October 29, 2007

And I will show you things, boy, such far-away dreams.

I think I'm quoting the above from a Japanese washcloth that my sister showed me. Or it might have been the coffeemaker.

I've been saying for months now that I'm going to get a digital camera so I can show you all the parts of Portland I've fallen in love with. I've been waiting for a financially responsible moment to do it, but as summer has turned into autumn and is rapidly turning into winter, I've been getting antsy. The maple trees on my street have already turned their brilliant colors and showered the sidewalks with leaves, and this morning I noticed with some concern that the walnut trees are following suit. I'm trying to tell them to hold on, to save the bright beautiful colors until I've got the means to preserve them, because as rootless as I've been lately there's no telling if I'll be here this time next year. Particularly if I don't have any pictures of non-winter Portland to look at during the grey months to remind me to stay.

This is all an elaborate justification for why, on Friday night, I simply could not wait five days for payday and I ordered a little PowerShot 1000 from Amazon right then and there. It's the same camera my roommate has, nothing fancy by the standards of the camera world but slick enough to take 97% of the pictures I can think of. And I can think of some fairly slick pictures, like that shot of my roommate playing the banjo that I took over the bubble tea and the candle so the background was all shadowy and grey and the foreground was all greeny and orby and glowing. Orby is now a word.

I've been checking my order status like a kid waiting for it to be Christmas. Is it here? No. Well, is it in Oregon yet? No. Is it close to Oregon yet? No? How about now? When I walk by the windows of my office I plead with the scenery to stay right there, please, just don't move until my camera gets here. Houses, plants, people, art bikes, the insanely ever-growing clump of memorial miscellany that's taken over the intersection of Interstate and Greeley, I just need three more days and then it can all change. Three more days and then if I haven't captured it, it's only my own fault.

I was in autumnal arts mode this weekend, and hey, this will probably be the first thing I show you. Saturday I finished the most amazing scarf I have yet made, with fall-colored stripes and coordinated tassels, and I put it on and spent an hour shuffling my feet in other people's leaf piles. Sunday was curtains, painstakingly printed with a repeating doodle of falling leaves, and now I can lay back in my bed and watch the cool colors of the sky and the warm colors of the leaves and clutch my snuggly scarf like a long skinny security blanket.

Now that I think about it, I probably should have held out for a camera that can show you how soft something is. 1,000 words may take care of the visuals, but how many more do you need to make up for the sense of touch? Perhaps I will invest in a new keyboard, to make sure I don't run out.

Posted by dianna at October 29, 2007 04:36 PM
Comments

and speaking of snuggly, i've got 4 4-week old kittens that i'm bottle-feeding right now. grah! so cute!

Posted by: michele at October 29, 2007 05:23 PM

...and the point here is that i HAVE a camera and still haven't taken photos.

Posted by: michele at October 29, 2007 05:26 PM

Gah! Pictures! For the love of god, take pictures before they get any bigger! And then when they do get bigger, take more pictures!

Please? I have no kittens. Any donation of squirming piles of fuzzy paws and fluffy faces and tiny kitten teeth helps.

Posted by: Dianna at October 29, 2007 08:48 PM

That's a stupendous little camera. I've been taking pictures with mine now for a couple months.

Posted by: Chris at October 29, 2007 08:58 PM

P.S. I recommend turning off the rear display, except for macro shots. I only got a couple hours out of the battery pack with the display on, but I can use it reglarly for days if I kill the display and just used the viewfinder.

Posted by: Chris at October 29, 2007 08:59 PM

my camera's broke! it made a bunch of weird beepy noises when i tried to turn it on and then just stopped. gah! maybe the batteries are just dead. i am charging them. stupid camera.

Posted by: michele at October 29, 2007 09:31 PM

Oooh. Thank you for that tip; I will remember that. I mean, honestly, I will probably still burn up my batteries using the display to play around with color highlights and other unconscionably fancy features, but when doing so results in low batteries I will recall your advice and gratefully return to normal camera use. And then run home to recharge the sucker and do it all again. Man, I'm excited about this.

Michele: I'm sorry. If you mail me a box of kittens I promise I will take pictures, take good care of them, and mail them back promptly.

Posted by: Dianna at October 29, 2007 10:55 PM

If you mail me a bix of kittens I will take pictures and then make a kitten pie.

Posted by: Chris at October 30, 2007 10:34 PM

BOX BOX BOX BOX BOX.

Goddamn blogs with no edit feature for when I type my shit wrong.

Posted by: Chris at October 30, 2007 10:39 PM

Bix bix bix! It sounds like the kind of arbitrary vowel-mangling you'd find in Australia or Ireland. Will you sand me a bix of kattens? In the meel?

Posted by: Dianna at October 30, 2007 10:54 PM

my kittens are certified bix free.

Posted by: michele at October 31, 2007 12:13 PM

Thank goodness. That shit is seriously contagious.

Posted by: Dianna at October 31, 2007 02:36 PM
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