Adventures in DSLR Land.

It's HERE.
The DSLR of my dreams, Canon Rebel XSi. Mine, all mine.
I've been spending the past week or so just hoping and wishing that work will go by quickly so that I can go home to play with my new toy. So many possibilities, so much to learn, so little time...
This camera is entirely wasted on me until I can re-learn everything that I've forgotten from my half-year high school photography course, and then some. Using the automatic settings feels like a sin. Kind of like owning a Maserati when the only driving you do is a 40 minute commute to an industrial park with a pit-stop at Dunkin' Donuts. Just ain't right.

I've been able to get some pretty sweet images out of it, but I feel like I'm just skimming the tip of the iceberg. In addition, this camera has officially added to the list of reasons that I want summer to come back now. It's hard to leave the house when it's 15 degrees out, and I am pretty much spent on taking pictures in my room, of myself. Luckily, Policecop and my dear sister Hilary have been around to keep me company and provide some varied subject matter.

This weekend I did manage to set foot out of my beloved electric blanket to do some semi-frivolous shopping with Policecop. I scored a sweet red military-style jacket at Old Navy on clearance for $22. Also found last week on clearance at Target, neat-o belt buckle ring from the Anna Sheffield collection. Wanted it for ages, glad I waited till it was 50% off.

Today I took Policecop on a hometown tour of Marshfield. It's strange going back to the place that you grew up in after being displaced from it for a decade. There is so much change, manifesting itself mostly in the form of new gas stations and pharmacies, more effective road systems to deal with increased traffic, etc. And yet the things that remain the same are like little relics, ghost-like photographic memories from the past playing out in the present, unadultered and continuing whether you are there to be a part of it or not. I guess I find this equal parts comforting and unsettling. I spent the first 18 years of my life in this little town, in the same little house. My family moved while I was in Japan, and it was really kind of uncomfortable to go home to a "home" that I hadn't been to before when I came back to the states.

I've been to Marshfield many times since my family has moved, I've seen "my house" many times since it was sold to another family. But even today as we pulled into that street, I felt almost as if I could walk right in, through the living room, up the stairs and flop on to my bed. I could have thrown my sony headphones on and listened to Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, looking out the window at the sliver of beach down 5th Road.
For whatever reason, when we got to my old house I didn't have the courage to get out of the car. I could have knocked on my neighbors door and said hello. I could have walked around just a little bit, just short of trespassing. But it just didn't feel like the right thing to do. Kind of like how you wouldn't jump over the velvet rope in a museum and wander about a wax-figure exhibit of native americans fishing in streams before the pilgrims came and fucked shit up.
So we went to Gerard's Turkey Farm and got some sweet lunch to-go, drove back to the sea wall and ate it there while taking random pictures.
All in all, it was a very good weekend.