My newfound custom of getting up early continued on Sunday, and with that, I got a shit ton of stuff done, including baking some crispy, crunchy toasted homemade muffin bread and installing an Ortleib bag bracket on the Fattishson (The Roscoe’s current name before it becomes a 29er in the future).
Then I decided to ride.
I woke up early this morning 75 pounds lighter, with no signs of depression in sight, a real job to go to, and a spring in my step as my about to be fully vaccinated self danced down the steps towards a hot cup of morning coffee.
Yeah, April fools. The vaccination part is true1, and the coffee was hot, but the rest is all lies. LIES, I SAY!! FUCKING LIES!!!
Sorry.
Saturday had no Saturday feel. Why, you ask? No footy to watch. Sure, there was World Cup Qualifying, but no game really spoke to me, and other than the England squad, footy on the world stage lacks the drama and top-class screenwriting of the Premier League; from the BIG 6 all the way down to the bottom three fighting for survival due to the beauty of Promotion/Relegation. Sigh.
So, with a so-called “Saturday” at my disposal, I returned to the Forest Hill Nature Area with my Nikon Z6 camera, a 500mm 600mm lens, a vintage macro lens, and Wifey.
For some reason, I was up at 6:15 on Tuesday morning. I really don’t know why; all I know is that the longer I laid there, the more I thought about other, more constructive things I could be doing. That’s quite a change from two months ago when I was on the cusp of filling out my application to be a professional bed layer. A position I feel I would have excelled at!
I’d like to give big props to the O.G. Mindbender and Mindbender II (The Wrath of Kahn) for getting me out of bed and back feeling like myself again.
Imagine, if you will, the opening credit montage of an early 1990’s British crime series on BBC America. I, the unassuming sheep farmer/pub-goer turned amateur photographer/mystery sleuth, make my way across the green moors of the English countryside with a jaunty spring in my step and a small film camera around my neck as my rambunctious border collie runs ahead doing border collie type stuff. I stop and look out at the rolling green hills in front of me; the camera pans the scene in my gaze before zooming in on my face and a twinkle in my all-knowing sleuthly eye as I light my pipe filled with 100% legal in the State of Michigan kush tobacco and then take a photo with my little jank camera.
Now imagine that absolutely none of that happened.
I rode my bike two days in a row.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! Before uncomfortable white guy high fives and fist bumps are presented to me like we’re a couple of jaoffs watching fake basketball games in a Papa John’s commercial, let me say they both sucked. Sucked real hard.
Back about five years ago, I had a Nikon D7100 DX camera, and for reasons that I can’t remember, I sold it. I THINK it was because I started getting into the Fuji X System and thought I would switch to full-on Fuji. As it turns out, I sold all my Fuji gear and went all-in on Nikon Full Frame. Going the opposite direction of most photographers and crap picture takers such as myself.
Life Mission: Art my way through the mundane.
Monday was Monday, with not much to do other than husbandly duties (not code for sex) and a mid-afternoon appointment with the O.G. Mindbender. Tuesday was very Tuesday-like, barring a mid-morning appointment with The Crappest Doctor in The World2.
I never promised you a rose garden. Or compelling images as part of the Soiled Image Tip series, and goddamn it, I am delivering on those non-partisan non-promises!
This post falls under if you give a person who likes taking photos (I’m hesitant to use the term photographer when referring to myself) a camera, they will take photos of it, no matter how mundane the task, and ain’t nothin’ more mundane than what I do on a Saturday night (for the record most of Saturday night, I thought it was Friday, Tuesday, or Sunday).
