I can look homeless?

Randomest Activity of the Week:

I was pulled out of a meeting at work to act as an emergency, last-minute model for a national end-homelessness campaign. The group (which is raising funds for some very cool and innovative interagency activities) had been using our drop-in centre for a big photo-shoot, but they were unable to find enough young women among our centre’s client demographic of older and middle-aged men. Enter me, apparently. They looked me over, “I guess she’ll do.”

A social-work practicum student and I found ourselves awkwardly awaiting direction from the campaign manager and photographer.

“You need to take out your pigtails.” Me, sad, “okay.”

“Put your hands in your hoodie pockets. You need to look more tough. Wait, less tough. More feminine. No, no, try to smile, but still look fundamentally sad. Good. Oh, your scruffy running shoes are perfect!”

I doubt my scruffy running shoes and I will be used in the actual campaign- I am the least photogenic person I know, I don‘t know how to ‘smile with my eyes,’ or my mouth, really, and I don’t know how to look tough or feminine. Their quest for individuals looking street-involved, or ‘rough and weathered,’ is not exactly what people think of when they see anything to do with me - on my more attractive days, when a group of Japanese girls see me, they all squeal loudly and exclaim ‘she looks like a doll!’ and then cover their mouths to giggle. Seriously. This happens about once a month. ?!

But there remains a slight chance that my face will end up on a bus ad, or a billboard, in Vancouver or a city far away. I like to think, in my hometown Ontario, someone will pick up a paper and think, “Oh my god. I know that crystal-meth addicted single mom!” And my mom, heading to work, will be stopped in her tracks by a sizable billboard plastered across the street from the school where she teaches, “This girl’s parents kicked her out at the age of thirteen. Now she smokes crack and sleeps in a dumpster. Will you shut the door on her, too?”

The thought of that does make me smile.