How To Be Alone

I have been spending a lot of time alone these days, as I am unemployed and most people in my life have things that keep them occupied during the day like work, school, baking, baby sitting...  and so I have to say that I was touched when I found this video on one of my friend's blogs.





When you're unemployed, it's easy to waste an entire day watching TV or surfing the Internet. No one is around to make you get up, or make you feel bad for sitting on your butt. But it's really only when I waste away my day that I actually feel alone, because when I spend my time productively - exercising, going for walks, writing in my journal, reading books, studying Chinese, or working on obtaining employment - I'm not really alone. I'm spending time with my best friend in the whole world: myself.


Really, I'd like to think that I'm a pretty cool person to hang out with. What a lucky schmuck I am to be stuck spending my days all alone with myself. And although it can be infinitely frustrating to be unemployed, I am trying really hard to value this time and be productive, because once I do find work, it will (hopefully) be a long time until I once again have all this time to just hang out with myself.

Flowers, Photographs, and.... Parking Meters???

Almost as soon as we arrived in Taiwan, I made the decision to carry my camera with me every where I went. It turned out to be a good decision too - a great many of my blogs were born from pictures I'd taken in the most unlikely places. I got so used to having my camera on me that even now that we're home, I almost never leave the house without it.  

I've learned over the last two years that a simple trip to the dry cleaner is enough of a reason to have my camera; you never can predict when you will come across something unexpectedly beautiful or completely photographable. 

Take, for example, this beautiful church on Colfax Ave. caught in the late afternoon sun against a perfectly blue sky

or Aimee's reflection in Jess's sunglasses

but mostly these days, I just take pictures of flowers. I never really paid too much attention to flowers until I started photographing them. Now, I can't get enough of them. I am constantly amazed by the variety and beauty of flowers. Mother nature is infinitely more creative than any human could ever dream of, and these days I make it a point to stop and smell the roses on a daily basis. Here are some of my favorite flower pictures from the past few months:

  

Today, as I was walking down the street, camera at the ready, I came across something completely unexpected and absolutely delightful: a parking meter wearing a scarf.

This may come to a complete surprise to some of you, but I had actually heard of this before. It's called urban knitting and it's apparently a form of "graffiti." I don't know if I saw it online, or in a book, but I had certainly never seen it out in the real world before.

And here I was, on the 700 block of Grant Street, when I came across an entire row of decorated parking meters!

What a pleasant surprise! I love it!!! What a great start to the weekend!