July 10, 2020

Pretty.

Last night I posted a picture of myself standing on our balcony, basking in the light of an impending thunderstorm and the ambient lighting of the area, shirtless. I am reminded of a conversation with my Big Brother Season 4 handler, Katie, before I told her I was dropping out of the Top 32 running for the casting of that season. I had to check in with Katie every 12 hours and talk about the most intimate of details of my thought processes. Katie didn’t know what to think, perhaps she reverted to a script when this happened.

Katie: “Can you please send me a photo of you shirtless? A webcam photo will do.”

J.P., within an hour, sends a photo to the designated email address. This involved connecting to an Internet Service Provider via dialup.

Katie: “Well, do you mind always wearing a shirt while you’re on camera?”

It was ultimately my choice to drop out of Big Brother 4’s casting call because my husband said he wasn’t going to be waiting for me if I got kicked out of the house early because he thought the whole thing was ridiculous. But he was very supportive of me for getting to the top 32 of the casting call, despite the 75 page contract that had been faxed over in the middle of the night. So, while wearing a shirt at home, I left a message on handler Katie’s voicemail that I was dropping out of the running.

It’s a good thing I dropped out because I could have ended up with the guy who went crazy during the first week. He started throwing chairs and got kicked out because he was screaming about having anal warts.

Good times.