My Laura / Our Philip / Phil Breeze / His Laura / (My Back Pages)

This is mine. Me. Hers. His. Isn't she spectacular? She was younger than me now ("...ahhhhhhhwww but I was, so much older then, I'm younger...than...that...nowwwwww...."), but already accomplished, a woman in many rights, about to meet me, having already met my Father...FF to 2009: Breezy (hi Breezy) is married to a Laura himself. Maybe Breeze was my Grandpa Philip in another life? Nah, that is too easily/literally circuitous... It is obvious we only have one life. Fucking soap operas always more accurate than we would like them to be...so, yesterday we spoke of my nanny project...for a long time. I had a rather intuitive / sensitive day; fascinating...and came to some (lame/obvious/true) realizations...albeit (can i say albe-them???) big realizations...albethem big realizations...my nanny project, hidden behind words like 'domestic workers' 'women of color' 'surrogate motherhood' and ideas that dance around class/politics/race and (now) two photos (Robert Frank / Ian Blueberry) of black nannies and white babies...is really nothing more than my exorcism regarding motherhood (past / present / possible future). Namely: no one else could have raised me. i am not ready for the ineffable. i still have an umbilical chord (we joke mom, but really...). she had me at 28. i look like her to an extent but not exactly alike...which i guess i see loosely speaking to the idea of nannies as CHOSEN mothers, not chance mothers...and what does it do to a white boy (pardon me) to look at a beautiful woman from Granada for the first 8 years of his life? Nothing? Anyway, all of a sudden it got more complex. Especially when OURS is nothing but unconditional singular LOVE---and love, the word, the sound, the idea, the power of it---has no place in academics, does it? Not even in art...not so explicitly as what I guess I am drawn to BY NATURE: warmth, accessibility, acceptance, touch...in sum: warm fucking fuzzies!...that is not cutting edge journalism, now is it? is what i really am exorcising is a big exhale, a photographic-"phew" at the luckiness of the situation i was born into?! this little Laurita was essentially, born for me?! Isn't that how children see their world? I am the sun/daughter, and you turn around and for me?

Ironic, because I thought, if anything, I'd be exorcising father-issues in my photography, not Mother issues...because she and I have none...

Anyway, I disappointed myself a little bit...even though I know, in my heart of hearts of palm, I am not a particularly controversial type...although I suppose we write about what we know / and we photograph what we know, or didn't know we know, or need to know more or WHATEVER...and SHE is the only thing I KNOW. She is that place Barthés talks about, after Freud...she is my landscape, that familiar, particular space from which I will/must build everything...this specific photographic (project) process, then, has been more than just a logorrhea of confused words and ideas, or a relapse into bulimic tendencies as exorcism, or an exorcism of self and images, but an actual heimlich...heimlich: an "awakening in me the Mother...."

(pg. 40 - Camera Lucida)

Bailarinas (Fuck a Wheel Chair)

Better than drugs but just as addictive is something which gives you life and makes you move as a testament to the life you're trying / unwillingly / willingly / instinctively living.

Marinita / Vertical Jazz Hands

An English rose she is...managing to grow despite the 12 months of rain (Pop just lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvves the color grey. ab-so-looote-lee ah-dorrrres the colour grey.....). I wonder how she is and if she will be much different at 10. I bet she'll be married before me...OKAY OKAY, not a contest...I know...it's just that I'm psychic, that's all.

Marinita Rose Borja
Grows
Has her Mama's toes
chose
to love me
despite distance
in turn
we both grows...

damn...ROBERTA FROSTING OVER HEAH!!!!

behind every good elmo is a good man

...elmo has a face. here it is. so does bugs bunny, or doesssssssssssssssss he? for 6 months i've seen elmo handing out pamphlets in times square. last week i saw the man behind the elmo mask getting ready for work. bugs bunny was nice, too, but felt he was less photogenic, and stayed out of the frame as such...

today i realized i take photos of people in serious service, 'service' positions (nannies / bussboys / elmos) because it is my ultimate fear--fear--that i am not the princess i always thought i was (treated as / within our means / somehow / money comes...) and that someday (tomorrow) i will have to work very, very, very, very, very hard for something that i want monetarily and personally...i want to be proud about what i'm doing! but that is a luxury, of course. i'm sure a lot of people working in midtown, for starters, wish they had a mask / costume to jump into when they arrived at work in the morning...as a title often doesn't mean shit about the man, or the woman.

wanting and waiting is a dubious combo. i'm dumping both tonight.

la princesa

What We Saw (Me First, Then You) : For JJ

JJ and I went to Sunset Park this week for our first ever business meeting..."business meeting" i.e. we ate tacos and marveled at the shortcomings of the tomatillo sauce at Tacos Xochimilco. We drew up a list of places this girl could begin writing to and shooting for (hi) close to now...or graduation. Before the business meeting we walked through Sunset Park and down 5th Avenue. I realized then that walking with me and JJ is like hoping to swim laps in the ocean...not quite efficient...ambitious, but maybe fruitless / unrelated...nor do we strive to be! Anyway, between us there is a hypersensitivity to the world that delays any of our ambles anywhere...he 'discovered' food before I 'discovered' photography...but now we are both obsessed (read: PASSIONATE) people with our own FILTERS for life and our day to day...he sees a lot through food / history / tastes / words / chefs / high brow low brow / languages and I see a lot...I see a lot. Or I look a lot. Not sure which. Either way, looking proves antithetical to talking AND walking, let alone spending QT with a person AND A CAMERA...IT'S IMPOSSIBLE for me, which is why AMBLING is my favorite game and HAN SOLO is my favorite name...Anyway, it's JJ...I can talk and shoot, right? I can smell and sniff chillies with him and also take pictures, no? The lovely thing is that via our respective passions, each day holds the possibility of NEW / MORE...not in a greedy way, but in an optimistic (opportunistic?) way...i.e., every day we embrace the potential to create something (phrased most positively there).....................Long story short, no, long ramble longer: we walk down Sunset Hill (official name) and I see a white horse in the trees. I ask Jay Juh if that looks like a white horse...he says what? where? I point there! over there! He says no. I said ok, let me take a picture and we'll see if we can't make the bag turn into a little white horse. He says: "you're insane, Train." We continue on, finally settling down to our business meeting. We taste the tomatillo sauce. He says it should be fresher and tangier. I have nothing to measure this against. I am at the mercy of his word. I trust him. Is that insane?

Young Love #1: Belinda / James

If you were me, would you make the same joke that I did about his black eyes? Think about it for a second...if your answer is somewhere along the lines of "ohhhhhhh don't let your girl beat you like that..." or something equally inane, then you, too, are an old person: LIKE ME! I know this because he quickly exhaled "that's what every body's been saying!".... I am officially OUT THE LOOP...FREEZING COLD OUT ON THE STOOP...BANISHED TO THE POOP (DECK)!

My goodness I love these kids. They go to "City as High School," which is -- if it lives up to its name -- an amazing idea. By the same token, then, my high school should have been called "Uniformity as Desirable" or "Dickheads as Male Friends," or something...dunno...anyway, I have been seeing a lot of wonderful couples on the train lately. They are so beautiful. I can't wait for spring.