21 November 2001 ~ You're a pretty girl, but...

So I sold my television a couple of weeks ago, and I've nothing more to sell that's worth any significant amount of money. At least, nothing I can bear to part with.

So, to feed myself, I sold my body.

No, REALLY.

There's a community art group that meets every Tuesday at the B.U. campus, and the woman in charge called me and said "I'm desperate for a model and somebody gave me your name. Can you do it?"

Well, when you put it so NICELY...

I did it. Yes indeed, I took off my clothes and sat there naked in front of a bunch of weird high school girls and folks who looked a lot like dirty old men.

Their space heater was broken. Holy fucken SHIT was I cold...

I looked at all the drawings afterwards. None of them really looked like me. One girl drew me as being very fat. She said, "I think you look sad, so I drew you as a sad person." No, she didn't draw me as "sad," she drew me as "FAT." Another guy drew me as a black woman, and ironically, his looked most like me.

At the end of the night, the guy who was sort of in charge approached me an I looked at his painting. Clearly, he had some trouble staying in the lines, but it wasn't TOO bad. I said, half-jokingly, "I think I have a bigger nose than that."

The man replied: "Not at all. You're a very pretty girl."

(No, REALLY, I DO have a bigger nose than that... Not that it's an unattractive nose, but it IS bigger than what he drew...)

THEN he said: "Yeah, you're a very pretty girl, but you're really not all that creative. You just SAT there."

Uh, forgive me if I'm wrong, but when somebody tells you, "okay, get into the most comfortable position that you can, and sit perfectly still," there's not REALLY a whole lot of room for creativity, is there?

I bolted out of the room and burst out laughing. I'm a PRETTY GIRL but I'm NOT ALL THAT CREATIVE!?

Ha!!!!!!!

I was laughing so hard on the way home that I almost wet myself. I had to put depressing music in my walkman to calm myself down.

Clearly, this man had no idea what he was talking about.

I think that selling one's body for food-money is a DAMNED creative thing to do! I also think it's a hell of a lot more creative than getting your jollies by painting naked chicks every Tuesday night.

I'm laughing again. I have to go put on some depressing music; my guts are starting to hurt...

~Helena*