Category: curious

I’m Not Alone

So it was on flight SQ16 from Incheon to San Francisco that I picked up a new friend.

Maybe friend is too generous a word.

A follower? Stalker? Shadow?

I think it all started somewhere over the international date line. It gets pretty wonky up there over the Pacific.

When I got off the plane, there was someone there. With me. Only I didn’t realize just who yet.

Tuesday, as I went to work, he came along.

I say he. Really, this thing is a genderless entity, a spectre, an imaginary friend. But for the sake of ease, I’ll say he.

As I commuted to work, I finally realized he was there. In the passenger seat. He went with me into the coffee shop. He was there when I parallel parked my car. He took a seat in the conference room where I’m attending a training class.

He sits next to me. With me. On me. On my head. Wrapped around me like a blanket made of wet mud and peat moss.

The entity is jet lag. I call him JG for short.

I think you’re not supposed to talk about JG. When someone asks, the right answer is “fine! Oh I’m doing great. Yeah, no problem.”

But it’s a problem.

JG is real and JG is profound. I try to stay normal. I try to make a salient point during the workshop on data security but while I speak, JG puts cotton fluff and jello into the working parts of my brain.

JG gives me a nice outfit to wear to work, only the fabric is the leaden material found in xray rooms and dentist offices.

My shoes are made of concrete.

I lean forward and my shoulders slump so I can carry the heavy load. I straighten up again and pretend JG isn’t there. My shoulders slump once more.

JG won’t be ignored.

I turn in early to bed to try to get right, to reclaim my brain and my body and I drop easily into sleep. JG jostles me awake at 2:00 am and says “hey! Let’s play!”

I rise and have a snack and try to get something done so my day isn’t a total loss but JG robs my motivation and steals my creative will.

Instead I sit on the couch watching “Mad About You” reruns and wondering where in the hell my life has gone since Paul and Jamie examined married life in the ’90’s.

Then I hallucinate about being stuck in customs somewhere in Asia.

I shake my head from side to side to clear my etch-a-sketch of a mind and try again to focus on the television. Maybe some more food will help.

There isn’t a pill that can cure me of JG. There isn’t a quick fix remedy.

There is only time.

JG and I will be hanging out for a while. You’ll find us in aisle 6 at the grocery store. I’ll be the one standing there bewildered and trying desperately to remember what I needed to buy.

JG will be the one playing tricks in my eyes and tripping me at the ankles and making me want to lay down on the stack of ten pound bags of jasmine rice and close my eyes, just for a moment.

Until strange dreams startle me awake and I rise again to wander the world, a little lost American girl searching for another cup of Singaporean coffee (kopi) and a slice of kaya toast.








Image found on Anabolic Minds.



Eek! A Monster!

Oh, but it’s such a cute little cross eyed monster.**





Look at him all rawr with all the nose holes and the rectangular mouth.

I just want to pat his little growling head and feed him raw meat. Yes I do.

I suppose I should actually find a way to tame this little beast because he’s about to climb into my backpack so we can board an airplane.

That’s right folks, Oh Fair New Mexico is set to hit the road. Or rather, fly the skies.

This time we’re going *international*.

Whew! Very exciting times!

I’m a embarrassed to admit that in my little life, the only times I’ve been out of the US was the many occasions dancing back and forth across the border in both Juarez and Matamoros.

And of course, I spend every day at work calling every country code you can think of. I travel the globe via telephone lines, but when I was hired this was to be a non-traveling position. Ah well.

I’ve had a passport for decades and even had to renew it. But I’ve never, not once gotten that bad boy stamped.

Well that’s about to change. The Boss Man and the Big Boss Man have seen fit to put a ticket in my hand and a Bon Voyage banner across my tuchus.

Next week, I’m headed to Singapore. I’m going for work but I’m as excited as though I was having a vacation.

The Good Man was able to rearrange his schedule to come along so it should be big fun (when I’m not suffering the slings and arrows of my employer).

Actually, the work part of the trip should be fascinating too. I’m attending an event put on by one of our biggest suppliers. They are bringing local in-country reps from each of their offices across Asia. So people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, India, China, and so on are flying in to meet…well…me.

My company gives their company a lot of money, and I will be the senior representative in attendance, and oh I also run the entire program (i.e. I control the money) so I guess I’m worth meeting? Weird. Really, very weird.

I suppose if I’m the one in charge (a concept that should worry you endlessly) then I’d better behave myself.

That’s going to be really, really difficult.

Geez, I even went out and bought professional clothes for this event (I work in Silicon Valley, “professional clothes” is a concept no one cares about).

I am alternately nervous and so freaking excited I can hardly contain myself.

There! I’m going to be there!! Yesss!





**In case my little monster is unfamiliar to you, it’s a universal power adapter.

Singapore image found in seveal places across the web. If it’s yours, please do let me know and I’m more than happy to either take it down or give you credit.



More Wacky Images

So in a bout of middle of the night insomnia, I started exploring the Wackystuff Flickr photo stream further (see Easter image from yesterday).

I went through every page, every image and found some great stuff.

