Joining the long list of the many things I am really bad at

is standing in as myself at a photo shoot.  I don't know how it is done.  I don't know how anyone stares placidly into the glass eye of the lens, or away from it, chin a-tilt.  Even when the chosen photographer is outstanding, as surely Chris Crisman, today's poor victim, is, I cannot be me in front of a camera, cannot give up the self-conscious glint, cannot stop imagining all the ways I'd rearrange the proportions of my face.  I cannot, most of all, stop imagining being him, the poor photographer, who took on this noble trade to do far more, I'm sure, than photograph an author who spends most of her time alone at her desk, or at a gym or studio, sweating.  I'm either boringly still or impossibly active.  I am not what pictures are made of.

Still, as with all difficult things, there is a lining.  That lining lies, for me, in getting to watch this remarkable photographer at work.  His portfolio speaks volumes.