clickmom

Dear Managing Editor

Dear Managing Editor,

Did I do an awesome presentation or what? I mean really, at the end when that reporter said (and I am really verbatum quoting here) "Wow, so much of what you said was so obvious yet I would have never thought of it!" I knew I had done good. See? Aren't you happy that we went through with this little talk of mine? Aren't you hoping that the non professional photographers get on the photographic ball now? Did I do a stellar job of breaking it all down to understandable bite sized non threatening pieces or what? You should listen to me more often!

And, in case you weren't listening, the female non professional photographer came up to me right before we broke and said (more exact quoting) "Thank you so much. I was really nervous, but you are as cool as -insert local editor's name here- said you are. I learned a lot." Just so you know. It seems that in the adult world of small weekly newspapers, I am one of the cool people. Wow. I am cool. Who knew?

Just so you know, when I bumped into the camera phobic editor that did not come to my presentation because she had a tennis game this morning, and she was still wearing her tennis skirt 6 hours later when I saw her out and about, (ouch! salt in the wound) I might have said something along the lines of shame, missing out and stellar talk. So if she asks you about it, back me up. Okay? Then make her feel bad.

Next week let's get together, you and me, and discuss my new per-assignment fee schedule demands. Quality like this isn't cheap you know.

So the fond memories can linger for you too, because I know you will want to remember this morning forever, here is a shot of me (and my chins), your new hero(es), that the local editor took during my talk. And just so you keep this in mind too, my pad is turned to the page of photos that demonstrated the rule of thirds. See all the lines I drew on those photos? Visual aides! I rock.

See you by the water cooler,
Clickmom

dear novices

Dear non professional photographers who are dragging the quality of my news paper down,

Well, tomorrow is my big day. Or maybe I should say my big mouth day. Because I opened my big mouth to the managing editor about how if is going to pay for photos from you other people the photos should be better and now I am going to teach a little lesson to the non professionals in photo basics. I can't tell you how much sleep I have lost worrying over this. I don't want to go in there seeming as pompous as I pretend to be. It's just that your photos suck and if I can at least get them in focus (cough cough I am totally lying here) I will be happy. Okay the truth is, your photos leave much to be desired and they make me embarrassed to work at the same paper as you so you better listen to me and shape up fast.

Okay? Just don't think I am all full of attitude or anything like that. We are all in the same boat. Really, you have so much potential. Let's tap it.

signed,
I can't decide how much I am willing to lie about what I think about your work.
clicky

P.S. You'll still love me after the lesson, right?

dear f*** me

Dear F*** me,

I suck at organization and now my start up disk is so full that I can't burn a CD or download any more photos and when I tired to order some on line I got some kind of disconnect after 1/2 an hour and then I accidentally un-chose all the photos I had chosen. And wah wah wah. I wish some nice type A person would come in here one day a week and sit down and do all the ordering and downloading and then make nice photo albums, and go sell my better stuff..... and just let me the dizzy free spirit artist that I seem to be. Cause us artistic types are like this, right? (Just say YES, I'm in a moment here)

And now it is 11:18 and I have to post for today (damn you blog365!) but I won't have time to do the weekly winners, even though I have non shitty good quality shots for this week. wah wah wah. and it is LETTERS! Cause the good shots take for frigging ever to download.

I have to go figure out what I can erase in order to download the rest of my baseball photos. And oh yeah, tomorrow I get to take some more baseball photos. HELP!

Love, I have got to get a grip on this.
clicky

PS My southern fried ear is still totally crispy. I had no idea how much I lean on the south side of my face.

over easy

Not being a celebrator of easter, I know nothing of easter egg hunts. I have never been to one. Once, on the day after easter, I came across a very pretty hand dyed egg that someone must have hidden for someone else in prospect park. But it was an actual hard boiled egg and not a plastic candy filled egg, so after I embraced it's simple beauty I tossed it in the trash figuring it was already on it's way to spoiling. Also, one day after we had made the move to the burbs, I walked past someone's yard on easter sunday where her three dressed for church little angelic angel children were laughing and giggling and prancing around their own back yard finding their little easter egg treats. And it was all so nice and charming.

