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As a young girl in Ceauşescu's Romania, I was required to participate in quarterly skill assessment examinations in my village school. Sadly, I was too naive to understand that I should never draw attention to myself by excelling in these exams, and when I tested among the highest in the country for artistic ability, Ceauşescu had my parents and 12 brothers and sisters interred in a gulag for crimes against the state (buying black market bread), and myself declared a ward of the state. I was orphan #13781, and my life consisted of nothing more than rigorous, relentless art lessons from dawn to dusk (we weren't allowed electric light in the prison orphanage), until my fingers bled from sketching, painting, inking and crosshatching.

I shivered day after day in the dimness of the cold grey light, struggling to force my frozen fingers obey in order to secure some small measure of teacher approval so they wouldn't beat me and send me to bed without gruel. I watched my fellow orphans drop like flies from tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the effects of strange experiments that the whisper network reported as being conducted on the worst-performing students, especially the caricaturists. I missed my family, I was constantly cold and hungry, my friends were all dying, and I was still having trouble with realistic-looking hands and fingers. Life was bleak.

One day, though, I received the news that I had been chosen to execute Daddy Ceauşescu's official state portrait. I was in shock, and even my formerly abusive tutors seemed in awe. It was terrifying; a successful execution of the assignment, one that pleased our great leader, could mean more and hotter gruel. Failure would mean death.

I fought my panic, and with the faces of my family forever in mind (if I survived, perhaps I could somehow save them?), I worked and worked, eschewing food or sleep while I labored feverishly to produce the perfect image to please Our Leader.

Although we were not allowed to pray, I made every brush stroke a prayer... and perhaps God looks out for poor but spectacularly gifted forcibly orphaned Romanian art students, because my work, against all odds, was chosen as the official state portrait:

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and although I worked harder than I thought possible to create the most amazing portrait ever, I couldn't resist tempting fate by making him a tiny bit "jowly", to stealthily express my secret dissent.

... and so I lived on, to eventually secure the release of my family, and thereafter to be rescued myself by a romantic Grecian on holiday in Budapest.

But those are stories for another day.

GODDAMNIT! THAT COFFEE IS SCALDING MY LAP! Fuck fuck fuck!

lol!!!!

Btw, that WAS in the spirit of y the game as Loony Tunes is stamped on the bottom of my cup with pictures of Tweety & Sylvester on the side.

ah! I like it. Transgressive, but I like it.

Oh, man. I have a great mug but no time. Maybe later.

It says "Harley Davidson. Officially Liscensed Product." I bought it in Las Vegas on my wedding trip.

Everyday Gibson

"You do one amazing thing in your life, people remember you for a minute.

You do two amazing things, people remember to talk about those two amazing things.

If you're a guy like me, people never forget.

My name is William Henry "Everyday" Gibson - and I've been holding the line for all of my adult life."

Anyway, that's what the head says. Some of the heads fail. I don't get it, either. The Perpetuity fluid dries out, or air gets in, I dunno. The weird part is..this guy didn't use to talk like that. He was a government employee. A clerk. Something.

But lately...

None of my mugs are in the least interesting on the bottom. Plus, I'm not feeling creative. Oh, wait, maybe I do have one. We'll see if I can get it uploaded and something written before breakfast is done.

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Someone else wanna run with it? I have to go till some soil and get the onions in. :-)

My most recent neighbor is a friendly sort... too friendly. Despite being met with silence, he has half-a-dozen times accosted me with the cheery salvo, "hi, Tim Horton here - I'm you're new neighbor!"

I never kill close to home, but this one is tempting... so tempting

(I don't have a digital camera. My mug says "Emerald" and has a silhouette of a rose underneath.)

My life has been a series of heart-breaking failures. The latest catastrophe was the hybridization of the "Emerald Rose". A breathtaking shade of Kelly green, but unmarketable, due to the prohibitive cost of feeding the rose with the dust of finely ground emeralds. I was able to keep my roses going until Bernie Madoff stole the funds that were paying for these bejeweled meals. An especially devastating loss with the "wearin' o' the green" right around the corner.

Starbucks - Barista (second on left). I ain't nothin' but a cog in the machine.