Eight

I just finished five days of black and white photos on Instagram. It was fun--my pictures are usually all about color, even if it's subtle. So it's good to think about light and shadow and composition (sorry, that's all a little pompous when I'm talking about iPhone 5S "photographs."). Anyway, this is the windowseat, and the upstairs hall looks way better in black and white than in real life.

Sunny, cold November Saturday: tea and toast, cat and dog. I'm not letting myself listen to NPR, but instead have soothing Pandora stations going. I'm waiting for Mark to get home with a carload of wood that we're going to fashion into a kitchen ceiling, one way or another.

Self-portrait with two sweaters and coffee.

Can you even believe it's already two-sweater season? I am having a hard time anticipating the Arctic Blast that's forecast for next week, when I'm not at all organized yet as far as long underwear and gloves and so on. I'm not ready.

You know what makes me happy? Knowing that right now Zoë and Isaac are sitting together in a cafe in New York working on their papers and pages of reading. They've spent more time together this fall than they have had the chance to do for years, and that makes me so content, just thinking about it. I miss them less when I know they're together, somehow.


Also making me happy:

: : the Serial podcast, suspenseful as any good crime drama or mystery, and I'm a fan of Sarah Koenig.
: : my fidelity, always always, to the Oxford comma. Isaac lets me proofread his papers sometimes, and I start by making sure the commas are correct (they usually are).
: : anticipating the new Decemberists album.
: : where they at doe?

These Two =

My heart.

Meander

Don't you just want to jump in that cool, clear water?

Or in one of these kayaks?

We drive around and explore this state, although we gravitate toward the coast always. The way the air feels, the way it tosses your hair around when you roll down the car windows, and in Maine there's this cold thread in the breeze almost always. I imagine it as Canadian, or Arctic, and while I'm not so in love with it in February, in July it's my favorite thing.

This girl. Look how her bindi stays attached to her forehead, despite the fact that where she is, it's like 110 degrees (no hyperbole). Can someone explain the physics of that to me, please? She is so happy, so in love with India and Jaipur and Hindi. There are hiccups here and there, of course, but the balance of


me missing her
____________

her happiness


...it just works. I can't help but mention, however, that she comes home in less than a month. For nearly a week.

And this boy, pictured here with his adoring cousin Stella. He went to North Carolina for a week of design camp and cousin-wrangling, and now we've got him back.

We've had cool/warm days and sun and rain at night, books and salads and cold drinks and movies and plays. I am a little obsessed with Instagram after months of resistance (even more so now that both of my bruddies and my mom and dad are using it--not to mention Mark and Max). You can see my Instagram photos all in one fell swoop right here, and I am mulling over Printstagram too.

dog-a-day

it's dog-a-day december™! not really, i just made that up. maybe i'll post a dog photo every day this month, and maybe i won't.

also? if i drank beer i would totally try mmm hop.

fourteen

(Unknown photographer, Portrait of three women, 19th century)



14 is my lucky number.
yesterday, on day 13, my sewing machine broke and my dog threw up all night.
i am looking forward to some excellent luck today!

eight

"Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you." -- Hafiz

pleasures wag on in thy tail

whilst taking some boudoir shots* of my best friend minnow today, i captured him in the process of falling asleep. he's a sweet boy. click on the title of this blog post to read a poem by elizabeth barrett browning, who loved her dog nearly as much as i love mine.



*joking.

every flower enjoys the air it breathes

such a lovely weekend, and i'm kicking myself for my lack of documentation. i.e. i have been bad lately about taking pictures with my picture-ma-phone* (i also made somewhat of a resolution to learn how to use mark's actual camera, but as usual i am all about planning things out in my head and not doing them in real life). anyway, on friday night we took the freshly fifteen year-old boy out for indian food at tandoor, where we met up with m. meiklejohn. we then had a bit of a poker party, complete with isaaccash, bills printed out with isaac's face where the president should be.

anthony and jason and leander also joined us, and we had a great time and ate cake, vegan devil's food with creme filling and a thick ganache to be specific.

we also skyped with zoë and max and got some glimpses of their generous host in tokyo, josh. zoë was happy to get to chat with her pals jason and david (pictured below in the rabbit costume, for zoë's amusement).

