clickmom

pretentious egotistical bitch

Dr. Ruth came on television the other day.  I was doing dishes and Matt was half watching television while lounging in the family room.  I turned seven shades of red and almost passed out from embarrassment before I realized that Matt could not possibly have any idea that he was watching the one person who taught me 99% of everything I knew about sex while I was still in high school.  My kids will never know the experience of listening and learning about sex from an old lady on the radio.  Shame.

Having three kids home makes my life so much more intense.  I didn't realize what a slacker I had become tending to only two kids.  Having that extra (opinion) mouth to feed every night is a real drag.  The take out establishments around here are very happy that Matt is home.  If I could go back and whisper into my own ear I would tell young me not to let my children think they ever have a choice in what are going to eat.  I'm not kidding.

My desk top computer might be petering out.  I'm bringing it to a friend Sunday to get looked at.  I'm also buying another hard drive for it.  I hope it doesn't die on me.  I feel like me and my ancient (for a digital) camera and crumudgeon of a desk top are one.  My friend is pretty sure he can shore up my computer so I can get another year out of it.  "A Year!"  I said.  I hope she's not terminal.  Yeesh.

The good thing about needing some digital storage storage space is now I have to go to the world's biggest (if you are a photographer) toy store!  B&H- here I come!  (There just might be a flash diffuser and a lens hood in this for me too!) 

I went to the art show that I submitted some photos for.  They didn't accept me.   They did accept a lady who breaks ceramics and glues them back together though.  Also, they accepted another photographer.  I didn't really get his work.  I didn't really get most of the work in the show, which makes me glad that my stuff wasn't hanging along side of the work I didn't understand, but also made me wonder.  I didn't say anything out loud because you can't really say that kind of thing out  loud without sounding like a pretentious egotistical bitch, but then Matt said it for me, so I felt all kinds of validated.

Someone said bad things about Y@le to me today.  It made me start thinking.  In my dreams the best case scenario for me would be  to meet a representative who would decide to whore my stuff out and all I'd have to do would be to keep making new work and go to my own openings and smile and drink white wine.  The worst case scenario would be for me to have to be my own salesperson because I totally completely suck at sales.  If I had to sell things for a living I'd be huddling under a bridge, mumbling to myself and trying to keep my shopping cart from rolling away.

 

weekend

Once, when Matt was a baby I was in Prospect park at dusk with Matt and our best dog ever, Oscar. It was getting so dark that Oscar lost his ball in some tall grass and on our way out baby Matt lost his mitten.  The next day brought sleet the entire day.  The following day I strapped baby Matt into his stroller, grabbed Oscar's leash and found both the sleet covered mitten and the grass camouflaged ball.

I hate losing things.

Which is why I am currently sitting in utopia stewing over the dehydrated baby turtle and unknown small animal skull that the squirrel stole from my morbid dead things collection last fall.  The squirrel did not have his suitcase with him when he finally got trapped in the havahart trap, so I know my junk is in the house somewhere!  I want my junk back.

Other than lost item torment we had a lovely memorial day weekend.  Yesterday morning I tossed Josh in the car and dragged him to see two different gardens that I thought might have photographing potential.  It was a bust, but I am not upset about it since yesterday was a bright and sunny day and I would rather watse a sunny day seeing gardens I don't need to revisit than gardens that I want to shoot.  I want to find the shootable gardens on overcast (but not neseccarily hazy) days.  I hope the weather gives me what I want this summer!  Part of the problem is that lowlight is softer and more enjoyable and most places aren't open and dawn and dusk over the summer since dawn is at 4 AM and dusk at 9 at night.

I hate lying around the house and it drives me completely insane that certain members of this family can sleep until noon.  My mantra for the summer is going to be "Get up and go and leave the lazy people behind!"  I'm not waiting for them anymore.  I will however drag little Josh along with me in an attempt to keep him in both morning person mode and also to keep him off the internet which he is completely pathetically addicted to.

