Taking leave of 2023

 This won't be a long entry. I am tired, I am depressed, and I just don't feel as if I have the ability to organize my thoughts. 

It is almost 10:00 p.m. and the Midnight gunshots are about to start in another two hours. I can hearing booming already, but those are the preliminaries, the fireworks. At midnight, or actually, about 15 minutes before midnight and for about 30 minutes afterwards, the people here in the barrio where I live will start shooting real gunshots. It is a time-honored Mexican custom, which doesn't excuse it, it just explains the near impossibility of rooting it out. Mexican men like to step out of their houses, huts, shacks, apartments, etc, and start shooting wildly up in the air to usher in the new year. It is their custom, and no matter of publicity campaigns or laws or earnest requests for them to desist will make them change their minds. The police just ignore them. Who wants to confront inebriated men with guns who would feel as if you were dishonoring them by telling them to stop shooting guns?

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will go attend the Rose Parade once again. Yes, I have to go, it is my ritual. It does not involve shooting bullets into the air and hoping they don't land and kill or maim someone. It is an innocent ritual. I have my list of entries. Mostly, I want to see the marching bands, but if I can make it once again, I will try to photograph everything. 

As you can see, it is much of the usual. I am especially interested in seeing the Rose Bowl university bands, these being the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama. The university groups always tend to bring the most energy, and of course, they are placed relatively early in the lineup.

Once again, I will stake a spot next to Sierra Madre Blvd. It will involve parking a few blocks away, but fortunately, there is usually free street parking. At least there has been these last two years. As we recall, the parade was cancelled in 2021 because of Covid, and in 2022, I remember that the attendance was much lower than it had been before. I had no difficulty finding parking, nor finding seating. It was a little more crowded in 2023, but for this year, they (a local news report) said that the authorities anticipate a return to the big crowds. So be it. I'll do the best I can. Usually I post next to the East Pasadena Post of the American Legion #280. I have to get off on San Gabriel Blvd in order to get there. 

From here, it is a short jaunt to Sierra Madre Blvd. I take a chair, a small step-stool that I stand on, my jacket, my backpack with cameras and a small bag with munchies and drinks. Of course, the raza will be selling "barrio/ghetto" dogs in carts, but I have never bought them. These are hot dog with the weiners cooked with bacon wrapped around them. I just am fearful of catching some disease, or getting food poisoning. 

The last two times I left rather late. Usually, it would be at 7:00 p.m. or, last year, I really pushed it and left at 8:00 a.m., when the parade had already started on television. Also last year I noticed that the parking was almost full when I arrived, I was worried I would have to "shell out" to pay the private entrepeneurs who charge attendees by selling space in parking lots for buildings and apartments. I just managed to find a spot. Thus, tomorrow, I will have to leave at about 6:30 to hopefully get there by 7:30 (it should only take 45 minutes to drive, traffic will not be heavy tomorrow because, even though it is a Monday, most employees will be given the day off). And if I have to pay for parking, well, so be it, I will. I don't need the stress of circling round and round and taking risks.

What can I say about this year? It was difficult. I was cut back at work, and my paycheck suffered. Instead of teaching my regular four classes, I was cut down to three, and I was earning $1,000 less per month. Ouch, that hurt quite a bit. Also, there is the matter of labor strife. Our union has been fighting the administration for all of this year, trying to obtain better benefits. The administration and management pay themselves lavishly, and they have given themselves big pay raises to keep pace (more than what is necessary) with the ravaging inflation we had this year. But we are being asked to settle for a measly 5%. We are asking for 12% just to keep afloat, they offer us scraps. That is why we are so demoralized. 

There was not trip for me this summer. In the past, when I still had my two parents and my pancreatic illness had not progressed so far, I used to take trips to the interior of Mexico. It is so much different from the border, and I felt it was a new world. Tijuana and Mexicali are one thing, but I have to say it, and this is my opinion, but the border towns are ersatz constructions, not authentic, not independent, not autonomous, they have no rich (and painful) history. They are the makeshift urban centers for Mexicans who peer like poor cousins across the border, wishing to go live in San Diego. They are dirty, raucous, vulgar places, and the people have their eye firmly fixated north, not south.

