Originally Posted Sunday, May 26, 2013
I woke with the sun falling through the transom window right into my eyes. I tried pulling a pillow over them, but it was too much. I rolled over and tried to see the digital clock across the room. Eight o'clock. Shit. My body was still that sandbag I'd turned it into days ago. Worse now. I shuffled to the bathroom, back and hips afire. Why? I hadn't exercised for a long time. Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. Luckily, I was alone. There was no one to witness this incredibly awful sight of a broken Grendel inching his way across the floor.
I don't know why I do the things I do. As I've told you, I'm trying to get away from "Lonesomeville." I am. But I am stupid and it is hard. I decided to try to work the big 8x10 camera last night. A girl I know who I've shot with many times said she'd stop by on her way home after work to sit for what would be only a few pictures. I had been in bed a large part of the day. After I wrote yesterday's blog, the house repairman showed up. His work is finished, but he was going to help me with a few things that I wasn't really up for that morning. I was sitting with coffee when he came. I told him something of the night before, regaled him with the sort of things boys tell one another, a mixture of truth and exaggeration all in the interest of making a good tale, of course. And of course, as boys will, he had to tell me some of his own. I wanted to go back to bed, but he was helping me with my Jeep, so I staggered outside into the cruel daylight and we got a few things done. There was more to do when he left, but I could only think of breakfast. And after breakfast, the bad fatigue had settled in, so I came home and went back to bed. When I woke up, it was almost time to meet my friend. Jesus Christ, I had no energy nor interest in fucking around with that big camera, but she was doing me a favor and so I showered and went.
Cranberry and vodka, she said. What the hell, I may as well have one, too. A little hair of the dog, I thought. Mmm. She was pouring much more heavily than I. I marvel at women. The way they drink is the stuff of legends. The girl from the evening before was just over a hundred pounds. Trying to keep up with them is dangerous. They don't even show it until they hit the floor. Then. . . my god. . . they morph into something you wouldn't think possible ten minutes before. I shouldn't have been drinking the vodka. I could feel that. I'd only had breakfast and my stomach was hollow. I had a can of giant cashews sitting on a table. I took a handful. Somehow, they didn't do the trick. I could feel them sitting on the bottom of my stomach which was not at all interested in trying to digest them. I needed soup.
And so I set up the 8x10 that I have not used for months and months, fumbling around in slow motion and blindness, lowering the legs of the tripod ungracefully, the heavy camera falling on it's swiveling head so violently I don't know how the small metal pieces kept it from crashing to the floor.
"Do you want me to help you with that," the girl asked.
"Oh, no. . . I'm just. . . uh. . . shit. . . what's this knob for. . . oh, Christ. . . no, I've got it. . . here, see. . . . "
She is an accomplished violinist, so I thought I would speak the language.
"It is like playing an instrument, you know? It is a matter of repetition, knowing which moves you make, where to place your fingers over and over until you can do it in your sleep. But this is like picking up a new instrument unlike what you were playing before. You know the rudiments, you know what notes will make the music, but you keep hunting and missing. It just takes practice, then after awhile you needn't think about it any more. Your body just remembers what to do."
She was drinking vodka like a champ, and I think it helped to calm her down. She seemed fine sitting in one place and position for a long time.
Finally I made some progress. I was ready to shoot a big sheet of the black and white. But the meter readings didn't seem right to me. I was skeptical and didn't trust them. I don't know why, really, but I set the camera the way I thought it should be rather than what the instrument told me.
"O.K. Hold it."
I pulled out the black strip of paper that was near my hand. Fuck. I shouldn't have done that. I'd done it before, I remembered. There was a big yellow prohibited circle and line on it. You're not supposed to pull it. It was the negative I'd pulled out of the packet.
"Oh shit."
"What?"
"I just pulled out the film. Shit. That's twenty bucks. O.K. O.K. Don't move. I'm going to load another one."
Bing, bang, bong. I had another big packet in the holder. I tried to pull the sleeve that is supposed to be removed out of the holder, but try as I might, I could not make it budge.
"O.K. I don't want you to move, but I need you to pull this for me. I'll grab the holder."
It came off without effort. Why? What was I doing wrong?
"I'm going to have to focus again. Hold still."
And so I went through the process again, open the lens, go under the dark cloth, squint and stare and try to see well enough to make her image sharp, move the dark cloth, drop in the film holder, close the aperture ring . . . .
"O.K. Look right into the lens."
Push the trigger. . . Pop!
