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…in which Kacey talks about his miserable failure as a student and a person.

Tonight is my first night to try to print photos since I took a hiatus from my MFA photo work last September. It has been an excersize in horrible, near suicidal, frustration and self loathing. Not only do I have only 9 semi-decent photos (where I should have “20 or so”), I can’t get anything to print anywhere that I would ever even feel comfortable putting out for people to see.

I had suspicions that it would be a bad night before I even left the house because my eye-strain was particularly bad already. I really need to get these glasses looked at again. I’ve never been this uncomfortable with a pair of glasses in my life, and I’ve been wearing glasses since the third grade. That aside, upon entering my studio, I recalled how flaky my studio computer has been lately. It likes to crash. A lot. I hoped for the best, plugged in the new UPS (praying that the crashing was actually a result of the shitty power out here in the studio building) and powered the computer up. Before I could even start working on my photos, the computer had already crashed three times. I held my temper very tightly and simply fretted every time I had to reboot, hoping that that would be the last crash for the night, and constantly disapointed as the screen froze up and I had to reach over and reboot the thing again.

After nearly three hours on that computer, I had crashed almost every five minutes and, during the longest stretch of stability, had printed one very purple print. Just to be clear, the photo was not purple, it was not supposed to be purple, it did not even look good purple. I was just about to give up when I remembered we have an all new print lab in the building with some brand new Intel iMac computers and some top-of-the-line Epson printers. I figured that if I could get the comptuer to be stable just long enough, I might be able to burn a CD of the nine images and go down to the new lab and print. It took two tries, but I got the CD burned and was able to head down the hall. Once there, I realized that the software I use (Adobe Lightroom) was not on the comptuers. Fortunately (and the only fortune I’ve had all night, really) is that I’m the administrator for these computers. I need software? I install software. I installed the application and started importing my photos only to find that the CD wasn’t perfect. One of the photos failed to burn correctly. It was probably the weakest one, but now that means my paltry nine, are now a impotent eight. One step forward, two steps back.

So anyway, I shake it off and start trying to print. After taking a few minutes to get acclimated to the new environment and hardware, I get printing. The first photo comes out so-so. Its a duplicate of the purple photo from before, and while its no longer purple, its now just a bit dark. Its not so bad and I might could sell it off as intentional. The second and third photos, however, are all coming out dark. Its getting bad, and I can’t seem to find an option to make them better. I’ve printed three different photos, all of them are too dark. One of them I’ve printed three times, changing settings each time, and each time its almost the same. I’m having a really hard time (especially now, that its almost 10:30 and I still haven’t even had dinner), not just quitting for the night and seeing if I can delay my critique another week.

I really don’t want to do that because I’ve almost consistently been the last to produce work, the last to show work, and the one to request the most extensions (with pretty much the only exception being my boss, who is also in the class – which is a completely different level of awkward). I want to be productive and proactive. I want to be all those “pro” words, but instead I’m lazy, uninspired, and far too often unmotivated. I have a hard time getting myself to do the things I “should” do, even if once I do them, I enjoy them. I love taking photos, and I love doing photo shoots, but I hate planning them and even prepping for and driving to them. I need a crew of assistants and a secretary. That stuff only comes with fame, and fame comes with drive and initiative.

Sometimes, I really wonder if I have the drive to do this. Sometimes, I really wonder if I have the drive to do anything worth while. I’m good to my friends, but I’m not all that good to myself.

I’ve been pondering moving my journal to a wordpress blog or some other self-hosted service rather than livejournal, again. I don’t have any problems with livejournal, at all, don’t get me wrong. Its just that sometimes I would like a bit more creative freedom and would like to make my blog MINE. There are certain things that I can’t do on livejournal (such as have my flickr and twitter widgets up all the time) that I could do with a blog on my own site. What I think I may do is research what it would take to portal any entries directly from an individual blog straight into livejournal so that I would effectively be double-posting. The other alternative would be to set up an RSS feed for my offsite journal and have that be my livejournal presence.

Again, I’m just pondering and may or may not ever do it. Its just when I see the most successful blogs, they’re all self hosted. Not that I ever think I’m going to have a successful blog. Shyeah, whatevah.

Addendum (11:43 am): Looks like there’s actually several Worpress/LiveJournal Crossposting Tools. I may have to really start looking into getting my new URL, starting a new (more personal/photo based) website, and trying to be a more serious blogger.

In case you haven’t heard, our dog, Knight, is in bad shape. We’re still not sure what’s wrong with him, but he’s been to the vet three times this month and his condition is deteriorating. It all started with, what the vet call, “drunk leg syndrome.” I called it “fishtailing.” Basically, whenever he went around corners (like around the couch or whatever) his hind legs would swing out wide. We watched him for a few days, and then he started showing genuine weakness in his hind legs (wouldn’t hop up and put his front paws on my chest). We took him to the vet, they checked some things and then the next day did some x-rays. The doctor couldn’t find anything, but said his symptoms were symbolic of pressure on his spine.

Well, now, two weeks later, his condition has severely degraded. The steroids he was given for the swelling in his spine have resulted in something far worse. The vet still doesn’t know what’s wrong, but he suspects a number of things. At the very least, there a good chance he has a couple of harsh infections, so Knight is now on a couple of different antibiotics. He still hasn’t ruled out lymphoma, which is really scary. As for his physical condition, he can barely stand and often can’t even do that. Tonight he couldn’t do any more than lay flat on his side and occasionally shuffle a couple feet around on the floor. He’s been panting and moaning a lot tonight, which is upsetting Ia, unfortunately. She’s been barking at him apparently.

Anyway, we’re really concerned about him now and we’re really hoping for the best. We’re hoping that the antibiotics will kick something out of him in the next day or so and then he’ll be standing and running around the house again. Cross your fingers and hope for the best. He’s a good dog, and doesn’t deserve this discomfort.

I know this entry is a bit splotchy, but right now I’m distracted, concerned, tired and my eyes are all googly. I really need to go back and complain about my glasses again.