Last Century

Never seen before by human eyes, never touched by human hands. . . it's a photo from the past century that has lived a life of obscurity.  Why?  Because I don't have thousands of images; I have millions, I am certain.  This is pre-digital age, shot on film.  It has that charm, doesn't it?  But why, you ask, is it making its appearance now?  

Thank you for asking. 

Yesterday I had plans for a big stretching/rehab/cardio day followed by a schvitz.  But much as I want to lose fat, my brain was rebelling.  It was, perhaps, listening to my body.  It was early, so I had time,  The day was going to be a weather miracle, sunny, clear, and cool.  I would workout, clean up, then get out into the world with a camera to catch the magical light.  It would be a great and wonderful and productive day.  

But first, I guessed, I could eat something.  Nothing much.  Half a grapefruit and a hard boiled egg.  

I don't get it, though.  I hear people say, "Yea. . . I lost a lot of weight when we got the dog.  Taking him for walks, you know. . . I dropped twenty pounds."

"I just quit eating bread.  The pounds just melted away."

It's true.  I hear these things all the time.  I don't eat bread.  I exercise a lot.  Now I have cut calories and quit drinking.  And still. . . Quasimodo.  Something out there just hates me, I guess.  

After I ate that, though, I started slicing an apple and smearing the slices with peanut butter.  Well, hell. . . I needed milk to wash it down.  And after that, I was too full to rush to the gym.  I decided to be productive.  I need to cull photographs for my potential website.  I'll just do that for a bit, I thought.  

And that was that.  I didn't put on any music.  I wasn't going to be long.  I opened up some old files full of other files full of photos.  Or what could be photos if I worked them up out of their digital state.  So. . . I did one. . . and then another. . . and then. . . it was after three.  I had sat through the most beautiful day of the winter working at the computer--without a note of music!

I sent Q a photo I took when he was still a kid in NYC living with his Own True Love.  She was really something, clever as a whip, tall and aristocratic in a natural way.  Women like that make a fellow look better than he is, of course.  I know that well.  And then you start to believe in yourself and you do great things.  But, like this picture, you are seeing life through a wine glass.  

O.K.  I really juiced that lemon a little too much, didn't I.  It was a stretch, I know.  I'm leaving it, though, just to poke at Q. . . but I am really writing of myself.  I've been the victim of my own delusions, too.  

I worked on several images from that trip to NYC.  Wow.  Though I have photographed for only a day or two here, a weekend there, I have a trove of images that I like.  I did well in NYC, I think.  The Woman with Umbrella photo is in the manner of the zeitgeist in which I developed my photographic vision and sensibilities.  And it is, I think, very representative of the time.  I had that shit down.  

I needed to get the developed film waiting for me at the photo store before heading to my mother's.  By the time I shut everything down, it was three-thirty.  I hadn't moved from the chair all day.  I hadn't showered.  I was in the t-shirt I slept in.  Whatever.  I needed to go.  I put on my Adidas and threw on a sweatshirt and headed out the door.  

There is a pinhead girl who works at the photo store now who does not like me I can tell.  It has to be chemical because I feel the same way about her as I do poison ivy.  But she has the upper hand and delights in fucking me over as she can.  When I brought my film in for processing, she told me it would be two weeks.  I brought some film in the next week and heard her chatting with someone who was apparently a friend.  She was going to get her film back in a few days.  Meanwhile, as I stood waiting on her, she just chatted on and on about her photo project ignoring me.  I could tell that it was giving her great pleasure.  There is something deeply wrong with her, I can tell.  Something in her childhood, maybe.  I'm guessing she used to put her friends Barbies in the microwave.  

Yesterday, when I picked up my film, she was again slow in helping me.  But my friend who is in charge of the film department was there.  He invited me back.  They were transferring my scanned images to a Zip drive I had brought in, but the server was slow and needed to be rebooted.  While we were kibitzing, he handed me the OTHER roll of film that she told me wouldn't be ready for two weeks minutes before.  

Like I said, it must be chemical.  

So. . . I was at the photo store for a long time.  I needed to get over to my mother's, but I really didn't want to go.  Just as I got to my car and picked up the phone to call her, there was a traffic accident on the street a few feet away.  One car clobbered another.  Nobody was hurt, but man, new cars sure do crumple.  The entire right side of the hit car was smashed.  Then the police and fire department showed up.  

"Hey, ma. . . what are you doing?  Well, I'm at the photo store and there was an accident just in front of me and now the parking lot and street are blocked by cop cars and fire trucks and it will take me awhile to get out of here, so. . . do you mind if I don't make it over today?"

I felt guilty, sure, but I felt relieved, too.  I was anxious to get home and look at the scans.  

They were shit.  Both the photos and the scans.  I was testing out the new replacement M7 to see if the meter was accurate, but fuck, that didn't excuse the horribly nothing photos I had taken.  Three rolls of 36 frames, and there was nothing I would. . . well. . . I cooked up a couple that might (probably will) get posted here.  Remember the kid I photographed outside the tranny club on New Year's Day in a distant town?  The photo was at the end of one of the rolls.  And something was wrong with it.  Shaky and overexposed, it seemed. But the scan was shitty.  I will have to scan it myself to see if it is any better.  Still, I worked for an hour cooking it up to make it look like something.  

The day was gone.  It was time to make dinner.  

And that's how I spent the most beautiful day of the new year.  And you know. . . I don't really regret it or care.  I have to quit thinking I'm some former athlete training to make his comeback.  I can't push myself like that every day.  I'm burning myself out.  

So. . . I ate a few cookies.  Oops.  

I don't want to go to the gym today, either. . . but I will.  I don't look forward to it, though.  I'd rather be wandering around NYC and making photos.  Why doesn't Q have an apartment there for my convenience any longer?  Why doesn't someone?  I could do such great things. 

Especially last century.