365 Photo Project - Day 195

Taken: July 14, 2010

Location: Healdsburg, Ca

365 Photo Project - Day 173

Taken: June 22, 2010, approx. 6:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

This is my favorite oak around here. I used to drive past it on my way to and from town but now I have to go out of my way to see it. I'm sorry I'm not posting much these days -- life is just kicking my ass but good. I'd rather get these images up then wait another day. I'll write more soon.

365 Photo Project - Day 162

Taken: June 11, 2010, 8:30 p.m.

Location: Healdsburg, Ca

It's been so lovely the past few days, I've been taking some time to sit outside late into the evening. It's a luxury this time of year when daylight holds on almost to 9 p.m. and I don't want to miss.

This is a shot of our backyard. There's cattle pasture beyond the fence and out and up that hill, you can hike to a spot where I'm told you can see the whole of Healdsburg at least. I'm gonna get my ass up that hill one day soon. Don't worry, I'll lug my camera up there with me.

365 Photo Project - Day 141

Taken: May 21, 2010, 7 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

Here I am, writing and filing two posts within a few minutes of each other. I'm telling you, this shit ain't easy.

I have a friend who is very sick and has been on life support for much of the last week. She's a lawyer and a tireless volunteer for a nearby pug rescue. She has come to the aid of many needy pugs and adopted a few herself. It was through her that we found our youngest pug, Chamuco.

I don't know this woman particularly well, but we've had some long phone calls about pugs and life and a dinner or two when I've had to bring my other pug, Louie, down to UC Davis veterinary hospital. There was a moment apparently when her condition was so grave, we weren't sure if she would make it. But she's relatively young and very tough and she has shown some signs of improvement. Her friends and family are hopeful, as am I.

What has really amazed and inspired me is the outpouring of love and support she has received from all over the world. This is what community is all about.

While many people have offered prayers of a religious nature and are talking about the power of God's word, I think there's something else entirely going on here. I think I've said this here before, but I don't believe in religion per se. I believe in spirituality, however that may come to you or work for you. If you want to go to church or temple or dance naked in the woods, it doesn't matter to me. Just don't try to sell your Way to me. Seriously, I think proselytizing should be illegal.

I do believe in positive thinking. I think that sending positive vibes out into the world can do some good. I mean I'm not saying that a group of people all thinking the same thing can make an elephant float in the air, but I do think energies can be created.

And if I can bring this back down to earth, there is no practicality in worrying. Most of the time what we worry about happening not only hasn't happened yet but probably isn't going to happen, Not in the way we expect. And really, what we want to have happen often isn't what needs to happen. This is all that ridiculousness that people get bogged down in, the idea that our futures need to unfold in a very specific way for us to be happy. Well I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that it's all bullshit.

So I guess what I'm saying is why not think positive thoughts and while you're at it, why not spread the love?

I don't know and I don't think anybody knows why our friend has come back from the brink. And I don't even think it's important to dwell on the reasons why. But I do know a lot of folks are thinking about her and I'd like to believe that the sum total of all that positive energy has had an effect on her cautious recovery.

What it does prove for certain is that our friend has touched a lot of lives, two legs and four legs alike, and if there's one truth that I know for sure, it's that if you put love out in the world, it will come back to you one thousand times over.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, as my friend's recovery is still in progress, but my favorite part of the story so far is of her rescued pug Betty who was brought to the hospital in hopes of providing her comfort. Betty, a little black pug with a face whitened by age, curled up at her owner's feet as she lay there on a ventilator unable to speak and unconscious. Yet I'm told that she reached out to touch her pug at one point. And Betty, being a pug, curled up and went to sleep. Reportedly her snoring could be heard throughout the ICU.

Clearly, there was a connection between them that could not be broken, that spoke to each of them, even when one of them simply could not speak. If you want to put a name to it, fine. But I'd like to believe there's magic at work here.

Is it any wonder that God spelled backwards is dog?

As a matter of fact, I know there's a connection between pets and their owners. I think sometimes we tend to ascribe human feelings and thoughts to animals and I think that's probably presumptuous of us. But I do believe that they understand us and love us and we can form bonds with them that are as strong as the bonds we form with each other. If that doesn't make you put a positive thought out in the world, then nothing will.

I'll be keeping my friend in my thoughts as long as she needs them. But I'll also be thinking of Betty, for I have confidence in the power of the pug. I expect if more people believed in that, the world would be a wonderful place.

