I went b/w picture crazy today

Slowly getting the hang of the manual settings on my camera.

This wasn't the best picture but it's the most personal

Tried to join 2 'meet-up' groups too - one digital photography, the other a lighting and model group. Worried that the second will be perverts and / or camera snobs. First shoot is miles north of here - under a waterfall - in January (*!#!) We shall see

What a gay day (Pt. MCMXXVII)

move
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

Started the day with a one2one Pilates session. Much more variety today and just in time I was beginning to suspect that Pilates was little more than the ‘art of sucking in your stomach’. To be sure a useful art to master, especially as the oldest and heaviest resident of Williamsburg, but not really worth the $5k a year I’m going to be blowing on sessions. Luckily today was much better, more variety in the exercises, a noticeable improvement in the strength and flexibility of my upper spine and some real pain to boot. I felt so good afterwards I showered at the gym (always a brave choice with so many fit but unhygienic young souls around) – I’ll expect the athlete’s foot any day now.

I followed the gym with a Deep Tissue, Hot Stone massage – part relaxation, part torture as the questionable ethos of Bikram Yoga (your muscles will be more stretchy if you only do the exercise in a room heated to almost unbearable) are applied to massage and scalding rocks are placed on ‘muscle knots’ in a bid to have them gentle ease themselves enough to be mercilessly worked by the bullet knuckled masseur.

The afternoon was spent voting on the best 100 Nudes on flickr. You get to hit the best 100 by challenging an existing pic on the Hot 100 and having the members vote you in. I said yes to anything that looked dark and sumptuous and no to the pictures with distracting genitalia.

Easy viewing of my flickr pics can now be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenjude/
They’re not great pics yet but I promise to edit more tightly going forward and to only use the MANUAL setting on my camera unless speed demands that I do otherwise.

Right now I’m off to drink the wine that Jude described as tasting like “a dehydrated tramp’s piss – only less alcoholic.”… she is a charmer.

Real terror

Standing in Judgement
Originally uploaded by Black Glenn.

So over the past 6 weeks or so I've been gaining weight. Not a great deal of weight but enough to worry me for all kinds of reasons. Having once been described as 'The Oprah Winfrey' of advertising by a friend who I saw only occasionally (and who always wondered whether e was goingto be meeting Karen Carpenter or Ten Tonne Tesse) I know swings in weight but the latest is the most baffling as all of my clothes still seem to fit and I don't feel utter revulsion at my reflection (unless of course it's my reflection in a harshly lit changing room mirror - why do they do that?)

So let's put half of the weight gain down to my love of alcohol, chocolate chip cookies and my latte habit. Why only half? Because I've cut down on those things since my weight was static that's why - and because I refuse to allow the creeping of the scales towards their maximum to be anything other than dread disease or personal triumph.

In my mind the other half of the gain will be down to one of two things. Muscle weight (I have been going to the gym more often) or tumor weight (I am due a cancer relapse). Trouble is that I haven't been going to the gym THAT hard and I was given an all clear from cancer only 3 months ago (I have new scans due in a couple of weeks I think) meaning that unless the tumors are growing at a rate unheard of since sea monkies first burst onto the scene it's not that either.

Of course until I have my next scan I'm going to imagine it is.

Anyway a mystery worthy of Jessica Fletcher... meanwhile I'm back off to the gym in a bid to sweat off some poundage.

The missing resolution

Dance of Shiva
Originally uploaded by kuriakonz.

I want to take the photography much more seriously this year - fewer snapshots and a whole lot more style.

I'll start by taking a shot of the umpteen concrete mixers outside of the house (they're building 5 new condo buildings on my street alone) - from the 5th floor I'm sure I can make it look like 'toytown construction'

That's all - just a check in

Resolutions

Xmas_lunch
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

I don't usually make resolutions - let alone public resolutions. I find thas as a person I'm far from resolute. Vague internal half promises I'm good at - plans of action I'm not. I'm more of a 'this year I'll deal with shit as it happens' kind of a person.

But 2007 is a year that I didn't expect to see and it's a year where I find myself sans excuses. So here goes.

This is the year where I'm going to work up a sweat at least once a day. A year in which I start to enjoy physicality and to really push myself.

This year will see me in the best shape of my life. I'll continue with the pilates and throw in some extra gym sessions each week. It's going to be the year where summer is spent shirtless and shameless.

This is the year where I make an effort to actually learn Dutch. I have the Rosetta Stone manual - all I need now is a bucket of phlegm (you need it, believe me) and and hour a day. That I can do.

This is the year where I start cooking again. In Australia what I tended to eat was natural, healthy and unprocessed. I've let that go - and having helped out a little with 'real food' over Xmas I want to get back to it. Bye bye shopping once a month - hello shopping once a day.

This is the year when I take a couple of decent vacations. I have 25 days a year again (vs. the 10 standard here) and I will use each and every one of them. A vacation to see old friends, a vacation to lay on a beach and a vacation full of adventure - that's the plan.

And finally this is the year in which I'll finish my Ad book. It's been too long - and it's not that hard. Again an hour a day and 4 hrs at weekends should see me finish soon. It will be considerably better written than this blog too (hasn't this been poor recently?)

That's it I think. I am resolute. 2007 is way past my dead-by date and it will be enjoyed.

In the words of Noddy Holder

blurryxmas
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

"It's Christmas"

Merry, merry - one and all

Christmas Eve

songbirds
Originally uploaded by hbomb1947.

Though with the sunshine brilliant and blinding and the temperature at around 13C it doesn't quite feel that way. Still good news for the carolling in Washington Square Park

Have realized that what we need is a Christmas Eve tradition - something that hooks us into the holiday regardless of where we are in the world. I know that sans kids it's harder - but there has to be something - from treating a midnight mass as a free 'appetizer' through to watching some crap old 'only at Xmas' TV show.

Suggestions - of the helpful kind - gratefully received