Quitting coffee blows. Don't try it. Or maybe, don't get hooked on the stuff in the first place. At its "height," my caffeine consumption was limited to two cups--or 12 ounces--with breakfast. I don't drink soda or caffeinated tea later in the day, so this shouldn't have been a problem, right? Well, turns out it was becoming a problem, the happy high coffee used to give me replaced by paranoia and the shakes. Add to that hypoglycemia two hours after breakfast, and it just wasn't worth it anymore. I don't know about you, but I hate that a morning where I don't almost pass out is an exceptionally good start to the day.
I've been cutting back for the last month or so--first it was one cup of coffee + black tea, then I was down to just tea--and it really has made a difference. I no longer have to eat an entire second breakfast by nine o'clock and I can walk around without feeling like I'm going to fall over. Then again, I can no longer communicate effectively, a pulsing headache being only partly to blame for that. It reminds me of the David Letterman quote that's painted on the wall at my favorite Columbia coffee shop: "If it weren't for the coffee, I'd have no identifiable personality whatsoever." Terribly sad but true.
So how did I get started down this slippery slope of dependence? Modeling of course! How else do these things happen? But seriously.
I took a handful of odd jobs my freshman year of college, and one of them was with the office of disability services. Twice a week, I attended a Drawing III class with a girl who shared my first name. Oh and she also happened to be a quadriplegic. My job was to help her with her desk and in arranging her supplies. If you're wondering how she actually drew in this class, she did so with a special mouthpiece stick that had a pencil at the end of it. I helped her with that too. The whole situation turned out to be a fantastic experience for me; I got valuable drawing lessons without having to do the homework, and she was something of a mentor to me, as she was only a semester away from graduation and I was just starting out. That and I made seven something an hour.
About halfway through the semester, the teacher brought in nude models. That was definitely new for me. It wasn't the nakedness that made me squeamish, but rather, the possibility that there was some sort of nude model etiquette/code that I was going to screw up because nobody had informed me about it beforehand. Sure, everybody else would be staring at and analyzing each and every naked angle of these girls (the teacher--a hot-to-trot young grad student with curly hair, bright turquoise eyes and a deviated septum--never did bring in any dudes), but that's what they were there for. My presence, on the other hand, was relatively unnecessary except at the beginning and end of class. I knew it would be unnatural to look the "other way" for all three hours of the class, but I didn't know what the appropriate amount of observation would be (again with the model etiquette). Somehow I knew, though, to completely avoid eye contact. I shouldn't have been so prudish, though; I was practically invisible to the ten other people in the room anyway. But I did make sure to have a book to read on the days they had a nude model, to be safe.
Around the end of the semester, however, the professor started bringing in models for portrait drawings. The girls (again...) only had to sit there for 30 minute stretches, just staring straight ahead. They didn't have to smile, frown, hold their hand to their foreheads in a dramatic, forlorn expression; they just sat there and stared. Thinking out loud, I said something to Rebecca about where they came up with these girls. Was it a job they could get hired to do, and did they have to be nude models to be portrait models? Turns out they didn't; that next semester I added "art model" to my growing list of odd jobs.
My first assignment was for a different drawing class. It was in the afternoon, and, afraid that I would be late, I was high-tailin' it across campus. This was my first mistake. Not only was I nervous, but now I was hot under all those layers of warmth, and I could tell I was sweating profusely. I had made it in time--early even--so I went to the bathroom to powder my nose. I cooled down eventually, but my second mistake was worse. I had worn contacts, thinking that glasses would be too inorganic for an art class. Well, maybe it's because I have unnaturally dry eyes, but when I stare at one spot on the wall for more than, say, 40 seconds, my contacts start to harden on my eyeballs. And I know what you're thinking, but I was allowed to blink and it does not help.
My next modeling gig was actually a handful of sessions with the same painting class that lasted two weeks, every Wednesday and Friday from 8:00 in the morning to 11. This was before my internal clock set its alarm for 6 AM, but it was worth it for the money. (If I remember correctly, I was being paid 11-something an hour, which was great for someone who'd never had a job before college.)
The first morning of class, I hung around the classroom door, nervously observing the art students running around, setting up their easels and preparing brushes, wondering where the teacher could be. I spotted him, then, watching everyone like I was. He was an impish looking fellow, older than most grad students, but probably younger than 40, with glasses, a goatee, ponytail and receding hairline. He noticed me eyeing him and came over. "Are you the other model?" Say what?? Right around the time I was figuring out that this guy was not in fact the art professor, a tall older gentleman with distinguished white hair and glasses came in with some books under his arm. I turned back to the man who had just addressed me, suddenly unnerved by that, "other model."
I started having terrifying visions of me and this slick dude posing together. What if we had to pose as though we were part of some scene, gazing into each others eyes? No. That would have been way too much for me to handle, especially at that hour of the day. Fortunately, I didn't have too long to wonder. The professor spotted us right away, and set us on a daïs in the center of a circle of easels, on two chairs, back to back, separated by a red sheet hung from the ceiling.
