#selfie satisfied

 

mephotoA selfie is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. Selfies are often shared on social networking services such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr. They are often casual, and are typically taken either with a camera held at arm’s length or in a mirror (Selfie). Monday mornings or Saturday nights, on every continent, 24/7, people are looking into their own lens and capturing just what they want. Sober or drunk, celebratory or melancholy, across religious or societal divides, beyond age or racial groups it matters not, the #selfie is taken through the appropriate filter and posted on a splattering of social media sites. It’s estimated that over 17 million selfies are posted every week: 35 million on Instagram alone. Are selfies evidence of a new wave of narcissistic behavior? Proof we have become a ME ME ME world?

Dare I remind you of the photo booth? How many of us spent our well-guarded allowance inside those finicky and fun booths, capturing a series of our own funny faces? I, and this will not come as a surprise to any Nine Cent Girl fans, am thrilled with the #selfie phenomenon, to a point, and am ready to tell you why.

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Family series, part 3: furry companions

maya5It may be a dog’s world, but in our household, it’s the kitty that rules us. She’s an old calico now-a-days, but when we discovered her 15 years ago, abandoned and hungry in our barn, not quite a year old, she was already a survivor. Any dog that lives along side of her, learns to step back when she passes by. Yes, Miss Maya is a presence that demands respect.

Our current household doggy, Vita Sackville-West, joined our family 10 years ago. On all fours these two sisters of a sort are the same height with the same coloring.

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Family Series, part 1: The Den

Our den was a beehive. Us coming in and rushing out. The blue glow from the nightly news. The red embers in the fireplace. Orange splashed here and there to offset the stark Danish furnishing. A bronze JFK. An iron eagle. A plaster Madonna in the corner. Us, a crew I thought typical back then. Six kids in stages of colorful rebellion.

Dance night. Once that new stereo got hooked up, 60’s rock entered the den. The front of the fireplace transformed into our stage. The reading dancinglamp twisted to shine upwards on our lip-synching. Fire pokers and longish twigs meant for kindling converted into microphones. Bursts of energy of movement of sound. Us riding the crest of pandemonium. Dogs too, jumping along like they couldn’t get enough of what we felt.

Images pop into my head even now, forty plus years afterwards. We snaked through early life with no one looking too far ahead. Nothing rocked us out of the moment. We were cemented into that time and place. Body and soul. We were a force.

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