Recently in Photographs Category

Some nights I just want to eat a Frankendinner, ya know?

You know what I mean. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, and none of it adding up to a cohesive whole, but somehow that's what I want anyway.

It occurred to me, after eating the veggie hot dogs and the zucchini in garlic and olive oil and the tomato and basil salad, that we're always expecting life to be like a story is. To have a beginning, a middle, and an end - and more than that - a thrust, a meaning, a punchline - something to pull it all together.

We expect it to be like spaghetti and meatballs, not like a Frankenmeal.

But it feels a lot more like my little plates. A little of this, and a little of that, things that taste different, songs that don't go together. Milkshakes before the meal, pancakes for dinner, chocolate in the morning, and fruit with vinegar. It's weird. And it makes very little sense, except in snippets, flashes of insight that peek through at us like the stars winking here and there in the heavy backlit blanket of a NYC night.

Okay, it's pop quiz time. What is wrong with this picture?

a) The hot boy in the foreground is not offering Lizbon candy.
b) The fracking road is in the sky.
c) Lizbon is not at the front of the line (for either boy-candy or road returning to earth).
d) All of the above.

Yes, it's time for everyone's favorite annoying/amusing game - waiting for the drawbridge to come down at rush hour. As usual when I am waiting for a drawbridge (which is admittedly not often), I was torn between being frustrated at having to wait so long and tickled by the fact that my bicycle journey was being delayed by the need for the road to come back down from the sky.

I watched the little tug push the big flat barge through, and thought about how I forget that NY is a working harbor.

Then I rode on my merry way, slightly too oblivious to traffic craziness for my taste (I had a mild migraine and was not at my best). Later, I dined with several young boys, as is my wont, met Miz Fury and her beau for a couple of Campari and tonics, and spent the rest of the evening trading increasingly flirtatious and X-rated texts with the boy formerly known as the blonde.

'Cause that's how I roll, baby.

Turns out there is something I can do. When the going gets tough and terrible, the friends of the tough make cookies for them.

And deliver them by bicycle. Yes, Claudia, I will be counting it in the weekly BAT trip tally.

Cookies apparently have medicinal properties. Who knew?

The world is a mess, and I just need to...rule it. - Dr. Horrible

Sitting here in the construction site (aka. my apartment), with the cat determinedly stalking some manner of flying thing (I am afraid to look; I dearly hope it's a bird), and waiting for the damn tea to steep so I can wake the hell up, I wonder where god went wrong.

Note that I do not capitalize, because a) I hate that word, and b) I am uncertain as to the nature of this creature's existence.

It's not that I'm an atheist, exactly, but, in the words of the immortal Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that word means what you think it means." Not that there is a specific "you" intended here.

And then at this exact moment, Nina Simone sings, "Sinnerman, you ought to be prayin'."

Yeah yeah.

I wasn't intending to talk about this at all, mind you. I was just going to put up some photos.

I guess what I think, though, is that we are here for various reasons known only (and occasionally, at that) to ourselves, and it's up to us to glean meaning out of our lives. I have a clue as to my reasons for being here, as I imagine most people do. But the terrifying and sad things that happen to people while they're here are as mysterious as they ever were.

I like movies that tackle this question, even (sometimes) the ones that do it ham-handedly. I've had disagreements over the movie Contact, for example. Boywich thinks it's rather silly (though he'll watch it with me), and I like it and can't especially articulate why. Sure, some of the characters are too black and white; it departs from Carl Sagan's book in some significant ways, and yet I like it.

And I don't think it's solely to do with the fact that I can watch almost anything Jodie Foster does because I like that gleam of intelligence in her sharp blue eyes.

I think it's actually the earnestness of the thing. It's so like Carl, for one, and like me, for another.

One thing I admire about Carl (yes, i know the verb ought to be past-tense, but I still admire him in the present tense, even though he is not himself in the present tense) is his lack of pussyfooting. He loves science, he loves the big questions, and he wants to share these things with Everyone.

I've been known to pussyfoot on occasion, to stick my toe in the sand and pretend lukewarmness when actually I am standing in a furnace like Liz. I guess I am working away from that.

