Sometimes, I stare at myself in the mirror. There’s a small percentage of that time when I’m carefully inspecting my face, because I’m paranoid that there’s a blemish that I’m unaware of, or trying to see if there’s like an unruly nose hair or something that’s been agitating the shit out of me for the last random denomination of time that needs to be plucked. But the vast majority of the time, I’m looking, with a combination of disdain, acceptance and sadness, and the ever-growing number of white hairs that are sprouting all over my head.
Especially at the very front of the sides, like right above my temples. They’re particularly going white right around there, and I’m beginning to feel like I’m turning into an Asian Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four except I’m not a super genius, nor can my entire anatomy including my clothing stretch like impervious rubber.
But it’s times like this when I kind of wish I could look back to as early as just like two years ago when I didn’t have so much white hair to see what I looked like. Sure, my weight has fluctuated over the last 5-6 years due to not having a gym to go to on account of inconsistent finances, but at least my hair was almost entire still black, and not full of wispy defiant white hairs as it is now.
The thing is, it’s difficult to do that, because as it turns out, I don’t really have a whole lot of pictures of myself, and in a way that kind of makes me a little bit sad. Often times I’m the guy taking the pictures, and that’s somewhat of a reputation I’ve developed, so whenever I’m around in occasions where a camera might be nice to have, it’s often me the guy with it, and nobody else. Sure I could always have people take the occasional picture for me, but frankly it always seems a little awkward to me, and I find that social occasion photos feel the most genuine when they kind of happen organically, instead of carefully planned.
I don’t even have a decent picture of myself to use in conjunction with this post.
I actually have some vanity, in spite of all the self-deprecating remarks I make about myself. Frankly, it’s my belief that everyone really should have some vanity in their psyche, or else they might be satisfied to never bathe, or feel the want and desire to look nice and dapper occasionally. Despite the things I might say about myself, when the day is over, I have a fairly comfortable self-image that doesn’t think I’m the worst-looking guy on the planet and sure I could probably stand to shed a pound or twenty but I’m confident in my physical condition mostly, and how I’m capable of presenting myself aesthetically.
But back to the point, I don’t feel that I have enough pictures of myself, which kind of sucks. There have been times where I’ve felt like I’ve looked good or there have been group photos, or people I haven’t seen in long times, where it might be nice to have photographic evidence that I was there. But as I said, often times I’m the one with the camera taking pictures, so unless I have create overkill rig to take photos for me, or I can actually trust someone to shoot for me,* most of the time, I’m not in as many photos as I might like.
*speaking of which, I know I’m hardly qualified to declare myself a photographer, so I don’t, but compared to the hundreds of people I’ve encountered in my life I’ve asked to snap a quick photo (just push this button until it goes click), I’m fucking Ansel Adams. Seriously, is it really that difficult to frame a shot or utilize a half-press to let things come into focus?
Honestly, it kind of stinks, at least in my current frame of writing’s mind. I can recall all sorts of memories of people, places and things, but sometimes there isn’t a whole lot of photographic proof that I might’ve been a part of it. Aside from that, it’s like I have little visual evidence of myself, rapidly aging at the stage of my life where my aging is apparently catching up with me on visual and physical manners.
I like when I’m in the photos too. Especially when I get all dapper and feel like I look nice.
Like during Dragon*Con, when I was decently dressed on Sunday night and wandering about, some girl came out of the blue and asked if I would take a picture with her. Naturally I was puzzled, because I wasn’t in some costume and just minding my own business, and my confusion was clearly obvious, because she felt to explain that the rationale was because “she loved Asians.” Hey, I can accept that. I put my arm around her and smiled for the camera, which was being shot by what I had to assume was her actual boyfriend (owned).
It’s a photo I’m fairly certain I’ll never see because they ran off afterward, and my badge was flipped behind me for the photo so she doesn’t even have a way to see if my name were visible to track me down. But it’s a moment that made me feel confident about myself and a small boost to my ego, because I thought I looked good that night.
But that’s the thing. Much like how I think I’m justified in being able to boast about being the best damn brogger on the planet that actually dedicates to his brog obsessively, I think I’ve always been very reliable when it comes to posting the photos I take. Like if you see me take a picture with an actual camera, there’s pretty much a 100% chance it ends up on my site at some point, unless personally requested that it not be, or I use my discretion and not posting something that could be detrimentally unflattering.
Be it friends, acquaintances, strangers, people at conventions, people at sporting events, people at social events, there are often times lot of people who take photos; some I know, most I don’t, but the fact of the matter is that when people take these photos, what happens with them? It’s not that I expect everyone in the world to post 90% of the shots they take, but damn wouldn’t it be nice to see visual evidence of events, gatherings or moments in life spent with others in various places?
No matter though. This is not a poorly veiled calling out to all my friends and seven readers that they need to take more photographs themselves, and include me in them, because it most certainly isn’t. It probably means I should become better at utilizing the timer and the focus on timer, on my camera so that if I really wanted a picture of myself, I’d be a little more competent at doing such. Or, I should get a decent quality webcam, and start doing one of those “picture-a-day” things so I can really capture my rapid aging at 31 years.
But contrary to a lot of the swill I write about myself, I really wouldn’t mind seeing more photos of myself when the day is over.
