There’s plenty here I’m conscious of leaving behind, and plenty more I’m sure I’ll discover once I’m separated from it.

But, here it is. It’s what I need to do. Here is the post I will reread, the one I wrote before it all went wrong.

(Hey! What’s upppp Minnesota! Who’s joining me for a picnic at the Rose Gardens? Two dollar movies? Christmas trees we’ll actually chop down? I will buy a reading chair and I will stick it by my window and write you notes, becoming the kind of person who reads the newspaper, the kind of person who can just sit and listen to music. Every birthday present I send will arrive, nearly, on time.)

“Hey, you guys mind if I do a whole project just on you?” I asked one day.

“Sure!”

They taught me how to play their game. I’d follow them to the convenience store, the playground, alongside highways and railroad tracks. We’d leave two of them alone to make out by the lake while we constructed boats for insects and then threw rocks at the boats and then sunk the boats. I followed a few of them around their high school classes (learned about: rugged individualism, the Hoover Dam, John Malkovich starring in Of Mice and Men, whaaaat), and then realized getting some bus shots would be good too.

6:50am, yesterday morning: on it. The din of adolescence slowly quieted in the background as I whipped out paperwork. “Hi there. Adrianne Mathiowetz. Student at the Salt Institute of Documentary Studies. I’m doing a photo project with those two. Here’s the release form from their parents, I’ve also spoken to the high school and received consent, I won’t take pictures including anyone not listed on the form, nice to meet you.” I smiled at the busdriver winningly and followed the twins to the back, our journey dutifully noted by sets of suddenly curious Maine blue eyes.

“Mind if I sit here?” I asked some kid.

“Excuse me . . . Miss?” the busdriver called back to me. “Come up here. I’m going to need to see that paperwork again.”

“Ooooooooo!” the riders crescendoed.

I stood up, jostled awkardly to the front.”Oh, uh . . . of course. Here it is.”

“And how do you pronounced your name?”

“Math – oh – wets.”

The busdriver breathed into her radio. “She says her name is Adrianne Mathiowetz? Have you heard anything about this?”

Static responded, vaguely in the negative.

“Yeah –” a boy quipped from his green pleather seat, “no more homeless people riding the bus!” The riders erupted into howls and giggles.

“Ha ha, homeless!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you ride this bus,” the driver said. “I’m not allowed to transport anyone who isn’t a student.”

“Really? But . . . I got permission from the school. I spoke with Principal [X].”

“We’re really very strict about it. It doesn’t matter if you got permission from the school, you can’t ride this bus. You’re going to need to leave now.”

“Ooooooo!”

Lord, school bus kids. I turned and looked at one of my subjects, who was gazing back at me hopelessly. I gave her a half-hearted salute as I stepped off the bus. It disappeared down the hill in a cloud of road dust and pollen.

“Oh, Adrianne? Could you actually come back here please? It seems there’s been a misunderstanding. The principal will meet with you in his office.”

“Ah, Christ,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

No more getting on the bus. Are we clear on this, Ms. Mathiowetz? Are we clear? Yes, we’re clear. Are we clear? Okay.

I defeatedly shuffled my gear into the foyer, and found a bench. I pulled out a book to read. Fifty minutes until the next bell rang; then I could get back to business. Business! To at least feign professionalism, respectability! A cop walked by.

“Excuse me, miss? Shouldn’t you be in class?”

The bell rang.

At one point the protestors expressed their disgust with our president’s arrival by singing the national anthem. The supporters on the other side of the street countered, by also singing the national anthem. It was nearly beautiful.

Got Medicaid? (Larger)

But it got me thinking: is documenting the crazies the responsible thing to do? Do I want the story to be, “Obama comes to Portland, these people think he’s an undocumented terrorist commie”? Misinformed insanity has a strong enough voice as it is, without my exploitative attempts.

