My Funny Valentine

 D-day.  Why'd I decide to do this?  My house is too small to make a studio set up.  After working in a large space with all the lights set and in place, spending the day trying to replicate it has been a fool's errand.  

Selavy. 

Buy the ticket, take the ride.  

Maybe I can just take a shot like this photo.  It's a joke, of a kind.  The girl I am shooting has a lovely face and I sent her this photo and a lot of other fashion photos by Jacques Oliver (link).  He's quite famous in "the business."  She oohed and aahed over them, so I had to tell her something.  When Oliver shoots, it is like a movie set.  There are hair stylists and make up artists and set designers and wardrobe people and equipment grips.  Funny enough, I had a rare text from Skylar who was working on a project in the Caribbean.  She sent a picture of the cast and crew at the end of the day relaxing in chairs at sunset overlooking the Caribbean water to a distant mountain.  

"It takes a village to make a photo," I wrote back.  

Those are called "smoky eyes."  You'll see them a lot in fashion magazines.  And those lips are made up, too, outlined and rouged by someone who knows.  I had a friend who was a big time fashion model, one of the first Virginia Slims models.  She was in the glossies all the time.  She couldn't do this.  She didn't even wear makeup outside a shoot.  Everybody and everything is a kind of fiction in photographs.  I can't do that.  Neither can the girl.  We will not "just take a shot like this photo."  

What will we do?  That is the paralyzing question.  In the studio, I was always working with a theme of some sort.  Today is amateur day in every way.  So. . . holy smokes!  

Don't expect to see the pics.  Not this time.  

What has me by the cojones, though, is the time and energy used up already.  I spent half of yesterday hauling in more lights and cables and stands and reflectors from the garage, then hooking them up and trying to make them work.  I'd forgotten how and even now am only hoping it will work.  I moved furniture and set up a canvas backdrop that might be o.k.  But I really don't have the room to set the lights properly.  

At three, I had to give up and go find something for wardrobe.  Just plain slips, loose camisoles. . . something.  I drove all over the county.  Did you know that stores have quit selling slips?  It is true.  I went to three department stores and then to a mall to search.  Oh, Christ. . . the traffic.  I was panicking.  Everywhere I went, I was told they only sold those things online.  When I had the studio, I could just drop into any store and get what I needed.  

After half a day, half a paycheck, and a lot of pride--was I a tranny or just some perv?-- in the very last store of the day, I found a couple things.  

It was late and I had to get to my mother's.  I called.  

"It's Friday.  Let's party!  Do you want me to pick up a pizza?"

"Sure."

I hadn't thought about how many people might want pizza on a Friday night from the organic hippie place.  

"Can I get a medium pizza with everything."

"O.K.  It should be ready in forty-five minutes."

It wasn't.  

When I got back to my mother's, there was a car in her drive.  Shit, piss, fuck, goddamn.  It was people from her church.  I walked in with the pizza and groceries and said hello.  I put the pizza on the table and wondered if my mother would invite them to eat with us.  I went to the restroom.  Fortunately, when I came back, they were gone.  

"This is a really good pizza," my mother said.  She was right.  I ate one too many slices.  

It was after seven.  The girl texted me some photos of herself made up and dressed for the night.  She was going to a cool new bar, she said, and sent a link.  She was very excited.  And goddamn. . . she was hot.  

"Oh, fuck honey—you’ll be put away wet for sure tonight 😍" I texted back.  

"what does that mean? 🤣"

Whatever.  She'll probably be bloated and a bit haggard when we shoot.  I'll blame all my failures on her.  I'll be adamant about it.  

"How can I make photos when you look like that?!?!?"

Now, it's time to man up and get on with it.  I still have much to do before she arrives.  Much.  

As I walked through the grocers last night before picking up the pizza, I heard a song.  Hard for me to believe how long ago it was that I first heard it.  There had been a girl for whom my heart was breaking daily.  Yea, yea, yea. . . I hear you.  It's not an uncommon condition for me.  But the song took me back to her.  I was staying at a resort beach on the Gulf Coast with my mother at the time.  Ho!  Yea. . . that's funny, too.  But this song came on and I just lost it.  

Almost did in the grocery store, too.  

"aw, lover. the music knows. it holds the memories."

And that, my friends, was my Valentine.  

Now. . . the horror!