what can i say?

my friends djMark & lirpa both noticed some fotoblogging i had done over the summer @ flickr.com that i had made a link to in my myspace page... i mostly posted pix that i took in august during an unusual vacation for me, my first-ever, solo, non-business-related trip, in fact (post-breakup), to both philadelphia

 

and nyc (in two installments).

 

all of the pictures i took were captured with a series of disposable cameras... i had thought about buying a digital camera before the trip, but knew nothing about them & ran out of time... i discovered during my journey that the more i wandered around the east coast & took fotos, though, the more i wanted to keep doin' it! from my cocoon of despair & confusion began to emerge a full-fledged shutterbug (& please keep in mind that my mother was being treated for cancer @ the same time as that trip, so i wasn't just simply wallowing in 'dating' blues in self-pitying fashion)...

anyways: practically no one on myspace really noticed (such is the nature of that online community... + i'm a wee bit older than the average there [ha!], which has always made me slightly uncomfortable with having a myspace account at all)... practically no one noticed, that is, except for mark & lirpa, & maybe a handful of other frenz & family members...

well... out of all that initial flickr/myspace blog energy came a later invitation from those two to start a buzznet account, which, in all honesty, has changed my life.

sure, this shite ain't perfect, but i personally really needed to reach out to a larger community--something radio work has certainly allowed me to do, but which is a tall order in this gentrified region of the "golden" state...

as a result of my membership, i've made a bunch of friends in three relatively short months (including deepening my ties to djM, lirpa & their 2 wonderful children, paisley & otis)...

here's the thing, then... re: that beautiful painting mark gave me the other day for helping him get up to snuff to start his first ever gig as a full-fledged fm radio dj?... on 1 level, i don't feel like i really deserve it, 'cause i've gotten so much more from them than any extra effort i put into answering mark's self-described "stupid questions" (damn, answering radio-related questions is what i largely do for a living! it's the least i can do, especially for a friend!! =)



i don't know how to thank the two of them enough, or also so many of y'all (who have even waded this far into this particular entry), for helping me to reimagine a very difficult phase of my life as actually being one of rebirth (& i'm hoping, even, evolution)...

the least i can do is to share some of these thoughts with a number of U collectively, in this site, & with others (such as my very best friends from santa barbara, for instance--jay, sara, & samara, luis & doina, john b., keith r., my boss elizabeth robinson, my longtime coworker bryan, my roommates since i joined 'laguna house,'--sara b., laurel, & keira--so many of the student managers @ kcsb,--chris m. & carlotta, esp.--kcsb's great programmers, and so on... plus my family, of course (both immediate & extended)... i just want to express appreciation to you all for being there for me, and for being such important parts of my life...

o.k. enough of my blather... y'all must think i'm some sorta hippie!

but back to U 2, "dj"mark & april (is it o.k. for me to call U that for once, lirpa?;) ~ not only am i gonna think about other concrete ways to pay U back for your luv & generosity (besides writing a unsolicited tome)... i also just wanted to show U just how special a location mark's "sound salvation" piece has already assumed in my space (in the haven i've been calling my bedroom since late winter, 2005)...

U twose, so many of y'alls... i just don't know where i'd be withoutcha!!!!!!!!

with LUV & in solidarity,
ted