God's Righteous Punishment

Chills, stomach cramps, diarrhea, aches and pains.  Even my skin hurt.  I knew better than to go out.  But I couldn't have gotten sick in just ten or twelve hours, I reckoned.  Whence the misery, then.  Maybe I caught something at the doctor's office when I took my mother on Friday.  Or possibly when I went to happy hour on Thursday night.  I kept pushing the thermostat up.  I couldn't get warm.  I stayed in all day and didn't see my mother last night.  Early, I took Tylenol and Advil PM and went to bed.  During the night, more chills, more cramping.  Trips to the bathroom.  

I don't know what it is, but I'm ravaged.  

Still, it didn't feel like death.  It felt like something that would pass.  I can suffer passing illnesses.  So I sat.  For much of the time, I sat before my big work computer.  I thumbed through hard drive images.  I had an idea.  I worked on a couple old photos to see if it would work.  It did.  I worked on more to see if it would hold up to repetition.  It did in some cases, mostly darker chiaroscuro types.  Brighter, fully lit pictures, not so much.  I did enough to know that I can control the process.  There are a lot of steps though they are not boilerplate.  Each image requires, or at leasts accepts, minor variations.  Overall, though, I got the process down.  

You probably can't tell the difference.  But there is a difference.  The color rendering is different.  The colors are muted and slightly skewed.  It was exciting, but it remains to be seen how I will feel about them down the line.  

I have a hard time making myself drink water.  I have to drink more water.  I think that is part of my problem since my heat-stroke-defying deck work.  Perhaps I have not fully recovered, and then, well. . . staying out and "partying."  I didn't enjoy the bars at all, though, and I know my greatest joys lie outdoors or in smaller cafes and cantinas open to the world.  

And, of course, I would revel in a studio.  

I will try to get back on track today, though my belly is still moaning and I am weak from lack of food.  Ensure and Gatorade, maybe, are on my road to recovery.  

A last thought.  I can really work the heck out of a digital image.  Why am I mucking about with the big cameras?  I have hamstrung myself in a way.  But, I say, it is temporary.  Just until you can make those big negative pictures in your sleep.  

Yea.  'Til then.