Project 365 - April 2009

My Project 365 mosaic for April 2009. I actually like a lot of these individual photos, but they look weird in the mosaic form.

Day Two Hundred and Twelve: Salt & Pepper II

My salt and pepper shakers from home. I stayed home today (in bed mostly) and studied for tomorrow's exam.

Day Two Hundred and Eleven: Hugs

These are the salt and pepper shakers at one of my favorite Thai restaurants. Cory and I went there for dinner yesterday after I finished taking the second of my comprehensive exams (on 20th century African American and Native American narrative).


And here's a little triptych I created. It looks like it could either be two figures running toward each other in slow motion to hug or two figures starting to wrestle. I prefer the former, but every now and then it looks more like the latter.

Day Two Hundred and Ten: New Balance

A shoe. On my bedroom floor. I like the blues and yellows in this shot.

Day Two Hundred and Nine: Blue

Today I wrote the first part of my comprehensive exams for my Ph.D. I'm now preparing for Day 2 on Wednesday, and then I'll be preparing for Day 3 on Friday, so I'm not planning to spend too much time worrying about photography this week.

Day Two Hundred and Eight: Yawn

Gracie has such a big mouth.

Day Two Hundred and Seven: Salt & Pepper

Cory came out to Arlington and we spent a good deal of time playing Guillotine at Braum's. It was fun.

Day Two Hundred and Six: Hatchbike

I found this stationary bike out by the dumpster the other day and of course brought it in to see if it worked. It totally does (even if it is a little noisy). It looks like it could potentially be as old as I am. When Cory saw it, he said it looked like it belonged in the hatch from Lost. So now I call it my hatchbike.

Day Two Hundred and Five: Live!

I don't normally take advice from trash cans, but I like what this one has to say.

Day Two Hundred and Four: Three

Another long day: laundry, reading for tomorrow's class, studying, grading, running errands.

Also! I found out that I will receive a dissertation fellowship in the fall, which will give me a course load reduction for that semester and, therefore, more time to work on my dissertation. This is a huge relief for me.

And one more thing! Happy Earth Day!

Day Two Hundred and Three: Geometry

I don't really like this one, but I was so tired by the time I remembered I hadn't taken a picture that I didn't have the energy to try for something I liked better. It was a long day.

Day Two Hundred and Two: Sheraton

Driving home from Cory's this afternoon, I took a detour through downtown Dallas to avoid the highway traffic. It's not so much that I thought it would save me time as that I'd rather go slowly through town and look at interesting things than sit still on the highway and stare at the ugly cement walls surrounding me. At any rate, on this day it definitely would've been faster to stick with the highway because I made a couple of wrong turns and wound up circling around for a while before I finally made my way out of downtown on the other side.

But I got to take pictures while I did it, so I guess that's okay.

Day Two Hundred and One: Field of Lights

Cory and I went to the Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth. We met up with Rachel, Heather, and Chris. This was taken inside the Fort Worth Public Library, where they held a free film festival as part of the Arts Festival.

It was a fun day.

Day Two Hundred: Fixture

I appear to be on a light kick. This is the bathroom light fixture at Cory's.


On a completely unrelated note, I went to a show at Good Records that night and got to see Erykah Badu perform. It was awesome.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Nine: Droplets

Today was a rough day. I didn't really have it in me to spend time taking a better picture. (I think this is my least favorite picture so far this project.)

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Eight: Light & Dark

This is straight out of the camera, no editing at all. I don't really have much to say about it. I had a long day and went to bed pretty soon after taking this.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Seven: Balance

Today I am beginning an attempt to restore some balance to my life. Last fall I built some good eating and exercise habits and then I let them all go over the winter (partly because of the weather and partly because of my renewed focus on my schoolwork), which means that I gained some weight and feel kind of out of shape. So today I went to the park and rode my bike and resolved to start paying better attention to what I'm eating again. Hopefully in the near future I can get back to where I was last fall because I felt really good then.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Six: Doorknob

“Every exit is an entrance somewhere else.”

~Tom Stoppard

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Five: Tricks of the eye

This is part of my apartment's window lock. It's like a neat little optical illusion. Do you see a C or an F in this?

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Four: Bookworm

This is my bookworm from Giant Microbes. I keep it on top of my bookshelves. Mighty cute, huh?

