Category: first world problems

Stare Deeply into this Inkblot

Oh, let’s go instead with word association.

I’m so much better at that.

———————————

  1. Earrings ::

    2. Love ’em. The bigger and danglyer (<-- so very much not a word) the better. One pair I have, Zuni petit point in a modern version of the classic snowflake pattern, seem to be the crowd favorite. I get tons of compliments. Even without the compliments, they are hands down my favorite. Plus, you don't see earrings like this out here, which I like. There are a few ladies at work who would buy them right off my ears if I'd let them.

  2. Tomorrow ::

    3. And tomorrow. And tomorrow. And the unofficial state motto of New Mexico….Land of Mañana.

  3. Soft ::

    4. My cat’s belly. Hard is her teeth when I pet her belly. She has tummy issues.

  4. Idiots ::

    5. Me and The Good Man cuz we keep trying to pet The Feline’s belly. It’s soooooo soooooft. She bites really hard.

  5. Portraits ::

    6. I’m learning that good light is everything.

  6. Handicap ::

    7. You know how the sport talk guys give a handicap when they mention golfers? “Oh he’s a seven handicap” or some silliness like that. What it means is you know what kind of golfer the guy is. Well….shouldn’t we have a system like that for everyone else? Especially at work? “Yeah, um, Karen is about a six handicap…she’s chronically late to meetings, blows her nose too loud, can’t park straight, laughs at inopportune times and her mind tends to wander.”

    You picking up what I’m putting down?

  7. Collar ::

    8. Just reading the word made me tug at mine. Why are collars always so scratchy? And how you boys wear the tie AROUND the scratchy collar I’ll never know. I would have bug eyes and claw at it all day long.

  8. Blouse ::

    9. Much softier and nice. Ladies, have you noticed that blouses with a limpy bow at the neck are back in style? Let’s go raid the wardrobe of the early 1980’s working woman, why don’t we?

    I’m not sure how I feel about this trend. What’s next, wearing high top Reeboks with our power skirt and calling it high fashion? Um. No. Been there. Done that.

  9. Wool ::

    10. Scratchier than any damn collar. Who can wear that stuff?

  10. Statistic ::

    11. Statistically speaking, the odds of me wearing a wool collar are nil. However….the odds of me wearing a limpy bow blouse again in my life….maybe…





Image is a screen still from “Charlie’s Angels” and found several places on the net.


Another Hard Lesson For a Hardheaded Girl

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.





I know, right?





“Please hold and the next available representative will take your call.”

Then that music starts up again, and it’s always gotta be some earworm song that won’t get out of your brain and you find yourself humming it in the produce section of your grocery store.

Sometimes it’s not the whole song, just a portion of it. Or some evil Muzak version of a good song (I have literally heard a Muzak version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”).

It’s just wrong. For a nice girl like me who spends A LOT of time each day on the phone, it’s crazy making.

Not that I need any help.



Image from Shoebox Blog.


Marriage, in a Nutshell

A couple of days ago I was at the mall because I had to return a couple items.

After getting all my errands done, I strolled past a See’s Candy shop.

I *love* See’s Candy.

I thought to myself. “I’m going in. I’m getting a half pound box of all of my favorites and I’m eating them all!”

But then I thought, “No. The Good Man would only give me guff about getting See’s only for me and none for him.”

So I walked a little further. “Ok, I’ll get two half pound boxes. One of only my faves and one of only his faves.”

Then I stopped. “No…he’ll just be like ‘why you gotta bring so much sweets into the house? You know I can’t resist!'”

So I sighed. And considered walking away.

But no. I really wanted See’s.

So finally, I relented. I’d get a half-pound box, twelve pieces total, six of my faves and six of his faves. I really wanted all twelve for myself. A lot. If I was single I could have all twelve to myself!

But the right thing to do was to get twelve to share. That’s compromise. I’d only do that for someone I really loved and trusted.

So I did. I got only twelve pieces and I selected his six with care, trying hard to remember what he likes. I knew he’d be happy about the surprise.

I brought the box home. The Good Man wasn’t home from work yet.

So I ate my six pieces.

Then I ate one of his.

And I’m not sorry.

“Love and marriage, love and marriage….”



Photo Credit: Rebecca Crump



Photo from Ezra Pound Cake.


Shortest Distance Between Two Points is a Little Black Jeep

This week I was back at my employer’s office location in the greater Sacramento area. I have such a mental block about making the drive up there because the first time I ever went to Sacramento almost ten years ago, I left on a Friday afternoon and it was an awful, hellacious drive.

And ever since, the drive just seems equally hellacious.

When people ask me how far away is Sacramento, I usually say “oh, about two hours.” But that’s not really true.

In the office this week, I was chatting with a coworker who lives there. He’d asked how the drive went, and I told him it was pretty bad. There were three different accidents in varied locations that had backed up traffic in all kinds of directions. So the trip took me three and a half hours.

My coworker replied, “Yeah, I always figure it’s going to be a three hour ride, no matter what.”

Three hours. Just. Ugh.

I can get from Albuquerque to Las Cruces in three hours, I thought to my little self.

Wait a minute.

What’s the distance from ABQ to LC? About 200 miles, right? According to the maps of Google, the distance from my old apartment in ABQ to my best friend’s home is 224 miles.

Then I looked up the distance from the mid-Peninsula to the Sacramento suburb where I was visiting.

125 miles.

Something’s not right here.

So I embarked on some math. It hurt my head and made me wobbly on my pins, but math was necessary.

So if I go 125 miles in three hours, which is 180 minutes, that means I go one mile every 1.44 minutes.

That means:

My average speed is 41.6 freaking miles per hour!

So if that’s an average, that means sometimes I’m going 65 mph, which is the posted speed limit…

And sometimes I’m going squappity mph because I’m at a standstill at Emeryville, moving real, real slow on the approach to the Bay Bridge, or stuck on that freaking causeway staring at the back of a semi-truck that’s belching black smoke and wondering WHY GOD WHY do I have to drive to Sacramento!?

*sigh*

41.6 freaking miles an hour. No wonder this drive is so tortured. To paraphrase that bard of modern times, Sammy Hagar, I can’t drive forty-one.

I like to drive and go. I don’t like stop and go. Go and go, that’s my motto.

I guess it’s a where-you-were-raised issue. In New Mexico, if I go 224 miles in three hours, that is one mile every 80 seconds which means my average speed is 75 miles per hour. Which is the posted speed limit.

Which means sometimes I’m slowing down to make way for other cars and sometimes the New Mexico State Highway Patrol doesn’t really need to know what I’m up to.

Ahem. Anyhow…..


If you listen close, you can hear the sound of all of those drivers pounding their heads on the steering wheel.



Image from The Sacramento Bee.