Treasure...

Holiday photo-blogging:

My little "christmas miracle" (the 18 year-old, sweetheart kitty with no clue of her age) had some minor surgery but immediately recovered for her usual games of undercover-marimekko-eskimo in her follow-up role in "the world is not enough"... Wait what..? Didn't the ice castle set get destroyed..?


I did this for Christmas. It was fun/funny... lots of hilarious moments. I manned the beverage station.


When I got home from volunteering on Christmas, Fred was so happy about my decision to take the rare nap that she sat on me and purred... she's been doing this as she gets older because she's cold a lot... she weighs less than 6lbs now.


After the (non)nap, I headed to Dockweiler Beach for a bonfire, and my good friend's birthday... which is on Christmas... so his parents named him Jesus... he doesn't go by that...


I pet-sat for these little buddies over the holidays. Not together - the dog (Julie) for my cousin's family and the cats (Fat Boy and White Boy) for a friend. Every time I went to visit the cats, I would get the song "Waiting for my Man" by the Velvet Underground in my head. "hey white boy, whatcha doing uptown..?" It was hard to imagine Lou Reed was talking about this cat though...

"You ain't lost, you just on this side of town."

I had to try hard to keep the sheer glee to myself when I heard this and just listen to the man's directions. In my mind, though, I could picture myself bubbling out the ears with joy at the gem that had just been uttered before me. I knew I wouldn't have to write it down and I knew I would never forget it. At the time, I had a mere inkling of the statement's potential complexity, but over the next couple days I spent working and getting lost in Austin, Texas, I realized how little the 7-11 clerk's words had to do with my geographic location and how very much it described my transcendental state.

The next three days were the first time since April that I had worked more than one day at a time. I had a few jobs throughout the summer, and things have picked up a little this fall, just like I knew they would. Until now though, even if I had more than a one day contract, they were never consecutive days. Still, I kept a positive attitude and was frequently being told just how encouraging it was that, despite having never been unemployed before, I just never stopped trying to find work and stay busy. Hell, it wasn't that much of a challenge.

Recently, after almost seven months of unemployment, for about a week I thought it had finally happened - I was bored. When I mentioned this to a friend, Grace, she said to me without even thinking about it, "Yeah but bored for you is like most people's normal." And just because of that, I was ecstatic again. I realized what a gift this time off has been for me and how much I have changed from the time I stopped working at my corporate job in April. I've also noticed how many people have sort of been following my little transformation, whether because they too are unemployed and haven't quite had the time to approach it the same way, or because they are still unhappily employed at a time when pay increases have been frozen and morale is at an all time low.

During this time, I've been purging my apartment of everything I just don't need and have made room for a tiny home-office in the form of an Ikea desk by a bedroom window where my cat sometimes sits on my lap as I write or process images. I remember what I eat now that I'm not too busy too cook the healthy, fresh food I love and I've had time for enough exercise to have lost at least 15 pounds. Over the summer, I was giving my grandmother rides to her weekly card games. It was nice to have a reason to just slow down and do something for this amazing woman who has done so much for me. I bought, not only my first digital SLR, but my first new camera ever! (Pro SLR anyway) All my other cameras have either belonged to my former employer, been handed down from my dad (Canon AE-1 which I still love and use) or otherwise second-hand-gifted awesome-film-relics, or were a point and shoot or a Holga. I got a tan this summer and here, at the end of November, I still haven't let it fade.

When I do work now, it's just the part of the job I love and none of the work that bored the crap out of me while sitting in an office, working for someone else. For the first time, almost ever, I don't feel the need to think so far ahead about how the job I'm doing now will get me to the job I want after this one, or in 5 years. I am really just doing what I love and enjoying both every minute of it and every minute in between.

