I Can't Smile...

I hate having my photograph taken, and have for as long as I can remember. I looked at some recently taken photos, and it was a discouraging experience, to say the least. In every picture, I looked either angry, annoyed, distracted (or any number of equally unpleasant expressions), even though I was quite happy on each occasion.

The problem is that I don't know what to do with my face. I can never really tell (from the inside) what my face is actually doing (on the outside). It's weird. And I don't know how to do the Insta-Smile thing that others seem able to manage so effortlessly. It's very frustrating.

If there is a photograph of me smiling, it is an illusion. I'm really laughing at something, but the shutter clicked at that split-second of time where the illusion of a smile takes place. A second earlier, and I would have looked constipated. A second later, and I would have looked like Mr. Ed with the hiccups.

So I don't smile in photographs. I wish I could -- but I can't. It is yet another discouraging trait to add to my already enormous collection.

I'll be 50 years old in about a month. You would think I would have learned to smile by now -- but I haven't. You would think I'd have something more profound on my mind to write about -- but I don't.