Iron Maiden Tour & Residency '06

2009-09-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

BLOG DESCRIPTION:

From August 27-October 8, 2006, Naomi Miller blogged about her art project "The Iron Maiden Tour & Residency '06," described as such:

This project places Naomi Miller within the homes of her friends for a series of short-term residencies. Acting as both a house guest and a working artist, Naomi photographs her friends' activities. Her friends ask for a work exchange in compensation for room and board. The services range from errands to meal preparation to tutorials.

Naomi seeks to spend time with her friends and briefly integrate herself into their individual lives. While this method is central to maintaining her friendships, it also sets up the elements necessary for her art practice. Her relationships provide the impetus for her photographs.

Naomi will show images in the host's home from the previous residency on her final day. This challenges Naomi to produce show-able work on an immediate and regular basis. Work shown will be a mix of photographs, documentation of the work exchange, and other material relevant to the individual residency.

This residency is available to both recent and older friends of Naomi living in North America. The Iron Maiden is the '78 Volvo she drives from one residency to another.

2006-10-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

DAY THIRTY-THREE: EXTENDED TOUR IN NEW YORK VI

We sleep late. Jed and Andrea leave to visit Jed's mom in Westchester County and do their laundry. I begin to see a pattern in the apartment listings on craigslist and realize I've set up arbitrary rules to navigate the cryptic postings. I don't pursue less than a 25 word description or the use of UPPER CASE. Regardless, I see two apartments. One is an enormous, huge, and fabulously large room in a Bed-Stuy brownstone whose residents are going for an anarchist-collective type thing, if that's even possible. It's expensive, though. The other apartment is easily overshadowed by two pairs of earrings I buy before I see it.

Ann, who lives in San Raphel, CA is visitng NY, and I meet her, her charming baby Luke Emmet, and her friend Pamela in the Lower East Side. Luke is sleeping, strapped onto Ann's back. Ann and Pamela give me advice about apartment-hunting, like check the water pressure and ask how often my car will be broken into. Luke wakes and cooing overtakes the conversation. Ann buys us Australian homemade ice cream (?) and I walk to the subway. I wonder about my own experience with the city, how heretofore it has been dictated by friends' locations and agends.

I decide that this is going to be the last day of the Iron Maiden Tour & Residency. I'm leaving Jed & Andrea's apartment tomorrow and they are the last official stop. I find myself anxious to create a life for myself here, which is a distraction from visiting and watching my friends engage in their lives. I want to jump in and bask. (I also find I'm incedibly spent. The next day I'm grouchy and the next day I sleep a lot and wake with a swollen throat.)

2006-10-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

DAY THIRTY-TWO: EXTENDED TOUR IN NEW YORK V

Before meeting Eirik and Heidi for lunch, I walk to an apartment on the edge of East Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Bed-Stuy. I'm skeptical and note the house number spray-painted on the two floor building. My future roommate greets me at the door with his three year old affixed to his chest. I relax enough to sit down and talk about art in the city for a half-hour. It takes me four days to give into to the warm feeling the rough apartment gives me.

I meet Eirik and Heidi at a French cafe on Bleeker Street in the West Village. Eirik went to grad school with me. They have just moved to Boston where Eirik is a tenure-track photography professor at MassArt. The meal is quite enjoyable and we plan on meeting in New Haven sometime this fall for a critique with various transplants from grad school.

Andrea makes vegetarian shepard's pie for dinner which is tastier than you meat-eaters might think. Their friend Andy comes over and we go to Williamsburg to see Jed's coworker's band. They've just been signed to Sub Pop Records and perform in a wharehouse-like space, raw and youthful. We stand at the back of the room, looking in on a passed era of our lives. The band is dedicated, loud, and buoyant while the crowd surges forward and flails. The hack bar makes brisk sales of Pabst and Bud, I see a guy I worked with this summer, and we leave when we guess they're about finished.
I feel super tired, but we get a drink at Spike Hill and Jed and I discuss the conspiracy possibilities of Janet Jackson & Justin Timberlake's Superbowl stunt. Back at the apartment, Jed and Andrea talk about the artlessness of recent horror films. This might or might not have made Andy uncomfortable and he leaves. It's 3 am.

2006-10-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

DAY THIRTY-ONE: EXTENDED TOUR IN NEW YORK IV

Days have turned basic and focussed. Between periods plugged into the computer, I have lunch with Jess at Mama's in the Lower East Side. We talk about what we are willing to do for art and how long that can be sustained and how much choice there is in the matter. That and whether generalizations can be made about our five friends from high school who are all so different. None of us are married nor have children, and we don't even know if that's what we want. How does such a phenomenon happen? Is it pure coincidence?

Later, I see three apartments, two of which I consider seriously. I feel like I don't know what I want and I have to see as much as possible to have any idea. It's like I'm lost, but without the pure anguish.

Jed and Andrea go food shopping. I go back into the city and have a late dinner with Cameron and a group of people he's with. Then I meet Collyn in the Lower East Side where the bars have turned clubby and frat-ish. It's her 24th birthday and she's resplendent. We worked in Maine last summer together. She gets saucy enough ask direct questions, but is still sensitive to be affected by mine. Whatever, she's brilliant and tortured.

2006-10-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

DAY THIRTY: EXTENDED TOUR IN NEW YORK III

Jed and Andrea are gone by the time I wake up. The big theme of the first half of the day is: do I say yes about that apartment? Theresa needs an answer by 2pm and the pressure overpowers everything else, like practical thoughts. Fortuneately, Theresa and Liam decide against it at the last minute, so I dodge that bullet.

I left my digital card at home, so there aren't any digital pictures of today.

I meet Andrea at the Natural History Museum. She takes me to the off-limits floors where bugs the size of my hand are kept in casual and flimsy-looking vitrines in the hallway. I sort of yelp my way to Andrea's office. We go to the roof and find wierd experiment-like Ziplocs with solar-powered cells attached and scattered around. I get locked in a stall in the women's bathroom. Andrea says it's never a dull moment with me.

We go to the Painting Center in SoHo for a New York minute, though it's lovely to see old painter-types. Then we go to a party put on by Sandbox, a photo studio I worked for in San Francisco that is opening a New York studio. It's schmancy and cool, full of flitters and gabbers. I try to flag down the hors d'oeuvres and run into a number of people I forget I knew. Or, it's more like finding myself in New York and there are all these other people, and I happen to know some of them for one reason or another.

We go to Joe's Pizza on West 4th, my super absolute favorite, then go home and talk until Jed gets back from the recording studio. I get back on craigslist for a good obssesive amount of time.

2006-10-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-NINE: EXTENDED TOUR IN NEW YORK II

Five apartments seen in one day! Ranging from depressing to maybe-I-should-take-this, from a nuts-o Puerto Rican woman to sweet-as-pie German brothers. I walk a lot and meet several neighborhoods in Queens & Brooklyn. Everything seems possible and impossible. I think of the "Kim Possible" cartoon my nephews watch, and the play on words seems appropriate. That and her pet naked mole rat, Rufus.

Otherwise I'm on the computer, drooling slightly.

Andrea paints, preparing for a November show in Kentucky, then leaves to teach. We have dinner at home with beer and creative things from the fridge. After seeing the 5th apartment, Andrea and I get Carvel ice cream and its sweetness is almost too much to bear. My fellow SF transplants, Theresa and Liam, want us to jump on a slightly-too-expensive apartment in Bed-Stuy and I just don't know.

2006-10-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT: EXTENDED TOUR IN NEW YORK I

These days in New York... They are slated as Exclusive Extended Tour Dates for the Iron Maiden Tour & Residency. This is a thinly veiled ruse (and no one is fooled) to have places to stay as I set up a life here. So I don't know if I should be continuing this blog to perpetuate the construct of the project, or if I should throw in the towel and give it a break.

