Two Things

1. I updated my website by editing out a few of the lesser projects and adding my suburban, pajama, and ice skater images, along with a new portrait section.

Nick Hagen Photo

2.  Today is the day that I wear a silly hat and a bed sheet and get a piece of paper that tells the world that I know a lot of about something. (I'm graduating)

So hey, hire me, please.

Anti Jet-Lag Skincare

Since I'm now basically done with school I felt like revisiting another time when I felt like my life was falling off of a cliff into the unknown.  I found it entertaining so I felt like sharing it.

NOTE: This came from my handwritten journal where I essentially just write whatever it is I'm thinking as I'm thinking.

2ND NOTE: For the record, I *thankfully* no longer have a hemorrhoid.

December 29th, 2009

I’m very much in the airport. Alone. About to board a flight to Paris in a couple of hours. Yeesh. How I feel is so odd.  It is absolutely nothing in particular. I’m just numb. Well now I’m legit nervous but for a while I didn’t feel anything. Going to a new place for so long where I don’t know anyone is so big my little brain can’t even handle it. I think I just have so many feelings attached that they all kind of cancel each other out. Maybe this is a Nick Hagen version of a meltdown. Hope so. It was fairly manageable.  Now I’m just scared. It’s this whole fear of the unknown. I don’t know anyone.  I don’t cook. I haven’t lived on my own before. Everything is fucking new.
    Now I’m sitting at Gate A60 listening to a playlist Michelle Kopka made for me. I forgot how fun airports are. They are so fascinating to me.  All these people going everywhere.   They are all so ticky-tacky. The people watching is wonderful. I wish I could take pictures but I’m avoiding getting pulled aside and not being allowed to board the plane for security reasons. There is a hude Blade Runner-esque TV monitor (big enough to have a huge ad illuminated right next to the CNN broadcast that is playing). They’re constantly talking about Michael Jackson. About his pedophilia and such. I thought we were all over that at this point. I just looked around and this is quite a motley crew of airplane passengers. There is a guy with a fanny pack nearby with a family. His daughter has a Mickey Mouse headband on with ears that glow. This dude on the other side of me is speaking Arabic loudly into his phone. There is a slouching black man covered in brown clothing. Brown cabbie hat, brown leather jacket, stained brown and black jeans, and brown Timberlands. There is a well dressed white boy with a cool scarf.  Couple of old people. These old guys look so damn French I can’t even stand it.  One has a man purse. They each have scarfs, obviously.
    Nancy Grace just popped up on the telly. Cunt.
    So I’m waiting. I haven’t written anything like this since the summer. Kinda sad. I was busy. Good semester though. I think I grew a lot as a photographer and as an artist, in that I kinda get art now. There is an improvement.
    It’s sorta cold. It smells like Cinnabon. I have to live. What the hell is a “Glass Onion”? I wrote, “I have to live”. I meant to write “I have to poop”. Weird. Sounds pretty damn deep, man. I dunno maybe it is. I don’t feel happy to be leaving which is a little odd to me. I want to do this. Really. I just was really happy here and I love CCS. I’m excited, I think. No I am.  I just don’t show it. I’m looking forward to getting into the city and shooting the crap out of it.  I really hope I remembered to bring Invisible Cities. Not sure what made me think of that.
    Whenever I see people I think they’re people I know and realize they aren’t. Why am I looking for familiarity?
    When I went through security the first guy I encountered asked me how my french was. I told me bad. He wanted me to speak. “Le poisson nage,” I said. He was pleased.
    My mouth is really dry. I need to poop. I should take care of those things.
    Well that went well. The bathroom stalls here are odd. They were really metallic and were taller than the average walls on a bathroom stall. It was like walking into a solitary confinement cell. Only really clean and with a fairly nice toilet, but tracing paper toilet paper. My hemorrhoid isn’t feeling too happy. Every trip to the bathroom is now an exercise in pleasing my hemorrhoid. The thing basically enslaved me. My life revolves around wiping more than enough and praying that the bastard doesn’t get angry with me.
    I think they’re boarding now. Can’t say I actually know what is happening. I’m assuming first class folks go on first. My ears were all up in Grizzly Bear so I didn’t hear anything. This little kid is making all sorts of sounds over on the row of chairs next to me. I think he belongs to the bearded man a few rows over. His hair is like the kid from The Shining’s. He was meowing. Now he is climbing up on the window. I’m half expecting him to become a goddamn T-Rex and start freaking out at people. At which point I would stand up and shake the beardeded father’s hand, congratulating him on having such an excellent child.
    A nice old lady just pulled out a clementine and is eating it. A little baby guy is wandering, as he passed a lot of people looked and smiled. I did too.
    Why do young and small people make older and larger people happy merely by existing? It’s one of those things that no one really asks. Why wouldn’t anyone enjoy a baby happily wandering around? I don’t know what my point is. I hope I can order a drink on the plane.
    This little girl asked her mother for a pretzel with a little French accent. You could hear it in the “U” and “L” sound. “Pretz-ullll.” Kinda cute. I envy her young spongy mind so much though. Her French is vastly better than mine. She looks to be 3. Goddamnit.
    Do I board now? The two people that were sitting across from me just got in line. How did they know? Ah, Jesus. I think I’m going to have to ask someone at some point. That’ll be awkward.
    There is an ad on the back of my boarding pass. It’s for a cream that claims to be “Anti jet-lag skincare”. What the fuck is that?
    Lots of people around me are speaking French. I need subtitles.
    The guy who got up a bit ago is sitting back down. I’m thinking I’m good.