Jessie and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Night

On my way into the studio yesterday after dropping off film at the lab, I found a crisp $5 bill just outside the South Station T entrance. Lunch money! It was a good sign that this week is on the incline.

It didn't start out so bad, at first, even in spite of the soggy, freezing weather. There was the getting locked out of my apartment Sunday morning and having to break in, which was easy, which was good - until it occurred to me that it's alarmingly easy to break into my apartment. There was the working at the studio til 11:30pm trying to do all the impossible things my job demands. There was a nice interlude of having a beer with Matt at the bar in the basement of our new building, but then there was the losing of his keys upon reaching his house at 12:30am. We were quite the pair, that day, with the key losing.

I was still in decent spirits, but it didn't end there. We tried the back staircase, and for better or worse Matt's apartment that night was pretty secure, so we called the roommates. Straight to voicemail, both of them. We cringingly rang the bell and waited, then rang again - no one home. Shit.

I should have just called a friend in Cambridge then and crashed on their couch; I'd given up my bed because Kim's family was in town for the night, a stopover after a weekend wedding somewhere. But I called and woke her, and told her we were coming, and she of course said no problem - we could stay on the sofa bed in the living room, and her family would all be up and out by 7:15am, anyway (great). So we hopped in a cab.

Which got a flat tire on the Mass Ave bridge.

By this point I was amused. The driver, although he didn't feel it necessary to interrupt his phone conversation to inform us of anything going on, finally got us another cab, which delivered us penniless to my apartment, where we snuck in like little mice and crawled, exhausted, into the sofa bed, no sheets or anything.

...Did I say little mice? Well, one little actual mouse decided to pull a wild all-nighter in our kitchen (which, I should illustrate, is for all intensive purposes IN the living room), streaking from one side of the room to the other, crunching on some stuff, doing some mouse aerobics. We reset the friendly traps and squeezed pillows to our ears, trying to drown it out.

You'd think it was over, right? Mm-mm... it was a really bad night.

Once we'd tuned out the energetic mouse, Kim got a stomach bug, something that had been going around at the wedding she attended. So every half hour or so she'd creep around our bed and into the bathroom on the opposite side of the wall to do her thing.

No fun was had by anyone. Kim, additionally, had to report for jury duty at 8am.

Anyone else have a rough time with the Sunday/Monday transition? Rachel did, and I know of a couple others. I'm wondering if the cosmos had a flat cosmic tire or something. I should point out that we caught the mouse in the wee hours, and it proceeded to throw its body against the walls of the Hav-a-Heart until we gave it a lift outside.

But like I said: things are on the upswing. I found some money, work is going well, I have interns, I hung out with my photographer friend Judy and her boyfriend and a friend of theirs in Southie last night, it's Friday and I don't have a shoot tomorrow, the weather's nice, the list goes on. I feel any karmic slight I must have made has been forgiven.

I'm still walking with one eye cast over my shoulder, though. You can't be too careful when the universe is in a pissy mood.

Go Ahead, Pile On!

Sorry for the lack of activity. Between being way behind on my own editing, and trying to handle someone else's business on top of it, I've let the blog slide. Here's a tiny morsel for now - the Oberlin group photo from Adam and Ian's wedding. Even as I was setting up the shot I wasn't ready for the sheer number of us.

Grab it while you can, kids, and look for it in the Alumni Notes.

The Verdict is In, and it's Oh So Fine.

I'd love to be able to show you more from last weekend's wedding, but in addition to being insanely busy, I wound up with jury duty. And got seated. On a criminal case. Which, fortunately, is compelling and complex enough to keep me awake all day.

But I do have just a couple, until I can get to the rest. Look at my beautiful friends.

The Event Queen

I find myself shooting a lot of events lately. A wonderfully nerdaliscious science festival this past weekend, weddings here and there, a groundbreaking ceremony for a new theater, political stuff. It's good work and if I'm lucky, the people there are interesting and off-guard.

I guess what isn't an event, though, when you think about it?

(From the science festival...)








(From the previously mentioned theater opening, which was followed by a parade.)



A few nights ago Matt and I dusted off some actual film cameras and loaded them up with high-speed film from my 'fridge (which may be the only thing in my fridge that actually belongs to me), grabbed a tripod, and headed into Downtown Crossing for some night photography. I mostly concentrated on tops of buildings there, and dim sources of light from basement shops. I haven't developed the film yet, but once I do, I'm going to get back into the darkroom to print it. I can't wait. I need to work on something I can actually touch, and push myself away a little from keyboard commands and a backlit monitor.

Unfortunately this blog doesn't have much direction lately apart from posting a few recent photos and sharing rather mundane details of life. I haven't had much time for introspection, but even as I say that, it seems like a lame excuse. Because what's the point of sharing anything - of doing anything - if you're not doing it consciously and thoughtfully?

So I'm thinking of going in a new direction. Spending less time mindlessly throwing stuff up on the blog, and more time working on long-term photographic projects and professional endeavors, posting little vignettes that having nothing to do with my daily life, but depict something of interest to me. I'm just getting sick of reading my own stuff, and I need a change of venue.

One thing I did want to leave you with was images from the portrait party from way back when... the idea was to evoke some element of yourself from those days of school portraits. It was funny - Melissa did the school cafeteria thing where somebody's about to get in trouble and everybody goes, "Oooooohhhhhhhhhh....."



Meredith, who knows about these things because she is a teacher, did the obligatory eye roll:


...and then giggled:


Laura got a little overwhelmed by the hot lights:


Jamie and Marie managed to look both intimidatingly cool and mildly confused:



And Matt, well, Matt was in rather rare form that night anyway. He'd arrived from a post-game bar brawl with a guy twice his size, which is shocking as he is usually very gentle... anyway, he was feeling a little punk rock.


Nice.