 

 

 

senior quote

Having my sweet baby Matt home from college is fabulous.  Also frustrating.  The whole texting someone 24 hours a day is unbelievable to me.  I open his door to wake him up int he morning and he is skyping with a friend.  I open his door to say goodnight iin the evening, same damned thing!  All day long his phone is binging with incoming texts.  There is no break!  Being that connected to anyone might drive me insane.  Just saying.

Also, it seems that Matt is collecting things I say to share with other people.  Just now we were paying for some books and I remarked on the wooden ball point pens that were on the check out counter.  Matt whips out his cell phone and turns around giggling.  

After sending his text Matt says "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I just told my girlfriend what you said." and he held out his phone for me to read.

"Matthew look at the wooden pens.  I bet wood would feel nice in my hand."

The embarrassing truth is, I think I actually did say it.

When Matt's girlfriend did not respond fast enough for him he sent my quote off to Evan who immediately replied :

"Senior quote, right there"

Now I can't stop laughing.

breaking up with my martial arts jedi master

I broke up with Yoda tonight.  In an email.  

I recognize the tacky impersonal 21st century aspect of breaking up in an email.  He's been calling me for the past two days trying to schedule a session.  I've been ignoring his calls.  To be honest yesterday I was worried about my back, which was getting twingy again. Today I just dreaded talking to him.  I wish I had some proof of his inappropriateness.  I want some money back.  This might get ugly. I am willing to take him to court.  Also, I can do a hilarious imitation of Yoda trying to convince me that it is okay to kiss someone other than my husband.  Yuck Yuck Yuck.  Also, that day, once I had said "It's not gonna happen"about thirty times, he stared me down and said "I don't care if it takes 20 or 30 years, I will kiss you one day." and ever since that I haven't wanted to stand closer than 5 feet away from him.

I guess I'll take myself to the plain old gym in the meantime. Maybe I'll give that overpriced exercise DVD set I purchased a couple of summers ago a try this summer.  I know it all works if I just do it.  It's getting of my butt that is the boggest issue.  I'll be fine with someone else's routine.  The creep out factor with Yoda is just through the roof.

 

 

 

flying

I flew to hipster U. and back twice this week.  Naturally, I cried silently to myself on the way to the airport for the first flight convinced tht Evan, who was accompanying me, and I would die in a fiery plane crash.  Once at the airport I composed a text message to Matt telling him that if his brother and I died en route to see him in his play that he and Josh should know that being their mother was my life time dream and that I was proud of them every single day.

Ev and I got to hipster U intact and Matt never said a word about the text.  I figured my last words to Matt being in a text was a very 21st century way to go.  In the 20th century we could pry the last word bearing mini cassettes out of our answering machines, now we can take a screen capture of our mobile phones and printout multiple copies. 

Matt was great in his play.  He played a  suit wearing serious grim character.  I think he could be easily typecast that way.  He looked so handsome with his hair cut short.  It's been a long time since I've gotten to see his whole face and I like it that way.  Nothing was more torturous to me as a parent needing to connect to my kid than the first time Matt grew his hair out really long and let it hang straight down his face without pushing it to the side.  I recall telling him over and over that I had to see at least one eye before I could talk to him.

The second time I flew out to hipster U. was to bring Matt home.  And now he's here!  Hurray!  I got to hipster U. yesterday but Matt was terribly busy. I told him I'd keep myself occupied, so I searched the web for some formal gardens to photograph and found something that sounded worthwhile.  The day before I left the forecast was cooperating too.  It was supposed to overcast, which is my preferred formal garden photographing type of light.  I got off the plane and it was downpouring.  I sat in the rental car planning how I'd wait until the rain stopped and then photograph the soggy gardens until the nice soft light of just finished raining clouds.  I started my hour long journey to the gardens and before long the skies dried and there was thick gray cloud layer over everything.  Then the clouds parted and there were big bouncy clouds, which could still work as long as I was patient and waited for the shade to roll through before I pressed the shutter button.  By the time I got to the gardens the sky was cloudless.  I hadn't brought my UV filter either dammit.  Immediately I realized that the formal garden part of this garden was tiny.  Damn.  Then I lifted my camera to my face to shoot and realized that I had left my super wide angle lens on my camera the last time I went out shooting. Triple damn. I also left my flash at home.  Damn to the fourth degree.  