So when an acquaintance I haven't seen in a while Facebook-asked "when did you get a positive attitude?" after my last day on the Austin shoot and I status-wished every day could be that good (partly because I saved-the-day! by convincing the hero to take off his shirt for the photos and scans, despite the fact that the scene for which they were needed was weeks away from being filmed - no, these skills do not work with real men), I was able to really see how much I had changed over the last seven months. All the contempt for my inability to leave a job I liked most of the time yet needed to be laid off from is gone. All of my self deprecating sense of humor seems to have melted away when I stopped working with people who always thought they could do/improve my job (because every one's a photographer these days!) and now I just get hired by their bosses and never have to deal with them because they mostly lack the social skills needed to function in the places I work. The cynicism and sarcasm I used so much in the past? What's the point? (see above) But I've lightened up quite a bit and can't help but see humor in new places - like the oldies station at the laundromat when I forget my iPod and it feels like Elton John is always playing, like people who mispronounce words or use the wrong ones entirely (Star Track vs Star Trek, kitchen vs chicken!), and like those people in a hurry at the supermarket and want to know if they'll open another register when (clearly) no one else is around.

No, I ain't lost, I'm just on this side of town. Life is good over here. I'm not going back.

Some photos from this side of town:


light bulb shop


studio parking lot, still daylight


Well than I must be the richest woman alive!


New dres, anyone?

The men in my life, boss edition...

Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I had to rely completely on the kindness of women who knew nothing of me, nor me of them. I have to admit, while my entire adult life has been meticulously engineered by no one other than myself, the only people outside of my family to come through for me, to offer me any kind of opportunity with no previous example on my part indicating my aptitude or abilities have been men. That is not to say that there haven't been numerous women who have come through for me, who have given me chances and job opportunities beyond my wildest imagination - it's just that they've never done it intuitively. They've never done it without overwhelming proof of my competence and I can't say that I blame them - it's taken me years to develop what I consider to be some "pretty decent" people-reading skills and I don't know that I would completely trust another person either (man or woman) without knowing much about them.

For some reason, in high school, I was one of those "chicks" that just got along with mostly dudes. I always had other chick friends but the guys I hung out with were predominantly either my buddies from the (almost) all guys water polo team on which I played or the sweetheart-burn-outs I had been friends with since elementary school. As I got older, I am pleased to report, it became easier to relate to other girls who (like myself) weren't exactly tom-boys but always seemed to find ourselves to be one of the very few girls in the boys' club. Photography is notoriously a "gentleman's hobby"; visual effects and film production even more so at times, as I came to learn. But, man, do I love a challenge!

When I interviewed for my last job on the recommendation of a shared former professor, the boss and I mainly just talked about photography for a good while. At the time, it was probably funny that we had opposite methods for arriving at the same conclusion - I loaded my 4x5 film holders with the notch in the upper right-hand corner, him with the notch in the lower left. Over the seven years we worked together, these polar opposites would punctuate our differences, much like our fixed cardinal birth signs - his mirroring my mom's (of all people!) and provoking some heated verbal exchange from time to time. (hilarious in retrospect!)

Over the years, on occasion, I've almost accidentally called him a variety names - dad, Fred (the 17-year-old cat's name!), my pimp (he's called me everything from baby to bitch) and I think he or his wife once decided that if he had an evil twin, that would somehow describe our relationship. Once, for what felt like almost a year (though it was probably just 3-4 months) I was in such pain from a shoulder injury that I was just the most horrible person to him on a daily basis. When I eventually started feeling better, I felt so awful that I sent him cookies on location which was immediately reciprocated with a charmed, drunken, free-postcard he penned from our little visual effects team while in a bar. I was just relieved to be exonerated so easily...

And now, after all of this, after finally being set free of any work-related obligation to me, this saint of a guy (and his entire brilliant family, I should add) still puts up with me for absolutely no other reason I can think of besides our shared taste in food, espresso, tea, gin and beer. I'm sure that must be it. That and photography... oh and fresh, local produce. Maybe gardening and exercise too but that's it. I always try my best to make it a reciprocal relationship but the truth is that there is nothing even close in my material life that could make the kind of impact on him that he has on me. There are old walls, deep within my core, that make it hard for me to accept even the kindness of family let alone close friends - I know if he gave me the choice rather than just being himself, I wouldn't allow such a person in my life and would lose out. Perhaps one day I will be fortunate enough to repay the favor but for now, all I can do is be grateful.

the things you keep when that's not your thing...

