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[rinue]

Okay, there's not much to this entry; I'm not even sure it's enough to merit a title. Mostly it's just: hey -- that's me in that photo there on the sidebar of your friends page. That's what I look like most of the time. Although you can't see it in the picture, it's early in the morning on a cloudy day, and I'm standing on the porch with a cup of hot tea, dressed in my pajamas and a sweater. 'M not wearing any makeup, and my hair looks dark because I haven't washed it in about a week. My skin really is that pale, though -- if not paler. The reason the crop is weird is that I just held out my camera at arm's length and shot. I took it not quite a week ago.

So, yeah. Me. In the photo.

This non-entry really should end there, but I can't resist pointing out that in ancient Greece it was a great insult not to picture the person's whole body, nude or as close to nude as possible, because to do otherwise would deny that it was a whole person. Romans condensed it to just a bust -- head and torso. The Moors took it another direction entirely by refusing to show people or animals at all, just abstract patterns, so as not to imitate God. Now we just use heads. What does that say about us? We've declared ourselves gods and then cut off our bodies. Soon we may not even have the heads, since we're referred to more and more by numbers -- driver's licence, social security, ISP. It doesn't disturb me that we've killed God; it disturbs me that we've obliterated ourselves gladly. We should all have life-size nude sculptures made of ourselves. Perhaps decorate them with garlands of flowers.

Comments

[hipgunslinger.livejournal.com]

Oooooooooooooo!
OHHHHHHHHHH!
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! :D
*expression of glee*

[deche.livejournal.com]

All I can say is...

You cut off your chin.

I mean certainly it is a nice pic, and you look very pretty in it... but your chin... it's missing. You're head is incomplete and I... Dammit. You're offending my sense of aesthetics. Do you have something against your chin? was this deliberate? I like your chin. I must go... I must go find it.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

i like the idea of you decorated with garlands of flowers. :-)

[tillytilly.livejournal.com]

Of course you do realise that no matter how many photos I see of you lots I refuse to let go of my mental piccies.

It is exactly like going to see a film of a book and squeaking "But that just isn't what she looks like." You all live vividly in inaccurate piccies in my brain and that ain't changing.

In my mind you have long blonde hair and are kind of fey and wan. I have tried to think why this maybe and all I can deduce is that at first I prolly knew you by the handle "Rinue" and that whole Nimue - lady of the lake thing swung in before I had time to stop it.

You will always be a pre-raphaelite painting of an idealised dark ages princess to me, whether you like or not and no matter how inappropriate that may be.

Is this too long for a comment? I do worry about etiquette.

And as for the Greeks, yeah, sure that's why they *said* they made so many naked statues. It had nothing to be with them being all greek and everything. Where they found the time to invent maths is a mystery to me.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

Since you refuse to accept that the crop is weird because I couldn't see through the viewfinder and take the picture simultaneously, I suppose my argument will be that I am deliberately rebelling against attempts to "box me in".

-Romie

[rinue.livejournal.com]

::shrugs:: I think of you as having bobbed red hair, black-frame glasses, and a barmaid's build. Also, you have a black celtic tattoo around your wrist for reasons I can't fathom.

-Romie

[tillytilly.livejournal.com]

Really, gee, I'm sooo 1994

[rinue.livejournal.com]

::laughs:: At least you're not my version of Ailei, who has more facial piercings than I can count.

-Romie

[treehavn.livejournal.com]

As I have said before doubtless, the Houston pictures still frighten me. You all just do not look like that, except the more I look the more I realise you do. And all this talk of mental pictures is most interesting.