Category: The Good Man

The Politics of Orientation

Sense memory is a funny thing. Seemingly insignificant things are ingrained early in your cells and pop up at the darndest times.

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Earlier this week, after a long day at work and in a post-dinner stupor, I emptied the dishwasher and put away our clean dishes.

No big deal, right? Common, unremarkable.

After I’d put away the dishes, I looked at the cabinet where our glassware is kept and laughed, because I had done something that harkens back to an earlier time.

When The Good Man and I first moved in together more than ten years ago, there was a lot of negotiation. To be expected, I’d been living alone an awfully long time, was a bit set in my ways, and I was no spring chicken either.

So having this dude move into my space was, well, weird. I honestly had some difficulties, which we were able to work through bit by bit.

One such negotiation had to do with the orientation of drinkware on the shelves. You’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it became one of many lessons in “things you do because of where your from.”

You see, I grew up in dry ol’ New Mexico. We loaded our glasses rim down so the dust doesn’t get in ya drink.

The Good Man grew up in Brooklyn. They loaded their glasses rim upward because god knows what crawled across the shelves and it’s gross to drink from a rim that’s been in the yuck. “That’s why my mom puts new shelf paper down in every place she lives,” he explained.

Ah. Well. Sure. That actually made sense. So I relented and agreed our home would be a rims up sort of space.

Besides, I knew that picking battles was going to be the key to success. We still had to settle if our home was going to load toilet paper over the top or from below. (Over the top is the final determination, my preference, The Good Man doesn’t care either way)

So this past week, tired of mind and body, doing something I must have done thousands of times in my life by emptying the dishwasher, I loaded the glassed rim down. And laughed.

Then thought about the early days of The Good Man and Me. As we approach our ten-year wedding anniversary, I have been doing that a lot lately.

So did I then turn the glasses back over? Nope. I left them, figuring we’d use all the clean glasses before the next washer run, and then on the next unload one of us would get the right orientation.

This morning, better rested, I unloaded the dishwasher again. Sense memory, I didn’t even think about it. I put the clean glasses rims up and walked away.

Here is a true and accurate representation of the current state of our cabinet.



Where avoiding dust and avoiding rat droppings meet



I wonder how long it will be before my rather obsessive need for uniformity will get the better of me….can’t blame that on New Mexico.





Photo taken this morning using the Camera+ app on an iPhone 7. I mean, why would you want to steal a photo of my drinkware? But if you do, please remember it’s subject to the Creative Commons in the right column of this page. Attribution, please! :)



Taking Myself Way Too Seriously

What follows is me working out some “stuff” up there in the ol’ brain pan. A bit indulgent to do this publicly, but maybe putting it out there helps someone else. Or makes me accountable for my own crap. Either way.

So here it is… I have been taking part in a Flickr group that challenges its members to do a new macro photo every week based on a theme the moderators choose.

I started participating on December 4th with this photo:



©2018 Karen Fayeth

I felt clever. Sassy. Like my photo was more creative and of better quality than the others in the group. Go me! I was rewarded with well over one hundred faves in the first day. Hey, fun!

So I kept going. Each week working hard and having fun doing these weekly photo challenges. Creating a new image every week. Some weeks I worked really hard (or agonized) over executing my idea.

Other weeks it came easy to me, I snapped a photo that was exactly what I wanted and went on about my day.

But always having fun and not taking it too seriously.

Until two weeks ago. Two weeks ago I stopped having fun and got deadly (overly) serious about my weekly photo entry.

Let me back up. This Flickr group is huge, over 13,000 members. Each Monday between 800 to 1,200 photos are posted for the theme. This means in order to function, the group must be tightly moderated. And it is. Tightly.

I both like and respect that there are heavily enforced rules for the group. But I also HATE it because I’m an *artist* and The Muse can’t be contained by your silly rules. I should be able to break them because MY work is the best.

Yeah, okay. I own it. I got weird. I hate it when I get weird.

The week’s theme was monochromatic, and I turned this one in:



©2018 Karen Fayeth

I really like this photo. I worked hard on it and felt really good about it. I feel like I did something worthwhile. Artistic.

