Here's the first Ektar lens photo. I shot it on ruined, long expired, dried out 4x5 Polaroid 59 film. It was almost dark, so I guessed at the exposure and just held the shutter open for what I thought might be almost a second. There are no colors left but green and blue. The fellow in the picture is a real artist whose work has been collected in some impressive places. Rather than standing still, however, he thought it would be fun to move. Not for me. But there is an image and now I have begun. But there is no 4x5 film left to buy for the camera. I have a couple boxes of dried up Polaroid that I will shoot up, but I will have to begin working with film which means there will be a big lag between when I shoot and when I see the photograph. Drats.
I shot this about an hour after slicing off part of my left hand pointing finger with a razor knife. It was the fleshy part next to the nail. I was holding a straight edge as I trimmed some paper and had my finger hanging over the edge. I immediately stuck my finger in my mouth and tasted the blood. I kept sucking it thinking to clean it. I looked at the table and saw the chunk of flesh laying there. I wrapped my finger in some tissue and held it tight as I drove home to doctor it. I rinsed it, used hydrogen peroxide, sterilized it with betadine, and wrapped it tight with gauze. Then I poured a scotch and sat outside with my hand over my head to stop the bleeding. That worked.
After the scotch, I thought I'd better go back and finish cutting paper like getting back on the horse. And that is when I took the photo. This morning, it is difficult to type the "t"s "f"s "g"s and "v"s. But it will be fine.
Last night I watched "Conversations with Other Women." Mostly. I think I fell asleep at the part where they make love. Scotch induced, though I was not really drinking. The music over the opening and closing credits was wonderful (link), so I squinted my eyes and looked hard at the very skinny music credits. Carla Bruni. Quick Google to make sure I was right. French folk singer, of course, and ex-model married to the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. She's pretty good. She wasn't bad as a model, either, but I won't show those scandalous pictures here. You'll have to Google them for yourself.
* * * * *
Monday was Memorial Day, so there was no film class that night. My wife wanted to go to the beach with her girlfriend, and I went, too, but I could feel that I was tagging along. The girlfriend and my wife talked in knowing tones and exchanged looks that made me uncomfortable. On the way over, I, of course, sat in the backseat, out of the way. The day was not adding up when we stopped at a minimart for beer. My wife never drank during the day and usually very little. I could feel the change.
There is no use chronicling the day in detail. The day was beautiful and the ocean warm and blue. There was nothing I could put my finger on, nothing to make me say that things were going wrong. The day was simply odd. We used the pool at a condo owned by my wife's old boyfriend, a wealthy builder who happened to be there. The three of them talked about things I knew nothing of. No, there was nothing you could put your finger on. It was simply that I could feel myself slipping farther and farther away.
The next week, my wife told me she was flying to Seattle to help a fellow at an outdoor exposition. He was paying for her flight and for her room and paying her well besides. It was all part of her business, but again, something about it didn't seem right, and a weary hollowness began to haunt me. "When?" I kept asking myself in an unheard voice. "When?"
The morning I took her to the airport, Hurricane Floyd had just become a category 5 storm and was predicted to come across the state that day. The morning light looked odd, yellowish gray, and the rain was just beginning. We drove in silence but for the sound of the windshield wipers--thump-clunk, thump-clunk, thump-clunk. When I dropped her off curbside, she merely waved and said she'd see me in a few days. Be careful, I said, though it was I who would need to weather the coming storm.
Back home, I decided to put some of the yard things away that might blow away if the storm did come. We had a giant glass top on a wrought iron table that I wondered about. It was over an inch thick and four feet in diameter. I could barely pick it up. But what would a hurricane force wind do? Would it lift it and send it flying? Jesus, such a thing would be terrible, I thought. And so I tried lifting it. It took all my strength to get it up. What the hell could I do with it? I thought to lay it on the ground. Surely it would stay there. But I had it in my hands, arms stretched as wide as they could go, and I didn't like the idea of the damn thing outside at all, so I decided to take it to the garage on the other side of the property. The rain was falling, and walking across the yard in my flip flops was difficult with the giant piece of glass in my hands. I had to stop twice to rest, setting it upright on the ground, bending my knees but feeling it in my back. Damn, I thought, I should have left it lay. But I was almost to the garage now, and so with a final great effort, I walked it to the door. Inside, the garage was a mess. Where could I put the glass top? I looked around for a place to lean it upright so that it wouldn't slide. And standing there in the dim light, I suddenly felt the glass begin to slip from my grip. It was quick, but I remember it all as slow as a nightmare, of course. I remember squeezing my hands together to hold it, remember how the roundness of the glass squirted through them more quickly and with more force the harder I squeezed, remember it hitting with only a dull thud, then the numbness in my big toe. Shit, oh, shit, I thought not feeling anything, wondering if I had broken it. I didn't look down. I knew better. No, take a step, I thought, take a step and see. And I remember that there was nothing solid there, that it was all liquid. Oh, oh, I am in trouble, I thought, and I thought about the dog, my blind dog who needed walking and needed her insulin shot and needed to be fed exactly half an hour later. I don't remember how, but the next thing I knew, I was outside on the ground in the wet grass and the rain. The garage had an apartment above it, and the woman who rented it came out.
