El Toro to Couture Part III

Part III

Awkward is one word I would use to describe my pre-pubescence. Growing up I wasn't like my best friend Jenna, blessed with long golden hair and boobs by the age of 10, or Jaclyn who embodied sex at the age of 13 giving boys boners long before I even knew what one was, or my older sister Georgia, whom I became the love letter liaison for at the age of 8.***

No, I was a late bloomer as they say. Jealousy with the opposite sex only occurred when I could out eat a boy in a toaster strudel battle (that's including the extra cream cheese frosting packet , if you are a real competitor, you know what I am talking about) I remember the first time a boy walked me home in high school we got to my front door and I could not understand why after I had said goodnight he just kept standing there as if he was waiting for something. I just shrugged my shoulders and shut the door. My first real kiss was when I was 16 and I can only imagine what the expression on my face must have looked like because the unfortunate receiver responded with, “it does get better, you know". So when I was offered to be in a photo shoot for a magazine I was pretty sure awkward wasn’t going to fly.

Sunday August 8, 2010:

(1.5 hours before being picked up for the photo shoot)
3:30AM Return from my last night of bartending…I sit on my couch and wonder how the hell does one prepare in an hour and a half before being critiqued on their physical appearance? I begin generating a mental list of all the hygienic things I have been putting off doing until now… Take a shower. Shave my legs. Floss. Take off the nail polish that has been sitting on my toes for an unsanitary amount of time. Get a manicure, my fingernails look like a mangled dog’s paw. Pluck my eyebrows. Lose 10 pounds… 20? I’m hungry.
4:30 Am Wake up. Drool down my chin. I am still sitting on my couch. Damnit. I settle on shaving my legs and hope that will suffice.
5:00Am I am picked up by Heather one of the photographers and the make up artist. She said we were on our way to Roosevelt Island, located in between Manhattan and Queens, there is an abandoned small pox hospital next to a park where we are shooting. The theme is “suicide widows of 18th century NY”… interesting.
6:00Am We arrive and are met by the photographer, three other models, three stylists and a U-Haul truck filled with designer gowns. Still unsure whether I will actually fit into any of these gowns, I walk up to the stylist, Aminah, and ask. She responded, “Yeah you do got a booty... put that shit in hair and make up. We make it work.”
8:00Am Hair and Make up. I have no mirror to see what I look like but from the cancer I have inhaled of toxic hairspray I am positive I look terrifying. Rashida, the makeup artist asks the photographer which suicide I am depicting, he says “arsenic poisoning.. I want green oozing from her eyes.. but in a hot way..” .. hmmm.
10:00Am I am standing in the back of a U-Haul .. in my underwear..
10:05 Am A group of joggers run by and I am still.. standing in the back of a U-Haul in my underwear with teased hair big enough to rival Diana Ross and make up scary enough to rival Ronald McDonald .. I wave.
10:15 Am Two girls are trying to stuff my size 4 self into a size zero gown. It’s not happening. This is kind of awkward.
10:20Am Plan B. We try another one. It works.
10:25Am A girl is strategically placing double sided tape on my boobs. So much for modesty.

10:30Am – 5:00Pm A lot of boring, vain bullshit.

***Disclaimer: For those friends whom I did not list please do not take it as me not thinking you have remarkable physical attributes worthy of note.
For instance, Lauren you have a seriously enviable back side. Laura, you’re Asian or Polynesian or something.. being hot is like a given. Sarah, Kelly, Kristin, Stacey, Heather… I think there was some code in the 80’s that if you named your daughter any of those names.. they were like destined to be attractive. Ana you’re Cuban… enough said.