This Is Not A Picture Of Me

Although seriously don't I look good?  Wait, no.
[breathe, exhale] This is not a picture of me.

Well, it's kind of a picture of me.  My company likes to throw theme parties for clients, and this year's theme is "What Happens In Vegas..."  And yes, half of us actually need that ellipses in order to make people think we're capable of doing something that should indeed remain in Vegas.  But I digress.  We have this thing where the art department photo-shops pictures of us into movie scenes of people doing crazy shenanigans, and then everybody gets to say, "oh look at so-and-so, as if he would ever do THAT with a donkey!"

So, Professional-Shenanigan-Haver that I am, I scoured facebook for a decent-enough shot from an actual crazy night, but where I wasn't too bleary-eyed drunk or fat-looking (fun fact: there is 1000 percent less alcohol in the photoshopped "Vegas scenario" version).  And of course the ridiculous face is a must, because I'm a good sport and hey, there's an entire facebook album devoted to my making ridiculous faces that might as well get some play.

Incidental de-crazy-ing of the actual photo notwithstanding, I look goooooood in this picture.  Which is what I was thinking when I showed it to the other Production Guy:

Me: And, look, he made my head just a little too big and now my body looks really thin.

PG:  Um, your body looks thin because that's not your body.

To be fair, it didn't come out THAT mean, but that's the gist.  And he's RIGHT!  That is in no way my body.  And the worst part is, I know that.  My conscious brain tells me that that is my slightly-too-big head 'shopped onto some skinny actress' body.  Even the skin tones don't exactly match.

But the problem is that I have to keep telling myself that it's not me.  Just like I have to tell myself that all those images of all those women in the magazines and on the billboards are altered, too.  But I'm a human animal, wired by eons of prehistory to use my sight as my primary means of interpreting the world.  And if I can't look at a picture of just my head without having to consciously remind myself that the rest of it is not me, then you can bet my cavelady brain isn't buying it at all.

It's a better lesson than every women's studies and journalism course I ever took in college.  All you have to do is take a photo of yourself and 'shop it into perfection and you'll see.  No wonder we're all self-loathing depressives.  Our conscious minds are trying to force us to disbelieve our own eyes, and it isn't working at all.  But the scariest part is that until I was reminded that this was not a picture of me, I didn't even know how fooled I was. 


Although......if I ever go back to online dating, this is so my profile photo.