I forgot

this is the nightmare awaiting me upon arrival

...a year ago at about 4:39pm, I arrived in San Francisco after a long tiring 9-hr drive from Eugene. I was barely settled in the Northwest when I had to move down here.... with increasing success on the tip of my camera lens, I wasn't too happy leaving Eugene and moving back to my hometown and have to start all over again. I really don't want to be here...

Today, I tolerate a first year here... a year that has seen me work alone, without assistance or help.... cleaning out the stuff of a deceased person, and attempt finding room where there is none for my stuff. My car was parked in the street for months with many boxes within, while blocks away cars' windows were being smashed and being broken into.

I tolerated a lot of stuff and know it will continue even more, as the work is far from finished. I estimate moving alone over 500 lbs of materials, stuff and junk in the first three months down six flights of squeaky wooden stairs. That doesn't include the mid-height piano I moved out of this same room I live in now, and out of the apartment, till months later it was finally moved ~ thankfully by others ~ out of the building. In the garage below, I've moved around probably over 400lbs of junk, gotten rid of another 300lbs, organizing the way it looks, and built some new shelves to hold some of my boxes. In the small room I live in, I started with only about one square foot of open visible floor in a room ~ guessing ~ measuring about 10'x15', and now I have about 20 square feet available of open floor space.

I don't know if I will stay to tolerate another year here.... but I am not happy and my heart is somewhere else. My only desire is to escape from my cell here.... and perhaps never return.

What would you do if you were confronted with this lovely sight?

After a year, it's not the best now but it's a much better and organized view than these above four images display. Perhaps I'll show some pixs at a future date....

When I departed Spain in December 2006, the euro was inching higher in value against the dollar - this being the reason of my departure. Since I have been in the USA the dollar has fallen since and hasn't dropped below $1.30 against the euro. Now for the first time that I know about, it's below $1.30 and still gaining ground against the euro!! Could this be a sign from that big bank in the sky to return?

2 hours to copy four gigs

oops!! Make that three hours!! I finally broke down and yesterday purchased a 500gig external hard drive. Gosh ~ I remember when 500megs cost almost a thousand dollars alone!!!! In trying to manage my image files, I have run out of room everywhere! On my desktop's 160gig HD, I don't have too many corners still available... I had purchased a 350gig external HD in Spain before departing in 2006 and that is now filled, though I have frantically been trying to burn off the files during the last few weeks and months - with little success as each week I shoot more, adding to my backlog and worklist.

Last night it took four hours to format the new HD, then after a reboot it took another three hours to partition it to make organizing the files better and easier. As I type this, I am moving the files slowly over to the 500giger from the 350gig HD, and to move 4gigs it's taking an average of three hours.... grrrr

Luckily, while last weekend attending the opening exhibit at my friend's gallery collectively Grasp when she introduced me to a musical website where you can hear your style of music, all the while remembering your likes and dislikes, then searches for more music that fit your musical likes so you only hear the type of music you enjoy, and those similar. I love it.... The other day I listened to about five hours of flamenco guitar music which I really love, and makes me miss Spain even more. Right now I'm listening to Dido-type music while moving these massive files and am enjoying with immense pleasure the tunes of these different artists with a similar style, many whom I've never known by name but by their music.

Once I get everything moved to the new external HD, I'll format the other external and partition that also, something I've been trying to do but not really, since I have over 280gigs of images on there and I didn't want to risk losing them in the case something happen during the partitioning process....

Suuuuure, all this should keep me again in front of the monitor for about a month at the very least!!!

In the meanwhile, my eyes and vision continue to slowly improve as they heal... I've driven a few times at night now and am happy I can see better in dim light where I am not uncomfortable driving blindly into the darkness as it was that situation previously. I often like to look around ~ for example while stopped at a red light ~ and see distant billboards, buildings etc, to test my vision and how I couldn't see something clearly last week, and now can. I can clearly see 18'x24' billboards a block away well, and other lettering farther as well. "Seeing" is to define the act of seeing sharp focused edges, define the lettering, the message and sharp lines; and the ability to see low-contrast colors as opposed to brighter colors.

Hey!!! Only two and a half hours remaining on the copying to the new HD!!!!

Just a picture captured while around the city as Halloween nears; snapped with my Motorola RZR cell phone camera...

cleaning out my old sent box - my life in emails

It's not easy seeing where your Life has been - no better method of "seeing" its direction but through cleaning out your old emails in your sent box. Seeing emails dated while living in Spain, later emails upon my arrival in Eugene were a revelation; even more those emails after my move to the Bay Area.

Then I've reading through the other stuff.... emails to models hoping {begging} for a foto session and being refused. People and others who posed for others of lesser abilities photographically, and never posing with me. Models who were excited about an upcoming foto session with me, and never showed up... flakes who were just like snowflakes... appeared from seemingly out-of-the-sky, then disappeared and with just a few words here and there, gone as if they never existed. Others who even bragged about their opportunity with me - called me an artist - and were so "looking forward" to my photographing them... they too like leaves on a dying tree.... fell and disappeared.

Virtual letters from people whom I knew to be ~ thought I ~ good friends and then disappeared without a trace when I moved to the USA. Friends that were and later friends I knew and had, but no longer... never without a reason. Thy just died virtually and left no forwarding soul to contact.....

Yes, that and this now has been my life... sad and depressing. I don't know how many times I've been told that they "love my imagery and can't wait to be photographed by such an artistic artist" and then I never hear from them again... It's depressing when this happens on such a routine basis that one wonders if the life they are supposedly living is real.... or not.

