C’est La Vie

My body is disintegrating.  I feel like shit on toast.  I look like an ogre.  Alexia’s my name, hyperbole is my game.

Let me tell you what I LOOOOVE.  I LOOOOVE how that I’ve been on track with my workouts; not losing much weight, and yet getting slimmer and firmer.  Feeling healthy, fresh, beautiful, and energetic.  And then my uterus starts acting up, I have an allergic reaction to my grandmother’s blanket while I’m in Dallas that leaves huge red itchy welts on my face, chest, arms and hands, and then I come down with an awful cold so it’s been a week since I’ve been to the gym; and THEEEENNNNNN after three months with my new agency, wondering if I should even bother, doubting my appearance and demeanor, I FINALLY get invited for a casting for a Levi’s print job while I’m looking like an ogre.  And although it went okay, I probably won’t get it.

 

I F*CKIN LOVE THAT SH*T!!!!!!

 

First of all, it’s true.  Writing it down does help.  I don’t keep a fitness diary or anything, I just know what my goals are, and every Monday I weigh myself and measure my waist.  I’ve restricted myself to dessert once a week, protein once a week, a mass of carbs once a week, and strictly healthy vegetarian eating supplemented by my supplements as I go along.  It’s very easy for me to gain muscle mass, and muscle mass is heavier than fat, so I’m less concerned with weight loss than I am with my size goals.  I’m getting older and my body is changing, so maybe 140 is my new 130.  So up until about a week ago, I was doing most excellently.

Before I left town last week, though, my uterus started having passive aggressive fits with me.  This happens whenever I miss a pill (I take low estrogen birth control in order to suppress my periods; if you don’t take it at the same time every day, you WILL spot for a month).  It feels like it wants to ball up into the deathly cramps that it used to, but that would be no fun, so it turns on low doses of pain here and there, randomly, for a couple of weeks.  That bitch.  She knows I crave dark chocolate and sugar whenever she does that.  So this is how I flew to Dallas last week, and I was going for a few days to see my new baby niece.  My other sister had her a few weeks ago, and she’s so adorable and sweet!  I’m really enjoying being a spinster aunt!  But Sunday afternoon, in addition to passive aggressive uterine pain (temporarily cured by Manischevitz + Skittles), I started breaking out.  On my lower face.  On my wrists and hands and arms.  On my boobies and clavicle.  I still feel like a leper.  The itching has stopped, thank friggin’ Christ, but now I look like I have friggin’ herpes all over my lower friggin’ face, and I look like an abuse victim elsewhere.  This is how I arrived back to Los Angeles on Tuesday.  But I’m not that vain, I’m reclusive anyway, and I’ve been feeling even more so recently, so whatevs.  I go to the gym Wednesday morning, make it to the afternoon p/t job, start feeling a low grade fever, so I take more Benedryl that I swiped off my dad while I was in Dallas – asleep by 8.30.  Wake up the next morning feeling like shit on toast, and no one can take my shift that afternoon for me, and then I get word that Levi is looking for beautiful, stylish, confident women to be featured in a print campaign, and I’m confirmed for the casting.  WHY NOW?  WHY NOT TWO WEEKS AGO?  Because God said so, that’s why.

Last night, the few times that I could get to sleep, I would invariably dream that my former boss, Tulsa, lived in a swanky IKEA-designed house in the sky, and that I was staying with her and her adult adopted protégés (that don’t exist).  I’m serious.  This was the background of every dream I had last night, with slight variations on the theme.  During a three hour stretch of sleeplessness early this morning, between sneaking onto facebook and playing Tetris on my phone, I devised a plan by which I could feel beautiful, stylish, and confident by 2.20 today.  I decided to start with my favorite fantasy where I’m reunited with my deported ex-boyfriend, I confess my love to him, he doesn’t turn me away, we make sweet love and elope together.  Then, I would watch an episode or two of the Simpsons on my favorite website.  Then, I’d watch the YouTube clip I favorited recently from the TV series “Martin”, the one where he suspects all his friends of stealing his cd player, when really it was bruh-man.  Then, I would look at some pictures of my nephew, and some footage of him dancing, because the thought of him warms my heart.  Then, I would cleanse and scrub my face during a long shower, do a peel off mask, use my best lotion, put on my coolest outfit, throw on my afro wig  - heretofore known as Miss Mojo – all this while some soulful deep house is playing on my new laptop speakers on full blast.

It kind of worked.  I got down to the casting, a little breathless, but feeling great and not at all nervous and awkward and weird like I usually do.  They asked me about my heritage, and once I got the clue that they’re looking for interestingness, I laid claim to my Creek Indian heritage for the first time.  I usually don’t do that, even though it’s true.  You know how some black folks are.  They’re not satisfied with being “just black”.  I am.  Every once in a while, I get the “what are you?” question (as if I’m some sort of fabulous animal or mineral), and I say “black” because I’ve never met any white or native family members, so what’s the point? Well, this time, the point was a huge chunk of change that will be put to good use during my unemployment cut and my two overseas trips later this year, so if they don’t want “regular black” today, then we’re throwing my Creek in the mix.  The jeans fit nicely, I danced in front of a camera, told them about the most adventurous thing I did, and walked out with a smile on my face.

Now I’m back in bed, and again, I feel like shit on toast.  I really hope I book this job.  I’m with Industry Talent.  They represent my homegirl Diana, and when she started working for them, she lobbied to get me signed on.  I’m serious, ever since I met her three years ago, she’s believed that I could make a career out of modeling and talent work.  She’s believed it more than me, actually, and now she’s my agent lady.  It’s nice having some competence on your side, ‘cause letmetellyou, I’ve got some agent horror stories, and I wouldn’t even bother anymore if it weren’t for her and the others working there submitting me.  They let me know that that they submit me quite a lot on a lot of different projects, but this is the first one that I’ve been considered for.  It’s hard when you’re black, and you don’t quite fit the set mold that exists for black+female in the model/talent world, and most of your pictures are outdated and not very good in the first place.  It’s an arbitrary science.  I just want some cash so that I can survive until grad school.  Plus, I actually have to pay taxes this year.  The Outrage!!!  (Not really, I can afford it, I just didn’t realize I had moved up a tax bracket)

Will our heroine get the job?  Will she be paid on time if so?  Will she feel new again on Saturday morning, in time for the dance class she wants to take?  When will the uterus EVER stop the madness???  Why does our heroine still have hopes of seeing a man barred from ever entering the United States again?  Will her thighs NEVER cease???  These, my friends, are questions for the ages.