waiting at the light, know what i mean
A conversation half-past seven:
Colby: "Didn't you just get a text message?"
Indi: "I'unno. I was in the bathroom."
Colby: "Oh. We texted you. You have to come over and swim."
Indi: "Um."
Colby: "You've got out of swimming the past * times we've gone. Bleu's already here. Get your ass in gear, woman."
* I have no idea how many. Three? Five? Forty? My skin hates the sun.
Indi: "Um."
Colby: "What?"
Indi: "It's kinda cold for that, yeah?"
Colby: "What? No it's not."
Indi: "Sure as hell was this morning."
Colby: "It's not cold now. We'll be fine."
A conversation half-past eleven:
Colby: *shiver*
bleukarma: *shiver*
Indi: "What was this about swimming?"
Bleu: "The one time I brought my swimsuit!"
Colby: "NOT MY FAULT."
I don't know what our tree spiders are, exactly - they're large and pale and sort of fleshy-looking, not shiny and mechanical like most spiders. They're also hairy. They've got big round back ends, disproportionately big compared to their tiny.. torsos?.. from which all their twiddly legs sprout. I'm not scared by spiders, unless they're wolf spiders, which ought to be nuked from fucking orbit. Otherwise they're neat to watch, and spiderwebs are fun to look at (although not to walk into) and they eat bugs and generally I'm pro-spider. I leave them alone, they leave me alone, we're good.
Which is why it really was not good when a brake light ahead of me illuminated, at the perfect moment, some motion on the sunshade which was folded up against the ceiling. Tree spider. Motherfucking tree spider thisclose to my head. I yanked the car away from the dive it was about to do into a ditch, punched the glovebox open, rummaged, found a napkin. The next chance I had to stop I looked up, ready to kill the thing. I'm not against spiders, no, as long as they leave me alone. If they get all up in my business, they suffer my wrath.
(That holds for many things, really.)
The spider had disappeared. I didn't want to pull the sunshade down because with my luck the spider would land on my face and then get lost in all sixty-five yards of my hockey jersey, and everyone knows the only three things allowed on a jersey are blood, sweat, and beer. Bug guts are not on.
So I drove on. With a napkin clenched in one hand. Glanced up every time I had a chance, and plotted a plan.
When I got to Colby's (wtf, casa de Colby, why are you all repaving the front entrance RIGHT NOW WHEN I NEED TO GET IN BECAUSE THERE'S A SPIDER ABOVE MY HEAD) I pulled the car in, dove out like Crosby, and called for backup. Backup brought me paper towels as I'd requested, no flashlight (they couldn't find it), and a Yorkshire terrier. I did my best to light the inside up with the cell phone - the dome light being inadequate for spider hunting - and Colby went over the inside of the car, as patient and methodical as a cop dusting for prints, the paper towels clenched in a fist just waiting to nail the spider that wants to crash my car.
No spider. Colby assured me that it had probably got into the roof, through one of the seams where headliner meets metal, and that it'd likely be dead first thing in the morning before I got back to the car. I had my doubts, but I also had a five-pound camera in my hand and a craving for places protected from that fucking wind. So in we went.
I showed my new baby off - although I don't think the wonders of the Graflex were fully appreciated - but that's all right because honestly, who's interested in large format tilt-shift but me? It was universally accepted as a hardcore camera and a thing not to be messed with, although the whisper-quiet shutter caused some disappointment. A camera that big, I think they wanted it to go off like a cannon. Sorry, guys - there's no mirror to flip.
That shutter. It's too sticky. I thought it'd dry out or loosen up or possibly both after being put through its paces and brought in from the humidity, but it hasn't. I'd have sent it to Kino - and I tried to find him - but he's fallen off the face of the earth, or maybe retired, and I don't know any decent repairmen around town. The only person I have heard of who is known for sure to be able to fix this is in Buffalo. I may have to send This Camera on a road trip, sometime in the summer, if I can't find someone around here to do it. Because I really want to shoot this camera. As pretty as it is, it is a camera, and therefore an object which should do things, not just sit around and look fancy.
