The header art for this blog is by Sarah at Third Half Studios, who also designs fabrics with bizarrely cool prints, and understanding the fullness of its awesome requires a little backstory.
Back when I used to play “World of Warcraft,” my main was a druid. One of my favorite druid abilities was hurling a swarm of angry insects at my enemies. Insect Swarm was an ability not every druid had, and without getting too much into the geeky weeds on things like talent trees and DPS, I’d do whatever it took to be able to have it. Even if it made me less effective in a raid, I’d go for Insect Swarm over other, more important, abilities, because Insect Swarm > my DPS.
One reason for this is an Eddie Izzard bit about beekeepers and how they are at a disadvantage by being unable to chat people up in the office.
The line that just cracks me up is, “I like my women like I like my coffee … covered in bees.”
If you’re imagining me running around Azeroth saying “Covered in beeeees!” while casting Insect Swarm, you’re not far off. This is one of the many reasons my guild preferred people to use push-to-talk on Ventrillo.
Much later, after I quit playing “World of Warcraft,” I was playing “Bioshock” and was delighted to find a plasmid that let me hurl a swarm of angry insects at my enemies. I’m similarly devoted to the Insect Swarm plasmid, buying it the first time I can even if other stuff would be more useful.
It was after spending some quality time with the Insect Swarm plasmid that I decided I needed a T-shirt that said, “I like my splicers like I like my coffee … covered in bees.”
I asked Sarah to design me such a thing, and she did, and as soon as I saw her first go at it, I thought it was pretty much perfect, and the only thing I asked her to change had to do with my typing, not her design.
Much more later, I was on JoCo Cruise Crazy watching a Q&A with all the cruise’s entertainers. David Rees was moderating and asking everyone who came up to the mic what was on their shirt. I was wearing the “Bioshock”/Eddie Izzard shirt Sarah designed for me, and I wanted to show it off, because 1. I think it’s great and 2. I think Sarah’s great and 3. Sarah is a huge fan of John Hodgman, who was sitting on the stage answering questions.
I thought of a question and got in line for the mic and asked my question and then this happened.
And then I was Famous Tracy for the rest of the cruise.
When I got home, I decided I could not rest on my famous laurels. This wasn’t just me, really; the cruse was truly incredible in its ability to strike some kind of creative spark in the people who were there. But being applauded every time I walked into a room certainly was an incentive not to live life shabbily. When I got home, I started revising my novel in earnest, and I started this blog. I made the original header art for it myself by taking a picture with my little point-and-shoot camera (bought for the cruise) and running it through a couple of iPhoto filters.
It served its purpose by letting me launch the blog with some header art, but once I’d managed to put up a new poem every Monday for several weeks, I decided it was time to get something better. So I asked Sarah, giving her the imprecise direction of, “I’d like a header image for my blog, and I’d like it in these sizes so I can also make Moocards out of it.”
The first thing she sent me I liked, but I wasn’t sure whether I liked it for this blog. So I showed it to Maria and Taylor, who were on the cruise with me and who have read the blog since the beginning. Taylor used the perfect word for me to grasp why I couldn’t see Sarah’s picture on my blog: It was stark.
Poetry isn’t.
So I sent Sarah a vague and pensive note saying I liked it but not for the blog. She asked me to send her a description of what wanted the blog to feel like, and I returned to her a tome of pretentious crap about what poetry is and what I want Geektastic Pentameter to be.
What she sent me next was about 2/3 of the way to the art that’s on the blog now, and I was delighted. I said some things and Sarah made some adjustments, and I wound up with a picture I really love.
So this has whole story is like a convoluted “There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed the Fly.” I had the shirt because of Sarah, and I became famous because of the shirt, and I started this blog because I became famous, etc.
Sarah has my biggest, warmest thanks, because not only did she make me the spectacular header image for this blog (and go through three iterations for the Moocards, due to things like bleed and file format) but she also did so while I was being pretentious, vague and inarticulate, all at once. Thanks, Sarah. You are awesome.
I think you are over-stating my involvement a bit in your new fame, but I am glad to be of service regardless.
This post was beyond generous and I appreciate it more than you know.
I am considering saving now to humiliate my own self among the geek royalty for the next joco in 2012