One a Day

So I’ve been nonstop busy for the better part of a year.  A day off here and there.  Late nights, early mornings, overnights, undernights, timetables shifting and changing last minute.  Leaving at midnight arriving somewhere else at 630 in the morning. Traveling through two to three boroughs to get to work.  Ignoring the work that I want to do.  Finding a way to blame that on my schedule.  Which is convenient.

To be honest, I’ve been doing more work in the past few years than I had in the three directly following art school.  When I was toiling away in the basement of a bar.  It was only three nights a week, but my camera stayed at home every day.  My sketch book unmolested gathering dusk instead of graphite. I was more interested in drinking my way through my work week.  I got nothing done.

I’ve stopped lugging ice and slinging drinks for a living.  Now I’m shooting almost every day and pointing lights for a pay check.  It’s considerably more rewarding, even if there are fewer stories to tell.  I’m much happier doing this than I’ve been doing anything else.  And yet…

There’s still something missing.  This blog has been helping, but sometimes I’m simply spinning wheels in the mud.  The days where I realize I haven’t taken anything and just snap a shot for the sake of snapping a shot.  A crazy amount of my photos here are simply taken in passing.  With little to no planing or thought.  Which is okay… but I want to do something bigger.  Something that’s always on my mind, but I’m having difficulty making it manifest.

I find myself blaming my schedule.  My Space. My Equipment.  My Lack of Resources. Time and Money.  And while these are obstacles.  I know that I’m the biggest thing standing in the way of the completion of my projects.  The first step is realizing that you have a problem.  Now its time to do something about it.

 

I think I’m getting out of my rut a bit.

 

I’ve been feeling pretty disconnected the past few days.  Maybe its just been the hours.  Maybe my sleep apnea is getting worse.  Maybe I’m just drinking too much coffee and eating shitty.  But I haven’t been feeling particularly present.  Its not that I’m depressed(I’m not) I’m pretty happy with the way most things are going.  I really want to put together a project that I can throw myself into, but when I finally get a day to myself I can’t seem to find the energy to start.

Starting always seems to be the hardest thing.

Sometimes I have to really push myself to get out of the house and go for a run, but once I’m out and have the road under my feet its almost effortless compared to getting out the door.  And I always have to get back home, so I can’t just stop, I need to see it through  until the end.

Maybe its the same for these projects.  Maybe I just need to start them and eventually I’ll make it back home.

Self doubt is both the killer and motivator for my creativity.

No time to waste or I’m going to be late for work.

Spent the night last night with a high speed flash spinning the pedals on my bike.  By the looks of it I could have left it motionless, but I’m still ok with it.

Blue skies on a cloudy day.

This little guy came out in support for juvenile diabetes.

She doesn’t believe me when I tell her she has beautiful eyes.  She also doesn’t like when I put a camera in her face, but I really like how expressive here eyes are in this photo.

 

I love coffee.  Not in the way that you can love a person though.  I love it like I love oxygen or sun light.  I wouldn’t make it through the day without it.  Normally it just takes a little bit to get me normal.  My morning cup of coffee is a four cup pot.  Most people don’t get to see my first cup is down.  It’s just better for everyone that way.  Most of the time my morning cup will get me through a whole day.  If I have a full night sleep.

I only slept about four or five hours last night, non consecutively.  Fitful sleep is the worst.  So all day I’ve been trying to force myself awake with cup after cup of coffee.  I should know by now that it never works.  It just makes me jittery and nervous.  My brain just misfiring every step of the way.  Daydreaming of my comforter and pillows, the irony being that once I get to them I won’t be able to sleep.  Being exhausted in bed and unable to sleep has to be the greatest injustice in caffeine addiction.

I love coffee and coffee loves me its like every cup is hugging my heart today.  I’m a strange sort of coffee snob.  At home I keep a few pounds of micro roasted coffee.  I order it from Portland where my buddy Dylan roasts it.  I refuse to drink Starbucks unless its a caffeine emergency, but I’ll stop at Dunkin Donuts several times a week even though its basically dirty water.  I’m pretty sure I had my first cup of coffee at the Highland Diner in Ossining.  I was probably fourteen at the time.  It was fifty cents(maybe 75 at this point) for a bottomless cup of coffee, and you could smoke!(I must sound like I’m a thousand years old)  I used so much cream and sugar that I was basically drinking cake.

It’s a little strange how many events in my life seem to revolve around coffee.  Between working in coffee shops and meeting two of my best friends there.  Waiting tables overnight in Boston where it was essential.  Having my buddy Adam climb up our balcony like Sam from Clarissa Explains it All with a tray of iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts in JP.  Going espresso shot for shot with Rob, coffee cuppings with Dylan, chain smoking in diners with a sketchbook and headphones on, et cetera et cetera.

I quit smoking five years ago, I barely drink beer or whiskey anymore, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to drink coffee until I die.

Editors note: this was written in the throes of a coffee binge.  Please excuse the rambling and inevitable grammatical errors.