I spend some time with my friend Jess, whom I've know since I was 15, and is an actress. I drive to her apartment in Prospect Heights, and she's prepared smoothies and a creative pasta salad picnic. She gives me Tylenol to help dissipate the headache I've had since entering the city. Under a tree in Prospect Park, we eat and talk about serious life matters, which is what one does with Jess. We find we have front row seats for a cross country meet as 60 high school boys huff by at various speeds, school colors emblazoned on their young chests. Back at her apartment, she shows me a recent audition tape she's created and we debate its intended audience.

Andrea and Jed and I get take-out and watch the film noir "Out of the Past" with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas (so young!). I know these two from Providence where we all worked at a cafe & cinema, i.e. The Best Worst Job We Ever Had. They married two years ago and moved here about 6 months ago. Andrea is an artist and teaches at Pratt and works at the Natural History Museum, pinning bugs. Jed is an artist and musician and is learning to be a sound engineer. Their banter is infectious.

Later, I get a drink with Cameron, whom I know from my summer work in Maine. He lights a fire under my ass and the city is open.

2006-10-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: Travel from Providence to New York

Upon arriving in Andrea and Jed's apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, I feel dazed. While Andrea happily feeds me information in response to the questions that instinctively issue from my mouth, I can't retain anything. I can't suss out any feelings or desires, preferences or tastes. It could be that I'm tired. Or that, in essence, I'm a bit burnt out.

I am wondering if I should change my priorites, from that of making work to that of finding an apartment. Maybe if I hadn't just done this residency project I'd be more gung-ho to couch surf for the rest of the month. As it stands, finding a room to call my own is appealing.

This is Andrea and Jed's friend, Andy. He and his wife rent two side by side apartments and use one as their studio. They free-lance making shit for clients, like boutique hand-sewn hangers for Victoria's Secret off-shoot store, Pink. Notice the two kilns in what should be the kitchen.

Andrea and Jed live in a building that reminds me of the studios in grad school. They've eaked out room for Andrea to do work and even a sound studio for Jed, shoved in a closet. I think it's great, but Andrea is ambivalent

2006-10-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-SIX: PROVIDENCE VI

Art, not brunch, gets us out the door today: free admission at the RISD Museum until 1:00. There is a show about the local art scene from the past 10 years. Eight artists are highlighted in one room, while another section displayes over 2000 posters, floor to ceiling. They advertise rock, art, and other nutty events. Many were screen-printed, handmade, or original works. It was like walking in to a time capsule. I lived here for only three of those 10 years, but I can place myself exactly in the advertised event by seeing the poster. I collected some at the time because I knew the poster artist or the bands playing. It was overhwelming, visually and psychologically. I can't leave until I find the poster for an event that is burned in my memory as the iconic Providence summer night.

(inside Jungil Hong's piece)

Jen and I eat brunch at Julian's and flirt with the waitstaff, especially our giggley waitress. Our repoire today is us at our best: scattered, tangential conversation that makes little sense and is filled with performance and bursts of laughter. Oh, and food. Lots of hovering over food. And writing down brilliant ideas.

Then there's an opening to attend at AS220, the multi-facetted arts center downtown. Scott runs the Community Darkroom there, which is how we met. My life was once very connected to AS220. I run into a bunch of people I used to know. I can't tell if I regress back to the person I once was, or just feel a distance from the experiences I had with them. Geoff Griffin, ensconsed in his harem of girls, flits about in fatherly involvement. The artist, Sonny, a.k.a CW Roelle, has a wire illustration piece in today's NYTimes Magazine. I'm mostly too tired to do much interacting.

Scott makes scallops and vegetables from their garden. We watch "Y Tu Mama Tabien." I'm entranced by the narrative tricks this time: how the narrator toys with our trust, telling us seemingly extraneous information, while he omits essential ones.

For all my pondering over the nature of Jen and Scott's relationship, I believe in it. Because I see they do.

2006-09-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-FIVE: PROVIDENCE V

A late bedtime, a late wake-up, and vague plans melt into a time-pressed day that ends in a bewildering farce.

Scott needs to finish preparing his photographs to bring to the show installation in Boston, and Jen must get ready to go meet a friend who might be teetering on the edge of crisis, also in Boston. I'm thinking about going to the new ICA building on the waterfront, but the reality of what needs to get done today overtakes these thoughts. Scott is burnt-out and I help him get everything to the gallery.

A woman named Lee put the show together and found this gallery, Laconia, to show it. It is in the lobby of a residential complex. When we arrive, we also meet Candy, a volunteer who lives there and is wearing an apron. This is our first tip-off. The next one is that we must use their complicated high-maintenance hardware to hang five of the images in the front space. This takes us no less than three hours. Candy visits us periodically to give critical passive agressive comments, like we used the wrong colored leader. Lee and I commiserate on the unrelenting and controlling nature of Candy, unsure of what is going on (is she for real?).

Jen arrives and graciously gets burritos for dinner. As we sit in front of the next five images to be hung and eat our dinner, Candy stages a masterfully dramatic scene about cancelling her plans for the evening because we are taking so long to finish, and completes it with a grand exit and barely-muffled huff. It's the sort of thing that leaves all mouths agape.

A half a burrito later, Scott and I hang the photos, with L hooks, in 40 minutes. Candy returns without a nod to her previous performance and makes sure Scott understands how lucky he is to have this opportuity to show in this gallery. And makes more comments that fuel our entire ride to back to Providence. We leave at 8:00pm

She seemed hung up on the fact we arrived at 3:30 and not noon, but this requirement was not made clear to Lee nor Scott, nor the requirement that we leave at 6:00. It appears like a small matter, but the snippy world-owning person that she is was revealed to us over it. Scott wants to make her a sympathy card that reads "So sorry for the loss..." (open card) "...of your life."

Jon Lausten, an artist in the show, vacuums his building construction sculpture.

2006-09-29T21:36:00.001-07:00

DAY TWENTY-FOUR: PROVIDENCE IV

Lazy hang-out day with Jen. We get to White Electric Coffee before noon. I insist on dragging out a poorly executed comment I made in order to understand roles we've played for one another and if they continue to be useful. That's another way of saying we had an awkward and emotionally-infused exchange, then talked more in-depth about what Jen has been struggling with recently. I can't claim to bring things up with style or grace.

Providence is a small city and Jen reminds me of some of the things that goaded me to leave after three years of living here. The city shines in my memories of it. My stay so far has left me with thoughts that I could live here again, even questioning what urban environment best suits me. But that's crap. I've always adapted to whatever place I've lived.

After errands, including a pick-up of photos from Milwaukee, we run on Blackstone Boulevard before the day turns cold. Scott returns from Newport, and we eat sushi at Tokyo. I somehow order twice what I meant to, but ingest all of it. Later, we go to opening night of "The Science of Sleep" and I emerge enervated. I make chocolate chip cookies at home and Jen and I watch "Sex and the City" with our guts hanging out.

Scott and Jen have been seeing each other for 7 years and are the oldest (in age and length) couple I've visited during the project. This visit has allowed me to see their relationship more in depth than I have in the past. They strike a dynamic and complicated balance. As with the past residencies, I see two individuals coexisting with success and failure, and they own their decision to be with one another. I enjoy being around them, can empathize with their problems, but know it's strictly tailored to the two of them...

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to express... something about the hermetic nature of relationships that have left me wondering at weddings what I have any right to say to the bride and groom. "Good luck!" "Hope you don't divorce!" Whatever, what do I have to do with their personal relationship? But then relationships are messy and easily sprawl in to public space and intertwine the two (public and private) in a way that isn't quite apparent until they end. Then so many more people are implicated, in widening circles. So, I do have something to do with Scott and Jen's relationship. But it's not tangible and I can't describe it.

Maybe it's as simple as the wedding publicizes the relationship and the guests agree to be complicit in the situation. Though... marraige isn't neccessary in what I'm thinking about. Relationships are complicated universes that contract and expand upon the slightest shift. Constant negotiation and navigation. Michel Gondry (writer/director of above film) probably helped throw me into this muddle of thoughts. Merci, baiseur.

