Inspiration Week

There was something about this past week that made all the colors in the world brighter, everything taste better, and the whole world just seem more vivid and hopeful. I am inspired.

While little happened this past week which would cause it to be bestowed the title Best.Week.Ever., I did run across a few moments that definitely make me smile when I play them over in my head.

I hope the momentum of last week will help me as I fling myself into this next week, with my two tests and trip to Illinois on Friday. While I am inspired in general, unfortunately, it's not the case with my studies. There weather's too nice and there is too much fun stuff going on right now...and honestly, I'd rather do about anything other than study...which likely explains my freshly mopped floors.

Where are They Now?

Six years. Six long years. Six long years ago on a football field in the middle of a cornfield somewhere in Illinois...that was the last time I saw a friend that forever colored my life in so many shades of wonderful that I can't even begin to describe. Six years ago Saturday. I firmly believe that we meet certain people in life purely to learn from them. Learn things about life, ourselves, love, etc. I guess I could say I learned how to unabashedly live from this person. How to enjoy the simple, stupid things in life and to go have fun and do my own thing without giving a damn about what was cool or what the world around me thought. And then as soon as this person appeared, he was gone. Every now and then, I'll hear minor updates on what he's up to or where he's traveling to, but for all practical purposes, he's faded into the ether and will never again materialize. He's off being free somewhere and enlightening the world...I guess that's his job. But I'd be a damn liar if I said that even six years later, when I think about missing my friend that it doesn't bring a lump to my throat. ...and then I think of that "night at the biker bar" and I can't stop laughing...

A Picture's Worth...

I don't always take photographs for sentimental value. I don't always take photographs for art. I do, however, always take photographs for truth. You can tell a lot about a person by how they photograph. Not necessarily their photogenicity, but how they hold their bodies, the type of smile (if any) they flash the camera, what they are doing when the picture is taken...I think candid photos can give a good represntation of a person. The type of smile-forced, natural, laughing, what was happeneing at the moment, the gleam in one's (red)eye... I have fallen in and out of love all over again with many a person through photographs-not so much because of the attractiveness of a picture, but because of the truth behind it. Many Native Americans were afraid of having their pictures taken because they believed that the camera was a device for stealing the soul. I think the camera is a good device for capturing a good representation of it.