Oh, I did a photo-editing exercise with the photo students last night: I put four of the pictures of me and my son up on the computer display and showed how I figured out which one I liked the best. When I opened the final shot (the one that I posted here on the blog), the class gasped in a "dang, you really *are* better than us at this stuff" manner. It's probably best they find this out early in the semester, you know, to keep them in their place. And once they saw proof of my photo prowess, they listened more closely to what I had to say!

I handed back the self-portrait assignments my photo students gave me last week, and, with permission, posted the top four on the bulletin board in the student union. One is of a student in her T.G.I.Friday's work regalia, complete with "Can I take your order?" cheat sheet and a sly look in her eyes; another is of a woman in full Patriots regalia, head down, in mourning; another is of a woman under an industrial-salon hair dryer, green foils in her hair, and a sickly green cast across the entire picture. But my favorite is of the woman who put on big sunglasses, lit herself with orange gels, and snarled her face so you can see the c-word tattooed on the inside of her lower lip. Honest: c-u-n-t (not hyphenated!) is TATTOOED inside her lower lip. Talk about hardcore!

"It only took 30 seconds and didn't hurt a bit," she told me. "It was the easiest tattoo I ever got."

I printed an extra copy of the photo for my collection. I'm going to ask her to sign it once class is over. It's awesome.