2006-09-28T21:23:00.001-07:00

DAY TWENTY-THREE: PROVIDENCE III

Jen has a late shift, so we eat brunch at Nick's on Broadway. She tells me that many of her friends are going through dramatic and difficult times at once, and it's hard to remind herself that she is O.K. We talk about my mother and walk around the neighborhood. She finds a hot livingroom item in an antique store, but it's sort of a secret at the moment. And she goes by a friend's house, but that's a secret, too, and I don't want to ruin her plans by telling.

At home she re-dresses and runs out, bound for the hospital. Scott comes home from a shoot, eats, and leaves again to meet with a former student who attends CCRI. My tasks are to email various people and become entranced with looking for a job and apartment in New York. I also begin a resume of my ancillary skills. Like parrallel parking. And my ability to pick out tunes in a grocery store.
(Jen's afformentioned flow chart)
Somehow I end up on the East Side, driving past a house I lived in on College Hill with 8 RISD students. It was a hole, but an interesting one. After a year we were kicked out and a family refurbished it to a lovely state. Up the street in Prospect Park, which looks out over downtown, I read about a movement in England in the late 1930s called Mass-Observation. Scores of everday people collect random facts from what they observe day-to-day. It's a not-completely-scientific anthropological catalogue of that time period's behaviours. The three figureheads were most intrigued in tracking the impact of events of great importance on the everyday. Vaguely like "People's History...," for England.

I found this part interesting:
"The reader feels as if he were eavesdropping on an enormous, citywide party, all the more appealing because the typical partygoer is both in and out of the game—playing along with the mass-produced artifice around him while a practical, ironic self survives inside."
I feel like I place myself and a viewer of my photographs in this position. Or that I'm photographing this "in and out" state.

Scott meets me for a sushi dinner. It feels like a one-sided conversation. I decide there's a lot on his mind, or he's tired. We go to his studio to prepare for his hotel shoot tomorrow in Newport, and to frame 5 photos for a show next week.

Back at the ranch, Jen is even more subdued than last night. I bought feta and quince paste for an late-night unwinding treat. It feels like the other third nights during this trip: my hosts notice the absence of privacy with a guest. I wasn't quite sure if I should go in to another room or let them do so. Their's seems like a natural response. I'm here for another three days.

2006-09-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-TWO: PROVIDENCE II

Jen crawls into bed with me around 10 am, and shows me a list she's made during her chronic insomnia. It details the infinite number of things we could do in the area during her three days off. It looks like a flow chart without the organizing arrows. It's also a perfect map of Jen's mind, ever mindful of the range of possibilities.

Scott and I talk about a new model for his photography business. He wants to incorporate a program he runs, Photo Memory, into his professional practice. Photo Memory teaches under-served high schoolers the basics of photography as a means of expression and employment. In this new model, the advanced students will assist Scott during his shoots at hotels, events, art documentation--anything. The client will know about this arrangement and will continue to expect professional quality product. I think it is an exquisite and awesome plan. He's putting his money where his mouth is by placing the students in real work situations. And he revives his interest in commercial photography, which is tough to maintain for some people (LIKE ME). He's creating something on his terms that still serves the context.

Later he shows me new drawings and a bench he built out of wood he salvaged from a building being torn down. Yay Scott. Don't stop.

I grapple with Epson and Apple support people for a few more hours. But the most productive thing I do is surf the web. You find the damnedest things. I'm thinking of becoming the doppelganger of Naomi Miller, the Jewish songstress (type in our name dot com). Maybe I can take over when she retires, like the Dread Pirate Roberts in "The Princess Bride." I feel like she is my alter ego.

After I run on Blackstone Boulevard, I call up Tyler Henry, a boy I worked with this summer in Maine. He is a senior at Brown and studies the mind-numbing Modern Culture and Media. From the website: "The uniqueness of Modern Culture and Media resides in its commitment to situate the study of media in the context of the broader examination of modern cultural and social formations." It's that great?

He lives in a house that is resplendent in its commitment to inattentive male occupation. I don't need to describe it s hard-core approach to not caring a wick about environment. Except this: 7 Lay-Z-Boys in the front living room. Most of his roommates are in an a cappella group, Brown's version of a frat.

Jen Scott and I meet up in the kitchen. Both of them had tough days. Scott's Photo Memory class was difficult and Jen had to counsel 2 women at the hospital where she is a mental health researcher. The mood lightens after we watch "The Dave Chappelle Show."

2006-09-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY-ONE: PROVIDENCE I

The man who begins the jackhammer at 8:30am on Carpenter Street sounds as if he is trying to do it gently. I appreciate his attempt.

Today is delicate and slow. I need more sleep. Jen goes to work, I clean up from last night, and Scott makes phone calls and does work on his computer in the front room. I met Jen in college in an English class, and met Scott within the first few months I moved to Providence after college. I introduced them but can not take responsibility for the relationship that has developed since then. Last year I was the officiant at their wedding.

Scott takes me on errands and we swing by his studio in North Providence. He is a photographer and shares it with Deb Dormody, a book maker (if'n books and marks--her side is to the left). She was at the Book Klub last night. Their bathroom is papered with posters for Providence shows, past and present. I relive several of them while looking. Scott frames a photograph for a show in North Adams, MA where he had a residency and is doing a photo project.

Suddenly it's 6:00pm. What happened? I sink into the couch for my planned 3:00 nap. Jen has other plans for us. We run, get take-out Cambodian food, and watch "The Devil and Daniel Johnston." It's the recent film about the musician and artist whose songs are as much about relatable emotions as they are about his manic depression.

My thoughts today range from chemical toxicity in our bodies (aided by a National Geographic article), over-identifying with Attachment Disorder descriptions, and wondering if I'm not making this project everything it can be. Note to self: go to sleep.

2006-09-25T21:58:00.000-07:00

DAY TWENTY: Travel from Lewistown to Providence, RI

Randi delivers two babies during the early morning hours, and returns to give me coffee and bring me back to the hospital. She's cheery and bright with all the staff, introducing me around, including a bad-joke telling OBGYN doctor. He foists a near-delivery patient on her while I use her crash-prone computer. We eat at a popular pizza restaurant that serves breakfast and chat about people from college. Randi talks to anyone. It sort of amazes me.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York slide by. I've become inured to driving much like one does to a day job. Connecticut traffic gets to me, though, and I swing by Gold's Deli in Westport for a knish and rugelach. Rhode Island arrives in a dream as the evening looms.

Jen's planned a meeting of her Book Klub tonight, a ladies only affair. Scott goes to his studio to listen to music and draw. We put out food, I shower, and the ladies arrive, armed with "Catcher In the Rye." The food and drinks are supposed to mimic the book's theme, but Holden Caulfield's cheese sandwiches don't cut it, especially with two vegans in the group. Martinis and wine satisfy the Klub members.

The rules of the Klub do not require everyone to have read the book, or for there to be much discussion of it. Cristina arrives late, having witnessed her husband's arrest at a Quaker demonstration outside Senator Jack Reed's office. A sincere political discussion erupts with sporadic interjections by those who favor Holden's interpretation of the adult world (Bush is a phony).

We do get around to discussing the book. J.D. Salinger's other books are brought up as comparisons for style and themes. Prepared with the unauthorized biography and the Wikipedia article, the Klub members weave the writing with the author's reclusive life and questionable decisions as a lover and parent. It's a remarkably female analysis. There is no setting the text a part as a hermetic piece; the man and his work are one and the same.

After this, it's hopeless to make any cohesive points and the discussion explodes in laughter and thematic jokes. Jen later acknowledges that these women are not ones to join a women's group, so the Book Klub is a fine excuse to make their own. Jen and I eat, talk, and laugh more until I can barely keep my eyes open. I think I am here for nearly a week and that feels great.