Not having a kid who currently needed me anyway, I did walk the garden loop while shooting a few photos despite the unwanted sunshine, lack of filter, and wrong lens.  It's tough to hold a camera steady while kicking yourself, so I have low expectations for the few photos I did manage to take.  Today, however, I am going to another place to shoot.  It is not a formal garden, but a farm.  My current photo teacher has generously offered to meet the class there since the art center cancelled classes because of some event they are having.  I plan on getting there early to do some solo shooting in a lower light. I'm still feeling my way around what I am shooting, since I feel the need to define what I am shooting before I go out and shoot it thinking that next fall I will need to write an artist statement about my work when I reapply to Y@le and maybe two other esteemed institutions just for back up.  (But really, I only want to go to Y@le)  

 

cloudy

My very first boyfriend married his partner this weekend.  I hope Joey and Roberto have a long and happy life together.  I'm wondering if my ability to befriend gay guys is me needing to befriend gay guys or if gay guys just happen to like me.  One of my openly (open to me at least)  gay college friends used to beg me to spend the night in bed with him.  I always suspected he just wanted the football players down the hall to notice me doing the walk of shame the next morning.  Now I'm wondering.  Maybe I'm a gay dude stuck in a chubby middle aged chick's body.   

Never mind, if I was a gay guy I'd do stuff like decorate, shop, coordinate my outfits, use hair products.  I'm not a gay guy. I'm not even a metrosexual guy.  I'm a hipster.  Just like Matt.

Maybe I'm just so smoking hot everyone falls helpless to my hotness.

Somewhere in this blog is the story of how once I thought I had joined the friendliest gym on the planet but then I realized I had joined the gay/lesbian gym and the friendly ladies in the locker room were really just sizing me up.

Head in the clouds?  Yes, that is me.

MILF?

Yoda made a pass at me last night.

Kind of "Dammit!" because Yoda and his techniques are unique to him.  Yoda made it all up and I can't go somewhere else to get the same kind of training.

In some ways it was validating because my creep-meter had been going off for a while now and I wasn't trusting my instincts (always a big mistake, my instincts never fail me).  Also, holy freaking crap, this man who sees me in the most embarrassing poses ever still thinks I'm that kind of hot??

I kept it mostly inside last night.  I did mention to the husband that Yoda had been extra -what ever he is- though.  I finally couldn't hold it in any more this morning (needed to sort out if I could possibly continue to train with him despite) and I told lil sis (distracted) and also the editor (working)  and peanut (who had company over and couldn't talk) and finally (in a moment of transference where I felt a dudes opinion would be a good thing and I wished I was seeing my old stepford chiro) I told my new new town chiro.

Then I told the husband that Yoda was trying to convince me to kiss him and his reaction was quite the disappointment.  The husband's reaction ran somewhere along the lines of "Yeah, so what?"  While I told the husband because he isn't a hot head who might grab a rifle and shoot Yoda in cold blood I would have appreciated at least maybe threat to kick Yoda's ass with his size 15 orthopedic - I have second degree burns on the bottom of my feet- post surgery booties or any other reaction as highly improbably as it might sound,  but at least demonstrating a teeny tiny tid bit of manly-don't mess with my woman-possessiveness or even some very flattering jealousy.  I got bupkus.

In the end I'm taking the new chiro's advice and putting my foot down with Yoda, demanding a solely professional relationship and leaving him if he makes me uncomfortable.  

year of the candle

I was putting Josh to bed tonight and he sang out "Year of the candle."  I asked what he meant and he said "You know the song!"  

