…they start photographing their dogs on really classy backdrops from Drop It Modern.

Bebop had absolutely no idea WHAT was going on. Eventually she calmed down, but those first few minutes involved me catching her mid-leap off of the box.

Red on the other hand was a natural. He just plopped down and I couldn’t get him to stand up even after the shoot was over.

I try hard not to let Craigslist ads upset me. Most of the time, it’s just people who really don’t understand the kind of time photographers put into their work and the sort of overhead and cost of materials for a fullday of event photography, like a wedding. But this?? Here’s the ad:

_______

Looking for a photographer that can shoot ceremony and reception. Need the following 1-Premium 8 x 10, wedding album (photos sealed inside the album), 1-16 x 20 framed portrait, 2-8 x 10’s, 4-5 x 7’s, and 150 proof book with 2 parent albums and 50 thank you notes. all negatives on CD ( a comparable package would be considered). Can only spend $1000- $1100. Thank you

______

This person is looking for 3 albums, a FRAMED 16×20 , other prints, a proof book, 50 thank you notes AND a release of all the images on a CD. For $1,000.

::Blink::

::Blink:: ::Blink::

The only thing I can think here is that she must not realize that WE, THE PHOTOGRAPHERS have to pay for the cost of printing all these things. They don’t pop out of the sky from the magical printers with a free code all photographers have for products.

Those prints, albums and proofs alone would probably cost me close to the $1,000 she/he was paying. Then factor in me having to design the album pages, design the thank you cards, frame the portrait and not to mention, ohhhh, PHOTOGRAPH THE WEDDING. I’m only taking home $200 after a full day of shooting and weeks of post production? Crazy.

The only thing making me feel slightly better is that maybe, JUST MAYBE, she/he meant that the $1,000 would just be the cost of the products she wants. And then shooting time would be on top of that.

It might be unlikely, but to make myself feel better and hopefully sleep tonight, that’s what I’m going to believe.

Adelynn had her H1N1 shots just the other day. And while all the other kids in the waiting room were screaming and crying, Adelynn kept looking up at my sister with big, tear filled eyes saying in a whimpering voice, “Please, no, mommy. No hurt. Please, no…” It was almost a whisper.

Their names were called. Bridget took Adelynn by the hand and walked into that evil, white, sterile room. THE ROOM. The room where all the pain happens.

The needle goes into Adelynn’s little thigh; she screams; she cries–and does all the normal things a kid does after getting a shot. They arrive back home and Adelynn, still whimpering, looks up at Bridget and says: Leg hurts, mommy. It hurts.

Bridget plops Addie down in front of Dora with her favorite Teddy, Eddie, whom we’ve all grown to know as a part of our family. Eddie is as much a member as me or Bo or my mom or the dogs….in fact, I think she prefers Eddie to the dogs sometimes.

So, Bridget starts cooking dinner and after 30 minutes, Adelynn comes limping into the kitchen. “Leg huwts, mommy,” she says. Bridget goes running over to examine what the limping was about. Could H1N1 have paralyzed her child? As Bridget pulls up Adelynn’s pant leg, Addie says: “Leg huwts just like Yaya’s.” At which point she continues to walk around the kitchen dragging her leg behind her like Tiny Tim.

On a side note, my mom recently had knee surgery and for the past year has been limping constantly. Soooo, pretty much Adelynn associated leg pain with Yaya’s incessant limping. And after she limped around the kitchen for one lap, she looked up at my sister with wide eyes and said, “Cookie would help the pain, mommy.”

What a little con artist.

It was a rainy day today.  The kind of rainy day that is so  effing beautiful and glorious after a ridiculously humid, hot summer. The kind of rainy day that results in the heat and humidity lifting and bringing in a fantastic 70 degrees with it.  After weeks of sweating my non-existent balls off, this cool, rainy day where I sat in my apartment with the windows and balcony doors open was VERY welcomed.

I had a meeting at Red Horse Café this morning. I put on my galoshes, grabbed my umbrella and headed out for the 12 block walk to the gallery. And I didn’t complain one bit that the rain messed up my hair or that the edge of my pants were a little dirty from mud or that my purse got drizzled on—because it was cool. And that makes all the difference between me turning into a raving, ranting lunatic and a calm, collected adult.

So—I’m walking. In the rain. Some might even say I have a bounce to my step. And about half a block in front of me is a man walking his dog…a beautiful Huskie type of dog.  It’s morning…but it’s not that early in the morning. Maybe 10:30 or 11am.  And as I get closer, I see the man is bent over doing something in the passenger side of his car. And as I take even a few more steps closer, I notice that he’s wearing those mesh sporty short things—you know the ones I’m talking about.  A lot of jocks wear them….they look like basketball shorts. Only, as he’s bent over, his ENTIRE ASS is sticking out.

