I Don't Always Waste Time On the Internet...

But when I do –– oh heckydoodle, who am I trying to fool?  Whole chunks of time are left bleeding and helpless in my wake.

I'm not sure even if "waste" is a strong enough verb. "Ravage"? "Murderize"? "Squander"?

But there is so much see –– and do –– out there in the vasty dark of the internet. 

Such as, for instance, Google's Arts & Culture selfie app. Thanks a whole heck of a lot, NPR for featuring this on the Two-Way.

Way to lead me down a primrose path!

The idea is that you snap a selfie and then Google –– bless its mighty brain –– searches for matches among its many images of art.

It's nearly instantaneous, and you get a couple of matches, which are...

Huh. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt? O-kaaay. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, my sweet skipper was innocently trying to watch the World Championships of Darts on BBC America.  

Is anyone surprised to know that not only is he glued to the television, but he knows the rules of the competition?

And so his 65% facial match is to Robert Louis Stevenson, not an unattractive fellow who certainly shares a certain mustachey something with Mr. Linton.

And with no one else handy in the living room to help me slaughter time, I turned to the way-back files.

​I knew I've been scanning photos for a good cause...

​My sister the artist as a chilly young offshore sailor of course matches a lovely painterly portrait.

And a photo from the Sunfish Worlds awards ceremony from sometime in the 1990s gives Jeff this match-up with a Union general who has a fantastic moniker: General Manning Ferguson Force.

I wonder if his buddies said things like "Oh, he's a Force to be reckoned with."?

I'd like to be bigger and better than this, but I just kept hoping to find a more flattering match for my own face.

Time, I will not pretend, was laid waste in the mostly fruitless effort.  

​Portrait of a Man Dressed as a Shepard, Sigh. Portrait of the Danish King Christian. Heavy sigh.

Fine fine fine.  I didn't go so far as to put on make-up, which I hope explains why me and King Christian both look a little, um, fatigued.


Still, even when I went way, way, way back, to the passport photos that didn't turn into my first passport –– kind of a funny story. I was pretty sure I had been adopted after the passport office rejected my application MORE THAN ONCE –– guess who Google says I look like?

And what does Eleanor have to say?  

I hoped she was the one who said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, sit here next to me."  

(Nope, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.) 

Instead she offers a non-piffling message from the wide reaches of Google herself.

Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering the strength to stare it down.  
From You Learn By Living, ​by Anna Eleanor Roosevelt p 41