Today I showed up at a town library easter egg hunt to photograph for the paper (For the first time in weeks! It felt great!). I brought Josh along with me figuring he might enjoy it. Except we don't have easter baskets, so I gave him an organically grown cotton eco-conscientious bag that I use to tote my groceries in. I walked around trying to grab a few shots before the hunt began. As the moment approached the library lawn was simply pulsating with people. When the organizer gave the shout out to begin parents dropped to their knees, dragging their toddlers behind them, grabbing eggs, hot in the pursuit of more eggs than any one toddler needs, scurrying for eggs, filling their kid's baskets with sometimes maybe 25 or 30 eggs. It was a big blur to me. I had no idea where Josh was. It was all over in about 12 seconds, because damn! the parents of those bewildered kids sure were fast. And in the end, there was poor big 'ol Josh crying his eyes out because he didn't realize it was time to get the eggs until after all the parents snatched up every single one of the eggs. I looked around and every kid there had baskets brimming with parent snagged eggs.

So I took Josh to the coordinator because she told me she had put eggs aside in case their were any late comers. And the very same coordinator who told me she had put eggs aside told Josh she did not have any eggs. But a little girl standing nearby overheard Josh's story and she gave Josh two of her basket of eggs. And Josh being Josh, he was so happy to get those two eggs, that some lady standing nearby who did not have any kids with her, kneeled down and retrieved one of the many (over a dozen) eggs that she had for some reason stuffed into her own now bulging purse. She dropped it into Josh's reusable grocery bag. So in the end Josh ended up with three charity eggs. And he was excited. Leaving the library, hand in hand with my sweet little bad at egg snatching baby, I saw a mom and her two kids running with their colorful baskets towards the lawn where the eggs had been. I couldn't bring myself to warn them.

blogiversary

I started this blog 3 years ago after an unsettling assignment I did for the paper. Go check out my very first post. so, happy three years to me. Back then I had to cover the funeral of an 18 year old. His story was as tragic as a super nice everybody's friend kid every body loved 18 year old dying of some previously undetected heart defect coud be. And he was an only child. Even worse.

I had just read about mommy bloggers (but I don't we were called that yet) in a NY Times article. Needing an outlet for what I had just experienced at the funeral I fished out the article to figure out what to do/how to do it and started my blog. At the time I thought this funeral was the beginning of more and more sad heart breaking stories for me and I wanted an outlet to write about my life as a full time mom and part time photojournalist. Which is pretty funny if you ever see my paper because besides a whole lot of high school sports it's all pretty much babies and kittens for me to photograph. So my idea of this blog being an outlet for me as a working mom went by the way side and the blog just became my outlet for every day life. I mention work occasionally, but honesty, I love my job, my real editor is like a second mother/friend to me, (no comment on the sports editor who keeps sending me to cancelled games) and the only funeral I shot after that boy's one was an unremarkable older guy that just didn't bother me.

Tonight however, I shot the first meeting of the group that is organizing a local Relay For Life event here. In case you don't know it is a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society. I kept thinking about my parents. I was fine for a while, shooting photos and thinking that people were there mostly in support of old people who had cancer, but as I shot the people and asked them their names and some background for the photo caption I have to submit with my photo, I realized that most of the people there were in fact survivors. And they all looked like they could be me. Or at least they looked like they could be sititng in the next SUV in the pick up line at any of my kids school's. And then I remembered that I still have that procedure scheduled for the 25th.

