Commuting with Nature, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 21.10.2015

I forgot to take a picture of my foot stuck in the Metro escalator. So, like all good crime stories, I have recreated the scene. X marks the spot.[/caption] As I arrived at the surface from my subway commute, suddenly, a short, old woman, dressed in a mid February coat, crossed my path. "Pfeh," she said in her Slavic-sounding accent, "to you and your descendants!" I ignored her. But I had been cursed. And I hadn't even reached my cubicle yet. Strange things began to happen; sudden and unexplained mishaps started affecting every project I was working on...

Artistic Tendencies, Commuting with Nature, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 15.09.2015

This morning, as I was walking towards the subway entrance I saw a young mother with her two daughters running to catch the No. 8 bus. It pulled away without them but as it came closer to me I motioned there were people running to catch that bus. I kept pointing over and over with an exaggerated movement between the family and the bus, hoping to catch the driver's attention. I've done this before but the driver didn't see me. Or, he just didn't care. This driver stopped. With a twist of my...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 17.07.2015

I am nothing if not observant. I had to be, growing up in an irrational house, where, at any moment, the sublime could morph into the profane —and where a loved one could literally change overnight. (Sadly, I don't mean figuratively.) It's no mistake I became a photographer, always looking for the inconsistencies in human behavior, ready for any turn of events, no matter how unlikely they may be. Irony and synchronicity are not lost on me. And, when I think about it, my...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Idiosyncratic Celebrations / 03.07.2015

When it comes to our little plot of suburban heaven, we are outliers. We couldn't care less about having a perfect lawn. No monthly weed treatments and I do all the mowing. Some years, to make its upkeep a little less mundane, I do creative mowing. The best thing you can say about our grass is it's green. And, if you squint, it looks lush and, well, even greener. Every year we get a new and different lawn. And, by...

Commuting with Nature, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 22.06.2015

Chapter One: An Interaction With a Teenager Earlier this morning I dropped my younger daughter off at school to take the ACT test. As we got into the car she immediately turned the radio to her favorite station. Mumford & Sons' Believe was playing. Now, trying to connect with my 17 year old is always an iffy thing. Will I get merely grunts and groans to anything I say or a brisk reaction meant to shut down any conversation? I never know. The terrain is a minefield. Yet, I choose to traverse it every day in hopes I will have some...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 21.06.2015

Today is Midsummer. Here in the States we think of it as just the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer. But people who live much nearer the Arctic Circle celebrate this day with gusto. After all, on the opposite side of the calendar they have to endure a dark day. Forty-one years ago I was hitchhiking from West Berlin to Malmö, Sweden. There I would meet my friend and we would travel north to celebrate Midsummer with her friends....

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 25.05.2015

As my wife and I drove the nine miles from our house to my daughter's dorm I said, "I hope that rug is gone. It's not even ours." I was in my organizing mode: how to pack up my daughter's things as efficiently as possible and get them home in our car, including a small refrigerator. The rug belonged to my daughter's roommate. She had moved out the night before and had offered the well-used industrial gray carpet to my daughter as a parting gift. Right. I know that ploy: pawn off...

Artistic Tendencies, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 09.04.2015

For some strange reason I put my watch on upside down this morning. Time appeared backward the whole day. And each time I looked at my watch, just for a second, I was thrown off kilter, as if I had tripped and was trying to right myself. It seemed like time was mocking me and I wondered if anyone noticed. I kept asking myself, "Why don't you just take off the stupid watch and put it on the right way?" But, I never had the time. This really wasn't getting me anywhere. Telling time didn't come easy to me today. Tripping over...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 14.02.2015

I lost my glasses. No, they weren't on my forehead. And, yes, I checked all the usual places multiple times. In fact, I knew exactly where I'd lost them. With a dust filter covering my mouth, my glasses kept steaming up as I raced to get our fallen foliage to the curb before the county vacuumed them up. I could hear their trucks coming but I couldn't see a thing so I put them in my pocket. And, without warning, my tortoise shell glasses were now...