This week I watched several lovely ladies play fall fashion week. I was tempted to join in but felt desperately busy and un-cute all week. So today after work, I put together a fun fall outfit and roped a certain boy into helping me take advantage of the beautiful afternoon light. (A very, very patient boy who waited while I took approximately twenty minutes to decide between scarves.)

Sleeveless dress: from Old Navy, given to me by my parents for Easter when I was probably thirteen.

Ribbed brown tights: picked up at Shopko, about three years ago.

Nose ring: a near-constant accessory, acquired last December.

Long scarf: a gift from one of my aunts.

Yellow cardigan: Ann Taylor Loft, a gift from my sister-in-law Melanie on her and my brother’s last visit.

Cowgirl boots: a loan/gift (we’re still not sure which) from my dear friend Natalie.

I guess the lesson to be learned from this outfit is that if I didn’t have generous friends and family I wouldn’t have any nice clothes.

In closing, here’s a photo in which I’m actually smiling, and in which you can see the rest of Gil’s contribution to our fall fashion photoshoot. I think he looks quite good, but have no idea where any of his clothes came from, so I can’t fill you in. I think his shoes are Adidas.

(Side note: part of the reason for my busy-ness is this epic project of Gutenberg’s. It is going down this coming weekend, Gil and I are both performing in it, and if you are in town and want to come you should buy tickets right away.)

I vividly remember the afternoon this past January when I refused to shoot Zeb and Sarah’s wedding.

I had just finished the blood-, sweat-, and tear-ful process of editing and delivering the photos for Dane and Morgan’s wedding while starting a new quarter at school—and in my usual relentlessly all-or-nothing fashion, I had sworn photography off altogether.

“It’s too stressful,” I told anyone who would listen, “I can’t do it and school at the same time! I might as well give up!”

And that’s when my sister-in-law Melanie let me know that she had just given her friend Sarah my number. Sarah was getting married in June—I knew what that meant. And what’s worse, her wedding was right before finals week. “No ma’am, no way, no how!” I told Melanie. I was good and done with shooting weddings.

And then my phone rang. It was Sarah. I answered, fully prepared to deliver the bad news. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” I could hear myself saying, “But you’ll just have to find someone else.”

Ten minutes later, I walked back into the room where Melanie sat with my head hung low. I threw myself into a chair opposite her and, as she looked at me expectantly, I muttered, “Well, goshdarnit, I said yes.”

Turns out I can’t give up on something that I love as much as photography quite that easily—as soon as Sarah started talking about the plans she had and how excited she was and the kind of photography she wanted, well, wouldn’t you know it—I couldn’t imagine giving up the opportunity to be a part of that day.

And the rest is history… or will be, soon. I had a blast shooting an engagement session with Sarah and her fiance Zeb in February (you can view a slideshow of that by clicking here or on the photo above), and am stoked to shoot their wedding two days from now.

And yes, I’m beginning to remember how insane shooting a wedding right before finals week is—but if life has taught me anything, it’s that a little insanity never hurt anyone. Right?

This one is for all you mp3 player—iPod or otherwise—owners out there who have ever faced the dilemma I am about to describe.

Picture this: you’re listening to your music. Alone.

It’s a fun, groovy little time for you, right? But it’s—let’s face it—a little bit solitary. What happens when you suddenly think to yourself, “Gee. I would really like to share this rocking Decemberists song with three to five of my closest companions.”

Up till now, if you didn’t have a pair of speakers with the proper connector handy, you were out of luck. But NOT ANYMORE! Now, all you need is your iPod, your earbuds, and—are you ready?—your mouth.

That’s right, folks! Your God-given oracular cavity is a perfect sound chamber to transmit your tunes to those standing immediately around you. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Turn on your iPod-like device.
2. Choose a rocking song.
3. Crank the volume.
4. Rest your earbuds on your lips, and close lightly around them. (Adjustment may be required to produce fullest sound.)
5. Watch your friends ooh and ah in amazement!

I know, I know… only a Gutenberg student could discover something quite so awesomely revolutionary. And trust me—there’s more where this came from.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a girl and her friend made a picture. Then that girl innocently posted that picture on flickr, just like she does with all her other pictures…

… and two days later, it exploded.

Last night before I went to bed, I was pretty excited because my photo of Teal in her Princess Leia costume had about 300 views on Flickr. This morning, as I stumbled out the door to walk to classes, I met Teal, who was on her way back. “Erin!” she cheered, “It’s at 1500 views!”