2006-09-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

DAY NINETEEN: Travel from Ann Arbor to Lewistown, PA

When Abby comes home from her friends' house late at night, I didn't know where I am. Then I imagine that she can't sleep because she's using my camping mat and sleeping bag while I use her bed. Despite all this, we sleep late and talk for 45 minutes upon waking. I can't find wireless anywhere, I left my computer charger in Milwaukee, I can't get eggs for breakfast, so I take to the road by 12:45pm.

When driving, I've intermittently listened to bible stations. I'm drawn to the dramatic declarative voices that tell stories of modern day life. Often I substitute a pastor's reference to God or Jesus with Art and it starts to make sense to me. A van passes with an "Art Enforcers" logo on its door (they hang or restore?). That rivals a business I saw in New Jersey: Tension Envelopes. That could be enVELopes or envelOPES.

As the Iron Maiden carries me into Pennsylvania, I see more and more changing leaves. The day feels familiar but distant. New York looms ahead as something I need to think about, a week away in my schedule. I'm returning to a region I once lived and I'm remembering its ambience only now. Am I ready for this? What am I returning to? For the first time, I feel like I've really left California behind me. With every mile, I'm approaching something--instead of leaving something else behind.

Mid-state, in the thick of the Appalachian Mountains, I head south for 25 miles. I'm on my way to see Randi, a friend from college whom I haven't seen for almost ten years. We were in an a cappella group together and were good friends for a while. She's a mid-wife in a Lewistown, and spends her weekends in Pittsburgh with her husband. (shrine to husband, Jonathan, below)

The Emergency Room women are not cordial, but I fake my way up to Labor and Delivery. It's amazing to see her ensconsed in the medical world, yet also makes sense. Randi has always wanted to be as close to the essence of life as possible. Plus, her job involves talking about sex, relationships, and their complications, so that suits her as well.

We get take-out bar food and retire to her spare apartment. We eat and drink wine and tell stories and its fantastic. Randi is personable and hilarious and it's like stepping into a pair of old shoes. She checks in on her two patients and reports their dialation.

2006-09-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

DAY EIGHTEEN: Travel from Milwaukee to Ann Arbor, MI

I so needed the sleep I had, and had no desire to drive for the next 12 hours. I said my goodbyes to Sonja, Cain, and Cristina after a particularly good decaf americano. Milwaukee is a resource for numerous city coffee roasters.

Driving was frustrating. Every road into Chicago had some enormous back-up, and it rained all day. I thought I'd visit my cousin, Abby, in Ann Arbor, then speed on to Pittsburgh, but it was all I could do to get to Ann Arbor without falling asleep.

Abby is 19 and in her sophomore year at U of Michigan. She lives in a single in an enourmous dorm. The Wolverines won against Wisconsin today and everyone is celebrating. We talk in her dorm for a bit, then get something to eat.

Abby was mostly raised in New York City and went to Hunter College High School, a scholarship school and one of the best high schools in the city. She's a good student and is intimidatingly well-read. My aunt and uncle are actors, which I mention to explain her emotional intensity.

While I asked after her classes and what has been drawing her interest, the meat of the conversation circled around various relationships with boys. She's struggling with her rational brain, her untapped field of experience, and the foreign creatures that men can be. I found myself in a similar position I was in yesterday with Sonja's students: under the pressure to give sage advice while I'm struggling to figure out what I think about it, if anything.

What ended up happening is I told her what I thought of the various situations she presented to me, but not without a long hour of hemming and hawing. My instinct was to save her ego and support her role in these situations, even if I thought differently. By holding back my opinions, I became philosophical and explored the grey area of relationships. She was clearly confused and hurt and looking for some sort of direction. I wanted to show her that there isn't necessarily a right answer and that she had to make her own mistakes in order to find out what is right for her. She mentioned advice she had gotten from my mom (her aunt) and her mom (my aunt), and suddenly everything seemed clear. She needs direction. That is my role as an advice giver. She can make mistakes, but she's searching for sign posts as she tries to learn from them. I wasn't giving her anything she could walk away with.

So I told her I thought this guy was a coward and she needs to forget him for the time being. I didn't want to sound like the people who would have given me the same advice in the past, but she needs to hear this, I guess. It's so simple. Now is not the time for metaphysical ponderings on the nature of men and women. She can prove me wrong in a year. So I'll be wrong and she'll have her own signposts.

This applies to my fears about teaching in this way: students are looking for authority. As much as I don't want to be that authoritative figure, that's what the role entails. I'm not their friend nor their parent. So when I'm offering advice to a student, they want my opinion. And I don't think I gave it yesterday. It was a detached stance that fell short of engagement.

I explained all this to Abby as I was experiencing it, which probably didn't help her, but it helped me.

I can't remember the last time I was in a dorm. The bathroom requires a card key and the last 4 digits of Abby's social security number. Lordy.

2006-09-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

DAY SEVENTEEN: MILWAUKEE IV

An early morning for Sonja's 8:00 am Urban Myths, Legends, and Secrets class. A local photographer, John Kuehl, shows a series of photos he's taken from a bridge in the city. They are ambiguous, as much about minimalism, abstraction, and formalism as they are about the development of the land around the bridge. He is a sweetheart. But I'm distracted by my own talk and its refinement, and spend the rest of the morning, scanning, photoshop-ing, and editing.

During lunch Sonja picks up Cristina Sitja-Rubio, another classmate of ours who is visiting from Barcelona, from the bus station. I am mildly wary.

The talk goes O.K. I meet with three students individually and talk with them about their work. I feel simultaneously connected and foreign to their processes. It's hard to enter without much context and be able to give them feedback that is relevant and helpful. How much am I coming up with sentences to hear my own blathering ideas and how much is striking home? Teaching continues to both scare me and feel like a glove.

The next few hours pass by in an odyssey Sonja has been dreaming about for days. She takes Cristina and me to her gallery, Dean Jensen. He talks a lot and acknowledges some of the art he is showing sucks. Next we visit her favorite (and only?) contemporary gallery, Hotcakes (the art sells like...). The owner, Mike, has fled and left this note behind.
Around the corner is the Art Bar and the attitude-laden barkeep serves us white wine and tea in a code of silence. Cain shows up and Cristina asks me to take a picture of one of the walls.

Sonja insists on showing us her parents' home. At the Tudor-style house, we are included in plans for a big sushi dinner. Sonja's aunt and two cousins, brother (home from three weeks at college), and brother's friend (home from basic training) join us. It's a long, festive, and generous dinner.

Cristina and I talk more and begin to feel comfortable with one another. We flirted with friendship at one point, but it never took. It reminds me of that period in school when thirtysomething women cautiously sniffed each other out in the search for a grad school girlfriend with whom to process the experience, i.e. friend dating.

2006-09-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

DAY SIXTEEN: MILWAUKEE III

I am not at my best today. I haven't drunk red wine in a while and it prevented me from getting restful sleep.

Sonja and I go to the Milwaukee Art Museum, which is fantastical and almost ridiculous. The museum has wings on the roof that move at different times of the day, and the inside is like the exoskeleton of a whale. There is one large exhibition space. Every other gallery is rented from the adjacent War Memorial Museum.

Sonja drops off another copy of a piece she sold them—the first was damaged somehow or another. We get to see the Assistant Photography Curator, Lisa Hostetler, install the Saul Leiter show, a New York photographer I don't know. His photographs are somber, formal, and observant. He worked with color in the 40s, before William Eggelston.

Before Sonja teaches her large format class, we have coffee and talk about her family and Cain's—how different their histories are, and their different responses to trauma. Sonja's known Cain since high school. I am reminded how young they married. They are learning to operate in the world at the same pace I was 4 years... AND they're married. My mother was 23 when she married my father, who was 25. It's a wonder they remained married for as long as they did.

