My Groovy Purse Pins

I was writing an article for my school's literary magazine (which is really just a collection of odd surveys, thoughts, lists, and articles written by myself and some friends of mine) when I realized that it would do just as well as a blog post. I know I've been silent for several weeks, but I've been rather busy. I currently have four other posts in progress, and I hope to publish them over winter break.

My Groovy Purse Pins
by: gwendolyn maple

Most people in our high school have seen my fabulous purse at least once. You may even have taken the time to look at the pins covering it. But you may find yourself wondering… what do they all mean? The time has come to answer that question.*

• pirate flag: Do any of you remember the boat project from seventh grade? I worked with Christina McGuire, Courtney Dennis, and Sara Crowell to make The Black Pearl. The Jolly Roger on my purse once flew proudly from the main mast of our little boat.
  
• “dots” label: I love Dots . I don’t actually like eating them all that much (they get stuck to one’s teeth), but I like some of the flavors and I like looking at them. They have nice colors and shapes.
  
• orange duct tape with writing: It says “Hey Band! Watch out for my flag!” and was given to me by Megan Menke during band camp 2006.
  
• blue-scale: There really is nothing more to this strip from a paint sample other than the fact that it looked lovely.
  
• Halloween doughnut: My youngest sister gave me a sticker with a Krispy Kreme doughnut dressed up as a cowboy saying “Howdy goblins!” The letters and parts of the doughnut glow in the dark.
  
• Purdue ticket stub: My family generally tries to go to a Purdue football game every year. Both my parents went there (along with countless other relatives), and I plan to go there as well. I feel the need to emphasize that I’m not planning to attend Purdue just because my relatives have. The school fits me very well.
  
• dutchman scrap: Dutchmanning is a set-building trick in which tape or glue-soaked canvas is laid over seams between flats to conceal the cracks between them. In Cinderella, the 2005 musical, we used canvas to dutchman, and I filched a piece that I had painted to look like wood.
  
• sparkly smiling clover pin: Hopefully that was self-explanatory. I am proud of my Irish heritage. Along with my German, British, Scottish, French, and Native American heritage. I’m a mutt, and this pin shows a part of my mixed ancestry.
  
• cutie tangerine sticker: There are these delicious little tangerines (or maybe they’re actually clementines) called “cuties.” They have little stickers on them that say things like “cutie” or “I’m a cutie” or “kiss a cutie.” The one on my purse says “I’m a cutie.”
  
• shapes sticker: I found my old purse from seventh and eighth grade, and – lo and behold – there were stickers all over the underside of the closing flap. I found where it all began. One of the stickers said “I learned my shapes.”
  
• Grool/Gruel: We never decided how to spell her name, but Grool/Gruel is a drawing created by myself and several others (I know I’ll miss some people if I try to remember everyone) in tenth grade English class. We were bored, so Megan Menke started to draw a girl, and she passed it to someone else to add something. They passed it to the next person and so on. She wound up being quite interesting, but I don’t have room to describe her here.
  
• security sticker: I save the stickers that come on the inside of watches and some other pieces of merchandise. I assume they’re supposed to set off an alarm if you steal them. I think they look nifty. The one that is currently on my purse is bright blue and transparent.
  
• tree-hugger pin: It says “hug a tree” and depicts a panda climbing some bamboo. It came to me from Target via a friend of mine. Hurrah for Target!
  
• no hunger: At the Community Service Leadership Conference this year, the Freestore Food Bank was handing out pins that had the word hunger encircled and crossed out in red.
  
• Dove chocolate wrapper: Whenever I’m having a crappy day, I find at my elbow a piece of Dove chocolate (courtesy of Courtney) with a pleasant word inside. My favorite wrapper yet is the one on my purse that reads “Go to your special place.”
  
• green rectangle: There is no significance to this green paint sample other than the fact that it’s a swell color.
  
• orange star: This puffy little star that I often refer to as a starfish is yet another decoration on my purse that has not deeper significance than its aesthetic appeal.
  
• leaf mask half: Once upon a time last year, Katie Schmidt (Le Phoque Volant de Neige) made me a leaf mask. She drew two leaves connected by a mutual petiole and made them rather colorful. However, the mask was not very useful as a mask, for it lacked eyeholes. I took the only logical alternative course of action: I taped the mask to my upper lip and wore it as an outrageously gorgeous moustache for the rest of the day.
  
• water cycle: Layla Owens used to bring these water bottles with nifty labels displaying an illustration of the water cycle. I cut out the illustration from one of the bottles, and it has lived on three different purses since then.
  
• Crush label: My Crush outfit has reached the level of notoriety. Not only do the shirt, earrings, bracelet, and shoes coordinate, but my purse also has a bit of Orange Crush spirit.
  
• Ireland triangle: And here we have some more Irish spirit. This groovy triangular sticker came from a Highlights magazine and has on it a Celtic knot and the word “Ireland.”
  
• tidbit from box of chucks: “This box deserves another chance to hold a pair of Converse shoes. Please recycle.” (and yes, I did recycle the rest of the box)
  
• “go green” button: It says “go green” and has a green viny background. It also hails from Targét.
  
• happy frog: This smiling amphibian actually belong to a Hello Kitty mobile one of my sisters got years ago, but she doesn’t know that.
  
• ninja penguin: Originally an ordinary penguin, this sticker deserved a little more pizzazz. I added shuriken, a headband, and some Japanese sandals. You may recall that I also have a pirate flag on my purse. I am in fact a pinja (a pirate-ninja hybrid). I can’t pick a side, so I choose both.
  
• tato: The technical name for the windmill-esque origami thing on my purse is “tato.” I have no idea what that means, but it the thing looks cool and it was fun to make.
  
• “support the separation of church and hate” button: It says what I just wrote (minus the word "button"), and my youngest three sisters got it for me in Chicago. I will proudly admit that I am a Christian, but I’m ashamed by the fact that the church sometimes attacks people before trying to love them.
  
• MS button: I got this button from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for participating in the MS Walk this spring.
  
• fortune cookie paper: It reads “You find beauty in ordinary things. Do no lose this ability.” Anybody who has known me for any length of time should be able to testify to the truth of this statement.
  
• photo booth picture: While on a mall-wandering adventure, Anna Worpenberg, Courtney Dennis, Emily Christenson, Sara Crowell, and myself all crammed into a photo booth. I love this picture.
  
• Germany sticker: As I mentioned before, I’m part German. I’m more German than anything else except Irish. This sticker also came from a Highlights magazine. It depicts a black eagle.
  
• evil smiley: This button provokes more inquiry than any other button on my purse. It was also the first button on my first hand-made purse. I found a plain red smiley face button in my basement three or four years ago and decided it needed a little personality… hence the fangs, crooked front teeth, and sharply angled eyebrows. People often believe that it is angry, but this is clearly not the case. Its broad smile should make that apparent. It is merely mildly deranged.
  
• R.I.P., my beloved art button: I would like to take a moment to recognize a dearly beloved pin that only lasted for a few months before disappearing. Life on the outside of my purse is hard indeed. This button came from my sisters along with the “separation of church and hate” pin and boldly called out “Doing strange things in the name of art.” I have been known to collect pine sap, wire a scarf to the wall while wearing it, create an abstraction of advice for reading poetry, search for lovely leaves, and write out literally hundreds of words by hand in meticulously straight lines in different sized fonts for the sake of art. And this only touches the tip of the iceberg. Rest in peace wherever you may be.

*The decorations on my purse are likely to change without notice. Do not consider this list to be by any means a comprehensive list of the various pins, buttons, and patches that have adorned or will adorn my purse throughout the years.