26 May 2004, 10:45 ayem
It has not been a good several days.
The windows came. They were the wrong size. The carpenter or his assistant managed to tear a giant hole in the dining room wall. I spent several days arguing with the building supply company about how I didn't create this problem, thus I shouldn't have to fork over more cash for the right windows.
While the fine folks over at Cofer Brothers were sitting in a circle rationalizing why I should be the one to pay, another person across town was crawling through one of my windows that so urgently needs to be replaced and helping himself to my computer and some jewelry, and sitting on my bed and rifling through my underwear drawer.
Dealing with the practical aspects of it all has been a pain in the ass, and spending TWO HOURS AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES on the phone with Earthlink and speaking with TWENTY SEVEN people to have my stolen DSL modem replaced did nothing for my mood or my already too-high stress levels. The 27 person I spoke with was a young man down the street from my office in their corporate office. I'm pretty sure he complied because I made it a point to tell him how aggravated I was and that I could walk from my office to his.
Suffice it to say that I'm not dealing as well as I feel I should. That has me as worried as anything else, because I'm really good at dealing with things.
18 May 2004, 11:16 ayem
She's 29 and holding...
Today is my sister's birthday! She rocks my world, and she's rocking yours too, whether you know it or not.
17 May 2004, 4:07 peeyem
Well. I have air conditioning again. And I have satellite and Tivo. And a remote I don't remotely understand. But it's cool in my house and I can lie on the sofa and watch television. I'm a simple woman with simple needs.
I do not, however, have a kitchen trashcan. This is because I have a very specific one in mind and while the Container Store has two of them, the paint job is not very good and I'm just not going to settle for one with a crappy surface. The guy at the store offered me 10% off. 10% off? Why do I want to pay less money for it to look bad? I'd just as soon pay full price and have it look nice. I know, I know, it's only a trashcan, but I'm used to a certain standard of kitchen trashcan and I'm not willing to settle for less. Settling for less is just the sort of thing that gets us into horrible fixes.
Because I have such a busy, active social life, I spent Saturday evening in the darkroom with my friend Tom. I had taken a roll (see May 12 entry) of non-posed portrait-type photos that I was itching to see enlarged. Every time I do this, I forget how much I hate printing contact sheets - hate, hate, hate it. It took me something like five tries to get it right and then I was off to the races.
Making prints should be a somewhat formulaic process, but I'm sort of willy-nilly about the whole thing. Too dark? Expose it for two less seconds. Too grainy? Use a lower numbered filter. Prints turning yellow? Fix them for longer. Not only that, I don't like making test strips, so I tend to use a lot of paper. Photo paper, if you are not aware, is not cheap. In view of that, today I took myself over to the big Wolf on 14th and bought a giant box of 5x7 paper, since it's apparently my biological imperative to use many sheets.
This whole paper thing is not limited to my life in the darkroom. I like all sorts of paper. In fact, I like paper so much that I hoard sheets of it and had to buy a little Bisley cabinet to keep it all in, because once it's wrinkled, of course, it's no good.
But enough about me. What do you think of me?
Ever read the Geneva Convention?
14 May 2004, 4:11 peeyem
Well. I have seen the Berg footage. I'm not posting the link here for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that my two nephews look at this site sometimes and I don't want them clicking on it.
Do I think everyone should see it? No, probably not. It's not a good marker as a rite of passage. More than the fact that it's horrifying, it has touched off a little crisis of faith in me, and despite (or because of) my denominational feelings, faith has brought me this far.
I know what I'd do if I were in charge, but I'm not posting that here either. Well not right here. It's on this site though; if you've looked around, you can find it easily.
12 May 2004, 4:43 peeyem
I have some film that needs to be processed and then I need to print it. I don't really feel like processing it myself, but I do want to print it myself. The thing is, it only takes about an hour or a little less to process the roll, but it needs to dry for 6 hours or so before you can print it. It seemed to me a good idea to take it to one of the Wolf stores and ask them to process it and not cut it.
So off I went with my roll of 400TX film. Which not just every Tom, Dick, and Harry uses. I mean, it's out there, but it's a pretty specific thing to be looking for and it's not in so many places that you'd really end up with it by accident. There are, of course, other black and white films out there, and they can be processed in color chemicals, run right through the machines. 400TX cannot be.
I asked the gentleman at the counter to please process this, but don't cut it. He then gave me the song and dance about how this is old fashioned black and white film and that other films are available to me, and that this would take several days and I should switch to the other kind.
When he paused to breathe, I merely said, "So where can I get this processed by, oh, say, Friday, so I can print it?"
Again he launched into his schpiel and even pointed to the wall of film, the very wall from which I bought the roll I want processed.
As I was backing out the door, he was still talking. I wanted more than anything to say, "Dude. If I weren't a photographer, I wouldn't have this film to start with." But what are you gonna do?
At some point we're going to have to talk about Nick Berg. I just don't have it in me today.
11 May 2004, 4:26 peeyem
John Phillips died. You probably didn't know him. I didn't know him much either. We went to Young Harris together, but different circles and all that. Which seems a little strange, if you know Young Harris at all. Young Harris is a little school. I don't think there were more than about 400 people there when I was there, and we were packed in pretty close together. About all I knew about him was he had red hair and lived in Peel. I think he might have been a Phi Chi, but maybe not. Anyway. He died. And he was just my age, and I lived maybe a hundred yards from him and the sum total of my knowledge of him is that he had red hair and was tall and lanky.
Weird.
In the ongoing house chronicles, I have now had the toilet replaced. I didn't trust the one that was in there from the moment I laid eyes on it. It was too small, and it rocked. And it was and Elkin or some such as that. Toilets should be American Standard or Kohler, and they should cost $100. Any less than that and you will find yourself sitting on the floor, your butt covered in porcelain lacerations, up to your hips in toilet water. Any more than that is just overkill and pure damn trashy and wretched excess.
Also, I had to call the plumber because there was a leak under the kitchen sink. The nimrod who did the plumbing under there cut a few of the PVC pipes too short so they didn't meet up like they ought to. And the bathroom sink has had a leak behind it, so I had that fixed too.
The AC went out on Friday, just before the tea party I had on Saturday, but the Ace & A guy came yesterday and has ordered the part and will come back Friday to install it. Meanwhile, thank the Lloyd I'm housesitting starting today, because I cannot be hot.
And, finally, the window man is planning to come late next week to start putting in the new windows.
As soon as I finish unpacking, I'll be delighted with myself.
Living
in the
Past?
2004
2003
2002
