because i must be on crack

I started yet another new photography project, in addition to the 365 songs and photos project: The Queens of the Stone Age discography in photographs (for lack of a more creative name).

It is my goal (though I have set no time limit) to represent every QOTSA song in a photograph.

When the voices in my head speak to me about new projects at 3am, I should really ignore them.

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visiting the 64 world’s fair

Saturday, we took a spontaneous trip to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, site of the 1964 World’s Fair. I hadn’t been there since my aunt took me to the fair when I was two. Wish I could remember it.

What remains standing is the pavilion and the Unisphere, both of which can be seen from the Grand Central Parkway. I loved the run down feel of the pavilion, standing under it, looking at the rust and peeled paint and the vines crawling over it, you can almost feel the ghostly presence of the past, imagining the millions of people walking through it, looking at displays of the world of tomorrow (the pavilion was actually called the Tent of Tomorrow).

Hailing itself as a “Universal and International” exposition, the Fair’s theme was “Peace Through Understanding,” dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe. (wiki)”

That sounds like the title of an album by some indie band.

Here’s a video of what the fair actually looked like. And a slideshow. And a really neat home movie. A site dedicated to the 64 fair.

And how the fair looks today, through my eyes.

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visiting the 64 world’s fair

Saturday, we took a spontaneous trip to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, site of the 1964 World’s Fair. I hadn’t been there since my aunt took me to the fair when I was two. Wish I could remember it.

What remains standing is the pavilion and the Unisphere, both of which can be seen from the Grand Central Parkway. I loved the run down feel of the pavilion, standing under it, looking at the rust and peeled paint and the vines crawling over it, you can almost feel the ghostly presence of the past, imagining the millions of people walking through it, looking at displays of the world of tomorrow (the pavilion was actually called the Tent of Tomorrow).

Hailing itself as a “Universal and International” exposition, the Fair’s theme was “Peace Through Understanding,” dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe. (wiki)”

That sounds like the title of an album by some indie band.

Here’s a video of what the fair actually looked like. And a slideshow. And a really neat home movie. A site dedicated to the 64 fair.

And how the fair looks today, through my eyes.

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dear britney…

I found this while looking for something else. It’s from 1999, when DJ was six years old and absolutely in love with Britney Spears.

I think if he wrote fan letters now they would run more toward Sean Avery or A-Rod, not insane pop stars.

He’s going to kill me if he sees this, but I don’t care. What’s a little public ridicule from your mother in return for all the teenage boy angst he has made me suffer through?

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is that a poem in your pocket?

Thank you to Dani for reminding me that April is National Poetry Month and today, New York City marks the 6th annual Poem in Your Pocket Day in honor of that.

It didn’t take me long to pick the poem I would carry around today. Perhaps this is a bit of a cliched pick, but this poem has always meant a lot to me and I’ve repeated the last stanza – especially the last two lines – to myself many times when I was feeling beaten down. I used to recite these words with the hope that I could make myself believe them about myself. Now I can read this poem with conviction. I don’t know that I will read it aloud to anyone during the day, though I do have tentative plans to escape the office at lunchtime and drive to the local park for some picture taking. I can almost imagine myself standing in the middle of the park, on a soapbox, reciting this poem in dramatic fashion.

Hah, not really. Maybe I’ll just make copies and pass them out to people who look like they would appreciate it.

What poem will you carry in your pocket today?

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

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placeholders

Just wanted to scroll that last post down, so here’s some pictures.

Meantime, thinking of writing again. Miss it a bit.

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soar

Tomorrow will be one year since my brother in law died. It’s one of those things where you say “I can’t believe it’s been a year already,” and in the same breath say “Wow, what a long year.”

I have a fixation with anniversary dates. My whole family does; maybe it’s a Catholic thing, maybe it’s an Italian thing. I don’t know. But we mark anniversaries, good or bad, on our calendars like the dates are supposed to have some magical meaning. Maybe in the case of wedding anniversaries, that’s fine. But in the case of death, we’re only marking the passage of time and, why?

Maybe I know. I think my sister has been waiting for this day just to put that first year behind her. All those first days without him – the birthdays, the holidays – were the most difficult and now that all of those have been marked off the calendar, will it get easier? I think it does. I think it already has for her, in many ways. She seems to breathe easier now, to not get caught up in tears at the mere mention of his name.