I retire to Sonja's quiet studio and give up trying to stay awake. Later I tackle the scanner problem with numerous technical support people and nothing gets solved. So I work on the lecture for tomorrow when Sonja returns.

We listen to a "This American Life" episode in which a woman adopts a young boy from Romania who received absolutely no attention in the orphanage. He suffers from Attachment Disorder and is incapable of empathic feelings for other people. At one point, the mother and son spend 8 months within 3 feet of one another, and slowly, slowly the boy shows signs of understanding his mother loves him. Even years later, the woman and her husband go through motions of treating their son like an infant, spoon-feeding him ice cream. The mother remains skeptical whether love can be taught, despite her son's turn around. The story haunts me the rest of the night.

We watch the season opening of "Grey's Anatomy," Sonja's one show, and she's in fits of excitement, then abject disappointment. I luxuriate in a bowl of Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, giving in to my sedentary lifestyle of the past month.

2006-09-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

DAY FIFTEEN: MILWAUKEE II

I was dreaming the dollar amount my citation in Oklahoma would be when Sonja walks in to the guest room and begins to talk about the lecture at MIAD I am to give on Friday as part of my work exchange. Do I have a write-up that describes my work? What should be included on the flyer? What time should it be? She wants answers.

We have a delightful breakfast of poached eggs and toast on her patio. It's cold and I begin thinking about autumn and its inevitable companion, winter. I haven't experienced east coast winter in four years and know there is no way to prepare for the winter that lies ahead of me in New York. Positive thoughts and a down jacket?

The day passes in chattering busy-ness, between MIAD, coffee, and Sonja's studio. It's in an enormous defunct factory with cream-colored bricks—the color of all bricks natural to Milwaukee. The general feeling of Milwaukee reminds me of Providence and the accessible and intimate aesthetic of small cities. Sonja worries over and avoids an application for a show while I try to problem solve three things at once. We are a pair. During our conversations, I find myself articulate where I often fumble. Something about her ever-positive and flattering attention. It threatens to make me confident.

Loopy and snappy from hunger, we shop for dinner at one of those bougie multi-boutique markets. I learn about Wisconsin cheese curds and imitate the cheese guy all the way home. ("Ok, guys, here's how curds are made. When the whey rises to the top, guys, the curds settle to the bottom, guys.")

Sonja's mother and grandparents come over for dinner. I take pictures during the cheese course. It is uncompromisingly familial and pleasant, wholesome and mid-western. Cain's friend Jay and his girlfriend Lindsay arrive in time for dessert. I drink enough wine for Sonja to convince me to sing, but too much to be any good at it. I am full and grateful for a room of my own.

2006-09-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

DAY FOURTEEN: MILWAUKEE I

I had an anti-anxiety dream, which I never knew existed. I was in a college class and the teacher yelled at the students about not reading the assigned book. This felt normal until I went home and ACTUALLY DID THE ASSIGNMENT. Then I found out I won some art award for an upcoming conference and began writing the acceptance speech. The only mild tension calculating a way to casually let my fellow students know about this. I slept late to sustain this serene feeling.

The day turned cold, cloudy, and windy. I packed up and showed Molly images from my May show. The Iron Maiden and I had a sweet reunion as I drove downtown to pick up film and contact sheets. Having someone else color correct my images allows me to see them as if someone else took them. I thought, "Wow, I'm a photographer!" when I saw them.
This is a sample of the mass amounts of insect sacrifices made to Iron Maiden so far. Then it rained.

Milwaukee lies an hour and half north of Chicago and I listened to Sufjan Steven's "Illinoise." Driven mad with hunger, I found my way to a vegetarian-sounding market & cafe: "Beans and Barley." Sonja met me there and the deluge of information began. Sonja and I were in grad school in San Francisco together. She teaches photography classes at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Sonja contains multitudes and can't help from including you in on it all.

This is Ron. He runs the lab that will process the photos from Chicago.

Sonja's new house, which she shares with her husband, Cain, sits in the shadow of Rockwell Automation, a meta-factory. It makes machines other factories use to make their product. Let me dwell with on this pleasurable concept for a moment...

While Sonja taught an adult ed class, I sat in the computer lab and tooled around with scanning and printing until Sonja showed me how to do it properly. I am finding my intentions for this residency are ambitious. Creation collides with production, focus-wise and time-wise. I have the opportunity to produce here.

Back at the house, Cain unwound from a day as paralegal. We talked about their families, most of whom live in the area, and their wedding a year ago. Sonja and I went to a smoky bar and ate & drank and talked about photography, art, careers, and life.

It's like starting a new life every four days. Just when you think you've hit the limits of one life, a whole new one is unfurled, and new possibilities & ways of approaching problems reveal themselves.

2006-09-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

DAY THIRTEEN: CHICAGO IV

Molly had to go downtown for an audition and conference call with the advertising agency for Second City's cruise ship shows (you didn't know they've gone so corporate, did you?). I've neglected to mention Molly has been in a series of commercials for Sonic, a fast food chain in the midwest, south, and southwest. She improvises them with this other guy, Brian. They play a snarky couple in sitting in their car, eating the different Sonic delicacies. We watched 20 of them last night and today I discovered parodies on YouTube. It's not around Chicago, so her fame is quiet here.

I've also neglected to mention Molly's married. Her husband, Rich, is away writing improv situations for corporations. Molly and Rich do an act about an aging couple who are old school entertainers, The Winstons.

After coffee from the i-have-no-time-for-you panini euro cafe on the corner, I noticed a pair of recently pruned trees in a front yard. Then I looked at the decrepit synagogue across from Molly's apartment. I spent the next two hours taking pictures of these things and the interior of Molly's apartment. No people, knock me over with a feather. Molly and Rich have a lot of things in piles. Molly had asked me to help organize their office, which seems to make her sick. But since Rich has been away, she knows he would be upset if I moved things around when he wasn't here.

When Molly returned, we took a long walk to a UPS store and talked about our parents and old schoolmates, including the premature death of a friend of ours this spring. The day was autumnal. We passed the first apartment in which my family lived. I insist on these visits to former homes which are nothing more than a minute-long eyebath. Sometimes when I can't sleep I walk myself through these homes and reconstruct my rooms. I don't have this hang-up about my own string of apartments.

We went to an Ethiopian restaurant and saw "The Black Dahlia," the new Brian De Palma film. The film noir-speak left us scrambling for plot-comprehension. The actors seem too young to be carrying a film this confusing.

Molly and I talked a lot about improv, the world in which she is deeply immersed. Talking with her reminds me a bit of conversations wth my brother. (Her mother was conviced Molly had a crush on him when we were kids.) It's not that we lack for conversation. She has a different style than I. Where I want to linger over topics, uncertain about anything, Molly marches through with sure thoughts, intent on exposition. Maybe it's a first born thing. It stretches me, I suppose, in a good way.

2006-09-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

DAY TWELVE: CHICAGO III

O.K. It doesn't help that I watched two episodes of "Felicity" before writing this. Everything seems really weighty, especially since Felicity just cheated on Ben with Noel.

Molly did all things improv today, and I tagged along. She was the sidekick during the recording of a podcast at Second City, performed the show, then went to an improv theater and a short, fully improvised scene with a man named Pat.

I had a phone conversation with my friend Alison, who lives in England. We talked about relationships--with both friends and lovers--and picked them apart in a considered and slow way. Alison also places a high priority on how she relates to people, so we indulge one another in full disclosure of our observations and feelings. My phone's battery threatened death and I wanted to size up the podcast proceedings, so a good conversation had to meet its early end. The transatlantic nature of it lends a preciousness.

Travel screws with my need for control. Extended travel, shall we say. And my desire to merge myself with my friends' lives subverts my equal desire to fullfill my needs. Excersize becomes disposible despite its obvious centering benefits.

It's hard to experience things without examining them at the same time. I'm trying to just do this thing.

