hey, remember me?

cos at the moment, i don't. i know i haven't blogged in ages, and i've been flickring instead, but a good friend of mine just started a new blog, which got me thinking. i miss writing about everyday shit. moods. things i see on my way to work. overheard conversations. and it doesn't always need to be with a pic.

so fuck it.

let's give this a try again. not for any anticipated or assumed reader, but for me. sort of like a diary, a journal -- which another friend of mine is trying. i remember when i was a little girl, i used to try and keep a diary, cos it was the little-girl thing to do. i'd get these fabulous little books with plush pink covers, all faux-leather-like, with tiny little brass locks. and i'd be more fascinated with the fucking key, than with the thing itself. i'd start a few hopeful entries, but invariable, the book would get lost in the entropy of my childhood.

and that is precisely how i feel right now. lost. floating. unmoored. i drift from good days to bad, not quite sure how each day will unfold, in which direction it will go. i fear i've become boring, like my sense of humor got caught on a tree branch about a mile back, and i don't know how to find my way back. the notion of impending unemployment is freaky to me. i don't do well with change. but then, who does? well, some people see it as opportunity, an open-door thing. but fuck, man, tell that to my heart, my gut, which is terrified of the unknown. the notion that the people i love will tire of me, as i seem to be tiring of myself. is this what depression looks like? fuck if i know. it is what it is, and i am so tired of it.

i don't want to be that girl, lost in a cloud of smoke and stale food. how does one stop the cycle of entropy and get off?

what's that in REAL money?

i work in an office with thin walls. a very dapper gentleman with a healthy crop of snow-white hair and a courteous demeanor has just moved into the office next door. (he doesn't work for the same company i do.) several times a day he stops by asking to borrow scissors, a pen, directions to the water cooler. very sweet.

he's american. he spends his day on the phone. speaking in spanish. with an american accent. AND I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD HE'S SAYING, ALL DAY LONG. the spanish rolls off his tongue, but his accent is so incredibly american, i cringe every time i hear it. which, like i say, is ALL DAY LONG.

it reminds me of two stories:

1) when i moved to germany and took a german class, there was a woman from texas, named henrietta, in the same class. she tried so hard to lose her texan accent, but every time she tried to say "das ist ein kugelschreiber" it came out "days eeest ayn kyuuugillshrayber." (i guess you have to know some german to see the humor in this.) her name? "eeeeech hyyyse hayn-ree-ayta." trust me. it was hee-lay-ree-yus. but you know what? henrietta's husband, a soldier based in munich, had forbidden her to learn german, so she was taking this class on the sly. props to henrietta.

2) when my parents visited paris (back in 1971, i think, not long before they divorced), they heard a fellow american tourist ask the concierge, "what's that in REAL money??"

so i listen to this incredibly kind coot next door slashng his way through spanish. and though i cringe, i can't help but be impressed. learning german was one of hte hardest things i've ever done, and doing it all day long is exhausting. i don't speak spanish but from his intonation i can hear this guy asking about people's kids and making jokes. props to the suit next door.

i'm just looking for a new england

yesterday was an odd day. my boss (with whom i share an offce) is away all week, so i sat alone in a small, windowless room for 8 hours. i worked, i listened to the radio, i took a picture on my way to get lunch. but the best part of the day? the best part of the day was after i left. my car was in the shop for routine maintenance, and i had a loaner from the dealership. instead of going my usual way home up the palisades, i took the thruway up to 84 (since the dealer is in wappingers falls). i know, you don't know where these places are. but still. so ANYway. i'm driving up the thruway, passing these beautifully empty yellow fields, dotted with very dated billboards, and my favorite radio station starts to fill with static. so i set it on scan.

and then i hear a few seconds of an acoustic guitar, and something about a union.

the car swerves as i find the scan button, to keep this. and sure enough, there he is -- billy bragg, singing about unions. billy bragg, the political brit i first discovered back in 1987, when he played at my college. he was just starting out, very few people knew who he was, and he blew me away. (so did his unknown opening act, a wisp of a woman clad all in black, flaunting her army boots and hairy armpits like badges of honor; her name? michelle shocked.)

