Skip to main content

Katie's Defective Zygomaticus

I alluded to Katie's wonderful smile yesterday, but it's really only so captivating when she is distracted or caught unawares. When a camera is knowingly pointed at her and she is asked to smile, her facial muscles (the zygomaticus muscles in particular, which pull up the corners of the mouth) have major dysregulatory issues.

Sometimes they are hyperactive, giving the deranged toothy grin that graces many of our wedding photos:

Sometimes they are hypoactive, giving a sullen scowl. An example from last year, when we went out to dinner with friends Eric and Sarah before taking in a show:


I took 2 pictures to be sure to have one that turned out well. Perhaps I should have taken 20. Notice the lovely smiles on Eric and Sara, while Katie looks like she's swallowed a lemon!

Comments

  1. Wigie10:08 AM

    Adrian and Katie should talk. AP is rarely capable of producing a realistic-looking smile on demand, but has a great natural smile/laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:50 PM

    I'm not sure about Katie, but if that were me scowling in that picture, it would be because I was thinking, "Sit down and eat your dinner and quit taking pictures!"

    There's a restaurant/wine bar in Boston called Les Zygomates. I always assumed the name meant something about wine, but I guess they're actually trying for a wine/smile connection, kind of like that French saying about a day without wine being like a day without sunshine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. J-W Maessen7:13 AM

    There's nowt wrong w'toothy grins!

    That is all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Eric10:51 PM

    Maybe she's puckering up!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can You Cross Your Toes?

Katie and I had a heated discussion the night before last. We were sitting on the couch watching Jon Stewart when she noticed a large, apparently cancerous growth sticking out of the bottom of my foot. She asked what the big lump in my sock was. "That's my toe," I responded, nonplussed. I had crossed my first and second toes, causing a lump to protrude from the bottom of my sock. Katie was quite alarmed. "You can cross your toes?" "Sure, can't you? Everyone can cross their toes!" "Of course I can't cross my toes. Who can cross their toes?" And I confirmed that Katie could not, in fact, cross her toes. Even manipulating her toes with my fingers, I could not get her toes to stay crossed. She just has very short toes. That led, of course, into a discussion of who was the freak. Were my long, crossable toes abnormal, or were her stubby, uncrossable phalanges the outliers? In case you're confused, here are some pictures. First, of my v...
35 comments
Read more

Leagalize drugs!

The Economist has a wonderful editorial this week about legalizing drugs. I wholeheartedly agree that the world will be better off by far if the United States legalized, taxed, and regulated illicit drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, and heroin. The goods that will come from legalization: 1. We will save the $40 billion the US spends trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. 2. We will save the costs involved in incarcerating so many drug offenders (as well as gain their productivity in society). 3. We will gain money through taxation on the legal drug trade. 4. Legalized drugs will be regulated, and thus purer and safer to take. 5. With all these savings, we will have lots of money to spend on treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than as a law and order issue. We will have lots of money to fund treatment programs for addicts that are ensnared by the easier availability of drugs. 6. We will prevent tens of thousands of killings in countries that produce drugs when proc...
10 comments
Read more

Max the Model

Katie sometimes talks to Max about all the things he can grow up to be. "Will you grow up to be a scientist like Daddy, or a lawyer like Mommy?" she will query. In recent days, though, we think Max might aspire to be a model. He LOVES the camera. Point it in his direction, and he is mesmerized by the big lens, giving it a big smile. He will sit for long series of photographs, changing his expressions constantly so we'll be sure to get a good one. This is Katie's recent favorite series (mostly because she thinks he looks so cute in the outfit): This is my favorite series, based purely on the dynamic range of emotions that Max is capable of. I am especially fond of the last picture. So cute!
9 comments
Read more