Always a Wedding Photographer and Never a Groom and other stories from the week

I have been suffering from an extreme cold/flu/allergy thing that has totally kicked my butt this week.  It does not help that this week has been the week that everyone has been calling me and prefacing what they desire me to do with "You really need to...."  I know all i really NEED to do is eat, sleep, breath and drink water once in awhile...wearing clothing is something that I choose to do so I do not go to jail and is not something that I NEED to do, so it always makes me wonder why everyone seems to think that they know what I NEED to do more than I do.  Just a linguistic pet peeve of mine.

Career Training as a Combat Photographer

Another friend of mine got married recently and once again I was hired as the photographer.  i know i have discussed Azeri wedding traditions previously in my blog so I will not reiterate them here, but trying to battle for position with the video camera operators (there were three at this wedding), the two photographers who paid the wedding hall to take photos and charge a huge amount for people to buy them and of course the old ladies who do care how close I was to a great shot and would ram into me if I was in their way made for a long night.  Being sick did not help.   One thing that I wanted to do when I was younger was to be either a combat photographer or a combat motion picture specialist because what could more dangerous than being in a combat zone armed with only a camera?  (I think a possible answer to that question is a guy running around the combat zone with a bullseye painted on him.)  I think photographing Azeri weddings could be a decent precareer training for such a dream.

A few friends of mine are trying to convince me to stay here and work as a freelance wedding photographer.  We talked about during the wedding.  it is something that I might consider, although i am not a great photographer i do know how to properly hold a camera unlike some of my Azeri counterparts.

I have yet to download the photos from my camera and i will not know if i will put any on here as I have several from my previous shoots on here somewhere.

Thanks Ladies

The past few weeks I have met several local women who are learning English and being a native English speaker they want to talk to me.  I do not mind as I do like to talk and sometimes i find myself talking to myself, but as my dad always told me it is ok to talk to yourself as long as you do not answer yourself.  Anyway, the conversations eventually come to my age and I always ask the person to guess.  it is just fun to see how old other people think i am.  Five different women and all five have said that I am 5-10 years younger than I actually am.  It makes me feel good because i will be 41 on June 11 (but i act closer to 14).  I have come to several possible conclusions about this phenomeon of me appearing so much younger here in Azerbaijan...

a) Most Azeri men my age must look terrible, so by default i look younger.
b) These women were doing a lot of drugs before meeting me.
c) Azerbaijani citizens are so worried about offending a guest that will automatically guess a person's age 5-10 years younger than they actually think that person's age is.
d) I just look damn good for my age.

I am going with d for the sole sake of my ego, but in reality it might be a combination of a and c and possibly b because you never know.

Was it a date?

I know that I should not have went out to do something other than my jobs this past week being sick, BUT the woman was pretty.  We talked and decided to meet last night.  She said that she wanted to practice her English.  (Please note, she is one of the five low age guessers from above.)  Everything was good.  She is a nice woman AND I do find her attractive.  But here is the problem.  We went to a cafe and had tea and she had something to eat with the idea that we were there to practice HER English.   After talking for several hours and before walking her to the minibus to take her home (yes, i am a gentleman...merely a weird one), I picked up the tab.  How should the action of me picking up the tab for our meeting be looked upon by both parties?

a) a date because if she did not look at it like a date then she would have insisted to have paid her portion of the bill.
b) an English practice session, afterall both parties had agreed to meet for the purpose of practicing English without any expressed romanticism beforehand.
c) another classic case of Ronnie losing all logical sensibilities around an attractive brunette with beautiful eyes, a nice smile, a bubbling personality and pretty good body.

I know that most of you are expecting a travel blog and you have ended up with a multiple choice test.  Everyone can feel free to respond to them.

Ok, it almost time for me to try to sleep.  Signing off now.