Do They All Say That?
This started as the Friday entry and now it's Sunday, two days slipping through my fingers and toes, the fourth and last day of a four day weekend. Ho, hum. Not much to say. Drove down to Lake Merritt for breakfast this morning, a muffin and coffee on Saturday at the open air coffee house and now, this morning, a waffle and latte in the small cafe next to the book store. Nice little predictable not too slick bohemian experience, jazz playing in the background, the people - I don't know, what can be said? - they were a little older and a little better at playing their roles than the Berkeley students I'm used to seeing on Telegraph, but they were a similar bunch, locally employed, employed in the city, living here by the lake where the rents still came with three numbers to the left of the decimal point. The old guy with the camera on the table? Just another gargoyle, my friend, mass produced and made out of cement.
Kathryn Ash mentioned in her journal that a friend had recently gone off line because she's "had some real life and online dramas happening" and continuing her journal for the moment didn't add to their resolution. Hmmm. I've been thinking about that, not so much because I have any real life dramas going on, but because I've been thinking about finding some. Or, if real life dramas aren't available due to oversubscription (They are, son, they are. Just a matter of looking.), then something else that will lead to other, hopefully more interesting developments. Could be something as simple (or complicated) as finding Ms. Right. Or finding more stimulating employment. Or moving. Or all of them together which is the way most people do it.
New employment would mean the people I work with wouldn't know about this journal or have any idea who the Sole Proprietor might be, although that can only last for so long. Rien has been on a find out who the journalers are kick and discovered the whois internet engine. Maybe that's a sign this needs to change. I was going to say end, but change is a better way to say it. Cutting back to take care of matters more important than art, life and snapshots.
Oh dear. This is starting to drift in a very specific direction, isn't it? I started this as a
"journal" at the beginning of November, 1998. I'd done some twenty entries with photographs prior to that on my old nbbc.com site and they are included here with the archives, but my resolution then in November '98 was to write every day for a month and then decide if I would continue. It's been a year and a month, today actually, since I really started on October 29th, 350 plus entries and a whole lot of photographs. I need other things to keep my blood pumping and writing a journal has filled that blood pumping function now for a year. A good year. I've seen some things about me in my writing that maybe I wouldn't have seen otherwise, although I think most of us know what makes us tick even if we don't like to think about it. My, my. When I started today's entry I wasn't thinking about this as the destination, but I seem to have gotten here just like that. I'd like to putter around more in the evenings doing something other than meeting a self imposed deadline. Start developing my own film again and make prints on an Epson inkjet. Learn more about PhotoShop or not learn more about PhotoShop, I keep talking about it and never do it. Maybe find something to do at work that doesn't put me to sleep. Shoot more photographs. Shoot fewer photographs. Write a book. (No. No more books.)
So, time for a change. I will be posting, but not every day. Three times a week sounds about right. Maybe more, maybe less. I'm not sending any emails to Lucy suggesting she take me off her Archipelago list. Steve and Chuck have both had periods where they've scaled back, this will be mine, but I'll still be posting. The curse of Grinder is hovering overhead, I think, but has yet to strike. This is but a pull back from madness, not an end to madness. Or do they all say that?
Oh, Jesus. I've just now read Al's Saturday entry: "Jamie died today. This is my son, my first son, and I've outlived him." I cannot imagine the pain. God be with you Al Schroeder, God be with us all.
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