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Rejection #3 Monday, March 28, 2005 | 1:45AM

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It probably isn’t a good idea to listen to soothing choral music (read: Eric Whitacre’s music (namely, the song “Sleep”) will put you to sleep (har!) in a good way) if you’re attempting to stay up a little later than your normal work schedule would allow. It’s a little after 1am, and while this would be early, say, a year ago, I am teetering on the edge of waking up in a few hours with a cramp in my neck.

That’s right, we not only had Friday off, but Monday as well. The state doesn’t normally do this kind of thing, especially during session, so it was a welcome surprise. And we went to the Easter service at our church on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning, so we had all day Sunday to actually take it easy. Because, you know, we took it so hard on Friday and Saturday. LHC had originally scheduled 5 services—2 Saturday afternoon, 3 Sunday morning—but there was a lightning strike around 1:30pm on Saturday which caused the 4:30pm service to be cancelled. We found this out as we walked up (late) to the building, wondering why there were so few cars, and why people were walking away from the building.

It was at this point that we met Andrew Barlow, the Pastor of Creative Development, who informed us of the power outage. We introduced ourselves.

“Stacy… and Walker”
“Mark?”
“Walker”
“Walker Pickering?”

It was at this point that Stacy was kinda’ freaked out; that someone would know me or us even. He began asking about things like married life and CrazyWalker.com. So yeah, a little background was in order for Stacy, and of course you, dear reader.

See, back before the wedding, in probably May of 2004, Andrew got in touch with me. I think he had been searching for LHC online and that search revealed one of my sites. So he really wanted to get together, and get me involved. But with all of the wedding stuff and moving, he said I could just let things settle down, and get back in touch with him later. Well, being the ridiculous procrastinator that I am, that time never came. That is, until we met and he just happened to remember all that stuff. But I’m really glad it happened, because I really did want to get involved and still do. But if you’re like me at all, you know how it is. Enough time went by that I felt like I would’ve been a dork finally contacting him. And of course there’s the possibility that we’ll move again soon, so… excuses excuses.

But as for where we might move, Boulder, Colorado probably won’t be that place. Rejection letter #3 came on Friday. It wasn’t supposed to be sent until April 15th, but I guess they were just so eager to let me know that they couldn’t wait.=) Columbia should be in by the end of the week (or so they say… end of February/early March, my butt).

This recent rejection prompted me to start looking into other schools around the country. I should’ve done this months ago because it turns out that quite a few MFA programs really do provide numerous generous stipends, tuition waivers and teaching assistantships. That is what I want, and I don’t know why I didn’t think about that more in the first place.

I really do enjoy my job. I know I’ve said that before, but I was looking at the state legislatures from other states, and Texas has a pretty cool capitol building. It all seems like such a big deal, even if it is just on the state level. And though it’s just one step of the process, it’s still neat to be present as laws are being made. I love getting in on the action when tension rises. I really don’t know what I’ll do when my job is over in October, but I’m not too concerned now.

I shot a portrait of my friend Robert Igo at work the other day. It felt good to shoot a portrait with my film of choice (Polaroid 55). It’s felt like all the other stuff I’ve tried to do over the past year (even including the recent Town Lake series) has been a little under my ability. I don’t usually look at those images and get a lot of satisfaction. But with this portrait I felt like I was back on track. Someone please model for me. You don’t need an instrument this time.

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Comments

Casey | Monday, March 28, 2005 | 9:54AM

Walker | Monday, March 28, 2005 | 10:56AM

Casey | Wednesday, April 13, 2005 | 11:24PM

Stacy | Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 2:04PM

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