2006-09-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

DAY ELEVEN: CHICAGO II

A wood chipper revs up in the alley around 9am. Seeing as we went to bed around 3:30, this is a problem. I'm adapting to Molly's schedule, yet still feel guilty about waking up at 11:30. She's bogged down by a developing cold.

We go to Millenium Park, next to the Art Institute and Grant Park. A Celtic Festival is in full swing--harps, bagpipes, thick sweaters and all. People are out in droves, kids play in the video fountain, tourists photograph themselves in "The Bean," Anish Kapoor's mirrored sculpture. Molly and I talk about Allie, a girl who entered our school in 7th grade. She lives in Chicago and Molly is still friends with her. I tell Molly how divisive I felt Allie was to our friendship that year. It feels funny it took me this long to address it, thus making it more momentous than necessary. But Molly seems to understand because she knows Allie and her behaviors. Though I take comfort in Molly's psychological distance from Allie, I realize Molly stays in touch with both of us for the same reason--history.

Molly drops me off at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I must have looked intensely at everything for two hours, because when I emerge at 5:30 the world looks like a photograph. Little scenes are set up wherever my eyes go. Four boys, pairs in matching t-shirts, walk down the street and pass an approaching bride and groom and a backwards-walking photographer. In the adjacent park, a little girl exclaims "Look, a wife!"

Swarms of people walk along Michigan Avenue. As I wait for the bus outside Watertower, my fascination continues. Is it Chicago? My remote summer in Maine? The two hours in the museum? Photographing any of it would ruin the spell. I feel simuletaneously enlivened and removed by my looking.

Back at the apartment I try to set up my new scanner, but the connection doesn't work with my computer. Not to be dampened, I mindlessly fix the spot that appears on all 340 images I shot of my friend Alison's wedding. I also watch the big screen TV and numb my mind. Molly gets home at 2:45.

I have a sneeking suspicion I'm revisiting the four homes of my childhood with these four residencies.

2006-09-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

DAY TEN: CHICAGO I

We slept late. Molly lives in the same neighborhood my family lived during our last year in Chicago (1989-1990.) We ate brunch at a hippy vegetarian cafe over whose cornbread my mother raved.

I've known Molly since the first or second day of 4th grade in Dallas, TX. Not only were we both new to the school and in the same homeroom, but we both had no clue where to find the afterschool ballet class. We fell into a close friendship until I left after 7th grade. We'd visit every year after that, then went to colleges an hour away from one another, and toured Europe for two weeks one summer. I wouldn't say that we've maintained that pre-teen closeness, but she's one of the only people who's known me for that long and neither of us seem interested in giving that up.

I went downtown to drop off film, then walked in the autumn sun to the Latin School of Chicago where I attended 8th-10th grades. School was out for the day and I wandered from floor to floor, comparing my mental image with what was infront of me. I ran into my fieldhockey coach, who didn't recognize me and the conversation was fast and brief. I didn't keep in touch with anyone from that school, save for a guy who went to my college. It's odd to feel a connection with a place that shows no current evidence of it.

Molly left for work at 6:30pm. She's in Second City, the Chicago comedy empire. She's quite good. We used to taperecord ourselves imitating "Saturday Night Live" skteches or I would interview Molly, who made up strange characters that flumoxed me. We were fascinated with our own voices and private jokes. I think we had our own language for several years running.

I saw the 11pm show and alternated between laughing and watching the construction of the sketches.

Molly (far left) with three of her Second City cohorts

2006-09-14T21:29:00.000-07:00

DAY NINE: Travel from Oklahoma to Chicago, IL

The hotel afforded me time to catch up on email and the blog, so I didn't start driving until 1pm. And I drove. And listened to the boring "Memiors of a Geisha." And thought about identity and context. And all the contexts in which I am I placing myself. And how I'm visiting former homes and I'm currently homeless. I got to Chicago at 1am and there was Molly and now I'm headed to bed.

2006-09-13T21:59:00.000-07:00

DAY EIGHT: Travel from Texas to Muskegee, OK (via Dallas)

One would think one could get a perfectly good night's sleep in a rest stop with 14 eighteen wheelers next to a major interstate. But for some reason my eyes took a while to clear this morning on my way to Aledo, TX. Patrick, who works at Acadia Summer Arts Program with me in Maine, met me at the top of his street in the "ranch cart" with Rocco. The blurry bits in the photo are all the dead insects on my windshield.

They led me to the house he's been building with his father-in-law, wife, and stepson for the past two years. I am in awe of it. Patrick took me on a tour and explained they are trying to bring the house to code so they can close on the loan. The terrain reminded me of Puerto Ayorra in the Galapagos: low trees, scrub brush, and rocky. I could only stay a while.

In Dallas, I swung by the school I attended from 4th to 7th grades in order to say hello to my 6th grade English teacher. He is now the assistant head of the school and was at football practice and I somehow missed him. OK, I gave no warning about the visit, but I should have marched out to that damned field and said hi. The receptionist was laconic and mildly aware of this planet.

If I were to plunge into self-analysis, I would notice I have been polite and unwilling to, shall we say, claim my agency. That, and planning might be a good idea for future visiting ideas.

I did get to see the house my family lived in for three years. The current owners were on the front lawn, so I did a creepy slow drive-by. Everywhere I looked I simultaneously existed in the Dallas of 20 years ago and the present, and that's a major headtrip. I muttered things like "Oh, that's where the Mr. M store used to be."

I decided to get a hotel in Muskegee, OK. On my way to a predictably unsatisfying dinner at Denny's, the Canine Unit of the local police stopped me. A second unit stopped out of self-proclaimed "nosiness." They asked me questions like "New York? What's there?" The ungrateful citizen that I am, the usefulness of police often eludes me.

2006-09-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

DAY SEVEN: Travel from New Mexico to Abilene, TX (via Marfa, TX)

Campsite in New Mexico
I landed in Marfa, TX by 3:00pm, CST, population 2121. An artist named Donald Judd bought an old army base here in 1979 and permnaently installed works by himself and artists he admired.
The sign in the Chinati Museum downtown said they were closed on Tuesdays. In the Marfa Book Co., I found an article on The Chinati Foundation in a Texas art guide and it recommends planning ahead. I did not do this. I thought showing up in a remote town in west Texas was enough planning. So I checked my email, uploaded yesterday's entry, and drank a ginseng ginger ale. The bookstore is modern and comfortable with a large art section and a gallery. I didn't feel like talking to anyone, and in fact felt incapacitated in that arena. I took myself on a tour of the perimeter of the other buildings owned by the Foundation.

This building sits opposite the entrance.

And these types of trees or cacti grow all around. A man in a passing red truck called out "It takes them a 100 years to grow that way" as I stood looking at one. (i can't get this to orient correctly)

I've found this taped to the inside of the doors of the gas stations in Texas.

On the way back to Interstate 20, Rt. 17 lead me through some of the most divine landscape I've ever seen.

Marfa seemed to dislodge a host of anxieties. The evening was tough and I distracted myself with Godtalk radio stations and trying to find Gnarls Barkley's new hit "Crazy" on the pop stations. Several friends talked me back from the edge of my cerebral warfare. The ochre moon rose late, half full, resting on its side, and fuzzy. I slept in the Iron Maiden at a busy rest stop east of Abilene.

2006-09-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

DAY SIX: Travel from San Diego to Rock Hound State Park, New Mexico

I've had this Sufjan Stevens song stuck in my head, the only one of his I know. It was in the movie last night and I've played it all day from a mixed cd Haden Nicholl gave me. It's called "Chicago," where I'm headed, and about scrappy travel and love and mistakes. "I made a lot of mistakes," he says over and over. It makes me weepy (I can't figure out if I've made a lot of mistakes or not enough.) And there's a youthful gaggle of singers who make everything grand, important, and dramatic. Just the sort of song to get through wide expanses of desert in overpowering heat and little sleep.