I didn't go because I had hernia surgery. It wasn't so bad, and I don't even know if it was successful. My stomach still bulges out like a basketball, but at least, it doesn't hang down the way it used to, making me look like Jabba the Hut (from Star Wars, for that 1% who might not have been cursed by being exposed to that media empire). It took me several weeks to recover, but all in all, they said not to do any heavy lifting. My neighbor, and old man, says that I should be very, very careful for an entire year. He has had many friends (he is of my dad's generation) who have had similar operations and they ran into trouble when they stupidly resumed their physical exertions after the operation.

So, no trip to Mexico, because of surgery, because of labor uncertainty, because of depression. I really sank into depression, and I don't even engage in film photography anymore. I still buy film, though, which is perverse. Film is not inexpensive, it costs way too much money, and I did buy a few film cameras, but I hardly practice any photography. I have not been to most of the public gardens I used to frequent (Descanso, the LA Aboretum, the San Diego Public Garden, the California Botanic Garden). I just have no urge to do so, I want to leave them all behind. The one exception is the Huntington Garden, but that is almost a fairyland. Usually, and I hate to confess this, but I go to the Chinese Garden to see the same things over and over again. I don't even photograph very much there. I just love seeing the attractive 40 something Chinese ladies who are never obese and who are so stylish as they take endless selfies. It can hardly even be counted as a garden trip. 

(Fireworks going off. In about an hour and a half things are going to become scary.)

We have no rituals in my household to celebrated the New Year. Not even when my dad was alive did we have them. Other families supposedly get together and have this policy of enforced glee, but none of us is in the mood for this. We are all depressed and lonely, and we just can't go through the motion. Let other Hispanic families eat grapes on the eve and get drunk and blast loud Mexican music. That is not anything we have ever done in my household. We just go to bed and await being awoken by the flurries of gunshots, loud, pounding high-caliber guns, at midnight. 

In politics, the less said, the better. We can't get rid of the monster of Trump. He just takes up all the space on social media, him ranting and raving all the time, and the MAGA accolytes celebrating his stupidity. They aren't interested in governance for the public good. They just want to fulfill an emotional desire for revenge. 

Well, that should be it. I have to go to bed. I'll play another round of sudoku before I try to go to sleep. Maybe if I wear earplugs I won't be woken up, but I am afraid to do so in case I miss my alarm. I need to get up at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow for the drive to Pasadena. It is cold now, we are in the 40s, but still not so bad. We had some slight rain these past few days, mainly, on Saturday, but it was more along the lines of drizzle. The news reports say the rain was much heavier in other places in California. When I took my morning walk I was expecting to see a cap of snow on the San Gabriel mountains but no such luck. The storm apparently left us no snow. May we at least hope for a measure of peace, though. 

Here is hoping for a better 2024. 

Central CA with Holga Pan with Ilford XP2 (Oct. 2023)

What the hell happened? I think this is a photo with my HolgaPan using C41 Ilford XP2. What the hell happened? I don't know but the negatives were massively, massively overexposed. I am guessing, giving the blurriness, that I accidentally set it to bulb exposure. I don't know how that could have happened. I think I was also using a red filter. 

CA Botanic Garden with Sprocket Rocket and Fuji 200 Color

More with the California Botanic Garden.

California Botanic Garden with Sprocket Rocket and Fuji 200 Color (pt. 1)

The California Botanic Garden in Claremont, CA. I haven't been here in such a long time, maybe almost a year. I even let my membership lapse in November. I just don't want to return anymore. When did I take these photos? Maybe in early 2023 or late 2022. 

Downtown Riverside with Sprocket Rocket and Fuji 200 Color film

A few photos with the Sprocket Rocket, taken in Riverside in what must have been either October or November of 2023. 

Fullerton Arboretum with Sprocket Rocket and Fuji 200 Color Film

Photos taken with the Sprocket Rocket of the Fullerton Arboretum which is located either in Fullerton or Placentia, CA, depending on the address you input into the search engines. It must have been in November when I went there, trying to find something to do since I now longer attend ethnic dance events. I remember that I told myself I should walk three loops around the place, that would amount to about one hour of walking, but since I was carrying my camera, I stopped and took photos so, of course, it took me a little longer. 

