I left the house today. Not by design, but out of necessity. The FedEx man came and went while I was asleep, and I had to drive across town to fetch the package myself. Initially I was annoyed at my bad fortune, but I soon saw it for the blessing it was: an excuse to get out of the house. A reason to go somewhere.

On the way back I decided to get on the horse again, to shoot some photos in a part of the city where I might not be welcome. So I worked the fenceline of a public school, looking for rusty stuff, chinks, whatever. Boring stuff, yes, but I needed to ease myself back into the scene. I kept waiting for someone to show up, to get in my face, to challenge my right to photograph a rusty old fence. At one point a van full of men pulled up right next to me and I thought to myself, "Here we go." But they were just workers of some sort, on a late afternoon break, and they seemed barely to notice me. I never felt so happy to be disregarded.

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