I drove up to Santa Barbara yesterday to make last week's postponed inspection tour of photographic enlarging easels for sale, a trip that was half research and half therapy, and came away mentally refreshed and in possession of a Saunders easel model #U1417.  This device meets all my photographic needs, but it also meets my criteria for new manly equipment; it's made of heavy gauge steel, has been calibrated, has hinges, blades, and numbers on it, and locks down.  Thwap.  Chonk.  Whrrr.

Originally, the trip was a reconnaissance mission for a future mail-order strike, but when the clerk at the store selling my target item insisted, after my denial, that I was a student, I caught his drift, admitted to being an undergraduate, and sailed home 7lbs. and $30 heavier than if I'd made my purchase online.

So I'm all warm and inspired now, anxious to turn on the safelight and slap in some paper.

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Two more neighbors have succumbed to birthdays recently and the celebration to honor their withering carcasses was held at Dave and Millie's last night.  Lizzie and Millie are navigating their early middle forties, well-charted waters with shallows and depths enough to keep them on their toes until the last of the kids have left their respective nests five or six years from now.  The barbecue was punctuated by the presence of teenagers who brought along their moods and ideas clouded by the standard urges and fears.  Matt, fresh out of cop school, returned for a visit from his new pad in San Diego sporting a lovely metal ring through his lower lip.  This wowed us.  Wow is the word that falls off the tongue when one wonders at the circumstances that might compel this particular lad to do such a thing.  He mumbled and grunted something about girls and all the light that was needed was then shed upon the situation.

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I need new eyeglasses.  It's been a couple of years since my last prescription, and I'm taking them off more and more to read fine print.  Also, the right lenses on both my regular glasses and my sunglasses have scratches, annoying ones smack in the middle, so I think it's time for a change.  I'm considering going with a different style of frames.  I'm thinking something rounder.  Something less sleek.  In other words, something not me.  Ahem.

Despite my conscious will, my subconscious seems set on dragging me into the cliché of an artist's outward appearance, first with the goatee (which still thrives but curls with length, a condition I'm not sure I like yet), and now with the tendency toward bolder eyewear.  So, if someday soon you see me looking like clip art of an art professor who's full of himself, please remember I did my best to nip it in the bud.

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