Lunch today at Home Wine Kitchen. Burgers that were bigger than us. Best (tastiest and messiest) belated Christmas present ever.
Q
Congrats on your promotion! Even if you don't love your job! Promotions are super duper! I work a job I don't care about either, but hey, free time? No stress? Just wanted to say hello, and I have not forgotten you, even though I've been a little absent lately. Something in the mail next week... xo TB
from:Anonymous
A
Thank you! Yeah, I really shouldn’t complain, especially since I know several people who wanted the job. Thinking about that bit makes me feel terrible, but if it’s any consolation (to myself?) I do enjoy the job more with the promotion. And no worries, I completely understand. Where did January go? I look forward the mail!
Posted January 31, 2012 at 8:31pm
soil like silk
I resent my job, but at the same time I technically got paid today to write eleven fresh pages of my play in between taking phone calls. So at least there’s that. I had my composition notebook open to a blank page and was letting my wrist push the pen around to create scribbles, lines, but no writing, as my eyes drifted toward the ceiling and I thought “I got nothin’.” But my wrist got bored with indiscriminate scribbles, so I wrote down the first line of dialogue that came to my head and felt right. And the thoughts just kept coming from every angle, all on the right track. A couple hours later, numerous phone calls (“How do you spell your name?” “C-A-I-T-L-I-N” “I-T-A-L-A…” “…Yeah.”), and eleven pages filled, I felt good. Or I had something to be proud of, at least. I got promoted last week, but I’m not sure yet just how I feel about the promotion as I’ve only had a couple training days so far for the new position and the way they train you for anything is to have a supervisor looking over your shoulder literally every moment for about five days. I feel uneasy about the promotion as well since I didn’t exactly hope to stay at this new job for too long. It’s too early yet to know if this changes things or not. My farming apprenticeship starts in a little less than two weeks. Part of me thinks, “oh, can’t we just put it off for a couple more months?” because, you know, there’s just going to be a lot of newness all at one time, but then I think about dirt under my fingernails and soil coating my hands, staining my skin and I want to burrow right in, like a mole—get me in there. The more earth on me, the better. I’m one of those people who, when hiking after a heavy rainstorm, I choose to plow through the mud rather than work my way around it. I see muddy legs as something that ought to be worn with pride. Yes, I was out there and I lapped it all right up. I’ve got mountain legs and I know how to use them.
Posted January 30, 2012 at 9:22pm
McGurk Meadows, Yosemite National Park, California, August 2010
The things my dreams are made of. (Side note: I love when my film gets messed up and actually results in something far better than what I had intended)
Posted January 30, 2012 at 8:38pm
The things that I miss about last summer am excited for as seen or reminded of in this photo taken by Maddie: painful renditions of the national anthem and how I never want to stand for the singing and refuse to cover my heart, not as a rebellious or unpatriotic gesture necessarily, but because overt patriotism feels unnatural to me and, I don’t know if you can tell from the look on my face, but most the time every time I’m just thinking “alright, let’s get to the game already”; hearing Andrew sing along to each of Jon Jay’s at bat songs and complaining about Holliday’s song choices while still singing along to them regardless, though he tries to do so in a mocking voice so as to let everyone know he doesn’t approve, but he has no other choice; judging opposing team no-name players based on their at bat photo; not caring that my ass is tiring from the bleachers come sixth inning; rolling my eyes as Andrew’s lewd or even cruel commentary on every woman that walks by; saying “holy shit” after every brilliant play or hit because for some reason that’s always the first thing that comes out of my mouth; being called unfaithful whenever the Cardinals play the Giants (which is true, I am); having my view impeded by some balding dude because, let’s face it, I’m short; eating bacon wrapped hot dogs; those extra few inches on the length of my hair; and most of all, baseball. I’m looking forward to baseball. I’m reminded this every morning when I drive to work and see the arch ahead of me, or I sit in the Fox box office and am confronted with a view down Washington all the way to downtown. I can’t see the stadium from my seat, but I know exactly where it is. And Andrew is already trying to get me to shell out $100 for opening day tickets. I don’t need opening day tickets, just as long as I go as much as I did this previous summer. I lost count.
How many mouths nature has to fill, how many neighbors we have, how little we know about them, and how seldom we get in each other’s way! Then to think of the infinite numbers of smaller fellow mortals, invisibly small, compared with which the smallest ants are as mastodons.
— John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
Posted January 27, 2012 at 10:20pm
Bruce Davidson, A Freedom Rider Sits in the Bus During a Rain Storm, with National Guardsmen Outside, 1961.
Maddie was wrong about one thing, though. These other beauties, also from 2010, are definitely the most attractive pictures to ever exist of the two of us. Let’s just say Marseilles, France is a little blustery. Like, don’t get too close to the water because do you see that sandwich floating right there? That’s from when the poor sap who was eating it got blown right into the middle of the marina.
The most attractive photographs you will ever find of Caitlin and I anywhere.
This day at Pont du Gard in southern France was extremely memorable to me. Those sandwiches were ham and butter, and there must have been about ten pats of butter on each of ours. Maybe half a stick worth. The ham was very good. The bread ripped the roof of my mouth and my gums, but god it was good, too. We sat about eating, watching families and groups of students, people in canoes. We talked a good deal about marriage and children. We took obscene amounts of pictures. Caitlin’s film ripped. The bus back to Avignon took forever, so we sat on the side of the road for an hour or so, talking about things we dreamt of doing with our lives.
My life feels so different now. I want even less now. I expect even less now. If all I ever did consisted of traveling with that woman, I’d be content. With the arguments, the snappy attitudes, the tears, the content silence, the thing about her is that she feels just as good to me as being alone. She does nothing to intrude upon happy solitude, she complements it perfectly. Makes it feel good. And I love taking her picture, among flowers, among buildings, cityscapes and mountains.
The bathroom mirror photo sessions, the unashamed attitude about showing our face in the same patisserie at least twice a day, every day, each time walking out with hands full of buttered, sugared, and creamed treasures, the arguments over wake up times, the satisfaction in finding the everything about the nothing. A year and a half later and the one thing that has always remained constant is that feeling of wonder whenever I think of our friendship—the thing is, we really are like spouses in so many ways. Like for instance: We met at a mall this past weekend to see a movie. Having arrived much earlier I parked my car and went inside to buy tickets and wait as Maddie sped her way down Manchester. When she finally reached the mall she frantically found a spot in the overcrowded parking lot and sprinted inside for fear of being late. When our movie finished and we both walked back towards our cars we found we had somehow managed to park right next to each other. I don’t know what that says, but it makes a lot of sense.
Edinburgh, Scotland, February 2010
I should be framing some of my photos. Additionally, I’ve got to start courting my film camera again—but why do I not have my own darkroom?
