amusing

I took my car in to the mechanic today so he could look at some things. My check engine light was on, and it had been a while since I'd had the car serviced.

I love my mechanic. I've been seeing Rick for years. If he told me that he would need to charge me $5,000 to service my differential, I'd probably believe him and write him a check, even though I don't really know what a differential is or what it does.

This morning, when I dropped off the car, I asked him to look up the information on my car and tell me when I should plan to change the timing belt. The timing belt is a little rubber loop that is helps the valves in the engine fire at the proper times. The part itself isn't that expensive, but the timing belt generally lives in a terribly inaccessible place in the engine, so when you replace the timing belt, it ends up costing a ton of money, because the mechanic has to basically pull the entire engine out to get to it. I have to plan a few months out with the timing belt, because I can be confident that it's going to cost about $1,000 to change it.

Rick called me this morning. "Well, I've got some good news and some bad news." (This is how most of my conversations with Rick begin.)

I asked for the bad news. It was pretty bad: the car needs some obscure but important oxygen sensor unit. I have no idea what this part does, but the part costs about $600. Crap.

Then I asked for the good news.

"I looked up the information on your car to find out when they suggest you change your timing belt," he said. "I found out that your car does not have a timing belt. So you will never need to replace it."

"You're kidding!" I almost shouted into the phone. I was thrilled.

Then I stopped, and laughed, because I am pretty sure this means I've reached adulthood. The thought of not having to eventually pay for this car repair brings me to the same level of happiness that I have when Rufus Wainwright gives a concert, or when I get together for dinner with good friends.

Adulthood is amusing.

the gratitude list

Back at home after enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with my family in the Atlanta suburbs. It was a wonderful meal, with both my brothers attending. This year we were also joined by my boyfriend, Rob, and my brother's girlfriend, Ana, who made a couple of scrumptious side dishes for our feast.

It was a really good day.

Things I have loved or appreciated recently:

- The way Ana's entire face lights up when she is talking about food she loves. She gestures with her hands, her eyes widen, and you feel your own pulse quicken at the thought of potentially tasting the food she's describing.
- The chance to enjoy very good food with Ana and Scott... they are discriminating food-lovers with terrific taste in food. Dining out with them really tops my list of yummy and fun things to do. (Last night I took them to Feast and they really enjoyed it.)
- The way my parents have made such an effort to welcome Rob and Ana into their lives. My parents have three children. Two of those children chose partners and married, and both of those marriages ended. Clearly, this was not part of what they wanted for us. But they are rolling with it and finding a way to enjoy "Plan B."
- Being able to make a living doing things that I really like.
- Being able to take photos every day of things that interest me.
- Actually knowing what to do with the photos once I have taken them (really enjoying getting to know Lightroom right now).
- A growing sense of spaciousness and permission to explore my creative dreams. That sounds really corny, doesn't it? But it's true. I am really grateful for the opportunity to develop my creative sensibilities.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

goodbye to a friend

This morning I found out that Bob is gone. Bob is the friend I wrote about here. And that's a photo of him, taken by his wife Judy. His body was discovered, some time this past weekend, in the woods where he disappeared in August. It is apparent to authorities that he took his own life, probably on the same day that he disappeared.

In the three months since Bob vanished, I've discovered more information about some of the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. I found out about some major obstacles he was facing in some of his most important relationships. There were a lot of personal issues troubling Bob that I knew nothing about. But the thought of Bob killing himself is profoundly upsetting. I feel like I want to go back to the park where he disappeared, to sit down with him and just talk things out for a while. What I'd really like to do is talk him out of it.

I'm not really sad yet. Mostly I'm just mad. This feels like a profound loss of talent and heart for the world. Plus a damn fine dance partner for me.

It is so painful to know that some part of Bob really thought that ending his own life would be a good idea. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There was some small part of me that hoped that Bob was still alive. That he had just decided to go somewhere quiet to collect himself for a while.

A few weeks ago I even found myself hoping (irrationally) that Bob was alive, that he was Googling himself somewhere in a public library in the middle of nowhere, and coming across the journal entry I wrote about him back in August. Just so he would know that I was thinking about him, that I missed him. That sounds silly now.

Bob, I hope you are happier where you are now. I miss you.

the long apprenticeship

Whew. I had no intention of letting this blog go for so long. I've been getting adjusted to my new work schedule, and feeling more overwhelmed than usual.

What's funny about my new schedule is that I work way more than I used to. And I get paid less. If I wasn't enjoying the work so much, I think this would be called irony.

Tonight daylight saving is on my side, and I have an extra hour, and I'd like to just say hello, because I've missed writing here.

Work with my photographer friend Mark has been going pretty well. I'm looking at my time with him as a long apprenticeship where I get paid only a little -- but I get to ask a lot of questions.

I'm learning a lot. And not all of it is technical stuff. A lot of it is good life stuff.

When I started working with Mark last month, I felt pretty sure that he was a photography god. (Well, sure. I do have a tendency to idolize my creative heroes.) I was convinced that he was one of the lucky ones who was just born with a boatload of natural talent.

Now I'm changing my view. I still think he's a damned good photographer. But now I think that his success is due only in a small part to what he was born with. More of his success comes from how hard he has worked to build his craft, how he slaves away at making his photos really sparkle. The purity and clarity that I see in his finished photos isn't there straight out of the camera. It's a process, a secret sauce. He begins with strong composition. Then he makes thoughtful choices about editing, cropping, color balancing. And then things start to shine.

My work with Mark requires me to look at a lot of photos. Sometimes I have to sort through a couple thousand shots a day, making quick judgments about what stays and what goes. I have two things to say about this. First, I love getting paid to look at photos all day. Second, the editorial process is teaching me some good stuff about what makes a photo work. I can't quite verbalize what I am learning, but when you look at a couple thousand photos a day, you start to develop a pretty strong sense of what makes a photo successful. So I am tucking away good information about what I'm seeing each day. I'd like to try to start incorporating some of the ideas I'm picking up from my time at the studio in my own photography.

In the afternoon, we stop working and go downstairs to eat something. And we talk about photography. At his core, Mark is a people-watcher. He is a big fan of the work of Gary Winogrand (you may enjoy Winogrand's World's Fair, New York photo, or his spectacular 1969 image, Los Angeles, California).

We talk about Gary Winogrand a lot.

Gary Winogrand was a great photographer. Gary Winogrand also shot a ton of photos. According to this Wikipedia entry, he left behind more than 2, 500 undeveloped rolls of film when he died. That's a lot of film. He just shot all the time. If you shoot ten rolls of film a day and give the tiniest bit of attention to what you're doing, you're probably going to walk away with some very good shots over the course of your lifetime.

What I'd really like to do now is get over my fear of doing bad work. I have to remind myself that the only way to do something better is to do it badly for a while.

So much of my creative life the past couple of years has been about making a plan, hitting a wall, losing my way, falling apart for a while, and then starting over. This time around, I'm actually enjoying the process and yielding to the lessons as they come. This time I'm grateful to work my ass off for less money, grateful to learn, grateful to soak it all up like a sponge.