Worth it.

Found my flashlight.

Standing on Ave A 5am saying goodnight, I found it somehow clipped into the lining of my jacket. Maria seemed puzzled at how happy I was to find it. "No, really, that's why I came out in the first place. I lost my flashlight. It was the last straw."
Good night.

Let's make something out of this day at the last possible minute.

I'm just sitting here. Listening to a debate. I don't hear them saying anything. Where am I going? To bed? Across the river? I'm waiting for a sign, but I don't think that call is gonna come, and I don't wait by the phone anymore anyway. I turned it off so it won't get an answer if I'm here or not. All these republicans are terrible. So sad there are such people in the world and such people in this country willing to vote for them in unfathomable numbers. I feel sick and I don't know if it's from this debate or from the fact that I'm still sitting here or the huge sandwich I ate. I need to go out. I need to go for a walk. Where the fuck is my flashlight? That's it. I'm out of here.

Calling.

It's this time of year. Maybe not. Maybe time of life. Maybe circumstances. After a couple weeks away from the comedy club, I realized tonight I missed some of them. But I do not miss the job. Just the people. I hate working just for the money, and that's all it is there. I can usually get something out of anything, but I'm not so sure about this place. I'm going out every night this week because that's where people are. Maybe I'll run into you. Whoever you are. I haven't heard from you in a while.

Is this irony?

The inventor of Gatorade just died of kidney failure.

Nothing much happened today.

I got a new lock for my new door. I went to work. I came home. If I turn on my cold water, steaming hot water comes out.

How is it that I've never even been able to picture her naked? Kissing is one thing, but beyond that, I can't even think. We have a lot of feelings for each other, but taking things to a romantic, wait, physical romantic place, as I think there have been other romantic moments, seems unimaginable. At the same time, I would do it. I'm not trying, and I'm not planning on trying, but if it happens it happens, and we'll finally get it out of our system. It will be weird and uncomfortable and memorable and embarrassing and if one of us doesn't chicken out, it will be another thing we'll laugh about while others around us scratch their heads and wonder.

Accounting.

Things aren't changing fast enough. I feel like I need to make a list of people who I need to remember to keep in touch with. I need to get a flu shot. I still have years worth of negatives to proof. I have to get rid of more camera gear. My apartment stays clutter-free for a maximum of 32 hours at a time. I had a dream two nights ago that H was in. Just ran into her in the street. She was wearing a green and white dress. She told me what bar she was working in, and made me promise not to tell anyone, and did it in a threatening tone. Hiding in plain sight. Christmas is coming too quickly. I just made a quick version of that list, and eight out of nine are women.

Maybe tomorrow at work.

No idea. No idea what to write. What to say. I've had this nagging cold for over a week. It had about run it course when I decided to stay out after work one night, and got home a little before 11am the next morning. I spent some time lying on the floor of a studio taking pictures of friends dancing to Prince against a skylight. If one of those pictures comes out okay, it will be worth being sick. Ah, what the hell, it was worth it anyway. If we can't sacrifice a little sleep to spend time with friends, then this world is more messed up than I thought.

I just want to grab her and hold on for a second and, through that touch, transfer the power to be okay, just be at peace with herself, to be alone with herself for just a minute and be okay with that, to realize that she's an alright person to be alone with, that there's some worth to her presence, and she doesn't need to keep looking for the proof in the form of these quick fixes she that she can conjure up with whatever undefinable powers she has over so many. It shows as self confidence, at least to those who don't know better. I brought up the idea of an intervention tonight, but it's not a problem in black and white, like stop drinking, or stop shooting up.

And about that OJ...

After tonight's debate, I think I can safely say that I like everyone except Obama and Clinton. And how much fun would a Biden presidency be? It's like he's reached a point in his life where he feels like he doesn't need to put up with any bullshit. Finally, a politician I can relate to. Well, at least that one aspect.

