| | Defying Gravity, Description & Whatever Else...
"When someone tells you something defies description, you can be pretty, sure he's going to have a go at it anyway." -Clyde B. Aster
Hi there!
Well now, it's been a whole year. And some of you might have been wondering (or maybe not) what I've been up to.
Well, I'll tell you.
I've been around, doing stuff. (I'm defying description, right now, in case you didn't notice. I haven't gotten the gravity thing totally mastered yet, but I'm working on it.)
Actually, I have been doing a lot of writing (trying to get published - with some successes but mostly not), and during the school year, I took a job at a mall photography studio, too. I'll get into that in a moment, but first ... Holidays of the Day. Yeah, I know you're waiting for that, eh?
• Moot Point Day (and I would ask what YOUR point is, but, well, ummm - it's moot.)
• Homeless Animal Day ...
• The first Montgomery Ward Catalogue was published today in 1872
• The Wizard of Oz (the movie!) premiered today in 1939
and
• Bad Poetry Day
Wanna 'Xample? 'Course you do.
Spam
Her emails were mostly of spam:
Viagra, a fake mortgage scam,
a Nigerian con and
a contest she'd 'won'.
Too bad all those cheats wouldn't scram. Damn.
Bad, huh? So, ummm, anyway...
Y'know what? I was totally astonished about something: Okay, like, y'know, I was gone for a WHOLE year, and a couple of days ago, I posted a mini-post just saying something to the effect that I might be posting something today (kind of like storm warnings, but with lots of POSTS) - and 5 people left me comments. Wow! Huge! (Well, huge for me...)
I mean, I had read some folks' blogs over the last year, but (rarely) left comments or anything. I'm not even wholly sure why I left this blog up and running. But I did - and some folks noticed. And that is really cool!
Thanks to crackcannon, jkhsquonk, suzyQ_darnit, doahsdeer and ZooTrain. You Zangites rock.
Now for some other stuff - weird news and also, tales of a suburban children's portrait photographer.
Weird News:
According to the TimesUK Online, there are 25 really weird laws from around the world. The original site where I got the link, in case anyone is curious is Fark.com. Some highlights, at least for me, are:
24. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament. (Isn't that redundant? Okay, okay - sorry!)
20. In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be
blindfolded while driving a vehicle
17. In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she
wants – even, if she so requests, in a policeman’s helmet. [wth???!!!] 15. In Miami, Florida, it is illegal to skateboard in a police station.
9. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on
Sundays can be jailed
4. In Vermont, women must obtain written
permission from their husbands to wear false teeth
2. In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals but is
forbidden from looking directly at them during the examination; he may only see
their reflection in a mirror.
You really have to wonder what these lawmakers were thinking, huh?
Anyway, now it's time for stories about the wonderful world of portrait photography.
Actually, my position in the studio was largely to take photos of little kids while trying to chill out their nervous parents, (and I'm not sure why so many of them were nervous, but they sure were very often...) and then put the digital portraits I took into the computer, where I could do a few tricks to enhance some of these pix.
Now, I seldom did any sales because if you actually knew me, you'd know that while I could talk the ears off a donkey (if such a descriptive thing were to be possible) I'm not the type who can easily clamp onto a customers's leg and chew it off in order to try and force them to buy 3 times what they originally were expecting to spend. That didn't mean I couldn't gush over pictures of adorable kids - (and aren't they all?) - but it was just that the money thing was never paramount with me. I admit it - I am a lousy business woman, particularly with someone else's business.
But I'm a good photographer (she said modestly.)
As it happened, the manager cleverly realized this salient point early on, (and besides, I also pretty much told her so, too) so she'd try to pair my photography with the pitch-style of a real gen-yoo-wine salesman (or woman) to get the max from our customers.
What never failed to surprise me was when a parent brought in a kid who was just about ready to burst into tears, (which happened a lot, particularly with 2 year olds) and instead of trying to act silly or whatever to get the kid to smile, this parent would snarl, "I TOLD YOU TO SMILE, DAMN IT! NOW DO IT!!!"
Umm...Yeah, that would work on me. If I were that kid, I'd really want to smile right about then. Uh huh. So I'd be the nutcase to make an ass of myself to get the wee ones going. Just ask my kids - they'll agree that I'm a bit whacked, so it all worked in the end, more or less.
But one story that REALLY amazed me was this: one time, a mother brought in two kids to get photographed. It was a pretty average session, meaning no weird stuff, no acting out, no cry-outs, or difficulties in getting the shots. After this session, which lasted around 20 minutes, there was a delay (for the parents) of about another 15 or 20 minutes in order to edit the photography work and then after that, it was available for viewing on a large flat panel computer monitor.
So, the mother sat down to view the pictures while her two kids ran around the store like little maniacs. She paid no attention to them, whatsoever. While they were running about and pulling things off the wall displays etc., they were also eating all kinds of junk foods and sweets that the mother had in the stroller, which was used (I guess) for the younger of the two kids.
Suddenly, the older of the two kids, who must have been around 5 years old or so, came over to his mother, looking a bit green around the gills, if you catch my descritpitve bit.
He said, "Mommy - I don't feel so good."
You know that when you hear these words, it can never end 'good' - or rather, well.
So naturally, what did this intrepid mother do? Did she say to the salestaff, "Look, I've got to finish this viewing tonight. I have a sick kid." or did she say, "May we please use your bathroom for a few minutes?" ???
No.
She ignored the boy entirely.
So, he repeated his comment, once again, but louder - and more urgently.
Still no attention was being given from this kid's mama.
So, the kid did what any kid might have done in the situation - he barfed all over everything.
Some of the other customer said a collective, "Ew!"
A couple of the people who worked at the studio joined in on the "Ew!" chorus, too.
The idiot mother, however, just continued to look at the computer screen, and she STILL ignored the little boy.
When this all happened, I happened to be in the front of the store (the sales area) in between shoots, largely to see how one of my clients liked the pictures. So, I had a close-up and in personal view of little Chuckie's up-chuck.
Since no one was there doing anything else much beyond saying, "Ew!", I went into the back room, got heavy duty rubber gloves and cleaning supplies and came back to clean up the whole mess.
This well-meaning (ahem!) mom never apologized, never offered to help clean up and never even stopped doing what she was doing to take care of her sick little boy. She never broke stride, so to speak.She did, however, (I think) end up using a freebie coupon to avoid spending any $$$ on what was actually some pretty good portraiture.
Ew.
And speaking of photos, I found this funny oneof the Harry Potter gang...(and it's goth a lot going for it, huh? Haha! Get it??!!)
Well - I have to get my kidlets and the doglet some breakfast, so I'm gonna end with that elegantly descriptive bit for now.
'doahsdeer' left me some 'bad' poetry in the comments from two days ago, which was wonderfully appreciated. You can write some too, if the mood hits you in just the write places.
And apropos of nothing, if you're a woman and you are going to Bahrain, bring a mirror.
See you all soon.
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