i can't believe my luck, taking this unusual route through counties as red as the stripes in the american flag. as the song ends, the deejay starts speaking to someone -- and it's billy bragg. she's got him in the studio. i feel like i've transported back 20 years. he sounds older, wiser, but just as cheeky. she asks him to pick a last song to play. he says "how about the one you were going on about. you know, new england."

my heart skips a beat. the song starts. now, i haven't heard this song since i was an english major trying to make sense of kate chopin's "the awakening." but somehow i still knew EVERY WORD, and sang along at the top of my lungs, until the static took the song away from me just as it ended.

i can't describe how happy this made me. it was like running into an old friend, and my heart filled with joy, surprise, gratitude, and pure appreciation.

the newish band feist has a great song called "mushaboom" which i hear a lot on the radio right now. it has this line: "we collect the moments one by one, i guess that's how the future's done." indeed.

days of socklessness and wonder

ok, ok, i'm back. forgive me for indulging in flickr, this new giant pink elephant in the living room of my life. my husband's patience is waning, my eyelids are drooping, and yet i cannot deny the call of the flickr. even the cats have had it.

but enough. there are other things going on worth noting.

like what i saw on my way to work last friday. at 8 a.m., it was warm enough to go without socks, the sun was out, the sunroof was open, and the air smelled like loam and pine. crossing the bear mountain bridge, just as the second turret wires curved back down to the road, a hawk landed right in the wire. an odd spot to perch, i thought, susceptible to the winds of the hudson river. and as i stared, slack-jawed, another hawk landed on top of the first one, spreading his wings for balance. and they mated. i saw this passing at 40 miles per hour, my camera tucked tightly away in my bag, so all i had were the lenses in my face. and the vision is seared there forever. if i could draw, i'd draw it. it was exquisite. and intense. to create life in such a precarious, traffic-laden spot -- that's survival. do they have a nest somewhere? is this their first season together? did it work? he flew away just as i finished passing, and she stayed on the wire.

as much as i want to be taking pictures of every single thing right now, some things are better witnessed without the gnarling mass of glass and plastic between your face and the thing.

so... very... tired...

four sleepless nights in a row. maybe tonight's the night? it's cold out. that's good. so it's either sleep, or more hours surfing flickr.

(can't. stop. flickr. it's like crack, only not.)

let your garden grow

I AM A WOMAN OBSESSED! forget my photo of the day feature -- i am now living and breathing at my flickr site.

i have two hobby-type obsessions: birdwatching and photography. birdwatching is a solitary event, and i don't need feedback or validation or anything other than my binoculars, my birdbook, and birds. you see a bird, voila! success.

with photography, it's different. by its very nature, it's interactive. as my friend joe recently asked, "does a photograph exist if no one sees it?" i have hundreds of photos, sitting in books and in hard drives, unseen by anyone other than me. but since i started posting my photos on flickr.com, i feel like i have released them into the wild, like seeds on the wind, and they are growing and forming their own garden, as they are fed with others' eyes. they are out there. getting seen. and they are basking in that light, like a cat napping in the one little patch of sun on an otherwise empty carpet.

and me? i cannot BELIEVE that, as of this writing, 368 people have viewed my photographs. (UPDATE FROM 3/13/06: 2,342 people!) sure, the site has more than a hundred million photos on it. but to me, i feel like i have found my compatriots. it's not about making money. it's about sharing, in the purest sense of the word. it may sound naive, but i swear, i feel like a little girl who's been sent to the candy store with a WHOLE DOLLAR in her hand. big picture, nah, it's not a lot. but to her? it's all she needs. she is the cat in the sun. the photograph, viewed, at last.

at the flickr of a switch...

thanks to my friend richard, i have now begun posting my photos at flickr.com -- so easy! enjoy. (i'll keep posting pics here too, if you insist.)

photo of the day

convenience store clerk in scenic, south dakota, 2003 (yes, that is the name of the town)