I'm feeling slightly better. Which is to say that noises aren't swimming through a strange, gelatinous atmosphere, there's slightly less snot in my nose, and when I cough, my lungs don't threaten to let loose from my chest and go skipping off into the sunset together. My nose is raw from blowing and there's a seemingly permanent tickle in my chest. But I'm better.

I haven't worked at All Fired Up for three days. My very sympathetic and excellent boss let me rest up for a few days, which I did. I did, however, go to the nightclub last night - I'd rested most of the day, and I didn't want to miss work on the second night at a new job.

Things went better this time around. I fiddled around with my camera settings so that I would get clean pictures with the ambient lighting in the background. I ended up at 1/2 second at F8 (with my flash at about 1/16th strength), and they turned out really well. The pictures that I have here, however, aren't the kind that would end up on the website (those are... well, they're nice, but they're posed and somewhat static) but rather some of my personal favorites.





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It was an interesting night. I arrived on time and noticed that about ten feet away from the entrance to the lounge you can actually smell the cologne that's emanating from inside. Instead of having to wait around like last time, I simply approached the very large bouncer and flashed him my most winning smile.

He remembered me! He lifted the rope and let me inside. I gave all my stuff over to the coat check girl and started shooting.

First, a very hot but very drunk girl draped her arm over me and said (well, yelled - the music in the club is so loud that my ribcage feels like it's humming, so to talk to each other, people have to put their lips within an inch of the hearer's ear and yell) "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE SO HOT."

I coughed uncomfortably and said thank you. I offered to take her picture. She declined but kept talking until her friend came over, shot me an apologetic look, and sort of dragged her away.

I almost got trapped in the middle of a fight between two men who were, honestly, at least a foot taller than I was. At least. Luckily, I'm quick and ducked out just at the gigantic bouncers approached the fighting men to try to diffuse the argument (to give it a literary analogy - the polar bear fight in His Dark Materials? Yeah. It felt like that).

I had about, I'd guess, $50 worth of alcohol spilled on me over the course of the three hours. It was annoying, but I managed to keep Zoë (my camera) safe. At some point, this intoxicated asshole almost spilled beer on her, and it took every ounce of self control not to say "You can spill alcohol on me until I smell like a holiday drunk at company Christmas party, but if you get so much as one drop of that shit on my camera, there is no unit small enough to measure the space that I will stuff you into. ¿Comprende?"

There was a guy who, after I took his picture, asked me about my camera and how I got the gig. He also got my phone number because he wanted "photography advice." I actually gave it to him. I'm not sure how that happened.

After I took their picture, three very attractive men (who I suspect were of Middle Eastern origin - they were gorgeous) kissed me, once on each cheek. Three men. Six kisses. I was a little dizzy afterwards.

At some point, the drunk girl came back. She offered to buy me a drink. I declined. She told me I was hot again. She insisted that "people over there" were talking about me. At some point, her friend came back, actually apologized, and dragged her away as she attempted to loop her arm around my neck.

At two, I copied my photos onto the office desktop, collected my paycheck, and left the club. It felt so good to get out - I stepped out of the heat, the noise, the cloying scent of liquor and perfume and cologne and into the fresh, wet night. I sauntered back to the Metro, taking my time, breathing deeply (the cool air felt so good in my lungs), noticing the beautiful wet pavement, and how the lights reflected in the dampness.

And so I took pictures.





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It was lovely. I got around three, went to bed, and woke up this morning feeling well enough to go into work for some low-impact glazing and kiln loading. Would you believe that I had a semi-erotic/spiritual experience in the glaze bucket? I'm trying to make it into a poem or something.

Yeah, I know. I'm weird.