Appetite

Penny de los Santos, who I went to Ohio University with, has a blog which was just named one of the top ten food blog's by the Austin Chronicle.  Since her photos are as tasty as the food is, I thought I'd share the honored site!

Appetite

Stuffed Elephant

You can lead the dog to the toy but you can't make him play with it.

Untitled from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.

I Do Not Welcome Comments

I just noticed that I sent a cover letter to a job prospect with the sentence, "I was responsible for connecting with subjects, setting-up photo shoots, and collecting accurate caoption information all on a deadline".

Really? Accurate caoption info? Clearly you were good at it.

I Love My House!

For a nice chuckle, CLICK HERE!

Harness

Oliver woke this morning with his harness ever so slightly skewed.

Sloth

My sister-in-law posted this on Facebook and I just thought it was funny!

Good Job

The psychic I met with weeks ago told me that my dad would tell me to "get a real job".  "Which is weird," she added, "because your dad is so laid back."

I was chatting with Dad the other night and he suggested I get a job!  Not as bluntly as it sounds, but rather, for me to get out of the house since shooting isn't really keeping me busy enough. It (what the psychic had said) didn't occur to me til this morning.

I did apply for a position at a local university yesterday so we'll see. The field of photographers is so over saturated I would not be surprised if nothing comes of it at all. I do have my feelers in to a summer camp teaching art. Can I teach art? Not sure, but I'm sure I can figure it out.

Maureen just gave me some photos so I could scan them. Including this one of me, from around the time that I gave myself my own haircut. It's probably the riskiest thing I've ever done in my life and I was five.

Leave it alone
Leave it alone
Have I learned nothing?
An entire childhood lived within my head
a lifetime
I never learned how to get out
Perhaps now, there is no learning how
A giant machine
spinning recklessly with sharp edges
digging deep and burying me
drowning me
I get above water and breathe deep while I can
before the machine pulls me down again.

The Power of Now

I am currently reading Eckhart Tolle's "Practicing the Power of Now". I like the premise of it, in short, live in the moment, but the premise also feels so desparately self-important. This idea of watching your thinking self rather than letting your thinking be who you are. Breathe in and out and focus on your breath, freeing yourself from you mind. At one point, the reader is asked to observe a plant of a dog and essentially try to be like them, because they have no past or future - they live in the moment. My thinking is a huge part, (and often because I cannot seem to slow my over-thinking, it's to my detriment), of what makes me who I am. I wish I could slow my thinking, yes, but I'm not interested in being a plant either - quite literally a wall flower.

I understand and appreciate the idea that the past is the past and more importantly, one cannot live now thinking only about how things will be better in the future. I want to live more in the moment, but how can I if the particular moment I'm living in isn't doing much for me? What if that moment is boring?  I know Tolle is thinking differently - that you must think within yourself and just "be". At least, I think that's what he's getting at. It doesn't help me that I am extremely impatient. How impatient? Well, I'm reading "Practicing the Power of Now" which is essentialy the cliff's notes to "The Power of Now".

Living in the moment has always been something I have struggled with. It's extremely rare that I can just sit quietly and just be content with whatever's going on around me. I think that's why I'm trying this book out.  I am rarely enjoying my life in the moment. I am always wondering when it will get better and I am rarely appreciating simply pleasures. I have to be engrossed in a project or watching a movie (which in truth, I am finding harder and harder to do - have the patience to sit and watch a movie). Granted, some good meds would probably do the trick with less work on my part, but I'm not so keen on being a hopped-up (though happy) zombie, even if it does make me ignorant to the point of bliss.

Dream

I dreamt a lot last night, but the only one I really remember is the one I had that woke me up. I was trying to take an elevator up somewhere. The first one I came across had buttons too high to reach to summon the elevator. The next one was fine. I got in and meant to go up, but the elevator started to fall. Everyone's worst nightmare, right? I was completely off the ground. I was floating, but feeling that sensation of falling. My body was completely upright and I kept thinking 'How can I avoid being killed when this thing hits the bottom?

