Lately, things seem to be very repetitive out in the blogosphere and life in general. This is my tongue in cheek (for the most part) commentary on it. 😛 The photos are totally unrelated. They’re just photos I’ve taken that I love.
I think I may be the only food blogger on the planet who didn’t do a recap of 2011 post. I don’t see the point. That’s stuff that’s done and if you want to read it, it’s all in the archives.
I’m also not doing a post about 2012 resolutions or goals. I make goals, lots of them, and then I work on getting them done – all year long. Some are serious, some are big. Some are frivolous, some are little. Some are done in a week, some take years.
And they’re personal. I don’t feel a need to share them. Not till they’re done. We talk and talk and talk. Why don’t we do? Do you really need to know that one of my goals this year was to get new running shoes? (check that one off the list, baby! yeah!)
I have other confessions as well. Hold on… (you can flame me at the end! I promise ;-O)
First of all, I don’t “make” photographs. When did this become the “in” phrase for photography? Is this the new politically correct phrase for saying you’re a photographer?? I get it, believe me. Taking a photograph is a process of creation. But why all of a sudden is it a bad thing to say you “take” photographs? I take photos, I shoot photos, I capture images, but I feel like a pretentious prat saying I make photos. And my friends would totally call me on it: “oooo… look at Melissa, she thinks she’s Richard Avedon! haha!”
I don’t eat kale. Or make chips from it. Or add it to things. If somebody made it for me, I’d eat it. I’m sure it’s tasty and healthy but I don’t understand why it’s so trendy.
I’m lactose intolerant and have been for over 20 years. But I don’t feel the need to talk about it all the time, or really, any of the time. Unless somebody puts a bowl of ice cream or a glass of milk in front of me. Then there might be some words… but not the fighting kind – more like the “umm… I’m sorry, I can’t eat that” kind. (I’m Canadian – it’s in my nature to apologize).
I eat peanut butter. A lot of it. But you know what? I eat the Kraft or Squirrel kind – the one with all the sugar and salt in it. Not the organic kind that’s just ground up peanuts. And I love it. I don’t like the healthy kind at all.
I drink water from the tap. With no filter.
I use margarine. I eat A&W Teen Burgers. I like diet Dr. Pepper… with all the bad sweeteners in it. I sometimes make pasta sauces from a packet, and I eat Mr. Noodles. Every now and then I crave a hot dog and then I eat one.
I eat Kraft Dinner. But not with hot dogs.
People always joke that the more people they meet, the more they love their dog. I say that too. Only I’m not joking. He rocks.
I love Macs – like from back when they were only used by the weird designers in the graphics department. I had an iPod long before most people knew what they were. I took a flight once where three people came up to me on the plane and asked me if they could look at it because they’d never seen one in real life. But I don’t own an iPhone. You know why? Because everyone else does. Yeah, I admit it. It’s the rebellious streak in me – the more you tell me I need to have something, the more determined I am to get through life without it – and let’s face it, I will survive without an iPhone. Western Civilization will not end. I don’t think Socrates had an iPhone. Or Ansel Adams…
Oh my God… what if Ansel Adams had owned an iPhone? I bet he’d have taken a lot of square photos of Yosemite with lots of artificial grain in them and a fake Polaroid frame! Only when he did it, it would’ve looked futuristic and not retro!
I have an iPad. Because I won it. By accident. I didn’t even know I’d entered a contest! I just paid for a subscription for some design resources. If I hadn’t won it, I still wouldn’t own one.
I think most apps are kind of boring. I have Angry Birds on my iPad but I never play (somebody told me I had to get it! Shoulda trusted my rebellious streak… hehe)
I don’t spend all day on my phone. I have a Blackberry for business email. I’m a freelancer, which means I’m on the go a lot of the time so I kinda have to. But, I’d rather talk to a person’s face or watch the world pass by through the SkyTrain window than bury my face in a tiny screen.
How can you be an artist, a photographer, a writer, a designer if you aren’t observing your world whenever you can??
Even though I have to email a lot with my Blackberry for work, I secretly hate it when I get an email that says “sent from iPhone/Blackberry/HTC”
Wait, there’s more:
I rarely read blog posts where people give stuff away. They usually feel like I’m reading a commercial. Unless it’s a big old cintiq tablet – I’d enter a contest for one of those!
