I had an Experience today folks
I walk into a coworker’s office to get some flyers printed for an upcoming event. As they are being printed at an agonizingly slow pace, she turns to me and asks “Hey Taylor? Are you friends with any artists?” I respond yes, I know some people, what exactly are you looking for? She begins to tell me a story about how she met a student a few years ago who gave her some drawing samples and said she could illustrate a book. This student has 3 jobs and a full coursework load- definitely not enough time to do commissions.
“But her artwork is so beautiful!” my coworker laments as she takes out a sketchbook the student gave to her years ago. Now, I do not know what I expected to see. What I do know is that I did not expect to see manga-style furry artwork. Like, the exact style you would have seen on Deviantart back in 2009, complete with pencil smudges? Lovingly scanned using a library printer? And a caption that would read “XD Smexi~~~”? Something vaguely like this:
You get the point. Anyways, I smile and ask what her book is about- attempting to hide the fact that I am frantically trying to figure out at exactly what moment I had left the administrative office of the history department of my high-level research university and crossed over into the Twilight Zone. A Twilight Zone where grandmothers in university administrative positions hand you the ghost of deviantart regrets past. She looks me dead in the eyes and says “Fornification. I am going to teach the young people about fornification.” At this point I’m rapidly losing my grip on reality. But that was okay because she launched into a 45 minute lecture about why she wants to write the book. Her lecture she gives spins a rather confusing web- linking the history of anti-black racism in Europe with Chinese politics in less than a 3 minute span. I am still holding a pencil drawing of a catgirl in my hands. My flyers are still printing. I am almost dissociating by the time she tells me she is going to make Christianity the framework of her book. That’s it, I think, I’ve lost it. I grip my keychain, a gift from my boss, in my hand as if it is my last possession from a former life. I am vaguely congnizant of the fact that she asserted that there is not a single person on the planet who does not believe in a god- and those who are not Christians are just afraid of accepting the existence of Jesus. I don’t argue, I am too tired. I am a broken woman already. I am still gripping a catgirl and my keychain. She says she wants to teach the young people about all of this so we can all unlock a better future together (with Jesus). She says she know she will be effective because she can see the gears turning and switches flipping in my head. She’s wrong, I’m actually fairly busy astral projecting into the beach scene painting behind her desk. But she wants the illustrations because she wants the book to be fun for the young people to read. I tell her she should contact some people in the art department.
