Like, Everything Going On In My Life Right Now

And, here it is, Friday.  It seems like I spend the whole week looking forward to Friday, but then when it gets here, I look back wistfully on a week of my life that has passed.  That’s kind of odd, I have to say.

What’s up for me this weekend?  Well, more photo work.  I am very pleased that I am not far from being finished with the first gig from last weekend, which was a 25th anniversary party for Bluestem Missouri Crafts, a well-known arts and crafts store in downtown Columbia.  I am pretty happy with the results so far as well.  I am clearly getting more consistent with my output.  I do wonder if I should have done more photos where people were looking at the camera and smiling, rather than candids of people talking.  The woman who hired me (HIRED me!  I was HIRED!  I was paid money!) said she wanted candids, and I assume we were on the same page as far as the definition of ‘candids’.  I mean, there are some smiley happy photos, some posed photos, and a large number of candid photos taken of people talking to each other and drinking champagne.  Anyway, I should finish that gig up by tonight or tomorrow, and then I’ll have time to work on the wedding that I shot last Saturday in Jeff City.  It was a far more casual affair, with the bride in a brown sundress and the groom in a t-shirt and jeans, and the 20-odd guests crowded into a coffeeshop for the vows.  It poured rain throughout, so we didn’t get to do much in the way of happy posed family photos.  Oh well.

I did post at the photo blog this week, after I managed to get second place in one of the Jeff City Photo Club contests on Tuesday night.  I entered a photo because other people seemed to like it on Flickr, even though I wasn’t that pleased with it.  Then it won on Tuesday, and it was a big crowd at the meeting too.  I don’t really understand that kind of thing at all.  The ones that win or do well with comments on Flickr, they’re never the ones that I like the best.  It’s odd, really.

Tracy has a ‘golden’ weekend this weekend, which means she gets both days off.  She is driving up to Chicago to see a friend.  I bought her a navigation device for her car a couple of months ago, and I’m glad to know that she’s going to have it for the trip because she has a terrible sense of direction.  I’m pretty pleased with the device.  I went with the Garmin nuvi 750 because of its larger screen, and we used it on that trip through north Missouri in August.  It worked very well.

I am not going with her, obviously, so I will stay home to work on photos and maybe take some photos as well.  I realized last weekend that I bought a fancy new flash for a session last month, and then I’ve never gotten around to making it my go-to flash.  I keep using the Strobist-style six-year-old flash that I got on eBay for $75 last year, because I know how it works and I don’t have to fuss with it too much.  But the new one is much nicer with lots of options, much flashier!  My parents have some friends coming in tomorrow night so maybe I will take it along and practice with real people.

So, the new television season is starting.  I am not all that interested in much going on this fall, for reasons that have everything to do with last year’s writers’ strike.  Some of the shows that grabbed me last fall (Pushing Daisies, Chuck) didn’t return in the spring after the strike, and I am having a hard time conjuring up much enthusiasm for them again this fall, enough to sit down and watch them.  HBO debuted a new Alan Ball show that, so far, is pretty terrible, as most of the non-David Simon-helmed shows this year on HBO have been.  Is it better than some of the crap on the networks?  Sure, but that’s not enough.  I have to wait until spring to see new episodes of the terrible shows that I love watching (Lost, Rescue Me).  Of course, my old standbys (The Office, 30 Rock) are returning and I will tune in for them.  But mostly I’m sticking to my Netflix DVDs, and I don’t see much reason to deviate from that plan.

On the other hand, I am back to watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert nightly, after many months away, along with TiVo’ing some news programs like Meet the Press.  And I’ve been obsessively watching CNN first thing in the morning and last thing at night, not to mention the blogs that I read daily.  From now until the election, I’d far rather spend my time with Anderson Cooper than entrenched in any scripted network television drama.  I was thinking of trying to find a watch party for the debates.  I don’t think it’s enough to sit at home and watch them with my laptop on my knees, checking the blogs while I listen.  I need real person interaction!  Not that that helped a lot in 2000.  I wonder how I could get in on a watch party.  I should start trolling the Democrat websites in the area.

And I am not at all uninterested in Missouri Tigers football this year.  I don’t think the game this weekend will be broadcast, but I am looking forward to Saturday afternoons with football in my near future, and, yes, I know that sounds ridiculous coming from me.

In other news, I signed up for a program through the International Center at the University this year, where I’m paired with an international student.  We go to lunch and get coffee, and she gets a personal introduction to America and I get to know somebody who’s living in my town for a few months while she’s on the other side of the world from her family and friends.  I was paired with a Chinese master’s student in environmental engineering, and we’re meeting tonight.  I’m really looking forward to this.  I don’t expect we’ll be best friends- the international students tend to have a pretty strong community here, but it can be insular.  I’m happy to reach out a little bit.  I had a couple of international roommates in college, but we didn’t stay in touch at all.  Last winter, I was riding back from the airport on one of the MO-X shuttles.  It was full of international students, and I just became overwhelmed with the idea of being on the other side of the world from everyone I know, especially if I was as young as these students are.

And that’s what’s up with me.  How are you?