Flake City
Saturday. So, back from breakfast, none the wiser, but in a good mood for all that. The sky is overcast, the temperature more than bearable, they're saying it will get up into the low seventies this weekend. I can live with the low seventies. I'm not one of those Icelanders who long for snow. I'm trying to remember the last time I saw anything like “snow”, real snow, the kind you have to stagger through, push aside, not worry about traffic because there is no traffic, there are no pedestrians, just you. New York, I'm sure, back in the fifties, had “snow”. I don't think there was much of any in Seattle in the sixties of the kind we're talking about when I was going through school, although I remember at least one storm in a March long ago that laid the city down when I was four or five and living in Ballard.
I think we get it.
Yes, yes: no snow. Here in the Bay Area. Deep thinking for a Saturday morning, what you've come to expect in PropLand.
You were once upon a time able to put on a relatively cognitive face that would (for a time) fool the outside world.
An advantage of advancing years: no need to pretend social dependability. A freedom I find ever more valuable.
Ms. S sent a series of her photographs yesterday, self portraits taken in a moment of self described boredom when the need to take a photograph welled up within without a model at hand, her significant other not cottoning to sitting in front of a camera. So she took a series of self portraits, sending them out in an email. They were a kick in the butt.
I have a half vampire like friendship with Ms. S, a model who's decided to build a portfolio and explore opportunities on the other side of the lens. Vampire in the sense of feeding from a distance off the energy I'm seeing, watching someone do what I should be doing if I had ambition, stamina and equipment. I have the equipment. Set up a light or two and take a self portrait? Well, I've done it before, but do it with an idea and with a sense of humor that approaches those shown by Ms. S? Doesn't matter. Set up a light. Set up two lights. Push the button. Do it.
Fat chance.
I am fat and there's always a chance. Here in Oakland.
Later. The cousins were in San Francisco late this morning, suggesting I meet them somewhere in the city for some shopping perhaps, I thinking driving to San Francisco is more than I've up for these last few years, so we'll see one another again this Christmas for the family party in Seattle. Talked with Ms. C about Wilson, they've evidently moved him to another room and will then move him to another hospital for a rehabilitation stay on Monday. This is good, of course, it means he's pretty much out of danger and now has to do whatever's required to put his world back together. Knowing Wilson this will happen, but with a certain amount of friction.
Still, whatever kept me from driving to downtown San Francisco kept me from traveling to San Francisco General as well, so I'll drive over and visit tomorrow, see how he's doing. Driving to San Francisco General is pretty straightforward, it's near my old Potrero Hill neighborhood, no problem parking (unless it turns out to be a problem), a clean shot straight over the bridge on the freeway.
You're justifying yourself for not making it to San Francisco to meet your cousins. Same with Wilson.
I told Ms. C I might not make it today, but if I didn't I'd make it Sunday. A promise is a promise and I do want to see how Wilson is doing, Ms. C saying there'd been progress in just these last few days. The rest of the day today? My Japanese soaps are playing later. Sake can be purchased locally to celebrate another week of being alive. Get to bed early maybe, walk the half mile or so to breakfast tomorrow morning. Take a self portrait as I promised Ms. S.
Here in flake city.
Here in Oakland.
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