Day 129- The older I get, the better I was

Robert Therrien doing his Rat Pack-era Sammy Davis Jr. for my surprise party.


The more I use the new Nikon, the more I realize I need to learn. The more I start to learn, the more time I realize will need to be dedicated to studying the manual and making mistakes. The more I study photography, I realize, the less I feel like doing it.


I saw a dark and toothless Mechica-looking woman today selling cherries in front of St. Anne's Episcopal Church School with a newspaper coverlet over her babygirl's cheap plastic crib. The headline flapping in the wind was all about impending Swine Flu in Mexico. The sonofabitching camera jammed and refused to focus on the perfect shot appearing in my frame. My fault, my fault, all of it - not being in the moment, not learning the camera before I took it out, not having the Lumix with me as a fallback, being in a hurry, worrying about my stupid blog again.

I used to just bust with things to write and capture and review and comment on and say, over and over again, night after night.

It was new, there were a few of us doing it bravely together, and it was too fun to think about being 'good' at.

So yeah. We're still here.

Twenty years after I turned left for the Northbound bus and he stayed on Wilshire for the Westbound after our dance class, he shows up in costume and remembers all the things we realize together.


I just realized I say realize too much. If I were a Brit like one of those irresistable illegals I met on the westbound bus, I would say it with an 's' and it would sound ever so posh.

Day 125- Snarking Violation

I have never seen such a perfect representation of a blogger's odyssey through cyber-popularity summed up so graphically and on such a cellular level as this You Tube short subject called "Validation".


Flip it one way, straight, and it is a crisp, snarky, well-produced little one-note story of schmaltzy, give-the-slobs-what-they-want happy ending love.

Flip it upside down like a Manichean playing card, and it resonates with every day of my own personal trip through webrings, Buzznet Originals,Flicker testimonials, Yelp! votes, Twitter Favrd, back up to and through my own 365Day project, here.


Except for telling people to smile, this is what I've been doing. This is what I want to do.


I think it's working. And yes it does leave me less time to validate my cyber friends.


I think its okay.

Day 160 - Eyebrows are the new lips

Threading is the new collagen.

I spent a week last month in West L.A. where I noticed a duck-lipped 40-something sun her hundred-dollar pedicure next to a homeless veteran drowsing under a newspaper with economic-meltdown headlines.

Ostentation is so out. Even in L.A. .

The crisp, natural, alert and sexy look of the Indian and Middle Eastern girls streaming out of threading boutiques by UCLA, with their freshly shaped eyebrows, were the perfect opposite of the collagen-bloated personification of excess I had just witnessed.

I decided to try threading.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into Weberstown Mall last week and saw an immaculate little kiosk with a sleekly groomed and smiling lady explaining 'threading' to a group of curious shoppers. I noticed there was a wait so I waited for a weekday morning to drop by again.

Leila, (sp?) the owner/head operator, was working on a young woman with thick full brows when I came over. I got a chance to watch her work before I sat down in the chair thoughtfully provided for drop-ins. For the really interested,there's a dvd showing you how it's done, plus a few signs full of interesting threading details(it's not just for your eyebrows; men use it, too; Brad Pitt, Salma Hayek, among other celebs, are fans).

IT DOESN'T HURT, at least, no more than waxing. In fact, if your eyes are sensitive or if you're as much over 30 as I am, there is considerably less risk of damage to the thin skin around your eyes than with waxing.

It took about ten minutes, but I didn't feel either tortured or rushed. I was handed a mirror and then touched up with some silky brow powder that filled in and fixed my new eyebrow shape. It looked crisp, finished, but natural, and all for under 13 bucks.

Eyebrows are the new lips. The mouth demands, 'I am high-maintenance! Look at me!" The eyes say, "I am interested in YOU."

Nothing sets off your soul-windows like threading.

Day 156- Breathe Me

This project is paying off in scary, great, terrible, important, intangible ways.


I can't keep up with posting, ironically, just when the changes I began in October are rumbling up my April days.


I got a new camera.

I got the offer of unlimited help and a whole bunch of lenses from a real professional photographer.

Best of all, I've got the chance to risk my (safety? health? livelihood? complacency?) to see justice done, and I'm going to take it. It's taking all my time.


There will be pictures.
Just can't say when.