Years Later…last summer

“I might have a new job.” I told the man who had hired me to Shoot and Show Church Directory Portraits. “It’s traveling around the country, taking portraits of college kids. The expenses alone are a few hundred dollars a week.”

“That’s too much work.” He said and smiled. “I make around $50k a year doing this. I’ve watched you, you can do the same. You just need a little more practice.”

A few weeks later I was roaming around a college campus in Missouri. My Trainer took me from one Fraternity to another. The product we sold cost a few thousand dollars. I knew nothing about Greek Life, as the kids call it, and this was yet another world opening up to me because I knew how to point a camera at someone.

Fraternities are often fairly rundown places. The young men who live in them do the bare minimum to the keep them from falling down. Most of them have basements where they appear to throw nightly raves. There were occasional mountains of beer cans and liquor bottles.

A few Houses were nicer. They had cooks and the public parts of the buildings were reasonable clean. Some of them offered me food, which I accepted. Once in a while someone would offer me a beer, which I would politely refuse. For the most part they are a rowdy bunch. I didn’t see any Sororities while I was in training.

After a few weeks I was sent to the Northwest, a part of the country that has long been on my list of places to go. Seattle has been near the top of that list for some time. I ended up a bit father East, near Idaho. I would travel all over the region. The landscape is completely different form other places I have been. Mountains and Trees and Rolling Hills and much to my surprise, a few stretches of desert.

Parking is the greatest challenge of the job. But I was lucky enough to have good contacts who saved me a space or told me where the nearest parking lot could be found. The gear all fits on once cart, and it can be a bit of a bother to drag it around a college campus or down one of the old streets where Fraternity Rows can often be found.

I was making the most money I had made since those Glory Days of Olan Mills. The days were often long and sometimes there were multiple setups and tear-downs. But I was in Washington and Oregon and Idaho. That old familiar thrill of new places.

But I’m not a kid anymore and my Trainer at the Church Directory Company was right, it’s a lot more work than I’m used to. Some of these groups are large and they all wait til the last minute. A mob of fifty or sixty people crowded into a small space is not uncommon. Well, I should say it was not uncommon a few months ago. Like everything else, Covid-19 has changed the business model a bit.

A week before the Lockdown I was a few hundred miles from home is San Antonio. Great city, lots of cool stuff to see, great food, and a million cheap hotel rooms. It was scheduled to go back the following week, but that didn’t happen. We were all making jokes about Covid-19 and then we weren’t.

And now a few months have gone by. I’ve worked on a few odds and ends. Uploaded a few photos to Fine Art America, make a hundred or so designs for Redbubble, published a few No Content Books on Amazon. I’ve made a couple of large sales and a few tiny ones. I’ve tried my hand at Affiliate Marketing and never made a dint in it. I have enough money at the moment. But there may come a time when I will have to pick up a few Side Gigs to make ends meet.

All the Photo Companies I have worked for all work under the assumption that everyone has a few thousand dollars tucked away. If they need you to travel across country, that first trip is on your dime. This hasn’t always been possible for me. I’ve always been one of those Two Paychecks Away From Homeless people. So it was nice to have a job that paid me well again. Things were looking up.

I have a couple of weeks of Covid Unemployment payments left and then my income will drop to the scant amount provided my regular Unemployment. My favorite side gig was a place called Deliv, but the pandemic killed them, as it has so many other businesses. The Wolf is not at the door yet.

I got a Text from the Company telling me to stay in shape, that we would be back to work soon. There are dates on my calendar. I’m scheduled to start up again in August, in Idaho. Shooting Fraternities and Sororities. One of the stories out of Seattle was an outbreak on Greek Row from the kids throwing Covid parties. I have to say I have mixed feelings about going back to work.

I’ve done a lot more cooking. Tried out a lot of fun recipes. Done my best to pretend the New Normal is, well, normal. Sleep has been a challenge. I dream of working and having a hard time getting the kids to social distance. I watch all the Late Shows. I bought a Roku and have caught up on every movie and TV show I might have wanted to watch. I’ve started a few books. I listen to about ten podcasts a week. I went to the Doctor, Dentist, and Barber once the Stay At Home orders were loosened. I still mostly stay home and worried that I am dying when I get a headache. I spend hours on Twitter and playing Portal Quest. I have not written a new novel, screenplay, or short story collection.

Life, such as it is, goes on.