I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. De Mille...

I was approached by a photographer at my church who wanted to recreate a tableau he had seen a few weeks earlier when I had draped my scarf over my head because I was cold and had turned around to look at who was sitting behind me. (The real story is that someone was kicking my seat and I'd had it UP TO HERE!) (not true...it's all a lie to get laughs...)

This is the recreation at his studio in Hamilton. I've attached the link to his site: a photography project where he takes a photo everyday of the year, starting Jan 1 2008, of people from Hamilton doing Hamilton things. I don't know if I fit into that category, per se, but I was flattered and willing nonetheless.

I had just had my hair cut while channelling Clara Bow the day before, so the hair cut inspired an impromptu Art Deco photo shoot.
And this was the outcome: I'm not as skinny or Art Deco as I had created myself to be in my head. But hey, one day, in 30 years I'll look back and be glad I have this crazy picture.
There's a slight resemblance--minus the cocaine eyes and kewpie/cupi/QP doll lips.

Anywho--this has been my brush with fame. I was fortunate enough to have 24 hours of it.
www.hamilton365.com

Heart-broken PT 1

He pulls into his driveway, the frigid snow snapping under his tires. Rolling up the crack in the window he gets out of the truck, shuts the door and drops his cigarette to the ground crushing it under the heel of his cowboy boot. Pulling a roll of antacids from his coat pocket he unwraps the last chalky piece and tosses it into his mouth grinding it with his molars. The powdery texture and unappetizing flavours don't bother him anymore.

Walking up the stairs to his front door the dogs, having sensed his presence, start barking madly from their perch in the bay window beside the door. Exhaling the last drag from his cigarette, he glances up at the them and smiles at their incorrigible excitability and steals himself for their furious welcome home. It's been a long, cold, never ending day and he's glad to be home even though he replaces the heaviness of work-life with the heaviness of domestic challenges. He notes the interlocking brick needs to be refitted in the Spring and adds it to his mental list of things to do around the house when it warms up. For now he can at least ignore the needs outside since it's too cold to get much accomplished.

Opening the front door ushers in a shocking gust of bitter air that doesn't seem to faze the dogs and the flurry of their tails and kisses. Ok, ok, he pets them, yes, I'm home. Their joy barely recedes as he kicks of his boots and hangs up his jacket and gloves smelling of gasoline and washer fluid. He pads up the stairs into the living room. The TV is on but no one is watching it. It's his new TV--wide screen HD mounted on the wall above the fireplace. It's just a TV but it's like a trophy on the mantel and he pauses for a moment to enjoy the crisp image and sound of Dr. Phil before he calls out to no one in particular 'I'm having a shower.'

He goes into the bathroom and automatically locks the door behind him. Now that his daughter and her husband and child live in the basement apartment privacy measures must be taken. He starts the shower before he's in unwilling to get into a luke-warm shower after being outside in the chill of winter all day. He strips off his sweater and undershirt in one movement and dumps it half inside-out in the corner by the door. He faces the mirror above the sink and combs his fingers through his disheveled hair that stands on end from being sucked through the neck of his sweater and undershirt. His hand falls to the edge of the counter and he looks into his own eyes--the tired eyes of a tired man. He rests his other hand on the edge of the counter and his back sinks in between his shoulder blades. The shower is hot now and steam starts to etch the corners of the mirror into which he is lost.

Matters of this life consume him and wash in and out of his mind as he stares back at himself. Today was just an ordinary day, a good day even, but left alone with his thoughts with nothing to distract him and outside noises hushed by the rush of water he was heavy with his burdens, uncertain, unknowing and feeling very alone.

Heart-break

The world is a terrible place.

No. It's not the world--it's what's become of the world through the fall of man.

I have a close friend whose father passed away last night--suddenly and unexpectedly. Put simply his heart was broken and crushed under the pressures of this world.

Cardiac arrest is the technical term; or an infarction of the heart causing local death of the tissue.

Of course my heart goes out to my friend and her family, but strangely enough I've found my heart responding most intensely to this man and the condition of his heart that led to its destruction. What state does a heart have to be in in order to succumb to defeat?

We talk about heart-break, heart-ache, heart-sick, and we feel things in our hearts when someone is born, dies, hurts us or lifts us up. A movie can stir our hearts and a song can touch it. Someone can bring joy to it and someone else can crush it.

