I'm free!

This Saturday was my last shift at the cafe. I was tired of pouring coffee and pretending to care and listening to stupid people babble on and on, so I got a new job! I am now a photographer's assistant/second-shooter in South Philly. This job is absolutely ideal. The photographer is awesome, the pay is double that of the cafe per month and my schedule is perfect.

I can't believe every aspect of my income is now coming from my photography: selling prints, freelancing, the bar gig and this new job. It's too good to be true. Are my "How may I help you?", "Can I take your order?" mopping the floor days OVER???

As I danced (mentally) out of the cafe on Saturday afternoon, the Flaming Lips rockin' my earbuds, I saw this window washer on 13th and Market.

Scenes from my front stoop

And it burns, burns, burns...

St. Patrick's Day 2007

I have this weekly photo gig in Manayunk that's pretty simple: I come in, photograph the drunk ladies and gentleman having a good time for two hours, then I go home.
I usually head back to Philly around 1am, when 76 is deserted aside from a few inebriated speedsters.

On Saint Patrick's Day I went to the bar to photograph a sea of green, wobbly people. Despite my Irish heritage, I have never been interested in the holiday. Is that a holiday?

So 1am comes at last. The expressway is busier than usual due to the "holiday" and as I'm rounding the corner by the hot air balloon at the zoo I am about to crash in to two cars engulfed in flames in the middle of the three lane highway. Swerving wildly and somehow miraculously avoiding the other cars on the road, I just slip by the wreck, the flames so hot I can feel them on my face as I drive past.

Other cars begin to swerve and honk madly. That's Philly for ya: "You're burning to death? So what asshole, get outta my way!"

I'm a few yards away, slightly shaking, when I see a third car. It's fender is crumpled but there are no flames. So, what do I do? I pull over and grab my camera.

76 is in complete pandemonium. Between three lanes of traffic there are three cars scattered around, two of which are on fire. What's worse is the probability that every driver on the road at that time was to some degree drunk is very high.

After a few seconds' hesitation, I swing my car door open and step out onto the shoulder of the Schuylkill Expressway, AKA the Sure-Kill Expressway. Visions of me getting thrown many many yards by speeding cars fill my head - but I got lucky. By this time the 5-0 got savvy and blocked the road. 76 was as safe as a fenced-in playground...just with burning cars.

I start running; past the imminent fist fight (all passengers were safely out of the vehicles), past the last car that wasn't burning, to the inferno. The smell was foreboding: gasoline, burning rubber, melting metal and the sizzles and pops didn't help either. Yet I wasn't scared - I was excited. Trust me, anything seems stimulating after two hours in that bar.

I didn't have much equipment with me so I had to work with what I had - an 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 - not exactly ideal.

After shooting for a few minutes I go and talk to the people involved. The people at fault were a bunch of young, drunk white dudes still sporting their shamrock beads. Their speech was slurred and their eyes were hazy, but they were sobering up quickly. The people not on fire were angry and one of the kids inside the car sustained minor injuries (shoulder or neck).

I went over to one of the shamrock dudes and asked if everyone was O.K. Then I looked at his car, by now almost totally melted to the frame, and said: Well, your car's on fire but it could always be worse. He didn't like that too much but I got a kick out of it. It's true, you know! He could still be in it, burning to death. With this reasoning, the shamrock dude agreed.

By now the horns started to melt and the noise was incredibly eerie. A long, droning, unmelodious, unharmonious pitch blared into the sky.

I was standing by the police, who never questioned me, when the first car let out a series of loud sparks and pops. Everyone, even the cops, ducked and ran. We were only feet from the car and I thought for sure the car was about to explode and maybe we would die. False alarm.

I left after the fire fighters came and extinguished the blaze. As I drove off on a completely deserted, post-apocalyptic 76, I got to thinking:
If I were ten seconds faster, I could have been in that crash. Or, if I were ten seconds slower, I would still be stuck with everyone else on 76 behind the police barricades. Who knows how long traffic was stopped that night, but I just drove on, alive and burn-free.

Philly RollerGirls

The Orange Line

Tuesday February 20, 2007.

Tuesdays are very hectic for me. I have class from 8:40am-1:00pm immediately followed by a six-hour shift at a cafe in Center City where I serve coffee to fancy business men. The coffeehouse is currently becoming a franchise and I am standing in the middle of this transition, very much put out. But that's another story. Today's story is about the many subway rides I endure on Tuesdays - this Tuesday in particular.

