long ago it must be, i have a photograph

It is an odd turn of events that will require me to travel with RW to Italy in March.  I have never been to Italy and although I am not even 100% certain that I want to go there now, I have officially agreed.  I convinced myself with the standard cliches about not wanting to regret missed opportunities, though I am of the ilk that genuinely feels that a missed opportunity to be alone is also of great weight.  For some reason it makes me more apprehensive than I can reasonably explain, but perhaps that counts as even more reason to go.  Regardless, the weighing does not now matter as I have already signed my name.

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I have been reading Mark Haddon's The Red House, which so far, compared to his first two, is not all I hoped for.  I do not like the presence of the ghost.  I like ghosts in my reality, but in fiction they frighten me. 


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The Documenters are odd, which is an ironic thing to write, maybe, as I document my thoughts about documentation.  But somehow there is a difference between my documents, my pieces of thoughts, because it is the act of creating them that has value, not the completed documents.  The Documenters, I think, value the documents themselves.  Or if not the documents, then they must value the reactions the documents evoke in others.  Their purpose, I am certain, is not the same, though I cannot quite define theirs.  I should like this mulling to be judgment-free, but I do not think it is, because there is something about the photographs that bothers me.  I want to judge them.  This what was my hair looked like when I woke up this morning; isn't it funny?  This is my half-grapefruit and slice of toast.  This is how my shirt matched someone else's at work.  Oh, how we laughed and laughed!  I think we both look like Bryan Adams.  This is where we went for lunch.  Here's a close up of our DimSum.  Here's my front door.  Here's my front hall.  Here's my kitchen, my table, my chair, my place settings, my knife, my fork, my plate.  My dinner.  Why?  I understand photographing things that seem significant or interesting or worth remembering but I do not understand the purpose of photographing every instant as though one's memory cannot be trusted to hold onto the important things and let go of what is not.  I'm pretty sure, for example, that half-grapefruit could be let go without leaving much of a hole.  Isn't there lost time spent photographing things that could have been spend experiencing them?  And really, aren't there some things that just aren't really worth documenting?  And maybe this is one of them.

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