6.30.10 – Feeling Strange

Everything seems strange today. I went to work and got done what I needed to do, but nothing seemed quite right and it still doesn't.

6.29.10 – Priceless

Taking the day off…priceless.

6.28.10 – Patience

I remember being very excited as a child whenever we’d have to stop for a train to pass. The longer the better back then. That’s not quite my feeling now. It’s very much an annoyance whenever I have to stop for a train. Sometimes I can figure a way around. This train track near my workplace is not in that category. I’ve spent a whole lot of time getting very lost and turned around, so I’ve finally given up and decided to be patient and wait for the train to go by. Patience seems to be one of my life lessons during this lifetime.

p.s. If you have a new silver Mercedes with Ohio nature bird plates and tinted windows, and were driving near the stadiums in Cincinnati tonight, I have a question for you. Were you:
a. high
b. drunk
c. never taught to drive
d. too busy texting to watch the road
e. an asshole

Clearly more lessons in patience...

6.27.10 – The curve of success

We’re always taught that there is a ladder of success; that you get from point A to point B in some sort of linear, orderly, fashion. What if it’s really an arch instead of a ladder? What if the ceiling is really the curve at the end? And what then?

6.26.10 – Lazy Days

Lazy days indeed, and these really need to stop!

6.25.10 – Standing Tall

It’s odd seeing remnants of a past age standing tall in the modern city. This church in Covington is now across the street from a sports bar. I’m not sure that’s progress, even though I’m really not interested in going inside either place.

6.24.10 – Take Me

I have some issues going on right now that I think I need some supplements, but the problem is what to take. I look at these labels and just feel dizzy. It might be good for me or maybe not. I just wish the bottle would say – “Take Me. I’m what you need!”

6.23.10 – Sampling

This is my boss’ husband “sampling” cake, as he called it. Because you really must find the right cake in life.

6.22.10 – Color of Procrastination

There are so many things I need to do right now, for me, yet I can’t seem to do them. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s stopping me. I keep seeing the color green and wonder if that has something to do with it. Does procrastination have a color?

6.21.10 – Monday Monday

No matter what, things never seem clear or even remotely coherent on Mondays.

amovieaday 6.20.10 – Nostalgic art

My local art museum is encouraging visitors to come see America this summer all in one place – the museum. There are several exhibitions with photographs, drawings, and paintings covering the various landscapes of America. To top it off there is a sign exhibit, including the Big Boy, because nothing says America like neon signs and a fat man with an enormous burger. This is sadly true. Still, seeing Big Boy again does add to my already incredible nostalgia, as I remember many a time stopping by or driving by that restaurant with the gleeful statue that was so close to where I lived, shopped, and went to school growing up in Tampa.

It’s just a bit perplexing seeing him in the art museum. I suppose nothing is an unusual site to see in an art museum anymore – I’ve seen a dress made of raw meat, sharks and cows dissected and in huge glass containers, cow dung, scary life-size nun sculptures with glowing eyes, etc. I’m just not sure about the Big Boy. He is certainly iconic (Austin Powers sealed that) and I do appreciate his craftsmanship and strange beauty. I suppose when something becomes so commonplace in your life, it’s hard to see it as anything other than how you’re used to seeing it.

6.19.10 – Exploration

Recently I was re-watching Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas. The special edition contained a booklet, which had excerpts of his book Written in the West that contained photographs, and comments, from the trips he made out west during pre-production of the film. One such comment he made (“photography often tends to become impossible in a place you’re already familiar with”) struck me.

When I began learning still photography ten years ago, I photographed every nook and cranny in my home, in my neighborhood, and at my friends’ homes. After a while, I stopped doing this, partially due to frustrations in my life and work that were overwhelming me, but I also think it had to do with not having a need to explore and document the same things over and over again. I would shoot like crazy once I was away on vacation somewhere else, but then put the camera away again, once I was home. Somehow having a new tool/toy makes everything look fresh again. I wish I would have thought of that sooner.

