Flotsam: July 2009 Archives

"The best camera is the one you have on you." - Photographer Dave.

The big problem with having the pocketcam die on me, I realize, is that the number of days on which my bike bag is light enough for me to add the Nikon to its load is relatively small. Especially during a summer as rainy as this one. Raingear isn't light.

Nor are locks. Tools. Hand pump. Laptop. Change of socks. Small stash of underwear, toothbrush, and condoms (hey, I'm a modern girl; it's best to be prepared). Contact lens solution and case. Little tin of various painkillers and other needful meds. Little tin of Cinnamon-flavored Altoids. Lip balm.

The pocketcam was obviously not the finest camera in terms of lens quality, but I find myself really missing it.

Because without it, I miss a lot of other things. I miss taking pics of random street flowers. I miss taking blurry barroom shots that give you that magical sense of movement and energy. I miss being able to show you what I see from the bike. I looked down through the bridge structure today and thought, "This is weird. That's water down there. Those are waves. That is a tugboat. I'm riding over a tugboat."

I miss giving you those small doses of my reality that make a blog worth reading. At least I imagine they do.

I look at other people's blogs, ones with interiors photographed in beautiful light, ones with evocative pics of something as simple as brightly colored yarn.

And I think, well....But my interiors never look like magazine spreads.

There's too much dust, for one. I'm not much of a vacuumer.

And for another, I'm a wee bit protective of my private space. I mean, if I want to let the dust-bunnies accumulate and fail to unpack my books for another month, I feel like that's my business.

What it means, though, is that unless I want to subject you to months of Kitwich pictures, I need to start shopping around for a new pocketcam, or perhaps a less-expensive higher-quality used replacement.

Can't really afford it, but I begin to think I can't afford not to, either.

So I had this idea. It was a good idea.

The idea ran thusly:

Miz Fury and I would ride our bikes to the beach on a weekday, thereby avoiding weekend crowds and Wednesday responsibilities.

We met at the appointed time(ish) at my apt and hopped on our respective steeds, armed with a metric ton of sunscreen and considerably fewer snacks, and headed south.

Lalala, everybody's happy, the sun is shining....booom!

What was that? Did I run over an exceptionally loud plastic bottle? I stop and turn around and see a Very Large Screw protruding from my rear tire.

Me: No fucking way (or words to that effect).

Miz Fury: Wouldn't it be better to leave it in? Like a sword?

Me: (pinching tire) Nope, it's losing air already. I'll have to change it.

We pull over. I change the tube, pull out a dollar bill to make an emergency tire boot, and start pumping. Realize that my tiny hand pump will only get the tire to about 70lbs. (30lbs. less than I need). Pull out the CO2 inflator, realize that it's busted (blowing a $6 cartridge in the process). Try the hand pump again. Break off the end of the Presta valve.

Miz Fury suggests looking for a bike shop. I realize I already know of a bike shop nearby, and that one of my friends is a mechanic there. I call another friend to get the address, and we ride over.

The place is mobbed, but because I know the mechanic I get the royal treatment. Buy another tube, let the air out of the tire, change the tube (again), slip in the dollar bill (again), borrow a floor pump, buy a better-quality hand pump (just in case), and we get back on the road.

Ride the rest of the way to the beach. Pull out pocketcam to take some pics and discover that its little servo motor has developed an eccentricity and it first won't focus properly and then simply won't turn on. Alas Poor Pocketcam.

The ride home was fine, and my legs felt strong the next day. But no beach pics. And no screw pics, since I didn't think to save it for posterity. The Nikon is now interviewing for the job of pocketcam.

A friend and fellow blogger remarked that we've both been rather quiet lately, and I felt compelled to try and come up with an explanation for it. Everything I said to her was true (already written most of my Big Ideas here long ago, currently in an emotional whirlwind of upish-downishness, feel like I am repeating myself), but it doesn't necessarily explain why.

I am not sure why, in honesty.

I have been grumpy. I have been restless and not wanting to sit still and write. I have been feeling like I have nothing much to say. If I complain about something one night I might be over it by the next. If I wax enthusiastic about something one day I may have waned by the next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I feel vaguely queasy at the moment, and I got a bit dizzy when I stood up. It's all a bit migrainey round here.

I have been telling myself (and others) that I think I should end an affair, and I have yet to deal with it.

I am, in fact, astonishingly bad at dumping people. Even (or especially) people I am not technically dating. It is hard, somehow. It is hard to say no to a cute face. It is hard not to want someone to be snuggly with. It is all just hard.

"She hates complications." - Nandi
"They do crop up, though." - Mal
"Such is life." - Nandi

This has been the damnedest summer. Rain, rain every day, to the point where I just realized I am still waiting for it to be spring. I was sick for a whole month. The rain came down. It was still not spring. June came and went. I was sick. I stayed inside. It rained.

I started to think about that documentary I watched, twice, which talked about The Year Without A Summer, an ice-age year where summer simply didn't come. The snow came down. The animals starved. The wind howled.

I started to do winter things. I made lentil soup. I watched a lot of TV and re-read Agatha Christie. I knitted, for Pete's sake.

I'm forced to admit that I rather enjoyed the knitting. Which just goes to show you how NON-springish it's been around here. (Note to those who've been reading less than a year: I do not knit in spring and summer. It's not that I don't know about the existence of bamboo, and cotton, and linen, and hemp. It's just that I can't seem to give a good god damn about knitting when the weather is warm.)

But I just finished a scarf, which was started long ago, in early winter or fall. It's a cerulean blue hand-dyed wool that Shan sent me, and which really looks to me like the ocean, and I just love it. It got laid by the wayside whilst I knitted a bazillion gifts for people, and then while I knitted the cobweb scarf, and so on. And there it was sitting in my knitting basket calling to me one very rainy afternoon.

It's a short scarf, and a very useful item I think it will prove. Most of my scarves are long long long. Certainly too long to wear on a bike. I may try this one out as a cowl-alternative. I think I can tuck the ends into either side of a jacket and it will warm both neck and chest. And plus, it is blue, blues, bluesy, bluest. I held off posting this until I could get a daylit photo of it, just so you could see the true blues.

Also because lately every time I go to write something here, I end up feeling like I've either said too much or said nothing very interesting. It's been a weird summer so far, and I am not just talking about the weather - though it occurs to me to wonder about the degree to which people's behavior and moods (including mine) might be affected by such a long spell of the drearies.

As I look out my window now, there are again the gathering dark clouds, and the fan is pulling in air that feels oversaturated with moisture about to break into big drops. I still haven't unpacked my books. I think I am waiting for the skies to clear.