30 Day Photography Challenge - Faceless Self Portrait

If you look really closely, you'll see a binder clipped stack of papers under the table. No, that's not the President's job bill, it's the manuscript in its many iterations.

I'm on a self-imposed deadline to get this work in progress finished. October 11. It's going to be finished come hell or high levels of anxiety. Okay, so the high levels of anxiety are a given.

In the meantime, I'm falling in and out of love, fighting fleas that don't play bass, hanging laundry on the line and scheming to be part of Occupy Wall Street. I might have to settle for Occupy Stonebrook Drive. Fuck. Because I'd rather drive to Chicago or NYC than deal with the lunacy of Atlanta traffic, that's why.

What have you got up your sleeve?

Randal gives me nightmares.

UPDATED:  Geoffrey is defined like this.  

UPDATED MORE! Summer and the amazing ponyholder!

30 Day Photography Challenge - 13 Things

First I took a photo of myself with thirteen books that meant something to me.

Okay now that I got that out of the way, here's one where you can actually see the books and not simply the narcissist with the camera and a mad penchant for photo editing.

1. Steven King's On Writing given to me by Lola Sharp.

2. The 3 a.m. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley, a gift from Kirie.

3. Trouble De Ville by Steve Denton who has also published the graphic novel Hip Deep Mountain High.

4. Do Not Disturb - Hotel Sex Stories, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. My friend Lillian Ann Slugocki has a deliciously erotic story included.

5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. One of my favorite stories ever.

6. The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott. Writer's crush does not even begin to describe it.

7. Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees. This book and Betsy's blog opened up a whole new world of friends to me and I'm forever grateful.

8. The Pat Hobby Stories by F.Scott Fitzgerald. I can still see myself reading these as I munched a turkey on rye with lettuce, tomato and mayo in the cafeteria of the Rotary International building in Evanston, Illinois. Back then it never would have occurred to me that I would take an active interest in the writing of screenplays and scripts.

9. Elizabeth Berg's Say When. It's the first of Berg's books I read. I have quite the collection now. 

10. The Art of Table Dancing by DC Stanfa. Pee your pants funny. DC does things I only wish I had the gonads to do.

11. The Preacher's Bride by Jody Hedlund. As a sore-headed agnostic, I am clearly not the target market for this book, but I was lucky enough to win this from Jody's blog and by page three, was a fan. Between topnotch research and wonderful prose, Jody writes the kind of historical fiction that has broad appeal.

12. The New Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie. It's full of detail about the novels and the movies. And Christie's relationship with her characters.

13. Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. I love Roth's novels. This one knocked my sandals off.

And then I had an email exchange with Randal who gave me an idea. He asked if I'd be photographed with thirteen bags of kitty litter? While that would have mass appeal, I'm sure, I don't have thirteen bags of litter hanging around. (I wish!) I thought about other items I could photograph myself with, but ended up dismissing them mostly because I didn't have 13 of this or that.

1. Thirteen cats. (We're six short and I intend to keep it that way.)
2. Thirteen sex toys. (Where would I hide that many?)
3. Thirteen clean towels. (It is to dream.)
4. Thirteen whistles. (I wish I had thirteen whistles!)
5. Thirteen vintage cars. (Alas I am not Jay Leno.)
6. Thirteen jars of olives. (Not even on my best stockpiling trips did I snag that many jars of olives!)
7. A baker's dozen of donuts. (Come one, like they'd survive past the first photo intact?)

Having hit all those brick walls, I went with this which I fondly call The Writer's Life. The sound I was making was like a cross between the yowling the cats make when I don't feed them fast enough and Fran Drescher's laugh.

Geoffrey makes glorious sounds. Please go and tell him that his butt looks fine.
Summer offers swoon worthy sunsets. SWOONWORTHY.

30 Day Photography Challenge: C'est Moi

While a lot of my writing energy has to be directed to my never-ending manuscript tweaks and a couple of side projects, I'm going to do this to help stretch my creativity. It's also going to give me something to blog about because the state of the world has reduced to me shouting expletives at felines and breaking things.

So while I stand by feeling helpless as the American Middle Class circles the drain, I'm going to fiddle. With my camera.

Source: whitepeachphoto.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Starting today.

1. Self portrait. Of course.

I went through a few variations on this. As much as it sickens me to say so, I am my favorite subject because 1) I'm a vain, vain woman and I don't trust anyone else to edit out the fat, wrinkles, and extra chinnery; and 2) I don't have to ask anyone's permission to portray me however I see fit. Those two items are not mutually exclusive.

And of course I couldn't decide which one to use.

Yes, I'm really doing this. What? You've posted your cleavage, you can't seriously expect us to believe the shy act now.

I could use a haircut.

Point, close eyes, shoot. Man, do I have my father's nose.

Feeling ridiculous. Or at least pretending to be.

Saturated.

And sepia-ed.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people who created digital photo editing. May all your wishes come true.

Love,

Lisa

P.S. Day 2 is what you wore today. Expect a shot of some cat dressed in my clothes. Because the day you get a full body shot of me? The only way it's tomorrow is like that quote - it never comes.

P.S.S. If any of you decide to do this, please let me know so I can link to you. Thanks. Also, if your self portrait looks better than mine, I'll be by with my Sharpies. You'll look fabulous with a devil beard or a Poirot mustache. And don't let anyone tell you any differently.

UPDATED: I have my first partner in crime. Geoffrey from What's Left in the Church has his Day 1 post up now. Thanks, G! 

O is joining the fun, too!