It's nice being a man of leisure, if you discount the aches and pains that allow me to be one.

I no longer have to mow the yard, though I'm pretty sure I couldn't if my life depended on it. In fact I sometimes wish I still could, almost.

It also gives me more time to remember things, but I find it more difficult than one would think. The problem is not so much with my memory, it's because too many of the really cool and weird things I was present for in the past happened while I was a journalist.

Being a recorder of things for the rest of the world seems to have made my own memories a little sketchy. I think that's because much of my effort at the time was spent in following the procedures it takes to accurately document an event.

Last week I was talking with Laurie Heath, proprietor of Wonderfully Made Portraits and Cards, and she ended up experiencing the same problem during a trip to China with a group of friends. At first she photographed almost everything that moved, and then battled with the problems of publishing her blog (http://www.laurieheathstudiowonderfullymade.blogspot.com/) from inside a country where blogs are monitored by the government. She also became the designated photographer of the trip for her friends.

She discovered, like I did, that it's harder to see and touch something if your camera comes between you and it.

Ever since Kodak introduced its simple box camera in 1888, average everyday folks have spent much of their time during vacations either posing their friends or families in front of giant balls of string, or being posed in front of some natural or manmade oddity.

It can make for some nice pictures to show when you return, but it leaves you precious little time to reach out and feel the rich texture of life around you.

I'm not suggesting abandoning your camera in favor of touching everything you came to see. That will probably get you arrested if you're at the beach. Might even be dangerous at a reptile farm.

My suggestion is that when you're planning a cross-country photo safari, you should allow enough time, at least 30 minutes or an hour, at each site to talk to the locals. You might even do some of the things you came to take pictures of other people doing. Feed the animals (if it's not against the rules) yourself. You'll find it's a more pleasant memory than having taken a picture of it.

Just try and remember how scallops fresh off the boat in Boston smell and taste when all you have is a picture of the boat coming up to the dock.

I think you'll find photo print paper, while low in calories, is not very satisfying, if not downright toxic.