[ozma]

During this she also started on my make-up. I watched as my face simultaneously appeared and disappeared. She covered the fading eczema with green foundation and then covered everything with foundation. I don't wear foundation outside of dance and it always shocks me to see everything vanish under it.

Half-way through the basic foundation, eyebrows, false eyelashes but before the colors and lips, I saw my mother, circa 1965...but with big hair. Then she vanished.

An hour into everything and we had dramatic eyes (blacks and golds) gold lips that were both smoother and larger than my usual ones. I could see my concept of wanting to look like a modern version of my favorite Belly dance album covers coming to life. Those classic pictures and looks are a large part of my costuming sense, and had been the inspiration for assembling the coin bra and belt I'd be wearing.

We made small talk about our families, life in Japan, stuff, art...the time went quickly. We've known each other for a while: taken the same dance classes, gone to each other's events, I've assisted at events she's in, I've danced solo to her singing, she's been Farasha's stylists at events I've worked...but this was our first time as subject and stylist and to really talk one on one.

We also talked about Nam, and how much we both like his work. It was the fact that he's a photographer with a lot of experience shooting shows and doing studio work with dancers that made me want to work with him. He likes the dance. He understands what sort of images dancers are looking for. He understands the general motions of the dance. He's shot me live twice at Afet Collective shows so he's familiar with me. Everyone I know who has posed for him raves about him. He's sweet. I trust him.

Around 10PM, running late, we headed to the area of Tokyo in which Nam had rented space. Momo called Nam to update him. Nam had said the shoot would start at 10PM and probably last 2 hours. I figured it would go later and I'd miss my train home, so I arranged to spend the night at Momo's.

It was hard to be nervous about the shoot because Momo was so excited about it. She would look at me and squeal in delight, yelling "Oh! You're so pretty! This is easy because you're so pretty! I'm so excited about this!" With my rock-star hair and face and Momo's general "eccentric psychic" look we must have made quite a couple. She massaged my hands on the train as folks looks in confusion, trying to figure out what sort of couple we were.