No Way Around It, Kids!

It's my birfday!!!

Today is the day -- I am FORTY YEARS OLD. FORTY. Can you believe that? If you had told me, when I was 18, that I'd be doing a blog post at age forty I would have said, "1. What the fuck is a blog post? and 2. I ain't gonna be alive at forty!" But, here I am, alive and somewhat well (I think I'm coming down with something, but I'll be okay).

To celebrate 40 years of ZantiMissKnit, I thought I would do a nice little photo recap of my life. Of course, I can't find one of my photo albums of my family pictures, so I can't show you what I looked like as an infant. I dug up the earliest photo I have of me:



No clue how old I was, except that I was under 4. I was blonde, too! With brown eyes! That's not terribly common, you know. Most of us go dark as we get older (like I did).



That's my cousin SueAnn and I, one Easter. It was between, say 1980 and 1982, I would say. I have a hard time telling ages, and you can't tell by looking at my boobs, because I've been wearing a bra since 3rd grade and was a 36C by 7th grade.



The back of this photo said it was developed in January 1983, and it looks like it was taken around Xmas, probably 1982. I had a really ugly and awkward stage, and even though I offered this photo as proof, ZMrK still doesn't buy it.



This was taken the day of my 15th birthday party, in 1984. Can you believe I thought I was fat? Can you believe I did that to my hair? The other girl was my bff at the time, Elisa, whom I long ago lost touch with.



Here I am, in 1986, 16/17 years old, rockin' that John Hughes character look. That, of course, has to follow with:



Not my actual senior picture, but one of the ones that didn't quite make it. This was my Facebook profile pic for a while. It cracks up my nieces.

You know what comes next, right?



FUCKIN' A, PROM!!!!! My date and I recently reconnected on Facebook, so I had to post the pic for his wife and kids to see. Here's another of us; I think it was his 18th birthday, the year before:



Y'all have seen me make that same face, several times, haven't you?

Here's my so-called life as a so-called suburban punk kid (in my late teens):







and a pensive moment of me at age 20, in my jammies:



It wasn't long before debauchery set in:



Then I moved to New Orleans, and really had some fun:





(You know when you do something bad on Rubberneckers or LSG, and the mods come in and get all bold text and sexy with you? I always imagine then in this post, with a spiked heel and riding crop on someone, smoking a cigarette through a telescopic cigarette holder. See, I've always had a love for lots of props. I was going to join drama club in high school, but decided to get an after school job instead. I still have a love for the dramatic, especially when it comes to photos, and I'm glad that I usually have friends willing to go along with it.)

I was blonde again, for a couple of years:



This was taken on the Pacific Coast Highway, somewhere between LA and SF.



This was in Orlando, seeing the Woggles. Yes, it was hot as all get out.

Wow, I've got a few years missing here. . . like, 2002 up through this past November:



Fuck you! I'm dyeing my hair!

But I figured you have been seeing photos of me since 2005 or so, so you know what I look like.

But I will leave you with a photo taken 2 months ago, of Ken and me in front of the portrait ZMrK commissioned 2 years ago.



Happy Birthday to me!