Do I lay on my stomach?  Hit just as I am, in standing position? Even though I had no idea how to reposition myself and in truth, I knew better. There wasn't a thing I could do. I probably felt this free falling sensation for about twelve seconds. Then, it's started to slow. The elevator. And even though I was falling in the air, I felt the change in speed as though my feet were on the ground.

I woke up and was in the exact position I'd been in standing in the dream. Only lying down, of course.

4:25

It's very early in the morning and I am wide awake. I wondered if this would happen when I went to bed at 9:30 last night to try and make up for little sleep the night before. As I was dozing off last night I thought to myself, 'wow, I haven't heard the squirrels in the space between my ceiling and the floor above since fall. I wonder if they're gone'.

Literally ten minutes later I heard one scratching in the wall behind my headboard!  A moment ago I wondered if I heard it in my head, but no, I can hear them right now. Not in my head but in my wall.

Derailed

Mom and Dad are downstairs watching the movie Derailed. I decided I didn't want to watch it any more for a number of reasons. I have seen it before and there are so many things about it that irk me and now that I've seen a bit of the beginning again, I remember why I didn't like it the first time.

The most dominant reason is the rape, seconded only by the manipulation of one of the main characters. 'Drives me batty when people are cruelly manipulated. Rapes are not so good either, obviously. It's by far one of the ugliest crimes I can think of. To know I know a few women who have experienced it makes me nauseated.

The main character's daughter is type one diabetic and it's handled so inaccurately it drives me bonkers. Her daily numbers are faxed into a doctor at one point and we paused the movie to look at the numbers; 5.8, 1.8, 9.5. Well, considering your numbers should be between 80 and 180? The kid should be dead. I don't know who was advising them on glucose numbers but their advisor should be fired. The other thing the kid is dealing with is kidney failure. Now, if the kidney failure is a result of the diabetes then that means that she was never given insulin. Ever. You have to be really bad to your body to have renal failure and this kid wasn't old enough to have the time to be bad enough to have renal failure. They claim she'd had multiple kidney transplants and that her body was rejecting the new kidneys.

Now, if she had kidney/renal failure separately from the diabetes that would be believable. It is a disease in itself - kidney disease. Whatever. I hate that inaccurate shit. Like when Jodi Foster's kid in Panic Room has a sugar drop and she runs off to get her kid insulin to save her...Um, no, actually, giving her insulin when her sugars are dropping would kill her. But, the kid's seizure as a result of her sugar drop was very effective in making me squirm as I recall. Maybe that was just me though.

GLEE

Who needs oxycodone when you have the pain relieving power of laughter? I just laughed myself silly through this episode of GLEE.

"We're as menacing as Muppett Babies."

http://www.hulu.com/watch/144901/glee-bad-reputation#s-p1-so-i0

In Recovery

It's so strange to have all these sensations going on in my shoulder (and body, for that matter). I've been on oxycodone or whatever it's called since returning from the hospital yesterday. Since I have basically been a lazy git in bed since then, I haven't really noticed any change when I take the pain killers. Until today. I took some right before we had a late lunch and by the time I finished my first slice of pizza, man did I feel looooooopy. I could never be a drug user, and I am reminded why I don't get drunk. I just don't like that sensation that my body is wigging out from some foreign substance being in it.

The shoulder pain is more than it was yesterday but still tolerable. Much like when I first broke it, the mornings are the worst because I'm lying down. Once I'm vertical, it hurts much less. I have what feels like muscular or tendon pain, but then I also have stinging from the cut itself. The strange thing is how the pain of the metal has been completely replaced by these other pains. Hopefully more temporary ones.

The lack of metal is much like the feeling if you've ever gotten something caught in your teeth but didn't know it til it was removed. Then, suddenly, you're more comfortable. It's interesting, actually, to have my own shoulder back!

Survey

I recently polled about 75 friends and acquaintances using monkeysurvey.com. I'd been thinking about TV shows like "Weeds" and "Dexter" and "Sons of Anarchy" and "The Sopranos" and wondering if people experience these scenarios in their lives. Those are extreme examples, I realize (I think many people watch those shows because they are a look into cultures they might not normally get a look at). Though anything's possible, I wouldn't expect people to know someone like Dexter, the blood analyst who moonlights as a serial killer. I just wondered how prevalent some topics are in "real" people's lives that don't seem to be prevalent in mine.