Oh, that song.

click

I saw (and heard) David Sedaris speak last night.  Hilarious in a "I can't believe he just said that" kind of way.  I got three of his books.  He did a big long segment on going to an English taxidermy shop in search of an owl (which is illegal in the states and also France) and all I could think between laughing and snorting out loud was how much I very desperately wanted to hang out with David Sedaris.  Can you imagine me and David hunting down stuffed endangered species?  Or as he called them "flying predators of the night."  Me and David would have been a heavenly pairing.  Also, when he finally found the owl there were two in the shop and you know I would have gone home with the other owl.

Before I spent 90 minutes trying not to pee in my pants from David Sedaris induced hysterical laughing I took myself to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.  I also took my camera.  I AM BACK.  It was a dry winter, photographically, but my head is getting back into the right place and the right place feels great.  I never say victory until I download the shots and really take a careful look, but if the postage sized (old camera) screen on the back of my camera is any indication, it was a successful afternoon of shooting.

A faux photographer from the paper asked me if I could photoshop her kid into a group picture for her.  I said I hadn't done it before but would look at some on line tutorials and give it the old college try.  Guess what I know how to do now!  I'm hoping the faux photographer is so happy to see her kid in the group picture that she doesn't notice I amputated his right hand.  It's barely noticeable.  For Real.  Group pictures are all about the face anyway.

I'm spending way too much time playing Words With Friends.  It's so 21st century.  

missing the roids

When I opened the front door at 8:45 this morning for my new new town friend I didn't realize it was odd to be eating a fudgicle until I registered my friend's curious stare.  I said "PMS, absolutely neccessary."  She asked what it was and I said it was a fat free dairy free fudgicle and she said "I have PMS too."  I pointed "Want one?"  She nodded and I knew I had made a friend for life.  I can't believe what great people I am meeting here.   This might seem odd coming from me, but I would have trouble forming a deep bond with the kind of person who doesn't really eat.  There are plenty of those around here.  I'm thinking of photographing them once it warms up again and they take off their layers of clothes.  I want to see their furry malnourished arm fuzz.  Around here they probably get their winter coats of arm fuzz lasered off though.  I'll have to settle for their bones.  Okay.  Settled.

My work space is so freaking close to being finished.  I'm hoping to put the finishing touches on it this weekend so that I can start printing in it next week. 

I went to a photo class today.  It is supposed to be advanced, but there was a guy there who only shoots on automatic and does not speak photo lingo.  Not sure if he is the only one that inexperienced or not.  I think I'll be fine there because the teacher pretty much just critques our stuff, and she did ask us what we wanted to leave the class having a better grasp on, and I think she is going to take that seriously.  I said I wanted to shoot more than just pretty pictures.  I want to shoot photos that also have a personal narrative.  I think that right now making yourself exposed and maybe even vulnerable is part of the whole artist package.  Art for art's sake isn't enough in a digital age where everyone thinks they can do what you do.  The teacher noticed my strong composition.  She wants me to challenge myself and not use the same formula for every shot.  We'll see how that goes.  I don't have a formula per se, it is just that I have a recognizeable consistent sense of balance.  (One reason why I hated it when they used to crop my photos in the paper)  I think, if we start picking my images apart that we'll see my "formula" is more than composition, I think there will be predictable color distribution and maybe even camera angles. (I'm thinking my photojournalism stuff)  Anyway, after this class I think I'll probably try to take some classes at a college.  Also, there is a group here that I haven't joined becuase it meets late in the day when I am tired, brain dead and undressed,  but I am going to have to leave my jammies in the bedroom and start going to those meetings.  They have some talented people in that group.  (At least they look impressive according to the photos posted on their web site)

I miss the steroids.  I felt really good while taking them,  I need to discuss this with a doctor.  I'd like to feel that good every day.