But I don't see why caring about something should be cause for embarrassment. A friend of mine recently proclaimed that it's now cool to be obsessed with something. I don't know that he's right. Maybe it's cool to be obsessed with something material. But the very word "cool" gives the lie to the idea that being impassioned is ever going to be cool. Just look at how men react when they see you actually feeling something about them.

Everyone says they are looking for a passionate person, and one who will be passionate about them, but in the moment of seeing it, they realize they don't want it. It makes them nervous - even when it's purely physical passion. Honestly. I've seen it time and time again.

Real feeling makes people edgy. Does it remind them that we are actually here, that these are really our lives, that we might actually connect with one another? And does that, in turn, remind them that this is it, and it means something, because we are all going to die, and that very much sooner than we realize?

I was wondering where I was going with this, because I hadn't thought of anything in particular when I sat down, just that I had some photos to put up, and I just went with the stream to see where it led. Wondering, perhaps, if it had anything to do with death. Thought so.

Again I tried to take pictures from the bike for you, and again I saw beautiful images - a graffiti-covered plaque on the bridge, all blues and blacks; the Domino Sugar factory on the Brooklyn side, bathed in golden light - and yet I didn't want to stop. I told myself I'd take some, walking, on my way to the bar with the friend I was going to meet, but then she wasn't feeling up to going out (she's recovering from surgery), so I didn't take any.

The light would've been gone by then anyway, and I knew that, and I still couldn't stop.

I'm a little heartbroken today, and maybe for the last few days, and I'm not sure how much of it is for me, and how much of it is for the various people in my life who are going through rough times. When I say rough times, I am talking more serious than breakups or job losses. I am talking cancer.

I won't go into detail here, because these stories are not mine to tell, but suffice it to say that several of my friends - two of them very close friends and one a more recent friend whom I'm nevertheless very worried about - are having to deal with some heavy shit. And I as their friend am having to deal with being afraid for them, and knowing how much they mean to me, and how intolerable it would be to lose them.

And then I check my email and see yet another message from yet another guy I'd emailed who is telling me that he is not interested because I am older than his chosen age range (in this case only a couple of years older). If he'd just said that and not included a bunch of chatty banter as well, I wouldn't have minded. But the combination was, somehow, like a slap in the face.

I don't know why that particular email mattered - it's not that I was super-interested in the guy; it just hurt, even coming from a stranger. I suspect it is to do with something larger, something that I can't examine just now, because I can't even examine the things that I'm aware are going on. It's a big tangle - like that giant ball of string that's either an actual or apocryphal tourist attraction in the midwest.

Another friend of mine mentioned to me, just offhand, that he's hung up on somebody, "hung up bad," and I was dumbfounded for a minute trying to figure out how I'd describe my own state. I was going to say that I'm not hung up on anybody, and that that is unusual for me, and somewhat uncomfortable in its own right. Which seems weird - why should I prefer to be suffering unrequited passion, instead of just feeling nothing very much? I guess because it isn't that the alternative is to feel nothing very much. The alternative is to feel much blanker and more empty than one does when suffering the unrequited.

How are these things related? "Even the wisest cannot tell." (Galadriel)

PS. Obviously, these pictures were taken on a different bike ride, on a different day - but at much the same time of day, for there is that slanting evening light. Pocketcam, auto exposure, flash off.

I'm watching Bladerunner tonight, and it occurs to me that melancholia is a lot more attractive when one has an art director, good lighting, and an interested audience.

In a solitary room, with no noise but that of the fans, there isn't much that's romantic about being in that mood, other than that it gives a little extra frisson to having selected a movie that's so perfectly in keeping with it.

After a pause to wash the cat fur off me (she doesn't seem to realize that it's a billion degrees and muggy in here), I pulled out the Nikon to see if I could make myself some similarly good mood lighting.

I have always loved the light (or lack of it) in Deckard's apartment. So tawny and dusty-seeming.

It's all just about the color and feel of that amber whiskey he drinks out of the perfectly square handmade glass.

I'm surprised Crate and Barrel never copied those glasses outright. They are beautiful, and in synch with the angles and weird square relief designs carved into the balcony.

Anyway. Lacking an audience, not to mention Ridley Scott to paint up my face and make me look like an eerie nine-foot-tall ragdoll (Pris), the photos don't do much to make me feel dramatic and vive la melacholie.

