Pictures I didn't take

This is a picture I didn't take of me tossing Jane Austen's Persuasion up in the air on Jeremy and Liz's new sofa; you can tell from the one-raised-eyebrow museful smirk on my face that I've just finished reading the book in its entirety - 180 pages since 7:30 a.m. this morning.

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This is a picture from yesterday, when I'm diving into Liz and Jeremy's pool after a run that took me down past the Stratosphere on the Strip. I'm all sorts of exhilarated already. The pool water was maybe 70 degrees. A half-second after this was taken, I broke the surface and was heard to exclaim "Sweet Mother of God!" Greg Louganis!

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This is a picture of Jeremy and I mid-stride as we cross Fremont Street beneath the lasers of the Fremont Street Experience. These are our going-out jackets. Mine is Jeremy's: a slick form-fitting number made of suede, I think. His is purple velour: a smoking jacket that Hugh Hefner, were he to pass us on the street, would notice and offer a passing compliment about. You can tell by my wild-eyed, mid-sentence expression and Jeremy's vaguely disdainful look that we're badly in need of food.

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This is a picture I didn't take of Jeremy, Liz, myself, Mike, and Jen in the family room as the sun came over the rear fence and through the sunroom to fill the family room with the generous effects of a warm, windy April night. Clearly, from the way Jeremy, Mike and I are learning forward and high-fiving each other, you can tell that that we're reminiscing, thoroughly, about the names of first- and second-generation G.I. Joes (Duke, Scarlet, Lady Jaye, Flint, Gung-Ho, etc.) and classic NES games (Bubble Bobble, Contra, Super C, Blades of Steel). You'd be right to conclude from the way that Liz and Jen are sitting with their fists in their cheeks looking askance that they are less than fascinated with these minutiae.

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This is a picture I didn't take of myself this morning as I sat reading in the half-shade of the pomegranate tree which overhangs the pool. It looks as though I'm oblivious to the commuter plane - a Ted flight - which sits hugely over my head as it comes in for a landing, but I'm not. It's just that by this point in the morning I've seen like six flights land, and I'm used to them.

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This is a picture I didn't know was being taken of me as I leaned over the Hoover Dam this afternoon. I'm leaning over the open-space side. You can see the dozens of transmission towers on both sides of the abyss. The larger guy wires indicate where the new bridge is going to go sometime before 2008, when it's scheduled to be finished. My eyes are closed because all of the wind from the river valley is shunting together and flying up the dam into my face, and that, when coupled with the perspective of the very small industrial complex far below and the stippled patterns of the rocks, produces the sort of calm that makes you feel you don't need the use of your eyes to understand where you are or feel the scale of what's happening.