WTH, Underwear!

I have an underwear problem. I have more than I could wear for a month. The issue is that most of them are really uncomfortable and the ones that aren't are some material other than cotton which is unpleasant in the summer. Or they're falling apart. Or they have holes in them from when Harlow was a puppy and liked to carry them around the house in those little razor teeth (awe, those teeth were soooooo cute though)

The other problem with underwear is that our culture calls them "panties" What the hell is that about? Pannnnteeeez. Such a gross word. It's up there with "wipe" and "moist", in my opinion. Funny...now that I think about it, all three of those things sort of exist in the vicinity of each other. I wonder if that's coincidence.

Today I got my ass kicked at yoga where there was a new instructor who made us do hard things, and where I was totally distracted by the fact that my yoga pants have a new, small hole in them from when I caught the cuff on a branch the other day while outside. After getting my ass kicked at yoga (isn't this shit supposed to be peaceful?), I went to buy some underwear. $64 dollars later (WHAAAAAAHT???!!!) I come home and try them on to find that I don't like two kinds of them and the third, which is fine, has only two pairs of underwear rather that the three pairs is should have as stated on the stupid cheapo package which cost way more than it's worth.

$64. For fabric whose main purpose, in my opinion, is to protect my bum and bits from being seen by strangers, coworkers and friends in the unlikely event that my pants tear. If this weren't it's sole purpose for me, I'd just go commando. Think of all the money I'd save! But, I don't want to share my bits and bum with the general public so I have to wear underwear.

In more important, super, progress-is-hopefully-happening news, confederate flags are coming down from state houses and the Supreme Court just ruled that states must recognize gay marriage.

That's definitely a start to getting my panties (ew) out of a wad!

It's A Great Night When You Find a Good Stick!

Little Harlow Update

Really, it's a little update on big Harlow, if you think about it. Events this month included...

She blacked out after too many dog treats. She swears she can quite at any time!

She got a lovely furcut when I returned from my trip to MI. I think she looks adorable!
I'm not so sure she's convinced. 

In the cape. Where there's cheese there's dog. 

Trouble making with Bootsie; They seemed very proud of themselves after taking turns rolling in the rotten fish guts they found on the beach at low tide. I bathed Harlow (on the right), but she still smells a bit like fish guts. Lovely

She didn't think the scary show we were watching was pup-proriate. 

She recently came in from outside with an issue I couldn't resolve. 

What's IN There? from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.


I figured she'd work it out on her own, but the next morning she was still doing this There's Something Caught gesture. So I gave it one last look right before leaving for work.  This bone was across to top of her mouth lodged between her gums. Not pain or bleeding that I could see when I pulled it out. She was very happy I finally figured it out!

My Ann Arbor

This entry is a bit of a personal one mashed up with professional. I spent all of last week at a symposium for the University Photographers Association of America (UPAA) of which I am a member as a staff photographer for Boston University. Every year the symposium is hosted by a different university, and this year was a special one for me because it was at The University of Michigan, which is where my parents went.

The conference was great. I relearned a lot of things I forgot about, made some new friends, had some interesting conversations about our field and the challenges within it.

Geeky photogs on patrol at Greenfield Village

Photogs sharing each others' work

Simultaneously, I got to know the place where my parents met. During the spare time we had between lectures and clinics and shooting competitions (photography, not skeet) I wandered the campus and found the places my parents lived when they were here in the early sixties. I experienced something I have never experienced before; sentimentality on someone else's behalf. I felt an emotional pull to Ann Arbor somehow. The campus was beautiful and it's downtown alive and peaceful at the same time (of course it is summer time and the student population is down, so there's that!).  I visited the sorority house my mom lived in and could see her in my mind, walking out the door with her books in her arms, heading up the walkway to class, many years younger than I am now. 

One of may favorite pictures of my parents is from their time together at UofM. It's black and white and dreamy and they lounge on a lawn together, my mom in her sixties bob hair style and my dad laying in the grass looking cool holding a cigarette. It was taken by my uncle Billy when he was visiting them from Switzerland as a teenager. 

I told anyone at the conference who would listen about the picture and how I wanted to try and have my photo taken in the same spot. Anyone Who Would Listen was very nice about me going on and on about Mom and Dad, and one shooter even joined me wandering the main campus trying to find where, exactly, photo was taken (thanks again, Peter!). We even tried asking at the grad student library but no one was sure where it was taken. So, no reinactment took place (being a photographer and not a model, I was OK with that).

Before I left for this trip, I also asked my dad where he lived, and so I headed to Mary Court where I introduced myself and told the young woman sitting on the porch "My dad lived here in the sixties!"  She thought this was very cool. Since spring semester was done, I asked her if she was in a summer session. No, she told me, and continued on about how she was soon leaving to teach english in South America, and her roommate, who was just inside, would be leaving that afternoon herself. "It's sort of a sad day for us" she shared "we've lived together since freshman year."  I told her that if she'd like I would take their portrait. She beamed and went inside to collect her roommate and I photographed them together on this porch where I could see my dad sitting playing his guitar.

Where Dad lived

Katie and Alison 

Katie and Alison

The other thing I did was visit my mom's childhood home in Detroit. I was relieved to find her neighborhood in good shape, and sad to see so many other surrounding neighborhoods not doing too well. I approached the house, nervous, thinking about all the stories Mom's told me about growing up on this street so long ago; the field at one end where the kids played all sorts of games, and about the one mean kid who taped his guinea pig to his train set, how many great memories she had of her dad who died too young and so on. It was a modest home, and when I approached, the owner was very skeptical. I had a photo of mom in my hand which I'd brought along, and I explained what I was doing there and asked if I could take a few photos. She smiled at my story and my picture of my mom with her birthday cake and two dolls, one in each hand, and said of course I could. 

TO SEE MORE PHOTOS, CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE SLIDESHOW.