I know that entering juried contests and calls for entries online is not the only way to get my name into the wonderful word of please buy my photos so I can justify making more. And I'm more than just a tad bit annoyed that I got an entire MFA and they never even began to address how to begin getting our toes in the door. Damn I want my money back! Also, they prided themselves on making the MFA program revolve around the photobook and only the photobook and I am realizing more and more that they did us quite the disservice by not offering a multidisciplinary approach. Oh well. At least I can still say things like When I got my first master's degree.... and be all sorts of appearing to be extraordinarily educated. Hahahaha. Little does the world know that that MFA education was merely an endurance test of how much psychological torture I can put up with without crumbling. The answer to that is A LOT. (Take for example..my life!)
I got my haircut yesterday and I'm pretty sure it was the first time since last April. The bottom two inches of my hair was practically crunchy. Chop chop. I'm going to see how little I can blow dry my hair all winter. I usually pass on the blower over the summer, cause my head never freezes in the summer, but in the winter I prefer not to ice my scalp, but I think I am just going to get through this winter with gross dirty hair in a pony tail in an effort to blow dry it as little as possible. Then next spring I'll chop a serious amount off of the ends. My big plan is to let the hair get annoyingly long and then dye the tips of it some insane color for my niece's bat mitzvah because she asked me to when I told her I almost did that as a surprise for her older sister's bat mitzvah. I probably shouldn't have said anything if I wasn't in the mood to do it ever but I did and you know how much I love to make the kids happy. Also, I feel like I am about to turn the corner of no return into the land of needing to look my age and dress respectable and so far people are still telling me I don't look as geriatric as I feel, so it's pretty much now (as in next May) or never. Which is an odd thing to say about something I don't particularly want to do. I recognize the perplexity.
Speaking of how I look, I am really sporting a disastrous combination of layers this winter, and even more frightening than the bag lady dog walker look I sport every morning is the insane and on drugs bag lady look I sport in the afternoon when I don't do things like untuck my sweat pants (the ones I pull from the donate pile every single winter when it gets cold and I think about how cozy they are despite their bell bottom legs, not mentioning they are the color of vomited up dog food) from my wool socks for fear of a cold breeze hitting my ankles but throw on some old clogs as I walk out the door because I don't have time to lace up the boots which would have partially concealed my unusual fashion choices. And then I throw on my shredded dog park coat because it's more snuggly than the new clean (not ripped to pieces or splattered with muddy paw prints) coat. But really, my hiking boots are the most comfortable footwear I own and I'm starting to wear them more than just to the woods. It's kind of hilarious how much I do not fit the new town mold. Ladies here wear tennis skirts, not hiking boots. Also, they don't walk around with greasy unwashed pony tails to prepare for tip dipping their hair for the niece's bat mitzvah.
Where are my people? I wonder where I will land next. I feel like I would totally fit in in the city but somewhere along the line I got used to the quietness of not being in the city and also the woods are such a source of comfort to me. I really do feel like I don't have a place anywhere. This make me sad.
Here is a secret- I was destined to be near the woods. I remember telling my mother I wanted to be an artist and she told me that art was not a career. I said that the only other thing I could imagine doing was being a park ranger. I really felt that I could be happy working in a national park somewhere. (except for the bloody awful man pants and button down shirt I would have to wear) I wonder what my life would have been like if I never listened to her and became a park ranger/artist? I bet that would have been fulfilling.
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