Recently in Photographs Category

...Is the one you have on you.

I had this complex plan about how I was going to tweet nothing but photos during my enforced period of non-cycling. And it hasn't materialized. For whatever reason, I simply can't shut up on Twitter.

I also had this plan about how I was going to write more blog posts.

That hasn't materialized either, though I've tried once or twice. For whatever reason, I simply have nothing to say here.

It only just occurred to me to switch hands. To give in to my wordyness on Twitter and to give in to my taciturnity here.

In other words, I'm going to experiment, at least, with making this a photo blog. Or a blog primarily about images, anyway.

So...if you want to read about my surgery or my difficulties convincing the cat to make my espresso in the morning, or my unending thoughts about bikes and boys, you'll have to check Twitter.

If you want to see what I've had my eyes on lately, stop by here now and then.

Let's see how it goes. Life is mostly about experimenting in one form or another, I believe.

I won't talk about how long it's been, because I hate going to blogs and reading those kinds of disclaimers. I post when I feel like it; I don't when I don't. This isn't a job. And now that I have a job, it's nice to be able to say that.

My life has changed so radically that I hardly know how to express it. I went from standing on a nasty precipice for an extended length of time (not jumping, mind you, or even quite falling, but getting dizzy and sad from looking at the drop) to suddenly being tossed a lifeline. But it happened so fast that I've hardly had time to adjust.

A few weeks later I woke up after a particularly bad night (45 minutes of sleep is not enough for a growing girl) and realized I needed to move right now. So in that dogged, resourceful way I get when I'm desperate (which, I begin to realize, is quite a useful skill), I began looking for and almost immediately found a better apartment. Same amount of space, nicer building, quieter neighborhood, less money.

Since then it's been the usual cavalcade of completely inconvenient and scary health problems that seem to accompany any big change, and trying to juggle the overwhelming demands of new job, packing up all my possessions (which, for an adult person with a lot of books and a lot of hobbies, is not a small job), dealing with pesky freelance hangers-on, and so on.

It's a lot.

The only part of it that really bothers me is the health crap, because, well, it's crappy. I may need more surgery - two kinds, in fact - and in the meantime, it hurts to do most anything. And of course, the one thing I really shouldn't be doing is heavy lifting. Yeah.

Everybody keeps telling me - oh, don't complain, because it's only another couple of weeks and then you'll be in your new place, where everything will be all bright and shiny. Well, my new place promises to be lots better, certainly, and I expect to be a lot happier there. But bright and shiny and perfect and solving all the world's problems? No. It's just a nice apartment.

I'm still going to be broken and in pain, and needing surgery, and I'll still get lonely at night and wonder whether that swelling is anything to worry about, or whether I've just gotten fat in those four days off the bike.

And I'll have weeks and weeks more of lifting, and shifting, and drilling and hanging, and putting together of new dressers, and the cat waking me up at 4 am because she's convinced herself she's starving to death and needs to be fed right that moment.

In other words, life goes on. And I'm glad it does, because if it doesn't have to be perfect then it's something I can live in. I think there'll be space for me to stretch out and relax, and take my time getting used to the fact that I'm not going to die of starvation because I'm too poor to buy chicken for soup.

Eventually (read: now would be great, or maybe next week) I'll meet a really unusual and preferably very handsome fellow who will find me irresistible and charming and compellingly fiery, and then things will get very interesting.

For the first time in a very long time, I'm not just whistling in the dark about that. I feel it coming.

Blog = languishing. Me = not.

I once saw a charming bit of theater: 60-second Shakespeare. It was Hamlet, and Ophelia drowned, quickly, by sticking her head in a bucket.

In similar spirit, I shall give you a compressed version of my tale.

Phone rings: Hello from my old boss, would you like to come work for me again? I have a great job for you. Me: Why yes, I would.

Flash to: Airport, snowstorm. Board full of cancelled flights. Magically, mine leaves on time. Arrive to sunshine and warmth.

Flash to: Another airport, sunshine and warmth, weather in NYC = icestorm. Magically, flight arrives on time with no difficulty.