It's a long way to Tipparery

I know, I know, I know. Where have you been? Are you okay? Did you drop off the face of the Earth? I know, I was "disappeared" for almost a month and a half. I can't say where I've been, some internal domain where I seek to take refuge from the relentless coverage of that lunatic maniac known as D. Trump, as well as the wearying news about Israel killing civilians in Gaza and idiots running amok in the House of Representatives. And, to top it off, barking Elon, the wannabee dictator who has taken a page out of the playbook for the orange Cheeto who is the Republican frontrunner.

It has been over a month since I last posted at the beginning of November. I compose my thoughts all the time, I just don't write them down as much. I instead engage in walking monologues where I talk into my cellphone as I walk around the block. I am conscious of the fact that I am composing my thoughts carefully, and it does help me, but I leave no written record. Plus, I am hardly even taking film photos anymore. I take snaps with my cellphone as well.

What happened with all these much vaunted photography trips that I used to organize my mundanity? It is a thing of the past. It is a routine that has fallen into disuse, and I survey with dismay all the boxes and boxes of film that I have accumulated and which are not being used. I swear, I must have several thousand dollars worth of photographic film in all sizes, from 35mm to 120 rolls to 4x5 and 8x10 sheets to Instax film to my stash of pack film, and I don't use them. The urge to use them has gone by the wayside, and all I have done is give full reign to my depression and the urge to hunker down at home in my room with curtains drawn closed.

Back in 2020 I was also in a desperate stage. Covid had descended on us suddenly and we were told to "shelter in place", and this seemed so bizarre. We had been hearing all the news about Italy and how the virus was killing so many people there, and it was heading west. The first rumblings were being heard out of New York, those desperate, desperate days when it felt as if the Calaca was on a warpath and eager to claim more victims. We were so scared. 

Suddenly everything was cancelled. We were directed to stay at home and not report to work. Further notice would be forthcoming. The paper products in our local stores disappeared, and suddenly, everyone started wearing facemasks. We were told to go for the special N95 masks as well, but well, they weren't even available. We were entering panic mode, and I remember going to our local grocery store, a Winco, and having to wait with a group of other customer outside because they were only letting in batch of people. What the hell was this? And the news coming from New York was frightening, hundreds and hundreds of deaths per day and the governor crying in his press conferences.

It was in this state of agonizing fear that I hit upon a plan. I had to wait for a few months, we had to finish the spring semester, and we had to wait for less frightening coverage on the media, but it seems that during that summer of 2020 we hit a summer lull, and things might be returning to some normalcy. The markets had returned to normal, albeit now we were all wearing face masks, but it was said that we didn't need them if we were outside, especially in sunny conditions. The virus was much less transmisable in open air, and the warmer temperatures also helped to render it inactive. We were all feeling cabin fever and we wanted at least to go out in the open. I know I did.

So I hit on the idea of going out on photography expeditions with my cameras to photograph what I had been ignoring up to that point. Yes, ignoring. I had spent so much of my time and effort taking ethnic dance photos that I was not paying attention to landscapes, street photography, garden photography, etc. It was time for a change, and since ethnic dance photography was shut down do to the lack of events being held, well, it was the only road that opened up.

Now, several years later, all the routine has been upended. Things have returned more or less to normal since last year, but I found myself without a routine that meant anything to me. I stopped buying new cameras, stopped going to different places to try them out, stopped developing film. I am in stasis. 

It feels as if I am being crushed by the weight of daily life. Mostly, I just lack the motivation. I no longer want to do the same things, and I definitely don't every want to return to taking the folklorico photos I was taking before. That period of my life has been buried, but I don't know where to look to find something new. 

We are in the last half of December now, and I have almost finished with work. I just need to complete some final calculations with the grades for my students before I submit them. Almost done, and I think I have an acceptable distribution. Now, I will have a five week break. Nothing to do this week, and I have no desire to do so in any case. I am afraid of driving because of how manic and aggressive people become during this supposedly "most wonderful time of the year". It is anything but that, it is a time of extreme and severe stress, with people having to spend money they don't have, and people feeling they have to make plans for season events, and the right-wingers braying about "Bring back the Christ to Christmas!". That's why I don't even want to write that word. It is only "Happy Holidays" for me. Let the religious bigots roast their chestnuts on an open fire.

