The 20th of the month was the girls’ half birthday and Sarah thought it would be fun to have a half birthday party. She was right. It was fun!
She made them a cake and put them in cute outfits. They got a couple of communal gifts (all gifts are communal at this age for a couple of kids who share a birthday) and had a grand time running around being two and a half. Also, Beatrice is really working on her stink eye.
I took some photos because that’s what I do. Enjoy a pretty big gallery after the jump.
We could also call this “Failure State – Believing in Myself” but it’s not quite as snappy, is it? “Failure State – The Ability to Think My Decisions Are Good Decisions and Not Bad Decisions”.
“Failure State – Feeling Good About The Creative Choices I Make”.
Nah. None of that is good. Let’s go with “Confidence”.
You know that feeling when you’ve been working on something creative and literally at no point at all through the entire process do you feel good about it? Not like the work itself is stupid, but more like you’re stupid? Like, somehow, you totally misunderstood the assignment and you’re spending all this time making something that completely misses the mark creatively, intellectually, and spiritually? You know how you feel that feeling all the time about everything you make?
Good. I’m glad it’s not just me. I feel this way about literally everything I’ve ever made, professionally and personally. My whole career. Everything. The entire time. And I’ve spent most of my adult life working in a creative field! Even when we were doing the greenhouses, I felt this way. I’ve never not felt this way about something. Can you relate?
Worse is that this feeling puts me on edge like crazy. I’m so worried that I am making a dumb mistake that my anxiety spikes and I work myself into a sulky mess. The anxiety also really slows down my progress while I spin out about whether or not I am metaphorically shitting the bed. What a colossal waste of energy.
For example, just yesterday I received a very nice compliment from someone to whom I sent an audition for a VO project. She didn’t need to say anything to me about it. It could have just gone out there into the void like 99% of auditions do to never be heard about again. But, instead, she took time to tell me something nice about the work I put into it. It was really nice! And I really appreciated it! And she absolutely did not need to do it! And what did I say back to her? Just look!
What the actual fuck, Joe. How about a “Thank you!” or a “That’s awesome! I am glad she liked it!”
No.
Instead I offered a self-deprecating joke and then totally hammered it home because I felt weird. Slick, dude. So slick. Then I spent the whole rest of the day thinking about—and feeling bad about—this exchange. So bad, in fact, that I am now writing this post.
I’m not worried about the person who sent me the text and this weird little exchange having some effect on our relationship. We’ve known each other for a long time. It’s totally fine. But, man, am I a doofus sometimes. Like, just be gracious and take the W, dude.
Maybe allow that there is a chance, however slim, that you are actually ok at some stuff and just have faith in yourself? Maybe just a little bit? A teeny tiny bit? A speck of faith?
With professional creative work, I grind and I spin and I torment myself until the deadline comes and it’s time to present the project. I am sure I’ve written about this here before. I make my presentation with this profound shrugging feeling inside my soul that screams “I have no idea if this is good or right or if I’ve completely misunderstood and fucked it up but here it is and oh god I’ll never work again”. And boy does that suck a whole lot. I experience this every time I start a project. And, if I am being honest with myself and with you, the feeling has led me to actually fuck up some projects because I was so far inside myself that I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other to get the thing done correctly. I couldn’t put the right amount of effort in with the time allotted. And those regrets haunt you. I always want to do a good job, but sometimes I get in my own damn way.
And with personal works? Forget about it. As soon as this rears it’s hideous, malignant head the project stops. If I could share with you all the sheer mountain of aborted projects littering my projects archive, you would go mad in the face of true hopelessness. A thousand thousand projects—good ideas all!—begun and abandoned because deep in my heart I truly believe that everything I make is trash and that no one will ever want to read/watch/listen to them.
For the projects that do meet completion, by the time they are finished I have spent so much time feeling weird and uncomfortable about them that I can never see them in a good light. Even when they are good, like the audition I wrote about above. And this feeling of… shame? embarrassment? uneasiness? none of those are right, but you get the idea. This lingering, haunting feeling impedes me standing behind my work or promoting myself with any real vigor. This has been a major professional failing that we will discuss in further depth another day.
I am always in awe of people who can really promote themselves and the effort they’ve put into a project. It’s impressive! I wish I had even a tiny ounce of that, but I don’t. I can feel the inside of my chest just crawling thinking about it. The most self-promotion I can stomach is the occasional post here on The Black Laser and that is insufficient.
Another recent example I can’t stop thinking about. Ever since Verdant folded, I’ve been picking up freelance video edit projects to try and pay for my kids and life and stuff. It has been pretty tough because I live in Delaware and everything is remote. The time gap between the last time I was active and now is quite long, so people have moved on and I am out of their minds. Normal stuff. I sent an email to someone I used to work with to let them know I am on the market and looking. I made a mention in the e-mail of how awkward I find that sort of inquiry e-mail. And while that is completely true, why the hell did I write that? Why self-deprecate at all? All it does is feed the void and that’s not helpful at all. Does this person now think I find them awkward? I don’t. I really just want to work. But I couldn’t help writing some dumb ass shit because I felt nervous about representing myself and, God forbid, asking for something. I wrote that e-mail in May. I never received a reply. I think about it every single day.
Yet things do get finished. Otherwise there would be nothing here for you to read and I’d have starved to death ages ago. Worry not for things will continue to get finished for as long as I am making things. I am more than three decades into feeling like this and I don’t see it letting up any time soon. Just have to live with it and work through it.
A couple weeks ago I took some photos of Wilbee sitting in a chair outside because she’s a baby and you take photos of babies. That’s pretty much it.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite smiling yet and she definitely couldn’t yet hold her herself up. Our shoot was pretty short because of that. We still got some cute ones, though.
