White Hot Spotlight

I wonder sometimes what my kid will think of me in 10 years, when she reads this blog and realizes what a navel-gazing weirdo I am. This blog wasn't started with the express intent of becoming one of those dadgum "mommyblogs," and sometimes it definitely isn't, but since inappropriate parenting takes up a lot of my time and makes up a lot of my word count these days, it's certainly not inaccurate to describe this as a parenting blog.

Of course, you would also be correct in calling this a "photography blog," a "suburban philosophy blog," a "drive-by-snark-on-your-own-kid's-pictures" blog, or a "desperate cry for professional help."

What I write on my blog is the least of my worries at this point, though; there is nothing here that I don't say out loud to anyone who will listen to me, including but not limited to my own alternate personalities (if you can call it "listening" when the voices in your own head are yelling: "stfu, n00b!"). I am actually more concerned about what Shae is going to think when she inherits multiple hard drives' worth of really bad, really strange pictures.

My parents have entire closets full of photo albums and dozens of framed pictures all over the house, some of them dating back to before they were even born. Most of them were painstakingly hand selected and arranged for placement in these books. Some of them are so well-loved and careworn that they are held together with Scotch tape, the edges browned and curled, the paper practically transparent. When the pictures were taken with those old 110mm and 35mm and disk cameras, when you had to buy film and pay for developing, ever shot was very carefully considered and no exposure was wasted.

Nobody had the top of their head, but no exposure was wasted.

Meanwhile, back in the 21st century ... yesterday I took 261 pictures, plus a video, of what basically amounts to your standard average Sunday. Naturally I rooted through everything and put the very best pictures up on my blog -- but what am I supposed to do with literally thousands of images that look like these?

Or this one, where it appears I have captured footage of this poor kid being waterboarded?

And can someone tell me why I look approximately three dozen shots of what all, essentially, look like this?

For the love of God, WHY? How much is her eventual therapy going to cost me?