I have an office

If you've spent more than 5 minutes talking to me you've probably heard me say, "I could never work in an office." Now I'm so freaking happy working in an office that I walked the streets of DC smiling this evening. In fact I was so smiley a homeless man gave me a hug, and they don't even pay me! This is like a photogs dream being inside the staff meeting where I learned what they're looking for in their new cover images. I'm a happy little photographer/student/intern/editor (with an office).

Little things that made me laugh

Its been a long time since I've lived in a house with little ones. I'm staying at my Aunt and Uncle's before my internship starts (ON THE 9TH!) and with my little cousins Eliza and Magdalena. They are the inspiration for the three things that made me laugh today. First Magda started unsnapping her mothers shirt to which Anna Maria promptly replied "It is not polite to remove other people's clothing." If only everyone's mother had taught them this simple lesson. Second Anna Maria shared with me what a confidence booster potty training is for a mother. She told me I celebrate when they go to the bathroom and soon they started clapping whenever I pee. "yea Mommy you went pee." She said, "I feel great all I have to do is eat and go to the bathroom and I have a cheering section." Thirdly Magda had the flu today. She puked 3 times and went through exactly three sets of clothes blankets and baths. She fell asleep on a chair with her adorable little head in a trash bucket just in case. After all this she still insisted on eating a pear for dinner. She sat at the dinner table with the rest of us, but inbetween bites she leaned over her little trash bucket waiting to see what would come up. You can't help but laugh when you're trying to carry on a conversation about Christian values, and eat your soup while the little girl next to you is alternately eating and leaning over a bucket, eating and leaning. Pears don't smell as fruity the second time around.

There is a flag on that coffin

There is nothing like a flag on a coffin to jolt you right back into reality. Yesterday when I left the bank in Harrisonburg VA I was stopped at an intersection while a funeral procession rolled by. For someone who tends to glaze right over the newest Iraqi war statistics in the news something in me woke up when I saw the flag laying over the coffin as it passed by. I watched the faces in each of the following cars as though the slow pace of the procession was a slow motion glance into each of their windows. A grey haired old lady curled and makeuped to the hilt, a 14 year old girl with a brown ponytail staring stoicly forward, a portly middleaged couple in a blue clunker, a five year-old boy turned around on his knees in his seat, aware that everyone is watching but not quite sure why. So these are the faces affected by war I thought. On later reflection I can't honestly say the person under the flag fought in either of the Iraq wars, the Vietnam war, or world war II. But whoever it was certainly brought liberation to my mind. Liberation from the ties of apathy.