Apologies for sleeping on these for a couple weeks. It feels like I took these photos yesterday, but the dates in the EXIF reveal that I live in a timewarp where minutes, hours, and days have no meaning whatsoever.
The girls had so much fun Memorial Day weekend and Beatrice asked to ring the bell on the boats so many times that we decided to take them back on a Wednesday that wasn’t a holiday.
Unsurprisingly, they had a great time again. Because there were no crowds, dad’s anxiety was much better managed. Nice. And we left Wilbee at home, so we didn’t also have to focus on the infant and could engage with the toddlers.
It was a good day. Bea had so much fun that when we suggested we walk down the boardwalk for ice cream, she started crying and said “No like ice cream! No like it!” Which is not true. Once we actually got ice cream, she’d forgotten her protests. Rides are fun, but ice cream is also fun.
I hate crowds. Like, I absolutely hate crowds. I will stay as far away from crowded places as I can. I will choose the boring, tedious version of a day over the insanely packed option five times out of five.
A crowded bar on a Saturday night or for a sporting event? Leave me at home with a book.
Convention hall swarming with farmers, Mennonites, and sneaky weedlers? Take me somewhere quiet and put a beer in my hand.
Going shopping just before Christmas? A waking hell.
Times Square on New Year’s Eve? A nightmare to drive men mad.
The Rehoboth Beach boardwalk on a summer weekend? Shove a knife into my eyes.
So when our friends were visiting from Maryland and suggested we all meet at Funland in Rehoboth Beach on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, you can imagine that I was not exactly psyched to hike. But, we’ve also been pretty isolated and were sure that Penny and Bea would enjoy the rides. I put on my Big Boy Pants™, sucked it up, and went.
And while my anxiety from being surrounded by throngs of vacationers was through the roof, the girls had a smashing good time going on rides for the first time. Beanut has actually been asking for “ring the bell on the boats” since then. We made the right choice.
Enjoy a smattering of photos from the day. Nothing really superb here, but enough to give you a sense of how much fun they had. I’ll try again on a day that is less crowded.
I am not festive and Easter has never been a big holiday in my life. Considering the interplay of those two traits, it should be no surprise that we did not put a ton of effort into the girls’ first Easter. I mean, what do a couple of 15 month olds—only one of whom was walking at that point—have to do with the normal Easter festivities?
Nothing, that’s what.
This year is different. It’s not that I have found the joy of holidays or that Easter has suddenly become important to me. Instead, we’re living at Sarah’s mom’s house to be close to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for Wilbur’s birth. And grandma IS big on Easter. When grandma is big on something, she likes to go for it. Easter egg hunts, cute springtime outfits, baskets of candy, the whole thing.
It all means very little to me, but the girls had a blast and looked great doing it. Enjoy this gallery of their first* Easter.
Apologies for lack of Wilbur shots. She was still in the hospital and had to sit this one out. Have no worry. There will be photos of her.
The new baby is coming in a few days so we took a last minute opportunity to shoot some maternity photos in the dark. That’s what you do when you’re in Maryland and your wife is pregnant. You take photos in the woods at night.
I had an idea about how I wanted these photos to look, but I didn’t really get it. It was late and Sarah was feeling pretty worn out (being super pregnant and all) which meant we were working quickly. Plus, it’s surprisingly hard to work in the dark. And I mean, pretty damn dark. Barely any ambient light. I set the whole thing up by the light from my cell phone. Hard to tinker with the setup when you’re worried about slipping down a hillside in the pitch darkness.
However! I learned a bunch and think I can probably get closer to my original vision next time. Sarah won’t be pregnant anymore when we get the chance to try again, but the properly-executed vision will make a sweet Halloween photo. Always an opportunity for fun photos.
Here are a selection of the more successful photos from the shoot. Enjoy!
Here in the wilds of Southern Delaware there is a residential housing developer called Schell Brothers. They also have outposts in Richmond, VA and Nashville, TN, but from what I can tell on their site their major operations happen here in the good old First State. They build a bunch of houses.
For the last few years they have been putting on an event they call Schellville—a winter festival/market/family thing. They have a fake ice rink! They have little shops! They have more than one Auntie Annie’s pretzels from the mall! They have a beer stand! They have a great big slide!
It’s fun!
It’s wholesome!
It’s free!
They wisely require tickets for entry, even though those tickets cost nothing. What could be an absolute disaster for crowds, wasn’t all that bad… once we got inside. But let’s back up.
Last year the girls were too small to enjoy something like this and Sarah knows well how pathologically allergic to crowds I am. We skipped it. And by “we”, I mean “Sarah” because I had no idea it even existed so I really had zero part in making that particular decision. This year, however, she got tickets thinking that the girls are finally old enough to enjoy the spectacle.
She was right.
After waiting half an hour in line to be let in—with Penny absolutely wide-eyed at all the lights and people and snow machines and music and pretty much everything—we got in, found a relatively open, uncrowded space, and let them free. It was like watching their heads explode.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen them have so much fun. Ever. In their whole lives. It was awesome.
We only lasted about 40 minutes before we had enough toddler-chasing and the crowds started to get a little thick. When we told Bea it was time to go, she responded with “No, stay here,” which was the first time I’d heard that out of her mouth. Too bad for her it wasn’t her decision. She let us know how she felt about it in the car on the way home while Penny drifted between sleep and talking to the night outside the window.
I didn’t bring the right lens with me and the dark was a struggle with two fast-moving targets, so not a ton of photos. I took my trusty 85 which is fantastic with good light and while not trying to chase two speedy jackals, but it was too hard in the dark to focus on the girls. Should have gone with the 50. Oh well. Next time.
Here are the photos I liked enough to spend time on. Enjoy.