Next day, nearly fall ten times trying to walk to subway. It's a 10-minute walk. Took me 45. Get to work safely. Love my job.

Following day, back on bike. Ice ice baby. Walk much of bridge and some bits of streets, but ride anyway. Love bike.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Gist: Work is tiring and requires getting used to mornings (ack!), but beats the motherlovingshit out of being out-of-work freelancer. Anxiety level way down, even with traffic and horrid weather and horrider anti-bike campaign by cops and public "servants" (well, I do want to carry a railgun at times, but...).

Here, look at these pretty pictures and dream of summer.

I've seen two shooting stars in the last few weeks, two more than I'd ever seen here before. Last night I'd only stepped out for a moment, and as soon as I looked up there was a blue-white and red fireball cascading down over the rooftops. Big and bright enough that I thought at first it was a plane. After it fizzled out, I wondered if maybe it was a portent.

I'm in a time of hanging drama; on the cusp of great change, but with no clear indication yet of what the outcome(s) will be.

I've been trapped by a blizzard in my small neighborhood for several days, unable to ride or even walk very far. It's given me a lot of time to think (and to try and make some headway on my holiday knitting). It's also given me a lot of time to feel, which is not especially pleasant.

What I feel and what I think are mostly a tangle, but a few things are clear. I'm severely lonely. I desperately need to change careers. I think I need to change my whole notion of what a career means.

I may very well need to relocate. I'm intimidated by the fact that relocating someplace that's easier and better-suited to me is gonna make me even lonelier (as if that were possible) for a while.

It's like looking at a plain white wall that you need to get through or over, but there are no visible seams and it's a hundred feet high, and you've got no equipment - nothing but your hands and feet and an increasingly bad back. I just have no idea where to begin. If only it were made of marshmallow, I could chew my way through.

Every time I sit down to write, I end up with something that is either too bright or too sad. The right note - which seems hard to get into blog form - is something like melancholy. The days, from one to next, can be very up and down, but there is also beauty here.

It's in the leaves that sail down, some twirling in mid-sail, others not. In the pumpkins and gourds and six kinds of squash and late, slightly soft apples all piled up at the outdoor markets.

In the cold, windy rides and the dark, quiet rides. In the layers of things I've knitted that all get worn, suddenly and frequently. In the way the cat curls up with one paw over her eye. It's a contemplative season.

Summer is all rush-rush; all about the body, heaving and stretching and pounding the pedals. It's all about sweat and flirting and tiny little skirts that leave little to the imagination.

November is different. It's not quite the onset of hard winter, where being underdressed means risking your life - or at least a few toes. But it's possible to find yourself wishing devoutly that you'd thrown on that extra layer in those first few miles before you've built up enough steam to keep yourself warm.

I'm feeling a little under-the-weather. Maybe because I just got a flu shot, maybe because a lot of people are sick, and so there's always something for my body to fight off. One poor friend of mine has already had pneumonia. I let myself sleep and sleep last night, though I'm not sure how much good it did me, since my dreams were bad and I woke up sweaty and angry.

I've been noticing little bits of things as I go about my daily business, filing them away like snowflakes for a dark sky. There was a large red ship running under the bridge while I was riding over it. One of those long, low industrial ones. A barge, really.

There are several streets that smell like donuts at night.

A cyclist's bag is a little like a Scotsman's kilt - you just never know. I met a fellow who carries hot sauce at all times. "In case of a hot sauce emergency?" I said. "No, I just think everything tastes better with hot sauce."

There was a woman twirling and twirling on the beach at Coney Island. She twirled and then got dizzy and had to sit down in the sand. It seemed to me to be a religious ritual.

I walked into a cafe, and there was a young man dancing to an old soul tune. I watched, delightedly, then went up and joined him. I was sad when an even better song came on a few minutes later, but he was gone and I had no one to dance with.

I'd like to sing you a little song. About little birds and indeterminate scurryings in the undergrowth. About how all the lights look like fireflies to me now.

About an incoming plane I mistook for a supernova.

About how the sky never goes black here, only blue.

I'd like to sing to you, only it isn't singing weather. It's crochety knee weather. It's the weather where toes get numb and I get out the heat packets, because I've never been able to figure out the right shoes for winter riding.