I got up with early with Colleen and Jason so I could take their portrait before Colleen headed to school. Jason and I had breakfast together and chuckled over things I can't remember at the moment. I realized I should have taken more documentation of their apartment, and especially the car (as I watched Colleen drive it away.)

I've taken to driving like a drug. Once I get started I don't want to stop for anything. I could have driven an hour north of the 10 in California to see the Salten Sea. Or two hours north of here to see my friend Nancy Rosenbaum. I get locked on how many miles I've acrewed and how many I can get under my belt before it's absolutely necessary to stop.

I listened to "Nietzsche in 90 Minutes" on audiobook, and began "Memoirs of a Geisha" before I began to fall alseep. The Nietzsche narrator described "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" as the sort of long-winded overwrought book liked only by teenagers, on par with Hesse and Dostoyevsky books. The 15 year old character Dwayne in "Little Misss Sunshine" reads this book and models his life after the philosopher/psychologist's "will to power" maxim. It makes me think that there is a reason we read certain books during high school. It's sort of absurd to think that the only audience for "To Kill a Mockingbird" is 7th graders, but that is when most of us read it and are affected by it. It's as if there is this lineage of writers who, without knowing it, write specifically for that audience. Adults maybe think them boring or dramatic, but where these authors fail one audience, they win over another one. It takes a convergence of very specific but equally random elements to speak to this population of alienated open readers. I'd like to compile a list of these elements and the books that successfully combine them. I am sure many of them lie in the bildungsroman genre, like "Jane Eyre" or "Demian." But there have to be other random books that make a 15 year old's neckhair stand on end because she's finally found the character who thinks the very same nasty thoughts she thinks.

And then I began thinking about beginnings and endings again. And how we are not fully conscious of our own life beginnings nor, typically, our ends. And that means the part we are most familiar with is the middle—the long confusing winding middle. Maybe this is why the beginning and end of a particular time period in our life is appealing to define and rally around. We have more control over these smaller stories and can celebrate the bookends, whereas we do not have that opportunity with our own lives.

2006-09-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

DAY FIVE: SAN DIEGO IV

It's funny how beginnings and endings can be important markers. I've been here for four days, and this being the last day had an impact on how we proceeded. There is the celebration of a beginning, and the what-have-we-forgotten-and-need-to-discuss feel of the last day. The middle days become unmoored. They become routine, even within the small context. I am looking for a taste of that, though. As lost as I feel during the in-between days, I am trying to lean in to them, accept their indirection and production of anxiety and questions as the natterings of daily life. I do this because I am scared of them.

Though I went to bed late, I felt obliged to get up at a reasonable hour (8:30/9) and surrender the livingroom. I elected to venture out for the NY Times, and Jason mentioned a coffee house in which I could hole up. I've been fabricating Colleen's possible responses to my presence, as I do not know her as well. So I decided to give us all space and drink coffee with, honestly, a nuts-o cast of characters. The man with the amazon parrot was there, as well as the fishy sulking teenager by the magazine rack. The presence-filled woman at the cash register put most coffee jerks to shame. And did I mention how BRIGHT the sunlight is in San Diego? Soon, Jason retireved me for the weekly foray to the farmer's market.

A brief pause here for the amazing produce in California, which I will miss dearly.

Colleen struggled all day with nasty allergies. She also needed to plan for her classes this week. Jason read the paper while I wrote his recommendation letter for Prescott College. He wants to finish his bachelor's degree in a manner that agrees with his self-taught style. I was able to photograph them busy in their separate worlds in their shared space.

Jason and I went to see "Little Miss Sunshine." Movie-going in SD cannot be dictated by the weather. Alone with him, I was able to ask Jason questions that had been hanging in the back of my mind, like what is different since you've married? I felt looser, if only because I know Jason better. He was traumatized by the paegent scenes in the movie and we both wandered around Trader Joe's in a post-movie haze, the sort where nothing is real and you might be caught in someone's script.

A planned dinner with friends was dropped in favor of another great home-cooked meal with good wine. It was a thoroughly engaging and lovely time, rife with family stories and more high school comparisons (ours verses Colleen's kids), of which I can never tire. I showed them images from my show in May in place of summer work.

I emerge from this marination in married life with the idea that Jason and Colleen are wholey different people who exist within eachother's intimate consideration.

This is their downstairs neighbor, Anthony, in his boat.

2006-09-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

DAY FOUR: SAN DIEGO III
Woke this morning feeling guilty and slothful. Despite my lack of a Catholic upbringing, I went for an ill-advised run/walk/run. Several elements conspired against any feeling of success, save for the buckets of sweat pouring down my arms and legs. We had a delightful breakfast of poached eggs that Jason made in one of those hi-tech plastic cupcake pans.

The gist of the day is that I got a haircut, we sat on the beach for 3 hours, and ate dinner at home. I wonder at the plodding nature of daily event descriptions. It reminds me of those endless travel emails I used to get--before the advent of blogs--from some friend in South America. This wondering coincides with my questioning of what I think I'm doing during this project. Because it feels an awful lot like visiting. Which was the initial idea. Then there is the work I imagined I'd do in a fourth-dimension of extra time. I might have to be more declarative about work time and social time. Do I act as if this were a visit or do I act as if it were something new an unusual? Doing so would present a new, possibly disruptive, element into my friends' daily lives. But my presence changes things anyways. And claiming my presence in photographs usually makes them more interesting.

I do find it interesting watching couples up close for an extended period of time. Colleen has been working the past two days, so today provided more opportunites to observe how they relate with one another. Jason has been a bit of a lone wolf since I've known him, so I'm still getting used to him in the context of a relationship. There are simple gestures like jumping up to help Colleen take out the trash. During dinner, Jason shared his musings about becoming a business manager for a local big photographer, and Colleen asked questions and prodded him to clarify his general vagueries. She wants him to have a steady job, yet also do something he likes doing, as she does. It was a subtle interraction that points towards a much longer conversation I won't be at the dinner table for the next time it comes up. I become fascinated and jealous around such tenderness.

Recently I've noticed changes in my personality that have something to do with either getting older or becoming self-consumed. I've started to wait until I can speak instead of listening (this used to annoy me when I saw other people do it.) I don't remember daily events the next day. I'm more reluctant to meet new people. Yet I had an interesting conversation with one of Jason & Colleen's friends, Geena. She's just left her husband. It did not sound like a good marriage. She had a disruptive childhood, and attended 30 schools by the time she graduated high school. Maybe now I have a more specific criteria for my conversations.

I'm thinking about this apartment and how it looks. How Colleen has arranged a number of little still lives on the book shelf. And how the blinds in the bathroom butt against the floral shower curtain. The photographs that might result from such musings seem to bear a striking resemblance to photographs I don't like.

2006-09-08T21:21:00.000-07:00

DAY THREE: SAN DIEGO II

I accomplished a lot of nagging Life Maintenance tasks today. Jason couldn't think in the morning, so I made coffee and cut up a mango for our hemp cereal--which is totally safe, in case you were wondering. The cereal company bemoans the damaging reputation of its black sheep cousin. If only more people were enlightened.

After plugging away at phone service agents all morning, Jason and I picked up the 20 rolls of film I dropped off yesterday. I began to realize my plan of showing pictures from the summer during the first residency might not happen. The lab is too busy to provide 5x5 proofs before I leave on Monday. I need to figure out how to show them something by Sunday night. I could scan negatives, pre-selecting a manageable amount of possibilites. It's time consuming and hit or miss.

This sort of bums me out and distracts me from my plans for production. But the thing that distracts me is hanging out with Jason and Colleen, which is also a part of my plans. I'm confronting my first quandry: Is there enough time and space to follow through on all of my agendas? If i'm successful with spending time with my friends, then do I fail at producing work? If I focus on work and its production, will I take the time to spend with my friends?

