Straight Edge Life

I don’t care if I’m understood. I’ve never really cared if anyone got me. I’ve spent plenty of time attempting to explain myself, but that’s not quite the same thing.

But if there’s one thing in this life I wish I got; it’s some sort of understanding of why pleasure and pain are so closely tied. It seems that any time I find tears in my eyes I’m also happy because of something else.

Tonight I scanned images of my mother for my sister who’s doing a project to honor her for my dad. She died on August 31 two years ago and it still cuts close to the bone to think of her not being here today. Many of the images reminded me of good times that I had completely forgotten. It was wonderful to remember and sad to think new memories with her aren’t going to happen.

I guess something like this is always going to be open-ended. How can you find closure when death is involved? How can you find peace when you really don’t have any control or influence on the facts? If there was anything I wish I understood tonight, it is this.

It’s getting dark before 9. I love it. After the last couple weeks of high temperatures I am ready for fall. The change in daylight hours makes me happy. We’re almost through. I’ve never been a big fan of hot weather. Summer, in general is my least favorite season. Baseball, no way. I prefer basketball. BBQs, beer and swimming pools? Nope. Gimme hot chocolate and snowboarding any day. Although I will admit a certain love for hammocks, summer just isn’t my time of year.

I like pale skin, cool days, and soft light. Anyways. Not much to say today. It’s been an overly busy week.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve shot any 35mm film. Tonight I was rifling through a folder full of medium format negatives and I ran across some very old and funky 35mm negatives from my days in St. Louis. On one roll the negatives were actually severely damaged (not by me) and are pretty much unprintable. On the other roll the images were just fine, if not a bit high in contrast. I decided to scan a few just for kicks.

I ran over to my friend’s place to pick up a machine that could run OS 9 for my old Nikon LS-2000 film scanner, ran back home and set it all up. And the second a preview scan came up on screen I was completely overcome with a feeling of nostalgia for 35mm photography, portrait photography, and to a lesser extent, the darkroom.

I’m likely never to do anything with this, or any other images from these rolls, but I have sworn an oath to myself to shoot at least one portrait a month. And to shoot with film a bit more frequently. You see, because the cool thing about shooting film is that it still has the ability to surprise me. Even though the images I scanned tonight are so horribly messed up, I was jazzed with what I got. They have a funky feeling to them that I could not have created intentionally. Digital photography never does that for me.

It’s cool. I got a ton done tonight. Got a lot of work done, dug into some old photos, printed a few photos and finally finished up making a frame. All good things.

You might think that a smart person would buy some inexpensive wood (or just find some scraps) to use while refining the frame building process. Not me. Nope. I prefer not to give myself any room for error. Ok. Maybe that’s not true. I did screw up a lot of wood while attempting to make good 45 degree cuts for the corners. What should have been enough wood for three frames was rendered into a small pile of scraps and just enough good 45 degree cuts to make one frame. I managed to route the inner edged for holding the matte, glass and print without too much trouble, and only a little blood shed. I’m now, a week later, waiting for the glue to dry on the corners. Can’t wait to pop the glass, matte and print in there and hang it. Actually I guess I had better sand and stain or paint the frame before i put the art in it. Anyway. I’m jazzed. I think I’m going to like framing more and more as I do it more frequently.

Alien vs. Predator… Yeah, this was a fun movie. I probably don’t need to go into much detail about the plot because their really wasn’t any, and if there were it wouldn’t matter because it’s a sci-fi horror movie. As everyone knows, a plot is secondary in a horror movie. But the long and short of it is that a group of people go deep into the ice to explore a pyramid. The pyramid is an ancient hunting / battle ground between Aliens and Predators. You do the math. Chaos, blood and action ensue.

Surprisingly the merger of the Alien and Predator dynasties is fairly plausible. I didn’t have to make much of leap to go “yeah, ok I can accept that”. So that was cool. And overall I’m happy that the Alien franchise hasn’t gone completely b-rate. Even though Alien IV was pretty lame, they spent good money on the effects and kept it action packed. AVP is much the same way. Sorta lame, but still pretty good.

There’s plenty of action, a bit of suspense and a new alliance that will either make or break the movie for you. It’s worth a matinee ticket. I’ll probably see it again when it hits the $1.50 theater. 6 out of 10.

As any mac geek will know already Steve Jobs recently survived surgery to remove a cancer from his pancreas. Well, it’s now time to wish good stuff towards another Steve. Steve Davee, my extremely good friend, an avid bike racer who broke his collar bone on Saturday while riding trails in Oakridge, Oregon this weekend. Steve races around the year. Cyclo-cross, Mountain and Road. He’s completely dedicated to racing and I’m sure the next 6 weeks aren’t going to be easy for him as he recovers. He’s also an avid reader of this site, so if you’ve got any get well soon messages, or better yet, tricks for keeping from going nuts while housebound, please send them his way by commenting on this entry.