Told you I was an optimist.

365 Photo Project - Day 113

Taken: April 23, 2010, 6:00 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

I had some technical trouble today (that's Friday the 23rd to be precise) - my camera's batteries went dead and I forgot to charge my backups. Big oops. I had just enough juice to get off one shot.

I got lucky with it twice. The first was that it came out reasonably well and the second was that while it's a view I've taken many times, the angle is discernibly different than the previous captures. Good omens all around.

Perfect timing, too.

Thank you to those of you who sent me words of encouragement since my last couple of post. Maybe it goes without saying, but knowing y'all are out there makes this project that much more worthwhile. I mean I could write it in a vacuum and really, that's how it started but what would be the fun in that. A writer writes to be read (a few notable exceptions on the Salinger, J.D. team) and there is no greater incentive to push onward that knowing there is a faithful audience out there somewhere hanging on your every word, more or less.

Like I've said in recent posts, I knew this would happen. After all, we talk every day here and you can't help but get to know each other a little bit. Not only are rough roads inevitable but so are hits to my generally cheery disposition. Nature of the beast as they say.

You guys seems to understand this more than I did and I appreciate those of you who said it to me plain. Yes, it's about pushing forward, weathering the bad days, navigating the pot holes but it's also about the simplicity of just doing. Shoot first, ask questions later. Or as I like to remind myself, write, don't think.

More good stuff has arrived by way of the final blooming of spring. Wide open landscape as far as the eye can see with nary a cloud to spoil a sky that is - as Bruce once said -- "unbearably blue." And then some. This kind of weather is like a drug to my, salvage for my soul. I can't experience it without taking its full measure and without it taking mine. Spring is my time of year, when the Mets are always in contention and for me anything is possible.

And it's going to be some hell of a spring, too. Two more weeks on my current project and then it's a self-imposed deadline to finish the new novel rewrite by the end of May. I've never felt so physically connected to finishing a project. Getting to the end of this book is like a redemption, like the act of writing The End will somehow free me of a disease inside me. I must finish, I must finish now.

As soon as I'm done writing my current script, I'm diving head first off the high board and into the deepest part of the pool. Sink or swim and hold my breath the whole way. It's gonna be a bitch and a half but it oughta be a blast too. I'm looking forward to the challenge and to beating back some old demons of mine and maybe finding out a little more about myself in the process. Be something more to share with you.

I shot this with my K100D and edited it Photoshop with a very light application of the Topaz labs filters that I'm trying out for 30 days.

365 Photo Project - Day 99

Taken: April 9, 2010, 1 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

Gonna be another quickie today.  I'm so deep into my script right now that I find my mind is empty of anything but what I'm writing about. That's the thing about writing. Sometimes I find I'm so focused in the world of my creation, that I can't even hold a decent conversation. And to know me is to know that I talk. A lot. So when I'm at a loss for words, it's pretty unusual.

I have discovered in the last week that I love having an office outside the house. I've had a little one-room office in my little town for about year and although it's a mess and not very well organized, I get a lot done here. I love taking a break in the middle of the day and walking (or driving) the short distance to the main part of town. I'll get my coffee at my favorite coffee place and drop in on my friends at various establishments. I love making the little circuit, seeing the same people, gabbing about stuff -- the familiarity of it used to be shocking (I've lived in big cities most of my adult life) but I've come to really rely on it.

I happen to be writing a script that takes place in a small town so living in one has been a pretty good education. Even though the town I'm writing about will have to be more insular, more risque and volatile (it's TV after all), the lessons are the same -- both good and bad. I mean in a small town you find that knowing everybody and them knowing you (or at least know of you) is a great thing on some days and an awful thing on others. The trick is to figure out if it's a good day or a bad day. Believe me, it's not always that cut and dry.

I shot this with my K100D and I was going to tell y'all how I got this image but somehow I think it will rob it of its magic. I'll just say it was barely edited in Photoshop, just a click or two.

365 Photo Project - Day 98

Taken: April 8, 2010, noon
Location: Healdsburg, CA

This is going to be a very quick drive-by post. I'm working late tonight writing, trying to find the rhythm of a script that's due in a ridiculously short amount of time.  And right now, said script is kicking me five ways to Sunday and then some. (Otherwise I wouldn't be here right now). But fair warning: for the next few days, deadlines will take precedence over blog lines.