Now I am not sure where I fit in in this world. Obviously I am a supporter of my parents. But am I a survivor? Or will I be a survivor? It seems like an exageration to say "me too" to cancer. I mean, one more small procedure and I assume I am going to be just fine. No hospital stay, no seriously long and painful recovery, no dreadful chemo, no hair loss. Just a slice and a boo boo and the only after effect of this for me is going to be obsessive mirror looking. Because I am always going to be worried and looking. So even though I had to run out of there crying when the middle school kid started telling about her mother's fight with cancer, I am not sure if I am just the daughter of people with cancer or if I could possibly be or if I really am one of them.

hematoma watch I 2008

It's really very kind of exciting. Last night (about 3 hours after realizing that I had indeed lived through hellacious stomach bug 2008) I had my first work related injury. It's more than exciting, it's pretty amazing, I mean, they actually let me, with all my super powers of spaz-ability and my magnetism for all things accident do shit like stand on football fields during football games (still blows my mishap prone mind every single time) and it has taken almost 5 years for me to actually get injured. Some in the know folks might use the word miracle here. (Because it is, I mean I would have bet against myself people.) And speaking of miracle, here it is: Ta da..... presenting, hematoma I 2008!

Here is what happened. I was shooting a basketball game and white team was trying to shoot when guy from green team slapped the shit out of the ball just to prevent white team guy from shooting even though he was going to slap the ball off the court and guess who was right in the firing line of said ball? Yup, me and my jelly rolls. I was only maybe 6 feet away from the slapper and that ball just shot straight into me, made a gross kind of thwump noise and then because it hit so hard it bounced (or maybe it hit my rock hard 8 pack. pfftt!) right back towards the court. I took it like a woman though, I was majorly tough. I turned, took a few steps toward the side of the court where my sports editor happened to be, took a deep breath and turned right back to doing my job. Green team guy did jog up to me mouthing he was so sorry, and I just said "I'm okay!" and motioned for him to get back to the game. Little hemo burned all night and only began to show his colors when I woke up this morning. I'm thinking that this kind of internal bleeding probably needs another day to really reach it's full potential, so don't be surprised if you meet up with little hemo again! You know what they say: Have iphone, will record injuries!

new teeth

Evan went back to school today despite his academy award winning performance of a child who had not managed to sleep a single minute last night due to imagined waves of nausea and stomach pains which inspired mad clawing at said stomach. He even squeezed out a few crocodile tears, but when push came to shove, I shoved him right out the door. I had things to do.

On Monday I couldn't smile big or laugh with my mouth open for fear of exposing my less than attractive titanium rods with out having a convenient corn cob pipe, whiskey jug and banjo handy to explain them away. Today I could have smiled big or laughed mouth wide open if only the nerves on the right side of my cheek would stop shrieking in revolt and the feeling would return to the rest of my right face. But when I cry in pain, at least I appear to have a full set of chompers. Yup, the permanently fake teeth are in! It hurts like a son of a bitch but damn, do they look real.

I found out from the ever chatty desk person at the OFH that scumcle showed up the other day and mentioned he'd be back on Sunday. Sunday is grandma's real birthday. I already had plans for a little in house celebration. She is going to be 96. Wah! I just want to cry. I don't want scumcle to be there. Since he didn't show for her 95th I figured he wouldn't bother for 96 either. Dammit! I polled wise people today (mostly bubbles) and the consensus is that I should take the high road and be cordial and polite to him. Since I am still in the throws of my Dexter mania and know intuitively that this is what Harry would recommend, I am going to have to see it through. I can do cordial. Except, I have been told that under no uncertain terms am I to accidentally or otherwise trip the scumcle if he walks past me. And that is a major disappointment too. High road, high road, this is my mantra for now.

You are not going to believe this one, but the sports editor sent me to another cancelled swim meet today. I'd make a big stink if the guy didn't look like death was dragging him halfway out the door already. I don't want that on my conscience should he actually spontaneously go any minute now. I did email the publisher and remind him that in my contract I get paid for going to sporting events even if they are cancelled. Thank goodness too, because the $1.37 they are going to pay me should cover the amount of gas it took me to drive around this private school's grand circular driveway in search of the school busses full of young athletes that weren't actually even there.