I could hum a few bars of knitted things. I could tell you I finished my sea-colored gloves and how soft they are, with that bit of silk in there. I could tell you I went for a walk and a long-haired man caught me checking him out and nodded, and I blushed. (It was dark. He couldn't see. Plus, I pretended not to notice him noticing me.)

I could tell you I looked at every bicyclist and it was no one I knew, and I decided that meant it's not real winter yet.

I could tell you about special dogs I've known, about my mom's and my sister's (who died a few years ago, taking the title of my favorite dog ever with him) (his fur was very soft) (that's not why he was my favorite).

I could tell you that when my mom called from Florence the other day, I could see and smell everything she was describing, because I'd been there, in the very spot she was calling from. I loved that city; I would have simply stayed there, lived there, if some jeweler had asked me to apprentice with her, or the tour guides at the Duomo had said they needed an English speaker, or the gelati salesman had proposed marriage.

I could tell you how different our city seems, in winter, when everyone is scurrying about like mice in their long coats. I could tell you that the water looks different, as you cross above a river or look out over the long stretch of beach.

I could tell you that sunsets are prettier.

I could tell you that I am lonely, and I miss having someone who knows me well, and likes or even loves me for that. I could tell you, too, that I'm not sure I could handle the reality of that, even if I am yearning for it sometimes.

There was an omelette with a dear friend the other day. She has the loveliest long hair. Every time I see her, I think, now why should we both have to be so sad? We deserve better than this from life. We are both so strong. And we move through the world with verve.

It was a very good omelette. I ordered it with ham, and forgot I'd done so until it arrived, and then it was a little like eating the forbidden dance, with a sprig of rosemary.

Everything looks lovely in this long, low, golden light. This season was a long time in coming.

I went to the beach this weekend and discovered something. I like my own company. Sometimes I like it a lot better than the company of other people.

There was a good-looking guy on the beach who really wanted to talk to me, and I put up with it for a few minutes then devoutly wished he would leave. I asked him to leave. He didn't get it at first. Eventually he did, but by then it was getting too dark to stay.

Not that I mind dark beaches, but this one is isolated, and there's a certain line that I walk with regard to personal safety. To stay longer would have been over the line.

Anyway.

I rode home solitary and quite gleeful in the pitchdark. Boywich bought me a really fabulous light not long ago, and I hadn't tried it out yet, and it is wonderful. I felt safe and self-contained and happy.

Then I met up with some friends a few hours later and...again wished I were alone.

They were being irritating, making a big fuss over something that was no fuss at all. There was a brief errand that needed doing, and not one of them was willing to get off his ass and do it, so I did it. Maybe it's just that I like being in motion, but I don't quite understand that sort of lethargy. I have trouble getting out of bed (because it's warm), and I have trouble settling down to work (I'm avoiding it now), but I don't have any trouble riding a bicycle. If I could, I would gladly wake up, eat, and ride the rest of the day, every day of the week. I wish someone would offer me money to do just this.

On a day that includes a lot of miles, my legs may get sore, but I invariably feel better at the end of it than at the beginning, and I'm nearly always raring for more the next day. I've said it before and I'll say it again - born bicycle tourer.

I don't know what it means that I didn't enjoy anyone's company except mine yesterday. Maybe it means nothing. I had a perfectly good day, except for the parts where I was with other people. I wasn't cranky. I felt good and complete. I made all the lights I never make, and when I got to the beach my favorite birds were out in force - tiny scurrying sandpipers. I just wanted to watch them and play with them and talk to them.

Somebody I barely know told me I looked unhealthy yesterday, which, well let's just say it's not something that's often said of me. I can only suppose my ennui was showing. My ennui and my five hours of sleep and my thirty miles on a track bike and a peanut butter sandwich.

I ate and went home and ate some more, and it hailed like the end of the world was nigh.

I pulled the basil out of the window and shut the latter and watched as the streets filled first with debris and then with a river of soapy-looking water. The cat hid under the bed. I was fascinated.

