Maybe My Best Just Ain't Good Enough

As reported in yesterday's post, I didn't get out of my mother's house until nearly noon.  She wasn't feeling well and had gone back to bed.  As a result, breakfast was served very late.  But the sun was shining and there were markets in various parts of town, and I was out of photos to post with my daily ramblings, so I felt there might be a chance of getting out among the horde.  When I got to my own home, though, I fell into what has become "the usual trap."  It felt good to be among my things, and I dallied a bit.  Just as I was thinking about going out, the phone rang.  It was my mother.

"I don't see muy two o'clock pills."  

Shit, piss, fuck, goddamn.  Sonofabitch.  

"O.K." 

"I'm sorry.  I understand."

"No.  No you don't."

So I got back into the car and drove to mother's.  Now you might be asking yourself, if I have put all the pills for the week in their respective places in the weekly pill box, why she can't just get them herself.  Ha!  You jest.  

When I got back to my house, I had a couple of hours of "me" time left.  I started fooling around with cameras and lenses.  I thought to put the plastic Holga lens on the Fuji medium format camera just to see. I walked around the homestead grounds snapping photos.  It seemed good.  Now came the hard part.  I put the camera in the car and headed south.  

When I got to the place where I thought the "vintage" market would be, it was really a half-assed effort, but not to be rebuffed or deterred, I set about walking around and snapping away.  It was a small market, and in a few minutes I had made several passes through.  O.K.  I might have something, I thought, so I limped and stumbled my way back to the car where I sat and looked at the pictures on the camera screen.  Maybe one, maybe two useful images.  When I backed the car out of the lot and into the street, I decided to take the long way home. 

And that is how I found the "real" market.  Even better, I found a huge parking lot nearby.  This time, I grabbed the Leica and set out with my stumbly gait toward the gathering.  It was late now, but there was still a crowd of hipster fashionistas.  The sun had dropped to a good angle and there were patches of brilliant light with sharp shadows.  I tried standing in a spot adjacent to it, but I became too obvious and had to move along.  I walked around the market once, twice, and then left to scroll through the images I had taken.  I went back. . . three, four times, then out onto the main drag.  Just down the sidewalk was a hipster drip coffee joint I'd never seen.  I walked over, looked in, and oh, my. . . what a wonderful place it was.  It was dark inside, but I didn't want to fool with my camera settings so I just began snapping away from the waist.  I walked to the far back of the place, past tables and booths and all gorgeous old vintage paraphernalia.  The shop was full of people, of course, patrons of the market, so I wasn't comfortable using the camera.  I walked back onto the sidewalk promising myself to come here on a weekday to make more photographs.  I'd found a great alternative place to the Cafe Strange.  It was the happy accident of this day. 

Back to the market, fifth, sixth go 'rounds.  By now, though, I was being "seen," the only guy with a camera.  It's not like being on the streets of NYC, of course, where you walk and walk and aren't with the same people over and over again, so I decided to bolt.  And funny thing--as I pulled out of the giant parking lot, it suddenly and without warning, began to rain.  First a little, then, quickly, a lot.  I'd had some luck there.  

I drove to the grocers to get the things I needed to make dinner.  

When I got back to my house, I dumped the images from the Leica in the computer.  Oh. . . there were a few good images there.  Not classic forever pictures, but something.  I was excited to work on them, but the clock was ticking.  I had to leave them for another day.  It was time to fix my mother's dinner.  

I've become adept at using the Leica in a crowd.  My M10 R is a wonderful camera.  The shutter is nearly silent, and it is able to rapid fire in bursts.  The camera is best for this kind of use.  It is small, light, and nearly perfect for snatching pictures on the run.  For pictures looking through the viewfinder, though, that Canon is a pip.  It just is.  And for anything needing more resolution and finer, deeper colors, the Fuji GFX is great, a real portrait camera.  This is what I have come to after so long.  Three cameras. I know what each of them is for.  I should just sell the rest and put the money toward a big printer.  

"Should," though, has never been my guiding light.  What is my mantra?  

I'll have to work on that.  I'll get back to you.  

My neck still hurts and my hand's still numb and I haven't heard from the MRI place, so this could go on for awhile. . . if not forever.  Living too long is definitely not its own reward.  

When I got up this morning, my mother cried out from her bed in a pitiful, plaintive voice, "I'm cold!"

I sleep naked under a ceiling fan.  It is not cold in the house. I looked at the thermostat.  Nope.  Same temperature as always.  So I said.  

"You have a heater in your bedroom.  Turn it on.  Heat the room up to ninety if you want.  Everything is the same as it has always been."

That confused her.  

"Is the thermostat broken?"

She doesn't hear a word I say.  I live with her misery every moment, and now I can throw my own on top.  It makes her happy, I think.  Misery loves company.  As long as everyone is suffering. . . . 

I am a child in many ways.  I want to show you everything I have right now, all the pictures at once.  But then tomorrow, I'd be back to square one, so I am practicing restraint.  Prudent resolve.  Studied discipline.  

O.K.  Here's something that surprised me.  Carol King?!?!  Holy smokes.  Petty does as good a job as Eric Burdon on this one.  

"Because my best just ain't good enough"

Maybe I've found my mantra!