2002-07-17 3:09 p.m.
Today was the last day of the shoot, and the weirdest and toughest. Outwardly, it went fine. Inwardly, I was, and remain, a vibrating neon pod of anxiety.
I was exhausted and tense from not sleeping, and I had to get my portrait taken for the back cover. Whatever neuroses I'd kept in check for the past, oh, year and a half of working with Editrixie on this book came gushing forth the moment I had to sit for my picture.
I could not relax. They took at least a dozen shots of me sitting there (after two days of getting first-take shots of Sunflower the model holding all kinds of complicated positions). The assistant finally sighed in frustration, "Can you, like, just try to lose your discomfort?"
And of course, that made me feel worse, but the ludicrousness of her request made me laugh, and that's when the photographer snapped a few more shots, and from those shots the portrait will come.
Then came the cover shot. I'd been discussing my ideas for the cover with Editrixie since day one, and we have had the same conversation at least seven times. Each time she starts it afresh as if she's never asked. I believe that's a combination of her being both scatterbrained and a little power-trippy. "I am contractually obligated to ask you about your ideas for the cover, and then I will promptly forget them and forge ahead with my own. It is magnanimous of me to even ask you."
Anyway you slice it, I repeated my ideas for the cover shot and all my ideas were humored briefly and dropped. She just went ahead with her own idea, and that was that. I was there for the entire cover shoot--a good two hours or more--and my remarks, suggestions and feedback were completely ignored.
After being deemed too fat to pose for my own book, and then the humiliating author photo sitting, and the realization that this photo shoot cost me two days of paid work plus one of my classes, this just made me want to cry.
At the very end, Sunflower said in confidence, "So, do you like the cover?" And all I could say was, "It's not my decision."
After all this, I just want to stay home and watch Clockwatchers, which came from Netflix today, and get to bed early. However, the plan is to convene for a celebratory dinner at a trendy restaurant, where the only trend I will be on top of is my own trend of feeling like an invisible hillbilly amongst Glamazons.
I need a yoga class!
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