I got upset before - not any longer - when I see someone whom I wanted to photograph - pose for someone else. I don't have any money to pay models and I get turned down by any and everyone. Yes, quite sad but who cares.... they have their life and don't care about how I feel.... later I'll see through their modeling website that they had posed free for some other photographer, who had/has less vision than I... the pictures being little less than studio snapshots a 5th grader could've snapped, or nudes so horrid who but an idiot would display them? But they do and they have...

I remember once a "friend" - no longer as she abandoned me too - wanted me to do a portrait for her.... bragged to all her friends and family of this upcoming portrait session with me. Months later I saw her casually on the street and asked what had happened with that need for a portrait.... she just shrugged and said she went to a studio and had them done. I asked if she liked the results and she told me no, then proceeded to describe each and every little detail of WHY she didn't like them. I told her she shouldn't be telling me as I was not her photographer - she should tell that studio.... she stomped off and I never saw her again.

Now it's difficult to talk to people about my photography - I am always wondering: will they be like the rest and just say things that are nice, but the truth is.... they will disappear like the others....

It happens so often....

I've often wondered should I give up this hate/love relationship with photography ~ how I love photography but it and the people who see my work hate me and my images so much as to avoid me so. I remember how some people would stare at me as they would a fly when I told them I was an "artistic" photographer; after a few days they were awed as they described how they felt so together with the beauty I had "captured". They were agasp when I told them I made very little money from my photography..... they too promptly disappeared as do the others.

As I write this, my camera is again in the shop for the same problem it's had three previous times over the past few months and I haven't even had it a whole year! Have previously tried to stay away from a camera, but tis difficult because it's like chopping off your hands, your feet and walking blind into the darkness....

But they don't care.... I feel so bitter at times but who cares.... to go begging online to create pictures for someone.... If I had the money to pay for a model they would probably still turn me down.... I am "so" artistic they don't see how I feel when they turn me down and go to some other less-experienced photographer. They don't see my hurt when I see their newest cheesecake pictures taken by some guy with a camera who does his work more to see nude women than anything else, and makes more money in one day through his photography than I have made in the last five years.

They don't care how I feel.....

Right now I am listening to flamenco guitar music off the internet, listening to the spanish-style music all day and wishing I were back in my small apartment in warmer friendlier Spain... not restricted within a cell of so many feet and with no room for my clothes, my things and my memories. That I must relocate things each and every day just to be able to move around and do things ~ for that reason often I cannot find things.

This is not Life......

more eye drops and that new vision

It's been some days since I've commented on my eyes... it's progressing well but I still have the sensation that it's almost like wearing my glasses (where are those?) but without the glasses. Right off I had been instructed to buy some lubricant eye drops which I did and have been using them, though I was "forced" to slack off during Fleet Week where my eyes were subject to blowing wind, debris, hot bright sun, etc. You can imagine the rest.... a total of five and more hours without eye drops, and me blinking like a madman all day!!

Just recently and through a friend of my sister who sponsored me financially for this corrective eye surgery, I was introduced to a different type of eye drops which still complied with the eye doctor's requirement of being "preservative-free"; I've been trying these newer drops for a few days and the difference is amazing! With the other type I had purchased, my eyes would dry up almost immediately and I couldn't see anything... okay ~ I can see but it's like staring through very really dirty smudged glasses. With these, I can see clearly almost immediately and up to farther distances!!

WoW!!

I also guess I haven't been thinking of my eyes because I adapted so well to my new vision... I still think of my glasses now and then, but I have adjusted quite easily - too easily I think - to my new life without the need to wear glasses. I still have them though they are useless now, and were just recently purchased at a cost of a few hundred dollars.

I've been thinking of buying sunglasses for some time to keep the wind and dirt out of my eyes. I have looked at quite a few types, but haven't plunked down the money because I had this done to have vision without glasses; if I buy sunglasses then I'll be wearing glasses again and it really doesn't make much sense!

Saturday 18 Oct: Went out and finally got some sunglasses. I just cannot tolerate any more wind blowing dirt into my fragile eyes! While at the mall shopping for these glasses, I bumped into my sister's friend who just coincidentally had purchased a box of eye drops, minutes prior with her own money ~ for me!!!! Wow! Talk about a small world!!

If you're going through this same process as I am, just email me and I'll give you the brand names, etc. My next follow-up in San Jose is in two weeks.....

Monday 20 Oct: I have experienced the halo effect that many have spoken and written about. I believe this is a result of the burring of the cornea surface just before the first cut is made; it's an undesirable end result but when one thinks of the cause, then it's not easily preventable. I've discovered that the more moistened the eyes are, the less the halo effect noted. Of course, this mostly occurs at night and when looking toward bright objects, such as headlamps of cars, street lamps, etc. I don't see it as a problem and while it's slightly annoying to this patient I see it as a very tiny trade-off for the benefit and advantage of not requiring glasses.

the continuing saga of CSI....

.... still amazes me with its depiction of this so-called Life we see with our eyes, and through this virtual world. Life in itself is so similar to what we see on the tiny screen... with its twists and turns, a plot so thick you need a magnifying glass to determine sometimes which way it will turn.....

Is our Life so insane that it is really as it seems on the television, or is the television so dramatic that it builds our Life for us, by influencing what we see, how we think and even in rare cases, cause those with less sanity than the norm ~ and what is the norm if such a thing exists ~ to copy what is seen virtually.

It's the complexity of Life that causes us to experience deep thought, profound moments that make us smile, laugh, cry and cause us deep sorrow. It is this that causes me pain... knowing that what I see on CSI is such virtual reality that Life itself is even worst than what we see through that box.....

Though delayed, these first two episodes have not failed me to see what they have in store for us this season... and if Life is any reference, that its real-time ups and downs will be portrayed realistically and accurately ~ as always ~ and will always move me to such emotion that I can't help but wonder why Life is even worth living in such sorrow.