So in lieu of actual photography I’ve been lazy and downloaded a set of apps for the iphone that give cheesy, completely unrealistic photo effects like the Polaroid’s above. Still, they’re fun. Also fun is watching my great-nephew play with my new puppy Olive (10 mos). The whole “a boy and his dog” thing is cute. Really.

In other news I took the summer off of workshops (and 1/3 of my work schedule) to breathe and relax and get some new ideas for writing since I seem to have hit the proverbial brick wall. Has it been working? Not really. I sped through 2 pages just in time for an informal writer’s group last week and, yes, there have been some “ideas” but on the super small, wow-that-added-a-whole-paragraph-to-my-novel scale. Maybe there is something to be said about burn out and the benefit of an actual “summer vacation.” We’ll see.

Someday, I’ll have a portfolio website and the splash page will look something like this. Someday. Why are portfolios so hard to figure out how to assemble? Photos. Artwork. Interiors. Maybe I’m just a little too scattered. Also, afraid of commitment. Bah.

Side note: it’s funny what a snapshot taken from inside a subway train, at the end of the day, absentminded, can end up being. 750 pictures. I guess one of them had to come out.

So a while ago I made the big switch to a real wordpress account at an official domain (drawingpicturesofbirds.com), but because of 50megs’ crappy wordpress platform and my crappy IT skills, its been almost impossible to get up and working correctly. Then those bastards locked me out of being able to edit the site.

I haven’t decided yet what I want to do. Maybe try and revamp this site, get it going again. Maybe stick out the fight with 50megs, transfer the site, whatever. In the meantime, you can find me via the links to your right on other social media outlets. Stay tuned.

… marriage is a civil right.

On November 1st, we threw a wedding party for my friends Rubi & Sally.  I contributed the flowers. (Purchased at Whole Foods the night before, assembled in my kitchen, dead and black in my fridge by morning. Luckily, most things go faster the 2nd time around.) The day was exhausting, but beautiful.

On November 5th, angry and heartbroken, we hit the streets of West Hollywood to protest the passing of Proposition 8. And again that weekend at Hollywood & Highland. A lot of people have asked me what I thought this accomplished. I don’t know. For me, it was a chance to stand behind my friends, licking our wounds in the comfort of a community, gathered to ask for the one thing seemingly lost in today’s world: the freedom to love and be loved. As they are. As we all are. And it felt good.

Well, Kind of.

I like to pretend I know how to build websites but, really, all I’m doing is firing off random code and praying for some kind of miracle. (On that note: anyone know how I can re-direct this blog to the new site? They’re both WordPress, but the new site is hosted at my own domain.)

There are many kinks to work out still and, for sure, it’ll take me some time… but from here on out, all my new posts will be at the new official site. (Blogging in more than one place is too much to keep up with.) I will, however, be checking in here regularly and posting calls-for-help like this one until everything has smoothing transitioned to the new digs.

Thanks for all your support and readership!

The new link: http://www.drawingpicturesofbirds.com

If I’m missing in action here for a while, it’s because I’m working on a new WordPress-based “official” website and blog (at a whole, new domain) that I hope to have up and running within a couple of weeks. Even after the launch, I’m sure there will be many, many glitches to work through… so I will keep this site up and running until all is smooth and shiney over at the new place. Also, all these posts, images, comments, etc. will be transferred over (crosses her fingers.)

In the meantime, hang tight! And thanks!

So I’m still trying to clean up my computer – hundreds and hundreds of files (especially photos) all jumbled in the black hole that’s my hardrive. What’s fun about this is coming across pictures I forgot that I’d taken. Like this one. A day getting lost in Pasadena and the peacock that stood in my way.  Finding it, an unexpected reminder to expect the unexpected. (He looks to me like a showgirl on The Price Is Right – “And here, behind door number one, we have three lovely sedans…”)

I’m thinking of submitting it to the JPG Magazine theme: Which of these things doesn’t belong… that is, if I’m ever able to find the file in high resolution (as I frantically do a search on my C Drive)

The below photos are not my own. I came across them along with many blurry others – equally wonderful – in a found collection called “What We Remember” at the site SquareAmerica.com

Its funny to me, the way we struggle to remember each detail of things. The constant quest for crisper real-life photography. A more precise documentation. The most fail-proof means of archive like to bypass our minds’ own inferior memory system. Comparatively speaking.

But maybe we’re not meant to remember so clearly. Maybe its some kind of emotional survival to gloss over the bad parts of our past. Blur out the mundane. Filter facts down to that beautiful, soft and warm little core of the moment – of the person – the place – because, without it, moving on might be hard. Also, forgiveness. Or acceptance.

Or maybe what this is about is really just some really awesome old photographs.

Ah, the muse. I need really to get me one of those. Something or someone I keep chained in the basement (which I don’t actually have) to tap into for inspiration whenever I find myself dry – like blood for the vampire.

All summer, I’ve had trouble writing new scenes. Seeing them, as writer’s say. The how and why of it is nothing I could ever begin to explain. Why do we see made up worlds in the first place? If truth is stranger than fiction, with the abundance of wild and true stories in the world, the non-writer (non-creator) might wonder why anyone would devote years of their lives on the make believe. (And, so frequently, sacrificing time with our real-life friends and family to be spent with the people that live in our heads.)

All I can says is its because they don’t feel make believe. Not this far into it. Mostly, latlely, its as though I’m working on a documentary – or penning a biography. I know a scene or piece of dialogue is right when it feels in my head like a fact. When I can see every detail of the room and the characters go about their business like I’m not even there. Like I’m not in camouflage, tucked in the corner with my pen and pad, my video camera trying to take it all down. Trying to get all the facts straight. So that I can go home and write about it when it’s over.

So what do you do when they stop letting you in the front door? When they figure you out, catch the reporter listening in on their conversations, the paparazzi in the tree out the window making their picture. And they pull down the shades. Cut the phone lines. Stop big brother from watching before you get the real dirt on them. The what it is they have hiding that makes all the rest of your facts seem like just junk for the tabloids.

Here is what my book has so far: the bones. Scenes sprinkled throughout the storyline with these holes where the real meat goes. And all I’ve got are these clues. Little scraps of things taped in a notebook that I keep trying to make sense out of. And it’s not really working.

So the writer’s block continues.. and don’t nobody it’s because I’m not trying.

Words on walls inside New York’s Central Park Zoo taken on a rainy afternoon last August, re-found almost a year to the day while cleaning up files on my laptop. This is what I love about pictures, the re-discovery part.