notorious

my mirror.

my mirror and i have a fascinating relationship. every morning and every night it tells me who i am, even if i think i might be someone else.

as a child i always used to get confused when i looked at myself in the mirror. somehow i felt different from the person i would see in front of me. i would make faces and look at myself from all the different angles (the advantages of a folding mirror!) to find out what other people were seeing. it took me a long time to come to terms with that distinction between myself as i see it and myself other people see. i guess you get used to it...

now my mirror tells me - AGAIN! - that i have a notoriously red nose. yes it's burned because it's summer. but that's not it. i ALWAYS have a red nose. at high school my favourite teacher would always pull jokes (because of course i'm a notorious late-comer...), so that when i would enter the class room late as i was and with a red nose she would say: inga, must have been late last night, huh? too much to drink? ho ho ho. i would never really get embarrassed because she was allowed. i liked her. anyway, my point is: i always have a red nose.

my mirror also tells me i have notoriously unruly hair. it's curly and it's growing out. once when i was young it was pretty long but i'm over that. so now it's shoulder length and i'm thinking about letting it cut again. everybody tells me though i should let it grow. i mean, it's bloody inconvenient. even if everybody thinks it's so lovely and all... i don't know. i guess i have to think about it. like everyone else in this world i do care about what other people think. bloody inconvenient that is!

i could go on and on about mirrors and self-image and metaphorical implications but i'll spare you. it's late.

conclusion: mirrors are notoriously devious. they never tell you what you want to hear. or see. only sometimes. rarely. still, one can't do without, can one?

on that note, good night, sleep tight. and mirrorless dreams!

ps: i think notorious is a great word!