i posted this on IG with a caption "This one is for all the women out there who think the problem is them. It isn't."

Gender aside, this is completely true of all people. The easy ones don't tend to be amazing. And the amazing ones are a tricky business. But almost always worth the effort. That said, sometimes it's nice to be around easy people. It's restful and there's a place for that. And equally sometimes, I can ratchet down my difficult tendencies and let things slide so that I'm not always a tricksy pain in the ass. Not lately but sometimes.

It's almost the end of October. This time of year makes me pensive and reflective so I think I'll take the month of November and go through my past pictures and reinterpret them with new quotes. See if they have anything more to tell me. It'll be an interesting little experiment.

It's been a busy crazy week with lots of work on this new project and a pretty tight deadline. Somehow we'll make it but by this point in the process I never know how.

It's also the semi-finals for the Smut Marathon, run by the Lovely Rebel. Somehow I'm still in the running, which is remarkable. I've gone through past phases of writing erotica but it's not something I do on the regular so it's been a really interesting experiment this year. I congratulate the Lovely Rebel on coming up with fascinating writer-ly challenges that have really pushed me. She's coaxed some fantastic writing out of bloggers I don't regularly follow so I've also enjoyed finding new writers to lurk around. And there are some great pieces in this new round so go check it out and vote for your favorites!

In the midst of that, I'm in a new city for a little bit and I have today off. I'll spend most of it watching a show my friends are involved in and then maybe take a little time to just hang out with myself and not think about anything important, 

I hope all of you are taking some time for yourselves today. XOX

This reminds of me the trope that none of us are getting out of here alive. So we have to risk our hearts, our courage, our careers and our vanity to do what we think is important. To make change, in ourselves and around us. 

In that vein, I'm starting a new job tomorrow. It's a short little two week stint but promises to be a hot mess express. I'm already shaking my head over all of it. Think good thoughts in my general direction. I'll most certainly need them.

Is it? I feel like that's pretty self-serving definition of love. Albeit very human... But I definitely agree that the loop of irresistible desire is a part of love and it seems to suit the picture I chose with it's more active pose. 

This is the last of the pink panty series. I took a few more good pictures that afternoon but I find that I weary of the visuals (the pink, the lace, that blanket...) so I don't want to post them.  When I first started this project, I would take a bunch of pictures in one setting but only post one of them. Two at most. I didn't want to see a whole series of pictures on my IG feed that featured the same pair of panties or the same background. I wanted variety and I wanted to push myself to create a body of photographic work that didn't look like the same picture over and over again.

But in the past month, I've decided to use as many pictures as I actually liked; or, as in this case, as many pictures as I could tolerate working with until I wearied of looking at them. There were several good ones in this series but once I settled on an ink color for the text, I had a hard time choosing a different color. So now they're all a set and look borderline identical. And I have mixed feelings about that.

There's something that bugs me about photographers who have a very defined "look" to their shots. Like their whole body of work is a series of minor variations on a theme. It's usually not so much their perspective as their filters and color palettes. When I scroll thru instagram accounts and in thumbnails I can't distinguish one picture from the next, I find that boring even though I know that most photographers get to the point of commercial viability by having a specific point of view and an easily recognizable style. Perhaps this is a digital perspective conclusion and I arrived at this point by using Instagram more and more and seeing 10 pictures at a time on my phone screen? Seeing so many bits of color in  a small confined area creates a blur rather than the sharp edged individuality of a single picture. 

But I can also see how photographers get to the place of a rigid unwavering style because once I've trained my eye to a particular viewpoint or range of color options (in ink color specifically), it's hard to see anything else. And I have the same problem with poses and backgrounds. 

It's funny that these are my concerns now. When I first started this project I would never have guessed it to end up here. I look back over the beginning shots and even the later pictures before I started writing on them and I find them all visually static and uninteresting. It makes me wonder if this project will progress even further and at some point I'll look back on this phase and find it also unfinished and "young," so to speak.  Probably, right?

If we carry someone's heart in our heart, will we be more careful? Both with their heart and with our own? I would hope so. 

I've spent my last week reminding myself to practice patience and generosity. And doing only moderately well. I had two groups of dear generous friends descend upon me to celebrate my birthday but hardly anyone made plans besides just showing up. And mine is not a city where we can just walk into restaurants or bars (or clubs or theatre or anywhere) without reservations. Not the good ones at least. So I spent quite a bit of time making plans for eveyone, something that stresses me out only slightly as I try to take everyone's desires into consideration and I really want everyone to have a good time and but that's never guaranteed. 

However, my housing in the city was gifted to me by a different friend who lent me his condo for the week. He required nothing from me except that I enjoy it, he told me to make a set of keys so I'd have them for "the next time"  and he even showed me snaps of his security camera feed and said "Do not have sex here! Have sex anywhere else in the condo but not in this part of this room or you will be on camera!" I laughed about that but I took his advice. No sex against that door. Promise. 