What's on top? Well, after turning in grades, not much. We are expecting rain all this week, but knowing how rain avoids our local climate, it will just look gloomy and we will have sprinkles but nothing much more serious than that. I'm not planning any long trips, especially not with manic drivers everywhere. For now, just hunker down until we have the winter solstice celebration, then, the San Diego Holiday Bowl parade on Dec. 27th, a little over a week away. Then the Rose Parade Bandfests, then the big one itself, the actual parade. January will be busy, though. Many Asian festival taking place as January and February are the months of the Asian Lunar New Year events. 

Let's see if I can at least post a few photos, though. Next post.

Last day of Eastern Sierra trip with Fuji GW690 and Lomo Turquoise film

An odd combination, I know. I took a trip up to the Eastern Sierras of California to photograph fall colors in mid October. I have been meaning to take this trip for several years now, maybe a decade. I always found excuses not to go, but in this case, after an office-mate made a similar trip up to Reno, Nevada, the old adage, "if he can make it, why can't I?" proved to be my best ally. I made the trip, and it turned out to last three days. And it was worthwhile.

I had all kinds of film with me, but I had wanted to use Lomo Turquoise, the "Houses of the Holy" film. (I am referring, of course, to the cover of a Led Zeppelin album from the 70s). So, I popped it in. Heck, I was shooting everything else, black and white, color, slide film, why not Turquoise? I am glad because, as the hackneyed expression goes, "Variety is the spice of life". 

So, the first ones are of Convict lake, my destination on the last day of my trip, a Tuesday. Don't worry, the leaves were not that lethal-looking cobalt blue. They were a brilliant yellow, and yes, I do have photos of those yellows, but I kind of like these colors as well. It just takes me out of my usual place.

The trip was long, but never dull. I got tired of the driving, though. I described the trip to myself in my monologues that I tape. I can't transcribe them here, they are a spur-of-the-moment thing. They are uttered and then the words disappear forever. If I wanted to sound very cliched, I would say, they are like bubbles popping, or the foam at the edge of a river back in the industrial midwest that has been laced with runoff from an industrial plant that creates a toxic waste site and draws politicians who call for investigations and legislation to hold those companies responsible to account but then Republicans foil any attempt at regulation so that they can protect that black money that funds their campaigns and nothing gets done, the toxic spills occur again and again. Did I get political?

Well, let's get back to spiritual. The craggy mountain. The framing by the trees. The lake shore. The gates (the middle photos were taken after I left the lake and was driving frantically back to southern California but couldn't resist pulling off to the side of the road to take photos of these fields, many with small dark shapes in the distance which turned out to be cattle because, yes, this is cattle country). But if there is a lake, well, that is Convict lake. 

I hope to return next fall. 

Lake up Eastern Sierras in October of 2023 with Holgapan and Kodak Color

And here is the last frame from the previous roll that I had shot at the Huntington Garden. This isn't in that location, it was taken during my October trip up to the Eastern Sierrras. I have no idea where this is, I guess I just stopped by the side of the road somewhere on the way up. 

Panoramic photos with HolgaPan with Kodak color film at Huntington Gardens

Hmmm. I got the monkey off my back. I have been going to the Huntington Library for the past three years, it had become a regular pilgrimage for me every few months. But lately, the gardens have lost their enticement for me. I don't want to go, even for this one which is in a league of its own. But I go out of duty, just to remain active and not forget the rituals that helped me to survive the Covid years when we could not gather in large event and we were all trying to find internal peace.

I went to this event in mid May, shortly before my hernia operation. I said, I have to make my days special, I need to generate memories and just try to do things of worth. There are always astounding visual displays here, even if I have seen them over and over, in all kinds of weather, in different seasons. I told myself, let's hope I recover from my operation, then, I will return. But I held off my return even after I recovered, but the thought nagged in my brain. I have to go back. I have to show the place that I survived.

And, in September, I returned. I took along film cameras, as I usually do. I used my Holgapan, the one that produces 6x12 negatives. For a plastic camera, the negatives are of surprising quality. The center frame is sharp, the edges taper off to blurriness. But these are panoramas, and the effect can enhance the photo. 