I think I need this anniversary as well. It’s been a year since I was traumatized (literally) by the events of that morning. It’s time to put that behind me and stop seeing it play out in my head at 3am, to stop asking myself what I could have done differently in the days and weeks and years before it had happened. Nothing. I know that know. I couldn’t have changed anything, no matter how much I would give to be able to do that, to make everything turn out differently.

I also think that part of the reason I keep the details of that morning in my head is this weird sense of guilt that my sister’s life fell apart just when mine was finally coming together. In many ways, this past year has been the best of my life. There have been so many positive changes, so much growth and freeing myself from things that held me down, and finding things that have lifted me up. It’s been, for me, a year of joy and happiness and this self-made guilt tugs at me, that I should live so joyously at the same time my sister was consumed with sadness. The fact that we share (different parts of) the same house makes it the harder. At first I didn’t want to let her see my happiness, as if I was gloating, which I was not.

But I realize a few things now. My sister needed to see that happiness. She needed a sense of joy around her. And she needs to see how someone can come from a dark, depressing place that felt like it was endless and see, and feel, the light at the end, and then walk into that light and live.

Today, we will all to to a mass for my brother in law, and then we’re going to brunch with my family and his family. It sounds like a celebration, and maybe it is. Maybe it’s a way of saying – a year ago we were gathered in sadness, and now let’s gather in peace and hope. We can laugh now, we can smile without feeling guilty, we can remember without breaking down, we can look for the light and fly into it, knowing that there’s so much ahead.

Lisa and Rob met when they were 17, and were together since then. That’s 20 years of a life with someone. You don’t just put that behind you and move on; he will always be a part of her, especially when they have an adorable son who has his father’s mischievous smile. But I do hope she can put mourning behind her, leave some of that sadness behind and enjoy the life before her. That’s all I want for my sister, is for her to feel some freedom, feel the wind at her back and look at the wide open space in front of her, and soar.

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This is where I vacationed as a child for many, many summers. It’s my aunt’s summer house in upstate, NY.

I had a lot of fun there as a kid, doing things I thought I hated – swimming, boating, hiking, getting shot at with bb guns by my cousins. Ok, I did hate that part. But I have mostly fond memories of spending summers in the woods.

The last time I was there was 2005. We hadn’t been to the house in many years and I was looking forward to detaching from my everyday life – no cell phones, no internet, no noise, no traffic or work. Just connecting with nature for a few days, enjoying the quiet, hoping to get some sense of tranquility.

Instead I found that things change as you get older. Your life shapes your outlook on everything and things you once thought were wonderful become frightening.

The quiet that was so comforting as a kid had become claustrophobic. Laying in bed at night looking out the window to complete, utter blackness, I felt like I was suffocating. I’d listeng for anything besides the occasional sound of a bat slamming into a window. Nothing. Just blackness and an absolute quiet that was deafening. It was like existing in a void. I would get up, walk out to the deck and look up at the stars. Take some deep breaths. Look out into the darkness and see the outline of the lake and think about the depth of it in the middle, the way it stretches out far and wide to the right. The vast sky. The darkness. The openness.

It might seem weird to be both claustrophobic and afraid of wide open spaces, but when you think about it, it’s one and the same thing. And when those two things collide – the suffocation of the darkness and quiet, and knowing that there is nothing out there for miles around – well, it wasn’t a very good combination.

I think my fears tend to be heightened or diminished by things that are going on in my life. That was certainly not a very good time. The loneliness I felt while laying next to someone who neither understood more fears nor cared about them made it even worse. I spent three restless nights upstate flitting between panic attacks and nightmares.

When we finally got home – and I mean minutes after walking in the door – I had a full blown anxiety attack that necessitated a ride in an ambulance.

Anyhow, to make a long story even longer, we are going back upstate this summer. I’ve faces most of my fears and conquered a majority of them since 2005. My life is different, my outlook is different and I am not so afraid of the deep darkness that awaits me up there. I want take the boat around the lake without thinking I’m going to capsize and drown. I want to hike in the woods with my kids and explore the trails and take a zillion photos of every speck of nature I see. And I want to sleep outside on the deck and be amazed at the amount of stars we can see, and do that with someone who appreciates the beauty of it and also understands that I might be a little afraid.

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