Bedraggled and Happy

I feel alive tonight.  I'm not sleepy nor ready for bed.  It has been like this all week.  It might be due to my lack of drinking (which, I might say, has saved me a tidy sum this week), or it could be because I am free of the factory until January 3.  I don't know.  But I was out tonight running some errands and I had an urge to stay out in the cool darkness and cruise.

It has been a rough year and a long time since I felt this way.  I won't go into it.  But somehow, some of it seems to be fading into the past, at least emotionally, and some other has been mitigated in one way or another.

But I've been feeling very blue this year and truly have gone nowhere at all.  I work, go to the gym, go to the grocery store, come home and cook for me and Puss 'n Boots, drink, eat, and watch television.  Unless  I have someone to shoot.  Then I rush home from work and run to the studio to work until nine o'clock or so.  And, of course, in the mornings, I write.

I've left out the part where I make all the pictures in post-production.  Before bed and after I get up.

It has all been quite busy.

And I realize that I would not have committed myself to all of this if I had remained happy, or what passes for it, and had not been alone.  After "the end of the affair" last year, I threw myself into the creative work.  It stimulated me and kept my mind off the other thing.  And always I thought that no matter what anyone said, the work was good, and it was worthwhile.

And now--well, some very nice things are happening already.  Q has chastised me for being happy, I think (see yesterday's comments and you tell me), but I am.  O.K.  He will say "not happy."  Whatever.   I am, but it won't last.

Here is another of the "Liberator" photos I've taken.  Took it tonight in the studio.  The light was not right, but I wanted to see if I could get the correct exposures.  I did and can.  Now I must begin to think about aesthetics.  This photo was hand held at 1/4 of a second.  The camera weighs over ten pounds.  There is, of course, a little shake.  Not a good picture.  Just documenting.  And oh, I fell for the model tonight.  Same girl as in the photo at the top of the page.  That is digital and still too yellow, but it is her.  Nonetheless.  I fell for her not really and truly but I was enamored in some way, and perhaps that adds to the aliveness. I have not let myself feel anything at all for over a year, so maybe this is the beginning of something.

After the shoot, I skipped the gym and went around the corner for $1 burgers.  I threw in a Corsican salad with it and a German wheat beer (oops).  $12 with tip.  And plenty of smarmy Country Club assholes at the bar talking shit to one another.  A good night, really.

But now I am sleepy and ready for bed.  It has been a big day.  Huge.  I am worn out with it all.