A Losing Battle

O.K.  It is an obvious, cheap shot, but it has been sitting in my files waiting for a long time, and I want to get rid of it.  Now it is yours.  Some things are too hard to pass up. 

I began getting ready for my trip to L.A. last night. . . a little.  I went through my camera inventory deciding what to take.  I wanted to take my Canon.  It makes great beautiful pictures, but holy smokes is it big.  I haven't really used it since I closed the studio.  It and a few lenses fill a suitcase.  After using the Leicas and the Sony, it is impossible to decide to take it.  I can pack the Sony and four lenses in a little bag.  Same is true of the Leicas.  They will be going with me as well as my Rolleiflex.  I think.  We'll see.  But I won't be taking the Canon.  It is a shame, though.  I shot most of my NYC pictures with that and a big zoom lens.  Huge. 

Getting ready for a trip always depresses me.  I don't do well with decision making.  I think mostly about how the trip can fail.  I've already made a mistake in booking my flight.  I need one more day, and it was really doable, but I'll live with the bad decision now.  The important thing is that I get on a plane and go.  I am a mopey sonofabitch, and I need to move.  The end of my working days gets closer at a seemingly faster rate, and I need to get my head put on straight.  I am like a punch drunk fighter, muzzy minded, indecisive, terrified.  I like to play the tough guy, but I'm the biggest baby you could ever meet. 

Even when I was a kid, I'd always get sick before big vacations.  Emotions overwhelmed me.  I worried about everything.  I thought out every possibility of what could go wrong.  I wanted a perfect vacation and there were so many variables it seemed impossible that things would turn out right. 

I am still that way.  I am wound too tight. 

On the phone with my mother after work last night, I said I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my evening.  She jumped all over that and said I could always come over and hang out with her.  What could I say?   I went to her house and made dinner.  I am sweet. 

I realize that much of what burdens me about traveling now is vanity.  With travel there was always the possibility of romance.  The two went hand in hand.  I wasn't looking for it, but it was always there.  Now I can hardly stand to look a woman in the eye knowing that what they see is the same thing I see every morning in the mirror.  It is not comforting.  Maybe that was what got Bourdain.  The mirror.  And knowing Argento was out there wooing young boys.  If only I could take solace from Ecclesiastes.  Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and chasing after the wind.  One generation comes and one generation goes, but the earth abides forever.  Etc. 

But I can't condone it.  It is a bad plan. 

Still, it is time for the gym.  I have to make an effort even if it is a losing battle.  And it is. 

Yup.  It is.