I Love My Face

There’s a big article in the Science section of today’s Times about the possibility of face transplants at some point in the future for burn victims, severely disfigured people, people with birth defects, etc. My first thought was, Oh, noooo, because of course Hollywood came to mind, and the possibility of people changing faces the same way they add boobs or subtract whatever they don’t like. Reading the article, that seems extremely unlikely for a number of reasons (skin transplants are among the most likely to be rejected, for one), so once I was relieved of that horrible Face/Off imagery, I started to think that if it could be perfected, there would probably be a lot of people who would be really grateful for this sort of thing. The article raises the issue of whether or not the victim would come to resemble the donor at all, which was something I wondered about, but it seems unlikely unless the musculature of the donor were included. It would certainly seem like a LOT of counseling would be required, regardless. But I’m sure you’d need a lot of counseling if you suffered severe burns as well. Needless to say, this led me to immense gratitude for my forty-four year-old face, which continues to function quite well, and to continue to wonder why anyone would mess with a fully-functioning face. I’m as vain as the next guy, but not vain enough yet to get poked and cut unless it is absolutely necessary to my, you know, seeing and eating and breathing.