Less than ten minutes after adding it to the group, a moderator pulled it, telling me “This is not monochromatic, I can see both brown and green.”

I seethed. I stewed. I started looking at other photos in the group and found SEVERAL that also had tiny bits of another color that made it through the moderator’s net.

I bellowed about how unfair it was. I started making a list of all the other photos that were let through. I prepared to launch my vitriol on anyone who would listen and demand answers for my mistreatment. How could they hate my photo so much!?!?! (I know, I know)

Then I went to talk to The Good Man, and as I detailed all the ways I had been wronged, I heard myself. I listened to my words and realized…aw damn…I’d stopped having fun. I was this worked up over a photo on Flickr in a group where the only prize is some eyes seeing the photo and some faves.

Yeah. I hit the wall pretty hard. This came just a day after struggling with a story for a writing contest that just would not gel for me. I hadn’t given myself enough time to work on it and the story would not come together no matter how hard I tried. I tried to shotgun it and I failed hard. I did still turn in the story but I know it’s not good.

You see, I wasn’t mad at that stupid unfair moderator. I was mad at me.

And that’s no way to create. That is the antithesis of creativity. This dampens The Muse.

So I went all the way there and now I’m reeling myself back in. I swear. I sat my Muse and my brain down and we had a talk. Feelings were felt and admonitions were issued. Promises to be better. To loosen up. To remember why I do any of my creative work…to have fun. To let the creativity out. To create something.

And I’m better. I am. The following week I swore I wasn’t going to participate in the Flickr group again, but that was EXACTLY why I needed to get back in the game. So I made a photo based on the theme “in a bottle.”

Here’s my Valentine to myself. Green like the Hulk who gets very, very mad. Sweet like the victory of turning out a piece of art and something I really like. It also met the rules and made it past the moderators.



©2018 Karen Fayeth

Lesson learned. Scars formed. Exterior just a little bit tougher.

And this week? Try, try again.





Redux: A Treatise on Monday…or Everything Old is New Again

Five years and one day later, Facebook saw fit to remind me of my history: A Monday in 2013 that I don’t actually remember, can’t pick out from the rest of the over 1,800 days that have passed since then, and was, I suppose, wholly unremarkable.

And yet, the early morning hours were remarkable enough to get my brain going and some writing done. I re-read my own words on a Sunday with Monday looming large and realized that other than riding the train to work every day, the sentiment remains much the same.

I have a big deal meeting at 8:00am today, and the Monday ahead has me quite thoughtful.

This post has aged well, so I’m happy to share it again today. It still works.



A Treatise On Monday
Originally posted January 28, 2013

Written this morning at something like 5:45am


And so we find ourselves back at Monday. Ah Monday, both the beginning and the end.

I have sad, tired, squinting, groundhog eyes as the alarm goes off. I’m begging the world not to pull me from my burrow. Please don’t shine that bright light in my face.

But I’m pulled from my burrow anyway and instead of a prediction the world anticipates my arrival at the train station and my seat on the next ride into the city.

The bright light turns out to be a beautiful ray of light, glimmering off the slowly rising sun.

All possibility is in Monday. Will this be a good week? Will this be a bad week? Will it rain?

Monday is everything and nothing. A blank canvas ready to take the paint.

What will I make of my Monday? What will I achieve? How will I stumble and will I recover gracefully?

It all exists here in these quiet pre-dawn hours. The sun hasn’t even said hello yet and here I am, writing. Scribbling the words that want to exit my head.

There is already acrylic paint on my hands from a project that is due Thursday morning. I had to get some early painting done so I can hit that deadline.

In this Monday, all things are possible including finishing a painting that is due in just three days.

Oh my.

I feel strangely happy today. What the hell is this? How unusual for a Monday morning.

The weekend was weird. I was cranky and then he was cranky and then it was Sunday night and another two days of not working were jettisoned to the ether. Monday turned the corner and sat down for a visit.

So here I am again loading a backpack for work, stumbling around to find my badge and my phone and my sense of self-worth.

I look again at my canvas and already I fear I have screwed it up. Don’t they say in art there are no mistakes? Just roll with it and incorporate the error. OCD and art are not friends. This major but fixable error must wait until later tonight to find its cloak.

