Sqares of Light (213/365)

Kind of still playing with the whole composition thing, but this time with colors.  Obviously, this is a sign, but it's also little squares of color.  Can you see it as an abstraction?

Composition Study 2 (212/365)

My super and his crew (assistants? helpers? henchmen? none of these words seem quite right.  They're very nice, so henchmen shouldn't be right, but it somehow seems to fit) changed the light bulbs today and fiddled with the fixtures.  I couldn't make out why but it seemed like they just weren't satisfied with the way things were fitting together, or lighting.  It seemed like they were working on the project all day.  When I got back from dinner with friends, a bulb was in but the shade was down.  The hallway was bright but stark and I enjoyed and pondered the new lighting.  It seemed like a good opportunity to keep working on the composition study I started on Friday, considering dark space and light space and the feelings evoked thereof.

Composition Studies (211/365)

The Place to Myself (210/365)

Yikes! (209/365)

For the most part I try not to complain about the trains.  In general it's my belief that it's akin to complaining about the weather: futile and annoying to those around you. But I've finally had it UP. TO. HERE. Every weekend and now many weeknights there's a service disruption, trains rerouted or skipping stops to accomodate construction projects that may or may not be making progress.  I've learned (I thought) to check the service alerts ahead of time and be prepared.  And I've learned, I thought, to allow plenty of time if I want to get somewhere or get to bed at a reasonable hour.  But tonight's trip home was a saga of epic proportions; of signs posted had nothing to do what the trains actually did and trains that just didn't come.  "Why bother to post service alerts if you then just run the trains helter skelter?" I asked myself. "I try to make healthy, responsible choices and head home at a reasonable hour, but you make a 35-min trip take an hour and a half," I grumbled.

Anyway, to make a long story short, when I got home I really needed that Nutella on toast.

A Break (208/365)

I loved the the way the clouds looked against the silver and aqua buildings.  They echo the colors but not the shapes; a softer, free-er accompaniment to the towers.  And that little break in the clouds: there's hope! It won't always rain.  You don't always have to be in your office.

Sweet Relief (207/365)

It was TWENTY degrees cooler today.  Twenty!  So refreshing that I'm currently wearing a cardigan!

No. 28 (206/365)

This bridge is named, very romantically, "Bridge Number 28."

Shadows and Sunshine (205/365)

I've taken so many pictures of surf, and waves, and beach umbrellas, and the pictures all look the same after a while, even if each beach looks unique to the naked eye.  I figured that this would be a little different.

Bread (204/365)

I accidentally bought $24 worth of artisan bread coupons, which were due to expire, so I used 'em all and got six loaves.  My mouth is watering! I'm thinking of all the things I can spread on them!  Nutella, olive oil, blackcurrant jam!

Lazy (203/365)

Holy crow, it's hot.  No, but I mean really.  It is so hot (how hot is it?) that my street is actually quiet, no one lingering to talk outside, my clothes are stuck to me, my boss let us out early, I drank two liters of seltzer water and then some, I'm shining, even the thought of the beach is not refreshing (the sun!) and I could fry an egg on the sidewalk.  It's hot, and I'm lazy. 

Inspiration (202/365)

There are just some things that are so compelling, so captivating, so enthralling, so can't take your eyes away, because they cause the human spirit to be stirred and the heart to ask, "What ... the heck ... IS it?  And why? And ... and just, WHY?"  That was my reaction to these toadstool structures at the shore of the otherwise beautiful lake.

City Rainbow (201/365)

Dad (my firefighter dad), I know what you're thinking, and I'm thinking it too: "It's not safe - the pressure's depleted! When there IS a fire, the hydrants'll be no good!  And, ahh, two open hydrants on one block? Oh, they'd better hope no sparks from a passing cigarette land in an open garbage can to smolder!"

I was thinking that as I walked through the spray, but boy did that spray feel good.

Powerless (200/365)

I'm powerless against you, Nutella, utterly powerless.

Skywriting (199/365)

I had a heckuva time figuring out what that said!

