walking backwards

cadillac

i took a long walk today. gonna rain tomorrow, so figured i'd stretch my legs.

ended up taking an old familiar route, that ended with me passing my old high school. my kids graduated from there too.

the main buildings haven't changed much, but you could also say everything has changed. new additions, portable crap classrooms--class in a box--they change the landscape in my memory. 

the youthful faces of the latest crop of students pass by me. listening to the bird-like chatter of their hormone-crackling voices, and the little conversations about the "big" events in their universe, make me so glad i am not that age again.

i have changed, but i have not. never did fit in, and still do not, not really. and i'm fine with that. didn't have many friends, and have not kept in touch with any of them directly. once in a while, i'll look people up online, to see where they ended up, but they really are strangers now, so i leave no messages.

i used to be so freakishly skinny, and now i'm so, so average. really hating growing old and soft. the number of years doesn't bother me as much as the ball of fat on my belly, and the general pudge all over...it just gets in the way.

youth really is wasted on the young, as they say. 

looked toward the baseball field, where i could see the team practicing, running the same bases my kid ran not so long ago. 

i decided enough of this depressing trip down memory lane, and turned around to head back to where i belong, or at least where i exist now. the wind shifted, and the sticky, fetid scent drifted up from the school farm, of the beasts being raised by the "future farmers," bound for the summer fair, blazed more memories in my head, of people i haven't thought of in years, as well as my daughter's stupid sheep that she raised there too. they work hard for those 'easy' credits. pretty sure not too many of these kids end up on a farm, but my daughter does work in veterinary offices, so there's that.

but mostly, the thought that shit still smells like shit, was what blew through my mind. 

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found this old cadillac between the buildings at the super cruise, kinda parked next to some newer cars. it was in the path less traveled, so i don't know that many people noticed it. 

don't remember seeing around, and not quite sure of the year. 

no pressure or nothin’

chopped mercury

a while back i mentioned that they asked me at work, if i would be able to consult or maybe even shoot portraits of management types at the office. and then it never happened. next big event, they hired the outside guy to shoot it. fine by me; didn't want to deal with that many big cheeses from all over the states, in one setting, much less one after another. that would be dealing with a lot of people and my little introverted circuits would be overloaded pretty quickly. and i shoot cars, not people.

well, i guess the usual guy that shoots quick and dirty stuff is out of the office this week. says he has an ulcer. that didn't take long; he's only been there a year or two. j/k. sucks.

so the public relations girl asks if i might be able to take a picture of someone who is visiting the office tomorrow, if i could bring in my camera...not sure where the company camera is, but most likely its a canon or nikon, and i'd be pretty dumb using it, not knowing my way around either one. her existing picture is fuzzy/blurry. i have a kick-ass hundred millimeter macro, so i think i can do better.

i've had to go back and review all the class notes and the book i studied on doing portraits, and did a crash sitting with my better half being my test subject. i think it'll be ok. only thing to worry about really is that the room they'll have me shoot in has windows on two sides and an obnoxious orange wall on the other. hoping they know where the green screen might be hiding.

i could take her outside, in natural light. just pretend she's a car, and aim for her headlights, i mean her eyes, not her hooters.

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speaking of green, this car was pretty bright. i wonder if i could use it to strip in other backgrounds, like the memes have been doing with the queen elizabeth birthday pictures and that bright green suit she was wearing.

i thought the shot straight from the camera was pretty clean, so i only kicked the pixels a little bit.