We had dinner and we discussed a great many things, mostly the impending wedding of Jen, and the fact that, when Colby and Bleu get hitched (though not to each other) I won't get to use my mad skillz because I have to be in the party. "And you," said Colby, "are not going to be running around with your cameras. You're gonna be in your dress standing up there with me." Some people get to have all the fun, running around with cameras and wearing sensible shoes.
(I want to be a good photographer. Someday.)
Anyway - after dinner and discussion and television and the usual fun, it was time for us girls to go. Colby had to be up early for a disaster practice thing, which Bleu and I both wanted to be in on - they borrow the football stadium and pretend a bomb has gone off, or something. You spend the morning lying around being a victim and getting treated by the city's finest emergency professionals, all of whom are pleasingly strong. We wanted to play dead, although as I pointed out -- "Boss? My, uh, sucking chest wound victim is turning kinda blue. Can I get a blanket in here?" Maybe next time.
So we said our goodbyes. I shouldered my backpack and grabbed the Graflex and headed back to the car. Opened it up and saw no spiders, so I threw my backpack into the passenger seat. I lifted the camera up over the steering wheel, but badly miscalculated the distance (as I always do, in the six-foot bubble around me that involves depth perception) and popped myself on the chin with the corner of the thing. Ow. I see why they're good crowd clearers. Escaped without a bruise, though I wouldn't put it past my skin to sprout one while I'm asleep.
I keep looking at that old camera, and at the enlarger on my desk, and the Holga clone on my bookcase. I find myself craving the stink of developer on my hands. I want to try new things that people long dead have perfected. I want to rig these old metal bodies to do things their designers never intended, and then develop the results myself - although I'd have to, wouldn't I, because drugstore printing is one size fits your snapshots, and the people at the photo stores more often than not stare at you funny.
My, my, but time do fly
When it's in another pair of pants
An illusion I will be
For I've never been a sinner, la di da
Someday. Maybe.
Colby: "Didn't you just get a text message?"
Indi: "I'unno. I was in the bathroom."
Colby: "Oh. We texted you. You have to come over and swim."
Indi: "Um."
Colby: "You've got out of swimming the past * times we've gone. Bleu's already here. Get your ass in gear, woman."
* I have no idea how many. Three? Five? Forty? My skin hates the sun.
Indi: "Um."
Colby: "What?"
Indi: "It's kinda cold for that, yeah?"
Colby: "What? No it's not."
Indi: "Sure as hell was this morning."
Colby: "It's not cold now. We'll be fine."
A conversation half-past eleven:
Colby: *shiver*
bleukarma: *shiver*
Indi: "What was this about swimming?"
Bleu: "The one time I brought my swimsuit!"
Colby: "NOT MY FAULT."
I don't know what our tree spiders are, exactly - they're large and pale and sort of fleshy-looking, not shiny and mechanical like most spiders. They're also hairy. They've got big round back ends, disproportionately big compared to their tiny.. torsos?.. from which all their twiddly legs sprout. I'm not scared by spiders, unless they're wolf spiders, which ought to be nuked from fucking orbit. Otherwise they're neat to watch, and spiderwebs are fun to look at (although not to walk into) and they eat bugs and generally I'm pro-spider. I leave them alone, they leave me alone, we're good.
Which is why it really was not good when a brake light ahead of me illuminated, at the perfect moment, some motion on the sunshade which was folded up against the ceiling. Tree spider. Motherfucking tree spider thisclose to my head. I yanked the car away from the dive it was about to do into a ditch, punched the glovebox open, rummaged, found a napkin. The next chance I had to stop I looked up, ready to kill the thing. I'm not against spiders, no, as long as they leave me alone. If they get all up in my business, they suffer my wrath.
(That holds for many things, really.)
The spider had disappeared. I didn't want to pull the sunshade down because with my luck the spider would land on my face and then get lost in all sixty-five yards of my hockey jersey, and everyone knows the only three things allowed on a jersey are blood, sweat, and beer. Bug guts are not on.
