But first, I'll take this opportunity to tell you about the silhouettes project.

The first three silhouettes were easy: the turkey was first. I remembered in grade school how I'd make Happy Thanksgiving cards using construction paper, my two hands and crayons. But the piece I turn in for this assignment is by no means a thanksgiving card. I thought it would be cute if I used a pun to talk about how I'd just quit smoking (again), and I figured since it was so "second gradish" I'd thrown a little dyslexia and put my name and age at the bottom for cheap laughs. Did it get them? You tell me.

The second silhouette was also fairly easy, I drew my tattoo. I have it on my left arm, just far up enough to where I can wear short sleeve shirts in public without frightening the upstanding citizens of the community, yet easily accessable when I roll up my sleeve. The tattoo is the Chinese calligraphy symbol for the word "Soul" which I wrote underneath the pinyin pronunciation of the Chinese counterpart. That one was tedious because I drew the outline and words first in pencil, and then traced over it with black water color. I also thought it'd be funny to throw a joke in on this one, so I figured I'd go for the Prince reference. Now did THAT get the cheap laughs?

I tried painting my fingers with my watercolors because for my fourth silhouette I wanted to do my fingerprints on a mock arrest card, and the narrative I was going to use would have been the time I got arrested for felony drug possession and how I was supposed to get sentenced that Friday (so needless to say, if you hadn't seen me in class on the following Monday, I would have been in a cozy cell with some God-forsaken pederast, thief, rapist or murderer to keep me company, however my trial was reset to September 24th). Unfortunately, the water color couldn't hold my thumb-print, so I got the fear. Not the fear of heights or clowns, or anything silly like that...oh no, this was the fear of an impending and unavoidable doom. I could smell the frustration like a beast can smell its own territorial pissings. And then I saw my old candle, and marveled at how the wax's color matched my tan hue. I poured it on some paper. And then I put the most unique body marking I have into not one, not two, but three dimensions. The left thumbprint immediately clued me to the conspiracy theory that perhaps the FBI or the Masons invented fingerprints because they are an easy way to isolate identity and because I've never heard them mentioned in any text before the 1800's...Hey! Don't call me paranoid, I was just kidding! Any cheap laughs? I couldn't put the wax thumbprint on this site because it didn't scan well, but i'm keeping it to remind me of the fond memories of this class, so if you doubt me, I've still got it (somewhere)...

This is just the outline of my foot as I do the crane technique I've seen in old kung fu flicks I've seen since I was a kid. I love foreign action movies, it's just a shame they don't make more of them in Hollywood. Now if THAT didn't get cheap laughs, maybe we should do a quick check for your pulse...

Now take your punishment for taking a gamble and go back to The Very Begininng.