R3

Uu, and Canon just dropped their new R workhorse. Yummy. It didn't ziiing! for me personally, but it may mean the R5s are now going to be a little cheaper!

Can't be easy on shrinks, trying to determine what may be wrong with someone's brain. Is it old age? Early-onset of some mental deficiency? Is it plain old stress? Grief? Anxiety? Depression? Pseudodementia of depression? All of the above? Or is that all just part of being normal?

You remember that there are only two gods I pray to - Herne and Hermes - the gods of life and the god of travel. Ask me how many signs Hermes has sent me in the past two months, warning me not to be stubborn with this upcoming trip?  

Au.

I don't think I've ever been in so much pain, to not be able to sleep. Just after my moped crash, maybe? The last time I felt so bad there was nothing to do but suffer, was when I had that adorable flu-pneumonia started package a few years ago - that one was interesting. But yesterday - the heat is truly disarming - one of my ankles started to swell and then it started to HURT. Like, burning, pinching, pulsating, cramping, injured hurting, which was awful when I wasn't moving and then when I moved, it knocked the wind out of me. There was no position for me to sleep in. On top of it, it was simultaneously so hot we were soaked just for lying down and the fans were making me uncomfortable, blowing all over my naked moist skin. G is snoring, because the fans and the ACs are giving him sniffles, and mosquitos have started showing up. All of that combined made for one savagely uncomfortable night. At three I just gave up, climbed down, applied some cooling balm, wrapped the foot, took magnesium and two painkillers and sat with the leg on the desk. Luckily we had alarms set for five, with work to be done in the vineyard, as anything is better than being still. Of course, after I return from using my feet, then it gets REALLY interesting. The only good news is that I know this happens for a few days every year, during the worst heatwaves, and quickly passes. One is supposed to avoid a salty diet, which I am lately forcing myself into, since I am dizzy as it is without salt. 

R5

To cheer myself up a little, I have given myself an expensive ambition to the end of 2021. We call these "half-obtainable ambitions.". Basically, it means we are focused on something important unless something more interesting comes along. But mainly it is to distract ourselves. Like, in spring, we wanted to buy a new car to drive to my dad's funeral. So getting the car took up all of our attention. And then we had a beautiful new car to travel to the worst event of my life. 

          Being a tad more stressed than I usually am - the balance between my solo/exclusive existence and the enclosure of my family/a choker around me, which I deliberately often keep 50-50, has shifted, robbing me somewhat of my sleep and the nightmares are exhausting my waking hours. It happens. There's a reason and it will pass. I don't mind, I just ... can't sleep.) You know me; normally I have the cool factor of a landmine factory.  -  It goes perhaps hand in hand with my future, my sense of self being upgraded, my future travels and all those things which have lagged a little in the past two years since I started Etsy and then there was that thing with the Big Ol' Rona. What once was a goal to purchase a smartphone with the top-rated camera, and was instantly abandoned when I saw what sort of photos they actually take (the best so far ... for a phone), became an ambition to purchase that famed second camera I have always been avoiding. My love affair with Marki - who features prominently in all of my writing and blogging and whatnot, remains unparalleled to any machine I have ever owned. The very thought of replacing it is unseemly. There was always going to be the need for a backup and many, many MANY have been considered - from the most adorable hipster retro designs to make my heart tingle, to reliable workhorses - namely simply another Mark II. 

       Mark II has been discontinued, but after 13 years, it remains in popular demand and you can still get it, new from a box. It was, for its time, by far the most popular camera to have if you really, really loved shooting. There's an upgraded version - mark IV, which is everything II was, only .. you know, better. Same price, mostly the same design. A design I would be able to use in my sleep, blindfolded, in the dark, in a mine. It is a flawless design and Canon people have been busy. I mean, knowing they have a difficult job if they were going to continue combatting the smartphone market, they invested in the two key features any photographer considers, regardless of genre: it has to feel good and it has to work well. 

        Nobody looks at the 50.000 euro Hasselblad and thinks: it feels good in the hands. It doesn't. It just works as you would hope a 50.000 camera works. There are also a ton of bells and whistles that cameras have, like the Fujifilm's mode range, that makes the photos look how they would look if you were using film, or a LOT of video options, up to 8K, which not only overheats the cameras but has files so large Adobe can't run them, and so on. I am not a video girl. I probably should be, I should probably learn to peddle in that, there should be more movies that look like the Army of the Dead, but so far, I'm not. 

      So, restless and crying for two days, the General has instructed me, while I'm in LJ, to make a list of cameras and their pros and cons - price, obviously, and weight, what lenses fit, what I already have which I could use, what their reviews and opinions on YouTube say, so on. 

     And this one bunny kept hopping up. "Why I sold my Mark IV to get an R5", or "Comparing Eos-1D X mk III to an R5"....

    The fuck are you going on about? Eos-1D X Mk III is a 7.500 euro camera. How can you compare it to a mirrorless toy? It's like comparing a Lamborgini to a Mini Cooper. Like comparing Daniel Day-Lewis to Ben Barnes. And my budget's, like, 2 grand, if I can scrape them together till the end of the year - not to mention we're going to be needing winter tyres.

      Well. 

      Hello there.

      And so, after two days, making the lists and comparing the stats, I report back to G and he tells me - even though it is a little too hot for me to be outside, to cross the city, stretch my legs, and find a store - there is one store in the entirety of the country and it has that exact R5 I kept going on and on about. So that's what I do, and I ask to see it and ...

