Colondar -- Day 2 (first half)

I was one of the first ones to head to bed on Thursday night because I had the earliest shoot the next morning. A 7am call for makeup??? What the hell is that? I don't even wake up until about 9am on work days! My shoulders were a little sore from holding my neck still because of the recent surgery, so I needed some rest. On top of my bed was a goodie bag filled with some things that might be useful...and one that isn't too useful because I'm not a golfer. It's a golf club cover of "Eniman." You don't remember Eniman from the Marvel Comics? He's the Fleet Enima tube superhero, complete with cape. I guess when Superman was tired from a long day of fighting crime, Eniman would "relieve him." (Oh, was that bad or what?)

I hadn't eaten too much that evening and my stomach had some butterflies in it from thinking about the shoot the next day. As they said in Charlotte's Web when talking about Wilbur, "when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, sleep is hard to come by." And it was. I tossed and turned all night (well, if five hours qualifies as "all night.") I was awake before my alarm, so I decided to just jump in the shower.

I ate half a bagel and headed upstairs to the bedroom that was now "makeup and wardrobe." Sam(antha) and Alayne were there to take care of me. They gelled up my hair until it was hard and crunchy. Alayne was having problems finding the right amount/color of makeup for my face. My current medications give me a constant look like I have slight sunburn on my face. (I haven't been out in the sun in a year, so the rest of me is whiter than white). Finally, she was able to tone down my redness and we moved on. After the initial burst of light (picture a supernova) from revealing my white torso, their eyes eventually adjusted. Alayne applied lotion that would allow the makeup to work better on my body. So, as my arms were held out to the sides for her to lotion them up, Sam came at me with the clippers. It turns out my chest hair was too long. So to recap...one girl was rubbing me with lotion as another was shaving my body. (If I had a nickel for every time that has happened to me recently...) Once they were happy with my appearance, they escorted me to the studio in the garage.

Damn it was cold in there because the sun hadn't cleared the mountains! (This time, picture the male penguins huddled in Antarctica trying to warm their eggs.) I told Troy that besides having to remove my neck bandage with photoshop, he'd have to soften my nipples, too! The photographer, Mark, was there and, unlike yesterday, his hair was neatly combed. He had me stand on the designated spot (masking tape X on a piece of carpet -- very official) so he could take some test shots to get the lighting just so. Then we went right to it...and he didn't stop. For two hours, I was posing this way and that way. Tilting this way and that way. Leaning this way and that way. Shifting my center of gravity this way and that way. Looking this way and that. Rolling in the dirt, swinging from the rafters, wearing the assistant photographer's tube socks, etc. All the while, Mark was saying, "oh yeah, I like that..." The one thing he didn't like, though, was that the "Luck of the Irish" waistband from my underwear was making the photos too busy. So, early on I was told to lose the underwear. I didn't actually have to take it off. Alayne came over and tucked it in for me. (Whoa! Hello! I think she tucked it into my shoes. You know, I don't usually get kisses when I take a girl out three or four times. But here I got a girl's hand in my pants without having to buy her anything!)

During the shoot, something caught Mark's eye. In one photo, he loved everything except that my head was pointed down and I was looking at the ground. So, we tried to re-create that type of action but with me looking at the camera. We narrowed down what we thought I had done in that one photo to something that was not a "hold-able" pose because of gravity. So, we resorted to him counting to 3 and me "doing my thing" on the count of 3. We did this a hundred times. Okay, maybe it wasn't a hundred, but I do know that when he changed digital camera cards the first time, there were 570 photos of me. And he changed cards twice more! They used 140 GB of memory for the entire Colondar shoot. "Ah, we got what we want," Mark declared. Okay...I have no idea what he saw, but those photographers see things we mortals do not. (I'm pretty sure as a kid, Mark and Simon took actual photographs of those imaginary monsters under the bed that no one can see.)

As I walked out of the garage, it was much warmer, now. I discovered that I wasn't the only one getting a workout this morning with my "1, 2, 3...do your thing" (snap). Andrew was leading the guys in calisthenics. Some of them had yet to have their photo shoot, so they were trying to lose that last ounce of flab. I wasn't about to get all sweaty with the boys. Instead I was just going to go change clothes and deal with my mascara.