So I drove on. With a napkin clenched in one hand. Glanced up every time I had a chance, and plotted a plan.
When I got to Colby's (wtf, casa de Colby, why are you all repaving the front entrance RIGHT NOW WHEN I NEED TO GET IN BECAUSE THERE'S A SPIDER ABOVE MY HEAD) I pulled the car in, dove out like Crosby, and called for backup. Backup brought me paper towels as I'd requested, no flashlight (they couldn't find it), and a Yorkshire terrier. I did my best to light the inside up with the cell phone - the dome light being inadequate for spider hunting - and Colby went over the inside of the car, as patient and methodical as a cop dusting for prints, the paper towels clenched in a fist just waiting to nail the spider that wants to crash my car.
No spider. Colby assured me that it had probably got into the roof, through one of the seams where headliner meets metal, and that it'd likely be dead first thing in the morning before I got back to the car. I had my doubts, but I also had a five-pound camera in my hand and a craving for places protected from that fucking wind. So in we went.
I showed my new baby off - although I don't think the wonders of the Graflex were fully appreciated - but that's all right because honestly, who's interested in large format tilt-shift but me? It was universally accepted as a hardcore camera and a thing not to be messed with, although the whisper-quiet shutter caused some disappointment. A camera that big, I think they wanted it to go off like a cannon. Sorry, guys - there's no mirror to flip.
That shutter. It's too sticky. I thought it'd dry out or loosen up or possibly both after being put through its paces and brought in from the humidity, but it hasn't. I'd have sent it to Kino - and I tried to find him - but he's fallen off the face of the earth, or maybe retired, and I don't know any decent repairmen around town. The only person I have heard of who is known for sure to be able to fix this is in Buffalo. I may have to send This Camera on a road trip, sometime in the summer, if I can't find someone around here to do it. Because I really want to shoot this camera. As pretty as it is, it is a camera, and therefore an object which should do things, not just sit around and look fancy.
We had dinner and we discussed a great many things, mostly the impending wedding of Jen, and the fact that, when Colby and Bleu get hitched (though not to each other) I won't get to use my mad skillz because I have to be in the party. "And you," said Colby, "are not going to be running around with your cameras. You're gonna be in your dress standing up there with me." Some people get to have all the fun, running around with cameras and wearing sensible shoes.
(I want to be a good photographer. Someday.)
Anyway - after dinner and discussion and television and the usual fun, it was time for us girls to go. Colby had to be up early for a disaster practice thing, which Bleu and I both wanted to be in on - they borrow the football stadium and pretend a bomb has gone off, or something. You spend the morning lying around being a victim and getting treated by the city's finest emergency professionals, all of whom are pleasingly strong. We wanted to play dead, although as I pointed out -- "Boss? My, uh, sucking chest wound victim is turning kinda blue. Can I get a blanket in here?" Maybe next time.
So we said our goodbyes. I shouldered my backpack and grabbed the Graflex and headed back to the car. Opened it up and saw no spiders, so I threw my backpack into the passenger seat. I lifted the camera up over the steering wheel, but badly miscalculated the distance (as I always do, in the six-foot bubble around me that involves depth perception) and popped myself on the chin with the corner of the thing. Ow. I see why they're good crowd clearers. Escaped without a bruise, though I wouldn't put it past my skin to sprout one while I'm asleep.
I keep looking at that old camera, and at the enlarger on my desk, and the Holga clone on my bookcase. I find myself craving the stink of developer on my hands. I want to try new things that people long dead have perfected. I want to rig these old metal bodies to do things their designers never intended, and then develop the results myself - although I'd have to, wouldn't I, because drugstore printing is one size fits your snapshots, and the people at the photo stores more often than not stare at you funny.
My, my, but time do fly
When it's in another pair of pants
An illusion I will be
For I've never been a sinner, la di da
Someday. Maybe.