President's Day

Today was one of those bogus holidays that gives government employees and those who yawn away their lives in cubicles an excuse to stay home. But laborers don't get the day off. Paid by the hour, they work or they don't get paid. They rewind used cable, they pile up mountains of broken bits of the universe that can be melted down and used again.

I took a long walk through the industrial zone this morning, photographing wire, wooden pallets, molded plastics. I tried to make myself take abstract pictures of patterns. But all that mattered was the people. Their stories: their loves, their wayward children, their unpaid bills, their aging parents, their broken cars, their addictions, their dreams, and their pleasures.

There is something tender about a man bending over to pick up a pipe. His arms, his back, his memories of childhood.