Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
I love this part of my dog. That round bone there at 2 o'clock. Dog ankle?
Thursday, November 13th, 2014Glitter Heart
Wednesday, November 12th, 2014
I See the Future
Tuesday, October 15th, 2013No matter how many times I look at this, it fails to become less funny.
And this is a little freaky. . .
Afraid this is just a taste of the awkward middle school years.
Uh, yeah. . . We’ll be doing a retake.
Photographic Black Hole for 90’s Music Lovers (of My Ilk)
Monday, February 27th, 2012I don’t even know how I stumbled on this bunch of photos (mostly polaroids, for which i have a special weakness). It was one of those things where you click on a friend’s facebook link or Google something and find something unrelated but cool, go down a rabbit hole of interestingness, and find yourself sitting there an hour later wondering how you traveled time. Let’s just say that I finally had to cut myself off before I finished looking through them, because I had to go cook dinner. Because my kids are needy. Very needy. Why are they always asking me for things like food? Parenting is fucking hard.
The photos really, really make me wish I had taken more photos in my late teens/early 20s (but who had the money for that?), because I met lots of interesting people, and I would love to know if they really looked the way that they do in my mind today. Sure, few of my people were famous, like this guy’s, but more than the fact that it’s fun to gawk at famous rock stars (“famous,” again, to people who liked the same shit i liked), there is something about these photos as a collection that captures not just the individual faces, but the feeling of what it was like to be 20 during that time, and what people looked like to me.
It was a beautiful time for me. Terrible and beautiful. This guy captured the beautiful.
Enjoy!
p.s. He also seems to like to take some photos of some random pretty young girls, which might border on slightly creepy, and there are some photos with boobs, so if you hate boobs/cleavage, etc, you might not even want to click. You’ve been warned.
p.p.s. The boob photos and the young girl photos are not the same photos.
p.p.p.s. Oh, hell, just go look.
Sappy, Sappy
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
“I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head…”
– Wilco
Happy Valentine’s Day, Angel. I have never regretted going out for drinks with friends that Valentine’s Day weekend almost thirteen years ago.
Xoxoxo,
Annie
Thankful
Monday, December 19th, 2011So, damn. That last post was a real downer. Sorry about that. I am pretty good at the ostrich thing, though. I do lots of fun stuff, and I am lucky to have a healthy family, and I still have both parents, and my husband is the best one in the whole wide world ever (for me.) So, here are some things I’m thankful for . . . Think of it as one whole post about shit I’m thankful for, rather than an annoying “I’m Thankful” facebook post every damn day of November. See how good I am to you? So thoughtful . . . .
My friends Shannon and Matt had a baby and we finally visited him.
Tills and DannyBoy
We have beer on Main Street now.
I got to spend an afternoon with my sister and our kids. Sadly, that almost never happens anymore.
Tills broke her arm, but I still got to go to NYC with Todd.
I had breakfast that i bought at Union Square Greenmarket. I ate it on a bench and watched schoolchildren.
I drank coffee and rode the Staten Island Ferry just for the view. I didn't care that it was cloudy and was repaid with some sunny patches.
I ate a pear in Trinity Church Cemetery, where my 5G grandfather was buried in 1786. Or at least records say he is. His grave is lost to time now. I thought about that while I ate my pear.
Todd and I had dinner with my friend Harris and his girlfriend Anne. I am still always surprised that Harris wears button-downs to work. In my mind, he is always wearing a navy blue hoodie.
And then we all went to a bar and played shuffleboard.
We stayed at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Tres fancy.
Posting these so that Harris can see what the rooms were like (he was curious):
The room had three, count'em three, windows. And a beautiful rug. And original hardwoods.
And here's the bed. Nice linens, velvety headboard, good lighting.
Pretty sure the bathroom was bigger than most NYC apartments. However, for the cost, i think they could have worked in a tub. (My only problem with the room.)
Even the closet was fancy.
And here is a view of the sitting area from the front door. We had a SETTEE, y'all!
The rooms also come with access to the park. It is a private park that you have to have a key to get into. That’s pretty cool. And snobby and elitist. . . but cool.
So, the next day it was cold and pouring down rain. I made plans to meet Anne at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was so god-awful crowded, and wet and damp, but we had a lovely afternoon. I forgot to each lunch I was enjoying myself so much. We mostly wandered, took in the current exhibitions. (Romare Bearden was one Anne really wanted to see and I thought it was great, and was also surprised I had not heard of him in my Harlem Renaissance class in college).
