Mat Twassel: Blog

I posted "The Price of Gas" and "Free Parking" this morning. While there's no real connection between them, I enjoy what congruence there is. "Free Parking" is a poem by Ashley, which I illustrated, but really it's the other way around, which is to say I did the picture a month or two ago (and I've forgotten what spurred it), and Ashley did the poem inspired by the picture. Sometimes it works the other other way around, which is to say someone sends me a poem (or a story) and I do an illustration for it. I enjoy these sorts of collaborations.

Mink Versus Marigolds

Yesterday I posted two stories with elderly main characters (Mink at the Blue Coyote Café and Marigolds). The codes are pretty much the same except Mink is illustrated. After one day, Mink is whomping Marigolds in the download count by almost two to one. (2725 to 1462). Should I take it that SOL readers prefer animals to flowers?

My story today (Canceled) features neither animals nor flowers, and the characters are not elderly. Possibly I should have put mystery in the story codes.

Recently I read Chris Bohjalian's new novel Hour of the Witch. It's set in Boston around 1660 and concerns a young woman who is battered by her well-to-do husband but is unable to get a divorce. The mentality of that society disturbed me. I'm glad I didn't live back then. But I have to wonder if people living 400 years from now (assuming there are people) will think the same thing about people living in 2021.

Yesterday I was thinking about colors. Perhaps like most people, I recognize appealing color combinations and unappealing color combinations. But except by trial and error I'm not able to "create" appealing color combinations. I have to see it to get it; I can't visualize it out of thin air. There are perhaps a few exceptions, and some of these relate to sex. I can picture (and with pleasure) the colors or a woman's nipple and areola, the delicate hues of her vulva, the shades of her anus. Shows where my mind's at, I guess.

This morning my illustrated story "Condom Capers" appears here on SOL. The story owes to some suggestions by ChewToyHuey. Thanks ChewToy!

In my two little stories today, rain interrupts picnics. The picnickers make the best of the situation.

I hope your Sunday is full of sunshine, but whether it is or not, have a great day!

I noticed yesterday that 100 people are following this blog. Years ago (for about two months) I did a blog of sorts on AOL (that's America On Line). It was more of a journal. I wrote something almost every day. I don't see myself doing that here. My thoughts and experiences aren't as interesting now as then. For instance, now I'm wondering about the real first names of my 100 followers. It would be fun (maybe) to have a list. In the old days I wrote about beer and boobs. For instance:

Journal: Boobs by Mat Twassel
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I have breasts on my mind at the moment. The train station has escalators down to the trains, and at the top just off to one side is the last-minute newspaper stand and next to the last-minute newspaper stand is the beer tub, which is always manned by a young lady. Today's young lady is attractive, as they usually are, and just as I walk by she bends down to plunge a can of beer further into the huge galvanized ice tub. She is wearing a scoop neck jersey sweater, and her bending presents her breasts most beautifully. Truly I feel almost faint. These are boobs. Modest breasts move me most as a rule, though I like all shapes and sizes. The beer woman's breasts are not actually hugely huge at all, but they have a lovely rounded-oblong animal-balloon sort of shape as they hang down, firm and full and beyond-belief creamy, swaying slightly in the snug but loose hold of her sweater shirt. I want them. Oh, how I want them. (They're on my Christmas list!)

As a teen I didn't like the word boobs; too vulgar it seemed. I also didn't care for tits or bosoms. But this woman's boobs have converted me. No, I didn't buy a beer. Even if I were one to buy train-ride-home beers, that woman's beauty is too scary, too much. But I wish I could let her know somehow how beautiful I think her breasts are. Maybe she knows; maybe she can tell from my stride. My brief glance to her eyes, devilishly bright brown full-breasted eyes, and quickly down... away. Sigh.

And what would I do with such breasts? Haven't really got that far yet.

--mat twassel 11/98