Sunday, June 26, 2011

Kodachrome-Colored Glasses

Cute Guy(tm) told me the other day that I need better pictures on my OkCupid profile. This was not an unprompted comment, by the way: it was after I told him that I hadn't had any dates since the Jew dumped me in March. I said I'm not very photogenic. He doesn't believe me, and made an off-hand offer to maybe get together over 4th of July weekend for a photo shoot. I am considering taking him up on it, if he was serious.

In the meantime, I decided this evening to comb through my digital photos for replacements of the ones currently on my profile — I must have some decent pictures of myself, right? Ones that don't involve alcohol or hugging men — and ended up instead getting sidetracked on Memory Lane. Look at my life in pictures, and it seems pretty frickin' awesome: I have tons of friends, we've done tons of goofy things. I have smiled a lot in the camera's eye. I kind of forget about that when I'm in the Moment of Sad.

Reflecting back on those days when I've been restless and depressed, I'm starting to regret keeping my photo albums hidden in the closet. And I'm also starting to regret being cheap, and not printing out more of the photos I take, letting them instead get uploaded to my computer and then forgotten. I could use those memories the most when I'm at my lowest.

At any rate, if you're feeling sad about what's not in your life right now, I recommend going through your pictures from the past few years. Don't think about what's happened to the people since, just think about the moment when you were there, smiling, drinking that drink, doing that crazy thing. That's why we take them, right? Investment against future sorrow.

I was supposed to have plans this weekend. However, my car decided otherwise: just before I entered the freeway on-ramp, which would have lead me to crossing the Bay Bridge, she shut down completely — no radio, no ignition, not even hazard lights. Really glad I have AAA road side, and really glad that it was a near miss: one of my nightmares is having a breakdown actually on the Bay Bridge, where there's really no safe way to escape. People are grumpy enough about the S-curve, I don't think they'd be able to handle a stalled Ford Escort as well.

So instead of seeing a movie and going to a barbecue yesterday, and instead of celebrating my mother's birthday today, I've been cooking and Netflixing and gaming. Today I walked from my apartment to the JCC and finally got Bruce ready for his first firing. It's been quiet, and I've been trying not to worry about whether or not this is The End for my car. I love that car, by the way — and yeah, I know it's dumb to love an inanimate object. But we've had 11 years and 125,000 miles together. Whoever takes her place will have some big tires to fill.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I almost forgot about the night the lights went out at whiskeys. great times.

Unknown said...

That's why I have pictures of it - really great times. Though I thought I might have actually had those pics printed up and given you a set. Maybe not.