That's all I got, so now and my numb face are off to find the fast working yet not completely effective advil gel caps I will need in order to relieve enough pain to be able to drift off to sleep, albeit temporarily, because for some reason those lame OTC pain killers are only lasting an average of 3 hours. Yay, pain! I'm not dead yet if it still hurts!

coming back for more

My job pays next to nothing and unless I am willing to take a much more time consuming job with a daily paper I'm not going anywhere ever. There is no where to go at my paper. Pretty much the exact job I have now is a dead end and I know it. But I love what I do and it's just right for me and my schedule. I can work when I want and always have the option of saying No to any assignment. Also, there is this other reason why I stay around. The people. They are so happy when I do what I do. And there is noting like being the big treat that walks into the room.

Last week the OFH asked me to come in and take some photos. So of course I did. They had one of their special lecturers, bla bla bla. And I did great job, especially considering the old folks don't smile much and their set up is about as disastrous of a set up and you can imagine for taking photos. Afterwards one of the administrators asked me if I could come back in a few weeks for another one of their programs in which the old folks are going to present some written work. When one of the old folks got wind of the chance of there being a newspaper photographer at the presentation she was going to take par tin she started to flip out. Then the administrator told her, "Don't worry, it's clickmom!" and the frightened old lady was right with the world again. Then the administrator sent me the nicest of thank you note about how everyone at the OFH feels all comfortable with me and really, it made my day.

Today I went to shoot a swim meet. I had some names of some key swimmers but was instantly overwhelmed by the masses of swimmers (3 schools-both genders) crammed into a very small pool deck and didn't know if I was going to be able to make heads or tails of the event. I asked a swimmer if she knew who Jane Doe was and she happened to be Jane Doe. I was set, Jane pointed out her team mates and made my day much easier. The same thing happened with the guys team. I think swimmers might be my new favorite athletes. Anyway, on my way out of the pool area after had gotten my shots (and I was pumped because it turned out to be much easier than I initially thought) I walked past Jane and her mom and I heard a very happy and excited Jane retelling the story about how I asked her if she knew who Jane Doe was and the thrill in her voice over knowing I was sent to shoot her was fulfilling to say the least. Also, I got an awesome shot of her. So I am going to press the paper to choose that one. I especially love making kids happy.

I am totally staying with my job.

Looks like I'm in (serious need of) therapy

I did make it to meet the new (not dead) shrink yesterday morning. Just as I assumed I would, I dragged my over abundance of life's baggage (My suitcase would definitely exceed FAA size limitations) into the room with me and proceeded to sift through many of the larger parcels, just to give her background. I didn't make it to the end of the hour before I couldn't hold the giant ball of wet teary snot filled tissue anymore and had to put the softball sized wad of paper mache bodily fluids into the waste can not once but twice before the final toss on my way out the door. My sinuses were remarkably clear for the rest of the day and I am wondering if maybe just crying for a solid hour each week is therapy enough for me.

After an entire hour (how bizarre it was to bla-bla-bla one sided for an entire hour) of outlining my almost every misery and explaining over and over again each stressful situation and how I need to stop feeling so responsible for every (freaking) thing (and I do very much see how pathetic this was of me which is why I am sharing with you) I started to feel like maybe I had laid too much on the therapist all at once. Seriously, I actually worried for a minute that she would go home and be depressed after hearing all of my personal life battles in the very first hour and I kind of apologized for any distress I might be causing her with my difficult history and trying present. Oh yes I did. L for loser right? How clear is it that I need therapy when I worry about over burdening the therapist? No wonder I find myself back in therapy.

Then I showed up all (cry much?) puffy to grab grandma out of the OFH and take her to yet another colon rectal surgeon. To make a LONG story less painful it was an hour drive, nearly two hours in the waiting room (during which, out of utter frustration and anger like I haven't experienced since I was still speaking the scumcle, I entertained multiple weapon and bombing the nurse's desk fantasies) The late running doctor (who did not apologize for being 2 hours late) thinks we should do "the procedure" now because she is absolutely gonna prolapse again and this way she can do it with a scheduled appointment and be in and out in a day. If we let it get bad we'll have to take her to the ER and she'll end up being hospitalized for a few days. Made sense. I got it. Then I had an hour drive back home, grabbed the kids from school, dropped grandma back off at the OFH and spent the afternoon with my babies.