Now, as a girl who wears a lot of low-rise jeans, I’ve had my share of experiences where I’m sitting and I don’t realize that the top of my crack is showing. I think most people can empathize with that. But I have NEVER had my entire ass hanging out IN THE RAIN and not realized it. His butt literally has rain droplets covering it. HOW CAN HE NOT REALIZE HE IS FLASHING ALL OF PARK SLOPE RIGHT NOW?

So I’m staring. Because, to be honest, I’m not so good at NOT staring at things like this that catch my eye. And he looks over his shoulder at me while cleaning God knows what out of his car, and catches me staring.

And he starts to stand up. Silly me, I think that they probably just slipped down while he bent over and as he stands, CERTAINLY he’ll pull them up, knowing now that I’m walking in his direction. But no. He stands up and makes no effort to adjust—and the simple act of standing doesn’t help the situation either. If anything, the shorts slide down even MORE. And I’m so baffled by what I’m looking at that I notice my jaw hanging slightly open.

The stranger smiles and gives a little head nod toward me.  “You like what you see?” He asks all cheeky…like he was the most dapper of dans within some high class lounge.

And I’m all: “Are you seriously hitting on me with your ASS hanging out in the rain?”  He doesn’t say anything at first and just as I’m about to walk away, his dog goes over to him and starts licking the water off of his butt.

Let me just say, I AM SO GLAD I STUCK AROUND THOSE EXTRA TWO SECONDS TO WITNESS THIS.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, like realizing for the first time that I wasn’t just speaking in some sort of riddle. That his ass was actually hanging ENTIRELY out of his pants.

It may be the strangest thing I’ve ever seen…I still don’t entirely understand what happened there.

Maddie was almost two years old. She had beautiful almond brown eyes and chubby cheeks that dimpled with every smile, giggle, and laugh. And every laugh sounded like bells ringing out in an angel’s chorus; a high-pitched tinkling that warmed your insides every time your ears were graced with the sound.

She was a joy to be around. The Terrible Two’s? Please. Maddie was much too wonderful of a child to ever enter a stage like that. She was our angel. Perfectly behaved, with maybe one or two instances where she may have had a bad day or a tummy ache and had been a little more fussy than usual.

She was big for her age—not to be confused with chubby—but tall with perfectly round and wrinkled knees that I wanted to nibble on. God, they were cute. Every feature of hers was rounded; her nose, her cheeks, her belly. Holding her was a bit of a chore, but after almost a year of living across the hall from my best friend and her family, I built up the necessary muscle to withstand a day’s worth of toting Maddie around.

This was a great age. She was learning fast and growing faster. Scooting around like a little choo-choo train, I never dared take my eyes off of her for even a moment. She was very smart; observant and well-behaved. While she may find trouble, all you need to say is “Madeline Renee, no…” and she’ll immediately stop before you need to scold any further.

“Maddie,” I sat on Eliza’s bright blue and orange sofa, babysitting while she was at class, “where’s your nose?” She grinned from ear to ear, her brown eyes sparkling like stars and eager to fulfill any wish I had. Lifting a tiny, pink finger, she touched the tip of her button nose.

“Yay!” I squealed with delight and clapped my hands together, impressed. She turned back around, plopping onto the beige carpet to watch more Baby Einstein. I joined her on the carpet and held her close to my body. Her miniature heart pounded against my chest and eventually our heartbeats matched one another’s, pounding in the same rhythm. I looked down at her and she was fighting to stay awake, her dark eyes getting heavier with every breath. I scooped her into my lap and sat up so that I could rock her back and forth. She shook her head from side to side and looked up at me, blinking fiercely.

“Cahyyeen,” That’s how she said my name, “no nap!”

“Ok,” I smiled at her, knowing she would be asleep in 15 minutes. “Then tell me, where are your ears?”

Her eyebrows arched like two tiny worms, perking up at the challenge. Sending me a tired smile, she lifted her hand and touched her left ear with her palm.

“Good girl!” I gave a hushed cheer. The air conditioning switched on and chills crawled down my spine like an army of ants. The goose bumps made the hairs on my arm stand at attention. I shivered and beneath my soft cotton tank top. “Now, where is your belly button?”

She giggled, lifting her shirt and tapping her tummy with the same hand she touched to her ears. “You?” She loved to look at my belly button; actually, she loved to look at my belly button ring. That sparkly curved piece of metal hypnotized her like no toy I had ever seen. I lifted my tank slightly, revealing a silver heart with a sparkling pink jewel in the center that rested within the crevice of my navel. Maddie giggled more, her nose crinkling and her eyes squinting. She threw her head back, the folds of her skin pinching my arm.

