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Brains vs Body
May 07, 2006
I have plenty of excuses for why I’ve been living in my head a lot recently, most of them have to do with curating an art show and writing 50 pages of academic-ese in two weeks. Hell, those aren’t even “excuses” - those are damn good reasons. Link those requirements for intellectual focus and vigor up with the absence of partnered sex in my life, and there you have it, there’s me in full-on brain mode, neglect of body in full swing. I’ve been doing the bare minimum to take care of myself physically, and my eating habits have been terrible (mallomars are not a good breakfast food) – which I’ve been justifying by telling myself that under stress and sadness, I can eat whatever I want.
As I’ve started to come out of my intense focus and slight fog over the past week and change, I’ve gotten manicured and pedicured, had a hair cut and highlights, and had some sex – all of which have been good, grounding experiences that have brought me back to my body. But I’ve also laid in bed, gripping what I perceive to be extra flesh, flesh perhaps gained in weeks of sedentary indulgence in bad food, flesh perhaps gained only in my imagination. And I’ve felt fat and unattractive. I don’t want to wear clothes – nothing fits right. I don’t want to be naked – I feel gross.
I look in the mirror and I don’t see myself right. But I’ve been trying to cook good vegan-y things for myself, take walks, stand up straight, try and force me to love myself. It’s been one of those weeks – but it’s also been one of those weeks in which I felt like I had to stop babying myself and being bummed out and actually confront the shit. One of the ways I choose to do this is through modeling. Now, maybe that seems fucked up – I can’t quite get out of this funk through my own devices, I need someone else to tell me I’m pretty. That’s almost it, though it’s not really about compliments and attention (I think) - I need to see myself through someone else’s eyes in order to get it, so I’m not abusing myself unnecessarily.
So, its springtime and I hate myself (kidding), which clearly spells photo shoot. Early this week I met up with the ever lovely Erin Siegal, $pread’s art director and all-around fabulous lady, to shoot some promotional photos. The basic idea of the shoot was that I wanted some cute but casual images of me with a very NYC backdrop. The most important thing was that I look like ME in the photos – as I told Erin, I never want to be that glammed up photo girl who you meet in person and go “Oh,” in that disappointed she-looks-nothing-like-her-photos way. I could do glammy porn star photos with extra lip gloss, but I’m soooo not that girl.
There are lots of photos to choose from, and one will end up being a special-awesome Audacia Ray promotional postcard, but here’s one that definitely looks like me. Really, they all do, and it’s a refreshing thing. How is it that I know that these photos truly look like me, and I don’t hate the photos, but I look in the mirror and see nothing but imperfection? What’s the leap between photo and mirror? Goddamn it.
And so, onto this weekend and a shoot with Brian Rawson. We did a lot more ridiculous stuff than the photo I’m going to show you, but that’ll come later. Early in the shoot, after I remembered that I shouldn’t wear flip flops to a shoot with Brian because he’s going to make me climb fences to get into abandoned buildings, when we were holed up in a weird little shed, and he asked me to arch my back because I had a crease (really good tactful photographer language – much better than some other things I’ve had said to me in a shoot like “suck in your gut”). As I posed, I told him that I haven’t done a photo shoot in quite a while, probably not since early March, not since I’ve gained weight. He furrowed his brow at me and said that though it’d been a while since he’d seen me naked, he couldn’t see any weight gain – the most noticeable difference I’ve got going on is my hair length.
Looking at this picture last night I felt really strange. It is a really beautiful picture, partly because Brian is, as they say, “da bomb” but also because I was there. I was there, feeling heavy in the flesh, feeling not so hot, but imprinting the curvy goodness of my body on Brian’s eyes, on your eyes now. I keep looking at it, knowing it’s me, and feeling the weight of my flesh as I sit here and write this, and not having the two click together in a satisfactory way. It’s frustrating, this split between the intellectual knowing that I’m not fat, not unattractive, but on the emotional level not believing it. I want to make it go, make it good, make me get it, but today I’m just not. And it’s not that I always feel this way about myself either, just recently. Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow.
p.s. – to be clear, I’m not fishing for compliments, I’m just trying to puzzle my way through this discord.
Posted by Dacia at May 7, 2006 10:03 AM
Comments
I know exactly how you feel. right. this. moment.
That brain/body split is an amazingly flexy one, and not in a good wrap-your-knees-around-your-head cirque du soleil kind of way. Sigh.
Well put, Audacia, as always. And just for the record, I’ve always thought you look exactly like your pictures. All of them.
Posted by: chelsea girl at May 7, 2006 11:20 AM
I’ve always preferred how I looked in photos over mirrors, even amatuer photos. Everything is so perfectly frozen. In the mirror, things are constantly shifting, changing, falling out of place. On top of that, everything’s reversed.
It seems that many times other people see and frame our bodies better than we can. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Posted by: lexi at May 7, 2006 04:41 PM
I love the casual, NYC picture of you. Tres cute and real.
Posted by: litlfrog at May 8, 2006 07:20 AM
I so love looking at the pics from your various photo shoots. They’re such a fearless visual expression of self-love/confidence, and they always look amazing. I’ve often toyed with the idea of contacting the photographer from Naked Happy Girls, but I think it’s so ideal and fabulous that you’re surrounded by these extremely talented people that you already know.
As for rectifying the imagined differences between photo and mirror image…it’s ridiculous. I could feel cute in the morning but, one hour later, see something completely different in my reflection.
For me, I think it’s always been a byproduct of my mood, and of the balance of all of the other bits of my life. When I’m feeling successful, I’m also feeling sexy and unstoppable.
Posted by: stephanie at May 8, 2006 09:53 AM
You know, I started to write a blog entry about meeting you in person awhile back and never did get around to finishing it. The key theme of the post was how a picture of a person can’t even come close to conveying the person in total.
A picture captures a moment in time and the viewer brings as much to the table as the subject does.
After meeting you, I can honestly say none of your pictures do you justice. While I like some of the shots in your portfolio a great deal, they don’t even begin to capture the graceful and elegant woman I met.
Posted by: mister_pj at May 8, 2006 11:09 PM
I find you utterly beautiful and sexy, honestly. I have no way of knowing if you really have gained weight or not, and it wouldn’t matter either way. I consider myself to be quite the connoiseur of beautiful women, and I know you are lovely. But I also know the tricks our brains and eyes can play on us, and how we can make ourself feel sometimes. I hope this feeling of self-loathing passes very soon for you, my dear.
Posted by: Lydia at May 9, 2006 08:57 PM
V SEXY AND MAY I SAY U ROCK.ICONACLST
X
Posted by: iconaclast at May 14, 2006 10:38 PM
nice that you’re not fishing, but truly, you look splendid here. a wonderful photo of a gorgeous woman.
Posted by: a.j. at May 17, 2006 04:00 AM
Hi Wakingvixen:I took time out to read your comments above and you seem a above average intellect(hope ur not pissed at that?).You look 100%great really.Oh I dont know if you know about art history convension of the reinassance?Well I ask as femanine artisans saw a female in a pictural plain(art or photos I now guess)as pandering to the “male glance”.Sort of males perving after you!My point is you may wish not to look hot but its down to what the male finds attractive!!bye.Marko_iconaclast
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