I'm thinking that once you literally get away with murder, you think you can get away with anything. But I'm not really following that new case, so I'll just leave it there. I did just realize tonight just how much the murder trial changed the way I think. I set up my darkroom for the first time in a while. Dug out some old chemicals, mixed them up, had the trays all filled, dusted off the enlarger, and, fuck, the timer doesn't work. I work the switches, and open it up and blow it out with compressed air and bang it and hit it and why is everything wet? Dry off the matte black table with my hand. Oh look. My finger's bleeding. That wetness all over everything is my blood. It was only a little nick, and it's already hard to find where on my finger it was, and I guess it wasn't a whole lot of blood, but this is what I thought: I hope there isn't a murder investigation in here, because my DNA's all over this table. Never would have thought that way if it wasn't for OJ.

Motivation.

I was in the post office today, and this guy burst in and asked me if this was 300 Grand St. His eyes were going in different directions, and one of them was kinda cloudy. I told him we weren't on Grand. He started telling me about how he came all the way from Queens to find his package. He then produced a slip of paper that told him where to pick up his package. He read the postmark to me as if that should mean something, and I saw it was a FedEx delivery slip. I told him that we weren't at FedEx, but he insisted on checking if they had his package. For some reason, I left as he went to the pick-up window. Now I'll never know if he found his package.

There's that news van again.

There are three news vans parked outside Kellogg's Diner right now. The woman who killed Linda Stein met a detective there, and later confessed to the murder. So the natural reaction in at least three local newsrooms was to send a crew out to the diner so the viewer at home can better picture in his mind what a diner might look like from across the street as a backdrop for a reporter with a microphone and too much makeup. What a waste of gas. Are there people at home going, "wow, that was actually the diner. Right there. They actually got close to it. And it looks like people were actually eating in it. I love you local TV news." The finest in quality TV entertainment.

M2

I was in the neighborhood early for work, so I walked around and shot a roll a film. First time I used this camera, and it was really fun, even though my hands froze to its chrome covering. I may have to tape it up. Here's one from that night.

Never fails to amaze me how therapeutic it is for me to take pictures.

Boo?

I'm listening to a woman on the radio who sees ghosts everywhere she goes. Like it's no big deal. Sees them everywhere. She says they look normal, but she can see though them a little bit. The ghosts don't know she can see them, so when she says hi to them, she scares the ghosts.

A little over a year ago, I thought about what I would do if I didn't have to work. As of this week, I have about an eighty percent cut in work hours (and a greater cut in pay), so I'm going to try and pretend that I don't have to work, and see if I get some things done. I've already put together a bunch of flag pictures and put them on my site. I have about 150 rolls of film I haven't really seen that I have to proof. Another 30 or so to develop. Plenty to do. And then, the holidays.

It was 4:30am, and since we were on the dotted blue line that threads though the five boroughs, I wanted to just stand there and wait for the marathon to go by. Instead, we took a car into the city because one of us thought we could go to his friend's bar and play pool all morning. The gates were down when we got there. Took a cab back over the river. I laughed a lot in the car, so it was worth it.

Ninety percent of Nevada is federally owned land.

(Unrelated picture of a New York family to follow.)

Parrrrrtyyyy!!!

I got dragged to a Halloween party last night. It actually doesn't take much to drag me somewhere these days. It's hard to find new things between work and home. So after work, I went to this party. It was in a warehouse space in that area that I'm never sure is Williamsburg or Greenpoint. There were security guards in sharp looking suits, and they weren't letting people in because they were at capacity. One of the bartenders was waiting outside to get us in. I can't remember what she was dressed as. Once past the girl who put a wristband on my wrist, I don't know what she was dressed as either, I found myself in a room with two-story-high ceilings where there was a large skull-shaped piñata being beaten by costumed, dancing partiers. The skull was backlit, and, along with all the smoke in the air, it all looked like a movie version of some mind altering party where the protagonist is led to some magical place he's never seen before, and possibly ends up encountering his first "drug experience," signaling the beginning of his downfall, and the reason for the film. This thought was actually going through my mind at that moment, and I looked on in detached amusement. The guy that took me there handed me a red drink, and disappeared. I handed the red drink to his friend who then had two red drinks. A glowing, neon green beachball bounced off my head. We tried to get somewhere in the crowd. I really couldn't find anywhere to go. I thought he said, "I wonder if that's Van Halen?" What he actually said was, "I wonder what we're inhaling?" That seemed like a good time to leave, and once outside, I felt like I'd just smoked a pack of Camels.