more is more

I like it here. I like the quiet, I like how every draft feels like a fresh piece of paper. I'd like to keep showing up here with words and photographs, I'd like to maintain the flow. I don't know if I'll be able to, but I'm going to try. I don't want to be known for my ebb. would rather be remembered for my flow.

I know I'll look back at these entries in five or ten (or even twenty) years and see myself through a terrifically specific lens and I'll be grateful for it. I think my children will too. 

thank you kindly for reading, friends. onward and upward! december, she waits. 

this time last year

november 2016's sixty second photograph and if I've learned anything at all in life, it's to keep the words 'thank you' on mindful repeat. thank you, thank you, thank you.

(music by my favorite, mr. moses sumney)

collected

26th street fleamarket// new york city// may 2016

rose festival city fair photobooths// portland, oregon// june 2009

junk shop// decatur street// new orleans// september 2014

my bathroom mirror// portland, oregon// 11/11/11

madrona motor court inn// avenue of the giants highway 101// phillipsville, california// june 2014

bollywood theater// portland, oregon// october 2015

16 to savannah, georgia//september 2017

oregon state line// cross country move// march 2007

howard finster's paradise garden// summerville, georgia// march 2015

wigwam village motel// cave city, kentucky// august 2010

wigwam village motel// cave city, kentucky// june 2017

rasmussen farm// hood river, oregon// october 2009

flutter// mississippi street// portland, oregon// january 2010

99-W drive-in concession stand// newberg, oregon// september 2013

amy's bathroom mirror// portland, oregon// september 2010

victoria's bathroom mirror// san francisco// october 2010

26th street fleamarket// new york city// may 2016

union station// portland, oregon// january 2011

lakewood fleamarket// atlanta, georgia// september 2005

yet absolutely, exactly, there

"it's a pleasure for me. the process of photographing. being physically in the world, eyes open, attentive, sensing, and at some point, connecting. to be in the world and of the world. to be, at the same time, out of your head, yet absolutely, exactly, there. it's thrilling when your eyes get ahead of your brain."

-henry wessel

puffy vests and garnet rings and sunsets

my friend tracy lost her mom this week, unexpectedly. I cried when I heard, could feel the heartbreak one hundred times over.

today, she wrote something really beautiful.

beautiful because it comes from a deeply brave and honest place, but also because it comes from a deeply painful, nearly unthinkable place. I love her for writing it. I know how hard it was. I wish I didn't, but I do. I know. 

tracy, your mom would have been so proud. you will see her in every wide open sky, every technicolor sunset, she will show up again and again in the most unexpected places. I know this to be true. I do. 

cabins, plural

well. I really fell off the nablopomo wagon. and I was doing so well there, folks. I WAS DOING SO WELL. lemme tell you what happened. 

first, I spent last weekend at a friend's cabin nestled in the woods, far, far away from internet connection. then I spent four more days in a different cabin, nestled in a different woods, also far, far away from any internet connection. and I knew this might happen but I think maybe I thought there might be super magical internet powers floating around out there in the woods.

as it turned out, there were no super magical internet powers floating around out there in the woods.

which, actually, was a good thing. a great thing, a terrifically magical thing. real time without internet or cel phone reception is the new american luxury, folks. I read books, wrote with a real pen on real paper, played board games, built fires, roasted things. and talked. a lot. to be clear, these are all things I do in real life, but it's an entirely different experience without the monstrous distractions we now all live with every day. we listened to the radio. not spotify, not itunes, the radio. THE RADIO. I did not realize this option still existed outside of the car. 

nablopomo streak blown (quite monumentally, I might add) but for nearly six days, I did not feel the pull to compulsively check things every ten minutes. as it turned out, I needed real internet-free time. I really needed it. like, bad. 

this is a picture I did not take

of ava in her dingy pajama bottoms and her pink star wars tee shirt, dancing to the cure in front of the fireplace of the old cabin in the woods where we stayed this past weekend, while sun poured in through paned windows and I made pancakes in accidentally odd shapes and celebrated every time I managed to successfully flip one over.  

a word

to the woman who sat behind me and sobbed during the noon showing of Lady Bird, I feel you.

tabs

six tabs currently open on my computer:

1. cooking with zora neale hurston

2. muriel's wedding is a feminist masterpiece and more relevant than ever

3. stephen shore on why young photographers really need to start with film

4. the black excellence of khalil joseph

5. susan sontag on being a writer

6. whitewashing nola

look, I really would like to read all these articles but am having trouble finding the time, what with all the buzzfeed quizzes and the netflix shows.

to all seven of you who are reading, please vote: which one should I read first.

p.s. I am done with question marks.

p.p.s. I have only three free articles left over at the new yorker. please choose responsibly.

and now tomorrow is today

and what I can tell you about my time last year in new orleans with friends is that, in the simplest of terms, it made me glad to be alive.

and not just because we took the train down and talked and talked (and talked) and stared out the window at all the tiny southern towns along the way. or because the place we stayed at felt like a hundred year-old three-storied dollhouse complete with a cherry red spiral staircase, a bed tucked up in the attic and a wall full of old mirrors.

and not just because when we ate beignets at cafe du monde, we realized that everything (and everyone) seemed to be covered in a fine dust of powdered sugar, including the boots our server was wearing. or because when we wandered into a downtown casino and I gambled for the very first time in life, I won exactly one cent. and have the payout receipt to prove it. or because we rode bikes down magazine street all the way to audubon park and felt like we were nine years-old all over again.

and not just because music was everywhere and everything tasted like love and for exactly 72 hours, we meandered up and down streets and through old cemeteries with no particular route or schedule in mind.

not just because of all these things, but because (and this is not news)-- real time with real friends is like nothing else in this world and the older I get the more I realize how profoundly important it is. cheaper than therapy and with more laughing and if you do it in new orleans, there will probably be breakfast sandwiches made with doughnuts. 

nola, twenty sixteen

new orleans, twenty sixteen, with my friends: photographs tonight, words tomorrow. 

sometimes you need to hear it

(scrawled on the beams of the brooklyn bridge, found while walking across it on the 29th of july, 2016)

things considered, over the course of the last seven days

how much banana bread is too much banana bread

can I pull off stripes

do I even care if I can't, since I will wear them anyway

can I convince everyone I know to go see the florida project

will everyone fall in love with it like I did

will I care if they don't

can I convince everyone I know to shun facebook

will I care if they don't

should I start a professional facebook deactivators club

should we have satin jackets with our names on the back

will I care if I'm the only member

is this president real

are we still living this nightmare

will anyone notice if I just hide in the bathroom and read all day

can I just wear leotards in place of clean underwear

would it just be faster to order new underwear from amazon than to go to the laundromat

could I live with myself if I actually did that

will I ever not be going to the laundromat

can I lowkey audit ava's AP lit class

can the marigold be my new signature flower

how much soup is too much soup

girls on film

new orleans with friends, october 2016. new orleans with friends, I highly recommend it. 

(along with a polaroid land 250 and some fuji FP-3000b, if you can swing it)

(more nola to come, more more more)