At the photography exhibit, they have lined up every photo in which I have ever appeared. Everyone I have ever seen is there. According to the booming announcer, I am to recognize myself without them recognizing me. The healthy life has enough time to be unwitting, he whispers. By this criteria, my life has been and continues to be a great success. Here I am, making myself solemn in the morning of someone else’s mountain hike; That’s me, comfortable in my western shirt in the airport next to an escalator. I am always ruining someone’s vacation photos at Disneyland, watching a man hit one over the fence. In my father’s suit after a funeral, I steal candy from a convenience store. The back of my head is turned toward the great monument. I am drunk in the back of a truck On the highway. Still being celebrated, I have been discovered by nearly everybody. Slightly drunk themselves on the wine I have provided, they clap me on the back. In front of the only photo I don’t recognize— an unfinished house, a man cradling a hammer, through the slats the sky the consistency of undeveloped film—they are taking pictures. Hello, I tell myself.