As a quick sidenote… I suspect he’ll be back on his bikes before too long though. If I can find it… I have a photo somewhere of Steve in a foot cast climbing stone down at the local crag only a few days after taking a bad lead fall and injuring his ankle pretty badly. He said the cast edged really well, so who knows, maybe he’ll find some obscure advantage to having a busted collar bone.

Get well soon Steve. Otherwise you’ll end up a pale geek like me.

It’s late, but it’s still hot. And the fact that I could cauterize open wounds using the bottom of my powerbook isn’t helping. This room and any room I work in is always hotter because of my computers. I guess that’s just one more reason why nighttime in this city is my favorite. I like summer because the students leave and the town feels empty. I like summer nights the most. And if it’s a rainy summer night… heaven. Cooler, quieter, more intimate.

Eugene is a good town. I can find solitude here with little or no effort. It’s a good town in which to be a bachelor. Which is something I’ve been thinking about lately. It’s a convenience store life. When I’m still gun-shy about relationships it seems fitting. I know I’m choosing the easy life. No pressure, no complexity, no danger. It helps me rebuild strength and recharge my emotional batteries. It might even be giving me the time to reflect on my life a bit. But one thing bachelorhood doesn’t give me is courage to go out and risk anything.

My heart just ain’t ready yet. I’m not exactly emotionally unavailable, but I’m not careless with my emotional exposure either.

I guess, as always, that it’s a matter of balance. As long as my bachelorhood doesn’t start forming bad habits I’m ok with it… Because it’s treating me well for now. It is recharging my batteries. It is helping me sort some stuff out. And it’s helping me get other things in my life cleaned up a bit. I’m doing all sorts of things that I was never able to do while in my nearly-continuous string of high-maintenance relationships. Money. I’m finally learning about it. Work, diet, exercise, travel, art, photography.

What I really wonder is if, when the time comes and I want something serious and long-term again, I’ll have learned anything about THAT while being a bachelor. Probably not. I’ll probably be back at square one and at the mercy of the love I have for the woman I’m with. I just hope that when it happens I can keep hold of my self a little better. Respect myself a little better. Because I would sacrifice everything for love. I just need to realize that it’s not necessary. Not if I’m with the right person, and not if I’m ready and smart about it.

I worked an epic day yesterday. Programmed from pretty much the moment I got up until the moment I fell asleep. It sucked. Maybe it’s just cabin fever but I’m getting burnt on programming marathons. I’m getting better at procrastinating, delaying what I need to do until the last possible moment. It’s not a good pattern.

Sometimes I think I’d just be happier doing construction, or going to heavy equipment operators school (damn, who doesn’t want to drive a bulldozer), or doing house painting or something like that. Ug. I hope this is just cabin fever. It would be a shame to just throw away all the skills I’ve developed over the last five years programming. Maybe I just feel the summer starting to slip away and I haven’t really lost any weight, haven’t done any good long hikes, haven’t spent enough time outside.

It’s strangely ironic to me, my choice of wood. Hemlock. It shares a name with the poisonous herb that killed Socrates. Tonight I hope the name can claim another victim. Because as I struggled to negotiate the workings of my new miter saw and router this evening I realized that ownership of my photography left my hands some time ago. Since I graduated from college, control of my photography was taken by my editors. And for some reason I accepted that as simply “the way it is in photojournalism”. More than that, I accepted it as the way it is with photography and art. That there was no freedom in art, especially when art has to pay the bills. Tonight I took one more step towards killing the idea that was so effectively undercutting my passion in this world. Because art, my art, no matter how under-developed it may be, is my language. It is my peace of mind. It is my solace, my escape and my tool. How I ever gave that up I do not know. And tonight I took it back. Shy of grinding my own glass from sand, my photography is mine again. I am shooting, editing, printing and framing my own work. Again. Well, as soon as I figure out how to get my new router to work properly it will be mine again. But I’m well on my way, and tonight I have few complaints.

Went for a walk in the park earlier tonight with Ann. The conversation was much better than the light. But the light wasn’t too bad. The more I come to Mt. Pisgah, the more I like the photographic possibilities in that area. I haven’t seriously shot in Pisgah yet, but I’ve walked through and hiked with a camera, each time coming out with a few interesting images. I’m thinking I’d like to go down there and spend an entire day. Take a jacket, sunscreen, a bit of food and my gear. It’s a fairly diverse park, everything from incense cedars to lilly ponds and the river. Nice forests of douglas fir trees, wildflower fields and plenty of long trails to explore. Good bugs too. Nice possibilities. Anyway….