I'm thinking of taking a week off and spending it making prints. I have a couple of books on PhotoShop for photographers and I suspect I could learn most of the basic routines in a week and come out of it knowing a lot more than I know now. Same with taking the photographs. The color from the parade last weekend looked washed out. I was doing things to compensate for the brightly lit background and I think I probably screwed them up. Nothing that can't be fixed, but I've been shooting too long to still make these basic mistakes. Just shoot a few rolls for practice. Write down the settings. Remember some of them. Maybe.

Not so many good shots from Seattle, I'm afraid. I didn't have my heart in it. Or my brains, maybe. When you're shooting pictures of people you're not talking with them and that's not the reason you go to family gatherings. With strangers, that's an advantage. Makes for better photographs as you don't hold back when you nail a particularly dramatic shot. Family members don't necessarily appreciate dramatic shots. I've had similar reactions from friends at work. They trust me with the camera, but just. They know, deep down in their hearts, that the really ragged stuff is going to show up one day in a coffee table best seller, Scenes From An American Office, MSX at lunch that day when she had all that spinach stuck between her teeth (I told her they didn't turn out), MSY three or four pints into the evening at PCB after work on MRZ's lap, MRZ choking that next weekend on the hot dog at the company picnic.

No flack from MRZ, of course, being dead, gagging as he did on that hot afternoon, hot dog mustard smeared about his lips, everybody debating: Heimlich or mouth to mouth, nobody seriously considering mouth to mouth so they went with the Heimlich, MSY's small hands folded tightly into a fist clasping him tightly around the gut, oof! oof!, but too late, too late, all of it on film.

Oh, hell. Tuesday. I have no idea how any of this reads. Seems particularly dorky, but it comes out like water from the faucet, kitchen, bathroom, back of the garage. Doesn't matter. Free associative dorkiness at the twist of a handle or the touch of a keyboard. There seems to be a rash of journalers going on sabbatical these days, plenty of notify lists. It occurs to me I'm coming near the end of my second "official" year next month. I was kind of hoping after two years some of this writing business would work itself out. The rather grim grind it out day after day giving way to something easier, the writing more fluid, perhaps even turning into something interesting. Same old, same old, though. Or something like that. Something is going on underneath here somewhere, but it's taking its time and its not letting on its direction. The day to day grind business seems to have passed, but then I'm writing less often and enjoying it more. Take an evening now and then and do what other people do: read, wash the dishes, have a drink, rent a movie, court the ladies. So I'm not thinking of a sabbatical.

What I am thinking is that I should learn PhotoShop (hence the week's vacation), but I should also work at adding useful filler to my resume, so should I need to leave the company or the state (or the country) soon, it will be to something better, to a someplace without impossible rents or rain. I'm not good about preparation, all said and done, my procrastination fixation, you understand, but not good at preparation is not an excuse. Not at my age. So I sit here and shoot pictures and write daily whatevers and think, well, one of these days, one of these days. Maybe tomorrow.