Parallax

Acie: "Remember [person we graduated with]?"
Indi: "No, why? Is she dead? Lately you only ask me if I remember people because they're dead."

I should probably find that sad, but instead it cracks me up.

Wow. Okay. I never thought I'd be saying this, but Acie is made out of amazingness and things even better than amazingness that I don't have the words for, and she's rigged things so that I genuinely do need to ask:

Anyone here know anything about the care and feeding of large format cameras?

She's managed to snag me one of these beauties. It was made in 1948. Not just the camera, either. It's got TOYS. Quoth she: "flash attachment with filters." She also says, "There is film half used. Don't know what's on it. Bellows are in great shape. Looks like plate on the back." [This has been translated from text-speak, as I can't put that in my journal.] Knowing Ace, it's probably stocked with the best in exploding bulbs that make you blind. You, not me, because I'll be behind it.

All I really know at this point is that, 1, I need to find another source of even more difficult film, and, 2, I can try my hand at real tilt-shift. Well. That, and I'm going to pwn the hell out of the package photogs at Jen's wedding. Graflex = chutzpah. Just ask Weegee.

Why acekitty and I can never share clothes:

Indi: i get the idea you could fit maybe one knocker in shirts i fit my whole torso into.
Acie: right knocker. left has ring.

So, last night - Colby and Ace and I went down to see Leigh, who has just returned from Qatar. Fun was had, a movie was watched, Vlad was loved on profusely, and then it was time to leave. Except we couldn't, because the front door was stuck. Really stuck. The knob turned three quarters of the way and no more. I tried, Colby tried, Leigh tried, and Ace tried -- had we not stopped her I suspect she'd have pulled the door frame out of the wall. Leigh grabbed a screwdriver, went out to his porch (fortunately he is on the first floor), vaulted over the railing, and went around to fiddle with the door from the other side.

"I'm gonna get arrested for trying to break into my own apartment," he said as he went.

A minute later he was there. Leigh tried to open the door from the outside, Vlad barked up a storm, Colby yanked uselessly on the door knob from the inside, Ace fretted about climbing out windows, and I idly wondered what would happen if Leigh and Colby's combined power knocked the door open on Colby's head.

But that didn't happen, because it was stuck good.

"FUCK THIS," shouted Leigh from outside. "I'LL CALL MAINTENANCE TOMORROW." And then he was coming back in through the sliding glass door, towards which Colby and Ace and I all moved, vaguely, each of us thinking about how on earth we were going to hoist our asses over that rail.

These apartments' rails, to explain, are four-and-change feet tall. They are made of a 2x4 on top, or something like, and then latticeboards all down the side, and another 2x4 on the bottom, which is something like three inches off the ground. They're painted white. They look like baskets, to me. And being as short as I am, the top of this thing is the perfect height for me to lean my elbows on - it goes about a third of the way up my ribcage.

Colby and I approached the barricade gamely. We put our hands on it, leaned a bit, tested the load-bearing capacity. Acie hung back, watching us, concerned. In situations like this - which is what I told Joey later - my mind always thinks I can pull a Buffy, put my hands on, and effortlessly vault over with my feet together. That is so not the case, because I have the strength of a hamster. I put my left foot on the bottom two-by-four, leaned sideways, and hoisted my right leg up onto the rail. From there it was easy to get the other leg up, and I was the first to hit the ground. Beside me, Colby did the same thing except, being a boy, there was more upper-body-lifting involved.

Five minutes of coaxing and guiding later, we had Ace over the rail and landing with a "meep!" in some shrubbery. She's a bit shorter than I am, and was wearing Birkenstocks (see, this is why I always have sensible shoes on), so it was harder for her.

We all got out, and we laughed a bit, and the neighbors down the building who were out on their porch laughed too, and we shouted "NICE SEEING YOU LEIGH!" and we left.

Sometimes, that's the sort of night you have.