In my bookshelves is a book called "Other Passports". It's a book of Clive James collccted poetry, complete with his very funny take on The Wasteland. I love Clive James. He's missed. Thumbing through the pages of verse, I can hear his laconic voice
But I'm contemplating new passports. Mainly because I hate having my photo taken.
I was going to get my passport photos taken today, but a turn of events meant I couldn't leave the house. The scratch and dent man came to fix my car door, ridding it of the scratches and dent that have been there for a couple of months, the result of a car park skirmish with a concrete box. I'm glad he's here. I'm glad the car will look like new again. I'm glad I didn't go to Super Cheap Auto and get some scratch paint and bugger up the job. Cleo, my trainer, did her car in the same spot - and did a botch job on the scratches. I've just been downstairs - he's done a magnificent job of it. Looks like new.
I look over my old passports, remembering how much I hated the shots in the ones I have.
There's the one that expired in 2012. I can't get over how young I look. How thin, compared to where I am now, that I was. And there's the hair, which is abundant. The makeup is subtle. Mind you, at the time I was 34 and thought myself the ugliest person on the planet. Strange how I think differently now.
The one I'm replacing is in better shape. Still an awful shot. I know I'd been to the hairdresser that morning and it was one of those ghastly hot days that Melbourne gets periodically where everything melts. My hair looks melted on - stringy, dreadful. I hate that photo.
One of my colleagues said that your passport photo should like you just come out of a long session of waterboarding or some other nasty torture. My current passport photo is not far off this.
And now, instead of a photo stuck in against the paper, laminated in place, it's electronically manipulated in all sorts of ways, your image is pixillated, shrunk and sits there, laughing at you, trying to mimic what you might look like after a 24 hour flight.
The only thing the same about these shots is how I do my eyeliner. Back in the early noughties a make up artist taught me to only put liner on my top lid. It's a big improvement from my kohl lined eyes of the 90s.
Yes, I get all steamed up about this. Vanity, vanity.
I've got a day off on Monday. I'll gird my loins and get the fuckers done then.
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