foaming at the mouth

It's amazing how many emotions the same day can hold. This morning started with the joy of drinking good coffee (from here) while starting a new book and eating my favorite meal of the day. Fast forward an hour later, and I experienced murderous rage, contempt, and helplessness as some a-hole yelled at me after our dogs got into a scuffle. Good times. Yes, my dog was a jerk and did his unfortunate snarl, tumble, snarl louder routine during which the other dog yelped. It wasn't enjoyable to witness, but it was over in about 10 seconds, and I yelled my face off while zapping his e-collar to stop the encounter. Red came over to me while the guy marched forward with what I assume he intended to be an intimidating chest thrust and said, "that's the second time your dog has done that to my dog. you need to get control of your dog." To which I apologized and asked if his dog was okay in an attempt to diffuse the anger and address the important issue of whether there were any actual consequences from the interaction. He yelled some more stuff about control to which I gave the same response: sorry, is your dog OKAY? Rather than check his dog, the man proceeded to walk away while announcing that he was going to gut my dog if he tried to start anything again. I said, "That's not necessary" because I couldn't help myself, and it was nicer than telling him to go fuck himself. He whirled around and chest-thrusted towards me saying I don't know what because I stopped listening. I said, "look I know you're afraid,* but I just want to make sure your dog is okay." He finally stooped to inspect his dog which was thankfully unharmed. Then he stood up and said "I'm serious, I will gut your dog if that happens again" as he walked away for good.

WHO SAYS THAT?

I said a nice quiet "fuck you" as he walked away. I wish I had said something with a little more zing, but it probably would not have improved the situation. Best not to poke the lion.

Fast forward 8 hours and I'm walking home from the train with birds chirping, crabapple blossoms over my head, and weather warm enough for shorts (that I did not have on because I came from work).

And now for something a little shorter:

the last book I read**
made me want to run away
to where, I don't know

*I'm so glad the guy didn't react to that word because people don't generally liked to be told they're afraid even though that's most likely the emotion driving this guy's rage. Jackass probably didn't hear me right.

**The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - go read it now please. be prepared to cry and reflect.

picture: woman running with her dog along the Southbank Promenade by the Yarra River, Melbourne AUS, March 2016, film, Leica M6 (unintentionally blurry, but I kind of like it) 

sonny days

Tis the season for quarterly reports at work, which is why this post will not be a continuation of our trip. It will instead be a brief whining interlude about being too tired to write. So brief that I am done right after this short version of laughing until I cried at my own terrible joke.

sometimes you just need
a good pun to get the tears
streaming down your cheeks

picture: Sonny, the whippet, warming up our clean towels at our friends' home in Melbourne, AUS, March 2016, film, Leica M6

planes for yonks

We spent the first 4 days of our trip in Melbourne, once we finally arrived. Our original nonstop flight from LAX to Melbourne was cancelled, so we got stuck on flights from LAX to Sydney then to Melbourne. But I'm getting ahead of myself because the plane to get to LAX was delayed by six hours (sensing a theme?). This had me freaking out about our LAX connection and getting stuck in LAX for an ungodly amount of time waiting for the next Qantas flight. Thankfully, we found out that the plane from JFK was the same plane all the way to Sydney. Once I had that information, I was able to lean in to the delay (literally, because I couldn't sit for very long at a time without my tailbone protesting). We actually found out about our flight from JFK before we left the house. Being the neurotic that I am, I couldn't handle sitting around for that long, especially because I had visions of the flight getting moved to a less delayed time, which would have been disastrous had we been sitting at home "relaxing." So we left only about 45 minutes later than we had originally planned. Yes, Charrow deserves a medal for putting up with my lunacy.

Clearly my soothsayer skills need some work because our flight was most definitely NOT moved up, and we spent far too long sitting around the international terminal at JFK. So long, in fact, that I forgot we were still in New York because of all the foreign languages being spoken. On the bright side, we bought our body weight in the healthiest airport food we could find because we got $20 vouchers (each!) from the airline for the delay. The first of a long line of failures in our ability to maintain a small footprint during our T-Rex sized air travel footprint. So much plastic. And that brings me to the end of my ability to think straight for the day. Installment 2 of 347 tomorrow. Here's the short version with Australian lingo picked up from our friends (or should I say mates?):

we waited for yonks*
nearly driving ourselves spare**
where are the hoppies***?

