past, present, future

I am reeling (just a bit) over the fact that the decade is about to end. Never in my life has a decade passed so quickly. Didn’t we just ring in the new millennium, like, yesterday?!

I’m sad because I feel woefully disconnected from the decade and now it’s too late to do anything about it. Sure, I watch the news every day and also keep up with celebrity gossip detritus, but I’ve lost touch with much of the pop culture thrumming through the filament of the decade. I was very much in tune with styles, fads, and music during the 1980s and ’90s. This is why I was so irked by inaccuracies in The Wedding Singer and 13 Going on 30. The former was set in 1985, and I’m sorry, but no trendy woman would be running around in a circa-1983 Flashdance sweatshirt in 1985. And it’s highly unlikely a 13-year-old girl, unless she was insanely uncool (I mean even more uncool than the character was meant to be) would’ve been jamming to Rick Springfield in 1987! (I should know this—I was a 13-year-old girl in 1987!) A shaker knit sweater screams 1986 to me. I can tell you that “Almost Paradise” was a huge hit during the summer of 1984. Grunge started getting ousted from its throne by crappy dance music in 1995. 1998 brought a huge swing revival.

But this dying decade of ours? I don’t know. When I got a CD player in my car in 2000 I stopped listening to the radio. If you held a gun to my head and demanded that I rattle off 10 top-10 hits from the 2000s I don’t think I could do it. If you asked me to list 10 fashion trends from the 2000s I know I couldn’t do it. Uggs, Crocs, and…? What was fashionable this decade? I honestly don’t know. I was in my own world. Fashion-wise, I was in my own world for much of the ’90s, too, choosing secondhand clothes and vintage over anything hip and stylish, but at least I read a lot of magazines and knew what was big most of the time. I subscribed to Rolling Stone, listened to the radio, and watched MTV (back when they, shockingly, played music videos) and knew what was big on the charts even when I tended to stick with my favorite tapes and CDs. These days it’s a whole other story. I’m so estranged from youth culture and that, to a certain extent, really does depress me, maybe because it means I’m getting old.

Of course I’m in touch with my own culture touchstones from the decade. I can say, “Oh, 2002: that’s when I donated my hair to charity for the first time, switched jobs, and moved. 2004: Richard visited me and Olivia was born. 2003: I went to Scotland and that was a big concert year for me; I saw Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Gabriel, and the American Idol concert. 2008: yup, that’s when the Lebanon Fury was born.” I have a general idea of what music I favored heavily at which points in time and can identify old photos based on my haircut at the time. Short hair? Would’ve been 2000, 2002, 2007, or 2009. Scarlet’s Walk? 2003 to the core. But the goings on of the larger world seem foreign to me, as if we existed in parallel instead of intersecting.

Past

I’ve encountered loads of “decade in review” lists online; here are a few that I enjoyed:

The unpredictability of the last decade

The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell

Predictions made in 2000 about what life in 2010 would be like

Unknown in ’99, Indispensable Now

The 2000s in review

One Dazing Decade

Most Important Dates

Cultural Moments

Worst Predictions

Mesmerizing Crime Stories

Accidental Celebrities

Tactical Blunders

History-Altering Decisions

Overblown Fears

Sex Scandals

Happiest Endings

Startling Scoops

Internet Memes

People Who Died Too Young

Funniest TV Comedies

Best TV Dramas

Best Fictional Books

Best Albums

Most Memorable Movies

Most Impressive Debuts

Decade in Review: Our Favorite Scripted TV Shows

Decade in Review: Favorite Reality TV

Decade in Review: Our 20 Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movies

Decade in Review: Shows That Could’ve Been Great But Weren’t

The 50 Worst songs of the ’00s

Michael Musto’s Decade in Review

Present

For the first time since 2006 gave way to 2007, I don’t have any New Year’s Eve plans. None of my local friends have anything going on. Back in Pennsylvania, Beck and Amy invited me to hang out with them at Beck’s house for a stitch & bitch session, but I don’t feel like driving up to PA so soon after returning going there for Christmas. And, you know, I’m okay with ringing out the decade on my own. It offers a kind of sweet asymmetry to how I rang in the decade with friends amidst the thundering chaos of DC’s millennium celebration. I’m still adapting to this crazy new life of not needing to work every evening and weekend, so the thought of spending the night vegging on the couch with good movies, good food, and a warm blanket—with nary a work assignment or obligation in sight (actually, I do have about 10 manuscripts to proof, but those can wait until the weekend)—still sounds mighty exotic to me.

