A simple image (of an unknown couple).

Serenity. Peace.

A lazy Sunday afternoon. Spent with someone special.

Watching the world go by…

I’ve surrendered: to the incessant voice in my head, the characteristic symptom of my manifestation of NAS. Yes, I went ahead and purchased one of the two objects of my attention, namely the Nikon D80 camera body. Whoever said that technology advances make our lives simpler?! I’ve also needed to upgrade software packages (PictureProject, Capture NX, Camera Control Pro) to more readily accommodate the new equipment.

Whew! This takes time.

I’ve only taken a few test shots so far. As you have observed, what with all this upgrading going on, I’ve had no time at all to even do a blog entry!

So, just so you know I’m still here, this is one of my test photos taken during yesterday’s excursion to Eugene.

Life is too short. And, for what there is of it, way too hard. My head, my very being, is bursting, is overloaded, right now, with sensory input. My heart is breaking from all the pain I see, from all the tears shed everywhere I turn.

Things are pretty complicated these days. There just are not enough hours in the day; I have several things that I’m needing to attend to, all of quite-high priority. Number one is my health, of course. So, I have my herbs and supplements supplied by my Traditional Chinese Medicine woman. The routine I engage in everyday is quite structured; I have regular breathing exercises and Yoga and meditation practices. And I have sleep and a healthy diet and other stress-management techniques to pursue. I’m very preoccupied with keeping healthy and keeping going.

The results: so far, so good. I’m in much better shape than I was a couple of months ago.

But then, too, there’s the search for a new job. An incredibly high priority. Made necessary by the fact that the work environment I now inhabit is wholly unsatisfactory: that is to say, very unhealthy. And, when I speak of the tears I observe, they are, of course, shed in that place. There’s hardly a day that goes by without someone in my office breaking down — in one way or another. Given the emotionally-unpredictable, spiritually-bankrupt climate, such frequent outcomes are inevitable. Literally every fiber of my being aches for the pain of those I work with; for this ubiquitous suffering of epic proportions.

So much. So unnecessary. So absolutely critical for the health of my soul that I escape.

Yesterday, I took a quick, one-day (interview) trip to San Francisco. This involved driving up to the Eugene airport in the morning and then boarding one of United Airline’s small Canadair jets. (And doing the reverse process in the evening, of course.) As I was waiting in the terminal before the trip down, I was doing what I usually do at such times: scoping out the other people in the seating area, wondering why they’re all going where I’m going, and musing about who I’ll be sitting next to (or near) during the flight.

As I was engaged in this speculation, I observed an undeniably-obese woman walking, very slowly, with more of a waddle actually, in my direction. Now, such a sighting is not all that unusual these days, what with our national “obesity epidemic,” but the thing that really attracted my attention was that this individual was coughing with an intensity that I can only describe, with any degree of accuracy at all, as a “death rattle.” It was very deep and pretty scary. As she sat down, fairly close to me, I immediately got up and relocated to a point far-away. Not in my breathing space you don’t, I thought.

Shortly after I moved, I noticed at least three other people get up and use the same avoidance tactic. Let me tell you, this person was having some serious issues, and it was no big secret to anyone even remotely in her vicinity.

It wasn’t long after I had resituated myself, though, that I noticed she had activated a nebulizer, right there in the waiting area, and was attempting to inhale all the medicated steam she could get. Periodically, however, she was forced to remove the mouthpiece portion to engage in yet another coughing jag. Yes, serious, serious stuff going on here.

Just my luck, I thought, that she’ll end up in the seat next to me. (Which would be particularly ironic since I had, at check-in, changed my seat assignment to one at the front of the plane.) Really, I wondered, what would I do if that happened? Would I just sit there, as I had during one trip last spring, when I found myself on a cross-country flight seated next to a woman who reported to me she was very ill and had a temperature of 102? Tell me, what is there to do in these situations where you’re basically trapped and at the mercy of someone who doesn’t have the sense to stay home and not infect the rest of the world?

The moment of truth came when it was time to board the plane. I noticed that she had put away her nubulizer and was standing at the front of the line, perhaps seeking priority-boarding due to her disability. I was far back in the line, in no hurry, having a first-row seat waiting for me. When I got there, it didn’t take long to scan the territory…and to discover that, yes, there she was, directly behind me.

Great. She’ll be hacking the entire trip, spewing her germs directly my way. Yuck. What miserable luck.

But, actually, it wasn’t too long before I started thinking that perhaps I was about to catch a break this time around: for apparently the nebulizer had worked some magic, and she was not coughing any more. Maybe it’ll stay this way? (I asked myself. I hoped to myself.) I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, I decided.

Eventually, after we were in the air, she ended up having a rather extended conversation with the gentleman next to her, and I learned (is this eavesdropping? – how could I NOT have heard this?) that she was a severe asthmatic, that her body had picked this totally inopportune time to have an attack, and that she was quite embarrassed at having had to use the nebulizer right there in the airport. Fortunately for her, the man, a stranger, was totally sympathetic and supported her decision to do whatever she needed to do to take care of herself.

Which is exactly what she needed to hear. What a great thing it was that he was there to say it.

So I, of course, started to examine the assumptions I had made and found that my entire process was really, in all honesty, not very attractive. In this case, I had leapt right into a wholly-narcissistic judgment mode, not really trying to understand at all the suffering that had been going on, right there in front of me. From what I could overhear, she seemed like a rather decent human being, caught in a really tough spot by needing to travel with this particular (probably not-contagious) ailment.

Ahhhh…appearances, and the stories we make up in our heads. They aren’t really “the truth,” are they?

Have you ever heard of the progressive, sometimes fatal, affliction called Nikon Acquisition Syndrome (“NAS”)? It is a well-documented, rather widespread, and bizarre human condition. Sufferers are typically in evidence on the listservs devoted to photographic equipment made by Nikon.

I seem to have caught yet another case of NAS recently (it’s not my first time) what with the availability of two incredible new releases from my favorite camera manufacturer. First up is the new 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor lens (is that a mouthful or what?). It is an incredible zoom lens with the 35 mm-equivalent range of 27-300mm. It has the second-generation vibration-reduction system that lends itself to handholding even at the longer focal lengths. It’s really a “do everything” kind of lens.

I want one.

The trouble with this particular item is that everyone else in the Nikon world seems to want it too. I have had my name on the waiting list at B&H Photovideo for several weeks, holding my breath for the word that they have one in stock. So far, no luck.

The second piece of equipment I’m lusting over is the new Nikon DSLR body, the D80. It’s their “lower-end” (compared to the D200, that is) 10.2 megapixel model. Believe me, it’s not that my current 6.1 megapixel camera body, the D70s, isn’t good enough. It surely is. But, well, the D80 is the newer “toy.”

And I want one.

Now, all I have to do is justify the purchase, somehow, in my mind. The D80 is available right now, if only I could get over this emotional barrier of spending so much money on something that I don’t really need.