The Modeling Years

It's a clear and beautiful spring morning here in Portland. The dogwood tree outside of my window is on its way to full pink bloom....one of my most favorite of tender trees. I love the dark rich texture of it's trunk in perfect chorus with the swoopy shape of each small petal brushed, as it were, with the tiniest of paintbrushes in a creamy pinkish tint. All of that, to say this: I was going to post about this today. It sort of got my hopes up -- a little, maybe, kind of, sort of, possibly. But then, I reeled. Why ruin a perfectly-orchestrated Saturday morning ... with coffee cup in hand (sugar-free hazelnut creamer, if you please), morning eyes conveniently laden with hard, crunchy, allergy morning junk in the corners of them, and a more-than-handsome Maltese-Poodle that just now came running to my chair with his front paws up on my leg....he got his wish, a trip to my lap to pley pn tie compuicer keyboysrd. So, instead, a Back to the Future sort of moment, instead, about that dude in the picture at the top of my site this month. He was mid-20s, in Boise, and really not quite sure what to do with his life on many fronts. He was working in the Human Resources area of a large Fortune 500 company and wearing some of the funkiest clothes around. Always turning an eye, and -- I'm sure -- a question or two about a couple of things. So, after numerous "You should be a model" comments, I found a modeling and talent school where I became one of the oldest classmates. I studied runway, television, script reading, tearoom, grooming, hair, makeup and all the rest. It was run by a Mormon family who treated me horribly well. I enjoyed my time there, but it was a wild ride on the sexuality and social front. So, the agency's director seemed to push me in the direction of posing for more adult-type positions, including the one in the picture, with the Wall Street Journal sort of feel. You'll be seeing other shots in the coming months. One of the more memorable times was when our entire school did a modeling and talent runway show. There we were, all 25 of us guys, in leather coats and trousers....strutting our stuff to "It's Raining Men, Hallelujah" with the lights flashing and the fake smoke rising around us as we tootled down the runway. Oh my god, if you just could have seen it. And the crowning touch to my career there was when I marched (yes, I did march) into the director's office, closed the door, and told her that I had asked a girl to marry me. "Oh my, Tyler," she said ... "Are you sure that's what you really want to be doing with your life ... are you sure that's the right thing?" (Tyler Lewis was the name she had adorned me with during that brief stint in my life.) She just as well could have said "You're a fag and have no business marrying a woman." It would have been more accurate. I think that was the "nearing the top of the roller coaster" portion of my life. It got increasingly wild and crazy after that. I'm glad that someone pulled the power on that ride.