The Catch Up

Ok, so it's been like a month or so. What gives? What's the deal? Why no post? What super duper melodrama is playing out that has kept VJ so occupied he's pulled a Sfumato like month of neglect?

Basically it boils down to self censorship combined with procrastination and its effects alongside a dollop of mild cyclical depression thrown in. Mix and serve. Make sure the depression is cold when you go to mix it in though - just like butter in a cookie mix.

I don't know how many times I sat down here in my office to write something about the debacle and tragedy that was and is Katrina and found my words entirely inadequate or just a recapitulation of sentiments I found better expressed elsewhere. Unable or unwilling to write about it I found it trivial to discuss anything else in the face of such tragedy. On top of it, I watched entirely too much coverage of it which just exhausted me emotionally. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that.

I can say this though - when I am done with something I just tend to put it away or abandon it or put it down for so long that it's almost embarrassing to pick it back up. I told Sfumato that my lack of a post was starting to feel like a class I'd been skipping all semester.

He told me that was silly. Just post something he said. Pick right back up. Other people wrote or asked about the lack of a post. I have no idea about the number of people that read this but a few seemed to notice the drop off and were concerned. Thanks for that. It's really appreciated.

In my last post I mentioned how I noticed a lack of response to the hurricane. Who knew how far that lack of response would go? Of course though, the blogging world caught up with the story and so did the large commercial Internet presences like Amazon.com. At first Amazon ran just a small red cross add in the upper right corner of their homepage. I think by Friday that small ad had finally turned into the same large centered Red Cross donation page that had been put up right away for the tsunami disaster.

A few weeks ago the NY Times ran an editorial piece about a med-evac company by the name of Acadian that seemed to actually be able to respond to Katrina and deal with it effectively while FEMA just screwed things up for them and everyone else. Evidently, teams of Acadian doctors were withheld because they were not "Federalized" and helicopters sat on the ground empty while bureaucrats fought over whether or not the right forms were being filled out.. WTF? The story made me think of my old boss , the Director of the Strategic Management Group, Drew Overpeck. Drew was all about nimble thinking and adapting to the situation. Plan? Sure you need to plan but you also need to plan on the fly because things rarely work out the way you want them to.

On a more personal level - we just got back Sasha's ashes the other day. Sad sad sad. I get thinking about Sasha and that gets me thinking about death and that gets me thinking about my sister. It'll be one year since she died on October 13th. I find myself thinking about her last weeks out there in Oklahoma with a person that was ill equipped to deal with her problems. I wonder if she had a good day at all - some measure of happiness or whether it was all frustration.

I miss her.

For the past few years Clarisa and I have been surrounded by death. I'll tell you what, it certainly helps to put things in perspective and appreciate those quiet times when everything is going generally well. It also makes you more aware of your life. Take work for example - in general they expect you to stay late and "get it done" because that is what must be done. They expect you to work like you are immortal.

Guess what.

So my advice, folks, is don't wait. Do. Not. Wait. Work for sure, but don't forget to live.

As for me? I've signed up for and have started taking a black and white photography class at SVA. I'm not sure where it will lead but I'm along for the ride. We're supposed to be shooting "motion" and practicing panning and blurring and freezing. Right now it's cool and overcast and I have some 400 speed Tri-X film loaded up and I think I'll go shoot.