"At night the fog was thick and full of light, and sometimes voices."
~Erin Bow, Plain Kate
I am tired. It's been a long week. When I found this photo in my archives, I couldn't help but smile because it fits my mood exactly. Quiet. Foggy. And misty. It was a sad week for the world, and a sad week for the Bay Area. Lot's of sad news all rolled into 7 days. I am okay though. I did some photography and I worked on some projects around the house so I don't have to worry about anything when our vacation starts on October 1st. I am looking forward to that. At least I don't have to wait all that long for autumn, while it might be still 6 days off, according the the calendar, the days are already golden sunny, and the evenings cool enough to sit on the garden swing with a mug of spiced apple cider and a cozy throw wrapped around Alan and I. And oh yeah, the sunsets say it all...
"Where you are right now, doesn't have to determine where you'll end up."
~Barack Obama
Time flies when your having fun. Well, let's face it, time flies period when you hit a certain age. No asking for my approval. No asking if I would like yet another grey hair. No asking me if I want to ask the 20 something kid at the store to take my groceries out to my car. No asking me at all. Time is just plain rude, but it unfortunately has a monopoly on my journey. I have tried distracting myself. I have tried ignoring time, in hopes it would just go away, but then I realized what that actually meant and stopped doing that immediately. LOL. There is no negotiation with time. Time is clearly in charge, unless you are Bruce Jenner. He has decided to fight time... lol... by injecting Botulinum toxin into his face so no one will know he is 62. Good idea I suppose, because it's not like we can just Google him or reference his Wikipedia page or anything.
Sheesh! That guy is spooky looking, and it's not even time's fault! Go figure.
I am 50 now. My goodness, when did that happen? Wasn't it just the other day I was out partying with my best girlfriends, drinking screwdrivers, dancing with cute guys, and rocking out to Madonna, and our personal theme song from Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want To Have Fun? If you are under 50, you are not allowed to laugh at the memories of my days as a single girl on the town. Your reflective days will come soon enough, and what I am saying will make perfect sense. Believe me. And while it might sound like I am mourning that time in my life, I am really not. I did it all just the way I wanted to, and finally settled down when I was 28. I wouldn't change a thing. Oh don't get me wrong, I made some mistakes in dating, like that time I became a republican, briefly, all for a guy no less, but it all happened as it should, and today I can say, I love my age, grey hair, ability to finally say what I want to in the moment, and say the most lovely word in the English language... NO. I am just not sure when it all came into perspective.
What is all askew is that as hard as Alan and I have tried, we both thought that there would be more opportunities when we got to this age. I don't know, it has seemed that things in the last 15 or so years has began to slide as prices have soared. Gas prices... forget about it. Clothing... what the hell? Food... really, $5 for a decent loaf of bread? Movies... $12.50 for a matinee? Ice Cream... $4.50 a quart? Prescriptions, with health care... $35.00 a month, without... $300.00? It's scary! And it's getting scarier! And as much as I want to buy into the whole HOPE & CHANGE idea, I can't. Not again. Not like 4 years ago.
For the first time, in a very long time, I have been seriously considering sitting the whole national election out. I don't think President Obama comes close to representing my ideals, and values as a progressive liberal. However, when I think of a Romney/Ryan administration, cold chills run up my spine. Especially after the events this week. We are still held in somewhat contempt by the rest of the world because of the actions of the Bush administration, if Mitt Romney is elected to office, we will continue to slide farther and farther down in terms of world wide view. And what he, and the GOP as a whole seems to miss, is that we do indeed need to be apologizing to the world for our actions, in fact it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask for forgiveness.
Sigh.
I don't have much HOPE anymore, because I don't feel Obama has kept his promise for change. Washington is still Washington. And politics is definitely still politics. End of story. I had hope that after 8 years of division in AMERICA, folks on both sides would try to put it behind us. What was I thinking? I don't blame Obama so much for the lack of change, no Rush Limbaugh and Fox News said up front that they wanted nothing more than to see Obama fail, even if it means America fails as well. I put the responsibility for my frustration on myself, for buying into something that seemed a little too good to be true. I can't say that Obama lead me down a primrose path or anything, no, I believe he had all kinds of good intentions, but you know that old adage... The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.
