Check out the October issue of New Mexico Magazine, page 14. Yup, I have another story published.
This is the third of three stories that were accepted and all three have been published.
I’m now working on some new submission ideas. I really hope to keep this trend going!
So I can have a good job and a nice hard walled office.
So I can listen to my Pandora radio in my iPhone.
So I can tune it to the “60’s, 70’s, and 80’s hits” station.
Where I can hear Aerosmith’s “Dream On”, first released in 1973, and again in 1976, right in the prime of my formative years.
So that I can sit in my hard walled office and sing along.
Badly.
With Steven Tyler.
“Dream ooooowwwnnn, dream oooowwwwwn, dream until your dreams come true!”
And especially this part:
“…sing with meh/sing for the yeaaahar/sing for the laughter, sing for the tear/sing with me, if it’s just for today/Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away”
And then there is that howl part on the word “away”… Yeah.
In my mind I think I can hit those same notes that Mr.Tyler could hit some 40 years ago.
Then the employee seated in the cubicle just outside my office prairie dogs up over his wall to give me a crooked eyebrow.
And I think “ffft! He was born in 1983, he doesn’t understand.”
So I go on singing. In my office. With my Pandora.
Thank you NMSU, that I may have this job with a Fortune 500 company, this office, and the ability to torture my employees on a Friday morning.
I never get tired of recycling this image. Image is of Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and a pretty extensive web search could not net me the attribution on this photo. I found photos from that same event on the European Commission page which allows for the use of photos with attribution.
I’ve heard over and over how “if it looks easy, it was probably hard to accomplish.” This applies to music, painting, writing, and pretty much all of the arts.
The answer, then, is always practice. And then practice. And then practice some more.
I recently procured a light tent and have been learning how to shoot stock images. It’s a great outlet for photography and occasionally, if you build up a good inventory, you can make a couple extra bucks at it.
So I thought I’d try my hand. I did my first submission of ten to the online stock photo company I’d chosen, and all but one were summarily rejected.
I was told that most “were not commercial”…meaning I’d submitted arty stuff and not “hey that would look good on a brochure” stuff.
Ok. This calls for expanding my horizons a bit. A streeeeetch to my current knowledge.
So I’ve been practicing. And struggling.
I have spoken with a professional photographer who has a lot of success with both stock and not-stock work. She gave me great information and feedback.
She advised that making the move to add “commercial” to your “arty” repertoire is a tough one.
I had no idea how just how tough.
I keep looking at this photo and sighing. Occasionally I whimper. (I suggest clicking the photo to see the big size. In the small form to fit this blog post it’s hard to see details):
I took the better part of a hundred photos of ding-dang tomatoes in just three different poses. I fiddled with light. Lenses. Exposure. All of it. From the piles of photos from that shoot, this is one of the better shots.
And it still sucks.
The stems are out of focus (c’mon Fayeth, that’s photography 101!). The colors are muddy (gah!) and the depth of field isn’t quite right as you can still kind of see the corners of the light tent. And the way the lights are configured, it looks like each little tomato has two little eyes (this was not easily corrected by Photoshop. I tried.). GAAAAH!
So frustrating.
Turns out it takes a lot of effort to make a “simple photo of tomatoes” look like it was just simply snapped off the camera and ready to go.
What does this all mean? Well…back to the light tent I go with a new bowl of tomatoes from the back yard.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
And then practice some more.
I think the edges of my personal creative envelope are starting to ache a bit.
The other day, I was out walking with my lunchtime exercise pal (for regular readers, the Worm Girl) when we had occasion to cross paths with three different redheaded men. Of the bright orange and freckles variety.
“Must be a ginger convention,” I quipped.
She laughed, then my newly on-the-market friend commented “You know, I can’t explain why, but I’ve never been attracted to redheaded men. There’s no good reason, it just doesn’t work for me.”
I replied, “Yeah, me too. Though I know why. When I was in elementary school, I went to school with a ginger kid. He had a lot of troubles with wetting his pants. I felt so bad for the guy. He was a nice kid, but he used to make puddles everywhere.”
We walked for a while longer. Then I said “you know, I should look him up. I wonder what he’s up to these days.”
“He’s probably a CEO and incredibly rich,” my friend said, and I agreed.
So that night I went online to look up my old schoolmate from my formative years. The pants wetter.
Well. He’s not a CEO. It’s better.
He’s a pretty darn successful race car driver. His posted record is awesome and now he owns a racing company with his parents.
Guess we all pegged that kid wrong didn’t we?
Which makes me think about all of my friends with young kids who struggle with the weird culture of mommies that insist on comparing “my little Tommy” to other kids. They always make sure you know that their kid is better than yours.
It’s evil and it’s wrong and it makes me UTTERLY mad. You have no idea how many mom-friends I’ve had to talk down because of this nasty culture.
One might think that my school chum was a less-than kid because of his bladder issues.
Since confession is good for the soul, I’ll admit I was the class nose picker. When the teacher got boring, the treasures of the nostrils seemed far more interesting. I’m not proud of it and I took a lot of guff in first and second grades for it.
At close to forty years later, I think it can be said that I turned out pretty well too.
Power to the pants wetters and the nose pickers and that kid that barfed on the school field trip and then no one wanted to hang out with him. They are your future race car drivers and CEO’s or just your average soul with a decent job and a good spouse who does her best to be a good member of society.
Blessed are the weirdos, for we shall inherit the earth….right after we’re done skeeving everyone out.
After my dad passed a few years ago, I took possession of the family collection of photo albums and scrap books, with the solemn promise I’d keep them safe.
It was an easy promise, because I adore all the family artifacts. As a kid, I used to dive into the pages and smile at photos of my hot young mom (she was stunning!) and my young dad (he was geeky!).
My mom was a great scrapbooker so there’s great stuff to look at, including lots of artifacts from when she first moved to Albuquerque back in the 1950’s.
When my mom handed this all over to me, I realized the collection is far larger than I’d ever known, and I’m loving taking time to go through it all. Every time I dive in, I manage to find something I’ve never seen before while I’m in there.
Some of my favorite finds are the handwritten letters, which is such a lost art. You can learn a lot about relatives you never knew by reading their letters.
I have an assignment from a rather important editor (my amazing mom-in-law) to write about my paternal grandmother, and so I was in the family stacks last night doing some research.
That’s when I found this, a letter from my grandfather to my father.
The handwritten bit up in the corner says, “Read weekly, a good guide – Dad”
Here’s what it says:
12
Things
To
Remember
* *
1. The value of time
2. The success of perseverance.
3. The pleasure of working.
4. The dignity of simplicity.
5. The worth of character.
6. The power of kindness.
7. The influence of example.
8. The obligation of duty.
9. The wisdom of economy.
10. The virtue of patience.
11. The improvement of talent.
12. The joy of originating.
Such simple words that encapsulate such very strong values. This is endearing fatherly advice to a son and it is timeless. This was written in 1949, but is just as applicable 62 years later.
Gives me much to ponder as I wade through another busy work week.
