kid pics!

[rm]

January 1982.
I was nine.
This was taken at a B&B in East Hampton.
Yes, those are brown velvet knickers.
And my mother sewed all those little decorations on the cardigan, which was pink and I found objectionable. The shirt is eggshell satin, my first men's poet sort of shirt.
I remember when this was taken, and I had wanted to look powerful, like I owned things that were old.
I think it's interesting to look at now. You can tell I was sick.
We saw ghosts on that trip.

My guess is that this is December 1983, making me 11.
That's my mom.
The dress was given to me by my cousin Cindy who was a follower of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and could only wear red, and so always bought me things that were red. This was from Cerutti, a very expensive NYC children's store. I now own the jacket my motehr is wearing there. See! I grew up in the wizarding world! At least aesthetically.
ETA: for those who have read drafts of the book so far -- Mairome is older than this by a few years and isn't white, but my facial expression here is very very her.

My best guess here is that this is May of 1986, making me 13.
The hair is horrible. And was the result of Vidal Sasoon not listening to my instructions. My mother bought me gold earings that year, so that I would look like a girl.
The outfit is horrible.
But I can't believe my face.
At the time, I had no idea I looked like that.
Although I did understand by then that I stared at people like that and that it was bothersome to most of them.
You can kind of tell I am sick here too.
I used this photo for beauty pageant applications, including Miss New York National Teen-Ager 1987, which I eventually competed in in Albany.

Comments

[justpat.livejournal.com]

If it helps any, I had _exactly_ the same hair in 1986.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't htink it helps, but it is funny.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

Wow. You were a very striking child. The kind of kid I used to stare at when I was a kid, because I was fascinated by faces that were so different than mine.

Also, not that I ever have, but I will never again question your Snape-similarity bragging rights. ^_~

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you see it! My face might have bee round, but cherubic, not so much!

[phaenix-ash.livejournal.com]

you looked exactly like i imagined you would, down to the hair. i love that red dress.

i also had red velvet knickers around that age. i loved them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Man. Why don't such things exist for adults? I'd kill for those knickers in my size now, but I'd have to make them or spend a bit to get them made.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

They might be back in the States soon. I saw knickers in Vietnam, and if the whole Asian fashion invasion continues, we might see them here in, like, two years.

[http://users.livejournal.com/sunyata__/]

Like this?

[beemerbike.livejournal.com]

lol. Everyone had that hair in '86 unless you were under 10yrs old. It makes me want to bury all my school photos now. Wait....I already did!

Whew!

[rm.livejournal.com]

ha!

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

I loved my knickers. They had little buttons at the knee. They were great, and I had a shirt with a high collar and a lace fall to go with them.

I would look ludicrous in them now.

Also, I agree that you were a striking little girl.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, mine had little buttons too. I used them a year later as part of a custome when I had to be Eli Whitney demonstrating the cotton gin for a class project.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha ha ha. Your mom looks pretty much like how I imagined her in my head ("NYC Lady" I guess?). I just had the kind of interaction with my parents that I imagine you as being able to relate to, maybe I will post it.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I had never seen your parents, but your mother is not at all like what I pictured. But in a good way, this is better.

Wow. 80s FTW!! :P You look like Molly Ringwald's cousin.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I have an amazing picture of just my mom in a ridiculous hat with lots of shopping bags from expensive stores that is also like an HP background call. It's pretty funny.

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think 'striking' is the right word. You also have what I describe as 'old-soul' or 'gifted-child' eyes. There's so much awareness in them that goes far beyond the youthfulness of the rest of the features. Children with those eyes are seldom called 'cute' even if they are, as you were (and are), pretty.
I think they make adults too uncomfortable. Unless, of course, the adults once looked out of those eyes as children themselves.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What astounds me about pictures of me as a child is that I realize I was a really gorgeous kid, but I can also see why I was completely unsettling to the other kids as well as the adults around me.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Both striking and marvelously unsettling is perhaps my best describing the 1986 picture.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

My brain looks at the May '86 picture and sees a boy who woulsn't look out of place in a John Hughes teen comedy.

But I'm weird that way.

[rm.livejournal.com]

OMG, I totally look like Duckie! hahahaha.

Again, with the weird brain

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Back when I was living in Chicago (this would be about 8-10 years ago) some friends had an 80s party and everyone was coming in clothes that looked like "Weird Science" and "Pretty in Pink" had exploded all over us.

I am now thinking that a Jon Hughes-themed "Where are they now?" party with folks showing up as Duckie in middle-age would be either hilarious or pathetic.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're not very much younger than I am, just shy of two years. I remember Cerutti, and Norma Kamali. And the haircuts at Vidal Sasoon. I bought manic panic dye with me when I was 14 and the colorist bleached sections of my hair and then applied pink streaks. I was so excited. My mother was not.

Your pictures are adorable. I can't stand to look at pictures of myself from middle school and high school. I was a giant pit of awkward.

[rm.livejournal.com]

So was I, around other people. But I was poised if it didn't involve them as a rule.

And I wore my mother's black Norma Kamali gown to my high school prom!

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I was especially awkward in photos. :(

By the time prom came I was living in Connecticut, hating it, and was too angry and punk rock to go to a prom. I would have worn a latex dress with buckles probably or some horrible thrift store thing.

My mother wanted me to wear pink and blue Laura Ashley all the time, but my aunt bought me a Norma Kamali dress made out of grey jersey that I wore to a shred when I was 13. It came from Bloomingdale's.

[rm.livejournal.com]

OH I remember the whole grey jersey thing. I think I have a photo somewhere of me in a Norma Kamali dress of that ilk. How funny!

