You Are Lucky I Trust You This Much

I’ve never been much of a ‘girly girl’. I didn’t play dress up when I was little, or practice walking in heels. I didn’t touch nail polish or makeup until well into high school (and even then barely). I didn’t spend hours learning to curl my hair, or braid it, or any of the other tricks that I now really wish I knew. I did go as a princess for Halloween once – and I was especially excited that I found a sword to carry. In my fairy tales, princesses get to be armed too!

All of those things are skills, and practicing when you’re a kid makes them second nature later on. I missed out on that, and I’ve been aware especially aware of it recently because I live with Emilie and Angelina who are both amazing at such things (well, they practiced!). So last night, as Emilie went to curl her hair before going out, I said that at some point, I needed to get someone to teach me how to do that. She said to come on down and watch, so I grabbed my camera (and our respective glasses of wine), and did exactly that.

Emilie started the process, and I began to photograph. Emilie’s pretty used to me photographing her, but I haven’t been shooting in a while, so it took both of us a while to get back into the pattern of ignoring-but-paying-attention that produces the best images. At one point, clips sectioning out her hair, curler in action, arms up above her head trying to manage it all, she saw the camera, became aware of her position, and said, “You are lucky I trust you this much.”

And I thought – yeah, yeah I am. I am so incredibly lucky you trust me this much, and that is exactly the kind of relationship I want with the people I photograph. I want them to always know that it’s important to me that they like the photographs I create of them. Photographs are my way of sharing with people what I see, and what I love, in them. Her trusting me, her knowing that I will create and share images that she will be pleased with – that’s such an honor, and something I never want to lose sight of. Building those relationships is something I work at, something I practice, and I literally get chills when product is something other people find value in. So it may take a little longer to figure out how to curl my hair, but I did grow up practicing something–and I’m awfully glad I did.

More Worth the Find

it happened again
the girl of your dreams
turned out to be just
smoke in the wind

Your heart beats
with a little more love
than most ever find
a burden to bear,
and a gift in kind
hard to find love
(but more worth the find)

I don’t know when
can’t promise ever
but oh my friend
You deserve so much better

You will see a day when
love is the simplest of songs
a must-be-told, have-to-hold on
there’s a girl out there who’ll sing along

I don’t know when
can’t promise forever
but you my friend
deserve so much better
Than a girl who could know you
and just walk away

you make me laugh in the face of tear tracks
you check in when I am biting back
you are so kind, I am so in luck
a good friend’s a find you don’t give up

Your heart beats
with a little more love
than most ever know
it’s a burden to bear,
and a gift in kind
hard to find love
(but more worth the find)

I don’t know when
can’t promise ever
but oh my friend
You deserve so much better

Getting Simple

“In living more simply, we encounter life more directly. We need little when we are directly in touch with life. It is when we remove ourselves from direct and wholehearted participation in life that emptiness and boredom creep in. It is then that we begin our search for something or someone that will fill our gnawing dissatisfaction.”

– Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity

I want to directly and wholeheartedly participate in life.

But…They’re Programmers…

A recent exchange in class:

U1: At my last job we would work with a specialist company for the duration of one job, long enough for our programmers to figure out what they were doing and how, and then when the next job like that came up our programmers would be able to do it on their own.

U2: That makes sense, but it only works for so long. You can’t expect people to be able to infinitely acquire new languages and skillsets.

U1: But…they’re programmers…

Programmers do need to be able to acquire new skills. Heck, with the recent estimation that we all will change career fields 3-5 times in our life, let’s hope we all keep on our toes in regards to picking up new knowledge and skills. But the idea that as part of your job you would be expected to constantly add new fluencies in languages (and these *are* languages, don’t let the technical aspect disguise that) that you’ve never studied, merely by paying attention to the practices of an expert over the course of a single task (where their focus is not on educating you, but doing their job)… I don’t think it’s a sustainable practice. I don’t think it’s a healthy expectation in a job role. I think programmers should be heavily encouraged to constantly stay abreast of new tech and languages, and aided in the pursuit of education — perhaps most importantly with the affordance of time away from a strict job list to tinker and build in a new language — in new material. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that simply throwing them into the company of expert after expert for brief periods of time will allow for anything but the most cursory of understandings of the material, and in the process you’re under-appreciating the actual experts and over-taxing your own people.

Petting a Pig

My favorite photo from the weekend:

Adored (and then Ignored) **New Song**

adored and then ignored
at your discretion
is not my taste anymore
First you love me
then you can’t stand
to be around me
Now you want me back
to sit at the base
of your pretty pedestal
and can’t quite figure out
why I’m biting back

The moment I stand still
to let you love me
You find a better offer
The second that I run
you remember why
you wanted me around

I am done with adored
and then ignored
at your discretion
I have lost my taste for
highwire ups and downs

you chose wrong,
you just don’t know it yet
and I am not standing still
just to prove a point

first you love me
then you can’t handle
holding on
now you want me back
to guide you
through the nights
you can’t stand to be alone

I am done with adored
and then ignored
at your discretion
I have lost the taste
for willing you to want me
I am done with your selfish brand of love

Bad advertising?

