Last year to some extent was the year of body modification. I got both the piercing and tattoo I’d had in mind for over ten years, and I at least bought the boxes of hair dye that have been sitting in my bathroom. The real body modification, that is getting my body in shape and losing weight, is still a work in progress but I can at least see some shape to my arms.

Friday night I finally broke open the bottle and bleached two strips in my hair. Saturday I added the purple.

The dying:

We were calling the aluminum-hair look “fashionably paranoid”.

The purple:

Taking that first picture and posting it to Facebook was actually a challenge to myself. I don’t like having my picture taken, but I want there to be pictures of me. I realized at my high school summer at art school, when we were saying goodbye and taking pictures, that if I wanted to be remembered I had to be in people’s pictures. I’m trying to remind myself that very few people are naturally photogenic, and I only judge pictures of myself harshly. I have to resist trying to color-correct the red out of my face. There I am, it’s me on a weekend, exactly how my friends already see me.

When having a digital camera was a new thing to me, I carried my camera everywhere, and made it known that anyone was free to grab my camera and take pictures. That was the biggest draw to a digital camera – no wasting film! This was back when I was dating Gryphon who was more likely to take pictures than Andrew, who will take a camera on vacation and never unpack it. So with quantity there was a greater chance of being a picture or two of me I actually liked.

I love pregnancy and breastfeeding and all of those kinds of pictures, and I want there to be pictures of me. I’ve told this to Andrew, who will probably need some nudging to remember at first. (For that matter, this goes to anyone I know – take pictures as long as I have control of them!)

Tomorrow I can have caffeine again – yay!