So. If, ummmm, anyone out there still has Flickr Pro accounts to give away–you know, since they’re due to expire in a couple of days–and you have NO IDEA what to do with that last one…hint, hint. I would be very grateful, because I’m getting dangerously close to my account limits. SM already very graciously sponsored my sister, and I sponsored tosska, who has a very nice website and happens to be an amazing illustrator. I promise to shut the hell up about Flickr for a while (errr, did I promise that already?).

Anyway, I swear I didn’t start this post to beg. I have three new website jobs on my back and the girls have been sleeping like crap again at night, so posts will probably not be as frequent as I’d like for the remainder of the month.

I just finished my first real wedding photo shoot last weekend, and am now entangled in the process of editing and sorting out…623 photos. It was a wonderful wedding, and had many of the qualities I wanted to include in my own but couldn’t quite pull off, probably because I tried too hard. The bride in this case was so laid-back it utterly astounded me. I half-wondered if maybe she had taken buddha’s secret message to heart, because I have never met such a relaxed bride in my life. (Lord knows it probably would have done me some good the week before my own wedding, small as it was). But it was great because it made me less nervous and able to focus on the task at hand. I wisely only consumed half a glass of wine and managed to remember the second camera battery, but lessons learned included:

+ bring wax paper to cover the friggin’ flash
+ the time to try on your nice old work clothing is not the night before the event — the nearest Old Navy is 130 miles away and can’t make you a size 8 again
+ gadgets like this would be really, really helpful
+ delete the pictures of the kids playing with their giant stuffed frogs from the CF card before you arrive

And since Diana mentioned it–here’s an archived post from my old site, the month after 9/11. It’s kind of amusing to notice the different tone in my own prose that came from a time in my life when eight hours of uninterrupted sleep was actually possible on a regular basis.

10.3.01
We’re starting to settle back into our old routines now. We’ve licked our wounds, and now we’re all just trying to get back to our normal lives. A lot of personal websites are no longer saying much about it, which I think reveals a fundamental fatigue with the whole mess. In their place, little jokes–cautiously at first–are finally circulating the Net about the attacks. Pictures, mostly, like the one of the rebuilt WTC in a middle-finger flipping formation, and the “Have You Seen Me?” posters of bin Laden. Then there’s the “Lake America” picture–the one you’ve no doubt seen with a giant “lake” where Afghanistan used to be. That one is amusing for about two seconds (in a primal sort of way) until one’s brain kicks in and you realize there’s actually people living there. A minor detail.

And in the American political sphere, things have followed their predictable course. They’re calling the imminent bombing of an entire country to reach one tiny little group a “war,” and we have the usual racist attacks against anyone even appearing middle-eastern here (indeed one man in California was beaten severely…and turned out to be Latino). And of course there is much wrinkling of noses and sneering at people who would question our current planned course of action. In Orange County especially, these people are dismissed as anti-American hippie losers. News magazines have gleefully hyped what the media is calling “America’s New War!” like a bunch of schoolyard brats just hopping up and down and itching for a fight. Was there ever even a question we would go to war? Of course not. Most things have been a knee-jerk reaction–from our resolve to wipe Afghanistan off the face of the earth, right down to our stupid little flags on car antennas. But hey, it makes sense to the economists: we’ve been dying for an excuse, any kind of excuse to “stimulate” the sagging economy, and now we’ve got one. This is why they’re calling our planned violence on the middle east a “war,” as opposed to “retaliatory bombing” or something a little closer to what it actually is. “War” sounds so much more macho, more American. More profitable. Precious few are piping up to point it out for the crock that it is.

And it’s not just the defense industry that’s ecstatic, either. Marketing people are just about wetting their pants over what they have been calling “fantastic opportunities” following the crisis. Barely a week after the planes hit New York, the marketing company for the job I just quit faxed over a note urging my boss to market himself aggressively. “Now is not the time to be timid!!” it read; one got the sense that the author of the memo was almost hyperventilating with excitement. Their message was that since Americans won’t be traveling much, it’s a perfect opportunity to yank those bucks out of people for unnecessary cosmetic surgery. It went on to say that “Americans will be looking to for other ways to improve their outlook on life and their feelings of well being. Cosmetic surgery can provide just the boost they need.” (Italics theirs). Ah yes, a Botox shot will certainly make everything all better. (But what will the vain will do when they lose their jobs? No more Botox to soothe the hurt from terrorism–gasp!). The note closes with the hint that to not take advantage of people’s traumatized state right now would be unpatriotic: “The time is right! Don’t contribute to the enemy’s attempt to slow America’s economy.” Okay, so for everybody wondering why a dirt-poor English major like myself didn’t go into marketing or advertising, there’s Exhibit A.

And lastly there are the flag and patriotic sticker vendors sitting outside of just about every Target and Kmart in the country. It may sound bitter, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re not patriots and they’re not selling patriotism. It’s really just more of the same sickening capitalistic opportunism that, in a way, sort of made places like the World Trade Center targets to begin with. At this juncture I’d like to point out to the people that think I’m a jerkface commie, slapping a flag sticker on your SUV doesn’t make you a patriot any more than drinking an Irish beer makes you Irish. Really. And just because I have a few reservations about our current tack doesn’t mean I hate America and think what those losers did was great. Okay? Okay.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Whack your boss Sopranos-style
The credit card prank
Iraq War fatalities, an interesting Flash presentation
Speaking of Flash, I know you’ve already seen this
Get your weed right here
Talk n’ crash