My rationale for this series is that if I want to become a prolific writer but mostly don’t ever feel like writing, I can take advantage of the fact that pictures are worth a thousand words.
Last week, after implying in “The Waiting Game” my intention to henceforth break format and stop scrounging for blog material, I tasked myself with documenting a couple mildly amusing/ironic everyday occurrences. It was meant to just be a starting point so that I could figure out where to go from there, but, in the space of one week, my effort rapidly devolved into a montage of the universe just throwing things at me.
Gallery of Moments That Triggered Me to Reevaluate My Life
All titles courtesy of the first Google result for “pretentious art title generator.”
Title: “Conversation with Repulsive Hope”
Context: My feet were cold, which drove me to transcend socks and sandals and reach the next level of socks and flip flops.
Artist’s Statement: College aesthetic.
Title: “Restricted Ode to Cosmic Feeling”
Context: Part 3 of the Roommate Saga, in which Nicole, my roommate, put glass bottles of mineral water in the freezer and the water obviously expanded and I didn’t check the fridge until the third explosion. The first two rang as loud as gunshots exactly one foot away from me. You’d think I would’ve at least checked out of some buried sense of self-preservation, but I told myself “maybe the shelf fell down” and “it’s the sound of my mind combusting from this reading” so I wouldn’t have to get up from my chair. Which is more than a little alarming.
(Also, later, Nicole tried to let it all thaw out and the water began dripping onto my power cord on the floor. She shut the fridge, and now I guess the abstract expressionism is here to stay until the semester ends in four months.)
Artist’s Statement: This is the only remotely artistic piece in this series. Coincidentally, it’s the one I had the least to do with.
Title: “Virgin Desecrating an Umbrella”
Context: Reading this for Literature and Biology.
Artist’s Statement: You know you’re doing something wrong when your book is having a better time than you are…
Title: “Boiled Disgust” (random, I swear)
Context: I woke up early enough, for the first time this year, to eat breakfast in the nearby dining hall and got so excited I grabbed twice as much food as I could eat and stuffed it all into my backpack and promptly forgot for five hours.
Artist’s Statement: It brings me joy to know that someone out there developed an 8MP pixel count for the iPhone 5 so that I could take a quality picture of a squished hard-boiled egg.
Title: “Illumination & Logic”
Context: Thursday, one of my business professors, during his lecture, declared—perhaps for shock value—that if we wanted to conduct business morally, ethically, and fairly, we should go to the School of Social Work.
As we burst into uneasy laughter, I glanced across my desk to the back of my nametag, on which was inscribed our school’s official slogan, “Ethics is Our Business.”
Artistic Statement: This piece belongs in the dictionary, next to “irony.”
Find me on Facebook! I try to post on Sundays, and some of the time, I succeed.
nicolesundays 
Wait! You and your roommate have the same name? How do you ever know when you’re talking about your roommate versus talking about yourself in third person?
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A problem Nicole has yet to solve, whichever one I’m referring to!
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Love this one. Now…if you could only get the type size a smidge larger. :>)
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Oh, thanks for letting me know! I’ll keep that in mind–are you reading on a computer or phone?
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I read on a laptop computer. Hard to tell for sure but appears to be about 9.5 or 10 pt with light gray color.
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I tried fixing it in my latest post but it didn’t work–while I figure out something better, I suppose the good old CTRL + will have to do!
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…especially the “pretentious art title generator.” I shall be using it.
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Good! Generated parody art titles are the solution to so many problems, such as world hunger.
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I read Frankenstein and honestly it went places I wasn’t expecting it to go. Not anywhere particularly exciting – don’t get too enthused – just ended up somewhere odd, from what I remember. Also that boiled egg is still good. Just pick off the larger parts of the shell and you’re good to go; the tiny bits of shell will probably be good for you.
I mean, probably not NOW because who knows how long ago you took that photo. If you still have the egg (maybe in the freezer as a later addition to the Restricted Ode to Cosmic Feeling?) I suggest you throw it away. That’s just me sharing my expertise as a fellow adult. Old eggs are never good eggs. Unless they’re in eggnog that has been completely sterilised by copious amounts of alcohol; then they can still taste pretty good.
Okay I’m out.
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Oh, I hope you didn’t get the impression that I DIDN’T eat that egg, because I definitely did. I am that type of person. Wait. I’m reading the rest of your comment now and maybe eating the egg was the wrong decision. Maybe that’s why I’m like this. At least there’s nothing I can do now!
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Is there another Nicole in reality? I loved your comments on the photos! awesome
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I’m sure they’re plentiful, but I know about six total and it seems like too many already. Thanks so much!
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I nominated you for the Lovely Blog Award, Nicole. I really enjoy your posts and humour. Here are the instructions https://evablaskovic.com/2017/01/29/one-lovely-blog-award/.
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Thanks so much for the kind words and nomination! Unfortunately, I never get around to doing these, so I preemptively apologize if I forget!
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No worries 🙂
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Love those pictures! They are all artworks of great ironic value. The true spark of artistry, dear one, lies in the eye of the picture taker…. I don’t know if that’s a famous quote from somebody I am not crediting, but if it isn’t, then I totally expect royalties from this point forward.
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Thank you! I should really do another one of these, since it’s been a while and I’ve stored so many ironic pictures. Maybe it’s your spin on “beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
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