Habitualized writing.
My submission for the Daily Post Photo Challenge theme: Forces of Nature. Was brand new to this hand-me-down camera, (and didn’t know the white balance was set to indoor florescent lighting). Dragged my wife to the Mulkiteo Lighthouse to take some shots. Birds everywhere. There was wind, waves, a penetrating cold, and so many birds. They seemed to be constantly moving around… but they never went anywhere.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Do you think you smile more honestly when you’re taking a selfie or when someone else is photographing you?
For years my mom, who is herself a real shutterbug, would holler at me whenever there was a group photo. I was always making faces. Nowadays, it’s my wife who yells at me. I guess they’re the only two people who simultaneously care and feel like they can speak their minds.
Not that I smile in selfies all the much. So the real answer is: my smile is captured in its most genuine state in candid photos. And oh boy. Nothing reinforces my disdain for being photoed than seeing my goofy doofus smile.
Here’s what’s sad. Most of them time if I know I’m being photographed, I make a face. Finally I decided to stop taking myself so seriously, and one time I didn’t make a face— and my wife still hollered at me. I was trying to be normal, and she still that I looked silly. Sigh.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Focus
I got into photography for a variety reasons, and one of them is a fascination with depth of field. This picture is one of my favorites— I took it with my DSLR,then saved it as JPG and manipulated it a bit further in Pxlr and Instagram. Depth of field let’s me focus on one key element, and the rest is balance.
Postaday for May 7th: Forgive and Forget? Share a story where it was very difficult for you to forgive the perpetrator for wronging you, but you did it — you forgave them.
I can’t remember having ever forgiven someone because, you know that proverb: forgive and forget. Wait, not proverb. Psalm. No, not psalm, maybe… idiom? Cliche. Saying? Folkway. I don’t know what it’s called! But I always do it: forgive and forget.
Remember that movie, Momento? (it would be a delicious irony if you didn’t). I’m like that guy when it comes to forgiveness. I’ve even taken to tattooing the names of people I’ve forgiven on my thigh (this is a total lie but so is the forgetting thing).
I can’t tell you the numbers of times I’ve found myself sitting in a filthy motel room, needle in one hand and a broken Bic pen in the other, cell phone cradled in one shoulder as I talk to some strange person about forgiveness. These memories are in black and white. There’s a post it note stuck to one knee, with a name on it, or names, or sometimes a doodle of a duck. I think I must have had some serious issues with ducks in my life because I’m always finding post it notes around my house and I can’t help but think, when the heck did I draw this?
On my right leg I’ve got my wife’s name three or four times, which make sense: people in love hurt each other all the time. Forgive and forget, it’s how a marriage lasts. Also on that leg: my dad, my mom, by brother, and my wife’s sister and her husband. That last one has something to do with a train in Switzerland. Or maybe Sweden. I don’t really remember.
On my left leg I’ve got Robert Downey Jr, the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers, Twizzlers, and the ending of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl.
Notoriously absent: Oklahoma City, a bouncer at the Taj night club in Vegas, Verizon, 1986, and every single freakin’ person who changes lanes more than once in less than a quarter mile on Highway 5.
In general I’m a pretty easy-going person. I don’t have to forgive very often because I don’t take offense too often. At least I don’t think I do. It’s hard to remember. For example, I don’t remember names very well at all. Maybe the reason I can never remember names is because those people always offend me? Maybe, instead of being embarrassed every time I see someone and realize I can’t recall their name, instead I should be angry?
“Hey good to see you again!”
“Hi…”
“Jason, right?”
“Yes… uh…”
“It’s Dave.”
“Ah, right, Dave. You bastard.”
Memory’s a funny thing. So’s forgiveness. And it occurs to me that a saying I’ve heard, “first you must forgive yourself” does not bode well for me. Or maybe that’s an idiom. Or a Psalm. Darn it, I can’t remember!
Heavily post-processed in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop– in addition to exposure, shadows, and highlights, I added some tint, sharpness, and a bit of tilt-shift.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: When was the last time you asked someone to take a picture of you?