     MOTHERFUCKER. Instant *ziiing*!

     It is absolutely fucking perfect. It feels perfect, it looks perfect, it weights perfect, it performs precisely how I enjoy my cameras to perform and despite the endless beauty of Fujis and Nikons and Sonys and whatnot, it is the instantaneous rejuvenation of my love for photos, which has dwindled relentlessly over the years. I didn't even hear the seller describing the superlative resolution, stability, action focus, speeds and ISOs, uncropped bokeh, the excellent line of L6 lenses that come with, half as costly as the Ls - (Of course Canon was smart enough to make adaptors, so you can skip over the reservation regarding having to abandon all your hitherto gear.) 

     It is perfect. There goes my boob job. 

LOL, really, what is it with straight men and boobs?

Coming across a cosmetic surgery website - because there is one in the adjacent building where I'm staying and Google keeps asking me what I think about it - I browsed to see how much a boob job costs - contemplating at my age double D is completely useless and I could quite as easily walk around with a fair C cup. I expressed this contemplation to the General - a man who cares NOTHING about my appearance - he does not care about my thin hair, not my brittle teeth, not my chubby body, not my wrinkly ears, not my freckles or ugly little feet - not even the parts I've long stopped shaving. (Like my toes. Yes, I have balding-hobbit feet.) I said: "It costs just 4000 bucks to have one's breasts downsized by half."

         And he said: "It'll cost 8000 bucks to have my foot removed out of your ass if you mention this again."

           They would still be big boobs! But no. The very thought was inconceivable. He would never allow me to harm "Personality" and "Intelligence" - my two best features. 

Men.

Almost got bitten by a dog yesterday - it was my own fault and it didn't really go through the skin - victim-blaming, I know, but it was still an odd moment.

           I was on my way from the train station to the professor's, and a young, awesome-looking shelter mix, playful, energetic, on the large side, some kind of a Malinois/Scottish shepherd mix, was walking in front of me, with a young couple. The dog was all over the place, not yet leash trained. They stepped aside, allowing faster people and scooters to pass and I was holding my stamp-size iPod in my hand. I've also recently eaten snacks, and could still smell them on my hand. I'm saying my closed fist, smelling of yummy snacks, passed right in front of its snout. He leaned in and I momentarily thought he will try to sniff it, in a friendly manner. Alas, he grabbed my hand. It was so insignificant and non-threatening, I never even paused, I just complained in a doggy tone: aw! and kept going, mildly embarrassed by the misunderstanding. I am sure the couple behind me reacted and probably asked if I was okay, but really, at the moment, I thought nothing of it. It felt more playful than anything. My mum's dog broke plenty of skin when she was trying to be friendly and did not understand human hands don't take biting so well. 

            That'll teach me to assume all dogs are gentle giants. I could be typing this with a cast on my hand, or WORSE: needed a tetanus shot! (Not big on needles. Dog bites, fine, don't mind, but a medical needle, fuck no. Which is saying something, considering I almost did something stupid, in hopes of convincing my mum to go on a vacation with me - I saw an open clinic administering free vaccine and momentarily considered it. G got tested and his antibodies are at the top of the scale. I should at least make sure I don't have as many antibodies, before considering it. My PCT expires tomorrow. I've used it precisely once in the past six months.) I am not against vaccines in any sense, up until the moment someone starts demanding it. Then I can only see reasons against - including that bit where I ALREADY HAVE THE ANTIBODIES. 

I had a nightmare today, don't remember what it was, in which I knew I have to cry out for General in the waking world but had to cut through layers of sleeping: in the dream, I could scream his name fully, then at a half-awake I could just sort of moan and pull apart layers like membranes, and when almost awake, it was just this high-pitched, poorly formed little sound, very small and quiet. I remember becoming embarrassed when I finally ripped though, realising it was just a nightmare and I've probably woken him - he seemed to hear me, stir and turn, so I turned away and pretended to play dumb.

In truth G tells me I woke him fairly soon, pleading and crying quite loudly and for a good long while, and he did as we trained, soothing me very slowly and gently so as not to wake me. (Never ever wake people from nightmares.) He says once I finally woke up, I just pushed him away and pretended it was nothing, no thank you or anything. 

I must be such a fun sleeping companion. Explains why he takes so many night shifts :))))))

Building Virgil

Not quite there yet, but my quest towards building a moss florarium is showing progress - G, the mutt et moi offed to the mossy forest today, hoping for rain, in search of appropriate fluffy green substance. I now know that a) need much bigger jar and b) lots of moss out there. It gave me a sudden, unexpected desire to grab the camera again and hunt for pretty macro pictures. Once the General and Lyra drove off to his parents' farm, I hiked the countryside, looking for old abandoned homesteads and suchlike. The forest threw me out and I had to make my way across the pavements and meadows, but ultimately - still early morn, as we began at 5 - I invited myself over for coffee at G's sis's porch and chatted there while the men saw to the bees. It rained on our way back in the afternoon, and so much so that we had to turn around and weather under a barn, as the downpour was ridiculous. (And we worried about hail.)

Tiny trees...

Tiny shroomies ...

Boy moss ...

Tree-like moss ...

Tiny grass ...

Fuzzy moss ...

Puffy moss ...

Girl moss ...

Chunky moss ...

Almost lichen with ice-like shroomies

Star moss ...

carpet moss ...

Tiny fern ...

Blueberries ...

And that one time you accidentally switch to selfy mode and take a photo of your crotch...