please send me to charm school

... or wherever they teach you to pose like a girl (i.e., 50s pinup, in this genre, i spose). i know i'm not doing bad for a "middle-aged broad," but it's embarrassing to play/have played in bands w/women who are quite glamorous & yet come off (me, that is) this consistently dorky in photos (yet, i post them)... and why in heck was i smoking? i really do look "wrong" smoking, as some people've told me... argh.
- intellectually i know there's nothing wrong w/just being a human in photos, wrinkles, squints, fat rolls, dippiness, ugliness, imperfections, HUMANITY & all... but man, it can be tough, esp in this social media age, plus being a performer & kinda reliant on projecting a physical image... what's the effect of the former, i wonder, on kids? it seems to me more youngsters than not are a bit too pose-perfect & always ready for their closeup, having grown up w/noses in media devices... google "duck face" -- not just teenaged girls do it -- adults aside (on which duck face or its cousin contrivances can look rather pathetic, doncha think?), i recently saw a slew of photos of a little boy now about 8 yrs old, brother of a former student, mugging it up in that goofy-yet-glamorous way kids who've grown up photographing themselves to post to social media sites all seem to have... it's kinda weird, isn't it? do you recall when kids -- or any of us, except maybe actors & models -- had no preconceived idea or anxiety, really, about how they looked in photos? (i had a free-floating, amorphous anxiety, but it was that i was ugly -- it never occurred to me that a particular pose or angle would fix that ugliness...) hmm... that last pt makes me wonder: is the constant visual diary most kids keep of themselves these days boosting their confidence or making them feel more self-conscious? (recently i saw a woman had posted her daughter's pic, to this response from daughter: "OMG!!! MOM!!!! you know that's my bad side!! i hate this picture!!!") are we getting more narcissistic? realistic? calculating? neurotic? a little of all? i mean, w/in a culture's (mostly unspoken) dictates, each of us has a gendered & performative role... maybe these kids who've grown up self-photoing for instant upload are better able to fit into this game called american society...
guess all this musing just makes me sound old... oh well.
karling is supposed to come up & stay (we might make a comic book, i hope, but probably just will watch "spider baby," which she, a monster movie fan, somehow's never seen). maybe i can get pointers from karling, who is extraordinarily glamorous, as well as kind & very talented... at the hike i took a few wks ago, one of the gals, stephanie, is a photographer, & before we got our photo taken, she told me to do something w/one foot, then pull out & tuck my chin. that is a start, i spose...
i like our young rhythm section right now. they are not just cuties, but good musicians. overall, i am  happy musically, & i know our folks gave me good genes, so can't complain too, too much. :)