*yonks = ages
** drive X spare = drive X crazy (X being your pronoun of choice)
*** hoppies = kangaroos (an obvious one)

picture: Moreton Bay Fig trees at Princes Park, Melbourne, AUS, March 2016, film, Leica M6 (they look remarkably like magnolia trees in person) 

here we go again

We returned from New Zealand exactly three weeks ago today. Strange how it feels like so much longer, but when I look at the pictures (oh so many pictures), it feels like I could walk outside and hop into our Rustbucket to do it all over again. Except we don't own that Rustbucket, which is what Charrow aptly named the fifteen year old van we drove all over the south island of New Zealand. Anyway, I've had some trouble getting back here. At first it was the exhaustion of hiking somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 miles over the course of twelve days (the hiking didn't really start until we hit Tasmania) and the 24 hour trip home. Then I felt exhausted by work. Then I got better and better at being an internet zombie and simply giving in to the comfort of not showing up. Major advantages of not writing: more free time and less anxiety about flopping. But I've noticed that what I do with that free time verges on practicing for a zombie contest. Facebook, instagram, Facebook, email, Facebook, repeat. Searching for who knows what and getting very little return on the investment. I also noticed that the relief of not posting comes with a nagging sense of letting myself down. So here I am. Ready to flop and flail and feel like a dweeb in the name of creating art instead of molding away with my face glued to my phone. Prepare yourself for pictures, travel stories of varying degrees of interest and a neverending stream of bad haikus.

we suffered delays
welcomed hardships and scaled cliffs
fueled by sandwiches

picture: kid playing with the fountain wall at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, AUS, March 2016, film, Leica M6

into the hills we go

Last minute preparations got the better of me yesterday. Going crazy before the day of departure means we aren't rushed, which is great, but I'm totally spent from not sleeping very well for the last week while also going nonstop. So I will leave you with my final haiku for awhile.

cats lounging in sun
bags piled high by the front door
ready for a nap

picture: a different view of the playground plane in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2010, film, Canon Tlb 

tenacity

Success! We have managed to trim corners and implement the ridiculous strategy of wearing extra layers to the airport, thus paring our pack weights to 1-1.5 pounds below the requirement. I left a buffer in case the luggage scale I bought isn't accurate. We are also stuffing underwear in our coat pockets, which sounds ridiculous, but I don't care. I'm not above such trickery if it keeps me from having to stand around a baggage carousel stressing out about what time the rental car place closes. I have a picture of the final gear, but I'm saving it for a packing post, which will happen we return unless by some miracle I am more prepared than I think Tuesday morning (fat chance). It's likely to bore the pants off most of you, but fellow packing crazies might find it useful. If all of my efforts are for naught and we get foiled in some other way (full overhead bins, a cranky airline agent who disagrees with my interpretation of top/bottom of the bag, etc.), I'm sure you will hear about it! For now, I leave you with this:

when you travel, there
should be no wrong or right way,
only this or that

picture: wet, moss-covered boulder near the top of Pico de Papagaio, Ilha Grande, Brazil, September 2012, digital 

editing

Well the final tornado has begun. We spent this afternoon packing our bags, editing, then repacking, and repeat. At one point, we layed down on the living floor to see if 1 sleeping bag would unzip enough to cover both of us (answer: yes), and that silly dog wormed his way in between us the second we had the bag over our bodies. End result: two adults crammed together with a giant dog butt sticking out of the top of the bag. We're still not down to the ideal combination of necessary gear that keeps us within the carry-on weight limit (15 pounds) and the annoyingly small dimensions (22"x14"x9"). Yes, we are attempting to go to the other side of the world for 3 weeks with one 32L backpack apiece and our "personal item" - aka a tote bag of food to avoid eating airline and airport "food" and my camera bag. I think we can do it! But we might not look or smell very pretty in the process. Hobocamp here we come. In the meantime, here's today's other exercise:

we might fail as snails
but we're getting pretty close
who needs extra socks?

picture: giant snail on the porch of our Airbnb house in Ilha Grande, Brazil, September 2012, digital 

slowwwww

It's late, and I'm distracted by 703 things, so here's a haiku about going out to dinner with Charrow's parents at an upscale Indian restaurant in the east 50's with glacial table service:

Minutes ticked by while
Volume rose and Patience ran
away with the Spoon.

