Life of Wry

Ingredients for a perfect day: Inclement weather, empty house, fire in the fireplace, good book.

Been waiting for this.

Ok.  First picture.  See?  Nothing remarkable, just a marginal photo I took with my cell phone.

It’s Peter being schooled by his great Uncle Vic on the fine points of poker.  Actually, it’s Peter’s first-ever game of poker, so the fine points included basics like what’s an ante, what’s a flush, what’s a full house, etc.  He’s playing with his cousins Miles and Conner–twins who are three years older than Peter–and one of their friends.

I’m pleased with this happy little scene because of what we had to endure leading up to it.  Peter had complained for most of the hour-long drive from Davis to Pleasanton–a drive already difficult because of rain and wind–about having to spend his second-to-last day of winter break with relatives instead of friends.  “You didn’t ask me what I wanted to do today,” he whined annoyingly, as pre-teens do.

And yet..

He got to hang with the big boys, watch football on TV, drink vanilla cream sodas, eat a ton of chips and nuts, cookies and candy, and, AND, learn how to play poker.

And he had a blast.  A happy start to the New Year.

Thought about it, picked out a new year’s resolution.  Following the lead of a few Facebook and Flickr friends over the years, I’m going to take a picture a day for a year. Starting today, January 1.  And I will do it through 2011, because, well, I’m tidy that way.

This has multiple benefits:

• It serves as a ready writing prompt.  My idea is to post a daily photo and–this is key–provide a caption.  The caption could be as little or as much as I like, but I’ve got to write something.   Once the photo is there, a caption should easily follow.  If moved, I could write more.  If not, just a caption.  No pressure, but I have to write something.

• Writing requires discipline.  I’ve been committed to writing for a couple of years, minus the discipline of actually doing it.  I’ve had this blog since, what, March 2009?  And I’ve got a handful of posts.  Without a thing, though–a goal, a project, a deadline, or whatever–writing for me seems not to happen.  So I’ve created a thing.

• The exercise of taking a picture daily might also cause me to look at the world more deeply… really see or think about things around me. We’ll see.  Would hope that it becomes just an extension of my day and not something contrived.  Will try not to get neurotic about it.

• By the end of the year, it might tell an interesting story.  Or at least a story of the year 2011.  The year in pictures.  Why not?

I thought about using Facebook or Flickr as the platform, but decided since it’s really more about writing, I’ll do it here.  I also gave some thought to setting up a separate “2011: Year in Pictures” blog, but decided, nah.. this is fine.  Right here’s good.

So, that’s what I’m doing.