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

A college friend who grew up in Manhattan also had one of those dresses. I think many of us did! And I will never forget my first Betsy Johnson dress. Or the purple velvet Anna Sui skirt I got at a sample sale. Or the Steven Sprouse tights I used to have. I don't have any of that stuff anymore. I'm too fat to wear any of it -- but still.

Oh gosh, you've made me terribly nostalgic for clothing. I've been so busy, sick, and depressed the last few years I've pretty much given up on my appearance completely.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Steven Sprouse!
Oh this is so fun.

I used to own a fuschia strapless lace Betsy Johnson gown I bought at a sample sale for $10. It would never ever fit me now, but oh man!

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I still have a black silk Betsey Johnson cocktail dress. I looked like a Victorian orphan if I wore it with Mary Janes. Gosh, I used to spend so much time reading Interview, and W, and Elle, and the Voice. I used to go into Charivari and try on coats that were shockingly expensive and covet them.

I also still have a pair of green suede Fluevog oxfords that need repair. I wore them all through college with a black faux fur coat and black sunglasses. I looked like an extra from a Fellini film.

I miss that -- having fun with clothes. I'm bland as hell right now.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read Details before it was a men's magazine?

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Not regularly - but I remember being confused when I picked it up and it was clearly a men's magazine.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Heheh yeah. When it was a club kid mag it had the most beautiful production values and clothing spreads ever.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I recall. I used to run passes for Limelight and Tunnel in the late 80s and very early 90s. I knew people who were obsessed with Details and another magazine I can't remember.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Project X? Planet X? something like that. I can't remember anymore. We may well have crossed paths at some point.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Maybe, who knows. I can hardly remember. Well, after 1993 I was in New Mexico for five years. But before that it is entirely possible. And we could probably start talking about shows we were at and find crossover there too.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm sure! I moved t oDC for college in 1990 and was down there through '94, although I did come up to NYC a lot.

But Love & Rockets, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nick Cave... yeah.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I remember when the Ritz moved uptown into the old Studio 54 and that felt so weird because I loved the downtown location. I saw Love and Rockets there and many other people.

I have a very weird memory of seeing Julian Cope and Siouxsie at the little theatre at MSG. And then a few years later seeing Julian Cope at a place in Chelsea and interviewing him. He told me all about his pink boxer shorts covered with hedgehogs drinking tea - because that was all he was wearing. They were some British TV characters I didn't know about at all.

Did you ever go to the World? It was on 2nd.

[don-negro.livejournal.com]

The early 90's will be an Avalon to people our age, because we remember it, but we can't search for evidence of it online....

I was just thinking about a blurb in the old Details about Scott MacDonald, who was the editor of The Big Takeover, a zine I wrote for a couple of times (once dictating a story over a long distance line from Texas to Warren, PA)

Whenever I start feeling old, I remember how much has been packed into these years.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Yes!! I remember having a subscription before it changed.

[abbismom.livejournal.com]

I love the 9 yo pic, it just encapsulates a lot of who you are and what you love: yes, you look like a young Snape; yes, you are wearing old-style clothing which reflects your love of past ages; yes, you are posturing as a person of power and confidence. Love it! And those eyes are gorgeous in every picture.

Can I hear about the ghost stories?!

[rm.livejournal.com]

The bed and breakfast is The Maidstone Arms in Easthampton. I am not sure if it still exists. But it's top floor is haunted. They don't bill it this way or anything, but I stayed there dzeons of times as a child, and the second floor was fine, but the top floor just wasn't right. Not malevolent, but heavy and wrong. That picture was taken on a landing between the second and third floors I think. And there are other pictures from that trip that were us trying to take pictures of spooky shit (mainly reflections of things in mirrors that didn't seem to be actually present in the room), but they didn't turn out. My mom was pretty freaked as I recall.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

I love when you post old pics.

How can you tell you look sick?

And when you say, "I had no idea I looked like that" -- like what?

[rm.livejournal.com]

There's a puffyiness on either side of my nose and bags under my eyes.

LIke killer bone structure.

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

That picture of your mom makes me think of Linda Ronstadt cica 1970s
<"img src="http://babyboomerboutique.com/images/pics/ironons/ioronst.jpg">

Gah. How old is your mom? My daugther is about two and a half years older than you although it's true that I was a very young mom. Rachel has a picture (she won't let me have it for fear I'll put it online) where her crunchy looking eighties bangs/fringe is standing up 3 or more inches into the air. Oh so terrible but everybody had them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

In that photo she's 37 I think. I have another really funny one of her I may post later.

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

I think she's very pretty and that your eyes are much like hers.

I love seeing the similarities and differences in mother/daughter photos. Rachel and I are different and yet when seen side by side the fact that we are mother and daughter is quite evident. Little hints of curves and lines and expression in our faces as opposed to overt passing on of features and coloring. If we interject my mom into the mix there are echoes of each other present in all three generations although they're hard to pinpoint. Still... you know we're genetically related. I like that.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I also really love photos from my mom at this period of time. She worked hard to keep up with and yet not be like the other Hewitt moms, and I think that must have been very difficult and interesting for her.

As time goes on I see how much alike we are, although I'm more more comfortable embracing my darkness, although I think her discomfort was largely that someone had to be an anchor against my father and I's personalities.

oops

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

Lori can't do math. heh

Rachel is actually about two and half years younger than you. (April 1974.)

Apparently dementia is kicking in for me at age 49. Alright! I can not be held responsible for my actions anymore right?

Re: oops

[rm.livejournal.com]

hehehehh!

[mobobocita.livejournal.com]

You are one of those amazing children that managed to not change when you became an adult, it's facinating and wonderful.