After three years, you get sick of seeing the same ripped-off thumbnail artwork--especially when it makes your site look like a gothic IKEA depot. So in light of major journal editing, I finally decided that thumbnailing some of my better photographs and sticking them in would look better--and make me 100% legal.

I also added a photography donation link, y'know, in case you want to receive a deductible tax credit by contributing to charity. Besides, how many charities do you know that'll suckle your toes or prune your animals (and only your animals) on request?

[/Shameless webmaster update]

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I found myself in an empty cathedral tower starring up against sun-blasted verandas radiating outward. I casually wondering exactly what happened this week. The cracked belfry tiles shimmied in the wind, a few errant pebbles skittering across the stairs; the steps were made supple by affection and old age. I tried to divine what tuesday and wednesday were in the shimmering off-white sun strands, which ran naked down the walls. Nothing came to mind. I smelled velvet pour through the empty spaces in the mortar and granite. Night was coming again. I dabbled and outlined fissures with my fingernails.

I could remember that there was lab shit done at Mt. University. Lab shit was a given on monday, wednesday and friday usually. I had sat in traffic, injected rats and bitched about the council of elders reviewing our experiments. It was shamanism and graphic compression, not remembering dreams as minute details blurred and pixelated, rattling against my skull with some techno tune. I swung in the dreamtime, the lack of sleep getting to me again along this lane of traffic, or that procedural complication. I wondered if not eating and forgetting my medication would qualify as the candle being burned at both ends and getting shafted in one of them. What could I say except that eating in the morning makes me feel sick.

Suddenly fat crows broke from the drafty stone fingertip, like a football huddle. It occurred to me that I do at least clearly remember Thursday. I pawned the metaphor for some condoms and whiskey.

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I hadn't been feeling well lately on an emotional and mental level. I'd wondered if I was getting too arrogant for my own good. I hadn't been paying attention to my behavior and, looking at it, I noticed that I was slowly bypassing my good sense. I was trapsing into the territory that my father had occupied. He'd always thought the world of himself, mom said. From my phone conversations with him, I could say that was still the case. I wouldn't have any of that shit.

So on thursday I went out for the first photoshoot I'd done in over a week. I headed out at 3:00pm down and along the coastline. Traffic had the heady steadfastness of old cheese. I made my pilgrimage within the walls of Topanga Canyon, weaving along the inclines until I levelled out and turned left at the great merchant's mecca in the middle. I went toward Old Topanga Canyon.

Old Topanga was just that, a remote and mostly forgotten two lane road that casually passed its fingertips along the rippled mountains and ravines. I used to go with Mom and my father out here when I was very young, about 4 or 5. We would park on a very small shoulder of the road, walking up to and behind the guard rail that snaked around a rolling turn. Down below about 20 feet were boulders and marshy streambeds. We would finally pass by a thatch of poison ivy and climb down some stones. I'd skip from one to another, scrambling up the bigger ones. We'd linger by the bank in this spot or that, but mostly I looked forward to catching tadpoles--but really I just guffawed at them and starred. It amazed me how something so small could become a frog. I can't remember any individual trip, but all of them together made a very nice patchwork of memories.

I think I'd parked on that same shoulder. The area had an unmistakable familiar foreigness to it. I'd gone around the guard-rail and taken shots here and there. I was wearing sandals (since I always wear sandals), wondering what creatures were beneath and around me in the guard-rail nooks, the downy folds of dead leaves and branches undertoe. I didn't find anything but the sound and sight of cars passing by was enough to put me on alert. I kept telling myself not to panic or jump if one of them honked while passing.

And there I walked along the stony delta, not even a foot from the cars that passed by on the other side of my metal guardian. I didn't know if it was the same guard-rail I remembered. A memory came to mind up there, where a tree blocked the path and I had to hang and swing myself around the ravine-side to the delta again. Mom was encouraging me, saying it'd be ok. I eventually made it after building up the courage. It was really big and it didn't seem like I could get around it at that age. Didn't surprise me when I came up to a small squat tree. I could swear it was the same one. This time around I could move around it pretty easily.

Back when I was a kid I remembered the sun being warm, the sky very clear. That day, thursday, was no exception. I climbed down some boulders and looked left to right. Somehow the scene seemed familiar, but it wasn't quite right. I knew the area would be more overgrown, but the placement of various boulders didn't fit. I was there to photograph, true, but partly I thought that revisting some place from childhood would give me some clarity.

I side-stepped and jumped from rock to rock, occasionally squatting to take a few shots of breaks in the filmed over water. The sky overhead gilded the reflections in sheets of sapphire. A small stream moved through the marshy ground, the rocks seemingly arranged just for jumping to and from. There were short conifers along the sides of the small ravine; they spread a canopied shadow around the banks but neglected the center. The sun burst down in pulsating balls of white-yellow blindness. It was a bitch and a few pups to compensate for that much sunlight. Sunlight and I are still in counselling, you see, trying to reconcile our professional differences. After about 150 shots and slipping once or twice to soak my left foot, I decided to book back to the truck and head to Gran's to pick up Mom's mail.

Gran seemed fine, doing the usual. She'd had the outside of the house painted a light pistachio color. The roof itself was off angelic white. It's like suburban ice-cream cake--and hopefully a nice buyer will eventually think likewise and buy it when she sells the place. For then, though, we went out to eat at La Frite (a casually upscale French thingy). We spoke the way elders and youngings typically do. The manager, Justin, passed by and mentioned he'd be moving to North Carolina to continue his degree and become a teacher. There was fuck-all opportunity for teachers to get a house in LA, after all, since the average cost of a home is about 335,000 USD here. I mentioned to Gran that it was the same in Boston with the maintenance workers at Harvard. She mentioned it'd gotten so bad in San Francisco that the city and state had made rent-controlled apartments for local teachers. Made me wonder if I could stay on the west coast or if I'd have to eventually move inland (blah) or overseas.

We eventually finished and drove back. I picked up Mom's mail. Gran casually suggested--in the only way Gran can--that I could pick up this, that, this other thing, these things and about two boxes worth of stuff from my room. I finally told her that now wasn't the time and kissed her goodbye. I was on the road again. I was free and relatively sane. Noone knew, nor knows, my cell-phone number. I'd had desert over at La Frite so I thought going through Krispy Kreme for coffee would be too much.

I slept uneasy that morning, same as the mornings before...

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I drove to Mt. University amidst the spectacles of flying behemoths and crabby students. I hadn't had anything to eat. I'd forgotten my ADHD medication again. I was testing four female rats today, which was a first for the Zivago lab! After two rats, though, this unprecedented use of females didn't matter a good buttery fuck to me. I wasn't just nodding off, I was full on slumping out and then back into wakefulness. The rats were being recorded on videotape and I didn't fall asleep, though, so it was more like casually flirting with wasting time instead of, ah, measuring its inseam.

I did nothing important when I got home. There was doing errands with Mom for the obligatory coffee over on Hawthorne, but the shots I took thursday have so far turned out less impressive than I thought they were. A little while ago I also suddenly developed this minor bout of depression, but it cleared up after I ate and told myself to relax.

So I didn't go out friday night for a photoshoot or some other bizarre reason, but on saturday...well, that'll change...

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