Posts in category "Photos"

i miss

try­ing new foods with my Uncle Joe and the fas­ci­na­tion I used to have for Six Feet Under and being able to sleep more than four con­tin­u­ous hours and gui­tar lessons and the sound girls make when you squeeze them just right and the idea of camp­ing but not the actu­al act and remem­ber­ing how to play Sunny Road and Trolley and Steph already and snow and peo­ple-watch­ing when tak­ing the bus and long-term rela­tion­ships and

two girls and a baby

these kind of moments before we all par­take and

the smell of rain in Paris and make­outs and know­ing what to say to peo­ple when they ask me how I’m doing and being led by the hand to the bed­room and being called Jeffy Bear and hav­ing a rea­son to wear Classic by Banana Republic and get­ting real­ly excit­ed and being pur­sued by some­one I’m not try­ing to avoid and the time in my life before all this med­ica­tion and hav­ing some­one I could call my best friend and cud­dling and walks and old /b/ and Bruce Springstein before he went rock and no one I should­n’t and hav­ing a Tai Chi teacher and

bums like this

lit­tle bums like this and

know­ing how to play piano and pounc­ing on sur­vivors with Dave and Tyler and hav­ing a sta­ble source of income and being part of her life and hav­ing her in mine and Hawaiian sun­sets and find­ing sales for clothes that fit me and play­ing songs for Antje and the inti­ma­cy of oral and simul­ta­ne­ous orgasms and sex, obvi­ous­ly and hav­ing some­one to spoil and new episodes of Reno 911 and host­ing big par­ties and the way Leonard would sleep on my neck.

change and productivity

I spent the last few days con­vert­ing the guest room1 to my new office, after giv­ing it two coats of The Plaza and mov­ing my com­put­er out of the bed­room. This deci­sion was spurred by the fact that I found myself spend­ing an unhealthy amount of time in a sin­gle room of the house, the excep­tions being when I was eat­ing or poop­ing. Now my work area is delight­ful­ly bright, and I have a view of the sum­mer foliage out of the front of the house.

new office with cats

With half the fur­ni­ture now moved out, the mas­ter bed­room looks espe­cial­ly min­i­mal. I’m keep­ing some of my pho­tog­ra­phy light­ing in there, includ­ing a large soft­box, which is a dec­o­ra­tion that fills the room nice­ly but also makes it look like a cheap porn set.

I used to be trep­i­da­tious about cer­tain things, like com­mit­ting to a paint colour or walk­ing into a room with large num­bers of peo­ple, but now I find it a lot eas­i­er to get over my anx­i­ety. It makes me think my anx­i­ety used to affect me more than I real­ized. Doing things that were out of my com­fort zone was a test I need­ed to give myself every now and then, but now I don’t find those things to be uncom­fort­able at all, and I tend to act with­out think­ing too much or over­an­a­lyz­ing.

I won­der if this is what nor­mal feels like. And how much of it is per­son­al growth ver­sus the med­ica­tion.

In either case, it’s nice to be get­ting thing done again, when I had so recent­ly found it hard just get­ting out of bed. Someone relat­ed to me his expe­ri­ence on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal psy­chotrop­ics, and he said the peri­od was marked less by what he wrote or cre­at­ed, and more by what he did or peo­ple he met and con­nect­ed with. For me, it seems to be man­i­fest­ing itself as a peri­od of change and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

  1. Which, until last week, looked like this. [↩]

happy child

The sum­mer start­ed unevent­ful­ly, with a mix of rainy weath­er and cold nights. I long for after­noons in the bright sun, Lou Reed dur­ing his Velvet Underground years croon­ing to me over small speak­ers, with noth­ing bet­ter to do than wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion off a cold drink. It’s a life that does­n’t seem far away, and yet a life I nev­er imag­ine mak­ing for myself. I always think it’ll just hap­pen some day, that things will fall into place if I can take care of every­thing else.

Friday Night Magic

It’s okay to be OCD about how your cards are orga­nized as long as every­one else is.