You should know that Evan must have witnessed someone spraining their ankle recently because he claims to do so daily these days. He does some kind of movement which is remarkably similar to Elaine (minus the clapping),

but only when he knows I am watching. When he doesn't know I am watching he's fine. So if you happen to see Evan and he looks as if he is having neurological problems, it is (as long as I am present) another one of Evan's bizarre attempts to get more attention. He doesn't believe me that he can accomplish this long standing goal by being helpful and sweet even though I inform him of this miraculous method every other day. It's going to be a very long puberty folks. L for long. Luckily I am back in therapy!

The last thing I did before posting that lame excuse for a post last night was photograph a basketball game for the paper. For some reason, maybe it was all the AM crying, or maybe it because my spinal fluid was flowing from the previous days cranial sacral therapy, or maybe I was still on an adrenalin high from all the weapon fantasies in the waiting room, but when the nasty ref who kept frigging standing in front of me (probably because I am so desirable- they don't do that to men-but the man I am often photographing near is 6'5" and looks like Gerard Depardieu, so I wouldn't mess with him either) turned around and gave me attitude I gave it right back to him. While chewing gum with my mouth open. Then I gave him the slightest tiny little truce head nod and he turned his attention back to the game but he didn't stand in front of me again! Some days I have a whole collection of photos of the back of a ref's head. One day I am going to smack one. I'm close to the edge folks. Ahhh therapy.

I showed up and the gay men fled

Went on a little photo excursion to a highway scenic overlook with my editor tonight. We made the gay guys in search of action pretty uncomfortable at the highway scenic overlook, but they just moved their vehicles to the other end of the scenic overlook while us two middle aged (*gasp*) fat ladies stood there snapping away at the pretty scenery on the end with the better view of the sunset. I know (knew) these things happened but was embarrassingly surprised to see that people are still doing stuff like this in places like that. When I still lived in Manhattan I used to take my dogs for early morning walks with out their leashes on in Central Park. One day my big scary looking black shepherd dog ran into the reeds by the lake and scared quite a few young gay men who were right in the middle of something I try not to think about happening in what I imagine to be fun family oriented recreational areas like Central Park. Seriously guys. Just seriously. Get a room.

Anyway, I had my little melt down last night (farewell 2007! sniff sniff) and finally realized that I had been handling my stressful life in tiny little day to day-hour to hour-appointment to assignment-meal to meal segments and that this ability to only see a few hours into the future was what was helping me through these difficult times. Last night reflecting on the enormity of a whole 366 days (leap year) of future before me was no better than drowning in quick sand. When I imagine myself a year from now I may very well have had to bury a relative or even two. And who even knows what the next year holds for the kids. This year seems to good to ever be duplicated. There will be more new teachers, Evan (my baby!) will be in Middle School, Matt will be more of a man, Josh less of a baby and Evan .. who knows. I'm not stupid enough to ever guess what he has in store for me. When it comes to Evan I am just crossing my fingers and saying a prayer. I'll still find it rough to be around the SIL and BIl and still surely have much guilt about that. Lil sis's kids will continue to grow up without much of me in their lives too, not because I choose to have it that way but because of living 3 hours away is like living on a different planet when she and I are both being pulled in 18 different directions on any given day and never do those directions meet.

Will I be fit in 208? Will I shed this other person worth of weight I am lugging around in 2008? (Hey, my new theme LOSE THE WEIGHT IN 20008!) Will I rediscover my creative self in 2008? Will I be a better parent in 2008? Will I hold it together through all the messy life sucks trauma of 2008? I dunno the answers to those questions. Hopefully all my resolutions will hold true. Hopefully I'll conquer all my demons. But maybe not. Hey I'm only human. I might end up still fat a year from now, I may not have a big glorious portfolio of work to show you, and my kids might still watch too much tv and eat too much crap, but what ever ends up happening I'll have to tell myself that I gave it my best (because maybe I just didn't have that much to give in 2008). Or maybe I do.