Run for the Quiet

I drink coffee. I have a face.

All my photos are shit.

by

I bought a 35mm camera. It’s not a fancy one. You can’t change the fstop, or the ISO or other photography things I don’t know, or understand. You point it and click. It’s a Toy Camera, apparently.

It has a flash. I forget to use it. Forgot to use it. And on the roll of 36 photos, I used flash 7 times.

It took over a week to get the images. I don’t know, nor want to know, how to develop my own film. I sent it away. Queuing in the post office to ask a person to print a lable for me, and sending the film, with the shit photos hidden inside, away.

I had to wait. How did I have the patience to do this as a child? Taking analogue pictures in fast food shops, and theme parks, and waiting for all the exposures to be used, and then waiting to have enough money to have them deveoloped, and then waiting for them to be developed and printed and then waiting to see my friends and family to show them my shit photos. How did I have the patience?

Fuck. I missed it. Not the waiting, but yes the waiting. The waiting was almost the best part of the whole experience. Almost.

Getting the digital scans of the shots, the let down of seeing everything nearly black, the halarious resignation of thinking “oh, I fucked these up” when scrolling through, and the immediate wonder if I’m currently fucking up with the half used roll of film I currently have in the camera right now. Perfect.

All my photos are shit. And I love them.

Daily Prompt 1951

Do you remember life before the internet?

I do.

I’m the right age to have had an analogue childhood and digital teenage life.

A nostalgic 80s, where things like house phones were still not common place, and then everything rapidly changing through the 90s and later, to the point now where we have all the worlds knowledge in a device in our pocket.

I’m wary, I know I could indulge in the nostalgia, a wonderful haze of analogue memories. Big blocky computers with giant floppy disks, loading computer games via cassette tape, excitement when the phone rings, and the joys of post.

There’s always that temptation, to think of times before ‘The Internet’ as generically better. How fun was post, when it wasn’t always just bills? How exciting was a phone call when you barely communicated with folks you didn’t see each day. How simple was it all when you didn’t know what was happening beyond your local horizon. How disconnected it was when you needed support.

I love a odd wonder into melancholia. It’s like a really rich pudding, something to savour and enjoy. But not something one should take too much of.

I do remember a time before the internet, and I miss some of it. Cameras that didn’t need to load and were litterally point & click, days without being contacted, post that was fun.

Daily Prompt 1950

What are you good at?

Jumping to conclusions? Talking shit about myself? Drinking coffee.

There’s a line in Alien 3. “We tolerate even the intolerable.”

And really, when I look at all the things I’ve done in my life. Tolerating the intolerable is probably what I’m really good at.

I’ve completed several marathons. I would not recommend it.

I’ve worked for some really shitty companies, in some really shitty industries.

I’ve had some really obnoxious clients / guests / acts / family talk to me like crap.

Sometimes I even, for a short while, believed it.

“and still like dirt, I rise.”

Daily Prompt 1949

What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?

What does it mean? I don’t know.

Knowing what it means is the tricky bit, isn’t it? Its easy to rattle off a list of things. Stuff. Having it all via a shopping spree.

Material things are the first thoughts that come to mind. The instant gratification of just having something that you want. Like a kid, pressed up against the window of my dreams, picking my most favourite things, to just have, and that would be all.

But second thoughts, considering it for a little while, it’s not about stuff.

It’s about having freedom, having all the possibilities, the opportunities and the ability to choose freely.

I would choose to create things. Create art. Make stuff. Weird things, fun things, odd things. Unique things, that can only come from having the luxury of choice.

Is it attainable?

That’s a cow of a different colour. I don’t think so. No.

Daily Prompt 1948

Who would you like to talk to soon?

Me.

Take some time to be honest with myself.

Is that cliché enough? There’s always got to be a bit of cliché with daily prompts. Right? Right.

Daily Prompt 1947

What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

I hoard things. I collect things. Scraps, tickets, stickers, bits and pieces. Detritus.

The live in boxes and baskets. Sandwiched between pages of whatever I was reading or stashed in wallets and pockets of bags.

When I find them I remember where I picked them up, and I hold them dear. Like little snapshots of emotions.

Then I feel guilty I haven’t scrapbooked them or kept them safe. They are dear to me, honest. These bits and scraps just look like discarded rubbish.

Daily Prompt 1946

Do you have any collections?

I have far too many empty notebooks. All different sizes and brands.

I want to have a collection of Common Place Books. That, however, is harder to collect, as I have to turn my current notebook collection into books with knowledge inside.

It’s a longer process, as I have to both learn all the things and then put the parts of it I want to remember into my notebooks.

But the empty notebooks look pretty on my shelf!

Daily Prompt 1945

What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

I don’t know if it’s a legacy, but I always wanted to leave stacks of notebooks behind when I’m gone.

Like Daniel Jackson from Stargate, stacks of notes and information. Notebooks that are a mix of journal and research. Filled with weird drawings and esoteric knowledge.

It’s more likely I’ll leave half completed calendars, and books with 10 pages of chicken scratchings. My children will burn it all and be glad they don’t have to read the mundane ramblings of th parent.

I did once read, that historians loved mundane journals, they give explanations to what daily life would have been. To people studying the past those boring details are golden, explanations of what is obvious now, but fallen out of common knowledge cannot be found anywhere other than these journals.

So my legacy might be mundane details in too many scrappy note pages, but when I die I’ll rest hopeful that there are surprises in the pages, but content that someone will find details helpful in the future.