It was pointed out to me recently that Libras (people born between September 23 and October 22) are generally pack-rats. Being a Libra myself, and not possessing this characteristic forced me to examine the types of things I hold on to. Since I am a photographer, almost all of my collectibles are flat - negatives, prints, digital files and storage media. Even when I think back to my childhood, the only thing I ever remember collecting (Bazooka Joe comics that came with the gum which I eventually saved up for a glow-in-the-dark, scratch-n-sniff Trix t-shirt) was also flat.

With the exception of a lifelong t-shirt collection stored under my bed and a couple of gold necklace charms given to me by my dad and maternal grandmother, these smallish items are the only artifacts I've deemed worthy enough to make it through my frequent apartment purging every time I decide that I either have too much crap for a single gal or that there's no way I can travel light when my place is weighed down by too much useless material baggage:

Matchbooks remind me of the places I've been without taking up much space, plus they're functional and often unique.


Foreign currency from a few of the countries I've traveled to - sometimes I'll throw one into a bag to use as a screwdriver and then find it much later only to get pleasantly lost in my memories.


Some things I once believed in enough to support, vote for, consume. These things remind me that I was once 18, once and still am an artist, once a very different person who's lived a very good life so far.


It always surprises me how little I've kept from seven years on nearly 20 films. In the end, there's only a handful of items that really stand out and the memorabilia that means the most (jar of sand, tin of pate from the CZ with an image of a man choking down a sausage) weren't exactly crew gifts. Which reminds me, I forgot to photograph a Lenin candle that was purchased for me in a bar in Prague by a student from Australia on holiday - amazing how some of these things make it home.

Also, when you've had a black cat as long as I have, people start giving you little black cat things and suddenly, you're a collector.

A piece of candy symbolizing the weight of one of my favorite conceptual artists as he was dying of AIDS. Felix Gonzales Torres left instructions that every day, a gallery or museum was to display his weight in candy and his audience was encouraged to take a piece of him with them. He was long gone by the time I was able to participate in any of his work but it gives me goose-bumps just to have this piece of candy and the poster of his that is rolled up in my garage awaiting proper wall space. His "perfect lovers" series are my favorites in which strings of light bulbs all burn out at different rates or identical school clocks with fresh batteries slowly start to tick out of sync.


More flat things: fliers from events I've attended and postcards from friends.


Shells and beach glass from the other side of the world.


One of very few tangible things I have left from my dad's mom.


Shell shaped sandwich press and electric mixer - both were my mom's which I remember fondly from my childhood and her mother's flour sifter, all of which I still use.


A few of my favorite fortunes and an old Polaroid from a time and place in my life that was the very beginning of where I'm at now.


Looking over these things even now, they're still just material possessions. They decorate my apartment a little bit and make it feel (along with the photos I've got up on my walls) like someone with a rich and diverse personal life occupies this little space here. But I suppose I have a hard time really attaching myself to objects, hence the reason for this little exercise. Pack rat? Hardly! If I had to leave it all behind, the thing I'd actually miss is my photos - my life's work but I'd just make more. I can't say that I've ever collected anything besides those Bazooka Joe comics, and though I'm not always the MOST sociable person (though never the least either!) there is nothing more important to me than the relationships and personal experience one accrues over time. And how, really, do you catalog that?

photos from my past: boyfriend edition

I've admittedly been a very bad little photo-blogger lately. Mostly because I've been extremely busy working on a portfolio website and trying to find work but also because facebook makes it so darn easy to post photos these days that a photo-blog seems kind of redundant. So as an apology, and since most of my "readers" here are my sister's, I thought a personal offering along the lines of Georgia's "stories from my past" would be a nice gesture and help to explain why so many times, you end up here after one of her poignant personal stories only to find macro photos of bugs and flowers instead of evidence of the life of an equally deep and complex, emotional person.

