WTF, Kim?

"You know," he said, "when you used to tell me about these photo shoot ideas of yours, I would nod and smile, but inside I couldn't imagine they would look any good. But over the years, every time you've produced something great so I've stopped being overly concerned about it."

"So what you're saying," I said, "is when I enthusiastically tell you about the latest shoot I'm planning to do, like this one I've just told you about, your first thought is 'What the fuck, Kim?' which is then followed by, 'Oh, it'll probably be OK because he's got a track record now.'?"

"Er, yes, kind of..." he said, noticing my eyes had narrowed somewhat, "but it's a compliment!"

It had honestly never occurred to me that someone might think this way. Whenever I get an idea, I'm so stoked about it, I assume everyone else will be too - not that they are thinking I'm completely off my trolley but against all the odds somehow seem to make it work.

I'm still not completely convinced this is a compliment...

You can't handle the truth...

It's been too long since we last spoke, but I can feel myself getting upset with my brother when I phone him and realise he is hugely downplaying the problems in his life and is only really telling me what he thinks I want to hear.

It's been too long since we last spoke, but I can feel myself getting upset with my sister when I phone her and not only does she not downplay all the problems in her life, she fills in many of the missing details in my brother's life.

And I realise I'd rather she'd only told me what I wanted to hear...

Attention Deficit... something...

Anyone else try one of these online ADHD tests only to get bored and impatient and abandon it before the end?

Keeping the viewer guessing

 As in literature, one of the most important features of a strong photographic narrative is there must be something missing. There must be a central lack or mystery that keeps the viewer guessing. Literary theorist Worlfgang Iser describes this "place of indeterminacy" in narrative as the productive meeting point of text and reader, where readers are provoked to fill in the blank themselves. In a single still image, a gap is necessary to produce the movement that creates a story rather than just a scene. Sometimes we may formulate the gap as a question: What is going on? What is tin that briefcase? What is that woman feeling? In other images, it is more of a lack of resolution that brings an image to life, an ambiguity that keeps the image oscillating.

 - Lucy Soutter
Showing and Telling: Narrative Picture to Parafictions

On Being 55 (or probably any age, really...)

When I look at other people who are 55, I'm struck by just how much older than me they look.

Until I glance in the mirror...

A State of Mind

When I'm not drowning in deep depression,
or wrestling with high anxiety,
or bone-achingly weary with mental exhaustion,
or overwhelmed with existential angst, unable to stop staring into an eternal pit of of the darkest nihilism,
then I find I'm actually quite optimistic...

Time and Energy

And then the programme crashed, just as I was putting the finishing touches to a project that I'd been working on for 3 hours, but because of the CFS had effectively taken me 2 days of scraping together bits here and bits there.

I didn't have the time or energy to do it again.

Other things had far more priority and I probably shouldn't have been wasting my precious resources on it anyway.

It wasn't an important thing, just a bit of trivial fun.

But still I wept.

I'm not OK about not feeling OK

Stop telling me that it's OK not to feel OK!

The whole thing about not feeling OK is that I'm not OK with it!

I get what you're trying to say is that under the current circumstances it's perfectly natural to not feel OK, and there's no need to add extra guilt, or beat myself up about not being OK.

But I'm still not OK with not being OK!

Not being OK feels like a crock of shit, and I don't like it – it's not OK!

I want to stop feeling I'm not OK.

And you telling me it's OK not to feel OK isn't making me feel any better.

It might be making YOU feel better to tell me it's OK not to feel OK, because it helps distract you from not feeling OK.

But it's only making me feel even more useless that I can't be OK with not feeling OK.

I just want to stop feeling not OK.

Payment

I love the eating, so much.

It's the awful physical and emotional feelings of having overdone it afterwards I really hate.

Deceit

Even after 30 years together, I think we both harbour a suspicion that after having fallen madly in love, we had to somehow trick the other one into to feeling the same way, and we each live in fear that sooner or later the other is going to notice they were deceived and realise we are not worthy of their love after all...