I must say just one small thing about the day. It was breathtakingly perfect.  Warm and comfy, with skies so clear and blue they made me want to cry. The true grace of it was the crisp early-spring breeze that tempered the heat, that made it possible to stand outside your favorite coffee shop and lean against a parked car and talk to a friend you just happened to run into as the sun was taking its final bows for the day.

Days like today I just want to live in eternal springtime.

The shot here is out in that cool-ass backyard our ours. It's similar to an image I used back on Day 18 -- taken through a canopy of the oaks that surround the house. Interesting to see how the view has changed from January to today.  And also how differently I'm looking at the same landscape. One thing I hope is that I'll learn and grow as a photographer over this project and going back to the same places over and over will tell that tale.

This was taken with the trusty K100D, which has been a little cranky lately -- starting to worry it won't make it through the year with me  (anybody have friends at Pentax?) -- but there's no turning back now. Not with day 100 quickly approaching. Anyway, I gotta hunker down for another hour or two. Catch y'all on the flip side.

365 Photo Project - Day 95

Taken: April 5, 2010, noon
Location: Healdsburg, CA

I spent all day Monday parked in front of the television watching baseball games with a friend, talking about the upcoming season and seeing how our personal predictions were bearing out in the tiny sampling of opening day.

My Mets won -- apparently they're really good at winning on opening day -- and they looked very professional in the process (while their opponents looked like the Mets did last year). Not sure what to make of this but I'm all for crisp, fundamentally-sound baseball. Not something I've seen a lot of by my boys in recent years.

After baseball, we watched the NCAA title game -- what a game for the ages -- and my husband made a great meal of black bean soup, grilled shrimp and brown rice. By the time, everybody left and the dishes were done, I was way too tired to post there.

I've been at my desk writing since mid-morning and just now taking a break, thinking about my afternoon tea run and getting some sunshine and maybe snapping a photo or two for this project. The Internets are alive with news about my friend David's funeral arrangements and his family has been kind enough to post remembrances and even old photos about him on his blog and Facebook. It's hard to see them and not be sad again but, at least with me, he talked some about his family and how proud he was of them and I know he helped them out a lot. So it's wonderful to see how much they loved him too.

Getting to the funeral will be tough for me. My discretionary funds are low these days and booking last-minute flights across country is a treatise on how to get fucked by the travel industry. I have a day or two to figure out if I can swing it.

In case you ever wonder if the universe has any designs on any of us, it's worth noting that George Clinton and P-Funk are playing D.C.'s 9:30 Club on the night of David's funeral. That's David Mills, co-author of a book on and majorly fan of everything P-Funk. Karmatastic, I'd say.

The image above is of one of the blue oaks in the fields outside our house. The tree flowers are all in bloom -- they popped out suddenly after the last rains -- and everything smells of spring. I think it smells of spring -- all I got in my nose are damned allergies. Anyway, I caught this with my K100D and a 200mm lens and did very little editing in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 93

Taken: April 4, 2010,  5:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, CA

I didn't sleep well last night. I had to use an Ambien in the first place, but one of the pugs got sick overnight and my husband woke me up cleaning up after him. It was just after 3:30 a.m. Normally falling back to sleep isn't hard for me but I've just got too much going on in that head of mine so I spent the rest of the night staring up at the ceiling, thinking about stuff nobody wants to think about in the wee hours of the morning.

I couldn't sleep in because my husband and I planned on hitting the Santa Rosa Farmers Market early. While he did the shopping (like I told you, he's the only cook in this family), I played Scrabble with friends while they sold handmade sausage from their stand. I even got a bit of material -- I've always got my writer's ears peeled in crowded places.

Tonight we had a surprise visit from two great friends and we ate clams we bought at the market and my husband's homemade brandade and then we did some grilling. Wine, good friends, meat, a little music (and oh yeah, the NCAA's playing in the background) made for a very nice evening.

I didn't want to see anybody tonight. I wanted to go home, take a nap and stay in bed and not deal. But I'm glad my friends got me up and about. Sometimes you don't realize when you need human contact, especially someone like me who prefers her own company (and perhaps a pug or two).

