Smile for Me :)

A lifetime of figuring out how to look good in pictures

Welcome Back!

It has taken me centuries to figure out how to smile correctly. Well, correct for me at least, my parents and I probably still differ on this. Everyone has the way the want to look in pictures and then there’s reality. Reality being, all of the photos of me on Facebook from 2008-2013. They’re horrifying, but I also don’t have the energy to go untag myself from every party in college I attended.

I began thinking a little more about smiling two weeks ago when this happened in Gowanus:

I was so flippin’ mad at my initial reaction to, in fact, smile for him. But its so natural! Someone starts talking to me, I perk up! I’m excited! I smile before I even realize what’s being said! Shockingly, years of living in New York has not beaten this out of me. This is not the first time this has happened to me or any woman in America (duh). One time an old man in Prospect Park told me to smile while I was jogging. Who, may I ask, smiles while running? But did I flash him a smile? OF COURSE I DID. I’M A PEOPLE PLEASER!

And I kick myself every time, right after it happens. Why didn’t I scour? Why didn’t I say back, “You smile, bitch!” and then cackle like Ursula? It’s not that I want to become a hardened woman who can’t handle a compliment, but I don’t want to give in to their demands! Sure, sure sure, men want us to smile. So what’s the big deal? Is it so much to ask for?

Honestly, yes it is. Cuz I actually have a great smile and I don’t think they deserve it with such little effort. They should have to work harder for the sheer gratification of being on the receiving end of one of my devastatingly charming smiles.

I like to think of the guy who told me to smile, reading this, and winding up in years of therapy…

And now that I’m thinking about all this forced smiling, I’m realizing my dog Margie might have a few thoughts of her own on the subject…

Anyway, back to humans. All of this has reminded me of earlier childhood memories, before I ever learned how to smile so perfectly. Every Christmas photo from ages 4 to 22 resulted in this conversation with my father:

Maybe you were the same?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not complaining about my father. He’s a) a great guy and b) very very right. I truly didn’t know how to smile without looking like I was being held captive or constipated.

I for one am relieved my father didn’t let me get away with all the fake smiling of my childhood. It could’ve ended really tragically, no?

So, after years of practicing in the mirror and thinking about how wide to open my mouth (insert sex joke here) without opening too wide and lifting my eyebrows just enough so I don’t look sleep deprived but I also don’t look like I’m on coke, I have settled on the final option #6 above, the “Until Death” look. Though “21” comes out to play anytime I’ve had over three cocktails at Skinny Dennis and an Alan Jackson song comes on.

Now if he ever asked me to smile, you better believe I would accidentally do it without even hearing him.

Anyway, here’s a recent list I made:

Speaking of SMILING, I did this past Monday Daily Cartoon for The New Yorker — spent a serious amount of time working on the joy in these people’s faces, but just now realizing I only gave one of them eyebrows.

Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!

---

• ICYMI: I started a new account called True Crime Hotline

• Song on repeat: Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever

• Latest really good movie I saw: Awakenings on Amazon Prime

• Obsessed with: this woman’s comedy

• Order prints and more on Etsy!

• Have you pre-ordered: Murder Book?