Can’t recall specifically. Other than selfies, which means I’m asking myself to take the picture. I’ve probably asked my wife to hold the camera. “Take a picture of me doing something stupid!”
It’s been touched on before, how much I don’t like being in pictures. Aligned with that is my displeasure in asking people to do things in general. And strangers especially! I just don’t like putting people out. I’ll spend 15 minutes balancing my camera precariously on a rock before I’ll ask someone to squeeze the trigger a few times.
My wife’s not so shy. She’ll grab any old person walking by and ask them to take our picture. And you know how people will take the picture, and kindly say, “is that good? I can take another…” I die inside whenever my wife says, “Yeah, can you take it again?” Aaaaah!
But they don’t seem to mind, And my wife has one of those faces that makes people smile— I’m sure the walk away (eventually) thinking “I did something nice today. I’m a good person!”
For what it’s worth, I, personally, am always flattered when some strangers asks ME to take their picture. So you’d think I’d get over myself, and ask others if needs be… but then, I don’t like being in pictures anyway, so…
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Your Time
My time is leisurely. I work from home. I spend time on con calls, and puttering around the house with the laundry, the dishes, making the bed. Occasionally I get outside and do yard work. But no matter how much work I do, I always break it up and spent as much or more time doing nothing. You tell me if blogging is “leisurely.” 🙂
Postaday for May 6th: You, the Sandwich. If a restaurant were to name something after you, what would it be? Describe it. (Bonus points if you give us a recipe!)
I have no idea why a cheese, mustard, and pickle sandwich tastes so good. But it does. Not all of the time, but sometimes. And I’m talking cheap-ass cheese, cheap-ass mustard, none of your Grey Poupon here, monsieur. French’s Yellow Mustard. But good bread, quality bread, thick slices, white bread.
If I had my druthers I’d be the type of person who gets hungry around 11:45, shuffles out the door with his Chromebook under his arm, and waddles to a nearby cafe and orders a Bukkhead (on white). So there’s me eating my sandwich and tippy-tapping the day’s blog entry.
They’d name it after me because I’d eat it every day. Some days it would have onions on it. Some days the pickles would be sweet. Occasionally, instead of American cheese, it would be a hand-sliced slab of sharp cheddar, and the mustard would be brown, and the bread would be fortified white. It would still be a Bukkhead.
Other days it might be a more wheaty-bread than white, a more mayonnaisey-mustard than yellow, a more lettucy-cheese than American, a more turkey-like pickle than dill. Still a Bukkhead, though.
Maybe the blog would be influenced by the sandwich ingredients. No, I have a better idea: the sandwich would be influenced by the blog. No one would know how or why. I’d lock my front door, shuffle to the cafe, stand there in front of the ordering counter and peer at the menu as if I hadn’t memorized it years ago, a thousand blog entries ago, as if I wasn’t going to order what I always order. “Gimme a Bukkhead,” I’d say and:
As I’m typing up a screed lambasting the new proto-nerds for their hypocritical denigration of so-called neckbeards, Carl, the chef, is grabbing sauerkraut and corned beef. As I’m pecking away at a short story about a secret door behind Mrs. Tanner’s refrigerator, Carl’s looking for the pimento-loaf and the thousand island dressing. As I’m formatting a review on a novel I’ve just read about a Henry VIII’s Thomas Cromwell, Carl’s adding a few dashes of paprika to give the egg-salad some zip.
He rings a bell. Order up. The kid grabs it, brings it to my booth. Sets it down. For a few moments gazes at the rapid-fire staccato of my two index fingers whizzing around the flat keyboard. Until I start to slow down. He blushes like he caught a glance of his dad coming out of the shower. I give him a look as he walks away, which he doesn’t see, but Carl does. It’s a look that seems to say “I don’t know how I do it either, kid.”