Aaron has me over for din­ner every week with Karen and the two kids. It’s a rit­u­al he has yet to break, even though he told me he did­n’t want it to be a cal­en­dar event when I asked him if we could do some­thing on a reg­u­lar basis1. Every Wednesday he leaves work ear­ly to let me in the house, and makes up the time by work­ing longer hours on oth­er days, a sac­ri­fice that means more to me than he’ll ever under­stand, and some­thing I nev­er had to ask him to do. It’s nice to be able to look for­ward to reg­u­lar plans, and some­thing I share only with him that makes me feel like I belong.

About as often are Magic nights with Trolley and Steph, and these invari­ably include some­thing deli­cious for din­ner, when Steph takes the culi­nary arts to a whole new lev­el. They take care of me with food and con­ver­sa­tion and boost­er packs that they nev­er let me pay for. I’m sure I owe a great deal of my san­i­ty to them, when Magic was the only thing that took my mind off the fact that every­thing fell apart.

pretty wolf

Nobody fucks Pretty Wolf.

In between are things less fre­quent, but no less impor­tant. Musical projects with Jesse or Seth that give me the kind of goals and pur­pose I’ve been look­ing for. Sessions with Lisa, when we get to share the things we don’t share with any­one else. Hangouts with Tiana to debrief on our ever-chang­ing lives, and to give each oth­er advice or a pair of ears. Dinners with Heather G when I need my dose of opti­mism and adven­tur­ism. Not to men­tion the peo­ple who send me mes­sages of check up on how I’m doing when they can’t be here for me phys­i­cal­ly.

big dog and two girls

HOW ARE YOU SO BIG

It feels strange to be busy again. To be pro­duc­tive, and social, and to need days off when I’m not even employed.

Not that it’s been an attempt to stay occu­pied; more like mak­ing sure my needs are being met. That I have ful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships that pro­vide me with what I need, involv­ing peo­ple who make me feel hope­ful and worth­while and con­nect­ed and nur­tured and pro­tect­ed and sat­is­fied and accept­ed and under­stood and val­i­dat­ed and loved and con­fi­dent and safe and in con­trol.

  1. Only because it’s some­thing he want­ed to keep casu­al, where nei­ther per­son felt any pres­sure. [↩]

secret wedding

Lisa and Rolf got mar­ried on the fifth anniver­sary of their first date. It’s a fun lit­tle secret they’re keep­ing from peo­ple (includ­ing their par­ents), and as the actu­al wed­ding will be a non-tra­di­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion in August, the paper­work was done in advance. I was hon­oured to be the only one to know, as well as their pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and on Sunday we did the engage­ment pho­tos, fol­lowed by a quick stop at the offi­ciant’s house to sign and wit­ness1, then a trip out to Denny’s for break­fast. Denny’s holds a spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for them, as it was where Rolf took Lisa after he pro­posed, and ever since, they try to eat at a local Denny’s when­ev­er they trav­el.

It’s been a long time since I had a project to work on, and to see how well the pho­tos came out has been a delight.

couch in the woods

In the back­yard.

Continue read­ing “secret wed­ding”…

  1. The paper­work was about 20 min­utes, and the actu­al “cer­e­mo­ny” only took about four sec­onds. [↩]

Do we have any movement from the Baratheons?

Our nights are filled with alliances made and bro­ken. I’ve nev­er been par­tic­u­lar­ly good at nego­ti­a­tion or betray­al, and that’s prob­a­bly why my house is usu­al­ly the first to go in the Game of Thrones. I’ve become that guy who sucks and con­se­quent­ly pos­es no threat at the thing every­one is into, but still plays cause it’s always worth see­ing the bluffs and calls, the bold alpha strikes, and the devel­op­ment of grudges.

I’ve nev­er got­ten along with the caf­feinat­ed, shaky, social­ly awk­ward guys who fre­quent the rare binders at the com­ic book store, per­haps cause they remind me too much of an ado­les­cent ver­sion of myself. But this is our own ver­sion of geek­ery, with our own rit­u­als, and the com­pa­ny is nev­er any­thing less than enter­tain­ing.

movement from the Baratheons
Game of Thrones
Seth equipped

Armed with Valyrian steel blade and mes­sen­ger raven, for con­trol of the fief­doms and the king’s court.