This is the second time in recent weeks that we've had a freakish and dangerous weather incident that came on suddenly, and both times I had been about to set out someplace on foot and took a look at the sky and thought the better of it.

My kung fu is strong, though saying that will probably bring on a hurricane, which I will be out on the bike for.

I put myself to bed early last night, because I was sad and done with being awake. When I woke up, I was dreaming about punching somebody in the face. I often wake to fighting dreams, which tells you how I feel about morning - or the human race, I can never decide which.

There is a deep mess in me these days, and I am fighting with it, and maybe there are outward signs of that. It used to be that nothing ever showed on the outside; I was just built smooth somehow. That isn't true anymore. That comment about how I looked came when I was sitting, resting, in an unguarded moment. What I really think is that I looked unhappy. Because I am.

I spend a lot of time hiding it in daily life, but I won't hide it here. It's not the same as being depressed, apparently, because I am still enjoying the little details of being alive - when I walked into the kitchen this morning, I'd forgotten I bought apples at the farmers' market yesterday, and I was so pleased to see them.

They're what I think of as real apples. All heirloom: Russets and Keepsake and Cox's Pippin. The russets are the ugliest, and my favorite. They have this scratchy-gold sort of bloom on them, and then inside they are intense and tart and taste like nothing else on earth. Oh lordy, they are me. No wonder I love them so.

PS. Here are some pictures from Sunday, when it wasn't hailing at all.

She put a gun in my face.
And cocked it?
Yeah.
You've come back from worse.
(Scene between these two)

Several friends, to me: Hey, why don't you stay off that ankle for a while longer?

I do everything the hard way. People who know me well know this about me, occasionally nudge me about it, and then back off. Because they know I am not going to listen.

When I was a kid we went on a lot of nature walks, and I remember the park rangers telling us we had a choice back up the mountain - the ranger way or the candy way.

The ranger way, obviously, was straight up the steep slope. The candy way was a gentler, probably safer, traverse. Either way you'd get to the same place. I'm not sure that rule holds as true in life. I think when you take the ranger way, you end up someplace different.

The ranger way has its drawbacks. It's lonely. It can be scary. The park has a spooky element to it around midnight. You don't want to stop.

But if you don't take these risks, you miss out on the low-hanging mist with its visible edges. You miss out on the loud crickets and the solo horn player and the figures appearing suddenly, vaguely threatening shadows, coming out of the trees and onto the road.

I could sit home. I could watch endless TV and eat too many snacks and pine for the right company. I could ice my ankle and stay off it and risk nothing.

No, I couldn't. I really couldn't.

Life for me is a soft tug-of-war between solitude and sociability. I've heard it said that if one is recharged by being around others, one is an extrovert, and if one is recharged by being alone, one is an introvert.

I guess I'm half and half.

I had the loveliest day yesterday, perhaps because it contained both good alone-time and good together-time. The first part of the day was a slow curve into wakefulness. I don't like to leap into consciousness. My friend's new baby always wakes up cranky, as if the process of moving from one state of being to the next is distressing, and I feel the same way.

It takes some hours. The cat gets fed while I'm still mostly asleep and can barely walk because my calves have tightened themselves into rubber bands overnight. Then there's the snoozing. Then there's the waking up from a tangled dream. Then there's stumbling around making coffee. Then puttering and chatting with Kitwich.

Then I hung about musing gently about where I'd ride.

Then a sudden burst of packing and pumping (air), and I was off, rolling gently toward Brighton Beach. It's not always magical at Brighton, but when it is, it really is.

There were the Russian elderly, with their intensely characteristic faces. There were the young people playing volleyball in their bright colors, so handsome they looked like Baywatch East.

Every direction I turned my camera there was a short story unfolding, most of them narrated in Russian. I loved the two ladies on the bench - one with cherry-icee hair and one with bright lavender.

I asked this couple for permission to take their picture and they wanted to see how it came out. "Look how cute you are!" I said, handing them the camera. They were snuggling on that bench like teenagers.

There were two guys walking together, pulling a lot of beach equipment behind them - chairs and umbrellas and surfboards - the white one was deeply sunburnt and his friend was too dark-skinned to show any sign of sun. Ebony and Ivory go to the Beach, I thought.

