Wishing all the mothers out there a very happy Mother’s Day (pet moms too!) weekend. I hope your weekend is filled with whatever brings you peace and joy.
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Sail Away
Whenever I look at this photo the song “Come Sail Away” by Styx goes through my head. “Come sail way, come sail away, come sail away with meeeeeee”. Man the seventies had great music.
I get the feeling that the boats are sailing towards a grand adventure. Perhaps, like the song, there’s a band of angels in that light beckoning the boats to sail away with them. Or are they Dante and Virgil sailing towards the gates of hell?
I can’t decide. What do you think? Will they ultimately end up aboard a starship headed for the skies or traverse the nine circles of Hell?
All the Arses
I liked this picture for all of the contrast in it – the old form of transportation next to the new forms of transportation. Living creatures next to machines. The texture of the horses and the ramp of the trailer next to the sleekness of the cars and the trailer itself. Farm animals in the middle of a city.
There is one similarity – the drivers are all horse’s arses. 🙂
Breezy
Phew! Work was busy this week and I feel totally depleted. I didn’t have time for the things that recharge me – reading, writing, photography, long walks.
This photograph is a a good reminder for me to slow down and enjoy the little things. I made this picture on a Friday afternoon. It was beautiful day. Sunny, warm, breezy. I opened my window to get some fresh air and watched the curtain flutter in the breeze. I watched that curtain flutter all afternoon before I decided to take photo. I easily took 50 photos from different angles, with different props, different flutters, different cats. In the end, I decided that simplest was best (it usually is, isn’t it?).
What I wouldn’t give to sit in front of that open window right now and feel the gentle breeze on my skin. To daydream for a bit. Maybe with a glass of wine and a cat purring in my lap.
Sleeping Beauty
I saw this door out of the corner of my eye as I was speedwalking out of Rosehill Cemetery. The gates to the cemetery close at 5:00 pm sharp and at 4:59 I was cutting it close. I had spent too much time trying to get pictures of a herd of deer having a lovely stroll amongst the headstones. As I rushed toward the front gate, I desperately hoped that my watch had the same time as the sexton’s.
Initially I walked past the door. I really didn’t want to get locked in the cemetery. It was a frigid February evening, I wouldn’t survive the night in cold and I wasn’t sure that I had the physical prowess to climb over the wall. But I knew I would regret not taking the picture so I doubled back. I figured if I got locked in, it would make a good story.
I love seeing vines on walls in the winter. Without their leaves you can see the beautiful and intricate lines they create, as if someone took a giant marker and drew on the side of a building. It’s not often I see them covering doors. This door made me think of fairy tales and Disney movies. I imagined the vines snaking their way over the stone wall and the door, trapping a princess inside as an evil witch laughs maniacally in the background. Perhaps Sleeping Beauty is behind that door, snoozing away, waiting for Prince Charming to wake her. For her sake, I hope not. I’ve been dating in Chicago for 20+ years. Prince Charming is not in the area.
Thankfully my story, like any good fairy tale, had a happy ending. I got my, picture, escaped the cemetery and lived happily ever after.
The End.
Happy Easter!
I had such a good time making this photograph despite the fact that it did not turn out the way I had pictured it in my head (I’m learning that it rarely ever does – my imagination far exceeds my execution skills right now, and I’m perfectly fine with that.)
I hadn’t dyed Easter eggs since I was kid. I don’t remember the colors being so saturated. It’s likely that my memory has faded over time making the colors watery in my minds eye. Or maybe I’m more patient as an adult, letting the eggs sit in their colored baths for the full five minutes. Or maybe the dye is just better. What ever the reason, the Gladys and I marveled a the be beautiful saturated colors as I fished the eggs out of the water. Well, I marveled at them. Glady tried to lick them, which got her kicked off the kitchen table a few times.
That sneaky little paw just kills me.
My egg dyeing supervisor. She doesn’t miss a thing!
Waiting
It feels like I’ve spent the past year waiting. I’ve waited in the car countless times while one of my cats is at the vet.
I’ve waited for packages to be delivered and food and grocery deliveries.
I’ve waited for the doctor to call with test results, hoping for good news and fearing the worst.
I’ve waited to go urgent care after I fell down the stairs because I wasn’t sure if I could even be seen.
I waited for the election results to be called and then again for the inauguration.
Now I’m waiting for warmer weather and my turn to get the vaccine so I can stop waiting to see family and friends.
I’m waiting for this f#cking pandemic to end, for the freedom to start living a more normal life.
And right now, on a Tuesday morning before work, I’m waiting for the weekend.
