Month: April 2011

Normally I work from the back (the bedroom) to the front (the living room) which leaves all the big jobs for last. But this year I decided to do the opposite. I figured this way all the big jobs would be done first, I’d get them over with, and it would be smooth sailing from here. That might have been a mistake. I’m exhausted.

Yay about no government shutdown! This way the second my camera comes back to the shop I can run down to the Library of Congress and snap snap snap away!

Yes, I know there are more important reasons to be glad about this. Okay, back to cleaning. (I lied. I’m going to sit for a while with my coffee, browsing the internet and posting on Echo.)

But I have no camera to take a before picture. It doesn’t matter, I’m very neat so few people would see the difference between the before and after anyway. It’s going to take three days and on Wednesday I’m getting a new haircut and color as a reward to myself. This time I’m going short! I’ll use the computer’s camera to get a picture.

I went to a book reading last night. The author was Harold Goldberg, the first person to review my first book! A kindness I will never forget. The book is: All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture. The bad grammar is from a computer games in-joke.

I didn’t know these games have been around for fifty years. The earliest one I remember is Pong. From what he read it seems fascinating. I know there’s this whole world of gamers and creators, but I know nothing about it and it looks like it’s all in here.

I also need to tell the story of my recent Jeans Shopping Trauma. Why is it so hard to find a decent pair of jeans?? But I think I found them, in the most unlikely style (for me).

That’s my niece Nicole in the center, and her cousin (my nephew) Greg on the left and her brother (also my nephew) Chris on the right. (My niece Ellie is not in the shot because she wasn’t born yet!)

Aren’t they all so adorable?? The two boys look a little nervous, and Nicole is protecting them. I’m not sure what year that was taken, but they’re all grown up now. Nicole is 24 (studying nursing), Chris is 21 (finishing up school? political science? wants to work in a foreign country) and Greg is 20 (in school, serious musician). I am the aunt from hell, truth be told. I only see them once or twice a year. But they are wonderful, my loss! Karen, who comments here from time to time is the mother of Nicole and Chris.

Oh God. They said my camera repair was going to take 2 – 3 weeks, which means I won’t have it back until April 13 at the soonest. That’s my new haircut day, by the way. I think I’m going to do something short-ish. But how am I going to last??

This is a picture I took on 11th Street during the spring two years ago! It’s part of a series I took to prove that 11th Street is as lush as I describe in my singing book. I’m sure someone is going to accuse me of exaggerating. I’ve got to get another shot when the cherry blossoms are in bloom.

Going out and seeing things I want to shoot and having no camera to work with is killing me! I’m not going to last weeks without my camera. Not. Going. To. Make. It. Sigh.

This is a scan of a polaroid from a photo shoot for Fortune Magazine. I think it was 1994. I’m in a courtyard behind my building next to the phone company’s punch down block and that’s either a phone company worker or just some guy who was doing some other form of work, I forget!

That was a fun shoot though. While I was always very grateful for them, they were good for business, getting my picture taken was a tedious process. Hours of hair and make-up and stylists, which isn’t as fun as it looks on America’s Next Top Model, it’s difficult to read or do anything, so you have to just sit there. Then hours of shooting. The whole process often took an entire day. Again, I am VERY grateful for all the work people put into these pictures and the articles about Echo, don’t get me wrong, but honestly, I don’t know how models do it. This was fun because I did my own hair and make-up (I think, unless I’m remembering wrong) and that was one of my dresses, and it went a lot faster.