There is no way I actually look like this

My body is mine - I am its partner for the rest of my life - but it is not me and does not look as I imagine it should. It is not a matter of aging. Those signs I see persist in being minor. Those I spy when the mirror reflection or I lean down near the webcam while teaching startle me, but I do all I can to obviate these.

I sometimes recognize that person as me in front-facing mirrors. In posed selfies, likewise. When the photograph is taken surreptitiously, it is of a goofy alien who has taken my place.

Years ago, Amber snapped a picture of me pumping gas, looking vacantly at the increasing price. I wore a forest green coat and slouched against the car. The background photos on my phone are of Amber, one a caricature and the other fresh from the hair appointment, where they went shorter than a pixie cut. On the computer, they are posing with a statue. This other Amber, their long hair, supposedly never to return. Turnabout being fair play, Amber made the gas-pumping picture their background because they genuinely liked it. When I objected, voicing my discomfort of looking that way, they deleted the photo. I've never been their background since.

A while ago, I sent a friend a picture of me with an obvious filter applied and stated as much. They asked for the original, then said in all seriousness that they only wanted to see the filtered versions going forward. I was disinclined to send them any at all.

I know the limitations of photography, the wrong frame in a beautiful movement so one is gangling yet pudgy, with the contorted expression of someone with a head injury, the shadows conspiring to make one all creases and wrinkles. I've been the culprit enough, snapping pictures of my favorite subject, my wife, that make them a stranger. I've learned to snap many and not be precious about deleting.

There's a theory that the Willendorf goddess, tennis ball round with pendulous, walleyed breasts, a spare tire to shame Bibendum, and hips on which the weary traveler might sit a while, is not meant to be some fertility idol, some neolithic pornography, but the self-portrait of a pregnant woman looking down and sculpting what she saw. Her tribe would not, unable to imagine her perspective from the tower of her head, twin windows taking in the only light.

It may be only a story or a guess. It could be that every first-year archaeologist scoffs at the very idea. Just suggesting the sculpture is the equivalent of the sensory goblin might be close to blasphemy.

I lack the dexterity to sculpt my self-image. Even drawing it would be a trial. I could flatter myself with a description, but a contrast between it and what I've become would pain me, like holding fresh chalk or letting cornstarch steal the moisture from my fingers.

Even if I cannot consistently visualize myself, I know the feel of my face as the one responsible for its upkeep. A few years ago, I felt my nose increasing cartilaginous dimensions, the bane that gives leading men hooking schnozzes--and I have never been the leading man type. What is curious--or perhaps not, given the disconnection and dysphoria--is how well I can be other people. Though unable to sing, with sensitive ears and the pitch of the seagull, I do not simply recite the words but reenact them, assuming I have ever watched them sing. In duets, my face switches between parts effortlessly. I only struggle to perform as myself. My students sometimes comment on how I neglect to behave in the stereotypical way, about which I can barely care - they are teenagers who struggle to perform humanity more often than their peers outside razor wire. I wanted to be an actor once. I had my trajectory planned, from college to Second City or the Groundlings, then Saturday Night Live, and then movies and TV. Still, I was not better than the comic relief. I abandoned it because no training would correct my voice, and I only learned balance via a skateboard and rhythm with a video game. In a world of triple threats, all I could manage was empathizing so hard with fictional characters that I became them instead. At that point, why not become their transcriber so I could flip between identities? Also, drama people are often obnoxious, and plays take up one's nights and weekends. At least my writing is compact and portable. It allows me to be less trapped behind a mask meant unsuccessfully to represent me. A year ago, on mornings after I had not slept well, I was confused that someone pleasant had replaced me. I could relax into my fatigue as he made all the polite office sounds required to get me through the day. I could not write--my touchstone of being okay--and could barely think straight, but this sunny bastard fielded the day until I could slump into my couch at home.

last watched: Ghosted
reading: Once and Future Me