Okay, for real now. I look at how well everyone is about updating their blog, and mine just sits there, with a few random pictures, waiting for something exciting to happen. And now it will. Attached is the first of what will *likely* be weekly updates. I need to keep myself fresh, and posting a picture or two, and talking about them might just help me do that.

This first one is from the prom in Pojoaque, a small town about fifteen minutes from Santa Fe. A colleague here at the paper pointed out that the proms here in New Mexico don't seem to be half as formal as the proms elsewhere, and I tend to agree. There were kids with jeans, a tucked in shirt and a sideways hat (I'm not one to speak, I wore something similar to my prom in New Mexico), but I gotta say, there is a certain amount of style.

I liked this one because it says New Mexico to me. Yeah, it's not the only place where kids wear zuit suits to prom, but there probably aren't many places where they do it with as much confidence. Here are these kids, at the pinnacle of their high school careers, dressed to a T, and feeling really good about themselves. And why shouldn't they? I guess the sad part is that while I made these photos, all I could think about was how these kids are going to graduate and that moment is going to be ripped from them. They are going to face the real world, and and they're not going to feel so powerful anymore.

I just finished reading Friday Night Lights. It happened in West Texas in 1988, but the same couldn't be more true in Northern New Mexico, 2007. These kids live large in high school, and as soon as they graduate, it's over. And it's not just the sports players. The same thing happens to so many people, especially from poorer places like Northern New Mexico. Their opportunities become awfully slim, and they too often don't have the resources to figure out how to succeed.

Enough....But that's what I thought as I made this picture.