Monday, September 30, 2013

9/30/13 Falsely Intimate Power Plays

As an introvert with control issues (my therapist will write me a note), Amanda Hess' blog today, "Hugs are Falsely Intimate Power Plays" is right on the mark. 

Most loved: I am not an automaton. I can appreciate the experience of physical and emotional communion—on occasion. There are some bodies—boyfriends, parents, domesticated lions I’ve reintroduced into the wild—with which I will gladly entangle for a two-second count upon greeting.

My encounters throughout the evening at my 25th reunion reminded me of how much I take for granted being alone throughout most of my day. I walk with Evan alone in the morning. I work alone all day, almost never even speaking on the phone, much less face to face. I occasionally choose to go to lunch with a girlfriend, which is fine for a quickie hug when it's been awhile and/or she's a hugger who's heading for me with arms open at the front of the restaurant. I can handle those impositions into my personal space without much wincing. 

But to head into an atmosphere rife with what amounts to stranger hugging,? people I've not seen in two decades and know only vaguely via Facebook postings, who, at a pub crawl, are, naturally, anywhere from slightly to should-be-technically-dead intoxicated? That was a recipe for some seriously false intimacy. Don't even get me started on the cheek kissing people. As I was not drinking, and may have been one of perhaps only four people out of the hundred attending who abstained, the overly gigantic hugs were particularly cringe worthy. Add to this the this-was-awesome-thank-you-for-organizing-this effusive and repetitive huggers, and I was pretty much at the end of my tactile abilities when I slipped away before midnight without a word.

I'm sure if I were a kid, I'd get placed somewhere on the autism spectrum. 

Really, I actually deeply value physical contact from those people with whom I crave genuine intimacy. I am just not very good at feigning interest in what feels like, to me, cheap forms and/or shows of affection. 

On what is probably a related note, I have trouble with goodbyes in social situations and tend to want to just disappear without announcing any leave taking at all. I've sent far too many apologetic after-the-fact texts or emails that started with, "Sorry I didn't get to say goodbye, but..." _insert vaguely true sentiment/reason/excuse here_. (I'm sure that bears some time on the couch soon, too.) 

It's simply not in my nature to feel like anyone really needs, or even would want, to know why I'm leaving. And since I'm usually leaving early and am emotionally exhausted from fighting my introverted tendencies to sit in the corner and pet the resident cat or dog, any conversation that requires me to muster up a defense against protestations (so soon? can't you stay a bit longer? did you get to meet ______ as they turn to call someone entirely new over to start another conversation when I'm trying to bolt) is simply not worth it.

But, in general, societal pressure means people like me are the ones who have the problem. I would love to have some kind of agreed-upon signal, or even a sign, that would ward off the hug-lovers (many of whom, I imagine, would be very respectful if they only knew) without making me seem like the next incarnation of Rain Man.  A little black ribbon with tiny little whoa-whoa-back-off hands on it, maybe? 


Too much? 
Yeah. I'll just suck it up and avoid social situations instead. 




Friday, September 27, 2013

9/27/13 Nick pics

Nick is on a bus for an eight hour drive to Arkansas today to play at noon tomorrow. This team is also a first year program, so it'll be interesting to see how they stack up against guys in the same young, mostly untested situation. 

From this week's files:
From last week's game, taken by a friend from the stands in Georgetown.
The boy just loves to play.

from Nick's Twitter feed
This one needs a little back story. 
He's been diagnosed with staph infection that's spread from a cut on his arm into a nasty rash. He and two other guys who are also on antibiotics for it have to have all their gear washed separately. He couldn't practice for two days until the antibiotic had had time to get through his system. And then, he needed to cover up completely. He said this is as close to a leper as he'd like to get.



Pixar's 22 Rules of Story Telling

#14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

9/27/13


This time next week, I will have picked up Marci from the airport and we will be road-tripping through Colorado and New Mexico. Naturally, it appears the prime shooting weekend for Aspens will be the same weekend, which is a good reminder that I cannot have it all, at least all at once. Doesn't stop me from trying, though.

