The theme for this month of NaBloPoMo is "green." Green is one of my favorite colors -- the color I started jokingly calling my power color several years ago until I actually realized it was true.
I'm going to try to post every day. We'll see how it goes.
My pictures do my best talking sometimes, especially lately. And I don't mean because I'm a technical or a composition genius. What I mean is that they tell the story of my life and the people and events in it much more concisely and in some cases more thoroughly than words can.
I'm so psyched to be at the beach with my family for Thanksgiving. When I got in very early this morning I was road-wired and couldn't really sleep yet, so I started going through my photo stream from last Thanksgiving until today, and made a set of any picture that resonated gratitude, in the broadest sense of the word.
It took longer than you'd think. It turns out it was a really, really good thing to do.
The mosaic only holds 36 photos. There are way more than that in the set.
A quick scan will show that I am lucky to have a good number of awesome people in my life whom I love very much.
I have opportunities, and a voice, and an itch for travel that takes me to places I would really miss if I never went anywhere. I have a fairly functional sense of humor and a love of shiny places and things. I know myself better now, I think, and while I still have a long way to go, I think I am kinder. I think I am more honest. My life is full of food and music and general every day shenanigans.
I am wearing flip-flops in November in one of my favorite places on Earth.
Jonathan Swift is credited with saying, "May you live every day of your life." I may not always get it one hundred percent right, but there is something to the daily practice, I have to say.
It occurred to me as I sat on the couch tonight and processed my current state of mind that NaBloPoMo makes me a little bit nuts, above and beyond any existing and constant state of nuttiness, of course. And I may be grasping at straws here, but whatever. I thought it was time for a little tour of the archives of Novembers past.
If you are new to this ridiculous magical mystery tour of my life, this will point out that there was life before you, which can be fun and enlightening, or it can just be boring as hell, your call.
Here, I made myself laugh with this bit from November 21, 2006, wherein I rationalized my ongoing and conflicted relationship with yet another 80s cheese rock band.
And now all of a sudden "wacked out and posting" reminded me of the line from REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Lovin' You", a song I've heard repeatedly in random places lately because God hates me, although maybe I should be glad it isn't holiday tunes, because those have taken over most places already. Anyway, you know, the REO song with the line that sounds like it goes, "Instead you left stealin' the rent/ALL HIED UP AND LISTEN'" but it doesn't. It really says "Instead you lay still in the grass/All coiled up and hissin'", which is just weird. And it's important to add that though he knows all about those men, inexplicably he don't remember. Cause it was her, baby, way before then, and they're still together. This in spite of the fact that he's a fucked up stalker with memory loss who compares her to a snake, which I know is how I like my men. Especially the ones who insist that they're gonna keep on lovin' me, and are apparently going to go on cocaine binges to avoid sleeping to do so, even after I've told them to get the fudge out cause I'm watching Montel. Those are my favorites.
Sorry. Decompressing. I will admit that "Take it on the Run" is one of my favorite songs of all time (and okay, I like "Time For Me to Fly" too, but not as much), which doesn't allow me to bring the hate on REO Speedwagon without that full disclosure, but one of the best and most humorous stories that Casey Kasem ever spat into the mic (could they not get that man some water? A lozenge? Some freaking hot TEA?) involved the DECADE that it took Kevin Cronin to write "Can't Fight This Feelin'". A decade to come up with "You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night," and to rhyme "longer" and "stronger", and "show" and..."show." Scary.
And because this is how my brain functions, this post only makes me wonder how I have never written about Damn Yankees?
Don't worry about it, ma'am. Just them Damnnnnnnnnnnn Yankees.
I know. I can't help it. Seriously, scary visceral memories associated with this song, especially considering I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details of what happened yesterday. Jack Blades (haha, Jack Blades) in mom jeans FTW. IT'S NEVER OVER. (I really really love this song. I'm dealing with this right now.)
It's been three years since I wrote this on November 10, and it's kind of alarming that I could still spit it out almost verbatim:
I over-gave, and it still kind of embarrasses me and makes me want to reach back through the pensieve of the past decade and yank me even further back, so I could turn different corners and tell people to fuck off when actually I said, "Yes, baby. Anything for you." But in spite of this shift inside of me, the one thing that makes a difference is my refusal to succumb to inertia, because even if I'm sitting on my very own single settee for the rest of my days, I want it to be in a cool spot. And I want to say that in the process of getting to be the rotten, hilarious-to-myself, intellectually overstimulated and completely batty yet endearing old woman I know I'll be some day, that I did not stop exercising my capacity to do cool shit, or to push myself to create or to make something better out of where I've ended up. I've been lagging for the past couple years, but it's safe to say that it'll get better from here. And thank God. I'm so on my own nerves.
I'd totally forgotten about this picture that went with the post. That's me on the day trip to San Francisco after my first BlogHer. Melanie Morgan took it. (Where have you gone, Melanie? Where have you gone?) I still dyed my own hair then, all four or more of the colors, poor little girl who never pays attention to the back of her head. It was pretty bad. I also fell in love with the city in those eight crazy hours. Besides going back for BlogHer last year I haven't been again, and I really want to go when I can just be there without the imperative to spend three days immersed in talking to so many great people I don't get to see all year long.
