Here is where my father’s heart has not beat on its own for the past 70 minutes; a machine is doing that work for him, while doctors take a vein from his leg and fashion a new path for his blood to flow.

Here is the sharp edge of the rough side, the hang time of the hardest part. (Or so it seems; it’s only gotten more difficult so far, with a tough recovery ahead, but there has to be a time when things begin to turn back to the light.)

Here is where I saw daffodil shoots poking out of snowy ground the other day. I am taking this as a sign, but then, everything feels that way lately. Another week of this, and I’ll be keening on my knees, throwing bless yous and hosannas in every direction. (There are no atheists in the OR waiting room. Not when your dad’s under the knife.)

Here is where we had a stupid crash two days ago, two large truckbeasts glancing off each other to no particular injury other than fenders and front ends (although mom still feels dumb for misreading the sign, and I can only guess dad felt that his outer shell had been breached, as it has been breached again today.)

Here is where we’re all fragile and underslept, just loopy with worry. Do not trust us with vital items or heavy machinery.

Here is my 4th hotel and 8th place to sleep in the past 3 weeks. I am emotionally homeless; what is my address again? Surely someone knows where I am supposed to be? Oh, yeah…this is the only place I belong right now.

Here is where I still feel walloped by stupid shit every day. You’d think I’d have greater things to grieve than wasted time and blown hopes. But anger’s such a clarifying emotion; it can drive you through the days. And it’s giving me something else to think about while they work on my dad, my Quiver. (I’m delivering ninja kicks in my mind. Take that, motherfucker.)

Here is where I know who my friends really are (and thank you all for being here in spirit. I feel you beating beside me, like a small dog’s hummingbird heart beneath the covers). There are people all over the world who are hoping and praying for my dad right now. Thanks for all your concentrated thought on my family’s behalf.

Here is a fluorescent room where my mother is stitching on a quilt, one sister is flipping through elderly magazines, and the other is putting a jigsaw puzzle together; it’s 500 pieces that add up to a clapping otter, and she’s more than halfway through. We are frightened, hopeful, sometimes snappish, and often tickled by something only we four would find funny.

Here is where we are waiting.

map

The Subtle Rudder is too busy taking pictures to keep posting them. Also, there is the napping. More soonish, I promise!

Image via

No words, just <3.

I am PWD. That’s Posting While Drunk, in case you can’t read my sake acronym. So far this week, I’ve done icky graffiti, adorable baby, and now a dog shot, which fits my basic flow of cute infant, cute mutt, something edgy. (So basically, I’ve killed 2 girls with 1 cup by posting an unsettling animal today.) This also fits my definition of a guerilla street portrait, because LOOK AT THOSE EYES. He’s all bitch, plz, get that thing outta my face. Clearly, I am a puparrazo, stalking the four-legged fur-bearers. And no, I have no idea whether I spelled that correctly. PWD, people!

It’s raining, y’all, and my voice has gone froggy, so I’m hiding out in my hotel room, wearing pajamas and waiting for comfort food. Thank god for ice skating on the TV tonight, and also for the balm of adorable babies. Maddie’s hard to take a bad shot of, although I’ve managed a few that were jostly and poorly framed. This one makes me go all eeeee inside, though; almost as good as this or this.

I’m not a bed and breakfast person (chatty makes me crabby), but I love the Parker Guest House on Church Street in the Castro. It’s right around the corner from where I used to live, and its two gracious yellow buildings feature a lot of this:

Mixed in with a lot of this:

I walked by it for years but had never been inside until I stayed there last time I was in town. I was in the cheapo room on the street then, the one where you share a bathroom with the person in the other cheapo room next door. Although I never saw him, I know my neighbor was a dude because he left the toilet seat up every time. Maybe he was raised by wolves, like some of my ex-boyfriends and male roommates.* Or perhaps he didn’t realize he was sharing the john with a sit-down-to-pee ladyperson; there were a lot of gay men staying there, after all. It could be that he was a Stander’s Rights activist, striking a blow against The Vagina Hegemony. Down with femme-centric urinary expectations; Up With The Toilet Seat!

The J-Church train went by while I was being shown my room that first time. “It’s a little noisy here on the street,” the desk clerk said. I told him not to worry, that I’d lived with the J-Church for four years and still missed its rumble. And that night, I had the best rest I’d had in months; better the din of the city than sleeplessness or self-medication.

When I stayed there this time, though, they were out of the bargain-rate rooms, so I got one with a king bed and an en suite bath, tucked cosily away in a cellphone dead zone. (Well, actually, I have AT&T, so the entire city is a dead zone. It’s the irritating horde of iPhone users that have swamped the system, apparently; in other words, MY OWN DAMN FAULT. I’m not sure why AT&T can’t invest a bit more in the infrastructure here, since this is one of the world capitols of technology, peopled as it is by early adopters and Apple-acolytes. I did have a lovely talk with my dad yesterday morning, though, while standing in the Parker’s sunny garden in a blessed two-bar location I’d sleuthed out.)

I only spent one night there this time, then moved on to a friend’s attic aerie last night (where I considered stealing his cushy pillows; I don’t think he’d have noticed if I just took one). Now I am en route to my next location, another hotel, where the seat is always down if that’s where you left it, but there’s no snorty pug angling for muffin in the morning, and the atmosphere offers an 80% reduction in muscle tone and fabulosity. This place is on the interstate north of the city, so the rhythm of transport that sings you to sleep is that of people alone in their cars, headed who knows where.

*Not you, Pedro!

…and you’ve got to rent a car and get to Palo Alto in an hour.

Love you, miss you, please don’t lose yr arms.

When I first started trying to figure out this photography thing (you know, two whole months ago), I read a lot about the exposure triangle: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. I found it all a little confusing, but then, I’m a tactile learner, not a theoretical one, and I had to really feel it in my fingers, to mess around with different settings and see what happened. One thing I’ve learned is that shutter speed is well named, because it’s all about the motion, whether you’re trying to stop the action of a running kid, a moving car, or a flying bird, or trying to show movement, using arty pan and blur effects.

I was delighted to learn how to stop motion with fast shutter speeds; which I first did here. But this shot’s the first time I’ve really shown motion with the camera, and I think it’s my action against the action of the bus that did it; a sort of reverse pan that makes me unaccountably happy, even though I probably did it all wrong. I’m just happy to capture a sense of the kinetic in two dimensions, all wrapped up in a cheerful yellow bow.

Today’s a quickie because I’m due at a dinner party across town in 45 minutes, and I have not yet begun to dress. After a couple days of social slacking, I’ve thrown myself back into it, with a trip to the Farmer’s Market this morning, lunch and shopping on 4th Street in Berkeley with old friends, and now this upcoming party with the foodie winers. Lucky me.

Oh, and there will be pictures. Did you have any doubt??

This was one of the first photos I took when I arrived at SFO last Sunday. Every shot that day was blurry, but hey, you work with what you get. Well, actually, you fiddle with all the dials, get a little pissy and swear-under-the-breathy, and then you change the lens. Finally, days later, you put the original lens back on the camera and notice that it’s set to manual focus. “D’oh,” you say, and there you go, you’re a little smarter now, you dumbshit. How does it feel?

So here’s the lesson: When everything is out of focus, you try to fix it. If you can, then yay, you’re learning. And if you can’t, you get to feel all thick and useless for a while (everyone should feel thusly unmoored at least once a day), until, finally, you let that go and call it art.