there's been rain and rain and rain, but there was some sunshine this weekend, and digging in the dirt and grilling pizza outside on the actual grill and open windows. saturday our great friend heather was in town, staying at eva's house, and we attended a fun party there, with (again) grilled foods and little kids running around and party tricks (specifically, the chair trick, which mystified everyone and was performed a dozen times as we tried to uncover its mystery, unsuccessfully). and once again, i took no photos (except for a couple of strange unflattering ones of party guests standing with their heads against the wall, their bodies bent into a ninety degree angle, and holding a small chair...never mind, it's a long story). mark and isaac played tennis with leander and megan, bowled with anthony and karen, and then played tennis again (i pulled something in my neck, so i stayed home working on my pile of library books and enjoying the breezes through the open windows. oh, and i gave minnow a haircut).

so many words, to make up for the lack of (my own) photographs! i filled up the ice cube trays. a sure sign that warm weather's on its way.

zoë and max's adventures continue, only in japanese!

*two-thirds of these photos were stolen from mark

himalayan

mark and i skyped with the travelers the morning! we were happy to hear they made it easily to dharamsala and found a hotel in mcleod ganj. the bus ride turned out to be much shorter than they imagined -- ten hours instead of sixteen. they don't even realize how intrepid they are. max's blog has his first impressions of this new part of india. they've already made a friend and bought warm clothes. they reported that there are a lot of hippies there and plenty of hippie clothes available to buy (and just then i could see a guy in a rainbow-striped sweater pass behind them in the internet cafe). max also got a few photos up on flickr. the picture above is the answer to our question, "what do the himalayas look like, max?"

there is time for work. and time for love. that leaves no other time!*

my mom sent me a link to these stunning australian mug shots that were taken in the 1920s. they're unbelievably stylish; criminals dressed so fashionably back then, and had such fabulous hair and accessories. in australia, anyway. there's a link to the sydney justice & police museum's larger collection of crime photos from a period between the 20s and the late 1950s, and they're amazing. above is the one i'd like to use on a business card or resume for myself. or, not really, but for something! look at that sewing machine just behind that dead body!

*coco chanel

parking lot crow

gray sky, perfect silhouette of a crow. it's stupid how happy it makes me to see one, even in a parking lot.

fire

the illicit-but-completely-safe-i-swear fire pit continues to burn (periodically) in my backyard, thanks to max who is single-handedly shrinking our unsightly pile of brush, one cozy little fire at a time.
















m took some gorgeous photos yesterday around the fire, and i have stolen some of them. above, boo, not just about to poke his eye out with that stick. below, max in the best gas station-purchased t-shirt ever.
















and beautiful bean.

jealousy

i want to be sharon montrose, don't you?

handsome

"like a lady in a jane austen film." -- the checkout girl

my favorite toy

playing around with MYphone -- i paid actual money (a dollar ninety-nine of it) to get this hipstamatic application. it makes cool old-style pictures, see? i love the rounded edges and square shape of the one below. it reminds me of a shoebox full of old photos.

photoshop for MYphone

i've been playing around with photoshop this morning, my favorite new (FREE) application. here is an altered photo of the wells nature reserve (the picture was gorgeous originally, but it's fun to fool around with the colors, focus, etc. i think this looks almost like a scene from another planet):

and here are some mums from the farmer's market this morning. i'm trying to do that miniaturizing thing, sort of (this really isn't focused enough in the center of the image to have that effect, but it's getting there. plus the colors are nice):

my new project

is called those glasses have become a PHENOMENON. so far, it consists of me taking pictures of myself and some dogs i know wearing these famous blue aviator glasses (which have been banned in at least one portland public school). the next time you see me, odds are i will beg you to let me take your photo while wearing them (you wearing them, that is, not me). unless they fall into the wrong hands again...

photo essay: self portrait after shoveling very heavy snow

did i mention it was very heavy snow?
























it was sleeting, too.
























mascara explosion:

holga

here's a photo of boo with his new holga camera, taken via my brand new MYphone app, camerabag! go check it out, adam!*


*since you can't really appreciate fully the polaroid-style-ness** of this photo on my blog, go to flickr to see the various forms it can take with this application: holga-esque, 1972-style, infrared, etc.

**now you can totally appreciate the beauty of this camera-thing, and all it took was a change of background color. i was wrong, though, this isn't polaroid-style. i think it's actually "1972" style.

idee

idee multicolr search lab is so cool -- choose colors from the palette and it finds gorgeous photos from flickr in your selected hues. really fun to play with!