I’ve drawn a conclusion I think I’ve avoided drawing for a little too long. See, I have a couple rolls of film left and I have no real desire to use them. Or maybe I’m out of film altogether; either way, I’m indifferent. My camera needs to be replaced and I doubt I’ll get around to buying a new one any time soon. To put it bluntly, I just don’t feel up to it anymore. Since I finished the drama album, I’ve only done a few more photo pages. Due to my tendency to snap obscene amounts of pictures at any given event, I’m over two years behind in the scrapbooks and, quite frankly, I don’t particularly care.

I’ve been snapping since age eight and scrapbooking since age twelve. There’s a shelf in my room absolutely piled with photo packets—-literally hundreds of them, stacked on top of each other, in chronological order. And then there’s a pile of discards and doubles nearly a foot tall. And then there are the actual albums themselves, six or seven of them, chronicling the unremarkable life of yours truly from the last day of fourth grade to the last days of tenth grade. And then, in the corner, is a big Rubbermaid container of patterned paper, acid-free pens, circle rulers, cropping crumbs, crazy scissors, etc., that I keep accumulating. Quite a lot of it is actually very pretty, and I really ought to put it to good use. But in a way, it’s almost nauseating, sometimes. Ah, apathy.

So there it is: the “camera girl” is apathetic. If I were still in high school, my reputation would be falling to pieces. ’Twas my only claim to fame, that, back in the not-so-very-long-ago time of the picture distribution days Fleur et al found so enjoyable, of being bombarded with requests for copies, of being able to whip a camera out of my sleeve, snap a picture, slip the telltale item away, and assume an innocent expression in roughly half the time it takes one to blink, while everyone in the vicinity jolted and looked around for the felon. Not that I haven’t acquired several lovely candid shots that way, but the act seems to have lost its appeal.

Moving on, then. If I don’t take any more pictures, I can’t fall any more behind in the albums than I already have. But old habits really do die hard, like any other addiction. I know I’m likely to have the odd relapse; maybe I’ll even get back into the old camera-happy scrapbooking thing again someday. Till then, I’m on vacation, possibly permanent, oxymorons and paradoxes aside, and so on.

Adieu.