LaurieWrites

Contrast

Quotes o' the day

After I told him that, on the first true "shorts weather" day of the year, there were lots of people rocking some garments that really didn't suit their pasty selves (including a young lady who was walking by me in some Daisy Dukes, although she more appropriately resembled Uncle Jesse)

"I think it's high time we brought back the concept of shame." - The Smrz

On Group Projects:

Me: "You know, Lisa, I like people, but in limited doses. Increasingly more limited doses."

Lisa: "Yeah, you mean, like half a person at a time? That's generally my preference."

DigDug

J: "You better talk to the professor and tell him you think that's fucked up."

Me: "Me? Why me? You're the one standing there complaining about it."

J: (Using his extra large shovel to dig an even bigger hole) "Well, because, you're a girl, and you're a LITTLE bit older, and I'm like this young kid, and he'll just be like, whatever."

Me: "Nice. Very nice."

Boys

Man in photo class, after making random inane suggestive comment about women: "Oh, you weren't supposed to hear that."
Me: "Oh no, it's fine. I already heard another one from the other guys earlier. I'm used to it."
MIPC: "Oh, was it more shocking?"
Me: "Actually, no. His too was disappointingly trite. I was hoping for something a little more creative, but both of y'all let me down." 

Forgotten Boston

This is a nice site. I've been working with some of my photos from the trip I took to Boston earlier this month, and I really dug the aesthetic and the vibe of the city. There was way more to see than I was able to take in in four days, but the Internet has gifted us with photos that do the trick fairly well. I like that this site focuses on some of the faded ads that I really enjoy on old brick buildings. I took a few shots of those when I was there, mostly in black and white. This is the only digital one I have that isn't grafitti. It's not faded enough for my taste, but this is the style that's on my mind. So there. 

Balance

So today I told one of my students, when he said "I'm terrible at art," that "I can't imagine you'd be terrible at anything." He said, "Wow. Thanks," and then other people started talking, and he said, more quietly, almost to himself, "Thanks. That's really a compliment."

It should be noted that I'm just as likely to say the wrong thing that upsets or worries someone as the wrong thing that makes them happy. Still, I realized again how it's so important to say these good things, even when they just fly out of our mouths unbidden, unfiltered. I felt good about it. Happy, even - kind of in flow. It's important to remember that when we're in a position to help someone, or lead them, or teach them, (which is really a position we're all in every day at some point, whether we know it or not) that they're probably paying attention, even if they don't seem to be. Words matter - and so do gestures. I hope the guy in the RIDICULOUS, TAILGATING SUV who I flipped off on the way home is aware of this. It's a very delicate balance of good and evil, this life.

Burn, that which lies to Oprah

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are my boyfriends.

My biggest stressor currently on my home computer is not, sadly, that I can't burn any photos to cd. It's that I can't watch Cartman and Kyle's final slap fight battle without the buffering wrecking the whole experience.

I really didn't like the last season, and thought I could move on with my life, but "Family Guy is going off the air. No more Family Guy for me, mon frere" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen and heard in my life, and watching the slapfight is so funny that I can't even laugh, if that makes any sense.

The Quest

I am currently in love with - among many other things - Windows Moviemaker. It is my very newest toy, and I can't believe how much fun I'm going to have with it. Where has it been all my Windows life?  iMovie is going to be off the chain. Would anyone care to donate to my laptop fund???? ; )

Herewith, meet my dog and his best friend, besides me.

Download FirstPunkinMovie_0002versiontwo.wmv

I think I'm going to learn how to do cool digital photo montages (hello Team America...) The business plan is taking shape. : )

Compromise

I've drafted a post I don't feel like I can post. It's just that evil of a rant. I just don't think I can do it. Maybe I just need a couple more days.

The basic point is that people are unthinking jerks sometimes.

I just had a really bad day yesterday. It pissed me off even more because it was the first bad day I'd had in a while, and I'm so glad it's over. I really, really love functional relationships. I have some kickass friends who I can share lots of things with - soft places to fall, I guess. Is there stuff missing? Absolutely. There's always going to be stuff missing - big stuff and small stuff - and there's not much you can do about that. One of the biggest issues for me is my need for understanding - for having somebody occasionally get it. It doesn't happen very often, and lately it hasn't happened much at all. I exist in communities, but I'm not really a part of anything in particular, and much of that is by design. Some people I relied on have disappeared, or turned into people I don't really recognize, so I've had to learn to accept that and find new stuff. Most of the time it works, but sometimes it doesn't. And yesterday, I was judged negatively from the minute I woke up on. It would have been comical if it hadn't been so sad, and it just felt terrible. I tried to ignore it, and I couldn't. Even my grandmother made an eviscerating comment about me, for God's sake. It made me feel really tired and lost, and not a part of anything, on a day when for some reason I really needed some compassion, although I don't know how to ask for it. I sat still for a minute, which I haven't really been doing lately, and realized that for all the things I'm trying so hard to do, no one around me really gets it. I'm not sure (and this is not mean to be a whine, just an observation) they care. And I guess that's okay, but why is it that I'm supposed to withhold my opinions about things that I think are fucked up, when I have to listen to stupid, unsolicited, judgmental comments about...well, about myself? I felt so depressed and hopeless for approximately five minutes yesterday that the top of my head almost blew off. I didn't want to do anything I had to do, or talk to anyone I had to talk to, and yet I knew that expressing that would put me in even more of a negative spot, because it would upset whatever the illusion of holiday togetherness was, and of course that would be my fault. So I didn't, but I felt really resentful, and sad, and like, damn, do you all think I'm bulletproof?