Wow, I thought, Flickr’s “Explore” system must have really caught hold of that photo.

An hour later, after my first class, it was up to 2500. Now some of my classmates were starting to notice.

Throughout the day, as I revisited my Flickr page between classes and appointments, my jaw dropped lower and lower. I discovered that my photo had been picked up first by Reddit and then by Digg, two sites that together command most of the internet’s attention. By dinner time, almost the entire school was wanting to know “How many now, Erin??”

It is now 11:30, and my photo of “Princess Leia” and the R2-D2 mailbox has been viewed over 65,000 times. 65,000, folks. That’s 10,000 more than our local football stadium holds. Holy. Cow.

Needless to say, it’s been a fun day for Teal and I. So, what is the purpose of this post? Well, here’s the thing about Teal. She is really super smart… an MIT graduate and one of the finest nerds I have ever met. She has also, as it happens, just gotten a step closer to her dream of attending the University of Cambridge in England in the fall.

Here’s the catch. Although she just found out that Cambridge accepted her, they will not be providing her with any scholarship money—bringing her expenses for her first year to a whopping $41,000.

One of our friends joked, when he was visiting this evening, that if we had a dollar for every person who viewed our Star Wars picture, Teal’s expenses would be more than paid for.

And that idea sounded almost crazy enough to work.

Now, just so you know, I really really hate people asking for money—probably more than I should. But when the entire internet is crawling all over my blog and many thousands of dollars are standing between my friend and her dream… well, you can’t blame me for seeing if a few of you might have a spare dollar or two lying around. So I am providing a link on the sidebar over there —> which will allow you to donate to Teal’s “Send Princess Leia to Cambridge” fund.

… OR you can ignore this, totally guilt free!

Either way, even if she doesn’t make a penny, Teal and I are pretty stoked at the success of our little geektastic adventure—we really never imagined.

UPDATE: Aaaaand the numbers keep climbing. You really have no idea how excited Teal and I are that even one of you decided to donate… let alone enough of you to bring her total to almost $60.00 so far. You should see our house… there’s a giant chalkboard in the middle of the living room, and on it we have a running tally of both her Cambridge fund and the view count on Flickr… and it’s getting updated pretty often.

Some completely valid questions have come up in the comments, which I showed to Teal, and here are her answers:

What will Teal be studying at Cambridge? Short answer: Math ed. Long answer: International perspectives in math education. Why? Because Teal has tutored countless kids and adults whose enjoyment of math have been ruined by bad teachers, scary educational experiences, or bad textbooks, and she wants to help reform math education in the U.S.

What about taxes? We haven’t looked into this, honestly. Teal is planning to report this income and pay any necessary taxes on it, but we’re both wondering: are there other factors we need to take into consideration?

“I’ll give you $50 if you promise to wear that costume once a week while you’re at Cambridge and post a picture of it to Flickr” Hahaha. We got a kick out of that one. This was probably a joke, but Teal did say that if 200 people pledged her $50.00 to do this, she would.

What if Teal doesn’t get enough money?
I do not think that either of us are expecting this “Send Princess Leia to Cambridge” campaign to cover all of Teal’s expenses (although that would be awesome), but if she does not manage to put together enough money on top of her earnings here to go to Cambridge, she will donate what you have given her to World Vision International.

I will update this post throughout the day as I can… thank you again to each and every one of you who has donated! We owe you.

I think I have finally arrived at an analogy that satisfactorily describes my writing process. (And perhaps, by extension, my creative process in general.)

When I am beginning a column or a paper, I am like a sculptor facing a table on which I plan to create a masterpiece. The table is empty; no clay in sight. I can sit there and stare at the woodgrain for as long as I like, but it will not do any good. I have nothing to work with.

But over the next days and weeks (and sometimes months), inspiration will strike at unexpected moments—someone will say something to me that starts turning wheels in my head, or a particular phrase will suddenly sound just right—and if I can manage to capture those thoughts in writing, they become lumps of clay I can add to my empty table.

In this way, I add bits and pieces of raw material to my growing pile, until finally I have enough random scraps that I can sit down and shape them into something entirely different from any of the individual parts.

All this occurred to me because it is the only way I can explain how I nibbled at my latest 20 Below column with very little success for well over a month, and then wrote it all tonight in one big swallow.

Of course, the fact that my latest deadline is tomorrow morning at 9:00 am may have had something to do with that, as well.

… So maybe this sculptor works best under pressure.