"Are you O.K." she asked?
"Yea, I dropped the glass table top on my toe. I think I broke it." I could feel the ground spinning under me and I wanted to get up, but it seemed impossible. I just sat there.
"I think I need to go to the hospital," I said.
"Do you want me to take you," she asked?
"No. . . no, I think I can drive." But when I tried to get up, I felt as if I would puke and fell back down. I could tell by her posture and her face that I must not look so good. I still had not looked at my toe.
"I'd better take you," she said.
"Yea, I guess so." I was wondering who would take care of my dog.
There is no use chronicling the day in detail. The day was beautiful and the ocean warm and blue. There was nothing I could put my finger on, nothing to make me say that things were going wrong. The day was simply odd. We used the pool at a condo owned by my wife's old boyfriend, a wealthy builder who happened to be there. The three of them talked about things I knew nothing of. No, there was nothing you could put your finger on. It was simply that I could feel myself slipping farther and farther away.
The next week, my wife told me she was flying to Seattle to help a fellow at an outdoor exposition. He was paying for her flight and for her room and paying her well besides. It was all part of her business, but again, something about it didn't seem right, and a weary hollowness began to haunt me. "When?" I kept asking myself in an unheard voice. "When?"
The morning I took her to the airport, Hurricane Floyd had just become a category 5 storm and was predicted to come across the state that day. The morning light looked odd, yellowish gray, and the rain was just beginning. We drove in silence but for the sound of the windshield wipers--thump-clunk, thump-clunk, thump-clunk. When I dropped her off curbside, she merely waved and said she'd see me in a few days. Be careful, I said, though it was I who would need to weather the coming storm.
Back home, I decided to put some of the yard things away that might blow away if the storm did come. We had a giant glass top on a wrought iron table that I wondered about. It was over an inch thick and four feet in diameter. I could barely pick it up. But what would a hurricane force wind do? Would it lift it and send it flying? Jesus, such a thing would be terrible, I thought. And so I tried lifting it. It took all my strength to get it up. What the hell could I do with it? I thought to lay it on the ground. Surely it would stay there. But I had it in my hands, arms stretched as wide as they could go, and I didn't like the idea of the damn thing outside at all, so I decided to take it to the garage on the other side of the property. The rain was falling, and walking across the yard in my flip flops was difficult with the giant piece of glass in my hands. I had to stop twice to rest, setting it upright on the ground, bending my knees but feeling it in my back. Damn, I thought, I should have left it lay. But I was almost to the garage now, and so with a final great effort, I walked it to the door. Inside, the garage was a mess. Where could I put the glass top? I looked around for a place to lean it upright so that it wouldn't slide. And standing there in the dim light, I suddenly felt the glass begin to slip from my grip. It was quick, but I remember it all as slow as a nightmare, of course. I remember squeezing my hands together to hold it, remember how the roundness of the glass squirted through them more quickly and with more force the harder I squeezed, remember it hitting with only a dull thud, then the numbness in my big toe. Shit, oh, shit, I thought not feeling anything, wondering if I had broken it. I didn't look down. I knew better. No, take a step, I thought, take a step and see. And I remember that there was nothing solid there, that it was all liquid. Oh, oh, I am in trouble, I thought, and I thought about the dog, my blind dog who needed walking and needed her insulin shot and needed to be fed exactly half an hour later. I don't remember how, but the next thing I knew, I was outside on the ground in the wet grass and the rain. The garage had an apartment above it, and the woman who rented it came out.
"Are you O.K." she asked?
"Yea, I dropped the glass table top on my toe. I think I broke it." I could feel the ground spinning under me and I wanted to get up, but it seemed impossible. I just sat there.
"I think I need to go to the hospital," I said.
"Do you want me to take you," she asked?
"No. . . no, I think I can drive." But when I tried to get up, I felt as if I would puke and fell back down. I could tell by her posture and her face that I must not look so good. I still had not looked at my toe.
"I'd better take you," she said.
"Yea, I guess so." I was wondering who would take care of my dog.
i can't wait til we get to the healing toenail.
ReplyDeleteJesus. It was awful.
ReplyDelete