Sunshine and me, November 30, 2007.
I loved and I miss this silly little dog so much...Look at her with the big bug eyes and the kisses...That was the summer before we left and we did step aerobics and kickboxing every day, which tired her out and actually gave me some arm definition.
And I've never found a better hairdresser either. Damn.
I still haven't, and this picture was taken in 1999. (That's dust on the print, by the way. Didn't bother to edit it. LA-ZY.)
Hanging out with Andrew at an open mic on November 20, 2007:
Me: She's really not bad. But why must every girl who looks like that look like that in the same way?
Andrew: Yeah. The leg warmers. The argyle tights. The harshly cut bangs.
Me: I mean, it's like they go to the same school for it.
Andrew: The bangs.
Me: Those bangs look good on no one. And oh my God, she has him banging that tiny little drum. That's really unnecessary.
Andrew: I was just thinking that that drum was unnecessary. I love hanging out with you. We think the same things. We're the same. Except you like Dar Williams and I like German thrash metal bands.*************************************
Me: I just had the insane thought that I miss working for Restaurant Digest.
Andrew: Me too.
Me: Yeah, I miss those messed up times when Bruce was alive.
Andrew: Yes. There was a time when Bruce was alive.
Me: And how sometimes he'd give me money when he was alive. And I'd actually get it. That was nice. Maybe I just need money.
Andrew: It was better when he wasn't crying when he gave me money.
Talking to some students the day before, November 19.
Exhibit B:
"We have our list."
"Okay, who would you talk to?"
"Joe Francis."
"Who is that?"
"The founder of Girls Gone Wild."
"Oh. Really? Why?"
"Because he made a lot of money. I'd ask him how he did it."
(From across the room) "Isn't he in jail?"
(Me) "He's incarcerated? And you want to know how he accomplished that?"
"Yeah, but he's got a lot of money, and it's only for eight months."
"You can't interview him. I'm not signing off on what I'd have to sign for that to happen. Also, you'd have to do it through a glass window."
And finally, from November 26, 2006, Movin' On Up.
Note to self: First of all, good morning, sunshine. Second of all, when you get the bright idea to make the Jefferson's theme song your primary ringtone, please remember to turn it to Edelweiss or just fucking OFF before you go to bed, so when the phone rings at 4:00 a.m., you do not go shooting across the room in a crazed, suddenly-awoken frenzy. Thanks.
I have eight days left of this. Whatever shall I write about? No, seriously. WHATEVER SHALL I WRITE ABOUT?
I'm hoping the sun is out next week.
But if it's not, at least there will be an ocean-view balcony and beer. (Counting the minutes at this point.)
But then I didn't feel very well when I woke up.
And then I spent too much time catching up with people when I told myself I should be working instead of working.
And then I felt better and I knew I was going to go out tonight to a place with great food, and then another event with copious shellfish, award-winning shellfish, even, and significant amounts of wine. White wine, because it's shellfish, but wine, all the same. So I thought I should walk, or do some kind of physical activity because I appear to have almost attained my late summer falling-off-the-wagon weight and that pleases me.
So I did that, and now I have two minutes before my last possible time I was going to allow myself to start getting ready, and I have nothing. Nothing except more pictures.
Laura Mayes came to town to add some color to D.C.'s gray, verysuperserious landscape with, well, herself, and the Kirtsy Takes a Bow book.
It's beautiful. You should get one.
The love part was totally my idea, by the way.
Joanne signed mine, and then did unspeakable things to it.
There were hydrangeas, which I love, and chocolate-covered pretzels, which I love more.
Amie and Sarah were there too, because they are Kirtsy editors and book contributors and also it appears that whither they goest lately, there goest I, or some similar horrifying and archaic grammatical construction.
It was fun. And that part I'm SO not phoning in.
I hardly knowr.
Except I do.
I became a Flickr pro member on November 20, 2005. (Haha, I wrote a "1" as the first number in that year. Like I can remember anything happened more than nine years ago? Also I just had to erase eight to type nine, so obviously I don't know what the hell year it is at all, much less century.) I have 782 pages of pictures. 782. My current photo total is 14,057. That's crazy. Look! Look at the crazy picture lady!
Anyway, this was my first picture I posted on Twitter. It is utterly unremarkable in every way, except 2005 was a horrible terrible year when I tried to leave town as much as possible (LIKE THAT HELPS, HAHA, the universe laughs!) So I guess it signified something. Whatever.
I also wrote that this was the first picture I posted on Twitter. Do you see that? I'm not changing it. This is not going well.
I still take pictures of clouds every time I'm in a plane if I'm in a window seat, can't lie. Also, if you're next to me and drooling, game on, Mr. Stranger Man.
