figure out there are some guys who don’t believe in God and they can prove He doesn’t exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care.“

- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz


(via jaycalle)

Remember Missing Baby Jesus?

Remember last year when I wrote about how fitting it was that our baby Jesus went missing? Well I couldn't take it anymore and I decided upon myself to make another one. I was tired of looking at an empty "Jesus-less" manger. I know its simple and silly but I was tired of it! 

I can go into deep thoughts and reflect even more on what that means for me personally, in regards to my last post but I'll spare you that (for now) and just post the pics of the baby Jesus I sculpted.

revelations in 140 characters

One of my favorite past times, as of late, has seemed to be watching my twitter list refresh over and over again. Why? Because I'm pretty bored and have nothing better to do becasue I follow some pretty inspiring people and those people tweet pretty inspiring and encouraging things, be them quote or their own blog posts! (i follow some pretty awesome people)

But today, I was reading, and I came across this tweet

"When it comes to chasing a dream, don't confuse "can't" with "won't." Because chances are you can, you just don't."
       - @prodigaljohn

That really hit something in me; not in a negative way, more of an affirming way.

In a few weeks it will be one year to the day, that I have graduated from art school. One year... and what do I have to show? A small portfolio, living at home with my parents... the list could go on and on... but I'm generally a positive person (atleast I try to be) so I try not to complain about that stuff much.

but... I am going to vent a little today.

See what I don't say a lot, is I'm met with a lot of discouraging remarks that I hear through the grape vine or told to my face from some of the people I live with. To them (they either are happily unemployed, young, or have worked at the same position for years) it looks like I am just playing around on the computer, "oh look at him playing with art on the computer", look at that, he's on the computer again! Whats he do? Sit on facebook all day?" All of that is untrue. Most of the time I am job searching, making connections or in some cases doing client (read: getting paid to) work!! Its frustrating to say the least, to be met with such discouraging words. Looking in the newspaper isnt a viable way to find a job anymore (last time i looked, there was 5 jobs, two teaching jobs and three nurse jobs. None of which I am qualified for) but they don't understand that... so I give them a little forgiveness when it comes to thinking im just playing on the computer.

Back to the tweet... this was really affirming. I have a ton of negative energy directed towards me externally; but I also have a lot of my own insecurities about finding a job (its weird to me not working for a year, I've worked and/or gone to school since I was 15) but I've not lost my drive TO find work, I've managed to stay positive (we all have our down days) and continue to job search and just... not sit around doing nothing and not chase what i want( read: dreams)

I think too much about little things, I should have been a Philosophy Major

My grandmother made two ceramic nativity scenes years ago. My mother and her sister absolutely love each of them, so they swap them every couple of years, this year it was my mothers turn for the larger scaled one. As she is unpacking the pieces, as the last piece is unwrapped and placed in its respectful place within the scene, she lets out a little laugh... baby Jesus is missing.

That spoke worlds to me. It speaks worlds about the modern view of Christmas and Jesus.

There now lies a Fisher Price red overall wearing dollhouse toddler in the manger. It is kind of comical in retrospect; but because I think too much... it meant so much more than "whoops" to me.

Forgotten.

I think somewhere between last spring and the middle of fall, I lost my direction. I have wandered around in what feels like a wilderness for a while looking for something to lead me in the direction, never looking in the right places, feeling forgotten. Going through the motions but never changing where I look. I feel like I finally have the scent... but I'm still on the path, this meandering path, called life.

"I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it."

—Federico Fellini, I'm a Born Liar

Reading Culture Making and spending time digesting what I read has been pretty convicting... but then again so has a lot lately.  I seem to be praying for direction a lot lately becasue I'm wandering around (or maybe more of sitting still) confused.

**artwork; "Waiting for Inspiration" by Leith O'Malley

What if Life had a Rest Button?

