VIDEO: I made a second attempt at time-lapse photography. I still don't have any professional equipment--not even a good camera by today's standards. (I recently saw a review on TV of a new mini-phone that said its camera had 8 Megapixels instead of the usual 13. I looked at my Canon point-and-shoot: it only has 2 Megapixels.) The video turned out decently enough, though. I even enjoyed taking the pictures every hour, except when the bud grew out of the frame (twice), and I had to start propping up the camera on various food containers and bricks and things. I also had to go out in the rain several times and try to line up the shot while holding an umbrella and kneeling on wet pavement. Then, even though I'd covered the flower during two hailstorms, some unexpected heavy rain bent the flower stalk to the ground before all the buds had finished opening. Just my luck. Watch it anyway, though. It's kind of neat, and it's only 44 seconds long:
PHOTOS: I thought this orchid looked pretty against the kitchen wallpaper. It reminded me of a calendar with flower pictures that my parents gave me in the 80's:
ARTWORK: HA HA HA!! This section, if not this whole "things I did" project, seems to be a lesson in humility. Okay. One weekend, my roommate was watching an episode of "This Old House" about attic insulation, and we got to talking about dormers (the little house-shaped windows that peek out of a roof and bring light and space to an attic). I was reminded of the house I'd designed the year after I graduated college, when my one and only plan was to build myself a house in upstate New York and have minimal interaction with other human beings for the rest of my life. I drew my roommate a "napkin sketch" of it--what architects draw to quickly demonstrate a visual idea while out for drinks with clients or other architects. This one's on the back of a receipt:
(The house had a square plan with a central staircase that wound around a wood stove. It had natural ventilation and a hip roof with large dormers on the east, south and west sides. My parents eventually convinced me that I would freeze and/or starve to death, while also getting raped and/or murdered, so here I am in Texas still, all these years later.)
For Mother's Day, I bought my mom three sheets of Forever stamps with flowers on them because she loves flowers, but already has literally thousands of plants. I wanted to give her a card, too, but she also collects Hallmark cards and basically has them all already. So I thought I would fold some nice paper and draw the puppies on it. I sat next to their playpen and tried to draw what I saw, but of course they wouldn't hold still. Max turned out okay, and Joey turned out okayish, but Lizzie (on the left) looked weird. Then I tried tracing a photo from my computer screen (my mom "borrowed" my printer years ago), and, bizarrely, everyone turned out looking almost exactly the same! The traced card is on top, and the drawn card on bottom:
(smh!)
I showed the drawings to my mom, just because I found them so amusingly bad, and she was like, "Oh... that's... so nice." But she was genuinely impressed by the stamps. So I just waved those around and hid the drawings so she wouldn't feel compelled to take them. (I'm 29 1/2!!)
ESSAYS: I wrote a couple of essays, but they're too personal, and I'm embarrassed by them. I keep thinking about deleting them. I ought to write some actual article-type stuff. I don't want my writing to waste people's time.
EXERCISE GOALS: My May goal was to do "some" crunches, "some" pushups, and "some" sun salutations every day. I think I did all of these things more than half of the days, but I wouldn't say most. The primary culprits were exhaustion, and forgetting (because I'm often exhausted). The temperature has been into the 90's lately, and just dealing with the puppies in that weather feels like more than enough. The good news is, I have biceps now (from lifting the puppies) and "glutes" (from lifting the puppies), and I'm finally getting "abs" (from the crunches--although they're only faintly visible in the mornings, before I've eaten!).
For June, I'd like to do three exercises from my dance exercises book every day, dropping the first one and adding a new one each day so that I eventually work through the whole book, doing each exercise three days in a row. I forgot to do it yesterday. I'm going to drop my previous routines because figuring out how to do new exercises takes a lot of time.
BOOK REVIEW: I finally finished Flowers for Algernon. I don't know why it's considered a classic, or even worth reading, so I'm not going to bother to write about it. I've started but been unable to get very far in a couple of other books. The only really good books I've read in the past twelve months were Half Empty by David Rakoff, Tasteful Nudes by Dave Hill, and How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran (which left me feeling horrible, despite marketing itself as having a more positive outlook on feminism).
100 RECIPES GOAL: I only tried three new recipes instead of the usual 8 or 9. I was going to blame that on the time-lapse, but then thought that was silly, but then did the math and realized that taking 153 photos did indeed take up the same amount of time as 5 new recipes. I'm also guilty of trying several of my previous "new" recipes a second or third time. For example, here's #14. Spicy Chick Pea and Aubergine Stew, made with fresh tomatoes instead of canned, and the fried onion and fresh coriander (cilantro) garnish that I originally omitted, which did in fact improve the dish, although it was still dry and not very stew-like:
The nutmeg eggs and the Moroccan date salad were especially good:
And that's it! All of May!
Maybe it's time to start making sacrificial offerings to the Muses, or try to meet the devil at a crossroads or something. Wish me better luck for June!
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