Donna's Senior Show

This is my homegirl, Donna Jo. Last week was her senior art show, and this is her photo shoot. She's a brilliant ceramicist, or whatever you call it. If you can't grasp the brilliance of her work from the pictures, it's because I'm not much of a photographist, not because she's a bad ceramicist.
Panorama of the entire display...left to...
...right. I, of course, loved the horses, but I think my favorite are the angel hands (like the one that's pointing at Donna in picture 1 and telling her "Listen up. I'm a flying angel hand, and don't you forget it, punk!")
Eric, Eric's mustache, and the rabbit. It's a lovely trio. 

Hippies 'R (or 'Rnt) Us

I've spent a good part of the past month coming to terms with various accusations as to the nature of one aspect of my character - my hippieness. Having recently graduated from college with a liberal arts degree and having returned to the Heifer Ranch to work on an organic farm, my hippieness is a matter of internal and external speculation. Am I a hippie? My hair is of the longish persuasion, I admit, but I shower and shave at least once every couple of days. I often cook vegetarian dinners, but commonly order meat at restaurants. I wear blue jeans almost invariably and am uncomfortable in a tie, but I recently had some things dry-cleaned. I play ultimate frisbee on a team that wears skirts, but we also win fairly big-time tournaments. I like oatmeal porters and pale ales with dinner, but I'm not afraid to shotgun a PBR when the time comes. Herein lies my confusion.

A sampling of definitions of 'hippy' (alternately spelled 'hippie') from the urban dictionary: "Someone who has a bright outlook on life and cares about the world instead of trying to ruin it." "A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society, especially one who advocates extreme liberalism in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles." "Someone who is really laid back, can wear crazy psychodelic colors, uses words like 'dude', 'trippin' and 'woa' in their everyday vocabulary...Goes crazy for cookies." "Someone who wants to change the world for the better but is to lazy or to stoned to do it." From these eloquent definitions and from my own personal experience, I gather that 'hippy' is a term loosely tossed around by those unfamiliar with the complexities associated with hippiedom. Their propensity to scoff at a white dude with nappy dreads or to write off a PIRG rep as a wayward soul, is evidence of a simple lack of understanding. In their eye, all hippies are one in the same - all to be viewed as misguided, ineffectual, and, worst of all, dirty. To correct this misrepresentation, I need not list the many things hippies have done to positively change life for non-hippies, things like organic food aisles in Kroger, medical marijuana, and biodiesel. These are common knowledge, if commonly ignored as such. No, what needs to happen here is a complete breakdown of the conceptual Universal Hippie into its many different manifestations thereof. At best, we can hope for peace, love, and happiness between and among hippies and non-hippies. At worst, we'll all just have a more detailed means of stereotyping.

So without further ado, I present to you the Five Degrees of Hippy:

Stupid Hippy - Generally slower than average in most daily activities, most notably speech, often due in part to recreational drug use and/or a naturally easygoing approach to life. Commonly found listening to or talking about Bob Marley or the String Cheese Incident, and a regular at large jam-band music festivals. Unassuming and rarely bothersome, these types often have the ability but lack the desire to be productive members of society beyond the occasional signature on a petition to legalize marijuana. Items associated: hackysack, Bob Marley poster, conga drum.
Dirty Hippy - Similar to but sketchier than the 'stupid hippy'. Rarely showers or changes clothes, often not out of laziness but rather gross inattention to personal care. This trait also usually results in experimentation with/addiction to harder drugs than those of the 'stupid hippie.' Shifty eyes, rapid speech, and lack of sense of humor are common.

Urban Hippy - Also known as the 'Yippy'. Demographically diverse, including recent college graduates working in food service and divorced thirty-somethings. Often found at bars in old, historic districts of cities discussion the shallowness of the people in the bars in areas of new development. Items associated: retro t-shirts (sometimes thrift store purchase, sometimes throwbacks from Urban Outfitters), VWs with anti-war bumperstickers, and the occasional newborn baby.

