Chin up!
I’m not sure what it is about Nora Ephron and her neck. I’m more concerned about my chins. All eight of them.
Well, OK, I may be exaggerating a tad. But there is definitely more than one. And they LOVE to be caught on film. Which is one reason I eschew being photographed.
I used to think it was my ex-husband. That he just had a real knack for catching me at incredibly bad angles and creating an optical illusion where I had multiple chins. But unless there really is a vast right wing conspiracy and he is far more powerful than humanly possible, then the cameras simply do not lie. I definitely have a couple of chins going on there.
It is distressing. I do not think of myself as a particularly vain or self-enamored woman. I do not wear make up. I have never had a manicure in my life. I work out multiple days a week, trying to swim my cares away. Hell, I even do yoga. I do not really eat a whole heck of a lot. And yet….
There are those chins!
My mother insisted on yet another family Christmas card photo this year. Usually she takes the photos herself and then has a separate super image of her PhotoShopped in by the folks down at Photo Depot. This year, she managed to get a friend to take the photos.
My fourteen year old said to me: “How come Grandma looks like a movie star in every photo she’s in?’
“I don’t know,” I said. I was more worried about the fact that I was standing right next to the movie star, with all my chins, in all their glory.
My mother pooh-poohed me. “Well, look at me. I have a chicken neck.”
“OK. Well, you’re 82, you’re supposed to have a chicken neck. Besides, you still look like a movie star.”
She laughed demurely.
But it’s true. She goes to her high school reunions and comes back with this photo of a bunch of old people and HER. She looks gorgeous. Amazing. Just like a movie star. Only movie stars her age don’t look half as good!
I, meanwhile, have to deal with all those chins. I am not really fat, I don’t think. People from my past tell me I look just like I did in high school or college. That horrifies me! Please, dear God, don’t tell me I looked like a middle aged woman with multiple chins when I was in high school!
Sigh.
Maybe I am overly sensitive. I truly hate having my photo taken. I like being neither seen nor heard. I like to be the one in the background soaking up the scene at hand and eavesdropping on all that fabulous conversation that I am then, somehow, going to incorporate into a short story someday.
I am a very modest person. Changing in the gym locker room is anathema. In college, in the communal shower room, I took my glasses off. If I couldn’t see anyone else, they couldn’t see me. I am sure I was one of those young children whose idea of hiding was sitting in the middle of the room and covering her eyes.
But I still have those damned chins to contend with!
My older son, who had just taken a course in Digital Imaging, reassured me: “Don’t worry, Mom, I can take care of that with PhotoShop!” Afterall, hadn’t he just created a photo of himself in a black trench coat, arms folded across his chest, imperious, in the midst of Churchill, FDR, and Stalin at the Yalta Conference? What are a few chins?
Gee, thanks.
I, meanwhile, decided to employ legerdemain. Let my mother send out her Christmas card with the egregious photo of herself as a movie star, my two sons as strapping young men, and me with all my chins! What did I care? I was going to do something different.
I decided to employ the technology of the Internet and post a brief yet festive PowerPoint presentation on a site I never knew existed until I asked my high tech, young friend at work. “Slideshare,” he said. And it was free!
The boys and I corroborated on a holiday-themed PowerPoint. They helped me select the photos and put them in the order they liked. Most of the photos, of course, were of the boys. That was the point. In the end, I did include one of the horrific family Christmas photos my mother had had taken. But I chose the one with the least chins, and I realized that if I framed the photo using one of the PowerPoint image formatting options, it was a bit blurry. This decreased the number of chins even more.
I figured the recipients would be so taken with the groovy red slide design and fabulous photos of the boys that they wouldn’t really notice me and all my chins. I could have not included any photos of me, but then I worried people would wonder why I hadn’t included any photos of me. What was wrong? Had I suddenly ballooned out to 300 pounds?!?
Oy vey.
It’s tough to go through life and see how gravity decides to play her cruel tricks.