Around here, the leaves are turning. Mom and Dad are up at their property and Dad called to say the 90% of the aspens up there haven't started the migration from green to gold. Maybe they'll hang on for me until I can get to them in two more weeks...





Evan and my cloudy, chilly walk this morning was lovely, thanks to unearthing old music from backed up files, I heard a song I didn't even know I had, and hadn't heard in a long while, and didn't remember getting. It was a nice surprise, and I thought about how terribly grateful for the people in my life, past and present, who walk with me. I paired it with some of Mom and Dad's aspen shots from a few years ago since the song doesn't seem to appear on youtube.





Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Houston Trip

I've started the South Belt blog, but I still have so much to do in terms of photo editing (without Photoshop, sigh), organizing, and backing up everything (constantly and obsessively).

I'm still mourning the loss of six months worth of pictures.


But, of course, life goes on. 


And so do the pictures.


I came home with nearly 1000 pictures, and most of the weekend was me hovering over a scanner or my nose bent over photos examining them -- not taking them.


So, to catch up, the weekend's trip pictures, such as they are, except for a few remarks, let's just do this wordlessly.


Thursday












Friday








can't see the curve in the street any more. But you can sure make out the tree on the left that's a tiny bush in the foreground of the 1975 shot























Saturday



Sunday


(we rescued a stray from the street)


























Monday, September 23, 2013

9/23/13 Ready to fly





 Restless, hopeless, and misunderstood
Like so many others I know
So busy tryin' to keep holdin' on
When I should've been letting go

I was given the gift to find it
The spirit inside me
But I never really imagined
All I could be.

Lots to tell, more to do, and so many ideas and dreams that came to me this weekend. Got to keep bringing home the bacon, though, so that'll have to wait a little longer. (But not much.)


Friday, September 20, 2013

09/20/13 Quest complete

I am now the proud owner of another 140 digitized scans, this time of yearbooks from 1969 through 1987. I still have to scan pictures from the yearbooks I was gifted yesterday, which will probably bring the two day total to close to 600 scans, and far more once I divide all those yearbook pages into their individual photos. 

And of them all, this is what I came for. 

This is what started it all.

I found my boat.

I'd started to despair when I pinned down the Freshman officers in the Volume 1 yearbook from 1969. There was Cheryl, Parliamentarian, who had posted months ago about remembering taking their class officer picture on that Foley's Shoe Ship. But no ship.

The initial page scan:

The close-up of the officers at what appears to be a popcorn stand, Cheryl is on the back row, right, between the male President and VP:
 I kept on slogging through, scanning pictures and thinking this boat picture just might not be found, until, right at the very back of the book, in a page of various pictures, that cross on the sail caught my eye. I'd completely forgotten about the cross on the sail, actually, until I saw it today. But there it was. A terrible, underexposed photograph of the same people, sitting along the rail with the little toy cannon underneath! 



They must have taken the photograph, which Cheryl remembered doing, but then decided to reshoot somewhere else in better lighting. It very well could, and should, have ended up on the yearbook editing floor at that point. But someone needed to fill a little corner of one of the end pages, and stuck it in, with a little caption that didn't identify anyone in the picture as Freshman class officers. If you hadn't been a little child playing on this thing, there's no way you would have found that photograph. 

I am three, and you have to wait your turn to be helped by the man who makes you stand on that hard metal thing and pushes the lever down to your toes and reads the number off of it before he walks off into the back room. Before your mom gets helped, you get to climb up on the giant pirate ship along the back wall of the children's shoe department of Foley's Department store. When the number your mom pulled is called, you have to leave your flight to Neverland and come down to get measured. When he goes into the hidden storeroom to find your shoes, you really long to run back up, and stare jealously at the children still romping around. And, finally, blessedly, after your new shoes are tried on and laced up, and your mom is ready to pay, you get leave to play again, this time in brand new, shiny bright, red checkered sneakers (to replace the previous exact same pair).

No one, of course, in the 1970's, carries a camera with them when they take their three year olds shopping. The external flash bulb alone is more trouble than its worth for indoor pictures.

The likelihood that this three year old will wait forty years and then be able to locate a picture of it is minuscule.

And yet.

Here is my ship.