My most recent posted photo is a blurry iPhone shot of Chuck D. that I used in the post below so I won't belabor the point, and the one before that is of a kid wearing flip-flops with socks on the Metro, also off the iPhone. Hugely unremarkable, and I should most that stuff to Tumblr but I'm getting photo/blog application attention deficit disorder and I have to get it under control. I have some engagement photo session shots to post and some stuff from the Kirtsy party last night but I'm running out of time to eat and sleep so posting is slow going lately. This weekend is going to be full of fun stuff too so maybe Sunday I can just sit and dump it all.
I do wish there was more traffic on Flickr again. I miss it. I don't know what's going on, if it's the groups I belong to or my failure to tell people I have a Flickr stream (not so, I link it more than my blog, actually.) I think a lot of applications are in flux. Or maybe it's me. I don't know. I like having the application on my iPhone, so I'm thinking that'll encourage me to use it more, or differently, or...yeah, I really don't know.
I'll stick with it, though. I still kind of love it.
Here's my set of favorites.
Here are a lot of my favorite people and portraits.
And here is my self-portrait madness.
This Web site really is one of my favorite things online or anywhere, and now that I'm marking my time in Flickr time, I really cannot believe it's been four years.
I take music really seriously. I always have. It punctuates my life more than most other things. I have never ever been solely tied to one type or another, although my social identity in certain periods of my life has been. I shared new wave/Brit pop as an adolescent, hair metal as a teenager and young adult and then songwritery type stuff from then on with friends and people who went to shows with me. It was just the way it turned out, but I could easily have left a Metallica concert and cried over a John Denver song on the way home.
I mean, I don't remember a specific time when that specific order of business occurred, I'm just posing a hypothetical to illustrate that It's hard work, this being me thing.
I went to an all girls high school that was racially and culturally integrated in every way for as small as it was. I developed an appreciation for hip-hop there that I've never lost, and because it's D.C. I learned about go-go too.
My friend from high school called me yesterday and said she had a ticket to Public Enemy and because I'd never seen them live I went.
Awesome.
Long may you run, Chuck.
Also we've come a long way from convent duty and the It's Academic team, respectively, I'd say. Better now than we were then, by a long shot.
I don't have a lot today besides pictures on the brain but November marches on and here we are.
Earlier this month I was in Lancaster, Pa., where I drove around and creepy-stalked Amish people although I'm mostly afraid to take their pictures because I don't think it's nice.
I was obsessed with their clotheslines. Whatever, I'm obsessed with subcultures.
I ate real pumpkin pie ice cream (holy holy hoLY, so good.)
(If you look closely you can see I ate some already. I couldn't help it.)
I also, with the help of Yelp - ha, the help of Yelp, that was an accident - found some really good sushi and a very, very good Mexican restaurant downtown. I will spare you a treatise on migrant patterns and why people are moving to places they previously would likely not have lived and are opening restaurants. I'll just say you need not eat only Bob Evans and, um, other indigenous Pennsylvania foods, crap, my mind is completely blanking on Amish food right now, I suck. Anyway, I'll leave it at that.
I did a little bit of shooting too.
I'm a sucker for record stores, and carne asada tacos.
Also sushi.
The guy who created the Evolution of Dance was a speaker at the conference I was at (don't ask) and I did not come away a huge fan, have to say. I will not lapse into slander here. I will only share the following, in a moment of silence.
You're excused.
I'm planning a post elsewhere about this site, My Parents Were Awesome, a Tumblr joint consisting solely of photos submitted of parents, presumably by their children. There is a call for stories on the site as well so I'm not sure what the plans are to expand it in text, and I haven't watched the videos that would probably tell me more, given my current weird allergy to online video.
I spent part of the night scanning some old photos, with the aim of submitting something of my own parents. I can't find the ones I really want to use of them alone but I've been loving this one of them with me on my Christening day.
I love old snapshots with a deep and abiding love. I love their haphazardness, their scratches, their odd, dated borders and their bottomless pit of history. My mother's mother is probably responsible for my intense love of photography, particularly of people and relationships. She had stacks of photo albums in and on her coffee tables, and I looked at them almost every time I went to her house, which was often. When my father's mother died I took the big picture books and her wedding album because besides the ring she gave me, a few Boston Terrier figurines, the pictures were all I cared about. I had everything else I needed in my head.
My project for the forseeable future is turning our family photos digital, and I think I started today.
I like this picture specifically because it's really the first version of our family - the ten years before my sister was born - writ large. My parents were so young, 21 and 23, but they're in this shot who they have always been to me. Plus I'm always very interested in what babies might be thinking, and I'm sure that even though I was nine months old here, I wasn't talking yet so who knew?
Yet. Oh just you wait, you poor people.
Given the post I wrote just the other day, I thought this was an interesting image to bring up just now, of the day they brought me into the church. You can be as angry as I am about what I know now that I didn't know then, which is everything, but things don't start out political.
Hence the Flickr caption:
"Someday, Mother and Father, I will write a rageful blog post about this organization while enjoying a glass of nice Spanish red. Apologies in advance."
I kind of like the idea that I look like I'm pre-drafting it in my head, like I just wasn't so sure about all of this. Oh yeah, just hanging out here in a dress, waiting on my next meal. What's up?
And those pants, Daddy. Those pants.
We're not usually in church anymore.
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