"Oh. . . don't move, don't move. . . I forgot to pull out the dark slide. . . hold it, hold it. . . . Alright, look into the lens."
Pop!
"You can relax. Now we have to run all this through the processor. Jesus, I hope the exposure was right."
For the next few minutes, I looked around the mess of the studio for a receiver sheet. It had been so long, I didn't know where anything was. Finally I came up with one. I fed it into the old Polariod processor, then put the film holder into place, and pushed the button. Nothing happened. I stood scratching my head. The girl held up the end of the plug.
"Do you have to plug this in?"
Wash, spin, rinse, repeat. . . .
Four minutes and another vodka later, we opened the dark box to see. Bingo! But for the fact that there were not enough chemicals in the pod to spread across the entire image, it was perfect.
"I'm glad I used my own settings," I said. "I'm a fucking genius." Of course I was being ironic. We had been at this for the bigger part of an hour now and had made one single picture.
"O.K. Let's try the color film. I'm one of only a handful of people in the U.S. to have any of this. It's 'cause I'm so awesome."
Four pieces of very expensive film and a long time later, I didn't have a single image. As we stood looking at the ruined film, me scratching my head, she picked up a discarded one and said, "Look. You can just see my image. See? There's my head. There's my legs."
Then I thought of something. The color film took a lot longer to develop than the black and white. I began scrounging around the piles of boxes for some instructions. After a bit, I found them. She came over to look with me. She seemed the more competent of the two of us.
"Here," she pointed to the sheet. "The film needs to stay in the dark for forty-five minutes."
"I was right!" I said in triumph that belied the past hours of not being right at all. "C'mon, let's make one more."
When we finished, it was late. I needed food, but she sat on the couch in a relaxed way and looked at me. This happens, and I never am sure what to do. I made conversation and cleaned things up while she answered the questions about her life I invariably ask. I am the kind of guy people tell things to. It is a talent of some sort, perhaps because I am so open, too. There is another thing, though. I never think girls have any attraction to me other than as a confessor. It never crosses my mind that a woman desires more than my distraction. But given some of the events of the past few weeks, I am beginning to think I might be naive. I looked at her sitting solidly and comfortably on the couch, she observing me, smiling. It was almost ten. I could not take another night of revelry. I needed food. All I could think was that the Thai restaurant might close before I got there. I needed their spicy soup terribly, medicinally. I picked up my camera bag and walked to where she sat.
"I need to go quickly. I haven't eaten and I'm afraid the Thai place will close."
She stepped close and we embraced. I hugged her like a brother would.
"I really like shooting with you," I said, moving her toward the door. Maybe I am wrong about everything I think, perhaps always getting the signals exactly backwards. But I don't care. I wanted to be on my couch eating soup and drinking beer. There was a PPV UFC Championship fight on. I decided I was going to watch it.
Soup, beer, then whiskey. Perhaps it was the soup, but I was feeling awake for the first time that day. My shit was all fucked up. I could tell I wouldn't sleep. The fights were on and not disappointing, but I kept thinking I was stupid to have paid for them. They would last all night. Another whiskey would surely make me sleepy. But at twelve-thirty when the fights were done, I felt wide awake. No, no, no, no, no, I thought, and I went to the bathroom drugstore to see what I could find. I was just going to take another Advil P.M., but the package was empty. There in the bottom of the drawer were two clear glass viles, one containing a brain paralyzer, the other an anti-anxiety elixir. I didn't think either would work. I decided on both.
As I sit here writing this morning, the skin of my face falling like loose cookie dough and of that same pallid hue, I prove the theory, the one I told the violin player last night. We can do things if we repeat them enough times. Memory takes over. We don't have to think it through. My fingers type from the synapses of the brain. If I hadn't done this a million times before, I could not do it now. Repetition. Keep practicing the scales.
I am fucking up the long weekend, though. I wish I were like the people jogging by my window this morning, refreshed by sleep, rested and ready to roll. My body hurts, my mind rebels. My god, the day is gorgeous. I will have to start over, I guess. I will take a walk. I will force myself to drink water. I may need help with that. Water and sunshine and organic vegetable drinks from the juice bar. I want to feel the way the day looks.
It is Sunday, and as you all know, I must be ready tonight, for I am cooking for my mother. And like a typical son, I shall tell her nothing of the past few days. We will sit on the deck and look at my incredibly verdant lawn and admire my rot-free house. Steak, I think, bit fat steaks. Rice and asparagus and a tomato and avocado salad, and a bottle of red wine. I will begin to work my way back to normalcy.
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