But they looked rather nice in black and white, I thought.

"And you may tell yourself, 'This is not my beautiful house.' And you may tell yourself, 'This is not my beautiful wife!'" - Talking Heads

No, these are not my peaches. I am peachsitting for a friend. Yes, they do taste just like they look like they would. Peachsitting comes at a price.

It's good to have some lovely things to look at, even if only temporarily, because I am, at the moment, and for the last several weeks, quite sad.

I realized it after taking a few self-portraits the other day, and being aghast at them.

And today I had one of those night-rides where my eyes got all half-weepy as I pedaled slowly, and then faster, to get over it, home. Yuck.

I mean, it was a nice cool ride. The rain never came, only the fresh air that comes after it, and the traffic was much lighter than it'd been at rush-hour, when I'd had one of those near misses that used to make my fingers prickle, but this time only made me very angry.

I was going out to photograph a bicycling event, but I'd left late (had to pick up those peaches), and couldn't find it. Either it was over by the time I got there, or it was in a different location than redhead #1 had thought. And anyway, I was feeling sort of like a dork wannabee for even showing up. So I sadly turned the bike around and headed back home through the chic throngs of Billyburg pedestrians. Enh.

"So what. Big Deal." - Black Lectroid from Planet Ten.

Several big important things have come to my attention lately, and I am trying to figure out what to do about them in the larger scheme, and what to start with in the smaller scheme, and it's a whole lotta figurin', and I really just want to lay low, or lie on a beach, or somethin' of that nature, and let my brain sort it all out in its sleep.

Sometimes you need to think about things with your conscious mind, and sometimes you need to let your mind drift into those altered states where it can see its way clear through the strange Milky Way-like debris of truth. At least, that's how I picture it. Very much like a full, full night sky.

A friend advised me recently to think about what it is that I really want in the boy department, so that I know, going in, what I am looking for and not looking for. It was good advice, but I am finding it hard to follow.

Perhaps in a similar vein, I am finding it hard to decide what to do this week. I have given myself the week off, and perhaps because it's been so long since I did such a thing, I am at a bit of a loss when I get up in the morning (or afternoon).

As I was saying to one of the boys yesterday, I like to get up and ride first thing in the morning; I just prefer that morning comes a little later in the day.

But here's the thing: for a woman who thinks so much about everything in life, I don't seem to have a very good handle on what I am looking for when I get involved (even slightly involved, as in a date or two) with men.

I have no idea.

I get sad sometimes, from being rather lonely most days, and watching anything that smacks of romance (a romantic comedy, or even Wall-e, for heaven's sake) tends to pull the tears right out of my eyeballs.

But on the other hand, I just can't picture being in some heavy relationship that made me feel all tied down. I am not certain I have that in me anymore, or at least not yet. And yet - I also want lots and lots of the kind of sex that one simply cannot have unless it's with someone one knows well and trusts and likes. Or maybe loves.

It's a conundrum, make no mistake. A puzzle and a riddle, and I have no obvious solution to it, and not much hope of finding my way out of it - at least, not with anyone I'd meet through the usual channels.

And now there's a Sherlock Holmes episode on TV, in which a young woman is forced to cut her hair in order to gain a lucrative job, and she cries and cries about it.

Whereas, I had a dream the other day in which I woke up to discover that my hair had grown past my waist, and the first thing I did was rush to my mom and have her cut it all off.

When I really woke up, and ran my hand over my shorn head, I was relieved. Though I remember thinking, in the dream, that I ought to have had my mother leave enough hair to make into those two little knots that I used to like to wear.

A rambling and illogical post, to sure, but there's something about hair dreams that always pulls at my unconscious, as if there's a symbolic meaning.

I suppose the short hair means freedom to me, which I treasure above all else and of which I have carved more and more for myself over the years.

I wonder, though, if there's a way to be just as free, but less lonely.

Note on pics: These were taken with the pocketcam, by the waterfront in Williamsburg. Click to enlarge.

I'll tell you something about me (so unusual, on my incredibly self-centered blog, no?):
I used to be very, very shy.

