Head

Skin Capture Exposure

I find myself surprised, disappointed really, every time I see photos of my face. I forget that my mouth goes to one side and turns down, I always think I’m smiling but clearly my neutral expression is down-turned.

I had my ear pierced in 1995, I often wonder how it appears to others and whether or how they judge me for it. My first thought is that its not the sort of thing that a 48 year old is supposed to wear and then I wonder whether it adds to other reasons why people might not take me seriously. I don’t really know why I keep it, perhaps like scars it is just part of me know.

Now my hair is brown, dyed brown which, otherwise, would be mostly grey. I see now that my hair still looks pretty grey. Before my hair turned grey it was dark brown. I didn’t mind the coming of grey hair for many years. Now vanity has got to me. People don’t comment that my hair is less grey but they do remark that I look healthier. Perhaps grey is associated with age and, with age, poor health.

At the moment I seem to have a long quiff. Sometimes its different colours, plum red, blue or green.

I often want to re-colour my hair, colour fills me with joy and fuck-it spirit. Its coloured when I’m feeling more manic, lively. When I’m down or “normal” (yuck) I don’t want to stand out, to be exposed. That is what happens as a man with a blue fringe. 

I like the greenish blue of my eyes. I rarely notice the colour of eyes and almost never note the colour of my own eyes. 

I’m not sure ever whether my jaw has always been so crooked. I wasn’t aware of it being like that when I was younger. I had a cycling accident when I was 20 and damaged it badly, knocked out my teeth and did myself no good – perhaps it happened then.

I trim my eyebrows for much the same reason as dyeing out the grey in my hair. At some point since I was 30 more and more of them grow very thick and long. If not trimmed they would be like two moustaches. The thread veins on my nose, they are worse lower down, appeared when I was in my 20s, people say they are the result of heavy drinking and that would seem appropriate.