nicole @nicole@myna.social

@pauline and I, along with our friend Matt, were able to join the memorial services at Manzanar this year.

Manzanar is one of ten American concentration camps, where Japanese-Americans were held during WWII. The camp grounds are in California, near the Nevada border. At 4,000 feet, the atmosphere is thin, and the sun is blinding. Standing around, being cooked for hours on end, it was difficult not to imagine oneself on the surface of the moon: the terrain was as desolate as it was beautiful.

Finally caught up with @pauline

It’s been nine weeks since #FFS.

Depending on the day, and the swelling, I’ve looked like a dozen different people. Some of them were cute; some, I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley; all of them: me.

I think I’m very Zoom-passable (until I open my mouth). The real-world is a very different, wildly mixed bag.

I’ll celebrate the Zoom win: that’s 95% of my presence.

I spent February sleeping off my FFS, and I’ve been glued to my desk all month trying to help my iOS engineers put their best feet forward.

Today, I brought some of my favorite colors to work with me.

Cameras lie. If I have a studio light and time, I can usually coax mine to lie in my favor. Of course, the splotchy-faced, blue-bearded selfie I sent out to close friends this morning is enough to make me doubt myself when I say that. Doubt. I’ll have mine with cookies, please.

Anyway, here’s a good lie my camera told me earlier this week.

💁‍♀️📷

I ordered a custom-sized Star Wars costume for a birthday party thing next in LA next Thursday, but I’m starting to doubt it will arrive on time, so I ordered a backup.

I’ll wear it if I have to, but I’d much prefer something I can stack layers under: the venue’s lake adjacent; it’s going to be cold

Plus, even with tights, that’s going to be a very short hemline on 6,1” me. Like, _mini_.

Last night, @pauline and I got together for the first time since October, when we had shared a bottle of wine in anticipation of our forthcoming FFS operations.

Four months without seeing my transition sister was really, really hard. I basically vomited non sequiter snippets of all of the conversations I’d been saving for her in one slurry, blurry run-on sentence.

Also, there was this wonderfully hideous cocktail with Fernet and banana liqueur.

High noon at the dog park.

https://twitter.com/muna_mire/status/1625855933556604928?s=42&t=yEEXtagBcu1A9F0JW4FoqQ

https://t.co/uFMHu5ibdq

In the words of @pauline, “[W]e all torment ourselves with cats that are ourselves.”

Poor tormented Chibi.

The surface of every Chinese Juniper is a history of hair tugs.

I sure know how to pick the easy path in all things. 😝

I hesitated because of the differing tints of yellow, but I think it all worked out.

I not only need more shelves for books, but also more shelves for adorable little dioramas like this.

Plucked from the #photography archives. #iamscaredoftrees

Spotted this bit of overgrowth taking a roundabout way to visit @pauline one day.

It took a few passes under different weather conditions over 1-2 months before I was able to capture what I wanted in-camera.

I fantasize about going back and exposing some 4x5 sheets, but I’d need to set up in the middle of the road, right after a tight turn. Photographers die for dumb like that.

I think this one would be fun to print very large.

Plucked from the #photography archives. #disney #japan

“Who’re _you_ looking at?”

Plucked from the #photography archives. #berlin #germany

Plucked from the #photography archives.

I had just come out to my closest friends a week or two earlier on this same trip, so the male/female split of the standee was of the standee was what caught my eye.

We had to walk back to the car for my equipment, because hauling 30 pounds of gear on my back wasn’t how we did our evening ambles. Worth it.

I remember it was well dark, and getting the movements right to have both the castle and the standee in focus took some work.

The negative was processed semi-stand in Rodinal at 1/100 dilution for an hour.

The castle is just barely overexposed. I shot two sheets, and were it possible for me to keep things better organized while traveling, I could have processed the two independently and let the second sheet soak for less time. Then again, highlights are the first to clear. 🤷‍♀️

#japan #himeji #4x5 #film #transgender #transition

Chibi is boss. Bring her her coffee. Bring her her squeaky ball. Type up her homework. Bossy. Bossy. Boss dog.