I don't have any answers today, except for a strengthened belief that you really do have to provide your own center, because no one else is going to do it for you. I just really, really wish that people would be a little more understanding - that they would try to have more compassion, and show a little more love (and not just for me - just for people in general.) And sometimes I wish that, if they're not going to do these things, that they would just go away.

Bow Plates Reach a New Level

And speaking of Danielle, as I do in the post below...know that at her shower last week, her maid of honor took the ceremonial bridal bow plate (which I have written about in other venues, in the context of never wishing to be the chick who has to make one at a shower again) to a new level - the bow plate hat. Also know that this amazingly talented chef is a very, very good sport.

If you need a personal chef in the DC area, she's your woman. (Full disclosure: the article this links to was written by a certain Laurie who occasionally writes...Check out the rest of the "Great Taste" website while you're there!)

Maybe our group should do MASH

We did a photo shoot of a staged Civil War hospital scene the other night. It was intense - a lot of work, physical labor and lighting and whatnot, but fun too. At first I wasn't interested at all - the Civil War just didn't seem like anything I'd be into shooting, but that's what their group chose, and we all have to pitch in. One of the guys in our class is a "living historian", the new term for reenactors, so he has a friend with this mad amount of equipment - a full tent, all of this hospital gear, an apothecary, a writing desk full of authentic period "stuff..."...even a bucket full of fake amputated limbs. : ) Nice. We brought in bales of hay and spread them on the floor in the tent - went out and chopped those branches off. This was for serious. Steve's friend who came in to be the doctor for us is a podiatrist in real life, but this is his main hobby. So many details! He has glasses that are in frames made by the same manufacturer who made Abraham Lincoln's glasses, with his own prescription. Wild stuff. I can't imagine being that into recreating a scene from history, but I guess that's why people act, too...to step into another skin. I came home from the shoot at around 1 a.m. and was all wired from the general Civil Warness of it all, and my friend Danielle was online. "What in the hell are you doing up?" she says. "I just got done shooting a Civil War amputation scene so I'm a little charged up," I wrote back. And she just "lols" all over the place in the message box, and finally manages to say, "You...have the most INTERESTING life!" I think this was a euphemism for "How in the hell do you get yourself into these situations?" which is something that I ponder on the reg myself.

Anyway...we all got a chance to shoot. I have some "serious stuff" being printed right now. As usual, I'm not very pleased with the color roll, and for some reason when it came time for me to direct the guys as to how I wanted them to stand and whatnot, I got all nervous and weird about it, and I think my shots show that. I'm much more of an "in the moment" photographer - I'm not so good at the staging part. It doesn't come naturally to me. I hope my black and white roll turns out better. I'll find out tomorrow.

Here are a few digi shots from the night. We lit the tent from the outside, so the branches showed through and when you were shooting on the inside they looked like the shadows of trees on the inside. Very cool. Jorge was a doll to be our "almost corpse" for the evening, and some of these shots turned out pretty funny. One of the problems with how well our class gets along is that in some of the scenes in which Steve is supposed to be "praying" over this soldier's dying body, at least one of the guys is smiling. It's kind of funny, but it does nothing for the shot! In these, they were allowed to have some fun. (Please note that they're taken with flash, except for one, maybe, so the light is much harsher than the actual ones we're doing for class...These were just my personal shots.)

  Mad knives and scalpels and whatnot. Please note that the anesthesia was very limited at that time. Shudder.........

Steve freaks out because Jorge's dying. Loooooooong shutter speed, so it's no good in a technical sense, but I call it my "Civil War dream sequence" shot. ; )

Fake limbs. Nice. I don't think they were used in anyone's real shots.

  And this one pretty much sums up the whole experience. : )

Broken Freaking Flowers

Goddamned Broken Flowers. I'm so sick of "cool" indie films that end in these ridiculous, ambiguous, unanswered-question ways! YES, I love Bill Murray. Yes, I find him completely unattractive, and would yet likely smooch him. YES, the movie was well-written and acted, and filmed in a place that looked like a perpetual Seattle. Yes, it included the requisite "returned aging actress" (Frances Conroy AND Jessica Lange - a double threat, as Frances also wins the "fringe, cult-status award), and the occasionally mumbled dialogue, and muted humor that maketh a hit sleeper film.

But Jesus H. Christmas, PLEASE no more non-ending endings, that make even a semi-savvy Landmark Theatre denizen go blinking into the night, going, "Well, that was...interesting." PLEASE. This one made me want an OUTCOME, not a bunch of pink and Bill buying his would-be son a sandwich, and another guy gazing steely at him from the window of a vintage ragtop Bug. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I wanted more from this movie. This movie had a STORY. And yeah, so we want Don to stand there and FEEL IT at the end. Cool. Let's let him ponder his choices, and how he's standing there in the street, so veryveryallalone..............But dammit, ANSWER THE QUESTION too. Do it. It's the right thing.