Unfortunately, we are all right there on the road with him.
I am not 100 percent sure what I will do in November. I know if Mitt Romney is elected we will be in another full on war, and I don't know how much more war we can all take to be honest. It might just be the beginning of the end, if we aren't there already. Mitt Romney, politicizing the death of the Ambassador to Libya this week did nothing to make the world better, or to keep us safe, or improve our credibility in the eyes of the world. Sigh. At least Obama has that going for him. I think. We'll see. I know I am not taking reaching my 51st birthday for granted, assuming we all survive December 21st. The day the Mayan calendar seems to end on. For the most part, I don't believe the world will end that day, but just in case I am eating all the fucking ice cream I want. At least that's my HOPE. And I don't plan to worry that it is almost $5 a quart.
~Me
And Now For A Little Humor. SNL's Kardashian Wedding/Divorce. It ALWAYS makes me laugh!
Today's link comes from our friend JR. He's awesome!
"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."
~Jonathan Swift
Here we have a coin operated binocular doohickey machine. I find this machine... well... creepy. Every time I see one, I can't help but wonder if the last user might have walked up to it, put their shiney new coin in it, and immediately sneezed.
Dumb, I know.
But sometimes I also wonder what I would see if I got up the courage to actually look into it's creepy eyes. In this case, if all went well, I would see Marin County and the Golden Gate Bridge. But what if I looked inside and instead saw... A GHOST?
Well, as nifty as that would be, I would rather see a ghost when I am looking for a ghost. Not when I am all happy and not creeped out and just interested in seeing Marin.
Another not fun sight would be... oh... say... the mother of the ex-boyfriend of mine that gave me food poisoning on purpose! Why she would be standing on the side of a cliff in Marin is beyond me, but can you imagine wasting your shiney new coin on the person who gave you food poisoning on purpose?
Other stupid sights could include... A GOP hootenanny, a giant squid, a sumo wrestler losing his diaper bottom, a giant octopus attacking the Golden Gate Bridge, hey... it was in a movie and everything! It Came From Beneath The Sea.
Dumb, I know.
Maybe it's silly to feel this way, but for whatever reason, I can't bring myself to look through that gadget, but I love photographing them. I really like looking at them, but not up close. I wonder if there is such a thing as BinocularPHOBIA. Hmmm... . Is that a thing?
"I am an artist you know... it is my right to be odd."
~E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes Of A Gadfly
I once asked my friend Steven, why he liked my photography so much? And he said, simply, because you see stuff. LOL. At first I thought it was a pretty simplistic reason why. Not that I was a whiz with lighting, or an expert at perspective and depth, but rather, because I saw stuff. What do I do with that? But after I thought it over, I knew what a great compliment it really was.
I do see things. I don't look for specific things. I see what's out there. Color will catch my eye, or sometimes shapes. Alan shakes his head when I photograph the ordinary, but I sometimes see such beauty in the ordinary, that I will be thinking about it an hour after I snap the photo. I like windows, and doors. Fire escapes are always shaped wonderfully and sometimes contain the most artistic arrangements of laundry or flower pots.
The ordinary is just life happening.
Yesterday, while out for a ride, I saw this telephone booth sitting at the side of a road on the edge of property. It's shiny and pretty and it's red color lights up the gray area it sits in. And oh yeah... it made me smile. BIG. It makes me want to step inside and see who I might be able to reach on the phone. If I popped a coin in the phone, could I call maybe... oh I don't know... the Queen? Or... ohh... how about James Bond? Could I only call England, or could I might even reach Heaven? If I could reach... oh... say... a fictional character? I know some say James Bond is a fictional character, but I refuse to believe it! But perhaps I could reach a genuine fictional character like maybe... Bridget Jones?
There is a lot girlfriend and I could talk about. :)
I love the ORDINARY, and I love the ODD. And I love it when the ORDINARY and the ODD come together.
Okay... yeah... I see stuff. And all I can say to that is... THANK GOD!
"It's so curious: one can resist tears and behave very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slops from a drawer... and everything collapses."