I pick up my Bukkhead and take a bite. Chew slowly. First it’s the tang of the mustard, and then the vinegar bite of the pickles comes through. The coldness of the pickle against the softness of the bread. Chew, chew, swallow, the tang and bite fade to the fullness of the cheese. Inhale,exhale, another bite, set the sandwich down, go back to the keyboard. Correct some typos.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: How often are you in your photographs?
Rarely if ever (except for selfies). I’m the photographer. I’m the one behind the camera, and even if someone else happens to have a camera, or happens to take mine from me (which I allow; more below) I don’t wind up in the shots too often.
As described in yesterday’s NaBloPoMo post, I don’t like being photographed. And while I do like taking pictures of people, it’s not my first go-to, so to speak. Sure, everyone gathers around for the group photo, and thanks to Ellen, the group selfie is hot right now. But if I’m going to take pictures of people, they’re usually candids, and candids of me don’t happen to often.
Now, on the subject of other people using my camera— I don’t just allow it, but encourage it. I truly believe that taking photos is easy. The camera does all the work, and I know there are photographers gnashing their teeth when I say this, but let’s be honest: once you’ve got the right ISO figured out, auto-shutter speeds and image stabilizing lenses take care of a lot.
Too often I think people shy away from trying things they think are difficult. So when folks see a schlep like me clicking away, and they want to try it to, I’m all for it. And then I stand behind THEM and help them choose the shot. Which is never of me 🙂
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Your Love
Woke up with a headache this morning, and my love, my wife, crawled back into bed after taking a shower and getting dressed, and sat on my temple. It worked. For about a minute.
Above photo from a visit to one of the Puget Sound islands. I don’t recall which one. But as soon as I read today’s prompt, I knew which photo I wanted to post. I asked her permission first.
Postaday for May 5: Idyllic. What does your ideal community look like? How is it organized, and how is community life structured? What values does the community share?
Yesterday at about 4:30 PM I heard gunshots. It took about 30 seconds for that to filter through me head. We watch so much violent TV, play violent video games, read violent books, visit violent web sites, drink violent coffee, shop at violent discount markets, eat violent bananas, sleep in violent beds with violent pillows and dream about so many violent cows wearing tutus and playing violent flutes that we sometimes don’t recognize real violence when it happens. But eventually I dialed 911.
I was connected with the state troopers, and I could barely understand what the fella on the phone was saying. I told him I heard what sounded like gunshots, and he asked me if I was in Seattle. When I said, yes, he said he would put me through to Seattle PD. The phone rang and rang and rang. The guy was still listening though.
Then I heard sirens, lots and lots of sirens, and I told the guy this. He took my name and number. Half an hour later the Seattle PD called me, asked me what my emergency was. I told him about the shots, and they said, yeah— multiple reports. He thanked me and said to keep my eyes open!
More sirens, and helicopters. At one point I could see the helicopters through one of my skylights. It was right above our house! I set the alarm. I found a website with a police scanner, and listened to that for a while. Heard nothing about what was going on, but did here a lot of other chatter. The police in Seattle are not idle.
Later in the evening, I went to the Seattle Police Blotter website, and read:
Officers are investigating after gunfire erupted in the Haller Lake neighborhood Monday afternoon.
Several residents called into 911 after hearing gunshots at about 4:30 PM in the 13500 block of Roosevelt Way North. So far, officers have found no victims or damage as a result of the shooting.
Officers have collected shell casings at the scene and are speaking with witnesses now. According to witnesses the suspect shot several times out of his car window and then fled the scene. Police are searching the area for the suspect vehicle.
I’m guessing it happened at the 7-11, the one I go to for Cokes and frozen burritos.
My house sits well off the road, at the end of a long driveway. I have easy access to highway 5, and shopping is convenient, with options less than a mile away. There’s that 7-11, which has a gas station next to it. There are parks and churches around here, bus stops, schools, and not a heck of a lot of traffic.
I like all of that. But here’s my favorite part, which I’ll quote from the report above:
Several residents called into 911
People are people, and things are going to happen, no matter where you go in the world. This is my ideal community— a place where folks let each other be, but keep their eyes and ears open, just in case.