It's most decidedly not a scientific effort, it was just for curiosity sake. But I'm so glad I did it! It's been fun to see the results and in a few cases, actual responses. Mostly "yes" or "no" but sometimes more (like when someone wrote "Jeez Louis, No!" to number 26).

I also got an email from someone who said, "I just finished your survey, godfather style."
(I emailed him back telling him I knew it was an offer he couldn't refuse.)

Here's the email I sent out to people. It included a link to the survey. Below the email, I have added the results of the 41 people who responded...

HI all,
OK, so I am asking you all to participate in this ten question, yes-or-no-answer survey. I'm doing this little study because after watching so many crime shows on TV, I wondered how much "everyday" people know about, well, stuff that I don't. This is anonymous! Just answer yes or no in the space provided. Thanks for your input!


1. Do you know where to get marijuana if you wanted it? 23-Y / 19-N
2. Do you know of anyone who sells or knows where to get "harder" street drugs? 17-Y / 24-N
3. Do you know of anyone who uses "harder" street drugs? 33-Y / 8-N
4. Do you know anyone who's died a drug-related death? 10-Y / 31-N
5. Do you know of anyone who has planned a revenge, Godfather-style? 1-Y / 40-N
(I should have phrased this one as "eye for an eye" really)
6. Do you know who to go to to carry out such a revenge? 4-Y / 36-N / 1 maybe
7. Do you know anyone who has died a alcohol-related death? 14-Y / 27-N
8. Do you know anyone who's been convicted of a DUI? 38-Y / 3-N
9. Do you know anyone who has committed a crime, caught or not caught? 34-Y / 7-N
(It was pointed out here, and I agree, that I should have been more specific. How serious does the crime need to be?)
10. Do you know anyone who has committed assault on another person? 16-Y / 25-N

Surgery

Back home from Mass General. I'm in pain but it's nothing like it was getting the metal put in! It's like a four where having the metal put in was an eight. I can't believe it either - I can actually feel that the metal's no longer in there! I'm, like, normal again. At least in my shoulder (ba dum bum!). I'm grateful to my trusty sidekick, Dad, for bringing me in and being there when I woke-up.

My surgery had been delayed because my surgeon's Mom passed away. After the surgery, he woke me to tell me it went well. The only thing I remember is saying to him, "I'm sorry about your mom" and him saying "It's OK" and adding something about her being old, and then telling me to focus on myself getting better.

I think I may have dreamt that though? It just seems like a strange exchange. But then, it's not like there was a whole lot to talk about with regard to the surgery. Not that this meant I should bring up is deceased mother, I just mean that my not remembering a whole conversation about the surgery is probably because we didn't go on and on about it.

When I woke from it I felt crappy like I did last time, and it was a little hard to breathe like last time, but not for as long as last time. Before going in the nurse anesthetist asked me about how it was last time and I told her about the sleep apnea sensation. She looked at my record and said "I see what med might have done that and I just won't give it to you this time".

There were loads of people in recovery and they were being circulated out frequently. I overheard the guy in the bed next to me talk about how he'd had a 12 hour surgery a few days before after getting his arm caught between to "rollers" for film? I have no idea, but that can't be good. Poor man.

For some reason, the nurses were told to have me "come out of it slowly", and as I prepared to leave the nurse with me said it was smart to let me wake slowly on my own. I'm not sure what that was about. Maybe they have the medicinal ability to bring me around quicker but didn't because I had such queasiness last time? Who knows.

What I do know it I am very unimpressed with the metal that came out. I mean, it's shiny and pretty, but it's so small! I can't believe such a tiny thing caused such trouble!

Now I am bandaged-up and will be able to remove that bandage in a few days, leaving me with sterile-strips along the suture line. It will be nice to put this chapter to a close!

5:20 AM

Off to Mass General. Ugh. Too ealry! I could never be a teacher. Or a surgeon, apparently.