What are you waiting for?
***
Making this photo was a lot of fun. It took me back to my theatre days – sourcing props and costumes, doing hair and make-up, building a set and working with lighting. Except this story is captured in a fraction of second (one-sixth of second to be precise) instead of in five acts.
Since it took so long to get everything set up, I thought I’d have some fun with the set before tearing it all down. I think the photograph with the wine and my phone is a more accurate representation of my last year. 🙂
This is the meme from @attorneyproblems that inspired the photograph.
Covid Couch
Happy Quarannviersary! One year ago today, the managing partner of my office gathered everyone in a conference room and told us that we would be working from home for the next two weeks while we ride out the pandemic. ha ha ha ha TWO WEEKS! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Two weeks turned into two months and two months has dragged on to a year. Over the past year people have been singing the praises of our doctors and nurses working tirelessly to save lives and the essential workers like the grocery store employees who risk their lives everyday so that idiots without masks can grocery shop. They ARE America’s heroes. They deserve all the praise and hazard pay.
But on this anniversary that I never want to celebrate again, I’d like to honor the true hero in my life – my couch. I’ve spent a year on my couch. It has been my office, a restaurant, a movie theatre, my best friend. I drink my morning coffee on it while I read all of the emails I will eventually fail to respond to. I’m on the couch when I reluctantly log on to work and I’ll stay there until my laptop threatens to shut down because the battery’s drained. I eat my lunch and take my lunch time nap on it every day. In the evenings, I sit on the left side to eat dinner and watch TV. I sit on the right side to drink wine and scroll through social media and text with friends or read a book.
I’m especially attached to it on the weekends. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I like cry from frustration/boredom/loneliness and then take a long afternoon nap just to pass the time. Which side I cry/sleep on depends on where the cats are. I do my best to contort my body around them so they can sleep in peace.
My abused and suffering couch is wine-stained, coffee-stained, tear-stained, chocolate stained (and yes, it’s chocolate – I sat on a rogue chocolate chip), shredded by a kitten who doesn’t give two fluffs that I don’t want her to scratch it, and sagging from having to support my ever increasing pandemic weight gain.
I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it after the panny ends. I probably should put it out of its misery and send it off to couch heaven, but I’m not sure I’m that selfless. Do I really want to have to get to know another couch while I reacquaint myself with my friends, family and co-workers?
Honk 4 Democracy
I wasn’t planning on sharing the photos from the day the election was called for Biden for a couple of reasons. For starters, they aren’t technically very good photos. They’re blurry, particularly the photos taken at dusk. I had a slow lens and I didn’t increase the ISO enough because I didn’t want any noise (but apparently blurry photos were fine?). Seriously, what kind of photographer makes a decision like that?
Secondly, the photos are “old”. So many other things have happened since the election was called. A bunch of redneck insurgents stormed our Capitol with the intent to do violence. It’s been discovered that people we trust to lead our country and keep us safe were a part of insurgency (this might be the scariest thing out of everything – who can we trust anymore?). Biden has been sworn in despite the aforementioned insurgent rednecks. AMANDA GORMAN stole the show at the inauguration. I think she should be a speech writer for Biden and deliver all of his national addresses in poem form. And most recently a bunch of angry nerds ruined Wall Street’s attempt to manipulate the stock market.
I changed my mind because these photos in all of their technical failures remind me of a very joyous day and I need that right now. The day the election was called my neighborhood celebrated. Cars drove up and down Clark Street honking and waving flags. People played music and danced in the streets. Mayor Lightfoot even rolled up like she was the Queen of England and gave a speech. There was a collective sigh of relief that day. For the first time in four years I thought perhaps our country wasn’t as doomed as I thought it was.
Sedition Distraction
So 2021 is turning out to be a bigger mess than 2020. The events of Wednesday are still shocking me and I worry that our country is so traumatized from Trump’s Presidency that people are willing to shrug off his attempt to subvert democracy.
I took break from the doom scrolling and rage tweeting last night to watch The Man Who Shot New York. It’s a documentary on the life and work of Harold Feinstein. (He’s a photographer, not a serial killer. I can understand if you might be confused given my love of true crime.) I had never heard of him and was shocked to learn that he was slated to have several photographs in The Family of Man exhibition, but pulled out of it because he didn’t want to give up his creative control. Can you imagine?! I mean, if someone like Edward Steichen wanted to put some of my photographs (or even one!) in an exhibition, I think I’d hand them over without a second thought.
You can see some of his work here. I especially love The Hurricane from 1946. What a beautiful long exposure.