365 True Things: 149/Journal

Yesterday I was in a panic because I couldn't find my journal. It's not a diary-journal, but a writer's journal, as well as a student's notebook: full of all sorts of this and that.

But today I found it, buried under a couple of ink cartridges in the backseat of my car. It's got all sorts of treasures. Ones I could live without, but I'd rather not.

The very first page contains a to-do list for 6/17/13. With items that I still put on my to-do lists (some of them probably never accomplished once since that day in June . . . hope springs eternal): 5 mi walk, pack SAR pack, organize one shelf in gear room, 15. And so forth.

Then there's a list of German words from In Zeiten des Abnehmenden Lichts that I wasn't familiar with: glotzen (goggle, gawp), tupfen (swab, dot), krepieren (die, perish; kick the bucket); Gier (greed), Schniefen (sniffling), außer Rand und Band (beside oneself or, in the case of children, completely out of hand). That probably took care of page one of the book. My German isn't especially practiced anymore.

Then—and the loss of these is what I was panicked about—notes from a workshop on Molokai focusing on iPhoneography. The culprit in my descent into photographic "appiness." The notes contain lots of really excellent information that I rarely look at—except this, sometimes, on those rare occasions when I get around to processing photos:

5-STEP TANGO for Lightroom (RAW exposure):

1. WB (white balance) and crop
2. autoexpose (and undo if needed—which it usually is)
3. exposure (midtones); clarity (+); shadow (+); highlight (–) (typically)
4. whites/blacks
5. vibrancy/vignette

That's the simple dance card. Making good photos is more difficult. But I try. I should probably read through the ten pages of notes I took during that excellent workshop again.

A few pages of SAR tasks, stories I've read, notes for Amber Moon (my ongoing fiction project). To-do lists. Always those.

Poetry scribblings.

Kurosawa: "To be an artist means never to avert your eyes."
Miles Davis: "Man, you don't play what you know, you play what you hear."
Butler Olen: going back to the way the chaos is first encountered—moment to moment through your senses

Einstein on the Beach (a failed effort to watch the entire opera: I got maybe half an hour in)

AWP Seattle: 10 pages of notes

Wilderness First Responder notes: 32 pages

hypnagogic patterns: transitional state between wakefulness and sleep; can include a mesmerizing array of visions

"The poor things cannot put Wednesday on top of Tuesday to save their lives." Robert Stone, "Helping"

"Mine deeper." Herman Melville

workshop with Andre Dubus III—much more than I can summarize or even pull from here. One thing I took from those few days: Wicked smaaat.

KEEP OPENING DOORS. Don't forget the question mark.

An evrgrn sticker.

notes on poetry (many pages: a MOOC through Iowa State University); interspersed with to-do lists;  geocaching calculations

Norway jottings: back to me

and back to lists

I am especially glad to have recovered this notebook because of the 5-step tango. That's what I tell myself. But really, my whole life of the past couple of years is here. No, not my whole life. But some really interesting bits of it.

Happy.