Woulda Thought?
Sunday. Well, I did go to the Chinese New Year Parade yesterday, arriving earlier than I probably should, remembering, as I looked up and down Market Street - the crowd beginning to build, the participants only then beginning to appear - that this really was a local parade in that half the participants were kids, many of them in high school marching bands or Kung Fu dojos and that I am not a photographer of kids; somewhat because old guys shouldn't be running around taking pictures of other people's children and, well, mostly because I'm a shooter of candid portraits, the fact my subjects are often attractive women is something I'm willing to admit. Honesty in one's art is important after all.
Still, and I don't know if it was the chest cold or the ongoing symptoms eminating from the aching head and sinuses, but after trudging around shooting something like a dozen pictures and then hunkering down over a Caramel Frappuccino at a Starbucks contemplating the line of kids dressed up as pigs, I stumbled back on the train and returned to the apartment. Actually, that's not quite accurate. The effort required in packing the cameras, charging the batteries - how could I possibly be so foggy headed as to lose one of the little plastic battery holders that I placed so carefully next to one of the lights? - the implications of deciding to mount the 105mm lens instead of the 70-200mm VR zoom because I was concerned about managing its bulk and weight, the fuzzy head in general: all combined to argue against my leaving at all. I'm glad I did, but there were omens of failure from the beginning even if the attitude was good. I felt crappy, but, in fact, the attitude was good believing this chest cold would be leaving pretty quick. Was not the day warm, the sun shining and spring (you remember spring, right?) on the way? What could be better? Besides I'm a Pisces. We can bullshit our way out of anything particularly when we ourselves are the audience.
Monday. A good day, for a Monday. Some discussion of the fact the days get harder as our last day with the company grows closer. Everyone seems to be experiencing it. The fairly large group who will be cut loose at the end of April is showing signs of strain, not at the idea of leaving - that's been digested and all of us are looking forward to our coming freedom - but at the day to day drip of what has become a kind of acid that slowly eats away at you as you wait. I think this is a universal condition of some kind; something they write about in HR manuals. Which is why I was happy to see how much better I was feeling this morning with the chest cold still evident, but better behaved. A good lunch at Pasta Cuisine (they really do serve a good lunch) with a glass of wine, a fifteen minute sit in the sun over a carrot cupcake later with MRE, MSS and MSD, then home in a pretty good mood, the weather warm. Who woulda thought? Here in Oakland.
|
