Word of the Day

Mar. 24, 2008 (Day 58) Plethora: excess This is a case of a dollar word used on a dime nowadays...There is a fantastic used bookstore in General Mitchell airport in Milwaukee. Certainly an odd place for a great bookstore, but I'm always happy it's there whenever I'm visiting family up north.It's a small space made smaller by being crammed corner to cranny with books, but you can spend hours in that little box digging through the stacks and haphazard tumbles looking for jewels, of which there are many. They have some amazing first editions and old texts. I get a little light-headed and giddy every time I stand in the aisles or look behind the small glass case at the amazing assortment of special items they have. And all in amazing condition.The set pictured is one I fell in love with instantly, and my mother purchased it for me as a gift. It is a 60-volume set, pristine condition, with gold-edged pages that begins with the Greeks and progresses through to twentieth-century fiction. I'm beginning at the beginning and working my way through, even though I've read everything in the Greek volumes several times while growing up already. Fun to go back and read them again.I have way too many books, but I just can't bear to part with them. I dream one day of having an entire room to devote to a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and one of those rolling ladders (that I secretly want to ride on like in Funny Face--which I now must really go watch again after two references to it in as many days!).

Mar. 23, 2008 (Day 57) Anathema: a curse; a person or thing cursed, or intensely disliked I feel a little bad doing this on today of all days, but I don't control the WotD. I am at its mercy. So I am giving you the "evil eye." Ooooooooh...Funnily enough, I spent a painstaking amount of time on the full color version of this image, trying out skin processing techniques, sharpening, saturation, and all that good stuff. All that work just to convert to black and white and cover most of it with a white mask. :D But I really like this result. Reminds me of the Audrey Hepburn image Fred Astaire develops in his darkroom in Funny Face. This will be the closest I ever get to looking like my silver-screen idol!Immediately after typing the above, I grew curious what this would look like truly emulating that Hepburn image, so I reprocessed it and adjusted the mask. Alternate version here. Fun in its own right. :)

Mar. 22, 2008 (Day 56) Remunerate: to pay an equivalent to for any service, loss, or expense A few years ago, I went with a friend to help him adopt a cat from a shelter. He picked up a little black kitten who grew up to be the most docile cat when it came to being picked up and held for long periods of time. My friend could pick up the cat and cradle him like a baby, tucked in the crook of his arm without hugging or holding him there, and the cat would stay for at least 20 minutes without moving. He always said his cat knew he was "paying his rent" with the cuddles, so the cat never protested or resisted.Sketch pays his rent by making me laugh on a daily basis. Today I came back from my walk and took a load of laundry out of the dryer so I could throw the load from the washer in when it finished. I tossed the laundry on the bed for folding later and got ready to take a shower. When I poked my head back into my room to grab a clean shirt, I noticed something slightly out of place in my pile of "lights." (Left) I only managed to grab that one shot of his head poking through before he burrowed in and then out the back side, where he settled in to sleep the rest of the day. Since none of my outfits are complete without cat hair, I figure he wanted to get a jump-start on helping me accessorize. :)I feel a little guilty featuring Sketch so much--like I'm playing favorites. It's just he's so much easier to approach with the camera than Britta is, but I made it a point to capture a portrait of her today like I did for Sketch yesterday because she is truly such a beautiful cat.