Well, well, well...

I knew it had been a long-assed time since I'd posted here, but I didn't realize it had been nearly two years to the day...and such an interesting couple of years, too. Let's see...my cat Delenn, who had become diabetic but was never successfully stabilized, went downhill very fast and had to be put to sleep Easter weekend of '08; I had to have an emergency appendectomy the same weekend in August that my then-roommate was moving out (both her move and my surgery went just fine, BTW); and since New Year's I've been providing moral and emotional support to one of my oldest and dearest friends, whose marriage of 20+ years is going straight down the crapper due to her husband's unregenerate buttheadedness/Midlife Crisis From Hell...when your midlife crisis involves trying to knock up your first cousin in Arkansas, I think that qualifies as one From Hell, eh? (I wish I was making that part up, but it's all true...) And that's just some of what's gone on.

Perhaps most pertinent to this blog in particular, though, is my social life's 180-degree about-face: after spending 2006-07 being little Miss Boston Music Scene Booster and taking approximately 6,000 photos (no lie; it damn near killed that poor little digital camera), I have turned my back on all of that, and have once again become involved with the SCA and medieval/renaissance re-enactment, something I hadn't done in nearly 20 years.

Why the change? Well, to try to put some of it gracefully...in late 2007, let's just say that I was treated rather badly by a couple of people in the Boston scene whom I had previously regarded as friends, and it was brought home to me rather harshly that, no matter what I did, I was never going to be sufficiently "cool" to be considered anything more than a mere hanger-on, albeit one who provided them with many, many photos and periodic baked goods. (I really do enjoy being Mama Hen to various starving and not-so-starving artists--after all, there's only so much fussing and clucking that my cat and my friends will put up with--but when you get the distinct impression that you're being taken severely for granted in both your culinary and photographic capacities, it can definitely help sour you on particular people. Too, on a more practical note, I'm not getting any younger, which makes staying out late and going to work the next day more and more difficult, to the point of being damn near impossible...not to mention that my employers have the completely unreasonable expectation that I should be awake and functional while on their time. ;-) Since being employed allows me to indulge myself in certain luxuries such as eating and living indoors, I would prefer to continue being employed, and if not hanging out with assholes is the price I have to pay, well...I fail to see what the problem is here. /snark )

(I'd also like to state for the record, as people either don't know or don't bother to remember, that I'm both quite nearsighted and have some pretty significant inner ear nerve damage, the combination of which tends to leave me peering around clubs in a manner not unlike a mole dragged out of its burrow, missing a good percentage of what's being said because (a) I can't hear what people are saying--oh, I know they're saying something, but I can't actually hear what it is, and (b) it's dark enough that I can't rely on my fallback of filling in the blanks by reading lips because I can't see them, plus (c) between the darkness and the myopia, finding people in a dark club can be an absolute bitch, which means (d) that I'm doing my damnedest to figure out just what the fuck is going on, thankyouverymuch. And no, I didn't blow my ears out at shows; I was thrown to the floor of my grandmother's car in a fender bender when I was was two years old with sufficient force that it caused the nerve damage--in fact, my mother was told years later, when they finally realized I actually had a hearing problem, that if I hadn't already been talking so well and so clearly at that age--thanks, Mom!--that I very likely would have ended up with a significant speech impediment. Oh, yeah, and getting older isn't helping this, either. Onwards...)

