Category: My Blog

The first thing I see is not the dog. It is the shadow. A black wolf-shaped silhouette, taller than the brick wall behind it, looms over a small tan chihuahua in red boxing gloves. The chihuahua stands in a boxer’s stance, paws up, facing forward. The wolf does not face forward. It rises behind the… Continue reading The Wolf Behind the Chihuahua: Reading the Shadow on the I Got That Dog In Me Shirt

The first thing the eye finds is not the cat. It is the bell. A small white bell sits at the left edge of a rounded notification banner, the kind of icon that arrives on a phone at 2:47 in the morning with no regard for sleep. The banner is white, the bell is white,… Continue reading The Notification That Stares Back: Reading the Motion at Your Front Door Shirt

The first thing we see is not the word. It is the period. A small white dot, sitting at the baseline of a dark shirt, closing a four-letter word that has already given up. The word is meh. — lowercase, bold, white, set large enough to read across a room. The period is what makes… Continue reading The Period After the Shrug: Reading the Large Lowercase meh. Shirt

The first thing I see is the gap. On the dark ground of the shirt, two light letters stand apart — a C on the left, a T on the right — and between them sits a cat silhouette. Below the animal, the word Daddy runs in the same light lettering. The eye wants to… Continue reading The Cat Between the Letters: Reading the Cat Daddy Shirt as a Costume of Split Attention

The arrow is the first thing I see. It sits below the text, a clean right-pointing wedge, and it does not point at the wearer. It points past the wearer, toward whoever is standing to their right. Above it, in distressed capital letters, the shirt reads TWEEDLE DUM. Below that, smaller but still legible, I’M… Continue reading The Arrow That Points Away: Reading the Tweedle Dum Shirt as a Costume of Dependence

The first thing we see is the nose. Not the round eyes, though they are perfectly round, two dark circles set wide in the orange field. Not the smiling mouth, though the smile is there, a curved line that stops short of menace. The nose is a heart. A small, symmetrical, unmistakable heart, cut into… Continue reading The Heart-Shaped Nose: Reading the Jack-O-Lantern Face Shirt

The hat sits above the sentence like a lid. A cream, engraved-style pointed witch hat, its curved brim and square buckle drawn in fine line, and beneath it, in serif capitals, the words YES I CAN DRIVE A STICK. To the right, a long broom runs the height of the composition. A crescent moon, small… Continue reading The Broom That Drives: Reading the Yes I Can Drive a Stick Shirt