Old Hippy - Need I define this one? Long, gray hair, loose clothing, propensity to close eyes, swirl arms, and break hips when dancing at rock concerts played by people of similar age. Items associated: AARP card.

F*%#in' Hippy - Most extreme version of the modern 'hippy.' Often reside in communal (filthy) living quarters, wear communal (dirty) clothes, eat communal (vegan) food, do communal (hallucinogenic) drugs, protest (get naked and picket) the abuse of animals, speak in communal (moronic) dialect, and generally live in communal (alien/out-of-touch/a-few-screws-loose-in-the-operating-structure) reality. Not to rag on them too hard - I see the underlying validity in most of their thinking...they're usually pretty harmless, and they mean well. Just a bit lacking in the follow through, know what I mean? Items associated: few, if any...probably gave most of their items to the local Salvation Army before retreating to a nude colony in desert.

This list is far from exhaustive, and I welcome your comments to help further refine it. Where do I fall on this chart? Will I remain on this chart, or will I return to the suburban ranks of my WASPy forefathers and learn to appreciate the beauty of the box store, the magnificence of free market capitalism? Well, I've got some idea, but your predictions are more fun.

Useful Unit of Measurement on the Farm

1 "Shit-Ton" = a whole lot. Not necessarily always equalling a standard ton, unless of course you're talking about 40 50-lb. bags of chicken litter. Used in reference to physical quantities rather than qualities. For example: Correct: 'How much did it rain last night?'...'A shit-ton.' or "How many leaks are there in the irrigation system?"..."A shit-ton." Incorrect: 'When I hit you in the face with the tractor, how bad did it hurt?'...'A shit-ton.'

farm activities

Waterin'.
Plantin'.
Row coverin'.
Ponderin'. 

The way to my heart...

...is certainly, without even the slightest bit of doubt, through my stomach. The most recent person to discover this is one of my roommates, Sunny. A 51 year-old displaced New Mexican and former gormet chef, Sunny can also add to her Bio that she is my new best friend. We've worked out a pretty good system: she cooks, I wash the dishes. In the three weeks that the two of us have been living at Hilltop House, she has cooked (and I have eaten) the following:
- Fish tacos, with shark, mahi-mahi, and telapia...accompanied by hand-made flour and corn tortillas, black beans, shredded cheese, and 5 different sauces and salsas of varying degrees of hotness.
- Ostrich (which tastes more like beef than bird), with sauteed cabbage and refried beans with sun-dried tomatoes
- Marinated salmon and flounder
- 6 different loaves of homemade bread, from baguettes to sourdoughs
- homemade cinnamon rolls
- an unnamed strawberry desert with cream, champagne, and a cinnamon cracker/cookie
- homemade flan
She's soon to teach me how to make sushi and pad thai, among other things. We'll see how that goes...I bet I'll end up just doing the dishes.

The Insertable Hat - A Key Item of Sue's imfamous merchandise.  

Battle for the Bible Belt

I feel that a post about my ultimate frisbee team, the Boys Named Sue, is simply necessary due to it's part in defining most of my status at UCA as "the Ultimate guy" and for taking up such an inordinate amount of time and energy of the last 3 years of my life. I can't even begin to go into the history of it all, so instead I'll just write about the tournament we played at this weekend in Oxford, MS: the Battle for the Bible Belt. I think the weekend was a pretty good microcasm of my ultimate experience so far, so it's all good. And since we were in the home of William Faulkner, I see it only appropriate to give my recap in the best stream of consciousness I got (which will probably turn into more of a list of sorts as I go on, but hey, I'm no Faulkner).

