Thank God Almighty I Am Free At Last #headshotsurvivor (Written by Meredith Stiff)
– November 11, 2014
What a silly phrase: picture perfect. I say there is no such thing. I don’t like to have my picture taken. I’d rather have a sharp stick in the eye. I focus on all the imperfections. Vanity and vulnerability kick in. I feel trapped. (I am sure a shrink would tell me that my phobia stems from the gap between perception and reality.) Nonetheless, I have to get my picture taken, a head shot, at 1:00 pm today.
My headshot is the final requirement to join the Lighthouse Counsel team of fundraising consultants. I am honored that Jeff Jowdy, that extraordinary firm’s founder and principal, thinks I can add value to benefit some of our nation’s finest life-giving and life-changing causes. I’m all about an opportunity to change the world. My husband, His Lordship, is on board with this part time gig. He’s all about “filling my ‘spare’ time with something ‘meaningful’ and stifling my “need to express myself” (and his self, and our lives, and my craziness) through my blogging, the pre-curser to my “tell all” book. Jeff Jowdy was not amused, seemed irritated, when I suggested I provide my last professional headshot from 1996. What? I guess he thinks I have changed. He said the firm will pay for my headshot. I should be able to add on pain and suffering to my expense report.
Jeff says my headshot needs to be uploaded on the website this week. That man, my new boss, is not patient. You’d think he’d be more compassionate in his line of work. It’s not even 9:00 am, and I am not off to a good start. Got a head cold for the head shot. My body is aching. I have fever. I think I have the flu. No, I won’t postpone it. Got to get this behind me. I am thankful for the good people at FIX Blow Dry Bar including Shelby who will fix my hair and Cameron McCormack who will apply layers of make-up to cover signs of my maturity. Cameron thinks I will benefit from a new “air-spray” technique. #mask
Tara, my life coach, is trying to help me evolve past my “fear-based thinking”. I am a work in progress. I think I won’t tell her about my phobia of head shots. She may abandon me for a lower maintenance, less complicated client. Tara preaches that happiness is a skill that we master. She claims we can choose happiness in most every circumstance. I keep hoping that every “Tuesday with Tara” will tighten up some screws that have come loose over the years. I used to know everything. Now I realize I am no longer young enough to know everything. I have a short fuzz to bat shit crazy. (You lay down with a Yankee, you get up with some of their language.)
Back to my dread of formal photo shoots. My husband Jim hired me in 1996 to be his marketing director. He was not my husband then. I plan to write about all that in my book. He wrote me this long 90 day “to do” list. At my 90 day review, he gave me a score of “satisfactory”. That really put my panties in a wad. If I was a Yankee, I would have said, he “pissed me off”. Why do they say that? What does it mean? My Mama taught me better. I wasn’t even allowed to chew gum in public. She said I was a young lady, not a cow. Back to my performance review. It didn’t matter to me that the form had only “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” for the supervisor to circle. I had been working seventy –eighty hour weeks, walking on water, and proving to a jack ass (You can tell my Mama. It’s just another word for donkey. We both graduated from Emory. We know these things. ) retail director (who didn’t want Jim to hire me) that a marketing director could “add value”. Wendi Copeland, my mentor and hero, and I had to join forces to show down a South Georgia born contracts director, okay “hick”, who didn’t think women had brains. We were a mighty force, pulling all the weight in an office full of men with egos that needed humbling. (I’ll save the rest for my book. But I will tell you that the jack ass retail guy is now serving at a Goodwill in Florida. Raymond and I are now good friends. Imagine that. You can find God in people. Sometimes it takes an exorcism. Wendi and I handled that. )
Long story short (not really), I accomplished that entire 90-day list and more, minus taking the required trip to the photographer for the head shot that was to accompany my hiring announcement for the Macon Telegraph. Jim, my boss then (not to be confused with now), was not happy about my procrastination. While he could have hand written glowing adjectives about my glowing performance, he just went down that list and checked every single thing off and circled satisfactory. He circled, in red ink (I don’t like the Devil’s color), the words “get head shot for press release” and wrote, “must be accomplished by this Friday.” What?! I wondered “or what”? I told my Daddy about my new boss’s lack of gratitude, about my “satisfactory” review. My Daddy said he’d warned me about Yankees. He said he’d also heard that my new boss was Catholic. (My Daddy is Baptist). He referred to him for years as “Stiff” not “Jim”. He worked on a military base as an engineer for over three decades. That was their military protocol. But I sensed that he was avoiding getting on a first name basis with Jim. (That all changed when I married Jim in 2008. Guess Daddy had to through in the towel. Maybe he held out till I had a child with Jim in 2011 at age 46. It’s all a blur what happened when.
Continued:
Well I am back now from the photographer’s torture chamber. The deed is done. I got lost driving to Sally Kolar’s new studio. I was alone, so I took license to call that navigation lady bad names, very bad names. I called Sally, who talked me off the ledge and into her parking lot. I had to sit on this little black chair, this rolling stool, that didn’t make my fanny feel little. Thankfully only a head shot is required. When I got one cheek on, the other one fell off. While I waited for Sally to get the lighting and equipment ready, I was a nervous wreck. I came unglued. I felt completely exposed and vulnerable. Then the dreaded time came for me to smile while Sally captured “me” through her truth telling lens. My head was pounding from the head cold, and the snot was building up. Sally said to “keep still”. Really?! She said, “Relax.” What?! Those wheels on that tiny stool that my fanny was escaping had minds of their own. I’d have to breathe through my fake smile. What would be wrong with hauling ass, I mean cutting bate, and escaping? Jeff could settle for an iphone shot. (I said could, not to be confused with would.)
Speaking of holding still. Oh dear God, I think I need to get to the ladies room. Never mind. I could hold it. I could hear my Mama’s voice telling me to cross my legs. I kept thinking about that poor woman who wrote all about being stuck inside that MRI tube when all hell broke loose. She couldn’t hold it. That poor women was squirming inside that tunnel when the male voice over the speaker told her to hold still. That MRI tunnel magnified her shame by increasing the volume of her shame. I was just dealing with #1 and too much coffee. Praise the Lord. When that technician unstrapped her from that MRI board, he had on a mask. Her Mama told her to squeeze a dime when the urge hit.
Speaking of seats, both chairs and fannies. I was once in my dentist’s chair. I told that dentist that I’d rather be at my OBGYN’s chair than in his chair. That dentist told me to make up my mind so he could decide which way to turn his chair. My husband says I need to stop telling that story now that I am nearly 50. But aren’t good stories worth telling a few times? Now that I am 50? What difference does that make?
His Lordship came home one day, and I was in my birthday suit. (Yes, we were married then for those of you with your head in the gutter who were wondering if he was still my boss at the time.) He asked me why I was naked. (Not for the reason for which he hoped.) He asked me why I was in front of the mirror. I told him that I had been to a doctor’s appointment that morning, and my OBGYN said I may be approaching 50, but I still have the body of a 38 year old. My husband asked me what he said about my 50 year old ass. (Did I tell you that he is a Yankee?) I told my husband that my OBGYN hadn’t mentioned him at all. Now that’s a story worth repeating. #canthelpmyself
Well, here is my photo. I am a survivor. Posting my photo here is evidence that I am in recovery (and that Sally was paid extra for professional touch up.) Thank God Almighty, I am free at last.