Hiding in the corner, climbing onto the roof at parties kind of shy. Of course, I avoided going to a party last night because I knew it would be that sort, so it's not like I've completely lost that aspect of myself.

But I've gotten friendlier over the years, more able to approach strangers and ask questions and do things like invite people I don't know well to come play with me. Or just offer to share my large table with a fellow diner who needed to be near the powerstrip on the floor, too, and who was trying to balance his drink and his laptop on his lap at the same time while sitting in one of those overstuffed chairs that seem comfortable but are really quite unsuited to working with a laptop.

I'll tell you another thing about me: I have been accused of favoring longish sentences.

Anyway. I got to talking with this young boy at the café, since we were sitting elbow to elbow, the edges of our laptops touching. And he showed me what he was working on (animation), and I described what I was working on (words, and not even interesting ones at that), and it was pleasant and companionable. And I thought, why, exactly, was it that I was so shy all those years?

Well, it was a combination, I think.

Factor A: moved around so much as a kid that I suffered from perpetual new-kid-in-school-itis.
Factor B: too brainy to blend in well with the popular crowd (this was back in the days before Geek Chic, mind you).
Factor C: early experiences did not, in fact, suggest that the world is a lovely and welcoming and hopeful kind of place. Even though I still, in my heart of hearts, have a dogged grasp on the possibility that it might someday turn out to be like that.
Factor D: The combination of the first three (plus some other X factor or two) meant that I lacked self-confidence and therefore went into social situations with a substantial amount of fear, or at least trepidation.

What's changed?

Damned if I know, except that that's a bit of a lie. I've actually been working really hard at a number of things which seem to have self-confidence as a side effect.

On the other hand, I think that's backfired on me a bit. I won't go into the details, but let's just say there may be a reason why I was blindsided by the liked-boy's sudden disappearance. Doesn't mean I want to have to go back to being afraid of people or being self-effacing or anything, but, well, there's that worry in the back of my mind...nibbling away at the corners. Damn.

Hello me lovelies. Here are your bridge pictures! I must apologize for their workmanlike quality; I had only the pocketcam in my bike bag, because it's what fits easily and lightly into the bike bag. (I need a bigger bike bag.)

I took the on-the-bridge pics yesterday, and the of-the-bridge-from-far-away pics today. I had this grandiose plan of getting right on the bike in the morning to travel to an appointment I had uptown. I got all dressed and geared up, and had my bike shoes on and everything, and decided to pump that extra 10 lbs. of air into the tires so they'd be all perky and smooth-rolling, and then as I pulled the pump nose off the rear tire valve, shhhhhhwshhhhhhhhhhh!!!! God damn it.

I tried pumping it up again, hoping against hope that I'd somehow unscrewed the presta valve without noticing or something. Nope. Another valve bites the dust.

Which means I have to change the tire before I can leave. Which means I have to take the goddamned subway. Again. Which I have (mostly) sworn off. And increasingly hate doing. The more time I spend getting myself from place to place under my own steam (and that of my beloved, wonderful bicycle), the lower my tolerance for the cramped, claustrophobic, smelly indignity of mass transit. Not that I'm not grateful to have that to fall back on, but really, there are far better ways to spend my $4.

Lately I am spending it all on tubes, of course.

And coffees for the adorable, simply adorable bike mechanics. I'd much rather buy them coffee, and me Clif Bars and hummus and other assorted fuels than support the MTA, and if that makes me a bad New Yorker, well, so be it. Y'all can suck my you-know-what.

Okay, wait a minute, I'm getting rude, and it's really just an avoidance tactic because I don't want to have to tell you that that boy I liked, you know, the one I really liked? Has disappeared. Ceased communication. No phone, no email, no text, nada. No explanation, no polite, "hey, you're a nice person and all but I'm kinda not interested anymore." Nothing. No manners, apparently.

So there's that. All I can say is I have been feeling thankful for the following:

a) friends
b) bowling
c) brunch
d) bike boys (the better to flirt with and talk bike parts, which always sounds like one is talking about sex. mmmmmm, bottom brackets.....)

And most of all, I am thankful for my bicycle himself, without which I would not be here today spilling beans and posting photos and all that jazz.

