So, I found the rest of the Tokyo pictures. Turns out a bunch of stuff that I’d already blogged was still in LR mobile, and for some reason I thought it was sorted wrong. So, yesterday’s post was actually from the end of the backlog, not that it matters here and now, 6 months after the fact.
These are, as far as I can remember, from getting drinks one night in the accidentally fancy hotel. Booking online sometimes works out in your favor, is all I’m saying. I think we were paying something like $125 a night? Nice room, came with a local cell phone even.
Posted on 2019-08-15T22:08:18Z GMT
So these were from sometime after the trip. No idea why I was walking in this particular spot, or what I was doing that day. it’s a little weird.
I’m missing some photos, actually; the last post was on the last day, but there were some more from that evening that I meant to post. We walked, we saw the Samurai museum, we walked some more. They’re probably in a folder on my desktop machine. This is another experiment in mobile blogging, now from the iPad pro; the images were put together in LR mobile, and uploaded (somewhat painfully) over sftp. Hopefully this works.
Oh, also! I’ve started an email newsletter, at tinyletter.com/photomattmills. I’m going to be putting more longform writing there, telling stories, recent photo one-offs, that sort of thing.
Posted on 2019-08-14T21:17:18Z GMT
Home stretch now… the blogging for the trip, which I’d wanted to do while in situ, has ended up taking the better part of 10 months. Life does not stop happening when you’re not on the road, unfortunately; there’s been a real lull the last 7 weeks or so around here. I injured my ankle may 31st, sort of several things compounding until I ended up at the orthopedist, diagnosed with an entirely torn tendon, and some kind of cartilage issue. Surgery is next week. My creative output hasn’t been nothing in that time; I’ve taken a lot of pictures, still, finished one bag three weeks late, did a pop-up photo booth in the style of Richard Avedon, designed another bag, and thought a lot about what I’m going to do when I have full use of my right leg again.
All things going well, I should be back at it 100% eight weeks from Friday. I should probably plan to hit a lot of the backlog while I have downtime; I have a new iPad to help me during my convalescence, and a selection of keyboards I could use to write with even. Maybe I will, but it’s almost 4 am on saturday morning. No promises.
Posted on 2019-07-27T10:34:09Z GMT
I do a lot of wandering when left to my own devices; I like the random chance of choosing a path at semi-random, as I did this day. Walked from one district in Tokyo to another, through the old Imperial gardens (I think; The big park between Shinjuku and Shibuya). This was the first part of that walk; the gardens get their own post.
I have to admire people like Craig Mod (second link is to his walking newsletter) who not only walk much farther than I do, but who can distill a day into a single image. I’m not sure I could, even if you held a gun to my head. Or maybe I could, and I’m being lazy? This is the internet tho, world of infinite bandwidth, and people like more pictures. There’s something very haute and designer-y about only putting out what you want to, and not what people ask for. It’s saying, ‘I know better than the people that want a lot of photos,’ and the damming thing is it might be right.
Speaking of walking: I’ve had a string of bad luck with my right ankle, stemming from an injury all the way back in 2003, when I was a college freshman. I got what I thought was a bad sprain, was off it for 6 weeks or so, and then thought nothing of it again. Then, a couple weeks ago, while walking around at the bouldering gym, I rolled it a little and it hurt a bit and swelled up a little, so I iced it and babied it for maybe a week, and it seemed to be better.
Then the Mormons went and had their open house; probably more walking than I’ve done at a stretch in quite a while. The next day, I had to drive back from the south bay for [unrelated]. Driving is a load-bearing exercise, and it kinda made it worse, such that when I got back I went immediately to the first clinic I found with an X-ray, to see what kind of damage I’d done. They were largely useless, didn’t even send me home with a splint.
So I went to Webster Ortho Urgent Care. They were great; really from beginning to end great care. Shot some more X-rays, assessed the joint by hand, and then went over the films with me about what they were seeing. Apparently, the old injury probably wasn’t just a sprain; from 16 years later, it’s difficult to tell, of course, but the way my bones had grown indicated something might be wrong. So later this week I’m getting an MRI and a consult with a surgeon, and maybe my ankle will be stabilized after all this.
Right now, I’m confined to a walking boot, as tolerated, which isn’t a ton. Mostly sat around all weekend. It’s possible the 10000mph summer has gone down a couple orders of magnitude, which kinda sucks. When your body says slow down this clearly though, it’s really imperative to listen.
Posted on 2019-06-03T05:38:22Z GMT