Around 1pm, I was descending the slippery, grimy stairs of the Orange Line at Cecil B. Moore amidst a throng of fellow Temple students I will never know. Through the thick din of dozens of voices I heard a woman conversing loudly with what I thought was another person. Perfect timing would reveal, however, that she was just boisterously conversing with herself; as we both reached the turnstile simultaneously.

She halted, briefly blocking my path, so I halted too. Then, with a contemptuous look back at somebody, maybe nobody, she hopped over the turnstile. A starling buzz blared from overhead to alert the SEPTA drone that someone skipped out on paying. The drone lazily peered out through the smudged glass that enclosed him and did nothing more.

The woman, dressed in over-sized, mis-matched mens clothes and a backwards baseball cap, had vanished on the crowded platform. I walked in the opposite direction and settled down on a cold, more-diseased-than-I-want-to-know bench and was thankful for my iPod: The mute button to my annoying crowd.

So there I sat. Waiting, waiting, waiting. When the Southbound train finally arrived I slipped in to the car huddled in the tight security of other people's shoulders.

I sat down, my thumb idly whirring the click wheel to find a suitable song when I heard it: that shrill voice shouting at no one...no one we could see anyway. She had entered my car and as our train steadily rocked down the tracks, she swaggered down the aisle. "EXCUSE ME CAN I SIT?" she cried, though there were many available seats. She slumped down across from me as I discretely lowered the volume of my earbuds so I could better hear her.

"I ain't never sold nothin'. I ain't ever sold MY pussy for money. I ain't a hoe! I won't suck ya dick!"

I turned the volume back up. My mute button. But I continued to watch her and the people around her. A woman with a kind face kept gazing around the car, her eyes wide, as if to make sure other people were hearing this. Occasionally she smiled and shook her head, as if it was a child who didn't know any better were speaking.

I intermittently phased in and out of her soliloquy; the unsteady orange plastic floor her stage, the ugly fluorescent bulbs her spotlight.
"I pay my own way! I pay my bills! I pay my rent! My family don't help me, my family don't love me. DON'T MENTION MY FAMILY! It's just me! Just me!"

Her words resonated in the silent car. I could connect her dots a little now and I felt sorry for her.

By this time a young woman had entered the car with her young daughter in a stroller. Two contrasting visions, parallel before me. I glanced back and forth from the toddler, smiling and safe, to the tormented woman still raging on. It was like watching this woman's life in fast forward. An innocent child to a battered adult, all because of circumstance.

To cover the woman's shouts and incessant references to genitalia, the young mother began to sing the Barney theme song.

"I love you, you love me." ... "They ain't never loved me! Never helped me!"
Their words clashed until the the train stopped at City Hall, where the woman exited, but not before calling someone in her way a faggot. Some people laughed - astonished or uncomfortable, or perhaps relieved that she was gone. I thought about her for a while that day. I felt sad. But more importantly, I hoped that mother would keep on singing that song to her daughter.

a very merry vegetarian breakfast

Three years ago, I said goodbye to animal carcass and never looked back. To be honest, it was one of the easiest life-changing choices I have ever made considering I grew up in a home where the nightly question was "What's for dinner, chicken or beef?" and the fact that I was about to move to the cheesesteak capital of the world.
I dropped fifteen pounds within the first few weeks and have maintained that for the most part.
I instantly felt happier, healthier - and realized I actually liked fruits and vegetables.
I strongly oppose the treatment of the animals humans consume and the thought of eating something else's flesh makes me nauseous. For the record, I am an ovo-vegetarian, meaning I don't eat eggs either. I would very much like to be an ovo-lacto-veg but I haven't found a suitable soy milk yet and I just love cheese too much.
Despite my strong views, I am not a vigilante vegetarian set out to convert the world. If you want to eat meat or poultry in front of me, feel free; it's your choice.
Above is a photograph I took this morning of the appetizer to my oatmeal and black coffee. Sunday morning breakfasts make me very happy. Very happy indeed.
(PS: That's Fabio's fake butter on my bread - I only eat the best, you know)

Symbolic self-portrait

This was our "Symbolic Portrait" project for my Design class. We were encouraged to expose our "shadow," our...dark side, if you will. If you asked me to do this project a few months ago, you would have seen a totally different image. However, I'm happier now; My boyfriend's back from his six-month stay in Boston, my younger sister is feeling better, my older sister and her husband are having their first child...
I just can't tap in to my Darth Vader right now.

Mola Ram, prepare to meet Kali...in HELL!

My boyfriend and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day.

We think of it as the day you're forced to show the person you love that you love them. Well, we do that everyday - without force...and I don't like chocolate. Regardless, you know what I love? Indiana Jones. I also love you. Happy Valentine's Day, anyway.