Tar Paper and Toes (198/365)

Oh my word! (197/365)

It's a curtain in a doorway.  Oh, I'm so uninspired today!

Tides (196/365)

When I came to City of Ever-Available Food and Endless Desserts, I got to reconnect with one of my closest friends from grad school - the first one I made there, actually.  She was living with her husband just a hop, skip, and jump away as she finished her PhD.  Our reunion was exuberant and joy-filled.  We had tea the first weekend we saw each other, and the next, too.  We celebrated Mardi Gras together and encouraged each other through Lent.  She applied for jobs and confessed she didn't see herself staying in City of Desserts but Also Hassles.  Then the word came that she had been offered a job - a good job - in the City Where the Water Bends.  And she and her husband are off to the place I just left!  I'm both sad and joy-full.

Tonight was the night before they moved.  The storage folks came during the day to collect their things and ship them south, and then a bunch of friends gathered for one last good bye dinner, outside our City of Desserts and Also Hassles, right on Steel Grey River, which was peachy-blue and turquoise.  Even though I didn't know everyone there we were at ease with each other right away.  As it turned out, my friend and her husband aren't the only ones moving: one friend is going to Alaska, a newly-minted MSW.  Another has graduated and is headed overseas.  The only other friend who's staying here has started a new job on the other end of the city, and I'm still new here.  It was a beautiful dinner: good scenery, good food, yes; but more than that good hearts, compassionate for one another, taking joy in one another, excited at what was to come and so grateful for what had been.

I'm thinking now of the professor my friend and I had together; he had a few catchphrases he'd say over and over in his Irish lilt (made subtle by years in America).  I'm thinking about my favorite one:

There's an ebb to every tide but the tide of God's grace.

193, 194, 195

I forgot.

I forgot.

And I forgot again.  Terrible.





 I thought I could make it the whole year this time.

Cables (192/193)

A famous spot looking not-so-famous.

Looking Through (191/365)

Today my boyfriend and I went to a sculpture park that was featuring an installation about sight - the idea that the way you look at something impacts what you see.  Most of the sculptures invited you to look at the work from a certain vantage point, or to look at the landscape through a viewing hole.  One of them was made of camera lenses nestled between sandbags. It was accompanied by a depiction of a hand holding an iPhone to the camera lens and taking a picture through it.  We complied - me with my camera, not my phone.  The shot looks more like an iris than anything else.

 After a walk and dinner and another walk (it was a big dinner), we stood on the elevated train platform and I noticed the bright color of watermelons and flowers through the slats.

Bad Luck (190/365)

1. It's broken.
2. It looked really pretty sitting there, reflecting trees in its facets, so I decided to be brave for once and stop and take a picture of something interesting.  So I messed around with my settings getting ready to take a shot when the garbage truck game.  Of course.  I tried to take it as quickly as possible but the garbage man was looking at his watch. I didn't get the shot I wanted.  But this turned out well.

Haircut (189/365)

I did take a picture today, but it's of myself.  I cut my hair into an asymmetrical long-bob with layers (it was nerve-wracking!) and took a picture of the result.

Finally (188/365)

We used to have these really annoying shower curtain rings that popped open at the bottom, so the shower curtain was always falling off.  There were three holes in particular that refused to stay attached, and before each shower I used to thread the hooks back through the holes in the curtain and pop them closed, which usually lasted at least as long as the shower.  I recently treated myself to new hooks and I hung them today; then I admired my handiwork and I sincerely thought to myself, "Wow, I now live in one of those swanky apartments with a shower curtain that does not dangle!"

Why is this necessary? (187/365)

These posters are all over the subway system and the buses.  CGI Smurfs. Or 3-D. Or whatever.   I just ... I just don't know.

Wildflowers (186/365)

Farm Stand (185/365)

Knee high by the Fourth of July,
In my tummy all the summ ... y.

That was weak, but well-intentioned.

Trick! (184/365)

I'm at my mom's house.  She directed me to sniff her beautiful flowers and then chuckled because they are FAKE and they have an incense stick stuck in them to make them smell nice! WHAT? How could she trick her only daughter that way??

Good night (183/365)