picture: collection of seedlings and other plants seen while visiting a friend's parents' in Vermont (selected because I'm ready for some GREEN around here), June 2014, film, Canon Tlb 

frenzy

Well, I finally have all of our sleeping arrangements settled for the trip. There are 15 nights to cover because we are spending 4 days with friends in Melbourne, and we will be on a plane across two calendar nights, which boggles the mind. There are many ways to go about vacation planning, and I chose a medium level of insanity when it came to accommodations, with a few days of flexibility thrown in. To be honest, the "flexible" days are the ones that make me insane. I have nightmares about driving around the bush of New Zealand trying to find a freedom camping site that isn't full on the two nights that I haven't booked something in a holiday park (similar to the American KOA campgrounds with regard to "amenities," and ubiquity, and price, from what I can tell). There are two more days of work that bookend a weekend of packing, cleaning for our houseguest, and visiting with a close friend whose child delivery we are going to miss. Too much! and we have yet to begin. So why don't I get to the end and share today's haiku about that silly mutt:

wap-wap-wap! go his
ears every morning as he
stretches out of bed

picture: that silly dog while camera testing at low light with the camera sitting on the floor to avoid handshake, film, Leica M6 

millimeters

I'm nearly to the end of a book entitled The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. It chronicles his expedition through a remote region of the Himalayas (maybe that's redundant?) with a fellow scientist. He also goes into detail about his concurrent spiritual/meditative journey. Highly recommended for anyone interested in eastern religions, presence, and nature. I've gotten a little bogged down in some of the history (true confessions: I've skipped about three pages because I just couldn't handle the dry facts and the change in pace). Right now I'm reading about his descent back to civilization, which isn't going very well. Mood swings and culture shock that have shaken the equanimity he built during the expedition's stay at a remote monastery village high in the mountains. There's a sense of futility that I can relate to. The throw your hands in the air why bother kind where you try to so hard to build a skill (like patience), and then when the shit hits the fan, you react in the knee-jerk way you always have. It makes you question the point of trying, but maybe the explosions get a little smaller or they take more kindling to provoke. I'm sure there's some incremental change that is just too hard to sense when you're in the throes of reacting while simultaneously feeling like a failure. The more I learn about therapy (both giving and receiving), the more I realize that change happens in the increments. You can't hold out for some sudden transformation because it doesn't work that way. Movement happens when you keep showing up in whatever little way you can manage. Sometimes I use the analogy of filling a sink: it will happen even if you're just adding one drop at a time. Granted, you have to make sure the plug fits, but that's a whole other metaphor. And now for the other exercise of the day:

i stood in the rain
listening to the chorus
of puddles filling

//

that burned bridge may not
be the only way to cross;
build another one

picture: a bridge in Portland, OR (sorry, can't remember which one), October 2011, cross-processed slide film, Canon Tlb 

don't talk amongst yourselves

For part of my patchwork trip home from NC last week, I took a train from DC to Penn Station. I love riding the train, and I miss it now that we have a dog because we tend to drive down for family visits. The train has a water fountain (albeit nearly impossible to use and right above an electrical outlet which makes NO sense). I get to stand up and walk around whenever I want. The windows are huge. There's no brake-happy lurching that you find on a bus. I don't have to pay attention to traffic. Basically, it's amazing, but only in the Quiet Car. The rest of the train is an annoying din of voices made even more intolerable by the people on their cellphones. One of my least favorite conversations to listen to is the twenty-something opposite sex pair who clearly don't know each other, but are working their way through the usual questions with all the posturing and giggling you can imagine. Vomit. Anyway, I made the customary long walk to the front of the train to score a quiet car seat. As I settled into the luggage area behind my seat, care of a sore tailbone that caused me to stand for over half of the three hour ride, a man sat down in the seat across from me and said "Ahhh, salvation" in reference to the silence. Amen to that, brother. And now I leave you with 17 syllables and some silence of your own:

lately my mind goes
blank when i get to this point
but now it's over

picture: Amtrak train waiting on the opposite side of the platform, Union Station, Washington, D.C., February 2016, film, Leica M6