I sit in front of a screen all day for work. Sometimes my work day runs from 8am – 11pm. When I’m not working I want to be as far away from technology as I can.
I like to read books – real ones with covers and pages.
Or go hiking.
Or take my real camera out somewhere and lose myself taking photos – ones that I don’t have to process in an app (by the way, for the record, I think that’s digital art, not photography).
Or be with friends face to face instead of through a screen.
Like 90% of people who say they’re from Vancouver, I actually live in the suburbs. And guess what? I like it. I know how to drive across a bridge in rush hour. I know how to drive through a tunnel in rush hour. In the driving rain! I have survival skills!
I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer and it’s not the best stand mixer I’ve ever owned.
For a long time, I wanted a tattoo. But now that everyone has one, I don’t. (do you see a pattern? lol)
I have yet to meet a single person in real life that is the person they are on Twitter. Not a single one. Not that I haven’t met some lovely people – they’re just not the same as they are on Twitter. Shocking eh?
I’m not the same in real life as I am on Twitter. Again, shocking!
I like, no, I love, people who aren’t afraid to be different, do their own thing, not follow the crowd, and who are incredibly passionate about what they do. I love people who fling their heart and soul into things.
That’s all I feel like confessing to today – after all, my mom reads this!
Awww. You;ve really revealed yourslef in this post, haven’t you?
For what its worth, I didn’t do any round-ups or resolutions either. But then I am a stay-at-home-mum, so one day is very much like the other, so to say.
I eat way too many A&W Teen burgers, and I have Kraft dinner. Maybe not so much here in Canada, as in England, that’s cause its not as exotic as getting it all the way from Canada, y’see?
I think the iPhone is overpriced, and prefer my brick of a Sony, because it has the best music player in it. Crap camera though, but my P&S is small enough to tote everywhere.
I spend too much time online, but then I met people like you, so there’s a silver lining to the fact that my poor kid spends too much time watching Treehouse 🙂
Happy New Year Melissa 🙂
yes indeed, there are some silver linings 😉 One day hopefully we’ll get a face to face as well!
Best. Post. Ever. Like, on the whole interweb.
hahahaha… I do try to be awesome, like.. .ALL THE TIME. 😀
I didn’t do a recap or best of either. Loved this post.
thanks Sandra! 🙂
Love it, love that you are real!! Are you sure you are from Van?
well, I did say I live in the suburbs 😉
This may be the best post ever, (well, except that there is sadly no cake in it… )! Love your honesty.
I didn’t do a blog recap either! And because there were so many recaps going around, I almost wondered if I should feel guilty for not doing one as well, like maybe people actually want to re-read about things they’ve already read about.
Oh and I bought an android phone ’cause everybody told me to buy an iphone and when I asked them why I should buy an iphone, their answer was “because everybody has one” or “because it’s the best phone ever” – ummm, I can’t just buy a phone ’cause people think it’s cool!
And any post that begins with “I was sooooo honored when company x contacted me to promote their most wonderful product!” – I delete.
you are so right… this would have been 100x better with cake! but that is true of pretty much everything!
As soon as somebody says “this is the best thing EVER” I kind of start backing away. it’s a reflex. lol
I cheered more than once reading this.
Happy new year to you, Melissa.
thanks Jodi, same to you! 🙂
🙂
Know what? I’d love to meet you one day!
ah, me too. but you know, we have “known” each other for almost 9 years! That’s practically a lifetime in Internet Years! One day it will happen, I just know it!
Already 9 years? Wow!
But I remember doing crunches together… and that was years before P, when I was living in my sad shared flat…. so it must be right!
You wrote a bunch of stuff I’ve been thinking lately. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks recaps are a waste of my time – as a reader and as a writer. Real books – cannot be replaced. Thanks for being brave and stating your mind! I respect you and admire you.
Thanks, that means an awful lot. I appreciate it.
Your reality is refreshing – totally love this post.
Thanks Renee, sometimes you just have to write from your gut!
I came over from Michelle’s blog and totally loved reading this. True, to the point, charming and very refreshing.