I'm going into my 47th year reminding myself to hold my infuriating madcap amazing friends in my heart. To carry their hearts as I want them to carry mine. With love and generosity. 

It's officially my birthday. I'm now 47. 

As usual with my birthdays - of late anyway - I spend a lot of time thinking about them in the weeks prior, evaluating my past year, dreading the change of numbers (a little), making plans for the new year (a lot) and creating challenges for myself. By the time the day arrives, I'm usually a little bit over it and ready to just celebrate and move on. 

Today is no different except that today I don't have to work! It's my first nonworking birthday since I turned 40, so I plan to celebrate the shit out of that. Plus I have friends from 4 different states descending upon my city to hang out with me this weekend. I've made a handful of plans and left everything else up to spontaneity and random chance. It should be good.

In the midst of my planning and adventures and list making and resolutions for the coming year, it behooves me to remember this quote's sentiment. Perhaps 47 should be less about what I would like the world to give me and more about what I can contribute. Focus more on my impact and less on the ways the world impacts me. Develop a bit more of a global perspective.

We only get one 
heart
life
destiny
And like it or not, we're all intertwined.

And speaking of intertwining, there should be a lot more of that this year too. 

Ok, I'm off. Go check out's Hy's blog and view the gorgeous boobs on display. Happy Friday everyone!

It looks like I have a scar on my thigh. I don't. I assume that's a crinkle from the sheets I was lying on earlier? or something? I considered photoshopping it out or filtering it to make it look less visible but then I figured I'd just leave it. In the interests of the authenticity of the moment perhaps...

This picture-taking project is interesting for that reason. It requires a lot of physical preparation to avoid panty lines or bra strap lines or weird crinkles and sometimes things show up on the pictures that I didn't expect. And while I'm trying to take pictures that appeal to an audience, I'm also trying to document what I look like and where I am so then I have to decide how much truth is just enough truth in a given picture.

However, I'm finding a disconnect between the body I photograph and the body that lives and walks and breathes in the real world. I'll catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window while I'm out and about and I double take. I'm so used to seeing my body in bits and pieces, in close ups and very specifically framed that it's startling to see myself in full,

Oddly, that's where the real vulnerability comes in, Not in the pictures I take, over which I have absolute editorial control, but in the pictures other people take or the candid glimpses I catch of myself in my normal life. 

For me real life views are the true vulnerability. And learning to love that body? I'm still working on it. 

It's been awhile since I've been in love. Like really in love, the kind that feels like madness, overwhelming and consuming. I think I miss it? Sometimes? Most other times I'm content to have my dalliances and my many friends and spend my energies chasing down other dreams.  

But I've been in this groove for awhile and continuing on this same path goes against my general life philosophy, which is that if I'm already good at something it's time to let it go and try something new.

I don't like continuing to do things once I've achieved a certain level of competence. Sometimes it's because I'm bored because there's nothing new to learn but sometimes it's because I hunger to be on that edge of uncertainty that comes with trying and failing and trying again. Of course liking that  edge is it's own kind of madness but I can find reason in that madness and willingly subject myself to career and life upheaval far more easily than subjecting myself to emotional upheaval.  

The idea of emotional upheaval makes me uncomfortable... which probably means it's time to try it. 

The American news cycle is horrific right now. Maybe it's horrific everywhere? It seems particularly bad here and the social media reactions to the news are equally as exhausting. A writer I follow describes it as waking up every day and "sucking on the crack pipe of outrage."

Truer words.

I'm trying to step back from this culture of outrage where every conversation teeters on the precipice of a yelling match, even between people who agree with each other. The level of emotion is too high and all my online interactions feel counterproductive to my mental health,

So, how about a week of love instead? I listened to Joe Rogan's interview with Elon Musk the other day and it ends with Musk saying that love is the answer to most of the world's ills. If the premiere inventor and engineer of our time can say that, then probably we should listen. 

I found a bunch of different thoughts about love that struck me for one reason or another so I'll explore them this week. And it's my birthday week so that also feels like a good time to think about love. Self love particularly. And uncomfortable truths like this quote, even more particularly..

I started this photo project a year ago because I was looking at my life and sex choices and not seeing a lot of self-love. I needed to see my body differently and thus change my mindset. It's definitely worked in certain regards and I love how the project has progressed this past year. 

In my actual life I've made some good changes, like quitting my job. And in the past week, I turned down a guy who would only contribute messiness and mayhem to my life, even though it might come along with some hot sex, so i feel good about that decision.  

I have several other changes that I need to make this fall so I'm going into my 47th year with some resolutions, one of which is to expand this photo project into the real world. I want to see my pictures on an actual wall in real life and not just on a computer screen. As with most other things in my life, the process of that expansion is interesting and terrifying and exciting and nonlinear. Just as a new project should be. 

Happy one year anniversary to Ekphrasis Inverted! Let's see what my 47th year brings.