Later, riding home, the friend I'd arranged to meet called and invited me over for dinner. We went out for beer, to a new bar (I'd been there once before and liked it), and there was plenty of room for us to sit, and just enough people for it to feel like we were Out.

She got tipsy, and I had some of that good stout, and we talked about life and art and the difficulties of managing both of those together. There was a bike rack out front, and a bouncer keeping an eye, and it felt so welcoming. We thanked him when we left, and he gave us a brilliant smile.

A few days ago when my -er- friend was here, I took some pictures. I'm not sure he knew why I was doing it, though he allowed it. It was the light.

I'm not often up in the actual morning, and when I am, I'm struck by how different the light is. A few months ago I was visiting a friend on the West Coast, and every time we went for a bike ride, I kept commenting on the light. At any given hour, it seemed to slant or glow or do something that had me mesmerized.

Professional photographers always talk about light, and I've always assumed they were talking shop - it sounds so technical. But I think it may be more that they're in love with light - how it changes the way everything looks from moment to moment, like those paintings Monet did - the same scene, over and over again, at different times of day.

I have my own experiences like that. Not just of how the light changes, but how the traffic changes, and how the air smells different, and how all of that makes it seem like I'm seeing different sides of a personality. The park, the path, the deep-city streets. These places are not the same at 3am as they are at 3pm.

At 3am, there is a basketball game - 12 people, playing for real, on an unlighted court.

You would never know that if you weren't riding by. I felt privileged to see it.

I'm not trying to be quiet, I swear I'm not. It's only that I am rushing from thing to thing, and composing little fragments in my head while I'm on the bike, or while I'm falling asleep half-thinking about the old mystery novel I'm reading, whose pages are on the verge of crumbling but whose words still feel fresh.

And because we lack the technology for direct brain-to-blog transfer, there they sit, little postlets, flitting about in the nether regions of my brain, tangled up in Lord Peter Wimsey's long legs.

It's 3:17 am, and I like writing (or doing practically anything) at 3:17 am. Anything I put my mind to seems filled with extra juice in those precious "wee" hours. I have never been able to adequately explain why I seek out the deep night, though people who don't know me often ask, once they find out.

I usually say something like, "It's quiet. I have the world to myself." Neither of which is exactly true, nor is it the whole reason.

I have this feeling, you see, that it's those hours that lend themselves to magic. Perhaps because those are the hours in which the rest of the world dreams, and dreams hard. I prefer to use that dream-time for conscious thought; maybe I sense that the wider possibilities of dream-worlds cling to those hours, and invest whatever I'm working on with extra shine.

Yeah, I like the pixie dust. What can I say?

I'll tell you this - I had an unusual experience recently, which, without giving too much detail, involved being in a slightly altered state. And since then I find that I can, at will, conjure up some of the perceptions that made it special.

Strangely, this ability is related to why I don't normally seek out altered states. Make that artificially altered states - we all know how I feel about endorphins.

I've always felt, simply put, that my brain was quite interesting enough, thank you, and didn't need artificial enhancement.

I still think that's true. What I also think is that a little light artificial enhancement* can be interesting, not just in the moment, but later. I can remember how things looked or felt, and in a sense, those doors of perception (to borrow from Blake) are still open to me. This is the magic of my brain. It goes so easily to Alice in Wonderland.

Reading this over, it occurs to me that this is what it is to be an artist. It's not news to me, but I'll say it anyway. You spend your life - as much of it as you can manage - out on the border between fantasy and reality, between awake and asleep. It's like sleeping in a tree.

*Before you ask, I wasn't doing hallucinogens. It takes so very little to entertain me.

I often have a post going in my head while riding, but when I get home it's gone, superseded (usually) by the need to eat.

Some nights I wish I could show you what I'm seeing. There's a section of the park that looks like Where the Wild Things Are.

There are bats diving overhead, sometimes quite close. I've been told we have them to thank for the relatively low mosquito count. Another reason to like them.

They fly rather like butterflies, I always think. Giant brown leathery butterflies. Tim Burton butterflies.

