Being my lovable, rebellious self I had to smoke, en route to shooting the Wellness Extravaganza at Middling City University, a big delicious American Spirit cigarette, a light.
And then I shot people getting fat content tested, bombarded with information on soy, bone densitometerized and the like.
The angry midget brat Avril Lavigne comes to the Middling City in a few months and when I shot her a few months back I was overcome with a gigantic sense of totally not digging her, her hair-in-face stance, her faux petite Canadian bad-ass ways. And lame lyrics. And pussy-whipt backband boys.
Last night ended at the joint named for the nihilist, Nietzsche's, with buddy boy Doug singing Tax Man with the band in attendance doing their best work on the oeuvre of George Harrison. They were done. The crowd clamored for Tax Man. The band didn't know it so Doug, ever helpful, hit the stage. Usually a bass player who harmonizes as second fiddle voice, he was obviously relishing his impromptu front man gig.
Hailed the Tequila Maiden and said Would you run and fetch us some of that golden goodness? Have a tab in that nihilistic joint but handed her a tip with instructions to Stuff it into your g-string.
As I was watching Doug/Tax Man I noted, as I went onto the pa riser for a better shooting angle, that the floor near stage right is very very spongey. One day Nietzsche's may be in the red hot spotlight of club disasters. And you flagrant epinw followers will say I knew all about that spongey saggy floor.
Architectural love.

A short & sweet shoe story:
Work, work, file column, return to home office hovel and discover in daily mail delivery a frequent shoe flyer award so after some social and anti-social obligs head to shoe Valhalla where *** a dream sequence is happening, accompanied by meaningful pop music by shorty-pants John Cougar M*** in the clearance area and there's suddenly also an additional 30% chance-of-a-shoe-lifetime markdown and the perfect mules for the upcoming event in NYC are discovered as well as another more leisurely pair for Middling City high times and dear fucking god the final prices are circa 1950 or so and leaving shoe joint is one person and four great shoes - after witnessing a highly-pampered suburban lady with french manicure have a meltdown when the Valhalla employee misunderstands her directives about shoe boxes in shopping bags and then another when asked for another form of picture id. The End.

It's now about 55º F in my workspace/home as the furnace hasn't been going on and there have been numerous trips up and down stairs to flick on and off various switches. Now it's time to call Mr. Heating&Cooling as my fingers must keep working and they're getting red, before blue.
Minding my own business I was meandering for food supplies following work deliveries this AM and freezing/working at home. There before me was a pink Barbie Easter Magic display. Barbie is dressed in a short pink Easter frock and comes with a chicken-sized egg. I thought perhaps the Magic in Barbie Easter Magic might be that girls can stuff the egg up into Barbie and then her reticulated ankles, knees and hips allow her to squat down and lay the pink plastic egg.
The egg is a bonus gift for the girl who receives Barbie.
And on back the lucky lucky girl can complete a small and facile bunny maze.
I was looking for pink fuzzy bunny ears to replace those sadly broken during my last soirée.
Onwards.

A bit of steaming words, hot off the fingertips and probably more than any of you epinw readers ever needed to know about one of your Fav Nancy's modes of old-school dough:

Insult a man's Mardi Gras parade and you cut him to the core.
In an email to another newspaper employee (who later forwarded the email to the aforementioned man/SuperEgo/Middling City Mardi Gras parade founder) I dubbed his parade dismal.
Six vehicles do not a parade make.
Watchers are key, as are perhaps a marching band and a plethora of paraders.
Onwards.
So the man fired off a snappy/sappy email reaching far and wide, calling me a "photo editor," questioning the way that photo/digital images are filed at the newspaper that he founded (and at which I've been dismally compensated & employed nearly-full-time since 1990), and on... and on.
I'd paste it in here but it was deleted long ago.
Mentioned he might want to invest in photo filing software that he did mention and tried to suggest be used, that I (as well as the occasional intern snap-shooters) would be happy to use it but that my filing system works fine as long as the "managing editor" manages to tell me in a timely fashion what it is that she needs.
Also, why is it that a hundred clients local and national have no problems with the way my digital files are named - but Fabio does. Color me Middling City Gray and Confused.
Usual Nancy/Managing Editor scenario: (Friday afternoon) Oh, Nancy, it's really late, I know, I'm really sorry, but could you shoot... and always it's Yes Yes Yes and pestilence upon my head if I say You know, it's really late, this really sucks,
your parade sucks.
At the newspaper I am a columnist who creates her own assignments, builds her own weekly column, shoots (last-minute) requests for food shots at restaurants the county over as well as feature photography.
Oh, and did I mention, the m.e. handed over a freelance gig to one of the paper's interns last week when the guy had called me before, I returned his call, his cell was off and he called the office looking for me.

Here's an idea, O Parade Creator:
You want a true photo editor?
Pay. Double (or nearly) the salary and you'll have a Photo Editor and great karma will wash over you for doing the right thing.
You finally broke down and acquired my digital camera but this doesn't quite balance out years of mileage, the other equipment I've purchased, the time, the time and the time.
Behind me is a room full of seething and angst-ridden employees who witness disparities of wealth and know there's not many Middling City alternatives to the alternative.
Enough laundering for now.
My undying, unbleached love.

Yesterday included a multitude of eclectic photo ops and photo situations and at one I was able to utter a key, three-word phrase that, unlike ILOVEYOU, is just not appropriate for every day usage:
Stop, DON'T SHOOT.
Men emerged holding muskets at the ol' Fort Niagara alongside the Canadian border and, knowing these were re-enactors probably a little on the zealous side, I said those three words.
And in response the first musket-holder said You don't look French so we won't.
Being a Francophile I immediately thought I'd like to throw some steaming Brie at his red, near-frostbitten face but did not.
I was there with Lead Boy Colleague to document this re-enacted winter garrison and - JOYOFJOYS - asked if they'd blow off their operational cannon in addition to the five-gun salute over the lake. They obliged, rolled out the cannon, went through the lengthly process of packing and checking and lighting perhaps six times before
KA-BLAMMMMMM
off it went. They did this twice for our enlightenment. A third hack-type shooter was on the other side of the cannon action and you knew he was Serious by the khaki vest he was wearing.
My only other previous cannon-type experience was when my pal's highly eccentric attorney father shot off his pipe bomb and miniature cannon one summer evening up in Canada at their lakeside summer residence.
Speaking of pyros and the issue of control, the bar fire in Rhode Island, I hope, will create awareness about club safety. That night I was out shooting and one stop included a joint that had quickly posted an emergency escape plan around the walls and even as a slide on their continual a-v display.
It's also made me realize that many of the places I pop in are fairly certain death pits with minimal attention paid to safety.

Hair band safety endnote:
One night, in the suburb of Lackawanna (where the Al-Qaeda cell of seven was discovered) I was at a KISS tribute gig by a band called SSIK. They had homemade pyros that at the time I found amusing - coffee cans filled with black powder and the like. Several months later, driving down Ridge Road, the club was gone. Burnt to a krispt. Know when to say Hell no to pyros. Sometimes at concerts photogs in the pit are inches from boxes that are sometimes labeled pyros. Usually a stage tech comes out to tell us to steer clear of such boxes during song 1 or whatever and tell us not to touch the boxes, like we're really dying to pry open their lids and fuck with Britney's (or whomever's) super-special bells & whistles.
Onwards to further photo matters.