A camera to mask my shyness, a lens to hide behind.
At Audra and Jesse’s I felt like I was back in university. Meeting people, learning names, throwing in for some pizza. Except this time, I wasn’t being dragged, kicking and screaming to the party. Maybe I was just feeling social, because I hadn’t seen my own friends in so long.
I learned that playing Punch Out on the Wii is as natural to you as it was back when you were in your room back in elementary school, crying because you were no one’s best friend. That watching Air Guitar Nation — when it’s hard to tell how seriously the contestants take themselves — is much more enjoyable with sarcastic comments applied liberally from the audience.
I want to know these people.
I want to find out what drives them. I want to know why they create, why they’ve chosen their mediums. Why they hang out together. Why they studied what they studied. Why they have the jobs they do.
They’re well-read, educated, opinionated, cosmopolitan. I felt somewhat out of place. Topics of conversation weren’t even close to my interests. Concerts aren’t my scene. Politics confuse me. Things are happening to other friends I’ve never met. But when there’s this much to learn, listening is just as good as taking part.
It was past midnight by the time I got home, but I had hard time falling asleep. My brain was buzzing, trying to take in everything I had just experienced.
I fucking loved reading this!
I’ll reply more tomorrow. I have to sleep now.
You are rad.
Not as rad as being able to be a part of this. I hope to attend many more times in the future!
Your site design is pretty much the precise inverse of mine.
We have been chosen as mortal enemies, and will one day fight to the death. See you at brunch on Sunday?
(also — was good to meet you!)
Always feel free to steer the conversation toward your areas of interest/expertise — we all certainly have just as much to learn from you!
Those photos look great. And the records have run to a hefty cost over the years, but about half of them are from dollar bins or at least under five bucks. So… don’t think they all came at collectors’ prices or anything. I’m a bin-picker!
It seems like everyone is creative in their own way, and those ways overlap fairly often so conversations would never be stagnant. Maybe I could use a Venn diagram to explain it.
It would be one of those Venn diagrams that looks like it was drawn with a Spirograph!