~ Colette
It's 9/11... isn't it? How could it already have been a year? Sigh. Oh my, time goes by so fast, but here we are again. As with all the September 11ths since that one all those years ago, I have David and Lynn Angell in my heart, prayers and memories. I got to know this couple through the years, by reading articles and testimonies from their friends and loved ones, participating in some online projects honoring those lost that horrific day. The more I learned about them, the more it saddened me that not only are they gone to us, the world, but I will never have the chance to meet them and be able to say... Thank You... for making my life better... Thank You for making me smile and laugh... Thank You... just Thank You.
I have written about the Angells many times since September 11, 2001. But this year, rather than researching into yet another article about them, I would take a step back and just say that it is my hope one day, when I go skipping off into that all important next step of eternity, that I will to be able to sit with them, maybe at some cosmic comedy club, and hear their laughs, and the sound of their voices... and... just be able to say... Thank You.
I am a bit tired, so instead of a new photo tonight, I am listening to my body and taking life slowly. I have some plans for new photos this week, so I promise you will see some brand new images, but if it's all good, I will simply share a fond memory with you. I may have displayed this particular photo series before, if so, I don't think it was recently. At least I hope it wasn't.
Anyway, tonight I bring you a nice memory of a day on the beach, adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge. If you can believe it, this wasn't taken in the summer time, no, it was taken on February 5th, 2007! It was a lovely, warm winter day, and I could have stayed right there the rest of my life! LOL. But, alas, I knew that time, and temperature, and the day wouldn't last forever, and besides, it wouldn't be very long before I got the urge to wander with the camera. So I got the photos I came fore, and went home a happy girl!
Some of my best days with my cameras are when I have no idea where I am going, and what I want to see and photograph. It seems like those days always produce the best photos.
Queen Mary 2
The largest ship, at the time, to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge.
The ship came in a little later than scheduled, but it was well worth the wait. You could hear the cheers of the cruise ships passengers, as it sailed under the Golden Gate with just inches to spare. How fun is that?
"All stories are true. But some of them never happened."
~James A. Owen, The Search For The Red Dragon
Still a bit stressed, but not feeling like sharing. It's a stupid situation anyway. It's not like there isn't any humor in the mess to remind me that all dramas tend to have a little comedy to them as well. But I don't feel especially good about the whole stupid situation with or without humor. So, I have some questions if you care to share your thoughts, all opinions welcome here!
Question: Why do people have to make life so much more difficult than it has to be?
Question: Why is it so difficult to get my first name right?
Question: Is it a good idea to address someone by their email address name, rather than getting their first name right?
My came isn't Gordon Carly isn't? No, my name is Carly Gordon, but AOL has a sense of humor.
Question: So, if you saw my email address at the top of an email, and you have been told, many, many, many, many, many times... "My name isn't Gordon, it's Carly" why would you continue to call me Gordon?
Question: How many girls do you know with the first name Gordon?
Question: Is it too much to ask that people, who want to believe they are professionals in their chosen field, do their FUCKING JOBS?
Queston: What is the appropriate amount of times one should have to correct another, before one or both people are considered OBNOXIOUS?
"I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck."
~Bill Hicks
No, the whole DRAMADY isn't made up of someone who can't get my name right, there is a lot more to it, but it's the name thing that makes dealing with this particular person a final straw every time I have to deal with them. They share NO relationship with common sense. They are condescending. They are argumentative. They are dismissive. They seem to be whoa-fully uninformed. It's not easy to be all those things in one sentence, but I'll be damned if they can't pull it off every time!
I am relatively sure I won the last round. But I wish it doesn't always, ALWAYS come to that.
Sigh.
I feel like this person takes me from the reasonable me, to the unreasonable me.
Sigh.
I can handle myself. I am not a pushover. I don't start conflicts, but I don't back down either. But I hate confrontation. I hate finding myself on the defensive over things that shouldn't happen anyway.
Sigh.
I guess I am just processing it all.
Shrug.
I suppose it's a good sign that I am less Angry Pickles tonight, and more Purple Garlic.
Shrug.
"The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is a growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one."
