Little Boy

we run
we play

embrace the day

make laughs
give hugs

hunt monsters, bugs

play tag
throw balls

build forts, high walls

draw maps
find treasures

cherish simple pleasures

get wet
feel joy

i so love this little boy

Shut Up, I Hate You

On The Couch. The Other Night. Watching Some Show.

John: Oooh! That reminds me! *pauses show* We did this thing on the way to the gig the other day; it was awesome!

Me: *gets excited at the prospect of hearing awesome! thing* Yeah?!

John: Yeah! Totally awesome! Get a load of THIS!!! We were switching the consonants in our first and last names!!!!!!!!!!! You know? Yeah! !!

Me: *blank stare*

John: !!!

Me: *blank stare in which I am actually considering killing him for his own good*

John: !!!! !!!!

Me: Really?

John: ! *inkling of my disapproval setting in* Yes? Yes! !!

Me: What. the. fuck.

John: You know! Like you’re Cotus Larroll! Hahahaha! !!!

Me: You’re saying that like it’s a thing.

John: It is a thing. *look of remembering what a bitch I am creeping into his face*

Me: No. No, really. It’s not. Nobody does that.

John: They do, too.

Me: No.

John: Uh-huh. *realization of how stupid this game is but refusing to let go*

Me: Who? Who does that?

John: People…

Me: Mmmhm. What kind of people do that? Do they use their brains productively most of the time?

John: *frustrated stare of defeat*

Me: *gloating sneer of victory*

John: Shut up. Shut up, I hate you.

*short pause*

Me: So what, was it quiet for like 3 hours and then all of a sudden someone goes, “OH MY GOD I KNOW WHAT WE CAN DO. IT’S THIS *THING*…”

John: I hate you. I’m not even going to tell you the rest of the story now. *turns show back on*

Me: So, you’re still a big vagina, then?

Because We All Know Vaginas Can’t Run

Conversation. Yesterday. Early morning. Cold(ish).

Me: So, we’re going to go running as soon as we get home from dropping Braden off, right?

John: *look of pain* No, it’s too cold. I’m not doing it.

Quiet moment.

Me: So, I just asked you if we were going to go running, and you said, “No, I’m a giant vagina.” Is that what you just said? ‘Cause that’s what I heard.

John: Yes. I am a giant vagina.

Me: Okay. I’m glad we got that settled.

 

These are the days of our lives.

 

PS: It is rare that I publish a post without a photo, but I think we all know that you appreciate the fact that I didn’t stage the appropriate photo for this one. You’re welcome.

Drink and Click™ Is International & 15 Chapters Strong!

Photowalking Fun at its finest! Is there a Chapter where you live? Here’s a Shared Circle of Chapters on Google+. Check for your location, Circle, and Join for a Photowalk!

We hang out regularly at fun places, talk photography/social media and take photos together. (No, you do not have to drink alcohol.) Occasionally we do Workshops and other fun events.

Every month, there’s a Themed Challenge with prizes from great sponsors like Think Tank Photo,  Gary Fong, Black Rapid and more! Check out the Event for September’s Challenge, Reflections: http://goo.gl/ATX4Q

Interested in Leading? Contact drinkandclick@gmail.com
For more info: http://drinkandclick.com
Founder: Juan Gonzalez

Chapter Leaders

Austin, TX - Juan Gonzalez & Lotus Carroll
Canberra, AU - Martin Ollman
Casper, WY - Kallasandra Moran
Columbus, OH - Mike Chambers
Fort Collins, CO - Julieanna Crynolyn
Los Angeles, CA - Christi Nielsen
The Netherlands - Kevin van Diest
New York, NY - Seth Meyerowitz
San Antonio, TX - Jackie Burroughs Anderson & Daniel Enloe
San Francisco, CA  - Michael Bonocore
Santa Barbara, CA - Devon Bell
Sydney, AU - Ana Andrés
Tokyo, JP - Holger Feroudj
Toronto, Canada - Sara Collaton & Vincent McMillen
Washington, DC - Anna Lowry

You don’t have to be on Google+ to attend these photowalks, but it helps, as we post Event items there and upload our photos to share. Please share this with anyone you know who would be interested in joining walks or leading a Chapter!

