The old portraits up top and behind the logo are two that I was futzing with recently. It's stirred up the urge to do more in a studio setting, just get in really close and see what can happen. Yes, yes, I've said this before and then not followed through, talking about it often enough. These were done in a session in January 1996, my introduction to shooting in a studio with a model, more out of curiosity and an opportunity that was handed to me that I took advantage of to see what such sessions were about, how they were done, what it's like to work with a model.

What going through these portraits re-emphasized is my interest in portraits: the eyes, the expression, the whatever it is or isn't that obviously captures my attention. How many times have I discovered/said this in the past? Easier to find subjects for portrait studies than for nudes, I'd imagine, although that really isn't quite true as I learned there's a large group of legitimate models in the Bay Area who pose professionally at reasonable cost. Everyone seems to have a hobby, some in front of the camera, some behind.

So, just stumbling over these and then going through them again has charged my batteries. I won't follow through. Although I might. I'd need to put together another studio. Which could be done....

Oh, the remaining camera was shipped from the Nikon repair facility yesterday (or so it says on their web site). Which means the last one on the list needing cleaning will go to them tomorrow. Hup! Good! With luck we'll have them all in back in hand for the Chinese New Year Parade unless there's another problem of some kind.

Would that make a difference, really, in any real sense? As in missing a picture because you had, say, only the one low light camera with you during the parade?

It could, I suppose, but we haven't really run on reality around here since some time in high school around 1959.

Later. OK, a slow day, but an OK slow day so far, even with the overcast. A walk down to the 7-11 look-alike for an ice cream sandwich, just a short jaunt, returning to take a long hot bath. It's good to take a long hot bath. People who spend any time with me in close quarters appreciate it.

I'm overdue with the monthly Protime (blood thinner) test, some of it due in part to changing to a new calendar at the end of the year. Not a first time mistake. We'll get it done tomorrow, we will. There are other tasks on the list. It's getting shorter, my list, but shorter isn't the same thing as getting done. I have a suspicion this is another sign I've not gotten my act together since retirement. Stating the obvious.

Later still. A second trip to the same 7-11 look-alike, this time to pick up something other than ice cream to eat and a small bottle of Jack Daniels. What am I thinking?

Evening. A couple of hours on the guitar, just me and Mr. Daniels over these last three hours. The sinuses feel better. Good old sinuses, I suspect they're eighty percent of what I blame on the ills of aging. Whiskey seems to do them good.

We'll see what we've been able to accomplish on the guitar by the time the evening is finished. Another Scandinavian police procedural at six, except it turns out now it's a Greek coming of age drama and a not very good Greek coming of age drama at that. Would I bitch less if I had cable? Probably not, although it would give me - what? - two hundred channels to complain about? Besides, Scandinavian police procedurals, German language Italian cops and now Greek kids coming of age. Where else could you find something like that?

What does that mean?

I have no idea, this has not been the best day for coherence.