Medically speaking it's just an organ--a dense, muscular organ that pushes and pulls life giving blood through our body prompted by an electrical impulse. It started to form at conception and first began to primitively beat at 4 weeks gestation pushing immature red-blood cells through the body's immature and barely formed arteries and veins. It delivered oxygen from the mother via the umilical cord to the growing tissues and removed the left-over carbon dioxide back to the mother via the umbilical cord for her to exhale.

At birth it switches over from a fetal heart that bypasses the unused fetal lungs into an infants heart as the pressure from the air being sucked into the lungs closes off now-obsolete pathways. Our first breath initializes our first independant heart beats--seperate from our mother's as the cord is cut and the flow of life-giving oxygen is terminated from her end.

Then as we age our heart grows.
It builds up fatty-deposits and sometimes skips beats or beats irregularly.
It gets broken. It gets healed.

It's just an organ but it's so much more.
It can be broken beyond recognition. It can give up of its own will.

Cornered at every corner...

She checks the temperature of the filling bath with her foot while precariously straddling the tub. It's too hot so she turns the cold water faucet and attempts to 'stir' the mixing water with her submerged foot. Unsuccessful, she relents and creates a whirl-pool with her hands to mix the water subsequently making her book damp with soapy-wet finger prints.

Satisfied with the temperature she gets into the bath only long enough to feel the grimy-slime on the tub walls after the hot water has broken down the layers of dried-on shampoo and conditioner into an unpleasant film. Annoyed but uncaring she pauses as she remembers her last words to her roommate--I don't have my house keys. I'm going to borrow yours and I'll just leave the door unlocked for you--and realizes, of course, the door is locked. She debates: unlock the door now and maintain my integrity as a reliable roommate but suffer the disappointment of getting out of a bath prematurely, or wait for her to knock, risk annoying her and still suffer disappointment.

Sighing, she stands up, skims the bubbles off her arms and legs and steps onto the mat carefully navigating over her tall-boy of cider. In one swift movement like a starlet on the silver screen she pulls the towel from the rack and wraps herself in it. Her cider hits the floor with a dull, tinny thud and the sound of hissing bubbles is overcast by a frustrated 'shit.'

" In one swift movement...God I am such an idiot." From an imperceptible flow of ions hitting countless synapses a stream of self-deprecating thoughts plough through her brain. "The bathroom was just cleaned how could I be so careless it's on the mat and it's going to stink like beer who drinks cider in the tub I am such a romantic 'like a starlet on the silver screen' is a stupid alliteration I used up all the paper-towel don't just watch it spread across the floor use toilet-paper gees I am pathetic..."

Her thoughts towards unlocking the apartment door are forefront only after the spilt cider and slightly before romance. She shakes her head in self-loathing as she reflects on her last thoughts before the incident with the tall-boy and the towel. Somehow thoughts of romance never get old in the face of limitless reasons (and citations) to not count on it.

The cider is sopped up, the door unlocked in an uneventful moment that held so much promise for serendipity, and what remained of the cider was in hand as she finally broke the surface of the thinning bubbles for an evening soak.

Thomas Hardy was on the menu that night. Another book to add to an ever-growing list of books started and never finished--this, mostly due to an unsettling sexual nature of the book that robbed classics of their innocence with which she always had associated with 'classics'. Truth be told, sex has happened for a long time, but it was a dream to find a good book that wasn't between the sheets of lovers, husbands and wives or family members. Leave it to Canadian literature to fulfill one's literary quota of incest.

The words flowed...like the water from the faucet? No, smoother and more crafted than that. Enough to turn a filmy tub of luke-warm water and thinning bubbles into another world but not enough to smooth the troubled look on her face.
Nothing could distract her from her troubles today. And perhaps she wouldn't be so melancholy if only she could talk about it but no one was home. Perhaps she could lay her thoughts out on paper but then she'd only be telling herself what she already wondered.

Her one outlet that provided a forum for borderline verbal abandonment had been compromised thereby completing her trifecta of unavailable channels.

Now what, she thought.

Delicate trust and elusive patience.

Patience and trust.
Truth is very close to trust in mechanics, value and relationship.
It's hard to trust when you don't have the truth. It's such a vulnerable part of everyone too. It's can't be easily gained but can be easily lost. Essentially it's voluntarily handing your heart over to someone to handle as they see fit.

And patience. Wow. That's something I don't have time for. HA. I'm hilarious.
But really--who's the person in charge of teaching patience? Because I missed that lesson.