For lunch, we go to a mexican hole in the wall that has a line out the door. It's the sort of place that has three items on the menu. My burrito doesn't have beans or rice. It does have the softest freshest flour tortilla wrapped around light shredded chicken, potatoes, cheese, and lettuce. The walls are two-toned and fake flowers are mounted 12 feet high on them.

Jason has another friend in from San Francisco. We pick up Mateo and his wife, Joelle, at their hotel and go to the beach on Coronado, a big island in the bay. The sexiest bridge warps its way over there. Mateo is a coastal engineer and Joelle just finished her masters in marine biology. Jason knows Mateo from living in Italy a while ago. The waves are tough and ensnarl me, aggrevating the knee that hurts from doing yoga with Liz last Saturday. Glitter is in the San Diego water and sand and they feel enchanted.

I'm on my own for dinner while Jason and Colleen go to a student's family's bar-b-q. Odin, a.k.a. Mr O., and I take a long walk. Instead of sniffing immediately, Mr. O would stop and look at me, somewhere between asking for permission and "Do you mind?" Later the three of us drink wine and talk about high school athleticism and alcoholism.

I worried this morning about the effect of the blog on Jason. He sat and laughed and ate hemp cereal. Jason has this great quality of balancing out his practical & factual side with an openness to being wrong.

I ddin't take any pictures with the Rollieflex today. Just "documentation" with the digital camera. Tomorrow I hope to set-up the scanner. And take soome pictures.

2006-09-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

DAY TWO: SAN DIEGO I

I woke wishing I could sleep another two days. Jason made breakfast, as he skillfully and generously is prone to do. He had already loaded up his car with his photographic equipment and we took off at 9:15 am for a last-minute job.

May I pause here to adore Jason's car. I never knew I was such a car adorer until this spring. He has a gold '83 Mercedes 300D. Everything inside is the same color, including Jason. Infact, I found myself noticing all day how Jason did or did not blend in with his surroundings. An itinerant chameleon, perhaps. His skintone suits San Diego.

May I pause once more to explain how I know Jason. We worked together at the Maine Photographic Workshops (now about to close) in the summer of 2001. When Rockport College--the academic arm--began in the fall, I continued as a T.A. and Jason became a student and my roommate. We kept in easy touch afterwards because both of us lived in California. A few years ago he began to date Colleen. They eloped this spring and were kind enough to have a celebration that included their parents a few weeks ago in their home town.

Back to today. I assisted him in shooting a massive computer server in a messy office space in a nondescript building on one of those self-contained genentec/dotcom streets by the airport. I alternated between observer and learned-attentive-assistant in an attempt to maintain Jason's professional image with the clients. The marketting guy seemed about 7 years younger than me, meek, and unsure of what he wanted from us. Jason's approach differed from the deliberative studio work I've experienced, and we were out of there within two hours. Jason then vented his frustrations with commercial photography and I agreed by listening. We both need new skill sets.

O.K. I have to go back to Jason's car. Not only does he look good in it, but he played a Barry White cd and we sat low on sheep skin seat covers. He has to flick the turn signal manually back and forth. I felt fantastic in that car.

Jason also talked about his recent diagnosis of ADD and how that seems to explain a lot about himself to himself. I found myself reflecting over my own behaviors in context of ADD, but had to separate myself from his story.

At a middle eastern deli we ate wraps and I kept lookng at the green wall and its contrast to Jason.

I took pictures of him in the livingroom during the day, and at night with Colleen. Their livingroom is furnished with artdeco type things from thrift stores. It's a particular aesthetic I associate with my maternal grandparents. The walls are beige, the blinds white and beige striped, and a Bailes Rusos poster contains peach, orange, pink, deep red, and brown tones.

I also took a two hour nap and looked at forwarded mail and took a walk/run/walk. The houses in their neighborhood are unique little treasures that express complete individual personalities. The park nearby has a frisbee golf course.

During dinner Jason told stories of his year in Italy while Colleen prepared a test for her 12th grade environmental science classes. Colleen teaches at an Endeavor charter school that is project-based (i.e. not test-based) and most of the teachers are in their 20s. She also teaches yoga during gym. Oprah and Bill Gates (a sponsor) visited the school a year ago because of its ambitious model.

I find myself doing exactly what I want to do, then remembering I will report whatever I do to this blog at the close of the day. It doesn't seem like it should be an influencing factor, and then it does.

2006-09-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

DAY ONE: Travel from San Francisco to San Diego (with a stop in L.A.)

I left San Francisco by 10 am after a sweet, attentive send-off by my long-time friends Kate, Nicole, & Amy. Then coffee with Amy Mac (met in grad school) at Farley's, breakfast with Jordan (also grad school) in his new TenderNob kitchen, and loading up with L.A.-bound boxes from Ginna (brother's mother-in-law).

It was a nuts-o visit to SF. I swept all floating dust particles out the door, including myself. I do not feel sentimental or regretful. Yet.

The gas gods conspired against me today. I pulled into a station in Fruitvale, and as I pumped $3.09 gas, I faced a station across the street that advertised $2.83. When I stopped before the Grapevine to L.A., I was trapped in $3.19 hell. Those fuckers will get you whenever & wherever they can.

The Central Valley was hot. Not Paris Hilton hot. Sweat-soaked seat and tea-temperature bottled water hot. The Iron Maiden lacks the benefit of A/C. As I chugged up the mountains, the temperature gauge wavered precariously close to the red H. Ahead a large orange cloud loomed, ominously filling the sky. As it blocked out the sun, I noticed fires atop the mountains by Pyramid Lake. The light outside was deeply tinted and it looked as if the windows of the Iron Maiden were sunglassed. I was on the phone with Jason. He said it's like this every summer in the Sierra Nevadas where he grew up.

I made Eagle Rock, where my brother and his family reside, by 4:15. The heat had wiped me out and the run I imagined I'd go on slowly faded away. Josh returned from school on his bike in bright yellow shorts and a purple t-shirt. We unloaded Ginna's gifts and two pieces of my work I'm loaning to them. I complimented him on the finished frontyard fence, a project we'd worked on with Dad over Christmas and President's Day Weekend. Bevin and I picked up Amon and his play date (damn that phrase), Benjamin, from day care. I succummed to my heat exhaustion as I tried to write out instructions for hanging the art. Amon & Benjamin watched "Wonder Pets," an animated show in which singing pets, who go to day care and stay after everyone has gone home, rescue non-singing animals from dire circumstances. The songs have themes like "Team Work." Amon and Benjamin sang this song as they ate their veggie hotdogs for dinner.

Bevin and I ate dinner on the porch where it was mercifully cooler. I left soon after Josh returned with a borderline grumpy Lachlan. He is now good at smiling when he sees me, remembering my name ("Annaomi") and accepts hugs and kisses. Bevin has the habit of making chocolate chip cookies ALL THE TIME and I consumed about 46 of them before I could escape. It was a calm short visit.

San Diego lies 2 hours south, and downtown appeared new and mysterious in the darkness. Who knew Sea World is here? What's that strange church-like twin tower structure? I began to sense that I was in a new experience and that theoretical plans were turning into concrete action. My month of work/play had arrived. As I passed Jason and Colleen's second floor apartment, we caught eachother's attention and Jason waved. My attempts at pleasant and grateful small talk were hampered by exhaustion.

I'm stationed on their livingroom floor on an airmattress, guarded by Odin, their white impressive dog. I already feel a tug at my nebulous status as both a houseguest and artist in residence. They are so kind to jump into the pool with me without knowing what's in there. I must stop writing before my skull becomes a vessel of quince paste.

2006-08-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

Today I left my summer employment in Bar Harbor, Maine. Here's to intense jobs that leave one exhausted yet monetarily prepared to tackle more desired activities.

I had enough time to unload things at my dad's in Woolwich, ME, have a good dinner with Annie and him, and prepare for the initial cross-country trip to San Francisco. While this first leg of the trip is to go to a wedding, see friends, and tie up loose ends, it will set me up to begin the project in San Diego on September 6th.