*Really, I'm a better writer than photographer...besides, I didn't want this picture to be like everyone else's!

The shirt is something sold by Mrs. Kennedy at Fussy.org. I suppose if I spent more time lurking around her site, I might know the reason why she sells this T-shirt and what it means to her. But the last thing I need to do is get addicted to reading yet one more blog each day when I barely have time to keep up with the few must-reads I can't bear to part with and maintain my own text and photo blogs. I just know what the shirt means to me.

I first heard of/saw the shirt on Heather Armstrong's website, dooce.com. Now Heather I can understand in this shirt. She managed to unintentionally turn a little-read online journal into the mother of all personal blogs simply by being fired for what she wrote about work in her blog. The story of her firing became so well known (thanks to some serious word of mouth amongst bloggers which got picked up by the media) that now her online outbursts are so widely read that her husband recently retired from his day job to pursue his heart's desire and at this point in time the plan is to live off the income generated by Heather's website. If that is not the definition of 'best revenge' in her scenario, I don't know what is.

I may be one of the smartest cookies around town, but I don't process things quickly. I do much better in a written correspondence than I do in a conversation. Seeing words on a page gives me much better retention than verbal communication, which is why so many of you will see me write things down throughout the day. My mind travels so many concurrent paths that when you throw me something new, if you don't see me write it down, please forgive me for not remembering it later. You can help! Look at me and say, "Juli, write it down." Communicating via correspondence gives me the chance to compose my thoughts into a coherent flow. It also gives me the opportunity to polish a phrase, zero in on just the right word(s) to convey my thoughts and occasionally make an acquaintance have to look something up in the dictionary.

I also write to save my sanity. By keeping my sanity I have the best revenge—ah, do you detect a smidgen of a persecution complex here—and for me keeping my sanity means getting the thoughts out of my head. Whether I'm scribbling with a pen in a notebook, composing an email, blabbing about the haps here in Konza Prairie or pouring out my heart in a missive that will never see the light of day, much less be seen by someone else's eyes, purging the words from my brain keeps me sane. It all comes out on "paper" folks, the good, the bad and the ugly. Some folks love the sound of their own voices, I love the sound of my keyboard.

So there you have it folks, that's why I got the shirt.

* Really, the picture above is how I took it. I may be smart, but apparently not smart enough to figure out mirrors and lenses and what happens when you combine the two in photography.

Ok, I'll flip it with the photo editor so you can read it.