Pre-roadtrip beer at James' apartment. 1-40 Eastbound flat and like the back of my hand. Nic, music, catching up and talking 'bout everything important (women, music, ultimate, in no particular order). Nice to have good friends, the ones that last, the ones taht have seen you at your best and your worst and like it that way. Waffle House - nothing better to feel at home and full. Nic passed out, me driving to with my music, getting tired from a long week, almost there, not quite, road too straight, not curvy or requiring focus, is that a dinosaur? What? Wake up. Follwing directions to the apartment where 14 of us would crash on the floor. Open the door - drunk. No more sleep - must swig Wild Turkey. 5 Turk and Cokes later, pass out on the floor clothes on, no cover, Lex's pillow (he's mad, but it was meant to be this way I'm sure) don't we have to play tomorrow? Wake up, routine: jersey, skirt, socks, shoes, hat, contacts, brush teeth, energy bar, water. Fields, waking up, bagel and banana. Bring it in Sue. "One, two , seven...MY NAME IS SUE HOW DO YOU DO NOW YOU GONNA DIE!" Four games, win them all. No problem, we're good (but sloppy, it's offseason, and the other teams
really not good at all.) Haven't run this much in a long time, knees are twinging but more ibuprofen helps (or maybe it's the sideline beer.) All in a day's work - couple of beers before we go to the gas station to buy more. Showers (14 of them), Chinese buffet (another ritual - must have the carbs), then a nap with the Final Four on TV. The game's on TV at the bar where the party is - enough to get us up. We're the only ones at the party really - we're staying at the Tournament Director's house. So, what to do? Drink up and play dominoes until the alcohol kicks in, or until the girls show up...never did, rarely do, doesn't really matter anyway when there's ahhhh...karaoke and more beer (a whole keg for the 20 of us long gone by the time we get to "Paradise City"). Bathroom to pee, and back to more music...whose the old woman dancing with Phil? She looks just like him. Outside - drinking discs...4 1/2 beers into an upside down frisbee, drink it without more than a 10 second stall and you're an ultimate player. Puking is okay, even encouraged for entertainment unless you can drink fast. Oh, that guy definitely just puked into his hand. Nice. good performance. Pat on the back, yells of "Yeah!" from the crowd. Back inside, more singing, spinning, is Evan in his falsetto for "Total Eclipse of the Heart"? Classic. Out of beer? Jack and cokes. Not covered? No, no, don't worry. Just bring them to us. We know the guy paying ofr everything. We're staying at his house. Peter! Oh, c'mon Peter just one for us! Yeah, Peter, attaboy. 3 Jacks later has all of us pleading for everyone else not to call us Waylon Jennings, YOU DON'T EVEN CALL ME BY MY NAME! Oh yes karaoke. Thank you for saving this party. A round of Boy Named Sue just for good measure, then back to the apartment. Phone calls, passing out on the steps, who's taking pictures? Shit. Another night of clothes on, no cover.
That's called drinking away a tournament victory. Merle called it Sunday Morning Coming Down. Never been this sore, never this tired. Routine - dirty jersey, dirty skirt, socks, shoes, contacts, brush teeth, no energy bar - might puke. To the fields, bagel and banana sound good. Run around, stretch if there's time, bu tno time for drills today. Let's just play. Thank god this team sucks. But we're screwed if we play like this the next game.
And we do. Down 7-2 at half - lacking enthusiasm, but know we are better than this team. We beat them 13-6 yesterday, and they know they're not as good as us. Let's play like it. 2nd half rally...now we're feeling it, laying out, nice passes, still though we're not quite connecting, and our defense sucks. Getting beat deep every time. Late rally, 11-10 game to 12, oh we're so close, just tie it up, throw it catch it yeah that's it nice work patience chilly chilly no no not that pass - "turn". don't get beat deep...huck, score, game over. 12-10. We lost? That was our Bible Belt. Ours. Oh well. Next year maybe we won't drink so much. A few more beers and we heckle Memphis in the finals just for the hell of it. Rain, pouring rain, let's go. El Sombrero = burnt quesadillas and a bad aftertaste for the ride home. Pack up, clean up, see you soon. Nap in the car, this drive wasn't as long on the way there. back at home. Laundry tomorrow, sleep tonight. Life ain't easy for a boy named 'Sue.'