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Open to Interpretation

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I walk daily.  When I walk, I let what I see guide my thoughts as much as my directions.  In a more mundane sense, what I see has very little to do with it.  I see things on the street and I try to imagine that they have some meaning relevant to whatever I might be thinking at the time.

I've been doing this for decades now, and still haven't slipped into paranoia, religious dogma, or even ritualized habit yet, so I feel pretty sane doing it, though it sounds a bit loopy when I describe my walking to people.

I've been working on a book about it, but can't seem to get very far without slipping into either an over-intellectualizing-bastard voice, or a borderline new-agey voice, neither of which do the topic well.  I'm taking that to mean that I just can't imagine the audience.  Which is probably because there isn't much of one.

So I've been battering those around me with these pictures of shit I find.  This one is splattering of paint that jumped out at me--made me stop.  This one stopped some very self-defeating thoughts, and made me realize that I ought to spend a bit more time gardening this year.  HAve any self-defeating thoughts you need to get rid of?

Brushing the air.

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The Inoculation Truck

Last summer, when an ice cream truck would go by, and Flora would ask "what's that", I would say "That's the Inoculation Truck.  The kids that haven't had all their shots know when they hear that song that it's time to get their shots.  You don't have to worry, though, because you've had all the inoculations you need."

She's four now, and somehow she's not buying it this year.

Digital Photo Relics

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I bought my first digital camera in April of 2002.  I loved it right away.  It was a Pentax Optio, that died not too much later of what seemed to be a manufacturing problem.  Pentax offered to remedy their error for slightly more than the cost of a new camera.  I bought a Minolta Dimage, which I have loved soooo much more.  Now it's on to the next camera, as the Dimage is beginning to fail.

The sidewalk, I have never stopped loving.

lunch

Hold the tomatoes

A thinly sliced tomato can enliven any sidewalk

The shadow of death

Country divided

The shutter on my Dimage Xt is finally starting to ruin shots.  It sticks on half of my portrait-oriented shots.

Do you believe in God?

I'm no longer answering that question.  In fact, I suspect that without the context of a specific religion, it is a meaningless question.  I'd like to be proven wrong.

Rust on the wall

Frosted rust

I've got to return to this subject.  More later

120 Days of Carol Channing

My daughter is listening to a Madeline book-on-tape we got at the library.  I'm so glad we didn't buy it.  The reader is Carol Channing and she drives me crazy with twisted, waking nightmares.   I walked by the stereo on my way to make coffee and hear her spittle-rich, slow over-enunciation and I imagine her reading the Marquis De Sade.  By the time I'm back to work, I've played with the fear of Carol Channing like it was a loose tooth, and I want to tear it out.  I want the jolt of pain of her saying "It is not the object of debauchery that excites us, rather the idea of evil" and be done with it.

Back to work

Near Island

Near island

As I slept, I somehow drifted closer.