Tuesday, April 08, 2003
I think I needed about two hours more sleep. We had to be up early for a morning UPS delivery from Subterranean Press which has still not materialized. I haven't had caffeine yet. My stomach feels vaguely unhappy. And so forth.
But the photoshoot, well, there was a small ordeal. The make-up didn't take an hour, it took at least two. It was after 11 p.m. before I even got into the tub of warm red stuff. I lay there for maybe half an hour, with little white chrysanthemums floating about me, my hearing muffled by the water, the lights blinding me, the heat from the lights baking me, the air reeking somewhat of fairy puke, the artificial blood in my mouth tasting a like a wad of Doublemint gum that's spent a week on a theater floor, Kathryn looming above me with the camera. Everything was a blur through the contacts. All in all, I was too uncomfortable to think much about being naked. Finally, when I'd had enough, I said so, and hoisted myself out of the tub to discover that my skin had been stained the colour of a well-boiled lobster. I had about fifteen minutes of panic, while Kathryn was moving the lighting and ladder and stuff out of the way, while the contacts we being removed, when I was certain that my skin would be that colour for days or weeks. Fortunately, it came off in the shower with just a little scrubbing. Red is not my color. Hopefully, the photos will turn out well and I will not have endured it all for naught.
The word "naught" is used far too infrequently these days.
I received a cover slick for Low Red Moon from my editor at Penguin yesterday. It looks great. This is my first book where my name will appear above the title. I'm told that's a good sign. And I wrote. Another 686 words in about two and a half hours. I'm still not sure if this story will become a Story. It might. Kathryn and Jennifer both like it. But writing in first person is very, very strange. I'm going to especial care to avoid all those things that render first person so problematic to begin with. But I've yet to find the heart of the piece. Maybe today. I'm just grateful to be writing again.
About midnight last night, after everything was cleaned up from the shoot, I collapsed on the living room floor, too tired to think, but too awake to sleep. I watched Rhapsody in Blue, the highly-fictionalized biopic of George Gershwin. It was over around 2:30 and then I dragged myself off to bed, after leaving a note on the door for the UPS person, who still hasn't seen fit to show his or her face.
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