Change Pose

When I was a model for a beginning figure drawing class, I'd occasionally run into someone who'd seem startled to see me and kept looking at me as if to place me. I didn't recognize you with your clothes on, the aspiring artist would eventually say, once they figured it out. It happened once at a Mr. Ghatti's Pizza Buffet and the guy working the line said, What is it that you do? I had on oversized t-shirt with Ziggy on it saying, Why Me?, blue leggings, and some high-top Reeboks which I thought really fetching (not a good look, to be sure, but it wasn't the Ritz). I didn't mind the work -- I'm good at being still for long periods of time and nudity eventually became as erotic to me as the aforementioned outfit. Clothes or no clothes, I'd already fallen madly (emphasis on mad) with the art professor, a troubled and talented man who slept with damn near everything that moved. Change pose, he would say after a time, and I would. Life seemed luminous with possibility.

I never got to see any of the figure drawings of myself and for this small mercy, I was glad. Aren't you curious?, a friend of mind asked. Umm, no. Was not in the least. All the drawings, I suspected were different. Nobody sees anything the same way. I could only hope they were kind with my thighs. As for myself, I can't even draw a convincing stick figure. In my drawings, the head is always too large for the body and the arms come out for days, while the legs are tiny little stubs. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I put a bow and a ponytail to signify a female and some short, ratty hair for a boy. In my pictures, the sun has a smile on its face even though in real life, I never allow it to touch my skin.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I'm responding with the only vocabulary I have to extraordinary and ordinary situations around me." Sally Mann, photographer

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: White Blood Cells White Stripes

Benedictions and malediction

Thanks for all the sweet comments about the dress in the last photograph. At this point, I'd have to consider it vintage. My friend mentioned in an earlier post (the one who dressed like me) had the dress for a long time and had grown weary of it so she loaned it to me for a first date. I loved it so she gave it to me. That was over ten years ago. The dress has to be almost twenty years old at this point.

As to Jason's great question about whether or not people being in love and/or lust with you is a good thing or a bother, I'd say for me it's always lovely (except when they're stalking you and going through your trash, both of which have happened to me) and an affirmation of everything good. Also, a writer always courts this kind of attention -- people fall in love with your work, your jacket photo, your biography, and your world. If they didn't, you wouldn't sell any books! I do know people who don't like it, who think people who love them are stupid and annoying. I don't get this attitude at all except that it probably stems from a self-loathing that gets projected onto the one who loves. Okay, enough of the Freud stuff! The only thing that ever pisses me off is when someone tells me, Smile, it's not that bad. Umm, how the hell do they know? If people want me to smile, they will say something that is funny!

67 Days until The Sopranos airs!