Homosexuality-free post

by snaggle at 11:16 PM on June 14, 2001

Multiple wonderful events have transpired in a very short period of time lately. No, I didn't get laid — though I am taking applicants. (Side note: that had nothing to do with me talking about how gay I am, did it? It just talked about needing some. Damnit! I just mentioned it! This was supposed to be a homosexuality-free post. Christ. Will I ever get it right??) No, the wonderful events of the past forty-eight hours have indeed been academically-related.

In my bio I stated that I'm studying Graphic Design and Philosophy. I must hereby inform you that that is a lie. I'm so sorry. All I can say is I never meant to hurt you... any of you. Up until yesterday, I was studying Philosophy and Pre-Graphic Design. The GR program at my school is selective admission, based upon GPA and a portfolio review. I've been taking the required preprogram classes slowly and sporadically over the past couple years, more for fun than with any intent on applying them towards a degree. However, in the past year, I've had a change of heart and realization — graphic design is what I want to do (at least in some way, shape, or form. Exactly what way, shape, or form remains to be determined.) So I muddled my way though the required studio classes, creating some fantastically... unique pieces along the way, contumaciously forging my own path reading between the lines of the assignment guidelines and finding every loophole in verbiage possible.

This culminated in one day at the beginning of May when I along with the other hundred potential graphic designers all put our life's work up on the walls of the College of Design for one of the most stressful days of a designer's life: the portfolio review for admission. We all sat around that day, knowing that they eyes of the entire graphic design faculty were roving over the work over which we'd lost weeks of sleep, spent hundreds of dollars, and shed blood, sweat, tears, and gallons of rubber cement. When it was all over, all we could do was sit and wait.

And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

After five weeks of neurotically checking my snailmail thrice daily, it came yesterday: a nondescript business-sized envelope, imprinted with the university nameplate and the telltale heading of my department. I knew what was in this envelope. "Dear snaggle, you may have already won a million dollars!" Wait. Scratch that. Wrong nondescript envelope. I hadn't been expecting the letter to come that day any more than any other day, so I stopped, fingers frozen, as I flipped through the stack of mail to find the Pantone 186 red of "Iowa State University, Department of Art and Design" staring me in the face. I handed the letter — reassuringly thick... it contains more than one piece of paper — to my best friend Jeffy. He stood there holding it in his hands for a moment, knowing full well what it was, but unsure what to do with it until I addressed an impatient "Well???" to him. He opened it and scanned for a moment, maintaining pokerface, finally proclaiming "I am pleased to inform you that on the basis of cumulative gradepoint average and portfolio review the graphic design faculty has recommended admission to the graphic design curriculum."

We both let out shrieks like the homos we are and jumped up and down in a massive hug. I can't imagine a larger hug if it had been that letter from Publisher's Clearinghouse. (Damn. There's a second mention of gay. Maybe I need a little shock collar and every time I type any word for gayboy it should give me a few volts. "You can save Tinkerbell... Clap your hands if you believe in fai— OWWW!!" Maybe not.)

Today I called Dell to get a more direct pricing for the laptop machine I'd been cruising only to find that a particular promotion for that machine ended that day. Yikes! It's as if it was meant to be. I called the parents and explained the situation and within a few hours I had a confirmation message for my Dell Inspiron 8000, with an Intel 1 GHz processor, 256 mb RAM, a combination DVD/CD-RW drive, and a whole host of other souped up innards.

So now, at long last, I have direction in my life. Or at least a bit more than I had two days ago. I'm studying a field into which maybe possibly I may enter someday. I carefully skirted the classic polemic between my parents and me ("And what are you going to do with that degree?") And I have a new toy.