I very nearly threw all of those envelopes of negatives directly into the trash.

They’d been crammed together like trash, separated from their prints and randomly crumpled in one bulging envelope. Even when I was using film, (ha what? I used film once?) I had never understood why the drug store gave me these damn things. Negatives! For what, pictures I’d taken as some goofball kid in high school, 4x6s I’d already carefully pasted into collages and scrapbooks?

That’s exactly what those photos were good for, I thought. Negatives are for Real Photographers. Negatives are for the diehards of technology, the chemists, the artists, the luddite sages. But then I held one dented, tiger’s eye strip up to the light.

What! I’d forgotten about this one. And what’s this? I must have given that print away. Hey, I realized, I want another chance with these.

I got my first digital camera (1.3 megapixel) second semester of my Freshman year in college, and it was around then I started getting interested in photography just as a thing I wanted to get better at: being able to see the result immediately was huge in figuring out what worked. Since then I’ve gone through a few desk top computers, a few external hard drives, and in the processes a lot of those photos were lost. Data got corrupted, I didn’t transfer something correctly: for the majority of them, I honestly don’t know what happened to them. Even when present those photos were always intangible, disappearing with the click of a power switch.

But these negatives, randomly jammed together with no indication of date or location, managed to survive those haphazard, careless years. Instead of throwing them in the trash, I could just put them all in a ziplock bag and mail them to a scanning service.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, through the miracle of past technology meeting present, I give to you the fine results of my first photoshoot. (I’d like to say I took this around age eight, but I think it may have been more like thirteen.)

Full album of random life experiences, age 16-19: here.

Yesterday a few of us caravanned to The Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake. It was twelve degrees and nobody wore warm enough socks — only because after a certain point, warm enough simply doesn’t exist.

Enjoyed: hot dogs and coffee, the giant manipulable robot, Billy Joel and “Thriller” in the Dance Shanty, ice bikes on skates and skis, cold letterpressing with the MCBA, and watching all of the basketball players fall, at some point.

I have no idea who the girls, pictured above, are; but we had a pretty excellent time together in the twirling shanty until we all wanted to hurl. Earlier, Will was holding someone’s child on his shoulders so she could reach the robot’s arms. People passed out tweeted newspapers in the dance party, passed donuts to the artists in the letterpress house. “Would you like your naughty fortune read?” someone asked me. “Would you like to know how we built this?”

“Yes!” I replied, over and over.

What is it about the unbearable cold, that makes us all so eager to connect with one another, strangers?

We were not prepared for the brute force of Niagara Falls. The wet wind, coming at us from all angles, billowing our flimsy blue ponchos from the ground up. The boat, heaving and churning in the cold, a cockroach dogpaddling its way toward a vomiting giant. We weren’t getting closer, were we? We were. Hold on to the railings, folks. The water’s about to get real choppy. I squealed and clung to your soggy arm; you squinted and peered into the mist, as buckets of water were thrown against our legs, my cowboy boots overflowing Niagara, the hood on your coat overflowing Niagara, we were happy.

Documentation (Larger)

The Approach (Larger)

First, I needed to ask a question, before I could get any answers. I thought about that for a moment. “. . . Where should I live?” I asked her.

She placed her pajamaed arms on the coffee table and examined the cards.

“This one says you should never live in a palace, or a castle,” she said. “And this card says . . . don’t trust anyone. And this one says you should remember to take a bath and use shampoo. And this one says, just go someplace, and when you get there, tell someone.”

From my first gig after graduating from Salt, Brian and Wilson’s wedding in Cambridge: perhaps this asks the question, “do you really want a documentary-style photographer shooting your wedding?” This is still one of my favorite images from that day.

But lest you get the wrong idea of how the day generally went — that’s not good documentary! — here is this picture, also.

Did I cry at this wedding? Of course, always.

What a strange, lovely thing we do, promising something as elusive as feelings, guaranteeing something as uncertain as the future. The potential for my own marriage has always alarmed the hell out of me, but weddings make it look so . . . natural. If you can love and give yourself to someone, you should. Just be there, take his hand. We create rituals for this kind of thing, so that you know what to do. We grant symbolism to the shape and materials of jewelry (forever, forever), to the weather that day (good luck, bad luck), to the color of your outfit (purity, beginnings). Everything means something today, if you want it to; everything can predict something else.

And everyone else you love is here too — like the circles we would form backstage in high school before opening night, chanting I will hold you up.

One late afternoon I woke up cluttered with the remnants of a nap’s dreams. I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen you drink, but in my dreams you are perpetually the drunkard — cruel, incisive and swinging, your body a wrecking ball through the stage set of my subconscious. If this were real life I’d ask you to leave. If this were real life I’d stop laughing at your jokes, saying “it’s not like this even matters!” Ha ha ha.