I remember sitting in the play room as a child playing on my old NES getting frustrated at every level that I couldn't complete with ease. Cursing under my breath so that mom would not hear. The 8-bit graphics could frustrate me more than anything real life could throw at me. There would come a point where I would get so angry that I would just in a fit of subdued "rage" take my frustrations out on a poor defenseless piece of molded plastic with the faded red ink that read "reset". One simple press is all it took, but my vindication was sought upon that button.
   I would then sit back down and restart the same game that I had just quit.  Only to realize that those same sticking points, those same hardships were all there... and I had to beat them again... again! (remember this is the time before you had hard drives and save files in games)
   Did this ever change?  Not until save files!  Did slamming that reset button ever successfully do anything?  No.  It just made things harder and gave you a major case of deja vu.
   I for one am glad that there is no reset button for life... I mean really, does anyone want to go through their awkward stage of the "tweens" again?  Or how about diapers?  Formula?  That time you wet the bed?

I am ill equipped.

I am ill equipped to do all the grand things that my heart desires on my own. When will I stop trying to rely on myself and rely on the one who has done greater things that my wildest imagination can imagine?


I have the desire now I need to drop the fear.

**image by Todd Powelson

Seasons

     I’m realizing as I get more and more involved in the christian culture that people talk about seasons in more than a simple weather terminology. I had never heard this before. A season of life, of the year. There can be many seasons of... something in one weather season.
     I have always believed in life changes happening around season changes. The end of the summer came and that ended my stint in Philly and i moved back to Jersey. As I moved to the place where everyone vacations too; all those vacationers were making their way back to wherever they lived. Having grown up here I have always seen this. In April we would see businesses start preparing for the onslaught of new people to, sadly, take advantage of with the high prices and cheap products. May would bring the population of my area up 200-300% Then in August a mass exodus would happen. Students leaving for school, vacation families leaving, some businesses closing. Another “season” on the books.
     It’s always easier to see what lead up to the closing of a season when it’s not your own. I’m back home in Jersey. Trying to figure out what my time here is meant to teach me. its showing me a lot of things. Good thing and bad things both about myself and what has become of my family over the past four years. ( when I was in school I didn’t go home very often during school ). This very short time has already shown me the way God has worked within me as I have
     Sitting here and hearing and seeing the suburban antics makes me realize more and more I am an Urban dweller and my heart is in the city; but for this season of my life I, for some reason, I am in a shore suburbanite... I know I’ll learn and be stretched during this season... I just hope that before the next season, I am onto my personal next season.


For now... my only seasonal chore is to... job hunt and get a friggin job! haha

Family Dinner

I remember being a kid and just loving when my whole family got together to sit down and eat a dinner together, no matter what it was, i loved it. It could be hot dogs with mac n’ cheese or the occasional steak and veggies. It was so good sitting around with my siblings crying, mom trying to deal with babies, the younger siblings spilling drinks, running away from the table, dad tormenting all of us and mom yelling at him for doing such. Sitting around hearing Dad tell stories for how he did dumb things and got in trouble or, in the more fun situations, didn’t. Sometimes he would give us ideas on how to get in trouble and mom would give a good, “Jim! Don’t tell them that!” I would just smile and be silent.
Soon those dinners went quickly away to more of a rushed dinner so we could get back to homework, or off to this, that or the other. Dad was working more, I was old enough to not always be home for dinner, it was rare to have those family dinners; but, when we did have them... all those things came back and I loved it. Still do!
Today I was sitting in church as I do every Sunday, listening to the sermon, then we get to the point of communion. A simple yet such powerful act that has always held a special place in the service for me. The thoughts of having to leave liberti for a while was really rough, and this was kind of my last “family meal” for a while. That bothers me. Sure, I’ll eat bread again, more than likely drink wine again, probably even take communion... but its not with my family, It won’t be with my spiritual family; the ones I pray with, the ones I hang with and the ones that have frustrated me in the past, its all there, the family dynamics. One of the many thing that this family has that my biological family doesn’t... when my liberti family and I have bread and wine together... its so much more than just bread and wine.