What 30 years of aging does to you

In my case, it greatly improves my appearance. I submit the evidence below.

NOTE: Images may frighten young children. People with heart conditions should use caution.

Exhibit A
Student Identification card, 1980
Age of subject: 16

Pretty. Ugly.
Good god, where to even start?

There are many things wrong with this picture. First, I want to clarify that the off-center right-side is not an artifact of the scanning. The card was printed that way because technology in 1980 still lacked the ability to make straight lines.

Now, as for me, there’s the acne. Unfortunate, but a common part of being a teen for many. My grad photos have the acne airbrushed out, but it wasn’t an option for a mere student ID card.

The weird tilt of the glasses suggest my head is as horribly misaligned as the graphics on the card. This is not true. At the same time I have no good explanation for why the glasses are not sitting straight. The tinted lenses were annoying and I ditched them shortly after this photo was taken. Possibly after seeing this photo, when I finally stopped crying.

The slightly-parted lips show my teeth at their worst, making them look uneven and British. Which they were. I apologize to the British with nice teeth.

The hair. It looks like it is slowly making its way around to devour my face. I compensated for its thinness by growing a lot of it instead. It was a pain to groom so I mostly gave up, as you can see. I graduated high school with enough sense to have somewhat shorter hair than pictured here.

In summation: yech.

Exhibit B
Self-portrait without flash, 2010
Age of subject: 46

selfie without flash
Selfie without flash, 2010

As the caption notes, this picture was taken without a flash on a digital camera, so there’s a bit of noise as a result of my tampering with the brightness and contrast.

Let’s compare and contrast with the student ID photo.

The acne is gone. In exchange I am a 46 year old adult instead of a 16 year old goofball.

No tilt to the glasses because I opted not to wear them for the shot. But they wouldn’t have tilted anyway because by 2010 the Earth’s axis had been corrected or something.

Mouth closed so teeth are a delightful mystery, as intended.

The volume of hair has been reduced by 400%. Some hair has slipped to the chin and upper lip. Ears are proven to exist. The overall effect is pleasing, though the onset of male pattern baldness is plainly visible. To my credit I’m not especially trying to hide it, either.

The bright yellow shirt pops out at you. It’s friendly and inviting. It got me a date.

Overall, then, I went from an ugly duckling at 16 to a full-grown duck starting to lose its feathers, but knowing how to highlight its remaining plumage in a pleasing way. That analogy may suck, but all analogies do.

I generally don’t take good photos but nearly all of my school photos post-puberty are hideous. And that is why I share them, to teach the young kids of today to not be hideous. Wear your glasses straight. Wash with soap. Use a comb.

Updated photo galleries

I’ve made a few updates to ye olde Photo Galleries, adding several to the School Photos section (not sure why some of the photos aren’t linking to each other, still sorting that out). I still marvel over what I thought was pretty stylin’ hair back in junior high and high school. In my defense, I can claim to have never worn bell bottom jeans. I think. I’ve also added some photos that were taken yesterday (June 29) by Denis in a gallery cleverly called June 29, 2010. The outdoor shots were taken in Nelson Park, safely away from the ‘all dogs poop here’ area.

The contrast between me in June 2010 and July 2008 (not quite a month after I totally changed my diet) is interesting, to say the least. Not only did I lose about 40 pounds, I also shed my full beard, got rid of my big-ass glasses and generally became a lot healthier.

July 2008:

[singlepic id=32 w=320 h=240 float=]

June 2010:

[singlepic id=81 w=320 h=240 float=]

Hair (not the musical)

As I mentioned in the previous post, as a teenager I became concerned that my ears were big. Too big. So big, in fact, that they must be hidden from the world, lest their bigness lead to certain catastrophe. This is evidence of my ear paranoia.

The photo below is undated but I believe I was 14 at the time, which would place it around 1978 or ’79. Note the glasses aren’t even close to being on straight but who cares? I had tinted aviators and was stylin’ big time. But really, your eye is drawn to the Hair, which appears to be reluctantly avoiding swallowing up my entire head. That is serious girlie hair. I mean, it’s almost pretty and really, it shouldn’t be. There’s also an admirable synergy between the crooked glasses and that immense mess of golden locks in the way the hair grows down to the top of the glasses and then seemingly along them in order that I may still have an unobstructed view of things.

I sometimes harbor a fantasy of growing my hair long again. Pictures like this tend to cure that.

(click to enlarge — if you dare!)

1971: The Year of the Stare

I have nearly all of my class photos, which in a way is kind of amazing. I’m scanning them in over time and the one below will eventually get added to the proper photo gallery with the rest. For now, here’s a look at my grade 2 class photo or “What I looked like 39 years ago”. Yikes! I am the last one on the right in the middle row, wearing a fashionably striped shirt. Our teacher was Mrs. Buckingham and we sometimes (out on the playground, never in class) called her Buckingham cigarettes because it was a popular brand at the time. How did a bunch of seven year old kids know about brands of cigarettes? Advertising! It amazes me how many of my elementary school teachers look exactly like the classic school marm stereotype. She was a pretty good lady, though. The kid with the ears two over from my right was not only the only kid in class who could always color inside the lines, he was freakishly good at drawing in general. It was because of him that I learned early on in life that there’s always someone who can do something better than you. I wonder if he kept pursuing art.

(click to see full-size)

On the right, middle row, glassy-eyed

Here’s a close-up:

Sail away

Stylin’ spectacles and a blank stare that suggests no current brain activity. I later became famously concerned that my ears stuck out too much. This becomes evident based on the hair “styles” I adopted in my senior school years. You’ll also understand why I put that word in quotes, too.