I don't recall how much time I spent here but I remember that it went by quickly. I didn't want to spend too much time, anyway. I would leave in two hours, short and sweet, because I had to get on the freeways before the afternoon rush hour really kicked in. Also, I wanted to go to a specific restaurant that sells a type of Mexican/Arab fusion food. Well, it wasn't all that. The food was bad. But the Huntington Garden was beautiful, as usual.

Here are a few scans.

Hollywood Forever with cellphone on Oct. 28th, 2023

Well, I've been attending the extravaganza known as the Hollywood Forever Día de los Muertos for the last dozen years or so. I know that at the beginning, I wanted to be in tune with events and spectacles that portrayed my culture in a positive light. We never celebrated the Día de los Muertos in my Hispanic household, but we would hear about it as a celebration or, more appropriately, a ritual practiced by other Mexicans. Usually, I associated it with images of dark-skinned Mexicans in indigenous and colorful clothing lighting candles and putting out food in cemeteries. We were Mexican, of course, but we were not indigenous, we didn't wear that type of indigenous clothing nor did our women wear those long braids. And I had no awareness of what the cempasuchil (the orange flowers) meant, I only thought of them as vibrantly colored, almost too much. Carnations painted orange.

But I grew to learn a little bit. Not all Mexicans are alike, but Chicanos embraced this ritual that was celebrated by only a few Mexicans, and they converted it into a Chicano celebration that was meant to affirm our culture. I followed along with that trend, not recognizing it as a trend that was being created. And the Anglos who own this famous cemetery deep in the heart of Hollywood saw a business opportunity, one that involved a cross-over where they could attract the attention of many of the liberal Anglos who live in the area, and they came up with this spectacle, the Hollywood Forever Día de los Muertos. Even way back in 2011 or 2012 I remember one distinguished cultural representative, a Mexican woman, exclaiming in outrage that the organizers where cashing in the bucks raiding our Hispanic/Mexican culture. I agreed, but I also liked what the spectacle had become. It was overblown in an extreme way that I found almost profane in a place that is supposed to be sacred. Imagine all those paying visitors, Anglos and Mexicans alike, walking around over people's graves while sipping beer and tequila and oohing and ahhing at the altars that are plopped over those gravestones with little sign of respect. I wonder what the family members would think if they saw people setting up over the little mausaleums they erected for their deceased. But then I thought, get a grip. This is America. They don't give a f*ck about their lost ones, they erect the gravestones and then they forget. This is the land where you forget the past and you concentrate on the present and the sacred task of consuming and accumulating as much as you mindlessly can for yourself. That is what it means to be American, you shed your identity and you become a vast and insatiable mouth. It is the American way, to eat to excess and talk and say vapid things to excess. (Which is what someone might say about me at this moment, but let me just retort, I am just jaded and old and tired of this sh*t.)

So, they divided the spectacle into two separate-entry events. the Día and the Noche de los Muertos. I attended the daylight event, mostly because I was afraid of the zombie-like crowds that were sure to materialize at night. As they say, we should "Fear the Walking Dead". I paid quite a bit too, considering that almost all these events should be free but no, this is a production, with stages assigned to promoters who bring in their performing friends to fill up the time. Well, forget those stages. This time, I was just going to walk around and admire the altars, soak up the ambiance (as long as it didn't get too boozy because then I would have left in a flash) and take a few photos. And take a few photos I did, with the accent on "few", because I took so little that I could have seriously left my cameras at home. I should have, they weighed like an anchor, especially my Nikon DSLR. What was I thinking?

Oh, and this being fall in southern California, no need for a jacket or sweater. This was definitely weather for shirts and T-shirts, even if it might have seemed vaguely disrespectful for an event to honor the dead. We are gawking at the Eiffel Tower in Paris in the middle of summer, after all. We are supposed to acknowledge the sentiment of remembrance, although really, it was all about walking around and being entertained. I am sorry to say that, but yes, we go and behave like disgusting Philistines, and one hears, from the left and right, from front and back, Anglos exclaiming how "quaint" something is. But I'm not insulted. It is the American way, everything is meant to distract us from the empty materiality of our lives, even spectacles like this one whose scale pretty much insures that we will not be thinking nostalgically about spiritual values nor philosophizing about life and our ethereal natures. No, it is Disneyland imposed on an ancient cultural ritual. Take that, Catrina.