Future

I gave up making New Year’s resolutions several years ago. What was the point? They were always the same and never reached fruition. Lose weight (nope, didn’t happen). Jump into the dating pool (never had the time, energy, or guts in the end). Start writing again and get published (ha!). Kick the darkness until it bleeds daylight (okay, I had success with that one on some level, but I can’t take credit; it’s all thanks to the meds).

But this year, oh yes, this year I am making resolutions. More specifically, I resolve to follow through on projects and plans to which I’m already committed. It’s kind of a copout, really—akin to giving up candy for Lent after you’ve already joined Weight Watchers. Baby steps, folks, baby steps. In no particular order:

Buy a Nikon SLR and become even more of a photo pig. Take a digital SLR photography course and go on many, many photo safaris.

Travel. I head to London in just over a month and my plans to hit the Faroe Islands during the summer are solidifying. I’ve been saving for my big Europe trip for two years now—plugging away at it by setting aside $20-25/week. I just gave the fund a $100 infusion to help it reach the $3000 mark, and that’s where it’s going to stall. From this point forward, my weekly travel allocation will be put toward the Faroe Islands instead (and I will switch back to saving for the big trip upon my return). Also, I will try my damndest to visit Angela in Asheville and David in Chicago this year.

Embroider. I’m currently learning embroidery and have begun my first small project. If I continue enjoying the process and get better at it, I plan to start a project wherein I embroider a huge series of samplers featuring favorite lyrics from songs on my iPod.

Dabbling in miniature. I’m quite fascinated with Thomas Doyle and Erin Tyner’s work, to the point where I feel this aching need to attempt a miniature landscape of my own. For Christmas Shawn bought me some foliage and miniature funeral mourners to get me started and I vow to have at least one creation finished before 2010 is through. I’m hunting for materials and have ideas for at least two scenes so far.

Get my condo in order. I’ve been in my condo for two years and the installation of wood floors was only just completed (minus some missing trim and thresholds). I finally have an antique door to turn into a dining room table. This means that, at long last, my home is close to reaching a sort of completion. I doubt I’ll get the new kitchen cabinets I want (those may be a year or two away), but I’m committed to getting a new vanity and sink in the bathroom, some new overhead lighting fixtures, and a few new pieces of furniture, such as a bench in my bedroom that the cats can use for window gazing and a midcentury modern credenza or shelf unit for the sunroom. Now I’ll finally feel more comfortable entertaining folks in my home.

And now it’s on to the new year. I feel strangely optimistic about 2010. Maybe it’s because my gut has said for a long time that something wonderous would happen during my 36th year, or maybe it’s because even-numbered years have a more pleasing ring to me than odd-numbered years. Whatever the cause, I hope this upcoming year brings good things to all. I hope it’s far removed from 2009, which was sodden with illness, death, and job losses.

Happy New Year!

song heard most recently before posting:
Me, My Yoke, and I—Damien Rice

trashing the dress

I’m a big fan of the Trash the Dress movement, which is basically an anti-wedding photography movement. It eschews conventional wedding photos in favor of daring, edgy, beautiful, eccentric, inspired, inventive photos that often result in the wedding dress being…well, trashed. I love some of the photos so much I want to get married just so I can have a bona fide TTD session! If I ever find somebody foolish enough to marry me, those proverbial wild horses wouldn’t keep me away from this, unless I’m 95 and bent double from my disintegrating bones.

Sayeth Wikipedia:

Trash the dress, also known as fearless bridal or rock the frock, is a style of wedding photography that contrasts elegant clothing with an environment in which it is out of place. It is generally shot in the style of fashion and glamour photography.

Usually brides decide to have pictures taken on a beach, but other locations include city streets, rooftops, garbage dumps, fields, and abandoned buildings.

Some sources claim that the trend was originally started in 2001 by Las Vegas wedding photographer John Michael Cooper. However, the idea of destroying a wedding dress has been used in Hollywood symbolically since at least October 1998 when Meg Cummings of the show Sunset Beach ran into the ocean in her wedding dress after her wedding was badly interrupted.

