The Last Candle

Does anyone remember if I made any New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of 2007? I sure as the sun risin’ do not. If I did make any resolutions chances are they were languishing by the beginning of February, gasping for air by the middle of March, and starting a worm church by Easter.

Like most resolutions.

If I did conjure up any ideas for the year, my guess were that they were banal, limp-wristed oaths in the vein of , “play at least an hour of guitar a day,” or “bake a loaf of bread every other day that includes a different kind of nut each time.” Boring stuff, stuff that might as well be Happy New May resolutions, or Happy June Blue Moon resolutions, or Glorious Wasn’t-Watching-Where-I-Was-Walking-and-Just-Stomped-an-Overripe-Banana resolutions. Just start ‘em up any ole’ time time and go. Besides, I bake enough bread products to feed a Third World country for a day, or a new-age mega-church for the Communion rite.

Nonetheless, in spite of these likely past transgressions of fortitude and self-betterment I must forge a new path as we six-billion-plus primates enter the next spin around Sol. In the face of past waylaid and forgotten attempts, I am newly resolute and courageously prepared to make yet again another attempt at progressive greatness, a test of steely will, steel wool, and wooly steel. Patents pending.

So here it is, the great Owen Resolution of the Year 2008 (And Beyond):

Get rid of all white socks in my wardrobe. Exchange whites with non-white socks. Do not buy any more white socks, ever.

I shot for the moon, but let the magnitude of the blast kept me within the limits of the troposphere. It’s easier to breath down here.

See, I have a sock drawer of mostly ugly, hole-pocked socks in dull varieties of off-white. If the drawer’s contents didn’t also include the trusty hip flask and handsome pocket-watch that Anthony gave me for my Best Man duties at his wedding, I’d be tempted to just drag the entire drawer, socks, lint and paisley bottom-cover and all, outside to set the whole thing a-flame. That would be lovely, and satisfying, and warm in this sub-ten degree temperature. In fact, I could probably get away with burning down the whole dresser, in terms of losing a bunch of ugly undergarments. The dresser itself is nice enough though, so no underlaunder-flambe tonight.

But, socks. By the end of 2008, it’ll be out with the white crew and in with the argyle, Gold Toe, striped wool and checkered cotton. That’s the plan. That’s the goal. But go ahead and call me a sockist, if you like. Proud and sock-predjudiced in 2008, that’ll be me. My future is knee-high, elastic, calf-fitting and comfortable.

Besides the whole white-sock culling, I do have another little project for this year: the Photographie Three-Six-Five project, which is more than just a cool name — it’s a whole buncha pictures.

For each day for the next calendar year, I’m going to snap, trim, color, crop and then finally upload a photo I took during that day. That photo will likely be deleted in digust and subsequently replaced by another. After several iterations of this degenerative process — I take a lot of photos, fortunately — a composition will finally be chosen that causes the bile to rise in my throat to only pharynx-level, a photo finally worthy for display next to all of the other vomit-resistant captures.

All of the photos will be located in this gallery, the official Photographie 365 gallery. For the truly plugged-in WWW user, a feed of the gallery is also available. Shortly I’ll have a link to the p365 gallery in the Navi. bar to the right of this post, but with my schedule that link’s due to arrive just before the Summer Soltice.

As a disclaimer, I don’t expect this project to end up as something like a testament to the human soul through a camera lens. For starters, I don’t own an SLR, even though I adore the little point-and-shot that will accompany me on this year-long journal. As for the pictures themselves, the gallery will undoubtably include photos of bacon, wrinkled pants, ivy- and crack-covered brick walls, half-empty (or half-full?) beer glasses on Thursday nights, misshapen shrubs, and so on. Heck, the two pictures thus far are of a fairly typical snowy Michigan morning and of a crown of shaped meat and trimmings that could’ve been molded by the jello-headed geniuses at John Carpenter’s alien props department — far cries from the Rule of the Thirds and any pretense of a choreographed humanist narrative. (Note: the shaped meat-crown was absolutely delicious.)

These are snapshots of daily life, not supercilious, rapid-fire attempts for a Pulitzer, natch. I say this mostly to the fools who are expecting some grand temporal mosaic of human living and loving, to whom I’d also like to say welcome, you must be new ‘round these parts.

But the project’s results accumulated by year end should at least be interesting to gauge, including how my eye for photography developed over the course of the gallery’s augmentation. And, of course, as a journal of memories the final product will be worth all 365 days of torture and mind-bending strife it took to create.

Should be fun. And I promise: no pictures of socks. Or not many pictures of socks, at least. Tee hee.

The next question: when I visit San Francisco this February, should my trusty point-and-shoot and I take a swing at The Six Minute Project? I think we will.