American I - dol

Ever keep track of how many times you look at yourself a day? No, I haven't tried it myself. But I am seriously considering it.

Do you know how you look? To others? Who look at you?

Now, the modern world has provided us opportunities aplenty to look at ourselves. Not metaphysically or metaphorically but, like, opportunities to check your own reflection. Seeing yourself as others see you. Hong Kong is practically made of reflective materials of one sort or another. I was forced to look at myself so very many times today. Duh.

You see, I'm trying to not cut my hair at the moment. Because I have been cutting my own hair for the past twenty years, I can give myself a haircut every time I step into the shower. It's too tempting. Almost too easy. I want a change. I want to have hair like Carrie Bradshaw in the first season of SATC. My calculations tell me that should take about a year of me not cutting my hair (plus 6 hours in a salon getting that perm). But this transitional period is proving to be harder work than I had thought. O made an off-hand comment (not making eye contact as he said) that my hair makes me look like Liam Gallagher. That boy hurt my feelings, he did.

So, quite understandably, I'd gone mad very briefly last night and bought myself an alice band. A very thin, glittery, black one. This morning, I tried it on when I was sober. God I looked like a mad old lady with that thing on my head.

Anyhow. What I really wanted to say, is this.

I just realised ten minutes ago, that as I was watching American Idol, thinking that I was enjoying it, my face had actually contorted uncontrollably. Without me knowing. So how do I know? Well thanks to these huge zits that have developed on my forehead, my nose, and my chin, I was running my hands over my face as I watched Elliot and Ace do terrible versions of Queen classics. Man, was my facial muscles hard at work! Upon realising this, I was curious as to how I looked. So I instructed my brain to hold those muscles in place, and dashed over to the bathroom to check my reflection. I surprised myself. I had a look on my face which suggested that I was deeply offended by what I had seen, that I was about to vomit, that I was full of nothing but spite for these "idols", that I could pull off a sneer of greater profundity than Sir Billy Idol, without even realizing that I was doing it.

Isn't that scary?