Useless

Each day, I post a picture at the top of the page, then I begin to write.  Always the picture comes first. But today's picture is still scanning.  It is a long process and will take a while, and I do not have time to wait, so I will begin writing and put the picture in afterwards.  It feels wrong.  I think that maybe the image directs my writing in some way, not consciously, but subtly.

Today I am writing to the blank page.

Day four of my mini-vacation was spent for the most part lying around.  Ili and I both felt joint achy, bone achy, so we stayed on the couch and watched movies.  We made a trip to the Home Depot and got some needed things, and that made me feel good enough.  There was too much heat in the afternoon, too much humidity.

Here, on the fifth day of a three day weekend, I am alone.  There is much work to do, but I am not the man to do it.  Truly.  I find that I can only work when someone is doing it with me.  I think too much and lack confidence.  Before I do anything, I have to ask, "What do you think?"  I have to grout the brick patio with cement where it has crumbled and left gaps.  Cement grout, I am told.  Is that right?  How do you mix it?  Do you just spatula it in?  How would I know if I was doing it right?

I'd know just how to do it if someone were here with me.  I'd know that they were making mistakes and I could correct them.  On my own though. . . .

I am waiting for the person from the awning company to come out and give me an estimate.  Before the awning can be hung, though, the wall that will support it needs to be scraped, caulked, and painted.  Before this, that. . . always.  No matter how much I do, there is much more to be done.  It is a nightmare of sorts, though when it is done, I feel better.  I have someone coming to give me an estimate on painting the house, but I fear it will be more than I am willing to pay.  Funny, that, since I was paying for a studio all these years.  Funny, since I have a full cable package full of premiums that costs me twice what I should pay.  Funny, since I am thinking of buying more cameras and gear.

I need parenting.

The scan is done.  Here is a fellow I struck up a conversation with downtown.  He has been homeless for 46 years, he said.  He was a little crazy, I think, but maybe not by street standards.  I read this article in the N.Y. Times today.  Look at the graph.  The population of homeless people is aging.  Skid Row is really a thing.  There is something very, very wrong in this country.

But my photo is hideous.  I need to give up.  This doesn't begin to give the emotion of the thing.  I need to learn my craft and quit learning about equipment.  This is the wrong picture for the camera and lens.  The background stands out in its bland way and is distracting.  My cropping through the rangefinder is off.  Nothing works in this picture.  Nothing.

Makes me feel like working on the house.  I am no photographer and certainly don't wish to be homeless.