harbingers of my impending senility

Two very strange things in the same day. Maybe I'm not getting enough calcium or folate or gravel or something. The first: I went out to Castro Valley to do a modeling job. I was very pleased with myself because ordinarily I get a share car to do that, but this time I'd used BART, saving myself some clams. The CV BART station is even walking distance from the art center--I mean, honest walking distance, not the Seven League March of Death I've taken a few friends and loved ones on (sorry, Mom. Sorry, AX) who thought that maybe "walking distance" meant "distance one can cover without having to replace one's shoes". Anyway, I got to the center early enough that I could sit outside in the thin sunlight for a while and meditate on interesting poses and what needed doing when the session was over.

At 1:15, I opened the door, and was greeted by the sight of some other professional nekkid person reclining quite prettily on the model's stand. I immediately shut the door, mortified that I might have startled her, and decided to wait out the last fifteen minutes before my official start time communing with squirrels.

At 1:30, they were still working in there. Hm, strange. But I wasn't going to barrel in, so I knocked until someone came out. Someone who said he had no idea what I was talking about, there wasn't a 1:30-4:30 class on Mondays, ever, and the name of the teacher was unknown to him.

Long story short, I had written down the wrong location. This has never happened before in the fourteen years I've been modeling. This is also my second no-show in that time period, which is pretty good for a profession famous for its flaky practitioners. To say that I was mortified understates the case. I was seriously considering asking the squirrels to take me away to live with them, and never show my face in human circles again. Especially since I didn't realize what had happened until I'd hauled my ass all the way back home. If I'd caught on sooner, I might have been able to make it to the real job, at least for a couple of hours. A no-show when you have artists waiting for you is criminal--at best, they find someone else who can only make it there after the allotted time is half over; at worst it forces them to take turns on the stand themselves (clothed, needless to say). Which they always complain about, afterwards, I've heard them do it, oh, it's so haaaard sitting still. And I want to say, see? That's why you pay someone. It's harder than it looks.

But I digress. Besides having to make this up to the group I was supposed to be working for, I'm going to be in the soup with the Guild about this; I think a no-show automatically throws a model into probation for six months. Which is not that big a deal, really, it's just like being a new member again. Still, embarrassing.

Then last night I was looking through my published work online, trying to answer a question, and I came across a review I have absolutely no memory of writing, of a show I have no memory of seeing. But my byline's on it, and the constructions and overused words are all mine. I stopped reading it after a moment, because it was so weird that I wasn't remembering the show at all. While I can't always tell you the details, I have at least a faint visual memory of every play and nearly every movie I've ever seen.

Or at least I thought I did.

Anyone needs me, I'll be at Walgreen's trying to find the gingko biloba. I'd better write down that that's what I'm looking for.