two photographers.

Obviously this is amateur photography heavy on the amateur (and it ain't no instagram), but both represent moments of recent life. Bats have been getting into the house for the past few weeks, through mysterious batty means that do not evidently involve any windows. Normally I shoo them to the front porch, crack a window, turn off the lights (I think bright lighting blinds them), and close the door so that the problem will solve itself. One bat refused to be shooed and made frantic circles around the kitchen fan; I tried to bag him with a fishing net, only thwacked him (hard enough to get an EEK EEK EEK), and made him fly in faster frantic circles. Eventually he dove onto the part between windows with enough force to make me think he might have actually killed himself, maybe not seeing the window, maybe moody kamikaze. I crept up with my cellphone camera, the closest I've ever been to a bat, and took that first photo. The next few minutes involved some stupid, well-meant moves on my part, including poking him with my dad's reading glasses until he actually fell between panes, eliciting a major major screech, and also making a potential bad situation truly factually bad. He eventually slipped between panes and got out (or is hiding in the Cheerio's for me even now).

The second photo represents a longer period of intentional craft, and though I thought it was at last complete at the time of the picture, it is not. Finicky-ass furniture. Dad picked up a nicked-up handle-less dresser by the side of the road for thirty bucks, envisioning a project where he and I would sand the hell out of it, apply paint, and make it into a wardrobe beauty queen. Fun fact: the least expensive part of this process was the dresser itself. It took forever to sand off millimeters of varnish, exposing a delicate cherry or chestnut wood. I think I misunderstood the project as something really father-daughter intensive, you know, power tools, frank discussions about life goals, the sort of thing that would sell mid-size sedans in a car commercial. Mostly? Just me coming home from opening, chugging orange juice, and sanding until my elbow gave out. Dad did make some intensive contributions, just, not really with me, you know? Regarding the lovely cherry wood: probably Dad and I just should have applied polyurathane, but we then rubbed on a transparent white stain that did nothing except make the wood look slightly dirty, like it hadn't been dusted. He gave me some cloths and a solid white stain, and the result is possibly the homeliest paint-coat that you can imagine -- if you'd like to know how to make your child's room look like your child actually painted it, I can send you tips. Got a paintbrush, which, shockingly, made everything magnitudes better -- sometimes I wonder how much the arts (and even craft disciplines, like dresser-craft) are just influenced by history, rather than genuine pragmatism, but I totally stand behind the modern paintbrush, it does its job. Dad and I made a total of eight trips between Home Depot and Valu Home Center, trying to find the right sets of handles, since the dresser requires two sets of different sizes. Had to re-drill the holes to fit them. Then had to sand the damn drawer-sides, since I'd gotten paint on them, and they would no longer close. Now there is talk of waxing the dresser's insides to make them slide a bit better.

And of course, it shows none of this.

There was a boy in Ireland who told me he didn't buy films, he'd just fashionably torrent them, and if they were worthy, he'd send the responsible auteur a dollar in an envelope. I said, But what about the guy who holds the boom microphone? What about the script editor? They get no dollar?

The boy in Ireland said, No, he gets nothing.

It's one reason why I sit out the credits in movie theaters, maybe futilely, because a film isn't just the A-listers who gape and gasp appropriately ... it's special effects, stunt doubles, boom microphones. No, I don't remember any of their names. When I want to be in a miracle mood, I look at products, and I am always stunned by the warp of circumstance that manages to form them. So it is with my fucking rickety dresser. It is rickety. But it is white, with pewter handles, with cut-outs of the kitchen wallpaper to line the drawers, because I made it so. Same goes for the old people that come through my former employer, Cracker Barrel. It amazes me how much goes into a moment with them: entire lifetimes.



The left is my senior photo from highschool, taken by my best friend at the time, Aubrey Richter. The right photo is also taken by her, and favored by her to be my school photo choice, but no cigar. I can see why she wanted it. The left one is cheesy, has that gaze out its upper-left corner that inevitably looks artificially pensive; better to take the accidentally interesting pinky-gesture, looking moodily down at Aubrey as only best friends can moodily look at one another, and use that photo as an identity-stamp. I can think of no good reason for choosing the left photo except that I felt it made me marginally more attractive-looking. At the time, I thought both photos were vile. Five years later, I cried at the sight of them, because look it's me, so young, such a baby, and so far from the person I am now. I get the same kick when I look at pictures of me as a child in Cosby sweaters, pinching dog's ears, or eating things without forks, consistently with a messy ponytail, somehow always spiritually accurate renderings. It was a good thing, finding the photos. A fondly remembered self. I hope that I will one day google "yum yum union derick do you even look at these searches rodanthe good times why is there so much grass" and find Derick's Rodanthe documentary, and cry, because we're so young, so little, so far behind! It is very hard, to tell what I am now; so much easier to see an entire era in a photograph, the ugly weft of a life summing up in a single outcome, a picture, a briefly apprehended formation (with lens-flare). Elise gave me my vest. That's been several months in coming (not Elise's fault), but having it here, in this unseasonably cool August, makes me feel like that hand-off was an ending. Going to Wooster for graduation felt like an ending. Taking my mother out to dinner wearing lipstick felt like an ending. Finishing Breakfast of Champions felt like an ending, not just the novel's. But having that vest ... it's the reverse of eating the food in fairyland, which captures you there. The vest says, Everything ends. Go forward. Get out of here! Get going! Giddy up!

Senior photo says, Turns out you're always the same.

Dresser says, Some materials won't make it to true excellence.

Bat says, Good intentions require finesse to become good actions.

Boy in Ireland says, Only artistry deserves a dollar.

Dad says, Have you walked the dog today?