6.18.10 – Summer in the city

Pictures of teen idols in the window of libraries in order to lure young girls in. Yep, it’s summer time.

6.17.10 – Calm

And finally…calm.

6.16.10 – Off kilter

I’m still a bit off kilter today. I’m not sure if it’s the heat and humidity or other things going on in my life.

6.15.10 – Not quite myself

I’m not feeling quite myself today. Perhaps blinding myself looking at this overhead light and listening to funk will help.

6.14.10 – Tunnel Vision

When I did my looking back video last week, focusing the camera on my driver’s side mirror, I wasn’t able to completely watch what I was filming in order to drive the car. I enjoyed the surprise of seeing things I rarely see, as I’m mostly looking in front and not behind while driving. In my own life I tend to dwell either in the past or dream about the future, forgetting all about the now, which of course leads to the future. I wonder if looking off to the sides could put me more in the now?

6.13.10 – Leap

One of the entertainment complexes near where I live has added a trapeze jump, bringing back memories of Carrie in Sex in the City trying to make the leap on the trapeze. Very rarely do I actually see customers on this trapeze. I suppose there aren’t that many daredevils in the Cincinnati area.

It does make me think of Seth Godin’s blog entry today, which discussed the fact that, even though none of us want to believe it, there are no shortcuts. He ended his piece stating “leaps look good on movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.” In a time of American Idol mania that is now even encroaching the art world, it seems discouraging to think that it’s all about small, continuous steps, but I think he’s right.

6.12.10 – Never ending Nostalgia

Some things are easier said than done. I swore I was going to stop looking up high school and college classmates on Facebook, but I kept being compelled to do it, which then made me feel creepy enough to put my own high school and college info up. I then did what I hadn’t done in probably twenty years – look at my high school senior yearbook. What’s weird is that even though most of the people were peers at best to me, they consumed so much of my world at that time. I wanted to be like them or be friends with them, yet many of them I just vaguely remember now. Some I remember, and even remember the classes we were in, but I can’t seem to recall certain events mentioned in the yearbook. Time definitely makes things fuzzy.

I think what keeps drawing me back to this time is that I actually enjoyed high school, especially my senior year. It gave me a certain structure I needed, plus provided me an escape from my family. I had finally gotten into the “right” honors classes, as my mother had been oblivious to tests to be taken before entering the school. It also seemed that my intimidation of the classmates who were far prettier than I was (I was in a prolonged awkward phase) and far richer caused me to become more and more reserved. This seemed to intrigue some of them and even make them believe I was calm and confident, as a few noted in my yearbook (if they only knew!).

Part of me wishes I could go back to this time, with what I know now. They might not think me so calm and confident, but I think there might have been more opportunities for relationships than I thought possible in my naïve youth. I’d also like to go back to reclaim all that insane belief in endless possibilities I had at that time. I was so stubborn and unwilling to believe my family or my best friend at the time, who thought all my dreams were impossible. I knew I could make it happen and that those dreams would come true, but little by little, over time, holes get put in your balloon and so-called reality sets in. I want to be that stubborn girl again!

6.11.10 – Anticipation

My neighbor’s dog, Latte, caught my eye as I was going to work today. She looked both forlorn, but with a sense of anticipation. Maybe she was hoping I’d skip work and play with her (alas, no). I would like to regain some of the excitement I feel I’ve lost.

6.10.10 – Looking Back

My nostalgia reached its peak and I realized it just wasn’t a good use of my time thinking about people I hadn’t thought about in 20 years and times that are now past. Since I can’t go back and change things I did or didn’t do, I think it’s best to look forward. It’s important to learn from your history, but you miss too much by constantly looking back.

6.9.10 – Emotions

These days, I tend to go from feeling aggravated to restless to overwhelmed and then back again to start the cycle over. I’m in the overwhelm stage right now.

