September 2024

The city side of my family was big into bowling. Grandparents and great uncles and great aunts all participated in bowling leagues. Grandma City was often found on the “Davenport” on Saturday afternoons watching people bowl on the television. It was a way of life.

My work sponsored an employee bowling tournament in the spirit of team building. It’s an interesting thing, building a team across several continents in places where there may not be another employee from the same company for more than a hundred miles. In these Work From Home instances, we were encouraged to take half a day off and go bowling with our family. To enter into the tournament we needed to take some photos, submit our scores, etc.

Earl and Jamie went bowling with me and we had a really nice time. I thought it would be dead on a Monday afternoon but half the lanes were in use. I’m not much of a bowler, but I did my best.

Earl and I decided to make a spontaneous trip to Phoenix yesterday. We did some shopping along the way, stopping at the outlets outside of Tucson and enjoying the autumn weather.

Last night we went to a local brewery for supper and then out to one of the local gay clubs where I watched people do their gay thing. I didn’t talk to many people, other than my husband and the bartender, but folks around me seemed to be having fun. I did too. I’m happy as an observer.

We’re headed back to Tucson in a little bit. This adventure has been fun and my head is in a good place.

There’s going to be quite a bit of photographic content on the blog over the next few days as I try out all the features on my iPhone 16 Pro.

Tonight I was inspired by the Moonrise behind the Rincon Mountains to the east of Tucson. The Rincons are about two miles from the house, and often make for some dramatic photographs.

It’s been three years. It was time. Today my new iPhone 16 Pro arrived.

I purchased this new iPhone primarily because of the camera. I’m intending on this iPhone becoming a significant contributor to my photo and video adventures I have been having as of late.

I really like the way the second photo of our landscape came out, in that it seems a bit sharper to me.

This is one of my favorite photos from this year. Taken in Gould, Oklahoma.

When people first hear their recorded voice, they’re surprised to learn they don’t sound in the world the way they sound to themselves.

It’s only natural to believe this extends to how people see themselves visually.

I was watching the stand up routine of a relatively unknown comedian the other day, who mentioned that evolution takes thousands of years, and there’s a really good chance that the human brain can barely handle the knowledge of what we look like, let alone the bombardment of information we get on a minute by minute basis in today’s all connected world.

This got me thinking about self perception in a myriad of ways.

I have been online in some fashion for most of my life. I first started scanning in photographs and using digital cameras and webcams that took grainy, tiny pictures way back in the mid 1990s. Sharing this information online for nearly 30 years has portrayed my personal evolution. As I have gone through the natural process of aging, my self image has adjusted itself accordingly. I don’t look in a mirror expecting to see a man with ginger hair and mustache or beard; I am a realist and I know the wrinkles are showing more, what hair I have left is gray, and I am perfectly comfortable with the aging process. While in reality I am vain in many ways, my vanity extends to more of my entire being and my desire to be truthful as to who I am.

This may sound a little self centered, but there are probably two photos that accurately portray how I see myself. These two photos capture my physical appearance as well as how I see my own demeanor. I keep these photos at the top of my physical journal because they not only show how I see myself, but they give me a goal to be an honest portrayal of myself. I don’t know if these photos represent how other people see me. I know how people often want to see me, but I tend to tune that noise out.

In case you’re wondering, here’s one of the two photos.

Here I am, standing alone in the desert, confident, and completely at peace with who I am both on the inside and the outside. I’m not smiling widely but I am content and I am happy.

There is an older photo, part of this self image “triad”, that also catches my vibe. I wrote a blog entry about this one about 10 years ago.

Again, I’m standing alone in a field, engaging in one of my “everything is connected” hobbies by admiring some power lines. I am content, I am happy, I am comfortable. My husband took this photo, as he is probably the only other one in the world that knows who I truly am today. While I stand alone, I know he’s always there. That’s all I need.

There’s a running joke with my husband that I tend to wear too much flannel when the weather allows for it and that I have too many “trailer trash hoodies”. The thing is, that’s who I am, or at the very least, that feels the most comfortable for me. It accurately portrays how I feel on the inside.

There are a lot of expectations in the world for people to look or act a certain way. In our youth obsessed culture, and in our flashy/influencer/grab-the-links intense online world, we are often expected to look or behave in a way that runs contrary to our internal wiring. I find this maddening and I find it a bit disheartening.

I can’t find my true happiness unless I am being true to myself. Oh, I can fake it and find fleeting hits of dopamine from comments by doing the flashy/influencer/grab-the-links thing, but it’s not who I really am.

My contentment is most present when the outside matches the inside. And that’s the best way I can take care of myself.

We are at that point in the year where I’m just tired of air conditioning. The days are cooling down just enough that I can sit outside during my lunch break and enjoy some moments of fresh air.

It is glorious.