I received ZERO comments on my last self portrait. It’s good to see that everyone remembers the advice of their mother about what to do when they have nothing good to say.

I am enlisting cuteness this week. We have a gas heater in the office and we have occasionally had to throw this cat out into the rain because she would not stop walking right up to it. I think she has finally figured out the association. Laps good, open flames bad.

We have a water reservoir underneath our maisonette. It has been filling with rainwater quite steadily for the past week or so. This morning my landlord called from upstairs and asked me to check to see whether is was full and to disconnect the elbow in the courtyard if it was. Once it is full, the extra water goes out an overflow pipe into his father-in-law’s field. It was full.

I am glad that it has stopped raining.

I have company for this Sunday Self Portrait. His name is Vic.

One of the individuals in this picture did not want to participate at all. The other one was conflicted, but felt that there was a social obligation.

Here I was, sitting on a very old bridge. I will fill this post out with a bit of trivia. The Ponte Vecchio is possibly where the concept of bankruptcy began. Merchants who could not service their debts would have their tables (banco) destroyed by the soldiers. When I was there unlicensed merchants stood over a bed sheet covered in counterfeit handbags. Whenever the cops came by, they would tie it up like an oversized hobo sack and wait for them to leave.

Adolf Hitler was rumored to have sentimental feelings about this bridge. Supposedly he expressly ordered that it was not to be destroyed during the retreat of August 4, 1944. This is quite plausible. There is a private corridor above the bridge that continues on into the city. It is called the Vasari Corridor. There is a slightly less plausible story that the big windows pictured here were put in at the request of Hitler, who conferred with Benito Mussolini in this private space.

This post is part of the Self Portrait Sunday tradition

Another black and white. Well, mostly black. We have put low wattage bulbs everywhere and it is too gray outside. My shirt and this chair were clashing very badly.

I apologize for missing Self Portrait Sunday last week.

I am not wearing lip gloss for this Self Portrait Sunday. I had just left the breakfast table and I took the picture without realizing that my lips were a bit buttery.

I had taken my picture in front of this door light with the intention of photochopping some scenery. I did an image search using the word ’scenery’ and I was rewarded with a half hour of entertainment in the form of bizarre model railway scenery. Those crazy Europeans

This is me looking at my computer screen in earnest. I went for black and white just for a change. The quickest way I could think of to accomplish that was to put the image in Movie Maker, add a grayscale effect and take a screen cap. I’m sure there is a much better way to do this in Photoshop, but I am still avoiding learning that program. Happy Self Portrait Sunday.

I bought these old clippers last week. They cost me exactly the same price that I usually pay for a haircut. I hope I can convince somebody to do the back of my head. It is very awkward using hand powered clippers on your own head.

This post is part of Self Portrait Sunday.

…Literally.

I am not gay.

I think that, in almost all instances, people should be permitted to keep their private lives private.

Hypocrisy coupled with malice constitutes a change of circumstance.

On a lighter note…I just realized as I was cropping this picture that my wife and I share the same closet. Do my fellow SPSers share closet space or have their very own?

My lack of smiliness has been noted on more than one occasion since I started participating in Self Portrait Sunday. Catherine has suggested that I pretend that I love the camera. That has never really worked; when I am being insincere, it tends to show. That cuts down on the frequency of my insincerity quite a bit.

I love Catherine, so this week I sat at the kitchen table and held the camera up beside her face. The result is my first toothy grin self portrait.