Really, he's sanity on two skinny tires, and I love him more than I can adequately express. We went and hung out at the waterfront together tonight just before sundown, the two of us lying on the grass, my head on his saddle, his cranks sprawled on the ground.

I looked up at the sky and out at the skyline and over at that little girl's giraffe hat, and thought luscious thoughts about what it might be like to have two beautiful young boys in my arms at once, and sighed a sad little sigh and thought how stupid that one boy must be, and then thought some more about redheads. It was nice.

PS. The bridge in question is the Willie B (aka. Williamsburg Bridge), which connects the hipsters of the LES with their even-hipper cousins in Williamsburg. Despite that, it is a swell bridge for cycling, with a nice two-lane bike path and a great view.

One of the surprisingly lovely things that can happen in NYC is sudden camaraderie among strangers.

Usually it's due to being stuck waiting for something (which can dull the pleasure somewhat, since that something generally involves public transportation not behaving as advertised), but occasionally it's something a little more offbeat, and more interesting.

To wit - playing with strangers. I mean "play" here in the strictest sense of simple fun, rather than in the online dating sense of a dumbass euphemism for casual sex.

It doesn't happen terribly often, but once in a while I find myself having a mute conversation with someone I've never met.

Or, as happened with a couple of fellow photographers at the parade, playing a game with them. The guy with the Nikon (which appears to be the double of my own) started it, I swear, but I was right there with him.

The dashing fellow atop the phone booth spied me snapping him at the last moment, but seemed content to play along. I'd love to see some of the photos he got up there; it was a great vantage point.

I'm not sure whether the guy with the great rings knew I was taking his picture, but when Annabelle and I were comparing notes on the train home, it turned out we'd both photographed him.

Anyway, there's always a moment where your eyes meet and the message of the game is telegraphed and understood. It's a kind of magic.

I don't normally go in for advertising slogans, except to notice them in a professional sense (I sometimes have to analyze them for work purposes).

But there's one that's coming to mind today because it slots in neatly with what I wanted to talk about here. It's that USA Today tag: Characters Welcome.

I love people who are odd, unusual, unique, maybe a bit off-kilter - just thoroughly themselves. I mean, I don't love every crazy homeless person who bangs into my knees with a pilfered shopping cart full of their prized bottlecap collections.

But my favorite humans do tend to be those who have their own way of thinking, perceiving, talking, dancing, two-step shuffling down the street. Those who favor rare nerdy-looking bicycles whose frames are constructed like airplane wings.

Those who wear clothes they dyed themselves because they really like the way the fabric takes the color a little unevenly, as if it's been waving about at the bottom of a coral reef for a while.

I like crazy cat ladies and men who paint their fingernails blue, artists who make elaborate virtual pieces in Second Life that cleverly piggyback on the environmental programming that rules the movements of clouds, in order to create slow color changes in their "sculptures."

I like people who talk to themselves, especially when the conversation looks interesting.

I liked the guy with the crab codpiece whose skin was not only painted blue but also precisely stenciled with a ghostly white webbed pattern.

So why, when I'm newly dating somebody, in the phase where I am certain that I like the person but it hasn't yet moved into the boyfriend stage (and may never do so), do I fall prey to the fear that the guy (one of whose proclivities is mentioned above) won't be similarly enchanted with my own unique character?

I mean, there are objective signs that he's down with at least aspects of my particular idiom (to borrow a Pythonism).

He didn't bat an eyelash when I introduced him by name to my bicycle (and vice-versa).

Our conversations typically rank fairly high on the geekometer, and he doesn't seem put off when I do my deep sea diving act.

But I can be really, really earnest, and I suspect there are times when I resemble a large, enthusiastic dog, and, well, that can scare some boys off.

I dunno. It's just nervous-making, that early time. And I don't have much of a strategy for surviving it.

A friend was advising me today to try and just stay in the present, which is funny, because I'm quite spectacular at doing that - in every other area of life.

Sigh. I am trying. Somebody pass me the Zen.

PS. Shut up, Boywich, I know what you're thinking, but I have become spectacular at it in the past couple of years. Really.

PSdeux. Aren't they wonderful, these faces? Click to embiggen, of course.

Here I sit with a cat on one side of me and an upended, rear-tire-less bicycle on the other.