I keep waking up and being delighted to remember that it's Tour de France time, and I get to start my day with Phil Liggett's inimitable voice. There's something special about Phil, and it's rather magical to hear him every day.

I haven't heard from the boys in weeks, and I'm adjusting. I've done some riding with other people and a lot of riding solo, and what I've found is that I actually adore riding by myself. I really dislike the pressure that I've begun to sense from other cyclists, to ride more aggressively, to "kill it" on the hill, etc. I suppose I oughtn't to be surprised that people who race would exhibit a competitive streak in social riding, but I'm still annoyed by it.

I was talking to Boywich about it, and he was (as he so often is) clear and supportive on the subject. The thing is, my chief goal is always to be able to keep riding. That means: a) avoiding accidents (as much as possible), and b) not injuring my knees by pushing too hard in certain situations.

Add to that that I'm at least 10 years older than most of the people I ride with, and you end up with a situation where it's often a relief to simply be alone and ride the way I want to.

I don't know whether it's simply on my mind lately or that I've only recently started to see it, but a lot of my friends have a judgmental streak - about what people eat, about the way they ride. I recently started eating a little bit of meat, and I've kept that information to myself for the most part. Several of my friends are what I think of as judgmental vegans, and I just don't want to deal with their reactions to it.

I have my own reasons for eating what I eat, and I don't feel that it's anybody's business. But I also don't feel like being on the receiving end of their horror. It's a turkey sandwich. Get the fuck over it.

I was watching a documentary last night, which followed a long and arduous journey through a wide variety of cultures, and the travelers simply ate whatever they could find, and they made no bones about it. They were, by and large, delighted by the people they met - many of whom welcomed them into their homes. And afterwards, when they talked about what they liked most about the journey, it was the people, the chance to just hang out with people whose lives and ideas were completely unknown to them. They found some kind of harmony in that, and they felt they'd learned a lot.

I suppose this all sounds simplistic, but I find that I'm chafing against that oddly persistent human desire for homogeneity - that desperate need to make everyone think and act just like you.

I tried to write a post yesterday, but my server was down. Then I tried to tweet tonight, but the World Cup had apparently broken the living daylights out of Twitter (it's still limping a bit).

All I was gonna do was write you a little list of stray thoughts as they occurred to me. I suppose I could still do that.

My mileage has increased, and with it my appetite. I can no longer manage on 5 meals a day. Think I'm kidding? Spend a day with me. And bring your wallet.

I have: a) a tan that ends mid-thigh, and b) little callouses on my palm below my second and third fingers.

The cat has a new trick whereby she climbs into my lap, flops herself onto my torso (about 60% of which real estate she takes up), and lolls her head into my chest, while gazing soulfully into my eyes. What is she, a frickin' Harlequin romance novel?

I have taken to riding to a beach nearly every weekend, just to get away from the human populace. It is soothing. And then I ride to a honky tonk beach, to be amused by the human populace. I'd tell you part of a conversation my friends and I overheard at the latter last weekend, but it is unprintable. So was her outfit.

My baby sister turned 40 this year, and a couple of days ago a young man from the Internet asked me if I'd consider dating a guy in his mid-20s. Given that a man of that exact age had just left my bed, I had to answer in the affirmative. I suppose that sounds like bragging.

It's occurred to me recently that - until now - I'd never actually let myself consider what I want from men. So I gave that some thought. I don't have an exact answer, but I have some ideas about what I don't want, and that is a start.

I've started to think of myself as a bachelor. I've started to think that being single by choice is not the same as being celibate. It's been an interesting week.

PS. The birds are singing and that was my last lightbulb.

I sometimes wonder about the impressions we make on each other. I realize the impact of a human life is about as lasting as a footprint in the sand.

Maybe it lasts long enough for the birds to notice, maybe not, but it seems to me that most of what goes on between two people happens below the surface, at the level that isn't talked about - or can't be.

I remember that scene in Moonstruck, where Cher is telling Nicholas Cage that the big part of him has no words, that it's a wolf, and that it does what it has to do between him and him.

I sometimes think it would be better if we simply interacted with each other that way. No words, no interpretations, just action and responding action.