There is a train to catch and a Monday to face. I’d rather stay home in my studio and put gorgeous turquoise paint on a willing canvas. Can I do that for a living?

You know, a girl can dream, and so I will dream as BART gently sways. When I disembark dreams stop so reality can start.

But no matter, I can dream again, later. Dreams don’t die easy.

And dreams don’t wait for the weekend.









Image from The Miracle Journal.




Right In My Wheelhouse

For just over a month I have been participating in a Flickr group called Macro Mondays, the intent of which is to create a new Macro photo each week based on a specific theme.

This group is a lot of fun and it is a pretty good challenge for me to create something new every week.

This week’s theme turned out to be right in my wheelhouse, combining two great loves of my life.

Our theme was to create a macro photo based on a favorite book. The rules said no showing the cover of the book, no obvious photos of a book. No, the photo needed to represent what the book is about.

Many an hour was spent thinking about what book to choose and how to best represent a story. I wanted to do Red Sky at Morning, but was unsure how to create that in the small space of a macro photo. I considered Lonesome Dove, but didn’t feel I could do it much justice.

So I finally settled on Something Wicked This Way Comes. After many brainstorming sessions with The Good Man, much thinking and agonizing and not being happy with what I was producing, I think I finally landed on something that does justice to Mr. Bradbury’s fabulously creepy story.

Here’s my photo:



Inspired by Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Copyright ©2018 Karen Fayeth

This weekly challenge gets about 1,000 entries this week, and I look at every one of them so I can learn and get excited about the work of fellow photographers.

Here is some fun trivia: What book do you think was the most represented this week? Any guesses?
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By far, a Clockwork Orange. I don’t know what that says about this group…..

Followed by Lord of the Rings, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Fantastic books, all. Just not on my personal top ten.

I won’t even get into all of the instances of 50 Shades of Gray and Twilight.

So while this week’s photo took a lot of planning and setup, I am completely excited about this idea and (mostly) happy with my photo. I would love to take a stab at some other books too. Fun idea. Now I look forward to next week’s challenge.





Back Out Into the Wintry Days

Here it is, Sunday, January 7th and I’m staring down the barrel of Monday.

It’s time to get myself back into gear.

You see, not only does my employer shut down between Christmas and New Year, but I was also able to scrape up enough hours to take this past week off. I’ve just had seventeen glorious and fun filled days away from work. Days of setting my own agenda. Of not looking at work email. Of working on photography at midnight if that’s where the fancy took me because I could sleep in the next day and the next one after that.

Last week I existed in a fabulous sort of limbo land. 2017 no longer, not quite 2018. It suits me.

All good things must come to an end, and so must my extended vacation. Tomorrow, reality slaps me across the chops, as reality is prone to do.

This morning The Good Man and I left our warm and cozy home to venture out into the rainy, wintry cold for Sunday breakfast. Pancakes to bid adieu to vacation and bonjour to 2018.

Through visible breath and rubbing hands together I looked up and saw a bright red maple leaf shellacked to the windshield. “Hey that’s pretty,” I said and took a quick snap.

Now, I realize that in this simple winter image I somehow exactly captured my mood. No more holly jolly songs and soft Christmas lights. No more Santa and wrapping presents and warm cookies baking in the oven.

It’s now winter, plain and straightforward. No more looking forward to the holidays, instead we look to Spring. I have a lot of (needed) California rain to endure this year because that is what the Bay Area does in winter.

This is the long slog, when it’s still dark early and foggy mornings and shivery cold.

But soon. Yes soon, the world moves into winter so we can know the spring. Daffodils and cherry blossoms are just around the corner, but for today it’s a sodden leaf in cold rainy hazy blue surroundings.

So I won’t lose hope. Tomorrow may loom large, but I will pop back to the surface like a bobber and keep swimming. I will have great successes and I will fail a lot too. I will be mad and sad and happy and grumpy and overtired and all the things I was on December 21 when this wild leave from work began.

Okay 2018. I put you off as long as I could, but you are now top of my To Do list and I’m going to tackle you.

Starting tomorrow.



©2018 Karen Fayeth