The Face

This picture of Jack White is just so indescribably perfect. Can we just take a moment to look at this face?

Take a few minutes, and just bask in this curmudgeonly face, that pained, disgusted, surly expression. Michelangelo’s David has nothing on THIS.

I experienced a shock of recognition when I saw this picture this morning. Guys, I think (and perhaps Adam will deign to weigh in on this in the comments to confirm) that I make this EXACT same face.

Indeed, I believe that this is the face that Adam has (lovingly?) nicknamed “The Face”.

I have mentioned The Face before, I think. And although The Face was only recently identified and named by my lovely husband, it is far from a recent invention. I think if I showed my father this picture of Jack White he would recognize it from every photograph he ever took of me on one of our family death marches hikes. Anyone who has ever had to wake me up in the morning for any reason will look at this photo and be like, “What is Madeleine doing at a Cubs game? And why are they playing so early?”  

As for Adam, I bust out The Face when he makes an off-colour joke, produces any sound from his body, or excessively plays up the part of Fun Parent to my Mean Parent. I would say that between 30-50% of the looks I give Adam fall squarely into Face category. Don’t feel badly for him, he completely earns The Face. trust.  

Anyway. I am posting this because I am mightily concerned that recent developments have meant that The Face has become my regular face in the past few weeks. I am finding myself looking at the world with this exact expression:

THAT is what I think of you sometimes, world. I mean I love you, you know that. But lately? THIS is how I feel, personified by the glowering disheveled mess that is Jack White.

Just give me more coffee and please count me out of all this adult shit that being an adult requires. Who signed me up for this? I would like to hereby give The Face to lawyers and banks and mid-day meetings I have to haul toddlers to. I give extra heaping helpings of The Face to cooking three meals a day, diapers, and the anxiety that always hitchhikes alongside the lovely blessing of coffee.

Gus gets The Face for whining, and pooping on my brother’s carpet, and having worms again. Olive gets The Face for discovering me shame-eating tortilla chips in the pantry and asking for some.
Insurance companies and legally binding documents and signing and initialing each and every page of a 45 page document definitely all get The Face. 

You guys do not get the face. You are spared. But only because I don’t want photographic evidence of this shameful situation. I acknowledge my privilege, my first-world problems, my middle-class place within this first world. I understand the glory, the luck, the pros that come along with the cons. But for now I just need to wallow. I need The Face, guys.

Making this face is all that is keeping me going at the moment!

At this point my only concern is that if I keep this up for much longer my real face may morph irreparably into The Face, and in a few weeks/months/years the two may become virtually indistinguishable. At which point I will probably get impeccable customer service from alarmed baristas, and Adam will be too terrified to do so much as burp in my presence. 

I think it’s important to have goals.

Until then, Madeleine//Jack White OUT.