A model often wears a ball gown, prom dress or wedding dress, and may effectively ruin the dress in the process by getting it wet, dirty or in extreme circumstances tearing or destroying the garment.

It may be done as an additional shoot after the wedding, almost as a declaration that the wedding is done and the dress will not be used again. It is seen as an
alternative to storing the dress away, never to be seen again.

Following are some of my many favorite shots. You can find your own at Trash the Dress, Trash the Dress Europe, and Flickr.




That last shot kind of reminds me of this photo:

I snapped it at an ’80s party last March when I realized that three friends were wearing the same Converse as me.

song heard most recently before posting:
Biko—Bloc Party

off to old Blighty

I decided to go to London for a few days in February. This would echo my 2006 trip in that I’d fly out on Thursday night and come back on Tuesday afternoon. “Who the hell goes to damp, dark England in the middle of February?” you may be asking. And the answer is: good fucking question. Why would I do such a thing?

Well, my friend Beck and I had a mammoth eight-country Europe trip planned in June 2010, but then we had to postpone it a year because she and her husband ended up buying a house. This was a smart move on their part; it’s still a buyer’s market and purchasing a house before November meant scoring Obama’s $8,000 tax break for first-time homebuyers. Not only that, they landed a beautiful and historic house for an unbelievable price. Like, so beautiful that I’m ready to kill them and wear suits made of their skin and assume their identities just so I can live there.

I’m very happy for them, but the delay gave me a mad case of travel blue balls. I was so revved up to take this trip that having to wait another year left me with a keening ache that would not be stilled. At the same time, I was looking for a way to reward myself for having survived five years of intense freelancing (I have begun giving up my freelancing jobs piecemeal, keeping only one for the purpose of generating disposable income). Yes, true, I’m planning to buy a Nikon D90—it’s not cheap and it would certainly qualify as a reward. But I really felt as though travel would be the best reward.

I set aside $1000 from my severance check this summer and decided to go to the Faroe Islands for a week next summer. I’ve wanted to go there for a long time, you see. And I asked Missy if she wanted to join me, since it seems like her cup of tea. She was very excited about the idea and asked if we could squeeze Iceland into the mix. Gradually the whole trip became too unwieldy—we realized we could in no way tackle the Faroe Islands and any substantial chunk of Iceland in one week. Meanwhile, I already had plans to go back to Iceland for my 40th birthday (in five years) and spend two weeks driving the entire Ring Road, checking out hot pots, glaciers, puffins, mountains, and geysers along the way. So I switched things around and decided to do the Faroe Islands on my birthday and hit Iceland next summer with Missy and her girlfriend Kat. We started doing some hardcore planning, but it was all for naught, as Missy ended up starting a new job that forbids her to take a vacation before the one-year mark, which means we’d have to push the trip back to September, when Kat is unable to go.

So I started thinking about London instead. I figured London would be cheap in the winter and easy to manage. It’s familiar and comforting and doesn’t carry the stressful weight that comes with traveling to a new country. I’ve always felt that London is my spiritual home and going there always makes me happy, so it seems like a smart trip to make. It’s bit like slipping on a comfortable old shoe that nestles against your foot just right. I realized that if I went there over a holiday weekend, I’d only have to use two days of PTO. This is a big consideration because I’ve only been at my new job for a few months, so PTO is still pretty scarce, and I need to hoard what I can for my 2011 trip. I looked at MLK Jr weekend and Presidents’ Day weekend and, finding their prices virtually indistinguishable, decided to make the latter my top contender. I don’t know why; it just felt right. The problem is the price; flights to London in the middle of winter aren’t as inexpensive as you might think. (Maybe my mindset is just trapped in the halcyon days of the ’90s when there were tickets to be had for $350.) However, the expense isn’t egregious enough to warrant me putting the kibosh on the whole thing.

An old Goldsmiths friend of mine, Mylene, is graciously allowing me to crash at her flat while there, which reduces my expenses even further. Huzzah!