Also, while it was thrilling to be part of a protest I didn’t agree with, it was also kind of a huge bummer. I thought of the Bush protests I’d gone to, and wondered if I’d depressed any of his passing fans. “So much negativity! Can’t you just be nice to our president for once? He’s trying!” I crawled back to the smiling supporters.

I took a few. He asked “did you get it?” (Larger)

A few more from both sides — for better or worse — here.

He turned to me. “Memory lane is a dead end?”
“So great!”

He pulled into a gas station to turn around.

Cigarette required (Larger)

I looked down at my own, which had become long (and thus, dirty) simply out of neglect. “But I’m mostly straight,” I said, “and my nails are mostly short. I mean, they’re long now, but that’s not on purpose.”

“Adrianne. Think about it. Our hands are our dicks.” She made a hand gesture to illustrate something I’d certainly never experienced. I choked on my coffee and squealed like a seventh grader.

“That’s . . . that’s a very good point. You know, in porn, where they have the obligatory lady-touching-herself scene? And the chick has this ridiculous manicure, with the long acrylic nails that have, like, jewels glued onto them? I can never watch that shit. It actively turns me off. I won’t want to do it for hours.”

A child skipped by our booth, dragging a small white dog by the claw of a stuffed lobster.

“Seriously! That’s so horrifying! Why do they do that?”

“Well, in their defense — I read this book once, A Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn. And the author said something about these women being professionals, obviously, and the nail tips not being sharp, and how they’re not hurting themselves.”

“Ah. I think I read . . . part of that book too.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t very well-written.”

“No. I think that’s why I only read part of it, then gave up.”

“Heh, right. Such a shame. Anyway, so, there’s that I guess. But still, it’s so visually unappealing. It looks painful regardless. I wish they wouldn’t.”

A long, thin elderly man with stooped shoulders and cowboy boots slowly clacked over to our table. “More coffee for you girls?”

“Oh, no thanks!”

“Yeah, I think we’re fine.”

“So I had this fantasy, about [X,] the other day. It really weirded me out. We did [scandalous!], and then [extended scandalous!]. Oh my gosh.”

“You did [scandalous!] with [X]?!” I yelled.

“I know, right? Sometimes I don’t know where my mind comes up with these things. It goes on, like, tangents.”

“I almost never think about faces.”

“Really?”

“Well it’s kind of a funny thing, you know, thinking about men masturbating –”

Suddenly her growing wide eyes met mine.

She whispered: “Adrianne!”

I stopped, and looked around.

You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. The child was sitting on the floor, slowly petting the now-sleepy dog. His grandparents hovered over their toast, sipped heavy mugs of coffee, careful to move their silverware silently on the plates. Linoleum peeled. A faded cardboard cut-out of Marilyn Monroe gleamed in the corner, some kid’s model airplane suspended forever above her. In front of us, a set of grey heads were nearly motionless, frozen in their seats like terrified mannequins.

Without our voices barraging the air, the silence preserved the diner like hardening amber.

“Oh god,” I whispered, “. . . were we really being that loud?”

“Uh, yes. Yes we were.”

“And we were just talking about –”

“I think we forgot,” she whispered back, “I think we just acted very, very city.”

“Oh man!” I said. “I’m going to bring my camera, and take pictures, all throughout the show without a single flash, because I’ve got that shit handled, now!”

Cherry Phosphate and Jane Doe Cabaret (Larger)

UnAmerika’s Sweetheart (Larger)

Mary Widow requires assistance (Larger)

Take a bow, the night is over (Larger)

We met up with some friends who’d grabbed a front table, and as the lights dimmed and I unpacked my gear, a familiar voice sung out from the speakers: thank you for coming to the show, and remember, absolutely, positively, no pictures. I pointed my lens toward the stage and took a test shot to check my levels. The stage manager came flying from the shadows. “Excuse me, but you can’t — oh, Lacy! Never mind. Hey, welcome back!”

It was then that I realized: I have, what we in documentary school call and covet, “access.”

