would you prefer that I called you at 04:30 when I canceled the appointment?

I did offer her an additional 30 minutes of time for her inconvenience, but I doubt she’ll book the session, which is a shame, because she has a pain complaint that responds very well to the style of work I do.  I do understand about people’s pain, but I have to be able to take care of myself to provide people with the best possible care.

That evening, I was to have my friend, Drew, the historian whom I have bartered with for my stairway walks.  But I slept through my alarm and missed waking up in time to meet him, and he wasn’t very happy.  It was a lame day.

Friday, I had five clients, and more on Saturday, and I was looking forward to finishing my notes for Sunday’s stairway walk on the bus ride home, but I stepped off the bus Saturday afternoon and missed the sidewalk, and my back got all twisted as I moved to keep my balance.  Soon as I got home I immediately put the ice pack on my back and chilled out in my room for a bit, took an ibuprofen.  By that evening, I knew that it wasn’t going to be ready to lead the challenging walk, so I canceled it.

Sunday, I rested all day, did laundry, cuddled with Nicholas, and generally gave my back a break.

On Monday, while I was showering, my 15:00 client called to let me know that she had locked herself out of the house and had no way of getting to my shop, so would I be willing to grant an exception to my cancellation policy.  I called her back and assured her that it was fine, and to reschedule soon.

Today I have three clients, and my book is  full tomorrow, too.

I arrived at my call time of 10:00 and right away the tattoo artist starts shaving my chest!  Since I have a full backpiece tattoo, this was the only other option for it.  Once that was done, we got the tattoo drawn on and painted.

Photo by Brad Kayal

This second photo is actually of the second application of the tattoos – we’ll get to that in a moment.

Once we got the tattoo applied, it was time to go on the set and get shooting.  The director had me stand on a three-foot wooden box, arms at my sides, and as the camera moved on the dolly either toward or away from me, I was to stare into the camera, looking as angry and mean as I could, and cross my arms.  “look like you hate the camera’s guts and want to kill it or eat it,” the director said to me.  So, I spent most of the day staring into the camera sneering, snarling, baring my teeth, growling, opening my eyes just enough to look angry without looking psychotic.

The View from my wooden box...

There were some really hot crew members – the red-headed guy with the green t-shirt, and the young gymnast-looking man were really sexy!

Once we did this around twenty or thirty times, it was time to move inside for the close-up shots.

The Camera: a Canon 20D body with remote focus motor and other stuff.

I stood right in front of the camera and again, stared in as mean and angry a fashion as I could.  One’s face muscles get tired doing this.  I could feel my face freezing like that, just like my mother always said!  In this shot, they started on my angry face, then panned the camera down to my bared chest and the tattoos.   Once those close-up shots were done, they wanted to do some shots of me pretend to be brushing my teeth with a small brass-bristle brush covered with gunpowder.  And it was real gunpowder!

After this, I had a break for an hour while the six year old actor did his part – getting the smaller eagle and shark tattoo. In the meantime, the ad agency decided that they didn’t like the position of the smaller eagle and shark on my chest, so they had the tattoo artist clean them off of me and after they all consulted for about 20 minutes, re-positioned them and drew them back on me.  Once done, we went back inside and re-shot the close-up scenes.

Lunch time!  The caterer brought in a delightful lunch, and I ate yummy beet salad with mint, spanikopita, rice, salad, strawberry shortcakes, etc.

Once lunch was done, it was time to keep shooting.  This time I was posed with a styrofoam torpedo – hoisting it above my head, cradling it, hitting it with a hammer, throwing it out of frame, catching it two different ways.  Finally, they had me tear the heads off of stuffed bears and throw the heads down onto the ground.

All told, I was at the shoot for ten hours.  When I was done, I went back to the RV they had set up as the office/dressing room, and signed my paperwork.  I should get paid in about a week.

Today, I felt like my body had been run over by a small car – sore all over, and surprisingly, my face is sore and tired.  But my ankles and back from wearing my Red Wing boots with 2″ heels especially are sore.  So, I postponed my clients today and rested.