Anne and I both checked out my favorite part – Arms and Armor. I think when she suggested it to me, she must have realized how much I would love it. She probably didn’t realize that I would take so long that she would get hungry and have to leave me there. (Sorry, Anne!) I could have spent all day there looking at the amazing things people have killed other people with over the years! They even had a helm that was (probably erroneously) said to have been worn by Joan of Arc – I have had a preoccupation with Joan since i first read about her as a child. (I also have a weird interest in Marie Curie, Belle Star, Annie Oakley, and Bonnie Parker, among others. I know. I am a freak.)
Joan of Arc Helm
There was an interesting Stieglitz exhibition, about him and his artists (O’Keefe, Matisse, etc.) While I enjoyed it, i was way more interested in this tiny little exhibit of his early art photography collection. I could have looked at it all day.
And best of all, I found some new (to me) artists to adore: Like Francis Bacon; Like a painting entitled, “End of the Hunt” by Dale Nichols (Anne, that is the one that you loved!);
The photo doesn't do it justice. The light is so amazing in it in person.
Or these two huge pieces by Stephen Hannock. You totally can’t see it online, but he put all this writing and mixed media collage stuff in these two works. I almost wanted to cry it was so cool. Oooh, actually, if you go to this link then click on the photo, then zoom in, you can see the writing. Awesome.
Like this one by Paul Cadmus.
His Seven Deadly Sins were awesome! This is Lust.
Looks like a really cool graphic novel, right? He made it in 1945. Mind-blowing.
When i left the museum, I was starving, and it was raining cats and dogs, and todd wanted me to meet him for a beer at some place near his conference in Times Square, and i was all like, “Ugh, Times Square.” But the bar was actually pretty awesome, with cheap beer, and seemingly no tourists other than myself. It was warm and the barmaid was kind of bitchy, which I can respect, and I sat next to a guy who makes full-length concert DVDs for a ton of bands, some of whom i thought were crappy. But he also worked with Chrissy Hinde, and so I was all interested in hearing about that, because I heart The Pretenders.
Then we left and had to make it back to the hotel to change for drinks with work people, and it was raining and i felt kind of sorry for all the working sad sack new yorkers just trying to get home, but there is something very romantic about a rainy evening with my husband, and taking cover in Grand Central Station to get away from the rain, and just watching the people.
Blurry, rainy evening at Grand Central Station.
And then i put on my nice stuff, and we went to The Standard Hotel for drinks, and damn, they have a really nice view from their rooftop bar, which, i kid you not, is called The Boom Boom Room. Sometimes I think New York comes up with stupid shit like that just to make me laugh at them. The bathrooms in the bar were rooms with no lights and no window coverings, where you could look out over the skyline while you are taking a shit. Ridiculous, but fun. I was luckily warned first, or I would have thought I was trippin’ in some crazy house of mirrors.
I had my jeans down around my ankles and I was peeing while I took this.
After that? Yummy burgers and home to bed because we were both wet, cold, and exhausted.
A lovely trip. I’ll end here for now, as I have gone on and on, and will never click publish at this rate. It shall be a two parter.
I think they missed us.
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011Uncle Mark took some shots of the kids while we were in Mexico. I love this one:
But then, I also like this one:
This one:
And this one:
Nice to see they missed us while we were gone.
How to Answer a Telephone, & Other Lost Arts
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010Todd and I both have iPhones. Before that, we both had plain old-fashioned cell phones. When we moved from our house in East Atlanta to our current home, we didn’t even bother plugging in a phone. We have a land line, but we just don’t use it. I have forgotten what it was like to have one.
Well, a few weeks ago, my phone was acting up, and I was working on a project with someone, and we needed to talk, so he asked me for my home phone number. I didn’t even know the number. I vaguely remembered putting it into my phone contacts when we moved in. So, i gave that number to the friend, and then told him to wait about ten minutes while I went to look for a phone.
To plug into a wall.
I had to go find a phone that is ten times the size of my cel phone, and which plugs into a wall jack. And it wasn’t even a cordless phone. It has a cord, tying the talker to within 5-10 feet of the wall jack while on the phone.
Weird. We had our conference call. I sat at the kitchen table while I did, rather than walking around, doing laundry, unloading the dishwasher, walking outside to let the dog out.
I remember the hours on end that my friends, boyfriends, myself spent talking on the phone. I would lie on my bed, or on the floor near the phone jack. I would sit on the desk in my parents’ kitchen, talking on the phone. “Do you like her? Well, she likes you. I think you should ask her to go with you.” Ad nauseum.
I never talked on the phone outside. Or in the car. Or on the bus. Or in the grocery store. Or in the coffee shop.
Oh wait. We didn’t have those either.