I decided to take a walk to clear my head, but it’s dangerous, walking alone in this state, on this beach, at this time. Everyone else you see here is walking alone, too, looking meaningfully (really, is there any other way?) into the ocean. Oh vast expanse! Oh perpetually shifting shore! Grackles swoop from the sky like chimney dust, vomiting SQUACK! SQUACK SQUACK!

It’s too easy to assign the people you see here with secrets, small troubles. They lean against the pier, squint a little, sigh. They pull their coat tighter around their shoulders and walk on. Crash crash, says the ocean. You think: wouldn’t it be great, to stop one of them and ask to trade? Suddenly the only thing stopping you is physical, a lack of sound in the throat.

How strange it is, the first time you put your mother’s sock on for her, tie her shoe. You came here to do these things, knew they were coming — had envisioned this very act, even — but still it surprises you. The world shifts. You roll up the cotton sock and within it is her vulnerability, which you don’t like to think of as her (oh god) mortality, which you don’t like to associate with your own (oh god) mortality. You’re tiny at her feet like a child, tightening the laces, bunny ears through bunny ears. A little looser, she says. There we go. Perfect. How quickly it becomes ordinary, just another thing to do before you leave the house together.

The day I brought the kitty home I had a temperature of 102 degrees. The drive to the humane society had been an act of rebellion against my better judgement: I was a little dizzy, a little nauseated, my throat swarming with antiviral armies wielding spears, javelins, occasionally catapults.

But I had been sweating in bed for three days. The sixteen year old in me moped to the kitchen and whined. “Oh my god, get out of the house.”

The ten year old in me perked up. “AND LOOK AT KITTENS.”

So I popped two Dayquil and took my adult body on a feverish adventure. I knew what I wanted. An orange cat, male, two or three years old at least. I would name him Milo.

More photos of Sashimi Bun: here.

Sarah had acquired a new pair of sparkly gold shoes, so she invited us all to join her at Mancini’s, an old steak restaurant in St. Paul dripping with heavy red curtains and watered down cocktails. Suits were involved, and a big band tapping their feet on a stage glittering with christmas lights and bows, trumpeting out “Little Sister.” I’d busted out some faux furs and a silk dress I’d found at a thrift store for ten bucks. I’ve only recently decided that I’m old enough to wear lipstick, so whenever the opportunity presents itself I get really excited.

“Can you taste any vodka in my vodka cranberry?” Joanna asked. “I’m pretty sure this is just Juicy Juice.”

“You should . . . send that back,” someone confirmed.

While we waited at the bar, an older man tapped me on the shoulder. “I’d really love it if you danced with me, just one dance,” he said.

“I dance with anyone!” I said, taking his hand.

He swirled me around, told me I’d put a spell on him. He said I had those angel devil eyes. At the end of the night, he patted my back. “I know you have a boyfriend, but I just put my business card in your dress,” he said. “And if that ever changes, call me.”

My spindly arms twisted and grasped my halterline in alarm. “That is a smooth move!” I cried.

Obviously I was going to take pictures backstage at The Slutcracker when I visited Boston. I emailed the director — aka, my friend, my mentor, my former troupe leader — as soon as we realized I’d be in town during the show’s run, she asked me when I wanted to be there, I showed up, and at one point I was on someone’s shoulders while everyone cheered.

I knew almost the entire cast. I had been on a stage with them before, I had been naked with them and ripped adhesive off my chest with them and made out with them and mock-humped them with a sock stuffed down my booty shorts. And usually, I’d also had my camera with me. It was just part of my hand, part of my face, a given.

When I saw that the troupe I’ve performed with just a couple of times in Minneapolis was also doing a subversive “Nutcracker” — at the Ritz, one of my favorite theaters, and collaborating with Ballet of the Dolls, one of my favorite dance companies who have a long history of beautiful, eerie (occasionally to the point of being Lynchian) and often hilarious shows — I contacted that troupe leader too. “Hey! Shooting backstage is kind of my jam. Want me around?”

They were cool with that. I rejoiced. I packed my things, I showed up.

And then, faced with the dressing room of the Dolls, I broke into a sweat.

I don’t really know any of these people, I realized. Not just that this was socially stressful, but from a practical standpoint: I don’t know who the camera whore is, who prefers privacy, who is more selective with their personal space, who might be annoyed by my mere existence in the room. And I deeply admire all of them. They’re professionals! Oh god, I was going to have to act professional.

I would announce my presence, start from a distance. I use a wide angle lens, so these photos were mostly useless, they were just warming me up, normalizing that shutter sound echoing in the room. Hihihihihi.

Okay, I’d breathe in, act casual, get closer. Now closer again. They’d look up at me, smile, or not, they had things to do. God, they were so awesome! What if this was obnoxious? What if I was in someone’s way? What if this wasn’t professional? I bumped my butt into makeup trays, broke a chair. Closer.

Full album: here.