The former is business as usual, but the latter, well, there's a story behind it. It's a pathetic little story involving three blown tubes (the last exploding in an impressively loud boom which caused my right ear to ring for about two minutes afterwards), a pump that seems to be on the fritz (unless I am a lot clumsier than I think I am), and two closed bike shops (drat!).

Anyway, that has no relation to the photos I've gathered here for your amusement, risking a severe jostling, a bit of overheating, and a tendency to become irate (see item #1) while trying to make my way back to the subway.

Luckily I did make it back without incident, and when I got home and looked at what I'd gotten in the Nikon, well, I felt it was worth a little heat and hassle. The colors really looked like that. I love that camera.

And I did manage to get in a smallish bike ride before the whole tube-explosion incident, and I did have a rather nice date, again before the tube-explosion incident. Life was different before the tube-explosion incident. Okay, it wasn't. I'm making that bit up. But I did get a flat in my apartment while I was about to leave for said date and I did have to make that funniest of phone calls. "Um. I have to fix a flat before I can come see you."

Doesn't strike you as funny? Well, perhaps you are less of a bike geek than either I or my date. I thought it was damn funny. Especially since I didn't (thankfully) get another flat while pedaling over there. Whew.

But of course, that was before the tube-exploding incident.

You know what else was before the tube-exploding incident? The Mermaid Parade. Which, if you ask me, is best enjoyed through photographs rather than in person. But then I am biased. I hate crowds. Shut up, I know that I live in one of the most crowd-filled cities on earth.

I have coping strategies for that. Most of which involve the aforementioned bicycle currently lying on the living room floor flashing his bottom bracket at all and sundry. Sigh. Damned exploding tubes.

PS. Click on any of these to see bigger and in better detail. Oh, do it this time. It's worth it.

PS2. Yes, I know you want more details about the date. I am trying to be circumspect here. I like the guy; he is sort of my type in a way I didn't know I had. So let's allow him a little privacy, ok?

The Naked Science episode on TV right now is discussing "extremophiles" and the possibility that they may live or have lived on Mars. Sometimes I think there is a human equivalent to these microbes.

For those who don't know, extremophiles is a nice logical name for microorganisms that favor difficult environmental conditions - extremes of temperature or radiation, chemical environments that would be toxic to other forms of life, that sort of gig.

Don't you know someone who lives like that in an emotional way?

I do; a friend of mine was just telling me about his regrets at having left a relationship that I'd call doomed. The person he broke up with was married to someone else, lives more than a thousand miles away, and has - shall we say - lots o' baggage, in the forms of multiple dependents and health issues.

I told him it was okay, nay, good, to make an intellect-based decision in a situation like that, but I don't think anything I said penetrated to the decisionmaking center of his brain. Or, as he'd put it, his heart. He's probably still gonna get back into that mess. See? Extremophile.

I have apparently (I hope) grown out of such behavior, though it took me years and years, and it's not like I don't occasionally relapse and be drawn to something that's not so terribly healthy for me.

Though I think that the fact that for the past several years I've been able to eat healthy foods and only healthy foods with no difficulty whatsoever suggests that I probably have that ability in other areas of life.

At the moment, I am feeling very anti-complications, and anti-"settling." Anti-settling for less. Anti-settling down. All that.

I'd rather be airborne, thank you very much, and the concept of being tied to someone else, of having to give a good god-damn what they think of my every little decision and behavior, well let's just say it's an unsavory prospect. Apart from the sex, of course. That sounds appealing.

Welcome to the Botanical Gardens. It's very, very pretty there. Lots of flowers and trees. We wandered, we looked up at the blue-blue sky, we took lots of pictures of ourselves playing in among the flowers, we sniffed a metric ton (each) of various roses (mmmm lemony), and we marveled at the giant pitch-black irises.

We knitted on the train both ways. I worked on my First (hopefully Triumphant) Sock. My traveling companion worked on her First (undoubtedly Triumphant) legwarmers. When I got home, I jumped on my bike and rode to Central Park and got a bunch of plant matter in my eyes and tired myself out on those hills and came home all nicely whooped and sweaty.

