The good news is I wrote a book. The bad news is the publisher wants a photo of me. 
I hate photos of me. I have always hated photos of me. I don’t mind looking in the mirror, but show me just about anything other than a photo of me. I think I had kids just to get out of the picture and behind the camera. In fact, I would rather go to the dentist while simultaneously having a flu shot AND a pap smear than have my picture taken.
Needless to say, I don’t have any pictures of me around the house that I’d want to use. We are not an official pictures type of family. The only recent professional photos we have are from the boys’ bar mitzvahs, and I learned a few things from those:
1) if you want to look good in a picture, keep your young, dewy, nubile children out of it; and
2) parents who spend their time worrying about what their kids will look like in the picture, will often end up looking like something the cat dragged in, peed on, then dragged back out again. 
Desperate, I reached out to some friends in the know and found a photographer to come to the house and take pictures of me. 
“Please tell me you are not coming alone,” I said to him. “I am going to need serious hair and makeup help.” The photographer offered to bring a hair and makeup person. 
“Also a trowel and a bucket of spackle,” I added. I think he thought I was kidding. 
Then I went online and Googled: How to take a good author picture. I gathered a few tips:
1. Avoid loud prints. Given that I have pretty much spent 30 years avoiding all prints of any kind, one point for me! 
2. Stick with navy, grey or black: DONE, DONE AND DONE.
How hard could this be? 
3. Think of your most natural setting. 
What now? 
My most natural setting? Did the photographer really want to climb in the minivan and snap a picture of me yelling over music I have not chosen, while holding trash for children who can not hold trash for a second longer than they have to? 
Or, did he want to come over at seven AM to find me in the kitchen, sleep mask shoved up in my hair, bra-less, clad head to toe in sweat-material,  feeding children who may or may not eat what I’ve made because the egg is not crispy enough, these pancakes taste different, and what did you put in this smoothie? 
I am thinking about a friend whose author picture is in front of a beautiful wallpapered wall. Being a white-wall person, I don’t have any pretty papered walls. Being a white wall person also means that none of my walls are white anymore – they’re more of a smudgy, shmutzy grey. 
Who wants to to see that? And how do I find a clutter free corner of my house? 
This is all too much. Maybe if I tell the photographer I am having a root canal and a pap smear tomorrow, he will give me more time. If that doesn’t work, I have decided to wear a navy mou-mou, stand in front of my vegetable garden and have my picture taken with the cats.