* I usually hate it when a chick has to define herself by the guys she's dated, even much more so when there's been a whole movie made about the subject; though for some reason it's just slightly more tolerable if it's some dude's story and he has a funny fat friend (see: High Fidelity). I promise not to define myself by these little photo-blurbs, K?

I found this photo recently of high school BF #1 and I at a school dance. The photo was from our senior year and we were really just good friends at that point - he had turned out to be one of my best friends throughout high school even though we had dated for not much more than a month our freshman year. We met on the first day of high school and I thought he was a drug dealer because he had a pager. I completely tripped out when I saw this photo because it wasn't really that long ago, yet so much has changed for both of us. I went to his wedding a few years ago and he and his wife have a little girl now. I am so happy for him because his life was kind of a mess in high school but he's probably the happiest of all of our old friends now and completely deserves it.



Just after I found the last photo, a friend posted one from this night of just the girls on facebook with a joke about us liking that one more than the ones with our dates. I joked, "my date is dead now..." not realizing that many people either didn't know this or didn't know why. High school BF#1 was the one to call me and tell me the news about 5 years ago. At the time, I thought I didn't care. I thought I had spent so much time after our 2 year high school relationship making him dead in my mind that it was the same either way. I thought I was just pissed that I never got the chance to properly tell him off for all the shit I put up with or what a strong person I am now but years later, when the impact of his life and his death are still evident in my dreams, it is obvious to me that THIS GUY is one of the reasons I have these HUGE personal walls that are so obvious in the distinction I make between my public and private lives - no matter how much I reveal about myself it will only scratch the surface. It's only now, 14 years after our "relationship", that I can allow my closest friends to get to know me without making them feel completely shut out.


Nice rack even as a 16 year old, right?

Two years of *not* dating (seriously anyway!), and I met the guy in the next photo. I had actually met him years before and since then had been "the girl of his dreams", unbeknownst to me. At the time it was flattering and though contrary to my belief/requirement for a relationship (the chemistry should be obvious/undeniable from the very start), we were like best friends so it seemed right. I know it sounds odd but I think, in retrospect I've become somewhat detached from the whole 6 years we were together since I was so young when it started and changed so much throughout. Add to that all the experimentation with various substances, a career I know I always put before him and the friends we always called ours (but I never really felt were mine), and the fact that I just didn't know how to separate the life we had made together straight out of our parent's homes so it probably lasted a lot longer than it should have. When it comes down to it though, once you know you're unhappy, nothing matters anymore - all I wanted was my cat and my clothes. That and the refrigerator (because, for some reason, you can not rent an apartment with a refrigerator in LA) is all I took from that relationship.



It was quite the opposite with this next one. I was lugging two pelican cases along a pathway at my former job and about to intersect with another pathway when our eyes met and I almost tripped and tried to cover it up with an equally messed-up hello. We spoke maybe 5 or so times in the next year and a half that he worked there but did a lot of eyeing each other in various hallways and elevators. That's my favorite kind of chemistry - when a guy is so intimidating-hot that you can't even talk to him. (Except for this one time when I didn't realize how cute a guy was right away but liked his sense of humor. Once I realized how incredibly good looking he was, I completely lost my funny and all ability to talk to him! Bummer.) About 6 months after this guy stopped working at the former job, we started emailing and eventually got together.

Sounds ideal, right? Oh wait, did I mention our lives existed in 2 separate places? Or that he moved back to LA to be with me and it still wasn't perfect? Right after he made some huge decision to stay here/get into huge amounts of debt going to a very expensive law school, yours truly set off for a two month location job leaving him to watch my 16 year old cat in a city where he was kind of alone. Selfish? I still don't know. I still really believe that everyone (except for parents) should put themselves first. This isn't what killed it for us, this was just the beginning of the end and I obviously realize this was not a one person relationship - I didn't fuck it up all by myself but I'm not going to air his dirty laundry all over the internets because the best part about this is that I got to keep this one. As a friend, at least. He went back to his city and I stayed in mine but what we both learned about ourselves has been invaluable to each of us.



