my fourth of july
07/05/04 ~ 8:20 a.m.
yesterday started out very nicely. david and i took in two matinees, spiderman 2 and dodgeball. we snuck in togo's sandwiches, felt cool about movie hopping, and really felt like we actually got our money's worth at the theater for once.
we killed some time at the pet store and target. we goofed off and had fun. i felt cute in my red, white, and blue tie dye shirt.
we went to david's parent's house, where 7 of the 9 kids from next door bombarded us non-stop. i tried to politely ignore them as best as possible, but also managed to entetrtain them with my camera. i took some fun pictures, and let them take some as well. i got an amazing shot of their cat, licking his nose. in mid-lick. it was great. i felt like professional photographer.
the problem with my stupid old clunky digital that is held together with a rubberband - not a lot of memory. it can only handle about 30 pictures on there at once, and i hadn't yet uploaded the fastball pictures. SO, if a crappy pic was taken, i deleted it almost immediately to make sure there was room for more.
as dusk fell, david and i were wandering the streets. the police did a good job actually closing off his parent's street this year, and there were baricades at the end of the road. they said "road closed: local traffic only." i was trying to get a good picture, but it being dusk and my camera being shitty, i'd taken a few bad ones. i began deleting them as the policemen were shooing us back onto the street. my quick fingers made a mistake. i deleted them all instead of deleting the bad one i'd just taken.
i felt ill. there is no undo key! there's an "are you sure?" option, but there's always that option... i'd bypassed it quickly. it can't be undone.
cute fourth of july pictures. me in my shirt. the cat in mid-lick. oh god. the fastball pictures.
they can't be replaced. a picture imitating one taken 6 years ago. a celebrity that i may never cross paths with again. gone.
to many of you, this may not seem like a big deal. you might not understand why i felt physically ill at the realization that i'd just clicked a button and ruined something that can never be reversed. and it felt worse knowing what the pictures looked like, knowing how good they were. it fels worse than forgetting to bring a camera to an event, or even developing film that turns out crappy and fuzzy. these were there, i could see them.
david doesn't like pictures. he says he keeps everything in his mind. i've always argued that point of view. you can't show someone else the picture in your mind. you can't share your experience with another person in quite the same way.
so it may be stupid, but maybe some of you will understand why it ruined my night. why i curled up on the couch and had a good cry. i did drag myself outside for the fabulous fireworks show that shoots off from the fairgrounds practically into the front yard. they were pretty; i tried to forget my problems.
then the show malfunctioned. fireworks began exploding on the ground. the show got stopped. no grand finale.
a perfect ending to a shitty night.
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