I may end up going to Europe twice next year, as I’m thinking about using that aforementioned $1000 and going to the Faroe Islands after all. My research is showing that the best way of seeing the country is by car, although a substantial bus network does exist. I never rented or drove a car abroad, so I’m very nervous at this prospect. If I want to get the most bang for my buck, though, booking a holiday package that includes a car rental and then using that car to see as much of the country as possible during the week I’ll be there is surely the smartest move to make. I’ll probably ditch my ghetto TracFone in favor of an iPhone before that point so I have phone coverage overseas, in case of an emergency (I can see me getting stranded on some Faroese mountain or cliff!).

song heard most recently before posting:
We Three Kings—Liz Story

freeze frame

This morning, while driving on an I-70 ramp, I saw an apartment/condo building roof almost completely covered with birds. They had descended en masse onto this one roof, transforming it from a rather bland surface into one ridged and rippled with movement, like a terra cotta roof suddenly turned dark and alive. In a similar vein, yesterday I noticed the birds covering the back of a highway sign, latched onto the metal in a way that seemed to defy physics.

Wonderful little moments like these always make me wish for a handy camera, even though it would be downright unsafe to stop in half the locations where I see these things. Maybe this is life’s way of urging me to put down the fucking camera already and just savor certain moments as they come.

The truth is that I’ve become far too dependent on my lens in recent years, to the point where anxious dreams about my camera failing have usurped my previous recurring nightmares (the oh-my-god-it’s-time-for-finals-and-I-haven’t-been-to-class-all-semester dreams, the my-legs-are-like-lead-weights-and-I-can-barely-move dreams, the Holocaustesque I-am-being-hunted-and-I-must-flee-and-hide-hide-hide dreams). Over and over I dream that a perfect photo opportunity arises, but when I push the shutter, nothing happens.

It seems like, on some level, I’m afraid certain moments will be lost if I don’t mechanically record them, as if I don’t trust my memory to do the job. Or maybe I’m just eager to share the things I see, especially when they erupt from nowhere in the middle of a painfully mediocre landscape. My instinct is to photograph it and then rush the photos to Flickr and Facebook so I can scream, “Look at this! Can you believe this happened??” Case in point: a few months ago, as I drove home from work after a storm, the evening light suddenly exploded. The setting sun illuminated the cloud cover from behind and the entire sky became a brilliant shade of yellow, like melted butter. And the light saturated everything, made every tree and building become luminous with this unnatural, enchanted light. One part of me cracked the whip and hissed, “Step on the gas! You’ve got to get home and photograph this before it’s gone!” Another part of me trilled, “There’s no way you’ll get home in time, so just enjoy it while you can!” I tried, and I guess I succeeded, but it didn’t stop me from racing home at top speed, tearing into my condo like a proverbial bat out of hell, ripping my camera off its hook, and skidding out onto my balcony. And, no surprises here, the light was gone. Just the barest traces remained; the magic had already exited stage left, leaving nothing but the dark stage curtain dropping heavily into place.

Regardless of its subconscious underpinnings, I think the realization that I’m too dependent on my camera first surfaced in 2003 at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland. It was a perfect August night and the whole thing—from the music and performances themselves to the dazzlingly lit castle—knocked my socks off. About halfway through the show I noticed that I was so busy juggling my camera and my camcorder and trying to capture everything on film, I wasn’t actually paying much attention to the event itself. I certainly wasn’t savoring it and letting myself live in the moment. I try to be a bit more mindful of unique experiences now, especially while traveling. During my ’05 trip I forced myself to put down the camera every once in a while and think, “Holy shit! I’m in Russia! I’m actually in fucking RUSSIA!!!!!” I’d let the realization wash over me for a bit and then I’d go back to snapping photos every three seconds. I think I need to do this more often (the mindfulness, not the manic snapping).

The photography piggery is really a double-edged sword, because although it’s pulling me out of the moment and forcing me to fixate on snagging the perfect shot, it’s also conversely forcing me to notice things more carefully. I can be a bit of a space cadet, dwelling in the haze of my own little world, and reaching this point where I view everything as a potential photo opportunity has caused me to notice minutiae that always escaped my attention in the past. For example, the intricate designs that can be found within a single icicle or the fluttering light I see when sunlight hits the rain-filled rumble strips on the sides of highways.

song heard most recently before posting:
The Snows—Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill

rest in peace, Gabby

Gabby Boyer
October 1995 – December 8, 2009

My sister Kristen adopted Gabby when she was a kitten, but after about 2 1/2 years she wound up living with our mom. This is because she grew to hate Kristen’s boyfriend (turned husband) and his dog. Gabby could be a bit high strung and nervous and just didn't mix well with Bryan and Pepper. With Mom she had a long and very happy life.