Now I promised this wouldn't be a "define yourself by the men you've dated" blog and it isn't. I'm going straight back to my bread and butter - the "unhealthy obsessions" that made me start this thing in the first place: the cat and the garden and my cooking and the intricacies of my own little microcosm of a life here on earth. It's not because I'm shallow nor because I lack the capability for the deep emotional connection that my sister so eloquently writes about in her stories but because I'm a photographer and I have been since the day I was born. It is my job to simply "point" to things (as I once heard a wise man say, possibly quoting his favorite photographer, Paul Strand, but I can't remember), which I would rather do as quietly as possible so as not to fuck up the vision with language. As much as I love language, it tends to be too ambiguous and not open to interpretation in the same way that imagery is. This is already hard for me to do because I am opinionated and chatty, not because anyone made me this way or as a reaction to some experience I had when I was younger. I neither bottle it up inside nor do I go looking for conflicts, I simply choose to keep my art and my life somewhat compartmentalized until such a point when I need to combine them (see: above), at which point I believe I excel.

Anyway, that was my long winded apology for not posting more photos recently. So are we cool? ...and that's why I stick to photos!

there once was a woman who lived in a shoe...

I noticed this cat living in my backyard and under my apartment almost immediately after turning 30, as if it was pointing out that being single and 30 officially makes me an old spinster cat lady and it was just doing me a favor by keeping me company - adorning my backyard as if it were some pretty plant I don't even have to water. Thanks spare kitty, now I really don't need a man...

No image available...yet.

When I got home last night, I saw a four-legged critter disappearing into the walkway between my apartment's little courtyard and the alley on which I park. I turned my car to shine my headlamps in it's direction, since there aren't a lot of stray cats in my neighborhood, and he didn't look like LA's usual night-stalker - the possum. At first he looked like he had the body of a big, fluffy grey cat; until he raised his head just enough to show the mask he wore over his eyes: a raccoon! I haven't seen one in years and never in the city like this. By the time I parked my car and walked through the little walkway, he was invisible in the courtyard's shadows, though he apparently lingered in my mind long enough for my subconscious to create an interesting little narrative.

I dreamed last night that I was sitting on the ground in the middle of the walkway, my waist encircled by the arm of someone I haven't seen since the summer who now sat on my left, as was customary for us. On one side of the walkway in the alley, the raccoon rested on all fours, like how cats do when resting - my brother calls this the "loaf of bread" vs. the "cinnamon roll" for which cats are also known. Dozens of little birds scattered and hopped around him, their shadows were all cast long in the late afternoon sun.

On the other side of the walkway, in the courtyard which was still vividly lit (since the setting sun wasn't blocked by the apartment as it was in the alley) a coyote creeped past my former companion and I and into the contrasting, almost colorless alley where the raccoon and the birds quietly awaited dusk. At that moment, the birds took flight and the two animals battled it out - rolling into a two toned ball in slightly varying shades of grey.

And that's just how the dream ended. What do you think it means?

let's review:

1. I have a grasshopper living in my back yard who makes me feel like a very lucky girl.



2. My sister is the cool one with the exciting lifestyle, not me.





3. I have a lime tree in my back yard.



4. I am recently single for what feels like the first time ever and have been working weird, long hours. Therefore I have nothing but condiments and beverages in my fridge like an "f"ing bachelor. Also, I never realized my name is an anagram for heal.



5. This shit cracks me up.





6.



7. Roller Disco with the sister and her lovely friends, myeah.





8. Long converging strings of light lining roads at night like this (though not the best example) make me feel like I'm very far away from home.



9. Plants grow in the direction of sunlight.



10. Me and mum.



11. "Jack Jack" the 8 week old English Bulldog (not mine) who I fell madly in love with as soon as I extended my hand to greet him and he reacted by stumbling over to it just to paw and sniff at it like an awkward puppy.



12. Fred approves wholeheartedly of our new green-fuzzy-ikea-blanket.