“Whas dat?”

“That’s my belly button ring.” She looked back at it, eyeing closely. She’d seen it a dozen times before, but she loved asking questions for the mere sake of asking them. She held a finger out to touch it. “Be gentle.” I learned early that if I didn’t specify, she would tug on it, thankfully never hard enough to yank it out.

Gingerly, her fingertip grazed the center of the heart and stared in awe. I knew that look; she was picturing herself with her own belly button ring. Sometimes to satisfy this urge, I would put a sparkly sticker over her navel and tell her it was even prettier than the one I had.

She pulled away again, giggling. “More! Hawder dis time!”

“Harder?” I thought for a moment…she already knew eyes, ears, nose, mouth, belly button, tummy, head, knees, arms, feet, toes….what’s left?

“Cahyyeen?”

“Yes, babe?”

“Whot awe dose?”

She pointed at my nipples, erect thanks to the frigid air conditioning. I laughed to myself, uncomfortable with the situation. “Umm…well, those are called nipples.”

Immediately, Maddie lifted her shirt, showing me her own nipples. “Nipples!” She pointed proudly, waiting for my applause.

The twenty-one year old girl inside of me wanted to laugh and teach her other inappropriate parts of her anatomy; teach her how to moon someone and play the butt bongos like my brother taught me when I was four. But the responsible side of me refrained. She got it right though…those were her nipples. And at least she was using correct language and not saying, ‘Boobies,’ right? I supposed that this one circumstance was ok, as long as she didn’t learn any other or more graphic body parts. I made an executive decision and clapped my hands together, only not nearly as excitedly as the other times. “That’s right, Maddie!”

The bronze bell around Eliza’s front door jingled as she entered, three bags thrown over her bony shoulders.

“Mommy!” Maddie cooed, suddenly not tired at all.

“Hey Liza,” my gaze lifted to hers as Maddie broke free from my grasp, running to her mother. “Mommy!” She held her hand out, palm up waving. Clenching two little fists around her shirt, she lifted it to her chin revealing her chest. Then, pressing a finger into the skin around her sternum, she yelled, “Nipple!”

Liza dropped her bags to the floor and glared at me from over her eyebrows. “That’s going to come back to bite you in the A-S-S, Aunt Colleen.”

*             *             *

Fast forward two weeks and I was babysitting again. It was 7:00 pm and neither Liza’s fridge nor my fridge had anything worthwhile for dinner. I decided to take Maddie to one of our favorite cheap restaurants; a very popular fast food burrito restaurant that was always heavily populated with my fellow students. I pushed through the heavy glass doors with Maddie on my left hip. I balanced the weight by carrying my bag on the opposite arm. We could barely step through the door before joining the long line of patient customers. There were at least 11 people ahead of us with only two employees working at a slow pace to piece together the made to order burritos.

Sucking in a deep breath, I allowed it to escape from my parted lips in a sigh.

“Whot’s wong Aunt Cahyeen?”

“This might be a little wait, Maddie. Do you want the baby burrito or do you want to go to somewhere else?”

“Buwwitto!”

“Ok, burrito it is.”

“Aunt Cahyeen, where’s your nose?”

I smiled. The game had advanced in the past couple weeks. She would now ask me to point to things as well as me asking her.

I pointed at my nose. “Where are your lips, Maddie?” The couple in front of us in line started to take notice of our little game. They turned to look at Maddie, smiling, arms linked. The woman’s head tilted to the left, her ear grazing her boyfriend’s shoulder and she placed her hand over her heart suppressing a small sigh.

Maddie grazed her lips with her three middle fingers.

“Yay! Good girl! Ok, your turn…”

“Where awe your nipples, Aunt Cahyeen?”

The couples smiling faces turned confused very quickly as they tried to decipher if they had heard correctly.

My stomach turned and I could feel it twisting into a knot.

“Uhhh…”

“Your nipples, Aunt Cahyeen! Point to your nipples!” Maddie’s voice grew louder, assuming that my not answering meant I hadn’t heard her.

She continued, “Nipples, where awe your nipples?”

At this point, half of the line and a few people sitting at tables eating were looking in our direction. Some were disgusted, but others found the situation humorous. I knew one thing was for sure…Maddie was not going to stop asking me where my nipples were until I pointed to them. Reluctantly, I lifted my left hand and attempted to discreetly point to my breast. My fingertip grazed the soft cotton of my shirt and Maddie shrieked with delight, clapping her hands together. The half of the restaurant that was amused at our display started clapping as well; cheering, which only made Maddie squeal louder.   While the more reserved patrons of the place stared disapprovingly.

