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“What do you want your pumpkin to look like this year, Maia?” I ask my three year old, brandishing a fillet knife after we finish hollowing her personal squash.
“I want it to have a mad face with big, ANGRY, EYEBROWS!!!” She jumps up and down, scowling, as she says this, and gives me her best angry face, as if wanting to model for my masterpiece.
Angry? Yes, I can understand that; if I had just been scalped & disemboweled, I might be a little put-out, myself.
“OK, shall we give it triangle eyes?”
“No! Circle eyes!”
“Are you sure? I think they should be triangles.”
“NO! Circles! CIRCLES! CIRCLESCIRCLESCIRCLES! Round ones.”
Damn! Triangles are sharp, angular & piercing. Circles are friendly & open. Nonetheless, it’s her pumpkin and I told her that she could choose.
So I cut out two circles—round ones—from the front of the pumpkin.
“What about the nose? Do you want a triangle nose?” OK, I admit it, I’m partial to triangles, they’re easy to cut.
“No!” She stops & considers her options… “Oval.”
“Oval?” I can’t believe this, my angry work of art is beginning to look like a Sesame Street muppet, and not Oscar the Grouch. I cut out the oval and remind myself to be thankful that she hasn’t asked for an octagon.
“And what of the mouth?” …I almost say, but decide instead to simply cut out a big frown. It’s cheating, I know, but I can’t imagine working with whatever option she’s likely to give me. Then I cut out two arcing “angry eyebrows” and light a candle inside and have her stand back and revere the completed effect.
“OHHH!!! Thank you, Daddy!” she yells, “Now make him happy!”
Thank you to CatDancing @ flickr.com for sharing this photo. Some rights reserved.
Opening the door and walking out to the cold October morning, I found myself surrounded by a blanket of fog. The wind whipped me from one direction, and then from the other. “There’s a word for this,” I thought, “what is it?”
Blustery! Yeah, that’s it! It was a crisp, foggy, blustery morning; and it was everything I hoped it would be!
I love autumn. The fall foliage —everyone loves this, of course— in its vibrant yellows, oranges & reds that line the streets & riverbeds. Every year the trees surprise me with their beauty. I stare at them try to memorize their colors so that I can hold onto it throughout the year, but I always forget and am surprised by it all over again the next time fall comes around.
Thank you to v.max1978 @ flickr.com for sharing this photo. Some rights reserved.
But there’s even more to it than the colors of the trees. The cold of the air, the smell of smoke from a nearby fireplace, the crunch of the leaves as I walk down the sidewalk, & the sky: grey with a thick layer of clouds, like a soft quilt covering the land (I’ll be sick of the constant grey sky of Oregon come May, but for now it’s perfect); autumn is a salve to my mossy soul.
And, of course, the fog. The thick, moist mist surrounding all the eye can see—which, granted, isn’t much—hangs around many October mornings. It burns off after a few hours, but returns in the afternoon, filling in riverbeds & shallow hollows of the land before rising to fill in the valley. October is a month of magic, the month of All Hallows Eve & of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Gazing into the foggy copses, it’s easy to imagine the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane through the forest. Fall is the season in which my imagination comes to life and I’m capable of believing in things that I’ve usually dismissed since turning ten years of age.
In addition, it’s a relief, this early in the season, to finally be done with summer. Oregonians, at least those residing in the Willamette Valley (the area including Portland, Salem, & Eugene—the main cities of the state), are notorious for constantly complaining about the weather. We grow sick of the rain, but then, almost immediately upon its dissipation, complain about the heat of summer. You can’t blame us really, we’re not equipped to handle weather over 80°F, with 8 or 9 months of the year devoted to temperatures averaging 50-60°F, the heat takes us by surprise. And, in our moist land, it tends to be a humid heat… nothing compared to Florida, but uncomfortable to be sure.
Thank you to small @ Flickr.com for sharing this photo. Some rights reserved.
Nevertheless, no one likes a whiner, and in a constant effort to break away form the Oregonian stereotype, I try to be happy with the weather, no matter hot or damp it gets. But I can’t deny that the end of one season & the beginning of the next is usually a relief for me. Yet, the end of summer is often more of a relief to me than the other seasons. Not only does it afford a welcome change in the weather & the beautiful fall foliage, but it also signifies the end of the barbecue season.
Don’t get me wrong, barbecue is delicious. But for some of us—that is to say: me—it’s primarily a dose of salt in the wound. You see, I might be the only American male incapable of barbecuing.
Seriously.
Not even hot dogs.
