I Had A Photo Shoot With My Housemates On Friday For My Etsy Shop Zenzen, And I Really Like How The Photos

I had a photo shoot with my housemates on Friday for my etsy shop Zenzen, and I really like how the photos turned out. So, why not turn them into gifs, right? And all of these are for sale here: etsy.com/shop/zenzenvintage

Whipped this up today with more of that 90's Japanese clip art I enjoy so much.

Kumamoto Keirin Stadium (熊本競輪場), Kumamoto, Japan. 35mm. January 2014.

Union Street, Batavia, IL. October, 2014. 35mm.

I grew up in the building at the end, now an apt. building, but formerly the Batavia Institute, a sanitarium where Mary Todd Lincoln stayed against her will for four months in 1875 until she was able to organize her release.

Lost. Digital Collage. 2014. 

I joke that my finest talent is the ability to lose important things, but in truth it's a problem I've had since early adolescence. 100+ dollars in charity money, my passport, Christmas headphones, the memory card we used for everything, car keys, the list goes on. Sometimes I find the item after an hour, other times the next day, two weeks after, or never at all. The other day I could't find my gloves and looked for an hour, missing my train into Chicago. My mom has concocted a theory that my open heart surgery at age ten damaged my short term memory. I've never entertained that idea.

I come up with systems and patterns so I don't lose things, and they usually work. Moving somewhere new or dealing with a new item always resets things, though. I can't count how many umbrellas I've lost. When I really can't find something important, I become consumed by a kind of numb rage. Rage because I am the cause of my problem, numbness because the situation is so familiar. In a trance, I look feverishly, everywhere, again and again. I feel helpless and idiotic and seethe with complete frustration. When I find the item, a wave of relief washes over me. At that point, all I can do is make a plan so I don't lose it again.

The roof outside our bathroom window. November 2014. Batavia, IL. 35mm.