Here is an actual conversation I had this morning:
*Me*: You look nice today.
*Her*: No. These pants barely fit me any more.
…blink…
*Me*: Ok then, you look terrible today. Especially those pants.
asides
where to write
I’m not quite sure where any of my writing goes any more. So, I’ll just keep writing if you keep reading (and commenting or emailing for the love of God). If it’s rambly or disjointed or unintelligible hopefully we can work together to figure it out. Eventually, everything will find it’s place again and we’ll all be a lot happier.
background noise
I’ve finally learned to quell a lot of the background thought that seems to run constantly through my mind. I’ve realized over time that the thoughts themselves aren’t unusual in the world. The fact that I pay attention to them at all is. (Some of you will know exactly what I’m talking about here.)
This is mostly a good thing because it allows me to make a little more sense out of the world and allows the world to make a little more sense out of me. It’s got a bad side too, though. There’s now one more piece of me that remains very hidden most of the time. I lost a very good friend not too long ago for expressing too much of myself because I thought I was in the clear. So, if and when this background noise should ever be allowed to the front with anyone other than myself, I’ll have to be very careful about how I do it and who I do it with.
Five A Week: on hiatus
I pulled the plug on “Five-A-Week”:http://revjim.net/five-a-week/. The majority of the audience that I have here just isn’t supportive enough or feedbacky enough when it comes to art to warrant the unimaginable amount of time I spent creating for it.
Those of you that miss it, fear not. My regular photography posting will return soon — even sooner when I learn that people actually do miss it. I’ve got a new place to hold it all that will allow me to better express this art, and to find other like-minded people to share my work with, to support my work, and to better myself from. As soon as I unveil it, I’ll let you know.
birthday wish list
As my birthday is approaching, I’m finding myself more and more in a state of depression. It’s not because I’m a year older or any of that nonsense. It’s just that, in the past there’s been a torrential range of emotions associated with experiences surrounding my birthday and last year is certainly no exception. Some of the most incredible feelings of self-worth, friendship, and love have been felt during this time of year as well as some of the darkest moments of utter confusion and hopelessness. Of course, as is the human condition, the darker times come to mind much easier than the happy ones.
So what do I want for my birthday this year? More than anything I want some good times to replace these bad memories. That means being surrounded by light-heartedness, happiness, friendship, flirting, respect and good old fashioned debauchery. And hopefully, along with that, a few very close friends to share it with and help me to shake these bad feelings so I can enjoy the good times.
in celebration of the birth of a reverend
By the way, Jess is throwing me a birthday party on the night of Friday, July 7th! It will be a “Cowboys and Indians” party which you can interpret anyway that you’d like. The cutest squaw and the hottest cowgirl will get some very special attention from me if you know what I mean and underwear is entirely optional for females.
If you don’t already have plans you can’t cancel for that evening and are interested in coming, and I really hope you are, send me an email and I’ll include you in the invite I intend to send later today.
When I write to you
When I write to you with many words to ensure clarity, I fall victim to skimming and find myself misunderstood. When I write in terse poetics with razor precision and carefully selected blades they are examined only on the surface leading, again, to misunderstanding.
It’s a good thing that I enjoy writing to you. Otherwise it would be nothing but pain.
consider ME: a clarification
In case you were wondering, the point behind “go figure: consider ME”:http://revjim.net/2006/06/20/go-figure-consider-me/ is not about telling my friends to pay me more or even to pay me at all. I mean, sure, I’d be happy and grateful if they did, but that’s not the real purpose.
More than anything, its purpose is to bring understanding about what it is that I put into each photo session, in terms of both time and money, and trying to install a sense of partnership and responsibility into the friends and acquaintances that I do choose to work with for free. As “Josh said”:http://revjim.net/2006/06/20/go-figure-consider-me/#comment-8339 I can’t expect to make any kind of money selling to only friends and family as I’m tapping a very limited resource. However, my friends and family have lots of friends and family. A limitless resource, if you will. At this point in the game, $84.04 will help a little, but bringing even one paying portrait session or a handful of fine-art purchases my way will help a lot more. Especially when I then make friends with those people and get them to bring me even more business.
Advertising is expensive and I’m willing to accept that. They way I see it, I can spend $84.04 and advertise to my friends’ friends through word of mouth, or I can spend $84.04 and take out an ad in the yellow pages.
my-time personal communication
Communication has always been of great interest to me, and I’m always looking for news ways to communicate better with more people.
I’ve found a tool called “Ventrillo”:http://www.ventrilo.com/ that is very interesting. It allows multiple people to speak to one another all at the same time while allowing each user to customize his experience and availability while maintaining a very high level of audio quality. If you’re into real-time audio communication, I highly recommend taking a look at it. Let me know if you do and I’ll be happy to play around with it with you.
I’m also just starting to play with “Odeo”:http://odeo.com/ as well as other forms of podcast and vlog aggregation. While real-time communcation certainly has it’s place in the world, there’s something to be said for being able to consume information on our own time.
Generally speaking, real-time communications tend to be focused at smaller, more personal audiences while information that waits for us to be ready for it is generally aimed at larger more public audiences. Of course there are some exceptions. Email and the hand-written letter are both my-time communications intended for small personal audiences.
I’m interested in exploring other personal my-time methods of communcation. For instance, we often leave voice-mail for one another. However, more often than not, we do so only because the person was unable to speak to us real-time and our message indicates little more than a request to contact us when available. What use does my-time voice communication have in the world?
To find out, I’m using a little known Odeo feature that allows you to “leave me a voice message”:http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/jimreverend that I can then listen to at my leisure. It’s like voice-mail but without the point of asking me to call you back. So, if you have a microphone, please consider “leaving me a message”:http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/jimreverend. It can be short, long, clean, dirty, important, or trival. If you have something to tell me that you’d normally email about, consider “leaving me a message”:http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/jimreverend instead. Or, if you have nothing at all to say, feel free to say nothing “in a message to me”:http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/jimreverend.
Let’s see how useful (or not useful) this can be.