Lama

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." - Dalai Lama

Someone wrote this on a friends FB page after their "why is life so hard" FB status update.

Some...

from another shoot I had while still in Ohio!

My Favorite

Shot from a session I had this morning.

Home Again

I am back after two long days of driving. I'm very tired and sore and not really looking forward to shoulder surgery on Friday. It's a must-do, but still.

I left Suzanne and Joe's on Monday morning and went to a neighborhood psychic. Yes, you read that right! Suzanne had hoped to go see this woman, too, who was known only by word-of-mouth, but Suzanne had to work and this was the only opening the woman had. I figured, why not?

It was very interesting. She sat me down. You feel you won't ever get married but you can't think that way, she told me. She talked about my paternal grandfather and how he wished he'd gotten to know me better. She tangented randomly about New Year's and how everybody (in the world) "fought" on New Year's. It was a terrible one, she said. Mine was not so great, either.

She made reference to a "silver chord" which freaked me out a bit considering I have used that term in my journal before to describe the idea of an unspoken connection with another person that means you just sort-of "get" each other. It's exactly the context she used it in, too. It makes me wonder if I'd heard the term once before, sometime in my life, and just didn't consciously remember it.

Though I didn't bring him up (I purposely gave her nothing), she talked about my ex for a long time, describing him and his life right now (with bizarre accuracy) and said it was right that we are not together right now. And she told me what I know to be true - that a few years from now would be better timing.

She told me about my career and where it's headed and what I might want to consider doing. She talked about my family, etc. She didn't really give me any information that I didn't already know, aside from that I would get married and I'd have two kids (personally, I think she was humoring me, but whatever). She also mentioned something about a family argument that could split us up in September. Perhaps I will get myself out of the country.

She told me I was impatient (no kidding! Is this entry over yet?) and perhaps that's why I was brought back here (to Earth, I guess?), to learn to be more patient. "You have a hard time with people who don't get going on things as fast as you might". She told me I was a speeder and that I needed to be careful; she saw state troopers (in her mind). Later, on the highway in Cleveland I saw three cars pulled over within a three mile section.I left the psychic and got in my car and wrote and wrote whatever I could remember. It was definitely interesting. Suzanne called me, "So?" she asked. I told her that she didn't really tell me anything about my life that I didn't know to be true and Suzanne made the point that it may be true, but maybe it's something that she can pull specifics from all the things you know to be true to help organize your brain.

I went on, driving through Cleveland and on through eastern Ohio. I decided to stop at Niagara Falls. I'm glad I did. It was a beautiful day and I got their just in time to miss the crowds which I saw lining up as I left. The falls were beautiful, but I confess that I was not overwhelmed. I thought, "Yup, that's a lot of water!"When I went to the observation deck and photographed some kids and one adult playing in the strong wind, a woman who was with them approached me, "Are you part of a souvenir?" she asked. I thought to myself "Part of a souvenir? I guess I could be if the money was good enough!"


It was a beautiful drive and I passed through Auburn, NY on my way to Kelly and Bryan's. Auburn is where we all met nine years ago when we worked at the paper there. I took a few shots, including on of the house I used to live in...

And one of a diner with some beautiful light hitting it....
When I arrived at Kelly's last night, her oldest son Everett hollered down from the second floor bedroom window, "Hi, C! I'm real sorry I won't be able to play with you tonight!"

"Oh, Everett," I told him, "I'm sorry too!" Kelly had called ahead and let me know that a stomach bug had hit the house.

"I have a bit of a cold and I'm puking." Everett reported in his little voice form above.

"I heard. I'm so sorry to hear that" I told him sympathetically. Poor kid.

"Yeah. I have a trash can to puke in."

I had lots on my mind that last night and didn't really sleep well. By morning, Bryan had been hit with the bug and I basically grabbed a quick shower, a piece of toast and went on my way.

The drive went fine and I was greeted by a very exuberant Oliver who was decorated with a giant bow and a "Welcome Home Mom" sign. Very sweet.

Back to reality.

Final Day in Ohio

Today was a nice relaxed day. In the late afternoon, we went to Aaron and Rita's place for dinner. Heading back to reality tomorrow.

