The bridge of my nose won’t stop twitching, last night I cut my thumb in the shower trying to scrape the waitressing callouses off my feet, today, burnt my inner arm straightening my hair. I normally, being a half-heartedly superstitious atheist, would consider these things to be bad omens and go back to bed. Any excuse to go back to bed really. That’s the crux of most modern superstitions—the fear of the possibility of outside disaster and the comfort and relative safety of our own beds.
I have three times been concussed in bed, once tore a muscle getting out of bed, and once suffered a bad fall while making my bed.
I am steadily growing distrustful of my bed.
Instead I held two shoots for my series Some of the People I (Don’t) Know. Photo shoots have placed low on the danger scale. Despite the incident with The Swan, which we will consider to be a freak occurrence.
Waiting for my first subject I look in my bag I realize I left the book I was reading in my doctor’s office. This is not like me. I don’t forget things. I would like to forget a lot of things actually, but can’t seem to shake the specifics of every bad thing I have ever experienced. And every stupid thing I have ever said. Maybe this is the beginning of a new me, but I doubt it. I just don’t let go. Which is how I came to start this series to begin with. Abandonment issues. I’m the Butterfly Collector, with considerably less forcible confinement and murder.
When my first subject arrived, I had already set up as the twitching continued, accompanied by the headache and the fever. Which is my body’s way of saying hey, you no longer hold steady employment requiring you to be in good health… I am going to fuck you up! And fucked-up did I feel.
I am usually very good at having the conversations involved in shooting this series. Able to make small talk and remember, verbatim, the things that are said while I fumble around and click.
Not so much today. I remember, but not well enough to transcribe.
On the first shoot one roll of film seemed to wind improperly, loosely collecting over the spool, possibly due to some debris in the camera. This necessitated unwinding and rewinding it in a darkened bathroom. I didn’t want to impose on my subject and have him sit for another roll just in case one was ruined. He’d sat for seven as it was. By the time I came back from getting my fingerprints on the film my second subject had arrived and was sitting with a coffee. I don’t like things in people’s hands.
As a fidgeter, I can see where this is going. Friends who know me well will quickly remove any items in front of me such as napkins, or coasters before they are torn to shreds, hide the pepper and salt shakers before they are twirled around and upturned. In preparing for shoots I try to passively prevent fiddling by leaving the table bare, but I don’t impose on subjects who already have things in their hands just as I don’t tell people what to wear, how to sit, or try to direct what we talk about beyond natural progression.
I once photographed a close friend, we barely said a word to each other. Roll after roll of stony silence. It was a realistic representation of our relationship at the time and I stand by it.
Both men were nice, easy to talk with, and did not preen or pose. I just want people to be themselves. I photograph people I know and love, these are the more obvious choices, the people I don’t know seem to be individuals I’ve come to idealize in my naive way, or have grown fond of however superficially. I can never imagine why they’d want to be anyone but themselves.
As they did their part, I’m left to my own neurosis, wondering how badly I might have done. I won’t know for sure until Tuesday. Home, I have a bath, and crawl into (treacherous) bed hoping to feel better soon, hope that the film will be okay. That my nose will stop twitching. It occurs to me that I always worry that shooting has gone horribly horribly wrong, and that usually, it was just fine. It also occurs to me that the minute I stop worrying is when it will actually all go horribly wrong. I worry now for the sake of superstition.
