If you keep wishing me a happy birthday, some day you'll be right.

Another three AM developing session, this time listening to Eric Dolphy. Now I'm listening to Coast to Coast while wondering what I could possibly send Becca that could compare to the black-duct-tape-wrapped art package she last sent me. I love when the guests talk about extra terrestrials in an enthusiastic, yet matter of fact tone usually reserved for infomercials about vitamin supplements. Here's yet another unrelated picture.

There's a Starbucks at Guantanamo.

Crank up Booker Little and develop film at three AM.

I'm on the top floor.

This problem happens in my building where when the steam heat comes hissing on, the hot water disappears. I don't mean the water isn't hot. I mean the water isn't there. If you turn on the hot water, at some point it will dribble into nothingness, just for a moment, then slowly come back on. This problem only really annoys when I'm in the shower. Management knows about it, and are working on it. But when I was ready to take a shower last night around 2am, there was no hot water. The heat had cycled off, and the water was not coming back. After some time, I heard fire engines. Not an uncommon sound around here. Then I heard banging. The firemen were on the sidewalk trying to get in the front door of the building. I put on my coat to go down and let them in so they wouldn't break the door. I didn't think there was actually a fire. Still, I thought about what to bring with me in case I wasn't allowed back in for some reason. I decided on nothing, and went out into the stairway. No sign of fire. Once I approached the third floor, I saw an agitated man who exclaimed some dire sounding words about his apartment. It rained from his ceiling, and his home rested in about three inches of water. While I was escorting firemen to the above apartments, letting them know they were vacant and being renovated, word came up that they turned off the water, and the flood would stop once the water ran out of the lines. I knew this was bullshit. As they left, they told my neighbor to call the super. I could tell through the man's broken english he had know idea who to call, so I went back up to make the call myself, and fill every vessel I could with the still working cold water. I wasn't sure the super knew my call wasn't a dream, but he showed up, and turned off the water to that part of the building. I showed him where all the burst pipes were in all three apartments above. I think the heat problem drained the hot water from the pipes, they froze in the coldest night of the year, and once the hot water rushed back in, burst in three or four places. The pressure was so great, the water drilled a hole in the newly installed drywall. Once the super informed me that the windows were left open in those apartments, I think my theory was proven. Some of the windows were actually missing altogether. I didn't know what else I could do for this neighbor. I hate that his home was so badly damaged because of the negligence of others. I took a shower and read about the attack on the US base in Iraq where insurgents, disguised as american soldiers, got past checkpoints, and took four real US soldiers hostage only to drive them 25 miles away and shoot them in the head.

Dump.

So I was pretty much a light guy last week. It's really not that much different than sound. You just have to pay attention. I even got a tip. Of course people kept coming into the booth and trying to talk to me and making me miss cues. Luckily it was a show about marijuana, so any missed cues just fit right in.

I now know four couples that broke up this month. I thought that kind of thing was supposed to happen at springtime.

Happy Birthday.

I kept trying to take a nap today, but then someone would hammer something a few times, and my nap would end. Why do people bang on heat pipes? It used to be a signal to the super, who usually lived downstairs, to go crank up the boiler. It's an obsolete code now, but I guess maybe people see old cartoons and think they were made yesterday. People still press those buttons at crosswalks and think they actually change the light even though they haven't been in operation for years.
I bought a camera that I've always wanted to try. I figured if I didn't try it, I would spend the rest of my life wondering. (No, I didn't buy the camera to be a physical reminder of life.) Then, later that day, someone gave me the camera of his late father. That's sorta a big deal, and I prefer to think of it as a loan since I would not blame him for wanting it back for any reason at all.

Everyone should read KW's comment on the entry below.

Family trees.

I accidentally sat next to a friend on the subway the other day. I hadn't seen her in a while. When we realized who we were sitting next to, I slid over close. I jokingly asked what was new with her, and she pointed to the sleeping infant in the stroller she was attached to. One of her bands was just on tour. They took the kid with them. He's three months old, and has already been on the road. Another mom had just expressed to me concerns over her freedom, and where it went when the kid came along. Before that exchange, a friend without a kid expressed the same concerns, and feels like fleeing. I can only conclude that it's in us. We have no one else to blame. And I don't know what makes some people run away, and I don't know why they shouldn't, and I don't know why some people stay if there isn't anyone depending on them, and I don't know why they should, and I don't know why people come to me for advice, but I'm glad they do.

Hey look. It's cold. Didn't see that coming.

I need some of that expanding foam spray. To fill in the cracks. Keep out the cold. If all the intangable aspects of my life were put on display, could that magical expanding foam be used, and would it really fill in all the voids? What would it fill them in with? It might just trap whatever's there (air?) in place to prevent seepage. I like that word. Seepage. My life would seep out all over New York. Maybe that's what the mysterious odor was over Manhattan and across the Hudson today. I didn't leave my neighborhood, and things smelled normal and cold over here. Must have been someone else's life.

I like when I take that stereotypical photograph. The one where you see it happening before you, and you think about how many times it's been taken in the past, by so many different kinds of people, for almost as many reasons, and you wonder if you could do it too, just to see.

Happy new year.

I worked, as usual, but made it home before 2am. It made the whole evening feel routine. Fine with me. Hope the rest of the year goes as smoothly.

My super painted my door. He painted over my peephole. He painted over one of my locks. He's an idiot.

My first non-holliday day off was marked by me trying to get my old computer to become a scanning machine so I can just scan all the time. It didn't work. Then I got a call from work. If what they say happened is true, then someone sabotaged them. And they cannot eliminate a job, and then have me tied to my cell phone. It doesn't work that way.

This is from 2000. (Yes, Juline, that's the next year.)


I just spent a few hours looking for some old test negatives. I didn't find them. Why would I hide them? In the process, I tore up a whole lot of old, crappy prints. That kind of cleaning always feels good.