Becoming Average

The streets are not as festive now.  Christmas decorations are just a bothersome reminder.  Or, as Ili said, "Look, it is still 363 days until Christmas and people are already putting up decorations."  My house is filled with food I'll never eat, cakes and cookies and candy, the refrigerator full of ham that must be eaten or thrown away today.  I fear that people are already bored.

I am not a fan of New Year's Eve.  Not out in a crowd, anyway.  I try to avoid it.  And New Year's Day only reminds me that I will have to return to work soon, have to go back to the grind that pays for my existence.

The studio is cleared now but for two tables, a lamp, and a box of prints I couldn't get through the studio door.  I will have to go back today and take them from the box and wrap them in plastic and tape it up and move it all to the back of the Xterra.  Then I will have to figure out where they will go. The garage is now full of plastic containers piled high with prints.  I did not throw many away.  I had to clear the studio.  Now I will have to clear the garage.  I am letting the new land company know today that I am moving out.  I will call the electric company and tell them to turn off the lights on the 31st.  I will take a final picture, though, before it is all done, when there is nothing left but the red couch on an empty stage.  Then that too will head to the dumpster.

This new year, I have much to do.  I have trees to be trimmed and some to be cut down completely.  I have an irrigation system that needs fixing and a yard that has been torn up by the gas company and by the plumbers that does not look like it did.  I have a house and an apartment that need pressure washing and then, probably, painting.  And I have a deck that must be replaced before someone breaks an ankle.  That is where the studio money will have to go.  It is not enough, of course, the money from the studio, I mean, and so thoughts of buying a Vespa will be put on hold.  It will be a practical new year, I predict, one of housework and Pinochle.  By now you know that Pinochle is a metaphor, I hope.  But you know what I mean (though I may learn a card game or two after all).  And I hope to ease back into photography in a simple way.  I am loading my smallest camera, the Olympus XA, with old film.  It fits into a pocket.  I will take it everywhere with me.  I hope to use it, hope not to be shy.

But that is all looking ahead.  For now there are the things in front of me to take care of.  Old Practical Paul, I am.  Living the Normal Life.