a tantrum on the 30th...

My car drives to Lawrence automatically after first stopping at Starbucks for a latte. It drove there three times last week, or was it twice, I can't remember. One was for an interview with Whimpper who seems to me like an angel in a human form that grew up in Ecuador, became a lawyer and also a volunteer firefighter two nights a week before moving to Lawrence where he teaches AP Spanish in one of the six high school divisions. He loves Lawrence, and I don't think that's a misplaced word, and the potential of the kids to whom he teaches language and life. He speaks in a marvelous way and I did a visually boring, but intensely interesting video of him. Now I'm hoping that he might facilitate an interview with five or six students about their lives. I was impressed by his mild-mannered dedication.

Lawrence, like Chelsea, is a city of immigrant, a gate-way city.

 And then my car took me to interview Esther, from Spain, who I first met in Cafe Verde where I crawled after photographing my brains out on the third floor of the Lawrence Public Library, aided immeasurably by Louise Sandberg, the archivist, who keeps candy on her desk and had a box of figs covered and filled with dark chocolate that someone had given to her husband. If I were to die by chocolate, I would die happily eating those....  

Esther was eating at another table and we smiled at each other. The next time I went there, she was eating with friends and I stopped at her table to talk and, no, I don't live in Lawrence, I'm doing blah and blah for the Centennial Celebration which will open on the 12th, interviews that will then be deposited in the Lawrence History Center, which is another whole story with a terrific staff and Susan Grabski who is part of getting that exhibit up.

 I have taken well over a thousand photographs, which doesn't mean that I've photographed a thousand pictures, but that I've bent over the table in that history room at the library, taking many of the same one, or stood by a shelf in the History Center, taking many of one...and then gone home and sorted them out and dumped the bad ones and turned what I wanted into jpgs for a long, long, long video of Jonas which was the first one I did, way back in June, when I was starting to hunt for interviews which I imagined would be quite short and shown at the Essex Art Center....

 Now I have to do another whole set for that show because I somehow got caught up, thanks to having met Karen at one of Cathy McLaurin's workshops, in this upcoming celebration.

 In general I have worked very hard this year, 22 videos about folks in Chelsea, and many photographs for 2 local shows, and now this. I have been productive and proactive and not really been in a rush, except now when I put more on my plate than I could manage, technically. Luckily Cathy put out a call and Stephen responded so my car also goes toward the Museum School where it obligingly finds a parking space and I find him waiting for me at the desk. He has saved the two long interviews with Jonas ...  dolled them up and made them more interesting than watching one person talk for an hour would be. He added some pizzaz to all the photographs I stuck in there, a good rough edit, but no fancy stuff. He's responsible for the fancy stuff, I'm overjoyed to say.

But I have three more videos to edit by tomorrow and I just couldn't do even one yesterday. My first tantrum. Generally I've been quite good this year. I've gone to openings and turned up at various activities and participated, etc., etc., The usual depression that starts on Thanksgiving and ends in early January skipped over me and I've managed to work in Lawrence this December and come back and, if necessary, go out with K. to shop or have a bit to eat or whatever....only occasionally going to sleep at 6, calling it quits.

But yesterday I could not force myself to go to Madeline (spelling) and Muna's party. I could not say happy new year to one person, not one. Bogie and Sherlock only demand treats and no wishes for the year to come. Oh, another year. How is that possible?