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Three: Numbers

This is the keypad on my cellphone. Every now and then I'm reminded of how dependent upon it I am. Its battery died the other day when I was away from my apartment and didn't have a charger. Not only was it harder to connect with the outside world (at least when I didn't have my laptop or at least with some people who don't ever check their email) but I had a harder time telling what time it was. I never wear a watch any more; I just pull out my cell phone whenever I need to know what time it is. Fortunately, though, it's now charging so I won't have to be cut off and lost any more.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Two: Procrastination

Study for comps or play Rock Band?

On this day, Rock Band won. I did get some studying done, but far less than I should have. On the upside, I am more proficient at the guitar on Rock Band than I was before and I created a character for myself and played enough to buy her some cool clothes.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-One: Leaning

I wound up driving all around Dallas this evening because of my brother. He invited me to come out and see his friend play somewhere downtown with him, but then he didn't answer his phone when I got to his place, and since he didn't tell me where his friend was playing, I headed over to Cory's instead. On the way there, I took pictures from inside the truck. When I finally got almost all the way to Cory's my brother called me and said he'd forgotten his phone earlier, but told me where the show was going to be. A few minutes later, he called to say that the guy was going on stage right then.

So I gave up on that plan and just stayed in at Cory's for the evening. Oh well.

Day One Hundred and Ninety: Ukulele

I sing and play the piano, but I'm always wanting to learn to play new instruments. For a brief period in college, I was learning the clarinet, but I didn't get very far. I have wanted to learn the guitar for a long time, as well as the accordion and the autoharp. For now, however, I have landed on the ukulele as the instrument to learn.


My new ukulele arrived in the mail today and I have been teaching myself some basics. I have been practicing off and on during the day today and now my fingers hurt. But I'm still having fun.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Nine: Beat Up by Love

Here is another one of Gracie's toys. I don't even know where this originally came from any more, but she loves it. She loves it so much that I almost couldn't take pictures of it because she kept stealing it. She loves it so much that she got mad at me for trying to keep her from it for just a moment. She even hissed at me. She never hisses at me.

And her love is very apparent in the way its face is deformed, its ears are misshapen, and its seams are coming apart. She is loving this toy to death.

Textures by les brumes.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Eight: Tattered Toy Turtle

This is one of Gracie's toys. I bought it at the aquarium in Chicago. Gracie has a few of these small stuffed animal toys and she will play with them completely by herself, which is awesome. Other cats I've had that would play with toys were only interested if a) they involved catnip, or b) they had a human on the other end, making them move. But Gracie will grab her toy, throw it up in the air, and then go chasing after it. I love it.

Textures by Pink Sherbet Photography.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Seven: iPod

I still think the iPod is a miraculous bit of technology. Plus, it's so cute.

Mine has this quote from Friedrich Nietzsche engraved on its back: "Without music, life would be a mistake." Totally.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Six: Tilt

There's an old theater near a construction site for a rail extension in Dallas. I've wanted to take photos of it for a long time (before it gets demolished, which it seems is likely to happen soon), but until today every time I drove by with that in mind there were shady characters hanging around. It's not in a nice neighborhood. So I would just keep on driving. Today, however, the area was pretty clear, so I got out and took a few pictures.

And here are a few more of the pictures I took there.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Five: Broken Light

This is one of the least edited photos I've used for Project 365 in a while. I only cropped it to 16x9 and barely adjusted the contrast; I didn't play with the colors or exposure at all. I like the photo as is, but I also kind of missed the editing process.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Four: Yes! We Have No Bananas

I don't think I've ever actually heard the song "Yes! We Have No Bananas," but it has still insinuated its way into my brain. So much so that when I was trying to think of a bananas-related title for this photo, that was the first thing that came to mind and I just couldn't shake it.

My brain seems to be particularly good at holding on to irrelevant bits of information like this. Unfortunately, this skill (?) seems only to be useful for playing Trivial Pursuit and impressing older people by knowing things from the popular culture of their generation. I remember, for instance, amazing my grandmother when I, no older than 10 years old, correctly answered a Trivial Pursuit question about the Road movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy L'Amour. She was downright shocked that I knew who Dorothy L'Amour was.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Three: Locked Up

“LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.”

~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Project 365 - March 2009

This marks the halfway point in my Project 365 journey. Six months down and six to go!

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Two: Survivor

“I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them...”

~Annie Dillard

Textures by Pink Sherbet Photography.