32... more musings...

32.

I can honestly say I never thought I'd see a black president in my lifetime, and projecting, based on my current health and lifestyle, I should live until at least 2060. So, it makes me happy to see it at 32. I don't know that Barack Obama's election will mean anything for me practically, but symbolically, it means a whole hell of a fucking lot.

Hooray for black elitist, terrorist sympathizing, bleeding heart Muslim socialist liberals with western leadership ambition everywhere!!!!!!!

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I stared at myself in the mirror this morning, expressionless, for about 10 minutes. I do this almost every morning, and sometimes for a lot longer. I can see the age. No real wrinkles, no bags under the eyes, but some added weight in the chin and jowl areas. Why aren't there exercises you can do for the face? Actually, I don't look too different from the photo at the top/right of this page - just slightly. But it's enough to tell me that I need to do something now to slow this gain. I already have a big head, I don't need a fat face to accentuate it.

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I've been told that photographers take photographs, but I am determined to defeat this absurd stereotype. Where is is it written that a photographer does anything relating to photography?

I haven't truly done my own photography for several years now. I only pick up my camera now if someone pays me to (Like my upcoming project with the Cleveland Public Theater). True, it's been because of the expense, not the desire. My professional jobs don't yet pay me enough to shoot when I'm not on a professional job, and those jobs are few and far in between - especially these days. My temp job doesn't leave me the time (I'm temp, but full-time). So do I continue referring to myself as a photographer? I haven't done my own personal art project in at LEAST 3 years. You wouldn't go around calling yourself a taxi driver in the present tense if you hadn't driven a taxi in three years, whether by choice or not.

I continue to call myself a photographer, but I'm just clinging to something in my past at this point - it seems. If I had the money to pick up my camera again I would, but until then...

So, now what? Go digital. It's cheaper, they say. Well, not to start. All of that upgrading to professional digital is expensive. A low-end professional quality digital camera is around $1000. That's before printers and software and lights, etc. Don't forget the scans of the majority of my film to high-res digital files. So now I need a scanner too.

Sigh...

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My death has been my primary concern since my father's funeral in 1986. Preoccupied, would you say? Obsessed, even? Many of my sketches up to about age 25 have pages and pages of tombstones in the wilderness. I hope that when I die, it's of natural causes, and I just happen to be sitting on a tree-covered hill overlooking some other tree-covered hills, bisected by a river. Bear Mountain in New York State comes to mind.

I hope no one ever finds me and I can just decay in the open wilderness, nature reclaiming me to her bosom. I don't know how long that would take, but I would hope no one would find that area until I was completely dust. I like to imagine that my spirit would wander the hills and forests of New York and New England for eternity. Even if God exists, I can't imagine he can tell or show me anything more beautiful than that. If he does exist, I hope that he consigns me to that fate which I have just described. The only other thing I would be interested in is knowing the mysteries of the universe, and being able to travel to and experience them. Black holes, wormholes, nebulae, etc., etc., etc.

Maybe we could strike a deal where I get to go anywhere in the universe I want, but when on Earth, I am restricted to New York and New England.

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I talked with my mother by phone today, and, as has become the case lately with her, I feel better about everything. In the past, she's always found someway (even if not purposefully) to make me feel like complete shit after talking to her - even when we started on a good note. I always joke that my relationship with my mother is not unlike a Jewish mother and son (or, even daughter). My fiancee' thought I was insane when she first heard me say that. After spending some time around my mother and myself, she quickly came to see the merits of my position.

My mother, who lives in New York, has (without my prompting) let me off the hook of traveling to North Carolina to see my grandmother on Thanksgiving. I don't say "let me off the hook" in the sense that I didn't want to go. In fact, I would love nothing more. I say that, to mean, I can't at all afford it, and my mother allowed me to not feel guilty for that. She has no idea how much I appreciate that. I may still go to NY now, to see her, but I won't have the added expense of driving to NC.

Little as it may be, the gesture goes a long way in helping me deal with so many of the neuroses she caused in the first place.

Thanks mom.

(I guess this last one was neither a musing nor amusing) :)

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I don't like being 32. I like it less than 31, which I liked less than 30. 29 was OK. 28 was optimal. It wasn't the best time of my life, but I had two years before 30, so it still felt kinda distant. 29 was alright, but it was just a whole year of waiting to be 30.

It's narcissism; not about looks, but about accomplishment. I want to be young forever, because as long as I'm young, it's not too late.

Feets, don't fail me now!