More on China

This morning Laurie came by to film me for her her Digital TV class for her journalism program. Laurie is a friend from Beijing, and its amazing how much her little visit today reminded me of China and various dreams that I'd tucked away from that period of my life, a little reminder to get back with the program and get on with my life, to be fair to myself and my aspirations and what is important to me.

I credit China with first sparking my interest in photography. I'll admit that I never really thought much of the intricacies and difficulties of photography before China, before intense bouts of voyeurism and musings on life, before peering into a way of life and culture so different from my own, before bveing seized with a strange and touching desire to capture a rhythm of life that may be disappearing forever. Not to be melodramatic about it or anything. And therefore, in a way, I credit China with ultimatley sparking the PhotoADay challenge, among other things.

Some days China feels very close, eerily so, and some days it feels awfully foreign. And as much as I can describe a place in an email or my other blog, I think there's nothing like a photograph to really give you a sense of what I'm talking about. I've mentioned before that it took a year in Beijing for me to appreciate suburbia, something I never thought would happen. Living where i do now is practically the closest thing I'm going to get to China in this city, other than Chinatown [which, BTW, is rather touristy anyways, not that I don't love going there and wandering the renaoness and reminding myself that the good comes with the bad, let us not remember last year with rose-tinted glasses only!]

Yup, another stalking photo. It sometimes amazes me what a little patience can bring about.

I think this post is nowhere near where I intended to go with it when I first logged in to Blogger, but I don't much care. Finally had a day off work and it was lovely, catching up with an old friend, shopping in the new hood, a walk in Golden Gate Park and quietly watching fields of soccer players running about and remembering my days of sports and wishing those were still upon me, a nice loooooooooooooooong nap, reading Chinese comic books and laughing out loud, cooking for myself, and the random tooting-about-the-net that seems like such a luxury these days. Once upon a time it was almost a vice, that's how much I indulged myself, but these days, man, these days you gotta learn to fend for yourself.

There are more things to wish to do in this life time than are humanly possible [for me anyways, we have to be realistic about what we can accomplish], but cherish that ambition, Jessica, even if you can't pluck every single star from the sky upon which you've set your heart.