Suzanne took a quick snapshot of me with Alyssa.

I didn't notice until right after I took this that Aaron's holding a picture of me and my roommate, Kristen, sophomore year.


Aaron and Joe go through Aaron's college pictures, trying to figure out who's who.


We all met sophomore year. Joe was telling his daughter Maya yesterday that when he first met me, we went to the movies in a group and I bit his finger. It was an accident, but I'd forgotten all about it til he told her the story again.

West Side Market 2

On the way to the market.

Joe and Maya at lunch.

At the market. "Where did you go?" "I don't know, where were you guys?"

Alyssa on the perch

Maya's face makes this whole picture. Very American Gothic.

And I thought I was doing so well...

making it three days with no tears. It really can be a simple thing to set us off or let us down. I appreciate modern technology, but the web is not very helpful in preventing us from knowing what others are doing or not doing. It essentially makes it nearly impossible for us to mind our own business, which is tough when it's in your own best interest to do just that.

I was talking with Suzanne when I first arrived here in Ohio about how I don't really see much in my future. It's a strange feeling - a realization that love might not actually work-out for me. That I will not have children of my own. And my career? It has to go somewhere because it's not like I'm going to give up, but I don't know when I will ever be able to afford to live my own independent life again.

I try to remind myself that this is how I feel now, but much like when you are feeling angry or sad or depressed, it's hard to remember that those feelings will pass. Plus, I have had these thoughts for a while. Perhaps this tunnel is longer than most and seeing the light at the end of it may take more time.

A friend of mine told me I should be angry about my recent relationship ending because it was lack of action that resulted in me missing out on something that could have been great. Something long term. It's one way to look at it I guess (although simplified) and I know it's easier to be angry than sad, but I'm not angry. I mean, I am, but not so much that is squashes the other feelings or makes it easier.

When Maya gets upset she tells Suzanne, "I just have to get my cries out!" And then she goes and she cries and it's done. An important lesson actually. You can't get rid of the bad feeling unless you feel it first.

I don't want to expend my energy on anger any more than I want to expend it on sadness. Of course now that I'm writing this, I'm disgruntled. Well, standing at the corner of Bleak Road and Pissed-Off Street at the very least.

My next entry is bound to be better.

West Side Market 1

I was waiting while Suzanne ordered some produce when a guy behind the piles of fruit said to me, "You look like you got a lot on your mind." I smiled and shrugged. "Don't worry. Everything's gonna be OK" he added.

My thoughtful expression at that moment was in response to his counterpart who was measuring Suzanne's fruit and might have possibly put his finger on the scale to add some weight.

Possible fruit fraud aside, I hope he's right.

Target

When I travel (or when don't travel) I like to visit area Targets. I think it's fun to see if their stuff is different in various parts of the country.

Today I paid more than I wanted to for a white hoodie...because I NEEDED one, and an iPod hook up for my car The one I have now requires me to look down to fiddle with the iPod, while this new one will allow me to hold it up on my steering wheel to play deejay. It was more expensive than I hoped it would be but I decided that if it would prevent me from causing bodily harm to myself or someone else, it will be worth it. I'll report back with my rating of the thing once I get on he road.

Oh, did I mention Suzanne backed into my car the first day I was here and put a big ol' dent into the side of it? Yikes! Nothing like exchanging insurance info between friends. Poor thing (I mean the car and Suzanne...she felt so bad about it).

Another Lovely Day

Today we connected with Aaron and Rita who also went to OU with us. Aaron, who I met when we lived in the same dorm sophomore year, has a wicked sarcastic sense of humor. When I called him to make plans with everyone today, I wasn't sure sometimes if he was joking with me or being serious with various things he'd say. That's what being out of practice with talking to someone will do!

It was nice to watch my friends tag-team with their spouses at the park. I'll watch this one, you watch that one sort of thing. They carry the kids. I carry the camera.

Suzanne enjoys the afternoon sun.

On the back steps with Alyssa.

Kylie, 3.

Aaron pushes his daughter Kylie with some help from his other daughter, Sam.

Joe and Alyssa.