Todd and I don’t answer each others’ phones. The kids know not to answer our phones. They have never had the opportunity to yell, “I got it!” or for me to yell, “Answer the phone!” or hear me yell upstairs, the mouthpiece cupped to my breast to muffle the sound of my voice as I raise it over the sound of his stereo (ha!) blaring, “Rollie! Phone!”
So, that was a few weeks ago, and I haven’t used the house phone since. I left it on the wall, though, because it made me laugh. And then I forgot about it.
Until ten minutes ago, when we all heard a ringing. A strange, archaic ringing. The kids ran to the stairs to yell down, “something’s making a noise, Mama!” There might have been a tinge of panic in their little voices.
I said “Where is it coming from?” Because I didn’t recognize it, either.
“From that thing on the wall!” Rollie yelled. “What do i do?”
I laughed as I realized it was the phone on the kitchen wall.
“You answer it!”
Silence.
Rollie: “How?”
Me: “You pick it up and say hello!”
After all of this, of course, he did not make it to the phone in time. Oh well, if they call back, we’ll be ready this time. Armed with the knowledge of outdated phones and their etiquette.
Nobody Even Knocked Over the Baby Jesus
Friday, December 17th, 2010Tiller’s Christmas program was this morning at St. Bede’s. I, of course, ran completely late and didn’t get to drink any coffee before, during, or after the program. So, one part of me was all sad that it was Tiller’s last “little girl” Christmas program, and the other half was just holding on to a thread of sanity until I could find a coffee.
First of all, the 4s class came out and did some songs. (Jingle Bells and some other stuff.) Very cute. Unfortunately, by the time they are this age, they don’t really do anything wild, like start talking to their mom during the program, or start wailing when they see all the people stare at them, or accidentally knock the baby Jesus out of the cradle.
And let’s be honest: That is what we show up for.
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- St. Bede’s Christmas Program, December 2010, Tiller, 5 years old
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- Biting her knuckles with either nerves or excitement.
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- Belting out jingle bells.
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- Tiller as some kind of farm animal, which she could not identify.
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- With her friends. Tiller towers over the other kids.
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- Tiller not smiling.
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- Tiller, after I told her she would get cookies after pictures.
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- Tiller’s happy ending.
Of Star Talkers and Cavemen
Monday, November 8th, 2010
Tiller and I went to the lake on Friday, while Todd stayed home with Rollie for Sat. soccer. We got there late, so we went to Bojo’s for a late dinner. On the way home, driving back across the lake’s twin bridges, I heard her whispering,
“You stars are so small. You must be very, very far away.”
I love the little things that I hear her say when we remove big brother from the situation. He is so . . .older child (i can say that; I am one.) He talks over her, directs her, tells her what to do. She listens, apes, mimics, follows directions, does as she is told. Only when she is on her own, does her true and very own thought process become evident.
I am always amazed at her and the things she says and comes up with when I get a chance to listen to just her. Tiller sees the world in a very funny and colorful way. The filter that Tiller sees the world through is like no one else’s. It gives her a unique view on things. Take this exchange from Saturday morning . . . .
Tiller and I decided to hit up Waffle House, so that we didn’t have to do dishes and could get out and do our yardwork faster when we got back to the lakehouse. We walked into the Waffle House. It was full for a winter day at the lake. Full of hunters. In fact, the only people not dressed in camo or a Waffle House uniform were Tiller and I. I noticed that she pulled up for a second when we came in the door. I saw her take in the scene as we were walking to our table. When we got there, we took off our coats. I helped her with hers first, and then started to take mine off. As I did, arms trapped in my coatsleeves, I was alarmed as Tiller raised her finger to point at the two hunters closest to us, a man and woman.
As all parents know, it is never good when their kid raises a finger to point at a stranger in a restaurant. Not only is it, in the immortal words of Southern mamas everywhere, “not nice to point, dear,” but you never know what is going to come out of a kid’s mouth when they point something out. The only thing you can bank on is that there will be a lull in conversation and that it’s going to be said loud as hell.
It is usually something completely embarrassing, such as these gems i have experienced firsthand:
“Why doesn’t he have a leg?”
“Why are her eyes like that?”
“That person is really, really big, Mama.”
“That is the oldest person I have ever seen!”
Saturday morning, as I struggled to get my arms out of my coat, and at the same time hiss at Tiller, quietly enough where no one else in the room would hear, but firmly enough that she would know I meant business, “It’s not polite to point, baby,” she dropped her finger, and then gave me the dismayed look that she is famous for. She accompanies this look with two hands out to the side like the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil statue. Her hands bounce up and down slightly as she says at full volume,
“What are those people? Cavemen??”
That’s my Tiller for ya. That’s my Tills.