The next day I had to work (say it with me, ICK!) but then later I got on my bike again and rode to the bowling alley, stopping first at a little park and watching the sun sink low in the sky with about a million hipsters, all picnicking and smoking and trying to outcool one another with their giant 1970s sunglasses and their short little baggy dresses and their long sideburns and their track bikes with curly bars.

But it was nice. And then I went bowling, and bowled really badly until I realized I needed a heavier ball (either that or the second giant 22-ounce beer kicked in), and then I bowled progressively better, finishing up with a STRIKE in the last frame. Yay, me!

And the kids bowling next to us were all sad when we left because we had been cheering for them, too, and they were gonna miss that, because they were too cool to cheer as wholeheartedly as we do. Plus, we had better tattoos.

I am in something of a state. Work has gone to some next level of stressful that I didn't know existed, which is funny (strange, not ha-ha) because this very same client sent me to what I had thought was my maximum level of stress a few months ago. And here we are again, except that we are farther onto the plane of insanity.

If I had any hair, I'd tear it out.

Yesterday was so bad that after my horrible meeting there was nothing that could possibly save my life except to get on my bike and go have dinner with friends. Which I did. Of course, the fact that my rare and precious cranks could break at any moment because they are not properly equipped with pedal washers* does not make for the completely carefree biking that I would like to have.

But I had no choice. I hope the bicycle gods will be merciful.

Anyway...that's a whole other story. All of that. I mean, not just the bike stuff, but the whole horrible shebang of shit. Pardon my french, this is not a G-rated blog. Don't like it? On your bike, as the British so charmingly say.

Anyway...again.

One thing the gods seem to be suddenly providing me with is men to go on dates with, all of whom have Biblical names. We started with the old testament last week, and now we are moving on to the new.

If I end up getting a date with the Bodhisattva, though, I am gonna really laugh.

So what do I do with all this bounty? Why, I go and acquire an instant liking for one of my friend's roommates, of course. Yeah, uh-huh. What is it with me and the men in unexpected places? Last time it was a bicycle mechanic. Didn't work. He likes 20-year-olds.

This time, well, who the hell knows, but he is awfully cute, and (based on the impression of 10 minutes) just my type of boy. Anyway....

I know, I know, this post seems to be ratcheting around like a ball bearing set loose in a rubber room, but, well, that's what the inside of my head probably looks like right now. Okay, the inside of my head looks like a soft pink glob of neurons, but you know what I mean.

"Don't want no pork chops and greens. Just give me gin instead!" - Nina Simone, and I agree wholeheartedly.

*Worry not; I have ordered the washers and they will be here tomorrow, and either I or my bike mechanic (not the one I had the crush on) will install them, and all will hopefully be well, at least in that area of life.

I've had several conversations in the past few days having to do with art - whether it should stand on its own two feet or whether one ought to need context - historical background or a curatorial explanation - to understand it. I am of the former camp, but much of the art world (I am told by those in a position to know) is in the latter. And those who are in the business of art call my camp formalism and say it's something to rebel against, which is puzzling to me, given how restrictive the idea of needing a translator in order to approach a piece of creative work seems.

I have the urge to expand this dichotomy to life. I suppose because it sticks in my craw in some way, but also, maybe, because it seems to express two different larger viewpoints: the one that wants help making sense of something and the one that wants to figure it out for itself.

I suppose it is clear which one of these hypothetical views I fall into. I would like to think that I can respect either viewpoint, but I am not sure I am that magnanimous. Or am I? I truly do respect the beliefs of highly religious folk, not because I share them in any way (I don't) but because I can see and acknowledge and even admire how much strength and peace their faith gives them.

Okay, so there is one example. But on the other hand, I have been feeling contemptuous lately, and I won't go into the details, except to say that when someone else's lack of courage or spine directly affects me, I am not so forgiving about it.

And on the third hand, it is precisely those kinds of situations (ones that call for courage) that show us who we are, and if I am lucky enough to be a strong, brave person, perhaps I can just be proud of that and walk on, standing a little taller in my boots with that knowledge.

