Ready For My Closeup…Sort Of. (Part 1)

One of the details I’ve had to coordinate, concerning my soon-to-be-published book (yay!), is my author photo for the back cover. My publisher suggested that, since the book is about Chicago, I have my picture taken in front of a recognizable Chicago building or landmark. No problem. I have my favorites, and it took me about a half of a split second to create the mental short list of locations for the shoot. In fact, if you’re one of my long-time readers, I bet that YOU could create a mental short list of locations for my photo shoot.

It took me less than half of a split second to figure out who I wanted to be the person behind the camera: that would be my sister. Her portraits are works of art; you may be familiar with her mad skillz because I’ve posted them here before. Here’s one of my all-time favorites:

Funny thing about this picture? She cut me out of it because I was sort of ruining it. (Trust me, I didn’t mind. I looked AWFUL that day. My hair, especially. Gah!)

So I asked her a few weeks ago if she would be my official photographer, and she was happy to help.

It was at that point when I totally dropped the ball; other than setting the date (today) and the time (at the butt crack of dawn), I didn’t take care of any other details.

Like hair.

Or wardrobe.

It wasn’t until about 6:30 yesterday evening, after Julesie and I confirmed that I would indeed be picking her up by 6:00 a.m., when these words came out of my mouth:

“Oh, uh, I guess I should start thinking about what to wear!”

Oy vey.

I went upstairs and started trying on a few solid-colored tops, accessorized by a scarf my mom gave me a couple of months ago, and…ugh. I sent Julesie three cell phone pictures of myself in three different shirts, saying “Please let me know what you think; I may have to go to Target tonight!”

She called me and we agreed that everything I put on basically sucked (my words, not hers) and that I didn’t look comfortable. I was starting to sweat with desperation when I took one last look into my closet, which is full of patterned blouses and dresses, fleece workout jackets, sweatshirts, and sleeveless tops that definitely wouldn’t work for this occasion (let alone the weather), and found, as if it were buried treasure, a coral-colored (yay!) top with a v-neck (yay!) and long sleeves (yay!). Ding, ding, ding: we had a winner! I pulled out black dress pants, black boots, and raided my small jewelry box* for the proper accessories.

Then it was time to freak out about my hair. I can NEVER, EVER duplicate what Lynn, my hair stylist, does. In fact, I am pretty certain that she is some kind of magical hair wizard who, when I am not looking in the mirror, waves her magic wand and chants some sort of silent hair spell. I wish I had that wand and that spell. I took to Facebook with my concerns, and even asked–jokingly, of course!–if Lynn wanted to come over at 5:00 a.m. to do my hair. Amazingly enough, she preferred to be in bed with her new husband at that hour, but expressed her full confidence in my abilities to figure it out.

I did what anyone in my position would do: I called her up to get specific instructions.

She didn’t answer.

I left a message.

She called me back.

I didn’t answer. (My phone was on “silent”.)

Luckily, she left a message in her kind, cheerful voice, telling me to just “use the Aquage, round brush it like crazy, give the blow dryer some cool shots to set the curl, and…lots of hair spray, honey!”

Sure, LYNN. No problem. Gah.

I got my city bag ready for the morning, and put all of my makeup and hair supplies in our downstairs bathroom so that, when I got out of bed at 4:50 a.m., I wouldn’t wake the family.

Jim and I went to bed at 10:30. Six and a half hours of sleep, coming right up! I settled in for my beauty sleep.

And then I woke up at 2:30 a.m., which is a really good stopping point for this particular story.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

*Note: I do not refer to it as my small jewelry box because I have another, larger jewelry box: I refer to it as my small jewelry box because it is small.

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©2011 Suburban Scrawl

9 Comments

  • Carol

    OMGosh!! How exciting! Can't wait to read more…though I will confess I am sleepy for you after reading this post!

  • Michelle

    Ummm I need the photos themselves. C'mon. And really, you got her out of bed at 6am? No. Way.

    You have a book!

  • Mom24

    Pictures! I want pictures!

    You need to work soon-to-be published into everything, how awesome is that?

    You'll have to let us know how to get our own autographed copy. 🙂

  • Megryansmom

    This is more suspenseful than The Hotel Diaries…can't wait for tomorrow. You will post tomorrow right? You won't make your faithful readers wait until Monday?

  • adayinmynyc.com

    Way to leave us hanging!

    Where did you go? How was the hair?
    I'm sure you looked fabulous!
    Can't wait to read the rest…like tomorrow! OKAY?
    Pretty please!

  • ThePeachy1

    I am so proud and happy for you. Also the boys, that is an AWESOME picture, I wouldn't be surprised to see that hanging in each of their perspective grown up houses one day. You and Jules are pretty spectacular so I can't imagine this not going fantastical. Plus coral? That's like peach colored, so I will take it that just like in the Carol Burnette show you are tugging your ear by wearing my color on the book jacket to say, " hey Peachy baby, this is totally for you."
    Can't wait to see/hear the rest.

  • Melissa

    Wow! So much to catch up on. I didn't realize that your book was being published! Kudos!

    And I can't wait to see the photos, Jules really does have mad skills…

  • Otter Thomas

    To be continued. Luckily I'm reading late so I can head right over for part two with no waiting. Any particular reason why you had to take your picture so early in the morning? Being a writer must be tough.