You'll laugh you ass off. (I did.)
I was scanning old family photos this weekend and came across this photo of me at the beach. I don’t remember that swimsuit. I don’t remember having my picture snapped. But there I am, in a moment, enjoying the sand and the waves. Did people ever get a chance to sneak peeks into their past like this before Kodak came along?
Java Bean hits a dead end at the drive-through.
What? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I swear!
Office Krupke is my copy editor, which is why there are so many typos.
It has been fun looking through old photo albums lately, remembering things the way they never were. Everyone is shiny and new and unbroken. Look, there’s Bob before he succumbed to soul-darkening depression! He looks so happy! And there are my parents, hugging each other in front of the dogwood tree. They’re not divorced after all! Oh, and look how cute and skinny I am at four years old before I ever discovered my compulsive eating problem!
It is kind of sad knowing these people’s futures, almost as sad as looking at what they’re wearing. Wow, a poncho. Really? But it can be happy too. Look, there’s Uncle Terry before he met his wife and made his beautiful babies. He’s got good times to look forward to. And there is Aunt Kelly the day she found out she had uterine cancer. She’ll be happy to find out they get it all during the hysterectomy. I wish I could tell Aunt Karen she will be so much happier after she divorces that man.
So many pictures. So many ways to remember the past. Take a picture today and remember it the way you want to.
I think it’s odd that I have a PO box. When I was a kid, PO boxes were only mentioned at the end of commercials for Topsy Tail or Picture Pages. They didn’t seem like things real people had. Yet, now I have one and I’m pretty sure I’m a real person. It was really easy too. Last year I went to the postal counter, asked for a PO box, and they gave me a key and an address after I handed them my credit card. Credit cards are like magic wands.
It’s kind of fun to check my PO box because I never know what will be in there. Sometimes it’s a bait and tackle catalog addressed to the previous owner. Sometimes it’s a nice letter from a reader. And sometimes its an ad for a retouching service that promises that you’ll “look great in your summer pics,” though by “great” they mean “less like Porky the Pig.”
I’ve blurred out the company’s name because I’m not sure what to think about their service. I don’t want to promote them or unfairly bash their name. My first reaction was to be insulted by the implication that I needed to be retouched. Then I read the text on the back of the card which says, “Our new xxxx service is just what Half of Me Blog fans need to look great in their summer pictures!” Oh, so I don’t need to be retouched, it’s you guys, who are evidently too fat to appear in your own summer vacation photos.
But before I get up on my high horse and lead the cavalry to raid this evil domain, I have to knock myself out of the saddle because I myself am guilty of retouching a photo I thought I looked fat in. (Except it was an autumn photo and I didn’t have to pay anybody to do it for me, so it’s totally different situation. Totally.)
I believe everyone has a right to like their body, no matter what size it is. However, I also know what it’s like to see a photo of yourself and dislike what the pixel sensors pick up. I wish people didn’t dislike those images so much that they felt the need to tell a lie with a picture. But of course, I was one of those people, wasn’t I?
In their defense, they also provide typical retouching services such as red-eye reduction and acne removal. The slimming service looks like a new product. What do you guys think? Is this service a force of good or evil or somewhere in between?
When I was overweight, I never understood skinny girls who looked at photos and complained, “I look so fat in that photo!” I always looked fat in photos because I was fat. The skinny girls looked skinny. Perhaps the camera didn’t catch them at the best angle, but they looked thinner than I ever would.
Then I lost about 200 pounds and I totally understand where they were coming from. I present exhibits A, B, and C.
These three photos were all taken on the same day, which is odd because it looks like I gained 10 pounds and then lost it again before noon. I ran a half-marathon that day, but running 13.1 miles does NOT burn 35,000 calories, nor could the lasagna I had for lunch make me that much fatter.
In the first photo, I’m striking the “skinny pose.” I have one foot placed in front of the other. I’m turning at the waist, but rotating my shoulders towards the camera. I’m jutting my chin out slightly. I read how to do this online and at first I felt silly and awkward arranging my limbs and torso like this, but then I noticed it actually works so I do it often. If you watch starlets on the red carpet, they use these tricks too. I’m also wearing a dark color on the bottom and a light color on the top to balance my bottom-heavy pear shape. All in all, I look pretty thin.
About 2 minutes earlier, the second photo was taken right after I finished my race. I eagerly downloaded it from the official race site online and was crestfallen when I saw it and immediately thought, “I look so fat in that photo!” I don’t know if it’s the angle or the lighting or post-race bloat that evaporated 120 seconds later, but I think I look fat in that photo. Which sucks, because it’s supposed to be my proud, victory photo and I don’t feel particularly victorious when looking at it.
Then, there is photo number 3, taken a couple hours later at my book release party. My face looks the thinnest in this photo to me and I’m rather satisfied with my size. Maybe the dark lighting helps? :) I’m sure some of you will comment that I look great in all these photos (or that I look like a bean bag chair if you’re a hater), but it doesn’t really matter what you think, it’s what I think.
It seems odd that all these photos were taken within hours of each other and yet I look so different in all of them. I know my face and my body better than anyone else, so I’m probably the most critical of my appearance, noticing the smallest variations. It’s amazing how different I can appear, not because of my size, but because of the way my body is turned or whether I’m wearing makeup or whether someone turned on the overhead light.
I might not be the best judge though. There are times when I don’t think I look particularly good or bad in a photo and other people compliment me on it. For instance, I got several compliments on my Jamba Juice photo, but when I saw it I thought it was far too dark and that I looked a little bit irked. I would caption this photo with a thought bubble saying, “Have you taken the photo yet? I want to pick up my orange dream machine!”
The worst was when I was still morbidly obese and I’d look at a photo in horror and someone would say, “What a great picture! It looks just like you!” Geez, really? That’s awful. Not only would I feel bad about an ugly photo, I would feel bad that I evidently looked like an ugly photo all the time.
Photos confound me. I like living in a technologically advanced society, but if I’d been born in the 1700’s without running water or electricity, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with the head game that digital imagery now provides on a daily basis. Am I fat? Am I thin? Who knows?
Somewhere all those skinny girls I never understood are laughing.