This nice young woman Stacy took Natural Looking photos of me, and I'm going to put one on here. The idea was if I ever wanted to attempt to internet date again, I could look warm, friendly, and vaguely my age - my whole approach to anything on the world wide web is to look hard and campy, and this is for two reasons. 1. My whole oldy worldy idea of visual imagery is that I want to have a picture a weekly paper might use to promote a gig I am having in whatever town I'm visiting. 2. Why the fuck would I want strangers to know how I look when I'm naked, with a pot belly, slumped over my laptop in my kitchen?
"I would never know from your web presence that you're sweet and generous" my friend Brian said, or something equally complimentary. That got me to thinking. Not just about what I'm going to order at the half off clearance sale at Torrid.com, as usual, but about how yes, I AM so sweet. So Kind. You betcha. The people have a right to know!
But before I could get my apathetic ass in gear and look sweet and kind on the internet, I read this article about people who do Trolling, I think its called. They just go on the internet and find information and ruin your entire life. They are ominous rationalizing sociopaths. Why do I want these people to know me? I don't. Occasionally some young man send a mesage to my Music/Comedy site on MySpace. To put it tactfully, he finds my figure enticing. Do I want to be that young man's bit of strange? I've been a bit of strange for so long, my friend. So very long. So no, no I don't. I find it much more convenient to reply as if I'm Luticia Baldrige, aka Miss Manners, and 70 something rather than 40 something. 40 very something.
"I do not use instant messenging or even text messaging much. 'do you like it doggy style?' is not an enticing social gambit. Internet prostitution is a lucrative business, and I neither endorse nor oppose it, but it is not a business I'm in."
This wild swing, from my hard campy web highly posed stuio shots and gag songs to a fuddy duddyish shut down, is so much better than letting a 20 something stranger get in a dig at me, mentally or physically. OK, now I'm uploading the natural photo.
OK, now I'm going to have my hair straightened. There is a limit to natural. Animals in the wild are natural. Pigeons are natural. Predators are natural. Cognitive dissonance is a human construct.