Things started out well enough. I had made sure to wear glasses that day, which I took off when it was time to get to work; visually, the classroom was extremely stimulating, and I would let my fixed gaze wander ever so slightly--when I could tell all the students were behind their easels--enjoying the artwork hung on the walls or specialty papers rolled up on shelves on the back wall (even if I couldn't see too well); the teacher did wonders for my self esteem, paying me glowing compliments on the undertones in my skin (as if I had any part in that), which my pink shirt "really brought out." The gig was good. By about 8:30, though, my butt hurt and my eyelids were getting heavy. I vowed that the next day would be different.
On Friday I added a cup of black coffee to my usual dining hall breakfast, whispering fervent requests over the steam, imploring it to make it easier to sit in a chair and stare at the wall for three hours (minus breaks). OK, I wasn't really talking to my coffee, but I gulped it down feverishly, relying on its abilities. And, well, that morning at breakfast, my life was forever changed.
The same could not be said for my modeling buddy on the other side of the curtain. (His name was Neal, by the way, and I saw him once, with his hippie wife and their baby, getting ice cream at Sparky's, and it felt like I was running into an old friend. I use that word not because we were super chummy but because, when you know intimate details about someone, referring to him as "friend" makes it feel more normal to be in possession of said details. Anyway, we acknowledged each other warmly, just like old friends.)
Things were going well. I was fully caffeinated, and I was really feeling it, mostly in my eyelids. I was still sleepy as hell, but like magic, my eyes were wide open. I could've stared a hole in the back wall if I'd wanted to! Fantastic, I thought. But somewhere between admiring the artwork displayed around the room and making awkward eye-contact with the students as they emerged from behind their easels to take a look at me while I was taking a look at them, I felt something hard and solid hitting the back of my head. Sometimes it was just a gentle tap, at others it was an aggressive smack. When the solid, round object rested itself at the back of my head and even pushed me forward slightly, I realized it was Neal behind me, falling asleep on my head. No fucking way.
When the professor gave us a break so he could lecture, Neal and I went out into the hall, unlike the class before when I at least had stayed by the door, reading and rereading the flyers pinned to the bulletin board, pretending to be thoroughly engrossed and not wanting to be bothered. Neal took off right away, looking for a Coke-induced fix. I whipped out a book right away--Ivanhoe--hoping it might serve as a polite repellent. It didn't. It was actually a conversation starter.
"So you a big reader? Yeah, I never was into books much. My wife is, though. What are you studying here?"
"Journalism."
"Oh nice. Yeah, see, you're smart and you like to read and write. That's good, that's really good. I have a niece that's kind of like you. ...So how'd you get into art modeling?"
"Oh, I was a classroom assistant for a girl in a drawing class that always had a lot of models. It seemed like a pretty easy way to make some money. You know."
"Yeah, yeah. I started modeling when my wife was in grad school 'cuz it was the only job I could do on heavy drugs. You know, just sit there and zone out. Now I just do it 'cuz I like it. But you know where the real money is, is the weekend modeling. Yeah, they pay cash. The teacher just passes around a hat at the end of class and that's your pay. It's great. All nude modeling, though. I can give you the guy's number if you're interested. It's not set up through the office downstairs."
"Oh, OK. Sure, that'd be great." That's what I said, but what I was really thinking was something more like, I'm sure it's great money, Neal, but no amount of money is worth having you fall asleep on my head while both of us are naked and being ogled at by old hippies...
He never did give me the number of "the guy," nor did the topic of his hammering on the back of my head ever come up. But it kept happening, and I could almost tell what time it was by how soon I felt the blow to the back of my head.
During another modeling break, during another modeling assignment, I was wandering the halls of the art building, admiring the student work. In one of the stairwells, a floor to ceiling sketch caught my eye. It was a drawing of two nude models, but their images had been drawn many times over, in different poses, overlapping themselves in some places. I thought the composition was fantastic. But then I looked a little closer. My eyes about popped out of my head when I noticed that the male model had a goatee, ponytail and a receding hairline. I suddenly felt really dirty for looking at naked Neal and scampered off to wash out my eyes.
A couple years after my foray into art modeling, I considered getting in on the weekend community art class, the one Neal had so highly recommended. I had grown more adventurous in the intermittent semesters, and I thought it would be a fun challenge to stand in the middle of a classroom and toss off my robe as though no one were there to witness it, just to see if I could do it. But one Saturday morning, I spotted an older gent with a portfolio under his arm walking behind the art building and decided that maybe I didn't want a bunch of senior citizens immortalizing the curves of my thighs on a canvas their grandchildren might find stashed in the basement...
(Fun fact: I wrote this while high on coffee. It was the only way.)
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