Ah, well, that little voice inside me says: “Chin up, ducky!”
Well, OK, I may be exaggerating a tad. But there is definitely more than one. And they LOVE to be caught on film. Which is one reason I eschew being photographed.
I used to think it was my ex-husband. That he just had a real knack for catching me at incredibly bad angles and creating an optical illusion where I had multiple chins. But unless there really is a vast right wing conspiracy and he is far more powerful than humanly possible, then the cameras simply do not lie. I definitely have a couple of chins going on there.
It is distressing. I do not think of myself as a particularly vain or self-enamored woman. I do not wear make up. I have never had a manicure in my life. I work out multiple days a week, trying to swim my cares away. Hell, I even do yoga. I do not really eat a whole heck of a lot. And yet….
There are those chins!
My mother insisted on yet another family Christmas card photo this year. Usually she takes the photos herself and then has a separate super image of her PhotoShopped in by the folks down at Photo Depot. This year, she managed to get a friend to take the photos.
My fourteen year old said to me: “How come Grandma looks like a movie star in every photo she’s in?’
“I don’t know,” I said. I was more worried about the fact that I was standing right next to the movie star, with all my chins, in all their glory.
My mother pooh-poohed me. “Well, look at me. I have a chicken neck.”
“OK. Well, you’re 82, you’re supposed to have a chicken neck. Besides, you still look like a movie star.”
She laughed demurely.
But it’s true. She goes to her high school reunions and comes back with this photo of a bunch of old people and HER. She looks gorgeous. Amazing. Just like a movie star. Only movie stars her age don’t look half as good!
I, meanwhile, have to deal with all those chins. I am not really fat, I don’t think. People from my past tell me I look just like I did in high school or college. That horrifies me! Please, dear God, don’t tell me I looked like a middle aged woman with multiple chins when I was in high school!
Sigh.
Maybe I am overly sensitive. I truly hate having my photo taken. I like being neither seen nor heard. I like to be the one in the background soaking up the scene at hand and eavesdropping on all that fabulous conversation that I am then, somehow, going to incorporate into a short story someday.
I am a very modest person. Changing in the gym locker room is anathema. In college, in the communal shower room, I took my glasses off. If I couldn’t see anyone else, they couldn’t see me. I am sure I was one of those young children whose idea of hiding was sitting in the middle of the room and covering her eyes.
But I still have those damned chins to contend with!
My older son, who had just taken a course in Digital Imaging, reassured me: “Don’t worry, Mom, I can take care of that with PhotoShop!” Afterall, hadn’t he just created a photo of himself in a black trench coat, arms folded across his chest, imperious, in the midst of Churchill, FDR, and Stalin at the Yalta Conference? What are a few chins?
Gee, thanks.
I, meanwhile, decided to employ legerdemain. Let my mother send out her Christmas card with the egregious photo of herself as a movie star, my two sons as strapping young men, and me with all my chins! What did I care? I was going to do something different.
I decided to employ the technology of the Internet and post a brief yet festive PowerPoint presentation on a site I never knew existed until I asked my high tech, young friend at work. “Slideshare,” he said. And it was free!
The boys and I corroborated on a holiday-themed PowerPoint. They helped me select the photos and put them in the order they liked. Most of the photos, of course, were of the boys. That was the point. In the end, I did include one of the horrific family Christmas photos my mother had had taken. But I chose the one with the least chins, and I realized that if I framed the photo using one of the PowerPoint image formatting options, it was a bit blurry. This decreased the number of chins even more.
I figured the recipients would be so taken with the groovy red slide design and fabulous photos of the boys that they wouldn’t really notice me and all my chins. I could have not included any photos of me, but then I worried people would wonder why I hadn’t included any photos of me. What was wrong? Had I suddenly ballooned out to 300 pounds?!?
Oy vey.
It’s tough to go through life and see how gravity decides to play her cruel tricks.
Ah, well, that little voice inside me says: “Chin up, ducky!”
posted by delta at 12:10 PM
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