photobooth friday

sad but true, the old skool booth at niagara had been replaced by a digital one. what is the world COMING TO? ah, but The Great Photobooth Adventure could not, would not be stopped. there was a brief mourning period over the loss of the old booth and then there was a general feeling of outrage when the new booth refused to accept our bills (dollar bills we'd all been madly collecting over the past couple of days, breaking tens and twenties at every corner newstand with purchases of packs of gum and such). so we set off to find another booth (albeit a digital one) at a bar down the street. and then there was all the squeezing and so much sweating (check the strips, I'm the sweater), the repeated feeding of dollar bills into the skinny slot. there was a lot of moving around and trading of laps and positions and also: a creepy female digi-voice commanding us to smile every ten seconds or so but mostly, there was a lot of laughing.


(check out jesC's version here)

say what you will about blogging and flickr and being a dork about it all, I really don't care. the most magnificent aspect of this whole gig has been the meeting of new people. these women I've met along the way (and I've met so many, all of them fantastic in a hundred different ways)-- these women are my new community. when my dance company dissolved and I found myself at home with young babies, I felt like I had lost the invaluable circle of women I'd known and been unconditionally supported by for so long. I felt absolutely lost. it's a little crazy to meet people like this, I know, but it's how I've rebuilt my community-- a spectacularly supportive one made up of women who are artists, mamas, writers, crafters, fellow booth-lovers, fellow life-lovers. so, to meet up like this-- in a bar on the lower east side of new york city, just to hop into a photobooth together because we share a mutual love for it and having never met in person before but feeling inexplicably linked by the reading of each other's words on a regular basis and the viewing and admiring of each other's photographs... it's a tad surreal. and quite possibly beyond words. is what it is.

the women I danced with for so many years, they are still around. they never really abandoned me but lives shift and change. we connect from time to time and I am most grateful for that. but now I've found new ways to expand the circle and my little community of women. you all reside in so many different parts of the country and in some cases, other corners of the world.



and despite the fact that I was sweating like a pig and that there was something nutty going on with my hair-- despite my expression in the third frame (hello, I've never made that face before in my life, not ever), despite the digitalness of it all-- it's booth perfection. jessika and kristen, you are beautiful, beautiful women-- so friendly, so super smart, so fantastic. and I would gladly squeeze into a booth with you again. and again and again. in fact, I'm counting on it.

for these reasons, I am dreaming of a big photobooth friday party. don't be surprised if you get the call, boothers.

and more from my fellow booth-lovahs:

jesC
acumamakiki
leSophie
the whole self
woof nanny
a.stray
jördis
matt
scrumdillydilly