Butterflies and Cockroaches

Today I followed a butterfly flying above me down the street on my skateboard. The photos I took while we were both moving will probably not come out though since it was so small that my camera had a hard time focusing…

I’ve noticed recently that I’ve been taking a lot of stupid things these days but, in a way, stupid things will occasionally lead to something better or, at least, unexpected… My photos have been getting sloppier and sloppier and more chaotic since the beginning of Talking Barnacles, but I like where it is going... because life is like that.

I used to strive to take the perfect picture and occasionally I was able to... about three times a year, but what I eventually found out was that perfect pictures are actually fucking boring because they are just that – perfect- and there is nothing else to comment upon- people see them, automactically think “Oh, that’s pretty”, and then move on... There is no room for flexibility for seeing things differently.

But like people, if there is a flaw, it is something you can hold onto and remember, whether it's good, charming, or terrible... and that in a way defines, at least for people, who we are and reveals the most about us… and that’s the beauty of it. I remember when I was a student in college, there was a substitute teacher who had a sixth finger protruding out of his pinky; and I’m sure that because of the freakishness of his finger, it eventually led him to raise a tank full of cockroaches in his office on the 7th floor of our building, which was really disgusting to see in person… but the cockroaches and his finger were also so strange and uniquely awesome that I could have never imagined something like that on my own… which is also why he is the only teacher that I remember fondly or with any excitement at all.