There is nothing like losing something to make you see things in ways you don’t usually.

On the way to school today, I somehow lost the envelope with the rent check in it. I didn’t realize that it had fallen out of my back pocket until I was in my studio. Once I figured it out, I walked all the way back home, and then back to school looking for it.

Regardless, the envelope is gone… probably enticing some enterprising pedestrian to commit some sort of identitiy manipulation in order to cash the rent check. Thankfully, the check got canceled, and there is some kind of insurance in the unlikely event that it does get cashed by someone.

What was most interesting though, is how much stuff there is on the ground here in Brooklyn. I mean, I’m used to looking down occasionally when I walk, so I don’t step in dog crap, broken glass, or in a puddle (the puddles here are really dirty) - but I’ve never attempted to parse every piece of litter on the sidewalk. It’s exhausting… there’s so much of it! Maybe last night there was some kind of neighborhood trash party, because it seemed like there was more than usual. But then again, like I said, I don’t usually look at all of it.

Sometimes, all the trash is kind of pretty. There are many colors and sizes, all against the asphalt and concrete. And the way the wind can blow a newspaper up against a chain link fence or move small debris into drifts that mingle with leaves in the corners of buildings is aesthetically - as well as meterologically - fascinating. (This sounds way too American Beauty.)

The litter is dependable - you develop a relationship to certain things you see a lot: those really brightly colored cardboard thingys phone cards come in, take-out menus, or computer monitors and printers. And you’re continally surprised at some of the things you see: a sawed-in-half sofa, used diapers, a dead fish.

But, litter is also just litter. Smelly, sticky, and full of things that look exactly like the envelope containing the rent check.

Update: Some good-hearted person apparently stuck the envelope in a mailbox, because the landlord called asking about getting two checks. I am amazed that it made it there - Brooklyn is kinder than I thought…

On Saturday, Tessa and I had a small party to celebrate our engagement. It was nice making people come to Bed-Stuy (no one ever seems to do that voluntarily), and it was really nice to not have to get on a train and travel for an hour and a half to get home after drinking. Thanks for coming!

The kitchen, as always (close to the liquor and beer), was where Corey explained something to Andrea while Michael laughed at Ben as Ben looked skeptically at Amanda, who was talking about something in general. (Look at everyone’s hands!)

I’ve put up a new page (found over there on the left, under the heading “Contents”) called MP3s, featuring (you guessed it) MP3 files of songs I’ve (poorly) recorded over the last couple of years. Please download them and enjoy. (I said enjoy, damn it!)

As I was walking up the steps to our brownstone this evening, I saw our landlord’s handyman, Jerry. I stopped to shake his hand and say hello. He said “Thank God we’re here.”

I’m not at all a religious person, but what he said felt absolutely right.

Tessa Moran and Justin Kohmetscher are now officially and totally engaged to be married!

Now, we just have to figure out better words than fiance/fiancée. I like “engageréd,” as in “Me and my engageréd went to the store.” It still has the all-important “é,” yet doesn’t rely on spelling for the useless gender distinction. (If two gay people are engaged, are they fiance/fiance and fiancée/fiancée? Do gay people even use those words to describe engagement? I’m out of the gay loop right now. [I guess I’ve kind of always been out of the gay loop.])

Here is an awesome photo of my engageréd, looking incredibly pleased to be photographed:

A mock-up for a video for a song called Day Off, For Lazy that I made in my parents’ basement in early January. (Here’s the MP3.)

I got an email this morning from my photo history professor with the news that class was cancelled today, so Ben and I decided to spend the day in Chelsea to take in some new shows.

We probably hit around twenty-five galleries, and for some reason, the good-to-bad ratio was better than usual. I think a solid 25% of what we saw was really good (usually, I feel like it’s around 10%, and if I’m cranky, around 3-5%).

There were a couple of obvious standouts: Henry Wessel at Charles Cowles Gallery in collaboration with Henry Wessel at Robert Mann Gallery. (Unfortunately, neither of those are permalinks, so get to ‘em now!) It is no mistake that the two obvious standouts (is that even a word?) are exhibitions by the same person; Wessel is one of the most amazing photographers in the world - all the humor of Friedlander without the snarkiness, all the beauty and awareness of Robert Adams without the guilt. Henry Wessel makes me want to bust out my Bessa and start shooting a lot more 35mm.

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To assure Cameron that I don’t hate him, I am encouraging you to visit cameronjennings.com.

Last night, Tessa and I went to see a friend’s band play, and then to a bar for some post-music drinking. We went to the same bar we went to last week - this place called “The Edge” (I think; they don’t have a website) - near 1st Ave and 1st Street (with an intersection like that, it’d better be good).

This bar is nearly perfect. There is a pool table in the back (though it is a NYC pool table, which are smaller than any I’ve ever seen anywhere else in the country), and two cork dartboards up front - and the bar darts are even the good metal ones. This bar also has the game Connect Four, which sounds kind of silly, until you play a freaking math major and win, and then it sounds like a really, really good idea. Connect Four is probably the perfect bar game - it actually gets much harder when you’re drunk, but it’s also a pretty safe game (that is, there isn’t the possibility that one of those heavy, metal darts will end up in your foot or eyeball when you’re playing Connect Four).

But the thing that makes this bar better than any other I’ve been to so far is that the bartender will play, on request, The Pixies, and will play whole albums, all the way through! (And, he also wears slightly baggy leather pants, which is really gross and really awesome at the same time.)

I should probably be put into blog prison or something; I know, I know, I’ve ignored my interweb stomping ground so long it should be given to someone who can actually tend to it. This is kind of like the way I treat plants (though, to my credit, the plants in the apartment right now are not dead) (yet).

But I’ve been busy! I swear!

Actually, even though I have been pretty busy with school and work-type stuff, I’ve also spent a fair amount of time over at The Straight Dope, and have found myself completely addicted to trivial information.

Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of going to Kate Bingaman’s opening at Jen Bekman Gallery, and met a few of Kate’s NYC friends, who all seemed like very good people, including Chris, who is according to Kate, a quasi-doppelganger of mine. Always good to meet my counterparts! (The last time it happened though, when I met Madeline’s friend Mark, I almost exploded because we had the same shoes, glasses, beard, and sweatshirt).

And last weekend, Tessa and I went to her friend Kate’s birthday party, met some really interesting people and had an enlightening conversation about documentary/journalistic photography and fiction. (Enlightening in that I realized, after explaining why I hated Dave Eggers, that I had essentially critized my own work in such a way that I now have to totally re-think the way I make art.) I also realize, after looking at the above photograph, how much progress I’ve made on my beer gut. (Who says MFAs are worthless degrees?! Look at how much I’ve learned gained!)

We ended up at some bar in Park Slope that had a mediocre DJ (with some weird dude next to him, playing various shaker-instruments, totally grooving all by himself) but really good drink specials. There were some very, very slight attempts at dancing (like I think I took my sweater and tie off - hey, those are moves in my book!). After that, we got a ride home in the best smelling cab I’ve ever been in. I told the driver, and he told me that it smelled that good because “it was his office.”

Man, if my office smelled that good, I’d get a hell of a lot more work done.