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.