What's it like when an artist retires?

CFO. Calculates the return on vacationing...

I'm working on the last two jobs in the docket. For the year. Both of which follow one version of my interpretation of Murphy's Law. That clients who invite you in to make portraits of their key people, and who want to book right away, will then take a month or so to get back to you with their final selections. Yeah. About an hour apart two different clients for whom I did dozens and dozens of portrait sessions for over the course of a couple of days have now, nearly a month later, finally sent me the selections to retouch and composite. That's fine. These are the last two jobs I have to mess with for the rest of the year... Or longer.

I've gone to my website and removed all the contact information that lived there. Sure, it was there so that potential clients who wanted to find me and get in touch could. But what the website contact page has mostly done since it was uploaded in 2017 was provide a rich target for spammers to daily deliver dozens or even hundreds of unwanted emails and texts. And in those past eight years the vast majority of clients who did get in touch were already clients and already knew my phone number and email address. 

By jettisoning contact information I've been able to leave up a convenient website that works as a ready portfolio, keep my email addresses functioning and hopefully, with some other behind the scenes machinations, will also declutter a few mailboxes and text reservoirs. If someone doesn't know how to get in touch with me already I'm pretty sure I'm not the photographer for them. 

I've winnowed down the work load by not doing any marketing or advertising to speak of for about two years now. It's a nice glide path away from commerce but it comes with the burden of now having to both self-assign fun work and also self-finance that fun work. And I'm fine with that. 

This basically means that the times which I will have to skip swim workouts or fun lunches to accommodate client schedules is quickly approaching zero. There's still a lot to get done. Archiving of sorts. Filling last minute I.P. requests from nervous clients. And the mental exercise of changing direction after 40+ years locked into a strange commercial/capitalist paradigm. Also, flipping the switch that converts priorities from saving for the future to dipping into those savings. Thank goodness my spouse/CFO is brilliant. 

today's schedule: I hit the pool at 7:45 this morning, did a long distance warm-up and then swam with my masters group under the watchful and critical eye of coach Jenn. She's just back from a trip with her husband where they participated in a competitive swim race across the Bosphorus at Istanbul. Today we worked on all four strokes nearly equally. Going from butterfly to backstroke to breaststroke to freestyle with individually medley swims (all four strokes continuously) between each set.  If you haven't tried swimming a 400 IM and think you are in exquisite shape you might want to revisit your fitness plan. That first one hundred butterfly in the IM, at the end of a long workout, is killer. (But not literally...). 

. ...they make it look so easy at the Olympics...

After a quick shower, I ate an apple I'd brought along with me and drove over to my favorite car wash. There's a reason I drove halfway across town to the car wash. It's because my physician has his office a couple blocks away. 

I wanted to wash the car to get all the road dust and tar smoke off the paint; the result of my failed photo foray to Pedernales Falls State Park on Tuesday... I also needed to vacuum up the leaves off the floor mats. They are black and show up everything. I must confess that I did have fun driving out and around the wide open parts of the Hill Country. It's been a while since I channeled my teenaged alter-ego and drove my car too fast. I figure it's okay to redline every once in a while if there are no other vehicles for as far as the eye can see. Besides, I've been so well behaved for so long.... it's nice sometimes to cut loose. Four lanes. No cars in sight. Vroom.

After I washed the car I presented myself at my doctor's office to get a flu shot. I'd emailed earlier in the week to confirm that they'd gotten the more vicious and powerful version for seniors. Almost guaranteed to elicit some sort of side effects (not presently felt). My doctor runs a concierge practice. I pay him quarterly for an "all you can bear" access to top flight health care. But other than being able to set my own time for shots and vaccines my general health has thus far made my ten year relationship with the concierge practice less profitable for me than him.  He is, however, a great source of referrals. Loved my Mohs surgeon. 

I had to wait two minutes in the empty waiting room before being collected by the practice RN. I was going to be miffed about the delay but decided to let it go (just kidding). Maybe my watch was running fast... I walked down the hall with the RN to an exam room where she took my blood pressure and other vitals. Then she gently and deftly injected the vaccine and placed a Pokemon bandage on the injection site. She knows my taste in bandaids.

Since it's a concierge practice there is no paperwork for me to fill out and no insurance nonsense to deal with. I keep my doctor current with an email or two after I've seen a specialist --- he's already got the baseline. The front desk person made me a cappuccino to go and offered me snacks. I took the coffee but resisted the urge to eat a granola bar.

I was hungry though so I headed back to my neck of the woods, drove past my street and headed to TacoDeli for a couple of bacon, egg and cheese breakfast tacos. Yum. Then, with a happy stomach, I turned the car around and drove back home. 

When I walked into the office I saw the two emails from the two clients who had been delinquent with the image selections. I sent a brief "thank you" note to each and let them know when I could effect delivery. Then I got to work editing my current website to take off all my contact information. I also checked on travel plans both domestic and international. Two trips upcoming. All good. 

I handed off all the microphones and mixers I'd accumulated over the last ten years to a videographer whose work I admire. The office felt lighter.  I hope never to work on a video project or film project again unless it is as the still  photographer. 

I'm feeling a bit unleashed. For the first time in a long time I have no real, fixed schedule (other than six days a week of 8 a.m. swim practice), I have no debt. I have no obligations other than the classic domestic ones. I have no worries about how to make the ends meet. The kid is launched. The parents gone. Now I just have to make sense of how I got myself into this "predicament."

Ah well. It could be worse. 

PSA: don't smoke! It will kill your 100 fly times at the pool...

That's all I've got for today. Now out looking for a perfect dessert for after dinner...