Flashback Friday: April 1988

Since I directed you to a rather intense photo of myself and my hair yesterday, I thought today would be a great day for another Flashback Friday post.

These pictures pre-date my adventures with Sun-In, and I share them not really because of what I look like, but because I happened to have one of my parents in this set.

I mean, I looked pretty much like all of my friends in April of 1988. Perm. Ginormous bangs. Frosted lipstick. Braces. Teal eyeliner. Chin zit.

Okay, I WAS carrying around the eyebrow equivalent for three girls my age, but I hadn't discovered eyebrow waxing yet. Patience, grasshoppers ... patience.

What is so significant to me about 1988 is that I was 15, my mom was 38 and my dad was 45.

Um. Exsqueeeze me? Today I am 40 and Grayson is 43. SO PARDON MY LITTLE COME-APART IF YOU WILL.

It's just hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I was in high school, I have really vivid memories of my parents at this point, and they were then basically the ages we are now.

Scratch that, MY MOM WAS YOUNGER THAN I AM NOW.

When I combine that with the fact that I will be 44 when Amelia starts kindergarten -- nearly 20 years older than some moms of kids in her class -- I want to find the nearest hole and crawl in.

(A month ago I would have said I wanted to eat a pan of brownies, but since that's not an option right now, I'll go with a hole.)

Flashback Friday: August 1988

Okay, when we last convened here for Flashback Friday, I had just famously Sun-Inned my hair. Ohhh, 1988, you were such an interesting year.

Let's say, just for argument's sake, that you thought it couldn't get any worse. Like, that coppery, permed hair I was sporting in July of 1988 couldn't get any more coppery and CERTAINLY not any more permed.

Well. You would be mistaken. Because, my dear Internet, August 1998 will go down in history as the month and year in which I discovered THE SPIRAL PERM. There I am, on the left.

No, no. Sorry. That's my friend Tennylle (and then Brent, Charley and JC). I'M the one on the far right, the one whose oily T-zone, sunburned cheeks, and Sun-Inned, spiral-permed hair have now blinded you for life.
 

You're welcome.

I bet when Brent saw me with that spiral perm for the first time, he said to himself, "Let's just go ahead and cut off these matching friendship bracelets. I can't be associated with THAT hot mess."

In my defense ... well. I have no defense. But at least I didn't braid my hair in corn rows like Leslie did.

ZING!!

I think a bunch of us had ridiculous hair around that age, but my hair was among the worst. No wonder the guys threw all of us in the pool. (Look! There's Cerigwyn in the water beside me. Blog reader alert!)

P.S. There's nothing better than being thrown in a pool while wearing ginormous white shorts with even bigger pockets. And losing a contact in there.

Bright side: Even an unexpected dunk in chlorinated water can't keep a spiral perm down for long. My tresses bounced right back in fine form almost immediately.

Yes, you may leave all of your haircare questions in the Comments. I'll be happy to answer them using all of my professional expertise.

Flashback Friday: July 1988

I won't delay the inevitable here ... When I came home from the beach trip with Monica in 1988, I had Sun-Inned my hair to within an inch of its life.

It used to be the color of Leslie's (pictured here, beside me), and suddenly it was this lovely shade of copper!

Luckily I had my trusty teal eyeliner and mascara on hand, because everyone knows that it looks fabulous with copper hair. Also, I think my braces offered up some nice contrast.

I cannot even bring myself to subject you to more than one picture in this post. But believe you me: this was just the summer after freshman year. I've got plenty more to share once you've all had a chance to recover from the horror.

Flashback Friday: June 1988

Ohhh, Internet. This week in June 1998 was a pivotal week.

My friend Monica and her mom took me to Daytona Beach, Fla., for the week, and on the way down, we stopped in Savannah, Ga., to do a little sightseeing and shopping.

We had a wonderful time ... Monica -- a faithful blog reader, by the way -- is the nicest person on the planet. I kid you not. I have never, EVER heard her say one cross word about anyone, and that includes people who truly deserve to have cross things said about them. In the worst way possible.

