Acceptance

lately I can only get an hour, an hour and a half's sleep a day or night. if I get 3 I feel pretty good. keep leaping up imagining burglars, my brain going, going. or that somebody is planning to kill me. (that's an old one.) meanwhile Webb writes that I have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Webb said they asked for a bio and a photo. altho what a bio and a photo have to do with a man's work, i dunno. happened to mention to Wantling, and he and wife made a big thing of it, made me feel rather foolish. I liked better Frances' reaction. she came over with the kid and demanded 19 weeks child support in advance.
Charles Bukowski, June 25, 1966

3 Hour Walk IX

Switched gears today and started what will hopefully be a long string of darkroom sessions. I am aiming to make some high quality prints for the Swiss gallery.

Today's session was a good start, although the batch of LD20 I mixed was too strong and I was feeling it in my head. The room ventilation is adequate for most chemicals, but LD20 is more toxic than regular print developer, so I can work with it only in short time segments and not in consecutive days. So other than having to take frequent fresh air breaks, I made some interesting prints.

I am putting off buying new supplies because the massage therapy sessions are eating into my reserve cash. Out of the blue today, though, I received a payment from the Swiss gallery, but it was a smaller amount than what I was hoping for. I guess the US economic depression is also being felt in Switzerland! So the cash I received will pay for the massages, but supplies are going to set me back $200-250. Since I will be sending the best prints to Switzerland, I won't be able to recover the costs from selling on eBay, and because of today's payment I have little faith that I will recover my costs any time soon.

So I am working with what I have, which is 5x7 Foma paper. When I am printing 5x7 I gravitate toward my old 35mm negs, so for today's session I chose a few from my early years, 1991-2. A couple of beach scenes (not the typical sunny, happy, sun burnt look), a rainy street scape, and a portrait of my old friend Ward Smith.

When I glanced at the print info sheet from the previous session I realized I have been working with the digital camera for almost 3 months. Now I am swinging back to film and paper, which is what I was hoping would happen.

It was a warm day today, 64 degrees, but very windy. It felt great to wear shorts and a techie shirt for my attempted run. I made it about 2 miles, then felt some overall leg weakness set in, so I stopped. The good news is my knee never tightened up, and when I got home it felt strong walking up and down stairs. I am heading in the right direction, but my right leg is still weeks away from being normal.

Because of my weakened leg strength I emailed the Clinton Lake race director today to ask if there is a waiting list for runner's who are hoping to take the place of injured participants. If there was one, I was willing to give up my spot, but the director told me that it is too late to register new runners.

Tomorrow I will plan on biking in the warm weather, then on Saturday another attempt at running.

One more positive thing about my knee, today was the first time since the race that it was not stiff upon waking up - feeling good about that...