Not too terribly long thereafter, while I was still licking my wounds and debating whether or not I wanted to venture back out into the scene, I went to Arisia '08 and ended up having a wonderful time that weekend; in particular, thanks to the attentions paid me by a particular gentleman and long-time acquaintance, but also due to the many people in fannish circles who helped me feel as if I just might possibly kinda sorta belong somewhere, instead of being perpetually pressing my nose against the window and looking wistfully in...did me a world of good, I must say. ;-) The gentleman in particular is a long-time SCAdian, which reminded me that I'd always enjoyed getting medieval in the past (I was, after all, a medieval studies minor in college), and that one of the main reasons I slipped away from the scene in the mid-80s was because I was finally in a large enough metropolitan area and could take advantage of the various cultural options (shorter version: I moved to Boston and was finally able to be the band-follower in my 20s that most people are in their teens). So I got in touch with the good people of the Barony of Carolingia, and have been greatly enjoying my return to the fold. It's always nice to spend time with a group of people who share your interests and who don't appear to be as obsessed with "cool" as certain other social circles, hm? I could get used to this... :-)

What really sealed the deal, interestingly enough, was one of those rare occasions where I actually did stay out late for a show--in this case, Billy Bragg at the Somerville Theatre. I've been a fan of his for nearly 20 years, and have been toting along baked goods to his shows for about that long as well, and he's definitely worth losing sleep, spending money, and flinging flour 'round the kitchen over. IMNSHO, he's really and truly one of the sweetest, kindest people on the planet--if they ever manage to work the bugs out of human cloning, they really need to put Billy on the shortlist to be cloned, as (again IMNSHO) the world could sure as hell use more people like that. (No, he isn't paying me to say that, and no, this isn't an attempt at world-class-suck-uppery, either. He just really IS that good of an egg, and nearly 20 years of friendly acquaintance have only made that clearer. But enough butt-kissing...back to the actual story, now...) I stopped by the theatre around soundcheck with the usual contingent of freshly baked cookies, and was welcomed in by the (for want of a better term) entourage, who are also all lovely people fully deserving of praise and baked goods. I was waiting down in the green room when soundcheck finished and Billy came downstairs, and I must say, it really does a girl's heart good to have someone spot you, come running right over, give you a big hug, tell you that you look great, ask what you've been up to, and--gasp!--seem quite genuinely interested in the answer AND include you in the conversation as well. My, my, who'da thunk it? (The show, of course, was a blast, and if you haven't actually gotten out to see him perform yet, for God's sake, go! Gogogogogo! What are you waiting for?!?)

It wasn't until the next day, though, as I was e-mailing a dear friend about the previous evening, that it really hit me: Here's a man who's been internationally famous for well over 20 years, who can sell out decent-sized venues, hobnob with political leaders, and who, God knows, has seen me make an ass out of my self on plenty of occasions since 1989--and he always treats me like an intelligent human being worthy of respect and friendly behavior; whereas someone who's known me for less than two years, is barely known outside of eastern Massachusetts, and is still playing rathole clubs, basically thinks it's OK to treat me like crap even though this person had previously been perfectly friendly, and who doesn't even have the balls to say something to my face, but deputizes someone else to do his dirty work?

FUCK YOU, BUDDY.

(Mind you, playing rathole clubs is by no means a character flaw or an indication of lack of talent; I'm simply using that fact as a way to Compare and Contrast, so no offense whatsoever meant towards struggling performers, OK? Good.)

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In the meantime, I'm afraid I haven't updated the robinthemadphotographer.com website in about as long as I had this blog, partially due to a series of computers failing (at one point I suggested people just start calling me the AppleKiller), but even after that due to just not wanting to stir up old ghosts in the process of revamping the site. Please understand--I still like most of the people I met on the scene, and I feel bad that I haven't been going out to support them (there's only a couple of people on my shit list), but on some level it's felt necessary to remove myself from those circles and take stock of my life and dreams, and decide where I'm going from here. I guess you could say I'm having my own midlife crisis of sorts, but hey--unlike my friend's husband, at least mine doesn't involve banging a close relative, eh?

Don't be fooled, though--I haven't given up on being a fangirl completely, not by a long shot! If I can ever get myself to the point of regularly updating this blog, I'll try to tell more of my fangirl anecdotes from over the years, and maybe even post a few recipes here and there! I'm still trying to decide the exact path I'd like my writings to take, but in the meantime, I thought I should pop in and let anyone who's actually reading this know where I've been. See you all soon (I hope)...