Thanks so much! Glad you stopped by 🙂
I love your blog, I just fell in love with it all over again! I (for the record) did not do a recap…boring. I did do a resolution list “The Anarchist List”. I’m not a photographer but I do ‘take’ photographs of stuff I’m going to post and of stuff I just want to. If you were to read the “about me” page on my blog, I confess to loving Velveeta cheese…yes a cheese food product and cheap beer (not to say I don’t also have champagne taste). I’ve also posted my love for *gasp* canned corned beef and canned cheese/whipped cream. I get whatever commercial PB is available, I don’t like the natural stuff or any other kind of nut butter..true. I’ve even confessed to not giving a “rat’s ass” about baking my own artisan bread…and I do have a propensity to rebel against the main stream (but I do love my iPad). In short, I found your post to be “real” unlike our social persona…thanks!
Thanks Rhonda 🙂 Hiding the “read” you can become exhausting pretty quickly and over the last two years, I realized… I just. don’t. care. This is me – take it or leave it 🙂
That’s supposed to be “real” Bedtime for me!
To each their own I say 🙂 I do a recap, but I do think it has value on my site – people tell me they enjoy reading mine, and this time I added in a bit of personal info from the year too – kinda in lieu of the infamous christmas letters everyone sends out in their christmas cards. But I have gotten a few new readers the past year, and figured it might be nice to draw attention to my favorite posts (no rules other than that, I figure no one else really cares which posts happened to be most popular, etc.) in case some readers hadn’t come across them yet. Figure it also makes the reader’s job easier if they want a quick snapshot of the types of things I’ve done on the blog rather than having to sift through the archives and around 75 posts from last year.
As for “making” photos, I think the term has become popular because a few rather famous photographers use it. But I think it depends on your viewpoint to photography. I “take” photos, because I view photography as an act of capture, no matter how much manipulation went into putting that light and subjects there. My eye may have arranged things in the scene and recognized the light, but to me the photo is always a capture of the light and scene at that moment in time, and that is an act of taking.
To each their own – exactly! Exactly the point I was trying to make. Do your own thing if it works for you – but don’t do it because everyone else is!
I prefer capture as well. To me, it is literally capturing a moment in time. I might shape that moment but, I have yet to fully shape a finished photo completely on my own. There is always a little something that sneaks in that had nothing to do with me – I just captured, shot, took it.
I am so glad you admitted to preferring Kraft peanut butter – it have been enduring my own personal shame about that for years. See also: Kraft Dinner. Also if someone told me that they make photographs they’d get a long side-eye. Who does that? Thanks for sharing your secrets 😉
It’s a toss up between Kraft and Squirrel – I mean, with Squirrel, you get that peanut on the top, which is quite something… but I usually get Kraft. Sometimes when I feel healthy I get the low fat one. but that’s not very often…
Haha, I love this! I’ve never heard anyone say that they “make photographs”, but then again none of my friends are into photography so I guess maybe that’s why. It sounds weird to me. I’m a film student, so I “make films” but then I also “take/capture images”, not make them. I also like the year end roundups because I’m always curious which posts were most popular for other people!
I’m like you, I take pried in being a little quirky, dressing a little differently, studying different things and doing different things, like being a food blogger in high school. Kinda weird.
Anyways, thanks for doing this post! It was a fun and entertaining read 🙂
Glad you got a chuckle or two out of it 🙂
Amen! Be Melissa! I love Jif peanut butter. Probably won’t ever switch. I have a cell phone only for emergencies, but I’ve never texted. I like Chee whiz. I am who I am, and if there is something I don’t like, I can change it, but not because the world says I ought.
Aww I love these comfessions! I also love diet doctor pepper.. and diet coke. I think the real pop has too much guilt for me so I’ve built some sort of weird love affair with the chemically-ness of diet pop.
ooh I have a confession too.. I get tired of people who are able to digest gluten shunning gluten just because gluten free is so trendy right now. Esp since (like dairy or fiber) gluten is hard on the body when you reintroduce it after taking it out of your diet.
My God, this post makes me love you a little bit. Three cheers to almost all of it, except that I eat hot dogs with mac and cheese (plus: roasted brussels sprouts with cut up hot dogs so they plump up in the oven while the sprouts brown? Yes please.) Bravo, my lady.