Lesson Learned: No teaching children about any body part that you would be embarrassed about in public.

Sean and I saw Star Trek. Why, you may ask, did I decide to pay $15 to see a movie based on a show I don’t even like? I have one word to answer that: Compromise. And it’s a bitch.

Back around Christmas, I got to choose a movie to see in the theatres. If you recall, there were several decent movies out in late 2008 (well, decent by my definition). There was Coraline and Gran Torino and Marley and Me (ok, maybe this won’t win any Oscars, but I loved the book)….but no. I chose the movie: Four Christmases. The most terribly, awful movie of ALL TIME.  It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t well written. In fact—it was seriously depressing. And as we left the theatre that evening, Sean leaned into me and made the simple statement: “You owe me.”

So I promised to see Star Trek.  The nerd mecca. A promise that I made thinking my scatter-brained boyfriend would have forgotten about by the time the movie came out in theatres. I was wrong. Sean has a supernatural memory when it comes to Star Trek—not so much when I tell him three times of my schedule—but Star Trek, that he’s got down to muscle memory.

Sean has shown me a few episodes from The Next Generation and I’ll admit it…a few were even fairly decent. (I like the one with Famke Jansen).  I even like a few of the Voyager episodes (I KNOW, I know, it’s the “worst” Star Trek Series).  But the thing I hate about most versions of Star Trek (TNG included) is that very few of the characters have distinct personalities. They all speak with the same tone and the same inflection and then there’s the low humming noise of the ship they’re on…..and all that white noise simply puts me to sleep. In fact, I usually request Star Trek to help lull me into a sleep at night. But in Voyager, there are a lot of different characters. There’s a strong woman captain (who admittedly isn’t always the best actress), and the charming doctor hologram dude, the ridiculously sweet Nelix and the super sexed up 7….there are tons of different character dynamics to relate to and keep me interested.

So, despite Voyager, I was somewhat dreading going to this movie, knowing how dull the other seasons of the show were. I dragged my feet the whole way to the theatre, taking a few shots of jager to help get me through the night.  Sean started reminding me of all the things that I DO like about Star Trek to help me “shut the hell up” as he so gently told me:
1) The movie has some hot eye candy.
2) It’s gotten great reviews, including a recommendation from Derrick, (Dustin Nguyen’s kick ass inker).
3) No previous knowledge of the plot is needed to understand the movie. (IE – You do not need to be a total geek to follow the plot)

I thought about these things a moment, all the while picturing the new Capt Kirk…naked.  After clearing my throat, I said:“Well, I do like the holoport.”

And you would have thought Sean’s head might explode. “HoloDECK, Colleen! It’s a holodeck, not holoPORT! How many times do I have to tell you? It’s a deck of holograms where the Star Fleet goes to act out earth-like scenes. Not a place to park your boat!”

Whoa. Geeks get really picky over the semantics of their shows. It’s a good thing I didn’t say this in the theatre…there may have been some sort of geek uprising which would have involved pasting pointy ears on me and exiling me to some snowy unknown land. (If you understand this reference, you are totally a trekkie)

“Ok, fine. Holodeck. Sheesh. I guess I would have known that if I LIVED AT HOME AND PLAYED LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAYING IN MY FREE TIME.” I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed dramatically.

He looked at me and spoke quietly. “Besides, the holodeck wasn’t yet created in this timeline.”

Now it was my turn to explode. “You mean to tell me that my favorite part of the show is not even in the movie?” I threw my hands up in exasperation.

“You didn’t even know what it was called! You thought it was a holoport.”

“Holodeck, holoport….they’re practically the same. Deck, port…boats come in to each.”

Sean just stared at me, blinking. “Boats dock in a deck? How is that even an argument?”

“It’s not.”

In actuality, the movie was pretty good…even without a woman captain and without 7 of 9’s tits, and the holodeck.  But don’t take my word for it because…I’m a doctor, damnit, not a movie critic!

For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be a little more absent than normal. But overall, it’s a good thing! I just got a new job and I am officially the new events and marketing coordinator for the Red Horse Cafe in Park Slope. This position essentially means that I’ll be curating the gallery space in the coffee shop as well as booking the weekly performers and musicians. I’m also trying to institute some other events, so any suggestions you all may have, feel free to send it along! Likewise, any local talent who is interested in performing or exhibiting art should email me.