And I also have, what we in documentary school call and abhor, “bias”: because I love these people with all my heart, have kissed some of them at parties, and these photos are meant to contain a message: this is beautiful, hilarious, important.

Full album: here.

1.) We drove three hours through a blizzard to attend a community dinner in Central Maine. This is what you do when you study documentary-making. “So this is kind of awkward, guys,” I said as we buckled seatbelts. “But I’m going to need to grab a pregnancy test on the way up. Cool?”

This is one of my new favorite ice breakers, because it sounds so much more alarming than it really is. I can’t even count how many pregnancy tests I’ve had to take over the past few months, just because my period is going through some dumb unpredictable phase. High five!

2.) I ate a pile of plain noodles. This was more difficult than you’d think, just because of how sticky noodles are in their unadulterated state. What, community dinners at the rural Masonry don’t have vegetarian options?

“We didn’t sleep together in those days, we got married!” the elderly woman next to me cackled. “That’s why I made so many mistakes! Ooo, here comes one of my ex-husbands, I’ll introduce you. You’ll regret this.”

“I dragged that boat all across town to get it fixed,” ex-husband grumbled. “One little diaphragm, it needed. Four hundred dollars. Can you beat that.”

“Get a slice of that cake before it disappears,” she whispered to me, nodding toward the buffet. “I know all the good desserts in this town. The coffeehouse after this, you’ll want the pie.”

3.) I crouched at the bottom of a stage, and took pictures. Sometimes I propped the camera on the stage itself, to steady it, because my hands are constantly shaking (“Drink a lot of coffee?” my professor asked a few days ago, zooming in on a photo. “Ah, no,” I explained, “I’m just . . . usually terrified”). Meanwhile, Madeleine crept into the balcony and shot from there. This actually was not related to our project, but the guy was really good, and we thought we’d experiment with the whole “if you have a nice camera you can do anything” theory. Success. Also, cute musician. Cute musician!

4.) I finally learned how to play darts. It was in the middle of the night, and we were lurking in a bar while the snow poured and poured outside. A 67-year-old man approached us at the pool table, and proceeded to tell us everything we had come to find for our story. So we challenged him to a game of darts. “You’re standing all wrong,” he told me. “Hmm?” I said.

“Like this.”

Fwop. My dart landed in the second inner circle. Fwop fwop. “Oh my God!” I said. “Do you know how many people have tried to teach me that? I thought I just sucked.”

He shrugged. “You were standing all wrong.”

5.) I rediscovered “Separate Ways” by Journey. Jukebox, two pitchers of cheap beer. Secret to happiness.

“Want to play pool?” J asked.

“I would like nothing more,” I said, “than to take pictures while everyone else plays pool.” O camera, perfect, endlessly appropriate excuse; I am wretched at pool.

If he / ever hurts you / true love / won’t desert you! AHHHHHHHGGGHH!

6.) More lessons from old men in bars: PMA, that’s all you need. Positive mental attitude. You wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror. If you don’t think you’re great that day, you don’t leave the house. PMA.

7.) Five people, two double beds, the smell of stale cigarettes. We were going to arrive after the front desk closed, so they left the key in the door. “Christ. There’s going to be like twelve murderers in there, waiting for us,” I said.

“Nah,” said everyone.

It was still snowing. We squished together under the covers, all of us still in jeans, sweaters, clunky belts, and played Two Truths One Lie until we fell asleep: the five of us with our slowly uncovered histories, of arrests, pet trouts, proposals, but not webbed feet (lie).

“How about we go to the cemetery tomorrow,” Janaka replied. “Bam. Time, place. You’ll be all ‘That’s right. One picture. What. Next assignment.’”

thickness means / worlds inhabited by roamingly / stern bright faeries (Larger)

Here’s a neat thing about e.e. cummings grave: it has books hidden inside it, carefully sealed in plastic bags. More whimsical death photos below the break.

Your funeral. (Larger)

Grief over Page (Larger)