Gypsy Rose

 ... from Amish, Pennsylvania.


Didn't see that one coming, did ya?

 I don't think I need to mention my Amish connections at this point, then this girl shows up in my little mountain town, working at my little brewpub, mentioning her upbringing in Lancaster, PA.  I don't think I really need to explain my confusion.

 No, she's not he most misplaced Amish girl that ever existed, but she did grow up in a Mennonite school, which is where I would have also found my childhood, if such a thing existed in Southern California.  Her father escaped from El Salvador, jumped two fences and found himself in Canada, then met a severely religious woman and settled down in Amish, PA... where this one would escape from as soon as she possibly could.

 Her younger sister made a break for it first, ending up in CO.  She followed, but kept going and found herself here in CA.  I was dying to hear all the stories to go with the tattoos, and got an earful today, but there is too much to relay here.  Also, too much ground to cover with my camera.  There were so many little things that I only realized I missed when I saw what I actually captured after I got home, but a beautiful day nonetheless, accompanied by a beautifully rare fog rolling around to shoot in.

 These last couple weeks have been a bit surreal for me.  I am so used to no one wanting to shoot, for whatever reason. After spending over a decade shooting friends, then five years shooting professionals, and a couple years shooting only my girls, it seems strange that so many people are interested in shooting now.  I had really given up, but now I find myself with work stacking up.  Beautiful.  Lavanyamaya.

 Recently a friend posted a reference to an Ayn Rand work that I didn't know existed, or I would have read it in my solitude.  I've been picking away at it, but obviously don't have too much time for reading anymore: The Romantic Manifesto

 "One of the distinguishing characteristics of a work of art (including literature) is that it serves no practical, material end, but is an end in itself; it serves no purpose other than contemplation—and the pleasure of that contemplation is so intense, so deeply personal that a man experiences it as a self-sufficient, self-justifying primary and, often, resists or resents any suggestion to analyze it: the suggestion, to him, has the quality of an attack on his identity, on his deepest, essential self." - 4

 There are so many beautiful little bits in this book that I've noted, that I don't even know where to start, even though I've only just began to read it.  Though I do not completely agree with Ayn's social philosophy, her creative philosophy, with all it's 'pull no punches' and 'no bullshit' jagged points, seems spot on.  I absolutely love it so far, and further hate the world I grew up in for not forcing me to read it when I was a nihilistic teenager.

Ok, so, I got mildly sidetracked on this post.  Not too bad.  I've been wanting to start doing some more quotes from what I'm reading, but I haven't been quite sure where to fit them in.  I guess I'm just cramming them in between my story now.


This girl is a work of art on a work of art.


... and I still need to go through the pics from the beautiful last night in Joshua Tree.


My family sleeps without me.


I wish that would happen less.