My Work Commute

I have four cameras: an Argus C3 (known as “the brick”), a Holga, a Canon powershot from my dad which he used in the early 90s to document our family vacations, and an slr that my high school boyfriend bought for me from Walmart.  Recently I tested them all out by photographing the same thing (mostly my friends, because this “test” was a good way to con them into sitting for portraits) once with each camera.

The idea was to see how the cameras performed in different lighting/distance situations.

The photographs above go in order of how old the camera is (Argus-50s or 60s, Holga–80s, “fam cam”–90s, slr–almost exactly the year 2000); this set is a pretty good indoor lighting test– there was a lot of natural light from the skylight and all the cameras had 400 film, except the Holga (almost goes without saying.)

Once I got to test how well the cameras see in the fog:

What surprised me was the difference in focal length, since none of the cameras were zoomed (only one of them can anyways).  The fam cam veers a little pink and a little washed out, the slr is hyper for contrast, the Argus is often soft-focused (but I’m not a pro with rangefinders), and the Holga is usually messed up the way it’s supposed to be–some light vignetting and not much in the way of light leaks on mine, except in this roll, where the sponges came off.  I’m not as good with a 6×6 square as I thought I would be.  I sometimes do not focus correctly.  A that’s more or less what I learned.

Sometimes I’d rather not use words.

I missed that date.

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that this goodbye to the project is coming on a completely arbitrary day, that the sudden revocation of this thing that stood only for joy, the senselessness of, the meaninglessness of, did not even have an occasion, and I’m sorry that I am telling you right now the cupcake project is over.  It has been for a long time.  I’m sorry.  Didn’t you see it coming?  Didn’t you?  Were you hoping against hope?  Do you even know what that means (because I don’t)?  I’m sorry.  It did seem like we had just gotten started.  There were only three posts and so many promises.  I’m sorry I promised.

Basically everything ends with I’m sorry, if you have manners.  Which I do.

It’s just that I live in Iowa now, again, and I could eat every cupcake here in twenty minutes of walking.  I could do an Every Single Pig in Iowa thing, but I’m a vegetarian.

Don’t ask me if I’ll go back to New York.   There is just no point in thinking about it.  Please don’t ask me that.

If it helps, imagine Bruce Willis telling you all this.  I don’t know why, but I think he has a voice specially tuned for apologies.  You can let yourself think that, if you want, if it makes you feel better.

Failures of My Education

Sea Change

Mistakes I Would Make If We Were Really Made of Sticks, I

That is my cat on every book that I didn’t sell at the Strand sealed in boxes to be shipped, my best friend Paul and I in the car for three days, and the sun setting behind the Iowa City skyline (small sun in a small town.)

I have moved again, from New York back to Iowa City.  I am staying with friends.  I will be moving again next month.  I will be staying with friends.  I’m lucky I have friends.

Some moves are more exciting than others.  Moving from Iowa City to New York was exciting.  Moving from New York to Iowa City was less exciting.  I have been away from new York for two weeks now, and, just as living in New York is, for most people, a large commitment, leaving New York is like getting out of a large commitment, like leaving a marriage, maybe.  Some of my stuff is still in boxes.  Even though this little city is a place of limited possibilities, the sudden unattachment creates an aura of possibility.  It is factually more possible to buy groceries here.

Nothing bad happened on the car trip here.  I lost the car key and had to buy a new one, but that was before we got into the car.  The cat did not die.  The customs officials did not hassle us when we drove into Ontario and they did not hassle us when we drove out of Ontario.  We saw some good friends and some good views.

Now I am drinking orange juice which contains a blend of USA and Brazil concentrate, because it’s breakfast time, same as ever, except an hour later.

Look what has happened:

I could probably think a lot about how cooking and eating make a lot of sense coming into the foreground for me right now, about the regularity of our need to eat, the ability to provide something for someone else, the desire to surprise and delight a new lover, a certain sense of usefulness, busy hands, life-affirmation by teeth.  I could probably make that sentence parallel, too.  But, in fact, after trying to avoid my slip into kitchen-obsession, what I said to myself was: Why?  Because it makes me happy.  And that seemed good enough reason.

And so there has been corn pudding in acorn squash (top photo), dutch apple pancakes, and squash and lentil soup.  One morning chapatis (bottom photo) were served with fried bananas and one night, late, after coming home from an evening out, my favorite pancakes were eaten without berries or nuts.  I’ve made lemon sticky buns with pine nuts and a rosemary goat cheese glaze and veggie pot pie with rosemary parmesan biscuit topping, the recipe for which was so cobbled together that the links would give you no idea, really, how to recreate what I made, and I haven’t typed out the recipe because, well, it seems beside the point in this landslide of food happiness.  Said food happiness came to a crescendo a few days ago when I spontanouesly decided to celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday (his birthday is in November) and told him he got to pick what we had for dinner and what kind of cake he would like and kept me in the kitchen for most of the day making an eggplant lasagna and an angel food cake with a ginger zabaglione and fresh strawberries that involved separating and beating one egg shy of a dozen, amounts of whisking by hand that involved pausing for breaks, and the slowest sifting in the world, repeated twice.  (The lasagna, using this recipe –without the meat and upgrading the cottage cheese for ricotta, because it was a birthday, after all– was delicious, the cake maybe a bit tough, the zabaglione basically terrible.)

The only downside to all this being that the warm glow of accomplishment I’m still sustaining from the memory of my beloved’s enjoyment of that fluffy, difficult thing pictured above far outlasted the warm glow of sated hunger in my stomach.  Because here is is, almost dinner time, and I’m hungry again.