The Early Years

When I visited my parents in early December, I gathered up photos that best document my primary school years. Partly inspired by Suebob, who has been scanning her childhood and family photos into her Flickr account, I planned to scan them as soon as I returned to New York. Of course, I didn't get around to it before I left for Hawaii, as I was rather busy finishing my MFA applications and watching the first season of Hunter on DVD. Anyway, I decided it was now or never because who knows how busy I'll be once I get more consulting gigs/a part-time job, so between catching up on what is happening in Des's dramatically changing life, planning my February class, and seeking other paying opportunities, I invested some quality time with my $35 Canon scanner from Staples. That's right - it's school picture days here at CUSS!



From left to right:
The first photo is me in kindergarten. Seriously fucking adorable, right?

In the middle, I am in second grade. No, I didn't skip first grade. (In fact, the classist fucks who ran my schools wouldn't even let me be in the highest level reading group, even though I thought I should be. Us Jewish white trash kids clearly don't belong with the really smart kids, but the slightly smart kids, but I digress.) There's no photo of me from first grade because I couldn't find any wallet size pictures from that year. Honestly, it's for the best because I looked like shit. If memory serves me correct (and if it doesn't, my mom will let you know in the comments), I just got out of a multi-day hospital stay from my first asthma attack. It was scary shit. As for second grade, I had a fight with my mom that morning because I really wanted to wear this cute outfit that my great aunt and uncle brought me when they came to visit us from California. It had a red and white striped skirt and a red tank top. It was cold that day, so my mom wouldn't let me go to school in a tank top. I insisted on wearing this yellow Lemon Meringue sweatshirt with the red and white striped skirt. I thought I looked like a cheerleader. Yeah. My mom let me win the battle, perhaps understanding that I was providing fodder for mocking myself some 25 years later. At any rate, I am sad that you can't see the skirt. Let's not comment on the puckery eyes or buck teeth. I was just a kid, damn it, although I sort of see why I later wound up with braces instead of only a retainer to fix my overbite.

The last picture is from third grade. I think I am pretty damn adorable again. For some reason, I remember deciding that morning that I must not show any teeth when I smiled. I don't even think I was conscious of the buck tooth look, but maybe I was. The shirt had a cute matching pink shirt and I wore these sweet maroon Mary Janes. I'd totally wear shoes like that today.

Stay tuned for the upcoming horror show: the junior high years. (No, I didn't skip fourth and fifth grade, either. My school was fucking evil and retarded in more ways than one. To make space for an early childhood center in the elementary school, they moved fourth and fifth grade to the junior school. Trust me, this sucked about as bad as sounds. By the time my sister was in fourth grade four years after me, the school realized that this plan fucked kids up and moved the lower grades back to the elementary school where they belong and remodeled the junior high to house an early childhood wing, which from my current professional view, is far less ideal than keeping the very young children also at the elementary school but still works out OK enough. Blah blah blah.