My friend Susie and I spoke today about our friend David. She hasn't been able to stop crying while I find I can't cry at all now. Weird. We've both still kind of floundering with this whole new reality, with missing David, with the shock and surprise of it all still so fresh in our minds that both of us have found ourselves independently wishing it's just a big cosmic mistake.

I hope y'all will forgive my musings about death lately. I'm having a hard time dealing with my friend's passing and this is one of the few places where I can work my way through the shit that's churning in my gut.

We had a break in the rain today and I got a shot I've been trying to capture ever since we moved here last May. There's a tree set on the top of the hill in the back and I love the way it seems alone against the big sky, way up there in the distance. This is the closest I've gotten to capturing it as I see it in my mind. I used the K100D, the 200mm lens and edited very lightly in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 84

Taken: March 25, 2010, Noon
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

I'm afraid I don't have much to say today, either. It's Thursday and I had to really bear down to get my allotment of pages done so I can make my personal deadline by the end of the week. Now, I'm running home to make dinner. For anyone who knows me, this is a risky venture to say the least as my cooking skills border on the nonexistent. But my husband, the gourmand of the family by a good measure, put down the gauntlet. He challenged me to make the sweet and sour stuffed cabbage rolls that I used to make when I was in college. The best way to get me to do something is to say I can't do it. I'm a sucker that way.

Credit my parents. They made me a believer, always telling me there was nothing I couldn't accomplish, always reminding me the world was my oyster, out there for the taking, out there for whoever wanted it more. So okay, I'm way more cynical about life now. I'm not going to ever play shortstop for the New York Mets. I realize there are forces at work that want to crush your spirit, that do not care how pure your heart or noble your cause. People lie, they cheat, they fail you. They also die. Shit happens and it happens at the most inopportune moments and lightning, when it's bad, does strike twice. At least. Assholes and dickheads get rewarded. You can work hard, leave it all there on the page and still end up unemployed at the end of the day. The school of hard knocks spares no one.

My friend says everything, good and bad, is an opportunity for learning and growing. I realize there's a bit of Zen in that, that it requires a view of the world that isn't beaten and world weary. It requires a certain amount of charity for humanity, which if you've lived through the Bush Administration for example, you know can be a very hard idea to wrap your head around. Seriously, it's hard to view the world that way. Everybody knows the losses can suck and suck the life out of you. And the really bad ones can drag you down with their weight until you're trapped at the very bottom of the cold and dark ocean floor of your life. Some days it seems impossible to swim upward. Some days it's just easier to stop fighting. Some days it feels like the rats win.

But where's the sport in giving up? I mean as corny as dusting yourself off and picking your ass up actually sounds, if you consider the choices out there, it's not like there's better options. The hard way highway is the only way.  But that's the whole point. As Garrison Keillor once said when he was still writing the Mr. Blue column for Salon.com, "It's a shallow life that doesn't have a few scars."

Remember my favorite 13-year-old? The one who loves baseball? Well, his Mom told me today that he likes to say, "If you're having a hard time, just think of kittens. There isn't anything bad about kittens." Now that's a philosophy I can get behind. That's a view of the world worth having.

I shot this with my K100D. It's a shot of one of the oaks in our "backyard" at a very interesting time of the day today. It was sunny and yet still raining and the storm clouds were sitting low -- above them you could just see the coming rush of blue skies and sunshine. A lovely thought I think. That and kittens.

365 Photo Project - Day 64

Taken: March 5, 2010, approx. 1:15 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

I did get out today but only to circle around the wrap-around porch which is to say I didn't get out, not really. I blame it on not getting enough sleep last night due to the onset of a nasty case of heartburn. I swear there's nothing like bad indigestion to turn your dreams into surreal dreamscapes.

The woman who owns this property made a conscious decision to keep the landscape wild, a kind of anti-vineyard view. Instead of acres of neatly-arranged grape vines we have wild grasses, moss-covered oaks, rolling hillside, metal gates and fire roads -- cattle grazing country. My husband fell in love with the view when he found this place last year and it's easy to see why. There is a wonderful sereneness to this place that makes you feel the need to whisper in its presence.

Such a nice change of scenery from the typical wine country landscape -- not that I'm knocking that. This was shot with my K100D and a 200m lens. I played around with it in Photoshop, trying for a dreamy quality in part because that's how I felt all day, walking around in my lack-of-sleep fog. Nothing a good eight hours of shut-eye won't cure.

Tomorrow's another day.