Puppy Diaries

Day One

9:48 pm
The puppy has arrived! Oh my god, he’s so cute! Look at his big ‘ole paws as he bounds down the hallway. We’re instantly in love with this little creature.

2:20 am
I was sure he’d have slept a little by now. Oh well, he’s still so cute.

Day Two

11:15 am
Wow, this little guy has crazy amounts of energy.

1:45 pm
Seriously? I take him out and he does his business. Less than two minutes later he poops on the most expensive rug in the house.

3:45 am
Doesn’t this thing ever sleep? No, I don’t want to play fetch.

Day Three

2:00 pm
There are approximately 732 dog toys strewn about the house. 700 of them have squeakers in them. What insane person thought that putting a squeaker in a dog toy was a good idea? Is that some sort of cruel joke?

10:20 pm
Grandmothers hand-crafted statin pillow, handed down from generation to generation is now the favorite chew toy. I’m sure she’d understand.

Day Five

Time unknown – daytime I think
Only slept a few hours in the last week. We’ve run out of Band-aids. The little bastard has razor blades for teeth. Wearing knee-high plastic wading boots to protect the last remaining pair of pant cuffs.

Afternoon
The $300 iComfort dog pillow is a shredded pile of memory foam. We’re out of dog treats and afraid to leave the house for re-supply. Currently feeding the puppy the last of the saltine crackers.

Nighttime
Trying to sleep on the couch. Puppy wanted the bed. For the love of god, make the howling stop.

Day Seven

Puppy became self-aware at 3:28 in the afternoon. This may be my last diary entry. I’m hiding in the closet. Puppy does not like subversive activities. We’re sleeping the garage, visiting the house only to attend to puppies fickle wants and needs.

Shush! I think it heard me. I hear paws on the hardwood. And the squeaker…

On Art. And Bacon.

Once I came to grips with the fact that I wasn’t going to win American Idol this year, I had to find something else to do with my time.  Lately its been taking pictures.  Or, ‘capturing photographs’ if I want to sound all fancy.  There is an odd side of me that needs to be creative.  It’s a strange feeling since I have almost no artistic ability (except that diorama I made in 3rd grade – 1st place!) and very little knowledge of art.  As the saying goes, “I can’t tell you what art is but I know it when I see it”.  Or was that pornography? I get them confused.

Posting the pictures I take makes me feel somewhat awkward.  On one hand, what’s the point of taking them if nobody ever sees them?  Am I turning into a Kardashian-like creature desperate for attention and trolling for compliments?  On the other hand there are 2.3 billion (approximately) other people out there doing the exact same thing.  And a fair percentage of them are actually creating stuff that’s damn good.  Heck, take a mediocre snapshot with your cellphone, slap an instagram filter on it and you’ll get a bunch of people on Facebook all liking it and commenting “wow, great shot!”.

So why bother publishing pictures to the various social medias du jour?  I’m never going to be an “artist” (I don’t even own Birkenstocks and I’m not a fruitarian).  I’m never going to be a professional photographer.  Other than baby and wedding photos, I’m not even sure it’s an actual occupation anymore.

From a technical perspective I’m at about a 5th grade level in the photography world.  I have visions of real photographers looking at my stuff and saying (always in a heavy French accent) “how cute,  someone found a copy of Photoshop”.

So why do it?  Because I can’t paint.  I can’t draw.  I can’t sing.  I can’t carve wooden bear statues or ice swans with a chainsaw.  Sometimes I see an image in my head and taking a picture is the only hope I have of getting it out.  Most of the time they don’t match what I was thinking.  But every once in a while… it feels like you get one right.  And if just one person out there sees it and thinks to themselves “hmm, that’s sorta cool” then I suppose it was worth it to share that brief image I had floating around in my skull.

The problem I have, as a non-artist with limited brain cycles devoted to creativity, is that the majority of the images in my head are about bacon (don’t worry, I’m in a twelve-step program for my addiction).  And bacon, while a delicious super food, doesn’t photograph well.

http://troutdogphoto.wordpress.com/