My Bad

I hesitated to post this as today's photo as my travel/art buddy said it was hard for him to look at.  But another friend of mine said he had a ball of opium, and I am very, very envious.  I know that opioids are addictive, but if it is as pretty as this, then. . . game on.

Actually, it is the look I was going for in the old Lonesomeville series.  I have not processed any pictures like that for five years.  Today I thought to try it again, but I could not remember, exactly, the process.  I never wrote anything down.  It was all just reflex.  I worked at it for a long time today.  I had forgotten how long it took to make one image.  There was a lot of effort that went into each picture.  I began by trying something new, an experiment that didn't work.  If I practice on a photo a day, though, trying new things, perhaps I can come closer the look I desire.  The caption says this picture is a painting, but I find that difficult to believe.

*.  *.  *.  

I didn't get far with that last night, which is weird as I had stayed home most of the day anticipating the arrival of afternoon storms.  I did my gym visit and all my marketing in the morning before coming home to make lunch and settle down with domestic things.  I don't know where the hours went.  Next thing I knew, I was making dinner and watching the president tell us how he feels about coronavirus.  He put Dr. Pence in charge of the protection effort and blamed the democratic presidential candidate's debate for the fall of the stock market.  Genius.  The Golden Age of television is gone, however, and there is nothing there that I want to watch, so I read more Houellebecq and went to bed.

I have a fairly busy day, something new to me in retirement.  I have a beauty appointment at noon, so I must go to the gym and make a meal before I go.  Afterwards, I need to pick up some film I had developed at the photo store before I head to Grit City for beers with the old factory birthday group.  Then, if I have the gumption, since I will be on the edge of civilization, I might go night shooting with the Fuji.

Maybe. We'll see.

My retiring seems to have made the world fall apart.  You may think this an egocentric position, but let's look at it objectively.  Ili left me just as I was about to retire.  Funding for my retirement was weakened considerably.  I was supposed to work in China this summer, hence, the coronavirus.  I put my money into an investment fund and the market collapsed the next business day.  I decided to start traveling the U.S. and scientists now predict we are entering the era of pandemics, something akin to the Middle Ages.  I am to be trapped inside my house.  Alone.

See?

Sorry.

Of course, none of this is effecting anyone else.  You all have not stopped eating out or traveling.  You are fearless.  I used to be willing to chance poison darts and arrows to see unknown parts of the world.  Now I'm afraid to eat at a restaurant.  I'm stockpiling beans and rice and cans of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Umka, and all the other homeopathic medicines in preparation for the scurge.

These are not fun times.  Or as Cormac McCarthy puts it, no country for old men.