Lo and behold, among the whack, I found this, a mid-century linen postcard:





Weirdly enough, the image to the left on that postcard? I know it’s supposed to be Taos pueblo, but for some reason it looks like the old Albuquerque Airport to me. Maybe the with the plane over head that is what it’s supposed to be?

Dunno. Just know that this card is not, as they would say, politically correct.

I love one commenter on the photo said: “All these things really say to me: ‘Stay the Hell Outta Here! We are frickin’ crazy.'”

That’s right. That’s absolutely right.

We are.

My Fair New Mexico, how misrepresented you are. And how I love you so.



Everything Old is New Again

Take a look at this photo. It’s not my photo. I came across it yesterday and I kind of liked it.




It’s got that color saturation and green tinge that you see in a lot of these new square format apps for the iPhone and Android (my personal favorite is Hipstamatic).

Actually, I like this photo a lot. But I didn’t heart it on Instagram. I didn’t like it on Facebook. I didn’t re-Tweet it either.

Because this photo was found inside a frame and mounted to a wall at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.

This photo is part of their Walker Evans show.

This weekend, my photography group took a field trip to check out the exhibit. Going in, I knew very little about Walker Evans other than he had captured a lot of powerful black and white images from the Depression. I purposefully didn’t study up before my trip because I wanted to learn about the photographer through his photos.

Well. Knock me over. I was really, seriously and deeply educated by the time all was said and done.

First of all, Walker was a writer, and then moved into photography. He did both for most of his life. So take that you scallywags who say an artist should pick a medium and not dabble. Feh! Also, I really came to appreciate Walker’s sense of irony. You have to get up close and look around the frame of his photos to find it, but it’s always in there.

That said, the part of the exhibit that gave me the “holy crap!” moment of connection was at the very end when I saw the photos tucked away on the back wall.

It seems that in his early seventies, Walker Evans was left tired and uninspired and found himself unwilling or perhaps unable to create.

And then he got himself a Polaroid SX-70 camera and an unlimited supply of film.

“I bought that thing as a toy, and I took it as a kind of challenge,” Evans explained. “It was this gadget and I decided that I might be able to do something serious with it. So I got to work to try to prove that. I think I’ve done something with it.”


As I stood there looking at the photos, I was at first jealous. Jealous of that “unlimited supply” of Polaroid film. I am completely devoted to the Polaroid camera and used several different versions growing up and well into adulthood. I shot Polaroid until the film was no longer available.

Thanks to the Impossible Project, it’s still possible to buy Polaroid film, but at almost $24 a pack, that easy carefree snap-whatever-you-feel-like and just buy another pack mentality has to be reined in.

So I stood there feeling jealous about having all that free film on hand.

And then…my hands came up and framed either side of my whaaaat? face as I realized…

I have access to an instant camera and unlimited film. But in a different format. Sames tools, different age.

I have Hipstamatic on my iPhone. And Instagram. And a bunch of other toy camera apps.

All of these beautiful color saturated photos. They can still be made! I can still snap with reckless abandon! Oh dear god I have this gadget and I might actually be able to do something serious with it.

Oh my goodness. Oh. My. Goodness!

This realization left me dazed and confused and happy. So happy.

And inspired.







Top photo, “Untitled, 1974 Unique Polaroid” by Walker Evans and used here under Fair Use.

Quote from The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer.

Bottom photo, “Power” Copyright 2012 Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the far right column of this page. Taken with Hipstamatic app for iPhone.



Thinking About Spring

Reblog from March 25, 2010, but just as applicable from where I sit today.


Ah, Spring

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

– Alfred Lord Tennyson

Yes, yes, it’s inevitable that the famous Tennyson quote will be trotted out when the weather turns warm. Especially after the winter we’ve had.

But is that true? Does a young man’s fancy lightly turn to thoughts of love?

Is it love? Or more like “damn, baby, it’s been a long cold winter.”

And if young men turn to thoughts of love, what about the thoughts of young ladies?

Well, I may not be young and I’m no lady, so what do my thoughts lightly turn to?

Well. Those cute little strappy sandals. You know the ones, with the heel, not too high, but high enough to make my legs look nice?

Oh, and if I’m wearing those, then I totally need a mani-pedi.

*ahem* Excuse me. Totally girled out there for a minute. Bringing it back to center….

My thoughts lightly turn to…

Margaritas on the patio of my favorite restaurant while nomming guacamole and hearing light mariachi music in the background.

Iced tea. Preferably made by the sun.

Liberating my legs from the tyranny of pants. (oops, better shave ’em. It *has* been a long winter!)

Apricots ripening in the side yard.

Farmer’s Markets with all of the rest of the produce that arrives with spring including nectarines, peaches and artichokes.

Daffodils on the dining room table. Followed by tulips. Followed by a cacophony of all the flowers of Spring and Summer.

Achoo! Sneezes. Because god knows all those fabulous flowers bring not so fabulous pollen.

Longer days and fabulous sunsets.

Riding my bike! (getting it tuned up today!)

Stepping outside and turning my face to the sun like an over ripened sunflower because oh-my-am-I happy to have that big fireball back in the sky where it’s visible. My vitamin D-cell batteries are running low!





Photo from: Kimberly Clark‘s Flickr photo stream.