A Better Light

What sort of lunatic does this?  Every day?  I'm asking myself that a lot lately.  I am overwhelmed with things that should be done, must be done, but I do only the things I want to so.  I have a flagging will for maintenance and no desire for work at all.  I have symptoms again of some functional depression. Maybe it is the weather, the time of year, but like weight gain over time, it accumulates so that in ten, twenty years, gaining only two pounds a year. . . .  And as it does with weight gain, the master narrative would tell us that it is our own fault.

I got myself "positioned" again yesterday by speaking out at the conference.  The conference was about assessing worker performance.  I, of course, referred to the body of people present as the "privileged elite" and suggested that there needs to be an assessment of management by labor, too.  The room--and this was a very large room--went silent.  The moderator asked if anyone agreed and there was not a movement, not a peep.  My boss's eyes were squinting, his mouth tight.  Oh well.  I love to make an impression.  Later on at lunch, I suggested that next year I would do a presentation called "Assessment: A Narratological Approach."  I explained that the master narrative that ran the conference was full of assumptions that I would challenge.  I would give voice to competing narratives and show how they are repressed, then overturn the hierarchy to reveal different stories, different "truths."  Again. . . the blank stares.  I took myself down several rungs with the factory bosses, I believe.

So perhaps they are right.  Perhaps such things as weight gain and depression are our own faults. I will include you in this mix as I am seeking solace.  I need the Drapernian, "Everything will be fine."

In a few minutes, a man is coming to the house to work up an estimate on re-landscaping the yard and building some gravel driveways.  The estimate will be a shock, of course, and I will tell myself that there can be no vacation this year, no escape.  And then I will tell myself that I will do it myself, that I will just have to roll up my sleeves and do the labor.  Later, I will realize that it will cost me almost as much to do it myself and I will go back to the idea of a personal austerity program with no travel and I will get depressed.  I'll begin to think of where I can cut expenses in my life which will be everywhere. No Whole Foods.  No organic.  Cut the premium channels on t.v. and get rid of Netflix.  Drink only the cheapest liquors and don't go out to eat.  Then I will think. . . give up the studio.  Sell some cameras.  Quit spending so many hours with all this foolishness and do something productive with your time.  I will think of the endless cheap hours I will have to myself. . . alone.  There will be plenty of time to do chores.  Then I could give up the maids and the yardman.  I'll go to a barber rather than a stylist.  I'll put money into a 401K.

What I want to do is write a history of internet photography.  It would be personal, of course, but very comprehensive.  It would be of a certain kind.  It will take days of concentrated effort, weeks.  So. . . .

The landscaper/driveway builder has come.  We have talked.  He is working up an estimate.  As we walked around the property, I saw all the things beyond this that need to be done.  It is basically everything.  The house needs painting again.  Soon I will need a new roof.  God knows what horrors will come with this summer's storms.

Perhaps tomorrow will be sunny and clear again.  Maybe everything will look different in a better light.