I dropped by the MOMA today again after work. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, so I went to the contemporary galleries and started looking at the Gerhard Richter paintings that they had up. It seemed so strange to be observing them with such a casual eye, when I had spent an hour in the room a few months ago, like I was riffling quickly through books worn and understood. Acceptable flippancy, but the casual dismissing of something precious and important nonetheless.

All of a sudden I felt lightheaded, abstracted, pulled vertically apart. I realize now how lucky I am to be healthy, young and healthy and not in immediate worry about my physical operating state. It's an uncomfortable luxury, the way that pain is so transient, and I imagine asphalt and softer organs colliding, eyebrows gathering slo-mo in pain, time suddenly collapsing into units of the next moment, the next five minutes, just alive for these next few hours. Travel and culture might as well be these states on a larger level: imperceptibilities without present experiences.

I need to keep on shooting, to keep on viewing. I think I've temporarily lost what little eye I had to see power lines, weight diagrams, to watch spaces shift and compensate and solidify, attract and concentrate focus. I tried to take a photo today, and I caught myself moving things by habit, knowledge alone, with the top-heavy thought of this is how it is. Previously there at least used to be a faraway click, a gently muted sliding in, weighty coalescence, something like holding a large rectangular slab of wet clay and pressing it down onto the ground.

MOMA is good for plain surfaces. Each Monday and Friday: no people, no artwork, just one or two shots of lines and shadows, corners of rooms. The ratio of the amount of time I carry my Bessa around to the amount of time I've used it is now infinitesimal...