Well, I'm workin' and I'm crazy, and yet somehow I keep having these moments where I just love everybody and everything. There are several potential explanations for this (yes, I feel a list coming on!):

1. The Bike Is Back. It (he, actually, and he has a name, which I am keeping secret because he is my lover) is on the wall now, but when I first brought him in, I had to roll him into the living room so I could just stare at him lovingly, and gloat over his beauteous and rare vintage French cranks, which match his bad-ass French self. Oh he is so hot.

2. The Boys Are Out. It is spring, and in spring, this city has a habit of rewarding its long-suffering overwintered single girls by unveiling lovely sleek little geek boys for them, in little fits and starts. One here, a few more there, one at the cafe where you'd least expect him to be, flirting as he hands you a menu and ponders whether or not he has any Guinness available, and then screws up your check and promises you a free dinner if the credit card turns out to have been charged twice. Uh-huh, sure cutie. Lemme see those tattoos on your arms again. As he walked away, I turned to my friend B. and said, "Do you suppose he'd fit on my bike?"

3. I am perhaps just a trifle overcaffeinated.

4. I got to sneak in a tiny little bit of girltime tonight, right smack in the middle of my horrid deadlines, and that cheered me up. We were very silly, and we laughed, and that is healthy for me. I like laughing. It feels so damned good.

5. I am going to have a picnic on my birthday, in Brooklyn. It will be fab. I will toss a frisbee with my good shoulder and eat angel food cake. Yay, picnic!

6. If my knees hold up (please hold up, guys!) I can stop riding the subway. Yay!

7. My exotic French cranks have exotic French threading, which means I couldn't use my spanking new (and very nice) English-threaded pedals. A minor bump in the road which ended, entertainingly, with my bike builder taking a very fine antique pair of pedals off one of his own personal bikes and selling them to me, at about half what they're worth. I love him and he loves me (platonically, in both directions).

8. When I got home, I realized that my bike had given me a hickey (from the messenger bag strap). The funny thing is, so did the Nikon when I first got it. See? I love everyone, and everyone loves me.

9. Okay, okay, I will cut back on the caffeine.

10. But you do see why I love the Nikon so much, don't you? Claudia, these are again taken on auto exposure, sans flash.

Bon soir, mes amis. Voici! Le printemps est arrive!

Well, sort of. Today dawned cool and cloudy again, but it's the fits and starts of spring, not the dregs of winter. Or that is how I am choosing to view it.

I took the Nikon out for a little gambol yesterday when the sun was more outish than it was today, and look. I found flowers.

And their fallen petals.

And - well, construction sites and graffiti and old cans and spray painted lines on the sidewalk and cars parked with reflections in the windows and people eating Chinese food in the front seats and so on and so forth.

And some little dachshunds in little coats promenading on tiny legs. Cute, n'est-ce pas?

PS. Forgot to add this for Claudia: All shots taken with my Nikon D40 (the D is for darling), on auto exposure, flash turned off.

Then I happened upon this jewel of a series. And I remembered the crucial thing: that I am an artist, that I have always been an artist, and that when that part of me is walled off from my daily life, I suffocate and die. It happens bit by bit, so that it is hard to notice it happening.

Oh, it's not that I never do anything creative. But the work I get paid to do is not creative, and it's been a long time now, that I've been pecking away at it, trying not to notice how much I hate it.

I am usually able to ignore it by the pure expedient of not throwing too much time at it. I work in spurts, so that I have weeks where I don't do much of that sort of work, and then weeks where I work round the clock to make some money so I can ignore it for a few more weeks.

But that plan is not really working for me, and I've known that for a while. I just haven't known why or what to do about it. I am still not sure of the next step, exactly, but the larger answer is clear. I need to make art, and to make it for a living. Somehow.

Somehow I have to do that, even though everyone has told me, my entire life, that it is impossible.

So the thing that made my cry while watching this beautiful series was here was the lie. The people who have said that have been lying. Because here are tons of people making things, and making a living at it. And god, they all sound happy. They sound just like I sound when I am playing, only they are working. Why? Because my play is their work, and their play is their work. And that is all there is to that.

From where I am sitting now, it could take any one of a number of forms. There are the photographs, there is a novel, there are plenty of other things I like to make and play with, and some of them are quite saleable, I think. I just need to hop tracks. Maybe I will go take some pictures of trains, as Boywich suggested the other day - just to get in the mood.