Charity Print Sales Benefiting Lee Daniels

Find the prints here: http://goo.gl/QoghG

If you don’t know Lee Daniels, she’s a passionate, poetic, and sweet woman gifted in photography who has been very active in the G+ Photography Community. Lee was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and, like many photographers, does not have health insurance. Barry Blanchard, Ivan Makarov, & SmugMug have set up a charity print sale that benefits her and will help fund her treatment. If you’ve been wanting to buy prints, this is the right time and place to do it. My donation to the cause is the photo below, colorful and happy and which I hope sends a message of joy and hope. I’d love it if you purchased this or any of the prints available in the gallery – so many talented photographers have donated their amazing work. http://goo.gl/QoghG All profits from the print sales go to fund Lee’s cancer treatment.

It might be hard to pick just one, but it won’t be hard to find one you like.

#lovinglee

 

 

I HEART YOU

That’s right, all of you.

once upon a time (there was a douchebag)

Okay, so maybe I got a leetle bit pissed off when I saw this image on Pinterest tonight.

And maybe I went a leetle bit overboard on the “description” when I repinned it.

and the princess didn’t have her heart broken by a man who couldn’t keep his dick to himself for more than five seconds because she was smart enough to say no to the pretty face that was hiding the vile creature behind it. And she had all the time in the world to then pursue her own interests and be the person she was meant to be, reveling in her identity and fulfilling her aspirations fully. She spent as much time as she wanted with the best girlfriends who always built her up and cared about what she was saying rather than pretending to listen and hoping she was soon done. And she hand selected the finest young men to keep her company (and then sent them on their way when she was bored with them) and she read books and made beautiful art and sun bathed and nobody ever left the fucking toilet seat up or made her have to drag their feelings out of them like driving nails into brick because they were such poor communicators that she just wanted to scream into infinity in those miserable moments of complete relationship hell when she would rather be twirling through the living room, singing her favorite song at top volume. She didn’t have to share the remote or watch any sports she didn’t want to, and she only got foot rubs with her pedicures and nobody expected her to have sex with them just for doing it. She smiled every day because she wanted to, not because she was pretending she was happy, and nobody needed her to fetch them a beer or make their food first so that by the time she ate hers it was cold. She played with lady bugs and stopped to smell the flowers every day. Her friends and family thought she was fucking awesome because she was able to live her life to her full potential instead of for some loser who resented her for not wanting him to drink jack daniels every fucking night. And she never had to sleep in the goddamned wet spot. THE END.

Yeah, maybe a little too far.

Maybe.

(Who am I kidding?! That shit had it coming.)

mapping the vault of memories

Children laugh a lot. It is a beautiful thing.

A few nights ago, I heard my son laugh from upstairs. The laughter tinkled merrily down the stairs from up high to down where I was standing in the kitchen. It was the laugh of a four year old – giddy, unrestrained, and in those chucklesome, high-pitched, and somehow fairy-like tones that only children that young can achieve.

That night I heard the free, sincere, heartfelt laughter of my son, and I had a thought, suddenly. It hit me without consideration and washed over me harshly. It did not care what I was doing when it came on, or where it would leave me after it fled into the night beyond me.

And the thought was this:

There will come a day when I will not be so privileged as to hear that sound anymore as a common occurrence in my life, my day to day What Is, my moments possible to take for granted (even though I don’t want to). There will come a time when that laugh does not even exist anymore.

There will be a day when forever more I will not be able to hear that sound. His laughter will still be accessible to me (sometimes) but it will never sound that way again. It will become lost forever in the vault, deep and wide and sometimes difficult to navigate, that contains my lifetime of memories.

And memories have this awful way of fading and being so hard to recall in a tangible way, so hard to truly feel in the same way as they were once experienced.

I stood there, at the foot of the stairs, frozen in that moment. I stood there, playing that brief sound over and over in my head, savoring it. I was all alone, and may have nearly appeared catatonic in that moment of true consideration and revelation.

Braden may never know that he’s ever done something so simple but so incredibly and effortlessly meaningful that it captivated his mother so greatly. He might not realize that she once stood quietly relishing the joyous beauty of a 3 second laugh he uttered about a little bit of something more than nothing that faded into the night without him giving it another passing thought.

When I write these moments, it is like I’m drawing a map to put up on the inside of that vault, so that when I dive into it later, so much later, maybe I can find these most important of thoughts and feelings, these memories of the most golden days, and hold them near me again for a few moments.

And I will know.

And now you do, too.