personal meditations in older photographs

what one may find for comparison between work now (san francisco era) vs. last year (western massachusetts era) is a different kind of concentration. there is a quality of light that i was able to achieve that i have not found in recent photographs. then again, a lot of my attention has been dragged away by day-to-day living. if i recall life before now, it felt like i was living in bursts and i think that was illustrative in my work.

on the contact sheets, in between the images that i felt were significant at the time, i have sweet fillers/sweet memories. i've put them away all on external hard drive. but together, i think they compose a sense of personal meditation. yes, it is personal and for that very reason it is a different kind of speaking that is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to share.

Why did you make me human?

I slept 16 hours last night. I spent earlier that day losing a good chunk of thumb via microplaning cheese and then I said fuck this and fuck this pasta, cleaned up the wound and cheese and walked a couple of blocks to look at artists books. After, I thought it would be really nice to go to a bar near my house to have a beer and read my Richard Brautigan. I did that, but I unexpectedly got drunk from the 1/2 pint glass. I walked home and slept for so so so long. Sleep debt is what they call it when you build up your missing hours of sleep. So many bodily affects yesterday.

TODAY TODAY TODAY! Oh even though I have to things I don't want to do today, I am so glad it is today. I am so glad to make oven roasted eggplant and eat fresh fresh cheese. My thumb hurts badly, but I will still take a shower as if nothing happened. I will not run my fingers through my hair. My hairs with get caught in between the sliced flesh of my thumb. So unpleasant. It's gloomy, I love that.

I want a sweater like the one this girl wears in the middle:

big day

weekend in big sur at woodsist music festival, only real estate was memorable. i've never been down there before and i wish i had spent most of the day at the beach. camping was nice, under thick, milky stars. a must at least once more this summer. actually, why not next week? i will consider this!

sunday in santa cruz with the fam. they are sweet. baby brother continues to be baby brother with lots of love, balloons and attention. we always help him clean his house!! its gross, like college beer pong, those-are-not-my-dishes, ramen style. shabu shabu for his graduation dinner. my sister is pro at it because she use to date this japanese guy.

my bicycle was stolen (and zachs) the friday before all of this. but guess what! i found on CL and i'll tell you what happens later...

today is a big day in the east bay. swapping cars with sister to go to:

cactus jungle
urban ore
bank of america
east bay vivarium
tilden park

in the last couple of weeks, i've declined from socialization to read (richard brautigan and WWII endurance stories phase), meditate to radiolab in my return to rug-making, all the while drinking very hot herbal teas. i am at peace.

believe me, and egg within an egg and a nine yolk egg

amazing website, and my favorite section:

http://www.poultryhelp.com/oddeggs.html

while i am waiting on the phone to contest a parking ticket

3 samosas, 5 oranges, 1/2 of amazing corn chips from the farmer's market!

i've returned to reading more poetry. i thought i could get in the habit of watching movies more, but i never returned to it. i started with calcutta, but that's as for as i got. zach has an on-going service that is filling up a thumb drive full of movies i should watch. right now he is walking around in doggy print boxers and a bright purple shirt. he told me this morning that his favorite thing to do is wake up! and then watch a movie! and then go back to sleep.

i had my first day of volunteering at the conservatory of flowers this week. i'm really excited for it! they assigned me to work in the "highlands gallery" which is a mostly temperate/cool greenhouse with a lot of orchids. I'll be working with so many orchids. i have never fancied orchids that much, but it is a growing interest since one of my horticultural teachers is an orchid specialist and he's re-introduced them in a much more interesting light. it also helps to see the amazing varieties of the orchidaceae family. it kind of makes you abhor the monoculture of varieties that are available in nurseries. anyway, my project there is a creating a plant list of their specimens in the gallery and also a botanical reference for the plant list.

photography? it's coming along slowly. i have a good number of photos to edit down from this winter and i think i'd like to revisit older photographs to put into this new body of work. i have a photograph at the 40th anniversary exhibition at hampshire college. strange.

i am working 40+ these days. it's good right now. it makes me value the life i have outside of work, but i also enjoy having a job that i am engaged with. it's a lot on my plate, maybe to the point where i am not as emotionally available as i'd like to be because i am in go-go mode trying to get a lot done. but i am young and i like being fierce.