(not so) Quick Update

Well, I'm typing this from an unlikely place: the waiting room at our local hospital. Don't be alarmed... Dark Haired Girl had surgery on her bladder, and the doc just came out to tell me that all went well, and that she's chillin' like a villain in the recovery room.

Ok, so he didn't say chillin', but you just know the anesthesiologist has her stoned off her ass right now.

The nurses who were prepping her for surgery thought we were married and kept referring to me as her husband. When they left, she and I just grinned at each other. The sound of that really wasn't hateful at all.

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So, yeah. I've been trying but can't get on Blogger at home. I have a big shoot Saturday the 5th, the proceeds of which will go toward a laptop. It's become a straight-up bitch to be a digital photographer without one. Full tower desktop PC cases with CRT monitors aren't exactly the most portable of creatures. Once in my posession, which I'm hoping will be within September, I'll resume my online presence.

I miss talking to you guys. I think all these great thoughts, but have nowhere to put them, and as soon they arrive, POOF! they dissipate. I started the other night on my latest project, which I hope to turn into a book. The working title is "Steel Reserve, a Love Affair."

If you've never had Steel Reserve malt liquor, it's a real treat. Think of the last time you drove past a freshly road-killed skunk. Now take that, add alcohol, and put it in a shiny 22-ounce aluminum can.

Somehow, I managed to acquire a taste for it. Any reasonable explanation as to why still eludes me, but it happened. Anyhoo, one night Dark Haired Girl took a sip of it, and her face wretched and twisted in ways I didn't know faces could move. She looked like a butter sculpture left in the sun too long.

Once I picked myself up off the floor, regained my breath, and returned from the vaguely purple color I had laughed my ass into, I was immediately inspired to create a series of photos. The first two were taken Tuesday night, Shaggy and Blonde Haired Girl. I haven't laughed so hard in months. Wasn't expecting to be online, so I don't have any web-sized previews to show you. You're in for a real treat...

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Speaking of Tuesday, it was my 31st birthday. I've really downplayed things this year. I don't know, turning 30 was fun, but the prospect and lead-up to this one (and probably most hereafter) has been markedly dreadful. Yes I, your friend and humble narrator, have acknowledged and begun to feel my mortality.

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So, the Spanish Learning is going well, I'm really trying to train my brain to stop thinking in French (leftover from high school) and start generating original thoughts in Spanish. Mystery commenter of several posts prior, feel free to leave more titillating tantalizing tongue-twisting translational tidbits.

Hi all. I decided to go (after a fair bit of research and some advice during an unexpected encounter with a weird new-agey healer) to embark on a regimen of B vitamins and this stuff called 5-HTP, which I gather is the amino acid your brain uses to create seratonin, the "feel good" chemical. Thus far, it has done a decent job of taking the edge off of my anxiety. My teeth feel better as I have greatly reduced my jaw clenching, and I simply don't feel so damned uptight about work as I had been. Subtle effects, but noticeable.

Of course, it doesn't help that at this time last year, I was living in Cleveland with a career and adult life steaming full speed ahead like an ore freighter across Lake Erie. I felt like I had my life ahead of me then. It doesn't feel much like that now... more like somehow the best that life had to offer has already come and passed by, and now it's just down to existing from day to day. But deep down I know that's not really true.

At least I have a job, albeit part time and with the Evil Empire. After two rounds of layoffs at my store alone, as well as the last remaining Fortune 500 company (NCR) in the city of Dayton now having announced plans to leave town within the next year, a whole lotta people can't say that. That, and Liz wants me to work more hours with her. I haven't lost my perspective on things, which is why although it sounds like I'm all boo-hooing and full of despair, at worst I'm really just kinda bummed about the state of things, and am otherwise keeping my chin up, riding my bike a lot, losing weight, and getting some SEXY-ass muscular legs. ;-)

I still have the slow trickle of occasional gigs coming in, which helps quash the feeling that I've lost my profession. That's my worst fear. Worse than spiders.

eek.

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I did something the other morning which I haven't done in what feels like a very long time... I took pictures. Not for a gig, but just because the spirit moved me to do so, which is something I haven't felt in a good while. I had woken up early at Dark Haired Girl's house to go home and get dressed for a day working with Liz, and was stunned by the scenery of sunrise over the misty fields of her father's farm.







It felt good having even a fleeting moment of inspiration, like meeting an old friend again.