clips
Not much to report on today . . . I thought about watching a movie last night, but decided against it when time crunched a bit too much after I helped Shobhit make a huge pot of beans, vegetables and rice for dinner (and many subsequent meals). That was barely done by the time Shobhit started his Project Management virtual class, at which point I only then had a chance to start making chai. Had I watched a movie, I would have wanted to start it as soon as his class began. He works at Big 5 until 8 p.m. tonight which will give me plenty of time to watch a movie then.
So, instead? I spent the rest of the evening on editing and uploading digitized old home video clips to Flickr. Shall we review the most notable stuff uploaded since I last wrote much about this ongoing project? I am now mostly through the year 2001, a somewhat peculiar year in which I seem to have spent more time during family holidays with my camcorder than I did my still camera. Let's go through some major photo albums, starting with Christmas 2000:
San Antonio, to date the one place I have ever visited in Texas, late December 2000: I still have the full single photo set, but now also have it separated into five sets, covering the eight days of that trip. Only two of the sets represent one day each; the rest sets of two, except the last one which covers three: the vast majority of them Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then 9 shots taken on the trip home December 26. All of said sets have newly uploaded video clips added to them, 25 clips in all.
Deception Pass 2001, a day trip I took with Danielle, which we will repeat this coming April for my Birth Week—originally intended to be done last year, but now it will be done fully 20 years later (the 2001 trip was in March).
Easter 2001, expanding what had been a photo set of merely 13 photos to a set with 19 items (photos and video clips).
Tulip Festival 2001, with just three video clips added.
Jennifer's college graduation, a set newly created for my cousin's graduation three years after mine, because I took only video at it, no photos.
Provincetown 2001, which I went to with Gabriel and then—I only remembered this while processing the video, not having thought about it in years—we traveled back to Seattle together, it doubling as his move back from a year living in Boston but after he and Suzy broke up. The odd thing about this one was it was a several-day trip during which I took only 23 photos, none of which did I ever specifically identify the dates on which they were taken (I just know it was August); even video was taken sparingly, and 3 relatively short clips have been added to the set. I really wish I had recorded more of that trip, as so much of it is lost to any memory, thanks to my not writing about it in detail in any journal or letter either.
San Francisco 2001, by third trip to that city but my first entirely for pleasure and not for work. I went with Danielle so I could see Madonna in concert for the first time—the concert was in Oakland but we otherwise stayed in San Francisco proper. The three video clips added were taken exclusively inside our hotel room, directly before we left for, and directly after we got back from the concert.
Halloween 2001, much less video footage than usual at previous family holidays; two video clips added.
Thanksgiving Weekend 2001, 12 video clips added to what otherwise had previously been only a set of 15 photos. I didn't even take that much video footage on Thanksgiving that year, but for Thanksgivings in this process I have tended to create separate, very short video clips separated by individuals saying what they were thankful for.
Next up to process and upload: Christmas 2001, at which I also have no still photos whatsoever, so I’ll finally be creating a Flickr album for that holiday for the first time.
I just got done with Office Lunch Meetup #32 on Zoom, and it was one of the more sparsely attended again—just the three primary ones of us that tend to attend every week: Rebecca, Noah, and myself. We still found plenty to talk about, though: death, politics, dick picks, horror movies, and more!
Slightly related: I seem to be doing better this week than I had been before, when I was feeling like I was hitting an emotional wall with a full year of imposed isolation—granted, I did still take a few short trips last year, but even that hasn't happened since September. With the exception of the Christmas afternoon visit on Dad and Sherri's back porch, in fact, I don't think I have left King County in six months! Damn. And of course, with the occasional exceptions of when Shobhit and I shopped at the Costco in Shoreline, the vast majority of that has been within Seattle proper.
I think getting certain plans in place over the next few months has really helped. Shobhit and I still need to book a hotel in Portland for our anniversary weekend in June, but my hotels in Long Beach in late April and then Wallace, Idaho later in June are both booked; I also just booked tickets with Danielle and her kids for an immersive Van Gogh exhibit happening in October. So, even if current day to day living remains unchanged, the process of looking forward is inching further toward normalcy, with less and less uncertainty. I think I'll always be nervous about some bombshell fucking up all of those plans, but I still feel it's better to operate in probabilities, and in all probability, things will be looking much, much better by the end of the year, with it progressively moving that directions in the months in the meantime. It's a comforting thought.
[posted 1:04 pm]