Perhaps the point is that e-Harmony could work for any set of people, but the contrast between the page and the ad made me laugh.

Josephine

New addictions

You may have noticed if you’re with me on Facebook or Twitter…there’s been a lot of talk about cooking in my life happening recently. Cooking is one of those things that I’ve done tiny bits and pieces of – an apple pie sophomore year, an insane batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with Lyns once upon an apartment – but never done regularly. Why? There’s the part where I simply didn’t have to (living at home has the perk that my mom is an incredible cook), and there’s the part where I knew, I just knew, that once I got into it there would be no going back.

Well there’s no going back. I’m in love.

In the last month, I’ve cooked the first meat that I’ve ever done (first pork sauteed in a cherry sauce, then a really classic roast chicken), made 4 batches of cookes (tragically the last batch of chocolate chip ones were great when they were warm, but only okay when they were cool. Time to try a new recipe!), made pretzels (without realizing this was going to involve boiling the pieces of dough, come to find out that reading the recipe ALL THE WAY THROUGH before starting is a fantastic idea), baked one carrot cake, and created an overabundance of frosting. Seriously, the entire second fridge has lost a shelf of space to the twelve bowls of frosting. What am I going to DO with all that frosting??

And since so much of what I’m thinking about at the moment involves cooking, that’s reflecting itself in what I’m reading. I’m acquiring food blogs as fast as I can find them (hey, this is MUCH cheaper than acquiring cookbooks, which I’m also doing at an astonishign rate…). One of my favorites (although it’s just gone on hiatus) is Orangette: http://orangette.blogspot.com/ I absolutely love her use of polaroids to document her cooking. The medium is so reflective of how one-time cooking results can be, I love the parallels. My favorite line thus far:

“I’m writing this from Oklahoma City, from my old bedroom in my mother’s house, where I used to, as a teenager, write gushy poems about 18-year-old boys with sideburns. I had a real thing for 18-year-old boys with sideburns. I don’t anymore. I now have a thing for whiskey-soaked dark chocolate Bundt cakes. They hold their liquor better. Among other things.”

And it’s so, so true. It’s true that 18-year-old boys don’t hold their alcohol well, it’s true that I used to write gushy poems about boys I would never go for now, it’s true that we find new things to have ‘things’ for, and that the ways they relate to what we used to adore should always make us laugh.

I’ve had a melancholy couple of weeks. There is change in the air in a very big way, and it’s exciting, but a little bit terrifying. So while I’m waiting, I think I’m going to go learn to make chocolates.

Time and Distance

One of my favorite things about having a working archive of the songs and songlets that I’ve written is that so often, the final polish comes with perspective. I couldn’t have written in high school the way I do now, but sometimes the emotion that I did capture at the time was so…raw, so pure, that there’s still the absolute core of a song in there that is hard to reclaim. So here are two pieces, begun a lifetime ago, and finished a week ago. Both for the same boy, who became a man, who turned into a stranger, and might become a friend again.

One More Heartbreak
I can’t reach out to take your hand
the night’s too dark and I can’t stand
your heart’s been broken yet again
by a girl who didn’t care enough to stick around

but when you put your head down
and finally let the tears begin
I may not be there
but I love you all the same
we’ve been back and forth with others
playing out the game
but you my friend were always there
we’re not some one time thing
so in your dreams tonight
let the girl go on
come take me by the hand
and we’ll move on through the night
and we won’t let them stop us
and we won’t let them tear us down
and it’s not your fault it didn’t work
so let’s move on through the light
’cause there are other chances
and other dancers
and other times to have
and the world’s often black with hate
but the light comes streaming through
so in your dreams tonight
let the girl go on
come take me by the hand
and we’ll face the world together
lost but not alone

Say Goodbye
So many times, lost, thinking of you
Waiting, always waiting, if only you could see
I just want you here with me
I hope that you’re okay
I wish that you could see
But now it’s time to leave

So say goodbye

I couldn’t always shine
And I can’t always laugh you off
Now I’m dancing off to find
A better place than this to be
a nicer place for me
And I’ll wish upon the stars
That someday you’ll understand
Just what you were to me

So say goodbye

I will wait for you in memories
I’ll miss you in the past
I’ll miss you when I’m falling
But I’ll never fall so fast
While you lock yourself in uniform
I’ll let myself be free
You’ll be the man behind the mission
I’ll be the queen of letting be

And so I say
Goodbye