So, anyway, this combined with a few photography projects I had taken on prior to knowing I got the job has made me a crazy, busy person. Unfortunately, this leaves very little time to update my website. But once I get more into the swing of things, I’ll return with a vengeance. I know you will all be waiting on the edge of your seats…

I’ve hit the proverbial wall with writing. Well, I actually hit it a while ago…but I’m finally now addressing the issue. There’s a scene in Run, Fat Boy, Run where Simon Pegg’s character hits the runner’s wall. And he literally, in his exhausted delusional state, sees a brick wall in front of him which he peers through the cracks and sees himself on the other side urging him to break through. That’s how I feel. There’s a brick wall in front of me and on the other side I can see myself sitting with my laptop urging my other self to hurry up and start writing quality stuff again.

I used to spend much more of my days writing. And not just little descriptions of what I did that day, but short stories based on what had happened to me. I miss those…I feel like I had really hit my stride with that type of story telling.  And I want to make an effort to find that again.

It’s tough though…when I first moved to New York, I was very lonely. I had no concept of how little people actually saw each other…unless you worked together or lived within the same few block radius. Friends whom I had hung out with every day in college, I ended up only seeing once a month. If I was lucky. No one at work was my age, I didn’t like my roommates (at the time…not you, Lindsey!) and most of my friends lived either in Harlem or in Brooklyn. A lot of times I would go sit in Union Square and watch people. Watch everyone else with friends. Yes, I know…a bit self-deprecating, but aren’t we all at sometimes?

And then I discovered New York coffee shops. You weren’t expected to meet any friends there. No one cared if you were drinking alone or if you were meeting with a whole table full of people…they only cared if you sat at that table for too long taking up precious space.  And this is where I started writing. I had always been drawn to coffee shops, but here in my loneliest moments is when I used it to take myself back to times when I wasn’t lonely–whether that was earlier that same week or years earlier in college.

And now that I have many more friends and a very busy freelance job and a boyfriend/roommate whom I see and hang out with constantly and two dogs to care for…I guess that empty space that used to be there (that empty space which had to be filled with writing) no longer exists. And I think my art has suffered for it. I need to find a way to regain the need and the passion to write without sacrificing my happiness. Has anyone else hit these sort of walls? I mean, I’m sure we all have…but I’m curious if anyone has any suggestions.

(Walking to the gym for a very reluctant workout)

Me: It’s raining!

Sean: It’s just drizzling.

Me: Even so. I wish I had my umbrella.

Sean: Don’t be such a baby.

Me: But what if it’s raining even HARDER when we’re leaving the gym.

Sean: Then we’ll stay and work out longer.

Me: (Long pause) That’s a terrible idea. We could just turn around and forget the gym altogether.

Sean: That’s an even worse idea.

In the area of Brooklyn I live, we have only one option (so it seems) for cable and internet. Time Warner Cable. And I am here to tell you that this seems to be the worst run company in business history.

Quite literally 3 or 4 days a week, I’ll wake up in the morning and try to boot up my internet to look for photography gigs or email back people who’ve contacted me with inquiries…and the internet will be down because of “service interruptions.” I pay WAY too much money a month to be losing 3 and 4 days of work WEEKLY due to service interruptions. Time Warner is literally costing me money. More often than not, I end up having to go to a coffee shop in order to do research for articles I need to finish and for job hunting.

I’ve called Time Warner 3 different times to get a technician to come look at our system (our tv cable box also doesn’t work very often and we don’t get channels that we’re paying for AND we don’t have movies on demand which were promised to us in our package AND the screen will sometimes “tile” and pixelate and the sound will warp),  and all 3 times something has happened where they have either canceled or not wrung our buzzer. Twice they called my phone, when I specifically asked them to call Sean’s because I knew I’d be at a shoot, and when I didn’t answer, they left. Without ever once buzzing our door. YOU’RE ALREADY AT THE APARTMENT!!! HOW HARD IS IT TO GO RING A BELL?

So, I’m so fed up that I’ve started to research other cable providers…only there aren’t any others in our neighborhood. We literally have one choice and one choice only, it seemed. Verizon, nope. Cablevision, nope. My last and fleeting hope is that maybe satellite tv and internet is an option out here. Does anyone know how much satellite tends to run…and is it reliable? The problem as I write this is….I DON’T HAVE INTERNET RIGHT NOW SO I CAN’T LOOK IT UP!

Anyway, that aside…I thought it was ILLEGAL for a company to be the only possible option for a given area? I thought that was what was called a monopoly? However, maybe I’m just remembering 10th grade economics all wrong.  Either way—if it isn’t illegal, it should be.

And if you can’t tell…I’m pretty angry about this.