yyt

After all these years, how I can constantly delude myself in the same way. I always feel that if I get some control over my life, I can accomplish what I need to do. Of course it never happens.

With school over I collapse. The last weeks don’t so much take a toll on me physically as they do mentally for in the infinite wisdom of the w.g.a.s., we don’t meet with the undergrads with any regularity for nearly a month – Yanksgiving and crit week. Of course this is when they need to meet with us the most. I enter the final week a nervous wreck as I am not really sure what I will encounter. I remember and try to follow one of the tutors at Goldsmiths’ who said that it would be best to keep in touch so that there would be no “unfortunate incidents”.

Now that I am free, there are errands to run and now with the impending departure to points north and east those errands have been multiplied. There are presents to be bought, the final books of the year to be sent out along with the normal pieces. I want to make something for the people at the Bristol post office for allowing me to inundate them with postings on an almost daily basis. I want to make two books to leave at Sullivan’s Loop and with my evil twin. I have supplies to buy.

Oh and a group show at the end of January where I have yet to be informed about the hanging or when to drop off work.

If I actually worked at a place where people actually made photographs I could ask all sorts of questions. I had my usual bout with logic as here I was wanting to spend thousands of dollars to build a digital workspace most of the money going from using film and digital output.

I was trying to delegate every nanosecond my time so that I could do everything I need to do before the time of departure.

To-day started out great the clear sky one gets with a cold day, perfect for platinotypes and I was ready.

Well not really as I wasted part of the morning using a paper that simply didn’t work. After that it was a two way race: would I run out of paper before the sun was too weak to use anymore. It was a dead heat and paper won’t get here in time to complete the books for Pouch. At least I can relax.

What aggravates me the most is that I put off the stuff that I want to do. There is a pile of letters to be answered. To-day would have been a great day to actually go out and make snaps.

The reason I like the rock is that I am limited in what I can do. Ironic isn’t it that I am trying to make Pouch feel like Peasant’s Pissoir which will have me flitting about rather than concentrating.

I wanted a lab – wet or dry – because the nights are long and it suits working on prints. I wanted a lab because I hate returning to the states with 150 rolls to be developed and proofed. As I have stated many times, there seems to be more time to do everything I want while I also can slack off a bit.

But I also realise that is an attempt at re-colonisation of the first Colony of Avalon by someone from the second. If I fill Sullivan’s Loop – or even the Pipe House - with my stuff, I’ll feel more like I live there (and I won’t have to trundle all this crap through airports).

My plan was to update the website – meaning down here I have to scan negs. Work on the negs that I want for the July show – meaning scanning negs down here.

I think that I shall catch up on my reading.

I am working myself into a state of hyperactivity that would even surprise and horrify my students.

To-day was the breaking point. The platinotype “incident” has calmed me. I have ordered film. I have what I need. What fits in my bags will go everything else stays. Martin and Gabrielle won’t be there until August, and my evil twin is happy downing a few pints of Smithwicks. I have never known a time where there wasn’t a horrendous backlog of film to be see “call me Winogrand”. I shall set out humming Simple Gifts.