15 minutes of fame...

You know those surveys you see on the internet promising prizes if you participate and give feedback, well I'm a sucker for those...always hoping I'll win something and of course there is usually some gimmick, but never a prize. Back in October I got a phone call at work telling me I had won a drawing for filling out a survey in a professional magazine I subscribe to. They told me that I had won $1,000 and they wanted me to be on the cover of their December issue. Finally, my persistence had paid off!



So at the end of October (Halloween day, to be exact) I went to a photographer's home to do a photo shoot for the cover. They told me not to wear any makeup because they would have a makeup artist on site so that I would have a professional look. Sounds great, right? I soon learned that just about anyone can call themselves a "makeup artist" and it really doesn't mean anything.



First of all she started by critiquing my skin and pointing out all of my imperfections (like I didn't know they were there). Then she decided she didn't like the shape of my eyebrows so she would draw them in. If any of you are Seinfeld fans, you know the one where Uncle Leo has his eyebrows burned off so they draw them in an he has "angry eyebrows"? Well I wish I were so lucky. For those who aren't familiar with uncle Leo, think of Burt on Sesame Street, and that's pretty close to what I was seeing in the mirror. I told her I could not have my picture taken with those eyebrows, so she reluctantly fixed them and then did my eye makeup. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say when all was said and done, I felt that my makeup looked pretty appropriate for Halloween. Then we started the photo shoot. Can I just say, it is not easy to hold a smile and make it look real for 45 minutes to an hour. No it was not the glamorous experience that I had imagined.

I didn't get to see the finished product until the magazine was published.

Here's the result....

They also did a "bio/write-up" on me on the inside of the magazine.

While these aren't my favorite pictures of myself, it did make for a good story and I got my 15 minutes of fame! (Oh yeah, the $1,000 wasn't bad either!)