This year has been all sorts of bizarre. In a (mostly) good way. I initially was debating drawing a year-in-review comic—but then, when cleaning out my hard drive, I came across my Photo Booth folder.
I’ve joked before that Photo Booth is my secret picture diary, because I use it almost every day. Mostly for silly things. When I was drawing, I would use it constantly for reference, because I can’t draw a proportional human being from memory to save my life.
But I don’t really look through them. I take the photo, I record the song, but they don’t really go anywhere—they just hang out on my hard drive, waiting to be useful.
So. According to Photo Booth, I’ve taken 747 photos and 114 videos in the last year. Allow me to share twelve of them with you.
JANUARY 2010 - “Well, ****.”
Coming into 2010, I had just escaped a disasterpiece of filmic proportions, was recovering from the swine flu, and—a week into December—got smacked with a major life-altering decision.
In November of 2009 I moved back to Easthampton, begged my friend Jeff for something to do to keep my mind from going crazy, and resigned myself to returning to Apple for the foreseeable future. “Sure, it’s not what you wanted to do after college, but you like the work, you like the people, and you can probably get a transfer to Los Angeles in a couple months.”
So I went back to work. And precisely two weeks later, I got an offer from Macworld to start blogging for its news team.
I’d applied back in October on a whim, back when the film was going to hell, didn’t think I’d ever work for Apple again, and was jonesing to be back in the tech loop something fierce. I read the magazine religiously as a kid, and the chance to write for them—even just on the website—got me stupid-excited. But, after two months of silence, having not heard anything beyond a form letter a week or so after submitting samples, I’d pretty much written it off.
And then—surprise!—an email. Which I read, on my lunch break, while working at the store. And almost fell out of my chair.
I take this for granted, but in case those of you reading don’t understand: you can’t work at Apple (and sign an NDA) while writing for a technology magazine that covers said company. So basically, I had a choice to make:
A) quit nice, loving, well-paying, potentially-soon-to-be-full-time teaching gig and jump into the hellish potentially lethal waters of pay-by-the-post freelancing
B) stay in boring, soul-sucking retail job, hit head against the wall, regret not taking first interesting opportunity to actually do something with your life even if it means eating ramen and being super-poor.
After much pacing and ranting at friends and three-in-the-morning research, I chose A. At the time, most people thought I was insane. In January, when money was tight and heat was expensive, I think I did, too.
In retrospect? Probably the best damn decision I made in years. That’s me, though. I take risks. Sometimes they work out. Sometimes they blow up in my face. But they’re always interesting!
FEBRUARY 2010 - “Don’t forget to invoice for that heart attack.”
Finding out the first article you wrote is going to appear in print: it generally makes up for the fact that you’re huddled in a bathroom working because it’s the cheapest room in the house to heat.
MARCH 2010 - “New England, you make no sense.”
Western Massachusetts—warm enough to wear shorts, but the weather’s still gross enough to require an overcoat.
APRIL 2010 - “I look like my mother.”
Don’t like the way the weather’s behaving? Chop off all your hair and throw on a vest!
MAY 2010 - “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
Spring cleaning/packing for the Los Angeles move-that-never-came. Realizing I had random iLife disks from ‘05 onward. Realizing I’d been stuck in Massachusetts since 2005. Hiding behind disks out of shock.
JUNE 2010 - “Considering it anything less is 22nd century racism.”
It was warm, sunny, and on top of everything—I finally got my iPad a damn case.
JULY 2010 - “I am fire! And life incarnate!”
Another hair cut-induced Photo Booth session. The combination of slightly-too-short-and-blowdried hair with the backlighting made me decide I was going to pretend to be Jean Grey for the evening. (Yes, folks: this is what happens late at night when it’s hot in Western Massachusetts and you’re bored.)
AUGUST 2010 - “Hear me, baby? Hold together!”
I’m not much for prayers. But this picture—taken accidentally while testing my mic and camera—is probably the closest representation. Seeing as how I was interviewing for a full-time position in San Francisco at that company I’d been writing for for the last seven months.
(Me, worry?)
SEPTEMBER 2010 - “That’s not panic you hear in my voice. That’s excited panic.”
Holy moly, I’m in San Francisco working at one of my favorite tech publications.
The “Oh god, make it stop” portion of this facial expression brought to you by spending most of September flying back and forth across the United States in an attempt to move over my entire life.
OCTOBER 2010 - “I know.”
October: the month when I realized the other shoe was not going to drop, and my life was genuinely lovely. Good job, good friends, good apartment, good guy, good city, good times.
NOVEMBER 2010 - “California is a fine place to live—if you happen to be an orange.”
It got cold. I wasn’t prepared for that.
DECEMBER 2010 - “Midnight movies: the anti-drug. Anti-sleep, that is.”
Happy new year, everybody.