Did I arrive with a positive attitude? No, I was complaining to myself the whole time. Was the act of complaining worthwhile to me? Well, in a manner of speaking, yes it was. Here I am, a p*nche Mexican American who is overeducated and yet still seeks to find a sense of value in rituals that are being refashioned for Chicanos. This is supposed to add meaning to us, except when you see all the booths selling tequila or useless kitsch. Then you kind of have to admit, they just blew it. But can't I find something, anything? Am I that lost?

This is my first photo entering Hollywood Forever. I am already grumbling about having to pay $24 to park at the garage, and $30 to enter the event. Not as many people are in evidence as in past years, but then again, this is the first time I arrived at the ungodly hour of 10:00 a.m. Damn it, that is an ungodly hour, especially for a spectacle such as this one. There is light, yes, but not the light at the end of the tunnel when dying people say that they feel themselves levitating out of their bodies on the verge of death. This is blaring southern California blasting light, when you should be at Venice or Malibu or Huntington Beach, admiring the coeds with their tan bodies and T-backs. It is too hot for a Dia de los Muertos. And why are all those tombstones in the way? Don't they know that there should be space for the coeds to lay down a towel and sunbathe? 

 I left when I had to leave, at about 2:00 p.m. It was about three hours later than I wanted to leave, but I forced myself to stay. I walked round and round and round, and I made it a challenge. Stay until 2 p.m. You don't want to feel as if you paid that money just to walk out after half an hour?

I admit it, I was not in the mood. And, the crowds were very sparse, too. Nothing like the throngs of yesteryear, when you couldn't walk without bumping into others. I think the nighttime event must have been better attended, but I don't really know nor do I care. This is a bloated spectacle, there, I said it. There are tiny corners of honest sentiment, but most of these altars are just playing a game of one-upmanship. Let's see who has the most visually stunning display. They are competing, in other words, and I don't like this, nor would I approve of my family's photos being displayed here nor my photo. It becomes, in other words, void of spiritual value. Maybe that would be more accurate. This is a black hole, where spirits are sucked in, never to be retrieved. It is Disneyland for Latinos who want to feel good about themselves, but are doing the same thing they do everywhere else. Consuming.

Been a long time since I rock and rolled!!

 With apologies to Led Zeppelin, a mythic monster band from my youth, yes, it has been a very long time since I've posted anything to this blog. I've been tired, so inhumanely and desperately tired, the type of exhaustion that comes from stress that has been uncontrolled.

We are in the month of November now and we are nearing the end of the year. In news, well, the nightmare that Trump still dominates the news, with all his bluster and idiocy taking front stage on the various media outlets. Lately, we are seeing more and more reports from his trial in New York for financial fraud relating to his lying about the real value of his assets. He is mendacious, we always knew that, but the scope is just astonishing. Almost as astonishing as the degree to which his MAGA acolytes continue to overlook it and rage about conspiracies against their white (or more accurately, orange) savior.

Also, we have the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza strip in response to the Hamas surprise raid from several weeks ago. On campus yesterday I actually saw something that surprised me. My campus is not in the same league as the Ivy league in terms of having a tradition of protests, but they outdid themselves. They had one yesterday, one attended mostly by Muslim students (or those of Middle Eastern background because there are other religions in the area). I was surprised and pleased that they are making their voice heard.

Most of the stress revolves around uncertainty surrounding the prospect of a strike at our campus. Well, not only our campus. We are part of a statewide system so it would affect almost a dozen (or more) campuses. It has been the threat that has been overhanging us for almost all of this year, but it is developing at a snail's pace. This is deliberate, of course, because the state imposes a process that is designed to make this job action a very deliberate but slow process. We can't just go on strike "on a dime", we have to have a set number of weeks of negotiations, then deliberations, then votes that are held within the membership, then authorizations, then "cooling off" periods, then just waiting and waiting and waiting. Neither side is budging, and it just drains us because we (I) am afraid of what a strike would involve in terms of financial (and emotional) stability.