Look at how cute and casually tousled she looks here, while I was all permy-haired, braced up and oily T-zoned:

I can't believe she was willing to be seen with my eyebrows in public.

Some people say she reminds them of Amy Grant. Do you see the resemblance?

I wish these pictures we took in one of those little photo booths on the boardwalk were in color, because this was the week of the SUN-IN EXPERIMENT. My hair was dark brown in the photo above, and copper in the photos below.

But you're going to have to wait until I decide to do another installment of Flashback Friday to see the Technicolor results.

In the meantime, please enjoy my spiral perm and bangs with a mind of their own.

Flashback Friday: April 1988

Starting today, I thought I'd occasionally treat you (and I use the word "treat" loosely) to some pictures from my archives. "My "archives" being my scrapbooks from high school.

I know! You can't wait!

Really, a more appropriate title for this series would be "A History of Katherine's Hair," because my poor hair saw more chemicals in that four-year period than most people's hair sees in a lifetime.

Bygones.

In high school, when I lived in Marietta, Ga., we used to vacation on the Gulf Coast. Spring Break 1988 took me to Destin, Fla., with my closest friends -- several members of my youth group and their parents.

Below are Charley, Heather, me, Dana (Brent's cousin) and Brent. Charley, Heather and Brent were all in my youth group, and we were a really tight group. (Charley and I later ended up dating for a year in high school and a brief time in college.)

I really hate that the details of my hair are mostly obscured by the period detailing of the condo balcony behind me, because that's some big, curly hair going on there, considering how short it is. Also, please enjoy how I'm wearing a T-shirt over my swimsuit and covering myself up with my hands the best I can, even though I was a size 2. HIGH SCHOOL WAS A LOVELY TIME.

My body-image issues knew no bounds, as is even more evident from the picture below, in which all of my friends and I are standing in the ocean but I am fully clothed. Don't ask. I have no idea.

The only new addition to that picture is my friend Leslie, who you still hear me talk about from time to time because even though she lives in Atlanta, we still hang out. She comes to the weekend crops (she was just here for the one in January), and you may remember one of my most popular Home posts on painting checkerboard floors -- which we did in her kitchen. Usually women get mad at you for posting pictures of them in their swimsuits on the Internet, but I think she'll give me a pass. HER THIGHS AREN'T TOUCHING, FOR CRIPES' SAKE.

The two sets of parents who chaperoned us on that trip were Leslie's and Brent's, and their moms are two of my favorite people on the planet, to this day. Delores, on the left, is just a dear, dear friend. And her birthday was this week! Hi, Delores! Happy belated birthday! You're on the Internet! Brent's mom Nancy, on the right, is possibly the most thoughtful person I know. She STILL sends me a birthday card through the U.S. Postal Service every year ... 26 years after we met. Amazing.

Ooh. HERE'S a great shot of my triangle hair and Heather's Tall Bangs. We had a name for her bangs: The Waterfall. They really defied gravity ... it was amazing. Also? You might recall that Teal was in in 1988. The color teal and also apparently shorts that were big enough to fit two of yourself in.

I also hope that you absorbed the fact that I was wearing layered T-shirts, and I rolled the sleeves so that everyone could fully enjoy both colors. If the photographer had pulled back a SKITCH more, you'd be able to see that I was also wearing two pairs of socks, with one color peeking out over the other. Internet, please be advised that that makes your shoes REALLY tight.

Lastly, I 'll leave you with a picture of the night my friends tried to teach me how to play Poker. With candy cigars, IBC Root Beer in bottles, and Starbursts for Poker chips. I didn't understand Poker that night, and I don't understand it now. Perhaps the power of my unwaxed eyebrows repelled any sort of Poker information from my brain.

We may never know.

I hope I haven't scared you away forever. Because this was just the beginning, Internet. Shoulder-length hair, just a perm, no color. That summer, I discovered SUN-IN.

Duh-duh-DUUUUUUUUHHHHHHNNNNNNN ...