I have to thank Gabby for being the reason I now love cats. I was raised with dogs and growing up I really had no contact with, or interest in, cats. I was 21 when Gabby entered my life and I was immediately smitten. She really paved the way for me to adopt my own cats two years later, and in the interim, she worked the same magic on Mom. She, too, had never been a cat person, yet eight months after Gabby arrived, there Mom was, adopting Cleo.

So thank you, Gabby, for showing us the error of our ways and helping us realize that cats can be just awesome as dogs. You were a fabulous ambassador for felines everywhere.

Sharing a window with my cat Shoah (d. June 2001).

Lounging in a window. She did so love the sun!

With Pepper, before she grew to hate her.

With her sister Cleo, who passed away six months ago.

Rest in peace, Gabby. I hope you’re now reunited with Cleo and living a fantastic life in cat heaven with lots of catnip carrots by your side.

song heard most recently before posting:
Hold Onto Hope Love—Amy Stroup

everything that has been shall be again

I think the cyclical nature of fashion and pop culture is fascinating, especially since it often seems to follow a 20-year loop. For example, there was a resurgence of ’50s love in the ’70s, when Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days became huge hits and saddleshoes made a comeback. The ’80s brought a hankering for the ’60s; suddenly there was an explosion of Vietnam-themed movies and TV shows, peace signs, and hippie fashions. The ’70s returned in the ’90s; I remember when listening to classic rock became popular and platforms and bell bottoms started reappearing.

Now, in the ’00s, we’re seeing a return of ’80s and even early ’90s fashions and pop culture detritus (the cycle seems to be speeding up!). I walk into Claire’s and suddenly it’s a time warp from my childhood and early teens. Michael’s is selling a “Make your own Thriller jacket with duct tape” kit. Countless ’80s movies and TV shows are being remade (a lack of originality in Hollywood is hardly new, may I add). Oh, and the toys, the toys! Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies...all the toys I loved and owned are back. It’s surreal to see my childhood suddenly reappear on store shelves. My five-year-old niece loves it, though; she loves the fact that I’ve got Cabbage Patch Kids, a Care Bear, a Pound Puppy, and a Hello Kitty in a box in one of my closets.

Anyway, the other day Terry pointed out to me that he’s seeing the same gigantic black-rimmed glasses I wore in high school popping up in American Apparel ads. Apparently hipsters are now flaunting the gigantic glasses look, while mainstream folks are resurrecting pegged (ie, tight-rolled) jeans and, god help us all, stirrup pants and harem (aka MC Hammer) pants.

The big, black glasses in question. The photo on the left is me in 1991.
The middle photo is me on New Year’s 1992-93.
The photo in the right is a modern-day hipster.

Even the pale-framed glasses I wore in junior
high (right) are making a comeback!

Katie Holmes shocked me when she started stepping out in
pegged jeans in 2008. On the left is a photo of some of my friends taken in 1992.
No less than three of them are sporting pegged jeans in this shot, and plenty more
of us not in this photo were doing the same thing.

How do bad fashions come back into style? Who decides these things? Is it completely random? Is it the result of an inside joke between fashion industry types? Does one hipster walk around in a Members Only jacket to be ironic and unintentionally ignite a firestorm of trendiness? I’m honestly very curious about this.

I think 9th grade was the last time I stopped following fashion trends. By 10th grade I was settling into a groove of wearing what I wanted to wear, most of which was black and oversized. Yeah, I did the grunge thing, but that wasn’t because grunge was trendy. It’s because I liked being sloppy and unwashed. To this day, I continue to wear what I want to wear, and I keep most of my clothes for a very long time, through countless fashion eras. Sometimes I love a trend (be it flared jeans or a long belted sweater) and jump on the bandwagon, not because I want to blend in but simply because I love the style. And I continue to wear that style long past its heyday, for as long as I continue to love it and as long as it continues to make me feel good. I just can’t imagine spending a fortune on a new wardrobe every year in order to stay in fashion. Perish the thought!

song heard most recently before posting:
Soul Cake—Sting