Five Senses Friday no. 31

TASTE.

*Applesauce

*An apple-flavored martini. My man is the ultimate mix master.

*Bacon-wrapped dates.

TOUCH.

*Rubbing Vicks onto miss A's little chest to ease her lingering cough.

*A loving hug and kiss from my girl. Its been a rough week.

SEE.

*The ginormous spider that's taken up residence on our front stoop. I really don't know what to do as I watch it grow larger in horrifed wonder, hoping that its girth doesn't mean mama with babies.

*Season two of Arrested Development.

*Looking forward to watching the finale of Project Runway, even if I don't have a favorite finalist.

SMELL.

*Vicks.

*Tomato soup.

SOUND.

*Neko Case.

*Bat for Lashes.

*I love the contrast between a bright sunny day and listening to the soundtrack from Magnolia.

Outtakes :: take-out fortunes

There's a plate rail shelf in our kitchen that we use for displaying vintage pottery, favorite photos and pretty little votive candles we got one year as a gift. The shelf has also become the place we drop our  Chinese fortune cookie fortunes after many Chinese take-out meals.

If you know me and polaroid, you know I have ahem, a lot of outtakes that I'm fond of giving away. In numerous conversations, Darlene and I have joked about different possibilities of what to do with the outtakes, instead of giving them all away.

One afternoon I had the inspiration to combine the tiny cookie fortunes with my ever-growing pile of polaroid out-takes and suddenly, a new series was born.

Original, one of a kind Polaroid photographs  now for sale in my new shop.

To my new friend

 

selfie. sx-70/expired tz artistic film.

Dear new friend,

Pretty girl, I've waited a long time to find you. You arrived with very few marks, 'deemed' in working order on Ebay and despite gunky rollers with expired film, you seemed to work.

Until this afternoon when I lovingly cleaned your rollers with alcohol. I understand there are people that love gunky rollers, purposely gunking the rollers for imperfection, but I'm not that girl.

Loading a new box of expired tz artistic, you had a rough time sending out your magic squares. Seems the battery pack in the expired film is low and the result is a pile of un-useable and weirdly exposed squares, with this one final photo the only good shot.

Please my new friend, I'd like to start a friendship with you. I don't want you to be a lemon or feel you were a waste of my hard-earned  money. I want the justification that I did in fact need you, to be valid. As pretty as you might look on the shelf with another ebay purchase, your cousin the 250, I'd rather you be pretty in my hands and not pretty on my dresser.

I love you, I really do.

Yours,

Kristen

No. 32

No. 32 on my list is a good one, a hard one it turns out.

Darlene was my biggest advocate, enlisting a lovely group of women for a dip on our second night, but I didn't dip. I felt like I was getting sick, (I was, but not until I got home), and there were still two days left of camp. Instead Viv and I sat cuddled contently on the dock. The loons lonely call, the juiciest falling star dripping down from the heavens to the water, in a slow-mo glittering display. (I swear, Disney couldn't have done it better.)

I was a bit upset with myself when the girls came out of the lake that evening. I knew there'd be other opportunities, but waking up the next morning, without a cold or sniffle, I promised myself that it would happen.

The next evening, Friday, was a magical night. It was the night Dar and I shot this polaroid girl pairing, proving that we don't plan our shots, they really do just happen. It was fun to show our shots without showing each other; we didn't see the pairing until Dar returned home.

Sometime before or after we shot those polaroids, with Dar gently poking fun at me because I didn't dip the night before, I did something that shocked even me.

I think I dropped an F-bomb. I definitely stood at the end of the dock with my back to my friends and systematically disrobed. It wasn't broad daylight, but it was light nonetheless. In all my glory, for everyone that was on the lake in that hour between light and dark, when anything can happen, I dropped my naked body into the cold lake and I dipped. 

I didn't swim anymore than it took me to swim back to the ladder. I felt pretty self conscious climbing out of the water, (full frontal, eep!) and dressed quickly, before heading up to the cabin to change into warmer clothes. Feeling proud that while it wasn't a naked swim, it was a proper skinny dip.

mirror, mirror

  

slr 680/600 film.

Today, the gremlins arrived, unwelcome as they always are. Lurkers, their appearances are less frequent, but cloaked in familiarity.

My gremlins are sneaky. It's not name calling and insults; those untruths that become name tag stickers on our shirt for all to see.

Instead, my gremlins point to examples of: fill in the blank, (possible adjectives: greatness, creative, inspired brilliance), and with each click in google reader, with each flickr contact photostream I view, I feel bad. Reminding myself of all the ways I'm not: fill in the blank, (possible adjectives: accomplished, creative, inspired), I make myself small.

A lethal potion of vulnerable lingers after a weekend of plans and not enough sleep. I sat in my car earlier, waiting to pick up miss A from school, journaling this, recognizing what had happened earlier online.

Taking care of my family, celebrating a victory with M tonight...this will be the way to ground myself. And a good night's sleep.