Reindeer Games on Truman Drive

As always, I posted a link to my last entry on Facebook and it sparked a discussion about whether or not there exists any photographic evidence of me in my teacher garb. Sadly, I don't believe any pictures were ever taken; all that elaborate imaginary gaming was so the norm on Truman Drive as to go completely unnoticed. Just as me randomly engaging in five-minute handstands leaned against the hallway wall or studying my multiplication tables while sitting in the splits in order to prolong my stretch time was just another day in "Normal". Yes, the name of the town in which I lived.

It's occurring to me that I was a weird kid. Or, let's say, weirder than I ever before considered.

You see above Exhibit #2. Photographic evidence of my weirdness that DOES exist. That is me on the left and my cousin Diana on the right. I am still suffering from the Chocolate Hair virus. We are near to exactly the same age; a span of only three months separates our birth dates. We would have been 14-15 years old here (several years past my aforementioned teaching phase). This is our attempt at dressing terribly fashionably and then being insufferably cool posers while having our picture made by my mother with the 110 Kodak. We were far too haute to smile. It may be hard to tell by looking, but we have as much make-up on our faces as humanly possible; peer closely and you can tell our eyes are lined with what appears to be blue-gray crayon.

I have to, on some level, hand it to myself, I guarantee I staged that scene and masterminded both looks. As clothes go, it isn't too far off what was probably considered at least a little cool back then? I was an eager monthly student of all my Mom's Cosmos and Vogues and had my own subscription to Seventeen.

On the other hand....BWA HA HA! The flowers? No idea. Perhaps I thought them just the right additional touch. Baby's breath is, after all, so avante guarde. Kind of like those rich gold curtains and the plush, deep shag carpeting beneath our feet. It was the seventies, people. And we were rockin' it.

As it turned out, this was near the end of my time on Truman Drive. Six months after this picture was taken, my parents would split, and my connection to Diana interrupted in a way that, as life turned out, would not ever really recover. If you had told our younger selves that the day this picture was made, in June of 1978, we would not have believed you.