Adventures in Gastronomy

I’m sick. Sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon the symptoms just kicked in full force. It’s just a cold/sore throat…but it was enough to derail a weekend that got off to a good start.

On Saturday I got together with my friend, Tony, for my photo session. I’ll say it now – and don’t you laugh – but modeling is hard work. I have a new respect for Tyra Banks and America’s Next Top Model. Oh yes I do.

As we were on the way to his studio he told me that he had an idea for a series of photos he’s been working on and he hoped I’d we willing to pose for it. He said that he had some props in the back of his car that would be incoporated into the photo.

It started off easy enough with me (fully clothed) simply sitting on a stool – but that’s easier said than done. I’ve never realized how difficult it is to keep your eyes focused. Mine just wandered in every which direction. And I realize when I focus on one object, my face turns into this look of anger. ugh. And if I wasn’t looking angrily at a doorknob (or even the camera), I was blinking or looking at the floor. For every 10 photos taken, maybe 1 came out decent….all because of my wandering eyes.

He also took photos of me standing, sitting, and leaning on my arms. Then he showed me the props he wanted me to pose with: flowers…that’s it.

He brought me into this office to show me examples of the two other people who had posed for this series. One showed a hunky hairy man…completely naked…standing with sun flowers blocking his face. His hands were holding the stem in the region of his unmentionables. The other photo was of nude woman holding a bouquet of flowers over her chest. The stems went down to block her own unspeakables.

In both photos, he photo-shopped them so the person was in black and white but the flowers remained in color. They were quite striking. The models were nude – but you couldn’t see their genitals.

And posing nude is what he wanted me to do.

…and I did.

Yep, I did. He had me disrobe, sit on my knees and hold an enormous bouquet (though, not enormous enough in my opinion). It was the most uncomfortable position I’d been in in my life. I was sitting sideways to the camera, but he had me turn my upper body toward him…but my head away from him. My feet were killing, my knees were killing, my back was killing and my neck was killing. In time, my arms started hurting from holding the lilies. It was completely exhausting. In the end, a few photos came out decent enough to use.

I was shocked to see that such an uncomfortable position could look so natural and even comfortable on film.

And here’s the best part…he asked my permission to submit the photo to a charity auction that’s taking place in May! Yep – my modeling could eventually grace the walls of some wealthy Boston area art lover. Don’t worry – my face is concealed behind the flowers…and there are no distinguishing marks on my body that could lead a person to realize it’s me.

Anyway, in the end I went home with a disk of 15 or so good photos. I tried posting some here but the file sizes are too large and, being sick, I didn’t have the energy to reduce them.

When I got home, I started feeling tired. By the time Mike came over for dinner I had no energy at all. I realized I was catching the cold he had for the past two weeks.

We had dinner at Artu (in the North End) then had planned on going to a bar (or two). But I had no energy. My cold symptoms were getting worse and worse. We ended up hopping on the subway back to his place. But this is where things fell apart. We arrived at his house around 9:45PM only to discover that he left his keys in his mother’s car (they got together earlier in the day). His parents lives 30 miles south of Boston….and none of his neighbors had a copy of his keys. We ended up walking to his best friend’s house, borrowing his car and driving to great outer suburbia to pick up the keys. When we finally got back to Mike’s place (around 11:30PM) I sent him to dbar without me. I went to bed.

On Sunday, I was supposed to meet my friend, Jeff at South Station (he lives in California and came back east to visit his family in Maine). I had a horrible time sleeping since I felt achey and feverish, but I still got up since I was supposed to meet him at 10:30AM. I was dressed, showered and standing at the red line subway platform at 10:20 when he called me to tell me that he hadn’t even left Maine yet and that he’d show up in a few more hours.

ugh. I ended up going home and napping until he arrived. We did walk around the city a bit – but my energy level was so low I don’t think I was a great host. We ended up spending the night watching TV until I went to sleep at 10:15…then I called in sick to work on Monday.

I still feel like crap, but I’m not as achey as I have been the past few days. As Jeff was heading out the door to go to the airport yesterday he said he was feeling a bit sick himself. Oh oh.

March 27th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl

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