Keeping Up

I worked in the studio too late last night.  It was not late, just too late.  I do not stay up well any more. No, it is not the staying up--anyone can do that--it is the getting up next day. I do not feel healthy.  Pretty soon it will be the Blue Plate Special for me.  You have to eat early if you're going to get to bed.

After I go to bed, all night long emails come in.  Nobody sleeps.  Last night, I shot with a Persian girl.  Afterwards, she was going out.  Then later and all night, she texted and wrote. I am glad, for when we shot--oh, my--what stories she told.  At first I was amazed, but there are only so many stories, so it did not take long before I could tell them for her.  Then she was amazed.  But I liked to hear her tell them better, and there were contemporary twists and turns that I have not experienced.

I think the music I listen to is pretty cool, but it was not music to her at all.  She likes rap and hip-hop.  She named about ten different kinds of music she liked, but it was all rap and hip-hop.  I felt stupid at first, stupid and old, but then I began to come to myself.  Still, I was fascinated.  It was my own trip to Arabian Nights, she a Persian Princess.

Gone Wild.

But she wants to change.  Not her behavior, but her looks.  I was incredibly attracted to her strong features, precisely the ones she dislikes.  She has a very Persian nose, too strong, too prominent for her tastes.  She is scheduled for rhinoplasty in October.  And more.  Breast enlargement.  Caps on her upper front four teeth. She is twenty-one and dissatisfied.  I am dismayed by this.  All that beauty will become standardized, sanitized, the vision of some plastic surgeon.  Or several.

I will photograph her as much as I can before October.  And after too, I reckon.  And then I will let you judge for yourselves.

People are silly that way.  For myself, I only want a little minor work.  And perhaps some hormones.  Nothing, really.  I may get my nose fixed.  Something practical.  Just for breathing, though I guess I'll let them straighten it a little and maybe shave some of the bone.  A little around the eyes.  And chin.  Not like Mickey Rourke.  Something subtle so you can't even tell.

And maybe I'll listen to a little more hip-hop, a little more rap.  Not too much.  Just enough.  I mean, you know, you gotta keep up.