6.8.10 – College Daze

For a lack of a better term, I’m still in a nostalgic phase over my lost college years. I even searched through Facebook via my college and was both confused (“these people don’t look even remotely familiar”) and frightened (“oh my god, what happened to them”). This, of course, made me ponder the mirror and wonder if I looked that bad and that old. Hopefully not.

I’m not particularly happy with how I look right now, as I haven’t regained my body back after these car accidents, but I didn’t look that great in college either. When I think back on it, I suppose I was hiding out – hiding my body with fat and clothes and bad hair in order to keep men who might be bad for me away since I wasn’t very emotionally strong back then. I was also physically hiding out due to roommate problems the majority of the time I was in school. I was pretty much M.I.A. to most of the people I knew for about a year there over a lot of craziness that was going on. I’d get up early and be off to campus as quickly as I could get out of my dorm room. Since I worked in the art department, I had keys to the studios and offices, and would hide out in the Chair of the art department’s office after the library closed, and way past when students should have been in the building. Maybe that’s why so many of the people on Facebook don’t look familiar to me.

6.7.10 – Say Ahh

The downside of Facebook is that you see people that look familiar and whose names sound familiar, but you can’t place them; then you suddenly realize you went to college with them. This happened to me recently. I ended up googleing the person and found out three people I graduated with are now medical doctors. This seemed to really surprise. For one thing, I didn’t recall that any of them were pre-med, but I also keep wanting to believe I’m still too young to be a doctor or to have graduated with them. That is clearly not the case. I called my only friend from college that I’m still friends with, who was also surprised about this fact, but she seemed to be more in the line of thinking that she wouldn’t trust anyone from college with her life. It does change things when you remember the so-called authority behaving really, really badly when they were young. I don’t think I’ll be making any appointments with any of them anytime soon.

6.6.10 –Antidote

Although I did surprisingly have a good time last night, I felt the need for an antidote after my evening out. An Epsom salt bath was used as the final dose to ease recovery.

6.5.10 – Going Out

I’m going out tonight and not that excited about it. I used to love any reason to get dressed up, but the older I get, the more I’d rather just stay home. Still, I’m trying to pep myself up about this.

6.4.10 – Ahhh….

Some things just don’t change.

6.3.10 – Freeze Frame

I produce and direct a documentary series locally for public access on artists. I basically started doing this as a way to learn to use the video camera and editing system. Having a show that would then air on television was a bonus. As I do everything myself, and since technology is not always cooperative, I occasionally have issues. Usually I’m unhappy with the lighting, as I tend to use existing light (fluorescent lights and video cameras do not go together – heed my warning) or wish I had asked another question or noticed the height the subject was sitting at was unflattering. Typically once it’s done it’s done and there aren’t other issues.

My most recent show for some reason froze up at the 17-minute mark, not on DVD or even on the file on my hard drive, but online. It got fixed and then froze again. I still don’t understand what happened and had to completely re-create the show and upload and convert it again. What was odd was that the video froze, but the audio kept going. It was a strange experience and made me think of audio recordings that occasionally appear on DVD extras, as well as my silent movie experience last month. We get so used to things a certain way that it’s jarring when something unexpected happens.

6.2.10 – Midnight Blue

I do love the intense blue that the sky turns at night.

6.1.10 – Louise

Louise Bourgeois passed away last week. It makes me think of my blog entry from Saturday. If anyone epitomizes a late bloomer it is Louise, not coming into fame until in her 70s. Her passing made me pull out some of my old photo albums, remembering I had seen her Spiders in New York back in 2001 (before 9/11).

I was in the city for what really was a fling; even though I tried convincing myself it was so much more. There’s a line in her New York Times obit about the subject of her art being pain and fear – the fear that the hold of the past has on you. Somehow flicking through those New York images, I thought the fear of the past might seize me, but thankfully, at least this past episode, seems to have lost its grip. The spiders are still stunning.