Raowr!

I’m a brown-skinned black woman with kinky hair, but people have told me that I look like white women.  It’s weird.  Years ago in a salon, a woman pointed at a white model in Vogue.  “You look like her,” she said.  The model wore a grey fur vest, a fur hat and Cossack boots – she had her foot up on a stoop.  Odd, but I saw it.

Once a woman squinted and said, “I know this is weird, but you look like this white woman on As the World Turns.”  At least she knew it was weird.

Last weekend I met three women — one said, “You look like Ali McGraw!”  Her friends said, “You do look like Ali McGraw.”  How bizarre, I thought, but Googled her and saw why they might see a resemblance.

People have said that I look like black women too.  Imagine that.

Someone said that I looked like Pam Grier.  For those who know her, look at that picture and take two guesses why I don’t look like no Pam Grier.

My mom says I look like Halle Berry.  But she’s my mom, so we’ll let that one slide.  Aside from that body, I don’t think she’s all that anyway.

Years ago people said that I looked like Shari Belafonte.  My dentist thought so.  “Shari Belafonte with bad teeth, huh,” I said.  He didn’t think it was funny.  Maybe he thought I insulted his dental work?

Way back my boyfriend approached, pointing — “Know what you look like?  An a-cheetah!”  What did he know from cheetahs living in the city?  I was also momentarily stunned because he had said, do you know “what” you look like.  Two other guys also said that I looked like a cheetah, but said it correctly.

I have moles all over my face and a round head?  I move like a cheetah?

I love looking like a cheetah.  Raowr!  I just wish I could run like a cheetah and not like I’m wearing a loaded diaper.

I could see Shari Belafonte and the cheetah right off the bat.

But I prefer looking like a cheetah, because when you look like a celebrity you’re relegated to being mini-me.  You’re an ersatz version of them.

I saw a stuffed cheetah at the Museum of Natural History.  That place seems so dusty and old – old in a bad way, like there’s still asbestos padding the walls.  I stared at the cheetah for a while.  I imagined patting that cheetah and clouds of dust coming out of it.

What creatures of the wild kingdom do you resemble?