Warning: Indulgent self-imagey-anxiety post below

Last Thursday I went to find sunglasses for my melanin-deficient eyes, in order to lessen the likelihood of blindness when I am older. I walk into the room, and the steroidial-looking glasses-selecting-helper smiles and says "You're interesting looking. I like that. Not many people are." At this, I laugh awkwardly, resisting the temptation to put on a mask, or run away into a dark corner. I mentally add it to my collection of sentiments confirming my suspicions about my own face:

"You're unusual looking, not ugly."

"You're pretty in your own way"

"You look 'exotic'"


"Feast your eyes, glut you soul, on my accursed ugliness!" I'm channeling you, Lon Chaney.


I can't really say that I have a love-hate relationship with my face, because most of the time its all hate. The most I ever find is "grudging contentment" I can't quite pinpoint what makes my face so funny-looking. Is it the overbite that could make Tenniel's Mad Hatter proud? The bulbous nose? the distances from nose to mouth, and mouth to chin?

I'm not a rose. I am not beautiful, or even average. Contrary to what many think, that does not mean that I am somehow less worthy than other, prettier people, or that I deserve pity. I am not a rose... I am a grotesque orchid, and I better well learn to take pride in it.  Not the neat, attractive orchids you find at grocery stores, mind you. No, I am the black-and-green-and-purple-and yellow ones that are lumpy and spiky, with spiraling tendrils spilling out. Many people look on such a flower in disgust or revulsion, yet the flower still functions as a flower should. It does not die for its appearance. I've spent the majority of my life admiring and attempting to understand cultural practices considered 'unusual'. It is an odd sort of hypocrisy, I suppose, to hate my own features for their strangeness.

Nicknamed " the antichrist" at school,  Russian actress Alla Nazimova became one of the most brilliant figures of the silent film era.  I shall let her work do the talking, as my words can not do it justice.

Last minute Halloween costume: Cryogenically frozen Walt Disney. Tragically this picture was taken before the addition of the Disney/Hitler moustache. I'll be wearing the costume on Monday to school, calender my (grotesque, misshapen) foot.

Good day my friends, I trust that you are well. Please forgive me for my long absence... school, monotonous though it is, has seduced the clock on my bedroom wall, and insists on taking up all of the time. I try to reason with it, of course, but love creates irrationality (even in clocks) and all my attempts have been met with indifferent ticking.

    Speaking of mechanical love, if you have not seen the 1950's version of The Tales of Hoffman, I urge you to hurry to the video store or library as quickly as your feet can carry you ( a pair of seven-league boots would be useful for this, though I am told they are expensive) and snatch it up before all copies of the film turn into pumpkins at midnight... for it is magical law that anything so strange is never permanent, and most likely has the irritating habit of turning into root vegetables at inopportune moments.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Tales of Hoffman, it is an opera, most of which was written by Jaques Offenbach. The 1950's version focuses as much on ballet as singing, and has candy-like sets and costumes, along with some delightfully eerie human "marionettes" dangling from a chandelier. It also includes interestingly done sequences of a man falling in love with a mechanical doll (Moira Schearer), a demon who bribes people with jewels made from candle wax, and delicious looking bicorn hats I want to pluck from the screen and pop into my mouth. I do not wish to give too much away, so that is all I will say about it. With that, I must leave you, as the tea kettle is all hot and bothered right now, and smoke is practically streaming from its ears.