I’ve asked for advice. I’ve researched online. I’ve tried various techniques. I’ve waited for the coals to cool down and I’ve kept them hot. I’ve layered the coals so that there are 3 levels of heat under the grill. Nothing I do works. Every chicken breast I cook turns into a bloody core surrounded by a brittle black exoskeleton. And shish kabobs? Those ice cube sized delicacies impaled on long bamboo skewers? My last attempt was burned at the stake. I ended up posting the morbid little totems in the ground around my patio as a dire warning to other heretical dices of meats, fruits and vegetables that might chance by.
Ummm... yeah... I totally pirated this one.
It’s a horrible source of shame for me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad in and of itself, but tally it up alongside to my inability to impersonate either Jack Nicholson or Clint Eastwood & a complete lack of interest in American professional football, and people begin to question my masculinity.
But fortunately, once summer is over, there is no call in Oregon for me to prepare anything other than a comforting Swanson’s® pot pie. My lacking skill in outdoor cuisine flies safely under the radar.
Now, if only I could get them to change the football season to summer…
A couple of my friends are very gracious with their flattery toward me. A little too generous, in fact. I’d think they were trying to butter me up, but they know I have nothing to offer. I have to assume, then, that they simply want me to feel good about myself, as implausible a goal as that may seem.
A little while back, they got into a heated debate about which celebrity I resembled most: John Cusack or Noah Wyle. I rolled my eyes & ignored it for as long as I could, but when each began posting my photo all over the internet, along with a thesis explaining why their star of choice was the better likeness and demanding a vote, I had to intervene. I didn’t want that many people thinking about me.
Unfortunately, if I simply stormed in and demanded they yank the photos off the web, I would have reveal my insecurity to all who had already seen the debate. I needed to tread tactfully & carefully. So, I attempted to head the vote off at the pass by petitioning a higher authority. Unfortunately, though you wouldn’t think it, both John Cusack & Noah Wyle are extremely difficult to get on the phone, and even more difficult to schedule a lunch with.
While looking for another arbitrator, I stumbled upon the MyHeritage.com celebrity look-alike engine. This was perfect! The logic based facial-recognition software would provide a completely impartial appraisal. I could call the election off without having to exert any petulance.
Acting quickly, I uploaded a photo of mine, and within moments, received a list of 9 famous faces which the engine deemed most resembled me. Oddly though, neither Cusack nor Wyle appeared on the list. My top match, according to the program, was Nicholas Brendon, with whom I’m not familiar. Nevertheless, while I don’t get a sensation of looking in the mirror, he’s a perfectly acceptable dopelgänger.
Next on the list was Matthew Fox. Cool.
Then came David Beckham. OK.
Not bad, right? But before you run off to their website, looking for a confidence boost, you should know that things went downhill from here…
As it turns out, I also bear a resemblance to:
Frances McDormand!
…ummmmm…
Edvard Greig!
Isn’t this Einstein?
Jewel!
…what?
Frere Roger!
Dormez-vous?
Cecil Rhodes!
I have no idea who this is.
…and, from what may take years of psychiatric care to recover…
Herbert Spencer!!!!!
Didn’t he play in Planet of the Apes?
Now, I’m sure an optimist would look at these photos and say: “Matthew Fox? David Beckham? That’s great!”, but I’m prepared to drop kick these people and pummel them, screaming: “Frere Roger?! Herbert-Fucking-Spencer?!?!?”
All this happened several months ago, but there are still nights that I wake up, drenched in sweat, clasping at my jawline, and trying to shift the phantom sideburns to the top of my head.
I made an attempt at indignation to these results—after all, they have a pretty low fucking bar for “celebrities”—unfortunately, this didn’t take the edge off the sting I’d received, so I turned to discrediting the system. I just don’t buy that Frere Roger resembles Jewel in any way, so how could I look like the both of them? Nevertheless, I don’t really think John Cusack & Noah Wyle look alike either, but people I trust are very convinced that I resemble them. Am I really the common denominator that ties all these faces together? I worry now that my life might be in danger if these celebrities discover that they’re a mere 2 degrees of separation from Herbert Spencer.
Next, I tried tricking the program. I uploaded a photo of Noah Wyle, but it immediately found that the closest matching celebrity was Noah Wyle. Damnit!
Finally, I uploaded some different pictures of myself and the program found a wide variety of matches including…
The last 4 sessions at last provided some of the relief that I was looking for. After all, if I honestly resemble Mary Kate, wouldn’t I also look like Ashley? And seriously, if I had a likeness to Jennifer Connolly, I’d totally notice.
Besides, it stands to reason that if I look like a group of actors in one photo, that at least one of the other photographs I tried should bring up some of the same actors. But only one celebrity appeared as a match in more than one of my pictures: Cecil Rhodes appeared as a match in 2 different photographs. I’m a bit nonplussed by this, but I’ll take him over Lamb-chops any day of the week.
