"This far and no further."

I would like to position myself above the reproach of a public who doesn't get me. But I still discover a strange bit of dismay when someone feels compelled to tell me what's wrong with me or to suggest that I could have been more than I am. A recent guestbook entry made me feel that. A sense of recoiling at the implication of narcissisim. The assertion that the world might be better served if I would put a plug in it. It's the sort of thing that might make a girl want to stop taking pictures altogether.

Maybe I shouldn't feel the ire of defense rising within me, but I catch myself wanting to tell everyone that I don't share all these pictures of myself because I dance around with glee at the sight of my own face. I take pictures -- and share them -- usually because there is a feeling on that day or at that moment, and I am hoping to capture it and keep it. I post plenty of pictures that display me some distance from my best. And I take plenty of pictures that don't have me in them at all. If that makes any difference.

In any case. Someone might have told Frida Kahlo to get a new subject. Or to pluck her eyebrows. Who says the opinions of the dissenters count for more than a hill of very small and inconsequential, bacteria-infested beans? I also dissociate the concepts of narcissism and autiobiography. Writing what happens to me or what I think is not a mere exercise in self-absorption. What else does one write? Fiction?

Nonetheless, I am tempted to issue a moratorium on pictures. Especially if they were taken today.

I wanted to say something about how God wrote the Bible and it's ALL about him, but I relish the title of blasphemer about as much as I like that of narcissist. The people who would be offended by this would not be welcoming vessels to my explanation, I suspect.

If you only knew me, all this would be moot.