Sharing old pictures of yourself on the Internet is apparently the new low-rise jeans, and God knows I can’t stand to not be trendy.  So here’s a few pictures my folks gave me when I visited them a few weeks ago.

Both of them are from 1983.  This first one is confusing to me because I don’t recognize myself--and not just because I’m surprised to see myself with a full head of hair.  I don’t remember that jacket, that rock, nothing.  But the look?  It is, as the kids say, pure bershon.

My mother says that I always looked bershon.  (Well, she didn’t exactly use that word because she’s not one of the kids, but her meaning was the same.) She says that I hated having my picture taken and made my feelings known about it.  I can confirm this; I remember resenting the camera. But it wasn’t because I was too cool for school. It was because I hated the feeling of my soul being sucked out of my body.

This next picture more closely resembles my mental picture of myself at that age--a scrawny runt who looked like he’d get the crap kicked out of him by a stiff wind.

But I’m less interesting here than my friend Wendy, with whom I’m sharing a birthday in this picture because our families are on a ski trip together.  She’s currently in the foreign service in Afghanistan, and she just got her orders for next year--Argentina!  Buenos Aires in ‘08.  Me, that is.  I’m hoping she’ll be in a good mood and/or not involved in international espionage and therefore can show me around the city.

Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have taken all the cake for myself.