Lazy Sunday

I've taken some time away to reflect a bit about some things. It's all good. Some of the things I've been up to...

I'm still looking at different ways to merge large photos. My interest in photography at this point is in taking a large canvas (many photos) and merging them into one single photo. The end product will be a more encompassing photo then just broken up into different photos with different views. It's coming together pretty well, but it's making me think more about the settings I have on the camera. It's not as flexible as taking individual photos because the settings must be uniform, without different exposure settings or different focal points. It's more difficult to pull off. In the end, you want to end up with one large photo and, if you are really successful, you will never be able to tell where the photos merge together. If I get good enough with it, I'll post some of the photos on Flickr, as well as post them here.

My trip to Idaho to visit with family and friends was very nice. Generally speaking, I had a good time. It was nice to see old friends, as well as visit with family members, who would meet with me. Not all of them talk to me, but I'm not losing any sleep over that. The downside is, it left me drained both emotionally and physically.

When I was in Idaho, I was a fish out of water. I realized how surreal it was. I drove by a place just off campus from the College of Idaho on Dearborne Street. It looks just exactly like it did when we stayed there over a summer in the late 1970's. It's as if time has no effect on it. I looked at the apartment, and had images of our life then, and this very nice lady named Viola Springer bringing her two boys chocolate cake that she made for us. Such a treat! People don't do that any more. Well, I do, but in today's world, you are looked at as being a bit "off" if you do that.

I also realized by going back there just how much I've changed. I'd like to tell you that now that a lot of time has passed, my family accepts my "gayness", if you want to call it that. I took some photos of my life back with me so they could see my life the way it is now, with photos of my family. And yet, I found myself skipping over the photo of us -- Kent and myself, as a couple -- because I knew they would not like it. And I was on their turf. What to do? Some would say I wussed out. I guess I just didn't think it was worth the aggravation of having to process the looks I would get. And I was never like that when I was younger. So what they saw were photos of our home, our cats, places we like, stuff like that. But not us.

It's not all that bad. My eighty-four year old Aunt openly told me, "You have quite a man in your life." That was pretty awesome because she didn't used to feel that way. Perhaps with time, she's realized that Kent is part of my life. That kind of cancels out the other negatives with the family.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is that I've been with Kent for 33 years. They all know this. At family gatherings, not one of them asked about Kent, or my personal life. Pretty damn lame. That's all I can say.

One friend who I've known since childhood keeps saying online and in email (for the past year) that he wanted to get together with me while I was there. I called him several times. When I saw him online again after getting home, he said, "I tried to call you and it said your phone wasn't available." Strange. It's available for everyone else, but him. Oh well.

Another friend from childhood did meet with me, and we have a good visit, although it was only three hours long. We will keep in tough I believe.

Mostly, I enjoyed my Boise friends. I had a great time visiting with them. And, my cousin, Kim, who I stayed with, is one of my best friends in the world. She is the only one in my family, other than my brother, who acknowledges Kent as my spouse.

So it's been a mixed bag of stuff. I'm still here and still around. I've just been trying to get my motivation back to blog. We've been taking weekend trips here and there. I'm so happy I'm back in New England again. Next to Idaho, Connecticut is like a rain forest.

Finally, I posted some of Kent's photos from South Africa if you want to view them.