We are ending the "cooling off" period, so it is possible that we could hear something in the next week. I feel we have backed ourselves into a corner. The union (my union that doesn't really represent me well) has made such outlandish demands that it is almost guaranteed that the other side will not budge. They want to work less and earn more, plus they want all these side demands that have little to do with us achieving pay parity. They want lactation rooms, and nonbinary bathrooms. I am not insensitive to these issues, I know that trans accommodations are important, but I am being paid half of what other members in my job category are paid, and I am losing work, something that began at the beginning of this year when I lost assignments. It seems as if these proposals are out of step with what the majority of us need, but as they would say, something has to be done for trans issues. I think it has really overtaken everything.

So, I am awaiting news of a strike. This seems like the stupidest time to hold it, as well. We are almost done with teaching for the semester, and they (the administration) can see our interim grades that we have assigned for our students. Most of the teaching has been done, we have just five weeks, or four and a half if we count the fact that most of us will not be teaching on Thanksgiving, the "forgotten" holiday now that the Halloween decorations have disappeared and all the Christmas displays have overwhelmed the shelves of our retails stores. It is like what they used to say about the Korean War veterans who complained that the Vietnam veterans were just begging and receiving too much attention. The Korean War veterans took to calling themselves the "forgotten" veterans. I remember seeing bumper stickers to that effect on cars when I would drive around on the freeways here in the 80s. By far most of those veterans are gone, and the Vietnam veterans are long in the tooth as well.

I am so glad the the "Día de los Muertos" events are almost all over. It has become such a bloated holiday, with celebrations held everywhere. I am tired at the enforced pathos. It is supposedly about remember your lost ones, but really, it is just people painting skulls on their faces and pretending not to be afraid of death. Of course they are afraid of death, and they aren't as pious about evoking the memory of their loved ones as they seem to be. I'm just tired. We have this weekend still filled with events, but hopefully, by next weekend, it will be over. The big event in Riverside is taking place tomorrow. I might go. I should be honest with myself, though. I don't want to go.

And, tomorrow, Chino, Chino, Chino. A common nickname used by Hispanics to denote two different qualities. Either it is used to describe someone who has an Asian facial feature (they have "Asian" eyes even if they are Mexican), or a person who has curly hair. Both conditions are referred to as being "chino". But for me, it is the marching band review I want to attend.

Finally, the heat. What is up with the heat? I can't get over it, and it really, really irritates me. We have had several weeks of almost 90 degree temperatures here in southern California. It is the usual, I know it has been this way ever since I was a child, but I guess that as I grow older I get more annoyed about this and many, many other things that I used to just accept. I am angry that others have real fall weather, with temperatures in the 60s and 70s, but we still have heat waves in November. Plus, they have fall colors, the leave turn beautiful before they fall off and the trees become skeletal. Here, the same dull dark green colors until, for some trees, the leave turn brown (umber) then fall off. I wish I could see fall colors, but you have to drive. I took a trip a few weeks ago and went to the Eastern Sierras for the first time, and there, I went to lakes and canyons where I saw fall colors. The drive, though, was exhausting, clocking in at over five and a half hours. There are fall colors closer by, in our San Bernardino mountains, but I just can't find the time to go. I will have to.

Well, that is it for an update. I will start posting some photos. 

So Cal Rail Museum in May 2023 with overexposed slide film in a Minolta Autocord TLR

From the same roll as the photos I took at the Huntington Library in May, this is the So Cal Railway Museum. It was reddish, but at least, I didn't have the frame numbers exposed in the background. I correctly very quickly, but not to my satisfaction.

I need inspiration.

Huntington Garden in May 2023 with overexposed slide film in a Minolta Autocord TLR (pt. 5)

 Another block. I tried to correct them, but was minimally successful. They are red. Not red-scale red, for anyone (maybe even me) who might read this in the future, "red-scale" is when you reverse color film so it is exposed from the back, not the front, and this involves a hassle because you have to reroll the film. It is a "look", but not one I have ever wanted to try. No, the problems were more prosaic here, and involve mishandling on my part, namely, probably having unwound the film loosely as I retrieved it after exposing it. Here there be not dragons, but accidents.