These days I've been having to revisit patience. Some people...most people are more patient than I am and that makes me anxious. It's important to have patience--you don't rush into things which can lead to regret, you're slower to anger, there are less misunderstandings because there's more time to understand. I am so wise.

And then trust. Trust is less learned and more built up or torn down by experience. And I think it's safe to say most of us have been torn down more often than we've been built up. Am I right?

So--what do you do? Do you start by giving someone 100% and only bad conduct can take away from their already perfect mark? Or do you start neutral and only trust once they've established their worthiness?

Janice! You're killing me here!

I don't know--do any of you out there have any ideas? I'm really stumped. I want to trust but I'm afraid. It's only bitten me in the ass in the past. (Ass in the past. Ass in the past.) Gun-shy. How typical of jaded 21st century single women, eh? But true.
Thoughts anyone?

WARNING: Mushy (like scrambled eggs and curry).

(Another barely-old post I forgot about! A thousand pardons!)

Anyway. Yesterday was a snow day for a few of us. A day for people to legitimately stay home and hang out without the guilt or burden of neglecting responsibilities or backing out of plans.

We had about 6-8 inches of snow fall through the night combined with rising temperatures equalled an impossible task of getting our cars out of plowed in parking spaces and up slick, icey-wet hills. Not to mention driving anywhere.

The night before yesterday, a few of us gathered for Gill's birthday and held an intimate dance party, which, I firmly believe is the way it should be. Dancing is pretty intimate...it's lame to have people who aren't into dancing at a dance party.

The snow had already started to fall by 10pm so my sister and three of her kids stayed at my place, while Laurie, Gill's cousin, stayed at Jenn's place. Dan was in town, so he crashed at Fosters. We thought nothing of it until the next morning.
With the joy of a school child looking out the window at an inevitable 'snow-day' so we all gathered around the window, amused and comforted by the cars unable to move and the general chaos.

My nieces climbed into bed and lay still only long enough for me to tuck that sweet moment away in my memory. After the girls molested me in my bed that I had shared with my sister we arose to make a plan.

When we saw a snow-truck get stuck the general consensus was to stay home from church. Left-overs from the party the night before were suddenly destined for that morning's communal breakfast--namely peppers, calbassa, salsa, and cheese.
Before long the Owensby's arrived at our door bearing random assortments of food and donning random assortments of dress and undress.

Shortly thereafter a modest yet glorious meal of scrambled curry-eggs, vegetables, bacon and toast was being served to an eager audience. I didn't finish my eggs so I let someone else finish them in true communion style.

Ryan paused at one point during the chaos and wished he could freeze the moment; family and friends gathering together, bring what little we had to share a meal together. What could be better? It's downright Biblical is what is it. And I'm Mary Magdalen. Ha! (She was the former-prostitute, right?)

Community makes me happy. How can you feel alone when you're surrounded by that?

I always regret not taking pictures of ordinary things.

...I didn't take this picture. Ha...

The internet is "public"?

This post goes out to Ken who's claimed he's only read one of my posts. But he's a dirty liar...or a gentleman and he was trying to be diplomatic when he lied.

I'm having to make clarifications too often. This isn't good. Perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut. That might be preferable. Perhaps if I refrain from publishing my thoughts online then I could save myself a lot of trouble and discomfort.

But I've come this far. So what the hell, eh?

Let's see--a little bit of drama this week.
I sent in my NARM application documents to APPLY to write my midwifery certification exam in the US in February. They extended the dead-line because I was having trouble getting some papers. I never thought the day would come then I would use the excuse 'there are typhoons in the Philippines and it's hard to travel between islands' to give myself more time to put together my APPLICATION to write an 8-hour exam.
They received my docs but things are missing, of course. Nothing in life is easy.

Today I finally caved and got winter tires. I really do notice a difference and am already a lot more confident driving. However, in my brain new winter tires translates into 'anything under me that touches the ground is now very grippy'. This isn't true. Yet I now walk and run down the icy streets with abandon thinking, it's ok! I have new winter-tires.

Um what else...I've had two photo gigs this week--which is a nice treat. And what I mean by that is it's immensely stressful. But people are starting to recognize my work here and there and I'm getting more and more requests. It's nice...and immensely stressful.
Here's a shot from this week:

Children are cute but rarely smile on command. It's annoying. Not the children---the way it makes me look as a photographer. Un-pro-fesh.