hyperdrive

You know it's February when 35 degree mornings feel warm. It was hard to leave the park with the comfortable temperatures and the sun streaming through the trees, but I had to get cracking on our trip. Spent the first three quarters of today sifting through hiking options, checking mileage between points to minimize driving times with my sad rear end, and looking for "holiday parks" as the kiwis call them. Then I went in to work for my evening client (lest you think I just sit around). I'm concerned about our ability to find internet, which means my natural tendency to over-plan has kicked into hyperdrive. We do have the benefit of only traveling to english speaking countries, so I get the privilege of not having to worry about communicating should we need help finding something (hopefully). But that might be mitigated by the fact that half the places we're headed are pretty unpopulated. Well, except for the tourists and everybody knows tourists don't know where they're going. Jokes. I hope we know! In the interest of sleep and sanity (yours and mine), I'm heading for the haiku now:

birds trilled as i ground
coffee and started making
lists on top of lists

picture: a friend's parents' bird. I believe her name is Molly and she makes the most god awful trumpeting sound when anyone leaves the room. Every. Single. Time., Bluemont, VA, August 2009, digital 

meandering

My dad's side of the family consists of a lot of talkers, which is ironic given the austerity with which he communicates (although there is a common goof streak between brothers). Maybe he gave up trying with a house full of gabbers? While I was in NC last week, I saw two uncles that I haven't seen in about ten years and they spoke in equal volume, but very different content. One could talk of nothing but medical problems and ways in which the world is out to get him. The other (pictured), touched on a broad range of topics from pedophiles in the Catholic church to stacking firewood for his grouchy mother-in-law to the benefits of Obama (who knew). Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if my family hadn't left the rural part of central NC where I was born. Would I have found my way to the same interests? or would I spend my time griping about the price of pork boston butts at the Food Lion while I tamp down Donald Trump signs in my front yard?

Anyway, I realized while I was down there just how much time my brother and I used to spend outdoors. I thought my love for nature was somewhat recent (say the last 10 years or so), but the more I think about it, the more I can see that it's been there all along. Catching lightning bugs at dusk. Wandering down to the creek behind my grandmother's house. Sneaking off to the park when we were supposed to stay put until our mom got home. Fishing for hours on end at our aunt's lake house. Getting eaten alive by mosquitoes at our other aunt's house because we refused to come inside until the last possible minute. Playing catch in the back yard until it got so dark someone would get hit by the ball (usually me). There's no point to this list except to say that I cannot wait until the weather warms up so I can while away as much time as possible outside with comfortable digits. In the meantime, we leave for the other side of the equator in 8 days, where we will hopefully get more than our fill of the great outdoors. This incohesive post was brought to you by feeling distracted by the amount of planning still left despite the ridiculous amount I've already done! Now for the haiku:

i prefer the sound
of rustling leaves over the
chatter in my head

picture: my dad's second oldest brother who lives in the mountains of NC, February 2016, film, Leica M6

through the middle

Note to self: always write before entertaining guests for dinner. My brain is fried from making conversation for the last three hours, which is hard work for this particular introvert no matter the quality of the company. I'm too stubborn to indulge the desire to skip this, but I also don't have much to give, so here's my stab at today's exercise (about exercise):

i've circled this park
for eight years, but it's taken
pain to explore it

picture: the canal in the southern part of the Prospect Park on my "exercise" walk today, Brooklyn, NY, iPhone 5

pool hair

Going to get straight to the point on this sleepy Friday evening. Plenty to say, but little energy left for crafting complete sentences. Better to stick with syllables, although they also might not make that much sense!

chlorine mingles with
wafts of cat food while the dog
snores amongst blankets

picture: that silly dog taken while testing out the new camera last week, film, Leica M6

cosmic

Monday night, I drove my dad's car up-town (as it's called when you drive from my grandmother's rural address into the small town of Oxford, NC) to the grocery store. I tried to turn the volume up on the radio, but I accidentally turned the station knob instead. What did I stumble upon? A Phil Collins live question and answer radio hour. Some of you may already be aware of my irrational love for Phil Collins (not so much his disney stuff, but I can still muster some appreciation for it). Nary a big-box grocery trip goes by that I don't hear him and stop in my tracks to give a quick smile to the radio gods. To hear him after living in a weird, fucked up southern time warp for the previous 24 hours was like rereading an email from a friend you miss. I know, it's ridiculous, but it was like the universe said, "go back to the happy place." And then. THEN. The show went into a musical interlude between callers, and the song they played? "Take Me Home." Couldn't have said it better myself, Phil. And now, I take you to this evening's angsty haiku:

windshield wipers on
low, ice lining the shoulders
my mind stuck in park

picture: shadow at the brooklyn botanic garden, NY, June 2012, film, Canon Tlb 

start where you are

Well, it finally happened. I missed a day. No, two days. I forgot that it's Wednesday! My grandfather's funeral was Monday, which was exhausting in ways I can't even explain to you because I'm not willing to bare THAT much of myself to the internet. Then I had to move my trip home from Monday night to Tuesday in a very convoluted fashion, so I couldn't bring myself to write anything last night after a day of riding in cars, trains, and more trains. I'm close to skipping tonight as well, but this is how the waterfall of stopping begins. So I'm here to write this cryptic post as a space filler until I can muster a more involved one about the experience. In the meantime, here's a haiku loosely inspired by having to sit through a southern baptist funeral service:

the lord giveth me
a headache, a sore butt, and
a commute from hell*

*more on this later. I'm referring to the trip home yesterday and not my commute today, although that, too, was convoluted and sardine-like

picture: one of my favorite trees in the park taken right when my light meter started to go haywire and I accidentally pushed the shutter, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, February 2016, film, Leica M6 

Frozen

Nothing like hanging out at JFK on a bright, frigid Sunday for HOURS. My 12:30 flight to NC is delayed until 4:30, so I am trying to make do with podcasts, people watching and book reading (and trying not to send too many whiny texts). Seems like a good time to listen to the TED radio hour episode entitled "to endure." Not going to spend anymore patience typing on a tiny screen, but it seemed wise to use this "extra" time to check this box for the day. Now for the short form about airport observations:

two sparrows hopping
along collecting carpet
snacks in the warm sun

//

Glittered bags scattered
Across three chairs as she squawks*
And I seethe alone

*This woman engaged in all the behaviors I cannot stand. Spreading her shit everywhere, listening to music without headphones, yelling into her speaker phone, and smacking her food. Needless to say I moved seats as fast as I could. No point in expecting her to change.

Picture: taken during our insanely cold walk this morning (3 degrees), prospect park, brooklyn, NY, iPhone

verdict is in

I finally managed to scan and upload some pictures from the first two rolls of film from the Leica. I'm really happy with the sharpness and the color relative to my Canon Tlb. Definitely need to work on framing (it's hard to see the frame lines in the viewfinder especially with glasses). Turns out I loaded the film properly! and I have confirmation of the difference film quality can make. 1 roll is an el cheapo Fuji (from where, I have no idea. maybe a gift?) and the other roll is Kodak Ektar 100, one of my favorite films because of the color saturation. Anyway, I don't have time to geek out more (lucky for you) because I am heading to NC tomorrow for my grandfather's funeral. No condolences required; he was not a nice person. But funerals are not really for the dead; they are for the living, and I'm going to support my father and my grandmother (although there are complications in that relationship too, but potentially salvageable). For now, I leave you with a few more nonsense pictures and 17 nonsense syllables. For even more test shots of something besides the dog, go here.

every night around
the same time, a baby cries;
me too, kid, me too.

(charrow painting at her standing desk)

(Red hoping for a special treat from the pet store)

(Red running like a maniac from the common "backyard" behind our building)

top picture: Red soaking up our afternoon sunlight, which he follows around the room like a cat 

all pictures: film, Leica M6

capital gains

I can see how people might sit around watching TV all night after they've come home from work. We watch shows during dinner, and it takes some serious effort to hit that pause button (because it's always on a computer) to come here and write whatever nonsense I have for the day. Then I move on to practicing my banjo in an attempt to play at least 5 minutes a day. How is it that 5 minutes feels hard most days?? Meanwhile, I can check gmail, facebook, and instagram incessantly with no feelings of sacrifice or effort, but the gains are almost always inferior to what I get from making music or from laughing over whatever silly joke I put into haiku (that might not actually translate, but I get to laugh at it anyway). The path of least resistance is so often the path of least reward, but we are wired for comfort. And on that note, I shall move on to the short version so I can get a little bit closer to the comfort of my bed:

everything takes more
time when you can't budget for
running to catch up

(because my usual emergency strategy for not being late is to be the idiot running down the street in business casual clothes)

picture: some sort of palm (?) that I love because it's so pointy, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, NY, June 2012, film, Canon Tlb